Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

Mein fader. My first ever sighting of manliness. He came to the door knowing his kiddies stood on the other side. Dad last saw me when I was ten. I shave now. Shave the cat that is. Heh heh heh. Look, I’m a man of science. It’s my career, tho no one knows yet the extent of my influence. I am a fledgling founding Leadre of Twenty-Firdt Cntury Thought. Thort. But I have to confess my teenage sighting of Dad sent me primal. Whirling through the caveboy vortex into fire, fat and flint. Demon terror. I nearly let Christ into my life. On the verge of turning my palms upwards and inviting all the dogs in England to come unto me. Pedigrees and mongrels. Nearly prayed for golf programmes to be on all the TV channels all the time. Then I got a grip.

Dad is good-looking. Always has been.

Girl hid her face in her arm when he came to the door. When Dad’s blue movie-star eyes roved my boyness I saw exactly what Mom must have seen in him. I’m going to faint because Dad is a sex god. How did such a big man get to have a runt of a son like me? Dad has been well and truly punished. Not that he stood in front of us in repentance. He stood there in defiance and drunken mean plotting to get his kiddies’ stolen loot. Righting an injustice against him. Righting his blood sugar level with Special Brew. Six hundred quid’s worth.

Dad is an old-fashioned Dadness. There won’t be many more of him in the future. Not when I publish my book. A new sort of Dadness will be born. After the first crucial five minutes, it was all right for me, meeting Dad. I understand the situation. I tried to steal Mom from Dad. Baby Oedipus. Oedipussy. Mom’s disappearance is my punishment for cheating on Dad. The equivalent of gouging my eyes out with a brooch pin. A flood of gore, ‘black rain’ running down my face, staining my beard. If I had a beard.

I knew what I was doing when I wooed Mom away from Dad for ever. Call on me any time for definitions, explanations and concepts. I’m a major boy theorist. The Neeetcher of Harkham Road. Yeah, if anyone ever bought me a gonk I’d call it Nietzsche. I can’t understand why I’m not a hunchback or something because according to my books, there is good evidence to suggest that unresolved emotional stress will always find a way of afflicting the body. I might be small but I got no wrenches or twists. A perfect little tragic boy pain icon.

So what if Dad tried to mince me into Billy burgers?

’S long as I don’t seriously think this is the one and only way of doing Dadness, I’m all right, aren’t I? The books say so. I mean, you would trust me with your pets when you go on your holidays, wouldn’t you?

My sister tried to make Dad invisible at first sighting. You know how she did that? Naaaaa. No magic fucking spells or curses or walking in a circle three times. She shut her eyes. Louise. Girl. A menthol spook. When she opened her eyes she made them go retarded. To Let. Vacant property. Unfurnished. Poked her fingers into her cheeks. No crying yet but I had mentally prepared myself with even sadder thoughts: like Raj selling raffle tickets to send himself to college. I promise to tell the truth. There is nothing sadder than Dad and Girl.

It’s a love affair. I could see love in the vapours between them.

Girl set fire to Dad on my behalf and Mom took the blame. That’s how the story goes. Why did Girl want to destroy the person she most loved? That was the terror when I first heard. What I am saying is, I hope I am not the person Girl most loves. Dad is the prince of the twentieth century for Girl. I, Billy, will be the new brand of prince for the twenty-first. Even if Girl had tried to kiss him better, this frog Dad, nothing would have happened. What could Dad have changed into? The world has changed and he needs a new story. But no one ever told it to him. What if my sister had kissed frog Dad and a prince had popped out? The old story prince, from another time, another age. What’s his equipment? A sword. A white stallion. A wedding ring. A castle somewhere? What’s the modern girl princess gonna do with that stuff? She wants her own equipment. A good sound system, two credit cards and a stash of Ecstasy for the weekend. And her own gonk.

As it happens, Dad’s stallion was a fucking beat-up Merc. Worse than the minicabs Girl keeps in business. Dodgy protection, like I said before. The prince Dadness didn’t even know the words of the old story. Hop onto my stallion and I’ll lead you to a better life. He sold his fucking knacker’s-yard stallion to his kiddies. And then he cried. Hollered. Clutching princess Girl’s hand. Putting the car keys into her hand for danger money. Girl who can’t drive. Now I know where Girl gets the crying gene from. I really thought Dad was going to cry himself into the atom structure. Into the concrete. Cry himself into the brick walls and tarmac and old fridges and cookers lying around the place. Lou Lou Lou Louise. Saying it over and over like it was a magic spell. Jeeezus. Get my sister a Ramos Fizz immediately. Six parts gin etc. But don’t get her loving me too much.

I’ve hardened up. Scholars have to. It’s not ideal to experience pathos and terror first hand. We must push on into the future, cry over better stuff than this. So I just asked Him the only thing I want: Where’s Mom, where’s Mom, where’s Mom? And Dad mutters something about how he hasn’t got the words. You know what? He’s right. He hasn’t got the words. You’d think tragedy would teach us about ourselves and the world. Well, it’s taught Dad fucking nothing. He has no tragic vision, no stature of any kind. Future Dad will have the words. He’ll have the equipment. The feelings. He will be All There. Cos otherwise he’s just frog Dadness, and there’s a shortage of princess girls to kiss him better. A regular famine of princess material. Heh heh heh. I’ve suffered for my insights.

But my time has come. Once I’ve sorted out this Mom thing, nothing will stop my manliness walking proud in the twenty-first. Yep. I’m gonna walk tall with Raj. Cos Raj is the best thing England’s got going for it. And Raj’s moment has come. Via the Merc.

Frog Dad disappears into his house. Probably eating slime and flies while his kiddies check out their pain-family inheritance. Neither of us have a clue how to drive it home. Girl turns the key and what do you know? It starts first time.

Now what? We don’t even know what thing is clutch, what is accl and what is brake. Not for one moment are we going to ask frog death. Girl turns off the ign while I make a call to Raj. I’m standing in the phone box at the end of the road, begging him to catch the train up to Notts and save us. He’s saying there’s no one to look after the shop.

‘Raj, close the shop. You’ll love this Merc. It’s beauty and truth, Raj! So damn big you could fit the whole of your dad’s shop inside it. Drive us home, will you? Look, Raj,’ I scream, ‘if we see the whiteboyz who stuck blades in your school desk, we’ll pulp ’em like you said you wanted to, okay?’

Raj isn’t falling for that one. I’ve done too much work on him. It’s the Merc that gets him. I offer him one-third ownership if he drives us home.

It’s dark by the time Raj arrives. Girl’s going nuts because we can’t even kill time with a cocktail. Frog father doesn’t live in cocktail land. Too much time on our hands. Saviour Raj. Speechless when he sees the Merc. Can’t believe he’s travelled all this way to part-own something stuck together with frogspit.

Girl is on best behaviour. Gives him a little kiss on his ear. So he gets into the driver’s seat, Girl in the front with him, I’m in the back. We all take a deep breath, Girl chanting mantra for a Frozen Matador, four parts tequila etc., and the fucking automobile starts, no problem. First time. Raj cheers up a bit. Puts his foot down with a bit of ownership pride. Jeezus. Frog Dad even gave us a full tank! Girl’s relaxing now. Stretches out her legs, sneaks secret glances at Raj. Never seen her do that. Raj is showing her how to do the business. The gears, clutch, handbrake, mirror. Apparently you have to look in the mirror a lot. I can do that. And then, just as it’s all going so well, the Merc shudders and cuts out. Girl and I were expecting it, of course. Our pain inheritance wasn’t going to be four seven eleven, was it? So we’re all out in the cold while Raj is mending stuff, swearing about what a pile of shit this wreck is, how it’s going to take him a year to strip it down and get it on the road. Nowhere to even buy a Cornish pasty. I mean, what’s the point of England if you can’t even buy a Cornish pasty in the Midlands? I’m telling Raj how he’s the brother I never had and Raj is telling me how much he’s going to charge me for the new parts he’s going to have to buy. Girl’s smoking one menthol after another, trying to get frog-prince grief out of her head. Raj is lying right under the Merc disaster now. I’m promising him a Billy pizza experience when we get back home. That gets Girl screaming so loud the rear light falls off. Raj stands up, groaning. Instructs Girl to mend the light with the tape in his toolkit. Miming with his fingers, round and round. Raj watches her, hands on his snake hips. Runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Girl and Billy England,’ he mutters, ‘the whole family is fucked .’ Girl smiles. Next thing I know, she’s in the driving seat, and Raj is sitting next to her. I’m lonesome in the back and Girl’s driving as if she was born with a car key in her mouth.