The Things We Thought We Knew Read online

  Amma had won, but at a cost. In some ways TV brought me back to the real world but in others it drew me further away. I watched pet-rescue programmes when I had no pets, property programmes when I owned no property, endless reams of reality TV shows like no reality I knew. The truth about television is it can teach you everything you could ever want to know but, for the majority of the time, fills your mind with things you don’t. The information overload left me exhausted.

  So I learnt to limit myself by:

  Reading library books.

  Completing crosswords.

  Listening to Stevie Wonder. (‘He is an inspiration,’ Amma told me the day she bought the CD. ‘Not only was Mr Wonder poor and black when he was growing up, Ravine, he was blind. Yet, see how well he’s done!’ She looked at me as though she expected me to compose a catchy number-one hit on the spot. Instead, I pressed the ‘play’ button on my remote and let her bounce her foot to the beat. After a few more listens I was hooked.)

  The key is to be the controller of the box, not to be controlled by it. It should stimulate the senses, not deaden them. When you live in a lifebed, stimulation is vital. Which is why I watch The Universe programmes. They come on every Sunday at eight o’clock, each episode revealing something new about the solar system. The presenter has floppy hair and angular features. He’s what your mother would have called ‘sex on legs’, a phrase we blushed at because ‘sex’ was about the naughtiest word we knew back then. But this isn’t the reason I watch the programmes. While Amma watches with a glint of lust in her eye, which I try to ignore, it’s the images that I adore, the concepts and the revelation of how illuminating science can truly be. You always loved the sky at night. You could spend hours staring at it.

  ‘Can we watch some telly now?’ I’d say.

  You’d look at me dreamy-eyed. ‘Sometimes I wish I could be a star.’

  I’d cross my arms and huff as you looked back up at the glow.

  But now I can see what you saw: not only the stars filling the dark slate above but the history of our universe. You always knew that this life was not all we were. Life was an adventure and, while I was afraid of the monsters that lurked around each corner, you only thought of bigger, greater things. I know you went in search of those things, Marianne, and one day I hope you come back to show me what you found.

  Because, meanwhile, all I can think of are the monsters waiting to pounce. You’d laugh if you heard me say that. You’d tell me to stop being so daft. But the world is full of monsters; your brother taught me that.

  Jonathan annoyed me in many ways, but one of the things that irked me the most was how he refused to let you abbreviate your names. No Jonny or Marie. No Jon or Annie. No JD or MD and certainly no nicknames. I once called you ‘Mop’ because of your curly hair. You liked the name but knew it would never pass the high court of Jonathan’s judgement so made me vow to never use it in his presence. He was always in our presence. I never used it.

  In those days, Jonathan followed us around constantly, pretending that, because he was two years older and a boy, he was duty-bound to protect us. But really he was too strange to have his own friends. He was teased at school because of his out-of-date clothes, his too-big glasses and his obsessive interest in the weather. When we let him tag along on our trips he was both grateful and resentful. Jonathan hated the fact we were all he had, so took every opportunity to undermine and mock us.

  He was your brother and I had to pretend to like him because no one else (apart from you) did. But there was something so infuriating about the way he stamped his rules upon you. I wished you’d told him to go away. I wished you’d pretended he didn’t exist so that we could have played together without him ruining everything. Jonathan was mean, Marianne. That’s the truth of it. Do you remember when he told us about the Soul-drinker? In the woods? The day he put the fear in me?

  We loved those woods, although they weren’t really big enough to be called woods. They resembled more of a wasteland, patches of unused earth covered in overgrown grass, nettles and a scattering of trees with charcoal trunks. Other than Amma’s window boxes, it was the closest to nature we ever got.

  We would sneak off there because there were no parks near Bosworth House. A few years ago they knocked down the public toilets regularly used by drug dealers and replaced them with a children’s play area. Swings, climbing frames, slides, tunnels; the whole kit and caboodle. You wouldn’t believe the changes they’ve made around here. Youth clubs and drop-in centres, newly planted trees and nature reserves. The youth club is closed most of the time and the trees snapped in two by vandals, but still they’re here.

  I remember that day. We’d been searching for buried treasure by a gathering of rocks and he’d accidentally upturned a stone and unleashed a horde of scurrying insects in all directions. It was the stuff of horror movies – black shiny bodies with wiggling antennae and countless legs scuttling across our path. You and I squealed, hugging each other until our breath ran out. It was a murky day and the shadows looming over us, the dampness in the air, became sources of potential terror.

  The incident with the stone reminded Jonathan just how much he loved to scare us. After we’d stopped squealing, he marched us through the woods, searching for a suitable spot, and then pointed at a log for us to sit on. We were both cautious of the huge brown hunk, afraid that it was home to an army of a thousand beasts, but your brother kept on ordering and pointing until eventually we gave in, just to placate him. He liked it when we obeyed him, which wasn’t very often, and quickly declared that we would listen to the story he was about to tell us with 100 per cent attention.

  ‘It’s a scary one,’ he told us, as he paced back and forth. ‘So if anyone gets nightmares easily they should cover their ears.’

  He eyeballed me and, being the gullible target I was, I sat up straight and knotted my arms.

  ‘It’s not about weather, is it?’ you asked, shoulders dropping at the prospect of another forecast.

  His face began to spasm. ‘Let me start and you’ll find out.’

  Once we were settled Jonathan stepped closer, his eyes wide behind the fishbowl lenses of his glasses. He fanned his hands out as though performing a magic trick and began to speak, slowly and dramatically.

  ‘It’s about a man,’ he said. ‘An invisible man that can only be seen when he decides to show himself.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ you asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Of course it matters. Everyone has a name.’

  ‘Well, this guy doesn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  A furrow developed across your brother’s brow. As it wiggled up and down it reminded me of the insects that had escaped from beneath the stone.

  ‘Just listen to the bleeding story, would you?’

  We both froze.

  ‘This man,’ he said, reverting back to his story-telling voice, ‘if he ever shows himself to you, has yellow eyes and black teeth. He lurks in the shadows where you can’t see anything and most important of all … he drinks souls.’

  He let the terror of these words sink in.

  ‘Whose souls?’ I asked.

  He knew the answer to this straight away. ‘Little girls’.’

  You frowned.

  ‘Why girls?’ you asked.

  ‘Why little ones?’ I added.

  Jonathan threw his head back. ‘For shit’s sake! Can I tell this story for more than five seconds without all the bloody questions?’

  We gasped at the expletives, a reaction that seemed to calm your brother right down. He tried to hide the smirk as he continued.

  ‘As I was saying,’ he said. ‘This man who drinks souls …’

  ‘The Soul-drinker,’ you said, clenching your fists against your chin.

  I elbowed you in the ribs. You looked at me and clasped your hands over your mouth as we prepared for the onslaught of abuse. But when we looked over at Jonathan his face wasn’t devil-red any more.

&
nbsp; ‘The Soul-drinker,’ he said, nodding his head. ‘Yes, that’s his name. He’s bad, real bad, and he likes to get little girls best because little girls are stupid, right? Yes, they are, Ravine, it’s part of the story … Anyway, he needs these souls because without them he dies. Like, proper dead. Not like in the films but for real.’

  A dark cloud covered us in shadow. You could see the shape of it hovering over the fallen leaves across the ground. It was thick and long, a glimmer of light circling its edges. Beneath my feet I could feel the scurrying of invisible creatures. I pushed my palms into the bark of the log and raised my feet from the floor.

  ‘For example,’ he said, ‘this girl was going down the stairs one day, like, really high steps on the top floor of our flats. And it was night so it was dark. Along comes the Soul-drinker, without her seeing him because he’s all invisible, right? Then, when she doesn’t expect it, he flashes his yellow eyes in her face. The little girl went tum-bl-ing down the stairs, her bones breaking as she hits each step. Crack! Crack! Crack!’

  He began performing jerking movements with each part of his body: sticking out an elbow, a shoulder, a hip. The image of him jolting about like this made me queasy. You didn’t seem to notice me, sat with my feet raised; you were too busy watching the performance. You swung your legs as Jonathan continued to judder and jolt.

  ‘Why didn’t he just push her?’ you asked.

  Jonathan froze mid-jerk.

  ‘He’s not allowed,’ he decided. ‘He only has a right to your soul if he tricks you … It’s a rule.’

  You nodded, curls bouncing against your shoulders, then held out your hand as if to say ‘carry on’.

  ‘And there was this other girl,’ Jonathan said, looking me in the eye, ‘who was just playing hide-and-seek with her friends but she got lost, because she was stupid, and couldn’t find anywhere to hide.’

  ‘Like that time Ravine got lost,’ you said.

  Jonathan grinned and you grinned back, not realizing the malice lurking behind his glasses.

  ‘Exactly like that time,’ he said. ‘So the Soul-drinker got out this golden trunk. A big one. He told her to hide in it. So this girl got inside because she’s so stupid and he locked her in it quick, with a huge padlock, and left her there to rot. Fifty years later he came back to claim her soul and when he opened the trunk her skeleton was covered in rats and spiders and all sorts of creepy crawlies.’

  You stood up tall, hands balled up on your hips. As you rose I could see bits of bark stuck to the seat of your dress and red indentations across the back of your legs. I wanted to hug your body but was still too afraid to let my feet touch the ground.

  ‘Well I never, Jonathan Dickerson!’ you said with sudden force. ‘I’m not sitting here a minute longer to listen to your filth.’

  You stood like that for a few seconds before dropping your arms.

  ‘We’d better go anyway. It’s time for lunch.’

  You cartwheeled away as Jonathan protested, saying he had plenty more stories about stupid girls who had lost their souls. You just laughed and said he could tell us them tomorrow. I followed behind, examining the nooks and crannies of trees and bushes we passed on the way, waiting to see the flash of yellow eyes. Jonathan caught up with me.

  ‘It is only a story, Ravine,’ he said.

  I shrugged my shoulders and marched on ahead. ‘Well, duh!’

  Neither of you ever knew the power that nonsensical half-story had on me. The thoughts I had, the nightmares. I’d made myself your protector but the Soul-drinker was a far bigger beast than I could manage. What frightened me the most was not being caught by him, or even dying. It was the notion that a man could steal your soul with just one flash of his yellow eyes.

  When I got home that day I ran up the stairs to my room and took the mini Oxford dictionary out of the small shoulder bag I carried everywhere. As I flicked through the pages, I tried not to shake as I fumbled my way to S. I swiftly ran my finger down the black print, searching for the word that was haunting me.

  sought

  souk

  soul

  I kept my finger on the word, not knowing if I should read on.

  soul n. spiritual or immaterial part of humans; the principle of life, feeling, thought and action.

  Life. Feeling. Thought. Action.

  I read the words over and over. What else was left if all of that was sucked up by the evil eyes of the Soul-drinker? The answer came to me as my eyes fell down the page.

  soulless adj. lacking sensitivity or noble qualities; undistinguished, uninteresting.

  I don’t know what scared me more: the loss of all that made me human or the thought of being uninteresting.

  It’s easy to forget how many memories you have until you bring one back. But then, like a line of dominoes, the memories are knocked into play, triggering a quick line of collapse. The woods, the story, the hope of reassurance as I searched for meaning in my mini dictionary. As I think back now, the irony is bitter on my tongue. I was so afraid of that word and now it describes me so well.

  I am Ravine Roy. I am eighteen years old. I am soulless.

  After Amma’s companion leaves, I lie in bed making a telescope out of my hands. My two curled palms make a funnel as I peer through the gap. I move my telescope to different angles, catching different images of my room. The edge of the curtains, the beady eye of a bird on the wallpaper, the dark stone midriff of Shiva. I drop my hands and look at the figure’s serene expression. Shiva is the god of creation and destruction. In the statue on my dresser he stands frozen in the middle of his cosmic dance, one leg raised high in the air, two of his numerous hands pressed together at the palms. I love that statue, though I won’t admit it to Amma. I fake indifference to everything but there are things in the world I want to see, whole libraries of knowledge to learn.

  During my GCSEs I actually wanted to know about the nervous system but I found it difficult to study someone else’s nerves when there were knives stabbing into my own. Then, on one of the rare occasions I left the flat, I sat in the smelly gym hall for our final exams. I made it through half an hour before dropping my head to rest on the table.

  There’s little patience for the ill. Students huffed and puffed as I repeatedly collapsed, convinced I was being melodramatic and trying to distract them from their A–C grades. One girl asked what was ‘wrong’ with me, her expression twisted with such disgust that I was ready for her to spit in my face. I described the whole sorry thing; that I always felt pain, could barely leave my room and that doctors didn’t know the cause of, or how to cure, my condition. When I was finished, she looked at me as if I’d told her the world was an egg.

  ‘Bollocks,’ she said, pushing a piece of gum into her mouth.

  ‘It’s not bollocks,’ I said. ‘It’s a condition.’

  She began chewing violently, as though the gum had offended her.

  ‘What’s it called, then?’

  ‘Chronic pain.’

  She snorted. ‘You just made that up.’

  ‘Why would I make it up?’

  The school bell rang. She stopped chewing and shrugged her shoulders. ‘For attention,’ she said, before turning away.

  My cheeks burned with the heat of hot coals.

  You’ve got me! I wanted to cry. Bang on the head! I made up an awful, unbelievable illness to get a bit of limelight! I actually chose this life! Chose it!

  But I didn’t say anything, just let her saunter off with the idea that people made up crippled lives for themselves. I wonder what she’d think of me now. Probably that she’d been right all along. That I’d made it all up. That I chose this. But I didn’t choose to be in pain. And I didn’t choose for it to stop either.

  ‘It is time for an assessment,’ says Amma, marching into my room.

  She’s calmed herself down from whatever dispute she’s had with her companion, but there’s something still ruffled about her. I keep my hand-telescope to my eye.

  ‘I’m swamped
at the minute,’ I say.

  Amma sits down on the chair next to me and brings a piece of paper out from her petticoat waistband.

  ‘You have done your landing walks?’ she says.

  I drop my hands. ‘Yep,’ I say.

  ‘You have been looking out the window?’

  ‘Double yep.’

  ‘And you have been practising your crosses?’

  I drag a piece of paper from the bedside table and hand it to her. She examines the little rows of crosses I’ve drawn in preparation for marking my ballot paper.

  ‘These ones look like stars,’ Amma says, turning the paper to face me.

  At the bottom of the page a series of six pointed stars sit glowing in a line.

  ‘I was being creative,’ I say.

  Amma shakes her head. ‘Voting is not a creative activity, shona,’ she says.

  As she looks back at her list, I roll my hands into a telescope again, viewing little circles of Amma’s flower-print sari.

  ‘I really think we should practise getting dressed soon,’ she tells me.

  I look at a circle of her lips as they sit wet and expectant. ‘I’m not getting dressed,’ I say.

  Amma pushes my hand-telescope onto my lap. ‘You will need to get dressed when you go and vote.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘and I only need to do that once.’

  I try to lift my telescope up again but Amma keeps it wedged down.

  ‘No, shona,’ she says. ‘You will need to get dressed when you go to the shops. When you apply for courses. When you go to interviews.’

  I can feel my lungs shrivel, my whole body collapse in on itself. The words shops, courses, interviews float about my face like over-inflated balloons ready to pop. I feel an electric bolt of pain in my chest. I try to breathe through it. It stops.

  ‘Right,’ I say, as though nothing has happened. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

  Amma leans back.

  ‘I know it will be hard, Ravine, but I think if we find you a not so active job—’

  ‘Yes,’ I say sharply. ‘Tomorrow. Until then, I’ll just try going to the toilet, shall I?’