Helen Oyeyemi - The Icarus Girl

TillyTilly had stopped talking and was now staring at the oblivious Colleen, a poisonous smile hovering on her lips. Their elbows were almost touching. Jess drummed her feet harder on the floor and tried to ignore all of this, but Colleen scraped her hair back behind her ears with her fingers and leaned across the table, still talking earnestly.

“You’ve got to tell Mr. Munroe, and he’ll let you go to the toilet or something. I’ll come with you if you want. Just stop crying, OK?”

“Help me,” Jess said faintly, sliding off her chair and under the table. Both TillyTilly and Colleen were gazing at her in consternation now, their expressions momentarily identical. They blurred; she didn’t know which she was supposed to be scared of now. And the classroom: the classroom was an elastic cube and it was twanging, throwing her with it from side to side as it grew bigger and smaller, bigger and smaller, pulsating like a brightly lit heart with book reviews and timetables on its secret, inside walls.

“Help you? What? Oi, Jessamy—” Colleen crawled under the table, but Jessamy didn’t reply, because it turned out that half-black people could faint after all.

It was proving awkward, this after-school session with Dr. McKenzie. She didn’t want to answer any of his questions, because they were so difficult. She almost wished that she had agreed to have the appointment on another day as her mother had suggested when she picked her up from the nurse’s office at school.

She felt so sleepy.

But she daren’t stop concentrating because that would leave a crease in her vision for TillyTilly to slide gaily on in.

Jess reminded herself again that she mustn’t believe that Tilly really wanted things to be the way they were before; she had to remember that there were two Tillys. It was difficult because she wanted the nice one back, the one who had said she would take care of her and had brought the ibeji woman.

Jess realised that she had to be careful not to blurt out “TillyTilly” in every sentence. The two Tillys filled her thoughts to bursting.

Now Dr. McKenzie was asking her about yesterday; her mum had told him all about it. Why? She couldn’t remember. She hadn’t screamed — but she had been mean, and her dad had hit her for the first time. Her father. . a thought niggled at her: something else had happened about him. What? Any coherent thought was lost in the swim.

“You said that a friend of yours broke the mirror,” Dr. McKenzie began.

Jess looked at her mother before replying, “Yeah.” There was a moment’s silence before she shook herself and remembered to say, “But it was me. I was lying ’cause I thought I’d get in trouble.”

Dr. McKenzie nodded understandingly, then said casually, “And were you lying about who broke the computer as well?”

Jess wasn’t stupid. “No.”

“This friend. . Tilly. She lives around your area?” (Nooooooo, don’t ask about HER now.)

“Yeah.”

“And you two go around together quite a lot?”

“Um. . I s’pose so.”

“Sarah, have you met Tilly?”

Jess’s mum shook her head.

“Not from lack of trying. Apparently she’s shy. Good at breaking things, though, judging by my computer.”

Sinking farther down into her chair, Jess adopted a resigned expression as she began to recognise that Sarah probably didn’t believe her about the computer either.

“How would I have broken your computer, Mummy?” (Did you not see how badly that computer was broken? Mummy, I am eight years old, and I am not very strong.)

“How would TILLY have broken it?” her mother countered.

Jess shrugged despondently, lifting her hands before dropping them hopelessly. Dr. McKenzie watched her for a few seconds before offering her a Jelly Baby. She took one, but didn’t eat it, pressing at it with her fingers instead.

“Jess,” Colin said at length, “it seems as if it’s more important to you that your mum believes that Tilly broke her computer than the mirror in the bathroom. Why do you think that is?”

Surprised, Jess realised that she hadn’t thought about it in that way.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it because you knew the computer was more important to me, because it had all my work on it?” Sarah asked gently.

Jess gave a disgusted shrug.

“I don’t know! You don’t believe me, anyway. You want me to tell you things, then when I do, you don’t believe me. What’s the point?”

“I believe you, Jess,” Dr. McKenzie said quietly, leaning over and tapping Jess’s wrist to get her attention. “I know that things can be real in different ways.”

Jess ignored him. Now he was trying to say that TillyTilly was imaginary.

“Like. . say I have an idea of. . a mermaid, the mermaid is real, but not real in the same way as this table is,” he said, knocking the table in question.

Glaring at him, Jess said, “That’s nice.” He didn’t understand at all. An idea of a stupid mermaid couldn’t come to you and scare you; an idea of a mermaid couldn’t get your Year Five teacher so she never came back. Jess finally popped the flattened Jelly Baby into her mouth for comfort.

And now Dr. McKenzie leaned back in his chair again and asked, “Why are you angry?”

And Jess said, “Because I’m tired and you’re confusing me.”

Then Dr. McKenzie said, “Jessamy, are you scared of your mum?”

Just like that.

Jess, now feeling wide awake, peered at Dr. McKenzie then at her mum, who was looking equally surprised.

“I don’t know,” she said finally, being as honest as she could be, because he’d told her that if she wasn’t honest then she wouldn’t feel better. The words came out in a rush. “Sometimes I feel like she wants me to. . I don’t know. She wants me to be Nigerian or something. And I don’t want to be changed that way; I can’t be. It might hurt.”

“Hurt?” said Dr. McKenzie.

“Yeah, like. . being stretched.”

“Jess, it’s not a matter of my wanting you to be Nigerian— you are, you just are!” her mother said. When Jess looked at her, she continued, “You’re English too, duh. And it’s OK.”

It wasn’t. She just didn’t know; if she could decide which one to be, maybe she would be able to get rid of TillyTilly, who was angry with her for worrying about it. Ashes and witnesses, homelands chopped into little pieces — she’d be English. No— she couldn’t, though. She’d be Nigerian. No—

“Jessamy, you’re a very articulate child, and your ideas are sometimes. . surprising. Did you know that?”

A shrug from Jessamy. What did he want her to say?

Dr. McKenzie leaned forward again. “Have you not thought that sometimes your mum might find that a little bit scary as well? I know I would.”

Jess shook her head and frowned seriously at him.

“I’m not scary.”

“Hardly anyone thinks of themselves as a scary person, Jess.”

“Is this your last appointment for today?” Jess asked, after a moment’s consideration. The doctor looked intrigued, but nodded her a yes. “Can I go back with you to see Siobhan for a few minutes? I just remembered that I’ve got to tell her something really important.” She glanced at her mother, who had started to object.

“Sarah, you can come too, if you want,” said Dr. McKenzie. He appeared to ponder for a moment, chewing his lip, then nodded affably and checked his watch before popping another Jelly Baby into his mouth. “We still have some time left, though. .”

When Jess had, in a halting fashion, told Shivs as much about TillyTilly as she could, leaving out the events of the night before so as not to scare her, Shivs nodded her head serenely.