Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

‘I care about the one that’s going to make me most happy this minute. I’m bored of thinking about the long run.’

The building wave that’s in my head is more important than pleasing Moon.

‘You think an answer like that is good enough for me?’

‘Yes, I do. And don’t, Veerapen. Just don’t.’

Bowl taken from my hand. Wave crashed. Idiots carrying on as normal. Miserable night.

If you’re going to cry your eyes out, you may as well do it to country. Whoever worked that one out is a genius. Blubbing to Missy E doesn’t make you feel so shit, in fact, she hinders things by trying to get funny all the time. Believe me, I’ve tried. This is why you need the serious stuff when you’re seriously down. This is what those songs are for. Mum’s off with her fella, and tonight feels like the time, finally, the real time, to let things out. I’m not talking about a trickle here, the little waterworks I’ve been giving previously, under the impression that this was grieving. I’m talking delayed reaction here, the full-on real deal.

It’s been brewing all day, chest feeling choked, neck, throat. Barely able to get a word out to Mum in case I started. Alone in the house now, I’m safe.

I play the Cash tunes Moon used to loop on her iPod during her night visits. I loved those songs almost as much as I looked forward to seeing and touching her. She was only the body on those visits, Cash was the soul. I went out and bought the same CD after the funeral.

Cash’s voice feels heavier than my heart. He sings like gravel on a dirt track, a phrasing that tries to prise open my insides line by line. By track three the floodgates open. I take off my shades and cry non-stop until nine o’clock. Mum’s due home at nine-fifteen. Crying for Moon as much as I’m crying for myself.

There’s a time when you need to put your faith into music. At the point when you run out of friends and your family stop understanding you. Music can be the only window you have. As Cash continues to bellow his fury, I kick the door in. The spare-room door. Smash the glass pane. Something to do with Moon, I suppose, and me feeling as angry as fuck all of a sudden. And it is sudden. If I’d heard Timberlake’s ‘Rock Your Body’, a Moon Jones favourite, me having a turn would be far more understandable. But this? Old man Cash? I don’t explain it, I just do it. Realise that it’s a replacement for crying. And I kick just as hard as I’ve been crying only a few minutes ago. What a joker. I can’t even be a good cry baby in the privacy of my own home. I have to have a hissy fit and start breaking things. I’m a loser. A big one.

My foot is cut up real good, lower leg too. Like how the blood soaks through the part of my white sock that hasn’t been slashed. Like it’s in a rush to play catch-up. Don’t leave me out, you fuckers! Let me bleed too, yada yada. It’s a Cartoon Network newbie someone has yet to think of. The self-harmers and other tales of bloodwork. You could see how it could run and run. Those crazy red blood cells, always getting into trouble and spilling all over the place, hahaha. I think of these stupid things sometimes, ask anyone.

It’s like watching Moon’s blood all over again, except her cut was much bigger and there was more of it. Way more.

It’s only when the music stops I hear myself. Realise that my breathing is becoming shallower. I’m hurting, not just my foot, but all over. I wait for the whole sock to emerge as a thick red, as evenly as possible, from the cut-up toes to the top of my ankle, before I shout for Mum.

Gwyn calls me the next morning. Saw me crying at the window to Johnny Cash. Says that it broke her heart. She doesn’t mention that I was wearing shades indoors nor about the Surrey ambulance that screeched its arrival outside my house about five minutes after Mum found me. Mum had it sorted, but wanted professional help just to be sure all the glass had been removed. Some of those tiny shards can be buggers.

You would have had to be dead not to have heard the panic wagon as it rolled down our road. Ambulances are never discreet. The bleeding had stopped by the time they arrived. Most of the street popped their heads out as I was being carted off, the full siren encouraging everyone to get their wheelie bins out, but interestingly that didn’t include any occupants from the Jones household. I couldn’t make out much, being strapped to that stretcher, but that much I did see.

So Gwyn is round and has persuaded Mum that I am fine to be left with her if she wants to pop down to Tesco. She doesn’t ask me how I am, and I don’t ask her how she’s doing either. We’ve done all this on the phone. There’s no point. And she is too polite to mention my bandaged leg, from foot to knee, which makes me look like one of those old people who burn themselves in the bath. The only benefit of the bandage is that I have to stay in shorts for the next few days. Make sure I’m wearing my new adidas, yellow ones. Know that I look as sexy as fuck. Wounded soldier and all that. Girls love a wounded puppy.

‘Have you heard from the police again?’ she goes.

‘Have you?’

‘Yes, but in your case I would have thought…’

‘It’s going to be a while yet. My mum says these things take ages. I might not even get a call until next month.’

‘Our letter came the other day. Morning after the funeral.’

‘Do these people have any tact? Jesus!’

Gwyn makes a grim face.

‘Not really. Just doing their jobs, I suppose.’

‘No need to make a big deal about it. You’ve got a letter, I’ve got a letter, Jason’s got a letter. They’re interviewing everybody. Year Head. Even people like Lizzie Jennings, I heard.’

‘It’s worse than that. They’re talking to everyone at school. Using the staff room to interview the kids.’

‘Yeah? So why are you singling me out then? If they’re interviewing everybody…’

‘You know why, Veerapen.’

‘Do I?’

‘You were there.’

‘So was Pearson.’

‘He can’t speak. He hasn’t come out of his shock. Can you not bring up that bastard’s name?’

‘I’m sorry. You’ve just rattled me. I’d rather not think about the police. It makes everything feel so…’

‘Final? That’s because it is. Once they’ve done what they need to do, everything will be over.’

I’m too dead inside to be angry, the cut bled the last bit of emotion from me, but her words still manage to sting. Why has she got to go on about things drawing to a conclusion? Moon’s death, the mourning, everything being over? Trying to get on with our lives? Like I need to be reminded of any of that? I can’t do it. I want to keep on feeling this way for ever. I don’t want to feel like a normal person ever again. It hurts too much.

She makes some tea and we sit together on the couch and drink slowly, both staring out at the garden, like it’s the first suburban seventy-footer back yard we’ve ever seen; acting like a pair of Eastern Europeans just off the boat. And when we finish the tea, both of us acknowledging that we only have a short amount of time before Mum comes back, it’s all on. We don’t talk, just kiss.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

‘Nothing to tell. Nothing’s going on.’

‘Veerapen, you are standing in a pool of blood, with glass all over the floor, and you tell me that nothing’s going on?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Have you just kicked the glass out of the door? Why did you do that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell me how you’re feeling? Are you angry?’

‘Duh!’

‘Cut the crap, right, OK? Just stop it, Veerapen. Because I’ve had about as much as I can take of this. And I’ve done as much pussy-footing around as I’m prepared to. So if you want me to fix up your leg, you better start telling me what’s going on, and quick, because if I’m right, you’ve only got a couple of minutes before your foot really starts to hurt.’