Salt Snake and Other Bloody Cuts Read online

  “How much for the girl?” repeated the man.

  Gerassimos struggled to his feet, struggling also to assume parental outrage. “My daughter is no whore. Clear off before I beat you into the ground!”

  The tall man did not flinch.

  “Don’t you need the money?” asked the man smoothly. “Everyone needs money, I would have thought.”

  Suddenly it occurred to Gerassimos that perhaps the man was a tourist who needed a maid. Yes, that was it. He had misunderstood. A sane man would never try and purchase the sexual favours of a girl from her father.

  “Sir…” said Gerassimos thinking quickly, “my daughter is mute, she’s not intelligent, but she can clean, scrub floors, cook a little…”

  The man held up his hand. “No. Nothing like that. All I want is her… company. Just for a few hours. Until five o’clock, to be precise.”

  Gerassimos was bewildered. “Sorry, sir, I do not understand you.” At least he pretended to sound bewildered. He’d been in the army long enough to know what men meant when they wanted the company of a girl.

  The man nodded out to sea where a yacht lay moored in the bay. Gerassimos squinted against the dazzling reflection of the sun from the sea. The boat was large, a millionaire’s vessel—it may have been the angle of the sun, but it looked black.

  “I just want her to stay with me for the afternoon.”

  Gerassimos nearly asked why, but he was a shrewder man than that. Instead: “Eh, you said you, eh…” Gerassimos plunged in. “How much? You said you’d pay?”

  “Indeed, yes.” The elegant man held a parcel wrapped in brown paper. It was the size of a small pillow. “One million drachma.”

  The blood thudded through Gerassimos’s ears. “One million.” That was more money than he had seen in a long, long time.

  “So,” continued the man. He nodded at the girl who sat dumbly on the beach watching the pair of them. “My man will take us across to my yacht in the dinghy. There we will spend the afternoon. Don’t worry, I’ll return your daughter in one piece. What is her name?”

  “Rose,” answered Gerassimos as if only half awake. Suddenly the father in him tried to assert itself. “You won’t hurt her.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  Suddenly Gerassimos was hesitant. Rose was ugly, stupid—but she relied on him for protection. Suddenly he didn’t want her hurt or frightened or… or violated. “I don’t know. I… I…” He shook his bald head.

  The man held out the package to Gerassimos. “One million drachma. Tax free. No questions, All yours.”

  Gerassimos almost snatched the package from the man and tore away the corner. Inside, tightly packed, wads of 5000 drachma notes. They smelt so good.

  “All right.” Gerassimos said quickly. “Take her. But return her by five.”

  “In one piece,” purred the man, “in one piece.”

  Gerassimos ordered Rose to go with the man. Obediently she followed the strange man with the shadow face, down to a dinghy. The oarsman had bunched shoulders, giving him the appearance of having no head. Gerassimos Flamotas shivered.

  Then the headless oarsman, the faceless gentleman and Rose looking trustingly back at him, slowly floated out to the black yacht.

  She’d be all right, he reassured himself. She’d not be hurt. In five hours she would be back in one piece. Besides, whatever happened she would never be able to tell anyone anyway.

  Gerassimos walked up to the beach to where the gnarled trunk of a tree protruded from the sand and dirt. He lay down in the little shade it offered and made himself comfortable, the packet of money resting on his stomach. There he planned his future, a warm glow rising through his body. With the money he could hire a team of workers to strip the weeds from the fields and plant more vines; ones that would grow well in his gravel soil. In a dizzying rush he saw it all: a car, not more than three years old; fine villa; supermarkets stocking his wine with labels that bore a photograph of his face. Here is a rich and happy man, envious people would say. And first of all, the very first thing, he would repair the shrine of Saint Gerassimos he had smashed; replace the glass. Yes, he would restore it. Make it a monument to his good fortune.

  One minute after five he awoke.

  The rowing boat with the headless oarsman was already leaving the beach for the dark yacht.

  Where was Rose?

  Then he saw her. She lay on the beach.

  Bastards!

  They had killed her.

  No. No. Impossible. Probably drunk or drugged—some men like their women like that.

  Holding the packet of money tightly, he hurried down the beach.

  If they’ve hurt her, he thought panicking, what will I tell my wife?

  But as he approached his daughter, he slowed.

  She did not look right.

  She lay naked. But it was more than that. Somehow she had altered. There was still a good fifty metres between them so he could not be sure, but…

  …but she looked different.

  Then he saw what they had done to his poor, mute girl. He froze.

  “I will return her in one piece,” the man had said.

  Oh, they had done that all right. In one piece. His stomach pumped a foul taste into his mouth. He needed a cigarette.

  “In one piece.”

  She was in one piece. Only they had… he shook his bald head in disbelief… they had changed her round.

  His eyes absorbed their handiwork. She was dead. Cold, stone dead; thank God for that mercy.

  In five hours they had hacked her to pieces. Then that sick, sick man had stitched the pieces together. The head, severed at the shoulders, had been stitched to her flabby belly. As he slid his feet nearer through the sand, he could see the hundreds of neat stitches which sealed every cut. The face had a bruised, swollen appearance. Horrified, he looked closer still. Her eyelids were stitched together. What had they done with her eyes? The sockets were empty behind the closed skin shutters.

  Her limbs had been amputated, then re-attached to the body. The arms to the hips; the legs to the shoulders. It gave it the appearance of a four-legged spider. A big, fat white spider, belly up on the pebble beach with a head jutting out from its stomach.

  He couldn’t take his eyes away from the only person in the world who shared his blood. Tortured. Violated.

  Softly, he whispered, “My daughter.”

  Then the head moved.

  Uncertainly at first, then it lifted and turned its face toward him. Like a blind man on hearing his name called.

  The sight knocked the breath from him. He stumbled back with a warbling cry. “No…”

  How they’d done it he didn’t know. The limbs began to move. In a shaking, uncoordinated way at first, then they found their feet. They lifted the girl’s torso into the air, two arms, two legs working together.

  Like a bloated white spider, she began to move toward him, the bare palms of her hands and bare feet slapping rhythmically down onto the pebbles.

  “No… No… Please…” Turning, he ran, holding the precious money packet to his chest. Behind he heard the rapid slap, slap, slap of the hands and feet.

  God. She could run; she could run.

  Gerassimos ran along the water’s edge, running God knows where, the pebbles rolling, slipping, grating beneath his sandals.

  Once he paused to look back. The ample flesh wobbled, the sightless head set on the torso, like the turret on a tank, twisting left and right. God. It listened for him—maybe it even smelt him?

  Its breath came in ragged, farting crackles from its anus. There the tissue was red as a tomato skin as the blood vessels strained to accommodate the rush of oxygenated blood. The now-blotching torso trembled. And as he watched, his daughter pissed. The new internal arrangement of organs forced the urine outward and upward under tremendous pressure. It burst up into the air like breath from a whale’s blow-hole; the misty spray the colour of Coca-Cola in the evening sunshine.

  Gerassimos Flamotas turne
d and ran again, his feet slipping over the loose pebbles. He could no longer get a proper grip. Yet somehow he managed to run on, not daring to pause again.

  If that thing caught him. If it touched him…

  Oh, sweet Saint Gerassimos. Save me… save me…

  And as he ran he remembered the shrine. That morning. The stone. His fury. The broken glass and the portrait of Saint Gerassimos lying in the dirt. Those dark spiritual eyes gazing through Gerassimos Flamotas, upward to heaven as if this small, balding man was as transparent as the glass that had once enclosed the shrine.

  He ran.

  Until he could run no more. Collapsing, he huddled into a ball on the beach, eyes tightly shut, clasping the money to him and begging the monster to leave him alone.

  He heard the hands and feet approach. But slowly now. There was something thoughtful in its step. Then he felt a hand (or was it a foot?) gently stroke his back. At last he had to look.

  He opened his eyes and turned his face toward his daughter.

  The hole left by the neck had been stitched together to form a tightly stretched rump-shaped thing. The eyeless face looked impassive—almost doll-like. From behind the creature, the rasping breathing continued.

  Where were her eyes, her pretty eyes?

  Then he saw them.

  Wave upon wave of revulsion battered him. Whoever had done this must despise humanity more than God loved it.

  The eyes.

  The breasts had each been split at the nipples. A single split large enough to accommodate one eye. The breasts hung down like udders from where they had been stitched onto the back. The white spider had to flit the torso up so the moist, brown eyes could see Gerassimos’s tormented face.

  The eye-nipples blinked slowly. A single tear fell from the eye to splash on the beach.

  Then mute Rose spoke. “Papa. I love you.” The voice was a little girl’s voice. Gerassimos rolled face down on to the stones.

  The little girl’s voice came again. “Papa. Why did you let them do this to me? Why?”

  Gerassimos Flamotas wept. He would hear those words for ever.

  Lifting the Lid

  I returned to find my parents’ home had changed.

  Rain that had fallen like Angel piss from the sky for a week made the brickwork darker. The house itself looked smaller.

  As soon as I saw them standing there in the doorway waiting to welcome me home I knew I would not be able to pretend to them nothing had happened. It wouldn’t happen straight away. But soon I would have to tell them the truth.

  “You’ve had your hair cut.” My mother kissed me.

  My father smiled. “And what’s that in your ear?”

  “It’s a stud. I’ve had my ear pierced.”

  “Pierced? I bet that hurt.” My father had a black sense of humour. I inherited it from him.

  “Only when the screwdriver got stuck.”

  He laughed and brushed his heavy fringe or silver hair from his eyes.

  Mum took my holdall. “It looks very nice and fashionable.

  Right… you’ll have to use the guest room unfortunately. First we’ll get you some tea. Shepherd’s pie all right?”

  Shepherd’s pie is always all right with me. She knows it’s my favourite. It was like any other homecoming. Warm, friendly.

  My favourite meal and dad telling his funny stories. This one was about the funeral of a fat uncle of mine. The pall bearers dropped the coffin in church. “It’s true, dead men do fart.” He grinned and pushed back his silver fringe. “It was a hot summer. The gas must have been building for days.”

  “Gordon! Let Jonathon eat his tea. The table’s hardly the place for those kind of stories.”

  As I sat there, mash steaming on the end of the spoon, I wanted to tell them both there and then. The truth was like a greyhound straining from its trap. It wanted out. It wanted to chase the hare to their ear drums.

  I looked from one to the other. My dad grinning to himself over the story. My mother saying how they were planning a holiday in Spain. I wanted to tell them how much I loved them, thank them for bringing me up, caring for me—then I wanted to tell them the truth.

  But I kept silent; once the words came out nothing would be the same again.

  Asking me to sleep in the spare bedroom didn’t seem odd.

  My dad was always decorating. I imagine my old bedroom had been feeling the lick of his paintbrush. All the furniture would be piled at one end.

  That night I woke up needing the bathroom. I felt myself there across the dark landing. Outside I could hear the rain slapping the walls.

  Once in the bathroom I switched on the light. Instantly I rocked back on my heels. The feeling of disgust came so sharply I screwed my eyes shut.

  Come on, why was I behaving like the Vicar’s wife? I leaned forward and tried to flush the toilet.

  Only a little water ran into the toilet pan, I tried again. It would not flush. The water only moved round what was inside the toilet.

  Filled nearly to the top, the toilet was packed with turds.

  They were the yellowing kind that frayed at the ends. They made me think of the turds of old men and women. When I tried to flush the toilet they swam round like tired goldfish. I found myself staring down into the blocked pan. The sight was marvelous as it was disgusting. There was a good bucketful of shit, probably the blockage was in the U bend. If I had a strong enough stomach all I need do was push my hand down through the turds and water and free the blockage with my fingers. The mental picture of seeing all that shit get flushed away seemed somehow wonderful. The turds vanishing down toward the sewer, sweet water replacing the old water. I knew I would feel a sense of relief that would be absurd in its intensity.

  As I returned to the guest room, the figure of a young man crossed in front of me and went into my old bedroom. He did it quickly but without seeming to hurry. I’m sure he didn’t even notice me.

  A burglar?

  No. Somehow I knew it wasn’t.

  But the idea of a mysterious stranger freely entering my bedroom troubled me. I tapped lightly on the door. No answer, I tried to open the door. It was locked. The door did have a keyhole but all the years I’d lived at the house I didn’t know it actually locked.

  I went to bed. Two things weighed on my mind. The mysterious stranger. Had my parents taken in a lodger? And the reason for my visit: how I would break the news to them. The next morning I hoped to see the stranger but the door stayed locked. Maybe he’d left early for work. For some reason, however, I imagined he was still in my old bedroom, leaning behind the locked door.

  I never mentioned anything. The stranger. The blocked toilet.

  Or my news. My parents were lighthearted and we chatted about this and that all day. I did notice, however, my mother carried a key in her hand, occasionally tapping a rhythm with it lightly on the arm of the chair. The key to my bedroom? By tea time I was convinced it was.

  Tea was dad’s treat. His favourite. Mountains of scrambled egg and black cherry cheesecake.

  All afternoon I had been building up to tell them the news.

  It would come as a shock—a brutal shock.

  I would stand at the window, looking out at the rain beating the trees, while rehearsing the words. Would I build subtly up to it? Would I blurt out the words? No. I wouldn’t do either. I had a better idea.

  I chose not words but visible…how could I put it: Evidence? Visible evidence.

  After we finished the scrambled eggs, I said, “Hang on a moment, dad. I’ll get the cheesecake in a minute. I’ve got something to show you.”

  “Oh, surprise time is it?” He smiled. Happy.

  I didn’t want to do it. But I’d thrown the lever of the machine now. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. The truth was coming out.

  Mum and dad sat at the far side of the table watching me as I pulled two pieces of paper from an envelope and slid them across, face up.

  Dad looked at them. My mother clenched her fist round the
key and breathed in sharply.

  “It’s true, then?” Dad looked at me. His smile remained, but it looked so sad now.

  This surprised me. “You know?”

  “We guessed, Jonathon,” said mum. “When you and Elizabeth stopped visiting us. We talked about it. But then we brushed it aside. We just went on as we always have done. When we saw you walking up the street, we couldn’t believe our eyes, your dad was so happy.”

  “We hoped it had been a—a dream. That we were still…we were still…”

  Mum and dad looked down at their death certificates.

  Now the words came to me more easily. “It happened fast,” I told them. “You went within six weeks of one another.” “That happens when two old people love one another as much as your father and I… God, I was…”

  Mum and dad looked at one another. They didn’t need to speak. They had lived together long enough to communicate consummately with a glance.

  Suddenly awkward I pushed my parents’ death certificates back into the envelope as if I’d shown them a dirty photograph.

  “I’ll get the cheesecake,” I went quickly to the kitchen.

  They had seemed so happy. I felt miserable at breaking the news to them. I’d tried not to be cruel. I picked up the tray with the three platesful of cheescake. Just being in the kitchen brought the memories rushing back. Me, ten year’s old sitting on the worktop as dad mopped blood off my knee. I’d fallen off my bike. Or Elizabeth and me on hot-dog night (that was every Saturday night) helping mum with plates just before “Dr. Who” started.

  I made up my mind to tell them what I’d always meant to tell them. That I loved them and they had been the best parents in the world.

  I hurried back, pushing open the door with my foot.

  They were gone.

  The plates on the table were empty.

  Feeling cold I set the tray down on the table. By mum’s tea cup was the key.

  I picked it up like I was picking up the Holy Grail. I held it in front of me and gazed at it, seeing how it caught the lamplight.

  The key. Now was the time to go upstairs and find out who, in all of God’s sweet torment, lived in my bedroom.