TWO TWO THE LILY WHITE BOYS CLOTHED ALL IN GREEN O
ONE IS ONE AND ALL ALONE AND EVER MORE SHALL BE SO.
When I was five I ran to my mother crying, saying the man in the blue coat had shot me. On my chest, over my heart, there is a birthmark which looks like a bullet hole. The dream had seemed so real. Mother comforted me and sang to me and put me back to bed and I returned to sleep.
When I dreamed of the man in the blue coat again his coat was black and he drowned me in the sea.
Mother took me to a child psychologist. She listened to me and told my mother that I had a vivid imagination and that these night terrors would cease as I grew up. They didn’t, but I stopped telling people about them. They didn’t understand. These lucid dreams felt like memory. And in each one, through time, I was either the killer or the killed. I was never maimed or just injured. If I was to die at the hands of my rival, I always died. If I tried to kill him, he died. And several times, I was hanged for murdering him. I didn’t understand why I hated him so much, what I wanted, until puberty hit me like an express train. We were rivals for the love of a dark haired woman. I loved her more than life itself. The pale man was my rival for her love, so he had to die. I had to have her and I would kill to get her. And, in front of my sickened gaze, over again, I did. Over and over again.
I looked at the time line. The earliest dream I can remember was in Egypt. Ancient Egypt. I drove a spear through his throat and laughed as blood fountained up into my face. Perhaps this was an Egyptian curse. They were very good at curses. I didn’t get caught that time. But I could not recall any detail of my life with the woman. I did not know if she returned my love. I could not remember a look, an embrace, a kiss. But each time, I killed to gain her.
In life I turned away from the love of women, in which I had never been much interested; it was perilous. I scrutinised every woman I met – was she the one who would turn me into a murderer? Or the victim? I resolved that this time, I would be prepared. I would not topple into this hellish snare. And I would not fall in love. Ever.
So when I did it came as a complete surprise. I needed a room in a share house. My scholarship and my job in the pizza shop didn’t pay enough for me to have a flat of my own. I hauled my few possessions – mostly books – to the address and found two people living there. I remember that I dropped my heaviest text, Fleming on Torts, on my foot when I saw her.
Her name was Marguerite. She was short, plump and dark. I adored her instantly. Without sense, without logic, without hope: for my Marguerite was living in this house with her boyfriend, Andy. I hated him on sight. I realised that one day I would kill him, or he would kill me. It was insane. The only thing to do was run.
But my predecessors had probably tried that. The curse must just lurk in the ether to arise in the next generation. They must have tried locking themselves in monasteries or committing suicide. I had to find another solution. I took Marguerite’s hand, fought down the urge to bow and kiss it, and said hi to Andy. Something had to be done about this. I would move in, keep away from sharp and/or heavy blunt objects, and observe.
The first thing I noticed was that they did not seem very happy. Ungrateful man – he had the love of my life, and he quarrelled with her! He called her fat, she called him stupid. Yet once, when I came too close to her when doing the washing-up, he actually growled like a dog, lip lifting to show his canine teeth. I flinched. Just so had he looked when he stabbed me to death in Elizabethan times; for love of the dark lady.
That gave me an idea. I found my copy of the Sonnets and, just as the evening’s quarrel was about to begin, I read it aloud.
‘Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action...’
There was a silence. They both looked at me.
I said to Andy, ‘Do you have the dreams?’ because I had just noticed a slit of a birthmark on his throat, where my spear had transfixed him.
‘What dreams?’ he temporised.
’I got this,’ I pulled up my t-shirt to exhibit the mark on my chest, ‘from...’
‘Pistol shot,’ he responded, speaking as if his lips were numb. He put out a finger and poked the mark.
I said, touching his throat, ‘You got this from my spear.’
He whispered, ‘in Egypt. That was the start of it, wasn’t it?’
‘I think so. We’ve been cursed. What do you dream, Marguerite?’
She was bleached, bereft, wringing her hands.
‘Of being fought over as two dogs fight over a bone. Of being alone, waiting. Of knowing that the man who has me is a murderer. Horrible.’
‘Did you even love us?’ I asked.
‘Never,’ she said. ‘But I’m compelled to stay. I can’t leave. I dream of my heart being broken over and over again. I’m so tired of it.’
‘We need to end this,’ I told them.
‘Yes, David, obviously,’ snarled Andy. ‘But how? Our ancestors must have tried everything. We’re bright.’
‘So you think we’re stuck?’ asked Mags desolately. ‘Forever?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think, until now, anyone would have tried this solution.’
I slid a hand to the back of Andy’s neck. He stiffened but did not resist. Then I drew him closer. Mags made a little noise like, ‘Oh!’ Andy leaned into me, our mouths a breath apart.
‘Yes?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, and closed the gap.
I have always thought kisses pleasant, but this one was monumental, earth shaking. As our mouths met, open, wet, the kiss was profound, I swear there was a noise like a branch breaking, like a giant rubber band snapping. Mags started to laugh and couldn’t stop. While Andy and I struggled to get close, closer, so close as to burrow into each other’s skin and nest in our bones.
It was more of a battle than an amorous encounter. Harsh beard scrubbing against soft skin, hard, fierce, equal. We went rolling to the floor, somehow, tearing off clothes, kissing, kissing until we were drunk on each other. Eventually I managed to lay hands on him and he on me and we climaxed together, collapsed, and found ourselves on an unswept kitchen floor, a mess of sweat and semen and dust and popped buttons.
‘I don’t love you,’ said Andy to Mags.
‘I don’t love you,’ I said to Mags.
‘Thank God for that,’ she said. ‘And I don’t love either of you. Excellent. Be happy with each other! I’m going out.’
We helped each other to the bathroom and washed and dried and then lay down in my bed, which is bigger. It was late. I was sleepy, but kept pinching myself, trying to stay awake. Andy noticed and took my hand.
‘Sleep,’ he said soothingly.
‘Of what shall I dream?’ I asked, laying my head on his chest.
‘Of how angry the curse-maker will be,’ he chuckled, and I felt it in my whole body. ‘You broke it, my love, my David.’
‘We broke it,’ I said.
And wrapped in each other’s arms, we fell asleep. And for the first time in my life, I did not dream.