Letter from Tuscany

A Letter from Tuscany

Dear Mother,

I hope this letter finds you well. I want to tell you how happy I am
now: I can see the beautiful, sun-kissed Tuscan hillside where our
monastery is situated. I can see the sea, which God in all his infinite
kindness has afforded my new home a spectacular view of. I have devoted
my life to the service of God, and I tell you with authority that the
rewards for doing so are greater than I ever imagined.

I know you were surprised and upset when I told you of my intention to
come here. I also know that when I tell you that, through the love of
our Lord Jesus, I have found true happiness and contentment for the
first time in my life, you will no longer worry for me.

The life of a simple man suits me: I don't miss London, or my life
there. I had been unhappy for a long time: my existence had become
bland and meaningless. I only feel sad now in thinking that it took me
so long to find Jesus, and through Him salvation.

I am going to take my vows here tomorrow, and from then on, as I told
you, it will be impossible for me to have any contact with the outside
world. I urge you not to let this upset you: I think of you often, and
pray for you every day. Now as I have found my true place in the world,
so I have found happiness. If you think of me as I was before, in the
depths of depression and despair, and picture me now, in tranquillity,
happiness and virtue, I know you will be happy for me too.

With love,

Your Son,

Tony

Tony read the letter through one final time, and smiled. He had
borrowed the style from a preacher whose sermons had tortured him daily
at school. The end result seemed pious enough, at least for his mother,
whose vague, Anglican grasp of theology, Tony hoped, would lead her to
accept his letter unquestioningly. He folded the letter neatly, and
slipped it into an envelope with his mother's address written on it. He
slipped this envelope into a larger one, which was already partially
stuffed. This envelope bore his name, and was addressed to a hotel in
Tuscany. Tony sealed his package, and looked out of the window at the
horrific panorama of Croydon. He smiled again, knowing that his plan
would soon come to fruition.

***

For a long time now, Tony had known very well what he wanted to do with
his life. The problem Tony faced was the great stigma society attached
to individuals who had chosen the path he desired. It did not,
directly, bother Tony himself, but he knew how upset his mother would
be if her only child became known as a criminal, a criminal who, due to
the severe nature of his crime, could never return. This notion, of his
mother's potential trauma, gnawed away at Tony. He would run through
his plan mentally, but it was always the same: the sweet end tarnished
by thoughts of his mother weeping, his enjoyment turning to guilt and
nausea as he contemplated how his actions would destroy her fragile
life.
Tony's mother had a few problems. It would be fair to say that. Tony
had spent much of 1965, and a quarter of 1966, in the local foster
home. His mum spent this time locked up in the nut house, receiving
electro convulsive shock therapy in a vain attempt to cure her of some
of her problems. It didn't work. They let her go, and, when she was a
bit less doped up, they let Tony come home as well. As far as he could
see, his mum was still obsessively cleaning everything; the only
difference shock therapy seemed to have made was that she now dribbled
and flinched when the vacuum cleaner was powered up, the high pitched
electrical whine taking her mind somewhere terrible. Tony bought her a
Bex Bissel mechanical floor sweeper, and life continued much as
before.
Tony's mum had been, for as long as he could remember, more interested
in the form of her life than the actual content. That is to say, as
long as everything appeared normal, as long as everything looked nice
and clean, she didn't actually mind what was happening. As long as it
was normal. And clean. Tony supposed this had a lot to do with his
father's death.
Tony's father had died before Tony was even born. When he told people
this, they would reply 'Oh! I'm so terribly sorry.' with something at
least approaching sincerity. This used to amuse Tony, although recently
it had just made him feel sad. He would point out that unless they had
been responsible in some way for his father's demise, then there was
really no reason to apologise. When these people inevitably went on to
ask how Tony's father had died, Tony would spin out a well rehearsed
little fiction, weaving the plausible lie of an unfortunate road
accident. Given the nature of the truth, it would be not unreasonable
to say that Tony knew a fair bit about social stigma himself, about
people in your family being branded as criminals and perverts.
Tony's father had died of a massive coronary, which occurred during an
act of forbidden passion. He was buggering the local magistrate in the
park toilets. The magistrate, to his credit, had done the right thing.
He had bitten the bullet and gone to the authorities, ensuring he was
stripped of his job, social status and marriage. He wound up in prison,
and, whilst suffering the unwanted attentions of a well known east-end
criminal, he would wonder why the hell he hadn't just walked away,
leaving his former partner with the slightly less embarrassing demise
of a massive coronary endured whilst taking a shit. Tony's mum went a
bit funny after that. The press coverage couldn't have helped. It was
fairly explicit, for 1952. Tony was born a few months afterwards, just
as the fuss was dying down. Tony's mum picked Tony's name with great
care. The local magistrate's name was Tony. The magistrate had no idea
that he had been honoured in this way, as he correctly judged that his
lover's family wouldn't be delighted if he showed up. So he didn't,
settling down to the rest of his life, to face penury and hatred
alone.
Tony and his mum soldiered on together, his mother doing her utmost to
maintain an appearance of respectability and normality. She was fairly
successful, apart from that little blip in the mid sixties. They moved
to a new neighbourhood when Tony was about two years old, one where no
one knew about Tony's father's indiscretions (at least if they did, no
one let on). It was widely known that Tony's house was the cleanest in
the street, a source of something like pride for Tony's mother. She
raised Tony without love, but with great care. At school Tony himself
was moderately successful at everything, but excelled at nothing. The
only thing vaguely remarkable about this quiet child were the creases
in his trousers, which were razor sharp affairs reinforced every
evening by his mother, who spent (Tony worked it out), over two solid
weeks of her life beavering away with iron and soap to ensure no one
could accuse her of sending her son to school looking scruffy. Tony
left school and got a job, a minor position in a bank. So Tony found
himself, at the age of 18, in the rut that constituted much of his
existence on this planet. The subject of ridicule by his workmates (he
heard the laughter, knew they called him 'Norman Bates' as he passed),
a stillborn social life, and dinner on the table at 6.15pm sharp, every
day. Every day.
It was somewhere around his thirtieth birthday that Tony had his great
revelation, his grand vision. He realised that he had wasted his life
so far. This is not so remarkable, being a nasty, sweaty realisation
that many people suddenly have when approaching middle age. Tony,
however, was simultaneously imparted with the knowledge of his destiny.
He knew what he wanted to become, a state that would be a panacea for
all his problems. The only problem with Tony's plan was that it was
criminal in nature, and Tony knew the effect his involvement in
something criminal would have on his mother. He thought he could wait
for his mother to die, but as he sleepwalked through his thirties and
forties, he realised that she had been blessed with some serious
longevity. At the age of eighty she had no serious ailments, and her
mind was still razor sharp as she continued on her lifelong search and
destroy mission for non-conformity in her home. Tony toyed with the
idea of offing her himself, but suspected the burden of guilt would
tarnish his eventual release. Tony was despairing, trapped in an
intangible prison and watching life trickle through his fingers. He was
convinced that he would never be able to carry out his plan, when he
met Bob.
Bob was selling the 'Big Issue' outside Sutton railway station, and
Tony passed him a few times before realising the remarkable thing about
Bob. If you were to smear Tony with a bit of grime, ruffle his neat
side parting into something a little more dishevelled, and cram him
into a filthy shell suit, you would get a simulacra of Bob, (who
himself didn't like being dirty, but he discovered some time ago that
the likelihood of people making contributions increased greatly with
the number of outward signs of poverty he displayed. He used to find
this funny, but he now found it mainly degrading). Tony found himself
standing there staring at this uncanny Big Issue vendor, while long
unused portions of his brain fired up, working feverishly towards the
achievement of his goal. Bob stared back, wondering if some deity was
taunting him by placing a doppelganger in front of him, teasing him
with visions of an alternate reality where he had a suit, a job and a
house. He was wondering whether he should punch Tony, when Tony asked
him to come for a drink.
Tony felt giddy when he discovered himself carrying out the plan, which
seemed to have arrived in his head fully formed. They went into the
Litten Tree, a pub situated opposite the station. Tony sat down with
his scabby look-alike, and made him an offer. Tony would give Bob his
life savings, a sum in excess of one hundred thousand pounds, if he
assumed Tony's identity and went to live in Tuscany. Bob thought that
it was okay to take the piss a bit, but this was just cruel. He stood
up and slammed Tony one on the nose. When Tony started crying, Bob
thought maybe Tony was serious after all, and that he'd just punched
the chance of a lifetime on the nose. He started crying too. The
landlord, a former army man, had no truck with weirdo twins given to
fruity displays of emotion, so he chucked the pair of them out. Tony
went home with the address of the hostel Bob usually stayed at, and a
time scrawled on the same piece of paper where he would meet his
accomplice tomorrow, in a slightly more liberal pub.
When Tony got home, he was thankful for the half of beer he had managed
to get down in The Litten Tree. He thought without it, his hands might
have shook more than they did as he told his mother that he had found
God, and that next week he was flying out to Tuscany to take his orders
in a monastery where he planned to spend the rest of his life. She took
it a little better than expected, suffering only a minor seizure. Tony
went with her to the hospital, enjoying the ride in the ambulance with
something approaching euphoria, the siren proclaiming his near-victory
all the way to casualty. Tony's big day was coming, and he knew no one
could take it away now. His mother was eventually seen by a doctor, who
proclaimed her ailments to be of a minor nature. Tony privately
disagreed, but was happy enough when they told him his matriarch was to
be kept in for a few nights for observation. Tony used this time to
weave his plan, and as he did it he knew it was to be his greatest
accomplishment, a masterwork of planning and subterfuge. He marvelled
at his own capabilities, resources he never knew he possessed. By the
time Tony's mother was released, all the arrangements were in place,
and Tony was excited like a five year old on Christmas Eve.
Tony's mother seemed to have at least accepted her son's horrifically
unconventional career path. She had found in her offspring a
determination she had never seen before, and realised that she had no
hope of changing his mind. In the end, it was the inherent
respectability of monks that allowed Tony to have a seizure free
departure. That and his mother's rabid calculation that, with him gone,
she would no longer have to cook hot food. She was sure she could
happily subsist on cold snacks, and if the oven was never used, it
would never get dirty again. Only cleaner and cleaner, if she kept up
her routines. Tony mistook his mother's remoteness as he left her home
for the last time as an expression of sadness. She was, in fact,
distracted by the exciting possibilities paper plates had for the
ultimate cleanliness of her crockery.
That morning, Tony hadn't washed or shaved, for the first time in his
adult life. Bob, staying in a suite at the local Holiday Inn,
luxuriated in a marathon bathing session, before trying on his new
suit. After the pub incident, he was trying hard not to stare at the
mouth of his gift horse, although he couldn't shift the nagging feeling
that something was amiss. When he arrived in Tuscany a week later, and
booked into the hotel where he was to wait for a package from the
original Tony, he had to concede that everything seemed to be
progressing as planned. The customs officials hadn't looked twice, and
there was really no reason why they should. The photo in Tony's
passport was an excellent likeness of its bearer.
Bob wasn't a fool, knowing better than most that there is no such thing
as a free lunch: but he figured that whatever the payoff was, it was
worth it to spend some time living in luxury in Tuscany. Tony had never
told him what the point of this exercise was, and the potential
contents of the parcel he was waiting for caused no small amount of
anxiety. The darker recesses of his sleep were filled with mountains of
white powder, severed heads and scenes from Midnight Express.
Nevertheless, there was something sincere about Tony, and as his bank
records, cards and cheque book were supposed to be accompanying the
package, Bob risked waiting. If Tony's offer was authentic, then he
would never have to debase himself outside a railway station again, and
that was worth a great deal.
When the package arrived, and all it contained was one slim envelope
addressed to Tony's mother, and all the bank documents promised, Bob
couldn't believe it. He posted the letter on, and went to the bank in
town. The bank teller had not objected to the accessing of Tony's
considerable funds, the profits of a lifetime of work without pleasure,
as a birth certificate, driving license, passport and bank books were
more than adequate for identification purposes. Bob would still be
waiting for the sting months later. After a year or so, he was almost
able to sleep properly again, waking only occasionally in a cold sweat,
wondering what Tony had gotten from their strange pact.

***

Tony had finally got what he wanted. After sending his package to
Tuscany, he walked back to the squalid bed sit he had rented in Bob's
name. Dishevelled and filthy, clad in sportswear more than a decade
past it's sell-by-date, he looked like a dead ringer for the sorry
creature who sold the Big Issue outside Sutton railway station. As he
looped the belt over the door frame, he couldn't stop himself from
laughing. He had done it, finally, he had got out. He wanted to thank
someone, but there was no one there. He felt it now, the freedom. He
could do what he wanted; he was no longer his mother's son. He was Bob
now, and no one gave a flying fuck what happened to Bob.
He had never asked to be born, and now he was crying with gratitude as
he had the opportunity to fix everything. He knew no one would grieve
for Bob, so he could go with absolute peace. He drew his last breath
and came down hard on the noose, snapping his neck clean. The last
thought to pass through his brain was a sudden desperate hope that
there really was no afterlife.

***

The partially decomposed body was found about a month later, after the
landlord let himself in to see what had happened to his rent. The
emergency services personnel identified the corpse as one Bob Fowler by
his Big Issue Vendor's badge. No friends or family. The policeman
shivered as he looked around the sparse, dirty and deeply impersonal
bed sit. It was just another no-mark; it barely made the local paper.
The ambulance man agreed with the policeman that it was a terrible
shame, ending up like that. Both had forgotten about it by the end of
the week, though.