by Miles Gibson
His head was swinging loosely from side to side. I cradled the back of his head in one hand and held it firmly while I raised the knife to his ear.
“I’m warning you,” he shouted at the woman, “If you don’t send your boyfriend home I’m going to kill him.”
The tip of the blade had disappeared inside his head. I paused and tightened my grip on the handle, correcting the angle of ascent.
“I could kill you with my bare hands,” he sighed. “I was in the army.” He struck me in the face with his fist. The fist was soft and damp. It rolled down my face and dropped to the floor. I turned the knife and guided it into the roof of his skull.
The woman was sitting on the stairs with her handbag swinging gently between her knees. She smiled and snivelled and shook her head at the corpse. I took a second knife and approached her gently. I thought, she will take fright and try to clamber up the stairs. I will catch her by the ankles and pull her into my poisoned embrace. But she didn’t move. I sat down beside her and took away her handbag. She didn’t struggle or scream but merely screwed up her face and turned to the wall. Her hair parted to expose her ear.
“Does it hurt?” she whispered.
“No, it doesn’t hurt,” I promised.
“I’m very tired,” she said sadly.
“Close your eyes,” I murmured, “Close your eyes and you’ll soon be asleep.
I touched her ear with the knife and she was gone. It wasn’t fit to be called a murder. It was more like a suicide. Ten thousand people try to kill themselves every month: a few of them, I suppose, are successful. But most of them make a mess of it, fail to cut deep enough or stay asleep long enough to make it work. They are amateurs. They are dragged into hospitals and washed down and the following month they try it again. It seems such a terrible waste. If they could only reach me, if they only knew my telephone number, I could help them put an end to themselves. There are so many brave volunteers in search of death’s door and with a simple turn of the key I could throw it open to them. It would be a pleasure to offer my services. I am fast and I am lethal. I am a master magician. The depressed and suicidal would run to embrace me. If only they knew they had such a friend.
I sat on the stairs and looked at the woman with the knife in her ear. It was a pity I had left the Polaroid at home. She made a lovely picture. Her jacket was spread beneath her like a blanket. The blood burned bright as embers against her skin. I turned out the lights before I left the house and closed the door behind me. It was all over in six or seven minutes.
I stood for a time and sucked in the cold night air, peeling off my rubber gloves as I watched the street. The houses were narrow brick boxes, sheltered by hedges of holly and laurel. Here and there a feeble light seeped through the curtains at a bedroom window. I watched the windows and I thought, in every house, in every bed, there are men and women who lie like corpses as they surrender to sleep. When they wake tomorrow they will count themselves and find that two of their number are gone. And, in that moment, I felt huge as an angel watching over the slumbering world.
As I strolled towards the car I saw an old man with a black dog walking towards me. But only the dog looked in my direction. I drove home, took a hot bath and settled down in front of the television. I was in time, I remember, for the late news. They had just caught the Liverpool Leopard and there was an interview with the chief of police. The Leopard had been running loose for over two years, raping women and stealing their clothes. There was a picture of him. He was a mild young man with a spotty face and a neat moustache. It was strange to think of him rampaging through the world forcing life into women as fast as I was draining life out of them. I couldn’t understand him. He was a mystery. After the chief of police had finished describing the arrest, the Leopard’s father had a few words to say about it. The boy was popular at school, worked for the church and loved his mother. The father couldn’t understand what had happened to his son.
When the news was finished there was a beauty contest. I think it was called Miss Heavenly Body. There was a line of chunky girls in swimsuits and bleached hair, grinning like loonies and puffing out their breasts whenever they caught the judges’ eye. The presenter asked each of them in turn what she would do if she won the title, Miss Heavenly Body. One said she would work in a refuge for mentally handicapped animals. Another said she would open a beauty parlour so that every woman could learn to be so beautiful. The girl who won the title promised to work for peace and a greater understanding between the nations of the world. Everyone whistled and cheered. She might have been the pope. They pinned a cardboard crown to her head and she burst into tears.
I thought, it’s a shame that the Leopard didn’t see Miss Heavenly Body. He might have enjoyed it. But it was not until I had crawled into bed that I remembered my conversation with Frank and understood suddenly what had driven the Leopard to a life of plunder and rape. He had become a victim of his own addiction. He continued to play the part of the Leopard because, once he had tasted the forbidden fruit, he could not resist. And if such a fate could fall upon a mild young man who worked for the church and loved his mother, what were my own chances of survival?
*
A few days before Christmas, Dorothy rang me and demanded that I spend the holiday at the butcher’s table.
“It’s a very generous invitation,” I said “But I think I’d feel like an orphan saved from the snow.”
I heard Dorothy cluck in exasperation, “You’ll feel even more of an orphan if you spend Christmas alone in your miserable little room,” she said.
“But I’m not prepared,” I said “I haven’t even thought about the holiday …”
“There’s nothing to think about, Mackerel. Just stick a toothbrush in your pocket and come down.”
“I’d love to see you again,” I said.
“There’s something I want to give you …” she said in a whisper.
I didn’t argue. There wasn’t time. I swept along Bond Street and into Piccadilly in a frenzy of Christmas shopping. I bought a box of sugared plums, a potted Stilton and a crusty bottle of vintage port, a photograph album in ginger leather, a silver brooch and a box of Japanese indoor fireworks that proved to be damp and disappointing.
I packed my gifts in black tissue paper and silver ribbon, loaded the Volkswagen and, early one morning, began the long ride west to the Atlantic. Dorothy had given me detailed instructions of the route; the roads to take and the towns to avoid, and I arrived on their doorstep a little before noon.
They lived in a splendid Victorian house surrounded by gravel and rhododendrons. It had five bedrooms, three marble bathrooms and stained glass in the attic windows. Dorothy had decorated the rooms with holly and mistletoe and laid a log fire in every grate. But the heart of the house was the kitchen and as soon as I arrived Dorothy led me by the hand into its welcome heat.
“You look pale,” she said happily as she surveyed me, “You don’t eat enough.
“I left before breakfast.”
“I’ve got some ham. Throw your coat in one of those chairs and we’ll have breakfast together.”
“No, please don’t bother,” I said, “I never eat breakfast.”
Dorothy looked flustered. “Never mind. We’ll call it lunch.”
I took off my coat and sat down to watch Dorothy dash about the kitchen, burning toast and spilling coffee. The kitchen ran the entire length of the building and in the summer was a breeding ground for cats. It smelt like a restaurant, looked like a nursery and sounded like the engine room of a big yacht. A solid pine table with scrubbed wooden chairs stood in the centre of the room. The walls were loaded with shelves of bowls and bottles, books and toys, novelty biscuit tins and teapots shaped like cottages; while all around the constant throbbing of machines in shadow; dishwashers, refrigerators, mincers, grinders, shredders and blenders. There were so many machines that even Dorothy could not explain them all.
A huge, snow white Kelvinator stood in the far corner of the room. I
t was the size of a sofa and when you stood beside it you could feel the floor vibrate beneath your feet Inside this gleaming monolith lay the carcasses of sheep and pigs, trimmed, gutted and beautiful with frost. I don’t believe Dorothy ever used it because she would accept nothing but fresh red meat. It was Archie’s own, private freezer and he used it as a small museum in which to store his favourite corpses.
There had been no sign of Archie when I arrived and after we had gorged on ham and pickles and very black toast I asked Dorothy about him.
“Oh, he’s not here.”
“Is everything all right?” I ventured.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you haven’t been fighting …?”
“Don’t be silly. He’s as tender as a lamb. We never fight.”
“Oh.”
“Archie is working. He’s up to his armpits in turkey entrails.”
“Yes, of course, I was forgetting.”
“You won’t see very much of him until Christmas Day – and he probably won’t recognise you until the day after Boxing Day – he usually goes to sleep for Christmas.”
I glanced up from my coffee cup and caught Dorothy staring at me. I smiled. She continued to stare without expression. I stopped smiling. She licked the corner of her mouth and caught a crumb with a flick of her tongue. And then I blushed until my scalp prickled and my collar felt damp against my neck. I knew she was thinking about the game and, at the same time, I knew she would deny everything if I dared remind her of it. There was silence. It was as if we had made a guest appearance in each other’s dream and to have discussed the dream would have broken the spell. But the silence told me that my nights under the butcher’s roof might be long and turbulent.
“I’ll show you to your room,” she said.
I gathered my luggage and followed her slowly up the stairs. Her ankles seemed to sprout, white and surprised, from an old pair of cotton trousers. Her hair was longer than I remembered and flopped into her eyes whenever she bent her head so that she would rake it back impatiently with a comb of fingers.
I loved her lean greyhound face and narrow shoulders. I loved her with a marvellous surrender. I might have dragged her down upon the stairs and torn the buttons from her trousers, I might have forced her against the wall and opened her shirt, but I had surrendered long ago to the rules of Dorothy’s secret game and could only wait, nervously, for her instructions.
We spent the rest of that first day together talking and laughing, drinking and playing cards. Archie came home around midnight and, after crushing my hand briefly between his own great fists, sank mournfully into an armchair and closed his eyes. He looked old and gaunt. His face was grey with fatigue. But a hot whisky seemed to revive him and he was soon strong enough to open his eyes again and smile. I asked him about the price of Christmas turkey and his smile broadened into a grin. He asked me if I had found an occupation for myself and I told him about my history of conjuring. It required a great deal of research, I explained, and would probably take several years to complete. I had discussed the book at such length with Frank that I had started to believe in it.
Archie sat and nodded his head in approval. He was always concerned with how I managed to pass the time because he felt that a man without regular employment was in perpetual danger of becoming a criminal or going mad with boredom and booze. His own success as a butcher – he owned most of the butchers’ shops in three counties – had done nothing to diminish his own appetite for simple, hard labour. Where another man in the same position might have sat behind a desk and sucked a cigar, Archie spent his time on the sawdust floor, dressed in a bloody apron.
Archie sat and nodded, but his head was heavy and his chin fell against his chest He began to snore. I helped Dorothy haul him upstairs and said goodnight I went to bed and lay awake for hours, listening for the slightest movement in the darkness. But nothing disturbed the silence. I fell asleep and was not woken until late the following morning when Dorothy brought me coffee.
“Wake up, Mackerel,” she shouted as she dragged at the curtains. “It’s late.”
“What’s happening?” I roared thickly from under my pillow.
“We’re going shopping – come on – get dressed.”
When I opened my eyes I saw that she was already dressed and her face was painted. I crawled from the warm sheets, stood up and staggered across the carpet. Dorothy pushed the coffee into my hands and left me to search for my clothes. The room was full of narcotic perfume.
It was the day before Christmas Eve, a brilliant, cold day with frost on the lawns. We drove into town and stopped at one of the big department stores. I don’t remember the name of the store but it thought itself important enough to carry a restaurant and Father Christmas in Wonderland. Dorothy swept through the crowds, weaving from counter to counter, dragging me behind her like a sulking child. She was wrapped in a thick ball of fur and she snarled like a racoon whenever she was jostled or pushed.
“Look, do you like them?” she demanded as she pulled a string of beads from a counter display. They were crude glass beads the colours of cheap soap.
“Yes, they’re pretty,” I said without conviction.
Dorothy thrust the beads into the pocket of her coat
“What are you doing?” I gasped in her ear. I couldn’t believe what had happened.
“I’m stealing them,” she said as we pushed our way through the crowd.
“But you can’t do that – they’ll catch you,” I muttered fiercely under my breath.
“They never catch me – they’re too slow. Come on,” she whispered and led me away.
“How long have you been doing it?” I whispered. I was shocked.
“Oh, years and years. It’s a hobby. I’ll show you how to do it if you’re interested, Mackerel.”
“But it’s against the law,” I squeaked.
“Yes, I know,” said Dorothy.
“But what would happen if Archie found out about it?” I demanded.
“Oh, I expect he’d cut my hands off,” she said with a grin.
“But …”
“Shut up and stuff this in your pocket,” she murmured. Her hand was searching for the pockets of my overcoat. I caught her hand and she pressed a bracelet into my palm. I pushed my hands into my pockets and kept them there. The bracelet burned the lining of my coat like a baked potato. I just couldn’t believe what was happening. I was convinced we were being watched. When I looked around I thought I saw a detective in every face in the crowd. It was terrible.
We roamed through the store, stuffing our pockets with whatever trinket caught Dorothy’s evil eye. I cannot understand why she played the thief. It was crazy. Perhaps she did it for the excitement, the sheer hell of practising her sleight of hand in the full glare of the counter girls. It’s possible. It certainly scared the hell out of me. By the time Dorothy had grown tired of her sins my shirt was soaked with sweat and my ears were ringing.
I wanted to sneak away through the back of the store and make my escape. But Dorothy had not finished. She laughed when I pleaded to be taken home and insisted that we rest our feet in the restaurant where she ordered coffee and cake. The chocolate sponge felt like sawdust in my mouth.
“This is terrible,” I hissed, glancing around for detectives dressed as waitresses.
“It’s harmless,” she shrugged.
“No,” I glared, “It’s very silly and very dangerous.”
She sucked at the edge of her coffee cup. “I don’t take any risks,” she murmured.
“Yes, but if they catch you …”
“If they didn’t try to catch you it wouldn’t be exciting,” she explained.
The next day we bought a pine tree, dragged it into the kitchen and planted its stump in a barrel. It filled the room with a mysterious green light. It was so tall that the delicate scented tip was pressed against the ceiling.
Dorothy dressed the tree with everything we had stolen. It was a strange assortment; a set of scr
ewdrivers, a bracelet, a string of beads, a lipstick, a chocolate rabbit, a packet of false fingernails, a card of darning thread and a box of crayons. Those treasures hung from the great tree like gifts selected for a tea party in a lunatic asylum. It was a very curious display.
We did not visit my mother for Christmas. I phoned the hospital and a doctor told me the old lady was depressed and under sedation. She had not asked about me and he was hoping she would sleep for a fortnight. He wanted her to rest her brains. Dorothy’s parents, the grocers, were still alive and in rude health but they had refused to speak to Dorothy since she had entered the butcher’s bed and she had not seen them since her wedding. Archie must have owned parents, I suppose, but he never spoke of them. We were three Christmas orphans and we were content.
Christmas dinner was a roast goose stuffed with apples soaked in rum. Dorothy took great care to dress for the occasion. She wore a black and white pinstriped jacket and a narrow black skirt with a bouncing pleat. Beneath the jacket she wore a white cotton shirt and a small bow-tie. She looked mischievous and wonderfully wicked. Whenever she threw back her head to laugh, tiny blue diamonds flashed in her ears.
After dinner I presented Archie with the photograph album and Dorothy with the silver brooch – a tiny pair of polished handcuffs. They seemed very pleased with these little offerings and spent a long time thanking me for my kindness while I pretended they were mere trifles and did not deserve such admiration. Then Archie presented me with a magnificent set of butcher’s knives in a polished walnut box. He tried to shrug off my thanks but nothing could hide the pleasure in his face as he stared at the box. They were beautiful weapons, blue as mirrors and cold, cold against the skin. I saw, at once, that they were not humble kitchen knives made for slicing sausage or splitting fowl. They were heavy, ceremonial blades to be hoarded and treasured for their beauty.
When all the fluster and flattery was finished we sat for a while to drink the bottle of port. Archie began to dream of Christmas past.