DOWN THE STAIRS

Penny has a confession she needs to make...

DOWN THE STAIRS

“You want to know why I married him?” asked Penny with a sly grin, “that’s easy. I married him to punish him. To inflict so much pain on him that he would never recover from it, even if he lived for a hundred years.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, darling,” said Joseph, frowning at being exposed to a very different Penny than the one he thought he knew and had been married to for goodness knows how many years.

Penny sighed. “And that wasn’t how it turned out, either,” she said, “because the very first thing he did when we were married, actually on our way from the altar, was seduce me.”

“He did what?”

“It was cold in that church, you know, and it was Ben who’d wanted a church wedding. But an unheated church in January! I ask you, I was shivering from the moment I walked in, down the aisle, with my faux dad guiding me.”

“Faux dad?”

“I hadn’t told my real father. I mean, this wedding was meant to be a punishment for the things Ben had put about, things he reckoned I’d done, and there was nothing remotely nice about any of them. Not that they were all lies, of course, but I know I’d been a bit of a big head back then, wanting to get my way about things even if what I wanted was plain stupid. But I needed a faux dad and old Mr Cartwright fitted the bill because he was three sheets to the wind even when he was sober, which wasn’t very often. I bought him a pint, and that was enough encouragement for him to get his best suit out and perform as if he was really my father.”

“Didn’t Ben mind? I mean, if he knew you well enough to get married to you he must have known who your dad was!”

“He didn’t say anything, Joseph. You know how thick he was.”

“I don’t actually. I don’t think I ever met him to talk to. He’s part of your glorious past I should have bumped into, but didn’t. Why not, do you think?”

“Well, he died. And, you know, I wept like a baby because I missed him so much. I loved him more than I thought back then that I’d ever love any man. Can you understand that?”

“Not really. I thought it was me who you worshipped, not that Ben who you made me think you actually hated!”

“Ben who died. I was overwhelmed by the grief I felt. And I really hadn’t meant it. All I was doing was going upstairs to our bedroom in order to get ready.”

“Get ready for what, darling?”

“There you go, calling me names! Really Joseph! Anyway, it was our anniversary. We’d been married for a whole year and he hadn’t put one foot wrong in the whole twelve months! And we hadn’t had even the slightest of cross words. He bought me stuff, too. He bought me my first computer, and it might have been primitive compared to my laptop, the one I write my novels on today, but at the time it was wonderful, magical. No need for a typewriter when I had my precious Amstrad! So I was going to slip into the pair of shorts I knew he liked looking at when he saw me in them, you know, the army-green ones that were almost non-existent. That was Ben, that was! I loved my body and the more that he could see of it, the better.”

“You’re making me jealous, Penny! I don’t think you ever dress to please me, it’s more like you know what you look good in and you wear that without giving any thought to whether I’m going to stare lovingly at you or not.”

“We’re older now, Joseph, the two of us. I’m pushing sixty, for goodness’ sake!”

“Point taken, darling. I tell you what, put on that pair of shorts and I’ll tell you what I think.”

“Crikey, if only I could! I was size ten back then, and now I’m more like size twenty! I got rid of them yonks ago, probably to a charity shop!”

“So what happened, then?”

“You are nosey, Joseph! Well, it was like this. I was nearly at the top of the stairs on my way up, and he came from our bedroom because he’d changed into his own shorts, and he wanted to impress me with his bulge on his way down, and somehow on the top step out legs got sort of intertwined. I mean, it was possible that I might have gone crashing down and not him! But he did. He gave one yell and down he went, and I hadn’t yet put my shorts on!”

“How awful!”

“Awful it was, too. I had to almost run down to see what was wrong with him and I was sure he was dead. I mean, me with a dead man, and no-one else in the house! I phoned for an ambulance, of course, because you have to, don’t you, just in case you’re wrong and he’s not dead, though I was positive…”

“You poor dear…”

“And the police came, two officers!”

“I know, you lovely thing, because I was one of those policemen, younger than I am now but still a keen copper!”

“Of course you were. What a cuckoo I am! So you did meet Ben, then? You just said you didn’t.”

“Did I? Well, I never met the living Ben, did I?

“You should have come sooner. I don’t think he was dead straight away. I had to wait for him to die, and then when I was perfectly sure I phoned for an ambulance. But I couldn’t have them bringing him round as if nothing had happened. I’d have had to put those darned shorts on for him to perve at and we’d have gone to the theatre to see a comedy show like we planned.”

“But you did go. I remember it so well. I was with you. Remember?”

Jenny gave him an extravagant wink. “ I’m hardly likely to forget that Joseph, our first date! But it was a good show and we laughed at some of the pranks they got up to. You don’t get comedy like that these days do you?”

“But Ben had died, and you laughed like a drain at stage comedy. I always thought it was because you hated him, and that made the funny show acceptable. But you say you loved him?”

“We had a precious moment, Joseph. And he died so that that precious moment could be preserved for ever. In my head, in my memory.”

“You mean…”

“It was when he seduced me. In the church where we got married. I don’t suppose it happens very often, but after we signed the book in the vestry and everyone had left the church, even my faux father, we made love. It was magical. An old stone church, the chill of January, and just for a few moments the two of us.. me in white and he in dark velvet. It didn’t take long. He said he’d been storing it up for months! But during that brief moment of magic everything I’d ever believed about love and a man and woman together in a moment of pure ecstasy came together on my mind…”

“What about when it’s me with you? Maybe in our bed? Isn’t that better?”

“Joseph, you are a silly billy! Of course it’s not! Because it’s not the first time. You’re fun, I admit that, but you’re not a first time ecstacy, not even close! Ben never made me feel that way again, either, which is why he died on our first anniversary.”

“Are you saying you … on purpose… you murdered…” gaped Joseph.

Penny laughed. “Of course I did,” she whispered into his ear, “I had to, don’t you see? I had to keep that one moment in the old church in my head forever and not let it start fading away like it might have if we’d had a long marriage.”

“But you’ve told me about it…?”

“I have.”

“And I’m a retired policeman!”

“I know.”

“So why have you told me?”

“So that you could do your duty. So that you could start the ball rolling and send me to prison. A cell of my own. Somewhere I can drag my one precious memory from the back of my mind where I’ve kept it pure, and relive it again and again and again, and then die.”

“I don’t believe…”

“Please go, now, Joseph, and do your duty. Please. Report me. Then I’ll love you for ever.”

© Peter Rogerson 14.05,23

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Reviews

[AYVID N]

So she confessed to him after years of the murder that she had killed him so she could go to jail and relive that one, exciting memory. Joseph must have been heartbroken. I hope he doesn't act on her wish. But then, she might kill him too. Great story!