A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing (7 page)

This night is a restless night. Turning in my head the. Wish I could tell you until the morning came.

Come running by the lake. Fall down. I am almost too old for that I should be smoking drinking now. Taking hands up my jumper. Fingers down my skirt. I should be. I should be. I am not. Yet. I stand there. Eyes mist to the wind feel the fresh rush past. Up my nose. That sting. That new day it’s so early in the morning. I see the white and clear. Rising up of the waters. Running round my feet. My gravel feet. My earthbound feet that feel the sway of it. Water. Of the world that’s changing now no changed. It’s changed and this is looking back. The past a flash front. That mix. Knowing what how I should do be say. That’s going up. That flock of geese is rising. Rising to make all the noises. Honk like cars and wings beat hard on the air. Battering it. Cutting it down. They’re going up and up. Feathers and fat young breasts rise and rise above me. I see. I see clear. And the trees there, glassing the water making it jump in go under. Temptation for the tips of my fingers. For the soles of my feet. I step there. Cool and cold and colder. Outside the leather. Coming in over my white socks. Feel it rising. Catch my ankles. Send me tremors. Send me shivers. I know what I’m doing. Mud suckering round my toes. If I stand. Still. The reeds glass bend a little. Shiver winter. There’s a soft cold breeze. I search the quiet out for footsteps. For the armies. Coming. To slither under water here with me. Those spirits smell and see them I do in my sleep. In dreams of all the things that in my life will come to me. Take hold. I fear not. Hear not. See not. Feel the rap on my knuckles of the water going in. It soak my coat up. Up my leg up. Feel it there inside my thigh. So cold. So ice and glass and see though things and friendly hands. Between my secret tight shut legs the water. Lurking brownly seep inside me. Drag me down. I do not. I know not. I know not what I do. It is not that. It is not drowning I have come for. Not for death or any other violent thing that I could do to myself. I am here this hour for. Storage I think. Cleaning and cold storage. I will gush myself out between my legs. Whoever let the poison in. The dirt retreat. The thing I want I should not get. I’ll put my head in for discreet baptise. It makes me want to, feel like laugh. Out loud and crack that silence. Hear the curlews and the gab of swans not far from me. A wee way off. The sun is coming. Much more warm now than I wanted or had thought would be. This crevice lake could be my ocean if I was. That duck. That bit of scum. That bit of tree there floating. I sink baptise me now oh lord and take this bloody itch away for what am I the wrong and wrong of it always always far from thee. Ha. My nose fill with that bog water. It’s run a long brown hill to get into me. Its salt its bits and dirty pieces in my eyes and in my lungs. Ah. You are not here. In this world deep and brown. Filled with rattle gushing noises. Sounds. Unearthly water bubbles rise the top. You are not here. I am free from love and that cold pain shooting through my forehead. That’s a good thing. It’s a fine and right thing. True to what it is. Gurgle. Swell into my bronchioles. Fill that space. Push each air drop out. I let my feet float up there off the ground. I know I am a puffed white shirt floating on the water. Face into a different world. Where are you? You are not here. I am free. To not hear spastic fucking spastic. Feel the slither of one glob of snot or spit at your head. Or don’t touch me. Cool the ocean running through me I wish waves were over my head. I’m floating downside up and wrong side down. Hmm help me I am drowning. Look up. Look up. The day’s begun. The cold and grasp. Retract now my wish for wading going in. My hair a cling now on. Sticking to my face and that rust smell of lake. Put my feet back on the bottom. Slipping in. The silt and grub of it. I think are here pike Jesus they bite I know bring some children down. I’ve heard into the murky depths. My insides feeling squeal now. Yuck this filth. Yuck I have done. The circles snapping circles of the I wade water out to the bank. My heavy clothes and slipping grapple blackthorn bush to pull me out. The silence. Keep the moment. Panic slipping I get out. I’ll catch my. Death of. You know. What’s it. Here can’t be a leech. Not in this country. Too cold here I’m sure. The other side now. Cows are lowing. Lonely ancient bovine cries. Their teats are turning over wanting out relief of hot milk. Let it all begin again. My body cold reflected back up to my face as I stand there. Look down. I see my sorry self. That girl. My wicked. I see new ripe ones. Interesting eyes. Purged off. Cleaned out for sure the stings and bites of. Those things that happen in your head when you are young and cannot fathom never being clean again. The house will still be quiet. If I go there. Drip the floor. I felt this morning strange beginning. I know. I know I won’t tell. Yet. To whom. I go. I see the heron fly. Dart of it over my head. Heading are you out to sea? To the new found world old now though. To a sudden death or a happy mate or a quiet circle or a quiet nest. I watch it overhead. That heron flying. Towards unknown. I don’t think I will be clean now. Think instead I’ll have revenge for lots of all kinds of things. The start is. That is love.

The house is dry and creaky. I am sopping on the floor. I hear him. No. Aunt or uncle rolling over in the bed. I’m not at peace here anymore. Now today. Glad. They’ll be gone. Still. I hear something. I know that step. Forty-one just like new. He is coming early down the stairs. The smell of water waft about it must be. I think. And he will see me in my clothes wet through. Teeth running motors in my head. My bark and twig hair.

I look at him in the door as he see me. No surprise. What have you done? You look. You’re wet the whole way through. I am. What did you? Fell in the lake. I walked there early while it’s clear. I see and you. Yes fell in. Don’t worry. I’m okay.

I know that look that vicious look of him to me now. And the usual inner throb in me. Knives in heart in lungs come a spoon scoop me out. Scoop me out for what he want. But I go past him still. Feel the busy silent want of me. Know. I know that, see that, know it now. How strange my baptise renders me. His want me. Fuck me if he could and I and I and I and I. I have that. And I do not. Do not need. Have something else I need to do. There’ll others. Some others. Some day more who want me I want to fuck them too. Thanks uncle for sage introduce. I left him dripping in the door. Ha. He did not get me after all.

Oh but he did. I’m lying. I am not I am. By the cold range in my white drip shirt. Caught me. Went about me tooth and claw that I wanted. Felt within the time has come. No Christ here on the kitchen floor. Against the back of the kitchen chair. Pull my skirt down by ankles. Shed. And it was so quiet all around that I could hear him open me. Graze me opening my legs. Take me in. And that dark body unwashed night and thick pyjama’s smell of week worn. Someone else’s house and their daughter taken over. Under his hands. Full of sweat and passages of skin where he has touched his wife now over me. Her shreds of her. And hard he is I think. For what I know. That’s a thrill of me. That I am. Feeling running rivers over me. Running falls. I’m splashing falling into it. His cheek on my head. His dark hair. That I am warm in this. Full up. True. Here we are. Here we are. We eventually are here. Go let myself go down in this. He has a mouth of me. His hard hands. Touching and pulling me under the water. Alright now? Yes. He ram that. Oh God. It hurts me take it out. It. My heart thump on top of him and feel it shaking through his back. No. Take me. Take me down under. He is goding goding goding. In his breath. Like a great surprise has taken place. My legs and thighs and ankles. He will have them all of me in this. Done and done to. Doing. I’ll do all of this. Dance with the pain of it and I would do later for many bleeding days. Sting and itch. Not from disease. From new stretched and snapped skin. Up inside that will not fit in time. Expand and let him lurch there. I want. And this is what it’s like after all. After all I’ve heard. It hurts me. And kissing choking me. Almost too much of my body taken up. The air squeezed out. The air pushed to the edge. Coming out my eyes. My ears. Too much. Where is the room for. Too much so much. It. Is too much then. I’m taken over buckled onto him. Light and pulled up off the ground his. Fastened stung. Being small then suddenly just for him. I cannot cannot take this. Pain. Scratch him. Pain of it. Keep clawing at his skin. He does not. Does not know this. He is digging into me and me to him. He’s. Push it home as far up. In that tight spot. He is. He is. I will feel it bruising pains. And breathing deafing out my ears. My back against the chair wood. Rubbing to the bone. I. Feel him filled with. Now. He filled with. My pain. He is coming. Off inside me. I think and I think of painting houses. Streets with. Painting the town red. I must be almost I am dying when he does it. With the pain. Suffocating. And his cheek. My nail my nail. That’s it. I’ve done to him. What’s done in me. Jesus Christ he says. His lungs a breeze. His catch up. Breath up. Fresh. Like it’s new to him. Still jostle in me. See my knees up at his waist. A sight. Alright? Come back to earth with lungs inflated. Come home now. He reach between us and pulls it down out of me now. Come down I think. Feel no more pain. I am dripping water, him, out on my thigh. And clicks my brain. As though the house moved. Who turned the sounds back on? I feel that daylight in the window. It’s caught me. Rack. It’s blanching me out. Bathe it. My hand unseals his cut. My face my Jesus. Fucking face. What have you done? Jesus. He put me down. Are my feet? I see it. My nails duggened in. Peel the skin off. He’s bleeding near the bone. Quick. Put his thing back in. Men’s trousers. Strange how it works when I was little always wanting to pee standing. Oh. I must be. I think I’m filled with blood. I’m wet and wet the whole way through. I’m sogging. I’m. Viscous lake. I. Sway. My eyes back. Jesus Christ he says you better sit down. Are you alright? I am. I am pure white. He says I’m I’m. Do you feel sick? No I say I’m. Watching his neck beat. Blood around blood around. He says just breathe in deeply. You’re going to be fine. It’s just a shock when. He can’t say. The first time. His face is unusual now. Listening for the stairs. Eyes all around. Just be calm. Just be calm. Pat me on the back. You’re fine. You’ll be fine. At this time I should not smell of drying weeds of scurf of lake I think but do. Not to him. Maybe. Then anyway. His deep night unwashed creases smell. Why don’t you go and have a wash he says. I’ll put the kettle on. Make some tea would you like that? Yes. Sorry about your cheek. It was a sorry. It’s fine. He push me. Fine fine fine. I laugh he’s worried now. And am laughing all the way up the stairs.

Quiet bathroom. Everyone rolls in bed. No one wakes. It’s a weekend. Only we are up. And now’s for peering prodding. My fingerful of goop what is it I know sperm. It looks like it I know I know. Like snot or phlegm. Hock on the street. Sniffs strange. That’s good and exciting. And there’s a little blood there. And it hurts like mad. It’s a lot. Blood. Clot-ish. It’s an awful lot of sore. He rip me. No. Just feels it stings to touch. I heard it could. Had read but thought I climbed trees a lot so. That’s broke. It is surely broke. It did like something wicked. Burn. Sperm sperm sperm. It’s inside me. I hunker down. I washed it out. And pubic hair that’s longer blacker thick than mine. I’ll wash me. And my hair and everything to be clean. But butcher’s block. I felt between my legs would look like that.

When I went down there were cornflakes toast and jam for me and tea and anything I would want. He doesn’t look. I’m shy I’m shy. He kiss me said I’m away today and you make me insane. I’ve never done that before. God what’s that hey that what we done? I don’t like to hear him speaking wrong. We did. What we did. Him anxious. Not at all like. But I am happy. Satisfied that I’ve done wrong and now and now. What now? Calm sliding down into my boat and pushing out to sin. He’s on the shoreline getting small. His hands on my shoulder. Brushing past my head. Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you? I’m humming my toes beating time on the lino. That’s alright that he is off. I’m off into the world of something and have something knotting in my head. Not school. Not thoughts of you. You yes. First to come to mind but. It’s not that place. There’s not room in this part of me any more. Relief. I think. What’s next and next? It’s surely coming now.

Good God what happened your face it’s a right old state. Is it? What is it? Was it a cat or what? Wife aunt said. I went for a walk a branch swung back and got me whack in the cheek. Really dug in. Really stings. It cooks in me. Hot and boil my face. She does not. No one knows what he and me have secret. The dirty’s done and when he walks past me I’m sure it’s burnt across my skin. I look at him think you’ve fucked me. What if they all knew what. We. He and me. That’s something very new.

Then later in the day. They just went. Got into their car and drove away with some, well hopefully we’ll see ye soons and give us a call when you get home just to let us know you landed safe. I was. At his peck. Fairly passive. Say it. Bye. Following a voice in my head. My tongue. Cleave to my mouth. Think of his. His bending brush kiss on the bone of my cheek. Bye then sweetheart. Filled with shame. Take care of yourself. Whisper. Then. And Goodbye to you.

We are days. Watching telly drifting by. Coiled in front. Bored and always is. The evenings after school. But it comes over still. Whizz and whiz. What was that I did? I think of it in bed at night as. On my own I. Think will it always hurt? Will I always bleed? When things are fit that tight how can there not be bruises? I did think about it too at school. To fill my head with something new that’s not this. Blackboard chalk and slime in the loos and the always stench of boys’ feet and impulse off the girls.

He didn’t write or ever phone as aunt did often. Again again and how are you? Did you get that check? Your uncle tells say hello. That’s quite an impression young lady you made. She like me now. Strangely. I don’t know. I wanted to ask you. Someone. I knew you wouldn’t know. What this all this is.