Gaslighting (DP, DIC03)

by Will Patching

  She had not. Had shied away from viewing herself, partly because of that defect, its permanency a constant reminder that her beauty had gone forever. Hence, dark glasses had become habitual.

  The loss of muscle tissue was the other reason why mirrors had become her enemy. The inevitable asymmetrical nature of almost every facial expression was something she could never come to terms with. Professor Maddox had encouraged her to undertake daily exercises, practising in front of a mirror to rebuild and strengthen the fibrous tissues, but the first time she tried, the mangled visage facing her in the silvered glass had sent her diving straight back into the bottom of a bottle – and she had stayed there ever since.

  I’m still ugly, but I do look a whole lot better now…

  On close inspection, she decided her nose was excellent, almost as good as the original. The cartilage, scraped from between her ribs, had been moulded and transplanted, and now replaced the septum Peter had excised. Flesh from her brow had been expanded and stretched, then skilfully sculpted to create the new nose. Dozens of operations had been necessary to perfect it, and her lips had been artistically repaired, though still mismatched and frankly, to her mind, ugly.

  More rib tissue had recreated her severed ear, and she now tucked her hair back behind it to get a proper look. That too was almost indistinguishable from the other – hardly surprising given the expertise of the Caduceus Clinic surgeons who had modelled the new ear on the other one.

  It was strange that her cheek had been the most difficult surgical transplant. Every time new tissue had been carefully stitched into place, the flesh became torn, swollen, and infected. Suzy looked at her nails, bitten and tattered, miniature weapons fighting a constant battle with the alien tissue on her face.

  It had to stop.

  ‘I can do this. I can be whole again.’

  And no more disguising myself. Why should I care what other people think?

  A groan from Nana alerted her that her mother was coming around. She felt a twinge of guilt that she had spent the last hour cleaning the rooms, then indulging herself, while her mother was sitting in her own filth, with stinking hair, and stains on her hands, butt and legs.

  Suzie started the bath running, the steaming water rapidly misting up the mirror, bubbles foaming, filling the tub.

  ‘Come on then. A quick shower first, then we’ll get you into the bath. Warm you up. You’re freezing again.’

  With renewed vigour, she helped her mother disrobe, but sheer shock at the sight of her nakedness took Suzie’s breath away.

  She looks like she’s been in Auschwitz.

  Skin and bone. Barely any flesh on her.

  ‘Christ above. How did I let you get into this state, Mum?’

  The question was moot – she knew full well how. Self-indulgence and clinical depression. Alcoholism and drug abuse. Being absent while physically present.

  Nana’s rheumy eyes blinked open, and Suzie noticed a vague tinge of yellow, colouring the whites.

  Jaundice?

  How? Are the medications she’s taking affecting her liver?

  And why was she stick-thin? The amount of food Billy had been bringing her, she should be a healthy weight for her age.

  Perhaps she had some problem with her insides.

  With a mental promise to call the family doctor, Sunday or not, she stepped into the shower cubicle, propping her mother on the special seat they’d had fitted when her father became infirm. With the shower-head in hand, Suzie aimed the powerful jets of steaming water, soaping her mother from head to foot, gradually reviving her as the brown filth swirled down the drain.

  ‘Now let’s get you into this lovely warm bath. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Mmm. I’m hungry. Thirsty.’

  ‘I’ll get you some food and drink while you have a nice long soak. What tablets did you take last night?’

  ‘Erm… I don’t know. I can’t remember going to bed. I… I… don’t feel well. So tired. Forgetful.’

  Suzie had not helped her mother bathe for over a year, and that was only after the poor woman had tumbled down the stairs. She had retreated to this room after that, rarely venturing beyond the door, though at least she’d been managing to keep herself clean, occasionally with some help from Billy.

  ‘Will you be okay here while I make you something to eat?’

  ‘Mmm. It feels so nice.’

  As she stepped from the bathroom, Suzie’s brain started firing, reinvigorated as her battered liver gradually cleared the residue of toxic chemicals from her bloodstream. She reached an unpleasant conclusion, but inevitable after what she had seen this morning.

  Her son had been lying to her.

  Nana had not been eating all the food Suzie prepared for her. So, what had he been doing with it?

  And more pertinent was the other question now burning brightly in her mind.

  Has Billy been deliberately starving his grandmother?

  ***

  On any average Sunday morning in this far from average country home, Billy Leech would luxuriate in a well-deserved lie in, catching up on the loss of sleep from his nocturnal adventures, and have a generally lazy day.

  Today was different.

  He surfaced from his slumbers, thoroughly excited, buzzing with energy, and thrilled as he thought about all the things he was putting into action in advance of his upcoming birthday.

  His coming of age.

  A true test of his manhood. The rite of passage he and his guru had agreed would signify his transition from adolescence to adulthood.

  Earlier, he had been listening to his mother, clomping around below, surprised that the screeching and yelling he’d expected – when she entered her mother’s room – had not been the first sound he’d heard on waking. Instead, all had been quiet for the last twenty minutes or so.

  He pulled on his jeans and couldn’t help the wicked smirk curling his lips. Maybe his mum had collapsed. Fainted on being confronted by the shit storm Billy had created for her. He could hardly wait to get down the stairs to check on them both, though found time to gel his hair and admire his appearance in his bathroom mirror before bounding down to the landing below.

  Strange. Nana was not in her bed, and his mother wasn’t lying unconscious on the floor in the doorway either. He wandered in while breathing through his mouth – despite the thin film of Vick’s vapour rub he had applied to his upper lip before venturing forth from his room – and was surprised to taste the tang of chlorine on his tongue. And the mess in the bed had been cleared up already.

  Had his mother really done all this? And why wasn’t she screaming blue murder?

  For the first time in years, he had a sense that he was not fully in control of events, and it unsettled him. He was better than this – better than anyone, especially these two, who only shared the weak, pathetic half of his unique genetic makeup.

  His mask slipped and his surprise at his plan coming unravelled was revealed in his face as he turned to see his mother in the bathroom doorway, staring at him.

  Suspicious.

  What was she thinking?

  ‘You’re up early for a Sunday, son. Did you wet the bed? Again?’

  This was all wrong.

  Billy felt disoriented, so glanced down at his feet, wriggled his toes on the carpet, and verbalised in his mind:

  I am not dreaming. I’m awake. When I sleep, I will dream. When I dream, I will know I am dreaming. When I wake, I will remember my dreams.

  Oh, he was awake alright, standing in this room, but his mother was behaving totally out of character. It didn’t strike him immediately, but gradually he realised what was different about her – she was sober, and straight, neither pissed nor drug-addled. All he could think of at that moment, was how confident she appeared.

  Enlightened even…

  He shrugged, and went on the attack. Her jibe about him wetting his bed had shaken him, but the insinuation had not hit home as it was almost five years since the last occurrence, so he just
ignored the remark.

  ‘What happened in here then? You two been having a party? You’re both full of shit, so I can see how it happened.’ He smirked at her. ‘The state of your liver, I’d think the pair of you could pebble dash the walls without much effort.’

  ‘Who said anything about shit?’

  A beat passed with them eyeballing each other, neither willing to break contact, then Billy waved his hand at the bed, and sniffed hard for her benefit.

  ‘I can smell it. Even through the bleach you’ve sprayed everywhere.’ Billy had slipped up, thanks to being wrong-footed, but was satisfied with his recovery. Always attack first, my son. His guru seemed to whisper encouragement in his ear. ‘You’d be able to smell it too, if you had a proper nose instead of that mangled lump of meat they stitched in the middle of your deformed face. Anyway, what’s going on? Where’s Nana? Is she okay?’

  ‘Get out.’ His mother’s tone was steel, and Billy knew the accompanying glare would intimidate any normal son.

  ‘Does she need help getting in and out of the shower? She won’t want you in there, that’s for sure. I’m the one who helps her, not you.’

  The hideous bitch had her arms folded, and she stood in the bathroom doorway, her bulk blocking him. He stepped towards her, planning to read aloud what he had written, to twist the knife he was sure he had planted in her guts when she first saw the message, but she was immovable, determined not to let him see inside.

  ‘I said, get out! I’m looking after her. Now just go!’

  He decided to retreat, and regroup. Think through what had gone wrong this morning. A minor setback, nothing more.

  Billy slipped from the room and swept down the stairs, his brain processing the brief encounter.

  Nothing to worry about. A temporary aberration on his mother’s part. That’s all.

  With a little nudge or two from him later today, she’d be knocking back the cocktails and cough linctus like her life depended on it.

  It did.

  Hahaha!

  Perhaps an acid trip might help the ugly old bag unwind, and plunge her back into the bottom of a bottle where she belonged. Regardless, he would sneak into her bedroom tonight. Thanks to the overpriced Caduceus Clinic, she was sporting another slab of expensive new flesh, a slice of her upper breast masquerading as her right cheek.

  A confident grin lifted Billy’s spirits as he remembered the last few occasions. In the past, his minor modifications to that most visible part of her anatomy had always had the desired effect…

  ***

  On finding out he was going to be a parent, Doc had been walking on air, his head light, his mood even lighter. There was no trace of a hangover in his system now, partly flushed away by the two lattes he had made for himself after telling Jack his wonderful news.

  On finishing his espresso and immediately before leaving to do some ‘errands’, Jack had clapped Doc on the back and promised to bring back some champagne to toast their good fortune, a double celebration, to be held that afternoon when Sally, his daughter, and her fiancé arrived.

  Doc could not settle to anything – he wanted to hug his wife, but Judy was still out. She had taken her car too, so was probably out with the Caversham running club this morning, so could be back at any time, sooner or later.

  What to do?

  A third latte was at his lips as he gazed out of the patio windows, his mind on all the amazing things he would have to do as a new father in his early fifties. As his own reflection came into focus, he vowed to lose the little bit of flab he had accumulated since his year in France. He’d let the yoga lapse while there, and had promised himself he would take it up again on his return to the UK. A promise he had broken for nigh on three years…

  I’ll be almost seventy when my boy – he was convinced his offspring would be male – comes of age.

  Eighteen years of parenting, at this time of his life, was a rather daunting prospect, but he would not let that impair his euphoric mood.

  I’ll get fit and healthy again.

  High blood pressure and occasional heart pain were warnings he could not ignore. The dizzy spells had caught him by surprise, as had the diagnosis. Overlooking his own wellbeing, while caring for Judy, nursing her back to health, was no excuse. Doc would have to take much better care of himself from now on.

  I’m going to be a daddy!

  Despite his elevated mood, that dark and twisted character living inside his brain, the tame psychopath that had enabled his stellar career in forensic psychiatry, crept out of its box and instilled in his mind ugly ideas as it did so.

  Will he be like me? And if he is, will he be able to control his urges?

  A vision of Billy Leech presented itself before his inner eye – the snarling adolescent from their last session together. His threatening manner, truly forbidding, despite being just thirteen.

  More images appeared. Billy’s uncle, as a scrawny eighteen-year-old, with similar facial features, though much coarser, standing in the dock at the Old Bailey before being sent down by the judge – an old colleague of Doc’s. A good friend who had been murdered by a member of the Leech clan.

  Doc’s mood soured as another vision took hold. Shaun Leech, the boy’s father, standing behind his son, with Peter, older now, after his release from prison, built like a heavyweight boxer, his features battered as if he’d just stepped from a brutal bout of fourteen rounds, green eyes burning with hatred.

  All three then converged, morphing into Billy Leech, also older now – the teenager who had been dragged to his mother’s car, by then almost fully grown. His athletic body, that of a powerful adult… And his eyes glaring through the car windscreen.

  With a jolt, Doc felt the same degree of malignant hatred he had experienced radiating from Peter Leech during their final confrontation.

  A sickening swirl of acid in his belly scalded his heart, and he clutched at his chest wondering if he was about to go into cardiac arrest. Panic took hold as he felt a tingling in his left arm.

  No… I cannot!

  Doc panted and tried to relax. He brought his breathing under control, and then applied the yoga techniques he had learned many years before. Although out of practice, the counted breaths and delayed exhalations worked, his panic receding as he felt the tingling subside.

  Not good.

  Doc was due at the heart clinic again on Wednesday so would have himself fully checked out then. He glanced down at his third coffee and dumped the cup on the table in disgust at his lack of willpower. One a day was supposed to be his limit. And he hadn’t taken his tablets this morning.

  Idiot.

  A quick trip to the kitchen sorted that out, but as he returned to the patio he found himself staring at the Weber barbecue, still under its vinyl cloak.

  Damn.

  The dead dog was lying inside the grill. He sighed.

  I need to sort that before Judy gets back.

  While experiencing a vague sense of deja vu, he took his gardening gloves from the cupboard under the kitchen sink, along with another plastic sack, but this time grabbed a bottle of grill cleaning spray instead of a screwdriver. He was not looking forward to the task, one that extinguished all happy thoughts at Judy’s news.

  Doc busied himself with cleaning up the mess from the offending corpse. Fortunately, the dog was charred and desiccated, rather than rancid and decomposing like the cat had been, so the contamination inside the grill was easily removed with the caustic solution he liberally sprayed on the metal, then scrubbed and rinsed clean.

  With the dog lying on the lawn, he did a cursory post mortem inspection on the poor creature. It was difficult to tell what breed it was – a mid-sized dog, and not particularly well built. Doc would have a word with Jack to see if he could discover any locals who were missing a pet.

  Meanwhile, he reached a highly disturbing conclusion as he checked out the charred remains. Going by the curled position of the dog’s limbs, the way the snout was stretched in a rictus grin, the b
ared teeth and lolling blackened tongue, Doc was convinced the animal had been alive before being set alight.

  He tucked the corpse into the bag, tied a knot in the plastic to seal it and turned to haul the remains to his wheelie bin at the side of the house.

  ‘What on earth is that?’

  Judy had arrived back, and Doc, engrossed in his gruesome task, had not heard the car pull up, or her approaching footsteps.

  Several thoughts rattled through his mind, including wondering what she had seen, but the overriding consideration was the amazing flood of endorphins at the sight of her, his wife, carrying his seed inside her.

  ‘Sweetheart!’ He dropped the bag, threw off his gloves and rushed at her, swept her into his arms and planted a sloppy kiss on her smiling lips. ‘We’re pregnant!’

  He twirled her round, her feet dangling above the ground, in a pure dance of joy.

  ‘Put me down, you fool! You’ll give yourself a heart attack.’ She giggled at him. ‘I’m sweaty and ready for a shower, but I see you found my note.’ She waggled the proof of their good news under his nose.

  ‘I’m thrilled, my love. Absolutely overjoyed.’ He was, again. All thoughts of animal corpses and psychopathic offspring banished from his mind. For now. ‘You should’ve told me! How long have you known?’

  ‘I only had it confirmed yesterday, at the hospital.’ Judy glanced away from him as she spoke, her voice betraying something, though Doc could not detect what. She held his hands and focused back on his eyes, her voice firmer. ‘I planned to tell you last night, after the party, but you didn’t come to bed. And you were unconscious when I came down this morning.’

  Doc wanted to crush her to him again, but held himself in check. What had he sensed beneath her outward bonhomie?

  Some hesitancy? A reluctance to share something?

  No. She’s just tired from her run.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything when you got back from the hospital, before the party? We could’ve shared the news with everyone then.’

  Her violet eyes shied away from his again, her answer ambiguous. ‘I wasn’t sure… I mean, wasn’t sure I wanted anyone else to know – just you and me for now.’