Another Justified Sinner

by Sophie Hopesmith

  Only a couple of months before my dad died, we had another ‘special’ outing that sticks affectionately in my mind. I had just started a new year at school. Shortly before this, there had been conversations about whether I should be moved up a year, since I was doing so well. I think my form tutor was a little perplexed by my parents. She was probably expecting some pushy lawyers or hardnosed business executives. Surely my comprehensive – and Jackson – should have prepared her for the reality, but I could see that it hadn’t. The academic contrast between me and my parents was so enormous that it was evidently a gulf. Their faces were furrowed and harassed, scraps of fear in their eyes, as Mrs Clement informed them that I was doing very well indeed. In fact, I was top of the class in most subjects.

  Once again, I need to remind you that I was no genius or prodigy or virtuoso. I was simply steadfast and diligent. But teachers seldom distinguish. They see only in ‘grade-a-vision’. If you tick those curriculum boxes, then you must be excelling. You have to know the facts, not necessarily apply them: and certainly not stretch them or test them or question them.

  But my father was visibly shaken by this meeting. In fact, it was he who insisted that I stick to my year. ‘All his friends are in that year,’ he said, his head shaking faintly, his eyes closed for a moment, confronting an alternate reality. Not my mother nor dear Mrs Clement dared interrupt at that point – to point out that I didn’t have any friends, whatsoever.

  That very weekend, my father took me to one side. ‘We’re having a day out today,’ he laughed. ‘A real special treat.’ But the tone was a little off, and I think he knew it. I was nearly fourteen, not four. I was starting to pull away from my dad, from the flotsam and jetsam of childhood.

  He was taking me to an art gallery. ‘Proper art. Proper pictures of proper people. You know, the traditional kind. None of this misconceptual crap.’ I have no idea if the phrase was a joke or misnomer. To this day, I don’t know what he was trying to prove. It might have been puffing out peacock feathers or showing your best poker face: you mustn’t get too big for my boots. He was still the father, the boss. He was just as clever and cultured. Understand?

  Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. There was no sizing up of manhood, no reassertion of patriarchy. This was about re-educating so he could reconnect with his son – who clearly had different interests now to horse racing or pint drinking or watching The Generation Game. This was about stretching out a hand and trying to feel his way through my territory.

  I hope it was the former. Because if it was the latter, it severely misfired. I wasn’t interested in art! There was no future or leverage in art. I wanted to get the grades that got me laid. I wanted to work my way up to such a height that I could see the peers around me fall into the moat and drown. If I wanted fantasy, I had it in my head, in spades.

  But I went along with it because it was a day out and Dad was paying. It was guaranteed to involve something stodgy and carb-laden, like pizza or doughnuts. My dad would pretend this a secret treat for me, but it was always an excuse for his own predilection, away from the hectoring tones of Mum. I waited for this moment with fervent glee – and was quite happy to strain through all the artwork to get there.

  But what a lot of artwork. Tate Britain is big: monstrously big. Room after room of hanging pictures. I was happily distracted at first. I gawped at the high ceilings, the frescoes, the latticed cornices. But soon it grew tiresome. I was in covert battle with my father: we both felt obliged to read every tiny script of text on the wall, as if swotting for a quiz at the end.

  The room was full of bodies like ours that just stood and stared. Deluded people, who seemed to believe that this room contained answers. As far as I could tell, you were simply looking at the faces of artists and nothing more: as bewildering and literal as a normal face. You could read what you liked into it, but you’d never really know. People were looking for depth but it was still only surface.

  My father stopped opposite every painting, just for a second or two. It was a gesture of courtesy. A carefully timed show of respect and (he hoped) intellectual judgement.

  But there was one where he lingered. I counted to three seconds and then found myself counting to ten, fifteen, thirty, a minute! A whole minute he stood there, oblivious of the shuffling behind him, the soft push-back of spectacles.

  ‘You all right, Dad?’

  ‘Yes, son.’

  ‘You recognise this one?’

  ‘Nope. Never seen it before in my life.’

  I wanted to ask him more questions. I wanted to know why he had stopped. But then the feet moved on, and I scurried along to keep in his wake, let his direction guide me.

  And yet. When I think of that moment, I become frantic with a yearning to place the picture. I cannot remember a single detail. I was looking at his face so hard that I didn’t really look at the painting at all. This fact made me sad for a long, long time – but I’ve finally forgiven myself. For maybe I was looking at the right thing all along?

  Yes, I buried myself in facts and figures at school, but I always had this secret world of make believe. I’ve told so many lies that some have turned into truths. It’s possible that Dad had his own secret world, too – and, just for a moment, he saw its reflection in the canvas.

  There are other things, as well, when I think of it. Mum and Dad were always telling me that maybe the moon landings didn’t happen, maybe AIDS was manmade, maybe the world was ruled by a secret lizard elite. They had so little power and persuasion, perhaps it made them feel better to doubt the credibility of experts. Indeed, there was no truth except your own. You could justify anything. You could make anything real. You just didn’t know, did you?

  I’ve always had this power. Even as a child, all my wishes came true. That’s how I recall it. You see, I’m the man who can hold up planes. The first time I got on a plane – with Nancy, to Spain – I had to concentrate very hard to keep that can of shaking metal stuck up in the sky. It was just me and my thoughts and that furrowed brow, stopping the plane from diving into a fireball. By the time we landed, I was completely worn out.

  So, I got struck in the face by a thought. The world is my invention. That’s how the accident happened. Because I asked for it to happen. Nancy and I fought that morning. Her face was trembling. On the way out, she dropped her keys. She could barely start the engine. I was alone in that kitchen, I was swelling with rage. I thought to myself – maybe I said it out loud: ‘I hope she fucks off and dies. I want her to die. I want her out of my life.’

  The only woman I’ve ever felt soppy for was Nancy. That’s probably because she arrived on my terms. As soon as I saw her, I wanted her. But before I even saw her, I asked for her.

  I didn’t mess around much with girls at school: a couple of suck jobs if they were wasted at a party; the substandard thrust of teenage sex, that one time only. On the way to uni, I looked out of the window and I knew I was ready, I knew I wanted a girlfriend. The physicals were sketchy, but I’d always had a thing for blondes. I liked an athletic figure: pert breasts and sturdy calves. I wanted her to laugh at my jokes. She’d think I was brainy and brilliant. She wouldn’t question my lies. She’d keep me company, but know when silence was better.

  I saw Nancy on stage. Someone on my corridor, who I don’t even remember, told me they’d get me into the wrap party. I couldn’t stand drama and English and all that wallowing world. But this guy promised me beer stacked up to the ceiling and a forest of cunt. (‘Those theatre girls are gagging for it.’) So off I went.

  The play was impossible to understand. A ‘greek tragedy’, I believe. I dozed off several times. It was a lot of wailing and shouting and histrionics. Nobody speaks like this in real life, I thought. But then I wondered why this moment was any less real than the next, and I started to watch it like it was actually happening. That made it pretty awesome. Foetuses sewn into thighs and people changed into snakes. Wild, frenetic dancing, the stage pulsating with strobes. And there was Nancy, her hair
hanging loose and her eyes thick with kohl; carrying the head of her son, in the throes of possession. She wore a long white tunic, all stained with fake blood.

  ‘You were amazing,’ I said. All the audience had gone. It was just the actors and crew, first-year theatre studies, a pervy tutor with a thick russet beard. The chairs were stacked up at the back of the room, there was an impromptu dance floor. People were throwing themselves around, arms in the air, their feet kicking and twitching. Alcohol covered the ground. There was some audible singing. I was slimy with sweat.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ she smiled. She’d changed into some jeans and a vest top, but kept on her stage make up. She looked like Barbie-turned-zombie. It was sexy as fuck.

  ‘Seriously. You were wonderful out there. I’m genuinely scared of you now.’

  ‘Yeah?’ She laughed. ‘No, you don’t need to worry. There won’t be any sacrifices tonight. Well, maybe my dignity.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I plan on getting hammered.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve been working on this all term. I’m beat. I need to seriously let loose tonight.’

  ‘Hey, I’ve always wondered. What’s your accent?’

  ‘American. Can’t you tell?’

  ‘Yes, but wherebouts?’

  ‘West coast. Well, Arizona originally, and then California when I was about ten. But my folks have just moved to Seattle now, which is, like, a lot colder.’

  ‘Oh right. What was Arizona like?’

  ‘Lots of rocks. Lots of sunshine.’

  There was a pause – an engorged pause, almost violent. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. We just smiled at each other’s eyes, kept slurping our drinks. When she reached the end of her glass, I went to get another. When I got back, she was dancing, rubbing her back on a guy’s back. Her arms were outstretched, she knew all the words. I didn’t even feel jealous. I was happy to watch her, this lulling feeling in my stomach: I’d found her, I’d gotten her. She was everything I’d wanted, plus some surprises thrown in.

  We spoke a bit more that night, but nothing happened. Life became a chess game: strategic moves plotted out several goes in advance. I discovered all her hangouts. I became buddies with Jamie, who was doing her course and in the debating society with me. I got invited to all her parties. I found out all the things she liked and didn’t, and moulded myself in their image.

  When we got to the date in the pizza restaurant, I knew the timing was right. I kissed her and she gasped a little, then put her hands on my face, and I scrunched up her hair in my fingers. My tongue twitched against her wet and gummy mouth. I nibbled at her upper lip. We were oblivious of everything, all the other customers, the food, the knives and forks – everything. I felt her body slacken in my hold. I knew she was mine forever.

  Those moments, lying in bed, our bodies slotted so neatly together. When the morning was just morning, before the day got old and died like everything else. I played my fingers on her back. Our stomachs lifted and fell in unison.

  ‘Nothing is a coincidence when it comes to us,’ I said.

  She looked up from my chest: frowned, crinkled nose. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I was always going to be at that play. You were always going to act in it.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘It’s not about belief. It’s a knowing.’

  ‘Do other people have that too, then?’

  ‘No. It’s my world. It’s my rules.’

  ‘And my world too, I hope?’

  ‘Yes. Our world,’ I said – but I wasn’t sure of that part. She was made for me, not me for her.

  ‘So other people just serve our purpose, like puppets?’

  I was uncomfortable to admit this. I wasn’t going to. The ‘yes’ slipped out of me. I was too relaxed, too trancelike. But she must have thought I was joking – being deadpan. She burst out laughing, put her hand over her mouth in that way she always did. So I laughed along, too.

  She added: ‘In drama, we study motifs. An idea or symbol that keeps coming up in a play, over and over, and it’s shouting to tell you something.’

  I said: ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘You said nothing is a coincidence. Maybe there were signs in your childhood that you’d meet someone like me. Maybe every life has motifs, you just have to make sure you spend time deciphering them. Wouldn’t that be cool?’

  I didn’t know what to say about that, so I just said: ‘Yeah, that’s a nice idea.’ But that very night, I put a notebook aside, called it the ‘Book of Coincidences & Synchronicities’. Ever since, I have scrawled down every possible coincidence, every repetitious thing that may conceal some grander meaning. But I’ve never made head nor tail of any of it. But wasn’t that just such a Nancy thing to say?

  In the cemetery, I thought about Nancy’s grave. They’d flown her body back to California. She was buried next to her grandparents, in the family plot near the coast. You could just about make out the sea and smell the salt in the air. I tried to picture it very hard: picture laying down flowers, picture kissing the framed photo of our graduation ball.

  Cosmic ordering should come with a warning. To coin a cliché – you have to be careful what you wish for. If you become too attuned to the universe, it can hang on your every word – you don’t even have to write your wishes down. You can just have an innocent thought, a throwaway thought. Like wishing someone dead.

  But cosmic ordering is too full of holes and paradox, I mused. Why didn’t my wish for her to die conflict with somebody else’s for her to live? If everyone is one, why didn’t the power of entirety overrule me? Nobody else would have wanted Nancy dead. She didn’t make enemies. She was kind and considerate, if sometimes caught up in her dramas. Am I really more connected to the cosmos? Am I really that powerful? Am I really to blame…?

  I started to wonder if maybe I was God. Maybe I created the world, the universe, the everything and the nothing. Maybe I had just forgotten. Maybe I had self-inflicted amnesia. Maybe I created the world and realised that I had forged everlasting pain and suffering. In punishment, I sent myself down in human form. I was destined to live over and over: never self-actualising enough that I could harness my powers and break free; wondering if I was God but always forgetting again, in the furnace of death.

  I became so convinced that the world was of my own making, that I decided to have fun with it, to see what would happen. When I got back from the cemetery, I gave my brother a nudge. We hadn’t spoken since that time in the gastropub – about a year earlier. We had defriended on Facebook and I wasn’t even sure if he still used his old number. Anyway – when I texted him, a message pinged back almost instantly.

  Soon the texts were flying back and forth. After about a day, I asked if I could call him. There was a longer pause that time. But then he messaged back to say that yes, I could.

  On the phone, he told me about how he was now a qualified welder and that business was going well. He was engaged to Lisa, they were due to get married next spring. They were currently looking for somewhere to rent, so he could get out of Mum’s.

  ‘I’d love to meet her.’

  ‘Who? Mum?’ Audible delight in his voice.

  Awkward silence. Awkward cough. ‘No, I mean Lisa.’

  ‘Oh, right. OK.’

  ‘She’s going to be my sister-in-law, isn’t she? I’d like to meet her. And see you again.’

  ‘Marc, it’s great talking and everything. I’ve not liked having this grudge. It just isn’t right to me. We’re brothers. But, look: I’m not sure…’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, basically; it just feels wrong to see you when you won’t see Mum and all that. Like a betrayal or something. And last time we met–’

  ‘I’m sorry for last time. I am. Listen, just the once, all right? Let’s meet just the once. I know I’m not getting an invite to the wedding. It would be nice to just meet her, and see you; just the once, that’s all. Ju
st to see you. The two of you together. Well, before you get married. That’s all. I’m not saying anything else, expecting anything else. That’s it.’

  It’s amazing how quickly he relented. I guess a brother always finds it in his heart to forgive.

  I had the plan half-baked in my head, but it wasn’t until I actually saw Lisa in the bar that I knew that I had to have her. She had long golden hair, and bore a passing resemblance to Nancy. She was a deep toffee tan and there were freckles on her shoulders. Her lips were wet with gloss. She extended a hand to me and said, ‘I can’t believe I’m meeting the little brother.’ She seemed a bit nervous and her accent was Essex.

  There was no God but me. All those years of worry and prayer, and to suddenly know this fact! I was exempt from punishment. This was a world without consequence, a world of my making and choosing. All I had to do was be more careful what I wished for. I was wishing for a woman, and it had to be Jackson’s. It had to be her.

  You see, I’d always wanted a brother. I needed a brother. Something was wrong with Mum, clearly. A curtain had dropped down over her spirit and no light could get through. Jackson should have said something, he should have sorted it out. He was already working when Dad died – he should have chipped in with some money.

  And then there was Kitty. Oh, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. How I gazed at that girl in every class. It all started when she thanked me for passing a compass. She must have said it absentmindedly, forgetting she was supposed to detest me like everyone else. I don’t know. She said it automatically, sweetly, the trace of a smile left up on her lips. ‘Thank you.’ That was all it took for pages of feelings about Kitty. I scrawled her name obsessively, over and over, in exercise books. I thought of her body when I wanked, as quietly as I could, leaking onto the tissue and caressing the folds as if they were bits of her. Then that bastard found the book and tore everything down.

  ‘Fancy that skirt, do you?’

  I glowered at him.

  ‘OK, “fancy” isn’t good enough. Am I right?’ He paused, violently. ‘Is it love?’