Nobody Real

by Steven Camden

  Why does that matter? How is it even possible, Alan? What about the door?

  Were you in the house?

  Yes. In the kitchen.

  There you go.

  There I go what?

  It’s the house. If you’re in the house, she can call you. That’s why you have to knock it down.

  Are you serious?

  Very. The places where we were made hold power over us, whenever we go back to them. In that house, your maker is in control. This is part of it.

  The test?

  Yes. You felt it, right? The feeling of the call? How amazing it is?

  Yeah.

  Which is why you have to get to work, before it’s too late.

  So, when I destroy the house, I can’t be called?

  I know it’s a lot to take in, Thor, but it’s all about choice.

  I don’t see how. Man, this is so messed up.

  That’s why I’m here. To help.

  What if I can’t do it?

  You can. And you will.

  But how do you know?

  Because you have to.

  “There.”

  I add the last of the pages to the pile, using the jagged glass ashtray as a paperweight.

  Dad sits on the sofa, staring at the old equipment stacked in front of the fireplace.

  The coffee stain on the carpet looks like a nursery-school paw print.

  “We might need a skip for all that,” I say. “Does any of it even still work?”

  Nothing.

  “Shall I order one, a skip? Dad?”

  “I’m sorry, Mars.”

  “For what?”

  “I know I’m hard work.”

  He reaches for his tobacco on the coffee table.

  I stroke the smooth keys of his typewriter. “Yeah, well. Who wants easy?”

  He smiles at me.

  “She told me I’d never do it.”

  “Who did, Diane?”

  “Your mum. You’ll die before you finish that book. That was the last thing she said to me.”

  My mouth won’t work. This is the first new thing he’s told me about her since I can remember. I sit down at the table and watch him think of her as he rolls his cigarette.

  “She always had a knack of telling me exactly what I needed to hear.”

  He sparks up and we just sit, the pair of us, filling with different memories.

  Flamenco music. Stomping feet. Empty bottles. Screaming through walls. Tears. Silence. Peeking into the living room when it was over. An abandoned crime scene. Tipped furniture and thrown books, pages spread, like dead birds, on the floor.

  “I can’t see her,” I say. “Her face, I mean. I remember things, feelings, but I don’t see a face.”

  Dad blows smoke.

  “She had a good face. A great face. But man, she could be cruel.”

  The rain has stopped, but the street is shiny and soaked.

  I touch the typewriter keys to spell out her name.

  Each letter feels charged with electricity.

  I touch the full stop and look at him. “She wrote me a letter.”

  Dad’s face drops. His hand shakes as he takes the cigarette out of his mouth.

  “When?”

  “Years ago. It was in the summer holidays, before Year Seven.”

  Dad looks away.

  “I see.”

  “Madrid 28070. That’s what the postmark said. I never told you. I don’t know why.”

  Dad doesn’t say anything.

  “It’s an area code. I googled it.”

  Dad still doesn’t speak.

  “Dad. It might be where she lives. The place …”

  He looks at me, finally, and shakes his head. “I doubt it.”

  He wants to ask what she said. I can see it in his eyes, a flicker of curiosity. Of jealousy.

  The father in him fighting with the jilted man.

  “She could be anywhere, Mars.”

  I see the letter. On the doormat. In my hand. Tearing it open that night. Not knowing what to expect, but expecting something. Anything. The disappointment of seeing one solitary line.

  Seven words.

  Remember, Marcie. Whatever happens, just be you.

  One sentence. Secretly sent by a stranger.

  The other half of what I am.

  “But it’s not impossible, right? There’s a chance she’s still there?”

  Then, like someone flicked a switch at the back of his head, I watch him shut down. His face goes blank, and the invisible wall he built to deal with being left comes up.

  “Dad?”

  He stubs out his cigarette and stands up. “Wherever she is, it’s where she chose to be.”

  He walks over to the rack and takes his jacket.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need a walk.”

  “No, Dad. I want to talk. Why are you being so dismissive?”

  “Dismissive? You mean dismissive like walking away from your partner and child? That kind of dismissive?” He punches his arms into his jacket sleeves. “What do you want me to say? Your mother may now live in Spain, or Italy, or fucking Western Samoa?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He reaches past me and grabs his typed pages.

  “What difference does it make, Mars? She left us.”

  He goes to touch my shoulder, stops himself, then leaves.

  I listen to his footsteps on the stairs. Then silence. Then the slam of the shop door.

  My father. Supposed grown-up.

  Still hiding from questions.

  After all this time.

  I lock the shop and sit upstairs with a coffee.

  The fridge was empty and I’m hungry. For food and answers.

  The rain’s started again, so, wherever Dad is, he’s getting wet. Karma.

  Picture him standing under a tree, staring out like a forlorn character from a Wes Anderson film, soggy pages pinned under his arm.

  Is it raining in Cornwall?

  Must’ve left my phone at home.

  What updates has Cara sent?

  What’s she doing? Did Sean speak to Jordan?

  The typewriter stares at me. I stroke the keys.

  The lines that make letters. The shapes that make stories.

  Could I write one?

  Do I have that in me?

  Everything quiet. I feel alone.

  Raindrops tap-tap on the windowsill.

  “Where are you, Thor Baker?”

  Tap. Tap.

  The two-syllable echo of Mum’s name.

  Tap. Tap.

  Ro bin.

  My head hurts.

  Ro bin.

  “Shut up.”

  Tap. Tap.

  Ro bin.

  I smack the table.

  “Wherever you are, shut the fuck up!”

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  It’s not the rain. It’s the door.

  His wet hair is bin-bag black.

  “Sorry,” he says as I let him in. “No umbrella.”

  Same outfit as the other day. He’s holding a shopping bag.

  I close the door.

  “Nice hair,” he says, wiping water from his face. “Suits you.”

  My hand instinctively comes up to cover it. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “I was just at the supermarket, and thought I’d pop in and check, about the book? I didn’t hear from you. Was that there before?”

  He points at the old sofa.

  “No. It’s … we’re trying something.”

  “I like it.”

  “Your book hasn’t arrived yet, sorry.”

  “Oh, OK.” He looks down at himself.

  “I could check the computer,” I say. “Sometimes they put an estimated date.”

  I walk to the till, expecting you to step out from behind the pillar and start in on him again.

  You don’t.

  When I turn round, he has his wet jacket off. I can see a folded baguette through the opaque plastic bag.

 
“It’s supposed to be June,” he says, and it’s the kind of banal line of small talk you would never give the cool older brother character.

  I check the orders screen. “Self Help, Lorrie Moore?”

  Morgan walks over. “It’s not what you think. It’s short stories. Amazing short stories.”

  “And you lost your copy?”

  “You could say that. Does it give a date?”

  “No. Sorry. It doesn’t normally take this long. I can probably sort out a discount?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m just replacing important stuff. No rush. It’ll come when it comes. Is your dad in?”

  “He’s gone for a walk. Clear his head.”

  We both look out at the heavy rain. Morgan nods. “Cleansing.”

  Then my stomach growls, the kind of long, embarrassing hunger growl that always seems to happen in assembly or exams or when you’re stuck in an empty bookshop with your best friend’s older brother.

  Morgan looks down at his carrier bag, then at me.

  “Hungry?”

  Rain pelts down.

  I’m soaked through. Knock again.

  “Will you open the door, please?”

  Blue’s shed is small enough to probably smash with one good charge. The massive Wayne-Manor-style mansion she refuses to sleep in casts a moody shadow from the top of the gravel driveway.

  “Blue! Come on, let me in.”

  “Go away, Thor,” she says from inside, and part of me wants to just pull the door off.

  “I didn’t know I could be called, honestly. It’s the house.”

  “I don’t care. Leave me alone.”

  “Blue, please. I’m soaked.”

  Nothing.

  “Fine! Stay in your stupid little shed. You don’t understand anyway.”

  I turn to leave. The wooden door flies open.

  “Don’t understand?” She’s in a black vest and jeans, her hair down, brushing her shoulders. “I think I understand just fine, Thor.”

  “It’s not what you think, Blue. Let me explain.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. You’re a puppet. Waiting to be thrown in the bin, and I’m done with picking up the pieces.”

  She goes to slam the door shut again, but I step forward and block it with my boot. “Wait …” I say.

  “Move your foot, Baker, I’m not joking.”

  Her eyes are full of anger and we both know what she’s capable of doing.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I say, moving my foot back. “Maybe I am a puppet. But isn’t that what I’m supposed to be?”

  Blue shakes her head. “You’re supposed to be whatever you want. Whatever makes you happy.”

  “And are you happy, Blue? Here? Pretending you’re not a princess?”

  “At least I know what I’m not. I’m nobody’s lapdog, running alongside them, praying for a pat on the head. You have a life here, Thor. People who love you, and you’re risking it all.”

  I look at my feet.

  “Maybe I don’t understand,” she says. “I wasn’t sent away, I get that, but you think what you’re going through is any harder than what me or anyone else had to? You think it’s easy to have the person who made you just forget you exist?”

  “I never said that.”

  “You have a choice, Thor. Do you understand what a luxury that is?”

  I look up. “And what if that choice tears me in half, Blue? What kind of luxury is that?”

  Blue’s eyes turn cold.

  “I’d rather be torn in half than forgotten.”

  And she closes the door.

  You’re fourteen.

  You and Cara are getting dressed after PE.

  Ten laps of the soggy school field for cross-country. Cara hung back with you: she knows you hate running. Everyone else lapped the pair of you twice.

  She’s telling you about her idea for her media project. It will be a YouTube channel of satirical performance art. She’s excited.

  She doesn’t see the way you watch her towelling her hair, fastening her bra.

  She tells you she will need your help to make it really good. She wants to make the first film this weekend. Will you come with her?

  You zip up your skirt, your eyes on her slender feet, her perfect toes with their chipped electric-blue nail varnish.

  You tell her of course you’ll come with her.

  You tell her you’ll go wherever she wants.

  The remains of a shop-floor picnic.

  Looks like an archaeological dig site. Bookshop Time Team.

  Morgan’s on the floor, scooping the last of the hummus out of its tub with the end of the baguette. I’m on the sofa, sipping my second pineapple juice. Frankfurters. Mustard. Kettle chips. Black grapes. All destroyed. He shops well.

  I lean back, belly full. If he wasn’t here, I’d be undoing the top button on my jeans.

  “I feel like someone punched me in the stomach,” I say.

  Morgan smiles with a mouth full of bread. “With a baguette fist.”

  He empties the juice carton into his mug and I notice the bottom of a defined bicep at the edge of his black T-shirt.

  “So why psychology?” he says.

  I sip. “Dunno. Makes sense, I guess.”

  “Wow. You sound SO excited about it, Marcie.”

  “I am. It’ll be good. Cara’ll be there too.”

  He gives that knowing nod that says he’s reading between the lines and that he understands, and it’s annoying.

  “Why did you choose your degree then? Why philosophy?”

  Morgan considers his answer, then shrugs. “I followed a girl.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. They told me I could study anything, that my grades were good enough. Mum wanted me to do medicine. Then I met a girl and I fell for her. I didn’t really have a plan, she did, so I followed.” He trails off into a thought.

  I feel awkward. This is Morgan. Cara’s big brother. Sitting on the shop floor, telling me he went to university to be with a girl.

  “Guess I learned my lesson,” he says, reaching for his jacket.

  “What lesson?”

  He takes out a silver tobacco tin. “Can’t hitchhike someone else’s life, Marcie. You get high?”

  I shake my head. “Not right now.”

  “No, right. Sorry.”

  He puts the tin back in his jacket and awkwardly folds it more than he needs to.

  “Medicine would’ve been full on,” I say, helping him out.

  “Yep. It would.” He puts the lid back on the empty hummus tub. “It’s all full on though, isn’t it, doing what you’re ‘supposed to do’?”

  He pulls his ankles in, crossing his legs, his lost expression revealing more than a second-act soliloquy.

  I look out of the window. The rain is still bucketing down and it feels like we’re sitting inside a bubble.

  “I’m not going back,” he says.

  “What?”

  “To uni. There’s nothing for me there.”

  He looks at me, and I know I’m the only person he’s told.

  “Are you serious?”

  Then Dad bursts in, out of breath.

  He’s soaked through, rolled-up pages sticking out of his jacket pocket.

  “Quick! I need a hairdryer!”

  Morgan springs to his feet. Dad looks at him, then me, then the sofa, then the picnic.

  “The hairdryer, Mars, now!”

  I glance at Morgan. “We don’t have a hairdryer, Dad. I think you’re past that point anyway.”

  “It’s not for me, is it?” he says, reaching inside his jacket. “It’s for him.”

  It’s a kitten.

  Completely black. A little furry full stop, small enough to sit in his hand.

  He holds it out like baby Simba. “It’s a cat.”

  “I can see that, Dad. Whose is it?”

  “It’s ours. He’s soaked.” He looks at Morgan. “Afternoon.”

  Morgan almost salutes. “Afternoon, Mr
Baker.”

  “Mars, come on! A little help!”

  I stand up. “Dad, what the hell?”

  “Funniest thing – actually, not funny, not funny at all – I was walking in the woods, gathering my thoughts, and this guy was just … well, he had this bag.”

  Morgan picks up our tea-towel picnic rug. “She’s gorgeous,” he says, walking over to Dad and taking the kitten, wrapping it up in the towel. The kitten’s miaow is more like a squeak.

  Morgan holds it next to his chest, gently rubbing its body. “There you go, little one. All good.”

  Dad looks at me. I shrug.

  “So some random guy just gave you a kitten?”

  Dad wipes his face. “No, I saw him drop the bag into the water by the little bridge and walk away.”

  “He was trying to drown it?”

  “I guess so. I couldn’t just … what could I do? Do you have any cash on you? We should buy cat food for it.”

  “I have some money,” says Morgan, still stroking the kitten. “They need special kitten food, it’s more delicate.”

  “OK, great. Mars, you and Dr Dolittle go and get the food. I’ll take it upstairs and give it some milk.” Dad holds out his hands and Morgan passes him the swaddled kitten.

  “Actually, Mr Baker, milk isn’t great for them when they’re this small. A bowl of water is better.”

  “Nonsense, son. Cats love milk – everyone knows that. I’ll be upstairs. Don’t be long, he’s hungry.”

  “How the hell do you know?” I say.

  “Wouldn’t you be, if you’d just suffered a near-death experience? Chop-chop.”

  And he walks to the stairs. I look at Morgan. Morgan looks at me.

  “The supermarket will have what we need,” he says, picking up his jacket.

  This is actually happening. I pull on my hoodie and zip it up.

  Alton Towers just got a new ride.

  I stand in the rain and stare at the house.

  The front face of a place that means nothing to most people.

  Just one of many.

  Another number in a line of other numbers. Nothing special.

  Not even real.

  Not real bricks or mortar or foam insulation.

  Not real carpets or wallpaper, paint or skirting boards.

  Not real windows or curtains, fittings or taps.

  Just background.

  Just a set.

  Just a puppet.

  Your puppet.

  Begging to be picked up.

  Man, I want to fight.

  I want to fight right now.