Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

‘What? Got all chicken to do the manly thing, now that it’s time?’ I go, knowing that this isn’t the time to be all cocky, but not being able to help it. ‘Should’ve guessed you wouldn’t have the bottle.’

‘I’ll show you bottle, scum,’ he goes, all tough guy, ready to drop a fast one.

This is when I find his body. Push my leg backwards and out so that it goes straight for his gut. It’s easy ’cos the hurdles make me flexible. He doesn’t quite fly across the room the way I expected, but staggers back a few paces nonetheless. I peel my face from the charity box.

‘Show me bottle then, scum. Show me. I’m ready for it.’

This is when the staff decide to get visible. We’ve been at the counter all this time and no one has come to take our order. Too busy shoving down Big Macs out back. The manager is some kid two years above us at school who was mad into Buffy like some freak. He gatecrashed Lizzie Jenning’s park party last summer, pissed, with a couple of Goths, and tried to get everyone to jump naked into the Hogsmill, spotty little herbert. The other two counter monkeys are Sri Lankan/Tamil-looking, so I have to treat them like bredren. As if. I might show them a smidgin of respect if they didn’t have those looks on their faces, like I’m letting them down. I’m all out for the brothers, but I can’t be carrying the expectation of a nation on my shoulders. I’m way too young for that kind of pressure, and I resent even the notion of it being offered up, as their eyes hit mine from the deep fat fryer to where I am on the other side of the counter.

A millisecond thing, but I still manage to feel it.

The three of them start shouting the moment Pearson’s got my head down. Half-hearted shouts coming at me from behind the fryers, weak and ineffectual. Too busy on their nuggets and apple pies, I guess.

‘And stop trying to steal my mate from me!’ I go, meaning Jason. Trying to find a shoulder that can lead me to an arm to twist.

‘That dopehead? You can have him if you can stop him following me around like some lapdog. He’s pathetic.’

Suddenly it becomes about Jase’s honour, as much as mine. It’s all about upholding stuff in round here. Diss me and I’ll smack ya. Diss my mate and you’ll get a double kicking. Gets tiring after a while. This would be the perfect moment to stop the physical stuff; get my phone out and show Pearson how pathetic his dad can be, if he really wants to play the game of who can be the more pathetic. But I don’t. I’m waiting for the right moment to play that card, and this isn’t it.

So I leave the cerebral out of it, and keep things as physical as fuck.

One of the bredren, the youngest one, who looks all right, makes a move to come over as I struggle on the counter, but backs off when he sees I have it locked. They only start going ballistic when a handful of straws and their precious serviettes go flying. Bunch of arseholes. Want me to get all nationhood, but only get annoyed when I make a mess. What kind of nurturing relationship is that?

Girls, like cats, always seem to know when there’s been trouble. Their backs are up from the moment they walk down the stairs, fingers out like claws, all kinds of words coming out of their mouths. In this situation, when me and Pearson only have eyes for each other’s throats, their gabbling comes down the lugholes like white noise. Can’t make head nor tail of it.

They, on the other hand, are working out plenty. Might have something to do with the state of us. Shirt not so pristine, and forehead as tender as fuck; must be a bruise coming. Pearson is still winded from the kick and leaning against one of bins, hand on his belly like the big baby he is. The milkshakes are everywhere. I’d taken a punter’s supersize strawberry and lobbed it. Pink processed muck floods the floor and splashes across the front window, A second shake, medium chocolate, collects in pools under the counter. Turns out, I needed something more than the kick to get Pearson’s manky hands off me. He was bang in the shake’s trajectory so copped plenty of the strawberry, some on his hair, the bulk on his precious Ralph hoodie. Ha!

But neither of us were going to admit anything. Athlete’s pact. What happens in the locker room…

‘No trouble,’ he says.

‘No trouble,’ I go. ‘What gives you that idea?’

Now, the only aggro we can hear is coming from the outraged milkshake-robbed punter but we pretend not to notice.

You can afford to do Shabbat dinner if you’re in a family where the father stays at home and doesn’t run off with his optician. Those families have it locked. When you have a mother who works shifts with very little let-up, Shabbat becomes a less rigid state. We still have our Shabbat dinner but, depending on when Mum gets in, we could be eating at either six or ten. Don’t pay as much notice as I should do to Mum’s shifts, so getting back from school most Shabbat afternoons are like a lottery. Dunno if I’m going to be playing on the computer or drawing the curtains. Wouldn’t be so uncertain if I wasn’t such a cretin and actually read the post-its she sticks on the fridge. I’m a loser with no attention to detail. A big one.

It was only after Dad left that Mum showed any interest in Shabbat. He never liked routines. Now he’s out of the picture, she seems to depend on hers.

Once we do the business, it becomes a dinner like any other. Food that sticks to the diet sheet and the pair of us talking about our day. She’s in an unbelievably good mood since Silverstone. I’m drinking juice from the carton at the table and she doesn’t even notice. Too busy telling me about giving CPR to the relative of one of her old biddy house calls. This one lived, and she’s quite pleased about it. I keep the conversation away from the subject of being the worst runner in the world in case I have some episode and try to cut one of my legs or something. Tell her instead about finally cracking 1000 on my ab crunches. That’s not for training, that’s just for vanity. Getting a stomach like Beckham.

‘How’s school?’ Mum asks casually, when I run out of things to say. (My fast talking’s worse than my fast running.)

‘Fine,’ I go, almost choking on my Kiev.

‘So why did I receive a call at work today from your Year Head?’

Shit. Hiding letters only goes so far. Fucking dried-up bitch Year Head. Hate her. Late thirties and still hasn’t got a man. Hasn’t got anything better to do than stalk my mother over a stupid fight that we all forgot about weeks ago.

That’s the thing with teachers, they never let anything go. It all comes back to haunt you eventually. We finish our dinner with a very long talk. Once Mum is certain I’m not being bullied — and I do consider that tack very briefly, but know it would be more time-consuming than the other option — I’m floored with a tongue-lashing that lasts most of the evening. Even the night birds are making zeds by the time she’s finished. My phone and computer are seized. For a week, she says, and then she’ll review it. Only, when we’re up in my room disconnecting the thing, she comes across the second letter from the Year Head enquiring as to why she hadn’t responded to the first. It came last week, when I was busy with Kel and didn’t have time to hide it down the ropey. Mum almost believed me when I was spilling about the clerical laziness that goes on in that school. They lose exam papers, class reports, do you think that fat school secretary mails out all the letters she’s supposed to? No way! Too busy sitting on her arse reading magazines and confidential files that are none of her business. They lost my SATs last year, so it’s a viable story, but I fuck it up with my own sloth. Now she really explodes. Clip round the ear, and another, even harder, which I have to take without snivelling, even though she’s a foot shorter than me — because she’s my mum — and because she’s really mad, she takes a leaf out of Moon’s folks’ books: grounded for a fortnight.