Another Justified Sinner

by Sophie Hopesmith

  I would go to the toilet in the middle of the night – always very quickly, in case I woke up the monster in my wardrobe – and see the lights on in the hallway downstairs. I’d stay still for a moment and listen to their low, hushed voices, always sounding a little stern, a little sad and disappointed. I felt this awful, unbearable weight of adulthood. This dark, shadowy outline of things that lay before and beyond me. I could feel it slither up the stairs and slip around my ankles and hiss in my face. When Dad died, I thought to myself – at least he doesn’t have to worry anymore. At least there is that.

  Chapter

  Three

  As the commandments got harder, I knew I had to keep screwing with them for Nancy’s sake. We’d been madly in love, in our way. So when it said ‘Honour your mother and father’, there was a careful plan put in place.

  I caught a train to Croydon. I walked to the graveyard nearby. And when I was sure that no-one else was around, I pissed on Daddy’s grave. I never knew it until then, but it’s pretty hard to piss when you’re crying.

  There was an awful feeling in my stomach, my throat was raw and clawed at, the sky rumbled with malcontent. But I had to punish God, I had to get even; I wanted to make him angry, I wanted to stop him feeling so powerful, so invincible, so omnipotent, so great.

  This was a God who didn’t listen to prayers, who didn’t intervene, who didn’t stop things from happening. Go on, try it: in your hour of need, call up to the sky, scream until hoarse, repeat ‘Show yourself, show yourself’, over and over, until there is blood in your throat. Your God will not show himself.

  Who knew what such a God had done with my daddy? My Dad could be burning or frozen or drifting in timelessness or dimensionally stuck. This God could be using his soul as a plaything, the way a cat toys with a mouse.

  I slunk out of the graveyard, passed a young lady with flowers, her face shaking from strain. I walked down the long, suburban road, the occasional car humming by with a haze of headlight. There is something poignant and sinister about walking the streets of your childhood when they are no longer your home. You see dead versions of yourself everywhere that you look. The air reeks of decay.

  I rang my mum’s doorbell and felt her fear straightaway. She always looked frightened when the doorbell rang. She didn’t get many guests. I saw a shiver of colour through the frosted glass. It was the shape of the dressing gown.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh goodness.’ She opened the door, her face startled and flushed. ‘I wasn’t–’

  ‘I know. It’s a surprise, isn’t it? Let me in, it’s freezing.’

  We sat in the kitchen with its tatty units and the dishes piled up in the sink. The TV was left on in the living room. It blared out and seemed to mock our silences, our inability to speak. She mumbled something about a surprise (again). She offered me a cup of tea. I accepted.

  While the kettle was boiling, she pottered about. She selected the mugs, very carefully, inspecting for cracks. She placed them down and foraged in the fridge, found the milk, shut the door. She sorted through her post – placed some envelopes to the side, put some others in recycling. She even fed the cats. She did everything but talk to me.

  I don’t know if she could tell that something was wrong, that something was to come. After all, I didn’t make a habit of surprise visits. I barely got in contact – I left all of that to Jackson. We didn’t have the easiest relationship, and she wasn’t much of a conversationalist. A psychiatrist would have diagnosed her as something or other – but she wasn’t one to make a fuss. She wasn’t one to commit suicide either, so there was a mood of resignation in the house, of just wanting to get through it. If you watch enough TV and do enough pottering, a life can be lived out fairly quickly.

  I mean, it didn’t seem too long ago that this cowed thing was in our front porch, saying ‘Of course, Father Christmas doesn’t exist, of course he doesn’t; the whole thing’s a fairy tale’, and then bursting into tears and shaking a hand at me, trying to push me away from her, scuttle back into the sitting room with its comforts and static hiss of electrics.

  I can picture dashing up to my room to tip a pocket money jar full of one pennies, two pennies, into a plastic bag. It was very heavy but I carried it down carefully and into the room where she sat.

  ‘Mummy, if Father Christmas doesn’t exist, then I can help you buy presents.’

  The bag tilted towards her, bulging with brown copper steel.

  Her gaze eddied down me and sunk. She was clawing and mauling this mound of fabric in front of her, like a witch stirring a cauldron.

  ‘What’s that, Mummy?’

  ‘Just some clothes, Marcus.’

  ‘For who, Mummy?’

  ‘For me, Marcus.’

  ‘But I thought we didn’t have any money.’

  ‘It’s a secret, Marcus.’

  ‘A secret?’

  ‘Please don’t tell your daddy.’

  I didn’t understand, wasn’t sure what she meant. I fondled the clothes – blues and reds, silks and linens – but now she was blowing kisses all over my face, and the tears and snot were tumbling over her face, and her face rubbed on mine.

  But then there was an almighty snort, a sealing of the trapdoor. She held me away, at arm’s length, and said in a whisper: ‘Just go away, Marcus. Go up to your room.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Leave Mummy alone and go.’ She was bundling the clothes back into a bag, she threw my spare change into it too, sealing it up at the top and shovelling it under the settee. While she did this, she mumbled: ‘When you’re bigger, you’ll understand. Father Christmas doesn’t exist, lots of things don’t exist and aren’t what you want them to be. You can try and try but there’s no happy ending for most of us, there’s nothing to rescue you like in films. Leave Mummy alone now. Go up to your room.’ She looked up. ‘Go!’

  I was so lost in this memory that when she came back with the tea, I almost didn’t do it. My instinct was to lie and beguile, to turn people to my side, not against it. But I had to break the commandment. I had to be honest.

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I popped round for a reason.’

  Unexpectedly, she jumped in. ‘Is it because of Nancy?’ My mum didn’t know what to do with this probable pain, so her sentence was clumsy.

  ‘Kind of. I guess. Well, there’s a link, but it’s not for you to worry about.’

  She nodded, wrapped her hands around the mug: the British equivalent of taking the brace position.

  I took a deep breath and cut to the chase.

  ‘You’re a terrible mother.’

  I watched her reaction but she didn’t move. Not a millimetre. Her hands were still around the mug, still poised in mid-air. The only thing that maybe changed was her eyes lost some focus; they swivelled to the left of me.

  So I started the well-rehearsed speech.

  ‘You left Dad to do everything when we were growing up. And when Dad died, you didn’t console us enough. You just left me to myself. You buried yourself in your grief and you should have made yourself strong for us. You should have done, and you know it. Even if you have a problem, I don’t know, you should have done it. After all, you were the parent and we were just kids still. You’re broken, pathetic, you do nothing but watch TV and look through old photos. You’re always crying. You’re on benefits for no good reason I can see, you’re up to your eyeballs in debt. You’re always talking about Dad. You’re stuck in the past and you’re an embarrassment, to be honest. And I’ve got to say, I don’t like you. You’ve never inspired me, you’ve not spurred me on. I’m not sure what I inherited from you. I’m not even sure I love you. I’m telling you all this so it sears into your brain and you remember it forever: your son doesn’t like you or love you. You failed. I don’t want to see you again.’

  I don’t know why, but I thought I should give her the be
nefit of a reaction. So I stayed sitting down, staring straight into her eyes, which finally settled back on me, although the hoods were heavy. And time condensed. All points coexist, all times coexist. Time does not pass; we pass. I passed through every moment together we’d ever had and were still to have. All these versions of us, these Russian dolls.

  ‘I agree with everything you just said,’ she said, finally. ‘All of it.’ I respected her more than ever at that moment. But then the mug was put down, and I could see her hands shaking. ‘Please give me another chance,’ she rasped. ‘Please, honey. Please. I’m not right. Oh goodness, I’ve not been right for years. I mean it when I say it. Please just help me get through this.’ I rolled my eyes and rolled out of the house.

  The next day, I killed something.

  After moving out of that place with Jamie and George, I’d hauled myself into a tiny one-bed flat in a derelict suburb of sirens and job centres. I shared it with a silent Antipodean who was always hungover and seldom around. He would sometimes leave passive aggressive notes or I’d spot the foil husk of a devoured ready meal. That was pretty much it.

  Tonight, he was out (as usual) and I was having an internal debate. I couldn’t kill a human, could I? That wasn’t in my nature – and I certainly didn’t want to end up in prison. That would give a definite advantage to God.

  But I had my new neighbours’ pond at the back of my mind, and it was easier than I thought to go through with it. Every terrible act starts with a terrible first step. After that, everything whooshes out in a torrent, and you simply go with the flow. So the first step was sloshing weedkiller down the mouths of those koi. And then I was scooping out one of the wriggly slabs and letting it thrash on my hand with its puckering lips and the gills all dried up like steel wool. People eat cod and chips, grilled kipper, tinned tuna – you get what I’m saying?

  Well, I couldn’t commit adultery, as I wasn’t even dating at the time. So I slept with a married woman that I met in a bar. She was quite a lot older, and she had a moustache, but her face looked sort of desperate, and I wanted to sin. When she was sleeping, I found her mobile phone and I sent a photo to everybody in her contacts. I had to assume that her husband was in there. She wore a big wedding ring.

  Not long after this, I stole something from a shop: surprisingly easy. I deliberately picked a large high-street store, but a very small item. It didn’t even set off the alarm. The only heart attack moment was when I slipped the item into my bag: I was sure that a camera would pick it up and the security guards come whisk me away. My plan was this: fill a basket with a bit of this and that. Check out the items but casually squirrel just one from basket to bag. That way, people assume you’re not a thief, as you’re paying for mostly everything. Worse-case scenario, and the alarms go off, or an attendant takes you to one side, you claim it was an innocent mistake; you thought the checkout girl had swiped it through. As I left the store, I felt a triumphant pulse of adrenalin, like I’d just got off a fairground ride.

  ‘You shall not bear false witness’, I read. I didn’t know what it meant, so I looked it up, and most scholars interpret it as lying. I had to laugh at that one: something I had done so effortlessly for so many years – my entire life, in fact. But I decided to opt for a massive lie to be on the safe side. I phoned up social services and told them that I had seen a child touched inappropriately through my neighbour’s window. I imagined that they would have to investigate the claim, but would quickly realise that it wasn’t true. This put my mind at rest.

  On the tenth and final day, the upstairs neighbour came about the pond. She looked distraught. She said they’d just come back from a holiday. Someone said they had spotted me outside in the communal garden – was I absolutely sure that I hadn’t seen anything untoward?

  ‘Afraid not,’ I said, looking as sympathetic and concerned as I could muster. ‘You know, my best friend at school used to keep these types of fish. There are diseases that can spread really rapidly. They once had a whole tank of fish that just floated right up to the top. One morning, they came down, and they were all floating like that, with these white spots all over them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’re probably right. We had somebody feeding them while we were away. I don’t know if maybe they over-fed them… Or underfed them. It might just be one of those things. Anyway, I’m Helen, by the way.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Helen.’ We shook hands. ‘I’m just sad that it’s under these circumstances.’

  ‘Oh, we were really fond of those fish and we paid a bit for them, but of course we’ll get over it. I mean, I know it sounds silly, and I know they were fish, but we had even given them names. Sounds a bit ridiculous, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘No, I know I’m overreacting. That’s what Jack – my boyfriend – keeps saying. Anyway, I won’t waste any more of your time.’

  I smiled, amiably.

  ‘It’s really nice to meet you. I always think it’s so important to get to know your neighbours. It’s too easy in London to live on top of each other and never even speak a word.’

  I laughed. ‘It’s true!’

  ‘And this area’s gone a bit downhill, I must admit. We had some awful tenants living here before you. Always playing loud music, doing drugs, having parties – all that kind of thing. So it’s really good to meet you, Marcus. You’ll have to pop over soon, next time we do drinks. The guys next door often come along. Sarah and Dan.’

  ‘Well, that would be wonderful. I look forward to it.’

  When she was gone, I thought about the final commandment: never coveting a neighbour’s goods. Frankly, I didn’t. Above me was that hysterical fish lady and her boyfriend, next door was the family with the young kid… I guess I envied the fact that they owned a house. I thought about starting a fire but I feared that might be too easily traced back to me. Like I said, I didn’t want to go to prison. Besides, I kept thinking about something happening to the child, and that did make me feel a bit bothered. I suppose even sinners have limits. It’s just a matter of drawing your lines.

  But, in the end, it was such an anticlimax to sit there, thinking the odd jealous thought. Not much of a raised fist to God, not much of a two-fingered salute. But there it was. I sat and I coveted and I chuckled at the ease of it, how naturally it came.

  They say the most extraordinary things of God: in Christianity, they say that he sent a son down to us, that he sacrificed a son, that this son died for our sins.

  Well, how could such a God not know what would happen to Nancy, what would come to befall her? This God stood by and he let it happen, he was motionless and frozen, he sat and watched and yet he dares to judge us. He dares to condemn! I wanted to commit so much sin that he had to send down another son, and another, and that these sons would die too, in even greater pain, in even graver torment, until the earth caved to its core with celestial sorrow.

  You see, Nancy jumped into my mind at the oddest times. I would be washing up and I could swear that her arms snuck up around me. At the cinema, I would get angry if someone sat next to me because I was saving the seat for her. But usually, what came to mind were those final few seconds. What was she seeing, smelling, tasting, thinking?

  Just imagine it. The bump of the road beneath you, all that grit and granite. Those houses and people and the cars that you pass. All the lives you don’t know, all the lives you won’t know.

  Thirty miles per hour. Slower than a peregrine or antelope or cheetah or swift. But still fast enough to hear an engine thrum and the metal shake. The world whizzed by in a second, like it never existed. The wheel in your hands, your feet on the pedals, the grunt of the gear stick. A loud noise – spinning – a howling bang as you slam wham bam into that concrete wall. Just decimated junk – just cinders and black. Your eyes misting up like the windscreen. Then a final exhaust breath.

  A person can drive themselves crazy with visions like this. To some extent, I had to kill her all over again with such formida
ble thoughts. The feelings around it were so heavy and opaque. It takes enormous strength not to suffocate in the folds.

  Part of this concerted effort, this superhuman will, this murder of memory, was to stop punishing God. To let it go. God and I were even: he knew I was angry, I had let my feelings be known. I had desecrated his commandments – some of which I had even enjoyed – but enough was enough.

  I knew God would forgive me because I still believed. In fact, ‘belief’ was a ridiculous word. I didn’t ‘believe’ in a God, I simply knew there was a God; the way the sky is blue or the month is January. Yet it was a tricky thing, as it wasn’t a belief but it wasn’t a fact. It existed beyond the physical laws of the universe, incontrovertible but unprovable. We needed another word for this state, otherwise we were just debating semantics, just trading in sophistry. At least, that was my two cents.

  So I knew there was a God and our status was still ‘in a relationship’. I prayed to him nightly and we often spoke in my head. But the dynamics had shifted. It was abusive now. I felt his grip on me tighten, the bellow of his reprimands shake every hair on my body. I was the victim of galactic abuse – and there’s no charity or shelter that can help you with that.

  Sometimes the thought of him could drive me mad. I would sense him staring at me, inspecting me, like a specimen on a Petri dish. The most terrible thing was the inability to escape him. You could close the curtains but he was still in the room. You could turn off the lights but he was more essence than presence. You could crawl under the duvet but he was lying next to you. He could always see you, hear you, read your innermost thoughts. There was nowhere to hide and nothing could be hidden. For God is all-knowing and everywhere – but not omnibenevolent.

  You see, God is a primordial force of timelessness and reckoning; born from a beginningless past and outliving the infinite present. He creates to destroy. To exist is to suffer. The problem of evil is actually the problem of good. Our lives are a great struggle with cessation; an uprising against decay. But even pleasure is just bait that will lead us to pain. When we worship the thing that made us, we supplicate to an almighty vice. Why do we always assume that this being is a hero? There are no good guys and bad guys, just shades of grey, and some more grey than the others. And this was the greyest, at the top of the food chain; digesting our life force and burping out life forms.