Iola paled and then, as though they had been anticipating the statement, two men – whom Harvey recognised as some of the ‘participants’ from the audience in the last show – emerged from the shadows, each taking one of Harvey’s arms. Behind them, there was a call of ‘oi!’ from a very indignant Nick - hands laden with pints - but Harvey was bundled away before he could call back in return.
He was aware of the tight hold on his arms – very aware- and aware that this was certainly not good, and so he struggled, twisting and writhing like an autumn leaf in an updraft.
‘You’re making this worse,’ hissed Iola, who was quite obviously distressed.
The group passed by the curtain and into the wings, despite Harvey desperately digging his heels in, and then they were amongst the small company of magicians… Including Demas.
‘I wasn’t bothering her,’ Harvey objected, twisting and wriggling. ‘Honestly. Honestly.’
Demas was hardly made of bravado in the shadows of the back stage. Dark circles, like boats on a river, sat beneath his eyes. His handsome lips were turned down into a foul snarl.
‘Who are you?’ He demanded, and Harvey blinked in confusion, his eyes constantly flickering to Iola, who stood behind Demas, biting the joint of her index finger.
‘I’m just a student. I came to watch your show a few months ago, and-’
‘No you didn’t. It’s impossible!’ Demas blustered, his voice becoming slightly more flustered and high pitched. All the while, Iola watched on in concern, and Harvey hung limp in his assailant’s grips. ‘We’ll show you what happens when you step where you shouldn’t.’ Demas rolled up his sleeves for emphasis. Harvey was certain he heard Iola gasp softly in alarm, anticipating what was to come. ‘You certainly won’t be able to forget this in the morning…’
The first strike caught his cheek bone – tenderizer to meat – and a cry barely escaped his lips, at least, not until he was released. He lurched forward, and it suddenly seemed as though fists were everywhere; bludgeoning and damaging and rearranging. As Harvey hit the floor, and the first boot struck him, he failed to question if it was worth it: he just knew it had been.
The beating only stopped when the curtain went up.
Harvey would have stayed. Harvey would have asked more questions, but his ribs hurt, and his face certainly didn’t feel like his face, and there was blood, swelling and general pain.
It was Nick who found him, and Nick who threatened and swore to anybody near, but nobody listened. They were escorted from the premises in a cloud of anger and confusion - Nick was shoved, Harvey simply staggered. Scorned, they retreated into the night.
‘What did you do to deserve that?’ Nick asked as they walked and he supported Harvey around his sore shoulders.
‘I fell in love, or something,’ Harvey murmured in sullen reply.
*
Washing your face thoroughly and peering at yourself in the mirror above the bathroom sink, much like in the movies, was a sure fire way to see how monstrous you looked after a beating. Harvey realised this, some hours later, as the clock struck ten.
It had been a ridiculous night. Indeed, it had been a ridiculous few months. It had taken time to get rid of overprotective Nick so that Harvey could wallow alone, and even more time for him to wash, and realise just how bizarre everything had become. It was as though he was in his own weird version of ‘Round the Twist’ and that wasn’t a particularly appealing notion.
The doorbell rang. Harvey moved through the grotty halls of his student house, finally hesitating at the front door. He looked a mess. It was late. His attackers hadn’t found him, had they? Come back to knock another seven bells into him with meaty fists and heavy set boots?
‘Who is it?’ He called warily through the door. There was a brief silence, and then-
‘It’s not Demas.’
Harvey dragged the door open. It shuddered and rattled in its hinges.
On the door step, clad in a pea green rain coat, was Iola. She regarded his injuries with obvious guilt.
‘I thought I’d come by,’ she said. ‘You’re the only one who’s ever remembered.’
There was a silence between them. Harvey didn’t consider inviting her inside.
‘I thought it was a good show,’ he replied, with little enthusiasm.
‘You’re not supposed to know that,’ Iola smiled, but it was sad; a knowing smile that craved for a break in monotony. Harvey recognised it all too well. ‘You’re supposed to forget.’
Harvey looked confused.
‘I wasn’t about to forget you in a hurry.’
Iola’s cheeks went pink; an entirely different reaction to the first compliment Harvey had given her. He noticed how she made no attempt to apologise about the kicking he had received. He didn’t question why.
‘The show stays the same, and so do the audience,’ Iola explained. ‘It’s a cheat, but Demas has been at it for years.’
Harvey thought briefly about the inconsistencies in his research on the travelling show and he considered the huge gaps in Nick’s memory. What had seemed like drunken dents in perception, suddenly became forced failures.
The night was cold and smelt of ice, but Harvey still made no move to offer Iola the warmth of his home. It was the first time she had spoken to him without prompt.
‘You should know,’ she began, and Harvey considered interrupting, demanding why… Again, he didn’t. ‘You just should.’ She hesitated. ‘We’ve had the same audience for years. They never remember the show, Harvey. That’s the game. Make them forget, gain a captive audience. Sure fire money from people who will always attend.’ She shrugged. ‘Real magicians, like us, really struggle for work. The false have the monopoly.’
Harvey didn’t consider how ridiculous the statement ‘real magicians’ was, because it almost made sense. Of course Iola hadn’t been normal.
‘Con artists,’ he said. ‘Real, magical…’ Iola shrugged in reply. ‘Look,’ Harvey went on, ‘I don’t know why you came here. I spent all that time looking for you, and I’ve got a fat lip and a cracked rib to show for it. I know it was stupid, but I remembered you, and I wanted to take that chance.’ He held her gaze, earnest and hurt, and Iola’s expression crumpled, just slightly, before she raised her arm. Harvey watched, hand on the door, ready, but not quite able to close it.
From the cuff of her pea green sleeve, Iola produced a key. A very familiar key. Harvey’s old house key. She demonstrated it with a smile, and then it disappeared in her hand, before reappearing out of the opposite sleeve. Harvey managed a delighted chuckle, and took the key as she held it out to him.
‘You kept it,’ he said, quite surprised and pleased.
Iola’s eyes remained level with his.
‘I didn’t forget, either.’
Suburbia
I feel I must make one thing absolutely clear, right now, at the start of this... this... Well, testimony, I suppose, is the only word for it now – since the truth has come out. The truth about what happened in that neighbourhood, all those years ago...
You have to understand, this story may seem to be a lot of things, but the one thing that I am certain of – and the one thing that kept me from recounting it sooner, laying all this to rest – is that the cold-bloodedness I encountered that awful day is proof of the grotesque side of humanity; the side that can live in plain sight, masquerading as normalcy... The side that made me run and hide, afraid that it would follow me, find me – and that no one would believe my story.
But the past is always dug up, isn’t it? And now the papers have discovered the truth, I feel I can keep silent no longer.
It was January; one that was cool and crisp, without too much heavy rain and a chilling wind that seemed to catch you with its stinging, whipping grasp the second you stepped outside. Due to my job as an on-call electrician, I stepped into its path quite a lot, although once the first couple of clients were out of the way, I was usually growing used to the numbing spread of bitin
g cold that gnawed at me, even despite my thick, uniform jacket.
This particular January, I remember vividly, was the scene of a mounting economic recession, a word that was thrown out into the face of the public so many times that one began to feel as if there had never been anything before the downturn. Money was tight, but then for many it always had been and I was no exception.
It was mid-morning when I arrived at the address listed. The neighbourhood itself was nothing out of the ordinary. It presented itself as an unimposing, regular little circulation of modern, semi-detached houses, so completely indistinguishable from any other district that it caught me off guard. The residents there at the time of my horrific visit, those that chilled me to the bone quicker than even a full-blown gale of that January wind, are gone now, of course. Discovered and brought to justice themselves finally.
I rang the bell of the attractively modern detached house that loomed centrally above its neighbours in the area and waited, kit in hand, naively admiring the neat order of the garden and the building’s solid frame, similar to the others around it. When the door opened, I was met with a middle-aged, gracious woman, whose dark blonde hair was short and perfectly curled, her whole appearance immediately discerning her as one whom, whilst having a pleasant, welcoming face, liked everything to be done properly and in order.
Once inside, Mrs Adams asked me if I would like a cup of tea; I politely declined. I’d had three ‘courtesy cups’, as I called them, already. Her house was as pristine inside as she was, everything typically beige, muted and well-ordered; very middle-class "keeping up appearances".
There was a funny smell though, one that lingered everywhere, despite the numerous pots of potpourri studding the polished surfaces. It even overwhelmed Mrs Adams' own powerful brand of sickly perfume. I couldn't quite put my finger on what that odour was at the time - it was the smell of something charred, but not the same as when wood or food smells when burnt... It mingled with this sort of... wet, fleshy, overwhelming scent, like burning fruit pulp or vegetable fat. The smell wafted down from the upper storeys and was deeply unpleasant; I tried to rearrange my expression into something carefully neutral at exactly the same time as trying to work out what on earth could have caused such an intense stench to permeate the entire house. It was almost like it had seeped into the furnishings and the walls over time...
If Mrs Adams noticed my discomfort, it didn't show; she remained just as professionally neutral as I was attempting to. Smiling brightly, she warmly asked how long I had worked for the electric company. Her tone was remarkably cordial, affable and sociable, which surprised me somewhat, not least because I was partly distracted by that bizarre smell. Most customers preferred me to check the meter, or fix whichever problem had called me there, and then head out as quickly as possible – and, I must confess, upon perceiving her at the front door, I had instantly assumed that she would be one of those clients rather... unnerving in their attitude.
At the time though, unnerving meant nothing more than that she was sure to view me as an interruption to her day – I appreciate the irony, now that I look back.
‘And I’m sure your client numbers must have increased, what with the ‘Recession’,’ She was still talking, all but whispering the last word and entitling it with a roguish capital that made it seem even more important. ‘I’m sure everyone must be calling you out with queries into how they can save their money.’
‘Oh, yes, well,’ I began, but had barely uttered anything more when there was a loud, chilling shriek from somewhere upstairs in the house, a distant echo to its sound that suggested it came from above even the second floor. I started violently and turned hastily towards Mrs Adams, afraid that there was some member of her family in need of help, or... Well, I didn't know what.
Mrs Adams merely smiled at the look of startled alarm on my face and nodded her head in the direction of the ceiling.
‘My husband and some of our friends from the neighbourhood.’ Her voice was full of gaiety and it threw me –– the whole situation threw me, I had no idea what she meant. I must have expressed that in some subconscious way, losing my careful neutrality, for a moment later she elaborated. ‘We converted our attic – it was always rather spacious, you see. So now, every week or so, we can all meet together and have a little hearing.’
I nodded dumbly, casting another dubious look at the staircase. I was nonplussed as to what she was referring to and, for the life of me, couldn’t fathom why someone would be wailing like that during what she seemed to be suggesting was some sort of Neighbourhood Watch gathering. She cheerfully beckoned me out of the sitting room and towards the kitchen. Maybe they were some sort of amateur dramatic society; she could have been referring to that. Yes, I decided, that must be it. What else could it be?
What else could it be indeed?
‘Mr Finlow, from down the street,’ she continued, as she motioned me to follow her along the hallway, ‘He’s an incredibly good handyman – fixed us up with two good sturdy chairs and very safely wired circuits.’
Uncertain as I was of where the chairs fitted in, her mention of circuits seemed to reinforce my ideas of the theatrical, odd as the whole notion still was. Whoever heard of an am-dram theatre in an attic? However, eccentricity, as I considered it at that early moment, is a funny thing; you never know where it’s going to manifest itself.
I was still musing on this when I noticed some subtle marring of her beautifully pristine interior decoration. The hallway, which was long and thin, led from the front door down to the kitchen; the dark wooden staircase stretched upwards along one side and doorways to the sitting room and dining room branched off on the right. It was just past the stairs that I noticed it; along the upper reaches of the wall, streaking through the fawn coloured paint, were sets of continuous scratches, four in a row - they ripped and flaked the paint and paper jaggedly, and stretched across a good couple of feet.
It looked for all the world like fingernail marks...
Or they could have just been moving a piece of heavy furniture recently, tipped at an awkward angle. I knew well enough how those sorts of repair jobs were usually the last to be dealt with. But even so... The smell, the scream, now this? I repressed a shudder.
Mrs Adams brought me out of my reverie by gesturing to a door in the corner of the spacious kitchen, one that clearly led down to a cellar or storeroom. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the sound of loud, desperate, terrified weeping drifting down in the wake of the shriek. I stared at her; she pressed a hand against the chunky pearl necklace that sat on her collarbone. For a moment she tapped the beads with long fingernails, giving me a wide, expounding smile, before inclining her head towards the door.
‘Shall we continue down? That’s where the meter is.’ She elegantly led the way forward, descending the stairs gracefully. As I moved to follow, a pleading voice reverberated down, high-pitched and loud:
‘No! Please, no!’
Now, you must understand, I had been on the job a good while, young as I then was, and I had seen many an odd person – homes overrun with cats, dogs, parrots, whole menageries of variously assorted animals. I’ve met brattish children who seem to run the home, obscure modern painters, people who only decorate their house in one shade of colour… I once even entered in on the W.I during their charity ‘Calendar Girls’ photo shoot. After that experience, I found little else capable to shock me.
But this house, this day… It seemed odd in a way that was instinctive and unexplainable to me, at least at the time. My nerves were on edge, my heart pounding; I could taste the metallic tang of adrenaline at the back of my throat as I followed that inscrutable woman to the cellar door.
Still under the impression that they were an amateur theatre company, I felt that – partly out of a polite curiosity and partly to rid myself of that incessant nervousness – I should enquire into the matter a little. So, choosing the most obvious of questions, I remarked, ‘I take it you are
a drama society? You must be rehearsing something pretty tragic – Hamlet?’
We had reached the bottom of the stairs and she stood back to let me access the electricity meter. It was just as I had placed my kit on the ground beside me, peering at the screen of the meter, straining my eyes through the dim light that was shed by the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling, that she let forth an incredibly amused, chiming laugh.
‘Oh, dear me, no – we’re not the neighbourhood amateur dramatics. We just take care of a few of the indiscretions that occur, often with the more difficult tenants in the estate.’
My original neighbourhood watch thoughts drifted back to me... And the noises I had previously heard - the strange smell and the scratches - suddenly became more sinister.
I tried to shrug it off.
‘I see. So you…’ I left the question open, although to this day I am not sure why. I see now, as I have done since that dreadful moment of realisation, that I should have just dropped the conversation there and then, and hastened to get the hell out of there. But I was young; I had seen plenty of strange things... And who would ever believe that such terrible cold-bloodedness could cross their path as easily as you’d cross a gypsy’s palm with silver? There’s no smoke without fire, sure – but I didn’t want to spark the embers without provocation, no matter how strange the situation had become.
I always look back with pride at that moment of trusting, youthful innocence. And then I always curse my younger self for the fool that I was.
‘Oh, you know how it is…’ Mrs Adams smiled primly – a bone-chilling smile, one that haunts me still. ‘People who arrive in the neighbourhood, or have been here for years, and are merely nothing more than difficult, stubborn mules, until one day – snap! They push the boundaries too far. So, naturally, they have to be dealt with by the community in a fair, hard-handed manner. We meet here, bring the guilty party along and come to a decision.’