Graffiti My Soul (7 page)

Disappointingly, none of the boys have broken anything. Pisses us both off. We thought that was one of our better performances. Still, it did get me top prize, Kelly Button's hand down my trousers at the ropey the following afternoon. She thought I'd been fantastic.

Moon's meeting with Year Head is way shorter and limited to shouting or finger-wagging. Something to do with Gwyn being head girl and putting in a good word. Her parents do the grounded thing, but unlike most, because they're older and don't have a life, make sure she adheres to it.

Moon lives across the road. It's impossible to avoid each other, but somehow, with her pushy parents' help, she finds a way. I don't hear from her for over a week.

17

Moon's death has pushed everyone who's left living into an alternative universe. We don't talk to each other; we all float around like helpless fatties bobbing randomly in this sea of significant glances. Mum's been doing it so much lately she's starting to look mental. If you stuck your head through our window of an evening, you'd think we were a family of autistics – me with my arms folded across my chest, sat watching the TV and letting the dinner on my tray grow cold; her sitting on the sofa opposite, watching me watch the TV. Sound up so loud you can hear it from Broadhurst. Our house has become Loony Tunes, but you can't diss – it's Mum we're talking about. She's so worried, she's
this
close to giving me my computer back.

Gwyn isn't so kind. She is hurting more than I can imagine, but that shouldn't mean that what I had with Moon should be brushed off as insignificant. She talked to me more than she did her family. Man, we were tight. Her parents realise it, so why doesn't she? How is it that Gwyn can walk past me in town one day without a word?

It's mid-morning, and there's next to no one in the mall. I'm in town purely for something to do. Mum's given me a shopping list and thirty quid. Figures it's as good a first step as any.

Pushing the trolley is satisfying, and I tell Mum this later. Mentally ticking each item off the list, bagging them up at the till, picking a ripe avocado for Mum as a surprise treat, makes me feel like I'm doing something. First time since …

I'm struggling with the shopping as I walk out of Tesco and spot the bitch sister. Gwyn knows how to play it. She isn't worried about hiding or sparing anyone's feelings. There is no diving behind the flower stand, or disappearing into Oasis as soon as she clocks me.
Instead, eyes fixed firmly in the distance, probably as far as Starbucks, at the mall's furthermost entrance, she flicks the volume on her iPod and walks past me.

Only the fact that we're within touching distance gives it away. Closer than touching distance. The fibres from our coats are virtually frotting. Her tidy pace means nothing. You don't walk that close to anyone by accident.

It makes me even more confused. Two nights before the funeral we're crying down the phone at each other. Expressing all kinds of regret that we've been unable to spill before our parents. Then, at the wake, when I thought things were getting friendly, we nearly get into a fight. I was going upstairs for a slash, and tried to peek into Moon's room. She jumped on me like some shemale from WWF. Dropped the lady-like act. Approaching sounds on the stairs cut her short. And now I'm being treated like a ghost. This grief is a funny thing. I don't know what to think.

I watch her as she bobs past the flower stand and the Body Shop, following as she curves down the final stretch, and losing her at Starbucks where she drowns in a splurge of freshly latte'd pensioners. She looks as immaculate as ever. One of those girls who've come straight out of the catalogue. She may be into all things rock, but Gwyn never looked like a teenager in her life. She never saw the point. When Moon dyed her hair red, she was a bitch for days about it. Not even the parents were as bothered.

The moment is so quick as to be unbelievable. It's only when I see her pace quicken as she reaches the mall doors, a slight skip breaking into a run. Some silly old church-goer dithering with her M&S bags gets in her way and is almost pushed aside. I realise that I didn't imagine it. This is the silent treatment. She acts like she knows.

All the way home, I'm still shivering from that brief moment of contact. Temperature dropping, like my circulation's gone haywire. It's a feeling similar to when Moon used to touch me. Especially on those nights after she disappeared from her boyfriend, when our meetings
had to be brief. Those hour-long meetings, sometimes shorter than that, were all about news, and food, and touch. Not sex, nothing like that, more a sense of confirmation. We couldn't keep our hands or lips off each other. A touch that jump-starts my circuits. A touch that makes me feel. Don't ask me to explain how a static touch from Gwyn gives me exactly the same feelings. It just does.

18

Pearson's face is a picture. Skin the colour of a tomato that's been kicked down several flights of stairs. Nose flat like a pancake because I've almost broken it. Looks like he's been slapped in the face with a giant fly swatter, or as if he's the last one squeezed into the tube carriage as the doors slide shut. It's a result.

In my mind, his looks have been permanently busted. The prettyboy thing he does with those caterpillar eyebrows that gets the girls all wobbly, even the sensible ones, is gone for good. Except, the ladies don't seem to see it that way. Think his squished-out nose makes him look sexier, more of a bruiser. I couldn't do anything about messing up the puppy-dog eyes, that was my mistake. Injured boat with eyes like that is always going to win the girls round. Combined with the thick lips, it's an unbeatable killer combo. Enough to make you sick.

And boy, does he milk it. For the next few days, once the suspension nonsense is over with, he's with a different girl at every break, giving them the inside story on his physical discomfort. Working the lie that he's holding back tears, the fucker.

Get a girl on her own, buy her a pizza slice and a drink, get some sob story going, and it's pretty much in the bag. If me and Jase didn't have a reputation for being so difficult, we'd probably be acting exactly the same. There are at least three girls that we've heard of in
the last week that hung out with him in the sports hall changing rooms after school. And ‘hanging out' figures are like icebergs – we all reckon the real figure is much higher. Way higher.

Pearson's good fortune nags at me until it becomes torture, and for two reasons. The fact that he's getting more than he deserves, and the fact that it's all down to me. I meant to disfigure the bastard, and now it looks like I've done him a favour. And while I'm sat home stewing after school, he's seeing all the tit he can down the sports hall, and all because I gave him a pasting. It sucks.

19

‘I'm being sued. That's why I'm late.'

It's raining, really belting, so I'm forced to take up Casey's offer of a lift home from training. Mum is on early shift, so won't see when he drops me door to door.

‘Who would want to sue you? Some geezer offended by your new choice of trackie?'

The Clio smells of kebabs and booze. I inhale like it's an essential oil or something, unless I want to open the window and get completely soaked.

We're not even driving anywhere, it's raining so hard. Sat in the car park, until Casey gets better road vision – he only has one wiper that works. It's a traditional English still life that some old artist or other forgot to paint: ex-pervert and future athletics star getting cosy in Clio at dawn. They should put it on plates.

Casey is on overdrive with his clearing-the-throat action. If you closed your eyes you'd think he was starting a tractor. Several football pitch areas of forest are cleared before he can get the words out.

‘My favourite family from last year. Claiming emotional damage.'

His tone is all over the shop. Was trying to be flippant, but his
voice goes too high. Makes him sound like he's going to start crying or something.

I can't deal with this: men showing emotion in public so early in the morning, and then the smell. It's enough to make me leg it. Better a chest cold than all this blubbing and rank stinkiness.

But I don't go anywhere. We've never spoken about that family before. Never. Unspoken rule number 4578. Drafted via psychic powers during our first meeting at the now-legendary out-of-the-way Starbucks. People will pay pilgrimage to that fucking Starbucks in Walton after I've become famous and told Trevor McDonald the secrets of my life.

‘I don't understand the greed of the these people. I'm an innocent man, but they are not happy until they have stripped every single thing from me.'

‘Tell them to fuck off. You're the one who had his house burned down and everything.'

Casey laughs the dry, brittle laugh which adults are so good at when they are trying to show you the weight of experience they carry on their broken shoulders.

‘You've got a lot to learn, Mr V-pen. Damaged kids, whether the cause is real or imaginary, is the Holy Grail when it comes to compensation claims. Me and my shabby lot don't even come close.'

‘Ask me and I'll do it. Just say the word. Me and Jase can go round and rough the kid up a little. Persuade him to change his mind.'

‘It's not about him, young Turk. It's about the parents. That kid's no better off than I am. We're both cash cows as far as they're concerned.'

At race meets, I do remember the kid's mother being a little on the showy side. She was always wearing hats.

‘I'm sure they've got the best intentions,' I say stupidly, only because I can't think of anything better to say.

Better this, than lamely trying to convince him that everything will be all right if he leaves it to the proper channels, because we all
know that it won't. Once your card has been marked as a PPP, there's no going back. It's over. You may as well kill yourself.

Casey doesn't answer. Just opens the door and runs out. Crumbles under the pressure of trying to be brave. Shoulders heave a great deal, up and down until they're like jelly. I turn on the radio and pretend that I don't see it.

20

Moon and Gwyn are the girls that we are all looking for. Even saying their name together over and over makes them sound like thirteenth-century princesses.

Moonandgywnmoonandgwynmoonandgywn.

Magical. If there was any justice or romance left in this world, they should be riding white horses and wearing wimpoles. We're doing medieval at the moment. Like most of the girls around them, even the ones they're not friendly with, or hate even, these are sisters who know their own minds. No insecurity here – or none they'll show to boys, anyway. Also, they are straight-edged all the way – which, for anyone over thirty, means that they're alcohol-, nicotine-and narcotic-free zones. Moon keeps a bit of gear under her bed, but like me never touches the stuff. Uses it for – how does she put it? – ‘man magnetism hahaha'. The irony being that those girls don't need a cheeba wand to get any boy hooked. They are beguiling enough. Look at me and Jase. Caught.

21

Pearson's success with the ladies post-fight makes me feel a whole load of things, like a sick stew. I don't like to feel uncertain about anything. On the way home from school I shag Kelly Button under the ropey. It's too muddy for us to do it properly. We wriggle in the mud like a couple of rugby players. It's Kelly's fault for being up for anything. Our route home through the park takes in a clutch of bushes, where we try again, this time with her mouth. Just to make sure.

22

Moon decides to reappear for the next Challenge session. Nothing to do with having the afternoon off school or anything. As the team's official bag carrier/supporter, she's allowed. Everyone else has to pull a sickie or grovel.

This is a week since the so-called exclusion. I'm pissed at her and she knows it. She sits next to me on the minibus all the same, but we say nothing until we're almost past Chessington, en route to Godalming.

‘I know you've been coming round every day after school,' she goes. ‘I could hear you from my room. It's been a bitch. But when my parents say grounded, they mean it.'

‘Moon, it ain't that hard. Haven't you heard of MSN, slipping a note through the door late night, coming down to training with the dog?'

I knew not to txt after being gloated at by Gwyn outside the
newsagent's, whilst Jason was arguing with the woman inside over why a packet of Benson Silver should pass across the counter.

‘They've taken her phone off her, troublemaking boy, so don't waste your precious 5ps with your texts.'

Gwyn was known as the only girl in the upper school who didn't own a mobile as a point of principle. She thought it made her cool.

‘There was life before mobile phones,' she'd more than once said. ‘They're worse than TVs for vegetising the brain.'

The three of us thought she was sad.

‘It's lucky she doesn't have a phone,' goes Jason, when he finally comes out of the newsagent, fagless, ‘'cos she doesn't have any friends to call on it. Just a smokescreen, innit?'

Moon doesn't mention the txt thing either. Too embarrassed probably, but still manages to look affronted the way that only girls can do when they're in the wrong.

‘I was grounded. That means being a good girl and listening to her mummy and daddy.'

‘Like you didn't manage to sneak off all those times before? You'll need a better excuse than that.'

Aside from this, I cannot get any more from her on how she's spent the last seven days.

She uses the journey to focus solely on the team. Like me, she takes her position seriously. Getting Mr Morgan to crank up the stereo whenever a good tune comes on, doing her impression of every saddo boy band all rolled into one after a horrific car accident; it's all geared to make the four of us in the bus laugh our arses off. Even Peter Kei, aka Chinese Peter (like Gwyn, a reluctant teenager, who is so serious that he never laughs at anything), broke a smile at Moon's seated moonwalk for paraplegics.