The Glister (19 page)

The Likeness is loving this. “Nobody told him what, Jimmy?”

“Why we came here,” Jimmy says.

“And why did we come, Jimmy?” the Likeness asks.

“Ain't telling ya,” Jimmy says, flaring away from the group with a mad laugh, and they all burst into activity again, rested from their labors, looking around for some new fun, some new trick. The girl goes out and rummages around in the kitchen; a moment later, she runs back in again with the big scissors, the ones with the red handles. She's really excited, jumping up and down almost on tiptoe.

“Let's cut off his pee-pee,” she screams.

The Eyebrow snorts. “ Pee-pee,” he mutters, looking at Andrew like he is in on the joke.

“God, Eddie,” the Leader says. “What is it with you and scissors?” He looks sad now that he has faced down Leonard's challenge, and Andrew thinks the boy is beginning to understand that Leonard is right, that maybe they are in the wrong house, but he can't let it register, in his own mind, or in the minds of the others, that he is wrong. He has waited for so long to do something, and now that all this has started, he has to see it through. Andrew understands that. But he can also see there is another reason for his sadness, and it has to do with Leonard, who is standing apart from the rest, watching, not prepared to do more to help, but no longer willing to be a part of what's happening. It has to do with Leonard, not just because the unexpected challenge is upsetting to the Leader—he
is
only a boy, after all— but because he likes Leonard, and now he knows they aren't together anymore, they're on opposite sides, totally separated. Meanwhile, the Likeness has been going through the stuff on the table and he's found a spike; Andrew doesn't know what it's for, maybe for sticking documents. He doesn't know where the boy found it; he didn't even know his dad had had one of those. “Let's do his eyes,” the Likeness says, grinning savagely. He looks at the Leader. “Let's do his eyes with this.”

Suddenly Andrew starts screaming at them, shouting and screaming like an animal, like a mad person. At the same time, Leonard starts shouting too. Andrew thinks at first that Leonard is going to try and stop the others from hurting him anymore, then he realizes that his defender is angry with
him.

“Shut up!” Leonard shouts. He pushes Andrew into the corner again and starts raining blows on him, kicking, first with one leg, then with the other, and shouting all the time. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” He goes on like that for a long time, maybe a minute, and then, with a horror that gradually gives way to gratitude, Andrew begins to understand what is happening. The boy is trying to rescue him. He's inflicting a smaller pain to avoid a greater, he's buying time, or maybe he's trying to make a more merciful end of it all. He keeps kicking and stamping, and nobody does anything to stop it, and then Andrew is swimming, his body is moving, rising, buoyed up, as if he had fallen into water and, after descending briefly, had started to rise, borne up on the tide, suddenly light. And all at once he is far away from the room, and he is dreaming, he thinks, drifting through something that feels like sleep, even if it isn't. He's dreaming something that, even as he watches it unfold, doesn't seem to be
his
dream at all, but something he remembers from somewhere, a story that belongs, not to someone else so much as to the air, like radio: a vision of a world that anyone might enter if he chose, or if he knew how. In the dream, Andrew is in a large country house, a vast, rambling mansion full of dark, dank-smelling rooms. Every thing is in shadow, there is almost no furniture, the walls are bare, the smell of damp and rot is everywhere. He moves through the house and he smells it, on the staircase, in the hallway, in the huge, still rooms, but he doesn't mind it at all, because he is there for a reason, he has a purpose. He is moving quickly, searching for something, determined, though he is not quite sure what it is he is looking for, and the more he searches, the emptier the house seems, till there is almost nothing, no staircase, no walls, no windows, only a space that is still the space inside a house, and a sensation of weightlessness as he goes on and on, searching, searching, a sensation of weightlessness that belongs, not to him but to the house, and then not to the house, but to everything. The whole world, the entire universe, is empty, weightless, without form or substance. Everything is melting away, becoming insubstantial, and the only solid fact that remains is whatever it is he is searching for. And then he finds it, and it's nothing, or it's light, not
a
light but light itself, just a shimmer of light that grows and brightens as it surrounds and then includes him, till he slips entirely into its great, wide whiteness. And it's peaceful, now, peaceful and a little silly, like the games Dad used to play, back when he was well. And he remembers an old rhyme his father used to say, something he had read somewhere, or maybe he made it up himself, because he did that sometimes, he made up silly little stories and rhymes from time to time. It was a stupid rhyme, just pure silliness, but Andrew had liked it for some reason. He couldn't remember all the words, just the ending, and first it was just himself remembering it, then he could hear his father saying it, as if he were there, sitting at the table in the room and they were safe again. Time had gone away and nobody could touch them. And he could hear his dad, it was his dad's voice, with a bit of a smile in it, repeating the words:

The planet turns
From day to night
And a marvelous planet it is!
And sometimes the Devil
Looks over our shoulder
But who is it looks over his?

Andrew has to laugh then, because he can just see the old man there, being silly the way he liked to be sometimes, and it was beautiful, because his dad looked fine, like he was when Andrew was a little boy, a happy man with dark hair and blue eyes, not sick, not dead. And Andrew laughed and laughed because his dad could be so funny back then, when he was still well, before he had to go away.

UNDOING

I
COULDN'T STOP KICKING HIM. I SUPPOSE I WANTED HIM TO DIE, SO THE
stupid game couldn't go on anymore, or maybe I was angry with him for being so pathetic. He just lay there, screaming and making weird animal sounds, till I thought I was going to go mad, and I knew Jimmy and his crew would never let him go now. Tone was dancing around with some kind of spike in his hand, talking about sticking the poor bastard's eyes and Rivers was lying on the floor, wailing. So I couldn't take it anymore. I just laid into him. It was all red, like you hear people say. I saw red. That was how it was. I saw red and I couldn't see anything else, though I knew I was moving and kicking him, using the wall to balance myself and keep him in focus without really noticing it, just using the walls the way a boxer uses the ropes in a corner, when he's got the guy hemmed in and doesn't want him to escape. I could feel myself breathing, gasping for air like a freestyle swimmer. I was really aware of that, which was odd to me, because I'd been in fights and things at school and I didn't remember anything about breathing. This was different, though. I don't know how long it lasted, but when I stopped kicking him I felt sick to my stomach and totally exhausted. I didn't really register much for a minute, I just reeled away from him, feeling dizzy, but I think he was still moving when I stopped. Then I came out of the redness and saw the others, all of them standing together in the middle of the room, watching me. They looked shocked—or maybe not shocked, but bemused, a bit bewildered, as if they thought it was me who had gone too far, and not them. There was blood all over the place. There was blood on me, too, even on my hands and face, and I felt them watching me like they were watching an animal that had just got loose from its pen. I think they were scared, too. All but Jimmy. Jimmy wasn't scared, he was just puzzled.

I knew what he was trying to work out, but I didn't care about that now. I didn't care about his gang; I'd never asked to belong to it anyway. I'd wanted to find out about Liam and the other boys and that was all. Now it was finished. I looked back at Rivers and he wasn't moving at all. Maybe he hadn't been moving before, maybe I'd just imagined it.

Finally, Tone breaks the silence. “You fucking killed him,” he says, though not really to me. He looks at Jimmy. “He's fucking killed him, Jimmy.”

Jimmy shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “He's not
killed
him.” He walks over to where Rivers is lying motionless in the corner.
“You're
not dead, are you, mate?” he says. He prods Rivers with his foot. The guy doesn't move. Jimmy shakes his head and ponders the scene for a minute. “You know what?” he says, turning back to Tone.

“What, Jimmy?”

“I think he's fucking killed him,” Jimmy says, then he bursts out laughing. Only it isn't funny ha-ha laughing, it's funny peculiar. Like he's just seen some sketch on TV that he isn't sure is funny or weird, or maybe just stupid. He looks at me. “Look what you've gone and done, Leonard,” he says.

Eddie laughs then, just one daft laugh, more nerves than anything else. “Bugger me,” she says. “I just worked out who he looks like.”

Jimmy turns to her. “What do you mean, you just figured out who he looks like?” he says. “He doesn't look like anything now, does he?”

“Hamburger,” Tone says.

“What?”

“He looks like hamburger,” Tone says. “That's what he looks like.”

Jimmy looks scandalized. “Well,” he says, “that's not very nice, is it?”

“What do you mean, that's not very nice?” Tone says. “It wasn't
me
what done it.”

“No,” Jimmy said, giving me a quick, sideways look. “It was
Leonard.
Still, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead.”

Eddie laughs again. “No,” she says, “I don't mean what he looks like
now.
I mean, who he
used
to look like.”

This makes Jimmy and Tone laugh. I don't know what Mickey is thinking. He's just standing there, looking at Rivers. He looks a bit disappointed, though it might be dismay. Maybe he thinks he's going to get into trouble. “All right,” Jimmy says. “Who did he used to look like, before he looked like hamburger?”

Eddie turns and goes over to the far corner. She points at a picture on the wall, above the little desk. “Him,” she says.
“Psycho.”

Slowly, with genuine curiosity, Jimmy and Tone move over too, leaving Mickey still staring at the body. They stand with Eddie, examining a tatty magazine photograph that's been glued to the wall among all the stamps and shit. “Oh yeah,” Tone says.

Eddie is pleased. She does a tiny dance, like she wants to go wee-wee, then she lets out a microscopic high squeal. “I
told you
he looked like somebody,” she says. “It's the
Psycho
guy. What's his name?”

“Anthony Hopkins,” Tone says.

Eddie squeals again, a little higher up the scale. “That's him,” she says.

“That's not Anthony Hopkins,” Jimmy says. “He's the
Silence of the Lambs
bloke.”

“Who is it, then?” Eddie says. She looks disappointed. I think for a minute she is going to cry. But then, I think we are all on the verge of tears, or something, by now.

“Anthony Hopkins is the Welsh bloke,” Jimmy says. “This guy isn't Welsh.” He turns to me. “Tell them, Leonard.”

I think about just going then, but I feel too sad to go. I want to cry. I hadn't meant to hurt the bloke. I just wanted it to be finished. I hope he understood that. “It's Anthony Perkins,” I say. “He was the guy in
Psycho.
Anthony Perkins.”

“That's right,” Jimmy says. “Anthony Perkins.” He turns to Eddie, who still looks like she needs cheering up. “You're right, though,” he says. “This guy looks just like him.”

Eddie grins.

“Looked, you mean,” Tone says.

“Yeah.” Jimmy stares at Tone for a minute, with the air of having just realized something then he turns and looks at Rivers. “Poor bastard,” he says.

Tone nods. “Poor bastard,” he says.

Jimmy walks back to the far corner and stands over the motionless body. “This bloke didn't deserve this,” he says. He bows his head as if in prayer. Mickey joins him. Eddie and Tone hesitate a moment, wondering if this is a spoof or something, then they bow their heads—at which Jimmy immediately looks up. “You know what,” he says. “I think Leonard was right. I don't think this is our bloke. Was.” He looks at me. “You killed the wrong bloke, Leonard,” he says; then, without waiting to see what I will say in reply, he looks back to Rivers.

The others stand watching, waiting to see what he will do next. They are all tired and sad now and they look lost, as if in shock. Or maybe remorse has set in. Jimmy stands silent a moment longer, head bowed; then he turns to the others with a strange new light in his face. “We'll have to raise him up,” he says.

“What?” It's me speaking, it's my own shocked, maybe disgusted voice that I hear, though I'd had no intention of saying anything.

Jimmy looks at me; his eyes are shining. “Like Jesus,” he says. “I mean, you're a Bible reader, Leonard. Everybody knows that.”

“What are you talking about?” I say.

“We'll raise him up,” Jimmy says. “Shouldn't be too hard. If we get it right, he'll be good as new in three days' time.”

Eddie jumps up and down and makes her odd high squealing sound. “What do we do?” she says. “What do we have to do?”

Tone looks a bit lost. “Yeah, Jimmy,” he says, his voice low and worried. “What do we do?” I think he's afraid it might work and that Rivers will rise up in three days and go straight to the police about what we've done.

Jimmy is really getting into this now. I'm not sure what he thinks he is doing, whether he really believes what he is saying, or whether it's all just a windup. Maybe he thinks he needs to give the rest of the gang something to take away with them. Maybe he needs something he can take away for himself. “All you got to do is lay him out right,” he says. “So he looks like a cross.” He studies the body. “Like Jesus.”

They are all involved now, Jimmy and Tone, Eddie, even Mickey has come out of his stupor and is getting into it. I can't, though. I can't go through the motions, and I can't stay in that room any longer, with the faces and stamps and little birds looking down at me from the walls, as if in accusation, and the smell of blood, dark and sickening now. I don't think they'll miss me, anyhow. This is their thing, not mine. So I quietly make my way to the door, and start to leave. Jimmy notices, but he doesn't try to stop me. None of the others see me go. When I leave them, they are laying out Rivers's body, Eddie with one arm, Tone with the other, trying to get them into the right position, while Jimmy stands over them all, murmuring the words he's heard in a film, or maybe read in a book. “I am the resurrection and the life,” he says. I slip through the door silently and his voice rises slightly, so his words follow me out and down the stairs. “I am the resurrection and the life. I am the resurrection and the life.” It's obvious that he doesn't know any more of the words, so he's just saying them louder and putting more stress on what he thinks are the most important ones. “I am the Resurrection and the Life. I am the RESURRECTION and the LIFE.”

His voice follows me out into the windy night, into the darkness, till I want to run to get away from it.

I don't really know how much of that resurrection stuff was real. Jimmy certainly made it sound real at the end there, when I was leaving, but that was done mostly for my benefit, I think. I didn't imagine for one moment that I had heard the last of it with Jimmy, but I wasn't much bothered about that. I was hoping nobody would see me, as I left the house, and then, when I got home and started taking off my bloody clothes, I was hoping nobody would see Jimmy's crew either, because if they got caught, I got caught, and they would say it was all me, everything, the cuts, the stab wounds, the kicking, the crushed bones, whatever else we had done to the poor bastard. I didn't want to get caught. I took my clothes off just inside the back door so I wouldn't trail evidence all through the house, then I put them in a black plastic bag and left it under the sink. I knew right away what I was going to do with it, but that would have to wait for later. Then I ran upstairs and straight into the bathroom. The shower was pretty cold, but I didn't care about that. I soaped myself well and washed three times, scrubbing hard, rinsing long; then I dried myself off, took the scrubbing brush and the towel, wadded it all up, and carried it downstairs. I put the washing things into a separate plastic bag, and put that bag next to the other one, under the sink. Then I went straight back upstairs, got dressed, and went to check on Dad. It was late, not that far off dawn, but he was still awake. He hardly ever slept at night. I think, maybe, it gave him some small, lingering pleasure, to lie awake in the early morning and listen to the birds. I don't know, though. You don't know what people like unless they tell you. All I could know was what I liked and maybe if I liked it, he might like it too. Some people like model trains. Some people like crazy golf. People are a mystery, when it comes down to it. I mean, how can anybody
like
crazy golf?

I didn't think Dad saw me, but if he did, it didn't matter. He wasn't going to say anything to anybody and, anyway, I was often up and about at night, in my clothes, doing stuff, or just sitting in the kitchen, watching it turn from dark to light, listening to the birds, maybe reading a book. That's what
I
like; I like books. When it comes down to it, maybe all you can really trust about a person is what they like. If you meet a crazy-golf fanatic, then you've got one kind of person. If you meet somebody who likes books, then you've probably got another kind of person. I can't imagine there would be much overlap between the two, but you never know. Maybe Marcel Proust used to sneak off from his cork-lined room and go for a few rounds of crazy golf in the Tuileries, or wherever they have crazy golf in Paris. When you think about it, that's quite a nice image: Marcel Proust in his frock coat and top hat, out on the crazy-golf course, early in the morning, when nobody else is about, indulging his secret vice. Maybe he'd play a few rounds with Gustave Flaubert, or André Gide. I don't know who was alive at the same time and I don't know if there is any mention of crazy golf in
À la recherche du temps perdu.
There might be, but I can't imagine it somehow. Still, I wouldn't know, because I haven't read the book all the way through yet. It's not that long since I got it out of the library, though it's probably overdue already. I've never really seen the logic of that: you lend somebody a copy of Marcel Proust's magnum opus, or
Moby-Dick,
or one of those big, industrious books by George Eliot, then you tell them they only have three weeks to read it. Really, they should have a sliding scale, so if you got Proust out, you'd get three months, or better still, three years. That would have made so much more sense.

I decided to take the black bags out on my bike to the landfill before it got too light. I wanted them gone as soon as possible and I couldn't sleep till that job was done. Dad was fine, he would just lie in bed listening to the world waking up for the next hour or two and, with the bike, it wouldn't take long to go to the landfill and dump the stuff. Then I could rest. I was supposed to see Elspeth later on that day, but I didn't think I would go. I had the black bags to do, and I needed to get some sleep after that. Besides, I didn't really want to see her. I thought, if I spent any time with her, she would figure out something was wrong and get it out of me. I was tired and I didn't feel like doing sex, or any of that stuff. I just wanted to stay in my room and sleep. After that, I could fix some food for Dad and me, and just stay around the house and read. I didn't want to be out in the world, where people could see me. I knew all about that
Crime and Punishment
stuff. It wasn't that I was feeling very guilty, or anything like that—I hadn't exactly killed some saintly old lady for no good reason, like the guy in the book, and I always felt the other one, the moneylender, pretty much deserved what she got. I wasn't the bad guy in any of this, or not as much as some people, though I had to admit, that morning, that I'd made a mistake going along with Jimmy and his crew. Still, even if I wasn't altogether to blame, I had done something bad, and you can't read Dostoyevsky without knowing how that worked. All I'd have to do is start walking down the high street and the guilt would be pouring out of me for all to see. Before I knew it, I'd be weeping like a baby and confessing to the Lindbergh kidnapping. Better to stay home, keep my head down, and figure out what to do next. Do some reading, maybe. Maybe I could make some progress with
Seven Pillars of Wisdom.