Fic: Planet Telex
Title: The Bends
Chapter title: Planet Telex (Part 5/12)
Characters: Effy/JJ
Rating: MA (for language and sexual content)
Words: 3569
Summary: You can crush it, but it's always near
Disclaimer: Not my characters
A/N: Chapter title and summary quote from Radiohead's 'Planet Telex'. Title (and all chapter titles) from their album 'The Bends'.
---
He’s got to be sure about Effy, about him and Effy together, before saying anything. Because being anything other than certain would mean he was taking an unnecessary risk, and JJ is actually rather adverse to risk in general. So he’s going to wait and see.
---
Effy has freckles.
The opportunity to study them doesn’t come around very often; only when Effy’s high and she lies back on her bed in just her pants with her eyes closed and an almost not there smile.
They’re very faint, her freckles, scattered across her chest like little stars, and JJ can only see them if he looks carefully. He tries to count them - wants to map them out, all of their locations relative to each other - but there’s too much to hold in his head, and it would probably be a little strange to write things like that down in front of Effy. So he contents himself with tracing lines over them, searching for constellations, which he files away when he finds them, so he can research what stars make it up. (It’s not really helpful in getting to know Effy, but JJ thinks that maybe if he knows all the little parts that make her up, then one day, he’ll understand the whole.)
He doesn’t know, because he’s never asked her, but he thinks she likes those times they spend together, judging by the small sigh she always emits just as she’s coming down.
---
Effy likes handcuffs.
She owns a pair of silly looking ones with pink fluff around them that JJ thinks is meant to be ironic, though he’s not exactly sure why.
He doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand how it gets her off, what it does for her, the lack of control, because she fights them. Every time she strains against them and he thinks she’s trying to escape, but she’s told him that it’s fine, she knows she can’t because they’re too tight. When he offered to loosen them, she only smiled a little and said that no, he couldn’t. So they use the handcuffs and Effy pulls against them, until her wrists are red and sore looking.
If JJ’s totally honest though, they do something for him too. Possibly because it’s the only time that the feels like he has any control over any of this, and there’s definitely something to Effy giving up the power that she normally has. Maybe it’s a transference then, maybe control is a zero sum game and there is a limited amount of it to go around.
---
Effy wants noise.
Music must always be played loudly, because Effy doesn’t like quiet at all unless she’s taken something, in which case she probably doesn’t even notice. It’s difficult, because JJ finds that constant loud noise gives him headaches, but he is getting more resistant to it, so maybe it’s a good thing.
Effy must have a keen sense of hearing, because she says that the music has to be loud to drown everything else out, even though JJ can’t always hear anything that needs to be drowned out. But on the times when it is quiet then she’ll sometimes whip her head around without any warning and when JJ asks why she did it, she says it was nothing, there was nothing there, and puts the music on louder than it was before.
---
“I’d like to meet her,” his mum says one day after their post-dinner quiz.
“What? Who?”
“The girl.” She smiles at him. “The one that makes you forget the periodic table.”
“Oh.” JJ can feel his face get hot, and he knows that he’s blushing. “You already have,” he says, looking at his hands clenching under the table. “It’s Effy. The girl I mean, it’s Effy.”
“Well then JJ, you’d best invite her back, hadn’t you?”
“Should I? I wasn’t sure about it, I’m not sure about any of it actually, and -”
“JJ,” his mum says quietly. “You can invite her for afternoon tea next Saturday.”
---
140 characters isn’t really enough for him to word a full and polite invitation, but he manages it after only a little bit of trial and error.
Effy accepts in two.
---
Of course, he’s going to see Effy before she meets his mum, well re-meets his mum would be more accurate. And it’s difficult, because he doesn’t normally bring girls home, especially not as girlfriends, and he suspects that Effy has done this sort of thing loads of times, but he’s not and he’s nervous. Really, very nervous.
Still, Thomas thinks he should see it as a positive, because this way he has time to prepare, both himself and her. And what better way to prepare than to show Effy his thoughts, such as they are.
He doesn’t have a wall to write things down anymore, it was all getting a bit tangled and messy what with the confusion of last year and then the summer on top of that, so him and his mum had redecorated to improve the ‘quality of living space’ apparently. But he still felt the need to do mind maps, because seeing things always makes it easier than just thinking about them. So he has rather a lot of paper on his desk, of what links what to who and how and why. And he’ll show them to Effy, because currently he doesn’t know how much she really knows about him at all, and that’s important, he’s sure, in relationships.
Except when he takes them round and pulls out the one that has ‘Effy’ in the middle and lots of words coming off of it, like feelings and nervous and sex and like and 591 and interesting and stars and quiet and beautiful, then Effy doesn’t seem very happy at all, in fact she seems quite the opposite of happy, because her hands have started shaking, and JJ knows that’s what his do when he’s angry and panicked and doesn’t want to do something.
“Take it away,” she says, her voice shaking. “JJ! Take it away.”
So he stuffs all his sheets, all of his thoughts, back in his bag as quickly as he can. But it was only his thoughts, and it doesn’t make sense that Effy should be so angry at seeing them because it was only paper, and they’re still there even if she can’t read them anymore. “Why -” he starts to ask, but he’s surprised by Effy grabbing a fistful of his shirt and before he knows it, he’s being pulled back towards the bed.
She pushes him flat on his back and straddles his waist while kissing him. It’s not a nice kiss though, and it’s not even one that he would term dirty. It’s sore actually, the way that Effy’s biting at his lip, and pressing too hard and he doesn’t like it at all. He tries to move his head away, but he feels trapped under her and she’s not letting go. If anything she’s getting worse, pulling on his jeans a little too hard now and JJ doesn’t like it, doesn’t feel comfortable at all, and this isn’t Effy, not like he knows her.
“Stop. Effy, no, stop it,” he says between bites at his lips, and manages to push her off so he can stand up.
“What? I thought this is what you wanted JJ. Effy and sex right? Take it, then.”
“No, Effy, it’s not, I don’t…” He starts, but there are too many things and JJ doesn’t comprehend any of it. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand you Effy,” he says, before picking up his bag and getting out, as fast as he can, while only stumbling a little.
---
Thomas guesses something’s wrong, because Thomas is good at those sorts of things, and it may have had something to do with the fact that he came to sit next to him at lunch instead of with Effy.
“What’s happened?” He asks, putting down his food.
“Effy. She’s…confusing, I think. No, I know she is confusing. But it’s difficult and I don’t think that it’s meant to be this hard.”
“It’s ok if it is difficult JJ. Sometimes things that are worthwhile are difficult.” Thomas thinks for a while. “For me, sometimes I find what God wants me to do is difficult, but it is what I must do, so, even though it is difficult, I trust that he knows what is best,” he shrugs. “Sometimes JJ, you must just believe.”
“But he doesn’t exist Thomas, you can’t believe in something that’s he says when he’s not real. It’s completely preposterous.” It’s one of the few things that JJ knows for sure, that Effy as a person exists, unlike God, who is at best questionable, and thus Thomas’ advice is void.
“Prove to me that God is not real.”
“Well for a start he didn’t create the world in seven days, the big bang created the universe -”
“And who created the big bang?”
“What? No one, it just, it just happened,” JJ blusters.
“I believe it was God that did that. And I do not know for certain, I have no proof that he did, and you have no proof that he did not, but I believe it just the same. You see? Faith. Faith that, although it is hard now, at the end, it will be right.”
JJ shakes his head and pulls out the dead lettuce from his sandwich. “I don’t know if I can Thomas.”
---
It’s the right thing to do, he thinks, to tell Effy that maybe this was all a bad idea after all. He heads over there with a very clear plan in mind. He’s worked out exactly what he’s going to say, so when he gets to her house and no one answers the door it’s a bit annoying.
He can hear strains of Johnny B. Goode playing though, a clear sign that Effy’s around somewhere, because she plays Chuck Berry a lot, he’s noticed. He tries the door handle and when it opens, ventures into the house.
The curtains are still drawn, and it’s very dark, and it’s a bit messy and extremely disorganised, and Effy’s nowhere to be seen downstairs. JJ’s a little concerned now, and when he goes into her room and doesn’t see her straight away, then he’s a lot concerned. But she’s there, sitting at the foot of the bed, curled into a ball.
“Effy?” He asks tentatively.
Her head jerks up in response, and she looks at him with wide eyes.
“Effy, I need to talk to you,” he tries, but Effy still doesn’t say anything. “Um, ok, well, it’s about keeping secrets, and our secret in particular.”
“Shouldn’t keep secrets Jay. ’S bad. Bad bad bad.” She laughs, and it’s a bit manic, a bit - no, a lot - frightening, and JJ’s worried about a lot more than just their secret now.
“Effy? What are you…are you? What did you take Effy?”
“Just stuff. Bad stuff,” she giggles. “It’s a secret though. Don’t tell anyone, yeah? Gotta keep it on the inside.”
This isn’t good, JJ knows it, even as he’s nodding his head, he knows it’s so far from good that it’s actually really, really, majorly bad.
Effy laughs again, and it’s still scary. “Want to know my secret?”
JJ doesn’t, not really, because he’s hopeless at secrets and keeping things in as it is, and what with him keeping everything that has anything to do with Effy a secret from Freddie and Cook, and well, everyone really, taking all of his concentration, so he strongly doubts he’ll be able to keep anything else inside. But this feels important, and it’s one of the rare occasions that Effy has offered anything of her own accord, so he nods dumbly and says, “Yes.”
“You.”
And it doesn’t make sense, none of this makes any sense, and JJ doesn’t know what to do at all.
“I think - maybe you should sleep now,” he replies because it’s the only one thing that comes to mind and he always feels better in the morning after a sleep, and maybe that would help Effy now.
She doesn’t respond again, and he doesn’t want to touch her when she’s like this, because he doesn’t like being touched when he has an episode, and maybe that’s all this is, an episode. So he sits across from her and she watches him for twenty-three minutes (which he counts up in his head), until she closes her eyes and he thinks she’s gone to sleep - sitting upright in what must be an uncomfortable position.
He places a blanket over her and waits.
---
Effy’s better when she wakes up two hours later. Well, better is a subjective word, but she’s more like her usual self for sure. Maybe it was just an overreaction. But maybe it was more, and JJ’s concerned, because it’s not really been an isolated incident and he’s spent more than enough time at the Psychological Support Centre to know that this could be bad. In fact, he’s quite certain that it’s definitely not good.
---
The thing is though, that he’s not really sure what to do with it, thinking that things aren’t good, and where he fits in it all. And he’d almost worked out what his role was again after he realised that he wasn’t the third musketeer, but now it looks like another change, and more uncertainty.
There’s a lot on his mind, and when he gets home and sees his mum sitting up and waiting for him then the challenge is to narrow down what to ask rather than if to ask.
“Mum, how did you…before you knew I was different, did you know that I was different already? Before I was…positively diagnosed I mean?”
“Oh, JJ, that’s a big question. What’s brought this on?”
“Nothing. Absolutely, definitely nothing. Just wanted to check.”
“Well in that case, I think that your dad and I always knew you liked different things and I think that for a long time, deep down we knew why. So when the doctor said then it was good, in a way, to know for sure. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” he nods, and almost leaves it at that. “Mum? Did you still love me? Did it…change? Or did it stay the same, even though you knew that I was different?”
“Oh, no, JJ, I don’t think it changed. I just…I think that I wanted to protect you from all the things that you found scary, and to help you with the things that you found difficult. But I wanted to do that anyway, and once you’d been diagnosed then I still wanted to do that. Does that help?”
“Yes. Yes it does. Night mum,” he gives her a kiss on the cheek before he goes to bed, and it isn’t something he always does, voluntary touching, but he’s getting better at it, and also it was helpful, hearing that from his mum.
---
It strikes him, much later while he’s alone in bed, that he’s been going about this all wrong. It’s so obvious that he could hit himself for not realising it earlier. He’s been missing out on his most important asset. The key to solving the riddle that is Elizabeth Stonem has been right there in front of him the whole time.
Pandora.
---
The thing with Pandora, JJ reasons, is that she just doesn’t realise that she holds all of this information, so as long as he’s tactful about it then Pandora won’t even know what he’s doing.
So on Friday lunchtime, instead of sitting with Effy, he finds Pandora in the play park round the corner from college, swinging from the monkey bars.
“Hello,” he says. “Where’s Thomas?”
“I’ll get buggered if I know,” she replies, letting go with both hands and landing with a thump. “Running somewhere,” she shrugs and then points at the bars. “Did you want to join in?”
“No thank you, I’m quite all right. I just wanted to talk.”
“Oh, ok. Well my next door neighbour’s just got a bloody big dog and she barks all the blinking time, it’s driving me right proper ra ra so it is, stupid bitch.”
As Pandora witters on about the dog, JJ blinks a few times and wonders both if Pandora realised that he actually had a subject in mind, and if maybe Pandora’s gotten locked on much in the same way as he would. “Right -” he interjects. “Yes, well on the topic of people going, um, ra ra -”
“You want to talk about Effy?”
“Uh…”
“It’s ok,” Pandora smiles. “Most people do. She’s completely cuckoo now. Since her dad done a runner down a black hole faster than my Thomo, all because her mum was making monkey with scraggy beard face, she went really bad for a bit, but she’s better now.”
“Oh. Good. That’s…yeah…that’s good.”
Except it’s not really good, because JJ’s not sure that Effy’s better at all. But this rather one sided conversation with Pandora has shed new light on the issue, and he resolves to show her that she could be part of his family if that’s what she wants. If she’s missing her own perhaps.
---
He’s warned his mum about mentioning Freddie and Cook, under no circumstances is it allowed, and that is completely nonnegotiable under the terms of this meeting.
She listens to him, for once, which maybe means he was stressing the point a little too strongly, but at least the tea and cakes part goes relatively smoothly.
It’s the bit after that, when Effy comes up to his room that it doesn’t go as smoothly.
He wasn’t really sure of the protocol in this situation, because he’s never had a girl in his room before, apart from when it was Emily, and while JJ wouldn’t mind suggesting that they both took off their clothes and had some sex, it would be awkward with his mum and dad downstairs knowing that he was up here with a girl. It’s different from having Emily here anyway, because Effy’s walking around it, running her finger over surfaces, as if she’s trying it out, storing it to memory. It’s feline like, the way she checks it all.
JJ just observes her from his place on the edge of his bed.
“Your mum’s nice,” she says once she’s finished.
“Yes, she is. She’s great actually, she’s probably the -” and then JJ remembers about Effy’s mum, and how, well he doesn’t think she’s very good. But it would be rude not to say that she was also good. “Your mum’s nice too.”
Effy snorts.
“Is she still gone?”
“Don’t think she was ever there,” she says, moving to sit next to him on his bed.
It doesn’t quite make sense, but he’s learnt that it’s best not to ask sometimes because Effy’s not always very good at explaining.
“Maybe you have to have faith. Thomas says that sometimes you have to believe.”
“Do you believe?”
JJ twists his hands together. “I don’t know.”
She smiles at him, so it must have been the right thing to say, and then she leans across to kiss him, a nice kiss, not like the last time. It’s nice this, and maybe it’s helping, this, just kissing.
Except Effy wants more, and she shifts up the bed so that she’s almost but not quite lying on her back, and JJ can’t help but follow. Effy’s skin, just above her waist, is soft, very soft, and lovely to touch, but then so is the bit above that, and the bit above that as well, and then he finds that he’s running his hands over her ribs, and they’re too visible really, and JJ wonders who’s feeding Effy, if anyone is at all - if she is - and if she could be malnourished.
He resolves to invite her round for food much more, because his mum is an excellent chef and Effy could do with being looked after he thinks. Not that she isn’t beautiful or anything like that, because she is.
So he’s focusing on Effy being beautiful, and on the feeling of Effy’s skin under his fingertips when the voice rings out.
“Alright mate, your mum said you were -” And then voice stops abruptly and the only sound is of the door swinging back on its hinges.
JJ can’t look, can’t turn round at all, because he knows what he’ll see and being able to see Effy’s face is bad enough, how she’s tilted her head to one side a little bit and maybe if he squeezes his eyes closed then it’s not happening.
But it is happening, and Freddie’s “What the fuck is this?” forces his eyes back open, and he doesn’t want to turn his head, but it seems to happen anyway of its own accord. Freddie is standing in the doorway shaking his head in disbelief, and maybe he’s struggling for words, because JJ knows he is.
“Fred - I - it’s…” and Effy’s not helping either, only watching Freddie intently, waiting while he eventually finds what he wants to say.
“Fuck you. Fuck both of you,” he says before slamming JJ’s door closed.
Shit, shit, shit, fucking tit head wankbaskets. He’s really done it now.
---
6. Street Spirit
Chapter title: Planet Telex (Part 5/12)
Characters: Effy/JJ
Rating: MA (for language and sexual content)
Words: 3569
Summary: You can crush it, but it's always near
Disclaimer: Not my characters
A/N: Chapter title and summary quote from Radiohead's 'Planet Telex'. Title (and all chapter titles) from their album 'The Bends'.
---
He’s got to be sure about Effy, about him and Effy together, before saying anything. Because being anything other than certain would mean he was taking an unnecessary risk, and JJ is actually rather adverse to risk in general. So he’s going to wait and see.
---
Effy has freckles.
The opportunity to study them doesn’t come around very often; only when Effy’s high and she lies back on her bed in just her pants with her eyes closed and an almost not there smile.
They’re very faint, her freckles, scattered across her chest like little stars, and JJ can only see them if he looks carefully. He tries to count them - wants to map them out, all of their locations relative to each other - but there’s too much to hold in his head, and it would probably be a little strange to write things like that down in front of Effy. So he contents himself with tracing lines over them, searching for constellations, which he files away when he finds them, so he can research what stars make it up. (It’s not really helpful in getting to know Effy, but JJ thinks that maybe if he knows all the little parts that make her up, then one day, he’ll understand the whole.)
He doesn’t know, because he’s never asked her, but he thinks she likes those times they spend together, judging by the small sigh she always emits just as she’s coming down.
---
Effy likes handcuffs.
She owns a pair of silly looking ones with pink fluff around them that JJ thinks is meant to be ironic, though he’s not exactly sure why.
He doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand how it gets her off, what it does for her, the lack of control, because she fights them. Every time she strains against them and he thinks she’s trying to escape, but she’s told him that it’s fine, she knows she can’t because they’re too tight. When he offered to loosen them, she only smiled a little and said that no, he couldn’t. So they use the handcuffs and Effy pulls against them, until her wrists are red and sore looking.
If JJ’s totally honest though, they do something for him too. Possibly because it’s the only time that the feels like he has any control over any of this, and there’s definitely something to Effy giving up the power that she normally has. Maybe it’s a transference then, maybe control is a zero sum game and there is a limited amount of it to go around.
---
Effy wants noise.
Music must always be played loudly, because Effy doesn’t like quiet at all unless she’s taken something, in which case she probably doesn’t even notice. It’s difficult, because JJ finds that constant loud noise gives him headaches, but he is getting more resistant to it, so maybe it’s a good thing.
Effy must have a keen sense of hearing, because she says that the music has to be loud to drown everything else out, even though JJ can’t always hear anything that needs to be drowned out. But on the times when it is quiet then she’ll sometimes whip her head around without any warning and when JJ asks why she did it, she says it was nothing, there was nothing there, and puts the music on louder than it was before.
---
“I’d like to meet her,” his mum says one day after their post-dinner quiz.
“What? Who?”
“The girl.” She smiles at him. “The one that makes you forget the periodic table.”
“Oh.” JJ can feel his face get hot, and he knows that he’s blushing. “You already have,” he says, looking at his hands clenching under the table. “It’s Effy. The girl I mean, it’s Effy.”
“Well then JJ, you’d best invite her back, hadn’t you?”
“Should I? I wasn’t sure about it, I’m not sure about any of it actually, and -”
“JJ,” his mum says quietly. “You can invite her for afternoon tea next Saturday.”
---
140 characters isn’t really enough for him to word a full and polite invitation, but he manages it after only a little bit of trial and error.
Effy accepts in two.
---
Of course, he’s going to see Effy before she meets his mum, well re-meets his mum would be more accurate. And it’s difficult, because he doesn’t normally bring girls home, especially not as girlfriends, and he suspects that Effy has done this sort of thing loads of times, but he’s not and he’s nervous. Really, very nervous.
Still, Thomas thinks he should see it as a positive, because this way he has time to prepare, both himself and her. And what better way to prepare than to show Effy his thoughts, such as they are.
He doesn’t have a wall to write things down anymore, it was all getting a bit tangled and messy what with the confusion of last year and then the summer on top of that, so him and his mum had redecorated to improve the ‘quality of living space’ apparently. But he still felt the need to do mind maps, because seeing things always makes it easier than just thinking about them. So he has rather a lot of paper on his desk, of what links what to who and how and why. And he’ll show them to Effy, because currently he doesn’t know how much she really knows about him at all, and that’s important, he’s sure, in relationships.
Except when he takes them round and pulls out the one that has ‘Effy’ in the middle and lots of words coming off of it, like feelings and nervous and sex and like and 591 and interesting and stars and quiet and beautiful, then Effy doesn’t seem very happy at all, in fact she seems quite the opposite of happy, because her hands have started shaking, and JJ knows that’s what his do when he’s angry and panicked and doesn’t want to do something.
“Take it away,” she says, her voice shaking. “JJ! Take it away.”
So he stuffs all his sheets, all of his thoughts, back in his bag as quickly as he can. But it was only his thoughts, and it doesn’t make sense that Effy should be so angry at seeing them because it was only paper, and they’re still there even if she can’t read them anymore. “Why -” he starts to ask, but he’s surprised by Effy grabbing a fistful of his shirt and before he knows it, he’s being pulled back towards the bed.
She pushes him flat on his back and straddles his waist while kissing him. It’s not a nice kiss though, and it’s not even one that he would term dirty. It’s sore actually, the way that Effy’s biting at his lip, and pressing too hard and he doesn’t like it at all. He tries to move his head away, but he feels trapped under her and she’s not letting go. If anything she’s getting worse, pulling on his jeans a little too hard now and JJ doesn’t like it, doesn’t feel comfortable at all, and this isn’t Effy, not like he knows her.
“Stop. Effy, no, stop it,” he says between bites at his lips, and manages to push her off so he can stand up.
“What? I thought this is what you wanted JJ. Effy and sex right? Take it, then.”
“No, Effy, it’s not, I don’t…” He starts, but there are too many things and JJ doesn’t comprehend any of it. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand you Effy,” he says, before picking up his bag and getting out, as fast as he can, while only stumbling a little.
---
Thomas guesses something’s wrong, because Thomas is good at those sorts of things, and it may have had something to do with the fact that he came to sit next to him at lunch instead of with Effy.
“What’s happened?” He asks, putting down his food.
“Effy. She’s…confusing, I think. No, I know she is confusing. But it’s difficult and I don’t think that it’s meant to be this hard.”
“It’s ok if it is difficult JJ. Sometimes things that are worthwhile are difficult.” Thomas thinks for a while. “For me, sometimes I find what God wants me to do is difficult, but it is what I must do, so, even though it is difficult, I trust that he knows what is best,” he shrugs. “Sometimes JJ, you must just believe.”
“But he doesn’t exist Thomas, you can’t believe in something that’s he says when he’s not real. It’s completely preposterous.” It’s one of the few things that JJ knows for sure, that Effy as a person exists, unlike God, who is at best questionable, and thus Thomas’ advice is void.
“Prove to me that God is not real.”
“Well for a start he didn’t create the world in seven days, the big bang created the universe -”
“And who created the big bang?”
“What? No one, it just, it just happened,” JJ blusters.
“I believe it was God that did that. And I do not know for certain, I have no proof that he did, and you have no proof that he did not, but I believe it just the same. You see? Faith. Faith that, although it is hard now, at the end, it will be right.”
JJ shakes his head and pulls out the dead lettuce from his sandwich. “I don’t know if I can Thomas.”
---
It’s the right thing to do, he thinks, to tell Effy that maybe this was all a bad idea after all. He heads over there with a very clear plan in mind. He’s worked out exactly what he’s going to say, so when he gets to her house and no one answers the door it’s a bit annoying.
He can hear strains of Johnny B. Goode playing though, a clear sign that Effy’s around somewhere, because she plays Chuck Berry a lot, he’s noticed. He tries the door handle and when it opens, ventures into the house.
The curtains are still drawn, and it’s very dark, and it’s a bit messy and extremely disorganised, and Effy’s nowhere to be seen downstairs. JJ’s a little concerned now, and when he goes into her room and doesn’t see her straight away, then he’s a lot concerned. But she’s there, sitting at the foot of the bed, curled into a ball.
“Effy?” He asks tentatively.
Her head jerks up in response, and she looks at him with wide eyes.
“Effy, I need to talk to you,” he tries, but Effy still doesn’t say anything. “Um, ok, well, it’s about keeping secrets, and our secret in particular.”
“Shouldn’t keep secrets Jay. ’S bad. Bad bad bad.” She laughs, and it’s a bit manic, a bit - no, a lot - frightening, and JJ’s worried about a lot more than just their secret now.
“Effy? What are you…are you? What did you take Effy?”
“Just stuff. Bad stuff,” she giggles. “It’s a secret though. Don’t tell anyone, yeah? Gotta keep it on the inside.”
This isn’t good, JJ knows it, even as he’s nodding his head, he knows it’s so far from good that it’s actually really, really, majorly bad.
Effy laughs again, and it’s still scary. “Want to know my secret?”
JJ doesn’t, not really, because he’s hopeless at secrets and keeping things in as it is, and what with him keeping everything that has anything to do with Effy a secret from Freddie and Cook, and well, everyone really, taking all of his concentration, so he strongly doubts he’ll be able to keep anything else inside. But this feels important, and it’s one of the rare occasions that Effy has offered anything of her own accord, so he nods dumbly and says, “Yes.”
“You.”
And it doesn’t make sense, none of this makes any sense, and JJ doesn’t know what to do at all.
“I think - maybe you should sleep now,” he replies because it’s the only one thing that comes to mind and he always feels better in the morning after a sleep, and maybe that would help Effy now.
She doesn’t respond again, and he doesn’t want to touch her when she’s like this, because he doesn’t like being touched when he has an episode, and maybe that’s all this is, an episode. So he sits across from her and she watches him for twenty-three minutes (which he counts up in his head), until she closes her eyes and he thinks she’s gone to sleep - sitting upright in what must be an uncomfortable position.
He places a blanket over her and waits.
---
Effy’s better when she wakes up two hours later. Well, better is a subjective word, but she’s more like her usual self for sure. Maybe it was just an overreaction. But maybe it was more, and JJ’s concerned, because it’s not really been an isolated incident and he’s spent more than enough time at the Psychological Support Centre to know that this could be bad. In fact, he’s quite certain that it’s definitely not good.
---
The thing is though, that he’s not really sure what to do with it, thinking that things aren’t good, and where he fits in it all. And he’d almost worked out what his role was again after he realised that he wasn’t the third musketeer, but now it looks like another change, and more uncertainty.
There’s a lot on his mind, and when he gets home and sees his mum sitting up and waiting for him then the challenge is to narrow down what to ask rather than if to ask.
“Mum, how did you…before you knew I was different, did you know that I was different already? Before I was…positively diagnosed I mean?”
“Oh, JJ, that’s a big question. What’s brought this on?”
“Nothing. Absolutely, definitely nothing. Just wanted to check.”
“Well in that case, I think that your dad and I always knew you liked different things and I think that for a long time, deep down we knew why. So when the doctor said then it was good, in a way, to know for sure. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” he nods, and almost leaves it at that. “Mum? Did you still love me? Did it…change? Or did it stay the same, even though you knew that I was different?”
“Oh, no, JJ, I don’t think it changed. I just…I think that I wanted to protect you from all the things that you found scary, and to help you with the things that you found difficult. But I wanted to do that anyway, and once you’d been diagnosed then I still wanted to do that. Does that help?”
“Yes. Yes it does. Night mum,” he gives her a kiss on the cheek before he goes to bed, and it isn’t something he always does, voluntary touching, but he’s getting better at it, and also it was helpful, hearing that from his mum.
---
It strikes him, much later while he’s alone in bed, that he’s been going about this all wrong. It’s so obvious that he could hit himself for not realising it earlier. He’s been missing out on his most important asset. The key to solving the riddle that is Elizabeth Stonem has been right there in front of him the whole time.
Pandora.
---
The thing with Pandora, JJ reasons, is that she just doesn’t realise that she holds all of this information, so as long as he’s tactful about it then Pandora won’t even know what he’s doing.
So on Friday lunchtime, instead of sitting with Effy, he finds Pandora in the play park round the corner from college, swinging from the monkey bars.
“Hello,” he says. “Where’s Thomas?”
“I’ll get buggered if I know,” she replies, letting go with both hands and landing with a thump. “Running somewhere,” she shrugs and then points at the bars. “Did you want to join in?”
“No thank you, I’m quite all right. I just wanted to talk.”
“Oh, ok. Well my next door neighbour’s just got a bloody big dog and she barks all the blinking time, it’s driving me right proper ra ra so it is, stupid bitch.”
As Pandora witters on about the dog, JJ blinks a few times and wonders both if Pandora realised that he actually had a subject in mind, and if maybe Pandora’s gotten locked on much in the same way as he would. “Right -” he interjects. “Yes, well on the topic of people going, um, ra ra -”
“You want to talk about Effy?”
“Uh…”
“It’s ok,” Pandora smiles. “Most people do. She’s completely cuckoo now. Since her dad done a runner down a black hole faster than my Thomo, all because her mum was making monkey with scraggy beard face, she went really bad for a bit, but she’s better now.”
“Oh. Good. That’s…yeah…that’s good.”
Except it’s not really good, because JJ’s not sure that Effy’s better at all. But this rather one sided conversation with Pandora has shed new light on the issue, and he resolves to show her that she could be part of his family if that’s what she wants. If she’s missing her own perhaps.
---
He’s warned his mum about mentioning Freddie and Cook, under no circumstances is it allowed, and that is completely nonnegotiable under the terms of this meeting.
She listens to him, for once, which maybe means he was stressing the point a little too strongly, but at least the tea and cakes part goes relatively smoothly.
It’s the bit after that, when Effy comes up to his room that it doesn’t go as smoothly.
He wasn’t really sure of the protocol in this situation, because he’s never had a girl in his room before, apart from when it was Emily, and while JJ wouldn’t mind suggesting that they both took off their clothes and had some sex, it would be awkward with his mum and dad downstairs knowing that he was up here with a girl. It’s different from having Emily here anyway, because Effy’s walking around it, running her finger over surfaces, as if she’s trying it out, storing it to memory. It’s feline like, the way she checks it all.
JJ just observes her from his place on the edge of his bed.
“Your mum’s nice,” she says once she’s finished.
“Yes, she is. She’s great actually, she’s probably the -” and then JJ remembers about Effy’s mum, and how, well he doesn’t think she’s very good. But it would be rude not to say that she was also good. “Your mum’s nice too.”
Effy snorts.
“Is she still gone?”
“Don’t think she was ever there,” she says, moving to sit next to him on his bed.
It doesn’t quite make sense, but he’s learnt that it’s best not to ask sometimes because Effy’s not always very good at explaining.
“Maybe you have to have faith. Thomas says that sometimes you have to believe.”
“Do you believe?”
JJ twists his hands together. “I don’t know.”
She smiles at him, so it must have been the right thing to say, and then she leans across to kiss him, a nice kiss, not like the last time. It’s nice this, and maybe it’s helping, this, just kissing.
Except Effy wants more, and she shifts up the bed so that she’s almost but not quite lying on her back, and JJ can’t help but follow. Effy’s skin, just above her waist, is soft, very soft, and lovely to touch, but then so is the bit above that, and the bit above that as well, and then he finds that he’s running his hands over her ribs, and they’re too visible really, and JJ wonders who’s feeding Effy, if anyone is at all - if she is - and if she could be malnourished.
He resolves to invite her round for food much more, because his mum is an excellent chef and Effy could do with being looked after he thinks. Not that she isn’t beautiful or anything like that, because she is.
So he’s focusing on Effy being beautiful, and on the feeling of Effy’s skin under his fingertips when the voice rings out.
“Alright mate, your mum said you were -” And then voice stops abruptly and the only sound is of the door swinging back on its hinges.
JJ can’t look, can’t turn round at all, because he knows what he’ll see and being able to see Effy’s face is bad enough, how she’s tilted her head to one side a little bit and maybe if he squeezes his eyes closed then it’s not happening.
But it is happening, and Freddie’s “What the fuck is this?” forces his eyes back open, and he doesn’t want to turn his head, but it seems to happen anyway of its own accord. Freddie is standing in the doorway shaking his head in disbelief, and maybe he’s struggling for words, because JJ knows he is.
“Fred - I - it’s…” and Effy’s not helping either, only watching Freddie intently, waiting while he eventually finds what he wants to say.
“Fuck you. Fuck both of you,” he says before slamming JJ’s door closed.
Shit, shit, shit, fucking tit head wankbaskets. He’s really done it now.
---
6. Street Spirit