Graffiti My Soul

by Niven Govinden

  The moment is so quick as to be unbelievable. It’s only when I see her pace quicken as she reaches the mall doors, a slight skip breaking into a run. Some silly old church-goer dithering with her M&S bags gets in her way and is almost pushed aside. I realise that I didn’t imagine it. This is the silent treatment. She acts like she knows.

  All the way home, I’m still shivering from that brief moment of contact. Temperature dropping, like my circulation’s gone haywire. It’s a feeling similar to when Moon used to touch me. Especially on those nights after she disappeared from her boyfriend, when our meetings had to be brief. Those hour-long meetings, sometimes shorter than that, were all about news, and food, and touch. Not sex, nothing like that, more a sense of confirmation. We couldn’t keep our hands or lips off each other. A touch that jump-starts my circuits. A touch that makes me feel. Don’t ask me to explain how a static touch from Gwyn gives me exactly the same feelings. It just does.

  18

  Pearson’s face is a picture. Skin the colour of a tomato that’s been kicked down several flights of stairs. Nose flat like a pancake because I’ve almost broken it. Looks like he’s been slapped in the face with a giant fly swatter, or as if he’s the last one squeezed into the tube carriage as the doors slide shut. It’s a result.

  In my mind, his looks have been permanently busted. The prettyboy thing he does with those caterpillar eyebrows that gets the girls all wobbly, even the sensible ones, is gone for good. Except, the ladies don’t seem to see it that way. Think his squished-out nose makes him look sexier, more of a bruiser. I couldn’t do anything about messing up the puppy-dog eyes, that was my mistake. Injured boat with eyes like that is always going to win the girls round. Combined with the thick lips, it’s an unbeatable killer combo. Enough to make you sick.

  And boy, does he milk it. For the next few days, once the suspension nonsense is over with, he’s with a different girl at every break, giving them the inside story on his physical discomfort. Working the lie that he’s holding back tears, the fucker.

  Get a girl on her own, buy her a pizza slice and a drink, get some sob story going, and it’s pretty much in the bag. If me and Jase didn’t have a reputation for being so difficult, we’d probably be acting exactly the same. There are at least three girls that we’ve heard of in the last week that hung out with him in the sports hall changing rooms after school. And ‘hanging out’ figures are like icebergs – we all reckon the real figure is much higher. Way higher.

  Pearson’s good fortune nags at me until it becomes torture, and for two reasons. The fact that he’s getting more than he deserves, and the fact that it’s all down to me. I meant to disfigure the bastard, and now it looks like I’ve done him a favour. And while I’m sat home stewing after school, he’s seeing all the tit he can down the sports hall, and all because I gave him a pasting. It sucks.

  19

  ‘I’m being sued. That’s why I’m late.’

  It’s raining, really belting, so I’m forced to take up Casey’s offer of a lift home from training. Mum is on early shift, so won’t see when he drops me door to door.

  ‘Who would want to sue you? Some geezer offended by your new choice of trackie?’

  The Clio smells of kebabs and booze. I inhale like it’s an essential oil or something, unless I want to open the window and get completely soaked.

  We’re not even driving anywhere, it’s raining so hard. Sat in the car park, until Casey gets better road vision – he only has one wiper that works. It’s a traditional English still life that some old artist or other forgot to paint: ex-pervert and future athletics star getting cosy in Clio at dawn. They should put it on plates.

  Casey is on overdrive with his clearing-the-throat action. If you closed your eyes you’d think he was starting a tractor. Several football pitch areas of forest are cleared before he can get the words out.

  ‘My favourite family from last year. Claiming emotional damage.’

  His tone is all over the shop. Was trying to be flippant, but his voice goes too high. Makes him sound like he’s going to start crying or something.

  I can’t deal with this: men showing emotion in public so early in the morning, and then the smell. It’s enough to make me leg it. Better a chest cold than all this blubbing and rank stinkiness.

  But I don’t go anywhere. We’ve never spoken about that family before. Never. Unspoken rule number 4578. Drafted via psychic powers during our first meeting at the now-legendary out-of-the-way Starbucks. People will pay pilgrimage to that fucking Starbucks in Walton after I’ve become famous and told Trevor McDonald the secrets of my life.

  ‘I don’t understand the greed of the these people. I’m an innocent man, but they are not happy until they have stripped every single thing from me.’

  ‘Tell them to fuck off. You’re the one who had his house burned down and everything.’

  Casey laughs the dry, brittle laugh which adults are so good at when they are trying to show you the weight of experience they carry on their broken shoulders.

  ‘You’ve got a lot to learn, Mr V-pen. Damaged kids, whether the cause is real or imaginary, is the Holy Grail when it comes to compensation claims. Me and my shabby lot don’t even come close.’

  ‘Ask me and I’ll do it. Just say the word. Me and Jase can go round and rough the kid up a little. Persuade him to change his mind.’

  ‘It’s not about him, young Turk. It’s about the parents. That kid’s no better off than I am. We’re both cash cows as far as they’re concerned.’

  At race meets, I do remember the kid’s mother being a little on the showy side. She was always wearing hats.

  ‘I’m sure they’ve got the best intentions,’ I say stupidly, only because I can’t think of anything better to say.

  Better this, than lamely trying to convince him that everything will be all right if he leaves it to the proper channels, because we all know that it won’t. Once your card has been marked as a PPP, there’s no going back. It’s over. You may as well kill yourself.

  Casey doesn’t answer. Just opens the door and runs out. Crumbles under the pressure of trying to be brave. Shoulders heave a great deal, up and down until they’re like jelly. I turn on the radio and pretend that I don’t see it.

  20

  Moon and Gwyn are the girls that we are all looking for. Even saying their name together over and over makes them sound like thirteenth-century princesses.

  Moonandgywnmoonandgwynmoonandgywn.

  Magical. If there was any justice or romance left in this world, they should be riding white horses and wearing wimpoles. We’re doing medieval at the moment. Like most of the girls around them, even the ones they’re not friendly with, or hate even, these are sisters who know their own minds. No insecurity here – or none they’ll show to boys, anyway. Also, they are straight-edged all the way – which, for anyone over thirty, means that they’re alcohol-, nicotine-and narcotic-free zones. Moon keeps a bit of gear under her bed, but like me never touches the stuff. Uses it for – how does she put it? – ‘man magnetism hahaha’. The irony being that those girls don’t need a cheeba wand to get any boy hooked. They are beguiling enough. Look at me and Jase. Caught.

  21

  Pearson’s success with the ladies post-fight makes me feel a whole load of things, like a sick stew. I don’t like to feel uncertain about anything. On the way home from school I shag Kelly Button under the ropey. It’s too muddy for us to do it properly. We wriggle in the mud like a couple of rugby players. It’s Kelly’s fault for being up for anything. Our route home through the park takes in a clutch of bushes, where we try again, this time with her mouth. Just to make sure.

  22

  Moon decides to reappear for the next Challenge session. Nothing to do with having the afternoon off school or anything. As the team’s official bag carrier/supporter, she’s allowed. Everyone else has to pull a sickie or grovel.

  This is a week since the so-called exclusion. I’m pissed at her and she knows it. She sits n
ext to me on the minibus all the same, but we say nothing until we’re almost past Chessington, en route to Godalming.

  ‘I know you’ve been coming round every day after school,’ she goes. ‘I could hear you from my room. It’s been a bitch. But when my parents say grounded, they mean it.’

  ‘Moon, it ain’t that hard. Haven’t you heard of MSN, slipping a note through the door late night, coming down to training with the dog?’

  I knew not to txt after being gloated at by Gwyn outside the newsagent’s, whilst Jason was arguing with the woman inside over why a packet of Benson Silver should pass across the counter.

  ‘They’ve taken her phone off her, troublemaking boy, so don’t waste your precious 5ps with your texts.’

  Gwyn was known as the only girl in the upper school who didn’t own a mobile as a point of principle. She thought it made her cool.

  ‘There was life before mobile phones,’ she’d more than once said. ‘They’re worse than TVs for vegetising the brain.’

  The three of us thought she was sad.

  ‘It’s lucky she doesn’t have a phone,’ goes Jason, when he finally comes out of the newsagent, fagless, ‘’cos she doesn’t have any friends to call on it. Just a smokescreen, innit?’

  Moon doesn’t mention the txt thing either. Too embarrassed probably, but still manages to look affronted the way that only girls can do when they’re in the wrong.

  ‘I was grounded. That means being a good girl and listening to her mummy and daddy.’

  ‘Like you didn’t manage to sneak off all those times before? You’ll need a better excuse than that.’

  Aside from this, I cannot get any more from her on how she’s spent the last seven days.

  She uses the journey to focus solely on the team. Like me, she takes her position seriously. Getting Mr Morgan to crank up the stereo whenever a good tune comes on, doing her impression of every saddo boy band all rolled into one after a horrific car accident; it’s all geared to make the four of us in the bus laugh our arses off. Even Peter Kei, aka Chinese Peter (like Gwyn, a reluctant teenager, who is so serious that he never laughs at anything), broke a smile at Moon’s seated moonwalk for paraplegics.

  I love it that she can make a dry old nerdy bus wet their pants. Love that she tells the jokes that I’ve already heard in private. The ones we made up lying on our backs watching MTV Base, and pissing about in my room, waiting for Mum to come home with the dinner. When Moon is on form, when she’s got the charm offensive in her head, she can light up anywhere. And I love it, that everyone loves her silliness the way I do. It’s a proud moment.

  By rights Mr Morgan should be slapping her down for most of the things coming out of her mouth. She’s distracting his driving for a start, but he’s in a good mood today; for the same reason, we’re all feeling great, out of the school for the afternoon, and he laughs just as hard as the rest of us.

  I take a swig from the Evian bottle the moment after she does. It’s the most intimate erotic thing you can do whilst you’re sat beside of a group of nerds. Normally, this is the kind of stuff she notices. Today she doesn’t.

  Moon hugs me at Godalming’s gates. Another love-you-mate, love-you-darlin’ hug. Throws the body in, tight squeeze, small pat on the back, very egalitarian. The whole team gets them. I wait in line for my hug – I’m at the end of the queue – and console myself that this is the best I’m going to get. For the last half hour of the drive, after the toilet stop, she moved to the front next to Morgan, giving him the one to one, ignoring everyone else. Txts on her phone like a maniac. We’re all over the place with each other today, not acting right. It’s only the small peck on the cheek that indicates any recall of past conquests. Feels nostalgic. I want to tell her that she’s special, but Morgan’s nagging us to hurry up so I don’t get the chance.

  Godalming’s team are killer. They should be, considering the school. The three on the team, two boys and a girl, are friendly enough. Surprisingly non-nerdish. The first to come over and shake hands, confident and chummy, showing us up somewhat as we were good and ready for our usual tactic – to avoid all prior contact by throwing evils and bitching in a corner.

  We’re all presentable enough, but they’re more evolved, closer to mini-adults with the odd patter of teen talk thrown in. There are the smallest of looks on their part, reassuring, expected, when they see our uniforms, a defiant paean to man-made fibres, all shiny and static. They, smug in their grey wool blazers that seem to fit just so, as opposed to ours, which just ‘fit’, are the perfect hosts.

  I’ve got all my rings on for this very reason, big chunky bastards. Put them on in the bus when Mr Morgan was concentrating rather too much on Moon’s homage to all things rock. He has yet to notice that I’m wearing nearly all of them. When he retires to the back of the hall, I’ll slip on the daddy, the knuckleduster, which Jason attempted to buy from a Goth shop in Guildford, and when that didn’t work, stole. I don’t know much about woollen jackets, but who needs wool when this little beauty gives you the edge?

  Usually before a match the teams will crack open a Diet Coke and chat about skate parks, whilst the teachers talk about the drive and make some vague allusion to the tension of the forthcoming head to head. The world-famous knife-edge. There is plenty of this here at Godalming. We each sit in our corners in the teachers’ lounge and talk rubbish. Means that boys bands and film crap are mentioned from our camp more than once. They’re happy to sit there and let us do the talking, more interested in their own reflections. We can talk about East Coast/West Coast and the traffic until we’re blue in the face. Doesn’t mean shit. The general expectation by all in the room is that they will win.

  But here’s the thing; we manage to hold our own until the final round, brilliance that surprises everyone. The reflexes of my eggheads, Peter and Charlotte, are ridiculously slow. Neither of them do any sports so I shouldn’t be expecting miracles. Get them in front of a Playstation or a textbook and they’re fine. Give them a buzzer, a light, and a room full of judgmental girls, and they’ve got problems. The guys on the other team are protean all-rounders and don’t seem to have this problem. They look like they wouldn’t be rubbish at anything – except perhaps rapping. Normally we can polish off the quick-fire, but today it virtually finishes us off.

  Up until this point tension has steadily mounted, apart from Moon, who’s too relaxed. There hasn’t been a dry seat in the house. I look up from the quizmaster occasionally and see teachers from both sides cacking it. Now that we’re starting to lag behind, however, everyone relaxes.

  I press the buzzer on every question, regardless of whether I can take a punt or not. You have to be in it to win it.

  ‘In politics: which act passed in 1984 made it illegal for companies to subjectively discriminate against employees purely on colour, creed, or sexual orientation?’

  I buzz.

  ‘The Equal Opportunities Act?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘In history: which monarch’s accession ended the wars of the Roses?’

  I buzz.

  ‘Edward II?’

  ‘Incorrect. Godalming?’

  ‘Henry VII.’

  ‘Correct.’

  The Godalming squad gleam modestly at my fuck-up.

  Chinese Peter wakes up and gets in on the act, now beating me with the fastest finger. I catch his glance, realising that he’s fuming over that crowing look from across the competing table. Gives me and Charlotte the nod that we’re going to have it.

  He aces some background on the Geneva Convention, and correctly names the infamous early Picasso painting that got everyone in Paris wetting their pants. Godalming get the year the Titantic sunk. Charlotte dredges up the first lesbo who flew across the Atlantic single-handed and gets sloppy seconds on the nationality of Marie Curie when the wool blazers fuck up by saying she’s Swiss.

  The Godalming vibe is now not so friendly. The friends of the wool blazing three, and there are plenty of them, are throwing evils the si
ze of rocks. The smiles from the teachers as we just inch past them on points become tighter and more fixed. The only love we have in the room comes from Morgan. Moon is so relaxed she’s virtually tranquillised. In previous matches, she’s on her feet shouting abuse at this point. Heckling the opposing team whenever they get a wrong answer. Barking like Snoop when we scoop points at their expense. Even Morgan comes to expect it.

  Today there’s none of this. She’s barely paying attention. I make for eye contact between questions, not because I need to be worshipped from my podium, but because I need help. I’m saying it silently, final call, team mascot, to no response. All she’s concerned with is her txting. The girl with no friends sending and receiving like a maniac. Doesn’t look up once.

  Chinese Peter can’t stop beaming. Our successes, the ruction they’ve caused the opposition, colour his face and cloud his judgement. He buzzes in on naming all three members of Busted and cocks it up. Says James, Charlie and Ed. Everyone laughs like cackling witches. The Godalming captain throws me this smug look which may as well be a red rag. Arrogant bastard. I finger the knuckleduster decisively, twisting fingers back and forth, like I’m ready to use it. At this point, with only a minute or two left, all fronts are well and truly dropped; no one is interested in being polite.

  I give Peter the Whyyy? look, so does Morgan and even Charlotte, who never appears unhappy with anything. It’s always been our unspoken rule: I answer the music questions. Chinese Peter for science and equations, and Charlotte for everything else.

  Now Moon decides to join in and gives the captain of the Godalming the finger. Too little too late, darling. He looks straight past her. Thanks to Peter’s over-eager finger, they have now officially caught up. This pissing about takes another thirty off the clock. My stomach is turning over like a car engine. The question master seems in no hurry to resume play. Looks like he wants to laugh like the rest of them. Probably plays golf with half their parents. Get on with the questions, dammit! Some of us want to win.