by Cath Crowley
‘You have to let your mind go somewhere else,’ she says. ‘Let it drift to places you want to be. When I don’t want to do something, like give a talk or take a test, I imagine that I’m in Al’s studio, blowing glass. I’m turning the pipe and I’m breathing out and making something grow from my breath.’
Something about her voice puts me at a wall, in the night, darkness all around, with a world I made in front of me. We both stop worrying.
That’s when we fall off the path.
Lucy
I might be jinxed. It’s either me or Ed. That thought occurs to me as I’m sailing over the edge and down a hill on my bike, and I feel Ed bouncing off the back. It would have been better for both of us if he’d held on tighter. Without his weight my bike gains momentum and I move so fast I think I’m going to die. ‘Shiiiittttt,’ I yell, and hold tight to the handlebars. My arms and legs and face cramp up. Uneasy rider, coming through. I go over a bump and keep moving. God I hope that bump wasn’t Ed.
I get this moment of clarity as I’m racing, a spark that hits me out of nowhere. If Dylan knows Shadow, and Dylan and Ed are good friends, why doesn’t Ed know Shadow better? The moment of clarity doesn’t go any further than that because smacking into a tree in the middle of the night will knock clarity right out of a girl, every time.
I take off my helmet and lie there, catching my breath. ‘Ed? Are you alive?’
‘Yes,’ he says from somewhere close by. ‘And that’s genuinely surprising since your bike went over me about halfway down. You’re a very dangerous girl to date.’
‘We’re not on a date.’
‘Lucky me. I might be dead if we were. Are you hurt?’
I do a quick check. ‘Nope. The rocks cushioned my fall. Are you?’ I get up to shine the bike light on him.
‘Uh-huh. Right down the line of that tyre track on my face,’ he says, and maybe it’s the shock but I lose all control and snort with laughter.
‘Don’t go listening to the rumours,’ he says. ‘Guys find snorting girls who run over them with bikes very sexy.’
I snort some more.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’
I catch my breath and calm down and we look up the hill and assess the situation. Mister Tough Guy says we have to walk back up and I know he’s right but I really want to call the police or the firemen to come and get us. ‘You can’t call the police to help you up a hill,’ he says. I wonder if my dad could drive his taxi down here. If he knew I was with a boy, he probably could.
‘Okay, we walk,’ I say. ‘But first I’m calling Jazz so someone knows where we are.’ We leave the bike light on between us and he limps over to a rock and sits down. He’s far enough away so he probably can’t hear me but I move even further from him to make sure.
‘Are you chewing gum?’ I ask when Jazz finally picks up.
‘Yeah. Wait a sec.’
‘Oh,’ I say, putting the pieces together, thinking back to the chewing noises at the party. It’s weird but I feel the tiniest bit jealous.
‘Okay, I’m back,’ she says. ‘Where are you?’
‘At the bottom of a dark hill with a boy.’
There’s silence for a couple of seconds. ‘Is that a metaphor?’
‘No. I’m really at the bottom of a dark hill. Ed and I rolled down it on my bike.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘A little shaky but fine.’ I look quickly over my shoulder to check Ed’s still far away on his rock and then I whisper, ‘Ed’s funny.’
‘Something’s going on, isn’t it?’ She moves away from the phone for a second and I hear her yelling across the crowd, ‘Daisy, Leo, something’s going on with Ed and Lucy.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘Okay, I’m back.’
‘I can’t believe you did that. Leo will tell Ed that I said something’s going on. It isn’t. He’s with Beth,’ I whisper.
‘Really? She’s here, you know. Talking to Leo.’
‘There as in within earshot of you yelling that something’s going on with me and her boyfriend?’
‘I didn’t think about that. Hang on. I’ll fix it.’
‘No, don’t!’
But she’s gone and I hear her yelling, ‘Lucy just wishes something was going on but Ed has a girlfriend so there’s nothing.’
This does not comfort me.
She comes back. ‘All fixed.’
‘All fixed? Now they think I’m delusional. I have to go.’ And find a way to spilt my conscious self from my unconscious self so I can erase this memory. I don’t think my chances are all that good.
‘Wait,’ she says. ‘We haven’t talked about Leo. We’ve danced but there’s no action.’
‘What was that noise when you answered?’
‘I told you. I was chewing gum.’
‘I thought you were kissing and being shy about saying it.’
‘I once chased a boy down the street to ask for his phone number. I’m not shy, Luce.’
It’s true. And she does love gum. ‘So you’ve put out the signals?’
‘I’m a lighthouse. He’s got something else on his mind. He keeps looking at his watch. I say, “You got somewhere to go?” And he says, “I have to be somewhere at one. I can come back to the party and get you after that.” And I say, “I’ll go with you.” And he says, “No, you can’t come with me.” And I think, well, he’s not interested.
‘But then he picks up one of my plaits and he twirls it, Luce. He twirls it round his finger and I get twirls in the place. Maybe he’s thinking about Emma. Maybe he’s meeting Emma later. It’s driving me crazy. Should I ask Daisy to kick Dylan in the balls so I can find out?’
‘It might ruin the mood.’
‘The mood is dead for those two. Dylan’s been trying to dance with her but she’s dancing with a guy called Gorilla. I think she’s mad about something more than the eggs. It’s sad to watch. He’s sitting in a corner now, staring at the two of them. Hang on. Beth’s telling me something.’
‘Beth?’ Oh my God.
‘Okay,’ Jazz says. ‘I’ve got news. Beth says she and Ed broke up about three months ago.’
I think about that. I think about that some more. ‘That’s bad, bad news.’
‘How do you figure? If you want him, he’s free.’
‘He’s free and he doesn’t want me to know he’s free because he doesn’t want me to think there’s even the possibility of us getting together.’
‘Are you okay? Your whispers have gone kind of high-pitched.’
‘I’m fine. I don’t even like him like that.’
‘This is me you’re talking to.’
‘Okay. Maybe I like him a little like that. I don’t know. I’m confused. I ran over him with my bike on the way down.’
‘You might want to ease up on the assault and battery if you do like him.’
‘No. I’m out here looking for Shadow. I should stick to the plan.’
‘Maybe Ed’s playing hard to get,’ she says. ‘That’s romantic.’
‘Lying isn’t my idea of romance.’
‘Your idea of romance requires a corset and a time machine. Loosen up for once. Hang on. Leo wants to talk to Ed.’
She’s gone before I have a chance to tell her the pieces I’ve learnt about Leo. I walk over to Ed and hand him the phone. He walks to where I was and I sit on his rock. I try as hard as I can to hear him. Trying. Trying. Nope. I can’t get no supersonic hearing.
Jazz says the universe tells us answers. I always thought that was stupid but no one else is giving me anything to go on so it might be time for last resorts.
I take out a coin and flip it. Heads means Ed didn’t tell me about Beth because he was playing hard to get. Okay. Best out of three. Best out of four. Okay, best out of five. Oh well, there’s always Shadow.
I stare at the coin in my hand for a while and do some tricks like Dad taught me. I fold it around my fingers, making it appear and disappear. ‘It’s about what you make your
audience believe,’ Dad always says. ‘But it’s also about what your audience is willing to believe. People want to see you magically pull a coin from your ear. So if you’re quick enough, if you hide things well enough, they’ll believe.’
I stare at the coin. Tails, and Mum and Dad aren’t getting a divorce. Tails, and Dad’s only taking a break and the shed isn’t a permanent thing. I take a breath and flip the coin.
Ed
I watch Lucy talking to Jazz, watch the mark on her neck, watch her shuffling, watch her, watch her, watch her. Maybe I could tell her who I am while we’re standing in front of that wall in the skate park. Or take her to the one I did of Bert. Introduce them, sort of.
Or I could show her the scales I drew near the docks. Like those ones I saw in the Vermeer painting, Woman Holding a Balance. Mrs J told me once that those scales in his painting weighed something important, something like actions or a soul. Bert and me went to the Vermeer exhibition and while we were looking at that painting I asked him, ‘What do you think someone’s got to do to make a soul heavy?’
‘I don’t know about souls but a person should live good. No point living if you don’t live good.’
While she’s on the phone Lucy looks at me every now and then. The only thing I can hear is her occasionally saying, ‘Oh my God. Don’t. No.’
Leo, what are you telling her? I try to think of ways to explain why I lied. After a while she walks over and hands me the phone. ‘Everything okay?’ I ask.
‘Everything’s fine,’ she says, and smiles, and I breathe easy again. Easy breathing, I think as I walk away from her and turn my back. I hear Leo laughing before I put it to my ear. ‘You fell over the drop?’ he asks. ‘Hilarious.’
‘Hilarious,’ I whisper. ‘It’s dark and we can’t call the cops to help us because I’m robbing a place later. I don’t want them getting the idea that Lucy has anything to do with it if I get caught.’
Leo stops laughing. ‘Yeah, definitely don’t call the cops. Listen, Dylan and me are leaving to pick up the van soon. We’re coming back to get Jazz and Daisy and then we can swing by the park about one-thirty. You’ll be at the top by then.’
I lower my voice even further. ‘You can’t drive them around in the getaway van.’
‘How about we don’t call it the getaway van? People might get suspicious.’
‘So what should we call it?’
‘How about the van?’
‘It doesn’t change what it is and that it’s a shitty thing to do. Someone might see them in it.’ I look back at Lucy who’s sitting in a pool of bike light flipping a coin. ‘I don’t want her in this.’
‘There’s something going on?’
‘There’s nothing going on. Don’t go telling Jazz there’s something going on.’
‘That’s what you said in Year 5 when Mrs Peri accused us of being up to something but she couldn’t work out what it was. She was frothing at the mouth and you kept saying, “There’s nothing going on.”’
‘So?’
‘So you had the class fish down your pants. There was something going on.’
‘Tell Jazz I had a fish down my pants and we’re done.’
There’s a few beats of silence before he says, ‘What do you think about the Jazz Lady? She has these little plaits. I like those little plaits. She points her finger a lot. She knows some good poetry. I recited a few of mine and she really liked them.’
‘You recited stuff from the walls?’
‘Relax. Not that. Other stuff.’
‘What other stuff?’
‘Stuff. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I’m not worried about it. I just didn’t know you wrote poetry other than for our pieces. Would you say you’re more a poet or social commentator?’ I ask, thinking about what Lucy said earlier.
‘I don’t know.’ He chuckles. ‘Would you say you’re more of an idiot or a wanker?’
‘Fair point.’
‘So what do you think of Jazz?’
‘I think you actually like her so don’t do something that’ll wreck it. Walk her home and pick up the getaway van and hope you don’t get arrested tonight.’
‘It’s not technically the getaway van till we get away in it. That’s two hours from now, give or take. So how about we pick you up near the skate park, go get some food, have a laugh, drop the girls home and then, you know.’
While I’m thinking about it he says, ‘By the way, Beth’s here looking for you. Says she’s got some things to say. Says she tried your mobile. I told her the phone company cut it off because you’re broke.’
‘Thanks.’
‘She doesn’t care about that stuff. She wants to get back with you. Should I bring her in the van?’
‘Don’t get her involved in this. I’ll call her from a pay phone. Listen, Lucy still thinks I’m with Beth so don’t tell Jazz I’m not.’
I don’t like the dead-man quiet that comes after what I just said. ‘Leo?’
‘Look. Jazz told me that there might be something going on with you and Lucy because Lucy hinted there might be and Beth heard Jazz and so Jazz told her there wasn’t anything going on because you two were dating and Beth said you two hadn’t dated in about three months.’
‘Fuck.’
‘It’s not all bad,’ he says, and I hang up while he’s still talking.
I walk over to Lucy. She’s spun a coin in the air so I catch it and put it on the back of my hand. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Asking the universe questions.’
‘The universe just dumped you over the side of a steep hill. You really want to ask it questions?’ She doesn’t laugh. I follow my instinct and cover my nose.
‘I can’t ask you,’ she says. ‘You’re a liar.’
‘Okay, elbows in and stay calm.’
‘It’s not funny, mister.’
‘What do you care if I’m not going out with Beth? You’re on an all-night adventure to find Shadow so you can do it with him.’
‘Lie down,’ she says. ‘I want to get my bike and finish the job.’
‘Nice.’
We stand there for a while and I don’t know what to say. ‘Do you want to know what the universe told you?’ I hold up the coin.
She grabs it from me and puts it in her pocket without looking. ‘That’s my dad’s coin. My dad is a good man. He doesn’t lie.’ She wraps her bike helmet strap around and around one handlebar till it’s tight and then clicks the clasp. I get the feeling she’s imagining the bar is my neck.
‘I never said your dad lied,’ I tell her, and pick up her bike.
‘Just leave it,’ she yells when I start walking. ‘It’s too heavy.’
‘It’s not too heavy,’ I yell back. ‘It’s fine. Leo’s meeting us at the skate park with a van. We can throw it in the back.’
‘Excellent,’ she says.
‘Excellent,’ I say, and we stumble over rocks under our feet.
Bert’s huffing beside us on the walk up the hill. He’s telling me I should say sorry. ‘You’re acting like a heel,’ he said that time Beth came into the shop to bring my things back.
‘No one says heel anymore,’ I told him.
‘Laugh all you want, but I still got my girl.’
I heave the bike higher on my shoulders. It is too heavy but I’ll feel better if I have the option of my own getaway ride when we reach the top. Plus, I feel like a heel and I’m trying to make it up to her.
‘Move it along,’ Lucy says. ‘I don’t want to miss Leo and Jazz.’
Seems my efforts aren’t working. ‘Look, I lied about Beth because of the way you were looking at me earlier. Like I was a bag of nothing about to grab you.’
‘But then we got friendly and you still didn’t tell me.’
‘You just ran over me with your bike. When exactly did we get friendly?’ But we did talk and we did get friendly and I know it and I should have told her. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Is there anything else you lied about?’ she asks.
Now’s my chance. I’m Shadow. I’ve lost my job. I’m robbing your school later so I can pay my rent and help Leo clear his debt with Malcolm Dove. ‘Uh-uh. Nothing. I broke up with my girlfriend and I didn’t feel like talking about it and that’s it.’
Gutless wonder, Bert says.
‘Why’d you break up with her?’ Lucy asks.
‘It doesn’t matter now. It’s done.’
I don’t want to talk about Beth stuff with Lucy. I’m already swimming in the swampy part of the river because I kind of like them both, which would be shitty only I don’t have a chance with either of them so who cares? Beth might think she wants to get back with me but she doesn’t. She doesn’t know all of me.
She told me to read this book she was studying in Literature class. ‘It’s about Vermeer,’ she said. ‘You like him.’ So I sat there, every night, reading a page or two. But my head doesn’t hold words. They drop out before I’m putting the next ones in. I’m not any stupider than Leo so if he can hold words, why can’t I?
I got him to read it for me and fill me in. I knew all the paintings he was talking about, knew Girl with a Pearl Earring, knew the way Vermeer used that box of his to see things differently. Mrs J told me about his camera obscura when I was still at school. How Vermeer looked through it and everything was mixed around so he could paint how no one else saw. I liked that idea so I watched a documentary on him. I knew lots of stuff, I just hadn’t read the stupid book.
But I couldn’t tell Beth because she was so happy when I pretended I’d read it. We had this big talk and all the while I felt like she was looking at me through that box of Vermeer’s. Everything she saw was true but mixed round the wrong way.
‘What are you thinking?’ Lucy asks.
‘I’m thinking I should have had some carbs before we left the party.’
‘I’ve got a packet of mints in my pocket,’ she says, and I get the feeling I’m on the way to being forgiven.
‘I’ll take it.’
We sit on the hill, halfway to the top, and she divides the packet. ‘I like to take my time till they disappear,’ she says, and it’s a second before I realise she’s talking about the mint.
