‘Bren?’ I called. ‘I didn’t mean—’
And then he was running away through the trees, a flash of blue parka against the green. I heard him slip on the dead leaves, sprint across the gravel path, vault over the garden wall and jump down into the alleyway. My heart was pounding furiously. I was shaking with adrenalin. Relief and bitterness warred in me. I hadn’t crossed the line, after all. I was not a murderer. Or could it be that the fateful line was not the act, but the intent?
Of course, that’s academic now. I’ve shown my hand. The game is on. Like it or not, if he gets the chance, he will try to kill me.
9
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 00.07 on Wednesday, February 20
Status: restricted
Mood: hurt
Listening to: Pink Floyd: ‘Run Like Hell’
Bitch. You got me. Right on the wrist — I’m lucky it isn’t broken. If you’d hit me in the head — as you undoubtedly meant to — it would have been goodnight, sweet prince, or pick the cliché of your choice.
I have to say I’m a little surprised. I didn’t mean any harm, you know. I was only taking photographs. I certainly hadn’t expected you to react quite so aggressively. Fortunately I know that garden very well. I know how to move between the beds, and where to watch unnoticed. I knew how to make my escape, too — as I had so many times before — over the wall into the street, with my hurt wrist pressed hard against my stomach and tears of pain half-blinding me, so that everything seemed garlanded with dirty-orange rainbows.
I ran home, trying to tell myself that I wasn’t running home to Ma, and got back just as she was finishing up in the kitchen.
‘How was class?’ she called through the door.
‘Fine, Ma,’ I told her, hoping to get upstairs before she saw me. Mud on my trainers; mud on my jeans; my wrist beginning to swell and throb — that’s why I’m still typing with one hand — and my face a map of where I’d been; of places Ma had warned me against —
‘Did you talk to Terri?’ she said. ‘I’m sure she’s upset about Eleanor.’
Surprisingly, Ma has taken it well. Far better than I had expected. Spent most of today looking at hats and choosing hymns for the funeral. Ma enjoys her funerals, of course. She relishes the drama. The trembling hand; the tearful smile; the handkerchief pressed to the lipsticked mouth. Tottering by with Adèle and Maureen, each supporting an elbow:
Gloria’s such a survivor.
She stopped me halfway up the stairs. Looking down I could see the top of her head; the parting in her black hair that over time has grown from a narrow path into a four-lane motorway. Ma dyes her hair, of course; it’s one of the things I’m not supposed to know about, like the Tena pads in the bathroom, and what happened to my father. But I’m not allowed to have secrets from her, and she levelled the force of her scrutiny on to my guilty profile as I stood like a deer in the headlights, waiting for the hammer to fall.
But when she spoke, I found that Ma still sounded surprisingly cheery. ‘Why don’t you have a nice bath?’ she said. ‘Your dinner’s in the oven. There’s some of that chilli chicken you like, and some home-made lemon pie.’ No mention of the mud on the stairs, or even the fact that I was half an hour late.
Sometimes that’s the worst part. I can live with her when she’s evil. It’s when she’s normal that it hurts, because that’s when the guilt comes creeping back, bringing the headache, the sickness. It’s when she’s normal that I can feel the bulbs of arthritis in her hands and the way her back aches when she stands up, and that’s when I remember what it was like in the old days, before my brother was born, in the days when I was her blueeyeedboy —
‘I’m not really hungry right now, Ma.’
I expected her to react to that. But this time Ma just smiled and said: ‘All right, B.B., you get some rest,’ and went back into the kitchen. I was surprised (and oddly disturbed) to be let off the hook so easily; but still, it’s good to be back in my room, with a glass of wine and a sandwich, and an ice-pack on my injured hand.
The first thing I did was log on. Badguysrock was deserted, although my inbox was filled with messages, mostly from Clair and Chryssie. Nothing from Albertine. Oh, well. Perhaps she is feeling shaken. It isn’t easy to face the fact that you’re capable of murder. But she was always so keen to believe in absolutes. In actual fact the line between good and evil is so blurred as to be almost indistinguishable; and it’s only long after you’ve crossed it that you become aware that it even existed at all.
Albertine, oh Albertine. I feel very close to you today. Through the throbbing of my wrist, I can feel the beat of your heart. I wish you all the best, you know. I hope you find what you’re looking for. And when it’s over, I hope you can find a little place in your heart for me, for blueeyedboy, who understands far more than you imagine —
10
You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.
Posted at: 23.32 on Wednesday, February 20S
tatus: restricted
Mood: impatient
Not a word from blueeyedboy. Not that I expected one — not so soon, anyway. I’m guessing he’ll lie low for a while, like an animal driven to earth. I’m guessing three days before he comes out. The first, to check out the area. The second, to establish a plan of action. The third, to finally make his move. Which is why I made my move today — emptying my bank account, setting my things in order, packing away my belongings in preparation for the inevitable.
Don’t think this is going to be easy for me. These things are never straightforward. Even less so for him, of course; but his methods are chosen to fool his uniquely cross-wired brain into thinking his actions are not his fault, while the victim walks straight into the trap carefully laid out for them.
What will it be, I wonder? Having now made my intentions so clear, I cannot expect him to make an exception in my case. He’ll try to kill me. He has no choice. And his feelings for me — such as they are — are founded on guilt and nostalgia. I’ve always known what I was to him. A shade; a ghost; a reflection. A substitute for Emily. I knew that, and I didn’t care; that was how much he meant to me.
But people are lines of dominoes: one falls, then all the others follow. Emily and Catherine; Daddy, Dr Peacock and me. Nigel and Bren and Benjamin. Where it begins is seldom clear; we own only part of our personal story.
It doesn’t seem fair, does it? We all imagine our lives as a story in which we ourselves take centre stage. But what about the extras? What about the substitutes? For every leading role there exist a multitude of expendables, hanging around in the background, never in the spotlight, never speaking a line of dialogue, sometimes not even making the final edit, ending their lives as a single frame on the cutting-room floor. Who cares when an extra bites the dust? Who owns the story of their life?
For me it begins at St Oswald’s. I can’t have been more than seven years old, but I do remember what happened in remarkably vivid detail. Every year my mother and I would go to the Christmas concert in the chapel at St Oswald’s at the end of the long winter term. I liked the music, the carols, the hymns, and the organ like a hydra with its shining tongues of brass. She liked the solemnity of the Masters in their black gowns, and the sweetness of the choristers with their angel smocks and candles.