Grow Up

by Ben Brooks

  Because I am worried about my disability, I catch only certain buzzwords from Mr Hutchinson’s speech. These include ‘loved’, ‘beautiful’, ‘intelligent’ and ‘full of life’. Retrospectively, it seems that she is prime prefect material, except that she was not made a prefect because Mr Hutchinson is making these things up. Her school report probably said ‘average’.

  After the assembly, some people go to the pub. Me and Tenaya do not want to go to the pub. Me and Tenaya go to her house. It is huge and Victorian, with ivy curling up the front like a paedophile’s creepy fingers. Her parents had to take out a huge mortgage to buy it and as a result they have had to do the renovations themselves and switch from straight cigarettes to rolling tobacco. Her dad is plump and pink and her mum suffers from a disorder that means that she is really fucking weird. They both wear Crocs and smell of rosemary.

  Sometimes her mum puts wine in the kettle. Sometimes she urinates in the garden and announces that she is encouraging the grass.

  We are sat in her basement with a pot of tea between us. Steam is tentatively curling out of the spout, as though the air is an enemy castle. Tenaya has stopped crying but is looking down into her tea. I imagine touching her eyelids and feeling that they are still damp.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ she says.

  I don’t say anything. I do believe it because killing yourself is very easy. Even a dog could do it.

  Mum had a talk with me about suicide once. I think this is because Mum sometimes experiences depressive mood swings and she is worried that they have been genetically passed down to me. The only trait I have inherited from my mother is cynicism. She told me, ‘Never kill yourself, it is a selfish thing to do.’ I told her it was selfish of her to ban suicide because at some point in my life I may be subject to unbearable physical or emotional pain. She looked upset so I placed my hand on her shoulder and told her that I am currently not experiencing unbearable physical or emotional pain. Mum said that she wasn’t either.

  I tell Tenaya that I do not want to talk about death because it is boring. I ask if she wants to play Scrabble, and she says yes, so I go to get the board from beneath her bed. Because of her mood Tenaya keeps spelling out macabre words like blood and coffin and rot, even though they are not what will get her the most points. I play BROKERING, she plays BYE, I play JUDGE, she plays JASPER. I tell her she can’t use that. She asks me who I am and I tell her I don’t know. I win.

  Final Scores:

  Jasper 315

  Tenaya 185

  It starts raining and I tell Tenaya I am leaving. Outside, the sky is concrete and the rain drops are ball bearings. They ring off the pavements and hide inside of my shoes. Rain smells of forests and it eats the familiarity of these streets. The wetter I get, the more aware I am. Aware that I am alive. And Tabitha Mowai is not. And Margaret Clamwell is not. My cheeks are tight and red. Tabitha’s will be pale and papery. I wonder if dead people bruise when you punch them. I bite a ring of toothmarks into my forearm so it looks like a wristwatch. It hurts because I am alive, and this is all very disorientating, but I know I have a whole lot of things ahead of me, a whole life. And Tabitha Mowai does not. And that is even sadder than anorexia fetishes or paedophilia or people who cry because they feel guilty about watching porn videos of someone who has committed suicide.

  9

  I wake up at 10:20 a.m. The sun is already awake and has taken up residence in my room. Everything is very bright and warm, like a greenhouse. I open the windows and smell the air, which always smells of soil because our neighbour is an old woman who uses her garden as an allotment. Sometimes she gives Mum tomatoes. Mum says that she admires our neighbour for being pro-active despite having lost her husband. She says that women can cope alone after they lose their husbands but men cannot cope after losing their wives. This happened to Mum’s dad. When Gran died, his nails used to fill up with dirt and he would forget to shave or shower. Sometimes he would go without food for days so that he could save up enough money to visit this Vietnamese prostitute who reminded him of a girl from the war.

  Mum is at work and Keith is sleeping because he has been working nights. I make tea and take a cigarette out onto the decking with the newspaper. The front page details the kidnap and murder of a young girl. The world has forgotten about Tabitha because the world moves on from everything. The world is a heartless murderer. It does not stop. Tabitha’s parents have probably stopped. They will feel very guilty about everything for a long while to come. Every time Mrs Mowai reaches for her Rampant Rabbit, she will see her daughter’s face and drown beneath waves of guilt and sadness.

  There is a picture in the newspaper of what the girl looked like before she was murdered. The girl had big, oak eyes. I realise that Keith must have murdered her because there probably aren’t many murderers in this town. I write her name on my arm. It will be useful later.

  I go back upstairs and turn on the computer. The carpet feels reassuring between my toes. Abby was not at the memorial so her parents must have received my letter and grounded her. This means that it is time to send the email.

  I click ‘send’ and recline in my chair. Abby Hall is a Great Dane I feel disinclined to feed or exercise. I am experiencing ‘buyer’s remorse’.

  Although I did glimpse Abby itching her groin, I cannot be certain that she has pubic lice. I did not catch pubic lice from Abby and I did not shave my pubic hair or visit my GP. I felt guilty that Abby was experiencing so much misfortune and supposed that it might do her good to know that others were suffering.

  Time for more tea. Tea contains theanine, which keeps you alert yet relaxed. I am reading this off the box of teabags.

  The doorbell whistles its melancholy drone as the kettle boils. Because neither Mum nor Keith are available, the responsibility of answering doors and telephones falls to me. Sometimes, when swimming in ponds of loneliness, this duty becomes therapeutic.

  ‘Good morning. Have you accepted God into your life?’

  I blink and stare at the man.

  ‘This sounds serious,’ I say. ‘You had best come in.’

  The man is in his early thirties. He has cropped blond hair, combed tight against the contours of his skull. Two Bondi blue eyes and a well-fitted suit mean that my internal monologue is encouraging a trusting attitude.

  He agrees to a sugarless tea and we adopt positions on adjacent sofas.

  ‘Are you currently in a relationship with God?’ the man asks.

  He has a gentle, flutey voice. I feel like I can trust him. I hope he doesn’t abuse my trust.

  ‘I suffer from anxiety disorders, which means that maintaining stable relationships is difficult.’

  ‘Jehovah loves you, however you are’.

  He sips tea from my Harry Potter mug and passes over a copy of Watchtower.

  Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that, following a cataclysmic end-time battle, 144,000 people will ascend to Heaven. They have dubbed this spiritual bourgeoisie the ‘little flock’. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in Hell. These are the only facts about Jehovah’s Witnesses that interest me.

  Keith calls them ‘God-botherers’.

  ‘How many people do you believe will go to Heaven?’ I say.

  He looks at me, then into his grey tea, then back at me again.

  ‘A select few.’

  ‘But how many exactly.’

  I am not being pedantic, I am probing.

  ‘A hundred and forty-four thousand,’ he says.

  I think he is ashamed. We observe each other.

  ‘There are six-point-seven billion people in the world,’ I tell him. He nods. ‘That makes me feel sad. Would you like a cigarette?’

  ‘We do not use tobacco.’

  Cults are so oppressive. Except for the Manson Family. They got to try lots of exciting things.

  I t
ell him to wait one second and I pull out my phone. This is the calculation I do on my phone’s calculator:

  144,000 / 6,700,000,000 = 0.000021492537313432835

  0.000021 x 100 = 0.0021

  ‘Zero-point-zero-zero-two-one per cent of people alive now will go to Heaven,’ I say, resting my hand on his leg, then feeling uneasy and removing it.

  ‘I think I should leave,’ he answers.

  ‘I understand.’

  I watch his lovely blond skull recede into the distance. What a brave man. It must be difficult to cope with the knowledge that there is a paradise but he is almost certainly not going to it.

  In two days’ time I will forget about him, like everyone forgot about Tabitha Mowai, like everyone forgets about everything, eventually.

  10

  When we congregated outside school this morning, Abby Hall was not there. This made me feel relieved and successful.

  A fortune teller in Brighton told me last year, ‘You will be successful in all of your endeavours.’ Perhaps this is beginning to be realised. Perhaps I will achieve four As and write a Booker winner and have sex with Georgia Treely. Except these things will not happen because I lack motivation, talent and charm.

  We are sat on the bus. It smells of old women and travel sickness. Tenaya is reading Sylvia Plath and remaining stubbornly quiet. The air is chocolate. Everyone’s mouths are occupied either with sexual gossip or salt and vinegar crisps. We are stationary but my stomach has already started to fester.

  The bus driver introduces himself as Ben, attempts to win our favour with humour (What bus crossed the ocean? Columbus) and starts the engine. The engine sound, combined with the bus’s drunken sway, forms a mild poison that turns my insides into a throbbing corduroy ache.

  We are going on a Psychology trip to Plymouth. It is a ‘fun’ optional trip that is our little treat for all the hard work that we will do during exams. It will involve staying in a hostel and attending a conference where a number of murderers and rapists will address us. They will likely attempt to include some sort of interesting twist so as to surprise and entertain us. I think I will feel bored and cynical, because we are listening to bad people who have done bad things and I would rather listen to good people who have done good things, although that is of less use in Psychology. Or the type of Psychology we do at school, anyway. They should give you the A-level options, positive and negative Psychology, because our Psychology largely involves learning about serial killers and schizophrenics but I would rather learn about people who are in love and kids who have beaten cancer.

  Some of the girls will maybe find the murderers attractive. Ana Korsakov once remarked that Jeffrey Dahmer was ‘really fit’ and ‘mysterious’. He is an American man who killed seventeen people and attempted to turn them into sex zombies. Some of the girls may also find the rapists attractive because I know of at least three girls who fantasise about being raped. For example, when I had sex with Sarah Ivor she tried to make me to choke her.

  We will also visit a crime museum on the second day.

  Mrs Norton is reading the register in her furry whine. Even though she is not a Psychology teacher, she is coming because one of the Psychology teachers is attending his sister’s civil partnership ceremony. The Psychology teacher that is not attending a gay wedding is called Mr Mandalay, and today he looks particularly anxious. Mr Mandalay enjoys folk music, rambling and evenings by the fire. I found this out one night when me and Tenaya were drunk and began to search our unmarried teachers on dating websites.

  ‘Kimberley Acheman?’ Mrs Norton reads.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sarah Asti?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Imran Balki?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  There is a small fountain of laughter. Mrs Norton is deaf.

  ‘James Falk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Abby Hall?’ A pregnant pause. ‘Abby?’

  The girls sat along the back row fall into gigglefits.

  ‘She’s on maternity leave, miss.’

  Mrs Norton mutters ‘Heathens!’ then continues to read the register. I feel slightly guilty but the feeling is not overwhelming.

  ‘It worked?’ Tenaya asks.

  ‘Apparently, yea.’

  ‘Does she know you did it?’

  ‘I extricated myself from the letter by sending her an email about it. She hasn’t replied. Her parents have probably banned her from using the computer.’

  ‘She will find out.’

  Tenaya leans back into her slim book with a sagacious turn of the head.

  Abby Hall will definitely not find out. Even if she does, it won’t matter. At present, I am only interested in short-term consequences. These are: an Abby-free trip and an Abby-free cottage. Room to carry out The Georgia Plan. I will deal with the long-term Abby-related consequences when they confront me. This kind of short-term thinking is called myopia. It is dangerous.

  ‘Guess what?’ Ping says, his face wedged between the two seats in front of us.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  In answer, he produces a surprisingly large press-to-seal sandwich bag of marijuana. I grin.

  ‘The trip will be good,’ he tells me, turning back.

  My indirectly drug-induced excitement wanes over the next two hours. Tenaya finishes her book and falls asleep on my shoulder. I roll a whole tin of cigarettes and one of the girls behind threatens to tell Mrs Norton until Ping sits up and says, ‘What’s that, Susie? Excess baggage?’ (Ping went down on Susie Smith at a party last year and later described her vagina as ‘a ham Vienetta’.) When Ping falls asleep, I use his phone to send ‘I’m hot for you’ texts to his female cousins. I eat a Nutri-Grain cereal bar and also fall asleep out of boredom.

 

  Urgh. Plymouth is a hideous concrete blitzkrieg. If it was a person, it would be the sort of person who eats the same thing every day and masturbates over pictures of steam trains. The buildings all seem to have been designed by a single manic-depressive town planner.

  ‘Everyone line up,’ Mrs Norton says. ‘The university is only a short walk away.’

  It is 11:47 a.m. Everything here is the colour of boredom and surrender. It reminds me of my mum and Keith because they are an extremely resigned couple. They do not attempt to elevate themselves or their offspring (Keith’s daughters both work as lap dancers in Birmingham) and seem perfectly content living in the smallest houses of the least-green suburbs and watching grainy repeats of Holby City every night. They are running on a treadmill that is not getting them into shape. Luckily, this failure of my mother’s has not been bestowed upon me and I will continue to attempt betterment right up until I can afford to drink squash undiluted. This is the mark of a made man.

  When we step off the bus, Tenaya says ‘Wonderful’ as she takes in the scenery. Mrs Norton beams. Ping then says ‘Jesus Christ’, which obliterates the grin.

  The only people I see while we walk have faces the colour of dry clay. They only have eyes for the ground. The pavement. Our double-file walk is a funeral march.

  When we reach the university, a short, shaky man with kind eyes takes us up to a long room with a projector screen. He smiles a lot, not just at the girls. We sit on the green plastic chairs to await further instruction.

  ‘Shall we go now?’ Ping says.

  ‘I sort of want to see the rapist,’ I tell him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Deviant behaviour is interesting.’

  ‘You’re weird, man.’

  The rapist turns out to be a tall, thin man with skin like Blu-Tack and restless hands. When he speaks, the words bruise him. He makes me feel like a strong, well-rounded individual. I think this is part of the purpose of the trip.

  ‘H-h-hello, my name is John and I did a bad thing and I am going to speak
to you today about it and you can learn from me and help people when you grow up.’

  Tenaya is taking notes. She has written ‘Do not do a rape’ in her exercise book.

  ‘C-can anyone guess what I did?’

  He jerks his head around. Several girls from other schools put their hands up. Ping also raises his arm.

  The rapist is apparently unaware that there were timetables left on each of our chairs.

  ‘Y-y-yes?’ the rapist says to Ping.

  ‘Paedo.’

  We all laugh. The boarding school girls throw disapproving stares. Mrs Norton’s jaw clenches and her eyes jump forward. The rapist eyes the ground.

  ‘A-a-actually, no, I-I-I raped a – It was – ’

  ‘Did you rape a child? If you raped a child, then you still count as a paedo,’ Ping announces.

  Mrs Norton grabs him by his hood and leads him out of the room. Everyone is laughing. John the Rapist has forced his thin lips into a plastic smile. I feel a sense of mild amusement.

  ‘That’s sick!’ someone shouts.

  ‘N-n-no, I didn’t rape a child.’

  A girl from the school seated to our left raises her hand. They are all wearing maroon blazers that have small trees emblazoned on their breast pockets. A surprisingly large percentage of them sport blonde pigtails that curl downwards like pouring bleach streams.

  ‘Y-y-yes?’ he says to the blazered arm.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ the girl says. ‘That’s so horrible.’

  ‘Don’t worry, nobody would bother with you,’ Jonah shouts.

  There is more laughter. Laughter like hidden rocks revealed only as they emerge to trip public-speaking rapists. Mrs Norton waves wildly for Jonah to leave, so me and Tenaya get up too and then we all stand around outside by the kerb, looking blank.

  ‘Where now?’ Ping says.

  ‘I don’t know. That guy was fucking creepy,’ Jonah replies.