by Anna Burns
The mystery of the taboo grandmother, therefore, wasn’t really a mystery, even if hero’s father had had no time to explain any of this to his young son. Before he could pass on the certainties of ‘who’s who, and who’s denying to be who, and who’s only pretending to be who’, Father had been killed, along with Grandfather, and along with everybody else by Great Aunt during her massacre of revenge that day. This was just the twist of fate and of incestuous Ancient Greek playacting to be expected in the dark, umbrous world hero lived in. He had no proof, of course, only suspicion, that the villain known as Great Aunt was his grandmother and, with all dramatis personae dead except the one who had killed them, he was experiencing an increasing compulsion to seek clarification from the horse’s mouth itself. She had not further for this world, Great Aunt, but she lived in that damn fortress and had not left it in twenty years since retiring there upon killing everybody. Becoming a recluse, however, hadn’t stopped her supervillainy. Though her years, perhaps months, weeks, even days, were indeed numbered, word had reached hero that she was attempting one last takeover of everything - doubtless in an effort to bring it with her into the next world. Possible grandson connection, possible personal grudge, and possible inherited if repressed desire to take over the world himself notwithstanding, hero’s agenda was not to allow Great Aunt’s plan. Best to return to being superhero, he decided, with her being supervillain - with nothing retaliative, incalculable or blood-related between them, just him defeating bad guys and saving the world as before.
That was the situation and it was a confused, slippage situation, and in order to deal with it, hero had drawn up a plan. This plan said, it predicted, that if he were to woo the great niece of Great Aunt, this great niece, within a short period, would fall in love with him - because that was what happened, being a hero, women fell in love with him - which meant that when he’d won the niece, indirectly he’d gain access to that skyscraper and that monstrous Great Aunt as well. Previously, he’d researched Great Aunt for weak points but, apart from this favoured niece, hadn’t been able to find any. So he’d woo niece, have niece fall for him then, after he destroyed Great Aunt via this younger relative, he’d dispense with this niece person - doubtless also a villain - one way or another as well. So he did. He wooed femme and whenever she wasn’t trying to kill him, certainly she was in love with him. That part was semi-working. What wasn’t working was that he went and fell for her himself. This, he hadn’t bargained for. This, he didn’t understand. How could he have fallen in love when, one, he didn’t fall in love; two, he never mixed personal with professional; three, hardly ever did he allow personal; four, he was descended from morally excellent superhero stock whereas she was descended from fatale, fall guy and ultra-villain stock; five, she was intermittently trying to kill him; six, she would be his second cousin if Great Aunt proved his grandmother, and seven, he was a legs man and she was not legs?
So hero was pacing the cliff, hankering after days of old, when everything had been black or white and even when grey - when it should appear - was easily to be squashed into the black or white areas and, in these distracting lamentations, he failed to pick up that his superpowers of hyper-alertness, of unswerving linear focus, of rigid self-discipline and his extra-special superpower of logical defensiveness were fast ebbing away. Femme had teased once, saying such superpowers weren’t real superpowers, accusing them instead of being extremities, subversions of powers, dysfunctions of character, also that they’d nothing to do with whether a person became a hero or a villain, but everything to do with deprivation, and with that person never being at peace within himself. ‘This lack of balance, hero, whilst pretending there is perfect balance - it’s all just more twilight.’ She went on then to warn that sooner or later his one-sidedness would catch him up. It would weaken him, she said, also that he himself would be responsible for this weakening. ‘I know you think I’ll be responsible but I won’t be responsible. It’s you, hero, who’s set up the doing, so maybe one day also you’ll set up the undoing.’ Hero dismissed this, accusing her instead of envying his unique self-survival gifts. After all, he thought, with her emotional tangents, her lack of certainties, her profound confusion in filtering reality to get one that feels good rather than the actual one that’s out there, what early warning system could she ever have? Any varlet could take advantage and indeed, often he’d warned of varlets taking advantage, but she trusted everybody, was friends with everybody, chatted to everybody, refusing to listen to his words. And now here he was, pacing, one moment indignant, arguing with femme in his head for attacking his beloved box-formation living; next, he was admiring his box-formation living but worrying about his other predicaments, namely, powerful Great Aunt at the top of her game. This was why he was less vigilant when ordinarily he was super-hyper-vigilant. This was why too, Great Aunt’s heavies, spying upon him from behind bushes and rocks, were able to grasp their opportunity. As one, they ran forward and pushed him, easy as pie, over the cliff.
‘Goodness, that was easy,’ the men declared. ‘Thought he was a superpower! What kind of superpower is no superpower? Strange guy. But who cares? Wouldn’t you say that destroyin’ that fella was the easiest thing ever we did in all the world?’ They agreed with themselves and these were happy, cheery men, in the pink of feeling good, in the highest degree of self-congratulation, which would not have been the case, of course, had they acquainted themselves beforehand with the latest bulletin of Great Aunt commanding them now not to kill hero but instead to look after him. They themselves were still on the ‘kill him if you like, I don’t mind’ part of the plan. That morning they’d followed hero and his lover, eavesdropping on both as they stood on the courthouse steps, making their lunch arrangements. Hence the cliff. The men had rushed there first in order to intervene. Boss will be pleased, they said. She’ll love us. She’ll delight in us. We’ll be her favourites. Wiping the last of hero off their hands, they headed back to their car. Once in it, they switched on the transmitter to get current with Great Aunt’s latest suggestions and communications. This was when they discovered they shouldn’t have pushed hero. Panic spread immediately through everyone in the car.
‘Oh frig!’
‘Oh flip!’
‘Oh matrioshkas!’
‘Oh postcards!’
‘Oh underpants!’
‘Oh unfortunate display of instincts!’
‘Oh ill-success!’
‘Oh dear!’
‘She’ll kill us!’ screamed one. ‘She’ll murder us!’ wailed another. ‘Worse than that - she’ll be furious!’ sobbed a third. They began to accuse each other at the thought of Great Aunt’s wrath. ‘Your fault!’ shouted one. ‘Always it’s deeds first with you and messages after, when everybody knows it should be messages first and deeds after.’ ‘Shut up you.’ ‘No, shut you up you.’ ‘No, shut you up you.’ ‘Shut up everybody!’ cried chief henchman. ‘We’ve got to think of a plan.’
‘I know,’ he then said. ‘We could blame it on the eastside gang’ - which was excellent. The downtown eastside gang had become so infamous that everybody knew they’d go down in history as the greatest villains ever, though everybody also knew they’d only done four percent of everything they were blamed for so far. ‘Or,’ went on chief henchman, ‘we could rush to the cliff to see if we can salvage him - collect parts, make-do-and-mend, stitch a version back together. After all, as long as he’s walking and talking...’ The others agreed at once. They ran back to the cliff and that was when they found femme, panting with effort as well as with a crowbar. She was trying to prise the man she loved - also the very chap they were looking for - off a new rock that had come into being during the recent semi-collapse and subsequent re-arrangement of the cliff. The chopped rope and the dead tree, as well as the broken-off part of the old cliff, had disappeared to the bottom of the rest of the cliff that was still standing. This freshly jutting-out part was what hero was now clinging to. Clinging badly, for it was slippery, and with femme no he
lp above it, busy as she was with her tools. The henchmen, delighted that hero was still with them, also that he was in one piece which meant no need for salvaging, ran forward as one and undid the woman. Within seconds, they were reaching out to save him whilst dangling her upside down over the cliff.
‘Don’t drop her!’ shouted hero, even though seconds earlier he himself had been thinking, right, that’s it. I’ve had enough. This is the forty-third time since that spell’s been put on that she’s attempting to kill me. If I’m dying today, I’m taking her with– ‘Don’t drop her!’ he interrupted this ungallant thought to yell. ‘Don’t be silly,’ shouted a henchman. ‘She’s trying to kill you. Of course we’re going to drop her. Stop messing about now and givvus your hand.’ At this point femme came out from under her spell and caught the tail-end of hero’s declaration about her. Her heart leapt as she heard the panic, emotion and concern for her in his voice. It was then she noticed something else which was that she was upside down with a dress on. Mortified, she screamed and continued to scream, struggling to pull the garment down or, in this case, up. Hero, meantime, still clinging to the rock, still yelling to the men not to drop her, now started insisting they turn her right way up as well. The men were hesitant. Certainly, Great Aunt had given instructions they were to protect him, and here they were, doing their damnedest to do so. Nothing had been said, however, about taking orders from this man. They knew, of course, that hero’s lover, this woman trying to kill him, was Great Aunt’s niece and, whatever turns you on, they thought, whatever tickles your fancy. Murderers they might be, but in no way could anybody accuse them of prudish judgementalism. Each to their own. That was their motto. Live and let live. That was another motto, though it must be said not really one of theirs. Thing was, even though this, by now, hysterical woman, struggling with her garments, was the boss’s niece, that in itself wouldn’t stop them from dropping her. Killing family members to further one’s interests meant nothing to many villains. Indeed the reason many top villains became superace-top villains was because their propensity to wipe out others pretty much stopped at nobody at all. Great Aunt, in particular, was most mass-murderish, also least squeamish about it. Another thing was she didn’t like to be disobeyed. That was why the men continued with arms outstretched, urging hero, coaxing him, wheedling him, to let himself be saved by them. They knew that if he went over, Great Aunt’s countenance would be so put out they might as well, right now, go over with him and hero, it seemed, had gauged this as well. He refused to be rescued therefore, knowing they’d drop femme as soon as they had their hands upon him. ‘Okay,’ chief henchman eventually shouted over. ‘Let’s all calm down and think of a joint plan.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘We won’t drop her as long as you agree not to reveal to a certain third party who it was who threw you over in the first place.’ Femme, still crying out, still scrabbling with her dress, paused to infer. ‘So it was you!’ she cried. ‘Why, you– you– villains!’ ‘Quiet femme!’ shouted hero. ‘Agreed,’ he then closed with the men. Because he didn’t trust them though, truly to understand the term ‘gentleman’s agreement’, he insisted they haul femme in first. This they did, with femme collapsing onto the earth where promptly they forgot about her. As one, they’d turned anxiously to the hauling in of the man. When he too, was safely on the clifftop, they dusted and fussed and dawdled about him, ceasing only in their solicitude once reassured he was going to stick to his end of the plan. On receiving confirmation, they backslapped him and shook hands with him, ending in a chummy fashion, ‘You’re fine, aren’t you, mate? No bones broken, are there, mate? Misunderstanding, wasn’t it, mate? Thanks be to God, mate, we chanced along when we did.’
Then they were gone and it was back to hero and femme, alone once more on the cliff. By now they were again on the ground, hero underneath with femme as before sobbing on top. This time hero remembered the spell, though this time, oddly, he seemed indifferent to it. He knew that proper procedure demanded he roll them over, then over again, three times over, until both he and she were physically removed from the remainder of the DIY as well as from the edge of both old and new cliffs. He couldn’t take any action though, because he was confounded - by loving a woman who loved him back but who was trying to kill him without knowing she was trying to kill him and with whom anyway he’d only gotten involved in the first place in order to gain access to, then to kill, her great aunt. This was worse than combating clear-cut evil forces, worse than trying to outwit crème de la crème adversaries. This was being challenged at the furthermost outer boundaries where, until he’d met femme, he hadn’t known he had furthermost outer boundaries. And now it had reached the point where, if she made another attempt on his life, he supposed he’d have to let her get on with it. He was exhausted. Nothing, however, could have been further from femme’s mind at that point.
‘Darling!’ She was kissing him many times, little kisses, tiny kisses, in truth, an overload of kisses. She knew this herself but couldn’t stop. ‘What monstrous ruffian people! But why did I wave bye to them?’ As well as kissing, she kept touching hero to make sure he was really alive. ‘You could have been killed!’ she wailed, and that, certainly, was an observation. Hero noticed, however, she didn’t make the equal observation - the one of her nearly being killed as well. Indeed, it seemed to him that, in comparison with the amount of distress she’d displayed over the issue of her underwear showing, about to be dropped to her death from a clifftop hadn’t made any impression on her - and that was what he meant about falling in love. How could he have - with someone who couldn’t order priorities? Then, of course, there was that spell that had been put on. He knew it wasn’t her fault, that it had been externally imposed, yet it seemed to him no part of her was rejecting of it. Her subconscious had accepted it, maybe even wanted it, and was that because really, she did desire to kill him, perhaps as part of her nefarious family heritage all along? At that moment hero had the thought that today, that very day, could be the day to reveal to femme just what part she herself was playing in all this. He could inform of the spell, and of Great Aunt’s villainous history, omitting, of course, any reference to his own motivation. She might take it the wrong way because women did take things the wrong way because women could be funny. By funny hero meant angry. Hero had a terror of women being angry. Women being angry equated with the end of the world. So, as femme continued to lie on top, kissing him and giving thanks, hero held her close and squeezed her arms and looked into her eyes and said words that never in his life would he have thought to have come out of him.
‘Femme,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’
Femme’s lavish kisses for hero hadn’t been just because he was alive and intact and right here beside her. They were because she’d heard him shout ‘I love her! Don’t drop her!’ to those bounders on the cliff. Now, this wasn’t quite what hero had shouted, for femme had appended the ‘I love her!’ section. That though, wasn’t the only reason for her increase in donation to him. She loved him extra because he’d understood the whole underwear mortification thing. He’d picked up on the hierarchy of it, the priority of it, the sheer naked exposure of it. Indeed, having her underwear show in public was for femme on a par with being interrogated about men, sex and her love life. So, how sensitive of hero, she was now thinking. And now there were to be further revelations following on from the ‘I love her! Don’t drop her!’ revelation. One minute happy, she noticed, the next, sobbing. Still, no wonder, when it was proving such an exceptional day. Propping herself up on hero’s chest, she got ready to take in fully his declaration of other things to her. She looked at him. He looked at her. Then came post-cliff revelations. Hero prefaced them by saying he didn’t think she was going to like them. And he was right. She didn’t like them - not one little bit.
From being convinced hero was a wonderful man, one who could do no wrong - well, that changed slightly. First he explained about the spell, but without going into undercurrents of passive angry women, of h
idden motivation, of latent hostility, innate hysteria, multi-generational consequences of long-term gender conflict, appetite suppression, sexual repression, good old-fashioned penis envy, probably a few problems as regards their fathers, and all that other outer space stuff as well. No. Instead he gave the gist, also without suggesting she then go see a therapist to get some resolution on it. Suggesting to others to go see therapists was more femme’s line of talk. So he was brief and when he’d finished he could see that, as suspected, she hadn’t believed a word of it. ‘Well, not surprising what that’s about, hero,’ she said. ‘All the angry mothers. You men and your angry mothers. You can’t see an angry woman today but you sense it’s mamma, de-sublimated, come to cut off your manhoods and boil up your teddybears when maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just an angry woman - maybe one too, who isn’t angry at you.’ In this moment, of course, femme was angry at hero. There was no way though, she was going to award bonus points. Here she’d been - happy, joyous, grateful, expecting emotional enrichment - and here he was, breaking her heart again. So femme put him right about the spell, pointing out that he go see a therapist to get some resolution on it, saying also, in perfect confidence of her own wisdom that she would try not to be offended, that this was a perfect example of what she’d been predicting. Hero was exacting, prescriptive, solitary, addicted to work and to strange developing peculiarities - also he feared his appetites, which could only mean, of course, he feared the appetites of everyone else as well. ‘If you’re in danger, hero,’ she concluded, ‘of being killed by any outside external villain, you’re even more in danger of being killed by that villain right there inside you.’ Hero, who could have answered by asking her what was she doing then - given she was so healthy - remaining in the company of a man whom clearly she considered unacceptable to her, didn’t ask. Instead he said, ‘Well, I thought you’d say that femme, so let’s go see Great Aunt now.’ ‘Great Aunt!’ cried femme and in less than a second she felt herself upside-down again. News of the spell, yes, and of the delusion her poor hero was suffering under, had been revelation enough, but what had Great Aunt got to do with this? She must have misheard. ‘Hero,’ she said, ‘did you just say “Great Aunt”?’