Criminal Record: Themes & Subtext

I've just rereleased my first bodyswap novel, Criminal Record, with a smartened up cover.  To celebrate, I thought I’d share a communication I had with someone who read the book and liked it.

She posed me a series of questions and it struck me that my answers might be interesting to others.

So if you haven’t read Criminal Record yet then click on the link to the right and get to it before you go on reading. There will be spoilers below.

If you’ve already read Criminal Record then sit back and enjoy.  

AMY:

Emma, I loved this book and have now posted a review on Amazon.  You are a very entertaining writer. I have some questions that are generally about how the dichotomy of good and evil pans out in the book.  So Sadie (Sadist?) and Holly (Holy?!) are essentially and on a basic level drawn as BAD and GOOD. Are these names a happy accident?

EMMA:

Thank you for enjoying it. I’m glad you did. Sadie and Holly aren’t named because of Sadist and Holy, though I did choose the name to be more sleazy and prim respectively. I wish I had been that cunning but sadly... I wasn’t.

AMY:

How come they both end up doing BAD things?  It’s not like Holly manages to retain her virtue when she’s transformed into Sadie’s body. She’s fully complicit in crime and sex.  Yet Sadie brings her naughtiness along with her into Holly’s body.  Is it intended that they both wind up being more like Sadie?

EMMA:

I thought about this question as I was rereading the book this week and the text does explain it as it goes along but I guess you didn’t pick up on it.
Basically, Holly feels constrained by her posh upbringing and deep down wishes she could be slutty and vulgar. It is she who precipitates the original transformation with this subconscious desire. When she becomes Sadie she allows herself to slip into it subconsciously because that is what she has always wanted: to cut loose! Also, the body and brain she is in are having an effect on her and she is doing it to some extent so that Mik doesn’t spot her as a fraud.
The original Sadie meanwhile has a far more limited desire to be “stuck up” so resists, even though the body is working on her. She is tempted to become Holly in totality but fights against it, ultimately callously murdering the teddy bear (something the real Holly would never do) as a statement of intent – to stick to her dark side. This statement helps her to fight the programming.
There is an underlying theme in more of my stories than this as to whether the life one would generally assume is better is actually worse. Does the maid have a simpler life filled with purpose? Is the whore happier, not having to live in a world ruled by principles? Is Burt happier than Lady Ann? And so on…

AMY:

At the end Holly acknowledges that Sadie doesn’t have the capacity to be good and she does have it in herself to be very bad. Why aren’t they both capable of being the good girl, but they are both capable of being the bad girl? To what extent does this effect a portrayal of human nature as essentially or predominantly BAD?

EMMA:

When the real Holly tells Sadie that she is incapable of good she’s angry and being a bit harsh. Sadie is generally amoral (judging by the casual theft and rudeness she perpetrates) but is still unwilling to go to the lengths part of her would like to. Although she plans the murder at the end, she can’t ultimately go through with it. She doesn’t see anything wrong with what she does. She just does it. She’s not evil in the fiendish sense of the word. But she isn’t a one dimensional character. She does have friends and a boyfriend she cares about. She just doesn’t rate strangers as people who matter.

Thematically, it does explore the principle that being bad is easier or more fun as opposed to the pressure and responsibility to do good.

AMY:

How come Sadie can’t have sex with Jonathon in the car?  She doesn’t hold back from shredding a teddy or stealing a gun – why is this one thing an issue?

EMMA:

The sex scene comes before the crucial teddy bear scene (where she breaks off from becoming Holly). At that earlier point in the book she is still battling against the instincts of her new body as well as her own doubts about taking advantage of the clean slate she’s been given. It’s ultimately a book about the choice to be bad, and the original Sadie ultimately chooses bad over good (though is left changed by the climax – witnessing the love of Holly’s father and not being able to kill). I feel that she isn’t so bad by the end of it.
The original Holly on the other hand ends up treading a more central path. Notice that she has taken on the mode of speech of Sadie at the end. This is suggestive of also taking on some of her dark side as well. She will swear a lot more and wear more revealing clothes. She’ll worry less about pleasing people all the time. She will forge the path she wants rather than the one expected of her. And she has designs on going out with Mik which is a pretty monumental change to her life up to now.
Both girls have learned from their experiences and have taken on aspects of the other girl that they liked. And I wish them both a happy future.
Though it will be interesting to see which of them manages to snare Mik. I’ve always wanted to do a sequel!

AMY:

It was a very entertaining story.  I quite like the concept that the change just happens without rhyme or reason, though I get the impression this is part of a bigger picture with the golden gloom motif.  That way we get on with the business of them being transformed with no preamble – sorry if I sound impatient but that’s the fun part! Is that the plan?

EMMA:

The Golden Gloom is indeed part of the on-going mysteries of Nockton Vale and further glimpses will be revealed in future releases. If you read A New You, my latest batch of short stories, there is an unprecedented glimpse behind the curtain of what is REALLY going on in Nockton Vale.

AMY:

I like it so much that there are heroes in Criminal Record.  Get the Dad in this book!?  He is awesome!  Plus Mik might be a Paki-beating thug but he’s kind of heroic in his own way, and actually cares about Sadie, helping her to get away, etc.  He has his redeeming features. Did you plot it that way?

EMMA:

I also really like Mik. And Sadie. They are irredeemable bastards but they do love one another. I always want my characters to be likeable, or at least magnetic, but they generally come alive in ways I didn’t expect. That’s what’s so rewarding about being a writer.

AMY:

Sorry if that’s too many questions but it’s a book that is pretty thought provoking. By the way, I LOVE the bit where Sadie wonders if she’s “one of those dyslexic cripples.” Classic phrasing!” You’re bloody hilarious!

EMMA:

Thanks Amy! Let me know what you think of the next book when you read it!

Cleaner: Chapter One - Part Five

MELISSA

Surely I hadn’t heard what I thought I just heard.

But my boss was standing there looking at me with a mix of, I guessed, embarrassment, curiosity, earnestness and... hope? That look stayed poised, her eyes and mouth giving just the tiniest involuntary quiver. Her expression moved closer to something in the same family as panic, but toned right down until the only sign of it was a slight widening of the eyes; a moistening of the tongue.

“Sorry, what?” I said.

That broke the spell and she gabbled out the next three words with so little preparation, she hadn’t drawn enough breath to make them quite loud enough. “It doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.”

“No,” I replied. “What do you mean?”

It was a slightly freakish moment, because ordinarily she was full of self-possession and poise, aloof and above me. There was a subtle tipping of balance to that equilibrium that left me feeling confused but oddly empowered. I didn’t question her. I never really spoke to her. Or I hadn’t.

“It was just...” She giggled, looking away and as she did so I saw that balance tip back again as she reminded herself who she was. And who I was. The self-possession returned. She drew a calming breath in, closing and opening her eyes, and by the time she turned back to me that tickle of exuberant childlike manner was gone. “I thought it would be... funny... for us to swap roles for the rest of the morning. But...” Here eyes flicked off my face and entered a different zone. Then they popped back as though a decision had been made.

“What do you say?” she said. “Nobody needs to know. We can swap clothes and you can lie around for a couple of hours while I do the cleaning. It’ll be... hilarious.”

I didn’t know what to make of it, but I suspected there was an undercurrent I wasn’t seeing, even if I could sense it.

“Swap clothes?” I asked, looking down at her slender shape and then to my own corpulence. We were about the same height but she could have worn me like a winter coat, I was so much bigger than her.

“I have some baggier outfits. I’m sure we could work something out. What do you say? It would be entirely radical.”

Could she really be serious? It sounded like the lead-up to a practical joke... though on second thought, it was unclear who would be the joke’s fall guy.

“Uh, sure,” I said, shrugging. “If you want to.”

The grin that shot across her lips was childlike; completely unimpeded. She took my hand and led me out of the pool room. “Let’s do it right away.”

I followed her down the long corridor to the soaring staircase and trailed up after her. She seemed almost to have forgotten me in her exuberance but I went on putting one foot in front of the other, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Why the hell would she want to switch places, even for a couple of hours? It was madness. What was the attraction to doing her own cleaning? Why not send me home and get on with it?

There were no answers and she was elucidating.

My boss’s bedroom was at the back of the house, overlooking the upwardly sloping garden, a multi-levelled wonderland of exotic plants and flowers around hidden clearings with statuary and stone benches. She had a gardener who came in twice a week to tend to it. I barely saw him, it was so full of foliage.

I had been in her bedroom before of course – I cleaned it regularly as a room she used a lot – but never with her there as well and certainly never on this semi-equal footing. In fact it occurred to me that detailed knowledge of this inner chamber was something we already had in common; a connection that no one else shared. 

The bed was an antique four-poster with carved spiral posts and dark red curtains. Unlike most of the rest of the house, which possessed a somewhat sterile modern air, this room was olde worlde, with ancient nick-knacks and matching oak furniture, lacquered a dark brown.

My boss didn’t pause. She went right to the closet’s double doors and threw them back, revealing the wide central area with mirrors on the back wall and the long opposing wall cavities filled with her glorious clothes.

I had admired her clothes with a salivating mouth for some time. They were infinitely more expensive than I could ever afford, and of course Dahlia’s figure could show them off as they were made to be shown off. My body was grossly obese. I couldn’t hope to make anything in there look good, even if by some miracle I could fit into anything.

But it was a beautiful dream, and for the first time since she made her odd request, I found myself getting caught up a little, especially when she turned to face me, beaming, and said, “It’ll be just like playing dressing up. Did you used to do that when you were a little girl?”

I frowned, trying to think back to a childhood that seemed a hundred years earlier and was certainly best forgotten. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t need an answer. She was busily going through the garments on the right hand side, looking for something I could fit into, oblivious to me again.

I stood back, watching her and I suddenly got the weighty sense that she really wanted to go through with this. She really wanted to swap places.

I’d never heard of anything so weird. But a little smile turned one side of my lip up.

If that was what she wanted to do then I was well up for it.

Cleaner: Chapter One - Part Four

Melissa

DAHLIA 

Melissa disappeared into the lounge to go on with her cleaning and I found myself trying to imagine what she would be doing exactly.

She’d taken a dust cloth and can of furniture polish through. She would be spraying down the coffee table or the mantelpiece and setting to work bringing them up to a shine. I wondered if she would lean into it as she had done with the mopping. Did her mind wander or was it caught up only in that simple activity?

I rubbed my power legs together then crossed them slowly, leaning back on the lounger and closing my eyes.

The sun was coming through the glass roof and it was wonderfully warm. It made me feel dozy. A smile crept over my face as I imagined her doing her task and then, without any kind of seam, I slipped myself into the vision so that it was me spraying the coffee table; setting the cab down; setting to work. In the daydream I worked hard, trying to get the best unblemished shine that I could.

Then I heard a clatter and opened my eyes with a start.

Melissa was in the doorway to the pool room, looking at me oddly. I’d lost track of the minutes going by. She was done in the lounge. She had a broom by the top of the handle and was looking at me expectantly.

I blushed darkly and stammered, “Sorry Melissa, I was away with the fairies. I didn’t see you come in.”

“I was going to sweep up in here,” she replied. “But I can do it later or tomorrow.”

“No. That’s fine. Go ahead.” After a pause I added, “Please.”

She looked slightly put out for some reason but started to work her way from the far corner beyond the pool along the glass wall.

I repositioned the sun lounger so that it pointed in that direction, making a show of looking up at the sky. “The sun’s moved,” I said, but Melissa didn’t even look my way.

Settling back into place, I took my magazine back up but over the top of it I watched what she was doing. As in the hall with the mopping, she remained focused on her task.

She was wearing a navy blue dress that stopped above the knee with a square neck and short sleeves. Her dark bobbed hair swung back and forth with each movement. Her body was morbidly obese but the dress was designed to smooth the bulges and she moved with surprising grace on her low heels. It was strangely mesmerising. Back and forth went the broom; back and forth; one step forward then one back, then two steps forward, working along the foot of the wall, gathering what could only have been the lightest layering of dust.

For a moment my mind went back to Tommy and his talk of comebacks and parties, meetings and photo shoots.

I knew I should call him; make up for my shortness when we spoke; reassure him that I was committed to seeing his plans through to the finish; but even though the phone was there within easy reach, I couldn’t quite summon the strength to reach for it.

Instead, I looked back at the cleaner as she swept, thinking of my crazy idea, ignoring how silly it was; how embarrassing. I’d actually almost put it to her before! Just imagine her response! I blushed again just to think of it. Katherine, my assistant would insist I went back to my therapist if I told her about it. Or she’d have me committed!

I let out a single brief giggle like rattling beads then covered my mouth immediately. Mellissa glanced across, freezing in place, assuming probably that I was laughing at her. Her face had a sullen look but she smoothed it out and went on working and I thought to myself, What harm would it do to ask her?

She would see it as a break from her job. What did it matter if she thought I was loony?

But no. I shook my head. It really was too stupid. I wasn’t going to ask her. I should have my head examined.

“Melissa?”

She stopped and looked at me and only when she met my gaze did my brain catch up to what I was doing. I'd always had a certain impulsiveness and that part of me was the part that had pushed out that word; that egged me to go on with what it wanted me to say.

“Yes miss?”

I grinned awkwardly, stuttering a little but saying nothing. She looked back at me with a cocktail of emotional shadows: curiosity; maybe a breath of resentment, impatience; respect; expectation.

The silence went on. I knew I couldn’t go on with my ridiculous question but my mind was blank to any other alternative. I stuttered again, sounding like an idiot, flushing red from top to toe.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Uh, yes,” I stammered. “Yes, please. You can.”

Again that drawn moment of expectation.

“I wanted to ask you a favour,” I said. “Something silly really.” I giggled and flushed.

I couldn’t say it. I really couldn’t go through with it.

“I’d like to swap places with you,” I said. “Just until the end of your shift.”

And then it was out there and both of us gaped at one another.

I couldn't believe I’d blurted it out. I immediately wanted to take it back. But that other part of me kept my mouth clamped and another moment ticked out as we looked back at each other.

Then finally the cleaner spoke, curling her lips up slightly, her brows coming together in a frown. “What?”