Furious Thing

by Jenny Downham

  ‘So many people here,’ Jamila said, looking around. Her cheeks were flushed, and I thought maybe she was panicky. Mum had that look about her sometimes.

  ‘You’re better than any of them,’ I said.

  Jamila used to go to my primary school. I was invited to her tenth birthday party. This was the first time we’d spoken in ages. I wasn’t sure why. A teacher once said that making friends meant you had to do something, because ‘make’ is an active verb. I knew that. I’d always known it. I was just out of practice.

  I was about to ask Jamila a string of friendly questions when the drama studio door opened, and Ben stood there grinning. ‘You can all come in now.’

  What was he doing dishing out instructions? Who put him in charge? I tried to ignore him as we all shuffled in, but he said, ‘Lex, are you auditioning?’

  I held up my hands as if he’d accused me of doing something illegal. ‘Do I need your permission?’

  He shook his head, laughing. ‘Lovely to see you too.’

  Mr Darby, my drama teacher, was inside the room. ‘Come and take a seat, everyone.’

  I liked him – he was young and sometimes funny and once, at parents’ evening, he’d told Mum I was the best kind of trouble. I think that was a compliment.

  He raised an eyebrow as I walked past. ‘A surprise to see you here, Lexi.’

  ‘A surprise to be here, sir.’

  I don’t know why I said that. It made me sound like an idiot. I lost Jamila as kids spread out into the auditorium, so I sat by myself. There were spotlights aimed at the stage. And a camera. Were they going to film us?

  When we were all sitting down, Mr Darby gave us a talk about teamwork and commitment and how being in a play was a challenging and enriching experience that would promote personal development and creative ambition. ‘For your information,’ he said, ‘Ben Osman’s going to be filming auditions for his media project. If anyone objects, say so now. Otherwise, let’s get on with it.’

  Ben leaped onto the stage and fiddled with the camera and lights. He looked like Bambi rushing about with his long legs, skinny black trousers and red hair.

  Mr Darby pointed to five bowls on a table at the side of the stage. They were each labelled with a character’s name and contained lines from one of their speeches. We were to go up alphabetically and take a piece of paper from the bowl that represented the role we wanted, look at the line and then just ‘be’ the character on stage for one minute. We could explore the imaginary island, sit on the sand, look out to sea, walk about, whatever helped us find our motivation. Then he wanted us to say something approximating our line in plain English, then say the actual written line.

  ‘Clear as mud?’ he said. ‘OK, first up is Josh Abraham.’

  The poor boy looked terrified. He was tiny and reminded me of Iris with his sweet face and long hair. He chose a line from the Ferdinand bowl, silently read it and walked onto stage. He paused as if listening and then his face lit up as if he could hear something wonderful. He started following the imaginary sound, running about in different directions and then stopping to listen again.

  Eventually he said, ‘Is this music even real or is it in my head?’ Then he read the written line. ‘Where should this music be? In the air or the earth?’

  He was good – but too young to be the prince. Ferdinand needed to be sexy, not cute. Some chunky kid I’d never seen before went next and he was like a professional Prospero, summoning a thunderstorm above our heads. Three boys in a row tried out for Caliban but they were rubbish. The actor playing the role in the movie said, I am subject to a tyrant, as if he was sharing a terrible secret. Those boys wasted the words.

  A girl with pink hair wanted to be Miranda but was way too shy. Miranda had never seen a boy before. She had to be lusty. She had to fancy the pants off the prince.

  ‘Now,’ Mr Darby said, ‘let’s see what you’ve got to offer, Lexi Robinson.’

  I tried to get my pulse under control as I made my way to the stage. I avoided Ben’s eyes as I took a scrap of paper from the Miranda bowl, read it and slowly walked into the bright space under the lights. They were hot and made a ticking sound, but it helped me imagine a blazing sun. I blocked out the audience and imagined myself alone on the shore of an island. I imagined the churning sea, the cry of birds and the vast blue sky. It was beautiful. Suddenly, I saw the shipwrecked prince, gathering firewood ahead of me on the beach. He had Kass’s gorgeous face and I wanted two things at the exact same time – to watch him for ever without him noticing and to run over and touch him, so he’d know I loved him. I put a hand out in longing. I pulled it back, trying to resist. He turned. He smiled. I dared to smile back.

  I said, ‘I’ve waited years for you to show up. And now you’re here, you’re way better than I imagined. I’m probably never going to fancy another boy my whole life.’ And then I read the actual line: ‘I would not wish any companion in the world but you, nor can imagination form a shape, besides yourself, to like of.’

  I knew I was good. I could feel a hush in the air, like the audience had stopped breathing. I’d felt it before in drama class – like I was a hook that people got snagged on before I hauled them in.

  ‘I wonder,’ Mr Darby said as I walked off stage, ‘if I could I have a word with you, Lexi?’

  He hadn’t asked anyone else to go and talk to him. It reminded me of The X-Factor, when the judges asked someone to sing a second song. It was a good sign. Everyone watched me walk over to him, but I was buzzing with adrenalin and didn’t care.

  He said. ‘Would you try a different part for me, just to see?’

  Prospero, I thought. Jamila had been right – Miranda was too quiet a role for me. Mr Darby had seen my command of the stage. Maybe Jamila would be Miranda, and I’d be Prospero and we’d be friends again.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Great. I’d like you to try Caliban.’

  I blinked at him. ‘Is this a joke?’

  He gave me a curious smile. ‘Not a joke.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Just try it for me, Lexi. I think it’ll be interesting.’

  Interesting? I looked around the room. People were quiet, watching us. Ben was sitting on the edge of the stage, trying to hear.

  I leaned closer to Mr Darby. ‘Caliban’s a boy’s part.’

  ‘There’s only one female part in the whole play, so we’re going to have to cross cast.’

  Caliban was also a monster. It said so at the front of the play. It said: Caliban, a strange and deformed slave.

  I was blushing, I could feel it. ‘I want to be Miranda.’

  ‘I know and I’m considering you for that, but humour me here. Caliban’s a great role. He has a strong ego and a healthy appetite and just wants what he wants. You can relate to that, surely? Everyone can.’

  ‘It’s not a girl’s role.’

  Why was I repeating myself? I sounded stupid and childish.

  ‘Actually,’ Mr Darby said, ‘there have been several all-female productions.’

  ‘I don’t want to be Caliban.’

  ‘All right, but give me a better reason than gender.’

  My whole face felt on fire. ‘I don’t want to be a monster.’

  There, I’d said it.

  Mr Darby said, ‘That’s just the identity others attribute to Caliban. It’s not how he sees himself.’ He smiled. ‘This is a compliment, Lexi. I’m only asking you because you’re good enough to do the part justice.’

  That was slightly comforting. It was also cheering to see the faces of the three boys who’d already tried out for him. They were scowling at me.

  ‘Well?’ said Mr Darby.

  This had gone on too long. I’d look more ridiculous refusing than accepting. I wished I was wearing Granddad’s necklace. I wanted to thread its coolness through my fingers. Caliban wanted things he couldn’t have too. ‘All right. Whatever you say.’

  Mr Darby grinned. ‘Excellent.’

 
I changed my body as I walked back to the stage. I built rock inside it – brittle rock, that could break into shards. Caliban had his island stolen and was punished and insulted every day. Miranda called him a villain and said she couldn’t bear to look at him. Prospero called him a poisonous slave and cursed him with cramps.

  I walked to the bowls and took a Caliban speech. I read it and walked onto the stage. Again, the ticking and humming of the lights helped me imagine the heat and sapphire sky of the island.

  Caliban was the child of a witch and a devil. I let him walk about the stage with the shame of having looked in a mirror. I covered my face as if I was hideous, then I let him peer through his fingers, craving to be king of the island again.

  How was he when he was alone? He was beautiful and sensitive and vulnerable. I walked him along the shore. But he heard a noise and cowered. When others looked at him, he was clumsy and gross and smelled of fish. They saw he was disfigured and were disgusted.

  But alone?

  I lay on the stage and breathed as him. He was a sleeping child, curled in, hugging his own belly. He was content, dreaming of his mother. But then another noise came, and he woke up yelping – he was a lonely dog who Prospero wanted to imprison and punish.

  I stood up and wailed. Everything on the island had been ripped from him. All that was good about him had gone. His mother had died. He knew silence so deep it broke his heart. He was precious, and no one knew. His voice was a secret, even to himself.

  He could only get comfort through fury.

  I gave him all this. I scuttled across the stage imagining my own stink, my own loss. I crawled out of my cave to be faced with Prospero. I begged him not to curse me again, appalled at my own grovelling, disgusted at being forced to be a slave. I wanted to rip out Prospero’s eyes, drag away his staff and impale him.

  I howled at him, ‘This was my home. Mine! My island. I lived here with my mother, then you came and pretended to be kind and I believed you. I loved you like a father. I showed you everything I cared about, and you stole it from me.’

  Like a bolt of steel running through my spine. Like something to grab hold of in a storm. Anger was something to believe in when the world let you down.

  I roared with it. ‘Cursed be I that did so! All the charms of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, which first was mine own king: and here you sty me in this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me the rest o’ the island.’

  Coming out of it was like waking from a dream. There was absolute silence as I blinked into the lights and back into my own body. I couldn’t see anyone, but I knew every person in the room was staring at me.

  Time slowed down. I noticed the skylight was open. I noticed that outside it was beginning to get gloomy.

  You are not here, I thought. You’re alone in the garden surrounded by rustling leaves and the sound of birds going to bed.

  ‘Actually,’ I blurted, ‘I’m not interested in being in a play. I’m busy. I just remembered.’

  I heard laughter. Of course. What insanity to think I could join a group, make friends, be nicer, learn empathy.

  I scrunched up Caliban’s lines and let the paper fall. My throat tightened as I walked off stage. I collected my bag and coat, my face burning. I didn’t look at anyone. I shut all my doors, put up all my barricades.

  ‘Lexi,’ Mr Darby said. Then, ‘Alexia.’ Finally, ‘Alexandra.’

  Fuck you, I thought, as I marched to the door and yanked it open. You’re as bad as the rest of them.

  He came after me. I jogged, and he ran. I ran faster, but he caught up with me in the foyer and grabbed my arm. ‘Lexi, don’t run away.’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  I jerked my arm free and he sighed. Like he was so well-behaved and good and me being upset was nothing to do with him.

  I said, ‘Leave me the fuck alone.’

  The head teacher appeared from nowhere. She said, ‘Alexandra Robinson, don’t you dare talk to a member of my staff that way.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Mr Darby said. ‘I’ve got this.’

  ‘No,’ said the head. ‘I’ve got this.’

  I was an object. A thing to be fought over. And they could argue about me over the top of my head.

  ‘You apologize to Mr Darby – right now, Alexandra.’

  I tried to push the anger down, because it would make things worse and they’d see, and it would hurt my throat and make me cry.

  But there wasn’t any stopping it.

  Like a bolt of steel running through me. Like something to grab hold of in a storm.

  And the head teacher stood in front of me, her eyes full of opinions. I was wrong and bad and out of control. I was wasting her time and testing her patience. I was nothing and she was everything and she had a million better things to be doing than dealing with me.

  And I swallowed, swallowed, but the fury came louder.

  She said, ‘You hear me, Alexandra? I’m waiting …’

  Like fingernails down chalkboards, like forks on plates, like all my bones screaming.

  ‘Put that chair down right now, Alexandra.’

  Like the reddest, hottest feeling. Like I’d burst if I didn’t.

  ‘Don’t you walk away from me!’

  And I said to myself, Just do it.

  ‘I mean it, Alexandra. Put that chair down immediately.’

  I said to myself, What’s there to lose?

  ‘Put it down – you hear me?’

  You already think I’m bad.

  ‘You will be in a great deal of trouble if you throw that chair anywhere near that window.’

  Do what you like to me. I don’t care.

  ‘Listen to me, Alexandra.’

  No. No. No.

  The glass exploded. Like hailstones. Like splinters of ice.

  8

  Mum sat on the window ledge in the lounge and helped herself to one of John’s cigarette butts from the ashtray.

  I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  ‘Why don’t you believe me?’

  She lit the stub and blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘Do you have any idea how horrible it was getting a call from your head teacher telling me you threw a chair through a window? I said there must be a mistake, that she was ringing the wrong parent, had the wrong kid. But deep down, I knew it was you.’ She glared at me. ‘Why did I know? Why wasn’t I surprised?’

  ‘Mum, why are you smoking?’

  ‘Because I’m stressed!’

  I stared at the curve of her back as she turned from me and opened the window. She inhaled hard. She kept the smoke in her lungs for ages. ‘You’ll have to pay for replacement glass. That’s the very least they’re going to make you do.’

  ‘You think I’ll get permanently excluded?’

  ‘I’d say that’s a possibility.’

  ‘John’s going to go nuts.’

  She turned to look at me. ‘Do you blame him?’

  I wanted her to beckon me over. I wanted her to hold me close and tell me she loved me. But she just kept sitting there frowning like she didn’t know me at all.

  I said, ‘I know the wedding’s supposed to be a new start. I know I’m not supposed to get angry any more.’

  ‘So, why does it happen day after day? What on earth possesses you?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘It varies. But today, I wanted to be Miranda in the school play and Mr Darby didn’t cast me.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘So, it’s Mr Darby’s fault?’ She tossed what was left of the butt out the window and slid herself to the floor. ‘We’re going to have such a horrible evening now.’

  I wasn’t always wicked.

  There was that time, right at the start, when I was having breakfast in the kitchen and Mum said, ‘I think I hear someone up,’ and I hadn’t even known John had stayed over. She hopped from the stool and went to the kitchen door. She st
ood there all curves and smiles. ‘Hey,’ she said to him, ‘fancy a coffee?’

  ‘I fancy you,’ he said.

  She put her finger to her lips. ‘Lex is here.’

  ‘Morning, Alexandra,’ he called, and then in a quieter voice, ‘I thought she was going on a play date?’

  But Meryam wasn’t free, so I got to spend the day with them.

  We went on a picnic to Hampstead Heath. John bought loads of stuff from a posh deli and Mum said she’d never heard of half the things and he said he wanted to widen her horizons and this was just the beginning.

  We parked the car and John and Mum held hands as we walked up a hill. When we got to the top we sat on a bench and looked down on London and John pointed out all the different landmarks and a man with a dog winked at me and said, ‘You’ve got a clever dad there.’

  I was an angel child that day. Mum and John both said so.

  Another time, John took us on a tour of the Docklands to look at a building he’d helped design, and we ended up in a restaurant by the river and Mum said it was too expensive and he said it was his treat and we could order whatever we wanted. My shoes bumped his under the table and his gently bumped mine back.

  ‘Isn’t this fun?’ Mum said when he went outside to smoke. ‘Isn’t he lovely?’

  I told Mum he was like a prince from a story, and when he came back she told him, and he laughed and said that made me and Mum a pair of princesses.

  Mum started cooking amazing meals. She said tea was called supper now and the lounge was the sitting room. She learned how to mix cocktails and started buying organic. John came round most days after work and we sat at the kitchen table (now called the dining table) like a proper family. I saved things up to tell him – the merit sticker I’d earned, the assembly I’d been in, the birthday party I’d been invited to. I told him jokes and he laughed, and it made the flat full of life.

  Mum told him her plans – she was writing her CV, she was applying for jobs, she was thinking about college. Now John was in our lives, all things were possible. Happiness suited her, he said, but she shouldn’t worry about money or work because he was going to look after us.