Will Self - Shark

Stupid Jeanie’s got no brai-ns, Soon she didn’t ’ave no vei-ns! . . She lets fall an invisible black rubber ball, and in the time it takes to bounce she’s plucked one, two, three, four flying saucers from the bag and zinged ’em into her mouth. The rice-paper capsules itch together, sharp rims stabbing the insides of her cheeks — one flies up to the roof of her mouth where it. . fitszackerly — but oh! the stress of not biting when the sweet explosion would kill the ache of her battered cheek, the sting of her grazes and the fucking ssscabies . . itching their way back. . inter me brain . When Mumsie has clumped her this hard she usually goes all nicey-nicey. — In the darker months, limping along the lane, Jeanie will see from a way off the oil lamp Mumsie has placed in the front window, so its buttery shine spreads diamond shapes on the herringbone brick path. The oil lamp is Mumsie’s way of saying: It’s all right, I’ll wrap you up in the woolly rug and chuck you under the chin. The lamp means the drink that’s warm as mink in front of the fire, while Mumsie sips perry all ladylike and maybe talks wistfully of the holiday they had at Skeggy when Gregor was still with them, and how, when they got back home, it turned out Debbie had tea-leafed every last knife and fork that come ’er way , hidden the brightly coloured cutlery in her bit of manky old banky — the yard of flannel Debbie rubbed while she sucked her thumb. At least: It was a yard to begin with! Mumsie would guffaw. But as it got mankier and mankier — what with all her spit an’ snot — I’d to trim a bit ’ere anna bit there, ’til all was left was a doll’s fucking hanky! — Jeanie presumed the Skeggy incident — which was when she was little, and they all lived on top of a hill in Yorkshire — took place when banky wasn’t so manky. Anyway, Debbie doesn’t have a manky thing anywhere about her person now — nor does she nick from Mumsie the way Jeanie does. She irons and sweeps and sponges and scrubs — she’s always turned out neat as a pin in her new Ashlyns uniform, or her Guides uniform, and when she isn’t looking after Hughie and Jeanie she babysits for the Cooks or the Scotts, and she mows the Butterworths’ verges. She works so hard Mumsie says, You’re a bloody little cappytillist . — Boom! the alien spaceships are smashed to pieces on the rascally rocks of Planet Jeanie, their sherbet cargo liquefies into sickly torrents, their rice-paper hulls dissolve into. . nuffink . She lets fall again the black rubber ball. . — In the playground, when she plays jacks with Gwen and Fiona, Jeanie goes. . all cack-handed , fingernails scccraping the asphalt — but here, in her jungle hidey-hole, she’s a magician: the invisible ball rises and falls, the flying saucers disappear, then the fruit salads, then all the blackjacks but one. Her mouth is gritty with sugar and sticky with gelatine, her tongue slips in the slops — she looks at the liquorice bootlaces lying on her bare thighs — they do not appeal. . Stupid Jeanie’s got no brai-ns, Soon she didn’t ’ave no vei-ns . . She pushes her tongue between lip and gum. . Oh sugar! Runny honey, I am my can-dy girl, an’ I’ve ’ad so much sweeties I could eat myself up! — When Jeanie was Hughie’s age, and her baby teeth, riddled with cavities, crumbled in her gums, she still went on nicking from Mumsie’s purse, sneaking to the nooky shop and buying marshmallows that she stuff ed into the sore bits the way Mister Venables pushed wads of cotton wool in there when he come at me wiv ’is water drill — but how can anything that sharp be water? P’raps it’s a whirlpool that gets smaller and minnier and faster ’til the water turns into the mole’s screwy fingy in Thunderbirds? Pain smaller and minnier until it’s Mumsie’s fingertips on the nape of Jeanie’s neck as she gently brushes her thick, brown curly hair. Touch, smaller and minnier until it’s sweet honey-runniness — its taste smaller and minnier until it’s only the thought of wanting it lying on her tongue. — Jeanie’s sat still behind the bus shelter for so long that a thrush hops from the hedge and pecks at the sherbet dust with its pretty beak. Jeanie’s tears, hot on her cheeks, pitter-patter down on to the waxed-paper wrappers crumpled in her lap. The only sweetie left is a blackjack lurking in the palm of her hand: everything is concentrated into its capsule, the ends of which she pinches between the trembling tips of her trembling fingers — fingers stuck on the ends of her shaky hands, hands that in turn dangle from her spazzy arms . . Arms that. . won’t fucking keep still , because they’re attached to her heaving shoulders. If I fuck this up, I’m . . fucked . She had a 10 mil’ get-up first thing, and together with the black bomber, Genie believes this’ll make it possible for her to sing songs, hold hands that ain’t shaking , shout slogans, and spend a long day with Mumsie without doin’ the mad old bitch in . . The methadone would ’old me — but then there’s living and there’s merely existing. She exists in her Chinese silk robe in the icy middle of the big first-floor room — wonky straw blinds hide the dirty film of condensation on the windows, and this in turn obscures the hunger-striking trees leaning in the shit-daubed corners of the park. A paraffin heater sends up stinky convection next to a kitchen cabinet topped with fucked-up Formica. . I’m all fucked up . Slowly, Genie sinks down on her haunches, the scarlet silk billowing feebly about her scrawny shoulders, the garish dragon on the back of the robe taking flight for a few moments before crumpling against her pitiful spine. The bare floorboards are rough beneath her bare feet — the big Rasta on the poster she tore off a wall in the Kilburn High Road is. . screwing me out as dark-orange drapes swish in from the sides . — Still, Genie manages to hang on to the tiny black capsule pinioned by these gantries . . angled over. . alien toes — long, white and twisted — Ph-one ho-ome! But she is home, and the scientific proof is the cat litter tray’s moonscape of greyish rubble and brownish boulders. Beside this there’s a saucer licked clean — their tongues’re antiseptic , and she holds on to this fact as, holding fast to the capsule, she haunches towards it. The reek of paraffin is hell’s minge . . so she digs her chin into her chest to stop her tears falling on this precision craftiness: the two ends of the capsule ever-so-gently undocked. . bum-bum-bum-b’b’ bum-bum, bum-bum-bum-b’b’ bum-bum . . under pressure! The white sherbet plumes down on to the dish, together with ping-pinging little silver balls. . like cake decorations . — Some mad old biker once told Genie these were what made black bombers time-release, so if you crushed them up you’ll get the whole hit at once . Forcing herself level with the fucked-up Formica, Genie spots a teaspoon rimmed with the impurities left behind when. . the gear was sucked up . She gives it a cursory rinse under the spitting tap, dries it on a corner of her robe, then billows back down to the saucer, where she pestles together her. . pick ’n’ mix , before spooning it to her dry lips. . The shells she sells are surely sea shells . . Genie titters bitter dust, and, lest any more be wasted, she gets down on her knees and licks the rest right up. When she peeks through her fringe, Butch the tomcat is sitting a few feet away next to a guitar case some dipstick left in hock for gearЧитать дальше