“Please. . .”
“Look…”
“Just give me a chance to explain.”
“It’s too late.”
“You can’t just go.”
“I’ve made up my mind.”
“She’s my daughter, too.”
And, when it’s almost too late, just as she turns away for what could have been the last time: “OK. OK. I understand. I won’t try to change your mind. I promise. I just need to talk to you. To explain. Please . .?”
And I’m crying. Actually crying. Real tears.
“What time do you finish?”
“How about I meet you in an hour. At home.” Our home.
“Do you think that’s a good…”
“Yes. The last time. I promise.” My eyes. Like a puppy, while she pauses.
Then: “OK. I am really sorry.”
“I know. I do understand. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. I’ll see you in a while.”
“Yeah.”
Watching her as she walks away, and to no one in particular: “Thanks”.
*
I mean, we’re all just meat, right? Overlapping tissue strands. Cells. Millions and millions of cells. Like plants. Or ants. Just shapes.
There was so much blood.
Too much to save. I filled everything: jam jars, the Thermos flask, those crystal champagne flutes we never got round to using… But she just kept bleeding. And moving. Just spasms as muscles misfired. And talking, after she’d stopped crying, saying funny things and giggling like a little girl. And then I go and spoil it all, by puking blood and breakfast everywhere, trying my best to keep some of it down. Because this way, with her inside me, she’d never leave. She’d be with me forever. Her cells and my cells making new shapes. Together.
I made chops and burgers and steaks. I made sausages and stews. There was so much I had to share her. I didn’t want to, but there was no room in the freezer and I’ve never been one to waste anything. She’s here. Mixed in with the diced pork. Sealed, on a high heat, then slow cooked. In casseroles. Some carrots. Onions. Lovely. Lovely meat, madam. You couldn’t tell the difference. I know I can’t.
The Ballad of Liam and Chantelle
by Steven Stockford
You can chop up her face, remove an eye, but you know, you might still just need her. Love, eh?
Liam is bored. He’s been stuck in this shithole of a police station for days, and Mister Delmont, his toad-faced solicitor, just drones on and on. All Liam has heard is that the bitch didn’t squeak so the fifth don’t have nothing.
“…of course the police may well ask you to attend the station, say, once a week. Hardly a hardship in the circumstances…”
Liam grunts; his gaunt face draws the skin tight over his cheeks bones until he offers an ugly grin. He knows the police don’t give a monkeys if you ‘no show’ on bail.
Mr Delmont continues his box ticking to ensure his client is fully appraised of the situation: “They’ve rescinded the Rule 43. It is not within the police’s remit to classify you under the Mental Health Act without a reported crime.”
Big whoop.
“I feel I must caution you about speaking to the press. As you can imagine, they. . .” Delmont winces.
Liam sneers, thinking to himself, “Gay boy, just say it.”
“… erm, in cases like this, I mean. Where there has been an assault, erm, of this nature. It arouses a prurient interest, shall we say. Particularly with an attractive teenage girl.”
“Yeh, yeh. Keep schtum.” Liam grabs his hoodie and, with a waft of cheap roll-ups, heads for the door.
Mister Delmont disguises his disgust with a wipe of his nose. “But I also caution you to avoid seeing her.”
No longer listening, the teenager leaves with his usual hunched gait, his shorn head stuck forwards. A bull looking for a fight. Delmont smiles. The legal aid for this rapscallion will pay for his family’s Tuscany breaks for years to come.
*
Liam struggles to find the Trauma Ward. Trust that dumb bitch to make it hard for him.
It’s not helped by the hangover from the previous night’s celebrations. Even Uncle Tommy turned up: “You’re a winner, you cunt.” You know you’ve arrived when Uncle Tommy gets you a celebratory pint.
The nurses ignore the ill-dressed young man, moving like a whirlwind through the wards. A mother clutches her children closer to her as he passes, kissing them both on their heads as soon as he disappears through the crashing double doors at the end of the ward.
Turns out Chantelle has her own room. Couldn’t be better. “That you, Liam?” she squeaks in her irritating whine. How does she know it’s him with all those bandages around her face? She looks like the fucking Mummy.
He clocks the wedding magazines on a cupboard next to her bed as he settles on the windowsill, crunching up the blinds. Down in the car park he eyes a string of neat cars, BMWs, Audis. Uncle Tommy would cough up good for a couple of them.
“So, ‘ow you doing?” he asks, eyeing the room for what he’ll need.
Then she gets tearful of course. Stupid bitch. “Oh Liam! They said you couldn’t see me.”
“They don’t know nuffing.”
“Knew you’d come. Really sorry. All these bandages. They says they can save my other eye.”
“That’s something.”
A phone blurbs nearby, in the corridor. His senses flicker. Is it about him?
“Doesn’t hurt like it used to.”
“Good to hear”, he says, sniffing up some coke that dribbles down his nostrils. A muffled female voice is speaking on the phone, but there’s no concern in her voice, so he loosens up. Back to the matter at hand.
“Knows it’s all my fault”, she says. “Told my dad that.”
“Yeh. Someone needs to sort him. Causing me real issues.”
“Aw. Sorry, Liam. Listen, when we get out of ‘ere I thought we could get an easyJet over to Greece.”
Liam checks the pipes running in and out of her frail body as he mouths, “Stupid bitch”. What if he plucked one of those colourful pipes out of her? Put a hand over her whining gob?
“Liam? You still there?”
“Yeh. Greece. Sounds good.”
“I didn’t tell ‘em nothing. Honest.”
“They’re full of shit.”
“I tells ‘em it was all so fast. How do I know who did it?”
“Great.”
“And this psychologist woman. Aw, she’s so nice. She says it’s a traumatic attack. The victim usually doesn’t remember much.”
“Sounds right.”
The previous night Tommy had grabbed Liam’s arm, sweeping him against a van in the dimly lit pub car park.
“Listen to me, you little cunt. She’s not saying nuffing now, but she will. Be a lot of grief. I’m telling you. I know these bitches.”
Liam glared up at the stone hard face, with its hefty brows like an overhanging cliff, balanced at the other end of his face by an absurdly oversized jaw.
“Like I dunno!” Liam says, feeling his arm ache from his uncle’s grip. “I’ll sort it. I told yer.”
So now Liam’s here at the hospital to sort it. Glancing at the flashing, silent machines around her, realising that, with his luck, if he plucked out a lead it’d just set off an alarm. There are freshly laundered pillows piled on a chair. He grins. Just press one down on her bandaged face and out go her gormless lights. With a clatter of the blinds he slides off the sill plucking up the top one. He sees his shadow hovering over her head like an angular bird.
She hears him getting closer, knowing he’s going to kiss her. What better time to ask her to marry him than when she is recovering? Her heartbeat increases. For a moment it all falls silent, he is still, but standing close to her. Her nerves compel her to fill the silent void.
“They says I gets compensation,” she says.
Liam freezes. “How much?”
“Dunno. But facial disfigurement and everything. Losing an eye. It a
ll adds up.”
“Compensation,” he says aloud, wishing Uncle Tommy could hear.
She giggles. “Knew you’d like that. We could do something. You know, rent a place down the bay. Marsha says you can get a place for…”
“Don’t keep going on about renting this and renting that. Does my ‘ead in.”
“Oh, sorry, Liam. Yeh. In its own time you says, yeh?”
After a moment, Liam flicks the pillow back on the chair, watching it bounce and flop to the floor.
The bandages stretch as she smiles. “Dad doesn’t understand we’re in love. Doesn’t get it.”
“Too fucking old.”
“He forgets. I’m nearly 15. I finishes school next year. Get a job for us.”
“School! Worse than a secure centre. Least you can play pool inside.”
“They says they can hide some of the scars. You know, make up.”
“When do you get this compensation, then?” he asks.
“Can’t take ‘em long, can it? I mean look at me. What’s there to know?”
“Hmmm.”
Before Christmas, Liam and his mates put this arsehole into a coma and his mum got over eighty grand. Unbelievable. Maybe rent her that flat in the bay. Keep her sweet. Her pussy drips to have a modern kitchen diner and a new set of pans. Thick bitch.
“Maybe look at a ring?” Hearing the ominous hush, she quickly adds, “Nothing flash.” She knows she shouldn’t mention rings. It only sets him off. At last, she asks, “What you thinking, Liam?”
“Nuffing.”
The bandaged head faces him, wanting more.
He says, “About what we need to get sorted.”
“Like the holiday?”
“Needs that compensation dosh first, don’t we?”
*
Liam hadn’t thought about what it was like being with the Bride of Frankenstein. He would run his fingers over her scars, surprised at how rigid they sat on her face. Her unmoving glass eye gave him the willies. Hardly the sort of bitch you can parade in front of your mates in the clubs. Not that anyone dared say anything to him.
Being careful never to strike her in the face, no matter what she said, over time Liam found himself adjusting to the situation. Even her thick old man got used to him coming round for the footie and stopped leaving the room.
So the months ground on.
*
Liam is sat next to Chantelle on hard upright chairs, opposite toady-faced Mister Delmont in his office at the edges of the city. Chantelle has grown her hair long, leaving it draped down the one side of her face. She constantly has to sweep it back to see properly. Her dad has to be there too, on account of her being a minor. The solicitor’s office is more cramped than Liam expected. If you broke in here, you wouldn’t bother hanging ‘round.
Mister Delmont’s voice is a whine, as dull as the air-conditioning throb from the machine over the window. He has his notes and he needs to go through them point by point to ensure that procedures have been met. Even these dense clients must understand exactly what they have achieved with the Criminal Injuries Board.
Suddenly her dad sits upright in disbelief. “How much?”
“Well, there are prescribed amounts for injuries”, Mister Delmont says, grimacing as if sharing the disappointment.
“But her face is…” Her dad is on his feet, his cheeks bruised red, his body animated with outrage. He cannot say the words and admit to himself that his lovely daughter has been mutilated for life by the arsehole who is holding her hand.
“I am afraid £52,250. 69 is the amount the Criminal Injuries Board have deduced is the appropriate figure. We could appeal but then they would hold back the payment. It is truly the view of myself, and others in the practice, that…”
“She’s only got one sodden eye!” the irate father pleads. Her dad is going off on one and Liam just wants the cash and to get out.
“Loss of an eye was calculated at £7,989.32. The facial disfigurement accounted for more.”
“But she’s so young…”
“They recognised that with the hardship element, listed at £4,932.14.”
Liam isn’t listening. Just over fifty big ones. It would take him a year working with his Uncle Tommy to pull in that.
*
Uncle Tommy is at his best, stinking of beer, his hulk filling his glistening new Mercedes. Liam all ears in the passenger seat.
“It’s getting shot of the body you gotta be up for. Any tool can slot someone. ‘specially a girl as thick as that ugly tramp. No offence.”
“The allotments. . .” Liam starts, knowing he is going to be cut short by his all-knowing uncle.
Tommy snorts, “Oh yeh. What you on about? You going on University Challenge? The bastards got heat seekers in their helicopters. No burying.”
“Pigs. They’ll eat anything,” Liam says, desperate to impress his scathing uncle.
“On telly, yeh! But pigs shit out the teeth and hair. DNA. You twat. Try thinking. You do serious time if they nail you for this. You gotta think of your mum. Get it right.”
Liam is agitated, “Dunno. Fling her off a boat down the docks?”
“They float back. Always. Been there.”
Liam puts his feet up on the dashboard, admiring the lines on his stolen Reeboks before settling back in the luxurious leather seats - until he sees the cold stare from Uncle Tommy. He drops his feet back down to the floor and squirms upright. “Go on, then.”
“You’re close with the pigs. This farmer’s got this decomposing pit. Huge. Even dumps cows in them. Chucks chemicals, acids and stuff over them. In a few days, fuck all for the law to get hold of. I’ll tell you exactly where. Of course that’ll be fifteen grand. Readies well spent if you ask me.”
“So long as I can get rid of that freak.”
*
The farm Tommy knows is miles out of town. Tommy wouldn’t drive them on account of the traffic cameras and Liam can’t involve anyone else, so they actually get the bus out to a village 12 miles from the city. Beside him Chantelle is excited, fidgeting like a kid.
“Where yous taking me?” She knows it must be special; he rarely takes her out, let alone outside the city. Could this be the big moment?
“You’ll see,” he says flatly.
In profile with her good eye facing you, she still doesn’t look too bad. The scars are settling down, becoming part of her. But Liam is already screwing another tramp, Shannon-Marie, the recycling manager’s daughter. So he needs to sort out Chantelle, like right now.
They drew out the compensation from her account the day before and it’s stuffed under his bed in his Batman game box. His two older brothers are serving time for a post office robbery and his mum has moved in with Uncle Tommy, so he knows the cash is pretty safe. 50 fucking thousand quid, all under his bed!
To keep her sweet, Liam even went ring hunting with her in the afternoon. What a waste of time. The shit she puts him through!
Over a coffee in the mall she pulled out a heavily creased wedding magazine with tea cup stains on the cover, and asked him which dress he preferred. When he said he didn’t care, she giggled, snuggled up to him as the magazine fell open to a tatty page. “What about this one?” she asked.
He eyed the beautiful model in a skin tight gown that was magically suspended around the model’s tits and gripped her body all the way to her ankles, like a mermaid’s tail. “Yeh,” he said. “Great.” She laughed and slapped the table, stamping her feet with excitement. “I knew you’d like it! Now we got the compensation, I can get it!”
The bus dropped them off near an isolated, closed down pub with steel bars screwed across the doors and windows. The dumb bitch giggles with excitement as they watch the bus thunder away down the lane, coughing out black exhaust.
Only Liam, she thought, would think of something as wonderful as bringing her somewhere special to propose. She had bought a dress weeks back so she was ready for him. It was a lovely gold thigh length dress from Next, with short
sleeves to hide the bruises on her arms, where he grabs her.
Liam helps her over a stile, into an overgrown field, and her giggling gives way to concern as soon as she eyes the darkening countryside. She hates being in woodlands after dark; it’s like being in one of the horrible horror movies she so detested.
Liam had walked through the fields a few days before, plotting his markers, but with the light fading quickly, and the sky a dull grey with flashes of orange, he is quickly losing his bearings.
“Liam. I don’t like this.”
Her boyfriend doesn’t answer but she finds a smile. There he is, marching on, head stuck forward, occasionally swearing at the cow pats he slops through. No-one understands him. They all hate him. If only they knew what he was really like: gormless, but sweet in his own way. It’s so exhilarating to have a boyfriend everyone, including her dad, is scared shitless of.
In the murky copse they are standing before the decomposing pit. The stench rubs the throat raw. Even in the gloom Liam can make out the bust-up farm machines he clocked on his recce. Their murderous steel points spiking through the black, green mud.
She grips his arm with both her hands. “Liam. I don’t like this. I gets real scared since the…”
“Shut it,” he says. Doesn’t she ever stop whining?
He needs to get her closer, but the footing is precarious, slippery, the melting ground gripping and sucking at his trainers.
“I’m stuck.” She is crying now.
Liam can’t believe how hopeless she is.
Holding out his hand he tries to keep his voice even. “Get over ‘ere.”
“Liam, I can’t move,” she sobs. “Well, I didn’t know we was coming out ‘ere. You think I’d ‘ave worn my best white heels? They’re special.”
Liam goes a bit mental sometimes. The rage will tear through him like fire through tissue. He twists around. If he gets closer, he can grab her and drag her down to the pit, but his impulsive action sends his feet skidding from beneath him. His hands jump out to break his fall but just slice into the mud. He chews the disgusting blend of rotten meat and animal crap until he chokes on their vile odours.
“Fuck.”
Chantelle has never known such horror. Not even when Liam pinned her to the kitchen floor by kneeling on her, and set about her face, screaming obscenities at her like a mad Pitbull. Not even when they carried out the operation to save her good eye, when she had to be fully conscious as the masked Chinese surgeon brought his scalpel over her face.
Twisted 50 Volume 1 Page 15
