Hollow Dolls, The (7 page)

 “Hey, you,” said Winnie.

“What?” It pulled Mel out of her fantasy. Winnie was just fishing.
She shot her a pert grin that bordered on a smile. They were smile enthusiasts.
“Is it a real smile?” Better still, “Is it a dark one?” The only way to know for
sure was if they were painted on by one of them.

Pulling up to the pub, Mel had her door opened a crack, waiting
for the car to stop. She stepped out while it was still moving a bit, and Winnie
hurried to catch up, whipping around the car like a character in a cartoon. Mel
saw her coming and closed the pub door before she got there. Winnie slammed
into Mel just inside the door. She loved making Winnie chase her.

“Gerald might even be here tonight!” said Winnie.

When she was on her manic highs, Winnie had such unbridled
enthusiasm. It teased Mel like candy floss, then got sickeningly sweet. Winnie
couldn’t help herself. She’d conjure up an energy like Tinker Bell or a fifties
black and white starlet
Oh Gosh-ing!
all over the place. There was an
almost despicable innocence spun around everything. In truth, for Winnie it
wasn’t candy floss, it was like spider food she was trapping in her web for
later. That was the thing that got to Mel, Winnie wasn’t really
like that
.
She was a princess of the dark, feathers and all. Mel had become endeared to Winnie’s
sugar madness over the years. Perhaps even cocooned in her web.

They bought pints and made their way along the edge of the dance
floor to an open table.

“I’ve got a target,” said Mel.

“Who?” Winnie’s golden glow vanished.

“I can’t tell you. It might jinx it. She’s a Lian mutant.”

“The Man-Rabbit told you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Am I coming?”

“If you want. Just to watch, okay?”

Winnie nodded, then leaned over, “I think
you
should call Gerald.”

 “You’re making me crazy!”

“I want you to find someone!”

 “I don’t get involved that way. I’ll go for a few pints and even
a shag, but I’m not a breakfast-in-the-morning gal—it’s how I roll.”

“Ooh, so you’re rolling now?”

Mel was trapped into the game with Winnie, playing a part for her.
Sometimes it seemed it was just Winnie wanting to play act as normals—just a
cuppla regular girls. Neither of them knew for sure. It was a game after all.
Games weren’t about being sensible.

 “He’d have you back in a second—he’s bruised, not broken.”

 “Fuck sakes, Win, I can’t be that way and you know it.”

She kicked Winnie in the leg under the table, hard.

“Being in love, whatever—it just doesn’t happen for me!”

Winnie winced and wanted to rub her leg. She didn’t. 

“Sorry for pushing,” she said.

 “I’m bushed, let’s save COD for later,” said Mel.

“Sure.” Winnie put her hand on Mel’s and Mel pulled away.

“Mother Mary,” grumbled Mel.

“Maggie Mae,” said Winnie, already starting to be delightful
again.

They smiled their condescending smiles at each other and looked
off into the crowd. The old couple content with their wounded familiarity.

Maybe they’d been reincarnated, knew each other in a previous
life. Some say human beings came back to finish old business that way. Mel
could see Winnie and her as soul mates, back from the mediaeval age, or maybe
for them it was more the cave man days.

Anyway, that edge melted quickly and they talked on the drive
home. Whenever confrontation arose, they’d draw straws and Winnie would
purposely pick the shorter. Mother Mary would never give up; she'd move that
last pawn one square forever in a mutually hurting stalemate, fingering the
pieces while gathering crumbs of hope that love might exist inside Maggie Mae,
for Mother Mary loved the queen and the queen must know love, she must.

Mel figured it was Winnie’s plan all along to push Mel into the
battlefield, so she could find love and bring it home. Then they could poke and
prod it in a glass cage. Look at it together, maybe even carve it up and eat
it. Hell, Winnie had never loved either.

Gerald? He didn’t matter.

Everyone knew you couldn’t bring new men on to the board. 

Marlene’s face went red trying to scream while Mel sat on her.
“Marlene is a Lian, mutant blood of the earth, pure evil,” whispered Mel.

Winnie leaned back on the wall like a street kid standing at a bus
stop who could have been watching some damn thing or other that just happened
to be there in front of her. She’d never even seen Mel’s mother before, and she
looked like she couldn’t care less. Mel continued so Winnie and the rest of the
universe could hear the charges.

“She was in on the whole thing with Peter, letting him do what he
did, handing me off to his friends...”

Marlene was alive only she couldn’t move. Mel had dosed her with
rohypnol as the Man-Rabbit instructed. She closed Marlene’s hand on the
straight razor’s handle. That’s when Winnie came close, put her fingers on the
back of Mel’s hand as Mel had agreed she could. Then Mel made a good hard dig
to get into the artery.

“Wow,” whispered Winnie as the blood spurted out onto her fingers.
She looked at the red goo like it was a magic potion.

Mel and Winnie both watched with awe, almost forgetting that they
were killing anybody. They didn’t need a second try. The blood squirted with
each pulse. Some hit the Man-Rabbit’s leg. He was crouched close, too,
watching. When they let go of Marlene’s hand, the blade fell to the floor
beside her and the blood gushed and gathered around it quickly. Now that it was
done, Mel had forgotten whether it was a decisive moment or not. That’s why it
was good she videoed the whole thing.

Both Winnie and Mel would often get to an extremely restless
place. It could come on at any time when they were together, and if something
bad was involved, it doubled the intensity. Mel always came prepared with her strap-on
for those times. This was one of those times. Winnie had named it ‘the blue man,’
and it stuck. She told Mel it was because the dildo was the same blue color as
those blue man dudes on television, whatever that was about. Mel had seen a few
of the blue men once on television and said, “Same color...huh,” like it was
odd that anything else was exactly that shade of blue.

And whenever they took care of Winnie’s restlessness, Winnie liked
it to be a particular way. Mostly it was about position. It was a concession to
the bottom for Mel. An agreed upon thing. Mel wore her white tennis shoes and
short white socks. The shoes had to be plain canvas white and the socks folded
to the ankles. Of course, these ones got ruined by all the blood. A special occasion
of restlessness. With the blue man, Winnie had to have it from behind and she
had to be able to look back and see Mel’s white canvas shoes. Not just this
time, any time. That was the way they did it. After this, Mel would have to go
shopping for another pair.

~*~

Within three days Marlene was bagged, tagged and boxed. Ready to
be dispatched to Hell or whatever crazy place she’d end up in. Mel didn’t
believe in Hell. It was silly to think that you’d die and go to some actual
place. Earth was hell enough. In front of the casket with a floppy black hat,
Prada shades, hair concealed in a bun, She probably looked like some famous
actress who’d gotten a pass from rehab to see her mother off. It was her role
for today, anyway. Mel’s face felt blank. Nothing. A daughter ought to cry, at
least.

The mortician’s makeup didn’t hide the stroke of purple on
Marlene’s neck from the cut they’d made. A mother-daughter project. And Winnie.
It was pretty; a velvet curtain gash,  grand opening and finale all in one. 
Organ music played for the viewing—fifteen or so people, the rest were likely
too busy drinking in the pub to bother, Peter being one of them.

The funeral service was just about to end. She turned and walked the
center aisle, leaving a trail of brisk heels in St. Michael’s Church. Heads
panned on their poles, looking at the anonymous doll in the black and yellow
plaid jumper.

Endings were to be avoided at all costs.
Besides, Aunt Jennie had already left the church. Poor Jennie had gotten stuck
making all the arrangements, and she hardly knew her sister anymore. They
hadn’t spoken in thirty years.

Mel brushed past two men in the
vestibule and quickly scanned the street in front of the church for her aunt.

“Well, the old bird just decided to end
it right?” said the one man. “And the hubby, Peter Williams, is most certainly
out drowning his sorrows while here we are, stuck in the mud like two—”

“Cut the crap, Brian, I’m not in the
mood.” It was DCI Herb Barnes. He turned to look for the woman in the black hat
and sunglasses. She was gone.

“A neighbor reported she might have a daughter.
There’s that birth record for a girl under the woman’s maiden name, no father
listed.”

“And the blonde hair at the scene: female,
no DNA match.”

“Here’s the husband’s picture. If he’s
not here, we might need a unit on the Williams flat on Chalk Farm Road.”

Mel rushed and caught up with her aunt. They
stepped in time along the front wall of the church, then stopped together,
choreographed.

“Thank the stars it’s over. I am worried about you, Mel.”

“Don’t. I’m a big girl now.” Mel glanced back to check the church
entrance.  “I’ll come for a visit,” she said.

Jennie looked at her carefully.

Then Mel had that strange feeling again.

“Jesus.” She tapped her chest.

 “Are you sure you’re alright, Mel? I could stay another day or
two.”

When Jennie talked, the brown and grey curls shivered. It reminded
Mel of Marlene.

“Seriously, I’m fine.”

She watched Jennie climb into the sensible blue rental. Off to
Heathrow and across the ocean. A tiny scream rose in her throat. Melanie wanted
to go with her aunt.

The rabbit looked bleak in the overcast light—nothing doing. Into
Sainsbury’s for smokes, the clerk turned back with a pack of Marlboros. A
tremble ran down her arm and she clenched her fist.

It was mid-May, a time for renewal. A light rain speckled her
leather jacket while she waited. The tiniest sparrow flitted about as she
puffed on her ‘fag’—Londoners said fags for smokes and poofters for fags. She
hadn’t picked up that much Brit slang after being here five years and nobody
cared anyway. She was an expat Canuck and that was that. Besides, in her line
of work, there wasn’t a lot of talking.

She poked her toe at a piece of a meat pie that someone had
chucked to the curb, flicked it out in the road where a sparrow was at the
center line. It flew off.  “Your loss, sweetie.”

Mel looked out the back window toward the church as the cab pulled
away, the entrance was all clear, which meant the cops in the vestibule hadn’t
been eyeing her. Mel thought, The secret to a long life is knowing when it’s
time to go. The little sparrow rounded back and landed by the pie crust in the
road.

 “You little sneak!”

“Pardon me, Miss?”

“The universe has a mind of its own, doesn’t it?”

“Indeed,” said the driver.

“Fifty-five Chalk Farm Road, please.”

She fished a Pez dispenser from her purse, pulled back Darth
Vader’s head, and thumbed out a Xanax.

“I’d kill for an ale.” She swallowed it with a drink of bottled
water.

“You and me both, my dear—you and me both.”

Mel had worn her tartan jumper to the funeral as a tribute to the
man she never knew. Walter Willow—it was friendly compared to the original:
Willoughby, a bloodline that hailed from Cambridgeshire. He was an absent
father, sure, only it was not his fault—he’d disappeared honorably in a car
accident when she was only one year old. He’d given her the name Willow,
though... Oh, and now the white rabbit. Marlene & Walter never married.
Marlene did eventually marry that scum Peter and take the Williams name, leaving
them with different last names. It was the only thing Peter was ever good for;
distancing her from her mother.

“By the Quick Stop is fine.”

She
had to go back. They say that the killer always returns to the scene of the
crime. She listened by the door for Peter. All was quiet. Entering this time
was easier. Someone ha
d thrown a carpet on the floor
to cover the area where Marlene bled out. Pulling it back exposed a patch of
black dried blood. It looked like a conversation cloud in a comic book.
Mel
wanted last words to burst out, doves bleeding white,
feathers falling, the letters jumbled, meaningless.

Yellow tape outlined where the body was found.  The straight razor
mark was still in the hardened blood where it had congealed near her arm.

Reality bent even more sideways, if that were possible. The knick-knacks
wanted to chat. They looked, she looked. The Red Rose tea figurines had faces
like freaked out horses, some kind of staid horror melted into the porcelain.
The colors and hues shifted. Her tongue dry,
she
took the last sips of the water. It had begun again for real; the otherness
looking through her eyes. Nigreda.

The stench of old blood, the dust, the putrid light, the lettering
on the books... to the last detail, it was a clockwork. What came alive inside
Mel recognized each component of the whole. The Man-Rabbit was in the corner.
He nodded.

The blood, and him being here, it filled Mel with a yearning. Made
her restless. She looked at the dried blood
and
wanted
someone there with her to mark the territory again. She felt an impulse to
leave, only everything in the room had already locked into a grid.

A metal sound came. A tumbler turned. It woke the knick-knacks on
the shelves.
She
looked, they nodded. Gagged kidnap victims, little heads
on Pez dispensers. Each nod clicked her forward in sync through a perfectly
engineered steam punk contraption.

A miniscule giggle in her throat. The Man-Rabbit nodded and said ‘perfect’
with his lips only. Precision, subatomic, gear teeth met on surfaces oiled by a
splash of golden neutrinos. A breath of air under her feet from the massive
armatures shifted Mel’s leg forward a step as the door opened and in walked
Peter Williams.

His lips facilitated a drunken muffled slur as he moved toward
her. The air soaked in ether. A quartet played Bach’s La Divina Armonia in the
black square of the green plaid shirt he wore.

“Hi Love, stay for a drink. It’s better to grieve with kin.”

Those were his last words.

To Mel, only the shirt spoke as it came toward her.
She
caught a foot with her own, elbowed the green and black
checkers toward the floor.

Meat met wood. Smacking burgers. The shirt laid still. Legs with
feet jutted out to the door arch where she stood over them and glanced around
the hall. She closed the door. A small puddle of blood had formed by the side
of his mouth. Stubbly upper lip and chin pressed against the wood.

Bit pieces of yellow-stained teeth in the red; islands left behind
after the big bang, tiny scorched meteorites discarded from the hell skies. By
the green plaid scruff,
she
dragged his limp body. The back of his hand trailed
through his blood, leaving a signed confession.

She used the butcher knife this time. Cut all the way across like
a giant smile. Then s
he
sat on the arm of the couch naked. Melanie was completely
freed now. Her desire raged out of control. She looked to the Man-Rabbit. He nodded.
She rubbed herself to gain control, shuddered and shook, pressed the back of
her hand to her teeth and bit hard. She leaned back with Nigreda and gazed into
the stars and blood with the fishes flipping their fins, working their way
through the ocean. Cold comfort.

Crankshafts turned in the motor of madness; it was metallic,
sulphuric even, a smoldering blood taste on her tongue where she’d bitten. She
sat in the red pool.
Played
in the s
ticky dark against the skin on her hips, bum,
legs. It was warm all over the floor, all over her. She was free, free to do
this, bathe in it. She and Nigreda could save the light.
They
came, and came together.

It was what the Man-Rabbit wanted, this blood to be gone back to
the earth. The chain of the Lian mutants to be broken.

When she stepped out into the hall and locked the door, some bits
of tooth ground under her heel. It was the switch. The next step, a whoosh of
cool air brushed by. The munchkin trinkets giggled and waved goodbye and the
giant mechanism wound down. A final turn of the wheel, and it all mercifully came
to a halt. Silence.