The Shadow Girl

by John Larkin

  After what seems like fifteen hours, the doors close and we slip quietly away into the morning. And with no god putting his hand up to take credit for our departure, I’ll put it down to CityRail’s timetabling.

  I look out the window as we slide past the police station but there are no sirens blaring, no one rushing outside with guns or tasers drawn, no riot squad abseiling down from a helicopter hovering over the train. Just the rhythmic clackety-clack as we pick up speed and head west.

  THAT WAS CLOSE.

  One mistake. That’s all it took. One mistake and it all very nearly came crashing down around me.

  What was the mistake?

  Narelle. I should have gone with my first choice – an actor.

  A lot of prostitutes would consider themselves actors.

  Yeah, well, Narelle wasn’t a very good one.

  When did you get back to the junction station?

  It was still morning when I caught the train out west, so I just kept going until I was almost in the mountains. After a while I realised that I was standing out a bit in my school uniform and I started to worry that the police were on the lookout for that particular uniform, so I got off at the first station we came to, ducked into the toilets and changed into my normal clothes. Then I caught the next train heading back towards the city and got off at the mega-mall to collect my stuff from Alistair McAlister’s cafe.

  He wasn’t on the afternoon shift because he had a lecture, but his friend was and he’d obviously told her more about my situation. She got all excited and went and fetched my things from the back room. I didn’t tell her what had happened – I was a bit jealous of her to be honest, because I sort of figured that she was Alistair’s girlfriend. I told her that I’d been feeling sick and left school early to go sleep it off. She was a bit of a ditz to be honest – bouncing around like Tigger when I told that I was going home to the rail yards, like being homeless was an exciting adventure.

  Did you go to the rail yards?

  No. It was far too early. And there was something I wanted to do. I’d been thinking for a while that Creepo was right about me not being able to spend his money. There was just too much of it. I was sick of carting it around, to be honest, and when I was in the police station, it occurred to me that if I was sent back with Creepo, he might somehow get the money back. He didn’t deserve to get it back. I had to get rid of it.

  What did you end up doing with it?

  I was going to burn it, like I told Creepo, just so that I could piss him off, but I knew that would be pretty stupid. Someone could use it. Someone who didn’t know, or care, where it came from. So I gave most of it away. I remembered that there was this chapel in the city that looked after and fed homeless people. I’d seen an item on the news about it when Creepo and Serena were out at a party one night. So I caught a train into the city and spent ages wandering about trying to find the place. I got some directions off an old Salvation Army guy. He told me that the chapel was on a side street in the red-light district, which freaked me out a bit, especially after what Sergeant Morrison had told me had happened to that poor girl who killed herself. But then I figured that the creatures who lurk there are largely nocturnal and as it was only early afternoon when I found it, I figured I’d be okay if I made it quick.

  There were a lot of homeless people milling around a kind of front office when I got there, but I could hear music off to the side, so I followed the sound and walked into the chapel itself through a side door. By sheer force of habit I made the sign of the cross and sat down in one of the back pews. There was no one else there apart from me and this old bag lady who was up the front near the altar playing this white piano. She wasn’t playing ‘Chopsticks’ or ‘Three Blind Mice’ either. It was a beautiful classical piece; really complex. I sat there totally transfixed, my jaw hanging open. Then I lost it. And I mean really lost it. Tears streaming down my cheeks. Strange noises coming from my throat. Huge body-wracking sobs. The works. I don’t know where they came from or what was happening but I couldn’t stop myself. Eventually the old lady stopped playing, came over and sat down next to me and just hugged me. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. She just held me. Even when I felt a bit embarrassed and tried to pull away, she just held on tighter, which made it even worse. Because she got it. She got me. Even though I didn’t.

  Why were you so upset? I mean, I know the obvious reason . . .

  I didn’t really understand it at the time. But I thought about it later on the train back up north. It was because she played so beautifully. So perfectly. It threw me because what I was seeing and what I was hearing didn’t fit.

  So you’re saying there was a juxtaposition between the way she lived and the way she played.

  No no, it was because someone cared about her. Someone loved her. Once. She was a classically trained pianist. Even I could tell that and I couldn’t play the rowboat song. Someone paid for those lessons, probably her parents when she was a little girl. She was once someone’s little angel who wore pink dresses and ran out from her bedroom on Christmas morning and got all excited about her presents. She probably had family holidays by the sea and went for walks along the beach collecting shells with her father who explained all about the animals that had lived in them. She would have danced in the rain in front of the beach house and then got told off for almost catching a cold, and then she would have come inside, dried off and had dinner before curling up in bed and have a story read to her. And she would have had dreams. Hopes. Ambitions. And now she was . . . this. She was intelligent too. She understood what was happening to me before I did. But she was wandering the streets with her few bits and pieces stuffed in torn shopping bags and her manky old coat and her cat asleep inside the shopping trolley which was parked at the end of the aisle. I suppose I wondered what chance did I have if she couldn’t make it. And so I lost it.

  Did you recognise the piece she was playing?

  No, but when I eventually pulled myself together she went back to it and it was so beautifully haunting that I walked up the aisle and I asked her what it was called. She told me it was by a composer called Philip Glass and the piece was Opening. That didn’t mean anything to me so I wrote it down in my diary. It had this repetitive structure, and it made me think of the last train to Kathmandu. A train ride to nowhere. It made me think of my parents decomposing to mulch out in the forest. It made me think of the future and whether or not I had one.

  When she’d finished the piece I thanked her and she held my hand and kissed it and ran it along her cheek. Then she went back to her playing and I made my way through to the reception area. I took the plastic bag out of my backpack and placed it on the front desk. The lady at reception saw the bricks of cash and gave me an odd look. I told her that it was a gift from my grandfather who had been homeless once but had made it rich out in the mines and had left a little bit of it to the chapel which had looked after him when he’d been down on his luck. I was actually crying again when I said this so it looked really convincing.

  Still thinking about the old woman?

  No. Well, yes, maybe, but not just that. There was a café and a games room just off from the reception area – I think that’s what all the homeless people had been waiting for – and there were all these broken-down people shambling in and out. These wrecks of humanity. Ghosts. Shadows of people. I suppose I was crying because of everything that had happened since I’d arrived at the chapel. I got a glimpse of the future. Of how I would end up if I didn’t keep myself on track. If I didn’t get back to school. Something that everyone else seemed hell bent on keeping me out of.

  Did she accept the money?

  Yeah. I didn’t wait around for her to count it or ask for a receipt or anything. She just said thank you and then I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could before she started in with the questions or offered me a bed for the night or a game of snooker.


  How much did you give them?

  I don’t know. I didn’t count it. Most of it. I kept some for myself for food and necessities and a rainy day at a hotel for when I was feeling really crap, like then, but I suppose I gave them about five grand all up.

  Wow! That was pretty generous.

  Not really. I figured it was bad money, so I could do some good with it. That plus the obvious fact that carrying around all that cash was seriously weighing me down. I felt so much lighter without it. Besides, I still had Serena’s credit card.

  When I left the chapel, I could see that there was a huge storm building up to the north. You could taste it in the cold air. So instead of catching the train up to my weekender and walking straight into a downpour, I caught a train to the mega-mall, walked up to the Shangrila Pines Resort, barrister-mummed my way in again with Serena’s credit card and stayed for a week.

  Must have been nice after sleeping on the cold trains with the ghost.

  Don’t laugh about the ghost. I felt it. And it should have been okay being back in the hotel but I couldn’t enjoy it.

  Why were you feeling down? You escaped. I mean, that was pretty ingenious what you did, escaping the police station like that.

  I was feeling shit because it was the end of an era and I had no one to share it with. It was getting close to the end of the school year and so it wasn’t worth trying to get into another school. In a couple of weeks’ time all the other kids would be having farewell parties and making plans for the holidays. I ended the school year being driven away in a police car like a criminal. But I knew that I couldn’t stand around moping. Not for long anyway. I had to figure out a way of getting into another school without showing up on anyone’s radar.

  I’ve got to ask. Did you ever see Miss Taylor again?

  Yeah, I did. I called her just before Christmas. She invited me over for dinner. I was a bit hesitant at first in case it was a trap. She would have heard what happened with the police so I was really apprehensive when I got there. But it was cool. When she answered the door and saw me standing there with a bottle of lemonade and a couple of cupcakes in a bag she just burst into tears and hugged me. I thought she was going to cry for ever. But eventually we had dinner and talked. I told her everything because I was sick of being alone and not having anyone to confide in and also because I trusted her. I was also tired of lying. That’s the thing with lying: you need to have a good memory just to keep track, and I was fed up with it.

  What did she say?

  She didn’t judge me. She didn’t judge anyone. Not even Creepo, which surprised me. She just listened. And she didn’t offer any solutions. She didn’t say everything would work out if I just had faith. She didn’t ask me to trust in God even though she had pictures of Jesus in her hallway and over her bed. When we’d washed the dishes we settled back and watched a chick flick and we both ended up bawling our eyes out. It was such a girlie moment. I don’t know what it was but being with Miss Taylor gave me hope. I could do it. I could survive. I didn’t have to end up a piano-playing bag lady wandering the streets with my few bits and pieces and my cat in a shopping trolley. I had options. I had Miss Taylor.

  Did she know that you were sleeping in the rail yards?

  Yeah. I told her, but only after she promised not to tell anyone. She couldn’t believe it but she was out of tears by then so she just shook her head.

  Did she let you go to the rail yards that night?

  What do you think? I slept on her sofa. Ended up staying there for a week. She refused to let me go. We were like flatmates. I only agreed because by then it was the school holidays and she reckoned that school holidays were her time and she didn’t answer to the Department of Education. I didn’t want to push it though. I couldn’t risk getting her in trouble and possibly ending her teaching career. But she was going overseas with a friend after Christmas, trekking in South America for a couple of weeks, so she asked me to house-sit for her, which, after the rail yards, was like the promise of heaven. She also helped me get into another school.

  How? Did she pretend to be your mother?

  No! But she got my assessment and report from school and told me about a loophole.

  Okay, but before then, before you caught up with Miss Taylor, there was still a few weeks to go until the end of the school year. What did you do?

  I read mostly. At night in the rail yards or, if it wasn’t too hot during the day, up at my weekender. I also went to see a couple of movies and to the museum and art gallery. But I stayed away from the red-light district. Away from the homeless chapel. It was just too depressing. Mostly I just travelled around on the trains. I went bushwalking a few times when it was warm enough. I also used to go to the international airport and watch the planes taking off. I made sure I left my sleeping bag buried up at my weekender when I went to the airport so that Creepo’s goons wouldn’t spot me. That plus I always wore my baseball cap and sunglasses. I got to know the flight schedules and the livery of the planes so I knew which ones were going where. I really enjoyed watching the planes taking off to London and Paris and Hong Kong. I used to sit for hours up on the observation deck, breathing in Cologne d’aviation and dreaming of faraway places.

  Then, on what was officially the last day of the school year, I met Cinderella, who saved my life. And it will haunt me for ever that I couldn’t save hers.

  THE THING ABOUT THE OLD FAIRYTALES WAS THAT THEY ALWAYS contained a message. Once you had read the story and unravelled its moral core, you were meant to see the light and start living your life a better person. Sometimes the moral was blatantly obvious. The Three Little Pigs, for instance, is primarily about solidarity. About working together in the face of adversity to overcome what at first appears to be insurmountable odds. It also touches on the importance of sound construction principles and the benefits of hurling unwanted houseguests into pots of boiling water. The lessons derived from this porcine versus canine tale are obvious, even to a child. Others, though, are less clear. Little Red Riding Hood is about . . . well, the importance of being able to distinguish your bedridden grandmother from a cross-dressing timber wolf. Rapunzel, on the other hand, broaches the timeless topic of how imperative it is not to get lumbered with an evil witch as your primary guardian. The witch, who, in strict adherence to stereotype, was not only breathtakingly ugly, but also grossly unhinged. In the spirit of the age she was not confined to an institute for the criminally insane, but free to wander about locking girls in high towers and blinding handsome princes more or less at random.

  Where do you even start with Cinderella? Let’s ignore Cinderella’s victim status and total lack of self-determination and head straight for the prince who was, let’s face it, a bit of a jerk. Despite being captivated by Cinderella’s radiant beauty for half the night, come the cold light of day he has completely forgotten what she looks like and only has her shoe size to go on. Either he was suffering from some sort of early onset Alzheimer’s disease or else he was completely off his face during the big ball. The end result is that he goes trawling through the kingdom in some sort of perverted foot-fetish style quest for someone, anyone, who fits the glass slipper. Just how superficial is this guy? What if Cinderella had turned up at the ball looking exactly like she did only with a mole on her face that had a couple of twelve-centimetre hairs sticking out of it? What if a bearded troll just happened to have the same shoe size as Cinderella? ‘Ah, well. Pucker up, bushy cheeks, it’s snog time.’ And no one ever bothers to question the sheer impracticality of Cinderella’s footwear. Glass might be good for many things but it’s not exactly malleable in its cooled state. If everyone turned and gaped when Cinderella made her big entrance into the ball, it’s only because she’d have come staggering in like a drunken giraffe on rollerblades. Bit of a head turner.

  What these fairytales teach us is that in order to live a rewarding life it’s essential to be whi
te and good-looking, preferably with royal lineage. And this is all before we even touch on the vital importance of being blonde.

  But the real Cinderella was nothing like that. I should know; because she was my fairy godmother.

  It’s the final day of school and my plan had been to get away for a while. Head up north, load up on scallops and energy drinks and trek up to the lighthouse. Skim rocks into the ocean. Stare out to sea. Dream. After that I’d crash at my weekender for a while and then get down to the serious business of planning how to con my way back into school. There’s a public high school a few stations up from the mega-mall that I would simply die to go to. It’s not co-ed but the girls who go there seem happy and carefree. They wear pink dresses and sky-blue socks and when they get on the train in the afternoon they’re not weighed down by life, more like they can’t get enough of it. Even the emo girls appear happier than they’d like to be. Sometimes late at night in the rail yards, with the moon smiling down on me through the carriage windows, I fantasise about wearing a pink dress and blue socks to school.

  The rain rules out my lighthouse trek so I dump my stuff with Alistair and, after a breakfast blowout of buns from the bakery, I head out west to my old school. I don’t know what I thought I was doing, but by the time I make it to the bus shelter I’m soaked to the bone. Not my greatest moment of street life.

  I stare at the school from the shattered shelter. I check my watch. I should be at English now. Miss Taylor will have them packing up the room, getting all her admin finalised and then organising everyone for the party with the other classes. For a moment I feel like gatecrashing, but the idea soon passes. Word would get out because of the way I left and then Mr Thompkins, the office ladies, or one of the other teachers would phone the police. They wouldn’t want to, I understand that, but they’d have to. And I don’t want to ruin the other kids’ farewell party by getting carted off again. That’s a memory burner that everyone could do without. Especially me. I don’t think even Constable Lang would fall for the same routine again, no matter how much I embarrass him.