I say: ‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Williams,’ he says. ‘Mark Williams.’
‘How old are you Mark Wilhams?’
‘Twenty-four, sir.’
‘And do you like being a policeman, Mark Williams?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well Mark Williams,’ I say loudly, taking his hand and shaking it and shaking it. ‘You have a merry Christmas.’
‘Thank you. And you sir.’
‘I will,’ I say, getting back in the car. ‘I will.’
‘Drive carefully,’ he says, closing the door for me.
‘Merry Christmas Mark Williams,’ I say. ‘Merry bloody Christmas.’
There’s another police car outside the house when I get there.
I nod at the two officers as I pull in and park in the drive.
I wave at them as I get out and struggle to lock the car door.
I nod again as I walk round the house to the back door.
It’s locked and I fumble with my keys and then turn and walk down the path to the shed.
I unlock that door and open it, staring in at the maps and the photographs on the wall in the dark, the thirteen faces staring back at me, and I turn to the garden, to the washing hanging on the line in the dark in the snow, a bag of pornography in one hand, sick down my shirt, my fly undone, the carols deafening, thinking:
How much longer?
Part 3. We are all prostitutes
and pain and never happiness to go outside and find no one there but a man who would not frighten anybody sat in a white corsair with a five pound note in his hand and a ball pein hammer under the seat of his car asking are you doing business transmission eight found on Saturday the twenty seventh of may nineteen seventy eight sitting on wasteland in a slumped position against the fence of a car park at the rear of manchester royal infirmary identified as doreen pickles and when her reversible coat was removed it could be seen that her stomach had been so badly mutilated that her intestines had spilled out onto the ground where they wallowed like pigs in the mud below a sign around her neck that in cruel words read e am the way into the doleful city e am the way into eternal grief e am the way to a forsaken race before me nothing but eternal things were made and e shall last eternally abandon every hope all ye who enter and she opens her lids to show the white blank eyes of the dead and says who is this one approaching who without death dares walk into the kingdom of the dead by a chain link fence on a rubbish pile in the corner of the car park looking like a doll lying on her right side face down her arms folded beneath her legs straight and her shoes placed neatly on her body and rested against the fence after three operations and with just one lung death came with three hammer blows twelve feet away hit on the head three times help help help and dragged across the gravel to the fence where e raised her dress and underskirt and stabbed her in the stomach repeatedly through the same wound also in the back just below the lower left ribs her right eyelid was also punctured the eye bruised but after this there will be silence and people will think e have gone away that e have found a woman and settled down a woman who is the opposite of a tart who is religious or even the devout member of a religious sect someone e can pamper at whose feet e can worship someone who is in my eyes a paragon of virtue wearing a reversible coat blue and brown town chequered on one side and all blue on the other a short length floral dress blue canvas shoes a pink cardigan white knickers white underslip and a blue and white bra and e opened my lids to show the white blank eyes of the dead and said dear officer sorry e have not written about a year to be exact but e have not been up north for quite a while e was not kidding last time e wrote saying the whore would be older this time and maybe e would strike in manchester for a change and you should have took heed that bit about her being in hospital funny the lady mentioned something about being in hospital before e stopped her whoring ways the lady will not worry about hospitals now will she e bet you have been wondering how come e have not been to work for ages well e would have been if it had not been for your cursed coppers e had the lady just where e wanted her and was about to strike when one of your cursing police cars stopped right outside the lane he must have been a dumb copper cause he did not say anything he did not know how close he was to catching me tell you the truth e thought e was collared the lady said do not worry about the coppers little did she know that bloody copper saved her neck that was last month so e do not know when e will get back on the job but e know it will not be bloody chapeltown too bloody hot there maybe bradford manningham might write again if up north jack the ripper he who thought to walk so boldly through this realm let him retrace his foolish way alone and you who led him here through this dark land you will stay and they slam the heavy gates in
Chapter 15
It was the night before Christmas. There was a house in the middle of the Moor, lights shining in the windows. I was walking across the Moor, light snow underfoot, heading home. On the front doorstep I stamped my boots loose of snow and opened the door. A fire was glowing with artificial coals and the house was filled with the smell of good cooking. Under a lit Christmas tree, there were boxes of beautifully wrapped presents. I took a big box, gift-wrapped in newspaper from under the tree and pulled the red ribbon loose. Carefully I opened the newspaper so I might read it later. I stared at the wooden box on my knee. I closed my eyes and opened the box, the dull thud of my heart filling the house.
‘What is it?’ said Joan, coming into the room and switching on the TV.
I tried to cover the box with my hands but she took the box from me and looked inside.
The box fell to the floor, the house full of good cooking, the thud of my heart, and her bloody screams.
I watched as the fetus slid out of the box and across the floor, writing spidery messages and swastikas with its bloody cord as it went.
‘Get rid of it,’ she screamed. ‘Get rid of it now!’
But I was staring at the TV, the people on the TV singing hymns, the people on the TV singing hymns with no face, no features -machines, the gulls circling overhead screaming, the wings in my own back, out of the skin, torn, huge and rotting things, and I stared down at the baby on the floor and it sat up, hands across its heart, and smiled a faint and dreadful smile and I looked at the tag on the box, the tag on the box that said:
Love Helen – the night before Christmas.
I open my eyes -
The radio’s on:
Christmas messages: Carter telling the world that all fifty-two hostages are alive and well; the Pope’s message for Poland; Thatcher’s for Northern Ireland; nominations for people of the year: Ayatollah Khomeini; the eight US soldiers who died trying to rescue the hostages; the boat people; JR Ewing; Voyager 1; or John Lennon?
The Yorkshire Ripper?
Radio off -
I close my eyes.
‘Merry Christmas,’ says Joan -
I open my eyes.
‘Merry Christmas,’ I say.
‘How do you feel?’
‘Not so good.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘A few too many Christmas drinks.’
‘Where?’
‘Leeds.’
‘How did you get back?’
‘I drove.’
She sits up in bed: ‘Peter!’
‘Sorry.’
She gets out of bed and puts on her dressing gown.
‘Sorry,’ I say again.
She goes downstairs.
My head is killing me, my stomach churning, on the verge of throwing up -