Submarine - By Joe Dunthorne Page 0,14

back of my head. I put my hand on her neck. Various birds are communicating. One of them chirps like a modem. My lips feel swollen. The flash goes off. We keep going. After a while, Jordana pulls back. Her lips are bright red and the skin around her mouth is starting to look inflamed.

‘Okay, that should do it,’ she says. ‘Now we need your diary.’

I bought a Niceday hardcover ring-bound diary in Uplands News-agent. It has a comprehensive map of the British Train Network in the back.

I sit cross-legged on the grass with the book in my lap; she sits above me and opposite, on a boulder.

Again, I have the feeling of powerlessness. It is just a matter of seating.

‘Turn to today’s date please,’ she says in the voice of Mrs Griffiths, our maths teacher. ‘I’ll dictate.’

I turn to the fifth of April and let my pen hover at the top of the page.

‘Dear diary,’ she says, ‘I can’t stop thinking about Jordana Bevan.’

I nod and start writing.

Dear Diary,

I can’t stop thinking about Jordana Bevan.

I look up. She finishes rubbing Vaseline into her lips.

‘I know I’m not the only boy who fancies her,’ she says, which seems reasonable enough. I write:

I know I’m not the only boy who fancies her.

‘Jordana dumped Mark Pritchard and now he has had to settle for Janet “cum-tub” Smuts.’

I stop transcribing.

I feel she is going off-point a little. Plus I’m not entirely comfortable with calling Janet ‘cum-tub’.

‘I sit by Janet in geography,’ I say.

Jordana is biting her thumbnail.

Janet Smuts used to be Jordana’s best friend. And Mark Pritchard used to be Jordana’s boyfriend. The word in the playground is that Mark cheated on Jordana with Janet at the Blue Light Disco, which is run by police officers who pretend to be your friend. Apparently, Mark fingered Janet during the slow dance and they’ve been together since.

‘Jordana?’ I say.

She’s really working at that nail, trying to get it clean off in one.

‘It doesn’t sound like something I would write,’ I say.

She has the scrag of nail between her front teeth. She spits it at me. It clings to my blue jumper. I leave it there.

‘Alright, alright, what have we got so far?’ she says.

‘DearDiaryIcan’tstopthinkingaboutJordanaBevanIknowI’mnot theonlyboywhofanciesher.’

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Take this down: I was so lucky to get the snogs in.’

‘I would never say snog. I would say osculate.’

She looks at me as if to say: why do you exist?

‘It’s a good word,’ I tell her.

‘It sounds like a word a dentist would use.’

‘That’s my style.’

She frowns.

‘Okay, Shakespeare, I’ll dictate, you translate.’

‘Right,’ I say.

‘Ready?’

‘Yup.’

‘Seducing Jordana was solid – she’s got such high standards – but when I finally got the snogs in it was all worth it.’

I transform Jordana’s blather into high-level discourse:

Lounging in a post-osculatory glow, I knew that all those months of hard chivalry had been worthwhile.

I look up.

‘Jordana is so…’ Jordana says, shaking her head, looking to me for adjectives.

‘Tender?’ I suggest. ‘Intrepid? Accomplished?’

She nods.

Jordana is so tender, intrepid and accomplished.

‘Snogging her was such a score that I had to get a photo of it,’ she says. ‘One for the grandchildren.’

I took a photo of us, mid-embrace. When I am old and alone I will remember that I once held something truly beautiful.

I turn the diary around and hold it up so she can read it.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Then: And to think that mong, Mark Pritchard, would rather go out with cum-tub Janet than Jordana just seems ridiculous.’

You can tell Jordana really means something because she starts to roll her ‘r’s.

I put the diary down.

‘You really want me to call Janet a cum-tub, don’t you?’ I say.

‘Yes.’

‘And you really think Mark’s a mong?’ I say.

‘Yes.’

I have respect for Mark Pritchard: he has been using deodorant for two years already; he brings an electric razor to school; he has hair like Elvis.

‘You sound like you’re a bitter and wizened fifty-year-old,’ I say.

Jordana tenses her jaw. There is a repetitive scraping sound. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. Her hand is in the small front pocket of her skirt. I can see a muscle in her wrist pulsing. Scritch. Scritch.

‘Jordana?’

The sound stops. She looks at me.

‘Make your hands into a ball,’ she says.

I do not question her.

I cup one hand around the other like I’ve trapped a moth.

‘Okay,’ I say.

She slips off the boulder and sits cross-legged in front of me.

Pulling a purple Bic lighter out of her skirt pocket, she forces the top of it into a gap between my thumbs.

She holds down the button on the lighter;