Poster boy, p.5
Poster Boy, page 5
“Raid,” Kinga yelled. “There’s gonna be a raid, look!”
Everyone watched the van slow to a crawl. The raid was going to be close by.
“C’mon, guys,” Denny said, “let’s watch.”
Everyone stood up. Everyone except me and Jimmy.
Jimmy grabbed Fi, the tall brunette he’d been sucking face with, and pulled her back down into his lap. She giggled, and wiggled her arse on his crotch. “I’m good here,” he said. “You good?”
Fi nodded, and brayed like a demented donkey before trying to hoover the contents of Jimmy’s stomach out through his mouth. I shifted awkwardly. I was going to be left alone, next to the squelching noises and the fake orgasmic groans the donkey gave every time my brother so much as touched her shoulder.
By now, Christos was jogging across the grass with the others, but he turned and yelled to me.
“Rosa, come on, you can come with us. We’ll look after her, Jimmy.”
Jimmy came up for air. He was so topped he slurred. “Whatever. I ain’t her fucking keeper.”
Faced with the choice between being a witness to my twin’s sexual exploits, or taking the hand of the guy who had robbed me of my reason and letting him whisk me away I… Well, I think it’s fairly obvious what I did. I ran across the wet grass, down the street and past the boarded-up mosque on the corner, towards the now stationary van with the rest of them.
The raids were happening all the time. But I’d never seen one, apart from on my Shades. Any legal immigrant who wanted to work, or claim benefits, had already been chipped. If you were foreign-born you couldn’t get a job without first being scanned, well, not a legal one anyway. But there were plenty of immigrants who neither claimed benefits nor worked for legitimate employers. Poor saps who were slogging their guts out for unscrupulous employers who paid them, in cash, below the minimum wage. I say poor saps, but that’s not how most people saw them. Parasites, filthy vermin bringing violence and disease into our city, taking jobs that could have been given to patriots. Somehow, in the public eye, the greedy employers exploiting them had been absolved. The way to tackle the problem, the ERP believed, was not to prosecute the business owners, but remove the illegal immigrants, forcing them to employ citizens instead.
The initiative, known as Operation Reclamation, created thousands of new jobs for the unskilled, out-of-work youth, which made it even more appealing in the public eye. Parents encouraged their thick, bullish offspring, who were too uneducated for the regular police force, to sign up as Immigration Enforcers. It was the ultimate career for former school bullies because they got to pick on those weaker than them for a living.
The enforcers had already broken down the door of the shabby mid-terrace by the time we got there. We were all panting. The three other girls smoothed down their hair, and ran index fingers under their eyes to remove any smudged mascara. Christos squeezed my hand and then let go.
He stepped forward to get a better view, and everyone else followed. I hung back by the streetlight, but they lined the route from the front door to the van, and when the officers emerged, dragging young Filipino women in silk nighties by their arms, they did not wave them off. In fact, they smiled at the assembled youths, swaggering as if they were celebrities on red carpets, not bullies manhandling defenceless women.
It was clearly a brothel. A few white British men slipped out of the door amid the fracas, looking red-faced. The officers weren’t interested in them. Kinga started the heckling.
“Fucking foreign whores,” he shouted. “Who’d pay for your stinking cunts anyway?”
The enforcers laughed. One of the captives, an older woman with a deep scar on her cheek, managed to pull away for a split second. She yelled something in her own language at Kinga and spat at the ground in front of him.
The officer she’d pulled away from raised his baton and struck her on the head. She fell to her knees, wailing with the pain.
“Fuck you, skank,” Kinga yelled back. “I don’t speak Oooga Booga!”
The officer wound her long black hair round his fist and pulled her to her feet.
“Disrespectful little whore,” he sneered, hitting her with his baton again, this time in the stomach. She screamed and clutched her abdomen as he threw her in the van.
They kept coming, twelve of them at least. Everyone was fired up. The boys shouted, sneered and swore. The girls joined in.
I guess everyone has that one moment in their lives. The one you would give anything to erase, because you know you were wrong. Inexcusably, horrifically wrong. The guilt at what I did next still gnaws at me. I’m a despicable person. It’s the monkey on my back that I try to hide, that I never speak of, that no one but those who were there that night has ever known.
Sophie, the leggy redhead with a penchant for lycra, went for it. I’ve never heard anyone spit quite so much vitriol at other human beings. I found out years later her parents had split because her dad was a little too fond of foreign hookers. So I guess it was a kind of catharsis. An outpouring of grief rather than racism. I’ve excused her actions in my mind long ago. But I still can’t excuse mine.
Her tirade was so loud, so relentless, that the others stopped slinging their own insults and listened.
“Fucking buk-buk Fliggers, fucking stinking pineapple monkeys!”
Christos whooped… and put his arm around her waist.
I started to hyperventilate. Everything I thought was so close, had convinced myself was a foregone conclusion, was falling from my reach. If I didn’t do something, anything, he’d be putting his lips on hers later, not mine.
It was the worst, most shallow motivation in the world. My fucking hormones. But the panorama of the world disappeared and I was in a tunnel. There was suddenly no past or future. There was only this one pivotal moment, and I had to salvage it somehow.
I picked up a stone. A big fucking jagged stone from the driveway. I pushed between them all and threw it. My aim was off; I was pretty pissed. I meant, honestly and truly meant, for it to land by the door. To look like I was being aggressive but didn’t throw well. But it went higher and farther than I intended. It whizzed past the front step just as a young woman was being pulled out, her toddler following behind, grasping her hand.
It hit the kid on the arm. A little boy with huge brown eyes. Barefoot, pyjamas on and a ragged teddy bear under one arm. He screamed and burst into tears. His mother wrenched her arm free with the primal strength women find in themselves when their cubs are under threat, and cradled him. She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. Not with anger but with disbelief. A fleeting glance, before the officer marched her and her crying child to the van and shut the doors, but one that haunts me every single day of my life.
The worst part was that the others applauded, clapped me on the back.
“Wow, girl, you got that tailless monkey good!”
“Go, Rosa!”
I felt sick.
When we got back to the park it was obvious what Jimmy had been up to. He quickly zipped up his flies.
“Hey, Jim-bud,” Kinga yelled, “your sis is fierce, man!”
Jimmy frowned and studied me. “What you on about?”
“Oh, bro, you shoulda seen her!” Denny said. “She got this fucking Flig kid, right on the arm.”
“She what?”
“Sweet aim, bud. She clocked him with this fuck-off rock. Jeez, girl, you oughta try out for the cricket team!”
Jimmy grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the others. My guts were churning.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he snapped.
I was staring at the ground. What could I say? I was trying to impress your mate cos I want to sleep with him?
“Look at me, Rosa!”
I looked up, and that’s when I saw them in the corner of my eye. Christos and Sophie melded together in an amorphous lump of limbs and tongues. His hand was down her lycra shorts, hers were on his crotch.
“I don’t feel well, Jimmy.” I puked on his shoes.
8
That was the last straw for Jimmy, covering his new J-Lanes in luminous orange vomit.
“Fuck!” He wiped his precious footwear on the long grass and grabbed me by the arm. “That’s it. You’re going home. Come on.” He started to frogmarch me across the park. Fi pouted.
“Hey, I’ll take her, man,” Denny piped up. “I was gonna split soon anyway. I’ve gotta help my old man with some biddy’s fence in the morning. Says he’ll pay me, and I’m cleaned right now so I need it.”
Jimmy stopped, looked me up and down, then let go of my arm and shoved me towards Denny.
“Okay,” he said, “but you take her right to the door, got it? No splitting up at Duckett, you watch her go in.”
“I swear, man,” Denny said. He crossed his heart and turned to me. “C’mon, let’s get you home.”
I was dizzy. I glanced back at the writhing mass. Christos didn’t even look up.
Denny chatted at me as we trod the pavements. My head swam with unwanted images. Like a montage of pain and guilt, devised by some sadistic demon and played on loop. Christos and Sophie, the little boy crying, his mother looking at me with those defeated eyes. Everything started to spin, and merge, like a sickening kaleidoscope. I threw up again, this time in someone’s azaleas.
“Whoa, easy tiger!” Denny caught hold of me as I stumbled backwards. “Here.” He handed me a bottle of water and I took a long slug, grateful for the cool, refreshing liquid. We sat for a few moments on a low wall, and the world came back into focus.
“Thanks,” I said, handing him back the bottle. He grimaced, probably thinking about the backwash.
“You keep it,” he said. “Haven’t you ever had a drink before?”
“Course I have,” I snapped, “I’ve just never had SIX before.”
He laughed. “Well, first time for everything I guess.”
“Not for me.” I was already thinking about it. Had already decided it was the only solution to my situation, that’s how screwed up my judgement was. I fished for it. I took the conversation down the line deliberately. I knew he’d ask what I meant, and I knew I was going to steer us there. I have no one to blame but myself.
“What?”
See? He had no choice but to ask. Now I could take us down that road, the one you can’t come back from.
“First times,” I said, “they don’t happen to me.”
Denny frowned and I waited for the penny to drop. I knew he was thick, and topped. In fact, that was what I was counting on. Nobody with any intelligence or sobriety would do what I was angling for, not in his position. But for some reason it seemed so vital. Another pivotal moment, another way to try to salvage something from this evening. If I could just get fucked, by anyone, it would validate me somehow. Make me feel I wasn’t disconnected from everything else. I told you, never underestimate the stupidity of a clever teenage girl. That goes double for a clever teenage girl with alcohol in her bloodstream.
“You mean you’re a…” he said at last. I nodded. “Oh.” He shifted awkwardly. “Well, hey, that’s cool y’know.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “It’s the total fucking opposite of cool.”
Denny shrugged. “Horses for courses man, horses for courses. You just gotta do what you gotta do. So what if you’re not up for it yet? Don’t matter, right?”
“But I am…” I whispered, “I am… up for it.”
“Oh. Oh, I see. What’s the deal then? Guy you want not into it? Must be a fool if you ask me. You don’t gotta worry about some pansy-ass. He’s an idiot if he’s turning you down.”
I swallowed hard. Was I really going to do this? Throw myself at a guy I wasn’t even attracted to? Yes. Yes I was, because tonight had to mean something. It couldn’t just be about me injuring a kid and getting my heart stomped on. I had to reclaim it. I had to do something, a massive something, to eclipse all the shit and take back control. In my idiocy I thought losing my virginity would push the rest of it into obscurity.
Like the whole world does, I overestimated the power of sex.
“I want… you.” I heard the words for the first time as they fell from my lips. I felt disassociated.
Turned out he didn’t need much convincing. A few minutes ago he’d balked at even sipping from the same bottle as me and my vomit-mouth, but put sex on the table and all that was forgotten. His lips were on mine, cold and slimy and possessive. Somehow my feet were moving, he guided me into an alleyway and I crumpled to the ground. He covered me, like a lion taking down a gazelle, and my limbs folded beneath him.
I closed my eyes, tried to work out what it was I ought to be feeling. I was sure it wasn’t the gravel on my now bare arse, or the worry that I might stop breathing from his weight upon my chest. He was breathing heavy, cold sprinkles of spittle pebble-dashing my ear. He was groaning, but I seemed to be missing the point. All I could think about was the zipper sticking into my hip, and whether I could wiggle enough to stop it hurting without causing offence.
And then the sharp pain tore through me and made me gasp. I thought something was happening, changing. I thought now I’d know, now I’d get what it was all about. But the pain flew away leaving nothing but the gravel, the zipper and the feeling of being crushed. He was there, wherever that was. He was in the nirvana you’re supposed to reach. I could tell from his grunts and scrunched up eyes. But I was still just on my back, half dressed in an alleyway. Wherever this was supposed to take me, I guess I missed my stop.
After he finished we walked the rest of the journey in silence. He gave me a brief hug at the gate and I ran inside, not looking back. I rushed upstairs and stared at myself in the mirror. Nothing had changed. I didn’t feel transformed or clued-in. I felt like the same girl I was half an hour before, but with another regret to add to the pile. I felt tricked. Not by Denny, but by the world. There was no rite of passage, no coming of age. No great and glorious moment when the trappings of maidenhood are shed and a woman is born. There was, in fact, no big deal at all.
I shoved my blood-stained knickers to the bottom of my bedroom bin and lay down. I put on my Shades, played some music to try to take the evening away. But when I closed my eyes all I could see was that little boy’s crying face.
9
Sometimes, in the womb, one twin absorbs the other. They call it foetal resorption. It consumes its sibling entirely, leaving no evidence of its existence. I think on that sometimes. Send a futile telepathic message through time and space to the cluster of cells I once was. Absorb him, eclipse him. If Jimmy never was, then I could be. If Jimmy hadn’t existed to die, then I could live.
But I know it could never have happened. If one of us were to have consumed the other, it would have been him. He was always stronger and smarter. He could have taken the womb for his own if he wished; he always took everything he wished. Anyone who knew Jimmy and thought he wasn’t part of their crowd because they didn’t want him to be was deluded. If he wanted you, he got you. If he didn’t, he didn’t care what you thought of him. You were always exactly where he wanted you to be, always did exactly what he wanted you to do.
He allowed me to live in utero, only to force me to die on this stage.
Cole finishes his speech at last. Ending on a sound bite.
“Strength, community and hope. Young James Lincoln epitomised these virtues, these virtues that we of the ERP strive to uphold. I thank you, Jimmy, and I will always do my best to honour your convictions with my actions.”
The crowd applauds. Cole nods slowly, fakes a sniff and a fast blink to give the impression he’s fighting back emotion. He walks to his seat, three down from mine, folding his palms in his lap. His left foot taps the stage, causing his brown laces to jiggle. He surveys the clapping crowd, the smirk of self-satisfaction flickers across his face. I wonder what tune he’s playing in his head. Probably something majestic. Something by Beethoven perhaps. Something he feels would be a fitting soundtrack to his magnificence.
Two to go.
Alicia Browne stands up. Slick grey pant suit, coiffured blonde bob. She’s got one of those smiles the wearer thinks looks congenial, but it somehow makes her look colder than a blank stare could. Head of anti-terror ops: you don’t get there by being gooey on the inside. Pure unadulterated steel. She takes the mic and begins in her usual fashion.
“I am honoured today to pay homage to a true patriot. A young man with passion, conviction and courage.”
What a joke. Jimmy didn’t have conviction. His only cause was hedonism, his only ambition one of personal gratification. He didn’t ponder the nature of existence, or the best way to create a better society. The questions that plagued him were where he could score his next synthetic, or which of the girls would be most likely to drop their knickers. He certainly didn’t support the ERP, even though they’ve made him their poster child. Knowing Jimmy, if he’d been alive to do so, he wouldn’t have bothered voting at all.
The only time I heard him have a conversation that came close to political was when he argued with Dad about getting a Citizen Chip. That was back when they weren’t compulsory and you needed parental consent. The ERP were moving towards full roll-out, for all citizens, starting with volunteers. Even then, he didn’t want the implant because he believed in what Cole was trying to accomplish; it was because of the credit incentive they were offering.
That’s who he really was. Someone willing to have an implanted device, against their own father’s moral convictions, simply to get a new Shades update. Dad refused, of course. But as soon as he dragged his hungover body out of bed on our eighteenth birthday, Jimmy went straight to the council building to get his CC, and then straight onto the Shades site to download the latest updates. That he ‘volunteered’ for the initiative was all the ERP needed to claim he was a ‘loyal supporter of English Reclamation’.
