Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

‘I’ll be driving tonight, if you don’t mind, Raj?’ Mrs O’Reilly gentling her voice.

Raj throws her the keys, turns his back on them all and wipes his eyes on his shirt cuffs. Someone once told him that if you find a single eyelash on your hand, make a wish. It’s lucky. What should he wish for? Sometimes wishes are cumbersome things. Heaving into the universe when they should just spin … like a wish to make someone happy … wishes whispered with a heavy heart. Raj wishes his little brother the electric guitar he’s been pining for. Yelping and pouting his rock-fame routine in front of the bathroom mirror while the whole family queue outside to brush their teeth. Preparing for another day of Stupid Club and rain.

Mrs O’Reilly stares in wonder at the purple interior of the Merc. ‘You made it lovely, Raj,’ she says, climbing in, giving orders as she turns the key and revs up. ‘I want Billy and Louise and Raj in the back, and you in the front with me,’ pointing to FreezerWorld Louise. She stops. ‘Terry, you’re going to have to go in the boot. It’s not far, just a five-minute spin to Pizza Express.’

Terry Tens gibbering again. ‘Peeza pe pe peeeza.’ Louise straightening her boss’s crooked bloodstained bow tie.

Mrs O’Reilly remembering something: ‘Do you want me to pick up Danny on the way?’

‘I’ll see him tomorrow. Not enough room.’

Raj politely leads Mr Tens to the boot. ‘Gently does it,’ he says, helping Tens curl up in foetal position, covering him with a blanket, trying to keep a straight face because all the kids’ shoulders are shaking.

‘Gah Gah … peeeza peeeza peeza …’

FreezerWorld Louise begins to crack up. Mouth wide open, big girl laughter filling the Merc.

Mrs O’Reilly adjusts the mirror so she can keep an eye on her kids in the back. ‘What’s wrong with you all?’

Billy pressing his entire face against the window to stop Terry Tens’s boot laughter exploding the Merc into tiny pieces of boiling metal. Louise and Raj folded into each other screaming hysterically. I mean, how many times in your life do you get to travel in a born-again Merc boot twice in one day? Both Louises spluttering, stopping, spluttering, giving in to complete abandon and howling.

‘I dunno what’s wrong with you lot.’ Mrs O’Reilly reversing now. ‘Don’t you like pizza any more or something?’

‘Mom.’ Billy wipes the snot that’s run into his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Why do you call yourself Mrs O’Reilly? You’re Mrs England, aren’t you?’

Mom shrugs, a bit shaky at the wheel, looking for something in her handbag and trying to steer at the same time. Still writing the words for Terry’s broadcasts in her head. Got to find copy for the delivery of bratwurst on Monday. A new taste sensation to introduce into the lifestyle of the customer. Bratwurst must become as popular as chicken winglets.

‘Suits me better.’

‘Peeza peeza peeza peeza,’ Tens bleating from the boot. Setting them all off again.

‘Did you know your grand-dad died?’

No answer. They haven’t even heard her.

‘He’s left us some money. The two thirty came home.’

Billy and his sister can finish off each other’s sentences without even discussing it. So the old clown’s made them laugh at last. His horse came home! All those years ago when Louise England counted horses in fields on their car drives to Kent, she was secretly searching on Grand-Dad’s behalf for the horse that was going to come home. Now they can learn how to be rich and unfocused. Have no motivation and become junkies. Christ thought he would heal them with his pain but Grand-Dad knew better and healed them with his gambling habit. Perhaps they will sell their pain story to the US chat shows after all? Yeah. Once they have sorted everything out like she … her … what’s her name … Mum … Mom … like their mother says.

Billy hopes that when he sets up his practice, the first patient will be a good-looking blonde with breast enlargements and delusions. He will explain to her that a person who cannot experience pain is a freak. A sideshow wonder. Pricking, tingling, aching, tender, nagging, mild, excruciating.

Time for a weather check. It’s pouring. Pelting down. Lashing on to the screen. The English weather. Why hasn’t Mom put the wipers on? Naaa. Naaaaaa. Click on the wipers? She must know that would be like killing a dragon with a toy sword. Fighting off rage with an aspirin. Trying to save a drowning child by sailing out in a plastic tea cup. Billy’s looking forward to his pizza. In fact he’s not going to order a pizza at all. A change of diet to prepare himself for the can of worms he’s going to open. Perhaps Raj’s dad will take the photo for the back of his book cover? Looks like the old man’s going to be an in-law, the way things are going. Smile, Billy! Smile, Bill-ee boy! Go on, it might never happen! Yeah. He’s going to have Calzone. What’s a Calzone? Just a pizza folded up, with a filling of his choice, isn’t it? Tonight Billy’s going to order a snail Calzone.

Mrs O’Reilly is a real petrol head. She loves being at the wheel, enjoying the feel of the car as she swerves to avoid a newer streamlined model of Mercedes trying to overtake her. She’s found what she’s been fumbling for in her bag, the FreezerWorld marker pen that’s earned her a living and where she first spotted her kids. Looking down from Tens’s office when Girl made her first purchase, an aerosol of red spray paint. MOM CALL HOME GIRL. It was right and proper that they all met up again in the Frozen World. Graffiti runs in the family. Quick as a flash she writes something in big letters across the windscreen. All of them leaning forward to see what the secret scriptwriter for Terry Tens has written in indelible ink on the Merc.

All the other cars beeping their hooters at the lights when they read the screen.

MOM AND HER BROOD.

DEBORAH LEVYwrites fiction, plays and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and she is the author of highly praised books including Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography (both Jonathan Cape) and, most recently, Swimming Home (And Other Stories and Faber and Faber), shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012.