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THIRTY-SEVEN
We were studying Othello in English the day the sketch came out. I had to write an essay on that famous jealousy quote for homework– ‘It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.’ Do you agree? Give examples from the text to illustrate your argument.
Jealousy isn’t the only monster that mocks its meal though. Doubt is a demon too, grinding up your insides, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.
At least, that’s how it began to seem to me. How I felt. How I feel.
Consumed. Hollow. Distrustful of everyone, including myself.
My box of newspaper clippings is open in front of me. In the background, some computer-generated music on Capital FM. Not my taste, but anything to block out the never-ending soundtrack of my black thoughts.
Buster snores in his basket, legs twitching as he dreams. I watch him a moment, envious of his quiet ease. Then I turn back to the box, pick out the next page.
My eyes are blurry with tears. They make the headlines swim. So many headlines.
THREE MORE BODIES TAKES THE TOTAL TO FIVE
ANOTHER WOMAN FOUND DEAD
A KILLER MURDERING AT AN UNPRECEDENTED RATE
THE MOST BRAZEN SERIAL KILLER IN BRITISH CRIMINAL HISTORY
A MADMAN GRIPPED BY MURDER LUST
HE KILLS THEM, MUTIILATES THEM, THEN DUMPS THEM IN THE DARK
SEIZED BY FEAR, NORTH LONDON ASKS: “IS THE KILLER A LOCAL?”
And then, two-thirds of the way in, the Matty sketch. The one Des Banister slipped under our door; casting aspersions, scattering the first seeds.
The fact I kept it proves to me that I didn’t believe it was Matty. I’d hardly have wanted it as a keepsake if it had been the harbinger I now know it to be. Interesting though that I added nothing new to the box after that.
The newspapers were rife with speculation, whole editorial columns devoted to the witness accounts and what they might mean. And yet my collection stops there. With the sketch of the Shadow. An image I still can’t be sure is really the man I loved.
‘It’s not the man you loved,’ Janice says. ‘You didn’t love a killer. You loved a father figure. A man who took you to the park and bought you ice cream.’
I know what she’s getting at, that it’s not my fault I loved Matty. That anyone in my place would have felt the same way. That loving him doesn’t make me a bad person.
She doesn’t understand though. I don’t just feel guilty for loving him. I feel guilty that I did what I did despite loving him. That our bond wasn’t enough to still my hand.
What does that say about me?
Matty may not have been trustworthy. But nor am I.
An old Radiohead tune comes on, something about being your own worst enemy. I haven’t heard it in years but it speaks to me as though it’s been brought on by telepathy.
I snap the box closed, shut the window on the past. If only it were as easy to shut out the ghosts.
This is where it all started; for me, for him. The sketch. The journey into the never-ending night. The questions, the doubt, the spiralling shame.
‘Why do you act like you were responsible for what happened to him?’ my mother asks.
Because I was.
I check my watch, not that I need to. I’ve been conscious of the minutes ticking by ever since I woke up this morning. A clawing sickness in my stomach, my chest weighed down with rocks.
I’ve been both putting it off and psyching myself up. Hence the box of clippings, the bumpy journey down memory lane. Only now I have another journey to take.
