by Deborah Levy
Jeeezus. Even Express takes a year. Girl suddenly recognises the Voice. It’s that man who was talking to Louise. Mr Tens. Thanks, Mr Tens. Don’t get too carried away with mackerel in mustard sauce newsflash reverie. Stick to what you can do best, i.e. raise retard stock on the FreezerWorld floor. Girl finally pays for her aerosol with Grand-Dad cash and calls up a minicab on Raj’s mobile. He lent it to her for trimming his hair.
While she waits for the cab to arrive, dreading the moment she claps eyes on it, always disappointed and hurt about the minicab wrecks she’s forced to ride about town in, she prowls around the car park shaking her aerosol. Just what she wants. A wall that thousands of shoppers have to pass by in order to enter FreezerWorld. Girl knows exactly what she’s going write with her red paint. She can do it with her eyes shut.
MOM CALL HOME. GIRL X.
Chapter 5
Billy
Girl wears her famous tears like jewels. Like glass blown from grief. Each tear takes approximately five seconds to form in the corner of her eye. You’ve got be careful when you ask Girl what she feels. Here goes.
Say what you feel, Girl?
Say what you feel
You Nescafé slut
You cruel baby wolf
Say what you feel.
‘I did a Mom check.’
‘And?’
‘Hopeless. She just stared at me and said, “I got no recall.”’
‘Well, maybe she was Mom, then?’
‘Naaaaaa. She’s someone’s Mom, but not ours. She called me a Mercedes cab paid for on her account.’
‘Did she look like our mom?’
‘We don’t know what our mother looks like, now do we? But she didn’t sound like her.’
‘Did you tell her about me?’
‘Of course I did, Billy. I always do. I said Billy is well but not that well.’
‘Next time you do a Mom check, tell her I’m sick and dying.’
‘She wouldn’t be interested,’ Girl snarls. ‘No one’s interested in a loser.’
‘Mothers are supposed to be interested when their children are sick and dying, for God’s sake!’
‘The worst thing,’ Girl says incredulously, ‘was that she was wearing a pair of cute slippers.’
‘Cute?’
‘Little pink furry things, really dirty. Like the fur on a gonk.’
‘A gonk. That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’
‘She was like us, Billy. She had no recall.’
‘Then it was her!’
‘No, it was not! I know just as well as you what Mom’s like and that was not her. Just fuck off, you creep. Go away! Get out of my sight! Stab your self! Go away! Die with the gonks!’
I am blotting paper for Girl’s anger. She takes it out on me and even more of it out on herself. It’s just too much. If they ever make a robot Girl they’ll have to give her tear ducts.
Click the heels of my red trainers three times. With force. Take me away from here. Take me home. That’s what Dorothy Oz said to her dog. But this is home. Girl is full of junk and dirt and chemicals. Dead birds float on their backs in the slime. It’s good for her to cry.
I know this because I read books about it. I study the mind and it’s my life’s work. Hopefully one day beautiful blonde mad girls will come to my couch and tell me their problems.
My consulting room will be a laboratory of the human psyche. My couch will become famous. Girls will sell their most precious belongings to afford my mind. Biographers will fight amongst themselves to describe my methods. ‘He told lies. He told the truth. He gulped for air. He clutched his chest.’ Perhaps I’ll call myself Billy England. When I die, the world will be able to buy archive photographs of Billy England. The Billy poster, mug, tiepin, watch, pencil, cuff links, notepad. Billy portrait by Ralph von something. The Diaries of Billy England. Hardback. Paperback. A picture of Eros on the cover (she’ll look a bit like Girl) – Eros the basic life instinct. Eros from sometime BC. That will soon change. First there was Before Christ. Then there was BB. Before Billy.
Girl and her Mom checks. Look – Mom disappeared when I was ten years old. I am now fifteen and she’s not around to see how good-looking I turned out. Girl’s looked after me ever since she turfed Grand-Dad out on account of his pathetic jokes. She was twelve at the time. We had a Girl and Billy conference and agreed he had to go. It’s not good for the young mind to have to endure the wit of the senile. Girl’s always known that I am special. Now that she’s seventeen she would do the same thing over again. Boot out the clown. She did not want to see me contaminate my integrity by pretending to laugh at the moronic. Being looked after by Girl is one thing. An envelope full of Grand-Dad cash every week is okay. But Mom’s not here to watch Wimbledon with. She’s not here for her boy. That’s not easy to say. She’s not here for her boy. ’Scuse me, I just got to stick my head under the cold tap or something.
She’s just not here for her boy.
What am I supposed to do with the information? It’s like bricks flying around in my head. An earthquake shattering the architecture. Walls falling down. Cars crunching into other cars. Bridges collapsing. Shoot the messenger? The messenger is me. Employ a night nurse to inject me with morphine every time I think about it? Go on a serial killing binge? What about when I become a man? She won’t be here either. Truth is, I’m frightened to grow up too much without righting things with Mom first. Pain is a permanent winter. I am a boy without a car. And I will be man without a car. Nothing to protect me from the weather. Girl gets cabs. She really hates it when they send her an impersonation of what a car might be – that’s dodgy protection – the best they can do, grudging, and it makes Girl mad to think they think it’s good enough for her. I’d rather be in the sleet than that. But Girl is a girl and she needs minicabs to run her about. Even if the vehicle is a car trauma.
I know it’s crazy but sometimes I think one day Girl will really find her. Mom will come to the door and Girl will know. There is one thing about Girl I just don’t understand. We think Dad died horribly. But we’re not completely sure. He might have survived the fire. Girl is nuts about Dad. I think she is. But she never goes out looking for him. She’s afraid she might find him and then what would she do? Call the emergency services? The way Dad laid into my boy flesh, he might as well have scooped me off the floor, poured me into a jar and labelled it BILLY CHUTNEY. Not that I am complaining. Dad really loved Mom. And I made it my life’s mission to steal Mom’s love from Dad. It was working. He could never get near her cos I was always on her lap. My little hands on her breasts. My little tongue that had grown in her womb, stuck in her ear. Whispering. Kissing her a million times a day and she not minding the snot running down my face. Making sure I got up extra early every morning to crawl into bed between them. Resting my legs on her stomach. Playing with her hair. When Dad tried to stroke her cheeks, I sat on her face. When Mom made pizzas I ate the lot and Dad left most of his. Then I’d eat Dad’s. Dad hated pizza. Said he liked to eat Elvis food. Cheeseburgers and peanut butter on crusty white. A big handsome bloke with hair, very proud of it cos all his mates were bald. Too handsome. What do you want a good-looking father for? I mean, if a boy has to choose a father he’s not going to leaf through a male-model catalogue, is he? Dad was a looker and despite his Elvis thing he liked to muck about with recipe books to make banquets for Mom. But I needed pizza and Mom enjoyed making them for me. She sang while she made ’em and I sang with her, even though I knew I was going to suffer for it later. Every Mom pleasure equalled a Dad bashing. Mom knew this too so she made sure the good times were good. I think Girl found it hard to square loving a dad that hurt her brother. She couldn’t help herself, though.
If someone had banged spikes into Dad’s body, she’d still have cuddled up to him. Even if it tore her arm off.
Chapter 6
Girl
Billy is making pizza like he thinks Mom used to make. I know it’s just a recipe he got off the telly. The
little brute took notes and even sent off for the TV book. Unless Mom is channelling to us via the Italian slob who does the pasta pizza programme on Tuesday nights – his fat finger always stuck in some sauce – I have to believe that Brother Billy is just Mom-fixated.
First he smears olive oil onto the base with the special Chinese bristles he bought. I’m not allowed to use it. Ever. One day I’m going to stick it up the cat’s arse and leave it there. Then he grates garlic that he can’t be bothered to peel and sprinkles it onto the dough with his chewed-up fingers. Anchovies come next. Sardines. Shrimps. Tinned mussels. Octopus. Tiger prawns. Whelks.
Why not go the whole damn hog, Billy! Create the ocean on pizza in one night! Crustaceans. Molluscs. Transparent spineless creatures with boggle eyes and cavernous mouths. Hideous turdlike sea cucumbers that inch blindly across the seabed munching plankton and sucking sand. Vast flapping manta rays with electric whiplash tails cruising the bottom two inches. Anything that glows in the depths. Anything that lurks in the deep. I’m a nonswimmer. Dad knew that. He knew I hated wet food. He bought me crisps by the bagful. They made me sleep tight. Anyway, listen to me, Billy: I am not hungry.
Billy puts his head right inside the oven when he tries to light it. He looks like a suicide case, swearing and striking matches. ‘These matches are made in the fucking Czech Republic,’ he whines and wheezes like he always does.
‘Listen, Billy, I’ve taken away your rights tonight. The only right you have is to give me Take Two on Dad.’
‘Okay. Here’s Take Two on Dad. Ready?’ Billy pours himself a glass of tap water. ‘Jeezus, Girl. I’m drinking someone else’s hormones. You know that?’
He rolls down his shirtsleeves. Shivering on account of the weather. The weather inside him, that is. Seems like it’s begun to sleet. A thin layer of ice seems to be setting in. All motorists are warned. If you don’t want a pile-up, drive slow. Better still, stay at home. Come off it – it’s not that bad. I mean, don’t advise the ships not to sail or anything. It’s just sleet this time. I said sleet.
Billy’s lips are blue, of course.
‘Dad sells low-cost car insurance in the United States. On the telephone. That way the customer can’t see the burns on his face. He lives in a motel. Like a wooden chalet with a small porch. It’s got air conditioning and a TV. It’s got a shower and a microwave. It’s got a tacky carpet and a king-sized bed. In the mornings he collects his mail from a special box and in the evening he goes to a bar next to the motel for a whisky sour. Dad spends his day saying things like “You’ll be surprised how much you can save. We have a quick streamlined service and our premiums are low.” His voice is English and sincere. “I’ll give you a quote over the phone and cover you on the spot if you like. There are no nasty surprises. You can take out cover without filling in a single form.” Dad’s got a little rhyme he turns over while they speak back to him. It goes something like, “Oh, thank heaven for the 7-Eleven.” He always wears a smart suit and a sharp haircut. Weekends he drives his hire car to the ocean. Dad don’t give a fuck about the ozone hole. He lies under the sun smeared in his Hawaii oil and reads paperback thrillers. When he’s reached maximum heat he walks to the water, a bit shy because his body is getting old. That doesn’t stop the girls looking at him, though. He’s got two other kids now, Girl. Bessie and Julian. He built them a swing in the garden out of an old car tyre. Sees them twice a month now he’s separated from their mother. But he don’t love ’em like he does us. They’re American kids. Tall with blue eyes and nice teeth.
‘Sometimes he tries to remember what we look like. But he can’t. He looks at pictures of English kids in the newspapers. Does my Girl look like that girl? Does Billy look like this boy here? He’s lost his memory. Just like us. He’s got the feeling but not the memory. Every evening when he sips his whisky sour, he takes his watch off and lays it on the table next to him. He loosens his tie and stretches his legs. He smooths back his hair and he keeps his eye on the big clock on the wall. Dad is waiting for something but he doesn’t know what it is. He’s waiting for us, Girl. He’s waiting for you. When he takes off his watch it’s to free something up. It’s like the mechanism inside the watch is blocking his pulse. He eats chicken tacos with melted cheese and says his rhyme over and over: “Oh, thank heaven for the 7-Eleven.” It’s like a verse sent to him from God. Dad never dreams and he never cries. He likes his fried eggs sunny side up and he’s given up searching for marmalade.
‘Dad has given himself up, Girl. He’s not the man you remember. He’s not the man he was. He’s someone else. Dad is no longer Dad.’
‘I hate him. I hate him.’
‘There’s no “him” to hate. Dad doesn’t know who he is. What is the “him” of Dad?’
‘I hate him.’
‘I know you do,’ my brother lies, opens the oven door half an inch and peers inside. A sleazy pizza peep show.
‘And I hate your fucking pizzas.’
Louise loves pizza. Any kind of pizza. Nothing makes Louise happier than to eat pizza. Thin crust, thick crust, extra cheese, yes please, she even thinks Hawaiian is just fine. Ham and pineapple chunks. Tropical. She smiles her white-teeth smile even when they put an egg on her pizza. Why, an egg, how strange and interesting! Her favourite, if she has a favourite because she just loves them all, is American Hot. Pepperoni! Wow! In fact she would like extra pepperoni on her pizza and an egg. If the pizza chain want to try out pineapple chunks and ham with the pepperoni and egg, then she’s up for it. What’s more, Louise likes to start with garlic dough bread before she eats her main order of pizza. She wants naked pizza first. If the pizza chain want to give her dough balls to accompany her garlic pizza slice, Louise would like to eat them too. That’s how crazy Louise is for the pizza product. Louise is going to eat Billy’s pizza with relish, happy to experience the marvels of the ocean on dough. She is going to chew on inky squid and kiss her fingers which she has formed into a small cluster as she brings them to her lips – a gesture of approval to Chef Billy learned from watching foreigners in sitcoms. Bon appetit. She is going to pour her and her brother a glass of cold beer. ‘To us, Billy,’ she says. ‘To our family. Good luck to us all.’ Louise has silky hair and glowing skin. Her voice is firm and all her teeth are straight. She is not afraid to be uncertain and have doubts. She is not afraid of the deep. Her bath towels are always warm from the electric rail. Louise is light-hearted. Louise is ready for love.
Louise is my real name but Girl has stuck. What kind of a girl is FreezerWorld Louise? Why did that man, Mr Tens, say the heat is in her head, not in her hands? I got to find my trainers and do another Mom check.
Chapter 7
Girl is exploding in space. Her calf muscles are taut, stretched, her peroxide hair flying, her thin arms flailing, faster, faster, away from Brother Billy and his TV recipes that go horribly wrong. Away from the boy from hell who says all good chefs give a bit of themselves to every recipe. Billy who said if she wanted to run really fast she should wear a headdress of feathers for lightness, height and flight. Away from Billy who has just told her something devastating. He said that when Mom disappeared, her soul entered his body and now he is a man with a woman’s soul.
As she speeds through the park she thinks about God and whether he is watching her. Girl thinks her main thought: soon all the kids in England will be pushing up daisies. To avoid her main thought she thinks about supermarkets: how the shining lino of the aisles and the bright lights and the promise of so much makes her feel dizzy and excited and sick. She wants everything. Girl actually feels a pain in her side, the wanting is so acute – when she stares into the industrial freezers she clutches her ribs. An icy mist floats up between her and the boxes of frozen cheesecake. She puts her hand into the freezer and feels the chill creep up her arm. Shopping pains: the adrenaline she feels when she runs is how she feels when she shops. Tranced out. Both activities take her breath away. She wants big cartons of vanilla-flavoured yogurt made in Germany. She wants je
welled collars for dogs she does not own, batteries, Scottish shortbread, tin openers, frozen trout wrapped in cellophane and packed on small white plastic trays, a shoulder of heritage lamb, jars of mayonnaise, bunches of Cyprus mint, Egyptian potatoes, shampoos to take the chlorine out of her hair, a three-pack of nylon tights. She wants a spit-cooked chicken from the deli section, fat loaves of white bread, slabs of Gouda and Cornish Cheddar, she wants frozen pizzas in boxes – not the pizza Billy makes – factory pizza with diced green pepper and sweetcorn. She wants tubs of raspberry and chocolate mint ice cream, bottles of sweet dessert wine, vacuum-packed Arabic coffee and refill bottles of garlic salt; she wants boxes of cereal with free gift plastic robots in them and bottles of fizzy sweet drinks, nail-varnish remover, a hairbrush, face creams and Belgian chocolates. Girl wants everything the market can give her to pass time and to fill time. She wants to be someone who has plenty. Even plenty of what she does not want. Girl runs and cries. She does all the verbs. She wants, she cries, she runs, she cries some more. Watched by God who, as far as Girl is concerned, is just heaviness in the sky.
