Read Online Creepy and Maud by Dianne Touchell - Free Book Online Page A

Or was I laughing at Maud’s nanna? Or Fluffy, or Mrs Green’s tongue? Or, even more disturbingly, are they all the same thing? When Maud comes back to the window, at first I can’t tell what’s different about her, even with the binoculars. She looks sort of folded in on herself, and unclean. As if she hasn’t showered in days. (Probably been consoling herself behind the doll’s house in the middle of the night.) It’s her hair that is different. Sort of plastered down and matted. I’m not sure what I am looking at until she takes a tissue, dabs it at her temple, and then holds it up to the window.
     
    The tissue is bloody. There is blood in her hair.She has the tissue tented around the tip of her index finger. She looks like a pilgrim at an execution, one of the inspired masses who dip their kerchief in the spilt blood of a beheaded saint. Now, there’s a symbol for you. She looks positively peaceful. I’m a bit disgusted at first; I feel as though she is showing me a tissue she’s picked her nose with. But only at first. Because then it occurs to me: I did this. My laughing has triggered this in her. I have made her tear out so much hair that she’s made herself bleed. And given that trichotillomania is a pleasurable act, I can only conclude that my laughing, or her interpretation of it, has given her this pleasure. I suddenly feel an irresistible craving for the tripe question. I want to answer it again so badly, my skin is prickling. I want Maud to crawl under the little table in front of her window and retrieve that page from Alice in Wonderland and press it against the cool pane just one more time, and I want to whisper: Yes, I want to touch it!
     
    That night I make two decisions. The first decision is to try hair pulling myself. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t want to end up with bald or bleeding patches, and I have no intention of putting a hand in my jocks. At least, not for that. I want to know what it feels like. I want to know what Maud feels like when she does it. It’s the closest I can get to touching her.
     
    I sit on the end of my bed and wind a few strandsof my hair around one index finger. I have never really contemplated just how strong a hair follicle is. Given the right pressure, it bites like wire into skin. I tug very gently. My scalp itches a bit at first and then, as I pull harder, begins to sting. It is unsettling but not unpleasant. I try releasing and increasing the torque at various intervals and find that a small nervous current tweaks at the sensors in my neck and upper spine. My eyes begin to tear involuntarily. If I continue even pressure, will the roots slide from the scalp or will the hairs just break off? Break off, probably. Breaking off doesn’t seem like the real deal. Better go in for the grand tug. I take a deep breath and, during the exhalation, yank what turns out to be about ten strands of hair from my head. What a fucking idiot.
     
    It hurts like hell. Do you know how much hair a dozen or so strands represent? Doesn’t sound like much, but it feels like they’ve been dug out with a spoon. I actually wail. Don’t know what I yell, but Merrill thumps on the bedroom door and tells me to knock it off. I am ultimately pleased with myself for having a go, however. If nothing else, it confirms for me that empathy is the worst kind of madness.
     
    The other decision I make that night is to go to the burial of Maud’s nanna. I am fairly certain you don’t need an invitation to these things. Cemeteries are publicplaces, after all. Of course, I’m screwed if they choose the torch method. Mrs Green was cremated. Nowhere to hide, you see. Small room, piped music, body taken away while the guests have a cup of tea and a sandwich. A stranger (or a laughing neighbour) stands out like a sore thumb in that environment. I just have to hope for a burial. A burial on a hill, under some kind of weeping evergreen; a steely sky with just a smidgeon of sun piercing the roiling