Grow Up (8 page)

13

The comedown from mephedrone is my least favourite type of skiing. You begin to hate everyone around you. Like a paedophile in a nursing home. You want to be alone. Then you realise that you don't really want to be alone, you just want to stop existing. You want to keep folding in on yourself until you aren't there any more. Which is how I feel now.

I can't find the time anywhere. It is still dark. I don't know where my phone is. I feel anxious when I don't know what the time is. My throat is an Arizona highway. I am lying next to the woman, staring at the back of her cheaply dyed hair and ballooning with regret. I really despise this woman, and this house. I despise Jonah, too, but I should find him.

Fuck, she probably has kids.

I'm totally naked. I can't find my boxer shorts but I do find my jeans. The denim is a cheese grater against my testicles. Fuck. Jesus, my head. Okay, Jasper J. Wolf, pull yourself together. Now is not the time for an existential 9/11. You must keep moving. Find clothes. Find Jonah. Leave.

The carpet annoys my toes. I walk out of the bedroom and across the landing into the bathroom. Jonah is in there, stood in the bath, with the shower raining over his head. His Virgin Mary tattoo is staring at me like a disabled person. Jonah is mumbling a prayer.

‘Can you stop with that shit so we can leave?' I say.

He turns around. ‘Fuck off, how would you know anything about any God? You'll go to Hell.'

I can still feel the residue of the mephedrone like a sea of India ink through my head. I hate Jonah. I want to disappear. Why are we walking, talking or moving?

‘Please let's fucking get out of here,' I say.

He turns off the shower and climbs out. ‘My head fucking kills.'

I make sure to kick Peter in the ribs on the way out.

When we get back to the hostel, everyone else is happier than us. Or at least less ill. Ping and Ana are curled around each other, whispering, and Tenaya is reading on her bed.

‘Where the fuck have you been?' Ping says.

Jonah falls onto his bed.

‘Me and Jasper have made a pact never ever to talk about anything that happened last night ever again. As my friends, I will trust you will respect that pact and not attempt to elicit any information from us.'

Tenaya laughs. ‘Ugly girls?'

‘Worse,' I say.

‘Shut up!' Jonah wraps a pillow around his head and groans.

On the coach back home I fall asleep on Tenaya's shoulder while rain kisses the windows and Mrs Norton reads out loud from her Bible.

Part 2

Exhumation and Fires

14

Mum and Keith are putting together an IKEA bookcase in the living room. It looks like a boat at the moment. Keith swears. Mum sighs. In the event of an apocalypse, they would both be fucked because they lack the practical skills that are required for survival in our dystopian future. A man capable of killing lions with his bare hands will probably shoot and skin them both. He will fashion their skins into a Mackintosh.

I am sat in the kitchen with a German textbook, not revising. It is more exciting watching the two of them. Open-plan living is cheap cinema.

‘Keith, where's 4C?' Mum says.

‘There isn't a 4C, darling.'

‘But look.'

She holds the instructions up to Keith's face. My Mum dislikes instructions. She calls them destructions. This is a joke. People tell jokes when they do not know what else to do. A lot of jokes are told in hospitals. Usually, these type of jokes are not very good.

‘It's wrong,' Keith says. ‘The instructions are wrong.'

Mum is appalled. ‘I'll phone IKEA,' she says. ‘I'll complain.'

Keith grins. ‘I don't
fore see
you getting much help.'

They both laugh. Keith can't even do puns well. I have no idea what Mum sees in him. Maybe he has a penis the size of a toddler.

‘Excuse me,' I say. ‘Hello. I'm Jasper. I'm your only son, and I'm trying to revise.'

‘Ooh,' Mum says.

‘We've been sent to the naughty step, love.'

They kiss. It is disgusting. I go up to my room.

My phone is on my bed upstairs. It is vibrating. It is spinning itself in circles on my pillow like a Catherine wheel. Tenaya is calling.

‘Jasper?' she says.

‘My parents are trying to make furniture,' I say. ‘Keith made a pun and they kissed. It's disgusting.'

‘I'm thinking about Tom.'

‘Still?'

‘He was a big part of things for a long time, Jasper. No matter what you thought of him.'

I breathe hard into my phone. ‘He was not a good boyfriend. He is an irritating human being.'

‘Jasper, you aren't helping.'

‘What is there to help with?'

‘I don't know what to do.'

‘I've got like a half-gram. I'll bring it over if you want.'

‘Argh.'

Tenaya hangs up.

I do not know what I have done wrong. I did my best. I try.
You have to try to understand other people, Jasper. Imagine you are them.

Tom was my boyfriend and now he is not. I loved Tom very much. Tom cheated on me. Tom left me. Tom has such nice cheekbones. Tom will probably become a rich art dealer. I don't know what to do now. Tom. I don't know what to do now. I loved him.

Julia: empathy

Tenaya: nicks on her arms

Radio: the mental state of self-harming adolescents may deteriorate if they do not get the help they so clearly ask for by harming themselves

Oh.

OH.

I run downstairs and hurl my body out of the front door. I shout a goodbye to Mum. I pelt down the streets. I am an advert for Nike footwear.

Up along our road, then a left at the Hungry Horse, past school, past a woman with a Monroe and an empty pram, past two men sipping cheap lager on a low wall, past the Baptist church and Happy Shopper and Ben McKay's house.

Tenaya's.

I throw my body over the fence at the end of her garden. Her parents are keeping chickens in case of an apocalypse. Tenaya's stood with her back to me on the other side of her kitchen's French doors. She's probably got a palmful of paracetamol. I have to stop her.

Things I can see near the French doors:

1. Spade
   
2. Pot plant
   
3. Bench
   
4. Plastic bucket
   

Plastic bucket is the only option. Not a dumbbell, not a feather. I pick it up and swing open the French doors. I bring the bucket down as hard as I can on her head. She screams. She whips round to face me. It didn't work. Should I try again?

‘JASPERWHATTHEFUCK?'

‘Um.'

‘What the fuck are you doing?'

I grab her wrists and squeeze them. Her hands open like flowers. She is not holding paracetamol.

‘You said you were going to do suiciding,' I say.

Tenaya blushes. ‘I didn't.'

‘You were thinking about it.'

‘I wasn't.'

‘I know you were. I've learned how to empathise.'

‘Shut up, Jasper.'

She sits down on one of the kitchen stools. I stay standing.

‘I don't know,' she says.

‘I was scared,' I say. ‘Jonah's disgusting and Ping has Ana.'

‘Sometimes,' she says. ‘I don't know.'

‘I don't either. But I told you to text when it happens. I'll buy that two-for-five-pounds wine from Imran's and we can watch
Labyrinth
in your bed and I'll let you pluck my eyebrows.'

‘I called.'

‘You didn't make it clear enough.'

‘Okay.'

‘I'm going to boil the kettle now,' I say. This is something people say when they want to let someone know that everything's okay but they don't know how.

There is a stain on Tenaya's kitchen wall in the shape of a rabbit's head. It was born when Tenaya's mum threw a cup of coffee at Tenaya's dad. Nobody washed it off. They have stopped working on renovating the house.

‘You said you were going to boil the kettle,' Tenaya says.

‘I just said that to – ' She didn't understand. ‘Okay.'

We take the tea up to her bedroom and watch old episodes of
Sex and the City
from beneath a duvet. Big does not deserve Carrie.

‘Are we going to Twelve Cats tomorrow?' I say.

‘I guess so.'

‘They're getting better.'

‘Will you go to Asda with me afterwards?'

‘Why?'

‘I need to get food. Mum won't buy any. She just gets drunk and orders takeaway.'

‘Okay.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Ping said we could go over to his before.'

‘Mm.'

Tenaya nods then falls asleep. I take a book off her bookshelf at random and sit on the window ledge, reading. The book is called
Women on Top
. It is about the different ways that people have sex in their heads.

15

7:38 p.m. Ping's band are playing at the Twelve Cats tonight. I am going to wear my wolf t-shirt. At gigs you can throw your body around and rub it against girls and they can't swear at you for it because everyone is just having a good time.

Ping's band are called Deep Emotional Skaing. He believes that puns are funny. Puns are for old people and bad poems. Last year they won a local competition and some of their songs got put on iTunes and they had a CD made. The CD was called
Fuck The Free World, Mary Jane
. This means nothing.

When I have dressed, I go downstairs and put my head in the fridge. Cold yellow light licks my face. There is an unopened bottle of blue-top milk in the fridge. I unscrew the lid and peel off the white thing. I stand up and glug milk.

Mum appears behind me.

‘Jasper,' she says, ‘stop that now. Other people have to use that milk.'

‘But, Mum, it's good luck to drink straight from a newly opened bottle.'

‘I don't care, Jasper, get a glass.'

I drop the milk bottle back into the fridge.

‘Mum,' I say. ‘I'm going to see Ping's band tonight. Can I have some money?'

Mum frowns. ‘How much?'

‘Ten big ones.'

‘Don't say big ones, Jasper.'

‘Why?'

‘It's what the mafia say.'

‘Fine. Can I have ten pounds, please?'

Mum sighs and passes me a note from her purse. I grunt at her so that she knows how grateful I am. I go out to catch the bus.

+

Ping's mum answers the door. She is wearing a dressing gown. Her hair is wet. My penis is screaming in my pants. It is upset with me for not allowing it to climb into Ping's mum's vagina. She probably has a beautiful vagina. A perfectly shaven gorge.

‘Hi, Jasper,' she says. ‘They're upstairs. Go straight up.'

‘Thanks, Mrs Lin.'

I bound past her and up the stairs. Ping, Ana and Tenaya are all sat on the bed, laughing. Ping and Ana are holding hands. I wonder who will surrender first: Ping's penis, or Ana's virginity. Girls think that their virginities are priceless glass figurines. All they are really is three minutes of embarrassment followed by a sinking disappointment followed by the question, ‘What are you thinking?'

‘What're you doing?' I say.

‘I got a new phone,' Ping says.

He holds it up. Looks like a fake BlackBerry. It doesn't seem funny.

‘I don't understand the joke.'

‘Jonah told me about the Psychology trip.'

I gulp. ‘Um. What?'

‘You know.'

‘Prick.'

Ana laughs. Frigid bitch. I look at Tenaya. She's looking at the duvet pattern.

‘So he's about to find out he's got a little guy on the way.'

I laugh. ‘Yes, yes.'

‘Who's going to speak?' Tenaya says.

‘I'll do it,' Ana says.

‘You can't do it.'

‘Why not?'

‘That stupid accent,' I say.

‘Leave her alone.' Ping crosses his arms.

‘Don't be gay.'

‘No,' Tenaya says. ‘Just he knows your voice already.'

‘My sister's back from uni,' Ping says. ‘I'll get her to do it.'

‘Will she?'

‘Yea, I used to phone school all the time pretending to be Dad when she didn't want to go in.'

Ping leaves the room and comes back a few minutes later with his sister. She is a hulky female with a flat chest and a monobrow. She's wearing an Oxford Brooks t-shirt. It is difficult to believe that she came out of Ping's mum. I think the reason she didn't want to go into school much must have been because people called her Frida Kahlo and stabbed her with pens.

We say hellos and Ping briefs her on what to say. She nods. She doesn't say much in response but when Jonah picks up the phone she becomes an Oscar-winning actress.

This is all we hear:

‘Jonah?'

‘It's Susan, from Plymouth.'

‘I'm pregnant.'

(We gag ourselves with our hands.)

‘Yes, I'm sure.'

‘Well, I did a pregnancy test.'

‘No, they're pretty much always right.'

‘I don't know, ninety-nine-point-seven per cent or something.'

‘Yes, but it's not a huge chance, is it?'

‘Grow up, you're going to be a father.'

(Ana chokes on a laugh.)

‘Yes, I'm keeping it.'

‘Yes, you'll have to pay me money until it turns eighteen.'

Ping tears the phone out of his sister's hand.

‘Happy Father's Day!' he shouts, hanging up immediately to avoid Jonah's siege of fucks and cunts and pricks. We all fold over ourselves, laughing.

+

12:15 a.m. Me, Tenaya, Jonah and Ana are being thrown about by a crowd of sweating kids. Deep Emotional Skaing are playing on a low stage. Jonah bought some pills. He gave me one in the toilet. He said he didn't know what they were. I feel different. I feel okay. I feel warm. It sounds as though the band are playing one huge note without stopping. The note has grown huge and swallowed the room. We are all inside the note. It is our castle. A shirtless man's back collides with my face. My lips taste salt. Who am I supposed to be? Tenaya is bobbing up and down. Her hair is flying about her face. Ping is grimacing. His hands are clawing at his bass. Ryan Samuels is the singer. Ryan Samuels is screaming and his face has turned the colour of a Gideon's Bible and it might explode and it might shower us all with bloody scraps of cheek. He launches himself off the stage. We raise our hands. I support his crotch. I squeeze. I am not gay. We pass him backwards. He jumps down and steals someone's beer and runs back up onto the stage. Ryan Samuels empties the beer over his crowd. People scream. People want more beer. They start another song. Ping is on his knees. Ping thinks that he is very good. He is just playing one note. I am inside the note. This note is our new home, for now, which is for ever.

+

When the band have finished playing, we go outside to smoke. Me and Tenaya sit at a damp picnic table. The pill is wearing off. I am only vibrating slightly now. People are stood in circles, talking loudly about the music. Ping is still backstage putting his stuff away. Ana runs out of the pub, holding a rum and coke, and joins our table.

‘Wasn't that so amazing?' she says.

‘Great,' I say.

Tenaya smiles. ‘So,' she says, ‘you and Ping.'

‘He's wonderful,' Ana says.

‘He's Ping,' I say. Love is a cult.

Tenaya gives me a look that means she thinks I am being a twat.

‘But you're going back to Moscow next year?'

Ana grins. She is in love with Charles Manson. She will commit murders because he will tell her to. Nobody will understand why. The police will carry her away and she will not scream but her eyes will be the eyes of the last Bengal tiger left in Bhutan.

‘I'm not,' she says. ‘I'm staying. I'll get a job in a café or something. Me and Ping are going to live together. He's going to try and take the band all the way.'

‘All the way,' I say. ‘Wow.'

‘Jasper,' Tenaya whispers. She hits my leg under the table.

‘I love him,' Ana says.

Girls can be so gay. Even Tenaya is finding it hard keeping the laughter in her throat captive.

Ping emerges from through the back door. His face is flushed and he is wearing a crown of sweat. Ana runs to him and buries her face in his brine-soaked t-shirt. He kisses the top of her head. Me and Tenaya tell him that the band played great. We say that they are getting much better and that their new song sounded like it could be a radio hit. I make sure to use the phrase ‘all the way'.

After a few minutes we excuse ourselves and go to catch the 96 to the retail park with Big Asda in it. It is only a short bus journey. Tenaya falls asleep on my shoulder. I nudge her awake when we reach our stop. She blinks as though she does not know where she is, then smiles.

Big Asda is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. 1:21 a.m. It is the last torch left lit in the retail park. Huge sheets of light fall out of the windows and lie across the tarmac night like the bodies of naked angels.

Tenaya pulls a deep trolley out of its queue and we go through the automatic doors. My body temperature jumps. A security guard filling out a sudoku grid looks up. He does a small bow as we enter. He seems like a warm, well-mannered man. I wish that Mum had married him.

‘What first?' I say.

Tenaya shrugs.

We walk through the refrigerator aisle. It is deserted. Tenaya puts a fat bottle of green-top milk into the trolley. I put a chocolate milkshake in. She takes it out and asks me if I am eight years old. She suggests I buy an Actimel instead. I tell her that I would rather give the money to a heroin addict.

In the dried-food aisle she lowers a huge bag of lentils into the trolley. I look at her with disgust. She goes on to add raisins, prunes and cashew nuts. It is too much. I lie prostrate in front of the trolley.

‘What are you doing?' I shout up.

‘What are
you
doing?' she says.

I stand up.

‘We are two seventeen-year-old children alone in a supermarket and you are buying fucking prunes. You should be buying huge bags of chicken nuggets and Polish beers and cigarettes.'

‘Jasper,' she says, ‘since my parents bought that fucking house all they have done is get drunk and order cheap takeaway. We eat takeaway for lunch and for tea, and then leftover takeaway for breakfast. I do not want any more shitty food.'

That makes sense. ‘Fine.'

‘Go and get some chicken nuggets, though.'

‘Okay.'

I sprint to the frozen section and pick up the largest bag of chicken nuggets I can find. Tenaya has moved on to browsing the vegetables when I find her again. She has added one iceberg lettuce, three leeks, four tomatoes and a red onion to our trolley.

‘Done?' I say.

‘Yea, just need cigarettes.'

‘Will you cook chicken nuggets when we get back?'

‘Yea.'

‘And can we watch
Gilmore Girls
?'

‘Fine.'