by Olivia Levez
‘And cerulean as a swimming pool,’ I say, leaning back against the rock. If I wriggle, just so, it fits, like I’m part of it.
‘Cerulean as a sandwich?’
‘Well, maybe a mouldy sandwich. Maybe one of Cassie’s sandwiches…’
‘Why do you call your mother Cassie?’
‘Cassie is a hopeless old prossie. I had to look after her, be her carer. Look after my little brother too.’ I let out my breath; check to see if he’s shocked.
The line twitches.
‘So she’s lucky to have you,’ Rufus says matter-of-factly.
Really? But I’m a bitch. I’m cruel. I cut her a thousand times a day.
I turn my face away. Try not to think of great, fat, useless Cassie, with her arms soft as heaven.
‘I never really had a mother,’ says Rufus.
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘I mean, she’s not dead or anything. She left when I was a baby. Went to live in New York. I never see her.’
There’s no fish on the line. Not yet.
‘So what about your dad?’ Rufus asks.
I shiver. ‘Big Wayne’s my mum’s boyfriend. He’s the one who made Cassie the way she is.’
Rufus watches me closely. ‘He never – tried anything with you?’
I think of his smiling mouth. His hands holding my wrists.
‘It was after they took Johnny away,’ I say. ‘It meant I didn’t share my room with my brother any more. It meant that Wayne started to get ideas…’
I leave my sentence trailing.
‘So what did you say to him?’ Rufus cuts into my memory.
I laugh bitterly. ‘I told him he was a fat, ugly, creepy wanker.’
‘Did you really?’
‘No.’ I stare into the water. ‘I said nothing.’
Dirty Sheets
It’s been a week since I visited Johnny, and I can’t stop hearing his voice –
‘Did you do it, Frannie?’
‘Are you a monster?’
I sit on the floor, back against the cold radiator. I clutch my scalding coffee and sip its bitterness and close my eyes. I can still smell him here.
Johnny smells of:
Warm skin
Scraped knees
Dirty feet
Damp hair
Chocolatey fingers
Turned pages.
I missed a few of Johnny’s things when packing. There’s his collection of Olympic Games fifty-pence coins in a Cadbury’s Creme Egg mug, one of those cheap ones you get with an Easter egg. The planet mobile he made still hangs from the ceiling with Sellotape. It spins slowly now and then in the air currents.
There’s something poking beneath his bed.
I slide it out and it’s a picture book: The Gruffalo.
The others are gone of course –
See them shrivel. Watch them die.
Rip them up, rip them up, rip them up.
Johnny had lots of favourites: The Runaway Train and The Gruffalo and Beegu.
Beegu is about a little yellow alien that gets stranded all alone on Earth and everyone’s mean to him because he’s yellow and different and then he makes friends with some children but at the end his mum and dad find him and whisk him back up into their spaceship.
It’s a nice story but the pictures kill me a bit and I never really liked reading that one.
Johnny liked it though.
‘Again, again.’
‘Only one more time, Monkey.’
We both knew all the words to The Gruffalo.
My coffee’s lovely and muddy. I swirl the grindings around my tongue and hug my mug as I read. As always, the story and its rhythm calm me.
I turn the page. The book’s nicked from Brixton Library. It’s dated five years ago; we just never took it back.
I smile as I read the words aloud, and in my head my brother’s voice mixes in with mine.
‘Who the hell are you talking to?’
I jump and spill my coffee.
Wayne’s blocking the doorway, his tiny eyes raking the room.
‘What’s it to you?’ I say.
We stare at each other.
I stand up.
Wayne lights a fag and blows smoke.
‘ ’Course, it’s better on all of us now Johnny’s gone,’ he says, eyes never leaving my face.
My nails dig into my palms.
‘Messed-up kid, always wetting the bed. Always stealing food. “Send him to his dad,” I’d say, but your mother wouldn’t have it. Too soft, she is. Always has been.’
‘Joel got married. Went to live in Australia,’ I remind him.
‘Should’ve taken his kid with him then, shouldn’t he?’ Wayne shakes his head, then walks over to the bed.
‘Look at this. Dirty sheets. Stains all over the mattress.’
He’s lifting the bedding, scenting the air, his fag wedged in the corner of his mouth.
‘Get off his stuff,’ I say.
Wayne raises his eyes.
‘We all know it’s difficult, love. But he’s better off where he is. And you can get a proper night’s sleep, not always waking to clean up after him.’ He sighs out fag smoke. ‘It’s not right, love.’
I clench my fists.
Wayne makes a sad face. ‘I know you meant well, with all you did for him. But did you ever think you might be making him worse with all that mollycoddling? Kids need to learn to grow up, sweetheart.’
He nods over to where I’m standing. ‘All them stories, all them books. You gotta admit it’s easier without him. You can be a proper teenager now. Got your room to yourself, like a big girl.’
He lets go of Johnny’s bedding, wrinkling his nose.
‘We could turn this into a proper room for you now. Get new stuff. Somewhere to put your clothes. A nice little dressing table for you to put your make-up on.’
He’s moving around Johnny’s room, touching Johnny’s things: his coin mug, the mobile, The Gruffalo. Wayne smiles and smiles.
Then he comes closer.
He strokes my hair, turns me to face the mirror. ‘You oughta smile more. You’d be quite pretty if you smiled more.’
He’s pressed close behind me, so his fat belly’s squashed against my back.
‘There’s ways you could start earning your keep,’ he says, ‘now that your brother’s gone. Now he’s not always in the bed with you.’
Wayne’s smile broadens.
‘You’re a big girl now. I know people who’d like that.’
His hand’s crawling over my leg now, like a giant crab or something.
‘What d’you think, darlin’? You never know, you might enjoy it.’
Climbing fingers, breath quick and fast.
Snap.
What Then?
‘So what did you do?’ asks Rufus.
He and Dog are watching me seriously. Dog gives me a little lick on my hand.
‘Not enough,’ I say bitterly.
Revving Up
Wayne is staggering about, clutching his face.
‘You little cow. You’re unhinged, you are. Look what you’ve done – you’ve burnt me.’
There’s coffee and granules down his face, his best shirt.
He’s stumbling towards me now; he’s going to get me for that.
I run, ignoring Cassie’s bleats from the sofa, clambering over the boxes of crap in the hall.
Fumble with the door chain, pelt down the steps.
There’s a lady struggling with her Sainsbury’s bags.
Kids outside are revving their cars.
I want to run far, far away, but there’s nowhere to go.
In the end, I just sit watching the ducks in Brockwell Park. I smoke one fag after the other till I feel sick.
Wayne won’t come to find me; he’s too lazy for that. He’ll be spinning lies to Cassie, about how uncontrollable I’m getting.
Or maybe he’ll be laying into her, taking his temper out.
I stub out my fag and watch
a duck cleaning itself. There are terrapins by the edge of the lake; they’re soaking up the sun, big as dinner plates.
So what if Cassie needs me? Sad, old, fat, loser, waste-of-space Cassie doesn’t even try to hold on. Loses her son without getting up off the settee. There’s nothing there any more, nothing left for me to hate. That’s why I turned my hate to Miss instead. The one who started it all by telling tales.
Ten days till the court hearing, and then maybe they’ll put me away in some institution for kids who’ve gone off the rails. Sometimes I think this would be for the best.
There’s no way I’m going back to my room. Not when there’s no lock on my door. I decide to sleep up on the roof tonight.
Angry Yowl
‘So tell him now,’ Rufus suggests.
‘You what?’
‘Tell him now – what you just said to me. Do an angry yowl.’
‘What the frick’s an angry yowl?’
‘You know, like on Dead Poets Society. The teacher, played by Robin Williams, makes his student do one. You just roar out all your rage, get back to your primal self.’
‘Like Medusa on the rocks?’ I say. ‘After she was betrayed by everyone?’
Rufus shakes his head. ‘You’re not quite right there,’ he says. ‘In Classics we learnt that she…’
I glare at him. ‘I’m right,’ I say. ‘I know I’m right.’
I know about Medusa.
I know all about monsters, don’t I?
Rufus shrugs. ‘If you say so,’ he says. ‘Anyway, give it your best gorgon yowl.’
So I do.
I put down my fishing line, prop it carefully on the rocks; stand and face the sea. I lift up my face and shout, making the pelicans lift and the seagulls scream.
Below us on the sand, Dog barks and barks.
Scribbles in the Sand
Rufus stares.
‘Um, Fran. I think you might have frightened the fish away.’
‘There’s quite a lot more where that came from,’ I pant.
‘Well, maybe when I’m doing my yoga, you can do your yowling,’ Rufus suggests.
Dog is delighted that I’ve stopped; he drops a pebble on the sand and rolls and rolls on it, wriggling and scratching with a demented look on his face.
‘So are you still afraid of Wayne?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s just a sad old loser with his sad old songs.’
‘Definitely a wanker,’ Rufus agrees.
I sit back down; pick up my line.
‘What are you going to do, if you ever get off here?’ asks Rufus.
I consider. ‘Well, I’m going to get me and Johnny a little house by the sea and it’s going to be whitewashed, very simple, and there’ll be shells leading up to the front door, and a tiny little front garden, just enough to sit in, and…’
I blush.
Rufus doesn’t laugh.
‘Me, I think I’ll buy the house next to yours. And paint. I’ve always wanted to paint. You could do your writing and I can do my painting.’
‘And Dog?’
‘Virgil will be inside both our houses, hogging the beds and the sofas. What about Cassie?’
‘Maybe Cassie could come and sit on a chair in the sunshine with her tinny in her hand. She always did like the sea.’ I frown. ‘I’ll have to get her into Turkish coffee though. A can of Kestrel doesn’t really fit with the scene…What?’ I demand. ‘What’s so funny?’
The float dips.
‘Got a catch?’
I wind my line a little around its jam jar. ‘Nah, frickin fish has taken the bait again.’
‘Frickin fish,’ Rufus agrees.
I wind it all the way in and catch the hook. It’s a good one; made with a ring pull from a cast-up Cola can. I’ve broken it and bashed it into a mean, sharp point.
I smash another limpet with a stone and jab its flesh on to the fish hook. Limpets here are bright yellow, like pollen.
We’re fishing for snapper.
When we catch them, they shimmer in the plastic peanut-butter tub like they’re mother-of-pearl or something. Rose and coral coloured and tastes like heaven.
Except we’ve only caught two.
The shallows burn blue-white below us. Above us only sky.
When we’re thirsty, Rufus opens us both our 3,799th peepa (or something).
Then:
‘Fancy doing some sand-doodling?’
I leave off prodding the fish and look up, squinting. My Ray-Bans got lost long ago. Rufus says I have white lines around my eyes from screwing them up so much against the sun:
‘You’ll get crow’s feet like knife-cuts,’ he warns.
‘Sand-doodling?’ I say. I’m feeling drowsy and peaceful, resting here against this warm rock which moulds just so around my back. The sea has stars in it; it winks at me with infinite eyes.
Rufus is in one of his energetic moods. I wedge my line in the rock and trail after him to his favourite part of the beach.
He’s sort of dancing, is Rufus; swaying and curving in slow motion, he’s drawing crazy patterns with a stick in the sand.
The tide is lowlowlow and has left us an empty page.
Laughing, I pick up a stick and join him.
It’s the best thing ever; we twist and spiral and loop the loop till the beach is covered in one giant doodle.
‘Let’s fill it in,’ I suggest.
This time I choose a broken shell ’cause it has lovely jags and thicknesses, which make interesting lines like calligraphy. I spend hours hopping from shape to shape, filling them in with wiggles and whirls and coils.
Time passes; the tide turns.
Rufus takes my hands and swings me round and round on our beautiful patterned floor. The sunlight is spinning and our smiles are flying and just at this minute, this moment, this exact moment, nownownow –
I. Feel. So. Happy.
But the tide is coming in.
It sucks at the sand, at our beautiful scribblings.
‘Fran?’
I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.
‘Silly old Cow-bag.’ Rufus puts his arms around me.
‘It’s all going to go – it’ll all be washed away,’ I mumble. Inside his arms, I feel safe as a crab in its shell.
‘But that’s all right, Fran. That’s the way it should be.’
I pull away. ‘It’s not all right. It’s never all right to have something you love rubbed away.’
We watch the sea as it licks and nibbles at our drawings.
Rufus starts to cut up the fish on a flat stone.
‘So what did your brother look like when you last saw him?’
I consider. Think of his bright eyes, his sweaty hair. ‘Happy,’ I say.
‘Ah.’ He busies himself with the snapper and I wish he’d skewer himself with the frickin stick.
I wish he’d stop sounding like Sally-the-counsellor.
I wish he’d tell me more.
He hands me a piece of snapper, fresh and raw like sushi.
The fish tastes good today.
We sit for a long time on the edge of the shore, and watch the tide lapping slowly inward, closer and closer, licking the tip of the picture delicately, till it kisses the top of our drawing, then trickles into each line, each curve.
And now a third of it is gone. And then a half.
And then.
And then.
I suppose Rufus’s right; it is kind of beautiful.
Beautiful as an ache.
Almost There
Only one more barrel to find.
Just the second frame to finish now.
Smiling, I take what’s left of the TeamSkill polo shirt and rip it into two halves.
We never wear clothes now, not really. Our skin’s kind of used to the sun; my legs and arms are brown and hairy as coconuts. Poor Rufus will never be sun-friendly; he’s just one big freckle nowadays, but he covers his blistered shoulders as best as he can with his feathered headdress.
So we
can spare half of this polo shirt.
Carefully, I fold up the second half and tuck it in with my knife at my hip. We’ll need it for washing, bandaging, as a sun hat, dishcloth and a tool-bag.
It’s just the piece in my hand that I need now.
I take a piece of charcoal that I’ve saved from the fire and draw a large face: coiling snakes for hair, and a fanged mouth. Then I nick my thumb with my knife and splash in two blood-spots for eyes. Suck my wound quickly to keep it clean.
I tie my work of art to a thin sapling stem and stick it in the sand.
There.
A flag for our raft.
The raft of Medusa.
Long may she sail.
Lists
‘OK,’ Rufus says. ‘If you could eat anything right now, what would it be? Make a list.’
He’s always doing this: thinking of games to distract us from hunger or boredom. In a way he’s like Miss but somehow less annoying.
Mine goes like this:
• Fish and chips
• Quarter-pounder, no cheese
• Snickers
• KFC bucket
• Triple vodka and Coke
• Turkish coffee
• Haribos
‘And yours?’ I ask him.
Rufus’s list:
• Couscous (I have to ask him to explain and spell this)
• Moules frites (and this)
• Guacamole (and this)
• Bouillabaisse
‘Oh for frick’s sake,’ I say.
Stick Insect Banana Surprise
Ingredients:
• 3 green bananas
• 1 wild onion
• 2 giant stick insects
• A handful of snails
• A brownish piece-of-root-that-could-be-ginger
• 1 wild plum
Method:
1. Chop onion finely and add to coffee can, together with the piece-of-root-that-could-be-ginger.
2. Dry-fry to release the flavours then add a little seawater to stop it sticking. Add the chopped plum.
3. Ignore any growling noises in your belly.
4. When softened, throw in the stick insects and snails.
5. Try not to think of big blue fish, fat as cushions.
6. Debate it for a moment, then add chopped bananas. Yes, they’re hard, but the cooking will soften them.