by Kevin Brooks
‘Shit,’ I mutter, blinking my eyes at Taylor and Mel.
Maybe if I'd been a bit quicker off the mark, maybe if I'd had the sense to close the curtain before they'd had a chance to see me, maybe everything might have been different.
But I wasn't.
And I didn't.
And it wasn't.
And in that split second between seeing Taylor and Mel at the door, recognizing them, and beginning to think of closing the curtain, Taylor turns round, spots me at the window, and immediately starts shouting and gesticulating at me. I can't actually hear what she's saying (over the roar of the pouring rain), but from the look on her face and the way she's waving her hands about, I guess it's something like – ‘Come on, open the fucking door, for Christ's sake! It's pissing down out here!’
‘Who is it?’ Mum asks.
‘Taylor and Mel.’
‘Who?’
I close the curtain and look at her. She's still sniffing and wiping her nose, but she's just about stopped crying now. Her face is red, her eyes bloodshot and swollen, and her cheeks are streaked with eyeliner and tears.
‘Taylor and Mel,’ I repeat. ‘You know, the girls who came round last night? I'll tell them to go.’
‘No,’ Mum says. ‘Don't be silly. I'm all right now.’
‘Yeah, but I don't really –’
The dogs start yapping even louder as the doorbell rings again, and this time it doesn't stop. Taylor – or maybe it's Mel, but I'm pretty sure it's Taylor – is keeping her finger on the bell. So now the bell's ringing constantly, and Jesus and Mary are going mad (ROWROWROWROWROWROWROW), and the rain's hammering hard on the windows, and it's all so ridiculously noisy that Mum has to shout to be heard.
‘GO ON, LOVE! LET THEM IN!’
‘YEAH, BUT I DON'T –’
‘YOU'D BETTER LET THEMIN!’ she yells, forcing herself to smile. ‘BEFORE THEY BREAK THE DOORBELL!’
about you (1)
Taylor doesn't wait for me to ask her in, she just barges her way into the hallway as soon as I open the front door, almost knocking me off my feet.
‘Shit, it's cold,’ she says, rubbing her hands together. ‘What took you so long?’
Before I can answer, she bends down to say hello to Jesus and Mary, and I'm left looking at Mel behind her.
‘Hey, Dawn,’ she says, coming in and shutting the door. ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah…’
She's wearing pointy-toed black boots and a bright-pink parka with a fur-trimmed hood, and she's holding a carrier bag in her hand. From the size and shape of the carrier bag, I'm guessing it's filled with booze. Taylor's carrying a bag too, a biggish brown handbaggy kind of thing, like an expensive shoulder bag. She's wearing a short black puffy jacket, also with a fur-trimmed hood, and skin-tight jeans (I'm assuming, by the way, that Mel is wearing a very short skirt under her parka, because her legs are bare (and I can't help noticing, kind of embarrassingly, that they're also incredibly wondrous)).
‘What going on?’ I hear myself say.
‘Nothing's going on,’ Taylor replies, still making a fuss of the dogs. ‘We just came round to say hello, that's all.’
I look down at her.
She smiles up at me. ‘If that's all right with you?’
‘Yeah, of course… I was just…’
She straightens up, standing too close to me. ‘You were just what?’
I sigh. ‘Nothing.’
‘Good.’ She grins at Mel, then turns back to me. ‘You want to get us some glasses?’
Upstairs, in my room, after Taylor and Mel have taken their coats off (and I've found out that I was right about Mel's very short skirt), we adopt the same sitting positions as the night before: me at my desk, Taylor and Mel on the edge of the bed, Jesus and Mary stretched out behind them.
‘Do you always do that?’ Mel asks me.
‘What?’
‘The music,’ she says, nodding at my PC. ‘You put it on as soon as you sat down.’
‘So?’
Mel shrugs. ‘It's just the way you did it, you know… like it's some kind of… I don't know…’
‘Nervous tic?’ Taylor suggests, grinning at Mel.
I know she's just taking the piss, but the funny thing is (although it's not actually funny), she's probably not far from the truth. Putting on music, for me, is a kind of nervous tic. I do it without realizing I'm doing it. It's automatic. An involuntary and unconscious action. I come into my room, sit down at my desk, and the next thing I know I've logged on to my iTunes library, scrolled through the playlist, picked out ‘About You’, and hit the PLAY button.
(i can see
that you and me
live our lives in the pouring rain)
‘What's all that?’ says Mel, frowning as she looks across the room.
‘What?’
‘On the floor… under the window.’
My heart sinks a little as I realize what she's looking at. I mean, it doesn't matter… it's no big deal. It's just that earlier on, when I'd been thinking about how to kill God, and I'd come to the conclusion (or a conclusion) that I'd have to destroy all the Bibles in the world, and I'd realized that that was never going to happen… well, I'd just thought to myself – OK, so it won't ever happen, but that doesn't mean I can't make a start, does it? So I'd made a start by putting my two Bibles on a lightly parafinned baking tray, placing the baking tray on the floor under the window, and setting light to it.
The Bibles didn't burn all that well. I had to keep poking the pages around to keep the fire going, and even then I had to relight it about a million times. And despite having the window open, the smoke really stank up my room. But in the end I got what I wanted – two ex-Bibles, totally burned and totally unreadable.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
And that's what Mel (and now Taylor) are looking at – a pile of burned papers on a baking tray on the floor beneath the window.
‘It's nothing,’ I tell them. ‘It's just… just some papers…’
‘Papers?’ asks Taylor, looking at me like I'm some kind of crazy-head. ‘What kind of papers?’
‘Just papers,’ I shrug (and I know it's a pretty pathetic answer, but I really can't think of anything else to say).
Taylor stares at me for a moment, then she gives me one of those how-sad-are-you? looks – briefly closing her eyes and slowly shaking her head – and I feel kind of awkward and embarrassed, and I wonder why. Why the hell do I care what Taylor and Mel think of me? I've never cared what anyone thinks of me before. I've always been perfectly content with my not-fitting-in-ness, my loser-ness, my sad-lumpy-weird-girl-ness.
Haven't I?
‘Yeah, anyway,’ says Taylor, dipping into Mel's carrier bag. ‘Who wants a drink?’
She pulls out a bottle of vodka, uncaps it, and takes a swig. ‘Where's the glasses?’ she says, looking around.
Mel passes her two of the three half-pint glasses that I brought up from the kitchen (and I'm still wondering why they insisted on three, when I told them that I didn't need one), and Taylor pours a couple of inches of vodka into each of the glasses and passes one to Mel.
As Mel takes a drink from her glass, I suddenly realize that I'm hyper-overly aware of myself – sitting here watching them, looking at them, studying them. They're both sitting there on my bed in their skinny-tight-short-skirted-flashy-fleshed girliness, slugging neat vodka from half-pint glasses… and it all seems so detached from me – like it's here, but it's not here. It's a hundred million miles away. But it's also incredibly close. In fact, it's so close, so very very close to me, that it's gone beyond my eyes and I'm seeing it inside my head like a scarily magnified dream.
I'm seeing every tiny aspect of Taylor's face – her perfect cheekbones, her sculpted eyebrows, her pink-painted lips. I'm seeing the smooth skin of her shoulders, pale and muscled under a black halterneck top… and the way she's holding her cigarette, her red-varnished fingernails gleaming like claws in the
smoke-ribboned light. I'm seeing the faint remains of a telephone number written in black biro on the back of her hand. I'm seeing the star-like pores of her skin in the blackness.
And (somehow) at the same time, I'm seeing everything about Mel – every single stitch of her tight Killah vest and the shapes beneath it and the weightless shimmer of her almost-see-through black net miniskirt and her deep dark eyes and warm olive skin… but it's doing so much to me that I can't bear to look.
I can't…
I won't…
(i know there's something good
about you
about you)
No, I can't feel anything like that.
‘You want some?’ Taylor says to me.
‘What?’
‘Vodka,’ she says (and I'm outside my head again now, I can see her brandishing the bottle at me). ‘You want some?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Have some of this then,’ she says, pulling another bottle out of the carrier bag.
It's a silver-coloured bottle with a black neck and red writing on the side. There's writing on the neck as well, but the shrink-wrapped plasticky stuff is a bit scraped off so I can't make out what it says.
‘What is it?’ I ask Taylor, angling my head to try to read the writing on the side of the bottle.
‘It's called Revolver,’ she tells me as she pours some into a glass. ‘Don't worry, there's no alcohol in it.’ She smiles mockingly at me, as if disliking alcohol is the most puerile thing in the world, and she gets up off the bed and brings the drink over to me.
I look up at her, standing in front of me, offering me the glass.
‘Go on,’ she sneers. ‘Take it. It's rude to refuse a drink.’
I look at the glass. It's filled to the brim with something that looks remarkably like Coke. Same colour, same fizziness, same overall Coke-iness.
‘What's in it?’ I ask.
‘Christ,’ Taylor snaps. ‘I don't know… it's just one of those energy drinks, you know, like Red Bull or something.’ She shoves the glass at me. ‘It's just a fucking drink, all right? I mean, shit, I'm just trying to be fucking friendly here –’
‘Caffeine, ginseng and taurine,’ Mel says from the bed.
I look over to see her reading from the back of the bottle.
‘And guarana and fruit juice,’ she adds, looking up. ‘That's it. Fruit juice, caffeine, ginseng, guarana and taurine.’
‘Taurine?’ I say, taking the drink from Taylor.
‘Yeah,’ says Mel. ‘It's a natural stimulant. You get it in Boost bars.’ She smiles at me. ‘That's why they're called Boost bars.’
‘That's guarana,’ I tell her.
‘What?’
‘Guarana. Boost bars have got guarana in them. Not taurine.’ I look at Mel. ‘It's the same kind of stuff as taurine –’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ says Taylor, pretending to yawn as she sits back down on the bed. ‘Fascinating.’
‘It makes you late,’ I say, and I'm surprised to find myself staring at her.
She looks hard at me. ‘What?’
‘Guarana,’ I say. ‘It makes you late for school.’
She gives me another one of those looks. ‘Yeah?’
I nod (thinking of my Invisible Coat, and how that makes me late for things too, and thinking of that makes me smile). ‘Yeah,’ I say (not really knowing what I'm doing, but not really caring either). ‘You see, what happens is – you wake up in the morning feeling really tired, so you take a shower, and you wash yourself with a shower gel that's got guarana in it… you know, because it's supposed to give you an instant energy surge and transform the way you feel.’ (I'm remembering this word for word from the shower-gel bottle, by the way.) ‘And you think that's it, you're exhilarated now, you can get dressed and get off to school, no problem. And then you quickly wash your hair, but by mistake you use a herbal shampoo with mimosa in it, which is known to aid tranquillity and leave you calm and relaxed after a long and stressful day –’
‘Dawn?’ says Mel, interrupting me. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Well,’ I tell her. ‘You have to wash yourself again, don't you? I mean, you've zapped yourself up with the guarana shower gel, but then you've gone and undone the zappiness with the relaxing mimosa shampoo. So you have to start washing again with the guarana shower gel to re-wake yourself up.’
‘Right,’ says Mel. ‘And that's why it makes you late for school?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Shit,’ Taylor says to Mel, shaking her head. ‘If she's like this before she's drunk anything with caffeine in it, imagine what she's going to be like after she drinks it.’
I look at the drink in my hand.
It's stopped bubbling.
I raise the glass to my lips and take a sip.
It tastes OK. Sweet and sugary. Kind of fruity, but not specifically fruity. I mean, it doesn't have the taste of any fruit in particular, it's just generally fruity. A bit like Red Bull, I suppose (like Taylor said). Which is OK.
‘All right?’ asks Taylor.
‘Yeah, not bad.’
‘Good.’ She raises her glass. ‘Cheers then.’
And she drinks her vodka, and Mel drinks hers, and they both smile at me (Mel a little sadly) as I raise my glass again and drink it all down in one.
When I put the empty glass on the desk and turn back to Taylor and Mel, I see Jesus sitting up on the bed behind them, his head held still, his small eyes fixed on mine, and just for a moment – a seemingly infinite moment – it's another time, another Dawn, another Jesus…
Another time.
(Jesus was sitting up then, just as he is now, with the very same look in his dog-brown eyes (i can't help you) and I felt so sorry for him. Because dogs don't know things, they don't understand things, they don't know why anything is anything. All they know is good and bad and happy and sad. And Jesus knew it was bad, but I didn't want him to feel bad for me. And as the song played on
(are you washed in the blood of the lamb?)
I heard a trembling voice saying, ‘It's all right, Jesus. It's all right.’)
‘Right then,’ says Taylor, grinning wildly and clapping her hands together (like the party has just begun). ‘Who's up for some extreme makeovering?’
I'm not quite there just now, I'm still a bit mesmerized by the echoes of Jesus's eyes, so I can't really say anything, or take anything in, but as Jesus lowers himself down to the bed, his eyes still fixed on mine, I'm peripherally aware of Taylor unzipping her shoulder bag and taking out a couple of carrier bags full of stuff.
i can't help you
‘I know,’ I tell Jesus now. ‘It's all right.’
‘What's all right?’ asks Taylor.
look at her, watch her
I look at Taylor. ‘What?’
She frowns at me. ‘Who're you talking to?’
‘What?’
‘Who are you talking to?’
‘When?’
‘Now… just then…’
I give her an innocent look – like, what are you talking about? who do you think I'm talking to? – and I say to her, ‘I'm talking to you.’
She stares at me.
I smile at her, not knowing why. ‘What have you got there?’ I ask, glancing at the carrier bags she took out of her shoulder bag.
She hesitates for a moment, still as puzzled by my behaviour as I am, then she shakes her head, dismissing it from her mind, and starts showing me what's in the carrier bags. ‘This,’ she says, ‘is for you.’
I watch as she upends one of the bags and empties the contents onto the bed. It's clothing. Girl's clothing. And now I'm the one looking puzzled.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
As Mel picks up a very-small-looking bright-pink T-shirt and holds it up for me to see, Taylor says to me, ‘What do you think? D'you like it?’
The words ROCK 'N' ROLL STAR are spelled out in sequins on the
front of the shirt.
‘What is it?’ I repeat.
‘It's your new look,’ Taylor says. Then, to Mel, ‘Show her the skirt.’
Mel holds up a short denim skirt, waggling it from side to side.
‘You'll look great in it,’ Taylor says, grinning at me. ‘Hot stuff.’
‘I don't get it,’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We're giving you a makeover,’ she tells me, digging into the other carrier bag. ‘A whole new look.’ She takes a load of stuff from the bag and dumps it on the bed. Bottles, sprays, a make-up bag. ‘See?’ she says. ‘New clothes, new hair, a new face…’ She laughs. ‘You'll be a brand new Dawn.’
‘Why?’ I mutter, looking from Taylor to Mel. ‘I mean… why?’
‘It's just what you need,’ Taylor says, getting to her feet. ‘It'll perk you right up. Make you feel good about yourself.’
‘Yeah, but –’
‘We thought you were a bit down,’ Mel says to me. ‘You know, yesterday… you seemed kind of miserable.’
‘Pissed off,’ Taylor adds.
‘About your dad and everything.’
‘Yeah,’ says Taylor, coming across to me with the bottle of Revolver in her hand. ‘So we thought we'd cheer you up. Here, have some more.’ She picks up my empty glass, fills it, and hands it to me.
I take it from her.
‘Drink it,’ she says.
I drink it.
‘Right,’ she says, smiling wickedly. ‘We're going to pimp your ass, girl.’
happy when it rains (2)
Q. Why do you let people do things to you that you don't want them to do? Why can't you just tell them – no, I don't want you to do that? I mean, what is it that stops you from making a stand? Is it fear? The fear of being ridiculed? The fear of conflict? The fear of being disliked? Or is it simply a weakness? A flaw in your character, a lack of self-confidence, an absence of courage? Why are you so meek?
A. I don't know. I don't know why I let these things happen.
But maybe I just think that sometimes, like now (as the guitars ring out and the drums beat hard and Taylor and Mel smoke their cigarettes and drink their vodka and talk and laugh and move to the music around me)… maybe I just think that letting it happen is the easiest way out.
