Roots of Evil(15)

The shadows moved again, and it was not one person, but two: two people fastened together, the larger shadow almost swallowing the thin frail one.

Mother was half-lying on the small sofa, her hair tumbled about her face – she had nice hair, dark and smooth – and her skirt pushed up to her waist. Her legs were bare and he was standing right up against her, pushing his body into her – pushing it in and then out and then in and then out, over and over, the muscles of his thighs and buttocks clenching and unclenching, his face twisted with concentration and with savage pleasure.

You did not grow up in Pedlar’s Yard and not know what men did to women in bed – or what they did in the backs of cars and vans, or up against the walls of the alleyways. This, then, was what the playground sniggers were about: it was what some of the older children at school whispered and giggled over, and boasted of having done, or having nearly done.

Neither of them had heard the door pushed open, so it would be possible to creep back upstairs unheard. But Mother was gasping with pain, and her mouth was swollen and bruised, and bleeding from a cut on one side, and what if this really was the night he killed her? The firelight was showing up angry red marks across her face from where she had been hit – they would turn blue tomorrow, those marks, and she would not go out of the house until they faded so that no one would know. (But what if she was no longer alive tomorrow to go anywhere?)

He had moved back now, swearing at Mother, calling her useless, and shouting that she could not even give a man a hard-on these days. He was not shouting; he was speaking in a cold hating voice, and his eyes were cold and hating as well, the way they always were on these nights, and he was nearly, but not quite, ridiculous, with his trousers discarded and the shirt flapping around his thighs.

‘That’s because you’re too pissed to f*ck anything tonight!’ Mother’s voice was thick with crying and anger, but it was stronger and shriller than it had ever been before, and there was a stab of shock at hearing her use words like f*ck and pissed, even though they were words people did use in Pedlar’s Yard. For a truly dreadful moment, Mother was no longer the quiet familiar person who spun stories and talked about one day escaping. She was a screaming red-eyed animal – a rat, no, a shrew, like in the play at school! – and she was clawing and yelling at Father for all she was worth, and she was ugly – ugly! – and as well as that she was also suddenly and confusingly frightening…

‘Get off me, you useless bastard,’ she screamed. ‘Get off me and let me get out of this place for good and all!’

She pushed him away so that he stumbled back and that was when he saw the half-open door. Before there was time to dodge into the little hall, he had already crossed the room and he was reaching out. His hands were rough and there were callouses on them because he worked all day shifting loads on to lorries in the yards. He hated his work – in some incomprehensible way he was bitter about having to work at all.

He was saying that snooping children had to be taught lessons – they had to be taught not to snoop – and then there was the feeling of his hands – hard and strong – and he was reaching for the leather belt with the buckle…

That was when Mother moved across the room, one hand raised above her head, the light turning her eyes to red like a rat’s. But she’s not a rat, she’s not…Yes, she is, because I can see her claws…

They were not really claws but they were glittering points of something hard and cruel, turned to red by the fire…

Scissors from the sewing basket by the hearth.

The points flashed down and he threw up his hands to protect himself, but it was too late, because Mother was too quick.

The scissors came glinting down and where his eyes had been were the steel circles of the scissors’ handles.

The points of the scissors had punctured both his eyes.





CHAPTER FIVE




Incredibly, it did not kill him. He stumbled backwards with a bellow of pain, the handles of the scissors still sticking out of his face. Blood ran down his cheeks, a thick dark dribble, mingling with a watery fluid where his eyes had burst and were leaking all down his face. The sickness came rushing back at the sight of it.

He was trying to pluck the scissors out – one hand was already feeling for them – and then he found them and with a terrible animal grunt he pulled them out. There was a wet sucking sound – dreadful! – and then another of the cries of pain, but the blades came out, and more blood welled up and spilled over.

Mother had backed away to the wall. There was blood on her knuckles from where she had driven the scissors home, but she was watching the blind, blood-smeared face and it was impossible to know if she was horrified or frightened, or what she was feeling at all.

The mutilated head was turning from side to side – after what had been done to him, was it possible he could still see? No, of course he could not. He was going by sound, by smell, by instinct. He knew Mother was still in the room, and he was going to smell her out like dogs did. Could humans do that? Oh God, yes, he’s starting to move across the room, and he’s holding the scissors over his head, and I must do something, I must do something…

But it was like being inside a nightmare. It was impossible to move, and it was impossible to call out a warning because the words would not come out, just as words would sometimes not come out in a nightmare, no matter how hard you tried.