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Littleworth
Michael Hemmings never thought he’d admit it to himself, but he was missing Doc Patterson. For years he’d taken the piss out of the old bastard and his ‘aura’ theory. But the truth was it did help him. He’d learnt to predict when the white was about to come, the aura that to Michael Hemmings signified chaos along with the desire to hurt himself and others.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt Joe, though. He hadn’t. When he’d seen him on the field talking to the stuck-up cunt, Summers, he’d wanted to help the boy, even though he was Rachel-fucking-Dune’s son. He knew his mum couldn’t stand Joe, she’d told him, and this had made him feel something alien. Doc Patterson would have called it compassion. Had he felt compassion for Joe?
Inside him, there existed a place that was long forgotten, a place that seemed to be like the sliding skin of someone else, a separate entity. He’d liked Joe. He’d shown Joe Dune, that day at his mum’s house, a part of him few people would ever see.
Joe had seen it because Joe had watched him paint the picture.
Had he told Joe what his mother made him do? He couldn’t remember, that was the thing, he couldn’t fucking remember anything. Doc Patterson had only mentioned it once, about what he’d done to Joe’s body. Even in court he couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember. The white had been so strong the day Joe died. His mum had been in a very bad mood, telling him she didn’t want to see him anymore. She was his mum, how could she say that? The white had become dazzling then, like a fucking solar flare, the ones he’d seen on TV. Doc Patterson had said that was why he killed Joe. Had he told the Doc about his mum? Had he told him the other thing? He couldn’t remember; the fucking drugs he was forced to take stopped his mind working properly.
Hemmings’ mood and thoughts dipped and flowed.
A solar flare ... He could have been a scientist. He could have been anything he’d wanted to be; he was good at drawing, too. The only teacher he’d liked at primary school had told him he was gifted. His dad had laughed. Too loud. He fucking hated Sam.
Joe had told him he wanted to be an astronomer and move around the universe like Doctor Who. To Hemmings that was like a scientist, so that had pissed him off because he’d been jealous. And his mother, telling him he had to stop calling her, going to see her. Yes, he’d been fucking angry, because he knew that Joe would always see her. Is that why he killed Joe?
He couldn’t remember killing him.
And now he was attending his next tribunal review. He knew they didn’t have much choice about the outcome; the director’s position would be fucked if he couldn’t pull off making Hemmings look like a fucking excellent example of their rehab.
He slid off his bed, thumb in his mouth. It had been Patterson who’d helped him the most; he wished now he hadn’t made the Doc’s life so difficult by agreeing to his mum’s visit. He knew that Toby had done everything he could to keep her visit away from the Doc. Toby was trying to help him, and he appreciated that. But maybe it hadn’t been the best thing.
Talking to Toby sometimes encouraged him to think of Joe and the time leading up to the day he couldn’t remember. That day had ended so badly, and not how he’d predicted, when he picked the boy up on the field. He’d felt something for Joe. A foreign feeling when Joe had told him why he’d run away from home, and Michael Hemmings’ fragmented mind went back in time to the trial. To Liam and Rachel. The smug-looking perfect fucking couple. Not.
He knew that Rachel didn’t know; this gave a little comfort because he hated Rachel Dune. It also brought the yellow. Cascading through the ward. Patterson had taught him about the yellow aura.
It was the aura that signified he was gaining some enlightenment.
Lost in his thoughts Hemmings didn’t notice that Toby was standing by his bed, a letter in his hand.
‘For you, Michael,’ Toby said. He seemed subdued.
Hemmings looked at the postmark. It looked interesting. America, Ohio.
He opened the letter. It began simply and normally enough. She lived in Ohio, the US of A, had been married twice, and both husbands had given her what for, but it was the second one – a man who inherited his parents’ farm in the depths of Ohio State – where her story started to get interesting. He continued to read.
The second husband had a thing about the electric rods that he used to stun his sheep. On a bad day for the writer of the letter, the husband, instead of using household implements to insert into her ass or cunt would use the rod. The husband didn’t ever turn on the electric. What the husband did was to threaten to do the same to her three kids, and turn it on, if she left him or told anyone what turned him on. As things worked out, the husband had a heart attack one day while using the rod on his sheep. The writer found him, not quite dead, and promptly put the rod up his ass and finished him off by switching it on.
He carried on reading. The husband had left the writer with massive debts; the farm was repossessed by the mortgage company. She and her three kids were left homeless. She was, she informed Hemmings, now living in a trailer park. She found his story in an old newspaper that a lone, unexpected tourist had left behind in the diner she was working in. The diner was called Yum Yums. There was more, but not as interesting as the first part.
Hemmings lay flat on his bed. ‘Interesting. Says I’m a man she could get on with. She understands me, Toby, what do you think to that?’
‘She has good taste.’
‘She does.’
‘Do you like it?’ Toby asked.
Hemmings bit his thumb. ‘Yeah, I like it.’ And he did like it; he liked the way this woman gave him details of her life. He liked that. He delved inside the envelope looking for photos. From America. Somehow this made Michael Hemmings feel extremely important. A bit fucking famous. But he found no photo.
The letter was signed Amanda McCarthy. A large scrawl, child-like. It reminded him of Joe Dune’s writing, like the signature Joe’d put on the bottom of his paintings.
Michael Hemmings put the letter neatly on his bedside table and got back on the bed, flipping quickly over onto his front and trying to ignore the brown aura that seemed to be enveloping him. He was thinking about Joe again, which made him think about his mum, her visit. And about Joe. Again.
He wanted to be alone to think about Amanda McCarthy. She wanted to come and visit him, and he’d like that, very much. Oh, would he like that. He looked forwards to her stories.
He drew his knees upwards, bringing himself into a crouching tiger position, then collapsed flat in the bed, delving inside the envelope, hoping to find a photo but knowing there wasn’t one there.