Nobody Real

by Steven Camden

  I’m wondering what music she can hear in her head to move this way.

  I’m wondering why I can’t hear it.

  I want to dance too. Follow her into the forest.

  But I don’t know the way.

  I got you still water.

  Yeah, thanks.

  Do you want some?

  Not really. Sorry.

  No problem. So, here we are.

  Yep.

  How’re you feeling?

  I’m OK, I think. Yesterday was a bit intense.

  Some weakness?

  That might be an understatement.

  I remember I fell into the road.

  Because of the fade?

  Yeah. At rush hour. I was waiting at the crossing, and my legs just gave way. I fell forward. Thought I was going to drop right through the concrete.

  What happened?

  I kind of stopped myself with my hands, somehow, kept myself on all fours, then I look up and there’s this bus coming right for me.

  And you couldn’t move?

  No. My legs wouldn’t respond, and the bus is coming. I remember the driver’s eyes – he was this frog, with these big bug eyes – the fear in them, knowing he couldn’t stop. I put my hands up, like that was going to make a difference.

  Then what?

  Then the bus passed right through me. Or more like we passed through each other. I remember seeing the feet of the people sitting on it, flying past me, going wherever they were going. Like a flashing second of shoes and shopping bags, and then I was out the other side.

  How did you get out of the road?

  I don’t know. I came to and I was lying on the floor in the noodle bar, strangers leaning over me.

  Man.

  Yeah. It must be happening all the time, right? I mean, people hitting ten years, the fade. Weird that I’ve never seen it, with everyone in the city, you know?

  We don’t always see what we’re not looking for. The things we don’t want to face.

  The truth.

  Now who sounds lame?

  Just practising.

  Nice. So do you have a last-day plan?

  I’m not sure.

  But you’re going to cross?

  Yeah. Just for a goodbye. I mean, not that she’ll even know.

  And then the house will be finished?

  Just the door left really. When I cross back, I’ll smash it and stay on site for a while, let the fade wipe me out somewhere relatively safe.

  Good idea. Just be careful. The pull will be strongest in the last moments.

  So are we done?

  I guess so. Unless you have any questions for me?

  Not really. It’s pretty straightforward. One more day with her, then get on that train.

  That’s right. The rest of your life is waiting.

  Whoopee.

  You’ll be fine, Thor. Just fine.

  Yeah. Just fine.

  “When did you do it?” says Cara, through a mouthful of pancake.

  She’s sitting up on their kitchen counter, sun-kissed shoulders glowing next to her snug white vest.

  I touch my hair. “Last week. Just felt like doing something.”

  I scrape a line in the puddle of syrup on my empty plate and lick my fingertip.

  “I love it! It’s so … blue!”

  “Yep. You can stop staring now.”

  She points at my plate. “You want more? Dad made a stack.”

  “I’m good, thanks. Is Morgan here?”

  It doesn’t feel like anyone else is home.

  “God knows where he is. He grunted at me on his way out earlier. No ‘how was your trip?’ or ‘welcome back’. He’s such a moody shit. And he was in a fight.”

  “What? Who with?”

  “Dunno, but he’s got a proper bruise on his face.”

  Morgan in the taxi, holding the cool pack to his head, listening as I told him.

  His smile when I finished.

  “Anyway, forget Morgan, Mars. Me and Sean!” She drums the counter with her fists. “Can you believe it?”

  I scrape another line in my syrup to make a T. “It’s great.”

  “I can’t believe it! All this time, and he liked me. Crazy! I’m going to his tonight, to meet his nan. You have to help me, give me tips. I want her to like me, Mars.”

  I picture her on Sean’s lap, eyes closed in laughter in one of those four-frame strips from a photo booth.

  “Leona’s lovely, Car. And she’ll love you.”

  “You think?”

  She clicks the kettle on next to her. I’ve seen her excited thousands of times, but I’m not sure I’ve seen her this happy. “What’s not to like?” I say. “Pretty girl, career plan, off to university. You’re a grandma’s dream.”

  She laughs and nerves bubble in my stomach.

  “Tell her.”

  You’re next to their huge fridge, leaning on the wall. You smile at me. “It’s time, Marcie.”

  “Car.”

  Cara jumps down off the counter and starts making another coffee.

  “I didn’t tell you the best bit yet,” she says, as I watch her back. The clasp of her bra like a tiny square vertebra.

  “Car, listen—”

  She spins round, grinning like she just won a game show. “He’s coming!”

  “What?”

  “Sean. He’s coming with us, to Leeds!”

  I look at you. You shrug.

  “What do you mean?”

  The spoon is in her hand like a wand. “We talked about it. He’s going to look into clearing. Find a course.”

  “A course in what?”

  “I don’t know. Music, or sound engineering or something else, something he’s into. How cool is that?”

  You fold your arms. “Guess it worked even better than you thought.”

  Cara looks towards the fridge, then at me. “So? Say something, Mars.”

  I stare at my plate.

  “Cool.”

  She sips her coffee. “How many times do you have to kiss to be a girlfriend? Am I a girlfriend? Girl friend.” She laughs again. “It’s gonna be so good, Mars. The three of us, out on our own.”

  “Tell her.”

  I look up.

  “I’m not coming.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not coming to Leeds.”

  She thinks I’m joking. “Yes you are. Course you are. We got in, remember?”

  You nod again.

  “I won’t get the grades, Car.”

  Cara rolls her eyes. “Oh, Mars. I’m nervous too, but we’ll be fine. We did the work. We studied. Trust me. We’ll get what we need and we’ll be gone. Just like we planned.”

  Shake my head.

  “I won’t.”

  She sees that I’m serious.

  “Marcie, what did you do?”

  The clock ticks.

  Ten minutes in

  and my page is still empty.

  All around me, a gym full of people sit in rows, heads bobbing like a gridded flock of feeding birds, speed-scrawling answers to questions we’ve spent months preparing for.

  Every few breaths, a head will pop up, like it heard something. The distant call of that great idea. That one quote that could turn forty UCAS points into forty-eight.

  This is it.

  I know what I’m supposed to do. And I know what I want to do.

  Last chance.

  My pen tip scratches the blank paper.

  Like a claw.

  And then I feel you.

  For the first time in years. Watching me. Knowing my thoughts.

  I look up.

  Across the room.

  And there you are. Smiling. Punisher T-shirt. Older. Stronger.

  I look at my empty paper. Look at you. “Do it,” you say.

  So I draw.

  It’s a bookshop. Walls of shelves filled with hundreds of spines. Rows and rows of vertical stitches, each one a door to a story. A world.

  The ceiling is low. Two o
ld strip lights and peeling paint.

  There are four display tables. Each one holds small towers of books that look like buildings.

  That are buildings. Scale-model tower blocks and skyscrapers. Rollercoasters and castles. Miniature imaginary cities.

  There is a small curved counter. With a till. And a chair.

  On the chair sits a girl. Sketchbook on her lap. Pencil in hand. Hair like black fire. A smile on her face.

  Musical notes dance out of the speakers behind her. A procession of black stick figures.

  And to the right, half hidden behind the central supporting pillar, there is a boy.

  Tall and strong. A hero’s face. Arms of a bear.

  Underneath the picture:

  This is not a cry for help.

  This is not an irrational lashing-out, or a cover-up for not doing the revision. I did the work.

  This is a choice.

  I know what I want, and what I want doesn’t fit with other people’s plans.

  I could go along with things. Carry on riding in someone else’s carriage and be fine.

  But I don’t want fine.

  I want me.

  I want space. And time.

  To think.

  And find.

  Time to breathe.

  Maybe I’m stupid.

  Maybe I’ve created this feeling to try and cover up my fear. My dad says the mind can make up anything to help the body feel better about a mistake.

  And maybe that’s what I’m doing.

  Making a big mistake.

  Maybe.

  But at least it’ll be mine.

  “You’re joking, right?” Cara says.

  But she knows I’m not.

  “Mars, I don’t understand.”

  “I’d like you to.”

  I look at you, smiling near the fridge. “I’ll see you back at the shop,” you say, and disappear.

  “Car, look—”

  “No, Marcie, you look. That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Who does that? Who draws a picture on an exam paper instead of answering the question?”

  “I guess I do.”

  Cara frowns. “No!”

  “Car, I’ve been trying to tell you, I have, it’s just—”

  “You idiot! This messes everything up! We had a plan!”

  “No. You did. You had the plan.”

  She starts pacing. “I don’t believe this. What’s Coral gonna say? Does she know?”

  I nod.

  “What? And she’s cool with it? She’s cool with you throwing your life away?”

  “I’m not throwing my life away, Cara.”

  “No? So what are you doing? Explain to me exactly what it is that you’re doing, Marcie.”

  “I’m taking some time.”

  “For what?”

  “For me.”

  She stops pacing and looks round the kitchen, like she’s searching for some killer point that will beat me. “What do you need time for?”

  “Everything. Nothing. I just … it’s what feels right, when I listen to myself.”

  I can feel the tears building as I watch the most determined person I know process this bombshell. The cinema in her head running through her pre-planned flicker book of next year, I watch her face twitch like a faulty robot.

  “Car, say something. Please.”

  “But I need you, Mars,” she says, finally. “You’re my thingy. You’re my rock.”

  I stare at the T in my maple syrup.

  “I’m sorry, Car. Maybe it’s time to fly.”

  We look at each other. Cara and Marcie. Lois Lane and Jubilee. Thrown together for some hybrid story arc.

  Nothing in between us but the truth.

  Cara’s face screws up in disgust. “Time to fly?”

  “Yeah, sorry, don’t know where that came from.”

  “Man.”

  She mimes throwing up. And we laugh, relief flooding through me.

  “It’s the right thing for me,” I say.

  Cara sighs and sits down. “Sean’s gonna be gutted.”

  “No he won’t. Not with you.” I hold out my hand across the table. “You’ll be great together, Car.”

  She lays her perfect hand on top of mine and smiles.

  “I get it, Mars.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think so.” She squeezes my hand. “Maybe you just need a year out.”

  “Maybe.”

  She lets go of my hand. “You have to come up, OK? Lots!”

  “Are you kidding? Watching a super journalist in her element? I’ll be up all the time.”

  She wipes her cheeks. “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. Stuff. Nothing. Read. Help with the shop. Draw.”

  Cara’s face lights up.

  “Yes! You’ll be my free-spirited artist friend!”

  And, as she runs into her pitch for the amended movie of our lives, I can feel in my bones that I’ve done the right thing.

  I walk down the open stairs.

  Feel OK. My legs work. My arms and chest, all solid.

  Maybe I’m past the worst of it?

  The site looks like the set of a play about the Blitz. Mounds of rubble surround the untouched sofa and armchair.

  You told her, Marcie.

  You did it.

  Just Dad left.

  I move the two breeze blocks at the bottom of the pile nearest the armchair and take out my bag. The typewriter and box file look strange in this different setting. Everything that connects me to you has to be here for the fade.

  I pour myself a coffee from Blue’s flask, put the typewriter on my lap and load a fresh sheet of paper into the roll.

  And I feel OK.

  More than OK.

  As I sip my coffee and breathe, I feel proud.

  You’re in Cara’s car.

  You stare out of the passenger window as she drives you back to the shop.

  You feel a strange kind of emptiness. Not the empty of something missing, more the clarity of nothing in the way. A blank page. Uncertain.

  And full of possibilities.

  Part of you wants to tell her what you didn’t mention back at hers.

  The letter.

  Your mum.

  But you don’t.

  That’s just between you and Dad. And her.

  If you find her.

  The shop is just like I left it, dark and empty.

  Dad probably hasn’t even ventured downstairs today and Morgan will be staying away for the foreseeable future. If Dad hadn’t bought this place outright, we’d have gone under months ago. The minuscule level of business we do, if the police were surveilling the place, they’d probably believe it was some kind of front for gangsters.

  I do my best cat-whisperer call, rubbing my fingertips together and making a sound like a leaking balloon. No sign or sound of Calvin. Maybe she’s asleep upstairs.

  Deep breath of quiet shop.

  I did it.

  I told her. And it’s OK.

  It’s better than OK.

  I put on some Nina Simone and sit at the till. Old music suits me more.

  Nobody ever knows what’s coming. People plan so that they have something to see when they look through the window of their futures, but anything can happen, no matter your plan.

  I’m good with not knowing. Right now, not knowing fits.

  Closing my eyes, I fill my lungs.

  For the first time in forever, I feel light.

  “Feeling good?”

  You’re sunk in the sofa, arms out either side like a mob boss.

  “Yeah. I am.”

  “Are you going to tell Dad?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Where do you think he’s gone?”

  “No idea but he took Calvin with him.”

  “Maybe he went to get her a collar? One of those little bells?”

  “Or maybe he’s in the supermarket right now, holding her up next to the cat-food packets, checking which is the
right one to buy.”

  “Also possible.”

  We laugh.

  “He’s not going to like it, Thor.”

  You nod. “I know. But it’s not about him, is it? It’s about you.”

  My sketchbook is on the counter. I don’t remember putting it there. I wouldn’t put it there.

  “You didn’t.”

  Your smile.

  “What do you want, Thor?”

  “I want you to draw me, Marcie. Will you draw me, please?”

  There’s an special intimacy in drawing someone.

  Marking your page, it’s almost as though they’re watching you touch them.

  Each line a fingertip, traced on their skin. Knowing them. Being allowed to.

  Two hours go by, and I fill pages with you. The curve of your shoulder. The cords in your neck.

  The door locked, we don’t speak.

  When my pencil grows blunt, I fetch another and keep drawing.

  The light fades outside.

  And it is perfect.

  Just like the beginning.

  “We could just do this,” I say, as I finish shading your paw.

  There is a sadness in your smile. “That would be good.”

  You cross your legs on the sofa, elbows on knees, looking at me.

  “It’s OK to feel nervous,” you say. “The nerves might be the only way you really know.”

  You are on my paper. And you are here with me.

  “When did you get wise, Thor Baker?”

  You fold your arms. “I’ll never be wise. Just seems to me that nobody really knows anything for more than a moment. Not for sure.”

  “Nobody?”

  Another smile.

  “Nobody real.”

  I stroke your image on my page. “What if she doesn’t want to know me, Thor? What if I manage to track her down, knock on her door, and she just shakes her head and gets on with her life?”

  “Then you get on with yours.” You stand up and step forward, a determined look on your face.

  “Happiness can exist only in acceptance, Marcie.”

  You are beautiful, Thor Baker. My greatest thing.

  There’s a knock on the glass. Somebody peeking in through the crack next to the blind.

  It’s Sean.

  I look at you, waiting for you to disappear.

  You look at me.

  And smile.

  “Yo! Can I touch it?”