by Morton Bain
‘She’s well. She’s taken up sky-diving as a hobby recently. Gets a kick out of falling from high places.’
This is rubbish, of course. I’m just testing the old lady.
‘Well that’s lovely,’ Parsons responds. ‘Falling is one of the things that comes most naturally to humans.’
Inconclusive. Not a totally barmy answer.
We talk about how my children are for a few minutes, before I broach the subject of the woman’s illness. ‘So, Mrs Parsons,’ I say. ‘How are you bearing up since your diagnosis? Are you finding you can cope?’
‘So far I haven’t noticed too much change. We all get a little forgetful as we get older, and it’s hard to know how much my lapses of memory are due to age, and how much they are due to the Alzheimer’s. I know it will get a lot worse. Strangely enough, the one comfort I have is that when it’s really affecting me badly I won’t be in a position to realise how far gone I am. The illness will stop me from grasping how bad the illness is.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’ I take a sip of tea. ‘Have you got someone you can trust to help you when things get worse? Someone who can look after your financial affairs?’
‘I’m selling the house. It’s going on the market next month. I’ll be going into a home, and my sister who lives in Basingstoke will have power of attorney to use funds as she sees fit.’
I can’t resist. ‘Mrs Parsons, If you feel that your sister is too busy or too far away to oversee your condition and needs, feel free to talk to me about any help that I might be able to provide. My primary responsibility is to the spiritual needs of my flock, but we can’t totally forget about the mundane aspects of existence.’ I reach over and place a hand on Mrs Parsons’ arm. Is this going too far? ‘I’m here for you.’
I make strong eye contact with the old lady as I say this, and it’s immediately obvious that my words are hitting home. She looks like she’s about to start crying.
‘Well, thankyou. I’ll . . . I’ll see. I think my sister should be able to manage, but if she can’t . . . I suppose she’s getting on herself.’
‘I’m here to help. Just remember that.’
‘Actually, there is something you could do for me . . .’
I look alert. ‘Yes . . .?’
‘Well, there have been quite a few burglaries on this road recently, and I’m a bit worried that I might be targeted. I have some jewellery that is quite valuable and I’d be so upset if it was taken. Would you . . . would you be able to look after it for me for a little while? My sister’s coming over in a couple of weeks and I’m going to give it to her then for safekeeping – but until then . . .’
‘I’d be honoured to be entrusted with your jewellery. Are you sure you need me to take it, though? I mean, of course I’d be happy to do so.’
‘I suppose the risk is small, but if you’ve got them it’s one less thing for me to worry about.’ Mrs Parsons purses her lips as if she’s trying to keep an assortment of jewels contained within her mouth.
We talk for another twenty minutes – my mind wandering to how I can keep the precious items I’m about to be given – before Mrs Parsons announces, ‘My television programme is on shortly, and I’d like to watch it if you don’t mind.’
I nod.
‘Let me get those things for you.’
The old lady rises unsteadily to her feet, then goes upstairs. Ten minutes later she returns with a black shoebox. Lifting the lid she shows me the contents: watches, bracelets, necklaces, brooches, most displaying silver, gold or precious stones. It looks like a robber’s haul from an upmarket jeweller.
‘Are they insured?’ I ask.
‘They are, but insurance can’t compensate for sentimental value. Most of these are gifts from my late husband and mother.’
‘I understand. Well, they’ll be safe with me. In fact, they’ll be in a safe. We have one at the church. That’s where I’ll keep them.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful.’
At the door I say, ‘Just call me a call a couple of days before your sister arrives. I’ll drop them back to you.’
On the drive back I wonder about killing Mrs Parsons. If I do it before she tells anyone she’s entrusted her jewels to me, I’d be able to keep her stash. I am a predator, and I need to predate. Let me predate soon, God, and I promise I’ll pray to you for forgiveness as soon as I’ve killed or robbed. This gets me to thinking about the ludicrousness of Christian theology. God made me, so we are taught. In which case God made me a psychopath. How can I then be considered to be evil, or anything other than an integral part of Creation? All living things behave according to their instincts. The dung beetle is drawn to animal excrement, the lion pursues and kills gazelle, and I will soon be murdering other humans. How am I any different to the dung beetle or lion? I have self-awareness, something the dung beetle probably doesn’t possess in any meaningful sense, but my psychopathy hinges on self-awareness. I have to have a sense of self to want to gratify that self’s need for blood and personal enrichment.
That week in church I’m really on fire. I take as the theme of my sermon ‘The Blood of Atonement’. I know from listening back to a recording of the address that it made no sense. I jump from subject to subject with abandonment. Arguments are begun but not made. Such is the passion with which I speak, however, that my congregation is enraptured. Blood is everywhere in my talk. The blood of Christ, the blood of the Saints, the gallons of spilt Philistine blood after the Israelites had smitten them in a fictitious battle I invent. I try and I think succeed in inducing a mild hypnotic trance in my audience by varying my speed of delivery, using lots of sex/death imagery, and incorporating much alliteration.
I can see the appeal of being on stage performing a concert or stand-up act. Having the attention of so many people, and being able to influence their mood and mind. Hitler got it. He understood the power of oratory combined with setting to do amazing things. I remember once delivering a sermon during a massive thunderstorm. It was a storm of tropical intensity – not the sort of thing you commonly experience in the British Isles. My sermon was on forgiveness, but as the winds rattled slates on the roof, and thunder crashed like an artillery bombardment, I found myself focusing on the importance of valour and courage in life. My congregation were swept along like wind-torn clouds. I could see them sitting up straighter, fidgeting less, and hanging on every word I spoke as my sermon was accompanied by an awesome display of Nature’s power.
After church that week I decide to play a little game with my wife. She’s obsessed about smells – both emitting them and having to endure unpleasant ones. On the drive back from St. Michael’s I say, ‘Hey, can anyone smell that pong?’
‘What does it smell like?’ Lucy says, quick as a shot. It’s as if she’s been waiting all her life for me to ask this question.
‘I don’t know . . .’ I sniff a couple of times. ‘A bit . . . fishy.’ This I know is guaranteed to panic Lucy. She’s paranoid about female hygiene.
‘Fishy?’ We haven’t eaten fish for days.’
‘I hate fish!’ Chloe announces.
‘Have we all been bathing?’ I ask the car. ‘Changing our underduddies every day?’
‘Well of course,’ Lucy snaps. She puts her window down a couple of inches and crosses her arms.
‘Smells,’ I say. ‘You haven’t experienced smells until you’ve been to India. Woah. Nice smells, bad smells, but smells. My nose was worn out after I got back from my trip there.’
Talking of smells other than those currently wafting seems to relax my wife. It sends me on a daydream to my time on the Subcontinent. I went to India for six months in my mid-twenties, largely to get away from some bother regarding an ex-girlfriend whose brains I’d mashed up. She had some large, aggressive brothers, and making myself scarce for a while had seemed like a good idea. I’ve always sensed there might be something wrong with me, and while I was in India I figured it might be a good idea to check out some guru guys – see if they c
ouldn’t diagnose and fix me. The Indians seemed to have invented spirituality, and aren’t burdened with all the Western bullshit of dog-collars and church fetes. If a guy is so devoted to his beliefs that he is willing to wander the country naked and dusty, it seems likely that he might actually have glimpsed something.
In Bendares I spent a few weeks in an ashram. I enjoyed the simplicity of my life there. Simple food, few distractions, meditation. I didn’t find God during my meditations, but meditation did have a profoundly relaxing effect on my body and mind. After a couple of weeks I felt so much lighter it was as if the Earth had lost some of its gravity. Towards the end of my stay at the ashram I met Jagdish. He worked part-time as a handyman at the ashram; the rest of his week was spent working as a consulting astrologer. As my time at the commune neared its end Jagdish suggested I come and stay with him and his family. He explained that I would never truly understand India until I’d spent some time living with the locals. There were no better offers forthcoming, so I agreed.
I spent the first few days of my stay with Jagdish trying to seduce his younger sister, but when it became apparent that she wasn’t having any of it I just hung around in the courtyard, watching people make food, sweep and do their normal household chores. One morning Jagdish pulled me aside and explained that he wanted to do my horoscope. At the time I rated astrology along with flying saucers in the credibility stakes, but heck, I was his guest and felt I should humour him. ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘You need my date of birth?’
‘That and the timing of your birth. And the where.’
‘The where was London. 1971. July the 10th.’
‘I need exact timing.’
‘Actually, you’re in luck. My mother remembered the exact moment I popped out because it was quite memorable – eleven eleven in the morning.’
‘Very good,’ Jagdish said with a grin. ‘Most peoples just know morning, afternoon – not exact like you. I make you chart today, then talk to you tomorrow.’
Jagdish didn’t wait until the following day. Later that afternoon he came into the room where I was dozing and said, ‘I must talk to you now. Your chart is showing very strange things.’
I’d been having a very pleasant erotic dream, and wasn’t overly happy at the intrusion. Sitting up, I said, ‘Okay. If you must.’
‘Did you mother die when you were twenty two?’ Jagdish wanted to know.
‘She did, as a matter of fact.’ I immediately began racking my brains for a time when I might have let this fact slip to Jagdish or anyone else at the ashram. I couldn’t think of such an occasion.
‘I knew it! I knew it!’
‘That is pretty impressive,’ I conceded. ‘What else can you tell me?’
‘Well, I can see that you will have many relations with women.’ The Indian gave me a sly grin. ‘But not always happy ones.’
I nodded. That was on the money.
‘And when you were ten you might have broken your leg.’
That really got my attention. ‘How the hell could astrology have told you that?’ I asked, alarmed.
Jagdish wobbled his head and smiled. ‘Many things astrology can tell you. And one more thing for you, something that is not so good.’
‘What’s that? I’m not going to be trampled by elephants, am I?’
‘No. You have Gohanta Yoga.’
‘I certainly haven’t. I’ve never done yoga in my life.’
‘No, no. It’s not a body yoga. Yoga means ‘joined’. You can have planet yoga, where planets be in a pattern. Gohanta Yoga is Jupiter in eighth house, and bad planet in an angular house with no good aspect.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It means you will be butcher. Could be normal butcher, could be bad one. Someone who kills people with a knife.’
‘I’ve never done that,’ I said.
‘And I hope you never do. I’m sure you never will. I only really see this strongly because my uncle had same yoga. And he did kill some peoples.’
This conversation with Jagdish was to have a profound effect on me. It got me to thinking about whether astrology could actually work, which in turn led me to invest in a couple of books and computer programmes, which enabled me to prove to my own satisfaction that the stuff did work. How it works I have absolutely no idea, and nor do I really care. What I do care about is having a tool that enables me to get the jump on other people and forewarning of occurrences that Life throws at me. Astrology allowed me to seduce my wife easily, firstly by giving her the impression I was a spiritual kind of guy, in touch with finer realms, and, more importantly, by revealing her trigger points. Astrology has also given me the insight that Lucy will probably die young; a relief to know, as it will save me the expense of divorcing her after she has done her child-rearing duties.
We arrive back home and evacuate the car. Lucy gets on with Sunday lunch. I go upstairs to my study and have a wank.
Chapter Four
Later that week I’m hanging out with Joey again at his place. No whores or Charlie this time, something I’m actually quite pleased about. It took me a good few days to get over our recent crazy one. Joey’s banging on about a journalist he’s recently started seeing.
‘I really like her. I just can’t shake this suspicion that she’s setting me up for a story.’
‘You’ll know soon enough,’ I say. ‘If you’re just a story then she’s unlikely to spend more than a month or so on you.’
‘I met her through a friend,’ Joey explains.
‘How long has she known your friend? If it’s forever then that makes it less likely that she’s up to something.’
‘A couple of years, I think. But that got me to thinking that she might have heard about my background through this friend – Janet knows my past. So maybe the fact that she’s come via her makes it more likely she just wants to write a piece on me.’
‘Ask her. Tell her you’ll break her legs if she does the dirty on you. If she knows about your past she’ll bloody well believe you.’
Joey grunts. ‘Yeah, maybe I should.’
‘Who does she write for?’
‘The Guardian.’
‘What does she look like?’
‘She’s hot. Long blonde hair. Big brown eyes. Good figure. Apart from her ass. Her ass is a teeny bit too big. But I forgive her that. If bitches are a hundred percent perfect they don’t seem real, if you know what I mean.’
‘Tasty. Tell me, is it such a big problem if she is writing a story about you? I mean, the Church knows about your past – that’s your USP. Who cares if she writes a piece on you? Your congregation will probably just get bigger.’
‘Yeah, but with the plans we’ve got at the moment, I want to keep a low profile. It would be a disaster if she prints a story linking me to the Mafia.’
‘I guess . . .’
‘Her ex is that writer Julian Felton.’
‘Fucking wanker,’ I say, spittle flying.
‘Yeah?’
‘He’s part of the Arts-Media Club that dominates bestseller lists, gossip columns and award events. A plague on them, and their ditsy little fucking Camden lives. Talentless idiots, by and large, but as the only people allowed to comment on them are other talentless idiots they get away with it.’
‘Jeez, you’ve been wanting to let that out for a while . . .’
‘It’s what I appreciate about the Internet,’ I continue. ‘At least other people have a voice now. It’s one way in which the moronic gasbags are being diluted.’ I am fucking mad. Madder than I should really be. I feel like grabbing a knife and rampaging through a Primrose Hill cafe. ‘You have to understand the role of the media in our society. They’ve created something akin to a huge room full of distorting mirrors, but with ideas not images being reflected, bounced around and altered. They voice an opinion, then comment on it, and the response to their comment on it. They’re like a huge schizophrenic head that spends all day arguing with itself. I find the bestseller lists in the papers very useful, y
ou know. I make a careful study of them, and ensure I never buy a book that appears in them.’
‘I go one better,’ Joey says. ‘I don’t read at all!’
‘No, it really makes me mad. If you talk to Joe Average, be he upper, middle or lower class, you’ll find he has a totally different opinion on most things in life to those writing for papers. And yet he buys the papers, just the same.’
Joey starts blinking quickly whilst appearing to swallow something large and uncomfortable. He does this every so often. I’ve always put it down to him having consumed too many drugs. ‘Most people are stupid, man,’ he says. ‘But don’t worry about it. If you don’t like the media, throw out your television and stop buying papers. Problem solved.’
‘Yes, I’m able to exercise that sort of control. But most people are not able to. All newspapers should be banned, with a single media outlet replacing it controlled by a committee of a hundred responsible people. They’d have a website, and every day at six pm ten pertinent news items would be displayed, five good and five bad. No commentary, no analysis, just factual information. “The war in Sudan has ended.” “A new treatment for malaria has been developed.” People could then analyse the implications of these pieces of information for themselves. Teach them to use their brains for a change.’
‘Well, that’s not going to happen.’ Joey says.
‘I know.’
‘The only people that could make something like that happen are politicians, and they rely on the newspapers to spread their bullshit.’
Strike bolts of steel into the necks of journalists. Crush their fingers – their smelly, sweaty, fingers – in a vice. Slice their throats, their bullshit-spouting, cum-swallowing throats.
The more I think, the more targets I find for my first murder. I could kill a thousand people and still just be warming up. Control. Patience.
‘Are those bitches still here?’ I ask, changing the subject.
‘No. Last one went two days ago. I’m not keeping women here anymore. Too much hassle.’
