Ordinary Murder

I’m not going to be impulsive about this. No, no. Let’s see, I’ve given this plenty of thought. I must have stood here in the shower for at least half an hour before I realised that I was going to have to kill her. I don’t know that I made a decision; I just ran out of alternatives. Silly really. I always think of murderers – yes dear, this is murder we're talking about. Better get used to the idea. Murder. Murder. Murder. Feel better now? Where was I? Murderers. Oh yes. I always think of murderers as being cold, heartless men whose mothers didn't love them or teach them good respectful human values. Men who prey on women and have no feelings. Have to revise that dear. Put in a new category: ordinary people who despair. Come to think of it, I dare say there are a good few people who fall into that category. Good. Well, that bit's sorted out.

Now, I'm going to have to be careful about this. I don't want to get caught. I'd look rather stupid going to all this trouble and then getting found out because I'd left a clue. Poison's out, any bobby'd spot that! Ha! Hahahahaha. Weed killer'd show up in an autopsy, so no, not poison.

That reminds me, I wonder if we've got any of that once-a-year weed killer for the paths? They sure as hell need it. That creepy creeping grass is coming up again. I told her we'd never clear it by pulling it up. You've got to poison the root system. You have to do the thing properly. Yes. Properly. What if she disappeared? What if she just packed up and left? People do that every day, don’t they? “I’ve no idea where she went Officer. She was visiting her husband, her ex-husband, that is. You should ask him where she is. She left here happily enough.”

I’ve packed my bags,

I’m ready to go

My suitcase standing by the door…

Already I’m so lonesome – I could cry!

I’m leeeeavin’ on a jet plane …

Well, not a jet plane. And definitely not in the boot of my car! See those CSU types picking over the rubbish in my boot, it’ll help that it hasn’t been cleaned out for six years – but someone’ll find a hair or a nose bogey and “Aha! How do you explain this?”

How would I dispose of the body. Her body. How do you dispose of a body? Her, her body? She’s not heavy, only sixty kilos. Slim, even. But I, who have trouble lugging a twenty kilo suitcase into an airport, am going to find it nigh on impossible to get her out of here. And where to put her if I do …? I’ll just have to think about this some more.

I'm not sure anymore if I can move. I've been standing in this shower for so long my leg muscles have locked and my feet have rooted to the grass. The rain has washed me clean to my bones but now that I have the will to move, I find that like the water nymph, Clytie, I am unable! Stupid. Stupid. Clytie was transfixed by Apollo, the Sun God. I am paralysed by the streaming rain that traces the strands of my hair into the crevices of my skin. My salty tears hide in the tide, coursing the brief span that is my body before sinking into the soft turf. I could just stay, stand here and melt like an icy pole. All my colour draining away first, all the good bits, running away, leaving the icy core standing alone until that too, melts and breaks and runs away and becomes nothing ….

Got to move dear. What if the neighbours see you? Abnormal behaviour, that – standing in the rain. That'd be a dead giveaway. Your boots are very heavy, dear. They've filled with water.

He's got such a job to pull them up that he calls 'em daisy roots!

Don't just empty them out here. The hoya is always dry. Empty your boots there. That's better. Looks like it needs a bit of a spray. Ugly yellow aphids all over it. But budding! Well, look at that. Just pick up a leaf to check out the extent of the aphids, and there it is, all curled up and ready to open those tight waxy little fists at the first hint of decent weather. This is going to be lovely. I must remember to spray it later.

So dear, how are you going to kill her? Of course – easy. Hit her over the head, then dress her in her gardening clothes, bring her outside, smash the same bit of head into a rock or a step and voila! a tragic accident in the garden. Happens every day. Well, not quite every day – but try proving I done her in. After all, we're a very loving couple. Ask anyone. Especially her husband. Ask him how loving we are. That should piss him off. Yes. I should like to see the look on his face when you ask him how loving his wife is with me.

Don’t be mean to her husband, dear. After all, it was him that introduced us. He called me in as a gardening consultant and then strutted around issuing me with instructions. He wanted her to take an interest in what I was doing and what I was doing was taking an interest in his pretty little wife. I never touched her of course. Never hinted or anything, just looked. A cat can look at a queen, can’t she? She was the boss’s wife, I was the gardener. I mean, come on, Lady Chatterley might have done it with the gardener, but with me? No way.

But then one day, when he’d told her what to do just one time too many, she’d marched up to me and kissed me. Full on the lips. Just like that. Then she’d stood back and looked at me to see my reaction. I must have looked like stunned mullet, but she kissed me again, and it was long and hard and deep and soft and reached deep into every part of me and made all of me hum. Then she stepped back and gasped and laughed and I thought she was laughing at me, but she ran away and stripped off her clothes as she ran through the garden and she ran naked and laughing and flinging her arms and her clothes as she laughed and her long hair got soaked and clung to her body like a water nymph. Like Clytie. Oh god, it was raining that day too. The next day, she moved in with me. I never even asked her, she just fitted herself in.

Of course, I can see why they had trouble. She was severely depressed for a while and I thought she’d go back to him, but she said, No. Said she’d die first! She got all melodramatic about how he was killing her slowly and she’d be better off doing herself in, first.

Killing her slowly with his love

Killing her slowly, with his loooooove.

Telling her whole life with his words, killing her slowly…

I mean she's very cute and all that, but when you want her to be serious, she just goes on being cute and the madder you get, the cuter she gets, 'til you just can't see straight and when she knows she's got you, she puts her head on one side and slyly pokes her tongue out. Then you either make love or you want to kill her and today I am going to kill her because she has given in and she’s going back to him. She says she can't live without him after all – and that seems fair enough to me. So I'm being very obliging, when you come to think of it.

Is it worth while putting my boots back on? My feet are all muddy and the boots are wet inside. Seems silly to put them on again. Why would she be gardening in the rain? They’ll ask that, won’t they? Well, it's a good time for putting in seedlings. Yes, that's true, but I wouldn't like to chance my liberty on it. The seedlings are all in now. Should be a fine show in a couple of weeks. Massed primula will really brighten up the place if the snails don't get them. Snails!

“We were out collecting the snails, Officer, when I heard this terrible cry and when I ran 'round the corner, she was just lying there! There was blood everywhere. It was just awful! I feel so bad about this. It was my idea to hunt the snails. She wanted to snuggle up with a book but she came out anyway – just to please me. I can't believe she's gone. Oh no! Ohhh Nooooo!”

Yes. That'll work, dear. Collect us some snails first, I think.

I am snailing.

I am snailing.

Through the wi-inds across the sea.

I am snail-liing… through stormy we-eather

To be rid of you. To be freeee.

I can't believe how wet I am. My nipples are starting to get sore, rubbing against my shirt. Now that I'm getting older I might start wearing a bra again. After all, it's not as if I have to prove anything to anyone anymore. I wonder if I'm wetter on the inside or the outside? There's a thought. Why am I so wet? Well, Officer, I sat in the rain a long time, cradling her head. I couldn't just leave her, could I? Better fill the watering can dear, so that she's soaking wet too. Remember to use rainwater. Don't want some smartie discovering that she's been soaked with tap-water. The murder weapon. Say it again, dear. The murder weapon had better be something from the garden so that if there's mud and stones embedded in her head, that would be quite natural. Use a rock, of course. This is too easy. I must be forgetting something.

What if she urinates when I hit her? Hmmm. I'll call her to the door. I’ll get her outside. Tell her, her beloved cat is hurt, tell her it's stuck up a tree, tell her it won't come down for me. She'll believe that, all right! She'll come out. This is too easy.

Oh no! Something had to go wrong. The rain's easing. Stop worrying. Stop worrying. It'll start again. Look at those clouds: there's enough grumbles and heartache rolling around up there to weep for a week. Fill my eyes with the sky and run your sorrows across my cheeks. Howl and rant with pain and loss.

There's really no alternative when you think the thing through. She's leaving me even though she said she'd rather die than go back to him. But that was before his letter...

I can see clearly now the rain has gone...

All of the dark feelings have disappeared…

Not yet dear. Go on. Get her out here. Got your rock? Yes, that's a nice one. Good sharp edge. Go on, call her. Call her! Call again.

Why isn't she coming? It's not like the silly bitch to be so stubborn. Go on, call her again. You know how she is over that cat of hers. Lay it on thick. Tell her, the damn' thing's terrified. She'll come. She loves that cat! She isn't coming. You don't think she knows, do you? She has a sense for trouble. Sense for the melodramatic, you mean. I wouldn't be surprised to find her hiding behind a door with a sharp knife, ready to do me in. I'll have to go in and get her. Wipe your muddy footprints dear. They might be hard to explain.

Why doesn’t she answer? What is she doing? Oh! There she… What has she done? I pick up a fallen chair and set it right. There's a puddle in the middle of the kitchen floor. How..? Oh, she's wet herself. Oh my god, will you just look at her, she must think she's so cute. Look at her! Head on one side, tongue just poking out like she hasn't a care in the world. She doesn’t care.

What about me? It isn’t fair.

I’ve had enough and I want my share. Can’t you seeeee ….

I wanna live. But you just take more, you just take more than you give.

Oh god, she makes me so mad I just want to hit her! Hit her and hit her and hit her! She doesn't resist. She just pivots and swings away from me. She is so selfish! She never lets me do anything I want! She spoils everything! I never get my own way, it’s always her! Her! Her! Her body is still soft and warm and I want her so much …. She is the sword of Damocles! She is Robert the Bruce's spider! She is my broken conker and I can never win her back.

I’ve seen fire an’ I’ve seen rain. I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.

I’ve had lonely nights that I thought would never end.

But I always thought that I would see you again. Thought I’d see you,

Thought I’d see you one more time around, now…

I stand still, feet rooted to the ground, transfixed now by her feet, describing smaller and smaller circles until we are both perfectly still. Me, standing in the puddle and she, pointing her toes but not quite reaching it….