Besides, she, too, deserves to die; if only for the waste of time, for sunny days spent indoors, for words unspoken, for smiles unnoticed, for all the things she could have done if only she could have settled for less –
Only gossip sustains her now. Gossip, rumour and speculation, disseminated via telephone lines on to the parish grapevine. Behind her lace curtains, she sees all. Nothing goes unnoticed to her; no lingering speck of human dirt. No crime, no secret, no petty aberration goes unreported. Nothing escapes examination. No one evades judgement. Does she ever sometimes wish that she could put it all aside, throw open the door and breathe the air? Does she sometimes wonder whether her obsessive attention to cleanliness does not hide a different kind of dirt?
She may have done so, long ago. But now all she can do is watch. Like a crab in its shell, like a barnacle, battened tight against the world. What does she do in there all day? No one is allowed to enter the house unless they leave their shoes outside. Teacups are disinfected before and after use. Groceries are delivered to the front porch. Even the postman deposits the mail, not through the door, but into a metal box by the gate, to be retrieved furtively, and at speed, by Mrs Chemical Blue, wearing Marigolds, her pale eyes wide with the daily unease of traversing six feet of unsanitized space . . .
It’s a challenge he cannot resist. To erase her like a difficult stain; to oust her like a parasite; to winkle her out of her shell and force her into the open again.
But in the end, it’s easy. It requires only subterfuge and some small expense. A hired white minivan, bearing the insignia of an imaginary firm; a baseball cap and a dark-blue jumpsuit with the same firm’s logo embroidered on the top pocket; sundry items ordered via the Internet, paid on a borrowed credit card and delivered to a PO box in town; plus a clipboard to give him authority, and a glossy illustrated brochure (wholly produced on his desktop PC) extolling the virtues of an industrial cleaning product of such efficiency that it has only now been granted a licence for (strictly limited) domestic use.
He explains all this through a crack in the door, from which Mrs Chemical Blue’s eye watches him with a jellyfish glaze. For a moment, fear outstrips her desire; and then she caves in, as he knows she will, and invites the nice young man inside.
This time, he really wants to watch. So he wears a mask for the crucial part, bought from an Army surplus store. The gas, purchased from a US website claiming to deal with unwanted parasites, remains officially untested on humans, as yet – although a local dog has already contributed to his research, with very promising results. Mrs Chemical Blue should last longer, he thinks; but given her poor immunity and the nervous rise and fall of her chest, he is fairly sure of the outcome.
Still, he expects to feel something more. Guilt, perhaps; even pity. Instead he feels only scientific curiosity mixed with that childlike sense of wonder at the smallness of it all. Death is no big deal, he thinks. The difference between life and its opposite can be as small as a blood clot, as insignificant as a bubble of air. The body is, after all, a machine. He knows a little about machines. The greater the number of moving parts, the greater the chance of things going wrong. And the body has so many moving parts –
Not for long, he tells himself.
The agonal phase (this being the term used by clinicians to describe the visible part of life’s attempt to detach itself from protoplasm too compromised to sustain it) lasts for slightly less than two minutes according to his Seiko watch. He tries to observe dispassionately, to avoid the twitching hands and feet of the dying woman on the floor and to try to determine the goings-on behind those peculiar jellyfish eyes, the final, barking gasps for breath –
For a moment the sound makes him queasy, as for a fleeting moment (is there any other kind?) a phantom taste accompanies it – a taste of rotten fruit and dead cabbage – but he forces himself to ignore it by concentrating on Mrs Chemical Blue, whose agonal phase is coming to an end, her floating eyes beginning to glaze, her lips now a shade between cyan and mauve.
In the end, he does not know enough about anatomy to be absolutely certain of the true cause of death. But as Hippocrates used to say: Man is an obligate aerobe. Which probably means, he later concludes, that Mrs Chemical Blue died because her aerobically obligated cells failed to receive enough oxygen, thereby resulting in lethal shock.
In other words, therefore, not my fault.
His latex gloves have left no prints on the well-polished surfaces. His boots are new, right out of the box, and leave no telltale traces of mud. A window left open will disperse the smell from the offending canister, which he will toss into a skip as he passes the municipal dump before returning the van – minus its logo – to the firm from which he hired it. Her death will look like an accident – a seizure, a stroke, a heart attack – and even if they suspect foul play, there’s nothing to make them suspect him.
He burns the jumpsuit and the workman’s cap on the bonfire of leaves in his back yard, and the scent of that burning – like Bonfire Night – reminds him of toffee and candyfloss and the turning of fair-ground wheels in the dark; things that his mother always denied him, though his brothers went to the fair, coming home sticky-fingered and stinking of smoke, and queasy from the carnival rides, while he remained safely indoors, where nothing bad could happen to him.
Today, however, he is free. He rakes the heart of the bonfire and feels its heat against his face; and he feels a surge of sudden release –
And he knows he’s going to do it again. He even knows who the next one will be. He breathes in that scent of bonfire smoke, thinks of her face, and smiles to himself –
And all around him, the colours flare like fireworks exploding in the sky.
Post comment:
ClairDeLune: We need to talk about this, blueeyedboy. I think the way in which your fiction is developing sheds interesting insights on your family relationships. Why don’t you message me later today? I’d really like to discuss it with you.
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
blueeyedboy: Hello again. Do I know you?
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
blueeyedboy: Please, Jenny. Do I know you?
6
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 14.38 on Sunday, February 10
Status: restricted
Mood: sleepless
Listening to: Van Morrison: ‘Wild Night’
Lots of love to my journal today. Mostly in response to my fic, which Clair believes is a breakthrough in style, Toxic assures me pwns ass, Cap summarizes as fuckin’ resplendent, man, and Chryssie, who is still sick, thinks is awesome (and really hott!).
Well, sick she may be, but Chryssie is happy. She has lost six pounds this week – which means, according to her online calorie counter, that, assuming she keeps to her present rate, she will achieve her weight loss goal by this August, rather than July of next year – and she sends love and virtual hugs to her friend azurechild, who has always been so supportive.
Clair, however, is upset. She has received an e-mail from Angel Blue. Or rather, from a representative, telling her to cease her correspondence with Angel forthwith, and threatening legal action.
Poor Clair is hurt and indignant. She has never sent any offensive letters or suspicious packages, either to Angel or to his wife. Why would she? She worships Angel. She respects his privacy. She is certain his wife is behind all this. Angel is too nice, she says, to do this to someone who has become, over the months, a friend.
Mrs Angel’s jealousy is proof of what she has long since suspected: that Angel’s marriage is in crisis; or may even have been a sham from the start. Her online pleas to Angel Blue have begun to attract an audience. Some post to tell her to get a life. Some encourage her to pursue her dream. Some have tales of their own to tell of disappointment, love and revenge. One correspondent, Hawaiianblue, urges her to hold fast, to gain her man’
s attention by force, to show him some token of her love that no one could possibly mistake –
And Albertine has been posting fic. I take this as a good sign; now that she has in some way recovered from the shock of my brother’s death, she has been online every day.
During their time together, of course, her presence was far less regular. Sometimes several weeks would pass without her even logging on. As webmaster, I can track her movements: how many times she visits the site; what she posts there; what she reads.
I know that she follows everything I write, even the comments. She reads Clair’s entries, too, and Chryssie’s – I know she is concerned about Chryssie’s dieting. She doesn’t talk to Cap much – I sense he makes her uncomfortable – but Toxic69 is a regular correspondent, perhaps because of his handicap. To some, these online friendships can take on a disproportionate significance, especially for those of us for whom the world on screen is more real, more tangible than what lies outside.
Today, she wanted to talk to me. Perhaps it was because of Nigel’s funeral, or my last fic. She may have found it disturbing. In fact, I was rather hoping she would. In any case, she came to me, via our private messaging service. Hesitant, shaken, slightly indignant, a child in need of comforting.
Where do you get these stories you write? Why do you have to tell them here?
Ah. The perennial question. Where do stories come from? Are they like dreams, shaped by our subconscious? Do goblins bring them in the night? Or are they all simply forms of the truth, mirror versions of what could have been, twisted and plaited like corn dollies into a plaything for children?
Perhaps I have no choice, I type. It’s closer to the truth than she thinks.
A pause. I’m used to her silences. This one goes on a little too long, and I know that she is somehow distressed.
You didn’t like my last fic.
It isn’t a question. The silence grows. Alone of all my online tribe, Albertine has no icon. Where all the others display an image – Clair’s picture of Angel Blue, Chryssie’s winged child, Cap’s cartoon rabbit – she keeps to the default setting: a silhouette in a plain blue square.
The result is oddly disconcerting. Icons and avatars are part of the way we interact. Like the shield designs of mediaeval times, they serve both as a defensive tool and as the image of ourselves we show to the world, cheap escutcheons for those of us with no honour, no king, no country.
So how does Albertine see herself?
Time passes, lingering, ticking off the seconds like an impatient schoolmistress. For a while I am sure she has gone.
Then at last she replies. Your story disturbed me a little, she says. The woman reminds me of someone I know. A friend of your mother’s, actually.
Funny, how fact and fic intertwine. I say as much to Albertine.
Eleanor Vine’s in hospital. She was taken ill late last night. Something to do with her lungs, I heard –
Really? What a coincidence.
If I didn’t know any better, she says, I could almost believe you were somehow involved.
Could you really? I had to smile.
It sounds just a touch sarcastic to me. But in the absence of facial expressions, there is no way of knowing for sure. If this had been Chryssie or Clair, then she would have followed her comment with a symbol – a smile, a wink, a crying face – to eliminate ambiguity. But Albertine does not use emoticons. Their absence makes conversation with her curiously expressionless, and I am never entirely sure if I have understood her fully.
Do you feel guilty, blueeyedboy?
Long pause.
Truth or dare?
Blueeyedboy hesitates, weighing the joy of confiding in her against the danger of saying too much. Fiction is a dangerous friend; a smokescreen that could dissipate and blow away without warning, leaving him naked.
Finally he types: Yes.
Maybe that’s why you write these things. Maybe you’re assuming guilt for something you’re not really guilty of.
Hm. What an interesting idea. You don’t think I’m guilty of anything?
Everyone’s guilty of something, she says. But sometimes it’s easier to confess to something we haven’t done than to face up to the truth.
Now she’s trying to profile me. I told you she was clever.
So – why do you come here, Albertine? What do you think you’re guilty of?
Silence, then, for so long that I’m almost sure she has broken the connection. The cursor blinks, relentlessly. The mailbox bips. Once. Twice.
I wonder what I would do now if she simply told the truth. But nothing’s ever that easy. Does she even know what she did? Does she know that it all started then, at the concert in St Oswald’s Chapel, a word that conjures up for me the Christmassy colours of stained glass and the scent of pine and frankincense?
Who are you really, Albertine? Plain-vanilla or bad guy at heart? A killer, a coward, a fraudster, a thief? And when I reach the centre of you, will I know if there’s anyone home?
And then she replies, and quickly logs off before I can comment or ask for more. In the absence of icons or avatars, I cannot be sure of her motives, but I sense that she is running away, that I have finally touched her somehow –
Truth or dare, Albertine? What have you come here to confess?
Her message to me is just four words long. It simply says:
I told a lie.
7
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on:
[email protected] Posted at: 04.38 on Monday, February 11
Status: public
Mood: confiding
Listening to: Hazel O’Connor: ‘Big Brother’
Everyone does it. Everyone lies. Everyone colours the truth to fit: from the fisherman who exaggerates the length of the carp that got away, to the politician’s memoir, transmuting the metal of base experience into the gold of history. Even blueeyedboy’s diary (hidden under his mattress at home) was far more wish-fulfilment than fact, detailing with pathetic hopefulness the life of a boy he could never be – a boy with two parents, a boy with friends, a boy who did ordinary things, who went to the seaside on his birthday, a boy who loved his Ma – knowing that the bleaker truth was hiding there under the surface, patiently waiting to be exposed by some casual turn of the tide.
Ben failed the St Oswald’s entrance exam. He should have seen it coming, of course, but he’d been told so many times that he would pass that everyone took it for granted, like crossing a friendly border, nothing more than a token gesture to ensure his passage into St Oswald’s, and subsequently, his success –
It wasn’t that the paper was hard. In fact, he found it quite easy – or would have done, if he’d finished it. But that place, with its smells, unmanned him; and the cavernous room filled with uniforms; and the lists of names tacked to the wall; and the cheesy, hostile faces of the other scholarship boys.
A panic attack, the doctor said. A physical reaction to stress. It began with a nervous headache, which, halfway through the first paper, rapidly grew into something more: a turbulence of colour and scent that drenched him like a tropical storm and bludgeoned him into unconsciousness, there on St Oswald’s parquet floor.
They took him to Malbry Infirmary, where he pleaded to be given a bed. He knew his scholarship had sailed, and that Ma was going to be furious, and that the only way to avoid real trouble was by getting the doctors on his side.
But once again, his luck was out. The nurse called Ma straight away, and the teacher who had accompanied him – a Dr Devine, a thin man whose name was a murky dark green – told her what had happened to him.
‘You’ll let him retake the exam, though?’ Ma’s first anxious thought was of the longed-for scholarship. To make things worse, by then Ben was feeling fine, with hardly a trace of a headache left. Her berry-black eyes locked briefly on his; long enough, at least, to convey that he was in a world of hurt.
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Dr Devine. ‘That
’s not St Oswald’s policy. Now, if Benjamin were to sit the common exam—’
‘You mean he won’t get the scholarship?’ Her eyes were narrowed almost to slits.
Dr Devine gave a little shrug. ‘I’m afraid the decision isn’t mine. Perhaps he could try again next year.’
Ma started forward. ‘You don’t understand—’
But Dr Devine had had enough. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Winter,’ he said, heading for the infirmary door. ‘We can’t make exceptions for just one boy.’
She kept her calm until they got home. Then she unleashed her rage. First with the piece of electrical cord, then afterwards with her fists and feet, while Nigel and Brendan watched like caged monkeys from the upstairs landing, their faces pressed silently against the bars.
It wasn’t the first time she’d beaten him. She’d beaten them all at some time or another – mostly Nigel, but Benjamin too, and even stupid Brendan, who was too scared of everything to ever put a foot wrong – it was her way of keeping them under control.
But this time it was something else. She’d always thought him exceptional. Now, it seemed, he was just one boy. The knowledge must have come as a shock, a terrible disappointment to her. Well, that’s what blueeyedboy thinks now. In fact, he must have known even then that his mother was going insane.
‘You lying, malingering little shit!’
‘No, Ma, please,’ whimpered Ben, trying to shield his face with his arms.
‘You blew that exam on purpose, Ben! You let me down on purpose!’ She grabbed him with one hand by the hair and forced his arm away from his face in readiness for another blow.
He closed his eyes and reached for the words, the magic words to tame the beast. Then came inspiration –
‘Please. Ma. It’s not my fault. Please, Ma. I love you—’
She stopped. Fist raised like a gauntlet of gems, one eye levelled malignantly.
‘What did you say?’