Flick (14 page)

LOVE LOVE LOVE

I hear a mumble down the phone. “I just feel really sad.” Rainbow has hit one of her mini-depressions. She says it's just hormonal but it makes her feel really crap and have low self-esteem, particularly while she's on her period. It's weird that someone normally so perky can be suddenly mildly suicidal. Only women bleed.

“Aww, baby,” I say sympathetically. Then, maybe a bit too happily, “Let me come over.”

“I can't, I dunno. I'm in bed.”

“All the better, I can give you a cuddle. I'll be there in . . .” I estimate the time needed to escape Uncle Burt and Mam. “Half an hour.”

“Urr . . . I look awful.”

“I'll close my eyes. See you then.”

An hour later, because men are never reliable, I track my bike up Rainbow's drive (that's not a metaphor) and leave it leant behind the bins. I'm always a bit shy about going to Rainbow's, particularly when it comes to meeting her family, and as a consequence we spend most of the time at my place, avoiding all parental contact. Score. Her brother, Tim, lets me in with a shy hello and waves me up the stairs. Tim is fourteen, only a year below me, but slender, small and quiet versus my stocky, tall and loud, so he appears much younger. He goes to my school in Langrick, but I've barely noticed him about. When I have we've shared the occasional nod in the corridor, but he seems mostly to keep to himself. Probably because he's clearly gay, being a bit gentle, if you know what I mean, and if you're gay you don't want to stick your head above the parapets at our school. You might not get beaten up if you're lucky, but you'd sure as shit be shunned.

They don't look alike, him and Rainbow. Well, they wouldn't, would they? Tim's complexion is pasty and pink where Rainbow is pale, but turning an olive-y color as the sun works its magic on her. Tim has jet-black hair, where Rainbow has chocolate brown. Tim's eyes are dark; Rainbow's are blue. Tim is slim; Rainbow seems to come from meaty, muscular folk. I realize as I run up the stairs that Rainbow has never told me anything about her biological parents. Did I ask? I can't remember.

Tim follows me up and softly walks into his own room, smiling sweetly at me as he shuts the door. Whenever I've been around at Rainbow's, Tim has barely said two words to me, but he seems to like me. It occurs to me he might fancy me, good-looking fella that I am, but perhaps that's just me being a cock.

I knock gently on Rainbow's door in case she's asleep.

“Bow?” I say softly, considerate like, and the door opens and one blue-as-an-ocean, erotically-wide-and-innocent eye peers at me through the crack.

“Hello.” Her little mouth trembles. Her eyes drop to her feet and she lets the door open shyly, hunching up her shoulders, giving me a tantalizing glimpse of her belly button through massive, pink, teddy-says-love pajamas. I track my gaze over her beautiful body, face bare and vulnerable, the outline of her nipples visible under her shirt, the PJ bottoms caressing the curves of her soft thighs, purple painted toenails on olive-tanned feet. Like a little monkey. I let out what is possibly the gayest “awww” ever, shoo her back into bed, climb in beside her and wait while she wriggles around to burrow into my chest, before enveloping her in my heavy limbs. Ahhhhhh, Rainbow. I feel hopelessly clumsy and flawless and perfect.

“Ahhhhh you too,” she whispers into my T-shirt, and I cuddle and kiss her and stroke her fluffy pajamas like we're two gay little rabbits in a Disney film. Ahhhhh, love, love, love.

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK

It feels like a clock is ticking in the back of my mind. A week has passed since the episode with Fez and Troy with no word from Kyle. On the plus side I've had no word from Fez either and if the police are all over him like he says, then I doubt that he'll have many opportunities to jump me. So I might be happy that their violent enthusiasm for the deal has dissipated, I might even feel free, if it weren't for the bag of coke mingling with my boxers and condoms in my sock drawer. But life seems to go on regardless and the coke remains in my room and I manage to distract myself by becoming more and more desperately funny, chatting to Rainbow, Ash and the like about Pepsi vs. Coke, the sad disappearance of coffee roses, and Baileys liqueur—gay but tasty. I push the deal out of my thoughts and try not to worry. Fez doesn't want to know the details anyway so for all he knows we could already be doing it. I just have to sit tight and wait for word from Kyle and then get rid of it ASAP. In any case, I have bigger fish to fry, as one by one exams seem to be flying past (Physics was utter shite, I aced the English Language Paper 1, and did pretty good in Maths) and then, the next Wednesday, I encounter a day of utter dread and horror that has absolutely nothing to do with the deal or school life. As me mam says, things come in threes.

All the time I have known Rainbow I have been putting this off. Ever since we first started going out, her parents (who I have religiously avoided) have been asking about me. Rather than tell them that I'm wonderful, they have nothing to worry about and she'll let them know more in a year or so, my beautiful girlfriend has decided to completely drop me in the shit. I'm having dinner with Rainbow's mums and her little brother. I chant to myself like a mental patient living in the normal world and trying to hide my illness for fear of being institutionalized: don't say anything that could be mistaken for a derogatory comment, don't refer to the meal as rabbit food, try not to look like a member of the British Nationalist Party, right-wing thugs with shaved heads and boots that could kick your door in. Vegetarian left-wing feminist lesbians
can
be judgmental, I remind myself,
be on your guard
.

Mealtime comes and I'm nervous, chatting so animatedly with Rainbow before we sit down (so her mums will think I'm witty and intelligent, or at least, intelligent enough to form sentences) that I likely resemble Gav on speed, then coming to the table, sitting down and being utterly silent, afraid to ask for bread.

“Are you all right?” says Rainbow.

“Yeah, fine thank you,” I whisper back. Thank you.
Thank.
You.
As if she was an assistant in a supermarket and not my girlfriend, with whom I've spent the last two nights.

There is a silence. Rainbow's Scottish mum comes to the table. I am calmed by her smile, then a panicked monologue explodes in my brain: Asha-Aisha-Eesha-Oona-shit-what-the-fuck-is-her-name?!

“So, Will, Rainbow tells us you're studying for your GCSEs?”

“Erm.” I swallow audibly. The monologue wonders why am I such a tit. And then I realize I should be speaking. “Yeah, actually I'm just in the middle of taking the, err, exams for them.” Thank fuck, didn't have to use her name.

“What subjects are you doing?” Mum-from-Hull asks. Why do you care? I think.

“Erm. Maths, statistics, English language and literature, err . . . biology, chemistry, physics, animation, French, tech and history.”

“Wow, that's a cool mix, I'd have loved to do animation when I was at school!” Scottish Mum exclaims.

“Yeah, me too,” murmurs Rainbow.

I hear myself say I really enjoy it and tell them we do adverts and get to design our own cartoons.

Rainbow's brother, Tim, suddenly pipes up. “Mum has a friend who does that.”

Everyone apart from me and Tim is eating, so no one ­replies at first. Don't say “which one,” my inner voice advises me, it would be inappropriate.

“Yeah, I do,” Scottish Mum says. “I should get in touch with him about it for you, you could get an internship, he has quite a large group of artists working with him.”

“They're doing a book at the moment, aren't they?” Mum-from-Hull.

“Yeah, an ensemble sort of thing. You could be involved, Will, wouldn't that be something?”

“Well, yeah.” I squirm, suddenly embarrassed, like when you open a present in front of the giver and don't know what to say. “Thanks, that'd be wicked.”

Tim starts talking to me about comic books and Rainbow teases him about his obsession with muscular men in tights. We all laugh and I start to let go and enjoy myself. A weird feeling surrounds me. I'm actually having
fun
at the dinner table. With a
family
. The last time I had real family fun at our dinner table was about a year ago when Dad was out and Mum and Tommo joined in with me and Nikki and got stoned and giggled and snorted roast out of our nostrils through five episodes of
Friends
.

Back at Rainbow's hummus and tabbouleh salad I tell myself to relax and actually relate my very funny psychiatrist joke well, which, timing being such an issue in comedy, is hard to do under pressure, with erratic breathing being many a nervous comedian's downfall. I am urged into it by Rainbow, who pisses herself every time I tell it: “It's just the
way
you say it!” Here it is:

A patient says to his psychiatrist: “Last night I made a Freudian slip. I was having dinner with my mother-in-law and wanted to say: ‘Could you please pass the butter?' But instead I said: ‘You silly cow, you've completely ruined my life.' ” . . . Fucking funny, right?

Everyone laughs and I relax even more. Scottish-Trinidadian Mum,
Aisha
, tells us about meeting
Lucy
(Hull Mum)'s parents for the first time, which is very funny also.

“My parents were always cool about everything,” Aisha says. “My dad has always been a real trade unionist and feminist and loved the idea of me being this strong woman who had no need for a man. My mum's from Trinidad and women are often the head of the household there, so she just said”—Aisha breaks out a heavy Caribbean accent—“ ‘Good, you'll 'ave no man to fool around on you and drink away all your money!' ”

Lucy laughs.

“What were your parents like about it, Mum?” asks Tim.

“Hmm.” Lucy thinks. “The main thing for my mum was that there would be no grandchildren. But then we had you two! So now she's fine. She has two kids to buy presents for and boast about to her friends.”

“Did you ever wanna have kids yourself? You know, like, err . . .” Oh bollocks, my inquisitive mind spoke without thinking and now I've started a sentence that can't end without a reference to sperm, or pushing a baby out, or one of Bow's mums' wombs.

Aisha touches my wrist kindly. “We
do
have kids ourselves, Will. Some families are born and some families meet each other. But it's a good question, and we've talked to the kids about it before,” she says, nodding at Rainbow and Tim, happily shoveling couscous into their mouths with none of the insecurity I'd expect from them in this conversation. “We did consider having a sperm donor and one of us carrying a child, but we felt very strongly that we wouldn't love a child more just because we shared similar genes or traits, and it seemed somehow wrong to ‘make' a baby when we knew there were kids already out there, waiting for us.”

There's a pause and Lucy adds, “Plus, babies are
so
much work.”

“I knew it!” I crow, and everybody explodes with laughter.

This is great, I think. Familial. I feel comfortable enough to just be myself, which is wicked, 'cause I want to be able to be myself around Rainbow all the time. I'm dreamily musing on this when Rainbow snorts up her orange juice (very prettily) and says: “Hey, d'you remember Kyle, calling across the road to his mum, telling her she was sex on legs?” (Kyle does this—he is weird.)

“Yeah!” I laugh. “That was gay!”

Shit.

CINEMATIC

Here's one for you, Kyle.

Later.

Back at mine.

Eyes wide open.

A long take.

I follow Rainbow into my room, the light dim through the heavy curtains and cheap, plastic motel-room blinds.

The sea whispers outside.

She turns to face me, curling her top round her body and over her head, letting it fall carelessly to the floor, walking backwards towards the mattress.

I feel myself moving towards her in the half-light.

She lies in slow motion upon the sheets, long arms behind her head, delicate fingers held in her hair.

Ocean eyes stare me down.

I kneel before her, kiss up her soft brown stomach, catch her eye.

We kiss.

And my hands go to the zip of her jeans at her waist.

And hers go to mine.

Only then do I blink.

End Scene. (At least all of the scene you'll ever see, Kyle, you dirty bastard.)

PART IV

PLEASE DON'T SAY “PUSSY”

“FLICK.” Me and Rainbow are out in Langrick, walking back from Ritzies with Danny and Danny's girl, passing a rank little side street, when I hear my name being called. A little way down the street there is a white pebble-dash terrace house, in front of which Fez is stood. I remember too late he lives around here. We saw him earlier in the evening, about to score with some girl called Hannah (or perhaps even scoring—they were stood pretty close), so I knew I could avoid him. If there's one thing more important to Fez than business, it's pussy. I've always hated the word “pussy.” In my head it's fine but said out loud it sounds rank. Say “cunt” if you want but don't say “pussy,” it's fucking horrible.

So there we are, approaching Fez, me looking for a way out, trying to signal to him with my eyes, “My girlfriend's here, let's leave this for another time,” and most probably failing.

Hannah walks out of the front door, takes a look at us and carries on down the street, and as she passes the kebab place Fez nods after her and says: “Well she's a fucking whore if ever I saw one.” With this he flicks his cigarette in the drain, gives me a hard stare and nods across the street to where a car is parked. Its silent driver sits inside. Fez gets in his car and drives away with a screech of tires and a loud rev and the undercover cop car follows. I let out a massive sigh of relief.

“Didn't he just screw her?” Rainbow asks with disbelief in her voice, which I tried to describe to Wally (some lad, didn't know him, anyone polite or stupid enough to listen to me wax lyrical about my girl would've done) yesterday and failed. After ten, maybe fifteen minutes of trying I concluded that it was posh-ish but without sounding inbred. He said, “Oh ay.”

And yeah, Rainbow, Fez did just fuck her. “Fez has got this theory. He can treat all the girls who get with him and the rest of the crowd like dirt because as Fez puts it, he has ‘no respect for women who shag stoners.' ”

She looks dubious. “But Fez is a stoner.”

“Hence the reason he is also a wanker,” Danny says, and Danny and me and Danny's Girl nod knowingly.