ease within me, like a great release from an over-inflated tyre. He’s here. And I can sense my curiosity pique as I squint in the sunlight to examine him from afar.
And then the colour starts to drain from my face – I can feel it disappearing – as I gaze upon what, despite everything, I was not prepared to see.
The blood still drips down his left arm. The bruise still covers his right. And today there is a great, blue patch of swollen skin beneath one of his eyes. Strange, that in the shadows from the trees I can’t make out the eyes themselves – I couldn’t tell you their colour, the length of the lashes around them – but the bruising on his face broadcasts just fine across the distance.
No, enough of this, I say to myself. A boy shouldn’t look like that.
More giggles come from the college students. They’ve now planted themselves on a patch of grass off to the left, facing each other, and are oblivious to the world. If they weren’t they would see him, and they would be as concerned as I am.
I rise from my bench. My words are scripted, and I know the little dirt pathway that leads around the pond to the spot where he’s standing. But I don’t want the child frightened by my bursting out of the woods without a little hint of warning.
‘Hey, kid,’ I call out from just in front of my bench. My voice echoes slightly over the water. The boy doesn’t seem to hear. His expression remains fixed, gazing out over the lilies.
‘My name’s Dylan.’ I start to move in his direction. My plan has begun. Burns may have ploughed over the nest of his mice and sent their intentions awry, but mine are being put into motion. I’ll be able to offer the boy some help, if he’ll let me. At least he isn’t running in fear at the sound of my voice.
But suddenly I freeze. I’ve barely made it a few steps, but I can’t move; my feet seem anchored to the soil. Something happens that has never happened before. An arm emerges from the greenery behind the boy. I can’t see the body it’s connected to, but it’s a large arm. An adult arm. And it reaches out with a practised violence – the kind of motion that can only be called that: violent – and grabs the boy by the back of the overalls. The arm pulls and the boy is yanked in reverse, his stick falling from his grasp.
‘Stop!’ I shout, but in an instant the boy is gone, his body gathered into the dense branches, out of sight, the heels of his shoes dragging in front of him.
Taped Recording Cassette #014B Interviewer: P. Lavrentis
As the recording resumes on its B-side, the tension between the male’s voice and Pauline’s is high.
‘Didn’t kill my wife?’ Joseph yells, spitefully. ‘I don’t know what in the godforsaken pits of your deranged mind you’re talking about, but this is going way, way past anything that “therapy” is supposed to be good for. You can’t just baldly call me a liar. Why would I lie about something like this?’
‘I’m not necessarily saying you’re lying, Joseph,’ Pauline answers, ‘but—’
‘Not lying? You’re flat out telling me that the one thing I’m flat out telling you isn’t true. What else would you call that?’
A slight pause. Hearing the recorded hesitation, Pauline recalls how she’d searched for the right word. ‘A mistake.’
‘A mistake!’ A hand slams down on a table. ‘A mistake! This isn’t like you’re asking me to do math problems in my head, woman! I killed my wife. Took a pillow, slammed her head down onto the floor. Held it over her face and watched her body writhe until it didn’t move any more. Dead. Telling you this isn’t a mistake of my memory!’
His words are enraged. There is genuine disbelief in them, utterly uncomprehending of the blanket rejection of his claims.
Pauline’s voice returns, with the same practised calm she had trained herself to manifest in situations like this. ‘There are reasons I’m calling it a mistake, Joseph, but it will do little good for me to explain them outright. It’s better if you can come to it yourself. Maybe you—’ Her voice hesitates, then she seems to start again afresh. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me more about her. Your wife.’
The man’s breathing steadies. ‘What do you want to know?’ Then, with a snort, ‘What can I tell you that you’re not just going to call more lies, or “mistakes”?’
Pauline doesn’t fall prey to the provocation but answers calmly. ‘What do you remember about her? About the two of you together?’
‘I remember plenty. All the normal stuff.’ Joseph’s words are gruff.
‘So tell me about that,’ she prompts. This is good territory; the opportunity to speak about ‘normalcy’ has a tendency to calm people overcome with the unusual. She remembers the moment, sat there across from him. ‘Tell me about the normal stuff.’
‘Falling in love. Romance. The way we’d look at each other.’ His voice slows, as if his words are retreating into memory, but he grows more stolid and sturdy as he continues.
‘We were so happy. When it was just us, with no one else around. It was like there were only two of us on the planet. The sun and the stars and the moon disappeared, and there was only her and me. It would be like that wherever we were, whatever the circumstances. She’d look into my eyes, and I’d look into hers, and the universe would just melt away.’
He hesitates. His voice bears the traces of embarrassment, as if speaking this way, in his current position, is a sign of weakness and immaturity.
‘That sounds very comforting,’ Pauline says encouragingly. Hearing her own words played back to her now, they seem mildly inadequate. His emotions were coming through. She could have prompted him more. Encouraged him.
‘She was nothing but love and warmth,’ he continues, and Pauline is drawn back to the moment. He hadn’t needed further prompting; he’d swept himself away. On the cassette his embarrassment is instantly gone. ‘Blonde hair, she had, and big blue eyes. Soft cheeks and a killer laugh. She’d take my hand in hers, wrapping her fingers through mine, and take me on walks. I’d never gone on walks before her, never been interested. But walks with her were like dreams. We’d go out together, sit on a big blanket and have picnics. Can you imagine that? In this strange world, having picnics out in the countryside?’
Pauline’s voice offers a soft, noncommittal chuckle. The kind that broadcasts pleasant encouragement without meaning anything on its own.
‘She would make the most amazing treats for me. Out of nothing. I don’t know how she did it. It’s not like we had cash flowing out our pockets night and day, but somehow she’d fabricate the most perfect foods for those outings. Sweets. Savouries. And there would always be a little card tucked into the picnic basket. Something handmade, brilliantly drawn, with some inside joke written out inside. We would laugh until we were in giggles.’ His voice trails off again. Then, in barely more than a whisper. ‘She was one of a kind. Nobody else like her. I wanted it to be just us. Us and no one else.’
Pauline lets the remembered narrative halt, allows some
