THE FACE OF THE DUMMY By James Wood He's looking at me! He thinks I don't know it, but I do! 'I can see you, Charlie, I can see you!' Those stupid, painted doll-like eyes staring out of that wooden head. Sneering at me. There was a time when I could ignore him. Drop him in his box at the end of the act and forget about him until the next performance. That was long ago when I first got started as a ventriloquist. Then it was 'The amazing Eduardo'. That's how the billing read. No mention of 'Charlie' ... just me, Eduardo. But slowly he got in on the act. First they changed the billing to 'Eduardo and his lifelike dummy'. Charlie didn't like that! Didn't like being called a dummy. "The crowd don't see me as a dummy," he said. "They see me as a real person. Real flesh and blood. So why destroy the illusion?" The only illusion, was that people thought I pulled the strings to make Charlie come to life, but in fact Charlie was pulling my strings. He was the master and I was the puppet. He knew exactly how to handle me. How to get his own way. He'd deliberately make me look a fool in front of others ... just like my old man used to do. "Teddy Boy," he'd say. "You're like a spare tart at a wedding; sitting there with your legs crossed guarding your honour." Teddy! That's what my father used to call me. Teddy. My mum would say, "his name's Edward," but my dad would ignore her and go on calling me Teddy. He knew I hated it, but he didn't care. Just like Charlie doesn't care. When we're on stage in front of a thousand people he'll say: "Watch where you're putting your hand, Teddy Boy. How'd you like it if I stuck my fingers up your ****." And he'd wink with that heavy, false eye and the crowd would fall about laughing. Laughing with him and at me! Just like my father used to laugh at me ... and the kids at school too. I hated school. Hated those staring eyes. The boys making fun of me because I didn't join in their stupid games ... and the girls giggling because I didn't chat them up. Sometimes they'd get me behind the bike-shed and lift up their skirts to show me their knickers. And when I ran away, they'd call me names, like 'pansy' and 'wanker'. I remember one of the girls complaining to the teacher that I'd tried to touch her breasts. It wasn't true ... but the teacher told my father and he thrashed me. That's why I hated school and hated my father. They had found the weaknesses in me and deliberately played on them. No pity! No affection! No love! I guess they enjoyed watching me cry. And now Charlie enjoys making me cry, in front of everyone. At first the audience didn't know how to handle it ... weren't sure whether it was all part of the act. They were a little uneasy about seeing a grown man cry. But Charlie made a joke of it. Turned it into a pantomime. He'd deliberately start to slip off my knee, pretending he was being washed away by the tears. "For God's sake, stop bawling," he'd say, "or you'll get water on the knee and I'll get wet rot." The audience loved it. And they loved him. He knew how to win them over and make me look a pitiful fool at the same time. The applause was for him. The crowd came to see him. So I guess it was only fair that he should get top billing ... 'Cheerful Charlie and his sad stooge'. There was no stopping him. Theatre, radio, television. Everyone wanted him. He even made a Royal Command Performance Show and the Press got pictures of him shaking hands with royalty while my face was blanked out in the background. When the reporters wanted an interview it was Charlie who answered their questions. When we appeared on a T.V. Chat Show it was Charlie who was interviewed, not me. I kept quiet, said nothing ... just like a dummy! "If it goes on like this," Charlie said to me, " you'll soon be redundant. Better start looking for another career, Teddy Boy. I can always find another knee to sit on but, without me, you've got nothing. You're dead, man! Dead!" And he'd give that cynical laugh. Just like my old man, when I fell over and cut my knee. I tried not to cry but he could see the tears starting in my eyes. The stinging of the iodine as he forced it into the wound, and the stinging of his eyes as they forced their way into my mind. They were more than I could stand and my father knew he'd won once more. Then I'd run to my mother and hide my face in her skirt ... a skirt smelling of warm toast, baking bread, rice pudding. All the safe, loving smells that still remind me of a woman who devoted her whole life to me; a woman who died before I had a chance to repay her for all her sacrifices. After she died, things got worse with my father. He tried to make me feel guilty for her death but I knew it was really his fault, and I never forgave him. "You ain't got your mum to run to now," he'd say. "Maybe now, we'll teach you to be a real man and not a mummy's boy." But I knew what his 'real men' were like. Dirty, crude, beer-swilling friends who came rolling home with him on a Saturday night, usually with a couple of women in tow. Sleeping in my mother's bed, using my mother's sheets and towels ... all the things she took pride in being abused, and adulterated, by that scum! When I told them to stop, they took no notice; just like Charlie takes no notice when I beg him to leave me alone. And the audience takes no notice when I tell them to stop laughing at me. And my father took no notice when I tried to stop him hitting my mum. Somehow all those grinning faces blend into one set of features with dark, bushy eyebrows spread across a wooden brow and a black gash of a mouth open in a malicious grin. It's a face I'll always recognise. The face of the man I killed! CONTINUE