I banged the huge bronze knocker on the door, which echoed through the vastly oversized house. What seemed like an eternity was in reality only a few minutes later when a member of staff finally opened the door. He was a young boy who was very common in appearance, very average looking with black hair and a dimpled face. “Good afternoon sir, you must be Mr Slater,” he assumed rather than asking me. I nodded, confirming his assumption as I handed him my coat.
“Yes, that’s right, I’ve come to see my Aunt Morgan.”
“Yes, sir, please follow me, she is waiting for you in the dining room.”
I followed the young lad whilst looking at the house. She really had a knack for design, the place looked amazing. I suppose that with her working at the morgue and my uncle being a doctor, it was not surprising that she lived so comfortably. After walking down the extensive hallway we came to the dining room, the boy opened the door and announced that I had arrived. He stood quietly in the far corner as I walked into the room.
She was sat at the end of a long, teak table that was polished to perfection. I was suitably impressed with the cleanliness of the room when I suddenly realised that my uncle wasn’t there. Was he dead, I wondered?
I smiled as Aunt Morgan rose from her seat, walked towards me and gave me a huge hug. She wore a rather large broach. The sharp pointed edges pricked my chest a bit but I didn’t care, it was worth a hug from her.
“Come, sit down darling, lunch is ready,” she said as she turned to the young boy and gave him a dignified nod. He left the room and we were finally alone.
I turned to my aunt and asked, “So tell me Aunt Morgan, was I …?”
Once again she cut me off. She shook her finger in the air indicating me to leave the conversation until after we’d had our lunch. “I hope you still like potato and leek soup? You used to love it so much when you were young.”
She seemed so happy that I was here again in her house. We didn’t visit often when I was young. I think my parents never liked the way she and my uncle had an enormous house with ample staff to cater for them and to serve their every whim.
“Yes Aunt Morgan, I love it.” I gave her a smile as a different servant brought our soup and placed it in front of us. I enjoyed every spoonful, it tasted amazing.
I patiently sat and consumed the main dish which consisted of roast pork, roast potatoes and green beans, drowned in thick glossy gravy. Just when I was about to tell her that I couldn’t eat another thing, desert was served. How could I say no to pudding with thick, creamy custard? I forced myself to consume the lot as I had no intention of offending her. I remembered how cross she used to get if my brother or I didn’t finish our food. She used to say, ‘You are not going to finish your food? Think about all those poor children starving out there, don’t waste it, no, eat it up, all of it and not one more word.’ She was so strict with us but I knew she had always had a soft spot for me.
“Now, my dear, let’s go into the sitting room and discuss what we needs to be discussed,” she said.
She got up and walked down the hall into another massive room. Big windows allowed floods of light into the room and which was elegantly dressed with blood-red velvet curtains. The rest of the room was a picture of absolute perfection. The chairs were French, I believe, and gave the room a sophisticated look. Very nice, very classy, I thought to myself.
“Now,” she said taking a seat “Where shall I begin?”
I looked at her like a dog waiting for a bone. “Anywhere you like Aunt Morgan, just tell me all you know,” I insisted as I sat perched on the edge of the chair in anticipation.
“Well, you are probably aware by now, that your mother Ann and I were not the only two sisters. There were three of us. We had another sister called Georgia. Georgia used to be a scrub nurse, she was your biological mother. You and your brother were born and things seemed fine for a while. She loved the two of you so much. She was always keeping you warm, kissing you and fussing over you,” she said.
I absorbed it all like a sponge; I was hooked on every word. I didn’t want to even interrupt her as the images of her memory played out in her haunted eyes.
“Well that was before Bernard died, he suffered for so many years with a heart condition. I believe he had a hole in the heart which meant he was always coming or going for medical checkups. One night Georgia woke up in the early hours of the morning to find him lying dead beside her. According to her there wasn’t anything that could’ve been done to save him.”
She paused as she calmly lit up a cigarette. All I could think was how awful it must have been for my biological mother.
“No one noticed the gravity of the problem at first. All we saw were small bruises on you and your brother’s arms. We all thought they were done by accident but then we realised that the two of you were losing weight and fast, this worried us. So Ann and I asked Georgia if she wanted us to stay over for a week to give her some time to herself. She had been through so much heartache and grief. She agreed to this.”
She stopped again and offered me a sweet. I couldn’t believe what Aunt Morgan was saying. Every word that escaped her lips seemed to belong to an impossible alternate world, yet she was talking about my life, a life I never knew existed, until now. I took a sweet as she carried on unravelling the family’s dirty secrets.
“After supper one night Georgia put you and your brother to sleep in your cots and she went to her room. Your mother and I were talking in the sitting room when we heard crying. We waited to see if Georgia would go to check in on you both, but a few minutes passed and we still heard crying. We both got up to check what Georgia was up to. We opened the door of her room to find her standing there, lost in a trance, staring into nothingness. We decided to leave her alone and tend to the two of you ourselves.”
She moved in her chair, I could tell that this story was getting darker by the moment and it was making her uncomfortable just telling me it. She explained the rest.
“She was like a completely different person. During that week she had forgotten to feed you and your brother. She was oblivious to anything except for her obsession for everything needing to be clean. One day she was in the bathroom with your brother and was bathing him when we heard him crying. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, so we went in and found her scrubbing him with wire wool, repeating over and over, ‘you will be clean.’ His back was so red-raw that there was blood streaming down it. I ordered her out of the room and cleaned him up myself. He cried so much that night, poor innocent child. Your mother and I had seen enough and we started to work out what to do next. We had to get you and your brother out of her house so neither of you would get hurt any more.”
Everything started falling into place. Aunt Morgan obviously had no idea about the abuse my brother and I had been victim to at the hands of Ann, her sister. The one who in her eyes had helped ‘save us.’ No wonder Demetrius had left, I should have left myself and never looked back. I kept my knowledge to myself and allowed Aunt Morgan to finish explaining to me all that she knew. Was reality something that could be found or was it in the perception of the individual?
“Ann and I asked Georgia several times about the cuts and bruises and if she fed you both properly. She would get so aggressive, to the point that she nearly threw us out of the house on several occasions. Your mother and I agreed it was time for action and that one of us would be adopting the two of you. It was the only option we had to ensure both of you would be well looked after. We were convinced it would be the right thing to do.”
She paused for a moment and looked hard into my eyes “Are you sure you want to know all this, darling?” I could tell she had doubts in her voice as if she felt she shouldn’t have told me as much as she already had.
“Yes please, Aunt Morgan, I am not a little boy any more and I need to know. Please tell me, I’ll be okay,” I said even though I was feeling frustrated at the thought of her just cutting me off. I tried my hardest to soften her edges and get her to disclose to me
all that she knew. I did this by softening my voice and getting my eyes to portray myself as a lost boy. I knew this would work as it had worked on her many times before.
She smiled at me at first but as she continued her smile dissolved and her eyes glazed over with unleashed tears.
“The night before we were going to take you and your brother from her house, we were woken up by the sound of one of you crying. Don’t ask me why but I knew she had lost it. By now we knew she wouldn’t be thinking straight, she would most probably hurt you. In fact when we ran into the room she was shaking you and hanging you out the window! Her eyes were red with fury! I reacted as fast as I could, quickly snatching you out of her hands as Ann picked up your brother. She collapsed to the ground. We called the police and she was eventually placed in a mental institution. I believe it was St Helen’s Hospital. Ann adopted you and your brother. We did all this to save the two of you.” She pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her tear filled eyes.
“Thank you, Aunt Morgan,” I told her, trying to make her feel better; she looked at me as one of her eyebrows rose.
“Khedlar, you and your brother weren’t just twins. We never knew until Ann adopted you that in fact you were triplets. Your sibling was born with a horrible deformity,” she said.
My mouth dropped open and for a brief moment I felt like I should confess that I had killed him outside the cabin in the woods. Sense stopped me as I remembered it had only been a dream. How did Demetrius know he was deformed? Who was this midget that tried to attack me in my sleep?
“To this day we have no idea where he is. We found your birth certificates amongst other things of Georgia’s that she had left behind in her house when she was committed. We have never seen your brother, God knows what has happened to him. Georgia was always such a turbulent soul that even when Bernard died she didn’t want neither Ann nor myself attending his funeral. She would tell us that we weren’t family at times when it suited her and then she would come running back to us when she needed something. She was never the warmest of people. We never knew she had it in her to become such a raging beast as we had only ever seen her being so loving to you both. I guess death can do strange things to a person. She was always too sensitive and secretive while growing up.”
I couldn’t control it any longer, I had to ask. “Aunt Morgan, was my sibling a disfigured midget?” I tried desperately to sound like this was a perfectly innocent question and part of a normal, everyday conversation. The thought that I could be related to a gruesomely deformed midget made my mouth twitch as I tried to control the violent urge to laugh hysterically at this obscene thought.
Her face looked shocked at my question. “No!” she answered wondering where I had gotten that sort of an idea from.
I felt a bit embarrassed and just wanted to get out of her house at this point. I uttered profanities at my brother even beyond his grave he is still making an idiot of me. I looked up at Aunt Morgan.
“Thank you for everything you have done for me. I would not be here if it wasn’t for you and my mother, and I really appreciate you telling me all this. I know it must have been very painful.”
“Well, now,” she said wiping her eyes again “I am just happy that Ann was a great mother and gave you two a second chance of life.” She got up from the chair and gave me a big hug. “Now if you would excuse me I think I am going to rest for a while, this has drained me completely.”
“Don’t worry about me. Go rest, I’ll show myself out, and I hope to see you soon Aunt Morgan,” I said as I gave her a kiss on the cheek. She agreed and I left the room and her house.
Chapter 18
Questions
I left my aunt’s house in a dazed state and found myself wondering aimlessly in town. I was walking on its quaint, cobbled streets with no direction in mind. The town felt almost unrealistic to me. I was an empty shell of a man, just slowly drifting along in time. Everything was familiar yet nothing felt right any more. It looked the same and yet so many things had changed over the years. I was mulling over in my head all the things my aunt Morgan had told me, walking obliviously for about an hour.
My biological mother had turned out to be a complete monster. Where was my other brother? Aunt Morgan hadn’t even given me a name. How would I search for him? What did he look like? Was he the one that I had seen walking in the park with my little girl? Did he look like me? How did Sue know him when I had never met him?
Not all was as it seemed. My life was an endless puzzle with so many missing pieces, even the edges of the truth were found few and far between. I wondered if there was some murderous blood running through my veins. Even Ann was a monster as well as a liar. I know I didn’t do it, it’s just not possible. The thought of who could have killed my wife and daughter made me feel suddenly physically sick. I tried to ignore it and decided I had to call a taxi.
My world was crashing down around me harder than ever before. I needed to go to the cemetery so sit by Sally and Sue’s graves, to confirm that their deaths were real.
The taxi that pulled up was overly large and I felt like a child sat in the back seat of my parent’s car.
“Where to?” the faceless man asked me. I was too deep in my mind to even care what he looked like.
“To Green-Eyes Centenary please,” I said, my voice trailing off to join my thoughts.
It wasn’t far, the taxi arrived in minutes. I paid the driver and got out of the car.
“Have a good day,” he said as he drove off. To be honest I wanted to blow his head off with a shotgun. How can I have a good day?
I wanted to destroy something, break someone’s face, pound it into a million pieces and watch the life drain from their eyes.
I stalked into the cemetery like a feral animal. I had to see the graves, I needed proof that they were dead. I roamed the long stone paths, my eyes darting about the place with the veins in my neck ready to pop and then I saw it. A figure of an angel caught my attention and I ran towards it. There it was in front of me; Sally’s grave. “How could you do this to me? You’re heartless, ugly, I hate you!! Destroying my life wasn’t enough for you. You had to die! You had to betray me! You made me think Sue was mine! How could you?! I hate you! I loved Sue and now she is dead! You’re to blame, you’re to blame,” I screamed.
My eyes glared as I peered over to Sue’s grave. The purple ribbon that I’d tied to her tombstone was gone! I felt someone looking at me and the hairs on my neck stood up. My blood ran icy cold as a noise from behind the bushes caught my attention. I was pure wrath, I was filled with hatred. I ran straight at them, whoever or whatever I found was going to die! A grubby man crouched in the bushes, staring at me with wild eyes.
“Stand up!” I screamed at him. White spit flew out of my foaming mouth.
He stood up, obeying my command and I noticed Sue’s purple ribbon slightly protruding from his pocket.
“What have you done?!” I roared, my voice deafening my ears as more saliva escaped my mouth.
I grabbed him by his collar. I had put the ribbon there, I must have. Have I been here before? Hadn’t I? I didn’t care. All that mattered was that the man standing in front of me had stolen my little girl’s ribbon.
I snapped inside as a mist of red descended into my soul consuming me, tainting everything I saw. I raised my fist and paused only for an instant. I unleashed my hatred when I started punching the man’s face in. He screamed as I beat him, I didn’t care. My fist pounded at him over and over again, becoming a blur. Blood warmly splattered on my face. I could smell his sickly sweat and taste his metallic blood in my mouth. I wiped my eyes clean with the back of my blood drenched fist, panting from the acceleration.
The man was on his knees, crying and begging me to stop. I snarled at him like a rabid dog, his cowardly lack of defence was pathetic. “You shouldn’t have taken the ribbon!” I screamed at him. I felt no mercy, no fear, and no remorse. Anger was all I felt, hatred and revulsion for this putrid sack of flesh before me.
He had tainted the last thing in this world I had cared about, the only person I had truly ever loved. I refused stop now, I had nothing left to loose, nothing to stop me or care about any more.
I violently came down upon him, kicking and hitting with such vicious force that his body slammed into the ground, twitching with each sickening blow. He became deadly quiet but it didn’t make a difference, not to me, nothing could. I kicked him over and over again watching blood trickle from his broken mouth. I spat on him as I grabbed the ribbon from his pocket and watched him gasping. I knew he would be dead soon enough.
Die you piece of worthless trash I thought as I walked away, calm and serene. I was in control, nobody could ever touch me again. Revenge would be mine. I adjusted my tie and neatened up my hair. I felt nothing, no more pain, no more fear. I knew this act had made me lust for the blood of the person who had destroyed my life.
Nobody had seen, no one would care that he died I thought to myself, after all, it wasn’t a bad thing I’d done. I picked up my mobile phone and rang for a taxi, it was time for me to go.
The drive back took forever because there had been an accident on the main road. The traffic was backed up for miles and I subconsciously toyed with the purple ribbon in my pocket. I pulled it out to examine my trophy more closely when I realized, it was the wrong colour. In disgust I scrunched it up in my hand, lowered the window and threw it out of the moving car. It was the wrong ribbon, never mind. Maybe I hadn’t been to the graves before after all.
Even though cars all around us were blowing their horns, the sound was muted and distant. I was living deep in my mind. The idea that I was adopted shocked me. So what if Georgia was mad, I had to find out where she was and if she was still alive. In my eyes no one deserved to be called ‘mother’, they were just characters in a warped reality show that was in no way real to me. Living in a world of fake pretenders had exhausted any sympathy I’d once possessed and I was left with no connection to the word ‘family.’ I needed to find out who was behind all of this and what gave them the right to invade my life and destroy it from the inside out.
Psycho-Analysis: The Beginning Page 15
