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- Herausgeber: Seren
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
Disturbance is a novel in verse by Ivy Alvarez that chronicles a multiple homicide, a tragic case of domestic violence, where a family was gunned down by the husband and father. The book features poems in a kaleidoscope of voices from all the characters involved. We first meet the family itself and witness how the father's controlling attitude gradually escalates into violence. Then we get the aftermath: the authorities, police and neighbours, who all might have helped to prevent this tragedy. This is a very dark book, but a courageous one, ultimately about evil and its presence in our everyday lives. The fact that this family was relatively well-to-do, seemingly prosperous and well-connected, adds another layer of intrigue and mystery. There is some graphic violence, but the emphasis is on the characters and their motivations. This masterpiece of brutality veined with tenderness will skewer you to its pages. A tour de force - utterly original and brave. - Sally Spedding Disturbance is a precise, pained, and wondrous book. - Teju Cole
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Seitenzahl: 44
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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Ivy Alvarez
DISTURBANCE
Seren is the book imprint of
Poetry Wales Press Ltd.
57 Nolton Street, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 3AE
www.serenbooks.com
Facebook: facebook.com/SerenBooks
Twitter: @SerenBooks
The right of Ivy Alvarez to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
© Ivy Alvarez 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78172-087-5
e-book ISBN: 978-1-78172-089-9
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-78172-088-2
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.
The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council.
This book is an imaginative retelling of and a response to actual events.
It does not purport to be a documentary work, a factual account or a work of record.
Names, actions and thoughts of the characters are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Cover image: Matthew Albanese, ‘Burning Room’
Wood, nylon, plexiglass, purchased dollhouse furniture
www.matthewalbanese.com
Printed in Bembo by CPI Group (UK) Limited, Croydon
Author’s Website: www.ivyalvarez.com
Contents
Inquest
Nuclear family
Operator
The Journalist speaks I
The good neighbour
The estate agents
A neighbouring farmer
The neighbour at no. 51
The neighbour’s daughter
Husband, interrupted
Paternal Grandfather
Maternal Grandfather
Grandmother: interview
The Journalist speaks II
Sisters
Dumb
The Mistress speaks
A Priest thinks on his future
The Detective Inspector I
The Detective Inspector II
The Four Policemen
The Police Surgeon’s tale
Family portrait
The family friend
A year of death threats
Happy Sunday: Jane
A small domestic scene
Warning
The Journalist speaks III
Signatures
Tom alone
Hannah’s statement
Jane’s to-do list
Divorce
Tony
Notes to self
Tom
Witness
Tony and Tom
See Jane run
Holes
The Journalist’s tale
My lover as a ghost or the Mistress speaks again
The surviving Daughter
Acknowledgements
Author Note
Inquest
Members of the family wept
as the coroner read out
her pleas for help.
Nothing softened as they cried.
The wood in the room stayed hard
and square.
The windows clear.
The stenographer impassive.
The spider under the bench
intent on its fly.
Nuclear family
One mansion
worth one million
or nine hundred
seventy-five thousand
depending on the newspaper
For sale at nine hundred
and eighty-five thousand
An ex-employee files a lawsuit
for three hundred
and sixty-one thousand
One life
insurance policy worth three
hundred thousand
Thirty-six thousand cash
in the BMW, plus one
bottle of JD, a number of cable ties,
plastic bottles filled with petrol,
one pair of scissors
They met 27 years ago
One injunction
One divorce
One emergency number
dialled at 7.11 pm
Fourteen cartridges
from a twelve-gauge shotgun
reloaded seven times
Five neighbours
beg to differ
One son
shot five times
in the chest and back
One mother
shot four times
in the chest and lower back
One man
with a gunshot wound
to the head
A coroner, police constable,
superintendent, detective inspector
and domestic violence co-ordinator
circle the scene
One daughter
left alive
releases her statement
Operator
My dinner rests warm in my belly.
I’ve just come in for my shift.
Familiar smell of old coffee,
stale sweat accumulates,
hovers near the ceiling.
My chair warms to my presence.
Already I can’t wait to leave.
The lights blink, the phone rings.
I’m here ’til two in the morning.
Breakfast before dawn. Then sleep.
The phone rings: laughter and shrieks.
Another crank call, two cranks in ten minutes.
I just got here.
The minute hand swings over.
It’s 7.11 pm.
‘What is the nature
of your emergency?’
Weariness
wears my voice.
But then she speaks.
I type quickly. I press buttons.
‘What is your address?’
The pads of my fingers prickle,
become slick. Keys slip beneath my skin.
Her breath
catches.Thunder blooms
behind her voice
– once, twice. Her scream
pierces my ear.
‘I have got officers on the way.’
My voice is steady. My hands shake.
She whispers to me. I barely understand.
‘Where is he now?’
I punch buttons. The minute hand
wipes the clock’s face.
‘We have got people coming up.’
She whimpers and cries.
Her fear is salty. I taste
its metal. I taste her tears.
‘Just stay where you are
– keep hidden.’
I feel the tremor of my jaw.
Two more gunshots.
I don’t scream, though I want to.
I keep talking.
‘Are you upstairs?’
She cries.
She cries.
I hear a door opening.
I hear her cry out.
The line goes dead.
The Journalist speaks I
There are details I can report.
Others I can only guess at.
as always
I arrive too late for witnessing
must rein myself in
must not mention
how the neighbour was ignored
the evidence overlooked
the time that elapsed
between when she hit the button for help
and when the police arrived
omit the pictures of her body in the cupboard
how her husband tracked her blood around like the sun
red radiant
before he came to rest
his brains
a blood halo
how their son had died
his arm by his side
the frost on his skin disappearing
his frozen look of surprise
while the police did not
would not say sorry
