The Drowning of Arthur Braxton. Caroline Smailes

to go with her new life. She’d even protected her profile so that we couldn’t see any of her friends. Got to give my mum credit, she was shit hot on cyber protection.

      Anyways Dad didn’t give up for quite a bit. He was all for cleaning the house and cooking and being pretty much tops. He was saying stuff ’bout us Arthur Braxtons being made of strong shit, going on ’bout his dad being an Arthur Braxton and how he took no shit from women and how our name was like some sort of badge-of-twatting-honour. It was a laugh, me and my dad against the twatting world. But then I reckon it hit Dad that Mum wasn’t coming back and that’s when he went all manic.

      To start with he got to writing ‘cunt’ all over my mum’s feature wall in the lounge. I reckon it made the feature wall look less wanky, but I didn’t tell Dad that. Then he spent days smashing up plates and ornaments. He’d take them out from Mum’s cupboards and off Mum’s shelves, then go into the centre of the kitchen and hoy them on the floor. I reckon no one’ll understand my reasoning but I’d give anything for him to be like that again. It showed he cared and it didn’t leave the room stinking of piss. ’Course I didn’t like him being like that at the time, God no, not back then. He was a proper nutter. But it was somehow better than now.

      After a manic week or so, Dad went all quiet. And that quiet’s how he’s been since.

      Mum never came back. Worse still she never called, she never emailed, she never sent a text and she never even bothered to tell us where she was living. She hasn’t even bothered with my two birthdays since. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not an utterly heartless bitch, she pays money into the bank account every month. Guilt money, I reckon. But it keeps us afloat and social services off our backs. But Dad, well he’s not taken my mum disappearing too well. He’s managed to tell his mum and his sister to twat off, and even though at first they’d come visiting and trying to make things better. They’d bring around food and bits of shopping, stuff they reckoned we needed like washing-up liquid and talcum powder and bleach for the toilet. But after six months of Dad refusing to speak to them and instead holding up a piece of cardboard with the words ‘twat off’ written in one of Mum’s lipsticks, well they did just that.

      My dad’s being a bell-end but I get it. I get that Mum broke him, I get that he’s got nowt to get bothered ’bout and he’s got no one to get washed for. I get it. Instead he spends his days lying on the sofa watching daytime telly or staring at the word ‘cunt’ on Mum’s feature wall. Dad’s doctor has him as ‘unfit to work’. No shit, Sherlock. And me, well I’ve spent months trying to make sure that no one ever comes round our house and if they do, they certainly never get to step into this shithole.

      ’Course, I don’t tell anyone ’bout how shit it is in my house. It’s not like I’ve got any mates to talk to. Tommy Clarke told everyone that the reason my mum pissed off was ’cause my dad’s a bender. He said my mum’d caught my dad bumming the milkman, said that’s why Mum pissed off, said that’s why Dad lost his job. Everyone believed Tommy twatting Clarke. But what am I supposed to do? I don’t want to hear them all calling Mum a slag and saying how she’s getting boned every night. God, no. And I can’t be telling them that Dad’s broken and spends his days watching crap daytime telly and pouring stale Walker’s crisps into his mouth. So, I keep quiet. I let them think whatever they want. That’s ’cause I read an agony-aunt column once and it said how if you fight back you sometimes end up digging yourself into an even bigger hole. So me, well I let the shit-slingers hoy whatever they want at me. Sticks and stones, my dad’s no bender.

      So I keep my mum’s secret and I keep my dad’s secrets and instead I put up with daily shit from Tommy twatting Clarke. Well I say daily but I’m proper talented at wagging off school. I mean why would I bother going someplace where I get the shit kicked out of me ’cause Tommy Clarke and his bunch of merry twats’ve got some gay-bashing thing going on? He reckons Dad’s gay, that I’ve caught being gay off my dad and that I deserve the beating for the both of us. He’s even told the lads in my year that if they’re friends with me then they’ll ‘catch being gay’ too. Tommy Clarke’s proper bright like that. And if I don’t leg it fast enough, then I put up with the beatings they give me, simple as that.

      So, I go to school when I have to, I keep social services off my back. But every single twatting time I do it ends up with me legging out of school and Tommy Clarke and his merry bunch of twats chasing after me. And all the time I know that none of it would be happening if my mum wasn’t such a fucking slag.

      But, still, sometimes I dream ’bout Mum. I dream ’bout her coming round one day and letting herself in with a key and ’bout her having bags of shopping from Asda. I swear I can practically taste the custard doughnuts and Jammie Dodgers popping out the top of her carrier bags. And then it’s shit all over again when I wake up and realise that my dream was bollocks, that Mum don’t give a shit ’bout me and that my life’s utter wank. Some days I hate that I wake up.

      Mrs Harrison from over the road stopped me the other day and said that she’d seen Mum pushing a pram through the centre of Manchester. She said she was sure it was Mum but that she’d lost a few pounds and got herself a fancy new haircut. She said she’d not seen Mum round our way much recently and wondered if she was all right. I ended up saying something gay like ‘my mum’s on holiday’. I mean, for fucking out loud, who goes on holiday for two years? I reckon it’s perhaps ’bout time I said something honest. So next time someone asks, I’m all for saying that Mum’s fucked off with a bell-end and she’s not coming back. And that she don’t give a twat ’bout me and that she certainly isn’t going to want to be having sex with Dad. He stinks of piss and he’s fat.

      Nice one, Dad. Good work on the parenting front. Nice one, Mum. You utter twat.

      I pull my phone out of my pocket. I’m on the seafront now and it’s proper freezing. Nowt but crappy black to my left, I can’t even see the sea, and the shops are closed; I swear, I must be the only twat stupid enough to be outdoors. Even the seagulls have fucked off out of the rain.

      My head’s been full of Estelle Jarvis and Tommy twatting Clarke. I must have been walking for hours.

      I’m shaking, I don’t know if it’s ’cause of the cold or my head. The wind’s lashing from the sea and onto me, the rain’s splashing on my phone’s screen and making it impossible to read. I smear it across with the cuff of my blazer and manage to press an icon that takes me to my settings. I tap off it and load Facebook.

      And that’s when I see a photo of my cock.

      ‘Bastards,’ I whisper. ‘Twatting bastards.’

      I’ve been tagged. My cock’s on Tommy Clarke’s wall, so there’s no way I can delete it, but ’cause he’s tagged me and practically every other person in year eleven, my cock is everywhere. The six inches of my boner is glistening from my phone’s screen. Oh God, no. There’s already thirty-seven likes and nineteen comments, but I can’t bring myself to click on the comments. I know it’ll be taken down soon, but that’s not the point. The whole fucking world will have seen it by the time Facebook gets to removing it.

      That’s when I start walking along the seafront. I’m shoving my phone back in my pocket as I walk. The rain’s pounding down on my head and the wind’s dancing across the Irish Sea. The wind’s circling me and making me feel like utter shite, like it’s telling me that my life’s not worth owt. I stop. I put my shaking hands onto the metal railings and look out to the sea. The cold wind stings my face. I hadn’t even realised I was crying. Estelle Jarvis is an utter bitch. I hate her. And Tommy Clarke is an utter twat. But it’s me that’s the biggest twat in all of this. What the fuck was I thinking? Why the fuck would someone as fit as Estelle Jarvis want to suck my cock? I’m the school fucking freak, why would she be interested in a twat like me?

      I’ve no idea what to do next. I’m freezing, my uniform’s fucked, I’ve no one to turn to, I’ve nowhere to go. I’ve fuck all in my life. And somehow the wind’s telling me that my life’s not going to get any better. And somehow the wind’s telling me that this is it, that this is the best my life’s ever going to be. And somehow the wind’s telling me that all Arthur Braxtons