The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean (5 page)
Read The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean Online
Authors: David Almond
What dos it say? he said.
I d-dont . . . I stammerd.
No you dont do you? he snarld.
He turnd the paper away from Mam.
What you bluddy lookin at? he said to her.
N-nothin Wilfred.
He wrote agen & showd it agen & I cudnt read agen.
Fukin yoosless! he said.
Words ar wot make us human! he said.
Ar they Dad?
Yes they bluddy are! And evry word writ rite is a celebrashun of Gods grace.
Is it Dad?
Yes you bluddy idyot!
Mam had shuffld acros the flore away from us. She was sitin agenst the warl with her hed in her hands.
She wisperd sumthing low and soft.
What did you fukin say? he said.
She bit her lip.
I said you shudnt call him such things Wilfred, she said.
He snarld at her.
Ill carl him bluddy wors than that the bluddy styoopid fool! How the bluddy hell wil he survive? How dus he think hell cope if we let him owt?
He clenchd his fists & wayvd them in the air.
Wy did we let him surviyv? he yelled. Wots the bluddy styoopid poynt of him?
Mam carld his naym.
Wilfred! O Wilfred!
Wilfred O bliddy Wilfred! He anserd. Wilfred O bliddy Wilfred shud hav ended it befor it ever begun!
He leend rite over me now & glard rite down at me & his eyes & voys wer filld with hate.
Wilfred O bliddy Wilfred shud hav killd the monster in the woom. Wilfred O bliddy Wilfred shud have drownd the thing at birth! Wilfred O bliddy Wilfred shud hav chukd it owt into the flayms & desolayshon of the 5th of bliddy May!
He grabbd me by the throte.
Shudnt he? he yelld at me. Anser me you cretin! Tel me I shud have ended it befor it had bluddy begun. Tel me yes you shud hav Daddy!
Y-yes y-you sh-shud . . .
And then he carld owt lyk an animal & he started cryin weepin howlin & he fel down to the flore & lay ther shakin for a long tym.
Mam cum to me & held me tite. We wotchd him til he cum owt of his anga & distress. He crarld to us across the flore.
Im so sory, he wisperd. I dont mene it son. I dont mene eny of it. I luv you.
He put his arms rownd me.
Mam said we understood we new he wos under pressha we new non of this was eesy for him. She got a tishu & tryd to wyp his teres away.
He shuvd her away.
Thats the trubbl, he said. I love you my son. I bluddy love you & thats why the harm is dun.
Then he huggd me & we sat together on the sofa in the sylens. He let Mam come close to him agen.
We sat for a long time. Then he said that words wer mebbe not evrythin. Mebbe the sylens had messijes for us messajes deepa than cud be telt by words. He said that mebbe words got in the way of knowin the most important things of arl.
Wot important things? I wisperd.
Things I hav no words for, Billy. Mebbe things that you wil no better than I do Billy. Things that only speshul boys lyk you can get to. Mebbe thats the truth of it. Yes. Mebbe thats what its been for.
He went to the tabl. He closd his eyes for a long tym. Then he rote for meny minuts on the paper agen. Then came bak to me and held the words befor me.
Wot do you see? he sed.
I lookd close. I thort I cud see my name & his name & her name but I wasnt sertan.
Words, I sed.
Thats rite. But look very close, Billy. Wot do you see beyond the words between the words.
I dont know, Dad.
Mam tryd to see but he turnd the payj from her.
It is for the boy, he said, and not for you. Tel me, Billy. Wisper it soft to me.
Nothin, Dad.
Nothin? Ther must be sumthin, Billy. Gayz upon the words. Gayz throu them. I wont to no. Tel me wot is ther.
Payper, I told him.
Just payper?
I lifted the payper.
Then the table, I said. Then the flore. I dont no, Dad.
He lookd down at the flore lyk ther cud be a messij in it. I lookd down with him. I wunderd wot wos beyond the flore & beyond wot was beyond the flore. He sat besyd me very stil.
Never mynd, he wisperd. Never mynd. Dont wurry abowt givin words to it.
He rippd the paje into meny fragments & droppd it in a bin.
He giv me sum mor paypa.
Just do some niys pitchers instead, he said.
Wot pitchers, Dad?
Enythin. A pitcha of me & Mam sittin on the sofa.
So I did that & wot a bluddy mess it wos agen.
O Billy! sed Mam. She clappd her hands. Its lyk the tracks the miys make in the dust beside the warls.
And we arl laffd cos we wer happy togetha wons mor.
Iv stil got the paje he rote that day.
I took it out of the bin.
Mam lookd for it as well but I said the mise must hav eaten it. She must hav nown it wasnt so but she just said good & that was for the best.
I spent meny meny days puting it bak together in secresy & silens. I workd very cairfuly & very hard. I stuk it all together with selotayp. I lookd into it meny times tryin to desifer it but I never understood what was ritten ther. I hid it away under a loos floreboard under the bed. It was a secret only for myself. I stil hav it now. I see how I made meny mistayks in putting it together. This is understandabl for I was just a boy who cudnt rede & cudnt rite.
I no now what it says tho ther are stil parts of it that are beyond my ken.
I copy it here now.
At the top ar the first 2 things he rote the things he scribbld fast & hard.
First is
YOU ARE A MONSTER, BILLY DEAN.
Then
AND SHE IS A STUPID FILTHY TART.
Then come the the words he rote in slowness after the storm of anga had dyd down.
And I am the black-souled Wilfred Grace, your father. And I have hidden you away. Perhaps I should have brought you out that first morning when the fires burned and the walls still tumbled and the wailing and weeping echoed through the streets. Perhaps I should have held you up and said, “Look! A child is born at the moment of death. See how the world is immediately revived. See how the forces of destruction are instantly dispelled.”
But I did not. I was weak.
I asked myself did I want a child of mine to be carried out into such a dreadful world? I told myself that growing you in isolation from the world would protect you from the forces of evil. I convinced myself that you would become a sacred thing because of it. Ha! I even told myself that you had been saved for some great purpose. I see how even now I dissemble, how I try to justify my sin. Hear how I lie. The truth is sordid, Billy. The truth like most truth is banal. I had seduced an innocent, your mother, and I dreaded the discovery of my sin. All my actions have been born of lust and the abuse of power and of cowardice. And of curiosity. Imagine that. I was curious to see how a human creature — you, my son — would grow in such conditions. What did I imagine? That it would produce some kind of saint, some kind of angel, some kind of transcendent being?
Ha. Often I dreamed a simple dream that you would simply die here in your little hidden room, that you would fade away as if you had hardly been here at all, that the dust would gather on you, that the walls would finally fall on you, that you would be wrapped into the ruins of Blinkbonny. When I woke, this seemed the best of all dreams, the most perfect. But the force of life is strong in you, my son. And you are well mothered.
Once we had set out on our chosen course, that course quickly became ordinary, commonplace.
Oh, how easily we fall into the pathways forged by sin. How quickly we forget that there could be any other way. Oh, how smoothly we slither down into Purgatory and find a kind of comfort in being there.
Time keeps passing. You keep growing. I say that I will do something, and I keep on doing nothing. I continue to tell myself that I am protecting you from the world of war and waste. I tell myself that I am defending your soul. I tell myself that I am preparing you for some kind of sanctity. But it is myself, Wilfred Grace, that I protect.
The life of your mother, Veronica, has also been purloined by me. I have never loved her, Billy. I have only lusted for her body, for her weakness, for the way she abandons herself to me, for the way she calls out my name as she lies helplessly beneath me on her dusty bed.
I know that I should release you both but I am cowardly and weak. I am beyond contempt, beyond all hope. My soul indeed is black as night. I am in Hell.
O Billy, I am filled with dread. I fear that death is the only way out and that I will murder you both. That dread is also my desire. And each time I come here the desire is stronger.
Soon I fear that I will be unable to resist.
I am like a god who has created a world that he has come to detest, a world that he wishes to destroy.
I must not abandon myself to this desire. I must go away. I must not return. But I love you, Billy Dean. Despite myself I love you. I cannot leave you. In another world, in other circumstances, I would have been the best of all fathers. Yes. I would have been. I
Enough. Forgive me, Lord.
Lord! Ha. I am beyond forgiveness.
I
Enough. Amen. Amen!
I can read it now of cors. I try to look beyond the words & thers just the memry of that day of arl those days.
I tuch my daddys words.
I copy them with the pensil.
Sumtyms the words matta more than wot they say & what they mene.
I copy some of the words agen.
I love you, Billy Dean. Despite myself I love you.
I wisper his naym.
I make the shape of it with the pensil.
Sumtyms his naym matters mor than what he did.
Dad. Wilfred. Daddy. My poor Daddy.
It was arownd that time I started riting & drawing on the walls. I did all the words I new & meny that I made up & meny that wer not words at all but just scribbls scrawls & marks that lookd like leters next to marks that wer leters. And wavy lines & jaggid lines and loops & hoops & wirls & cirls. And I did yoosless drawins of the beests & birds & of my mam & dad & of creechers that wer mixturs of beest & human.
Mam gaspd to see this for the first time. Ther was just a littl bit at that time but she was very trubbld by it.
Yool spoyl the walls Billy she said.
Yool ruwin yor lovely room Billy she said.
She put her hand acros her mowth & laffd. She shook her hed.
What on erth am I on abowt? she said.
She went closer & tryd to rede & red the things she cud.
I poynted to sum of the pitchers.
Look I said. Thats you with wings. Thats Dad with tusks. Thats me with 4 legs.
She gaspd & laffd.
I went on. As the days & weeks & months passd I filled the walls with marks.
Wen Dad saw this for the first time he was very qwiet. He lit a blak sigaret & smoakd. I remember how scaird I was that hed be angry. But he turnd bak to me in the end & said it was fine. Wy not do this thing? Wy not fil the room with such decorayshon?
So I kept on. I made the marks from the very foot of the walls to as hiy as I cud reech.
As the paterns grew & grew Dad said that it was splendid. He said that the room was becuming a thing of byuty. He said that in yers to cum peepl mite cum to vyew thees walls just as they do in distant cuntrys such as Eejipt.
