Nobody Real

by Steven Camden

  Morgan rubs his hands together. “Oh yeah, Big Daddy Morgan got the juice. Gotta get my tricks high, before I put ’em out on the streets!”

  I shake my head.

  “Too much?” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry.”

  My new phone pings. Then again. And again.

  Unreceived messages transferring from the Cloud.

  “Somebody likes you,” says Morgan, like he’s auditioning for the role of cheesy, middle-aged uncle.

  “You and Dad getting along then?” I say, tipping the suitcase on to its side at my feet and unzipping it.

  “He’s a genius,” says Morgan, without even a slither of sarcasm, and I kind of wish you were here, just to shoot him down.

  “So they say.” I take my laptop out and put it on the bed.

  Morgan steps into the room. “Do you write too?”

  “No.”

  “You used to draw though, right? I remember that.”

  He looks at your robot face house on the wall. “Still decent with the pen.”

  Embarrassment rising. “I didn’t draw that.”

  My folded clothes stacked like lasagne, white bra poking out. I hurriedly tuck it back in and close the suitcase as Morgan walks to the desk. My headache’s coming back with a vengeance.

  “You didn’t fancy the seaside then?” he says, looking at Diane’s books.

  Why’s he here? What does he want?

  “Dad needs me to help with the shop,” I say.

  “Course. And you’ve got your demolition work too, right?”

  He grins, and it’s like a glimpse into the annoying side of having an older brother. Walking into your space uninvited, commenting on your life.

  I hear your voice.

  “What do you want, Morgan?”

  He looks at me, shocked. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to just barge in. I’ll go.”

  He stops when he reaches the door. “Is he working on something new, your dad?”

  “Apparently. Why don’t you ask him?”

  Morgan gives the door frame a pathetic tap.

  “I guess when you’re trying to follow up something perfect, you can’t rush, right?”

  “Guess not.”

  Calvin is running out of steam, throwing laboured punches at her post.

  “It is perfect, isn’t it?” Morgan says. “Dark Corners …”

  I look at him. “Super-cool” big brother Morgan. Philosophy brainbox. Blatant fanboy.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I haven’t read it.”

  Wipe my mouth and look down.

  The upstairs wall is now a pile of rubble in the front yard below me. I’m sitting on the edge of the floor where the wall between Coral’s room and the spare room used to be. The entire upper-front quarter of the house is now gone. I smile proudly and look both ways along the quiet early evening street. There’s nobody around, except the little black cat who didn’t want to be stroked, sitting on the metal bin outside next door.

  “Look what I did,” I say, smiling down at it.

  The cat stares back up, unimpressed.

  I swig the last of my milk from the bottle and hold it out in front of me like a crane.

  “Geronimo!”

  The glass shatters on the pile of bricks, sending a fountain of shards sprinkling out and the cat running under next-door’s hedge.

  You can’t beat a good smash.

  I lean back for my bag and the floorboards creak underneath me. Only the central walls are load-bearing, so, if I work on the downstairs front tomorrow, the back half should stay secure enough to do the back roof next. Whole thing shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. I’ll have time to spare.

  Who’s in charge now, Marcie?

  The floor underneath me creaks again and my eyes go blurry.

  Shake my head. Feel myself leaning, chest tightening.

  There’s a loud crack, then the shattering of glass as the front downstairs window caves in. The floor groans.

  The fireflies are back. Spots of light in the haze.

  I try to swat them away and fall forward, off the edge of the house.

  As it collapses beneath me.

  Went in sea! Freezing! X

  Creepy cafe. Old English women looking at us like aliens. Well UKIP. What even is a scone? X

  Sean being funny with me maybe x can’t tell

  Sean def funny. Avoiding talking to me. Can you speak? X

  8 Missed Calls.

  Where are you Mars? X

  Yo. You sure bout Cara and J? Sean

  You have two new messages. First message received yesterday at thirteen nineteen:

  “It’s gone weird, Mars. I’m getting mixed signals, like stupidly mixed. God. I know your phone’s probably under your bed or in the washing machine or something, but, when you find it, call me, OK?”

  Second message received today at eight twenty-four:

  “It’s me. Morning. Hope you’re not feeling too rough? What were you drinking? Hope you’ve found your phone; if you’re listening to this, you must have. Unless you’re not Marcie and you’re some weirdo phone thief who gets off on listening to other people’s messages, in which case I hope your dick drops off and you lose your memory. Sorry, Mars. Just in case. Woke up feeling different. Think I might be misreading things with Sean. Think it’s fine. Wish you were here to tell me. Call me when you can. Miss you.”

  Can’t face calling her. Don’t know what I’d say. Tell her the truth?

  Truth hurts.

  So does my head.

  “Quite a day, eh?”

  Dad’s holding two mugs.

  I shake my head. “Not up to coffee, Dad.”

  “It’s not coffee.”

  He hands me a mug and sits down at the desk. “Did you text Coral?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’ll be fine. It’ll give her a chance to road-test whatshisname.”

  “Dom. He seems nice.”

  “He’ll need to be more than nice to tick my sister’s boxes.”

  I take a deep breath of the hot chocolate and I’m seven. Sitting in my bedroom in the old house, before Coral’s, sipping from one of the big mugs as he tells me that mum’s gone on “a trip”.

  “Eighteen soon, Mars,” he says. “Can you believe it?”

  I run my finger round the foamy edge of my mug. “Kind of have to, don’t I?”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah? What makes you so sure?”

  He stares into his chocolate. “Because you’re strong enough to do what you want.”

  Younger Dad, sitting on my bedroom floor, all weak smiles and no answers.

  “Doesn’t suit you,” I say.

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Fatherly wisdom.”

  I watch his eyes glaze over, like somebody took out his batteries. Then he smiles.

  “You’re right. Who am I kidding?”

  “Not me.”

  We sit and sip quietly by lamplight.

  “You want to know what she wrote, in the letter?”

  “Mars … I—” He shakes his head. He still can’t handle it.

  I lean back against the wall. Dad looks down. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  His face is all apology, like he’s been saving them up, waiting for the right moment.

  “I remember fighting,” I say. “Hearing you fight. Stuff smashing.”

  Dad sits back. “Yeah. She liked to throw stuff. Used to make her so angry.”

  “What did?”

  “Me. I wasn’t what she wanted.”

  He finishes his chocolate and wipes the foam from his lips.

  “People do what they want, Mars, or they don’t. Nobody knows what’ll make them happy. Not until they find it.”

  He smiles and stands up and, even though part of me wants more, it feels like the end of the scene.

  “She seems peaceful,” he says, pointing at Calvin fast asleep at the end of the bed.

  “She’s knack
ered,” I say. “And high. Morgan made sure of that.”

  “He seems like a good guy. How old is he?”

  “Twenty, I think. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  “I’m not interested in Morgan, Dad.”

  “I know you’re not.” He points at my black ink line on the wall. “You going to finish that?”

  I sip the last of my chocolate. “Dunno. Maybe.”

  “Ideas come when they’re ready. Not before,” he says.

  I wipe the ring of chocolate from inside my mug and lick my finger.

  “He’s a big fan of yours, you know, Morgan?”

  Dad shakes his head,. “He clearly doesn’t have a clue what he is, that one. Warm boy though, good with people.”

  “Yeah? Why don’t you give him a job then?” I say smiling.

  Dad taps his empty mug on the door frame.

  “I did. He starts Monday.”

  Step out of the lift.

  The cast on my left arm looks like the end of a giant cotton bud. My back is killing me, and my forehead still stings.

  It was already dark when I came to, spreadeagled on a mound of broken bricks, and, by the time I got myself to the hospital, the waiting room was full of drunken Saturday night casualties.

  Nobody else is getting hurt.

  It’s the fade, I know that. Seeing spots. The weakness.

  The house has no front now. An open 3D cross-section model of the place you grew up in. I’m the best at my job even by accident.

  I just want bed.

  The bin bag is still outside next door. Black and slumped.

  “Why the hell are you still here?” Their door is closed.

  “This isn’t a rubbish dump, you know. You hear me?” I step towards it. “You stupid sack of useless rubbish.”

  My body aches.

  “What did you say?”

  The bag sits lifeless.

  “Yeah. Thought so. Stay quiet. We’re nothing alike.”

  Kick my door open. And shuffle inside.

  Sundays slow the world down.

  Everything takes longer. Breathing. The kettle boiling. Lights blinking on.

  It’s like, for the rest of the week, the record spins at forty-five rpm, but on Sunday somebody switches the turntable to thirty-three.

  I pull the sheet up over my shoulders. Everything is asleep.

  It’s the prologue to the day.

  This is the hour when you can hear the invisible veins of a house, the pipes that bring the heat and the water. It’s the hour when people who are awake sit, with hot drinks, staring out of windows, thinking about important things.

  About leaving.

  She’ll be awake.

  She’ll be sitting at a thick wooden table, in some long, Spanish barn-conversion kitchen, dropping blueberries into a bowl of bright white yoghurt. Pushing her hair behind her ear and reaching for the jar of locally sourced honey.

  There’ll be a dog. Near her bare feet. One of those big horsey dogs that lollops around on chunky paws. The kind of dog more likely to lick a burglar’s hand than raise the alarm.

  And music. Low and warm. Something that feels obvious. Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald, but to her it will have special meaning. Like she couldn’t get to sleep as a baby without being sung “Miss Otis Regrets”.

  She’ll sip her coffee, from one of those chic, retro glass mugs, and stare out through the open back door.

  And there’ll be a thought.

  Half a thought.

  A picture.

  A face.

  A girl.

  A daughter.

  Stare at the phone.

  Shiny black plastic. Circular dial.

  Blue could fix me.

  Easy as breathing, she could make the pain in my body go away.

  So why don’t I call her?

  The phone stares back at me. Still in my clothes from yesterday. On top of my duvet. Nearly midday.

  “Shut up.”

  I roll over and something digs into my thigh. Straining to lift my body, I pull out a chunk of brick. A cube of chipped maroon with a limpet of pale mortar stuck to the corner. Stare at it. Broken and rubbish.

  Made for a purpose.

  Then thrown on the pile.

  Four rings is the usual cut-off.

  The point when I get myself ready to leave an answerphone message rather than speak to the actual person. What message do I leave? How do I sum this up in a concise and clear way before the beep? Why didn’t I plan my speech before I called?

  “Mars?” She’s outside. The air swirling around the receiver.

  “Yeah.”

  “What? Can you? Me? Been?”

  “Car?”

  “Reception. Crap. We’re. These cliffs!”

  “Cool,”

  “What?”

  “I said cool. Listen, Car—”

  “So cool, Mars! Like. Postcard. Something. Tried. Phone? You doing?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to speak to you. I’ve got something to say.”

  “Mars? I. Anything. Vodafone. Shit.”

  “Car? Cara?”

  “Night. Sean. Sofa. Weird.”

  “Cara?”

  “Mars?”

  Gone.

  They can clone a sheep. And put nano-cameras in paint.

  But take a mobile phone to where the land meets the sea and you’re screwed.

  Grab laptop from desk.

  Through to empty shop. Mini jack lead. iTunes. Empty-house playlist.

  Tune Yard’s “Bird-Brains”. Volume up. All the way up.

  Play.

  Loud, warped, reversed strings pour out like rainbow-coloured lava.

  Thick, plucked guitar.

  Merrill Garbus’s voice.

  “I’ll never leave you alone

  Breaking is part of the bone.”

  Nine hundred and sixty-two pages.

  Six years of on-and-off watching.

  Six years of slow-motion claw typing.

  Pointless now.

  Three more days and this will just be a typewriter.

  My window to you will close. The house will be gone.

  And all I’ll have is this stupid pile of pages.

  A pelican as big as an elephant lands on top of the office block across the street. Its huge feathers are a royal blue with black tips. Golden-yellow beak. Its webbed feet curl over the edge of the roof as it scours the street below. Maybe I could move. Find somewhere else. Maybe I could hitch a ride in its mouth when it takes off.

  Take off.

  Leave all of this behind.

  Three. Two. One.

  “What?”

  Calvin is sitting in the middle of the floor, head tilted, staring at me.

  “You got something to say?”

  She yawns and falls over.

  I nod. “Yeah, and stay down.”

  The black line I drew on the wall is a single strand of a giant’s hair. A giant Cara. Jet-black bob, bending down like the BFG to look into the window of Coral’s house.

  I go to the filing cabinet and open the top drawer. A few office-looking papers and a pen. I take out the pen and open the second drawer. More papers, a packet of black plastic spines and two more pens. I take out the pens and spines and pull at the bottom drawer. It doesn’t budge.

  I pull harder. Nothing.

  I take one of the spines from the packet and try to wedge it in the gap between the top of the drawer and the frame. Calvin sits up and watches me like I’m a YouTube clip.

  ‘Girl vs Drawer.’

  I manage to force the narrow end of the spine into the gap, then try to lever the drawer open, jiggling it a little further in. It won’t move and now the spine is bending.

  “Why lock a drawer, Calvin? Eh?”

  I lean on the spine and it snaps, a small piece of black plastic stuck in the gap.

  “Shit!”

  I smack the drawer with the bottom of my fist and the bang makes Calvin dart out of the room.

  “Easy!”
says Dad’s voice from the stairs and I hear him stumble down the last few, trying not to step on her as she scampers past him.

  “You scared her.”

  I drop the broken spine. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “What you doing?”

  “This dumb drawer won’t open.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “How should I know, Dad? It’s your flipping cabinet. Why did you lock it? Top-secret documents?”

  Dad stares at the filing cabinet like he’s trying to read a road sign from 150 metres.

  “Who knows? Diamonds? Human hand?”

  “Forget it.” I sit back on the bed. “How’s it going then?”

  Dad sighs. “Don’t become a writer, Mars.”

  “I hadn’t planned to.”

  “Neither did I. Budge up.”

  He sits down next to me, our backs against the wall. “Maybe there’s enough books,” he says.

  If it was anyone else, it’d feel like they were fishing for compliments, but it’s Dad, so it sounds more like a heavily considered argument.

  I nod slowly. “Maybe. But what else can you do?”

  “That, my cocktail-haired princess, is the question.” He lifts his bare feet and wiggles his toes.

  “What’s on your mind, Mars?”

  Cara. Mum. That last exam. The future. You.

  “Nothing.”

  Then he punches my thigh. Like a proper punch, and the muscle goes numb.

  “Ow! Why’d you do that?”

  “Now you’ve got something to think about,” he says.

  I rub my thigh. And laugh.

  He laughs too.

  Both of us watching the empty chair.

  I wasn’t sure you’d come.

  Me either.

  But you did.

  Yeah.

  Can I ask about the arm?

  Accident, at work.

  I see. And how’s it going, work?

  It’s going.

  And you?

  I’m going too.

  Thor …

  I get it, Alan. It’s OK. No more resisting. I’ll do what you want.

  This isn’t about me, Thor. What do you want?

  Does it matter?

  Did something happen?

  Nothing new.

  Are you OK?

  I don’t know.

  Do you feel it coming?

  All the time.

  And does it make sense to you now?