by Джоан Харрис
Still, it is to Bethan that I owe much of my information. From the café she notices everything. She seldom speaks to me, of course, but I overhear her conversations. With people like me she is cautious, but with her regulars she is cheery, approachable. Thanks to Bethan I can collect all kinds of information. For instance, I know that the girl in the red duffel coat would rather drink hot chocolate than tea; prefers treacle tart to carrot cake; favours the Beatles over the Stones, and plans to attend the funeral at Malbry Crematorium at 11.30 on Saturday.
Saturday. Yes, I’ll be there. At least I’ll get to see her away from that wretched café. Maybe — just maybe — she owes me that. Closure, as the Americans say. An end to this parade of lies.
Lies? Yes, everyone lies. I’ve lied ever since I could remember. It’s the only thing I do well, and I think we should play to our strengths, don’t you? After all, what is a writer of fiction but a liar with a licence? You’d never guess from my writing that I’m as plain-vanilla as they come. Vanilla, at least, on the outside; the heart is something different. But aren’t we, all of us, killers at heart, tapping out in Morse code the secrets of the confessional?
Clair thinks I should talk to her.
Have you tried telling her how you feel? she suggests in her latest e-mail. Of course, Clair only knows what I want her to know: that for an indeterminate time I have been obsessed with a girl to whom I have hardly spoken a word. But maybe Clair identifies with me rather more than she is aware — or rather, with blueeyedboy, whose platonic love for an unnamed girl echoes her own unrequited passion for Angel Blue.
Cap’s advice is rather more crude. Just fuck her and get it over with, he advises, in the world-weary tone of one trying vainly to hide his own inexperience. When the novelty wears off, you’ll see she’s just like all those other bitches, and you’ll be able to get back to what matters . . .
Toxic agrees, and pleads for me to write up the intimate details in my WeJay. The dirtier the better, he says. And by the way, what’s her cup size?
Albertine rarely comments. I sense her disapproval. But chrysalisbaby responds to what she sees as my hopeless romance. Even a bad guy needs someone to love, she says with awkward sincerity. You deserve it, blueeyedboy, really you do. She does not offer herself, not yet, but I sense the longing in her words. Any girl would be lucky, she hints, to earn the love of one such as I.
Poor Chryssie. Yes, she’s fat. But she has good hair and a pretty face, and I have led her to believe that I prefer the chubby ones.
The problem is that I play it too well. She now wants to see me on webcam. For the past couple of weeks she has been talking to me through WebJournal, sending me personal messages, including photos of herself.
Y can’t i C U? she messages.
Out of the question, I reply.
Y? U ugly?
Yeah. I’m a mess. Broken nose, black eye, cuts and bruises all over me. I look like I went twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. Trust me, Chryssie. You’d run a mile.
4 real?? What happened?
Someone took exception to me.?
O!!! U mugged?
I guess you could call it that.
!!! Oh, fuck, oh, babe,i just wanna give U a great big hug.
Thanks, Chryssie. You’re very sweet.
Does it hurt??
Dear Chryssie. I can feel the sympathy coming from her. Chryssie loves to nurture, and I like to feed her fantasy. She’s not quite in love with me — no, not yet. But it wouldn’t take much to draw her in. It’s a little cruel, I know. But isn’t that what bad guys do? Besides, she brings these things on herself. All I do is enable them. She’s an accident waiting to happen, for which no one could possibly hold me to blame.
Babe, tell me what happened, she says, and today I think maybe I’ll humour her. Give a little, take a lot. Isn’t that the better deal?
All right then — babe. Whatever you say. See what you make of this little tale.
10
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on:
[email protected]
Posted at : 14:35 on Thursday, January 31
Status : public
Mood : amorous
Listening to: Green Day: ‘Letterbomb’
Blueeyedboy in love. What? You don’t think a killer can fall in love? He has known her for ever, and yet she has never really seen him, not once. He might have been invisible as far as the woman he loves is concerned. But he sees her: her hair; her mouth; her small pale face with its straight dark brows; her bright-red coat in the morning mist like something out of a fairy tale.
Red is not her colour, of course — but he doesn’t expect her to know that. She doesn’t know how he likes to watch through his telephoto lens; noting the details of her dress; the way the wind catches her hair; the way she walks with such precision, marking her passage with near-imperceptible touches. A hand against this wall, here; brushing against this yew hedge, turning her face to catch the scent as she passes the village bakery.
He is not a voyeur, he thinks. He acts for his own protection. His instinct for self-preservation has been honed to a point of such accuracy that he can sense the danger in her, the danger behind the sweet face. It may be the danger he loves, he thinks. The fact that he is walking a dangerous line. The fact that every stolen caress through the lens of his camera is potentially lethal to him.
Or it may just be the fact that she belongs to somebody else.
Until now he has never been in love. It frightens him a little: the intensity of that feeling, the way her face intrudes on his thoughts, the way his fingers trace her name, the way everything somehow conspires to keep her always in his mind —
It changes his behaviour. It makes him contradictory; at the same time more accepting, and less so. He wants to do the right thing, but, so doing, thinks only of himself. He wants to see her, but when he does, flees. He wants it to last for ever, but at the same time longs for it to end.
Zooming closer, he brings her face into mystic, near-monstrous proportions. Now she is a single eye, its colour a hybrid of blue and gold, staring sightlessly through the glass like an orchid in a growing-tank —
But through the eye of love, of course, she always appears in shades of blue. Bruise-blue; butterfly-blue; cobalt, sapphire, mountain-blue. Blue, the colour of his secret soul; the colour of mortality.
His brother in black would have known what to say. Blueeyedboy lacks the words. But he dreams of them dancing under the stars, she in a ball dress of sky-blue silk, he in his chosen colours. In these dreams he is beyond words, and he can smell the scent of her hair, can almost feel her texture —
And then comes a sharp knock at the door. Blueeyedboy starts guiltily. It annoys him that he does this; he is in his own home, hurting no one, why should he feel this stab of guilt?
He puts away his camera. The knock is repeated; peremptory. Someone sounds impatient.
‘Who is it?’ says blueeyedboy.
A voice, not well-loved, but familiar, comes to him from the other side. ‘Let me in.’
‘What do you want?’ says blueeyedboy.
‘To talk to you, you little shit.’
Let’s call him Mr Midnight Blue. Bigger by far than blueeyedboy, and vicious as a mad dog. Today he is in a violent rage that blueeyedboy has never seen before, hammering at the front door, demanding to be let in. No sooner are the safety locks released, than he barges his way into the hall and, with no kind of preliminaries, head-butts our hero right in the face.
Blueeyedboy’s trajectory sends him smashing into the hallway table; ornaments and a flower vase fly into shrapnel against the wall. He trips and falls at the bottom of the stairs, and then Midnight Blue is on top of him, punching him, shouting at him —
‘Fucking keep away from her, you twisted little bastard!’
Our hero makes no attempt to resist. He knows it would be impossible. Instead he just curls into himself like a hermit crab into its shell, trying to shield his face with his a
rms, crying in fear and hatred, while his enemy lands blow after blow to his ribs and back and shoulders.
‘Do you understand?’ says Midnight, pausing to recover his breath.
‘I wasn’t doing anything. I’ve never even spoken to her—’
‘Don’t give me that,’ says Midnight Blue. ‘I know what you’re trying to do. And what about those photographs?’
‘Ph-photographs?’ says blueeyedboy.
‘Don’t even think of lying to me.’ He pulls them from one of his inside pockets. ‘These photographs, taken by you, developed right here, in your darkroom—’
‘How did you get those?’ says blueeyedboy.
Midnight gives him a final punch. ‘Never mind how I got them. If you ever go anywhere near her again, if you talk to her, write to her — hell, if you even look at her — I’ll make you sorry you were born. This is your final warning—’
‘Please!’ Our hero is whimpering, his arms thrown up to protect his face.
‘I mean it. I’ll kill you—’
Not if I kill you first, blueeyedboy thinks, and before he can protect himself, the hateful aroma of rotting fruit fills his throat with its hot-house stench, and a lance of pain drives into his head, and he feels as though he is dying.
‘Please—’
‘You’d better not lie to me. You’d better not hold out on me.’
‘I won’t,’ he gasps, through blood and tears.
‘You’d better not,’ says Midnight Blue.
Lying dazed on the carpet, blueeyedboy hears the door slam. Warily, he opens his eyes and sees that Midnight Blue has gone. Even so he waits until he hears the sound of Midnight’s car setting off down the driveway before slowly, carefully, standing up and going into the bathroom to investigate the damage.
What a mess. What a fucking mess.
Poor blueeyedboy; nose broken, lip split, blue eyes blacked and swollen shut. There’s blood down the front of his shirt; blood still trickles from his nose. The pain is bad, but the shame is worse, and the worst of it is, this isn’t his fault. In this case, he is innocent.
How strange, he thinks, that for all his sins, he should have escaped retribution so far, whereas this time, when he has done nothing wrong, punishment should descend on him.
It’s karma, he thinks. Kar-ma.
He looks at his reflection, looks at it for a long time. He feels very calm, watching himself, an actor on a small screen. He touches his reflection and feels the answering sting from the abrasions on his face. Nevertheless he feels strangely remote from the person in the looking glass; as if this were simply a reconstruction of some more distant reality; something that happened to someone else many, many years ago.
I mean it. I’ll kill you —
Not if I kill you first, he thinks.
And would it be so impossible? Demons are made to be overcome. Maybe not with brute strength, but with intelligence and guile. Already he senses the germ of a plan beginning to form at the back of his mind. He looks at his reflection once more, squares his shoulders, wipes blood from his mouth and, finally, begins to smile.
Not if I kill you first —
Why not?
After all, he has done it before.
Post comment:
chrysalisbaby: awesome wow was that 4 real?
blueeyedboy: As real as anything else I write...
chrysalisbaby: aw poor
blueeyedboy i just wanna give him a great big hug
Jesusismycopilot: BASTARD YOU DESERVE TO DIE.
Toxic69: Oh, man. Don’t we all?
ClairDeLune: This is fantastic, blueeyedboy. You are finally beginning to come to terms with your rage. I think we should discuss this further, don’t you?
Captainbunnykiller: Bitchin’, dude! This fic pwns. Can’t wait to see the payback.
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
blueeyedboy: You’re very persistent, JennyTricks. Tell me — do I know you?
11
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 01.37 on Friday, February 1
Status: restricted
Mood: melancholy
Listening to: Voltaire: ‘Born Bad’
Well, no. It wasn’t quite like that. But not too far from the truth, all the same. The truth is a small, vicious animal biting and clawing its way towards the light. It knows that if it wants to be born, something — or someone — else has to die.
I started life as a twin-set, you know. The other half — who, if he had lived, Ma would have christened Malcolm — was stillborn at nineteen weeks.
Well, that’s the official tale, anyway. Ma told me when I was six that I’d swallowed my sibling in utero — most probably at some point between the twelfth and the thirteenth weeks — in the course of some dispute over Lebensraum. It happens more often than people think. Two bodies, one soul; floating in Nature’s developing fluid, fighting for the right to live —
She kept the memory of him alive as an ornament on the mantel-piece — a statuette of a sleeping dog, engraved with his initials. The same piece, in fact, that I broke as a boy, and tried to lie about to protect myself. For which I was thrashed with the piece of electrical cord and told that I was born bad — a killer, even in embryo — that I owed it to both of them to be good, to make something of my stolen life —
In fact, she was secretly proud of me. The fact that I’d swallowed my twin to survive made her believe that I was strong. Ma despised weakness. Hard as tempered steel herself, she couldn’t stand a loser. Life’s what you make it, she used to say. If you don’t fight, you deserve to die.
After that I often used to dream that Malcolm — whose name appears to me in sickly shades of green — had won the fight and taken my place. Even now I still have that dream: two little ravenous tadpoles, two piranhas side by side, two hearts in a bloodbath of chemicals just clamouring to beat as one. If he had lived instead of me, I wonder, would Mal have taken my place? Would he have become blueeyedboy?
Or would he have had his own colour? Green perhaps, to go with his name? I try to imagine a wardrobe in green: green shirts, green socks, dark-green V-necked sweater for school. All of it identical to mine (except for the colour, of course), all of it in my size, as if a lens had been placed on the world, painting my life a different shade.
Colours make a difference. Even after so many years, I still follow my mother’s colour schemes. Blue jeans, hoodie, T-shirt, socks — even my trainers have a blue star on the side. A black roll-necked sweater, a birthday present from last year, lies unworn in a bottom drawer, and whenever I think to try it on, there’s a sudden stab of unreasonable guilt.
That’s Nigel’s sweater, a sharp voice says, and although I know it’s irrational, I still can’t bring myself to wear his colour, not even for his funeral.
Perhaps that’s because he hated me. He blamed me for everything that went wrong. He blamed me for causing Dad to leave; blamed me for his stretch in jail; for his breakdown; for his ruined life; resented the fact that Ma liked me best. Well, that, at least, was justified. Without a doubt, she favoured me. Or at least, she did at first. Perhaps because of my dead twin; the anguish of her delivery; perhaps because of Mr Blue Eyes, who was, as she said, the love of her life.
But Nigel made sibling rivalry into a major art form. His brothers lived in terror of his uncontrollable rages. His brother in brown escaped the worst, being vulnerable in so many ways. Nigel held him in contempt, a willing slave when it suited him, a human shield against Ma’s wrath, the rest of the time a whipping-boy, taking the blame for everyone.
But bullying Bren was too easy. There was no satisfaction to be gained from hitting such a target. You could punch Brendan and make him cry, but no one ever saw him fight back. Perhaps he’d learnt from experience that the best way to deal with Nigel, as with a charging elephant, is to lie still and play dead, hoping to avoid the stampede. And he never s
eemed to bear a grudge, not even when Nigel tormented him, confirming Ma’s belief that Bren was not the sharpest tool in the box, and that if anyone were to give them their fairy-tale ending, then it would be Benjamin.
Well, yes. Ma liked her clichés. Brought up on tales of the Lottery, of younger sons who end up marrying princesses, of eccentric millionaires who leave all their wealth to the sweet little urchin who captures their heart — Ma believed in destiny. She saw these things in black and white. And though Bren submitted without complaint, preferring safe mediocrity to the treacherous burden of brilliance, Nigel, who was no fool, must have felt a certain resentment to find that he had been cast from birth in the role of the ugly stepsister, perpetually the man in black.
And so, Nigel was angry. Angry at Ma; angry at Ben; even angry at poor, fat Brendan, who tried so hard to be quiet and good, and who found increasing solace in food, as if through the comfort of sweet things he might provide himself with some measure of protection in a world too full of sharp edges.
And so when Nigel was playing outside, or riding his bike around the estate, and Bren was sitting watching TV with a Wagon Wheel in each hand and a six-pack of Pepsi at his side, Benjamin was going to work with his Ma, a duster clutched in one chubby hand, eyes wide at the opulence of other people’s houses; at their broad stairs and neat driveways, sprawling sound systems and walls of books; at their well-stocked fridges and hallway pianos and shagpile carpets and bowls of fruit on dining-room tables as shiny and broad as a ballroom floor.
‘Look at this, Ben,’ she would say, pointing at some photograph of a boy or girl in school uniform, grinning gap-toothed from a leather frame. ‘That’ll be you in a few years’ time. That’ll be you, at the big school, making me so proud of you—’