Young Arthur, 1975. Part 6.2 Aunties third unwonted visit

Finally realizing, since their last failed attempt to get him to submit to their terror, they finally resort to his mother as a target.

Part 1: An attempted intervention.

Home life runs in parallel to school life, and the broader family life is its shadow, and rears its head only once every couple of months or less — but that is when things are going along without any special event to cause disruption. It is disruption in the superstructure of the family that changes the weather, and before you know it grey clouds forebode a rain of ill-wishing aunties.

You know you’re killing your mother, don’t you?

After having missed him at the baby shower at the beginning of this chapter, then when the two most bloodthirsty witches — Jan and Jen — materialised without warning the following week yet again to no avail as we have told in the tale of his flight from under the table in the kitchen, one more time in that year spent by the mother and son at Terrappee did those harpies launch another assault, and this time with even deeper subterfuge, as they hoped to sway the mother to their thinking and thereby twist her mind, and recruit her to their plan.

Arthur would escape that final sortie as well, by virtue of the combination of his diminutive size and fleetness-of-foot, he managed once again to slip through their clutches, but not before he silently witnessed the gist of their plan being unfolded to his mother, when they ‘dropped over to have a mini-intervention’, with she whom they had taken to privately refering to as —

“poor old Victoria”

whom they felt obliged to —

“confide”

in her that what they were witnessing was not healthy or good, and that they were worried about both hers and her child’s mental status —

“You know, with those awful stuffed toys he’s always whispering to, and then I’ll spot him, although he doesn’t notice that I’ve seen him, and he’s just staring in a really weird way — shooting queer, sideways-glances at us, as though placing some kind of spell or curse upon us, and it is so unnerving my love! Have you not noticed?”

asked Jan —

“It’s unnerving!”

reiterated Jen —

“And really creepy!”

added the smaller and more furtive of the two sisters, who had gone from keeping very still while the other spoke, and just giving off a hint of the impression of an apparently unsettled person — her character could best be described as — a silent-but-wobbling jelly of nerves.

When Jan had evidently spoken her piece, and there was naught left to be said or done but to have at it, yes, and to take Victoria in hand, though the sixth sense that lived in the corner of her eye told her that her twin was as yet still more surprised than convinced, of these horrific assertions her and her accomplice had just made, and would thus need a little more work, so in the spirit of Broadway she turned into a positively flamboyant and theatrical thespian — drawing from her sleeve a handkerchief, and frantically waving it in front of her fluttering eyes, as though she was feeling faint and these actions were an effort in trying to prevent herself from passing out in shock!

With that, and all the rest, eventually performed to a perfection of disingenuity, Arthur’s mother began to become affected, as though genuinely entranced in the same way as her two sisters were, and her mind began to sway like a tall tree in the wind, and in her moment of vertigo she reached out with her heart in prayer for this simply to not be true. She was drifting into that parallel dimension which still has one foot in the mundane reality, yet begins to see everything as surreal and moving out of time, called ‘shock’…yes, not quite but almost in a state of shock, much easier to induce with some physical calamity, such as the patient witnessing a murder, or being present but unable to help at the scene of a horrible accident, yet still possible to be induced by sheer theatricality and vivid description, so long as the subject is taken utterly by surprise, as well as having been involved in something potentially psychologically damaging in the past. Indeed Victoria was surprised to be feeling much at all, let alone a form of hypnotic shock, whilst unbeknownst to her and the other women there was a witness observing all, or almost all, from his secret hiding place.

Arthur was upset, if not actually shocked to the same debilitating degree of his mother, yet a bitter scowl in the shadows could have told anyone who might have seen it, that he was not-at-all surprised by this conduct — and he feared that they were, for some reason, truly unknown to him, actually determined to see him removed from the picture, and this frightened the boy.

Thus it was in tense silence that Arthur and Doggy hid in the shadowy bower at the top of the stairs, and wondered what Victoria would make of the accusations, as he did not hear everything in its entirety. He did not have to wait long, and was himself experiencing an increase in his own nervous tension as he heard the muffled tone of his mother’s voice, the audible echo of her naturally trusting soul, thanking the witches profusely, and promising to go along with their advice —

“Try to get the lad some help”,

said one, and —

“Don’t be afraid of tough love!”

said the other, and followed this admonition with further advice, whispered gently in Victoria’s ear, to —

“Rip off the bandaid without mercy, and swiftly!”

then in unison, like a war cry they shrieked —

“Soon we will have you back to your old self before any of this nastiness ever happened!”

they cried gleefully, psychotically and reassuringly, and in a dreadful off-key unison — more cacophony than harmony — the way weird twins finish off each other’s sentences, and showing the world that they are proud of sharing only one mind between them — but it sure would get crowded in there sometimes, and require a lot of patients.

Evil eyes began to search around the shadows near the stairs, and the two young but budding crones held tight to either side of the mother, in order to “assist” her in taking the boy in hand, only of course “if the need arises”, and so to hold him down firmly, whilst his beloved mother was induced to shame him into betraying his imaginary friends. Arthur realised at some point in the short ensuing moments that his strength and nimbleness would be less helpful if his mother were actually of the evil party, and he was to find himself in the clutches of three sets of offending hands rather then two…

The terrible thoughts were products he knew of very accurate imaginings on his part, and a profound shiver ran up Arthur’s spine even as a teardrop welled in his eye — he didn’t have time to think, he ‘minded himself, but if he had that luxury —

“Oh Lord, where would I begin…?”

and so practicality took the place of adventure for a moment, for indeed there was no time to lose at all, as with the slow and synchronized movements of three witches from an old, black and white horror movie, ther two aunties, led by their sister, began with outstretched arms that cast even longer and warped versions of themselves in shadow on the walls beside the stairs, as they climbed, searching for Arthur.

The boy first pressed himself back into a shadowy cranny, and the women stopped and then his mother called out his name in a kind of fell tone, that was nevertheless her voice, and he had not yet learnt to disobey it, and so with a head hanging low like a dog, he delivered himself to the bottom of the stairs and for a moment was paralysed with fear.

Victoria herself did not mark the terror that had possessed her son, as she was too busy misjudging herself, and thinking (erroneously) that her weakness was responsible for allowing harm to come to her little boy!

It was thus with a newfound (albeit misguided) determination that she snapped out of that funk and into another, different one — one of self-possession, and seeing him standing there before her quickly reached out and grabbed Arthur by his skinny arm, perhaps more roughly than was strictly called for, and sat him down, frankly stating it was because she was concerned that since they left Arthur’s father he was spending more and more time in his inner-world with imaginary friends, and she was very worried that it was unhealthy and also her fault.

Aunties Jan and Jen had followed Victoria into the little dining area by the kitchen slowly, triumphantly, and they sat down next to Victoria, the three of them, facing Arthur accusatorially, like Clerks of the Court assisting the judge at the Long Table in front of the Bench, so as to represent later on to Victoria that they appeared only as supporters or councillors, but soon one of their poisonous tongues, tongues that with every word formed sought always to divide Arthur from Victoria, through falsehood and suspicion-born-of-misrepresentation-accepted-and-believed. As opposed to the tongues of friends who like the honey bees unite through truth and good faith, spreading only sweetness and light.

Arthur stared at his auntie, silently accusing her of tampering with his mother’s mind, and the woman became enraged at his, as she counted it, hubris! That a creature like him would dare to cross her in defiance of her authority was unthinkable, scandalous, and so she decided to lead with an insult to his father.

She spoke at a pitch that made it impossible for Arthur to ignore or miss the words —

“So Victoria. Have you got any child support money today, or has that…

“That…

“Ef You See Kay Eye En Gee…

she was getting puffed and couldn’t manage many more letters in that old-fashioned ridiculous spelling game, and so shouted -

“CUNT”…He’s a Fucking Cunt!”

Arthur almost laughed out loud at this madness, and even his Mum, now suddenly shocked again — this time shocked out of her shock, and as her eyes cleared she had to force herself to suppress a little smile at the terror that had instantaneously exploded into farce, and just like that, the menace of his aunties, Jen in particular it was who had screwed up and inadvertently broken the spell herself, were once again neutralised and once more reduced from their collective personality of Hecate or something like that, to just three little bitter women, whose bitterness stemmed from frustration at their powerlessness and irrelevance in the world.

It was very funny indeed but Arthur was not certain that his mother had a true understanding of the maleficence of her sisters. It seemed to him that not only did she think she could manage them, but she also thought that they ‘meant well’, and all of the other platitudes that mothers and sisters use to apologise for their nasty siblings. Arthur had seen more — too much! He was not going to hang around and hope to get another reprieve later on.

The journey of the second-hand, across that abyss that exists between each of the 60 marks that surround the edge of the clock-face — marks both beginning and ending at 12 — begins with its launch, which is marked by a sudden but partial movement, accompanied by the sound “Ti…”.

So it was again and as always, in the tiny nano-space between the launch of the second-hand on its short but oft-repeated journey, including the beginning of its journey, and now it goes on the rest of the way to its mark, all the way, until with a thumping “ck…”, which is the second part of the sound —

“Tick”

it lands on the following mark in the sequence, a sequence highlighted as it is divided, into perfect caches of five marks, and it is only on the last of these that the clock displays the number again, only as it has progressed in the procession, numbered at intervals of 5, in order of a sequence from the numbers 1 through to 12, which lies at the top again, until the second hands returns again, only to stay for half a second and move on to the mark which must be logically identified as being 1 minute past 12! Then it moves, an again and always in a clockwise direction, that is, it moves to the right of its previous location.

So well it then went, that as the hand of Time landed so confidently on it’s next mark, Arthur too moved with an unusual degree of alacrity — so quick was he that he made the second hand move with so relative a sluggishness that it seemed like the hour-hand! But that is quite a boast, and something of a jump, so is probably untrue…it really depends on whose ear one asks.

In any case Arthur leapt away from his mother’s normally loving, but lately slightly brutal hands, that had (although unintended) recently transformed from dainty porcelain things into clawed, mire-besmirched fore-paws of a wolf, whose clutches were greater and more dire, but otherwise not unlike those of the two wretches that flanked Victoria — and all three of them blessed with crooked and bony fingers, and each of those crowned by a gnarly claw at the end.

So swift did Arthur beat his retreat, and then make good his escape, that his mother and aunties were dumbfounded-one-and-all, but Victoria was more surprised than actually convinced of her own poor judgement, as she glanced right and left at her two normally serene-looking siblings (one was even her twin), who both took what seemed like a very long and drawn out eight seconds on a bucking bull before they raised the alarm, which was a banshee-like shriek that followed the retreating form of the boy in flight, until he finally flung himself over a low hedge that was the gateway to Annwyn closest to the Terrappee house.

The thought that his mother was, and even if not completely, it would seem to be inevitable at this point that she too would be converted to evil, and then become the instrument of his capture…it was, like so many thoughts and fancies that alternately threaten or tantalise…just sitting there, floating, not so deeply concealed beneath the fabric of society, or our surface consciousness — anathema — yet there it was nonetheless, the prospect of a mother becoming a vampire and the very act that would turn her once and for all featured her own son as the sacrifice…well? How else do we call this evil of evils than anathema?

For a mother to travel such a road would be no different to those predatory priests that Mother Maria was planning to warn Sister John to beware (not because of her own vulnerability of course), and start to keep a weather eye on the vulnerable, and become a wise old salt, for tricky those ones were — perhaps the trickiest of them all, as all the while whilst wearing the trappings of Holiness, vestments that are designed to signal to the public that —

“This man is a man of God, and no matter your troubles you can come to him, lay your head on his shoulder, and be at peace, in the faith that he will be your shepherd and you his vulnerable yet safe and sound little sheep.”

those crooked ones instead use the Holy items for an unholy purpose, and that is mainly to seduce young boys.

The role of the priest is the most sanctified role in society because it is a public and general responsibility on the part of the wearer of the vestments — the frock, the mitre and stole, etc. The next one down from him is the Teacher and the Policeman — both of those have a duty of care, even if only a moral and not legal position, to protect the vulnerable from unscrupulous and opportunistic adventurers who, like Faust, care not about the mess they leave behind them in the lives of others.

Later on, from the security and safety of his secret garden in Anwynn, Arthur dared to face such frightening questions that he felt forced to ask himself, such as —

“Why was she so susceptible to their influence? She was a single mum and a divorcee — shouldn’t she be naturally sympathetic to the outcasts?!”

But then he tried to be objective for a moment, which can sometimes work extremely productively for a child when he puts his mind to it, and attempting to imagine how his mother must feel herself, he realised that —

“More and more since we have been alone in the world, after Victoria and Da separated, her self-confidence has been rattled. Of course I did not know her before I was born, but I know her very well now, and for the first time in my short life she has begun to lose confidence and to actually question her own judgement, adjuring that —

“If I was so deluded as to fall into that terrible marriage, then who knows what other madness is in my head? Maybe I don’t know what’s best for Arthur, nor how to properly take care of him anymore?!”

“God I hope she doesn’t feel that way….damn those aunties!”

he muttered, momentarily terrified at the prospect, and then getting angrier with the aunties he swore he would be the voice of reason and break that spell they had just woven around her.