Tainted (24 page)

The game Isabella used to play with John when he was a toddler. She'd lean over John when he was in bed, wave her finger over his chest in a circular motion, saying, “Bore a hole, bore a hole, don't know where. Bore a hole, bore a hole, right in . . . there!” and push her finger into his chest, John squealing that child's squeal of fear mixed with delight.

The knife arced down. Henry closed his eyes against the excruciating pain, felt the steel twisting inside of him, tearing into him.

Not now. I can't die now. I promised John and Julia. I can't die now. Please. Holly . . .

“Katy.”

The only way to tell them apart physically was the small birthmark on Amanda's face, on her forehead, actually. A little red splotch. Otherwise they were identical. And Enid, their mother, used to dress them in the same clothes too. Which I personally thought was stupid. Because they were so different in personality. Totally distinct. So why dress them up like matching dolls, like two little Barbies in the same outfits? Sometimes I wondered whether Enid cared about them at all. She'd come over and clean and they were supposed to sit quietly and watch her. Or else she'd turn on the TV and put them in front of it. All they wanted to do was go outside and play but if I wasn't there, I swear, she kept them locked up—prisoners. It was all wrong. I think she had them just to show off.

They were, as Holly would say, seriously cute. Tow-headed, I think it used to be called—you know, that super-blonde hair, flaxen almost. Lighter than Katy's. Another way you could tell them apart was that Amanda used to suck her thumb, but Miranda didn't.

And what's that all about, anyway? Naming them like that? It's like dressing them the same. If Enid had had her way she'd probably have given them both the same name. You know those cabs that have air fresheners in them, usually shaped like little Christmas trees? Enid smelled like those cabs.

But the girls didn't. Amanda seemed younger than Miranda. More dependent. When I'd say, “Let's go play outside,” Miranda was always, “Yes!” but Amanda would stand there sucking her thumb. So Miranda would go, “We're playing. Now. Come on, Amanda.” Ordering her. Amanda did whatever her sister told her to. Within five seconds or so, she would be running around the garden laughing and chasing me, totally forgetting she was ever shy.

I saw Holly was shy the minute I sat down next to her on the bus. She blushed the biggest blush I'd ever seen. Nobody's shy any more, Henry. Not the women I meet, anyway. They're like Anna, you know. Brash and full of themselves and pushy. I'm not trying to big myself up here, but I can't tell you how many women tried to hit on me when I was waiting on them. It was truly embarrassing. They think if they throw themselves at you, you'll catch them. And that the easier they are to catch, the more you'll like them. When I was let out of prison, I spent a few months up in Leeds, with my first new identity, hiding. That was the worst time. Getting used to being out but not being out. Because I've never really been out of prison. But my point is, in Leeds there were all these girls out on the streets on Friday and Saturday nights. In winter. Dressed in nothing, and I mean nothing. High, high heels. make-up plastered everywhere. And drunk. Totally slaughtered. Looking to get fucked. Sorry—but I know you're OK with me saying that. And I kept thinking,
What are they going to feel like tomorrow morning?
Hungover, yes. But in the midst of that hangover, are they going to be proud of themselves? For getting fucked by some man who doesn't give a shit? Would this be how they'd want their own children to behave?

Miranda had lipstick on that day. Can you believe that? Enid had given them both lipstick. Amanda hadn't put any on, but Miranda must have spent some time in front of a mirror at her house because it was all neat and tidy and not smudged. “What are you doing, shrimp?” I asked her as soon as they came in. “What's that junk on your face?” And she giggled and said, “Lisstick. Mummy gave it to me.” “Never too young to get the hang of make-up,” Enid said as she was taking off her jacket. I wanted to belt her. Miranda looked so fake. It was disgusting. Can you imagine Katy wearing lipstick? No way is that going to happen. “I don't think the lipstick looks pretty on you,” I said to Miranda. Enid was out of the room then; she'd headed straight for the kitchen like she always did when she came in. Looking back on it, I wonder if she was hitting the bottle. Making a beeline for the kitchen and tanking up before work.

It wouldn't surprise me. She was all over the fact that my mother left me home alone sometimes. “You're too young to be home alone,” she'd say and I'd say, “But I'm with you. Mummy knew you were coming so it was OK to leave me.” “OK.” She'd hunch her shoulders up and wrinkle her nose. “But what if I couldn't make it today.
Then
you'd be alone.” “You'd call if you couldn't make it,” I answered. “Right?” She looked at me like I was a smartarse she wanted to hate but couldn't hate because my mother employed her. And because I played with her kids and they loved me.

They did love me. And no. Not in some perverse way. Ask the fucking coroner. It wasn't like that. Never. They'd do finger-paintings for me at play school; once they insisted on bringing over those balloons like animals that you get at birthday parties. They wanted to give me the one that looked like a duck. I kept everything they gave me up in my room in case they ever asked to see. I didn't want to hurt their feelings, throw something away that they'd given to me specially. Miranda was upset that I didn't like the lipstick. She tried to get it off with the back of her hand, but it looked even worse then, so I took her into the loo and wiped it off for her with a washcloth. Amanda was with us, of course. She wanted me to wipe off her face too, so I did. Miranda wanted to be the only one who got her face wiped, but I couldn't play favorites. I was really careful about that.

I didn't tell you I have an older brother, did I, Henry? Nine years older. He did everything right. But don't jump to any conclusions here. The shrinks in prison wanted to make a big deal of it too. When I was eleven, he was at Oxford, a scholar and a gentleman. They thought his success might have twisted me up somehow. But here's the interesting bit: I did everything right too. Until I became a killer.

It was an incredibly sunny day. The weather had been terrible before; England at its worst. Rainy and cold and gray. But it changed overnight and the sun came out. Not unlike our wedding day, actually. Perfect. The girls came outside with me and I chased them around the garden for a while. They wanted to go up in the tree-house. At least Miranda did. Amanda was a little frightened by being up high: she'd get scared climbing the ladder. The tree-house was there when we moved in. My father would never have been able to make one. He wasn't a DIY type of man. Notice I talk about him in the past tense? I figure if he ever talks about me, it would be in the past tense, so why shouldn't I relegate him to the fucking grave too?

It was school holidays and I'd just been given a new cricket bat. Yes, I was a choirboy, but I wasn't a pansy. I was a decent athlete, not a bad batsman at all. I tried to get them to play with me in the garden, but Miranda kept pointing to the tree-house at the end of the garden, and saying, “Up. I want to go up.” She loved it when we went up there. What I'd do was put one of them on my back, climb up, put her down, and then go back and do the same with the other. I'd stockpiled fun things to eat up there. Chocolate and cans of coke. We'd be up there looking over the garden, as if it were our kingdom. That special place where no grown-ups ever bother you. Miranda always wanted to go up first, and I'd let her because then Amanda could see it was safe. Miranda hopped on my back and I climbed up with her and then when I brought Amanda up, I took my cricket bat with me. I'd just been given it. By my godfather. He came to my trial, by the way. My trial which was not conducted by a jury of my peers. No eleven-year-olds on my jury. Old people. Ancient people who couldn't remember what it was like to be a child.

Climbing the ladder with a little girl on my back and a cricket bat in my hand wasn't easy, Henry. But I managed.

Where was Enid during all this? Working. Or hitting the bottle. Or both. She wasn't watching her twins, that's for certain. They talk about me, they should talk about her too. She has some responsibility in all this. Handing her daughters over to the care of an eleven-year-old: some people might call that delinquent mothering. I do.

We used to sing songs up there. You know, those nursery-rhyme type of songs: “Incey Wincey Spider.” That kind of song, so they could sing along with me. I had a shit-hot voice. A voice that made mothers weep at Christmas carol services. You know that one, “I'm Walking in the Air?” That Christmas I sang that as a solo.

You know, I wish Holly had heard me sing. I never dared sing again after that day. Holly told me she never answers her phone, her landline; she will never answer it again after she had the calls about her parents. Well, I never sang again. It didn't seem right.

So “Incey Wincey Spider” was the last song I ever sang. We were all sitting down on the wooden platform of the tree-house, singing it together. But when Amanda asked to sing it again, I said, “No.” I was already getting tired of the choirboy tag. It's ironic, isn't it? Because I was tired of being a choirboy, I refused to sing; instead I stood up and started practicing my cricket swings. And the result of that was that I'm forever branded as the Choirboy Killer.

They were sitting there, their legs crossed beneath them, and I swung the bat in a practice drive, showing them how to do it and the bat flew out of my hand. It slipped. It flew. It went straight into Amanda's head. She toppled over. Like a bowling pin. One second she's sitting up, sucking her thumb, watching me swing the bat, the next she's down on the wood, sprawled out, blood pouring from her head. And you know what my first thought was? Is my bat going to be OK? Have I damaged my new bat?

Because I thought she'd get up. I went and knelt beside her and I took off my shirt and wiped the blood off her head and said, “Wake up, wake up, Amanda.” The bat hit her on her birthmark. How strange is that? Right on her birthmark, as if it were a target.

“Wake up,” I said, kind of shaking her and at the same time wiping off more blood, but she didn't move.

And that's when Miranda started screaming. Screaming her head off. I had to shut her up. She was screaming so loudly and she wouldn't stop. It turns out that Enid was hoovering the living room then so she didn't hear, but I heard, Henry. It was an awful, terrible noise and she wouldn't stop. I reached out to where the bat had landed and I picked it up. It was the only way I could get her to stop. I wasn't thinking,
I'll kill her.
I swear I wasn't. I was thinking,
I can't stand this noise.
And I was terrified. Amanda wasn't moving. Her head was a mess.

I don't remember the rest. I don't remember actually hitting Miranda. In prison I used to wonder what would have happened if it had been the other way around. If the bat had hit Miranda. I don't think Amanda would have screamed like that. She was quieter. I don't think she would have screamed. I think she would have sucked her thumb harder and closed her eyes. And I wouldn't have hit her. And people would know it was a mistake, an accident. They would have believed me.

Hang on. I need to light another fag . . . OK. I know you think I'm justifying myself and the point is not who was hit by the flying cricket bat and who wasn't—the fact is that both girls died. What would you say, Henry? Probably, “Worse things
don't
happen at sea, Jack.” And you'd be right.

But at the risk of sounding self-pitying, which I know you hate, I have to say I've been seriously unlucky. If I hadn't been given that bat as a present, if it hadn't been a nice day, if I'd kept singing songs instead of practicing my swing. Well, everything would be different. But all those things happened together and Miranda and Amanda died and I was sitting up in the tree-house crying when Enid came wandering out into the garden calling for the girls. I didn't answer. I watched her go back in the house. I knew she'd go up to my bedroom and look for them there. And I'm not sure how exactly I did it; I can't remember. But somehow I carried them down. One after the other. Like always. Miranda first, then Amanda. And I laid them down on the grass. I went into the house and Enid was walking downstairs because obviously she hadn't found them in my room. I said, “Enid. They're lying down outside.”

And she smiled and went outside and then she started screaming. I sat down and turned the television on. You can imagine how that played out afterward. The Monster Choirboy is so callous he turns on the TV after he has murdered two innocent little girls. But I don't remember doing it—no, that's a lie, I remember doing it. What I don't remember is
why
I did it. I never watched television. My father didn't approve of it. So why did I turn it on? I don't know.

You don't need to hear the rest in any detail. I became notorious. I was tried. I went to prison. I was quote rehabilitated unquote. That's such an American word—rehabilitated. Are people ever habilitated, I wonder?

The way I've been telling you this sounds glib, doesn't it? Emotionless? Believe me, that was never the case. I loved those girls. I loved them so much I was sure after what I'd done I'd never be able to love again. When I came to America as Jack Dane, I kept myself to myself, Henry. There was no way I was ever going to get involved with someone. I could talk to women, even flirt with them if I wanted to, but I never let myself get close to anyone.

I wish I knew what it was exactly about Holly that changed everything. I knew no one could help me but I thought I could help
her.
Maybe that was part of it.

And then there was this moment—out in the car park of the Lobster Pot. I threw her a T-shirt I'd bought her. And her face, the look of pure pleasure mixed with bewilderment on it. Before that, even—the way she told me about her parents, the sadness in her voice. I recognized that sadness. I wanted to help. I wanted to save her. I wanted to give her a normal life and in the giving of it get a normal life for myself in return.

And then, of course, there is Katy.

When I first found out about her, I thought,
No
. The last thing I wanted in my life was a little girl. I told Holly I couldn't see her again and I meant it. And then there she was, running up to me on your porch. She looks like them and she doesn't look like them. She's older, obviously. As soon as she ran up to me like that, I knew I couldn't leave her, ever. I wanted to be a part of her life. To play games with her and not hurt her. You have no idea what it was like for me to play a game with Katy and have her still be alive at the end of it.