Helen Oyeyemi - The Icarus Girl

“Hmmm. . olive oil,” Mrs. McLain muttered, biting the end of her pencil.

TillyTilly poked Jess. “You do something too!”

Jess looked around wildly, then had an idea. She ran over to the sink and put the plug in, then turned on both taps so that both hot and cold water came gushing out with a sudden hiss. TillyTilly, jumping up and down with delight, her plaits bobbing, started throwing fistfuls of sugar into the whirling pool of water that was building up. Not wanting to be outdone, Jess picked up the salt container and began pouring a thin stream of salt grains in as well. (I cannot believe I’m doing this.)

“I think you’d better add sugar and salt to your list, Colleen’s mum!” TillyTilly shouted above the sound of the water.

Mrs. McLain did not, at first, notice what was going on. She was kneeling by a floor-level cupboard, rummaging through it, but she emerged when the water over-reached the edge of the sink and began trickling down the side of the unit. She looked up and saw both taps on, the salt container rolling on the floor. One hand went over her mouth, and she said, “Jesus,” long and loud.

Next, Jess and TillyTilly were in the sitting room, jumping up and down all over her puffy cushions. Jess felt oddly as if she were swimming, buoyed up not only by her own will but by something behind, in front and all around her until she didn’t know whether she was in this mad, happy frenzy because she wanted to be or because the situation had propelled her. They scrambled off the sofa when they heard Mrs. McLain shout, “COLLEEN! You get down here right now! I’m doing the washing!”

They raced to the doorway, hearing Colleen thump her way down the stairs.

“I don’t want Colleen to get into trouble because of us,” Jess whispered to TillyTilly, as Colleen passed them without a glance, clutching a small bundle in her hands. Colleen’s eyes were red, and she was sniffling, although the usual strand of hair was tucked into her mouth and she was chewing it nervously.

“Why not?” Tilly asked, looking surprised.

“It’s not fair. .” Jess began, then changed her mind. “Actually, I think I do want her to get into trouble, but I didn’t want to say so because it’s bad of me to think that, especially after she already got into trouble.” She frowned at TillyTilly, awaiting her verdict.

TillyTilly gave a characteristic shrug, the shrug of one with an untroubled conscience.

“I don’t think it’s bad of you at all. Colleen’s a pain in the bum.”

Jess began to speak but was silenced by TillyTilly, who held up a hand and pointed in the direction of the kitchen. They both leaned out of the doorway in time to see Mrs. McLain snatch the bundle from Colleen and shake it out. Knickers. A whole bunch of different-coloured knickers, some of which fell to the floor as Mrs. McLain shook them out. She ignored the knickers that had fallen to the floor, and with a jerky, stabbing gesture mashed the pair she held into Colleen’s face. They could only see Colleen’s back, but Jess felt sorry for her when she sprang backwards yelping, her shoulders hunched as if she was trying to make herself disappear.

“Don’t you ever hide your wet knickers again, do you hear me?” Mrs. McLain shouted as she bent to scoop up the fallen knickers, pinching the material between her fingers and holding it away from her with an expression of distaste. “Your room stinks ! If you’re so ashamed of wetting yourself, then why don’t you just stop ! You’re eight years old, for Christ’s sake! And you’re wetting yourself every day ! Well, you can bloody well think again if you think I’m going to allow you to shame me by taking you to some kind of doctor like your class teacher suggested!”

Colleen began to cry and protest at the same time, her hands over her face. Jess couldn’t properly hear what she was saying. She turned to Tilly to ask if they should go, only to find that TillyTilly was now lying on the sofa kicking her legs in the air, her body twisted with silent laughter.

“Oh my God,” Tilly managed to gasp when she saw Jess looking at her in surprise and dismay. “Isn’t it hilarious? Colleen McLain wets herself!”

It was that night that Jess first began having the dreams about the woman with the long arms.

After her mother had read her some of the new book that she was writing and had tucked her in, Jess still did not feel sleepy, so she sat up and tried to read the copy of Little Women that TillyTilly had given her, thinking that a familiar story would make her feel drowsy. It did, but not because it was familiar. The story line was subtly different somehow, although she couldn’t be absolutely sure what the difference was, or whether it was just the shadows creeping along the pages.

It seemed that Beth, who was far and away her favourite character in the book, was now. . kind of mean. She stayed in the house all the time and she didn’t like anybody, and she was always hiding from people and watching them and feeling jealous because they were healthy and she wasn’t. But this was all wrong. Beth was the one whose words and character Jess held closest to herself, the one who broke Jess’s heart by dying as bravely as Jo had lived. Jess began to think that maybe she wasn’t reading Little Women but another story altogether and it wasn’t a very good story, and. .

She felt as if she were moving, maybe in a bus or an aeroplane, and all sorts of objects were rushing past her with incredible speed, although not one thing touched her. It was quite dark — she could see, but she didn’t know what she was seeing. There was a full-grown man trapped inside a glass bottle, pounding helplessly on the sloping sides, mouthing words of entreaty as the air inside the bottle slowly ran out. He stared at her and stopped beating the glass; she stared at him. She couldn’t understand this. She did not know who the man was. It was a glass Fanta bottle, like the ones in Nigeria. The bottle went spinning away from her. There was no wind. Jess realised that it was a tunnel that she was in, a kind of tunnel. A tunnel that turned and turned and sucked things through it. But she was not moving, she wasn’t flying away, she was standing still while the tunnel moved. And then the woman came to her, the woman that she had seen drawn in the Boys’ Quarters. She was flying alongside a stream of debris and paper, and the first thing Jess saw coming out of the darkness was her arms. They were like dancing pieces of string, although thicker, and Jess thought at first that she would be afraid. But she wasn’t. The woman landed and her legs cycled as if she was pedalling air, trying to stay on the ground and not move. She looked at Jess and smiled, her arms waving from side to side, elbowless, jointless. Her boubou was floating. But there was no wind. The woman was still smiling when the tunnel took her flying again, and Jess smiled too. “We are the same,” said the long-armed woman, as she flew away. She wasn’t speaking in English, and it wasn’t Yoruba either.

“Yes,” said Jessamy. “Yes.”

On Friday, the school nurse told her that she could eat her lunch in the school office as usual, but then she had to go to the playground.

Jess glared at the nurse; she must have got it wrong. She never went to the playground at playtime.

The nurse was unmoved. Mr. Heinz had said he didn’t think it was necessary for Jess to stay alone in the nurse’s office for the whole of lunchtime. “Take your time over your lunch, though, pet,” she said, pretending to be sympathetic.

Fine. I’ll make my food last for the whole of lunchtime.

“Mr. Heinz says he’d like you to be in the playground by one o’clock,” the nurse said as she left.