Ben Cheetham - The Society of Dirty Hearts

The door clicked open. Julian went to shove the diary back under the pillow, but with his hands tied he wasn’t fast enough. Mia appeared in the doorway, holding two mugs. “Hey, what the fuck you doing looking at that?” she said. “Put it down right now.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…I just…” stammered Julian.

“Just what? You just wanted to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, that’s what.”

“Who’s Mr Ugly?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Is someone…hurting you? Is a man hurting you?”

Mia laughed contemptuously, as if to say, no man could hurt me. “Just get out.” All the softness was gone from her voice. Her eyes burned like blue flame.

“Please, Mia, you can tell me. I can help.”

“What makes you think I want help from you or anybody else?”

“Your Facebook photo.”

Mia thought for a moment, then realising what Julian referred to she said, “You mean what I wrote on my wrist. That was a joke. I was just fucking around.”

“It didn’t look like a joke.”

“Yeah, well it was. Now go on. Fuck off out of here.”

Julian rose, holding out his hands which were tingly from lack of circulation for Mia to untie. The corners of her eyes and mouth curling with mischief, she shook her head. “We don’t want you molesting any schoolgirls on your way to your car now, do we?”

A flush rose up Julian’s throat. “That’s not fair and you know it.”

Mia’s eyes flickered as if she realised she’d gone too far, but she didn’t untie Julian. Sighing, he made his way downstairs and out into the street. He found a low brick wall and sawed the stocking against its edge, conscious that it wasn’t the kind of neighbourhood where a stranger could loiter without causing curtains to twitch. It took him a good ten minutes to work his hands free. Stuffing the stocking into his pocket, he returned to his car. He felt bad about the diary, but it occurred to him that Mia must’ve known there was a good chance he’d find it. Perhaps on some level, conscious or subconscious, she’d wanted him to find it. Perhaps, like her Facebook photo, it was a call for help — help she desperately needed, but was too proud to ask for. He released a heavy breath. Perhaps he was just an idiot for reading it. Still, he couldn’t shake the image of Mr Ugly from his mind. He had no doubt that Mr Ugly was one of the ‘bad people’ Mia had referred to. But who was he? Did he even exist or was he just something produced from her mind, a representation of her troubled psyche? Julian shook his head. That face had displayed a sordid cynicism of almost inhuman proportions. Sure Mia was cynical, but that wasn’t all she was. Beneath her cynicism, he knew now, there was a tender heart. But that heart was being eaten out of her by bad people. And when the last bite was gone, Mia would be gone too, gone like Joanne Butcher.

Henry greeted Julian with a bark as he entered the house. Stooping to scratch behind his ears, he made his way through to the kitchen. Wanda was preparing the evening meal. “What’ve you been up to?” she asked.

Julian expelled a breath of irritation. “Not you as well. Always questions, questions.”

Wanda’s eyes grew stern. “Don’t get offish with me, Julian. If we ask questions it’s not because we’re trying to pry into your life, it’s because we’re worried about you. Would you rather we just ignored you and let you get yourself into a worse mess than you’re already in?”

“Who says I’m in a mess?”

Wanda made a who are you trying to kid face. “I’ve seen you like this before, Julian, when you were having those nightmares. You’ve got the same look in your eyes now that you had then.”

Julian dropped his gaze from Wanda’s. “Where’s Mum?”

“In bed. All this upset has wiped her out.”

A twinge of guilt tugged at Julian. “I’m taking Henry for a walk.”

As he headed for the back door, Wanda said, “All we want is for you to be happy, Julian.”

He hesitated, glancing a smile at Wanda. “I know. I’m sorry for snapping.”

Julian made his way through the woods to where the path forked. He took the fork that led straight on. The police were gone now. The only sign that they’d ever been there was some torn strands of yellow-and-black plastic ribbon dangling from tree-trunks where he’d found the body. He thought about Joanne Butcher, about the way she’d looked alive, about the way she’d looked dead. He thought about Mia. “How much is enough?” he said to himself. “How much is enough for what?”

When Julian returned from his walk, he went to bed. He wasn’t particularly tired, but he was eager to see if the dream returned. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Sleep came on, and with it the dream. He jerked awake, trembling with disgust and rage. Catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror, he snatched up a mug and hurled it at his reflection. The mirror cracked with a loud pop. The distorted, fragmented face that stared at him from it seemed like the revelation of his inner being. There was a knock at his door.

“Everything okay in there?” asked Christine. “What was that noise?”

Julian slung a shirt over the mirror, before opening the door and smiling at his mum. “I just dropped something, that’s all.” He studied his mum’s face. The lines were perhaps a fraction more deeply etched, the shadows perhaps a shade darker than when he’d first arrived home. “Listen, Mum, I realise I’ve been behaving in a pretty shitty way the last few days, but I want you to know, well, I…the thing is…” He faltered. He’d meant to lie to her, tell her there was no need to worry about him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. The lie was too big for utterance, even if it was to protect her. She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. He couldn’t lie, and neither could he tell the truth. All he could do was hide behind silence, staring awkwardly at the floor.

To Julian’s relief, the sound of the front door opening and then approaching footsteps attracted his mum’s attention. His relief dissolved into a fresh wave of apprehension as his dad burst out angrily from the living-room. “Julian, if you’re in, I want to talk to you.” Robert emerged into view flushed and frowning. “You’re a bloody liar. I phoned the university today, spoke to your personal tutor. There’s no study-break. You haven’t attended class for nearly a fortnight. You’ve been playing us for mugs.”

Julian glanced at his mum, then quickly back to his dad. Anger he could deal with, but not the disappointment he saw in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing, checking up on me?”

“I’ve got every right to check up on you, Julian. It’s my money that pays for your studies.”

“I never asked for your money.”

“Only because you’ve never had to. You’ve never really had to ask for anything your whole life.” Robert nodded with a sardonic twist of his mouth, as if he’d hit upon some minor revelation. “Maybe that’s the problem here. Maybe if we hadn’t just given you everything you wanted, you wouldn’t think this kind of brattish behaviour was acceptable.”

“Yeah, and maybe if you showed some trust in me, I wouldn’t feel the need to behave this way.”

“Don’t try to turn this back on me. I’m not the one in the wrong here.”

Julian raised his eyebrows. “Oh no, you’ve never lied to anyone about anything, have you?”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Robert demanded to know, his anger flashing higher.

“You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the-”

“Don’t change the subject, Julian,” Christine interjected. “Why did you lie to us? Why are you here and not at university?”