Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon

Beard puts down some toast and I butter it, add marmalade and eat. I count each chew, the toast is getting bigger in my mouth, chew, chew, chew. I cannae swallow it down! Beard goes out the room and I gob the toast out into the bin.

The sugar granules keep making a high-pitched weeeeee noise.

I smoke three cigarettes in a row and watch them. Beard is okay about the smoking — she’s kind of ideal as foster-folks go. I like that she lets me stay here cos she needs a wee bit of cash and she doesnae hide it, it’s honest. I’ve got a deep respect for that kindae honesty. We both nod at the social worker when she comes around. Beard washes my clothes, makes my meals and other than that we stay the fuck out of each other’s way. I stub out the third fag and put my plate upside down over the sugar bowl. You cannae be too careful.

‘Bye,’ I yell and slam the front door shut.

There’s a world outside, it’s moving so I have a choice — count things, or name them. I’m like that, ay. I always know how many seats there are on a bus. How many polystyrene squares are on the roof of each classroom at school. When I’m in the cells I know how many bars there are, and if there is a pattern anywhere (flowers on wallpaper, squares on a blanket) I’ll count them. I cannae help it. If I umnay counting when I’m tripping, then I’ll name things. This morning — I’m naming things. It happens like this when I’m coming up, and sometimes when I’m coming down. It’s like I have to name the things I see, just to be sure they are what they say they are.

The curtain lifts between this place and the next, and I name things on the way out and the way back in again. Gate. Path. Door. Gate. Path. Door. Gate. Bin. Dog. Ugly old man. Lamp post. Tree. Three trees. A carrier bag. A turd. A postbox. Boy on a skateboard. Cyclist.

Streets are weird. Maybe they urnay weird, it’s hard to tell, but it is stunningly beautiful out this morning. The flowers are pink and white, and it rained earlier, so the air is that super-fresh way.

I walk down through the field, then over the road; the woods are exceptionally elvish this morning. Hayley’s waiting by the stile and she’s had her hair bobbed, she is so totally gorgeous. She has different-coloured eyes, one blue, one green. That makes her a chimera, that’s what it means when you have two different-coloured eyes.

‘Alright.’

‘Alright.’

‘Ta, for my present!’

She grins, gives me a kiss. I feel like a total idiot, I wish I wasnae so high already.

‘What’s he following you around for?’

I nod behind her and Wankstain glowers at me. Hayley shrugs and kisses me again lightly. She strokes my arm — then there’s a flicker as her tongue touches mine, and her fingers brush quickly across my top, it’s so quick I sometimes wonder if I dream it. She smells like a good clean thing in a good clean world.

I sometimes think if there is a God and he found out that I was going out with Hayley, he’d shoot a cherub. Some people urnay meant to know the true shitness of life, it isnae meant to be that way for them. Hayley’s one of those people. I’d never have her near the kind of folk I know, I’d never let her meet Jay, no way. It’s not about other people, we are just for us. We kiss and we walk and we watch movies, and she treats me so sweet. She’s never made me feel embarrassed to be me. Not once.

‘Do you know much about surgery, like cos of your dad?’ I ask her.

‘A bit, not much really.’

‘I was thinking about women surgeons, like are there many? Like not even here, like maybe in Paris? Brain surgeons, tae be exact.’

‘Are you playing the birthday game, Anais?’

‘No!’

‘Did you give that up?’

‘Aye.’

I forgot she knew. She’s the only person I ever told about that, she got me to tell her about it one time when I was pissed. I informed her that real birthdays are overrated. Mine are anyway. Well, I get my birthday money off the social worker, obviously, but I dinnae wait for cards, or cakes, or wee fucking sing-songs. I denounced real birthdays when I found Teresa — I dinnae tell anyone about them any more. I cannae believe it was nearly two years ago already that I found her dead. Mother Teresa — where art thou?

Stabbed hen. Fucking pissed off about it as well, ay .

Dinnae think about it. That’s the trick. I wonder if my biological mum thinks of me on my real birthday? Or maybe a scientist just looks fondly at a test-tube.

Hayley takes my hand and we lean back against the stile and she kisses me again. Breathe her in. I want to forget. Everything but this.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you thinking about Teresa?’

‘A bit.’

She strokes my hand. That’s all. She did that for hours one night — we were camping in her back garden and it was warm out; we lay holding each other, her stroking my hand, our heads poking out the end of the tent so we could watch for shooting stars.

‘D’ye want one?’

I offer Hayley a trip but she shakes her head. I wish Hayley wasnae so square, but she is, she’s far too square to be a circle. I am a circle. Circles are infinite. I umnay meant for Hayley and we both know it. She’s just a perfect kiss.

Tracers begin to materialise across the sky, wee bright wriggly things everywhere.

‘Are you coming tae school, Anais?’

‘Nope. Dinnae tell anyone you’ve seen me.’

‘As if I would!’

She gives me another kiss and then wanders away down the woods with Wankstain. I cannae stand that prick. He totally tried tae rape me after the school disco when I passed out in the bog. I woke up as he was trying tae yank my knickers down, so I battered him. Arsehole. He’ll no try that again.

I wave at Hayley when she reaches the road and look up at the sky tae let God know — he can put the gun away.

Kick up leaves, swish, swish. They swirl around my ankles, a river of them, all different colours. Ochre. Gold. Red. My tree stump’s empty and there’s nobody around, they’ll all be in school. I pull off my shoes and shirt, slip my skirt down and shove it at the back of a bush. My plastic bag is still here — bonus. I keep all sorts of shit in this bush, it’s my only permanent chest of drawers.

Undo the knot in the plastic bag, and inside there’s a pair of damp shorts, platform shoes I bought last month, a vest and a cardigan. I pick leaves off my cardigan until it’s all pristine. You can see veins on the leaves that look just like the lines on your hand, especially if you hold them up to the sun.

Pull out my new feather headdress from my school bag, and fasten it at the back so it fits perfectly. The leaves whisper — I know exactly what they mean. Nod my head and the feathers ruffle out around me. I pick a flower and admire the tiny hairs on its stem. The clouds begin to race, and I decide on who my parents were, right there and then.

I am a love-child, conceived during a ritualistic peyote shaman trip. I am the sole offspring of Timothy Leary’s spirit-guide (an Amazonian eagle-woman) and a forest nymph. Teresa met Leary once. She walked his dog. I wasnae ever really sure what she meant by that.

Lay down and run my bare feet across the grass. I’m on the bank near a river, I can smell wild garlic and wet ferns, water and deodorant. I’ve run out of perfume, I’ll need to buy some when my clothing allowance comes in; that’s the only perk of being in care, ay, a monthly (pitiful) clothing allowance. Some foster-parents dinnae let you have your clothing allowance, though, they just keep it for themselves! Beard gives me mine. God bless Beard.

Flip onto my stomach and weave a daisy chain. I make it super-long, so I can wind it around twice. Lace the flowers through my hair, lay back and watch the clouds drift.