Macbeth

‘Let’s begin where we left off last time,’ Alsaker said, looking at his notes. Not that he needed them to remember; the details were of such a brutal nature they had seared themselves into his memory. He needed his notes to believe what she had actually told him. The first lines were not unusual; on the contrary they were a common refrain in many similar cases. ‘Unemployed, alcoholic father and depressive and violent mother. You grew up by the river in what you call a hovel or a rats’ nest. Literally. You told me your first memories were watching rats swimming towards your house when the sun set, and you remember thinking it was the rats’ house. You slept in their bed, you had eaten their food, when they came up into your bed you understood why they bit you.’

Her voice was soft and low. ‘They just wanted what was theirs.’

‘And your father said the same when he got into your bed.’

‘He just wanted what was his.’

Alsaker skimmed his notes. It wasn’t the first abuse case he had treated, but this one had some details that were particularly disturbing.

‘You became pregnant when you were thirteen and gave birth to a child. Your mother called you a whore. She said you should chuck the misbegotten child into the river, but you refused.’

‘I just wanted to have what was mine.’

‘So you and the child were thrown out of the house, and you spent the next night with the first man you met.’

‘He said he’d kill the baby if it didn’t stop screaming, so I took it into the bed. But then he said it ruined his concentration because it was watching.’

‘And while he was sleeping you stole money from his pockets and food from the kitchen.’

‘I just took what was mine.’

‘And what is yours?’

‘What everyone else has.’

‘What happened then?’

‘The river ran dry.’

‘Come on, Lady. What happened then?’

‘More factories were built. More workers came to town. I earned a bit more money. Mum came to see me and told me Dad was dead. His lungs. It had been a painful death. I told her I’d have liked to have been there to see his pain.’

‘Don’t skirt around it, Lady. Get to the point. What happened to the baby?’

‘Have you seen how babies’ faces change, almost from one day to the next. Well, suddenly, one day it had his face.’

‘Your father’s.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did you do then?’

‘I gave it extra milk so that it was smiling blissfully at me when it fell asleep. Then I smashed its head against the wall. A head smashes easily, you know? How fragile a human life is.’

Alsaker swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘Did you do it because the child’s face was like your father’s?’

‘No. But it finally made it possible.’

‘Does that mean you’d been thinking about it for a while?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Can you tell me why you say of course ?’

She was silent for a moment. Alsaker saw her pupils twitch, and this reminded him of something. Frogspawn. A tadpole trying to break free from a sticky egg.

‘If you want to achieve your aims you have to be able to renounce what you love. If the person you climb with to reach the peak weakens, you have to either encourage him or cut the rope.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? If he falls he’ll drag both of you down. If you want to survive, your hand has to do what your heart refuses to do.’

‘Kill the person you love?’

‘The way Abraham sacrificed his son. Let the blood flow. Amen.’

Alsaker shivered and took notes. ‘What is there at the peak that you want?’

‘The peak is the top. Then you’re up. Higher than everything and everyone.’

‘Do you have to go there?’

‘No. You can crawl around in the lowlands. On the rubbish heap. In the muddy riverbed. But once you’ve started climbing there’s no way back. It’s the peak or the abyss.’

Alsaker put down his pen. ‘And for this peak you’re willing to sacrifice everything — also what you love? Is survival above love?’

‘Naturally. But recently I’ve seen that we can live without love. So all this survival will be the death of me, Doctor.’

Her eyes had a sudden clarity which for an instant made Alsaker think she wasn’t psychotic after all. But it may have been just the hypnosis or a temporary awakening. Alsaker had seen this many times before. How a patient in deep psychosis or depression can apparently perk up, like a drowning person coming to the surface with an effort of will, giving both relatives and an inexperienced psychiatrist hope. They can stay afloat for several days, only to use this last effort of will to do what they had been threatening or just sink back into the darkness whence they came. But no, it must have been the hypnosis because now the frogspawn membrane was over her eyes again.

‘It says in the paper here that after the radio interview people are waiting for you to announce you’re standing in the mayoral election,’ Seyton said. He had spread the newspaper over a coffee table and was dropping his fingernail clippings onto it.

‘Let them write,’ Macbeth said, looking at his watch. ‘Tourtell should have been here ten minutes ago.’