I eventually found and entered my room after a few minutes of walking around. I lay down on the bed thinking how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday as my stomach growled ferociously. I remembered I had packed a couple of crackers with my favourite spread in a sandwich box in my bag. I had packed it in case I didn’t like the food here; I got stuck in and for some reason I didn’t even mind the crumbs that fell on my bed. The broken crackers annoyed me and I made a mental note to be more cautious of my bag next time so the contents wouldn’t get shifted or broken.
I sat down at the desk and took out a pen and paper. I wrote down all the questions I wanted to ask my mother tonight at dinner, and this time I would not eat or drink a thing until I got some answers. I had no idea where I would end up if I did. I wanted to know about Demetrius, why Georgia had never come back for me and who my real family were.
The questions were all written out perfectly and evenly spaced when surprisingly there was a knock on my door. “Enter,” I called imperiously.
Old Francs walked into the room. “Sir, your mother has requested your presence tonight in the dining room, in one hour.” He looked at me with a slight smirk. I realised his moustache was a bit out of place, almost as if it was falling to one side. I acted as if I hadn’t noticed a thing and accepted her invitation. Having received my promise that I would attend he left, that silly little man. I did start to wonder what the smirk was about, though. Francs and the sack-man were by far the two strangest people I’d met in a long time. Francs ran an empty house while my brother didn’t have the guts to show his face, what a pair. My biological mother was the centre of this freak show and seemed perfectly at home with the situation.
Nearly forty-five minutes had passed and I was still pacing up and down in my room thinking how I was going to ask the questions. Should I be direct, or try to throw some hints before asking the questions on my list. I wondered why this had to be so difficult and wished for an ounce of reason to be present at dinner tonight. I was agitated by the thought of more delays, more games, and more treachery. Part of me just wanted to slit their miserable throats and be done with it.
I left my room and started the trek to the dining room with my anger towards mother kept tightly under control and my arrogant nature unleashed to help get the answers I had come here for. Nothing was going to stand between me and the truth now, not ever again.
Chapter 22
Cruel Game
I descended towards the dining hall with a determined, angry stride that refused to be stopped. When I opened the doors I saw my mother, the butler and the sack-man all sitting at the opulent table. The heels of my well-polished, black shoes clipped a regimental beat that echoed in the silent room as I continued in my merciless advance towards them. I could smell meat, gravy and spices coming from the serving table that had several silver domed platters with steaming food hidden beneath them. I could hear my heart resonating in my ears as the familiar feeling of adrenaline once again forced itself through the fibres of tense muscles, making my pupils dilate.
I wondered what on earth was going on. Why did they all look so happy and why was the butler sitting with them like he was their equal? I shook my head in disapproval while keeping a cool generic smile firmly plastered on my face. I thought that kind of thing was never done. I knew yet again something strange was about to happen. My gut tightened as I approached them. I was seething at their stupid grins as I sat down in a vacant chair. The weight of my angry, intense presence hung heavily in the air. It was palpable and I knew they could feel it oozing out of me. I was in no mood to be messed with and I didn’t try to hide this fact from them. I wanted them to know that enough was enough.
The room was solely lit by candles and the cold chill that ran through this house had a sinister air about it. They just stared at me and their silence started to make me feel obliged to think of something to say but just as I opened my mouth to speak Francs stood up. He seemed happy for some reason and this threw me. What was the deal with this butler acting like he owns the place? I felt like taking him to the park for a nice stroll and beating him up, and his smug smile… pathetic!
“Come here son, give me a hug,” he said with a large grin on his face, revealing his half decayed teeth. He then proceeded to peel off his unevenly placed moustache, showing his true face, one that could only be described as ugly.
I was so dumbfounded! I had no idea how to react. I stood up as he walked hastily towards me and gave me a kind of painful hug. This all felt so real. It was one of the most real things that had happened since I entered this mansion of madness. His scent was so familiar, he smelled of cigars and old spice. My body had no idea what the old man was playing at. I was no longer a child who needed to remember that I was an abandoned afterthought, no I was a man who wanted the madness to stop. I stepped back to regain my personal space and composure as his smile dropped into a confused question mark. I didn’t care, it made me feel contaminated and unclean. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I calmed my breathing and straightened up my tie as I glanced towards my vacant chair. Georgia was perched on the edge of her seat looking pleased with the way the night was developing.
“Please sit, we will explain everything to you,” he said in an eager tone of voice.
I glanced over at Georgia who was staring at him with widened eyes. I reluctantly agreed and sat back down. I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t think of anything else I could do in this situation but sit silently.
My mask fell into place hiding my passive aggressive intent as I stared blankly at the pair of them, while sipping my wine with a critical eye. Let these lunatics play out their pathetic carnival games while I got the answers I sorely needed. They paraded as clowns dressed like royalty when in reality they were freaks of nature to be pitied and despised. How could I be related to these people? I felt like I just had to give in to the insanity and deal with the facts that were unfolding before my eyes. I wanted answers and I was determined to get them. They were twisted and messed up in more ways than I could ever imagine but I had no choice but to stay silent and hear all that my ‘father,’ had to say. I tried to relax my mind to be able to absorb any information he was about to hit me with. I brought the image of Berryl’s expression to mind which allowed my face to look convincingly happy with this chaos and cover the disgust I felt for these loathsome people.
He pulled up a chair which scraped loudly on the polished floor to sit beside me and leaned into my personal space, yet again.
“Well, for starters, my name is not Francs it’s Bernard, and I am your real father,” he said.
He seemed earnest in what he was saying. “Really?” I asked with sarcasm dripping from my voice. “Okay, right, if you say so,” I said in a dazed disbelief, my mind whirling suspiciously in anticipation of what they would reveal next.
My mother cut in and started to give me a vague explanation. “Son, certain people may have told you lies about what actually happened the night you and your brother Demetrius were taken away from me.”
Her plastered on make-up started to look as if it was sinking into her indented orbital cavities. She proceeded with her well-rehearsed speech as I watched with my rigid grin.
“They are all just lies from liars’ lips, don’t believe them!” She started to shed a single fake tear from her sunken eyes.
I could tell I was about to get even more confused. Yet another side to a story that was in my mind complicated enough. At this point the tear mixed with her black eyeliner and was melting away the layers of thick, caked on foundation. She looked like the disfigured clowns in the nursery. I wiped my eyes to adjust my vision and to stop her face from melting in my mind.
“Please carry on mother, I’m listening,” I said to encourage the histrionic wreck of a woman in front of me.
“Your Aunt Ann,” she continued, “could never have children. She was sterile from a secret abortion she had when she was just a teenager. She was so scared that mother would find out, that she paid an un
qualified doctor to perform the procedure. He used a coat hanger and a strong anaesthetic. Needless to say, she nearly bled dry. She was lucky to survive and thus, from that horrible ordeal, her love for vodka began. She is what I call a lost soul, to put it in the nicest way I can,” she said. I could see her wrinkles show as her frustrated expressions surfaced on her ageing skin.
It all started to make sense now. I had noticed that she always drank before going to bed every night. I was intrigued by all this information; these were people I thought I knew. I had grown up with them masquerading as my parents for most of my life. In my mind I had two separate images of them, one of what and who I thought they were, and now a new born image from what Georgia was describing.
I leaned forward waiting for her to tell me more, for the answers to the questions I so badly craved. “That is terrible mother,” I said giving her a sympathetic smile and trying to pretend to have any empathy for her messed up story. I didn’t care either way I just didn’t want her to stop. She obviously held all the cards containing the answers I sought so I played along with her foolish game. I just wanted the information and to get out of this demented place as fast as I could.
“As for your Aunt Morgan,” she proceeded to say, “She used to be an intensive care doctor in the local hospital until her son Bradley, who was two, swallowed some pills that she had stupidly left on the coffee table. To cut a long-winded story short, she tried to save him. They took him to hospital but it was to no avail, he died due to the massive overdose. His little body had no chance of surviving that. She has never forgiven herself for the mistake she made, that’s why she ended up working in the morgue. She doesn’t want to kill anyone else. Can you blame her? I personally think she is in the best place she could be. She was strange in some ways, especially when you boys were born. She used to try to get you both to call her mummy.”
She sat back in her chair feeling content with herself, as if she had just won an Oscar award for best dramatic performance. As far I was concerned, it explained so much in detail that it had to be true. Her words echoed like phantoms in my rattled mind and I felt myself slip out of reality once more, imagining everything Georgia had disclosed to me. How deep did the rabbit hole of insanity run in this family? Once again I was the Mad Hatter and my rabbit Dede would forever be late to the tea party. The sack-man cleared his throat drawing my unwanted attention to him and my mask slipped temporarily, as I gave him an unhinged snarl.
“The night they took the two of you from me was all a deceitful set-up on their part. I was terribly ill with the flu, I was delirious you see. They denied me any sort of proper medication for it. I was hallucinating. I would black out at times and when I woke up one of them would say, ‘what did you do to your baby?’ or ‘how could you do that?’” she said, grabbing Bernard’s hand tightly for reassurance.
“There, there darling, it’s okay, we are a family again. He is back with us, see?” he said whilst giving her hand a comforting pat.
“I had no idea what they were going on about. They told me I had scrubbed one of you with wire wool until blood was streaming from your cut skin but I don’t recall ever seeing blood on my hands or clothes. I did see blood on your Aunt Morgan though, she was covered in it as I remember. When I asked her about it she told me she had gotten stained when she had cleaned and patched you up, but I knew something didn’t sit right. They succeeded in making me worse instead of better. Playing me off as being mad and incapable of looking after my own children.”
She paused for a moment to compose herself before her emotions got the best of her. Bernard turned to look at Georgia giving her a sympathetic smile. She took a deep breath and continued.
“Then before I knew it there were two men in white uniforms taking me away. They were from a mental institution. I fought with them for you and Demetrius because you both needed your mother. I am your true mother! None of that mattered to your aunts. I was banned from seeing my children. I couldn’t get help from your father because he was on the run. It was an impossible mess. When I finally got out of that place I had lost the two of you and all I wanted was to put our family back together. I wasn’t stupid. I knew your aunts had probably told you lies, poisoned your minds and turned you against me, but I always had hope. My sisters and I had a very dark childhood, cruel parents and an unforgettable past. I never wanted that darkness to taint your lives, all I wanted was for my children to be happy and to know the truth. Most of all I wanted you to know that I always loved you.” she said passionately as her words stung deeply at my core, making me feel confused by the overwhelming anger bubbling up inside of me. I felt suddenly hot as her words triggered the raging beast that slumbered within. How dare she?! I leaned over the table to get a closer look at the face of my darkest love and hate relationship and eyed her insatiable fountain of knowledge with awe and disgust.
My new-found family were as mad as a bag of frogs. I think I’m surprisingly stable compared to them, my poor mother, what she must have gone through. She had tried to be a mother to us and my aunts had torn our family apart for their own selfish reasons.
She turned to my father for him to console her. I could only imagine how long she must have waited to be able to tell me the truth, it must have been painful for her. I sat patiently inside myself for a while to settle my rattled emotions and for her to calm down as I lingered to see what other information they had to offer me.
I wasn’t feeling entirely convinced by her confession. Who was telling me the truth? She had merged and interwoven facts so deeply into her story that I wanted to believe her, I wanted to be her son, but how could I? Why had she waited so long to find me? Was I just another dirty secret she wanted to hide from her perfect world of well-practised illusion?
I started to feel pure hatred build up inside of me. I wasn’t going to allow her to infest my mind this way, I won’t let her make me feel like a scared little boy. I fought every urge not to lash out and kill her with the steak knife I was stroking with my fingertips. No, I shall wait and see where the queen of hearts needs to surface for air, and there I will catch her.
Flashes of the homeless man’s broken face came to mind and aroused my inner beast. The way his eyes looked at me in surprise and fear as I beat the life out of him gave me a sensation of euphoria. I felt my heart skip a beat, I think what I was feeling was pure, unadulterated happiness.
How could I feel happy to want to cut out my biological mother’s heart? Was it wrong to feel that it would solve the problem of my past life? If no one could tell me a version of my story I didn’t wish to hear, would it make it real?
I looked over at Bernard. He looked like a lost puppy sitting faithfully beside mother, maybe she was playing him too? I glanced at my reflection in the steak knife to distract my mind. I would allow her to say all that she wanted to and when the time was right I would kill her, along with my past. All the false pretenders that call themselves my family would pay dearly!
She wiped the tears of sadness from her cold, white face and smiled. “I always knew you were not alone. I always had people keeping an eye on you to make sure you were okay, and you always had your brother.”
I looked at her in disbelief. “Demetrius is no longer with us, Georgia, didn’t you know?” I asked pretending to be delicate and not offend her sensitive display of emotions as I had her right where I wanted her.
“Yes son, I know, I mean your other brother Dariouse.”
“So?” I asked her feeling completely confused once again. I gave her a searching look.
She looked at the sack-head man and continued. “This is your brother Dariouse, Khedlar.” She pointed at his head.
“Don’t tell me, oh I get it. He’s a very shy boy and he must have been the one who stalked me for all these years. I guess that’s where all those photos of my life came from in the cabin then. Why did he never make himself known to me?” It was all so incredibly strange and sickening.
She turned to look at him again. “Go on son, show y
ourself, your brother won’t laugh, he’s family,” she said encouragingly.
A deep sigh emanated from beneath the sack as he proceeded to remove it. I prepared for the worst. An eye missing, no nose, scars, blisters, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw! It was me! I mean I could see my face on him, the only difference was that he had scars all around his neck.
“Brother, why didn’t you want to show your face to me? We share the same face. Am I so ugly that I should wear a sack over my head too?” I joked trying to dissolve the tension.
He laughed, ran to me and gave me a massive hug. I think painful hugs run in this family, but I didn’t care. My mind was solely set on the knife. I needed a rusted blade for this one though, so I could slice off his fake face, layer by layer and soak his exposed flesh in gasoline. I patted his back then lowered my arms to hide my fists as they clenched and my upper lip started to twitch. My mask was falling apart at the seams, I had to hold it together just a bit longer. He could unnerve me so easily and I had to be more cautious, more guarded when it came to my last brother.
“A week before they took you and Demetrius away I was with father in the basement. It was my special room, you see. I was in an incubator with bits of equipment covering most of my body. I know this because father showed me the photos he had taken. Mother didn’t want anyone apart from the doctor to know I had been born. The likelihood was that I would die and she didn’t want to deal with condolences and people talking. I was very premature and weak. My lungs and heart were struggling to function. That week when our aunts took over the house, mother was very ill. Father told me he would sneak back into the house to look after me alone and could only steal time with mother at night when the others were asleep and mother wasn’t hallucinating,” he said, seeming to be less emotional than Georgia.
Psycho-Analysis: The Beginning Page 20
