Posted at: 21.03 on Saturday, February 2
Status: restricted
Mood: caustic
Listening to: Voltaire: ‘Almost Human’
So, she finds me almost attractive. That moves me more than words can say. To know that she thinks of me that way — or that she did, for a moment, at least — makes it almost seem worthwhile —
When Nigel came round on the day he died I was developing photographs. My iPod was playing at full blast, which was why I missed the knock at the door.
‘B.B.!’ Ma’s voice was imperious.
I hate it when she calls me that.
‘What?’ Her hearing is eerily good. ‘What are you doing in there? It’s been hours.’
‘Just sorting out some negatives.’
Ma has a range of silences. This one was disapproving: Ma dislikes my photography, considers it a waste of time. Besides, my darkroom is private; the lock on the door keeps her out. It isn’t healthy, so she says; no boy should have secrets from his ma.
‘So what is it, Ma?’ I said at last. The silence was starting to get to me. For a moment it deepened; grew thoughtful. It is at these moments that Ma is at her most dangerous. She had something up her sleeve, I knew. Something that didn’t bode well for me.
‘Ma?’ I said. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Your brother’s here to see you,’ she said.
Well, I’m sure you can guess what happened next. I suppose she felt I deserved it. After all, I had forfeited her protection by keeping secrets from her. It didn’t quite happen as it did in my fic, but we have to allow for poetic licence, don’t we? And Nigel had a temper, and I was never the type to fight back.
I suppose I could have lied my way out of it, as I have so often before, but by then I think it was too late; something had been set in motion, something that could not be stopped. Besides, my brother was arrogant. So sure of his crude and bludgeoning tactics that he never considered the fact that there might be other, more subtle ways than brute force of winning the battle between us. Nigel was never subtle. Perhaps that’s why Albertine loved him. He was, after all, so different from her, so open and straightforward; loyal as a good dog.
Is that what you thought, Albertine? Is that what you saw in him? A reflection of lost innocence? What can I say? You were wrong. Nigel wasn’t innocent. He was a killer, just like me, though I’m sure he never told you that. After all, what would he have said? That for all his pretended honesty, he was as fake as both of us? That he’d taken the role you offered him, and played you like a professional?
The funeral lasted much too long. They always do, and when the sandwiches and the sausage rolls had finally been cleared away, there was still the coming home to endure, and the photographs to be brought out, and the sighs and the tears and the platitudes: as if she’d ever cared for him, as if Ma had cared for anyone in all her life but Gloria Green —
At least it was quick. The Number One, the greatest hit, the all-time favourite platitude, closely followed by such classic tracks as: At least he didn’t suffer, and It’s wicked, that road, how fast they drive. The scene of my brother’s death now bears a Diana-style floral display — though of somewhat more modest proportions, thank God.
I know. I went on the pilgrimage. My mother, Adèle, Maureen and I; Yours Truly in his colours, Ma regal, all in black, with a veil, reeking of L’Heure Bleue, of course, and carrying, of all things, a stuffed dog with a wreath in its mouth — putting the fun into funeral —
‘I don’t think I can bear to look,’ she says, face averted, her eagle eye taking in the offerings at the roadside shrine, mentally calculating the cost of a spray of carnations, a begonia plant, a bunch of sad chrysanthemums picked up at a roadside garage.
‘They’d better not be from her,’ she says, quite unnecessarily. Indeed, there is no indication that Nigel’s girl has ever even been there, still less that she brought flowers.
My mother, however, is unconvinced. She sends me to investigate and to purge any gift not bearing a card, and then deposits her stuffed dog by the side of the road with a teary sigh.
Flanked by Adèle and Maureen, who each hold an elbow, she totters away on six-inch heels that look like sharpened pencils, and produce a sound that makes my tastebuds cramp, like chalk against a blackboard.
‘At least you’ve got B.B., Gloria, love.’
Greatest Hits, Number Four.
‘Yes. I don’t know what I’d do without him.’ Her eyes are hard and expressionless. At the centre of each one is a small blue pinprick of light. It takes me some time to realize that this is my reflection. ‘B.B. would never let me down. He would never cheat on me.’
Did she really say those words? I may have just imagined it. And yet, that is exactly what she considers this betrayal to be. Bad enough, to lose her son to another woman, she thinks. But to lose him to that girl, of all girls —
Nigel should have known better, of course. No one escapes from Gloria Green. My mother is like the pitcher plant, Nepenthes distillatoria, which draws in its victims with sweetness, only to drown them in acid later when their struggles have exhausted them.
I ought to know; I’ve been living with her for forty-two years, and the reason I’ve stayed undigested so far is that the parasite needs a decoy, a lure: a creature that sits on the lip of the plant to persuade all the others there’s nothing to fear —
I know. It’s hardly a glorious task. But it certainly beats being eaten alive. It pays to be loyal to Ma, you see. It pays to keep up appearances. Besides, wasn’t I her favourite, trained in the womb as a murderer? And, having first disposed of Mal, why should I spare the other two?
I always thought when I was a boy that the justice system was the wrong way round. First, a man commits a crime. Then (assuming he’s caught) comes the sentence. Five, ten, twenty years, depending on the crime, of course. But as so many criminals fail to anticipate the cost of repaying such a debt, surely it makes more sense, rather than crime on credit, to pay for one’s felony up front, and to do the time before the crime, after which, without prosecution, you could safely wreak havoc at your leisure.
Imagine the time and money saved on police investigations and on lengthy trials; not to mention the unnecessary anxiety and distress suffered by the perpetrator, never knowing if he’ll be caught, or has got away with it. Under this system I believe that many of the more serious crimes could actually be avoided — as only a very few would accept to spend a lifetime in prison for the sake of a single murder. In fact, it’s far more likely that, halfway through the sentence, the would-be offender would opt to go free — still innocent of any crime, though he might have to lose his deposit. Or maybe by then he would have earned enough time to pay for a minor felony — an aggravated assault, perhaps, or maybe a rape or a robbery —
See? It’s a perfect system. It’s moral, cheap and practical. It even allows for that change of heart. It offers absolution. Sin and redemption all in one; cost-free karma at the Jesus Christ superstore.
Which is just my way of saying this: I’ve already done my time. Over forty years of it. And now, with my release date due —
The universe owes me a murder.
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