Hollywood Ending (20 page)

‘Put the sheet back Benji,' I said, but he wasn't listening. He was long gone, enraptured. Voices echoed down a nearby corridor and somewhere a door slammed closed. I grabbed Benji's arm.

‘Benji! Put it back!'

He looked at me. ‘But isn't this what you wanted to see?' he asked, confused. ‘Isn't this what you've been looking for?'

‘Take me home,' I said. ‘I want to go home.'

‘Jesus, calm down, we'll go.'

Benji took the end of the sheet in both hands and drew it slowly over the boy's face, taking his time, watching the fabric settle into the grooves of his features.

‘Let's get out of here,' I said.

We found our way back to reception. The woman with glasses smiled and opened the door for us.

‘Thanks for all your support,' she said, and raised her coffee mug to us. ‘Have a good day.'

‘Don't mention it,' Benji yelled back as I dragged him outside. We got to the car and Benji wrestled his arm free from my grip.

‘What is wrong with you?' he said. ‘You used to love this shit. All of a sudden you're too good for it! What happened to you this summer to make you so prissy?'

I could barely control my anger. ‘
Prissy
? Benji, there were people in there who had just been told that their kid was dead! That their husband was dead! That's not some old mansion or apartment, or some hotel room. It's a morgue. Death is happening in there
right
now
. Those people were in pain, in horrible pain, and you couldn't care less.'

‘Why should I care?' he yelled. ‘It's just death. Most natural thing in the world, remember?'

‘You wouldn't know anything about it, Benji. You've never lost anyone.'

‘Oh for God's sake,' he roared. ‘Poor Hilda. Her parents are dead. It's not fair. She can't be happy because she's an
orphan
. Just get over it.'

‘Get over it? But Benji, isn't that why you like hanging around me so much? The novelty of being around someone who nearly died? I know that's the only reason you were ever friends with me, so
you
get over it. You're the one who gets such a kick out of all this. But it's my life Benji. It actually happened to me. You're just a fucking tourist.'

Benji made a face like he'd just eaten a handful of peppers. He walked towards his car, got in and drove off, leaving me standing in the car park, alone. I walked back into the Coroner's office, past the crying women and the eerily cheerful receptionists. I used a payphone to call a cab. I took a seat, turned my back to them, and waited for my ride, my fingers in my ears to drown out the sound of crying.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I never meant to have sex with Benji. It wasn't intentional. I didn't plan for it and I didn't plan on doing it again. It just happened. And I wish I could say that my first time felt right and natural and pure, but it didn't. I can't even say that it was traumatic or painful. The best word for it was
pleasant
, or perhaps something more benign, like
nice
. We came together and we came apart and it was just
nice
. In a way I was relieved to have it over with, that milestone in my life ticked off and filed away in as efficient a manner as possible, and to be honest I couldn't see what the big deal was. But I always got the feeling Benji felt differently. I think it might have meant much more to him than I could imagine.

We were sitting in his bedroom late one night. Benji was on the bed and I was on the floor.
Groundhog Day
was on the television. Mrs Connor was somewhere in the house but you wouldn't have known it; I swear that woman always wore slippers just so she wouldn't be a disturbance to others.

I'd seen
Groundhog Day
before, at least a dozen times. It was the kind of film you could slip into like an old dressing gown, a faithful, trusty companion you knew would deliver the goods every time without fail.
Groundhog Day
would never let you down. The gentle softness of its repetition was soothing and reassuring.

Bill Murray's arms wrapped around Andie MacDowell's body and suddenly Benji's hands were on my shoulders, massaging, kneading, both apprehensive and eager at the same time. The longer I let it go on the harder his grip became, until the constant friction on my shoulders felt like it would set my skin on fire. Benji had never touched me before, not even to brush past me. I sat, frozen, completely surprised and unsure of my next move. I kept watching the television. Benji continued rubbing my shoulders.

‘What are you doing?' I asked, not turning around.

‘You seem tense,' he said in a matter-of-fact tone. I could tell he was trying to sound confident, but his next sentence came out as a croak. ‘Does that feel good?'

It didn't feel bad but it wasn't great either. There was no spark, no butterflies in my stomach, just a vague, uncomfortable awkwardness.

‘Yeah, it does. Thanks,' I managed to say, still watching the screen. I moved my shoulders slightly to adjust Benji's pressure, but didn't pull away. Bill and Andie were in a full embrace now, love was all around, and I felt myself being seduced, by the movie and the actors and everything they told me love should be and the love that was being offered to me now. I felt Benji's breath on my neck, smelling of the half-eaten bowl of popcorn that sat next to him on the bed. Slowly his mouth came down, and I tilted my head up to meet him, and we kissed, teeth clunking. I found myself trapped in his embrace, twisted like a pretzel. In a single moment hundreds of questions crashed through my mind and were just as easily discarded. A romantic song swelled from the movie that had been forgotten in front of us and I thought to myself: is this how it is going to happen? And before I knew what was happening, it did.

Benji pulled my T-shirt over my head and I raised my hands to let him. His hands went down to my breasts and he squeezed them like melons at a supermarket. He turned me around and I let him, let him bring me up to face him, and I kept my eyes closed because I wasn't sure I wanted to look at him. I felt him kiss my lips, the top one and then the bottom one, and then my neck, his hands running down my back. I felt his hands on my scar, the scar that ran down my front, the scar from where the seatbelt had pulled me back so tight it almost cut me in two. He lingered on it, running his fingers up and down the crusted skin, and finally I pulled his hand off.

I let him bring me up onto the bed. The popcorn was kicked to the floor. I lay flat on my back, undid my jeans and pulled them down, happy to have my gaze concentrated on the button and the fly and the challenge of working my tight Levis down over my hips. Benji was already in his boxers (how that happened so fast I'll never know) and his chest was flat and hairless. He pulled down my underpants and kept kissing me, stuck a clumsy finger between my legs. I looked up at the posters on his walls, at Fall Out Boy and Green Day, anywhere but his face. After some rummaging around in his boxers he was finally inside, and it only lasted a second because a moment later I felt stickiness all over my legs, and Benji rolled off and was lying next to me, panting.

‘Sorry,' he said, looking at the ceiling and running a hand through his hair. I bent over and pulled my underpants back on.

‘It's fine,' I said, even though I wasn't sure which bit he was apologising for. I joined my hands on my stomach and lay there, unsure what to do next. The Sonny & Cher song ‘I Got You Babe' started to play from the movie and I had the sudden urge to throw the television out the window.

We lay there like that for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling, our hands crossed on our stomachs. Then Benji turned and wrapped his arms around me, and I stiffened. Once again his breath was on my neck.

‘I love you,' he whispered, then kissed my cheek, and I didn't say anything. I guess we both fell asleep, and when I woke up Benji was gone. I pulled on my jeans and walked out into the kitchen. Mrs Connor was frying eggs and the smell made me feel sick. Benji was sitting at the marble bench on a stool, eating a bowl of Cheerios, a surly look on his face.

‘Hey Mrs Connor,' I said, and when she turned to me her smile was so wide it looked like someone had slashed it with a knife.

‘Hilda,' she cried, putting the spatula down and walking towards me. Before I could say a word her arms were around me, squeezing tightly. I started to squirm a bit and she released her grip, but not before putting her hands on my cheeks and looking me square in the eyes. ‘Are you hungry? Do you want breakfast?'

‘Um, sure,' I said, and she hugged me again. Over her shoulder Benji glared at me, seething over his bowl of cereal, scooping it violently into his mouth and letting the milk run down his chin. And we never spoke about it again.

Now I wish I had told him to stop. At the time I thought he'd said what he did because he thought it was expected of him, something the movies told him he had to do, the same way
Groundhog
Day
told me if someone embraces you like that, the right, natural thing to do was return it. But I was wrong. Benji gave me something that day, and I chose to accept it, but I didn't really mean it. Although we never spoke of it again, it hung between us, like the dead cat swinging in the garbage bag, but more putrid. It was the stench of dishonesty. It wasn't the first time I had betrayed Benji, and it wouldn't be the last. I liked to think I had no choice. Now I wasn't so sure.

TWENTY-EIGHT

That night after the episode at the morgue I was lying on my bed, reading
American Psycho
for the second time. It was about a rich Wall Street broker who was also a serial killer. It was my favourite book. Most people couldn't get past the depictions of graphic violence; the murder, torture and mutilation. They missed what the book was really trying to say, that people ignore the bad things that happen in the world because they're too selfish and self-absorbed to notice, or because they'd rather not know about it. At least, that's what I thought it was trying to say. I'd learnt from my time touring death sites that people don't like to be confronted with dark things. I think most people would prefer it if the whole world was sugarcoated.

There was a soft knock on my door. I put the book down.

‘Yeah?' I yelled.

Lynette opened the door a crack and peered in. ‘Hilda? There's someone here to see you.'

Mrs Connor was standing on the doorstep, neat and tidy in a pink cardigan and pearls, her face sombre. I looked for Benji but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘Hi Mrs Connor,' I said, and she gave me a small smile, as if it took all her strength to form it.

‘Hello, Hilda. How are you?'

She said it with such concern in her voice I thought it was a trick question. ‘I'm good,' I assured her. ‘Really good. Just reading, hanging out. You know.'

She nodded but didn't say anything, just stood there in the middle of the porch fingering her pearls, her blonde hair plastered down and severe.

‘Do you have a minute, dear?' she asked, looking at the porch swing.

‘Sure.'

We sat down. For a moment I saw Lynette through the window, looking out at us, but when I turned to look again she was gone.

I put my foot up on the swing, pushed it slightly so we began to rock back and forth. I waited for Mrs Connor to say something, but she just stared at Lynette's geranium hanging in a little wicker basket from the roof.

‘They're beautiful,' she said, still looking at the flowers. I began to chew on my thumb.

‘Is everything okay, Mrs Connor?' I asked. I'd never seen her look so pained, and for once I wished she'd flash me one of her robotic smiles, a reassurance that all was right with the world. She looked down at the ground.

‘When you have children, you never quite know how they're going to turn out,' she said. ‘Of course you hope for the best, try to give them everything they need to grow, make sure they feel loved, and nurtured. Make sure they feel like they are important. You can only control so much. You can't control whether your child becomes, well, a beautiful flower, or something else. Something else.'

‘Like what?' My mouth went dry.

‘Something else, Hilda. Like a weed. Or a parasite.'

‘Mrs Connor, don't say that.'

Her eyes started to well. ‘It's true. You can have all the best intentions in the world, but intentions don't mean shit.'

I flinched when she cursed. It was like seeing a Stepford Wife malfunction. I half expected her eyes to start spinning and her head to come flying off, exposing the wires beneath.

‘Maybe it's my fault,' she continued, sounding stronger, as if taking the blame for Benji absolved him, protected him. ‘I always worried about him. You know, most parents worry that their child will become sick, or be crippled in a horrible accident, but I never thought about those things. I worried that my son would be different, too different ever to be accepted. I worried he would be wrong.'

‘Wrong?'

Her eyes widened. ‘Everyone loves to blame the parents, to point their fingers and say it's their fault, they are to blame. No one ever thinks how hard it is for the parents. Those boys who killed all those children at their own school, did anyone give a thought for how horrible it was for their mothers and fathers? The fact that their child had become everything they feared? What do you do when your child becomes a monster?'

My stomach dropped. ‘Has something happened, Mrs Connor? Is Benji okay?'

Something in her eyes snapped. ‘Oh, Benji's fine,' she said, panic rising in her voice. ‘He gets up, he showers, he eats, he goes out with those
people
. Everything
seems
fine but I know, Hilda. A mother knows. Something is very wrong with my boy. He's like a tightly coiled spring, and soon, I don't know. Something is going to give. Soon.'

She grabbed my hand, her hard French-manicured nails digging into me sharply. ‘Mrs Connor, you're hurting me,' I said, and tried to twist my wrist away, but she held on tighter, fixed me with a deathly stare.