Eimear McBride - A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing

I feel it gone, my fucker Jesus self. It weep away like longed for wound. Take off that bandage. No nothing there. No badness to keep me. Prop me up. In this place I am as slack gut. Nothing inside to keep me up. With all the coldness in the rooms. With all the people breathe the air around who think me strange and odd. It empties me. It throws me out. Dirty water. Dirty cup. I think for moment I’d rescue you. Say how scum it is. This place. Like this. And do not. Leave you to do your standing. Run for cover. Feeling the earth come down around me after thousand pound bomb’s ripped it up. We are transplanted. We are the new now and the wrong. The lost. The done for. Ever. I see I am sliding into years of this I think. And you. My lost then brother. You’ll be strung-up.

Hey you two. New two. Yeah you two. Here’s your stop. Get off.

For all of that I wanted to be out of it. All of that. You wanted to be in.

One day I saw you. That prefab shadow on your eyes. That gravel on the playground under your foot. Four or five ones there with you. They sat. Coats roped under their chins and eyes filled with fag smoke watchfully. Teachers come round the corner just like that. Laring they do always. Making fart noise hocking spit. Snort up clumps of guck from their lungs. You do not. That’s to fall foul. You will not do what you’re not allowed, even for them. For the comrade nudge of adulation. But you’ll find other intimations of their special cool.

This day I see you sway foot there. One foot to another. Kicking the stones. All these — some red-haired acned, some blond-like wispy thin hair their blue eyes freezing, some raise a stink in every room of the school. I hate the stunk air after their class has been. Smell German classroom their deep BO. These are swinging on the fence chain by you there, standing left right swipe a pebble with that black striped runner toe. And they say joggling each other, what happened you there? Where? That big scar on your head. I wince in my slink hole see. The question never answered I know by you. I. Shall I think of some diversion? Come over and be a centre action? I do not. I do not no. You would not thank me for that.

You say, and shock me, a knife did it. Silence. For the first time impressed. They cannot delve you all a sudden. Something cool they cannot know. For country boys are beat by dads or priests around the head or a teacher in fury with a big maths book. But not with knives that cut their skulls up. I see them. Sizing now your magnitude compared to them. Them thinking you did not always live here. Must have happened when you were young. Must have happened at another school. Is that true? Who’ll disprove it? Not I. I’ll not. They do not ask when? who? but Did it hurt? A little bit you say. Were you really cut? Yes awful deep is why my eye’s not so good. A great assimilation of all your school-bound woes now up in one knot. This healing vast equivocation. You throw all in the pot. Its lid on tight. And was there much blood? Yeah loads of that. And hospital and people passing out? Oh loads. And did they think you’d die? They did. Somehow I didn’t, you say. They never knew anyone nearly dead before but grannies and grandfathers. Did they go to court? They got away. With it? From the country, thickorwhat, you say. Oh right. Oh right yeah.

I smelt it go around the school all day. In crannies in whispers in home economics behind me, before me, to right and to left. Hey dimwit shitfit what happened your brother? What happened his head? Is that true? You so full of shite. It did not. It did not. Sweat me down my polyester pinafore. Don’t want to get into it. Don’t want to say Aye Yes nor No if I can help it. But I don’t want to burst your lie.

Bus home you were not tripped up. And no one said thicko fuck- up shitehawk. And you did sit at the back of the bus. I went over and over each bump in my stomach. The luck of it. Bad luck of it to tell that lie. Of all. About that. That thick meander line below your hair.

She always tug fringe over it. Hide all the memory, says please grow it out a bit long. You will not though some reason of your own. It’s my scar. It happened to me. I say it’s too short. Stay out of it you.

We jump on the verge from off the bus. I heard what you said in school. Such a liar you are. Shut up you say and it was a knife did it anyway. Don’t say that, you know what I mean you know it well. And your schoolbag buckle graze my cheek shocks my stomach. A not what I expected. So I threw mine at you. Making myself a show to neighbours if they’re watching and they are. You missed me you are shouting. Steaming down the road ahead. There’ll be skin and hair flying. There’ll be wigs on the green. I shout I’m telling Mammy. Baby squeal. See if I care. What’s she going to do? The earth is rumbling. Things are splitting up. So I say nothing at home. But hold it in the air so you see what I have got. Like, what were you saying to the lads today? And. Really that’s not what I heard. What’s that? No nothing Mammy. See, I can level the blow when I wish. If I wish. Might or might not. You live under it. Defiant but under all the same. But I did not mention it again and you sat with the cool lads on the bus.

She driving. Me in the passenger seat. Bringing the statue to the next house. It’s rotation because it comes from Lourdes. Have you a good hold of her? Yes Mammy. Blue blond gold. It sits plaster baby on my knee, crown in my teeth and I like the great green serpent coiling all round her feet.

She drives so higgledy piggledy down the road. Bump. Don’t break so fast I’ll drop her. Don’t be a cheeky brat. Quiet. She sings amazing grace. Says hmmmm. Says anyway. What? Your brother. Aha? Not so well at school the teachers say. And? I say to them he studies every single night. I tell them I send him up to that desk. And what didn’t I buy him, books, copies, every- thing. I think I’ll not be interested at all in this. So I say sooo? My head throbby boy thoughts. My nose big with blackheads. Hair and grease normal. Staring out the window balancing the virgin don’t chip her there and does she have ears in that golden mane? I think and make display of my disinterest. It’s important she says there’s something else. What’s that? Umm I don’t know what you but teachers think he’s a bit subnormal. Just. A little bit. Not under by much. What? Going round and round my. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. Hear that. I shout stop that. Saying. Believing that. Always saying stupid things about him. She says will you calm yourself. No I won’t. No. No. He’s fine. That’s awful to say. Well that tumour could’ve done more harm than we. Stop. I belt young Virgin Mary on the dashboard. Take it. Take that. Take that. Wobbling the car. She. Swerve it. What the stop it stop it stop. I don’t want to. Hear. I don’t want. It in my life. Stop the car. She stop the car. I must get. Out. On the roadside. Stop it. Let me out. Pull in.

Fuck that virgin onto the tarmac. Take her head does she like it? What’s the. Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me that. What do I do? Aha. Aha. It makes my head run. Makes my face run. I fall in the grass. I graze my hand. I feel lungs closing up under the breathless. No. No. Breathe it. Breathe it. Put down your head. She says. Just sit there. Head between your knees I’ll shut the car door. She pulls it over. And puts on the break light. Sssh.

Sorry I broke the statue I say wet with cry. Don’t mind. Don’t mind the statue. Don’t mind that. I don’t want. Shusha shusha. I. I. No. I don’t want. And I feel a sinus. Feel a brain erase. Feeling limbs feeling. Pins and. Shock and. Needles. Get in. She says leave that. She says it’s alright. She says he’s fine. She says sure they never know what they’re talking about. Now. She drives us home.