She Can Look After Herself MP3
Read by Louisa Gummer & Nick Delvalle
The first time I felt concerned about my mother? I can't remember the exact date but it was around the time the Coronavirus pandemic started and they went into isolation. I got a text from my mother which alarmed me.
Keep it to yourself, she said, but I think dad is trying to kill me. Of course, I phoned her straight away and she answered whispering:
"I'm in the shed. It's OK to speak here but next time don't call again. Wait till I call you."
"You don't believe me do you?" said my mother, correctly interpreting my silence. "He's got rat poison in the shed, why would he have that?"
"To kill rats with? He's not going to poison you, is he? I mean, how could he? You do all the cooking." I seemed to have shifted from incredulity about the possibility of my father murdering my mother to doubts about the method he would employ.
"He made me a cup of tea this morning. Now why would he do that?" Why indeed? I could hear the triumph in her voice. Argument won; opposition quashed.
I had no idea how to resolve a problem that didn’t exist outside of my mother's mind. I had no idea how to cope with the suspicion that my mother was going senile. "Shall I call the police?"
"Don't be stupid,” she said, and it was as if I was fifteen years old again, "I can do that if I need to. I just wanted to let you know. I can look after myself."
That evening I got an email that said Your mother is driving me mad. This isolation is too much for both of us! I can't stand it!!! My father is not a particularly expressive man, so his promiscuous use of no fewer than three exclamation marks hit me hard.
Dad, I typed, rapidly, don't do anything foolish. I'll come over. Actually, in my haste I typed Don't do anything follish.
The reply pinged back with the same clumsy haste and with an inadvertent auto-correct: Don’t be stupid! We’re in solution. What do u want to do? Kill us? He had even spelt “you” “u”. Clearly, he was agitated. I reassured him that their safety was my first concern and I would do nothing to compromise it.
I reflected on their relationship, and realised that I had no idea what it was like. I hadn't lived with them for nearly thirty years. Social media messaging did not encourage talk about feelings, and anyway they had discovered and embraced the limitations of the emoticon. But they seemed to get on OK; sure they put each other down a little too much, like most couples their age seemed to do, but I always assumed they had reached some sort of accommodation. After all they still shared the same house, the same bed.
Sorry officer? Yes, of course. The messages.
I heard nothing from them for a week. It started to prey on my mind so I sent a text to mum and asked her to give me a call when she could. Ten minutes later she called.
“I’m in the shed,” she said.
“Aren’t you cold?” I asked. Just keep it normal, I thought. “It’s all right”, she said, “He’s got a heater in here. It’s quite cosy.”
“How’s dad?”
“Oh, as well as can be expected. He’s in the kitchen. He doesn’t talk to me now.”
“That must be hard,” I said.
“It’s a relief. We’ve said everything that needed to be said. He doesn’t talk; he doesn’t get upset. Yes, of course I’m OK. Don’t you worry.”
So that was that. I sent him an email, asked him to phone me, but the reply came straight back: Your mother’s hidden the phone. She’s gone barmy. Anyway, she can keep it. She’s left me a list of groceries to order and I’ve got a slot. Must dash! It was reassuring, at least, that he was back to the single exclamation mark. Perhaps things had settled down, I thought. My mother sent a message the following week, pretty much confirming what I thought. They were perhaps getting on each other’s nerves, but that was about it.
The last time I actually spoke to her? Well, apart from the occasional photo of the roses or the magpies in the garden, there was nothing for a while, and then, maybe a month or so later, early May, she called me, asked me how I was doing, which took me back a bit. I realised then that she didn’t usually ask after me at all. She asked how I was eating and I said, you know, OK, all things considered, and she said she had found a new hobby, she was following online recipes, had set herself the task of making a dish from every country in the world. “How’s dad liking that?” I asked.
“He’s not complaining,” she said, “He’s not speaking to me at all. Quite frankly, if he left me completely on my own, I wouldn’t mind at all. In fact, I’d love it.”
I asked her if she needed anything. I thought I might be able to help, maybe bring something round, put it on the doorstep, hear their voices. She told me not to bother; they could get whatever they needed online and anyway, dad’s spring cabbages and radishes were coming through in the back garden.
Almost immediately, I got another email from my father. He said that as soon as his isolation was up he was leaving, that the combination of the lockdown and the revelation that there was another, albeit virtual, world out there had convinced him –
Yes, sorry, my mother. Yes, that was the last time I heard her voice, a month ago, I suppose, yes. She’s all right isn’t she? I mean, I couldn’t imagine my father would ...
Text messages? Yes, the one she sent yesterday. It said:
Your father’s left. He just got up and walked out. Didn’t even say goodbye. I am going to take his clothes to the Oxfam as soon as they open again.
I phoned her but there was no answer, so I emailed my dad, asked him what he was up to. The reply was a bit of a shock; it was longer than any message he’d ever sent before, really not his style at all. Look, here it is:
Hi love.
Well, I’ve finally gone and done it! To be honest it’s a relief more than anything else. I’m going away and I’ve never felt happier in my life. I know we have never been close. In fact, I never was much use to you or to your mother. She brought you up, you know, without much help from me, so remember that when all this is over. Don’t worry about me; I’m in a happy place.
Love
Dad
Well, that did worry me. It wasn’t like him at all. I drove straight round, knocked on the door, yelled through the letter box, but there was nothing. I didn’t know what to do so that’s when I called you.
Anyway, I’ve told you everything I know. Where’s my mother? Why can’t I see her now?
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Witness Statement Interview notes: Detective Sergeant Holroyd, 10:45pm
The witness became quite agitated at this point, repeatedly asking to see her mother, so Detective Constable Hinks and I were obliged to terminate the interview. The witness per se has shed little light on the events surrounding the killing, beyond confirming that the suspect has carried out what appears to be a carefully planned pre-meditated murder.
On the other hand, we believe conversations recorded on the witness’s mobile phone will be useful in establishing the perpetrator’s guilt. Not quite tantamount to a confession, and a little oblique in nature, not enough to hold up in court by itself, but then, it doesn’t have to now.
Acting on a report from the suspect’s daughter, we sent a car round to the house yesterday evening. No one answered the door so a forced entry was effected under PACE on the basis of a serious threat to life. Nothing on the premises was immediately suspicious except that the officers noted that the kitchen was spotless and smelt faintly of cleaning fluid.
The search continued on the upper floor of the residence where the suspect, being found in an initially uncommunicative state, was arrested and brought to the station for questioning. What emerged from the questioning was a story of continued psychological abuse going back years, and a victim who had suddenly snapped. The lockdown had made things worse, had meant there was no outlet for either of them. The house had become an incubator of long pent-up feelings until finally ...
All lies, of course. Smoke and mirrors. In fact, what had happened was a coldly planned execution. The killer had identified the crisis as the opportunity required and, it must be conceded, almost got away with it, almost fooled us.
The body of course, was key. If we could find it then forensics could do their job and tell us what had happened, cause of death, time of death, the lot. After that, a caution, a bit of interview technique, and it would all be over, one more killer off the streets. We did not have a body, though, so we needed to find a hole in the story, something that did not quite make sense. And then we needed to tear away at it till it did.
In the end, it was something as mundane as the online shopping. Their daughter had been led to believe that the mother was choosing the food and her husband was placing online orders. Of course, he wasn’t. Over a space of three months, no food came into the house apart from what they got out of the garden, mostly just spring onions, purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus. The cupboards were full, all right, but full almost entirely of an inordinately wide range of herbs and spices and sixty-seven rolls of toilet paper.
It was Hinks who went for the kill. It was a simple question: “What did you eat?”
A shifting look in the eyes, a tightening of the throat and then ... more smoke and mirrors: “Oh you name it, we had it, beef rendang, bigos, pot au feu, albondigas, bistecca alla Fiorentina ...”
“All right!” said Hinks, “That’s enough. Just tell us why. Just tell us how. We know you didn’t receive any food deliveries.”
In front of him, forced to face the awful truth, obliged to confront the horrible, bloody reality, the old woman’s eyes watered and she said “I had all those spices and he refused to let me cook with them. He was such a pig. I couldn’t face months cooped up with that. I called my daughter, confirmed that, whatever I said – even if I thought my life was in danger – she wouldn’t come round, then I smashed his head in.
I kept him in the freezer and used his account to send messages on the computer. I should have used it to buy meat shouldn’t I, but it seemed such a waste. I used quite a lot of him. The binmen took away the rest.”
(c) Ken Towl, 2020
Ken Towl attended City University's short story course in 2019 and is a regular contributor to InsideCroydon, leavening its award-winning reportage of local government goings-on with whimsical articles on walks, art, pubs and pandemics. He teaches Law, Politics and History.
Louisa Gummer is a highly experienced actor and voiceover. Work includes several roles in new Audible comedy series Slaving Away, and the audio guide for the Rotterdam Maritime Museum. Audiobooks include A Jane Austen Daydream. She can be heard saying ‘Pig Museum’ on the Stuttgart City Open Top Bus Tour.
Since graduating from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 2009, Nick Delvalle’s credits include All’s Well that Ends Well (Shakespeare’s Globe), A Small Family Business (National Theatre) and The Tempest(Southwark Playhouse). Most recently, he has been helping introduce new audiences to Shakespeare’s plays through Shakespearience!(Ambassadors Theatre and Tour); a “wildly successful” (The Stage) family show in which he plays Macbeth, Romeo, Duke Orsino and others.
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