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Marina

It was just cleaning, after all. And she had done plenty of cleaning in her lifetime, even more since becoming a mother: kitchens, bathrooms, toddler potties, back seats of cars. There was one time that Archie had the flu and projectile vomited for twelve hours straight. And Lucy Rose’s diapers could get pretty gnarly, too, especially when she went through her beetroot phase.

How hard could it be?

Down in the basement, Marina unpacked the bags of stuff she’d bought: several plastic sheets and tarps, a box of masks, a dozen pairs of rubber gloves, heavy-duty rubbish sacks, bleach, Windex, a lot of paper towels, duct tape, hair nets, sponges, Lysol, Vicks VapoRub (for the smell—she’d seen it on TV), three mops, protective goggles, baby wipes because despite what Opal said they could clean anything, a new dustpan and brush, and two super-size packages of extraabsorbent toddler diapers.

“Why diapers?” asked Lilah, as she helped unpack.

“Along with sanitary towels, they’re the most absorbent thing on the planet, and diapers are bigger.”

“What did people think while you were buying all this?” Opal asked, taking out three disposable jumpsuits.

“Nobody noticed, are you kidding? Cleaning and decorating supplies and diapers? I couldn’t be more of a middle-class cliché if I’d put a large bottle of gin in my basket. Which, come to think of it, I probably should have done.”

“So how are we going to do this?” asked Lilah. “Are we going to wrap him up in the plastic sheets and the tarp, and then carry him out of here? Maybe wrap him in a rug? Will we need to hire a car or something?”

“Not keen on that,” said Marina. “One, I like all my rugs, and two, it would leave traces in the car, and three, how do we get rid of him?”

“Also, the two of you weren’t so great at lifting him when we carried him into the bunker,” Opal pointed out. “If we ever kidnap anyone else, we’re going to have to put you on a weight training regime beforehand.”

“I think we have to cut him into pieces,” said Marina. “Take him out in chunks, in a way that isn’t obvious.”

Opal looked sick. Lilah looked intrigued.

“I thought you were a nurse,” Marina said.

“Used to be,” said Opal. “And nursing doesn’t usually involve cutting off body parts.”

“Don’t worry,” said Marina. “I’ll deal with it. I did some butchery as part of my chef training. It will be easiest to sever at the joints.”

“You know, Marina,” said Opal, “at one point Lilah thought you were a criminal genius, and I’m beginning to wonder if she wasn’t right.”

“Do we have to carry him out?” asked Lilah. “We could try to bury him here.”

“We could toss him over the fence to the Andersons’,” said Marina. “I wish. No, my children are going to inherit this house and I don’t want them discovering anything unsavory.”

Unlike Nana Sylvia, who apparently hadn’t been too worried about Marina discovering the skeleton of Husband Number Three. What would have happened if Marina hadn’t got divorced and inherited the entire house, and the family had put it on the market? And when the assessment was done, someone noticed that the floor plans didn’t match up, and they found Barry’s remains, still wearing his bow tie?

It didn’t seem like Nana Sylvia to leave things up to chance like that. For such a seemingly carefree woman, she seemed to have planned her life in quite a bit of detail. And possibly gotten away with murder, maybe more than once.

She’d always said she married her first husband for money; her second (Marina’s grandfather) for love; and her third for the va-va-voom. Her Grandpa Joe had died of cancer, far too young, and Nana Sylvia had never stopped mourning him—but Nana Sylvia’s first husband died when the brakes failed on his Bentley. Nana Sylvia, possibly coincidentally, had worked on the Home Front as a mechanic during the war, a job that would have involved fiddling with brakes.

Standing in the basement with a bottle of Lysol in her hand, Marina for the first time considered that Nana Sylvia might have left her cheating husband Barry behind as a message for Marina, particularly: a message that women didn’t have to put up with being disregarded, mistreated, run around on.

Marina had discovered that Jake was cheating on her because of an anonymous email that appeared in her inbox one morning, between the PTA Christmas fair email discussion and a marketing message from Aldi. At the time, she’d assumed it was Freya who sent the email, because she wanted Jake all to herself. But now, she wondered if Nana Sylvia might not have been trying to hasten Marina’s divorce. Specifically, so Marina could inherit the house, and find Barry.

A tap on her shoulder. “Marina? Marina, you’ve been in a daydream. I was just asking you if you had some sort of garden appliance that would help us cut Zachary up. Or a kitchen appliance, maybe. Something more efficient than a hacksaw.”

“I really don’t think that a Nutribullet is going to be able to handle a human foot,” said Opal.

“There’s a meat grinder somewhere,” said Marina. “But it’s not an industrial one. It’s only meant for making mince at home. It would take us an age to do a whole man. And we’d have to cut him into smaller pieces first anyway.”

“A chainsaw?” suggested Lilah.

“This is going to be a fucking mess,” said Opal.

They dressed in the coveralls, tucking the legs into rubber rain boots from Nana Sylvia’s impressive collection. Protective goggles, masks, hair nets, hoods up, and hands enclosed in bright yellow rubber gloves. When they were finished, they stood in the basement looking like stunt doubles from Breaking Bad .

“You said you wanted fashion tips...” said Marina to Lilah, who shook her head.

“Let’s get on with this.” Opal unbolted the door to the secret room, and the three of them stood, looking in.

Okay. This was much a much worse mess than any child could possibly make. But the principle remained the same: you couldn’t focus on the whole picture, because it was too overwhelming. You dealt with what was in front of you and took it bit by bit.

And you tried to ignore the smell.

Some of the blood had dried on the floor and walls, but it was still tacky underfoot as they wordlessly draped plastic sheets over the furniture and used duct tape to hang more sheets from the ceiling so that they wouldn’t make the mess any worse. Marina moved Barry aside with her booted foot and they spread a tarp and then a plastic sheet on the floor beside Xavier’s body.

The cliché was that dead people looked as if they were sleeping, but even though Marina had never seen Xavier asleep, she was pretty sure he hadn’t looked like this. He lay flat on his back with his arms spread, feet splayed. The skin on his hands and neck was mottled. Most of his face was gone, so that was also a major difference.

“Do you want to take the...” She hesitated to say “head,” but Opal nodded and stationed herself at Xavier’s shoulders. Lilah and Marina each took a foot and together, they moved him onto the plastic sheet. He actually felt a little lighter than last time they’d lifted him, but maybe that shouldn’t be surprising.

“Excuse me,” said Opal, and left the room quickly. Marina could hear her retching.

“I’ll do this,” said Marina.

“You don’t have to do it by yourself. I’m the one who killed him.”

“But you loved him. And so did Opal, once upon a time. I didn’t. I only had sex with him. It’s going to be easier for me to see him as a body, rather than a person.”

It was difficult to see Lilah’s expression under the mask and goggles, but after a moment, she nodded. “I’ll wrap up the pieces as you cut them. And Opal and I can clean up the...bits.”

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” called Opal, from the next room. She appeared in the doorway, adjusting her mask. “Sorry about that.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Marina. “Can you please bring me the sewing scissors from the box, and my set of chef’s knives, please? They’re on the work bench, rolled up in a canvas holder.”

Marina laid the items neatly next to Xavier’s left leg. Then she took off Xavier’s shoes and socks and handed them to Lilah, who put them into a plastic garbage bag. His feet looked more dead than his hands, for some reason; maybe because she could see how the toes had drained of blood as it settled into the heel portion of his foot. She took off his watch. Trying not to touch his flesh, she used Nana Sylvia’s sharp dressmaking scissors to cut up each pant leg, so they were easy for Opal and Lilah to pull off. Then his shirt. She had to brace herself a little before she cut off his underwear; it was more intimate. She had never seen Xavier naked except in the context of pleasure. Something similar must have occurred to Lilah, because she turned away, but Opal helped her remove the bisected boxer-briefs and stuffed them in the bag with the rest of his clothes.

“He’s just a man,” murmured Opal, gazing down at Xavier’s naked body.

Actually, now he’s meat , thought Marina.

She should feel guilty for thinking this, but she also knew it was the only way she was going to get through this next bit.

She knelt by Xavier’s bare leg. Unrolling her knives was a bit of a ritual, a thing she had done in many kitchens, both professional and at home. Nana Sylvia had bought her this set: German stainless steel, perfectly balanced, honed to whisper-sharp edges, arranged each in its pocket according to size and purpose. The handles were textured to give purchase to slippery hands.

After some thought, she selected a medium-sized paring knife, sharp as a scalpel. The flesh on the knee wasn’t thick, but there would be ligaments to sever and joints to cut round, so she might need her cleaver and boning knife.

“Can you get my phone and a plastic ziplock bag, please, Lilah?” she said.

“No googling,” Opal reminded her.

“I just want some music,” said Marina. “Will you open Spotify and select ‘Morning playlist’? And then pop the phone in a bag so it doesn’t get anything on it?”

While Lilah did this, she considered Xavier’s knee. The skin was waxy and lightly haired. There was a moon-shaped scar on the kneecap. She didn’t know the story behind it, but maybe Opal or Lilah did. It was a complex joint, but maybe not so different from cutting the hock from the ham.

Lilah propped the phone up on the plastic-covered cocktail trolley as it began to play “All the Single Ladies.”

Marina took a deep breath to steady her hands. She began to cut.