Page 103 of Pride
“Twelve minutes later, at twelve forty-four, Arran Kingston arrived. Only that wasn’t to be his surname, no. He wasn’t destined to live with his birth family. Both the universe and Elizabeth and William had other plans. Twelve minutes meant the difference of a lifetime.
“The housemaid placed Alex into a crib beside Elizabeth, then took hold of Arran, after the doctor had cleaned him up. She wrapped him in a blue blanket, that he still owns to this day, and took him out of the house. Neither Elizabeth nor William took a moment that day to look at their second child.
“Alma couldn’t drive, and the couple, who were in the warm with their newborn son, had insisted no one else should see them. So, in the darkness, Alma walked with the baby boy in her arms into the local town. Once there, she went to the home of Aimee and Ray Dulcett, knocked on the door, and when Ray opened it, she placed the baby into his arms and walked away.
“Nature versus nurture, that’s what they’d said. But as the years went on, they forgot about Arran and the test. Elizabeth was known for getting bored easily. I guess she grew bored ofwaiting for the results she wanted. After a while, she simply didn’t care.
“She was never the mother she could have been to Alex. He was shipped off to boarding school the second he was old enough. But she was no mother to Arran. She didn’t even see him, only getting the occasional update from Alma; which she chose to ignore. William followed his wife’s lead. He only cared for her.
“The staff, that had all been banished before the news broke, came back to work. As far as they were concerned, Elizabeth had given birth to a beautiful baby boy in their absence. Only Alma knew the truth, and she’d take that secret to the grave because, just like William, she loved Elizabeth. Had done for years. She’d have done anything for her.
“And how do I know all this, you’re probably asking yourself. Because Alma was my friend. She told me everything. And I think, in a way, she felt guilty at the part she played. Because there wasn’t just poverty and deprivation in my childhood. There were drugs and alcohol, gambling and fighting, raised voices and violence on a sickening scale. Violence directed at me. Because I was a mouth to feed that they couldn’t afford. I was a boy who needed direction that they didn’t want to give. I was time-consuming, an annoyance that grew bigger as I grew older. They loved me as a baby, but that love didn’t last. Not when reality set in.
“Through my early years, I didn’t know I was adopted. If you could call what happened to me an adoption. It was more like abandonment. As a teenager, I was wild, feral, and angry with the world. I turned to drugs and alcohol, gambling and fighting, just like them. I guess the nature versus nurture question was an easy one to answer. I’d had no nurturing, so nature took over. But not the nature of my ancestors, no. The nature of one who has to learn to survive in the jungle of life.
“I did what I had to do to get by. I stole from others; I didn’t care. Humanity? What was that? I didn’t feel it; and no one had ever felt it for me. Compassion was a foreign word, a foreign feeling. To me, it was an alien concept. I had no empathy; I felt hollow inside... until I discovered art.
“Creating art let me escape the world I hated and dulled the voices in my head for a little while. At first, it started as graffiti on walls of the town, using leftover cans I found scattered on the floor. If I was lucky, I’d catch an artist in full flow and beat him black and blue for his spray paints, steal them, and leave him for dead. I didn’t care. I needed to create at all costs. But there was no real flair to my work, not yet. It’d take time to practise and hone my craft.
“I broke into stores and stole art supplies. I also broke into houses and took my anger out on the people sleeping inside. People who slept peacefully in warm houses and comfortable beds. With quiet minds and happy lives. I was an angry man, angry at the world.
“And then, I met my brother, Alex.
“One morning, he’d walked into the drug house I was squatting in, and when I saw his face, I thought I was still tripping from the night before. He had the same green eyes, the same smile, the same everything as me, only he looked healthy, tanned, and fitter. He was the better version of myself. The one I could have been.
“But when he said the name, ‘Arran’, and waited for me to respond, I didn’t. I glared back at him and growled, ‘fuck off’. He saw the worst version of himself in me. Emaciated, addicted, a man so close to death’s door he could’ve opened it at any time and walked right through.
“He told me the story of my early life. Said he’d found the paperwork to prove it. Our parents had died in a car accident, he said, but he didn’t look like a son in mourning. I guessed hehadn’t had the best of upbringings, like me. But he was dressed smartly, he looked clean and smelled expensive, so not exactly like me. He told me I was owed money from the estate, but I told him again to fuck off. I didn’t want a penny of it.
“Eventually, he left after I refused to speak to him. But he came back the next day, then the next day, then the day after that.”
He shook his head with a smile.
“He never gave up. But the final time he showed up, he saw me at my worst. He saw the beast that I could be as he walked in and found me strangling a guy who’d tried to steal my drugs. I stared at Alex as he stood in the doorway and watched me choke the life out of that piece of shit. And when that fucker stopped thrashing and lay dead on the floor with my belt wrapped around his neck, Alex asked what he’d done to deserve it. I told him, and Alex shook his head. ‘If you’re going to kill someone, at least make it count. Stealing drugs is a shitty excuse to end someone’s life. There are people out there who do much worse. Who deserve to be put down,’ he replied and for the first time in my life, I was stunned into silence.
“You see, Alex wasn’t disgusted by what I was. He knew. And he didn’t walk away. He stayed. He won my trust. And in turn, I agreed to do things his way. He wanted me to work to a code. He knew I had urges; desires I couldn’t ignore. And he told me, if I had to kill, then I should kill those that deserved to die. If I had a hunger, there were ways it could be sated without hurting innocent people.
“I didn’t want his money, the money that came from parents who didn’t care if I lived or died, so he devised a way to pay me what he thought he owed me, through my art. He set me up with a studio, put me in touch with people who could further my career. He put me on the path that took me to the top.
“Alex saw potential in my work. He also saw a beast of a man that needed taming, and he tamed me. Everything was going great; my life was perfect...
“Until you turned up.”
He took a deep breath and threw his head back, staring at the night sky. Then he let it fall forward as he stared at me, grinning like a devil.
“That night at the gallery, he didn’t watch my performance. He watched you. I even saw him take a photo of you on his phone. I hated you that night. He’d always given me one hundred percent of his time and attention. But not then. You saw to that. So, no, it wasn’t the fake article that put a target on your back. It was Alex. He followed you, became obsessed with getting to know you, and as he did, I felt him pull away from me. You took something of mine, so I decided to take something of yours.
“I did my research, found out about your life, your work, your family and friends.Your best friend.”
Gracie.
I gave a muffled shout through the tap over my mouth, as I kicked my legs and glared back at him.
“I started talking to her online,” he went on, “Managed to get her to agree to meet me in real life. She was stubborn at first, but I’m a persuasive guy. What can I say?” He shrugged. “I’m a real charmer when I want to be. I talked her round, eventually. We went on a date, for a meal at my favourite restaurant.”
He wagged his finger at me playfully.
“You and I both know she was lucky that night. If Alex hadn’t arrived when he did, I’d have taken her out to my car, drugged her, and taken her back to my studio. I had it all set up, ready. The noose, the knives, the pretty bow. I was going stage the scene, so she’d look like the barbie I sent you. Then, when it was all over, I’d send her gift wrapped to your door with photographsto show you each stage of my process. But when I saw Alex, I decided to change my plan. She wasn’t who I wanted. You were.” His voice began to change, becoming more sinister, as he said, “You need to go, Emma.” And then he screamed, “Because you’ve ruined FUCKING EVERYTHING!”
