Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

‘Veerapen! Veerapen, stop! Stop, will you?’

It’s not the name that registers, but the voice. Mum. It’s enough to make me stop dead in my tracks. Maybe I am losing it, if I can’t even recognise when my own mum is speaking to me. I turn at last and realise. She’s in her silver Astra and nurse’s uniform. Breaking the rules and wearing her hair down because she got the curls straightened for the funeral and is making the most of it. Fucking roving district nurses. Always on the snoop. She gives me the Florence Nightingale face. Arms are back on the wheel in a flash, fresh from brushing away tears. She thinks that I didn’t see them.

‘I thought you were sleeping,’ she calls, because although I’ve stopped running, I won’t go near the car.

‘I heard you crying,’ she says, when that doesn’t get a response. As if blabbing about my crying to the whole street is going to get me to open up. Aren’t nurses supposed to keep things confidential, like priests?

‘I’m going for a walk,’ I say, ‘to the rope … to the wood.’ Still hopping left to right because I don’t want to stop moving — if I do, you can probably tell that I’m shaking.

It’s freaking me out to see her so upset, and trying to hide it so badly. Maybe it’s easier to see once you’re out of the house. My head still feels muddled but the fresh air definitely seems to be doing something. That I’m even noticing it is a start.

‘Why don’t you come back with me, eh? I bet you haven’t had any breakfast.’

‘Not hungry,’ I say.

We both look at our watches and see it’s close to midday anyway.

‘OK,’ she says slowly, taking a breath, the way I’ve seen her do on difficult home visits, when some old codger refuses to have his bag changed. ‘Why are you wearing your suit, sweetheart? You’ll get it filthy if you walk through the wood again.’

There had been no mention of my muddied hems yesterday, when I’d arrived at the church, an hour later than I should’ve. I think she was just relieved that I’d showed up.

‘Got no other clothes. You can’t be bothered to do any washing. Too busy larging it with your new boyfriend.’

She pretends to ignore that, even though I can see her eyebrows arching back and forth. It’s the first time I’ve opened my mouth on that particular subject so harshly. I’m usually much more easy going. Moon being buried six feet deep has given everyone some extra time.

‘It’s going to rain in a minute. Let me give you a lift home.’

‘I’m walking,’ I repeat, ‘to the wood.’

‘Sweetheart,’ she says again, holding her hand out, fluttering her fingers like I’m a little bird that might swoop for some bread. She’s spent so much time with pensioners, she’s pretty much taken to speaking with me as she does them; cajoling one minute, brisk and no-nonsense the next. It makes you wonder whether she means any of it, if she’s simply on autopilot.

‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go running off on your own at the moment …’

But I’m off before she has the chance to say anything else.

The wood smells better than it did yesterday. Damp, soft. Good enough to bury myself. Even as I slow the run into a walk, I can still hear Mum shouting after me.

‘Veerapen, I’m not nagging, love. I’m worried about you! Come back! At least take my hat off. What are you doing wearing my hat?’

There’s no point in people asking me a barrel-load of questions at the moment, not when I’m barely capable of remembering my own name. I’m upset.

But until a month ago I was the captain of the school Challenge team. Mum calls me the brainiac when she remembers. Usually when she’s cooking dinner with some quiz TV on in the background, and I’m getting all the answers right.

Challenge is a lame version of University Challenge that the council set up. It’s designed for kids, meaning that they’re obliged to drop in the odd question about Fiddy Cent in between posers about the lunar landscape and the name of a combustible metal that appears on the Periodic Table as Mg.

American high schools have these quiz decathlons that are way more glamorous. They have their own unique branding and their special dedicated coaches and some big-time prizes. You can actually go to a better university just by winning one of those things.

In our lame-ass equivalent no one is impressed by intellectual triumph over adversity. You can come from a less modest background and wipe the floor with one of the better schools; you can whip their ass and be applauded, but under no circumstances can you let it go to your head. That would be way too American for anyone.

I won’t lie and say that I don’t like it, because I do. I’m into it. But I won’t show any more enthusiasm than that. No one wants to listen to a bunch of geeks congratulating each other. It’s unattractive. And I’m not a science geek, or any other kind of geek. Just clever. Can’t do anything about it. And Challenge gets you out of school one afternoon every three weeks, as the team gets to bus it into various Surrey shit-holes to take part in the regional heats. Combined with the odd days I have to take off for my running events, I’m virtually a part-timer at that place.

So I can understand why it’s my brain that goes first. It’s obvious. This is what I mean when I say that I can’t see myself. Moon’s death has turned me into some kind of spastic overnight. Maybe I should start calling myself Dr Mental or something. Or whatever is the Anglo Indian Yid flid equivalent.

I’m a mess. Take music, for example. Not that I’m particularly interested in music right now, but nonetheless … Maybe a month ago, if you’d have brought up Jay Z and tried comparing the Black Album with Dangermouse’s Grey Album, I probably would have taken you out. Offered a commentary of such length you could’ve transcribed it into an essay and published the fucker. (I’m not showing off here, I just know a lot about hip hop. Everyone knows it, like they know about the running, Moon, and everything else.) On mornings like this, ask about Jay Z, and I’ll say Jay who? I couldn’t give a shit about this rhyme or that. All I want is my Moony Suzuki back.

I’m walking to the furthest edge of the wood. A hop and a skip and you’re on the bypass. Every car that drives past feels like it’s going to mow you down. Each whoosh like a mini-hurricane. My flares flap like bunting. I find myself heading to our spot. Dr Mental autopilot again. Jason is already there, burning some stuff, and bashing the shit out of his phone. Doesn’t mention the hat. Neither of us says anything.

We’re in Tesco with Mum after school. This is at the start of the year, when things made a bit more sense.

No one goes shopping with his or her mum after school anymore, not unless they’re sad or God Squad. We’re tagging along, because Tesco means a lift into town, and the buses round here are wack. Moon wants to get the new NERD album, and I need some trainer laces. Not that it really matters what’s on our shopping list. An hour or two in the mall is better than a kick in the teeth on a Monday afternoon. Way better.

The downside is that we have to help Mum push the trolley around Tesco, but that only takes half an hour, so no biggie. She’s not one of those clingy women you see out with their kids. Mum likes me to help out, pull my weight. If we’re lucky, we can just about scoot around the aisles without anyone from school seeing us. Mum’s cool and everything, but I don’t want people thinking I’m from one of those ‘multi-cultural’ families that has a hundred relatives and needs to do everything together. Just the thought of that kind of set-up is excruciating.