Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

Long before her death, there are vanishing acts. When Moon first disappears from my milk-crate during my supposed grounding, I do something similar — leave home and crash at Casey’s. I’ve no idea where she is, only know about her state of mind. That she’s really fucking pleased with herself hanging out with a bad boy before her sister. Hate that she’s pipped me to the post.

We’ve always talked about running off; usually when we’ve not got our way about getting some old knick-knack that means fuck-all out of our parents, or when forced to obey the rules that are waved in your face every once in a while. Yeah, we’ll run away, and that will show them . Spitting the words like they’re the worst scum we’ve ever dealt with.

And now she’s really done it. Being away from home, like she is, away from our street, is the one solution I can think of that will stop me from going mad with worry. Helps me to stay closer to her somehow. Can’t explain why.

Mum knows all about Casey at this point, about all the alleged filth, and the untruth behind it. Thank Kelly Button, the girl with a bad case of sour grapes and a big rubbery mouth that can’t stay shut. Or should I say, vindictive fingers. Sends Mum a txt, the nearest thing a market girl with too much jewellery can muster up as evidence.

Mum’s excited for about a second, this being the first txt she’s ever received from someone who isn’t family. She shouts, slaps me a little, and then comes down the track and watches him put me through my paces, and something clicks. She doesn’t quite welcome him into the family, but she gets it.

It helps that she doesn’t particularly like Kelly Button, and didn’t want to believe everything she came out with. If she was a patient she’d change her dressing without prejudice, but this… She virtually broke into spontaneous applause when we broke up.

‘Let’s face it…’ I tell her, ‘… he’s been my trainer for almost six months. If he’d have wanted to do something he would have done it by now.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘My blacked-out face would be all over the internet, right?’

Me talking about Casey being a PPP so casually isn’t quite what a mother wants to hear from her fifteen-year-old son. Think she’d rather I got Kelly Button pregnant, far simpler to deal with. Casey comes with way too much baggage. None of it savoury.

But Trisha and Oprah advise compromise when dealing with stroppy teenagers so that’s what she does, albeit unwillingly. She lets me stay at his, so long as it’s only for a weekend (finals are coming up, so we are training morning and evening). She has all his numbers for emergencies, and psyches herself that it’s all about reassurance, not drama. She doesn’t realise that one night will eventually roll out into a full weekend, Casey neither for that matter.

His place is a tip, just like his car. Messy, dirty, stinky. It’s only on the track that he pretends to be a clean freak. This is the first shock. Thought I’d love hanging with a laid-back guy, dropping my shit wherever I like with no one to nag, but it feels odd, not what I’m used to.

My hood is where the show palaces are. Where we show off our stuff. Streets like rows of blank canvases: our place, Jason’s, Moon’s. Aside from the heavy wooden stuff, nothing is more than five years old. It’s the Surrey way. We are all constantly reinventing our homes. Always tip-top and ready to receive visitors, to spotlight the new Morrocan-style tiles in the bathroom, to have dinner in our brand-new conservatories whilst finding a way to casually drop into conversation that we are now on Sky digital. We parade our purchases 365. What would be the point of buying them otherwise?

Trainer’s palace, with its eighties furniture, all black wood that looks real cheap, and its beige-gone-yellow walls, is something else. The only clothes that aren’t on the floor are the tracksuits, hanging on a rail in front of the wardrobe. They are ordered in tones, darkest colours to the left, and working along. The kind of thing you might see at P Diddy’s house but on a micro scale ’cos Casey’s only got ten tracksuits. A pad for the guy who never leaves the locker room, or who never grew out of it.

Can’t work out whether or not Casey is pleased to have me. You’d think it would be his wet dream, young boy sleeping over and all. Virtually forcing his way in. But there’s none of that. I get there around six, and he’s pretty distracted. Points out where I’ll be sleeping, mentions there’s a bowl of pasta and chicken with my name on it on the kitchen top, and leaves me to do my thing. Something to do with the news being on and not wanting to be away from the set for even a minute. Casey is news obsessed. You don’t have a summer like he had and not be, I guess. Trevor McDonald or whoever it is sounds more sinister than usual, as his voice rattles around the flat. Doom-laden. No wonder Casey has this mad look about him if this is how he spends his evenings. Even I can see that it’s torture.

The flat has three bedrooms. Thankfully my room and Casey’s are about as far apart as they can be. I don’t even know why I keep thinking these things and still find myself sleeping over. I’m a joker. A big one. If I wasn’t so mature I’d be throwing my head out the window and shouting for help. Except… the flat is at the very end of the Rose estate. Almost dropped the phone when he gave me the address. I always knew he had to live somewhere on here — where else would the council put him? — but I hadn’t thought he’d be dumped on its outer reaches. I’m Earth. Casey’s Pluto. The view from my window is of the closed-down health centre with its open car park where the boy racers will dump and sometimes burn their stolen Unos or 205s. Only the wetlands lie beyond it, no other houses in my eyeline. I suddenly understand how where you live can make you sadder than you already are, especially when you run out of choices.

Half-expecting Mum to be sitting in her car outside, just in case. It’s the kind of thing she does. The Florence Nightingale influence and all that corny stuff. This has been the insurance policy in my head the moment I set foot inside. I crane my head at every angle for the Astra. No sign of her. She must have really believed me when I told her that there was nothing to worry about. But then, she doesn’t know how this part of the estate is the boy-racing centre of Surrey.

I’m in the box room. The kid’s room. Everything in here, as with the rest of the flat, is curdled yellow and floral. Combined with the dirt, the custard flower prints, big and bold, on the bed and across the curtains make the room seem even more depressing than it would normally be. Have a feeling that maybe all rented accommodation is like this. Dad’s emergency flat that he stayed in just after leaving us and before leaving the country gave me the same feeling. Flower-print normality papered over giant worry cracks; nothing fooling no one.

Mum tells me to make sure I unpack all my stuff once I get there, but all that goes out of the other ear once she’s out of sight. Bag slung across the room, jumper on bed, coat on floor. Freedom! Can’t help, though, coming back into the room five minutes later and hanging the coat up. Hate the idea of Hackett soaking up germs and who knows what else from that skuzzy old carpet.

I sit and scoff the pasta whilst Casey stays glued to the news, the local bulletin now taking over from where Trevor McDonald left off. News is the most boring shit I’ve ever seen. I try to avoid it. Here, it’s local hospital scandal and various stupid triumph-over-adversity stories about plucky pensioners who should be put out of their misery. It’s the kind of nonsense that makes you want to move to another country (only they probably have their own equivalent). Casey takes everything in without a word. He only starts to pay me some attention when the bloody programme is over. I’m sent to the fridge to get us some drinks. It’s full of beer. No sign of any vegetables. Can feel it’s going to be one of those nights so bring back a four-pack.