Little Star

Then beginning to hack at Max Hansen’s back with the spike of glass, as devoid of emotion as a carpenter hammering in a nail. It was something that needed to be done, and she did it without even spilling the contents of the glass in her other hand. When Max Hansen realised what had happened and began to scream, she didn’t even look at him as she went to open the door.

You’re totally sick, Theres. You are the wolf above all other wolves.

She played the sequence over and over again.

At the beginning of December Teresa walked into the classroom and saw that five of the girls had gathered around her desk. In the middle sat Jenny, showing them something on her mobile. No. Teresa felt in her pockets. She’d left her phone behind when she went out at break time. It was her mobile Jenny had in her hand.

When the girls caught sight of Teresa, Jenny held up the mobile. The display was showing one of the photos of Theres.

‘Who’s this, Teresa? Is she your girlfriend?’

Jenny turned the mobile back to face her and scrolled through the photos. Caroline said, ‘She’s really pretty. How did you get such a pretty girlfriend?’

Teresa didn’t respond, and made no move to take the phone, because she knew exactly what would happen. Jenny would run off, throw it to someone else, and Teresa would just end up feeling worse than she already did. She didn’t give a damn what they said, but she didn’t like them talking about Theres. She didn’t like it at all.

‘Hang on a minute!’ Johanna said suddenly, pointing at Teresa’s mobile. ‘It’s her! The girl who was on Idol! Do you know her?’

Teresa nodded, and Jenny, aware that the situation was slipping out of her hands, said, ‘Of course she doesn’t. And in any case she was useless. Absolutely fucking useless. Worst thing I’ve ever seen.’

Teresa went and stood on the opposite side of the desk. Then she cleared her throat and spat straight in Jenny’s face. Jenny squealed in disgust and wiped Teresa’s spit out of her eye. Then she did something Teresa wouldn’t have expected of her. Her eyes narrowed; she hissed, ‘You disgusting little bitch, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ and jumped over the desk and scratched Teresa’s face with her long nails.

It didn’t really hurt, and Teresa kept her head. In her mind’s eye she saw Theres with the spike of glass. How calm she had been. It was all about calmness. Calmness and ruthlessness. When Jenny went for her again, hands scrabbling wildly, Teresa leaned back a fraction to gather her strength, clenched her fist and punched Jenny in the face as hard as she could.

So simple. Jenny fell backwards with blood pouring from her smashed nose. The other girls were frozen to the spot, and Teresa picked up her mobile and put it in her pocket. So simple. Everything is actually very simple.

After Jenny had been carted off to the hospital, Teresa had to have a long conversation with the Principal and the school counsellor. In many ways the conversation was like the lesson on the Democrats and Republicans, except that Teresa was unfortunately unable to make notes. She had already begun to transform her experience with Jenny into a song with the working title ‘Mush’. It was about things that had a solid form in everyday life, but which had to be turned into mush if you wanted to live.

She was also preoccupied with her new insight into the concept of simplicity. You usually know what to do in a given situation, but doubt, cowardice or misguided concern for others gets in the way. Moving her hand and body back, then shifting her weight forward and delivering the blow had been the obvious thing to do. The problem was how to apply this same simplicity to situations that were not about violence, that could not be solved with violence.

Listen to your heart.

Yes, in a way it was an incredibly banal insight. But perhaps the most banal insights were the greatest of all, if you were really capable of living by them. It could well be true, and Teresa’s thoughts continued along these lines as the Principal and the counsellor droned on with their questions.

She answered in monosyllables, in a tone of voice she hoped sounded authentic. ‘Don’t know’, ‘Don’t know’, ‘No’, ‘Yes’. The role this time was girl shocked by her own actions.

Fortunately she had scratches on her cheek, which helped with her interpretation of the role. She had seen red, she hadn’t known what she was doing. Eventually she was allowed to go back to her lesson.

When she walked into the classroom everyone fell silent as she sat down at her desk. She glanced at Micke, and the hint of a smile flitted across his face. She took out her exercise book and scribbled down the fragments of ‘Mush’ that had come to her. She already knew what melody they would fit.

***

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then many things that end up being of major significance start out as a cool idea. Someone is bored and tries out some small idea just to pass the time. And before you know it we have Pacman, nylon stockings, the theory of gravity or the idea for The Lord of the Rings. A professor is sitting in his study one gloomy day. He takes a piece of paper and jots down, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ He doesn’t know what a hobbit is, or what kind of hole it is. But it’s a jolly little sentence-what might come next?

The weekend after the incident with Jenny, Theres and Teresa were sitting around on Saturday evening with nothing to do. They didn’t feel like watching a film, and they had spent so much time working on songs that they’d run out of steam. Teresa had taught Theres to play noughts and crosses, but after a few trial games they were so unbearably even that each round became simply a matter of who could hold out the longest, and it was always Theres.

Theres seemed to lack any capacity for boredom, and as they sat opposite one another at the coffee table with a round of noughts and crosses between them that already covered half a page, Teresa began to feel a desperate urge to come up with something, anything, new.

Then it came to her. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said. ‘Shall we make a video?’

Max Hansen hadn’t been in touch for several days, and it seemed as if Theres’ career in music was over before it had begun. They might as well mess about a bit on their own, it didn’t really matter after all.

They dug out a dark blue sheet which they hung on the wall in Theres’ bedroom, and mounted some small lamps for the lighting. In a drawer in the kitchen Teresa found a light-rope which they suspended from the ceiling so that it would make Theres’ eyes sparkle when she looked up at it.

Teresa fastened her mobile to the back of a chair with duct tape, then adjusted the height by putting a few DVDs under the legs of the chair so that Theres’ face just filled the screen. Then she began recording and started the song on the computer.

Theres couldn’t grasp the concept of miming; she just sang the song. Perhaps the lip synching worked better that way, and in any case it wouldn’t be a problem to remove the sound from the film and add the pre-recorded track instead. The real Theres’ voice blended perfectly with the pre-recorded version as she sang the whole song.

Fly, fly away from everyday things

Fly, fly away and put aside your wings

Fly, fly away from ties that bind

Fly to me, fly to me…

Teresa never got used to it, she was just as spellbound every single time. When Theres had finished singing it was a long time before Teresa could bring herself to lean forward and switch off the camera.

They had done some work on iMovie in school, and Teresa knew the basics of how to edit and add sound. As she was about to replace what Theres had just sung with the pre-recorded version, she stopped. Instead of removing the new version completely, she simply lowered the volume.

The new version sounded different, but still toned perfectly with the old one. The quality on the mobile’s microphone was much worse, but the tinny, metallic sound in the background somehow made the song fuller, more exciting. Teresa wasn’t musical…What was that called?

‘Theres,’ she asked. ‘What you sang just now. You weren’t singing the same thing, were you? You were singing a harmony, weren’t you?’

‘I don’t know. What’s a harmony?’