Graffiti My Soul (11 page)

32

Moon can never be subtle about anything. You only get this with spend-whores. Anyone else would have more decency. She has a stayover when her parents go to Tallin for the weekend. They won flights at the Citizen's Advice Xmas Raffle and had been wetting their pants over it for weeks. Mum, who was also there, had been feeling lucky and spent an extra ten pounds on raffle tickets, so was pissed at the outcome, their single ticket coming through, and muttered about it for days.

‘Sympathy vote for the Lib Dems, that's all it is. They can't win anything else, that's why they let them win the bloody raffle!'

She still managed to keep it all smiles when she was outside our
four walls, their eyes meeting when taking out the wheelie bins, or bumping trolleys at the Tesco car park.

For the sleepover Gwyn invites the gay-boy Goths who adore her, and the sappy Christian mate Ohmygod. Moon includes the top tier of the library posse, these two dozy science swots who think everything she says is completely radical. One of them, Captain Vegetable, has a lazy eye and used to wear an eyepatch. These are the kind of people she used to hang round with before I rescued her. Jase and Pearson complete the set, the pair of them acting as totty for her guests as well as Gwyn's.

The invite doesn't extend to myself, my place being taken by Captain Vegetable and his team of soggy legumes. Botched corrective eye surgery over me. Makes me feel so special. I've had lunch with Moon almost every day this week and she has never mentioned anything about a stayover. Meathead's on a weeklong lunch detention, which is why this is possible. Whenever he's present, I'm lower down the evolutionary scale than even Captain sodding Vegetable.

It's Gwyn who gives the game away when she sees me at the shops after school.

Her: Coming over later?

Me: Uh? (blank potato face like I'm having a spastic attack)

The stayover means nothing, even though Mum's on a late shift, giving me all the time in the world to get up to tricks. I book a couple of movies on Sky Plus and make myself my own comfort zone: duvet on the sofa, Diet Coke, trashy food I'd be arrested for eating if Casey caught me. It's fine. It's real. I'm in my universe and they're in theirs. Same zoo, different cages.

But I can't fool anyone, least of all myself.

First, the TV thing doesn't work. I have one eye on Will Smith, the other on the curtains, and what's going on beyond my windows.
I Robot
is a bucky duck compared to the happenings across the street. I'm too wound up to even touch the nachos. Watching robots go mad isn't the best suggestion for someone who's almost strangling themselves with their self-control. All it makes you do is want to follow suit, start your own revolution.

Next, I get a call from Jase, asking me which races Kelly Holmes won the medals for.

‘Why you wanna know that?'

‘It's a quiz question. Triv Pursuit. And if anyone knows the answer to that it'll be you, right?'

There's laughing in the background, female, and Pearson shouting his mouth off about something or other. The music is Chili Peppers.

‘Where are you playing Triv Pursuit, Jase?'

‘You know.'

I give him the answer, one right, one wrong.

I Robot
is dead after that.

The best spot is upstairs. I stand at Mum's window and do my watching. Thinking how MI5 need people like me. A Paki who likes nothing better than snooping around. I'd be killer at it.

They are sitting on the living room floor drinking white wine and playing their dumbass Triv Pursuit. Wait 'til I tell the boys down the sports block that Pearson was sipping vino and doing board games! What a pussy joker! No wine for the Jones girls, of course. The bottle being passed round is a concession to the weaker will of their guests. No judgement! They stick to Diet Coke and keep their opinions to themselves.

Moon and Pearson are in the centre of the room by the fireplace. Where else would they sit? They're a couple! Practising their prom pose (and would be in with a chance if Moon wasn't so unpopular, ha!). They are glued together and don't move. When it isn't their turn on Triv, they lightly snog. Gwyn waits on their guests hand and foot, occasionally helped by Jase. Aside from the wine – only one glass each – there's Fanta and nachos and spiral crisps and absolutely NO SMOKING. Everyone seems to find Pearson incredibly funny. The cunt seems to have a goofy answer for everything. After some question that one of the gay-boy Goths asked, his answer took about five minutes. How does he know enough words to last five minutes? He can barely say the days of the week let alone anything else. Everyone's laughing at whatever the retard is saying, including my so-called stoner mate. It's excruciating.

Watching a room of people laughing whilst you are standing alone feels as if you are being stabbed repeatedly. It's fun.

I wonder about the sleeping arrangements; where Moon and Pearson will sleep. Thinking about it takes up half my night, and now, the jumbo bag of nachos. Turns out everyone crashes on the living room floor. Sofas moved back. No excuses for creeping away.

I make a couple of crank calls to kill the boredom and the hurt. Two calls to a reflexology woman's house down the street (she's always leafleting her details); one call to Pizza Express. On each occasion I scream down the phone like I'm being murdered. I stuff a sock down my throat so that no one can guess it's me. In one of the three calls I also cry. I've done it a few times. People seem to find it very realistic.

I know this makes me a weirdo, but you have to do the things that make you feel better. Ease the pressure in your head.

I save the best for Moon's place. The silent caller act. The lights are off at my house, car out the drive. Can't pin anything on me. The beauty of *1471.

Darth Vader breath.

I give up after the sixth ring. Gwyn keeps picking up.

The next morning me and Moon take the bus into Kingston to buy Jase a birthday present. I call for her at eleven-thirty and the house has already emptied, all evidence cleared away. I tell her about a boring night watching daft movies, and ask about hers. She says she had a quiet night in.

33

Jase makes no attempt to hide where he's been when I ask him about Moon's sleepover.

‘They didn't want you there, mate. End of. Knew that it would kick-off with Pearson otherwise. You can't act all surprised about it.'

‘But we're supposed to be friends, Moon and me. Us. How come you can be there and I can't? You've had fights with him too.'

‘I don't hold grudges, VP. I think that's the difference.'

Again, this can be attributed to the Jew gene and the Tamil gene, both parents being natural born grudge-holders.

‘Anything to report, from this A-list-only, cream-of-the-crop party?'

‘Not in the way you're thinking. It wasn't X-rated,' he goes, in his fake LA accent, which is so dumb it sounds like he's from Bristol or something.

‘Look, it was a laugh. Simple as. Turned up, had a few drinks, watched a video, played games, acted stupid . . .'

‘Yeah. “End of.” I get it.'

‘I was out of my box by about nine o'clock anyway. Didn't pay much attention to anyone after that. You know what these things are like. I'm only good to have around when they want me to get things going. After that, it's “See ya.” Look at what goes on at all those park parties I get asked to. I ain't stupid. Watch how Gwyn's friends will blank me at school next week. And Pearson. He'll act like he never met me.'

‘Unless we're together, of course, then he'll act all matey just to wind me up.'

‘Just ignore it. Stop getting yourself wound up. Concentrate on what you
do
want, and then one day you'll have forgotten why you got so angry in the first place.'

‘You think?'

He pats me on the shoulder, and looks me in the eye. Sort of thing my dad would do.

‘You can't bottle all your anger all the time. It isn't healthy. You have to open the lid from time to time, and let all the unnecessary anger just dissolve. Trust me. I know.'

34

I'm having lattes with Gwyn. Same Starbucks, same red hoodie. Says she wears it 'cos it makes her feel closer to Moon. Gywn's a bigger girl, so she really has to squeeze herself into it, but I get her point. If I could fit into any of her clothes right now I'd be doing the same.

Only see her back at the counter when I arrive and my heart stops beating. I don't register that the hair is longer, the waist thicker. And then she turns round, and the reality is half horror half let-down, like in that mad seventies film where you're faced with that midget hag that wants to kill you. This was a pretty similar set-up.

The txt had come out of the blue, several days after the ghost passed me in the Mall. Starbucks midday – time we talked. Over that night I gave myself a hundred and twenty-four reasons why I shouldn't be sitting across a table from Gywn, why I should be wringing her neck for making sure that I was the one landed in it, but somehow I found myself leaving the house, getting on the bus, walking through town, turning up.

Sitting on the same table that me and Moon used to hang out on is too much of a head-fuck, so we're on the sofa. Not sure how to take Gwyn today. Her face is red, skin around the eyes inflamed from more crying probably, but she doesn't look mad at me. Buys the lattes for a start, and biscotti. You don't do that unless you really want to give your enemy a false sense of security. I should have my guard up but find myself melting into her. Maybe because of how cuddly she looks in the hoodie, securely round, the weeniest touch of belly poking through the bottom, or possibly because of those tender just-dried eyes. Or maybe, and this is the reason closest to the truth, just because we both need people to be nice to us. There's been more than enough hate.

She's holding my hand and talking about how nice the funeral was,
and how she wished I stayed for the whole of the service. I couldn't bear it as the vicar did his final wrapping up, so I bolted. Went AWOL for about two hours. Even now I have no idea where I went, only that I managed to get myself to their house for the wake. Really, that day was one long AWOL with brief reality breaks for the church and the wake. No wonder everyone is treating me strangely.

When I got to Moon's house, looking like it had always done, just with five hundred cars parked outside, I wasn't sure of the reception I'd get, if they were going to punch me or feed me sandwiches. Relations at the church were civil enough, but that was church. Hardly the best place for a dust-up. But at that point, walking up to the door and ignoring the bell, banging the knocker very hard, twice, I was fearless again. I'd lost everything, a door slammed in my face is a pinprick in comparison.

‘Why the about turn?' I ask. ‘Thought I was public enemy number one at the Jones household.'

The funeral changed their mind it seems. Seeing me in that state struck a nerve. Also, the parents are Christians, the kind who have the fish bumper sticker on each of their vehicles. Fish-wavers aren't fighters, they're forgivers.

She's telling me that her parents want to see me for dinner. That they're ready to talk, if I am. That's the point of her meeting up today. That Moon would have wanted us to get along in some way, no matter what happens.

Now it's my turn to have tears in my eyes. Everything she says is unexpected. We're now turned inwards towards each other as we speak. Eyes are on me the whole time, not like her sister. She's still holding my hand in both of hers. We talk into each other's ears so none of the mothers can hear the sound of our hearts being bled dry. If she comes any closer I'm going to have to kiss her. If I close my eyes, it would be like . . .

Only Pearson's mother comes in and drops her shopping when she sees us. An albino giantess, almost the same height as Jase. Pearson is a shorty, five-nine, and dark like his father. That was always comedy
seeing the two of them together, mother and son, like something from Monsters Inc. Her eyes pop out as if someone's strangling her. The billion nerve endings under her skin unite and put together a show of fury. Pure. There's no other word to describe it. Face blood red and getting darker by the second. She always thought Moon and her precious boy belonged together. Hates the fact that I may have had something to do with ruining it. Scares me shitless. So scared I stop thinking about kissing my dead girlfriend's sister.

‘
My son's not a liar!
'

She screams it so loud the whole of Starbucks drops a load.

She steps forward, oblivious of the looks around us, but I'm already up on my feet. I'm not staying to hear any more. I drop Gwyn's hand, and the biscotti, say that I'm sorry for the five hundredth time, and leg it.

35

Winning my last races meant something. Kept me on the road to receiving a tin cup at the end of the season, as well as rubbing Brendan's nose in the shit. This next race doesn't have the same kudos. You don't even get a certificate. But if it gives me another chance to piss all over Harriers, I'm there.

I've still trained like a mother, friendly trial or not. Stopped daydreaming and started knuckling down. Putting in mornings and afternoons. Clearing my mind of the bullshit happening at school or anywhere else. Who cares who Moon's going out with? Doesn't matter that the trials have nothing to do with the national championships. Once I'm on the track, there's no such thing as being friendly.

Mum should be coming to wave a flag and cough up the traditional post-win KFC, but is having another date with whatsisname, the man I haven't met yet. He's taking her to some stupid event at
Silverstone. Mum has absolutely no interest in cars, but is acting like she's the one who's driving or something.

‘I'm going the see some of the best racers in the world,' she goes. ‘Mike's really gone to a lot of trouble to get these tickets.'