How to Write Killer Prose (19)

Bonus scene

            Here's a bonus scene, set after Resurrection, and before Bloodline. It's a week after the shooting on the bridge, and Oxana is recuperating at a London flat provided for her and Eve by Johnny Fernandes. It's late evening, not yet dark. Tomorrow they will be travelling to the countryside, and the shepherds hut.

            A few things to note:

            In an intimate scene like this, cut back the details. Go in close-up, and establish place and time of day as quickly and economically as possible (here I do that with the words 'bathroom mirror', 'night cream', and 'bed').

            Every line of dialogue should add, however infinitesimally, to your readers' knowledge of the characters. It's a stealthy layer-by-layer process, like the growth of a pearl, and your readers should be largely unaware of it. Familiarity has to dawn, it can't be imposed.

            The things that Villanelle says about herself - that part of her is always cold-bloodedly watching herself 'perform' emotion, and that everything she does is a gambit, a calculated play - should equally apply to you as a writer. The icy detachment that Villanelle can't escape (and that makes her the perfect assassin) is present in any really good fiction writer. If the author is to be born, some part of her, some lingering niceness, must die. That's the deal. Sorry.

            On which note...

 

           Oxana peers at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. 'I really am a monster now.' She touches the jagged stitches on her cheekbone, then angles her face to inspect the scabbed remains of her ear.

            'Don't pick,' Eve says, smoothing night cream into her forehead. 'The doctor said the bruising and swelling would take time to go down.'

            'It itches like crazy.'

            'That means it's healing. Stop picking.'

            Oxana watches as Eve replaces the lid on the cream and carefully positions it amongst her other cosmetics. 'I'm glad we're going away,' she says. 'People look at my face, and...'

            Eve's eyes find Oxana's in the mirror. 'Actually,' she says. 'I quite like you all roughed up.'

            'Really?'

            'Mmm. My tomcat.'

            Later, they're in bed, their faces dimly illuminated by the light from Oxana's phone. She's propped up against a pillow, playing an online chess match. 'Yes,' she murmurs eventually. 'Yes.'

            'You won?' Eve asks sleepily.

            'I played a variation of the Alekhine Defence. He went for it and I crushed him.' She lays her phone on the sheet, and yawns. 'Do you think I've changed? I mean, deep down?'

            'Yes, angel. I do.'

            'Because I feel I'm the same person I always have been. Like I've developed strategies. I go through the motions. But I can't escape me.'

            'You're never not going to be you, babe. But the 'you' that you are, that'll change. Has changed.'

            Oxana closes her eyes. 'I watch myself. I say to myself: what should I do to please Eve? What would a normal person do for someone who loved her. And then I try to do that thing. But it's a performance. It comes from my brain, not my heart. I try and reach my heart, but I can't. I can't... reach it.' A tear runs down her cheek.

            'Sweetheart. Come here.'

            'Everything I do is calculated. Everything's a move, even this conversation. I'm listening to myself speak, watching myself weep... It's all fake. I'm fake. If I was real, I could feel, but...' She sniffs noisily, smearing snot on Eve's shoulder. 'I'm just manipulating you. I want to feel, I want to love you, but I just... don't know how. Even when we're having sex. Even then, I'm watching myself do this, do that, do the next thing, when all I want is to lose myself in you, to fucking... obliterate myself in you.' She's sobbing now, her shoulders heaving. 'God, I'm disgusting.'

            'Angel,' Eve holds Oxana's shaking body. "Angel. Can't you see? The trying and the wanting. That is loving. That's all I want. That's all I've ever wanted.'

            Oxana doesn't move. 'I'm sorry,' she whispers. 'I'm so sorry. I’m not…'

            'Babe, you were nearly killed. You were shot, practically drowned... You wouldn't be human if you weren't affected by that.'

            'I wonder if I am, sometimes. Human, I mean.'

            Eve strokes Oxana's hair. 'You're human enough for me, I promise. Now go to sleep.'