Christopher Gatefield

I have always maintained that I have a touch of genius; nothing will demonstrate this fact better than if I tell you of my decision, at the tender age of seventeen, to taste of the whole range of human experience.
I duly fell in love with an intensity that is, I suspect, unrivalled in recent years with a beautiful, solemn, grey-eyed girl who cared nothing for me. In this way I also managed to experience heartbreak in one efficient affair. Afterwards, I contrived to experience the other side and set about wooing two girls simultaneously. I was perfectly indifferent to both although they were pretty in their way – one had a rather charming beauty spot over small full lips. When I revealed their existence to each other, one of them took to her bed. I heard later that she had swallowed half a bottle of sleeping pills. Why not the whole bottle? I wondered. She failed, of course, in her endeavour to kill herself. In fact, sometimes I doubt that she ever wanted to kill herself at all; they were weak stuff those things and I’m not sure whether even a whole bottle would have killed her. In any case, failure in all shapes, whether intended or not, must be abhorred.
I am twenty-five now and have done well in fulfilling my mission. I have in a happy accident experienced a near-death encounter; begot a child; travelled all over the world; sampled every drug; tried every sexual position known to man; gone into the church; gone out of the church; starved and despaired.
It is with reluctance (I wish to emphasise this, with reluctance) that I came to realise that I would have failed in my quest if I did not commit murder. And it could not be some mundane stab-in-a-drunken-fight murder – that is beneath me – but a meticulously planned, exquisitely executed execution. The person I kill must be one that gave me no financial benefit, that I did not wish dead in any way. You must understand that I am no common criminal: I wished none of the usual vulgar benefit in such actions. It is merely to complete my education. I am a student. Or a connossieur. A connossieur of life, if you like.
Perhaps you think me mad? In a technical sense, perhaps I am. But what are technicalities? Merely the rules that the inferior majority wish to impose on a superior minority. You who are happy to sit dozing, as the train of your mortality trundles along the banal tracks you have laid for yourself…you are mad! You have chosen to exist entirely on porridge despite the fact that, within your reach, there lie platters of saltily sharp caviars, slow-roasted lambs that almost melt in the mouth, succulent oysters, chocolate fondants and ripe luscious peaches… you are mad to waste a life glistening with possibilities through your criminal mediocrity!

———

I felt that this rather important addition to my collection of experiences ought to have its proper setting so I duly travelled to my favourite city, Firenze. I have always felt that God made a grave error in not planting me in Renaissance-era Italy: it is a place and an age which most closely aligns to my temperament. The Medicis – ah, they knew how to live! They experienced much of the myriad shades of life and we remember them now and salute them as the great men they were.
I spent a happy week sipping espressos in a charming little piazza, researching methods in books I borrowed from the excellent science library at the university. I found myself studying each person that passed before me for their potential. Finally, after much debate with myself, I selected a young Englishwoman who occasionally sat near me in the cafe. A woman would have that extra frisson of excitement, and this one was particularly lovely with her heavy-lidded sleepy expression and the sensual mouth, a little too big for her face. Her head was, in turn, too large for a slender and beautiful neck. She was stupid, I could tell, with a vacant, myopic stare. She would be easy to coax home; not only was she obviously both naive and lascivious but our shared nationality in a foreign city would quickly create an immediate understanding, a sympathy. Though even if she were a glacial virgin, it would pose no problem to me: I possess – as you may well have assumed – a charm both delicate and urgent that complements my refined beauty.
‘Excuse me mademoiselle…’ (I find that these stupid kinds are always impressed by any facile touch of sophistication.)
She looked up with a wide smile.

—–

‘…and I said to her “No! I can’t believe it!” and she said “It’s true!” and I looked and yes there she was that girl wearing the same dress as I was how embarrassing is that my hair, my dress, I mean it’s creepy isn’t it it’s just, just like creepy.’
She had been going on like this for at least an hour. No-one can claim I do not suffer for my art.
‘Have some more wine.’ I smiled. ‘This is a good vintage. It has a fine bouquet.’
‘You are funny!’ She thrust out her glass and giggled. I was displeased with this comment and slammed the bottle down.
‘Wha-’ she faltered.
‘Oh I’m sorry, slipped my hand…’
‘Oh!’ she laughed again (she was always laughing, it was most irritating), ‘I thought for a moment you were angry.’
‘How could I be angry at someone as lovely as you?’
Inevitably, she laughed again.
‘Excuse me. Do please help yourself.’ I passed her the bottle and went into the corridor. I took off my tie. It is a beautiful tie, a silk paisley affair. I had decided for strangulation. (‘Strangulation’ is such an evocative word is it not? It’s that combination of the initial hiss, the quick pull of ‘gyu’ and the long luxurious ‘ation’.) Besides, with such a lovely neck, it seemed a shame to do anything else.
As I wrapped both ends of the tie round my hand twice, tightly, tightly, I imagined the flash of stupid shock and the panic as it rose and the eventual complete vacancy of her already vacant eyes, the cry that would escape her wide mouth and the tenderness of my touch as I brushed down the lids with my fingertips and then the kiss I would plant on the still warm lips…
I looked at her through the darkness of the corridor. She sat in a consciously appealing manner, her breasts thrust out, her waist dipped in, her hips and bottom far back on the chair, the sexual shape of S. Suddenly, with a slight raise of her eyebrows, she fished out a small compact mirror from her bag and stared anxiously at her face. With her fingers she made some slight, quick, imperceptible adjustments and then dropped the mirror back into her bag. She smiled, slowly, happily thinking of me.
So what if I did not murder her? If I took her to bed, fulfilled the imagined joy and treated her well like the gentleman I am; a delicious simple breakfast and then I would walk her home or call a cab and pay for the fare…
The tightness of the tie on my hands slackened, my arms lowered.
Ah! Now this, this was mercy. I have looked at her, the lovely idiot and felt pity, granted her mercy. In a sense I have saved her life. I smiled too, the intelligent echo to her smile. There was no need for murder tonight. Mercy. My merciful smile. A new experience. The sensation! It crystallised into beauty. I, the genius of living.
I draped the tie on my broad shoulders and sauntered in.