The Janus Cycle

by Tej Turner

  Like most fifteen-year-old girls on a Saturday, I slept the rest of the morning. Dreamlessly. Unlike most fifteen-year-olds, I was woken up by the sound of my mother practicing yoga in the living room. She was under the instruction of one of those guidance videos and we live in a bungalow with very thin walls.

  “Stretch and hold. Breathe deeply. Feel the mercurial energies of water flowing through your chakras.”

  I sighed and tried to ignore the sound of the woman’s infuriatingly placid voice as I made my way to the shower. A few minutes later I was clean and dressed. To get to the kitchen I had to walk through the living room where my mother was standing on her head, stretching her legs up high in the air.

  “Morning mum,” I said as I tiptoed past her.

  “All that black doesn’t suit you, you know,” she said, although I wasn’t sure how valid her opinion was, viewing me upside-down. “It’s your eyes, Faye. Your eyes are too light.”

  I didn’t reply. She said the same thing to me a few weeks ago when she took me shopping for clothes, but she still bought them for me. Such passive guidance was typical of my mother: she is one of those New Age types who believe the young should be free to blossom without being smothered with oppressive confinements. This didn’t stop her enrolling me at the local school.

  “What are you doing today?” she asked as I doused my cereal with milk. She was now curved up in the Bow Pose, rocking back and forth. “I have meditation class this afternoon but I am free tonight if you want to spend some time together? We’ll get a—”

  “I’m going to a party with Amy and Harriet,” I said apologetically. “I think we’re staying at Amy’s. Is that okay?”

  I could tell she was disappointed but she nodded her head. “Just make sure you take your phone with you. Does Amy’s mother know where you’re going?”

  “I think so,” I said casually. I then turned away so she couldn’t see my face. I have never been a good liar. If her mother really knew where we were going that night Amy would be grounded for weeks. “They’re coming later to pick me up. Can they hang out for a while?”

  “I guess so,” she said as she straightened her legs and rolled back onto her side. “Just behave yourselves.”

  After my mother left the house, I picked up my bass guitar and began to practice. The speakers of my computer blasted out music from a playlist of my favourites while I plucked away at the strings. It is only when my mother is out that I get to practice this loudly because she says that the music I have been getting into recently is bad for the soul. She thinks that everything is bad for the soul. TV. Radio. Fizzy Drinks. Computer games. Artificial preservatives and flavourings.

  It’s not that I don’t like my mother. I mean, as far as mothers go, she is pretty cool. I know this. She believes me sensible enough to not get into trouble, so I can leave the house without her asking too many questions. I know I could talk to her about almost anything and she is such a beatnik there is not much that would shock or surprise her.

  It’s just that when you’re growing up sometimes you just want to be normal, and it is a continual effort to fit in when your mum sends you to school with a lunchbox filled with bean salad and picks you up at the end of the day dressed in tweed.

  I was in a zone of sounds and rhythms for most of the afternoon until my fingers began to feel sore and I looked at the clock and realised that Amy and Harriet would be here soon. I had not put any makeup on yet so I rushed over to the mirror and hastily applied thick measures of black eyeliner around my eyes, followed by a smothering of dark lipstick.

  After covering my face in powder and smearing cerulean shadows above my cheeks Amy and Harriet burst into the room. Amy was wearing a netted top, miniskirt and tights, all in black; and her hair was tied up, apart from a few rebellious strands she had carefully gelled across her face. Harriet, her ever-present shadow, was in a black dress and leather boots. They both had spiked bracelets strapped around their wrists.

  With a bottle of vodka in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, Amy looked me up and down. “Faye, what the hell have you done to your eyes?” she asked, turning to Harriet. They both cackled at me.

  “Here,” she said, passing her cigarette over to Harriet, who began to suck away at it without inhaling. “Let me fix that up for you.”

  I wanted to tell them to stop smoking – my mother had smelt it last time they came over and told me off – but before I could get a word in Amy was sitting beside me, rummaging through her makeup.

  “Take this,” Harriet said, passing me a bottle. I took a swig and restrained a shudder as the vodka trickled down my throat.

  “Close your eyes a sec, Faye,” Amy requested as she dipped a brush in some dark purple powder. After applying, she blew a warm, smoky breath of air over my face. “That’s much better,” Amy marvelled as she admired her handiwork before turning back to Harriet. “Don’t you think?”

  Harriet agreed immediately. I looked at my reflection in the mirror; the mauve under my eyes made me look like I had not slept for a week but I shrugged. At least they weren’t laughing at me anymore.

  “You didn’t tell your Mum where we’re going tonight, did you?” Amy asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

  I shook my head. “I said we were going to a party.”

  “Mine thinks we’re having a sleepover,” Harriet added.

  “Good,” Amy smiled. “I think we’re covered then.”

  “Where are we going, again?” I asked.

  “Janus,” Amy replied, rolling her eyes, as if by not knowing the name I had just committed blasphemy. “Where else would we go in this shit town?”

  “Is Paul still coming?” Harriet asked, a sudden light appearing in her eyes. Paul was a boy at school she had a crush on.

  “Paul?” I asked. “But you said this club was a place for... well, you know... people like us?”

  Amy shook her head, smiling. “Paul has seen the darkness now. Didn’t you notice all those badges he’s been sticking on his bag recently? I sit next to him in maths. He’s learning to play guitar.”

  “Oh,” I muttered. This news actually annoyed me though. Paul was one of those popular kids. The sort of guy Harriet would not have stood a chance with a year ago. Amy, Harriet and I had always been outsiders, the sort who just didn’t fit in. I was never really bothered by it but I could tell that Amy wanted more.

  A while ago Amy changed. She started to listen to heavy music with distorted guitars and screaming vocals, and she adopted the styles of some of these musicians and dyed her hair black. She introduced Harriet and me to it all and the three of us – the outsiders – found something we had never had before: an identity. People began to see us in a different way.

  The moment that really turned it all around, though, was when some of the bands we liked aired on the radio and other people began to like it. Kids at school started dressing like us and Amy turned into a guru who lent them CDs and gave them advice on where to buy the darkest and most outrageous clothes. Suddenly we found ourselves with not just an identity, but also something we never even dreamed we would have: status.

  But Paul becoming one of us vexed me. We were in the same tutor group at school and he had been teasing me for years over the way my mother dressed; the fact that I lived in a bungalow; my wild, wavy, auburn hair which refused to be tamed until the day I discovered black hair dye and hair-straighteners. Paul, who had always tried to make my like hell for being a bit different, was now assimilating himself with me.

  “Oh, and Faye,” Amy said, bursting the bubble of my thoughts. “I think Steve is coming as well, and guess what!”

  “What?” I asked, shrugging. Steve was a boy I had a couple of classes with. He had never been nasty to me or anything, but he was quiet and I had always thought him a bit boring.

  “You can’t tell I told you this,” Amy whispered, even though it was just the three of us there. “But a little crow told me he likes you!”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. It wasn�
�t often boys fancied me. Not that I knew of anyway.

  “He’s cute Faye!” Harriet slapped my shoulder. She then turned to Amy. “Is Josh coming?”

  “Yes. I rang him earlier,” Amy replied. Josh was her boyfriend; they had been dating each other for a few weeks. He dressed like a skater but his only real hobby was smoking weed. He was nice enough, if a little dull in the head. “Looks like it’s a triple date!”

  I sighed. Neither of them even asked me if I fancied Steve.

  After a few shots I was feeling much more relaxed. The afternoon drained away while we sat on my bed, chatting, drinking, smoking, and teasing each other. Eventually my eyes were drawn to the clock on the wall and I realised my mother was due back soon so I began to motivate them to get up and make a swift exit.

  “Hold on, missy,” Amy answered. She had a stick of mascara in her hand and was applying a few more garish touches to Harriet’s face.

  I stubbed my cigarette out on a plate and sighed. They always did this. Even when we arrived there they would be taking regular trips to the bathroom to paint their faces in front of the mirror. I have never understood how they could be so vain.

  I heard a duo of cackling behind me and turned to catch the sight of Amy and Harriet falling on the floor together. They tumbled around in a drunken black bundle of limbs and laughing.

  I cursed and grabbed Harriet by the arm, hauling her back onto her feet. Amy was still rolling around in fits of laughter.

  “How much’s she drunk?” I asked. Harriet shrugged.

  “Get up, Amy!” I yelled, but she wasn’t listening. Her attention was drawn to something under my desk and she stretched her arm out.

  “What the hell is this?” she exclaimed, pulling out my flute. “Jesus, Faye! What are you, the Pied Piper or something? You still have this?”

  Harriet began to mime playing, (quite badly, she wasn’t even holding the imaginary flute the right way round) and skipped around the room like a Morris dancer.

  “Stop it!” I yelled, pulling Amy back up and dragging her out of the room. “We need to go! Now!”

  Harriet grabbed their bags and they both carried on laughing as we left the house. Just as I reached the front door, it opened itself, and my mother was there, standing in the frame. She looked at me, and I could tell by her expression she knew something was up. But, being my mother, she didn’t yell, she just gave me that look. The disappointed look.

  Amy and Harriet abruptly went quiet and breezed past her, making a swift exit down the street.

  “Faye,” she said, softly. “You’ve been smoking! I can smell it!”

  “Sorry, Mum,” I said as I reached for my coat.

  Janus was everything Amy promised: dark and dingy, full of people wearing black clothes and spiked bracelets, angry rock music blasting out of the speakers, tonnes of underage kids drinking.

  And I found myself unexplainably uncomfortable and disappointed.

  We bought drinks and then Amy made us stand by the crowds of people gathered near the speakers. It was too loud for us to have much conversation and I started to feel bored.

  So bored I was actually glad to make a visit to the bathroom. Amy led us up a rickety staircase and then down a winding passage cluttered with people drinking and talking. The thumping music from downstairs quietened and the chatter from the crowds of drinkers filled my ears. This part of the club was markedly different; the light bulbs were dim, the walls were faded and the drinkers were more diverse. The hall downstairs was a world of black clothes, dark hair and spiked jewellery, but this world up here was full of variations, styles and colours. Men in torn jeans and straggly hair drinking cider, a boy in a green elf hat sat against the wall smoking a pipe and rocking his head back and forth, I even looked through the doorway of a room we passed to see a group of girls playing hopscotch on some lines they had chalked on the floor, one of them was wearing a large frilly dress, like she was out of some kind of pre-Raphaelite painting.

  I then saw a familiar face at the end of the hallway that made me gasp. I stopped and stared, blinked a few times, to make sure I was really seeing what I thought, but there she remained.

  It was the girl from my dream. My vision of her was distorted by the smoke of cigarettes and the shoulders of people standing between us, but I knew that face. I was about to walk over to her but Amy grabbed my arm and pulled me into the girls’ toilets.

  She and Harriet began to paint their faces in the mirror again. I opened my mouth to say something but quickly realised that I couldn’t really say anything that wouldn’t sound ridiculous. I had just seen a girl I had never met before, apart from when she made me orgasm with a flute in a dream I had.

  Now I wasn’t going to tell them about that, was I? So I went into a cubicle and relieved myself.

  When we left the toilets I turned my head to look up the hallway where I had seen her, but she was gone. I tried to convince Amy and Harriet that this place seemed interesting and we should explore more but Amy pulled out her phone.

  “Josh just text me,” she said. “The boys’ll be here soon.”

  “Amy,” I said as we made our way back downstairs to the bar. “How’s the guitar going?”

  “So-so,” she replied, shrugging. “It’s so cool we’re in a band though! I can’t wait!”

  How can we be in a band when we’ve never played together? I thought to myself.

  “Okay...” I said. “How are you doing with it all? What can you play?”

  “I dunno...” Amy said, shrugging again. “Paul said he is going to teach me the power chord. Apparently that’s all you need. What can you play?”

  I began to list the ones I could remember from the top of my head, and with each addition Amy’s eyes widened more. Eventually I realised I was losing her, so I stopped.

  “How did you learn so quickly?” she gasped.

  I practiced...

  “I mean. Did you manage to find tabs for all those songs?” she asked. “I was looking at some of them the other day on the internet, and they just confused me!”

  “I don’t use tabs,” I said. “I can read music... and you can figure most of them out by listening anyway...”

  “You what?” Amy exclaimed, staring at me as if I had just told her I was one of the X-Men and I had laser beam tits.

  “Harriet,” I said, turning to her. She was leaning over the bar counter trying to get the attention of the barman. “How’s the drums?”

  “I tried to get some but Mum said she doesn’t want the noise...” she replied. “I’ll bug her again at Christmas.”

  “So let me get this straight,” I said, looking at both of them. “Neither of you can actually play yet?”

  “Chill out,” Amy said, passing me a glass of whiskey and lemonade. “It’s a work in progress. We’ll get there...” She pointed to the other side of the room. “Look! The boys are here!”

  I counted to ten to calm myself down. I probably wouldn’t have even taken up playing bass guitar if it wasn’t for them, and I also felt kind of guilty when I asked my Mum to buy me one because she doesn’t earn much money. It was almost six months ago that we decided we would learn how to play so we could start a band. We were going to call ourselves ‘Shadow Sisters’.

  By the time we joined the boys, I had managed to mask my anger. The three of them were waiting for us near the entrance. Josh was in a pair of baggy jeans, a red t-shirt, and his hair was spiked. Paul had evidently gone through a dramatic transformation from trendy to goth in a matter of days. Steve lay somewhere in between, wearing baggy black garb.

  “Wow, Amy,” Josh said, in his droning, lazy voice. “This place is so... cool...”

  Amy wrapped her arms around him and started kissing him. The rest of us all looked at each other awkwardly for a few moments.

  “We should go sit somewhere,” I said, looking around for a free table. I pointed one out. “Let’s go there.”

  “Where’s the bar?” Paul asked.

  “I’ll show you!” H
arriet exclaimed. She grabbed his arm and led him through the crowd.

  “Get me a beer,” Josh called, tearing his face away from Amy for a moment.

  “And a rum and coke for me!” Amy yelled.

  While they were gone the rest of us wandered over to the table. Amy and Josh continued to make out. Occasionally, she pulled away from him to exclaim how much a song that was playing “rocked”, and sway her head for a few moments, but their main activity generally endured.

  This left Steve and me sitting next to each other in silence. I felt awkward so I just looked at the people dancing in the middle of the room; but I could feel his eyes on me. Every time I looked at him he turned away.

  Eventually he spoke.

  “Josh told me you guys are in a band,” he said.

  I narrowed my eyes at the back of Amy’s head. Is that what she had been telling everyone, when she couldn’t even play yet?

  “We’re just learning to play first,” I replied.

  “That’s cool,” he said. “I’ve been trying to start one but I can’t find anyone else to play. Paul said he’s going to learn but I don’t think he realises it takes time and work. What do you play?”

  “I’ve been learning bass,” I said. He had my attention now. “What about you?”

  “Guitar,” he replied. “A bit of drums. I used to play cello... but don’t tell the others.”

  I looked at him, realising that I didn’t know him at all and it was wrong to think him boring just because he didn’t talk much. Amy talks a lot but not much of it has value.

  “How long have you been playing for?”

  “I don’t know…” he said, shrugging. “Cello since I was little. I’m grade seven. I started playing guitar when I was twelve – but mostly acoustic. Drums; not very long.”

  “Nice,” I said, realising that I had found someone who actually knew a bit about music. “I’ll tell you a little secret as well; I can play the flute.”

  “Really?” he said. His eyes widened and he looked around self-consciously to make sure that the others couldn’t hear us. Amy and the other kids in school tended to look down on anything musical that didn’t have a place in heavy rock. “What grade are you?”