Clementine and Rudy

by Siobhan Curham

  “Don’t you enjoy your art classes?” Dave asks.

  “No, not really.”

  “I used to feel like that about English lessons,” Dave says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I loved reading and writing as a kid but after my English degree I couldn’t read a novel for about two years. They got us to analyse writing to death and it killed my love of books. I couldn’t read anything without hearing my tutor’s voice saying, ‘What do you think the author really means by this? What’s the underlying theme?’” He laughs.

  “You’ve got a degree?” I can’t even begin to hide my surprise. Dave works as a car mechanic. He’s all roll-up cigarettes and oily jeans and tabloid newspapers. I can’t imagine him at university.

  “Yeah,” he sighs. “Lot of good it did me.”

  “I was just saying to Rudy this morning how important it is to get a degree,” Mum says pointedly.

  “Oh, right, yeah,” Dave says quickly.

  “Why did you study English?” Annoyingly, my curiosity is outweighing my need to blank Dave and all that he stands for.

  “I wanted to be a writer.” He chuckles. “Thought I was gonna be the next Langston Hughes when I was a teen.”

  “So, what went wrong?”

  “Oh, you know, life.” He laughs again but this time it seems to be tinged with sadness.

  I sit back in my seat and frown. I’m in the weird and unsettling position of actually being interested in Dave. It’s all a trap, I remind myself. This whole dinner’s just to butter me up before he moves in. But how long will it be before everything goes wrong? Before he walks out on us just like the others did? I cross my arms tightly in front of my chest. He might have wormed his way into our flat and Mum’s affections but there’s no way I’m letting him in. Why can’t Mum see this too? Why does she keep setting herself up to get hurt?

  “I don’t know if there’s something you dream of doing with your life, Rudy,” Dave says, “but if and when you do, you go for it with everything you’ve got. Seize the day, as my old man always used to tell me.”

  You’re not my old man so don’t get any ideas, mate. “Yeah, OK.”

  Fighting the urge to ask Dave another question, I take out my phone to see if @SpilledInk has replied to my message, but there’s nothing, only a text from Tyler: Yo amigo! How’s it going? Have you choked him with a chimichanga yet?

  Not yet, I type back, but the night is young!

  “Rudy,” Mum says warningly.

  “What?”

  “It’s rude to be on your phone when someone’s talking to you.”

  “Sorry,” I mutter, putting my phone away.

  “It’s OK.” Dave smiles.

  “Do you ever do any writing now, then?” I ask.

  “Nah. Still get ideas though. Usually when I’ve got my head stuck under a bonnet trying to fix someone’s engine. But I never bother writing them down. What’s the point? That ship sailed long ago.”

  “Never mind, baby,” Mum says, stroking his hand.

  I fight the urge to say, You should mind. You should do what matters to you. “So you’ve given up on it, then?”

  “I just don’t have the time. Not with the shifts I work.”

  “Right.” I make a vow to myself right here and now to never be a quitter like Dave.

  CLEMENTINE

  It turns out that it’s very hard to flâneur when you’re hoping to receive a reply to a message. In fact, I’m pretty certain flâneuring wouldn’t have been invented if they’d had mobile phones back in the nineteenth century. As soon as the shock of @FierceUrban wanting to meet me wore off, I sent her a reply saying, Yes – that would be great! Ever since I sent it I’ve had to keep stopping and checking my phone to see if she’s replied. So far, she hasn’t. I wonder if maybe I was a little too vague.

  I head down to the seafront and sit on a bench by the i360 viewing tower. The circular pod is at the top and, lit up red and gold, it looks like an alien spaceship against the night sky. I take out my phone and send another message to @FierceUrban: I’m out in Brighton right now if you’re free? Then I reply to Becky’s earlier message: Sorry, out with a friend. x

  Even though I’m not actually out with @FierceUrban I could be. And that in itself makes me so happy.

  RUDY

  The rest of the meal is a buffet selection of boring and awkward. Thankfully, once Dave has run out of questions, he and Mum start droning on about plans to redecorate the flat. Just the mention of paint makes me long to be out on a darkened street with my spray cans. I make do with going to the toilet instead and draw a giant tortilla swallowing a man in Biro on the back of the cubicle door. Then my phone pings with a notification. @SpilledInk has sent me two new messages. She wants to meet. She wants to meet right now! In an instant my evening turns from dark to light.

  Yes, I’m free, I reply instantly. I lean against the cubicle wall, my heart pounding. This could actually be happening.

  Great! she sends back straight away, like she’s been waiting to hear from me.

  Where would you like to meet? I reply.

  How about the entrance to the pier? she responds.

  This is a good suggestion. There’ll be loads of people around. Just in case @SpilledInk is some kind of poetic serial killer.

  Cool. I can be there in 10.

  Me too!

  Great. See you soon.

  I take a moment to come up with a cover story, then I head back into the restaurant.

  “I’ve got a bit of an emergency,” I say to Mum. “Well, Tyler has. Is it OK if I go and meet him for a hot chocolate?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Mum frowns. “We’re supposed to be having a meal.”

  “We’ve had the meal. And I won’t be long.”

  “Go on, let her have some fun,” Dave says to Mum. “She’s hung out with us oldies long enough.” For once I’m grateful for his campaign of butt-kissing.

  “OK, but I want you home by ten-thirty,” Mum says.

  “Sure.” I grab my coat and head for the door.

  Outside, an icy wind is whipping in from the sea. I pull up the hood on my Puffa jacket and stick my hands deep into my pockets.

  When I get to the seafront I huddle in a shop doorway across the road from the pier and text Tyler: I’m meeting @SpilledInk!

  He replies straight away: When???

  Now!!!

  My phone starts ringing.

  “Where are you meeting?”

  “At the entrance to the pier. She messaged me just now to ask if I wanted to meet.”

  “That’s great.”

  “I’ll call you later and let you know how it goes.”

  “Good luck! I’d better get back to Assassin’s Creed. I’ve just got onto the final level.”

  “Good luck to you too!”

  I put my phone away and walk over to the crossing by the pier. The traffic is a lot quieter at this time in the evening so I’ve got a clear view. I don’t have to meet with @SpilledInk if I don’t want to, I remind myself. She has no clue what I look like so I can just walk by if I don’t like the look of her. As I reach the entrance to the pier I glance at the row of kiosks. There are a handful of people dotted about but none of them are on their own. I keep walking, unsure what to do. I don’t want to stand and wait because that would give @SpilledInk the advantage, removing my option to leave. I walk past the pier and keep walking for a couple of minutes, then I turn and head back. As I get close to the pier a girl walks over and taps me on the arm.

  “Excuse me, have you got the time?”

  I take my phone from my pocket and see that I have a new message from @SpilledInk. “Yeah, it’s nine-twenty-seven,” I say, not looking at the girl as I quickly type a reply to @SpilledInk: Here too.

  There’s a pinging sound as I send the message. I look up and frown. It’s coming from the girl’s coat.

  “Thanks,” she says, taking a phone from her pocket.

  I stare at her. I can tell instantly t
hat her clothes are all designer-label. They have that extra-luxurious look that even the best imitations can’t replicate. I can just make out the edges of a pale blonde fringe poking from under her woolly hat.

  The girl looks at her phone then looks at me. “Is it you?” she says, holding her phone out. “Are you Fierce Urban?”

  Holy guacamole! as Tyler would say. I’m not sure what I was expecting but this girl is not it. She looks just like the kind of girls who bug me the most in school. The ones who look like dolls made of porcelain, with their perfect bodies and immaculate skin. The rich girls who never have to worry about things like money, or having enough clothes, or their mums moving people like Dave in to share the bills.

  The porcelain white of the girl’s face flushes pale pink. “Sorry, I think I’ve got the wrong person.”

  I’m so thrown by what she looks like I don’t know what to say.

  “Sorry to have bothered you.” Her voice is perfect too, all light and melodic, like classical music.

  I watch as she heads over to the doughnut kiosk and says something to the woman behind the counter. The woman starts filling a bag with doughnuts. That’s one thing in her favour, I suppose. At least she isn’t one of those doll-girls who obsesses over her weight. Then I think of @SpilledInk’s first poem. As unlikely as it seems, that girl wrote those words. She understood my pictures. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. The girl hands the woman some money and goes to sit on a bench. She takes out a notebook and pen. Old school. I approve. I move closer. She looks up and nods at me. Then she gets out her phone and taps something into it. This time my phone beeps. I look at the message.

  Are you sure it isn’t you???

  I look at her and she grins. Crap. My cover’s blown. I have no other option but to go over.

  “Sorry. I – uh – just needed to be sure,” I say.

  “Sure of what?”

  “Sure that you weren’t some kind of crazed poet stalker.”

  She laughs. “So, what made you think that you could trust me?”

  “The doughnuts.” I nod at her bag.

  “Oh, do you want one?”

  “Yeah, go on.” I sit down beside her and she offers me the bag. The doughnuts are still really warm. I take a bite out of one. “Oh wow,” I mumble as the crispy, sugary coating gives way to the fluffy doughnut heaven beneath.

  “They’re amazing, aren’t they?” @SpilledInk’s perfect, rosebud lips are now iced with sugar.

  “Yeah.” I take another bite. She’s not the grungy, angsty poet I was expecting, but I get the feeling she’s not exactly what she seems either.

  “I – I really love your artwork.”

  Something inside me softens. “Thank you.”

  “It’s so intriguing. I love that each piece has a really powerful message.”

  “Thanks.” I hate to admit it but, despite @SpilledInk looking every inch like the kind of girl who’d normally be my arch-nemesis, this conversation is starting to feel enjoyable. I’m not quite sure what to do with this fact so I take another bite of my doughnut.

  CLEMENTINE

  I take a deep breath, trying to get my heart rate back to normal. So far, my meeting with Fierce Urban has not gone quite as I’d have liked. I can’t help feeling she was disappointed when she realized who I was. I wonder if she was expecting me to look more edgy and cool; more like her, with her cat-shaped eyes and high cheekbones and silver nose ring, glinting like a star against her brown skin. As if to emphasize her coolness she stretches her long thin legs out in front of her. Her skinny jeans are paint-splattered and torn and she’s wearing black DM boots with silver lightning bolts painted on the sides. I glance down at my own clothes and feel a wistful pang. I look so bland next to her. No wonder she pretended not to know me at first. All of my earlier courage starts draining from me.

  “I liked your poems,” she says, staring straight ahead.

  “Really?” I wonder if she’s just humouring me.

  “Yeah. How do you know how to choose the exact words?” She turns to me. Her stare is intense, unflinching.

  I look down into my lap. “Do you ever hear a voice in your head that doesn’t sound like your own?” Oh great, way to sound totally crazy! “I mean, it’s your voice, the same voice that tells you what to do all the time – like, the voice of your thoughts – but it comes up with an idea that doesn’t feel like your own because it’s – it feels like such a surprise.” Despite the cold wind coming in off the sea my entire body is now aflame with embarrassment.

  She grins. It’s the first time she’s smiled since we’ve met but I’m not entirely sure this is a good thing. For all I know she could be mocking me.

  “I think I know what you mean,” she says, “but I get an image rather than words.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Like, sometimes the idea for a picture will just pop into my head from out of nowhere.”

  “Yes, exactly! That’s what writing poems is like for me. Well, when I have the right kind of inspiration, like your pictures. Sometimes it feels as if my poems already exist in some kind of magical creative realm and I just have to download them.”

  “Right.” Thankfully @FierceUrban nods enthusiastically at my talk of magical creative realms.

  “I’m Clementine, by the way. I mean, that’s my real name.”

  “Oh, right.” For a horrible moment I think she’s not going to tell me hers.

  “I’m Rudy.”

  “Cool.” And it is cool, very cool. I’d much rather have a boy’s name than a fruit’s.

  We sit in awkward silence for a moment, then her phone starts to ring.

  “Hey,” she says, answering it. “Yeah… Yeah… Nah, not really.”

  I wonder if whoever she’s talking to knows about us meeting; if they’re asking about me.

  “Not sure, really. I’ll let you know when I get home… Oh, ha ha, very funny… All right. Speak later.” She puts the phone back in her pocket. “That was Tyler,” she says, like this should mean something to me.

  “Oh.”

  “He knows we were meeting. He wanted to know how it was going.”

  “Oh, right.” I mentally rewind to her side of the phone conversation. She was hardly bubbling over with enthusiasm. But then, she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would ever bubble over with enthusiasm. She seems way too cool to do over-eager. Unlike me.

  Rudy shifts in her seat. “So, I was wondering … would you be up for doing some kind of collaboration with me?”

  “What, you mean like us working together?”

  “We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m not bothered either way – it was Tyler’s idea,” she says.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” I say quickly, still not exactly sure what the idea is.

  “There’s this French urban artist that I really like. She’s called Miss.Tic and she always has words with her pictures, like a statement or a mini poem.”

  Finally I get what she’s asking me and I shiver from a mixture of cold and excitement. “You’d like to use my words in one of your pictures?”

  “Yeah. We could give it a go.” She peers out from her hood. “What do you think?”

  “I think that would be brilliant.”

  She coughs. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

  I try and tone down my excitement to match Rudy’s nonchalance. “So, how would we do it? Would we come up with an idea together, or do you want to create the image first and then I’ll write the poem?”

  She purses her lips. “Why don’t you go first this time? Send me a poem and I’ll see if I can come up with some artwork to go with it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Why not?”

  “OK. Is there anything in particular you’d like me to send you? Like, any particular theme?”

  “I don’t know, how about life?” she says with a shrug.

  “OK.” Thankfully at this point my phone starts ringing. It’s the death march, the rington
e of doom I’ve assigned specially to Vincent.

  “Cheery ringtone,” Rudy says, raising her eyebrows.

  “I only have it for my stepdad,” I say. I’m tempted to terminate the call but Vincent hardly ever calls me, so I suppose I ought to make sure there hasn’t been some kind of emergency. “Yes?” I say, answering the call.

  “Yes, er, your mum asked me to ring you…” he says awkwardly.

  “Why?”

  “She was wondering what time you were going to be home from your friend’s.”

  “I won’t be long,” I say.

  “OK. See you then.” Clearly he’s as eager to end this exercise in awkwardness as I am.

  “Yeah, see you.” I end the call and stuff my phone in my bag. Rudy is looking at me and smiling, a genuinely warm smile.

  “So, you’ll send me a poem then?” she says, getting to her feet.

  “Sure. I’ll send you one tomorrow.”

  “Cool.” She nods. “It was good to meet you, Clementine.”

  “It was good to meet you too, Rudy,” I reply, in what has to be the understatement of the year, if not the century.

  RUDY

  “Uh-oh. You look like you might be in need of some caffeine.” Tyler grins from behind the café counter as I drag my aching body over to him.

  “I’m in need of double caffeine,” I reply, slinging my school bag on the floor and pulling up a stool.

  Tyler bangs the dregs of the coffee grounds from one of the scoops. “What’s happened?”

  “Double physics followed by PE happened.” I rest my head on my hands on top of the counter. “Seriously, I just don’t get why people say that exercise is good for you. I think I might have hypothermia and at least one cracked rib.”

  “Don’t tell me, hockey?”

  “Yep.”

  Tyler puts down the coffee scoop and winces in fake horror. “Stop it, please, you’re making me have a rugby flashback.”

  “Oh, Ty, you’re so lucky not to have to do PE ever again.”

  “Yeah” – Tyler lowers his voice and glances around at the handful of people in the café – “but now I have to deal with CFHs on a regular basis.”