TheRapist (12 page)

*

Devon

Devon stood in the crowd in front of two Edwardian houses. Similar houses. Narrow, tall, slightly stark, quite ordinary, almost bordering on indistinguishable, except for the brightly coloured tissue paper shapes stuck to the inside of an upper floor window and a hard, white plastic board with red writing above one of the front doors which read, ‘St. Fairfield Primary School.’ A bell rang and the sudden onslaught of small people stormed from the front door, all dressed in black and yellow uniforms. Black blazers with yellow braid trimming the edges. Yellow and black ties against graying-white crumpled shirts. Black shorts and skirts. Filthy white socks and scuffed black shoes. Typical. A typical assortment of English school kids. They rushed out to their mums or the mums of a friend with cries of ‘I’m starving mum!’ or ‘Can we get a Wimpy?!’ There were no nannies in a school like this. A few of the older kids walked to the bus stop at the end of the street and three kids walked off together, probably living only a few houses away, digging into their bags for a half eaten bag of crisps or a broken biscuit.

Devon was aware of a few sidelong glances. This was something she had always experienced though, being slim, good looking and elegant, with a slight, almost imperceptible air of danger about her, there were few crowds into which she fitted, outside of Beverly Hills. She smiled at the kids as they shuffled or skipped, eager to get away from school to play in the garden or the street.

Then it was quiet on the street. The school had emptied itself of pupils and Devon stood there, alone. The school was quiet, unlike her mind which was a raging torrent. Tears welled up in her eyes and her padlocked memories took her back to a time almost thirty years ago when she was a pupil here.
When the playground was so hot one summer, it literally melted beneath scuffed shoes. Banned from volleyball because of fingernails that were too long. When a few of the kids would play a game called ‘Touch me!’ where they would fumble around on the outside of their shorts and skirts, touching each other fleetingly on their private bits. Didn’t like that game. Wouldn’t join in. Couldn’t.

Her mind stayed in the past as vis
ions raged through her memories. Was she seeing herself…..or Adrian?

Emerging from the dark, musky school broom cupboard at the end of a lost corridor, anguish having been freshly etched in some ancient, unspoken language between furrowed brows, a slight, skinny teenager tugged at a damp, creased shirt with dry, dented nails, trembling hands hurriedly forcing buttons into holes as a trail of torment had begun its journey along the moist skin of a fragmented mind.

The lanky figure reluctantly ambled home through a small, strange field, bursting with misleading buttercups and soft
sprigs of dusty pink clover, crossing roads crammed tightly with proud semi-detached stepford houses, still trying to maintain their vigour from the 1930’s, but slowly being eased out of society by insidious developers. Strands of hay
momentarily trapped on a loose thread of the worn, grey jumper struggled free, floating away upon the afternoon breeze, alone and adrift in suburbia.

Peroxide in a small town, turning black hair to blonde and back again.

Devouring night classes. Debating. Dictating. Desiring only the best.

At the lone cinema, stuck rudely at the end of a road lined with a Senior Service newsagents, an iced bun shop and a launderette, during a time before popcorn was edible and tiered seating just a pipe dream, amongst ribbons of smoke
spiraling up towards the towering screen. Gazing with damp starry-eyes at the stories as they unfolded, whisking you away to other worlds, sucking you in, before spitting you out through golden double doors that once beckoned so enticingly, yet now turned their tarnished backs to leave you wallowing beneath yellow lamplight on a cold, stark street, wistfully longing for love in another life.

Appearing suddenly, without warning, straight talking and sincere. A stile. A figment, a virtual oasis inside one’s mind, a mere tease? Or the suggestion of another pathway, a turnstile with which to purge the torment. A stile one could bravely use to climb across, in order to get to the other side.

Wherever that may be…

She was jolted back to the present as the wind
drew its icy breath
, skimming through the trees, biting at her collar. English weather. Sunny one moment, cold the next. At least the weather in Los Angeles was predictable, give or take the occasional earthquake, although they were even prepared for that. The Richter Scale was a friend to all. There were only six degrees of separation in California between you and a seismologist. She pulled up her collar and noticed the front door slowly opening. A
thin,
elderly m
an came shuffling out,
wisps of grey hair around his temples that formed a frayed semi-circle from ear to ear. His glasses were small and round. He hadn’t changed much, still virtually the same, just older and possibly even more bent. Mr. Birdman the science teacher. He must be in his sixties now. Not the frightening, bullying teacher he had once been, but a much older, slightly wizened man. He peered over at Devon waiting beneath the tree, as he descended the stone steps and walked towards her. He smiled thinly at her with those same long, yellowing teeth. As he walked towards her, she surprisingly thought how small he seemed. Having only been a young teenager, the recollections has always been those of a tall overbearing teacher who used to hand out detentions or
take
you in
to
the broom cupboard if you were
considered
naughty and now here he was, smaller than her, looking wiped out and weary. She could not take her eyes from his as he approached. He had no idea who she was. Or did he?

‘Can I help you, are you looking for someone?’ Still that curt, slightly high pitched voice.

She just stared at him, unable to speak, when there was a fleeting flash in his eyes, either that or something trembling in the deep recesses of his mind.

*

Frankie and
Jezzy

Frankie was clutching Sam’s hand a little too hard.

‘Ow, Frankie, you’re really grabbing at me.’

She loosened her grip, ‘sorry kid.’ She kissed his hand and handed him his snack and a pack of Rolo’s.

Sam looked at the pack and smiled, ‘it’s almost full!’ he declared, rather pleased with his acute perception.

Frankie looked at him fondly, ‘but you know I’d always give you my last one don’t you?’

Sam looked chuffed. He took a Rolo, then another. ‘Where are we going?’ he said, between mouthfuls of toffee.

‘To see
Jezzy
, just for a little while. Is that OK? I have a friend who’s visiting and he’s there now
.’ Her heart leapt, banging palpably on the i
nside of her ribs
. This really wasn’t the perfect time to meet him. Him! He could be the man of her dreams and she was meeting him for the first time at her friend’s office with Sam in tow and crisps in between her teeth. Still, was there ever a perfect time? She wished she could shower and change on the way, but the best she could do was pop into Starbucks to swish her hair around in the loo, put on some gloss and chew a couple of mints. Her skin was clear and her eyes bright. Hopefully he would just focus on that and maybe, if her conversation was witty enough, he wouldn’t even notice that she had a button missing on the back pocket of her jeans. She bought Sam a cupcake and milk and they headed to
Jezzy
’s office.

Frankie crouched down just before they reached the building, beckoning Sam to her level. He thought it was a hilarious game, as the two of them crouched low, sidling along out of view of the window to reach the front door, despite the fact that
the waiting room was internal and didn’t have a view of the street and
Jezzy
’s office was the first door on the right in the building. Frankie and Sam crept in, her heart banging so hard she thought the whole practice might hear it.

Jezzy
’s face lit up as they entered. ‘Hi Sam, come and sit with me and do your homework while Frankie says hi to her friend.’ She patted the chair next to her and pushed some files aside to make a space on the desk for him.

‘Is that OK Sam, I won’t be long,’ Frankie sounded nervous. He nodded, already digging in his bag for his tatty textbooks.

Jezzy
dipped her hand into her drawer and held up a spray. ‘Open,’ she whispered to Frankie and promptly sprayed something minty into her mouth.

They pulled a face at each other. Those faces that only friends can pull and that could mean a cornucopia of things, but are really and truly just little symbols of hope and trust. ‘Go on, he’s in there,’
Jezzy
thrust her head in the direction of the waiting room, almost putting her neck into a spasm. Frankie took a deep minty breath, turned and went in.

*

Edie

Edie leaned her tired body against the faded yellow wallpaper, trying to hang her bony arm out of the window, but it would only open a crack, just enough for her to stick her wrist through, up to her protruding elbow. She grazed her thin, blue-tinged skin as she tried to edge her arm past the frame and through the window. Beads of blood appeared beneath her elbow, leaving a tiny trail of red speckles on the peeling wooden frame. She lifted her creased face to the sky, the sun glinting through the clouds making her wince so she closed her eyes, her lids transparent, shiny and blue. The feel of the sun on her face was nice, it took her back to a place lovingly stored in a deep recess inside her mind, a place where she had been happy and loved and young and free.
For mere moments she was back there again, at a country club dance deep in the south when men were gentlemen and girls were treated like princesses, wearing a pink chiffon dress with roses at her wrists and a sparkle in her eyes, momentarily suspended in time.
Then something rudely shifted in her mind, dislodging her dreams and s
he was back in the present. Her
lonely, gloomy present. The past was so much more appealing, but she could never stay there for what seemed like more than a few precious moments. Her heart had been full back then, brimming with possibilities. Once upon a time her cup had runneth over, now it had been wickedly washed away. Edie could never seem to retrieve her memor
ies for anything longer than a few precious moments
and those small flecks of treasured time were what kept her heart beating. Those glimpses of what had once been, but were no more. The memories were like salt sifting through her mind, and she was unable to catch more than a few grains.

The sun was burning into her eyelids. She squinted down through the crack in her first floor window and saw a powdery vision of a young woman walking a small, scruffy thing with a red leash. Edie clutched the glimmer of hope and called out in her thin, rarely used voice,

‘Please, help me, I’m imprisoned here…’. The woman with the dog looked up at her. Looked away. Carried on as if nothing had happened. Edie’s eyes welled with tears, warm drops spilling onto her gaunt cheeks, down to the unwashed flannelette nightgown. A warm trickle escaped from between her legs and even though she was alone it made her blush. She looked up at the sky again, forcing her eyes open to look beyond the clouds, to the promise of a world she could not yet see. A small creased face that barely filled the opening of the window. ‘John,’ she called thinly, ‘Come back to me John.’

*

Devon and Mr. Birdman

As the two starkly different figures stood there, in front of an empty school on a windy, empty afternoon, her thoughts began to race through the caverns of her mind. Could he know her? It had been years, decades, but still surely he knew. How could he forget? How could he possibly forget unless, unless there had been others, countless others who had been transfixed by his gaze, melting before him with intimidation? People, like her, like who she had been, too lacking in confidence to be able to fend off the insidious advances of seemingly apparent innocence between a teacher and pupil.
Mr. Birdman had seemed to know everything
, right from the start. From the first day in that school. Never fitting in, always standing out. Out of place. Until becoming out of mind. And now, here they were, lifetimes later, standing together once again. Only this time she was the more powerful one. In strength, knowledge and self protection. She was so capable of protecting herself from others. How different she was now to who she had been back then. Now the only
person Devon feared was herself, which stemmed from
The fear
of
having her brain wrung out, time and time again. Mr. Birdman was one of those who had sent her to the mind mangle. One who had attributed to the cause. He had been there at the beginning, was the first to notice how her mind and body were at loggerheads. He knew even before she did. Her mind raced as she stood there, transfixed, looking into the beady eyes of Birdman. Her mind ran marathons at the speed of sound. Back to the past, into the present, never daring to even hint at the future. She felt as if the past were a vortex, climbing through her head, ready to swallow her whole, sucking her in and then she was spinning, round and round, deeper, down, back to a place where her fear began.