Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

Billy still not talking. Just grinning. Gulping back his drink. Yeah, Mom is very near. As far as Billy is concerned he’s about to be more than all right. In Mom’s lap. He’s forgotten he’s fifteen. Mom will make him a lickle bowl of soup and he’ll fall asleep on her ample bosom while she strokes his cheek. Louise is withdrawn. In fact she looks downright unhappy. Girl resolves to bring her out of herself. Squeeze a better, braver Louise out of this one. Raj saying something about how the gears are fucked. Trying to get Billy to speak. ‘Come on, Billy man, you can’t be mute at a time like this.’ Billy shakes his head. Nope. Won’t even open his mouth to shout when Raj jerks the car right into an articulated lorry behind him, smashing the boot of the Merc. Puts his foot down before some big bloke pounds his way out of the lorry with ‘LOVE HA HA’ written on his forehead. Respectable speed on this Merc. Raj is in his element. Did a good job on the car. The future is bright. Fast car and a glamorous mad girl to keep happy.

Louise puts her sweet small hands over her mouth and Girl is guffawing because the only sound in the whole damn car is Mr Tens singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’.

‘Keep your pecker up, Mr Tens!’ she screams, knocking back her minibar samples one by one, unscrewing the lids off miniatures and pouring them down her throat. Raj and Girl sing along while Billy claps his hands in time. Should have brought along his guitar. One day he will be as big as Jesus. He’ll save people’s souls and what’s more he’ll do it without a beard.

‘Onward Christian soldiers

marching on to war

dum dum dum da da da.

DUM DUM DUM DA DA DA

DUM DUM DUM DA DA DA …’

Mr Tens is lying flat on his back on Girl’s bed while Billy ties up his hands with one of Mom’s scarves. Yeah. The clothes in Mom’s wardrobe were going to come in useful one day. Billy often takes down the yellow dress, the one with the hem coming down, and sobs into it. A dress so hideous, it was designed for crying in, not partying in, Girl always says. Mr Tens bound like one of his FreezerWorld piglets. Little squeals twisting his lips. Prayers.

Billy sits on Tens’s chest. Got a piece of paper on his lap and he’s writing a note. MR TENS. YOU ARE GOD’S FREE GIFT TO US, THE SATURDAY BARGAIN. TELL US WHERE OUR MOTHER IS AND WE LET YOU GO.

Mr Tens shaking his head. Complete incomprehension. Billy’s pen moving across the page again.

IF YOU DON’T TELL US WE’LL CUT YOUR TONGUE OFFFFFF. To help Tens make up his mind there’s a little drawing of a severed tongue at the bottom of the page. Little drops of blood gushing all over. Raj has nipped out to get some teabags from the shop. They’re all thirsty after Girl’s miniature minibar molotovs.

‘Yeah, Mr Tens,’ Louise suddenly pipes up. She’s been lurking in the room, crouching by the bed. ‘We’ll cut off your head and mince it.’ A knife suddenly springs up between her thumb and fingers. That really makes Tens scream. Girl has to whack her fist into his mouth again. Blood on her fingernails from last time. Jeezuz. The bloke must have gingivitis. Vulnerable gums. Sensitive teeth. He must have to use a toothpaste with something special in it. Not to mention the toothbrush. Soft bristles. Louise with a knife? Jeeeeeezuz. The girl’s dangerous. A live wire. Billy catches the fear in Girl’s eyes. All they need right now is a Louise explosion.

‘Yeah, Mr Tens.’ Louise stands up. ‘We really will cut your tongue off.’

Billy nods, agreeing with everything Louise says always for ever etc. Rolls up his sleeves. Mr Tens watching. Trembling under the boy Billy. Girl knows she’s got to keep out of this. Louise with a knife? Oh no. No no no no. Girl knows they’ve got to be careful with Louise. That’s because Girl knows she’s got to be careful with her secret Louise girl self. Not a knife. Oh no. Not with all that retard rage waiting for expression. She can hear the door slam downstairs. Raj coming in with the tea. Boiling the kettle. Billy doing something clever. Takes the knife off Louise. Sinks it into his wrist on behalf of Louise’s rage. One clean cut.

His mom’s only son, taking a little of Louise’s rage on for her, that’s the sort of person Billy is. Giving the knife back to Louise because that’s the safest thing to do. He prefers working with his own knife anyway. Billy showing every little detail of his butchery to Mr Tens, whose pupils are spreading all over his eyes. Just blackness now. Especially now, because something has happened to Billy. He is sitting on top of Mr Tens just like his dad sat on top of him, five years old, teaching him how to box.

Except Dad has pinned down Billy’s fists. Smacking Billy in the mouth, saying ‘Let’s see your left paw, son.’ Bashing him and holding down his little body at the same time. Billy lets rip on Mr Tens. Whacking his fifteen-year-old fists into Tens’s pale cheekbones. Slicing him with the side of his hand. Jagger jagger jagger. Bouncing on top of his breathing apparatus, bashing him and, worst of all, thinking it through at the same time. Billy’s fists and Billy’s mind working together. Bruising the pathetic Tens jaw, because he can. There are no safety regulations in this fight, just Billy bashing Dad, cos he’s sitting on top of him and even though Mr Tens is not Dad, he’ll do. Mr Tens trying to get words out of his mouth which is stuffed with Girl’s white-trash fist.

‘Want to say something?’ Girl asks politely.

Tens nodding with his new blackness eyes.

‘Go on then.’

Girl removes her hand. Jeezus. Trust them to pick someone with dental problems. Blood all over her fingers again. Hope he uses a mouthwash tried and tested in laboratories in the industrial UK. Blood from Billy’s cut too. Girl’s not interested in blood at all. She justs wants information from the gulping, stuttering FreezerWorld wizard.

‘Wah wah wwwant ta ta heelp …’

‘Ey? Spit it out, Mr Tens.’ Louise leers in his face.

‘Waaaaaaant to heeelp.’

The bedroom door flings open. Raj carrying a tray. Five mugs of tea. Grinning on account of telling a Stupid Club member to repatriate himself to another local corner shop.

‘I made one for him.’ Raj cocks his head (Billy notices that Raj has found time to brush his hair) towards the bruised and squirming Tens. Raj is deeply shocked at the sight of Mr Tens. There’s a new texture in his voice, a no-go zone. Raj is going to exit if they don’t get a grip. ‘Leave him alone.’

Girl nods obligingly, but she’s ready to slam her fist back into the gingivitis man all the same.

‘Wah wah wwwant to help the dddumb boy.’ At last! Tens has made a sentence. Everyone’s laughing except Billy. Hey, Mr Tens, you really have a way with words that will make you friends and influence people. The Dumb Boy.

‘Go on, then. How you gonna make him talk?’ Girl prods the hostage while Louise takes her teaspoon, dips it into the tea and feeds it to Mr Tens like soup. That’s what her mother did for her. When she was cold, all snot and filth and no sleep.

‘I’m a bb bah bah bbbit of a healer.’ Is Tens trying to save his penis? What, for Mr Tens? For FreezerWorld? For FreezerWoman?

‘Do it then. Heal the wounded.’ Raj is acting cool but he’s also sincere. A little bit of Raj believes Mr Tens’s healing claim. You got to believe and then lose it, don’t you? Or get sad and then find faith? That’s how life on earth works. You make a judgement and then you correct it. Raj wants to hear his friend Billy whine again.

‘La la la look at the space between mah mah mah my eyebrows, Bahbbilly.’

Billy sitting on Mr Tens the bruised breathless healer. All his boy weight pressing down on the man. Complete concentration. This is a tremulous moment in the life of Billy England. He wants a bigger audience. Girl, Louise, Raj. That’s only three. Billy wants some noughts at the end of that number. Choosing the spot between the eyebrows. Focus there. Beam in his pain biography to that place. Send it to Mr Tens unadulterated. Don’t clean it up. Send it dirty like it is. Breathe in and shoot out a pain laser that contains everything Billy England is, right between the healer’s eyes.