Beneath the Earth (22 page)

The students waiting on the ground floor of the library did not seem to understand the concept of queuing. As the line moved forward, each one tried to gain a little ground over the person ahead of them, like a restless crowd pushing forward at a boarding gate. I didn't mind. After all, I was in no hurry and if I muted my iPhone I could take surreptitious photos of girls' shapely ankles without anyone noticing. (I happen to like ankles and have a collection of over seven hundred in a folder on my computer named ‘Ankles'.)

‘Your name?' said the girl behind the desk when my turn arrived. She was subtly perfumed and her outfit had been assembled with the kind of attention that marks the first week, and the first week only, of term.

‘Bikram Sharma,' I said, and she flicked slowly through a box containing hundreds of students' cards. ‘Are they not alphabetical?' I added when it appeared that she was having some difficulty locating it.

‘You would think,' she muttered, occasionally looking up from a picture and cross-referencing it with my face before shaking her head. I hoped that she would give me the wrong one, offering me the card of a boy who looked quite like me (in her eyes) for then I could accuse her of being racist and when she defended herself I would tell her that I was only joking and ask whether she might like to accompany me to the Grad Bar that evening for a drink. The awkwardness of the moment might ensure a positive response.

‘Here you are,' she said finally, handing one across.

‘Thank you,' I said, glad to be officially enrolled at the University of East Anglia where, as I would soon learn, twenty-nine per cent of graduates go on to incredible careers as world-famous novelists! (Or – to put it another way – seventy-one per cent don't.)

‘Oh no,' I said, my voice raising as I glanced at the name inscribed across the plastic. ‘Oh no you didn't!'

‘What's wrong?' the girl asked.

‘It's terrible,' I said, handing it back to her. ‘My name is wrong.'

She looked at it and frowned. ‘What's your name again?' she asked.

‘Bikram Singh Sharma,' I said.

‘But that's what it says.'

‘No, madam, it does not say that,' I told her. ‘It most certainly does not say that. Look closer please.'

She did as I asked. ‘BS Sharma,' she said. ‘It says BS Sharma.'

‘Exactly,' I said. ‘No, this will not do.'

‘Am I missing something?' she asked.

‘My name is Bikram,' I told her. ‘Not BS. Those are initials. And unfortunate ones at that. Don't you see what will happen now?'

‘What?'

‘It's quite clear,' I said, feeling a prickle of perspiration breaking out at the base of my neck. ‘People will see this card and they will not call me Bikram. They will call me Bullshit. Bullshit Sharma.'

She started to laugh and I resisted the urge to bury my face in my hands, which, I have been told before, is an action which does me no favours.

‘I'm sure they won't,' she said.

‘I'm quite certain they will,' I replied. ‘Please, madam, if you can simply change the name on the card, all will be well. I wish to be Bikram, not Bullshit.'

‘Sorry,' she told me. ‘It can't be done.'

‘All things can be done,' I replied, smiling at her in a manner that had once made a school friend of mine in Bangalore take my face in her hands and kiss me on the lips during mathematics class. (Later, she allowed me to take photographs of her ankles, which were well-formed things.) ‘All things can be done if those who have the power to do them also have the will.'

‘Yeah,' she said, sounding unconvinced. ‘The thing is? The machine that makes the cards? It's not here? We get them delivered?'

‘Why are you turning these statements into questions?' I asked, growing more frustrated. ‘Speak sensibly, please. And amend my name on this card. I will not go through the academic year being known as Bullshit Sharma.'

‘What course are you on?' she asked, sitting back now, and despite my anger, it was hard not to appreciate her magnificent beauty.

‘Creative Writing,' I said.

‘Oh,' she said, pulling a face. ‘You're one of them. That explains it.'

‘What does it explain?'

‘It doesn't matter,' she said. ‘But look, there's a queue behind you, Bullshit, so if you don't mind—'

‘You see?' I shouted. ‘You just called me Bullshit! I told you this would happen!'

‘Sorry,' she said, flushing with embarrassment. ‘It's only because we were talking about it and—'

‘What if I find myself in the throes of passionate lovemaking with some beautiful honey and just at the moment where the universe is exploding for her with the intensity of a million star systems colliding, a paroxysm she has never before experienced and only ever dreamed about, she shouts out, “Bullshit! Bullshit!”, hears her own words and immediately her orgasm is lost? Do you want to be responsible for such a catastrophe?'

‘Yeah …' she drawled. ‘Is that likely though?'

‘It is very likely. Bullshit is not a sexy term. Please, do not deprive me of my proper name. Amend the card.' A hand tapped me on my shoulder and I looked around to see a bearded student (male) tapping his watch and telling me that he had places to go and people to see even if I didn't.

‘You can take this card now,' said the girl behind the desk. ‘Or you can apply for a new one. But that will take six weeks to process and in the meantime you won't be able to access the library, the sports centre or any of the student facilities.'

‘This is very disappointing,' I said.

‘I'm sure it is.'

‘Perhaps to make up for this misfortune, which is not of my making, you will allow me to ask you one more question. It concerns your plans for this evening.'

When I woke the next morning, I stretched out with the satisfaction of a man who has offered his lover untold pleasure for no less than thirty minutes the night before. My mouth was dry and as I reached across to the bedside table for a bottle of water, it fell to the ground, waking my partner, who looked across at me and yawned.

‘Do you think you might be able to get my student card changed today?' I asked immediately.

‘Fuck me,' she said, sitting up straight and pulling the duvet up to protect her modesty, unaware that all she was doing was exposing her ankles, which were far more erotic to me than her breasts. ‘This again?'

‘It's important to me,' I said. ‘You wouldn't like it if you were called … I don't know … Bitch-Features or … or Nasty-Face, instead of …' I paused and knew that beginning this sentence had been a mistake.

‘Instead of what?' she asked, opening her eyes wide. ‘Instead of
what
?'

‘Instead of …' I smiled at her and shrugged. ‘I wanna say Harriet?'

She shook her head and removed herself immediately from my bed. I am sorry to say that in the cold light of morning her bottom was a little saggy but nothing that a daily series of lunges could not improve. Presumably
she
had a card that could access the sports centre, if only she would use it. ‘My name is Gwendolyn,' she said.

‘That's not an easy name to remember,' I said quietly, hoping she might forgive me.

‘Bullshit,' she said.

‘Don't call me Bullshit!' I cried.

‘I wasn't calling you Bullshit,' she said, pulling on her clothes. ‘I was saying that what you said was bullshit.'

‘Bullshit,' I told her. ‘You were calling me Bullshit! You can't remember my name either.'

‘Your name,' she said, looking around for her shoes, ‘is Bikram. Bikram Sharma.'

‘Yes! And all I want is a card that reflects this fact. I don't think that's too much to ask.'

‘Six weeks,' she told me, smiling sweetly. ‘Re-apply and we'll email you when it's in. Probably.'

‘But the sports centre,' I argued. ‘I won't be able to go swimming.'

‘So go running instead,' she said, throwing one last look around the room to ensure that she had collected all her belongings. ‘You don't need a card for that. See ya later,' she added, waving her hand at me as she left.

I lay back down and took the card from my wallet once more, wondering whether I could simply tell people that the BS stood for something else.

Beautiful Stranger
, perhaps.

Brilliant Shagger
.

Bangalore Sex-God.

I could try, of course, but it was obvious what the first word out of every girl's mouth would be if I tried that.

North Richmond Street, my aunt told me, was a quiet street until I was sent to live there. Neither she nor my uncle had wanted me with them, I knew that much, but what choice did they have when my parents left for Canada, claiming that they would send for me when they were settled. My aunt showed me the box room that was once my cousin's and told me not to get too comfortable.

Jack's room was exactly as he left it on the day he wandered into the path of a number 7 bus as it made its way around Mountjoy Square towards the Rotunda Hospital. The toys and games were a little young for me, the books were ones I'd read a few years before, but I didn't mind for I felt a longing to wrap myself in the comfort of the past. I had lived in a big house before all the trouble started, when we had money, but that was gone now. People said it was my father's fault, or at least that he bore a considerable portion of the blame, and there were those who said he should be brought back from Canada to face the courts. They said he had destroyed lives and that families would not recover for generations. I scanned my uncle's copy of the
Irish Times
every morning in hope that they would achieve their goal; I wanted my father brought home. And my mother too, I suppose.

It was late autumn and the nights drew in early but I preferred to be outside than stuck within those suffocating walls. The house was stale; the wallpaper peeled in corners above the cooker revealing a yellow-mottled skin behind. There was a dog who was no fun, and whoever heard of such a thing as that? My aunt sat in front of the television most of the day, drinking tea and eating custard creams, a cigarette always on the go. My uncle, a civil servant, preferred the pub after five o'clock and I didn't blame him. Occasionally they spoke to each other. A school had not been organized for me yet; they said it would come soon but the days passed and no changes happened there. I didn't mind. I yearned for company but couldn't bear the idea of having to make new friends. Boys my age intimidated me; they always had. And to be a new boy at a new school? There were few ideas more alarming.

Some afternoons, I would wander up Ballybough Road and turn right towards Fairview Park, which was big enough for me to investigate in sections. I found empty bottles of cider, small black bags filled with dog shit, Sunday supplements, half-eaten sandwiches and, once, a pair of women's underwear ripped asunder at the seam as if someone had removed them with violence. I saw a man crying on a bench as he read a letter, digging the nails of one hand into the palm of the other. I watched a boy and a girl kissing in a copse, his hand moving greedily beneath her shirt, and when he noticed me, the boy gave chase until I collapsed, panting on the damp grass, and let him slap me about the face a few times.

There was only one child living nearby, a girl of my age named Mangan, but it was her brother, a few years older than her, who caught my eye and made me hope for a protector. He went to school in a uniform but came home most afternoons in rugby shorts, his face mud-striped and wild, the hairs on his legs clay-caked to his skin.

Every morning, I watched from my bedroom window as he left the house, yawning, his bag slung over his shoulder, his tie already loosened around his neck as he put the black buds in his ears, scrolled to the music he wanted and went on his way. Then I would charge down the stairs, out the door and run after him, glad that his music cocoon prevented him from hearing me marching along behind. If he turned, he would see me, of course, but he never turned. And had he noticed me, I would have pretended not to see him at all but would have simply trotted along, ignoring him, a boy off on some piece of private business. I thought of him through the day and wondered whether he was taking notes in class, talking with his friends, changing for his match. I wondered what kind of sandwiches he ate at lunchtime and what he washed them down with.

He was on my mind constantly and it frightened me that I could think of no one else. Were boys not supposed to think of girls, had I not read that somewhere? He had thick, messy blond hair that looked as if it never saw a comb, and was stocky, like rugby players often are. How old was he, sixteen perhaps? Just a boy but a man from my perspective, a few years his junior. I saw him everywhere, both awake and asleep, and knew not why. I caught sight of him in a supermarket one afternoon, a girl walking along with him, and followed him down every aisle, my eyes on their hands, hoping their fingers would never connect. I wanted him to move away, or for my parents to send for me so that I might stop obsessing, but dreaded the notion of a
For Sale
sign going up across the street. I was as confused in my adoration as I was excited by it. I imagined what it would be like to be his friend, for him to hold me. He might hand one of his earpieces to me so we could listen to a song together, our faces close out of necessity. We would smile at each other, our bodies touching as our heads bounced in time with the music. He would reach for the earphone afterwards, his fingers grazing my cheek, and smile at me.

The gap between his front teeth. The scratch of stubble along his chin. The coloured thread he wore around his wrist. His habit of wearing runners with his school trousers. All these things were matters that I took note of and thought about, day and night.