Superpowerless

by Chris Priestley

  ‘That was a horrible thing he said about your dad.’

  David turns away from her and looks towards the window. A flock of birds flies by, just visible through the gaps in the blinds.

  ‘Take no notice of him,’ she continues. ‘He was just trying to hurt you.’

  ‘No,’ says David. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘What?’

  David rolls back and holds out his arms, wiggling his fingers. Holly finds the ball and tosses it to him. He holds it to his face.

  ‘It’s all true,’ he says, fighting back tears. ‘I heard Mark and my mother talking that night. I’ve always known it. I just never wanted to think it.

  ‘He’d been depressed for ages. Thinking back now, I can see it, but I was just a kid, wasn’t I?

  ‘Mark’s right. There were no skid marks because he didn’t even try to stop. He drove straight up the embankment and into the water and by the time a passing driver had run up there it was too late.

  ‘They told me it was an accident – that he’d swerved to avoid a deer and I decided to pretend that I didn’t know the truth. But soon, the more I told people that that was what happened, the more it became easier to believe it was actually true.

  ‘Then I started to have the visions – I don’t know what else to call them – about being a superhero and trying to save him. They seemed so real – more real than the rest of my shitty life if I’m being honest.’

  ‘But you couldn’t save him,’ says Holly. ‘You knew you couldn’t save him so you made up a supervillain to thwart yourself.’

  David nods.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Lightforce wasn’t really a supervillain. It was just the truth. So bright I couldn’t look at it …’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says Holly.

  ‘Don’t be,’ says David. ‘Like you say – it’s my own fault for coming round. None of my business.’

  ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Don’t be like that.’

  David lies on his back. Holly sits down on the end of the bed.

  ‘You’re still a kid,’ she says. ‘You’ve carried that round with you all this time? Why didn’t you tell anyone?’

  David shrugs.

  ‘What good would it have done? Who would it have helped?’

  ‘You,’ says Holly.

  David knows she’s right. All those sessions with Dr Jameson without ever once talking about the stuff that was really gnawing away at him. They only ever talked about the symptoms – the lying, the introversion.

  ‘But I told you – I obviously wanted to believe that version. I must have done.’

  ‘But you didn’t. You didn’t. Don’t you see?’

  He tosses the ball onto the floor, lets it roll silently away and closes his eyes. Holly says something else but he is already back in the silence of the asteroid belt, drifting among the rubble.

  ‘David!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You need to talk about this,’ she says. ‘You need to speak to your mum. If you don’t, I will.’

  ‘What? After all the secrets I’ve kept for you?’

  ‘This is for your own good,’ she says. ‘Did you even tell your shrink?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘We need to sort you out,’ she says.

  ‘Why me?’ he says. ‘Or why just me? How am I worse than you? Jesus – look at us. We’re both as pathetic as each other!’

  ‘Talk to your mum,’ she says. ‘Please.’

  David nods. She’s right. Why not? Things are so smashed now, he might as well. There’s nothing to lose, is there? He’s lost everything that he thought he had – every solid thing in his shaky life.

  ‘What about you?’ says David.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Please …’ says David.

  Holly sighs.

  ‘Look, for what it’s worth, you’re right, OK? I finished with Mark that night, after you left. I realised that it was only ever going to end badly if we carried on. I always knew that, of course. But seeing Morag come out onto the landing – I just couldn’t carry on. It’s finished, OK? It’s over.

  ‘So in a way you did save me after all.’

  She says this kindly, but somehow all it does is remind David, sickeningly, of how preposterous the episode must have seemed – of how childish he had been even as he thought he was being grown-up – finally acting like a man. He feels tears welling and looks away.

  ‘Stop being so hard on yourself, David,’ she says.

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you,’ he replies to the wall.

  She reaches out and turns his face around, resting her forehead against his and looking into his eyes.

  ‘Talk to your mum,’ she whispers.

  He takes a deep breath.

  ‘It’s so hard.’

  ‘I know.’

  She leans in and hugs him, her face pressed against his. And for a moment – just for a moment – everything seems so much simpler.

  David picks up his phone and heads out of the house. Without thinking, he starts to head for Joe’s place and then remembers that this route is not open to him – or not today.

  He wanders with studied randomness, turning this way and that, trying to deliberately go down streets he would not have chosen, simply as a way of distracting his thoughts, which are scurrying and clambering over each other like ants on a log.

  He walks along with head bowed, studying the knots of his shoelaces, muttering to himself, going over old conversations, imagining others.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ says a voice he recognises but can’t immediately place.

  He looks up to see Matt and two other boys he doesn’t know.

  ‘David,’ he says. ‘Don’t run off.’

  David has already turned and is on the kerb waiting for a car to pass before crossing. Matt grabs him by the shoulders and pretends to push him in front of the car before pulling him back. David yanks himself free.

  ‘I’m not in the fucking mood, OK?’

  ‘Oooooh …’ says Matt, wide-eyed in mock fear, turning to his two friends. ‘David’s not in the mood.’

  David ignores him and turns back to the road. Again Matt pulls him back. David shoves him away.

  ‘I said I’m not in the mood. Now leave me alone.’

  Matt moves to block his way.

  ‘And supposing I d—’

  Before he can finish David punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground. He leaps on him and punches him again and again until he is being pulled off by one of the friends.

  David turns on the boy who pulled him off, wild-eyed, but the boy backs off, as does the other one. David looks down at Matt, who is groaning on the ground, and then at his own fists; skinned knuckles throbbing. He turns and walks away.

  Chapter 42

  Too Many Secrets

  David flies out over the fields, dark now below him – darker than they have ever seemed before. The flying feels an effort now, rather than natural, and he has to concentrate, fearing he will fall out of the sky if he doesn’t.

  He flies over the trees, thick with rooks, and the birds sit on their branches and observe him passing by, like mourners solemnly watching a hearse.

  David is acutely aware of the air passing over his suited body. It feels thick – as though it has congealed around him and he is being carried on a fast-moving current rather than consciously moving himself forward. For the first time he feels the cold.

  There below him is the car as always. He flies above it, wobbling awkwardly, keeping pace with it as it moves along the road, watches as it lurches to the left and drives up and over the embankment and into the water.

  David dives down as the car begins to sink, plummeting rather than struggling through the air. But instead of grabbing the car and trying to wrest it from the water, he comes to a halt hovering in front of it, staring through the windscreen.

  There is his father looking out. The windows are open and the water floods in, but David does nothing. His father looks straigh
t at him, his face calm, relaxed. As the water rises to his chin he smiles.

  David does not move. He stays there, hovering, as the water fills the car entirely and the whole thing sinks. Lightforce does not come. He doesn’t need to come. The car disappears with one last gurgle.

  The rippling water smoothes itself until soon there is no sign that there has ever been a car or the life it contained. Birds twitter in the trees, the leaves rustle in the breeze.

  David closes his eyes and when he opens them he is back in his room and he knows his days as a superhero are over.

  He has been sitting at the table for three quarters of an hour waiting for his mother to come home. He has slipped into a kind of trance, the almost inaudible whisper of the clock’s lisping tick the only sound he registers until he hears the key turning in the lock of the front door.

  She comes in and gives him only a passing glance – not even a purposeful one that would signify her annoyance, but a genuine, disinterested passing glance that seems to say, ‘Oh – you’re still here.’

  They have argued so many times and he has upset her so many times, but this feels different. They have become separated. The frayed and tattered bond between them seems broken now, and he feels unmoored. He might just float away – float away and never return.

  His mother takes her coat off and hangs it over a chair. She fills the kettle and stands with her back to him. It’s as if she can no longer even bear to look at him.

  ‘Mum?’ says David.

  There is a barely perceptible ripple in the material across her shoulders. Is his voice now so disagreeable to her?

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she says, without turning round.

  ‘No. Thanks.’

  She takes one mug from the cupboard and drops in a tea bag. The kettle begins to hiss.

  ‘Mum?’ says David again.

  She sighs and turns round. Her face is blank, unreadable.

  ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘I want to tell you something.’

  She turns back as the kettle comes to the boil in a little burst of steam, pouring in the water and opening the fridge door to look for milk.

  ‘I’ve had a nice evening, David,’ she says in a voice as inscrutable as her face. ‘I’m tired, OK. I just want to go to bed and read with a cup of tea. All right?’

  ‘No,’ says David. ‘It’s not all right. I need to tell you now.’

  She closes her eyes and lets out a long breath.

  ‘Well, you’d better tell me then,’ she says, her voice suddenly brittle with sarcasm. ‘It must be very important.’

  She slumps down in the seat opposite, both hands cupped around her mug.

  ‘Well?’ she says, with pointed disinterest.

  It’s almost as if their respective roles have become reversed.

  She notices his red and skinned knuckles.

  ‘What is all this?’ she says, interested all of a sudden. ‘And what have you done to your hand?’

  ‘Never mind that,’ he says.

  She grabs his hand and studies the knuckles. She cannot stop herself from showing concern, however exhausted she might feel with him.

  ‘Have you been in a fight? What the hell –’

  ‘Just listen!’ says David. ‘Just listen to me – and then you can say whatever you like.’

  She opens her mouth to tell him that she’s had enough – enough of all his silly nonsense – but she can see it’s important. She can see the urgency in his face. He looks older.

  ‘OK. What is it?’

  ‘I know about Dad,’ he says finally. ‘That it was suicide. I know. I’ve always known.’

  She stares at him, shaken, startled.

  ‘But how?’

  ‘I overheard you and Mark talking that night – the night I came back in the rain. I came down later and you were talking.’

  She puts her hand over her mouth, her eyes not meeting his, and he can see that she is replaying that day – seeing him walk in the door.

  ‘Oh, David – why didn’t you say?’

  ‘Because it was a secret,’ he says. ‘Because I knew I wasn’t supposed to know. I thought you might be angry.’

  ‘Sweetheart …’

  She reaches across the table and grabs his hand. He flinches at her touch.

  ‘And I had kind of forgotten I knew. I think I preferred the version you gave me and so I made it true. I saw it in my head so clearly. It was like a memory. It was like I’d actually seen it happen. The accident, I mean. It was like I’d been there myself – a witness. But of course I was a witness to something that never happened.’

  ‘He was ill,’ she says. ‘He had been ill for a while. In his mind. It was so hard. We kept it from you. I kept it from you. I’m sorry. You seemed too young, but I see now I should have found some way to talk to you about it.’

  David stiffens, pulling his hand back.

  ‘But if he’d loved us – really loved us – he wouldn’t have been able to do that.’

  She shakes her head and reaches out with both hands, leaning across the table towards him.

  ‘No – he was ill, David, and he died of that illness. Just as surely as if he’d died of a heart attack or cancer.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘He loved us, David, but his mind was damaged. Don’t be angry with him. That’s why I tried to hide it from you. I didn’t want you to be angry with him.’

  ‘Are you angry with him?’

  After a pause, she nods.

  ‘Sometimes. But I know it’s not fair. I’m angry with the illness. I’m angry that he isn’t here, well and strong. And I’m angry at myself for being angry.’

  ‘I know,’ says David.

  She wipes away the tear that is balanced on her lower eyelashes. David looks at her and it feels as if they have both struggled from different directions through the tangled undergrowth of a forest and are standing, exhausted from the effort, face to face for the first time, in a clearing.

  He gets up and hugs her and she squeezes him with her arms, tightly, like she used to do when he came back from a school trip.

  He considers telling her about Holly and Mark but immediately decides not to. What would be the point? Why spoil this?

  ‘It’s good to hug you again. You never liked being hugged when you were a little boy. It was like you were covered in little prickles.’

  ‘Really?’ he says.

  ‘I used to call you my little Cactus Boy. Do you remember?’

  And now he does.

  Chapter 43

  Standing on the Sidelines Moaning

  David is even less keen to go to the shops now. The hope of bumping into Ellen has turned into a dread. But he knows it’s going to happen sooner or later. Maybe sooner is better. Maybe. So he agrees to go.

  But it isn’t Ellen he sees, but Tilly. He spots her at the far end of an aisle. She is staring intently at a pack of coffee before putting it back on the shelf and choosing another. She turns her head towards him and he quickly carries on to the next aisle.

  He dawdles, pays and leaves and walks out of the shop to find her standing outside.

  ‘Hey,’ she says. ‘I thought I saw you.’

  ‘Hi,’ says David.

  They stand there for a moment, neither of them saying anything. Traffic rumbles by, an old woman jostles past.

  ‘Look,’ says David, ‘if you want to have a go at me about that weekend, I’m not in the mood, OK?’

  ‘What?’ says Tilly. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ says David.

  ‘What happens between you and Ellen is your business,’ says Tilly.

  ‘Yeah, well, it didn’t feel like that.’

  ‘Look,’ she says, frowning, ‘it wasn’t our fault you messed up, OK? It’s pretty uncool to brag about having sex with someone when you have, but –’

  ‘OK,’ says David. ‘I get it. I screwed up. What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I shouldn�
�t have … Like I said, it’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Anyway …’ says David.

  He shrugs and looks at his feet.

  ‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and Ellen.’

  David raises a sceptical eyebrow.

  ‘Honestly.’

  ‘I don’t even know if I care any more,’ says David. ‘It doesn’t seem like the biggest thing right now.’

  ‘Maybe it was for the best then?’ says Tilly.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. My mum says you may as well believe everything is in the end.’

  Tilly smiles.

  ‘She sounds wise, your mum.’

  ‘She has her moments. Listen, I’ve got to –’

  ‘I’ve broken up with Finn,’ says Tilly suddenly.

  ‘Oh?’ says David.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, running her fingers through her hair. ‘That’s probably for the best too.’

  David smiles and nods.

  ‘I think it definitely is.’

  ‘Oh? Really?’

  ‘Yeah – really. I don’t think he’s right for you.’

  She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘That’s pretty bold, coming from you. What about you and Ellen?’

  ‘Sorry,’ says David. ‘I didn’t mean to … I just think …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That he’s a bit of a shit, if you want to know, and, well, you’re … not.’

  Tilly laughs. It’s a nice laugh.

  ‘I think that may be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’

  David blushes.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  They stand for a few awkward moments before Tilly says she ought to be going and turns to walk away.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ says David to her back.

  ‘What?’ she replies, turning round.

  He waves his hands around as though trying to summon the words he wants to say from the air.

  ‘Why do nice girls go for creeps?’

  Tilly chuckles.

  ‘Another compliment?’ she says. ‘It must be my day.’

  ‘Seriously – why?’ persists David. ‘Why do so many really nice girls hook up with total dickheads?’

  Tilly shrugs.

  ‘Life’s a bitch, huh?’ she says.

  David sighs.

  ‘Look, what do you want me to say? And Finn’s not a total dickhead. That’s not fair. You don’t know him.’