Nobody Real

by Steven Camden

  I can feel its little heart beating behind the tiny grille of its ribs.

  “He likes you,” says Dad, twisting the corkscrew into a bottle of red wine.

  I stroke a velvety ear. “Morgan said it was a girl, Dad.”

  “And how does he know?”

  “He seemed to know quite a bit, to be fair.”

  “True.”

  “He said he’d pop in tomorrow and check on her.”

  “Good for him. Are you two … you know?”

  “What? Shut up! That’s Cara’s big brother!”

  “So? Older man, better for someone like you, more on your level.”

  “Just stop talking.”

  He pulls on the corkscrew. “He’s got the look of a searcher, that one.”

  “A searcher? It’s not Game of Thrones, Dad.”

  “You know what I mean. Somebody looking. Slightly lost.”

  “Know that look well, do you?”

  “You’d be good for him.”

  “Dad, please …”

  “Fine. There must be someone though, right?”

  Cara in a quaint cottage kitchen, laughing at Sean doing his “Hotline Bling” dance as she boils water for instant noodles.

  “I’m fine by myself.”

  “Nobody’s fine by themselves, Mars. Not for long.”

  He pops the cork and the kitten does a terrified backflip, then tries to burrow into my stomach.

  “Sorry.”

  He pours wine into two purple plastic tumblers and brings one over.

  “About earlier,” he says. And it doesn’t feel right.

  “It’s OK, Dad.” I sip from my tumbler. The wine is cold and bitter. “Forget it.”

  “We can talk about her if you’d like.” He sits back at the table.

  “Not now,” I say.

  We exchange nods and drink.

  The kitten is now nibbling the belt loop of my jeans.

  “You should name her,” Dad says.

  I shake my head. “I’m no good at that stuff. I should ring Coral. Have you seen my phone?”

  Dad sits back down at the table and drinks. “Nope. Good riddance, I say.”

  “That’s great, Dad. I’ll try and remember your anti-phone Zen when I’m trapped under a building.”

  He smiles.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just a memory.” He pours himself more wine. “Come on. Name her.”

  “I don’t know, do I? You’re the writer.”

  “Touché, my young padawan, but I named you. It is the Jedi way for you to name your own apprentice.”

  The kitten has now swapped my belt loop for my finger, tiny needle teeth testing my skin.

  “I should go.”

  Dad almost chokes on his wine. “You can’t go! You have to stay over. I can’t watch her on my own. She’s just a baby. We’ll ring Coral.”

  Can’t remember the last time I stayed over. Not since before Diane.

  I look down at the kitten happily chewing my hand, pushing with its back legs for leverage.

  “Calvin!” says Dad, triumphantly.

  “Calvin?”

  “Yeah, like it?”

  “She’s a girl, Dad.”

  “Then she shall be a girl named Calvin. That a problem for you?”

  “No, but surely Hobbes makes more sense if that’s where you’re going. I mean, she’s a cat.”

  Dad waves one finger as he sips. “Hobbes isn’t real. Drink up.”

  “Thor …”

  Something tapping the bridge of my nose, sending shocks of pain across my face. “Thor Baker?”

  Can’t open my eyes. Ribs screaming. Hard, cold against my back. Familiar. I’m on the floor.

  “Come on, son.”

  It’s Leyland. “Open your eyes for me, Thor.”

  “He knew what he was doing.” The scratchy tones of Burgess from my left. Stale sweat and metal.

  My eyes crack open; there’s wet on my chin. Blood. My skull’s pulsing like an ocean-distress beacon.

  “Move away,” says Leyland. “Give us room.”

  I start to focus. Leyland’s face, straining a smile. “Silly boy.”

  He sits me up. Ribs are cracked. Broken maybe. Paws stiff. Humming.

  I cough and the hinge of my jaw creaks. My Marcie. In the real.

  “Somebody better pay me, Leyland,” croaks Burgess, leaning over us in his dirty apron, tree-stump cigar hanging out of his mouth.

  “I said back off.” Bite in Leyland’s voice.

  “I have money,” I say, wincing as I speak, chest squeezing my lungs. “In my bag.”

  High warehouse ceiling. Cloudy glass panels and pigeon shit. I can hear the murmur of other voices, a handful of people. Audience.

  I came for this.

  “Can we get him some water or something?” Leyland says, inspecting my face. Burgess stands up straight and he’s hardly any taller. Pathetic final strands of black hair clinging to his sweaty round head.

  “Him? What about Roman? You know how much money this will cost me, Leyland?”

  Roman? Remember running in. Demanding to fight. Burgess telling me to wait. Me shouting. Anyone. Anyone.

  He was big. Much bigger. He laughed at me. His big yeti grin.

  I showed him, Marcie.

  He’s not laughing now.

  “Forget it. Can you stand?” Leyland pulls me up before I can answer. Pain skips down my back in needle high heels. Gut wrenches. Gonna puke.

  Gonna puke.

  Puke.

  “Jesus!” Burgess hobbles backwards.

  “We’re leaving,” says Leyland, moving me away from the splashed puddle. Burgess waves a fat finger. “Not until I get my money. Roman is my best guy, and look at him!”

  There’s a circle of people around the yeti, his big head propped up on a jacket. Blood. His long hairy feet limp. He’ll be out for a while.

  I point to my bag on the floor. Leyland hands Burgess a roll of notes from his own pocket, scoops up my bag, then throws my arm over his shoulder.

  “I have money, Leyland.”

  “Shut up, Thor.”

  He’s much stronger than he looks. That wiry sensei strength.

  Burgess counting the notes, laughing from behind us. “Crazy shit! He could’ve killed you!” He almost chokes on his own cackle. “Come back soon, Baker! We can make money!”

  My feet are dragging. The taste of iron. Broken and bruised. “Marcie …”

  Leyland pulling me along. “Stop talking, Thor. Save your energy.”

  He lets out a little chuckle. “The carrier becomes the carried, eh?”

  “Marcie …”

  The cold air of outside splashes over me. The sun’s going down.

  Leyland’s black Ford.

  “Lean here for a second.” He props me against the car and opens the door.

  “I can’t do it, Leyland. The house.”

  “OK, OK. Let’s go. Mind your head.”

  He eases me in. Pain. Daggers in my chest.

  “Marcie …”

  “Sshhhh. What were you thinking?”

  Drifting. Foggy. “It’s not fair, Leyland. She needs me.” Door slams.

  “It’s just not fair.”

  Then everything goes black.

  It isn’t some massive screaming match.

  No melodramatic plate-smashing, soap-opera scene like people might think.

  There are few words.

  You’re nearly twelve, sitting on the wide foam chair of the hospital waiting room, two hours of tears drying on your cheeks.

  Sean’s nan, Leona, is speaking to a nurse at reception, trying to get more information.

  Sean is in surgery. The burning aerosol can was lodged in his chest. Punctured his lung.

  I’m sitting opposite you, the strip-lit ceiling pressing down on us like the back of a rubbish truck.

  Every time you close your eyes, you see the metal firework of it shooting from the flames straight for him. The fear in his eyes. Agai
n and again.

  Regret is crawling over my skin like bugs.

  I am guilt.

  I want to speak, but I know this is done.

  That we’re finished.

  Before you look at me.

  And say.

  “Don’t you come back.”

  “How’s your head?”

  Leyland puts the tray on the floor next to the sofa. I see a glass of water, two bullet-shaped white pills and a small plate of chunky beige cookies. My head is clearing, but I can feel a regular pulse in the left side of my face. Yetis can punch.

  My ribs are strapped tightly, restricting my breathing. Been a while since Leyland patched me up, but he’s still got it.

  He winks, takes a cookie and sits down on the chair next to his kitchen door.

  “Baked them myself.”

  “I don’t like painkillers, Leyland.” I shift my body to sitting and daggers stab my spine. The other guy, Roman. Smashed him up pretty good.

  For what?

  Leyland bites his cookie. “Don’t start that again. We’ve been here before, haven’t we?”

  “If I’m hurt, I’m hurt,” I say. “The pain is mine.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your idiot king.”

  He wipes crumbs from his chin. “Come on then. Speak.”

  I ball fists and the bones in my paws creak like split floorboards. “Nothing to say.”

  “Allow me to grease the verbal wheels then, my young brick-brained friend. This is where you once again attempt to validate your actions by spinning some pseudo-gladiatorial romance. How, in dealing with your insurmountable frustration, somehow the only thing that makes sense is getting smashed in the face. Am I close?”

  He takes another bite of cookie. I can feel the acid in my stomach.

  “You don’t know everything, old man.”

  He crosses one leg over the other like teachers do. “This is true. Everything, I do not know, but you, Thor Baker, you I know very well.”

  I look across at his desk. The old book-making equipment abandoned mid-job.

  “I’ve been with her, Leyland. There. In the real.”

  Leyland takes a deep breath, then sings, “I’ve been with her, over there, her perfect lips, her Afro hair.”

  “Forget it.” I go to stand; my skeleton shrieks; I sit back down. Marcie.

  “Easy there, Maximus. Just a touch of banter. Forgive me. Take the pills. Eat a cookie.”

  I let my chin drop on to my chest. “It’s too hard. I can’t do it.”

  Leyland finishes his cookie and stands up. “A choice that is easy is no choice at all.”

  He walks over to his stereo and thumbs through stacked vinyl. I bite into a cookie. Soft, buttery sweetness and a hint of something else.

  Low swelling strings. Dramatic but warm.

  “It’s the house, correct?” he says, sitting back down. “Your final test?”

  “Yeah.”

  I take another bite.

  Leyland nods. “Touché, ye gods of fate.”

  And suddenly I’m swallowing back the urge to cry. The pressure builds in my chest. My throat tightens. I close my eyes.

  Leyland crouches in front of me and lays a hand on my knee.

  “There, there, my boy. Cry if you need to. No shame in it. No shame at all.”

  I grit my teeth, fighting it, trying to swallow them back.

  He sits down next to me on the sofa and takes out his cigarettes.

  “Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, and yet a third of life is passed in sleep.”

  And I can’t stop the tears.

  They come flooding out with a roar.

  The room is leaning.

  I close my eyes and try to focus on the cool air cutting in through the crack of open window.

  “Call me Ishmael!” slurs Dad from the sofa, raising his tumbler like a drunken sea captain.

  “That whale, Mars. That stupid fucking whale.”

  I stare at my empty tumbler. Feel the wine in my belly. What’s Cara doing? Did Sean tell Jordan? Did Jordan make a move? Is he making a move right now?

  “Pssst.” Dad’s beckoning me over, his eyes closed. “I want to tell you something.”

  Standing up, I feel the weight drop into my feet.

  Calvin scampers up on to the arm of the sofa, waiting for a stroke. I rub her neck and sit on the floor. “What is it?”

  “Closer,” says Dad, almost whispering, like he’s a wizard, about to reveal a secret to his apprentice.

  I kneel over him. “What?”

  “You’ll never do it,” he says. The booze on his breath.

  “I’ll never do what?”

  “Whatever it is that you want to do.” He raises his empty glass. “Never. Gonna. Happen.”

  I feel my stomach twisting, wrapping itself round my spine.

  “And what is it that you think I want to do, Karl?” I say, squeezing my tumbler.

  Dad’s eyes close.

  “Dad?”

  I poke his stomach and his tumbler tips over on his chest, spilling the last drops of dark wine on to his white vest.

  “Dad?”

  He starts to snore like a post-banquet Viking. I take the empty tumbler from his hand.

  “Exactly.”

  Calvin walks up his body and starts sniffing the spilled wine. I pick her up and hold her in my lap.

  “I’ll never do it, Calvin?”

  She presses her face into my fingers, demanding more strokes.

  I hold her up so our noses are touching.

  “It’s already done.”

  I can still feel my ribs, but there’s less pain and more an awareness that they’re there. I have ribs. Ribs. And I never noticed how funny that word is.

  “Riiiiiiibssss.”

  Leyland’s cookies should come with a warning.

  I step out of the lift. Touch my face. Really enjoying touching my face. What time is it? Feels late. I can hear my heartbeat. The lub dub of aortic and pulmonary valves. A-level Human Biology.

  Don’t know how long I cried for. Or what I said.

  Have to let go. I remember Leyland saying that. Final test.

  Time to move on.

  He’s right.

  Have to let go.

  Will let go.

  “I will let go!”

  I stick my arm out like Hamlet. “Alas, poor Thor! I knew him, Horatio.”

  “Shut up!” a voice shouts from inside one of the other flats.

  “You shut up!”

  No response.

  “Yeah! Thought so! I’m Thor Baker and I’ll smash your cookie! I mean face!”

  I laugh and fall over.

  The floor is more comfortable than I imagined. I could sleep here.

  The ceiling is the same dull colour as the walls.

  Somebody should paint this grey place.

  Somebody should paint it every colour in the universe.

  I’ll do it.

  When this is over, I’ll buy paint and I’ll throw up the whole Milky Way and make this dull place sing.

  I’m fine. Time to move on.

  “Time to move on, Marcie!” I bang the wall. “Everyone! It’s time to move on!”

  “Shut up!” calls the voice again.

  “Who said that? Come out here and say it!”

  I sit up and the corridor spins.

  “I’ll smash everything! You hear me? It’s what I do!”

  It’s what I do.

  In fact, it’s what I’m going to do. Right now.

  I push myself up using the wall.

  And smack the button for the lift.

  “Mars?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What’s this number?”

  “The shop. I’m in the shop. Shoppy, shop shop.”

  “It’s nearly one o’clock, Mars.”

  “Is it? When did that happen?”

  “Are you sleeping there? Where’s your phone?”

  “Can’t find it. How’s it going?”


  “So you didn’t get my texts? My message?”

  “No. What did they say?”

  “They said it’s all gone weird. Sean’s being well funny with me.”

  “Funny how?”

  “I dunno, just funny.”

  “Funny like a clown? Like I’m here to amuse you?”

  “Are you OK?”

  “We got a cat. Where are you now?”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No. Yes. So? Are you on the beach?”

  “Haha! You’re drunk!”

  “No I’m not. I’m good. I’m great. I’m gravy. Where’s Sean?”

  “I don’t know. I’m in bed.”

  “With Jordan?”

  “What? Shut up! Why would you even say that?”

  “I dunno. Holidays. Stuff happens. We called her Calvin, the cat. Oh no.”

  “What? Are you OK? Mars?”

  “I threw up a little bit in my mouth.”

  “Who are you with? Are you on your own? Marcie?”

  “I want to tell you something.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I’m sorry, Car.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Marcie, who’s there with you?”

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too. Marcie? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I dunno. Maybe I’m completely misreading him. I can’t gauge it. I wish you were here to tell me.”

  “I need to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “High? Are you stoned? Did you smoke with your dad?”

  “You took your time.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I almost told her.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Marcie, who are you talking to? Is your dad there?”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “So you’re on your own? Marcie?”

  “No. I’m not on my own.”

  “What? Who’s there? Mars?”

  “I have to go, Car.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine. I’m with the cat. I need to drink some water.”

  “Good idea. And eat some toast.”

  “Yeah. Night night.”

  “OK. Drink lots. Call me tomorrow. And find your phone!”

  You take up most of the doorway.

  Light from the stairs sends your shadow across the shop floor towards me.

  The boy with bear arms.

  I hang up.

  I can’t see your face but I feel your stare. My head is swimming.