Billy and Girl (21 page)

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
.

A Note on the Author

DEBORAH LEVY
writes 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.

Ophelia and the Great Idea
Beautiful Mutants
Swallowing Geography
The Unloved
An Amorous Discourse In The Suburbs of Hell
Swimming Home

First published 1996

This electronic edition published in 2012

Copyright © 1996 by Deborah Levy

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eISBN: 978-1-4088-4071-9

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