The moving finger writes, and, having writ —
But that’s not strictly true, is it? To wish for the death of an enemy, however well-crafted the fantasy, is not the same as taking a life. Perhaps this is my real gift — not the synaesthesia that has caused me so much misery, but this — the power to unleash disaster on those who have offended me —
Have you guessed what I want of you yet, Albertine? It really is very simple, you know. As I said, you’ve done it before. The line between the word and the deed is all about execution.
Execute. Interesting word, with its spiky wintergreen syllables. But the cute makes it strangely appealing; sentence to be carried out, not by a man in a black hood, but by an army of puppies . . .
You mean you really haven’t guessed what you’re going to do for me? Oh, Albertine. Shall I tell you? After everything you’ve done so far, after all we’ve been through together — Pick a card, any card —
You’re going to kill my mother.
Part Six
green
1
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on:
Posted at: 01.39 on Friday, February 22
Status: public
Mood: nasty
Listening to: Gloria Gaynor: ‘I Will Survive’
She has changed her name a number of times, but folk still call her Gloria Green. Names are like tags on a suitcase, she thinks, or maps to show people where you’ve been, and where you think you’re going. She has never been anywhere. Just round and round this neighbourhood, like a dog chasing its tail, running blindly back to herself to start the whole charade again.
But names are such portentous things. Words have so much power. The way they roll like sweets in the mouth; the hidden meanings inside each one. She has always been good at crosswords, at acronyms and wordplay. It’s a talent she has passed on to her sons, though only one of them knows it. And she has an immense respect for books; although she never reads fiction, preferring to leave that kind of thing to her middle son, who, despite his stammer, is brighter than she’ll ever be — too bright, perhaps, for his own good.
His own name, in Anglo-Saxon, means The Flaming One — and though she is terribly proud of him, she also knows he’s dangerous. There’s something inside him that doesn’t respond; that refuses to see the world as it is. Mrs Brannigan, the schoolteacher at Abbey Road, says he will grow out of it, and tacitly implies that if Gloria attended church on Sundays, then maybe her son would be less troublesome. But as far as blueeyedboy’s Ma is concerned, Mrs Brannigan is full of shit. The last thing blueeyedboy needs, she thinks, is another helping of fantasy.
She suddenly wonders what things would have been like if Peter Winter hadn’t died. Would it have made a difference for blueeyedboy and his brothers to have had some fatherly influence in their unruly lives? All those football matches they missed, the games of cricket in the park, the Airfix models, the toy trains, the fry-ups in the mornings?
But there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Peter was a parasite, a fat and lazy freeloader good for nothing but spending Gloria’s money. The best he could do was die on her, and even then, he’d needed some help. But no one walks out on Gloria Green; and surprisingly, the insurance paid up; and it turned out so easy, after all — just a pinch on a tube between finger and thumb as Peter lay in hospital —
She wonders now if that was a mistake. Blueeyedboy needed a father. Someone to sort him out. To teach him a sense of discipline. But Peter couldn’t have coped with three boys, let alone such a gifted one. His successor, Mr Blue Eyes, was never even an option. And Patrick White — who, in all ways but one, would have made the perfect father — was, sadly, already spoken for; a gentle, artistic soul whose offence was a lapse of judgement.
Guilt made Patrick vulnerable. Blackmail made him generous. Through a judicious combination of both, he proved a good source of income for years. He found Ma a job; he helped them out; and Gloria never blamed him when, in the end, he let her go. No, she blamed his wife for that, with her candles and her china dolls, and when at last she saw her chance to serve Mrs White a backhanded turn, she told her the secret she’d kept for so long; setting in motion a chain of events that resulted in murder and suicide.
Butin spite of his parentage, blueeyedboy is different. Perhaps because he feels things more. Perhaps that’s why he daydreams so much. God knows, she has tried to protect him. To convince the world he is too dull to hurt. But blueeyedboy seeks out suffering like a pig rooting for truffles, and it’s all she can do to keep up with him, to correct his mistakes and clean up his mess.
She remembers a day at the seaside once, when all her boys were very young. Nigel is off somewhere on his own. Benjamin is four years old and blueeyedboy nearly seven. Both are eating ice cream, and blueeyedboy says that his doesn’t taste right, as if just watching his brother eat is enough to diminish the flavour.
Blueeyedboy is sensitive. She knows this only too well by now. A slap on another boy’s wrist makes him flinch; a crab in a bucket makes him cry. It’s like some kind of voodoo; and it brings out at the same time both her cruel and her compassionate side. How is he going to manage, she thinks, if he can’t cope with reality?
You have to remember it’s only pretend, she snaps, more harshly than she means to. He stares at her from round blue eyes as she holds his brother in her arms. At her feet the blue bucket is already beginning to stink.
‘Don’t play with that. It’s nasty,’ she says.
But blueeyedboy simply looks at her, wiping ice cream from his mouth. He knows dead things are nasty, but he still can’t seem to look away. She feels a stab of annoyance. He collected the damn things. What does he want her to do with them now?
‘You shouldn’t have caught those animals if you didn’t want them to die. Now you’ve upset your brother.’
In fact, little Ben is completely absorbed in finishing his ice cream, which makes her even more annoyed (although she knows it’s irrational), because he should have been the susceptible one — after all, he is the youngest. Blueeyedboy ought to be looking out for him instead of making a fuss, she thinks.
But blueeyedboy is a special case, pathologically sensitive; and in spite of her efforts to toughen him up, to teach him to look after himself, it never seems to work, somehow, and she always ends up looking after him.
Maureen thinks he is playing games. Typical middle child, she says in her supercilious tone. Jealous, sullen, attention-seeking. Even Eleanor thinks so; though Catherine White believes there’s more to him. Catherine likes to encourage him; which is why Gloria has stopped bringing blueeyedboy to work, substituting Benjamin, who plays so nicely with his toys and never seems to get in the way —