Chapter 6.
“From what you describe, he doesn’t sound very nervous.”
“Well, he wasn’t, at first at least. Like I said, I didn’t’ really think of it before… you sure you haven’t got anything to drink?” Nat rubbed his arms, tracing his fingers over the tattooed snakes.
“You’re not used to them, are you? An interesting choice, snakes.” Strange ran his hand across the cold metal table and studied it, as if there was something there. “You’re not feeling comfortable?” his eyes darted across to Nat’s for a second, before he looked back at his hands, studied his long fingernails.
“S ’funny” Nat said, “my old girlfriend, she always used to say that if you had long fingernails, you were a weirdo.” He shivered.
“You think I’m a weirdo?” asked Strange, without looking up.
“Err, no, I just meant…”
“Well, you have a right to your opinion. After all, you’ve only just met me. How do you know that I am what I say I am?”
“You’re not…?”
“How do you know that the alcohol that I have been sharing with you isn’t poisoned, for instance. Perhaps I am a murderer who takes pleasure in watching his victims suffer, then violates them when they are unable to resist.”
“But… you drank as well. You’d be poisoned too.” Nat felt himself go cold. He sat back down abruptly on his bunk.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps not. There are several well known cases whereby a murderer rendered himself, or herself, immune to poison by consuming tiny amounts over a long period of time, thus allowing the body to build up resistance to it. And I, of course, have significant amounts of time. Perhaps I have been developing that. Perhaps the guards are used to my cell mates being sick, or dying. After all, they allow me to drink, and smoke in here. Does that not strike you as strange?”
“But…. oh God… oh God. But… why would you want to…”
“Why would I want to? Who knows? I’m a weirdo, according to you. Weirdoes do strange things, don’t they? They don’t need to have a reason.”
“I didn’t mean you were a weirdo!” Nat stammered. “I was just talking, I mean…”
“No of course you didn’t. I understand” Strange still didn’t look up. “They say, though, don’t they, that careless talk costs lives. Especially in a place like this. You honestly think I can be bothered to cut my fingernails when I spend my time in a cell?”
“No, no, of course, not, of course not, I didn’t think, I didn’t mean…” Nat was talking quickly, the words falling over themselves in his effort to speak. “I mean, I just…”
“Calm yourself, Nathanial. I was just having a little fun. Perhaps you do need another drink.”
He smiled as he reached under the desk and pulled out another bottle, an old meths bottle with clear liquid inside. The bottle had certainly seen better days and was stained still with vague traces of the purple colour of meths, the outside smeared with grubby fingerprints.
“A good choice for a bottle, no? Probably picked up from one of the sadder types. Everything is recycled in here, it is quite impressive don’t you think. I would imagine this would normally have found the garbage bin, had not one of the guards had a sense of humour. The guards fill them up for me, you know. My own personal supply of whatever breed of alcohol is cooked up in the labs downstairs. It sounds positively medieval doesn’t it, but then there’s nothing like a prison for a good sense of melodrama.” Strange uncapped the bottle and took a small sip.
“Hmm, not too bad.” He offered the bottle over to Nat, and smiled when he hesitated. “You need to decide, Nathanial. Whose side are you on?”
Nat didn’t even quite understand what he meant, but somewhat reluctantly he took the bottle and drank from it.
Strange gave a tiny nod. “One of my own creations.”
“What is?”
“Never mind. Shall we continue with your story?”
And Nat wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol swirling round his brain, of course it was, it probably was, but yes, that was the absolute right thing to do, carry on with the story, get it off his chest, hopefully have this man help him make some sense of it all.
White Eyes Page 6