by D I Russell
She followed Lily, finishing off her cigarette. “Not in the mood for going home. Not after last night. I left early this morning so I wouldn’t have to speak to any of them.”
“So what are we doing?” said Lily. “Go to The Scholar for an hour?”
Samara stared across the road, seeking out the sole figure waiting out in the darkness. The girl had vanished, probably driven on by the cold, or given up with those she waited on. Probably for the best. Not the wisest place to be, out there on your own as night draws in.
Samara shrugged and scooped up her sketchpad. “Go on. Where else do we have to go?”
They hopped down from the wall and side by side, headed up the road to the welcoming sight of the student pub, all windows a glow, distant silhouettes of early drinkers behind the glass.
Samara wiped her lips and chin, making sure all traces of the paint were gone. Under the glow of the streetlight as they passed beneath, she examined the smudge of black on her fingers.
They reached the corner, and needing to cross the road, Lily hit the button at the crossing. Cars had the nasty habit of turning through the crossroads too quick once the lights changed.
“You reckon Dale will be in?” said Lily, watching the static red man. “Got a new car I bet he’s dying to show off.”
“I don’t give a shit if Dale is in,” said Samara. “He’s a wanker.”
She looked back and forth, checking for traffic, her breath starting to fog beneath her cold nose. She could almost feel the warmth of the fire in The Scholar.
To her left on the other side of the street, by the hedge that bordered the playing field, the girl with the long dark hair peered out between lampposts, standing in the sea of shadow between the two islands of light.
“Fuck this,” hissed Samara after a moment, turning away and hooking her friend’s arm. She walked into the road. “Nothing’s coming. Too cold to be standing around.”
A car horn blared, and both girls shrieked, jumping back onto the safety of the pavement as a white van hurtled past.
“Jesus,” cried Lily. “How fast was he going?”
“Fuck!” said Samara, pulling Lily close. “I nearly killed us, didn’t I?”
3.
They played tug of war with the temperature: relishing the heat that drove the chill from their cheeks as they entered the pub, already sweating and gasping for breath by the time the barman noticed them. Shedding layers, they ordered two ice cold bottles of Metz to restore the balance. Agreed without a word on the matter, the girls crossed the creaking wooden floorboards across the main room to their usual booth in the corner, thankfully free. A few of the larger tables were occupied by groups of thirsty students.
Samara felt a little more comfortable in The Scholar, with all the hushed talk of new bands and books, piercings glinting in the firelight, and the showing of tattoos, most of them marking virgin skin in more ways than one. The Kellys and the Vickis of the world wouldn’t be seen in such a place, what with the graffiti scrawled across the walls and the tables worn down to the grain. Samara found it homely and honest, not willing to cater to those that valued image over good conversation. The jukebox, a small unit on the wall next to the toilets, was regularly updated, constantly playing the clienteles preferred mix of Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Ash, and out of place but familiar, The Carpenters.
Samara and Lily had drunk in The Scholar almost every day since starting college, never failing to pop in for a quick drink and baskets of chips over lunchtime, sometimes getting a taste for the freedom and skipping afternoon classes to keep the fun alive. The pub offered a reassuring constant in her life: same table, same drinks, same songs, same people. It allowed for the exchange of small talk while waiting for a drink at the bar, or during those strained occasions when she reluctantly shared their booth with trespassers. The Scholar had its fair share of extroverts like any pub, and while Samara was no social butterfly, she knew enough people by name. She’d watch the drinkers turn as the door would open, everyone checking out the latest entrant, to be cheerily welcomed if known, silently dismissed if not.
“Look,” said Lily, placing her bottle on the table and depositing her coat on the bench, enclosed in the high sides of the wooden booth. Rumour was that the owner had built the seating himself out of pews from the old church. She plucked off her woollen hat and gloves, tossed them on the growing pile, and swept her nails through her short, auburn locks. “New quiz machine. You got any coins?”
Samara dumped her sketchpad on the table and enjoyed a refreshing gulp of her icy lemon drink. She dropped her coat onto the opposite bench, glad to be free of it. Her long-sleeved shirt was warm enough in the pub with the fire blazing. The chunks of wood in the hearth emitted a pop with a small shower of golden sparks, reflected in the window on an impenetrable dark background. She’d have to get the bus home at night, but that waited in the future. No need to worry about going out there just yet.
Had the girl followed her here, and stood waiting across the road, watching her in the flickering glow of the fire, hidden in the darkness? Samara conjured a different version of Vicki’s pictures. The perspective of the viewer no longer stood among the glorious summer flowers in a radiant garden, but in wisps of shadows that curled from the canvas, oozing free in an inky miasma. And the image of a smiling Vicki by the easel had been replaced. In the painting, Samara stared out of the pub window, eyes narrowed, trying to penetrate the shadows. How long would her silent companion be content to wait outside?
The door opens. Everybody turns, but only one recognises the face.
“Sam!”
“Yeah,” she replied, digging into the pocket of her black jeans. “Money. Quiz machine.”
***
The front door slammed open, and everyone looked to see who had entered. Everyone knew everyone.
Samara had no idea who he was. She had more pressing matters.
A tale of murder at midnight. One body found on the stairs. Six suspects.
It’s always weird monsters and doom and gloom, her father complained. But didn’t they make everything just a little bit better? Life a little more interesting?
The screen displayed another question, the timer already rapidly counting down. The small group standing around them murmured between themselves, but none providing a clear solution. Of the three possible answers the machine offered, Lily hit the middle. The card flipped, revealing a green tick.
“Yes,” she hissed, and looked back over her shoulder. “If any of you supposed geniuses know any of these, you can enlighten the rest of us, you know. My luck can only stretch so far.”
Cluedo, or at least, the quiz version. Lily’s success provided her with another roll of the dice, and their digital playing piece entered the conservatory. It allowed them to guess the murderer, no general knowledge required this time.
“It was Reverend Green with that thing that looks like a dildo,” said a guy beside Samara. “Bloody pervert Catholics!”
Lily frowned at him. “I don’t know where to start with the number of things you just got wrong. But it’s my quid, my correct answer, my guess.” Her finger poised over the screen. “It was Miss Scarlett, with the rope…because she looks like a kinky bitch.”
Samara shuffled, closed in by the bodies around her. Dropping money into the quiz machine had been like ringing a dinner bell to the bored and freeloading. They gathered around the glowing screen, eager to get involved in a game, to show off their general knowledge prowess. So far, the two girls had lost close to a fiver between them.
Why had Lily insisted on playing the damn thing? They could have finished their drinks back at the booth, without all these random people.
The guy who’d made the dildo comment lifted his pint to his lips, his elbow brushing Samara’s arm.
“Uh, sorry,” he said, noticing her lean aside.
“It’s okay,” said Samara.
It wasn’t okay. The touch came on top of his smell: dank odour starting to win the
fight against that morning’s antiperspirant, the beer on his breath. Samara turned to Lily, muttering in her ear.
“I’m going to go sit down, have a smoke.”
“You don’t want to see this game through? It’s our last pound.”
“You have plenty of intellectual back up,” said Samara. “Just make sure none of these pricks get any of the winnings.”
She pushed her way through the group, less sensitive to any touch with freedom so close. Passing the cigarette machine, she turned through a low arch and back into the front room of the pub, the bar along her left, and their booth in the corner.
Through the wide, dark windows, she caught the pale girl with the dark hair, beyond the railings that surrounded the pub, standing in the middle of the road.
Just my reflection, Samara promised herself, averting her gaze to the scuffed floorboards and quickly crossing the room to their booth. A pack of five students occupied a large round table, their empties already starting to accumulate. Samara caught wisps of cigarette smoke and intimate conversation as she passed, no one taking notice of her, no one paying attention to the girl outside. Samara chanced a glimpse through the window. The girl, now closer, watched her from between the wrought iron bars of the railings.
At her sanctuary, Samara reached down for her coat, seeking out the pack of cigarettes in the inner pocket. She stopped, noticing the addition to the drinks on the table. Neither she nor Lily drank pints.
Dale sat in the far corner of the booth, her sketchpad in his hands, idly flicking through the pages. This week, the fool had dyed his hair yellow, a spiked canary shock above the thick frames of his glasses. Lily believed that changing his hair colour each week would make him bald well before he hit thirty. Samara had no idea what he studied, if he even did. She knew he was in a band though. It was the first thing he told you in that drawn out voice of his, sounding stoned morning to night.
“I love art. Pretty dark, man…” he crooned, turning the page. “All monsters and shit, eh?”
He looked up at her.
Samara studied the table.
“I said to my drummer we should do something darker,” he continued, returning to her work. “Offspring’s ruined the punk scene. Metal’s the way to go. Something a bit more—” He gritted his teeth and thrashed his head, riffing on an invisible guitar. “Something harder, you know?”
Please stop talking, she thought. I really don’t care.
From the corner of her eye Samara detected movement from outside. The thin face of the girl peered through the window; skin almost glowing against the glass. She opened her mouth—
A hand pressed into Samara’s back.
“Nothing!” Lily manoeuvred around her and collapsed into the booth, scooting along the bench to face Dale. “Bunch of time wasters. One of those arseholes is doing physics. Thought Schrodinger owned a dog for fuck’s sake. Colonel Mustard in the library with the bloody dagger.”
Samara remained standing, unsure of the social etiquette. “Dale is here. I didn’t say he could sit there.”
Lily waved her hand, throwing it away. “Hey dickhead. I hear your dad got you a new motor.”
Dale threw the sketchpad onto the table. He remained transfixed to the closed cover. “Yeah…well…it’s not new. Second hand. But yeah. Parked it ‘round the back.”
Samara followed the lead of her friend, sliding into the booth beside her. Resting her hand on the stained tabletop, she pressed her fingers into the wood, the fore and index fingers taking the brunt of the pressure.
“So what is it?” said Lily.
“Ford Mondeo,” Dale slurred.
“Oh, fancy. Colour?”
“White. Makes it look pretty clean, though.”
“Nice. Are you going to this art show?”
Samara glanced back and forth with each exchange. She had no interest in Dale’s car. Just a car. Just a white Ford Mondeo that his dad bought him. Why the hell should she be impressed? Why the hell should Lily be impressed? He didn’t earn it. It didn’t take much for a spoilt brat to get his daddy to buy him a car.
“If either of you girls need a lift home…”
Samara grabbed her bottle of Metz and raised it to her lips. Lukewarm now after the time spent on the quiz machine. Her bus would have been there. The same old bus she took home after college every weekday. She could have gone home, fled upstairs. Throwing off the day. Outside 2 in the VCR…
“CD player?”
“Cassette deck, but hey, I got my band’s tape in there.”
Samara stared at his eyes. Goddamn eyes. Window to the soul, so they say. They had no idea. Behind his designer lenses, those eyes…hazy.
Samara grabbed her bottle. She had abandoned her intended quiet drink with her friend for the time spent at the quiz machine, with strangers, who had ruined the entire point. Now her drink was warm. The equation of the evening made no sense. They had planned this: to do the usual. The investment and outcome ceased to add up.
She’d have better success completing a physics course. Schrodinger’s fucking dog.
Samara supped at the bottle neck, trying to restore a balance, glaring at Lily. Come on. Why? Why is Dale still here, in their booth, casting a lazy eye over her work? Why? Who is he? What has he done?
Been bought a car from his rich dad. Is that all it takes?
What did he do?
“All right, Sam?”
Samara looked up at Lily, fuzzy, horizontal lines blurring her vision. She shook them loose, mentally banging the top of her television to clear the picture.
Her fingers had begun to drum a beat on the table. A song. Perhaps a myriad of songs: various drumbeats, classic loops, thrumming along her fingers, typing out her song on the stained tabletop. A Morse code of suffering.
And yet on the other side of the glass, the girl nodded her head in time, loving the beat. She grinned, her mouth stretching, the hinges of her jawbone melting like soft candle wax.
Samara plonked her empty bottle on the sacred table and snatched up her discarded sketchpad. She flicked to a fresh page and, ignoring the mundane chatter between Dale and Lily, opened her bag to remove a sharp pencil. A fresh representation to occupy her mind. Samara began to draw, imagining the pain her creation could render.
4.
Breath fogging before his face, Dale shivered and pulled the zipper of his coat up under his chin. His single pint had barely touched the sides and done nothing to protect against the growing chill of the evening. Outside The Scholar, he looked up and down the road, seeking out one last excuse to head back inside the warm, friendly boozer. Like most of the student patrons, he’d spent so many hours inside it had become a second home. Down the street, a girl waited at the crossing under a streetlight, despite the lack of traffic. Dale watched her for a moment, wondering why she didn’t just head across. Probably just waiting for the green man to show. Being extra careful.
With his hands in his pockets against the cold, he turned the corner of the pub, trying not to look at the cheerful, cosy faces still drinking in the bright windows. The rear car park held a few scattered vehicles. His Mondeo shone triumphantly at the centre, pristine in the moonlight. Not much, but his. Keep your tank full and your motor clean, his dad had told him, and you can’t go far wrong.
Dale dug into his jeans pocket for the keys. Popping open the door, he slid into the driver’s seat, already reaching for the heater dial and sliding the key into the ignition. He closed the door, plunging the interior into darkness, and glanced in the rear-view mirror.
A thin figure sat behind him, silhouetted against the fogged rear window.
“Christ!” he hissed, realising he’d left his guitar propped up on the backseat. He reached back and gently laid it to one side, so it wouldn’t fall over on the drive home. Dale started the engine and flicked on his headlights. The dash sprang to life in a glowing row of dials. He hit the windscreen wipers, removing the light sheen of moisture the cold evening had deposited on the glass.
In the harsh beams that cut through the shadows of the car park stood the girl. Her shadow was thrown across the back wall of The Scholar.
Dale squinted in the brightness. It wasn’t the same girl. This one clutched a black sketchpad between her tight fingers, heavy bag slung over her shoulder, lending her an almost apologetic hunch. Cute though. He knew enough girls who dressed like her. Some did it for attention. You could spot those a mile off. Boots always brand new. The band logo splashed across their chests a little too…commercial. Trendies, they called them. Fishnets and black eye liner. Others carried it well, like they’d been born in a graveyard, complete with inked sleeves and rings through their lips. Natural mistresses of the dark.
The girl who remained transfixed in his headlight beams held that same organic fit. Certainly, no teenage Morticia, mysterious and sexy, likely to fuck you and devour you, oh no. Her long raven hair, solid boots, clothes that never revealed an inch of pale skin… Samara didn’t dress to seduce or garner attention. Her look was a high brick wall topped with barbed wire: intended to keep everybody out. Same as her art. The snarling gargoyles on the walls of the church, trying to scare the bad spirits away, prevent them from entering the most sacred of houses.
Dale wound down his window. “Hey! Need a lift?”
Samara surveyed him a moment longer, mouth slightly open, eyes wide. He doubted she could even see him over the blinding glare of the headlights. Finally nodding, she headed to the passenger side, steps awkward, head hung to hide her face behind her hair.
The heater had barely begun to make a difference, but Dale felt the cold air sweep over him as Samara opened the door, swung her bag into the footwell, and dropped into the passenger seat.
“Thanks,” she said, gasping. “Missed my bus. Didn’t know what I’d do. It’s so cold…”
