Page 81 of We All Live Here
“Not really. You’re the one who fucked up. You should say sorry.”
“Celie! Don’t curse in front of your grandpa!”
There is a brief silence.
“ ‘Grandpa,’ huh?” says Celie, speculatively.
“Your old pal Gene.” He sighs. “Maybe you’re right. Kind of hard to open up that can of worms, though. Your mom can be a little…”
“Scary.”
“Yeah.”
“You should try it, though. She’s not as tough as she looks.” Celie considers her mum. “I think she’s sort of expecting you to leave again. I think she thinks everyone is going to leave her.” She studies him. “Are you going to leave again?”
He shakes his head. “I kind of like hanging with my family. And, hey, who’s going to sort out your problems if your old pal Gene isn’t here? Who’s going to get you fake tattoos and make you stand up straight? Who’s going to make sure little Violet gets her share of doughnuts? Who’s going to make sure Bill steps up for that little piano lady of his?” He lifts his head and gazes around the bus. “Who’s going to give the women of northwest London something to talk about?”
A few women glance over, then look away. He pulls her to him and kisses the top of her head. He smells of toothpaste and old leather.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says. But she doesn’t push him away.
•••
Celie’s stomach doesn’thurt before school any more. The pain disappeared almost immediately on the first day she was able to walk past the girls using her Invisible Gene Shield, as he put it. They had all been gathered by the school gates, smoking, even though, strictly speaking, they were on the wrong side of the gates to do it. When Meena’s gaze had slid toward her, instead of shrinking she had met it, lifted her chin with the faintest of smiles, and carried on walking. She had felt them all staring at her the whole way to biology, but instead of like before, when she would have felt crushed by the weight of it, her head buzzing with the thoughts of what they might be saying, she had pulled her invisible shield around her and murmured,Oh, you’re all pathetic, and pictured Gene rolling on the grass yelling: “I’m dead! You killed me!” Every time she’d done it after that it had become a little easier, sothat now, three weeks on, she barely even notices them. Yes, she is still a bit lonely, but she’s started eating with the girls from Music, who are a bit geeky, but always seem pleased to see her, and move their chairs up if they’re on a packed table so that she can join them.
They don’t talk about other girls. At all. It makes her realize that 90 percent of what Meena and the others talked about was who was doing what, who was stupid, or dressed badly, or had made an idiot of themselves. It was like other people were their currency. Harriet and Soraya talk about music, or films they’ve seen, or what they want to write next (they are both grade-eight musicians and Soraya composes her own pieces). Soraya had once played them a song she had recorded on her phone, while they were eating in the canteen, and Celie had plugged in her earphones to listen at the same time as Harriet and although it wasn’t brilliant—Soraya’s voice is a little thin and the song is about cats—the thing that had struck her was that Soraya was completely trusting: that Celie wouldn’t laugh at her, that she would listen carefully. Soraya took for granted that what she was doing was worth trying, and would be received in the same spirit. If she had shown that to Meena, Meena would have corpsed with laughter and told everyone who would listen that it was pathetic.
Celie realizes she quite likes talking about things, rather than people. She is pretty sure that when she leaves the table Soraya and Harriet won’t say anything mean about her. Although she still glances behind her twice as she leaves the canteen, just to make sure.
•••
Animation Club isheld at four p.m. in the art department, which is actually two Portakabins joined together. Celie makes sure she gets there at the last possible minute, as she feels weird about queuing up outside not knowing anyone there, and when she walks in she finds atable at the back in the corner where she can see everyone without anyone necessarily being able to see her. She scans the room, checking for anyone she might recognize—mostly boys from the two years above, but not the kind who dick around in class and steal each other’s bags to dump them in the bins. These are the shadow kids, the boys who are quieter, who hang around at the edges of things. There are two other girls, one of whom is in the year above and nods at Celie—the most outward greeting you were ever going to get from a year thirteen—and then, one row ahead, she spots Martin, his red hair glowing. He glances behind and gives her the kind of brief wave someone gives when they expect not to be acknowledged but feel they should do it anyway. She gives him a small smile—it feels unkind not to—and tries not to think of what it means that she is now doing extra-curricular classes with someone like Martin.
•••
“Now, we’re goingto start with storyboards. Don’t worry if your drawing skills aren’t up to much at this stage—we’re really looking at how to construct your story. Depending on whether you want to do two-D or three-D animation, we can use software to help you create the images later.”
Mr. Pugh is the kind of teacher who tells you to call him Kev, and sits on the corners of desks in jeans and trainers. She suspects he tells people he’s the kind of teacher the kids think of as a friend. There is one of these in every school.
“Martin. You did storyboards last time round, right? Do you happen to have one in your folder?”
Celie cringes for him. To be the first person called up to show your stuff is mortifying. Especially in front of the older kids. But Martin doesn’t seem troubled. He reaches down into his folder and pulls out alarge sheet of A3 paper. Mr. Pugh strolls up to his desk and holds it up so that everyone can see.
It takes her a couple of seconds to register that this is Martin’s work and that it’s really good. There are maybe twelve squares of drawings, some of which have been heavily shaded. She can’t see clearly from where she is but it looks like someone experiencing a nightmare, then emerging into daylight. There are monsters that stretch across the frame, an anguished face, a giant teddy bear, and finally the face of a concerned woman, who might be a mum. Mr. Pugh is explaining how Martin has divided his story up into key scenes and that each one has an image.
“We’re going to stick to fairly simple animations at this stage so you can get the hang of it, but that means the stories you create should be quite short. Martin’s Nightmare, as you see here, fits the brief perfectly.”
Someone asks something about software, and the difference between two-D and three-D, but Celie isn’t paying attention. She is looking at the contents of Martin’s folder, which seems to contain lots of storyboards. She can see semi-hidden images, some in color, others in black-and-white. He is sorting them, placing them back in the folder carefully, and when he realizes she’s watching he turns his head and gives her a brief, neutral grin. Not the kind of grin you give if you feel a bit embarrassed about something, just the kind you give if you feel okay about what you’re doing and don’t see the need to defend it to anyone.
Working out your story is trickier than it sounds. Celie isn’t sure what kind of story she wants to tell. Everything in her life this last couple of years has been depressing. She can’t exactly animate her parents’ divorce, or Grandma getting hit by a bus, or Marja getting pregnant, or Meena and the others blanking her, or what it was like getting stoned on the Heath. She thinks about superheroes and cartoon animals—the normal stuff—but it just doesn’t seem very interesting. Everyone else seems to have come with a story already: she can see them sketching outtheir squares, cursing quietly as they get their drawings wrong. She leans over her board, trying to look as if she knows what she’s doing, but she starts to feel uncomfortable and exposed, like maybe she shouldn’t be here.
“You okay?” Martin has walked past her and stopped at her board. He can see that there is nothing in her squares.
She pulls a face and tries to look casual. “Just struggling for ideas really.”
He looks at the doodles she has done along the edges.
“I’m not really into superheroes and I don’t know what else to draw.”
