The PEN O. Henry Prize Stories 2012

by Laura Furman

  When he took off his jeans she saw a big scar on his leg. Just above his knee, on the back of his leg. She wanted to know what it was, but she didn’t ask.

  She read about horrible things on the news. She read about fathers who killed their kids because they hated their ex-wives. They strangled them or poisoned them or drove them off a cliff. She read that stuff all the time. Just when she had forgotten about one case, a new one would turn up. Or she’d hear them on the TV or the radio. Her mother always went dead quiet when stuff like that came on. And sometimes she’d mutter something. Something like the poor things, or what a bastard. And Cath would think about her father. About him slouched over his coffee without her. She could scare herself for a short while thinking like that. But not for very long. Her father was very gentle. Very kind. He had never smacked her, even when she was little and screamed all the time. Her mother had smacked her. He’d never even shouted at her. Or not that she could remember. Or not in a way that made her remember. He was always gentle. He would say nothing, just open his arms, and she would lie against him and he would wrap her up and she would stay like that for ages. That was when she was little. They hadn’t done that in a long time. But she would do that again without even thinking.

  She wanted to ask him whether he had ever had a case like that. A father who kills his kids. Or anything like that. But he never told her any of the bad stuff. She knew he had to investigate all sort of things—murders and everything. She’d seen him on the news once. The London news. Detective Inspector Mark Rivers. It was weird, seeing his name like that. And him asking for witnesses after a boy was stabbed somewhere. He’d been really good. He talked about the boy like he’d known him, about his family and stuff. It was all good—the way people are after they’re dead. It had made her nearly cry, because she was proud of him she supposed. But he only ever told her about the funny stuff.

  —No, Dad, that’s Pollock.

  —Watch your language.

  She laughed.

  —Pollock. Jackson Pollock. He does the ones with the paint all over the place all scrambled and splattered and stuff.

  —Do you like them?

  —Yeah.

  —Not so much though?

  —Well, I like them. They’re fun. I’d like to see them for real, because the paint is meant to be really thick and that would be amazing to see them up close. But they’re like …

  —A mess.

  —No. They’re like the idea of having an idea, instead of having an idea.

  She laughed at herself. Her Dad made an ooh noise. They turned a corner.

  —Is that art teacher of yours any good?

  —Yes she’s okay.

  —Are you smarter than her?

  She laughed, thinking yes!

  —No.

  —Have you told her you want to go to art college?

  —I don’t know if I want to go to art college.

  —Oh. I thought you did.

  —Well I want to do art, but I don’t know if I want to go to an art college or do art history. First.

  —First?

  —Maybe.

  —Well. No hurry.

  He pulled in to the curb in front of the house. She leaned across and kissed him. She knew he wanted a hug. But it was awkward, hugging in the car, and she didn’t like it.

  —Will you call me during the week?

  —Yes.

  —How’s your mother?

  He always left it to the last minute. So that she could only say:

  —She’s fine.

  —Okay. I love you.

  —I love you too.

  —Speak soon.

  He waited for her to get to the door. As if something might happen to her between the car and the front door. Then when she put her key in the lock he drove off, as if nothing could happen to her then until the next time.

  She liked Tracey Emin, even though everyone else she knew didn’t like her, and some people seemed to hate her. She liked her voice best of all, and she loved to hear her talk. She saw her once, walking through the Smithfield Market looking really hungover. She’d wanted to talk to her, but she’d been too shy, and her friend Michele didn’t know who she was and there was no one else to be excited with. She didn’t like Damien Hirst at all. She thought he was an idiot. And his work was ugly and full of boyish things, like he was a permanently horny boy trying to get some, and everyone was just embarrassed to have him around. She thought Sarah Lucas was like that too. But she didn’t say it. She just said that Lucas didn’t really move her. It was a way she had of dismissing something without sounding judgmental. She had learned it from a documentary about Francis Bacon. She couldn’t remember now whether it was Bacon who said it about some other artist, with a smirk on his face, or whether it was someone else who’d said it about Bacon. She liked Jake and Dinos Chapman. She liked the way that they could make her feel a bit sick, but that she kept on peering at their models and their pictures anyway because all the detail had something in it that was important but it kept on shifting somewhere else, like when you have a floater in your eye. She liked Grayson Perry. She liked his voice too, and she liked hearing him talk about art, and she had some podcasts of a radio show he’d done. But she didn’t really know his art. She liked the way he shocked his mother whenever he turned up on the telly in one of his mad frocks. She’d been to the Turner Prize exhibition for the last three years. She had liked Zarina Bhimji most in 2007. In 2008 her favorite was either the photographer or Goshka Macuga’s wooden things like people trees. In 2009 she hadn’t really liked any of them. They didn’t move her.

  On the Tuesday after the Saturday when they’d had sort-of-sex and Stuart had sent her an e-mail about Bacon, and a couple of texts about nothing, he came up to her in a corridor in school and, blushing very red, asked her did she want to go for a coffee after school, just the two of them. She didn’t know why he was blushing. Well, she did, and she thought it was funny, but it made her blush as well. The two of them just standing there going red. She rushed out a Yeah, okay, see you after as casually as she could and walked off. It was completely stupid. They’d had about six million conversations in the school corridors before.

  One time in the café two men came in and sort of stood there looking at her Dad. He stared back at them.

  —What.

  It was the same voice he used on the phone.

  —Sorry to interrupt, sir.

  The one talking was a really good-looking black man with dark-framed glasses and hair shaved close to his head. He was wearing a dark gray suit, with a black V-neck jumper under the jacket and his tie done up. He looked really interesting. The other one was a white guy with a funny face. Like he was peeking through a keyhole. Or maybe it was normal. He had a stupid smile and was carrying a big envelope and he was looking at her. He was wearing a neat suit too, but he looked more like he was going for a job interview. They didn’t look like police.

  —What.

  —Need you to have a look at a couple of things. Somewhat urgent.

  He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at Cath and nodded.

  —I’m very sorry to bother you.

  She smiled and felt herself blush.

  Her Dad went outside with them. She looked through the window. The three of them hunched over the envelope, and stuff was pulled out of it, and her Dad peered at it. She thought maybe it was photographs. She couldn’t see. Her Dad made a call on his phone. The black guy made one on his. The white guy came back in and bought himself a bottle of water.

  —Sorry about this, he said.

  —That’s okay.

  —He’ll be back in a minute.

  He seemed nice. She wanted to ask him stuff. About her Dad. What’s he like to work with? Is he tough? Does he beat people up? Is he a racist? Does he curse all the time? Is he good at being a detective? Is he clever? Is he sexist? Does he have a girlfriend? Do you do cases where fathers kill their kids? What does he think about them? But she couldn’t form any sort of que
stion at all before he had gone back outside. The two of them walked to a car and drove away and her father came back in and patted her shoulder and apologized.

  —That’s the first time I’ve ever met anyone you work with.

  —No, it’s not. Is it?

  —Yeah. You’re very rude to them.

  He laughed.

  —I am not.

  —You didn’t say anything to them. Just what. You should have asked them to sit down.

  —They should have called me.

  —They seemed really nice. You should have introduced me.

  He smiled at her as he sipped his coffee.

  —They are not nice. Really. And anyway, one of them is married and the other is gay and they’re both old enough to be your father. And if your mother and I agree on anything then we agree that you should never, ever, ever get involved with a policeman.

  They went up toward Muswell Hill to a place Stuart knew where there’d be no one from the school. He bought her a strawberry tea, and got himself a cappuccino. He talked about music and kept on wiping his lips. He was into all these bands that she had never heard of. She thought he was trying to match her art talk. Trying to balance it. That was okay. He said he’d send her a playlist and they talked for a while about the best ways of sharing files, and about the computers they had and about stuff on Facebook, and she was sure they’d had all these conversations a dozen times before. It was like he’d forgotten that he’d known her for about two years. On and off.

  They walked down the hill and he held her hand for a while. When they got to a bus stop that was good for her, he kissed her again, and it was great. He leaned against her and she could feel his body warm against her and she liked it and she thought about his scar. When the bus came he smiled at her like he was shy again, and she liked that, too, and he said, “See ya, gorgeous” in a stupid voice and they both laughed, and they were laughing at themselves, at how stupid they were being and that it was all right to be stupid, it was fun. On the bus she dozed and held her phone in her hand and leaned her head against the window.

  She didn’t know what to do about Rothko. She didn’t understand Rothko. Everything about Rothko made her want to like him. All the things people who liked him said and wrote made her want to like him. They talked about warmth and love and comfort and feelings like religious feelings. She wondered about herself, about what was wrong with her that she couldn’t feel those things. Or not feel them when she looked at Rothko. She had been, twice, to the Rothko Room in the Tate. And her Dad had taken her to the big exhibition of lots of his stuff. But she didn’t get it. Soft-focus blocks of dusty color. One of them made her think of sunsets on summer holidays in Cornwall, so she liked that one, a bit. But Rothko. He did not move her.

  Whenever her father took her to one of the Tates, or to the National Gallery or something, she could sense his boredom make his back straight, and his eyes water. She would forget he was there sometimes and then turn to find him looking at his phone, or looking at a woman, or yawning. She’d laugh at him and they’d go for a coffee and he’d get her something in the shop. Some postcards usually, or a book. She didn’t like him spending much. She didn’t know why. He wasn’t hard up.

  Her mother was jealous of these trips. She didn’t want to be, and she battled with herself to cover it up, but Cath could feel it, in the kitchen. It was like she was plugged into something.

  She started going to museums and galleries with Stuart. They went to the Whitechapel Gallery together—the first time she’d been there. They had to stand on the Tube and he held her hand. She liked when they had to let go for some reason and then she’d wait to see how long it took him to reach out for her again. Sometimes it wasn’t quick enough and she grabbed his hand, and she liked that she felt able to do that, and liked that it made him smile. She liked the fact that they were turning into a really annoying couple who held hands all the time and that their other friends, if they knew, would dedicate their lives to taking the piss.

  They went to the National Gallery and spent a couple of hours wandering around. Stuart wasn’t scared of stuff that other boys were scared of. He stood in front of a picture of a naked man and said out loud to her that it was beautiful. He looked at another picture and wanted her to tell him whether it was supposed to suggest a vagina. She blushed and he didn’t. When she used a word he didn’t understand, he told her he didn’t understand it and asked her what it meant. She had to admit once that she didn’t really know what crescendo meant. He laughed at her and put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a little kiss on her cheek.

  She had told her mother that she and Stuart were sort-of-seeing each other now. Her mother took a couple of minutes to work out which of her friends she meant. Then she told her that he was welcome to come over to the house whenever Cath wanted. That made her laugh. Not whenever Stuart wanted, but whenever Cath wanted. She liked that. She wondered if he’d be allowed to stay the night. Maybe. In the spare room. She wondered if he’d even want to. She wanted him to. Sometime. For some reason. She wanted to see him first thing in the morning. She imagined bringing him a cup of tea in bed. She imagined him lying asleep in the spare bed in the spare room. She imagined it for ages.

  Her Dad was obsessing now about the crossing outside the café, near the school.

  —Some kid is going to get run over there one of these days.

  —Why?

  —Cos you lot never look. You just walk across. And cars come up that road too fast. There should be traffic lights there. Not just a crossing.

  She looked. Most of the younger kids were gone by now. There were a few people she recognized outside the shop on the other side. She’d never seen anyone even come close to getting run over.

  —You should be careful.

  She laughed.

  —Don’t laugh. I worry about things like that. They may seem stupid to you but there you have it. I can’t help it, I’m your father.

  He was in a mood.

  —You need to be careful. The number of teenagers killed on the road in London is horrific. You know? Never mind knife crime and drugs and all the stuff you get warned about all the time. Well, do mind them, but you know about that stuff. It’s the traffic you might just forget about. Forget to look out for. You’re to be careful about that.

  A group of uniforms passed the window. She looked up and saw Byron, who gave her a wave. And Stuart’s head appeared from behind him, smiling at her. Her Dad looked.

  —Your friends?

  They walked on. Stuart looked back, still smiling. She found herself smiling and blushing.

  —How’s the flat, she asked, to cover it.

  —Do you have a boyfriend?

  —Oh Dad.

  He was smiling at her. She was so obvious. She was a cliché. Her cheeks burned.

  —Which one? The black boy?

  He was turned around in his chair now, looking after them. Stuart noticed and looked away, and then they disappeared.

  —The one who looked back?

  —They’re just friends.

  —So why are you blushing like a berry?

  She laughed.

  —Like a berry?

  —Like a strawberry.

  —People don’t blush like berries.

  —Which one was he then? What’s his name?

  So she told him a bit about Stuart. But nothing like as much as she’d told her mother. He smiled at her and nodded but she could tell he was sad. Because she was growing up and all that clichéd crap.

  She imagined walking from school one day and hearing a bang and a scream, and another scream, and seeing something happening at the crossing. She imagined running up, and as she got closer her friends trying to hold her back. She imagined seeing Stuart lying on the ground, pale, a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth. She imagined kneeling beside him and holding his head, and looking into his eyes and him looking at her with the most intense eyes that she had ever seen, and dying. She imagined a girl screaming and sobb
ing, and Byron crying and holding her hand, and she imagined her Dad arriving with the two men from the coffee shop, and her Dad helping her up and moving her away, and the good-looking black man and the other one trying to restart Stuart’s heart, and the black guy looking up at her Dad and her and shaking his head, and Stuart being beautiful.

  Then she imagined that she was the one hit by a car, and Stuart holding her, tears running down his face. She preferred the idea of him dying. She laughed and wondered whether she could tell him about all this and knew that of course she couldn’t.

  She told Byron that she’d met a gay cop.

  —Cop’s a cop, he sneered. Then he remembered her Dad was a cop, and smiled and touched her arm.

  Byron told her that Stuart was really happy about, you know. Them. The two of them. Byron said it was a really good thing. He said they were two of his most favorite people, and he was made up to see them together. He said Stuart deserved some happiness. She laughed and asked him what he meant.

  —Oh you know.

  —More than me?

  —No. Just.

  —What?

  —Oh nothing.

  Stuart’s parents were still together, but his father was always away and his mother worked in the city and Stuart had the house to himself most of the time and she would go there and they would end up kissing, of course, and they would do various things, but they still hadn’t had actual-sex. She wondered whether he was really only interested in sex. And was really clever. And by not ever pressing her into stuff, he made her want stuff that she might not want if he suggested it out loud. Maybe he was devious like that and everything, all his niceness and his calm and the way he looked out for her, they were all a disguise for the fact that he was just a horny boy like other horny boys and that he was following some sort of Plan and every night he called his friends to bring them up to date about the progress of The Plan.