* * * *
7:47 p.m.
His words come out slow and staggered. I’ll summarize.
Started about a year ago when James began to feel he was being followed every time he walked home. Never spotted anyone, but just had the sense someone was watching him. Heard footsteps but couldn’t swear they weren’t echoes of his own.
And then he felt he was being followed whenever he left the house, too.
He started taking the car.
A vehicle always followed him. Not always the same vehicle, though. So it was sometimes hard to spot.
I wanted to ask him if he had surveillance cameras under his fingernails, and transmitters implanted in his brain.
I held my tongue.
He carried on. Told me how he was being watched all the time now. His stalker was close. Maybe watching him now. Him and me.
I say, “But if this is true, why does injuring yourself help?”
A textbook case of paranoia.
“Because of what I’ve done,” he says.
Do I want to know?
“If you tell me,” I say, “will you have to kill me afterwards?”
* * * *
7:50 p.m.
“My uncle came back,” he says.
He has an uncle?
“I thought you had no family,” I say.
He says, “He’s not really an uncle. He. went out with my mum for a while.”
“Came back from where?” I ask.
“Disappeared a long time ago,” he says. “Went off to Brazil. Never heard from him again. You assume the worst after a while.”
“So you thought he was dead?”
He nods.
“And he’s not?”
He nods again.
“And you stabbed yourself in the hand because of that?”
“No, no,” he says. “It’s a lot more complicated.”
I expected so. I look at my watch.
“Maybe you better keep it simple,” I say. “According to your uncle, you only have ten minutes to live.”
A cheap shot, I know.
So I’m a bitch. What can you expect from a whore?
* * * *
7:51 p.m.
“It wasn’t him,” James says. “I’d have recognized his voice.”
“But you do think he’s behind it?”
“Yes,” he says. “No question. He’s made my life hell since he’s been back.”
He flexes his fingers, a pained expression scrawled across his face.
“He must have hired somebody to make the call,” he says.
“And why would he do that?”
“To scare me,” he says.
“You think the threat’s serious?”
“Definitely.”
“James,” I say. “What did you do to him?”
* * * *
7:52 p.m.
He tells me.
“It’s not that bad. Not the sort of thing you’d kill somebody for.
Listen:
“I torched his car.”
See?
“His dog was in it.”
Oh.
“But I didn’t know that.”
Still.
“And he said he’d have to leave the country or he’d kill me.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because of the dog.”
“No,” I say. “Why did you torch his car?”
“Because,” he says, and swallows. “He raped my mum.”
* * * *
7:53 p.m.
There’s not much more to it.
Uncle goes out with Mum. Mum calls it off after a few weeks. Uncle returns and rapes mum. She won’t go to the police, and who can blame her, the way we’re all made to feel like it’s our fucking fault.What were you wearing? As if that makes any fucking difference. Anyway, James torches dog and car. Uncle leaves country. Uncle returns several years later. Uncle’s still angry.
But there’s no way he’s still going to be murderously angry. Not after all that time.
I say, “He’s messing with you.”
James says, “No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Cause I know him. I know what he’s capable of.”
“Well,” I say, and I can’t think of anything to add, so I say, “well,” again and leave it at that. There’s only one way to prove to James that it’s all a hoax and that’s to sit it out with him. I owe him that.
After all, he’s paying for my time.
“I like dogs,” James says. “Honest.”
“I believe you,” I say.
* * * *
7:54 p.m.
Back in the sitting room, James keeps glancing towards the door.
He’s shaking all over, poor soul.
No, I do feel sorry for him. I do.
He did something he shouldn’t have. But he did it out of love. The dog was an accident.
But when I think about it, I can’t imagine a dog not barking. They’re territorial. A stranger approaches the car, close enough to set it alight, the dog would let him know it was there.
Wouldn’t it?
James is lying.
But why?
Is he lying about the whole event? Or is he just lying about the dog?
* * * *
7:55 p.m.
“You did it deliberately, right?”
“What?”
He knows what I mean.
I stare at him till he looks away.
He doesn’t deny it.
But I have to say it: “You killed the dog.”
He says, quietly, “It was an accident.”
“So why do you cut yourself? What evil is it you’re letting out?”
He makes that face again.
“Jesus,” I say. “How long ago was this?”
“I was seventeen.”
“Then it’s about time you forgave yourself,” I tell him.
“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t, Tina.”
“Well,” I say. “I don’t blame you, really.”
“You don’t?”
He starts to cry. Before long these horrible wracking sobs are jerking his shoulders up and down.
I put my arms round him, let him rest his head against my neck. His tears drip onto my neck, but what the fuck. I’m used to that.
“Thank you,” he squeezes out between sobs.
“Shhh,” I say, like he’s a baby.
* * * *
7:56 p.m.