When She Was Good, page 6
I asked him how it stayed up.
“What do you mean?”
“Why doesn’t it fall over?”
“You balance it. You must have ridden a bike before.”
“No.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“How can I pull your leg when I’m back here?”
He laughed and I felt foolish. Angry. I didn’t speak to him again for the rest of the way home, and when we reached the big house I went inside without saying good-bye.
When Terry picked me up the next time, I opened the car door without waiting for him and sat in the back seat, directly behind him, so he couldn’t see me in the mirror. I didn’t answer any of his questions or laugh at his stupid jokes. And I didn’t fall asleep and let him carry me to the car when it was time to go home.
The time after that, I got in the Merc and saw a shiny plastic helmet on the seat. We drove. I said nothing. I ran my finger over the helmet. He caught sight of me but said nothing.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise, but you have to get changed.”
“Why?”
“You can’t ride a bike dressed like that.”
He tossed a bag over the seat. It had a pair of jeans, a sweater, socks, and sneakers.
“I won’t look,” he said, tilting the mirror.
I got changed and sat up front until we arrived at a bike shop in a small town with a stone bridge over a river.
“Is this your little girl?” asked the woman behind the counter. “What pretty hair.” She reached out to stroke my head.
Terry blocked her, knowing I don’t like people touching me. “We want to rent two bikes.”
She took us out back where dozens of bikes were propped on stands or hanging on racks by their front wheels. She measured me up against a height chart before adjusting the seat and handlebars on a purple bike with a white basket on the front. She took longer to find a bike for Terry because he was so big. She put extra air in the tires, which seemed to sag when he put his backside on the seat.
The woman showed us a map with different bike paths along the canal or around the grounds of a castle. Terry folded the map into the pocket of his jeans and we wheeled our bikes to the towpath.
He leaned his bike against a tree and took mine, lifting the back wheel and spinning the pedals until they were the same height.
“This is the brake, OK? But the trick is not to stop. You have to keep pedaling. If you slow down, you’ll get all wobbly. The more speed, the easier it gets.”
“What if I crash?”
“Aim for the water.”
My eyes went wide.
“I’m joking. I won’t let you crash.”
I sat on the seat. Terry had one hand on the handlebars and the other hooked into the back of my jeans.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“One… two… three.”
He pushed me and I lurched forward, steering wildly. He held me steady and pointed me along the path.
“Pedal… pedal… faster.”
He was running next to me, holding on to the seat, occasionally touching the handlebars to straighten me up. I made it about fifty yards, splashing through puddles, before Terry stumbled and let go. I crashed into a bush and grazed my knee.
“You OK?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to give up?”
“No.”
We tried again. I pedaled and Terry ran alongside me, puffing and sweating. As I got faster, he grew slower, until I realized that he wasn’t holding on to me. I looked over my shoulder and almost steered into the canal but corrected in time.
“Keep going,” he yelled. “Don’t stop.”
I kept pedaling. It was like I was floating over the ground. Trees and bushes and fences and canal boats were rushing past me. I was free. I wanted to keep pedaling into the future, away from Mrs. Quinn and the uncles and aunts and the “special friends.”
I heard Terry’s voice. He was behind me, getting closer. He overtook me at speed, making a brmmmm brmmmmm noise like he was riding his motorbike. He had his bum in the air, off the seat, and he was pedaling with his knees going out at strange angles. I laughed because he looked like a circus clown on a tricycle.
We rode our bikes for miles along the towpath, until we collapsed under a tree, ignoring the wet grass and staring up at the sky.
“What’s your real name?” he asked.
“It’s whatever you want it to be.”
“You don’t have to talk to me like that—I’m not like those other men.”
He looked at me with his soft eyes, but I didn’t believe him. Not yet.
10 CYRUS
My skin crawls. My skin screams. My skin bleeds. Each prick of the needle creates an odd sensation, a mixture of pleasure and pain as the endorphins send signals to my brain. Sometimes, if I concentrate hard enough, I imagine I can feel the ink spreading out beneath the epidermal layer, painting me inside and out. I wonder what a tattoo looks like from the inside. Is it a mirror image, or is it like a tree, taking root beneath the skin? Alive. Growing.
Badger is working on a hummingbird on my inner right arm, above the elbow. I traced the design from a book I found in the library. I don’t know what it means. I could find some symbolism, but that’s not how I roll.
I’ve known Badger since I was seventeen. That’s not his real name. I think it might be John Smith, which couldn’t be less appropriate. Badger is not a cliché. Badger is a purist. Badger is an artist. He works without a machine, using a needlebar wrapped in gauze, which he holds like a paintbrush between his fingers. He dips the needle into the ink and leans forward, working freehand, puncturing my skin with a steady hand.
He looks like a Viking warrior with his woven beard, piercing blue eyes, and shaved head. Tattoos cover his arms and neck, some as delicate as lacework, creating the impression that he’s wearing an extra set of clothes beneath his tight-fitting T-shirt.
After my parents died, my grandparents did their best to make me feel loved and protected, but they couldn’t save me from my survivor’s guilt. I became a cutter and gouger, using razor blades, knives, box cutters, and protractors to carve insults into my skin.
COWARD
TRAITOR
LIAR
FAKE
I wrote in capital letters. Always somewhere on my skin that could be hidden beneath clothing.
PHONEY
FRAUD
WIMP
These homemade tattoos were eyesores until Badger found a way of hiding the evidence of my troubled youth, covering them with proper artwork. I know the various theories about tattoos, but mine are not meant to reinforce my identity or facilitate reflection or celebrate a core belief or make me stand out. I don’t see them as a badge of rebellion or defiance or attention seeking or alternative living, any more than they are a sign of low self-esteem or masochism. I do not seek to belong or to protest or to be part of a culture, and my body is not a billboard or a message. The needle is my escape and my salvation. The needle turns art into suffering and suffering into art and speaks to nobody except me.
Right now I’m in Badger’s studio in the Lace Market district of Nottingham. Maverink is a cross between a barber shop and a dentist surgery, with tilting leather chairs and sterilization cabinets. The only difference is the corkboards, pinned with drawings and photographs. New designs and old ones.
Badger has a flat upstairs where he lives with Tilda, his wife, who has flawless skin. Unmarked. Unstained. Inkless. Tilda has never wanted a tattoo, yet she loves Badger with a passion that is obsessional. She’s the granddaughter of a Tory MP, a former minister, who once accused Badger of having kidnapped and deflowered his only grandchild. This could explain why the studio has twice been raided by the police, looking for drugs or stolen property, but Badger refuses to blame anyone or to bear a grudge. It’s only a matter of time, he says, before Tilda’s family accepts him.
He rolls back his stool. “Want a break?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, I need one.”
I glance at my arm, seeing the bloody outline of a bird caught in midflight, hovering beneath my biceps.
“How is Tilda?” I ask.
“She wants a baby.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“I’m an anti-natalist.”
“A what?”
“I believe that we should avoid bringing children into the world because all human life involves suffering and death.”
“But having babies is how we got here.”
“Yes, that’s the biological paradox,” says Badger, wiping his needle. “We are the only creatures to have evolved a consciousness, which means we can analyze our fate. We want to live, but we know we are destined to die. Any other outcome is a self-deception, and the only way to avoid inflicting this fate upon others is to abstain from procreation.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking.
“Don’t you want a little Badger running around the place?”
“Kant said a man should never be used as a means to an end, but always be an end in himself.”
“What does Tilda think about that?”
“She thinks I’m talking out of my arse.”
“You’re lucky to have her.”
“Very true.”
Badger examines his handiwork. “That’s enough for today. I’ll start adding the colors next time.” He tapes a large square of gauze over the tattoo and seals the edges. “Avoid direct sunshine and try to keep it dry. Change the dressing every day.”
I carefully pull my shirt onto my arms and over my shoulders.
“Does the gentleman require anything for the weekend?” asks Badger, playing the barber routine.
“You could find someone for me,” I say.
“A girlfriend?”
“No. A person.”
He frowns. “I don’t do that stuff anymore.”
“Nothing illegal.”
Badger spent his early twenties running with a digital hacktivist group called Anonymous, who became famous for their Guy Fawkes masks and voice-changed online posts. This loose collection of computer geeks and hackers launched cyber attacks against governments, corporations, institutions, and the Church of Scientology, protesting a list of grievances that grew longer by the month. That’s why Badger dropped out. He said their aims were never clear. Some were against capitalism or corporate greed or economic inequality or organized religion or democracy or censorship, while a few were outright anarchists aiming to torch the world to see what happened next.
“Who do you want to find?” he asks.
“Two people,” I say, pushing my luck. “Do you remember Eugene Green?”
“The pedophile?”
“I’m looking for his mother. She was living in Yorkshire when Green stood trial. She came to the court every day and sat in the public gallery. But I can’t find a phone number or an address.”
“What’s the other name?”
“Terry Boland was murdered seven years ago in London. I’m looking for his ex-wife, Angela Boland. She was living in Ipswich when they were married.”
“Why can’t the police help you?”
“It’s a personal request.”
Badger understands the subtext.
“I’ll cover your costs,” I add.
“When have I ever asked for money?” he says dismissively. “You can come to dinner on Saturday. Tilda has been asking. She likes you.” He makes it sound surprising. “She’ll probably try to set you up with someone. Her friends are pretty nice. A couple of them are batshit crazy, but you’re just the man to sort them out.”
Tilda yells down the stairs, “My friends are not batshit crazy.”
“Please stop eavesdropping,” calls Badger.
“Is he coming?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
11 EVIE
Vegetables boiled to a pulp, grey-looking mystery meat, and mashed potato that looks like yesterday’s porridge. I bet lab rats eat better than we do.
Ruby has saved me a seat and is shoveling food into her mouth.
“How can you stomach this shite?” I ask.
“You haven’t tasted my mum’s cooking.”
Davina looks at my untouched plate. “You have to eat, Evie.”
“I had a big lunch.”
“At least have an apple.”
“Can I have a yogurt?”
She sneaks a tub from the breakfast trolley.
“You’re too good to me.” I blow her an air-kiss. An apple and a yogurt—I’ll be feasting tonight.
After dinner we have to spend an hour doing homework in the library, which is more of a sheltered workshop full of painting easels and board games instead of books. The jigsaw puzzles have so many missing pieces, we play a game called What the Fuck Is That.
Ruby sits next to me for study period. She’s a good person and that’s not an easy thing to say about everybody in this place. I think she’s prettier than I am, but Ruby doesn’t seem to care about how she looks, not bothering to wear makeup or to wash her hair. She thinks Cyrus wants to marry me, which is laughable. Nobody will ever want to marry me.
On the screwed-up scale, Ruby is close to a ten, but she isn’t cruel, and she doesn’t bully people. She used a lot of weed when she was younger, which is why she suffers from memory loss and mood swings and something she calls the “black dog.” Nobody knows what sends her into her dark place, but mostly she hurts herself rather than other people. I’ve seen the scars on her wrists, and I know she keeps a pocketknife hidden in the lining of her coat. I guess I should tell Davina about the knife, but Ruby would never speak to me again, and she’s promised not to use it without telling me first.
She was sent to Langford Hall because she set fire to her school. And before that, she crashed her stepdad’s car and got caught with a bottle of OxyContin, which she stole from her mum because her mum was addicted to the stuff.
“Why didn’t you flush the pills?” I asked her.
Ruby looked surprised, like the thought had never occurred to her.
Some nights she has nightmares, which are so bad that I’ve seen her levitate off the bed, her entire body arching upwards and her mouth locked in a scream. It’s like she’s being electrocuted or she’s that girl from The Exorcist whose head spins around.
That’s why I occasionally let her sleep in my room—even though it’s not allowed. She sneaks in just before the doors are locked at night and sleeps nearest the wall, so that anyone looking through the observation window can only see one person in my bed. We’re not gay or anything like that. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with girl-on-girl action, or boy-on-boy, or them-on-them. Whatever rocks your boat.
After study period we get to hang out in our rooms and watch TV for a couple of hours before the lights are turned out.
“Can I sleep in your bed?” Ruby asks.
“We’ll get caught.”
“Not if we’re careful.”
“No spooning,” I say. “And you have to stay in the bathroom until the lights go out.”
At nine forty-five the room goes dark. Ruby slips into bed next to me and lies nearest the wall. Her arms slip around me.
“I said no spooning.”
“This is hugging.”
* * *
All summer and autumn Terry drove me to my sleepovers, which is what Mrs. Quinn called them. She woke me on those mornings, pulling back the curtains and flooding the bedroom with light. “You’re going out today,” she’d say, opening my wardrobe and sliding dresses along the rail, choosing my clothes. Sometimes I had to dress younger. Sometimes older. Sometimes my age.
When I didn’t have a sleepover, Mrs. Quinn gave me books to read and let me watch TV, or she tested me on my maths and spelling.
“Is Uncle coming today?” I’d ask. That’s what I was supposed to call the man whose house I lived in, which I thought was funny because Papa used to say, “In times of need, a pig is called uncle.” I never told anyone that.
“You’ll know when I know,” Mrs. Quinn said.
When Terry wasn’t driving me around, he was in charge of grocery shopping. Mrs. Quinn gave him a list, and Terry would always get into trouble for forgetting things or buying the wrong brand of something.
I would hear the car coming and watch from my window as he carried the groceries inside. He waved. I waved back. It had to be secret. Mrs. Quinn let him inside, telling him to wipe his boots. Then she studied the shopping docket and counted the change, making sure he wasn’t “diddling” her.
Creeping downstairs, I watched them through a crack in the door. Terry would try to make Mrs. Quinn smile, teasing her. Then he’d sit at the table and eat leftovers while she packed away the groceries. For some reason I wanted to hug him. I wanted to bury my face in his shirt and smell his smell.
One morning, when he didn’t know I was listening, I heard him ask, “Where did she come from?”
Mrs. Quinn told him to keep his “big trap shut.”
“I’m curious,” he said.
“You’re poking your nose where it’s not wanted. You don’t ask about her. You don’t touch her. You don’t talk to her. Understand?”
“What about when she falls asleep? Someone has to carry her inside.”
Mrs. Quinn made a hmmmmphing sound.
“Is she his daughter?” Terry asked.
“His niece.”
“Really?”
Mrs. Quinn whispered harshly, “Are you deaf!” She looked at the partly opened door, as though frightened someone might be listening. She stepped closer, reaching for the handle. If she opened it, she’d find me, but she pulled it shut. I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Back in my room, I took out the button from my mother’s coat and my collection of colored glass and lined them up on the windowsill. I squeezed the button in my fist and tried to remember what she looked like and the sound of her voice, but the pictures kept blurring in my mind.
Later, when Mrs. Quinn called me for supper, Terry had gone. His motorbike was still near the garage, so he must have taken the car. Why didn’t he take me?
