28
I shivered with the cold. I felt raw inside. My fingers were like ice and the numbness stiffened my neck. It was an awful, nauseous tension wracking me whole body. I still had the smell in my nostrils. Stale disinfectant. The sanitized and clinical sparseness of the holding cell had cut deeply into my subconscious. It had been only two hours confinement but it had felt like ten. They were punishing me already. No one knows what the desperation of imprisonment feels like until they endure it.
I lit the demo
Idle time tho’
Toil mid thee
Limited to He
Dim thee, toil
I dole them it
Let me, I do hit
Let him ode it
Hold me tie it
I tie them old
Idle to hit me
Tilted it home
Ode the limit
Hot Edit Mile
Hit me old time
I tilted home
Was I right to forego the attendance of the duty solicitor? I would have suffered a further two hours in there if I had insisted on it. But his voice had been reassuring on the phone. I had nothing to fear. I only acted in self-defence. He said he would call me tomorrow and confirm an appointment to meet.
I lay curled shivering in my bed. Constable Godbolt-what is she really about? Does she believe me? Why did she keep me chatting in the police car for so long when she brought me home? A funny woman at first sight. Not pretty, not even in that uniform. And I do love a woman in uniform. She has a strange look about her. Was that police work or was she curious about me? I had to get some sleep. School tomorrow.
29
APRIL 2003: PAUL THE GUNFIGHTER. On Aprils’ Fool’s Day Barb was at my house. Ironic. She came here to aggravate the enemy. She stalked their territory. She peered out from the rear bedroom window over the fence. She was on the snoop for a showdown. I had been keeping her updated about it for the past couple of weeks-the weather had been so dry and fair. Cilla had taken to hanging out her washing on the line again. What irked Barb was that pegged for all to see, like trophies were Lita’s Fubu’s, Yankees sweats, jeans, new lingerie and more. They were the spoils of battle taken by the conquerors. I was my car scratched, my wheelie bin stolen plus we had the inception of the phoney war between Barb and the whores next door.
My wife was unbowed. She would seek to reclaim what was rightfully hers.
They say matadors use a red rag to antagonise the charging bull in the ring. Here were many red rags pegged and my Barbiebull was snorting and up for a piercing charge. She hissed and spat and shot out of my backdoor before I could say kamikaze.
I only managed to catch up with her because she failed to realise the garden gate was bolted both top and bottom. As I took hold of her arm she shrieked out a rebuke. From the corner of my eye I saw a teasing Turk sneering from her kitchen window. If I let go of her arm right then I have no doubt I would have witnessed and almighty cat fight. Mustering up all my brawn and pacifying resolve I manhandled my wife back into the house whereupon she gave me a taste of the tongue-lashing she wanted to spatter at Cilla.
“ Leo, so often you are a vain and self-important man. I don’t trust you…I don’t even particularly like you. You tried things your way and look! They laugh at us! Look at that bitch sneering like she’s beaten me! Grow some backbone for once in your life. Stop being the mooch, the victim. Oh, yes, you will get from me what you crave, don’t worry at least some in this family do the right thing by their own. I’ll back you up…Lita will back you up…so no one will ever know for sure if all this was corruption of an innocent child by a cunning man or exploitation of a weak man by a corrupt child. You tried to re make her in the image you wanted her to be….but she is what she is… a street whore….A wretch from the gutter and forever falling back into it. I saw you so often like an old fool letting yourself stoop to be her plaything….you never had it the other way round…you deceived yourself…pathetic, foolish vanity and now she has tainted you….you are done!”
She finally tore her arm free. I wiped her spittle from my face, “ are you done?” No, she wasn’t done. But the quietness that now fell over her told me some scheme was cooking away in that loose canon’s mind. She took herself to the sofa slunk herself into meditation mode and I let her be.
She suited the sofa less than the sofa suited her. She slumped gracelessly within its form. She had no elegance, no style as I watched the ogre stewing before me. Now I let my artist’s eye remodel the scene. Dispense with the fiery hag and replace with a younger, sweeter incumbent. A Lilly- fresh flowering beauty of the Dutch kind set before me would be a far more satisfying display. But the street whore jibe? Yes, I guess warranted. But oh the pleasures I might have if she let me pay her for my sins. But April was to end as such an awful month. And then Saddam Hussein lost Iraq. Carve carbine hell.
I do have such wicked intentions if given a free run at it. Not content with one form of eroticism I had lately evolved my very own complete kind of erotic symbolism revolving around all sorts of indecent games with my pliant pea. The way this girl thoroughly slinks her pliable form so seductivey about the furniture put me in mind of Allen Jones' sublime depictions of a hat stand or a table sculpture. This malleable maid of my muse inspired all such crazy creations of artistic delight. Angela’s insight was helping me to be better informed that the most erotic symbols have their roots locked deep within the subconscious mind of the child within us.
This was not the kind of probing of my deepest character I could conceivably have shared with anyone else, not my wife, not Charlotte and certainly not ever in a million years with the likes of my first ogre, Molly. Although to be fair to Molly I guess she was chosen by me as marriage material purely on her doll-like teen beauty. For when I met her she was a lifeguard at the Central Swimming Pool back home in Berkshire and I simply adored her in that one-piece red swimsuit. She was my spangled acrobat in talcum light. When this upwardly mobile late twenties schoolteacher-‘own home and car’- caught her eye you could see on reflection why an impressionable and very pretty nineteen-year-old aspirant would jump at the chance to escape her minimum wage sterile chlorinated pool plant for the doting arms of bashful Bloom.
Whether it was their outward inadequacies that made these helpless, fawning objects so appealing to my own assertively challenged inward inadequacies I could not rightly fathom. But my therapist did imply on more than one occasion that I appeared to possess issues stemming from the dysfunctional relationship I had with my bullying over-bearing drunken father.
Perhaps the chaos of my early childhood just left in me a great gawping chasm: a yearning for stillness, order, and control and unthreatening interpersonal relations. I just went on in my private world getting an erotic thrill at what most ‘normal’ men and woman would call bizarre. I just loved looking at naked mannequins in department stores. I remember my mother taking me as a child of seven or eight to buy a winter coat and while she and a hapless sales assistant rummaged about for my size out of sight I seized my moment for a tacky fumbling grope with a statuesque hottie who let me put my hand up her skirt and stroke her and examine her indiscreetly while a plastic transfixed face beamed inanely. No one knew. It was hers and my secret and I knew she wouldn’t be telling on me.
Now vanilla muse was my love of statue when at rest. Reclining on the sofa but better on the rug I would lay her so that I had the advantage of being away from her sight, her one good eye on the goggle box while her other obstinate orb hid behind a floppy curtain of dark hair. My sympathetic and indulgent therapist had directed me to scholarly readings on the matter and from that I have grown to accept it is not my fault my environment and my parents made me this way.
It is also true, and I have read this, that a somewhat less abnormal form of erotic symbolism probably shows itself in its simplest shape in the tendency to idealize unbeautiful peculiarities in a beloved person, so that such peculiarities are ever afterward almost or quite essential in order to arouse sexual attraction. So just like the man who has become attracted to limping women I have been drawn to imperfect, flawed creatures. Even the most normal man may idealize a trifling defect in the object of his affections.
Our attention is inevitably concentrated on any such slight deviation from regular beauty, and the natural result of such concentration is that a complexus of associated thoughts and emotions becomes attached to something that in itself is unbeautiful. A defect becomes an admired focus of attention, the embodied symbol of the lover's emotion.
I remember it now like videotape found on a dusty shelf to be rerun in the back of a long fossilised quadrant of my subconscious. My mother had taken me to the circus. That was where I first saw a woman shot out of a cannon-constrained first, tightly packed in like a sweet in a wrapper. That was the sublime first fantasy in a naïve little boy’s innocent, impressionable mind. That perfect little gypsy girl wearing the bright red outfit and her skirts blew up around her as she flew in the air. My first emission sequence replayed over and over. In time supplanted by many other later new and improved versions but always the same variation on the theme: the performer, the display and the unintended exposure of the object of my obsession. But like any adolescent boy I felt the need to play over and over my personalised and self -indulgent mind games. In the long, lonely hours of my childhood shut in my room, away my father’s disapproving gaze I would entertain myself.
I put all sexual fantasies into tonal and colour values. I graded them all into darker and darker shades of depravity. But tidy-minded as I am I always like to shuffle the pack and grade and re-grade colour charts. Edit and review critically all my little erotic cameos. Like those Edwardian ‘What the Butler Saw’ slot machines and you pay a penny to peek for a minute to watch her rustle her bustle, lift her skirts, loosen her suspender belt, teasingly play her hand up and along the curves of her plump white thighs. That would be it in a nutshell. But to tease myself I would start very slowly-almost imperceptibly. From the palest upwards in order of increasing intensity, or darkening tones, I placed erotic phenomena that affected me thus: The slow, slinky walk of a woman in heels, then the sight of women's undergarments, then the fleeting valley of a woman’s cleavage, thereafter the smells and static sounds of a pair of stockinged legs crossing, then those mouth watering upskirt shots in men’s magazines, a long-time favourite for my idle contemplation and that spillage of the dew (ros). I then gorge myself on pages of naked breasts, then follows full contact with her rounded form and unrestricted sucking at those creamy white breasts, then, after, to savour the smell and the taste of it and then the ultimate: coitus.
As they say, to me and other such morbid souls there exists such specialized esoteric erogenous power. Never be so harsh of man in his private thoughts. Even a mere shadow may become a fetish. There was once a man with a reputation for ability, seemingly happily married and the father of a family, appearing altogether irreproachable in his private life, who on returning home one evening chanced to raise his eyes to a neighbour’s window and saw the shadow of a woman changing her chemise. He fell in love with that shadow and returned to the spot every evening for many months to gaze at the window. Yet—and herein lies the fetishism—he made no attempt to see the woman or to find out who she was; the shadow sufficed; he had no need of the realty. So there is my root (radix), and branch (thyrsus). I aim not to despoil or to waylay but merely to idolize and nurture carefully, gently and delicately, ever so passive and kind is Mr Leonard Odysseus Bloom.
LISSOM NIMBLE
Stendhal described the mental side of the process of tumescence as a crystallization, a process whereby certain features of the beloved person present points around which the emotions held in solution in the lover's mind may concentrate and deposit themselves in dazzling brilliance.
Devotion and love," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft, "may be allowed to hallow the garments as well as the person, for the lover must want fancy who has not a sort of sacred respect for the glove or slipper of his mistress. He would not confound them with vulgar things of the same kind."
Semen is but seed
Teste the beans mere fabæ
soft fruit of poma and mala
my manhood is a my arbor,
or a stalk or a ploughsharing vomer
Your labia so majora a minora of fine wings (alæ)
I seek thee as a field of ager and campus,
or a ploughed furrow (sulcus),
have the vineyard (vinea), or a fountain fons,
forsaking such pudendal hair
such irksome herbage (plantaria)
The Talmud makes my doors your labia minora
your labia majora hinges,
But your clitoris the key
Cunning Greeks find the myrtle-berry
Succulent fruit of sacred Venus,
The labia rose, reddened image of your femininity
Four o’clock came. The school bus would be dropping off at the post office. Barb now waited in ambush. She took Rebecca by surprise and shouted at her to give it up while she still had a chance.
“ You’re not in charge of me! I have a new mother now!” Came the rebuff from the young harlot. In her hand she brandished Lita’s mobile phone.
“ Return all the things you stole from my daughter….you can have your crap back when you do!” Came the challenge.
That evening E-mails were exchanged between Barbara and Cilla. There would be no more polite phone calls. There was no love lost now. It was all going to be by the book. A final handover was arranged for six in the evening on the second of April. They were going to come to Barb’s.
The day came and so did PC Flinter as escort. Rebecca stayed in the car. She looked timid now. I watched from the bedroom window. Cilla brought in two small-knotted Sainsbury’s carrier bags. She took out several large boxes and bags while the policeman looked on.
I shouted down the stair, “ Barb, don’t let them go without checking the contents in front of the police officer!”
We quickly gathered in the kitchen. Barb cut upon the knotted bags. One broken mobile phone without SIMS card; one pair of black boots-zips broken on both and some screwed up old tee-shirts that had been worn but not washed. A wicked, secret thought came to mind. Mmmm- the delight I would take in these returned treasures later. My casket full of love-tokens
“ Look…you see!.. This is not right!” Barb pointed to the damages and the policeman studied the debris.
“ Well, madam, I suggest you need to report this to PC Godbolt. I can see for myself these items appear deliberately damaged. But have you got any receipts?”
“ Receipts? …. Receipts you say? You want us to show you receipts now? Jesus….what more proof do you need? These are our things…. You see the state they are in…trashed!” Barbara fumed.
The Officer was having none of it. She was going to have to take it up with Officer Godbolt. I left them to the kitchen- her fuming and he placating and took the bagged treasures to the lounge. I wished to contemplate more fully and study them alone. As Laodamia did by Protesilaus, when he went to war, sit at home with his picture before her: a garter or a bracelet of hers is more precious than any Saint's Relique, he lays it up in his casket (Oh, blessed Relique) and every day will kiss it: if in her presence his eye is never off her, and drink he will where she drank, if it be possible, in that very place," I drew in through my nostrils the vanilla scent of my gifts. Her perfume was as powerful as ever. I pulled apart the velvet soft leathery flaps of the boots and plunged my face into their dark wings- fragrant symbols of her alæ and I imagined her sweat-sweet tasting labia majora and minora. My mind was taken instantly to her bean field- ager and campus- a ploughed furrow supping the juices of the sulcus, glorying in the vinea vineyard, or her fountain fons bared and alabaster smooth, no pudendal plantaria between our lips.
30
I’m going down hill fast. I can’t cope with all this stress. I need help. I am slowing down almost to a standstill. I phone in sick at work. I need to see my doctor. I see Angela a couple of times but even her soothing sessions are only temporary and fleeting. Finally, Godbolt agrees to see Barb on the 11th April. She files a report for all the damaged and stolen property. Maybe something will be done now. Barb and I spend more time at my place. Cedar Drive no longer feels so welcoming. Barb gives her notice to vacate the property and starts to pack. It’s spring and the wispy clouds tease across the blueness above. The trees are budding, the grass smells delightfully fragrant and fresh from the first cut but we care not.
While at my place Barb goes into the garden to inspect all Lita’s clothes again hanging on Cilla’s washing line as if to torment us. It’s galling. “ Let’s jump the fence and just take it from the fish hag!” She muses. But wait; there is someone in the house. The curtains twitch. It’s that bitch. No, it can’t be, she’s been out for a couple of hours. We saw her leave in her car. Must be Rebecca. No not Rebecca. We understand she has moved out of Cilla’s and is living with her boyfriend now. So who is it? Barb goes to the front of the house. She peers through Cilla’s front window. We see two small figures in the bedroom above. It’s the two boys, George and Harrison.
“ Hey, Barbie, hi- did you want my mum? She’s not talking to you anymore!”
“ Hello, George, where is your mum? Are you on your own?” No reply.
“Don’t answer, Harrison, don’t speak to them any more… you’re a pedal file!” George shouts to me.
“Right, we will get the bitch now. Call the child hotline or whatever you Brits call it? NSPCA? Or something like that?” This is child neglect those kids are only six and eight and she’s left them all afternoon alone. I get the number for her out of the phone book. She makes the call. The call is logged and there will be someone looking into it.
Just then a car pulls up. It’s Henry, Cilla’s ex husband. “ What’s going on…where’s Cilla?” He exclaims. Suddenly a car pulls up hard aside his Cilla. She’s out of the car and into the house like lightening. Henry is in hot pursuit. We sit on the wall outside. Fine mess…ha! Don’t mess with Henry. A man with blacksmith’s limbs, strong and stout and not one to suffer fools. Rag Ill Anvil.
Upon said wall our options are again discussed. Perhaps blood vessel-bursting Henry would be inclined to consider an alliance? My ginned up gossip fuelled wife had the persuasive powers I lacked. We need to work on that one. Let that sleeping black dog lay for a while. In the meantime back to matters of police complaints.
It’s an amazing fact that the British police are entrusted with investigating themselves when a complaint is levied against them. What a wonderful system we live in. Who better to impartially consider and weigh the merits of a complaint against the police than the police themselves? How ironic. Judge and jury: one and the same. No wonder more grievances are going straight to the civil courts, bypassing the shame procedure that is the Professional and Ethical Standards Department of East Mercia Police.
This is how Mick Mulligan advised me to do it. Mick was recommended to me as he had a lot of experience in civil harassment cases at McCarthy, Pond & Sheen. Although I had fallen out with Mr BS of the shineless spineless sheen I still had the scrap of paper he gave me of a jobbing local lawyer up on these civil disputes. I was a bit surprised at that first meeting. Not quite what I had expected. He was an affable, short bald chap who had no airs or graces about him. Nothing like other solicitors I had met. He was more of the street-working class origins and a less pretentious man.
“ Well. Mr Bloom from what you tell me about this Rebecca van Hiller its clear the police should be putting a stop to her goings on. I don’t understand why they haven’t arrested her or charged her with any offences against you.” He shook his bald head.
“ Look, I don’t want to start down a legal path straight off. I think you’ve got to jump through a few of their hoops first and make a formal complaint against the investigating officer. You say it’s a female officer who arrested you? “
I nodded. He looks me up and down,” Well, Leo. It’s fair to say you’re a tall man- imposing stature. I can where the police are coming from. Simply put they find it more believable that a stocky six-foot older man intimidates the vulnerable and slight fifteen-year-old girl. On top of that as she’s a schoolgirl and you’re a teacher who connived to meet her in secret. You don’t get any leeway, I’m afraid with that lot. Simple stereotypes, you see. They are out to get you if they can.”
I replied curtly, “ Surely, they should try to find out the truth though!”
He offers up a sympathetic, weak smile, “ Truth isn’t what it’s about, Mr Bloom. It’s about what they can persuade a court to believe. We are in the age of performance targets. The police like any other public service have quotas to fill. They need convictions. I’m sure you have the same thing in teaching. Am I right?”
I couldn’t fault his logic. Targets and buzz words are right. But it was all so cynical. The police weren’t going make extra work for themselves when it appeared to be a clear-cut case for a conviction against me.
I added, “ What I suppose won’t help at all is my ex wife is also a local police officer. I’m sure they have spoken about me, too.”
“ Ah…I see….Do you get on well with your ex wife? He enquired.
“ Nope. Can’t say I do.”
He looked out office window momentarily and took deep breath. He took up his pen and began to write down something on a piece of paper.
“ This is what I recommend. Write to Force Headquarters. Draft out a letter detailing your concerns. And put together a detailed chronology of the events, with dates and times-that helps a lot. I can’t promise you anything but what I do strongly urge you to do is keep a diary-some kind of written record. Writing letters of complaint irritates the hell out of the police. Trust me. You may feel its not getting you anywhere but you will be surprised what affect this has over time.”
He neatly folded the piece of paper then handed it to me.
“Call me him if you hear nothing within twenty-eight days.”
We shook hands. As I turned to leave he wished me the best of luck. I get home and there is a note on the front door mat. I open it. It’s from Henry Flower. He wants to meet me. He gives his phone number to call. We arrange a meeting. He comes to my house the following Friday evening. To my embarrassment I forgot Charlotte was coming over, too. She makes herself scarce and discreetly hides upstairs once I realise who is at the door.
Henry comes in with his new wife. We shake hands and I soon realise she is American.
“How ironic! We’ve both found an Internet bride from the US. ”
We all laugh and the ice is broken.
“I want to bury the hatchet over Cilla, Leo. I guess we’ve been wary of each other these past years. I know all about what happened with Cilla. It’s water under the bridge and good riddance to bad rubbish I say.”
He cuts to the chase. He wants his kids back. Not going to be easy though, he concedes. Cilla got him banged up for assault before their divorce. I hadn’t known about that.
“Cilla got me sent down for knocking her about …. all trumped up. She lies all the time, mate. I was drunk foolishly admitted I’d grabbed her to the pigs…next thing I know I’m doing three months as a wife batterer.”
“ Ah, not good! Sorry to hear! I’m learning fast myself now-the law favours the woman in a domestic!” I sympathised.
“Cilla’s that type-never happy till she hears the police sirens wailing. She got the house now- welcome to it. George and Harrison is what I want but she won’t budge on it” He scowls.
He tells me she only has the kids for the child support. She’s always been a lazy bitch. She won’t work. Idle pea-hop.
“Anyway, she’s got this new man off the Net…another mug easily impressed by a big pair of tits. I heard he used to be some big shot local councillor. Or he was. He got sent down for firearms offences. Apparently he had a run in with some gypsies over fake antiques. They came after him. He took pot shots at them with a shotgun. It was front-page news or something. …Paul Gadd….That’s his name!”
He called him ’Paul the Gunfighter.’ He asks me for a favour. Perhaps I could look into it-keep an eye out for trouble. I suggested we could find out more about this new man from the archives of the local rag. Barb and me will look it up-some evidence for him as leverage for a future custody battle.
Henry then gives me the whole deal about what he knows on my case:
“ It’s a sorry mess you have yourself here, Leo. The police came to interview me in April. They asked me about Rebecca. ‘How did she treat the kids?’ I told them I wasn’t happy about her being there. I told Cilla to get her out or I would cut her money down. George told me she mistreats Harrison. I heard she teases him and makes fun of him-he’s got a speech impediment and is partially deaf, poor kid. She once made him get into a freezing cold bath-all for kicks-she found that kind of thing funny.”
I shake my head in disbelief. I just find it so hard to picture Rebecca having such a cruel side.
He goes on, “ I heard some guff that you beat her up. I got some civilian officer come visit me to take a statement. He wanted all the dirt on you, Leo. Cilla must have primed him beforehand. I told him that girl’s no angel- I heard she was a prostitute- he just said, ‘hearsay.’ He thought I’d have it in for you-I could tell from his attitude right away. But not me-I tells it like it is. Cilla can be a spiteful sea snake. I told him you and her had a fling years back and that was true- and I knew you finished it not her. I saw he didn’t write any of that down though”
I asked him how he saw it all going.
“I’m onto her now. I am really grateful you called the child protection hotline. I am building up a dossier of evidence against Cilla. It’s only a matter of time. I’m happily married now- I got a good wife, a decent home and just need my kids safe and well. I’m sorry there isn’t more I can do to help you in your case. But as they say, ‘the truth will out.’”
“One other thing, Leo, I know they say beware Greeks bearing gifts, but there’s something that comes to mind……it’s about your ex-wife….the police officer …..might be of some use to you, I don’t know”
Henry tells me about a year or so ago, Cilla, in one of her gossiping moods repeated something her sister heard. Her sister, Emma’s husband was employed in the same police station. Apparently the rumours were Molly had a brief fling with one of the sergeants -it was all hushed up-both coppers were married and all that.
“ But something that did come out was your ex claimed you knocked her about a lot and that’s why she divorced you. Well, Cilla, couldn’t tell me all this quick enough at the time. I guess it’s all water under the bridge but you know the old saying, Leo, ‘shit sticks.’”
31
I have to have a strategy here. I have no Special Forces nor M1 Abrams or Bradley fighting vehicles. Some suckers buy every bit of bull and the lies have been spun thick from all quarters. Who and what do I believe? Was I dealing with a comedy routine, a Comical Ali from the Disinformation Ministry of Iraq? The bullets fly, the bombs fall but the same story persists- the infidel American soldiers are dying in their hundreds slaughtered on the gates of Baghdad. Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected. Iraqi soldiers are freedom fighters and heroes. Am I safe? My gut instincts make me feel evil forces are at work out to get me.
I will follow through what Mick Mulligan advised me. On April 9th, Saddam Hussein emerged from his command bunker beneath the Al A'Zamiyah district of northern Baghdad, and greeted excited members of the local public. The news is full of it. This was his final walkabout. I dug out an old file binder and began to put together the beginnings of my own case notes. I made a start on a chronology and drafting a letter to Police Headquarters. I saw the news about Saddam-they are going to capture him, give him a fair trial then execute him. I already have the letters I sent out the day after the assault. That was a smart move. It must show I acted conscientiously. I must be ready for war. Like any teacher would: you back up your argument with facts. I reviewed the letters I had sent so far:
14.03.03
City College
Mrs Armand Assante
Head of Studies
Dear Mr & Mrs J Bloom
Thank you for your letter of March 13th about Rebecca attending college in September.
I would like to reassure you that Rebecca, as with all your other applicants, will only be accepted on to one of our courses if she has a clear Criminal Records Bureau disclosure and appropriate entry qualifications. In view of your concerns I have contacted her head teacher for further information about Rebecca’s suitability for the course.
When we have received all these pieces of evidence we will be able to make a judgment about whether Rebecca should come on the course or not; from the information we have received to date it would certainly not seem appropriate for us to confirm her place.
Please get in touch again if you need further information.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Armand Assante
19.03.03
Holy Cross Medical Centre
North Road
Dear Mr & Mrs Bloom
Re: Rebecca van Hiller (dob 26.04.87)
Thank you for your letter of March 13th received by the practice on that day and by me on 17th March on return from leave: the contents of which are extremely disturbing. After our discussions on 10th January when we all met I made a methodical enquiry, which I thought, had produces a result but clearly this is not the case.
As you correctly point out Rebecca is no longer my patient and I am taking the liberty of sending your letter to her current general practitioner so that he is fully informed of your current position, he should already have the rest of her medical notes.
Hopefully with the evidence you present and the increasing anxiety about this young lady, hopefully more will be done to help her. I am sorry if you feel I have let you down.
Yours sincerely,
P R Teazle MB MRCP
19.03.03
South Haven High School
Sandwood Hill
Dear Mr & Mrs Bloom.
Rebecca van Hiller – Year 11
Thank you for bringing to our attention your concerns about Rebecca. I can confirm receipt of your letter and your telephone call made to my deputy, Ms Newman, on March 13th. I can confirm that we will be keeping a close watch on the situation but we understand this is now a police matter and we cannot enter into any further correspondence on the matter.
We are sorry to hear of your predicament but trust the police will deal with the case satisfactorily.
Yours sincerely,
Greta Scacchi MSc. PGCE
Those were good letters and should help show I was trying to be the good guy. That one from her doctor was the pick. God, I needed it. I needed all the help I could get. At least her own family doctor could see what she was like. I wonder if he would testify? No. I don’t think so: patient confidentiality or something. But at least I have proof. I have the letter.
Well, this it Leo, old boy. What time is it? Almost four so get set for action. She’s on duty at six, she said. I’ll go for a run then I’ll write more letters.
I’ll give that Godbolt a quick call and tell her enough is enough. I’ll phone her on the number she put on the bail sheet she gave me.
She came on the line quickly and I got straight into my assertive mode.
“Er…Mr Bloom. Let me stop you there…. …I have to advise you that Miss van Hiller has made a further allegation against you just this morning….text messages…as before. I’ve told her to bring her mobile phone into the station…”
“ Wait…now hold on here…hold on!” I interrupted,” I am calling to tell you the nightmare of the past few weeks….car scratched…clothes stolen….hang up calls…We’ve had it all …my wheelie bin stolen and found in another street vandalised….Jesus….what am I supposed to do? I’ve seen a solicitor…it’s all harassment…. you’re now taking this kid’s side….”
In subsequent days, looting and unrest became a serious issue. Nothing of any value was left. This was Baghdad. On April 14th, Iraq's National Library and National Archives were burned down, destroying thousands of manuscripts from civilizations dating back as far as 7,000 years. Don’t let them destroy the evidence”
Her voice stiffened, “ Mr Bloom! Please let me finish….I have got a report about your alleged crimes on my voicemail message….your wife…. Left…about harassing phone calls….They will be investigated, I assure you…We are not getting accusation and counter accusation from both sides…. I am doing my best. … your wife is coming in next week-come too if you wish when I’m back on shift. See you next Tuesday- we can go from there.”
“ Stop! Now hold on! What’s all this garbage about new text messages? You arrested me…you told me I was on bail….if I contacted Rebecca again I’d be pulled in again….I’m not stupid…I’ve done nothing…look….come take my computer…see for yourself…all these texts… I’ve done nothing…see for yourself check my phone records, too!”
“ Please calm down Mr Bloom I may wish to have possession of your computer….for evidence…phone records…whatever….please let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here….first things first….let me meet with you wife next Tuesday…ok?”
I knew I was not going to get any joy there. I let it go. My head was pounding. I went next door. I just wanted to plead with Cilla. She’s the adult: she must see it. I knocked at her door. A stranger answered, a rather portly, greasy looking man with thinning grey hair, leather slippers and a cravat. I realised this was the Paul Gadd that Henry Flower had told me about. I’d better be wary. I politely asked if Cilla was home. She soon appeared and gave me short shrift. I may have been speaking Chinese for all she cared. They are a lost cause now. I got the finger from her as a passing gesture. They call this Asymmetric warfare. Opposing belligerents of unequal power or capacity of action interact and take advantage of the strengths and weaknesses of themselves and their enemies. This interaction often involves strategies and tactics outside the bounds of conventional warfare.
A week passed. Barb had her police meeting. Low and behold Rebecca never took her mobile phone in to prove her latest allegations. Nothing came of that. Ah, well, seems like kids can make any number of false allegations if they want! Another police officer came to interview my other neighbour who said she saw someone fitting Rebecca’s description strangely taking a wheelie bin up the road for a one-way walk. If it were someone else’s tragedy I would be laughing.
Good old Barb came up a trumps. She got hold of the service provider of the mobile phone Rebecca had stolen from Lita. Although we now had the actual phone back (broken into bits) the SIMS card from it was missing. My wife found out the SIMS card is actually the ‘brain’ of a mobile phone. It stores all the contact numbers and everything and without it the phone is useless. Barb had phoned Vistafone Mobile Customer Services who gave her the full picture. Apparently, Rebecca had somehow re-registered Lita’s phone in her name and at Cilla’s address. She was still using our SIMS card! But the ace in the hole was Vistafone told Barb that the re-registering of the phone was done on April 1st right before she gave it back to us broken. Rebecca had applied for a number change for that SIMS and was immediately assigned a new number from that date. So it was impossible for her to have had any texts from me, as I clearly didn’t know she changed her number.
This was good news. I wrote my first letter of complaint to Police Headquarters. I enclosed my chronology of events as my solicitor had advised. Let’s see where this gets us. I wanted the police to investigate Rebecca for false reporting of crimes. The proof was there. Surely they would see the little cow was lying. If she was shown to have lied about one thing then surely her credibility was blown on every other allegation.
The next few weeks were odd. The new man in Cilla’s life appeared to have moved in with her. It seemed odd having a new Porsche parked outside her house beside her clapped out rusty old jalopy. I had a rival in the car stakes.
It was a hot day in May as I recall when the letter came. I read it twice over. More bad news. It was not what I wanted at all. No charges were to be brought against Rebecca but a senior officer was going to meet with me to discuss my concerns about the investigation. So much for the "End of Major Combat." I saw President Bush standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. He foolishly declared ‘mission accomplished,’ too. What's the point of a 'justice' 'system' that picks and chooses the villains-arrest the easy target let the bigger fish get away? Barb said something she thought apt but with an American twist: she said Rebecca was no Amy Fisher and I was certainly no Joey Buttafuoco. It went over my head anyway/
32
CHARLOTTE RISES IN THE EAST. Early May. So look around you. The month of May brings the whole world to light: either you are already in love or you have the feeling that it could happen at any second. The merry month of May is simply one of the best months and we anticipate a spring storm of wonderful feelings. And with a beating heart, we begin to walk on air and so now can we possibly sense the rising buds of a crazy love story? The birds are at it and so are my neighbours. That nightly rhythmic banging and caterwauling permeated the party wall. That was my clue. Karaoke woman had found her Krakatoa man.
The following morning I drew open my bedroom curtains to see yonder lover’s swift departure. The man called Gadd was up and at ‘em with the larks. Mister gadabout was sans cravat but sported one of those laughable silly western-style bootlace ties around his fat neck held together by a garish chunky golden pin. His sideburns were pure late edition Elvis Presley and looked ridiculously profuse beneath a self-deluding comb-over. The oaf revved up, spun a mean ‘U’ turn, gave a glad Gadd wave back at his harlot’s hovel and then he was off like a shot.
Clearly, those Karaoke nights had brought fat reward for the Turkish gut gyrator. There was something glittery and vain about that chap and I disliked it with an unbloom-like passion. The passing weeks confirmed my fears that Karibdis had found her man of the house. Each warm weekend he would be out the back garden, barbecue ablaze, sausages sizzling and his potbelly proudly on show like he’d just won first prize in an egg-eating contest. We saw the ‘Gunfighter’ every day now-he was an anomalous presence in the street- Mister Cool Hand -slimy looking bedroom bandit. What date he took up full residence I could never conceivably recollect. But as is always the case, the persistent stealth of a fly around a cow’s arse over time eventually works the magic. He was now firmly ensconced in the nocturnal affections of the decrepit belly shaker.
Of course, Mrs Bloom continued to revel in the soap opera as it unfolded. On the pretence of grabbing a few rays she would insist we pull up our sun chairs towards the nearside of the fence to be in full earshot of the latest episode. Cilla, too, sensed the interest this side of the fence and arranged a succession of weekend garden parties so she could bellow out her grand plans for a new conservatory, loft conversion or whatever whimsy to prick up Barb’s radar ears. Of course, each and every backyard boast seemed to be suffixed with a ‘ once we’re back from the honeymoon, darlings.’
It didn’t matter a jot to me whether these buffoons got married or not. My beef was still upon those aforesaid territorial issues that were of testosterone-fuelled alpha male importance. The gadabout was a law unto himself. No respecter of the shared access driveway that singularly monopolised all access and egress from these here cul de sac abodes. You can’t get a bicycle let alone a prestige motorcar on or off the road without the stress of navigating past the man’s infernal love machine. Gormless Gadd persistently parked his gleaming sports coupe askew right in front of my drive barring vehicular entry to my garage. The nerve of it! What we got here, is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here before. Which is the way he wants it.
As much as I detested the clown my wife guffawed at his antics. Whether it was the fool’s idolatry of all things American or the irony of finding full-blown rednecks nesting this far east of the Appalachians, she thought it all a wonderful hoot. With great relish she plundered the archives of the local newspapers searching for that article our Marshall Witless Earp’s great brush with infamy. My Barbie eventually got the scoop. Two and a half years ago our Mr Paul Francis Gadd had, it seems, extracted his own form of justice by shooting a few rounds at some gypsies with an unlicensed twelve bore. He got sent down for one year in a minimum-security jail.
For some sport to taunt the feckless faker I had judiciously placed a different spoof ‘For Sale’ notice in the rear window of my Mercedes each evening. If I couldn’t have the unrestricted pleasures of my garage he would have to sample my own version of a frisson dans un véhicule de rallye for some twilight home entertainment. I was having my little bit of fun. I posted a mini series of little taunts, printed along the lines of:
‘TOTALLY forced sale. Bargain SHOT gun. Slightly USED no WASTED cartridges.’ Or
‘ SAD sale of OLD twelve -BORE shotgun- OFFERS considered. Spare boxed cartridges for NOTHING!
Nothing too outrageous, I judged. With twenty-twenty back vision I guess it was bound to precipitate the endless petty feuding that marred the rest of my time in that fast declining neighbourhood.
The antipathy had reached its zenith in the week the police finally dropped all my charges against Rebecca. Of course our errant boys in blue popped a cursory note to that effect in the mail to avail me of their extraordinarily wretched decision. I was convinced that it was no blind chance that PFG brought home that very evening a grotesque bouquet of pink, red and white roses for triumphant display in Miss van Hiller’s bedroom window. Such a child! Petty little taunts affect me not. I remained positive and expectant of more favourable news on the police complaints front.
However, it was not to be. My But for me, aspirations of a magnificent May were deflating into a maudlin month. What with Gadd’s goony parking liberties, three suspicious tyre punctures on my car, and the strange withering demise of clumps of my hedgerow borders and flowers all in a short few weeks, I divined there was serious bad karma afoot.
The sneering got me the most though-their self assured and smug faces that met me when our paths crossed on our way in or out. As if they knew I was heading for an almighty fall and they were going to have the last laugh. Even other neighbours in the block seemed to be taking the side of these distasteful troglodytes. Sharp looks and muted genuflections were the order of the new day.
Late one Friday afternoon a voluminous tintinnabulation swelled at me from the lounge. I answered the phone. His sneering tone down the phone said it all. Acting Inspector Troy Boylan: whitewasher and gobshiteist. My letters to Police Complaints, the letter of my Member of Parliament had shot them up the arse, or so it seemed. Superintendent Bishop now looked a Charlie. Making out to my MP he’d send Inspector Boylan on an errand to smooth it all out with me-the ‘avid letter writer’. ‘Personal meeting’ so he had it…’issues have been resolved’! My arse. Now the Super has put Boylan on the phone looking for a quick end game for his finale. Trying to poke and prod me into submission.
Queerly the man spoke with conspicuous heavy emphasis on his alveolar consonants. “ I’ve completed my review, Mr Bloom, I have your numerous letters of complaint to hand as we speak. Superintendent Bishop and I are both of the same view….PC Godbolt was correct in her investigations and we cannot see it. As you know from Molly…investigations take a great deal of time and we never prejudge anything.”
His familiarity with the labial consonant of ‘Molly’ jarred me.
“ You seem to know a lot about my ex wife, don’t you? Reviewing her, too? You seem to know only what you want to know. Blind eye to my phone records though….what about my computer? But that’s too obvious- very subtle aren’t you, Acting Inspector?”
“Leo…we all know your teaching career is on the line here…especially with your confession and all…think on that one for a start! So why would a supposedly intelligent and educated man in your position…exposing himself to all this…of all things go meet what you call…. a ‘common prostitute’ alone at night? Come on.”
A momentary pause as I did a stint of shoe gazing and pondered my fate.
My tormentor continued to twist the knife.“ We also have damning third party statements ….You’re not exactly the pillar of society now, are you? Like something about you and your wife and the ‘swingers’ scene-soft or full swap was it? Some spicy stories that you watch as your wife dances…you have something for such dances.”
I rattled and seethed.
“ Defamation-hogwash-tittle-tattle nonsense-stabbing in the dark and you know it! “
“Mr Bloom…it was in your best interests…everyone’s interest….that you took what PC Godbolt offered you…a simple Police Caution. It’s still not too late. I’m doing you a favour. No need for courtroom dramas- no press hounding you to death. Take it…or everyone will hear the tape…..your solicitors must know…..forensics on the tape have got you down for forty-one ‘fucks’…. and all that on a schoolgirl half your size….think of the way that play out in court!”
Subtle that was. But then it was meant to be ‘shock and awe’ though wasn’t it? The philosophy of ‘hearts and minds’ like the bushblairs told us. You gotta be firm and give them a dose of tough love. Mothers can’t spank their kids now or they get hauled before the magistrates for child abuse while the little brats go running around earning an ASBO or two for added street cred in their own law of the street jungle. Daddy knows best. Daddy says its so. So we follow the lead of our betters.
A few days later Lita, Claire, Barb and me boldly marched into the police station and launched a salvo demanded a meeting with Inspector Boylan. My American whirlwind strafed the desk sergeant with bullets of verbal fury. He called to the rear for re-enforcements. Finally, Boylan and his crony, Sergeant Teucer stormed in to relieve their beleaguered front line.
The superior officer tried to repel our onslaught and minimise further casualties with a smoke screen unexpected and bizarre. This officer of the law blatantly and bizarrely refused to take Lita’s confession nor a statement from Claire about Rebecca’s attempt to blackmail her. Blackmail? I wasn’t sure what that referred to but the fog of war sees many stray bullets miss their intended targets.
I tried to speak with Claire on my own about this blackmailing thing but overly irate Lita kept butting in and the shouts and howls from my now blindingly irascible colonials meant all reason and clarity was lost. All I could make out about it was it sounded like something to do with some photos she had gotten.
Of course after our little protest Boylan threw us out. I signalled the retreat to my forces and we withdrew from the field of battle. Like Mick Mulligan advised me, I dutifully wrote some more letters of complaint to the Police Headquarters but you’re up against a brick wall- they merely investigate themselves and find no wrongdoing.
