Submarine Read online

Even my imaginary experiences are more real and vivid than the day-to-day lives of the over-forties. While walking home from the park, I annihilated the Death Star, discovered a pan-dimensional portal and shrank myself to the size of a dust mite. I am not remotely tired.

  God alive, I feel supple. I think I will spend the rest of the evening standing on one leg.

  Good day,

  Oliver

  V

  ‘Kids can be Cruel’

  A Mitigation.

  In your diary, you mentioned Jean the dinner lady using the phrase: ‘Kids can be cruel.’ Adults use this phrase to trick themselves into not feeling guilty about the bad things they did as children.

  You are expected to be cruel. Put on your pointy shoes.

  VI

  Only Being Yourself Inside Your Head

  You must be willing to transform any facet of your personality to fit in.

  After they called me ‘posh’ in primary school, I changed my accent to sound more poor; I cut out the vowels like Marks and Spencer’s labels from my shirts.

  It is okay to study as long as you do so in private and, while in class, you maintain a façade of indifference.

  Exercise III

  Look in the mirror. Make your facial expression suggest boredom while you are secretly running through your tenses: je mange, tu manges, il mange, elle mange, nous mangeons, vous mangez, ils mangent, elles mangent.

  Zoe, I’ve seen you steal sachets of mayonnaise; I’ve seen you covertly eat iced buns in class: channel your mischievous streak. Like food, I know you’ve got it in you. And if you ever feel that you are all alone then remember this: there are more fat people in the world today than there are hungry people. And if I had to use a word to describe you, it would be zaftig – which means to be desirably plump and curvaceous.

  Good luck, endomorph!

  Note: in keeping with the above rules, I will not stop bullying you until someone else stops first. That’s the way things work.

  Compunction

  Fat’s not been in school since we cremated her diary. It’s been more than two weeks. She is probably at home, imagining all her classmates reading out loud about the no sexual experiences and the no drug abuse.

  I have been keeping my pamphlet in a sealed brown A4 envelope in my bag in case she turns up; it’s starting to get a bit tatty. If only she could know how close she is to changing her life for ever.

  There’s only one person who will know what has happened to Fat: Jean the dinner lady, recognizable by her loose forearms and the way you can see her scalp through her hair if you catch her in the right light.

  I get up at seven and out of the house by ten past; I tell my parents that a boy can’t exist on Raisin Splitz alone, slamming the front door. I get to school by half-past seven. Breakfasts start at eight.

  I find Jean at the back of the dining hall, dwarfed between two giant steel bins, staring out towards the rugby pitches. She has a cigarette in one hand, the other is deep in the pocket of her faded turquoise smock. In the half-light, she appears to have a full head of hair.

  ‘Morning,’ I say.

  ‘Up early,’ she says.

  ‘I came to see you.’

  She pulls on her cigarette for a long time. I don’t think she knows who I am.

  ‘I want to talk to you about Zoe,’ I say.

  The smoke comes out of her nose first.

  ‘Who’s Zoe?’ she asks.

  ‘Fat,’ I say. ‘Some people call her Fat.’

  ‘You one of ’er friends?’ she asks, exhaling, her jaw angled to the sky.

  This might be a trick question. I think on my shuffling feet.

  ‘I’m more of an admirer,’ I say.

  She does not react.

  ‘I’ve just been wondering, she hasn’t been in school for a few days now: is she okay?’

  ‘She’s moved schools to Carreg Fawr,’ she says, speaking calmly. ‘She hated it here.’

  Carreg Fawr School has a bad reputation and an excellent drama department.

  ‘Oh.’

  The giant wheelie bins cool the air around us. The smell is cheese Doritos and banana skins.

  ‘There’s something I wanted to give to her.’

  ‘Well, best go down to Carreg Fawr and find her then.’

  I wonder how old Jean is. She sounds kind of juvenile.

  ‘But I’d get beaten up,’ I say.

  She shrugs. The skin on her face is powdery, as though dusted with icing sugar.

  ‘Don’t you care about Zoe’s love life?’ I plead.

  ‘It’s a love letter?’ she asks, leaning against the bin.

  ‘Is that so hard to believe?’

  The tiniest hint of a smile at the corners of her dry lips.

  ‘Alright, give it to me,’ she says, extending her hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give me the letter; I’ll find a way of getting it to her.’

  A boundary of sunlight pushes its way across the cricket pitch and tennis courts.

  I pull the dog-eared A4 envelope from my rucksack.

  ‘That’s a big love letter,’ she says, squinting.

  I know what I’m going to say and for a moment I wish there was a film crew documenting my day-to-day life:

  ‘I’ve got a big heart,’ I say.

  She takes it from my hand, then blows smoke above my head.

  The sun repaints the rugby posts from bottom to top.

  It is seven forty-one and I am in school.

  *

  After lunch, in chemistry, I stare at Jordana as she blackens the rubber on the end of her pencil in our Bunsen burner. We are wearing lab coats.

  ‘You’ll catch cancer from the fumes,’ Mary Pugh says as she walks past. Mary wears her goggles over her glasses: six eyes.

  ‘I like the smell,’ Jordana says to me, twirling the pencil like a wand through the billowing yellow flame. Jordana and I, knowing that being respected by our peers is more important than our eyesight, wear our goggles on top of our heads.

  I inhale. The fumes are caustic and sharp.

  Jordana looks at me for a long time. The yellow flame reflects in her eyes.

  ‘Which superpower: flight or invisibility?’ she asks.

  ‘Invisibility,’ I say

  ‘Would you rather be fat or ugly?’

  ‘Depends how ugly,’ I say.

  ‘Would you rather be fat or unpopular?’

  There is the sound of a test tube cracking under heat.

  ‘I’d rather be fat,’ I say.

  Jordana arches her back.

  ‘God alive, I feel supple,’ she says, looking at me.

  I look down at the graffiti on the table. It says: I EAT MEAT.

  Jordana wafts the smouldering pencil rubber under my nose. I inhale. The little flap between my nose and my throat starts to sting.

  She grabs my exercise book from in front of me.

  ‘I’ve made some new findings,’ she says.

  ‘Write them in your own book,’ I say.

  ‘I think you’ll find them interesting.’

  Opening the book to a new page – it is square-lined – she leans down and writes something in pencil. She hands it back to me.

  I read her message:

  Hey Oprah,

  Meet me after school by the tennis courts.

  I want to show you my special skills.

  J x

  The three tennis courts are at the far end of the playing fields, lined up against the mesh fence that surrounds the school grounds. The tennis nets droop in the middle.

  On the other side of the perimeter fence is a single-storey old person’s home. Sometimes, during PE, one of the old people will come to a window, pull aside the vertical blinds and watch us playing doubles. We are told not to wave at them. When I see them watching, I make a point of being young and alive.

  Jordana is in the umpire’s highchair.

  I walk under the rugby posts and on to the tennis courts, stopping a few metres in front o
f her, in the service box.

  Her legs are crossed.

  I wait for her to speak.

  ‘I have two special skills,’ she says.

  She pulls a sheaf of papers from under her bum. I recognize the font and the text boxes. It’s my pamphlet.

  ‘Blackmail,’ she says.

  She holds up her Zippo in the other hand. I can tell that she has been practising this.

  ‘And pyromania.’

  I am impressed that Jordana knows this word.

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘I’m going to blackmail you, Ol.’

  I feel powerless. She is in a throne.

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  ‘If you don’t do what I tell you then I’m going to show everyone in school your little pamphlet.’

  Her thighs are very white. I am at her service.

  ‘Right, what do I need to do?’ I ask.

  ‘So you’d better do what I tell you.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll do anything.’

  ‘Meet me in Singleton Park on Saturday with a disposable camera and your diary.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll have to buy a diary,’ I say.

  ‘Well, buy one,’ she says, decisively.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Or else I’ll distribute this and everyone will know how much you love Zoe,’ she says, wafting the pamphlet in the air. ‘Imagine what Chips would say if he saw this.’

  Chips would probably just do his impression of having sex with Zoe: as an underwater diver, holding his breath, swimming through rolls of flesh.

  ‘Did Jean give it to you?’

  ‘Ah ha, that’s for me to know and you to find out,’ she says.

  If I miss the first two buses home then I have to wait half an hour for the next one. I’ve already missed the first bus.

  ‘Oh. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then. I’m going to catch my bus now,’ I say.

  ‘And if you do what I tell you then I promise to burn this document,’ she says.

  ‘That’s fair.’

  I see the second bus through the fence at the top entrance.

  ‘I’ve got to run to catch this,’ I say.

  It disappears behind the old people’s home.

  ‘Guess what?’ Jordana says.

  ‘I need to leg it.’

  ‘You were right. Jean mistook me for one of Zoe’s friends. She handed it to me in the canteen.’

  ‘Pardon me, but I’ve gotta run,’ I say and I turn to move off.

  ‘Wait. We could burn the evidence now?’ she says, holding her Zippo in the air.

  I am one of those servants – butlers usually – who respectfully points out when their master is about to do something stupid: ‘You should probably only burn the document once the blackmail has been completed, m’ lady.’

  I see the bus pull in at the bottom bus stop.

  ‘Don’t bother, you’ve missed it,’ she says.

  She might be right. My only chance of catching it is if there’s already a few people at the bus stop and one of them does not have the correct change and they have to run to the Sketty Park newsagent and buy a Toffee Crisp to break a fiver.

  ‘You’ve missed it,’ she says.

  I’m going to have to catch the third bus.

  ‘We could burn it now?’ she says, from behind me.

  I turn around.

  She is staring at me.

  ‘Come on, let’s burn it,’ she says.

  I could tell her that she is completely undermining the idea that blackmail is one of her special skills.

  She holds my gaze as she slowly lowers one leg after the other, descending the laddered steps. She is quite graceful. A breeze ripples her pleated skirt. I imagine this accompanied by big-band jazz music.

  The bottom but one step wobbles as she stands on it; she panics and jumps to the ground. Her skirt parachutes up to her waist. I see some things I should not have seen.

  I don’t feel so powerless anymore.

  ‘Alright, let’s burn it,’ I say.

  Osculation

  My tongue is in Jordana’s mouth. I can taste semi-skimmed milk.

  I experience a sudden flash; it is a mixture of true love and a disposable camera.

  She retracts her tongue and takes a step back. She’s wearing a black top with red arms and a denim skirt with pockets.

  ‘You better not’ve had your eyes open,’ she says, winding the camera on. The sound of the flash recharging is like a tiny plane taking off.

  We are in the centre of the stone circle in Singleton Park, basically just a few uneven rocks sprinkled about the place. Fred, Jordana’s parents’ ancient sheepdog, is off his lead; he is sniffing and pissing on the boulders.

  The green light starts to glow.

  ‘Right, now try to look a little less gay.’

  We engage. Her tongue is warm and strong. I skim along her incisors. They feel enormous. I check out her premolars and have a scout around for wisdom teeth. There is a ‘cluk’ sound as light pulses on the backs of my eyelids. We disengage.

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t square,’ Jordana says, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. ‘You snog like a dentist.’

  ‘That’s my style.’

  ‘What – the drill?’

  She expects me to have a witty reply.

  ‘Let’s try no tongues,’ she says, setting the camera on a nearby monolith.

  She looks through the viewfinder, then points at a spot on the ground: ‘Kneel on the grass there.’

  I go to ground. The grass is damp; it cools my knees.

  ‘Beautiful,’ she says, pressing a button on top of the camera.

  She kneels down in front of me.

  ‘Right,’ she says. ‘No tongues.’

  We go at it like fish. She puts her hand on the back of my head. I put my hand on her neck. Various birds are communicating. One of them chirps like a modem. My lips feel swollen. The flash goes off. We keep going. After a while, Jordana pulls back. Her lips are bright red and the skin around her mouth is starting to look inflamed.

  ‘Okay, that should do it,’ she says. ‘Now we need your diary.’

  I bought a Niceday hardcover ring-bound diary in Uplands News-agent. It has a comprehensive map of the British Train Network in the back.

  I sit cross-legged on the grass with the book in my lap; she sits above me and opposite, on a boulder.

  Again, I have the feeling of powerlessness. It is just a matter of seating.

  ‘Turn to today’s date please,’ she says in the voice of Mrs Griffiths, our maths teacher. ‘I’ll dictate.’

  I turn to the fifth of April and let my pen hover at the top of the page.

  ‘Dear diary,’ she says, ‘I can’t stop thinking about Jordana Bevan.’

  I nod and start writing.

  Dear Diary,

  I can’t stop thinking about Jordana Bevan.

  I look up. She finishes rubbing Vaseline into her lips.

  ‘I know I’m not the only boy who fancies her,’ she says, which seems reasonable enough. I write:

  I know I’m not the only boy who fancies her.

  ‘Jordana dumped Mark Pritchard and now he has had to settle for Janet “cum-tub” Smuts.’

  I stop transcribing.

  I feel she is going off-point a little. Plus I’m not entirely comfortable with calling Janet ‘cum-tub’.

  ‘I sit by Janet in geography,’ I say.

  Jordana is biting her thumbnail.

  Janet Smuts used to be Jordana’s best friend. And Mark Pritchard used to be Jordana’s boyfriend. The word in the playground is that Mark cheated on Jordana with Janet at the Blue Light Disco, which is run by police officers who pretend to be your friend. Apparently, Mark fingered Janet during the slow dance and they’ve been together since.

  ‘Jordana?’ I say.

  She’s really working at that nail, trying to get it clean off in one.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like something I would write,’ I say.

  She has the sc
rag of nail between her front teeth. She spits it at me. It clings to my blue jumper. I leave it there.

  ‘Alright, alright, what have we got so far?’ she says.

  ‘DearDiaryIcan’tstopthinkingaboutJordanaBevanIknowI’mnot theonlyboywhofanciesher.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Take this down: I was so lucky to get the snogs in.’

  ‘I would never say snog. I would say osculate.’

  She looks at me as if to say: why do you exist?

  ‘It’s a good word,’ I tell her.

  ‘It sounds like a word a dentist would use.’

  ‘That’s my style.’

  She frowns.

  ‘Okay, Shakespeare, I’ll dictate, you translate.’

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Seducing Jordana was solid – she’s got such high standards – but when I finally got the snogs in it was all worth it.’

  I transform Jordana’s blather into high-level discourse:

  Lounging in a post-osculatory glow, I knew that all those months of hard chivalry had been worthwhile.

  I look up.

  ‘Jordana is so…’ Jordana says, shaking her head, looking to me for adjectives.

  ‘Tender?’ I suggest. ‘Intrepid? Accomplished?’

  She nods.

  Jordana is so tender, intrepid and accomplished.

  ‘Snogging her was such a score that I had to get a photo of it,’ she says. ‘One for the grandchildren.’

  I took a photo of us, mid-embrace. When I am old and alone I will remember that I once held something truly beautiful.

  I turn the diary around and hold it up so she can read it.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Then: And to think that mong, Mark Pritchard, would rather go out with cum-tub Janet than Jordana just seems ridiculous.’

  You can tell Jordana really means something because she starts to roll her ‘r’s.

  I put the diary down.

  ‘You really want me to call Janet a cum-tub, don’t you?’ I say.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you really think Mark’s a mong?’ I say.

  ‘Yes.’

  I have respect for Mark Pritchard: he has been using deodorant for two years already; he brings an electric razor to school; he has hair like Elvis.

  ‘You sound like you’re a bitter and wizened fifty-year-old,’ I say.

  Jordana tenses her jaw. There is a repetitive scraping sound. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. Her hand is in the small front pocket of her skirt. I can see a muscle in her wrist pulsing. Scritch. Scritch.