Alice and the Fly (2 page)

Miss Hayes perched on the edge of my desk (which worried me at the time, it still being wobbly after Ian and Goose’s wrestling). She crossed one leg over the other and then crossed one arm over the other and said she’d given me an A- for that
An Inspector Calls
essay. She said I was a natural at English. I wish I’d said something clever like, ‘Well, I’ve lived in England all my life,’ but I can never think of these things at the time so I just nodded. She said she’d spoken to the school nurse about me and about
Them
and about my condition and she wanted to know if I’d come with her to her office for a little chat. I didn’t know what to say to that either. I just nodded again.

Since then I’ve been waiting behind every Tuesday for a little chat in Miss Hayes’ office. We never chat, though. We tend to just sit in silence. I pick the dry skin from my hands while she twists that ring on her finger, like I’m an old-fashioned TV set and she’s trying to turn up the volume knob. It doesn’t bother me, silence. People talk too much. They make awkward talk every five minutes about school or my parents or how my sister’s dancing’s going. It’s nice to sit in silence for an hour in the same room as Miss Hayes, just knowing we’re both there experiencing that silence together. It gives me a bit of a warmth.

Miss Hayes doesn’t think silence is very progressive. A couple of weeks ago she gave me this little leather book and said writing stuff down might help me express myself. I asked her what I should write. She said, ‘This isn’t an assignment, just write down your thoughts. Your feelings.’

Tonight she asked if I’d written down any of my thoughts or feelings and I said I’d written one thing, last week, but it wasn’t much, only a few pages. I didn’t know what to write so I ended up writing about a bus ride I took.

‘It’s OK to write about a bus ride,’ she said. ‘You can write about anything.’

I told her it’s hard writing to myself because I already know everything I have to say. I said that last time I pretended to be writing to someone else and that helped. She said that’s OK too. I don’t have to write to myself. Her diary’s called Deirdre and she finds Deirdre very easy to write to. I asked her who Deirdre was and she just swallowed and said, ‘Nobody.’

Well, Miss Hayes may write to nobody, but I think writing to nobody’s pretty stupid. That’s why I’ve decided to keep writing to you. I hope you don’t mind, you just seem like a good way of getting the words on the page. I know you don’t know me, but nobody knows me, and by knowing that you now kind of know me better than anyone.

My name’s Greg, by the way.

We live in one of the avenue’s corner houses with a total of ten rooms and every couple of months my father gives Mum his credit card and she goes to work on one. New style, new theme, new colour scheme. Sometimes she gets walls knocked down or fireplaces installed. Last summer she had little lights set into the dining-room wall like stars, but they looked too tacky so she had them ripped out and the foundations gave and I spent weeks with my head under my pillow while hairy Pitt people hammered and plastered and swore in loud voices.

At the minute Mum’s re-envisioning the lounge. Everything’s hospital-white, from the carpet to the curtains to the candlesticks. There are piles of catalogues under the coffee table and Mum spends most of the day flipping through them, making phone calls. She’s still waiting for the Italian leather couch. She’s designed the room around it. It’s the most expensive item of furniture she’s ever encountered. My father said it costs more than the rest of the room combined, including the decorators’ wages. He’s had to take on three new clients to afford the initial deposit. The last time we saw my father was Sunday. Mum told me not to tell anyone this. I don’t know who she thinks I’m going to tell.

Today’s decorators were a father-and-son plastering firm, smoothing over the cracks in the lounge ceiling. (My sister’s room is above the lounge. My sister dances.) By the time I was dressed and packed up for school they’d stopped for a coffee break. They were sitting on the dining-room window seat, the cafetière steaming between them. Both plasterers wore grey vests and khaki camouflage trousers. The father’s belly was slipping out of the bottom of his vest. He had a lot of moles.

I sat at the top of the stairs and waited for them to get back to work. I wanted to slip down for breakfast unnoticed. Decorators make me nervous. They scratch their armpits and sniff their fingers. They speak loudly as if they don’t care who hears them. Sometimes they say stuff to me or try and joke with me and I don’t know how to reply. I always feel bad for not giving them a hand.

They make Mum nervous too. If she saw one shopping in Waitrose she’d tut and give them her sour-face but when they’re in her home she’s all smiles and ‘Can I get you some more coffee?’ This morning she came to collect their empty coffee mugs and noticed the dustsheets they’d laid down were old bed sheets and joked, ‘Are you going to have to wash these before bedtime tonight?’ grinning like she was advertising toothpaste. They were pretty good-natured about it. They laughed along. Then they watched Mum’s legs as she stepped back out into the hall. The son spotted me at the top of the stairs and winked. I left without eating breakfast.

The rest of the morning was pretty normal. I guess I don’t lead a very crazy life. If Ian Connor was writing this then he’d have all kinds of stories to tell you but all I did this morning was go to my lessons. First lesson was P.E. This month they’re doing football. I sat in the sports hall and watched them out on the field, breathing white and shivering. They still laughed, though. To be honest I’d be fine out on the field, but I don’t think Mr McKenzie wants me to join in with P.E. any more. Not after last time. He doesn’t even ask me for a note now, he just says, ‘You sitting out again, Greg, yeah?’ at the start of each class and I just nod and head for the sports hall.

Second lesson was Chemistry. We sterilised the desks. We covered them in alcohol and set them alight, watched a blue tide of flames spread over the wood. I guess that’s exciting enough to write down.

Third lesson was History with Mr Finch. We did nothing in History exciting enough to write down.

Right now I’m sitting in the library. I come here every lunchtime. It’s quiet. I can hear my pen scratching the paper. There’s just the murmur of the crowds out on the playground, the tick of the clock, the steady waves of Miss Eleanor’s ultra-loud breathing: in and out, in and out. Sometimes she stops on an in and I hold my own breath waiting for the out. It always comes, eventually.

I saw you a few minutes ago. You were sneaking across the field with Angela Hargrove. I stepped over to the window, as quietly as possible to avoid waking Miss Eleanor. You were wearing that coat again, the one with the red fur trim. You were wearing your sunglasses. You were laughing at some sort of impression Angela was doing, waving her hands about her head. When you laugh you always cover your teeth, try and hide the gap, which is stupid because the gap is the most unique and amazing part of your smile. That’s the third day in a row you two have snuck out through the gap in the hedge. Only sixth-formers are allowed to leave the grounds during school-time. I guess you know that.

I haven’t always hidden away in the library. I used to sit out at lunch, on the wall over by the Lipton Building. I didn’t care that I was on my own because there was this family of magpies that nested just the other side of the fence and I liked to watch them, leaping out over the crowds, snatching things for their nest in the trees. Then one day a gang of Pitt kids noticed me there. One of them was your brother. (This was a couple of years back, when he was still in school.) They crowded round me and began to say things, the usual things, about my condition and my lisp and how weird I was and how pathetic it was that I was sitting out there on my own, etc. etc., but the magpies were out that day so I wasn’t really paying attention, I was too busy watching them, too busy listening to that little cackle they have, that miniature machine-gun squawk. Then your brother hunched down to eye level and demanded I ‘say something’. I didn’t know what to say. I was straining over his shoulder to see the magpies, picking through the bin. It made me smile because it was as if they knew exactly what they were looking for. Then one of the other Pitt kids bent down alongside your brother and reminded me that your brother had asked me to say something and told me I’d better ‘say something quick, or else’, only one of the magpies had caught something small and wriggling in its beak and I was too busy trying to make out what it was. Next thing I knew the whole gang was screaming ‘Say something!’ right in my face and they were over-pronouncing their ‘S’s and a crowd had gathered including Carly Meadows and a couple of other Vultures from my year and some people in the crowd were calling me a psycho and chanting, ‘Say “psycho”, say “psycho”,’ because they knew ‘psycho’ was a word I couldn’t say properly. It was at this point I realised I was scratching at my arm, which is something I do when I’m nervous. I lost sight of the magpies when one of the Pitt kids reached forward and poured a can of Tango over my head. Everyone stopped shouting then, started laughing instead, staring at me and laughing as Tango trickled down my neck, soaking into my collar. A few of them pointed, which was kind of stupid because everyone knew what they were laughing at. I breathed as slowly as I could, counting each drip from my fringe as it hit the pavement. After a minute they stopped laughing and just stared. It was then that I realised there were other drips hitting the pavement, red droplets of something thicker, something that splattered as it landed. The arm of my shirt was spotted red. Some of the Vultures said I was disgusting and a few made that wrinkle-face but most just stared. Then they left. I think that was the only time I ever saw your brother in uniform.

That afternoon I kept my blazer on. I had Maths and my hair went all hard and sticky from the Tango but nobody noticed.

Extract of interview between Detective Sergeant Terrence Mansell (TM) and Gregory Hall’s classmate, Ian Connor (IC).

TM: Thank you for agreeing to talk with me.

IC: S’all right.

TM: As you probably know, we’re here to discuss Greg.

IC: Um … well, yeah.

TM: How well do you know Greg?

IC: Well, he’s in my class.

TM: You sit next to him.

IC: In a few lessons, yeah. English. A few others.

TM: Would you consider him a friend?

[IC laughs.]

IC: God, no.

TM: So, what do you think of him?

IC: Same as everyone else.

TM: Which is?

IC: He’s nuts.

TM: Can you elaborate?

IC: He’s psycho nuts.

TM: What makes you say that?

[IC laughs nervously.]

IC: Erm …?

TM: I mean aside from the events of the past few days. I mean, what gave Greg this reputation?

IC: It’s just how he is.

TM: ‘Is’?

IC: The way he walks. The way he … watches. And there’s the scratching. The mumbling. He’s on meds, too. Did you know that? We found them, me and Goose. ‘Anti-psychotic’.

TM: Right.

IC: And then there’s the way he is with girls. He’s always, like, looking at the girls in class. You know? Like, staring at them.

TM: You never look at girls?

IC: Not in that way. Not, like, creepy, like he does.

TM: Are you aware you feature in his journal?

IC: Me?

TM: You.

IC: What’s he say about me?

TM: He alludes to your … involvement … with certain girls from your year.

IC: Really?

TM: And girls from younger years.

IC: Younger?

TM: Angela Hargrove?

IC: I had nothing to do with that.

TM: With what?

IC: New Year’s. I know she was saying stuff when the police showed up. Stuff about Goose and Darren. That had nothing to do with me. I was passed out.

TM: This is the party at Wallaby Drive? The Lamberts’?

IC: Goose’s, yeah.

TM: Did you see Greg that night?

IC: Not that I remember.

TM: But he was at the party?

IC: He might have been. I didn’t notice.

TM: You didn’t notice?

IC: He’s very unnoticeable. That’s part of his creepiness too. His psycho-nuttiness. And, as I said, I was out of it that night.

TM: We’re getting off topic here. I’m just trying to get a feel for Greg. What he’s like as a person. You’ve sat next to him for, what, three years? Isn’t there anything you can tell me?

IC: Only what I’ve told you already. He’s a creep.

TM: Nothing else?

IC: It’s the way he looks at you. That’s it, it’s the eyes. It’s all in the eyes.

TM: The eyes?

IC: Exactly. Just look into those eyes. Everything you need to know’s right there. In the eyes.

TM: That’s all you’ve got to say?

IC: Sorry. I’m not trying to waste your time or anything. It’s just, I don’t really know the guy. I don’t remember ever even having a conversation with him.

TM: Well, who does know him?

[Pause.]

IC: I don’t know. He didn’t have any friends, as far as I know. I guess nobody knows him. That’s the thing. You could interview the whole class and you wouldn’t find a single person that knows him. Not really. I guess that’s what makes him creepy. I guess that’s what makes him psycho, really. How alone he is.

TM: Right.

IC: That and the eyes.

TM: Thanks.

Saturdays I work at Hampton’s in the square. Your dad might have mentioned the back-lad? Probably not. I work alone in the kitchen, tucked away between the industrial freezers. There’s a metal basin, a worktop for dishes to dry on and a single shelf with a kettle and tea bags and soft crumbly biscuits. The air in the kitchen is even colder than inside the freezers. I try not to breathe through my mouth because the cold hurts the hole in my tongue.

Your dad works with Phil on the fresh-meat block. They’re obscured from the front of the shop by the chicken oven. I guess the customers don’t like to see all that hacking and tearing. Their block is only metres from the kitchen so I always hear them joking around. Phil gives your dad a bit of stick for his ponytail but Phil’s only twenty-two and he’s going bald, so he’s not really qualified to be making hair jokes. Sometimes your dad snatches Phil’s hat and holds it in the air and Phil jumps up trying to reach it, one hand over his bald spot. Your dad just laughs. He’s got one of the biggest laughs I’ve ever heard. He laughs ‘Heh’ instead of ‘Ha’. ‘Heh heh heh’. All day long.