A Thousand Cuts

‘Come on, Walter. Let’s go.’

‘Harry’s right, Walter. It’s last orders. It’s virtually last orders.’

Walter pressed his leg a little harder against Lucia’s. He leant towards her. ‘How about a goodnight kiss?’ He puckered. He shut his eyes, then he opened them again. ‘No tongues, mind,’ he said. ‘Not this time.’ Lucia looked at Harry. Harry was watching over the shoulders of his companions, his hand gripping a chair, his eyes fixed on Walter.

Lucia stood. ‘I need some coffee,’ she said. She tucked her hair behind her ear and walked the long way around her desk, past Charlie and past Rob and past Harry and she did not look at any of them. She listened to Walter’s cackle and she heard Rob and Charlie snigger and she hoped that none of them could see her shaking.

.

The boys are idiots. They’re all of them idiots. And like I know you’re not supposed to say this, you’re not supposed to speak disapproving of the dead and that but Donovan, Donovan Stanley, he was the biggest idiot of them all.

He wasn’t the tallest. He wasn’t the strongest. He was the quickest, though. His mouth, I mean, his tongue. He was the quickest. He was the meanest too. He’d say things you couldn’t believe and then he’d be saying something else and you’d be there wondering whether you had even heard him right, whether that first thing he’d said had even been said at all. Do you know what I mean?

He was quite good looking. Normally I don’t like black hair but I liked it on him. It looked good with his eyes. They were blue, like my little brother’s, although my little brother’s, they’re changing now, they’re going brown. Samantha reckons I fancied him but I never did. I was going out with Scott, Scott Davis, at the time so I wouldn’t of told anyone even if I had of done. Which I didn’t. And anyway, he wasn’t interested in girls. He wasn’t gay, God, but he wasn’t interested in girls as, you know, girlfriends. He’d shag them, I know people who’ve shagged him, and maybe he’d shag them once or twice but that was as far as it went. I never shagged him. I hope you don’t think I would of because I wouldn’t of no way.

He was fifteen, same as me. Imagine getting shot at fifteen. Imagine, like, dying. And that girl, Sarah, wasn’t she eleven? I didn’t know her. I didn’t know the black kid either. I only knew Donovan and not that well. He was the oldest of the three of them but he was young enough though, wasn’t he? He acted like he was eighteen or something, said he drove his cousin’s car, hung out with his cousin in the pub but I don’t know if he really did. Imagine dying before you’re old enough to learn to drive. Imagine dying before they’ll serve you in a pub.

Some kids, though, they’ll be glad he’s dead. I shouldn’t say that either, should I, but it’s true. Donovan and the others, they picked on the younger kids mostly, just whoever happened to get in their way. Although one time they beat up this sixth-former. Jason his name was, Jason Bailey. Jason and that, they’re playing football and Donovan fouls him, hacks his legs away or something, and Jason calls Donovan a cheat, an effing cheat. Donovan, he was a cheat, he was always fouling someone or mouthing off at them or whatever but you don’t go calling him a cheat, no one ever called him that. They used crash helmets, I heard. Donovan and his mates. You know, motorcycle helmets.

He’d never done anything to a teacher though, not before Bumfluff – Mr Szajkowski – not that I’d heard.

Jesus, that sounds weird. What do I call him now? He’s not a teacher any more, is he? He’s not even Bumfluff any more. God, that’s so weird. It’s weird just thinking about it. The whole thing I mean. It feels like some film, like you know when you watch a film and you’re half asleep and messed-up things start happening and you don’t know if it’s in the film or in your head or what. It feels like that. Except I know it’s not in my head and it’s not in a film and it actually really happened.

Donovan started on Bumfluff right from day one. I’m gonna call him Bumfluff, I think. Is that okay, if I call him Bumfluff?

So it was the first history class of term, double history, and we know Miss Evans has left so we know we’re getting a new teacher. So Bumfluff walks in and everyone goes quiet because you never know the first time, do you, you never know what a teacher’s gonna be like. So Bumfluff walks in and everyone’s quiet and Bumfluff smiles and says, hello everyone, my name’s Mr Szajkowski. And Donovan laughs. He had this way of laughing when he wasn’t really laughing. He’d kind of press his lips together and sort of hiss and blow a raspberry at the same time. Look, like this. Well, not like that. I can’t really do it. Donovan could though and when he did you knew he was about to say something funny. Something funny or something nasty. Usually both.

I’m gonna swear now, just to warn you. Not me, I’m just gonna tell you what Donovan said. Is that okay?

Shitewhatsir? says Donovan. Shitecoughski? And in the middle he does this little cough, which really means k’off. You know, fuck off. Anyway, we all know what he means and everyone starts sniggering and one of Donovan’s mates, Nigel I think, he does a little cough too and then the sniggering turns to laughing. Bumfluff tries to talk over it but everyone knows by then that this teacher, this tatty little bloke with his proper toff accent, he hasn’t got a chance against Donovan.

Szajkowski, Bumfluff says again. He turns and writes it on the board. It’s from Poland.

Poland, says Gi. Gi is Donovan’s mate. It’s short for Gideon, but if you call him Gideon he’ll tell everyone that you’ve got herpes. Poland, says Gi. Does that mean you’re one of them plumbers, one of them that are stealing our jobs? My old man reckons all you immigrants should be rounded up and locked away in camps.

What’s your name? says Bumfluff. It’s going to take me some time to memorise them all but I may as well start with yours.

Horace. My name’s Horace.

Horace. Bumfluff checks his list. Horace what?

Horace Morris.

Horace Morris. Really. Well, I don’t see it. Are you sure that’s your name?

Yes, sir, pretty sure. Horace Morris.

Bumfluff nods. Well, he says. Well, Horace. I’m English. Like you. My father was English. My grandfather was a Pole.

Then Donovan pipes up. He’s been wetting himself to, you can tell. Your grandfather was a what, sir?

A Pole. It means he was Polish.

Polish.

Polish, not polish. From Poland.

So that’s where it comes from. Shitecoughski. It comes from Poland. Shitecoughski.

You’re not quite saying it right, says Bumfluff. It’s Szajkowski.

Shitecoughski.

Szajkowski.

Shitecoughski.

And this is hilarious because every time Donovan gets to the cough part he does it just a little bit louder, like he’s trying really hard to get it right. Bumfluff, he just stops. He stops and he’s standing there by the whiteboard and he’s still got his briefcase on the desk and he hasn’t even had a chance to sit down.

Shitecoughski, goes Donovan. Shitecoughski. And then the others join in. You know, like they’re practising. That’s when Donovan drops the ski bit and then he drops the shite part and in the end he’s just going cough, cough, koff, k’off, uckoff, fuckoff, fuck off. And the ones who aren’t laughing, they’re doing it too, and Bumfluff he’s just standing there watching.

I felt sorry for him at the time. I was laughing. I could tell you I was laughing just because everyone else was laughing but really I was laughing because it was funny. It was really funny. But I felt sorry for him too. Donovan, he usually leaves me alone. Most people, even his closest mates, all except Gi maybe, they all get it sometimes, they all have to take some grief. So I get it sometimes so I know what it’s like. They don’t hit the girls or anything but they tease them, they taunt them. Me, it’s usually about my hair. It’s blonde, right, which isn’t so