Page 31 of M for Murder

He fought to control his breathing, to get past the dizziness, dimly aware that the creaking chair was moving closer to the edge of the desk.

The door opened and Bobby Kusack stepped back into the classroom. His eyes slowly came up to meet Myron’s through the cloud of smoke created by his freshly lit cigarette.

Bobby! Please! The chair!

Myron wasn’t sure if he had spoken the words aloud or not, but he noticed Bobby glance down at the desk, and saw his eyes widen in horror as the cigarette dropped from his mouth. The scene played in slow motion as the boy took a step towards him. Myron heard a final creak, feeling the chair slip forward, pushing him with it, and a half scream tore from his lips as his kicking legs struggled to find a foothold.

He didn’t hear the crash as the chair landed against the floor. The pull of the rope had snapped his neck a moment earlier, the pain lasting for just a split second before nothingness hit him.

As Bobby Kusack pulled frantically at the noose trying to free his body, Myron White stared down at him with accusing eyes that no longer saw the face of his killer, but instead the white mask of death.

10

SAN PALIMO, CALIFORNIA. JULY 1964

H is mother had blamed the students. The policemen who had been sent round to explain what had happened told her it had been an accident. He remembered how they had said it was a joke that had gone wrong.

Nobody was to blame.

His mother hadn’t believed them, and she had started crying. Shouting and screaming at them and hitting out with her fists.

Rodney could remember the night clearly.

He had been in bed when the doorbell rang and, wanting to know who was there, he had crept across the landing and hidden in the alcove at the top of the stairs. He had listened to the policemen as they talked, wondering where his daddy was and wanting to know what they had said to his mother to make her cry.

His mother never cried. She had always told him that tears were a sign of weakness and that if he were to cry then he should expect to be treated as a fool. He wondered why she had told him this when she now stood there, crying herself.

After the policemen had left, he had gone to her and asked, and not for the first time in his ten years she had hit him.

This time was different. This time, his daddy hadn’t come and stopped her. It was shortly afterwards that he learned his daddy would never stop her again.

The pain of that night was etched in his memory more clearly than any Christmas or birthday. Daddy had gone. He would never come back. There were just the four of them now: Rodney, his mother, Clifford and the baby.

Things had changed quickly following Daddy’s death. They had moved to a smaller house with no garden, where the wallpaper was peeling off the walls and the windows didn’t open properly. He and Clifford had been made to change schools and the kids in his new class laughed at him because he couldn’t read as well as them. They stole his lunch money and called him bad words, and they taunted him about the men his mother brought back to the house.

That was the worst thing: the men. A few of them were friendly, but most of them didn’t speak. They were all nameless strangers who went into his mother’s bedroom, one after the other. Sometimes they made her laugh, other times they made her cry, but nearly always after they’d gone, she would come out of the bedroom, mad and looking for someone to shout at. That person usually ended up being Rodney.

He never dared to ask her who the men were. The kids at school called her a slut and a whore, and he wondered what they meant. He knew that if he asked her, she would probably start hitting him. It seemed that these days all she did was either hit him or ignore him. She got especially mad when his teacher started sending letters to her, asking that she go in and see him about Rodney’s poor grades.

‘Don’t you think I have enough to do already?’

‘I’m too busy to visit teachers, Rodney. You’ll just have to try harder.’

‘What kind of useless, stupid child are you? Can’t you manage to do anything by yourself?’

‘I have my own problems to deal with, Rodney. Stop wasting my time!’

She wasn’t well, he knew it. He could remember back to when Daddy had been alive, and they had been a real family. She had loved him then. Now she had to cope alone and the worries and responsibilities and her sadness at losing Daddy had made her ill. There were times when she wandered around the house in a daze, her hair all messy and dark circles under her eyes. She would often be sick, and Rodney would have to fetch the medicine that she kept in the box under the bed and help her put the needle in her arm.

He tried to do as much as possible for her, hoping she would get better and perhaps one day love him the way his daddy had loved him. He remembered how Daddy had helped him with his schoolwork and he wished his father was still alive. He knew though that he couldn’t rely on wishes. He had to be brave. The baby and Clifford were his responsibility now and he comforted them both, changing the baby’s diapers and heating up his bottles, while listening to them cry tears he would no longer let fall. Rodney was their older brother and it was his job to look after them now. His mother had told him never to give in to tears and he had seen how she had become weak that night with the policemen; that night when she had cried.

She was now too weak to look after them and so it was his job to make sure that everything was taken care of. He would work harder at school and help more around the house, and as soon as he was old enough, he would try to get a job so they could buy more food for the table and more medicines for his mother to help make her better.

Although he was still only ten years old, Rodney White realised that he was now the man of the house, and he was determined to make sure that nothing and no one ever hurt his family again.

11

JUNIPER, OREGON. SATURDAY 26TH APRIL 1997