Grow Up (9 page)

16

I am bored. I have spent the day pretending to revise. Really I was playing 3D Pinball Space Cadet on the computer. Eventually I will reach the rank of Fleet Admiral. My perseverance will be rewarded.

6:30 p.m. I have eaten a filling dinner of sausages, mash potato and onion gravy. I called Jonah and asked what he was doing. He told me he was doing nothing and said I should come over. I am leaving the house now.

‘I'm going to Jonah's, Mum,' I say. ‘Bye.'

I shout this at the empty living room.

Mum appears from nowhere.

‘Be very careful,' she says. ‘Don't be back late.'

‘Yes, Mum.'

‘Ten, at the latest.'

‘Ten is ridiculous, Mum.'

‘Is it?'

‘Yes, I will not be back later than eleven.'

I slam the door behind me.

I have had the last word.

The 38 bus goes to Jonah's. It only takes seven minutes. I sit on one of the balding seats and watch the sky outside peel like old paint. There is a woman stood in the aisle by my seat. Her hand is curled tight around the pole. She is squeezing hard. All of the colour has fled from her fingers and up into her modest breasts and sad-looking cheeks. Her nails have been bitten down to half-size and they are flecked with specks of red.

I do not understand people very well.

I will not eat my own fingers.

I will not hang myself with a rugby sock.

I will not murder my ex-wife by punching her nose bone up into her brain.

+

Jonah opens the door after I ring the bell six times. We go through to his living room and collapse on the sofa. He is watching the Disney cartoon version of Robin Hood. The one where Robin Hood is a fox.

‘This bit is so good,' Jonah says.

A small white rabbit wearing a large hat has just fired an arrow over a wall and into a game of badminton being played between a hen and a vixen.

‘Yea.'

For reasons I do not yet understand, I always cry when I see other people crying on the television. This is why I do not watch
Secret Millionaire
. I can only hope that the future will tame the wild horses in my eyes. I still believe that the reason Samantha Black would not have sex with me last year was because I cried during
Juno
and she thought that I was gay.

I hope nobody cries.

The small rabbit does not look very happy.

‘Jonah,' Jonah's mum shouts from the kitchen. ‘Jonah, get out of the living room, I want to watch the news.'

Jonah's mum has watched the news every day since her husband died in Afghanistan. She is just looking for someone to swear at. She swears indiscriminately. I have witnessed it often. She swears at Trevor McDonald, Hannah Montana and Gok Wan. She calls them all cunts.

‘Let's go upstairs and play Xbox,' Jonah says.

‘Do we have to?'

‘Yes. We can play Halo on Xbox Live.'

Jonah knows that I like listening to angry people shouting on Xbox Live.

‘Okay,' I say.

Usually I do not like computer games because they are dull and bad for character development, however playing Halo on Xbox Live is good because you can converse with aggressive foreign people and then shoot them. Usually, behaviour like this is not allowed.

In the first game that we play someone called BurgerThing424, who has a Northern accent and a shotgun, calls Jonah a noob and then laughs at him. Jonah calls the person a fucking Paki. I ask Jonah how he knows the person is a Paki and Jonah tells me he knows this because BurgerThing424 keeps shooting him in the back of the head. I do not really understand the joke.

Jonah goes up to the top of the water tower. He says he is going to snipe people from there. He tells me just to hide or ride around in the jeep or something. If I attempt to engage in the game, he says, our team will definitely lose. I nod. I only want to listen to the talking, anyway. I strut around the bunker, collecting useless weaponry and body armour.

‘Got you, you Paki cunt,' Jonah says, grinning.

‘Stop being racist,' I say.

‘Don't be gay.'

‘And homophobic.'

‘I'm not scared of you.'

To prove this Jonah throws a large explosive from the top of the water tower. Despite being safely in a bunker, my half of the split screen shivers. Jonah chuckles.

‘This is shit,' I say.

‘What? Did you see that?'

‘Oh?' I say. ‘You mean that small collection of pixels that just shifted around on your television screen while the voice of an unemployed Mancunian man shouting “Fuck you” invaded your bedroom?'

‘Don't be a prick.'

‘I am not being a prick, this is just boring.'

‘Fine, let's finish this one, then we can go out for a joint.'

‘Okay.'

Our team gradually accrues points. Jonah remains on his viewpoint, picking-off members of the other team while they continue to re-spawn and hurry around the virtual environment.

Eventually I get bored and begin running wildly through the most exposed areas.

I die many times.

‘What the fuck are you doing?' Jonah says.

‘I am seizing life by the horns,' I say.

He drops the controller and sighs.

‘Let's go outside.'

Outside, our breath makes ghost jellyfish in the air. Marijuana smoke claws at my insides. I relax. We sit on the edge of his decking, our feet wetting themselves on the damp grass.

‘Jonah,' I say, ‘have you thought about what you're going to do once school is over?'

He shrugs.

‘Still got another year to think about that.'

‘But you must have some idea.'

He crushes the joint out with a grinding motion in the grass by his foot. He lights a normal cigarette and passes me one.

‘The army,' he says. ‘I think the army.'

I light my cigarette. My body feels tense. I am trying not to be loud and insensitive.

‘The army,' I repeat.

‘I know what you think of it, don't bother.'

‘Okay.'

‘What about you?'

I try to alter my body language so that it looks less negative.

‘I am going to be an award-winning novelist,' I say. ‘I am going to buy a house on the Costa Del Sol. I am going to sleep all day and fuck all night.'

Jonah laughs.

‘Can I visit?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Yes, you can.'

Back in the house we watch
X Factor
from Jonah's bed. I do not say anything. Jonah often interrupts with comments.

Things Jonah says while we watch
X Factor
:

Man, she should win, she's so fit.

Seriously, man, she'd get it.

Is he gay, or what?

He is gay.

Everyone votes for the gays.

I bet Mum votes for him.

Do you reckon I could go on this?

I reckon I could win, you know.

Then he sings that song from
Lion King
.

I tell him I'm leaving.

‘Fine,' he says. ‘See you, man.'

I like Jonah a lot. I hope he does not join the army. He could be a young Russell Brand.

Outside, I can see no stars. The only lights in the black are the things that we have put there: streetlights, houselights, blinking planes. I feel as though I am intruding on a large piece of conceptual art. I am leaving tiny, muddy footprints.

While I am stood waiting for the bus, two boys pull up beside me on bikes. They press only the front brakes so that the bikes come to a stop after long, arced skids. The boys have scarves pulled up to their eyelines. They both have hoods up; one blue, one black. I am extremely scared.

‘All right, mate,' blue hood says.

‘Yes, mate,' I say.

It is important to speak how you are spoken to in situations like these.

‘Give uz ya phone, mate,' black hood says.

He smells of body odour and wet dog.

I do not move.

I am in a state of shock.

‘Givuz ya fucken phone,' he says again.

I am not worried about being punched. I am worried about pissing in my pants.

‘Givusyafuckephonenow,' he says. A single long compound word. It will never catch on.

I fidget in my pocket. I pull off the back of my phone and pluck out the sim card. At home, I will put the sim card into my old Nokia 3210 and everything will continue as normal. That will show them.

I hand over the phone.

‘Andyawallet,' blue hood says.

I think about pulling out my penis and spraying them both with piss.

‘I do not own a wallet.'

Neon yellow acid piss that will make them both permanently blind.

‘Whyzat?'

Cunts.

‘Uh.'

Black hood pushes me.

‘Go on, fuckoff.'

I begin to walk defeatedly off into the night. My heart is a snare drum.

One of the boys throws a rock and it catches the back of my head. I press my hand to it and it comes away red. I wonder if I am going to die by stones.

And another.

This time my neck.

They are the Taliban, I am a woman falsely accused of adultery.

I run.

Back at home, in the warm light of my room, I sit in front of the computer. I swivel my head. My neck hurts. I do not know what to do. I decide not to tell Mum. If I do, then she will become extremely scared for my safety and will not allow me to leave the house without either an armed guard or a large and grumpy mastiff.

I know what to do.

Sometimes, when I feel sad or ill, I play the old Avril Lavigne album and think about how happy I was in 2003, when kissing a girl who tasted of Panda Pops at a school disco was enough to make everything seem as though it couldn't get any better.

I am listening to that Avril Lavigne album now. I am mouthing lyrics to the ceiling. If Mum saw this, she would be scared that I was gay. I am not gay. I am young, and a bit scared.

17

I am sat at the kitchen table across from Mum. We both have cups of tea; hers has two spoons of sugarless sugar-substitute, mine has four. Sunday. She is wearing her Lycra trousers and smelling of sweat because she has spent the morning at the gym. I have not told her about the brutal assault that took place last night. I have only just woken up. My hair is a fistful of straw. It is 11:15 a.m.

‘Jasper,' Mum says, ‘I hope you realise that these exams are extremely important.'

‘Yes, Mum.'

‘And it is very important that you use Study Leave to study.'

‘Very important,' I say, nodding.

‘Perhaps even important enough to consider waking up before midday?'

‘It's only eleven, Mum.'

‘Nonetheless, Jasper, when I was studying for my O-levels, I woke up at seven o'clock every day to get enough revision in.'

‘I don't want to be a . . . whatever it is you are.'

Mum sighs. ‘You are too young to know what you want.'

Keith comes down the stairs in his dressing gown, rubbing his eye and scratching his genitals. His grey hair is stuck up at funny angles and his yellow toenails are plodding. Definitely a murderer.

‘Morning, champ,' he says.

Sometimes I wonder how he manages to come up with a new name every single time he sees me. He must watch
Friends
every day and take extensive notes. I imagine that the inside of his wardrobe is filled with Post-It notes that offer suggestions for friendly names to use each day. One day I will follow him around for ages and see if I can exhaust his supply.

‘See,' I say, ‘Keith only just got up as well.'

‘Keith doesn't have important exams coming up.'

‘Give the kid a break, hunny, it's hardly life or death.' Keith says. I don't know why he does that to himself. He ruffles my hair. There is blood on his hands, metaphorically.

I place my hands on the table. Mum looks down at them, then up at me. She screws her face into an unattractive shape. She knows that I am going to ask for something.

‘Mum,' I say, tilting my head slightly to one side to remind her that I am a wonderfully adorable and charming son, ‘if my exam scores are above the national average, can I get my nose pierced?' Nipple was probably too much. Nose is reasonable.

Mum allows her face to fall. She does not believe that this is a serious issue.

‘No, Jasper,' she says. ‘No, you cannot.'

‘The key to a successful mother–son relationship is compromise,' I say. ‘I will work hard at school if you promise to give me the personal liberties I deserve.'

Mum pulls her mouth to one side. I do not know what is happening inside of her head. Mum has a simple mind. It cannot hold many thoughts.

She turns to Keith.

He grins.

She turns back to me.

‘Okay,' she says, ‘here's the deal. You can get one earlobe pierced if your exam scores are above the school's average.'

Mum has tunnelled under my plan! She knows that the school's averages are higher than the national averages.

‘Earlobes are gay,' I say. ‘Eyebrow?'

‘Ear.'

‘Lip?'

‘Ear.'

‘A dermal implant above my left collar bone?'

‘Ear.'

‘Belly button?'

‘It's the earlobe or nothing, Jasper, that's the deal.'

I exhale. I wish she would stop saying deal. My Mum thinks that she is Noel Edmonds.

‘My penis, then?'

‘Don't be disgusting,' Mum says. ‘One day you will thank me for stopping you from mutilating your own body.'

‘It isn't disgusting, Mum. Actually, it's very sensual. It heightens the sexual experience for both partners. You are so close-minded.'

Keith nudges Mum and makes a sexual sound. Mum ignores him. She leans in close to me. She is Julia.

‘Jasper,' she says quietly, shifting her teacup to one side as though she is scared I might hide behind it, ‘are you sexually active?'

What a tricky situation. I decided to use a trick that I have learned from Julia. Leaning back, I glance at my wrist, even though there is no watch on it.

‘Ooh,' I say, ‘look's like time's up. Sorry, Mum.'

I go upstairs.

I lie on my bed and try not to think about the blonde mother. It is difficult because my imagination fills the room up with a crowd of people screaming ‘You did WHAT?', and I have no answer for them. I play Los Campesinos! on the laptop. I erase my head with a pillow.

The phone rings.

‘Jasper?' It's Tenaya.

‘Yes.'

‘What are you doing tonight?'

I stand up, look around and scratch my groin. ‘Nothing, I guess. Why?'

‘Can I come over?'

‘Sure.'

She must be tired of sitting alone with Tom's ghost. She must have realised that real company is better than ugly stains on happy memories.

‘Thanks. Is six okay?'

‘Sure.'

‘See you later.'

‘Bye.'

I sit on my blue swivel chair (Keith stole it from his office skip) and pull myself up to the fake wood desk. A Psychology textbook is already open, sprawled like a naked woman in front of me. Actually, no, not like a naked woman at all; it's a thousand times less seductive. If it was a naked woman then I would be learning her body with my eyes and running my hand over my dick like it's a tube of toothpaste with not much left in. But it is not. It is something about autism and how to detect it. I don't want to be a autism detective. I want to go to sleep.

+

Tenaya arrives at 5:30 p.m. She is wearing a white summer dress and old boots. She looks pretty again and she is smiling. In the kitchen I boil the kettle and she sits on the marble top, swinging her legs.

‘How is thinking about Tom?' I say.

‘I think I'm over him.'

‘You do?'

‘Yes. I think getting over something isn't forgetting it but learning to live with the memory of it.'

‘Uh huh.'

She laughs. ‘Like how you managed to cope without Abby.'

‘Losing Abby was hard,' I say. ‘I went through many sleepless nights and hours spent weeping into my cupped hands.'

‘Did she ever find out it was you?'

‘Not sure.'

‘I'm guessing she had some suspicions.'

We take our cups of tea upstairs and lie on the bed. I play Feist on the laptop.

‘We are exhuming Margaret Clamwell tomorrow,' Tenaya says.

‘Shit, yea,' I say. I had completely forgotten. ‘I think Keith has some balaclavas somewhere, we can wear those.'

‘You really want to wear a balaclava?'

‘Yea, why not?'

‘Well, doesn't it seem a bit criminal?'

‘I don't know, maybe. But as soon as we get the body, everyone will know that Keith is the criminal and not us. We will be heroes.'

‘And what if there isn't a body?'

‘There definitely is a body.'

‘If you're sure.'

‘I am sure.'

+

When I wake up the only light in the room is a thin beam shooting out of the DVD player's display panel. The television screen has switched to standby. Tenaya is sleeping bent into herself like a horseshoe on the right side of the bed, her dress still on and bunched in pockets around her back.

I go downstairs and eat four Weetabix with four tablespoons of sugar and half a pint of milk. The kitchen clock says 6:30 a.m. but the kitchen clock is always ten minutes fast. Ten minutes fast but not fast enough to outwit me. I have learned its little trick. As a clock, it has little else to do but try to pull its feeble jokes on people who actually have places to be. I have a place to be. I have to save my mother's life.

‘Here,' I say, licking Tenaya's forehead to wake her up. I pass her a cup of tea. ‘Rise and shine.' We both sit on the end of the bed, sipping the teas, staring at the wallpaper.

‘If there is a body . . . ' Tenaya says. She doesn't finish.

‘Shh,' I say. ‘We will just pull the head out of the ground and then phone the police.'

‘You can be the one who touches the head.'

‘Okay, I will touch the head.'

My phone vibrates. A text from Ping.
U coming tnite?
I look at Tenaya.

‘Did you want to go up the hill tonight?' I ask her.

‘I don't know. Not really.'

‘Okay.'

I text back
cnt sry, busy
. Then I look at the time on my phone (6:40 a.m.) and add
y u up?
After a second Ping texts back
hvnt slpt yt
.

When Tenaya has finished her tea, I get the balaclavas and we quietly leave. Outside it is a typical bright suburban morning. It is not a very long walk and the only people we see on the way are an overweight man in a polo shirt who is walking a pit bull the colour of conkers, and a blonde milf jogging in Lycra with a serious and motivated expression on her face. Tenaya scolds me for following the progress of the woman's buttocks with my eyes. She says that the woman is not an object. I say that I know the woman is not an object, but her anus is.