Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

2010

The Marks of Cain is a work of fiction. However, it draws on many genuine historical, archaeological and scientific sources.

In particular:

The monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette stands in the forests and vineyards of central France. Designed by Le Corbusier, the building was constructed in the 1950s. Five years after completion the building was threatened with closure, as so many of the monks were suffering mental problems.

Eugen Fischer was a German scientist, famous for his studies in human heredity, firstly amongst the Basters of Namibia, and then for Hitler and the Nazi party. He survived the Second World War, and continued his work without prosecution.

In 1610, the King of Navarre asked his physicians to examine twenty-two of his Cagot subjects.

Simon Quinn was listening to a young man describe how hed sliced off his own thumb.

And that, said the man, was the beginning of the end. I mean, cutting off your thumb, with a knife, thats not nothing, is it? Thats serious shit. Cutting your own thumb off. Fucked my bowling.

The urge to laugh was almost irrepressible; Simon repressed it. The worst thing you could do at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting was laugh at someones terrible story. Just not done. People came here to share, to fess up, to achieve some catharsis by submitting their darkest fears and shames: and thereby to heal.

The young man finished his story: So thats when it, like, kicked in. I realized I had to do something, about the drugs and the pop. Thank you.

The room was silent for a moment. A middle-aged woman said a breathy thank you, Jonny, and everyone else murmured: thank you, Jonny.

They were nearly done. Six people had shared; pamphlets and keyrings had been distributed. This was a new group for Simon, and he liked it. Usually he went to evening NA meetings nearer his flat and his wife and son in Finchley Road, the London suburbs. But today hed had to come into Hampstead for business and en route hed decided to catch a new meeting, try somewhere fresh; he was bored of the boozers at his usual meets, with their stories of guzzling lighter fuel. And so hed rung the NA hotline and found this meeting hed never been to before, and it turned out it was a regular lunchtime job with interesting people who had good stories.

The pause was prolonged. Perhaps he should share his own story now? Give a little change?

He decided to tell the very first story. The big one.

Hello, my names Simon and Im an addict.

Hello, Simon

Hi, Simon.

He leaned forward and began:

I was a drunkfor at least ten years. And I wasnt just an alcoholic, I wasa polydrug abuser, as they say. I did absolutely everything. But I dont want to talk about that. I want toexplain how it started.

The leader of the group, a fifty-something man with soft blue eyes, nodded gently.

Whatever you want. Please go on.

Thank you. Well. OK. Igrew up not far from here, in Belsize Park. My parents were pretty affluent my fathers an architect, my mother was a lecturer. My background is Irish butI went to private school in Sussex. Hence the stupidly middle-class English accent.

The leader offered a polite smile. Listening attentively.

AndI had an older brother. We were rather a happy familyAt firstThen at eighteen I went off to university and while I was there I got this frantic phone call from my mother. She said, your brother Tim has just lost it. I asked her what she meant and she said, hes just lost it. And it was true. Hed suddenly come home from university and hed started talking absolutely mad stuff, talking equations and scientific formulasand the maddest thing of all is that he was doing it in German.

He gazed around the faces, gathered in this basement room. Then continued:

So I shot home and it turned out my mother was right. Tim had gone mad. Genuinely cracked. He was doing a lot of skunk with his chums at uni maybe that was a catalyst but I think he was schizophrenic anyway. Because thats when schizophrenia usually kicks in, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. I didnt know that then of course.

The middle-aged woman was sipping from a plastic cup of tea.

Tim was a science student. Seriously bright much brighter than me. I can barely say bonjour but he could speak four languages. As I say, he was doing a physics PhD, at Oxford, but hed come home suddenlywithout warning and he was ranting, quoting scientific formulas in German. Doing it all night, walking up and down the landing. Das Helium und das Hydrogen blah blah blah. All through the night.

My parents realized my brother had a pretty serious problem and they took him to a doctor, and they prescribed Tim the usual drugs. The wretched little pills. Antipsychotics. And they worked for a whileBut one night when I was home for Christmas I heard this muttering noise andand it was this voice. Again. Yes. Das Helium und das Hydrogen. And I lay there wondering what to do. But then I heard this terrible scream and I rushed from my bedroom and my brother was in He closed and opened his eyes. My brother was there in my mothers bedroom and they were alone because my father was awayandand my brother was attacking her, hacking at my mother, with a machete. A big knife. A machete. I dont know precisely what it was. But he was chopping away at her, our mother, so I jumped him and I held him down and there was blood everywhere, just everywhere actually sprayed up the walls. I very nearly throttled him. Almost killed my own brother.

Simon drew breath.

The police came and they took him away andmy mother went to hospital and they stitched her up, but she lost the use of some fingers, some nerves were severed. But that was all, really, which was incredibly lucky. She could have died but she was alright. And then we had this terrible dilemma as a family should we press charges? My father and I said Yes, but my mother said No. She loved Tim more than the rest of us. She thought he could be treated. So we agreed with her, stupidly, crazily, we agreed. Then Tim came home and he seemed OK for a while, on the drugs, but then one night I heard it: Das Helium und das Hydrogen

Simon could feel the sweat on his forehead; he hurried on with his story.

Tim was muttering, again, in his room. And of course that was that. We called the police and they came straight round. Then they put Tim in an asylum. And thats where he is now. Locked and bolted and shut in his box. Hes been there ever since. Hell be there the rest of his life.

As his conclusion approached, he experienced the usual relief. So thats when I started drinking to forget, you know. Then sulphates and then pretty much everythingBut I finally stopped the boozing six years ago and yes I did my course of NA antibiotics, my sixty meetings in sixty days! And Ive been clean ever since.

And I now have a wife and a son and I dearly love them. Miracles do happen. They really do. Of course I still dont know why my brother did what he did and what that means butI look at it this way: maybe I havent got his genes, maybe my boy will be alright. Who knows. One day at a time. And thats my story. And thanks very much for listening. Thank you.

A murmur of thank yous filled the warm fuggy space, like the responses of a congregation. The ensuing silence was a coda; the hour was nearly up. Everyone stood and hugged, and said the Serenity Prayer. And then the meeting was finished, and the addicts filed out, climbing up the creaky wooden stairs, out into the graveyard of Hampstead Church.