VERY KIND
In library peoples are always giving Ms Nimmo the headache
because they don’t stay in silence
or
they are giggling to their phones.
But Ms Nimmo doesn’t do crazy off her nut at them.
Always she remain cool calm.
She smile,
throws eyes to sky,
tuts lips,
but never crazy nuts.
One day Ms Nimmo asked me about good things of Cluj,
the big city near Pata.
She sit with face near me.
I tell to her lots about my city:
our dramatic sun,
our photo panoramic,
our church cathedral.
‘Wow, I must go one day. It sounds beautiful, Nicu,’ she say.
And she grinning.
On other day
she ask me to help lift
heavy box into office.
‘You’re very kind, Nicu,’ she say. ‘Very kind indeed.’
And I grinning.
Today she say, ‘You don’t seem yourself, Nicu.
Everything OK?’
And even though I hearing only lies and jangle voices
inside my head,
I seeing too
Jess being my defence.
And I grin
the most
than ever before.
Where Nicu Lives
‘You sure they won’t get
back early?’ I say,
as Nicu turns the key
in his front door
and we step straight into his living room.
A kitchen runs along one of the walls.
‘Don’t worry, Jess.
Dad working
and Mum shopping to find bargains.’
The flat smells clean.
All the furniture is brown.
‘I just don’t want them going
nuts if
they find us
here,’ I say.
‘They go nuts only if
they finding us
doing sex,’
he says.
‘Idiot,’ I say,
but can’t help snorting
into my hand,
trying to muffle the sound
like there could be someone else
at home.
I follow Nicu across the room
where he
opens the fridge and hands me a cold Coke.
I peer inside,
clock a big Tupperware box
filled with what look like sausage rolls.
‘What are they?’ I ask.
He takes out the box and opens it.
‘Mum make herself.
Better than buying.’
‘Yeah, but what are they?’
‘It called sarmale. You never hear?’
‘Never.’
‘Very tasty.
I make one for you.’
He grabs a mushroom-coloured bowl from the countertop
and carefully
puts two rolls into it.
I wander away,
sit on the sofa,
stare at the coffee table
and the gleaming glass ashtray in the centre of it.
‘Your parents smoke?’ I ask.
Nicu looks over at me,
his eyes soft,
his lips pressed together.
‘Dad smoking always.
It make Mum
so annoying.’
I laugh,
consider taking out my own fags
and lighting up,
but I don’t
cos I know Nicu
wouldn’t like it.
The only other thing on the coffee table is a photo
of a girl
in a flowery headscarf,
two plaits woven with coloured ribbons
at the front of her face.
She’s pretty,
maybe our age,
maybe a bit older,
but she’s staring into the lens
like it’s a mugshot.
‘This your sister?’ I ask,
and wave the photo at him.
Nicu comes towards me holding the bowl.
He stops and stares.
‘No,’ he says,
‘she not my sister.’
He puts down the bowl,
looks at his feet.
‘Shit, she isn’t your dead girlfriend or anything, is she?’
I ask.
He looks at me again.
‘Is not my fault,’ he says.
‘I not choose her.’
‘What you on about, Nicu?’
‘They choose wife for me,’ he says.
‘What? Who did?’
‘Parents.
This girl in photo is name Florica.
She is the choose.’
‘Wait a minute, so you’re telling me that she’s …’
‘Florica is the wife choose.’
‘Sorry, what? Your wife?’
‘No, no. She is becoming wife after wedding.’
The rolls are steaming in the bowl.
I’m starving but
I suddenly don’t like the look of them.
‘My wedding.
They want us to getting married in nineteen days.’
SAD WAVES
After I telling to Jess
story of Florica,
story of my cultures,
the gloom wave is over us.
I know she takes it hard to understanding
our ways,
our young age weddings,
our sarmale.
I finding it seriously hard too.
Life in England
make it all harder.
Jess make it the hardest.
Nineteen Days
Who cares he’s getting married?
It’s not like I wanted to marry him.
It’s not like I even fancy him.
He’s a friend.
He can do whatever he likes.
But what sort of parents make their
kid marry someone they don’t even know?
I keep thinking he’s just like me,
that we get each other,
but I don’t get this.
What is this?
It’s bullshit, is what it is.
Nineteen days?
He can’t though.
He just can’t.
DREAMLAND
And I dreaming of you last night,
but my eyes don’t close for sleeping,
and it raining in my stomach,
and it storming in my heart.
And I thinking.
Thinking.
Thinking
of
us
together
for ever
and ever.
We never get lost
and
when I wake
I fear that our love will never be
found.
Unheard
Shadows moving behind the front door.
A leg,
a head,
and I hear it too,
a thud,
a scream
and when I go in
Mum’s lying in the hallway,
blood seeping into the rug,
Terry standing over her,
his phone on the hall table.
I’m afraid to help Mum.
But I can’t just stand here and do nothing.
I can’t be his accomplice any more.
‘I’ll call the police
if you touch her again,’ I say.
My voice wobbles.
I know she’s in for it now,
and that my big mouth has caused it.
But I’m wrong.
Terry sniggers,
looks like he’s been expecting me to say
something like this,
and in
one sharp movement
his hand is around my neck,
pressing me up against the wall.
‘You speak to me like that again
and I’ll give you something
to go to the police about.
You hear me … sweetheart?’
he hisses.
I can’t breathe.
He holds me there,
squeezes.
‘Now fuck off!’ he shouts,
and pushes me away.
I walk backwards to my room.
‘Mum,’ I croak.
I don’t think she hears me.
SWISS ARMY
At the swan pond
we have throwing bread competition.
I throw most far,
my swan swim
fastest.
I am winner.
‘All right, Nicu, calm down,’ Jess say.
‘I win prize?’ I say.
Jess dig deep into her bag.
‘Here,’ she say, holding big green apple.
‘Not exactly a gold medal, but it is a Golden Delicious.’
‘We share it,’ I say.
Jess toss apple high. ‘It’s all yours.’
I catch one-hand. ‘No, we share.’
‘It’s all right, really.’
‘I insisting,’ I say.
I do my own deep dig,
take out my
Swiss Army,
flick open
knife section.
‘Jesus, Nicu,’ Jess say.
‘What? Swiss Army for surviving in wilderness
not for being town hooligan.’
‘Right.’
I chuck Jess piece.
She catch one-hand.
When apple hitting our mouths
we look each other,
we nod each other,
we agreeing.
It true golden moment.
But gold moment like these
always
have black shadow in ceiling,
always
have thick fog in feeling,
always
have wedding and X day in my head.
And I can’t to enjoying our
apple time.
Transformation
I find a long piece of orange ribbon
Mum used to wrap the present she bought me
for my last birthday,
and cut the length of it
in two.
Then I thread the pieces through my hair
and into long plaits
which lie against my face.
I take a towel from the radiator
in the bathroom
and wrap the back of my head in it,
try turning myself into the girl from the photo,
Florica – his wife in two weeks –
but I’m too pale to pass for her.
I’m studying my creation in my phone
when Mum comes into the room
looking for her hairdryer.
She blinks.
‘Oh, you look nice,’ she says.
I yank the towel off my head,
chuck it on the floor.
‘I look ridiculous.’
‘No. You look different.
Colourful.
You look pretty, Jess.’
She has sad eyes:
even when she’s trying to be cheerful
she’s a picture of misery.
I untie the plaits,
pull out the ribbons.
‘Shut up, Mum.
I look like a dog
and we both know it.’
BEWARE THE SILENCE
I curse myself
because it best to take
the end urinal for to
pee.
Not
middle one.
Stupid!
Here Dan and crew
can make easy
human sandwich
of me.
Here I can’t escape them
because I peeing
streams and rivers.
Dan and henchman
say no swear,
do no shoulder pushing.
They let me pee.
I listening to splash from urinal,
sound of water fall
and
echo of our three
sounds.
I hearing crew breathings,
their whisper and laughing.
Like all is normal,
all is fine.
No speaking assaults.
No threaten.
No wicked eye.
It is worser.
It hitting my knee,
thigh,
shin.
Dan shake dry and exit with henchman.
When I hearing his giggle outside door
my body entire tremble.
I Used to Walk to School with Meg
Not now.
I message Meg most mornings to say
I’m gonna be late,
I’m still in bed,
I’m not well,
so that she walks on without me,
and I prefer it.
I way prefer not having to make
small talk
with
someone
I wouldn’t touch
to scratch.
PING
My phone pinging,
Jess messaging
all times.
Question
Wanna go cinema?
J x
TOUCHING
We go to cinema to see
funny movie
romcom.
Jess show me how to sneaking past
without ticket buying.
In movie we drinking
massive Fanta.
We sharing
bucket popcorn.
In movie we touching
elbows together:
gentleness,
delightness.
And it feel like
voltage
speeding through my body.
Proper Dates
We’re going on dates now.
Like, proper dates.
But what’s the point?
DEEP GUILT
If Mămică and Tata
find out that I dating with Jess
their mercury hit sky high.
If family of Florica
finding out this,
they make sausages from me,
put extra cash charge on Tata.
Whole lots of shit
hit
fan.
I should to feel
in the deepest of
guilt
for being with Jess,
but
I don’t.
I will never.
Know Each Other Better
Terry’s sitting on my bed
flicking through a battered copy of
Matilda.
He grins when I come in.
I’m not sure what he wants.
‘All right?’ he asks.
He closes the book,
leans forward and
carefully puts it
back on the shelf
between a scrapbook
and some old CDs
Liam gave me years ago.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says.
‘You and me never do anything together.
We should start.
We should get to know each other better.’
I take an almost invisible step
back
into the hall.
‘You’ve known me since I was eight, Terry,’ I say,
as happily as I can.
He nods, stands, comes forward
and takes my hand
so he can pull me into the room,
then
uses a foot to kick the door closed.
‘Yeah, I know that.
But when you’re a teenager you change, don’t you?
I’ve seen
the changes in you.
I wanna get to know who you are now.’
He sits back down on the bed
and cos
he has my hand, I’ve got no choice but to
sit down too,
when what I really want to do
is run,
get out of that room
as quick as I can.
But why am I suddenly so afraid?
Terry’s never hit me.
He’s never put me in one of his films.
‘Maybe we could go swimming or something,’ he says.
‘Do you like swimming?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Maybe you’d be shy in a bikini though.’
‘I don’t know, Terry.’
‘Nah, it’s hard to know how you’d feel
about that sort of thing until the
time comes.’
He pats my knee
then
goes to the door.
‘We’ll find something fun to do.
Just don’t tell your mum.
You know what a sulk she is
when she thinks
we’ve ganged up against her.’
He closes the door.
I stare at it
and know only
one thing: