Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

Go .

Raj finds his knuckles are in his mouth. Girl is chewing the ends of her hair. Louise sipping her tea. Billy is completely still and silent but Mr Tens is writhing. Sweat dripping from his eyebrows into his bleeding mouth. Gasping. ‘GahGahGah …’

Time for Louise to spoon more tea into her boss’s mouth. After all, he does pay her her wages in a little brown envelope every Friday. Mustn’t upset him too much.

‘Gah gah gah.’

Girl is getting restless. ‘Come on, Mr Tens. You’re the one supposed to make my brother talk. Not doing so well yourself.’

Mr Tens suddenly sits bolt upright, throwing Billy off him, warm sugary tea dribbling out of his trembling lips. ‘Gah gah ded!’ he howls. ‘Gah ded.’

Billy scrambling to get up. Thrown onto his stomach, caught in the fringe of the rug in Girl’s room. A caveboy struggling with faith, the elements and the shame of beating Mr Tens. He thought he was above that. What with his books and scholarship. Trying to find his pen and paper.

Raj is genuinely worried. ‘Why did you have to go and do that to the man?’ he whispers, taking a pencil from his jeans pocket, nervous when his friend grabs it and starts writing furiously, all the while Louise stroking Mr Tens’s forehead. It’s like her boss is in labour. Gah Gah ded contractions every minute. Crying out.

RAJ I AM ThE ONly HEALER IN THIS ROOM. UNDERSTAND?

Raj reading the Billy note, nodding just to be on the safe side but he doesn’t have comprehension of anything any more. Billy crossing out stuff, writing more. Girl can’t be bothered to wait for her brother.

‘Look, Mr Tens. You make announcements in FreezerWorld, don’t you?’

Vigorous nodding from the gibbering hostage.

‘Right. One of the announcements said, “Louise call Grand-Dad. If his horse hasn’t come home he might be ill.”’

Tens choking now, but still nodding.

‘Who gave you that note to announce, Mr Tens?’

Louise pouring tea into her boss’s mouth. He’s stopped shaking. In fact his pale face is begining to tan. Some kind of sunlight whispering through Tens, despite the choking and howling. He is a man who has been penetrated by a fifteen-year-old boy. Penetrated by revelation. He can only describe it (and he will, if he lives to make another FreezerWorld broadcast) as a rock cracking under an immense lonely sky. Between the two halves of rock is just space. Tens has entered that space. Emptied of God belief but fattened with belief all the same. A mortal man touched, literally, with the pain of a mortal boy. The boy is the carrier of the pain, but Tens knows that it is a paincrowd that touched him. Mothers and fathers and goverment policies and vitamin lack and self-taught languages and menthol inhalings. There was even an Alsatian dog present in the pain glare that blitzed him between the eyes and nudged God out of his solar system. Recipes and technologies and highway codes. He has been penetrated by castration theories and pain ash, lager longing and boy autonomy insistence; there is even a road in Nottingham grazing Tens’s third-eye space, plus pepperoni-pizza enlightenment and silver loafers and sentiment leaking, crashing into each other. Tens is fighting through a Looney Tune vortex with ‘That’s all folks’ flashing on and off, soundbites from Freud and Darwin and Jackie Collins. Tens is a changed man. Godless but full up all the same.

‘Yes.’ Mr Tens speaks with clarity and confidence. ‘Someone did give me a note to read.’ He looks at Louise and smiles gently. ‘Mrs O’Reilly.’

Girl kicks the bed. ‘Who the fuck is Mrs O’Reilly?’

It’s Louise’s turn now. Plaiting her blond hair. Sitting close to Mr Tens. ‘My mother.’

‘That’s right, Louise.’ Mr Tens has found his voice again.

‘Don’t talk to me like that.’ Louise pounces on her boss. Tearing at his little bow tie like it’s his intestines.

‘How do you want me to talk to you, Louise?’ The hostage man floundering again. Finding his way and then losing it almost immediately.

‘I work for my shit money. There’s plenty more shit out there for me to get up in the morning for so don’t come on like you’re giving me free air miles, Captain fucking Tens!’

‘Mrs O’Reilly?’ Girl has changed tactics. She’s threatening Louise. ‘Come on, who is she?’

‘Mrs O’Reilly took Louise in,’ Tens explains. Yes. He’s been missing his FreezerWorld Broadcasting. Mr Tens has become addicted to an audience. Even here, when he should be somewhere else, somewhere safer, more familiar, he’s pleased to have knowledge he can share. Somewhere inside, he knows he’s going to be all right. ‘Louise ran away from home and Mrs O’Reilly was kind enough to take her in.’

Louise has made two perfect plaits out of her blondness. Pinning them up with her new plastic heart hair slides. Her horror eyes flirt with Girl. Nearly there. One more tug with the hairgrip. ‘She got me the job at FreezerWorld.’

Billy is putting on his jacket. Tying up his trainer laces. Pulling a comb through his hair. Wrapping his shirt sleeve tight over his new cut. Nothing serious. Preparing himself. He looks at Girl and she nods. Pale and cold.

‘Get up !’ She yanks Mr Tens off the bed. ‘Take us to Mrs O’Reilly, then. Get up now!’

Raj is already dangling the Merc keys, ready to drive Girl and Billy anywhere they want to go. He wants the Englands to be happy and safe. He wants them to be all right. And Louise too. Thing is, Louise and Tens have some weird complicity. They’re like a sort of family. Hating and loving each other.

‘My mother works nights sometimes.’ Louise says meekly, but her eyes are snared with Girl. Taunting her.

That’s just too much for Girl. She doesn’t care what Raj thinks of her any more. She leaps on Louise. Wrestles her to the floor. Pulls her hair and punches her face. Billy holding off Mr Tens who wants to rescue Louise princess. No fucking way, Mr Tens. Girl is a princess too. Billy knows that. He always tells his sister so. Forget this Evil thing. That’s for Stupid Club. That’s for medievalists on buses all over the city. In their mixed fibres and High Street shoes shouting Evil Evil Evil cos it’s easier than shouting Pain Pain Pain. Fifteen minutes of medieval fame. Girl is a princess too. A princess for the twenty-first.

‘Where is she where is she where is she ?’ Girl scrunches Louise’s cheeks in her hands, pulling them apart, biting her. Girl teeth marks in Louise. Girl yanking out Louise hair, Girl nails stuck in Louise flesh, but Louise won’t so much as flinch. Not even a tear. Louise, Princess of FreezerWorld. Packing peas for ever. 4 Ever. That’s how the Louise story goes. She did not live happily for ever after. She lived happily 4 ever after. Louise pulls out her knife.

‘Come and get me then, Louise,’ she whispers to Girl. Calling her Louise for the first time. ‘Come and fucking get me. I saw you stalking me. Following me home. Finding excuses to stare at me at work … what do you want to do with me then, Louise?’

Louise. A princess for the twenty-first, armed and alert. Threats spilling from her soft cupid lips, rage in her white girl curves and dainty bitten off nails.

‘Calling me stunted. Calling me retard. Calling my boyfriend a dog. Come and get me then.’

Girl backs away. Pushes her face against the wallpaper of her girlhood bedroom. Louise walks her eyes around the details of Girl’s girl room. Fixes them on Billy who is writing again. He’s writing for Girl’s life. Got to take maternal care of Girl. What Mom should have done, stopped Dad pulping her boy, Girl did. Burnt her very own prince. The first prince in her life. Can’t have a prince that beats up the next heir to the throne, can you? Not good for the kingdom. The orchards rot. Locusts eat the national crop. The water becomes polluted. Billy is a boy with an unspoken message from Mom inside him: Look after Girl.