by Baker, John
‘Because I don’t bloody want to. I want to do something for myself.’
He fell quiet again. She wanted to shut him up. She wanted him to take the huff and stalk out of the house, go and talk to Sam or Marie or one of his other mates. If he stayed with her, continued to be sympathetic, accommodating, she’d spill it all, tell him about his precious brother trying to get into her pants.
Geordie came over to her again, reached out to touch her arm, but she shrugged him off. His frustration and lack of understanding filtered into the room like mist. ‘What are you going to do?’ he said.
Echo woke up then, as if she’d heard her cue. She opened her eyes and shouted. It wasn’t an angry or a hungry cry, just a sound to let the world know she was approaching consciousness. Janet went to her. She took her from the cot and changed her nappy in the bathroom. Then she brought her downstairs.
Geordie was kneeling in front of Venus’ basket, putting one of her kittens back in there. He got up and looked at the shattered pane of glass in the top panel of the front door. He’d covered it with a sheet of plywood a few days before, but now he’d removed the covering. ‘The glazier’s coming this morning,’ he said. ‘You know what I don’t understand? If somebody’d thrown a stone at it, then the stone’d still be around. I reckon one of us broke it slamming the door.’
‘It’d be you, then,’ Janet said. ‘You’re the clumsy one.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Geordie told her. ‘I’d’ve known if I’d done it. And it wasn’t you. So it must’ve been Ralph.’
‘Oh, come on, Geordie. Perfect Uncle Ralph wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
‘Not on purpose,’ Geordie said. ‘I reckon it was an accident. But he doesn’t want to admit it ’cause he’s frightened what we think of him.’
Janet put Echo in her pram, grabbed a coat and manoeuvred the pram around Geordie and out of the door.
‘What’d I say?’ Geordie shouted after her. ‘Where you going?’
‘I’ll get hold of myself in a minute,’ Janet said. ‘Are you working? I should have rung.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. She wasn’t really crying. There was moisture there, but no tears.
‘Yes, I was working,’ said Angeles. ‘But I’ve stopped now. I don’t want to work. I want to talk to you. I want to know why you’re upset.’
‘Oh, Christ. I knew I should’ve rung. I didn’t want to interrupt something.’
‘End of conversation,’ said Angeles. ‘I’m going to switch the computer off and put the kettle on.’
Janet followed her to the kitchen. She said, ‘I don’t want to be the one who makes it impossible for Ralph to stay.’;
‘You aren’t the one,’ Angeles said. ‘If Ralph’s making a play for you, he’s the one making it impossible.’
‘I know, but I mean in Geordie’s eyes. If I wasn’t there.
If there was just the two of them, they’d make a go of it. I know they would. There aren’t any other relatives, apart from their mother, and nobody knows where she is.’
‘Is it getting worse?’
Janet nodded. ‘He came on to me yesterday, said we could go upstairs for a quick fuck while Echo was sleeping. The guy’s really obnoxious. But it was talking to Geordie that got me upset today. Talk about being blind... Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Angeles put her hand on Janet’s arm. ‘Would it help if someone had a word with Ralph?’
‘No. At least not yet. I don’t want to involve anyone else until I’ve tried everything.’
‘I don’t see what else you can do,’ Angeles said. ‘Not without telling Geordie that his brother’s no good.’
‘I’m just going to watch him closely,’ Janet said. ‘Play him at his own game. Because that’s what he does. He watches people, and he keeps his eyes open for any passing chance. Me, Sam’s house, anything he thinks he might be able to get his hands on.’
‘He’s an opportunist.’
‘Exactly,’ said Janet. ‘He’s a petty crook. I reckon if I keep my eyes on him, he’ll incriminate himself.’
‘So long as he doesn’t wreck your family in the meantime.’
Janet sighed. ‘That’s a chance I’m going to have to take. But I think me and Geordie are strong enough to take a few blows.’
‘And Echo?’
‘Oh, yes, Echo as well. No doubt about that.’
The glazier arrived at eleven o’clock and by half-past he’d replaced the pane of glass in the front door. Geordie paid him and watched while he got in his van and drove off down the street.
The lavatory flushed in the bathroom and Ralph appeared wearing only a pair of jeans. No shirt, no socks. What’s all the fucking banging about?’ he said.
‘Glazier was here,’ Geordie said. ‘We’ve been fixing the door.’
‘Where’s the missis?’
‘I’m not sure. She went out with Echo.’
Ralph farted and took eggs and bacon out of the fridge.
He cut a knob of butter and tossed it into the frying pan ‘I’m starving, Geordie. Cut some bread and stick it in the toaster, will you? D’you want some of this?’
‘I’m worried about Janet, Ralph. She’s acting strange. She’s tired out, but she won’t rest, even when she’s got the chance.’
Ralph put six rashers of bacon into the pan; pushed them up close together so there’d still be room for the eggs. ‘It’s normal,’ he said. ‘Specially after they’ve had a sprog. Fucking hormones go crazy.’
‘I dunno,’ Geordie said. ‘It’s like she’s pushing me away. And she’s got a downer on you as well.’
‘That proves it, then. Neither of us’ve done anything. It’s irrational, Geordie. In Italy, places like that, they know about these things. There was this woman in Naples, killed her husband and all her kids and the judge let her off with a warning.’
‘It’s not funny, Ralph.’
‘Who said funny? I’m just giving you the facts, here. In them countries, round the Med, they understand what happens with the hormones, all that stuff. So they don’t blame the woman, the individual woman, ’cause they know that they’re all like that, once they’ve had a kid. It traumates their bodies.’ He flipped a slice of bacon and began cracking the eggs. ‘They just go batty, man. Plus they’ve got the sun.’
39
I tried out the Gallamine on Miriam with startling results.
Veterinarians have provided the world with these neuromuscular blocking agents, powerful chemicals, designed to make my task easier. They have been used for some time to immobilize wild animals and reptiles. These drugs are not anaesthetic; they work by paralysing the muscles. I could find nothing in the literature that mentioned their effects on blind women, so I assume that my efforts all fall under the general heading of research. There are more modern drugs available, but the neuromusculars fell into my hands from an untraceable source.
Gallamine comes in small ampoules and I injected the required dose during one of our sessions, when I had Miriam bound hand and foot. I didn’t tell her what it was and this caused me some concern. If I’d told her that there was a chance of respiratory collapse she might have objected and that would have left me with uncertainties I didn’t want to deal with. Anyway, Miriam doesn’t need to know about my involvement with the blind woman. What happens between Ms Falco and me is private. It began a long time before Miriam and does not concern her.
These considerations left me little option. I could hardly tell her that I was giving her a drug that was normally used to sedate crocodiles in the wild. She doesn’t like reptiles. The thought of them makes her squirm.
So I stuck it in her tail and she squealed and asked me what it was. I turned her over to watch her and she asked me again. ‘What was that? Was it a hypodermic?’ I didn’t answer. She searched my face for a moment, then said, ‘What was it? What have you st—’ And she finished the word there, didn’t get to the vowel. I was put off my stride by that abrupt end to the word and I tried to work out w
hat it might have been, working away at it mentally, like a crossword puzzle. It didn’t immediately strike me that her failure to finish the word was part of the effect of the Gallamine.
By the time I realized what was happening her facial muscles had stopped functioning. Her eyes were staring with fright. I saw the muscles in her neck go and was quick enough to feel her shoulders and arms as they relaxed. Within moments she was a dead weight, incapable of resistance of any kind. The whole process took little more than a minute.
I untied her and carried her to our bedroom, wrapped her in the quilt to keep her warm. Her breathing was shallow and her body utterly still and I was taken by her resemblance to a wax model. She looked unreal. A nude of Miriam wrapped in a quilt, which would not have been out of place in the stillness of Madame Tussaud’s exhibition.
I was sent a vision, then, during those next few minutes, while Miriam was lying there like some cherry-lipped maiden awaiting the kiss of a frog prince. There was a blinding snowstorm - this is in the vision - and an overnight freeze. In the morning the snow has stopped falling and the boys are creating long slides in the street. There is the stillness of frozen weather, like an echo of the stillness of Miriam in our bed. But in the vision Miriam is transformed into the blind woman. Strangely, this does not disturb me.
She stirs, the blind woman, she opens her eyes and sits up. The director of the dream makes a cut here, as if one camera has finished its work and another one, placed at a different angle, is taking over. Only the second camera doesn’t show its subject clearly. There is a period of darkness before a hazy image appears. All I could be certain of is that there is movement.
I was reminded of a western. The cowboys have captured a wild palomino mare. There are three lariat loops around her long golden neck and the men are surrounding the horse in a circle, each of them pulling tightly on the rope. She cannot go left or right, back or forth of her own volition. She can only go where the men lead her.
Through the mist the forms emerge. What I thought was a pony is the blind woman. The ropes do not bind her; they are around her neck but they are the strings of a puppet-master. I tug at the black thread in my hand and as I do so the blind woman takes a step forward. Another tug and I watch her step on to the ice that covers her swimming pool. She walks forward and with each step the ice crackles and strains; I see the clefts and fissures rupturing the surface of the pool, and the whole is echoed again and again as her smooth features are broken and distorted with fear and recollection.
As the ice breaks up the camera zooms in, pierces through to the black and suffocating depths.
Miriam didn’t stir for twenty minutes. I tried a variety of ways to make her react to stimulus during that time, but the Gallamine had her in its power. I was careful not to do anything that would be too painful as these drugs are not analgesic and there have been cases of myocardial damage. It was possible for me, even with a badly damaged thumb, to pick her up by her ankles and swing her back and forth like a trussed chicken. Her mouth was gaping, she was breathless and she was salivating copiously but did not appear frightened.
As the effects of the drug wore off, Miriam seemed depressed. Her blood pressure was abnormally high and her heart was pumping so hard I could see it through her ribcage. She continued salivating and entered a period of acute nervous tension which went on for more than an hour. She insisted that she was all right but it was obvious that the Gallamine had provided a severe shock to her system.
I shall use the other drug, Suxamethonium, on the blind woman. Suxamethonium has a quicker action and, like her sister, she will feel the effects within about fifteen seconds. As a preparation I have hidden it, together with a supply of syringes and a spare voice-activated recorder, in her garden, close to the swimming pool. Everything is ready. Except the weather.
I’d been telling Miriam about risk society theory, how there is no big Other in our lives any more, like tradition or nature or religion. We no longer have a guide. Right and wrong have disappeared and what we are left with is an infinite number of choices.
‘What it was like in the old days,’ she said, ‘what I imagine is that there was something or someone watching over us.’
‘Like an angel?’
‘Could be,’ she said. ‘You could say that.’
Miriam is not stupid. She is highly intelligent, just a little short on language.
When I first met her she was already a Rule Girl. I’m a practising psychologist and I didn’t even know what that was. I do now, of course, and it is exactly what Miriam said it was. Rule Girls are heterosexual women who follow precise rules about how they will allow themselves to be seduced. They’ll go on a date, but only if they’re asked three days in advance. They won’t sleep with you on the first or second date. You get the idea? The rules correspond to customs that used to regulate the behaviour of previous generations. They emulate the prudish behaviour of old-fashioned women. These women feel the need to impose the rules because the customs that used to do the job are no longer functioning. Women like Miriam are not returning to conservative values; they are freely choosing their own rules. Or they believe they are. In the past there was no choice. Now there seems as though there might be one.
It is the same with the master/slave relationship we have allowed to develop between us. Either of us can be master or slave, depending on the whim of the moment. It is as valid for Miriam to nail my penis to the workbench as it is for me to administer electric shocks to the tissue of her labia.
To those of my colleagues who insist that this kind of behaviour is a direct identification with the aggressive male, or that it is a parody of patriarchal domination, I can only point to the deep libidinal satisfaction experienced by both parties. Miriam and I are equally intent on experimenting with our lives, our bodies, our feelings and emotions.
Someone who keeps his eyes open, who watches what is going on, is in a unique position in the world. He sees everything that is enacted. He sees the same things as everyone else, but he sees beyond the surface illusion into the meaning of the events.
When the blind woman was released from hospital she moved into the house of the private detective. This must have been his idea. A better way for him to keep his (private) eye on her. I don’t know if there were other considerations, if, for example, he is seeking sexual congress with the lady. Whether or not they are sharing a bed is of no concern to me.
But I watched the house.
And a weird thing happened, though to me it did not seem strange at the time. A man walked along the street. My attention was caught because of his body language. He hesitated outside the detective’s house then walked on by. As he did so he had a good look at the house, scanned the upper windows. A few moments later he was back again, but this time he went up to the front door and posted a letter through the flap. When he walked back the way he had come he glanced behind him a couple of times, as if to make sure that he was not being followed or observed.
I didn’t pay this happening too much attention. I am concerned only with the fate of the blind woman. I thought maybe the man was some kind of snitch delivering hush-hush information. I speculated that perhaps he was another private eye acting in a manner typical of the profession. Or, finally, that the man was somewhat unhinged and spent his life glancing back at imaginary pursuers.
Whatever, I concluded the man was nothing to do with me.
But I was wrong.
The newspaper article gives the text of the letter, which turns out to be a demand for money in exchange for the life of Angeles Falco. There is speculation in the newspaper about the identity of the sender, and the journalist, Lorna George, assumes that ‘the killer of Isabel Reeves, the thug who put Angeles Falco in hospital, and the writer of the letter are one and the same person’.
I can control my emotions. I am actually experiencing anger at this moment but I don’t let it show on the page. If you were here with me, face to face, you would not guess that I was outraged, or even annoyed.
But I am furious.
There are no material considerations at work here. Neither gold nor piety can influence the death of the blind woman. Her life is owed to me. It is a debt that can only be settled by her death.
This man, this idiot who delivered the letter, has blackened my name.
I thought of writing to the newspaper, denying all responsibility for the letter. But I stopped myself. It would be mad to expose myself in that way before Ms Falco has breathed her last. But I shall have the letter-writer. I have a picture of him in my mind. I have seen him; and when I see him again...
40
During the interview something happened. Angeles wasn’t sure what it was. The man they were talking to, Mr Hayes, didn’t ring true.
It had been a busy day in the office and she had been distracted from the problems in her personal life. The soft-drinks industry is always at full stretch in the weeks and days coming up to Christmas, and this year was no different. For once she hadn’t thought about the death of her sister, and the more or less constant feeling of being observed had been absent.
The last job of the day was to interview Mr Hayes together with her PA, Steven Packard. Hayes had applied for money from the Falco Trust to provide a holiday for a group of partially sighted children. They were to be taken by coach to a holiday camp in the south of Italy.
‘Our organization uses the camp regularly,’ he said. ‘We have taken several groups of children there in the past, and it’s always been successful. This would be the first time that we take children who are partially sighted. In the past there have been children with leukaemia, we have taken groups of orphans, and a tiny group of Down’s Syndrome kids.’
He spoke the right words. It wasn’t anything that he said. There was rather something hidden behind the words. But Angeles felt increasingly claustrophobic listening to him.
