The Gates of Janus

by Ian Brady

  There are decisions that he didn’t make. Antiquing it up now into a dialogue with the lies and games he crafted in time have crafted him back. He can continue to despise those he must or wants to interact with. He can forget the things he hates more, simply existence as he’d tell you, not quite. He would have hated that no matter where he was. He did. Everything he says now is product and, truthfully, dying isn’t going to be better because it doesn’t matter. Too many long hauls. Experience looking for relief. And, more truthfully, he doesn’t hate that enough. Can you understand that, don’t imagine, Mrs. West, having seen what he’s held. What grasps seen, you know more. You and the pig. Pigs. And it hasn’t changed anything. It was something that others tell him was different than what he did, what he saw. I can’t, for example, imagine what it felt like. Not thinking that sensing something like that was heavenly or appropriate or transcendent. From tight and dry and unsympathetic and not screaming when it stopped.

  I look at the people talking about the photos. And I remember what it was like. And as an old man, stripped by guards who see what the talking faces think, they must immediately know: that’s how Lesley died. And as I’ve aged. And my body has fallen into age. Warped like it is now. That body remembers how ugly I was when I didn’t look like this. Not this bad, absorbent, malleable, suggestible. The early jailers knew. And she had to be frightened in a different way than the slug that reimagines immediately what I’ve become. What this becomes. And it is—fuck, it has to be—so much more wretched to have been that way back then. And the woman who was far more overcome with that lust that crazed drunken slobs get when they’re not thinking restrictive aesthetics like men do. She had to be so perfectly focused and she’d not regret it now like I do. Which isn’t to say like you do.

  Duncan Staff had himself filmed listening to the phone messages that Myra left from jail on his answering machine. In one of them, asked to write about what happened with poor ten-year-old Lesley, Myra says that she’s having a hard time writing about “the Lesley Ann Downey thing.”87 Thing doesn’t ring as bad as it could, frankly. I know that’s what people can complain about. Myra says it’s “so… so… so difficult.” Because she was “a cruel bastard.” I think it’s all lies. Including her finding it difficult unless she’s talking about how to position not recalling the vents when she deconstructs the mess. Take the cruelty out of it. Which is to say remove the audience from your expectations of drama. And give me the details like you would after you’ve been raped. Myra, think this way. Say that it was you that was being raped. By how dumb and unthinking and thus uncaring you were then and what that child—seeing that child, turning that child over, sat next to her, with your tongue out and eyes wide, and think what that miserable little monster has caused you. Fight back to the mother that you despise and the poor demented Winnie Johnson woman you know you can talk to others about as if no one was going to sell your private moments.

  JOAN BAKEWELL: One of the things Christians believe is that to forgive someone is to bring peace of mind to yourself. Do you think you could do that?

  ANN WEST: Never. Never. I could never forgive what they did to my child. Never. Never. Till the day I die. I can never forgive.

  JOAN: But Ann, the forgiveness might bring you some rest; make you feel better in your spirit.

  ANN: I don’t think so. People write to me and say they will never forgive her. And they’re strangers.

  JOAN: You don’t feel that forgiveness would heal all the injuries you’ve had?

  ANN: It’s too far gone, Joan, too far gone.

  JOAN: You don’t feel that the hatred is making you ill?

  ANN: Well, I don’t think I could be any iller.

  JOAN: Everyone who knows this story wants nothing more than that you should find some peace of mind.

  ANN: When she dies, when she dies. When she dies I’ll find some peace of mind.88

  Terry Kilbride on the fiftieth anniversary of Keith’s death:

  “I cannot imagine what Alan is going through. I sent him a message this morning. I’m thinking of them today of all days. It just knocks me sick when I come up here. You look around and it’s such a vast area. It’s like a needle in a haystack.”89

  Terry Kilbride at 58 on his brother John:

  “We always wonder what he’d be like now.

  “He’d be getting on for 63—what would he have been like, the man he was never allowed to become?

  “We like people to remember him and lots of people do, especially people who went to school with him.

  “We always knew not to talk to strange men, but we were never warned in that way about women.

  “When we found out there was a woman involved it was a big shock.

  “I was nearly nine when it happened and I remember it all—him not coming home, my mum searching, the police searching everyone’s homes and coal sheds.

  “So many people came out to help with the search, to help the police.

  “I want to thank the police and people of Ashton and the surrounding area for everything they’ve done for us.

  “I don’t think you’d get that response and that help now.

  “I’m not a well person, and when I went to that tribunal, he looked really well, a lot better than me and he’s 75. He’s a very clever and manipulative person, but he’s mad.”90

  Terry, then 56, on his brother Danny:

  “He fought all his life. His brother had been murdered and he wanted justice—he wanted life for life.

  “He got that justice for Myra Hindley because she died in prison.

  “Ian Brady is still in prison and is going to die in prison. So he got his justice.

  “That should go for everyone who’s done a crime like that. Life is life—not 15 or 20 years.

  “Danny was the most jolly person you could ever meet—laughing and joking with everyone.

  “You’d go a long way to find one like Danny.

  “He never flinched. No matter what he had to do, he just did it. You’d never know what he was going through.

  “Danny’s not just done it for our family, he’s fought for every family, for everybody in the country in the same predicament.

  “He did that for everyone. I’m the same. I will fight all my life—I’ll fight for everyone’s family.”91

  In cross-examination Miss Grey Q.C. asked about the same topics albeit from a slightly different angle. “What problems can you foresee should you return to prison?” she asked. His reply, “I’m not omnipotent. I’m in tune with the regressive changes that have been taking place throughout the whole penal system.” They spoke about the problem of overcrowded prisons and he dismissed it with the comment that there has always been overcrowding. She asked whether he could foresee any other difficulties for him personally should he return to prison. His response: “No. it would be quite the opposite. I don’t glorify myself. I say I am simply a parcel. I will be sent to prison.” He went on to say that he did not envisage the conditions he had experienced in Durham or Wormwood Scrubs. He concluded that in his opinion the whole penal system is now “zoological.”

  I’m not talking about his tall thin body. Or Myra’s brick shithouse. What she looked like in the photos that she was told the cops found of her and Brady. Was supposedly relieved, decades after youth, that they could prove her sexual victimization. They wore hoods in some. Included Brady pissing on a curtain along with them “having sex” and her wearing crotchless panties. And David Smith says she had great tits. Treat yourself. You’ve been alone too long and this is owed to you. Not as proof that they don’t care, not as revenge against the people you know, not suspect, are dumb. Treat yourself to that point your mind goes without them. What you think is really there, up there, down in that morass first. I wanted this. And know that the photos of Ian and Myra and Lesley, of those photos described as the violation of the child and reminded of the details of them washing her body and fucking her in whatever ways it always only made ugly uglier, are not captured for moron perman
ence. The photos of that naked child are only naked. And kidnapping shots should be worse. The pigs that sell photos to me of their children in provocative positions didn’t need to be provocative. They didn’t need to suggest. Unless they were very bad salesmen. Very good, if clothed.

  Miss Lieven Q.C. put to him whether, if transferred, would he try to commit suicide. He replied he had answered the question many times. He said, “I’ve answered hypothetically from all angles.” He likened his position to that of a monkey in a cage and posed the question, “How can you pretend to be omnipotent at that time? You can’t make plans when you have no freedom of control, movement or anything… you can’t talk sensibly or predictively about anything such as a question like that.”

  God didn’t want you to be a faggot, you’ve been finding out about yourself and he doesn’t think you need to fight with him, just listen. All these men and women telling you you shouldn’t even have known where the sleazy bars were, created that way because of the legitimate shame there is in being so degenerate, aren’t there due to the best efforts of those who know better than you. This is all you want. Think about that. As in all. You certainly must be better than this. You’re sick and utterly hopeless. Unless they’re utterly wrong. Forcing you to hide how stupid you could make them be. Said, now, as if acceptance has brought reality finally up to date. When in fact. It really always has been a mistake. I’m trying so desperately hard not to sound as if I’m thinking there is some natural state to what I’m saying and the public perception has only ever been wrong. Intolerant. The opposite is true. You should have been better than this. What are your options. Means you have more. Not to just stick something in your ass or your mouth and have fingers that reach nowhere. The bowels of your body are not your own. Honestly, I’m telling you, I like that you are sick. Not that you were. It was going to twist much worse and never recover. It can’t ever be better.

  There would be noted differences in the approach to his illness over the years. Like his incarceration. Dr. Swinton pointed out that the nursing staff treat Mr. Brady on the basis that he is mentally ill. Called, per their job, certainty. Everything they do and everything they think is premised on the incontestable facts that this patient is mentally ill. That would not be the premise in prison. They manage individuals on the basis that those individuals are acting rationally and can make choices. Have made the wrong ones previous. In Ashworth Hospital he is treated for a personality disorder. It has rules listed under terms.

  He’s talking to himself. Repeating his greatest friends. Condescending to himself, impressing himself with what’s he learned and kept to. Proved himself correct and, even, successful in a way that even he’s not too stupid to deny. He’s, if anything, avoiding the tabloid details while sounding fucking exactly like one. The ones that want to know what’s going on, want to talk at you, see if you measure up to their moral strength while accepting the falls and hardships that the powers keep class ridden rotten. He’s become the old grump, hectoring as if he’s the only one who knows the truth and it’s his drunken duty to tell you. Do any of the doctors say that it’s nice to see him struggle. Like the pub regulars would. Like a cunt like him would say if pushed.

  At the same time, I’d prefer that this book doesn’t become yet another Moors Murder book that keeps detailing what he’s done with saying how terrible and pathetic he is. And I can, actually. Because I don’t care enough about the victims to think it’s morally right or wrong to bother. In fact. There’s a photo of Winnie Johnson in her hospital bed dying. And it’s all right with me that it’s a terrible picture that shouldn’t have been taken. And that she should’ve known better than to have it allowed. And the family are more complicit than they’ll allow and fairly psychologically dimmed. Now. With reason, yes. With their pasts. But it’s not that quick. It’s not Ian sitting there with his fucking feeding tube stuck up his nose like every cartoon that accompanies more articles than you’d not know if you weren’t following this shit fucking daily. It is, truth be told, the wrong one in the bed. Not Ian, not Winnie. Taste wins out. Like talent. Not Ann West. Shame, actually. It’s Myra and David Smith. Talking about Ian and how stupid he must be to have allowed himself to believe himself. Unfucking like them longer than a while. I don’t, like you don’t, know what you’ve missed. Except when you write it down. Not quite to the taste that keeps me interested. But worth a great deal more than the others. Since it does actually tell you in an absolutely clear way how much our hero struggled with his past and what his past did to win. After he raped and killed what he raped. These are the updates that have been repeated in the tabloid quality press since this book came out. It’s terribly convenient of me to announce how everyone with a voice and no pictures have lined up with what Brady says in this book. And how it’s been molded so tightly around him that he parrots simple shit speech.

  Brady’s tribunal was a clear example of him talking to the people he wanted, not so much needed, to talk to. Instead of answering wholly manipulative, he refused to answer when a clear answer would have helped him argue his case. Instead he answered that his plans were of no interest to anyone. He needed to be judged sane by those people who didn’t want to listen to moral or ethical problems but couldn’t play the game due to the real people who would be listening. There’s always an audience. His alterity fails him dramatically. His alterity has become the worst sort of proof. Everything comes with a wink and he is not at all manipulative. Just stupid. And lonely. Very lonely people who too often sound like that when you’re trying to help them feel better.

  Thanks so much for your belief in my work, but a biography of Brady isn’t for me. I agree that there is no definitive book about him at present, but he isn’t someone I feel I could write about in any more depth than I have done in One of Your Own/Witness. There is no ambiguity about him to explore, and his motives for committing the crimes he did are all too transparently terrible, plus I think in order to write about him with any sort of insight, a certain kind of contact would have to be begun and then seen through to the end, which I neither want to do, nor am in a position to achieve with the kind of objectivity necessary to make it succeed. I know there are other people lining up to publish books about him after his death, but I have no faith in any of them being anything other than pseudo-intellectual rubbish along the lines of ‘I Knew the Moors Killer Best.’92

  This book was written after the breakdown and before the Tribunal. Pages of notes in front of him while he sat for the doctors and judges each time. As he was making sense for them about what happened. His bitterness comes from not wanting to talk to the audience that looks to him for what little he has and what he can make of what they don’t dare ask. For them, for him after they see it. So he looks back, of course. Culture is absent him. Which isn’t true. As a free man, he was aware of the places where more interesting men would find something as seething and necessary and exciting as sex and violence. Smelled something more; relationships as defined by others were impossible and his access to better was just starting. Became keen. But his peers were talking to others. He saw his talk as Sade’s extreme. This was selfish, rightly so as he came back decades later, to not prop himself up, but explain. His reactions were slow and sensible and wrong because of what he misunderstood in what he saw and had to tell. Watch the antics of them. And now he’s talking about what he did. As if in a panic. While he watches the antics of those he watched and judged against himself and the phenomenal mistakes he made. They want something less incoherent. Then they have to do more work. Lazy vain cunts. Cunt.

  The victims don’t matter to the tribunal, Alan.

  That doesn’t exist. And those who mattered back when, have swallowed the shit that he knew was incorrect as he watched them act like imbeciles all the time anyway. The breakdown, he reached a breaking point that he thought should be catharsis. But not the sort that empties the past to confirm the future. The one that, appallingly, stopped the present and spread it flat into a future like mud. He would be slow fr
om then on. And all the looking back. Done perfectly in this very sad, very exciting, book that has little to do with those prison officials who keep him from doing anything else but count his mistakes and absolutely everything to do with him looking at what he wanted and taking seriously all that no one else did. He’s talking about the future, actually. Fantasizing barely forward. His reliance on indignity better than performance, experience. Him being a bad actor in the sense that the actor confuses the acting for the audience’s expectations to be fooled. He took the wrong customers too seriously. And little ten-year-old Lesley doesn’t come into the equation at all. Because it talks all fucked-up, far past wrong. The audience requires acting shit from you. Stanislavsky and Artaud should have suggested something that wasn’t defined by the tired old communities, the long lines of theatregoers and waiters that they were outraging. I’ve been there, in those lines. The theatre proprietors depend on the money from them, not the silly ones with Albee scripts in their back pocket. They’ll be asking for jobs next. The fact is Ian Brady didn’t become Mick Jagger, Harrison Marks, Albert J. Reiss, Boyd MacDonald, Pierre Molinier, Ole Ege or Francis Bacon not because he couldn’t write “Cocksucker Blues.” Not because he didn’t. Not because he didn’t take care of business. But because he didn’t know how to watch the antics of them. And his mistakes couldn’t be helped because he wasn’t special enough to repeat what Sade said. He was one of those idiots who did. There’s too many examples of him telling Myra and David and Jackie and the Alans how to think and more examples of him proving an easy job. Any self-help asshole, talking to you like he knows something about you because he’s telling you how he came to realize it. The second sentences will always be loaded with contempt. And it’s galling that it’s so easy to see through. It’s tiresome. Talk to them, leave me alone. And, most likely, they can’t leave you alone. It’s going to go on and on.