Abruptly, I let her go and she jumped up, a look of pure hate and contempt on her face. ‘I will never forgive you for this,’ she said and walked away.
She had dumped the one man stupid enough to want to marry her – because of me. It has to be admitted that his sense of humour had been tasteless – even so. I smiled again and then forgot about the whole thing. Personally, I didn’t care about any of it. I was much too preoccupied. I had fallen in love.
Chapter 12
I discovered that falling in love was at one and the same time the most selfish thing I had ever done and the most selfless. It was selfish because I no longer cared for the rest of the world; it was selfless because I cared for her more than my own life or well-being.
When she was out of the room, it was as if someone had pushed a needle into my chest; when she was in the room, it was if they had then decided to twist and bend it inside me. She caused me so much anguish and joy all at the same time. When she was around I only wanted to watch her and I couldn’t understand why everybody else didn’t want to do the same thing; however, if I suspected that they did, I was mad with jealousy. I think I was slightly mad anyway and, all the time, I knew she could never love someone as ugly and stupid as me.
I am, of course, talking about Judith.
How could I not fall in love with her? She was beautiful in every sense of the word. She was like a hunger inside of me – a hunger I could never satisfy.
And I was ugly, scarred, disfigured, mute and crippled.
She was beauty.
I loved her. It was that simple.
***********************
One night I lay in my bed. I had woken from one of my nightmares. I had them most nights. My past would not let me go. I managed to get out of my bed. I grabbed my crutch. I needed comfort; if I could just look at her and then go back to sleep. I hobbled down the hallway to her bedroom and pushed open the door. She lay seemingly asleep. I stared at her still form and tears came to my eyes. I crept into the room as quietly as my leg would allow, and then she sat up. She was wearing a frilly, right-up-to-the-neck type of nightdress – the kind that certain women of certain ages have been wearing for hundreds of years. It was pink and white. It was ridiculous. She peered around her. ‘David?’ she said.
I sat down heavily on her bed.
She sat up straighter. ‘More nightmares?’ she asked.
How did she know? How did she know about the long silent struggles with my demons? I nodded.
‘Oh, David!’ she said. She didn’t move. She had learned by now how much I hated to be touched.
I still did, except by her. I longed to be touched by her. I reached out to her; still she didn’t move. I wanted her to touch me so much. I let my fingers stroke her skin, the soft skin of her hands. She didn’t move. I wondered what it felt like, to be caressed by an ugly man. She smiled and I stroked her arm, still expecting her to withdraw at any moment – she didn’t.
‘Go back to bed, David,’ she said quietly.
I pulled my hand back and shook my head. My bed filled me with fear, my thoughts with dread, my dreams with terror. I didn’t want to go back to that lonely place. She reached forward and touched my cheek with her hand; tears were slipping down them; I hadn’t been aware I was crying.
She was up on her knees now and had come close to me. I could smell her. ‘David, what do you want?’ she whispered.
I want you! I thought. I gazed at her intently, willing her to understand. I wanted her to know – even if it meant rejection.
She moved in closer and her smell grew stronger. It all became too much for me. I put my hands roughly around her face, pulled it towards me and kissed her. Her lips touched mine; they were the sweetest things I had ever tasted.
I pushed her down onto her bed, expecting resistance at any moment; she didn’t resist. I began pulling and tugging at her ridiculous nightdress.
She let me.
I couldn’t have stopped – even if she had asked me to.
I couldn’t stop. Her nightdress was off; I flung it to one side. And then I ... did what? Raped her? Seduced her? Made love to her?
I think I did all three.
She didn’t stop me – and I never slept in my lonely bed again.
***********************
To be in love with Judith was the most wonderful thing, and for her to let me love her was beyond even that. I choose my words carefully here. I never really convinced myself that she ever loved me half as much as I loved her. Sometimes I felt she must have done – to let me into her bed, into her, she must have loved me – and yet, at other times when I think back, I think she only allowed me to love her as part of my salvation. When I first joined her in her bed I always kept a T-shirt or vest on, to hide at least some of my body from her touch and sight. I knew it repulsed her and I didn’t want to remind her of the things I had done in the past. I also made sure the bedroom was dark. I was wary now that she had, at last, lain in my arms. I was terrified she would remember and then reject me.
I had no idea what she really thought of me and I didn’t really care. I was desperately in love and I had more than enough for the two of us. Soon the whole village found out. How could they not? They had simply to look at the way I followed her about like a little puppy dog. They had only to watch my eyes and the look on my face. They need only observe how she treated me to know that I must be a fool or in love or both. Anyway, now when I sat with her in the Tavern, I would hold her hand in mine and at every opportunity lean forward and kiss her on the lips.
Everyone knew and she enjoyed it. She gloried in it because she had proved them all wrong.
A man turns up on her doorstep and holds a knife to her throat. He is a drug addict, a homosexual and, worse, he bears the mark of Fabian – a notorious fascist, racist group of thugs – and more marks, as well, that can only be hinted at.
Judith takes him in; she brings him to God and to her bed. He gives up drugs, changes his sexual orientation and, it is guessed, his other more dubious tastes. He is, in a word, reformed. Judith was right; that made her very happy and that is all I wanted. I wanted it so much that I colluded with her. She had an opinion about me and I did nothing to change her opinion – hand on heart, I even encouraged her in it because I knew it gave her joy and it was what she wanted to believe. I would no more have broken her belief in her mythical God than I would her belief that she had taken in a mad, bad man and reformed him; besides, it was partly true – partly, but not completely.
The only trouble I could think of, the one person who could find me out, was Andrew. He was too sharp. He knew, or guessed, too much and he was determined to prove Judith wrong.
Chapter 13
June 2036
Deep down, Judith knew she was fooling herself. Everyone thought I was much older than I really was. My age was guessed to be anything between thirty-five and forty-five. But she had lain in bed with me. She had felt my body. She had allowed me near her. She had even allowed me to take off all my clothes when I slept with her. I would have made love like a young man; I would have felt like a young man. My body may have been crucified to hell but it was still a young man’s body – she knew it and she denied it.
It was this sort of denial that infuriated Andrew, who was beginning to come to some conclusions that were just a bit too close to the truth. Andrew was doing exactly what he had threatened to do: he was watching me – all of the time.
One day he came visiting. We were sitting at the table having tea. Judith was delighted to see him, as usual, and invited him to join us. He sat down opposite me and Judith poured the tea. He watched me as she did so. I kept my face as neutral as possible. I didn’t consider him a friend and felt he could, at any moment, come up with an excuse to have me turned out.
‘I have a present for you, David,’ he said pleasantly, as Judith handed him his tea.
‘A present for David? Why what could David possibly want? I give him everything he needs.’ Her voice was immediately s
uspicious and tense. I sensed trouble.
‘Oh, no disrespect,’ said Andrew soothingly. ‘You do a grand job looking after the lad.’
He had used the word lad. He often did. For someone of my supposed age, it was a strange term – even in the Highlands of Scotland. Judith didn’t notice. She did the same thing, sometimes treating me like a young man, sometimes, when she remembered, like an older man. I felt I had got caught up in someone else’s game, a game without rules, a game I failed to recognise. Andrew placed a small package on the table. ‘This is something a wee bit special,’ he said.
She continued to look suspicious. I knew exactly what the package was. I recognised the shape. It was something I was desperate for, something that shouldn’t be sitting there in front of me.
‘Take it, David,’ he said, gesturing towards it with his hand.
I didn’t move.
‘Well go on, David,’ said Judith irritably. ‘Don’t just sit there – and try not to knock it over!’ I had a reputation for being clumsy. Carefully, I picked it up, took it out of its bag and squinted at it. I couldn’t read the label. In fact, I couldn’t even see the label but I didn’t have to, I knew exactly what it was. ‘What is it?’ she asked, now curious.
Andrew was still watching me. At that moment I felt he knew everything about me. ‘Eye drops,’ he said.
She snorted. ‘Eye drops! I’ve plenty of eye drops! What sort of present is that?’
‘These are special eye drops,’ he said. He leaned forward. ‘Eyes a wee bit sore are they, David?’ he asked. I continued to stare at the bottle. I wanted so much to put those eye drops in, to take away the pain in my eyes, but I dared not move. I dared not do anything that might destroy Judith. So I simply sat and waited.
‘I still don’t understand.’ she said.
‘David is suffering from a condition known as Hynes’ Syndrome.’
‘Nonsense!’ Then, ‘what’s that?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s very rare. It’s taken me the devil’s own time to find it. I knew there had to be something; I didn’t know what and then I found it.’ He beamed with satisfaction. I hated him at that moment; I hated his certainty and, more than anything, I hated his knowledge. ‘It’s rare, as I say,’ he continued, ‘but once it occurs in a family it tends to stay. It’s passed down from father to son, occasionally a daughter may have it but that’s less common, it tends to be the males.’ He turned back to me. ‘Does your father have yellow eyes, David? Or are you the first?’
I sat stony faced; if he had intended to trick me into talking, it was a pretty pathetic attempt.
‘What has the colour of his eyes got to do with anything?’
‘Hynes’ Syndrome is characterised by the unusual yellow colour. It’s a pigment deficiency. Other symptoms include poor night-time vision, difficulty adjusting when moving from light to dark, sensitivity to sunlight – David must always wear sunglasses in bright light – and poor tear ducts.’ He held up my bottle of eye drops. ‘He should use these at least once a day. Have you not noticed how bloodshot his eyes are? That’s because he needs medicated eye drops, special eye drops such as these.’
‘This is all nonsense.’ Judith went straight into denial and my heart sank. I had guessed she would.
‘But have you not wondered why he’s so clumsy?’
‘That’s enough, Andrew!’
‘But, Judith!’
‘I said that’s enough! Now, would you like some more tea or do you need to be getting on?’
He knew the answer to that. He took the hint and remembered that he did, in fact, have other things to do.
When he left, Judith picked up the bottle of eye drops. I looked at it, longingly. I needed those drops so much. She saw me look; she saw the desire, I swear she did. She frowned and then held out the bottle towards me. ‘Do you really need these, David?’ she asked. Just like the doctor, I, too, knew the right answer. I shook my head. She smiled in triumph. ‘Thought as much. That doctor is such a fool sometimes,’ she said.
She took the bottle and placed it in the kitchen, the one room in the entire house I was not allowed to enter. I watched her place the bottle high up on the shelf with a satisfied smirk. I couldn’t help but glance longingly up at that bottle.
Often over the next few weeks, I would pass the kitchen door and see the bottle standing high above me, gathering dust. I knew it had the power to lesson the stinging in my eyes. I had, after all, been using the stuff all my life. Judith saw me look but she never asked me again whether I wanted it; perhaps she was afraid that the next time, if she asked, I would nod my head.
The doctor noticed the bottle there, but, like me, he kept his counsel and bided his time. I knew he was not through with me yet, though.
Chapter 14
July 2036
Judith often took me down to the shops. I would walk next to her, struggling to keep up with her brisk pace. She was a great believer in brisk walking, but it was hard on me. Hades coped better.
She rarely took me into the shops with her; she left me outside with Hades. She said I was too clumsy and might break something; that was true, with my poor eyesight and crippled leg I was something of a liability. At least she didn’t tie me up. The villagers would pass by and see me sitting there, patting the dog and smoking a cigarette and they would chat to me.
Their attitude towards me was changing. They had moved from outright hostility to pity, to admiration and, for some, to affection. I was, after all, Judith’s pet dog, second only to Hades in her total affection, and they knew it. They also knew I adored her, and since they did as well that was alright with them.
I had come to them as a threat, a man who had dared to hold a knife to Judith’s throat; now I was a harmless pet, a man known to be clumsy, illiterate and, as Judith called me, backwards. I was also an ugly cripple, who was going nowhere and no longer capable of harming anyone.
I could live with my reputation. I had had worse, and at least it meant that they left me alone.
Well, most of them that is.
As the villagers grew more tolerant – even affectionate – towards me, so the Mackay brothers became more hostile. For them it was personal and it was all down to their big brother Hamish – partly at least. If it had not been for him they may not have been quite so intense in their campaign against me.
Hamish Mackay was serving his time in an English prison; without doubt, some of the prison wardens would have been fully paid-up members of Fabian. I knew this much, even then.
The Fabian mark was usually tattooed on the under side of the left arm. It was not unusual for a warden to strip to the waist to show his mark – just before he beat the shit out of you, of course.
I had no doubt that Hamish was in hell: a Scot in an English prison, a proud Highlander, the eldest son of a chieftain no less and he would have bragged about that. He was a natural target, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Angus Mackay, the second brother with blue eyes as cold as ice, went to visit his brother on a regular basis. He would have told Hamish about me. I was Hamish’s revenge and Angus, Euan and Stewart Mackay were the agents of his revenge. If Hamish was in hell, they intended that I should keep him company.
***********************
Judith often sent me down to the shops on my own to fetch supplies, usually when she was busy cooking or cleaning. She gave me a list, which I would pass across to the Macleans, a husband and wife team who ran the shop, and they would gather everything for me, muttering in Gaelic all the time.
When I was on my own I could actually move quite fast because for those trips Judith let me use two crutches rather than one. This meant that I avoided using my crippled leg. I was supposed to use my leg, keep it moving, so this was a special treat.
I was swinging my way down to the shop. It was a bright, cheerful day, and I was enjoying the freshness of a Highland breeze when I spotted them. Unfortunately, they’d already spotted me and were making their way rapidly towards me. I wa
s fast on my two crutches – but they were faster. I was brought to an abrupt halt as the three Mackay brothers surrounded me.
Angus, the eldest of the three, was the tallest, the thinnest and the only married one. He lived a short distance from his mother’s farm. He had long, straw-coloured hair tied back in a ponytail, a narrow unshaven face and those cold blue eyes that froze at a glance.
Euan I recognised from seeing every week at the kirk, where he would glower at me whenever he got the chance.
Stewart was short and stocky with long brown dreadlocks. He had a soft squashy face with a small nose and round eyes; he looked like someone’s favourite teddy bear. But he was no teddy bear: in some ways, he was the hardest out of the three, certainly the least compromising – and the one wearing the knuckle-dusters.
They were swift, silent and dangerous.
One moment I was poised on my crutches, the next those crutches had been removed and discarded. I was pushed to the ground and the fists and the feet came in. ‘Here, freak, this one’s for Hamish,’ Stewart hissed in my ear, as the knuckle-duster punched into me.
I guessed as much.
I fought like a trapped animal; I fought dirty; I was fighting for my life. I had the satisfaction of hearing grunts of pain from them as my fists and feet flew out. But in the end I was a cripple, alone against three determined men. I didn’t stand a chance.
I think they were disturbed. They didn’t kill me, but I didn’t leave my bed for a week – and Judith never let me out of the house alone again.
Until, that is, Sonia’s bright idea.
***********************
Sonia was a frequent visitor to our house, but she had been absent for a while. We all guessed why: she was otherwise engaged with a certain minister. Judith was very excited; marriage to a man of God was as good as you could get.
So, when Sonia did come to visit, I was immediately banished from my place at the kitchen door and the two women gossiped in the kitchen without my pretty presence. I sat in the living area seething with jealousy. However, I was able to position myself in such a way so that, although I could not always hear them, I could read their lips – most of the time. It was enough to follow their conversation. Yes, I know this was sad, but I was pretty bored and, anyway, I didn’t trust Sonia. I was right not to, as it turned out.
The Dream Catcher Diaries Page 16
