The Cut

by Daniel Blythe

  He prods me in the ribs with his booted foot. I try not to react. He continues.

  ‘Bet you never knew that. Cassie always said she was goin’ to die in style. The only surprise to me was that you picked her up and took her. I thought you’d scarper as fast as you could.’

  ‘We . . . had to let her go,’ I tell him uncertainly.

  ‘Yeah. Didn’t think to check she was all right, I suppose?’

  ‘I . . . think she was dead by then,’ I say to him. Well, why not? Might as well come out with the whole lot, now. ‘We just had to get away. We took the car to the quarry and burnt it out. I don’t think it’s been found.’

  Dreads shrugs. ‘Couldn’t give a toss about the car,’ he points out. He drops his cigarette and grinds it underfoot. ‘I really thought y’ might lead me to where she was, if we kept watchin’ you enough. In the end, we had to let the other ones do it.’

  ‘Other . . .?’

  ‘She’s laughin’ at us,’ Chewer’s saying, and he tries to push past Dreads to get to me.

  But Dreads is bigger and stronger, and he holds the little man back.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘She’s having a taste of what it’s like to be scared. Always wonderin’ who’s gonna kick you in the teeth next. Right, Bel?’

  I try to get my voice around an answer, but my dry throat can only produce clicking sounds. My stomach aches, and there’s that aching looseness around my oesophagus which tells me I’m very likely to be sick soon.

  Dreads taps me under the chin. ‘As I say, we’re leaving soon. And you’re all we have to take care of before we go.’

  ‘Let me do it,’ says Chewer, moving to his side. He narrows his little eyes as he looks down at me. I’m convinced he’s going to spit in my face, and I get ready to flinch, but no, he just keeps chewing, round and round with a slurpy chomping sound, like a cement-mixer. I wonder to myself if he’s got the same bit in his mouth, if he’s always had it there. It must be wet and flavourless by now, grey plasticine travelling round the contours of his mouth.

  Grinner just stands there, smirking more than grinning now, arms folded, watching the pair of them. No. Not that. He’s got his wits about him. He’s listening. Why? What’s he heard?

  ‘This girl,’ Dreads says, squatting in front of me, ‘is interestin’, yeah? Thinks she’s got one over on us for some reason.’

  His eyes are acid-bright, burning in the darkness with reflected street lights and anger. My bowels have gone sloppy with the realization that he truly is ready for retribution.

  ‘I know why,’ says Grinner quietly.

  Chewer rounds on him, aggressively. ‘What?’

  ‘I know why,’ he says. ‘She’s got a knife. Thinks that means something, carryin’ a knife.’

  And all the time, I thought Dreads was the clever one and they were just a couple of heavies. But no, Grinner’s the one. He’s got me sussed.

  ‘That’s right,’ says Dreads softly. ‘And we know where it is, don’t we?’

  There is a fragile silence in the empty flat. The air tastes of decay. Or is that my mouth? I am shaking with cold and fear. I feel like the most disgusting object on this planet. My knee and my face both pulsate with pain. This hazy thought about a wrecked house surges into my mind, too.

  And now, Dreads is sliding his hand into my pocket.

  The silence bursts.

  It’s a snick, a click, a brief and angry sound which has been my friend in the past. I am looking at my own blade.

  I am looking at it.

  I am looking at nothing but the blade of my own knife. I can almost see my breath misting on its surface.

  ‘Kill her,’ murmurs Chewer.

  ‘No,’ says Dreads, ‘we’re not going to kill her.’

  He rests the blade against my cheek. It is furiously cold. It seems larger than it ever has before.

  ‘I just want an eye for an eye,’ says Dreads.

  *

  My eyes are big and bright and bulging. My body shifts and slurps on top of the altar. I remember the brightness of the cross behind us as we took our angry, wine-stained love.

  We move towards the finish, sweaty but comfortable, ready to hurtle over the edge now, my cries fluttering up to the roof like pigeons, curling round the rafters. My eyes are big and bright and wide. JJ’s eyes are big and bright and wide. JC’s eyes are big and bright and wide.

  The cross gleams.

  My face contorts in painful pleasure.

  His face contorts in painful pleasure.

  *

  ‘Just an eye,’ he says. ‘Just so she has something to look at for the rest of her life. To remember what she did. Remember Cassie.’

  *

  The cross gleams. My knife gleams. I cut him free. I slice the ropes that bind him to the Church and history. I slice the multi-coloured threads of Birthmark’s jacket, the scar blazes on her face, the car blazes in her face, a big flame-mark on her cheek. My knife shines. My knife gleams. My knife is cold against the eye which I’m about to lose.

  I am about to lose.

  *

  And he moves the blade up to my eyebrow. I’m shaking so much that I can feel my face knocking against the metal.

  My body is a corpse, swimming with hideous fluids which will all come spurting out when he makes the incision.

  You always think of the worst. The very worst. I remember reading somewhere about the importance of eyes for absolute precision in torture. If you remove one eyelid, dig the eye out but leave the optic nerve attached, then the eye is there, dangling, and has to watch as well as feel the channels of blood being carved in the arms legs toes breasts oh shit oh shit oh shit and be unable to blink or look away.

  Light cuts in through the windows.

  It is a firm, bright, celestial bar of light. It spills across the floor with the whiteness of milk.

  And from outside, down there in the world, the sound of voices, shouting.

  *

  Unbelievably, the pressure has gone from my face. I think there is sweat pouring from above my eyes, and then I realize that it’s blood, leaking into my eye from where he must have cut me. Just above the eye.

  There is a clatter as the knife falls.

  I see them, through a haze of blood, frantically gabbling to each other. Chewer seems very reluctant to go, but Dreads grips his arm and pulls him. They’re already disappearing down the stairs.

  Seconds pass in silence. I wonder what to do. I’m filthy, muddy, sweaty, exhausted.

  I’ve realized, now, that the floor is vibrating. There is a sound echoing from deep within the building. A clunking and whining. It grows louder, and it’s obviously getting closer.

  It takes me a second or two to work out what’s happening. Somewhere in the building there is still a functioning lift. And the lift is coming up. It churns and clunks and whines.

  Someone is coming up in the lift. Someone’s coming closer and closer, up in the lift towards me.

  My hands are still tied, and I try to ease them out of their bonds but they won’t come.

  The lift climbs higher and higher up the building.

  It whirrs and judders to a halt, sending a tremor through the floor. And then light pours on to the stone floor as the lift doors start to open.

  Chapter Twenty-Six – Shown Up and Down

  I see my father’s face.

  I recall the way he looked at me after I asked him if he would stand by me. When I almost gave it all away, almost told him what I had done.

  There was something about him, then, in that afternoon winter light, something I should have seen.

  I have been believing, all along, that he knows nothing.

  Remember.

  *

  The darkness gathers around me, here with the concrete under my calves, here in the stinking hole of the Ferris Court flats. I’m sure that the walls were marked by orange frames of light before, and the ceiling by a lighter patch of darkness. Now, it all seems to have receded. There is nothing. Nothing b
ut me and this blackness and the clunking and whirring of the lift.

  In dream or in reality, I am here, I am there, I am back again in front of the groaning lift as it comes to a halt.

  The light begins, needle-thin, then pencil-thin, and then whiteness is fanning out into my dark world. It moves up like a saw, hacking through the black. It cuts into me, making me screw my eyes up and turn my head away.

  *

  For some reason I remember the evening visit to the estate, that time when my dad and Jeff first told me about their plans for these flats.

  That sunset in Jon’s glasses, like a zealous fire, like the fire of destruction. Burning like an abandoned car. He turns away from the shadows of Ferris Court, shrugs and grins, looks forward into the sunrise of the future and his new complex, his dream.

  ‘When they built these things in the sixties,’ he says, gesturing vaguely towards the squat concrete carbuncles, ‘they thought they were the best things ever. Build up rather than along. Build into the sky. Use up those ninety-three million miles between here and the sun.’ He pauses, nodding, gazing at the sinking sun itself, and draws a long breath as he pushes his sunglasses higher up on his face. ‘But now? Here we go, tearing them down again. Like the tower of Babel, isn’t it?’

  While he speaks, what am I doing? Still leaning against the car, I suppose, watching Jeff Ash rolling up his plans and putting them on the back seat.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I hear myself say, ‘there’s a thin line between beauty and ugliness.’

  ‘That’s very good, Bel, very good indeed.’ Jon nods to himself, still staring at the sun. ‘I ought to bring that up at the next meeting with the backers.’ He sighs, looks down at his feet, now, and turns away, unlocks the car. ‘It took us a long time to realize that no one really wanted to get nearer the sun. I mean, it’s there, it’s useful. We need it.’ He flips up the back seat and gestures for me to get in. ‘But we’re sort of comfortable with that ninety-three million miles.’

  *

  He is there.

  His warmth is next to me, and his long, dark arm stretches out to me, reaches for my hand.

  I look up into his face.

  *

  And we are falling towards the darkening town, dropping on the high Fallowdale road. I can see myself and my dad’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Why are you wasting money on them?’ I ask my dad and Jeff.

  Jeff turns round in the passenger seat. His grin is unwavering. ‘Pleased to see nothing changes. Right fucking little fascist you’re raising here, Jon.’ He chuckles, as if I’m a freak to be stared at.

  I scowl at him. ‘I’m just a realist.’

  Jon’s eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror again and he can see that I’m serious. ‘You think we shouldn’t invest in Fallowdale, Bel?’

  ‘They don’t need it. They don’t deserve it.’ I’m remembering what Jeff said about the special houses for troublemakers. ‘These places only get money thrown at them when they shit on their own floor. If you need the place rebuilt, you have a nice little riot. Get a name for yourself. No one’s going to invest in somewhere not too obviously run-down, are they?’

  Jeff whistles quietly to himself. ‘Got a point. She’s got a point, you know.’

  I’m warming to my theme now. ‘No one cares. And if they have a Labour council, it’s in the council’s interest to keep them poor. Otherwise they might defect.’

  Jon seems amused. ‘So the affluent automatically become Tories, Bel?’

  ‘No, I didn’t say that. Don’t turn it round. I’m just saying people do lose their unrealistic ideals when they start to earn a bit of money. Christ, look at the students. They go on leftie, tree-hugging, nut-eating, support-the-workers marches one year, and the next year they’re earning a packet in the City. Smart suit, smart car, smart life.’

  I sit back, smug. Jon can’t argue against any of that, because he’s said it so many times himself, hasn’t he?

  *

  I look up into his face.

  ‘It’s you,’ I say.

  ‘Of course it’s me,’ says JJ indignantly. ‘What have they done to you?’

  *

  We’re coming back into civilization now, and the seafront skims along beside us.

  ‘You’ll see,’ says my father, full of confidence. ‘It’ll all be for the best. Once the new complex gets going, hundreds of locals will have jobs. Worth losing a few decaying flats for, don’t you think?’

  I smile. I say nothing.

  *

  JJ says it again. This time we are no longer in Ferris Court flats. We are in the back of a police car, and I have a warm, thick blanket around my shoulders and a soft pad stuck to my eyebrow.

  ‘Bel?’ he says. ‘What have they done?’

  ‘Nothing. How’s the little Dutch boy?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The one who put his finger in the dyke.’

  ‘Very funny,’ he says.

  There is a brief silence. He fidgets. Outside, it has started to rain. The clearly outlined block of flats, the bustling police in their yellow jerkins, all smudge through water.

  ‘You got me out,’ I say to him, rather unnecessarily.

  He smiles. ‘You wouldn’t believe me, would you? When I said it would get you into trouble.’

  ‘I haven’t changed my mind about anything.’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t expected you to.’ He sighs, taps his knee as if he’s embarrassed to be here.

  ‘Look, I’m not in the mood.’ My voice is cracking now. I keep losing syllables here and there, and my head is pounding. ‘I’m not going to ask you why you’re doing . . . it . . .’

  ‘Aren’t you? Don’t you want to know if Imelda and I are in love?’

  I try to laugh, but it comes out as a kind of choking noise.

  ‘No, seriously. Why won’t you ask?’

  ‘She’s your fucking aunt, for Christ’s sake.’

  He shrugs, grins. ‘She’s still a fantastic woman.’

  ‘Oh, please. This is sick. This is just not what I envisaged being put on this earth for.’

  ‘Ah. So you’re powerless for once. The blade can’t solve it for you. How long have you been carrying that thing around, Bel?’

  ‘Long enough.’ Well, why does he have to know any more?

  ‘And has it ever solved anything for you? Anything at all?’

  ‘It’s made me feel better. Like looking up girls’ gussets and shagging your auntie makes you feel better.’

  ‘Ah. Right. You know that two-thirds of murdered police in America are killed by their own guns?’

  ‘Oh, fuck off.’

  ‘It’s not nice, is it? Being analysed.’ He folds his arms and smiles at me in a superior way. ‘Your problem is you think the world revolves around you, and it’s OK to put the boot into people who don’t live the way you do.’

  ‘Like Fallies? JJ, they did this to me. They are not worth dogshit.’

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ he says quietly, ‘that you’ve given any thought to the house, at all, for example?’

  Oh, Christ, he’s really got a good idea about my priorities, hasn’t he? ‘They’ll get it all back on the insurance. Kate’ll have major babies about it for weeks, but nothing a course of uppers won’t cure.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Insurance and Prozac. The great middle-class panaceas. They’ll solve everything, of course.’

  We’re moving, now, carried through the town in style beneath a whirling blue light. The bright blueness strobes against the land, catching the waves in slow-motion, trapping the late-night staggerers.

  Up ahead, there’s another, similar craft, and the Fallies are in it. Thanks to JJ, the authorities got to us in time. They are going to have some questions to ask us.

  ‘How did you know?’ I ask him at one point.

  ‘Marcie,’ he says. ‘She knew. She got a call, saying that was where we’d find you.’ He breathes deeply. ‘They said we’d find you with one eye,’ he adds apologetically.
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  I don’t ask him the more important question, of course. I don’t ask why he bothered to find out.

  Maybe I’ll find out the answer to that one some time soon.

  I scooped my knife up before they got us out. It’s still there. It’s still in my pocket.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven – Tricks of the Light

  The knife glows in the snow-filled park.

  *

  I only ever met Marcie Hales once again in my life, in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral.

  I can see her now, walking towards me, black and red against the snow. On my left, the great honey-brown building, clasped by attentive scaffolding as ever, hits a steel-grey sky which has shed its snow no more than an hour ago.

  There are few footprints in the precincts. The air is still crisp, still finding its chilly way beneath the heaviest layers of clothes.

  At first, I think I’m going to ignore her, but now we’re getting so close that we can hear one another’s footprints on the virgin snow. We’re away from the traffic here, and the only other sounds are from above, the hammering of workmen on the cathedral and the cawing of rooks. I don’t have time to pull my scarf over my face.

  We both slow down. We hover, circling, eyeing each other up. She’s spindly underneath a black, fake-fur coat and red leggings. I’m bulky in my leather jacket and woollen scarf, and I’m peeking out from under a black trilby. I don’t wear gloves.

  Both my hands are in my pockets. Hi, my name’s Bel. My hands are in my pockets.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell them, you know,’ she says, as if restarting a conversation from just half an hour ago.

  I shrug. ‘I don’t think it really makes any difference now. Do you?’

  She eyes me warily. ‘I suppose . . . your dad got it back on the insurance.’

  I look coldly away from her. ‘Most of it.’ There is an uncomfortable silence, and Marcie pivots on her heel, carving a crescent into the snow. ‘So,’ I ask her, ‘what are you doing here?’

  She sighs, starts fumbling in her pocket for a cigarette. ‘Just been up the council offices on Military Road. Job interview.’

  ‘Another one?’ The last I heard of Marcie after the disastrous party, she’d been taken on at a factory near Maidstone. ‘What happened to the last place?’