The Society of Dirty Hearts

by Ben Cheetham

  “Hi, Wanda. I decided to pay a surprise visit. Where is she?”

  “Where do you think?” Wanda motioned with her chin towards the garden.

  “How is she?” Julian asked hesitantly, as if afraid what the answer might be.

  “She had a bad night. I told her to take it easy. Christine, I said, the garden will still be there tomorrow, but you might not be if you don’t rest up. But would she listen, would she hell as like. You know how she is about her precious roses. They won’t prune themselves, she says. Mind you, what do I know – or the doctors, for that matter. They all said she wouldn’t last more than six months, and that was over seven years ago.” Wanda paused to shake her head in awe. “She’s an amazing woman, your mother. A lesson to all of us.”

  Julian nodded agreement. “I’d better go see her.” With Henry still at his heels, he made his way to the back garden. A series of flat, smooth paths wound their way amongst the lawns, flowerbeds, rockeries, ponds and trees. He followed one to a rose garden. Some of the roses were just coming into bloom, others were already turning brown, drying-up. They gave off a mingled, sickly-sweet scent of life and death in the afternoon sun. Christine was bent forward in her wheelchair, pinching the deadheads off with her right hand – her left rested in her lap, clenched into a fist like an unopened flower.

  “It’s good to see you’re still not listening to Wanda,” said Julian, smiling.

  “Julian!” Christine spoke with a slight slur. She slowly straightened to look at her son. The right side of her mouth lifted as she returned his smile, the left remained immobile, drooping like a sleeper’s, a thin line of drool sliding from it onto her chin. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve got a fortnight of study leave,” said Julian, almost flinching from doing so, knowing how his mum hated even the smallest of lies. “There’s too much noise, too much going on to concentrate at my halls. So I decided to come home for a few days.” He stooped to kiss his mum on the right cheek – he could hardly bear to look at the left side of her face, never mind touch it. “You look well.”

  “No I don’t, and neither do you.” Christine studied her son’s face as if examining it for symptoms of some disease. “You’ve lost weight and you look tired. How have you been eating? How have you been sleeping?”

  “Fine and fine. Although I’ve been missing Wanda’s cooking.”

  “And what about the dreams?”

  “I told you, everything’s fine.”

  Christine continued to look intently at Julian, eyes like fingers, probing. “I’m going in for something to eat,” he said, turning away.

  “I’ll see you inside once I’m finished out here, and we can have a proper chat.”

  Great, thought Julian, wondering suddenly whether he’d made a mistake in coming home. The last thing he wanted to do was dump his anxieties on his mum, but he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to hold out under the steady probing of her eyes. Although he longed for someone to speak to, he couldn’t imagine telling anyone, not even his therapist, about the new twist in his dream. Just thinking about it made him want to lower his eyes in shame.

  Wanda made Julian a sandwich, which he ate on the sofa in front of the TV. Henry lay curled at his feet, waiting for any titbits that might come his way. The local news was on. Police were searching the woods around Five Springs after reports that Joanne Butcher had been seen there the day she disappeared. They’d not found anything yet. A journalist interviewed her mother outside a block of flats that looked as grey and rundown as she did. She was clutching a small brown teddy bear with a heart on its stomach that read ‘This is all I have to give.’ “If there’s somebody who has taken Joanne please contact the police,” she pleaded, her voice weak and tearful, pitiful to hear. “The family don’t feel safe anymore, it’s broken us apart. It makes you think you can’t trust anyone, not even the people closest to you. If you have Joanne, please let her go.”

  Julian took out his mobile-phone, scrolled down to ‘Kyle’ and pressed the green button. After a couple of rings, a hushed male voice answered, “Hey, dude, how’s it going?”

  “It’s going good. I’m back in town for a few days. Fancy meeting up at The Cut for a beer?”

  “Course I do, bro. What time?”

  “About eight.”

  “I’ll be there. Listen, bro, I can’t talk now, I’m in class. See you later, yeah.”

  “Later.”

  Julian could hear his mum and Wanda talking in the kitchen. He went to his bedroom. He didn’t want to risk lying down – his body felt heavy and ready for sleep – so he booted up his PC and Googled Joanne Butcher. She had a Facebook profile, which was set to private. He scrolled down her friends list. He didn’t recognise any of the names, but a picture caught his eye. It was of a teenage girl wearing thick black eye makeup. Her tongue was stuck out, revealing a silver stud embedded in its centre. There was also a stud in her nose and several earrings in either lobe. Dozens of tiny fresh cuts, like tribal markings, were visible on her inner left wrist. As the cuts ran down towards her hand they crisscrossed to form the words ‘HELP ME’. The girl was instantly familiar, but it took him a few seconds to realise where he recognised her from – she was the schoolgirl who’d handed him the flier. Her name was listed as ‘Morsus’. He clicked on her, but her profile was set to private too. He sat staring at her photo. There was something about it, something he couldn’t quite define, but which held him strangely fascinated. He sent her a friend request and, shaking himself free, navigated back to Google. He searched for the meaning of the word ‘Morsus’ and found that it was Latin for pain.

  Julian frittered away a couple of hours browsing the internet, emailing university friends to let them know where he was. At one point, he heard the burr of his mum’s wheelchair motor in the hall. It paused outside the door. He held himself silent, hoping she’d think he was asleep. After a few seconds, she continued past the door. At six-thirty, Wanda knocked and said, “Food’s on the table, Julian.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he replied.

  Christine and Wanda were already eating when Julian got to the table. Christine used a fork with a sharpened edge for cutting. “Where’s Dad?” he asked.

  “He phoned to say he’s working late,” said Christine.

  Julian’s eyebrows lowered in a frown of surprise. Ever since his mum’s illness, his dad had made a point of not working late so that he could be with her. “Is everything okay at the factory?”

  “He says so, but then you know how he is.” A note of irritation came into Christine’s voice. “He thinks he’s got to wrap me up in cotton-wool. I keep telling him, I worry more not knowing what’s going on. I may be ill, but that doesn’t mean I have to be treated like a child.”

  “Robert doesn’t treat you like a child,” said Wanda. Her expression suggested this was a familiar topic of conversation. “I’m sure he’d tell you if there was anything to really be worried about.”

  Christine looked doubtful, but said nothing. The conversation turned to Julian. Christine wanted to know how his studies were going. And more importantly, had he managed to find himself a girlfriend yet. He answered that his studies were going fine. And no, he hadn’t got a steady girlfriend. He’d had a few flings, but nothing serious. He felt relaxed talking to his mum, knowing she wouldn’t ask him about the dreams, not with Wanda there. After the meal, Julian helped Wanda clear the table and wash-up. Then Wanda gave Christine her daily massage. Julian watched as she massaged his mum’s spinal column and paralysed limbs with scented oil. The limbs looked withered and dead, like wilted vines. But it was clear there was still some life in them from the way Christine grimaced as Wanda pushed her hands over their slack, veiny flesh.

  At half-past seven, Julian said he was going out to meet Kyle. “Don’t stay out too late,” Christine called after him as he left the house.

  Chapter 2

  Julian pulled up outside a building with a blood-red neon sign overhanging the pavement
that read ‘The Cut’. Another sign in the window stated ‘No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons allowed inside’. The bar was dark and grimy, almost deserted. There was a band playing on a small stage, fronted by some emo-boy whining on about loss and rejection. A boy with long hair, a goatee and a faceful of piercings stood drinking at the bar-counter. “Hey there, bro,” he called to Julian, grinning. “I got you a beer in.”

  “Cheers, man.” They shook hands, warrior-style. Julian glanced around, taking a sip from his bottle. He shook his head. “Fuck me, I never realised what a dump this place was until now.”

  “Hey, don’t go slagging it off, just ’cos you’ve been living it up in the big city. For some of us, this is the best we’ve got.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be out of here too at the end of the summer.”

  “As long as I get the grades I need.”

  “You will this time, no worries.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I fucking hope so. This town’s doing my head in. I’m so bored. There’s no one from our year left around, except me and all the dead-heads.” Kyle exhaled heavily. “Anyway, let’s stop talking about this before I get depressed.” He swilled back his beer. “I hope you’ve got your drinking boots on, Jules, ’cos I’m in the mood for getting properly fucked up.”

  “I’m driving.”

  Kyle’s face creased in disgust. “Aw, what the fuck. Why?”

  “I’ve got some dope. I thought we could drive out to Five Springs for a smoke. You know, like old times.”

  “Nice idea, bro. Only we can’t go to Five Springs. Haven’t you heard? The coppers are out there looking for that little jailbait bitch.”

  “Yeah, I saw. Did you know her?”

  “Nah. I spoke to her once or twice in here. She was serious trouble. I heard she fucked her way through half the scuzzballs in town.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Kyle shook his head. “And that’s not all I heard, bro. I heard she was selling it.”

  “You mean she slept with men for money.” Julian’s lips screwed up doubtfully. “Bullshit. How do you know that?”

  “Anyone who knows anything around here knows it for a fact. If you don’t believe me, just ask around.” Kyle chuckled. “Although I don’t think you’ll find too many guys willing to admit to fooling around with an underage prozzie. Tell you what really makes me laugh. The way her mum keep’s banging on about her being abducted. What a load of shit. More likely one of her customers has done her in and dumped her in a ditch somewhere.”

  Kyle opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it again as a group of goth-punk types, all black leather, torn drainpipe jeans and fishnet stockings, jet black hair and heavy makeup, entered the bar. There were two men and a woman, mid-twenties looking, and the girl, Morsus. One of the men approached the bar-counter and ordered drinks, while the others seated themselves around a table close to the stage. The girl looked drunk or stoned, her eyes glassy and vacant, a sort of vacuous half-smile, half-sneer playing around the edges of her mouth. Julian watched her out of the sides of his eyes. He couldn’t help but watch her. Kyle nudged him. “Don’t even think about going there, bro. That’s Mia Bradshaw. Jake Bradshaw’s twin sister.”

  “Who’s Jake Bradshaw?”

  “He’s a serious fuckin’ headcase. Been in juvie more often than you change your underpants. The coppers are after him at the moment for joyriding or something. There’s a rumour going round that he’s hiding out in the forest. Remember? Like we used to. Only for real.”

  “Is she mates with Joanne Butcher?”

  “Yeah, big-time, they were like twin sisters. Twins of evil, that’s what I call ’em. I know this guy who went with her for a while. He said she’s proper crazy, said she wanted him to do all kinds of weird shit to her.”

  “What kind of weird shit?”

  “Pull her hair, slap her around, strangle her. That kind of weird shit. He couldn’t handle it so he dumped her.”

  Julian felt a twinge of the same sick feeling that’d come over him after his dream. It started in his stomach and slithered, cold and slimy as a slug, up his throat. He pushed it back down with a swallow of beer. Mia seemed oblivious or indifferent to him staring at her, but one of the men was giving him a none-too-friendly look. “Come on, let’s go for that smoke,” Kyle said, tugging at Julian’s sleeve as the man started to stand. Reluctantly, Julian allowed himself to be drawn away from the bar. As they stepped outside, a mocking peal of laughter followed them. Glancing back, Julian saw that it came from Mia. He shuddered a little.

  “You trying to get the shit kicked out of us?” said Kyle.

  Julian made no answer. He was thinking about Mia, trying to work out what it was about her that’d hit him so hard. It wasn’t her bad girl image. He’d never gone for that kind of thing. It wasn’t her looks, either. Sure, she was attractive – if anything, almost too much so. Her kind of looks did little for him, other than make him aware of his imperfections. No, it was something else, something deeper, beyond his understanding. It gave him chills. He could feel them now, running up and down his bones, like he was coming down with something nasty.

  “Anyway, why are you so interested in a pair of no-marks like Joanne Butcher and Mia Bradshaw?” asked Kyle.

  “I’m not. Doesn’t it freak you out though? I mean, you expect this kind of thing to happen in a city, but not around here.”

  “Jules, man, you crack me up,” Kyle laughed, shaking his head. “You really don’t know shit about this town, do you?”

  Chapter 3

  Julian crept through the house to the kitchen. As he made a sandwich, Henry padded across to snuffle at his hand. He took the snack to his bedroom and lay with Henry curled at his feet, looking out into the darkness beyond the window. He wondered if Jake Bradshaw was really hiding in the forest. He imagined himself in Jake’s situation, sleeping under the stars, living off the land, moving camp every few days to avoid detection. The idea appealed to something within him that longed for a secret place, away from the reality of daily life, away from the pressure to study and achieve.

  He closed his eyes, hoping he was stoned enough to fall straight into a blank sleep. He wasn’t. Bright, almost luminous images quivered behind his eyelids. He saw Mia Bradshaw, Joanne Butcher and Susan Carter. They separated and merged like colours in a kaleidoscope, until he couldn’t tell where one finished and the other began. He tried meditating, but it made no difference, so he got up and went to the living-room. His dad was there, too, sat in his dressing-gown, staring at the black walls of glass, sipping whisky. There was no light in the room except that of the moon. Even so, Julian could see that the bags under his dad’s eyes were heavier than usual, the lines on his forehead more pronounced.

  “Can’t sleep?” Robert asked. When Julian shook his head, he added, “Me neither.”

  “You wanna talk about it?”

  “Not particularly. What about you?”

  Julian shook his head again. That was the way it was with them. The way it always had been. They’d speak to each other, exchange a few words about this and that, but they never really talked about themselves, their hopes, their plans, their fears. Not when it was just the two of them. There was a kind of distance there, a deadness. Christine was their conduit, the only person who could make them connect. The current of her emotion conducted life between them. In her presence they laughed and joked, argued and cried. They were a family. Without her, they were like two halves of a severed wire.

  “Where are you going?” Robert asked, as Julian pulled his trainers on.

  “Out for a walk.”

  “It’s past midnight. You’ll get yourself into trouble one of these nights going out walking at this time.”

  “I’ll be fine. What’s going to happen to me around here?”

  “Things can happen, even around here. Just look at this Butcher girl business.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not a fifteen-year old girl.”

  Robert clicked his tongue against h
is palate, the way he always did when he was irritated. “Oh, do what you bloody want, Julian. You always do anyway.” He shifted his gaze back to the darkness.

  Julian continued to look at him a moment, frowning. Then he went into the kitchen and picked up a torch and a key from a shelf on his way out the backdoor. Henry raced ahead of him as he made his way to a locked door in a thorny hedge at the rear of the garden. Beyond the door, a narrow path rose up a wooded slope. The moon shone dimly through the trees. He didn’t switch on the torch, though. His feet knew the way without light, and they led him forward, anticipating every dip, rise, twist and turn. He couldn’t see Henry, but he could hear him crashing along through the undergrowth. At the top of the rise, beyond a grassy clearing, the path forked into three. Henry was waiting for him there. Julian took the fork that led straight on, which, he knew, wound down into a valley, where it merged with an old cart track that led to a derelict sawmill. Many of the area’s residents had tried to get the sawmill demolished because used needles had been found there once or twice. As he walked, he lit a joint. By the time he reached the cart track, the hot smoke had soothed away the lingering irritation he felt from his encounter with his dad. He hesitated, listening to Henry snuffling after a rabbit or whatever. Usually, he’d have continued on to the sawmill and beyond, but he suddenly found himself reluctant to go any further. It wasn’t the thought of maybe bumping into Jake Bradshaw or some junkie that stopped him. Neither was it his dad’s warning or dope-induced paranoia. It was something else, something in the air. A smell, faint but unpleasant. A smell that didn’t belong amongst the thick pine groves.

  Julian flinched as Henry began to bark. He turned on the torch and directed it towards the noise, but he couldn’t see Henry amongst the rows of closely-spaced trees. “Here boy,” he shouted. The barking stopped, but Henry didn’t respond to his call. He stepped off the path, his feet sinking softly into a deep bed of pine needles. Stooping to avoid the lowermost branches of the trees, he followed the beam of his torch. With every step, the smell got stronger. It was like dustbins on a hot day, only much, much worse. He could taste it in his mouth, as if his tongue was rotting. It gripped his lungs, twisted his stomach, dragged him on. He heard the dog growling low in its throat. “Henry,” he hissed. The growling intensified. His torch found a yellow flash of fur. Henry was jerking his head, tearing at something on the ground. It looked like a bulging black bin liner, but some instinct told Julian that wasn’t what it was. His heart stuttered as he made out the shape of a leg, a boot. He rushed forward, kicked Henry. The dog yelped, skittering away. He looked down. His mouth filled with saliva like he was going to puke.