Ben Cheetham - The Society of Dirty Hearts

Julian braced his hands against his skull as though trying to keep it from splitting apart. A sound — the most pathetic sound he’d ever heard — drew his eyes reluctantly but inexorably back to the screen. His dad was sat on the end of the bed once more, elbows on knees, hands over his mouth, sobbing so hard his shoulders shook and his breath came in gasps. Behind him, Deborah Bradshaw lay staring at herself in the ceiling mirror, and her reflection looked back at her with an expression of numb loathing.

A great, choking wave of anger surged up inside Julian. He clenched his fists to smash the sickening images, but at that moment the screen went blank. He stood trembling, dazed and dumbfounded, like someone emerging from sleep to find themselves in a different world. Gradually, he became aware that the room wasn’t totally silent. There was a noise — a small, repetitive noise that raised the hairs on his neck. Click, click, click, it came at one or two second intervals. He jerked his gaze towards it, peering goggle-eyed into the gloom at the back of the room. As his vision adjusted, he made out rows of shelves from ceiling to floor, running the width of the room. They were crammed with hundreds, maybe thousands of videotapes and DVDs. In front of the shelves was a black-leather armchair. And sat in the armchair was a jowly, thick-featured little goblin of a man with a snoutish nose. His eyebrows formed a single line above close-set eyes. His swollen-looking lips curved up into a smile, which exuded a repulsive leering cynicism.

“Mr Ugly.” Julian breathed the name hoarsely.

“Mr X,” corrected the man, standing. As Julian took a flinching step backward, he continued, “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to give you this.” He held out a videotape.

“What is it?”

“It’s the original of your father’s film. Think of it as a coming-of-age gift.” As Mr X moved into the light from the mirror, Julian saw that he was even uglier than he’d first appeared. There were deep pockmarks in his cheeks and he had an overbite so pronounced he couldn’t close his mouth fully. But it wasn’t his physical characteristics that made him truly repulsive, it was the rotten soul and polluted heart that moulded their expression.

“Why are you giving this to me?” asked Julian, hesitating to take the tape.

“I’ve got no more use for it. Your father’s all used up. I’ve squeezed as much as there is to squeeze out of him.”

“You’re blackmailing him.”

“I have been for the last fifteen or so years. But not anymore. Now I’m looking to the future, the next generation.”

“You mean me?”

“Who else?”

Julian’s mind returned to the room nextdoor, the blood. His mouth filled with metallic-tasting saliva. With difficulty, he swallowed and said in a thick voice, “What did you make me do?”

“I never make anybody do anything, Julian. I just help them to open up.” Mr X added with a touch of pride, “I suppose you could say that’s my talent, getting people to open up and let it out.”

Julian’s throat seemed to be closing. “What’s it?”

“ It’s whatever’s inside here and here.” Mr X touched his chest and head. “Dreams, fantasies. Things people can barely admit to themselves, let alone their spouses and partners. For your father it was what you saw on the screen. For you…” His lips pulled up to show more of his crooked teeth. “Well, let’s just say it gave us quite a performance. The intensity of it surprised even me. You put your dad to shame.”

Julian shook his head as if trying to dislodge Mr X’s words. “There’s nothing like that inside me.”

“Really? Then what’s that about?” Mr X pointed at Julian’s blood-stained hands.

“I…I…” Julian scoured his brain again, frantically trying to remember, but still nothing came. “I couldn’t hurt her,” he cried, feeling hysteria close to engulfing him. “I couldn’t fucking do it.”

“By her I assume you mean your sister, Mia.”

Sister. The word echoed in Julian’s mind. Hearing it said, somehow made it more real. His eyes grew hard with hate. “What have you done to her, you ugly fuck?”

“I told you, I don’t do anything to anybody,” Mr X said equably, untouched by the insult. “I’m merely a facilitator. I facilitate whatever it desires.”

“And I told you, it’s not in me. I couldn’t hurt Mia.”

“Maybe you couldn’t, but you’ve definitely got it in you.”

A glimmer of warped hope flickered in Julian’s eyes. He held up his trembling hands. “Are you saying this isn’t Mia’s blood?”

Mr X grinned impishly. “I think I’ll keep you guessing on that for now.”

Hope turned into rage. “You fucker,” spat Julian, his fingers flexing as if itching to wrap themselves around Mr X’s throat. “You twisted, sick little cunt.”

Mr X clapped his free hand against the videotape. “That’s it. That’s what I like to see.”

Julian wrenched his eyes away from Mr X, shading them with his hand as if to conceal some deformity. Mr X tut-tutted. “There’s no need to hide. You don’t need to worry about showing who you really are here.” He made a sweeping gesture at the rows of tapes and discs. “You’re amongst friends.”

“You’re not my fucking friend.”

Mr X screwed up his face in mock hurt. “What am I then?”

“I…I don’t…” A strange, uncertain light came into Julian’s eyes.

“You have the look of someone who doubts the reality of what they see. Believe me, Julian, this isn’t a dream. This is as real as it gets.”

Julian heaved a breath and spoke, dragging the words out one at a time. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to succeed, of course. This is your time, Julian. The world could be yours. All you have to do is reach out and take it.” As he spoke, Mr X glanced meaningfully at the videotape in his hand.

“You want me to destroy my father?”

“All sons destroy their fathers, one way or another, sooner or later. That’s just the way of things. Besides, if you don’t do it, he’ll destroy himself and the business with it. And I’ve put too much hard work into building that business into what it is today to let that happen.”

Julian’s face twisted into an incredulous scowl. “My father, and my father alone, built that business.”

Mr X gave a placatory wave of his hand. “Don’t get me wrong, Julian. I don’t mean to claim I’ve had a direct hand in the business’s success. But I’ve always been there, in the background, giving a prod in the right direction when it’s needed, pushing your father onto greater efforts. And when you takeover the business, I’ll do the same for you.”

“And what if I don’t take the tape?”

“You will.” Mr X spoke with the absolute confidence of a man used to getting what he wanted.

“Give me one reason why I should.”

“I’ll give you two. For starters, there’s your mother. She deserves to know the truth about the man she loves before she dies. Don’t you think?”

Julian blinked with uncertainty at the mention of his mother. Did she really need to know? Wasn’t the trail of misery, pain and loss left in his father’s wake long enough already? Before Julian could think anymore about that, Mr X continued, “Then there’s this.” He took a disc from his pocket. “I’ll bet you can guess what this is, can’t you?”

“My film.”

“Correct.”

Julian’s gaze flicked between the disc and Mr X’s face. His fingers flexed again.

“You’re thinking about taking this from me,” Mr X said, reading his mind. “Well it’d be pointless. This is just a copy.”

“So what’s the deal? Either I do as you say or you send that to the police?”