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blueeyedboy: Why, thank you...
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You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 17.39 on Monday, January 28
Status: restricted
Mood: virtuous
Listening to: Dire Straits: ‘Brothers In Arms’
My brother had been dead for less than a minute by the time the news reached my WeJay. That’s about how long it takes: six or seven seconds to film the scene on a mobile phone camera; forty-five to upload the footage on to YouTube; ten to Twitter to all your friends — 13:06 OMG! Just saw a terrible car crash — and after that the caravan of messages to my WebJournal; the texts; the e-mails, the oh-my-Gods.
Well, you can skip the condolences. Nigel and I hated each other from the day we were born, he and I, and nothing he has ever done — including giving up the ghost — has caused any change to my feelings. But he was my brother, after all. Give me credit for some delicacy. And Ma must be feeling upset, of course, even though he wasn’t her favourite. Once a mother of three, today only one of her children remains. Yours truly, blueeyedboy, now so nearly alone in the world —
The police took their time, as usual. Forty minutes, door-to-door. Ma was downstairs, making lunch: lamb chops and mash, with pie for dessert. For months I’d hardly eaten; suddenly now I was ravenous. Perhaps it takes the death of a sibling to really give me an appetite.
From my room, I followed the scene: the police car; the doorbell; the voices; the scream. The sound of something in the hallway recess — the telephone table, at a guess — slamming against the wall as she fell, cradled between two officers, clutching the air with her outstretched hands, and then the smell of burning fat, probably the chops she left under the grill when she went to answer the door —
That was my cue. Time to log off. Time to face the music. I wondered whether I could get away with leaving in one of my iPod plugs. Ma’s so used to seeing me wearing them that she might not even have noticed; but the two officers were a different matter, of course, and the last thing I wanted at such a time was for someone to find me insensitive —
‘Oh, B.B., the most terrible thing—’
My mother’s a bit of a drama queen. Contorted face, eyes wide, mouth wider, she looked like a mask of Medusa. Holding out her arms to me as if to pull me under, fingers clawing at my back, wailing into my right ear — defenceless now without my iPod — and shedding tears of blue mascara down the collar of my shirt.
‘Ma, please.’ I hate mess.
The female officer (there’s always one) took over the business of comforting her. Her partner, an older man, looked at me with weary patience, and said:
‘Mr Winter, there’s been an accident.’
‘Nigel?’ I said.
‘I’m afraid so.’
I counted the seconds in my head, whilst mentally replaying Mark Knopfler’s guitar intro to ‘Brothers In Arms’. I knew I was under scrutiny; I couldn’t afford to get this wrong. But music makes things easier, reducing inappropriate emotional responses and allowing me to function, if not entirely normally, then at least as others expect of me.
‘I knew it, somehow,’ I said at last. ‘I had the weirdest feeling.’
He nodded, as if he knew what I meant. Ma continued to rant and rail. Overdoing it, Ma, I thought; it wasn’t as if they were especially close. Nigel was a ticking bomb; it had to happen sooner or later. And car accidents are so common these days, so tragically unavoidable. A patch of ice, a busy road; almost the perfect crime, you might say, almost above suspicion. I wondered if I ought to cry, but decided to keep it simple. So I sat down — rather shakily — and put my head in my hands. It hurt. I’ve always been prone to headaches, especially in moments of stress. Pretend it’s just fiction, blueeyedboy. An entry in your WeJay.
Once more I sought the comfort of my imaginary playlist, where the drums had just come in, ticking gentle counterpoint to a guitar riff that sounds almost lazily effortless. It isn’t effortless, of course. Nothing so precise ever is. But Knopfler has curiously spatulate, elongated fingers. Born for the instrument, you might almost say, destined from birth for that fretboard, those strings. If he had been born with different hands, would he have ever picked up a guitar? Or would he have tried it anyway, knowing he’d always be second-rate?
‘Was my son alone in the car?’
‘Ma’am?’ said the older officer.
‘Wasn’t there — a girl — with him?’ said Ma, with the special contempt she always reserves for any discussion of Nigel’s girl.
The officer shook his head. ‘No, ma’am.’
Ma dug her fingers into my arm. ‘He never used to be careless,’ she said. ‘My son was an excellent driver.’
Well, that just shows how little she knows. Nigel brought to his driving the same temperance and subtlety that he did to his relationships. I should know; I still have the marks. But now he’s dead, he’s a paragon. That hardly seems fair, does it now, after all I’ve done for her?
‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, Ma.’ Anything to get out of here. I made for the kitchen, only to find the officer obstructing my way.
‘I’m afraid we’re going to need you to come with us to the station, sir.’
My mouth was suddenly very dry. ‘The station?’ I said.
‘Formalities, sir.’
For a moment I saw myself under arrest, leaving the house in handcuffs. Ma in tears; the neighbours in shock; myself in an orange jumpsuit (really, not my colour); locked up in a room without windows. In fic I’d make a run for it: knock out the officer, steal his car and be over the border before the police could circulate my description. In life —
‘What kind of formalities?’
‘We’ll need you to ID the body, sir.’
‘Oh. That.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
Ma made me do it, of course. Waited outside while I put a name to what was left of Nigel. I tried to make it fictional, to see it all as a film set; but even so, I passed out. They took me home in an ambulance. Still, it was worth it. To have him dead; to be free of the bastard for ever —
All this is fic, you understand. I never murdered anyone. I know they tell you to write what you know, as if you could ever write what you know, as if knowing were the essential thing, when the most essential thing is desire. But wishing that my brother were dead is not the same as committing a crime. It’s not my fault if the universe follows my WebJournal. And so life goes on — for most of us — much the same as it ever did, and blueeyedboy sleeps the sleep of the just — if not quite that of the innocent.
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You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 18.04 on Monday, January 28
Status: restricted
Mood: blah
Listening to: Del Amitri: ‘Nothing Ever Happens’
That was just two days ago. Already we’re back to normal, apart from planning the funeral. Back to our comfort rituals, our little everyday routines. With Ma, it’s dusting the china dogs. With me, of course, it’s the Internet: my WeJay, my playlists, my murders.