by Ben Brooks
‘Where did you go?’ she asks.
‘Nowhere. Me and Ping had that ketamine, then I felt tired and went to bed.’
Tenaya does a thing sometimes where she raises her eyebrows and flares her nostrils because she does not believe what I have told her. This is what she is doing now.
‘Okay, fine. That isn’t what happened. I was mashed on K and I had sex with Abby Hall, even though she is plump and even though she was on her period.’
I put my head in my hands while Tenaya erupts. Her eruption was predictable, that is why I have hidden my ears with my hands.
Two thick, hairy arms wrap around me from behind and a pair of warm lips kiss my neck. I hear Abby Hall say, ‘Morning, baby.’ Tenaya re-erupts. Jonah emerges from the house and also erupts. I try to convince my heart to stop.
5
When we have gotten everyone to leave, Tenaya tells me to go and sleep. I am too tired to argue. I turn Radio 4 on low and fall asleep to the sound of a man explaining about the speed of the Internet in rural Iraq.
Tenaya tidies while I am asleep so that when Mum and Keith get back they are pleasantly surprised.
Keith is sipping coffee in his dressing gown when I go downstairs in the evening. He is reading The Da Vinci Code. Keith is illiterate.
‘Hi,’ I say.
(Murderer)
‘Hello,’ Keith says.
(Murderer)
‘Did you have a good time in Cornwall?’
(Did you kill anyone in Cornwall?)
‘Yes, thanks, it was nice actually.’
(‘I killed and raped several innocent pensioners.’)
‘Good.’
(I am going to call the police on you and you will be locked away for life, which is fifteen years and actually only seven if you refrain from raping anyone in jail.)
‘And the party was dead good.’
(Too easy)
‘Yea?’
(Murderer)
‘Yea, I think your mum had a good time.’
(‘I slayed her with my skinsword, and then with a real sword, and then ate her in a lasagne.’)
‘Where is she?’
(What have you done with her?)
‘She’s upstairs in the bath.’
(A bath of her own blood)
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
My head is still somersaulting so I go back into my room and lie down. I turn on the laptop and use it to repeatedly check various social networking sites for signs that people have remembered I am still alive. Nobody has.
I think about working on my novel but instead I play naked computer solitaire for an hour then fall asleep.
I wake early, dress for school, and go downstairs for breakfast. Mum has made me a sugarless tea. She thanks me for having looked after the house and then leaves for work. Keith has already left. Before I embark on the six-minute walk to school, I go to the shed in order to retrieve my cigarettes, lighter and hopefully some marijuana debris. I find one of the Layton Hill kids laid in the corner beneath my old coat, having apparently only just regained consciousness and repeatedly mumbling that he is, ‘Hungry, so fucking hungry.’ Interestingly, the boy has had the crotch of both his jeans and boxer shorts cut out. I lead him up the garden, force a piece of bread into his hands and guide him out of the front door, ahead of me and in the opposite direction.
St Mary’s is a well-respected grammar school with several awards and enviable statuses to its name. Layton Hill is a comprehensive with a remarkably lax penal system and a bustling trade in illegal drugs. Mum said that she would sooner home-tutor me than send me there. I wouldn’t mind. Both schools look like plastic prisons and smell of Plasticine.
First period we have Religious Studies with Mrs Norton. She is a wrinkled woman who wears hemp clothes with wooden beads and is very scared for the future of our damned souls. She tells us this on a regular basis. Roughly once a week. Ping has dubbed her ‘Most Likely to Fuck a Student and Later Confess, Seeking a Lenient Sentence on the Grounds that It was “God-ordained Love”’.
Mrs Norton appears to have dispensed with greetings and is stood at the front of the class clutching one of the old projectors. She is gripping so hard that the skin on her hands has lost its blood and is beginning to look like a dead man’s testicles. Jonah has his hand raised and is being ignored.
‘HEATHENS,’ she shouts, ‘we are such lost lambs. We are so cold and alone here.’ Mrs Norton is mentally ill. This is a badly kept secret.
Ping and Jonah are already laughing.
‘Our skies are coal. Our feet are thorns. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found!’
Tenaya takes out the Ha Jin novel she is midway through.
I feel vaguely interested in where Mrs Norton is going with this today. She has been known to wind her lectures up in a great number of different ways.
‘Look at me, all of you. Look and believe. Call down the power of God and channel it into this projector.’
Oh.
‘You must all believe, you must hold fast your faith with all your might.’
Ping has turned around and is speaking to Sarah Fields.
Jonah is using his phone.
‘You need to believe, call God down now, to stand among us men.’
Mrs Norton’s first name is Acacia, which is a type of spiny bush.
‘Mark 9, 23: Everything is possible for him who believes.’
Seems unbelievable, right?
‘You must hold this projector in the air with your faith.’
I wince.
It actually happened.
When the projector falls, the arm shatters and the body crushes Mrs Norton’s foot. She begins to scream and shout, ‘A class of the damned!’
Me and Tenaya get up and leave.
We go out of the front of school to have cigarettes at the 61 bus stop.
Once, Mrs Norton threw all of our pencil cases out of the window, one by one, claiming that we might use the power of God to save them from a splintered fate. Ana’s nan lodged a formal complaint against her and the school sent Mr Golding to observe our lessons. This meant that, for a week, we had a series of real lessons that involved interpreting biblical passages and applying them to serious ethical issues of the day. When Mr Golding had left appeased, Mrs Norton had thrown Ana’s whole bag out of the window and Ana had changed Religious Studies for Sociology.
‘Why hasn’t she been fired?’ I ask Tenaya.
‘Because she can teach.’
‘But she doesn’t.’
‘But she can. Besides, everyone gets through the exam by learning the textbook.’
Ping wanders out of school holding his crushed pack of Marlboro Lights.
‘How did you enjoy that, loverboy?’ He says.
‘What happened?’
‘She broke her foot. Maybe both feet. Jonah is driving her to the hospital.’
‘What? Why is Jonah taking her?’
‘All of the teachers said they were busy. Anyway, seen Abby?’
‘No. Why?’
‘You seem to have set her on fire, you fucking chubby-chaser. She is telling everyone about what happened.’ He grins. ‘The Bloody Baron,’ he says. He wiggles his fingers like people do when they do ghost impressions even though ghosts don’t have fingers really.
I groan.
If Abby doesn’t leave me alone then I will have to form a plan to defend myself. Were she to come on the Psychology trip and the end-of-exams Devon trip, wrapping her moss-log arms around me and kissing my neck, then it will likely ruin them. She would ruin The Georgia Plan. Watching me be fondled by Abby Hall is not seductive.
At times the best form of defence is offence. I will have to bear that in mind.
; ‘It was a bit weird,’ Tenaya says.
I don’t answer.
Abby Hall comes out of the school gates. She runs up to me with her giantess legs quivering, steals my cigarette and throws it to the floor.
‘That’s a filthy habit, Jasper. If you want to keep me, you will have to give it up.’
Due to excessive cowardice, inherited from my father, I am extremely scared of directly inflicting emotional injury. For this reason, during the six minutes in which Abby Hall embraces me and puts her kisses in my cheeks, I say nothing. She squeezes my buttock with her hand and bites her lip. Tenaya and Ping are grinning at each other. The bell rings for second period and we all go back into school.
In Period 2, we have Psychology. This means that I learn nothing because I am sat behind Georgia Treely. I watch her hair reflect the cheap striplights. She raises her hand more often than other people. There are plastic beads around her wrists. The wrists are erogenous zones. Her wrists are especially erogenous zones. Georgia Treely is a devout Catholic, a stubborn vegetarian and a generous philanthropist. Tenaya says that for these reasons it is surprising that I find her attractive; however, these are not the things that I find attractive about her. The things I find attractive about her are: the arches of her cheekbones, her eyelashes, the slim ‘hourglass’ shape of her body, her ankles, her small feet, her breasts, her hair, her neck and her mouth. She is a collage of the best body parts in Vogue.
I am not shallow; healthy body, healthy mind.
When Psychology ends, I have learned two things: Georgia Treely has a new Winnie the Pooh fountain pen, and Georgia Treely has a new yellow plastic bracelet.
I leave after Psychology because it is only PE after lunch. Nobody is at home. I go up to my room to plot.
6
8:02 p.m. I am at Tenaya’s. Tenaya is in the shower. Tenaya’s mum is asleep next to me on the sofa with the soles of her bare feet pressed against my right thigh. Her legs are freckled with the beginnings of black hairs. She looks like a large, tired child.
The first Harry Potter film is playing on the television. A flock of bright boats are shifting over black water. I have seen this film more times than I have had sex. That is a statistic I need to reverse. I will begin by not watching it again.
I make sure not to nudge Tenaya’s mum as I stand up. She probably wouldn’t notice anyway. She probably wouldn’t wake up even if I pulled her hair and licked her ears. Alcohol is unhealthy because when you get drunk and fall asleep, you don’t remember what you did in your dreams.
Sometimes I feel very guilty about the things I have done in my dreams. I have hurt people the most during sleep, and it doesn’t matter if they know or not.
Tenaya is sat on the bed in her room on the third storey when I go up. She has a towel pulled around her, pushing her breasts against her chest. They spill out over the top like the foreheads of curious children. Her wet hair hugs the shape of her head. She shouts my name and tells me to get out.
Too slow.
On the other side of the door I sink onto the carpet. I look at the lines on my hands. Something just happened very quickly. I do not know what to do. She was too slow and I saw. There are columns of long nicks across her upper arms. What does that mean? I have heard about people who cut themselves, on the radio. It did not make sense to me.
I knock on her bedroom door. She doesn’t say anything. I knock again.
‘Tenaya,’ I say.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I come in now?’
‘Fine.’
She’s changed into a dress and a cardigan when I go in. I sit on the edge of her bed. Self-harm is a phase that many adolescents pass through, the radio said. It is often a cry for help.
‘Do you want help?’ I say.
‘With what?’
The radio didn’t say. ‘With your arms.’
‘Do I want help with my arms?’
‘Well, I don’t know.’
‘Can we just not?’
‘Okay.’
I get up and turn the television on. It is on the same channel as the one downstairs. Harry Potter. Tenaya attacks herself. The Great Hall is filled with beaming children taking bites out of large steaks. We arrange ourselves. I prop myself up against pillows and Tenaya lies flat on her front, calves in the air. It is sometimes best to hide in places you have never been.
When I wake up it is 11:14 p.m. I shake Tenaya until her eyes open. She hits herself in her eye, trying to get moon dust out. Then she pulls her skirt down and sits up.
‘I’m hungry,’ I say.
‘Yea.’
‘I’m making tea.’
‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
I walk the four flights of stairs down to the kitchen in the basement. It is a calm, dark bunker. A single naked light bulb throws a dim yellow against the walls. It is an energy-saving light bulb. Tenaya’s parents think it is a planet-saving light bulb. I think it is too late to save the planet.
The kettle boils loudly because it is angry at being woken up. I give Tenaya the Harry Potter cup and take a wonky brown one her Mum made at a pottery workshop for me, then I roll two cigarettes and arrange everything on the table. I am being considerate. I will make Tenaya feel safe and comfortable so that I can find out why she is making cries for help.
She comes down the stairs, does a small smile, and takes a seat opposite me. She takes a sip of her tea to see how hot it is. I put my finger in mine.
‘Can we talk about your arms now?’ I say.
Tenaya lights one of the cigarettes. She rests her head in her hand. ‘No.’
‘Why are there cuts on your arms?’
‘Jasper.’
‘I heard about self-harming on the radio. They said it was a common way of asking for help.’ I try my best to make a smile. ‘Can I help?’
‘I didn’t do it for a reason.’
‘Then why?’
‘I don’t know.’
I light my cigarette and sip the tea. Tenaya’s hands look smaller than I have ever seen them and they are shaking. The bones in them stand out like cocktail sticks under her skin.
‘Is it Tom still?’
‘Not everything has a reason, Jasper.’
‘Is Tom the reason?’
‘Maybe.’
I look hard into her eyes, like policeman do on the television when they know a witness is hiding something.
‘Are you okay?’
She doesn’t say anything. She looks down into her mug. I try to imagine what a man in a film would do. A man in a film would lean forward and tilt her head upward and see something in her eyes that explains everything. I think if I do that, Tenaya will hit me.
She crushes out her cigarette and looks up.
‘It happens sometimes,’ she says. ‘I don’t know why. Sometimes I just feel not well. I don’t know. It isn’t because of Tom. It isn’t because of anything. That’s the point, I think. Maybe it is Tom. I don’t know, Jasper. Sorry.’
‘Oh.’ I don’t know what to say. I am being confronted with real human emotions. I should do something. I want to do something. ‘Does anything help?’ I say.
‘People,’ she says. ‘When there are people here.’
‘Okay. Then text me when you feel like that, please.’
‘Thanks, Jasper.’
‘We just had a serious talk.’
Tenaya laughs. She downs the last of her tea and stands up.
‘Are you hungry still?’
‘A bit.’
‘Beans on toast?’
‘Thanks.’
I roll more cigarettes while she makes toast and microwaves beans. Her shadow flashes across the kitchen tiles. She will be a good wife. A good wife and a good mother and a good adult. She will g
et better. I will try to surround her at all times until she does.
We eat quietly with Radio 4 on. Once I have finished, I decide to find out if I will become a father.
‘Tenaya,’ I say, ‘out of interest, can girls get pregnant on their periods?’
She tries not to laugh. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Well, it is basically impossible.’
I AM NOT GOING TO BE A FATHER. I HAVE WON THE LOTTERY.
‘Why?’ she says.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Abby?’
‘Yes.’
Tenaya bites her lip. ‘You weren’t told?’
‘Told what?’
‘Abby wasn’t on her period. It was her first time.’
‘What?’
‘Her hymen, Jasper. You smashed her flower.’
Oh, fucking hell. I am still going to maybe be a father.
No.
No, I absolutely am not.
It would not be allowed to happen.
However, I do now have an idea for removing Abby Hall from Devon and ensuring the success of The Georgia Plan.
‘Is there any wine?’
Fucking flower-smasher.
‘In the fridge.’
‘Can we go upstairs now?’
‘Okay.’
Back upstairs Tenaya falls asleep midway through an episode of Gilmore Girls. I try to decide: Loralai or Rory. I can’t. I turn on Tenaya’s laptop and play minesweeper and I get a new best time for intermediate but that doesn’t mean anything because Tenaya is shit at minesweeper.
7
It is Tuesday afternoon. We have finished school and me and Tenaya are sat in Lily’s with a pot of tea between us. She is wearing long sleeves. She tried to go straight home after school and I told her she couldn’t.
I show her my plan for keeping Abby Hall away from the upcoming events. It is in letter form.
Dear Abby Hall,
We are writing to inform you that despite heavy illegal drug use during early pregnancy, your prenatal test has shown up no signs of defective genes or chromosomal abnormalities in your foetus.
It may also interest you to know that the relative elasticity of your labia, as caused by frequent intercourse, will mean that labour itself will prove relatively painless.