by Deborah Levy
After Dad got burnt, my mother took Billy to visit Grand-Dad in Newcastle. ‘He’s got a glare in his eye, your boy,’ the old clown wheezed when he caught Billy’s stare and found himself trembling. My mother just stroked his forehead like she always did, mad about her boy. She cried over his bruises. Dad said he’d never hit his son again. But it was like Billy encouraged him. Even when he was a baby he was doing pain research. Crazy for Billy. When Mom disappeared, Grand-Dad was supposed to come and look after us. He did for a while. And then, all of twelve years old, I told him to go. We couldn’t stand his jokes. Ever been to Ducksworth? How much are you worth? It was more than I could bear. Knock knock. Who’s there? You. You who? Yooohoooo! A month of that sort of grief I suggested he go home, which is what he secretly wanted to do – and just send us money instead. We did not want our young minds damaged by Grand-Dad humour. ‘What’s the point of having shampoo when you can have real poo?’ It’s a good thing Grand-Dad left sharpish. Better to have his cash every week and draw him little pictures on thank-you paper.
I love my brother. He is a crippled angel, flying and falling seven days a week. This boy is a genetic engineer because ever since our mother disappeared, he invents a new mom to love him every night. Read his beautiful lips. Ready steady go!
Yeah. Horrible, isn’t it?
Billy smells of Colgate and chips. Sometimes he burns a cork and draws a little moustache on his upper lip. This is his manliness. I mean, who is he supposed to have learnt how to be a man from? Not Dad, that’s for sure. But Billy, who might never become a man, only a play man, a parody of a man, is going to win me and him a new world. A world without pain. Is that possible? Christ, sometimes I wish I had rheumatoid arthritis and a sweet young nurse would explain it was a chronic degenerative condition and send me to physiotherapy twice a week. Pain is the suburb of knowledge we grew up in. Little houses crowded together, narrow streets and dodgy lampposts. Pain has unanchored us, sent us raging down the nerve pathway to Patel’s English and Continental Groceries for chocolate bars.
Chapter 3
‘Why’re you so hung up on this pain thing, man?’ Raj often has to stop himself creasing up at Billy. The boy’s small for a fifteen-year-old, comes up to Raj’s waist, close enough to admire the buckle on his belt. Raj is convinced Billy is going to be famous for something, he’s just got that look about him. Like he’s grooming himself for fame.
‘I’m telling you, Raj, my sister’s not the only one who gets upset around here. Do you know that word, Raj? Mad?’
Now that Raj is doing a part-time mechanics course he only works three days a week in his father’s shop, Patel’s English and Continental Groceries. Billy likes a good chat to Raj. For a start, the shop is just a short walk to the end of his road and Raj is a trapped audience. He can’t walk out when he’s bored.
‘How come you know the word “Whiskas”, Raj, but you don’t know the word Mad? Pain is an event that demands interpretation. That’s why I go on about it. I’m writing a book, as I’ve told you many a time in the Pickled Newt.’
‘Yeah?’ Raj looks genuinely impressed. Sometimes he takes Billy for a half at the Pickled Newt and gives him a problem to solve. The boy likes to think of himself as an expert on the human mind and it’s true he’s always got his nose stuck in a book. He stretches his hand out to the biscuit shelf and opens a packet of Jaffa Cakes. Better feed Billy England up, then. He hasn’t got a mum to cook for him, has he? ‘What’s it called?’
‘Billy England’s Book of Pain.’
Raj methodically chews all the chocolate off his Jaffa, waving the packet in Billy’s direction. The boy shakes his head, deep in thought.
‘I should have gone to university when I was six. The study of the mind is my life’s work. I should have read books in libraries, not been stuck at home making milkshakes for Girl. Made notes in the margins. Underlined sentences with my little pencil stub. I should have gone on dates with girlfriends.’
Raj wants to shut the shop and go for a pint. It’s been a long day, especially as Stupid Club, that being the local neighbourhood community, have used the shop to debate their topics all day. They stand in a huddle by the fridge pretending to buy a packet of sugar, discussing why it is that some people wash dishes and then don’t think to rinse them. So when you make yourself a sandwich, right, and you put it on a side plate that hasn’t been rinsed, the bread tastes of the washing-up liquid. This is just one of the many topics debated by Stupid Club on a daily basis. Raj’s father once tried to freeze the club out of his shop by turning off all the heating. His family went down with a strain of killer flu and Stupid Club rose to the occasion. Shuffled into the shop wrapped in extra woollies and hats, slapping the tops of their arms, united and cheerful, while his children and wife shivered in bed on antibiotics.
‘I’ve missed out, Raj! I should have been nervous when I had a haircut case my girlfriend didn’t like it. We should have gone to the movies together and shared a packet of chocolate raisins. We could have gone to Phuket for a fortnight! Instead I’m holed up here with my crazy bitch sister.’
Raj is interested in the crazy sister. Not many good-looking seventeen-year-olds in the street. ‘Don’t forget her menthols.’ He slaps down a pack of ten cigarettes with pictures of eucalyptus trees laden with snow on the box. ‘A present from me. Tell her to pop in, I haven’t seen her for a while.’
‘Shall I tell you where she is?’ Billy knows that Raj is always interested to know where Girl is.
‘Where?’
‘Doing a Mom check.’
‘What’s a Mom check?’
Billy decides to chew on a Jaffa after all. ‘It’s where she knocks on the door of a house and pretends that any woman who comes to the door is our mother.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Sad.’ Billy guffaws.
‘Why do you say “Mom”? That’s American, isn’t it?’
‘Watching telly. We like American sitcom moms.’
Raj nods, bewildered. It’s quite nice to feel bewildered, makes a change from Stupid Club reading out loud the nutrition information on plastic tubs of margarine.
Chapter 4
The A27 is a circular road that goes around London. A three-lane carriageway. The sky is grey and the tarmac is grey. Girl asks the cab driver to stop for a while so she can look at the 1930s houses built on the shore of the highway. Pebble dash. Old-fashioned flowers growing in the front drive. Tall purple gladioli and trimmed bushes of honeysuckle. Latticed windows. A shining car parked in each well-swept drive.
‘Thinking of buying a property then?’ The cab driver smirks behind his hand.
When Girl winds down the window the lever falls off. Foam stuffing oozes out of the back seat. Rusting springs poke into Girl’s hips. ‘Your car’s a fucking lousy pile of shit.’
The driver can’t decide whether she’s a rock star or a psycho. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says, just to be on the safe side.
‘I won’t.’ Girl suddenly opens the door of the cab and a rush of dust flies into her face.
‘Mad cunt.’ The driver leans towards her trying to keep his hands on the wheel as the door comes off its beaten-up hinges. It drags down on the tarmac and Girl jumps out, skipping between the traffic until she makes it to the other side. The Other Side is important to Girl. She always wants to make it to there.
Girl strides in her silver loafers right up to the driveway of the biggest house in the street and thumps on the door with her fists. Then she rings the bell. While she waits she takes out a pack of menthol cigarettes and lights up. Her face is pale. It always is, but today it is especially pale. Every now and again she bends her knees and peers through the brass letterbox. Girl takes a deep drag of menthol. As far as she’s concerned, menthol is a painkiller. A painkiller with a bit of glamour. She pushes away her peroxide-blond fringe and straightens up. Someone coming. God, she’s so slow. Come on!
‘Hello, Mom,’ Girl says loudly to the middle-aged woman staring at her fr
om behind the door. What a fucking hideous sight.
Dirty pastel-pink fake-fur slippers. Summer dress patterned with faded rosebuds and threadbare red robins. Plump arms covered in a peppermint-green cardigan, most of the buttons missing. Band of gold on the finger of left hand. A fucking thick band of gold. The woman shoves her hands into the pockets of her cardigan and gasps when the fabric crackles, sending little electric shocks into her fingertips. Her mouth is open wide, gaping. Girl observes that Mom’s teeth are white and straight. Well looked after. Landscaped. Cleansed by a hygienist. Filled with white porcelain. Bleached and filed.
‘Who does your teeth, Mom?’ Girl drops her menthol cigarette on the doorstep and stubs it out with the toe of her silver loafer. The woman just stares. She starts shaking her head, very slowly from side to side, her hand rummaging for something in her pocket. A piece of tissue stained with pink lipstick. She brings it to her lips as if to catch something in her mouth, something unpleasant she has chewed and wants to spit out.
‘Billy is quite well but not all that well, thank you, and I am as you see me.’
‘Don’t shout.’ The woman can’t quite bring herself to plead, but her eyes are scanning the neighbours’ windows, sealed off from the busy highway with cream-coloured lace. Girl opens her mouth wide like she’s going to scream the house down.
‘I won’t scream, Mom. I promise. Why would I do a thing like that?’
Something flickers in the woman’s B-movie eyes. Jeeezus. Girl keeps her face blank as she can, but it’s really hard. You’d have to be a serious cultist to appreciate this Mom. It’s like she’s beginning to come to life, some sort of life, a dazed Nembutal life. She’s definitely breathing, that’s for sure. Got an appetite too. A little chocolate biscuit in her pocket. She’s even got a smell. Cologne. Foul swabs of sweetness coming from Mom. Druggy sweetness, dirty fake-fur sweetness, tissues stained with spit and melting chocolate. Little pearls in her ears. Oh God. She’s wringing her hands. Lips trembling.
Girl stares into the bronze dolphin doorknob. ‘Just driving down this way to do a bit of shopping, Mom. Thought I’d call in.’
‘I have no recall,’ the woman says slowly, a slight West Country twang to her dopey voice.
‘Where do you shop then, Mom?’
‘FreezerWorld.’
‘Really. How interesting. And what do you buy there?’
‘Herrings. For my husband.’
‘But what do you buy for yourself, Mom?’
The woman scratches her forehead absent-mindedly. Her cheeks are lightly dusted with powder. Sweet. Mom’s gone. Even though she is standing there breathing, she is gone.
‘I like profiteroles,’ she says eventually.
‘Profiteroles! Dangerous things to eat, aren’t they, Mom? Bite into it and all that cream ooozes out, gets stuck in your nostrils and you can’t breathe, can you, Mom?’
The woman’s pleading eyes. Little beads of sweat gathering in the corners of her faint moustache.
‘Do you have a message for Billy?’
This takes some time to go in. Worm its way into Mom. Layers and layers of Mom. Almost there.
‘It’s his wedding anniversary, is it?’ Mom looks proud of herself.
‘Yeah? Billy’s fifteen, Mom. Do me a favour and call me a minicab.’
The woman suddenly looks more alert. It’s as if she can relate to this request. She nods and shuffles off in her pink fake-fur slippers, deeper and deeper into the thick pile carpets.
A white Mercedes parked nearby has its engine running. Not running, purring. A big white beast licked clean and shiny. Waiting for Girl. Actually waiting for her. Like he’s been there all along, expecting her. An albino lion, muscled and gorgeous. The driver quick as a flash springs out of the Merc and holds the door open for her. ‘Good morning, madam,’ he says, as if they’ve known each other for years. He can just make out bits of his female passenger in the front mirror. First her peroxide hair. Then her cheekbones. Then her mouth.
‘Where do you want to go, madam?’
‘FreezerWorld.’
Girl makes two fists with her hands and thumps them into her eyes. The driver pretends not to notice the tears trickling between her fingers.
‘We want to make your world a better world. That’s why I’m going to tell a secret to everyone in FreezerWorld today. For those of you who like coffee we have a special offer on instant cappuccino. Buy any two items from the DIY section and you get a jar free! Yes, Cherie. Enjoy the taste of the continent in your own home.’
FreezerWorld. Open from 8 am to 8 pm every day. Painted a dirty blood colour outside, but inside it’s cleaner than a hospital. A man’s voice announces bargains of the moment through invisible speakers. Customers carry Plant of the Month out to their cars, a wispy coconut plant. Struggling with it through the parking lots, making room in the boot, loading up their FreezerWorld goods.
Girl prowls the aisles. A desert of lino and weird light. She’s a hunter. Looking for Mom. So many of ’em – moms. Shopping in Arctica. A frozen world. Girl needs a harpoon and an icepick. She needs to wear the skins and furs of the animals that lie packaged in the industrial freezers. And more. Beasts not eaten in England. Sealskins, polar bears and white Arctic fox furs. She needs working dogs for the hunt. Huskies. Crystals of ice caught in their paws. Odours of blood and fear. Weathering the storm without a compass. Looking for Mom. Big fucking girlprints through the snow.
But she’s lost heart today. Not dressed for Frozen World. Not interested. Except for the girl in FreezerWorld overalls packing frozen peas into the industrial fridges. The way she holds the packets. Pressing the palms of her hands flat on each one of ’em. Cooling her hands as if her fingertips are on fire. Complete concentration. A man is walking up to her. Watching her. He’s got a bit of power, that’s for sure. FreezerWorld prestige. The manager. Yep. Little plastic badge on his red blazer tells the eager shopping public that he is ‘Mr Tens’.
‘Hello, Louise,’ he says. ‘You’ll have to work a little faster than that.’
Mr Tens is a kind man. Not scolding Louise. Telling her a fact. Louise. Girl just can’t bear to hear that name, though she knows lots of girls are called it. Mr Tens says something strange. Girl can’t be sure she’s even heard it right. Something like, it’s not your hands that are hot, it’s in your head, Louise. And Louise is nodding her silky head, her lips moving, sound coming out. ‘I’m as stupid as a blonde can get,’ she replies, working faster now.
FreezerWorld. Deep-freeze pain. Frozen World. Pain tics in ice blocks. Dolour. The frozen tumour twilight. Louise and FreezerWorld. Girl and FreezerWorld. An autopsy waiting to be interpreted. Call in the anaesthesiologists, biofeedback technicians, occupational therapists, neurophysiologists, dieticians, pain peripheralists and pain centralists. Girl and Louise. Both know something useless.
Knowledge that won’t even buy them a week’s shop. They know that childhood is a primitive culture. Soothing words can relieve pain and harsh words can kill you even though you’re still alive, drinking Fanta, watching breakfast TV, saving up for a kitten in the pet-shop window.
Louise turns her back on Girl. Talking to Mr Tens. But she wants Girl to hear what she says. Girl feels it with her girl intuition, snarled in the whole Louise thing, her secret name, knowing with terror that one day she’s going to have to give up Girl and own up to Louise. Louise is asking her supervisor something. Important stuff. ‘I start on the tills this Saturday, don’t I?’
Mr Tens is nodding. Looks proud of her. ‘Yes, you are, Louise. We’re going to start you on Express. Customers with just a few items in their baskets. See how you go and then we’ll have a think about where to put you next.’
Louise stares at him blankly. Nods and looks down at the packet of frozen peas in her small hands. Like a saint. Saint Louise of the Frozen Peas. Stupid as a blonde can get. Louise is just girlmeat. FrozenWorld girlmeat. No wonder Mr Tens feels like a celebrity.
Cruising the aisles. Checking ou
t the panic population in FreezerWorld. Girl feels safe here. She can mingle with complete strangers at any time of the day and not feel afraid. It’s as if the Voice broadcasting FreezerWorld news can read her thoughts because suddenly, in the middle of announcing a discount on mixed nuts and raisins, the Voice goes on a little detour.
‘In winter when it gets dark early and certain neighbourhoods are out of bounds at 4 pm, FreezerWorld is well lit and warm. You are all here because you care. You want to feed your families. To nourish your wee ones. To indulge those you love. To treat yourself. Or even to stock up for a party. Cheers, everyone! Have a safe journey home.’
A frozen warm world. Girl can gaze at anything she likes, for as long as she likes, without having to explain herself. If FreezerWorld was a suburb, Girl would move there. She makes her way to the DIY section and reaches for an aerosol of red spray paint, thinking about stopping for a McChicken burger on the way home and checking out the mothers who eat there with their kids. Seems to take hours to walk back to the tills. FreezerWorld is a big world. She’s not going to stand in a long queue for one bloody item. Where’s the Express Mr Tens was talking about? Girl takes a white envelope from her jacket pocket, feels to check how thick it is and then rips it open.
Jeeezuz. Not much cash this week. A note in Grand-Dad’s shaky biro scrawl tucked inside: ‘I’ll make it up to you next week. The two thirty didn’t come home. Love Grand-Dad. PS Has Billy got a girlfriend yet?’
Of course Billy hasn’t got a girlfriend. Spends all his time reading pain books. Billy doesn’t want girlfriends, he wants patients to practise on. Girl sometimes obliges if her brother makes her a banana Nesquik. Lies on the settee and says the first thing that comes into her head. ‘Smoking causes fatal diseases.’ ‘Diesel.’ ‘Wonderbra.’ Her brother asks her to join up her words into sentences, sitting where she can’t see him, sieving through Girl material. He’s working on Raj too. Except Raj refuses to lie down on the settee even though Billy has explained the ethics of his practice. Raj prefers to talk over a pint at the Pickled Newt and Billy, who doesn’t really like pints, prefers halves, takes tiny sips, his mouth stuffed with peanuts so as not to give away his thoughts. That’s his special technique. Peanut blankness. Raj loves it when Billy does peanut blankness. Specially as Billy, being fifteen, is not supposed to be in the pub anyway. Raj has to hide him in the darkest corner, away from the action, sit him down with his back to the publican while he orders the drinks. He never tells Billy that the halves are really lemonade shandy.