Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

It’s a bit rainy, if you know what I mean. Bitter filthy wet fucking rain. No. It’s not funny. All that scrambling to shelter under the shitty striped awnings of butcher shops. The giant turkey drumsticks piled up and covered in clingfilm. Blue and goose-pimpled. It’s raining. The sweating Dublin chops on special offer just about to pass their sell-by date in a big way. The sticky thick blood of livers and kidneys on silver trays, the second-rate eggs laid out on the counter, the pale rubbery slabs of Cheddar, the bundles of lard dripping in their wax wrappers — and it’s still raining. The clambering onto buses full of the insane mumbling upstairs and mothers screaming at their kids and fathers who’ve lost their kids cos they just haven’t been up to it and all the sad city dwellers queuing for fried chicken in crappy fast-food chain stores and hardware shops selling mops that don’t work to women who can’t afford them. Women with broken zips. Mom preferred buttons, like me.

This is not the Wonderland I’ve been put on earth for. The men in phone boxes with a suitcase between their legs. The boxes of strawberries with all the rotten ones at the bottom. The newsagents with tit mags crammed on the top shelf and little jars of instant coffee and bottles of bleach and lottery tickets and packets of stale factory biscuits.

It won’t do. It’s not worth having lungs to take breath for. It’s not worth waking up for. It’s not worth having the vote for. Just one big fucking spectacle of pain.

I remember Mom putting conditioner in her hair and combing it through to the ends. She was always complaining about split ends on account of all the teasing she had to do. Mom had the highest hair in the road. Planting sunflowers that never grew. Bending over to tuck me in. Trying to whistle but it never came out right. It can’t when you shop with the pain of thrift in your bones. Mouth. Eyes.

Soon we can have anything we want because we are going to do FreezerWorld with the help of Louise and her retard rage. I will be a citizen with big shopping potential, hmming along with the Muzak. Makes the shopper contemplative. Assists the shopper with his thorts. Here’s one. Nearly there. Thort coming up.

What’s the point of England?

There ain’t no empire or industry — not that I want to be a coal slave, as Girl would say, nor do I want to work in a gas showroom — I’ve seen through it and thru it. Mom wouldn’t have liked that for me. Naaa. She wouldn’t have liked to think of her clever boy on the shop floor twitching so she has to wash my clothes every day. I don’t want wages to starve in a civilized fashion: SPECIAL OFFER: 50 °CHICKEN WINGLETS FOR £2.99 — THEY DIED TO FEED THE WORKING POOR. Unless you’re just a high income chickaholic and can’t get enough of chicken in the form of winglets. Just crazee for the winglet experience, BUSTING FOR A WINGLET graffitied on all the toilet doors — Citizen Winglet fought a short but victorious war in order to defend his lifestyle. Battery birds. I earned ’em.

Billy the beastie in his English lair. The only self-defence is to lie on the straw and get introspective. Go into your self. Snuffle your head deep inside the straw and yawn till you feel strong enough to yawn again. To build something for yourself in your lonely wasted mind, put on a hard hat and enter the architecture on the lookout for wonder. In comparison with that adventure, does Billy want to ride a tank and conquer Haiti or what’s left of Russia?

Come off it. I’m not losing a drop of Billy blood for the nobs. Got enough to do, thanks. Fanks. What’s the point of England? There ain’t the weather like I’ve discussed with you in an easy-going manner. The only way Billy the beast is going to crawl out of his pain lair is for a snack. I, Billy, fifteen years old, prime cut of English beef, a sirloin amongst boys and boyz, no fat on this lean dude kitted out in his grotty underpants — waist twenty-six inches and that’s only if I stick my stomach oot. Ooot for England.

Dad bashed me. That’s all. After he bashed me, something happened. But it’s gone. Gone to gonkery. Mom set fire to Dad and then she disappeared. Walked through the enchanted garden and out the other side. The wild heath where winds howl and owls shriek. Mom, in the form of her soul, has disappeared into me. I must take maternal care of Girl and make her better.

English pain has opened up a whole crack in the world for me. Cleanse me with swabs of cotton wool, please. Yeah. I’m ready for California. Ready to lie flat out on the blond American sand and become spiritual. Improve my inner being. Like chin implants to improve my profile. ’S long as I never have to wear a baseball cap the wrong way round. Better off with a little plastic chicken winglet around my neck on a chain.

‘You don’t know how to make a margarita?’

Billy and Girl are sitting perched on the chrome and plastic stools at the bar of the Holiday Inn. Girl sulks in shades with striped zebra-patterned frames. Billy wears a herringbone suit. Always dress smart when you’re about to rob a superstore.

‘You don’t know how to make a margarita?’ Girl repeats in disbelief.

The barman shakes his head. ‘Never had cause to make ’em here. Folk want a gin and tonic, or a scotch usually.’

‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ Girl is getting hysterical. ‘You don’t make cocktails in this hotel?’

‘Nope.’

‘What’s the point of him?’ Girl shouts at Billy, who just shakes his head incredulously.

‘Look, do you know what a cocktail is?’

The barman nods wearily. ‘Yep. It’s mixers.’

‘Jeeezus! Where are you from?’

‘Devon, madam.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Girl looks at him sorrowfully through her new shades. ‘Suppose you only drink milk in Devon. Milk !’

‘Is there something else I can get you, madam?’

‘Cocktails are martinis and gimlets, manhattans and margaritas. Martinis have been drunk for ever . It’s not like cocktails are a new thing! Everyone loves a drink shaken up. You should have a juicer behind the bar for starters and a briefcase busting with bartending tools inside it! You need a bar spoon, a blender, a jigger, measuring cup, mixing glass, paring knife, standard shaker and a strainer. Got any of those things, Mr Barman?’

‘I have some lemon slices, madam, if you would like a gin and tonic?’

‘Lemon slices?’ Girl is amazed and disgusted. She looks at the ceiling and shakes her head tragically. ‘You telling me that if I want a garnish for my cocktail all you can offer me is a lemon slice? Got any celery? Cinnamon sticks? Pickled jalapeño peppers? Almond syrup? You think tonic is a mixer? Got any coconut cream? Clamato juice? Guava nectar? Bitter lemon soda?’

‘Nope.’

‘Okay, I’ll tell you what.’ Girl lowers her voice and winks at him, giving him a chance. ‘If you can’t make a margarita, mix me a Mermaid’s Song instead.’

The barman looks nervous. ‘I can give you a martini, madam.’

Girl stares at him coldly. ‘We want a margarita. Have you got Triple Sec?’

‘I’ve got Cointreau.’

Muzak leaks out of the speakers.

‘Okay. Have you got tequila?’

‘Nope. Not much call for it, madam.’

‘Not much call for it! Did you hear that, Billy? This is a bar, isn’t it? Have I got this wrong? Is this not a bar? Am I wrong about this? Am I in a dry cleaner’s? Am I asking the dry cleaner for a margarita and he is telling me there’s not much call for it or am I in a bar where you ask for things like a margarita and it is perfectly normal ?’