“I do love you Charlie” and I do, I would do anything for him now. I look up into his face and say to him again “I do love you you know.” I am going to be good for ever now.
“And I love you too. Stay here”
“but it’s more sensible if I go down with you”
“for God’s sake Gussie do as you’re told, wait here, you need to be on the lookout. If he turns up, let me know. Wait here.” And so I had to, you can’t argue in a horrible strangers garden when you’re not supposed to be there and you’re doing something illegal, I suppose it’s illegal. And he always does that, tells me something that he’s had in his head for a while but I don’t quite know what he means. He calls out instructions, half instructions because the rest is in his head and I don’t know what to do. And then I have a moment, two, three moments of frustration and fury.
Charlie walked down the garden to the lock-up where the dogs were, quiet as an owl, just his back in the dark I could see, but I couldn’t hear him. It was very still and we could hear the town noises over the hills, not voices, just rumblings, and the sky, a conjured up warm colour with the lights of civilisation. And I waited by the shed, cold and impatient, a heavy stick in my hand. And then I thought how do I let him know if Mark Davies turns up? How? I listened to my breathing and I shifted from foot to foot. I wiggled my toes in my boots, one at a time and couldn’t remember if I’d wriggled my little toe on my right foot, so went through it all over again. I felt the wood of the shed, splintered and dry, I examined the way it was made. I saw a rat skull in the compost heap to my right and a tattered target and I counted 8 cigarette buts. And then I watched Charlie again, his back bent like some sort of large stone, like the head of a great big scarred sea trout. He was taking too long. “Hurry, hurry, hurry” I said deep down and low with each long breath. I wondered if I wanted to do a wee and as I wondered, I wanted to but knew I shouldn’t. I couldn’t hear what Charlie was doing. I didn’t know if he was grunting or straining to open the door. And there was that song again in my head ‘love me or leave me, let me be lonely’. And I was staring ahead, then worried that I’d gone into a daze. I might have missed something and my eyes blinked and narrowed in on him again, then I felt them going off again in tiredness and lack of stimulation ‘love me or leave me’.
And then I heard another noise, and over my heavily beating heart, I opened my mouth to breathe easier, quieter. I heard what sounded like footsteps. I was sure they were footsteps, but then I heard the fence creak and I raised my eyes at my nervousness. And then I felt my whole body clench still and pull up tight as I definitely heard the footsteps again and from my shed shelter I saw him.
All those years ago at school, he was just the rough boy that I avoided. All those years later when I was going out with Richard, he was the rough boy who had a room in their house. I wanted to find some good in him in those days, I wanted to find out if there was any human link or if bad was just a thing on it’s own. I won’t think about that now. But, I don’t even think I see him as a person now, but as menace. I see him as something hateful that shouldn’t exist. In a world which should be evolving he is debilitating disease. My whole body snarled and felt filled with creeping pus. Everything about him looked dirty. I don’t want to breathe the same air in this garden that he breathes. He was creeping down the garden, creeping down past me, slowly, what’s the time Mr Wolf? Creeping towards poor dear Charlie. I did not want him to touch Charlie or to see Charlie. One step, two steps, and I saw something in his hands, a stick? A bat? A truncheon? And he stopped still and the weapon (because it was a weapon) went down, rested vertically with one end on the ground, then he picked it up again and continued, eyes ahead. One, two, three, what do I do? One, two, three, do I go after him? Do I shout? And I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I didn’t want to open my mouth in his presence. What do I do? And you don’t have time to think and you don’t really have space to think and I felt my legs go towards him, shaking and unstable with fury and hatred and disgust. I felt my mouth wet with fear but stupid blind bravery from somewhere propelling me forwards. And I still didn’t know if it was the right thing or the wrong thing, and I felt like a ragdoll in the garden. I am useless. How long do you creep before you run and attack? I don’t know, but you just guess, watching the back of his neck. How long can I carry on following him before he hears me? And then following him thinking that he will get Charlie and then me, or me and then Charlie and before thought came violence. The swinging of the stick, all lost in time, momentum and movement and pain in my hands. Feel the texture of the stick and I was holding it at the wrong end, but I swung it at the back of his head, I know that. He turned around and I saw his ugly face and swung at it, I wanted to feel the stick crush him. But his body kept moving towards me, just his shoulders. I heard a noise and it must have been him and I felt myself fall. How stupid. I felt myself fall on my back, but he had kicked out at me, and as I fell, as I saw his head get closer to mine, I do not want him to touch me, and as I saw his shoulders get larger, closer to my face and his body made the dark blacker, I saw white behind him. I just waited, in what I know was a fraction of a moment, but felt like an age. I felt him collapse on top of me and I know that I was shouting. I heard my voice. And then I saw Charlie and I felt Mark Davies’s pain as, on top of me his body shot backwards from the middle and suddenly he wasn’t on me anymore.
I think that for a minute I blacked out and then, when I went to get up, it took so long to move and the quicker I tried, the longer it seemed to take, and I must have turned the wrong way because it felt such a long time to turn my body towards the noise and see Charlie’s face, stretched and lined and big and angry, so angry. And so many snow flakes in the blink of an eye, so many cinders from a burning fire. He was ripping and grabbing at the man on the ground, claws and talons and danger and poison, and his body bent, his feet kicking and kicking and I measured the motion, I watched the rhythm as in a dream. It is all a whirl and a whish and a tangle of things and you can’t quite understand what’s happening. And then Charlie was sitting next to me, big and tall and upright, a monument, his monument, his left arm around my back sitting close but not looking at me. Why doesn’t he look at me? “Where is he?”
“He’s over there. He’s dead” and then I was sick.
‘Poor sweet baby’ Charlie Brown always wanted someone to say to him and pat his little round head. Pat my head and hold me tight, tell me it will all be alright. “Are you alright Gussie?”
“Yes” I said as I wiped the sick away from my mouth with my sleeve.
“Stay there.” I was getting up to see if he was really dead, but Charlie held me firmly down. “Is he really dead Charlie?” why do I sound like a child sometimes? Why am I a child sometimes? “Is he really dead?” I would feel sorry for me. All I saw in the dark was a lump on the ground, a dead lump. And Charlie stayed next to me, his hand on my back and then it moved up to my head and pulled my balaclava off and he stroked my hair. I’m not used to such soft and physical affection from him and I stayed there, loving it. A dog stretched out by the fire with his masters socked foot caressing him. Give me more, give me anything, I love it. Loving him. I know there’s a dead man there I thought to myself, but I have found something here too, I have found tenderness in him now and it could all be OK now. “Will it all be OK?” I said to him.
“No, of course it bloody won’t. I’ve just killed someone” and he still looked ahead. And what would other women do? Would they be shocked and frightened? Would they scream? I don’t know, but I was calm and snuggled closer to him “he is horrible. But what will we do?” my voice is small, my hand was on his knee, stroking his leg beneath his soft trousers. “You’ll go home now and I’ll sort it out.”
“No, I’ll help sort it out.”
“You’ll go home, there’s no need for you to be involved, it was nothing to do with you. You’ll go home Gussie.”
I will address this in a minute I thought and said “but what will you d
o?”
“I don’t know yet, I think I’ll dump his body.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. By the river. I don’t know. You go now.” He is stone and there’s no words he understands. And I am a child banging and banging and banging on a rock with little white fists. But I am not a child and I was there to save him. And as I stood there thinking, looking at his face and a dead man on the ground beside him he whispered “Gussie, you haven’t been seeing Toby have you?” I love his unpredictability, that is like me and, naturally, I lied, what else could I do?
“No, of course not.”
“I hope that’s true. I hope that’s true, not just for me, but for you too”
“what do you mean by that?”
“You know he’s your brother don’t you? You do know Frank is your father?”
“What are you talking about? Why did you say that? Why did you say that?”
“I didn’t think you knew, you must be the last person, absolutely everyone else knows.”
“You fucking bastard, why are you saying this? Charlie? Why are you saying this? It’s fucking rubbish. Why are you saying this? Why are you being so horrible to me Charlie?” Whispered fury sent into space, stars bursting and planets colliding and collapsing and skies falling down and suffocating me and black, black, black all around me “your mother and Frank Gussie, you are his daughter. I’m not trying to be horrible to you, but you should know, why do you think he’s always looking out for you? No one else is like that are they? He’s your father and Toby is your brother.”
“No! You’re a fucking nasty liar, you’re a liar” and I remember pushing hard at his face with the palm of my hand, too hard, I remember feeling his nose squish up and wet on my hand and I remember seeing spittle coming from my mouth and hurtling through the air towards his face and then I turned and ran, ran and ran until my lungs, squeezed tight, hurt so coldly, that I couldn’t run any more and I found myself bent double in the middle of a strange street on my own, my head clashing and banging and whipping me from inside. Why would he say that?
Chapter 28
I’m lying on a tarpaulin on wet grass. I’m lying on my side in the middle of it, curled up like a growing creature, too early in my life to face the environment. I pull up one corner of the tarpaulin to cover me, then another and another, until I am totally covered up, alone and hidden. And then I wake up. I have been having very bad dreams these last few days.
I called Charlie again and again that night, ashamed of myself, needing to know if what he said was true. I had hit him, not punched him or slapped him, but that was a violent thing to do. I have never been physically aggressive before, not like that. I am little and nasty and that’s what he will be thinking. I hate myself, dirty and base I am. He will hate me. He won’t be able to forgive me for this, I know he won’t. Everything is ruined. I have lost his respect. And whatever happened in my life, I always needed his respect but that has gone. And I know that sometimes I wasn’t very good at it, but I did try to be always lovely with him. I wanted him always to be proud of me and to know that I would always be kind to him and gentle and good. I wanted it so that when he thought of me, he thought of me as gentle and little and smiling and kind. But I know he will be hating me now. He’s not answering his phone. He won’t want to speak to me. And I have to know if it’s true about Frank. And I think it must be true. And we have killed someone between us. I have let him down. I have let myself down. I have let Frank down.
I have sent a million texts to Charlie, but he must have turned his phone off. And so many times I’ve got Frank’s number up on my phone to call him, but I haven’t. I thought I could look after Charlie but it’s me that needs looking after, I’m rubbish, everything I do is rubbish. I ruin everything. Everything. And I’m writing this and my face is lined and worried and my head is hanging down. I am looking at my right hand held out before me and it’s shaking and my writing is so, so tiny. I have smoked far too many cigars. I cannot breathe. I haven’t left my house. I will not see anyone. I’m frightened Charlie. I am uncomfortably numb. I’m worrying about everything that I’ve lost, and I’m the only one to blame. I am fully aware now of all that I have done. I am not nice and no one will love me.
I’m up on Dartmoor in a bit of a gale, smoking a cigar and still no word. The dead grass where I am sitting is wagging it’s fingers at me, telling me I am bad. The ash blows off the end of my cigar and leaves me to myself and I feel deserted. The pages of my book and the folds of my skirt are blowing up frantically, trying to leave me because I am horrible, and yet, no tears stray. I’m in a whirl, a tangle of wind and wildness and fear and isolation. And the wind is still howling around me and the night is drawing in and it throws old grass at my face in disgust and on my hands and the grass tangles itself around my fingers and it won’t let me go.
That night I dreamt that Edlyn my sparrowhawk was flying bullet-like through the skies and Sergeant, the musket was clinging on to her back, and she said to him “trust me, it will all be OK” but the look on his face was terror and worry and he didn’t believe her.
“Jo” I said to her the morning after, quiet as a mouse “I have hit Charlie” and sleepy-eyed she replied “why?” and I told her that we’d argued because he said that Frank was my father and I thought he was being nasty and jealous and spiteful, and I didn’t mean to but my hand reached out for his face and I wanted to hurt him “but I didn’t slap him or punch him”
“yeah, but you physically hurt him. You were aggressive, that sort of man won’t stand for that. You’ve fucked that up I reckon.” I was silent, I have nothing to say “why did you get angry with him about Frank being your father? I’ve heard loads of people saying that”
“that Frank’s my father?”
“Yeah, just take it with a pinch of salt. I would.” I couldn’t say to her I’ve slept with Toby, my half brother, or, Oh by the way I’ve committed incest and oh yes, my other lover and I murdered a man between us the other night. “You think if you smile you’ll get away with anything don’t you?” one of the teachers said to me at school and I probably always did, but never intentionally.
It has been four days and I still haven’t heard from him. I have gone from intense worry, sickening worry to anger to despair. “I will always love you” I had said to him that night “and I will always protect you in any way I can and always look out for you” and he said nothing back to me, just stroked my head. And now I try and imagine my life without him in it and I can’t. I don’t know what to say.
There is a heavy silence in this house, I feel it’s milkiness all over me, drowning me, and then through it I hear the clamour, the bash, bash, bash of the waves beyond me “don’t forget” they say to me. And all at once it is night again and I still don’t know.
I dreamt last night that I was building a house, a little child’s igloo sort of a house and I’m inside it, building it with bricks, up and around me. Keeping me in, imprisoned and alone and cut off from everybody. The walls are going up and up and I can’t see over them and there is no doorway and I just don’t feel fit to be with other people. I feel alone and I don’t belong with them and I don’t want them near me.
When I woke up I went down to the beach. I am sitting on the rocks now, my knees tucked up under my chin and my arms wrapped tightly around them, tighter and tighter, caressing myself. The tide is almost in. There’s a pair of men’s black socks that have been washed up from somewhere and are five feet away from me. There is a fat man in a wet suit being tossed about in the waves, like a swollen seal. The sea is rough. I finish my cigar and toss it into the open mouth of a ravenous wave and call after it “thank you cigar, go back to Grandma and Coningsby” and inside my head I hear what do I do?
“Everything will always be OK dear, you wait and see” grandma would say to me. I’m tired and I have a head cold, I’m thick headed and so, so tired, I just don’t know what to do. I am so weary. I would that I could lie here and let someone look after me.
Tired that I am. Weary that I am. Too many thoughts that I have. Work to be done. The sun has gone in and the sea is grey and charcoal with the white foam from a mad dog shaken off and spittled on the surface. I think he’s gone. I think he’s abandoned me. I think he’s gone off and left me. And I said once that my love could easily turn to hate, and maybe it will, but at the flick of a switch, it could turn back to love. He wouldn’t just have gone.
Slowly entering my head, thoughts of what I have to do. He is stupid to do this to me, stupid as well as cruel, we have killed someone. I have to make it alright. We need to be alright. Ideas straying tentatively into my head, but I’m not ready yet and out they are pushed. I am not ready yet. But fragments of ideas I am trying to get a hold of. I will look after us, and all of a sudden an image of us dark and subdued and broken in court, in trouble. That can’t happen. That won’t happen. I will get us out of this. And stupid though he is I will look after him, and careless though he is, he won’t put me in any jeopardy. And kind though I am, gentle though I am, I will do anything to get us out of this.
I dreamt that night that I lived in a ramshackle higgeldy piggeldy house with Douglas, Joseph, Gabriel and Jo. Everything was in bad repair and falling down, but it still somehow managed to stay up. Only just. I was sad and worried in the dream and I went for a walk along the cliff, and down, far below, I saw dolphins in the bay. It was so lovely that I started running back to the house to tell the others, I knew they’d want to see them too, but before I’d got very far, the dolphins started coming up the cliff towards me, and it wasn’t just dolphins, it was seals and whales too. They were big and beautiful, soft and plastic and inflated. They moved on their tails like feet and they surrounded me, bumping into me, bouncing around me, suffocating me, knocking me over. Clamouring with each other to knock me down. It was too dangerous, I couldn’t get up, I was desperate to escape them and I woke up struggling for breath.
Come Not When I Am Dead Page 22
