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Mammy. Cry out. I had a terrible dream. Shush now. She comes. She sits with me down. Those aren't real love. Just made up in your head that can't harm you really, now you're awake. Now there. There now. Nothing bad will ever happen you. Mammy can I sleep in your bed?

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

In her mother arms I lay feel now and then her jolt awake. Leg jostling. A little snort. A little choke. Her eyelids flicker in the night. All such usual things to me and good to sleep against. She that always keep me safe. Our nylon nighties static cling. Tiny ribbons on the neck and hands. Matching roses. My sunshine. Only. But Mammy leave the hall light on. I need to see it through the dark.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

The beginning of teens us. Thirteen me fifteen sixteen you. Wave and wave of it hormone over. Like hot flush cold splash down my neck. Spilt with new thoughts, troublesome that is and things that always must be said. Spill it out. Spill it down.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Where's that father? Mine? Who belonged to was part of me? I think of. Where is he? Imagination of fathers sitting by me on the bed. Stroking my hair you're my girl, belong to me pet. I have heard of seen those things somewhere on the telly. And I say will you ever tell me what he said about daughters before I was born?

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She says I've something to tell you after all. Your father's hmmm. Your father's, sit down. What? Shush. Dead. A while ago I got a letter from his mother, once it was over and done. She said he took a stroke. Quick. Probate won't be long. But you never told us? Why didn't you tell us? There wasn't much I could say, not like he loved you, us I mean, and now he's dead. You're provided for. It's time to go about our business. What's that? Moving house. Why? Because he bought this and I don't want it anymore. But I don't want to move Mammy. Don't start. But we've always lived here. We're. Moving. House. Because. That. Is. What. I'd. Like. To. Do. And. If. You. Don't. Too. Bad. Because. I'm. The. Mother. And. You. Will. Do. What. I. Say. As. Long. As. You. Live. Under. My. Roof. You. Will. Always. Do. What. I. Say. O. Kay.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

We scour a house. Sniff all over. See if it's a good bed down. I don't understand marching around thinking upstairs downstairs toilets good bad indifferent, that is fungus that's not foam. Are those rotten windows is there a draft under that door? My ocean insides wallowing about. Look at you you not that bothered, calmer but hear at night you pound the wall saying where'd he go? Where'd he fecking go?

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Pack up. Teeth feeling itchy in my head. I've eczema, a load of spots, then a bleeding, Jesus, period one day. Thinking, walk around the house at night saying bye to you thing and you and you.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

You ripping bookshelves off the wall. Crash it. Throw it on the carpet. Snap. Stop that. Accident I pulled too hard. I'll pack these, snap these knitting needles of hers. That stinking wedding cake ornaments she has. I'll break them stick them in her drawer as if she cares as if she'll see and wonder where it's from.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Pack it. Throwing out this bike. Was that his? I ask you. Yes you stupid bitch and whose else would it be? Can we keep it? No. His umbrella and binoculars too? I want. Something. Like you knew him, like you know anything or ever saw him even. Give you a slap scratch. But you'll give me bloody nose if you can, you can't I can run away.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Box it she says or in a black bag. That his briefcase and letters and magnifying glass and this pen. Whose is it? I ask. Chuck it away she said.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She said I like this place you will. You will. There's your room. There's your bed. And don't you give me a face like that. Get up stairs and make up your beds. Rumble tumble.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Have this yours mine his hers whose that and what's the matter don't you care at all? I'm sorry if you feel. Tell me something good that he done once? Your bloody father's dead and gone. Much good he was he left a will oh don't worry it's all for ye not me. Feed you clothe you all that stuff oh yes you'll be fine but there's no good old story. I haven't that to give. Your bastard father. Your bastard. Yours. You and him. Get out of my sight and don't forget to say your prayers.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Hail Mary full of grace the lord is with thee. Say it. Blessed art thou among women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Holy Mary mother of god pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Do you like that? Do you like the look of that school? There. That's where you'll be going. Both. Now. For the first time. Isn't that nice? At the same time. Yes different years. But still. You'll mind each other. You'll mind each other. You will. My family is love.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

We sliced through that fug school bus. So misfortunately new. Thicken soup-ish teenage sweat and cigarette boys slop always at the back. Held tight my rucksack filled with rattling tins of pens. Fat drizzle blotch through the polyester skirt I sideways slope to walk in. Felt my hormones long to slink quiet out of these hard eyes. Do not be seen. Do not see me. But I must turn myself to the great face of girls.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Raw red in the cold snow air. Blow puffs of exhalation in tea smelled breath up the window panes and gaggle. Birds and beast they. In damp army jackets and sweat sunk skirts. They'd be faggy if they could. Full of perms and baggy T-shirts. They may wear their shirttails out as I may not. Cerise talons itch for. I am home- style hands still cleaned and trim. Neat on the cuticle. White at the tip. I may not be that girl. And I may not say there are rosary beads slipping in my pocket on my thumb. I have them talisman against all wrong they'll do me. I know they will.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I be new girl. I could wish to be dead but for the wrong of it. To have to be saying again again where I come from. Who I am. And I'm from some place so much littler than this. That redneck culchie. Backward. Farmyard. I am all these things to the great girl face. Those herd. Such bovine singing heifers. Come don't hate me. All your walkmans fizz in tune, in time with conversations, pointing graffiti's on the bus, love this one that one. New girl stinks.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I'll let my heart walk away. I'll think of home. I'll feel all their smells converge around me to that bit I can't attach. That's the inside of where they all are. That they have smelled each other all their lives and know the way. And know the way it is. They say I'm proud. Stuck up. I'll dream myself up above there. The roof of the bus and looking down. I think I'll see them down there where they fart and blame some other one. Where they itch between their mucky legs. Where clammy thighs catch their tights right in and give them sore spots little ingrown hairs. I see you through those eyes. Antennae. Newness. Shocking as a stranger. I see you. Back, unaware meander arms and legs into the pool of sharks. See them stretch out to snap you. Chew and spit. On that bus. And shout come down here new boy. You, I see, see me but pass off. Climb the ruckle of school bags. Balance yourself on the backs of the chairs. Your feet are drowning when it sets off. Gunk you. Throw you over. With a hard knock on your face. On your knees. Hefty drop from which you can't get up. Well. No escape from bus muck on your hands. In a slobber on your face. They're roaring sniffing. See your blood pouring down the aisle to them. Snapping. Chewing at your hands and feet. Ha ha ha breathe out Spastic. Spastic fall over. Can't spastic walk? I feel you on the inside, that blast of it. Done wrong. I ponder will I help with those new girls around? Their great faces birch derision down. Scalder up my neck my throat to me and my head. I say are you alright in the muffle of my coat hood. Where I can hardly be seen to feel you matter. And you say – spring up – I'm fine. I'm fine. You laugh away think they won't know it was not fun for you to fall sprawl. Bus bumps. Bus grind over the bridge look out. Turn my head from your catch of throat of tongue, on the wrong part of the word to be free and easy. Hear you shuffle on down to at the back. I know they have you off down there. That you'll be butt and crib of jokes. I leave you there to your fate and soon. I hear you going all the wellie, telling – no one laughing – tales of where you're from. They are leery. Laughing underhand at your frizz hair. Your little gut that rolls a bit on your band. That does you down that you don't see or worry, will be against the cool of them those pitchfork farmer boys with their green wellies on. With their rank stories of strung-up cats and slit-ear pups from that big litter had last spring. They'll throw a bat against the wall to see if mush flap squeal or die. Stick a blue tit in the range so it will squeak burn. You said tit. Burning tits they like that. And say that word to all the girls if they can. How's your tits? Have you any eggs you fucking bitch. We are. What are we are doing here? In this place that is full of that. Is over-brimmed of torture.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I feel it gone, my fucker Jesus self. It weep away like longed for wound. Take off that bandage. No nothing there. No badness to keep me. Prop me up. In this place I am as slack gut. Nothing inside to keep me up. With all the coldness in the rooms. With all the people breathe the air around who think me strange and odd. It empties me. It throws me out. Dirty water. Dirty cup. I think for moment I'd rescue you. Say how scum it is. This place. Like this. And do not. Leave you to do your standing. Run for cover. Feeling the earth come down around me after thousand pound bomb's ripped it up. We are transplanted. We are the new now and the wrong. The lost. The done for. Ever. I see I am sliding into years of this I think. And you. My lost then brother. You'll be strung-up.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Hey you two. New two. Yeah you two. Here's your stop. Get off.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

For all of that I wanted to be out of it. All of that. You wanted to be in.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

One day I saw you. That prefab shadow on your eyes. That gravel on the playground under your foot. Four or five ones there with you. They sat. Coats roped under their chins and eyes filled with fag smoke watchfully. Teachers come round the corner just like that. Laring they do always. Making fart noise hocking spit. Snort up clumps of guck from their lungs. You do not. That's to fall foul. You will not do what you're not allowed, even for them. For the comrade nudge of adulation. But you'll find other intimations of their special cool.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

This day I see you sway foot there. One foot to another. Kicking the stones. All these – some red-haired acned, some blond-like wispy thin hair their blue eyes freezing, some raise a stink in every room of the school. I hate the stunk air after their class has been. Smell German classroom their deep BO. These are swinging on the fence chain by you there, standing left right swipe a pebble with that black striped runner toe. And they say joggling each other, what happened you there? Where? That big scar on your head. I wince in my slink hole see. The question never answered I know by you. I. Shall I think of some diversion? Come over and be a centre action? I do not. I do not no. You would not thank me for that.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

You say, and shock me, a knife did it. Silence. For the first time impressed. They cannot delve you all a sudden. Something cool they cannot know. For country boys are beat by dads or priests around the head or a teacher in fury with a big maths book. But not with knives that cut their skulls up. I see them. Sizing now your magnitude compared to them. Them thinking you did not always live here. Must have happened when you were young. Must have happened at another school. Is that true? Who'll disprove it? Not I. I'll not. They do not ask when? who? but Did it hurt? A little bit you say. Were you really cut? Yes awful deep is why my eye's not so good. A great assimilation of all your school-bound woes now up in one knot. This healing vast equivocation. You throw all in the pot. Its lid on tight. And was there much blood? Yeah loads of that. And hospital and people passing out? Oh loads. And did they think you'd die? They did. Somehow I didn't, you say. They never knew anyone nearly dead before but grannies and grandfathers. Did they go to court? They got away. With it? From the country, thickorwhat, you say. Oh right. Oh right yeah.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I smelt it go around the school all day. In crannies in whispers in home economics behind me, before me, to right and to left. Hey dimwit shitfit what happened your brother? What happened his head? Is that true? You so full of shite. It did not. It did not. Sweat me down my polyester pinafore. Don't want to get into it. Don't want to say Aye Yes nor No if I can help it. But I don't want to burst your lie.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Bus home you were not tripped up. And no one said thicko fuck- up shitehawk. And you did sit at the back of the bus. I went over and over each bump in my stomach. The luck of it. Bad luck of it to tell that lie. Of all. About that. That thick meander line below your hair.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She always tug fringe over it. Hide all the memory, says please grow it out a bit long. You will not though some reason of your own. It's my scar. It happened to me. I say it's too short. Stay out of it you.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

We jump on the verge from off the bus. I heard what you said in school. Such a liar you are. Shut up you say and it was a knife did it anyway. Don't say that, you know what I mean you know it well. And your schoolbag buckle graze my cheek shocks my stomach. A not what I expected. So I threw mine at you. Making myself a show to neighbours if they're watching and they are. You missed me you are shouting. Steaming down the road ahead. There'll be skin and hair flying. There'll be wigs on the green. I shout I'm telling Mammy. Baby squeal. See if I care. What's she going to do? The earth is rumbling. Things are splitting up. So I say nothing at home. But hold it in the air so you see what I have got. Like, what were you saying to the lads today? And. Really that's not what I heard. What's that? No nothing Mammy. See, I can level the blow when I wish. If I wish. Might or might not. You live under it. Defiant but under all the same. But I did not mention it again and you sat with the cool lads on the bus.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She driving. Me in the passenger seat. Bringing the statue to the next house. It's rotation because it comes from Lourdes. Have you a good hold of her? Yes Mammy. Blue blond gold. It sits plaster baby on my knee, crown in my teeth and I like the great green serpent coiling all round her feet.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She drives so higgledy piggledy down the road. Bump. Don't break so fast I'll drop her. Don't be a cheeky brat. Quiet. She sings amazing grace. Says hmmmm. Says anyway. What? Your brother. Aha? Not so well at school the teachers say. And? I say to them he studies every single night. I tell them I send him up to that desk. And what didn't I buy him, books, copies, every- thing. I think I'll not be interested at all in this. So I say sooo? My head throbby boy thoughts. My nose big with blackheads. Hair and grease normal. Staring out the window balancing the virgin don't chip her there and does she have ears in that golden mane? I think and make display of my disinterest. It's important she says there's something else. What's that? Umm I don't know what you but teachers think he's a bit subnormal. Just. A little bit. Not under by much. What? Going round and round my. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to. Hear that. I shout stop that. Saying. Believing that. Always saying stupid things about him. She says will you calm yourself. No I won't. No. No. He's fine. That's awful to say. Well that tumour could've done more harm than we. Stop. I belt young Virgin Mary on the dashboard. Take it. Take that. Take that. Wobbling the car. She. Swerve it. What the stop it stop it stop. I don't want to. Hear. I don't want. It in my life. Stop the car. She stop the car. I must get. Out. On the roadside. Stop it. Let me out. Pull in.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Fuck that virgin onto the tarmac. Take her head does she like it? What's the. Don't tell me. Don't tell me that. What do I do? Aha. Aha. It makes my head run. Makes my face run. I fall in the grass. I graze my hand. I feel lungs closing up under the breathless. No. No. Breathe it. Breathe it. Put down your head. She says. Just sit there. Head between your knees I'll shut the car door. She pulls it over. And puts on the break light. Sssh.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Sorry I broke the statue I say wet with cry. Don't mind. Don't mind the statue. Don't mind that. I don't want. Shusha shusha. I. I. No. I don't want. And I feel a sinus. Feel a brain erase. Feeling limbs feeling. Pins and. Shock and. Needles. Get in. She says leave that. She says it's alright. She says he's fine. She says sure they never know what they're talking about. Now. She drives us home.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

And this means we are eating dinner stew. I am sitting. And she there pass the salt. Thump. In my. Thumping. Face and neck. You busy making at me ape face. Big jaw. The funky gibbon. Shuffle kick under the tablecloth. Ugh what's so wrong with you? Saying so and so teacher saying such and such. Saying la la la. To me. It comes like river up my throat. Puke on my dish. Chunk dribble my plate. And again. And retch again. She pat my neck hold my head go on. You shouting Oh that is so disgusting can't you get up to the toilet. Such a retard. Quiet you. She pat my back. She pat my head. It's alright.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

No I'm not going to tell anyone, I say. And you shouldn't either. I don't see what's to be gained. Well they think he'll get along alright she says. D's but fine. He'll find something that will make him happy. Are you going to be telling everyone behind his back Mammy? Think of holy joes praying and all they'd say. I'm not hope you'll not is what she says. You're a good sister and he's always been good to you so. Right? Ssssh. He's coming up. Something else. Oh pork chops so were two a pound. Is that good? I say.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

That school tread. Going over and over. Term learn holiday back again. My C's. My B's for not doing much, that much. She doesn't apply herself. And you get, you get upstairs to that room and do some work. Every night you're stuck up there three or four hours and you're bringing home D's and E's to me. What do you think your father would say to that? He'd be ashamed his only son's so useless. You're just bone idle. That's your problem. What are you doing up there? Stop that don't be saying that. Why are you saying that it's not as if he can help it. You know. You know. Just what do I know? she says. Sure you're the one who told me. It's not like he can help it. No it won't get better if he does more work. Maaaammy leave him alone. And you shouting what are you saying to her? Why don't you mind your own business, if she gives out to me what's it to you? But. Shut up and butt out. So nosey. She says there now son. That's alright. Your sister's just having a phase. Everything's my fault but she'll snap out of it soon. I say Oh fuck off. Don't talk to her that way. Then you can fuck off too.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Say hello to your aunt and uncle. You haven't seen them before. Nudged his jaguar into the drive or volvo or fancy I don't know about that. He black curl-haired she bob-cut wife. Our mother's sister she. To call. To come and stay. Better off than us and close I think when they were young – we played house snakes and ladders and little women. We hear her on the telephone every month or so. Now then youngster, how are you? Pass me onto. Is your mother home? Or go on and get your mother tell her I'm in a state. And she mentions every once in a while your aunt loves tea rose scents. She sends a check for Christmas and birthdays and now and then. And parcels of hand-me-downs from girls about my age. Auntie so with bottle green tights. She's a hips woman they say with a size ten top. My God a broad and wing'ed arse. Nudge and jostle you me Shush. In all they're grand compared to us. Bags that match. Driving shoes. Leather gloves and a cigarette lighter in their car. Come uncle uncle and play your guitar. Come uncle uncle and smoke your cigar. Those are what I've been told they do.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Come and smile and give us hugs. Ah he'll not be tall like his Da oh should I not? His father was a tall man after all aunt adds. Hmm we've all sorts our mother says with her arm across your back. Take your auntie's bag upstairs and your uncle's while you're at it. I look at him. I look him back from looking right at me. His eyes flick a switch. I'll stare you dare you and don't think you're posh than better than us. Come in and sit down and you'll have a cup of tea with. Ho ho look at madam, can't get over how she's grown. I'm thirteen now and nearly more. Soon.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Sit smile and give bottles of bubble bath and packets of crisps and jigsaws theirs already smeared with. Lovely girls. You might like it thought it might do. Your cousin loved that one. Oh lovely lovely. And second-hand knickers with butterflies for me. Second-arsed. Amn't I the lucky one. Pink and green. For you a book of Jesus and a plate with praying hands. Yes I am fifteen a snicker splutter. We'll put them in our rooms.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

At the table she speaks slow and loud like we're deaf. How's school doing? She's scared as hell of us young savagers. She's heard tell. The evil house and halfwit brother. Sullen girl and her forward rolls. I don't mind her snit one bit. My all-set temper might spark to it but we have a lovely awkward dinner of gammon and mashed spud first. I do love them more says she with a pineapple ring on top. Haven't you maybe one of those? No. A biteen then more salt. They're dry those spuds. Pass it. There you go. My girls won't touch it. Pork is such a, you know meat. Was the milkman was a jew? I say under my breath you wrinkle snotting. What? Our mother's eyes plop from her head, but they chew neat and cud-like and have not heard. Nothing I think, til I see him. Uncle uncle. Maybe you're no fool. I get the I'll get you later on look from our mother and jelly a bit. And how's your work? I made partner. Well isn't that great. Holidays in Spain. Do you get away? says the aunt. No not that much. I don't know how you do without the sun. Well. We're also having an extension. Oh. How big's this house here by the way? Three bedrooms. God how do you all fit in? We need a new guest one and with the girls so grown it's en suites for this one and en suites for that one. Hhmmm. Oh walls? I suppose it'll remind me of my youth – we usually have carte d'or. He says give it a rest would you, not everyone's as well-off as us isn't that right? Yes my mother says looking greener stewed-up cabbage. And I see he is watching me with this, seeing how I am. I am champing inner lip. Inside us all are, better or worse, for she's a bit this aunt, relentless.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Did you get the check? Did you get my check? I've almost learned to growl but you avoided it or did not think she was rubbing it in. I could bite this hand that feeds for parading the bill. Did you get that check she kept saying to her I keep forgetting if I've asked? My little snarling yes you do. Our mother says go upstairs and leave us to talk, or your brother's watching telly why don't you go join him. I'll do the dishes I'm saying thinking I won't leave. Keep an eye on what's said about you and me. I'm unhappy aware there'll be loyalty smeared somewhere there on our kitchen floor. Not mine. Not to you. Or yours to me. Or her. No go make up the camp bed that's what you can do for me she says so I do.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I sneak. I snuck. I listened at the door. I heard them. I pondered you should send him to special school. Those marks aren't fit for a boy that age. Oh such clucking and glucking. Snob and preen herself. I hear my two are off to the convent. Not a ladder in their tights or a pain in their heart. Such brilliance. Unearthly. I snoot them. Aunt and uncle. Chintz for brains I hiss and think. Listening listening. Yes of course they got accepted so naturally I know a mark or two when I see it. Compete it. I'm having bile thoughts. Great green ones of spite and their sloppedy daughters with tongues too long to keep in their mouths. Should we be that so we can be right? We're clear awful wrong the way we are. Yes they're having grinds and trips to the orthodontist. One should give one's children the best in life. Golf. Give them a taste so they can never live without. Shop at such and no sales. Grow them good and wanty. For bungalows near politicians and the captains of industry. Our mother I think foamy at the edge thinks I need this like a hole in the head. Yabber yabber put the teapot down and take out the biscuit tin. She treads it calm and forth with hmm and yes and is that right? No says aunt as long as they have their degrees. Shop floor management or whatever history. Degrees the thing and tra la la – what are the chances yours'll do that?

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I'm raging. I'm spitting. Come in slinging the door. Oh are they really aunt and uncle how was it they got in the convent when they only got D's. Just lucky? Didn't you pay for them in? You shut up don't be so cheeky. Your aunt's thoughts are for the best. Is that so? Is it that? Why is she always doing him down? And me. Getting podgy! And you taking it all in. Sucking it up. You cow come here eat your tea and say we're all these sorts of things. Go to your room. Go right there now. I mean it. Straight away.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I'm flooding the hallway up those stairs to my room see their bags shout fuck off through the floor so they'll hear, they'll hear me and know what I mean. You snobs. Bastards. I'll say the bad words I have. Coming here. What? says you stick your head through the door. No-thing. Nothing for you to know. Go back to the telly and leave me alone.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I'm sitting for ages and sob and whine. Til the back door click. They have gone out. And you went with them I know. In the room I sit alone. Quiet and listening to the groans of the floor and the rattle of water running hot through the pipes. Six o'clock now and.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I hear his footfall. The banisters creak. Definitely his feet not yours. I chew my lip.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Tap on my door. Tap tapping he push it through. Are you here? Are you alright? Thought I'd see if you're. I'm fine. Well now. What? That's quite a moment to treat us to and on the first day. I know it. Can I come in? Alright, do. Your aunt's a bit of a madam gibbet. Hang 'em always. Hang 'em high. I laugh at him and his aunt stranger wife. Meaner than true. Why does she? She doesn't mean to. Doesn't think it, never has, through well. She has to make a big competition between us and your girls it's not. I know that but. She's very fond of you, underneath. Nice way to show it. I'll have a word about. Sorry. Me too. And breathe in out.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Shouldn't we be friends? I am your uncle after all. But it's the first time that we've met. No, I've seen you before. When? When you were born before we went abroad. I don't remember. You were only small. Do you like England? I do. What do you do? All sorts of things and do you do? I go to school. I knew that. Yes you did. You've quite a lip. Someone has to. Why? Just the way things are... I see. I'm sorry to have asked. I'm sorry I shouted. I know she's your wife but I don't like her. Oh she's. Not that bad. So you said. You're a funny girl. Why's that then? Cheeky madam. Maybe I am. Oh you are. Well that's me. Good for you can I ask you. What? Do you climb out that window to meet your boyfriends at night? Shy me and do not say for no would be diminishment of some kind in his eyes. Smiling's best when. I do that. Watch him. Smiling eyes. And he just smiled at me.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

We went to school. We went on that bus. In the cold lunch break they are kicking football on the muck pitch. You run. Run. Run. That bad eye I know cannot keep up with a ball nor does it see one of them and his doing you for the crowd. Behind your back. For their laughter is a mighty thing to invoke. Your little limp. Sometimes the way you shake your head. It's brilliant that the worst one on the whole field doesn't know it. See him do it. For their roaring. For their great lads fun. He does your voice like a thick tongue. Pass it here lads after you say it. They kick it to keep you to and fro. No one's playing. Only you now but you don't know. Round of laughing. I see you stop then. Something twigging within. Look around. To the clumps of them doubled-up in two quaking squealing. Happy pigs getting fed on you. The way your hand hangs down or you stumble on a ruck. He smears a muck bit down his forehead for the scar that you've got. Jesus fucking spastic Christ. And you were saying, what is it? Hey lads what's going on? The more they look the more they laugh. You now getting all het up. Can smell the joke descend on you. How did you get your scar again? A knife. A knife? Oh was it? Very funny. I heard you got your brain cut up. Did not. That you're brain-damaged. I am not. You're a brain-damaged liar. No listen you said. Handicapped. Ugh they're sticking tongues in their bottom lips. You stumbling towards them. Not thinking. Thinking how to stop them say at this. In the mud you stumbled over. Caught yourself. Stood back up straight. Listen. Listen lads. All they say is uuuuuggggh. I could kill them for this or you. I could roar. I could cry. I do not. Anything at all. Just stand feel it worse and worse. Thinking of the scald and full of shame. Was it yours or mine? Think please just leave the pitch. Please just walk away. It won't be worse than standing there. But you're still trying. Fumbling red for words. He's doing you even as you speak now, to your face. My throat. Is blank. Is sown up. You shouting what's so funny? I nearly died. I still could. It's still in me. It isn't funny and then, for pity, say why are you laughing about me? They are and laughing more. Your anger permits. Gives goals and goals. Your face red thick. Bulged indignated. The bullish face fat with humiliation. Handicap. Handicap. One from the back gets the ball. Kicks and aims. It strikes your face. Bleared with mud. And knock you over. Laughter. Laughter. Never ever will it stop. Not ever. Not ever again. The bell rings and release for you from that place. I close my eyes and wish this day had never been or you or me. I walk back and will not help. Pretend I didn't even see. Did you see me? Look at them hear them talking just a bit embarrassed about it. About what they done. And I will not think of your feelings anymore. For it's a bit too much to know.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I ride the bus. It's condensation. Smother. You sitting just behind. And quiet. You don't say a word. I'm turned from it. That did not happen to you or me today. I think. I will not think of you. I think. Uncle. What would you think of me sit thinking of you? My head at work and turned away from everything happening here. Their cigarette smoke roaming up from the back for you. For a way to spit in your eye I think splitly. It gives me. No. Turn from that and turn away. The eye go in. What? How much secret pleasure to stare at uncle in my mind's eye. Think of him come across the room. I have him. Scrutinize. I am smiling. It is from. What are you laughing at? as we climb off the slime bus. At nothing why what's wrong with you? I let you walk ahead. I don't know. Let you just. What's in me? There's something twist. Must move or shake him. Uncle. Think. I must give him some surprise.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

And in the kitchen I see him there. You go drag foot. His eyes go with. I go ignore him. Stuffed throat as I walked past and could not think of how to shock. Hi aunt mammy. Their hellos to me. I going. Keep going. Not my single word for him. Not for him a lift of my eyes. I keep them locked. I'm going to my like a light went off I am going up the stairs.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Later it ran up me. Legs stomach knees chest up head. Like smoke in my lungs to be coughed out. I'd throw up excitement. What is it? Like a nosebleed. Like a freezing pain. I felt me not me. Turning to the sun. Feel the roast of it. Like sunburn. Like a hot sunstroke. Like globs dropping in. Through my hair. Spat skin with it. Blank my eyes the dazzle. Huge shatter. Me who is just new. Fallen out of the sky. What. Is lust it? That's it. The first splinter. I. Give in scared. If I would. Stop. Him. Oh God. Is a mortal mortal sin.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil amen.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I sit bow-legged Encyclopaedia Britannica on my knee. Sex Sexism. Sexuality. All the words. I know it's something. I've looked in there before. Since I was ten and since I knew what men and women sometimes do but I am something else. I am. Going to the bad. To the somewhere new.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Prayer time. She called and I went down and we're all sitting there. He is sitting on the chair. You face still bit red your head hang down. Your head. I don't want that. I see him. Smile at me. A reading from the gospel of St Luke. My own face. I flower a tinct of what I've read alone upstairs. It course me. Whipping blood. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out and wept bitterly. Amen. Now there's a lesson for all of us isn't there? The aunt's a little hoarse. Now a decade of the rosary. Shall I give it out? Do. I feel the more my inside lie. If I could just be pure. What would I do? His shoe. His shoe is there beside me. Don't. I want to look. I struggle want him watching. I will ignore I will ignore. Him. If thou oh lord will open my lips my tongue shall announce thy praise. Incline to my aid oh God. May the Lord make haste to help us.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Two stairs. Three at a time if I can. Leave it. Sitting room. Watching there the telly all of them. I'll on my own. Be quiet insides. Don't be fucked-up. I will wait. This out. He'll be gone. Quite soon. I'll be pure to then. I will. It'll be. It'll be. Fine.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Are you hiding from me? You haven't said a word in days. We're going in two. Are you still upset about your aunt? No. Not about that. What's wrong? Nothing. I start to cry. Don't. There now. Don't. There now. It's been a bad old year for you all I know. A lot's gone on. It'll improve though. You know you can think of me in a father way. I'm only at the end of a phone and we'd love you to come and stay. See your cousins. They're just about your age. Where you going? Come back. Hey! Come back here please.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Oh sacred heart of Jesus I place all my trust in thee.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

On the last night before the last day I'm over the hill. I see pastures open up for running free from him. They'll be gone in one more day. I'll dig it out. Intemperate. Something this. What? Intemperate something wrong. To look at your family and think of something. What? Something else than just hellos. That's dirty. Something night.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Sit down here. They're gone to the shops and someone's mother who gets messages in photographs. The Virgin Mary hiding round the back at Knock or Maria Gorretti saying cheese visiting Lourdes he laughs. Blasphemy but I'm not one for the fires of hell are you? I don't know I wouldn't want to find out. Hedging your bets then, a very wise choice. Blood swirl and swirl. My thud cheeks up. You're not talking he says. Not saying much. What did I do? Nothing. Did I offend you? No. Quick with your no's aren't you just a bit quick? I think you're too shy of me for comfort's sake. Sorry I. He says I see you. What? I see you very clear. I see you. I do. So come here. And I can't help wondering if you see me? You see, I think you do.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I'm invaded in my ears by pulse is going round and round. Pumping in my fingers. His touch my face with flat of hand. You are. Oh you're a strange one. A quick one too for all your age so don't think I think I'm not a fool for this. Little madam youth and vigour. Little madam knowitall but I see you. For. What. You. Are. And do you know there's no one home?

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I am sweating here. Ready to give and not. Not at all ready for what I think I'll get. But I give it. I'll give it. Take this cup. I'll drink I'll not. Thy will be done. Let him kiss me. If he wants. I. Brink it. But when he reaches I turn away under his thumb. I want to kiss you. He. Turns my face to him. Dissolving fright under his hands. He put his mouth on mine. This is kiss to me. Then. Wave of. What. Lost. And he says. That was nice but don't you want to kiss me back? I. I'd like you to open your mouth a bit. I. Do. He kisses me. The deep again. With lips and teeth and with his tongue. Touch me soft there I did not know would be. Fill my mouth with it. He says. Open your eyes. Is this the first kiss you've had at all? Flexed and on a wire I'm. He knows something I don't. About me. That I am naïve. Do that. Don't do that to me. I. Feel I might begin to cry or sink or fall. I want. I want. I cannot say. I'm almost. Ready or not. Got to leave. Don't be angry with me he says. I'm very very honoured. He touch my face. Kiss me again. And I touch his cheek. I touch his chin. I know now. What it feels. That mouth. His stubble. Grating. Think of cheese and not my skin blooming rashes. But it does red and pink alive and specially for me. The burn of it. That smell. That deep in his neck like warm and rich and far away. Like memory I might have had. Will make from this. Have made. And sound of kisses I did not know. Lapping. Thinking me of being at the shore and breaths like breeze going over my head. He tasted. I don't know of coffee. Right. He tasted like dinner. Like something deep.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

But I am waiting for. Something with his mouth on mine. Something touching down below. There's not. He not. I am what I should do? My hand. On his trousers. I feel. What. Stroke. He breathed out. No! Not for me he says. I stop that. I am not. I go red. I'm not that man. And I'm ashamed to have. What he did not want. But his hand on my chest no my breast. He says that's enough. For me? I am scalded. For me he says and too much. I am. I. Stand up peel the skirt from off my legs. The back of is stuck there. I'm clammy sweat. And legs are wrong. Excused and dismissed. What I say is You fuck off.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

This night is a restless night. Turning in my head the. Wish I could tell you until the morning came.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Come running by the lake. Fall down. I am almost too old for that I should be smoking drinking now. Taking hands up my jumper. Fingers down my skirt. I should be. I should be. I am not. Yet. I stand there. Eyes mist to the wind feel the fresh rush past. Up my nose. That sting. That new day it's so early in the morning. I see the white and clear. Rising up of the waters. Running round my feet. My gravel feet. My earthbound feet that feel the sway of it. Water. Of the world that's changing now no changed. It's changed and this is looking back. The past a flash front. That mix. Knowing what how I should do be say. That's going up. That flock of geese is rising. Rising to make all the noises. Honk like cars and wings beat hard on the air. Battering it. Cutting it down. They're going up and up. Feathers and fat young breasts rise and rise above me. I see. I see clear. And the trees there, glassing the water making it jump in go under. Temptation for the tips of my fingers. For the soles of my feet. I step there. Cool and cold and colder. Outside the leather. Coming in over my white socks. Feel it rising. Catch my ankles. Send me tremors. Send me shivers. I know what I'm doing. Mud suckering round my toes. If I stand. Still. The reeds glass bend a little. Shiver winter. There's a soft cold breeze. I search the quiet out for footsteps. For the armies. Coming. To slither under water here with me. Those spirits smell and see them I do in my sleep. In dreams of all the things that in my life will come to me. Take hold. I fear not. Hear not. See not. Feel the rap on my knuckles of the water going in. It soak my coat up. Up my leg up. Feel it there inside my thigh. So cold. So ice and glass and see though things and friendly hands. Between my secret tight shut legs the water. Lurking brownly seep inside me. Drag me down. I do not. I know not. I know not what I do. It is not that. It is not drowning I have come for. Not for death or any other violent thing that I could do to myself. I am here this hour for. Storage I think. Cleaning and cold storage. I will gush myself out between my legs. Whoever let the poison in. The dirt retreat. The thing I want I should not get. I'll put my head in for discreet baptise. It makes me want to, feel like laugh. Out loud and crack that silence. Hear the curlews and the gab of swans not far from me. A wee way off. The sun is coming. Much more warm now than I wanted or had thought would be. This crevice lake could be my ocean if I was. That duck. That bit of scum. That bit of tree there floating. I sink baptise me now oh lord and take this bloody itch away for what am I the wrong and wrong of it always always far from thee. Ha. My nose fill with that bog water. It's run a long brown hill to get into me. Its salt its bits and dirty pieces in my eyes and in my lungs. Ah. You are not here. In this world deep and brown. Filled with rattle gushing noises. Sounds. Unearthly water bubbles rise the top. You are not here. I am free from love and that cold pain shooting through my forehead. That's a good thing. It's a fine and right thing. True to what it is. Gurgle. Swell into my bronchioles. Fill that space. Push each air drop out. I let my feet float up there off the ground. I know I am a puffed white shirt floating on the water. Face into a different world. Where are you? You are not here. I am free. To not hear spastic fucking spastic. Feel the slither of one glob of snot or spit at your head. Or don't touch me. Cool the ocean running through me I wish waves were over my head. I'm floating downside up and wrong side down. Hmm help me I am drowning. Look up. Look up. The day's begun. The cold and grasp. Retract now my wish for wading going in. My hair a cling now on. Sticking to my face and that rust smell of lake. Put my feet back on the bottom. Slipping in. The silt and grub of it. I think are here pike Jesus they bite I know bring some children down. I've heard into the murky depths. My insides feeling squeal now. Yuck this filth. Yuck I have done. The circles snapping circles of the I wade water out to the bank. My heavy clothes and slipping grapple blackthorn bush to pull me out. The silence. Keep the moment. Panic slipping I get out. I'll catch my. Death of. You know. What's it. Here can't be a leech. Not in this country. Too cold here I'm sure. The other side now. Cows are lowing. Lonely ancient bovine cries. Their teats are turning over wanting out relief of hot milk. Let it all begin again. My body cold reflected back up to my face as I stand there. Look down. I see my sorry self. That girl. My wicked. I see new ripe ones. Interesting eyes. Purged off. Cleaned out for sure the stings and bites of. Those things that happen in your head when you are young and cannot fathom never being clean again. The house will still be quiet. If I go there. Drip the floor. I felt this morning strange beginning. I know. I know I won't tell. Yet. To whom. I go. I see the heron fly. Dart of it over my head. Heading are you out to sea? To the new found world old now though. To a sudden death or a happy mate or a quiet circle or a quiet nest. I watch it overhead. That heron flying. Towards unknown. I don't think I will be clean now. Think instead I'll have revenge for lots of all kinds of things. The start is. That is love.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

The house is dry and creaky. I am sopping on the floor. I hear him. No. Aunt or uncle rolling over in the bed. I'm not at peace here anymore. Now today. Glad. They'll be gone. Still. I hear something. I know that step. Forty-one just like new. He is coming early down the stairs. The smell of water waft about it must be. I think. And he will see me in my clothes wet through. Teeth running motors in my head. My bark and twig hair.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I look at him in the door as he see me. No surprise. What have you done? You look. You're wet the whole way through. I am. What did you? Fell in the lake. I walked there early while it's clear. I see and you. Yes fell in. Don't worry. I'm okay.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I know that look that vicious look of him to me now. And the usual inner throb in me. Knives in heart in lungs come a spoon scoop me out. Scoop me out for what he want. But I go past him still. Feel the busy silent want of me. Know. I know that, see that, know it now. How strange my baptise renders me. His want me. Fuck me if he could and I and I and I and I. I have that. And I do not. Do not need. Have something else I need to do. There'll others. Some others. Some day more who want me I want to fuck them too. Thanks uncle for sage introduce. I left him dripping in the door. Ha. He did not get me after all.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Oh but he did. I'm lying. I am not I am. By the cold range in my white drip shirt. Caught me. Went about me tooth and claw that I wanted. Felt within the time has come. No Christ here on the kitchen floor. Against the back of the kitchen chair. Pull my skirt down by ankles. Shed. And it was so quiet all around that I could hear him open me. Graze me opening my legs. Take me in. And that dark body unwashed night and thick pyjama's smell of week worn. Someone else's house and their daughter taken over. Under his hands. Full of sweat and passages of skin where he has touched his wife now over me. Her shreds of her. And hard he is I think. For what I know. That's a thrill of me. That I am. Feeling running rivers over me. Running falls. I'm splashing falling into it. His cheek on my head. His dark hair. That I am warm in this. Full up. True. Here we are. Here we are. We eventually are here. Go let myself go down in this. He has a mouth of me. His hard hands. Touching and pulling me under the water. Alright now? Yes. He ram that. Oh God. It hurts me take it out. It. My heart thump on top of him and feel it shaking through his back. No. Take me. Take me down under. He is goding goding goding. In his breath. Like a great surprise has taken place. My legs and thighs and ankles. He will have them all of me in this. Done and done to. Doing. I'll do all of this. Dance with the pain of it and I would do later for many bleeding days. Sting and itch. Not from disease. From new stretched and snapped skin. Up inside that will not fit in time. Expand and let him lurch there. I want. And this is what it's like after all. After all I've heard. It hurts me. And kissing choking me. Almost too much of my body taken up. The air squeezed out. The air pushed to the edge. Coming out my eyes. My ears. Too much. Where is the room for. Too much so much. It. Is too much then. I'm taken over buckled onto him. Light and pulled up off the ground his. Fastened stung. Being small then suddenly just for him. I cannot cannot take this. Pain. Scratch him. Pain of it. Keep clawing at his skin. He does not. Does not know this. He is digging into me and me to him. He's. Push it home as far up. In that tight spot. He is. He is. I will feel it bruising pains. And breathing deafing out my ears. My back against the chair wood. Rubbing to the bone. I. Feel him filled with. Now. He filled with. My pain. He is coming. Off inside me. I think and I think of painting houses. Streets with. Painting the town red. I must be almost I am dying when he does it. With the pain. Suffocating. And his cheek. My nail my nail. That's it. I've done to him. What's done in me. Jesus Christ he says. His lungs a breeze. His catch up. Breath up. Fresh. Like it's new to him. Still jostle in me. See my knees up at his waist. A sight. Alright? Come back to earth with lungs inflated. Come home now. He reach between us and pulls it down out of me now. Come down I think. Feel no more pain. I am dripping water, him, out on my thigh. And clicks my brain. As though the house moved. Who turned the sounds back on? I feel that daylight in the window. It's caught me. Rack. It's blanching me out. Bathe it. My hand unseals his cut. My face my Jesus. Fucking face. What have you done? Jesus. He put me down. Are my feet? I see it. My nails duggened in. Peel the skin off. He's bleeding near the bone. Quick. Put his thing back in. Men's trousers. Strange how it works when I was little always wanting to pee standing. Oh. I must be. I think I'm filled with blood. I'm wet and wet the whole way through. I'm sogging. I'm. Viscous lake. I. Sway. My eyes back. Jesus Christ he says you better sit down. Are you alright? I am. I am pure white. He says I'm I'm. Do you feel sick? No I say I'm. Watching his neck beat. Blood around blood around. He says just breathe in deeply. You're going to be fine. It's just a shock when. He can't say. The first time. His face is unusual now. Listening for the stairs. Eyes all around. Just be calm. Just be calm. Pat me on the back. You're fine. You'll be fine. At this time I should not smell of drying weeds of scurf of lake I think but do. Not to him. Maybe. Then anyway. His deep night unwashed creases smell. Why don't you go and have a wash he says. I'll put the kettle on. Make some tea would you like that? Yes. Sorry about your cheek. It was a sorry. It's fine. He push me. Fine fine fine. I laugh he's worried now. And am laughing all the way up the stairs.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Quiet bathroom. Everyone rolls in bed. No one wakes. It's a weekend. Only we are up. And now's for peering prodding. My fingerful of goop what is it I know sperm. It looks like it I know I know. Like snot or phlegm. Hock on the street. Sniffs strange. That's good and exciting. And there's a little blood there. And it hurts like mad. It's a lot. Blood. Clot-ish. It's an awful lot of sore. He rip me. No. Just feels it stings to touch. I heard it could. Had read but thought I climbed trees a lot so. That's broke. It is surely broke. It did like something wicked. Burn. Sperm sperm sperm. It's inside me. I hunker down. I washed it out. And pubic hair that's longer blacker thick than mine. I'll wash me. And my hair and everything to be clean. But butcher's block. I felt between my legs would look like that.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

When I went down there were cornflakes toast and jam for me and tea and anything I would want. He doesn't look. I'm shy I'm shy. He kiss me said I'm away today and you make me insane. I've never done that before. God what's that hey that what we done? I don't like to hear him speaking wrong. We did. What we did. Him anxious. Not at all like. But I am happy. Satisfied that I've done wrong and now and now. What now? Calm sliding down into my boat and pushing out to sin. He's on the shoreline getting small. His hands on my shoulder. Brushing past my head. Are you alright? I didn't hurt you? I'm humming my toes beating time on the lino. That's alright that he is off. I'm off into the world of something and have something knotting in my head. Not school. Not thoughts of you. You yes. First to come to mind but. It's not that place. There's not room in this part of me any more. Relief. I think. What's next and next? It's surely coming now.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Good God what happened your face it's a right old state. Is it? What is it? Was it a cat or what? Wife aunt said. I went for a walk a branch swung back and got me whack in the cheek. Really dug in. Really stings. It cooks in me. Hot and boil my face. She does not. No one knows what he and me have secret. The dirty's done and when he walks past me I'm sure it's burnt across my skin. I look at him think you've fucked me. What if they all knew what. We. He and me. That's something very new.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Then later in the day. They just went. Got into their car and drove away with some, well hopefully we'll see ye soons and give us a call when you get home just to let us know you landed safe. I was. At his peck. Fairly passive. Say it. Bye. Following a voice in my head. My tongue. Cleave to my mouth. Think of his. His bending brush kiss on the bone of my cheek. Bye then sweetheart. Filled with shame. Take care of yourself. Whisper. Then. And Goodbye to you.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

We are days. Watching telly drifting by. Coiled in front. Bored and always is. The evenings after school. But it comes over still. Whizz and whiz. What was that I did? I think of it in bed at night as. On my own I. Think will it always hurt? Will I always bleed? When things are fit that tight how can there not be bruises? I did think about it too at school. To fill my head with something new that's not this. Blackboard chalk and slime in the loos and the always stench of boys' feet and impulse off the girls.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

He didn't write or ever phone as aunt did often. Again again and how are you? Did you get that check? Your uncle tells say hello. That's quite an impression young lady you made. She like me now. Strangely. I don't know. I wanted to ask you. Someone. I knew you wouldn't know. What this all this is.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

We were moving off now. From each other. As cannot be. Helped. I didn't help it from that time on. You know. All that. When you said sit with me on the school bus. I said no. That inside world had caught alight and what I wanted. To be left alone. To look at it. To swing the torch into every corner of what he'd we'd done. Know it and wonder what does it mean. I learned to turn it off, the world that was not my own. Stop up ears and everything. Who are you? You and me were never this. This boy and girl that do not speak. But somehow I've left you behind and you're just looking on.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Fifteen sixteen. Eat coleslaw sandwiches with ham on top. My legs tucked up underneath my skirt. Tights stretched tight that I hate for they rub. Coffee. Me and my friend on the mitch. This is neat and clean where I can be. My growing-up. She smells like biscuits. Crisps. Old fags in her oil and her hair. I think her knickers must stink down there. It wafts up sometimes when she crosses her legs. Or is it tights too. Skirt rolled-up polyester. But I like anyway.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She and me. Like to lurk here in the day. Those gossips we have are the very best and we read and read. Quote quotes back forth. That's good for sharing books of this and that. Word perfect. We snick snack at each other. Correct each other's grammar. Chew gum and talk and think of sex. I do not say but hint a little. That's a powerful thing I know.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

And we go on travels. Great worlds to our minds, like interrail from here to there. Slum it downtown Bucharest eat cheese in Paris fall in love. Take boats in Venice to Constantinople by the train. Where speak good Russian Portuguese. Know people. Flit around the world to New York parties. Kandahar. We don't know the world but want and want and on the very tip of tongue I'd fly away if I could. With her. It is our love affair. How we'd be. Who we think we are beneath royal blue jerseys and pleated skirts. Icon in the making me someone new tell every single one at school to go to fucking hell. And sometimes we sit by the lake. An early morning or some after school – in the daytime monitors drive there to catch whoever's on the hop. Read Milton and feeling moved discuss the heavens and the earth and film stars we'd do with a chance. It's love. It. Is. Love. Or love waiting for a man to come and take her place. But how would someone fit, I don't know, in between us two.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She is sufficiently hated by all at home to make the escapade worthwhile – having a friendship outside that womb. Making it an empty shell. Escape of me. We don't say lots of secret stuff but good for a laugh and that's enough. Who is better? She or me? Quick quickest. Fastest putting down. I belt her to the canvas every time. Still. She has something I've not got. That's. Everyone else on her side. This is being liked at school. She sway there here and there to this one that. Can I borrow your copy? Can I have a crisp? Always smells like cheese and onion for it at the break. Too looking in her books I find how square roots done I never bother learning that. My brain isn't. I'm up for Art and nothing else. Strict in it I'm on the outside of these schoolmate mates, being drawn in somehow by herself. Working so hard at working the room. Having people say hello. What's that? What's that? I learn.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

For a change now I wear my skirts high. Rolled up to the arse when I get off the bus. A new thing. Where's it from? Seed. Is this. Is in my head. We are going towards a new and I'll tell when I get there. It's not straightforward yet. But when it comes she'll know.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

You are behind. You are way behind in this. I see you lagging. I can see you limping off at the back but I'm getting very tired of looking around and in a bit I'll leave you to the fates. She knows you but she doesn't care and we are speaking less and less because. In all that you make me want to get away. It's too much and you're much too. Young. For me now. Is the simple truth. Where I'm going you cannot come.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

That I am turned fifteen is true. You three years more than me. At eighteen Leaving Cert. Is due. You're almost there. I do not toil nor do I spin but you do. That upstairs every night. The light on scribbling, dream away you must so your results always say. But you're polite and getting by. They wish the best said teachers all to our mother who can bang her head on every wall. What will you do? Where will you go? She says almost every night. I think you'd like to stay at home. Bring coal in. Clean the fire. Stoke the range. Find something living here. She cannot see you doing out in the world. I see. I agree.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I see you still at school. The sometimes butt but always desperate eager to be one of those ones. Of the boys who lurk smoking. Who wish they knew the insides of the girls and say so often. Say out loud hey Miss I think I'm so good, come here and give me. Oh fuck off. You're not like those boys. Don't go looking up to them. You do. Too obviously for me. They don't want you. Can't begin to know what you're like inside this you who's still good at falling over. Walking into visible things. And I do not either. Consumed with all my dreams and shames.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

What's wrong with your brother? He's a bit. You know. You know. What? Well he's a bit you know. Know? Ahem, a little bit strange? He looks a bit. Is he a bit slow? No. That's a really stupid thing to say. Jesus who are you, saying things like that to me? You're a fucking bitch sometimes you know that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean. I heard someone say is all. Heard who you better tell me now. Heard who say what about him now? I mean it, fucking say.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She did tell me after that. Once I'd made her feel ashamed. A rumour going round the school that your brother should be in some mental school for retards they said that in class he doesn't know to properly read when called out loud and never answered questions right. That when he failed a geography test he told the teacher she was ruining his life. Doing him down before the class. He shouted and pushed her and they had to pull him off. That he's a psycho. Blaming everyone for being thick. Oh is that what they say? Someone said your family is all fucked-up. Blow-ins weirdo's born-agains or something bad as that. And about me? Go on. You might as well I'd rather know. I was proud of being brave. I thought that's what I had to be and asking it was showing how. You she said well they think you're weird and really up yourself. You're always wearing that long coat and never talk to all the lads. That you'd be something if you tried. I know not I do not understand but think and think on after this of ways back in and to revenge. Not take any notice they can see but bend myself in secret til. What? Til I can lift this. Fury. Out. And get them. Really well and get her for. For. All kinds of things. For the good word in my ear and thanks for that she was too kind and liked the telling just too well.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

On a spring day's when I hop the world in this new way I'd never done. We take off early she and me to down the lake on the chance school gaelic match keeps all monitors at their bay. It's usual too and she and me are not the ra-ra going kind. We snicker over them at that and buy some biscuits on the way. Sophisticated we think kind with blueberries were rare. Blueberries are the great unknown and must be something in New York like muffins lattes and ice-tea. We see the television. We know here is not like there. And I am reading Scott Fitzgerald know that I must drop the F. Think American twenties just divine and I'd be Zelda if I could. Think suffering's worth it. To be mad a fine exciting thing to be for those short times in those mad years. Wearing pearls and drink champagne and bob my hair and show my knees. Be daring darling simply wild. I'd be if I had a chance I'd be. She. Feeling more pre-Raphaelite has dyed her hair an orange red and keeps Rossetti in her bag for reference always to be inspired by love and nature and dying young. Her choice is poor compared to me I think but nod and smile along at every quote. Think her a little behind and all that cheap to be admired.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

So blueberry biscuits and bottle of coke we go sloping in the back streets down to the lake where the sun shines waters lap and all the birds sing. And we sit in the grasses down beside the water's edge. I will not put my feet in though I'd like to if I could. But it's not cool and I'm too old now for that I'd say. We talk. All that usual that we do. Lie take the sunshine on our eyelids consider why this makes see red. Think beat of blood. Guts and things. An almost hazy day but for nip on the breeze a bit. Shredding grasses with our thumbnails. Throwing grass seed on the lake we look for fishes come gobble up. They do not. They are staying low. This lake's as bottomless as the pit she says. Goes down into the middle of the earth. Everyone knows that that's why so many people drown here and their bodies never pop back up. I think I'm listening to this but off in the distance over the brambles are sounds of boots. I prick my ears. The lads approach. The boys I know them by the sounds of hoarse laughing and shoving push. Ssss she says it's the lads they must have mitched the match as well. Prick up. Sit up looking around.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

They see us shout girleens, girleens! Decide they're coming down to sit by us in our hidey hole. There wind'll catch their fag smoke and take trace off into the sky with it.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Oh you two. I thought it was someone else. Oh right. But now we're here lads shall we stay put? We laugh at that, she and me. And kind of rippley felt within for no good reason but this was something new. Some attention's what we like. Noticed and worthy of these cool boys staying down with us.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Hey what's that book you're reading there? God how can you read books at all? Look at that three hundred pages an awful lot to read. Ye two are always really strange. What? You know using all long words. Sure you don't know either of us I say. When did we last speak to any of ye she snippedys and not at all pleased to be made up posh or strange or anything far from their fine herd. Anything too like me. Well you know you don't go out at all. Ye're never down here with everyone else are ye? Oh drinking on Saturday night? When the guards come and chase you all away? I can't resist. Hiding in the ditch sounds great craic. Ha ha you're so funny says one turn his face from me with. Mumble mumble. At least we're out having it instead of sitting home reading books thinking you're so great. And how do you know I think that? But they're not interested, saying to each other, have you them maths done and did you hear yer man got his hand broke in the vice down the woodwork room last night? Fuck. They cracked his knuckles. At least he won't have to do the tests next week. Ha ha well for some. I'm going to be bollixed in Irish.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I'm needled now wishing they would go away. It's enough and I'd like the quiet back. I turn. I start to read. I leave her for she loves to flirt it seems. Shallow stupid bitch. I'll save for later suck-up jibes. Didn't know you always had to be everyone's friend. I suppose if being popular's important... leave the rest unsaid. Annoy her. It's her own thick fault.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

In a while of mouthing I get up and walk off. She calling what's up with you? I'm just going for a walk. Well don't get caught or let us know. Cough loud if you see. Yes yes. I stroll. Feel the grass slit through my hands when I tug trail it. Sharp as ice inside the deeper finger and thumb crease. I am warming up the fire to think of him. Of my legs round him. Gloss and embellish. Gasped my name. Broke my heart. My longing longing. Not for him but I think so. I let it be. If only they knew it'd be revenge for everything. Pick a primrose. I like the touch it has the soft and smell and crush gently gives the best and lasting perfume on my fingers. Squeeze pollen falling on the ground and wipe that off on my skirt. The muck earth slithering under my feet. How would they ever understand my life is more than cider? Complex than that. Fuller deeper richer. Irritation that. Something. Not as good as me in the back of my head. In my silent they're not so clever not so quick and rule the world anyway as if it's fair. Think I'm too good. I am but would not say it to their face. Lucky for them. I'd annihilate. Champing at the. I would. Such. I would. Hey aren't you the sister of yer man in our year?

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Behind me in the thicket. Standing up against the light. I cannot see him very straight. The fella with the head thing. What? Yeah you are his sister I know you alright. Bristle bristle hair on my spine and on the back of my neck. You go on the bus with him or sometimes don't you? My brother's got a little scar on his forehead if that's what you mean. Except it's not that little, and all that bullshit story about the knife he says. It's not. What? Bullshit as if you'd know anything just because you're in his year. I wasn't having a go. Yeah right. Yes. I see. Well. Don't be so uptight. Oh fuck off I know what you lads are like in that year. And what are we like? You know. What? I know what you did to him so don't bullshit me with you're all interested and nice. All I said was you're his sister nothing more and nothing less. Oooh defensive too. I amn't. Yes you are and you lot should be ashamed. Why? I didn't do anything to your brother if that's what you're saying. Oh didn't you? I didn't. I turn. I sit down. Let the morning drizzle in it's shush I think now. I don't want to talk to lads like him. The purpose is? I close my eyes and let him do the work if he wants. He can't I wouldn't. I would not. I'd almost sleep here but it's much too cold. I'm sick with churning round the things ever said of you. And listen for him beat retreat he doesn't. He must stand and look. Hmmm this one with his big ears. To win I sudden streak. I'll be dumb-founding. And out of my throat comes a voice I don't know that says in words my thoughts out loud. The lads in your year are fucking scum and bastards and thicko pig-ignorant culchies. What? They stink of hair gel on too thick and biactol that doesn't even work. Your friends. The nice boys of your year. Pimply faces white as never seen the light and crusty lips and dirty hands. Think they're all so cool and can piss on me and my brother but really they're just desperate for someone anyone to give them a wank. Just leave me alone. But he didn't answer. That voice already burning in what they don't know for all their talk. What am I? God. Is that right. How would that be? But there's some bit feels savage. That doesn't know the wrong from right and sees the way to venge. I might. I am. I will.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I open my eyes. Do you know how to fuck? What? His red face. So it's like this is what it's like. What? Easiest do I ever did. He run scarlet. What? Spit settle on his lip I say let's go for a walk. No risk for what will he answer ahhh and never no for sure.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

She's turned and looking though she didn't hear but she knows something's. Not like me to walk away with some lad and I know I'll tell later to wipe the smile off her face when she says soooo what were you at? Go on give her one shouts one of the lads. Little does he know.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I tell her I took him farther to the trees and pulled my skirt up. Opened my knees said come on. He was almost died of fright. Tried to kiss me, press against me. Saying something sweet and nice. Like you're sssssh. Take your trousers down. I'll only touch his tremble cock. Red and small and scared of me but looking forward all the same. Go on then I say you're a big hard man. You know don't you know everything. I don't he says. Oh don't you? He tries. He cannot get it in says I. I twist myself around. He did for a little while and it feels like nothing inside me. He gulp say sorry sorry at the end. And I say I didn't think you'd be a virgin. Jesus. Well someone had to do it for you. Booky booky me and pulled my skirt down pick bark off. Walked away feeling calmer now that that. I told her that later when she was. Startled still. I suppose it didn't leave much room to say things about it. What for? Why not? Weren't you scared he'd say no? No.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

I pull my skirt neatly under when I sit back with them. Don't want grass getting up my bum. Jingle jangle. I can be lots of fun see when I start to talk. I never knew you were such a laugh they say. He came too sat beside. Put his arm around my waist. I push that off. What are you doing? Am I your wife? They roaring laughing ask and what were ye up to in the hedge? Nothing much I say.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

He was the first off. Worst off. I begin. Now I know full well what I can do. For me and for you.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Now I had two or three behind the prefabs. Consecutive days mind. Them boys. Muck to the great knee high. Slip my boots in it. Their knees ache with bending for they don't know what. I won't say I don't either. Building building numbers up. When the rain comes I will not postpone. It's now or never. But there's a look-out for the vice deputy head who looks for smokers in the break. Not this. This no one's ever seen though it runs round the school like wind.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride