A Thousand Cuts

by Simon Lelic

  So maybe I get a bit defensive. Not aggressive or anything but I’m thinking, what right has he got to feel superior? And I think, okay, let’s see. How about a little test? And rather than tell him, I decide to let him guess.

  You tell me, I say.

  Sorry, he says, acting all confused.

  Go on, have a guess. What do you think I teach?

  Oh. I see. Let’s see.

  And I’m watching him and I’m smiling and he’s smiling and we both know that he knows but he’s afraid to say.

  Well, if I had to guess…

  Go on, I say. Just have a guess.

  If I had to guess…

  Just say it. You know. I know you know.

  If I had to guess, I would say… No, I’m going to go for… Yes. That’s it. TJ, you teach physics.

  Cunt.

  I mean, excuse the French, but seriously, what a cunt. I should have thumped him one right there. And he looked like he expected me to, that’s the thing. Looked like he almost wanted me to. My face, he must have been able to tell, but he didn’t flinch. He watched me, still sort of smiling, like he was just waiting for me to twat him.

  But I take a breath. I put down my glass of OJ. I edge forwards a little, just a little, and I say to him, I say, are you trying to be funny?

  And he’s all, no, no, I didn’t mean anything by it, but he did, we both know he did.

  I say, listen, Sam. I call him Sam, just to make a point. I say, listen, Sam. Don’t get smart. Don’t get above yourself. I’ve been teaching five, six years. You’ve been teaching, how many? I hold up a fist – you know, zero fingers – but also it’s a fist, which is the second point I’m making. And you’d think he’d get it, wouldn’t you? The point, I mean. You’d think he’d get it. But guess what he says next. Go on, have a guess.

  Latin, he says. You teach Latin, don’t you.

  I tell you, if it wasn’t for Bartholomew Travis that would have been the end of Sam-Samuel Szajkowski right there. And look what trouble it would have saved.

  He was watching, I suppose. I spoke to Travis yesterday and that was the first thing he said to me, he said, I knew it, I knew there was something wrong with that boy. Said he’s had his eye on Szajkowski from the start but I don’t know about that. He certainly wasn’t watching him at the end, was he? But maybe he was at the beginning and maybe that’s why he saw our little tête on tête and maybe that’s why he got to us in time to rescue Szajkowski’s face.

  I raised my voice at that point. Possibly I swore. Nothing bad. Not the c-word. Maybe the f-word. But like I said to the rest of them afterwards, he was the aggressive one, not me.

  What’s going on here? says Travis. What’s all this fuss?

  And Sam Szajkowski starts bleating, starts playing the gentle lamb. Headmaster, he says, I’m not sure what I said but clearly I’ve caused TJ here some offence.

  And I’m like, fucking right you’ve caused me some offence you little cocksucker, you know perfectly well what you said.

  And Travis is like, calm down, Terence. He calls me Terence. I’ve asked him not to but he still does. So he’s like, calm down, Terence, and, what did you say, Samuel? And he’s like, I don’t know, Headmaster, I don’t know.

  And then they look at me and I’m still about ready to punch someone and the headmaster asks me instead. What did he say, Terence? What did he say to cause you such offence?

  And obviously this has worked out pretty well for Szajkowski because now I’m the one who’s going to look like the knob. He’s watching me and he’s not smiling but I know that, just below the surface, he is. And what can I do but answer because when Travis asks you a question you have to answer, you just do. I mean the kids are terrified of him and us teachers, well. I mean, I’m not scared of anyone but let’s just say there’s a reason that Travis is headmaster.

  So I tell him. I say, it’s not what he said, Headmaster. It’s the way he said it.

  The way he said what? says Travis. What did he say?

  He said… He said I taught physics, Headmaster. He said I teach Latin.

  And Travis looks at me like I’m some kind of retard, like I’m that kid with special needs in class C. I try to explain and I say to Szajkowski, you know what you meant by it, you know exactly what you meant by it, don’t try and act all innocent.

  Everyone’s watching by now of course. Not that I’m worried, I mean they know me these people, they know the kind of person I am. They know exactly what’s going on, I’m certain of it. Except for Maggie. She’s looking at me like I’m a pubic hair in her cornflakes. And you know what pisses me off? This whole little episode: it’s what got the two of them going. That’s what pisses me off. She felt sorry for him, Maggie did. All the stuff that followed, their little romance, all of it was bullshit because all of it was based on a lie. Szajkowski’s lie.

  And that was that really. The headmaster, he says maybe I’ve had enough to drink and I say, I’m drinking orange juice, I’m drinking fucking orange juice, and the headmaster says, yes, well, nevertheless, and mutters some crap about sugar. And he leads me away. And I leave.

  So that was it. That was the first time me and Szajkowski met. After that, things just kind of went downhill.

  .

  ‘He won’t talk to you.’

  ‘Does he know what’s happened? Has anyone told him?’

  ‘You’re not listening to me, Inspector. He won’t talk to you. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t even talk to his parents.’

  ‘And you’re not answering my question, Doctor. Does he know?’

  The doctor beat his leg with his clipboard. He removed his glasses. ‘I believe he knows, yes. His parents and I discussed it. We agreed it might be beneficial if he were told. We agreed that it would do no harm.’

  ‘Beneficial?’ Lucia peered through the safety glass and into the ward. She could see only an empty bed. ‘You mean you thought it might make him say something. The shock might make him say something.’

  The doctor did not flinch. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But it didn’t.’

  ‘No. It didn’t.’

  Lucia nodded. She looked again through the glass, angling herself backwards slightly. She still could not make out the boy. ‘I’d like to see him,’ she said.

  ‘He won’t—’

  ‘Talk to me, I know. But I’d like to see him.’

  The doctor was tall, dark and strange looking. When he tightened his jaw, his cheeks bulged in two sharp points just below his ears, as though he were attempting to swallow a screwdriver sideways.

  ‘Please be quick.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  ‘And remember what he has been through.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  ‘He is still recovering. He needs his rest.’

  ‘I understand.’

  The doctor held open the door and allowed Lucia to slip inside. She entered the room and listened for the sound of the door closing behind her. When it did not come, she turned and thanked the doctor and waited for him to retreat.

  She thought at first that she was the only person in the room. There were four beds and all were empty. But the fourth bed, the one in the corner furthest from her, had been slept in. The curtain was halfway drawn and there was a glass and a jug of water on the side table. The glass was empty and the jug was full.

  ‘Elliot?’

  Lucia tried to step softly but the soles of her shoes slapped against the vinyl-clad floor.

  ‘Elliot, my name’s Lucia. Lucia May. I’m a policewoman.’

  She crossed the room and stopped at the foot of the unmade bed. She saw a head, level with the mattress. She saw hair, rather. Short and blond, verging on being ginger. It was lighter in colour than Lucia’s hair but similar; less obviously red but perhaps only because of its length.

  Lucia took another step and the rest of the boy came into view. He was sitting on the floor, behind the bed and against the wall. Lucia noticed Elliot’s birthmark before she noticed anythi
ng else about him. It covered the left side of his face, the side Lucia could see, stretching from his ear to the corner of his mouth. The effect was as though Elliot had been slapped – hard, more than once – or held against something hot.

  After the birthmark she noticed the stitches – a jagged line from the midpoint of his eyebrows extending across his nose and to his jawline. The doctor had told her that Elliot’s right ear was also damaged but from where she was standing she could not see the wound. The doctor said the ear had been torn. He said that it had been bitten.

  She sought the boy’s eyes, which were focused on the book he held resting on the peak of his drawn-up knees. ‘Elliot?’ she said again. She had been told he would not answer but she hoped he would nonetheless.

  ‘What are you reading?’ she asked and when, again, the boy did not respond she edged forwards and bent to read the title from the cover. The words, though, were obscured by the boy’s index and middle fingers, which were crossed, Lucia noticed, as though he were wishing for a happy ending as he read.

  Elliot turned a page. He had to unfold his fingers to do so and Lucia caught a surname, a fragment of the title: The Book of something by someone Alexander.

  ‘Can I sit? Do you mind if I sit?’ She perched on the edge of the bed, facing the wall. ‘Dr Stein says you’re almost better. He says you’re almost ready to go home.’

  The boy turned another page. Lucia watched his eyes. They drifted from one page to the next and settled somewhere in between. For a moment Lucia did not speak. She looked at her feet and behind her and at the boy again. He turned another page.

  ‘Is it good? Your book. What’s it about?’

  Slowly, as though hoping she might not detect the gradual movement, Elliot allowed the book to slide from his knees until it was resting, hidden, against his thighs. His eyes did not stray from the pages in front of him.

  ‘You don’t have to talk to me,’ Lucia said. ‘I just wanted to see you. I just wanted to check that you were all right.’ It surprised her, as she said this, that what she was saying was true. What had happened to the boy was not part of her investigation so technically she had no business here. The doctor could have denied her entry. The parents could arrive and ask her to leave and she would have no choice but to do so.

  She glanced across her shoulder. The door was still closed, the rest of the room still empty. She did not know how strict the hospital was about visiting hours but she was taking a chance that Elliot’s parents would not arrive until the allotted period began.

  ‘You’re a quick healer,’ Lucia said. She focused again on his stitches. She tried to count them. ‘It must have hurt, what they did to you.’

  The boy turned a page.

  ‘You’re very brave, Elliot.’ She said this in almost a whisper, though she had not meant to speak so softly. She cleared her throat. ‘You’re very brave.’

  She could not find it in the bookshop.

  A cardboard Harry Potter tracked her steps and threatened her with a wand and did not back down when she scowled at him. After checking in the children’s section, she ceded her ground. She wove her way to the general-fiction aisle but could not find it there either.

  The shop was empty but for Lucia, the boy wizard and, at the cash register, a sales assistant who looked like she should have been in school. The sales assistant was on the phone, to a friend it seemed; a boyfriend. Lucia lingered by the till for a moment. She pretended to be interested in a stack of Moleskine notebooks. Finally, she rested her wrists on the counter and smiled at the girl.

  ‘Hi,’ she mouthed.

  The sales assistant ducked away and muttered something into the mouthpiece. She turned back to Lucia with the receiver cradled between her chin and her shoulder. ‘Hi,’ she said. Lucia could not tell whether her eyebrows were raised or whether they had been plucked and painted that way.

  ‘I’m looking for a children’s book,’ Lucia said. She gave the girl the fragments of information she had glimpsed between Elliot’s fingers.

  The girl frowned and turned to her computer. She spoke to her boyfriend over the clicking of her nails on the keys. There was to be a party, Lucia learnt. Someone who was supposed to be going wasn’t and someone who wasn’t supposed to be going was.

  ‘Lloyd Alexander,’ said the girl after a moment. ‘Try children’s classics. No, not you,’ she said into the mouthpiece and, looking at Lucia, gestured to the rear of the shop with her chin.

  It was fantasy. Escapism. Not a genre with which Lucia was particularly familiar but she could imagine its appeal to a boy for whom reality offered no refuge. The Book of Three had first been published before Lucia was born. Even on the copy she found, the edges of the pages were a greyish yellow, discoloured like a smoker’s fingers. She replaced the book and scanned the shelves, noticing as she did so authors’ names she had worshipped once but long forgotten. Blume, Blyton, Byars. Milne, Montgomery, Murphy. The books she had read, though, would be of no interest to him. She neared the end of the section and almost gave up looking but before she could turn away a title caught her attention. With her index finger she prised the book free. The jacket design was new but the image it presented was familiar. Lucia smiled and flicked backwards through the pages, pausing every so often to read a sentence, a fragment of speech, a chapter heading. She carried her selection to the counter.

  Lucia had a retort prepared but Walter was not at his desk. The department was virtually empty.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ She allowed only her head to enter the DCI’s office.

  ‘He’s in court,’ Cole said. He was poking at his upper lip, frowning into a mirror propped almost flat on his desk.

  ‘Who is? What?’

  ‘Your fiancé. He’s in court.’ The chief inspector glanced at Lucia before returning his attention to himself. ‘What did the kid say?’

  He wanted her to ask him how he knew where she had been. She wanted to ask too. Instead she watched as he prodded and winced. She stepped across the threshold. Her curiosity must have shown on her face.

  ‘One of the uniforms saw you,’ said Cole. ‘At the hospital. So what did he say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything.’

  Cole gave a grunt. ‘You know it doesn’t matter, don’t you? You know it’s not part of this case.’

  ‘It’s linked.’

  ‘It’s not linked.’

  ‘Of course it’s linked. Everything’s linked.’

  ‘Everything’s linked? You’ve got till Monday, Lucia. Remember you’ve only got until Monday.’

  Lucia checked her watch.

  ‘Have you seen Price?’

  ‘Price? Why do you want to see Price?’

  ‘I don’t. I mean, it’s nothing. Nothing important.’

  ‘Well I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Lucia was already leaving.

  ‘It’s not linked, Lucia.’

  She showed him the back of her hand.

  Price was smoking. Lucia stood closer to him than she needed to.

  ‘Some weather, huh?’ They were on the top floor, on the terrace behind the canteen. They called it the terrace but really it was a balcony and a bench and an overflowing ashtray. Price gestured to the sky, to the unrelenting blue. ‘Thirty-eight at the weekend, that’s what they’re saying.’ He coughed out a laugh and sucked at his cigarette. ‘You’re lucky you don’t have to wear uniform no more. These trousers don’t breathe. Might as well be made of rubber.’

  Lucia considered her own outfit: dark trousers, white blouse. The only difference between Price’s clothes and hers was that she had had to pay for hers herself.

  ‘Tell me about the Samson boy,’ said Lucia. ‘Elliot Samson.’

  Price frowned, puffed smoke from his nostrils. ‘Christ, Lucia. It’s a nice day. The sun is shining. What do you have to bring that up for?’

  Lucia watched Price stub his cigarette against the wall and, ignoring the ashtray beside him, flick the filter t
owards the city skyline.

  ‘Did he speak to you?’ she said. ‘Did he say anything?’

  Price shook his head. ‘He couldn’t. His face was too messed up.’

  ‘He was conscious?’

  ‘Yep. Right up until the ambulance took him away. Probably for some time after. He felt every rip, scrape and bite.’

  ‘Who did it? Do you know?’

  ‘Sure I know. Plenty of people seem to know.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what? And the kid isn’t speaking. And no one saw it happen. And the school doesn’t seem to care.’ Price took another cigarette from the box in his shirt pocket. ‘Same school, right?’

  Lucia was looking at the traffic below. A delivery van had pulled up alongside a taxi that had been travelling in the opposite direction. The drivers were leaning out of their windows, waving hands, flicking gestures, ignoring the horns of the cars caught behind them. ‘Sorry?’ she said.

  ‘Same school. The shooting. The teacher. Same school, right?’

  ‘Same school,’ Lucia said. ‘Right.’

  .

  Did I love him? What a question.

  How can I say I loved him after what he did? How can I admit that to myself? I tell myself now that I never loved him and I pray that what I tell myself is true. Otherwise, Inspector, I feel sick. Just the thought of him, after what he did: it makes me want to be sick.

  I was fond of him. I can admit that much. I pitied him. I thought that he deserved pity, if you can believe that.

  He didn’t settle. He didn’t fit in. The headmaster didn’t like him, TJ didn’t like him and because the two of them didn’t like him none of the others were anything more than civil to him. Why would they be? TJ can be a nuisance if he feels like you’re not on his side – everything with him is sides – and you don’t want to upset the headmaster, not in this school. Not in any school, I suppose, but particularly not in this school.