‘Really?’ said Mrs Electric Blue. She made the word sound like some new and frosty brand of toothpaste.
‘Yes. My son’s got a tutor. He’s trying for St Oswald’s.’
Blueeyedboy hid a grimace behind his hand, but not before Ma had noticed.
‘He’s going to be a scholarship boy.’ That was bending the truth a little. Dr Peacock’s offer to tutor Ben was payment for his cooperation in his research. His ability remained, as yet, a matter for conjecture.
Still, Mrs Electric Blue was impressed, which was probably Ma’s intention.
But now blueeyedboy was trying not to be sick as waves of nausea washed over him, flooding him with that market smell, that sludgy-brown stink of the vitamin drink; of split tomatoes gone to white-lipped mush, and half-gone apples (The brown’s the sweetest part, she’d say), and black bananas and cabbage leaves. It wasn’t just the memory, or the sound of her heels on the cobbled street, or even her voice with its high-bred yarking syllables —
It’s not my fault, he told himself. I’m not a bad person. Really, I’m not.
But that didn’t stop the sick smell, or the colours, or the pain in his head. Instead it made it weirdly worse, like driving past something dead in the road and wishing you’d looked at it properly —
Blue is the colour of murder, he thought, and the sick, panicky feeling abated — a little. He thought of Mrs Electric Blue lying dead on a mortuary slab with a tag on her toe, like a nicely labelled Christmas present; and every time he thought of it, the sludgy stink receded again, and the headache dimmed to a dull throb, and the colours around him brightened a little, all merging together to make one blue — oxygen blue, gas-jet blue, circuit-board blue, autopsy blue —
He tried a smile. It felt OK. The rotten-fruit smell had disappeared, although it did come back at regular intervals throughout the whole of blueeyedboy’s childhood, as did the phrases his mother spoke that day to Mrs Electric Blue —
Benjamin’s a good boy.
We’re so proud of Benjamin.
And always with the same, sick knowledge that he was not a good boy; that he was crooked in every cell — that, worse still, he liked it that way —
And even then, he must have known —
That one day he would kill her.
Post comment:
ClairDeLune: Very good, blueeyedboy!
chrysalisbaby: awesome U R so cool
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
10
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on :
Posted at: 21.43 on Monday, February 4
Status: public
Mood: deluded
Listening to: Murray Head: ‘So Strong’
That year, things went from bad to worse. Ma was mean, money was tight and no one, not even Benjamin, seemed to be able to please her. She no longer worked for Mrs White, and if Mrs White ever came to her stall at the market, Ma made sure someone else served her instead, and pretended not to notice.
Then there were the rumours that had begun to circulate. Blueeyedboy was never sure what exactly was being said, but he was aware of the whispers and of the sudden silences that sometimes fell whenever Mrs White approached, and of the way the neighbours looked at him when he was at the market. He thought it might have something to do with Feather Dunne, a gossip and a busybody who had moved into the Village last spring, who had befriended Mrs White and who often helped out with Emily, although why she should scorn blueeyedboy’s ma was still a mystery to him. But whatever it was, the poison spread. Soon, everyone seemed to be whispering.
Blueeyedboy wondered if he should try to talk to Mrs White, to ask her what had happened. He’d always liked her best of Ma’s ladies, and she had always been nice to him. Surely, if he approached her, she’d change her mind about letting Ma go, and they could be friends again —
One day he came home from school early and saw Mrs White’s car parked outside. A surge of relief came over him. They were talking again, he told himself. Whatever their quarrel had been, it was over.
But when he looked through the window he saw, instead of Mrs White, Mr White standing there beside the china cabinet.
Blueeyedboy had never had much to do with Mr White. He’d seen him in the Village, of course, and at St Oswald’s, where he worked, but never like this, never at home, and never without his wife, of course —
He must have come straight from St Oswald’s. He was wearing a long coat and carrying a satchel. A man of middle height and build; darkish hair turning to grey; small, neat hands; blue eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses. A mild, soft-spoken, diffident man, never taking centre stage. But now Mr White was different. Blueeyedboy could feel it. Living with Ma had given him a special sensitivity to any sign of tension or rage. And Mr White was angry; blueeyedboy could see it in the way he stood, tensed, immobile, under control.
Blueeyedboy edged closer, making sure to keep well out of sight under the line of the privet hedge. Through a gap in the branches he could see Ma, her profile slightly averted, standing next to Mr White. She was wearing her high-heeled shoes — he could tell, they always made her look taller. Even so, her head only reached the curve of Mr White’s shoulder. She raised her eyes to his, and for a moment they stood without moving, Ma smiling, Mr White holding her gaze.
And then Mr White reached into his coat and pulled out something that blueeyedboy thought at first was a paperback. Ma took it, split the spine, and then blueeyedboy realized that it was a wad of banknotes, snappy and fresh and unmarked —
But why was Mr White paying Ma? And why did it make him so angry?
It was then that a thought came to blueeyedboy; one of curiously adult clarity. What if the father he had never known — Mr Blue Eyes — was Mr White? What if Mrs White had found out? It would explain her hostility as well as the talk in the Village. It would explain so many things — Ma’s job at St Oswald’s, where he taught; her open resentment of his wife; and now this gift of money —
Shielded from view by the privet hedge, blueeyedboy craned his neck to see; to detect in this man’s features the faintest reflection of his own —
The movement must have alerted him. For a moment their eyes met. Mr White’s eyes widened suddenly, and blueeyedboy saw him flinch — which was when our hero turned and fled. The question of whether Mr White could have been his father or not was entirely secondary to the fact that Ma would certainly flay him alive if she caught him spying on her.
But as far as he could tell, Mr White said nothing to Ma about seeing a boy at the window. Instead Ma seemed in good spirits, and ceased to complain about money, and as the weeks and months passed without any further disruption, blueeyedboy’s suspicions increased, at last becoming a certainty —