by Tom Pollock
Facial expressions, I think.
The spy in the car, Seamus, Dominic Rigby, even Tanya Berkeley in the girls’ bathroom three years ago; I remember the terror on their faces when they looked me in the eye, even though it was me who was beyond scared and fighting for control.
Staring me in the face. Panicking when I panicked.
I remember Seamus’s voice as I knelt in the mud behind our school: If you even think about turning to face me, I will blow your head clean off your shoulders and all the way to Ballymena. Clear?
Is that why you didn’t want me to turn, Seamus? Because if you looked me in the eye, my fear would become yours?
His expression was such a perfect mirror to my own, an instant before my sister’s bullet exploded his skull.
In front of me, here and now, Ingrid’s face is wretched with pity. She desperately wants to stop reading.
She’s a good friend; she doesn’t.
“‘. . . Obviously, RW and WR’s relationship must be handled carefully. It would be all too easy for RW’s fury to scare WR off. On the other hand, if they can be close—and the closer the better, friends is too contingent, family is better—WR could find RW’s assertiveness attractive, seeing RW as a protector, creating a dependence and an incentive for WR to stay close to RW to fulfill its role.’”
My role. I am a cog in the machinery of my sister.
“‘As for the generation of the fear itself, once I’ve isolated the circuit in the brain that produces the fear, it should be as simple as building in a loop. WR will find its own fear terrifying, looping back on and refining itself, like a centrifuge. This is just a beginning—a subject capable of spreading unreasoning panic in a population has its own military applications, potentially huge ones. Memo: Examine further at the office. Meantime, this will require continuous observation in a variety of contexts. We’re all working without a net here—’”
“Stop.” I hold up a hand, and she breaks off.
. . . as for the generation of the fear . . .
. . . the fear itself . . .
I start to laugh, quiet at first, and then louder and shriller, looping back on itself; laughing because I’m laughing, hysterical fucking turtles all the way down. I think of all the people I’ve ever met, all the friends I couldn’t make, their faces as they looked at me, uncertain, evasive, as if they couldn’t wait to get away.
Afraid.
“What was Mum working on?” I’d asked Rita.
Her eyes looking at me over the top of a surgical mask. Frankie saying.
“You have to expect us to have a few secrets.”
Well, now I know.
Mum’s words, spoken in this very room, seem to leach out of the walls.
What you are is exactly as I would have you.
I scream suddenly and sweep an arm across the desk. The lamp bulb shatters on the floor; the laptop bounces and skitters. My legs give way, and I slide down the wall. Startled, Ingrid drops the notebook, and the way its pages flap and flutter reminds me of something.
[This sentence is a lie.]
I love you, Petey.
[A lie that undermines everything.]
I can’t believe it, and yet I know it’s true. Even now my arms are half curled in expectation of the hug from Mum that will make it all better, my ear cocked for her whispered reassurance. Discovering a betrayal isn’t like flicking a switch; it’s more like poisoning a water table. It takes time to seep into all the parts of you.
I don’t even realise I’ve closed my eyes until I’m opening them again. A pale, rectangular shape coalesces on the floor in front of me.
The third notebook.
I must have swept it off the desk with everything else. The front cover’s fallen open.
Black Butterfly, it says on the title page. Underneath, Mum’s taken the time to sketch the insect, intricately detailed in black ink.
We’ve had me, I think desperately, we’ve had my sister—who the fuck’s left?
I reach across the floorboards for the notebook, but Ingrid steps in front of it. She puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Pete, the lead-pipe team. 57 are on their way by now. We have to go.”
“But . . . but the third notebook.”
“It’s nothing.”
“N-nothing?” I say weakly. I feel dazed.
“It’s not relevant. I looked while you were having your . . . moment then.”
“But—” Shakily, I get to my feet. I pull free of her hand and try to go around her, but she sidesteps, staying between me and the third book. I try again and she sidesteps again, like some absurd little dance. She’s turned 180 degrees now; her back’s to the desk, but she’s still between me and the book.
“Ingrid, don’t be stupid, that book was hidden away with the other two. It’s obviously important.”
“What’s stupid, Pete, is us sticking around to get our heads stoved-in when we’ve got what we came for. Let’s go.”
She reaches out again, but I shove her hand away. Her eyes are twitching eagerly across my face, drinking in the thoughts there. She looks scared.
Of course, she does, you idiot. She feels what you feel, and right now you feel like your intestines are about to drop in a neat little package out from between your legs.
Yeah, except: I’m a connoisseur of fear, and what I’m seeing on Agent Blonde Calculating Machine’s face isn’t the same as the bewildered horror that’s clutching at me.
She looks nervous.
“Why don’t you want me to see that book, Ingrid?”
I take a step towards her and she steps back, planting a foot on the book.
“I don’t . . . It’s not . . . We just have to go.”
“Then why don’t we take it with us?”
“There’s nothing in it.”
“Nothing?” I take another step, and she’s backed right up against the desk now. “What do you mean, nothing?”
“Fine. Let’s take the fucking thing with us, but we have to leave now.”
She spits it angrily, trying to seize the initiative back, but it’s too late because I’ve taken another step and she’s backed into the table. She reaches behind her to steady herself, and she glances back, and—just for a fraction of a second—her hand hesitates in the air above the worm-eaten right leg that would cave if she put her weight on it.
She’s been in here before.
She frowns, studying my features. Shit, look away, but it’s too late.
“Well,” she sighs. “That’s that, then.”
She reaches into her jacket and pulls out the gun she took from the spy upstairs. I hear the snap as she flicks the safety off.
“You told me”—I lick parched lips—“you told me you’d never met my mother before I invited you round for dinner.”
“I did,” she admits.
“I guess that whole reading-my-mind thing makes it embarrassingly easy to lie to me, huh?”
She cocks her head to one side, considering it.
“I was never embarrassed by it.”
“Well, aren’t you a model of self-possession!”
The barb gets nothing from her, but perhaps there’s nothing to get. Her eyes are narrow, and I know she sees past my poorly erected bravado. She’s pained by my pain maybe, but her grip on the gun is strong.
Why risk it? I wonder fleetingly. Why let me come down here if you knew this was here? But then, did I give her any choice? I remember her pleading, tearful face under the streetlight; Please, Pete, don’t. And then later, when we got into the house: I don’t want you to think of me like that.
“Was there ever a second agent in the house?” I ask.
She shrugs.
“Lies and betrayal, fourteen hours a day, huh?”
“I’ve been pulling a lot of overtime recently.”
I bet you have. Day in, day out. Tears on demand. Kisses in the dark. Every word out of your mouth moulding the thoughts you read off my face; that’s got to take it out of you. And all to find my sister. You had her once, but she slipped away. So you doubled down, stuck to your cover, because you knew I was your best route back to her.
“What’s in that third book?”
“Me,” she says simply.
I nod. Black Butterfly. I stare down at the perfectly symmetrical wings of the ink-drawn butterfly on the front page. Each the mirror image of the other. Ingrid’s a mirror. I see my own fear and confusion reflected in her features, but the gun barrel is as steady as a promontory of rock.
“What did she do to you?” My voice rasps in my ears.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“My best friend’s pointing a gun at me. I think I have a right to know why.” They called Gödel Mr. Why, and I think I know how he felt.
At first, I don’t think she’s going to answer; after all, it’s not like I’m in any position to make demands, but then she gets this look. It’s an expression I remember down-lit from the bare bulb in 57’s paint cupboard, when, tearfully she’d told me:
“You don’t know how lucky you are to have someone who knows you that well.”
There’s a faint bitter cast to her voice as she says, “Shall we hear it from the woman herself?”
She stoops, careful to keep the gun on me, and gathers the notebook. She lifts it so she can eye me over the top while she reads.
“‘If the empathic bond between RW and WR can be generalised, it might be possible to create an all-purpose empath: obvious investigative and intelligence applications. Henry Black is expecting baby, and keen. We’ll begin preliminary tests on Wednesday—exciting!’”
Ingrid’s mouth puckers, as if Mum’s enthusiasm is acidic. She flicks forward a few pages.
“‘It’s becoming clear that the toughest challenge with BB is to “clear” her, make room for others’ emotions. She spent the whole of last session unable to feel anything other than how excited she is about a stray kitten she’s adopted. Honestly, more affection than a domesticated predator really warrants, I feel.’”
She smiles, but it looks painful. Her jaw’s set hard enough I can see the muscle twitch. She turns a page.
“‘BB inconsolable today, spent whole day screaming and crying, presumably because Henry shot her cat. Can’t be helped, but we can’t keep her indoors forever. We must teach her to police her own interactions. No close relationships, not even with animals.’”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, but Ingrid presses relentlessly on.
“‘Test results improving. The strategy of keeping BB isolated from others her own age is working, but her attachment to her parents remains an issue. Her isolation is increasing her dependency on those who are left in her life.
“‘It seems that while BB adopts her immediate emotional state from whoever she’s with, her decision matrix, her will, is governed by a deeper set of desires, as all of ours are. The difference is that BB derives those desires, not from within, but wholesale from someone else, the person she spends the most time with. Their loyalties and passions become her loyalties and passions. They will be embedded deep, like a tattoo, while her other emotions are a surface phenomenon sloughed off like layers of skin.’ Huh,” Ingrid adds, almost to herself. “I never had your mum pegged as the poetic type.”
She turns another page. She stares at the book as though stricken by an awful memory. The gun flickers and for a fraction of a second I think I might have an opening, but then she steadies.
“‘Success! Fantastic day at the office. Need a drink, though. Was very nervous. Gave BB a rabbit to look after several months ago. High risk, could have undone years of work, but had to be done. When I asked how she felt about rabbit, BB said, “I love it,” but nervously—she knows this is not allowed. Still, she’s only seven. When I asked how rabbit feels about her, she said, “He loves me,” which made me even more nervous. No need to be, though! When I gave her the wire, and made her understand that it was what I really wanted, she strangled the rabbit there and then.’”
She says it flatly, like she’s announcing train times. I gape at her.
“‘Ancillary reactions; lacrimation and erratic breathing while the poor thing struggled and squealed, indicate she suffered no loss of empathy for the rabbit during its execution. Incredible! Twenty minutes later she displayed no signs of discomfort, quote. “It was what you wanted, so it was what I wanted, Dr. B.” What a darling!’ Aw, wasn’t I cute?”
Ingrid closes the book and drops it back onto the floor with a smack.
“Get the point, Pete?”
It was what you wanted, so it was what I wanted, Dr. B.
Mum’s desires are tattooed on her. My feelings are only scrawled on her surface. I think of her strangling her pet rabbit. She might cry when she pulls the trigger, but her tears won’t cloud her aim.
“There,” she says. “You’ve had your answers. Now it’s my turn. You know your sister better than anyone, and this is where the trail led you. Did anything, anything in those notebooks give you any fucking idea where she is now?”
“No.” I can feel my neck heating up. My throat’s closing, and the room’s starting to spin.
“No?”
No.
Except . . .
Swimming treacherously to the surface of my brain despite my attempts to drown it is a phrase from the second notebook, the one about me.
Continuous observation in a variety of contexts . . . Ingrid’s eyes narrow, flickering back and forth as she reads my face. Shit. Don’t think about that. Think about anything else.
“Pete, what was that?”
Fuck. Um. What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?
There’s nothing you can do. She can read your mind.
She can read your mind.
She feels what you feel. So think about the gun pointing at your head. Think about the bullet travelling at 365 metres a second and flattening to the size of a ten pence piece as it shatters your skull. Think about the equation for trying to reconstruct the geometry of that skull, then laugh despairingly at its complexity. Think about how much it’s going to hurt. Think about the sound of the bang. Think about the surging in your chest and the sweat in your eyes and the sudden hot, bubbling pressure of the shit in your colon. Now panic. You hear me, Peter Blankman? Don’t count, don’t talk.
Just panic.
I take a step towards her, never taking my eyes off hers. Sweat glimmers on her brow and she twitches. I know she’s feeling everything I am, and if she wants it to stop, she’s going to have to look away.
But she won’t she won’t she’ll shoot me it’s over I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead . . .
She flinches, but the gun doesn’t move.
“I know what you’re trying to d-do,” she says. She has to force the words out. I sympathise. If I even open my mouth, I think I’ll puke.
I take another step.
“I-i-t won’t w-work,” she stammers “I—I’ve had t-t-too much practice w-with your bullshit f-f-fear. S-s-stop!”
One more step and the ring of the pistol barrel is blissfully cool against my forehead. I feel it shudder. Is that me trembling? Or her?
“S-stop!” she cries.
If you think I can just stop, Ana, you should have been paying more attention.
“I—I’ll shoot!”
No, you won’t. After all, I may just be a cog in my sister’s mechanism, but I’m a pretty vital one. I don’t think my—our—dear mother would take it too kindly if you broke me.
The gun’s definitely trembling now. Ana Black’s eyes shift right and left and right again in endless reflexive indecision.
“Goodbye, Ana,” I say quietly. The gun slides slickly off my sweaty forehead as I t
urn, squeeze around the door, and mount the stairs. My legs give way under me on the second step, and I crawl the rest of the way, splinters from the bare boards burrowing into my palms.
I just about make it outside, get back to my feet, and stagger sideways into a hedge. I slump over it, wheezing. If Ana was telling the truth for once and 57 reinforcements are on their way, well, they can have me. I sprawl on my back on the freezing grass and stare at the moon.
Gradually, my chest stops feeling like I have a routed cavalry charge running round it, and, as my panic eases, the thought I so frantically buried under it reemerges. A phrase innocently slipped into the White Rabbit notebook. A phrase about me.
. . . will require continuous observation.
After several unsuccessful attempts to get enough purchase on the bush to stand upright, I decide to just roll through it. I lurch to my feet on the pavement, bleeding and stuck with thorns, but I don’t stop to pull them out.
Finally, I know where Bel is. And I know what she’s trying to do.
Continuous observation in a variety of contexts.
Ana Black wasn’t the only one watching me.
I stagger into a run.
3:
recoil
Recursion: 5 Days Ago
Just before she left, Mum took one last look at the kitchen I’d devastated. Her brow furrowed, and she bent and retrieved a framed photo from amidst the eggshells and flour dust and broken glass. She wiped the muck from it and set it back on top of the fridge, where it belonged. She gave me a gentle smile. A “we can beat this” smile; an “I believe in you” smile. Then she disappeared through the door.
For a few moments, I leaned on my broom, shivering and aching in the wake of my adrenaline. I stared at that picture. It was a black-and-white shot of Franklin Delano Roosevelt giving his first inaugural address. Printed across the bottom of it was that speech’s most famous maxim:
the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
As the memory fades, I hear Ana Black’s voice, quoting from the notebook that contains my life. “As for the generation of the fear itself . . .”
