Dreaming of Amelia

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  As a witness of your life in this house last term, I have one thing only to say. This is it — and here I am quoting from your ‘story of last term’ —‘There were a couple of parties here’. There were a COUPLE of parties here????

  Lydia? Are you, any longer, the ruthlessly HONEST girl I have come to know and love since I’ve been haunting you?

  Much love,

  The Ghost

  PS I know the Ashbury ghost well, by the way — to be avoided, at all costs. You are all in danger — Em is the only one who sees this.

  Dear Ghost,

  Okay. There were more than a couple of parties.

  What do you want here? A woohoo-totally-cool-partygirl-look-my-parents-are-away-so-see-what-wild- times-I’ve-been-getting-up-to-when-I’m-supposed-to-be-studying!!- cos-I’m-in-Year-12 story?

  ‘Party’ isn’t even the right word. People came around to my place sometimes.

  That’s it.

  Lydia

  My Dear, Dear Lydia,

  Your sharp tongue, I know it well.

  I also know your generous heart.

  And then, too, I know that, for an extremely honest girl, you sometimes speak a load of ballycock.

  You think I was born yesterday, do you? My dear, I didn’t even die yesterday.

  I was here for every party, Lyd; there were three or four a week at least; and oh my head (if I had a head) would have ached from the throb of the backbeat. I wonder how I could prod your memory? A catalogue of alcohol and drugs I saw consumed? The number of times the police were called? The destruction I beheld (furniture, walls, carpet, appliances, hearts and self-esteem)?

  I observed much! And heard more. (Your friends have powerful vocal chords.) And hence I know that a number of these parties spilled over from drama rehearsals.

  Then, too, a number were started by Em on her ‘blog’ without your knowledge. (It seems that Em’s ‘blog’ is some kind of a social hub for your year. I do not pretend to understand what a blog is but assume it is a kind of muddy hollow.)

  There was that memorable occasion when you sat down to watch Season 5 of The Sopranos at ten o’clock one night and found yourself growing afraid. (I was sitting on the couch beside you, and worried that my presence was what spooked you — but really, The Sopranos was a menacing show — it made my bones rattle! — so let’s blame television.) Anyway, you ‘messaged’ Em and Cass, asking them to come and watch the show with you. And ended up with 230 people in the house. (I counted.)

  And yet, Lydia, the lion’s share of last term’s parties were initiated by you.

  Why, Lydia, all the parties? Isn’t that the question we should ask ourselves? If we want to find the heart of your Term 2?

  Much love,

  The Ghost

  Dear Ghost,

  No.

  Love,

  Lydia

  Lydia the Lovely,

  Very well, I shall swoop in a different direction. (How I love to swoop and dive around your house! You want a REAL party? Try the afterlife!)

  Where was I? Ah yes, a different direction. Perhaps you should consider the PEOPLE of Term 2. People are often the essence of an era.

  (I myself was the essence of my era.)

  Tell me, was there some one person who captured your every waking thought in Term 2?

  Now, I DO remember seeing your dear friend Sebastian at a number of your parties. What a charming fellow he is! You used to be ‘together’ but then he disappeared. Last term, however, he was back again — I heard he had joined the Ashbury-Brookfield Drama Production and so he came along to the spill-over parties — but now he was ‘just a friend’. Pray tell, how did this happen? What a grim tragedy! You seem so perfectly matched to me. I always see a spark and crackle in the air betwixt you!

  (I mean that literally. Ghosts, being air, can see the air — I can see the essence of the air.)

  So! Perhaps you would like to discourse upon Sebastian for the remainder of this assessment task?

  Yours in thoughtful anticipation,

  The Ghost

  Dear Ghost,

  Seb? He’s okay.

  Sweet guy.

  Talks about soccer way too much.

  Not quite as good at soccer as he thinks he is, either.

  Love,

  Lydia

  PS But his art is amazing.

  My Sweet Lydia!

  Surely you jest (about the soccer I mean). Why, oft have I seen young Seb in the grounds here at play with a soccer ball! How he tosses and spins it from foot to foot, whirls and twirls it faster than a blink, weaves it amongst the fairy-creature shrubs in your mother’s topiary garden!

  He is at least as good as he thinks he is at soccer; most likely, better.

  Moreover, he talks about all manner of things! I feel rather hurt on his behalf.

  Yours,

  The Ghost

  PS Oh, and his art. Well. I think he does his best.

  Dear Ghost,

  You know, if people are the essence of an era, then the essence of Term 2 was Amelia-and-Riley.

  Their names drifted over us like snowflakes. Their names were passed around like something sweet and intoxicating. When people spoke their names, they held them on their tongues as if the words were fine liquor chocolates.

  And that’s the real story of Term 2: What the f— was wrong with everybody?

  Love,

  Lydia

  PS Sorry I’ve gone off the topic of Seb. You seem fond of him. Interesting. I wonder what that’s about.

  PPS If you want to stay on Seb, tell me this. What does he know about Amelia and Riley? He told me a while back to stay away from them; he said they’re trouble. And whenever he sees me talking to them, he gets that glint in his eye — the one he used to get when he lost his temper.

  PPPS But he won’t tell me why.

  PPPPS And I don’t believe in secrets.

  Dear Lydia,

  Some warnings ought to be heeded.

  Some secrets need to be kept.

  Love,

  The Ghost

  Ghost,

  Secrets are darkness and shadows. You need light to live — just like you need light in a painting, and I need to find the light in the page when I try to write a story.

  You only get light from the truth: a secret’s just another way of lying.

  Lyd

  Oh, now, Lydia,

  Here we go with the LIGHT again! What is it with you living beings and light? If I had a farthing for every person who has urged me to go into the light!! Don’t you know it shows up my wrinkles?

  We should all embrace the darkness and the shadows! (I suppose embracing shadows is a predictable hobby for a ghost, but my other hobby is mellowing out to Lionel Richie CDs in the small games room downstairs and I’m the only ghost I know who does that.)

  Back to the point: a little MYSTERY, now that’s where it’s at! Secrets, surprises, unexpected twists. Paintings and stories need those just as much as they need ‘truth’!

  Much tender love,

  The Ghost

  Dear Ghost,

  I’ll tell you a secret I’ve never told anyone before.

  Earlier this year, I saw Amelia and Riley at Castle Hill one night. And Riley was carrying a baby.

  Lydia

  No wonder you don’t like secrets.

  You don’t understand them.

  Riley was carrying a baby?!

  Be still my beating heart! (If only it were beating still.)

  This doesn’t even warrant the name of secret! Did they ASK you to keep it a secret? No? Then pffft! There are many reasons why A and R might have been out with a baby, most of them so mundane they make me drift into the ether. A brother or sister? A babysitting job? A niece or nephew? What — do you think they KIDNAPPED a baby? Is that why you see it as a secret?

  Much bemused love,

  The Ghost

  Dear Ghost,

  Here’s my story of Amelia and Riley.

  They came to our school
like a beautiful package of puzzles. Why did they stay so separate? Why were they always flicking past the corner of my eye? Sidestepping questions? Watching without blinking?

  Then the surprises: Amelia could swim. They came from Brookfield but nobody at Brookfield knew them. They were actors. They were smart. Riley was an artist.

  People decided that they were superhuman. I thought they were ordinary people.

  Seb told me to stay away from them. I invited them to a party.

  All right, Lydia, my contrary friend, all making perfect sense.

  And so . . .

  And so they came to the party.

  I don’t know why. Maybe they were tired of saying no.

  I didn’t see much of them that night. I noticed them drift apart soon after they arrived, join separate groups of people, drift together again. Like a regular couple at a party. I remember Amelia sipping something clear from a glass, chewing on a straw while she watched people dance. Once, I saw them standing close together by a painting in the billiards room. Riley was pointing something out in the painting. Amelia leaned forward to see it. They both smiled softly. They moved away again.

  That’s all I saw that night.

  There were a few more parties in the holidays. They turned up to some, and it was more or less the same.

  And then Term 2 began.

  And everything changed . . . ?

  No.

  The only thing that changed was that I started paying attention.

  Because as far as I could see, Amelia and Riley were ordinary people. But Seb had warned me about them.

  And then Cass warned me too. She said she didn’t trust them — she said they were watching me, and to be careful. Once, she said, she saw their shadows outside a window, looking in.

  Seb and Cass are not the type to be spooked easily, and they were.

  Meanwhile, everybody else hushed — or lit cigarettes, or changed position, or choked on ice cubes, or burst out laughing at imaginary jokes — whenever they walked into a room.

  It reminded me of Dad’s story about being in the same room as the President of the United States once. He said the President had an aura; something intrinsically big about him, separate from his physical size.

  I thought that was total ballycock (as you would say).

  I thought my dad was seeing him this way because he knew the guy was the President and, also, the guy probably had tricks that made him seem superhuman.

  Okay, Amelia and Riley are beautiful and talented, but Ashbury is full of gorgeous and talented kids of the rich and famous.

  There had to be more going on. Some trick or illusion. I wanted to know what it was. So I started watching them.

  And these are the five things that I noticed:

  1. Time

  They always arrived late — usually around one or two in the morning.

  They’d stay a few hours or all night.

  Or they’d stay five minutes. When they did that, it never felt like a statement. Like: ‘This is boring, let’s go someplace else’, or ‘We’re so cool we only make appearances.’ It was more like, ‘We were here, and now we’re not.’

  It seemed to make perfect sense for them to leave at whatever moment they did whether hours or minutes had passed.

  Once, in a dream, it came to me that time was like a slinky for them. You could stretch it out or stack it close together. Either way, it stayed a slinky. (That seemed more profound in the dream.)

  2. Standing and Sitting

  They stood or sat differently from other people.

  I think maybe they just had better posture.

  3. Faces

  They held their faces differently too. I mean, they seemed friendly or surprised at the right times — but the reaction appeared just a second too late. As if they had to select it first, rather than just feel it.

  In a different dream, I was sitting next to Riley in a circus tent. I felt very conscious of his presence beside me because he seemed to be concentrating hard. I remember thinking, Take it easy, Riley, it’s just a juggling clown. Then the clown tripped backwards, and the audience burst out laughing.

  I turned to look at Riley.

  He had turned in his seat too, and was looking straight at me. I saw that he was holding a wooden picture frame. He watched me carefully, making sure I’d seen the frame. Then he pressed it up to his face. The top of it ridged along his forehead and the sides ran down and pinched his cheeks. Now he was looking at me through the frame. He straightened it a little, pressed it down more firmly, and paused.

  And then he gave a great shout of laughter.

  4. Eyes

  I’ve got to admit, that dream scared the hell out of me.

  But the thing with the eyes, when I noticed it, that unnerved me even more.

  It was midnight and there were about 15 of us in our home theatre. The only light came from the screen which was showing Hitchcock’s Vertigo. But the sound wasn’t on and we weren’t watching. We’d turned the couches around, and we were talking and listening to blues on the stereo. Amelia and Riley slipped into the room along with a burst of party noise from upstairs. As usual, there was a subtle shift in the room when they walked in. Some people sat up who’d been slumped down, some slumped further. The girl beside me lifted her bare feet onto the couch and used her thumbnail to scrape at her toenail polish.

  This was the day after the dream about Riley in the circus tent. I looked at him, remembered the dream, and uneasiness swept over me.

  But then I turned back to my conversation. A few people left, others came in, and I found myself watching Amelia and Riley again.

  I was watching their eyes.

  At first I thought I was imagining something.

  Then I looked at the eyes of others in the room — people were talking about Em’s ghost, and about the Ashbury-Brookfield Art Exhibition coming up — and I realised what I was seeing. With most people, focus shifts and fades. Usually you look at the face of the person who’s speaking, but now and then, you drift, lose focus, disappear into your own thoughts.

  Amelia and Riley’s focus never broke.

  I don’t mean to say they were like secret service agents when the President’s giving a speech. They didn’t have their hands on their holsters all the time. (They didn’t have holsters. If they did, I’d have mentioned it by now.)

  I mean their eyes never stopped taking things in. They watched the faces of people who spoke until the person had stopped. And when nobody was talking directly to them, they looked around the room — their eyes took in its spaces: the couches, the screen, the entertainment unit, the shape of the furniture, the space between the furniture, the shadows and the light, the people in the room, the faces of the people, the thoughts behind the faces.

  All this, their eyes did in a steady, mild way.

  I don’t believe I ever saw their eyes disappear inside their heads.

  And that’s just weird.

  5. Voices

  One night, there was this whole hour when I found myself studying the air just in front of Riley and Amelia whenever they spoke. Because it suddenly occurred to me that their voices might be using different dimensions of the air to the rest of us.

  But they weren’t.

  Their voices were perfectly normal. (I was totally ripped that night.)

  That’s the end of my first set of observations.

  Lots of love,

  Lydia

  Oh!

  I beg your pardon.

  You’ve finished.

  I think I must have dozed off for a moment.

  Well, LYDIA! That is quite a catalogue! I can’t help wondering if you had a moment to think a single thought, or dream a single dream, of your OWN, given all the attention you were paying to A and R.

  Of course, everything you say is total ballycock.

  The reason Amelia and Riley are popular is this:

  They know how to hold a conversation.

  With great respect to your friends, Lydia, their
conversation is so dull it makes me want to stick a fish hook in the other eye.

  But Riley and Amelia? A breath of fresh air.

  Ever yours,

  The Ghost

  I’d been planning to ask why someone put a fish hook in your eye but now I know. You’re obnoxious.

  I have a second set of observations of Amelia and Riley.

  These are the differences between them.

  1. Riley talks more than Amelia.

  2. They get drunk in different ways.

  I guess you noticed that Amelia gets wild and wonderful when she’s drunk.

  But Riley talks fast, stays physically still, and watches Amelia.

  3. Amelia has a secret

  In some ways, they’re like the perfect couple. They glance at one another often, as if they like to confirm that the other still exists, or as if they can read the other’s thoughts. They light up when the other person speaks, and smiles form on their faces even before the other reaches the punchline in a joke.

  And I see them cross the road near our school. Let’s say Riley is talking when they’re about to cross. Amelia keeps watching his face as he talks. She watches his eyes check for traffic, then she steps onto the road when he does. The same thing happens in reverse. It’s pure listening and pure trust between them.

  But Amelia has a secret. I know because I see secrets just like you can see the air.

  I think Riley senses something and it’s breaking him apart. I saw this the first time I ever saw them at school — cobwebs in the space between their hands.

  Saw it again the night a bunch of us were trapped in a closet.

  We talked about shadows for three hours that night. It’s a shame you weren’t there. It might have helped you see the truth: shadows and secrets are wrong.

  Now this is where I want to go back to the secret I kept about Amelia and Riley — about seeing them in Castle Hill with a baby. It Cannot resist interrupting here to say, ever so gently, DID YOU NOT HEAR ME EARLIER?!! STOP DISGRACING THE WORD BY CALLING SOMETHING SO MUNDANE AS THIS A SECRET!!