Reckoning Point, стр. 38
Lev swivels his head to his right and it becomes clear exactly what has happened as he looks at his other forgotten and also uninvited visitor.
Roland is standing by the door, his hands held aloft and the strange man-child is physically quaking. His hands too, are a bloodied mess.
“She was shouting, you were both shouting.” Roland looks on the verge of tears as he absentmindedly wipes his palms on his jeans.
Lev clears the coffee table in a single bound and drops to his knees beside Joy. She is no longer trying to speak and her eyes are empty. Lifeless. Something is poking out of the side of her neck and Lev leans closer. It looks like a fragment of glass.
“What is that?”
“The … t-t-the flower … thing,” replies Roland as he rubs at his face, leaving red streaks across his cheek.
It was a vase. Vaguely Lev remembers it, a heavy-set thick crystal thing. It had looked expensive, but as Lev had no intentions on buying flowers that was the extent of attention he had paid to it. Lev balls his hands and wants nothing more than to tip over onto his side and go to sleep. He thinks about fleeing; just leaving Joy inert on the floor and Roland standing in the hallway and just going, leaving Scheveningen, Holland, maybe even Europe altogether.
But he’s been flagged up already by the local police. He’ll not make it across any borders before this latest mess comes to light.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” he slams his fists onto his thighs and while he’s still cursing he registers a wail from across the room.
He launches up and over to Roland, grabs the big man by his shoulders and shakes him, which only serves to make Roland cry harder. Lev pulls back his hand, slaps him once, twice. The third time he clenches his fist and as Roland’s head is knocked sideways finally he quietens.
With Roland temporarily silent and Joy still very much dead, Lev sinks into his chair and holds his head in his hands.
36
ROLAND
11th March 2000
Smith stayed around for a while. Mark toyed with the hydraulic acid, experimenting with different dosages, adding this, reducing that.
Eventually Smith was moving around the apartment. He was like a zombie; he would walk to wherever Mark told him to, sit, stand, drink. He didn't eat and he didn't seem to sleep. He never went to the toilet by himself and he never requested anything. Not verbally, anyway.
I hated Smith.
Once, a few years ago when Mother had gone to visit her sister in Rotterdam for the weekend, I'd watched One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Smith reminded me of that terrible scene, where Jack Nicholson has had the lobotomy and all the life has gone out of him and he’s just lying on the trolley, as good as dead but still horribly alive.
Smith spent his days on the couch, staring at the wall while Mark played with him. Mark never cared what I saw, it was as though I wasn't there, or rather, that I didn't count as a witness. Mark would ignore me while he unzipped Smith’s trousers and slid his hand inside. I would sit uncomfortably in the darkest corner, trying to block out the groans of pleasure from Mark and the long, laboured breaths of Smith.
For the first time, I thought that living with mother might not have been so bad after all. I wondered if I could escape and go home and while the three of us sat in the dim light of the lounge, I tried to formulate a plan to leave.
And then, everything changed again.
It was a Sunday afternoon and Mark had gone out. He didn't tell me where he was going, and I didn't ask. His parting words to me as he left were; ‘look after him.’
I sat with Smith for a while and it was like watching car-crash television. It was an awful, terrible sight, but I couldn't drag my eyes away. Then Smith spoke for the first time.
It wasn't words, he couldn't form words, but suddenly a stream of noise poured from his gorgeous lips. I stared at him, horrified as two fat tears sprung to the corners of his eyes and worked their way down his fine cheekbones. His hands, folded neatly in his lap, began to dance and twitch towards me.
I fled to the kitchen, put the kettle on to drown out the noise of his nonsense talk and closed the kitchen door. I sipped at a tea, camomile, the sort that mother drank when she needed to calm her nerves. I began to think again about my mother’s home. I considered the consequences of leaving this place, I wondered what Mark would do. I knew all of his secrets, and though I'd never tell anyone anything about Mark or his business I wasn't sure if he would believe that.
A scream outside shattered my train of thought. The shriek was so loud it made me jump and my teacup scraped across the saucer, slopping the hot liquid over the side and onto my hand.
Grabbing a tea towel, I peered out of the window as I wiped my fingers dry. Then I froze. Two women stood across the street. They clutched at each other and their motions were almost comical. One would shriek, then the other one. In turn they repeated this over and over; shriek, clutch, clap hands over mouth, shriek, clutch …
I looked to where they were staring and