I turn away from him. Walk up the stairs.
He spends hours pleading with me, battering his palm against the bathroom door. I drown him out at first, I run full baths and then drain them. Eventually, I do nothing at all, just slump down the wall, let the apologies, excuses, justifications wash over me, wondering if the craziness he’s saying is because he’s been talking for so many hours, or if this is really what he thinks.
‘It was an accident, I just got worked up, you have so much power over me but it was wrong, I see that now, I should have trusted you, because you’re you, you’re innocent,hekissedyou,hekissedyou, that’s what happened isn’t it, that’s what I saw, he forced himself on you, darling, open the door, let me in—’
Hours after, he tires. He stops suddenly. The handle rattles as he pulls himself up.
‘I need to lie down; I’ve got a migraine. But I love you. Come to bed. I can’t sleep without you.’
I hear his footsteps in the corridor, the click of his door opening, shutting. I wait, ten, fifteen minutes. Then, I walk past his room, head downstairs, out of the cottage.
It’s sunset now, the light is disappearing fast, but I don’t need much time, I don’t even have to go far, they’re right here on the doorstop, growing beside the cow parsley – the edible and the poisonous. The flowers are astonishingly similar, white umbels the size of my hand, the leaves are almost identical – it’s only the stems that give them away. Cow parsley is green, covered in fine hairs with a deep groove, but hemlock’s stem is smooth with a spattering of purple blotches. I pull on a pair of Daniel’s gloves. Pick a bunch of leaves. Grass brushes the backs of my hands.
At the cottage, I look back at my sketchbook, the notes I’ve taken on hemlock water dropwort. A single root can kill a cow. A child died after her parents rubbed leaves onto her skin – they thought they were dock leaves. But I don’t want to kill him. I just need to buy myself time, slow him down. I choose the smallest leaf, slice it, blend up only a quarter with one banana, two kiwis, a handful of blueberries. It glugs as I pour it into the glass, like the chug of vomit.
He is lying fully clothed on the covers of our bed, one arm flung over his eyes, as if to shield himself from the sun, although it’s long since set. I set his smoothie down, climb onto the bed beside him. He lays his head in my lap. I stroke his head like he loves, pushing my fingers through the thickness of his hair, running my nails down his back. He whispers, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him, though, it’s not. Something dead has settled in me, silt covering my insides. I just want this to be over. I take the glass. ‘Sit up,’ I say. ‘I’ve made you something.’
He reaches for it in the dark. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you, too.’ As he puts it to his lips, I make clear pictures in my mind. The sky above the creek. The water pushing away from the rudder of the boat. A train thundering me away.
51
Smoothie
Now
In the kitchen, I am petrified. What if he walks in, asks me what the hell I’m doing? Will I deny it? Or will I look full in his beautiful face and make my confession?Yes, I’m poisoning you. I’ve been doing it for days. I did it eighteen years ago.
My hands are shaking. I don’t drink smoothies, I never make them at home, just one more thing, like pastries and men with dark hair, that I’m expert at navigating. A few years ago, my friend, Elias, who sat in the office across from mine, started making smoothies for breakfast at the office. He’d take hours to drink it, I’d look up to see his glass still full of swampy gunge, a trail of raspberry seeds clinging to the side. I couldn’t bear it. One evening after he’d gone home, I pushed his blender in his bin. He talked about it for days – who it might have been, why they’d taken it. He never did land on the right motive. The right culprit.
Banana first, that’s the base, my mind squirms remembering that from Cornwall. The memories are very close now, very intense – the stricken look on Kit’s face, the tiny baby I wantedto hold forever – I can’t wait any longer. I get out the test tube. The pollen is still bright and fluffy; it tinkles against the sides. I flick open the top, pour it over the bananas. There is no information on the internet about the potency of pollen, no guidance on dosage, I’m not sure how much Daniel will have to drink before he slips into a coma, how many sips before the hallucinations start. The Andean tribes of Peru hallucinate animals – hunting dogs, pumas, bears, bulls. I wonder if he’ll see the first butterfly he ever showed me – the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing. Or if it will be the last – the extinct Cornish Blue.
He hasn’t moved since I’ve left, his face is still in his hands, but he looks up as he hears me. The light from the street splits his face, one half obscenely bright, the other in shadow. ‘I thought that was what you were making.’
‘I saw the blender.’ My heart is pounding. ‘It’s the only thing I’ve ever made for you.’
‘It’s perfect.’ He takes it from me.
I switch off the main light, keep the table lamps on. A small kindness in these last few moments.
‘I know what you’re about to do,’ he says.
My pulse races.
‘You’re about to leave.’
Close. But not close enough.
‘When I was in prison, I’d dream about waking up that morning, the emptiness of the cottage, the dizziness, the smell of my own sick. How I called your name over and over but you never came.’ He plays with the smoothie, winding it in slow circles, the movement mesmeric. ‘“Dream” is the wrong word. It was my worst nightmare, waking up without you. It still is.’ He dragsa finger slowly round the top of the glass and then looks at me intently. ‘So, if this is the last time we’re going to see each other, there are things I need to say.’
I’ve been so caught up with hurting him, I’ve failed to comprehend what he has – this is the end of us. It hits me like a high-speed train – I won’t be able to speak to him or hear his voice, I’ll never see his dark eyes again or the breadth of his shoulders – and then, though I am the one who’s done this, I am drawing the curtain on us, the preciousness of these last moments together disarms me, all defences down. I lean towards him, a plant craving the last rays of sun.
‘Do you remember those vitamins I used to give you?’
I’m not sure if I’ve misheard him.