Alice and the Fly (26 page)

HH: I don’t think he knew I was there.

TM: He was unresponsive?

HH: I don’t think he knew what was going on. He seemed to just be staring into space. His face was just blank. There was, like, zero expression. The least expression I’ve ever seen on the face of a living human. Bear in mind that I’m a plastic surgeon.

TM: I’ve seen the website.

HH: Yes, well …

TM: ‘Breast Man.’

HH: Right. But as I said, he was just sat there, glaring at the ceiling. And he was wearing this massive leather jacket. And his hand was all bloody. And he was holding something, a video-case with all this stuff in, leaflets and papers and stuff, spread out over his lap. Oh, and money, there was a wad of money. And a cigarette butt. There was this cigarette butt in his other hand, the non-bloody one. I know it’s a strange thing to notice, but it struck me as odd at the time because Gregory’s never been the kind to smoke. Not like me, I love a smoke. I could do with a smoke right now, actually …

TM: So then what?

HH: Well that’s when Jo arrived at the doorway. She took one look and ran out, screaming. I was annoyed at the time because I thought that was the last thing he needed, some screaming bimbo. Though to be honest I don’t think he even noticed.

TM: So you took Greg outside?

HH: Well, first I tried to talk to him. I slapped his face a little and got nothing. But yeah, I knew I had to get him out of there. Get him warmed up. Get him away from that smell. So I carried him out to the car. He felt like ice. I sat him in the passenger seat and put the heaters on. I had this bottle of water. I remember trying to get him to drink and it just running down his chin, all down the front of him.

TM: And where was Miss Hewitt at this point?

HH: Sat on the kerb. She wouldn’t come anywhere near us.

TM: Did she know Greg was your son?

HH: Probably not, actually. I presumed she would have at the time, but thinking back … She’s pretty dense, to be honest.

TM: Right.

HH: I’d love a cigarette right now.

TM: We can take a break soon.

HH: I’m guessing it’s against the rules, smoking? In here, I mean?

TM: Yes.

HH: So I’m not allowed to smoke in here?

TM: Unfortunately not, no.

HH: Right. It’s fine.

TM: So you waited in the car until the officers arrived?

HH: Yes. Except for Jo. She stayed out on the kerb.

TM: You didn’t venture upstairs?

HH: No.

TM: Neither you nor Miss Hewitt?

HH: No. Neither of us saw upstairs.

TM: Right.

HH: And if you’re about to show me pictures I don’t want to see it.

TM: I wasn’t.

HH: I know all about her. The girl. I know all about it.

TM: OK.

HH: I mean, anything you want to show me, it can’t be worse than what’s in my head, believe me. I mean, really we should be made to see, Debs and I. We’re to blame, really.

TM: No one’s to blame here.

HH: Of course someone’s to blame. Someone’s always to blame. That’s the whole point, right? That’s why I’m here, that’s why you’re involved. And the truth is it has to be us. We’re the parents.

TM: I’m not blaming anyone. I’d like to be clear on that. I’m just trying to get the facts straight.

HH: The facts?

TM: That’s all I want.

HH: This isn’t the first time this has happened. Did you know that? Were you aware of that fact?

TM: I’ve spoken with your wife. I know about Sarah, if that’s what you mean.

HH: His sister. His own sister. Our own daughter. I mean, we should have known it’d happen again. It was obviously going to happen again. And what did we do? We just sent him away. We just ignored it.

TM: Dr Hall?

HH: And I know we got him on diagnosed. And I know we got him medicated. But we weren’t there for him. He needed us and where were we?

TM: Dr Hall.

HH: At the fucking Hamptons’ that’s where. I don’t know. I don’t even know. I …

[HH takes a cigarette from his pocket and lights it.]

TM: Take a minute if you want.

HH: No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I …

TM: It’s OK.

HH: Sorry, I’m just venting here. It’s just … I have no one … I mean, Debs is ill, I can’t talk about this stuff with her, and Sarah … she’s too young to lay this on. I have no one. I’m a fifty-three year old man with no one in his life to have an adult conversation with. Not about this, anyway.

TM: Are you OK?

HH: There’s nothing we can do. We just need to be there for him now. I know that now. I know that.

TM: I’m sure he’d appreciate your support.

HH: And when I think back to that day, holding him my arms, trying to get him to drink from that bottle of water. Telling him it was all going to be OK. And there was nothing, you know? Nothing there. Just that blank expression. That was the scariest day of my life.

TM: I can imagine.

HH: Do you have kids, Detective?

TM: I do.

HH: Then you know.

TM: We can take a break if you want.

HH: You know.

I know I haven’t written in a while. I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry about my handwriting – I can’t seem to stop shaking, I think it’s this new medication. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve decided this is the last time I’ll write to you. It was Dr Howard’s idea. She said that, since I didn’t get to go to the funeral, this would be a good way of saying goodbye.

It was my father who found us, back at the house. I don’t remember any of that. Or them bringing me here. Those first few days are a complete blank, the weeks that followed sketchy at best. Being here dawned on me gradually, more like a slow realisation that I wasn’t dreaming. When I did dream it was about you, Finners Island, Scraps. At the time I wasn’t sure which parts were real, which parts were dreams or nightmares. And then there was
Them
. It was a hard time.

Things are getting better. I’m into more of a routine now, especially with my sleeping. My hand’s finally healed. Apparently it was badly infected when they found us but now all that’s left is a scar, a numb white spot in the centre of my palm. It’s not too far from that little grey fleck Andrew Wilt’s pencil left. Sometimes at night I press the scar, hard, until it starts to ache. I don’t know why. I just like to feel it.

Mum hasn’t visited much. She’s seeing Dr Filburn again and he’s advised against regular visits. Even when she does come, she never says much. She always starts crying halfway through and has to leave the room. She’s sure to return, right at the end, to tell me not to worry. I’m not the cause of the tears, she says. They’ve been building up for years. This whole thing’s just opened the floodgates.

Dad and Sarah visit more regularly, usually every other day. It’s getting warmer now and yesterday we sat out and ate together on the grass. Dad brought tuna sandwiches (he knows I don’t like the food here) and Sarah lent me one of her earphones so I could tap my head along to her thud-thud music. It was actually quite relaxing, in a weird way, even though the music is horrific. Sarah’s eczema’s back. I’ve noticed the odd patch of flaked skin, on her neck and the backs of her hands. She only scratches when she thinks nobody’s looking. It’s probably stress – the doctor said it could come back in times of stress. This has been a time of much stress.

Dr Howard is nice. She reminds me of how Miss Hayes used to be. She lets us just sit in silence. She’s just there to talk to, she says, if I ever need somebody to talk to, though the truth is I haven’t spoken since New Year’s. I can’t seem to get any words out. The more I try, the harder it is. Dr Howard told me to stop trying so hard and just relax. The words will come when they’re ready, she says.

A lot of people went to your funeral. That’s what Sarah said. She didn’t go, of course, but her classes were nearly empty that day and Miss Hayes let the rest of them go early as a mark of respect. I haven’t seen or heard from your father. I know he’s no longer at the butcher’s. The rumours are that he hacked off three of his fingers, drunk on the job, but I don’t know how true that is. Sarah said she heard it from one of the girls in her year, but it was hard to verify because not many of the girls in her year are talking to her. My father couldn’t verify it either because he hasn’t spoken to Ken Hampton in over a month. Sarah said they’ve had to close the clinic for the time being. Dad’s never mentioned this. He only talks about the weather or lunch. He doesn’t like to talk about serious stuff.

I know you won’t read this, by the way. I know now that I’m not really writing to you, that I was never really writing to you. That you never got to read any of what I wrote. I know now that there were in fact two yous – the real you, who I shared a few chance encounters with, and the you I wrote to, the you I found myself talking to, in my head. Right now I don’t know which you I’m writing to. Both, I guess. And myself. Ultimately I know I’m writing to myself.

Spring’s just about here. Every morning I wake to the sound of the birds. They’re so loud, I forgot just how loud they are. They’re the perfect alarm clock. Without them I’m not sure I’d ever wake up. I’ve been pulling out my eyelashes. It’s a new habit. Dr Howard advises against it. She says it’s a problem, but not such a problem, considering my other problems. This morning I discovered a couple of fresh ones, just starting to show. I managed to pluck them. I went out to the gardens at lunch with them cradled in my palm. I shut my eyes and blew them away. I can’t tell you what I wished because then it might not come true. But there was a good breeze today. I’m sure they’ll go far.

I remember it was sunny when we left the hotel but by the time we reached the forest the rain had come. It fell in waves, like the sea had taken to the sky. It hissed through the leaves above us, rattling the hoods of our raincoats.

Nan said she knew a short cut, a secret path down to the lily pond. We loved feeding the ducks. It was our favourite part of the day. Sarah, my parents, they weren’t bothered, they’d given their sandwich crusts to us and we’d headed off straight after lunch. Nan kept saying we had to go west, pointing:
this way’s west
and
that way’s west
, but I doubt if she knew which way west actually was. It seemed to me we were going in circles.

After a while Nan began to panic. ‘How can you get lost on an island this small?’ she said. ‘This is the sixth time I’ve been here.’

Eventually we found a cliff edge but there was no secret path. Nan was exhausted and needed to sit for a while so we took shelter under an overgrown blackberry bush. We watched the rain, fizzing like static on the surface of the sea. Nan said not to eat the blackberries, just in case they were poisonous.

After a few minutes the rain died. After another few minutes the sun came out, so hot we began to steam. Nan said it was a true British holiday, all weathers at once. That’s when I first noticed it, perched there in the branches above us. I nudged Nan and pointed. I couldn’t stop staring at it.

‘Look away,’ Nan whispered. ‘Else it’ll claw your eyes out.’

Nan and I huddled there, staring at our shoes while it perched above us, scanning the horizon. I asked Nan what it was doing here and she said there were several theories. One was that it escaped from a zoo. I asked if there was any chance it had flown here by choice but Nan said she doubted it could have made it all the way from America.

As its shadow passed over us we couldn’t help but look, couldn’t help but watch it cross the sky. It soared low over the sea, disappearing behind the trees that lined the far side of the cove.

‘We don’t tell anyone about this,’ Nan said. ‘It’s our secret. It’s just for me and you.’

We waited, just in case it circled back. It didn’t. Then we waited a while longer, just sitting there in silence.

Nan stood. She sighed and smiled. She said, ‘We’d best get back, Fly, else your parents’ll think we’ve drowned in the rain.’

I nodded and stood too and we both headed off through the forest. We still didn’t know which direction we were supposed to be heading in, but for some reason it didn’t seem to matter any more.

Thanks to everyone on my MA, especially Robyn Donaldson, Mike Holloway, Paul Abbot, Denise Bundred and Christof Häberle. To my inspiring teachers Alicia Stubbersfield and Jim Friel. To ‘The Dicks’, Josh Mansell, Matty Herring and Liam Sillett. To Mike Morris and everyone at Writing on the Wall. To Niall Griffiths and Julia Bell for making me feel like a writer. To Luke Brown for the encouragement and Karolina Sutton, Norah Perkins and Kate Howard for making all my childhood dreams come true.

To my friends, my family, Nat and my cats.

And to anyone that reads it, cheers.

1. The social disparity between Skipdale and The Pitt sets the scene for the novel. Why do you think this is important?
   
2. What motivates Greg to tell his story?
   
3. How does the inclusion of the police transcript add to the narrative? Does it alter your opinion of Greg’s reliability as a narrator?
   
4. Did this novel contribute to your understanding of phobias?
   
5. What role does the notion of obsession play in the novel?
   
6. Greg’s parents are fixated on projecting a perfect image. How does this contrast to the reality of their situation?
   
7. Can we see Greg’s obsession with classic Hollywood films influencing his own outlook on life and on romance in particular?
   
8. ‘Miss Hayes has a new theory. She thinks I’m not really scared of
   Them
   . She thinks they’re just something to blame my anxiety on. She thinks I hide my real fears behind Metaphorical Phantoms’. What do you think of Miss Hayes’ theory? Are there other characters in the novel besides Greg and Miss Hayes with their own ‘Metaphorical Phantoms’?
   
9. Do you feel sympathy for Greg’s mother?
   
10. What is the significance of Finners Island?
    
11. This novel deals with some difficult social issues and the world that Greg inhabits is almost dystopian. Is there room for happiness in a world like this?
    
12. How far do you think the author has used Greg’s social alienation to expose intricate truths about our modern lives?
    
13. Sarah accuses her mother of being repressed. What part does repression play in the novel as a whole and how does it manifest?
    
14. Greg’s father claims that ‘someone is always to blame’. Do you think this is the case in this situation?