by Kevin Brooks
It's a nothing place, really, the same as every other nothing place in the world. Terraced houses, brick walls, a too-narrow street full of too many parked cars. The usual selection of discarded crap is slopping around in the rain-streamed gutters – empty carrier bags and crisp packets, disintegrating cigarette ends and dog shit – and halfway down the street there's a miniature lake of dirty grey water where the drain has blocked up again.
It's not exactly paradise.
But, then again, it's hardly hell either.
Jesus and Mary know where we are now, they can smell the smell of home. And they've both started trotting along in front of me, going as fast as they can without actually running, desperate to get out of the cold and rain. Home is warm, home is dry, home is food. That's what they're thinking.
Mel Monroe, I'm half thinking.
Mel Monroe.
Mel is the bad girl who all the other bad girls look up to. She's hard and she's hot. She doesn't take any shit. She knows what's what. Mel Monroe can ruin your life just by looking at you the wrong way. And until about six months ago, she was The One, The Only One, and no one else was anywhere near her. But then Taylor Harding showed up, expelled (it was rumoured) from a school on the other side of town. Expelled (it was variously rumoured) for fighting, for drinking, for taking drugs, for having sex with a boy in the gymnasium, for having sex with a girl in the gymnasium, for carrying a knife, a gun… a bazooka. Whatever. You know what rumours are like. Anyway, when she first showed up at school – with her big bad blonde reputation – it was generally assumed that there was bound to be some kind of showdown between her and Mel eventually. But, surprisingly, it never came. The two of them spent the first couple of days kind of circling around each other, eyeing each other up, getting the measure of each other, but then, on the third morning, to everyone's astonishment, they turned up at school together walking arm in arm. It was as if they'd been best-bosom-buddies for ever – walking the walk together, looking the look… and all at once Mel wasn't The Only One any more. Mel and Taylor were The Only One. The Only Two. MelandTaylor. Joined at the hip, like some kind of bad-ass Siamese twins.
But none of this had anything to do with me. Not then, and not now. Yes, I know what's going on at school. And, yes, I hear things and I see things, and I know what's what and who's who… but no one can see me, remember? I'm invisible. Nothing has anything to do with me.
So why, I'm half thinking now, why would Mel and Taylor ask me to come to a party? Why would anyone ask me to come to a party?
Meanwhile, the other half of me (the half that isn't thinking about Taylor and Mel) is thinking about killing God.
Killing God?
Why?
How?
What does it even mean?
And then I see Splodge, sitting on his doorstep in the rain.
His real name is Steven Lodge. He's younger than me – maybe ten or eleven – and I don't really know him that well, but his house is only four doors down from mine, so I see him around quite a lot. He always wears a cheap Primark parka, no matter what the weather, and he's always on his own. Which is kind of why I quite like him. Everyone calls him Splodge (except, I imagine, his parents) because:
(1) His middle name is Peter, which makes him S. P. Lodge (which you would have thought his parents might have realized, but obviously they didn't. Or maybe they did, and they just thought it was funny).
And (2) he has one of those big purpley-red birthmarks on his face. And, unfortunately, it is pretty splodge-like. It covers most of the left-hand side of his face, and of course people don't like looking at it, so they don't know where to look when they're talking to him, and they don't know how they're supposed to react to it (ignore it? say something about it?), and that makes them feel really cringey and awkward… so most people just leave him alone. Like he's diseased or something. So most of the time he just hangs around on his own – sometimes kicking a ball about, sometimes just wandering around, and sometimes (like now) just sitting on his doorstep, watching the world go by.
He smiles now as Jesus and Mary waddle up to him for a quick sniff of his trainers.
‘You're wet,’ he says to them, scratching Mary's head.
‘It's the rain,’ I say, stopping beside him and turning off my iPod. ‘It usually has that wettening effect on things.’
He looks up at me. ‘You ought to get them a coat.’
‘They've got coats.’
He smiles at me. His birthmark is really purpley today. It's the cold weather. His splodge gets purpley when it's cold and orangey-red when it's hot.
‘All right?’ I ask him.
‘Yeah.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Not much…’ He glances at the carrier bag in my hand. ‘Get anything good?’
‘Bibles,’ I tell him.
‘Bibles?’
‘Yeah.’
As I wipe a sheen of rain from my forehead, Splodge turns his attention to a passing van. It's a blue one, with Farthings Furniture written on the side. It's a cronky old thing, all patched up and rusty, with a bent aerial and a taped-up headlight and windows so dirty you can't see through them. I've seen it around before.
Splodge keeps his eyes on it as it passes by and heads up to the end of Dane Street before turning left into Whipton Lane. Then he turns back to me.
‘Do you know who that is?’ he asks.
‘What – in the van?’
‘Yeah… I keep seeing it around here all the time. Sometimes it's driving around, sometimes it's parked, but I've never seen anyone get out of it.’
‘Maybe it's the FBI,’ I suggest. ‘Maybe they're spying on you.’
He doesn't smile.
I look at him. ‘Can I ask you something?’
He sniffs. ‘What?’
‘Do you believe in God?’
He frowns at me. ‘God?’
‘Yeah… I mean, do you really think there's some kind of supernatural being that created everything and knows everything and sees everything?’
He shrugs. ‘I don't know… I've never really thought about it, to be honest.’
‘Do you ever go to church?’
‘Yeah, sometimes.’
‘Do you say prayers and stuff?’
He nods. ‘Yeah… I say my prayers every night before I go to bed.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You pray to God?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But you don't know if you believe in him or not?’
He shrugs again.
‘What do you pray for?’ I ask him.
‘A new face.’
her way of praying (1)
I go into the house the back way (down the alleyway, turn right, turn right) and the dogs run on ahead of me and let themselves into the kitchen through the dog flap in the door. (It's actually a cat flap, but they're dogs… so, you know… I always think of it as a dog flap.) I follow them into the kitchen, take off my boots and my iPod, then grab a dog towel from the dog cupboard and give Jesus and Mary a good rub down.
‘Is that you, Dawn?’ Mum calls out from the front room as I'm drying off Jesus's ears.
‘Yeah,’ I call back. ‘Just sorting out the dogs.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah. I'll be in in a minute.’
‘OK.’
After I've finished drying them off, the dogs get their dinner. Half a beaker of Eukanuba each, topped off with a bit of warm water. I stand and watch them eating. I love the sound they make when they're scoffing their food – the warm-wet chomp of their mouths, the quiet shuffling of their podgy little feet, the faint metal jingling as their dog tags rattle against the rims of the dog bowls…
I wish I could enjoy things as much as they do.
When they're finished, I give them their afters (a Bonio each) and then I go into the front room. Mum's sitting in her armchair, as ever, watching our huge (52-inch) plasma TV. It's about all she ever does since Dad disappeared �
� she just sits there, hour after hour, with the remote control and a copy of TV & Satellite Week to hand, watching TV.
It's her existence.
That and the drink and the pills.
She picks up the remote now, mutes the TV, then looks round and smiles at me. ‘Everything all right, love?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ I glance at the TV. On the screen, Jeremy Clarkson is standing next to a bright red sports car, his stupid big hands half stuffed in his stupid jeans pockets. ‘Top Gear?’ I ask Mum.
She nods.
‘Any good?’
She shrugs. ‘It's all right.’
She watches just about anything. Old stuff, new stuff, sci-fi, documentaries, comedies, soaps, films, sport, mysteries, thrillers… sometimes I wonder if she actually knows what she's watching. Whatever's on, she just seems to look at it, rather than actually watching it. And her eyes… well, her eyes are always kind of not-quite-there, but that's mainly because of the drink.
She drinks a lot, my mum.
In fact, since Dad disappeared, she drinks pretty much all of the time.
(it's her way of talking to jesus)
Whisky and coffee is what she drinks. Whisky in black coffee. The whisky keeps her drunk, the coffee keeps her awake. She drinks mugs of it, all day and all night long. And on top of that there's the prescribed antidepressants, and the occasional joint, and the unprescribed sleeping pills (which she has to get off the Internet because her doctor won't give them to her any more). So it's not really surprising that her eyes are kind of glazed most of the time.
But it's OK.
I mean, she's OK.
She functions.
We look after each other.
She's my mum.
We love each other.
‘I'd better get some shopping in,’ I tell her. ‘We're running a bit low.’
She nods, taking a sip from her mug. ‘Thanks, love.’
‘I'll do it now.’
She smiles. ‘I'll make you something to eat. Toasted sandwiches OK?’
‘Yeah, perfect.’
Upstairs, in Mum's bedroom, I crouch down beside her bed and fold back the worn red rug (as I've folded it back so many times before), then I hook my finger into the familiar-feeling knothole in the floorboard underneath, and I gently ease it up. I take the £230 (give or take) from my pocket, lean down into the gap under the floorboards, and unzip the dark-green holdall that's been living there for the past two years. I pause for a moment, gazing down through the dusty gloom at the contents of the holdall, and I wonder (as I've wondered so many times before) where it all came from and what it all means… and why and when and where and who… and then (as always) I just shake my head and try to forget it.
I put the £230 back into the holdall, zip it up, replace the floorboard and the worn red rug, and head off back to my room.
I'm sitting at my desk now, staring dimly at my PC screen as I log on to Tesco's website. Jesus and Mary are settled down in their baskets, and ‘Her Way of Praying’ is blasting out from my PC speakers
(she's keeping time
keeping time
with the mystery rhyme)
and I'm not wondering where anything came from any more, I'm not asking myself questions, I'm not thinking about Mum… I'm not thinking about anything. I'm just doing what I'm doing – doing the shopping. I usually do it once every two weeks, but what with Christmas and New Year and everything, the schedule's got a bit mixed up. Not that it matters. We always get exactly the same stuff, so all I have to do is log on, sign in, and repeat the last order. I mean, sometimes I'll spend a bit of time browsing the website to see if there's any clothes I want to buy, or maybe some stationery or some computer stuff or something. And sometimes Mum might ask me to get her a book (she only reads
books with TV connections, like CSI novels or Richard and Judy Book Club picks… or occasionally stuff by Jamie Oliver or Trinny and Susannah (although God knows why she reads this stuff, seeing as how she never cooks or cares how she looks)). But mostly it's the same old shopping list every time.
So, anyway, I log on, sign in, select a delivery time, put in the order, pay for it, sign out, log off… and by the time I've finished, Mum's brought me up a plate of toasted ham sandwiches and a glass of Coke, and we've talked for a bit (about not very much), and then she's gone back downstairs, back to her armchair and her drink and her TV, and I'm left sitting here on my bed with my dogs and my sandwiches and my Coke and my Bibles.
It's 6.30 p.m.
Of course, I have no intention at all of going to Mel and Taylor's party, but if I was thinking of going (which I'm not), I'd have about two hours now to get ready.
But I'm not going, am I?
Why would I?
I bite into a toasted ham sandwich and open up the Children's Illustrated Bible.
(hope in hope in the sky)
There's nothing in the Children's Illustrated Bible about the Levite and his concubine, which isn't really surprising. I mean, you don't want little kids reading about that kind of stuff, do you? They might get the wrong idea. So, no, there's no raping or ravishing in this good book. All I can find in the place where the Levite/concubine story should be (i.e. in the book of Judges) is some stuff about a guy called Gideon, and a load of other people who're trying to kill him, and the story of Samson and Delilah, which I already know. There are lots of pictures, of course (seeing as how it's an illustrated Bible), but they're not that great, and there are no pictures of God, which is kind of what I'm looking for (because if I know what he looks like, it might make it easier to find him and kill him). Most of the pictures fall into one of two categories:
Category One: pictures of beardy men doing the kinds of things that beardy men do – i.e. standing around talking, leaning on sticks, looking serious about something.
Category Two: pictures of meek-and-virginal-looking women wearing long smocky dresses and hoods, so all you can see is their worshipful faces and their stupid Bambi-like eyes.
But one of the women is different.
And that's Eve.
Eve is very different.
Eve, for some reason, is really sexy.
I mean, obviously, she's naked at the start of the book, so she's bound to look a little bit sexier than the smock-wearing humble women, but it's not just that. (And, besides, it's not as if you can see much of her anyway. Most of her top half is covered up by her luscious blonde hair, and you can't see any of her bottom half because she's standing behind a conveniently placed bush (no visual pun intended, I assume). Adam, by the way, is also naked. And he's also standing behind the bush. Although, oddly enough, in one of the pictures (in which he's not standing behind the bush), his naughty bits are covered up by the trailing foot of a chimpanzee that just happens to be nestling in Adam's arms.
A chimpanzee?
What's that all about?)
But, no, it's not just Eve's nakedness that makes her look sexy, it's the way she's standing there offering Adam an apple, with her pouty red lips and her Kate Moss cheekbones and her come-to-bed eyes. I mean, I know the whole Adam and Eve thing is supposed to be about temptation and stuff, but still… I don't know. It just seems a bit unnecessary, that's all. Even on the next page, after they've eaten the apple and put on some clothes, Eve's still a lot hotter than all the other Bible girls. Her animal-skin dress is a lot shorter (slit right up to her waist). Her legs are a lot longer (like she's wearing invisible high heels). And (unlike the meek-and-virginal girls) she actually has some cleavage. And she looks like she knows it too.
Q. Why are you so obsessed with these stupid little drawings of Eve?
A. I don't know.
But it makes me wonder – as I've often wondered – if maybe the idiots who used to call me a lesbian weren't quite so idiotic after all.
Q. Are you physically attracted to Eve?
A. I don't know.
Yes, I think she's sexy. But I don't think I'd actually want to do anything with her. I just like the way she
looks. And, besides, even if I did want to do anything with her (which I don't), I wouldn't know where to start.
Q. What about Adam? Do you like the way he looks?
A. No.
But that's simply because he's not very attractive. His arms are too thin. His beard looks false (and ginger). His teeth are like piano keys. All in all, he looks like a slightly deranged rambler.
Q. Are there any boys that you do find physically attractive?
A. I haven't come across one yet.
But that doesn't mean I'm a lesbian, does it? It could just mean that I'm not physically attracted to either boys or girls… or that I am (attracted to either or both), but I'm too messed up by what happened with Dad to think about my feelings or physically do anything about them.
Q. What happened with Dad?
A. Nothing… nothing happened.
darklands (1)
There aren't many things I like. I like my mum, my dogs, The Jesus and Mary Chain. I like lying on my bed with my dogs and listening to The Jesus and Mary Chain while my mum's downstairs watching TV (which is what I'm doing right now). I like doing things that keep my mind off the other Dawn. And, as you've probably noticed, I like making lists.
Q. Why do you like making lists?
A. Because:
(a) Listing things makes them easier to understand.
(b) There is no (b). (I just thought, you know, it'd be kind of neat to make a list of my reasons for liking lists. But I've only got the one reason really, and I'm not sure you can have a list of just one thing. So I added another thing.)
I don't know why a list of things is easier to understand than a non-list of things, but it is. And that's why I need to start listing my reasons for wanting to kill God.
Why do I want to kill God?
All right, let's see.
Reason One: If God was dead, there wouldn't be any more Christians. And that would mean there wouldn't be any more door-to-door religion-sellers, those abhorrently offensive people who think they have a right to ring your doorbell and poke their noses into your life and ask you questions about what you think and feel about things.