To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Dear Helen,
It feels weird writing this when you’re upstairs probably pretending to sleep and I’m sitting here at my desk, but it’s so hard saying the right words to your face.
Helen, Helen, let’s not fight anymore. Let’s not…
Do you remember how it was when we were young? Do you remember how in love we were, driving around Scotland in my Beetle, swimming in the sea at Uist, running about on those empty beaches, cooking fish in the sand dunes? Do you remember that time I swam out to sea and the seal’s head popped up next to me, and the seal and I looked at each other and I thought he was another human being, and he thought I was another seal and then both of us realised that we were different species and we screamed at each other, diving away?
Do you remember how fearless you were? How we kissed, your breasts pressed up against my chest?
My head is full of the sunshine of that windy summer.
I’m sorry, I just can’t do what you ask. The school needs me more than ever. I won’t end up like Jack. I’ll be fine. And we’ll be fine.
Let’s go to Scotland again when you get back from your conference this summer. Let’s leave the kids with your mum for a few days and head north. Let’s make things better. I love you, Helen. I adore you.
I’m sorry for the things I said. You’re a good person and I love you.
Please forgive me,
I love you, Helen!
Martin
I click ‘Send’, switch off the computer and sit thinking for a moment. The lights of the city ripple over the ceiling, but everything else is shrouded in darkness. There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep.
“Béla!, Béla! You must come here now!”
“Yes, Ma, I’ll be right there, I promise.”
I am crouching over my old laptop. The password quivers in the tips of my fingers. I type it quickly: “Arsenal 1989”.
Oh-My-God, I cannot begin to express the joy I feel when I see the screen change to white and the lozenge start to fill with blue.
I’m in! Finally, after so much trying, I’ve done it!
“Béla! I need you right now!” Ma’s voice is hoarse with impatience in the kitchen. In a minute, she’ll come into the room and haul me away from the screen by the ear.
“Yes, Ma, I’m coming. I promise.”
I stand up, transfixed by the unfurling screen. This email account is a personal one, a very personal one. My eyes widen. It’s full of emails to one Mrs Helen Hick.
Fuck. Not what I expected at all.
I open a thread.
Helen, I’d really like to talk to you about the autopsy. Just between you and me. Sam.
Then an email dated a few days later:
Helen, I had to say it. I am not going to apologise for my feelings. I had to. Sam.
A day later:
You are the only one I’ve thought of. You are. Let’s meet in Daquise, the Polish restaurant by the Royal Albert Hall. It’s well away from everyone and we can walk in Hyde Park afterwards. Looks like it’s going to be a nice evening. Sam x☺.
Three days later:
I love you. You give meaning to this nightmare. You do. I can carry on now that you’ve given me the right medicine. I love you! Sam xxx.
One day later:
You’ve made me the happiest man in the universe. Happy to have an examination any day. xxxx
I open another:
I need you to strangle me with your stethoscope.
Another:
Champers, M&S sarnies, usual place? I’ll text you.
Although the earlier emails are comprehensible, the later ones confuse and alarm me. Why would my headteacher want Mrs Hick to give him an examination – is he ill? I know Mrs Hick is a doctor but she’s a hospital doctor as far as I know – is Ndlova really her patient? And to be strangled by a stethoscope, that’s just random.
Plus, what is “champers”? And what’s so great about M&S sarnies?
It’s just weird, plain fucking weird that my old headteacher would be talking to her like that.
“Béla János Pongrácz! This is an order, you must come now!” Ma screeches from the kitchen. I can hear her wheelchair scuffling over the carpet. I slam down the lid of the laptop and make my way towards the kitchen, my head full of sticks and sarnies and Mrs Hick.
I head out of the house, trying my best to shut the front door quietly. But evidently not quietly enough because once I’m at the top of our street, I see my son, rushing towards me in his leather jacket and pyjama bottoms, shouting out in his broken voice: “Dad, Dad! Come back!”
He reaches me quickly, emitting the pungent odour of marijuana smoke and anxiety.
I hesitate for a moment, deciding whether I should snap – or smile. I decide upon the latter option.
“Have you been smoking dope, Josh?” I ask.
He sighs, flicks his long fringe out of his face and says: “Dad, where are you going?”
I look down at his bare, hairy feet planted before me on the littered pavement.
“You didn’t answer my question. Have you been smoking?”
“It doesn’t matter, Dad. It really doesn’t. What matters is where the fuck you’re going.”
His pupils are pinpricks and his cheeks are sweaty. His leather jacket is covered in badges that are either angels or harps. He looks a real mess.
“Josh, you’ve got no shoes on! There’s dog shit everywhere!”
There’s a breeze blowing. Even though he’s sweating, he’s shivering; his flesh goose-pimples making the black hairs on his feet prickle as if they have a life of their own. He folds his arms. He says: “Dad, you mustn’t go. You mustn’t.”
Ignoring the strong smell of dope, I put my arm around him and pull his bony frame into my belly. I feel the top of his shoulders poke into my ribcage, as I nuzzle his brown hair with my nose and whisper as calmly as I can: “Joshy, I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going for a walk.”
“At midnight?”
“I need some air.”
“Dad, you can’t go. You can’t.” His upper row of teeth digs into his lower lip.
“Josh, you have to go to bed now. You’ve got school tomorrow.”
“So have you.”
“Yes, but it’s different.”
“Just come back home, Dad, please!” he insists.
I sigh but I don’t flip. I’m sober enough to know I’m drunk; I manage to enunciate my words slowly and clearly: “Josh, I’m not going to argue. You need to turn around and let me get some air.”
“Dad, you’ve got to come back and say you’re sorry.”
I tighten my hands into fists and bury them in the pockets of my chinos.
“Josh, could you please just let me have a walk by myself?”
“It’s not safe at this time, Dad.”
“It’s not safe for you, walking in bare feet and stoned out of your head!”
Before he can say any more, I take my boy in my arms and lift him up in much the same way I used to when he was younger. Although he’s tall and big and hairy now, he’s surprisingly light for a fifteen-year-old.
“Upsy-daisy!” I exclaim.
“Dad, let me down!” he says, kicking his feet a little.
The advantage of having a large paunch is that I can rest a good part of him on my stomach.
“Here we go!” I say, laughing.
“Dad, you’ll break your back!” he says, but it’s clear he’s enjoying the ride.
“No! I won’t because I am SUPER-DAD!”
Josh laughs again. This time louder. The bristles on his chin tickle my cheek as I hoik him back to our house and plonk him down on the mat. The door to the house is still open. Although I’m out of breath, I walk off at a fair clip, leaving him there in the lighted threshold.
Ahead of me, I can see the lights of Hackney Road; girls in tiny black dresses and high heels are tottering towards the clubs; cab drivers are hovering around their bust-up cars, smoking; meaty arms are taking large knives to kebab-meat on the spit roast and slicing off the processed flesh.
“Ma, what is champers?”
Ma twirls a cigarette in my direction and chortles a little. “Béla, it’s not time to break it open yet.”
“Yes, but what is it?”
“It’s Champagne, you ignoramus.”
I bow my head in shame. I am sixteen – legally an adult – and yet I am very ignorant.
“The boy is not living in a cultured environment,” my great-uncle says in his customary sarcastic way.
“But why are we talking about champers, when you are not changed for your audition!” Ma barks before puffing again on her cigarette. “Why do you never listen?”
“Is this a proper audition?” I gulp.
Ma always holds “auditions” when there’s something important about to happen. Well, she calls them “auditions” because it makes her feel like a dreadfully prestigious impresario, but they are more like what Mr Hick would call “speaking and listening assessments”. My top “auditions” so far are:
Tonight’s audition is perhaps one of the most important I’ve ever taken: I need to prove that I can help her with her disability benefit claim.
“I’m on the case!” I say. I jump up and return to the bedroom.
But once I’m there I can’t help getting distracted by my laptop. I glance at the emails again. Why would Mrs Hick talk to Mr Ndlova like that? Why? Are they having an affair? I find the whole thing so distracting that I’m just standing in the middle of the room staring at the computer rather than getting changed.
Then I hear Ma’s wheelchair moving towards the bedroom. She’s going to check on me in a minute. I shut down the laptop and start rooting around my “disguises” drawer.
I have to concentrate! I have to be on top form if I am going to pass one of Ma’s auditions. I replace my freshly pressed magenta corduroys with bum-revealing jeans, my polo-necked jumper with a faded Cheryl Cole T-shirt, and my Converses with a pair of plastic sandals. Then I drop my mobile, my MP3 player, my Oyster card and my wallet with all my fake ID cards into the huge pockets of the trousers. That’s one benefit of being a dork with big trouser pockets: you can fit all your gadgets and gizmos into them. I have to carry around a man-bag when I wear my magenta cords.
I mess up my hair and return to the kitchen.
“Do you think I should spatter my clothes with bits of food?” I ask Ma.
She pushes towards me in her wheelchair and says: “Right now, you must show us how your disguise will work – we can fine-tune the details in the morning. Let’s not mess with food now.”
“But won’t it look more convincing if I’m encrusted with old food?” I suggest.
My great-uncle, the Count, who is now sitting at the table in his purple dressing gown, drinking palinka and smiling, advises: “Old and odoriferous food detritus should greatly improve the effect.”
Ma agrees. I dip a spoon into our huge pot of Magyar apricot jam and flick a dollop onto Cheryl Cole’s face. Then I smear it across her nose with the back of the spoon. To make things even more real, I press in a few Rice Krispies and Cornflakes. This I do without getting a single finger sticky; that’s how skilful I am at jam-spreading.
I turn triumphantly to Ma and the Count and give them my best audition yet. I jut out my jaw and lips, hunch up my shoulders, let my arms dangle, fiddle stupidly with my fingers and make grunting noises through my nose.
“I do feel the characterisation lacks, shall we say, a degree of subtlety?” the Count says.
“I think it’s very convincing,” I protest.
“Yes, but you look far too like a person imitating an imbecile rather than a real imbecile.”
“I reckon anyone who didn’t know me would be convinced,” I say, looking in Ma’s direction.
She muses for a moment. Then she puts up a finger. “Mmmn… I think I have it. Do what you are doing but speak Hungarian at the same time: that way we tell them you are an idiot and you’re struggling to speak English as well. That will be very good.”
I repeat my performance, but this time add even more spice by yelling out random swear words in Hungarian.
The Count shakes his head again. “The boy is a monstrous caricature! It needs to be toned down.”
But his views don’t matter because Ma says: “Well done, Béla! This is excellent! Now let’s just run through the points again.”
I stick out my tongue at the Count when Ma isn’t looking. He waves me away with his long, thin fingers.
“I’m going to tell them that I’ve been kicked out from school because no one understood that I’m Special Needs,” I say.
“But what happens when they learn from the school that you’re not Special Needs?” Ma says, still looking puzzled.
“You tell them that the school didn’t diagnose me. It happens all the time. I mean, Jakaria is the stupidest person in the universe and he isn’t Special Needs,” I reply. I’m lying here, but how’s Ma going to find out?
Ma harrumphs. “I suppose we could say you threw the firework because you’ve got some attention deficiency disorder or something.”
“I didn’t throw the firework, Ma. I don’t think we should bring the firework into it at all.”
“And next I suppose you’re going to tell me you haven’t been excluded from school for ever?”
“Ma,” I say mournfully. We’ve had this argument too many times.
Ma blows a smoke ring from her wheelchair as she thinks about this. Then she says: “I’ll think about it.”
“Do you think we should say more about my disabilities?” I ask.
Ma shakes her head. “No, I think we should say you’ve Special Needs and can’t care for me. We must not exaggerate too much. It sounds bad as it is.”
She climbs out of the wheelchair, grabs her fags from the table and returns to the chair, where she lights up. There is a moment of silence. She looks over the letter from the benefits office again, puffing smoke into the air.
“So you don’t think they suspect anything?”
“No, Ma. It’s a routine letter. They assess everyone who’s getting disability benefit, I’m sure.”
Ma puts the letter down and then fiddles nervously with her fag packet. The Count drinks more of his palinka.
“So when the doctor lifts my leg, the sciatica must get worse?” Ma asks.
I repeat what we have been saying all evening. “If in doubt about anything, yell. Make noise. Show you are in the maximum amount of pain. They won’t want to touch you. The slightest movement should be agony.”
“This is good. This is good. I think this will all be good,” Ma says.
It’s great the way I can reassure her.
Then she gets up from the wheelchair and claps her hands together. “I think it is now time for us all to go to bed. After all, we mustn’t be late! We do need some discipline here if we’re going to be successful.”
“Does that mean I’ve passed the audition?” I ask with a growing sense of hope.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll make my decision in the morning.”
Well, at least I’ve got a “recall”. This probably means I will get a starring role.
Unfortunately, just at that moment, my mobile vibrates in the huge pockets of my trousers, massaging against my cards and wallet, making it look like I’ve got an animal wriggling around my groin.
The Count gives me one of his worst Transylvanian stares. “Béla, my dear boy, what is going on in your trousers?” he asks in his most august Hungarian.
“I’m sorry, Your Excellency. I thought I had it switched off.”
“Béla, you know you must switch that off when we have an important family conference like this!” Ma admonishes me.
“I didn’t expect anyone to call this late,” I say apologetically. I pull the offending object out of my pocket and see that Josh has called.
Ma gives me a knowing look. “Béla, you are not going to be talking with that boy all night! You need your beauty sleep for tomorrow.”
“My Special Needs sleep.”
“Yes,” Ma says without amusement. She’s not a great one for joking in moments of stress.
I help the Count up from his chair and guide him to the bedroom we share. Although I don’t – thank fuck – have to help him go to the toilet, I do have to help him take off his dressing gown. This is chiefly because it makes him feel important and not because he can’t do it by himself. In his early life, before the Communists arrived in Hungary, he had his own butler.
Once he’s in bed, I switch on Radio 3 for him. He can’t go to sleep otherwise. The noise of the sirens and the city outside drive him mad so he likes to block it all out with his precious classical music.
My great-uncle has four main occupations:
I used to mind the classical music, but now I’ve got so used to the music that I even secretly like it.
“Oh lovely! It’s Schubert’s Winterreise! My favourite song cycle. And this, very appropriately, is ‘Gute Nacht’!” he expostulates.
I switch off his light and sit on the edge of my bed, waiting in the darkness, listening to the song.
Yellow streetlight filters through the blinds and flickers over the old man’s closed eyelids. The palinka has sent the Count off to nod straight away. I listen for a moment to the song. My German is good enough (I’m predicted an A* in my GCSE) to understand quite a bit of it: it’s all about snowy roads and saying goodbye to your loved one. It would be good to have one of those.
I am standing outside a block of flats near Old Street, thinking about whether to enter. C. is expecting me. It’s very late and I have an interview tomorrow. An important one. What am I doing here?
At the top of the road, a few clubbers are drunkenly wending their way down the street.
Oh, it’ll be all right! I won’t be long. Besides, it might relax me. I ascend the stairs, make my way along the concrete walkway and look at all the dark windows. Everyone else is asleep. Except for number 43. The lights are on.
I hesitate. No. I can’t. There’s still a chance Helen and I will patch things up. We will. I will have sex with her again. I’ll sort everything out.
I edge away, and then turn and run. My stomach joggles up and down as I puff along. Once I’m back on the street, a car races by, honking its horn, scaring me. I jump back from the kerb, feeling disturbed. My heart is racing. But I feel like I have done the right thing. I’ll go home and go to sleep.
There are a lot of people on Old Street, mostly much younger than me, scarcely a few years older than Josh if truth be told, probably students. They’re laughing and joking about, milling in and out of the kebab shops, the bus stops, the thresholds of various clubs and bars. Everything is very end-of-termish. Their terms probably finished months ago. Schools always go on much later than universities.
Normally, I find their gregarious energy quite reassuring, but tonight it frightens me. The sudden guffaws pounce upon me, making me flinch as I pass by. When a boy in a long trench coat shrieks “You cunt!” at his mate, I jump away. It takes me a while to work out that he isn’t addressing me, but my nerves don’t really recover. Their ejaculations – this is what they feel like, great orgasms of sound – unnerve and awe me. I feel so desperately lonely. And old.
Jack, I need you. I need to talk to you. How am I going to get my life back on track – make things right with Helen?
I pass by the club, 333, the Shoreditch Electricity Showrooms, the derelict Courts of Justice, head under the East London Line bridge and dash across Kingsland Road, away from a troop of youths hanging about by the traffic lights, smoking, away from Browns, the strip joint, and cut through the graveyard of Shoreditch Church. I’ll be home quite soon.
Once the Count is properly asleep, I fetch my laptop and three tangerines. I bite into the succulent segments, feeling the juices run down my throat as I look over the emails between Mr Ndlova and Mrs Hick again. All great detectives investigate things thoroughly. You see, I am, above all, a serious investigator, a great detective in the making. Like my dad was.
As I scan through the emails, I think: Mr Ndlova sure doesn’t come across as the respectable headteacher of an academy with all his “fucking” this and that. Two phrases stick out: “I’m fucking sick of all the moaning teachers at this bloody place.” “Why do they always fucking blame me?”
And Mrs Hick! Blimey! She’s supposed to be a top doctor, a consultant or something, but her language is even worse. She writes: “Don’t let the cunts grind you down, love and xxx Helen.”
Still, for all their swearing and kissy-stuff, I don’t find anything in the emails that proves they’re bonking each other. As her husband, Mr Hick, my former English teacher, used to say: “Always find hard evidence to back up your assertions.”
Still, I’m gathering quite a bit of circumstantial evidence. Ndlova does have form: he’s not known as “Loverman” for nothing. I’ve seen him chatting up the younger female teachers at school on a few occasions.
I do a search for my name but I find nothing connected with me except one email to Mrs Hick – which is very brief.
“Béla has to go. He threw the firework.”
It all needs thinking about. Now that I have the password, I can think about it at my leisure in the coming days. I log off and meet Josh on Facebook chat. Josh is my best friend, but sometimes our relationship can be very awkward because his dad was my old English teacher, and he got me excluded from school. And now I know his mum is shagging Loverman.
Me: Wot’s up?
Josh: Cant u cum out?
Me: Wot’s happened now?
Josh: You have to get yr arse over here rite now!
Me: U no I can’t
Josh: Cant u sneak out?
Me: Ma’s up, she’ll see
Josh: U mong
Me: Wot do u want to c me 4 anyways?
Josh: I need u 2 help me find my dad
Me: Ur Dad?
Josh: He jst walked out
Me: He did?
I pause and eat another tangerine segment. I think: fuck, maybe he found out about his mum and Ndlova? Should I say anything? It all feels very awkward. I really want to tell Josh I’ve been reading their emails, but I know this would be a really bad idea.
Josh: I think I no where he is
Me: Where is he?
Josh: It dont matter since u aint cuming out anyway.
Me: How cum he walked out?
Josh: Same ol. . .
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