The Bitter End Read online

  Owen sounded puzzled, but agreed. ‘Okay, see you there.’

  He borrowed Sally's car, glad she didn't want to go with him. He needed to get the truth from Owen.

  There was no sign of Owen at the Crow and Feathers when Paul arrived, so he got the drinks in, sticking to a coke for himself.

  Owen had been right about the atmosphere. A dozen or so people were drinking, and everyone was long faced and speaking with quiet respect for the doctor’s wife.

  Paul raised a hand as Owen came in. He acknowledged Paul but stopped to speak quietly to a few of the regulars before coming over. Paul watched him, trying to remember more from his childhood. It was always him and Owen. He couldn’t remember any other friends he hung out with.

  Shaking his head sadly, Owen made his way over to Paul. ‘Nasty do that. And they have two kids at boarding school. What a damn shame, but by God she could be a snooty cow at times.’

  Paul didn’t answer, but took another gulp of his drink.

  Owen took a mouthful of ale. ‘Anyway, mate, what did you want to talk to me about?’

  Paul toyed with his glass. With his eyes lowered he asked, ‘What kind of kid was I – before the coma?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that.’ A bemused expression formed on Owen’s face and he rubbed his chin. ‘Well, you were just a normal kid. We’d climb trees, scuff our knees, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Scare old ladies,’ Paul reminded him.

  ‘Not really, she scared us more than we scared her.’

  ‘So, what else did we get up to? Did we go scrumping apples or raiding birds’ nests for eggs?’

  ‘I guess we did.’

  ‘Throw cats onto blazing fires?’

  Owen’s face dropped, and the ruddiness paled from his cheeks.

  ‘Is that what we did, torture animals?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, will you?’

  Paul leant towards him, noticing a fine sheen of sweat on Owen's upper lip. ‘Is that what we got up to?’

  Owen took another gulp of ale. Placing his glass carefully down before answering. ‘We didn’t make a habit of it. And besides I don’t think you meant to, not really. It was an accident.’

  ‘Me!’ Deep down he assumed Owen had done it, if anyone had. The thought that he had done such a thing was abhorrent. But he could hear its agonised screeching, it filled his head. He could picture it struggling in the flames, terrified, burning – burning to death. He could even smell it.

  He put his head in his hands. ‘Jesus!’

  ‘It was a bloody accident! Keep your hair on, you never meant to kill her bloody cat.’

  Paul looked slowly up. ‘Whose cat was it?’

  Owen shrugged, looking guilty. ‘Hers! The old woman … the witch.’

  ‘Great! Not only did we torment the old dear, we killed her pet. I hope to God she never found out …’ Owen lowered his eyes, avoiding Paul's gaze. 'She did, didn’t she?’

  Owen was quickly on the defensive. ‘Well, she got her revenge. So, don’t go feeling too bad about it.’

  His head was beginning to ache. ‘What do you mean?’

  Owen looked steadily at him. ‘Well, the witch put you in a coma for nine sodding months, didn’t she!’

  * * *

  That night as he lay in bed, things were coming into focus. He remembered whittling a bit of wood while Owen had built a bonfire. And he had a clear recollection of a cat burning in the flames, and that smell – the stench of burning fur. Owen had supplied all the missing data so that he could visualise it perfectly in all its gory detail.

  He’d explained that earlier that day – the day he'd fallen into a coma – they’d been tormenting the old woman, knocking her door, running away. But she must have seen them coming and when they knocked the next time she leapt out, scaring the pants off them.

  Owen had described her as a hag, a real old crone, warts and all. She’d come out ranting and raving and given Owen a sharp poke with the end of her broomstick.

  Paul was pretty certain that had been poetic license. A long-handled brush maybe, but not a broomstick. Owen said they'd raced off into the woods and hidden, but she'd come searching for them, looking, according to Owen, every inch a witch. By now she’d acquired a pointed hat and long black clothes, and was as ugly as sin.

  Paul had listened, imagining that if it had happened as Owen said, he would have been one terrified little boy.

  Eventually, the old dear had given up looking from them, and later when the excitement had died down, Owen built a bonfire while he'd sat whittling. Owen thought he’d been carving a cat and they’d thought it funny when a black cat came prowling through the woods.

  ‘It’s hers! It’s the witch’s cat,’ Owen had said.

  Paul had coaxed it over and it had come right up to him. But as he went to stroke it, it had sunk its teeth into his hand and clung on, fangs and nails embedded deeply into his arm. According to Owen, he’d leapt about trying to shake the cat off and somehow it had ended up on the bonfire.

  It must have been an accident. Unless he’d had a total personality change, never in a million years would he chuck an animal onto a fire deliberately.

  Paul had listened in silent disbelief, hoping he hadn't been persuaded to throw the cat onto the fire. He could imagine Owen yelling at him to do just that.

  ‘Burn it, Paul. Burn the witch’s cat! Go on!’

  He'd listened wordlessly to what happened next. It seemed that the old dear had appeared from nowhere. She was just there, suddenly shrieking through the smoke. They’d run like hell in opposite directions. The old woman had picked on him to chase. He was found later, unconscious with a massive head injury.

  Sally’s hand on his chest brought him back to reality.

  ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’m not asleep. Just lying here, thinking.’

  ‘Nice thoughts?’

  ‘Not really,’ he admitted, but wouldn’t be drawn further. ‘What are you doing tomorrow, Sal?’

  ‘Just the usual, cutting, stitching. Why?’

  ‘I’m going to visit the old dear in the care home. I'm hoping you'll come with me.’

  ‘The one you and Owen thought was a witch?’

  ‘Yes, that one.’

  She groaned softly. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  He lay there for a while, thinking. ‘Probably not.’

  14

  Hidden in full view, I see and hear everything. These puppets - I like to make them dance. They amuse me with their naivety, under some illusion that they can be forgiven for their sins. This is not the place to come and be forgiven. My God is Satan, who never forgives.

  Oakwoods Rest Home was a big old house with a modern extension built on the side. Through wide windows he could see people shuffling about.

  Paul felt a twang of unease. He wanted to say sorry, yet deep down it was as if he was apologising for the actions of another person.

  Sally linked his arm. ‘You’re very quiet.’

  He nodded.

  A woman in a green uniform smiled. ‘Hello there, Can I help you at all? There was an Irish lilt to her voice.

  Good morning,’ said Paul. ‘I wondered if it would be possible to see one of your residents. My name's Paul Christian, I grew up around here and I'm trying to catch up with people I used to know. There was one elderly woman who … who was really kind to me when I was a kid.’ A blatant lie, but she was hardly going to let him in if he admitted killing her cat. ‘I thought she’d have passed away long ago, but I’ve been told she’s still alive and living here.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Well, there's the problem. I don’t actually know. You don’t ask names when you’re just a kid. She used to live in the little cottage on the edge of the woods.’

  ‘Oakwoods,’ Sally offered. ‘Just a couple of miles down the road …’

  ‘Sounds a bit vague, doesn’t it?’ Paul added apologetically.

  �
�Do you mean Petronella?’ asked the nurse looking pleased with herself.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Petronella Kytella. She used to live on the edge of Oakwoods.’

  ‘Well, possibly.’

  ‘A Polish lady, according to papers found in her cottage. She migrated here from Germany at the end of the war. I’m sure it’s Petronella you’re after.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘By your description, dear. An elderly lady who lived in a cottage near Oakwoods. There's no one else here that fits that description. So, if you’re sure she's a resident here now, it’s got to be her.’

  Paul glanced at Sally, she looked a lot happier than he felt.

  The woman checked her computer. ‘She’s been here now, let me see … Ah, it’ll be eighteen years this January. Seems a health visitor called on her by chance one particularly bitter cold January and found her in a state of semi consciousness. They had to break in. She wasn’t on the council’s books. Heaven knows how she was missed. And goodness knows how many years of benefits she was due. But there you go. Some people fight tooth and nail for every penny the State might offer and then there are others who just muddle by without asking a soul for assistance.’

  ‘And she’s been here ever since?’ asked Paul. ‘For the last eighteen years?’

  ‘That’s the long and the short of it,’ the nurse nodded. ‘Our longest standing resident, and possibly the oldest. The Council sold her cottage, which pays for her care costs here, and of course, she gets a pension now. Not that she spends any of it.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  She sighed and got up from her desk. ‘We’ll go and see her, shall we? Then you’ll see what I mean.’

  They followed her to a locked inner door. She tapped in a code and turned a lock. As the smells of urine and bleach hit them, he and Sally exchanged glances.

  ‘How old was Petronella when you last saw her?’ the nurse asked, as she walked ahead in her sensible flat shoes.

  ‘I’ve no idea. As a kid I thought she was about a hundred, then. Obviously not! She must only have been in her sixties.’

  A stooped old chap in a dressing gown and slippers came shuffling along the corridor. His watery eyes looked vague and distant.

  ‘You’re not to walk too far today now, Edward,’ the nurse said cheerfully, wagging her finger at him.

  He mumbled something indecipherable and shuffled on towards the locked door.

  The nurse glanced back at Paul and Sally. ‘The residents in this part of the home have extra special needs. Most are suffering from acute dementia and mental problems, sadly.’

  At the end of the corridor there was a lounge filled with plastic covered armchairs all set out in regimented rows. Most were occupied with the sagging wrinkled aged, some of whom were drooped in sleep; one old woman was chanting, another shuffling about picking up specks of fluff from anyone and anything. There were carers tending to various residents, holding beakers to thin wrinkled mouths, dabbing up the spills with tissues.

  Sally’s hand slid into his and gripped it tightly.

  ‘Petronella has her own little corner by the window,’ said the nurse brightly, veering towards the far corner where a wide window looked out over the gardens.

  Paul spotted her immediately. She sat, bent almost double, crumpled into a blue plastic armchair. She looked about a hundred and ninety. She was wearing some kind of flowery frock, a thick cardigan, saggy thick tights and slippers that her gnarled old feet were barely into.

  Her head was drooped onto her flat chest so that only the top of her head – with her thinning grey hair, was visible. Her hands were limp in her lap – old liver-spotted hands with thick fingernails that badly needed trimming.

  The nurse stooped down beside her chair and gently stroked her old wizened hands. ‘Petronella … Petronella, wake up, darling, you have visitors.’

  There was no response. The nurse smiled sadly up at them, still patting and stroking the old hand. ‘She’s like this most days, I’m afraid. In fact, to be honest, she’s been like this ever since I came here. It’s so tragic. You’d think when they reach this stage …’ her voice trailed away. Paul guessed what she was thinking. That if it wasn’t against the law, there was definitely some argument in favour of euthanasia.

  ‘She is …’ he whispered the words. ‘… still breathing?’

  ‘Oh Lord above, yes. Her pulse is strong as an ox. It’s just her mind. She’s away with the fairies. I’ll get you a chair and you can sit and talk to her. Sometimes we think she hears us.’

  ‘No, I don’t need a chair,’ Paul said, turning to Sally. ‘Would you mind waiting in the reception, Sal? I just want to talk to her about, well you know, when I was a kid. Please?’

  Sally was reluctant to leave his side and he was grateful to the nurse for suggesting that Sally might like a cup of tea while she was waiting.

  ‘If you’re sure, Paul.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll only be a few minutes.’

  ‘Come along with me, my dear, A nice cuppa … just what the doctor ordered.’

  Sally reluctantly followed. The nurse glanced back to Paul. 'Just wave at me through the glass panel when you're finished and I'll let you out.’

  ‘No need,’ he answered. 'I noted the code number.”

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Did you indeed? Well, good luck!’

  Paul waited until they were gone then knelt on one knee beside Petronella. He touched her hand, her skin seemed paper-thin. The smell of age filled his nostrils, that and the smell of sweat and bad breath; and another smell, like the faint waft of burnt hair.

  ‘Petronella … You won’t remember me. I used to play in the woods, near your cottage. Must be around forty years ago now.’ He waited, hoping for some response. ‘I just wanted to say sorry, for tormenting you. I was a little horror, used to knock your door and run away.’

  He watched her as he spoke, looking for any sign that she could hear him and understand what he was saying. But nothing flinched, not a muscle in her old sinewy hand, not a change to her breathing, nothing.

  ‘There’s something else.’ His voice became a whisper. ‘Something I thought you should know. Your cat accidentally died in a bonfire that my friend and I made. I'm not sure how it happened, but it did. And I'm truly sorry.’

  Again, there was no sign of life – except for the tiniest movement of her head.

  ‘You might remember chasing me. I fell and banged my head. I was in a coma for months afterwards. I’m all right now. Although I daresay you wouldn’t mind if I’d stayed comatose for life after what happened.’

  Paul tried to see her face, but her thin hair was hanging over it. He gently lifted a strand, so that he could see something of her features. Her cheeks were sallow, grey-white skin like old pastry; wrinkle sagging over wrinkle. Her nose was big and ugly and hooked. It didn’t seem fair that any woman of any age should have to bear a nose like that. She had warts, just as Owen had said. Her eyes were closed, the eyelids loose and sagging. He let the hair fall back over her face and got to his feet. It was as much as he could do.

  He turned as the old dear who was picking up specks of dust plucked at his elbow. He smiled, and she shuffled away, still picking and plucking.

  ‘Goodbye, Petronella,’ Paul said as he walked a few steps. He stopped, needing to take one final look at what, as a kid, he’d thought was a witch. She wasn’t so frightening now, just a frail old lady.

  He glanced back at her and shock made him reel. Her head was up, and she was staring straight at him. Dark rimmed eyes fixed on his. There was no colour in her irises.

  And no forgiveness either.

  It was a look that drained the life out of him, making him want to run, to get away before she could cast a spell to shrivel him up. And the smell of burnt hair was worse.

  Paul kept on walking. He knew he ought to go back, to repeat everything he’d just said now that she was awake, but irrational fear had gripped him. Something he hadn't felt since h
e was a kid. He strode down the corridor towards the locked door. It was just like before, knock her door then run. Damn it, he was doing exactly what he’d done as a kid. He was still tormenting her.

  He quickened his step, overtaking the shuffling old man still on his circuit to nowhere. The smell seemed to be following him. Tapping in the first two numbers of the code, he felt the sensation of someone breathing down his neck. He jabbed the last two numbers in, but the door stayed shut. His temperature shot up, his neck and face growing redder as he glanced over his shoulder, expecting it to be her. To his infinite relief he saw it was just the old man, not Petronella.

  He punched in the numbers again, annoyed with getting them the wrong way around. The door opened, and the shuffling man tried to follow him out.

  ‘Sorry, my friend,’ Paul said, truly sorry that the old guy was stuck in here with Petronella. ‘I'm afraid you can't come out.’

  He felt bad about closing the door in the old chap's face, but relieved that Petronella was on the other side.

  Sally was initially smiling to herself when Paul made his way back to the reception, but then her face fell when she saw her lover’s expression. ‘Paul, are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  ‘Any luck, dear?’ asked the nurse from behind her desk.

  ‘No, nothing,’ Paul lied. ‘I don’t think she even knew I was there.’

  The nurse smiled sympathetically. ‘I didn’t think you’d have any joy. But still, you tried.’

  Paul linked Sally’s arm, eager to be out. The feeling of wanting to flee was totally against his nature, fight or flight; and he wasn't used to the flight syndrome. And as for the burning smell, it was like black molasses, clogging his nostrils. He needed to get away from here, it had been a bad idea. Nothing felt right about that woman. He particularly didn't like the unnerving effect she was having on him.

  ‘Paul,’ the nurse called after him. ‘If we have any kind of news on Petronella, I’ll ring you. Sally has given me your phone number. It’s nice that Petronella has someone after all this time. I can’t remember when she last had a visitor.’