The Opposite of Amber

by Gillian Philip

  I did. Then I didn’t know what to say anyway, so I shrugged again.

  ‘That was crap, what that wee tosser Alex did. Think so? Imagine jumping off that roof.’

  ‘Wasn’t his fault,’ I said.

  ‘Bloody was! Who jumped? Miserable wee git. Couldn’t even do the job properly. Was there not a high enough roof in Glassford? Mad as a frog. Was he on drugs?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Really? You think not? Even madder wee git, then. Must be a sight more miserable now, you think? Stuck in a chair the rest of his life.’ He laughed. ‘So what did he look like, then? Drunk?’

  ‘He was just sad,’ I said, before I realised what I was getting into.

  ‘In the old-fashioned sense,’ said Nathan. ‘Or, nah, both kinds. Did he shut his eyes?’

  I shook my head, feeling my spine curl in, hoping I’d soon be an impenetrable ball, like a woodlouse. I could have used a shell.

  ‘Really? Did he not? Did you look that closely?’

  ‘No,’ I mumbled.

  Nathan winked at me. ‘Nobody’s perfect, eh, Ruby Red? Don’t feel bad. Even if you were horrible to him, poor wee soul. I wonder if Tom feels bad? You know, being away and everything. Going away and getting a job and that. Mind you, maybe Alex depressed the arse off him as well.’

  What with all Nathan’s baiting, I’d forgotten how the subject of Alex came up in the first place. The reminder about Tom felt like a kick in the stomach. I half-rose, glanced in a panic towards the kitchen. I could hear the crashing of pans and the slap of Jinn’s bare feet and she was singing along to Marvin Gaye.

  ‘He was in Edinburgh,’ I said. ‘Tom.’

  ‘Yeah. Imagine leaving Edinburgh and coming back here! If you didn’t have to.’

  ‘Why did you? Come back?’

  He widened his eyes. ‘Imagine you asking!’ He laughed, then laughed again, as if my nerve really tickled him.

  He didn’t answer, though. He kicked the chair back round to face the TV, and turned up the sound and changed the channel to the six o’clock news. A weepy woman was talking at a press conference; her husband had his arm round her shoulders and the policeman beside her was wearing a professional Grim Face. I recognised them: the parents of the third girl. That was months ago. Must be a development? An arrest?

  Oh, no, it was a reconstruction. Somebody who looked like Girl 3 from the back was walking down a leafy street, pretending the ranks of press cameras weren’t there, swinging her white lookalike Prada bag at her side. She turned down a lane, and a young couple turned out of it and glanced back at her, and walked on in the opposite direction, and Girl 3 walked on to meet a reconstructed Death, and that was it.

  (I’m calling her Girl 3, but that’s the smart-arsiness of hindsight. Girls die all the time. I didn’t connect them; why should I? I’m not sure anyone else did either. Except for the obvious person.)

  I put one hand over one ear, only half-trying not to listen as the reporter recapped the tale of her miserable death – as if we hadn’t heard it a hundred times, as if we didn’t know everything but the most vital plot point. I wondered, if they never found her killer, whether the story of her end would change and mutate, like a myth, like Chinese whispers.

  Nathan shook his head, like he was disgusted at the sheer unpleasantness of the world, like he hadn’t just watched the whole thing with fascination. The story changed to something political, so he flicked through the channels till he found The Simpsons. He didn’t ask me what I’d like to watch. Like it was his TV or something! That should have forewarned me.

  He sighed as they interrupted Marge and Lisa for adverts, and muttered it again, almost to himself.

  ‘I really like your sister.’

  So he never left. At least, he left only to get his things. It wasn’t that he actively moved in, just that more and more of his stuff migrated into the sitting room and the shower room, and suddenly he wasn’t staying every third night, or every second night: he was there the whole damn time. That’s how you can get a family member without even knowing it’s happening.

  He didn’t give Jinn anything for his rent, his argument to me being that he wasn’t taking up any extra room. I disagreed. He took up my space. He took up my space beside Jinn on the sofa. He gave an edge to the air. It wasn’t a big house and it had just fitted the two of us, dilapidated but snug. Nathan Baird sucked the pleasure and the oxygen out of the place, and he took up more than a Nathan Baird-sized piece of space. I hated finding him in the kitchen in the morning, shirt open to show his ribcage or just stripped to the waist. He wasn’t interested in me and he knew I wasn’t interested in him: he flaunted himself to taunt me. I’m sleeping with your sister, he was saying. Get over it.

  It’s not that I couldn’t see why she fancied him. I did get that whole scrawny, sleazy, bad-boy charm. I just wished Jinn didn’t. She’d always been crazy about him, even at school. At school he hadn’t been inclined to attach himself to just one girl, but he’d been more conventionally attractive then. Now he seemed happy to be with Jinn, and no wonder. Where else could he get a rent-free roof over his head and home-microwaved meals? Because once he moved in, she didn’t have time to make macaroni cheese any more. She was too busy having sex with Nathan Baird.

  ‘What’s your problem with me, Ruby?’ he said more than once.

  My problem was that Jinn was happy. My problem with Nathan Baird was that he was right, I was jealous. We were not a three-person family. Not these particular three people.

  And he couldn’t even leave Jinn alone while she was working. He hung around the mini-mart too much, and Wide Bertha didn’t like it. And so here we stood now, fighting silently over Jinn’s workspace as intently as we fought over possession of her at home.

  I dumped my groceries on the counter and lasered him with my glare, but he took no notice. He leaned across it and kissed Jinn’s nose, which made her laugh.

  ‘I’ll get those for you, Ruby.’ Jinn didn’t even look at me. She just wiggled her fingers in my vague direction, all her focus bound up in his lean hard smiling face.

  I watched them, unwilling to move, partly out of a stubborn need to be noticed, but mostly because the look that passed between them fascinated me.

  I liked Foley – I’d liked him for ages – but I hadn’t looked at him like that yet. I wondered if I ever would. I wondered if it was fakeable, and as I wondered that, I let myself study Nathan’s face instead. If it was fakeable, was he faking it?

  There was only one way to find out, and that was to try it out on Foley some time. Nibbling my lip, I concentrated on memorising it. The intensity and the exclusivity. The smile that wasn’t entirely a smile, that was starting to segue into seriousness. I wondered if this was the first time they’d looked at each other and truly, honestly loved each other, because that was the impression I was getting.

  It was only because I was watching so closely, only because I was part of the atmosphere and I never opened my mouth. It was only because Jinn was so used to me I might as well have been an extra arm or something. They’d forgotten I was there and that was how I saw her slide four packs of Embassy Regal into his waiting hands.

  I wanted to tell Wide Bertha, but how could I? Bertha was crazy about Jinn, thought the sun shone out of her arse, and was incredibly cocky about having kept her despite the lure of Tesco up in Glassford and their employee benefits package. The thing was that Jinn was crazy about Bertha too, so the concept of her stealing from the woman was almost beyond my comprehension. The thing that niggled at me most, the thing I fought against considering, was that Nathan Baird didn’t even smoke.

  It was a fabulous summer that year. Summer was Jinn’s lucky season, so the best summer for years should have been her best luck in years. I suppose it was, if you count falling in love with Nathan Baird, but I didn’t and neither did Wide Bertha.

  It turned out Wide Bertha wasn’t stupid either.

  ‘I’ve banned Nathan Baird,’ she said, out of nowhere. ‘He’
s not getting back in my shop.’

  She was sitting with me and Foley on the grass; she had taken an early lunch break so she could enjoy the sun. Mallory was rampaging with a small boy, shoving him into flower beds and getting shoved back, shrieking with offence and hilarity. It was blazing hot and Bertha had taken off her shoes and was dipping her swollen ankles in the little landscaped stream that ran through the Dot Cumming Park on its way to the river and the sea. I could hear the crash of crates from the shop; Molotov Mixers were selling fast in this weather, so Inflatable George was back again. He was nearly finished, so I knew he’d be joining us shortly, which was another reason Bertha had taken the early break.

  Foley lay back on the grass. ‘Should’ve banned him before,’ he muttered.

  ‘Thanks for your timely advice,’ said Bertha tartly. ‘I’m well aware of that.’

  ‘What’s he been doing, nicking stuff?’

  ‘And distracting my girls.’ She shot me a sharp look. ‘Eh, Ruby?’

  Meaning, distracting Jinn. I wondered if she knew that distraction wasn’t the only problem. I just concentrated on the sea, at the play of the breeze out there, stroking the surface of the water and making it shudder, like rubbing a cat’s fur the wrong way. I thought it must be a lot cooler out at sea. I thought about my green-and-white ball and wondered if it had ever got to America. Obviously I was thinking about anything except answering Bertha.

  ‘That wicked tongue of yours.’ Bertha shrugged and lit another cigarette. I wondered what she did with the half-smoked ones, because as carefully as she tucked them away, she never seemed to use them again.

  ‘It’s not like your sister to be stupid,’ remarked Bertha.

  Foley opened one eye and caught mine. I gave him a tiny shake of the head, willing him not to say anything. Bertha didn’t know about Jinn stealing for Nathan, I figured. She just meant Jinn made stupid boyfriend choices. And who were we to argue?

  Fortunately Foley was telepathic with me now. He didn’t ask.

  ‘Finished, George?’

  Up till that moment, when he settled down at Bertha’s side, I hadn’t known Inflatable George’s name actually was George. He was losing his shyness around her, and now he sat very close, leaning protectively into her in a way that announced that her space was his space. I’d have expected her to draw back like a big defensive crab in overalls, but instead she leaned into him. Now their shoulders were touching, it was obvious, but they didn’t look embarrassed. Certainly not half as embarrassed as me.

  ‘Hello, Ruby,’ said George. He ignored Foley. His pink cheeks were pinker than ever in the sun.

  ‘I bet there are lots of good words in your head, Ruby,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Bertha sighed. ‘She likes to keep them to herself, does our Ruby. I sometimes think it’s a bit rude.’

  When she stood up and stalked off she had a green patch on her ample backside. Normally I’d have called her back and we’d have had a giggle, but for once this didn’t seem like the moment.

  ‘She’ll be OK,’ said Inflatable George, who hated a scene. ‘She’s a bit upset with your sister. Jinn’ll get over that waster Baird, won’t she? She’s too nice not to.’

  He was nice too. I smiled at him. I hoped he was right, and I felt bad about making Bertha stomp off in a huff just as he’d arrived, so I made it a really genuine smile.

  ‘She should be in a Molotov ad,’ he said, nodding. ‘Your Jinn. I always think that.’

  I felt quite swollen with pride that he thought so, as pleased as if he was the company chief executive in charge of marketing instead of just a delivery driver. The Molotov ads were all sunlight and laughter, girls and boys who glittered with light and health, who chased each other across the sand and fooled in the shallows, and threw friendly arms around one another, and tipped bottles of Molotov to their perfect laughing lips. They never got drunk and threw up behind a sand dune. There had been complaints about those ads: some fat bloke had stood up in the Holyrood parliament and huffed and puffed about glamorising alcohol.

  But the ads hadn’t been banned, and the fat bloke lost his vote, so he went off and drowned his sorrows in the parliament bar. And the Molotov girls and boys went on playing in their eternal sunlight with the breeze whipping their golden hair and the light glowing out of their skin. They were like angels, naughty angels, and the soundtrack was pretty cool too. Jinn would be a perfect Molotov beach girl.

  ‘She should do something like that. She should go to drama school. Or be a model or something.’ Inflatable George stood up and squished his fag end into the grass with his toe. He smiled shyly at me.

  I could see he was desperate to go and chat up Bertha some more, so there was no need to talk. I just smiled back. When he was gone Foley, still lying prone on his back, blew out a relieved breath.

  ‘Peace at last,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be mean.’

  ‘He’s a sad bastard. He follows her about like a puppy.’

  ‘I think it’s sweet,’ I said. I’d been going to try out the Nathan Look, but I was cross with Foley now.

  ‘Yeah, all right.’

  ‘They’re not doing any harm.’

  He opened one eye again and grinned at me. ‘You don’t think they’re shagging?’

  I blushed. The very thought! ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Why not? Bertha’s stuck with that waste of space at home. I don’t even think Mr Bertha’s that ill.’

  I suspected much the same, but I was in no mood to agree with him.

  Foley rolled his head round to look at me. ‘Oh, sorry I’m sure. C’m’ere.’ He flapped an arm out against the ground.

  Being annoyed with him warred with feeling sorry for myself and in need of a hug. They warred for, oh, four and a half seconds, and then I wriggled closer and lay back into his arm. He didn’t look at me, just curled his arm round my neck and stared up at the sky, so I still couldn’t try out the Nathan Look. I was changing my mind about that, anyway. I was starting to think it wasn’t fakeable.

  ‘You want to relax or something?’ There was an edge of irritation to Foley’s voice.

  Oh, right. All my muscles were squeezed up tight, and I was grinding my teeth. On one of the benches beside the water, her Tupperware begging bowl right in the path of strolling pedestrians, there was a woman in a dirty floral dress, squeezing random notes out of a reluctant accordion. My spine was that accordion, all the vertebrae crushed tightly together. As she released it and it gave a painful howl, I made my spine go limp too.

  ‘What’s Jinn playing at anyway?’ he said.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘You know he was done for stabbing somebody. Down south. Nathan Baird.’

  A cold shudder went down my backbone; Foley must have felt it. ‘That what it was? What, dead?’

  ‘Nah. But not for want of trying. He’s a bastard. Takes after his dad.’

  ‘How did he get out then?’

  ‘Dunno. Served his time, I guess. Jinn must be OK with that.’

  ‘Suppose so.’ I swallowed, and found it difficult. ‘I suppose she knows. She’s happy anyway.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Foley, thick with irony. ‘Long as she’s happy.’

  ‘There’s happy and happy,’ I said.

  After all, Lara was usually pretty cheery, but not in a good way. Bad-happy is when you don’t care a toss for life and the world and your problems, because you’ve forgotten they’re there. Bad-happy was Lara’s state of mind when she walked in front of that Vauxhall Astra. Bad-happy was presumably also the state of the driver, who was three times over the limit, but owing to the state of my mother, my scope for indignation was limited.

  Well, Jinn was proper-happy. She wasn’t like Lara and Foley had no business implying she was.

  ‘Sorry I said that,’ he muttered, telepathic again.

  ‘No worries.’ And instant forgiveness.

  ‘I wish you were staying at school,’ he added.

  I
turned my head and gazed at him. I gazed at him so intently, I could sort of feel the Nathan Look creeping in, without me even meaning to do it.

  But his eyes were shut.

  Six

  So here’s the thing about words. Words can mean everything and nothing. Words meant everything to Alex Jerrold, who hung on every one from every source, sifting it for meaning and sincerity and an excuse to be hurt. Words meant nothing to my mother. Lara loved words for the sound of them, the ring of them. That was all. She used an awful lot and she liked to teach me new ones but in the end all they were was words. She liked words to play with one another, and she didn’t care if they made sense or told a story worth hearing. And even ordinary words, she only liked for their own sake. Like I’ll take care of you or I’ll be there for you.

  This was why I was careful with words. People shouldn’t treat them so lightly. Sticks and stones have nothing on words. There are far too many of them about, and not enough like regurgitate or muslin or hollyhock or descant. Those are what I call words. Not I love you.

  The real I love you was the way Nathan smiled at Jinn and she grinned right bang into his eyes. I was starting to hate him from the deepest level of my innards. He wasn’t just taking up space now. He had brought a whole atmosphere with him.

  Nathan had been shacking up with us all summer. Foley was going back to school tomorrow, so I couldn’t even hang out at his place as much as I had done the whole holidays, with his parents away all the time at dog shows. I was bored and lonely and I couldn’t wait to start work in Glassford. If I’d had the nerve I’d have stayed over at Foley’s when his parents weren’t there, but I was still nervous of upsetting Jinn and anyway, Foley seemed to think it would corrupt Mallory.

  And when it came right down to it, I didn’t want to sleep with him, not yet. Nathan and Jinn were putting me so far off sex I was going to end up in a convent. Squeak squeak, grunt, muffled cry, silence. Only not that quick. Yerch.