Carnivore

by Jonathan Lyon

  He shuddered. ‘She’s too dramatic, that was… too much.’

  ‘How did you feel having everyone see that?’

  ‘I was more worried about you. Worrying about you probably made it easier to deal with.’

  ‘Watching you vomit on screen made me want to vomit too,’ I said. ‘So maybe I am capable of empathy.’

  ‘What’s that again?’

  ‘It’s like love.’

  ‘You saying you love me?’ he smirked.

  ‘I’m saying you made me want to be sick.’

  ‘You can try and hide it but you just said you’re in love with me.’

  I laughed. And my laugh became the bell of a bell-tower – which I saw, with my eyes open, rising over the horizon beyond the right side of the car – and the tower had a chain stretching from it, across the storm, to another tower – and another bell, which I knew was ringing but which I couldn’t yet hear, though I knew I’d hear it soon.

  ‘Which road do I take now?’ Constable Floris asked, leaning over the wheel.

  We were approaching a roundabout whose signs were unreadable in the rain. The sky was filling with thunder.

  ‘Second left,’ I said.

  ‘Oh that’s it, yes. Look at you giving me a straight answer! You don’t have to be so scared of talking to me, my duckling. I’m not scary.’

  ‘What do you think about the “spy-cops” who used sex as a weapon to keep women under surveillance?’ I asked. ‘Their victims said they felt raped by the state.’

  ‘They one of your inspirations?’ Francis asked quietly.

  ‘That’s not my department, duckling. I’m looking out for bad people.’

  ‘But not so much the white ones?’

  ‘I don’t believe that. That’s what some of the papers say but that’s not how it is, that’s not who I am.’

  We were driving past another cluster of glass semi-skyscrapers – and a vista was opening up beside it, stretching far to the east, across South London – to where Canary Wharf hid behind the rain – and the skyline looked to me like a field of cracked dinosaur eggs.

  ‘You winding her up?’ Francis asked me, smiling, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘You sound like my dad.’

  ‘What do you think about drug laws, then,’ I pushed. ‘They’re probably going to be legal in a few years. Do you feel good about locking up kids for having fun? Or do you agree that no rational adult should be criminalised for actions that do no harm to other people?’

  ‘Stop showing off,’ Francis said.

  ‘Or is there no such thing as an action that does no harm to other people?’ I continued. ‘Weapons and humans are trafficked by the same networks as drugs. Buying is always sponsoring blood. Perhaps you think there are no innocent bourgeoisie…’

  ‘When I began as a police officer,’ the constable said, ‘nearly twenty years ago, I was working on burglaries. We gave stolen property back to its owners and that felt good to me. Some of the burglars were desperate, some of them weren’t. But what I liked the most was that it was called “Operation Bumblebee”. Bumblebees are my favourite animal. When I was a girl, I lived out past the M25, where it was like countryside – but not quite. And me and my cousin Bryony would go up to the cherry trees on the bank above the train tracks and we’d eat the cherries and throw the pips at the trains below. And there was always one or two bumblebees, fat ones, buzzing around us for the flowers, when it was summer, and I always associated them with being a child up there and watching the people go into the city to work – and them looking miserable, and me being happy eating cherries. And there was an afternoon when I found a bumblebee that wasn’t flying and he was in the middle of the road – so I held him on the back of my hand, just like this, and I was never scared he’d sting me, and when I saw how furry he was, I wanted to keep him as my pet. But my mum wouldn’t have any of it. She shrieked louder than I’d ever heard and told me to get it out the house, so I took him down the lane to the biggest flower I could find and sat him inside it. That was my only pet I ever had, cos my mum was allergic to cats. And then I had to go back for tea and afterwards he was gone.’

  I was so surprised to have provoked this monologue that I could think of nothing to reply, so let her continue without interruption.

  ‘And when I went to the South of France for my husband’s fortieth – oh it’s lovely in Provence – the fields of flowers, it was like being a girl again, the smell in the air was divine, and all these bumblebees were there! I was in heaven… and my son – he’s your age – he thought I was so ridiculous for how happy I was about the bumblebees, but they made me feel young, and like I was watching the people on the train below me again and like I wasn’t on the train myself anymore, you know. Because I am on the train now, really, aren’t I? But it’s hard for me to listen to you two, because I know that you’ve both lost a mum in Dawn, I know that. And I can’t bear to dream of my Oscar having to look at me after I’ve got off that train for good, and not being able to talk to me anymore. You have to talk about your mum, properly, to each other.’

  ‘She liked talking,’ Francis said. ‘She was good at talking, but she was always better at drugs. That was what was important to her. Not me. That’s what she was good at.’

  ‘Don’t say that, duckling, I can’t believe that. One day you’ll understand it better, but a mother never stops loving her son. They can’t stop it. Whatever mistakes they make. You’re too young to know… but she loved you, it can’t stop.’

  ‘Have you heard of maternal filicide?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve heard it all,’ she said. ‘But I know mothers, I know mothers with sons like you. Like me. And they don’t stop loving their son. I guarantee it.’

  ‘There’s an Austrian writer called Peter Handke,’ I said, ‘who wrote a deliciously sterilised biography of his own mother, called A Sorrow Beyond Dreams – where he admits “I was beside myself with pride that she had committed suicide.” And when he’s talking about her chronic illness, he says “the pain made her see ghosts”. I like how precisely he confesses to the burden of extreme sympathy – and by that, perhaps, cures himself of it.’

  ‘I don’t feel pride,’ Francis said.

  ‘But the point is – there are alternatives to grief, although they may just be grief in different guises,’ I said. ‘And there are alternatives to love, although they may just be love in different guises.’

  The seat in front of me began to bubble and slip – I looked away through the window, but the city was bubbling as well – as a waste of lava, juggled by earthquakes – and buzzards were swooping over us, and our car was a buzzard too.

  ‘What happened with your mum?’ Francis asked softly, still stroking the hair behind my ear.

  I blinked – and the city returned. I was pleased to have punctured enough of his narcissism for him to ask this question at last.

  ‘You really want to hear?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, tell me.’

  ‘It’s my earliest memory,’ I said. ‘I was four years old. I was in my parent’s bedroom, watching my mum change out of her clothes because she’d thrown up on them before she could get to the sink. It was the morning. I’d follow her around the house because I liked her more than my dad. And as she was getting dressed, she collapsed. I thought she was playing a game with me, like pretending to be asleep – so I waited for her to get back up. But she never did. And then my dad raised me till he died when I was eleven.’

  The car stopped. Constable Floris turned to face us.

  ‘Before we get out, I need you both to promise me that you’re going to have a proper conversation about Dawn with each other – you need to think about what she means to you, out loud. I want you to think about her good qualities and her good moments, and you need to talk about it proper, don’t just shut it away – speaking is good – and not just the easy mean words, but the harder words, the kinder ones…’

  ‘We can get up at dawn tomorrow,’ Francis suggested, ‘and watch the sun
come up, for her, for her name. How’s that?’

  ‘Yeah we can share the sunrise in her honour,’ I agreed, charmed by this mild poeticism.

  The constable smiled. ‘Alright then, do that. And now let’s get up there and see if we can find something new for ourselves.’

  We quit the car and approached the tower through the storm.

  4.

  We rang all the bells until someone buzzed us in. Constable Floris had retrieved a red battering ram from the car boot and was carrying it with both hands. We followed her upstairs.

  ‘Have you used that before?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve been trained with it,’ she said. ‘But I’ve never broke in a real door before, no. This is quite fun, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’re doing our own Operation Bumblebee,’ I said. ‘Except we are burgling ourselves.’

  ‘I’d say I’m helping you get your property back, my duckling.’

  ‘Yeah exactly, by burgling me.’

  ‘If we had your key we wouldn’t have to. And I was thinking to myself earlier, it’s very rare for a woman to be in a bathroom with no handbag, isn’t it? Didn’t Dawn have a handbag when you found her?’

  ‘Yeah. But one of Kimber’s men took it when the paramedics came in,’ I said, picturing it lightly spattered with sick beside Francis’ bed.

  ‘That would have been the real treasure chest if we could have got it. But we’ll do our best with what we find up here. If… is that – which number are you?’

  She slowed, lowering the battering ram. I peered around her and saw the front door was ajar.

  ‘Stay here,’ she said, suddenly tensed and attentive.

  She set down the ram on the landing and took out a Taser.

  ‘Police!’ she called.

  With her foot she nudged the front door open wider. ‘Hello? Who’s in here? Please identify yourself.’

  A siren started inside my skin. Francis strengthened his grip on my waist. There was no answer.

  ‘I’m coming inside,’ she called – and stepped forwards, her Taser raised.

  She switched on an interior light. A Y-shaped vein bulged in Francis’ neck. I wanted to kiss it. I leaned more tightly into the tautness of his muscles, excited, as his entire torso tensed. We listened to Constable Floris open the bathroom door and then cross the main room to my bedroom. The siren in my skin loudened until I could smell malt vinegar in it.

  ‘There’s no-one here,’ she said, a tremor in her voice. ‘Looks like they got here first.’

  She reappeared at the threshold and ushered us in, holding the door open. We walked warily past her. She holstered the Taser and went to fetch the battering ram.

  My belongings had been scattered across the living room floor. I thought of Dawn calling this ‘the Napoleonic suite’ – and knelt, smiling, to examine my suitcase – and I noticed that there was a tripod inside the kitchen, with a camera on it, and I jerked up – as a surprised ‘Oh’ came from behind us.

  We turned – Constable Floris was backing into the room, a gun pressed to her forehead – and Kimber entered after it.

  The room plunged three stories downwards, suspended in silence – and then a tap, and a click as the door was kicked shut. Francis breathed in – and my ear cracked, a razor of nausea whipped upwards through my stomach – and the air sharpened into a shot. Constable Floris collapsed into my suitcase, a star in her skull, dead.

  Fatigue surged in me instead of adrenaline. The carpet was a sea, Francis a swaying mast. The ceiling tilted. Zeroes ringed my eyes, trailing the scent of pesticide and malt vinegar, my synaesthesia flaring until my own heartbeat had a colour - a mould-dark green.

  Kimber smiled with a twitch, spreading out his arms as if in welcome.

  ‘You’ve made a miscalculation, my dears,’ he said, the sandalwood oil in his voice more unguent than before.

  I sat down on the bed beside us, sighing, and tugged Francis to join me – but he didn’t respond. Kimber was wearing the same clothes as last night, and his eyes didn’t look like they’d closed in days.

  ‘Wasn’t that –’ I gestured towards the murdered police officer ‘– a miscalculation as well? Don’t you think our neighbours are going to overhear this little execution of yours?’

  ‘Not these neighbours,’ Kimber said. ‘These neighbours know me. They hear nothing and say nothing.’

  He crouched, keeping the pistol pointed at us, picked out the handcuffs from the constable’s belt, and threw them at Francis’ feet.

  ‘Fasten Leander to that radiator, please. I’d ask him to do so himself, but I suspect he might say no and attempt a stand-off.’

  Francis picked up the handcuffs, staring through me in shock and unable to speak. The athlete who’d rushed to defend me yesterday was here reduced to an awkward mute. His survival instincts resulted only in indecision; his shoulders jerked a few times, as though considering somersaults, but his reason overruled them. When his eyes met mine they widened slightly, like he was receiving a second shock from seeing my lack of shock.

  ‘Faster, please,’ Kimber said.

  Francis pulled me upright, his palms hot, his eyes begging for some kind of solution, and pulled me towards to the radiator. I let him. He closed one cuff over a pipe and the other over my left wrist. The bliss of the heroin in my blood seemed to surge as I relaxed into our predicament – until my dominant emotion was delight.

  ‘Tighter, please,’ Kimber said.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Francis managed to say. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ I asked.

  Immediately he bent to me to kiss me, slowly, too scared for urgency. And for a while, denial erased his horror – and elongated the kiss into a kind of defiance. He pushed down on me but I did not push back. I wanted to experience his vulnerability – and so I could only enjoy this act of passion as a prelude to a collapse. I thought of bluebells wilting in frost. When he withdrew, he had less tension in his gaze, but his arms were shaking.

  ‘Just remember that,’ I said, dismissively, leaning back into the wall, my cuffed hand hanging limply from the radiator.

  ‘Very touching, very touching,’ Kimber said. ‘It’s your turn my dear.’

  He reached into his jacket for another pair of handcuffs, and threw them at Francis’ feet.

  ‘Tighten that around your wrist, yes – and the other one around the bedpost, thank you.’

  Francis looked to me for guidance. I looked at the ceiling. He wanted to resist, scream, run – but his thoughts were dominated by the gun, and the sound of it cracking the air in half. So as he bound himself to the bed, his hesitations smoothed out into sullenness – like a teenager resentfully obeying his father.

  ‘Tighter, that’s right. There you are. Now – tell me your name.’

  ‘Leander,’ Francis said.

  I smiled at this slip.

  ‘You seem nervous,’ Kimber said. ‘Let’s try again. Tell me your name.’

  ‘I’m… it’s Francis,’ he said.

  ‘Francis. There we go. So – you’re my wife’s biological son. Which makes this occasion a family reunion. The dark and the light. We have the first son, and the… second son. And the husband – or, now, the widower.’

  ‘Was last night really your idea of a wedding?’ I asked.

  He twitched another smile, placed the gun on the table, and moved a chair to sit in it facing us.

  ‘That question is at the heart of our dispute, my dear – because yes it ought to have been my idea of a wedding – but you… interrupted it when you invited these creatures.’ He gestured towards Constable Floris.

  Her blood had soaked through my suitcase and was pooling across the carpet in a halo.

  And now that I was hearing him speak for the second time, the formality of his words seemed even odder to my ear – like he spoke English too well to be a native speaker. But unlike yesterday, his speech sounded frayed too – there was something feral straining underneath it.

 
‘Weddings are rituals that promise eternity,’ he said, as he removed a glass pipe from his pocket. ‘And the eternity that your mother and I were promised was stolen – by a porcupine.’

  This final word was so surprising that it took me a while to understand what his glass pipe was for. It contained crystal meth – and he must have smoked too much of it – perhaps in grief, perhaps in fear of the police – since he now seemed to be in a kind of psychosis.

  He held the pipe between yellowed teeth and heated it with a lighter. The methamphetamine vaporised into candyfloss. He sucked it like he was hoping to suck sanity itself into his chaos – and threw back his head, his shoulders tensing and untensing.

  ‘The porcupine is around you, Leander. I see it.’

  ‘I’m a porcupine?’ I asked. ‘And what are you?’

  ‘You put death in my marriage bed,’ he said, his stare seeming to see more of me than was there. ‘I did not see who you were yesterday. But I see you now. You are my opposite. You have come to test my manhood. But I shall be married to you and wear your quills as my own.’

  He reheated his pipe’s crystals and inhaled with such ferocity that he choked.

  ‘I dreamt of you before I met you, Leander. In my dream you had wings.’

  He stood, with his arms outspread and his back hunched, as though an inept puppeteer was managing his limbs, and stepped over the corpse of the constable, smiling at me nearly in rapture.

  ‘Your beauty is a disguise. My wife warned me that you were an angel and I did not believe her. But I see you now.’

  Kimber pulled off my shoes and socks. His speed shocked me, and in my sedation I did little to resist. Francis did not stir. Perhaps he could not make himself watch. Without his reaction, I felt like I had none.

  ‘So am I an angel or a porcupine?’ I asked, faking courage – though I knew Kimber wasn’t sober enough to hear how ridiculous he sounded.

  He lifted my legs up high behind me, nearly breaking them at the hip – I screamed, and this excited him further – and he almost tore my trousers in half as he pulled them off.