Heartless (2 page)

Chapter Two

Jonathan tilted the video camera, angling the lens so that it focused on the small box on the grass. The camera was his pride and joy and had been very expensive; it had taken numerous arguments with his parents before they had agreed to buy it for him, he had even had to agree to share it with his brother but luckily Tommy had no interest in using it, so it was all Jonathan’s.

Crouching down on the grass, Jonathan peered inside the box and saw the tiny sparrow that he had captured earlier that day. Jonathan knew that it was a sparrow because his dad had done nothing but bore the arse off him harping on about birds ever since he had caught Jonathan with a box containing the three he had captured a week previously. Jonathan had said he was trying to make a nest for them. His dad had taken this as a sign that his son and he could share a new-found hobby and he had tried to encourage Jonathan to bird-watch with him ever since.

Jonathan couldn’t think of anything more boring than him and his dad, who rarely had much to say to each other, sitting together in the shed peeping out of the windows. And despite his dad’s insistence on buying Jonathan a pair of binoculars and installing a bird-table in their garden, Jonathan had rejected his offers of joining him, to the point that he had now given up trying.

Jonathan pressed the record button, and then the night light. The unnatural green light in the videos added a darker atmosphere to his movies, he found. Jonathan shook the box, enjoying tormenting the little bird, before tipping it out onto the grass. It was starting to look weak and Jonathan guessed that it was close to death. He had snapped its legs earlier, and pulled off one of its wings. He had been surprised and impressed that the bird hadn’t squawked more whilst he inflicted the pain upon it. He wished that he had filmed that bit, but he had had no time: he had to be quick while there was no one about.

The bird lay limp on the grass; the only sign it was alive was its brown eyes darting in panic, as if it knew what was coming next.

Jonathan dragged another box from behind the shed and carefully picked off the edges of the masking tape that he had used to seal it earlier. Then he opened the box, freeing the neighbour’s cat. He had been worried that his dad would find the box that he had so thoughtfully punctured air holes into and stashed behind some old planks of MDF behind the shed. Luckily for him, however, his dad had been playing golf for most of the afternoon so hopefully no-one had heard the cat meowing inside its prison.

Hearing his mum calling him from the back door, Jonathan crouched down lower so that he was out of sight behind the shed. He hoped that the cat would be hungry enough to quickly take its prey. The last thing he needed was for his mum to sneak up on him and spoil his hard work and careful planning.

She didn’t call again. Jonathan sat back against the shed and relaxed as he watched the cat stretch, clearly relieved to be out of the box it had been confined to. It strolled over to where the injured bird lay, prodding it with a claw before rolling it over as if it was a prize toy. Then, realising the bird was his for the taking the cat started to eat it, feasting first on the head. The bird’s body twitched as it met its fate. Jonathan zoomed in for a close-up.

The bird lay decapitated on the grass as the cat chewed on its neck. It looked as though it were savouring every bite. Finally, just a few brown feathers strewn on the grass were all that remained as evidence that the sparrow had once been there.

Licking his lips, and then cleaning his fur, the cat seemed pleased. Jonathan wasn’t so happy. The killing hadn’t left him as satisfied as he had expected. He hadn’t captured the moment of death. He needed its exact moment. As he packed away his camera, he considered what it may be like to set a bird on fire. He might try that next time.

Jonathan placed his camera inside its padded bag and zipped it up. His belly rumbled: the cat wasn’t the only one that needed feeding.

***

“You’ve called him twice now, Bernie; he’ll be in any second.” Stanley was growing tired of listening to his wife’s exaggerated sighs as she glanced up at the clock and waited for their son to come inside for dinner. Bernie was trying to create a drama when it wasn’t necessary. “He’s fifteen; we don’t need to wrap him up in cotton wool. He’s only in the garden, for God’s sake, it’s not like he’s gone AWOL.”

Stanley knew his words had fallen on deaf ears. Bernie did nothing but fuss over their children; it drove both Stanley and his sons stir-crazy. Stanley wondered if Bernie was aware of how much her constant nit-picking irritated their kids.

“Go on, Tommy, you may as well make a start on your dinner, no use in all of our meals going cold just because Jonathan can’t be bothered to join us,” Bernie said sulkily to her other son, after rolling her eyes at her husband’s flippancy.

Bernie continued to prod her meal in silence, pushing it around the plate; her bad moods caused her to have stomach aches and so her desire to eat had vanished.

Hearing the back door slam, Stanley raised his eyebrows at his wife. Patience is a virtue, he thought to himself, one which his wife certainly wasn’t blessed with.

Striding into the room, seemingly unapologetic about the fact that he was once again late for dinner, Jonathan sat in his usual place, between his dad and his brother.

“There’s no point in me standing out in that kitchen cooking for you if by the time you get in here your dinner’s cold,” Bernie said pointedly.

Jonathan smirked and poked at his food.

“Mm, salmon again; what a nice change,” he said, picking at the fish with his fork. Salmon was his mum’s favourite; they ate it at least twice a week. “Pass the salt, Tommy.”

Jonathan kept his head down, knowing that just the sight of his parents, sitting there looking stilted and false at opposite ends of the ‘formal’ dining table, as his mother liked to refer to it as if they were royalty would set him off giggling at how ridiculous they looked. He knew that this pretentiousness wasn’t his dad’s fault: he was a wet blanket and mostly just did as he was told so that he could have an easy life. It was his mum who wanted to be seen as ‘proper’.

Bernie watched, irritated, as Tommy passed Jonathan the salt pot. Jonathan snatched it out of his hand and covered the piece of fish in a thick layer of it.

“Salmon costs a lot of money, you know,” she said. “You don’t realise how lucky you are to have such nice dinners made for you; some children eat microwaved junk every night.”

Stanley scoffed, louder than he had meant; his wife moaned so much that even now when she had a valid point no-one bothered to listen. She never knew when to stop.

Glaring at her husband, Bernie slammed her cutlery onto her plate. Dinner was ruined. “Why I bother to make lovely home-cooked meals for the three of you, I really don’t know. I have a husband who sits there mocking me, making me out to be just some old nagging housewife, and an ungrateful son who can’t even have the decency to come inside when he’s called to eat the darn thing.”

“What about me? I love your dinners, Mum.” Tommy tried to soften his mum’s mood as he ate another mouthful.

“Arse-licker,” Jonathan whispered. Tommy was such a suck-up. Jonathan wished that his brother was more like him, so that they could team up and cause their mum some real grief. But Tommy was far too good to behave like that. Their mum had done nothing but suffocate them since the day they were born and her hen-pecking had paid off when it came to Tommy. He was a total mummy’s boy. But her clinginess had had the opposite effect on Jonathan, resulting in her irritating the life out of him. He went out of his way to be dismissive of everything that she said or did. He loved that the more he pushed her away the more she tried even harder to keep him firmly in her radar and each time failed miserably. He relished the hurt that he caused her. Even as a toddler, he had been a master at playing games with her. His father had told him not long ago, in another of his feeble attempts at having some kind of a conversation, about how he had driven his mother mad as a small child. Whenever Bernie had tried to make Jonathan go to the toilet, he would deliberately save himself until they were all in the car or even better he would wait until they were at one of her snooty friends’ houses. The sight of her looking mortified as she cleaned his poo off people’s sofas and carpets had delighted him, and Jonathan had turned his incontinence into a regular occurrence. After a few of these incidents, his mother’s friends had started not to invite her to coffee mornings and that was when Bernie reached the end of her tether and finally took Jonathan to see the doctor. A behavioural specialist made five-year-old Jonathan sit on a potty, on which he obediently went to the toilet with no trouble at all. He had taken great pleasure in making his mother out to be a liar in front of the middle-aged male doctor. He had even said pardon when a fart had escaped his bottom. His mother had watched, shocked that all of a sudden the little boy was capable of going to the toilet properly. Bernie could almost see the thoughts whirling around the specialist’s head, such as whether her concerns about her child were fabricated and the questioning of her parenting skills had been the ultimate insult. After that toilet training was never an issue again; Jonathan had succeeded in his mission of making his mum suffer. Ten years on and still nothing pleased Jonathan more than scoring points against her.

“So, what have you been doing today?” Bernie asked, as she watched Jonathan continue to push his food around the plate. She hoped that her son would, for once, engage in a normal conversation with her. Looking him up and down, she wished that he wouldn’t wear such dark, dreary clothing. She also didn’t like the way his long, greasy hair hung on one side of his face. Her eyes went from him to Tommy, who was always dressed immaculately and had his hair cut without so much of a word of complaint. She couldn’t understand how identical twins could be so different.

“Oh, you know, nothing much,” Jonathan said, as he put a potato into his mouth. Eating it with his mouth open, he noted the annoyance in his mum’s eyes: she was reacting as he knew she would to his bad manners. He chewed loudly, seeing her trying her hardest not to scold him.

Stanley winced as Jonathan let out a belch and Bernie, unable to ignore her son’s behaviour any longer, tutted. Jonathan laughed; he had won yet another game: his mother was too predictable.

“Jonathan, what’s got into you? Where are your manners? Say pardon me.” Bernie used to believe that it was her son’s awkward transition from child to teenager that was causing him to act so rudely, even though this was not the case for Tommy. She could understand hormones. But he seemed to be getting worse, and she feared it had nothing to do with puberty: Jonathan was just plain rude.

“Pardon you, mother,” Jonathan said.

Sensing another battle of wills coming on, Stanley didn’t want to get involved. “Right, that was rather splendid, Bernie. I’m just off to finish potting up those hydrangeas. Leave the plates on the side; I’ll do them when I’m finished.”

Having an electrical point installed in his shed had been one of the best things that Stanley had ever done. He had insisted that he would need it for his lighting and electric tools, but generally the only appliance that required any power was his portable TV. Escaping to his sanctuary to watch it had become a welcome release from his nagging wife’s constant gripes and his spoilt son’s demands, and Stanley once again couldn’t wait to escape the pair of them. Jonathan may be rude to Bernie but he was completely dismissive to Stanley. The boy never had the time of day for his father, unlike his Tommy. It was almost time for the match to start: Arsenal was playing, and Stanley was looking forward to watching his team in peace.

“No, you go off and sort out your plants, Stanley. We’ll clear up the dishes,” Bernie insisted. It was the least Jonathan could do after ruining her dinner.

“Okay then. Do you fancy giving your old dad a hand... with the potting up?” Stanley asked Tommy. He knew that his son would jump at a chance to escape the other two as well. Tommy loved hiding out in the shed with his dad and watching the matches.

Jonathan watched as his brother and his dad made a quick exit from the room before turning back to his mother who had started on again with her nagging.

“Right then, you can make up for being so late, Jonathan. I’ll wash, you dry,” she said, shooting her son a firm look.

“I can’t, Mum, I’m going out.” His mum asking him to do chores with her was just a ploy to get them to spend time together.

“No, you’re not. Not until you’ve helped me do the washing up,” Bernie said, losing patience with her son. Jonathan hardly spent any time at home; when he wasn’t at school he was always going off somewhere, usually with that silly camera in tow. He was so secretive. She tried hard with him, but he constantly spoke to and treated her like she was an inconvenience.

“And what are you going to do to stop me, huh?” Jonathan leaned back in his chair; he was intrigued to see how she would react to his challenge. He could see the tears in her eyes: she looked like she was fighting hard to hold them back. “Are you going to lock me in my bedroom or spank my bum?”

He laughed.

Bernie knew that once again, her son was challenging her. She never won an argument with him; the more that she insisted on something, the more he refused to do it. It was as if he was trying to break her down, and lately she had felt that it wouldn’t be long until she would have to give up trying with him. After fifteen years, he had nearly worn her out.

Jonathan pulled his chair out, stood up and threw his mum a triumphant look. Whistling as he went, he strolled out of the room.

Staring at her selfish child’s back, Bernie gathered the plates and cutlery. The thought of another lonely evening in the house on her own made her feel sorry for herself; family life was not how she had envisaged it. She and Stanley had never been madly in love, not even in the beginning. Stanley had employed Bernie to do his books for him. He ran his father’s garage, but had no time to do any of the accounts or paperwork. Bernie had been a natural. She had answered the ad that he had placed in the local newspaper and in no time at all, she had whipped the place into shape. Stanley had very quickly come to depend on her. After his father’s death, Stanley took the garage on as his own and by then Bernie had become irreplaceable to him. They worked so well as a team, and Stanley could see that Bernie was fond of him. He reasoned that it would be in both of their interests if they married. As the business rapidly went from strength to strength Stanley was ecstatic when a few months after they had tied the knot, Bernie announced that she was pregnant.