H started to relax……
That evening he said ‘We need a car’
‘A convertible please’ said Benny ‘so we can get some air and a better tan and we can pose……..With a fridge and air conditioning; perhaps a shower and a little balcony on the side with an electric sun shade to protect us’
The next day H found a hire firm in the local ‘Yellow Pages’ and hired a car.
‘What have we got? Is a convertible we can pose in?
‘Convertible. Yes convertible. Everyone will notice us and you can pose’
A couple of hours later the bell rang and the car had arrived. As H signed the paperwork Benny went out to find the yellow, beat up, scratched Mini Moke, that H had hired for a pittance, in all its splendour with its canvas roof in the little boot. She smiled. This is why she loved this man. What woman would not be bowled over by an old, battered, yellow Mini Moke?
H and Benny spent days relaxing. They swam in their own large pool with two mosaic half submerged dolphin's porpoising on either side as though about to leap out. Reading on the bedroom balcony they looked down over the magnificently presented golf course and H would scoff at the golfers. Not realising that H could play golf Benny asked him when he had last played?
‘Never’
‘Then how can you criticise them?’
‘It's a matter of form. You don't have to be able to do something to criticise it, you only have to be able to judge relatively.’
‘Perhaps an explanation of that gibberish?’
‘Ok lets look at it another way. Have you ever seen Tiger Woods play in a golf tournament?’
‘Once, a bit, on the tele’
‘And did he look like that?’ he pointed to a four ball teeing off.
She looked for a moment as they each took their turn ‘You mean excluding the fact that he is black and they are white; he's about thirty with a rather mean wantable physique and they're about sixty, rather portly, balding and have the sexual allure of a mollusc?’
‘Excluding that’
‘Then no he didn't’
‘Why was he different?’
She gave it more thought. ‘I suppose like any top sportsman or woman what they do is, for want of a better term, ‘easy’. Which is not to say it is easy merely that they make it look easy. Graceful, contained, unhurried etcetera……’
‘And so the difference between them and him…..?’
More thought ‘They look like idiota…’
‘Absolutely. And you don't know anything about golf either….QED!’
To celebrate this intellectual and philosophical accord another bottle of champagne was liberated from one of the two cavernous fridges.
Later they went down to the beach in the beat up little mini-moke which constantly steered to the left and when H parked it the drive joints went clack! clack! clack! Leaving it parked under a tree for shade they headed for the soft sandy beach.
Hand in hand they went into the ocean and when she was up to her chest Benny dived under water. It was nearly a minute before she surfaced nearly fifty yards away and then swam far out to sea. H was a good, powerful swimmer and would have followed Benny but he sensed she came alive in the sea and so he just watched her swim with the ease and grace of a fish.
One day H and Benny were lying on sun beds on the beach, just outside of the reach of the lapping waves. As they lay, arms extended, getting the most from the sun, in H's head the theme kept repeating………..
Bennshee went down to the beach……….
Bennshee went down to the beach……
Extends her arms to reach…..
Extends her arms to reach…..
To reach what?
What?
A child's imploring yell invaded his mind and he immediately sat up, located the noise and ran to the small child who had tripped over and landed on a small rock. H kneeled down, gently picked up the child and held him softly against him. ‘It's ok it will stop hurting in a moment. Where is your mother?’ he asked soothingly.
The child stopped crying but just looked at him tearfully.
‘Where is your mother?’ asked H again and smiled. He realised the child did not understand English and said ‘Mama?’
The child pointed down the beach so H stood up and said to the child. ‘I am putting you on my shoulders and you look for your mommy and you tell me when you see her. Ok?’
The child nodded, not understanding a word but accepting totally the word of the stranger before him. H hoisted him aloft and they set off. The huge H and the tiny child sitting on his shoulders with his little hands held securely. After only a few minutes the child cried ‘Mama’ and pointed.
H walked to the parents, explained, sort of, what had happened and before they could offer any degree of thanks he left. He returned to Benny, smiled, went back to lying prone and ‘Benshee goes down to the beach……..’
Benshima sat looking at James. James was something of an enigma. James was quite capable of killing she thought, but did not know, and when she had seen him take on the three assailants that evening he had been almost majestic in his complete and total violence.
It had not perturbed him. He had not seen a ‘red mist’ but had gone about their destruction with an almost clinical approach. And yet James goes and helps a tiny child and shows a protectiveness and tenderness that was never seen to his fellows.
Benny wondered why……?
H Chapter 13
James James
…………..H was born into a working class family. Mary James, his mother, helped part time in a shop and Charles (Charlie) James, his father, at a factory where he was the local comedian. Always with a quip he was good company at work, the pub and in the Angling Society.
After two years of marriage Mary became pregnant and Charles, finding the amount of sex he wanted drying up, quickly lost interest in her and started fucking one of the pub barmaids. When she went into hospital, on a particularly wet week in April 1969 to have their baby, he did not visit. When she arrived home with their newly born son he welcomed her with ‘Don't you ever let that ugly little bastard get near me’.
And so the newly born child was now in a small, dingy, cockroach infested one up one down terrace house where there was no escape from the man who didn't want him there. Mary had decided his name would be William and just as she was going, on her own, to the christening her husband gave her an envelope for the vicar. As the small service progressed the vicar came to the point when he gave the child his new name.
‘James’ he said as he held the child and offered him to Christ.
‘That's not his name’ she said quickly ‘it's William’
The vicar looked confused then, after thinking for a moment handed the child back, took the envelope out of his pocket, handed it to her, took the child back and carried on with the christening…….. She looked at the copy of the Birth Certificate and it had the name ‘James’ already registered. Her heart sank. James James it read. What a God awful name. She was beaten. The stench of defeat would permeate the family for many years….
His father soon started tormenting tiny James; poking, pinching, shouting at it until it cried and then he screamed at it for crying. When James was eight months old his father came home early from the factory and walked in unexpectedly. The sight before him revolted him…..it was vile, nauseating, degrading, abominable. He flew across the cramped lounge, ripped the child from his mothers exposed breast and hurled it at the wall. Luckily the tiny thing hit it rear end first, his nappies cushioning the blow but he dropped, head first to the floor and started to cry.
‘If I ever’ he screamed at his wife ‘catch you doing that again you're gone! Got it! Fucking gone! You fucking whore……. Now get my fucking tea!’
Terrified she went to pick up the screaming James but as she bent down he took a fistful of her hair and dragged her to the kitchen.
‘Get my fucking tea!’ he screamed into her face; she felt his wet spit on her cheeks. Sob
bing, she went to the cooker. He went back in and picked up the tiny child by the throat. I ought to kill you now pounded in his brain.
He squeezed tighter….and tighter….until little James stopped crying and started to turn blue. How he wanted this thing to die…….die you ugly little bastard…..die……just a little more pressure….just a little……and then you will be fucking gone from my life….
It took all his will power to stop applying the increasing pressure. He let go of the child's throat and it dropped to the ground. He stood perfectly still for a moment, his heart pounding.
‘I'm going to the pub…..’
And he was gone. Mary looked at the child lying contorted on the carpet, its little throat gulping in as much air as it could. She took a step towards little James then changed her mind, went back and started cleaning the cooker.
When James was two he was taken to hospital with severe bruising after he had, according to the medical records, accidentally crawled to the top of the stairs and fallen down. In actual fact he hadn't fallen down the stairs. In actual fact he hadn't touched the stairs. In actual fact he had been thrown down with such force that he didn't hit anything until he reached the floor at the bottom….then he slid and his face hit a chair.
It was a barren life; devoid of everything a tiny child needs…..
Screamed at and beaten by his father, rejected by his mother he went inwards. Although he had no idea that other children were not treated the same way he intuitively went in to his own world of fantasy where his few toys were his friendly companions with whom he talked.
He slept on the landing where his little bed was situated on the pathway to his parent's bedroom and where he was guaranteed a rap from a knuckled fist from his father as he passed onwards to his own room. Terrified, he would hide below the bedclothes to minimise the effect he was having on his father. He had no idea why he was continually hit but knew he must have done something wrong………very wrong. Late one night, when he was five, he was awoken when his father grabbed his hair and put a fist in front of his face.
‘Don't make a sound………. Now open your mouth…….’
And James living nightmare descended into a living hell.
For James, life was a series of violence, pain and sexual abuse and the start of school offered no release. There he was seen instinctively by the other children as weak and withdrawn and was bullied accordingly. Any young aggressor would seek him out and add to the trauma from which there was no escape.
At age six James was playing with his toys on the floor at home when his father tripped over one. He lashed out with his foot and caught James full in the face with his boot. At the hospital he explained that James had fallen and hit his mouth on the bolt on the back door. Most of his front teeth were gone……….
‘He's a bit of a one eh?’ said one of the nurses ‘always getting into some kind of mischief……little rascal…….’
Every day there were the magic words. ‘And keep your fucking mouth shut or else……’ and his jaw and teeth ached with the continual subconscious effort to obey the command. And he clenched his sore bum so hard that he didn't shit for days on end……
When he was seven they moved to a larger house on a council estate which allowed James to have his own bedroom and a degree of sanctuary. Only a degree….
Life carried on in its inexorable, misery filled, loveless way. As he grew he became more introverted and immersed himself in books, finding any excuse not to go home but ironically was beaten if he was late.
He was terrified of going home.
He was terrified of staying away.
He was terrified of the continual undercurrent of violence.
You upset your dad and you paid.
Severely…..
The problem was that James still had no idea what the rules were for not upsetting him. If you made a noise you got hit. If you didn't reply quickly enough you got hit. If he had a bad day you got hit. If the world was not as he wanted it………. you got hit.
You got………hit!
James crept silently about like a mouse to not be noticed.
He gave up…….without giving up.
He was an underdeveloped thin child, physically quite tall, but then at about twelve for no apparent reason, he suddenly filled out. Unfortunately it made him more visible and an easier target to hit. The beatings and the abuse continued and James got nothing out of life and expected nothing. Why would he? He had never had anything……………….
At thirteen he left to go to the baths which was a train ride away. Half way to the station he realised he had forgotten his money so he ran back home and burst through the door. Running into the lounge he saw his dad with his dick in his mother's mouth. He stopped, frozen, not knowing where to look or what to do…. His father leapt at him like an animal! He grabbed James throat and then with as much force as he could muster he brought up his knee. Instinctively, through years of being hit, James arched his midriff backwards but the knee in the testicles still caught him badly. The unbearable pain exploded through him. He had suffered incredible pain over the years from this man but this…….his body went limp and he passed out.
It was nearly three hours later when he came to and he was still lying in the same place…..but he was the only one in the house. Nausea immediately enveloped him so he quickly took his mandatory handkerchief out of his back pocket and started to throw up into it. When his stomach had stopped heaving he tied the soaking hankie into a bundle so as not to make a mess and crawled up the stairs to his bed.
He stayed there for two days; no one helped him or brought him food. When they went to work he crawled down to the kitchen and scrounged what he could. His testicles had become immensely swollen and intuitively he sat in a cold bath of water which in due course reduced the swelling.
When James was in his mid teens and soon to leave school for employment he went to the local cinema and saw a film that had literally been released as he was being born. He had no idea what film he was going to see, just that it got him out of the house and as he had no friends the cinema had become a refuge. Initially he was bored by the film but as it unfolded he was drawn to its every frame and line. What was unfolding before his eyes was almost unbelievable, miraculous even but more than that, much more, it was epiphanic.
‘Straw Dogs’ was about a pacifistic mathematics professor who is forced into a violent confrontation when his wife is raped and his home threatened by a group of local thugs. A peaceful man who is forced to turn to violence when no other option is possible…………..
The film transfixed James. He had no idea that fighting back was an option.
He had been led to believe that any resistance was futile, acceptance inescapable, defeat inevitable. At the end of the film he walked out knowing that something had changed but not knowing what. After being in the air for a few minutes he suddenly burst into tears and then uncontrolled sobbing. He walked to a quiet place where his discomfort would be unseen and for the next two hours he wailed and sobbed until he was spent and then a cathartic peace enveloped him. He didn't go home that night but went to the river and sat by its swirling currents as they meandered their way to the sea.
When he arrived home the next day his mother said ‘Where have you been?’
‘Out’
‘Just wait till your dad gets home………’
That threat had been used for many years and invoked absolute dread but now it was less. Now it was real. Now it was manageable. Now it could be countered. When his father came home he immediately rushed to James, grabbed his throat and started to thump him.
James……. did nothing.
He put up no resistance and accepted the beating. But for James it was a measurement of the present with the past, the new with the old, and they were different. James was different. This man, this monster, his father, the thing standing in front of him was no longer inviolate……….
Several weeks later his father got up very early on a Su
nday morning, packed his fishing gear and put it into the back of his little car. James heard him go. He had been lucky this time. Occasionally his dad popped in to torment him before he went. He said it ‘made his day’.
Charlie headed off into the blackness to a large lake nearly four miles away to fish for carp. He always went very early to set up his tackle, avail himself of his bottle of whisky which he would mix with his flask of hot coffee and wait an hour or two for dawn. He thought dawn was the best time for carp.
He had been there about an hour, gently dozing in his little folding cloth seat and didn't hear the small sound behind him. An arm came round his neck to restrain him and the chloroform soaked cotton wool, stolen from the school lab, went over his nose and mouth and in a few moments he was unconscious. He slumped softly to the ground and stayed still. With the rope James had brought he tied his father's hands and feet and put sellotape over his mouth. He looked at the unconscious man on the floor in front of him and watched his face caught in the fading light of the moon.
It was not a handsome face and yet he did well with the ladies.
It was not really a man's face and yet he was liked by his men friends.
What was it about his face? James knew the answer.
It was not a face. It was a mask. It was not real. What you saw was not what you got.
James smiled, pleased with himself for this little bit of amateur analysis. Raising his foot he smashed the heel of his shoe into the mask that was staring up at him…. All he heard was a low grunt and small clicks as bones fractured……but in James mind it echoed around the world….and the mask now had a real face.
The Rubicon had been crossed!
James left him and ran a hundred yards up the lake to where he knew a small rowing boat was tethered. He rowed it back to his slowly rousing father. Dragging his father into the water he tethered him to the boat. Casting partially off he waded back to the shore and spent a little time tidying up the spot, putting the chair in place, the flask by its side, the keepnet in the water and then a few moments removing his footprints. Getting back in the boat James quietly rowed out to the middle of the lake and stopped and took measure.
H When hell is the favourable option Page 6