The Sister(44)

In his entire career, it was only the second time there'd been witnesses, but it bothered him. The first time was sheer bad luck, and he never gave it a second thought. How could he have known that a kid would get lost and have half his family looking for him? No, this was different. He’d lost control, gone too far, and that disturbed him.

They were probably all over her body right now, looking for hair, clothing fibres, bits of skin and worst of all – he’d shot his semen inside her. If he hadn’t been disturbed, he’d have carted her off, and they'd have had nothing. Still, they had to catch him first. He would make sure he was never careless like it again.

He cursed himself. After the kid saw him, he should have just stayed away. It was the old man – who'd been with him – he’d jinxed the place. As he dyed his hair dark brown and cut off his beard, he made his mind up; he wouldn’t be going back there again.

Soon, he was back to thinking about the girl. He cursed her under his breath. She’d seriously f*cked things up for him. The atmosphere. The associations. The lure had been just too much. Trailing behind her friends like that, letting him know she was lost and lonely. He’d just had to have her. He should have taken her straight down to the stream, f*cked her there and then got rid of her. He’d allowed his cock to rule his head. His old man used to say. You can’t let your cock rule your head; it has no f*cking brain! Sound advice and he might have listened if the old man had practised what he preached. He gritted his teeth at the memory of the old man; he hated him and all he wanted to do was forget; that’s the trouble with a photographic memory. You don’t forget. You bury, but you do not ever forget. He balled his fist and crashed it into the wallboard, leaving a crater there.

He stared at his knuckles – unnaturally white for a second; the torn skin peeled back, turning red as the blood bubbled up and dripped onto the floor.

‘FUCK!’ The scream silenced the whole camp. The residents outside looked warily at each other. Not one of them cared to knock to ask if he was okay. When he was like that, they knew better than to disturb him.

In the bathroom, he stared at the face looking back at him. Older, but still powerful, a gleam of madness shone in his wild, blood-shot eyes. I would not want to meet you on a dark night. A half grin pulled painfully at his scarred top lip, preventing a full smile. He’d not smiled fully since he’d split the scar when he was a kid.

Lying on his bed, he tried to put her out of his mind, but she clung there. Photographic memories, you can’t get rid of them; a flashbulb moment of concentration had burned them into his consciousness. He wasn’t sure how it all worked, but if it wasn’t important to him, he’d forget it. His old man said, ‘You can’t even remember what you had for breakfast, yet that little girl with the red hot pants next door, from ten years ago – you remember her like she was here yesterday!’ Now he was older and understood things better, he thought it might be to do with capacity. He’d read the mind works like that, keeping all the important things at the front and letting the mediocre drift to the back, forgotten. The more you thought about things, the fresher they kept. An article in a magazine about Ted Serios stated he could create an image in his mind and transmit it onto film, often using iconic buildings and structures. Serios produced images, which, although recognisable, were clearly not photographs, merely impressions from his memory. Just imagine if I could do that. Somebody walks past with a camera while I’m reminiscing. They go into the chemists to get it developed. The technicians see it all on film. Next thing, he’s arrested. No other evidence, no body, nothing. The Judge: ‘How do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?’ The foreman: ‘Guilty.’ Oh, boy, the fun he could have with people that he didn’t like, just as long as they carried a camera. A painful grin stretched his lips; he looked as if he were sneering. She was in his head again.

‘Don’t hurt me!’ The flimsy moment of resistance inside her confirmed she was a virgin as he pushed through. The memory made him hard again.





It was a sign, and he should heed it. He’d give it a rest for a while, he’d done it before. It was nothing new. Change – he hated it, but he’d find something else. Necessity, the mother of invention, and the Devil makes work for idle hands. He was getting bored.

He’d always lived among travellers; his bare-knuckle prowess guaranteed him a reluctant welcome wherever he turned up within the community. It hadn’t always been like that.

Widely regarded as a nutter, he had no friends, and although he kept himself to himself, he was often heard arguing with someone, or calling out in the quiet of the night. It was for this reason they pitched him well away from everyone else in the camp.

In his secret life, however, his disadvantages made him determined to compensate, and he’d disappear into remote places, taking with him books and plays. He would read aloud, playing different roles, experimenting with speech and elocution, speaking in a high, trill voice, alternating with low ones. He listened to tapes of famous speeches; he learned to speak just like Churchill, his voice indistinguishable; he could imitate Burton, anybody he set his mind to.

The seeds of his plans had germinated back then before he became a fighter.

While her speech impediment didn’t impede the respect and admiration she received from the community, the father was widely regarded as no good. Both parents had harelips, a trait, which inevitably, passed on to him. The money he earned from fighting, he wasted mostly on gambling, but he did have the sense to invest in a number of strategically placed properties around the country. No one knew exactly where the properties were.