and with his ambition, he ought to
have a perfect figure, a six-pack belly, fleshless hips, and a small hard
bum. Once it had been like that-and would be again, here solved. All
those chips and chocolate bars were to blame. His face was all right.
Handsome, according to Colette and others , the features regular, the
eyes a steady honest blue. He could tell they admired his fine head of
light brown hair with the blond highlights, but his skin ought not to be
so pale. She would be used to men of perfect physique and magnificent
tan. The gym was the answer to that, and the tanning place round the
corner. He couldn't see his back, but he knew the scars were all gone
now, anyway. Pity, really. He still nursed a fantasy that had begun when
his back was still bleeding, of showing someone--the police, the social
services--what Javy had done and seeing him handcuffed and taken
away to prison. It was either that or killing him.
For five years Mix had been his mother's darling. He was her only child,
his father a boyfriend who had moved out when he was six months old.
She was only eighteen and she loved her little son passionately. But not
enduringly or exclusively, for when Mix was five she met James Victor
Calthorne, fell for a baby and married him. Javy, as everyone called him,
was big and dark and handsome. At first he took very little notice of Mix
except to smack him and at first it seemed to the boy that his mother
loved him as much as ever. Then the baby was born, a dark-eyed, darkhaired girl they called Shannon. Mix couldn't remember feeling much
about the baby or seeing his mother pay her more attention than she
paid him, but the psychiatrist they made him go to when he was older
told him that was his trouble. He resented his mother withdrawing her
love from him and transferring it to Shannon. That was why he tried to
kill--thebaby.
Mix remembered nothing about it, nothing about picking up the tomato
ketchup bottle and hitting her with it. Or not quite hitting her. Bashing
inside the cot but missing. He couldn't remember Javy coming into the
room, but he remembered the 'beating Javy gave him. And his mother
standing there and watching but doing nothing to stop him. He had used
the leather belt, from his jeans, pulling Mix's T-shirt over his head,
lashing at his back till it bled.
That never happened again, though Javy went on smacking him
whenever he didn't toe the line. Apart from the psychiatrist talking about
it, the only way he knew he had tried to kill Shannon was because Javy
was always telling him. He got on quite well with his little sister and with
the babyboy, Terry, who was born a year later, but if ever Javy caught
him even disagreeing with Shannon or taking a toy awayf rom her, he'd
repeat that story and say how Mix had tried tokill her.
"You'd be dead by now," he'd say to his daughter, "but for me stopping
that murdering kid." And to his little son, "You want to watch him, he'll
kill you as soon as look at you."
That would be a way to get famous, Mix sometimes thought, killing
one's stepfather out of revenge. But Javy had left them when he was
fourteen. Mix's mother wept and sobbed and had hysterics until Mix got
fed up with it and slapped her face.
"I'll give you something to make you cry," he had shouted in his anger.
"Standing there and watching him beat me up."
They sent him to the psychiatrist for hitting his mother. A domestic
violence perpetrator waiting to happen--that was the description he
overheard one social worker call him. She was still alive, his mother, not
yet fifty, but he'd never see her again.
It was Saturday, so he could park more or less anywhere he could find a
space in Westbourne Park Road. As it happened he got on to the same
eter as Nerissa had used. Mix was besotted enough to get a thrill out of
that, just as he would have from touching something she had touched or
reading somesign she had read hours before. He went up to the
have a perfect figure, a six-pack belly, fleshless hips, and a small hard
bum. Once it had been like that-and would be again, here solved. All
those chips and chocolate bars were to blame. His face was all right.
Handsome, according to Colette and others , the features regular, the
eyes a steady honest blue. He could tell they admired his fine head of
light brown hair with the blond highlights, but his skin ought not to be
so pale. She would be used to men of perfect physique and magnificent
tan. The gym was the answer to that, and the tanning place round the
corner. He couldn't see his back, but he knew the scars were all gone
now, anyway. Pity, really. He still nursed a fantasy that had begun when
his back was still bleeding, of showing someone--the police, the social
services--what Javy had done and seeing him handcuffed and taken
away to prison. It was either that or killing him.
For five years Mix had been his mother's darling. He was her only child,
his father a boyfriend who had moved out when he was six months old.
She was only eighteen and she loved her little son passionately. But not
enduringly or exclusively, for when Mix was five she met James Victor
Calthorne, fell for a baby and married him. Javy, as everyone called him,
was big and dark and handsome. At first he took very little notice of Mix
except to smack him and at first it seemed to the boy that his mother
loved him as much as ever. Then the baby was born, a dark-eyed, darkhaired girl they called Shannon. Mix couldn't remember feeling much
about the baby or seeing his mother pay her more attention than she
paid him, but the psychiatrist they made him go to when he was older
told him that was his trouble. He resented his mother withdrawing her
love from him and transferring it to Shannon. That was why he tried to
kill--thebaby.
Mix remembered nothing about it, nothing about picking up the tomato
ketchup bottle and hitting her with it. Or not quite hitting her. Bashing
inside the cot but missing. He couldn't remember Javy coming into the
room, but he remembered the 'beating Javy gave him. And his mother
standing there and watching but doing nothing to stop him. He had used
the leather belt, from his jeans, pulling Mix's T-shirt over his head,
lashing at his back till it bled.
That never happened again, though Javy went on smacking him
whenever he didn't toe the line. Apart from the psychiatrist talking about
it, the only way he knew he had tried to kill Shannon was because Javy
was always telling him. He got on quite well with his little sister and with
the babyboy, Terry, who was born a year later, but if ever Javy caught
him even disagreeing with Shannon or taking a toy awayf rom her, he'd
repeat that story and say how Mix had tried tokill her.
"You'd be dead by now," he'd say to his daughter, "but for me stopping
that murdering kid." And to his little son, "You want to watch him, he'll
kill you as soon as look at you."
That would be a way to get famous, Mix sometimes thought, killing
one's stepfather out of revenge. But Javy had left them when he was
fourteen. Mix's mother wept and sobbed and had hysterics until Mix got
fed up with it and slapped her face.
"I'll give you something to make you cry," he had shouted in his anger.
"Standing there and watching him beat me up."
They sent him to the psychiatrist for hitting his mother. A domestic
violence perpetrator waiting to happen--that was the description he
overheard one social worker call him. She was still alive, his mother, not
yet fifty, but he'd never see her again.
It was Saturday, so he could park more or less anywhere he could find a
space in Westbourne Park Road. As it happened he got on to the same
eter as Nerissa had used. Mix was besotted enough to get a thrill out of
that, just as he would have from touching something she had touched or
reading somesign she had read hours before. He went up to the
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