by Jenni Fagan
The camera pulls out to a big gym hall with, like, two hundred other sumo babies. They’ve all been set up in twos, and each baby stares at the other until one baby cries. The first baby to cry is the winner, gaining honour for their family and grace for their future. They’re down to the final two contestents now. The mums step back and wait, but neither baby does a thing.
The first mum yanks her baby’s hair to try to make him cry, and then the judge guy makes faces at the two of them and flaps his hands around. Nothing. Especially not from Green, he doesnae even fidget – he just stares. He’s Buddha, but harder. He is the total nut. If I ever had a baby, I’d want one just like him.
The presenter gestures at the two babies, and the other parents are all trying to see over each other’s heads, as the judge snaps at one of the mums.
The judge flaps his hands. Green’s bored. He’s clearly intelligent beyond the idiocies of social decorum and he quite obviously doesnae give a flying fuck about the honour of his family. The baby opposite him starts crying and his mum lifts him up, shows him off. They reckon he’s the winner, but he’s not. Green’s the winner as far as I’m concerned. That attitude’ll take him far one day, he’ll see.
I still keep feeling like I’m shrinking, but I umnay giving into the fear. All I have tae do is breathe and bide my time, and this will pass. I shouted about the shrinking – at a panel of social workers a few years ago. That started a great big ball of shit. Antipsychotics. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Flowcharts. Borderline personality. Hooroo-kooroo. Fucking murk! That’s when the social work started.
‘We think you have a borderline personality, Anais.’
‘It’s better than no personality.’
Wrong. Apparently – no personality is the correct answer. Borderline not so much. It was all cos of that canoe trip and Gaarwine, the instructor. The social workers sat about after Gaarwine had me charged; they were all sipping herbal tea, and acting disappointed, cos that trip could really have healed somebody.
‘He was traumatised!’
‘I’m traumatised.’
‘But he was really traumatised.’
‘How – did he find his ma dead?’
They didnae like that.
Identity problem. Funny that. Fifty odd moves, three different names, born in a nuthouse to a nobody that was never seen again. Identity problem? I dinnae have an identity problem – I dinnae have an identity, just reflex reactions and a disappearing veil between this world and the next.
Someone’s crying, upstairs.
Tash comes out of Isla’s room and goes along the landing. There’s a hoot outside, then another, long and low. That must be Britney. I go to the window and rub it, but I cannae see much; it’s weird that hooting out there, coming from nowhere.
I wonder what my mum, or dad, would look like? I’ve never even seen a photo of someone I’m related to. I dinnae know a name, there’s just a great big void, black as night. I dinnae understand how they cannae work out where you’re from by, like, your blood, or your eye colour – or the way you hold a knife and fork or something?
‘It’s impossible, Anais.’
‘Really?’
‘Totally impossible. You have to accept that you will never meet anyone you are related to, or see a picture of them, or hear their voice, or know what their name is, or where they live, or who they are. You have to accept this, so you can be well and whole. You do want to be well and whole, don’t you?’
‘Fuck off!’
I dinnae trust social workers or their stupid stories. I’m a bit unconvinced by reality, full stop. It’s fundamentally lacking in something, and nobody seems bothered. Like – if we’re in the middle of the universe, one of the universes, and there’s nae proof heaven exists, and religion is just used mostly to control people, then the real fact is: nobody knows why we’re here.
That means really, we all come from nothing. A great big fuck-all that will never have an answer, and it bothers me. I want tae ask the woman in Tesco about it, when she says – That’ll be £4.97, I want to say to her … We’re in the middle of the universe, right now, right at this exact minute! Does that not bother you?
It bothers me. It really fucking does. Nobody talks about it, though, that’s the thing. We live, we die, we do shit in between, the world is fucked up with murder, and hate, and stupidity; and all the time this infinite universe surrounds us, and everyone pretends it’s not there.
I’m suspicious of silence, and reality, and social workers. I’m suspicious of teachers, and police, and psychologists, and clowns, and apples, and red meat, and cows. Cows are too big and they’re telepathic. You walk past a cow field and they all just turn as one being, and stare. And they do chase people. I’ve fucking seen them. Bovine grass-munching hippies – my arse!
Authority figures are broken, and they’re always bullies as well. Red meat is just an arm, or a leg, or a face – without skin on it. I cannae deal with raw meat. I walk past a butcher’s and begin tae see everything as meat. Meat hands. Meat feet. Head meat, heart meat. There’s a meat moon and a meat tree. Some bloke drinking a meat margharita, in a meat bar on meat street.
Clowns are vicious – they’re all nefarious grins – and if you hang out with a bunch of clowns in a bar, pretty soon it would turn into a horror movie. Nefarious means evil. It’s nothing to do with Rastas.
Apples fall from trees. The sound an apple makes when it hits the ground gives me needles in my spine. Teachers, shrinks, pigs, staff, they all do the same, and so does life, without being able to think about who I would have been – if I’d actually got to be me.
I wouldnae have been this. This was a mistake. I’m gonnae get it straight in my head again later, play the birthday game and finish it this time. It’s the only thing keeping me sane right now.
‘Telly off now, up tae bed, Anais.’
‘Okay.’
‘Did you put the big light off?’ Angus asks me.
‘Nope.’
He flicks the big light back on. I put my cornflakes bowl through the hatch; that’s all I ate today, tomorrow it will be normal food. The day after that – crisps only. Angus goes through tae the office and comes back out with the keys for the watchtower. He opens a door round on the back of it.
‘Can I have a look up there?’ I ask him.
‘No, Anais. The watchtower is out of bounds.’
I knew he wouldnae let me look up there. No fucking way.
9
THEY WON’T LET me in the office yet, cos Isla cut herself again last night. There’s a doctor in there cleaning her up – it must have been a bad one. I want to take her something, a magazine and Lucozade, or Valium and Victorian porn.
‘Alright?’ Shortie asks me.
‘Aye, you?’
‘Aye.’
It’s a truce now. I knew the fight wasnae anything personal.
‘Where are you going?’ John asks her.
‘I’m getting my head shaved.’
‘Dinnae get your head shaved, I like it like that,’ he says.
‘Twice the reason tae shave it then, ay?’
Shortie disappears out the front door.
‘Anais, come on, we’ll use one of the interview rooms.’ Helen appears.
She’s been in the interview room collecting herself. Meditating. Reading up on my putting-a-cop-in-a-fucking-coma-might-get-done-for-murder-if-she-dies case.
What are you wearing?
Press delete on my phone, follow Helen into the interview room.
Strip for me, baby.
Bolt!
‘Okay, Anais, sit down.’
Helen closes the door behind us.
That’s no very nice. I miss you, d’ye no even miss me?
‘So. Where were you?’ I ask Helen.
‘I was totally unable tae get back home! You wouldn’t believe it out there, Anais, there was a terror alert and all the planes were stopped, then there was flooding and we couldnae even leave our region. It was a nightmare.’<
br />
‘What, you mean you couldn’t leave your five-star all-inclusive hotel? For three more weeks?’
‘I ended up stuck in India for another three weeks, yes. We couldnae fly anywhere, then I got ill. I think I had dengue fever.’
‘Here’s hoping.’
‘Don’t be rude, Anais. All I could do when I got home was rest and sip tea. I know, I really do understand that you have been having a nightmare. I am really, really sorry I wasn’t there for you.’
Send me a fucking picture.
I stare at the LCD. He’s getting pissed off cos I’m not like what I was at eleven, or twelve. Everyone changes, though, ay. I should just tell him to fuck off, but he’s the only person who ever held me that way, stroked my hair. After Teresa, after she died, that was where I went. Jay’s bed. Jay’s drugs. Jay’s arms. I don’t think I would have made it otherwise.
‘It did give me another few weeks working in the elephant sanctuary – you would have loved the elephants, Anais!’
‘I fucking doubt it.’
‘Anyway, I’ve been given all the details by Angus. He seems nice?’ she says.
‘He’s alright.’
‘He told me that PC Dawn Craig’s condition is not improving; she’s not in a vegetative state, but she is still in a coma. You know if she doesn’t improve, Anais, and they find any evidence, you will be detained in a secure unit until you’re eighteen.’
‘I didnae do it.’
‘You’re sure?’
I think she must have been doing some hardcore meditating over there; she’s finally fucking grown a pair.
‘So, how did you get all that blood on your skirt, if you didn’t get in a – altercation that day?’
‘Ask the police, they’ve got the swabs; they should have proved by now that the blood on my skirt is fuck-all tae do with PC Craig,’ I say.
‘We’re going tae have to go down there this morning.’
‘Why?’
‘They want to do some additional questioning, Anais, and they would like to speak with me as well, and I would like tae speak with them.’
‘I umnay going.’
‘It’s not optional, and there is a policewoman’s life at risk here. You might want tae think about that, maybe, rather than just yourself.’
‘If they put me in a secure unit like John Kay’s, with the kiddie-killers or the paedos or whatever the fuck it is they keep up there, do you think there is any chance that I won’t just fucking hang myself, Helen?’
‘Calm down, Anais!’
‘I’m not spending my life inside, for something I didnae fucking do!’
She takes coconut hand-oil out of her bag and rubs it into her hands. She doesnae think I’m getting out – she thinks I’m in the system now, all the fucking way. Foster care. Homes. Young Offenders. Jail. Where to when I graduate? Experiment headquarters – so they can pickle my fucking brain.
‘Secure units really help some kids, Anais.’
‘I need tae get changed.’
‘Okay, I’ll meet you outside. Don’t be longer than ten minutes, please?’
‘Fucking whatever.’
Run up the stairs, grab a pre-rolled skunk cone – John brought some back into the unit last night. It’s fucking lethal shit. I go into the toilet, double-drag the entire spliff. Fuck, it reeks, I haven’t smoked grass for … I cannae mind. Months. Flush the roach down the bog, cold water on face, go.
I’m trying not to pay attention to the way the floor rises up and down in waves. I feel fucking queasy. I hate this station.
‘Hello, I am Helen Stevenson, Anais Hendricks’s social worker. We have a meeting at 2 p.m.?’
‘Take a seat, please.’
‘They’ll see us soon, Anais.’
She sits down. There are posters on the wall: how tae put someone in the recovery position, what to do if you’ve been mugged, and an advert for self-defence classes. Sit down and scuff my feet. I’m too stoned. Too, too, TOO – stoned. Dawn Craig used to lift me in this police station all the time. Her fiancé works here, he’s an even bigger cunt than she is – I wouldnae be surprised if he’d koshed her, he’s got a right look about him. Like a wife-beater. Or a rapist.
‘Hello again, Anais.’
‘Alright.’
I cannae mind his name, but he’s lifted me before. He comes out from behind the reception bit.
‘Are we going tae do the interview straight away?’ Helen asks him.
‘We received notification that you would like tae speak with us on your own first, is that right?’ the policeman asks her.
‘Yes, if that’s possible?’
I’m looking at Helen.
‘Is that okay, Anais? We’ll come and get you soon.’
Helen doesnae wait for an answer; she disappears into an interview room and I am left in reception where it is too bright, and the coffee machine hUms. hUm. hUm. hUm. I’m gonnae go insane. Fact. What the fuck is it about this place? Last time I was here I thought I’d die, right in front of PC Craig.
The cell’s cold. It stinks of bleach and the rubber mattress, the loo never has a lid, and it’s concrete, same as the floor and the walls. The concrete has wee glittery blue flecks in it. There’s thick glass square windows, and blurry shapes of trees outside.
The toilet pan has skid-marks, someone else’s shit.
Shivery, shivery, shrinking, shrinking. The light hUms. I’m gonnae have a whitey. No, I’m not. No, I’m not. Don’t panic. Don’t freak out. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Sweating. Shit, here it comes, fuck, I cannae breathe, I’m gonnae be sick. Shit!
I squeeze my eyes shut so I dinnae have to look at skid-marks splattered with sick.
The cell door has a small straight line in its middle, a wee hatch of an iron mouth set in a grim grin. That mouth can open any minute. Then an eye will stare through it. Tears mix with sweat and I’m embarrassed to cry, even in front of myself, so I dinnae.
My heart is gonnae come out my chest; I cannae fucking breathe in here and they know it. I sense them before I see them. In the concrete, across the floor, and the ceiling – wee faces materialise. One appears in the bottom of the toilet, another looks up from the pipe; they swivel tae peer out at me, squint noses, thin lips.
Traffic zooms by somewhere out there. I cannae breathe. What if this is it and I’ve gone psycho, just like bio-mum? Clinical psychosis. Schizoid visions. Permanent insanity or suicide? What do you do? Stay permanently crazy or just fucking jump? I dinnae believe in suicide. I dinnae – not one bit – so if it’s permanent insanity, then that’s just what it fucking is. And those faces in the walls: spies, the lot, sent straight from experiment headquarters.
‘Can I fucking help you?’ I hiss.
They turn away in alarm. One pretends to whistle, another one gazes nonchalantly at the floor.
‘What the fuck are youz looking at?’
I try to touch the nearest concrete face and he pulls away, horrified. Good. Flick it on the nose and it sinks into the wall. They mutter quietly to each other. Fucking let them talk – they can do their thing, I’ll do mine.
I lay back and stare. Chip my nail varnish off bit by bit, and pile it into smiley wee faces on the concrete bench.
Footsteps clap down the corridor outside. They stop at the door, and the narrow mouth snaps open and an eye looks through. Then there is a key in the lock, click, click, click. The door swings open, and she walks in. PC Craig. She’s straightened her hair. She closes the door behind her and turns around. I dinnae sit up. I dinnae look at her. I feel sick.
‘Get up, Anais.’
The faces watch closely. Glare back at them and they contort, their nostrils flare and their eyes narrow. I push myself upright.
‘Up, Anais, come on, stop fucking about.’
I will have to leave my upside-down nail-varnish smiles on the bench, but I dinnae want her tae see them.
Let my feet fall off the bench; the floor seems too far away and things are spinning – the world is turning on its axis
just that wee bit too fast.
‘Take everything off, Anais. Hurry up.’
She points to the middle of the floor, and I stand there, like a dog that has got used to orders. Unbutton my school shirt, slip off my skirt, my sneakers, my socks. I have goosebumps all over my arms, and I can feel my teeth want to clatter together and there’s a roar in my head. She steps forward and begins to walk around me. Round. Round. Round.
‘What makes you think you’re so special, Anais? D’ye think you’re above the same rules as everyone else, is that it?’
She stops in front of me, runs her finger under my bra, then she pulls my knickers out and takes a long look tae see what’s down there. She lets the elastic snap back.
I stare through her. I have perfected this, staring through people. I have been here, all the fucking time lately. Thursday, 12.02, me on a come-down, middle of the cell, stripped. Sunday, 22.17, me with a black eye, to the side of the cell, partially stripped. Wednesday 3.14 a.m., bent over. Monday, 13.10, me with a coldsore, too thin and too frazzled, with bruises on my arms and cut marks on the inside of my thighs and a total inability to conceal my hate.
‘Take off the bra, Anais.’
‘Fuck off!’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said fuck off.’
‘I dinnae think so, Anais – fuck off is the wrong answer. You just say Yes in here. Yes, PC Craig. Thank you, PC Craig.’
‘Someone’s gonnae put you in a fucking grave.’
‘What did you say?’
I made six official complaints against her, and not one of them has been resolved. I bet I wasnae the only person she pissed off on the job.
‘Anais? Are you coming through? We are ready tae interview you now.’ The policeman is standing at the door.
PC Craig. I wonder who did have the honour of koshing her? The faces are here again, they glance slyly at me. Mind-readers. Dinnae think about them.
Paris. Remember Paris? It doesnae sound right. Paris. Paris. Paris. Paris. Fuck!
10
