by Yaba Badoe
Embarrassed by my inadvertent collusion with the Venus eyebrow, yet half in thrall to the new girl already, I tried to find a way to accommodate Polly’s presence in our lives. At the end of our first week of sardonic ‘Hallos’ and ‘Is she on the same planet as us?’ I begged Beth to talk about an incident that was part of Exe folklore.
Laughing the irrepressible Bradshaw laugh, Beth regaled us with our favourite tale. One Friday on a winter afternoon, when the Derbys were out, she’d responded to a dare from Joshua Richardson. Joshua and his friends had placed bets against her being able to climb the highest tree in the Washing Line Wood – an enormous beech nicknamed Methuselah. Tucking her skirt in her knickers and licking the palms of her hands for luck, Beth hauled herself up. After a climb of over half an hour, she reached the top and tossed her knickers down, shouting obscenities at the boys below. She won five pounds in total, a pound from every boy in Joshua’s gang. Beth shared the money with me.
‘Cool,’ Polly murmured, genuinely impressed. ‘Boys are such suckers.’
On this point at least all three of us agreed. We were of an age when boys left us indifferent; we thought them stupid, clumsy; a waste of time and space. So much so, that our antipathy forged a sense of solidarity between us: a shared knowledge of our innate superiority, which extended to Maria as well.
By the end of the second week of term, Polly’s charisma, enhanced by an American glamour that set her apart, was drawing us into her private world. She possessed a macabre interest in murder. She talked about it incessantly, giving vivid descriptions of murder scenes: exactly how the crime had been committed. And when we were primed, desperate to know how a culprit had been punished and moral order restored, she would change tack. Instead of satisfying our lust for retribution, she’d start describing in detail the state of decomposition a corpse had reached by the time it was discovered.
In this, her abiding passion, her fascination with violent death, I was a helpless accomplice. The pile of comics I had rummaged through on her first day at school, and continued to mull over whenever the opportunity presented itself, were the source of Polly’s hold over us, especially me. She was an enthusiastic subscriber to True Murder, an American monthly made up of features and comic strips of the world’s most sensational killings. The magazines, thick and glossy, opened up a landscape of perversity depicted in primary colours. It was my willingness to enter this underground world, delving into the shadows of Polly’s imagination, that changed our lives irrevocably.
One evening before Lights Out, when Polly was halfway through her daily ritual of brushing her hair one hundred times, I became so aroused by the salacious description of the True Murder case I was scrutinising that I began reading aloud. I knew the magazine was one the Derbys would describe as unsavoury, but I didn’t care. Polly’s fascination had rubbed off on me and I wanted to entice Maria and Beth into the terrifying terrain of the criminally insane. Sure enough, soon they were captivated as well.
‘“He seemed an ordinary guy. He held down a regular job and he was liked. But Jeffrey Dahmer, the mass murderer of Milwaukee, killed at least seventeen people before he was caught.”’ I paused for dramatic effect; then, realising what Jeffrey Dahmer had done, I whispered in horror, ‘And he ate them.’
I flung the magazine down, nauseated. True Murder was not always as ghoulish as the Brothers Grimm, but what gripped me, filling me with revulsion and secret pleasure, was that what I read had actually occurred. The stories weren’t make-believe. They were devastatingly real. Beth and Maria lunged for the magazine and Beth, being taller, elbowed Maria out of the way. Beneath a photograph of an intelligent-looking young man, she found where I’d left off, and continued: ‘“The sixty-million-dollar question is: how did this regular guy become the Monster of Milwaukee?”’
Beth looked at Polly. The only audible answer was the steady counting of brushstrokes, so she examined Dahmer’s portrait instead. ‘He looks ordinary,’ she said, astonished.
‘That’s the way the cookie crumbles.’ A knowing smile played on Polly’s lips as she came to the end of her pre-teen grooming and tied her hair up in a knot.
‘What d’you mean?’ Maria asked.
‘You guys are something else. Do I have to explain everything to you?’ Before anyone could protest, Polly went on: ‘Listen, most murderers are people you know. You marry them, you eat with them. They’re family. Right?’
We nodded, though why we didn’t know: we had never thought along these lines before. Tiny beads of sweat started pricking my armpits as the wooden floorboards of Exe, the ground we had walked every day without mishap, began to shift, tilting us towards a precipice. Relishing our stunned silence, Polly slipped into bed. When she was settled, an elbow on her pillow, she continued our education: the facts of life as she understood them after a year’s subscription to the magazine.
‘Take those kids from California, the Menendez boys,’ she began. ‘They whack their parents and when they’re caught, they say their pop abused them as kids. Neat, huh?’
‘Couldn’t they have called Childline?’ asked Maria.
Polly raised an eyebrow. ‘They were way too old for that.’
‘You’re never too old to ask for help.’ Maria had learnt her mother’s mantras well.
‘Listen, people don’t go for counselling when they want to whack someone. They do it. Period.’
‘Is that what Americans always do?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you people have any respect at all? How could they kill the people who brought them into the world?’
‘Oh, yeah! And nobody gets murdered in Ghana, do they?’ Polly’s riposte silenced me. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that Polly’s stay in Washington, DC, a city she claimed was the most violent in the world, made her and Americans very different to other humans.
‘Anyone you know get whacked?’ Polly asked the question of no one in particular.
Beth shook her head sadly, and then, remembering a great-aunt butchered by bandits in China, she revealed the little she knew. It had been during the Chinese Civil War and it had happened on a train. Her great-great-aunt Harriet had been a formidable Anglican missionary; but ignorant of the details of her demise, Beth stumbled at yet another fence Polly had placed before her.
‘How about you, Aj?’
I remembered a distant relative, a military man my mother had once spoken of: ‘A long time ago, my mother’s cousin was murdered. The Army executed him when they seized power. But they couldn’t kill him with ordinary bullets.’
Polly’s eyes lit up. ‘How come?’
‘He’d done nothing wrong, you see, so God was on his side. The bullets bounced off his skin.’ I looked at my room-mates, preparing to change my story if they sneered. Their silence encouraged me to proceed. ‘In the end they killed him with a special bullet. A bullet made from Ashanti gold.’
Polly’s eyebrow went up again.
‘It’s possible. It could’ve happened that way.’ Quixotic in temperament, Beth was always inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt.
‘Oh, yeah? Don’t tell me you believe in the tooth fairy as well?’
If Polly was unconvinced, Maria, whose father had been killed in Angola, wasn’t so sure. ‘Africa’s a strange place,’ she said. ‘All sorts of weird things happen there.’
‘And if you believe in God, anything’s possible,’ I added emphatically.
Polly gave a snort of derision. ‘Get real,’ she said. Gathering her knees to her chest, she was suddenly serious. It seemed that now the inadequacy of our shared experience had been fully exposed, she was ready to reveal what she’d wanted to all along. ‘When I lived in Washington, my best friend Jacinth Ellberg got whacked. I saw her dead body.’
The horrified expression on our faces seemed to be what Polly had craved all along. She now had our undivided attention. Savouring her power, she told her story with the consummate control of a leading actress in a slowly unfolding melodrama.
‘It was the
Fourth of July and Jacinth was expecting me. When I got to her house, cops were everywhere. They wouldn’t let me in, so I tell them I’m invited and I’ve got to see Jacinth. Then this big guy – a lieutenant, I guess – tries to tell me something, but he can’t. He’s crying and soon they’re all crying. They say Jacinth’s dead.’
‘How did she die?’ I asked.
‘Mr Ellberg went nuts and murdered them all with a shotgun. Jacinth, and his wife. He even whacked the dog.’
‘The dog as well?’ Beth was horrified.
‘Yeah. Frisbee, a red setter.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Maria. ‘How did you get to see her body? They wouldn’t let me see Daddy when he died.’
For a moment, Polly looked Maria straight in the eye. She looked at all three of us, and then, as if finding it impossible to disclose what she’d experienced, she closed her eyes, opening them again slowly. ‘I went home, came round a back way, and slipped through a side door. Jacinth was in the den, a blanket over her. I lifted the cover . . .’
‘What did she look like?’ I whispered.
‘Like a doll. She looked like a broken doll in a red dress. She was sticky with blood.’
‘Did you cry?’
‘Only babies cry,’ said Polly, shaking her head. ‘I wept.’
3
FROM THE MOMENT she told us about Jacinth Ellberg, we were under Polly’s spell. She had had contact with death; she had touched Jacinth’s body. We all believed her. But of the three of us in Exe, Maria, the daughter of a journalist, was the most sceptical. And Polly dealt with her later.
The day after she told us about Jacinth, Polly dragged us deeper into her world by taking us down to the Glory Hole, a cellar where the Derbys kept wood for the winter. It was a dank corner of the school filled with old chairs, desks and Mrs Derby’s gardening tools. We were going to play True Murder, a game of Polly’s invention.
She led us down the steps: Joshua and Maria Richardson, Beth and me. I was reluctant to play, but Maria said that if I didn’t, she wouldn’t play either, so Polly said I had to.
The cellar was pitch-black. Rather than turning on the light, Polly made us fumble our way onto the floor and sit in a circle. When we could hear nothing but the rise and fall of our shallow breathing, she ordered us to turn on our torches.
‘Cards,’ she said. I handed her a stack of homemade cards she’d given me earlier. Polly shuffled the pack, dealing them out face down. One card would determine the murderer, another the victim. Once this was established and a mode of death selected, the pair were to find a hiding place before the others hunted them down.
‘Turn them over.’
We did as we were told. Everyone had blank cards except for Beth and me. My card was of a skull and crossbones, Beth’s of a bleeding heart pierced by a dagger. According to Polly’s rules, this meant that I was to be the murderer and Beth my victim. Beside me, Beth giggled nervously. I wanted no part of it.
‘Can’t Josh do it? Please, Polly?’
One look from her and I was quiescent. Polly wasn’t someone to be crossed lightly. She dealt out three more cards, all of them for me. With trembling fingers, I turned over the middle card. It was a hangman’s noose. Polly smiled.
‘Death by hanging,’ she murmured, and then, turning to Joshua on her left, she whispered: ‘Rope.’
Joshua brought out a thick coil of rope from under his sweater. He gave it to Polly, who flung it at me.
‘Please, Polly, I don’t want to . . .’
‘We’re giving you twenty minutes, then we’re coming after you. Josh, set the timer.’
Flashing his torch on his wristwatch, Josh obeyed. Beth got up from the floor, taking the rope. I couldn’t move.
‘Scram,’ Polly hissed. ‘I said scram!’
Dragging me by my jumper, Beth pulled me out of the Glory Hole. Outside it was getting dark and my first thought was to run away, to lock myself in a lavatory with a book and leave them to their game. Beth could guess what I was thinking.
‘It’s only a game,’ she said.
‘But Mrs Derby said we shouldn’t go out when it’s getting dark.’
‘If you spoil this, Ajuba Benson, Polly won’t speak to you again. Nobody will.’
I was eleven years old and scared. But the prospect of being ostracised by my friends was more frightening than playing True Murder; so, against my better judgement, I capitulated. With the arrival of Polly Venus at the school, I was discovering that in life there are those who lead and those who follow; those who dominate and those who are dominated. I was too unsure of myself to do as I pleased; I simply wanted to fit in. After all, it was only a game we were playing; there was no good reason for the stab of terror I felt in my chest. I followed Beth at a steady jog.
We ran alongside the classrooms, skirted the walled garden, then ran down a bridle path into the shelter of a beech wood. It was early evening and the last of the day’s sunlight glinted through the leaves on the trees. The ground was damp underfoot and as I jumped over bracken and stumps of rotting wood, the thick warm smell of mulch hit my nostrils.
Ahead of me, Beth stumbled on a clump of ferns. The coil of rope slung over her shoulder fell to the ground. Brushing down her jeans she picked it up again. I was ahead of her now, so she followed me. We were heading for Bouncy Town.
On one side of the mile-long drive to the school, between the tennis courts and the beech wood, was a stretch of dense rhododendron bushes we called Bouncy Town. We had created a playground within the dark interior of branches through which we leapt, slipping and sliding, any sense of danger cushioned by a thick blanket of decomposing leaves.
Ploughing through the undergrowth on our bellies, I led Beth to a hiding place I had recently discovered during one of my solitary explorations of the school grounds, on a day when Mrs Derby had forced me outside, saying my blood would go thin if I stayed by the radiator any longer. I went exploring and found this secret place, a womb-like shelter between two bushes, roofed by intertwining tendrils in flower. Petals of dying rhododendron blooms littered the ground like tired balloons at the end of a party.
‘Brilliant,’ Beth said when she saw it. ‘They’ll never find us here.’
Her eyes settled on the branch of an old oak tree jutting through the rhododendron bushes. From under her jumper, Beth produced the coil of rope, tied it loosely around her neck and started climbing.
‘We’re supposed to stay together,’ I said.
‘Imagine their faces! They’ll get the shock of their lives when they see me.’
Swinging her legs up, she climbed higher into the bushes. ‘If I tie myself up there,’ she pointed to the oak tree, ‘they’ll think you’ve really murdered me!’ She heaved herself through a tangle of rhododendrons and inched closer to her destination.
‘It’s not safe, Beth! This isn’t part of the game.’
She laughed, giving me a daredevil grin. As she turned, her foot slipped on the moist bough of the rhododendron. She struggled to maintain her balance, but with a leg curled around the trunk while the other dangled, blindly searching for a foot hold, her shoulders twisted to one side and she slid. The thick yellow coil around her neck caught in the cleft of a branch, binding itself to it like a malevolent serpent. Beth tried to shake it loose by jerking her head, but she was unable to see how it was trapped, and her movements tightened the rope, fastening its hold on her neck and the shrub.
‘Hold still!’ The panic I saw on her face was mirrored in my voice. Her legs thrashed the rhododendron branches, bringing down twigs and petals. At any moment the branch supporting her could break. Controlling my terror as best as I could, I positioned myself beneath her feet. If the branch broke, or if she slipped, I would try to catch her. I could hear her gasping for breath. Suddenly, I heard a scream as she lost her grip on the canopy. There was a crash of snapping branches as she fell, the rope around her throat.
I fell under her weight. I clawed my way out from under her and cleared the debris
of broken branches and leaves covering her body. Her face was pale, her eyes closed. I tore the rope from her neck, exposing a purple weal where it had cut into her flesh.
‘Beth! Beth! Wake up!’ I sobbed. She didn’t stir. At last, blinded by tears, I got up and ran. What I feared most in the world was happening again.
In my panic I didn’t feel the leaves whipping my hands and cheeks, the twigs and stems catching my clothes. All I was aware of was having to find an adult quickly. At last I scrambled out on to the school drive. Out of breath, I bent double, clutching my stomach. Then, filling my lungs with air, I bellowed for help. Joshua and Polly appeared round a corner of the drive.
‘She’s dead!’ I cried. ‘Beth’s killed herself.’
They followed me to where she was lying. Immediately, Joshua took charge. He sent Polly for help and knelt beside Beth. I explained what had happened.
‘She was playing. She didn’t mean to. It was an accident.’
He took Beth’s wrist, fumbling for a pulse.
‘Do something!’ I urged.
Josh’s face was drained of colour; even his freckles looked pale against a lock of hair darkened by sweat. I realised that this boy, whose bullying command of the English language made me stumble over my words and whose cocky self-confidence sapped me of mine, was as scared as I was. I watched him pull up Beth’s jumper, his jagged nails catching in the wool. He was going to listen to her heart, he said. His fingers trembled, struggling with the buttons of her shirt.
‘Give her the Kiss of Life,’ I shouted.
Just then a whimper escaped Beth, and tears of relief flooded my eyes. I started stroking her face. Her eyes opened. The flicker of fear that passed through them reminded me of my mother’s eyes when they had opened, her head on my lap, almost a year ago.