Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

The Merc is now ‘all there’. It’s a good thing I’ve got my books and pain research to keep me preoccupied because I’ve stopped talking. My voice is in hiding and only Mom is going to drag it kicking and screaming out of me. This happened ever since Raj kissed my crazy bitch sister in the back seat of the Merc. Look, Raj is not just my best friend, he is also a patient. I’ve been working on him for some time which is why I didn’t pay a penny when he delivered his bill for the motor. I couldn’t anyway because Grand-Dad cash has stopped. We have not received an envelope for two weeks now. The two-thirty has not come home. It’s probably being mashed up for cat food because in all this time Grand-Dad has never not sent us cash.

Look, if my sister gets intimate with Raj, it’s like me getting intimate with him, and that’s not ethical. Never ever sleep with your patients. Go down that road and you’re a professional without a profession, an omelette without eggs. Time to take myself off to a film. Sit in the dark. Take out my lickle Billy knife and slide it into the seat. It’s known as ‘cutting’ in the mind trade. I have been looking into this knife thing, come to a few conclusions if you’ve got the time to hear me out? I think my little knife is to protect me from being castrated by my mother. Yep, I’ll wait while you fix yourself a Pernod and open the cocktail-hour Twiglets. See, if anyone’s gonna castrate this boy, it’s gonna be me. Gonks. If ever there was a castrated pet toy it’s the gonk. Grew its hair long to cover the severed parts. Honky Gonky. A mummie’s gonk.

I have become my mother in order to prevent my own castration. Someone get me some gripe water, quick! Mom has disappeared but she blinks in my mind all through the night. She never goes to sleep. I study myself through the watchful eyes of my absent mother. She fills the whole screen with her big eye sockets, watching me. Where I score, tho’, is I don’t feel like I’m the wicked son waiting to be punished, nor do I want to destroy her power. I just want some of it. No one is cutting off my dick. No one is even going to lop off my foreskin for religious purposes. One thing I’m sure of: my dick is bigger than Dad’s was. Heh heh heh. Let me explain myself. What I am saying to the distinguished gentlemen assembled here (the local Odeon, as it happens) is that I have access to more masculinities than Dad. I am husband, father, son, brother, virgin, pimp, career man, homme fatale — yep, I’ll wait while you pour yourself another vodka martini. Got any frankfurters? I am a wizard, a vampire, a smart boy with pain problems. So when I cut up the seats, it’s Mom trying to castrate me.

Velvet cinema seats made for watching heroes and heroines fall in and out of love. Girl and I are made for the big screen. We are hero and heroine material and there will probably be a car chase on account of us now having a car because Raj is expressing himself motor manually.

The reason why we are heroic is because we are tragic and flawed. Yep. If there is some kind of catharsis to be had in the future I hope it’s got antiseptic and yards of sterilised gauze waiting for us at the end of it. I have this idea that perhaps the Merc will be like James Dean’s Porsche Spyder. We’ll have an accident, a smash-up, and die young. Word of the tragedy will echo around the world. We will be icons of the alcoholic-lemonade generation. Someone will unearth photographs of us and become famous. A number of these early pics will wind up in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in the table-tennis club in Rotherham. I want the Merc to smash on account of Girl and Raj. Lost my sister and my patient/best friend in one sitting. I’m not going to ever speak again.

When Raj beeped the born-again Merc hooter, Girl and I were wringing our hands in the kitchen because Grand-Dad has let us down. No money to even do a shop and we are big consumers. We need to shop. Shopping for us is like going on a long walk in the countryside. We feel healthier afterwards. We sleep better. Breathe easy. Even if food rots in our fridge, at least we know it is there. Even if cleaning products are never used and gather dust in the cupboard under the sink, we feel all the more clean for owning them. So we are moody when we go outside to see what all the fuss is about. Frankly, we don’t give a fuck about anything at the moment. Grand-Dad, despite his humour problems, equals survival. The world is about to lose Billy England to malnutrition. While the mediocre stuff themselves with mushroom pies and straight men with a famine of masculinities at their fingertips write literary novels in their second homes in France and their wives bring up the kiddies, Billy England is about to die.

Raj beeping the horn again.

There he is! Raj put our pain inheritance into intensive care and today the master surgeon is wearing a new silk shirt to celebrate new Merc life. Revving the engine, his elbow out of the window and a fat Cuban cigar between his fingers.

‘C’mon on in,’ he drawls in this new self-satisfied voice. My crazy fucked sister. A moment ago she was talking about us drowning ourselves in a canal somewhere, and now she’s opening the Merc door like she’s taking a spin to her health club. She sits next to Raj (purple velveteen seats) who shows her the work he’s done ‘on all the controls’ (like this is an aeroplane or something) and then, worst of all, takes her into the back seat where he’s built her a minibar. A minibar! Raj, who is not only wearing a silk shirt but also new Nikes in the shape of spats, puts his arm around my sister while she fiddles about with the hundreds of miniatures some cousin has given him.

‘Hey, Billy man, drive us somewhere.’

Whaat? He knows I can’t drive. For a start there are so many beads and air fresheners in the shape of apples, weird Gods and pears hanging from the mirror, I can’t see out of the front window. Raj coming on like some French playboy from one of those crummy old movies set in a casino, watching Girl mix the miniatures, shake the mixer and pour ’em both some killer brew, forgetting all about me ! Raj knocking it back in one and then kissing my bitch sister full on the lips for about two three four minutes.

What am I supposed to do? Watch? Drive off? Make notes? Go away discreetly on the big day of our Merc delivery? Four minutes is a long time if you live your life intensely. Four minutes. Enough time to let silence fall eloquently over the proceedings. I mean, the Merc is supposed to be one third mine. Seems like the back seat ain’t big enough for three.

Louise feels really hard done by. So she calls on the England children and tells them the truth. Their dad doesn’t know anything. Got no information for them. They’re gawping at her, not believing her, making her feel bad. Worst of all, Billy has stopped talking. Passes little notes across the table to her. HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU ASK DAD WHERE MOM WAS? COME ON! ONE TWO THREE TIMES? WHAT? She can’t even read his writing. Girl has to lean over, swipe the note and read it out loud, making her feel stupid. Who the fuck do they think they are? Girl wants to know what they talked about. Did she get the right house? How can she be sure? Did Dad give her a message for his kiddies? No? Is Louise keeping something back from them? If she is, she better spill the beans. Billy shaking his head. Insinuating she handled it really badly. That she’s no good. Girl snarling at her. The Louise tangle. Okay, what did Dad do when Louise said her name was Louise? But Louise isn’t good at describing things. She doesn’t like setting the scene. It’s not her thing.