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It’s only 7pm but the sky is already a dark indigo and an autumn chill whips through the air. Down the high street towards Corvid House, many of the shops and cafés are closed and now only a few convenience stores and bars remain open. A Friday night, scantily clad women in dizzyingly high heels shiver in groups sharing cigarettes and hugging themselves with their bare arms for warmth. Lone men stand with their hands in their pockets looking shifty and scowling if you catch their eye. A dog on a lead passes with an LED collar that flashes rhythmically. I see Ella further along, making her way to the tall iron gate, blissfully unaware she is being followed. She taps the passcode and lets herself in without glancing back before slipping inside the grounds. Corvid House swallows people whole.
I know from her schedule that she is tending to a man called George first, so I have time to get into position, fifteen minutes if she fulfils her obligation, but I couldn’t rely on that. It could be more like ten minutes, or as little as five. Many staff members do the bare minimum, but I hoped better from Ella. I want her to care, like I do.
From outside the gate, I watch her tap the passcode on the door and enter the lobby. After a few minutes to be sure, I let myself in past through and walk along the grass to the back of the building, calculating which window would belong to Enid. All I want to do is check and hopefully be proven wrong. Then we can put this behind us and move forward with our lives, together.
I find Enid’s window easy enough just by counting. She is sitting in her duck egg coloured armchair which sits next to her oxygen tank. She is nodding off to sleep, head bobbing softly, masking moving slightly with every breath. In around five minutes, Ella would let herself in and get Enid ready for bed. Satisfied, I will then run back to the bedsit while Ella finishes up with her last client, Agatha, and all will be well. This is simply for my peace of mind.
The one thing I might possibly never find out the truth of is why Ella insisted she shadow me for a week when it wasn’t ordered by management. The only reason I can think of is she wanted to get close to me. But how did she know of me before she met me? I couldn’t make sense of it. My head is spinning, and my chest burns.
I almost let out a cough to relieve my aching lungs when Ella burst through Enid’s living room door, and I have to swallow it back down with an agonising gulp. She barely acknowledges Enid and walks right past her to the end table. I don’t like that, but I watch on as Ella filled out the logbook and I feel sick. I know she is writing what she has done with Enid before she has even done it. This is what some staff did to save time, when they don’t care about accuracy but just ticking boxes and clocking off.
Next, she pulls Enid to her feet. Enid lets out a grasping grasp in surprise and grips Ella for support. I hear Ella sigh and with a degree of annoyance urges Enid to come on and hurry up. She directs Enid out of the living room and right, towards the bedroom, as opposed to left, towards the bathroom. I shuffle sideways to the bedroom window, accidentally crushing a flower underfoot, crunching its stem in half which wilted to the ground, oozing clear sticky liquid like blood from a wound. It doesn’t matter. Tomorrow it would be gone, just like that, replaced and another flower assigned in its space.
Enid’s bedroom window is slightly ajar, enough for me to hear Ella. I stay as hidden as possible in the darkness and hope she wouldn’t look too closely.
“Oh for god’s sake Enid. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re pitiful. Look at you.”
Enid says nothing. Expressionless, she stares through Ella. I’m not sure if she has understood the words or not. If she agrees or not. If she cares. If she could care. Ella was right; it is pitiful. But it wasn’t for us to say. Our job is to care, not judge. She sits Enid on the bed and lifts her legs, swinging her to a laying down position before tucking her in under the covers. She brings her oxygen tank closer, so the tube doesn’t pull. Perhaps I have Ella wrong. Perhaps she is just an inadequate care worker, a little lazy, a little misguided perhaps, but not malicious. I could organise her shadowing me again, show her how to do things right. Maybe she knows her weaknesses and that was why she had me shadow her in the first place. I could make this right.
In the pale light, Ella leans over Enid like a mother kissing her child goodnight. It is a heartening sight and for a second I think I might be witnessing a tender moment between client and care worker. But instead she pulls Enid’s oxygen mask away, just out of reach, and watches with quiet curiosity as Enid struggles and gasps for air before the light leaves her eyes and she falls back still and silent. Ella calmly places the mask over Enid’s neck and leaves.
Breathless, I bend over double in agony, unable to speak even if I wanted to, paralysed from stopping what is happening in front of my eyes. I take a moment to try and catch my breath, to steady my heart, to stop my hands from shaking. My legs threaten to collapse from under me, but I couldn’t stay here. I have to go.
Ella practically skips down the path from the lobby towards the iron gate without a care in the world. Her steps are light as a feather, and she looks beautiful as ever. Calm. Carefree. The moon is out by now and it shines down on her buttery soft skin, leaving her dew-kissed and radiant. No one would be able to guess what she has just done not even ten minutes prior. Tomorrow, it would be decided that Enid had knocked her mask off in her sleep and suffocated through the fault of no one else. It was the perfect crime, but for what?
I wait for Ella to come closer and then step out of the darkness between her and the gate. My heart is racing so much I wonder if it will finally give up and stop altogether leaving me dead at her feet. She might like that.
Her eyes light up in surprise, and possibly horror. She doesn’t know what I’ve seen, yet. “Vi-violet. I thought you were waiting for me at the bedsit.”
There is no time to make up excuses, and I don’t want to make them anyway.
“Ella, what have you done?”
“What do you mean?” She tries to sound confident and blasé, but I se through it.
“Enid. I saw, just now… What did you do?”
“Violet, I don’t know what you saw, but I was just coming out for a breather and to ring the police. Enid, she’s died. I don’t know what happened. I put her to bed as normal and then I was writing her notes and came back to check her. Her mask had slipped, she’s not breathing. I’m in such a terrible state.”
She comes towards me, arms open, trying to steer me into a hug, but I resist and step away. I don’t know those arms anymore.
“We both know that isn’t true.”
We both jump as someone walks by on the other side of the gate.
“Let’s go for a walk, it isn’t safe here.”
“Fine.”
We walk the perimeter of the grounds, hidden in the darkness and away from anyone who could possibly be listening. On instinct, Ella reaches for my hand, but I dart away as if she is made of fire. It hurts to look at her. And suddenly, I feel alone in the world again.
I shake my head, “I can’t believe this.”
Ella looks down and bites her lip. “It’s not like you haven’t done it.”
“Done what?”
“Killed someone,” Ella spits.
I flinch, “What? Of course I haven’t.”
“Don’t give me that. Don’t give me your outrage when you’ve done so much worse.”
“Ella, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” My body feels lectric, sparking out of control. Everything hurts, burns, pinches, aches. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think straight. We reach a small potting shed and Ella leans against it.
“Oh come off it. Ivy? Margaret? At the least. Dora before that, and Clyde. I don’t know the rest, but it didn’t seem like your first time.”
Her words nearly send me to the floor, “how… how do you know?”
“My father is the groundskeeper here. He lets me do odd jobs for cash. I usually just replace the flowers that are looking a little worse for wear, for something to do, even if they don’t particularly need replacing just yet. I saw you one day through the window, hovering over Clyde before you suffocated him with a pillow. I couldn’t believe how calm you were, couldn’t believe your beauty and grace. You never look as alive as you do in those moments. You look like an angel helping people into the afterlife, people who are clinging on to life needlessly when they don’t really need it anymore. I kept an eye out for you and watched you do it time and time again.”
I can barely process what she is saying, it is all too much. “Is that why you joined the company? Is that why you lied about having to shadow me? You were stalking me?”
“I wasn’t exactly stalking you.” Ella frowns, “Wait, how did you know it was a lie?”
“I nearly outed you to the boss, but I figured it out at the last minute and made up something.”
Ella softens. A smile appears on her face, “You covered for me?”
“Well, I didn’t know I was covering for this.” I throw my hands up, exasperated with the ridiculousness of it all. It feels like an out of body experience, a dream, a nightmare.
The night grows darker, but the moon stays overhead, projecting a spotlight down onto us.
“Let’s go home, Violet. Back to mine, to ours. Let’s go and be together.”
“I can’t go home with a murderer.”
“But, Violet, you’re also a murderer. I don’t get it.”
“No. You don’t. What we have done isn’t equal. Cathy wasn’t dying, she wasn’t even sick.”
“That night, she told me that she was sick of being useless and in pain and she couldn’t go on anymore. And I thought, you don’t have to. I was doing her a favour, just like you did for all Ivy and Margaret and the others. Killing makes you come alive and it’s the same for me. It isn’t ideal, but it’s our truth. So we kill the already dying. I see you, Violet. I get you. I love you.”
Carefully, she moves forward and gently takes me by the hand. I snatch mine away, closed fisted and white knuckled.
“What we have done is not the same. It isn’t a sport or a thrill for me, Ella. I don’t do it because I feel like playing God or because I’m bored with my own life. It’s necessary for my survival. I kill because I must and I kill in the least damaging way possible, by simply trimming the fat from people who are basically already dead. I take a slither of one long life to preserve my own life which I have barely lived at all. I hate it. I am disgusted with myself every time. And now, I’m disgusted with you.”
“Please, Violet. We’re both in this together now. Please. Can we just go home and talk it through? We can’t stick around here. I need to be seen leaving that gate, so I have an alibi.”
“I can’t in good conscience stand by while you kill innocent people for no reason. I care too much about my clients.”
“What do you mean?”
“I love you Ella, but I have to do what is right. If you really did see me for who I am, then you’d know that.”
“Violet, wait, wait do you—”
With great pain and difficulty, using the last of my physical resources, I grab pruning shears from just outside the potting shed that I had spotted only a minute prior, and in one fell swoop lunge for Ella’s pretty little throat that I can still remember kissing so fondly, so full of lust and love. Shock fills her eyes and after a pregnant pause, blood begins to spurt from the puncture wound with incredible force. She touches her neck, uselessly, dumbfounded. I push her into a mound of autumn leaves that had been likely swept up by her own father. He will find her in the morning. A gardening accident, suicide, or an attack from one of the shifty looking men who loiter on the main road. I wonder who would replace the broken flowers now.
It breaks my heart to see Ella lifeless, her very essence seeping from her like a broken hourglass. Never will I feel her touch again, hear her laughter, smell her hair, taste her skin. She was mine and now she isn’t. Now she belongs to the earth. I imagine her giving nutrients to the soil, enriching the flowers that she preferred at their peak, admiring their beauty from below. I think of all the clients I had saved in her sacrifice, and it is some comfort. I feel stronger with every second that passes, but that’s not important.
I head home. The moon has dipped out of sight, leaving me in the dark. The streets are quiet without a soul to be seen and it only amplifies how alone I feel. I think about the injustice of it all. As a child, I just wanted a mum to care for me, but that wasn’t meant to be. As an adult, I could have had Ella, but at what cost? I can never simply have what I want, there is always a catch. I want a healthy body but instead I’m trapped in this one that keeps failing me unless I do what I have to do. I have no choice. I am a prisoner, somewhere between dying and alive; a flower missing more than a few petals, forever wilting but willing to go on.
Being alone is the price I pay for doing the right thing. I do bad things, I’m only human, but I do my best with the information I have. I’m not a bad person.
I will miss Ella dearly. I really did care about her.
Kate Armitage 
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