Mouths of Babes Read online

  So she’d come in early today instead, hoping to make a run for it, hide out in the library maybe, place of safety for all the misfits, but they’d caught her, seen her from their viewing platform and called her up there, and she wasn’t brave enough to just walk on, risk their wrath by ignoring them. Will Gallagher started it, he always started it. Not that the others took a whole lot of encouraging. He was starting it again.

  “Time you and I had a little chat.”

  There is nothing to chat about. Nothing to say. She feels sick. Tighter circle, the smell of their breath now. Toothpaste and cigarettes and cheese and onion crisps bought from the shop on the corner. (Two Schoolchildren At One Time ONLY.) She can’t quite see above them, she’s not that tall, not as tall as Will or Daniel. She can see the edge of the Science Block roof, the sloping gutter, tops of the highest windows, and that’s it. And them. She can see them. Another hand on her shoulder, her lower back, her bum. Her bum cheek. Holds it, gone. She turns around and it’s gone.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what? Why did you turn round?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Liar.”

  “I didn’t … ”

  “Fucking liar!”

  “No, I just thought … ”

  “You thought we turned? We turned round maybe? Quick one-eighty you didn’t even notice? We turned round and you stayed in the same place. Is that it?”

  “Um, yeah … maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Jesus, you’re more stupid than you look. Have the buildings moved, stupid girl?”

  Nothing, she can say nothing. But nothing is not good enough. Just let the bell ring. Please let it ring. When the bell rings it will get better, she can go into her class and even Andrea Browne, the one of them that’s in French with her, won’t be so bad. Not by herself, there’s always a chance Andrea will say something really bitchy, always, but when she’s by herself she’ll usually drop it for the hour of the class at least. The others don’t seem to know it, but when Andrea Browne is by herself she changes, she’s quieter, tries harder. It’s like there’s two of her – one who’s sharp and mean and funny with it, who never seems to work and yet does really well anyway, then the other Andrea Browne who gets on with things and is quiet and really wants to pass her exams and go to university and get the fuck out of here. The Andrea Browne who once said all she wanted was an easy job and a nice bloke and some nice kids. And then looked around, stunned that she’d said it out loud, glared at the girl just for hearing her. But Andrea never shows that side of herself round this lot. This lot, round the girl. Round and round.

  “Well … why … did … you … turn … round?”

  She has to answer now. Sneaks a look at the watch on the wrist of a tight fist. Five minutes too long. She has to answer.

  “I thought he … he touched me.”

  “Me?”

  Spun around again. Face to face. The lanky one, brightest one, Daniel, still has spots, she can smell the Clearasil, close enough to smell the Clearasil.

  “Touched you? I touched you? Where?”

  “Nowhere. Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, but it absolutely fucking does.”

  He won’t let it go. They are all so close, she’s really hot, she knows she’s sweating. Made her mum buy a really expensive deodorant at Boots last weekend, told her she just had to. She’s praying it works. But the smell of her fear is rising, acid and damp. Maybe it will rain, there are clouds up above. In the section of the world she can see, separated heads, far enough apart to see clouds. Maybe it will rain, they will go inside, the girls won’t want the rain to spoil their hair. Maybe it will rain. Not yet.

  “He said, touched you where?”

  Has to say something. “On … on my shoulder.”

  “Oh. Right. Like this?”

  Shove. A light enough shove, but she’s pushed into Will’s chest. Three boys, two girls. Except that Will Gallagher is a man-boy. He smiles as he stands her up, helps her regain her balance, hands on her upper arms that might be kind. Might be. She almost smiles back, there is a crease at the corner of her mouth but she holds it back, scared it will turn to a yell, to tears. His girlfriend Andrea catches it.

  “Excuse me! Are you smiling at my boyfriend, you fucking lezzie cunt?”

  The second girl giggles, it sounds funny in Andrea’s posher voice, the one Andrea speaks in when her mother’s around, the one she usually drops for school. Cunt. Fucking lezzie cunt. Second girl adds in, “You think he actually wants to touch you?”

  “No. Of course not. I … wouldn’t. I didn’t … I … ”

  And then tears, she can’t stop them. Tears like she’s weeing herself in the Juniors, hot and yellow down her legs. Tears like she has no control. She has no control.

  And Daniel Carver’s still asking, politely, carefully. “Tell me. Where do you think I touched you?”

  Tears.

  “Where do you think I touched you? Say it.”

  More tears. Pissing down her face.

  “Say it. Say it. Say it.”

  A quiet chant, utterly insistent. Impossible to deny.

  “On my back. My lower back.”

  “Where?”

  “My … my bum. I thought he touched my bum.

  Silence then. They move back. Light comes in from above their heads. The biology lab, chemistry room. Mrs Chester’s maths class. Daniel, the clever one with spots looks down at her, no smile from Will now either, not even pretending humour, not even so he can show his beautiful smile. They are all five disgusted, horrified.

  “On your bum? Oh my God. That is so gross. My hand accidentally touched your bum. I feel sick. I feel so fucking sick. Quick somebody, cut my fucking hand off. Her bum. I touched her bum. Her bottom. Her arse. Oh God. I touched a lesbian bottom. I’m probably going to die.”

  Daniel moves off, down the stairs, hand held out in front of him, he’s loud now, this is for the whole school, for them all. Big theatrics, lots of laughter, applause even, some laughing too from the edges of the asphalt, from the happy ones, those she has saved from torment by her presence. By her sacrifice.

  Will Gallagher follows, Andrea runs after, and then the other two. They are giggling among themselves. For Andrea Browne there is joy, she is in love, she and Will reinforced, there is union in the joint action. Later in the evening she will work hard at her homework, the good girl side of her will out. For now she is just excited to have let out her wild again. The wild she craves and fears. For Daniel it has been an achievement, lead bastard, not usually his role. He likes it, hopes Will has noted it – hopes Andrea did as well. For Will it has been another scenario, swiftly accomplished, though it’s true he prefers to be the centre of attention himself, doesn’t mind Daniel coming up with good ideas, as long as he can act them out. Still, next time. He walks away singing to himself. A French song, one he learned to impress Andrea. One he learned to impress himself. To Ewan, the youngest of the three boys, there is satisfaction at the quick five minute break from routine, and a hope that he too looked as cool as the others, was as cool as them. For Sally the feeling is something else altogether. Relief. Relief it wasn’t her. Relief that she is with them, part of this group, safe in this group. Because when they are together they are all safe. They might be different to the rest, part, odd even, but when they are together they are beautiful and shining and funny and clever. And, when she is with them, she is like the others and that makes her beautiful and shining and funny and clever too.

  No one looks behind. No one worries about the girl left half-hidden in the corner at the top of the concrete stairs, pissing tears down her crumpled face.

  FOUR

  Molly’s father’s sudden death had devastated them both. With a new baby, Saz and Molly had found their own parents’ support invaluable – telephone succour, free and readily available with none of the health-visitor panics that cause waking nightmares in the sleep-free nights of new parents. Ian and
Asmita were too far away in Scotland to visit often and her mother’s Hindi lullaby crooned into the handset didn’t hush Matilda’s wailing in the slightest, but it calmed Molly anyway. Molly’s father on the other end of the phone, finally getting the chance to tell his daughter the truth. Yes, four-week-old babies are very scary. You were. And annoying. And sometimes horrible. You were. And beautiful. This too would pass. Though hopefully Matilda would stay beautiful. You did.

  Molly and Saz had both noticed the change in their relationships with their own parents, and with other parents. Friends with children talked to them differently, their mothers treated them differently, they were in the club now, part of the sorority of graduate-women. Proper grownups. And of course they weren’t. They were ordinary Saz and Molly with their same old dreams and desires and, once the first few days’ endorphin rush had worn off, they were also tired and besotted and irritable and in love with Matilda and wanting their lives back and never wanting to be without Matilda. Ever. (Or maybe just one night. One perfect night of uninterrupted sleep.)

  Saz and Molly understood their own parents in a way they never had before. Understood the unbearable, unspeakable truths of bringing home a new person, their new person. Unconditional love inextricably linked with “What the hell have we done?” Something they had suspected when checking out the double-edged admissions of already-parenting friends, but had to feel themselves to truly know it. It was like the grieving; before Ian’s death, Molly had imagined she understood what grief felt like. Now she knew.

  In the same way that Molly and Saz were living some sort of ground-breaking lives as lesbian mothers, Molly’s parents had led a similarly ground-breaking life when they married and, despite the concerns of both families, gone on to create their mixed-race daughter. Molly knew this, and Ian and Asmita knew this, and all three were settling in to a more profound understanding of each other than before, parents and children re-connecting as adults, useful to each other, and happy to be so. Then Ian failed to wake up one morning, his heart skipped its beat in the night. Not an old heart, he was only sixty-three. Not an unwell heart, just one of those things, as banal and ghastly as they always are.

  Saz understood that her grief was different to Molly’s. It was also heavily mixed with guilt. Saz was profoundly aware that while she had an older sister, three nieces and a nephew, and both parents, Molly now had only her mother. As she explained to her old friend and ex-lover Carrie, Matilda, beside them in the late summer shade. “It’s just always there, seeing Molly in pain. No matter what a good time we’re having, or how much Matilda’s making us laugh … ”

  “How much you’re laughing at her, you mean.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s what babies are for.”

  “Like puppies?”

  “But better at going to the shop for you when they get older. No, there’s this permanent feeling of sadness.”

  “That’s normal, isn’t it? They were very close.”

  “Yeah, but – and I know this is selfish – I’d just planned this perfect first year. All the cute baby stuff, everyone being nice to us, making a fuss … I thought I’d be able to ease into it all, the whole happy families thing.”

  “And now you have to worry about Molly too?”

  Saz shrugged, “Not quite like that, just … well … yes.”

  “You’re right. It does sound selfish. Maybe you need something to distract you?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, I just didn’t think you’d be happy not working.”

  “I didn’t know what it would be like.”

  “But you like it?”

  “Weirdly, yes. You know, like now, with Molly getting ready to go back to the hospital, and just me and Matilda at home, I’m loving it. She is a lot of work and I did think I might be bored, but I’m not.”

  Carrie frowned, “Never? I mean she’s gorgeous, of course, but never?”

  Saz handed her daughter another noisy plastic piece of primary colour to play with, noted Matilda’s drooping eyelids with pleasure. “Maybe every now and then,” she said. “I am surprised I’ve found her so entertaining, it’s not what I’d expected. But no, not really bored, not yet. There’s been all the stuff to do with Ian, none of that has been routine. I haven’t been at home by myself with her all that much, people keep visiting, like you now. I just quite like it, playing wife-and-mother.”

  Carrie poured the last of the wine into their glasses, fished in the bag for crisp crumbs. She still didn’t look convinced. “Maybe you’re scared?”

  “Of what?”

  “Your work not turning out the way you’d hoped? The western world is littered with women who had great plans for their working wonders and then, when the whole brilliant career thing doesn’t turn out the way they hoped, they give up and have a bunch of kids and hope no one notices.”

  Saz laughed, “Maybe that’s true for women with proper jobs, but I hardly think my freelance work over the past years counts as a ‘career’.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, there’s the fact that I’ve been relying on Molly for the bulk of our money anyway, and that I still get more than half my income from boring find-my-cheating-lover jobs … ”

  Carrie agreed, “OK, when you put it like that. And your last job wasn’t exactly a major success.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You were in hospital for half Molly’s pregnancy.”

  “Ten weeks of the just over nine months. You’ve always been crap at maths, haven’t you?”

  “Whatever, you were very sick, Saz.”

  Saz turned away to concentrate on Matilda. “I know.”

  “We were scared for you.”

  “I know.”

  “It was shit for Molly.”

  Saz looked at the dark blue sky, at her daughter, at the lawn that needed mowing, the macrocarpa hedge that needed cutting, anywhere but at Carrie. “Yes, Carrie. I know.”

  “And the rest of us, of course, but so horrible for her while she was pregnant. She was nicer to me then than ever before. Or since.”

  “Moll’s always nice to you.”

  Carrie picked the chipped pink polish on her big toenail. “No, Saz, Molly’s mostly polite to me. Not quite the same. But fair enough that she was worried, it’s not the first time you’ve had a job that ended in disaster.”

  “Hang on, I’ve had my successes. It’s just that the disasters have been … ”

  “More spectacular?”

  “More painful. And I don’t need reminding, I’m the one with the scars.”

  Carrie licked her fingers clean of grease and salt and lifted the hem of Saz’s thin cotton skirt.

  “Oil!”

  “Just checking. Your scars are pretty good though.”

  “Helps having a doctor for a wife.”

  “You can barely tell there was any problem with your hands. And this thigh’s all right.”

  “Carrie, get your hand off my leg.” Carrie moved away a little. “The other one’s still a bit lumpier though.”

  “Oh go on, show me? For old times’ sake?”

  “No!”

  Carrie lay back on the grass. “Anyway, the last mess would’ve put anyone off. You’re bloody lucky you came out of that with no scars.”

  Saz massaged her neck, this conversation – as with any that touched on her past damage – causing her muscles to tense, her shoulders to ride up. “Not on the outside. Funny really, my burn scars are always here, like a constant show, and yet that’s something I got myself into. Whereas the scars I got from being beaten up – the internal damage, emotional stuff – none of that shows on the outside.”

  Carrie frowned, “And the funny part about that is what?”

  “That the fire – a thing – damaged me, so you can still see it.”

  “Only if I lift up your skirt.”

  Saz ignored the grin, checked on her now-sleeping daughter, lowered her voice, “And I’d rather you didn’t. Whereas the physical damage from
the beating was mostly on the inside and that’s all healed now anyway, but the emotional stuff is always going to be there. Scars you can’t see.”

  “Like the scars I have from our relationship?”

  “Fuck off, Carrie, you left me. I’m trying to make an important philosophical point.”

  Carrie stretched out in the late season sun, “I so care.”

  “Well, you should. Move the umbrella a bit?” Carrie shifted the shade so it more completely covered Matilda’s body, and Saz continued, “Now that you’re a godmother you should take these things more seriously.”

  “Umbrellas?”

  “The damage people inflict as opposed to things, and yet it’s things – fire, water, guns, cars – that we’re usually scared of.”

  “And we should really be scared of people? That’s the life-affirming message you want me to teach your daughter?”

  “Of course not. Or maybe. I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”

  “In your long boring days at home all alone with Tilly?”

  “Matilda.”

  “Mattie?”

  “Matilda.”

  “Just wait until she goes to school.”

  “I will, thank you. And my days are not boring.”

  “Clearly not, you don’t even have the time to put your empties in the recycling bin.” Carrie pointed to the four drained wine bottles sitting by the back doorstep.

  “Basement flat people always get there first and fill it with theirs. I think we’re a bit fed up with having neighbours.”

  “They’re probably fed up with having a screaming baby in the middle of the night.”

  “She doesn’t scream. Never has. Not once. Matilda is an angel.”