Golden Boy: A Novel

by Abigail Tarttelin

  ‘If you’d like to,’ I add quickly, looking at Max.

  ‘Cool,’ our eldest son says.

  ‘Daniel, would you like to see the baby?’ asks Steve.

  ‘Yes, excellent,’ Daniel says, nodding.

  ‘Good, then let’s jump in the car and we might miss the rush hour traffic on the way to London,’ Steve tells them.

  They both stand up and head for the door.

  ‘What was it?’ Max asks, turning back.

  ‘A boy,’ Steve says. ‘He’s called William.’

  Daniel

  Max comes in my room tonight. He hasn’t really come in much lately and I was missing him. This week it has seemed as if he’s not listening to what I am saying and I have to keep telling him to pay attention. But tonight he comes in shortly after we get back from seeing William and eating the pizza Dad picked up on the way back, and he looks like he’s happy to hang around for a bit, which is pleasing. He hovers over me for a bit, watching me play Zombieland 4, which is a new game I got for my birthday that’s even better than Deadland 2, and giving me pointers. Then he stands up, wanders around my room looking at stuff, like my pictures of robots, and then he picks up my yellow bear, and strokes its bum, which is really soft.

  ‘What’s this guy’s name?’

  ‘Yellow Bear.’

  He laughs even though it isn’t funny. ‘Right.’

  ‘Doesn’t Auntie Julie’s baby look weird? It’s like one of those dogs with too much skin.’

  He sort of smile-laughs. ‘It’ll grow into it. It’s just been born. Didn’t you think he was cute?’

  I make a face and kill five zombies in my game – four with a bazooka and one with a knife, because he’s within a metre of my character.

  He puts his arms around Yellow Bear and cradles him like a doll.

  ‘I think babies would be cute if they looked like bears,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says back, sort of quietly.

  ‘Like Ewok babies. I’d have an Ewok kid and then they would be cute but also I wouldn’t have to buy them clothes and they could kill chicken-walkers.’

  He says something really quiet and I go, ‘Huh?’

  Then he looks at me like adults do when they’re acting like they know way more about something than you, but smiling, like there’s a secret you’ll know one day and it’ll be great and aren’t we proud of you and the potential you have, although we’re not going to tell you about it because we don’t think you’d understand.

  ‘I said you’ll have babies one day, little dude. When you meet someone nice.’

  ‘I guess.’

  I stick out my tongue, like ‘yuck’ but I suppose I will have them one day, only way later. Adults always talk about babies like they’re the centre of the universe but William didn’t look anything except kind of gross and asleep. My kids would be like superheroes, though. I’d train them up and fit robotic extensions to their arms with uzis and lasers in them that cut things like the ones used in laser eye surgery, which I will Wikipedia, I think, after Max leaves.

  This brings me back to Max, who’s watching me kill zombies in a glazed-eyes way, and I realise he’s way older and leaving school in two years and then he’ll have university, and after that maybe he’ll have kids. That would make me an uncle. Maybe I could fit robotic extensions onto his children to make them super-powered. Maybe I’ll reserve that for my own kids, though, because that will give his kids a power over mine, but then I realise since I’m having mine after he has his, the extensions and modifications in my offspring will be more advanced, so I could modify his offspring and not worry.

  ‘Will you have children?’ I say.

  He’s gone into a sort of daze, resting his chin on Yellow Bear’s head, holding and looking at Yellow Bear’s paw for no reason, which must be out of focus so close up, like when I get stuck staring at something and Mum is like, ‘Move! Do something!’ and then she tickles me out of it.

  He shrugs, looking kind of grumpy. ‘Probably not,’ he says.

  ‘Why?’ I say, executing a ghoul. ‘I mean why not?’

  He adjusts the collar of Yellow Bear’s T-shirt so it’s all the right way round and then strokes his back. He makes Yellow Bear look up at him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Why d’you think, Bear?’

  ‘You shouldn’t force his head like that,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry.’ He puts the bear down like he knows he was being stupid.

  ‘Hey.’ I suddenly have a thought. ‘Will my kids be like you or like me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He ponders, like when you think for a while. ‘I don’t know what genetic things you pass down.’

  ‘Like in your DNA?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like in Jurassic Park?’

  He looks to the side, as if remembering. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is DNA?’

  Max frowns. ‘It’s like a code. Um. And that code is a description of you, that your mum’s body builds your body out of. It’s like instructions, like a building plan for a house.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ I nuke a zombie crack den. ‘But why would my instructions say that I had to be ginger? Was it a mistake?’

  ‘No,’ Max says firmly.

  ‘Did my instructions go wrong?’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘You’re perfect, Daniel. You’re wicked.’

  ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘Well . . . if all the people in the world were the same, it wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Yes it would. It would be like The Matrix, except the cool bad guys would rule the universe.’

  ‘Err, OK.’ He looks at me and I look at him and wait for a explanation. He takes off his school tie and unbuttons some buttons on his shirt and lets a long breath out and looks very much like Dad did last week when I was waiting for him to explain alien warfare when he had just got in from some sort of lawyery conference.

  ‘Imagine,’ starts Max, ‘that there is a great big power controlling everything. No one knows what it is, but loads of people have different names for it.’

  ‘Is this like God?’

  ‘Yes, some people call it God, and some people call it Nature. But we think it’s there because there seems to be an order to things.’

  ‘OK. I am following you.’

  ‘OK, good. Um . . . so when it comes to different species—’

  ‘Like humans, dogs, etcetera?’

  ‘Yeah. Well when it comes to species, the order seems to be that the species sort of tries to make more of itself, without really knowing it’s trying, you understand?’

  ‘Subconsciously?’

  ‘Yes. Good word. OK, so the species is also trying to make itself better and stronger, so it can survive longer than all the other species. It’s like a race. Like in DeathMatch 4 on the PS3, where you have to be the last group to survive in your category. And on Earth, the humans are kind of winning, in our category.’

  ‘What’s our category?’

  ‘Warm-blooded mammals,’ Max says, the story getting faster. ‘So one major tactic humans have used in the race is variation. Variation is where you make lots of different people, using lots of very complex DNA codes, with loads of tiny parts, including some called genes. The more genes, the more complex we are, and the more we can produce different types of people.’ He frowns. ‘Basically, it’s something like that. So, when we produce different people, we find out which types of people are stronger, because they live through childhood, which are the years where you are small and weak and you’re tested by the elements, like weather and starvation, and then after childhood, the different people who are stronger survive to produce kids who are like them, so their variation is proved strong and their kids are born with that variation too, and the humans get stronger as a group. And since humans are a social animal too, like wolves in a pack, when you get different people, they are all better at different things like hunting and homemaking, so they help the group to survive. So your code made you who you are, becaus
e the codes are designed to spit out different people. Differences are part of a gigantic race to win as a species, so we all play a very important part.’

  ‘Ah,’ I say, nodding. ‘So I’m special.’

  Max grins. ‘Yes, you’re very special.’

  ‘Good,’ I say, but I still feel a bit strange, so I have a think a bit more, and then I say, ‘But if I’m not like you and not good at school or popular, it means I lost some things when I was growing in Mum, didn’t I?’

  ‘You . . .’ Max trails off. ‘The thing is, Daniel, we’re all different. We can’t all have everything everybody else has.’

  ‘So, kids?’

  Max looks up and he looks very startled, suddenly, like I’ve just given him a neck-squeeze shock. ‘What about kids?’

  ‘Will my kids be like me or like you?’ I ask. ‘I think I want them to be like you. Or even better, like Dad, because you’re a little bit small.’

  He huffs and says, ‘You can’t always pick what your kids are going to be like.’ However, he says this in a way that makes me think he is maybe thinking about something else.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask, just to be sure.

  He thinks. ‘I think if I had kids, they’d be as likely to be like you as your kids would be likely to be like me. Maybe.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I say, cheering up a lot. ‘Then our offspring would have a fair fight when they battle.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, his voice sounding tight and tired. ‘Well, glad to know you’re comforted.’

  Max

  After my talk with Daniel on Wednesday night, I get into bed, switch all the lights out and start to cry hysterically. I’ve been feeling so weirdly uncomfortable over the past couple of days. I’ve been thinking, This is it, the only time I’ll be able to have kids. The only time I’ll look at a baby and it will be mine. I’ll see me in its face, see my mum and dad in it too, see my grandad and my nan. The thought makes me feel really frightened and upset. I never thought about it before. I never thought about whether I wanted kids. When I was little, I presumed I would, someday, but then I realised when I was a bit older that that probably wasn’t in the cards. I thought I was infertile, but I just didn’t think about it often. I’m sixteen – why would I think about that? But now . . .

  Am I thinking about keeping it? Am I seriously thinking about keeping it??

  It’s just that they won’t let it happen again! Everyone’s talking about getting everything taken out like it’s a done deal. It was me that asked Archie to book it, but I was just so scared. Mum looks at me like I’m a time bomb, Dad avoids me and works all the time, and I just nod to everything. Hysterectomy, check, yes, whatever. But do I want that? I don’t know.

  I’m not sure. Oh my god. I’m not sure.

  Even without them taking everything out, I’ll never get knocked up again because . . . well, because I like girls, but also because who the fuck would go down there? Apart from Hunter, I mean. They’ll never let me get artificial insemination. They’ll probably never take eggs out and let me have donor spunk and a surrogate, because come on, who’s going to let a single, sort-of-male he/she have that on the NHS? Then I can only do it if I get massively rich. So there are no other options to have children, ever, and now it’s suddenly up to me, counting down in hours, to make a decision about something that could shape my whole life. Is this my only chance to have a baby? Am I going to end up lonely Uncle Max to Danny’s kids, the uncle who is old and alone and doesn’t have anyone coming to visit him at the nursing home, who has this weird semi-sexual problem that means he never married, and that we don’t discuss, but all of Danny’s grandkids whisper about? What will my life be like?

  I hate you, Hunter. I fucking hate you!

  I punch the pillow and turn over, mushing my hot tears into my duvet and choking quietly on sobs.

  Is there even an option to keep it?

  Whenever I even let my brain drift into the future nine months and imagine them with a baby, I immediately think NO. No, no, no, no.

  But teenage girls have babies all the time. Is it so abhorrent just because it’s me and I’m not a girl? I’m not a boy either. I have a stable family, we have money. Maybe Mum and Dad could bring it up as their kid and no one would ever have to know what I am.

  This is insane. How can I even think about this? I mean, how would I even survive the pregnancy? People would see me around town. I can’t just stay in my house for six months. And how would the baby survive it, being the child of a he/she? Oh my god.

  NO. I can’t do it. I can imagine it. Everything. The humiliation, embarrassment, my parents totally upset, friends either blatantly freaked out or subtly freaked out and the awkwardness means we drift apart. All my guy mates would think I fancy them. All my girl mates would think I’m gay. If I say I’m not, it doesn’t matter. It’s as bad as being gay if they are wondering about it.

  Then there’s the biggest thing: Sylvie. I like her so much it hurts when I think about her finding out. Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie. Oh my god, I can just imagine her face, her backing away from me, her looking disgusted, her reaching down and grasping and feeling stuff that’s not supposed to be there. I really, really don’t want to lose her. But it feels inevitable. It is inevitable. I just want to hold onto her for a little bit longer, I plead to the universe. Please, just a little bit longer.

  She won’t even want to kiss me anymore, because she’ll be worried I’ll want it to go further, and if I explain that I don’t want that then she’ll leave me anyway because she’s already had sex and she’ll want it.

  Me: ‘Don’t worry, I don’t want to go further than kissing because it’s a mess down there. Also, I’m pregnant.’

  Her: ‘Errr . . . I’m not sure I feel like kissing right now, but thank you’, or ‘THAT’S SO FUCKING GROSS GET AWAY FROM ME!’

  Oh my god, I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about it at all. Breathe. Breathe. Try and ignore that there’s now a slight bulge beneath stomach muscles I used to be proud of. Try not to look at it. Don’t touch it. Try not to think that there is a tiny baby in there. It’s just a problem, and it’ll be gone in a few days. As problems go, this is a fairly simply concluded one.

  You’re lucky. It’s easy. You’ll go to sleep, then you’ll wake up and the next day life will be awesome again. Life will be awesome and you can make out with Sylvie without feeling guilty because she’s unaware that she’s making out with something gross (OK, still a he/she but not knocked up and maybe, if I can stomach it, just a he. Kind of.), you can blast through the league and make the top spot with the team, you can finish up your GCSEs and have an awesome summer, then start on your A Levels. Maybe they will find a way to get you laid, sew up the hole, put fake balls in (something inside me shudders every time I think about this. Never having seen bollocks in real life, I think of them as gross. I didn’t look when Hunter had his out, but I felt them slapping me, and it freaked me out. Rank, gross, sick.), and though my dick is fairly small, the doctor once said it’s not far below average. I remember on the way home from that appointment – I was about thirteen – Mum told me in the car that Dad is really well-hung, so this saved me. Again, how sick is my life that people feel the need to tell me these things/show me stuff/compare etc. It’s like, ‘Oh, you have odd genitalia. Clearly I can now talk to you about anything and you won’t think it’s that gross, because being you is an all-out sickfest anyway.’ Or maybe for women it’s also like, ‘Oh, you’re sort of a girl, I can tell you this’. And for the few guys that know it’s like, ‘I can tell you stuff that makes me feel vulnerable because you’re way more of a girl than I will ever be’. Which I guess is technically true.

  I can’t believe what Mum said about Dad the other day. I always thought he was uncomfortable with me. We don’t spend a lot of time together. I guess he doesn’t spend a lot of time with Mum or Daniel either. He’s so busy all the time, and he often seems distant. When I ask him his opinion about things, he just asks me how I feel, or w
hat I think. The problem is I don’t know how to feel or what to think about this.

  In fact, Dad has never talked to me about being intersex, not even now I’m pregnant, not without Mum there too. I’ve always thought I’m not the boy that he wanted from a firstborn. It’s a bit easier for him because I do like football, girls, etc., but I’ve always thought he seemed like . . . he can’t forget that I’m a bit of both physically. I’ve always had that thought, but I’ve just ignored it.

  He gets into our conversations when we’re talking about how fit Jennifer Aniston is and we’re laughing and stuff, and then you’ll just see this thought pass across his irises and a twinge follows in his face and he starts off on ‘but if you like other people, maybe even not women’ – only he doesn’t say that. He never just comes out and says what he’s thinking, so I don’t know what he’s thinking. And I watch him and I think what I’m seeing is his heart breaking because I’m not his little guy. I’ll never be his boy.

  Then they’ve got Daniel, and he’s into killing things, which is very boyish, but he also loves teddy bears and finds Dad annoying.

  I don’t think either Mum or Dad would understand why I’d be hesistant about having the abortion, why I feel so torn up about it. They wouldn’t get it. How could they? They could have kids anytime. They never had to worry about finding someone to love them as they were. For them, it was as simple as falling in love and shagging. I don’t like to think about it or verbalise it, but I’m not going to be able to offer that to people, and at some point, after Sylvie has left me, the number of available girls I can hang out with is going to dwindle, as they all fall in love and shag people. Soon they’ll all be taken, partnered up, having babies.

  I’m going to be alone, and older, and the choices and options are going to get fewer and fewer. So, I’m lying here, unable to stop the tears from coming, and I’m wondering – Is this it? Is this my only chance? And this bit I can’t believe I’m thinking about because I’m sixteen, I was basically forced into it, Hunter would know it was his baby, I would get kicked off the team, no friends, no more girl prospects ever, and fuck, think of the fucking media and Dad . . . but . . . is this my only chance to have a child? Do I care? Because I think I might. I think I might care about that.