Bobby has turned away from me, but even the silence is speaking to him.
“She ripped up the letters he wrote to you. I bet she even found the photographs you kept and destroyed them. She wanted Lenny out of her life and out of yours. She hated hearing his name…”
Bobby is growing smaller, as if collapsing from the inside. His anger has turned to grief.
“Let me guess what happened. She was going to be the first. You went looking for her and found her easily enough. Bridget had never been the shy, retiring type. Her stilettos made big footprints.
“You watched her and waited. You had it all planned… every last detail. Now was the moment. The woman who had destroyed your life was just a few feet away, close enough for you to put those fingers around her throat. She was right there, right there, but you hesitated. You couldn’t do it. You were twice her size. She had no weapon. You could have crushed her so easily.”
I pause letting the memory live in his mind. “Nothing happened. You couldn’t do it. Do you know why? You were scared. When you saw her again you became that little boy, with his trembling bottom lip and his stutter. She terrified you then, and she terrifies you now.”
Bobby’s face is twisted in self-loathing. At the same time he wants to wipe me from his world.
“Someone had to be punished. So you found your child protection files and the list of names. And you set about punishing all those responsible, by taking away what each of them loved most. But you never lost the fear of your mother. Once a coward, always a coward. What did you think when you discovered she was dying? Has her cancer done the job for you, or has it robbed you?”
“Robbed me.”
“She’s dying a terrible death. I’ve seen her.”
He explodes. “It’s not enough. She is a MONSTER!”
He kicks at a metal drum, sending it spinning across the courtyard. “She destroyed my life. She made me into this.”
Spittle hangs from his lips. He looks at me for validation. He wants me to say, “You poor bastard. It is all her fault. It’s no wonder you feel like this.” I can’t give him that. If I sanction his hatred there is no way back.
“I’m not going to give you any bullshit excuses, Bobby. Terrible things happened to you. I wish it could have been different. But look at the world around you— there are children starving in Africa; jets are being flown into buildings; bombs are being dropped on civilians; people are dying of disease; prisoners are being tortured; women are being raped… Some of these things we can change, but others we can’t. Sometimes we just have to accept what happened and get on with our lives.”
He laughs bitterly. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true. You know it is.”
“I’ll tell you what’s true.” He is staring at me, unblinkingly. His voice is a low rumble. “There is a lay-by on the coast road through Great Crosby— about eight miles north of Liverpool. It’s on the dual carriageway, set back from the road. If you drive in there after ten o’clock at night, you will sometimes see another car parked up. You put on your indicator— either left or right, depending on what you want— and you wait for the car in front to respond with the same indicator. Then you follow it.”
His voice is ragged. “I was six when she first took me to the lay-by. I just watched the first time. It was in a barn somewhere. She was laid out on a table like a smorgasbord. Naked. There were dozens of hands on her. Anyone could do what they wanted. She had enough for all of them. Pain. Pleasure. It was all the same to her. And every time she opened her eyes she looked directly at me. ‘Don’t be selfish, Bobby,’ she said. ‘Learn to share.’ ”
He rocks slightly, back and forth, staring straight ahead, picturing the scene in his mind. “Private clubs and swingers bars were too middle class for my mother. She preferred her orgies to be anonymous and unsophisticated. I lost count of how many people shared her body. Women and men. That’s how I learned to share. At first they took from me, but later I took from them. Pain and pleasure— my mother’s legacy.”
His eyes are brimming with tears. I don’t know what to say. My tongue has grown thick and prickly. My peripheral vision has started to fail because I can’t get enough oxygen to my brain.
I want to say something. I want to tell him that he isn’t alone. That a lot of people fret through the same dreams, yell into the same emptiness and walk past the same open windows and wonder whether to jump. I know he’s lost. He’s damaged. But he still has choices. Not every abused child turns out like this.
“Let me down, Bobby. I can’t breathe properly.”
I can see the back of his square neck and his badly trimmed hair. He turns in slow motion, never looking at my face. The blade sweeps above my head and I collapse forward, still clutching the remnants of the scarf. The muscles in my legs go into spasm. I taste concrete dust, mingled with blood. There are more loose planks leaning against one wall and industrial sinks against another. Where is the canal from here? I have to get out.
Lifting myself onto my knees, I start crawling. Bobby has disappeared. Metal shavings dig into my hands. Broken concrete and rusting drums are like an obstacle course. As I reach the entrance I can see a fire engine beside the canal and the flashing lights of a police car. I try to shout but no sound emerges.
Something is wrong. I’ve stopped moving. I turn to see Bobby standing on my coat.
“Your fucking arrogance blows me away,” he says, grasping my collar and lifting me to my feet. “You think I’d fall for your cereal-box psychology. I’ve seen more therapists, counselors and psychiatrists than you’ve had crappy birthday presents. I’ve been to Freudians, Jungians, Adlerians, Rogerians— you name it— and I wouldn’t give any of them the steam off my piss on a cold day.”
He puts his face close to mine once more. “You don’t know me. You think you’re inside my head. Shit! You’re not even close!” He places the blade under my ear. We’re breathing the same air.
A flick of his wrist and my throat will open like a dropped melon. That’s what he’s going to do. I can feel the metal against my neck. He is going to end this now.
At that moment I picture Julianne looking at me across her pillow, with her hair mussed up from sleep. And I see Charlie in her pajamas smelling of shampoo and toothpaste. I wonder if it’s possible to count the freckles on her nose. Wouldn’t it be a terrible thing to die without trying?
Bobby’s breath is warm on my neck— the blade is cold. His tongue comes out, wetting his lips. There is a moment of hesitation— I don’t know why.
“I guess we both underestimated each other,” I say, inching my hand inside my coat pocket. “I knew you wouldn’t let me go. Your kind of vengeance isn’t negotiable. You’ve invested too much in it. It’s the reason you get up in the morning. That’s why I had to get off that wall.”
He wavers, trying to work out what he hasn’t prepared for. My fingers close around the handle of the chisel.
“I have a disease, Bobby. Sometimes I have difficulty walking. My right hand is OK, but see how my left arm trembles.” I hold up the limb that no longer feels as if it belongs to me. It draws his gaze like a birthmark on someone’s face or a disfiguring burn.
With my right hand I drive the chisel through my coat into Bobby’s abdomen. It strikes his pelvic bone and twists, puncturing the transverse colon. Three years at medical school are never wasted.
Still holding my collar, he falls to his knees. I swing around and hit him as hard as I can with my fist, aiming for his jaw. He puts his arm up, but I still manage to connect with the side of his head, throwing him backward. Everything has slowed down. Bobby tries to stand but I move forward a pace and catch him under the chin with a clumsy but effective kick that snaps his head back.