Horst looked thoughtful. “Well, Johannes, it’s …”
When the silence drew out, Cabal turned to ask for the rest of the sentence. Horst had gone. Cabal swore, an ancient expletive involving sexual congress between an extinct tribe and an extinct species.
Now what? His inclination was to shadow Ted and his miserable girlfriend; he couldn’t help but admit that he was very curious to know how the doll was supposed to make a man sell his soul away. With great reluctance, however, he decided trailing them around would probably be counterproductive. Horst and he had taken a direct interest, they had burnt up a little more of Satan’s blood; if they needed to get more involved still, then that would do for next time, and Ted could be considered a failed experiment.
Cabal went back to the House of Medical Monstrosity to recover his straw boater from a small boy.
Rachel was outwardly as happy as she could be while associated with Ted, but inside she was wrought with conflicting thoughts. On the one hand, it was very kind of Ted to have won the doll for her, even if she had a suspicion that he had done so purely to spite that nice-looking man at the shooting gallery. The fact that it was only a suspicion and not a definite fact in her mind was evidence of the filter of delusion she had woven about her.
In her honest opinion, Ted was a nice, decent man. Yes, he had his little foibles — the uninhibited way his fists tended to travel about, his perfectly reasonable desire to get drunk four times a week, his manly tendency to see insults and slights all about, at which point his fists would again become uninhibited — indeed, positively libertine — in their desire to conjoin with chins and eye-sockets — but what man didn’t?
Most of them, as it happened, but it was too late. For now Ted was her metric for men, and she had, therefore, an instinctive knowledge of the truth of her belief, a gut feeling. She had faith that this was about as good as it got: not perfect, but she was sure that, by the power of her love, she could change him for the better.
But this is no longer faith; this is desperation. It is no accident that the same women who say, “You have to love a bastard,” with a twinkle in their eye, are the same women who — later, when it transpires that the bastards that they loved and let into their lives are, indeed, utter bastards — then complain, “All men are bastards.” Given the skewed sample of their survey, it’s hardly a surprising or reliable conclusion.
Weighing against this uncritical appreciation of any small kindness he might show her — such as not hitting her, not spitting on her, or not groping her best friend while in her sight — was the distinct sense that there was something not right about the doll itself. It had seemed fine while it was on the shelf at the shooting gallery, even though, now that she thought back, she couldn’t remember why it had seemed so appealing that she had asked for it. Now, however, the only thing that was preventing her from foisting it onto some passing child or even dumping it in a bin was the sure knowledge of Ted’s wrath. The doll felt wrong in her hand, actually felt “undoll-like” in an ill- defined, equivocal manner whose very vagueness was upsetting in itself.
Suddenly Rachel made a tight, frightened little cry and dropped the doll. It fell on its bottom and sat there on the trammelled grass of the carnival field as neatly as if it had been posed. Ted whirled — he had been three steps ahead, of course — and glared at her, then at the doll. “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded, snatching the doll up.
“It…” She paused, realising how stupid it would seem if she said what she thought. “There’s something sharp in it,” she said instead. “It stuck into me.” She looked at her finger. A small crescent of red dots was coalescing into a single drop of blood. She sucked her finger and looked warily at the doll dangling in Ted’s hand. She was sure it hadn’t been smiling like that before. Smiling, yes, but not like that. Not showing its teeth.
Ted scowled at Rachel as if it was just typical of her to be injured by a toy. He looked at the doll. It was of a shapely young woman, with black hair in spit curls, wearing a short red dress. He guessed it was a cartoon or comic-strip character, but he didn’t recognise her. Something sharp in it, was there? It would be because it was just some cheap tawdry tat, made in a sweatshop somewhere, he was certain. He squeezed the doll, almost wishing that the sharp bit of metal that was surely in it somewhere would prod out and stab him, maybe even draw blood. He hoped so. That would give him the excuse to go back to the shooting gallery and hit the stallholder.
He squeezed, but nothing stuck into his hand. Quite the opposite; the doll seemed soft and pliant in his fist, satisfyingly so. He squeezed it again, firmly, not violently. The doll, lolling in his grip, winked lazily at him. He gazed at it, and it seemed to gaze back, the moment drawing out like wire. Rachel watched him, nervous at first that he would suddenly be hurt and blame her, then more nervous still when he wasn’t. He just stood there, staring at the doll.
The doll felt warm in his hand. He could feel the curves of its body, of her body, beneath the red dress. She felt good. Like a woman should feel. Soft and warm and curved.
Rachel quailed as he looked up and shot her a hostile glance that was somehow different from the hostile glances she had grown accustomed to. He looked down again, studying the doll. She could see his thick, powerful fingers slowly working around it, and she felt both an unexpected jealousy and an unfamiliar flavour of fear.
Ted wished he had come to the carnival by himself. Now he had to put up with Rachel following him around like a sheet of misery. He never had any fun. If he had a girl like the doll, things would be different. She looked good, she dressed good, she felt good. He could almost imagine finding a woman like that, here, at the carnival. He would chat her up, make small talk, ask her what her name was.
“Ted,” said Ted.
“What?” asked Rachel.
He shot her another dirty look, turned on his heel, and walked on. Rachel waited for a moment, unsure if she had done anything wrong or not. Then she followed.
Ted strode onwards, the crowd opening and closing around him, flowing. He barely knew where he was going. He barely cared.
He had always known that. Of course, he had always known that. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to love anyone. Loyalty, that was one thing, but love …
It hadn’t really occurred to him that Rachel might have opinions. He paused in the shadow of the Helter- Skelter, the delighted screams of children rolling over him as they swept around and down the slide. He had a half- formed impression of the screams carrying on beneath ground level, and seeming much less delighted. The night air was cool, but he was sweating, feverish. In his hand, something writhed.
He was looking at the bright light bulbs running down the side of the Helter-Skelter, the light flowing in primary torrents. He could barely hear himself think over the music and the chatter and the laughter and the screaming. He certainly didn’t hear himself say, “I like you, too, Trixie.”
Loyalty, that was one thing, but love …
“Ted? Are you all right?” He whirled drunkenly. Some woman with too much make-up was looking at him. “You look terrible! You look ill, Ted!” He didn’t look terrible. She looked terrible. Her head was too small. She wasn’t wearing a red dress. “You’ve got to get home, you’re coming down with something!”
He said something that was supposed to be “Get away from me,” but the syllables just fell out of his mouth like rotting potatoes. Frustrated and too dizzy to find his anger, he turned his back on the woman and stormed away. The crowd, full of faces with wide eyes and wide smiles, looked through him, but parted like loud ghosts.
The woman was right about one thing, thought Ted: he had to get home. He had to get home with Trixie. He clutched the doll to his chest and half walked, half ran to find the exit.
Beyond the archway, the air would be cool. He would be able to think again. He would be happy. He would be loved. Trixie felt good against his chest, as good as a real woman, better than a real woman. That woman (Did he know her? Rachel? That sounded familiar) was a real woman, but there was so much wrong with her. She would never be right. She had life and wants, and now it turned out she even had opinions. He remembered how Trixie had felt when he had first squeezed her, when he had been expecting some wire to stab him. Now he imagined squeezing Rachel, squeezing any “real woman” like that, imagined all the sharp wires of their lives and history, of
