by Kevin Brooks
Jesus and Mary scuttle in behind them and jump up on the bed.
‘Head’ is still playing quietly on my PC.
‘Nice,’ says Taylor, looking around at all my stuff.
‘Yeah,’ Mel agrees.
I don't know if they mean it or not, but I wouldn't be surprised. I've got some pretty nice stuff. I've got (among other things) an Arbico 880 GTX PC with a 20.1-inch flat-panel screen, a Sony Vaio Blu-ray laptop, a nice little 19-inch flatscreen TV, a 30GB iPod touch, a Samsung i320 mobile… I've got all kinds of good things. (That's all they are though – things. And in twenty years' time they won't even be that. They'll just be a pile of old shit.)
But, anyway, as Taylor and Mel are looking around at my stuff, I'm kind of secretly looking at them, and I've almost stopped wondering what they're doing here now. They're here, and that's that. And that's enough for me to deal with for the moment. So I'm just kind of looking at them, you know? Their faces, their eyes, their clothes…
I'm not all that good with clothes (clothes are just clothes to me, just something to cover up my lumpiness), but, as far as I can tell, Taylor and Mel are both wearing the same clothes they had on this afternoon. Short things, tight things, things that show off their delectable bodies. And as I'm looking at them, I'm reminded, embarrassingly, of the pictures of Eve in my Children's Illustrated Bible (although I doubt very much if Taylor and Mel have ever used apples as a means of temptation).
The thought of Eve suddenly reminds me of something else, and as Taylor sits herself down on the edge of the bed and Mel goes over to join her, I casually stroll over and (equally) casually pick up the Bibles from the bed, at the same time giving the duvet a quick pat down, as if I'm not doing anything at all, you know… I'm not trying to hide anything. I'm not embarrassed about anything. What have I got to be embarrassed about? Me? Embarrassed? No, I'm just… you know, I'm just tidying up.
‘Is that what you bought this afternoon?’ asks Mel, eyeing the Bibles in my hand.
‘Uh, yeah…’ I shrug. ‘It's nothing… just a project for school.’
‘What kind of project?’
‘Religious Studies,’ I tell her, putting the Bibles away in the drawer of my bedside cabinet.
‘Fucking religion,’ says Taylor. ‘Waste of fucking time.’ She takes a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and looks over at me. ‘All right if I smoke?’
‘You can set yourself on fire if you want,’ I tell her.
It's a dumb thing to say – not even funny really – and Taylor doesn't react, she just lights her cigarette and reaches into the carrier bag at her feet and pulls out a half-bottle of vodka. She unscrews the cap, takes a gulp, then offers the bottle to me.
‘Want some?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Why not?’
I just shrug.
She picks up the carrier bag. ‘I've got a bottle of WKD Blue if you prefer –’
‘No, it's all right,’ I say. ‘I'm fine, thanks.’
‘Don't be stupid,’ she says, waving the bottle of vodka at me. ‘Go on, have a drink… it's not going to kill you.’
I shake my head. ‘No, really…’
She frowns at me. ‘What the fuck's the matter –?’
‘She said she doesn't want any,’ Mel interrupts, snatching the bottle from Taylor's hand. ‘If she doesn't want any, she doesn't want any. All right?’ She stares at Taylor for a moment, then – after a quick grin at me – she takes a hefty slug from the bottle.
Taylor shakes her head, bemused, as if she's never met anyone who's refused a drink before. She takes a puff on her cigarette and breathes out smoke. Jesus, sitting beside her, sniffs, blinks his eyes, lifts his head, and sneezes. Mary gives him a startled look. Mel laughs. Taylor clamps the cigarette between her lips and playfully gives Jesus a two-handed rub on his snout.
Jesus wags his tail.
I go over to my computer desk, empty out a mug full of pens, and pass the empty mug to Taylor to use as an ashtray.
She smiles tightly at me. ‘I bet your mum wouldn't say no to a drink.’
I go over to the window and open it up a bit to let the cigarette smoke out.
‘She likes a bit of grass too, doesn't she?’ Taylor continues. ‘I could smell it on her clothes.’
‘So?’ I shrug again.
She shrugs back at me. ‘Nothing… I was just saying, that's all.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She grins at me for a moment, then flicks her cigarette ash into the mug and turns her attention to Jesus and Mary.
‘What's their names?’ she says.
‘Sorry?’
‘The dogs – what are they called?’
I give her the story about naming the dogs after The Jesus and Mary Chain, how they're my favourite band, blah blah blah, and both Taylor and Mel seem to find it genuinely amusing that my dogs are called Jesus and Mary. And the weird thing is, as they're giggling and snorting about it, I actually find myself enjoying their laughter. It makes me feel good. It gives me confidence. It's like they're impressed with me, and for some pathetic reason that gives me a boost.
‘So,’ says Mel, cadging a cigarette off Taylor. ‘Is that what's playing now – this music, I mean. Is this The Jesus and Mary whatsit?’
‘Chain,’ I tell her. ‘Jesus and Mary Chain. Yeah…’ I go over to my desk and tweak up the volume on the PC speakers. The sound of ‘Head’ screeches and howls from the speakers.
(i think you're crawling up my spine
i think you're crawling up my spine
hey hey hey
hey hey hey
don't want you to stay
want you to stay)
‘What do you think?’ I ask Taylor and Mel. ‘Do you like it?’
Mel shrugs. ‘It's all right, I suppose. Are they new?’
‘New?’
‘Yeah, are they a new band?’
‘No… I think they first started in the eighties –’
‘Christ,’ spits Taylor, pulling a face. ‘Haven't you got anything else?’
‘No,’ I mutter (and I can feel my good feeling, my boosted confidence, beginning to deflate).
‘What about some Lily Allen?’ Taylor says. ‘Or Kanye West or Mika or something? I mean, shit…’ She shakes her head, waving her hand dismissively at the speakers. ‘This is fucking awful.’
‘Yeah, well,’ I mumble. ‘If you don't like it –’
‘Nice system though,’ she says, ignoring me. ‘The PC, I mean.’ She drops her cigarette into the mug, takes another glug of vodka, and passes the bottle to Mel. ‘Must have cost you a bit,’ she says to me.
‘What?’
‘The PC… all this stuff.’ She waves her hand again. ‘And that TV you've got downstairs… I mean, you must be doing all right.’ She grins at me. ‘Unless it's all nicked, of course.’
I don't say anything to that, I just look over at Mel (for no reason at all, as far as I know – I just find myself looking over at her). She's sitting with her legs crossed, sipping demurely from the bottle of vodka, and there's something about her dark almond eyes – something about the way she's looking at me – that makes me feel kind of stupidly shy. She's wearing a low-cut cropped black vest that says GLORIOUS (in gold lettering) on the front, a pair of very short and very tight blue denim shorts, and Rocket Dog shoes emblazoned with the words SEXY ARMY. She's got bangles on her wrists, rings on most of her fingers, dangly plastic earrings, and a fine gold necklace round her neck. Her hair is kind of crimsony-black, shiny and curly, bunched up at the top but with a few long strands hanging loose. She's got beautiful olive skin, and her teeth are quite small and very very white.
‘What?’ she says, raising her eyebrows at me. ‘What are you looking at?’
I shake my head and lower my eyes.
Taylor sniffs. ‘So what does your old man do then?’
I look at her.
‘Sorry?’
‘Your dad… what does he do? Where's he get all the mone
y to buy all this stuff for you?’
I glance at Mel. She's still just sitting there, smoking her cigarette, giving me that almond-eyed look. I turn back to Taylor. ‘My dad's not here any more,’ I tell her.
‘What d'you mean?’ she says. ‘Your parents split up?’
‘No… my dad just… he disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
‘Yeah…’
I really don't want to talk about this. It's my business, Mum's business… it's ours. It's nothing to do with anyone else. We don't even talk about it ourselves.
It's too difficult.
Too close, too complicated.
‘What do you mean, disappeared?’ Taylor says, leaning forward, all wide-eyed and interested. ‘He just left or something?’
‘Yeah,’ I sigh. ‘Kind of… I mean, he just… he just went out one night and never came back.’
‘When was this?’
‘Couple of years ago.’
‘And you've never heard from him since?’
‘No.’
‘No shit,’ she says, glancing at Mel. ‘What a fucker, eh?’
Mel nods, still looking at me. ‘What do you think happened to him, Dawn? Do you think he just did a runner or something? I mean, was he, you know… like, was he seeing someone else or something?’
I shrug. ‘I don't know…’
‘What did your mum do? When he left, I mean… did she look for him?’
‘Of course she did. She didn't know where he'd gone… she was worried to death. She looked everywhere, called everyone she knew… she even called the police eventually.’
‘Why?’ says Taylor.
I glare at her. ‘Why do you think? No one knew where he was. He could have had an accident or something, or someone might have…’
‘Might have what?’ Taylor says.
I shrug again. ‘I don't know… he might have got into trouble with someone.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
I'm getting really pissed off with this now. All these questions… I mean, why the hell are they asking me all these questions about my dad? What are they trying to do to me?
(i think you're crawling up my spine)
I look at Mel
(want you to stay)
and then at Taylor
(don't want you to stay)
and Taylor says, ‘Was he up to something?’
‘Up to something?’
‘Yeah,’ she grins, tapping the side of her nose. ‘You know… up to something.’
‘Like what?’
‘You tell me.’
I stare at her, suddenly sick to death of everything about her: her long face, her blondie-blonde hair, her stupid red lips, her flashy-lashed too-blue eyes. Her voice, too, is really getting on my nerves. She talks like a seabird with a really bad cough – ack ack yackack ack.
‘What's the matter?’ she says to me now (wacksamacka?). ‘You got a problem or something?’ (yackacka wacka asamack?)
‘Yeah,’ I say, still staring at her. ‘I've got a problem.’
‘Yeah?’
I'm probably about to say ‘Yeah,’ again, but before I get the chance, Mel gives Taylor a sharp little dig with her elbow and says, ‘Leave it out, Tay.’
‘I'm only –’ Taylor starts to explain.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Mel says, cutting her off. ‘You got a cigarette?’
Taylor looks annoyed for a moment, but then she just shrugs and lobs her packet of cigarettes to Mel. Mel catches the packet, takes one out and lights it.
‘I need a piss,’ Taylor says to me, getting to her feet. ‘Where's the toilet?’
‘Downstairs, end of the hallway, on your right.’
She goes out, adjusting her bra strap with her thumb as she goes, and a few seconds later Jesus and Mary hop off the bed and follow her down the stairs. I wonder for a moment if I ought to call out after her – ‘Don't worry about the dogs, Taylor, they're not following you, they just need to go out for a wee. You don't have to do anything, they'll let themselves out through the dog flap in the back door.’ But by the time I've thought about it, Taylor's already downstairs, and she probably doesn't give a shit about the dogs anyway…
So now I'm on my own with Mel
(i think you're crawling up my spine)
and for a moment or two there's a strangely awkward silence between us. It's the kind of silence you get when you're left alone with someone who makes you feel stupidly shy. We both just sit there (me at my desk, Mel on the bed) not really knowing what to do (although it's probably just me that doesn't know what to do). And the silence gets bigger and bigger…
Until, eventually, Mel takes a puff on her cigarette and says, ‘Don't worry about Taylor. She doesn't mean anything. She's just being…’
‘Being what?’
Mel smiles. ‘She's just being Taylor.’
I'm not really sure what that means, but I smile and nod as if I do.
Mel leans back and rubs the back of her neck. ‘So,’ she says, ‘this project you're doing, the thing with the Bibles… what's it about?’
Project? I think for a moment. What project? And then I realize what she means, and I quickly have to think of an answer. ‘Oh, right, the project. Yeah… well, it's nothing really, just something about God, you know… the Old Testament and all that. I haven't really started it yet.’
Mel nods. ‘What do you think about it? I mean, all that religious stuff… God and Jesus, priests and vicars and everything?’
I look at her, suddenly realizing that I'm sitting in my bedroom talking to Mel Monroe about God.
Q. How unlikely is that?
A. Very.
‘My brother…’ Mel says very quietly.
‘What?’
She shakes her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘I didn't think you had a brother.’
‘I don't.’
I look at her, not sure what's going on. She doesn't say anything for a while, she just sits there, staring blindly at the floor, as if she's totally alone… and then, all of a sudden, she kind of shivers, a momentary little shake of her body, and that seems to snap her out of it (whatever it is). She takes a long drag on her cigarette and lets the smoke out with a sigh.
‘Yeah, anyway,’ she says, her voice suddenly quite cold. ‘Do you want to turn that music off now? It's really starting to get on my tits.’
I shrug – ‘OK’ – and click on the STOP button.
The room goes quiet.
No music, no soundtrack.
I can hear the faint sound of the TV downstairs.
Voices.
A door opening, closing.
I glance at the clock. 23:42.
Taylor and Mel have been here for over an hour.
‘Is your mum all right?’ Mel asks me.
‘Yeah… why shouldn't she be all right?’
Mel shrugs. ‘I was only asking.’
‘Yeah, well…’
And that seems to be the end of our conversation for now. Mel just sits there with her legs crossed, smoking her cigarette, jiggling a foot up and down. And I just sit there in the unfamiliar silence, asking myself questions.
Why is Taylor taking so long?
What did Mel mean about her brother?
And how come she keeps flipping from Almost Quite Nice to Definitely Not Nice?
And what did Taylor mean about my dad? (What a fucker, eh? Was he up to something?)
(My name is Dawn.
I'm thirteen years old.
My name is Dawn.
I don't want to think about it.)
‘You all right?’
I open my eyes and look at Mel. ‘What?’
‘You went a bit funny there for a minute…’
‘Funny?’
‘I thought you'd fallen asleep.’
‘What's so funny about that?’
She frowns at me. ‘Nothing. I just meant…’
She stops talking as Taylor comes flouncing back into the room.
‘All
right?’ she says.
Mel nods at her.
Jesus and Mary waddle in and jump on the bed.
Taylor grins at me. ‘Does your mum always watch late-night horror films? I mean, she's sitting down there watching Creepshow 2, for Christ's sake.’
‘So?’ I say.
Taylor shrugs and looks over at Mel. ‘You ready?’
Mel nods again and starts getting to her feet.
Taylor turns back to me. ‘We'll see you later then, all right?’
‘Yeah,’ I say (although I'm not really sure what she means. Does she really mean they'll see me later? Or is she simply saying goodbye?)
As Mel gives the dogs a farewell scratch on the head, I get up from the desk and move over to the door. Taylor picks up the bottle of vodka and puts it back in the carrier bag – clink – and Mel looks around the room for a second or two, checking that she hasn't left anything behind. And then they both just waltz on out the door.
I follow them.
Down the stairs.
Along the hallway.
The door to the front room is closed, but Taylor still calls out, ‘See you later, Mrs B,’ as we go past it. Then we get to the front door, and I'm thinking I'd better be nice and polite and open the door for them, but Taylor's already turning the handle and opening it (as if she's opened it a million times before).
A mist of cold rain hazes across the doorway, silver and orange in the street-lit darkness, and from somewhere down the street I can hear the sound of a car starting up and driving away.
‘See you then,’ says Taylor, stepping out into the night.
Mel says nothing, just gives me a strange little smile.
And then they're both gone, clacking away down the rain-blown pavement, huddled up close to each other, their voices stealing away into the night.
(walk away
you empty head)
Mum's pretty zonked out when I go into the front room. Her eyes are half closed, her head slumped down on her chest, and the cigarette in her hand has burned down to the filter. As I take the tube of ash from her hand and drop it into an ashtray, she lifts her head, trying to focus her eyes, and she smiles unsteadily at me.
‘All right?’ I ask her, sitting down on the arm of the chair.