Seas of Snow

by Kerensa Jennings

  ‘There are times I think I will never forgive him for not stepping in and doing something. What were they thinking, Da and Gracie’s Ma – just standing by and letting him do what he did? Why didn’t they report him? Why didn’t they get the police round? Why?

  ‘But as I’ve got older I think I am coming round to understanding a little better what they went through, how terrified they must have been. Da must have been scared witless not to do anything. He must have genuinely believed our lives were in danger. How could he risk sacrificing us to that monster?

  ‘And I don’t know the full story with Gracie’s Ma, other than what Gracie told me herself. That family was everything. That you stood by family. That nothing mattered more.

  ‘And Gracie thought that Joe at some point had threatened her Ma about doing something horrible to their mother. The grandmother she had never been allowed to meet …

  ‘Maybe also, especially in those days, it was easier to turn a blind eye. Pretend it wasn’t happening. Put on the mask of civility and go through the motions of a life better lived.

  ‘The first time I saw his violence with my own eyes was just over a year after he had arrived. He always stank of Guinness or some other black stout, and he smoked endlessly so there was the stale stench of ash clinging to his clothes, his hair and his skin. You could smell him before you could see him!

  ‘On this occasion, I was about eight so I’m guessing Gracie was six. She looked like an angel, all blonde curls, big emerald deep eyes and rosy cheeks and lips. She could have been a human doll, she was that pretty.

  ‘She was wearing a white dress with white roses embroidered onto the bodice. I’m not sure why I remember that bit, other than perhaps I’ve always associated white roses with Gracie. I think she used to like them.

  ‘We’d been playing in her sitting room, building blocks and using old scraps of fabric to evoke a fairy-tale land of some sort. Maybe Hansel and Gretel’s house – you get the gist.

  ‘We were both hiding – maybe we were pretending to be sneaking away from the wicked witch – and cowering up together behind the sofa. We were still as statues and even ­quieter. Even though we could hardly contain our giggles – that always happened whenever we were trying to be quiet, we were silent and serious in our mission to escape the witch.

  ‘Suddenly, the door rammed open and in strode Joe. He was staggering and seemed to have blood on his face, a cut lip, and a ripped shirt sleeve. The smell of him was overpowering, just revolting. Can you imagine?’

  Billy glanced at Aidan, who nodded in collusion.

  ‘He stormed through the sitting room, straight to the kitchen, where Gracie’s Ma was preparing tea. I think it was pease pudding and pork that night. I’d been asked to stay to tea, which was always exciting. Other people’s mums always made tastier food than your own Ma.

  ‘We stayed deadly silent, looking at each other. The giggles we had been trying to swallow faded away and were replaced with worried little frowns. Gracie had told me all about Joe’s habit of turning up after a fight, clothes torn up, blood everywhere, and a treacherous mood to boot. She had told me he had the scariest temper, and would smash furniture, walls, doors, anything that stood in his way. People, sometimes.

  ‘There was a yelp and a suppressed scream. It sounded like Gracie’s Ma had been hit then stifled. Then we heard it. “Come on, you know what to do,” he snarled at her. Another yelp, a pleading noise, “Please, Joe, the children …”

  ‘“I don’t give a fuck about the children.” We heard him swear. I’d never heard a grown-up swear before, only youngsters at school who were trying to be hard.

  ‘“But they’re in the house, Joe,” we heard her beg.

  ‘Then, thwack. Thwack again. Then thump, thump, thump.

  ‘An “ow”, softly, then another thwack.

  ‘Silence for a bit. Then what sounded like a belt unbuckle. The kitchen was just a few paces away from where we were crouching.

  ‘“Agggh! Joe, Agggh!’ A thwack of the belt against her skin. Once. And again. And again.

  ‘Gracie was white, the look of a haunted animal across her face. Neither of us dared move.

  ‘Then as soon as it started, it was over. Joe marched out. Peering from behind our hiding place we couldn’t see much, only hear the steps stomping down the driveway.

  ‘He didn’t bother closing the door.

  ‘Minutes later, we relaxed, convinced he wasn’t coming back, and ran into the kitchen. Gracie’s Ma was collapsed on the floor, blood on her blouse and a rip in her skirt.

  ‘She had cuts and bumps on her face and her right arm. A bracelet was twisted and broken on the floor.

  ‘A plastic bowl with flour and some liquid had been smashed down the side of a cupboard.

  ‘She lifted her head, hardly able to look us in the eye. “It’s okay, children, I just took a fall. Why don’t you go and have tea round at Billy’s this evening, pet? I need to take a bath and get myself feeling better.”

  ‘We were so shocked all we could do was concur. Gracie had seen the cuts and bruises come and go over the past year – we all had – but this was the first time I had witnessed what Joe did. Thank heavens we didn’t actually see what he did – but what we heard was brutal and vicious.

  ‘Gracie’s Ma looked at us pleadingly then quickly looked away. A second first for us both that evening. An expression on her face we couldn’t quite place. And something we both grew to recognise. Shame.

  ‘It was to be a look we would both grow familiar with as the years passed and nothing was done. For some reason, Gracie’s Ma decided it was acceptable to welcome Uncle Joe into her home. With everything that would come to mean for their family.

  ‘Neither of us could imagine that the damage was going to get far, far worse.

  ‘We looked over at Gracie’s Ma. She was still sitting on the floor, nursing her arm and looking frail.

  ‘Purple bruises were already beginning to show.’

  Poplars

  It wasn’t long before Joe started to get addicted to the high he would feel when he performed what was now becoming a ritual. He would stalk out his prey and pick his moment. There would be a long, drawn-out period where his accomplice would play the game along with him, resisting, withdrawing, attempting to escape. There would be animalistic fear in the victim. And animalistic urges in him.

  The enduring torture would last as long as he could force it.

  As part of the stalking process, he would identify the perfect place to commit the contract. That’s how he liked to think of it, a contract between him and his accomplice. Their tacit understanding and acquiescence binding them together.

  So the person and the place would be set. But he never planned in advance what form of dance he would conduct. Some accomplices, he found, responded exquisitely to physical pain. The terror in their eyes would be a thing of beauty to behold, especially when that perfect moment came when they both recognised that submission would come.

  Others put on a bravura performance when he played with their minds. Hardly laying a hand on them, hardly saying a word. The occasional smirk shadowing across his face, a raised eyebrow, a look of intent.

  In some ways this was a more refined art and Joe felt intense pleasure in playing with people’s minds. Letting the threat of some unimaginable terror hang in the air and suffocate them. He admired the brain’s workmanship, its ability to think the worst beyond any menace he may enact.

  He would look into their eyes and savour their helplessness. Pupils would dilate in desire to be put out of misery.

  Shudders of nervousness would be morphed into waves of nausea and uncontrollable shaking. Some would vomit from fear. Others would loosen their bowels. There was no denying this feral creature had the capacity to terrify his fellow man without so much as touching him. And that’s what he thrived on …

  Some would attempt to plead with him, reason with him. These were the ones that irritated him the most.

  You bastard, he
would rage. If you think I’m the sort of person who would be open to your petty cries and stupid whimperings, do you really think I would have brought you here in the first place? Do you honestly think you’re going to make me change my mind by blethering on about your child, your wife, your work? Ignorant fucker.

  He would feel incensed that they would insult him with the proposition of defeat. How dare they suggest I don’t go through with it. And it would strengthen his resolve and encourage him to be even more brutal when he meted out his punishment.

  He remembered one occasion with particular fondness. It was maybe number thirty-two or thirty-three after Finnegan.

  He was perhaps 14 by now. Had mastered the craft of concealment. Developed a physique that made people look twice. So had to be extra careful about hiding the evidence of his ­conquests.

  Strong, far advanced through puberty and imbued with a sense of his own exquisite virility. Beautiful.

  His voice had dropped an octave and he’d developed a baritone beauty which softly emanated from his larynx. He hardly ever raised his voice. He hardly ever needed to. He spoke slowly and intently. In another life, in another world, he could have used his voice for art. Everyone who heard him speak was struck by it. Like the low cello notes of a Bach concerto.

  Such beauty in such corrupt misuse was only the beginning of the tragedy.

  The ‘performances’ he delivered were paced and practised but anything but art.

  Spellbinding, maybe, but spellbinding in the way the spider tantalises the fly, caught in the web.

  It was a warm, summer’s day and the sunshine dappled in the trees. He had left school by now and did odd jobs and labouring on construction sites. In-between grafting, he would watch the people walking by and see if anyone caught his eye.

  He didn’t have a preference for man or woman, young or old. What he was looking for was a sense of fight barely perceptible under a veil of vulnerability.

  It was the veneer of niceness and decency he craved, but not someone who would immediately back down into submission. Where would the fun be in that?

  But someone nice and decent would always deliver impeccable performances for him. They would hesitate to confront him, they would be trusting and naïve at first. They would be deliciously disappointed first, horrified later, when they realised they had been duped and there was no way back.

  He was finishing up early today. A Thursday afternoon. He’d worked hard all week to ensure he could leave when he needed to. It had to be a Thursday because on Friday the man may change his routine, go out to a pub or start the weekend some other way.

  For about a fortnight, he had made eye contact and exchanged smiles with a businessman who made polite conversation with him and some of the other lads as he made his way to and from work.

  He was wearing a wedding ring and carried an old battered briefcase. His shoes were worn leather and his suit looked well lived-in. He wore wire framed spectacles and had neat, short back and sides. He had a jaunty gait and always seemed to be – irritatingly – in a good mood.

  I’d like to wipe that smug, self-satisfied smile off that fucker’s face, Joe thought to himself.

  Well today, if everything worked to plan, it would be step one to making that happen.

  Joe had a lean, muscular body and with his height and strength could easily pass for sixteen years old. He had black hair razored tight to his head on the sides, but a disarming, floppy mop of black hair which fringed his face like one of those lads in advertising posters. His fierce eyes shone out of his face in dark-green-black pools. He was striking by anybody’s standards and had cultivated a patina of politeness and ­normalcy so no one would begin to suspect such a nice, moral, good looking lad would be anything other than exactly that.

  He lived at home with his Ma and sister. Got fed and watered there but that was about it. He was a loner. Didn’t need friends. His own sense of sexual adventure was all the intimacy he needed. He wanted to be able to select his accomplices and adopt – and discard – his temporary playthings at will.

  Having to hang out in gangs like most of the other lads didn’t appeal to him at all. He would pass the time on his own, mapping out new lairs for attacks, devising new ways to thrill his accomplices with fear, and perfecting his new craft of watching and waiting.

  It was only a matter of time before he started his other lonely pursuit. Drinking. He learned to love the sickly bitter-blackness of stout, loved the surges of extra confidence that propelled through his body when he’d had a few.

  But drinking, like his planning, was something he preferred to do alone.

  He could put on the act, of course, be one of the boys when he needed to. Especially if it helped him design a strategy of stalk and attack. But it was always an act and the minute he could, he retreated into himself to experiment more with the physical awakening that stirred in his core.

  So, Thursday, leaving work early. He placed himself a short walk away around the corner of the site and found a suitable spot. Then he watched, and waited.

  Around six-ish the businessman was one of dozens who spilled out of their offices and onto the sunny streets. There was lively chatter in the air, the buzz of traffic and seemingly a spring in the step of the collective crowd as it welcomed the still sunshiny warmness of the early evening.

  Joe watched and waited. When he laid eyes on him, he fell into step with the other pedestrians thronging the pavement. He slowly meandered through the people-treacle until he was on the point of overtaking the businessman.

  ‘Oh hello, young man!’ he heard that voice he was expecting. He turned slightly, in mock surprise, and took his cap off.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ he said, warmly.

  ‘It’s you from the building site, isn’t it? You lads are doing a fine job, that great big shop you’re working on is going up in no time.’

  ‘Yes, sir, it is that.’

  ‘A lovely day, isn’t it. So lucky the sun’s still out after a hard day’s graft, eh?’

  Joe looked at his eager, friendly face, puppy-dog-like in its enthusiasm. He felt nothing but revulsion for this preppy blaggard.

  ‘Yes, lovely,’ he said, softly.

  ‘So what’s the shop going to be?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure, sir, but they say it might be a new grocer’s which will have a butchers, bakers, fishmongers and green­grocers all in the same store. Not sure if that’s right, but that’s what they say.’

  ‘Oh that sounds interesting, my wife will be most interested to hear about that.’

  So he was right, Joe smiled inside to himself, there was a wife.

  Now all we need to do is follow this bastard home and plan step two. He could already feel the stirrings of anticipation deep in his body.

  ‘Well, I’m taking a right here. You take good care, now,’ he said, ‘and enjoy this lovely evening.’

  ‘I will, sir, I will.’ Joe smiled again, allowing his eyes and cheeks to light up in what he knew looked to be an entirely authentic grin.

  Joe dropped back and started following the businessman, too far behind him to be seen but not too far away that he couldn’t keep up.

  Big poplar trees lined the streets, their bright green leaves rustling in the breeze. You could hear children playing, chasing balls and flicking marbles. In the distance, the faint tinkle of an ice cream van catching the evening air.

  You could see parents bustling home – armfuls of shopping for some, briefcases for others. Labourers and factory workers, shop assistants and market traders all wending their way home. And still that interminable cheery chatter as people savoured the delights of a sunny Tyneside night.

  The businessman maintained his jaunty walk for the next 10 minutes or so. Joe was taking care to stay well back and yet note where he was going. Every detail mattered.

  He’d been planning this ever since he first eyed the businessman. He was perfect, he’d thought. The right side of chipper. A wedding ring. A face that needed punching and a smile that
needed wiping away.

  He arranged the schedule meticulously so that Thursday would be his last night on the site. He would make contact that night and identify the real accomplice, the businessman’s wife. It was with her the contract would be done.

  He would monitor her schedule and select the perfect time to strike a week or so from now.

  By then all minor connection or association with the construction site worker would be a forgotten, irrelevant detail for the businessman. He would have other things to worry about.

  Joe’s imaginings pulled hard at his groin when he thought of this. That stab of pleasure-pain darted through him, and he felt himself harden.

  Watching and waiting was a game of chess, a patient man’s game. But it was worth it, more worth it than anything you could possibly imagine. He let his eyes roll back as the ache of desire felt hot and pulsing inside him. He allowed himself a slight pause, keeping the businessman in his sights all the while, and pressed his fist against his crotch, then allowed his hand to grasp himself through the fabric, hard. One luscious squeeze and the pulsing intensified.

  The groan escaped his lips and he smiled, resuming his walk stiffly.

  At number 38 Poplar Avenue, the businessman unlocked the door.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Joe heard a child’s voice and saw a toddler in dungarees scurry up to the door, swiftly followed by a slim woman with neat brown hair in a bun. She was wearing a pale green apron around her waist and a white sundress splashed with poppies. She raised her face to his and they exchanged a kiss.

  The businessman bent down and scooped up the little boy and momentarily, the three of them embraced at the doorway. Then their voices dropped to a murmur, and the door closed behind them.

  So that’s where you live, Mr and Mrs Businessman.

  Another squeeze, hardening inside. Pleasure-pain. Groaning.

  He lurked in the shadows for about half an hour, enjoying the sense of quarry marked.

  He would be back, and back again, and it wouldn’t be long before that blissful release would be his.