Days 24-25
5,359 words in this post / 43,381 words total. Back on track! I can’t believe how bad it is but am really pleased to be on course to finish, finally.
77. The Funeral
At the family’s request, the only people at the funeral were the Barrett kids: Camille, Sara, Jim and Rowan and Valerie’s close friends Janice and Rodger.
Against Valerie’s wishes, her children had opted for a humanist cremation. None of them knew the first thing about her Catholic faith, neither did they have any intention of leaning. Janice had argued that it was enough that Valerie believed in heaven to justify a religious wedding, at which point Rowan began ranting and raving about how nobody but him really understood justification or justice or even Janice except him. He ‘got’ these things, he decided things, and in this case he decided that “God will not interfere with this funeral.”
The six attendees sat in silence as the funeral progressed. The man at the front talked of humanist values, about how the ideals of religion and the ideals of humanism are, at the end, not so very far apart. “To treat each other well, treat them how we ourselves wish to be treated, is not an idea that belongs exclusively to the religious,” he said, “it is something that belongs to us all.”
Rowan felt as if he was being spoken to directly. It seemed to him that good will alone could not ensure people’s good behaviour. If ninety-nine men agreed that we should treat others as we wish to be treated, you could be certain that the hundredth would shout abuse at them, and surer still that at least a dozen would retaliate. It was necessary, therefore, for such good will to be policed. And not policed from the inside, for that could only lead to corruption and inequality. It had to be policed from someone who stood outside of morals, who saw with a clear eye the objective merits or demerits of human behaviour: in short, someone like Rowan.
“I am the hundred and first man,” Rowan muttered.
Sara punched him on the leg, hard enough to be a clear warning. All she could think about was getting through the next fifteen minutes uneventfully, without any kind of scene. The funeral didn’t sadden her particularly; in fact, it provided a great opportunity to think about her plans. She was sure now that she needed to get away, to find a place in the world that wasn’t London, that didn’t involve the commute—or perhaps even work at all, for that matter. She had reached the end, she felt; there was nowhere to go. Jim had said he foresaw his own life ending in suicide, but suggested no such similar thing for her. But when she looked in the mirror, she saw a doomed woman. She saw someone who, if they didn’t get a grip soon, would fade into nothingness slowly, by increments. She could quite easily imagine herself waking one day, seeing he slim body transfigured into little more than bones, sunken eyes, shadowy features. She could imagine a moment of realisation: the realisation of what she had become, of personal responsibility for allowing it to happen. And yes, finally, she could imagine making the choice to end it all.
But that wasn’t what she wanted for herself. She was not a woman intent on self-destruction; like a scorpion she would only strike herself down if absolutely trapped. At the moment, she wasn’t in that position. She was still in control; her circumstances were what they were because of her own inertia. But it was time to change all that. Starting tomorrow. She would quit work, that would be a start. And then—well, then she would decide on something else. One thing at a time!
“Now,” the man continued, “we’ll play this piece of music, of which Valerie was immensely fond.”
As if, Camille thought, that man had any idea about what her mother was fond of. It was this kind of casual bullshit that upset Camille more than anything. What right did he have to speak as if he knew her mother? She didn’t, of course, appreciate the hypocrisy of her thoughts. She was, after all, the woman who had feigned collapse in order to get Mark Selwyn to spend the day with her. She was, after all, the woman who had led two men on, only to leave them standing, naked and foolish alone in their front room. And this was the woman, after all, whose first thought on hearing of her mother’s death was, “Will this make me famous?”
But no, none of those things mattered to Camille as she sat, irritated and appalled by the humanist view that just because you didn’t know someone personally, does not mean that you did not know them at all.
The music ended and Jim stood. Having not been allowed to speak on the television at the public appeal, he had insisted on being able to say a few words here.
“My mother,” he began, “was a good woman, and a wonderful parent. She supported the four of us kids by herself, through thick and thin, no matter what. She, um, she protected us, and loved us and…” Jim trailed off. Not, as Janice thought, to hold back tears, to keep in some overflowing raw emotion—not because of that. Just because it dawned on him that he didn’t know or care about what he was saying, and really, he wasn’t saying it to anyone that didn’t know Valerie for themselves. In fact, the more he thought about the whole funeral, the more it seemed like a farce. His brother and sisters, sitting there, all wishing they were somewhere else. Janice and Rodger, clutching each other, clutching their tissues, clutching on to society’s expectations of their behaviour. For the first time, Jim thought he could understand a little of what Rowan was about. Not only that, but he could understand why Rowan behaved like he did. It was ridiculous, this whole set up.
Everyone was looking at him. The longer he went without speaking, the more everyone became captivated with him. The spell was finally broken when Janice cleared her throat gently. At the sound, Jim seemed to suddenly come alive again. Smiling as best as he could, he stepped down and stood in the aisle, facing the coffin.
“Fuck this,” he said. “This is all bullshit.”
Janice gasped. Sara, Rowan and Camille couldn’t help but snigger. Jim pointed at the coffin and, in his most authoritative voice said, “Let’s get it over with, shall we? Can someone flip the ‘burn’ switch so we can all get out of here?”
78. Developments
Once the dust had settled on the funeral, Jim felt pretty good about himself. He called Jenny.
“How was the funeral?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said. “Good… You know, as funerals go.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I was calling to ask—”
“If we’ve got any news?”
“Um… yeah…”
“It’s funny you should call just now, because I was about to call you. We’ve had a sighting of the suspects in Kentish Town.”
“Is it definitely them?” asked Jim, trying to sound interested.
“Well, it’s been corroborated by two independent witnesses.”
Jim was thinking about how to ask her out, rather than what she was saying, so the lacklustre “Cool,” he muttered must have seemed a little odd to Jenny. They were quiet for a few moments. Then Jenny said, “I’ll keep you informed of any developments, of course.”
“Of course,” Jim echoed.
“Well, good-bye then.”
“Jenny?”
“Yes?”
“Will you go out with me?” Jim blurted out.
“Excuse me?”
“I was hoping we could, um, you know, go out.”
“Go out? How do you mean?”
“On a date, perhaps?” explained Jim. He had never wished to undo a conversation in his life more than he did right now.
“Oh Jim—I… Well, it’s difficult…”
“I understand,” Jim said quickly, wanting the phone call to be over as swiftly as it could be.
“No… it’s the job, you see… it’s—policy!” she blurted the last word out almost triumphantly. “We’re not allowed,” she added. And then, to finish: “It would be unprofessional.”
“You don’t need to explain,” said Jim.
“It makes perfect sense,” said Jim.
“I understand,” said Jim.
A hat-trick of lies!
79. A Bit of Niceness for Mark
Mark’s murderous cousin Simon, along with his equally murderous friend Steven, were having a great time of making Mark’s life hell. Today was Wednesday—they had been staying in his Kentish town flat for three days. So far, they had smashed the television in his bedroom, sold a load of his things, torn some of the pages from his favourite books and eaten him out of house and home. They did these things during the day, while Mark worked. To add insult to injury, when Mark came home in the evenings they went out of their way to be polite. When Mark casually asked about his television or his missing things or his books or his food, Simon would innocently reply, “I don’t know what happened there Mark. Are you sure it wasn’t like that before?”
In short, they were making Mark Selwyn’s life hell. But something was happening at work that was making his life worth living: he and Sara were getting on.
Mark had decided that things were what they were and that was that. He couldn’t help it if Sara’s sister was crazy anymore than he could help it if his cousin was a murderer. And besides, the opportunity was too good to miss: how often did he get to spend seven hours a day alone with a vulnerable woman? He mother had been killed, her family were all insane; she was depressed and in need of support.
On Monday, Mark decided he would be the support she so desperately needed. When he arrived at work, he asked how the funeral went. As she spoke, he nodded sagely. He didn’t actually listen to anything she said, but he didn’t need to. All he had to focus on was keeping his expression open and sympathetic. It occurred to him it might be a good idea to touch her supportively, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. Eventually, at a particularly poignant moment in the story—something about her brother Jim shouting “Burn the bitch!”, or similar—Jim patted her on the top of the head. She looked more puzzled than consoled so he didn’t do it again.
On Tuesday, Mark decided to up the stakes a little. He brought a bottle of Vodka into work, closed the blinds to the office and told her she deserved not to think about anything except enjoying herself for the day. He even took the phone of the hook and disconnected the internet to prove he was serious. They talked for a while about the dead mother, but Sara was keen to change the subject. Unfortunately, everything Mark had planned to say was about bereavement—he’d even bought a book on the subject to appear wise—so Sara’s decision to avoid the topic scuppered him completely. They spent most of the day playing solitaire on their computers.
On Wednesday, Mark decided they needed a focus—so he took to work his chess board, his backgammon board and a 1980s edition of the game Operation. Sara didn’t like chess and didn’t understand backgammon, but seemed to enjoy the concentration Operation involved. They had a lot of fun trying to extract the organs from the body. Sara won more games than Mark, which made her happy. All in all, it was a major success. He was certainly very pleased with himself.
Things were going so well, in fact, that when he got home on Wednesday evening to find his fridge in the hallway on its side; his curtains cut like origami men—those that seem to be holding hands in a long row; and a half cooked rasher of bacon on his bed; he simply ignored it all and went to sleep on the sofa.
The home life problems were overshadowed, being with Sara was a bit of niceness for Mark, richly deserved.
80. Another Nightmare for the Barrett Kids
In an unusual turn of events, for the second time in a matter of days the Barrett siblings all had the same dream.
It began with the enraged and bloodied face of their mother: brutalised, murdered, but present nonetheless, with all the undead malice of a movie zombie.
In his version of the dream, Jim was reminded of the video shop job that never was.
For the rest, the experience was scary enough in what it appeared to be at face value. They were standing in the hallway, at the bottom of the stairs where Valerie’s body had been found. Their mother wasn’t impressed by being dead in the dream, not a bit of it. “What are you doing about it?” she demanded to know of her kids.
In his version of the dream, Rowan protested that he was out there, hunting the men down.
When she was finished being angry about their lack of action, she began berating them for their lack of compassion. “None of you cared. I raised you alone!” she shouted. It was as if all of the anger she had suppressed for a lifetime was coming out all at once. Her ragged, sagged, dead face was fired red with fury.
In her version of the dream, Camille began to cry without realising it again.
“It’s as if none of you can think of anything except yourselves,” she screamed, her hair flying back as if blown by an invisible wind. As she spoke, spittle flew from her lips and her voice was harmonised with an underlying roar that resonated with the ribs of all of her siblings; each felt as though they were literally being shaken from the inside. “You renounce everything of value!”
In her version of the dream, Sara pointed out that she worked for a living, that she wanted to make something of her life.”
“You can’t communicate with each other, or with anyone else,” Valerie continued. With each work she grew a few inches. The skin on her face wrinkled and scrunched in on itself, as if submerged under water. As she continued to shout, he voice became increasingly rasping. “You don’t know yourselves; you don’t know each other; you don’t know the world!” She stood nearly ten feet tall now and perfectly still, towering above all of her children, like some kind of horrific statue to herself. “You were united through me,” she said. “Without me you have fallen, scattered, blown apart as if carried by the four winds…”
In all versions of the dream, the reaction of the dreamer was the same: fear. Flames licked around Valerie’s ankles, unstoppable, insatiable. Suddenly her face turned to fear and pain, and in a voice almost unrecognisable she cried in a final act of supreme indignation: “YOU HAD ME BURNED!”
That was the last any of the Barrett children saw of their mother, living or dead.
81. What are the Odds?
The following morning, surrounded once again by the rubbish they had accumulated since Janice and Rodger came over to tidy up, Rowan, Sara, Camille and Jim sat in the front room and discussed their dream.
“I can’t believe we all had the same dream,” said Camille. “That’s like, proof of ghosts or something.”
“Yeah,” said Sara. “What are the odds?”
“Quite high, actually,” Jim said brightly. He had been quiet for a while, thinking it all through.
“How’s that?” Camille asked.
“Well, if you forget about statistics for a moment and ask yourself instead, ‘What is the likelihood of us all having the same dream?’, you would instinctively answer that it is not very likely at all. And you would be right to do so. But it’s like my dice theory: There is an ‘elastic limit’ to task repetitions, beyond which mathematical probability ceases to apply.”
The others looked at him blankly, but he pressed on anyway. “It’s quite simple, if you repeat something enough times, the laws of probability cease to apply. If you roll a dice enough times, eventually it will settle on one number and every time you roll it will be that number for ever more.”
“No matter how you throw it?” said Sara.
“Right. No matter how you throw it. And what I am saying is that dreams work in a similar way.”
Again, confusion all around on the faces of his brother and sisters.
“How many dreams have you had in your lifetimes? Thousands. And what are the odds of us all having the same dream—well, we’ve already said, very low. But probability in this case has reached and surpassed its elastic limit, so all our dreams are the same. I bet our next dream is the same, too. It’s even possible our last dream was the same…”
“What was your last dream?” asked Camille.
Rowan spoke first. “I saw him.”
“Dad?” said Camille, shocked.
Rowan nodded. Jim smiled and leant back in his chair. “Me too,” he said. “What about you, Sara?”
“Yeah… me too. I was in the kitchen—”
“Looking in the cupboards?” interrupted Camille.
“Fuck,” said Rowan.
“Weird,” Sara said.
“The point is,” said Jim, “that mathematics doesn’t know what the fuck it’s on about.”
82. A Relationship Blooms
Mark asked Sara to go for a drink with him after work. He even said, “You know, like a date.” To his immense surprise, she agreed. “Why not?” she said.
He could have said, “Because I spent weeks looking at you, thinking you were unattractive and flat-chested.”
Or he could have said, “Because I had a finger in your sister a few weeks ago…”
Or he could have said, “Because I am harbouring your mother’s killers in my home…”
But of course he said none of those things. Instead, he smiled broadly, put his the radio on and tapped away happily at his keyboard for the rest of the day.
At five o’clock, when work was over, the pair left work and headed to the nearest pub. Sara ordered a vodka, no ice, no lemonade, no nothing and Mark ordered a pint. Much to Mark’s surprise, Sara insisted they sat outside. It was freezing and Mark’s jacket was thin. But, he reasoned, it’s a small price to pay for a date with Sara.
He thought about that a bit, and accepted it wasn’t true. The truth was: it was a small price to pay for a date, full stop. That it was with Sara didn’t mean very much really. He was just glad to spend a few hours away from work and away from Simon and Steve.
“So,” he said. “What are your plans now? You said you would be thinking about moving on once the dust had settled on the funeral.”
“Yeah, I know,” she shrugged, lighting a cigarette. “But I’ve not really thought it through… Are you trying to get rid of me or something?”
“Ha—no, not at all,” Mark replied. He watched her smoke. There was, he supposed, something sexy about it. He tried to remember the last time he had a cigarette. He couldn’t, not really. He supposed it was at some party or other when he was young. He tried to remember parties from his youth; all he came up with was scenes from films. It occurred to him that perhaps there were no parties when he was young. And if there were no parties, there were probably no cigarettes either. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if any of those vague teenage memories actually happened. He was gripped by a sudden anxiety; it felt as if it could be that everything he had even pinned whatever small notion he had of being ‘cool’ or, at least, ‘normal’, now rested on decidedly shaky ground. Thinking quickly, he decided that regardless of what had gone before, and the circumstances of his life to this point, there was no reason why he couldn’t build himself a new self-image from this point on. He could begin now, he thought. This was just like the opportunity he had had when Camille collapsed that day—it was only his slowness to react that had led to the situation getting away from him. When Camille was there on the ground, he had the opportunity to run, to get away, to begin again. Perhaps he would have got on a plane and gone to another country; he would have sold his house from there, he would never have even needed to step foot on English soil. Just think of the advantages if he had done that! No work, no cousin, no trashed flat. No Sara either, but perhaps that was the small price to pay for a better life… but no—no, there was nothing to be gained from thinking like that. Right now was where he was, right now was what he needed to deal with. His last words, “Not at all,” still hung in the air. What if he were to ask for a cigarette? What would that mean? Would it present for him a new start in itself? He would be smoking—just one step removed from being a smoker. And smokers were nothing like Mark. Smokers were cool people, or at least normal people. He was sick of being pitied, sick of his own indecision and procrastination. Yes, fuck it, he would ask for a cigarette. Fuck the consequences, the heath risks, the financial commitment, the smell. He would ask—
“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” Sara said, interrupting his train of thought, “but if you’re always this quiet and dull, it’s no wonder you’re single…”
83. Monument
Rowan, Camille and Jim were discussing their plans for something to remember their mother by when Sara arrived home from a fairly dismal date with Mark Selwyn, her boss. Everyone was smoking, so she joined in.
“We’re going to do something,” Rowan said. “Like get a bench or get an asteroid named after her or something.”
“I think a rose bush would be nice,” said Camille.
“And a plaque, perhaps,” added Jim. “She liked plaques.”
“What?” said Sara. “She liked plaques? What plaques did she like?”
“The one outside the corner shop,” Jim said. “For that policeman that died, you know.”
“No!” said Camille. “She hated it. She said it was too small, and too low—you can’t read it, she said. And the writing blended with the background, as well.”
“But she liked the idea of it,” Jim protested.
“I’m not so sure,” said Sara, sitting down.
“Fucking plaques, they’re talking about now,” Rowan said. It didn’t appear to be directed at anyone except himself, so the others ignored it.
“What about the bench idea, then?” said Jim.
“Where would it go?” asked Sara.
“The back garden?” offered Camille.
“Isn’t the point that other people use it?” Jim said. “It should go in a park or something…”
“I bet it would cost a fortune.”
“Lazy!” shouted Rowan. Again, nobody was sure who it was directed at, but Sara picked up on it anyway. “Rowan’s right,” she said.
Jim raised his eyebrows.
“Well it is lazy,’ Sara insisted. “What would happen? We would find a carpenter on the internet, pay him to make the bench; get a plaque done; call the council. It’s lazy… impersonal.”
“Since when did you care?” said Jim. “What’s all this about being personal all of a sudden? Like you were ever the model daughter!”
“Well you were hardly the model son, either, Jim,” retorted Sara.
“I never said I was,” he replied, raising his voice now. “Fucking hypocrite.”
“Why don’t you fuck off back to your dice and your tallying and your bullshit theories,” said Sara, “and leave the grown up stuff to us.”
“Arseholes, the lot of them,” Rowan muttered.
“What was that?” said Camille.
Rowan looked up in surprise. “What was what?”
“What did you just say?”
“Nothing!”
“Come on, you said it once, you can say it again!”
“I didn’t say anything!” Rowan shouted.
“You called me an arsehole!”
“No I didn’t… Rod did!”
Camille threw her arms into the air, exasperated. “What the fucking hell are you on about? Who the fuck is Rod?”
“Leave it,” Sara said. “Leave him alone.”
“He started it,” Camille protested.
“Whatever,” Rowan said, crossing his arms like a petulant child.
“Okay, so we’re saying the bench is a bad idea,” said Jim, trying to bring everyone back to the matter at hand.
“Well, have you got any better ideas, then?” said Camille.
“Build a fucking statue and have done with it,” Rowan said.
For the first time in what seemed like hours, the room fell into silence. Eventually, Jim spoke. “That’s not a bad idea at all,” he said.
“I like it,” Camille said. “A statue. How cool!”
“Where would we put it?” said Sara.
“In the back garden,” Jim said. “It’s not a bench, after all.”
“Maybe we could think about putting it where more people could see it, though,” said Camille.
“I don’t know,” said Sara. “The back garden could work.”
Jim smiled. “This might sound crazy, but what if we used the tree?”
They all looked outside at the giant oak that stood out the back.
“We could chop it down, chop it up, and carve a statue of mum out of it. It wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t perfect: it wouldn’t be lazy, and it would involve us communicating with each other. That’s what she wanted in the dream, wasn’t it.”
“Build high,” Rowan said.
“Okay,” said Sara, “so we’re agreed. We’ll build a statue of mum, and a big one at that. We’ll all work on it. It’ll be like fucking babel!”
Everyone nodded. It was agreed. Camille fetched some drinks from the mess in the kitchen and proposed a toast: “To the statue,” she said. “To the Valerie Barratt monument!”
84. Building High
They called Fred Wallace and Frank Wellington over, assuring both men that Valerie was, in fact, well and truly dead. They explained that while they appreciated that neither of the men’s primary line of work was in chopping down trees, they just needed the help of experienced handymen. Fred and Frank were dubious, but eventually lured by the promise of tripe time.
The tree came down quickly and easily. The six of them—Camille, Sara, Jim, Rowan, Frank and Fred worked together to cut the trunk down into a long solid pillar. It took days of sawing and sanding, but eventually they had what they needed.
Fred and Frank worked together to dig a hole for the pillar of smooth wood to slot into as a base. It was tough work, but Rowan kept them at it with his unique blend of carrot and stick. “Keep at it,” he would say, “Triple time if you finish, or I kill you if you don’t.” When Rowan had his back turned Fred and Frank would talk in hushed voices about what an absolute bastard he was, how nice Camille’s breasts were, how flat Sara’s breasts were, how boring Jim seemed and how downright frightening Valerie had been. They never said it, but secretly they were quite pleased Valerie was dead. Not that they were the kind of men to wish harm on people, but she had a way of sending out such a strong ‘stalker’ vibe that even grown men like Fred and Frank could never quite forget she existed; often when the phone went, it crossed their mind in horror that it could be her; or when they were walking home on a dark night, and there was a shape in the distance… But they agreed that regardless of their feelings about her, the murder was a tragic thing to have happened, and it was the least they could do to help her kids out. The triple time helped convince them too, of course.
When the foundations were done, it took all six of them to heave the twenty-foot tree-pillar into a vertical position and place it in the hole. The work was tiring and uncomfortable, particularly in the rain. Frank and Fred had used a variety of techniques—researched on the internet—to try to protect the wood, and overall they had been successful. Once the pillar was erect, all six of them stood back and admired it. Night was drawing in, they had been working for days, it was cold, wet and windy, but they all buzzed with the same undeniable sense of achievement. “We did it,” Sara said. “We did it.”
But of course, this was only the start. With Frank and Fred gone, the real work needed to commence. Armed with knives and saws and ladders and safety harnesses, the four children of Valerie Barrett began chipping away at the wood. They realised—too late, of course—that it would have been easier to carve with the tree on the ground, but by then it didn’t matter. And anyway, the each savoured the work. As Jim put it, “At least nobody can accuse us of being lazy…”
85. Steve and Simon on the Rampage
While the Barrett clan, along with Fred and Frank, worked on the monument they were building to Valerie, their dead mother, Mark Selwyn’s life was being tuned upside down. At first, his cousin Simon and Simon’s friend Steve had limited their anti-social activities to when Mark was out of the house. But this had all changed on Monday, when Mark had returned home to find Simon and Steve hosting some kind of party in his flat. ‘Some kind’ of party, because Mark wasn’t quite sure it was a party in the normal sense—although he acknowledged it could well be the most usual kind of party imaginable, having already accepted he may never have actually been to any kind of party in his life.
But even so, this one seemed particularly out there. People were drinking and doing drugs—no idea, but not too unusual, but not only that, they were fighting all over the place—a bit unusual, but not that unusual… no, the really bizarre thing was all the sex. There were people entwined with one another all over the place. In the kitchen, in the front room, in the bath… and in all sorts of mind-boggling positions. And those people that weren’t too busy snorting, shagging, drinking and fighting seemed to be quite merrily walking out with his things. A van that Mark had passed on the way into the flat was being loaded up quite casually with many of Mark’s belongings by a duo of rather large tattooed men who had the cheek to ask Mark if there was anything he wanted. They offered him his own Playstation 2 for twenty quid.
Mark took them up on it, of course: he would never had got it back any other way, and besides, he wouldn’t get one cheaper than twenty pounds.
He found Steve and Simon passed out on his bed with three women and a variety of sex toys. By this point he was quite angry and feeling more confrontational by the minute. “Oi!” he said. “Get up!”
One of the women woke first. She roused the other two. “Get out, the three of you,” Mark shouted.
Steve and Simon were still asleep, naked.
Mark closed the door. For a moment, he considered the very real possibility of killing them. He could smother them with the pillow—he would solve all his problems in one go! He stepped over to them, but before he could do anything, Simon was up and had pinned him against the wall.
“Problem?” Simon asked.
“N—No,” Mark said, his resistance collapsing instantly. “But my things… they’re taking my things…”
“Aww.. poor Mark!” Simon said, laughing. “Hey Steve, guess what? The nasty men are taking poor Mark’s things!”
“If his things mean so much to him, maybe he shouldn’t be separated from them,” Steve said.
“You know,” said Simon, “you’re right. We should help him out. It’s the least we can do, I suppose.”
And of course, the next thing Mark knew, he was in the back of the van along with all his belongings.
Poor Mark!
