Ventriloquists

by David Mathew

  It wasn’t fair. In Connors’s mind he had done everything that Fate seemed to have planned for him; and to the best of his ability and conscience he had done it without complaint. He’d played the game. Without knowledge of the rules (or the trophy at stake) he’d played the game, suffering scrapes and knockbacks along the way with the minimum of fuss or tears. And now this: for he first time that he could recall since Elvis was eaten by the insects, this moment of balance-recorrection, this sniff of something positive, had been stolen from him as well. So no. No, it wasn’t fair at all.

  The confusion was like a rash for Connors to scratch; and just like with a skin complaint, the more attention that Connors paid it, the more the fucker itched. Principally, how could it not be Elvis? How could Lizard Larry be anyone other than Elvis?

  The physical appearance was wrong; the voice was wrong; there was nothing obvious that linked the two boys, in fact. But it was Elvis all right: of this Chris Connors was absolutely sure, and his surety was as strong as love. It felt like love too: a mingling of likeminded souls… which was worrying enough all by itself. Love? As if Connors didn’t have plenty to worry about already!

  A voice bumped against the walls of his attention, like a gale.

  ‘What’s up?’ Massimo asked.

  ‘Just thinking.’

  They had stopped at a wide spot on the path, snow-covered, nature-strangled with vegetation. To the left and right of the path, such as it was beneath a carpet of frost, came the bellowed commands of creatures that might be bulls or alligators. It was impossible to tell which.

  ‘About Elvis,’ Connors admitted. ‘It’s like… Do you believe in guardian angels? Or ghosts?’

  ‘No, neither,’ Massimo answered, but he was not being altogether honest with himself. Ghosts, maybe; the life he’d left behind felt spectral enough. Any solidity that he’d tried to cling on to had long since been lost; when he tried to think back it was like pinning shadows to a wall.

  A short period of silence followed. Massimo remembered the house in Eggington, and the tortures that he’d perpetrated therein. Surely being here, however cold it became, however perilous the journey got, was better than being in Bedfordshire, facing the legal consequences of his and Charlie’s actions.

  Was that really me?

  This was a question that Massimo had asked himself times without number since he’d arrived here. Not once had he managed to answer it. What had happened in that house had been the actions of a man who shared Massimo’s skin and brain; but that man seemed more distant as time went on. Perhaps (a vain hope, this, and Massimo knew it) he had dreamed those weeks, those times, those tortures. Why not? The idea was no more preposterous than that of visiting God’s eyes or moustache (or whatever the hell). And it would certainly be a balm for Massimo’s conscience. So yeah: why not? After all, there was no doubt that he’d changed since coming here. The very first fluttering of a romantic enchantment with Bernadette was proof positive of that.

  ‘I was sick,’ Massimo muttered to himself.

  The object of his nascent affections overheard the miniature confession, her nurse’s instinct engaged automatically by the word sick.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked, stepping closer.

  Massimo shook his head; then, reconsidering, he posed a question with what he hoped was sly caution. ‘Is it possible this is madness?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Not exactly my field – but yes, I’d say it was,’ Bernadette answered. ‘Either we were mad when we thought we had normal lives before, or we’re mad now.’

  ‘I was thinking about the first one,’ Massimo told her. ‘What if we were never there? We were here all along.’

  Connors interrupted in a voice that said: I’m nipping this one in the bud right now.

  ‘No one’s mad.’

  ‘But how do you know?’ asked Bernadette, reasonably enough in her own opinion.

  Rounding on her, Connors said, ‘I haven’t gone through all the shit I’ve gone through, including the death of your dog by the way, for you two to hatch a madness plot. Okay? Cuz if there ain’t some fucking… plan behind all this, we might as well kill ourselves right now. Don’t think I haven’t considered the option of killing myself either, cuz you’d be wrong.’ And he turned away.

  Massimo and Bernadette exchanged looks. Silently they shared a flask of lukewarm but delicious soup; neither of them tasted it much.

  Bernadette said, ‘Shall I change the subject?’

  ‘That might be a good idea,’ Massimo replied.

  ‘It’s about something else I’ve never really understood – something I’ve got in the house at home.’ She sniffed. ‘My partner calls it the Object, with a capital O. He won it in a card game…’

  Homes of Wherefore

  1.

  His body exothermic, with worms of perspiration wriggling on his brows and into his chevron sideburns, Yasser stepped down from Maggie’s home and over his left shoulder said:

  ‘You needn’t bother to lock up.’

  He had told her to dress warm, as soon as he’d completed into her fundament, with Maggie’s ankles rattling around his ears. She had done as bidden. She was now clothed in a thick brown overcoat and a purple scarf; she wore leather boots.

  ‘Why not?’ she asked… and to Yasser’s ears the question sounded almost hopeful, like someone who already knows that she will receive a surprise present but is pretending not to, to spare the giver’s feelings.

  ‘You won’t be gone long,’ Yasser answered. ‘Do you smell petrol?’

  ‘No. Maybe I’m getting a cold.’

  Parenthetically querying what that might mean, and of a mind to order Maggie not to be so bloody enigmatic, now that he seemed to be on top of matters for a change (for a while), Yasser attempted to unlock the car doors. There was something wrong. The something wrong was that the doors were already unlocked; he was confident that he’d secured the car, as he customarily did, when he’d reached Maggie’s caravan.

  Are you sure, boy? his father wanted to know. Are you absolutely certain?

  No. Not absolutely. But fairly.

  Spinning on his heels in the mud, Yasser peered into the darkness for Tommy – or Max. There was no one around. None of the caravans close by had lights on inside; for all Yasser knew, the place might have been deserted and abandoned.

  So why did the air stink of petrol?

  ‘Where are we going?’

  The plan had come to Yasser while he’d been washing his penis in Maggie’s bathroom, after he’d withered in her anus and her muscle had squeezed him out. He would drive her to Chris’s house. Display her to the man. Just in case he’d lied, perhaps a face-to-face meeting with the grieving mother would finger his conscience; he might spill the truth.

  Bringing Maggie and Shyleen together would be a pretty good side-plan as well. Show both of them that Yasser meant business. And if either of them cut up rough, they could both walk home. Yasser was not going to take any more nonsense.

  Then something else flashed through Yasser’s mind. While he’d been cleaning himself up – a matter of minutes while he’d waited for the water to run warm – what exactly had Maggie been doing? When he’d entered the bathroom he had left her spread-eagled on the table; on his return she’d been prostrate in the lounge area, at the other end of the caravan.

  Could anything be read into the change of position and location? After all, the table had probably not been comfortable; but still… that smell of petrol. It reminded Yasser of the first time he’d driven here, and Tommy’s threat to ignite the car with Yasser inside it. Would Maggie have had enough time to go outside (in the nude), having taken his car keys from the jacket he’d sloughed off during sex, and then enter the car, get the can of petrol and give the vehicle a good soak? No doubt she was deranged enough to do so (in Yasser’s diagnosis), and no doubt he might have plant
ed the idea-seeds in her brain with his talk of roasting Tommy’s caravan… but would she have had time to do it?

  Why don’t you check? The can should be in the passenger footwell.

  ‘You get in first,’ Yasser told Maggie, not replying to her question about their destination. ‘Wait.’ Imagine she’d poured the petrol inside the car. It would go up like a tinderbox; Maggie the Martyr. ‘What’s in your handbag?’

  ‘I’ve no handbag,‘ Maggie answered.

  ‘Your coat pockets.’

  She shrugged. ‘Box of fags, matches,’ she said. ‘Capsule of perfume, emergency tampon…’

  Yasser tried to remember if he’d ever seen Maggie light and smoke a cigarette. Quite often he’d seen a packet of Superkings lying around, on a shelf or near the toaster, but he’d always assumed them to be her father’s property. Is this paranoia? Just because he couldn’t recall seeing Maggie smoking did not mean that she didn’t have the habit. No law against nicotine. Maybe she’d started up (again?) this very morning.

  ‘I’ll turn the car around first,’ said Yasser. Quick getaway, he thought. If need be.

  Smelling nothing out of the ordinary in the car itself (it smelled of the pine air conditioner hanging from the mirror), and noting with relief the petrol can in the passenger footwell (Doesn’t mean it’s still full, though), Yasser executed a three-point turn, his lights sweeping across the blank walls of sundry trailers like a weird prison break. (Just check if it’s full or empty.) When he faced in the right direction, he saw Maggie breathing smoke, carefree, into the night; she smoked with her fingers straight and stiff. Hardly a portrait of someone who was about to burn herself alive!

  The can might be empty, Yass…

  And where had the idea come from anyway? It seemed stupid now (stupid?); reckless and masochistic. (The can’s empty. No.) If anything, a good shag had lightened Maggie’s mood a little. Yasser laughed. (Empty.) It had taken the plug from her butt.

  ‘Get in. Put out the fag,’ Yasser told her.

  Maggie slid into the passenger side; she did not extinguish her cigarette. Twisting her head ninety degrees to face him, she cocked an eyebrow and said, ‘What are you gonna do? Slap me. Rape me?’ She widened her eyes in mock horror.

  Yasser faced the lane and started his windscreen wipers; a fine rain had greased the glass. ‘I didn’t rape you.’

  ‘That’s what it felt like. So drive.’

  Yasser moved off slowly and had only shifted a metre before Maggie cried: ‘Stop!’

  Emergency break situation.

  ‘What is it?’ Yasser demanded.

  Maggie opened the box of matches that she’d palmed out of her coat pocket; into the box, which was roughly a quarter full, she placed the unsmoked half of her cigarette.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Yasser.

  ‘Hana-bi. Fireworks… Watch.’

  It took a few seconds for the cigarette’s smouldering tip to ignite the head of one of the matches; then another match combusted with a bright flare and the dirty smell of chemicals burning.

  ‘Jesus, Maggie…’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘You’ll burn your hands!’

  ‘Wait.’

  Another match popped into fire; then another; and another. Maggie held a miniature pyre on her outstretched palm, and again a match-head flared. The sticks ignited the inside of the box itself, and the heat given off was strong. Too hot to hold, surely.

  Yasser said, ‘Throw it out the window. For fuck’s sake, Maggie! This is no time for games!’

  Maggie opened the door, and with a gleeful noise – whee! – she threw the ignited handful out into the open air, to the side and the rear of the vehicle.

  Whumph!

  The noise was immediate. No sooner had the burning matchbox hit the ground than it set fire to something already there. In the mirror Yasser watched a line of fire follow something intensely flammable on the floor.

  ‘Oh my God, Maggie…’

  But Maggie was staring directly ahead. ‘I think it might be an idea to drive now,’ she said.

  ‘Petrol? My petrol?’ Yasser panicked.

  ‘I’ll pay you back. Drive, Yasser.’

  Still gazing into the rearview mirror, Yasser watched the line of flames split into a forked path. To the right, fire reached towards Maggie’s home, quickly. To the left, the race was on towards the Brazilian’s.

  Yasser’s question about whether Maggie had had enough time to take the petrol can from his car while he was washing had been answered. She had gone outside naked and done so.

  2.

  ‘I love your outfit, dear,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Shy?’ said Yasser, in amazement.

  ‘She doesn’t look too shy,’ Maggie replied, chuckling. ‘Are you going to have us in?’ she asked Shyleen, who had chosen to answer Chris’s doorbell all-but naked, dressed only in a man’s white shirt, which ballooned at the hem near her knees, teased by the wind.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting him to bring you,’ Shyleen said to Maggie. ‘You must be…’

  ‘Shyleen. Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?’ Yasser asked.

  ‘They’re overrated. Come in. The wind’s playing havoc with my nethers. Chris has had to go to the toilet. He’s had too much to smoke and drink.’

  As if on cue, from upstairs came a muffled murmur of retching.

  Stepping over the threshold first, Yasser made clear his disappointment. ‘I didn’t invite you to a bloody party, Shy. Where are your clothes and why aren’t they on the outside of you?’

  ‘Relax, Yasser. They’re around here somewhere.’

  ‘Somewhere?’ Yasser’s eyes widened.

  ‘Chris said I should offer you a Bloody Mary.’

  ‘We’re going home,’ he answered defiantly.

  ‘I’d love a Bloody Mary,’ Maggie told her, following Yasser into the house. ‘Thank you.’

  As the two women moved along the hall and into the kitchen, Yasser was left reflecting on this fresh state of wretchedness. From the upper storey came another audio round of Chris being sick in the bathroom; this one was made worse, immeasurably worse, by the woeful groan that followed. (Yasser had a good mind to race upstairs and stick the man’s head deep into the bowl, and hold it there.) And what was this sisterhood bullshit between Shyleen and Maggie all about? Yasser had imagined that the two women would hate one another on sight; they’d have antibodies against the natural enemy. I’d love a Bloody Mary thank you? What sort of. Jesus. Leave em here, Yasser; let em fend for themselves. Get your arse home before you hear the Fire Brigade sirens…

  I’m in shock, Yasser realised. This is what shock feels like. It should be me up there, kissing the porcelain.

  Indeed, all of a sudden, the few combined swigs of weak tea and strong liquor made a wave in his stomach; it rolled up his chest and made a pass at his larynx. Yasser grabbed hold of the newel post and took three deep breaths. The wave of nausea passed, chased by a swarm of black stars across his vision.

  The front door was still half open. He could easily walk back out. After all, did he really want to meet again the man who must have had sex with Shyleen? She was wearing his shirt: they must have. Unless it was one of the worst pasta sauce faux pas known to man, they had done something together; and who would cook pasta sauce at midnight and offer some to an intruder?

  Yasser closed the front door.

  Answers first. Retaliation could wait.

  He stomped into the kitchen, where Shyleen was pouring tomato juice into four glasses of vodka, two of which were already smeared with the remains of previous concoctions. For all the world she gave the impression of someone who owned this kitchen, this juice.

  Yasser’s gut tightened. Shyleen had been fucked into a condition of domesticity: it hadn’t taken long. Well we’ll see about that. Animals could be untraine
d as effectively as trained: and a human being was nothing more than a sophisticated animal. Right?

  What am I going to do? If those caravans had caught light, he was what? – an accessory before the fact? It was his money that had bought the petrol, after all. Prove it. Petrol stations had closed circuit television these days (they’d had them for years) Mum and Dad are going to go mental.

  Without a word he accepted his drink and took a swig. You couldn’t go far wrong with a Bloody Mary, unless the cunt also brewed hooch in the back garden – and grew vines of manky toms. No. The drink was familiar and strong; it tasted like nectar – the first good thing that had happened this evening.

  ‘Oh!’ Shyleen remembered something. ‘Did you want Worcester sauce in that?’

  Yasser levelled his steeliest glare at his cousin. ‘Fuck the Worcester sauce in that,’ he replied. ‘Go and get your boyfriend. I don’t care if he’s got half a gallon of vomit on his chest. Fetch him.’

  Shyleen looked at Maggie and made a face. ‘Hark at Yasser so butch!’ she crowed. ‘What did you do to him?’ She laughed. ‘No, don’t answer that.’

  Frowning like a baboon, Yasser took a step in his cousin’s direction.

  ‘Okay okay,’ she said. ‘I’m going!’

  As she slipped from the room, her elongated shirt-tails flapping like fins, Yasser said to Maggie: ‘And you can wipe the smirk from your chops an’ all! What were you thinking of?’

  ‘What?’ Maggie asked, all innocence.

  ‘What do you mean, what? You set fire to your home!’ His tone was angry and bristling.

  ‘A bit louder, could you?’ And hers was as near as damn it bored.

  ‘Maggie, don’t push me.’

  ‘Oh I dare you. I dare you,’ Maggie whispered, ‘to hit me again in front of witnesses. What are my bruises like, Yasser?’