Читать онлайн «The Panopticon»

Jenni Fagan

The Panopticon

For Joe & Boo

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Traditional US folk song from the 1870s, a time when it was common to take children away from slaves in order to sell them.

When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her.

Oscar Wilde

~ ~ ~

i’m an experiment. I always have been. It’s a given, a liberty, a fact. They watch me. Not just in school or social-work reviews, court or police cells — they watch everywhere. They watch me hang by my knees from the longest bough of the oak tree; I can do that for hours, just letting the wishes drift by. They watch me as I outstare the moon. I am not intimidated by its terrible baldness. They’re there when I fight, and fuck, and wank. When I carve my name on trees, and avoid stepping on the cracks. They’re there when I stare too long or too clearly, without flinching. They watch me sing, and joyride, and start riots with only the smallest of sparks; they even watch me in the bath. I keep my eyes open underwater, just my nose and mouth poking out so I can blow smoke-rings — my record is seventeen in a row. They watch me not cry. They watch me lie like an angel, hiding my dirty feet. They watch me, I know it, and I can’t find anywhere any more — where they can’t see.

1

IT’S AN UNMARKED car. Tinted windows, vanilla air-freshener. The cuffs are sore on my wrists but not tight enough tae mark them — they’re too smart for that. The policeman stares at me in the rear-view mirror. This village is just speed-bumps, and a river, and cottages with window blinds sagging like droopy eyelids. The fields are strange. Too long. Too wide. The sky is huge.

I should be playing the birthday game, but I cannae, not while there’s witnesses around.

The birthday game has to be played in secret — or the experiment will find out. What I need to do right now is memorise the number stickered inside the back window. It’s 75999. 43. I close my eyes and say it in my head over and over. Open my eyes and get it right first time.

The car drives over a wee ancient stone bridge and I want to jump off it, into the river — the water is all brown whorls, but I’d still feel cleaner after. I slept in the forest for ten days once, it was nice; nae people, mostly. The odd paedo on the warpath like, so I had tae watch, but when it was safe, I bathed in the rapids. I washed my knickers and T-shirt in the current every morning — then dried them on rocks while I sunbathed.

I could live like that. Nae stress. Nae windows or doors. It must have been an Indian summer that year because it was still warm, even in September. I was twelve, and fucked, but not as fucked as now.

The policewoman lays her hand on my arm. She’s dealt with me before. She cannae see my nails are gouged into my fist. I didnae even notice until I uncurled my fingers and saw red half-moons on my palm.

I hate. Her face. The thick hair on his neck. I hate the way the policeman turns the wheel. What is worse, though, is this nowhere place. There’s nae escape. The cuffs chink as I smooth down my school skirt — it’s heavily spattered with bloodstains.