The Boy Alchemist

By J.P. Cole

Oliver suffers horrendous abuse by his mother as a child. He grows into a vengeful psychopath. Sent to boarding school as a teenager, he is tormented with further abuse and acts of humilation. Extremely intelligent, he manages to intoxicate the school  football team with grave consequences. Sent to prison, he engineers an escape with great loss of life.

 

Morag is an IRA courier and Claire a MI5 operator. Morag is on a mission of revenge for the death of her brother. Both Morag and Claire become disillusioned with the roles they are forced to play in Northern Ireland and flee to England pursued by their respective organisations.

 

Fate causes their paths to cross in a  climatic ending to their stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. P. Cole
• Release date: May 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393346531

Book preview

PROLOGUE

1999

The driver filled the car with a rant of obscene curses. The swearing was pointless because he was the solitary occupant of the cabin and the fumes were still seeping in anyway. Coolant leaking onto hot metal, the metallic odour was unmistakable and probably caused by a ruptured hose that had undergone an aneurism. The repeated use of the word `BASTARD` whilst reducing his frustration, unfortunately did nothing to seal the leak.

A few miles back, the needle on the temperature gauge had started ominously creeping upwards. He had stopped, opened the bonnet, and dismally saw the wisps of steam rising up from the engine bay. Now, a few miles further on, the needle inexorably nudged the red zone on the dial and the engine rattled and complained. He tried switching off the ignition and then coasting down the hills but the loss of coolant was incessant.

The driver, a sales rep, thought depressingly about the inevitable. At home, his morbidly possessive wife would be waiting like a Nuremberg judge bent on retribution for his crimes against humanity. Her stabbing fingers would drum an accusing tattoo on the kitchen table and then there would be the usual intense interrogation as to why he was late. Her scowling expression, with its own unique cocktail of soured anger and bitter disgust served on frigid ice, would be etched on her face. The voluminous black negligee that collapsed and sighed like a punctured hot air balloon around her when she sat down entered unbidden but insistently into his imagination. Christ Almighty! He would soon have to telephone her. It was phone-check time! The thought of her down-turned mouth and acidic tongue made him flinch with cowardice and so he drove on in stoic silence, putting off the call for a few more minutes.

Another warning rattle from the engine startled him and when he looked at the temperature gauge, the needle was well into the red zone. A red warning light blinked on and off on the instrument panel like a warning finger pleading with him to stop before he damaged the engine.

Grudgingly accepting his dismal fate, he brought the car to a halt. For a few impotent seconds he sat and stared malevolently at the wisps of steam escaping from under the bonnet then, exasperated and angry, he got out of the car and looked around.

A tall privet hedge so neatly trimmed it looked like a green obelisk screened the house from the outside world. A pair of double gates painted white bridged a gap in the hedge. A wooden sign hung perfectly level from the right-hand gate and the words `DROVER`S REST` were burnt into the wood. A perfectly weeded gravel drive curved sharply upwards, disappearing behind the hedge and on towards the house. The house and gardens afforded an illusory isolation but a picturesque village was only a mile further on and the nearest town was just a thirty-minute drive away.

Looking beseechingly skyward as if God might send down an angel with a can of water, the driver saw a night sky dotted with the remnants of an earlier, spent storm. The silvered clouds made objects in the moonlight become fleetingly visible, then invisible again. No angel came though and instead, the scary spectre of his wife beckoned menacingly.

The driver ignored the hiss of escaping steam, and metallic groans of contracting metal as the engine started to cool and complain. If he refilled the radiator; if he drove slowly; if the leak was not too bad, he just might reach the nearest town and find a hotel for the night. There were too many bloody `ifs` in life, he thought.

Taking an empty can from the car`s boot, he walked up the drive towards the front door of the house. The fluorescent glow from a television filtered through the lounge window. Someone was obviously home but for some indefinable reason, he felt the house was unoccupied. He shrugged his shoulders at the paradox and shivered involuntarily. Was it from the cold or from something altogether more primal? He became a superhero and decided it was just chilly. He rang the doorbell but got no response. Something menacing swirled around at the edge of his consciousness and he told himself not to be so stupid, it was just the dark.

OKLAHOMA!

He could distinctly hear Rogers and Hammerstein`s music in the background. The chorus was singing with the usual western enthusiasm. Gingerly walking along the front of the house to prevent stepping on the perfectly pruned shrubs, he peered through the lounge window and then rapped on the windowpane. Excuse me! Excuse me! he shouted through a large gap in the curtains. 

Two heads, one male and the other female were visible just above the level of the back of the sofa. They seemed very engrossed in watching television. The sofa was a light colour and both heads were resting against a halo of dark cloth. He recognised a well-known newscaster on the screen. Both heads continued to ignore him.

OOOOOKLAHOMA, the chorus started again, first softly, then building up to a crescendo. He thought it odd that the people in the house were watching the television but listening to music at the same time. He rapped softly on the window again and then once more even more loudly. Still no response! Desperate now, he went around to the rear of the house and found himself standing on a large patio paved with a fussy, complex symmetry. In the corner of the patio, the ubiquitous barbecue stood looking pathetically cold and forlorn waiting for a rare occasion during the English summer when it would undergo resurrection like the green foliage surrounding it.

He peered in through the French doors. Slipper clad feet protruded past the archway wall that separated the dining room from the lounge. He tried the door. Alarmingly, it slid open easily and his sense of uneasiness magnified.

OOOOOKLAHOMA, blasted out from the CD player in the lounge. Deprived of the insulation from the double-glazing, the chorus was now much louder and it startled him. Stepping into the dining room, ready with effusive apologies, he shouted, HELLO! The chorus was again getting joyously enthusiastic about the Oklahoman countryside and so he shouted even more loudly. A rising panic started building up in him as he gamely tried to compete with the digital singers. He walked across the dining room and entered the lounge. The anonymous chorus was at last subdued and silent.

I..., he started his apology but got no further as his vocal cords froze. The woman sat upright with her hands primly clasped together in her lap, her ankles demurely crossed, and her tweed skirt pulled modestly over her knees. Mrs. Prim, the driver thought unkindly. She was staring straight ahead, but she had only one eye. An ugly, black hole cratered her face where her right eye should have been. Rivulets of blood had run down her cheek and had congealed where they had pooled and stained the neck of her sweater.

Her husband was leaning against the arm of the sofa in a parody of a contemplative pose. There was similar ragged hole just between his eyes. The motorist touched the woman on her shoulder to ask if she was all right. It was a ridiculous and futile gesture originating in shock.

OOOOOOOOOKLAHOMA! The chorus suddenly screamed at him. The CD player must have been in `repeat` mode and the chorus started yet again with a renewed vigour determined to impress. The rep gave a loud, panic-stricken yell and involuntarily nudged the woman who toppled sideways entering into a gruesome, final embrace with her dead husband. Her head slid down his chest and came to rest on his lap with her single remaining eye staring directly at him. The sales rep gave another short, strangled scream and fled the house not caring about scattering numerous small pieces of furniture and ornaments in his wake. Halfway down the drive he stopped shaking and babbling. He could think about nothing but escaping from this dreadful place. After a few minutes, his heart slowed to a manageable pace and then very, very reluctantly, he re-entered the charnel house.

Nothing can mimic the absolute suspension of animation brought on by death. It is as if something intangible but essential has departed the body.  The `dark cloth` behind the occupants was blood soaking into the fabric. It had radiated outwards from the exit wounds at the back of their heads. He finally found the telephone but when he listened for the dialling tone there was just an ominous silence. He looked stupefied at the frayed ends of the connection cord realising that he was a trapped in the middle of an urban vacuum with two corpses for company.

The superhero disappeared into the aether along with his vapourised resolution. Somehow, the naive ebullience of `Oklahoma` only magnified the nightmare giving the scene an air of abstract insanity and infinite menace. The driver remembered the water can and frantically filled it from the kitchen tap. Five minutes later, he started the miserable, still parched engine and sped off.

The unambitious sergeant idly filling in some form at the reception desk was just about to have the quietness of his nightshift shattered. Listening to the barely coherent motorist, the sergeant’s hand reached for the telephone.

Walsh came out of the house and sat on one of the garden walls. A young police officer walked towards him wiping his mouth.

Your first one, eh? Walsh asked.

Yes, Sir, replied the young beat constable rather too meekly.

Have you been sick, lad? enquired Walsh

Err...yes sir but I was very careful. I didn’t throw up anywhere in the grounds.

Walsh was amused. He bet he knew where the constable had vomited. Where did you throw up, constable? 

The drain in the road outside, Sir.

Walsh laughed. Oh, the forensic boys will love you for that. That’s one of the first places they’ll look when they’re finished inside the house.

The young police officer went ashen. He`d dropped a mighty bollock on his first murder!

Walsh was generous and winked. Don’t worry, son. I won’t tell them, if you won’t.  Walsh watched the red-faced newbie beat a hasty retreat and pulled out a packet of his forbidden cigarettes and thought about what story had played out here.

CHAPTER 1

1953-1960

1953 was an eventful year. Elizabeth Windsor was crowned queen, Hilary and Tensing climbed Everest, the first humans to do so and live to celebrate, and Oliver De`ath`s mother, Melissa, was seeing a medical student whilst both of them studied at the University of London.

Melissa was a `gel`, a bona fide debutante, no less. Daddy was very rich and had died at a relatively young age. Daddy had needed `class` so that he could join the right clubs - clubs with lots of leather chesterfield sofas and absolutely no accent of any kind was could be heard.

Mummy had needed money to pay for the re-emergence of her family name into the higher realms of society. This ambition was paramount and it surmounted all other considerations in her mother`s shallow, irrelevant life. This obsession provided a rich and fertile soil in which the seed of insanity already germinating in Melissa`s mind, could propagate and flourish.

Melissa had attended the best Swiss finishing schools, and had her coming out parties, expensive frocks and all. Melissa spoke `posh` and was `superior` or at least she thought she was. The epitome of snobbishness, she was at best petulant and as the embryonic madness grew like an invisible behavioural cancer, given to violent tantrums and sweeping, unpredictable mood swings. She was indeed very beautiful, but best worshipped from a distance.

Melissa`s mother was `out` of an old titled family that through unwise investments and some `unfortunate infertility` (a euphemism for homosexuality when such things were considered very bad -for breeding purposes, that is.), had more or less disappeared from heraldry.  She had dynastic ambitions to see her family rise, phoenix-like, to prominence again. Melissa had been brainwashed from an early age to worship the artificial importance of class. It was the prime directive in Melissa’s life. Melissa was not born a little girl; she was bred `fit for purpose`.

The student`s name was John Dere and he was from the `working classes`- an evolutionary inferior species with poor quality genes. John was handsome, intelligent and in time would become a very successful and internationally known doctor but his roots were a terrible and terminal affliction. There was no known cure for this disease. If Melissa`s personality had not had such fragility, she might have rebelled against her mother’s dominance and events may have turned out to be very different but it was not to be.

Melissa`s mother watched the affair progress and continually assessed the seriousness of it. A momentary `indiscretion` was all that was needed to shred her schemes. Her daughter might get pregnant by John (well, that was how she had caught her husband, after all!) thus contaminating the higher order gene pool. There was, in fact, very little chance of the looming disaster of an awkward pregnancy.

Melissa, poor girl, was rather confused about sex. She could not understand the paradox that she was supposed to be the archetypal sophisticate one minute, and a grunting, sweating, animal the next. She heard the ecstatic cries coming from her flatmate’s bedroom and could only try to mimic them. Melissa was not very good at mimicry either so she avoided sex whenever possible.

Melissa`s mother knew that if she simply forbade her daughter to see John, Melissa would continue to see him out of spite and so she simply played on Melissa’s own inherent weaknesses. Melissa would often discuss love with exaggerated melodrama. Melodrama was a key slip-fault in the crumbling edifice of Melissa`s eroding personality.

Does he want to become a consultant, dear, or just a GP? Oh, I see, a consultant, that`s nice. Where would you live?  

Then, the gentlest of probes - like the caress of a venomous snake.

I see a nice little cottage. How romantic. That would be so...charming – built of gingerbread, would it? A bit different from here though, don’t you think? Would you act as his receptionist?

Then there would follow a subtle change of direction and the fangs would puncture injecting the poison.

Lord Wrightingham`s son was asking about you the other day. Always had something of a crush on you, you know. Melissa pretended not to hear such trifles because, after all, she was supposed to be `in love`. Would you like to go to the ball next week? I’m sure your student...friend, won’t mind.

Melissa went to the ball, of course. Some things are firmly entrenched into a person’s nature after all.

Melissa had asked to meet John on London Bridge of all places. The dramatic location obviously indicated that the meeting was significant. A cold, wet November night, the rain came down in spiteful, penetrating sheets that malevolently sought out the tiniest opening in John`s old duffle coat.

Already fed up with Melissa`s obsession with melodrama, John desperately wanted to get out of the relationship. He could tell she pretended to enjoy sex. The pretence was worse than stony silence - almost comic if it was not for the fact that he felt so humiliated and bored by it.

Jesus! It was to be one of her `scenes` again. Act bloody one; Scene bloody one, thought, John. Who would she `be` tonight? John considered it unlikely that Melissa had a personality to call her own and that she just borrowed one from some fantasy of hers that fitted the occasion. Unfortunately, the fit was often imperfect to the point of hilarity. Now standing wet and miserable with anticipation, he looked impatiently at his watch – seven thirty - and wondered what his mates were doing. Diana would probably be there. Diana had been joining them a lot lately.  Diana`s coy smile implied that she didn`t need to mimic anything.

The road was slick and reflective with rainwater and the street lamps shone yellow ovals on the pavement, making the bridge indeed look like a film set. John wondered how to-night’s drama would unfold. The rain would be a mixed blessing. He would get wet, but at least the `play` would be over with a lot quicker than trying to wade through Melissa`s lake of fake emotional treacle. If he was brutally honest with himself, he was scared to finish with Melissa. She was truly awesome in full temper. His mates called her Medusa – a look could turn you to stone.

John spotted her walking towards him. She wore a white belted raincoat, the collar turned up against the driving rain. As she walked, Melissa dreamed of Lord Wrightingham`s large country estate and the landed gentry beckoned to her to join them, or at least in her fantasy it did. It was time to get back on the path to social prominence and John had to go.

Jesus Christ! The black beret, Oh bloody hell! John whispered to himself. It’s her Ingrid Bergman. It must be really serious this time.

Melissa walked slowly with her shoulders hunched, a signal that she had something important to tell him. Shit! What if she`s pregnant? John whispered full of fright, to himself. The thought of having to do `the right thing` and marrying her gave John a feeling of mounting panic.

Melissa got to where John was standing. Her eyes were downcast and she chewed her lip in an attempt to emphasise the seriousness of what she had to say.

John, we have to stop seeing each other. I do love you - you know I do, but I have a duty to my family. It is an obligation that I simply cannot ignore. Will you ever forgive me? Melissa looked searchingly into his eyes seeking forgiveness for the terrible wound she was about to inflict.

John could not believe his luck and managed somehow to keep a straight face because he was, after all, integral to the scene.

I realise you have a higher calling, Melissa. I will miss you so much. But yes, I do understand. John did his best to look dejected.

The line was corny but it was the best he could come up with in his excitement. Melissa dramatically tossed her hair and walked away with her shoulders stooping with the weight of faux guilt. She looked back with feigned concern in case he might jump off the bridge and then she disappeared into the night rain. John grinned, did a little jig, and suddenly remembered the name of the pub his friends, and Diana, had gone to that very night. 

A few weeks later, Melissa heard from her roommate that John was drunk in one of the pubs they had often frequented together. A dramatic opportunity too good to miss, Melissa seized the moment and majestically swept out of her flat diva-like to comfort her former lover. Her flatmate slyly laughed; she knew something that Melissa did not. As she neared the pub, Melissa heard the laughter from inside muted at first, but getting increasingly raucous. No doubt, John would be on his own in a corner blind drunk, pathetically miserable and disconsolate. She made an entrance into the crowded bar any operatic superstar would be proud of.

John was sitting on the far side of the room with his back towards her. There were three other boys and a girl at the table. Melissa assumed that the girl was with one of the other students. As she approached, one of them must have cracked a joke because they all burst out laughing – including John. Taken slightly aback, Melissa continued to approach the table. John was probably putting on a brave face. The girl, still laughing, put her head on his shoulder. It was a simple and intimate gesture but the significance was obvious. Melissa`s carefully scripted scene of high drama instantly vaporised with the heat of her temper.

One of the John’s friends spotted her coming towards them with a furious expression on her face. An imminent eruption was obvious and the group went silent and waited. She was still some way away from them when the incandescent rant started. 

Bastard! It didn’t take you long to find some easy tart, did it? Melissa screamed aloud. The bar became silent. This would be good.

I seem to recall that it was you who finished it, Melissa and don`t call my girlfriend a tart again. A `higher calling` or something, wasn’t it? John saw no reason to pander to Melissa any more.

Bastard! Bastard! Humping her now, are you? Melissa turned her fury on the amused-looking girl. Well I hope he’s better in bed with you, than he was with me!

He is now, oh yes, most definitely. There was a muted cheer in the room.

Melissa looked at John and shrieked. Useless little shit! Crude and with no class, I suppose you had visions of bettering yourself?

Despite himself, John was unable to suppress the retort. Oh, but I have.

A pint glass came hurtling in his direction. Then another glass sailed over towards him just missing an innocent spectator. Melissa’s arm was cocked ready to throw yet another missile when she felt a vice-like grip around her wrist.

Cut it aht! It was a very large barman,

She found her wrist held vice-like by the barman. Melissa was past considering that discretion was the better part of valour and started slapping and kicking the very large barman. Looking perplexed at Melissa`s temerity to think she could actually hurt him, he pulled her towards the door.

Aht, Aht! The barman propelled Melissa towards the door.

Spontaneous applause followed Melissa as she was pushed out of the pub. Outside in an alley, she was roughly pinned up against the wall. The barman`s hand went instantly to her crotch. Melissa`s eyes widened in terror. This was not supposed to happen to debs. The hand insolently started to massage her.

You come in here ever again, I`ll do you up against this wall. You understand? The barman then laughed as he walked back into the pub. Melissa gathered up the shreds of her tattered dignity like the remnants of a ripped dress and ran back to her flat.

A year later, when John and Diana announced their engagement, Melissa broke every piece of crockery in her flat in an inconsolable tantrum. Her flatmate laughed. Melissa was so easy to wind up. It was such a shame about John.

Four years later, in 1959, and after many failed attempts at a stable relationship, Melissa met her future husband. He was thirty and due to inherit a minor title, but it was a small step in the upward direction. Melissa was then twenty-eight.

The honeymoon period was soon over as more props to Melissa`s crumbling psyche fell away leaving an increasingly unstable personality in its wake. Unfortunately, her husband was something of a stoic and prided himself on his lack of observable emotion. This lack of responsiveness just fuelled the deterioration as she tried in vain to get him to respond to her in some way.

"What do you mean you think my friends are shallow? You must think I`m shallow too then! God, you wouldn’t appreciate something avant-garde if it came and bit you on your arse!" It was a typical breakfast conversation.

His riposte, as usual, was simple and cold. Can you pass the marmalade, please? Melisa threw the jar at him missing his head by a few inches. He turned around inspecting the splatter of preserve on the wall and raised an eyebrow, the zenith of English upper-class anger. This attitude just catalysed the cycle of tantrums, which simply self-amplified.

As Melissa’s unpredictability increased, her husband began to make increasingly frequent excuses to stay away. A flat in London became a convenient refuge. His mother-in-law, frantic with worry that the heat of her daughter’s temper would cremate her dreams, had a long talk with Melissa who suddenly became a changed woman overnight.

She realised how petulant she had been; things would be so much better from now on. She now realised how lucky she was to have a man like her husband. Melissa was a beautiful woman when she was in a good mood. It was to be a second honeymoon. She managed to fake sexual enjoyment, at least for a while. Three months later, Melissa was pregnant. All sex stopped at that point.

Pregnancy did not suit Melissa. Maternal instincts were alien, distant emotions. She just didn`t know what to feel and so she felt nothing. The thing growing inside her was distorting her body and her belly swelled alarmingly. Her frocks no longer fitted. Melissa didn’t blossom she expanded. When she was alone, she would undress and look in a mirror and curse her husband.

Look at what you’ve done to me with your filthy thing, you dirty bastard!  If I’m lucky, you won’t be coming near me with it again! Never! Never! Never! 

She stared at the mute, pregnant reflection that always agreed with her distorted perception of reality. Then she would prod her stomach with a viciously stabbing finger. And you in there, yes you, whatever you are!  Just living off me like some fucking leach. You fucking useless parasite! Do not think for one moment, I`ll forgive you either. Oh no, just you wait till you come out from hiding! 

Melissa managed to retain some composure throughout her pregnancy. There was still a fifty-fifty chance that she might have to go through the whole charade again. Oliver De`ath was born at seven-thirty in the morning on April 20th. 1960.

"Do you want to see your baby, Melissa? The midwife asked.

No! Just tell me what it bloody is, she screamed at the midwife.

It’s a boy.

Melissa lay back smiling with a sigh of relief. – Thank Christ!  That would satisfy both her mother and husband. The family name would continue, she would never have to go through this humiliation again, ever!

They named him Oliver and his entry into the world passed with little comment. People went on as usual obsessed with the everyday trivia they often found so important. It should have stayed this way but events do not always turn out for the best.

A few months later, in a small village about thirty miles away from the grandness of Melissa’s manor, Helen Robinson was puffing and pushing to the encouragement and demand of the midwife who, ironically, had helped to deliver Oliver De`ath. Downstairs, Gareth Robinson, the local blacksmith and farrier, paced back and forth treading a furrow in the carpet. A man of immense physical strength, his wife’s labour had reduced him to a gibbering wreck. He felt he was useless and had been treated like an idiot and banished from the bedroom.

Go and make some tea or something you, big oaf! the midwife had chided and then pushed Robinson out of the room. Come up in five minutes, Gareth!

Yes, Gemma.

The two women giggled at the unconcealed, pleading submissiveness in his voice. Five minutes later, he knocked and entered the bedroom holding a cup of tea for his wife. The cup and saucer looked pathetically fragile in his massive hands. Gareth Robinson was six foot four - but looked just as wide. Working at the forge all his life had given him a physique that implied a tempered strength that could only come from hard work and not from tins of protein supplements. He sat on the bed much later, one arm around his wife’s shoulders and the other proudly cradling his new son.

The mid-wife smiled at the contrast between the blacksmith and his wife. Helen was petite and porcelain delicate. Always pale complexioned, she contrasted sharply with the huge and powerful man beside her. Helen though, had always been possessed of an immense inner strength. They complimented each other perfectly; each would have been disappointed in life with anyone else.

I`ll be off now, Helen. Gareth, I don’t want you getting my friend into this condition again - for a while at least. Gemma waved her finger admonishingly at him.

I have needs, Gemma. Is that an offer to stand in for those duties?

"Don’t be silly! I need a proper man, Gareth. Somebody, you know, bigger. Helen tells me you have a `little` problem in that department."

After Gemma left the Robinson`s she remembered, years later, thinking of the contrast between the love that would envelope Helen and Gareth`s son and the chilled, sterile neglect that would inevitably surround Oliver De`ath.

Gareth turned to his wife later and asked, Are you really sure you don’t mind calling him Andrew, after my father?

Well, at least it’s not as bad as some of the other names your bloody heathen ancestors had, Gareth. She put her head on his chest and went to sleep. Scared he might disturb her, he never moved until she woke up much later.

Andrew Robinson was born on the 30th July 1960.  Andrew Robinson and Oliver De`ath would never know each other. They would live in different universes and they would only meet once.

CHAPTER 2

1966

Oliver had a nanny, of course. She took most of the stress of rearing the baby off Melissa. Breast-feeding was most definitely out; it was such a plebeian concept and the idea of her child sucking on her nipple filled her with shuddering disgust.  The changing of soiled napkins, making midnight feeds, comforting the child when it was teething; the nanny did all pedestrian chores.

Melissa, now that her duty was completed, reverted to her old ways - tantrums and all. She was indifferent to her son founding his presence a distraction at best. She called Oliver, `The Pestilence`.

Melissa’s violent histrionics became more frequent and grew in intensity. Her husband promptly went back to his `alternative existence` in London. Inevitably, he found a mistress - a wife of a well-known politician who was a closet gay. The situation was to be `civilised` as they often are in such circles. There would be no` rocking the boat`, no kiss and tell. Everyone was happy with the status quo.

Melissa had affairs herself, of course. How could she not? These affairs were very brief and always terminated by her lovers who fled in abject fright. Melissa emerging from her cocoon of false charm and plastic passion soon made them beat a hasty retreat back to their floral-print marriages.

Melissa was unpredictable and in the red mist of anger, she would threaten to tell all to anyone who would listen. There were strict rules in polite society that covered extra-marital behaviour. Indiscretion was flammable and so Melissa became ostracised. This pushed her even further into the dark abyss of her insanity.

Melissa`s husband finally snapped. The stoicism vaporised like a volatile liquid. There were rules that needed agreeing to for the benefit of everyone. There would be no divorce. She would continue to live in the manor house. He would see to Oliver`s education when the time came. Melissa`s husband left the house and never returned.

If Melissa was furious over the ending of the affair with John Dere, she went berserk over her failure to keep hold of her husband. She was blind to reason and incapable of seeing any fault with herself. She pleaded with him at first then threatened him with exposure, but his mind set was irrevocable. Consequently, she started to drink heavily. Melissa`s mother, the only anchor that kept her personality on anything that even remotely resembled an even keel, died of heart failure when Oliver was two.

Oliver was not a likeable child. He was not precocious in the accepted sense of the word but he gave the impression that he was watching and assessing everything and everyone. He could read anything by the time he was three.

The nanny was a useful buffer and kept Oliver and his mother apart, but the nanny herself was not over-fond of the child. Sometimes, she felt that Oliver was like a parasite attached to her by some invisible umbilicus and just using her for survival. Even at an early age, Oliver exuded an air of indifferent superiority and seldom communicated with the nanny or indeed, anyone else.

Oliver became increasingly alien and distant. He was very bright, but there were spaces in his mind that had nothing in them - yet. Nature though, abhors a vacuum and something will always seep in and fill it. The nanny was dismissed because, according to his mother, Oliver didn’t need one anymore. He then became increasingly exposed to the unpredictable and violent episodes that dominated Melissa`s erratic behaviour.

Melissa started abusing him verbally at first. Oliver was not an attractive child and the round, immobile face and flabbiness that was to be a feature of his adult physique was already obvious. By this time, Melisa was almost permanently drunk and attacked him with vicious tirades.

Why can’t you find friends? Look at your complexion, Christ, it’s so bloody pasty! Pasty face! Doughy dumpling! Look at you! Fat! Fat! Fat! Go on; fuck off upstairs to your room! No supper for you!  Then she would painfully pinch a handful of the dough-like white flesh at his waist. Go to bed, fat arse!

All these insults were spat out with an incendiary viciousness that started to shape and distort Oliver`s psyche. He would sit immobile listening to the vitriol not daring to move. In his mind, the vacuum was filling with something dark and malignant.

Oliver seldom saw his father and it was always traumatic when he did. Melissa would accuse him of `treachery` and subject him to an intensive interrogation.

What did he say about me? Tell me! Tell me! Nothing? Nothing? Don’t bloody tell me that, you little fat bastard! Placating his mother was impossible. Whatever he said to placate her, he got a beating anyway.

As Melissa’s personality disintegrated her appearance deteriorated. Only in her early thirties, she began to look haggard and much older than her age. Her complexion became grey and lined through constant alcohol abuse and incessant smoking.

Because of her tantrums, staff became impossible to find. Soon she and Oliver lived in isolation and the education and social care systems `forgot` about them. The stream of men that came down for the weekend dwindled to a trickle and eventually stopped altogether. 

Melissa blamed her misery on everyone and anyone, but, because he was close-at-hand and had no way of escape, she blamed Oliver and became a parody of her former self. Often, she would not change out of her clothes, or wash for days. Oliver was just past his sixth birthday.

The beatings started to become more frequent. Sometimes Oliver got a hiding for doing the wrong thing; other times for doing the right thing; and sometimes, he did the wrong thing and wasn`t beaten at all. The abuse depended on Melissa`s whim rather than any distorted perception of right and wrong. The distinction between the two became blurred in Oliver`s embryonic conscience and it eventually became non-functioning. There would be a terrible price to pay for this.

CHAPTER 3

1966-1971

Melissa had cut a thin stick from a hedgerow during one of her few excursions outside the house. She called the stick her `naughty wand`, Oliver had soon begun to recognise the signs of an impending tantrum and hide while his mother scoured the house looking for him usually muttering absurd, incoherent conversations to herself. The cane swished in vicious arcs as Melissa trudged around the house chanting his name endlessly until she found him. It was a vicious game of hide-and-seek. Oliver did not think it was a very nice game. Soon, all he wanted to do was grow up so he could have his revenge.

Oliver? Oliver? Where are you?

Oliver was hiding in a cupboard under the stairs. A temporary sanctuary his rampaging mother would soon find. The severity of the punishment would depend on which way Melissa turned. If she went into the kitchen, he had a chance to delay the hiding for a while, but the longer she had to look for him, the angrier she became. The game had become a hated ritual because Oliver lost most of the time.

Come on, Oliver. You know I`ll find you. I always do, always! Come to Mama, Oliver.

Fortune smiled on him as he heard the slip-slap of her slippers in the kitchen followed by the frenzied slamming of cupboard doors as she continued to search for him.

Oliver opened the cupboard door and ran up the stairs. He had found a new hiding place, an old, wooden sea chest in a bay window on the uppermost floor. There was a large crack in one of the corners facing out onto the landing. He clambered terrified into the trunk. His mother was really on the rampage today. Contorting himself into a foetal position, he pressed his eye up against the crack so that he could see out of the trunk and let a light in.

Light was very precious and the dark was so frightening. Anything was better than the void-like blackness inside the trunk. It was a good hiding place and he had used it twice before.

The tantrum two days previously had been very nasty. Oliver had hidden in the trunk frightened and imagining that he could hear the swish of the can coming closer every few minutes. Finally, his bladder bursting, he had wet himself sobbing with the humiliation. Melissa discovered the wet stain on the floor of the chest later in the day. She never let him know about her discovery but she was in a good mood for the rest of that day.

Melissa`s mood eventually changed as it always did. Oliver had not transgressed in anyway. The pretext for beating him, if there was one, was lost on Oliver. Now, he heard her shrew–like screech coming up the stairs, the omnipresent cane in her hand.

Oliver? I am your mother. Do as you I tell you and come here! It will be worse for you when I find you. I know all your hiding places. Yes, I do, Oliver. All of them; every single one! Mama wants you, Oliver, pleaded the velvet mocking tone with its sense of menace.

Oliver saw his mother through the crack in the trunk, standing immobile on the top stair. Her hair was a straggly, greasy blonde without any style. She wore a white nightgown that was so grimy, it had turned an anaemic cream.

Melissa stood perfectly still except for the slow arcing of the cane. It seemed to have a life of its own and appeared to sniff the air in an attempt to catch some scent of Oliver. She went searching into another room but that was only pretence, because she already knew where he was.

Oliver!

The cane swished arrogantly slicing through the air like a rapier. His