Boy Parts

by Eliza Clark

  I grab a black coffee, and sip, and wrinkle my nose. It’s shit, but it’ll do. I listen to Sutcliffe Jügend, and window shop. I see a boy in a university hoodie, and shorts. He is carrying a gym bag, and his calves are thick and shapely. I see a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose which is wet, red and sore. I see a dark-skinned man with a shaved head and glasses, carrying a satchel, and talking on the phone. He seems pissed off. He’s wearing a tweed suit, with a pocket square, and I watch him for a while, because he stops outside the window to talk more, growing more and more irritated the longer the conversation goes on. He catches me looking at him, and I smile. He smiles back, though it’s awkward, and he walks away when we break eye contact. I’m in an aquarium – if you tap on the glass the fish swim away.

  I buy another coffee before heading into the station, where I procure a salad from M&S. I board the train comfortably before it pulls out from the station. I’ve ended up on the shit one; there’s one that takes two hours and fifty minutes, which just stops at York, then goes straight to London, but I’m on the one that takes over three hours and goes to every shitey little town on the East Coast. I start getting a bit pissed off by the time we get to Northallerton, because who the fuck lives in Northallerton. Like, Durham and Darlo I can forgive, but Northallerton feels like it specifically exists to wind up people on this train. I eat my salad, and try to sleep, but two coffees has me buzzy and jittery.

  I drop Serotonin an email. I haven’t really spoken to her since I left London, even though we were quite close for a while. There’s a couple of good photos of us together on Facebook. Two from Halloween weekend, 2014. There’s the Friday night where I’m Jessica Rabbit and she’s Holli Would, then the Saturday night where I’m Ginger Spice and she’s Baby. She was almost my replacement Flo – my pet skinny blonde – but she just didn’t have the temperament for it, in the end.

  She got a bit pretentious. She started working for Damien Hirst, and changed her name, and suddenly it was all I don’t want to go there! I hate that restaurant! I’ll pick my own outfits, thanks!

  I email her, anyway.

  Hey Sera,

  I get into LDN in a couple of hours. Drinks/dinner tonight, Y/Y?

  Irina

  Her response comes through when we go through Doncaster.

  IRINA STURGES AS I LIVE AND BREATHE.

  Sounds amaze. Got in from NYC last night (dont know how much you’ve been keeping up with me but i’m living in brooklyn now #gentrification) and I would suck like 50 dicks for a brick lane curry. Shoreditch HS station for 5??

  I missed you u fucking BITCH.

  Sera xx

  I’m glad she’s still quantifying how much she wants to do stuff by how many dicks she’d suck to do it. I have a very clear memory of her grabbing my face in Heaven and complaining about the fact we were in a gay club with no ‘viable targets’. I’d suck twenty dicks to suck a dick right now, Irina.

  I remember pointing out a guy on a night out and telling her I’d cut off one of my toes to fuck him, and she was like, eww. Like her sucking a hundred dicks isn’t a more visceral image than me cutting off a toe. Just the one.

  I agree to meet her for five. My train gets in at two, so it should be fine. I panic for a second that I don’t have my business cards. I got new ones made – I’ve brought a box of about two hundred, just in case. I wobble down to the luggage rack and dig through my suitcase till I find them.

  The rest of the journey passes uneventfully. I get texts from Flo, which I ignore, and an email from Jamie at the gallery letting me know all of my prints have arrived.

  The hotel is in Islington, so I’m near an Overground, and the tube journey from King’s Cross is painless. The hotel is nice – really nice, in fact. Big room, nice furniture, king-sized bed and a mini bar. The bathroom has heated floors, a good selfie mirror and a fancy bath.

  I don’t change. I’m already overdressed for London; the capital’s casual dress code is something I never really adjusted to. People go out clubbing in trainers and jeans, and it’s fine. If you go out in heels and a dress you look provincial, like, oh bless her, it’s her first time out in the big city.

  I still fucking hate the Overground. After growing up with the Tyne and Wear Metro, the fact that people complained about the tube used to boggle my mind, but the Overground really is a pile of shit. Like, trash-tier public transport – I’d genuinely rather get a bus. But the buses in London have a threatening aura that I’m not really in the mood for. So, Overground it is, with an eleven-minute wait for the next one, by the time I get there. I remember telling Finch once that he shouldn’t even consider London for his MA, and that living there just makes you aggro as fuck. And he said he thought it was funny I thought like that, because I’m pretty aggro on the best of days. I told him to fuck off.

  Sera is late. She tells me she walked, and double-kisses me on the cheeks before I have the chance to dodge it.

  She nips her hands around my waist.

  ‘Sturges, you skinny cunt,’ she says. She never lost that public-schoolgirl habit of calling people by their surnames. Sera has put on weight. Her stomach bigger than her breasts now. It’s not exactly a big belly, but it’s a belly on a body with a tiny pair of tits. She’s not wearing makeup – bar a little mascara. Her hair is back to its natural mousy brown, and her complexion is red, rough and wind-chafed. There are little lines around her mouth, and the skin is beginning to sag around her cheekbones. She’s got that proper posh girl look to her — a turned up nose, and a long philtrum so she always looks like she’s just smelt something that stinks.

  ‘I hate you,’ she says. Her accent is different – an American twang, now. ‘You haven’t aged a day. Honestly, what the fuck.’ There it is again. It’s fuck with a U through the nose, instead of one that curls, long and soft from the back of her throat. ‘You’re making me want Botox.’

  ‘I haven’t had Botox.’

  ‘I fucking know you haven’t. And I used to laugh at your fucking five-billion-step skincare routine,’ she says. It’s just a ten-step routine – one she would have benefitted from. She looks like she could be ten years older than me, even though there are just a few years between us. She’s tall as well, and we used to tell men we were models, and that we lived together in a house with six other models, and maybe if they bought us some more drinks, we could take them back to the afterparty at ours. She’d never get away with that now. She takes my hand. ‘It’s wonderful to see you.’

  She drags me to her favourite curry house, hoping it’s still good. The curries in NYC aren’t the same; she doesn’t know if it’s because they’re more authentic, or less. Every curry house has a banner declaring it the definitive Best, or at least the provider of the best curry, in 2018, or 2017, or ‘ten years running’. Sera is jabbering about moving back.

  ‘I mean, I know it’s all gone hashtag Pete Tong with Brexit over here, but Trump’s America.’ She looks at me and rolls her eyes. ‘Of course, we all hate Trump in New York, but there’s just such a bad vibe there right now, like, honestly. I went to speak at a uni in one of the flyover states – real Trump country, and it was literally like… ugh, you know?’ I don’t know. I’ve never actually been to America. I tell her so. ‘Oh babe, you have to come over? I’ll… literally, as soon as I get back to my Airbnb I’ll email Carmen? She’ll love your stuff.’ I don’t know who Carmen is. ‘She owns this sick little gallery in Soho – NYC Soho, not Soho Soho. I showed with her, and that’s basically how I got into MoMA; it’s a great little connection. I mean, she showed my work, so she’ll show you, I’m sure.’

  We get seated immediately in this curry house where we’re the only customers. Sera assures me this one really is the best.

  ‘How’s Newcastle?’ she asks. She says Newcastle with a nasal ‘a’ now, too, and that makes me wrinkle my nose. I tell her it’s fine. I take plenty of photos, I make plenty on print sales. ‘I’m so glad you agreed to this show,’ she says. ‘I told Marnie about your work, and she was
like, I’ve never heard of her, and once I sent your portfolio over, she was literally like O-M-G, how have I not heard of her, you know?’ I raise my eyebrows. The papadums come. I order a large Cobra, which I take a huge gulp from as soon as it arrives. ‘Marnie owns Hackney Space? I went to school with her brother, so we’re like… We’re not besties, but we have brunch together when she’s in NYC.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I don’t eat. ‘You… You got me this?’

  ‘No, you got you this,’ she says, the patronising fucking cunt. I remember why I didn’t keep in touch with her. ‘I just suggested you. It’s just always such a shame the way you dropped off the face of the Earth? Like, if I had my money on a Turner Prize for anyone, it would have been you, babe. Not David French. You used to fuck him, didn’t you?’

  ‘Mmm…’ I drink more beer. ‘That Jamie girl said she’d met me before, like it was her idea to have me.’

  ‘Oh, God no. She was an intern till a few months ago. They’ve literally just taken off her training wheels. She’s such a little liar, oh my God.’ My face heats up. And I think Sera catches it, too. She looks mortified. ‘You don’t need to feel embarrassed, Sturges. Like, honestly, it confounds me how much working-class talent goes to waste. Like, if me or the David Frenches of this world have a bit of a breakdown, it’s like… we spring back because Daddy always knows someone. It’s just not fair that your career gets completely fucking derailed because of your mental health, you know?’

  I am speechless. What I want to say is I’m not fucking working class, but we’ve had this argument before. Just because I’m nouveau riche, doesn’t mean I’m not working class. My dad might be successful but, at the end of the day, a plumber with a big house and a dodgy accountant is still just a fucking plumber.

  ‘I didn’t have a breakdown,’ I snap. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘Um… Well, I used to drink with you. And like, I know we were all deep into coke and stuff, but fuck me, you were erratic back then. My flatmate used to call you the Party Monster – don’t you remember? And you basically vanished halfway through second year. It’s not… You don’t have to be embarrassed, like, you’re an artist; it practically comes with the territory,’ she says. ‘I just always thought about you, and I always thought about how unfair it was, and like… I’ve seen people make shitty versions of basically your work for—’ I cut her off.

  ‘I didn’t have a breakdown… Fuck off, I didn’t…’ I clear my throat. ‘I know you think you’re this fucking champion of the working classes, or whatever, but I’m not a… I’m not mental, I’m not like a fucking… baby who taps out of her MA because she’s sad, I was just… Fuck London, you know, fuck this scene,’ I say. ‘I make loads in private sales, just because I’m not in the Tate or MoMA or whatever.’

  She smiles. I can see her pitying me.

  ‘I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t assume,’ she says, with this fucking look on her face like she knows. She doesn’t know the half of it. ‘I’m being a smug cunt,’ she says. ‘I’m like… I really am trying to be aware of my privilege, so just… I, like, really appreciate you keeping me grounded.’ It’s very mature of her. I could smack her with this huge beer bottle, but I’m not going to.

  ‘Well, that’s what the little people are here for, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t,’ she says. Her accent slips, the American twang vanishes. ‘Don’t be like this. I know it’s weird accepting help, but—’

  ‘Oh, oh shit, you want me to grovel, now?’ I laugh. ‘Three seconds ago I got the show myself, but now I’m accepting your help!’ I’m still laughing. ‘I mean, really, that’s fucking unreal, Sera.’

  ‘I knew you’d be like this,’ she says. ‘I should’ve kept my mouth shut.’ She sighs. ‘Tell you what, Sturges, I’m going to go out for a fag. And when I come back, we’re going to pretend I didn’t say anything. We’re going to eat, I’ll pay the bill as an apology, not because I think you can’t afford it; I’m sure you can. Okay?’

  I shrug.

  I order for both of us while she’s smoking, and I stew. My jaw is clenched tight, and so are my fists. I mean, fuck me for thinking I got this on merit, right? Fuck me for thinking this was anything other than a handout.

  My eyes feel wet. I poke them with my fingers. The feeling is so foreign – it’s like when you bang your head and check to see if you’re bleeding. Liquid on my fingertips, nose running, I blink, and I blink hard and I blink fast until it’s all gone. I dab my nose with my sleeve, but I can still feel the heat radiating from my cheeks, down to my neck, spreading across my chest.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Sera asks. The fake accent is gone again. ‘Jesus, Irina, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  I don’t reply, because my voice might crack. I screw my lips up, and I nod. I shrug, and I drink my beer. I wash away the lump in my throat, and let it settle in my belly. It curdles.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say. I go down to the toilets, where I spend five minutes slamming the balls of my palms into my face, and my thighs, screaming with a closed mouth. I hit my head till my ears ring, then sit on the toilet with my skull between my knees, till the ringing stops and my breathing is steady. I smooth down my hair and my clothes and go back to the table. Sera’s brow is crinkled, the worry lines on her forehead are deep. ‘I’m fine,’ I say. It sounds snappy, so I smile at her. ‘I’m fine.’

  Sera buys us a bottle of champagne at this nice bar in Soho. We’re reminiscing, laughing. I can’t quite shake the last of that feeling in my stomach, though. It lingers, like flu.

  ‘If you tell anyone about getting me this, or about before, I’ll kill you,’ I say. I’m laughing through my teeth, and she laughs too. ‘I will literally kill you.’

  ‘I know you will,’ she says. She taps her nose. ‘Our little secret.’

  ‘I like the bunny head, the bunny head’s good,’ says Jamie. We’re in her office – the film playing in the background while we talk. I suspect she hasn’t watched it the whole way through yet, because she keeps catching it out of the corner of her eye, and then looking away from it very quickly, and staring me right in the eye. She’s very vanilla-looking. A bog-standard posh bitch, with long, brown ombre hair and a Zara cardigan. The accent says Sloane Ranger, but the lack of second-hand sportswear tells me she’s at peace with that. Sera did say the training wheels have only just come off, and, fuck me, you can tell.

  She’s pulled me in to tell me my film will be showing in a room with one of Cam Peters’s shorts – they’re well suited, apparently. His is like a Gilbert & George-esque, cottaging thing. There’ll be headphones, which we agree is better for me, so you’ll pick up on all the little sounds.

  ‘I hope you’re not disappointed. To be sharing the screening room,’ she says. I shrug.

  ‘You’re the junior curator.’

  ‘Your accent is very charming, you know. You’re from Newcastle, aren’t you?’

  ‘Born and bred.’

  ‘I went once; there was a thing on at the Baltic. It was actually quite nice there, which I was really surprised about.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘I bet you’re so pleased to get this. The opportunities are so… limited up there.’ She’s looking at me like I clawed my way here out of a fucking coal mine. ‘What year did you finish at CSM?’

  ‘2012.’

  ‘I was at the Slade for undergrad about the same time you were at the RCA then! 2014?’

  ‘Good for you.’

  I used to laugh at people from the Slade. They’re all a bit like this. I used to call it the Suh Lar Day, in a faux posh accent whenever someone told me they went there.

  Jamie closes her laptop when the film is done.

  ‘I’m so excited to show this. And I love the photos as well.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d better go get on with hanging, actually,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, someone will do that for you, darling.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, with a tight smile. ‘I know, I meant… to direct it.’ />
  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Well, I mean… I’m curating, obviously. It’s not like a uni show, or a solo show. Everything has already been decided. You can watch, though, I mean…’ Jamie shuffles in her desk chair. ‘I suppose you can make some suggestions about the placement of the photos, if you have any.’

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll go down now, then, yeah?’

  ‘If you like,’ she says.

  Sera is downstairs. Her work is on the first floor, but I find her walking the ground, watching a man hang my photographs.

  ‘That one is really grotty,’ she calls to me. ‘I love it.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Excited to see the film, too! I thought you’d kind of dropped out of filmmaking.’

  ‘I had but…’ I shrug. ‘Jamie said they wanted a film to show, so I made one.’

  ‘You’re showing a film and photographs?’ says a little boy. He’s dressed like an eastern European crackhead circa 1997, so I’m going to assume he’s someone’s assistant. ‘That’s not fair. I wanted to show a film, but Jamie said the only person showing a film was Cam.’

  ‘You’re in the show?’ Sera says. We exchange a look.

  ‘Obviously,’ he says. With me. On the same floor. He points to his work, some stuff in the corner I hadn’t even noticed. A few cork noticeboards and a piss load of Polaroids pinned to them, of what could be the same skinny naked white girl over and over again, or could be several skinny white girls. Some of them are tied up, so I guess that’s why it’s fetish art? ‘I’m Remy Hart?’ he says, like we’re supposed to know. Sera and I look at each other again. They’re not good photos. He clearly hasn’t kept his film refrigerated – they’re already sun damaged, with extra little pinholes where they’ve been hung elsewhere before. He’s hanging them right by the door, too. They’ll be bleached to shit by next week.