Kind of Cruel Read Online Free PDF Page A

Cruel, Kind of Cruel.
    ‘An hour ago you could talk and now you can’t,’ says Red Lipstick Woman. ‘What did she do to you in there? Blink your answers – two for yes, one for no. Did she programme you to assassinate her political enemies?’
    I can’t ask. I have to. I might only have a few seconds before Ginny summons her inside. ‘Your notebook,’ I say. ‘The one you had in the car. This is going to sound strange, but . . . were you writing some kind of poem?’
    She laughs. ‘No. Nothing so ambitious. Why?’
    If it wasn’t a poem, why the short lines?
    Kind
    Cruel
    Kind of Cruel
    ‘What was the name of that guy who dictated a whole book by blinking his left eyelid?’ she asks, looking over her shoulder towards the road as if there’s someone there who might know the answer. She doesn’t want to talk about what I want to talk about. Her private notebook; why would she?
    ‘“Kind, Cruel, Kind of Cruel” – is that what you were writing? I’m not asking you to tell me what it means . . .’
    ‘I don’t know what it means,’ she says. Reaching into her handbag, she pulls out a packet of Marlboro Lights and a silver lighter. ‘Apart from the obvious: kind means kind, cruel means cruel, etc.’
    ‘Could I have seen those words in your notebook?’ And you have the right to ask this because?
    I wait while she lights a cigarette. She takes two deep drags, savouring each one: an advertisement for the bad habit of which she hopes to be cured. Though I suppose I shouldn’t assume that’s why she’s here.
    Assume nothing. Especially not that you must be right, and the person trying to help you must be a liar.
    Why do I have the sense that she’s stalling? ‘No, you couldn’t have seen those words,’ she says when she’s ready. ‘Maybe you saw them somewhere else. Since we’re asking intrusive questions, what’s your name?’
    ‘Amber. Amber Hewerdine.’
    ‘Bauby,’ she announces, startling me. ‘That was his name – the blink-writer.’
    I’m going to have to press the point; I can’t help myself. ‘Are you sure? Maybe you wrote it a while ago, or . . .’ I stop short of suggesting that the words might be there without her knowing, that someone else might have written them. That’s crazy – crazier than the idea of Ginny brainwashing would-be assassins in her back-garden treatment room in the Culver Valley. I don’t trust my judgement at the moment; everything that comes into my mind must be forced through the filter of normality and plausibility. Don’t ask her if she shares the notebook with anyone; no one shares their notebooks .
    I decide my best bet is to be as straightforward as I can. ‘I remember seeing it.’ Like you remember Ginny saying it and asking you to repeat it? ‘Like a list: “Kind” on one line, then a couple of line spaces, then “Cruel” underneath, and “Kind of Cruel” a few lines beneath that.’
    She shakes her head, and I want to scream. Can I call two people liars in one day, or is that excessive? It occurs to me, way too late, that I ought to tell her why I’m asking. Maybe that would make a difference to her willingness to talk. ‘I’m not prying,’ I start to say.
    ‘Yes, you are.’
    ‘I’ve never been hypnotised before.’ I didn’t realise how pathetic that would sound until I said it. She flinches. Great . Now I’ve embarrassed us both. ‘I’m trying to check my memory’s working properly, that’s all.’
    ‘And we’ve established that it isn’t,’ she says. Why isn’t she more freaked out by this, by me? I know how oddly I’m behaving, or at least I think I know; her matter-of-fact responses are making me doubt it.
    Kind, Cruel, Kind of Cruel . I can see the words on the page, and more than that: an equally strong image of myself looking, seeing. I’m part of the same memory as the words; I’m in the scene. So is she, so is her notebook, her cigarette . . .
    ‘You’re describing lined paper,’ she says.
    I nod.