Blueeyedboy

by Джоан Харрис

  ‘Bethan? Are you all right?’ he said. I could hear the little smile in his voice.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I stood up. ‘I have to go.’

  Clair looked slightly impatient behind her sympathetic façade. I’d interrupted the story, of course, and everyone else was riveted.

  ‘You don’t look terribly well,’ said Bren. ‘I hope it wasn’t something I said—’

  ‘Fuck you,’ I told him, and made for the door.

  He gave me a rueful shrug as I passed. Strange that, after all he has done, I should feel that sorry little skip of the heart every time he looks at me. He’s crazy, and false, and deserves to die, yet there’s still something inside me that wants to believe, that still tries to find excuses for him. All that was such a long time ago. We were different people then. And both of us have paid a price, have left a part of ourselves behind, so that neither of us can ever be whole, or escape the ghost of Emily.

  For a time, I thought I had escaped. Perhaps I might even have managed if he hadn’t been there to remind me. Every day in every way, taunting me with his presence until suddenly it all comes out, and the box of delights is broken, and all the demons are free at last, scourging the air with memories.

  Funny, where these things can lead us. If Emily had lived, would we have been friends? Would she have worn that red coat? Would she have lived in my house? Would Nigel have fallen for her that night at the Zebra, instead of me? Sometimes I feel I’m in Looking Glass Land, living a life that’s not quite mine, a second-hand life that never quite fitted.

  Emily’s life. Emily’s chair. Emily’s bed. Emily’s house.

  But I like it there; it feels right somehow. Not like my old house from so long ago, which is now home to the Jacadees, and which rings with the noise of their cheery lives and the spices of their kitchen. Somehow I couldn’t have stayed there. No, Emily’s house was the place for me, and I have barely allowed it to change, as if she might come back some day and claim her rightful property.

  Perhaps that’s why Nigel never settled there, preferring to keep to his flat in town. Not that he really remembered her — he missed that business entirely — but I suppose Gloria disapproved, as indeed she disapproved of everything about me. My hair; my accent; my body art; but most of all my proximity to whatever had happened to Emily White, a mystery only half-resolved, in which her son was also enmeshed.

  I don’t believe in ghosts, of course. I’m not the one who’s crazy. But all my life I’ve seen her here: tapping her way round Malbry; walking in the park; by the church; vivid in her bright-red coat. I’ve seen her; I’ve been her in my mind. How could it have been otherwise? I’ve been living Emily’s life for longer than I have my own. I listen to her music. I grow her favourite flowers. I visited her father every Sunday afternoon, and right until the end he nearly always called me Emily.

  Still, the time for nostalgia is long past. My journal now serves a new purpose. Confession is good for the soul, they say, and over time I have acquired the habit of the confessional. It’s so much easier this way, of course; there is no priest, no penance. Only the computer screen and the absolution of the Delete key. The moving finger writes, and, having writ, can be erased at the touch of a hand; unwriting the past, deleting blame, making the sullied spotless again —

  Blueeyedboy would understand. Blueeyedboy, with his online games. Why does he do it? Because he can. And equally, because he can’t. And also, of course, because Chryssie believes in happy-ever-after; because Clair buys Bourbon biscuits instead of Family Circle; and because Cap is a fucktard who wouldn’t know tough if it jumped up and tore out what’s left of his guts —

  I know. I’m beginning to sound like him now. I suppose it comes with the territory. And besides, I’ve always been very good at mimicking other people. It is, you might say, my only skill. My one successful party piece. But this is no time for complacency. This is the time to be most aware. Even at his most vulnerable, blueeyedboy is dangerous. He is far from stupid, and he knows how to hit back. Nigel — poor Nigel — is a case in point, deleted just as effectively as if blueeyedboy had hit a key.

  That’s how he does it. That’s how he copes. He said as much in his story. That’s how a mirror-touch synaesthete orchestrated the death of one brother, by using another as proxy. And that’s how he managed to kill Nigel, with the help of an insect in a jar. And if I am to believe him now, that’s how he caused those other deaths, shielding himself from the consequences by watching it all in reverse, through his fic, like Perseus slaying the Gorgon.

  I’ve thought of going to the police. But it sounds so absurd, doesn’t it? I can imagine their faces now; their looks of sympathetic amusement. I could show them his online confessions — if that’s what they really are — and I’d be the one to look crazy, lost in a world of fantasy. Like a stage magician as he prepares to saw the lady in half, blueeyedboy scrupulously invites us to check that there has been no subterfuge.

  Look, no tricks. No hidden trapdoor. There’s nothing hidden up his sleeve. His crimes are public, for all to see. To speak up now would simply be to turn the spotlight on myself; to add another scandalous strand to a tale already barbed with lies. I imagine my life with Nigel placed under their scrutiny; I can already see the Press coming like starving rodents out of their holes, swarming over everything, and every little scrap of my life torn up and nibbled at and used to line their filthy nests.

  I walked home via the Fireplace House. I knew it so well from his stories. In fact I’d only seen it once, in secret, when I was ten years old. I remembered the garden, all roses, and the bright green lawns, and the big front door, and the fish pond with its fountain. Of course I’d never been inside. But Daddy had told me everything. Over twenty years later, I found my way back with eerie, unsurprising ease. Class had finished at eight o’clock, and a murky dark had fallen, smelling of smoke and sour earth, bracketing the houses and cars in a halo of streetlight-orange.

  The house was shut, as I’d thought it would be, but the front gate opened easily and the path had been recently weeded and cleared. Bren’s work, I told myself. He has always hated disorder.

  Security lights came on as I passed. White spotlights against the green. I could see my giant shadow against the wall of the rose garden, pointing like a finger down the path and across the lawn.

  I tried to imagine the house as my own. That gracious house, those gardens. If Emily had lived, I thought, they would have belonged to her now. But Emily had not lived, and the fortune had gone to her family, or at least what was left of it — to her father, Patrick White — and then, at last, from Daddy to me. I wish I could refuse the gift. But it’s too late: wherever I go, Emily White will follow me. Emily White and her circus of horrors: the gloaters, the haters, the stalkers, the Press . . .

  The upstairs windows were boarded up. Across the fading front door someone had recently sprayed in blue paint: ROT IN HELL U PERVERT.

  Nigel? No, surely not. I don’t believe Nigel would have harmed the old man, whatever the provocation. And as for Bren’s other suggestion — that Nigel had never loved me at all, that it had all been because of the money —

  No. That’s blueeyedboy playing games again, trying to poison everything. If Nigel had lied to me, I would have known. And yet I can’t help wondering — what was in that letter he got? The letter which sent him off in such a rage? Could Brendan have been blackmailing him? Had he threatened to reveal his plans? Could Nigel really have been involved in something that led to murder?

  Click.

  A small, but quite familiar sound. For a moment I stood listening, the sound of my blood like surf in my ears, my skin a-prickle with nervous heat. Could they have found me already? I thought. Was this the exposure I’d feared?

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  No answer. The trees hisshed and whispered with the wind.

  ‘Brendan!’ I called. ‘Bren? Is that you?’

  Still nothing moved. There was silence. And yet I could feel him watching m
e as I’ve felt him watch me so often before, and the hackles stood up at the back of my neck, and my mouth was suddenly sour and dry.

  Then I heard it again. Click.

  The shutterclick sound of a camera, so dreadfully innocuous, weighted with menace and memories. Then the furtive sound of his retreat, almost inaudible, back through the bushes. He is very quiet, of course. But I can always hear him.

  I took a step towards the sound, parted the bushes with my hands.

  ‘Why are you following me?’ I said. ‘What is it you want, Bren?’

  I thought I heard him behind me then, a furtive sound in the under-growth. I made my voice seductive now, a velvet cat’s-paw of a voice, to coax an unsuspecting rat. ‘Brendan? Please. We need to talk.’

  There was a piece of rock at my feet by the edge of the border. I hefted it. It felt good. I imagined myself bringing it down on his head as he hid there in the bushes.

  I stood there, holding the rock in my hand, looking out for a sign of him. ‘Brendan? Are you there?’ I said. ‘Come out. I want to talk to you—’

  Once more I heard a rustling, and this time I reacted. I took a step, spun round, and then, as hard as I could, I pitched the rock towards the source of the rustling sound. There came a thud and a muffled cry — and then a terrible silence.

  There. You’ve done it, I told myself.

  It didn’t feel real; my hands were numb. My ears were filled with white noise. Was this all I had to do? Is it so easy to kill a man?

  And then it hit me; the horror, the truth. Murder was easy, I realized; as easy as throwing a casual punch; as easy as lifting up a stone. I felt empty, amazed at my emptiness. Could this really be all there was?

  Then came the opening chords of grief; a swell of love and sickness. I heard a dreadful wounded cry, which for a moment I took to be his voice, but later understood was my own. I took a step towards the place where I’d thrown the rock at Brendan. I called his name. There was no reply. He could be hurt, I told myself. He could be alive, but unconscious. He could be faking it; lying in wait. I didn’t care; I had to know. There, behind the rose hedge — the briars tore my hands bloody.

  And then came a movement behind me. He must have been very silent. He must have crawled on his hands and knees between the herbaceous borders. As I turned I caught a glimpse of his face, his look of pain and disbelief.

  ‘Bren?’ I called. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  And then he was running away through the trees, a flash of blue parka against the green. I heard him slip on the dead leaves, sprint across the gravel path, vault over the garden wall and jump down into the alleyway. My heart was pounding furiously. I was shaking with adrenalin. Relief and bitterness warred in me. I hadn’t crossed the line, after all. I was not a murderer. Or could it be that the fateful line was not the act, but the intent?

  Of course, that’s academic now. I’ve shown my hand. The game is on. Like it or not, if he gets the chance, he will try to kill me.

  9

  You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.

  Posted at: 00.07 on Wednesday, February 20

  Status: restricted

  Mood: hurt

  Listening to: Pink Floyd: ‘Run Like Hell’

  Bitch. You got me. Right on the wrist — I’m lucky it isn’t broken. If you’d hit me in the head — as you undoubtedly meant to — it would have been goodnight, sweet prince, or pick the cliché of your choice.

  I have to say I’m a little surprised. I didn’t mean any harm, you know. I was only taking photographs. I certainly hadn’t expected you to react quite so aggressively. Fortunately I know that garden very well. I know how to move between the beds, and where to watch unnoticed. I knew how to make my escape, too — as I had so many times before — over the wall into the street, with my hurt wrist pressed hard against my stomach and tears of pain half-blinding me, so that everything seemed garlanded with dirty-orange rainbows.

  I ran home, trying to tell myself that I wasn’t running home to Ma, and got back just as she was finishing up in the kitchen.

  ‘How was class?’ she called through the door.

  ‘Fine, Ma,’ I told her, hoping to get upstairs before she saw me. Mud on my trainers; mud on my jeans; my wrist beginning to swell and throb — that’s why I’m still typing with one hand — and my face a map of where I’d been; of places Ma had warned me against —

  ‘Did you talk to Terri?’ she said. ‘I’m sure she’s upset about Eleanor.’

  Surprisingly, Ma has taken it well. Far better than I had expected. Spent most of today looking at hats and choosing hymns for the funeral. Ma enjoys her funerals, of course. She relishes the drama. The trembling hand; the tearful smile; the handkerchief pressed to the lipsticked mouth. Tottering by with Adèle and Maureen, each supporting an elbow:

  Gloria’s such a survivor.

  She stopped me halfway up the stairs. Looking down I could see the top of her head; the parting in her black hair that over time has grown from a narrow path into a four-lane motorway. Ma dyes her hair, of course; it’s one of the things I’m not supposed to know about, like the Tena pads in the bathroom, and what happened to my father. But I’m not allowed to have secrets from her, and she levelled the force of her scrutiny on to my guilty profile as I stood like a deer in the headlights, waiting for the hammer to fall.

  But when she spoke, I found that Ma still sounded surprisingly cheery. ‘Why don’t you have a nice bath?’ she said. ‘Your dinner’s in the oven. There’s some of that chilli chicken you like, and some home-made lemon pie.’ No mention of the mud on the stairs, or even the fact that I was half an hour late.

  Sometimes that’s the worst part. I can live with her when she’s evil. It’s when she’s normal that it hurts, because that’s when the guilt comes creeping back, bringing the headache, the sickness. It’s when she’s normal that I can feel the bulbs of arthritis in her hands and the way her back aches when she stands up, and that’s when I remember what it was like in the old days, before my brother was born, in the days when I was her blueeyeedboy —

  ‘I’m not really hungry right now, Ma.’

  I expected her to react to that. But this time Ma just smiled and said: ‘All right, B.B., you get some rest,’ and went back into the kitchen. I was surprised (and oddly disturbed) to be let off the hook so easily; but still, it’s good to be back in my room, with a glass of wine and a sandwich, and an ice-pack on my injured hand.

  The first thing I did was log on. Badguysrock was deserted, although my inbox was filled with messages, mostly from Clair and Chryssie. Nothing from Albertine. Oh, well. Perhaps she is feeling shaken. It isn’t easy to face the fact that you’re capable of murder. But she was always so keen to believe in absolutes. In actual fact the line between good and evil is so blurred as to be almost indistinguishable; and it’s only long after you’ve crossed it that you become aware that it even existed at all.

  Albertine, oh Albertine. I feel very close to you today. Through the throbbing of my wrist, I can feel the beat of your heart. I wish you all the best, you know. I hope you find what you’re looking for. And when it’s over, I hope you can find a little place in your heart for me, for blueeyedboy, who understands far more than you imagine —

  10

  You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.

  Posted at: 23.32 on Wednesday, February 20S

  tatus: restricted

  Mood: impatient

  Not a word from blueeyedboy. Not that I expected one — not so soon, anyway. I’m guessing he’ll lie low for a while, like an animal driven to earth. I’m guessing three days before he comes out. The first, to check out the area. The second, to establish a plan of action. The third, to finally make his move. Which is why I made my move today — emptying my bank account, setting my things in order, packing away my belongings in preparation for the inevitable.

  Don’t think this is going to be easy for me. These things are never straightforward. Even less so for him, of course; but his
methods are chosen to fool his uniquely cross-wired brain into thinking his actions are not his fault, while the victim walks straight into the trap carefully laid out for them.

  What will it be, I wonder? Having now made my intentions so clear, I cannot expect him to make an exception in my case. He’ll try to kill me. He has no choice. And his feelings for me — such as they are — are founded on guilt and nostalgia. I’ve always known what I was to him. A shade; a ghost; a reflection. A substitute for Emily. I knew that, and I didn’t care; that was how much he meant to me.

  But people are lines of dominoes: one falls, then all the others follow. Emily and Catherine; Daddy, Dr Peacock and me. Nigel and Bren and Benjamin. Where it begins is seldom clear; we own only part of our personal story.

  It doesn’t seem fair, does it? We all imagine our lives as a story in which we ourselves take centre stage. But what about the extras? What about the substitutes? For every leading role there exist a multitude of expendables, hanging around in the background, never in the spotlight, never speaking a line of dialogue, sometimes not even making the final edit, ending their lives as a single frame on the cutting-room floor. Who cares when an extra bites the dust? Who owns the story of their life?

  For me it begins at St Oswald’s. I can’t have been more than seven years old, but I do remember what happened in remarkably vivid detail. Every year my mother and I would go to the Christmas concert in the chapel at St Oswald’s at the end of the long winter term. I liked the music, the carols, the hymns, and the organ like a hydra with its shining tongues of brass. She liked the solemnity of the Masters in their black gowns, and the sweetness of the choristers with their angel smocks and candles.

  I saw things with such clarity then. The memory loss came afterwards. One moment I was in sunlight; the next in chequered shadows, with only a few flecks of brilliance left to prove that the memories had ever been there. But that day, everything was clear. I remember all of it.