We turned another corner and I recognised a mural to my right. In it a mother held her baby close to her body. An Enforcer stood over her with a machine gun. The moonlight drained the colour from the mural but I knew that the red of her dress stood out like blood in the daytime.
“It’s… something that runs in my dad’s family. Um, a mental illness.” It was something my dad never talked about, but my grandma had been very ill.
“Oh,” said Sebastian. “I see.”
“Yup.” We walked a few more houses until coming to the corner of my street. “Well this is where I live.”
“Looks nice,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry I asked you… It was really rude of me.”
“No.” I waved my hand dismissively. “It’s okay. At least you’re, you know, interested.”
A cloud moved over the moon casting us back into darkness. “I am interested,” he said. “I’m interested in you.”
Through the darkness I thought I saw his hand reaching towards mine but then falling to his side. It could have been my imagination.
“There’s something else you should know,” he said. “If you ever need anything, come to me. If you’re ever in any trouble. My dad… he knows people. He can help. He… sympathises.”
I was taken aback. I had not expected him to say that.
“Also, Elena will never bully you again.”
He walked away, his shadow disappearing into the darkness. I went home with a thousand unspoken questions on my lips.
9
SEBASTIAN DIDN'T LIE. The rest of the week at school Elena left me alone. Her friends, the little huddle of hyenas, were made to cope without the entertainment of a showdown and at lunch times Elena chose her meal without fuss. There was a new vibe about her group, as though Elena’s lack of bullying took away her power. I noted how her friends whispered behind her back, eyes shifty and narrow – plotting. The blonde girl puffed her chest like a cockerel before a fight. I tried not to care. Why should I care? She deserved everything she got.
At night I would come home to find Daniel in my house and seeing him there sent my stomach a flutter with nerves. When I walked into the house he would look up at me shyly, eyes always searching mine, an artist’s gaze, looking for nuances. He would always be wearing his apprentice uniform of a black shirt and trousers, the Symbol of the Blemished stitched neatly over the pocket. There were fewer restrictions for Blemished boys. Regulations suggested they wear the Symbol, dark clothing and always have their chest covered.
He and my dad worked constantly on the basement. I could tell Dad liked Daniel by the way he would casually toss him tools and the way he trusted Daniel’s instincts when it came to design. Together they laid floor-boards, put up shelves and tried to boss me around, or at least my dad did, Daniel was too shy to ask me to do much. One evening Dad came home with some old boxing gear and hung up a punch bag.
“Are you taking up boxing?” I asked while sanding the floorboards.
“No, you are,” he answered.
“Kickboxing?”
Dad smiled. “If you like.”
“Good,” I said. “I miss martial arts.”
He laughed. “I know.”
Angela joined us in the evenings. Her mum’s condition worsened day by day and they both liked to be out of the house. It put Dad in his element, fussing over children and making beverages. At night he made us his famous spaghetti and whilst he was in the kitchen the three of us chatted, telling each other about ourselves: what our absent mums and dads had been like. Daniel’s mum was deeply religious, as many of the Blemished often are. When he talked about her he spoke with a quiet voice that demanded attention, with his head hanging forward and hair in his eyes. He always went still as he spoke of her, the only time he was ever still, and I would find myself staring at him, unable to move, almost hypnotised. He described how she would try exorcisms on him, smearing him with holy water and pushing a crucifix into his chest. I wished that I’d been there. I wished I’d known him then so I could do something. Daniel looked up at me once and I remembered his notebook. All this time he’d known me – my face at least – and the thought sent tingles through my arms and legs. Maybe I had done something to help, even then.
One day after school Daniel had a vision and his nose bled. I fetched him damp towels and laid him down gently on the floor so he could sleep. We were on our own, Dad had gone to the market to fetch more tools and Angela was at her house having tea with Theresa. I sat there, terrified that Daniel was hurt, energy coursing through my body, jangling paint pots, itching to move objects. I watched him sleep, staring at his features; the small nose, full lips and long blond eye-lashes. He was fine when he woke but refused to talk about his vision because he said it was something he could never change and there was no point dwelling on it. I didn’t care that he wouldn’t tell me his vision I was just relieved he was okay. Then I realised that I’d been in pain along with him and I wondered why I felt like that.
He never complained about the headache, simply picked up a brush and got back to work. I joined him. We worked in silence until eventually he started to talk.
“It was my mum,” he said.
“In the vision?”
He nodded. “Don’t tell Angela. I don’t like her to know about stuff like this. She worries about me and she has enough to deal with… you know, with Theresa.”
“I won’t tell her,” I replied. “I promise.”
“I see her a lot,” he said. “She’s always in trouble but I don’t know where she is so I can’t…” his voice cracked and he tightened his grip on the brush. “The low-life she ran off with, he treats her badly.”
“I’m sorry.”
He put his energy into painting. “Don’t be. It isn’t your fault. I just wish I was there to protect her.” He leaned forward and dunked the brush into the paint.
“Even after everything she did?”
He hesitated. “Yeah. Even after all that.”
I watched him for a few seconds, always moving, as though if he kept going it would stop being real.
“It’s nice to see her,” he said with a hollow laugh. “That sounds stupid but I get to see her face and it makes me happy.”
“That’s not stupid. I’d give anything to see my mum’s face again.”
Daniel stopped what he was doing and turned to face me. His eyes were deep pools of suffering and I wanted nothing more than to take it away. We stayed like that for what felt like hours until he finally said, “These powers we have. They’re a burden. A weight of responsibility.”
I nodded.
He took my hand and held it for a moment and I stared down at it. When he let me go my fingers burned. They longed for the rough feel of his skin. I wondered what the hell was happening to me.
~*~
Later that day Angela came to the basement and we talked some more. She told us how her dad was a good cook, his speciality spiced chicken and rice. She missed his food. Her mum sometimes forgot about meals leaving Angela and Daniel to fend for themselves but they said it was okay because there was usually bread. I told them about the stories my mum used to tell me. There wasn’t much else that I remembered about her. I told them that my dad sometimes disappeared at night and I didn’t know why.
At one point during the rest of the week we felt so brave that we sat my dad down at the kitchen table and told him about Daniel’s power. I told him that both Angela and Daniel knew about my gift and that I trusted them. If Dad was surprised he didn’t show it. He took it all calmly and even offered to help Daniel control his gift.
But soon the days faded before my eyes and as the last finishing touches were prepared I felt a sense of nostalgic sadness take over me. But as a fitting tribute to us all Daniel painted our portraits along the length of the basement wall and somehow he captured a little bit of each of us; Angela’s goofy grin, his own crooked smile and dishevelled hair, my dad’s professor glasses and me, deep in thought, staring out at some unknown future. He painte
d us without our headscarves, with my hair flowing down and Angela’s full head of coiled curls which framed her face beautifully. I think we all felt a twinge of sadness that the task was finally over, even Dad, because it had brought as all together and who knew when we would have that closeness again. We were back into the real world. Thrust out from the protective womb beneath the house.
“Now the hard work begins,” Dad said to me over breakfast the next day.
I stirred my cereal. “I don’t know how to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know how to control my power. Sometimes when I want to be able to use it I can’t. I have to be angry.”
Dad took a spoonful of his cornflakes and chewed. “Then you have to learn how to get angry.”
“You mean fake being angry?” I asked.
“Perhaps you can think of something that makes you angry and use that energy.” He waved his empty spoon dismissively. “Anyway. We will begin all that when you’re ready.”
“Dad?”
“Yes, Mina.”
“Why am I learning to fight?”
“For protection, Mina.”
“Why do I need protecting?”
He looked at me sadly. “Because I won’t always be here to look after you.”
I started to say something, to ask why he wouldn’t be here. What did he mean? But he silenced me with a kiss on my forehead.
10
“IT'S THE LAST week of February,” Mrs Murgatroyd said. “That means it’s time to plant bulbs and seedlings.” She held a pair of gardening gloves between manicured nails, as though they might dirty her hands. “You put these on, and the overalls, and get to work. What’s the matter, Emily?”
“Can I wear my tunic, Mrs––”
“Yes.” She looked her up and down. “I don’t think we’ll have any overalls big enough for you anyway. Getting a bit fat aren’t you? Thank goodness the Children of the GEM will eradicate obesity. At least it will die with you.” She looked at us all one by one as though we were dirty. Emily shrank back, moving closer to a furious Billie.
“Get on with it then!” Mrs Murgatroyd snapped. “The equipment is over there. Manuals are on the trestle table. I’ll be back in an hour to check on your progress. If it isn’t good enough you’ll all clean the school.”
“Bitch,” Angela said after the teacher had left. “I can’t believe she said that to Emily.”
“Come on, we’d best get started,” I said with a sigh.
February sun sparkled against the lawn dew. We moved to set up the seeds, tools and plant pots on a trestle table. At the end of the lawn was an old greenhouse, the glass mottled green with moss. For the next few days we were to plant the seeds and set up the seed trays in the greenhouse where we would tend to our plants daily until they were strong enough to plant out in April and May. In my old Area 10 school we’d grown daffodils, pansies, sweet peas, jasmine and many others. My favourite flowers were the ones with fragrance, like lilies or roses. I’d tended to the rose bushes myself, trimming back the dead heads and watering them. The trestle table filled with little plastic pots and cellophane wrapped seeds made me smile and I got straight to work, dividing the compost evenly in the trays. Angela struggled, spilling the soil onto the lawn and tutting at herself in the process.
“Not like that,” I said gently.
“What am I doing wrong?” Angela replied a little huffily. She was not so much pushing the soil down as ramming it into the seed trays.
“All you need to do is fill it half way, press in your finger. Pop in a seed. And then cover,” I said with a smile.
She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Okay, what have you done with the real Mina?”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” She swept an arm over me to demonstrate. “I’ve never seen you so relaxed.”
“I like gardening.”
“Clearly! I never had you down as a Mother Earth type.”
I snorted. “As if!”
A door opened on the GEM side and out they poured in colourful clothes. Most chattered or tapped on their Plan-Its. Despite the difference in colours, from their hair and skin to their shoes, there was something matchy about the GEMs. They were all so perfect that their faces blurred into one. I stared at them, thinking about how strange it must be to know that your genes have been altered. The way you look is tailored by your parents before you are even born. I thought of Elena modelled on a dead film star and my skin crawled. Then Sebastian walked through the door and my thoughts turned to the night in the ghettos. We hadn’t talked since. Perhaps we would never talk again. Maybe I would never find out about his father and why he sympathised with the Blemished.
“You like him don’t you?” Angela said, a playful smile forming on her lips. For some reason I hadn’t told her about meeting with Sebastian. A part of me didn’t want her to know because I was ashamed to admit it. A larger part of me just didn’t want her to tell Daniel.
I tsked. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a GEM!”
“Which means he’s gorgeous. And he clearly likes you. Look! He’s looking over.”
“He is?” I turned to look but he had already gone. “Oh that’s mean.” I shoved her shoulder.
“But now you know that you really do like him.”
I pressed more soil into the seed trays. “It doesn’t make any difference if I do or not. I can never stop being Blemished.”
Angela put her hand on top of mine. “Maybe that doesn’t matter to him.”
“Maybe not. But it matters to the Ministry.” I looked around guiltily. Billie’s cold eyes stared at me but she was out of ear shot. I turned back to my work.
“Look,” Angela said, nudging me in the ribs.
“What now? More imaginary stares from GEM boys?”
“No, it’s Elena. Since she stopped bullying you her friends have all turned on her. God those GEMs are bitches. Sometimes I’m glad to be Blemished.” She shook her head in disbelief. “It’s so weird how she just left you alone like that. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah it was weird,” I agreed vaguely, trying not to notice what was going on.
Don’t look up, I thought. Ignore her and get on with your work. She isn’t your problem.
But curiosity took hold and I looked. It was a violent scene. The blonde girl had her hands around Elena’s throat and I heard her swearing, there was ferocity on her face and I was shocked. Elena’s hands clawed at the blonde girl, panicked. Her other friend with the caramel skin took Elena’s school work and threw it in the air before stamping it into the mud. They all laughed, the blonde girl pushed her to the ground, and they left her scrabbling in the grass, trying to collect her work.
My first thought was a bitter one, glad that she now knew what it was like to lose control. I watched as she struggled, remembering how it made me feel, and I tried to force myself not to care. She looked so small in the mud. I cursed myself in frustration.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said to Angela.
“Where are you going?” she called to me as I walked away from the trestle table.
I didn’t answer. I just kept walking. In little over twenty steps I was stood over her, the girl who pushed my head into a toilet, who humiliated me in front of the entire school. She was the girl who I didn’t think had emotions or weaknesses. Yet, there she was, crying; black eyeliner running down her face.
“Have you come to gloat?” she said. She tried to inject cruelty into her voice but it came out more like a pathetic whimper. “Please don’t. Whatever it is you came over here to do, please don’t. I can’t take any more.”
I crouched and held out my hand. “I came to help you up.”
“What?” She looked up and I noticed how much softer her features became when she was upset. It made her even more beautiful. She put her hand in mine. “Why would you do this?”
“Come on,” I said, “let’s pick these up.” We bent over and collected the fragments of her ho
mework. I read the title An Essay on Why the GEM Project has Saved Britain. “Sounds interesting.”
“It’s stupid,” she said, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her top. “All my work is stupid.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.” I balanced her textbooks on my wrist and arranged them into some sort of order. The books were called things like psychology and biology, things the Blemished never learned. “Why were your friends acting like that?”
“Clarissa thinks I bad mouthed her to a London agent.”
“Did you?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that,” she answered, seeming genuinely offended.
“Yet you almost drowned me in a toilet.” I handed her the books, ready to walk away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I…” the bell rang for GEM classes. “It’s hard to explain.” Her eyes mellowed and for the first time I saw a human being. “My friends were about to turn on me. I had to do something to keep hold of them…” But then her features hardened again, erasing the brief glimpse of vulnerability. “Then you had to go and get Mr Big involved.”
I frowned. “Sebastian’s father?”
Elena looked around us nervously. “Yes him,” she snapped. “You shouldn’t even talk to me.”
“Fine,” I said with a scowl. “I’ll never feel sorry for you again.” I turned my back.
“Mina, wait,” she said in a strained voice. “I really am sorry. You’ve got no idea how hard it is sometimes.”
I snorted. “Of course I do. I’m Blemished.”
I left her holding her mud stained schoolwork and made my way back over to the trestle table. Predictably, Billie was waiting for me.
“Stop stirring up trouble with the GEMs,” she said before I could even get back to my seeds.
“I was just helping her out.”
“Why would you help out the girl who bullied you?”
“She has a point there,” Angela added. “I don’t understand it either. You said you hated her.”
I shrugged, unsure myself and very aware of the faces around me expecting some sort of answer. But then, as my mouth flapped open and shut, I was interrupted by an ear-splitting scream; a terrible rasping cry of pain.
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