Page 16 - WTP Vol.IX #3

Chestnut (continued from preceding page)
copied.
‘You OK ‘Laine? Look a bit off.’
I said, ‘Tomorrow. SATS. Stressing About Test, Scared.’
Leo lived in a house where his dad wouldn’t turn the heating on, so he actually came round to get warm. Borrowing my homework was just an excuse. He sat pressed against the radiator.
I picked up the kitchen memo pad to write down Kirsty’s simile definition. Written on it in Mum’s handwriting was:
‘Gin
Yoghurt
More condoms
Lubricating Gel.’
My head filled with images of my mum drunk on gin and... you know.
I showed Leo the text from Kirsty and said, ‘Leo, write this on the pad, will you?’
‘Am I right to want to kill her?’
‘Yes.’
I was quiet. Leo was quiet. Kirsty was quiet.
She waited for me to say the next bit she could say ‘yes’ to.
Leo, who was the quiet kid of the class, the kid who didn’t play football, the kid who still believed in Santa and didn’t know where babies came from, asked me what my mum wanted the gel for? He asked if it was for her bike chain. I said she doesn’t have a bike. I said she is the bike. He moved closer to the radiator, running his fingers along its ribs like playing a harp.
I told Leo I had to do my SATS prep. He got the mes- sage, sighed, and reluctantly moved away from the radiator like leaving a lover—although I knew then that he would never have a lover and would die alone in a Bootle council flat with a dog, a budgie and his virginity intact. I gave him a scarf to wear at home.
Before he left, he stopped by the door and said, ‘I’m worried about Mrs Chestnut. She didn’t seem happy today. And she had to leave class to see The Head. And she’s getting fat.’
My mouth went dry. I sucked hard into my cheeks to get some spit back in. It was obvious Mrs Chestnut was food-bingeing cos of stress just like Mum did. Mum kept emergency chocolate bars in the fridge. Mrs Chestnut was obviously, like me, worried sick about the SATS.
But it was OK, I told myself, cos I had Pi on my arm and simile on the notepad. All I needed was to nail the metaphor thing.
Pick up phone.
‘Kirsty, you still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just want to say: I love you. Do you love me?’
‘Yes.’
I smiled. A tiny pebble of joy—in a huge gravel pit of sadness and sat-ness.
‘Kirsty?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s a metaphor?’
Uncle Dennis had come in. He smiled. I ignored him.
As he did, I took Mum’s shopping list to flush down the toilet. It didn’t go down, so I kept plunging at it with the toilet brush. The note became papier mâ- ché tangled round the toilet brush bristles. I tried to shake it clean, but one scrap of paper clung on stub- bornly. I could clearly read the word ‘lubricating’. I threw up in the basin.
I called Kirsty back and told her everything, cos that’s what you do with best mates isn’t it. Kirsty went quiet.
‘You still there, Kirsty?’ ‘Yes.’
‘Is the thought of my Mum and Uncle Dennis doing it repulsive?’
‘Yes.’
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