The wound on his neck looks like a smile. The resemblance occurs to Darragh the moment he notices it, as he stands in the bathroom scrutinising his appearance in the mirror before school. The white collar of the shirt of his uniform does little to conceal it. Of late Darragh has often found himself examining his face in mirrors, the glass reflectant with something like shame. He has begun to think of this succession of bathrooms, of mirrors, at home, at school, at the houses of his friends, those friends he has, in which his face looms, loathsome and stupid, as one bathroom, with one mirror, to which he is condemned to return.
Now this. As he swallows, if he coughs, if he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the window as he speaks to his mother or his sister, or as they speak to him, as he sits immersed in music from his phone on the bus home from school, the injury, which seemed already to be healing when he first noticed it, looks like a mouth, moving as it smiles: now sardonic, now wryly amused, now cruel. He has always been the sort of boy who picks at scabs. In class sometimes he digs the compass point into the webbing of his hands. It helps him concentrate: it quells the noise. Now he wonders about etching two eyes and a nose with that point into the flesh of his neck. The thought, delicious and horrible, tempts him. With an exertion of will he resists it.
Oh, what have you done now? his mother says that evening when she sees him as she comes in from work. So the wound is not as inconspicuous as he had hoped. As a young boy Darragh always bore bruises, cuts and scratches, scabs on his knees, curious marks of all kind, of sometimes mysterious origin. But usually he would know: usually, he would have an answer to his mother’s question. This time he does not. He has no idea at all. Frowning, he shrugs, and she rolls her eyes.
If I had a pound for every time you shrugged at me, she says.
If I had a pound for every time you roll your eyes.
Perhaps in the night he gouged himself with a stray fingernail. Lately he often sleeps poorly, if he sleeps at all—perhaps poor sleep marked the beginning of this thing, or cleaved an opening for it to enter through: he thrashes about, tangles the quilt about his feet or kicks it to the floor; awakes screaming at the window, convinced he has recognised some passing stranger in the street, staring up at him; comes to in the bathroom, under the pitiless light of the halogen bulb, scrutinising his appearance in the dusty glass of the cabinet mirror. Under that light, the tiles, the grout between them black with teeming mould, appear greasy; they seem to move, to seethe. The walls they cover appear to swell inwards.
In the bathroom, after school, he examines the tips of his fingernails. Each of his fingernails he has gnawed to the pink; on the the index finger of his left hand he has torn the nail too deeply. The pain doesn’t bother him.
From the mirror the mouth on his neck gives a little smile.
How was school today, Darragh?
His mother is looking at him. She is in the hallway; she’s always in the hallway, coming or going. Darragh tries to speak but his mouth is dry.
School again. Something has happened.
The muttering of other teenagers; the turning of heads as he passes through the corridor; sniggering.
Something is wrong with him. Has something not always been wrong with him? But there’s something new. He can feel it: something has changed.
Something is happening to him.
Someone has drawn a gigantic ejaculating penis on his locker.
What have you done now? he thinks.
How was school today, Darragh? he thinks.
With a sleeve he tries to rub out the lurid inkwork but it appears the ink is permanent.
A High School shooting on the news, later, three thousand miles away. He watches CCTV footage of the perpetrators prowling the canteen, the corridors, corridors like this one, though wider. He wonders about the perpetrators. He wonders what if: what if he had easy access to guns; what if he brought a gun to school?
Why do I always identify with villains?
He wants to be good.
In Year 11 his classmates will nominate him Student Most Likely to Carry Out a High School Shooting.
It won’t be true. They’re not called High Schools in England, he will think to answer, but he won’t say anything. He will have learned the hard way that he needn’t respond.
Now his sister is sick again. Somehow word gets out and gets about, summoning their old man to the house. Sickness runs in his family. His maternal grandfather was sick, often, until he was dead.
Darragh has found himself gazing out of the window, down into the street. His reflection, faint in the glass, stares back through him, but he isn’t looking at it. Then he isn’t looking at anything. How long has he stood here? He doesn’t know. He swallows. His mouth is dry. It’s always dry. A car beeps its horn once, twice, a third time. The road below seeps into focus. His father’s hatchback, baby blue. Darragh’s stomach turns.
His old man is getting out of the car, which he bought the year before after winning a not-insignificant sum on the lottery, and barely a week after he’d moved out of the family home, waving cheerfully. He lifts his sunglasses off his nose, stows them in his hair.
Darragh, he yells. Darragh!
Darragh is rooted. He doesn’t move, but his father notices Darragh notice him, and grins.
How’re you doing?
Darragh doesn’t respond, though his father’s voice carries from the street. It seems he can throw his voice like a ventriloquist—it’s quite the party trick: here, in his bedroom, it feels as though his father is stood beside him, talking in a voice that is not loud. Perhaps Darragh is the dummy. His father might be whispering in his ear. His father gets under his skin. His sister is an open wound. Down on the street, a tidy 1930s estate, ex-council, the car looks like CGI.
Fancy a drive?
Darragh manages to shake his head.
Can I come in? He pantomimes the opening of a door.
Darragh shakes his head again.
His father rolls his eyes, as if Darragh is being ridiculous, but he knows the rules. It’s as if, Darragh thinks, his father is a vampire. Down in the street, unbothered by the daylight, the vampire leans back against the car, beams up at him, relaxed. He cups his hand around a lighter, lights a cigarette.
I know you can hear me. Window’s open.
He gestures with the cigarette.
Darragh nods.
Is your mother in?
Does his father see his jaw clench from the pavement? Is his eyesight so good? Darragh takes after his mother. He wore glasses until he lost them, or broke them, or somebody stole them, but he could get by without and his mother said he would have to wait on a new pair. I’m not made of money, do you know that? For God’s sake. She’d just spent near £300 on a trifocal pair for herself. Is that what he’ll need soon? Sometimes he feels like the world is going out of focus. He’s slowly going blind. Everything is getting worse.
Is your sister in?
He doesn’t respond.
I just want to know where she is, Darragh.
It’s as if his old man is whispering; as if he can simultaneously whisper and throw his voice.
I don’t know, he replies.
It wasn’t the first time.
It’s not exactly the first time, is it, says his dad, reading his mind. That’s another skill of his. Is she treating you okay?
We’re fine.
My door is always open. You could stay over, if you like. I’m worried about youse.
That was it—he’s had enough. He steps back from the window. He closes his bedroom door and leans against it, slides down to the carpet through which he runs his hands, palms down, fingers splayed. The motion, the texture, is soothing. He closes his eyes. The scab on his neck itches. Does that mean it’s healing?
He doesn’t see it smile.
He wonders how his sister is doing. His mother said she’s been taken to a hospital. But which one? Darragh knew. He knew his father knew it, too—a family home away from home. His grandfather went there. He reaches for his bag, earlier dumped onto the bed, careful not to appear in the window again, sure that the hatchback, baby blue, remains parked below, and withdraws a paperback from its interior.
On the title page, in biro, gigantic, an ejaculating penis. Etched pubes bristle from lopsided testicles. His bookmark is missing, his place lost.
That night he finds himself, as he often finds himself, in the bathroom, come to. His face looms in the glass. The wound, previously scabbed, almost healed, has opened in the night, a livid smile.
School.
Football on the front field. Darragh doesn’t hang out with the sporty kids outside of lunchtime matches but he knows his way around the pitch, played Sunday League until he gave it up. Darragh is small, relatively-speaking, but not tiny. He has a low centre of gravity. His fringe flops in his eyes but he sweeps it clear.
Pressure at his back. He shields the ball. In the flow of the game he does not think about the wound on his neck, which, much to his surprise, almost no one has noticed. He does not think about his sister. His father has ceased to exist. A forearm presses against his shoulders. Sweat in his eyes. He rolls the ball beneath his foot, feints one way then spins to turn the other, but a flare of excruciating pain brings him down. He looks up to see a lad he doesn’t know hoof the ball away. His ankle burns. With his thumb he feels reddened flesh, sore ligament. At least they’re not wearing studs.
What the fuck is that on your neck, Darragh?
The lad he doesn’t know.
That’s disgusting.
Darragh stands, begins to walk away.
Hey, tell me. Is it true what they say about your sister?
Darragh closes his eyes and sees the swell of blood in the dark behind his eyelids.
He scratches his neck.
He watches the flight of the ball. He tenses, readies, moves to jump, then waits. It bounces off a shoulder, a hand—shouts of handball—then someone’s heel. Now that lad again, reaching: it’s a 50-50. Darragh goes in hard. His trailing leg scissors round; their legs tangle. Awkwardly, they fall. Something cracks. The boy screams.
Screams again. Moans, lies moaning. He holds his ankle, then lets it go.
Darragh stands, shocked, unscathed. The blood behind his eyelids.
That was cold, someone says.
Silence. Grey faces gather round, step back, look away in horror. Blood in the hair of the boy’s calf and shin, trouser leg of his uniform rucked up, dry dirt grimed into the gore. A shock of white bone protrudes from the redness of his brand new wound. Darragh doesn’t know his name, but he knows Darragh’s.
That was deliberate, someone says.
Darragh is cold.
Darragh is in trouble.
Teachers take the injured boy to what they call the medical room; soon an ambulance arrives. Darragh waits in an empty classroom. There are lots of empty classrooms: they can’t fill the school. Talk of it closing down. He wonders where he’ll go if they do that. Presently he’s going nowhere. He waits.
Mrs Harkin opens the door.
Darragh.
He looks up.
Come with me, please.
Can I have my phone, Miss?
Mrs Harkin leads him down the corridor, toward reception. Darragh freezes; his stomach turns.
Car’s outside, says his father. He smiles at Mrs Harkin. I’m sure we can sort this out. A bad accident, no doubt. Accidents happen.
Come to my room first thing tomorrow, says Mrs Harkin, to Darragh, ignoring his father’s smile.
He scratches his neck.
In the bathroom of his father’s flat he studies the wound. It’s a nice flat. No mould in the grout, no black mould in the walls. It’s niceness is galling. The wound has opened: its lips have begun to part. Darragh is astonished that, other than his mother, only the boy he injured has noticed it. He probes it with his finger; one edge of the cut appears to flinch. It is a scandalous thing, obscene and conspicuous, a flagrancy.
The world has narrowed to this point.
He traces a fingertip along the line of the wound. It hasn’t healed. It doesn’t hurt. He can barely feel it. He had a tooth out the year before, remembers the weird sense of pressure without sensation as the dentist moved her hands and tools inside his mouth, yanked at the tooth, wobbled it in its bed as she struggled to prize it free.
The edges of the wound that is not a wound are dry. Without understanding, Darragh finds himself rinsing a cup in which two toothbrushes had stood, then filling it up and bringing it to the lips, which move, a little, almost shyly, in response.
He tips the cup; a little water runs over the rim.
The lips tense and then release, then open further, a little further.
Aghast, transfixed, Darragh peers into the wound.
Banging on the door. He almost jumps; he spills water into the sink.
His father, his voice thrown through the door, at his ear, under his skin: are you going to be long in there, Darragh? I need the loo.
He empties the cup, whacks the toothbrushes back in. He wipes his face and then peers at the wound that is not a wound on his neck.
No, he says. One moment.
The door opens. He freezes.
Caught you wanking?
Darragh scowls. No, he says. He turns, to keep the side of his neck that bears the wound that is not a wound out of his father’s view.
Come on, I’m busting.
His father rubs his shoulder as he passes. Darragh tries not to flinch, because flinching might lead to an argument, might lead to complaints about his mother, might lead to stress, but his father notices.
Hey, he says. Are you okay?
Darragh nods, then turns to leave.
Hey, come back. Come back here. What’s that?
His stomach turns.
Did that boy do—
The question, incomplete, hangs in the air. His father is frowning. For a moment it’s like his face isn’t working: a malfunction of his human suit.
Come here, says his father.
He turns, defeated, to show his father the wound.
Actually, out here. In the light.
His father guides him out into the kitchen, to the window by the sink. Bright sunlight streams in. It hurts his eyes.
Does it hurt?
No.
How did you get it?
Darragh shrugs.
Don’t shrug at me, Darragh. Answer me.
I don’t know.
It’s like—he smiles, laughs weakly—a mouth . . .
He wrinkles his nose.
Does it hurt?
You already asked me that. No.
Okay. Can you feel this?
He probes the skin around its edge.
No.
This?
He probes the lower lip.
No.
It’s not sore at all? And you don’t know how you got it?
No.
Never seen anything like it. Did your teachers not notice? We’re taking you to A&E.
Who’s we?
You and me.
Darragh sighs. He does not want to go to A&E. He does not want to go anywhere. He does not want to be scrutinised.
The whole fucking family, why not, murmurs his father.
Then he grips Darragh’s shoulders, turns him to face him, a new idea lighting up his blue eyes.
Tell me, he murmurs. I want you to tell me the truth. Did your mother do this to you?
No.
Are you just saying that?
No.
Okay.
His father traces the line of the wound again with one finger, the skin at its edge, where Darragh can still feel sensation. Then he traces it with two fingers, a little harder.
No pain?
No.
Then he probes the lip. Presses gently. That’s when it happens.
Crack.
His father screams. For the second time that day Darragh hears the breaking of bone.
His father pulls back, eyes wide, the index and middle finger of his right hand, the one hand gripped above the wrist in the other like a bouquet of atrocious flowers, held up before him.
The world has narrowed to this point.
Blood spurts from the wounds as if pumped through a straw. It coats his hand. In horror, blanching, his father stares at the stumps of his truncated fingers, then at Darragh, then at the stumps once more.
Get me—get me a tea towel.
On autopilot Darragh fetches a tea towel from one of the kitchen drawers. He throws it to his father, who fumbles the catch, then holds his hand over the bathroom sink.
Darragh edges out of the kitchen.
In the hallway he stands and listen to his father moaning and swearing in the bathroom. He hears retching. He scratches his neck. It is a mouth, he thinks. It is a weird flower. His father’s blood stains his fingers. He wonders where the tips of those fingers went.
Quietly he closes the kitchen door.
On the landline stand in the hall he sees his father’s keys. The car keyfob.
He takes them and goes.
Baby blue, parked across the street. On autopilot he opens the car, gets red blood on the blue door handle, thinks his dad won’t like that one bit but he’s got other things to think about, sticks the key in the ignition. Can he remember how to drive? He is too young to drive. But the year before his father, against his mother’s complaints, had started to teach him on winter evenings, out on back roads, out in the car park of the big ASDA when it was closed. That was in the old car, an Almera.
Hey, I was fourteen when I learnt to drive.
You lived on a farm, Liam. You had private roads.
The boy needs to learn.
Darragh starts the car, stalls once, pauses to breathe, then settles himself. Then he goes.
Darragh drives.
Out on the bypass, the sun low in the sky, he sees his face in the rear-view mirror, sees his blue eyes, sees two mouths, smiling back at him.
