Killing God

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘… I didn't want to… I didn't…’

  As I stroke her hair, letting her weep, her tear-sodden words sink slowly into my mind:

  … I couldn't let him do it, love

  … not again…

  … I had to stop him…

  … not again…

  And even if I didn't know it before (and I'm not sure that I didn't), I know it now: she knows what happened. She knows what Dad did to me. She's known it all along. That's why she killed him. She must have heard his voice when she came upstairs. She must have got the gun from her room, fearing the worst… and then she'd come into my room and seen the worst: me and Dad together. She'd seen me pushing him away, my dressing gown undone. And she'd seen the terror of the other Dawn in me, and – just like the other Dawn – she'd thought it was happening again.

  She couldn't let him do it.

  Not again.

  ‘How did you know, Mum?’ I ask quietly.

  She shudders. ‘What?’

  ‘About Dad, you know… Dad and me… how did you know?’

  She looks at me, trembling, wiping snot and tears from her face. ‘I'm so sorry… I didn't… I should have done something…’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  She looks away from me, looking down, and I feel her putting her hand on my leg. I look down. She moves her hand, gently fingering the bloodstained hem of my dressing gown.

  Her voice, when she speaks, is a broken whisper. ‘I thought it was just you at first… the blood on your dressing gown… I thought you were just having your period. The sheets too… I didn't think…’ She pauses, staring curiously as a single tear falls from her eye and drops on my leg. She reaches out and touches it with her bloodied fingertip. The teardrop turns pink. ‘He was bloody…’ she murmurs. ‘He was… in the night… I saw it. And the terrible things he said… in his sleep…’ She shakes her head. ‘There were other things too… I can't tell you. But I knew. And then he left… I just… I didn't want to believe it… I couldn't…’ She looks up at me, her face distraught. ‘I loved him, Dawn… I didn't know what to do… I'm so sorry… I just didn't…’

  ‘It's OK, Mum,’ I say softly. ‘It's all right…’

  ‘No,’ she sobs. ‘It's not all right… how can it be all right? How could he do that to you? He loved you… how could he do that?’

  ‘I don't think he knew what he was doing, Mum… he was too… I don't know. He was all messed up.’

  ‘That's no excuse.’

  ‘I know…’

  She takes hold of my hand and stares hard into my eyes. ‘I couldn't let him hurt you again, Dawn. You understand that, don't you?’

  I look back at her, not knowing what to say. What can I say? She's just killed the man she loves… she killed him because she thought she had to. She thought she was saving me. But she was wrong.

  I can't tell her that, can I? It would kill her.

  But if I don't tell her…?

  If I don't tell her the truth, she'll always believe that Dad was unforgiveable. She'll never know that maybe, just maybe, there was a part of him that was still worth loving.

  How can I deny her that?

  And how can I deny him a chance for her forgiveness?

  Forgiveness…

  I look at him now, just slumped there, cold and dead in the chair. And I'd like to believe that there's still something there… something, somewhere… something of Dad that somehow knows what's in my heart. I'd like to believe that he can still hear me.

  I forgive you, Dad.

  I forgive you.

  But I can't.

  There is nothing else. This is it. This world, this life, this time – this is all there is.

  Life and death.

  Death…

  It leaves things behind.

  And that's what I'm thinking now, as I sit here in this room, on this floor, staring at the cold reality of my father's lifeless body – his death leaves things behind. It leaves a space where he should be. It leaves me stained with blood and tears. And it leaves my mum with murder on her hands. And that is the cold reality – my mum is guilty of murder. And unless we do something about it right now, that really could mean the end.

  I look at the clock (19:15).

  ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘We have to do something.’

  her way of praying (3)

  I can't stop to think about this, I just have to do it. And there isn't much time left, so I'm having to do it quickly – getting up off the floor, helping Mum to her feet, trying to get through to her…

  ‘Come on, Mum… we have to go.’

  ‘Go?’

  ‘Can you walk all right?’

  ‘Walk?’

  ‘Please, Mum… you have to go downstairs. Right now. Come on…’

  She looks at me – trance-like now, helpless and hopeless. I don't think she knows what's happening.

  ‘Downstairs?’ she mutters.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ushering her towards the door. ‘Wait for me in the front room.’

  She doesn't say anything, she just shuffles out.

  ‘I'll be down in a minute,’ I call after her.

  I turn round and scan the room.

  I feel weirdly focused.

  Like I know what to do without knowing.

  Do it.

  1) Pick up your iPod, turn it on.

  2) Earphones in, select something fast.

  3) Wait for the crash to kick in…

  (fall to her call on a saturday night

  she's got the hip dipping trick

  of all time done right)

  and 4) Pick up the gun from the floor.

  5) Grab something to wipe it with (you almost smile when you realize you've picked up the bright-pink ROCK 'N' ROLL STAR T-shirt) and wipe the gun clean.

  6) Wrap it in the T-shirt, put it in your pocket, and go.

  (like a sin scraping skin)

  I know that I can't stop to think about this, that I just have to do it, but that doesn't mean that the doubts aren't there. And as I'm hurrying into Mum's bedroom and getting the holdall out from under the floorboards, the doubts are already getting louder, screaming into my head with the music…

  (she is screaming for me)

  But this thing I'm doing, I really haven't thought about it. I haven't created it. It simply appeared, fully formed, inside my head: this is what you have to do.

  And I don't have time to question it.

  Q. Why don't you just call the police and explain what happened? Your father abused you. Your mother killed him to prevent further abuse. So, yes, she'll probably be charged with his murder (or manslaughter), and she'll probably stand trial for it too. But she'll never be convicted of anything. She saved her daughter from the most despicable crime imaginable, and no one in the world would ever blame a mother for that.

  So why don't you just call the police?

  A. Because if I call the police, everything that's happened will come out, and the rest of the world will think that John Bundy was evil, that Sara Bundy is weak, and that Dawn Bundy is a victim. And we will become those things.

  So, as quickly as possible, this is what I have to do. I have to take the holdall and the gun downstairs (not even stopping to comfort Jesus and Mary, who are both still trembling with fright from the sound of the gunshot earlier on). I have to go to the front door and set it on the latch. I have to move back along the hallway and put the gun on the floor, about two metres away from the door. I have to move further back, three or four steps, and place the holdall on the floor. I have to open it, so the money is visible. And now I have to stand here and think for a moment, picturing how this will work.

  Q. How will this work?

  A. Like this:

  a) Lee Harding will arrive and find the door on the latch.

  b) I'll call the police.

  c) Lee Harding will cautiously open the door and come in.

  d) see the gun and the holdall on the floor.

  e) He'll see the money in the holdall.
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  f) be confused, wary.

  g) look around, maybe call out, and then he'll pick up the gun.

  h) And then, when the police arrive, they'll find a dead body upstairs and Lee Harding in the house with a gun in his hand…

  i)… and they'll find out from me (and my mum, after I've told her what to say) that he came round here to see my dad about some stolen drug money, and they had an argument, and he shot my dad…

  But I think I know, even now, that it's not going to work. There are too many things that could go wrong. What if the police don't show up? What if they take too long to arrive? What if Lee Harding doesn't show up? What if he does, but doesn't pick up the gun? What if he does pick up the gun but runs off when the police arrive? What if…?

  No, it's a useless idea.

  It's never going to work.

  It's pathetic.

  But what else can I do? It's almost seven thirty now.

  It's almost time.

  (and I just can't take it anyway)

  All I can do is resign myself to it. Whatever's going to happen, it's going to happen. I take one last look at the gun and the holdall on the floor, shake my head, and go into the front room.

  who do you love?

  So here we are again, in the front room. Mum's in her armchair, watching TV, smoking a cigarette and drinking her drink. I'm on the settee, with Jesus and Mary squeezed in tightly beside me. And we all seem to be watching World of Mysteries: Tutankhamun's Curse on Sky Three. The curtained darkness of the room is illuminated with the flashing light of the monstrous TV, and every now and then, when the picture on the screen suddenly brightens, the TV light catches the cloud of cigarette smoke that's hanging beneath the ceiling, and just for a moment the cloud is a lightning cloud, and I'm not sitting in the front room any more, I'm sitting outside and a storm's about to break and I seem to be some kind of…

  Something.

  I'm nothing.

  I've told Mum (very quickly) about Lee Harding, and I've told her that I'm going to call the police when he gets here, and I've told her what to say to them when they arrive… but I'm not sure how much of it she's taken in. She seemed to be listening to me, and she nodded her head whenever I asked her if she understood, but she didn't ask me any questions about anything. She just waited for me to finish, smiled at me, then turned on the TV.

  ‘It'll be all right, Mum,’ I say to her now. ‘As long as we stick to our story…’

  ‘Uh-huh…’ she mutters, her eyes glued to the TV screen. ‘Stick to the story…’

  ‘It'll be OK.’

  ‘OK…’

  Her eyes are glazed, her voice is sleepy. I don't think she's here any more. She's traumatized, stunned, shocked, drunk… she's gone to that place where she goes to cope. She's in her cave.

  It's OK.

  She doesn't have to function.

  I can do that for her.

  She's my mum.

  I love her.

  nine million rainy days (3)

  It's only when the doorbell rings that I finally realize (with a stupid sinking heart) that I should have got changed out of this bloodstained dressing gown, because as soon as Lee Harding sees me covered in blood, he's going to turn round and run off, isn't he? And even if he doesn't run off (and he'd have to be pretty dumb not to), I'm not going to have time to get changed before the police arrive, am I? And even if I did have time…

  The doorbell rings again.

  And I wonder for a moment why Jesus and Mary aren't making a sound. They're not barking, they're not moving, they're not doing anything. They're just sitting there, looking at me.

  I look at Mum.

  She doesn't do anything either.

  She just carries on staring at the TV.

  And I wonder for another moment why Lee Harding is ringing the doorbell when I purposely left the door on the latch… but somehow it doesn't seem to matter any more.

  I get up.

  Go out into the hallway.

  Pause for a moment…

  And open the door.

  (you're going to fall

  you're going to fall down dead)

  It isn't Lee Harding.

  inside me (4)

  Everything stops (for ever) when I see the two policemen standing on the doorstep in front of me. Time stops, the world stops… nothing moves, nothing makes a sound.

  The moment is frozen.

  I see it as a picture, a freeze-framed picture at the end of an endless story.

  (i take my time away

  and I see something)

  This is what I see.

  First thing – a pair of uniformed policemen in fluorescent yellow jackets, standing in the rain, staring silently at me with their seen-it-all eyes.

  Second thing – a frozen flash of siren-blue from the patrol car parked in the street behind them.

  Third thing – the street, a rainy-grey tarmac ribbon, slicked with the sheen of petrol rainbows.

  Fourth thing – the same-as-always row of houses on the other side of the street. Black windows, dirty-white walls. One or two faceless faces are peeking out through gaps in the curtains.

  Fifth thing – a car passing by, a silver BMW, its movement frozen like everything else. Taylor is in the passenger seat, looking over at me, her eyes unreadable, and I guess the man in the driving seat is her father. Lee Harding. He has a bullet-shaped head, closely cropped hair, a diamond stud in his ear. His eyes are looking straight ahead. This is nothing to do with him.

  Sixth thing – across the street, half hidden behind a dirty blue van (with Farthing's Furniture written on the side), a ten-or-eleven-year-old boy in a rain-sodden parka standing alone on the pavement. He's smiling at me, giving me the thumbs-up. And the look in his eyes – a mixture of excitement, curiosity, approval-seeking and pride – tells me everything I need to know about this final picture.

  Splodge must have called the police.

  He must have seen the blue van when it arrived earlier on.

  He must have seen Dad getting out of the van and going into my house, and he must have remembered me telling him (for snail-related reasons) about a non-existent man who'd parked his non-existent van outside my house the other day, a non-existent man who'd sneaked into the alleyway that leads round to my garden.

  You should have called the police, Splodge had said to me.

  Yeah, well, I'd told him. If I see him again, I will.

  And Splodge must have listened to me.

  (And maybe he heard the gunshot too.)

  And called the police.

  And here they are, standing on the doorstep in front of me, their uniformed figures frozen in the blue-flashed rain… and, any moment now, when the world starts moving (for ever) again, their seen-it-all eyes are going to see the bloodstains on my dressing gown.

  And that's going to be it.

  They're going to ask me about the blood. They're not going to be satisfied with whatever mumbled answer I give them. They're going to come inside, see the holdall and the gun on the floor, call for backup… start searching the house… they're going to find Dad's body…

  They're going to find out that Mum killed him.

  And that's going to be it.

  The End.

  Unless…

  ‘I killed him,’ I hear myself say (and at the sound of my voice, the world starts moving again).

  ‘You what?’ says one of the policemen.

  ‘It was me. I killed him.’

  (and that's my story)

  ‘Killed who?’ the second policemen says.

  ‘My dad.’

  Before the policemen have time to react, I sense a reassuring presence behind me, and I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I hear the sound of Mum's shaky (but firm) voice.

  ‘She didn't do it,’ she tells the policemen. ‘She didn't kill anyone.’

  I look round. ‘No, Mum –’

  ‘It's all right, love,’ she says softly, smiling at me. ‘It's over now.’

  ‘
What's going on here?’ the first policeman says to Mum.

  Mum looks at him, her eyes perfectly steady. ‘My husband… he's dead. I shot him. You'll find his body upstairs.’

  the living end

  There's a lot for me and my mum to talk about now, but as we sit here together on the settee, holding hands and crying quietly (with Jesus and Mary lying at our feet), we don't really have much time for talking. The house is full of people – policemen, detectives, ambulance men, CSIs – and they're all going about their business, and that business includes asking us questions, examining us, making sure we don't make a run for it, and pretty soon we're both going to be taken away to the police station… so, like I said, we don't have a lot of time for talking right now.

  But, in a way, I think that's OK.

  The silence between us is a good silence. We're sitting close together, we're holding hands, we're intensely aware of our love for each other – and, right now, that's all I need. Of course, we're both absolutely devastated about Dad (and we will be for the rest of our lives), and I'm worried sick about what's going to happen to Mum, and I think we both know that the next few months, the next few years, are going to be incredibly hard, especially if we end up being taken away from each other, which I think is a real (and terrifying) possibility…

  But we're together now.

  And even if we do get split up, the togetherness we have now will still be there. We're together.

  And somehow that makes all the difference.

  It makes things not quite so impossible.

  When the time is right, I'll tell Mum about Dad. I'll tell her how much he hated himself for doing what he did… to both of us. And I'll tell her that he came back to help us, not to hurt me. And that he was sober. And that he still loved her very much. And I'll tell her, with my hand on my heart, that there used to be another Dawn, a thirteen-year-old Dawn, a Dawn who lived in a cave inside my head…

  But she's gone now.

  The other Dawn has gone.

  And there's no one in my head but me.