Chapter 7 – No Escape from Evil
Emily sat there watching Vic sleep for a long time, her mind in a dreamy state of happiness. He was OK, he had asked her to marry him and even though it was in a befuddled state, she knew it was real. And she had as good as said yes, loving the idea of linking her life to this man, who made her smile inside every time he turned his warm brown eyes her way.
Finally she roused herself from the reverie. The outside light was fading. Vic would sleep for hours yet. She needed to go home, fix dinner and sleep herself.
It was her first night on her own, when not in prison, for longer than she could remember. She was happy it was so; she could go and have a meal with her parents, or Anne and David, or even Alan, Sandy, Buck or Julie. All were her friends; all had invited her and would be delighted to hear she was available. But, nice as that thought was, this was a night for her and her alone, the first tiny step towards getting on with her own life outside. She needed to face that world again, not as Susan but as Emily. She must face it with her head held high in her new-old identity.
She walked through the foyer, passing alongside the café. She saw newspapers for sale. She could not remember how long it was since she had sat and read a newspaper or watched the TV news – months and months. On impulse she picked one up, not even looking at the cover. She passed the money over to the man at the counter before putting the newspaper into her overnight bag.
She felt tired as she sat into the taxi, feeling in her shoulders the tension which she must have held inside herself on Vic’s account. The babies were getting heavy and pressing down and she could feel her ankles were puffy.
Soon she was inside the flat on her own. She put on the kettle and made some toast, feeling suddenly flat, tired and very alone. Part of her wished she had gone somewhere for dinner, someone else to fill the empty space with conversation would have been nice along with a hot ready cooked meal. She knew she could still ring and do it; someone would call round to collect her. But her back was aching, there was a headache at the edge of her consciousness and overall she was really tired from an unaccustomed day of walking around.
No, she would just have her tea and toast, stretch out on the couch, read the paper and maybe watch a bit of TV as she fell asleep. Tomorrow was a new day. She could get organised then.
She pulled out the paper to read, placed a cushion at one end of the couch for her head, lay down and stretched out. She picked the paper up but she could not keep eyes open. She fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She woke up thirsty. The clock on the mantel said the time was after eleven at night. She had slept for four hours. The room felt oppressive. She had not turned the air conditioner on. It was hot and stuffy. But it was more than that, there was some portent of doom pushing into her mind, like the crocodile spirit was seeking to return.
She went to the sink and filled a glass of tepid water, sipping it with distaste. She was filled with anxiety, source unknown. She picked up the paper, thinking reading may distract her. The front page was some boring story of a prime minister’s announcement, pure poly speak.
She turned to page three. Her face jumped out at her. She looked at the caption. It read “Two Faces of Susan Emily McDonald.”
Below were two photos, one of a bookish looking school girl in uniform, captioned “Emily”. It must have been a final year high school photo when she was studying hard to get good grades. The second, “Susan” was a typical party girl photo, her in a skimpy bikini, on a holiday, drink in hand, flaunting her body and exuding sex appeal, one of those half drunken snaps on a friend’s camera, taken up close and showing way too much body with almost nothing to cover it.
Off to the side of those photos was one taken on the day she walked from court, was it only last week, her face sedate but dazed looking – she remembered that numb relief feeling.
The story continued. “Who is the real Susan Emily McDonald? Is she studious and serious Emily, the model pupil with butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth manners? Or is she the wild and raunchy party girl, Susan, known to give it out to many men in wild parties?
“We don’t know all their names as she cut swathes through the social circles of London and Sydney. But there was Edward, budding business entrepreneur, son of a powerful stockbroker, dumped when she got bored. Then there was Mark, aka Vincent Mark Bassingham, the NT man from nowhere, who she fed to the crocodiles when he tried it on. Then there was David, son of the squattocracy, old Sydney town money with an impressive stable of sports cars. And last, but not least, is Vic, helicopter pilot from Alice Springs. Rumour has it she is currently holed up with him in a sleazy Darwin apartment. She won’t talk to us but she has plenty of words and more to share with her succession of boyfriends. Will Vic share the same fate as the others when the wheel turns?
“So we ask again, who is this real person? Who is Susan Emily McDonald? Rumour has it that she is trying to say she is the victim of a crazy psychopath. Could it be that she is the real dangerous one who, like the spider, weaves her web and, when she has captured her prey and sucked out all its juices, she discards what is left like an empty husk. Rumour also has it she is possessed by a crocodile spirit and uses a psychic power to lure, stalk, ambush and consume her victims like the fabled salt water crocodiles. We think this is one dangerous schizophrenic person; the two faces of Susan and Emily are but two faces of evil no matter which is their name.”
She put down the paper, her hands were shaking. She was so shocked she could think of nothing to say in her own defence. Perhaps it was really true. Perhaps she had been infected by evil and the evil had consumed her soul and she could never escape it. Pretending to be Emily was pointless. Emily was every bit as contaminated as Susan was!
Emily found herself walking around the flat in endless and pointless pacing. Her mind was in turmoil. She found herself reverting to the Susan persona, the actor, the person of endless self control, the one who had survived all alone for months in jail.
Perhaps it was just one nasty journalist who was running this line. She remembered the wave of support that she had felt from the crowd in the court that afternoon. Was that only five days ago?
A new lifetime seemed to have begun now, she was with Vic, and the past world had a surreal and unreal feel. As she calmed she realised that running away in any form was pointless. She just had to know the truth and face up to it.
Nothing could be that bad if you were secure inside yourself. She had Vic who knew her and what she had done and yet still loved her, he had asked her to marry him, after all. He would help give her strength to deal with this. And there were a mass of family and friends in her corner who knew the truth, or at least part of it and they had not condemned her: Anne, David, Alan, Sandy, Buck, and of course her Mum and Dad and Sydney cousins. But another part of her hated drawing them all back into this, this place of endless rumour mongering and dredging up muck. Her friends had stuck to her through everything, but this was really unfair to them, what she had done was wrecking all their lives.
She could feel her mind flip flopping back and forwards between exultation and despair.
She saw a computer sitting on a desk in the corner of the room. She had never noticed it before, though it had obviously always been there.
The thought flashed into her mind to get a wider perspective, see what others were saying. Surely this vicious story was just an isolated outlier of something much more balanced as people began to understand the facts. But then, of course, the judge had suppressed all the facts. What was out there for others to know was only gossip and speculation.
Still she was better off to know what was being said. She walked over to the desk and pressed a key on the keyboard. The screen came to life. It showed a log in screen, two user accounts: Alan and Sandy, then a third guest account. She clicked on the guest account, no login was required. It opened Internet Explorer and Google. She typed in her name and started to look down the page list.
Innumera
ble articles had been written, the page count ran to thousands. Some were main media sites like the Guardian and Times in her home town, and the Australian and Sydney Morning Herald here. But far and away the most common, including those with the highest ratings, were blogs and chat rooms. She knew she should not look at them but found herself powerless to stop.
It was like a vortex was sucking her down and it was appalling. What these people wrote made the newspaper she had read tonight sound tame. “Kill the bitch, cut her babies out and feed them to the crocodiles before they breed,” was a pretty typical variant. But the ones that upset her most were the ones about Vic, speculating that the whole thing was a hatched up plot between him and her. They had got the last obstacle out of the way, she was out of jail and away free to cash in with him. His helicopter crash was just a fabrication. In fact he had just hidden away until the time was right, so as not to arouse suspicion. Now he and his witch girlfriend would collect Mark’s riches. It was speculated that Vincent Bassingham had multiple flats and other property bought with cash. Gossip from the outback also told about him having a big stash of cash and jewels. So Witch Susan and this evil man, Vic, who was her partner in crime were now about to cash in the bonanza.
But God help Vic, he was probably just another one caught in her evil spell. In a year of two he would get his comeuppance too, with no reward from her for his help in doing the foul deed.
She put her hands to her eyes in horror. It was all too unbelievably vicious, how could anyone say these things about this dear kind man who she loved and who had saved her life. But perhaps they were half right, she really was evil and the evil within her would fall on him and harm him too. That was an idea too awful to contemplate. She wished she could tear her soul out and give it to the crocodiles if that would stop the madness. Better that than to harm him further.
She got up and started her restless pacing again; now opening and shutting cupboards in some sort of pointless ritual, looking for something, she knew not what.
In a high cupboard she saw a square bottle of brown liquid with the words “Bundaberg Rum” on the label. She remembered the happiness shared with Mark as they drank together from a bottle like this in the desert when she first came to Alice Springs. She lifted the bottle down, uncapped the lid and smelt the contents. The remembered smell burst into her brain. She wished she could go back to that time when life was simple and she was happy.
She found a glass and splashed some into it, then added a dash of water the way she had been shown. She swallowed a mouthful; she could feel it burning her insides. She knew it was bad for her babies but she was unable to care. She thought if she drank the bottle maybe it would all be over, like she had planned in the hospital. Her babies would feel nothing, they would go to sleep forever along with her and hopefully wake in the better place that their father was calling them all to go to.
She poured a second glass, and forced herself to drink it. She felt dizzy, feeling the alcohol flooding her brain. She went and sat down on the lounge, carrying the bottle to continue with her drinking. She would just lay her head back for a minute before she poured another glass.