Sara’s Face

by Melvin Burgess

  She was bleeding again but this time made no noise as she walked almost majestically out of the door, which seemed to bulge and then melt back into shape as she passed through it. Sara had to press herself into the wall to give her space to pass, but, even so, the figure brushed against her as it went. In front of the second door, which they had closed to stifle their noise, the monster stopped and waited, as if it couldn’t pass. Sara glanced into her face, and saw the gory terror – the arched teeth with no lips, the bleeding bone all bare of flesh except for two wide, clear eyes that returned her look with a curious gaze.

  Sara groaned and retched. She pressed herself to the wall, closed her eyes and turned her face away, gesturing Mark to look. Mark glanced over his shoulder but he saw nothing. He touched her lightly on the arm. Sara looked up. The ghost was still there, waiting patiently for God knows what.

  ‘Open the door for her,’ groaned Sara, and watched in horror as Mark leaned right through the tormented figure and turned the handle. At once, the girl carried on her way. Sara ran out after her, but within two steps the apparition had disappeared. Only a faint smell of blood and antiseptic on the air remained.

  Sara stopped, feeling helpless and useless before such pain. She turned to look at Mark, standing behind watching her, and began to weep.

  Mark took her in his arms. ‘Now we go,’ he said.

  She shook her head.

  ‘I opened it, didn’t I?’ demanded Mark furiously.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ she replied.

  Mark turned to examine the second door.

  ‘There’s no way in,’ he said.

  Sara said nothing, but stared over his shoulder at the plain metal surface. Faintly, behind it, the screaming was beginning again. And this time, very faintly indeed, Mark could hear it, too.

  Later, back in her room, as she shook with sobs, her tears fell onto his bare arm and made him start. They were as cold as ice. And on her sleeve, where the apparition had brushed past her, there was dried blood.

  Sara remained stubborn; nothing Mark could say would convince her to leave before she knew what was hidden behind the second door. The operation was then two weeks away.

  Mark has been criticised for not acting sooner, and by no one more fiercely than himself, but he did everything he could to get her away. It was obvious to anyone that she was in no condition for surgery, even to herself much of the time, and he was prepared in the end to do anything to get her to leave – even to kidnap her if need be. But events overtook him.

  We all know the ending to Sara’s story, or we think we do. It has been told often enough, in newspapers and magazines, on TV and radio, in court, on stage, in bars and pubs and in our own homes. What happened is one thing; why it happened, how it happened is another. The usual view – certainly the view of the courts – is that Sara was either forced or fooled, perhaps both. There is another view, however – that she was complicit in her own fate – that she made a deliberate sacrifice for the sake of her own ambition. Unthinkable though it may seem, it is something that we do know she at least considered at one point during the following week, as is shown in this, the final entry in her video diary over this period.

  Sara – 30 June 2005

  (Sara is kneeling on her bed, looking into the camera, which is evidently balanced on a shelf. She seems to be looking into the screen, which she must have turned outwards so that she can watch her face as she speaks.)

  I wouldn’t mind, you know.

  (She turns her face this way and that, examining it.)

  What’s in a name, what’s in a face? It’s just how you look. It’d be like me up there, then. All those people looking at me and adoring me and copying me and wanting to be me. It’d be like being two people. Well, not really, but that’s not the point. It’s not who you are, it’s what people think you are. It’s not what you do, it’s what people do to you. Can you imagine the thoughts they’d have thinking about Sara Carter? Or what they’d feel?

  (She smiles.)

  I’d have done it, then. I’d be something else. My story would go right around the world. The girl who became Jonathon Heat. The girl who gave away her beauty. It’s like a fairy story. They’d be telling it to children in their cradles a hundred years from now. Everyone would know who I am. Everyone! Except me, perhaps.

  (She touches her scar.)

  It’d be good if he kept that, though.

  (Pause, while she looks at herself.)

  What would it be like, do you think, to be able to put on a different one from time to time, or to try out another appearance like you take clothes on and off? It might be fun. Your face is yourself. If you change your face, do you change yourself, too? I think you do. I think you become someone else. Because, you know what? I wouldn’t mind changing that, either.

  (Pause.)

  But I won’t let him.

  (She reaches out and turns the camera off.)

  The Return of Bernadette

  Overseas in Jamaica, as she released large sums of money to various charities and good causes with which she had little or no contact, Bernadette was feeling increasingly anxious about what was going on back at home. She was supposed to be caring for the girl afterwards – surely she should be there for the operation itself? Why was she being kept out of the way? Just to countersign a cheque once every few weeks?

  It troubled her that Jonathon obviously regarded her as so easily put to one side when he wanted her gone. She had been away now for nearly two months and for a while had been successful in putting it out of her mind. But now, as the operation approached, it had begun to trouble her again. Bernadette is a person who does not like to make a fuss, but she is also a woman of conscience, and her conscience had started to bother her a great deal.

  After I’d finished my interview with Bernadette in Bristol, the minister shook me by the hand and said this of her: ‘She has the most extraordinary instincts; she always knows exactly what’s going on. But she never believes it until after it’s all happened.’

  Bernadette flapped her hand at him and laughed the suggestion away, but I think he may have got it right. Either way, on the evening of 29 June, or thereabouts, she’s not quite sure, she phoned Sara on her mobile, something she hadn’t done for several weeks, and asked her a question.

  ‘Have you seen any more of that ghost?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Once or twice,’ replied Sara. But Bernadette knew at once from something in her voice that the girl was frightened. There and then, she decided she was going home.

  She didn’t tell Jonathon that she was coming home early – he would certainly have ordered her not to. He had kept her away from the house whenever there was any surgery going on there, claiming that he couldn’t bear the chilly atmosphere that existed whenever she had to work with Dr Kaye. Bernadette tended for years to believe whatever nonsense Heat cared to tell her, but even she had come to the conclusion that he kept her away so that he could go mad on his own without her interference. Maybe that was his business, maybe not, but now someone else was involved, a young girl who needed someone to keep an eye out for her in the absence of her parents. Bernadette couldn’t see anyone except her who would do the job, so, reluctantly and very late in the day, she took it on for herself.

  ‘I was too late of course,’ she said. ‘And that’s no one else’s fault but mine.’ Nothing anyone there could say could convince her otherwise.

  Bernadette didn’t bother going home to Manchester, but went straight to her flat at Home Manor Farm.

  Of course, once she was in the house, Heat was on to her in a moment. She was in the bath when the phone rang.

  ‘Bernadette,’ he said softly. ‘To what do we owe this pleasure?’

  She knew she was in trouble when he called her Bernadette. She was Bernie normally.

  ‘I have a week before the next time they need me. I thought I’d come home and see how things were,’ she told him.

  ‘It’s not a very convenient time,’ said Heat.
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  Bernadette took a deep breath and came straight to the point. ‘It’s Sara, she’s scaring me.’

  There was a silence, into which Bernadette felt compelled to speak.

  ‘This surgery, Jonathon. She’s so young.’

  Heat sighed irritably. ‘She has that scar, it’s only natural she wants it. Exactly because she’s young and beautiful.’

  ‘She’s beautiful enough.’

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ said Heat, ‘as too much beauty.’

  ‘… and you’re letting that old butcher on her, I can’t believe it,’ burst out Bernadette. ‘Mr Heat, if you have to do this, take her to a proper clinic,’ she pleaded. What was the point of beating about the bush? She’d already shown her cards.

  ‘We’ve been through this before,’ said Heat coldly. ‘It’s none of your business. You should have stayed away.’

  ‘I’m a trained nurse.’

  ‘In this house,’ pointed out Jonathon, ‘you’re a charity case.’ At that point, she knew exactly how furious he was.

  Lying in the bath, Bernadette listened to her employer’s breath coming down the phone. He was waiting for her apology. All her instincts were to give it to him, and then to catch the next plane back to where she had come from. But although she so much loathed a fuss, her conscience in the end – at last! – was stronger.

  ‘Mr Heat,’ she said quietly, ‘Dr Kaye has not got his full share of human kindness. And you, Jonathon, you’re a sick man. Between you, you could do that girl a great deal of harm. You’re a bad combination. Sara deserves better.’

  She heard Heat catch his breath. It had been a long time since she had spoken to him like that.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Heat,’ she said, ‘but that’s the way I feel.’

  At that point, Bernadette was expecting to be sacked and to be told to leave the house. But Heat seemed at a loss.

  ‘I see. I see,’ he stammered. After so many years of everyone doing as he told them, her words had taken his breath clean away.

  ‘I’ll have to report my concerns to Dr Kaye, of course,’ she said quickly. ‘And,’ she added, ‘to any other appropriate authority.’

  There was a cold silence. Bernadette had really done it now. If there was one thing Heat could not abide, it was members of his personal staff taking information outside the house.

  ‘I don’t need to remind you that you signed a confidentiality clause in your contract before you came to work for me, Bernadette,’ he said coldly.

  ‘I’m not talking about the magazines, Mr Heat. I’m talking about professional bodies.’

  ‘It makes no difference to me who it is,’ said Heat. ‘Just so long as you don’t. I’ll speak to you later,’ he said, and put down the phone, unable to continue speaking to her.

  Bernadette jumped out of the bath, pulled on some clean clothes without even bothering to dry herself, and ran up to see if Sara was ill.

  She found Sara in her room, wearing her Heat mask and watching TV. On a table near the window was a little iced cake, which Jonathon had sent up with her breakfast. He was concerned that she wasn’t eating enough – she was still losing weight despite the best efforts of her dietician, and he was forever tempting her with bits and pieces.

  As soon as she saw who it was., Sara flew off the bed to hug her.

  ‘Bernie! Oh, I wasn’t expecting you back. Have you finished in Jamaica already? It’s lovely to see you.’

  Bernadette was touched. She’d forgotten how fond she’d become of Sara in such a short time. She hugged her back and lifted up the mask so she could kiss her. Sara accepted the kiss but pulled the mask quickly back down – a bad sign as far as Bernie was concerned, but she said nothing about it. They sat on the bed and caught up with their gossip. When questioned further about the apparitions, she skirted round the question without really saying anything. She had a little fridge in her room and she made Bernie tea and cut her a slice of cake. She had a little herself, tucking little finger-bites in under her mask.

  ‘Take it off, let me see who I’m talking to,’ Bernie chided her, but Sara shook her head.

  ‘You haven’t had another accident, have you?’

  ‘No!’ insisted Sara indignantly. Quickly, she lifted the mask so that Berme could see, before slipping it back down.

  ‘A pretty girl like you,’ said Bernadette.

  ‘Flatterer,’ Sara scolded. ‘I just feel comfortable with it,’ she added. She’d been making up the mask before Bernie came, a pretty face with soft colours. The makeup bag was still on the table. Now she began idly to make up the icing on the cake.

  ‘You’ll ruin it,’ snapped Bernadette. Sara looked at her in surprise; Bernie bit her tongue. She was anxious. It was making her nag – an old fault.

  She got up and stood behind Sara, watching her draw, an ugly face this time, on the iced surface of the cake. Then she bent down and whispered in her ear.

  ‘You’re not going to go through with this operation, you silly girl, are you? Tell me you’re not. I’m going out of my mind worrying.’

  Sara turned her face round to her again and murmured, ‘Careful, Bernie – the cake might be bugged.’

  ‘I’m being serious.’

  ‘So am I. Sorry, Bernie,’ she added quickly, seeing that she was upset. She gestured to the older woman to bend closer and whispered right into her ear.

  ‘I won’t even be here,’ she said.

  Bernie looked at her, trying to work out whether or not to believe her. She thought not, but, anyway, decided to take it at face value.

  ‘Thank God!’ she exclaimed in a loud voice, which made Sara frown. Bernadette bent down again and whispered, ‘When are you going? Do you want me to come with you?’

  Sara touched the side of her nose. ‘Is berra you don’t know,’ she said, in a heavy, mock-Japanese accent. She glanced sideways at Bernie. ‘What if I’m being kept prisoner here?’

  ‘Oh, Sara, just stop it!’ exclaimed Bernadette. It was all proving too much for her. She was jet-lagged after her flight – she’d come straight from the airport to the house and she’d had no chance to catch up on her sleep yet – and upset after her confrontation with Jonathon. Now Sara, whom she’d come all this way to see, was playing games with her. She couldn’t help it: tears sprang up in her eyes.

  Sara stared at her in surprise. She jumped up, pushed up her mask, embraced her and gave her a big kiss, right on the lips.

  ‘Real lips for you, Bernie,’ she whispered as she had once done before. ‘Don’t worry. It’s sorted.’

  The two of them stood face to face for a moment, then Sara took a step back, lifted the mask right off and turned her face to one side to show the mark the iron had left on her.

  ‘Do you think I could be pretty again?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re pretty now!’

  ‘Oh yes – really, Bernie, that’s not serious. But, actually, I don’t mind about not being pretty. Maybe I should keep the scar. Do you think a boy would still want me like this? Or would he just pretend?’

  ‘Only a silly boy would need to pretend.’

  ‘Yes, but boys are silly, aren’t they?’

  ‘You won’t get a silly boy, sweetheart,’ said Bernadette, wiping away her tears. ‘You’ll get a lovely boy, a sensible boy. As for the scar, who cares? But if you do care,’ she went on quickly, thinking that Sara really did, ‘you can get it fixed. But not by Dr Ghoul.’ She fixed Sara with an eye, put on her stern face and wagged a finger. ‘Clear? Is it a deal? OK?’ she said.

  Sara laughed and slipped the mask back into position. ‘Deal. Clear. OK,’ she affirmed. She patted Bernie affectionately, like a dog. ‘It’s so good you’re back,’ she said. ‘So, so good. I missed you. You’re about the only person I can talk to round here.’

  They embraced. Bernie felt a little better. Sara left her and walked over to her dressing table, where she wiped her mask clean of make-up and began to apply another face, while Bernie watched with distaste.

  Sara l
oved decorating the masks; she spent hours at it. She had a big collection of permanent masks that she’d done in all sorts of designs, sometimes using glitter and delicate curling lines, sometimes jags and bruises and eye patches that turned the masks into pirates, victims of violence or characters from a manga mag. But she liked putting make-up on the plain ones, too.

  ‘Let me have my fun,’ said Sara.

  ‘Some fun,’ said Bernie. A thought occurred to her.

  ‘You haven’t told Jonathon you’re not going through with it yet, have you?’

  Sara paused; Bernie caught a look of alarm. But there was no way she could avoid the truth. ‘Not yet,’ she said. There was a slight shrug. She turned away and looked back in the mirror. ‘I’m going to tell him tomorrow,’ she said.

  Bernie frowned. ‘Well, that’s not very fair to him, is it? After everything he’s done.’

  Sara turned to look at her. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why’s it not fair?’

  Bernadette paused. She wasn’t actually sure why it wasn’t fair. ‘He’s paying for it, he’s setting it all up. Heavens, girl,’ exclaimed Bernadette. ‘The operation is in two weeks. Don’t you think you ought to let them know?’

  Sara pulled a face. Delighted though she was to see her, Bernadette was proving a problem. By chance, she and Mark had chosen to find out what was behind the second door that very night. Under her bed, her bag was already packed. It was all planned. They were going to go over the wire – she didn’t believe for a moment that Heat would just let them go. And now Bernadette had come back, making this big fuss about the operation. She could blow the whole thing.

  She turned back to her mirror with a shrug as if she didn’t care. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I will tell him. Just – not quite yet.’