by Miles Gibson
Archie had butchered her in a fit of jealousy. He had woken from a thick sleep and found her in the arms of another man. I don’t remember his name. He was a stranger. Archie killed them both and then staggered, smothered in blood, from the house and disappeared. I read about it in the News of the World. The police found Dorothy in the kitchen freezer.
I felt numb. My fingers and toes went cold. I knew the newspaper report must be true but I refused to believe it. I crawled from the sheets and tried to telephone the house but when I dialled the number I heard nothing but a peculiar whistle in my ear. The telephone had been disconnected.
Dorothy’s death infected my body like a disease. I was numb at first but it quickly thawed into terror. I forced my face into the pillows, hoping to die, choking on the feathers and dust. I ate aspirins in an effort to sleep but poisoned myself and threw up. I tried to recall our last moments together, the words we had spoken and all the secret glances, but I could remember nothing and cursed myself for it.
I thought of Archie running through the woods behind the house, screaming, eyes wild, his butcher’s apron red with blood. Meat is life. Life is meat. Some men are born to be butchers. I was afraid he would try to reach me, knock on the door at midnight and beg me to shelter him. Two mad butchers hiding together in the wardrobe.
I wanted to weep. But the terror had started to make me shake and as I shook I began to laugh. It was a terrible, ghoulish laugh that seemed to bubble up from somewhere deep inside of me and I had no control over it. I laughed until the tears sprang from my eyes and stung my face. I laughed until my lungs were raw and my teeth hurt. I laughed. I laughed. I thought of Archie with his big, sad face and I laughed. I thought of Dorothy standing on tiptoe, lean and naked, and I laughed. I thought of the three of us standing together at my mother’s graveside and I laughed again. All this time I thought I had been cheating Death of his pleasure and he had been flying in my shadow, cutting down the lives around me, snipping away at the threads of my world with his scissors. He had left me no one but Frank.
Finally, in the early hours of Monday morning, I hammered on Frank’s door and fell, sobbing, into his arms. He was wearing green pyjamas. His face was soft and crinkled as a chestnut and his hair was damp from sleep.
“What’s wrong?” he kept shouting at me in alarm, “What’s wrong?” He was trying to push me away, hold me at arm’s length to look at my face, but I clung to him grimly. I could not answer his question.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
No. I managed to shake my head and reluctantly released my hold on him.
He took me into his apartment and guided me gently into an armchair. Then he gave me a glass of brandy and sat with me until I was calm enough to speak. While I gulped at the brandy a woman walked into the room. She was wearing a pillow. She had it pressed against her body like a small child and was trying to shelter behind it. Her face was swollen from sleep and bruised with smudges of lipstick and mascara. Her hair was a bright orange colour and stood on spikes on her head. I remember staring at her hair and thinking she must belong to some secret aboriginal tribe and my sobbing turned to giggling which must have frightened her because she ran away and stared at me from the safety of the bedroom.
“What’s happening?” she called out in an angry voice.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” answered Frank softly, “It’s a friend.”
The woman seemed quite satisfied with his explanation and she returned a moment later wearing a sheet.
“Is he in trouble?” she asked as she knelt down beside the chair and stared at me with her mouth open.
“Yes,” said Frank calmly.
“You want me to leave?” she asked him. She twisted her arm around his leg and began scratching at his pyjamas with her fingernails.
Frank glanced down at her and smiled apologetically.
“I’ll get dressed,” the woman muttered and returned to the bedroom. When she came out again she was wearing a long rabbit coat and a pair of silver shoes. Frank drew her into a corner and began to count out some money from his wallet. Then he kissed her lightly on the cheek and she left the premises without another word.
“I’m sorry,” I said when she had gone, “I’ve driven your friend away.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Frank, “You can find friends like that on any street corner. Finish your brandy and then tell me your troubles.” He pulled a pack of Camel from his pyjamas, poked two of them in his mouth and lit them together.
“I don’t smoke, Frank.”
“Give it a good suck,” he smiled, “I’m trying to help.”
So I sucked and coughed and tried to tell him about my mother’s death and as much as I dared of my love for Dorothy. In a few short weeks I had lost everyone who cared for me. I cannot remember how much I told him. I wanted to tell him everything – although I could never have told him of Jane. He listened and nodded his head in sympathy, as I always knew he would when I needed him. He helped me back to my rooms and put me to bed.
“It hurts, Frank,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “I know. But the pain will burn itself out. Believe me.” He threw the pack of Camel down on the table beside the bed.
“And I feel angry,” I blurted out.
“It’s natural to feel like that,” said Frank, “Don’t choke it back.”
I stayed drunk for two days, burning my stomach with brandy and trying to cauterize the deeper wounds in my head. The butcher had swung his axe at little Dorothy but it was my blood that had rushed from her body and filled the carpet with its hot, thick perfume. As I lay in bed, stinking and starved, I was visited by terrible dreams. I dreamt I poisoned a reservoir and watched a whole city drink itself to death. I dreamt I set fire to hospitals and watched women suffocate in the ash and the smoke. Whatever I touched shrank and died beneath my hands. Wherever I dared to tread the land seemed to crumble beneath my heel.
I cannot find the words to describe the agony of those days and even if I could I would not share them with you. But gradually I recovered my senses and it was Johnson Johnson who finally brought me back from the land of the dead. I was sprawled in a drunken sleep in front of the television late one night when he started banging on my door with his fists. When I flung the door open he was standing there smiling with his arms folded over his chest.
“What’s happening?” I mumbled.
“Mr Burton, my mother is trying to sleep. She has a very bad headache. Will you please turn down the noise of your television?”
“No. Go away,” I demanded. I was confused with sleep and not prepared to recite the usual apologies and good wishes he had come to expect from me.
“I beg your pardon?” he said as he exchanged the smile for a sneer.
“Why don’t you grow up and leave home? You’re horrible. You give me the shivers,” I explained.
He was shocked. He looked as if he’d just found a turd in his pocket.
“Now listen, you can’t talk to me like that,” he snapped.
“Sod off,” I roared cheerfully.
“I’m warning you,” he shouted, “I’m warning you.” His face began to quiver and his nose began to swell. It was an extraordinary sight. I thought his nose might explode. It was nearly black with blood.
“Shut up, Johnson and go home. I’m tired of your stupid complaints. I can’t even fart without waking up your mother.”
He tried to find a suitable retort but words failed him. He took a step forward and prodded me in the ribs with his thumb. He was standing so close I could hear him grinding his teeth.
“You’re a nasty specimen. I’m surprised they didn’t drown you when you were born,” I whispered.
He made a grab at my collar but I was too fast for him. I stepped on his foot and caught his nose in my fingers, twisting it hard against his face.
He screeched. His nose burst and a necklace of small red beads spilled across his shirt. He covered his nose in his hand and stared at me in horror. The b
eads fell through the cracks in his hand and bounced softly onto his shoes.
“I shall fetch the police,” he shouted. “I shall have you investigated. You haven’t heard the last of me. You’ll live to regret it.”
“If I find you outside my door again, I’ll kill you,” I shouted at him.
“I shall tell the police,” he howled as he smeared at the blood on his shirt.
I shrugged off his threats and slammed the door in his face. I believe he took my grief with him when he ran down the stairs for there were no bad dreams for me that night. I enjoyed a sweet and silent sleep.
The next day I woke up determined to return to work and not sit at home wringing my hands and thinking of the past. If Death wanted to play games with me I was ready to meet the challenge. I would turn London into a knacker’s yard, gutters would run scarlet, sewers would be choked with bones.
For a few days the weather was against me but as soon as the storms cleared I prepared my equipment and threw it into the Volkswagen. I was going to explore the territory south of the Thames and late one evening I set off, driving like a madman, in the direction of Battersea. A few minutes later I was lost among long terraces of dirty Victorian houses and I parked the car and began to walk. The streets were busy. I didn’t care. I slipped through a garden gate and walked to the back of one of the houses. There was a single light burning in one of the attic windows but the lower rooms were in darkness, so I pulled on my gloves and tried the lock on the door. To my surprise the door swung open. It was careless to leave the door unlocked – an invitation to all manner of thief. I walked into the kitchen and waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.
It was a large modern kitchen that smelt of nothing but machines and cats. A freezer rumbled in the darkness. A clock on the wall muttered to itself as I passed beneath. I tiptoed across the room and made my way down a short corridor to the staircase. The stairs creaked. Beneath my tread each board gave a little groan of complaint. I drew a knife from my bag, afraid that I might be discovered before I had finished the climb. But I reached the attic in safety. Nonetheless my heart was pounding and I was surprised by a trickle of sweat down my neck. I was frightened. I had been careless in selecting the scene of my crime and too hasty in my approach.
It was dark at the top of the stairs but a thin slice of yellow light marked the door of the room I had glimpsed from the garden. I reached out towards the door but I could not push my hand against it. My mouth had turned dry. Who hid in that room? Who stood so silently on the other side of the door? Every time I stole into a house I was gambling that I could overcome the residents by force. But what would happen if I opened the door to be confronted by a madman with a knife? I had been lucky, yes, in the past. But my luck could turn and I wouldn’t know until it was too late to make my escape.
I stood there in the dark, knife in glove, and scared myself with thoughts of murder. I had not yet made a bad mistake but that was no comfort. The success I had enjoyed in the past would only serve to make me careless in the future. Who was hiding behind that damned door? I should have taken the trouble to watch and wait before I went creeping up unknown flights of stairs.
I kicked out with my foot and burst through the door with a horrible shout. There was a woman sitting in a bath. As I slithered across the bathroom on soapy tiles the woman began to shout and plunge about in the water. She stood up to confront me and then jackknifed, trying to hide her body in her hands. I hit the wall with my shoulder and tried to compose myself. The woman returned to the water to hide. She sank beneath the surface leaving nothing exposed but her head and a pair of fat and steaming knees. The water was apple-green and full of bubbles.
“Good evening,” I said as soon as I had recovered my breath.
“Don’t be frightened,” she replied in a terrified whisper, “I’m a social worker.” She had small pointed ears and her hair was tied in a knot on the top of her head.
“What?”
“I’m a social worker,” she whispered, “I can help. Don’t move. Put your knife on the shelf and pass me that towel. We’ll talk about it.”
“You must think I’m crazy.”
“No…I don’t think anyone is crazy.”
I slithered dangerously across the floor and squatted down beside the bath while she watched me with a critical eye. She thought I was a customer. A casualty of circumstance, the family or the street. She thought I was a victim but I proved her wrong. The knife sprang into her ear and the water changed colour. She stared at the crimson bubbles with an amazed expression on her face. She stopped talking. She tried to scoop up the bubbles in her hands. Her head was sinking very slowly beneath the surface.
I went outside to recover my camera. But when I returned there was nothing left of her head but the thick knot of hair standing up through the bubbles like a tropical plant. I pulled the plug to drain the bath and then took my pictures. She was a large social worker. There was a tiny pool of pink water caught in the centre of her belly. I gripped the edge of the bath with my hands, leaned forward and prodded the puddle with my tongue. It tasted of soap and perfume and blood. The Sandman drank and drew strength.
*
The following evening I took a bus as far as Oxford Circus and then walked down Poland Street, across Broadwick Street and into Berwick Street. It was a cold night but the place was bustling with tarts and tourists, drunks and deviants. I enjoyed the noise and movement of the streets. In Soho everyone is a stranger and the crowds sheltered me.
I walked towards Old Compton Street. Here, between the peepshows and the massage parlours, in draughty arcades lit by the glare of neon tubes, sheltered from the street by battered screens, young men with baleful expressions studied spanking magazines or browsed uneasily among books on boys, bondage and bestiality. Old men in crumpled coats peered at handcuffs and rubber masks and dreamed of tormenting their neighbours’ daughters. Tourists smirked and shuffled their feet.
A team of Chinese waiters trotted past, dreaming of the mahjong tables waiting for them in the mysterious back rooms of Gerrard Street. An old Greek grocer watched them pass, pulled a damp cigar from his mouth and spat thickly against the wall. A cat, nesting in a pile of rubbish, stood up, shivered, and crossed the street in disgust.
A drunk came towards me. He was wrapped in a kind of shawl made from a sheet of black polythene and fastened at the neck with string. Beneath the shawl he was wearing a suit of shapeless rags that stank of sherry and urine. He tried to say something to me, jerking his head back and forth like a chicken, but the words were hopelessly slurred. I slipped my hand into my bag and showed him a knife. He turned and stumbled away. Drunks are sometimes killed for sport but I’ve never considered them worth my time. Drunks and drug fiends are the walking dead of the city. When he was safely out of sight I stepped into a tobacconist’s doorway and studied the postcards in the window. ‘Young model seeks driving post’, ‘Dainty butterfly needs mounting’. The invitations boldly scrawled in coloured crayons, each bearing its own telephone number. I pulled out a little notebook and discreetly copied down some of the numbers for future reference. A list of the living for the book of the dead.
I was walking along Shaftesbury Avenue towards Piccadilly Circus when, quite suddenly, I felt as if someone was following me. It was such a distinct feeling that I paused to glance over my shoulder. The street was almost deserted. A couple ran, hand in hand, towards the Apollo Theatre, late for the final performance. The man was singing. The woman was laughing. Their breath trailing like smoke in the frosty air. A drunk staggered from a doorway and stood in the gutter where he stared at his feet. Beyond the drunk, at the corner of Wardour Street, a group of young men stood watching the traffic lights change colour. No one was watching me. No one moved in my direction. I shivered and hurried away.
When I reached Piccadilly Circus I clattered into the Underground and rode as far as Hyde Park Corner, then I walked quickly home through Grosvenor Place. It was not until I had almost reached my door tha
t I sensed again that I had been watched or followed. But this time I did not stop to look around. I ran into the apartment and locked the door. I ran across the room and almost fell against the window, peering down at the street, hoping to catch some glimpse of a retreating phantom. But there was nothing.
I made myself some hot milk and sat nursing it while I chuckled at my fear of the dark. I was feeling nervous, I had lost control of my imagination. The hunter felt hunted. It was natural. It was nothing to worry about. But even then, on that first evening, I knew the Sandman was no longer safe on the streets.
The next day I took a trip to Church Street market, wandered up and down the street, picking through the most dreadful corners of the poorest stalls where trays of bent spoons, cracked mirrors, dentures, spectacles, rusty scissors, torn books and chewed pencils were mixed together in piles of filthy rubbish. I spent a long time selecting the items that I thought might prove valuable: three pairs of greasy spectacles and a tiny cardboard drum of French rouge that was old and crusty. I earned some strange glances as I browsed so carefully through the rubbish but I didn’t give a damn, because the next time I walked out in the street no one would recognise me. Death might stare me in the face but I would learn to disappear.
I drove back to Victoria and went into Woolworth where I bought a can of Funcolor hair spray – the stuff that sprays in and washes out. I couldn’t decide between the red and the black so I bought the silver. Then I hurried home to construct my disguise.
I experimented with the rouge, working it into my cheeks, and across my nose, but the effect was luminous and alarming. I washed it off and abandoned the idea. The lenses were very thick in two pairs of the spectacles and, wearing them, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. But the third pair was perfect. Behind the heavy frames my face felt diminished and protected. The Sandman was beginning to disappear.
The following day I turned to my notebook and rang one of the numbers. A woman answered and told me her name was Tulip. I made inquiries and, after a little hesitation, she gave me a list of her prices. I thought it was very expensive but then, as I had no intention of paying them, I agreed to her terms. I made an appointment to visit and she gave me her address. It was not, as I had supposed, a street in Soho, but a room in Wilton Road. She conducted her business just a few yards from Victoria Station.