it is, but it’s sweet and sour all at the same time – and when that’s burning, I hold the match between the fingers of my left hand and I roll my sleeve up with the right, up as far as it can go; and then I turn my arm, so that the hard bit of skin on my elbow is visible, and I carefully take the match and lay it down onto the folds and creases there. There’s a sizzle as some of the hairs, so thin and blonde I can’t even see them, burn themselves away; and then my skin, pink to black in just a moment, the bone of the match collapsing and crumbling so that you don’t know if it’s the burn or the char from the head of the wood that’s made my skin that colour.
I used to grit my teeth when I did this much more than I do now.
Afterwards, I don’t use Germolene or anything. Nadine cuts herself, I know, because she’s told me about it. She showed me her scars as if she wanted me to admire them. Hers are slick snicks along her skin, gone glossy as they’ve healed. They shine, reflect, almost. Mine – just the one, the same patch of skin – is more like a grimly depressing puddle. A scab that never quite properly heals, which passes for eczema or something if people ever notice it, and which has taken on this weird property where it almost always hurts me unless I’m actually burning it. As if that’s going to let the pain out.
‘You’ve got mail,’ my computer blurts out. Stupid tinny American accent. I was going to get some work done on Organon. Install another feature, maybe some more questions and reactions, before I go to the computer lab at school tomorrow. But the email is from Shawn. I know it’ll be a constant distraction until I’ve dealt with it.
Hey U, the subject line says. That’s how he pretty much always starts his emails. His message is nice. He writes about what he’s been up to over the last few days. This vague thing of: it’s not like we’re ever going to actually be able to meet, probably, but we’re going to make plans as if we will. Sometimes I send photographs that I’ve scanned in on Paul’s scanner. Always ones with my friends in as well, because I want to make it clear I’ve got them. There’s no way of proving otherwise.
I won’t be around for a while, I write.Parentals being assholes. I spell the word like he does, because I worry that arse just looks too strong; too defiantly British. They’re only letting me use the Internet at the weekend. Didn’t want you thinking I was ignoring you, because I’m totally not. I’ll miss you! Sometimes I write the words like they speak in Wayne’s World, because I want him to think I’m cool, and not the sort of British person that they take the piss out of in films. I read my email a hundred, two hundred times. Is it casual enough? Do I sound too eager?
Then, eventually, when I’ve worried about it so much that I’ve bitten a bit of my nail by the corner and made it bleed, I click send. A whooshing from the speakers, to indicate it’s been sent. A physical sound, the sound of travel, of movement, to reassure those people who are too used to trudging down to the Post Office. I don’t think anything’s ever whooshed with speed from the Post Office. The world’s had the Internet a couple of years now, and already it feels like sending something through the post should be dead to us.
‘You’ve got mail.’ Shawn’s replied, and it’s a bit cold, a bit quiet. Like he’s disappointed. Sure don’t worry about it, then a sad face made out of punctuation. He’s not good at punctuation in the actual message, but he uses it to make faces, that sort of thing. A man shrugging, drawn in ASCII art underscores and brackets.
I hear voices rising from downstairs. Mum and Paul, arguing about something. ‘We told her,’ Paul says. There’s such a finality to his voice. We all know full well what he’s about to do. Disconnected flashes up on the screen. I didn’t get a chance to reply before they pulled the plug, picked up the phone from downstairs and hung up the call.
I rub at my elbow, at the burn. The raw skin is so pink, and new, and sore to the touch.
There’s a knock on my door. ‘I wanted to say goodnight,’ my mother tells me, pushing open the door a little; so little that I can’t quite see her face, but I can still feel her presence through the gap.
‘Fine. Night.’ That’s it, get out now. I’m working. I’m at my desk, tinkering with Organon. I’m having to work offline, which is a pain in the backside. Organon is stubborn at the best of times, and I don’t even have my usual message boards to get any help.
‘I don’t want you to be upset with me,’ she says. I don’t say: And yet somehow you always seem to manage it. I’ve learned, over the years, to hold my tongue. The easiest way forward is to never say the first thing that comes into your head when you’re in an argument. The second thing, that’s what you should say. It never hurts as much, and it doesn’t last as long. ‘But we have to make a change. It’s a lot of money.’
‘So I’ll pay for it.’
‘What with, shirt buttons?’ Ha ha, Mum. Hilarious. ‘You’re only a year away from leaving school, Laura. You need to be thinking about the future, thinking about university. You need to save money, and so do we.’
‘Whatever,’ I reply. I try, hard as I can, to put my own definite full stop onto the word, the way that they’re both so good at doing when they want me to know there’s nothing more to say or be done.
‘Not whatever,’ she says. ‘This is serious. Important. Don’t forget to look at my computer tomorrow, please?’ and then she’s gone, the soft pad of her feet down the hallway, and the click of the light switch to let me know that her and Paul have gone to bed; that I’m expected to do the same.
Headphones out and on. Big, clunky ones that I found in a box in the loft; and I think, from what I can gather, they were Dad’s. The wire is coiled, like a spring, and they sound wonderful. Warm. That’s what people say about music. You read it in the NME, when they’re talking about how an album sounds. The recording sounds so warm.
It’s time for a new mixtape. I take a blank cassette, one of the few that’s not been used yet. I don’t want ghosting, where you can hear the sound of what was on the tape before sneaking through, like a reminder in the gaps between the songs; or worse, underneath it all, in the quiet parts. I’m going to ask Shawn for his address and send him it. He deserves a fresh one: a C90, forty-five minutes a side. The perfect length. I unwrap the plastic from it, and pull open the case. Everything is ritual. There’s nothing better than a clean inlay card. I pick my cassette brand because it has the best ones. Sony, always. Always. Maxell if you can’t get Sony, but the Sony ones, there’s enough space to write ten song names on each side, even though I only usually go to eight or nine. The songs have to fill the full hour and a half. No random cutting off, no breaks or pauses. That makes getting the track list perfect a bit of an act of clinical perfection. Sometimes, somebody from school will make me a tape, and they’ll be so amateurish. You’ll get to the end of side A – usually struggling through iffy taste, at best – and you’ll hear the start of a song you know is going to cut off because there just isn’t enough time to finish it, like I’ve got a sixth sense of song length. Then, you flip their tape over, and either they’ve repeated that song, because they think they have to, or they just give me the second half of it, which is next to useless. And there’s no art to their tapes. You have to pick the song at the end of a side carefully. Because the tape is thinner, or weaker, or something, and it distorts there, so you need to go quieter with it. Don’t pick something that will distort. You need to structure it like a proper album as well. Nobody ends on a single.
Track one: Radiohead. I think there’s a Radiohead on every tape I’ve ever made. Hard to pick the right song, though. It needs to be something rare enough that it’s not obvious, but not so obscure it sounds freakish. The first song is the most important choice you’ll make. Most important apart from the last one, that
