The swastikas. Hitler. The concentration camps. Nazi graffiti on Jewish family homes in Newcastle suburbs.
‘You’ve always had something rotten inside you,’ she had said to him before leaving, her face red, her voice cracked, ‘but I always thought you kept it contained. Now it’s broken like an egg. And it’s seeped out. Contaminated every part of you.’
Johnny smiled, impressed. ‘You should have studied English instead of art,’ he had said. ‘You’ve got a gift for language.’
She had walked out. He knew what answer she would give their parents.
He stood: Blaydon Races, cheering and clapping, tuned it out. That night, he thought. The Ropemakers Arms, Brian Mooney and his gang: a superheated crucible, the base elements combining to create something new. The night everything had fallen into place for him. Afterwards came soul-searching and, as weeks stretched into months, decisions were reached. Conclusions arrived at.
Johnny could not continue as he was doing if he was ever truly to fulfil his potential. Be who he wanted to be. Who he needed to be.
The first move: sever all ties with his father’s company. His father, slack-jawed and impotent, had not stood in his way.
The second move: a job that suited him. Jack Smeaton had told him about his time in the Scotswood slaughterhouse. The conditions, the work. Jack had been trying to communicate the dreadfulness of the experience, but when Jack spoke horror Johnny heard pornography. Theory he wanted to put into practice. Had to put into practice.
And it hadn’t disappointed him. At first he would stand and watch the animals die, fascinated by how quickly and forcefully their spark of animation, of life, was removed. And then the cutting. That first time, sliding his diamond-sharp blade into the hanging animal carcass, the hiss of escaping gas almost an orgasmic sigh, had given him an immediate erection. When the guts dropped out he wanted to grab them, smear himself with them, luxuriate in their dissipating warmth, roll around in them, feel their slippery smoothness on his naked skin. Bathe in their blood.
He remembered torturing and killing Joanne’s pet cat when he was small and getting a thrill out of that. Out of seeing it suffer and die slowly, knowing the rest of the family were looking for it, out of knowing that it was his secret against Joanne, whom he hated because she was his mother’s favourite. A thrill. But nothing like as great as this one.
He had hurried back to his bedsit after work and masturbated himself to the best orgasm of his life.
Work became a joy after that.
Sometimes as he worked, he thought of Jack Smeaton. About other stories the man held within him.
About the war. About Belsen.
Johnny had asked repeatedly but Jack had refused, beyond supplying bare facts, to tell him anything. The rest he had had to find from books. Photos. And that had grown into almost as big a thrill as slaughtering animals.
Combine the two and his life was complete.
Almost complete.
There were other aspects, areas that still troubled and worried him. Things he needed to sort out. But it would come. He was on the right tracks at last.
And he had to thank that night at the Ropemakers for everything. Brian Mooney for everything.
He walked through the crowd, hands plunged deep inside his coat pockets. Fingers resting on the handles of his blades, the metal encased in home-made leather sheaths. Sewn-up skin, straight from the slaughterhouse.
His fingers curled and uncurled, stroked the shafts playfully.
His blades were his friends. His best friends.
His only friends.
Playfully stroking the shafts of his blades, he felt the stirrings of an erection.
Johnny looked around. The pack was all about him, red-faced and laughing. That inane song, again and again. What would it be like, he thought, to cut one of these? They were just cattle. Unintelligent animals. The unimaginative herd. He could just pull his knife out and slit the man next to him, the one with the short-sleeved shirt and thin black tie, greased-down hair and heavy, black-framed glasses, slit him right down the middle from chin to pubis and disappear into the crowd before anyone could stop him. What was stopping him from doing that?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
And that was why Johnny felt so superior to the crowd around him.
Because he had the power of life and death over them all.
And that knowledge made him a superman.
He walked on, erection pleasantly impeding speed. He wanted gratification. It was becoming imperative.
He walked on, excited.
He knew exactly where he was going. Who would be there. Even today, with all this going on.
And what would happen when he got there.
Everywhere she looked, Jean Bell saw ghosts.
Or, more specifically, a ghost. The same one.
It was there in the bathroom mirror that morning. It was in the hall mirror when she had straightened her hat and buttoned her coat before going out. It had been looking into the passenger side window of the Zephyr as she sat in the passenger seat, hand feeding Polos to Ralph, listening to him nervously crunching them as he drove.
The ghost was with her all the time. Everywhere she went, everywhere she looked. All the time.
The ghost was her.
When she looked at herself in a mirror, reflected back would be a woman with grey, almost translucent skin, hanging in shrunken, papery folds against an angular skull which threatened to show through completely. Her eyes were faded green, deep sunken. Tear-watery and tear-ready. Her brow was frown-creased, her lips small, pursed and rigid. Her hair limp, dead colourless strands.
This was the woman Jean Bell had become.
The ghost of her former self.
Everything was so hard. And getting harder. Just keeping the house going, keeping Ralph fed, showing him which clothes to wear, was an effort. And all three of her children gone from home. She and Ralph used to dream about that, of the day when they would leave, taking with them parental blessings and accumulated wisdom. The things they would do, the places they would go. Dream.
Not like this. Not this way.
Never this way.
They pulled up before a grand, imposing building. A textbook example of Georgian architecture. On their first visit it had seemed an impressive edifice but now familiarity had dulled that thrill. They no longer looked at it for what it had once been, but for what it represented to them now.
They had given their names to the gateman, who had to verify their visit with his clipboarded list before allowing them access, locking the gates behind them. Then up the gravelled drive, flanked by blooming flowerbeds and green grass, all at unnatural, cartoon brightness. Jean knew what the money was going on, but didn’t dare say it to Ralph. The car was parked in a small car park at the side of the house, where once had been operational stables. The three of them disgorged. Jean and Ralph from the front, Joanne from the rear.
Jean looked around. Despite the cheerful trappings, it still reminded her of a prison and her first view of it on every visit was accompanied by a sinking in her heart.
A prison.
Some prisons were subtler, more complex than others.
The three walked towards the front door, feet dragging slower with each reluctant crunch over the gravel. They slowly climbed the steps, rang the bell.
A woman wearing a stiffly starched white nurse’s outfit and a brittle, too-bright smile gave them admittance.
‘Mr Bell?’
Ralph Bell nodded.
‘And Mrs Bell and …’ The nurse struggled to find Joanne’s name. ‘ … Miss Bell. If you’ll follow me, please.’
She set off down a lino-floored corridor. The Bells followed.
The interior of the house showed very little of the exterior Georgian splendour. It looked as institutional as any hospital.
‘Huh … how is he?’ said Ralph Bell, his tone indicating he didn’t want to hear the answer.
‘Oh … fine,’ said the bri
ttle-bright nurse. ‘As well as can be expected. We do our best, you know.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ said Ralph.
They want to, the amount of money we’re paying. The thought came unbidden into Jean’s head. She quickly ushered it out with a guilt-ridden mental swipe.
‘He’s been cheerful lately,’ said the nurse.
‘Good, good,’ said Ralph.
As they walked, Jean felt hot. The heating must be turned up, she thought. Keep the patients drowsy. It was too warm for what she was wearing, but she didn’t feel she could unbutton her coat, take it off. The act might make her feel too comfortable. Too familiar in her surroundings. And she didn’t want to encourage those feelings in herself.
‘I didn’t think you’d be coming today,’ said the nurse, ‘what with the centenary and everything.’
‘No … we … we thought—’ Ralph had gone red in the face ‘—we … we should.’
‘That’s nice. We’re all hoping to go down later. When we finish our shifts.’
Ralph nodded absently, not hearing her.
‘Will Dr Shaw be here?’ said Ralph.
‘I can ask for him if you need to see him.’
‘Yes. Yes, please.’
They turned a corner, the nurse still leading. They walked through a large, open-plan white room in which a handful of pyjama-clad people sat reading, talking, playing draughts or just staring.
Jean tried not to look at them, tried not to think.
They crossed to a set of French windows. The nurse produced the key, opened them. They stepped out into the garden. She locked the windows behind them.
‘Can’t be too careful,’ she said.
Prisons, thought Joan, subtler, more complex than others.
They turned a corner. A figure clad in institutional pyjamas sat on a bench at the back of the building. He wore dark glasses and a distant expression. Head cocked, listening to something. Or acting as a receiver, waiting to pick something up.
‘There he is,’ said the brittle-bright nurse. ‘Say hello, Kenny.’
Kenny turned at the sound. Something unintelligible came out of his mouth. His expression changed slightly.
‘Look at that!’
Ralph turned to his wife and daughter, eyes alight with reckless hope.
‘Did you see that? He recognized us! He turned.’
The nurse gave a professional smile.
‘I’ll go and find Dr Shaw. If you need anything, just call.’
She walked off.
Ralph crossed to him, sat on the bench next to him.
‘Hello, son. Hello, Kenny. How you doing, ay?’
It was the most animated Jean had seen Ralph all day. The most animated she had seen him in a long time. Probably since their last visit to Kenny.
He had put on weight, Jean noticed. Unused muscle turned to fat. And they’d given him an institutionalized haircut to match his institutionalized pyjamas. It was a crude job, more like a monk’s tonsure than a professional barber’s effort.
She looked at her son. If she hadn’t become used to it, if each visit hadn’t leached a little more emotion, a little more mother’s sorrow each time she came, then she could cry. As it was, there were no reserves left to draw on. So she just sighed.
Ralph was talking to Kenny, telling him things Jean knew he couldn’t hear, would never understand. Kenny was gurgling in reply, rocking backwards and forwards, making random, inarticulate noises.
She couldn’t look at him without thinking of that night. The night when everything changed. When they stopped living the lives they had planned and expected and started living this way instead.
Shadow lives.
Kenny and Johnny had been taken to the hospital. Johnny’s injuries had been relatively easy to patch up, but Kenny had been different. A major artery had been severed in his thigh. The first job had been to stanch the flow of blood, stop him bleeding to death. They had done so, but not without the pumping of blood around his body stopping completely. Only for a few seconds, but those few seconds had been crucial. The flow of blood to his brain had ceased.
The doctors struggled to save his sight, but to no avail. The optic nerves were shredded, corneas useless. He was blind.
When he did regain consciousness a few days later, the doctors’ worst fears were realized. Kenny, in addition to his blindness, now had irreparable brain damage.
The Bells took the news badly. Johnny’s behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic, his attitude estranged. Joanne had been wonderful. Rolling up her sleeves, both physically and metaphorically, and getting on with things. Keeping things going. Jean thought it was Joanne who was keeping the family together.
Eventually the hospital could keep Kenny no longer. He had to come home. Jean faced the prospect of looking after him, steeled herself for the unexpected and unwanted responsibility.
But Ralph wouldn’t hear tell of it.
‘My boy’s going to get the finest treatment money can buy. We’ll prove these doctors wrong. We’ll show them he can get better.’
Jean had said nothing. Just nodded.
They, or rather Ralph, had chosen the Elms, a privately owned hospital on the border of Northumberland that knew the value of discretion and understood the meaning of money.
And there he had stayed. And there he would stay, thought Jean, until he either died or the money ran out. Whichever happened first.
My son, thought Jean.
She sighed again.
Ralph had been a much more devoted father since Kenny’s injuries. Jean didn’t delve too deeply into that. Guilt affected different people in different ways. He even insisted to Dan Smith that the first block of flats to go up be named after Kenny’s hospital.
The Elms.
Jean just let him get on with it.
And there he sat on the bench, talking to Kenny. Unable or unwilling to believe Kenny couldn’t see him. Couldn’t understand him. Couldn’t communicate with him.
The brittle-bright nurse reappeared.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, sounding neither sorry nor not sorry, ‘but Dr Shaw is waiting if you’d like to see him.’
Ralph quickly stood up, excused himself to Kenny, bustled off, the nurse following.
Jean and Joanne looked at each other, looked at Kenny.
He didn’t seem to be aware that someone had stopped talking to him. He sat making the same noises, head cocked, listening for a signal only he could hear.
‘Are you coming back home tonight?’ said Jean.
‘No, thanks. I’ll get Dad to drop me at the halls. Some of us are having a bit of a get-together tonight. The centenary thing, you know.’
Jean nodded.
‘Just as long as I know how many to cook for,’ she said.
They stood in silence again. Eventually Ralph returned. He was folding up a piece of paper, popping it in his inside jacket pocket.
Jean didn’t ask what it was. She didn’t want to know.
The nurse was following behind Ralph.
‘I’m afraid visiting time’s over now,’ she said, her brittle-brightness tinged by a professional sadness. ‘If you could be making your goodbyes.’
Ralph made loud goodbyes, telling Kenny when he’d see him next and to be good until then. Telling him not to worry, just get better, there was a place for him back at the firm.
Jean and Joanne both said in turn, ‘Goodbye, Kenny.’
He responded in neither greater nor lesser degree to any of them.
They were escorted back to their car, wished a pleasant journey home. They got in, Ralph started the engine. They swept down the drive, past the cartoon flowers, out on to the road.
‘Shame Johnny couldn’t have been here today,’ said Ralph. ‘He’d have enjoyed himself.’
Jean and Joanne said nothing. Jean noticed Joanne shudder despite the heat.
‘I thought he was looking better, didn’t you? He recognized us when we got there.’ Ralph smiled. ‘Yes, I think he’s turne
d a corner. It’ll be a while, but I think he’s on the mend.’ Another smile. ‘Ah, yes. Definitely on the mend.’
Jean and Joanne said nothing.
Jean turned to the window, sighed. The ghost woman was still there, looking at her.
Jean stared right back at her. Held her gaze.
All the way home.
Next came galloping and trotting.
Competitors from all over England and Scotland arrived for the racing at Blaydon in the afternoon. Showhorses and racehorses. Crowds oohing and aahing, clapping and cheering.
All over the region, street parties sprang up. Streets closed off. Battered bunting, last seen during the Coronation, had been dragged from damp cardboard boxes and given an airing: strung between lampposts, wrapped around telegraph poles, draped from windowsills and eaves, they flapped, bringing a faded ghost-colour to the soot-blackened streets. Tables dragged from kitchens and parlours formed higgledy-piggledy lines down the centres of streets. Chairs as mismatched as tables lined up alongside. On the tables: white triangular sandwiches filled with egg and tomato or tinned meat, orange squash in various kinds of cups, crisps, stodgy cakes. Children ate, shouted, laughed. Adults ministered, poured squash, replenished plates, helped themselves. They stood in their street, drank tea or bottled ale, chatted. Seeing their surroundings through different eyes: the sun, the gathering, the temporary dispensing of working ritual made their street, their world, a happy place of spirit, of love, of opportunity.
Mae Blacklock sat with the other children her own age, slowly chewing on a chopped-pork sandwich, swallowing, washing the taste away with orange squash. Repeating the actions until her plate and cup were cleared and empty. Between mouthfuls she looked around, saw the other children making up jokes, play-fighting at the table, carrying on, earning mock admonitions from their parents, calling to their friends.
But not to her. Never to her.
She sat with the other children her age. They talked over her, around her. She had seen something on telly once about a boy who had to live in a plastic bubble. There was something wrong with him. It looked great at first: a huge, see-through tent stretched over his specially adapted hospital bed in his specially adapted hospital room. He had toys and attention. It was an adventure. But as the programme went on, it began to look less great. He couldn’t laugh with the other children, breathe the same air as them, run and play with them. The toys he played with had to be specially disinfected. They could only be small. Everything, his whole world, had to fit into the small space inside the tent. He couldn’t reach out and touch.
The White Room Page 11