by Jenny J
He was wearing a pair of extremely tight trousers which had probably been red once upon a time but had faded so much in the wash they were now pink, and a white T-shirt with some image in black, a face maybe. I assumed he lived in the house because he had taken charge of the tweezers situation and moved about the bathroom with familiarity. I couldn’t ever remember seeing him before, even though Mum had lived in the area for at least twelve years. But we didn’t exactly socialise with the neighbours.
In the doorway three girls were standing watching, apathetically. One of them, an elfin-like thing who was so tiny she looked as if she had been made to half-scale, turned to the others and whispered something. I looked at her. She had fair hair and her skin was so thin it looked transparent.
‘How did this happen, then?’ asked Justin severely, but his nose was so blocked it kind of took the edge off his words.
‘I, er, I was walking on the terrace, my Mum’s terrace, I mean. We’re neighbours, yeah? She lives … she lives in that red house.’
I pointed vaguely to the left.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Maja. Maja Müller.’
‘Maja. Hadn’t you donned any socks?’
‘No, no, I hadn’t donned … I wasn’t wearing socks, no.’
He studied my foot closely and I hoped it smelled okay. I thought of Mum’s hatred of socks, her sermons about how they trapped your feet, made them hot and sweaty. She always tore off her socks the minute she got home, in an irritated and almost aggressive way, as if the socks were offending her personally. She started wearing sandals as soon as she possibly could in the spring and as a rule continued wearing them right up until the first frost arrived. I always hoped it would come early because I was embarrassed about her naked feet in October. She walked about barefoot indoors all the time and was always trying to get me to do the same, even though I had told her a hundred times that I would much rather wear socks. That they didn’t bother me the way they bothered her. All she did was shake her head. It was impossible for her to take it in, something she couldn’t possibly understand.
‘I need more than tweezers to do this,’ said Justin abruptly, and went on:
‘They are completely embedded in your skin.’
I swallowed. He put my foot down and ordered the elf in the doorway to lend him the safety pin that was holding her top together, a top that looked as if it was made out of one long piece of fabric.
‘You are aware it’s only April?’ he asked, his gaze directed at my foot.
I looked at the girls but none of them answered.
‘Are you talking to me?’ I asked.
‘Who else? Are you?’
‘Yes. Yes, course I am. April,’ I said quietly, nodding to myself.
I didn’t dare look at him. Was he joking?
‘Is it really suitable to go barefoot in April?’ he said, scolding me.
I looked at him, puzzled.
‘You’re pulling my leg …’
He looked up briefly and gave me a teasing smile.
‘Yes, I am.’
The tiny blonde crept up to him and handed over the safety pin, holding her top closed. I looked at her but she shyly lowered her gaze. You could make out the thin veins forming an irregular network over her eyelids. Her skin seemed to glow a light violet colour.
Justin didn’t say thank you; instead he got out a cigarette lighter and held the flame against the point. After a while the metal glowed a shining orange. I gulped. He blew on the pin.
‘What have you done to your thumb?’ wondered the elfin’s friend, a girl with enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. The hint of an Östgöta accent crept in even though she struggled to suppress it.
‘I’ve sawn it off.’
‘You’ve what?’ she said in disbelief, and the Östgöta accent threatened to take over completely.
‘Sawn it off. With an electric saw.’
‘Why?’
She took a step forward to get a better look.
‘I was tired of it.’
I smiled slyly, but after a moment – usually I can hold out longer, at least with Enzo I can hold out for at least a minute if I force myself – I said:
‘No, only joking. It was an accident. I was sawing the side pieces of a shelf.’
‘You doing some kind of craft course, then?’
‘No, it was a sculpture lesson.’
‘Why were you sawing a shelf in a sculpture lesson?’
She pushed her glasses higher up on her nose.
‘A shelf can be a sculpture too, can’t it?’
‘No-o, I don’t know if I can agree with you there …’
To think people can be so flipping conservative!
Justin raised his voice:
‘Sit still. Now then …’
I could feel him digging. And digging. And digging. Every so often he went back to using the tweezers. I tried not to look but my eyes were irresistibly drawn to the silvery metal instrument.
‘There. Got one.’
He lifted up the thick splinter triumphantly. I felt sick. The girls in the doorway applauded. The little elf smiled at me encouragingly.
A moment later he pulled out another one, but the third was hard to get at because it had snapped off in two places. ‘Nearly there. I’ve just got to slit open this little bit of skin.’
Everything went black. Only for a nanosecond, but because I was wearing polyester trousers and a shiny down jacket, and because the toilet seat was made of slippery porcelain, I slid down and banged the back of my head against the toilet. In exactly the same place as the day before. And in exactly the same place where FAS-Lars had hit it only hours earlier.
I actually saw stars. Blue-white flashes anyway, the kind you see if you rub your eyes really hard.
You would think the removal of a little patch of skin isn’t so bad when you’ve lost part of a digit but I suppose it was all too much, what with Mum’s disappearance and everything so to tell you the truth, a tear trickled from my eye. That so irritated me because they might think it was because I’d bashed myself. It so irritated me that they might think I was a wimp.
‘Perhaps you would like some water?’ asked Justin kindly.
The elfin-like girl raised her voice.
‘No, I know. You’ve got to have some alcohol and then a towel to bite on when he takes out the last bit. It helps. I’ve seen it on a film.’
‘She’s underage,’ snapped Justin to the elf, but she didn’t reply and only slipped out quickly through the doorway.
I felt a bit disappointed, not because I might not be getting any alcohol, but because I realised it showed. I made my voice as chilled as I could as I said:
‘I am not underage.’
Justin looked at me sceptically but when the elf came back with a glass of whisky he didn’t protest. I took two over-confident gulps – I was excused the towel – and managed to keep the gagging under control. I mean, I don’t think it showed on the outside that I wanted to throw up. But isn’t it strange that something that looks like liquid gold can taste so disgusting?
The final splinter was quickly dealt with. I didn’t even feel it and even managed to check my mobile at the same time, but it was worryingly silent and blank and pointless. When Justin handed me the splinter I saw that it was as thick as a toothpick and jagged, and full of small protruding wood fibres. There is something about wood, I thought. It doesn’t like me.
Justin pulled out a metre of loo roll and blew his nose in such a way that everyone in his presence could see the contents of his nostrils. I turned away politely and drained my glass.
That whisky, those totally disgusting mouthfuls, made me open up. Yes, I know it was pathetic, but that’s how it was. I just wasn’t used to alcohol. When the blonde Debbie Harry look-alike walked haughtily past the bathroom it was probably the whisky that made me dare to call out:
‘I can get Justin Timberlake. If you want.’
She came to an abrupt halt as if someone had put on
the hand brake, then she turned and in an unhurried cat-like way walked towards me.
‘Can you?’
‘Yes.’
‘We can all do that,’ said Justin, tossing his bangs. ‘You’ve just got to put in his name, I told you.’
She took no notice of him.
‘Do you want me to do it?’
Her eyes glittered as she said:
‘Absofuckinglutely. What are you waiting for?’
And I saw that her eyes were slanted, like a feline predator.
Hang the DJ
I think I sat for three hours on Justin’s sofa, downloading tracks with his laptop resting on my knees and always with someone sitting beside me. They sat close, their thighs pressed against mine, their shoulders hard, their breath hot. Greasy fingers on the screen: “That one. Get that one!”
Of course I played tracks from Spotify too, but anyone could use Spotify. Downloading – that was something else. People seem to have forgotten how to do it, seem to have forgotten that you can still hear those obscure B-sides, unobtainable albums, artists who didn’t want anything to do with it. Frank Zappa. Sonic. Girl Talk.
I loved it. Loved. There is no other word for it. It was as if every spotlight was directed at me. My body became warm and my skin tingled. The pain in my thumb eased and faded away, and the anxiety about Mum sort of got lost and disappeared somewhere into the background.
Is this what it feels like, I wondered. Is this what it feels like to be popular?
Mum asked me once in her rather weirdly direct way if I was popular at school. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I wasn’t popular but I wasn’t unpopular either; I wasn’t someone people avoided or bullied. Or was I? Vendela and FAS-Lars bullied me at regular intervals, but I was pretty good at bullying back. But in my class? I don’t think my classmates found me especially interesting. Like, weird and uninteresting at the same time.
But there! There in the warmth of that crowded sofa, something happened. Someone else could have done it. Obviously. But they wanted me to do it, and I did it well. I varied the music: mellow sounds, dance numbers, pop, alternative, and when there were adverts I played a downloaded track instead. I was as fair as a mum with five kids, all the time giving equal turns: “Yes, we’ll play your track next, after this one.”
Maybe I was being naïve, maybe it was only the music they wanted, but even if that was the case I didn’t give a toss because it felt as if they wanted me.
Just for once. Me.
I started with Justin, obviously. Justin fucking Timberlake. Anything else would have been unthinkable. Four Minutes. Debbie’s eyes almost filled with tears. I don’t know whether she didn’t hear or whether she totally didn’t care that he was actually singing four and not five minutes, but she yelled a happy:
‘We only got FIVE minutes to save the world!’
Then in quick succession: Cry Me a River, Like I Love You, SexyBack, Rock your Body.
After that a random mix of other artists. Some of them good, most of them total rubbish. But always back to Justin.
Justin Timberlake had never impressed me before – music after 1987 seldom did – but there was something about Debbie’s aggressive enthusiasm that was infectious. She danced wildly a few metres in front of me, her arms above her head, and every time I looked up I met those predatory eyes. It was as if they were constantly fixed on me. Her heels stamped hard against the floor and made tiny, tiny circular marks in the wooden boards. Every so often she squeezed herself onto the sofa beside me to demand a new track, totally ignoring the fact that someone else was sitting there. She took a firm grip on my bandaged hand and whispered in my ear so it tickled:
‘Honey! You are such a fucking techgirl! I love you!’
Then she kissed me hard on the cheek, leaving a trail of wet saliva on my skin and a half-empty glass of some lime drink in my hand. And I took the credit for something that mostly an online music service had done.
Only occasionally did the anxiety bubble up to the surface. Like a little whirlwind appearing on the edge of a thunderstorm, the anxiety began to rotate, lifting those little nagging thoughts, that chilling fear, the way a whirlwind lifts leaves and paper from the street and makes them fly violently around.
What had happened?
Then I stood up and looked through the window towards Mum’s house. It looked just as dark and empty as when I had left it. I told myself that I really should call the police, because wasn’t that what you did when someone disappeared? But I couldn’t make up my mind whether to phone the emergency number or the one for less urgent cases. I couldn’t even get my phone out of my pocket. I was too afraid it would be silent. Too afraid the display would be blank.
Justin Case kept away; I was conscious of that the whole time. I didn’t get a glimpse of him for over two hours, but in the silence between two tracks I heard his voice from the kitchen. Then all of a sudden he appeared, walking towards me with his hands in his back pockets, so tall that he had to duck to avoid a ceiling lamp. I noticed what he had on his feet: white basketball boots with long laces tied around his trouser legs like ballet shoe ribbons.
He did a circuit of the sofa and came and stood nonchalantly behind me. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. Then he leaned over and just happened to throw an arm around my shoulders. He stood with his cheek so close to mine that I could almost feel the heat coming off his face. He smelt vaguely of cologne and sweat. My heart did a double somersault.
‘Have you got Panic?’
‘No, it’s cool. Or – what did you mean?’
‘The Smiths. Panic.’
And then he sang:
‘Burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ, because the music that they constantly play IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE!’
He shouted that last line.
‘Ha-a-ang the blessed DJ. Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ. If I hear one more Timberlake song I will hang first the DJ and then myself. In a double loop.’
‘I’m not DJ-ing! I’m only doing what the others want me to do.’
‘Are you? Do you always do that? That doesn’t seem very sound.’
He shook his head exaggeratedly and knocked back a mouthful of my drink.
I smiled and looked down at the screen. He was a bit plastered, at least. I stared at the letters and tried to remember which ones I had been going to click, trying to understand what was written there, but the letters ran together and blurred.
‘So what would it be if the DJ herself chose?’ he said, teasing me.
‘Well, not this, that’s for sure.’
Through the speakers you could hear some latest dance stuff by Madonna. Clearly I must have clicked on it a minute earlier even if I didn’t remember doing so.
‘What, then?’
‘I – I only listen to 80s music, that and some 70s stuff, late 70s. Not disco or crap like that. A lot of … new romantic stuff, if you know what that is. And new wave.’
‘What?’ he asked in amusement, tossing back his bangs. He went on:
‘But were you even born then?’
I looked up at him, backwards. Met those pale, pale eyes.
‘And?’
The irritation rose up in me.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ I said.
‘Do you? How handy,’ he said, and his face was so close to mine that I could have licked the tip of his nose if I had turned sideways and made an effort.
‘You think it’s pathetic to like the same music as your parents. And sure, maybe it is. But I can tell you after I listened to my dad’s music collection it seemed like the crap my classmates listen to is completely pathetic.’
I sounded more irritated than I intended, and aware of this I pinched my lips together tightly, to hold back the words. It didn’t work too well. They just poured out. I expect I had heard those amused comments one time too many.
‘And what current band can compare with … with Human League, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran? Both musica
lly and … and stylistically. Not to mention Joy Division and … and New Order? Yeah? None. None at all? None at all.’
He held up his hands as if to fend me off, and backed away.
‘No, of course not,’ he said gently.
Then he walked off.
Away. Away from me. His arms dangling at his sides.
And I regretted immediately that I had sounded off like that.
Regretted.
Regretted that I’d mentioned Dad, that I’d mentioned classmates. That was pathetic if anything was. Childish. The shame washed over me, warm and damp as if someone had placed a sauna heater in the middle of the table in front of me and thrown a cup of ice-cold water onto it. I was expiring from the steam. From the regret.
And I regretted snubbing him like that.
Because otherwise I would still be feeling his breath on my neck, his arm round my shoulder.
I felt the pain from my thumb radiate into my hand and up towards my wrist. I chose a track for myself for once. Don’t You Want Me? by the Human League. I sung a quiet duet with Philip Oakey.
Don’t, don’t you want me?
You know I can’t believe it when I hear that you won’t see me
Don’t, don’t you want me?
You know I don’t believe it when you say that you don’t need me
It’s much too late to find
You think you’ve changed your mind
You’d better change it back or we will both be sorry
And was I singing that to Justin? Or … to Mum?
I sat there on the sofa for an hour or so until a gay glass artist came and asked me to dance. I knew he was a glass artist because he had shouted it out when he had been sitting on the sofa earlier, and in a lame attempt to be sociable I had asked him what he did during the week.
‘I’m a glass artist! I work a lot with sculptures.’
‘Me too,’ I had said, but he hadn’t heard.
To be truthful I didn’t know he was gay but he’d had his tongue shoved deep into some other guy’s mouth a little earlier in the evening. I had no other proof.
I was hesitant at first about dancing, afraid to leave my secure, bribed place on the sofa, but he was so convincing in his enthusiasm that I gave in and we danced to a techno beat with a Hammond organ. And it was good, that track, but somehow I didn’t manage to absorb it into my body, feeling all the time awkwardly self-conscious even though I had thrown the dregs of a few lime cocktails down my throat. I noticed someone else had taken over my role at the laptop. That stung a little because I really wanted to believe I was indispensable, but it’s a heart-rending fact that people seldom are.
