Tall Girl & Lazlo The Terrible
By Judy Darley
Listen to Judy Darley reading Tall Girl & Lazlo The Terrible
They stand in a row, silhouetted by the sunlight falling through my doorway. I see at once they’ll be trouble.
“Only one St Anne’s student allowed at a time.” I tap the sign by the cash register.
The trio loiter by the menstrual products, and then the tallest shoves the smallest, making him stumble. “Esti’s epileptic. I’m his designated carer.”
Before I can bark at them to leave, they shuffle deeper in. The middle one grabs a Snickers bar.
I roar: “Put that down!”
The tall girl blinks thickly-inked lashes. “Dav’s diabetic. Needs sugar in case his glucose levels drop. Don’t want him collapsing on your floor, do ya?”
I hold out my hand. “£1.50.”
She sniffs. “Wanna see a magic trick?”
I pause too long and she snatches the chocolate from her pal, whips the wrapper off and chomps the whole thing down. “Tadaaah! Made it disappear.” Only caramel and peanuts muffle her triumph.
Tall Girl’s bravado brings you to mind, my Lazlo and your infallible charm. Your easy smile made the violence all the more bewildering.
She reminds me of myself too, thirty years ago when butter wouldn’t melt and insults never stuck. Took me years to understand the insults didn’t bounce off but burrowed in: parasites feasting on my self-worth.
My hand’s still outstretched. I twitch the fingers. “£1.80.”
“Hey!” Her outrage is comical. “Why’s it gone up?”
I shrug. “Your performance bored me. I’m owed compensation.”
“Haven’t got any cash. Could work it off, if you like.”
“You want a job?” I look at her sceptically. She stares back, unfazed. Cutting scars show pink through the thin sleeves of her once-white shirt. “You can start tomorrow, delivering newspapers. Be here at 6 a.m. Should be done by 8.”
Plenty of time to get to school, if that matters.
She gawps. “Who needs papers that early? Who needs papers at all? My mum gets her news online.”
“Be here on time or the job disappears faster than that Snickers.” I keep my eyes on hers. “Four days a week, Tuesday to Friday. One week trial.”
“Oh, trial is it?” She beams, finding a story to latch onto. “My dad’s on trial. He’s a bad man.”
I offer a curt nod. “My son too.” I lean on the counter, watching for a reaction.
She side-eyes me. “That true?”
I think of you, my Lazlo, when you were small, and the stories I let you believe. After we left your dad, we’d go to Nightingale Valley on weekends, pockets heavy with sour apples for the goat in the field. Signposts at the edge of Nightingale Valley confessed no nightingales had sung there in your lifetime, or mine.
The goat’s name was Curry, which made you giggle. “Here, Curry, eat the apples so you’re tasty for our tea!” You hunched your body and I knew from your grimace you were playing at being the witch in Hansel and Gretel. “I’ll fatten you up, then we’ll gobble you up!”
You tilted your head. “Listen! Goblins.”
The screeches were squirrels spatting overhead, but I nodded. “Definitely goblins.”
Where branches hung low above last autumn’s leaves, you wriggled in. “Let’s cover ourselves like the Babes in the Wood.”
But the Babes died in that wood and I shook my head. “No, let’s eat our sandwiches instead.”
Clouds rushed into your expression, banishing the sun, and my pulse leapt. Before I could grab, you were running faster than your short legs should have allowed.
My feet slid through mud as panic shivered through me. Treetops crowded out sunlight. “Where are you? Will I have to eat your lunch too? Even the chocolate?”
My shout prompted an explosion of pigeons bursting skywards like shrapnel grenades.
I rushed in the direction you’d gone, skirting steep drops down to the rocky stream where submerged branches feigned at being drowned children.
Everything’s fine. I’d already become good at telling myself fairytales, as well as you. Looking at myself in the hostel mirror, tracking my black eyes shifting from purple to sunrise-orange. Everything’s going to be just fine.
Then I saw you ahead on the bank, sunshine and smiles restored as you pointed to a pied wagtail. “Look, a nightingale!”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Well spotted.”
“Has Dad ever been here?”
I thought of lying, but shook my head. “No. Maybe you can bring him one day.”
Your gaze was steadier than my heartbeat. “Promise?”
“Promise.” I resisted the urge to cross my fingers, and held your gaze.
I remember being Tall Girl’s age not long before you were born, feeling fierce, hungry, perpetually on edge. My fairytale to her about you is a double bluff that crows, she believes my sweet Lazlo’s frightening.
I press my palm to my spine’s ache, shushing PTSD tremors.
At your trial they showed photos of the woman unlucky enough to be on duty in the corner shop you robbed. Dark hair patched with white like mine; eyes swollen shut; boot-prints smudging her pelvis purple.
Despite what other folks might say, I don’t believe you’re a terrible person. Maybe just a bit damaged, but aren’t we all? A broken vase can be glued back together, even if the cracks always show.
“My boy’s out soon,” I say. “Maybe you’ll get to meet him.”
Tall Girl wears her grin like I once wore smoky eyeshadow and scowls. “Can’t wait. See you tomorrow at the crack of dawn.” She shudders extravagantly. “C’mon, lads, lunch hour’s nearly dead.”
Trailed by her posse, she whisks from the shop. I watch her go, seeing how she flicks her hair, short skirt swinging.
I perfected that dance at her age and kept it up until I was heavy with my Lazlo.
I think of the tampons I watched her pocket and hope she needs them for longer than I did.
Judy Darley is a British author, journalist and creative workshop leader. She is passionate about walking in nature and endlessly intrigued by the complexities of the human mind. Judy is the author of short fiction collections The Stairs are a Snowcapped Mountain (Reflex Press), Sky Light Rain (Valley Press) and Remember Me to the Bees (Tangent Books). Her words have been shared on BBC radio, aboard boats and on coastal paths, as well as in museums, caves, a disused church and artists’ studios. She’s been artificially alive since 1985. Find Judy at http://www.skylightrain.com and https://x.com/JudyDarley