Blueeyedboy

by Joanne Harris

  It was years before I saw her again. By then, like myself, she was someone else. We met almost as strangers; made no reference to the past; talked every week at our creative-writing group; then she wheedled her way into my life until she found the right place to strike –

  You thought she was in danger from me? Quite the opposite, I fear. I told you, I’m incapable of harming as much as a hair on her head. In fiction, I can do as I please; in real life, I’m condemned to grovel before those people I most hate and despise.

  Not for very much longer, though. My death list gets shorter day by day. Tricia Goldblum; Eleanor Vine; Graham Peacock; Feather Dunne. Rivals, enemies, parasites – all struck down by the friendly hand of Fate. Well, Fate, or Destiny, or whatever you want to call it. The point is it’s never my fault. All I do is write the words.

  The moving finger writes, and, having writ –

  But that’s not strictly true, is it? To wish for the death of an enemy, however well-crafted the fantasy, is not the same as taking a life. Perhaps this is my real gift – not the synaesthesia that has caused me so much misery, but this – the power to unleash disaster on those who have offended me –

  Have you guessed what I want of you yet, Albertine? It really is very simple, you know. As I said, you’ve done it before. The line between the word and the deed is all about execution.

  Execute. Interesting word, with its spiky wintergreen syllables. But the cute makes it strangely appealing; sentence to be carried out, not by a man in a black hood, but by an army of puppies . . .

  You mean you really haven’t guessed what you’re going to do for me? Oh, Albertine. Shall I tell you? After everything you’ve done so far, after all we’ve been through together – Pick a card, any card –

  You’re going to kill my mother.

  PART SIX

  green

  1

  You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on:

  badguysrock@webjournal.com

  Posted at: 01.39 on Friday, February 22

  Status: public

  Mood: nasty

  Listening to: Gloria Gaynor: ‘I Will Survive’

  She has changed her name a number of times, but folk still call her Gloria Green. Names are like tags on a suitcase, she thinks, or maps to show people where you’ve been, and where you think you’re going. She has never been anywhere. Just round and round this neighbourhood, like a dog chasing its tail, running blindly back to herself to start the whole charade again.

  But names are such portentous things. Words have so much power. The way they roll like sweets in the mouth; the hidden meanings inside each one. She has always been good at crosswords, at acronyms and wordplay. It’s a talent she has passed on to her sons, though only one of them knows it. And she has an immense respect for books; although she never reads fiction, preferring to leave that kind of thing to her middle son, who, despite his stammer, is brighter than she’ll ever be – too bright, perhaps, for his own good.

  His own name, in Anglo-Saxon, means The Flaming One – and though she is terribly proud of him, she also knows he’s dangerous. There’s something inside him that doesn’t respond; that refuses to see the world as it is. Mrs Brannigan, the schoolteacher at Abbey Road, says he will grow out of it, and tacitly implies that if Gloria attended church on Sundays, then maybe her son would be less troublesome. But as far as blueeyedboy’s Ma is concerned, Mrs Brannigan is full of shit. The last thing blueeyedboy needs, she thinks, is another helping of fantasy.

  She suddenly wonders what things would have been like if Peter Winter hadn’t died. Would it have made a difference for blueeyedboy and his brothers to have had some fatherly influence in their unruly lives? All those football matches they missed, the games of cricket in the park, the Airfix models, the toy trains, the fry-ups in the mornings?

  But there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Peter was a parasite, a fat and lazy freeloader good for nothing but spending Gloria’s money. The best he could do was die on her, and even then, he’d needed some help. But no one walks out on Gloria Green; and surprisingly, the insurance paid up; and it turned out so easy, after all – just a pinch on a tube between finger and thumb as Peter lay in hospital –

  She wonders now if that was a mistake. Blueeyedboy needed a father. Someone to sort him out. To teach him a sense of discipline. But Peter couldn’t have coped with three boys, let alone such a gifted one. His successor, Mr Blue Eyes, was never even an option. And Patrick White – who, in all ways but one, would have made the perfect father – was, sadly, already spoken for; a gentle, artistic soul whose offence was a lapse of judgement.

  Guilt made Patrick vulnerable. Blackmail made him generous. Through a judicious combination of both, he proved a good source of income for years. He found Ma a job; he helped them out; and Gloria never blamed him when, in the end, he let her go. No, she blamed his wife for that, with her candles and her china dolls, and when at last she saw her chance to serve Mrs White a backhanded turn, she told her the secret she’d kept for so long; setting in motion a chain of events that resulted in murder and suicide.

  Butin spite of his parentage, blueeyedboy is different. Perhaps because he feels things more. Perhaps that’s why he daydreams so much. God knows, she has tried to protect him. To convince the world he is too dull to hurt. But blueeyedboy seeks out suffering like a pig rooting for truffles, and it’s all she can do to keep up with him, to correct his mistakes and clean up his mess.

  She remembers a day at the seaside once, when all her boys were very young. Nigel is off somewhere on his own. Benjamin is four years old and blueeyedboy nearly seven. Both are eating ice cream, and blueeyedboy says that his doesn’t taste right, as if just watching his brother eat is enough to diminish the flavour.

  Blueeyedboy is sensitive. She knows this only too well by now. A slap on another boy’s wrist makes him flinch; a crab in a bucket makes him cry. It’s like some kind of voodoo; and it brings out at the same time both her cruel and her compassionate side. How is he going to manage, she thinks, if he can’t cope with reality?

  You have to remember it’s only pretend, she snaps, more harshly than she means to. He stares at her from round blue eyes as she holds his brother in her arms. At her feet the blue bucket is already beginning to stink.

  ‘Don’t play with that. It’s nasty,’ she says.

  But blueeyedboy simply looks at her, wiping ice cream from his mouth. He knows dead things are nasty, but he still can’t seem to look away. She feels a stab of annoyance. He collected the damn things. What does he want her to do with them now?

  ‘You shouldn’t have caught those animals if you didn’t want them to die. Now you’ve upset your brother.’

  In fact, little Ben is completely absorbed in finishing his ice cream, which makes her even more annoyed (although she knows it’s irrational), because he should have been the susceptible one – after all, he is the youngest. Blueeyedboy ought to be looking out for him instead of making a fuss, she thinks.

  But blueeyedboy is a special case, pathologically sensitive; and in spite of her efforts to toughen him up, to teach him to look after himself, it never seems to work, somehow, and she always ends up looking after him.

  Maureen thinks he is playing games. Typical middle child, she says in her supercilious tone. Jealous, sullen, attention-seeking. Even Eleanor thinks so; though Catherine White believes there’s more to him. Catherine likes to encourage him; which is why Gloria has stopped bringing blueeyedboy to work, substituting Benjamin, who plays so nicely with his toys and never seems to get in the way –

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ blueeyedboy says. ‘I didn’t know they were going to die.’

  ‘Everything dies, ‘Gloria snaps, and now his eyes are swollen with tears and he looks as if he is going to faint.

  A part of her wants to comfort him, but knows that this is a dangerous indulgence. To give him attention at this stage is to encourage him in his weakness. Her sons all need to be strong, she thinks. How el
se will they take care of her?

  ‘Now get rid of that mess,’ she tells him, with a nod in the direction of the blue bucket. ‘Go put it back in the sea, or something.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I d-don’t want to. It smells.’

  ‘You’d better. Or God help me, you’ll pay.’

  Blueeyedboy looks at the bucket. Five hours in the sun have brought about a rapid fermentation in the contents. The fishy, salt-water vegetable smell has turned to a suffocating reek. It makes him gag. He begins to whimper helplessly.

  ‘Please, Ma—-’

  ‘Don’t give me that!’

  At last, now, his brother is crying. A high, fretful, icy wail. Gloria turns on her hapless son. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she says. ‘As if I didn’t have enough to deal with already.’

  She shoots out a hand to slap his face. She’s wearing cork-soled sandals. As she snakes forward to hit him again, she kicks over the blue bucket, spilling the contents over her foot.

  To Gloria, this is the final straw. She dumps Benjamin on to the ground and grabs hold of blueeyedboy with both hands, the better to take care of business. He tries to escape, but Ma is too strong; Ma is all wire and cables, and she digs her fingers into his hair and forces him down inch by inch, pushing his face into the sand and into that terrible, yeasty mess of dead fish and fake coconut, and there’s ice cream melting over his wrist and dripping on to the brown sand, but he dare not let go of his ice cream, because if he does, she’ll kill him for sure, just as he killed those things on the beach, the crabs, the shrimp, the snail, and the baby flatfish with its mouth pulled down in a crescent, and he tries very hard not to breathe, but there’s sand in his mouth, and sand in his eyes, and he’s crying and puking and Ma screams: ‘Swallow it, you little shit, just like you swallowed your brother!’

  Then, suddenly, it’s over. She stops. She wonders what has happened to her. Kids can drive you crazy, she knows, but what on earth was she thinking of?

  ‘Get up,’ she says to blueeyedboy.

  He pushes himself up from the ground, still holding his melted ice-cream cone. His face is smeared with sand and muck. His nose is bleeding a little. He wipes it with his free hand; stares up at Ma with brimming eyes. She says: ‘Don’t be a baby. No one got killed. Now finish your fucking ice cream.’

  Post comment:

  Albertine: (post deleted).

  blueeyedboy: I know. Most of the time, words fail me, too . . .

  2

  You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.

  Posted at: 01.45 on Friday, February 22

  Status: restricted

  Mood: uncertain

  At last, a version of the truth. Why bother, at this stage in the game? He must know it’s too late to go back. Both of us have shown our hand. Is he trying to provoke me again? Or is this a plea for compassion?

  For the last two days both of us have stayed indoors, suffering from the same imaginary bout of flu. Clair tells me by e-mail that Brendan hasn’t been to work. The Zebra, too, has been closed for two days. I didn’t want him coming here. Not before I was ready.

  Tonight I came back for the last time. I couldn’t sleep in my own bed. My house is too exposed. So easy to start a fire there; to set up a gas leak; an accident. He wouldn’t even have to watch. The Zebra is more difficult, built as it is on the main road. Security cameras on the roof. Not that it matters any more. My car is loaded. My things are packed. I could set off immediately.

  You thought I’d stay and fight him? I’m afraid I’m not a fighter. I’ve spent all my life running away, and it’s far too late to change that now. But it’s strange, to be leaving the Zebra. Strange and sad, after all this time. I’ll miss it; more than that, I’ll miss the person I was when I worked there. Even Nigel only half-understood the purpose of that persona; he thought the real Bethan was someone else.

  The real Bethan? Don’t make me laugh. Inside the nest of Russian dolls, there’s nothing but painted faces. Still, it was a good place. A safe place, while it lasted. I park the car by the side of the church and walk along the deserted street. Most of the houses are dark now, like flowers closing for the night. But the neon sign of the Zebra shines out, spilling its petals of light on the snow; and it feels so good to be coming home, even for a little while –

  There was a present waiting for me. An orchid in a pot, with a card that reads: To Albertine. He grows them himself; he told me so. Somehow that seems very like him.

  I go inside. I log on at once. Sure enough, he’s still online.

  I hope you like the orchid, he writes.

  I wasn’t going to answer him. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do that. But what harm could it do now, after all?

  It’s beautiful, I type. It’s true. The flower is green and purple-throated, like a toxic species of bird. And the scent is like that of a hyacinth, but sweeter and more powdery.

  Now he knows I’m here, of course. I expect that’s why he sent the orchid. But I know he can’t leave until his usual time of a quarter to five, not without alerting his Ma. Leave now, and she would ask questions, and blueeyedboy would do anything to avoid making Ma suspicious. That keeps me safe till four thirty at least. I can indulge myself awhile.

  It’s a Zygopetalum ‘Brilliant Blue’. One of the fragrant varieties. Try not to kill it, won’t you? Oh, and what did you think of my fic, by the way?

  I think you’re twisted, I type back.

  He answers with an emoticon, a little yellow smiley face.

  Why do you tell these stories? I ask.

  Because I want you to understand. His voice is very clear in my mind, as clear as if he were in the room. There’s no going back from murder, Beth.

  You should know, I rattle back.

  That emoticon again. I suppose I ought to feel flattered, he says. But you know that’s only fiction. I could never have done those things, any more than I could have thrown that rock – my wrist still hurts, by the way. I guess I’m lucky it wasn’t my head –

  What is he trying to make me believe? That it’s all coincidence? Eleanor, Dr Peacock, Nigel – all his enemies wiped from the board by nothing but a lucky chance?

  Well, no, not quite, he answers. Someone was working on my behalf.

  Who?

  For a long time he does not reply. There’s nothing there but the little blue square of the cursor blinking patiently in the message box. I wonder if his connection has failed. I wonder if I should log on again. Then, just as I am preparing to sign out, a message arrives in my inbox.

  You really don’t know who I mean?

  I have no idea what you’re talking about.

  Another of those silences. Then comes an automated message from the server – Someone has posted on badguysrock! – and a note which simply says:

  Read this.

  3

  You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on:

  badguysrock@webjournal.com

  Posted at: 01.53 on Friday, February 22

  Status: public

  Mood: hungry

  Listening to: The Zombies: ‘She’s Not There’

  He calls her Miss Chameleon Blue. You can call her Albertine. Or Bethan. Or even Emily. Whatever you choose to name her, she has no colour of her own. Like the chameleon, she adapts to suit the situation. And she wants to be all things to all men – saviour, lover, nemesis. She gives them what she thinks they want. She gives them what she thinks they need. She likes to cook, and in this way she feeds her need to nurture. She can recognize all of their favourites: knows when to add or hold the cream; senses their cravings almost before they themselves are aware of them.

  It is of course for this very reason that blueeyedboy avoids her. Blueeyedboy used to be fat, and though that was twenty years ago, he knows how easily he could go back to the boy he used to be. Chameleon knows him too well. His fears, his dreams, his appetites. And he knows that certain cravings were never meant to be satisfied. To look at them directly would be to risk the m
ost terrible consequences. So he uses a series of mirrors, like Perseus with the Gorgon. And, safe behind the darkened glass, he watches, waits, and bides his time.

  Some people are born to watch, he knows.

  Some people are mirrors, born to reflect.

  Some people are weapons, trained to kill.

  Does the mirror choose what to reflect? Does the weapon select the victim? Chameleon doesn’t know about that. She never had any ideas of her own, not even when she was a child. Let’s face it, she barely has memories. She has no idea of who she is, and she changes her role from day to day. But she’s trying to make an impression, he knows. She wants to leave her mark on him.

  Impress. Impression. Impressionist. What interesting words. To provoke admiration; to make a statement; to leave an indentation. One who pretends to be someone else. One who paints a picture using only little dabs of light. One who creates an illusion – with smoke and mirrors, with portents and dreams.

  Yes, dreams. That’s where it all begins. In dreams, in fic, in fantasy. And blueeyedboy’s business is fantasy; his territory, cyberspace. A place for all seasons, all seasonings; a place for all flavours of desire. Desire creates its own universe; or at least it does here, on badguysrock. The name is nicely equivocal – is it an island on to which penitents are cast away, or is it a haven for villains worldwide, in which to indulge our perversions?

  Everyone here has something to hide. For one, it is his helplessness, his cowardice, his fear of the world. For another, an upright citizen with a responsible job, a lovely home and a husband as bland as low-fat spread, it’s a secret craving for dark meat: for the troubled, the wicked, the dangerous. For a third, who yearns to be thin, it’s the fact that her weight is just a kind of excuse; a blubbery blanket against a world she knows will eat her otherwise. For a fourth, it’s the girl he killed the day he crashed his motorbike: eight years old, on her way to school, crossing on a blind bend. And along he comes at fifty an hour, still tanked up from last night, and when he skids and hits the wall he thinks: That’s it, game over, dude. Except that the game keeps on going, and just at the moment he feels his spine give way like a piece of string, he notices a single shoe lying on its side in the road and wonders vaguely who the hell would leave a perfectly good shoe in the gutter like that, and then he sees the rest of her, and twenty years later, that’s all he can see; and the dreams still come with such clarity, and he hates himself, and he hates the world, but most of all what he really hates is their terrible, fucking sympathy –