Billy and Girl (19 page)

Girl backs away. Pushes her face against the wallpaper of her girlhood bedroom. Louise walks her eyes around the details of Girl’s girl room. Fixes them on Billy who is writing again. He’s writing for Girl’s life. Got to take maternal care of Girl. What Mom should have done, stopped Dad pulping her boy, Girl did. Burnt her very own prince. The first prince in her life. Can’t have a prince that beats up the next heir to the throne, can you? Not good for the kingdom. The orchards rot. Locusts eat the national crop. The water becomes polluted. Billy is a boy
with an unspoken message from Mom inside him: Look after Girl.

Girl disappearing into the faded teddy-bear wallpaper, shrinking from Louise’s gaze, dazzled by its loopy intensity, burying her head in the faint outline of one of the pastel-coloured teddies’ big swollen belly. A stomach just like an infant’s, but smooth, without a navel where the cord was cut at birth, knotted and bleeding, a little stump to be powdered.

Crying into the bear’s small round ears, wetting the paper with her Girl tears, spontaneous catastrophic tears which she will have to give up one day and replace with stoic adult tears, like she will have to give up this bedroom and her plastic bubble bath creatures and soaps in the shape of hippos and dolphins.

‘You and me and the clothes and that—’ Louise pointing her knife in Girl’s direction – ‘what’s it all for?’

Girl says, ‘You were just girlmeat when I first saw you. Packing peas in your sad shoes. Girlmeat, no label, no frills. EEC: thaw before cooking. What a disgusting sight. I made you into a better brand of Louise to cheer myself up.’

‘Yeah?’ FreezerWorld Louise pretending she’s thinking about this, tapping the knife against her teeth. In a minute she’s going to smash the blade right through Girl’s head. ‘Wetard Wetard Wetard Wetard.’ Louise makes her way towards Girl, half screaming, half whispering, ‘Wetard Wetard Wetard Wetard, I’m a WEeeeTAaaaaRD,’ stretching her lips to make ‘WEEEEEEEeeeeetAAAAAaaaaaard’ last for ever, slamming her knife into one of the wallpaper teddies, ripping out its awed round eyes. ‘Weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard weetaaaard.’ Squeaking her voice, ‘Weetaaaaaard weeeeeetard weeeeeeeeeeeeetard weeeeeeeeeeeetard,’ carving at the wallpaper, scratching
LOUISE
in the plaster with the
point of her knife. Stumbling towards the dressing table, slashing at the child princess’s furniture bought by Dad when Girl was seven, an old-fashioned one with a mirror and little drawers. Secret places to hide a girl diary, under the pink polka-dot girl socks with Girl’s secret name sewn inside, ‘Louise’ looped in blood-red daisy stitch.

Girl knows that Louise wants to carve her secret name into her girl flesh, coming at her to brand the first L into her cheek. The Louise snarl-up. Is that what it takes to give up Girl? Blood? Billy gives his note to Raj. Gesturing him to read it out loud. Raj licking his lips, which feel like bone. Heart pounding under the new shirt at the sight of his girlfriend sobbing and FreezerWorld Louise becoming the thing she was called, showing them just how good she can
do
retard.

TO GIRLS EVERY WHERE. RAJ AND BILLY ARE THE GODS OF LOVE AND LAGER. WE ARE READY TO ENJOY LIFE WITH GIRLS. THE MALE CITIZENS OF TWENTY FIRST. GOOD LOOKING, GOT THE WORDS, WELL HUNG, WILL
ri
SK
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ROSPECTS
to
DEFEND
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GIRLS WE LOVE. WE ARE
fUt
URE MAN. DE
a
TH TO OLD KIND OF DAD PRINCE—

Mr Tens interrupts Raj. He’s even plucked up enough courage to shout and whirl his bow tie. ‘Shut up, Billy! You’re giving me a fucking migraine.’

Louise folds her arms, knife lose in her hand. ‘Yeah. Shut the fuck up, Billy! I was having a conversation with your sister. ’Snot me who’s girlmeat, you stoopid cunt, why dyuthink I ran away then? Start taking notes, Billy … Go on … Fuck you, Billy, let’s see that pen move or I’ll kill your sister.’

Billy does what he’s told.

‘Sometimes you got to make a run for it, dontcha? Weeeeeeetard weeeeeeetard … write it Billy, write Weeeeeeetard Weeetard weeetard for ever and ever write it for ever and ever weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetard write it in your book, Billy,
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetard, she’s com-ing to get you, weeeetard’s coming to get you, here comes weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetard.’ She makes her way towards Girl, whose dirty blond ponytail is falling out of the plastic heart grip, same as the one she bought Louise, tripping over a child’s pair of blue plastic sandals neatly lined up under the dressing table that has been ruined for ever. ‘I knew who you was before you even clapped eyes on me,’ FreezerWorld Louise is whispering now. Measuring her words. Making the brother and sister lean forward to hear her. She takes out a little pot of lip gloss with a picture of a kiwi fruit on the lid. Dips her chewed-up finger into the green balm and smears it on her lips. ‘Seen photos of you at Mrs O’Reilly’s. And
you
, Billy fucking England.’

She pauses, screwing up her eyes, little flesh furrows on her see-thru skin.

‘Mrs O’Reilly’s in FreezerWorld tonight.’ Louise throws the knife on the floor.

‘Thing is, I don’t think your mother wants to see you.’

The Merc is a nerve bomb. Nerve atoms jumping into the purple velveteen seats. Working their way into Merc metal and glass.

Billy, Mr Tens and Louise in the back. Raj and Girl in the front. Billy and Louise both holding knives where healer Tens can see them.

No cocktails this time. Raj keeping his eye on the road. He feels Merc weirdness seeping into his hands from the steering wheel. Mrs O’Reilly? Hasn’t he met her? The woman who came to see the car. Fingering the upholstery, as if she knew every curve of the metal beneath it. Walking around the Merc wreck like it was a house she used to live in. He looks at his watch.

‘Five to eleven.’ Raj doesn’t know why he said this. I mean, who wants to know?

North London streets. A few kebab shops open. Dry cleaners offering a special price on duvets. Blokes with cans sitting in shop doorways. Crap shops like Raj’s father’s crap shop. Shops selling nylon mittens, outsize brassieres, crap bath mats, dog biscuits shaped like baby boots and bones, crap carpet shops and crap betting shops. The crap chemists and their bored indifferent pharmacists frowning over prescriptions all year round, handing out pills and syrups to citizens with symptoms. The crap shop on the left that sells yams and plantains, right next to the crap shop that sells crap curtains and wallpaper for
all the English houses and conversions and flats. What kind of life is he, Raj, going to make for himself? Yeah, it’s true he likes a kebab sometimes. Maybe one day he’ll buy the family dog a stinking baby’s-boot bone with Xtra iron in it. Maybe one day he’ll buy a bath mat from one of the crap shops. Many a time he’s swallowed cough elixir bought from a crap chemist. Sipping the pink stuff from a five-ml plastic spoon.

Silence from Master England. Got nothing to say. Funny sort of a doctor he’s turned out to be. Goes dumb just when Raj actually needs his words for a change. Look at the teenage quack biting his tongue, sitting there motionless, dead still, like there’s a killer wasp hovering above his head. Just his little knife and pain index, going through it in his head, A to Z.

Girl’s got other things on her mind. ‘Front or back entrance?’

‘Back,’ Mr Tens, hostage, a man who lost his God faith with one Billy glare, replies happily and calmly. He’s enjoying the ride.

FreezerWorld at night. Everything is milky blue. Ivory and pearl. A world without stars. The Frozen World. Rumbling of fridges across the ice fields. Dome of white sky. Long solitary journeys across the frozen ocean aisles. Mr Tens. An Arctic Marco Polo who knows the cartography of FreezerWorld with his eyes shut.

Raj feels the cold freeze the marrow of his bones. It’s as if he can hear a seal barking in the distance, which is far away, a confusion of whites and greys. Musk oxen and hares disappearing into the snow. Somewhere, near the frozen-fish section, the ivory-white head of a polar bear searches for her cubs. Raj knows that she is Billy and Girl’s mother. Grey tongue. Purple mouth. White teeth. Hissing as she prowls the ice fields. The ice bear, creature of the Arctic edges, listening out for clues.

She dives into the ocean, takes a deep long breath, plunges under and walks the sea beds searching for mussels and kelp. Dragging slabs of meat from a beached whale, calling out to her cubs to come and feast. Large silent feet checking for ice cracks and explosions of sea ice. Opening FreezerWorld tins with the rake of a claw. Searching for tundra berries in the snax section. On her hind legs piercing a battery-hen egg and sucking it dry. Drawing breath without sound. Under the neon night light her fur is a collection of whites, apricot yellows, straw, ripe wheat. Frolicking. Juggling packets of mustard pretzels in her paws. Sleeping with her eyes open, ears twitching.

Mr Tens is master of the Frozen World. Assured now. Walking with confidence through the ice maze, no Muzak, taking special care of Louise because she is on his payroll. One of his fisher-women. Treading quietly, finger on his lips, ‘I don’t want to scare her.’

Her
. Billy and Girl can’t believe he says ‘her’ so breezily. Stops outside a door with his name on it.
MR TENS, MANAGER
. Gestures for them to wait while he knocks on his own door. Turns the handle. Peers in.

‘Only me, Mrs O’Reilly.’

A woman’s voice saying something. ‘Hello, Terry. Nearly finished the script for Monday.’ Terry Tens putting his face in.

Mrs O’Reilly reading her script, not looking at him. No expression in her voice. She sounds tired.

‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you for starting your week at FreezerWorld. Today we’re proud to offer you quality goods for every budget.’ She stops. Weary. ‘Just the usual, Terry. I mentioned the reduction on yesterday’s bread. And an announcement for Louise if you don’t mind. To call the hospital for news of her grandfather. Can you read my writing?’

Mr Tens stands to one side as Girl, Billy, Louise and Raj walk into his secret FreezerWorld life.

Mrs O’ Reilly sits at a desk surrounded with sheets of paper. Writing by hand. Scripts written and crossed out. Just like Billy’s recent notes. Shoes neatly tucked under her chair. A plate of FreezerWorld lemon fingers placed just so by her mug of tea. Red hundred per cent wool coat hanging on a hook behind the door.

Mom. A room of her own in the superstore. Earning her keep in the FreezerWorld. Writing words for Mr Tens to broadcast. Writing messages to her kiddies. The security cameras hidden in the managerial office warned her in advance that the hunting party were trudging towards her. She watched them climb through the corridors of FreezerWorld stock waiting to be unpacked. Her children on the screen walking through the Frozen World to claim their frozen mother. Hunters with tension in their bodies, alert, hungry and fearful. Mrs O’Reilly willing them to stop in their tracks and turn back, checking the screen to see if they carry hunting weapons. Following her scent. Mom. A creature of the Arctic edges. Hibernating, nocturnal, terrified.

Mom looking so ordinary. Bit of a new hairstyle. Faint circles under her eyes. Sitting there staring at them all. Billy and Girl and Louise with blood on their clothes. The two girls look the worst. Like they’ve thrown themselves into the propeller of a small helicopter. Perhaps she should take them all straight to casualty? That way she won’t have to say anything for a while. Just give them to doctors and nurses, fill in forms, hold their hands while their cuts and bruises are dabbed with antiseptic, stitched and bandaged up, making conversation with the receptionist about the weather. It’s a bit rainy, if you know what I
mean. Not exactly rain. More like slabs of frozen sea. Treading water between the cracks.

There they are. Her kiddies. Not even the security video could prepare her for how much they’ve changed. She bought them a card for every one of their five birthdays without her and never sent them. What are Mom’s first words?

‘How are you, Rajindra?’

Raj goes mad. Loops his thumbs into his belt and starts ranting. ‘I’m not all right, Mrs O’Reilly. I’m done in.’ Walks across the FreezerWorld managerial carpet, waving his arms. ‘Done everything I can for your fucking mad, demented children. Mended their crap car, fed’em the crap food they like, minding my own business in my own crap shop and then I do what boys do and kiss a girl.’ Sly look at Louise and Louise. ‘What happens, your fucking son goes crazy on me. Won’t talk. I mean, what’s wrong with him, what’s wrong with her, it’s what people do, they kiss each other, you know, it’s hormones, romance, it’s an old idea, you’ve seen it on TV, you’ve seen it at fucking bus stops, you’ve seen it on chocolate wrappers, you’ve seen it on bottles of nail-varnish remover, you see it all the time, right?’ Raj making his way towards his girlfriend’s brother. ‘What did I do to make you go dumb, you stoopid fucker … I put my lips like this—’ Raj puts his arm around Billy, presses his lips against his boy lips and sticks his tongue into Billy’s boy mouth. ‘That’s what it is, it’s called kissing …’ Billy shoves his fist straight into Raj’s nose … knocks him flat out cold on the FreezerWorld liver-pâté-coloured carpet.

‘What do you think you’re doing, Billy?’ Mrs O’Reilly stands up, brushing crumbs off her neat blue dress. ‘No son of mine cracks a punch at someone who shows them a bit of affection!’
She makes her way to Raj in her tan tights, kneels down and wipes his forehead with a little tea towel. ‘I’m disgusted,’ Mrs O’Reilly says again. ‘Hitting out like that.’

Stroking Raj’s hair. Cooing at him. Rajindra? Saying ‘Rajindra’ over and over like the tape has got stuck, looking at her kids and Mr Tens too. Has Terry been fighting? Looks like he’s been in a pub brawl.

‘When he kissed me everything went yellow,’ Billy says, clutching his chin, holding his arms out towards Mom. Louise and Girl biting their hands, not wanting to put Billy off his first words. Billy is a baby and he’s just got language. Put his first sentence together. Little squeaky voice.