I posted the copy of the tape to Bob Finch, an old school mate. He now owned three record shops and did some record producing. Very small time but his records were highly regarded.
Then I drove to the area of town which can adequately be described as “bedsit land.” Tree-lined Victorian avenues; redbrick houses subdivided into flats and bedsits. From some windows red bulbs glowed.
I parked the car and pulled an envelope from my jacket pocket. One of those brown municipal ones that litter drawers in every household. This one had fallen from a children’s illustrated book of fables I found in the box of books from the cancer shop. Penciled on one side:
I OWN DEAD COW HANDS. I OWN A VEGETABLE SOUL
My name is Joseph Lawton. This happens:
I wake Sophie who sleeps by my side. I tell her about my dreams. I tell her I must save thousands of sad lives.
“How?”
I tell her she has to die.
She looks at me as the sunshine pushes its way into our bedroom. Then she sits up, holds my armful of stigmata to her little bare breasts, and looks hard into my eyes and says, “All right.”
I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel GHOST. No I don’t know why I said that.
I feel transforming.
I make breakfast—a bowl each with one Weetabix and a handful of bran. Milk. There’s milk in the bowl for the cat. I have cat-shaped thoughts in my head. Black cat thoughts.
We go shopping.
In Poundstretcher I pick up a knife. It flashes like a solid sliver of light. Pure, pure light. Hygienic-looking.
“Is that the one?” she asked.
“Yes.” I put the knife in the basket. The time is 9:30.
She admires a picture of a black cat in a yellow frame. I take it from her and put it in the basket. “I’ll put it on the wall for you,” I say, then I pick up the knife and study the way it flashes Morse under the fluorescent lights. What messages, I wonder. The blade is long and clean. I know I will need it soon.
We go to the tills where she puts three packets of cherry sweets into the basket. Smiling, Sophie talks to the girl at the till. We pay ?3.40. The time is 9:50.
Before I left the car I sat listening to the tape, looking up at the huge brick facade of the house; a molded brick plaque bore the legend PARK VIEW 1875. Which one of those lighted windows held Joseph Lawton? What did he look like? I imagined a young man with Christ-like hair; aesthetic build; a pair of burning eyes. Reclusive. Like one of those Victorian poets who starved in garrets. I pictured him walking, shoulders hunched, down this tree-lined avenue, so completely absorbed by his blistering visions that on one level he saw nothing; yet on a deeper level he saw everything.
This seemed so important to me now. Last week I found my old guitar in the loft, restrung it and was busy learning the songs from the tape by ear. They were an inspiration to me.
ORANGES, ORANGES, ORANGES IN YOUR HAIR
I am Joseph Lawton. This happens:
I sing to Sophie who sits on the wooden chair at the kitchen table. She looks at the picture on the wall. The cat within its yellow frame.
Her hair looks orange in the afternoon light. She smiles and fiddles with her ring with the green stone as big as the eye of a ghost.
I go drench the knife in boiling water and leave it on the drainer to dry. I know I will need the knife soon.
It is 3:30 p.m.
I begin my preparations. I take the blank cassette tape from the box under the bed. I blow the dust from the tape deck. The guitar has fresh strings. Microphones are checked and plugged into the deck.
The sheets of paper on which my songs are written are spread carefully on the table. There is a special order to this. Like a ceremony.
Sophie glances at my arms covered with the ghost white tattoos; Sumerian symbols of life, death, hope, love, death, rebirth, bitterness, black cats, tactile feelings, love-dove-shove… 4:15. Everything is ready.
Evening. Dark. Cold. Snow on the ground.
I stood in the avenue with its huge Victorian town houses and trees long since stripped of their leaves.
Loud voices argued nearby. That’s the kind of area it was.
“He is!”
“He’s not.”
“He’s going to do it, I tell you. He is actually going to do it.”
“He’s not.”
“Look at him. He’s decided. He’s crossing the street.”
Ignoring the voices I approached Park View. Most of the window frames looked rotten. The front door had been roughly painted purple. But there were enough scratches on it to show every color it had been painted since 1875. A dozen door bells set in an illuminated plastic panel caught my eye. A few had cards bearing handwritten names. Joseph Lawton was not among them.
I FEEL UNREAL I FEEL ALONE.
I am Joseph Lawton. This happens:
On the rug, the black cat sits licking her paw. It is 5:30.
“Sophie, are you frightened?”
“No,” she replies with a little shake of her head and watches me with her clear eyes.
“There is no hatred in this, “I explain. “I have read the messages. I must save lives. When I kill you I will be doing it for love.”
She agrees.
“I hear them shouting from the street. Sophie, they have voices like ghosts—all in pain and crunching out. I have to save them.”
She sits on the settee, wearing a purple skirt and a white T-shirt. It bears the picture of a black cat playing with a ball of wool.
I smile, hoping it will stop her worrying. Lightly, I run the knife, like a single-toothed comb, through her hair. No, don’t be frightened, sweet Sophie, smile and smile and smile.
Once those voices that crunch and crack from the pavement are gone I will be happy again. We can ride the golden cycles to the river once more.
It all goes quickly. The knifing.
She took it very well. That pleases me. She doesn’t cry out or wriggle.
She just sits there as I press the knife into her neck. Three times there. Four times through the cat picture on her T-shirt.
I pull the knife out of her, wash it, and put it in the drawer.
When I return she still sits on the sofa, the hair about her white face looks very red.
“Will it take long?” she asked. “My neck is sore.”
“Not long, sweet Sophie.” I hold her hand and stroke her hair. “After you’ve left this place, will you still love me?”
She makes a little smile; then her eyes go cloudy.
At 6:15 pm she is dead. I prop her up with cushions so she can still see me. Then I switch on the tape deck. The voices in the street stop screaming at me; my arms are clean; and yet I feel as if all the magic that I once
