Never one to normally blow his own trumpet, Alex nonetheless felt incredibly full of himself as he strode up to the Edwards’ house and knocked on the door. Inside, Ruby and Arthur had spent the last few days following the news about Alex’s miraculous walk-out of prison. Now, with that knock at the door, their tenuous bubble had just been burst. The blinds twitched as Alex knocked again.
‘There’s a crowd outside,’ Ruby whispered to Arthur from the window. He, sitting on the sofa, kept his eyes fixed on the TV.
‘I just don’t know what overcame me,’ the guard from the prison explained in an interview on the news. ‘I just cannot reason why we all stood aside and let him get out.’
‘Could it be he exerted some form of mind-control over you?’ asked Newsman Richard Hart.
‘It almost felt like I believed in him somehow, that he was doing it for me.’
Richard turned to the camera and, with the unerring devotion he’d paid to his craft for the last fifteen years, delivered in a monotonous fawn: ‘Something truly remarkable is unfolding in our country. Not so very long ago we had the televised suicide of Neville Jeffries, purporting to be following the word of Peter Smith and The Great Collective. Now, Alex – the man convicted of murdering our Prime Minister – claims to be a part of this Great Collective. What is it, and how might we all reap the benefits?’
‘I’ll just reap what I’ve sown, thank you very much,’ was Arthur’s response, ‘down on the allotment.’
Again the knock came at the door. Louder this time. ‘I know you’re in there,’ Alex called out.
‘Katie’s not here,’ Ruby yelled back. ‘Go away.’
‘I’m not here to see Katie.’
‘Well we don’t flippin’ well wanna see you,’ Arthur grunted.
‘Locks cannot stop me. Open up, and an expensive repair bill can be avoided.’
At this half-hearted attempt at menace, Arthur smelt the spending of money and so leapt to his feet and rushed to the door. He unlocked it and opened it slowly. Alex walked straight in, pushing Arthur aside, and locked the door behind him.
‘What do you want?’ Ruby fumed, pointing her finger at the young man.
‘Firstly, I want to apologise,’ he said sincerely, lowering his head and looking up at the gobsmacked couple. ‘I’m completely innocent, I never killed the Prime Minister.’
‘To be honest, we never believed you did,’ Arthur admitted, going to sit down again. ‘You always were a weak sort of lad,’ he carried on, putting his feet up on the sofa. Alex merely smiled at this.
‘It’s all a conspiracy, and I was the random fall guy they chose to stitch-up. People are beginning to believe that now.’ He moved to the window and briefly looked out at the gathering followers. ‘People are beginning to see that now. People are beginning to see that I speak the truth, that I can show them the way.’
‘And what way is that?’ Ruby wondered with frustration in her voice, ‘this hocus pocus malarkey they’re all spouting? The Great Collective and all that shit?’
‘It is not shit, Ruby,’ he replied. Ruby was a little surprised at this – after all, Alex had always addressed her as Mrs Edwards despite her encouragement to drop the formalities.
‘Well, you’ve apologised. You can go now,’ Ruby finished, taking hold of him and trying to march him to the door. He pulled himself from her grip and outstretched his hand, taking control of her body and making her step back. For a second she lost her breath, terrified at her loss of power. Arthur hadn’t seemed to notice.
‘I have one more thing to ask of you,’ Alex continued. ‘You people, my in-laws, once harboured Peter Smith in this very house.’
‘Yes,’ Ruby sighed. Arthur looked up and cleared his throat. ‘He spread his poison through my family, just like you’re trying to do now.’ She felt herself released from Alex’s ensconcing flow but remained fixed to the spot.
‘I am not here to spread poison – I am here to warn you of his return.’
‘Oh God no,’ Arthur lamented, ‘I thought we’d seen the last of him.’
‘You were wrong. He is back, and wants to destroy me.’
‘Destroy you? Why?’
‘I took his place in your family.’ Alex turned away from them, smiling. ‘I became what he never could – your surrogate son. He is raging with anger, sick with perversion. Surely you read that book he wrote, the one Neville died for?’
‘No,’ Ruby uttered, stepping closer to Alex. ‘But, they’re saying you are like Neville, a follower of that book, part of The Great Collective.’
‘That book is inconsequential – the ravings of a sick mind. I follow my own path, and want to spread only the truth.’
‘Which is?’ asked a confused Ruby, stepping yet closer to her son-in-law.
‘That there has been too much hurt in the world,’ he said quietly, turning to face his mother-in-law. ‘I was framed and put inside by the hatred of Peter Smith and his suicidal followers. His book is poison, Ruby, poison.’
‘You used to call me Mrs Edwards all the time.’
Alex moved in, arms outstretched, and hugged her. She embraced him. ‘I never had a family of my own. I’d call you Mother, if I could,’ he went on. Arthur stood up and rushed to the pair, joining in with the hugging. ‘Father,’ Alex whispered in his ear.
‘Katie has been so distant from us for so long,’ Ruby wept, her tears soaking into Alex’s t-shirt. ‘All we ever wanted was a loving child.’
‘I love you, Mum,’ Alex told her.
From then on, she was completely his.
* * *
See the sun shine, guzzle my wine.
Lost in big smoke, clearly confused.