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11. search and destroy
He was the floppy disc reading my insides. He was on the answering machine asking me questions. He was in the library trying to shout me down. He was a signal and I was a satellite dish ready to receive him. Barbs snatched the phone receiver out of my hand. 'She's not talking to you ever again, so leave her alone.' She hung up. But I knew that the silence on the other end of the line was filled with weird intention. I recognised the high-pitched edge in the voice, that would escalate into violence. Soon he arrived in the driveway of my childhood house. I saw his thinning hairline pull up in the car. I rushed upstairs. I saw him mount the stairs in the hallway. The house was letting him in. Barbs was nowhere to be found. I saw him pass into the kitchen. He caught sight of me, with that look of instability. His blue-grey eyes flashed. The Frazer of my nightmares would relinquish all power and responsibility, to go insane for periods of time. I recognised this look, as he pushed through my fear robotically. I saw the huge knife in his hand, as he made his way towards me. I started yelling through space into rooms. It was like one of those childhood dreams I had of being kidnapped. The empty silent screams coming from my mouth. I slammed shut the wooden panel door between him and myself. But it was never enough to keep him out. It was like when my brothers' bedroom had been built with the sliding door. None of kids liked it. It was never enough to keep our parents out. We preferred doors that locked. Always I would estimate the distance between myself and my drunken father to the nearest locking door, which happened to be the toilet or the bathroom. Always whilst I was locked in the toilet, I wondered what he was doing to my companion animals or exactly how long he would wait for me on the other side. Sometimes I believed that he would wait there forever. The distress of any one of my companion animals would have had me bounding out from the locked safety in full view of him. But he never thought to do it. Ultimately he made a poor enemy. He never knew me well enough to know my vulnerabilities. He simply tried to take the short cuts and destroy me by brute force. The house had become a place of manoeuvres and positions. We knew the routes of escape, but we never quite made it out there onto the street into another life. In my dreams Frazer came forward with the big steel knife the intent to murder me. He had enough psychosis in him to make him stronger and weaker at the same time. He would muster this temporary strength in order to carry his weakness through the action. After I was dead he would collapse, exhausted and frightened of the consequences. Only then would he take the time to shed a little tear for himself and light up a well-deserved cigarette. There would be no regret for what he had done to me, and no recognition of my bloody crumpled body. There would be no admitting to it and no responsibility taken. Instead he would say, 'She tried to kill me and then killed herself'. I woke up so that I had a better chance of defending myself. My hand slowly reached under the pillow for the hand pistol that I slept with. For in much the same way that he would come to me, I now waited for him. |
