Billy and Girl

by Deborah Levy

  How much does he want? This Dadness with his beerness. Paraffin stink. His made-from-something-elseness. ‘You owe me all you got.’

  Something smashing my head with a stone. The things that girls owe. What do I owe Dad? He’s looking down at his feet so I can see the sores on his head.

  ‘We didn’t make much.’

  This Dad nods. ‘Yeah. I know. I read about it in the papers. About six hundred quid. I’ll have that.’

  Whass happening? How did Dad know? What’s he been saying? Just his wrong lips moving. Let’s get out of here.

  Dad’s nostrils watch me take the cash out of the bag. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ he teases and whines. ‘Buy a few cans before the off-licence closes.’ He holds out his hand.

  I used to walk hand in hand with my father. Down stairs. Up stairs. To the shops. He used to put his hands over my eyes and lift them off and he used to take me swimming. I used to swim towards his hands. Waiting there. To catch me. Dad hid things in his hands. A mint chocolate or a mini-Christmas-tree teddy bear. Choose which one to open. Always something there for me in Dad’s hands.

  When I put the money in his hand, he grabs my hand. Hard. ‘Tell me where Mom is, pleeese, Dad?’

  Something happening to Dad. Tears leak out of his small wrong eyes. Spring out sideways. Like a water leak in a tap. ‘It’s not what happened to your mother you should be asking,’ he gulps. ‘It’s what happened to your father.’ The tears are seeping from under his skin. Wetness springing from the sides of his lips. Pouring out of him. He won’t let my hand go. He won’t stop saying things. Stop. Stop. Stop. Let go of me. Stop. Stop it. Stop saying. Stop doing my hand. Stop. Just stop. Stop. Stop. Let go of me. ‘My Girl, girl girl girl,’ he whimpers and leaks. ‘My girl girl girl my girl my girl girl girl girl my girl my girl my girl girl my girl my girl.’

  Chapter 5

  Billy

  Mein fader. My first ever sighting of manliness. He came to the door knowing his kiddies stood on the other side. Dad last saw me when I was ten. I shave now. Shave the cat that is. Heh heh heh. Look, I’m a man of science. It’s my career, tho no one knows yet the extent of my influence. I am a fledgling founding Leadre of Twenty-Firdt Cntury Thought. Thort. But I have to confess my teenage sighting of Dad sent me primal. Whirling through the caveboy vortex into fire, fat and flint. Demon terror. I nearly let Christ into my life. On the verge of turning my palms upwards and inviting all the dogs in England to come unto me. Pedigrees and mongrels. Nearly prayed for golf programmes to be on all the TV channels all the time. Then I got a grip.

  Dad is good-looking. Always has been.

  Girl hid her face in her arm when he came to the door. When Dad’s blue movie-star eyes roved my boyness I saw exactly what Mom must have seen in him. I’m going to faint because Dad is a sex god. How did such a big man get to have a runt of a son like me? Dad has been well and truly punished. Not that he stood in front of us in repentance. He stood there in defiance and drunken mean plotting to get his kiddies’ stolen loot. Righting an injustice against him. Righting his blood sugar level with Special Brew. Six hundred quid’s worth.

  Dad is an old-fashioned Dadness. There won’t be many more of him in the future. Not when I publish my book. A new sort of Dadness will be born. After the first crucial five minutes, it was all right for me, meeting Dad. I understand the situation. I tried to steal Mom from Dad. Baby Oedipus. Oedipussy. Mom’s disappearance is my punishment for cheating on Dad. The equivalent of gouging my eyes out with a brooch pin. A flood of gore, ‘black rain’ running down my face, staining my beard. If I had a beard.

  I knew what I was doing when I wooed Mom away from Dad for ever. Call on me any time for definitions, explanations and concepts. I’m a major boy theorist. The Neeetcher of Harkham Road. Yeah, if anyone ever bought me a gonk I’d call it Nietzsche. I can’t understand why I’m not a hunchback or something because according to my books, there is good evidence to suggest that unresolved emotional stress will always find a way of afflicting the body. I might be small but I got no wrenches or twists. A perfect little tragic boy pain icon.

  So what if Dad tried to mince me into Billy burgers?

  ’S long as I don’t seriously think this is the one and only way of doing Dadness, I’m all right, aren’t I? The books say so. I mean, you would trust me with your pets when you go on your holidays, wouldn’t you?

  My sister tried to make Dad invisible at first sighting. You know how she did that? Naaaaa. No magic fucking spells or curses or walking in a circle three times. She shut her eyes. Louise. Girl. A menthol spook. When she opened her eyes she made them go retarded. To Let. Vacant property. Unfurnished. Poked her fingers into her cheeks. No crying yet but I had mentally prepared myself with even sadder thoughts: like Raj selling raffle tickets to send himself to college. I promise to tell the truth. There is nothing sadder than Dad and Girl.

  It’s a love affair. I could see love in the vapours between them.

  Girl set fire to Dad on my behalf and Mom took the blame. That’s how the story goes. Why did Girl want to destroy the person she most loved? That was the terror when I first heard. What I am saying is, I hope I am not the person Girl most loves. Dad is the prince of the twentieth century for Girl. I, Billy, will be the new brand of prince for the twenty-first. Even if Girl had tried to kiss him better, this frog Dad, nothing would have happened. What could Dad have changed into? The world has changed and he needs a new story. But no one ever told it to him. What if my sister had kissed frog Dad and a prince had popped out? The old story prince, from another time, another age. What’s his equipment? A sword. A white stallion. A wedding ring. A castle somewhere? What’s the modern girl princess gonna do with that stuff? She wants her own equipment. A good sound system, two credit cards and a stash of Ecstasy for the weekend. And her own gonk.

  As it happens, Dad’s stallion was a fucking beat-up Merc. Worse than the minicabs Girl keeps in business. Dodgy protection, like I said before. The prince Dadness didn’t even know the words of the old story. Hop onto my stallion and I’ll lead you to a better life. He sold his fucking knacker’s-yard stallion to his kiddies. And then he cried. Hollered. Clutching princess Girl’s hand. Putting the car keys into her hand for danger money. Girl who can’t drive. Now I know where Girl gets the crying gene from. I really thought Dad was going to cry himself into the atom structure. Into the concrete. Cry himself into the brick walls and tarmac and old fridges and cookers lying around the place. Lou Lou Lou Louise. Saying it over and over like it was a magic spell. Jeeezus. Get my sister a Ramos Fizz immediately. Six parts gin etc. But don’t get her loving me too much.

  I’ve hardened up. Scholars have to. It’s not ideal to experience pathos and terror first hand. We must push on into the future, cry over better stuff than this. So I just asked Him the only thing I want: Where’s Mom, where’s Mom, where’s Mom? And Dad mutters something about how he hasn’t got the words. You know what? He’s right. He hasn’t got the words. You’d think tragedy would teach us about ourselves and the world. Well, it’s taught Dad fucking nothing. He has no tragic vision, no stature of any kind. Future Dad will have the words. He’ll have the equipment. The feelings. He will be All There. Cos otherwise he’s just frog Dadness, and there’s a shortage of princess girls to kiss him better. A regular famine of princess material. Heh heh heh. I’ve suffered for my insights.

  But my time has come. Once I’ve sorted out this Mom thing, nothing will stop my manliness walking proud in the twenty-first. Yep. I’m gonna walk tall with Raj. Cos Raj is the best thing England’s got going for it. And Raj’s moment has come. Via the Merc.

  Frog Dad disappears into his house. Probably eating slime and flies while his kiddies check out their pain-family inheritance. Neither of us have a clue how to drive it home. Girl turns the key and what do you know? It starts first time.

  Now what? We don’t even know what thing is clutch, what is accl and what is brake. Not for one moment are we going to ask frog death. Girl turns o
ff the ign while I make a call to Raj. I’m standing in the phone box at the end of the road, begging him to catch the train up to Notts and save us. He’s saying there’s no one to look after the shop.

  ‘Raj, close the shop. You’ll love this Merc. It’s beauty and truth, Raj! So damn big you could fit the whole of your dad’s shop inside it. Drive us home, will you? Look, Raj,’ I scream, ‘if we see the whiteboyz who stuck blades in your school desk, we’ll pulp ’em like you said you wanted to, okay?’

  Raj isn’t falling for that one. I’ve done too much work on him. It’s the Merc that gets him. I offer him one-third ownership if he drives us home.

  It’s dark by the time Raj arrives. Girl’s going nuts because we can’t even kill time with a cocktail. Frog father doesn’t live in cocktail land. Too much time on our hands. Saviour Raj. Speechless when he sees the Merc. Can’t believe he’s travelled all this way to part-own something stuck together with frogspit.

  Girl is on best behaviour. Gives him a little kiss on his ear. So he gets into the driver’s seat, Girl in the front with him, I’m in the back. We all take a deep breath, Girl chanting mantra for a Frozen Matador, four parts tequila etc., and the fucking automobile starts, no problem. First time. Raj cheers up a bit. Puts his foot down with a bit of ownership pride. Jeezus. Frog Dad even gave us a full tank! Girl’s relaxing now. Stretches out her legs, sneaks secret glances at Raj. Never seen her do that. Raj is showing her how to do the business. The gears, clutch, handbrake, mirror. Apparently you have to look in the mirror a lot. I can do that. And then, just as it’s all going so well, the Merc shudders and cuts out. Girl and I were expecting it, of course. Our pain inheritance wasn’t going to be four seven eleven, was it? So we’re all out in the cold while Raj is mending stuff, swearing about what a pile of shit this wreck is, how it’s going to take him a year to strip it down and get it on the road. Nowhere to even buy a Cornish pasty. I mean, what’s the point of England if you can’t even buy a Cornish pasty in the Midlands? I’m telling Raj how he’s the brother I never had and Raj is telling me how much he’s going to charge me for the new parts he’s going to have to buy. Girl’s smoking one menthol after another, trying to get frog-prince grief out of her head. Raj is lying right under the Merc disaster now. I’m promising him a Billy pizza experience when we get back home. That gets Girl screaming so loud the rear light falls off. Raj stands up, groaning. Instructs Girl to mend the light with the tape in his toolkit. Miming with his fingers, round and round. Raj watches her, hands on his snake hips. Runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Girl and Billy England,’ he mutters, ‘the whole family is fucked.’ Girl smiles. Next thing I know, she’s in the driving seat, and Raj is sitting next to her. I’m lonesome in the back and Girl’s driving as if she was born with a car key in her mouth.

  Chapter 6

  Girl hopes the Merc is going to change her life. The days of minicab protection are over! She watches Raj remake the Merc with real excitement about all the rides they’re going to go on, a thermos of margaritas in the hamper. She sits on the bonnet, Raj under the car, just chatting. Telling him about her life view and what she thinks about certain events. He loves mending the Merc. Makes a change from selling dead fruit to Stupid Club.

  Because Raj is always under the car trying to figure out how to fix something that was made in 1959, he doesn’t get to do much of the talking. Anyone walking past the Merc would think Girl was sitting on the bonnet talking to herself.

  ‘I hate it when people say, Are you all right? What are you supposed to reply? You fall over in the street, rip your elbows and scab your knees. Someone comes over and says, Are you all right?’

  Raj smiles under the car. Even though she can’t see him, maybe she can feel his smile? He’s also noticed that she’s wearing blue knickers with a little flower pattern on ’em.

  ‘You’re hurting and just want to bawl. Everyone watching and your bag’s tipped over the pavement. Are you all right?’ They know you’re not all right, Raj! They know that when they ask you.’

  Girl crosses her arms and makes herself comfortable. Watching a Stupid Club member go into the shop. Probably got wind of the mince pies Raj’s father bought in bulk from the plumber who came to mend his central heating.

  ‘I don’t believe in being brave, Raj. I’m sick of courage. When do you have to start with this bravery requirement? Jeeezus! Who wants a row of medals clinking on your Mothercare anorak?’

  The truth is Girl and Billy are getting over their exposure to Dadness. Quiet is required. Hot baths. Small activities. Choosing a moisturiser. Cutting up cinema seats. Talking to Raj. Leafing through Harpers and Queen to see who has been drinking champagne with who. Sometimes going out to write MOM CALL HOME messages. Whipping up a banana milkshake afterwards. Trying to get to sleep without thinking first. Watching the neighbourhood cats slug out their territory battles.

  Raj listening. Enjoying himself. Thinking about Merc parts and the pretty pants Girl wears and how her talking to him makes him feel happy.

  All the kids in England. Being brave. Being all right. Being okay.

  Chapter 7

  Louise pressed the doorbell at number 24 with the tips of her small fingers. Just a little tinkle. ‘Nothing to worry about’ was her message.

  The lightest of pressure. The smallest of interruptions. When Billy heard it, he wanted to lock himself in the bathroom. Girl said, ‘Nothing to worry about, Billy. It’s only Louise.’

  Louise is not pale. She’s past being pale. Girl can see through her cheeks. Louise is wearing a minikilt, leggings and horrible shoes. Shoes with no hope in them. Beige rubber soles.

  ‘Hello.’

  Sweet. She’s painted clear varnish onto her chewed-up little nails to strengthen them. Somewhere, despite the shoes, Louise cares. The silky blondeness of her hair. Girl reminds herself that she’s got two plastic heart hair clips for Louise upstairs. She wants to put them in for her. A middle parting. Clip on each side.

  Louise is wearing a bottle-green turtleneck jumper. A jumper with zero attitude in it. Only the tartan mini is any good – just like in Girl’s dream. Louise needs to be dressed by an expert. Girl is already going through her own wardrobe making up outfits for her. Louise has got a dimple in her cheek and a vial of asbestos dust in her eyes. The Louise eyes. They grab you just when you think you’ve got away safe and sound.

  Girl is going to play dirty. This is her house after all and Louise is just an intimate stranger. What the fuck is she doing here?

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Louise could really be beautiful. Girl is being brave.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’

  Louise nods. Of course she does. Girl has known this for some time. The Louise tangle. Louise walks in in her horrible shoes. It’s the shoes that hurt Girl most. Louise has arrived. Girl points her in the direction of the kitchen where Billy is making tea. Billy is very busy. The tea takes up all his boy concentration. What with the teabags and the water all having to get to the teapot. That would be a good topic for Stupid Club – the time it takes to make a pot of tea. Girl knows that Billy is working out the meaning of this event for his book, that’s why he’s so slow.

  GOD, Billy! Hurry up. Talk about the weather. Talk about paindogs and how it’s a shame milk isn’t delivered to the door any more!

  Louise takes something out of her bag. Aaah. It’s a slab of marble cake! From FreezerWorld. She gets a special staff discount on all items from the bakery.

  Really? Billy’s making conversation at last. He’s seen the cake. Glanced at Louise, close up and from a distance. Conversation! Here it comes!

  ‘Thanks.’

  Girl offers Louise a menthol. Louise stares at it for a while and then shakes no with her silky hair. She stares at Girl when she lights her cigarette, watching everything Girl does. Billy pours them all a cuppa. Teatime! Tea and cake. At home with the Englands.

  Louise’s voice is deadpan. Speaking facts. Speaking the truth. ‘I�
��ve come for my cut.’ Little hands reaching for a slice of marble cake. Lips puckering to sip the tea.

  Billy’s eyes flicker towards Girl, who is sending him an SOS via brother and sister know-how. Shut the fuck up and leave this to her. Girl is still playing dirty.

  ‘You’ve come for your cut?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Cut of what?’

  Another sip of tea. Another little peck into the marble cake. Speaking facts. Watching Girl tap her silver loafers on the kitchen lino. ‘Cut from Express.’

  Girl’s begining to feel bitter. So Louise thinks the Express till was a big deal, does she? Six hundred miserable fucking pounds. If Louise had got her act together and packed the peas faster, Mr Tens would have promoted her from Express to a full-blown trolley till. More groceries. More cash.

  Louise and her horrifying princess eyes. ‘I gave a description of you both.’ She pauses. ‘But I gave it wrong.’ The Louise dimple creasing her see-thru cheek. She’s flirting a bit with Billy, would you believe? ‘They did an artist’s something. From what I said.’

  ‘It’s called a likeness.’ Girl tries to disguise the sneer in her voice.

  ‘Yeah. ’S nothing like you. Or him. Cos they knew it was two.’

  Billy is revving up. Licking his lips. Fiddling with the spare button sewn into his shirt sleeve. The manufacturer’s precaution against loss. Girl can see what’s coming. Billy is going into Dr England mode. Dr England and his talking pain couch. Louise is Billy’s patient. Something sensible is lurking in him. It always terrifies Girl when Billy goes sensible. He’s rearranging the furniture inside Louise’s head. Except the furniture is fucking weird to start with. The table’s got no legs to support it in the first place but Dr England is going to move it somewhere. The armchair’s got cigarette burn holes all over the seat and Billy is going to shove it against the wall. Rolling up the rug and sweeping up under it. Putting it back in a different place. A whole room of weirdness rearranged. Jeezus. Why doesn’t he just chuck out the furniture and leave the room empty?