Stereotype

by Claire Hennessy

  Stereotype

  Claire Hennessy

  Published in this format 2016 by Mulcahy Books

  Copyright – © Claire Hennessy 2003

  The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.

  Chapter One

  I can’t help feeling that I’m a slave to consumerism. I mean, whenever I’m depressed, I buy stuff. Stuff makes me happy. It’s usually something that I could have lived without – a CD that I only half-like, a book I’ll read once and then forget about, a top I’m never going to wear – but in the moment, when there’s you and there’s this “blah” feeling and a dark cloud hanging over your head, it doesn’t matter. It’s about buying something, acquiring some new item to add to the collection. It’s about filling the empty gap in your life with something tangible.

  In fairness, it probably beats my other method of combating the blahness and the emptiness, which involves playing around with razor blades and leaves thin red scabs running along the underside of my left arm.

  Cue your rolling of eyes, or disgust, or shock and horror, or whatever. And what are your emotions towards our protagonist now? Choose from the options below . . .

  a) Oh, what a troubled young woman she must be.

  b) Attention-seeking brat with no concept of how hard real life really is.

  c) So what? It’s not like you’re the only one who does it. Quit making a big deal out of it.

  Yeah, I probably am an attention-seeker. I’ll admit that. It’s not like I cut that often, but when I started doing it, last summer, it was purely to get sympathy and concern and attention and recognition. I thought, OK, maybe Sarah will see this and she’ll ask me what’s wrong, or Graham will notice and he’ll demand an explanation, or something. But I think even if that had happened, I would have shrugged and said, “Nothing. I’m OK, everything’s fine.” Like I always do. So I wore long sleeves until the marks stopped being so noticeable. The scabs fall off after about a week, and even though there’s sometimes a line left on the skin, it’s not dramatic enough to spot, unless you’re looking for it.

  The reason I keep doing it is because it works – for a brief while, anyway. In Third Year we discussed in one class, probably Home Ec or Health Ed or something, why people would want to hurt themselves and although I stayed silent, I was thinking, ‘It’s so obvious! You hurt because it’s easier to deal with physical pain than emotional pain.’ And it’s true. Make yourself hurt, make your arm bleed, and it takes your mind off whatever’s bothering you. Of course it’s only temporary. Just like stuff. Once you’ve bought it and come down from that purchasing-goods high, you’re back to where you started.

  I’m on an endless pursuit of happiness. I’ve tried not eating, eating, boys, good grades, being bitchy, books and CDs, clothes, sport, writing poetry, cutting . . . nothing seems to work as a long-term solution. What I want is a quick fix. A sachet of Instant Joy. Just add water, and you’re set for life. Too bad the world doesn’t seem to work that way.

  Yeah, I’m lazy. Yeah, I don’t want to work at making my life bearable. Who does?

  It’s not like I have any big excuse for being like this. I wish I did. I wish there was a reason, something I could pin down and exclaim triumphantly, “That’s it! That’s why I feel like this!” I tried suggesting to my mom that she take me to a psychologist to see if I could be analysed, in the hope that maybe I was actually clinically depressed and could be treated, but she dismissed the idea. If only I had some childhood trauma, something or someone to blame. But no. What I have are two parents (still together, cordial if not passionately devoted to one another), a younger sister (a rocker whose given name is Jessica Marie Evans but who is going through a phase of answering only to JM as she thinks it “sounds cooler”), and a younger brother (a football fanatic named Greg). We are not a dysfunctional family. We are boringly normal. My dad has even got involved with coaching the local under-eleven team, which Greg is on. He’s become one of those involved-in-the-community, helpful-volunteer-type people. I hate it.

  I never want to have kids. Never, ever. I know, I know. You’re smirking to yourself right now thinking, “She says that now . . . but she’ll be married at twenty-five and burdened down by children by the time she’s thirty. I bet. Just wait and see.” And maybe you’re right. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll get broody and decide that the one thing that will complete my life will be a child. It’s scarily possible, actually. A baby will be the newest item on my list for whatever will make me happy.

  But I never want to be one of those people whose identity disappears once they have children and they become nothing more than a parent. No longer an individual with thoughts and hopes and opinions and dreams – just a mother nagging at the kids to keep their rooms tidy and to do their homework and to wear a jacket out because it’s cold.

  If I grow up to be my mother, I want someone to shoot me. Sarah can probably be persuaded into doing it. As the girl who tapes ER for her every week, I deserve some kind of compensation.

  Chapter Two

  Monday morning. Sarah is not going into school as she is “sick”, her mom informs me. Roughly translated, that means she didn’t feel like facing double Physics today. She misses an awful lot of Mondays.

  I usually walk to school with her because she lives on my road and because I don’t get to see her during classes. She’s in Fifth Year, and I’m a lowly Transition Year, so the only time I see her during the day is when we walk. Karen lives nearby as well, but she gets a lift in every morning, even though it’s only a ten-minute walk. In a way I’m sort of glad. Karen’s nice, I guess, but she’s in almost every single one of my classes and too much of her is definitely a bad thing.

  It feels like the weekend didn’t really happen. Like it was just five minutes ago that Sarah, Karen, Fiona and me collectively sagged with relief as we left school on Friday afternoon and went to watch videos at Fiona’s for the evening. Like Saturday in town was just a dream, as was my Sunday spent at home curled up with new books. It never actually happened. The concept of a weekend doesn’t actually exist. We just come to school, go home, sleep, come to school, go home, sleep, come to school . . .

  Karen is already there by the time I arrive, perched on a table in one corner of the classroom, where our usual group has congregated. I get a few half-hearted “Hi”s when I join them. It’s OK, guys, you don’t have to acknowledge me, really.

  Hannah over there – you can ignore me, it’s fine. I don’t really care if you don’t realise I exist.

  Remember that episode of Buffy where the girl becomes invisible because as far as everyone’s concerned, she is? That’ll be me someday. Only sometimes I wish I were invisible. I want to disappear . . . I don’t want anyone to see me, because when they see you, they can judge you.

  Leanne, sitting next to Hannah, is the sort of person you don’t want to realise that you’re alive. She’s sarcastic. She’s bitchy. She makes you feel about two inches tall. Standing up to her abuse means she’ll just attack you even more. If you want to stay friends with her, stay in the circle, you keep quiet.

  I can’t believe I used to be friends with her. I can’t believe I used to think the way she does. I can’t believe the fact that while I’ve managed to change from a spoiled, obnoxious brat completely uncaring of how other peopl
e feel, she’s still exactly the same.

  Karen gets on with her. Karen is the sort of person who appears comfortable in any situation, around any group of people. In other words, the exact opposite to me.

  It’s weird, though. Sometimes I find myself not caring about what they all think of me, and other times I’m hurt that they don’t want me around. At the very least, they don’t care whether I’m there or not. I don’t matter to them.

  No, I’m not looking for sympathy or pity from you, thank you very much. I mean, it’s not like I go home crying about how I don’t fit into their perfect little teenager lives. I barely think about them. I don’t want to fit in. Not really. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to turn into a condescending, superficial bitch. I don’t want my life to revolve around drinking and partying and scoring guys.

  I just . . . I want to be out of here, you know? I want to be in college, studying something I’m really interested in. I want to meet interesting people who’ll understand me. I want to be able to wear my own clothes the whole time instead of a sickening uniform. I want to be cool and confident in an offbeat kind of way, I want people to like me, I want to be out there in the real world instead of stuck here in an all-girls school where being shallow and fake is as much a part of the daily routine as racing through your homework five minutes before the class starts.

  Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe college isn’t the Utopia I would like it to be. Maybe it’s going to be as hellish as school is.

  Tina’s going on about her diet and how much she needs to lose weight. I tune out. Otherwise I’ll have to kill her. I mean, seriously kill her. I’d lean over and rip her head off her shoulders, then kick it around the classroom. I’d chop her arms and legs into tiny pieces. It wouldn’t be pretty. So I try to ignore what she’s saying.

  OK, maybe she really does think she’s too fat, but does she have any idea how insulting to other people it is to have her moaning about it? I mean, does that self-centred cow realise how offensive it is for people like me, who are of average weight, to hear her complain that she is too fat when she could rival Kate Moss in the skinniness stakes? I hate her. I really do. (Tina, not Kate Moss.)

  I’m so angry with her right now. I don’t care if she looks into the mirror and sees a gelatinous blob – the reality is that she is thin, and that when people like her see themselves as overweight, it makes everyone else feel pretty shitty.

  Not that she even cares. All she wants is to be told that she’s skinny a couple of hundred times. Then, with her ego stroked and her self-esteem boosted, she can shut up.

  I surreptitiously begin pinching at the skin on my left wrist. I dig the nails in firmly each time, until I’m a little less pissed off with her, a little calmer.

  After all, we don’t want a scene. Sometimes I imagine what it’d be like – me having this big confrontation with someone in the class. Take your pick, on a bad day any one of them could be my worst enemy. But it’d end badly. I know. Maybe I am just a tiny bit concerned about appearances after all. Or maybe I just want to stay invisible. That way you can’t get hurt.

  Chapter Three

  Very few people have any inkling of what goes on inside my head and I think the world is better off not knowing.

  I doubt Sophie Bradley would be enthused to hear that right now I want to kill her. Seriously. If I had a gun, she’d be lying on the carpet in a spreading pool of blood and I’d be in the principal’s office getting yelled at for making a mess. (“Abigail Evans, do you realise how much it will cost to get that stain out? You’re in serious trouble here. I’m going to give you . . . detention.”) As it is, she’s sitting at the back of the classroom talking about some meaningless event in her moronic, alcohol-drenched, smoke-enveloped life. We’re watching a video for English (to later analyse and deconstruct and try to sound deep and meaningful while doing so) but Sophie keeps muttering away in that trashy accent of hers. She tries so hard to sound tough and inner-city-ish. Rough is in, pronouncing the ends of your words is out. It’s so pathetic. We live on the south side of the city. Deal with it.

  I can hear the video if I try hard enough, but you know the way it is when your attention is drawn to something and you start to get annoyed about it. You block out everything else and, without meaning to, you find yourself only being able to hear the inane babbling of a bleached-blonde bimbo. Come to think of it, her dark roots are showing. Maybe I should mention it. Maybe if I don’t she won’t notice it, it’ll grow out and then she’ll manage to look halfway normal. Why does everyone think blonde is so attractive, even if it clashes hideously with their skin tone?

  Oh, wait, I forgot. I go to a school which is comprised of brainless idiots. Of course.

  It’s not that I hate everyone in the entire school. Just most of them. But they’re all so clichéd and utterly unoriginal, and they bore me. Their world revolves around boys and alcohol and going out.

  My world revolves around trying not to be a stereotypical misfit of an adolescent and fearing desperately that I am, poetry, observing human behaviour, daydreaming and music.

  They want to look like Britney.

  I want to write like Sylvia Plath.

  You see the difference.

  The last time I could honestly say I didn’t hate anyone in the school was a couple of years ago, when our year got the meningitis inoculation. The pre-injection group were anxious about the thought of a needle being jabbed in their arms and the post-injection group were nauseous and tired.

  Everyone was vulnerable and because of that, because of the usual barriers having disintegrated, everyone got along. People were sympathetic and caring and warm. It was incredible.

  The next day the barriers were back up and everyone was as self-centred and false as they usually are.

  I wasn’t surprised.

  Chapter Four

  Well done, Abi, I tell myself as the bell goes. (The bell being a symbolic representation of the hold that the school and its rigid timetable has over all its pupils. Naturally.) I got through a whole class without storming down to the back of the class to strangle Sophie with my bare hands.

  I must be maturing. You know you’re really an adult when you can resist the urge to murder someone who the world would really be better off without.

  In Irish we are debating over the age-old question. To have or not to have a school uniform? Are they a good idea, or bad? Answers only in that archaic and hated language, please.

  Louise doodles on her homework journal beside me while I scribble down what’s being written on the board. Might as well try to learn something in school, after all.

  The fairly obvious points about school uniforms are coming up. I’m not surprised. It’s the fairly obvious people that are speaking up.

  And what is our anti-heroine’s opinion on school uniforms, you might wonder?

  Does she embrace the idea of everyone being equally hideous and having each person’s creativity stifled?

  Or does she hate them and wish she could wear whatever she wants, just to show people that she’s different?

  Well, what do you think?

  The discussion in the class is at first pro-uniform. It seems everyone absolutely loves the idea of these bright blue monstrosities. After all, without them we’d get to be individuals and we wouldn’t want that, would be? They don’t. They want to be identical. They’re terrified of being different.

  Idiots! Don’t they get it? Normality is boring. They’re boring.

  If we didn’t have to wear a uniform I’d dress all in black and dye my hair bright purple. Or I’d wear long denim skirts and t-shirts with slogans like “Nobody knows I’m a lesbian”, just because it would be so much fun to see the reaction of the masses. Or I’d wear fishnet and lace . . . or not bother and just wear tracksuits, because it is only school after all and I’m not trying to impress anyone. Except maybe I would be – determined to stand out just to get attention.

  Aren’t middle children meant to be the ones who feel th
ey have to act out to get attention? Something is clearly wrong in the Evans family dynamic. Maybe we are dysfunctional after all. I can only hope . . .

  Our teacher is looking bored and asks for the disadvantages of uniforms. Funny, I thought the teachers were meant to be brainwashing us into thinking that uniforms are a good thing. She should really stop while she’s ahead.

  Before you know it, the class is spouting out pro-individuality propaganda, and discussing how much they hate the uniform. Anyone who is still in favour of the idea is silenced by the mob, and by the time the bell goes I know exactly what side I’ll be taking when we have to write a short essay on our views on uniforms for homework.

  School uniforms: definitely a good idea. How could you possibly think otherwise?

  Chapter Five

  The sad truth is that I wish I were like them sometimes.

  Not the whole alcohol-is-the-centre-of-my-existence-matched-only-by-boys-and-clothes attitude.

  Or the I’m-such-a-rebel-because-I-listen-to-the-type-of-alternative-music-that’s-so-trendy-and-commercialised-that-I’m-really-not-being-rebellious-at-all-but-just-following-the-crowd kind of way.

  Just the easy friendship they seem to have, the teenage normality that they all take for granted, that I used to imagine I’d have when I finally became a teenager. I should have known that turning thirteen wouldn’t mean a sudden transformation into a butterfly.

  I envy the pretty ones, who look beautiful effortlessly and don’t even realise it, and who are friendly on top of it all.

  And the talented ones, the artistic, the musical, the athletic, the intelligent, the dramatic, the ones who have a gift and don’t realise that others don’t.

  And when they’re pretty and talented, it just hurts. In the great cosmic scheme of things, a lot of things aren’t fair. It’s not fair that people get sick and die, it’s not fair that bad things can happen to good people. And compared to those big issues, it seems a little childish to complain about it not being fair that people have so much going for them when you don’t.