The Panopticon (19 page)

We stop at the traffic lights. There’s a bunch of girls about my age standing there, but they dinnae look like me. They look young. I turn the music up, sneakers off, feet on the dash. I light a fag and look out the window at one of the girls. She’s got great legs, really slim but nice. She turns around, laughing tae her pal, and her smile is stunning.

‘I’d shag that,’ I say and flick my ash away.

17

I’M UGLY TODAY.
I am sat on a hill staring at the school, and I cannae believe Angus got them to let me come back. It has been four weeks and two days since I got put in the Panopticon. My days were going like this – get up, fuck about, have the odd half-arsed meeting with Helen before she leaves, play cards with Angus, wait until Isla, Tash or Shortie gets back from school, go and get stoned. It was civilised, but Angus had to go and fuck it up.

The school bell clangs and guppies start swarming out the doors like a virus. Faces. Eyes. Elbows. I put on my star-shaped sunglasses and stand up. I got them from the vintage shop this morning. They are total quality. I have to shake these jeans out, so they sit better. I borrowed them off Shortie; they’re baggy, so they hide my tag. If it was on show, the whole school’d be talking about it.

Walk down through the school gates and push in, against the tide of people. They are all heading up the street tae the chippie, or home. I am going to the woods. I get a few hiyas, and glances – a lot of glances actually. I dinnae feel like speaking to anyone.

Last time I got dragged back to school it was by the polis
and I was handcuffed – it was just after lunch on a Monday. The entire Home Ec rooms, and the computer rooms, all watched me being marched by. I went into the computer rooms earlier to try to look up the difference between human blood and squirrel blood. It is different. Molecularly. That means if the police say the blood they have from my skirt is human, then I’ll know they are lying. Or the experiment have gone into the labs in the middle of the night and just switched the samples around, ay. Why would they do that? Cos I’m their golden girl, they cannae fucking let me get away. They want to go all the way. Locked door. Square room. One vertebrae. Snapped. I’m gonnae find out what’s happened, if the samples are human blood. If they are. Fuck!

If that happens I will need to click my feet three times and find a place far – far fucking away – to call home. Maybe an igloo. I could be the lone Eskimo, friend of whales and seals. Except I dinnae think Eskimos are right friendly with whales and seals. I think they just stab them, skin them, eat them, and wear their skin.

Can you imagine it – a life in a secure unit, then prison. I wouldnae mind if it was for something I’d done! I mean I would, but it’d be different. It makes me burn when I think about it, right inside, like I just want to – disappear. Just like that. That’s how it happens. You blink one day and what was there a second ago is gone.

I push through a gap in the bushes, into the woods. It’s colder in here and quieter. The leaves have turned to mulch on the forest floor and the boughs are nearly bare. When I breathe out there is a wee stream of silver. Autumn has gone quickly this year and winter is appearing, but she hasn’t put on a show yet. Even the weather is still – waiting to see what will happen.

I climb up on my oak tree, let myself fall back until I am hanging by my knees, hair trailing across the forest floor. It’s soothing. The trees still have some leaves, all dry and crackly. The rest are mulch. Hundreds of tiny wishes drift through the woods, they sparkle in the dim, and dance up as silver orbs.

I remember Hayley catching a wish for me when we were younger, before she moved away to Singapore and some great life with friends who are rich and clever. Hayley had the most perfect tits I’ve ever seen. So neat, smaller than mine – more upturned with really pale-pink nipples. I could easy have been her wife. She would have got some fancy job with her dad’s company and I would have waited at home, tae love her, and make her some tea, after a long day. Instead I ended up with Jay. Sucking on a mouldy pole – that’s what Tash calls it. Hayley was quiet, and kind. Kindness is the most underrated quality on the planet. I feel hollow just now. Hollow where a heart should be. Like when you know someone loves you, but you urnay good enough – that it will go. That you’ll make it go, it’s only a matter of time.

Take a joint out my bra. Fucking shitty lighter, light again, inhale – that’s better, inhale deeply. The forest floor is damp and wild garlic sweetens the air. Somewhere the river gurgles.

There’s a newspaper near my head. It’s damp, but I can still read the headline.

Nobody Could Prevent Child’s Murder.

I have to close my eyes, tears at the back of them, dizzy, let my legs fall down over my head until I feel solid ground. Sink down. Lump in my throat. How can someone do that, ay? And how can someone say – on the front of a fucking newspaper – that there was nothing they could do to stop it?

Seriously. How not? How can you not stop it? If you take a
kid who is in danger
out
of a place where it’s gonnae be tortured tae death – well, that kid would not be murdered then. Fact. It was a head social worker said that headline. What kind of message is that to send out to baby-murderers? What kind of apology, or acknowledgement of responsibility, is that?

It’s not an apology. It’s not an explanation. It’s a fucking insult, that’s what it is.

It’d be different if it was their baby. You’re sure as fucking shit it would be different then. It’d be different if it was some foreign country and they were being ethnically cleansed, or were war victims. But it’s no different here, at home, if you’ve no money. It’s no different here. They just let it happen. They say they dinnae, but they do. All the fucking time.

You can stop it. You go in, and you look, with your eyes open; if they have a record of continuous bruises, or bumps, if you visit and they have chocolate smeared all over them – wipe it off. See what is underneath. Dinnae even fucking think about leaving until you do. But they pass by things, don’t they, like, professionally. They have never asked me about rooms without windows or doors. Not once.

‘How many social workers have you had, Anais?’

‘Thirty-eight.’

‘Who are the worst to break in?’

‘Graduates. They’re itching for a good specimen, it makes them feel better about all their student loans, and it makes them believe they’re now a grown-up. It’s all very serious. They think everything’s great. Child abuse. Getting battered. Drug addiction. They fucking love it – makes them feel dead professional and important. Everyone wants to feel important, ay?’

As specimens go, they always get excited about me. I’m a good one. A show-stopper. I’m the kind of kid they’ll still
enquire about ten years later. Fifty-one placements, drug problems, violence, dead adopted mum, no biological links, constant offending. Tick, tick, tick. I lure them in to begin with. Cultivate my specimen face. They like that. Do-gooders are vomit-worthy. Damaged goods are dangerous. The ones that are in it cos they thought it would be a step up from an office job are tedious. The ones who’ve been in too long lose it. The ones who think they’ve got the Jesus touch are fucking insane. The
I can save you brigade
are particularly radioactive. They think if you just inhale some of their middle-classism, then you’ll be saved.

Helen’s like that. She thought that what I really needed was homeopathic tongue-drops. She said I should take them if I ever felt like I was getting angry.

What she really didnae like, though, was that I wouldnae stick tae the uniform. No hair extensions, no tracksuits, no gold jewellery. That really pissed her off. The first time she saw me in a pillbox hat and sailor shorts, you’d have thought I’d just slapped her granny.

She wanted a case that was more rough-looking. More authentic, so she could take me for meetings at that bistro near hers, where her posh pals would see and think she was dead cutting-edge and that. India’s the best place for her. I hope she gets a fatal (yet slow-acting) stomach bug and just fucking dies.

I dunno why I was remembering Hayley earlier. She went. Everyone goes. Everything does. Then we’re all just dead. Dead as fuck and there is no heaven. Probably there isnae. Probably there is nothing. Just some gimp sat waiting for you with a bunch of notes.

‘So, newly dead person, that time you did that thing – we
have it right here on note 1000000098775f2.987,87. What exactly was that about?’

The watching feeling is getting worse.

I am not an experiment.

I am not a stupid joke, or a trippy game, or an experiment. I will
not
go insane. Something bad is gonnae happen, though. I can feel it. It’s in the way that crisp bag has faded from the rain. I am not an experiment. If I keep saying it, I’ll start believing it. I have to try. I am
not
an experiment. It doesnae sound convincing. It sounds stupid.

Try it in German. Ich bin nicht eine experiment. My German’s shite. Inhale slowly to the count of four, look hard at the tip of my nose and try again. This time I go for an official BBC broadcaster circa-1940 accent.

Today, one finds one is not, in actual fact, a social experiment. One is a real person. This is real actual skin as seen containing the bodily organs of a real actual human being with a heart and a soul and dreams.

It’s true that I came from real people once too, and they were a jolly old sort, with no naked psycho-ness in any way.

I, the young Miss Anais, understand wholly that I am just a human being that nobody is interested in. No experiment. No outside fate. I am not that important, and that is just fine by me. I propose a stiff upper lip and onward Christian soldiers, quick-bloody-march! This is Anais Hendricks, telling the nation: to be me is really quite spiff-fucking-spoff, lashings of love, your devoted BBC broadcaster since 1938.

18

‘JOAN, I DINNAE
like boats.’

She’s not listening. I’ve said it like ten times, but she’s not having any of it.

‘You will like this one.’

‘I’ll fucking hate it, I’m not going.’

‘Your social worker signed you up, Anais.’

‘This isnae how I intend tae spend my weekend.’

‘Tough titties.’

‘You cannae say that!’ I look at her, appalled.

‘I just did, and you are going, even if we have tae gaffer-tape your hands and wrists and throw you in. You’re going. And you’ll like it.’

Something is up with Joan. I heard that someone she knows is dying. Like cancer or something. She’s been snappy lately.

‘Is it a canoe?’ I ask her.

‘No, it’s a boat. You will be in with Tash, Shortie and Isla. You just have paddles and you go around and have fun. You know, like normal people?’

‘I’m not normal people.’

‘So, enjoy it as someone who is not normal. Just have some fun!’

‘It isnae a canoe?’

‘It’s nothing like a canoe. Now go and get some jeans on, and wear a jumper and a jacket because it might rain.’

Joan jangles the minibus keys; her key-ring is a little monkey with eyes that light up. I cannae believe I have to go to some loch in the middle of fuck-knows-where and float. On a boat. I dinnae like boats. I’m with vampires – they never travel by boat, not unless there is a special hold for them tae sleep in when the sun comes up.

‘Is their a hold underneath the boat?’ I ask Joan.

‘It’s a boat, Anais, not a fucking yacht.’ She mutters the last bit as she goes back into the office. Cheeky bitch. She sticks her head out of the office door and watches me trailing towards the stairs. I sit down on the bottom one.

‘I hate boats.’

‘Don’t be a scaredy-cat, Anais. Now, Helen is coming tae take you tae Warrender Institute, to meet Mr Jamieson as arranged – did she tell you?’

‘Aye. Can you give me money for cigarettes?’

‘If you go and get dressed, Anais, and get into the minibus, then yes, there will be some outing money allocated.’

Joan’s not stupid. If she gives me cash now, I’ll be away. She’s getting quite cunning. I’m impressed.

‘What did they say about my lab-test results?’ I ask her.

‘The blood was not PC Craig’s blood. Did Angus not tell you?’

‘No. Does that mean they know I didnae do it?’

‘No, it just means they are now looking for other proof. Do you know whose blood was on your skirt?’

‘It was a dead squirrel, I found it down the woods.’

‘Did you hurt a squirrel?’ she asks slowly.

‘Aye, Joan, I koshed a fucking squirrel, ay. Hate the cunts.’

‘Dinnae use that word, Anais, it’s demeaning tae women.’

‘Get a grip. Can you just ask them tae check if the blood on my skirt was human?’

‘I’ll ask, although I’m not sure they will do that, unless you give them a good reason tae do so. We can talk about it later, now hurry, please, we need tae leave in ten minutes!’

Angus breezes in. ‘Morning, Anais, Joan.’

‘Morning, Angus,’ I say.

Tash is pleating Isla’s hair. Brian’s sat in front, John is in the back with a cap pulled down over his face. Dylan and Steven are huddled together in the middle. I am standing at the minibus door, smoking a roll-up I cadged off Angus. Double-drag, until I get dizzy.

‘Morning, campers, it’s going to be a good one!’ Angus climbs up intae the front.

‘Move,’ Tash says to Brian. He scurries to the back and sits two seats behind Dylan. Tash and Isla sit together at the front double-seat, holding hands. Shortie runs out and jumps in.

‘I cannae wait,’ she says, ‘out of this shit-pit for a day!’

Eric is stood at the door like an anxious dad watching his kids go off to school.

‘Bye, Anais, have a nice time!’ he calls.

I climb in and slam the door.

‘Leave it on its hinges, please, Anais,’ Joan admonishes and she starts the engine. Shortie slides over and I sit down next to her. She grins happily.

Eric waves at us and wee Dylan sticks his fingers up at him as the minibus pulls away. Joan turns the radio on and
everyone opens their windows and pulls their fags out. You urnay meant to smoke in social-work property any more, but Joan’s quite good like that. She chain-smokes like fuck.