6 January 2007
Today is epiphany day, says my diary. So a perfect day to share my epiphany. I know that is meant to happen at the end of a book. They taught me that much, in the classes, in Feltham. But why waste time? I know now what I must do.
Here it is: I must rape Adam.
Rape is such an ugly word. It will not be an ugly act. All I mean is, that Adam will not surrender to me willingly. So he must surrender unwillingly. Which, in the eyes of the world, is rape.
And the thing is, I must have him. When I wake up, it’s Adam. When I eat, it’s Adam. When I shower, when I walk, when I wank, when I work, when I sleep, and when I dream – particularly when I dream – it’s Adam.
Which means, it is my calling to be with him. Truly with him. As close as two people can ever possibly be.
I tried to explain that, with book two, but he wouldn’t hear me. He wasn’t open to me, then.
But he’ll have to be, now.
7 January 2007
Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam. ADAM, ADAM, ADAM, ADAM, ADAM.
8 January 2007
I apologise for yesterday. I was too excited to write anything other than what I felt.
Since then, I have made some better plans.
Much as I would like Adam to open his arms to me, to embrace me, to realise it is me, and to love me, I am not naïve. That is why I am using force. I will need a disguise, and an alibi. And a night when Helen is out.
Helen. She does not know how lucky she is. In her head, I bet it is like this:
CLOTHES SHOES BABY Adam CUPCAKES BABY
When really she should just devote all her thoughts to him.
Inside his head, I wonder what it is like. I wish it was:
DAN DAN DAN
but I suspect it is:
BONDS STOCKS SHARES FELTHAM HELEN BABY BONUS oh here’s Dan round for dinner.
What a waste.
9 January 2007
Shopping list:
Duct tape rolls x 2
Handcuffs
Gloves
Condoms (extra-strong)
Balaclava
Chloroform
Whisky
And yoghurt. I like yoghurt.
11 January 2007
B&Q don’t sell chloroform. Nor do Pets at Home, Superdrug or Boots.
But luckily I have found some on the Internet. I did not use my real name. I am not stupid. I used Luke.
12 January 2007
Helen goes out to paint flowers every Monday evening. She doesn’t paint the actual flowers. They already have colours on them. No, she paints them using oil on canvas. I bet she rubs her great big belly while she is doing it. She can probably hardly get close to the canvas – just flicks paint at it, all modern arty RUBBISH. Probably gets it in her hair and thinks it’s sexy. Rather than just dirty. And fake, on her already fake hair dye. Oh yes, I’ve seen the bottles, in that mouldy bathroom. She displayed some of it once, the art. I thought a child had drawn it. Except they can’t, from inside the womb, I’ve heard. I saw better pictures inside Feltham. Darker, maybe – literally, a full black wash, with maybe just some shadows on it – but better. More expressive.
Anyway, never mind whether her ‘art’ is any good. The point is, every Monday, there she is. Cycles. Even though she’s pregnant, she wobbles along on her bicycle – wobble, wobble, wobble, jelly on a bike.
Which means Adam is home alone.
17 January 2007
You cannot write every day, because sometimes things are too exciting to write. Although I know I must commit to this project, because I will want to look back later and cherish it. But today is exciting, because I watched a film and it gave me an idea. It was The Importance of Being Earnest. In that, there is a man with a sick friend near death in the countryside who always needs looking after when the man wants to have an excuse for being out of town. There are always lots of aunts, who it is universally acknowledged are all-powerful, and not to be challenged.
Therefore, I will have an aunt. She will be sick, and need visiting. For two weeks beforehand, I will go and care for her.
18 January 2007
I have asked work for three weeks’ compassionate leave to look after my aunt. It turns out she is called Belinda. They asked why three weeks. I said that her usual carer is in Spain. Belinda has advanced MS. It is very sad.
19 January 2007
Shopping list: three weeks’ supply of food, and an open return railway ticket to Bath. That is where Belinda lives. I must be consistent. But I mustn’t leave the house.
The chloroform arrived today.
21 January 2007
Imagine that moment, how complete, how sublime it will be. I will be so close to him, utterly at one. And the pleasure, of course, the ultimate excitement, the bliss that I will feel, so erect, so turned on, so
Later, 21 January 2007
Sorry, I had to stop writing. Got a bit carried away.
Visiting Adam tomorrow, to tell him I need to go away. I am bringing a cake too, because it’s Helen’s birthday. They trust me not to poison the cake, which is good of them. I am told it must be cooked properly because otherwise the Helen-Adam creation in her stomach will die. What a shame.
I told Helen I learnt to cook in Feltham. Adam began shaking his head at me. Helen took him for better or for worse (I know, I was there) but he is not prepared to share the worst with her. Feltham is our secret. And actually, it makes me feel much more positive about what I’m doing. Because Adam knew, with that girl, that she didn’t want him. But he said that we should just take her anyway. So I know that really he would approve of me doing what I’m doing. If it weren’t to him.
The recipe (for cake, not rape) is 4 eggs, 400g flour, 400g sugar, 400g margarine. No wonder pregnant women are so fat.
22 January 2007
I thought my heart would break today when I said goodbye to Adam. I told him I was leaving for three weeks to go to care for Aunt Belinda. He was very sad, too, but he hid it well. I told him I would call while I was gone. He told me not to worry about it, which is good of him. It was like Feltham all over again. I thought, when we arrived there, that we would always be together. During the first strip search, the initiation, I didn’t mind, my thoughts were elsewhere. They’re sure to put me and Adam together, I thought. And he won’t be able to try to give me his own space, like when I had to share his room, before his parents opened up the box room. I know he was only being considerate then, spending so much time out of the room, coming in after I’d gone to sleep, getting into his own bed without talking.
Yes, I thought, we will have our own little room. And I felt so happy. Too happy – the person strip-searching me cleared his throat several times about the extent of my happiness. I’d heard all about Feltham before I got there. Adam’s mother had told us, over breakfast, in tears. I knew its reputation. I knew we’d be locked up for maybe twenty-two hours a day if we’d been bad, and that we’d have to form our own gang to survive. Lie down with me, I would say one night, that we may become one flesh. That way, we’d be our own gang forever.
But it didn’t go like that, in Feltham. Our own rooms, not even next to each other. Heartbreak as they locked us in. Locked us apart. Adam was so brave. He managed not to cry.
When I got to Adam’s today, I found Helen had bought a cake from Louis Patisserie for her birthday, ‘just in case I forgot’. Bitch. I sat in the garden with her niece and some champagne, and a poison tongue. Helen started hinting towards the door early. I told her I was going anyway, because of Belinda. I showed her the train ticket. When the door shut, I heard Adam telling her not to be so harsh on me, I’m not that bad really. He had to tone it down: he couldn’t say, ‘that’s my best mate, be nice to him’, because Helen thinks she is his best mate. She said so, in her wedding speech. That is ridiculous, but it’s kind of Adam to humour her. At the wedding, he kissed her to shut her up. He could just have shoved all the taffeta into her mouth, like a gag. There was a lot of taffeta, and pearls, and violins, and chauffeurs, and men with matching waistcoats. Except me, of course. I didn’t match. Just sat and watched him, and all that money on display.
But anyway, enough of that. Because finally, it’s about doing, not watching. Two weeks today. Fifth February, I will live again.
23 January 2007
AD (Adam & Dan) minus 13 days.
I wish I hadn’t bought quite so much tinned tuna. It is not very tasty. And of course there is the danger of mercury poisoning. Tomorrow I will switch to spam and crisps.
24 January 2007
AD minus 12 days.
The doorbell rang today. I had to sit very still inside and not breathe. I don’t know who it was. But I wasn’t in.
Other things today: I am practising my technique. Not for that bit. That will come naturally. No, the disabling bit, with the chloroform. I am going to try it on myself to see if it works.
26 January 2007
AD minus 10 days.
Sorry for the gap. Chloroform works. But I think I used too much.
Also, spam lives up to its reputation. I will go back to tuna.
27 January 2007
AD -9.
Adam.
The perfect man, the ultimate sire.
Adam.
Friend of old, lover new.
Adam.
Two becomes one, I become you.
Adam.
Feel no pain, only desire.
Adam.
Dan.
Me.
You.
Us.
Now.
Yes.
28 January 2007
AD -8? About midnight, so not sure. At all, whether I should do it, any of it.
Because what if he knows it is me? I mean, he is not stupid. He knows how I feel about him; he’s read book two. He will know. And then I will go to prison, and he’ll get a restraining order, and he’ll never see me again. And I’ll get raped, all the time, because this will be big boys’ prison, with people who aren’t afraid of their sexuality, are old enough not to care what people say, not like Feltham.
I need to get Aunt Belinda to speak to Adam. That will do it. Then he will know it could not possibly be me, because I genuinely am here with my aunt. The day of the rape? No, too obvious. A couple of days before. I can call him, she can speak in the background.
I do a convincing falsetto. I’ll record it onto a tape. Then I’ll press play, while I’m on, muffled in the background, calling me back.
2 a.m.
But how will I get into the house without him knowing it is me? How will he not just pull off my balaclava and call the police?
4 a.m.
Pretend to be a motorbike-riding gas man. Wear a crash helmet over the balaclava. When he opens the door, come inside and use chloroform immediately.
Who would open the door to a man in a crash helmet?
I don’t even have a crash helmet.
Better use the spare key, then sneak in, wearing mask. He’ll be watching TV, on the sofa, back to the door. If he’s not, use the baseball bat. It won’t be fatal; I won’t hit him hard.
7 a.m.
Maybe I should just write him a love letter, tell him again how I feel. Maybe I can get him to consent. That would be simpler. Less risky.
Dear Adam, it would go,
We are two of the same. Feltham taught us that, and before Feltham, school.
Just the two of us, inseparable, remember how it was, before the others came along.
We could be like that again. Adam and Dan. Dan and Adam.
It is impossible for you not to love me. I love you so much, you see, that it must be reciprocated. You must no longer repress that feeling when we look into each other’s eyes, that shiver when I stroke your skin, that obsessional need to see you every day. You feed me your food and I feast on your love.
Lust, Adam, is even better. Taste the forbidden fruit. You know you want to. Kisssss me, snake your hands around me, twist yourself round my trunk and reach up to pick the fruits of your desire.
Allow me, let me, love you. As a favour to a friend. A one-off gift. Let me inside, just this once.
Adam?
No. There is nothing new there. I did not say it as expressly, in book two, which was more of a pamphlet, really. A proposal. After he proposed to Helen. But he got the idea, knew what it meant. And he rejected me. I need something bolder, this time.
30 January 2007
AD –6.
Today I watched some TV and ate some ice-cream from the tub.
The people on Jeremy Kyle abused each other. The people on Friends laughed at each other, and then the studio audience laughed at them. Then I laughed at me.
What will this possibly change? Adam will have been attained, once, only to be forever unobtainable. What is my goal? Where am I going with this? Why not find someone else, stop seeing Adam, get over him?
And there will not be enough food for two more weeks. And I am getting fat. Adam would find out it was me, with a belly, that would be too humiliating. No more ice-cream.
1 a.m.
That was a blip earlier. I know that now. Because I had a dream. And I want to write it down, so I have proof, in the future. In the dream, I was Jesus, or at least I must have been, because I was walking all over the water. And then I was both Jesus and sitting next to Jesus. And he said unto me, ‘My child, do not worry. For this is your calling, and you must have faith. It can move mountains, and it can take you to West Hampstead, and to happiness. And when you come unto Him, you shall be blessed, and He shall be blessed.’ And then he/me dipped his/my hand in a glass of blood, and he/me put it on my forehead and I had this moment of pure glorious vision and ecstatic wonder at the joy of creation that seemed to go on getting even more glorious by the moment until finally, finally, when I thought I could bear no more of it, Jesus touched me again and I exploded into glory.
I will need to change the sheets.
31 January 2007
AD -5.
I have been so happy today. I have the blessing of dream Jesus, and he is so totally right. This is definitely the right thing to do. And my God, I am looking forward to it now. I would pleasure myself but I want to save up the anticipation – less than a week to go. This is going to be the culmination of all it is to be me, the fulfilment of my desire, and of my existence hitherto. And, in fact, of Man’s existence. Because I am Man. And Adam is Man. So together we will be Man Plus. ++. Pie Jesu.
1 February 2007
Adam and Dan month, we salute thee!
AD –4.
Belinda is annoying me today. I would like to go out and get some fresh air but she is too ill. Instead, I had to stick my head out of the back window and breathe in some air. The window is too small and I nearly got stuck.
She is also annoying me because I cannot get her voice right when I try to record her.
All she needs to do is say, ‘Dan, Dan, where are you? Dan, I need you to come here, and help me.’
But she sounds too excited all the time, too manly.
I will try drinking some white wine and see if that helps.
2 February 2007
AD –3.
Belinda sounds a little bit drunk on the tape. But people slur their words when they have MS, too, right? Mum did. And MS is what Belinda has. Poor Belinda. But she won’t have anything in about ten days’ time – we’ll be rid of each other. And I’ll have a brand-new secret.
3 February 2007
AD -2.
I made the big call to Adam today. On my mobile, of course – otherwise he would know I wasn’t in Bath. Helen answered, which threw me, but she found Adam soon enough. I said I was calling for a break, after the demands of caring. Belinda would have been embarrassed about what I said, if she’d existed – about how I had to bathe her, and how she had bladder weakness and I had to mop up her urine and everything. He said he was cooking dinner. I said I would be doing that soon, too. Right on cue, once I pressed the tape-recorder button, and there was Belinda saying, ‘Dan, Dan, where are you, etc.,’ in the background. Adam reacted perfectly. ‘Sounds like you’re needed, mate. See you when you’re back.’ It was so hard, not telling him that he’d see me before then. Although, of course, the idea is that he won’t see me, when I’m there. But he’ll sure as hell feel me.
4 February 2007
AD –1.
I have my bag packed now. Some things won’t be in my bag. Like the chloroform – I’ll need that immediately. So it’s in my jacket pocket, with the tissues, and the balaclava. With the rest of it, I can take my time a bit.
In the bag, I have the other essentials, that I wish weren’t essential. Like the condoms. I am torn about those. I know they will stop me being as close to Adam as I would like. There will be a barrier, and the point of this exercise is to remove that barrier. But if he goes to the police, I don’t want them to have a sperm sample. Particularly if he suspects it was me. For he must never find out. I need to able to keep on seeing him. And if he knows (a) the police will lock me up; and (b) he will never speak to me again.
I wonder what it will feel like, being inside him. Apart from the glory, of course. But the physical bit. Will it hurt at all? Will I be able to get all the way in, at first? Perhaps I should have practised on somebody else first? But no: I will be coming to him pure, uncontaminated, not tainted by past experience. Fresh from the Garden.
I wonder if I should have got lubricant. I don’t want to hurt him. I think you’re meant to. Spit would not be a good option – too much DNA. I’ve looked in the fridge, and I don’t fancy using anything in there. Flora is not really a turn-on. Plus the condom pack says don’t use oil-based lubricants.
I’ll have to risk it. I’ll have to go into a petrol station, wearing the balaclava.
Hmm. Balaclava in a petrol station. Maybe not.
At night. I can go at night. They have those little hatches, then, don’t they? And I can wear a hat, and a scarf wrapped up round my face, so they can only see my eyes. Yes. I must do that now. For Adam.
!!!!! ADAY !!!!!! 1 a.m.
Here it is. Today is when I am in Adam. As close as close as we ever can be. And now I have the lubricant. An ordinary person would have been embarrassed buying it at a garage, shouting through a speaker with a queue behind them, ‘KY Jelly!’ But I am not ordinary. I have a vocation. And of course, the assistant serving me was either new or sexually dull or natural juicy because she did not know what it was. ‘Jelly?’ she repeated back at me. ‘We don’t have any jelly. Jelly babies?’ she offered. ‘No,’ I had to shout. ‘Lubricant, there!’ I pointed at the display behind her. ‘Ohhh,’ she said (which is probably the point of KY Jelly), seeing it next to the condoms. The person behind me in the queue told me to have a good night.
And I will, I will have a good night. Not quite yet. But in seventeen hours’ time I will put on my balaclava, pick up my bag – which before then I will pack and unpack and make sure all is in there – and I will get into the bus. Then I will get into Narcissus Road. Then I will get into the house. And then I will get into Adam.
3 p.m.
What if there is a technique? Should I have researched a technique? Should I have found a rent boy or a gigolo or an adventurer and found out how to do it? What if I get it wrong? You should practise. Practice makes perfect. I want to check my equipment, that it works, do a dry run with wet lube, but it’s too late now.
4 p.m.
The chloroform bottle was leaking. I’ve had to decant it into a thermos flask. Hopefully there will still be enough.
4.30 p.m.
What if he’s out?
What if he’s in?
6 p.m.
I can’t go through with this. He’ll know it’s me. He’ll find out. He’ll kill me. I’ll be dead in four hours.
R.I.P. Dan.
Here lies a man who tried but failed.
He wanted companionship but got death.
He was greedy. Friendship was not enough.
Destroyer of worlds, purveyor of pain.
May he rot outside God’s love.
God is Love. Adam is Love. Therefore God is Adam.
Oh.
I must serve Him.
7 p.m.
Now.
MIDNIGHT – I think, maybe – what is time?
OH MY LORD OH MY LORD IT IS DONE IT IS DONE!
BUT I CANNOT WRITE I AM TOO EUPHORIC TOO TERRIFIED TOO IN AWE TOO TRAUMATISED TOO TOO.
1 a.m.
Ha, but I must write because I understand now what this is, it is a quest and I have returned with the elixir, and I have been on this incredible journey and so I must write about the journey, like they said in Feltham. And before, before when I was worried it was the refusal of the call, but really I have been on an adventure worthy of Odysseus or Tom Jones or Luke Skywalker and what I must do is I must write it.
But I lived it, I lived it first and OH CHRIST OH ADAM I DID IT. THE CLOSENESS THE CLOSENESS. THE INHABITATION.
I just want to phone Adam and tell him all about it.
2 a.m. Every a.m. With memories.
I have taken off the gloves and the balaclava now so it is easier to write. So here it is. The hero’s journey. The triumph:
The ride on the bus was awkward. People look at you funnily when you have a baseball bat and a balaclava. I tucked the baseball bat into my rucksack but people could still see it. So I got off the bus and I walked instead. Which meant I was running late. I’d meant to arrive at 8 p.m., the perfect time between Helen going out and Adam coming in and settling down.
It was 8.30 p.m. by the time I got to Narcissus Road. Chloroform out. Bat out. A man with a dog walked passed on the other side of the street. I put the bat parallel to my leg, running stiff down the thigh he couldn’t see. He didn’t look at me. I carried on.
The house was all dark, except for light coming out of the living room. Curtains closed. Helen out, Adam in. I went over it in my head one more time: chloroform ready, open door, close it gently, bat raised, chloroform poised, see Adam on sofa, sneak up behind, chloroform over mouth. Go.
But Adam wasn’t on the sofa. I got in, I had my bat raised, the chloroform was ready. But he wasn’t there. I stood in the hallway outside the living room. What should I do? Should I stay, or should I go? Then I heard the downstairs toilet flush. The one coming off the hallway. Meaning he would see me if he came out.
I fumbled to open the front door again. Quickly, quickly, it would take him only a moment to wash his hands. I got out of the front door again and shut it behind me. I ducked down beneath the doors glass panes so he wouldn’t see me. What should I do? Should I go home, give in, or try again?
[Yes, I really was right – this is a quest, a true adventure story. Danger, peril all the way. But I wonder. Did I start wrong? Should I not have given away at the beginning that I got away with it? Maybe that spoils the tension. But no. This is not a thriller. It is art. I am the hero and it is through my eyes. In my eyes are glory.]
I waited. I waited and I waited and I waited. And he must now have been sitting down because it was prime-time TV and because Helen would be home in an hour and a half and I wouldn’t get any other opportunity.
So I put some more chloroform on a new tissue and raised my bat and opened the door again and listened. The TV spoke to me. Then so did Adam.
‘Hello?’ he shouted.
He must have heard the door.
The TV went silent.
‘Hello?’ he asked again, more quietly.
There was a big long pause. The living-room door was closed, so he would have to get up and open it to see the door. If he did, it would have to be the bat. Or I could run upstairs and hide. But when would I come down again? I might get stuck up there all night, in the bedroom with Adam and Helen.
Then the TV went on again. I started to exhale, then stopped myself. Noise was an enemy. I mustn’t draw attention to myself. I must be quiet.
Next came the creeping. I did not know I was such a skilful creeper. Plush carpets help, it is true. But my silent ninja creeping skills gave me a big advantage. Up to the living-room door. Quietly, quietly. Push it open. Softly, softly. There was my prize, sitting on the sofa, like I’d imagined. Adam. Here I am for you.
But they hadn’t invested in oil. No door lubricant. There was the faintest of creaks. I saw a small jerk in the back of Adam’s neck. I saw that neck start to swivel so that in a moment his head would move round and see the door and see me – and I PLUNGED! Leapt across the room, I did – super ninja able. And then BLAT! The tissue with the chloroform right over his mouth. He writhed and he struggled and he tried to look up at me but I held him firm until slowly, slowly, s l o w l y. He stopped.
I didn’t need the bat. Then. Which was good. Because if you try to stun God, you might kill Him. And then there is no Love.
Plus, I never meant to hurt him. That wasn’t the plan.
I think I’ll carry on writing this later. I’m starting to come down now.
I hope I didn’t hurt him.
3 a.m.
Should I be writing this exactly as I recall it? A searingly honest account of one man’s journey? Or should I write to please, to entertain: a valiant adventurer obtains his prize? Who can tell which would interest and audience more, be more lauded by posterity?
4 a.m.
The story is the truth, the truth is the story, and it is that word I must spread.
When I applied the chloroform I began to cry.
Adam went from Adam to a limp shell. All his Adamness exited him and only his exoskeleton remained. It made him almost dead. My pulse slackened in sympathy.
So I gave him the kiss of life, to sustain both of us. He did not respond, but I felt his body’s warmth. He was only hibernating. His winter was my spring. Limpness became malleability. I embraced it.
I thought about carrying him up to the bed, but being an (un)dead weight he would have been to heavy. Besides, that is his and Helen’s lair. They need to repair there, to schedule their passion. For us men, together, there is no need for a special room, a designated entry zone, a soft eiderdown. So I position him over the arm of a sofa and unzip my fly.
But that felt all wrong. I was anonymous to him, but not to me. This was not intended to be about barbarism. This was about closeness.
So I turned him over again and undressed him, head to toes. Or rather, neck to toes. Only I was wearing a hat. Each of his buttons I prised from its fastening, until I could smooth my gloved hand over that Adam torso, rub my balaclava-covered cheeks to his skin. Hairier than when we were boys. Even more Adam for me to enjoy. I ran my tongue down to his belly button. I stuck in my tongue and licked him out. Adam flakes went into my mouth and I swallowed them whole. Then I remembered about saliva and rubbed his torso down with my glove, to hide the traces, should he report my ‘crime’. But this is not a crime story, or a crime fact. It is an act of love. Of cherishing.
Next came the most cherished. Taking hold of his belt buckle, I fed the end of the belt through the clasp, unhooking the prong from its narrow hole. The belt fell away. I undid the trouser buttons, undid the zip, and pulled down.
I think I was expecting to see an erection. Instead, I got Danger Mouse boxer shorts. No matter. I would make up for what he lacked.
I pulled down Danger Mouse and saw the glory of Adam. For even flaccid, he was glorious. I’d seen him before, of course, in changing rooms, in the common room, in the shower. But you’re not supposed to stare. I bowed my head to kiss him.
And he stirred. Not his penis. That did nothing at the touch of my lips. But the rest of him. He was waking up.
Was it because he loved me? Was his subconscious forcing him to wake, to enjoy our moment? I couldn’t take the risk. I couldn’t be rejected by him, when I’d come that far. I reached round for the chloroform. My hand came across the bat instead. His eyelids flickered. I raised the bat and I hit him on the temple. His eyelids stopped flickering.
I sped up after that. There wasn’t time to apologise. I just had to get on with it. I pulled off his socks (also Danger Mouse) and turned him over. His buttocks (smooth, biteable, like apples) were raised on the arm of the sofa, waiting to receive me. My erection had released itself from my trousers. So I slid on the condom, applied the petrol station lube and was ready to go.
[For the film version, I will tell the director that I slid into Adam easily, that I knew exactly how to angle myself, and was in rhythmic, sphinctral ecstasy immediately. For now, here is the reality.]
I know where my anus is. I shit out of my anus everyday (or, to be honest, every two to three days). But on Adam, finding the exact opening, getting myself in there, was a challenge. It’s not that he was resistant. He was pretty chilled out about it, very relaxed. I just wish I’d brought a diagram. I finally got in (into ADAM!) – and yes, I know I should have been celebrating, but then there was new butt barrier and I couldn’t get any further. I could have wished that he would respond to my rhythm, repositioned himself a bit. But at least him being unconscious spared any embarrassment.
I tried a different angle, tried on tiptoes, and then finally I just pushed.
And I was in. I was fully part of Adam. Upward stroke – ADAM! Downward stroke – soon return to Adam. ADAM! Soon return. ADAM! Soon return. AD! Soon. AD! Soon. AD! AD! AAAAAADDDAAAAAM!
I pressed down on him and held him to me. But that wasn’t enough. After the closeness of euphoria, I wanted skin on skin. I pulled up my top and lay my nakedness on his nude back. I lifted my balaclava and nuzzled my cheek against his head, each precious follicle of his hair, following each golden strand as it tapered down his neck. I’ve never been that close to someone before – so close that I can count the hairs on the back of their neck. There are 172 on Adam.
I chatted to him a bit, quietly, so as not to wake him. I told him we would always be entwined like this, now. That even though his mind didn’t know our closeness, his body did. It would know I had penetrated his inner core, and it would remember.
When I withdrew from him, he bled. The pain of separation.
6 a.m.
Because it is painful. The being apart from someone. Not from someone. From him. When I’ve just been a part of him. Two jigsaw pieces separated, never to be together again, achieve that mutually perfecting fit.
I stroked him until I had to leave. I could not dress him again. It would be too much, to withdraw from myself his naked realness, to clad him again in his external armour.
So I would have to leave him, naked, on the sofa, for Helen to find him.
But that was to donate too much intimacy to her. She would see the scene that I had shared only with him. That moment would be tainted, broken – penetrated. Plus she would be sure to call the police if she found him like that. So I pulled the throw off the sofa, rolled him off the arm and into the body of the sofa. I put him in recovery position and then I covered him.
Goodbye, Adam, my Adam. I have a secret with you, your body has a secret with mine, but your mind need never know it.
8 February 2007
The worst thing about Feltham was leaving it.
It’s the same now.
10 February 2007
His parents wouldn’t let us speak. For ten months we’d been in the same unit, sharing a shower block, talking everyday(ish – I talked to him, even if he didn’t talk back). It was bliss. That’s when I first began to really understand how much we meant to each other. Then we were cast out into the world again and made to feel shame.
And then silence.
No communication.
Nothing.
Until I put that right.
11 February 2007
Why hasn’t he called? I am his best friend and he hasn’t phoned me to say he’s been raped.
Does he even know?
OH MY GOODNESS. Does he even know what’s happened to him?
Later
I thought we would at least be able to discuss his reaction to it. That I could share the experience with him again, through him telling me about it.
But what if he thought he was just stripped and put onto the sofa, and unrelatedly had – I don’t know – haemorrhoids?
I should have left him prone. That way, at least, someone would have known.
I have never felt so far away from him. If only my aunt would get better, I could go and see him.
12 February 2007
I nearly called him today.
Instead, I ate mouldy toast and thought.
13 February 2007
I know what this is. It’s the bit after the reward when the hero has to fight to keep it. I thought I’d returned with the elixir, but I don’t have it yet.
The elixir is in me. I have to win back the euphoria that I had, just after.
This afternoon, I tried various things. I masturbated, with some success. Then I looked at the picture of me and Adam from when we were little boys.
Then I phoned Adam and withheld my number.
After a few hellos, he put the phone down.
Am I glad I did it, the penetration?
Yes, yes I am glad. My skin is glad – it pimples with gladness, its pores all opening like a flower when it remembers the contact. My mind, though, mourns for the shoulder blades that my skin caressed. It mourns for the closeness, now lost, never achievable again.
Unless …
Could I?
14 February 2007, Valentine’s Day
I drew myself a card. It has a big red heart in the centre, with an arrow piercing it.
It’s not to Adam, it’s from him.
‘I need you, Dan’ it said inside.
Then I realised it was mocking me, so I burnt it.
I’m beginning to think, though, that I could. Get that close again. Now I’ve done it once, where’s the harm?
15 February 2007
I found the harm. Adam phoned.
At first, it wasn’t clear why he was calling. I’m sure he might have made it clear. But all I could hear was the fact of his voice, even when he wasn’t speaking. The interaction, him saying my name, was divinely deafening. It drowned out his actual words.
Then I focused and found he was asking about my aunt. He has just been raped and he asks about my aunt. Such a good friend.
I told him she was stabilising again and it would soon be time to come home.
‘Something’s happened,’ he said.
‘Oh, what? Nothing bad, I hope,’ I replied.
‘There was a break-in,’ he said.
‘To the house?’ I asked.
There was a long pause. I had to say his name again to make him respond. Then he said: ‘No, to me.’
And he began to cry.
I heard Helen’s voice in the background. I heard him swear.
Then he hung up.
I tried calling again, but the line said it was engaged. I couldn’t get through all day. It was probably Helen stopping him. She probably thought she was doing him a good turn. But his instinct to call me was right – I am the one he needs to be close to. His body is calling out for me.
He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t realise. But he KNOWS.
And I wish I could comfort him. Because it would be a comfort, to know it was me, not some madman, who did it. He thinks it was a ‘rape’ rape, not a love rape. There was no violation, no violence. Not really. The bat was not sexual violence, it was just a necessity.
And now I have hope again. There will be more conversations. We can keep that part of us alive. If Helen doesn’t stop us. Perhaps I can stop her stopping us.
Because if I can’t have Adam that way because it hurts him, how else do I get that close to him again?
16 February 2007
Adam was more matter of fact when he phoned today. He had points he wanted to make:
By the end of the call he was shouting.
Helen will want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk to her about it. I can imagine, going over to dinner, not talking about things. She will give Adam ‘secret’ looks of love and understanding. She will caress his hand. She will stroke her belly. She will do everything to mark her territory, to show how much she is loved, how life can go on happily. Her eyes will twinkle as much as her jewellery but after dinner she will refuse to put out because she doesn’t want to hurt the baby. Instead, she will spend time online adding silver-plated items to the dream Christening gift-list that only she can afford to buy.
I know, because Adam once told me. Then he told me to forget it. But I remember everything Adam says. It’s his testament to the world, and my truth.
So Helen will have to be endured, I suppose. For now. Until I can find some better use for her. It’s too early for that to make it into the story, I haven’t worked it out yet. But I can see how there might be a plan.
17 February 2007
Tell her about Feltham? No. That would betray Adam’s secrets.
Tell her Adam is in love with someone else? No. He would deny it.
Haunt her every move? Restraining order.
Burn down my house, move in with them? Risky.
Sleep with her?
Kill her?
Sleep with her. Be in her, where Adam has been. Then kill her, so he won’t be there again.
But am I a killer?
18 February 2007
I could be. Couldn’t I? For Adam. I could be anything for Adam. I wasn’t a rapist, until two weeks ago. Just a sexual assaulter. I’ve progressed. What Adam started, I’ve continued, for him – from his teachings, shall we reap the reward.
The only problem is – what if he loves her? Or even thinks he loves her? And what of the child? He might want the child. I should not rob the world of more Adams. His gene is sure to be stronger than Helen’s – he, the superman, will triumph.
If she doesn’t hold him back.
I should help. Release him.
19 February 2007
A miracle.
I’ve done it.
Closeness, always.
Or just this: Helen is dead.
Rejoice!
Adam is wifeless.
Rejoice!
It was confirmed at 3 a.m. this morning. Adam called me from the hospital. The car hit her when she was on her way back from her oil-painting class. It didn’t stop. She was left as a blur of reds and browns. So I hear.
They say that on the phone, you can tell if someone is smiling. I tried to frown. I don’t know if Adam was convinced.
He should have been smiling too, for he is released.
Because this means: Adam and me for always. Like it always used to be, like it was meant to be. The queen is out of the castle.
It’s like the ‘rape’ consummated our union. I made this happen, I did it, with the power of my love. This, you see, this is the elixir I was talking about. No reason to stop with the reward of last week’s adventure. Now, I am eternally blessed. I will console Adam with myself – and I know, now, he will take me. His life, our lives are transformed by this release.
Not like when we got out of Feltham. This release will bring us as closest as closest as closest can be.
A shame about the baby? Maybe. But one Adam is enough for my world.
My aunt is well again. I can return.
23 February 2007
I didn’t expect the police to be so interested in my return.
But apparently, they always look at those closest to the deceased first in cases of hit and run. I told them that Helen and I were not close. So they asked if I hated her. I wasn’t about to tell them the truth. Besides, it is not Helen that I hated. Just her closeness to Adam. Before I could even go round and visit Adam for a drink, the police were at my door, wanting me to help them with their inquiries.
Adam was the first on the list, of course. He had a pretty solid alibi – out partying with colleagues, photos all over Facebook. Being with my aunt wasn’t such a good excuse. Particularly when they wanted her address. I asked if they were seriously going to trouble an old lady with MS, given it would take her about an hour to get to the door. I’d just got her rested and a bit better again, I said. I didn’t want them troubling her. They asked if they could call her. I said she didn’t have a phone.
Besides, I said, what is my motive here?
They couldn’t answer that.
The lawyer that Adam had given me asked if they were going to charge me. I thought that was a bit bold. They could easily have said ‘yes’. But they let me go. ‘For the time being.’
I went out for a drink with Adam and the lawyer afterwards to celebrate. At least, I was celebrating. Maybe they weren’t. There was a lot of talk of funerals and what music they should choose. Adam looked like he might cry, but he didn’t. In fact, I haven’t seen him cry yet, not since I heard him, on the phone, after my visit. He had red rims round his eyes though, like there had been tears. I wish the lawyer hadn’t been there. I need to seize these few days with Adam, while he is accessible in his grief, so that he remembers I am the one who will replace Helen. He perhaps felt that when I hugged him. But he moved away when I stroked his arm, while we were talking. Probably just because the lawyer was there, though. For the sake of appearances. Instead, I just had to hold tight to the memory of touching him. I touched my own arm, under the table, and remembered his skin. I’ve been remembering it all evening. Hopefully, soon, when we meet without the lawyer, I can feel it anew.
I don’t think it’s the last I’ll see of the police. The problem is, the car that hit her was one from our garage.
26 February 2007
One of them – DC Pearce – is obsessed with me. I see him looking at me all day. Even when I am in the backroom, and he is out the front, supervising one of the uniformed people in carrying away our files and copying our computer drives, I know he is watching me through the door. He has worked very hard on designing himself. If he stepped into a cartoon called ‘The fat, balding, cigar smoking yet dangerous detective’ then he would already be perfect. No one would need to re-illustrate him. He reminds me of the Agatha Christie books we read at Feltham, that one week, before they realised that the subject matter probably wasn’t appropriate, and that the cosy drawing rooms were probably depressing people. So then we got stuck with Anne of Green Gables instead.
To annoy DC Pearce, I stare right back at him. Through the door, through the window, even when I am back home I stare at him in my mind.
I think he thinks he will intimidate me into a confession.
But where is the crime here?
27 February 2007
DC Pearce was even at the funeral. Not visibly, of course. But I know what they do, the police. I’ve seen the films.
First, they lurk at the back of the church. So all the time during the service, when I was sitting at the front with Adam, I knew we were being watched. I stopped myself holding his hand, like when Dad died, although I did pat his thigh when he made an exploding noise like a suppressed sob. The readings were made real to me again, like at that earlier funeral, by the replacement of ‘Christ’ with ‘Adam’. Or just He. When Dad died, and God left with him, the vicar told me directly in the funeral sermon that ‘He will guide us, our saviour, our all’. I knew he was right. Adam was my saviour, now I’d lost my father on earth and on high. I realised it, that day, in church. But the vicar was wrong about us all sharing Adam. He was just mine. At Helen’s funeral today, the vicar knew about Adam too. ‘He will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death,’ he said. And, ‘For to me, to live is Adam and to die is gain.’ I forgot about DC Pearce for a while. But then Adam read a piece straight to me, about sheep and staffs and anointing him with oil when we are sitting down with his enemies. I tried to deter him from sending me messages when DC Pearce was watching, but he ignored my mouthed warnings and continued. I could feel DC Pearce writing notes at the back. He must have been hiding behind one of the pews at that point, so that Adam couldn’t see him.
I know their tricks outside, too. They stand on the edge of graveyards, watching, waiting for the culprit to do something that will give them away. I tried to throw the earth in the least triumphant way possible. That took a lot of self-control, but my back was prickling with his eyes so I had to. Adam didn’t know we were being watched, so I told him. He looked round to see. He is so naïve and uncorrupted. I told him that looking was a waste of time, that the watchers were hidden, and that the thing to do was just look innocent. He said he was innocent. I said we all, really. But he got the message, because he looked down gravely at the earth, and didn’t look up again until all the ground was filled in. I did the same. I wanted to make sure Helen was well and truly buried.
After the funeral we went into the rose garden, me and Adam alone. I kept a respectful distance behind him as he went in, but I knew he wanted me there, because when I finally closed the distance between us, he was smiling. He said he wanted a moment alone, before it was time for the wake. It’s a good phrase, wake, in these circumstances, when it is Adam’s time to be awoken. I told him that, in the garden. He didn’t hear me, because he carried on fingering a rose. They weren’t very good roses – more thorn than flower. Like Helen. Adam didn’t hear that either. So I took his hand and told him he was not alone. He slapped me on the back and told me he was grateful. Then he said we should go and get awoken. He laughed as he said it, like it was a joke, but we both know how serious it is, for us, for our future.
I knew too that he was thinking back to my parents’ funerals, Mum’s first, then Dad’s. To the time afterwards, when I went back to his house with him and his parents, when we knew I’d be staying there, for a while. I wanted to suggest that I could now reciprocate, that he could come and live with me. Or I could come and live with him. But that either way, he wouldn’t be alone. I knew he knew that offer was there, if he wanted it, though, so I didn’t need to voice it. And then wouldn’t have been the time.
At the wake I kept my distance from Adam, so that DC Pearce wouldn’t suspect. That’s a mistake novices make at funerals – if they’ve been having an affair and murdered the spouse so they can be together, they send each other bright-eyed looks when they think no one is looking. Then they disappear into the bathrooms and fuck each other. When they get out of the cubicle, they find the police there, and suddenly the game is up.
So instead, I spoke to a boring girl in a red beret that made her look like a fat pixie, while we ate lobster quiche. I think her name was Nicole. We didn’t talk for the whole wake, because she vanished for a bit, but then I spotted her again with Adam a little while later, without her beret, so I waved. Neither of them waved back. I moved onto the beetroot crisps, alone. Save for DC Pearce, of course.
28 29 February 2007
No, it’s not a leap year. But I wanted a secret, hidden day, an extra day, for Adam.
[Should I really be calling it a secret day? Won’t that put readers off, when this is published as my story? No. No I think they will like it. A sense of discovery. They are real voyeurs, these readers, and I am their agent of provocation.]
So here, in this window between time, this day of my creation, I am thinking back over some other, hidden moments, that are just our own.
- The time in Mr Hughes’ maths class when Mr Hughes made fun of the answer I’d written on the blackboard, and while I was up there embarrassed and ashamed at being exposed as stupid, Adam caught my eye and rolled his eyes in the direction of Mr Hughes. Suddenly I knew that I was protected. It was much better than a public display of support because it meant I had the courage then to stand up for myself. I told Mr Hughes what I thought of him, and I got detention, but it didn’t matter, because Adam was there with me. In spirit.
- The time I went round to his house, before I started living there, and his mum showed me up to his room, and I asked what he was up to. He said he’d been having a wank, and I was welcome to grab my own magazine and sit in the corner with it, if I wanted, but really it was a private activity. So I did what he said. Adam himself didn’t masturbate, but he was probably tired. He just looked at me. Everyone at school was really pleased for me when they found out, because they kept coming up to me and asking, ‘So you really went over to Adam’s house and wanked in a corner?’ Then they laughed unreservedly when I said I had. They sat next to me at lunch, and everything, asking me questions. Adam let me have my moment of glory, and didn’t try to sit next to me. That was fine. I knew we’d have more private moments. I guess this is a more public moment, less secret, but nobody was in the room with us. They didn’t know the atmosphere. He told everyone in our residential unit about in Feltham too, once, the night I had the worst beating. It was only an hour before we were due to be locked up. None of the wardens noticed because Marco and his gang didn’t touch my face. That night, Adam had to hug me with my hands. I enfolded myself in his arms, although he wasn’t physically there in my cell with me. No one was. He kept me from the precipice. I have him to thank.
- Adam’s birthday in Feltham. I made him a card, and I signed up for cookery so I could bake him a cake. Marco’s crew called me lots of names I’d never heard of, but he ate a piece, when they weren’t watching, and said it was all right.
- My birthday in Feltham. Adam remembered, which was sweet of him.
- The night before Adam started his first job. I knew he would be nervous, so I went over there to calm him down. He didn’t have the big house in West Hampstead, then – that came when he started living with Helen. He was just living in a grotty basement flat in Streatham. We bonded while I ironed his shirt for him. The iron made a hole in it, but it wasn’t even big enough to put a finger through, plus it was hidden when you put a jacket on. Adam didn’t make a fuss. He said he knew I was trying to help. He needed his sleep, though (lots of it – it was only 8 p.m. when he started yawning) so I left him to it, went back to the car wash, for the night shift.
- The day I told Adam I’d moved to North London. I know he really appreciate being told that, despite moving in with Helen, he wouldn’t lose my friendship, because he went silent. At some moments, there is just so much emotion that you can’t speak. I stayed on the phone, silently communing with him, until he felt ready to hang up.
- And of course, our biggest secret moment yet. The one so secret, that Adam doesn’t even know we shared it. And he must never know we shared it. He must think we have come together naturally, not know I was the one who made him cry. [I’ll need to edit before I send this book to publishers. Somehow, he mustn’t know it’s him. Or maybe, maybe this book is secret too, always. A shared moment in time with Adam. Do I want to publicise it? It would be hugely successful, I know that: but what price sharing our lives in that way? What of the retribution, the loss of friendship? Perhaps, by then, we will be so close, and I will be so acclaimed, that he will brush it off, as we lie next to each other, in the rose garden. Or more likely, not. Perhaps publish another book first.]
So many more moments to come, now that Helen is gone. Adam will be so grateful, to have me.
1 March 2007
Spring. Hope. Birth. Death gone, only living. Apparently.
2 March 2007
I’ve been wondering whether I should have a book launch. Not for this book, necessarily, which has already had its launch, in the event itself with Adam. And I suppose book two already had its anti-launch, with Adam and Helen’s wedding. But book four, whatever that is, that needs some kind of exciting launch event. Some kind of gathering. Adam will need to be there, of course, to see my glory, to know I am worthy of him. I’m not sure who else. My publisher, yes, whoever that will be.
Parties are so difficult though. I have not had one for over twenty years. Mum and Dad tried, when they were both still alive, when I was eleven. They put in a lot of effort. Even though Mum was already ill, she did hand-made invitations (a bit shaky), sent them round the class list I drew up for her, and I took them in to give them to my class mates. Everyone was so pleased to see them – they grinned and whispered to each other in delight.
The day of the party, Dad blew up balloons and tied them to chairs. Mum baked a cake. I made a ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ game. Then we sat there, in a line, facing the door. At 3.30, Mum said it was early yet. At 4 p.m., Dad said that people often take a relaxed view of timings, and they were probably still wrapping up my presents. At 5 p.m., Dad leant across from his chair and ruffled my hair. ‘We love you, son,’ he said, as if that was ever in question. Then at 5.30, he had to leave the chair to hug Mum who was crying. Dad didn’t cry. Or rather, the moistness in his eyes didn’t escape. It only started escaping after Mum died. Then it never stopped escaping, until he did. Later on, after there would definitely be no party, I found the cake in the bin. Wasted, when it was still fresh. Tucking me into bed that night, Mum told me as she did every night, after a story about the disciples, that it was important to remember that God loved me, and that God is love. The fact she protested so much should have been my first clue that belief in that particular deity was misguided.
If I had a book launch, I worry it would go the way of that party. Me sitting on a chair facing the door, waiting. Like Feltham all over again. And this time, unlike the last party, Mum and Dad wouldn’t be there either. Just me and piles and piles of books and a cake.
But, no, this is stupid. I’m forgetting the main thing. Actually, no – TWO main things. First, my books when they are published, when they find their proper audience, will form a profound and moving account of a brilliant man (Adam), drawn by an honest and skilful narrator (me). They will change the world and my world will change to include Adam’s reverence. Second, the party wasn’t really a disaster. Not when you remember the reason behind it. Adam had organised his own party on the same day. He’d just somehow forgotten to invite me. It was to be a surprise party. He was really embarrassed about it, I know, because he couldn’t tell me himself. I heard from someone else, afterwards. They asked how my party was, then began laughing. When I said it was fine, they laughed even harder. Then Adam came along and they all shouted, ‘Adam, Adam, tell him about YOUR party.’ He smiled slightly and said, ‘Yeah, sorry, mate.’ Then they all went away, still laughing. All the way through English they were still laughing, the rest of them. They laughed as they handed me notes that said, ‘Loser.’ They laughed as I got sent out of class for disrupting my fellow pupils. So nobody ever told me about the surprise party bit. I worked that out for myself, as I stood outside in the corridor, alone.
5 March 2007
Too busy at work, what with Jimmy leaving, and DC Pearce always there. Pearce has left a video camera, I know it, to spy on us. I just can’t see it – he’s too clever for that. Or at least he thinks he’s clever. He thinks that the cigar smoke he surrounds himself with is like a fog of wisdom, giving him strength, that the spare tyre of doughnuts round his waist keeps him afloat, when really it just makes him piggly ignorant.
But outside work, there is living to be done. I went to mine and Adam’s local. Or rather, the pub I know he likes, in Hampstead – the Garden Gate. I had a feeling he would be there. He wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. I had a pint with him anyway.
7 March 2007
Tonight I went to the pub with physical Adam. You know, bar stools are great. Because you can sit so close up together, and your legs touch, but it’s okay, because you’re at the bar. Stayed at the bar ages and ages and Adam said such deep things. He told me that when you love someone, the world ends when they die. He said that when you love someone with your whole heart, there is nothing left of you to give. He said it’s like being in the grave with them, when they die. I’ve heard people say all those things before, like they’ve all learnt to say them, but with Adam you could tell they all came from the heart. Even more than it did with Dad.
I gave Adam my advice.
It’s possible that I shouldn’t have done. But, you know, what with the bar stools, and the shandy, I felt liberated.
So I told him this: love your friends as you have loved your wife. See them not as friends but as you life’s true companions. Hold them dear to your heart and soon that heart will mend, with them ingrained.
He said I should be a poet.
I needed him to know it wasn’t just lyrical fancy. So I did that thing with my little finger, where you crook it and get the other person to crook their little finger in your crook, like a friendly version of a lobster fight. I tried it once on him when we were kids, because my mother used to do it with me, but he wouldn’t then. And he wouldn’t now. At least not at first. I kept my finger crooked for him, all evening, though, in case he wanted it. Just when I thought he was rejecting it, was about to lower my finger, he raised his little finger and crooked it within mine. Very briefly, but long enough for me to understand.
‘We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we, mate?’ he said.
So much.
‘After, you know, the break-in, and after Helen, I need a mate like you. In my grief, over Helen, you know. We always need to protect each other, don’t we? Be there for each other?’
And I thought: This is it. This is where he says he wants me to protect him for always, and I should move in with him so we can be permanently together.
But he didn’t.
So I did.
And he laughed. Said he didn’t want us cramping each other’s style with the ladies, once he has got over his grief, if he ever feels that way again. And the conversation moved on, to work, to cars, to movies. And Adam spotted a table that had become free, so we surrendered our lovely bar stools and moved.
I’m beginning to wonder if he has read book two at all.
8 March 2007
The thing with Adam is that one minute you can be the centre of his universe, and the next you are not even in his solar system. He spins far, far away and doesn’t return your texts or calls.
Maybe he is coming to terms with having turned down my offer to loive with him.
Maybe he is rereading book two.
I need to confront him about that.
10 March 2007
Texted Adam to see if he wanted a drink. He didn’t reply so I went over to his house anyway. He wasn’t in. I considered letting myself in, to wait for him, but it’s too soon after my last visit. His brain might connect the dots. So instead, I just sat outside.
He didn’t come home all night.
I had to go straight into work from there this morning.
He still hadn’t replied to my text by this evening. And he still wasn’t home tonight.
I came home to sleep in my bed. Otherwise, when I do see him again, I will look abysmal. But I am worried. Where is my shepherd?
11 March 2007
Perhaps I should call the police?
Perhaps he is with the police?
Perhaps I should call the lawyer.
Apparently the lawyer is out of the office on business. That is not very helpful.
I tried calling Adam’s office too. Apparently he is on compassionate leave. They uncompassionately said that it was none of their concern if he was not at home – he wasn’t due back until the next day. He’d just buried his wife, they told me, like I was a stranger to him. Still, they are not to understand our closeness.
12 March 2007
Adam has resurfaced.
A taxi deposited him at his house, tonight, with another person. A she person. Probably a colleague, having a quick drink after working late. She went into the house too, then the taxi lurched away.
They did not see me.
I rang the doorbell.
They did not hear me.
I did not wait around. I just wanted to know that he was safe.
13 March 2007
But is he safe? Adam should be worried about gold diggers. He is a rich man, now. The house on Narcissus Road is worth a lot of money. When I first moved to London, I looked at the estate agents’ windows round there to see what I could afford to move into, with the money still left from my parents. There was nothing less than half a million pounds. So I came to the North Circular. Closer than I could be, still too far away. Particularly when he is ignoring me. I texted him again about book two. He still hasn’t replied.
14 March 2007
‘Do not abandon your flock, my Lord!’
I bet he never got a text like that before. Let’s see what he says.
15 March 2007
Five-star review! From Adam!
He has definitely read book two, because he said in his text: ‘Yeah, sorry never said – was really brilliant. You should definitely get it published. Five stars from me! See you later. A.’
So he rates it! He has read book two, and he rates it. True, no detailed analysis, but it doesn’t need that. The love and the passion and the longing and the need for togetherness – he has read it and he rates it. Which means he rates me, and he wants me. For all those years with Helen, and he’d read book two and he wants me. All this stuff about the grief after the funeral, and the ‘break-in’, that was just his guilt, his feeling of duty to Helen, and his distress that the first man to enter him was not me but an anonymous rapist. But I will tell him that it was, and then he will be so pleased, and I will be so pleased, and we will be pleased together, for always.
And the ‘see you later’ – that is definitely an invitation to come over. I will take champagne and caviar and little smoked salmon and lobster things from somewhere posh, like Tesco, and we will celebrate.
Hallelujah!
10 p.m.
Judas! Judas, Judas, Judas.
16 March 2007, 2 a.m.
You can’t do that to people, Lord Adam. You cannot! They do not deserve it; they don’t deserve the cruelty and the destroyed hope. They put faith in you and you desert them. They follow you, your bloody rod and staff, and they come like little sheep calling when you ask them to, when you say ‘See you later’. But then you turn round to them and you say – no, no, the gates are still shut to you, get out of my garden, I have another visitor and she – SHE – is the one I have chosen to be with me here this evening but you can come round another night, okay, and we’ll watch a film?
You just can’t say that to people. They don’t want films and wine, even if it’s made of your bloody holy sperm itself. They just want to believe, that when they believe, you will deliver.
I started this evening thinking that my life was our life and that now I had arrived into bliss but when I saw that kiss that you planted upon the lips of that HER of that SHE, then I knew that all was lies, that book two sat unread, that you know nothing nothing of me and with the third nothing of the cock crowing I will be without you always here forever alone.
17 March 2007
Nothing.
18 March 2007
Nothing.
19 March 2007
Nothing. But you won’t even give me nothing because my flesh is too weak for the blade to be strong on my wrist and instead I have everything. I have breathing and sight and smell and hearing and touch and all of these I would have used for you. But instead all I can see is red red red red of that beret, of that bloody pixie-whore, jezebel, witch Nicole.
20 March 2007
Work keep calling. They say if I don’t go in, or report sick, I will be fired.
I considered calling back to say I am in the fires of hell, as all without Adam is hell, but they would not understand.
So instead I told them I am sick.
Am I sick? Is this a sickness? The fever of without-Adamness, of being in the shadows with no sun upon me, no light of hope?
Am I in a wilderness now, blind and searching for some other love?
Is this a test of faith?
Have I let him down, my Adam? Or has he let me down? Are we together down and out and relegated to eternal nothingness?
21 March 2007
A double-date! A double-date! Adam asked me to go on a double-date with him and the pixie-cunt. Why does he pretend like this? Why does he not acknowledge our relationship? Why would there be a girl, or anyone, with whom I would sit and flirt in front of Adam? It’s just unthinkable. Who does he think it would be? Some online dating pick-up, some biological-clock-ticking desperado, cleavage low, hemline high, sucking suggestively on the straw of a too-pink cocktail? She would sit, pressing her voluptuous thigh against me under the table, laughing overloud at my non-jokes, leaning her elbow on the table and tilting her head in such a way as Adam and the pixie were excluded from sight. And I can just imagine, Adam in his cruel attempts to be kind, to make sure I am fixed up with the same pretend girlfriend that he has, winking at me over the table. Saying ‘Get a room’ when we are not even kissing. But I would not tolerate it. I would take the cocktail and I would smash the glass over her head and I would turn the chair and I would shove the straw up into her too-pink vagina. And I’d say to Adam: That’s what you like, is it? That’s what you claim you like? Go on then, be my guest, just drink away. And then I would leave, I would leave our treacherous, filthy double-date and I would refuse, I would refuse to see Adam ever again. I would just live in darkness in this room and even if he came to find me and he knocked on all the windows and all the doors and I wouldn’t let him in. However much I wanted to.
But maybe he means a different sort of double-date? The sort where he is there with double-intent, or to serve a double-function? The pixie will think he is there just for her, when really he is there for me.
I read his text again. No. It is plain. He means the wrong sort of double-date. I delete it. I delete him. He is gone.
21 March 2007
No, he is not gone; he is back here, in my head, as always.
He owes me an explanation, at least. He needs to explain how one minute he promised me everything and the next he was in a pixie cunt. And how he expected to join me in his ridiculous farce.
Perhaps there is some logical rationale here.
I shall go and see him and ask him to explain.
22 March 2007
So I went, and I understand now.
We are playing the long game.
When I got there, he and red-beret (who I must learn to call Nicole) were sitting down with a bottle of wine. They invited me in and I shared a glass.
I asked to speak to Adam alone. Nicole took herself off to the bathroom.
Although it was my turn to speak, Adam took control.
‘Don’t judge me,’ he said. ‘I know you’re surprised, I know it’s soon, I know I should have introduced you properly. Nicole and I are together now. I know it’s odd, in Helen’s house. But please try to accept that. After the break-in, everything, my grief over Helen, I need her now. You’ll always be welcome here, too. The double-date thing, it was just an olive branch.’
It took me a moment to understand. But then, because he smiled at me, and the sapphire eyes sparked, and I understood. For now (and only now), he is with Nicole. He is playing the long game. But I am welcome ‘always’. I am his eternal companion. It is my opinion he values. It is us who will be together in the end.
When Nicole came back, the three of us sat on the sofa together. We spoke of many things, including how Nicole wanted Adam to go to the police about the break-in, and how he didn’t want to talk about it, and he broke the wine glass because she wouldn’t be quiet and I had to leave, in person. But I will always be there with them, in spirit, sometimes in person, as long as there is a Nicole. When she goes, spirit and person will be reunited again.
There are some things I cannot tell him, if I want to be in that game with him. Above all, I cannot tell him I broke into him. He still (wrongly) thinks that was a violation. He still (wrongly) cannot tell me that he loves me. But there are some truths too:
And so book three ends. Maybe Nicole didn’t read it all, maybe she doesn’t know all, just started, and got interrupted, then stopped. Doesn’t know about the break-in reality.
But no, wait – that is not the end, now, of book three.
For there is some handwriting, not mine, not Luke’s. Hers. Nicole’s. She must have added it just now.
It says:
If you didn’t kill Helen, who did?