Life's Lottery (61 page)

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Dr Marling’s and Ash Grove?’

‘Hemphill and Ash Grove,’ you correct, instinctively.

Dr Cross makes a note. You’ve just shot yourself in the foot.

‘I have you down in the records as a Marling’s boy,’ the doctor says. ‘Hum the theme from
Top Cat
.’

‘Pardon?’

‘The TV cartoon.’

You hum the song.

‘Well, something’s imprinted on your memory. That’s good.’

‘I think I’d rather remember my wife’s birthday than the
Top Cat
song.’

‘I sympathise with you.’

* * *

Your family treat you as if you were an alien. Dr Cross puzzles at the case but can’t make it out. People seem afraid of you. Rowena is nervous about undressing in front of you, but you start having sex. The children keep forgetting you don’t know things. The business is on hold.

You have medical insurance. Dr Cross thinks you’re trying to pull off some con, but can’t understand why. It turns out you are already rich enough to retire.

You walk on eggshells. You keep making mistakes. But the truth is so far beyond belief no one gets near it.

The problem is that your cover story starts coming true. The more Dr Cross questions you, the easier it is not to know the answers.

When asked your children’s names, you answer ‘Jeremy and Jessica’. Of course, you knew this even in the first session. The point is the slight hesitation as you dredge up information that should be instinctive. That hesitation is gone, which the doctor approves.

Thinking about it, you can’t really recall Josh and Jonquil. They are the phantoms, receding behind the cobweb curtain. The life you are forgetting is your own.

But the new one is still not quite convincing.

You try, once, to undo the trick. You lie in your living-room, shut your eyes, and try to picture in detail the flat you shared with Marie-Laure. You run through Vince’s comics, your chipped crockery, Josh’s Ninja Turtles, Marie-Laure’s blouses.

But the shift doesn’t come. And you can’t remember
anything
about Jonquil. Bloody silly name.

You’re stuck here.

* * *

You have to leave. Ro takes it well and you let her have the house, custody and most of the money. It’s not really yours, anyway.

You spend some time with Mum. She’s still the same, but even here there are subtle, jarring dissonances.

You set out to wander the world, away from the lives of both Keiths.

Here, you can be someone new, someone who owes nothing to any of his past selves.

Born anew at thirty, you look for a life.

And so on.

‘
H
im,’ you say.

Laraine presses the barrels against Sean’s forehead. His eyes are still alive, but he’s in too much pain to say anything.

The blast explodes his head like a watermelon.

‘Now what?’ she asks.

You can’t think of a way to sell this.

Hackwill and Sean attacked you and Laraine, and she defended herself with a gun rested from Hackwill. No, not when forensic science will reconstruct her head-blasting of a severely wounded, helpless, harmless Sean.

Hackwill and Sean shot each other. With the same gun? They struggled over it? Hackwill wounded Sean, Sean killed Hackwill… Then who killed Sean? And what about reloading? How could Sean reload without his shoulder?

There must be another story.

Mystery Man blasted Sean and Hackwill, left the gun with Laraine – who isn’t wearing gloves and must be leaving fucking fingerprints all over it – and headed off across the moors.

Can you fix up that toad Reg Jessup as Mystery Man? It’s not good, but it’s something.

What about powder burns? It’s too late for Laraine to go and wash her hands. Besides, soap and water won’t fool the tests they have these days.

Cars are coming. Flashing blue lights.

How about Laraine went mad and killed Hackwill and Sean? It has the advantage of being fucking true.

Can you write yourself out? You didn’t kill anyone. (Though you told Laraine to shoot Sean, which she’ll remember.) At worst, you’re an accomplice. If you turn queen’s evidence, you might get off.

Get off on murder. But incest will come out. Laraine’s off the deep end and she’ll be a talker.

Without her, you could handle this.

Laraine shoots it out with the cops and goes under in a hail of bullets? No, this isn’t Texas. It takes a while for British police to get guns.

‘Put the gun down, Mrs Rye,’ says a policewoman. It’s Mary Yatman.

Laraine is puzzled. She hasn’t been thinking. She whirls round, aims the gun at Mary, and pulls the triggers. Mary throws herself forward. The gun clicks. Laraine has dropped the hammer on used shells.

A rugby scrum falls on your sister. If her neck breaks, you’re home free. Well, in a position to work up a story. You’ll have to say Hackwill brought his gun with him. Somehow, Laraine got it from him.

The police scrum sorts itself out. Laraine is alive and gunless. Mary wipes dirt off her knees and skirt.

The bodies are found. Neighbours are shooed away. Every copper in Somerset is in Sutton Mallet. Handcuffs are clamped on Laraine.

There are ambulances here, too. Lots of flashing lights. The doctors can’t do anything for Sean and Hackwill. They look at Laraine’s bruises. She gets all the attention.

Beyond the carnival, the moors are dark. You can walk away. Vanish; get amnesia; start a new life somewhere, with no name, no money, no home and no job.

If Laraine talks, you’re going to be famous. Still, it’s your best bet. You back away, working between police cars.

‘Keith,’ Mary says. ‘At last, someone with sense.’

Your way to the moors is barred. You’re part of the carnival. Soon, you’ll be the high-wire act.

‘Keith, what’s the story?’

Your throat is dry. You can’t speak.

And so on.

Y
ou gently push Mum and Phil aside and roughly grab Sean by the lapels. You see fear and surprise in his eyes and enjoy it. You think like James. Mary’s job is to stop you. She’ll hesitate, but she’ll do it. You have to be quick and efficient.

You nut Sean, ramming your forehead against his nose. You break his red-framed yuppie glasses and feel cartilage scrunch against your hard skullbone.

You knee Sean in the goolies, doubling him up; you chop his neck with a double-handed thump, laying him on the floor; you kick him in the ribs, again and again and– Mary lays a hand on your shoulder. You stand back like a boxer pulled out by the referee. Sean hears the count and doesn’t try to get up. Blood pools under his face.

‘All right, game over,’ you tell Mary, raising open hands.

She stands away. You turn and put one last kick into Sean’s face. Mary grabs you round the waist and throws you at a chair.

Mum and Phil are appalled. They don’t understand.

‘Obviously, there’s a story here,’ Mary says.

‘That bastard hurt my sister,’ you say. ‘Put her in hospital.’

‘Are you alleging…?’

‘I’m accusing my brother-in-law of criminal assault, or whatever.’

‘No,’ Mary says.

‘You don’t understand.’

‘You’re the one who doesn’t understand. There was a witness. Mrs Rye fell or threw herself out of a window. Mr Rye was in his car, on the way home.’

…or
threw herself…

‘He did it.’

‘It was an accident, Keith,’ says Mum.

You shake your head.

Someone examines Sean, turning him over amid groans.

‘I don’t care if it was an accident. He did it.’

Mary reads you your rights.

* * *

Sean doesn’t want to press charges. After a night in a cell without your belt or tie, you are let go.

‘We seem to have been here before,’ says Mary as she shows you the way out of the police station. ‘Why doesn’t anyone want to take the Marion boys to court?’

Outside the police station, bright sunshine strikes Mary’s blond bun. Her blue eyes seem white.

‘We hit people who deserve it?’

She thinks about it. Obviously, she has pieced together the story. Even if Sean and Laraine aren’t talking, their attitudes and actions – not to mention yours – add up to something like the truth.

Mary kisses you.

* * *

You didn’t sleep much in the cell. And Mary was on night duty, clocking off when she let you out. So you fall asleep after the first, frenzied coupling. You wake in early afternoon, naked in a tangle on the single bed in your room, and get back to it.

She snaps on her handcuffs, running the chain through the slats of the headboard, linking your wrist to hers. Neither of you can get away.

It’s not slower or gentler but it lasts longer. When you flag, Mary tugs the chain. She bites you, leaving tooth-patterns on your chest and shoulders.

When it’s over, around sunset, your bodies are bruised and throbbing. You feel the pounding of her pelvis against yours for days afterwards.

She finds the cuff key with her toes and pulls it within reach.

‘What would you have done if it’d fallen on the floor?’ you ask.

‘Fucked until the bed fell apart.’

‘Fair enough.’

She does her hair up first, then puts on her uniform.

‘Was this a police reward?’

She laughs, which she doesn’t do often. ‘A job well done,’ she says.

‘Did you…?’

‘With James? Yes.’

You bang your head against the board.

‘It’s not an everyday thing,’ she says, buttoning her jacket.

‘Scary Mary lives.’

‘Believe it, girlie.’

‘What about Sean?’ you ask.

‘If I were married to him, I’d have at his bollocks with a Stanley knife.’

‘But you’re not. Laraine is.’

She sits at your desk, doing her make-up with a small mirror and compact.

‘Sean’s in a different ward, so he can’t get to her. Her leg will get better and so will his face. For a while, they’ll hobble around, not hurting anyone. Sean will be careful. He remembers you’re out there. But the scars will heal. And Laraine will make the wrong pud or put the cups in the wrong place and he’ll hit her. She won’t say anything, because she’s afraid for you now, as well as herself. And maybe she’s stupid enough to love the bastard. Women are like that. Sean will be apologetic after the first time, beg her to stay, promise not to hurt her again. She’ll believe him, because she has too much invested in him not to. Then, on less of an excuse, he’ll hit her again, harder this time. Maybe leave a mark. She’ll lie about it to anyone who notices. He’ll start doing it regularly and she’ll start making more excuses for him, blaming herself, coming up with stories of accidents. At that point, Sean will be consumed with disgust for her, probably take to raping her once in a while, to prove the point. Then, someone kills someone.’

You sit up, listening.

‘Best-case scenario is the least likely,’ Mary continues. ‘That’s Sean kills himself. After that you have Larry kills Sean. Justice served and a tiny jail term, lots of counselling, lots of sympathy. More likely, though, is Sean kills Larry. It’s not much consolation but he’ll get arse-raped so often in the nick that anything Larry took from him will seem lightweight. And more likely still, considering last night, is Larry kills herself. Further down the odds, you have various murder-suicide combos. And there’s Keith kills Sean, which I wouldn’t advise since even I can’t really turn you loose after that. Or Total Stranger kills Sean, which you might be tempted to arrange but which I’d also advise against since I’d get a promotion for catching you and your confederate.’

‘What about Larry leaves Sean, meets wonderful bloke, lives happily ever after?’

Mary laughs, nastily. ‘In your dreams, Keith.’

She slips on her shoes and crawls on to the bed, hovering over you in her slightly gamey uniform. Her hands spider-inch their way up your torso. She dips her head and takes your flaccid, drained penis in her mouth. Her tongue slithers around, coaxing another erection, stretched and painful, ringed with lipstick.

‘Something to remember me by,’ she says, withdrawing from you and standing up. She lightly swats your dick aside and leaves.

You look at the ceiling.

You refuse to accept the future Mary has laid out. Sometimes, there are happy endings.

And so on.

‘
W
e have hundreds of cases now, Susan. Of Marion syndrome.’

‘No wonder. The last five years haven’t been easy on those of us who chose to stick around. When the Spiders came, everyone suffered enough to drive them to fantasise alternate realities.’

‘My wife was killed in the invasion.’

‘I’m sorry, Dr Cross. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.’

‘That’s all right. I incline to agree with you. The miracle is that there are people who
don’t
suffer from Marion syndrome.’

‘What is he actually doing? Retreating to some arcadian past? Some bucolic twentieth century?’

‘Not quite. It’s cleverer than that. The syndrome, I mean. It’s almost as if it has a personality of its own, separate from the sufferer. Mind-scans indicate that it’s like a voice, whispering, describing, coaxing, even shouting abuse. It takes Marion back over his life, in sometimes minute detail.’

‘So he’s remembering?’

‘Not exactly, though his personal memories are the raw material of the syndrome. When the crisis point came, Marion’s mind shot backwards through his life and he surrounded himself with the furniture of his earlier years.’

‘I’ve noticed people prize things that used to be ephemera. Food packaging, newspapers, used envelopes. Anything from before. They become almost talismanic objects. My boyfriend collects unscrambled videodiscs. Of anything.’

‘This is a more extreme reaction, but the cause is the same. No matter what one thought of it at the time, a world without the Spiders seems utopian to us now.’

‘So Marion is back there?’

‘He used up his real life, his throughline, very swiftly. Since then, he’s been shuffling, rearranging elements, wandering and wondering.’