But just the faintest whiff of smoke was enough to convince the public. Trial by tabloid is swift and sure. Within three months, it was over. The Emily Experiment went straight to the top of the best-seller lists. Patrick and Catherine White agreed to a trial separation. Investors withdrew their money; galleries ceased to display Emily’s work. Feather moved in with Catherine, while Patrick removed himself to a hostel just outside Malbry.
It wasn’t a permanent move, he said. It was simply to give them a little space. A twenty-four-hour police guard was stationed outside the Mansion in the wake of several arson attempts. And the papers were all over Catherine. A row of photographers flanked the house, snapping up anyone who crossed the threshold.
Graffiti appeared on the front door. Hate mail came by the sackful. The News of the World ran a picture of Catherine, in tears, with a story (confirmed by Feather, to whom they paid five thousand pounds) that she had suffered a mental breakdown.
Christmas brought little improvement, though Emily was allowed home for the day. Before that the child had remained in the custody of the Social Services, who, failing to detect any signs of abuse, interrogated her kindly but relentlessly until even she began to wonder if she, too, wasn’t losing her mind.
Try to remember, Emily.
I know the technique. I know it well. Kindness is a weapon, too, a padded cartoon goofy-stick that batters away at the memory, turning it all into candyfloss.
It’s all right. It’s not your fault.
Just tell us the truth, Emily.
Imagine what it was like for her. Everything was going wrong. Dr Peacock was under investigation. Her parents were suddenly living apart. People kept asking her questions, and although they kept saying it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t help thinking that somehow it was. That somehow, that little snow-white lie had turned into an avalanche –
Listen to the colours.
She wanted to say it was all a mistake, but of course, it was far too late for that. They wanted a demonstration: a once-and-for-all display of her gift, well away from the influence of Dr Peacock or her mother, a performance to confirm or refute for ever the claim that she was a fake, a pawn in their game of deception and greed.
And that was how, in January, on a snowy morning in Manchester, she found herself with her easel and paints, on a sound stage surrounded by cameras, with hot lights battening down on her head and the sound of the Symphonie fantastique pouring out of the speakers. And right at that moment the miracle happens and Emily hears the colours –
It is by far her most famous work. Symphonie fantastique in Twenty-four Conflicting Colours looks something like a Jackson Pollock and something like a Mondrian, with that huge, grey shadow in the far corner reaching into the illuminated canvas like the hand of Death in a field of bright flowers . . .
So says Jeffrey Stuarts, at least, in the follow-up to his best-selling book: The Emily Enigma. That, too, raced to the top of the charts, although it was clearly a rehash of the previous one, with an afterword to include the events that followed its publication. After that, of course, the experts pursued the story, with professionals in every associated field from art to child psychology warring with each other to prove their conflicting theories.
Each camp had its adherents, be they cynics or believers. The child psychologists saw Emily’s work as a symbolic expression of her fear; the paranormal camp as a harbinger of death; the art experts saw in the change of style a confirmation of what many had already secretly suspected: that Emily’s synaesthesia had been a pretence from the start and that Catherine White, and not Emily, had been the creative influence behind such works as Nocturne in Scarlet Ochre and Starry Moonlight Sonata.
Symphonie fantastique is altogether different. Created in front of an audience on a piece of canvas eight feet square, it almost writhes with energy, so that even a dullard like Jeffrey Stuarts was able to feel its ominous presence. If fear has a colour, then this is it: menacing strings of red, brown and black overlaid with occasional violent patches of light, and that clanging square of blue-grey like the trapdoor to an oubliette –
To me, it smells of Blackpool pier, and my mother, and the vitamin drink. To Emily, it must have been the first step through a looking glass into a world in which nothing was sane, nothing was certain any more.
They tried to hide the truth from her. On compassionate grounds, the experts said. To tell her the truth at such a young age, especially in such circumstances, could prove traumatic in the extreme. But we heard it through the grapevine even before it hit the stands: that Catherine White was in hospital following a failed suicide attempt. And suddenly it seemed that every reporter in the world was heading straight for Malbry, the sleepy little Northern town where everything seemed to be happening, and where the clouds were still gathering for one more cosmic thunderstorm –
11
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 20.55 on Monday, February 18
Status: restricted
Mood: drained
Listening to: Johnny Nash: ‘I Can See Clearly Now’
Clair e-mailed me again today. Apparently, she is missing me. And the fic I posted on Valentine’s Day has caused more concern than usual. She urges me to return to the fold, to discuss my feelings of alienation and to face up to my responsibilities. The tone of her e-mail is neutral enough; but I sense her disapproval. Maybe she is feeling sensitive; or maybe she feels that my fiction provokes an inappropriate response in subjects such as Toxic and Cap, whose predilection for violence needs no further encouragement.
You need to come back to Group[she says].Talking online is no substitute. I’d rather see you face to face. Besides, I’m not sure these stories of yours are really very helpful. You need to confront these exhibitionist tendencies of yours and face up to reality –
Bip! Delete message.
Now she’s gone.
That’s the beauty of e-mail, Clair. That’s why I’d rather meet online than in your little drawing-room with its nice, non-threatening prints on the walls and its scent of cheap pot-pourri. And at the writing group, you’re in charge, whereas badguysrock belongs to me. Here, I ask the questions; here I am in complete control.
No, I think I’d rather stay and pursue my interests in the comfort and seclusion of my own room. I like myself so much better online. I can express so much more. It was here, and not at that awful school, that I received my classical education. And from here I can crawl into your mind, scent out your little secrets, expose your petty weaknesses, just as you try to find out mine.
Tell me – how is Angel Blue these days? I’m sure you must have heard from him. And Chryssie? Still sick? Well, that’s too bad. Shouldn’t you be talking to her, Clair, instead of cross-examining me?
The e-mail bips. New message from Clair.
I really think we should talk soon. I know you find our discussions uncomfortable, but I’m getting really worried about you. Please e-mail me back to confirm!
Bip! Delete message.
Whoops, all gone.
If only deleting Clair were as easy.
Still, I have other concerns right now, not least how I stand with Albertine. It’s not that I hope for forgiveness. Both of us have come too far for that. But her silence is disquieting; and it is all I can do to prevent myself from calling by at her house today. Still, I don’t think that would be wise. Too many potential witnesses. Already, I suspect we are being watched. All it would take is a word to Ma, and the house of cards would come tumbling down.
And so half an hour before closing time, I found myself back at the Zebra. My masochistic side so often drives me to that place, that safe little world of which Yours Truly is definitely not a part. In passing I noticed, to my annoyance, that Terri was sitting by the door. She looked up hopefully as I came in; I did my best to ignore her. So much for discretion, I thought. Like her aunt, she is an eager observer; a gossip, in spite of her diffidence; the kind of person who stops at the scene of
a car crash, not to help, but to participate in the collective misery.
Saxophone Man with the dreadlocks was sitting close by with a pot of coffee at his elbow; he gave me a look designed to convey his contempt for such as I. Maybe Bethan has mentioned me. From time to time she does, you know, in a vain attempt to prove to herself how much she now detests me. Creepy Dude, she calls me. I’d hoped for something more imaginative.
I sat down in my usual place; ordered Earl Grey, no lemon, no milk. She brought it on a flowered tray. Lingered just long enough for me to suspect her of having something on her mind, then came to a decision; sat down squarely beside me, looked into my eyes and said:
‘What the hell do you want from me?’
I poured out the tea. It was fragrant and good. I said: ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Hanging around here all the time. Posting those stories. Raking things up—’
I had to laugh. ‘Me? Raking things up? I’m sorry, but when the details of Dr Peacock’s will come out, everything you do is going to be news. That isn’t my fault, Albertine.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’
‘You chose it yourself,’ I pointed out.
She shrugged. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Albertine. I understand it all too well. The heart’s desire to be someone else, to take on a new identity. In a way I’ve done it myself –
‘I don’t want his money,’ she said. ‘I only want to be left alone.’
I grinned. ‘Hope that works out for you.’
‘You talked him into it, didn’t you?’ Her eyes were dark with anger now. ‘Working there, you had the chance. He was old, suggestible. You could have told him anything.’
‘Believe me, Bethan, if I had, don’t you think I’d have done it for myself?’ I let the thought sink in for a while. ‘’Dear old Dr Peacock. Still trying, after all these years, to make amends. Still half-convinced he could raise the dead. With Patrick gone, there was only you left. Nigel must have been over the moon—’
She looked at me. ‘Not that again. I tell you, Nigel didn’t care about that.’
‘Oh, please,’ I said. ‘Love may be blind, but you’d have to be really stupid to think that someone like Nigel wouldn’t have cared that his girlfriend was about to inherit a fortune—’
‘You told him about Dr Peacock’s will?’
‘Who knows? I may have let something slip.’
‘When?’ Her voice was paper-thin.
‘Eighteen months ago, maybe more.’
Silence. Then: ‘You bastard,’ she hissed. ‘Are you trying to make me believe that this was a set-up from the start?’
‘I don’t care what you believe,’ I said. ‘But I’m guessing that he was protective. He didn’t like you living alone. He hadn’t mentioned marriage yet, but if he had, you would have said yes.’ I paused. ‘How am I doing so far?’
She fixed me with eyes the colour of murder. ‘You know, this is pointless,’ she said. ‘You’re never going to sell me this. Nigel didn’t care about money.’
‘Really? How romantic,’ I said. ‘Because according to the credit-card statements I came across when I cleared out his flat, when Nigel died he was badly in debt. To the tune of nearly ten thousand pounds – it can’t have been easy, making ends meet. Maybe he got impatient. Maybe he got desperate. Dr Peacock was old and sick, but his illness was far from terminal. He could have lived another ten years—’
Now her face was colourless. ‘Nigel didn’t kill Dr Peacock,’ she said, ‘any more than you could have done. He wouldn’t do a thing like that—’ Her voice was wavering. It hurt me to cause her such distress, but she needed to know. To understand.
‘Why couldn’t he, Bethan? He’s done it before.’
She shook her head. ‘That was different.’
‘Is that what he said?’
‘Of course it was!’
I grinned.
She stood up abruptly, sending her chair clattering. ‘Why on earth does it matter?’ she cried. ‘All that was such a long time ago, so why do you always keep bringing it up? Nigel’s dead, it’s over now, so why can’t you just leave me alone?’
Her distress was strangely moving, I thought. Her face was bleak and beautiful. The emerald stud in her eyebrow winked at me like an open eye. Suddenly, all I wanted was for her to hold me, to comfort me, to tell me the lies that everyone secretly most wants to hear.
But I had to go on. I owed it to her. ‘It’s never over, Bethan,’ I said. ‘There’s no going back from murder. Especially when it’s a relative – and Benjamin was only sixteen—’
She eyed me with hatred, and now, for the first time, I could almost believe her capable of the act that had already deleted two of Gloria Winter’s boys permanently from existence.
‘Nigel was right,’ she said at last. ‘You are a twisted bastard.’
‘That hurt my feelings, Albertine.’
‘Don’t play the innocent, Brendan.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s hardly fair,’ I said. ‘It was Nigel who murdered Benjamin. I was lucky I wasn’t there. If things had been different, it could have been me.’
PART FIVE
mirrors
1
You are viewing the webjournal of
blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 23.40 on Tuesday, February 19
Status: restricted
Mood: tired
Listening to: Cyndi Lauper: ‘True Colours’
All right. You can call me Brendan. Does that make you happy now? Now do you think you know me? We choose our names, our identities; just as we choose the lives we lead. I have to believe that, Albertine. The alternative – that these things are allocated at birth, or even before, in utero – is far too appalling to contemplate.
Someone once told me that seventy per cent of all praise received in the course of an average lifetime is given before the age of five. At five years old, almost anything – eating a mouthful of food; getting dressed; drawing a picture in crayon – can earn the most lavish compliments. Of course, that stops eventually. In my case, when my brother was born – my brother in blue, that is – Benjamin.
Clair, with her love of psychobabble, sometimes speaks of what she calls the reverse halo effect; that tendency we all have to assign the colours of villainy on the basis of a single flaw: such as having swallowed a sibling, perhaps, or collected a bucket of sea creatures and left them to die in the scorching sun. When Ben was born, my halo reversed; and henceforth blueeyedboy was stripped of all his former privileges.
I saw it coming. At three years old, I already knew that the squalling blue package Ma had brought home would bring me nothing but misery. First came her decision to allocate colours to her three sons. That’s where it started, I realize, although she may not have known it then. But that’s how I became Brendan Brown – the dull one, neither fish nor fowl – eclipsed on one side by Nigel Black and on the other by Benjamin Blue. No one noticed me any more – unless, of course, I did something wrong, in which case the piece of electrical cord was only too quick to be deployed. No one thought I was special enough to merit any attention.
Still, I’ve managed to change all that. I’ve reclaimed my halo – in Ma’s eyes, at least. As for you, Albertine – or must I call you Bethan now? You always saw more than the others did. You always understood me. You never had the slightest doubt that I, too, was remarkable, that beneath my sensitivity beat the heart of a future murderer. Still –
Everyone knows it wasn’t my fault. I never laid a hand on him. In fact, I wasn’t even there. I was watching Emily. All those times I watched her, followed her to the Mansion and back, felt Dr Peacock’s welcoming hug, flew with her on her little swing, felt her mother’s hand in mine, heard her say: Well done, sweetheart –
My brother never did those things. Perhaps he never needed to. Ben was too busy feeling sorry for himself to take an interest in Emily. I was the one who cared
for her; took pictures of her from over the hedge; shared the scraps of her strange little life.
Perhaps that was why I loved her then; because she had stolen Benjamin’s life just as he had stolen mine. My mother’s love; my gift; my chance; all of them passed to Benjamin, as if I’d simply held them in trust until the better man came along.
Ben, the blue-eyed boy. The thief. And what did he do with his big chance? He pissed it away in resentment because somebody else got a bigger break. Everything: his intelligence; his place at St Oswald’s; his chance at fame; even his time at the Mansion. All thrown to the winds because Benjamin didn’t just want a slice of the cake, he wanted the bloody bakery. Well, that’s what it looked like to Brendan Brown, left with only the few crumbs he managed to steal from his brother’s plate –
But now, the cake belongs to me. The cake, as well as the bakery. As Cap would say: Pure pwnage, man –
I got away with murder.
2
You are viewing the webjournal of: blueeyedboyposting on :
[email protected] Posted at: 23.47 on Tuesday, February 19
Status: public
Mood: vulnerable
Listening to:Johnny Cash : ‘Hurt’
They call him Mr Brendan Brown. Too dull to be gifted; too dull to be seen; too dull even for murder. Shit-brown; donkey-brown; boring, butthead, bastard-brown. All his life he has tried to be blind, an unwilling spectator to everything, watching through interlaced fingers as the action unrolls without him, wincing at the slightest blow, the smallest hint of violence.
Yes, Brendan Brown is sensitive. Action movies frighten him. Wildlife documentaries are out; as are horror movies, video games, cowboy films or combat scenes. He even feels for the bad guy. Sports, too, are a discomfort to him, with their risk of injuries and collisions. Instead he watches cookery shows, or gardening shows, or travelogues, or porn, and dreams of other places; feels printed sunlight on his face –