Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

‘It’s all right, Raj. Was a long time ago.’

Raj shakes his head, searching for words to slur and slide into each other. Drunk. Bloody legless. ‘I just can’t take any more of Stupid Club.’

Billy chucks his mushroom under the table. It’s an effort to open his eyes, it really is.

‘Listen, Raj. You’re the best thing England’s got. Don’t give up hope.’

Raj lifts up his head and vomits over the table.

Billy just can’t believe how unhelpful his pal is being. He’s going to have to carry him out of the pub. Billy, who’s not supposed to be there in the first place. Billy, who only comes up to Raj’s belt buckle. Stupid Club are really doing Raj damage. Cos what they do, Billy reckons, is dump their collective pain on Raj, in the shape of Quaver and sell-by-date talk. Look at him. That’s what comes of being an unpaid pain counsellor. What a day. Billy stands up, grabs hold of Raj’s arm and flings it over his weedy shoulder. Starts to drag him across the balding carpet, past the jukebox, past the builders staring at him with cement in their nostrils.

Outside in the cold, Raj sobers up, loosens his shirt buttons and wipes his mouth.

‘If your dad tried to kill you, then Girl saved your life.’

‘Maybe.’ Billy’s turning blue again. ‘I don’t think she remembers what she did.’

‘Probably a good thing.’

Blueness sliding into Billy’s cheeks. He looks tiny out in the fresh air. Shrinking or something. He’s beginning to look like a plastic toy in a cereal packet.

‘You all right?’

‘No, I’m definitely not all right, Raj. Do I look like someone who’s all right?’

‘No.’

‘See, Raj, I don’t want to be anywhere near Girl when she remembers.’

Dad didn’t look like Dad. He came to the door and we didn’t know who he was. Dad used to be the best-looking prince in the kingdom. He had a new face. God must have zapped him. Stretched his arm through the sky and lightning bolts exploded from his fingertips onto Dad’s head.

His eyes were small. Dad had big eyes. This Dad had a face sewn on. Lips too near his nose. Slime dripping from his ears. This Dad had no hair. Smiling with his wrong lips. Staring with his wrong eyes. Staring but not looking. This Dad was shrunken. Shrunken but not small. His eyes kept poking at us. First Billy. Little jabs. Then me. Staring but not looking.

Billy said something about how we’ve come to the wrong house. This Dad shakes his wrong head. ‘No. You’ve come to the right house,’ he says. Dad’s voice. Deep. A prince’s voice.

It was the voice that got to me. The same as the answermachine voice. Dad’s looking at me from out of his ears. I told you his face is put on the wrong way. I say, ‘I don’t want to come in.’

He nods. ‘Didn’t think you would.’

Billy says, ‘Show us the car then.’

This Dad stinks of beer. This Dad’s voice is coming out of his fingers. He’s starting to walk. One two. One two. We’re following him. Dad in front, his kiddies behind. My father.

Takes half an hour opening a garage. Tries five different keys. Perhaps his fingers don’t work properly? When he got burnt he must have put his fingers over his face.

Staring but not seeing. Staring at his son’s tattoo with Mother on it. Beckons us inside. It’s dark in the garage. We don’t want to go in. Dad stands there calling us. He stinks of paraffin and beer. We’re not budging. Just standing while he calls us. Calling us with a different name each time. William. Louise. Bill. Lou. Billy. Girl.

‘Well, you come on your own then, lad.’

Lad? Billy is rooted to the fucking concrete. Lad? Dad might just as well have said Tin. Even without the ‘lad’ bit he’d never go near Dadness. Last time he got too near he wound up with a broken arm. As far as Billy is concerned LAD PIEQUALSPI BROKEN ARM. We all had to draw hearts with a biro on his plaster-of-Paris sling.

This Dad shrugs. Just calling out version of our names. ‘Bill, Lou-Lou, Will, Girl.’ Changes his mind and gets into the car himself. Starts the engine. Nothing happens. Tries again. Nothing happens.

Billy says something in my ear. Stupid stuff like we shouldn’t buy a car that doesn’t start. Oh, is that right? Billy should edit an automobile journal with inside knowledge like that. The car-owning public really need him. So I whisper the sad facts into my brother’s ear. ‘We got no choice. He’s blackmailing us.’ Just as Dad manages to start the car and backs it out onto the street. Don’t get too excited. Once upon a time it was a car. A Merc, 1959. Would make a lovely minicab.

Dadness is getting out of the Merc wreck like a car-crash survivor. I don’t know what he’s thinking because his face is probably somewhere else on his body. I might be looking at his arse for all I know. ‘Thought you might like this,’ he whimpers. But his voice is teasing us. Teasing and whimpering.

What does Billy do? He looks at this Dadness, trying to figure out where he begins or ends, and says, ‘Where’s Mom?’

A complete fucking pig-squealing silence. Dad is going to disintegrate and restructure himself in front of our eyes. He’s going to melt down and shape into something worse. This Dad says, ‘Mom had to disappear, didn’t she?’

What does Billy do? Boy detective? Deadpan voice. ‘What have you done with Mom?’ Jeezus. This Dad has probably eaten her. He’s going to burst out of his skin and splatter the Merc with slime.

‘Took the blame, didn’t she?’

Stop Dad talking. Saying things. Better to buy the Merc and go.

‘After Louise burnt me up. Mom said it was her who did it, didn’t she?’

Take out the cash. Take out the cash. Take out the cash.

How much does he want? This Dadness with his beerness. Paraffin stink. His made-from-something-elseness. ‘You owe me all you got.’

Something smashing my head with a stone. The things that girls owe. What do I owe Dad? He’s looking down at his feet so I can see the sores on his head.

‘We didn’t make much.’

This Dad nods. ‘Yeah. I know. I read about it in the papers. About six hundred quid. I’ll have that.’

Whass happening? How did Dad know? What’s he been saying? Just his wrong lips moving. Let’s get out of here.

Dad’s nostrils watch me take the cash out of the bag. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ he teases and whines. ‘Buy a few cans before the off-licence closes.’ He holds out his hand.

I used to walk hand in hand with my father. Down stairs. Up stairs. To the shops. He used to put his hands over my eyes and lift them off and he used to take me swimming. I used to swim towards his hands. Waiting there. To catch me. Dad hid things in his hands. A mint chocolate or a mini-Christmas-tree teddy bear. Choose which one to open. Always something there for me in Dad’s hands.

When I put the money in his hand, he grabs my hand. Hard. ‘Tell me where Mom is, pleeese, Dad?’

Something happening to Dad. Tears leak out of his small wrong eyes. Spring out sideways. Like a water leak in a tap. ‘It’s not what happened to your mother you should be asking,’ he gulps. ‘It’s what happened to your father.’ The tears are seeping from under his skin. Wetness springing from the sides of his lips. Pouring out of him. He won’t let my hand go. He won’t stop saying things. Stop. Stop. Stop. Let go of me. Stop. Stop it. Stop saying. Stop doing my hand. Stop. Just stop. Stop. Stop. Let go of me. ‘My Girl, girl girl girl,’ he whimpers and leaks. ‘My girl girl girl my girl my girl girl girl girl my girl my girl my girl girl my girl my girl.’