The Doll's House

124

He lay on the dirty bed, his mind full of strange and exciting thoughts. He had been so blind for so long, trying to see gold in the heart of a worthless slut. Now that he could see again, he couldn’t stop smiling. He felt light as feather. He had stood and watched Summer until she closed the curtains and retreated inside. He had then done a couple of circuits of the street, checking for CCTV, street lighting, as well as the names on the bells at her house. Like all the places round there, it had been divided into numerous flats. He had been pleased to see the names on the top and bottom bells sounded foreign. Far less likely to kick up if they did hear or see anything. But he would make sure they didn’t. He was pretty practised at this now, after all.

As he’d walked home, his head had been full of her. Those bewitching eyes, the tenderness of her touch, her gentle South Coast accent – identical to his of course. He had kissed his fingers and pressed them to his tattoo – then chuckled at the extravagant nature of his tribute. People must think him mad.

As thoughts of her overwhelmed him, he undid his fly and slipped his hand inside his trousers. He had been denying himself for so long, but now it felt so natural, so right. As he closed his eyes and let his mind drift, he saw them back there, two little conspirators hiding in the attic room. Whenever their mother came home, they always scurried up there to avoid her sharp tongue and rough hand. It was their little refuge – she was a heavy smoker and could never be arsed to climb up after them – and for them it was like a magical kingdom. It was only full of junk, but to them it was their world. They would open up the old doll’s house and play with the two cracked figures inside, dreaming up all kinds of scenarios in which they lived happily, in splendour and comfort. At these times the dirt and damp of the attic didn’t register – they were safe in the cocoon of their fantasy.

Sometimes the fantasy worked, at other times reality intruded – usually because of noises downstairs. They lived at the top of a rickety old terraced house and the loose, creaking steps in the communal parts always gave them warning of their mother’s approach. If she was marching up, it meant she was in a mood or having an episode. If the steps were slow and irregular, it meant she was stoned. And if there was more than one pair of feet, it meant she had ‘company’.

Ben hated drugs, never touched them, but his mother couldn’t get enough of them. She funded her habit by fraud, stealing and occasionally bringing foreign sailors home from the dockside bars. They didn’t pay much, but they came and went pretty quickly. When she was ‘entertaining’, Ben and Summer would lie dead still, peering through the floorboards into the flat’s only bedroom. They didn’t understand what they saw at first – believing the men were hurting their mother – but at the end of it everyone seemed happy. And after a while, they began to realize that these grunting, half-naked men were taking pleasure in these acts and that on occasion their mother seemed to be too.

It was only when they were older – Summer was fourteen and Ben eleven – that they truly understood. He had been surprised when Summer slipped her hand into his trousers, but he didn’t mind.

Later, they went further, exploring each other’s bodies, when their mother was entertaining those men below. Their little private joke. Did their mother suspect anything? If she did, she never said anything. As long as Summer was on hand to run down to the park for her next baggie, that was all that mattered.

The thought of this made him angry. He tried to concentrate on his fantasy, but he could feel his desire ebbing away now. His fury at his mother for dragging Summer away from him into the vile world of drugs still burned strong. He had seen that awful woman not three months ago. He was shocked to see her and his first reaction had been to beat the living hell out of her. He was older, bigger now – she wouldn’t have stood a chance. But she wasn’t worth it and he had bigger fish to fry, so he’d said a few curt words to her and sent her on her way.

There was no point continuing, he was too angry to focus on pleasure now. Zipping up his trousers, he rose from the bed and headed down to the ground floor. His mind was turning and he walked straight into the old utility area. It looked like a bloody school chemistry lab now and stank as bad too. But he always liked it here. He always felt a sense of achievement in its narrow confines. It had taken him a long time to learn how to distil trichloroethylene, but when he had he was childishly pleased with himself. He remembered the first sniff of it – the pleasant light-headed feeling it gave him. He laughed too as he remembered his experiments with dosage. There were numerous rats in the house and he didn’t discourage their presence as they were useful for his experiments. He’d killed a few before he got the saturation levels in the wool right of course, but practice makes perfect.

This brought him up short. Excited as he was about the future, there was still the present to deal with. Now that the real Summer had returned, she was surplus to requirements and he just wanted her out. So, summoning his resolve, he unlocked the basement door and descended into the darkness.