Nicky Osborn is a writer and stand-up comedian from Rushden, Northants. A sufferer of cerebral palsy, his ambition is to improve the representation of disabled writers in the industry. His publishing history includes two poems published in the B*llocks to Brexit anthology (2019), edited by Ambrose Musiyiwa and another published by Queen Mob’s Tea House (2022). His play LOBSTER POT was longlisted by Masterclass Trust’s Pitch Your Play programme in 2021. Nicky currently lives in London and is working on a novel about the dark side of the art world.
Email: nickyosborn@live.co.uk
Molloy’s Dead
“For he knew how the dead and buried tend, contrary to what one might expect, to rise to the surface, in which they resemble the drowned.” – Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies
It was my psychiatrist’s idea for me to write this down, and seeing as I have no intention whatsoever of giving it to him, he said I should begin by stating I am writing it on his say-so as a way of getting me started. Beginnings are hard. Mine certainly was. I didn’t have much to do with anyone until I was about eight years old, but that was never a problem. My mother was mostly absent, but there was the Nanny, Luca. Despite preferring Luca, I still cared deeply for my mother, as one might expect from a child that doesn’t have anything wrong with it yet. Father was never around much either, but he never had a great deal to say when he was, so his absence never altered anything.
Lily wanted me to talk to someone. “Talk to someone”, in this case, means paying £250 an hour for the privilege of moaning to some bumptious idiot who considers his lack of professional impartiality “unorthodox psychotherapy” – laughable because, despite everything, he still insists on being considered a psychiatrist and not a therapist.
I didn’t even notice any problems until my behavioural “giveaways” (Dr Crussack’s terminology) were pointed out to me. These, to mention a few, include; stealing, tantrums, impulsive spending, compulsive sex and, of course, the Great English pastime and time-honoured tradition of anaesthetising oneself with ale and peanuts until you’re finally sick enough to face the night.
My mother loved me a lot. At least that’s what she told me when she carted me off to school at eight, only to return on certain weekends when the teaching staff were obliged to call her back from Switzerland, where she spent an inordinate amount of time piddling about with someone who wasn’t my father, nor had any interest in being so.
An awful thing it is to find out suddenly you have to leave all your toys behind and instead reside within the crusty, arcane halls and ominous castle-like interiors of a boarding school. After you leave private education, you quickly get out of the habit of telling anyone you ever went. People believe attending these elite institutions saves you from the knockabout favourites: bullies, sadistic and/or incompetent teachers, the kind of pressure that leaves irreparable skid marks down the length of your nervous system. I always thought the truth was, however, the better the school, the more those particulars were amplified. Especially in the seventies.
I still remember walking down the hall, my mother on one side and the headmaster, Mr Demsell, on the other.
‘You’ll be in Galilei House,’ he told me, looking down his shoulder at my sallow face. I was determined not to say a word; I had tried my hand at being hysterical on the way down, and my mother struck me so hard that I took a light doze on the backseat until we arrived. I opted to be sullen from then onwards.
Mr Demsell knocked at a door toward the end of the corridor and opened it without waiting for an invitation. My roommate, I learned, was to be Glenn Courtney – a poor fuck so terrified he couldn’t even bring himself to speak; so accustomed already was he to life’s unremitting snatching of all good things, one at a time.
Glenn scarcely said a word to me during my first three months, though we went everywhere together, jointly leaving dorms to attend our matching curriculum and then to glumly lunch opposite one another in the mess hall. His reticent temperament put the other boys off befriending him, so I think he was probably glad when I turned up.
I didn’t mind. I had no more love for talking than he did, having done perfectly well without it up until then. Otherwise, my only friend had been Luca, who was, though warm, almost mute too. I soon learnt newcomers weren’t supposed to do any talking anyway.
Lily and I have been in this on-and-off thing for about four years. “On-and-off” here means she humours me whenever I, feeling sorry for myself, drunkenly crash-land in her front garden on my way back from the pub. She expressly refuses to go to bed with me, though I like to think there is a certain intimacy somewhere between us.
It is usually forbidden for me to go near the house whenever she has a boyfriend there. Luckily, they never seem to last long, so there is often plenty of time between some of her more serious contenders, wherein she lets me hang around the house and be miserably self-centred in the tedious way alcoholics like to be. She is only thirty-one – me: forty-six. I couldn’t tell you if she considers her putting up with me purely an act of charity. Either way, she wastes countless friendly evenings on me, where I finally fall into her arms at the end, plummeting us into sleep on the couch where not even our dreams can be asked to finish their sentences.
Though the prospect of sex is lightly swatted away, we might share a kiss from time to time whenever I keep my snarky remarks on her idea of modern decor to a minimum. Late one night, I turned up at her house to gift her a stray cat (in truth, I merely found one and thereby decided it was a stray). Once inside, I drunkenly stepped on it by accident, and in its disturbed state, it managed to scratch us both to ribbons before I could grab it by the scruff and hurl it back into night-time Kent. It was then she asked me if I had considered getting help with the drinking and handed me Crussack’s card, explaining he was a friend of hers. In Lily terminology, “friend” usually means just another in a long line of hapless twonks who adore her but cannot get anywhere near. I took the piss until she squarely explained that I needn’t bother her anymore if I persist in not helping myself.
Crussack was everything I didn’t want him to be; weedy, nasally, American, with each of his offhand prognoses being as whimsical as the delusions he held of himself. I suspect a lot of the “advice” he gave his other patients went down nicely; his quasi-astrology tosh settling well on the bloated qualms and complaints of the upper-middles who could afford him. Sadly, I couldn’t get much from it; burdened with the knowledge he merely appropriated Jungian ideals repackaged as pithy aphorisms. Besides Lily, I continued attending Crussack’s sessions because he made me laugh. It did me good to know someone out there was getting paid more than me to be every bit as conceited.
I saw him most Wednesdays. His favourite topic was always my childhood. He wouldn’t pry into anything of relevance unless it first piqued his interest in the perverse; incidents of exposed masturbation or trying on my mother’s knickers for size. He listened with mild fascination before interrupting to draw some tenuous connection between those moments and my strange habit of stealing people’s packed lunches at work to throw them away. Sometimes, I feigned interest in him too, doing my best to stare back, agog, blown away, taking pleasure in the fierceness with which he believed his own drivel. Most of the time, I just made things up, amazed at the precision with which I could steer him from one low-reaching revelation to the next. Either way, he did some honest good in using up much of my surplus cash, which inadvertently stopped me from spending as much on drink. Lily seemed happy I was at least humouring her for once, too.
It was a wet, colourless afternoon sometime before Christmas. Some beast from the east had been tugging the days to pieces with heavy snow and the kind of wind that bites your nose. I’d made a point of treading dirt and dead leaf debris up into Crussack’s office to annoy him and, following a particularly difficult day at work, I dropped onto the midnight ocean-coloured chaise longue and started grumbling without full stops about what had happened to me when I was thirteen. Not because I wanted to talk about it, but because I couldn’t bear to listen to his ham-fisted speculations any longer. This was the second-to-last place in the world I wanted to be after my empty flat, and sadly one of the only two places I could go to that wasn’t serving alcohol. I concluded I had better tell him something to keep his attention for the hour, so I could endure the prickly pangs of withdrawal without killing him or impaling myself on his Chinese windmill plant.
Usually, he took less interest in my school tales because, like all fake philanthropists, his utmost concern was with sex secrets. I was interested to note despite how much I divulged (so much of which I never had before), I still failed to bring Molloy to light. I chucked everything up to Crussack’s ear, sparing none of the disturbing bits that only came from rubbing my mind’s nose down into the dustiest corners of recollection – still, I couldn’t bring myself to mention Molloy. His memory hung over the words, pressing them down into the flat patter I muttered face-down into the couch, but he never made it past my lips.
Even Crussack, who had never seen me make an honest attempt at communication before, sussed out that I was keeping something back, some private turmoil just for me and my shadows to enjoy. Surprisingly, he didn’t push me when I finally pulled my mind’s trousers back up and made to leave. Instead, he instructed me to write everything down.
It was expected of the older students to take an active role in the “acclimatisation” of the sprogs, as they called us, and, as I quickly learnt, it was mostly the older kids who liked to do the bullying, too. Even then, the age gap seemed strange to me. Most of them were top years, which is to say that sixteen to seventeen-year-olds were beating up eight and nine-year-olds. It wasn’t strictly unheard of for a sixth-former to do his utmost on someone almost a third of his weight. What was stranger yet was the teachers’ disregard. To say they didn’t notice or care was too convenient. They seemed to be fully aware and even encouraged it with their silence. I heard once, from the bits of chatter I caught from other boys, it was compulsory that the elders were seen beating up the sprogs so as not to give the impression of ever softening or easing up. The beatings were not only customary but had somehow managed to become tangled up with the school’s warped sense of etiquette and decorum.
Things only changed from unbearable to existentially unsustainable sometime after my thirteenth birthday when Glenn got caught masturbating in the toilets. To wank in the lavatory was standard practice; sharing a room whilst exploring your newly acquainted bodily burdens was difficult. We were stuck with one another, and because wandering the grounds on your own was unthinkable, that only left an opportunity to try and catch a quiet moment before the last meal. It wasn’t unusual for kids our age to get caught out this way. And Glenn was singled out more often by older kids because of his not speaking. Besides this, his mother (an ambitious MP stuck with Wolverhampton) was caught up in a scandal wherein she allegedly slept with and blackmailed several married party members for greater influence.
Kenneth Herrs, Benjamin Welsh and Colin Kings waited until Glenn’s buckle sheepishly clanked on the floor, giving him a few moments to reach a rhythm before Kings shoved his beamer over the top of the door and said, ‘Well, I did want a word, Glenn, though I see your hands are full.’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Herrs supposedly spat. ‘I’m sure he has space yet to hold his marbles too! Open this fucking door, Courtney.’
Glenn made a grab for his belt when Kings said, ‘Leave them down for now, Glenn. Don’t keep Herrs waiting.’
Glenn opened the door and trotted out.
‘Are you going to talk now?’ Herrs asked as Kings and Welch sniggered at his immodesty.
He didn’t, but I guess he wished he had as they marched him down the dorm corridors. Slowly, they plodded on, Glenn out in front, trousers around his ankles, his three tormentors just behind banging on the doors for everyone’s attention.
I heard the scrambling of feet and jeering, even from our room on the top floor. The elders laughed, but the young ones didn’t, smiling only to avoid taking a latent stand in the eyes of their captors. I managed to piece together what had happened even before I opened the door, Welsh making everything abundantly clear in his announcements. To my surprise, Glenn wasn’t crying or even fazed. He had withdrawn to wherever it was he spent most of his days, far behind the faint freckles and the narcotised green of his eyes. I was crying, however, thudding the wall with my fist in outrage at my friend’s humiliation. It seems unlikely to me now because I wasn’t even sure Glenn was my friend. At least no vocal effort had been made from either party to officiate it. Yet, he was all I had, and I loved him. He was my only anchor in a time when I had no home, just a small bed in a place filled with strangers fluent in a type of vindictiveness I couldn’t make any sense of yet.
Hearing Welsh call my name, I hurriedly wiped my face and opened the door.
‘Pendrid, there you are,’ Herrs snarled. ‘You’ll never guess what your bunk buddy was up to in the lavvies.’
‘Horrible it was,’ Welsh added. ‘He was snacking on himself something dreadful. Grunting away, too, like a wild thing. Why, Myself, Kenneth and Colin here had to pull him off himself before he damn near pulled it off completely!’
Anxious sniggers sounded from the others in the corridor.
‘Strange you all took to watching. I must ask: do you find yourself hanging around the lavvies often?’ I asked, doing my best not to let the words shake.
No one was laughing anymore. I kept my eyes on Herrs, noticing no change in expression.
‘Dear, oh dear, Pendrid… I do hope you’re not insinuating anything untoward with that smart remark.’
‘If you’re struggling to understand what I said, I should love to stay and educate you, but I like to study before bed. Glenn, if you’ve finished playing now.’
I made a grab for my friend, but Herrs seized my hand, squeezing my little fingers in his hold. ‘Now, now, Pendrid. I think you would do better to keep your hands to yourself. In fact, we were also about to teach Glenn here that lesson. Perhaps you should come along too.’
What I expected was a thorough kicking, not unlike the few I had already been given since I arrived. If I had any idea of the length of Herr’s imagination, however, I would have kept my mouth shut and been glad to have Glenn back merely psychologically wounded. After the beating, I was ready to go to bed and do some more crying in private, but Herrs was too excited by then. They made a point of battering our arms so we couldn’t lift them and left us crumpled up on the leaves of the small woodland that outlined the grounds. Then they retrieved some hidden spades amongst the shrubbery and started to dig.
Glenn and I spent the night buried in the earth with our heads sprouting like turnips. A classmate was sent to dig us out before breakfast the following day. Our throats were so coarse and dry from screaming we could barely thank him. The boy’s arms were thin, and it took a long time for him to get us both out. We were so exhausted we had only the strength to go back to our rooms and sleep the Saturday away, missing supper.
Another fateful knock on our door came a little after three in the morning.
I woke with a start, looking toward Glenn, who didn’t stir. I sat up, wondering if I had dreamt it, but the knock came again.
‘Glenn… Glenn, wake up.’
He turned over on his side.
‘Someone’s knocking on the door. What do I do?’ I looked around for something to throw at his head, deciding a balled-up tissue would be ineffective, and the desk lamp might kill him. The knock came again, impatient this time.
I planted my feet silently on the floor and wrung my hands. With great pain, I lifted one arm and opened the door. It was dark in the corridor, but I was still surprised to see the long mousy hair.
‘Hello…’ I croaked.
‘Hello. I brought you these.’ She proffered some meagre slices of what looked like Victoria sponge and something else she had wrapped.
‘What are you doing here?’ I enquired, too tired to be anything but angry.
‘It’s Celine if you’re at all interested,’ she replied indignantly. ‘May I come in instead of just whispering in the hallway? Someone might hear.’
I stood to one side, and she pushed past. Hurriedly, I switched the lamp on and studied her face, mine switching from its regular ashen colour to a blush.
‘I’m Glenn’s cousin,’ she told me, staring down at Glenn’s head still locked irretrievably within its dream.
‘I know who you are.’
‘Well, don’t tell anyone,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t want any of the trouble he has to put up with every day.’ She sat on his bed and picked the dried mud from his hair.
‘Would you mind?’ I asked, gesturing particularly to the cake. I took a slice and fit it snugly into my mouth, my stomach remembering it was empty now that the knot around it had ceased. ‘Glenn, wake up. Cake!’
‘Shh! Let him sleep. I brought sausages too.’
‘You get sausages over in Plato? We make do with dripping and dried potatoes.’
‘What kind of nonsense meal is that?’
‘That’s Galilei cuisine,’ I said with mock pride, hoping she’d smile back.
‘This really is the doghouse, isn’t it? I didn’t think it was quite as dire as all that,’ she said sadly. ‘Has Glenn been okay?’
‘I don’t know. We’ve been asleep since we got back.’
‘I heard you got buried… but, surely no.’
I perched back on the bed, my legs still shaking from the bruises. ‘Rather not talk about it.’
‘Poor baby,’ she muttered, stroking Glenn’s crusty hair. ‘Well, I knew whatever it was, it probably wasn’t nice. Everyone was talking about it. And when someone told me you weren’t spotted at dinner, I thought I better bring you something. Make sure you save some of it for Glenn.’
I nodded. ‘Thank you…’
My mind rattled with things to keep her talking, too tired to stay awake and too sick of heart to be alone. ‘Now I’ve sampled your offerings, maybe I could bring you some Galilei suet pudding at the girls’ quarters… as thanks?’
She smiled. ‘I have to get back. If I’m caught here, they’ll pin it on you and make out like you abducted me or something.’
I opened the door for her, hoping my face didn’t give away my disappointment. She returned my gaze then and cooed, ‘Look at you. You can’t go back to bed with all that dirt on your face. She took a hanky from her coat and licked it, smudging the mud in. I scrunched my face up, not knowing how I felt about having her spit on me whilst secretly swooning inside at her touch. She couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than me, yet already sensitively attuned to my need for a mother, the one thing that unifies all boys abandoned at boarding schools.
‘See that you both shower, won’t you?’
I encouraged a thin smile. ‘Goodnight, Celine.’
‘Goodnight, Jasper.’
Sitting on my bed, I reviewed our short exchange over and over again. Then I remembered her parting words, my heart raising an inch or two above the hole I had lost it in after leaving home. Celine Myers knew my name.
It wasn’t long before I fell asleep again, a sleep filled with tosses, turns, and vague nightmares of the fox I had stared down the night before, its demonic eyes on mine as it tried to make sense of my bodiless head sticking up from the mud. Unable to scream and without hands to push it away, it got closer and closer, looming forward until its eyes were all I could see, and no one could ever find me again.
My mother died on September 2nd, 2016. Lost in the Nave, I perched amongst mourners who found it a lot easier than I to look miserable. Staring toward the Chancel, I watched a priest I had only met that morning tell a lovely story about a woman I wished were my mother. I did my best to cry, but mostly I let my eyes pivot between transepts, feeling trapped in a rehearsal of the real thing.
Watching her coffin disappear below my feet in the churchyard, I threw a rose after her, and she was gone. It was at that moment, grey sleet streaking my face, I thought of Molloy. The camping trip. All of it. He managed to scramble from beneath my mind for the first time since childhood and bob across the surface. I wish I could spare my mother some of the heart still lost in that man, that endless night. Instead, I grew up with fears I couldn’t determine and aches I couldn’t place.
All I could do was pick up the bill for my mother’s funeral and squash the thought of Molloy back down into the marshes. That’s when my behaviour got worse. I should clarify that I’m not walking through life deliberately looking for ways to be more of an arse-hole. It isn’t until I drink that the idea of being one comes to mind. Before that, I barely have the energy to interact with the world outside the rigmaroles of my professional obligations.
Patiently, Crussack waits for me to finish my scribbles so he can talk to me about how I found setting my “unspeakables” down on paper. He was shocked to learn how much I had written over two weeks but still had yet to divulge any of what I really wanted to talk about. “Unspeakables” here specifically means Molloy, and Kenneth Herr’s decision to enrol me for The Luckies Club; his newest idea for motivating the sprogs he felt still hadn’t adopted the school spirit.
A week or so after Celine made her secret visit, another knock at my door came. I leaned gingerly on my pillow and listened out. With Glenn still snoring, I got up out of bed. Celine wasn’t at the door, but Kenneth Herrs was, with Benjamin Welsh and Colin Kings on either side.
I felt my bottom lip twitching as Herrs snarled, ‘Great news, Jasper. You’ve been selected to become the newest member of my club.’
Glenn, sensing a shift in the room’s previous calm, stirred. Clumsily picking crust from his eye, he asked what was going on.
‘Oh, so it does talk!’ Welsh sang. He was bigger than the other two but had nothing of Herr’s gravity nor any of Colin’s hyperactive unpredictability. I closed the door on his foot, but he pushed his way in. Kings pounced in after him and jumped onto Glenn’s bed while Herrs gained on me until my back was against the window.
‘Wake up, Glenn! You haven’t heard the good news!’ Kings cried. Welsh threw back the duvet and grabbed his ankles, pulling him from the bed. His body thumped onto the floor, sending a vibration of warning across the floorboards of Galilei.
‘Would you like to tell him the good news, or shall I?’ Herrs said, turning on his heel to Glenn. ‘Get off the floor, you little mute. Adventure is afoot!’
Glenn got to his feet.
‘I suppose you’ve heard all about my Luckies club, haven’t you, Glenn?’ Herrs enquired as Kings smeared the mud from his shoes on Glenn’s sheets.
After a short pause, Kings concluded, ‘You see, that there is the problem. It’s the lack of communication.’
‘Quite right,’ Herrs added. ‘Very well put. It’s exactly your lack of respectful reply that makes you the kind of raw potential I’m looking for. Demsell asked if I might not take more of an active role in sharpening some of the unrulier ones. I said to him, “But Mr Demsell, surely I take an active enough role already”! But you know how he is. No nose left unturned to that grindstone.’
‘Boys, don’t look so glum. It’s supposed to be fun, after all. We’re going on a camping trip. Isn’t that right, Kenneth?’ Welsh boomed.
‘That’s right, Benjy. And do be prepared,’ – he scoffed – ‘because two nights in the forest is no easy venture.’
Colin searched through our drawers. ‘Hurry now and grab some clothes. It’s awful chilly this time of year.’
Glenn rummaged amongst the piles of clothes on the floor. I just stood with my back pinned to the icy glass of the window, trying to imagine how any adult could entrust Herrs and the other two ugly heads that made up his Cerberus with supervising us for two nights.
‘Don’t bother,’ Herrs called. ‘All provisions have been taken care of, courtesy of Welsh and I. Now come along.’
He turned to leave.
‘But… we’re still in our pyjamas,’ I barked, trying desperately not to blubber.
Herrs edged back into the room, leaned into me again and said plainly, ‘If I have to ask you twice to do anything again this weekend, I will damage you so irreparably you won’t have the facilities left to explain to anyone what it was I did. Do you understand, Jasper?’
I said nothing, my bottom lip a wobbly shelf atop my chin. He punched me hard in the gut, and I fell to his feet, every inch of my innards shivering with pain too consuming to even scream. Grabbing a handful of my hair, he dragged me out of the room.
The three of them led us outside. Herrs, Welsh and Kings donned thick coats, hats and gloves whilst Glenn and I were marched across the grounds towards the trees, shivering.
‘You’re going to freeze to death if you don’t start moving quicker,’ Kings warned with a smile.
‘Maybe if we could run back and grab some proper clothes,’ Glenn stuttered.
‘I really can’t believe it talks!’ Herrs proclaimed. ‘See, boys, I told you it did. It just needed the proper encouragement, is all!’
The school grounds looked crooked and disfigured in the night. A twelve-foot bronze statue of the school’s founder, Sir Thomas Richards, blended into the colourless world behind him. The enormous granite chess set lay behind like an absurd dining table littered disorderly with cruel and nonsensical condiments.
Glenn and I marched on ahead. I had my slippers on, but Glenn, trotting behind me, was barefooted.
‘Find the path, then head for the right,’ Kings barked as we passed the first trunks.
‘First thing we better do is find a place to camp. Long night ahead,’ Herrs announced, scanning the environment with what I hoped might be a sliver of regret now the cold had hit him. ‘We’ll head toward the brook.’
‘That’s some miles off yet, isn’t it?’ Kings pondered.
‘Only a mile or so.’
‘My feet are bleeding,’ Glenn urged. ‘I can’t even feel them anymore.’
Kings looked in his bag. ‘You’re about a size six, aren’t you, Glenn?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I do happen to have a pair of sixes in my bag, though I’m worried if I give them to you, you might stop talking again. And that really would be a shame because we haven’t heard all that much from you yet.’
‘I have that fear too,’ Herrs added. ‘Best that Kings keeps them for now. That way, you won’t lose the incentive. You have to earn the good things in life, Glenn.’
‘That’s what this weekend is all about,’ Welsh chirped. ‘Self-betterment through hard work. There has been far too much dilly-dallying amongst your year for my liking.’
‘Far too much,’ Kings echoed.
Hearing something over our footsteps, I stopped.
‘What is that?’ Welsh asked, looking over his shoulder.
The three of them turned around, smirking until they noticed it too. A raspy, pained moan grumbled over the wind. Kings and Herrs eyed each other. Welsh’s head darted about, trying to lock onto its whereabouts. Glenn held on to me, his eyes more alive than I had ever seen them now the trees blocked out even the moonlight. The noise ceased for a moment, then started frantically again, louder.
‘Just a Limpkin,’ Welsh whispered.
The unsettled garble went on, urgent, angry.
The growl rose to a choked scream. Welsh flinched. ‘Maybe we should go.’
‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Kings mustered unsurely.
‘Come on,’ Herrs ordered. ‘Keep moving.’
We tiptoed on until Kings screamed. ‘Fucking Christ!’ he yelped, pointing to the black mound by a tree in the distance.
‘Go see what it is, Jasper,’ Herrs ordered.
I looked at him, all eyes and shuddering.
‘Get to it!’ he demanded. ‘I shan’t tell you again.’
I stayed rooted until he knocked me down onto the leaves, brittle spikes scratching the areas of skin still awake. Grabbing my nape, he set me to my feet again and shoved me forward. As I inched closer, knees rattling, the mass’s desolate, crazed noises called to me in the dark.
‘Get on with it,’ he urged.
As my sight adjusted, I spotted a gagged mouth, and the eyes above met mine. It was Celine.