Blueeyedboy (38 page)

10

You are viewing the webjournal of
blueeyedboy
.

Posted at
:
03.58 on Sunday, February 17

Status
:
restricted

Mood
:
perverse

Listening to
:
10cc
: ‘I’m Not In Love’

The first thing that happened after that was that Emily was taken into protective care. Just as a precaution, they said; just to ensure her safety. Her reluctance to incriminate Dr Peacock was seen as proof of long-term abuse rather than simple innocence, and Catherine’s rage and bewilderment when faced with the accusations was seen as further evidence of some kind of collusion. Something had clearly been going on. At best, a cynical fraud. At worst, a large-scale conspiracy.

And now came Yours Truly’s testimony. It had started so harmlessly, I said. Dr Peacock had been very kind. Private lessons, cash now and then – that was how he’d reeled us in. And that was how he’d approached Catherine White, a woman with a history of depression, ambitious and easily flattered, so eager to believe that her child was special that she’d managed to blind herself to the truth.

The books in Dr Peacock’s library did much to support my claim, of course. Biographies of literature’s most notorious synaesthetes. Nabokov; Rimbaud; Baudelaire; De Quincey – self-confessed drug-users, homosexuals, paedophiles. Men whose pursuit of the sublime took precedence to the petty morality of their day. The material seized as evidence was not directly incriminating, but the police are no great connoisseurs of art, and the sheer volume of material in Dr Peacock’s collection was enough to convince them that they had the right man. Class photographs of St Oswald’s boys taken whilst he was a governor. Volumes of Greek and Roman art; engravings of statues of naked young men. A first edition of Beardsley’s
Yellow Book
; a collection of Ovenden prints from
Lolita
; a pencil drawing of a young male nude (attributed to Caravaggio); a lavishly illustrated copy of
The Perfumed Garden
; books of erotic poetry by Verlaine, Swinburne, Rimbaud and the Marquis de Sade –

‘You showed this stuff to a seven-year-old?’

Dr Peacock tried to explain. It was part of the boy’s education, he said. And Benjamin was interested; he wanted to know what he was –

‘And what
was
he, according to you?’

Once more, Dr Peacock struggled to enlighten his audience. But while
Boy X
had been fascinated by case studies of synaesthetes, of music and migraines and orgasms that manifested themselves in trails of colour, the police seemed far more interested in finding out precisely what he and
Boy X
had talked about during all those private lessons. Whether he’d ever been tempted to touch Benjamin; whether he’d ever given him drugs; whether he’d ever spent time alone with him – or his brothers.

And when Dr Peacock finally broke, and vented his rage and frustration, the officers looked at each other and said: ‘That’s a nasty temper you’ve got. Did you ever strike the boy? Slap him, correct him in any way?’

Numbly, the doctor shook his head.

‘And what about the little girl? It must have been frustrating, having to work with such a young child. Especially when you’ve been used to teaching boys. Was she ever uncooperative?’

‘Never, said Dr Peacock. ‘Emily’s a sweet little girl.’

‘Eager to please?’

He nodded.

‘Eager enough to fake a result?’

The doctor denied it vehemently. But the damage was already done. I had painted a more than plausible picture. And if Emily failed to confirm his tale, then that was simply because she was young, confused, and in denial of the way in which she had been used –

They tried to keep it from the Press. Might as well try to stop the tide. The wave of speculation broke just in the wake of the film’s release. By the end of that year Emily White was national news; and then, just as suddenly, infamous.

The tabloid headlines came out in force. The
Mail
:
ABUSE CLAIMS IN SUPER-SENSE CASE
. The
Sun
:
SEE EMILY PLAY!
Best of all, from the
Mirror
:
EMILY – WAS SHE A FAKE?

Jeffrey Stuarts, the journalist who had followed Emily’s case throughout, living with the family, attending sessions at the Mansion, answering the sceptics with the keenness of a true fanatic, saw what was coming and quickly changed course, hastily rewriting his book – to be entitled
The Emily Experiment
– to include, not only rumours of sleaze at the Mansion, but strong hints of a darker truth behind the Emily Phenomenon.

The hard, ambitious mother; the weak, ineffectual father; the influential New Age friend; the child-victim, trained to perform; the predatory old man, consumed by his obsessions. And, of course,
Boy X
. Redeemed by what he’d had to endure, he was in it to the hilt. The guileless victim. The innocent. Once again, the blue-eyed boy.

Of course, it never went to court. It never even made it to the magistrate. Whilst still under investigation, Dr Peacock suffered a heart attack that landed him in intensive care. The case was postponed indefinitely.

But just the faintest whiff of smoke was enough to convince the public. Trial by tabloid is swift and sure. Within three months, it was over.
The Emily Experiment
went straight to the top of the best-seller lists. Patrick and Catherine White agreed to a trial separation. Investors withdrew their money; galleries ceased to display Emily’s work. Feather moved in with Catherine, while Patrick removed himself to a hostel just outside Malbry.

It wasn’t a permanent move, he said. It was simply to give them a little space. A twenty-four-hour police guard was stationed outside the Mansion in the wake of several arson attempts. And the papers were all over Catherine. A row of photographers flanked the house, snapping up anyone who crossed the threshold.

Graffiti appeared on the front door. Hate mail came by the sackful. The
News of the World
ran a picture of Catherine, in tears, with a story (confirmed by Feather, to whom they paid five thousand pounds) that she had suffered a mental breakdown.

Christmas brought little improvement, though Emily was allowed home for the day. Before that the child had remained in the custody of the Social Services, who, failing to detect any signs of abuse, interrogated her kindly but relentlessly until even she began to wonder if she, too, wasn’t losing her mind.

Try to remember, Emily.

I know the technique. I know it well. Kindness is a weapon, too, a padded cartoon goofy-stick that batters away at the memory, turning it all into candyfloss.

It’s all right. It’s not your fault.

Just tell us the truth, Emily.

Imagine what it was like for her. Everything was going wrong. Dr Peacock was under investigation. Her parents were suddenly living apart. People kept asking her questions, and although they kept saying it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t help thinking that somehow it was. That somehow, that little snow-white lie had turned into an avalanche –

Listen to the colours.

She wanted to say it was all a mistake, but of course, it was far too late for that. They wanted a demonstration: a once-and-for-all display of her gift, well away from the influence of Dr Peacock or her mother, a performance to confirm or refute for ever the claim that she was a fake, a pawn in their game of deception and greed.

And that was how, in January, on a snowy morning in Manchester, she found herself with her easel and paints, on a sound stage surrounded by cameras, with hot lights battening down on her head and the sound of the
Symphonie fantastique
pouring out of the speakers. And right at that moment the miracle happens and
Emily hears the colours
–

It is by far her most famous work.
Symphonie fantastique in Twenty-four Conflicting Colours
looks something like a Jackson Pollock and something like a Mondrian, with that huge, grey shadow in the far corner reaching into the illuminated canvas like the hand of Death in a field of bright flowers . . .

So says Jeffrey Stuarts, at least, in the follow-up to his best-selling book:
The Emily Enigma
. That, too, raced to the top of the charts, although it was clearly a rehash of the previous one, with an afterword to include the events that followed its publication. After that, of course, the experts pursued the story, with professionals in every associated field from art to child psychology warring with each other to prove their conflicting theories.

Each camp had its adherents, be they cynics or believers. The child psychologists saw Emily’s work as a symbolic expression of her fear; the paranormal camp as a harbinger of death; the art experts saw in the change of style a confirmation of what many had already secretly suspected: that Emily’s synaesthesia had been a pretence from the start and that Catherine White, and not Emily, had been the creative influence behind such works as
Nocturne in Scarlet Ochre
and
Starry Moonlight Sonata
.

Symphonie fantastique
is altogether different. Created in front of an audience on a piece of canvas eight feet square, it almost writhes with energy, so that even a dullard like Jeffrey Stuarts was able to feel its ominous presence. If fear has a colour, then this is it: menacing strings of red, brown and black overlaid with occasional violent patches of light, and that clanging square of blue-grey like the trapdoor to an oubliette –

To me, it smells of Blackpool pier, and my mother, and the vitamin drink. To Emily, it must have been the first step through a looking glass into a world in which nothing was sane, nothing was certain any more.

They tried to hide the truth from her. On compassionate grounds, the experts said. To tell her the truth at such a young age, especially in such circumstances, could prove traumatic in the extreme. But we heard it through the grapevine even before it hit the stands: that Catherine White was in hospital following a failed suicide attempt. And suddenly it seemed that every reporter in the world was heading straight for Malbry, the sleepy little Northern town where everything seemed to be happening, and where the clouds were still gathering for one more cosmic thunderstorm –

11

You are viewing the webjournal of
blueeyedboy
.

Posted at
:
20.55 on Monday, February 18

Status
:
restricted

Mood
:
drained

Listening to
:
Johnny Nash
: ‘I Can See Clearly Now’

Clair e-mailed me again today. Apparently, she is missing me. And the fic I posted on Valentine’s Day has caused more concern than usual. She urges me to return to the fold, to discuss my feelings of alienation and to face up to my responsibilities. The tone of her e-mail is neutral enough; but I sense her disapproval. Maybe she is feeling sensitive; or maybe she feels that my fiction provokes an inappropriate response in subjects such as Toxic and Cap, whose predilection for violence needs no further encouragement.

You need to come back to Group
[she says].
Talking online is no substitute. I’d rather see you face to face. Besides, I’m not sure these stories of yours are really very helpful. You need to confront these exhibitionist tendencies of yours and face up to reality –

Bip!
Delete message.

Now she’s gone.

That’s the beauty of e-mail, Clair. That’s why I’d rather meet online than in your little drawing-room with its nice, non-threatening prints on the walls and its scent of cheap pot-pourri. And at the writing group, you’re in charge, whereas
badguysrock
belongs to me. Here, I ask the questions; here I am in complete control.

No, I think I’d rather stay and pursue my interests in the comfort and seclusion of my own room. I like myself so much better online. I can express so much more. It was here, and not at that awful school, that I received my classical education. And from here I can crawl into your mind, scent out your little secrets, expose your petty weaknesses, just as you try to find out mine.

Tell me – how
is
Angel Blue these days? I’m sure you must have heard from him. And Chryssie? Still sick? Well, that’s too bad. Shouldn’t you be talking to
her
, Clair, instead of cross-examining me?

The e-mail
bips
. New message from Clair.

I really think we should talk soon. I know you find our discussions uncomfortable, but I’m getting really worried about you. Please e-mail me back to confirm!

Bip!
Delete message.

Whoops, all gone.

If only deleting Clair were as easy.

Still, I have other concerns right now, not least how I stand with
Albertine
. It’s not that I hope for forgiveness. Both of us have come too far for that. But her silence is disquieting; and it is all I can do to prevent myself from calling by at her house today. Still, I don’t think that would be wise. Too many potential witnesses. Already, I suspect we are being watched. All it would take is a word to Ma, and the house of cards would come tumbling down.

And so half an hour before closing time, I found myself back at the Zebra. My masochistic side so often drives me to that place, that safe little world of which Yours Truly is definitely
not
a part. In passing I noticed, to my annoyance, that Terri was sitting by the door. She looked up hopefully as I came in; I did my best to ignore her. So much for discretion, I thought. Like her aunt, she is an eager observer; a gossip, in spite of her diffidence; the kind of person who stops at the scene of a car crash, not to help, but to participate in the collective misery.