Blueeyedboy

by Джоан Харрис

  Boy X. He liked that. It made him sound impressive, somehow, a boy with special powers — a gift. Not that he was very gifted. He was an average pupil at school, never ranking especially high. As for his sensory gifts, as Dr Peacock called them — those sounds that translated to colours and smells — if he’d thought about them at all, he’d always just assumed that everyone experienced them as he did, and even though Dr Peacock assured him that this was an aberration, he continued to think of himself as the norm, and everyone else as freakish.

  The word serenity is grey [says Dr Peacock in his paper entitled ‘Boy X and Early Acquired Synaesthesia’], though serene is dark blue, with a slight flavour of aniseed. Numbers have no colours at all, but names of places and of individuals are often highly charged, sometimes overwhelmingly so, often both with colours and with flavours. There exists in certain cases a distinct correlation between these extraordinary sense-impressions and events that Boy X has experienced, which suggests that this type of synaesthesia may be partly associative, rather than merely congenital. However, even in this case a number of interesting physical responses to these stimuli may be observed, including salivation as a direct response to the word scarlet, which to Boy X smells of chocolate, and a feeling of dizziness associated with the colour pink, which to Boy X smells strongly of gas.

  He made it sound so important then. As if they were doing something for science. And when his book was published, he said, both he and Boy X would be famous. They might even win a research prize.

  In fact Ben was so preoccupied with his lessons at Dr Peacock’s house that he hardly ever thought about the ladies from Ma’s cleaning round who had wooed him so assiduously. He had more pressing concerns by then, and Dr Peacock’s research had taken the place of paintings and dolls.

  That was why, six months later, when he finally saw Mrs White one day at the market, he was surprised to see how fat she’d got, as if, after his departure, she’d had to eat for herself all the contents of those big red tins of Family Circle biscuits. What had happened? he asked himself. Pretty Mrs White had grown a prominent belly; and she waddled through the fruit and veg, a big, silly smile on her face.

  His mother told them the good news. After nearly ten years of trying and failing, Mrs White was finally pregnant. For some reason, this excited Ma, possibly because it meant more hours, but blueeyedboy was filled with unease. He thought of her collection of dolls, those eerie, ruffled, not-quite-children, and wondered if she’d get rid of them, now she was getting the real thing.

  It gave him nightmares to think of it: all those staring, plaintive dollies in their silks and antique lace abandoned on some rubbish tip, clothes gone to tatters, rain-washed white, china heads smashed open among the bottles and tins.

  ‘Boy or girl?’ said Ma.

  ‘A little girl. I’m going to call her Emily.’

  Emily. Em-il-y, three syllables, like a knock on the door of destiny. Such an odd, old-fashioned name, compared to those Kylies and Traceys and Jades — names that reeked of Impulse and grease and stood out in gaudy neon colours — whilst hers was that muted, dusky pink, like bubblegum, like roses —

  But how could blueeyedboy have known that she would one day lead him here? And how could anyone have guessed that both of them would be so close — victim and predator intertwined like a rose growing through a human skull — without their even knowing it?

  Post comment:

  ClairDeLune: I really like where this is going. Is it part of something longer?

  chrysalisbaby: is that 4 real with the colours? how much did U have 2 research it?

  blueeyedboy: Not as much as you might thinkGlad you liked it, Chryssie!

  chrysalisbaby: aw hunny (hugs)

  JennyTricks: (post deleted).

  6

  You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.

  Posted at: 02.54 on Sunday, February 3

  Status: restricted

  Mood: blank

  I cried a river when Daddy died. I cry at bad movies. I cry at sad songs. I cry at dead dogs and TV advertisements and rainy days and Mondays. So — why no tears for Nigel? I know that Mozart’s Requiem or Albinoni’s Adagio would help turn on the waterworks, but that’s not grief; that’s self-indulgence, the kind that Gloria Winter prefers.

  Some people enjoy the public display. Emily’s funeral was a case in point. A mountain of flowers and teddy bears; people wept openly in the streets. A nation mourned — but not for a child. Perhaps for the loss of innocence; for the grubbiness of it all, for their own collective greed, that in the end had swallowed her whole. The Emily White Phenomenon that had caused so much fanfare over the years ended with a whimper: a little headstone in Malbry churchyard and a stained-glass window in the church, paid for by Dr Peacock, much to the indignation of Maureen Pike and her cronies, who felt it was inappropriate for the man to be linked in any way to the church, to the Village, to Emily.

  No one really mentions it now. People tend to leave me alone. In Malbry I am invisible; I take pleasure in my lack of depth. Gloria calls me colourless; I overheard her once on the phone, back in the days when she and Nigel talked.

  I don’t see how it can last, she said. She’s such a colourless little thing. I know you must feel sorry for her, but —

  Ma, I do not feel sorry for her!

  Well, of course you do. What nonsense—

  Ma. One more word and I’m hanging up.

  You feel sorry for her because she’s—

  Click.

  Overheard in the Zebra one day: God knows what he sees in her. He pities her, that’s all it is.

  How gently, politely incredulous that one such as I might attract a man through something more than compassion. Because Nigel was a good-looking man, and I was somehow damaged. I had a past, I was dangerous. Nigel was open wide — he’d told me all about himself that night as we lay watching the stars. One thing he hadn’t told me, though — it was Eleanor Vine who pointed it out — is that he always wore black: an endless procession of black jeans, black jackets, black T-shirts, black boots. It’s easier to wash, he said, when I finally asked him. You can put everything in together.

  Did he call my name at the end? Did he know I was to blame? Or was it all just a blur to him, a single swerve into nothingness? It all began so harmlessly. We were children. We were innocent. Even he was, in his way — blueeyedboy, who haunts my dreams.

  Maybe it was guilt, after all, that triggered yesterday’s panic attack. Guilt, fatigue and nerves, that was all. Emily White is long gone. She died when she was nine years old, and no one remembers her any more, not Daddy, not Nigel, not anyone.

  Who am I now? Not Emily White. I will not, cannot be Emily White. Nor can I be myself again, now that Daddy and Nigel are gone. Perhaps I can just be Albertine, the name I give myself online. There’s something sweet about Albertine. Sweet and rather nostalgic, like the name of a Proustian heroine. I don’t quite know why I chose it. Perhaps because of blueeyedboy, still hidden at the heart of all this, and whom I have tried for so long to forget . . .

  But part of me must have remembered. Some part of me must have known this would come. For among all the herbs and flowers in my garden — the wallflowers, thymes, clove pinks, geraniums, lemon balm, lavenders and night-scented stocks — I never planted a single rose.

  7

  You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on :

  badguysrock@webjournal.com

  Posted at: 03.06 on Sunday, February 3

  Status: public

  Mood: poetic

  Listening to: Roberta Flack: ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’

  Benjamin was seven years old the year that Emily White was born. A time of change; of uncertainty; of deep, unspoken forebodings. At first he wasn’t sure what it meant; but ever since that day at the market, he’d been aware of a gradual shift in things. People no longer looked at him. Women no longer wooed him with sweets. No one marvelled at how much he’d grown. He seemed to have moved
a step beyond the line of their perception.

  His mother, busier than ever with her cleaning jobs and her shifts at St Oswald’s, was often too tired to talk to the boys, except to tell them to brush their teeth and work hard at school. His mother’s ladies, who had once been so attentive to Ben, flocking around him like hens around a single chick, seemed to have vanished from his life, leaving him vaguely wondering whether it was something he had done, or if it was simply coincidence that no one (except for Dr Peacock) seemed to want him any more.

  Finally he understood. He’d been a distraction; that was all. It’s hard to talk to the person who cleans around the back of your fridge, and scrubs around the toilet bowl, and hand-washes your lace-trimmed delicates, and goes away at the end of the week with hardly enough money in her purse to buy even a single pair of those expensive panties. His mother’s ladies knew that. Guardian readers, every one, who believed in equality, to a point, and who maybe felt a touch of unease at having to hire a cleaner — not that they would have admitted it; they were helping the woman, after all. And compensated in their way by making much of the sweet little boy, as visitors to an open farm may ooh and ahh over the young lambs — soon to reappear, nicely wrapped, on the shelves as (organic) chops and cutlets. For three years he’d been a little prince, spoilt and praised and adored, and then —

  And then, along came Emily.

  Sounds so harmless, doesn’t it? Such a sweet, old-fashioned name, all sugared almonds and rose water. And yet she’s the start of everything: the spindle on which their life revolved, the weathervane that moves from sunshine to storm in a single turn of a cockerel’s tail. Barely more than a rumour at first, but a rumour that grew and gained in strength until at last it became a juggernaut; crushing everyone beneath the Emily White Phenomenon.

  Ma told them he cried when he heard. How sorry he felt for the poor baby; how sorry, too, for Mrs White — who had wanted a child more than anything and, now that she had her wish at last, had succumbed to a case of the baby blues, refusing to come out of her house, to nurse her child, or even to wash, and all because her baby was blind —

  Still, that was Ma all over; exaggerating his sensitivity. Benjamin never shed a tear. Brendan cried. It was more his style. But Ben didn’t even feel upset; only a little curious, wondering what Mrs White was going to do now. He’d heard Ma and her friends talking about how sometimes mothers harmed their children when under the influence of the baby blues. He wondered whether the baby was safe, whether the Social would take her away, and if so, whether Mrs White would want him back —

  Not that he needed Mrs White. But he’d changed a lot since those early days. His hair had darkened from blond to brown; his baby face had grown angular. He was aware even then that he had outgrown his early appeal, and he was filled with resentment against those who had failed to warn him that what is taken for granted at four can be cruelly taken away at seven. He’d been told so often that he was adorable, that he was good — and now here he was, discarded, just like those dolls she had put away when her new, living doll had appeared on the scene —

  His brothers showed little sympathy at his sudden fall from grace. Nigel was openly gleeful; Bren was his usual, impassive self. He may not even have noticed at first; he was too busy following Nigel about, copying him slavishly. Neither really understood that this wasn’t about wanting attention, either from Ma or from anyone else. The circumstances surrounding Emily’s birth had taught them that no one is irreplaceable; that even one such as Ben Winter could be stripped unexpectedly of his gilding. Only his sensory peculiarities now set him apart from the rest of the clan — and even that was about to change.

  By the time they got to see her at last, Emily was nine months old. A fluffy thing in rosebud pink, furled tightly in her mother’s arms. The boys were at the market, helping Ma with the groceries, and it was blueeyedboy who saw them first, Mrs White wearing a long purple coat — violetto, her favourite colour — that was meant to look bohemian, but made her look too pale instead, with a scent of patchouli that stung at his eyes, overwhelming the smell of fruit.

  There was another woman with her, he saw. A woman of his mother’s age, in stonewash jeans and a waistcoat, with long, dry, pale hair and silver bangles on her arms. Mrs White reached for some strawberries, then, seeing Benjamin waiting in line, gave a little cry of surprise.

  ‘Sweetheart, how you’ve grown!’ she said. ‘Has it really been so long?’ She turned to the woman at her side. ‘Feather. This is Benjamin. And this is his mother, Gloria.’ No mention of Nigel or Brendan. Still, that was to be expected.

  The woman she’d addressed as Feather — What a stupid name, thought blueeyedboy — gave them a rather narrow smile. He could tell she didn’t like them. Her eyes were long and wintry-green, devoid of any sympathy. He could tell she was suspicious of them, that she thought they were common, not good enough —

  ‘You had a b-baby,’ said blueeyedboy.

  ‘Yes. Her name’s Emily.’

  ‘Em-i-ly.’ He tried it out. ‘C-can I hold her? I’ll be careful.’

  Feather gave her narrow smile. ‘No, a baby isn’t a toy. You wouldn’t want to hurt Emily.’

  Wouldn’t? blueeyedboy thought to himself. He wasn’t as sure as she seemed to be. What use was a baby, anyhow? It couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk; all it could do was eat, sleep or cry. Even a cat could do more than that. He didn’t know why a baby should be so important, anyway. Surely he was more so.

  Something stung at his eyes again. He blamed the scent of patchouli. He tore a leaf from a nearby cabbage and crushed it secretly into his hand.

  ‘Emily’s a — special baby.’ It sounded like an apology.

  ‘The doctor says I’m special,’ said Ben. He smirked at Feather’s look of surprise. ‘He’s writing a book about me, you know. He says I’m remarkable.’

  Ben’s vocabulary had greatly improved thanks to Dr Peacock’s tuition, and he uttered the word with a certain flourish.

  ‘A book?’ said Feather.

  ‘For his research.’

  Both of them looked surprised at that, and turned to stare at Benjamin in a way that was not entirely flattering. He bridled a little, half-sensing, perhaps, that at last he had snagged their attention. Mrs White was really watching him now, but in a thoughtful, suspicious way that made blueeyedboy uncomfortable.

  ‘So — he’s been — helping you out?’ she said.

  Ma looked prim. ‘A little,’ she said.

  ‘Helping out financially?’

  ‘It’s part of his research,’ said Ma.

  Blueeyedboy could tell that Ma was offended by the suggestion that they needed help. That made it sound like charity, which was not at all the case. He started to tell Mrs White that they were helping Dr Peacock, not the other way around. But then Ma shot him a look, and he could see from her expression that he shouldn’t have spoken out of turn. She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Her hands were very strong. He winced.

  ‘We’re very proud of Ben,’ she said. ‘The doctor says he has a gift.’

  Gift. Gift, thought blueeyedboy. A green and somehow ominous word, like radioactivity. Giffft, like the sound a snake makes when it sinks its fangs into the flesh. Gift, like a nicely wrapped grenade, all ready to explode in your face —

  And then it hit him like a slap: the headache, and the stink of fruit that seemed to envelop everything. Suddenly he felt queasy and sick, so sick that even Ma noticed, and relaxed her grip on his shoulder.

  ‘What’s wrong now?’

  ‘I d-don’t feel so good.’

  She shot him a look of warning. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she hissed. ‘I’ll give you something to whine about.’

  Blueeyedboy clenched his fists and reached for the thought of blue skies, of Feather in a body bag, dismembered and tagged for disposal, of Emily lying blue in her cot with Mrs White wailing in anguish —

  The headache subsided a little. Good. The awful smell receded, too. And then h
e thought of his brothers and Ma lying dead in the mortuary, and the pain kicked back like a wild horse, and his vision was crazed with rainbows —

  Ma gave him a look of suspicion. Blueeyedboy tried to steady himself against the nearest market stall. His hand caught the side of a packing case. A pyramid of Granny Smiths stood, ready to form an avalanche.

  ‘Anything drops on the floor,’ said Ma, ‘and I swear I’ll make you eat it.’

  Blueeyedboy withdrew his hand as if the box might be on fire. He knew that this was his fault; his fault for swallowing his twin; his fault for wishing Ma dead. He was born bad, bad to the bone, and this sickness was his punishment.

  He thought he’d got away with it. The pyramid trembled, but did not fall. And then a single apple — he can still see it in his mind, with the little blue sticker on the side — nudged against its companion, and the whole of the front of the fruit stall seemed to slide, apples and peaches and oranges bouncing gleefully against each other, then off the AstroTurf apron and rolling on to the concrete floor.

  She waited there until he’d retrieved every single piece of fruit. Some were almost intact; some had been trodden into the dirt. She paid for it at the market stall with an almost gracious insistence. And then, that night, she stood over him with a dripping plastic bag in one hand and the piece of electrical cord in the other, and made him eat it: piece by piece; core and peel and dirt and rot. As his brothers watched through the banisters, forgetting even to snigger as their brother sobbed and retched. To this day, blueeyedboy thinks, nothing very much has changed. And the vitamin drink always brings it back, and he struggles to stop himself retching; but Ma never notices. Ma thinks he is delicate. Ma knows he would never do anything to anyone —

  Post comment:

  chrysalisbaby: Aw babe that makes me want 2 cry

  Captainbunnykiller: Forget the tears, man, where’s the blood ?