Page 32 of The Cut

The man in the frame jumped as the board clapped; his eyes darted around the room, unfocused and nervous. After a few beats, he settled, and the interview began.

‘Tell me about your son’s friendships at school.’

‘I warned him not to let them in. I grounded him, but he disobeyed me.’

The doctor’s hair was thinning now. It had turned white and gave him a certain distinguished authority.

The rest of his features told a different story.

His face was lined with a road map of worry and stress, and there was a weariness that pressed down on his spine.

He glanced over to the window, where the twilight outside made a mirror of the glass. He stared at his own reflection.

‘Once they’re invited inside, they have more potential to hurt you. Like vampires.’ Sandeep closed his eyes slowly.

‘David was an outsider … he was marginalised by his friends.’

‘Devesh … not David. He anglicised himself to fit in.’ The doctor sniffed. ‘It means “chief of the gods”.’

‘It’s a beautiful name.’

‘Hmm … he didn’t exactly live up to that mantle though, did he?’ A flicker of pain and disappointment flashed across the old man’s face.

The zoom tilted in a little closer, detailing every flinch of the broken man. 176

‘Devesh was being dragged down by peer pressure.’ He shuffled papers around on his desk as if this was a consultation with a patient and he was looking for answers.

‘What kind of peer pressure?’ She knew the answer, but her voice and the questions would be removed in the edit.

‘Yes, that is rather a euphemism, isn’t it …

hmm …’ The little hum was like a nervous tick that filled an awkward silence.

‘Coercing him into drinking and smoking, running riot all over the village like he was a tearaway, all kinds of nonsense. He should have listened to me, then none of this would have happened.’

‘Why did he cave in?’

‘The dog shit wrapped in newspaper, set on fire and posted through the letter box was definitely a catalyst … that’s another form of peer pressure, I suppose.’

‘Did that happen a lot?’

‘Mmm … Devesh just wanted to be popular, he wanted to be one of the gang, so he tagged along, did what he was told by the ring leader … His mother hated it, of course … especially that damned bike.’

The doctor looked up to the camera and fixed a smile on his lips, but his eyes were dead.

‘Children can be cruel, beyond anything an adult could dream up. Their imaginations are so …’ He sighed.

‘… stark. They despised everything about him, they othered him, so he buried himself in separate pursuits, solitary interests.’

‘Yes … he liked making home videos.’

Dr Patel clenched his mouth into a tight smile and checked his watch.

‘You’ve answered all these questions before, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, many times. Couldn’t keep the newspapers and so-called TV journalists away back then.

Had to close the surgery.’ Sandeep 177 swallowed and inhaled, bracing himself.

‘My son wasn’t the only one that was punished.

But you’re right to bring up the video tapes.

It was one of the things that really swayed the jury. Pity they didn’t find all of them.’

‘You think there were more?’

‘Well, let’s just say some houses were never searched … not like ours. Like I said … shouldn’t have let them in.’

Then the camera started to track in to an extreme close-up.

‘When Devesh is released, do you think he’ll return home … to you?’

Sandeep glared at the camera. ‘I don’t think the village would deem that appropriate, do you?’ It was as if a veil descended over Dr Sandeep Patel’s eyes. He was weary. Tired of carrying his son’s sentence on his back for thirty years.

‘There is a monster in all of us. We all have the propensity to kill, but we suppress the animal.’ His face turned towards the black glass, his reflection again.

‘This village used to be so full of life, full of young people and hope. But it’s dying now, slowly fading until there will be no one left to remember … that’s why we invited you to come.’

The camera was cut. 178