Billy and Girl

by Deborah Levy

  A red-brick Victorian house stands parallel to the park where she runs. Girl has been interested in the house for some time. So how come the mother who lives there never opens the curtains? How come the stoopid wooden duck on the window shelf looks like the duck Mom bought Girl when she was eleven? What about the giant satellite dish attatched with bolts to the roof? Mom was crazy about TV. I mean, what kind of TV experience does this satellite citizen want? Is it to scour the world looking for her lost kiddies? What most interests Girl is a solitary pink baby’s shoe that has stood on the wall outside the house for months now. The weird thing is that Girl has the other shoe. She’s had it for years. Two silver buckles stitched on the side with ripped, faded blue striped soles. One day Girl nailed her pink baby shoe to a piece of wood so that she would never ever lose it.

  As Girl speeds past the house, the thing she has always dreaded happens. A woman sticks her head out of the window on the top floor and screams. She just screams. Mouth open. Her auburn hair pulled tight into a ponytail. Girl doesn’t know who she’s screaming at, but that doesn’t matter. Still running, she swerves a sharp left into the concrete garden at the front of the house and rings the doorbell. She is sweating and breathless and everything in her body aches. Worst of all, the tiny pink shoe has disappeared from the wall.

  Girl waits. Pain in bricks. Pain in the sky. Pain in Girl. She licks her lips. They are dry and she wants them to be moist. Always. Her lips are there to be kissed. Her lips are kiss-me lips. Something is happening on the other side of the glass door.

  Two small girls press their hands against the glass, staring at her. Girl puts her hand over their two tiny hands. They squash their noses against the glass. Girl kneels down and squashes her nose against the glass. The youngest, she must only be about one year, pushes her tongue against the glass. Girl presses her tongue against the glass. One of them shouts for her mother. The screaming woman.

  ‘Yes?’

  Girl makes her voice low and steady and calm. ‘Hello, Mom.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  Girl has to lean against the wall, she is so shocked. The woman has a tattoo on her upper arm. A heart with doves. Doves. Wings spread, flying, hovering over the heart which has a name inked in the middle of it. Capital letters. Italics. BILLY. She’s got fucking Billy needled into her flesh for ever. BILLY.

  ‘What do you want?’ The woman opens the door wider so she can get a better look at the pale blonde girl on her doorstep.

  ‘I’m Girl,’ Girl says.

  ‘Yeah, I can see you’re a girl. What do you want?’

  ‘Just wanted to say Billy’s okay.’

  One of the girls smiles at Girl. Three little teeth poke through her bottom gums. Her mother picks her up and straddles her on her hip.

  Girl can see that the woman’s eyes are really beautiful. Green. Slanting up at the edges.

  ‘I don’t care if Billy’s dead,’ she says in a bored voice. ‘I don’t give a damn if he’s lying under a bus. No pain is enough pain for that bastard. He can’t hurt enough as far as I’m concerned. So tell whoever has sent you to bring me news about fucking Billy, tell them the only good news is that he’s in casualty and there is nothing the doctors can do for him.’

  Girl’s eyes begin to fill. She combs her fringe into her eyes with her fingers.

  ‘Anyhow. I just wanted to say hello, Mom.’

  ‘I’m not your mum,’ the woman replies in a matter-of-fact voice. She stands very still, looking at Girl and stroking the top of her little girl’s head.

  ‘I am not your mum,’ she says again, but softly this time.

  ‘I saw you running in the park,’ the woman says.

  Girl nods.

  ‘I opened the window to have a laugh with the neighbour downstairs.’

  ‘I thought you were screaming,’ Girl says.

  ‘I was laughing.’ The woman just stares at Girl, all the time stroking her girl’s hair.

  ‘Nigh nigh,’ the little girl coos.

  ‘Night night,’ Girl replies.

  ‘I’m not your mother,’ the woman says again.

  ‘No. It’s a mistake.’ Girl bends down to tie up her shoelace because tears are dribbling down her cheeks. They wet the concrete doorstep which is splattered with white pigeon droppings.

  Chapter 8

  When Girl comes back from her run, Billy is waiting for her. He watches her drink water, glass after glass. Her yellow minishorts are soaked in sweat. He watches her put on her silver mirrored shades so she does not have to endure him watching her. He watches her take a cloth and a bottle of all-purpose lemon cleaner and start wiping the skirting boards, one knee bent, one leg stretched out.

  ‘Yes,’ Billy says. ‘Crazee but true. Mom disappeared and I inherited. Yep. I inherited her soul. That’s me. I was born heroic Girl, a heroic boy child whose destiny it is to liberate the world from pain. My body is hard but I’m soft inside. You might wonder why I sleep so long? I sleep her sleep and I sleep my own. I sleep for two. I eat for two. I take vitamins for two. I am the first boy on earth with a woman’s soul.’

  Girl says, ‘I did a Mom check on my run.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She doesn’t think I’ve got the right person.’

  ‘What did she look like?’

  ‘Young.’

  ‘But Mom’s not young now.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why did you think it was her then?’

  ‘She was screaming.’

  ‘Lots of bloody people scream. That’s how you know someone’s alive and not dead.’

  ‘She was screaming in my direction.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Didn’t get to know her.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘Jeans.’

  ‘Mom never wore jeans.’

  ‘She had two babies.’

  ‘Mom can’t have any more babies.’

  ‘I said you were okay.’

  ‘I’m not okay.’

  ‘One day I’ll get it right. Mom will come to the door.’

  ‘Well, don’t tell her I’m okay when she does. Do I look okay to you?’

  Girl switches on the TV to drown out Billy’s whining voice. A woman is having a heart attack in an ambulance. The scene cuts to the hospital corridor. A group of doctors run as they wheel the woman into the operating theatre. Someone with a mask over her mouth passes the surgeon a pair of rubber gloves.

  ‘Listen, Billy.’ Girl pauses just long enough to give him time to rant about the ammonia that he can smell in her bottle of lemon all-purpose cleaner: how it’s taking the paint off the skirting boards, how it’s giving him brain damage, how one day he’s going to drink a whole bottle of the stuff and die in agony on his bed.

  ‘What I am saying,’ Girl interrupts, ‘is that we are special and unique.’

  ‘No, we are not.’ He turns on her. ‘We are morons.’

  The surgeon starts to cut into the flesh of the patient’s belly. Suddenly a machine monitoring the patient’s heartbeat begins to beep. Lights flash. The nurse screams, ‘Dr Taylor! She’s fading out!’ The doors of the theatre fling open and another squad of doctors crowd around the woman. Three of them fiddle with the machine while another pumps the woman’s heart with his hands. Billy cries when they thump the woman’s heart. He blubs into his shirtsleeves. Girl can only see the back of his neck shaking as Dr Taylor holds the dying patient in his arms.

  ‘Look, Billy. I am a secret citizen called Louise. You are a boy with a woman’s soul. We could make big bucks.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Like in a clinic somewhere?’

  ‘The USA. We could do the chat shows there.’

  Girl lunges for Billy. She punches him in the heart until he cries out for special Girl mercy. She sinks her teeth into his pulse and yells for bananas. She says she’s hungry. Starving. There’s nothing to eat in this goddamn madhouse.

  Billy gasps, ‘Dr Taylor, save me, save me!’

  Girl laug
hs like she’s going to die.

  ‘We’ve got to get our airfare to California. Now! They’ll appreciate us there. They’ll hire us a car. They’ll fill our pillow slips with cocaine. We might find out what happened to Dad. We might discover why Mom disappeared. We’ll get a tan. We’ll surf the big Pacific rollers. We’ll eat T-bone steaks! We’ll give them our pain and they’ll give us their cash.’

  ‘How we going to do it, then?’ Billy’s gone morose.

  ‘We’ll do a supermarket,’ Girl declares emphatically, unusually animated, screwing up her fists. ‘A big supermarket on the edge of a motorway. One that sells twenty types of frozen potato. Crinkle chips, steak chips, chilli chips, hash browns, yeah, hash fucking browns like we’re going to eat in America. We’ll crash into the tills and take the whole damn lot! We’ll buy our air-tickets with supermarket cash. Ready, Billy? Are you ready for this?’

  Billy thumps his pathetic pigeon chest like he’s trying to revive his own dying heart, all the while thinking he might stroll down the hill past Arctic Wines, Junction Pets and the hair salon called Differences, for a half at the Pickled Newt. It’s not the company he wants, it’s the church next door to the pub that has inflamed him. The poster over the door that says, FIND REAL DIGNITY INSTEAD OF INCOMPREHENSIBILITY. Is his pain divine punishment? Life hurts more without magic. Will supermarket cash discover a hidden switch in the brain that turns off pain, once and for all?

  ‘I’ve been ready all my life,’ Billy replies in his sad boy voice.

  Chapter 9

  Girl’s head is full of Louise in FreezerWorld. Dark Louise thoughts. Following Louise home. Waiting for her at the end of her shift. Using Grand-Dad’s weekly cash to buy Louise two plastic pink hairs-slide hearts. Not giving them to her, of course. Keeping them for later. Writing her letters but never sending them. Dreaming Louise. Should she tell her brother about her Louise dream? Tell him everything? Risk him writing a book one day called The Louise Dreams? Because Billy’s role from very young was fated to interpret pain on behalf of the Whole Happy Family. Even when he was in Mom’s womb, Dad wanted to hurt him.

  Okay. The Louise dream.

  There was a power cut at FreezerWorld. Water from the industrial freezers leaked a flood. The waters from frozen lamb and chicken livers and Irish-liqueur ice cream. Louise slipped and drowned. Louise is frozen girlmeat. A FreezerWorld product. A frozen girl. Trapped between sheets of ice. Nose and lips pressed against Frozen World. Golden ice drops of hair. Eyes staring, orbs of blue slush. Louise. Melting histories of retard pain. Chewed-up fingernails splayed against the ice sheets. Her hands so small. Like Girl’s hands. Worst of all, she was wearing her FreezerWorld overalls, a little kilt underneath. All around Louise the customers had fallen into a deep sleep, slumped over their trolleys. Rows of little battery chickens on electric spits had stopped in midcycle. FreezerWorld Louise fallen in so deep. The sight was terrible, monstrous. Girl wanted to die. The end of all hope. Girlmeat. But she had a choice. She could kiss the sleeping frozen Louise into consciousness. Undead her. Princess lips on princess lips. Break the ice.

  The End.

  FreezerWorld Louise, who is also Girl, is trapped in the ice age because she is frightened of the future. Which is the past.

  Okay. Should she tell Billy about the Louise letters? Three of them so far. Written but not sent.

  Dear Louise,

  I followed you home from FreezerWorld. I know you know I am watching you. And I know you don’t mind.

  Girl.

  Dear Louise,

  My name is also Louise. As far as I’m concerned all Louises have to be beautiful and have a grip. It’s time you bought some different clothes. It’s time you learnt some new words.

  I’m watching you, Louise.

  From Louise.

  Dear Louise,

  I saw you come home late the other night. Where were you?

  I want to know. I hate your jacket, Louise. Denim is for losers.

  You can only wear denim on a beach. Never ever wear denim in winter.

  Louise.

  No. Girl is too alarmed to tell Billy her dream. She’d even prefer a Grand-Dad joke than confess how Louise has slid into her head like glass in a car accident. Girl knows that Louise is going to lead them to Mom.

  On her secret visits to FreezerWorld she always makes her way to the Toiletries aisle to calm herself. Keeping an eye on Louise. Louise stocking shelves. Louise packing pork bellies into the freezers. Louise on the Express till. Louise talking to the manager, wringing her small white hands. Louise choosing a Valentine’s Day card for her boyfriend, buying a biro to write a message inside. ‘To the Best Boyfriend in the World.’ Chewing the pen. Risking a Bic biro heart, her initials, his initials, taking a deep breath, writing how her love is 4 ever, licking the envelope.

  Girl likes the chemical fragrances of the FreezerWorld beauty products: musk rose, peach coral, ivory mist. The labels on the plastic bottles show pictures of desert islands and blue lagoons. The sky is always and everyone is happy always 4 ever. Peach Coral is where she wants to be. Peach Coral is her homeland to be. Girl is in exile and she wants to return home, even though she’s never been there. A world where pain has been abolished and perfume bonds you with your loved one for ever. Babies giggling, plump and clean in the lovely arms of their mothers. It would be so sweet to be a resident in Peach Coral. To lounge in a hammock and read magazines all day. She wants to dream herself into peachness because she wants a happy ending. Like in the ads. Blue butterflies dancing on the backs of zebras. She wants to be there. Deep in Girl-land she thinks if they can dream it up, it’s possible to get to the place where zebras canter into a sky full of hope and wonder. She would like to stroke one. The Adland fathers and grandfathers and aunts and cousins with their hopes and aspirations, their hairstyles and dialects. Putting a bit aside for a rainy day. Which is every day. Sometimes she gets scared that she’s out of the picture completely. She wants to be there, inside the Ad family, well lit, well looked after. Girl wants it written in her passport: ‘Country of Birth: Peach Coral.’

  Even when Raj comes round she can’t stop talking about FreezerWorld. Billy and Girl and Raj drinking Coke and then crushing the cans.

  ‘What’s FreezerWorld?’ Raj always asks the important questions.

  ‘It’s a lovely world, Raj,’ Girl makes her voice soft.

  Girl smoking the menthols Raj filched from his father’s shop. Inhaling snow on the tips of pine needles. Ice and clean cold wind burning up anger and hunger and memory.

  ‘There are beautiful announcements in FreezerWorld.’ Girl just won’t let go. ‘This voice announces things: “Have a safe journey home, don’t forget to check out the Adidas trainers on special discount for your boys.”’

  ‘Who’s the DJ then?’ Raj reckons he should tell his father about the whole concept. They could try it in the shop.

  ‘I think he’s the manager. He says, “When you cut a Freezerworld strawberry cheesecake, be sure to make a wish. Goodnight to all our loyal customers, may all your wishes come true.”’

  Billy is genuinely moved.

  ‘Think I should say all that stuff?’ Raj glugs down the rest of his Coke. “When you buy our special-offer bleach, be sure to drink it slowly. That way you make it last longer. Safe journey home, folks. Hope you don’t fall under a bus.”’

  Girl is smiling now. She want everyone to talk about FreezerWorld all the time.

  “‘Patel Continental and English groceries is a lovely world.

  Why buy fresh lemons when you can buy them half dead? Why are they so expensive? Because they are wise lemons. They have seen life all right.”’

  ‘I’ll tell you what.’ Girl is full of Raj-admiration energy. His interest in her kind of charges her up. She makes her voice casual, like what she’s going to say is of no importance, just an idea to pass time. ‘Let’s all go to FreezerWorld. Now!’

  Raj thinks about how sometimes Girl’s black eyes look green. Green for go. Cr
oss the road with mood in your shoulders, take your time, let the hooting vehicles know you’re far away in your mind and they just have to wait. Her eyes are green now and she’s stroking her fringe, agitating it with her fingers. He hands her his mobile to call a cab. Watching her punch in the numbers like she’s calling an ambulance.

  ‘I’ll stay here.’ Billy ignores Girl’s axe murderer’s stare. ‘You can tell me about it later.’

  ‘Billy, it’s important that you come with us.’

  ‘No. I got to bath.’

  ‘Do you remember what we were talking about?’

  Of course her brother remembers what they were talking about. This morning he lay in bed imagining himself talking to a chat-show hostess with beautiful American teeth. He is saying, ‘My father loved your country. He loved Elvis. He knew all the songs.’

  The hostess, who is called Niki, folds her arms and gives her famous cheeky twinkly look straight to camera. ‘Billy, would you like to show us all how your father sang “Love Me Tender” in the kitchen when you were a little boy?’

  ‘I’d like to be able to do that for you, Niki, but the thing is, he usually sang that particular song before he belted me, so I don’t really feel in the mood.’

  ‘Think that’s our car hooting.’ Raj puts his arm around Girl’s shoulder. ‘One day I’ll have my own car and drive you about.’

  Girl opens the front door. Screws up her eyes. ‘That cab’s a lousy pile of shit.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell him?’

  ‘Cos he’ll only say, “Had a bad day?”’

  Billy screeches. Not exactly a laugh. More like a cat with its tail stuck in a door.

  Her brother knows the warning signs. It’s not like his sister is putting a message in a bottle and floating it out to sea. She’s crashing a hatchet with words engraved on it right into his skull. The words say, ‘We are going to do FreezerWorld.’