Grow Up

by Ben Brooks

  I am very confused.

  I feel hollow.

  I feel unfulfilled.

  But I had sex with Georgia Treely?

  Okay.

  Georgia Treely is pretty. Georgia Treely is sexually attractive. A court of anthropomorphised animals ruled that I should have sex with Georgia Treely. I had sex with Georgia Treely. Sex is all. Sex is for billboards and magazines. It is not for making major life decisions with. Sex should be a by-product of something else. Georgia Treely is a cow I have killed for leather. You should only kill cows for meat.

  What does that even mean? Doesn’t matter, at least I’m not going to be a Dad.

  I dry my body and dress and go downstairs. Keith is sat at the kitchen table, reading The Sun. He looks up.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Morning.’

  When we got back from the police station, Keith told me that he had forgiven me. He is a man of exceptional moral fibre. He has, however, stopped using his patronising, friendly names on me. I will have to work hard to regain his trust, so that he calls me buddy again.

  I pour myself a glass of milk and carry it down to the shed at the end of the garden. I take my notepad out from behind a leaning spade and recommence work on my novel. My novel is almost finished. It is the story of a young man blessed with great charisma and wit, trying to work out what he is supposed to do and how he is supposed to do it. It has everything that I wanted: a sort-of rape scene (sorry again, Georgia), a sort of revelation (sorry again, Keith), and some sort of lesson. I don’t know what the lesson is yet, but there is definitely going to be one.

  I am Holden Caulfield, only less reckless, and more attractive.

  37

  3:28 p.m. I am sat with Tenaya in her garden. The sun is huge and close. The chickens are singing. There is a pot of tea between us.

  Her mum comes out of the French doors. She is wearing a t-shirt with ‘BOYCOTT ISRAELI GOODS’ printed on it. She is holding a plate of custard creams.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ Tenaya says. She is as confused as I am.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Enright.’

  ‘Dad’s gone, Ten,’ her Mum says.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He’s going to stay with a friend for a while.’

  ‘I’m seventeen, Mum. You and Dad are getting a divorce.’

  Her mum’s eyes half-close and fill with tears. They burst and tumble down her cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tenaya says.

  She stands up and pulls her mum into a hug. I stand up and hug Tenaya’s mum from behind. Her buttocks press against my groin. We are a Tenaya’s-mum sandwich. This is not the time for erections. I think of Terry Wogan, naked, doing Judo, with Louis Walsh.

  After a couple of minutes, she disentangles herself from us. She ruffles my hair.

  ‘You’re better off without him, Mrs Enright,’ I say.

  Tenaya’s mum ambles back into her kitchen. We sit back down and watch her taking down pans from hooks on the tiled wall. The smell of frying onions leaks out into the garden.

  I put my hand on Tenaya’s hand, in a sexy way.

  ‘Jasper,’ she says, ‘what are you doing?’

  ‘It’s for my novel,’ I say. ‘It needs character development and resolution.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can I write that we kiss?’

  ‘If you want,’ she says.

  ‘Okay.’

  We kiss.

  Author photograph © Charlotte Adlard

  Ben Brooks was born in 1992 and lives in Gloucestershire. He is the author of four other books, Fences, An Island of Fifty, The Kasahara School of Nihilism and Upward Coast & Sadie. Brooks’ work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in the Dzanc Best of the Web anthology.

  www.anineffableplayforvoices.blogspot.com

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”