“Wow. OK. Good for you.”
“You hate it.”
“No! I mean, it’s pretty, I don’t know, loud, but it kind of suits you.” She leans back to take me in, like a sculpture. “Who’d have thought?”
“I would.”
You’re sitting on the floor in front of the TV.
I shrug. Coral points at the flashing neon squares of the Rainbow Road track. “Been a while since you played computer games, hasn’t it?”
“Just felt like it.”
“OK, well, I guess you’ve earned some down time, right? Listen, I’ve invited Dom for dinner on Saturday night. I thought it’d be a chance for you to get to know each other a bit better.”
“OK.”
You roll your eyes. “Boring.”
“All right, good. Well, I have marking to do, so …” She starts to leave.
“Is he a professor then?” I say.
Coral smiles. “A doctor. Of cognitive science. He’s head of the department.”
“Sleeping with your boss. Go, Coral.”
I keep a straight face. “Pretty smart then?”
“Yes. He’s a brilliant man. You’ll have lots to talk about. He studied at Leeds too.”
“You studied his leeds.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?” asks Coral.
You’re laughing.
“No, I mean, no way, I don’t believe it. Small world.”
Coral steps closer and inspects my eyes.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“Just checking. I know you’ve been with your dad a lot.” She mimes smoking a joint.
“I don’t smoke, Coral.”
“No –” older sister glare – “and neither does your dad.”
I lean back on the sofa. “So is he your boyfriend then?”
“Very funny.”
She tries to act unfazed, but starts squirming towards the door. “Will you sort dinner, please? I don’t have time.”
You’re smiling, enjoying the role-reversal embarrass-ment show.
“Yeah. Just let me finish this level.”
I unpause the game. Coral breathes out, and leaves the room.
“Great. A chit-chat dinner with Nick Fury. What a waste of a Saturday night that’ll be.”
I power-slide the last corner and overtake Princess Peach.
“Don’t be like that. She likes him. I can tell.”
I blast Bowser with my red shell and nick first place.
“Yes!”
We both watch Yoshi’s race highlights.
“Who doesn’t like Nick Fury?”
“I dunno. Hydra?”
I’ve won the gold.
“Still got it,” I say, shutting down the Wii U. “Some things last forever.”
Your shoulders slump. I lightly kick your back. “You gonna help me cook?”
You stay on the floor.
“Thor?”
“You’re nearly eighteen.” Your voice is solemn.
“So are you.”
“Eighteen.”
“Nuts, right?”
“Ten years since that night.”
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“So I can drink legally. Who cares? It’s all hype. No big deal.”
You nod.
“Yeah. No big deal.”
You’re nine.
Sitting back left, you watch an awkward, skinny boy with skin the same colour as your dad introduce himself to the class. He’s just moved from Bradford to live with his grandma.
His name is Sean.
You recognise an angry sadness in his eyes.
As he speaks, you begin to feel something. A connection.
Other people are only half listening, waiting for break time.
When you look forward again, the boy’s eyes are on you.
The teacher tells him to sit down.
He half smiles at you.
You half smile back and make a promise to yourself to find him at break time. You already know you will be friends.
The orange glow of the city fades up into the night sky.
The blinking red dot of a plane slides left through the darkness, pretending to be a shooting star.
Leyland’s got his armchair out on the roof and sits reading, a lit cigarette between his fingers.
I take a crate from near his door and sit down next to him.
I think about sitting with you as you’d draw. Watching your eyes move as your pencil sketched a face, a body, a world. I’d sit happily, in a kind of calm trance, all afternoon, as you filled page after page.
No big deal.
“Are you waiting for a thank-you?” says Leyland, not looking up.
“No. I just came to check how you’re doing.”
Leyland folds the corner of his page and closes the book. The title says The Stranger.
“No you didn’t.”
He crosses one leg over the other and smokes, waiting. There are pebbles and a few crumbs of loose mortar near my feet. I scrape them together into a little mound of miniature rubble.
“We made fajitas,” I say, “For her and her aunt.”
“Nice.”
“I poured hot pepper sauce into the pan when she wasn’t looking.”
I arrange a little line of stones, smallest to biggest.
“I see.”
“The whole bottle.”
“Ouch. Spicy.”
“They drank a litre of milk between them.”
Leyland looks at me. “And you felt bad?”
“No,” I say, “not at all.”
“OK.”
“I never feel bad there. Only now. Only here.”
I flick the first pebble. It skips across the tarred floor and hits the low wall. “I can’t help it, Leyland. I get there, with her, and I just want trouble.”
Leyland grinds his cigarette butt under his heel and lights another.
“We are but what we were made for,” he says, brushing ash from his pinstriped trouser leg.
I flick the next pebble along. “It’s like there’s one me here, and then another me there.”
“I know, my friend,” he says, leaning back.
“But which one is the real me, Leyland?”
Leyland smiles.
“I’m afraid that’s a question only you can answer.”
Feels like I’m sitting in a dusty photograph.
We never spent much time in this room.
The back room had the TV in it, the stereo and the sofa.
This room always felt too neat, a little front-room museum where you weren’t supposed to touch anything.
The dark dresser doesn’t have those stupid plates on it any more. China reserved for special guests who never arrived. The pictures have gone from the walls too, leaving rectangles of unfaded wallpaper, and the old gas fireplace looks like it would fall off if you coughed.
I feel heavy today.
What I know is pinning down what I want, pressing it into my chest, squeezing my lungs.
Truth hurts. They say that.
You’re lying to yourself, because the truth hurts.
But what about a good truth? What about true comfort, or true laughter, does that hurt?
I know what I’m doing is stupid, but I know it feels good. I know it can’t end well, but I know that you want me there. So what’s true?
Any of it? All of it?
No big deal.
“Memory lane?”
I’m on my feet in a blink, staring at Blue in the doorway, hands in her pockets, hood pulled up, silver flask under her arm.
The lead weight of guilt sinks in my stomach.
“What are you doing here?”
“Delicate work, eh?” She nods, scanning the untouched room.
“Blue …”
“Save it, Thor. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m just … taking my time.”
“I can see.”
“You
shouldn’t be here.”
“I didn’t come here to fight, OK?” She holds up the flask. “Coffee?”
We sit in the empty kitchen.
I sip from an old beetroot jar that was left on the side. Blue drinks from her flask lid. The coffee is strong and thick. Some kind of bird is singing outside.
“Nice hair,” she says. And I want to hide.
“How did you find me?”
“I followed you.”
“On the train?”
She shakes her head and points up.
“I thought you didn’t fly any more?” I say, blowing on my coffee.
“Yeah, and I thought you were knocking this place down.”
“I am. I’ve put the wall braces in. I’ve done the roof.”
“Half of the roof. It’s been nearly a week, Thor.”
“I know. I’m taking my time. Getting it right.”
“Course.”
“It’s complicated, Blue.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she says, sipping slowly.
“I am going to knock it down. I know I have to.”
She doesn’t respond. I swig a mouthful and wince as it burns my throat.
“I’ve still got a few days.”
“And then what? You’ll just calmly knock it all down and get on with your life?”
“I thought you didn’t come to fight?”
I roll the jar between my paws. My brain feels fuzzy.
“She’s messing with your head, Thor. She’s not even here and she’s messing with you.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You got that right.”
She finishes her coffee and pours herself another.
“Blue, look, there are things you don’t understand. It was different for you, you weren’t sent away. It’s more blurred; the lines, they—”
“You crossed over, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Didn’t you?”
She’s leaning forward in her seat, staring, her blonde hair almost glowing in the half-light.
“Blue, look …”
“You idiot.”
“No, listen …”
“You stupid, stupid boy.”
I lean back in my chair, her eyes burning a hole in my chest.
“She needs me,” I say.
Blue’s sigh almost fills the room. She closes her eyes, shaking her head. “They all need us, Thor. Until they don’t. Until they forget. Or throw us away.”
“She didn’t throw me away.” My paws push down on the veneered table.
“Yes she did. Like a bag of rubbish.”
The muscles in my arms twist and tighten. I can feel prickles in my chest. “Leave it, Blue, please.”
“And what? Just stand by and watch you drive yourself mad? I’m worried about you, Thor. You can’t fight the fade.”
“I’m not going mad, OK? I’m in control.”
She laughs. “You almost sounded like you actually believe that.”
“I do. I decide. When I cross. If I cross. It’s up to me.”
“Are you listening to yourself?”
“It’s true! The door. I choose.”
“What door?”
“My final test. It’s up to me. I—”
But then I feel it. In the pit of my stomach first, then climbing up my spine, spreading along each rib, like a light, filling me. How? This can’t be happening. Blue’s staring at me. The heat and the rush. I lift my paws, my coffee jar falls, bounces and dark coffee splashes on the white linoleum floor. “Blue. I didn’t. I don’t …” I reach out to her, but, before she can say anything, I’m in your bedroom, standing by the window. You’re sitting on your bed, a look of panic on your face.
“I have to go back.”
You’re in front of my window, your arms reaching out, confused.
“What?”
“I have to go back. This wasn’t … I’m not supposed … It’s not … Blue.”
“What’s not blue? Go back where?”
You stop yourself saying more.
Your eyes close and your arms go down.
“Nowhere. Doesn’t matter.”
Behind you the sky is wet newspaper grey.
“Are you OK, Thor?”
“I’m fine. What happened?”
“I had the dream.”
“What dream?”
“The same one. About what happened. To Sean.”
You look down at your hands. “I should go, Marcie.”
Shake my head. “Please stay.”
You lie down next to me. The two of us on my bed. Like before. When it was easy.
Some kind of bird is singing outside.
“I remember that crack,” you say, pointing at the black cardiograph line in the ceiling. “I saw it that first night.”
“I think it grew,” I say, my forearm brushing the rough fur of yours. “Do you think that means the house is slowly coming down?”
“Yeah. Slowly.”
I breathe in and wait, breathing out in sync when you exhale.
You’re thinking something loud. Something you want to say but can’t.
“What did I do, Thor? What have I done?”
I turn my head. You stare up at the crack.
“Exactly what you wanted to.”
Birmingham monsoon.
The kind of fat raindrops that splash on your tongue.
Dark thunderclouds smother the sun.
I keep my hair under the umbrella. You happily stomp through puddles ahead of me like you’re following a giant’s footsteps.
“Why so happy?” I say.
You look back over your shoulder, a big grin on your face. “Purpose.” You do a high two-footed jump and splash into a deep puddle at the base of a tree.
“Remember when it used to rain and then after you’d make me come with you on ‘operation snail rescue’?”
“Course I do.”
“We must’ve saved hundreds.”
“Yep. And nobody even knew.”
You strike a karate pose. “Invisible heroes!”
I stop walking. “What do you do, Thor? When you’re not with me?”
You turn on your heels, still in attack stance, the fur on your arms dark and drenched.
“I smash stuff.”
Heavy droplets thump against the umbrella skin. “That’s all I’m getting?”
“’Fraid so.”
“This isn’t normal though, is it?”
You spread your arms and walk backwards. I step back from the kerb as a bus approaches. You see it coming and stand fast.
“What the hell’s normal?”
And you smile as a tidal wave of gutter water hits you in the chest.
Bliss
noun
1. Supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment: the feeling of being left alone in a room full of books on a rainy day with a good coffee and no adults giving you grief.
– Dictionary of Marcie, Oxford Press
It’s like the best wet break ever.
Dad’s writing upstairs. The shop is empty. Ella and Louis on the stereo. You’re in the corner by the window. I sit behind the till, feeling the calm of time slowing down.
“Let’s move stuff around,” you say.
“What do you mean?”
You’re already pushing the display tables together, easing them both to the back of the room.
“Thor, what are you doing, what about customers?”
“What customers?” And you walk out the back.
“Hey!”
The front of the shop looks bigger with the space. I hear a sharp squeaking sound, then you come through, dragging the old brown sofa from the back room with you.
“What’s that for?”
“Your arse.”
You push it into the space where the tables were, leaving a channel between the back of it and the shelves, then sit down.
“Perfect.”
It looks like you’re in a living room. One with loads of book
s.
“Come try it.”
I slump down next to you. Sitting this low makes everything feel more open. Higher.
“See?”
I nod.
“People can sit here and read. Get cosy.”
I point at the displaced display tables. “What about those?”
“Who cares? Put the books somewhere else, find space. You could use one of the tables for biscuits.”
“Biscuits?”
“Yeah. And coffee. One of those big silver thermos things.”
“Are you talking about a cafe?”
“No. That’s long. Just coffee and a biscuit. Make it feel more homely.”
“We’re a shop, yeah? Not an old people’s home.”
You stand up. “You mean NO people’s home?”
Then something crashes upstairs.
We both look up.
Thumping steps. Another bang. And a tortured scream.
He’s on his knees.
Hands in his lap. Surrounded by strewn pages.
The table is on its side, thin legs pointing at him like wooden antennae. The blue typewriter is belly up, next to a dark brown puddle of coffee and his empty mug.
“Dad?”
Typed words, diagrams, frantically scrawled sentences, everywhere. They look like black insects, crawling on the blanket of white paper. The desperate work of a man trying to get ideas down before they fly away.
“Dad?”
I kneel down next to him. “Dad, what happened?”
He closes his eyes and lets out a low groan.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey. It’s OK. It’s all right.”
“No, Mars,” he says, “it’s all shit.”
I look at you, watching from the doorway, and you don’t need me to tell you. You just disappear.
What happened?
You tell me.
I wasn’t expecting you today. Did you dye your hair?
What? Oh, forget that.
You seem flustered.
Do I? That’s weird. I mean, it’s not like I was called or anything?
You were called?
Yes, Alan. I was called, which seems kind of strange to me, what with all this about my “final test” and everything. Not much of a “final test” if it’s not me who decides, is it?
And you’re sure?
Like it’s something I could be unsure about? It’s one thing to hear your name and choose to cross over, but to be actually called, what the hell?
How did it happen?
What do you mean? Same way it always did! I felt it, and then I was there.
I mean, where were you?
Nobody Real Page 11
