by Джоан Харрис
Click.
‘Ma?’
No answer. He goes to the door. The keys were in his coat pocket. She must have taken them, thinks blueeyedboy, when he went back upstairs. The door is pitch pine; the lock, a Yale. He has always valued his privacy.
‘Ma? Please. Talk to me.’
Just that heavy silence, like something buried under snow. Then, the sound of her footsteps receding softly down the carpeted stairs.
Has she guessed? What does she know? A finger of ice slips down his back. A tremor creeps into his voice; the ghost of the stutter he thought was lost.
‘Please, Ma!’
In fiction, our hero would break down the door; or failing that, crash through the window to land unharmed on the ground below. In real life, the door is unbreakable — though, sadly, blueeyedboy is not, as a leap from the window would surely confirm, sprawling him in agony on to the icy concrete below.
No, he’s trapped. He knows that now. Whatever his Ma is planning, he thinks, he’s helpless to prevent it. He hears her downstairs; her steps in the hall; her shoes on the polished parquet floor. The rattle of keys. She’s going out.
‘Ma!’ There’s a desperate edge to his voice. ‘Ma! Don’t take the car! Please!’
She hardly ever takes the car. Still, today, he knows she will. The café’s only a few streets away, down at the corner of Mill Road and All Saints’; but Ma can be so impatient sometimes — and she knows that girl is expecting him, that Irish girl with all the tattoos, the one who has broken her little boy’s heart —
How did she know what he was planning? Perhaps it was his mobile phone, left on the hall table. How stupid of him to have left it there so invitingly. So easy to open his inbox; so easy to find the recent dialogue between her son and Albertine.
Albertine, she thinks with a sneer. A rose by any other name. And she knows that it’s that Irish girl, already to blame for the death of one son, now daring to threaten the other. A wasp in a jar may have killed him, but Gloria knows that Nigel’s death would never have happened but for Albertine. Stupid, jealous Nigel, who first fell for that Irish girl and then, when he found out his brother had been following her, taking photographs, had first threatened, and then used his fists on poor, helpless blueeyedboy, so that Ma had had to take action at last, putting Nigel down like a rabid dog lest history repeat itself —
Dear Bethan (if I may),
I suppose you must have heard the news by now. Dr Peacock passed away the other night at the Mansion. Fell out of his wheelchair down the steps, leaving the bulk of his estate — last valued at three million pounds — to you. Congratulations. I suppose the old man felt he owed you something for the Emily White affair.
I have to say I’m surprised, though. Brendan never told me a thing. All that time he was working for Dr Peacock, and never thought to tell me about this. But maybe he mentioned something to you? After all, you’re such good friends.
I know our respective families have had our differences over the years. But now that you’re seeing both my sons, perhaps we can bury the hatchet. This business comes as a shock to us all. Especially if what I’ve heard is true; that they’re treating the death as suspicious.
Still, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that. These things blow over in time, as you know.
Yours sincerely,
Gloria.
Yes, Ma wrote the letter, of course. She has never flinched from her duty. Knowing that Nigel would open it; knowing that he would take the bait. And when Nigel came round that day, demanding to talk to blueeyedboy, she was the one who deflected him, who sent him away with a flea in his ear — or at least, with a wasp in a jar —
But now her only surviving son owes her a debt that cannot be repaid. He can never leave her now. He can never belong to anyone else. And if he ever tries to run —
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blueeyedboy: Comments, anyone? Anyone here?
8
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Posted at: 04.47 on Friday, February 22
Status: public
Mood: devious
Listening to: My Chemical Romance: ‘Mama’
She ought to have seen it coming, of course. She ought to have known he would end up this way. But Gloria is no expert on child development. To her, developing is something he does in his darkroom, alone. She doesn’t like to think of it much. It’s like the nasty old Blue Book, she thinks, or the games he likes to play online with those invisible friends of his. She has looked into it once or twice, with the same faint dutiful distaste as when she used to wash his sheets, but only for his protection; because other people don’t understand that blueeyedboy is sensitive; that he is simply incapable of ever standing up for himself —
The thought makes her eyes mist over a little. For all her steely hard-headedness, Gloria can be strangely sentimental at times, and even in her anger, the thought of his helplessness touches her. It’s always been at these moments, she thinks, that she loves him best of all: when he’s sick, or in tears, or in pain; when everyone else is against him; when there’s no one to love him but her; when all the world thinks he’s guilty.
Of course, she knows he’s innocent. Well, of murder, anyway. What else he may be guilty of — what crimes of the imagination — is between blueeyedboy and his Ma, who has spent her whole life protecting him, even at her own cost. But that’s her son all over, she thinks: sitting in the nest she has built, like a fat and flightless cuckoo chick with his beak perpetually open.
No, he wasn’t her favourite. But he was always the luckiest of her three unlucky boys: a natural survivor in spite of his gift; a chip, she thinks, off the old block.
And a mother owes it to her son to protect him, no matter what. Sometimes he needs to be punished, she knows; but that’s between blueeyedboy and his Ma. No stranger raises a hand to him. No one — not his school, not the law — has the right to interfere. Hasn’t she always defended him? From bullies and thugs and predators?
Take Tricia Goldblum, the bitch who seduced her elder son — and caused the death of her youngest. It was a pleasure to take care of her. Easy, too: electrical fires are always so reliable.
Then Mrs White’s hippie friend, who thought she was better than they were. And Catherine White herself, of course, so easy to destabilize. And Jeff Jones from the estate, the man who fostered that Irish girl, and who some years later, in the pub, dared to raise a hand to her son. Then there was Eleanor Vine, the sneak, spying on Bren at the Mansion, and Graham Peacock, who cheated them, and for whom the boy had feelings —
He was the most rewarding of all. Tipped over in his wheelchair and left to die alone on the path, like a tortoise half-out of its shell. Afterwards, she went upstairs and relieved him of his T’ang figurine, the one with which he taunted her all those years ago, and which she carefully placed in her cabinet along with the rest of her china dogs. It isn’t stealing, she tells herself. The old man owed her something, after all, for all the trouble he has caused her son.
But in spite of everything she has done for him, what gratitude has blueeyedboy shown? Instead of supporting his mother, he has dared to transfer his affections to that Irish girl from the village, and worse, has tried to make her believe that she could have been his protector —
She’ll make him pay for that, she thinks. But first, to take care of business.
Now, from upstairs, she hears his voice, accompanied by a banging and slapping at the bedroom door. ‘Ma! Please! Open the door!’
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ she says. ‘When I get back, then we can talk.’
‘Ma, please!’
‘Don’t make me come in—’
The sounds from the bedroom cease abruptly.
‘That’s better,’ says Gloria. ‘We’ve got a lot to talk about. Like your job at the hospital. And the way you’ve been lying to me. And what you’ve been up to with that girl. That Irish girl with all the tattoos.’
; Behind the door, he stiffens. He can feel every hair stiffening. He knows what’s in the balance here, and in spite of himself he is afraid. Of course he is. Who wouldn’t be? He is caught inside the bottle trap, and the worst of it is, he needs to be caught; he needs this feeling of helplessness. But she’s there on the other side of the door like a trap-door spider poised to bite, and if any part of his plan goes wrong, if he has failed to compensate for any one of those minute variables, then —
If. If.
An ominous sound, tinged with the grey-green scent of trees and the dust that accumulates under his bed. It’s safe under the bed, he thinks; safe and dark and scentless. He listens as she puts on her boots, fumbles with the front-door key; locks the door behind her. The crump of her footsteps in the snow. The sound of the car door opening.
She takes the car, as he knew she would. His begging her not to do so now ensures her cooperation. He closes his eyes. She starts the car. The engine ratchets into life. It would be so ironic, he thinks, if she had an accident. It wouldn’t be his fault if she did. And then, at last, he would be free —
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blueeyedboy: Still no one here? Right, then. I guess that leaves me all on my own for Stage 4 . . .
9
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Posted at: 04.56 on Friday, February 22
Status: public
Mood: cautious
Listening to: The Rubettes: ‘Sugar Baby Love’
I think you must have guessed by now that this is not an ordinary fic. My other fics are all accounts of things that have already happened — though whether they happened quite as I said is up to you to determine. But this little story is more in the way of being a work-in-progress. An ongoing project, if you like. A breakthrough in concept, as Clair might say. And like all conceptual work, it isn’t entirely without risk. In fact, I’m more or less convinced that it’s all about to end in tears.
Five minutes to drive to the Zebra. Five more to see to business. And after that — Whoops! All gone! — here comes the explosive finale.
I hope they’ll look after my orchids. They’re the only things in this house that I’ll miss. The rest can rot, for all I care, except for the china dogs, of course, for which I have special plans of my own.
But first of all, to get out of this room. The door is pinewood, and well-made. In a movie, perhaps, I could break it down. Real life demands a more reasoned approach. A multi-tool with a screwdriver, a file and a short-bladed penknife should help me deal with the hinges, after which I can make my exit unimpeded.
I take a last look at my orchids. I notice that the Phalaenopsis — otherwise known as the moth orchid — is in need of re-potting. I know exactly how she feels; I, who have lived for all these years in the same little, airless, toxic space. Time to explore new worlds, I think. Time now to leave the cocoon and to fly . . .
It occurs to me as I work on the door that I ought to be feeling better than this. My stomach is filled with butterflies. I’m even feeling a little sick. My iPod is packed in my travel bag; instead I turn on the radio. From the tinny speakers comes the bubblegum sound of the Rubettes singing ‘Sugar Baby Love’.
When I was a little boy, mistaking baby for B.B., I always assumed that those songs were for me; that even the folk on the radio knew that I was special, somehow. Today the music sounds ominous, a troubling falsetto sweeping across a fat layer of descending chords to a mystic accompaniment of doop-shoowaddies and bop-shoowaddies; and it tastes sour-sweet like acid drops, the ones that, when you were a child, you poked into the side of your mouth to make your tastebuds shudder and cramp, and if you weren’t careful, the tip of your tongue would slide over the boiled-sugar shell and snag on the sharp-edged bubbles there, and your mouth would fill with sweetness and blood, and that was the taste of childhood . . .
Nyaaa-haaaa-haaaa-ooooooooooooooh
Today there’s something sinister in those soaring, sustained vocals; something that tears at the insides like gravel in a silk purse. The word sugar is not sweet: it has a pink and gassy smell, like dentist’s anaesthetic, dizzy and intrusive, like something boring its way into my head. And I can almost see her there — right at this moment, here and there — and the Rubettes are playing at migraine volume in the Zebra’s tiny kitchen, and there’s a smell, a sickly-sweet, gassy smell that cuts through the scent of fresh coffee, but Ma doesn’t really notice that, because fifty years of Marlboros have long since shot her olfactory organs to hell, and only the scent of L’Heure Bleue cuts through, and she opens the door to the kitchen.
Of course I can’t quite be sure of this. I could be wrong about the radio station. I could be wrong about the time — she might still be in the car park, or by now it might even be over — and yet it feels completely right.
Sugar baby love
Sugar baby love
I didn’t mean to make you blue —
Perhaps there was something, after all, in Feather’s tales of walk-ins and ghosts and spirits and astral projection; because that’s how I feel now, lighter than air, watching the scene from a place somewhere on the ceiling, and the Rubettes are singing — aaaah-oop shoowaddy-waddy, doop-showaddy-waddy. And now I can see the top of Ma’s head, the parting in her thinning hair; the packet of Marlboros in her hand, the lighter poised above the tip; and I see the superheated air ripple and swell like a balloon inflated beyond its capacity, and she calls out — Hello? Is anyone there? — and lights a final cigarette —
She has no time to understand. I never really intended her to. Gloria Green is no wasp in a jar, to be caught and disposed of at leisure. Nor is she a seaside crab, left to die in the simmering sun. Her passing is instantaneous, and the hot draught sweeps her away like a moth — Pfff! — into oblivion, so that nothing, not even a finger, remains for blueeyedboy to identify, not even a measure of dust large enough to rattle inside a china dog.
From my room I can almost hear the dull cr-crumpf of the explosion, and it’s like crunching a stick of Blackpool rock, all sharp edges and toothache, and although there’s no way I can know for sure, I am suddenly certain, in a surge of wonder and indescribable relief, that I’ve done it at last. I’m free of her. I’m finally rid of my mother —
Don’t tell me you’re surprised, Albertine. Didn’t I tell you I knew how to wait? Did you believe, after all this time, that this could have been an accident? And did you really believe, Ma, that I didn’t know you were watching me, that I hadn’t clocked you from the first time you logged on to badguysrock?
She appeared on the scene some months ago in response to one of my public posts. Ma isn’t what you’d call computer-literate; but she accessed the Net through her mobile phone. After that, it can’t have been long before someone, somewhere, steered her towards badguysrock. My guess is Maureen, via Clair; or maybe even Eleanor. In any case, I’d expected it; and I’d expected to pay for it, too, though I knew she would never make any direct reference to my online activities. Ma can be strangely prudish at times, and some things are never mentioned. All your nasty stuff upstairs is about the closest we ever got to discussing the porn, or the photographs, or the fics that were posted on my site.
I have to admit I enjoyed the game: playing with fire; taking risks; taunting her to reveal herself. Sometimes I went a little too far. Sometimes I got my fingers burnt. But I had to know the boundaries; to see how hard I could push them both; to calculate the precise amount of pressure I could exert over the mechanism before it began to break down. An artist needs to understand the medium in which he works. After that, it was easy.
Don’t feel guilty, Albertine. You had no way of knowing. Besides, in the end she’d have gone after you, just as she did with those others. Call it self-defence, if you like. Or maybe an act of redemption. Anyway, it’s over now. You’re free. Goodbye, and thank you. If you’re ever in Hawaii, call. And please, look after my orchid.
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10
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Posted at: 05.17 on Friday, February 22
Status: restricted
Mood: sick
Listening to: Voltaire: ‘Snakes’
At last. The door pulls away from the hinge. I’m free to leave. I pick up my bag. But the ache in my guts has worsened; it feels like a piece of bramble scoring my stomach lining. I go to the bathroom; I wash my face; I drink a glass of water.
God, it hurts. What’s happening? I’m sweating. I look terrible. In the mirror I look like a corpse: deep shadows around my eyes; mouth bracketed with nausea. What the hell is wrong with me? I felt so good at breakfast.
Breakfast. Ah. I should have known. Too late, I remember the look on her face; that look of almost-happiness. She wanted to make me breakfast today. Cooked me all my favourites. Stood over me while I ate it. The vitamin drink tasted different — and she said she’d changed the recipe.
For God’s sake, it was obvious. How could I have missed what was happening? Ma up to her old tricks again — how could I have been so careless?
And now it feels like shards of glass are grinding away at my insides. I try to stand up, but the pain is too bad; it doubles me up like a penknife. I check the status of my f-list. There has to be someone awake by now. Someone who can help me.
A message through WeJay should bring help. Ma has taken my mobile phone. I type out my SOS and wait. Is there nobody online?
Captainbunnykiller is feeling OK.
Yeah, right. The fucktard. Too scared to leave his house now in case he runs into the boys from the estate. In passing, I notice that kidcobalt has been removed from Cap’s f-list. Oh, well. Colour me surprised.
ClairDeLune is feeling rejected. Well, yes, probably. Angel has finally had enough, and has written to her personally. His tone, which is cool and professional, leaves Clair with no illusions. Rejection hurts at any age; but to Clair the humiliation is even more of a blow. sapphiregirl is gone from her f-list. So, I see, is blueeyedboy.