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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Returning the Screw<\/b><\/p>\n
By P.V. Tims<\/i><\/p>\n
After Henry James<\/i><\/p>\n
Have you got a match?<\/p>\n
My name is Quint. And no, growing up with a name that sounds like a cross between \u201ccunt\u201d and \u201csquint\u201d didn\u2019t do me any favours. You might have heard of me. If you\u2019ve ever read The Turn of the Screw,<\/i> or seen the film The Turning,<\/i> or watched that rambling bloody Netflix thing, you\u2019ll have heard of me. I\u2019m the bad guy, see. In some versions of the story I\u2019m the ghost that haunts the manor. In others, I\u2019m just a bad memory, with my long-lost life sitting like a poison in the veins of the old place. Whatever way you slice it, I\u2019m the one they pinned it all on. When the governess killed herself, it must have been because Quint broke her brain during their torrid affair. When the kiddies started going mental, it must have been because of old Quint\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n
The governess \u2013 Jessel, if you must know \u2013 was a lovely girl, and we did have a little fling, but she also had a history of problems and a chip on her shoulder. Not a great combo for people wanting to live long, happy lives. I should know, since I fell into roughly the same category. Once upon a time. The kids\u2026 well, I\u2019m not a child psychologist, but I reckon the sudden death of your parents will mess you up pretty bad, especially if you\u2019re raised by their bowin-and-scrapin\u2019 servants \u2019cause your actual relatives can\u2019t be bothered to show up and put in the work. I\u2019m not what you\u2019d call a \u201cresponsible adult\u201d, let alone a \u201cgreat role model\u201d, but I tried my best with those poor sprogs, I really did. Especially the boy. Reminded me of myself at his age. Only posh. It wasn\u2019t me who cracked their impressionable wee skulls open and poured all the horrors of the world in. The world did that all on its own.<\/p>\n
Of course, the reason I\u2019m the bad guy is simple. My real crime wasn\u2019t corrupting the oh-so-pure governess or telling the bairns that booze and gambling existed. My real crime was wanting a chunk of that old money \u2013 that unearned, inherited money. Wanting a little piece of luxury for myself; daring to think I was as good and deserving as the rich fuckers who employed me because \u2013 here\u2019s the truth \u2013 it wouldn\u2019t take much. I mean, all they ever did was own land and cultivate gout. Pretty sure that doesn\u2019t require a rarefied heart or even a particularly taxing skill set. But they had everything, and I had nothing. So, since they were never going to notice anyway, I made no bones about helping myself to the wine cellar, borrowing the odd tuxedo and tails or overpriced watch, and pumping my little governess over their snooker \u2013 sorry, billiards<\/i> \u2013 table.<\/p>\n
While we\u2019re on the subject, who actually uses snooker tables for snooker? Fucking nobody, that\u2019s who. Snooker is, by a considerable margin, the most boring game ever invented. Those are fuck-tables: that\u2019s what they are. Rich people buy them so they won\u2019t have to shag their mistresses in bed and then explain the stains to their cleaners. If a stain shows up on a snooker table, it\u2019s just chalk from the cue, grazed baize, and nobody has to get suspicious about anything. Fucking genius.<\/p>\n
The point is, if you can\u2019t beat \u2019em, join \u2019em. And if you can\u2019t join \u2019em, work for \u2019em and help yourself to their crap. And people hate that. Britain\u2019s still a classist toilet. If anyone spots a working-class fella taking the same liberties that the rich do \u2013 or even just failing to tug the ol’ forelock \u2013 they lose their minds. Especially a certain type of <\/i>working-class person \u2013 the ones who are oh-so-happy-to-serve \u2019cause they haven\u2019t got the imagination to do anything else. The trouble with being brought up to lick somebody else\u2019s boots is, well, you get used to it. Some people can\u2019t imagine a world without the taste of shoe-leather on their tongue, and they\u2019ll bite you if you try to take it away. They\u2019ll also bite if you don\u2019t want any yourself, \u2019cause if there\u2019s one thing they hate more than someone trying to fill in their comfortable little rut, it\u2019s being reminded that there\u2019s a world outside the rut. Sorry, I know my metaphors are mixed. It happens when you\u2019ve been dead as long as I have \u2013 language as the living understand it starts to slip and blur.<\/p>\n
Yeah. Maybe I should clarify. I am dead. Not as dead as Elvis \u2013 that guy\u2019s majorly <\/i>dead \u2013 but pretty fucking dead. If I\u2019ve still got a body at all, it\u2019s just a bloated husk somewhere, eaten up by maggots and fungus. Mainly fungus. Fun fact: mycelium will get into literally fucking anything if it\u2019s dark and squishy enough. Being dead ain\u2019t so bad. It\u2019s not like I have to sit around in my body while it decomposes, and there\u2019s no class system to put up with in death. All ghosts are equally fucked. The only thing I mind is being here<\/i>. Not this plane of existence, think more specific. I\u2019m talking about the manor house where it all happened. Where my governess killed herself; where the fine lord and lady died leaving a distant prick of an uncle to manage two kiddies; where those kiddies went mad; where another governess nearly killed one of them and got carted off to the nearest loony bin; where the fucking <\/i>housekeeper of all people decided to make me<\/i> the bad guy, just because the idea I\u2019d lived and laughed and screwed one of her colleagues on a snooker table that I didn\u2019t personally own offended her Victorian sensibilities.<\/p>\n
I really don\u2019t want to be here anymore. Especially not when I\u2019m trapped here with her and poor Jessel. One won\u2019t stop talking and the other won\u2019t stop crying. I want to save one and rid myself of the other. But I need your help, whoever you are. Whoever\u2019s reading this, let me ask you, as a fellow human being, for just one thing. This property\u2019s owned by the National Trust. I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re calling it nowadays, but it can\u2019t be too hard to find out from your side of the veil. Go to the blasted place and bring kerosene. Burn it down. Burn it until there\u2019s not a stone left uncharred; until this symbol of pointless wealth and English feudal deference is just a blackened crater. Maybe then I can move on.<\/p>\n
Have you got a match?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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