Diving in her, losing myself, opening up, letting go.
‘FUCKING BASTARD TWAT.’
Swimming in Rainbow, helpless, resigned, content, forever.
We sit in silence for a while, each mulling over his thoughts. Dildo’s words filter through my dreams of Rainbow and reach my conscious mind. ‘Dildo? What was the point of that story?’
Dildo shrugs. ‘I dunno. Just every weekend seems to be the same, doesn’t it?’
I’m looking at him. Poor Dildo, his mop of hair unevenly cut about his ears, stubble sprouting randomly on his face, nicotine under his fingernails, all on a giant’s frame. Yeah, Dildo was a gentle giant. His other sister was famous in our area. She was a druggie and died from an overdose when she was seventeen and Dildo was nine. It was in all the papers, and as usual Fez and Troy were questioned, even though they were only fourteen at the time. We still don’t know that they weren’t involved, so Dildo’s never been on good terms with either of them. It was sad but as Troy said to me once while muntered, at least she went out with a bang. The only other way to go here is slowly, when you’re old and thin and alone and shafted from working in steel and coughing up blood that you can’t seem to get a lawsuit through the courts for. And she made it onto Look North. Dying’s the only thing that gets you noticed around here. Which is depressing and probably not a helpful thought for her family or the little brother she left behind, all wide blue eyes and black hair and now scratched up from various burn marks and from mucking about on the street on his bike with no one watching him. His parents gave up after she died. Pretty much forgot they had three other kids: Dildo, Bex, plus one other little brother (younger I mean, he’s not a midget or anything).
Dildo’s looking out across the field to the sky above the art block. Up in the deep summer blue a massive bird soars higher and higher on a thermal, dips forward and tumbles down then arcs round again, soars back upwards with its wings spread wide, through a wisp of cloud, then beyond and away, until we can only see a tiny dot over the sea. I think about what he’s said, how everything seems to be the same, always, and I nod slowly. And then, because I don’t know what I could say or do that would make anything change for Dildo, or for any of us, I suck another lungful of the sweetly acrid smoke, then let it drift out through my lips, floating away and disappearing into the air.
4
Illusory Hope and My Cold, Tiny Dick
I, however, have a Get Out of Purgatory Free card. The following day Mam comes into the spare room, where I’m on the computer wasting away time I don’t know what to do with, and thrusts the phone into my hands, whispering loudly, ‘It’s a young lady!’
The phone splutters with laughter. ‘Thanks Mam,’ I mumble, taking it off her, wondering what Ash/Ella/Daisy, none of them young ladies, wants this time. A clear, articulate, polite voice, still with a mild northern accent, rings out of the phone.
‘Hello, is this Flick?’
‘Yeah, hello, is this Rainbow?’ I almost drop the handset. ‘How do?’
‘Huh? Oh, I’m good yeah! I’m sorry I’ve been so busy – I’ve got my exams coming up and it’s a bit mental with me being new and transferring and there was a whole load of crap to do … but I’m free now if you’re free!’
Yay! Rainbow! I think, but I calm myself. The aim is to come off cool, sexy and nonchalant, and also to secure a date and then love her forever and move into a Victorian flat on the seafront at Ness or emigrate to Berlin with our two charming but illegitimate children and I’ll be a graffiti artist and she’ll be my muse. No problem. I’d better stay calm and collected for the moment though or she’ll think I’m a psycho.
‘Oh … cool,’ I swing my legs on to the spare bed and lean back in the computer chair, in an attempt to channel James Dean. ‘Wicked, yeah, that’s – obviously I didn’t worry, I knew you had work so, you know, it was cool, so I’m cool. I haven’t really thought about you – it. I mean, like, dating. Obviously I thought about you … Anyway, I’m pretty busy too actually. In fact – I’m slammed.’
‘Oh … so you don’t want to meet up?’
‘Oh no! I mean, yeah that would be great, I meant – slammed as in … well you know … um …’ Fuck. My brain has gone blank. I was so successfully being noncommittal that my brain has lost its commitment to the English language. Think of something, Flick, think. I’VE FORGOTTEN ENGLISH … Say something! says the little voice in my head. What else could slammed mean? ‘Beaten?’ I mutter. Out loud. Oh God, Jesus and Fuck.
‘Beaten? Have you been hurt?’
‘No! I didn’t mean beaten. I meant … beaten as, as, as in tired, as in I’m beat from doing stuff, but, but now I’m free, and not really doing anything …’
‘… So you’re not busy?’
‘I’m not busy right now, I have, I have, nothing … absolutely nothing to do right now. I’ve been on the internet for the past hour looking up what I’d do on a law degree and now I’m on eBay looking up “smallest”, so …’
‘… What?’
‘Um …’ The hole I’ve dug has no way out. It’s dark in here and I want my mum. ‘It’s really funny actually, um, you, um … well you look up smallest and just see what you get, and there’s a teeny tiny phone. Anyway … I’ll tell you later. So where d’you wanna go slash what d’you wanna do?’
‘I don’t mind, where d’you want to go? Slash do?’
‘I don’t mind either, we can do whatever you like.’
‘Oh no, I’m crap at choosing, I can make massive decisions about my life, but I can’t decide how to spend afternoons or what to eat or anything like that. You choose!’
‘I’d like to do something that you’d like to do, Rainbow.’
‘Well yeah but … I don’t know what to do here. Go to the cinema?’
‘If you’d like to, Bow, that would be lovely. May I call you Bow?’
She laughs. ‘You may. But I don’t want to go just because I’d like to! I want to do something you want to do too!’
Oh isn’t she so polite, I think happily as the voice pipes up sardonically, this could go on forever.
‘Ha ha, well I don’t know what we do around here. There isn’t much to do. We sit in the centre of Osford and drink alcoholic Panda Pops mainly. What d’you like doing though?’
‘Boys.’ I feel her grinning provocatively down the phone. ‘But for today I’d like to do something that you usually do.’
‘Err, okay!’ I stop to wonder what she looks like naked then realise she’s expecting me to speak. ‘Er, sorry, like what?’
‘How would I know!?’ She squeals laughing. ‘What d’you do in your free time?’
‘In my free time? Erm …’ A pause ensues.
‘… Flick?’
‘… I mostly just look up “smallest” on eBay.’
‘Right.’
We go to the beach. I’ve lived here all my life and can see the sea from my bedroom window. In summer we have barbecues and jump off the pier at high tide. Our hair is stiff and brittle from years of fucking about in the water and most of us have an obscene amount of bright flowery Hawaiian shorts in our wardrobes, and a wetsuit in the garage that we never use. These are the symptoms of a seaside-dweller. It’s normal for me but it fascinates Rainbow. We meet on the beachfront and I grin inanely as we walk towards the water on the wet sands, me holding her hot little hand. We roll up our trousers and paddle in the wash, shyly kicking the water up at each other. We count the boats.
Rainbow tells me about Hull, where she’s from. It’s almost as grubby as Sandford, but she used to live in a really nice Victorian terrace in a posh, leafy suburb practically in the country, which doesn’t surprise me. Her mums moved out here because they wanted to live near the sea, so now they live in a massive sandstone house in the nice part of Ness, right near the beach. That’s not to say she’s rich. Houses are cheap as chips round here and people from the south sometimes move here to get more land or extra bedrooms, but it’s true that some areas of Clyde Count
y have less litter and bigger gardens than others. Ness is considered a wee bit classier that Osford and Langrick because it has tearooms and a reasonable view from the cliff.
She tells me about her little brother, Tim, who is shy and gay and had a rough time with bullies in Hull, and about her mums, one who works in a graphic design firm and the other who writes books on historical figures. The designer grew up in Hull and is of Irish ancestry, and the author is Scottish, with parents from Glasgow and Trinidad. I tell her, feeling a bit lame, that my family come from Clyde County and have for a while, although beyond my grandparents we’ve never discussed it so I don’t really know. She calls me inbred and I call her a cock and push her over onto the sand, and we tickle each other, which is just an excuse to touch. She finds shells she likes and I put them in my pockets for her, planning to bore a hole in one so she can use it as a necklace. I kiss her neck. We look at the birds together, and try to identify them.
We do the things you do honestly when you’re between fifteen and seventeen, and dishonestly when you’re older, in the illusory hope that you are still between fifteen and seventeen. This includes talking about life and the future (I don’t yet mention the kids and Berlin), our hopes and dreams (I want to get away from Clyde and retire my poor mam from her job on the till at the Co-op, Rainbow wants to live in a beach hut in Montauk, New York, and paint and sculpt like Margaret Kilgallen and Jo Jackson), our favourite Green Day album (International Superhits) and also how we both have a secret jones for Gregory Peck after watching The Big Country. Then, of course, the most obvious but also most important question, and I’ve been asking everyone this since I was five with no clue as to how I would answer it: ‘What d’you want to be when you’re older?’
Rainbow looks to the sea dreamily, already imagining her future, and then a toothy smile slowly spreads across her cheeks and she turns to me. ‘I want to be an artist.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, a painter, like I said, out in Montauk.’
‘Is there a big art community there?’
‘Not particularly, but I’d exhibit all over the world.’
We sit in silence while I think about the sheer enormity of her imagination and dreams and belief that she can make them happen, and wonder whether it’s a state of mind she was born with or whether she’s just had a lot more encouragement in life. She doesn’t seem to be much better off than me, but her mums both seem to be working for pleasure rather than money. Perhaps that’s a choice for everyone and I’ve just never thought about it, maybe because I’ve never seen it happen before. I’d ask how much money her mums make but I’ve been taught never to talk about money. It’s odd but I’ve always noticed that rich kids will be like, ‘oh man, I’m so broke, this is how much I have in my bank account’, and the less-well-off know that it’s rude to even mention that kind of stuff. Fucking insensitive bastards. My mind rolls back around to Rainbow and I imagine her in a paint-splashed smock somewhere in the USA, tucking her hair back behind her ears and surveying her work.
‘Can you make a living off of that?’
‘Yeah of course, it’s hard but people do it every day, in every – well, at least in every free country in the world.’ She stops for a moment then shrugs without sadness, in a practical, even optimistic manner. ‘And everything’s hard. If you’re gonna try for something, might as well be something you really want.’
I’ve been watching her out of the corner of my eye the whole time we’re talking. The way her lips move, the strawberry pink of her cheeks, each freckle, and I suddenly know that whatever happens to us in the future, I will remember this girl for the rest of my life, that she would change the way I saw the world, and that people like that are hard to find. Practically impossible to find when you’ve known everyone in your life for its entire fifteen-year duration. And then I tell her that I have this strange feeling, like I’m an old man looking back over my life, and I’m watching this young girl as she looks out to sea.
Rainbow smiles back at me. She nods thoughtfully. ‘Like On Chesil Beach.’
‘Like what?’
She grins, her lip catching on her tooth. ‘A book. You should read it.’ Her hair whips around her cheeks, both red with the cold, and her eyes look alight and bluer than I’ve ever seen a pair of eyes look, and vulnerable and honest. She leans into me and whispers to me shyly, but knowingly, ‘I think it means you like me.’ She looks to the water then turns back to me grinning sweetly, but almost challengingly, like she’s just set a dare, and as we lock gazes her slender arms move slowly, charmingly, to her waist.
She unbuttons her jeans and drops down to sit on the sand and sheds them like skin. She stands up and her jumper and shirt come off over her head as one, leaving a sheer, pearl-coloured tank top and pink French knickers. The top quickly follows the rest of her clothes onto the ground and she hooks one finger in her pants and tugs them down her leg and onto the pile. I’m left still taking in the above information as Rainbow walks into the waves, turning to smile proudly at me and sinking further backwards until the water swirls around her tummy, sandy at the bottom, clear where the spray splashes at her breasts.
‘What?’ She shouts in her innocent, playful, childlike voice. ‘Too chicken?’ She laughs at me.
Cheeky. I can’t help grinning wildly and laughing back. ‘Fuck you!’
I can’t believe I’m about to show her my skinny, spotty form in sunlight. Not to mention it’s fucking cold and my knob’s going to be fucking tiny. So not smooth. But fuck it. I drop my coat and rip off my T-shirt and sweater. I flick out my belt and rest my hand on the top of my jeans hesitantly.
‘Bwarrrk, boc boc boc, CHICKEN!!!’ She flaps her arms like wings.
I grin, still frozen to the spot.
‘C’mon, Flick. Me and the water are waiting for you.’
I jiggle my leg and bite my lip. I glance down. Yep. Tiny.
‘Are you worried your dick’ll be small?’
I let out a massive nervous laugh.
‘It’s okay,’ she says reassuringly. ‘I’ll help you warm it up.’
I look up and she winks at me. I steel myself, whatever that means, and with a last grin at her, I drop my kecks.
‘Wooooohooooo!!’ Rainbow lifts her arms up to the air and screams and I run into the waves and dive onto her, dragging her down into the water.
She screams girlishly and I follow suit: ‘BASTARD it’s so cold!’
I touch her lips with my fingers, holding her close with my right arm, then kiss her full and deep on the mouth, tasting the salt water and feeling Rainbow’s tongue, my hands moving down further, stroking her back and bum and lifting her up to wrap her firm little legs round my waist. I feel my dick harden. Her hand reaches down and wraps around it. My hand reaches down and touches her between her legs. We pull our lips apart and stay very close to each other, looking in the other’s eyes, breathing heavily as our hands explore each other. What she’s doing with her fingers feels so good. I hold onto her tight and close my eyes. Rainbow lets out a little moan. Then her hand pulls me a little harder, closer until she’s sitting just above me, and then inside her. Oh. My. God. It’s overwhelming. She’s tight and it sort of wasn’t what I was expecting. The pressure all over my dick feels incredible, and going in and out makes the feeling come in waves, building so quickly I have to stop her and wait a moment to keep from going past the point of no return. I kiss her again, and she whispers to me and kisses my ear and my face. I kiss her nipples, keep going steadily, burying my head in her shoulder, thrusting, biting her neck gently and then finally, letting go, totally going under.
Afterwards we stay as we are for a while, holding each other, letting the gravity of what we’ve just done sink in. Wow, my brain remarks, in a kind of surprised way. You’ve just had sex.
Yeah, I say back. I know. I smile and kiss her short hair where it ends at her neck, smelling her perfume, still there through the scent of salt and sea. Then I feel fingers stroking tentatively under my ar
mpit, and let out a completely not suave and very girly giggle as the fingers suddenly dart right under my arm and tickle me.
‘Oh, well! It’s like that, is it? Two can play at that game darlin’!’ I dive underwater and tickle her stomach, and she replies by kicking me in the head. I tug her legs gently so she goes below surface and she swims down to my level, grabs my cheeks in her fist, smooshes up my face, then pushes me away, laughing.
We kiss and fight and swim after each other and she dunks my head under and we scream and shout and I try to go down on her and come up choking on salt water. People walk past and stare at us, then one of us will pop up and they’ll look quickly away again, at the sight of my dick or Rainbow’s tits.
5
Rainbow Time
We walk to Rainbow’s place to dry off. It’s a twenty-minute walk along the beach towards Ness, and then about five minutes inland. The house is detached, probably Georgian, and made of huge stones painted in soft yellow. The inside is large and bright and covered everywhere with framed kids’ drawings in pinks and oranges, inspirational quotations from famous historic people, maps of the solar system. Every bit of wall-space is filled, and I hear my mam’s voice mutter darkly in my head: ‘There’ll be Blu-tack marks.’ Rainbow points out the wooden floor they’ve redone themselves and pads about, showing me around, proudly gesturing to the decoration, which has all been done in the two months since they moved in.
There are photos of them everywhere, Rainbow in her school uniform a few years ago; Tim, her brother, at about the age of seven running a race with a load of other kids; her mums standing with the kids at some sort of rally, the Houses of Parliament behind them, the two kids in their early teens. I realise there aren’t any baby photos, then think, of course, ’cause two women can’t make a baby. I guess I’d just presume Rainbow belonged to one of them, maybe from a previous marriage or something. Feeling a bit awkward, I say, ‘So did one of your mums … you know …’
Flick: A Novel Page 6