by Graham Joyce
‘You look different somehow.’ Linda had laid a light and fragrant finger on his reddening cheek. She was wearing thigh-length patent-leather boots and a black leather miniskirt. ‘What have you been up to?’
‘Sam always looks like he’s found a quid and lost a fiver,’ chuckled Terry’s Uncle Charlie.
‘That’s right,’ Linda said thoughtfully, still looking hard at Sam. ‘You look like you found something and then lost it again.’
Sam stood up, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. ‘I have to be getting back home.’
‘Ask her if she’s got a friend for Terry,’ said Linda. Sam turned furiously. ‘Joke,’ she said.
But Skelton was the worst, and the most perceptive.
Sam’s next appointment with Skelton was brought forward because of the Christmas-gifts fiasco. Connie had complained to her GP that Sam’s visits to the psychiatrist were proving useless. The local doctor had responded to this complaint by arranging an extra session of uselessness, which, oddly enough, appeared to satisfy Connie.
Skelton too seemed to have gone through subtle but discernible changes in the holiday period. He sat behind his desk, licking his finger and slowly turning the pages in a file when Sam was shown into the familiar office. His face was pink with capillaries exploded at the surface of his skin, and his flaxen hair was brushed up in a greasy quiff. His ivory and nicotine-stained teeth jutted out further than ever when he spoke.
‘Tsk, tsk, tsk. Sam, my boy, what have I told you about not buying your uncle a hairnet for Christmas? Eh?’
‘Nothing,’ Sam said, suddenly emboldened.
Skelton glanced up from the file. ‘Correct! I’ve told you nothing. Was that unfair of me, laddie? Not warning you about that, I mean. Not telling you not to buy a hairnet for your uncle’s tonsure?’
‘No.’
‘Right. Right. So what’s all this bloody nonsense about dog whistles and bloody Beatle wigs?’
‘It wasn’t my fault. Someone switched them on me. Switched the presents, I mean. I brought socks for people and bath salts and all the usual stuff. Then they got switched.’
‘Oh, I see. A kind of joke. And who, Sam, in your estimable opinion, did the switching?’
Sam shrugged. ‘Probably the same person who left me the Interceptor.’
‘The Interceptor?’
‘Yes. The Nightmare Interceptor.’
Skelton tossed aside his file and folded his hands together. ‘Tell me about this Nightmare Interceptor.’
So Sam told him at length how he’d first been shown the contraption by Chris Morris, Terry’s dead father who’d shot himself and his wife and babies because of the wasps in the jamjar; and how Sam had broken into the shed and tried to steal the Nightmare Interceptor the day the Tooth Fairy slashed his arm; and how for a while he’d used the Nightmare Interceptor whenever the Tooth Fairy came around, to test for dreaming, but it always failed, proving conclusively that the Tooth Fairy wasn’t a dream.
After Sam had finished Skelton regarded him steadily, thrusting out his jaw and baring his lower teeth. ‘Can I see this contraption?’
‘No,’ said Sam.
‘Aha! So it’s like the Tooth Fairy? Only you can see it?’
‘No. I mean, I don’t want you to see it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m going to patent it one day and sell it. It might make me some money. So I don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry having a look at it.’
Skelton’s eyes widened. Then he smiled to himself. ‘There is no bloody Nightmare bloody Interceptor is there, laddie?’
‘Yes, there is.’
‘Admit it.’
‘There is.’
‘Admit there’s no such thing.’
‘There is. It’s not like the Tooth Fairy.’
‘Ah! So you admit there’s no Tooth Fairy?’
‘That’s not what I meant. I knew that you were thinking about what I was thinking. The Tooth Fairy is real, but only I can see it. Anyone can see the Nightmare Interceptor.’
Skelton got up out of his chair. ‘Laddie, there’s something changed about you. Now what is it, I wonder?’
Skelton prowled back and forth in a half-circle behind Sam’s chair. Sam felt his neck flushing hot. Skelton leaned his ruddy face over Sam’s shoulder, seeming to sniff the region of his neck. Sam got a whiff of whisky and pipe tobacco.
Skelton’s nostrils twitched vigorously. ‘Hmmmmmm.’ He made a low humming sound, ‘Hmmmmmm. That’s it! That’s it! I should have known! There’s a girrul! Admit it to me, wee man, there’s a girrul! I can smell her, this girrul!’
Sam said nothing.
Skelton withdrew his face. ‘Tee-hee-hee! A girrul! Tee-heehee! Am I right? Don’t be bashful, young Sam, there’s no one more pleased than me. I disapprove not in the slightest. Hear me? Not in the slightest! On the contrary, me and this lovely girrul together can put an end to your problems. Me and this girrul can kick that Tooth Fairy into touch! Now, could you just give her a name for me?’
Silence.
‘Please? Pretty please?’
‘Alice.’
‘Alice! Hurrah for Alice! This calls for a celebration!’ Skelton marched to his door, flung it open and called to his secretary. ‘No disturbances now, Mrs Marsh. See to it, please!’ Closing the door, he went to his desk drawer, taking out a half-bottle of whisky and two sticky-looking tumblers. ‘A wee nip only for a young lad like you, but this is an important occasion, man to man.’ He poured two glasses, splashing a larger measure for himself, pushing the smaller glass into Sam’s hand. ‘Here’s to all the girruls, from this first one to the last one, all those lovely, lovely girruls who save us boys from the rack and thumbscrew of ourselves. Drink, laddie, drink!’
Sam took his cue from Skelton and sank the whisky in a single gulp. The amber fluid scorched his throat and squeezed tears from his eyes, but he wanted to show the hoary psychiatrist that he could respond to being treated like an adult.
‘See all those books?’ Skelton waved his empty tumbler at the rows of psychiatric journals and psychoanalytical textbooks. ‘There’s not one of ’em can do anything for you, right now, that a good girrul can’t do. In your case. I’m not saying that’s true in all the cases that come before me, understand, but in your case.
‘Now, then, you do know what it’s for? Hmmm? You’ve worked out for yourself that it’s not for stirring your tea with? Not for measuring your pastry, what? Well, my advice to you is to get this lovely . . . Alice was it? . . . get this lovely Alice and stick it in, with her consent, of course, as often as she’ll allow. Now, do you know what a johnny is?’
Sam screwed up his face.
‘What? Thirteen years old and you don’t know what a johnny is? Here. Look at this.’ Skelton rooted through his drawer, fishing from it a small, foil package. He waved the thing under Sam’s nose. Then he laid it on the desk. Sam could see the word ‘Gossamer’ scripted on the foil, exactly like something he’d found in Alice’s jacket.
‘Now, laddie, I can’t give you this. I would, but if your mammy found out, all hell would break loose, and I’d be drummed out of the Brownies and no mistake. Why? Because you’re only thirteen years old. Now, I know, and you know, that you’re perfectly ready for this. That’s the truth. I’m paid to find the truth. It’s my job to find the truth. But the trouble with my job is that after finding the truth, I’m under an obligation not to tell it to anyone. They – that is, those outside this room – don’t want to hear the truth. But this is the Truth Room, which is why I’m telling you this. The Truth Room.
‘I’ll tell you where you can get one of these for yourself. You could get these at a chemist’s, but you’d only go in there and come out with a bottle of Lucozade, so here’s what you do. You wait until your mammy and daddy are out, you go up to their bedroom and you slide your hand between the mattress and the base of the bed, somewhere up the top towards the pillow. Right? You’ll find ’em, sure as eggs is eggs.’
>
‘How do you know?’
‘Got any brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
‘Then you’ll find ’em. Take one and one only – they tend to come in packs of three, God knows why, as if three jumps a night is some kind of national sporting average. Anyway, your old man will just think he miscounted. That’s all. Off you go now. And not a word about this to anyone else, understand? Not a bloody word.’
Sam realized that somewhere among the appalling information imparted to him Skelton had suddenly stopped treating him like a boy. In his mind, perplexity and gratitude struggled for supremacy. ‘I understand.’
‘Good. Now clear off. I’ve got to think up some bloody silly big words to write about you in this here file.’ Sam was out of the door before Skelton called him back. ‘Hey. If you have a change of heart about that contraption you mentioned, that Nightmare thing, I’d like to see it. That is, if the object actually exists.’
‘It does exist.’
‘Well, I’d like a squint. And I promise not to tell anyone.’
Sam said nothing, gently closing the door behind him. Mrs Marsh looked up at him with her irritating smile of faint disapproval. Sam opened his mouth and burped whisky at her.
At the earliest opportunity Sam tested Skelton’s advice. Having waited until his parents were out, he entered their bedroom, kneeled at the side of the bed, plunged both hands between mattress and base and ran his splayed fingers to right and left. The fingers of his left hand closed around a small cardboard wallet.
Skelton was correct.
There was one foil package left in the wallet. Sam dithered. He examined the package and read the instructions. He was unsure whether to risk taking the only remaining condom. The front door slammed as his parents returned. Sam stuffed the condom in the wallet, shoving it back under the mattress before getting out of the room.
Some days after that Sam found himself in the woods, on his way to see Alice. Ever since the day on which he’d observed the fox chewing at the snow-covered tree hollow, Alice had encouraged him to meet with her there in the woods. He had resisted, for obvious reasons. But she’d been particularly insistent, pressing even. She’d promised a surprise for him. They had arranged to rendezvous at a clearing where they’d once shared a cigarette.
The moment Sam passed into the fringes of the woods he sensed that something was wrong. Tempted at that point to turn back, Sam found Alice’s allure to be stronger than his anxiety, and he pressed on. The snow had completely gone, and the crisp, cold wind had dried the debris-strewn paths between the oaks and the birches. It was mid-afternoon. The sky semed to have darkened early, and the woods were already absorbing a sooty endowment of darkness to come.
Up ahead he could see Alice waiting for him at the edge of the clearing. She wore her leather jacket and her scarf and mittens. She leaned her back against an oak, and one knee was drawn up so that the heel and sole of her shoe was pressed flat against the bark of the tree. On spotting him, she took a nervous pull on her cigarette.
‘Hi,’ she said over-loudly. ‘How are you today?’
There was something stilted and unnatural about the question: as if it actually required an answer. Sam stopped in his tracks. Alice didn’t seem to want to look him in the eye. She flicked her fringe and took another drag on her cigarette.
‘What’s this about a surprise?’ said Sam.
‘Come here. I’ll show you.’ She stubbed her cigarette butt out on the tree. Her face was flushed. The light about her gloamed lilac, a warning.
Sam stepped closer. ‘What’s the surprise?’
Two shadowy figures stepped from behind a tree. ‘We are,’ said one of them.
It was Tooley. He was dressed in his Scout uniform, as was his companion. Only the red neckerchief was missing. Tooley’s face was hideously scarred. A livid crescent deformed his cheek as if a horseshoe, still red and glowing from the furnace, had branded its mark there. His dark eyes smoked with hatred.
Sam turned quickly, running directly into the arms of Lance and another youth. ‘No, you don’t,’ said Lance. He flashed Sam a familiar smile, exposing his appalling crooked and blackened teeth. Sam kicked out wildly, but Tooley leapt at him, grabbing his hair. They easily wrestled him to the floor.
‘I see you’ve met my old friend Alice,’ said Tooley.
‘Strip him,’ said Alice.
The four Scouts stripped him naked. Alice watched almost with uninterest as they tied him to an oak tree. When they finished, Alice came over and made a contemptuous examination of Sam’s cock, curling her lip at what she saw, flicking it hard with her sprung finger before turning away.
Alice delved into her pocket for a packet of cigarettes. She gave one to each of them, offering each a light in turn. They all sucked hard on the cigarettes.
‘Get a nice hot red cone,’ Tooley instructed, examining the lighted end of his own cigarette before giving it another passionate suck. ‘A nice red tip.’
Understanding what they were about to do, Sam pissed himself with fright. Together they advanced on him, lighted cigarettes held like darts and levelled at his face, chest and genitals.
‘Wait,’ said Alice. Holding her own cigarette aside, she cupped his balls in the palm of her free hand. Then she smiled. Her teeth gleamed silver in the strange, lilac light. They were filed to wickedly sharp points. Opening her jaws, she leaned into his crotch to bite, and as she did so Sam heard an alarm bell ringing far, far away.
He woke up, still hyperventilating. The crocodile clip slipped from his nostril as he sat upright in bed. He silenced the alarm of the Nightmare Interceptor.
It was the same appalling dream. He’d had the dream several times before, and he knew he would have it again. Then in shame he realized he’d pissed the bed in his sleep. He despaired.
26
Autopergamene
Sam spent many evening hours in his bedroom observing the winter skies through his telescope. Connie thought he spent too much time up there. In ways she was unable to articulate, she thought it wasn’t good for him. Nev retorted by asking her why they’d bought him such a damned expensive telescope for Christmas if they didn’t want him to use it.
But then they didn’t know he had company
When he watched the stars the Tooth Fairy was always subdued, languid, affectionate. She would lean against his side, draping an arm over his shoulder or resting a hand on his leg, gently stroking his thigh with her long fingernails. And she would instruct him in the wiles of the coursing stars.
‘Castor, the white one, and Pollux, the orange one. The Gemini twins, who are not twins at all. And if you had a bigger telescope, you’d see that Castor is a beautiful double star. Now swing right over to the west because it’s time to say goodbye to Pegasus for a while before she dips below the horizon.’
Sam would gaze in silence and in splendid awe.
‘And Andromeda?’
‘In three nights Andromeda will be well placed.’
Often Sam would sit naked at the window of his darkened room, and as the stars made passage across the night sky her hand would stray and dip towards his genitals, teasing his balls or brushing against his cock. And, as the stars blazed, his cock would engorge with barely solicited blood, until it too pointed at the stars. Trembling, with his eye squeezed against the viewer, he would be seized by an image of the Tooth Fairy, naked. And though he might try to shut it out of his mind, the image would eclipse even the stars in the lens. He would scent her sitting next to him, and he might detect a slight flexing of her limbs, and he would know that she knew. And often he would imagine, against some complaining instinct within him, slowly undressing the Tooth Fairy, his hands and limbs almost paralysed with anticipation of the revelation lying beneath her clothes.
‘You want to see me naked?’ she murmured shyly on one occasion.
He leaned back from the telescope, staring directly ahead without answer, which for her was answer enough. There was a whisper of garments slowl
y removed, a toss of her hair, the hiss of nylon as it rolled along her slender thighs and a slight shimmy at the periphery of his vision as she stepped free of her underwear. Then he looked at her.
Sam was deeply shocked. He was also intimidated by her raw physicality, as she shifted her weight very slightly from one foot to the other, gently pushing her pelvis towards him, measuring his reaction. The dense, dark bush at the top of her legs, in contrast with her creamy flesh, was a stellar explosion in negative light. The coils and curlicues of her pubic hair launched like twisting flares scattered by an energy burst at the carnal source of this astonishing black light. Her aggressively offered cunt was appalling, beautiful, devouring. He felt momentarily blinded.
It was as if a third force had entered the room. First there was him, and then there was the Tooth Fairy, and then she’d undressed and unleashed into the room this ravenous power, this insatiable maw; and he understood for the first time that one’s initial impression of the locus of a person residing in their face, their eyes, their talking mouth was childish and staggeringly incorrect, that a brute third force was guiding and misguiding them. Voracious carnality lived and fed and thrived in the shadows, under the water. The insight tolled in him like a bell, and it made him afraid. He was paralysed by the vulgarity of the truth, but he understood dimly that what he was afraid of was life itself.
On that first occasion her cool fingers closed deftly around his erect cock, and she led him, like a creature on a chain, to his bed. She seemed to reach a decision, softening her brutal assault on him. ‘Who do you want me to be? I’ll be anyone but Alice.’
‘You’re jealous.’
‘She takes you away from me.’
‘Can you be anyone?’
‘For you, yes.’
‘Be Linda.’
‘Linda? You want me to be Linda?’
