Ventriloquists

by David Mathew

  ‘I am a bit parched,’ said Phyllie, ‘as it happens. Thank you.’

  ‘Eva!’

  ‘I heard you, Benny. Give me a second,’ said Eva, appearing at the room’s threshold.

  ‘You can’t get the staff,’ Benny joked, loud enough for Eva to hear as she walked away. ‘She’s a good girl, is Eva. From Czechoslovakia. Or the Czech Republic, I should say. Czechoslovakia in old money. Only came here to be a nanny when she was eighteen. Now she’s twenty-seven and looking after a load of fucking zombies. But at least the pay’s better.’

  Vig did not know what to say; he was relieved to hear Phyllie say, ‘I’m not sure I understand you, Benny. What do you mean by zombies?’

  Why doesn’t he care about our names? Vig wondered. Either Benny wanted them to speak of this encounter… or they were not expected to leave. Which was it?

  ‘I’ll show you in a minute. Always happy to show off me wares. Things’ve evolved a fair bit since Don was around.’

  Benny paused.

  ‘How much do you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Only what he left in his suicide note,’ said Phyllie.

  ‘Which was what?’

  ‘It was about you,’ said Vig. ‘About your experiments.’

  ‘Oh that. Well, allow me to expand on what you don’t know.

  ‘You might call evolution my grand plan – I’ve renounced a good number of em as I’ve gone along, I don’t mind telling you.’

  Eva entered the room, carrying a tray on which cups and a teapot had been set. Her face said nothing. The look of ethereal distance had left her.

  Waiting for Eva to pour and to do the honours, Benny said, ‘What I’m about to tell you, I’ve told a hundred times before, to a hundred different people like you – seeking answers. Some of em listen and some of em don’t. And I insist on being heard, so are you listening? Listen to this. It’s been my reason for living for a little while – a couple of years. Evolution, mate. Evolution.’ He settled back into his chair and added quietly, ‘Evolution.’

  His repetition of the word like a mantra had not cleared anything up, however.

  ‘…Meaning what?’ said Phyllie.

  Benny’s lower eyebags were cushions of bad stitches, especially when he smiled, which he did now. The facial tan adopted a depth of varnish.

  ‘I am overwhelmingly interested in the capabilities and capacities of the human body and spirit. And the corruption of the same… Do you follow me?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Vig admitted. He did so with an inner alarm bell chiming. For the first time he got the impression that Benny, despite his years, was not a man not used to getting his own way. Nor was he a pacifist: not by a long chalk. He had something about him of an old East End villain, maybe suntanned (and pickled) on the patio of a second home in Marbella; he was dangerous. He’d invite you into his home but he’d work on you later.

  ‘Scientists disagree on the numbers,’ Benny continued, ‘but let’s assume the figure is ten per cent. The human brain uses ten per cent of its total functionality. First I’d ask: How do you know? Secondly, why do we assume there’s more to make use of? If we don’t know what ninety per cent does then maybe it does the square root of bugger all.’

  ‘So you’re…’ Phyllie sipped her tea. ‘…you’re conducting experiments on people’s brains?’

  Benny sniffed. ‘Among other things. One of me projects being what some would call our spiritual selves – the unopposable force of will, if you like. Or even if you don’t like.’ And he laughed at his own ‘joke’.

  ‘I’ll write a book about it, I reckon. Well, I won’t write a book about it… I’ll dictate a book about it. I’ve submitted a few papers to peer reviewed journals, but I’m no academic. They’ve come back – nonsense about clarity of me argument. Ethics if you please. What’s so fucking ethical about living in ignorance, I ask you? Nothing: that’s what. It’s wilful naïveté – a disgraceful, diabolical human trait.’

  Continuing to flounder somewhat, Vig took a swallow of his tea and selected from a list of possible questions.

  ‘Do you mean – sorry if I’m being slow here – do you mean you perform surgery here? On people’s brains?’ He endeavoured to edit the horror from his voice.

  Either the subject itself or Vig’s efforts at self-censorship amused Benny. His eyes twinkled. ‘Well I’ve done a bit of incision and excision in me time, but I don’t know you’d call it surgery. It was mainly gangs in them days. Non-payment for this or that. Occasionally you’d be obliged to inform some insect that he wouldn’t be needing his reading glasses anymore.’

  ‘Christ. You put out his eyes?’ asked Phyllie.

  ‘No no no; nothing so serous, darling. I just cut an ear off. Only once or twice, like. Twelve times to be precise.’

  ‘That’s sick. I hope that’s an old gangster joke,’ she told him.

  ‘Regrettably not; but those were harder days… and bear in mind we’re talking about scum. Total pus. Who won’t learn a lesson any other fucking way. And it’s like in any other walk of life. It’s reputation. You can’t have it get round you’ve been ignored… Anyway. That’s a younger man’s game. Gave it all up a long time ago.’

  ‘Because of your conscience?’ Vig asked, hoping desperately for a Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus-type conversion to a more equable industry, however unlikely this appeared to be in the offing.

  He also asked himself a question; a question that he hoped Phyllie was asking of herself as well. Why is his telling us this? It was not as though Benny seemed contrite, and there was no feel of the deathbed confession about his words.

  ‘Conscience? Not in this lifetime. No, mate. What goes on in a man’s conscience is between that man and his conscience. An overrated stimulus anyway, if you want my opinion. Those tinker toy psychology programmes they force you onto in prison… either of you been inside?’

  Vig and Phyllie shook their heads.

  ‘Good job. Stay out as long as you can: that’s my motto. And do you know how I achieve this? By control and manipulation. Control plus manipulation equals distance. There are people with a dotted-line connection to me, in terms of management structure, who don’t even know my name. And that’s just the way I like it… But what was I saying?

  ‘Oh yeah, conscience. When you’re inside, in a rec room with fifteen other overweight fuckwits whose names you don’t want to learn, let alone what crimes they committed, and you’ve got some underpaid do-gooder asking you to think about your crime and think about your victim – how do you think your victim feels? – and half the time what you’re really thinking is get me out of here and the wanker feels nothing – he’s dead – that’s when you learn what a useless thing a conscience actually is. It’s unnecessary. Actually, it’s a hindrance - stops a man doing his work, I reckon. Easily removed. Like the appendix. What good’s a conscience if it can be bought and sold? Anything – this is a theory I’ve developed, see what you think – anything that can be bought and sold is essentially worthless. Worthless in the literal sense of without value.

  ‘No. My retirement from violence was essentially a financial decision. You’d be surprised at how little you actually earn in organised bodywork. All the money stays at the top. So you’re scarring a man’s torso for what? For thirty quid? Stroll on! I made myself a wealthy man by selling what didn’t belong to me. And I’m good.’

  ‘…You’re a fence,’ said Phyllie.

  Benny wrinkled his nose. ‘Never cared for that term,’ he replied. ‘I prefer a transferral executive. But yeah, essentially, you’ve got the right idea. I only dip me toes into actual violence rarely… and it’s rarely about money. I need people for my intra-rationalist work. Sometimes they don’t wanna volunteer.’ He smiled fondly at a memory. ‘Oh, and the grass who put me in the nick that time, of course. I had to tell that prick his fortune… Do you know what we did? The prick was into ama
teur dramatics, right – on the side? Straight up. Loved a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan and that game. And when it comes to revenge, your best bet’s to hurt what’s gonna hurt worst. Now with me fresh out of prison, he’s gonna be thinking: That Benny won’t risk anything straight away. People’ll be watching him. So that’s when you strike. You double bluff em. The last person he’ll expect is me in person. Wouldn’t even cross his mind I’d take the chance.

  ‘So my choice was this. The prick likes singing and dancing in Gilbert and Sullivan. Fair enough, each to his own. So what would hurt worst? Never singing again or never dancing again? I couldn’t decide. So I made him gargle with a corrosive compound. And then I set fire to his feet.’

  The comment caused much concerted tea-drinking… until Phyllie asked, ‘And will that particular story appear in your book as well?’

  ‘Phyllie…’ Vig warned.

  ‘He’s talking crap, Vig. Living out a wish fulfilment fantasy in his dotage. No offence, Benny.’

  But Benny was still in a state of amusement; umbrage was the furthest emotion from his mind, it seemed. He waved the very notion from the air.

  ‘Come on, Vig – we’re leaving.’

  ‘I seriously doubt that, my dear,’ Benny replied. ‘It’s one of me favourites – a concoction I’m especially proud of. Made with me own ingenuity and instinct.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Vig wanted to know.

  ‘The poison you’ve been drinking in your tea. It works from the feet up. You don’t feel a thing until you try to walk.’

  Phyllie snorted. ‘Well let’s put that theory to the test, shall we?’ And she stood up.

  Her legs were not strong enough to support her. Her knees buckled and she fell back onto her chair.

  ‘Now the first thing to mention,’ Benny continued, ‘is the worse you’ll encounter is a bad headache. The poison works on your muscles – the brain’s last on his journey.’

  Vig made a move – an atavistic response to the threat. He did not raise himself to his full height, however: the sense of weakness in his feet and shins was emphatic. Suddenly he felt too weak even to curse.

  ‘What I’m interested in – obsessed you might say – is the evolution of the group mind. Down below our feet I keep thirty-odd waifs and strays in a state of suspended animation. Injections. Administered by the lovely Eva and some other members of my team. And what I’ve found – to my surprise – is for want of a better expression, their dreamworlds have started to overlap.’

  Phyllie had not caught Vig’s temporary speechlessness. ‘You’re a madman,’ she breathed; for all her cool, irate demeanour, however, she felt hot. Sweat prickled on her brow and in her oxters.

  ‘They’re not really unconscious, you see. It’s like they’re talking in their sleep. The funny thing being, some of em talk to each other. They talk about this place they’ve gone to. Jung might have had something of the kind in mind when he wrote about the collective unconscious. I wouldn’t know, never read the cunt. Just like the term – collective unconscious. Certain ring to it.’

  There must be something we can do, Vig thought. But how would he get over to the other side of the room, without the use of his legs? Even if he crawled… what then?

  ‘What will it cost us for the antidote?’ he asked.

  ‘The antidote? You’ll have to work for it, mate. How do you normally earn anything?’

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ said Phyllie. ‘You didn’t know we’d be coming here…’

  Once more, Benny waved the suggestion away like a wasp.

  ‘Oh there’re visitors all the time,’ he said. ‘I welcome them all. Some are suitable; some aren’t. Most of my subjects I collect from various properties in the general area.’

  ‘So what do you want from us?’ Vig asked.

  ‘Vig! I’m not going to be his puppet! I’m not a plaything! I’m pregnant for Christ’s sake!’

  Benny’s face brightened further. ‘Are you? That’ll be a new one – never had a foetus to work with. I’ve had a dog. Always felt bad about that dog. See: I arranged an explosion and a flood in a house I rent out in Edlesborough. I made sure the tenants wouldn’t be home – they were at a funeral – and I arranged for a couple of expendable guys to get into the blast. I wanted to see how water might influence what they thought about when they were back here. Some extremely interesting observations.’

  ‘Oh sod your fucking observations!’ Phyllie shouted. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I won’t do it, whatever you want me to do. I’ll drag myself out by my fingernails if I have to.’

  ‘Be my guest. I only need your husband,’ said Benny, ‘though I’d prefer you both, I must admit. I wanna see if someone who knows what’s going on influences the balance of the world they’ve created for themselves.’

  ‘But we don’t know what’s gong on,’ Vig argued. ‘The bit about the dog…?’

  ‘Ah. An unfortunate soldier of circumstances, that dog. I don’t like unnecessary harm to any creature, which you might find ironic.’

  Vig was sweating as well now. But he wanted to know more; indeed, he imagined that his only chance lay in learning.

  ‘When the water smashed the house up, there was a neighbour’s dog there. The poor thing drowned. I tried me best. The funny thing was, one of the burglars – the one that didn’t die, obviously – thought the dog had gone across the threshold with him. It made for some interesting pillow talk, I can tell you.’

  ‘Vig, I’m frightened,’ Phyllie said. ‘If this harms the baby…’ With which she tried again to stand up. The effort was no more competent than the first attempt. Before she could scream or shout, she burst into a torrent of impotent tears.

  Perhaps it was this squall that reminded Vig of when he’d used to teach German: it had the temperature and ferocity of an adolescent tantrum over the incorrect usage of the accusative case. Though Vig said nothing to soothe Phyllie’s panic, he was pleased to note that the crying had given him an idea. And he owed it all to his experiences with stroppy teens.

  ‘What’s in it for me?’ he asked. A bead of sweat trickled into his left eye and he squinted; Benny must have misconstrued something menacing from this because his own expression hardened.

  ‘Are you bargaining with me?’ Benny demanded.

  ‘Are you bargaining with him?’ Phyllie also wanted to know.

  ‘I am. What do I get out of this? You want us to visit this place they’ve created – but I already know it won’t be real… even if I find it. So I don’t even have the prospect of an adventure; so I’ll ask again. What’s in it for me?’

  Benny paused. Then he said, ‘I’ve got money – you can see that. Name a price. Name a fee.’

  ‘I’m a Lottery winner, mate. I’ve got money. I own the place where Don Bridges worked.’

  ‘Then what? What do you want?’

  ‘I’m a teacher, Benny. I’m an educator.’

  ‘You wanna teach people when you get there? Be my guest. Fill your boots. You’ll be a prophet there, son!’

  ‘No,’ said Vig. ‘I want to teach people about what you’ve discovered – or created, depending on how you view it.’

  His frown melting, Benny said, ‘That’s exactly what I want. At my time of life. I want the scientific community to sit up and take notice. To give me credit.’

  ‘For which I’ll want fifty per cent of all future sales.’

  ‘…What sales?’ Benny demanded.

  ‘Whether we market it as… I don’t know… a holiday opportunity… or training conditions for the military, for example,’ said Vig.

  ‘Now wait a minute…’

  ‘You’re talking about psychic phenomena and yet…’ Vig’s mouth was as arid as a camel’s hoof. ‘…and yet you’ve got all your subjects in one place. What’ll happen when you’ve got centres in Vladivostock and Cairo, all talking to
gether across the seas. You’re thinking too small, Benny.’

  ‘I am not!’

  ‘And that’s why the scientific community takes you as seriously as Norman Wisdom.’

  Benny protested. ‘I’m a one-man band, son.’

  ‘Not now you’re not.’

  Phyllie retched and some of the spiked tea dribbled down her chin. Her face had lost colour; her skin was the shade of a Greek column. When she tried to say Vig’s name once again she lost consciousness. Her passing-out sigh fluttered like a swift.

  ‘We’re business partners, Benny. Fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Or what?’ Benny argued, the old resilience leaping back into life, almost as if it had supped nourishment from Phyllie’s departure. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I happen to be holding all the tools. You’ve nothing to work with, son.’

  Vig managed one final conscious smile. ‘I’ll tear the fucking thing to pieces from inside,’ he said. And then he closed his eyes. The smile did not evaporate from his lips.

  Children of the Overlap

  1.

  ‘Mummy? Mummy, wake up!’

  Phyllie gasped; snored; tried to settle.

  ‘Mummy!’

  And she opened her eyes… to see the little girl kneeling to the left of her head. The girl was four or five; her expression was pained and worried.

  ‘We have to wake up,’ the girl explained.

  I’m not your Mummy, Phyllie wanted to say, but she sat up anyway. The indistinct scenery around her read her mind; it tried to copy her thoughts. However, the blue sky was pale and indecisive; so Phyllie thought harder – projected harder – knowing that this was all in her skull.

  The little girl stood up and took a few steps away from her mother. She kept looking left and right; she was nervous. Someone was pursuing them, perhaps.

  Examining her own clothing and finding it to be intact (and as she remembered it), Phyllie climbed to her feet.

  They were inside a building that did not have a roof. Water had damaged everything… there would be no more lessons taught here. She was back at school. She was in her former classroom, back when she was twelve, despite the physical evidence of Phyllie’s fully-matured womanhood.