iBoy

by Кевин Брукс

  "Yeah, right," said Lucy, biting into her fruit cake.

  "Have you told anyone else about this?"

  She shook her head, her mouth full of cake.

  "What about the police?" I asked. "Have they been to see you?"

  She nodded.

  "What did you tell them?"

  She swallowed. "Nothing."

  "Same here."

  She raised her eyebrows. "The police have been to see you?"

  "Yeah ..."

  "Why?"

  I touched the scar on my head. "I was there, wasn't I? I mean, when they attacked you and Ben, I was there. Well, I was sort of there. The police wanted to know if I saw anything."

  "How could you have seen anything? You were thirty floors below."

  "I know ... and I was lying on the ground with an iPhone stuck in my skull."

  She laughed, then almost immediately she said, "Sorry, I don't know why I'm laughing. It's not funny." She looked at me. "So the police just came to see you about that? They didn't ask you anything about the vigilante?"

  "Yeah, they asked me about that too." I shrugged. "Apparently a bunch of FGH kids were attacked last week by our friendly neighbourhood Mystery Kid, and someone saw me sitting around the kids' playground a few minutes before it happened. So, you know, the cops just wanted to know if I saw anything."

  "Did you?"

  "No."

  "What were you doing at the playground?"

  "Not much ... just hanging around, you know."

  She smiled. "On your own?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did you go on the swings?"

  I shook my head. "They were all broken."

  Lucy grinned. "Yeah, I bet they were."

  "They were ... what are you grinning about?"

  "You were always scared of going on the swings."

  "No, I wasn't."

  "You were. When we were kids ... you always had an excuse for not going on the swings — your gran wouldn't let you, they didn't look safe, you had a bad back —"

  "Yeah, well, they weren't safe, were they? Kids were always falling off and cracking their heads open."

  Lucy laughed. "I went on them."

  "Yeah, but you never went on the whizzy-round thing, did you?"

  "The whizzy-round thing?"

  "Yeah, you know — the wooden roundabout thing that whizzes round really fast?" I smiled at her. "You never went on that."

  Lucy shrugged. "It made me dizzy."

  "You were scared of it."

  "Yeah, but I was a little girl. Little girls are allowed to be scared." She looked at me, her eyes sparkling. "What's your excuse?"

  I held my hands up. "All right, I admit it. I'm a wimp. Always have been, always will be."

  Lucy shook her head. "You're being too hard on your­self, Tom. You're not a wimp."

  "Thanks."

  "You're more of a nerd than a wimp."

  I gave her a pained look. "Now you're going too far. I mean, wimpiness I can accept. In fact, I kind of like being a wimp. But calling me a nerd ...?" I shook my head. "That hurts, Luce. Honestly ..." I put my hand on my heart, it gets me right here."

  "In that case," Lucy said, "please accept my humblest apologies."

  "Apologies accepted."

  She smiled. "Actually, I kind of like wimps too."

  "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

  "No, really ... I do. I'd rather be with a wimp than a non-wimp any day."

  "A non-wimp?"

  She grinned. "You know what I mean."

  "All right," I said. "Name one."

  "One what?"

  "A wimp who you like ... name one."

  "Apart from you?"

  I shook my head. "It's no good trying to distract me with cheap compliments."

  "It wasn't cheap."

  "Come on," I said. "Name that wimp."

  "OK ... all right, let me think. Right... a wimp that I like ..."

  As she gazed up at the night sky, trying to think — or maybe just pretending to try to think — of a wimpy guy who she really liked, I did my best not to stare at her, but it was really hard. She looked so good — all muffled up in her coat and hat, with cake crumbs on her lips and crisp-dust on her fingers ... and I wondered if I could really let myself think that this game we were playing was perhaps something more than just a game. Were Lucy's joke compliments actually real compliments? Was it really possible that she liked me as more than just a friend?

  "Spider-Man," she said suddenly.

  "What?"

  "Spider-Man ... a wimp I really like."

  "He's not a wimp," I said. "Spidey's really tough."

  "Yeah, no ... I don't mean Spider-Man, I mean the other one, the real one, what's-his-name, you know ..." She clicked her fingers, trying to remember the name.

  "Peter Parker?"

  "Yeah, that's it. Peter Parker. He's a wimp, isn't he?"

  "Yeah ..."

  "And I like him."

  "No, you don't. It's Tobey Maguire that you like."

  She shrugged. "Same thing."

  I laughed. "It's not the same thing at all. Peter Parker, the fictional character ... yeah, he's a wimp. But Tobey Maguire is a Hollywood film star. He's rich and famous and —"

  "Very attractive."

  I pulled a face. "You think so? He's a bit kind of loopy-looking, isn't he?"

  "Loopy?"

  "Yeah, you know, that loopy kind of lop-sided face he's got —"

  "No," Lucy said. "He's really cute. And he's sexy. Do you remember that bit in the first film when he's hanging upside down in the rain and he kisses what's-her-name —"

  "Mary Jane Watson. MJ."

  "Yeah ... I mean, that's a really sexy kiss."

  "Only because he's still got his mask on, so you can't see his face."

  "You don't have to see it. You already know how cute and sexy he is."

  "Mary Jane doesn't know."

  "Who cares about Mary Jane?"

  "I think you'll find that a lot of people care about Mary Jane, especially when she's kissing the aforementioned upside-down Spider-Man in the rain, and her shirt is all wet and clingy."

  Lucy laughed, shaking her head and wagging her finger at me. "Now who's getting their characters and actors mixed up?"

  "What?" I said innocently.

  "It's Kirsten Dunst's rain-soaked shirt that you care about, not Mary Jane's."

  I shrugged. "Same thing."

  We both started giggling then, and it felt really good — just sitting there, looking at each other, laughing and giggling like two little kids ... but then, after a while, I think we both slowly realized that the stuff we'd just been talking and laughing about was the kind of stuff that maybe we shouldn't have been talking and laughing about. Because although we'd only been messing around and enjoying ourselves, and although we'd only been talking about sex in a totally superficial and unsexual way, that still didn't change the fact that we had been talking about sex. And now that she'd realized it, that, for Lucy, was just too much.

  It was too close.

  Too raw.

  Too confusing.

  And now she was just sitting there, not smiling any more, just looking down sadly at her hands in her lap as she twisted and picked at a paper tissue.

  "I'm sorry," I said quietly, i should have realized ..."

  "It's OK," she said, trying to smile at me. "It's not your fault. I just..." She shrugged. "Sometimes it goes away for a while, you know? I actually forget about it... at least, I'm not aware that I'm thinking about it. But then ..." She shook her head. "It always comes back. It's like it's never not there. And even when I do forget about it for a few minutes, there's always some thing that brings it back to me. Something on the TV, you know, a sex scene or something, or just some guy in a hood who reminds me of them ... I mean, God, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to watch TV without seeing a guy in a hood." She smiled shakily at me. "They're everywhere."

  I self-consciously pulled down my hoo
d.

  Lucy laughed. "What did I tell you?"

  "Sorry ..."

  "Actually, I hadn't even noticed yours until now."

  "Sorry," I said again.

  "No, it's fine. Really." She frowned to herself. "It's weird that I didn't notice it before, though ..."

  "It's probably just the way that I wear it," I suggested, smiling.

  "What — on your head, you mean?"

  We were starting to get back to each other again now. It didn't quite feel the same as before — we were quieter now, less boisterous — but that was OK. In fact, I really quite liked it. It somehow made me feel as if we knew each other a lot better. And I think Lucy was OK with it too.

  "All right?" I said to her.

  She smiled. "Yeah."

  "Do you want anything else to eat?"

  She shook her head, "I'm stuffed."

  "Do you want to go for a walk?"

  "Where to?"

  "How about the edge of the roof?"

  Lucy looked over at the edge, then back at me. "You sure it's not too far?"

  "I can call a taxi, if you want."

  "No," she said, "It's a nice enough night. Let's walk."

  I'd never had a girlfriend before ... well, not a proper girlfriend anyway. I mean, I'd been out with a few girls, you know, I'd gone on a few dates — to the pictures, to see a band, that kind of thing. But although I'd quite liked the girls I'd been out with, I hadn't been absolutely crazy about any of them or anything, and so I'd never really given all that much thought to what I was expected to do with them, or to what I thought I was expected to do ... and, no, I don't mean that in a sexy/sexual/sexist kind of way. I just mean the stupid stuff, you know ... like knowing if it's OK to hold hands or not, and whether it's expected ... and, if it is expected, when do you do it? And how? And what if you make the first move, but it turns out that it's not OK ... what do you do then?

  That kind of stuff.

  And it was that kind of stuff that I thought I'd be thinking about as I got up from the picnic table and walked over to the edge of the roof with Lucy. Because I was crazy about her. I always had been crazy about her. And now here we were, finally on some kind of date together ... although, admittedly, it wasn't the most traditional of dates. But still, we'd had a meal together, and we'd talked and laughed and suffered about stuff together, and now we were going for a walk together ... and I'd dreamed of this moment so many times. I'd pictured it, imagined it, lived it ... worried about it. Should I hold her hand? Should I put my arm around her? Should I try to be cool about things? Should I do this, or do that, or try this, or try that...?

  But the strange thing was, now that it was actually happening, none of this stupid stuff even entered my mind. I just got up and walked across the roof with Lucy, not worrying about anything, not caring about anything, just knowing that we both felt OK — walking side by side, as close to each other as we wanted to be ... it all felt perfectly natural.

  "What are you smiling about?" Lucy asked me.

  I looked at her. "Was I smiling?"

  "Yeah, like an idiot."

  I grinned at her.

  She smiled back at me.

  "Careful," I said, reaching out and touching her arm.

  She stopped, realizing that we were nearing the edge of the roof.

  "Wow," she said softly, "It's a long way down."

  "Are you OK?" I asked her. "Not dizzy or anything?"

  She looked at me. "Is that meant to be a joke?"

  "No," I grinned. "Honestly ... I mean, some people don't like heights, do they? I was just checking that you were OK, that's all."

  "Yeah," she said, smiling, "I'm fine." She looked down over the edge again, not saying anything, just looking and thinking.

  "Shall we sit down?" I suggested.

  "Why? Are you feeling dizzy?"

  "You know me," I said, lowering myself cross-legged to the ground. "Tommy the Wimp."

  She smiled and sat down beside me, and then we just sat there in silence for a while, both of us gazing out over the estate at the distant lights of London. Streetlights, traffic lights, headlights ... office blocks, tower blocks, shops and theatres ...

  It was all a long way away.

  "Is that the London Eye?" Lucy said after a while.

  "Where?"

  She pointed into the distance. "There ... by the river."

  I couldn't see it, and just for a moment I thought about logging on to Google Earth in my head to help me find it... but that was iStuff, and iStuff didn't belong here. So I didn't.

  "I can't even see the river," I told Lucy. "Never mind the London Eye."

  She smiled, but I could tell that her mind was on some­thing else now. She'd stopped looking into the distance and had turned her attention to the more immediate surround­ings of the estate down below, gazing around at the streets, the towers, the low-rises, the kids' playground ...

  "It's funny, isn't it?" she said quietly, her voice full of sadness.

  "What's that?"

  "Knowing that they're all out there somewhere ... you know, the boys who raped me. They're all out there ... living their lives, doing whatever it is they do ..." She breathed out wearily. "I mean, they're all just out there ..."

  "Some of them will be in cells now," I said. "Or in hospital."

  Lucy looked at me, her eyes wet with tears. "You know, don't you?" she said. "You know who they are."

  I nodded. "Most of them, yeah."

  "How do you know?"

  I shrugged. "People talk, you know ... you hear rumours. It's not too difficult to work out the truth."

  "The truth ...?" she said, her voice barely audible, "I'm the only one who knows the truth!

  As she looked away from me and went back to gazing down at the estate, I could have kicked myself for being so stupid. Not that I'd meant to imply that I knew what she'd been through, but still... it was just so thoughtless, such a brainless thing to say.

  I really was an idiot.

  "Sorry, Tom," Lucy said.

  I looked at her, not sure I'd heard her right. "What?"

  "I know you didn't mean anything ... and I didn't mean to snap at you —"

  "No, please," I said, "I'm the one who should be saying sorry. Not you. I just didn't think, you know ... I just opened my big stupid mouth and —"

  "You haven't got a big stupid mouth."

  I stared at her. She was smiling again.

  "It's OK," she said. "All right?"

  "OK."

  "All right."

  We went back to our silent gazing for a while, watch­ing the lights, the sky, the stars in the darkness. I could hear the wind sighing in the night, and there were a few faint sounds drifting up from the estate — cars, voices, music — but, all in all, everything was still pretty quiet. And even the sounds that were breaking the silence didn't seem to have any menace to them.

  They were just sounds.

  "Does it make any difference?" I said quietly to Lucy.

  She looked at me. "Does what make any difference?"

  "All this stuff that iBoy's done ... or whoever it is that's doing it. You know, making O'Neil and Adebajo and the rest of them suffer ... I mean, does it make you feel any better?"

  She didn't answer for a while, she just stared at me, and for a moment or two I thought she was going to say — "It's you, isn't it? It's you ... you're iBoy," — and I started to wonder how that would make me feel. Good? Embar­rassed? Ashamed? Excited? And that made me wonder if perhaps, subconsciously, I wanted her to know that it was me, that I was iBoy, that I was her guardian angel...

  "I don't know, Tom," she said sadly. "I really don't know if it makes any difference or not. I mean, yeah ... there's a bit of me that gets something good out of their suffer­ing ... you know, I really want them to feel pain ... I want them to fucking hurt ... because they deserve it ... God, they deserve everything they fucking get ..." Her voice had lowered to an ice-cold whisper. "So, yeah, it makes a difference in that way. It gives
me something that part of me really needs ..." She sighed. "But it never lasts very long. I mean, it's just not enough ... it can't be enough. It can't take anything away." She looked at me. "Nothing can take anything away."

  "They'll always have done it..." I said quietly.

  She nodded. "And whatever happens, nobody can change that."

  As we sat there looking at each other, alone together in the boundless dark, I found myself thinking about an old Superman film that I'd seen on TV at Christmas. I'd only been half-watching the TV at the time, so I couldn't remember all that much about it, but there was a bit in the film where Superman's so busy saving the lives of other people that he doesn't have time to save the life of Lois Lane, the girl he loves. And when he finds out that she's dead, he gets so distraught that he flies up into the atmosphere and starts whizzing in circles around the Earth, and he flies so fast that somehow the Earth begins to slow down, and eventually it stops spinning altogether and begins to rotate in the opposite direction, making everything go back in time, allowing Superman to go back into the past and prevent Lois Lane from dying.

  Which was all pretty ridiculous, of course.

  But I couldn't help thinking that if only I could do that, if only I could go back in time ... well, then I really could change things for Lucy. I really could make every­thing all right again.

  But I knew that was never going to happen. This was the real world, not a movie. And in the real world, no matter how impossible things might be, they're never quite impossible enough.

  "What are you thinking about, Tom?" Lucy asked me.

  "Nothing ..." I shrugged. "You know, just stuff ..."

  She smiled. "There's a lot of stuff to think about, isn't there?"

  "Yeah ..."

  "And it's always ... I don't know. It's like it's never straightforward, is it? It's never just this or that. Do you know what I mean?"

  "Yeah."

  "There's always two sides to everything. You feel good about something, but you still feel bad. You like some­thing about someone, but you don't want to like it." She looked thoughtfully at me. "Two sides, you see? Even the stuff we were talking about earlier, you know ... Tobey Maguire's cute, Kirsten Dunst's sexy ... I mean, that's OK — kissing and stuff, people looking sexy ... it's just kind of nice. But then there's the other side of it, the other side of sex — the bad side, the shit, the fucking awful things that people do ..." She shook her head. "I just don't get it, you know?"