At last we paused at the garden gate. By then it felt almost companionable: victim and predator side by side, close enough to touch.
‘Can you still do it?’ I said at last. ‘That — you know — that thing you do.’
He gave a short, percussive laugh. ‘It’s not a skill you lose,’ he said. ‘In fact, it gets easier every time.’
‘Like murder,’ I said.
He laughed again.
I fumbled for the catch on the gate. Around me, the milky, troubled air smelt of fresh earth and rotting leaves. I struggled with myself to keep calm, but I could feel myself slipping away, becoming someone else, as I do every time he looks at me.
‘You aren’t going to ask me in? Very wise. People might talk.’
‘Another time, perhaps,’ I said.
‘Whenever you want, Albertine.’
As I moved towards the house I could feel him watching me, sensed his eyes on the back of my neck as I fumbled for the door key. I can always tell when I am being watched. People give themselves away. He was too silent, too motionless, to be doing anything else but staring.
‘I know you’re there,’ I said, without turning round.
Not a word from blueeyedboy.
I was almost tempted to ask him in, then, just to hear his reaction. He thinks I am afraid of him. In fact, the opposite is true. He is like a little boy playing with a wasp in a jar: fascinated, but terribly afraid that at some point the trapped creature will escape its confinement and take revenge. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that something so small could inspire such unease? And yet, Nigel, too, was afraid of wasps. Such a little thing, you’d think, to drive a man into a panic. A blob of fuzz; a drone of wings; armed with nothing more than a sting and a tiny amount of irritant.
You think I don’t see how you’re playing me. Well, maybe I see more than you think. I see your self-hatred. I see your fear. Most of all, I see what you want, deep down in your secret heart. But what you want and what you need are not necessarily the same. Desire and compulsion are two different things.
I know you’re still out there, watching me. I can almost feel your heart. I can tell how fast it’s beating now, like that of an animal caught in a trap. Well, I know how that feels. To have to pretend I’m someone else; to live every moment in fear of the past. I’ve lived this way for over twenty years, hoping to be left alone . . .
But now I’m ready to show myself. At last, from this dried-up chrysalis, something is about to emerge. So — if you’re as guilty as you say, you’d better run, while there’s still time. Run, like the helpless rat you are. Run as far and as fast as you can —
Run for your life, blueeyedboy.
8
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 23.18 on Saturday, February 16
Status: restricted
Mood: cynical
Listening to: Wheatus: ‘Teenage Dirtbag’
I told you before. Nothing ends. Nothing really begins either, except in the kind of story that starts with Once upon a time, long, long ago, and in which, in blatant defiance of the human condition, they all live happily ever after. My tastes are rather more humble. I’d settle for outliving Ma. Oh, and the chance to stamp on those dogs. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. The rest of them — my brothers, the Whites, even Dr Peacock — are simply the icing on the cake; a cake long past its sell-by date, and sour under the frosting.
But before I can hope for forgiveness, I have to make the confession. Perhaps that’s why I’m here, after all. This screen, like that of the confessional, serves a double purpose. And yes, I’m aware that the fatal flaw in most of our fictional bad guys is that common desire to confess; to strut; to reveal to the hero his master plan, only to be foiled at last —
That’s why I’m not going public on this. Not yet, anyway. All of these restricted posts are accessible only by password. But maybe later, when it’s done and I’m sitting on a beach somewhere, drinking Mai Tais and watching the pretty girls go by, I’ll mail you the password; I’ll give you the truth. Maybe I owe you that, Albertine. And maybe one day you’ll forgive me for everything I did to you. Most likely you won’t. But that’s OK. I’ve been living with guilt for a long time. A little more won’t kill me.
Things really began to fall apart the summer that followed my brother’s death. A long and turbulent summer, all dragonflies and thunderstorms. I was still only seventeen, a month from my eighteenth birthday, and the weight of my mother’s attention now sat like a permanent thundercloud over my life. She had always been demanding. Now that my brothers were out of the way, she was viciously critical of every little thing I did, and I dreamed of running away, like Dad —
Ma had been through a difficult patch. The business with Nigel had done something to her. Nothing you would have noticed at first; but living with her as I did, I knew that all was not right with Gloria Green. It had started with lethargy at first; a slow, dull state of recovery. She would sit staring into space for hours; would eat whole packets of biscuits; would talk to people who weren’t there; or sleep away whole afternoons before going to bed at eight or nine . . .
Grief sometimes does that to you, Maureen Pike explained to me. Of course, Maureen was in her element then, coming to see us every day, bringing home-made cakes and sound advice. Eleanor, too, offered support, recommending St John’s Wort and group therapy. Adèle brought gossip and platitudes. Time heals all things. Life must go on.
Tell that to the cancer ward.
Then, as the summer waned, Ma had entered another phase. The lethargy had given way to a manic kind of activity. Maureen explained the phenomenon, which she said was called displacement; and welcomed it as necessary to the healing process. At that time, Maureen’s daughter was doing a degree in psychology, and Maureen had embraced the world of psychoanalysis with the same self-important, lolloping zeal she gave to church fêtes, Junior Fun Days, collections for the elderly, her book group, her work at the coffee shop and ridding Malbry of paedophiles.
In any case, Ma was busy that month: working five days on the market stall, cooking, cleaning, making plans, ticking off time like an impatient schoolmistress — and, of course, keeping an eye on Yours Truly.
I’d had an easy time until then. For nearly a month, enshrouded with grief, she’d barely even noticed me. Now she made up for that in spades: questioning my every move; making the vitamin drink twice a day and worrying about everything. If I coughed, she assumed I was at death’s door. If I was late, I’d been murdered or mugged. And when she wasn’t fretting over all the things that might happen to me, she was rigid with fear over what I might do — that I’d find myself in trouble, somehow, that she’d lose me to drink, or drugs, or a girl —
But there was no escape for blueeyedboy. Three months had passed since the incident when Ma had hit me with the plate, and after Nigel failed her, Ma’s obsession with success had grown to monstrous proportions. I’d missed my school exams, of course; but an appeal by Ma (on compassionate grounds) had earned me a review of my case. Malbry College was where she believed I should continue my studies. She had it all planned out for me. A year to re-sit those exams; and then I could start afresh, she said. She’d always dreamed of one of her boys entering the medical profession. I was her only hope, she said; and with a ruthless disregard for my wishes — indeed, for my ability — she began to mark out my future career.