The Shape of Snakes (38 page)

"Did they know about Rosie's rape?"

He shook his head. "Not unless Alan told them. Rosie was paranoid about her mum finding out-thought it'd kill her quicker than the cancer-so we kept quiet."

I tried to make sense of the chronology. "And this all happened in '79?"

He nodded.

"Was it Alan who attacked Maureen while I was still living there?" I thought back. "Sometime during the February of '79?"

Another nod. "She was drunk one day and started slapping him about when he answered her back. He went for her like a maniac."

"Who called the ambulance?"

"Derek. He came in about an hour later and found her on the floor with little Danny trying to clean up the blood. Alan was blubbing in the garden because he thought he'd killed her. Derek had to run to the nearest phone box."

I eyed him curiously. "Did you know this at the time, or did Derek tell you about it afterward?"

"Derek told me," he admitted, "but it made sense when I thought about what Alan did to Rosie."

"Except Maureen said Derek did it," I murmured.

"Yeah, well, she's a liar. She snapped little Danny's arm across her knee one time, then swore to the doctors he'd fallen off his bike. Us kids knew it wasn't true because she did it in front of us." His lips thinned to threads. "She was a scary woman, and if we hadn't been such fucking cowards-" He broke off to stare at the table. "Derek was right pissed off when I told him about it. That's why he wanted to write letters to his kids. He really cared about them." He lifted his eyes to mine. "I know what you're thinking. Michael's not as bright as I thought. He spends a couple of months talking to a man he despises and ends up getting conned by him. Well, that might be true-I wouldn't go to the wall for it-but the one thing I
do
know is that Derek's so damn stupid even a moron could run rings around him. Sure, he was a bully and, sure, he used his fists, but he had to be
told
to do it. He was like a guided missile. Point him in the right direction and give him an instruction and-
wham!
-he did the business."
 

E-mail from Dr. Joseph Elias, psychiatrist
at the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong

M. R.

From: Sarah Pyang ([email protected])
Sent: 15 August 1999 14:19
To: [email protected]

Sent as from: Dr. Elias

Such are the wonders of modern technology! My secretary tells me she received your e-mail yesterday (Saturday) and you wish me to reply by return. Well, I'm happy to do so but I wonder if answers given in haste are wise.

You pepper me with questions. Who is more to blame: the architect of a crime or the one who carries it out? Should a whole police force be smeared because of one bad apple? Can justice be selective? Can the damage done by a mother to her child be mended? Can rapists be cured? Can children be evil? Is any crime excusable? Should the sins of a father be visited on his family? Should the sins of a mother?

In a poor attempt at wisdom might I suggest that, if you are honestly seeking justice for your friend, then you arrogate too much authority merely by thinking such things? These are not your decisions to make, my dear. Justice is impartial. Only revenge is prejudiced.

But isn't prejudice what you've been fighting all these years?

All best wishes,
Joseph

*25*

It was three o'clock by the time I drove down to the main road with my brain worrying away at what Michael had said like a tongue at a sore tooth. Each time I negotiated a hairpin bend the panoramic view of Weymouth Bay and Chesil Beach was spread out below me, but I was too absorbed in thoughts on motherhood to notice it. I wondered sometimes if my rush to judgment of the Sharon Percys and Maureen Slaters of this world was a way of punishing my own mother-and by extension myself. For everything I did as a parent was either in mimicry of her-or in defiance-and I had no idea which was right and which was wrong.

I had few feelings for Sharon beyond contempt for abandoning her son out of embarrassment the minute she acquired a modicum of respectability after Geoffrey moved in with her. Yet I couldn't understand why Michael had seemed so worried every time her name was mentioned when anger would have been a more normal reaction. He'd been angry enough with Maureen. Did Sharon's shying away from society's censure of her son's violence really make her ipso facto incapable of murder? And did Maureen's willingness to keep Alan's violence under wraps, together with my absolute certainty that she was the instigator of the hate campaigns against Annie and myself, make her ipso facto capable?

I was tired, and a little depressed, and I hadn't intended to see Danny that afternoon, but when I reached the T-junction at the bottom of Verne Common Road I took an abrupt decision to turn left toward Tout Quarry. He was still at work on Gandhi when I turned into the gulley fifteen minutes later. "How's it going?" I asked.

He dropped his hands to his sides, resting the chisel and hammer against his thighs. "Okay," he said with a pleased smile. "How about you?"

"I've been to see Michael Percy. He sends his regards, says if you're bored he'll be happy to entertain you for an hour in the visitors' room."

Danny grinned. "A bit of a comedian, eh?"

"He has his moments," I agreed.

Danny laid his tools on the ground and brushed dust from his arms. "What would we talk about? I was just a snotty-nosed kid to him." He took his cigarettes from his pocket and perched on a rock beside Gandhi. "He gave me a lecture once when he caught me sniffing glue behind the church."

I sat next to him. "Did it do any good?"

"It did as a matter of fact. He was pretty decent about it, said he understood why I was doing it, then gave me a graphic description of what it's like to die of suffocation. He told me I had more going for me than to peg it in a graveyard with a nose full of glue fumes." He flicked me a sideways glance full of amused self-deprecation. "So I tried heroin instead."

My disillusionment must have shown. "Meaning Mr. Drury's terror tactics were more effective than Michael's lecture?"

Danny's smile widened. "I never liked glue-sniffing anyway ... and as for heroin"-he gave a sudden laugh-"I'd been sitting on the bog for half an hour trying to pluck up courage to stick the bloody needle in before Mr. Drury caught me, I'd always hated the damn things."

I eyed him affectionately. "You were going to give up anyway?"

"Sure ... injecting at least. I went on smoking it for a while, then I thought, to hell with it. I don't need this. I prefer cannabis. You keep a better grip on things with dope."

"Why didn't you tell your mother that at the time instead of letting Drury take the credit?"

"Because she wouldn't have believed me." He turned his cigarette in his fingers. "You wouldn't either. I was a pretty wild kid and it's not easy getting people to change their opinion of you when all you do is let them down."

I nodded. I'd seen it myself many times during my teaching career. Give a dog a bad name and he was hanged forever afterward. It was the sort of unforgiving prejudice I hated-as Dr. Elias had so pointedly reminded me. "What did Michael mean when he said he understood why you were sniffing glue?"

"He knew what it was like for me at home. There was only me and Mum and we loathed each other's guts. Most of the time she was passed out drunk"-he shook his head-"and when she wasn't, she'd lam into the first person she saw-usually me. It was pretty depressing. She's got real problems but she won't do anything about them ... just locks the door and sinks into a stupor."

"Has she ever said what her problems are?"

"You mean apart from the physical dependency?"

I nodded.

"The same as any other addict I guess," he said with a shrug. "Fear of living ... fear of pain ... fear of having to look at yourself too closely in case you don't like what you see."

I wondered if he was right. "She seemed all right when I saw her."

"Only because she knew you were coming," he said dismis-sively, "but you can bet she was back in front of the telly with her fags and her booze within five minutes of you leaving. She can put on an act for a while ... but she's too lazy to want to make it permanent. It makes me sick."

"Do you ever see her?"

"No. Last time was at Tansy's christening. I phone her once in a while just to let her know I'm still alive, but the only one of her kids she wants to hear from is Alan. He's always been her favorite. She'd forgive him anything ... but not me or my sisters."

I nodded. "What stopped you from being wild?"

He thought about it. "Getting sent down at sixteen for nicking and driving cars," he said with a grin. "Remember I told you I spent time in prison? It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Got me out of Graham Road. Made me think about what I wanted in life." He tilted the tip of his cigarette toward Gandhi. "There was an art teacher who showed me I had a talent for this kind of thing ... he was a good bloke ... got me a place at art school... even let me live with him and his wife for a while till I found somewhere of my own."

Perhaps I'd been wrong to tell Maureen that Beth had worked a change in Danny when it seemed to have been an unknown art teacher who had influenced his life. "Prison can work then?"

"Only if you want it to."

"Did Alan want it to work? Is that how he turned himself 'round?"

He shrugged. "He had a bad time ... got bullied because he wasn't too bright ... made him scared to go back. Then he met Beth and reckoned he had a future even though she strung him along for ages before she agreed to marry him." Another shrug-more dismissive this time. "Prison doesn't seem to have done Michael much good."

"Or your dad," I said slowly, thinking about Alan being bullied and the truism that most bullies are cowards. "Michael told me he and your dad were in the Scrubs together five years ago."

"Lucky Michael," said Danny sarcastically.

"He said your dad's illiterate ... can't even manage his own name. So Michael wrote some letters for him. He said there was one to you which you didn't answer."

"He's lying," said Danny bluntly. "I could be dead for all that bastard cares."

"I don't think so."

"Where did he send it?"

"To your mum's house."

"She'd have torn up anything with a prison logo on it. What did it say?"

"That he cared about you."

Danny gave a snort of derision. "He doesn't even know what I look like."

"Mm," I agreed.

"I expect he was feeling guilty about abandoning us."

"Mm," I said again.

Danny frowned. "What else did Michael say?"

"That you had a broken arm when you were a child. Do you remember that?"

He cast an involuntary glance at his right hand. "Sort of. I know I was in plaster once, but I thought it was something to do with my wrist. It aches sometimes."

"Do you know how it happened?"

"I fell off my bike."

"Is that something you remember or something you've been told?"

A difference in my tone-too much curiosity perhaps-made his brows draw together in a puzzled frown. "Why so interested? All kids break bones at some time or another." I didn't answer and he seemed irritated by my silence. "Probably something I was told," he said curtly. "I don't remember much before I was six or seven."

"Neither do I," I said equably. "It's odd. Some people have very clear memories of their early childhood, but I have none at all. I used to think the stories my parents told me were real memories, but I've come to the conclusion now that if something is repeated often enough it acquires a reality." I paused to watch one of the student sculptors chip nervously at a small block of stone which had so little shape I wondered why he was bothering. "Michael said he doesn't remember seeing Alan after your dad left," I said next. "Is that the time he went to prison for dealing?"

Danny appeared to be on safer ground with this question. "Sure. It's the only sentence he's done. He told me about it once, said it did his head in something chronic." He leaned forward to pick a stone from the ground. "He didn't come home afterward. I think they reckoned he was a bad influence on the rest of us, or vice versa." He polished the stone with the ball of his thumb. "I only found out what he looked like when I skived off school one day to go wandering 'round Twickenham. It was when I was about thirteen, and this big guy stops me in the street and says, 'Hi, I'm Alan, how you doing?' He'd have been about twenty-four by then"-he gave a hollow laugh-"and I hadn't a clue who he was. I knew I had a brother somewhere but it was a bit of a shock to find he was only four miles away. He said he'd been keeping an eye on me from a distance."

"Did you tell your mother you'd seen him?"

"No chance. She used to get really wound up every time his name was mentioned, then she'd hit the bottle and start breaking furniture. I always thought she blamed Al for making my dad leave until Al turned up out of the blue a year later and she wept all over him and said how much she'd missed him."

"Why did he come?"

"Wanted to see her, I guess."