“How does my face look to you?”
“Um, totally not there?”
“How do you imagine my face to be, underneath?”
“How do you mean?”
An escapist’s response, buys me a second or two.
“You must have thought about it.”
I should have pre-prepared an answer. I should have gawped when I got the chance, because now I’m stuck. I position my face in front of Cliff’s at perfect eye level- think Rex Rayne the Detective, searching for clues.
“So, we have: one pair of grey eyes. Shame your eyes don’t come attached to the rest, like those old joke disguises that go: glasses- bulbous nose- moustache...”
“I’m being serious. Close your eyes. What do you see?”
I close them- obviously nothing comes, except for the thought that his room isn’t so big after all, because now our knees are bumping. My bedroom shrank once.
“I’m sure you look fine. A huge non-stop smile of course, because I’m here to entertain you.”
“Guess me.”
“How can I?” My voice rises up in despair. “You’re an Original!”
“Try.”
“Do I get points for a correct feature?” I open my eyes. “Are there prizes?”
“If you like.”
I drag a palm down my face, my little finger tucks into the dimple. His walls are aqua and remind me of Story’s give-it-all-away eyes.
“I want you to be honest.” Cliff adds.
He’s got a hold of my knees now, a separate distraction. It’s just Cliff. I stare at the familiar blank surface of the scarf and take in each tiny crease- there’s nothing else.
“I keep seeing Dollar’s lips- your first avatar.”
He is not going to let me get away with this.
“Okay, back to Cliff. He’s easy to talk to, but that’s a thing you do with your voice. You’re always making challenging statements...and I know you say stuff to wind me up. Don’t deny it.”
Cliff blinks back at me; we both know I’ve got more on him.
“Yes. I’m thinking a calm face,” I continue, “because you’re always sizing people up- that’s a guess based on your eyes. You can never actually sit still, so maybe I am missing a load of action under there...” I tilt my head at the scarf’s surface, “like when your eyes flit about in a temper? Usually they’re so controlled, like everything is going to some great Master Plan.”
Cliff is taking me apart piece by piece, and I’m not sure if this is going well.
“But...I can always tell when you’re smiling.” I add quickly.
I raise a finger and thumb to the scarf, to where his smile should sit and widen them, guessing the width and presenting it in the air between us. He laughs- it could be a yes, or a no.
“Okay. How about this for a confession: the day Daimon was born, I looked at a photo of your mum on the C.O.F site. I was curious. She didn’t seem like you, the way she stood and everything.”
“How do I stand?”
“Sort of hunched over. I mean- just because you’re tall.”
“I don’t look much like Mum.”
There’s one parent left. Does that mean he has to resemble Forest?
“I was convinced you didn’t look like your dad...”
This seems to amuse him.
“...because, just because of the way he talks...”
“Dad’s a different species.”
There’s an urgent rapping at the door and the softness of amusement leaves his eyes. Cliff straightens. We watch the door open slowly, like some kind of horror film and I get this crazy urge to giggle. Penny Mortimer’s face hooks around it, all craning neck. Right on cue; she looks exactly like her photo.
“Sorry to interrupt...” she says
Her reaction intensifies the embarrassment all round. I mean, it’s not like we’re locked in some passionate embrace. I twist around to present my best not-good-enough-for-your-Original-son smile, and feel it stick. Penny opts to hover, just her face.
“The reporter’s here. Dad wants you standing next to him in the photo.”
“Nah, not now.”
“Are you sure you can’t be persuaded? It would mean a lot to him.”
“I told him no already. That’s why he sent you up.”
Penny’s eyes dart between us. Cliff is not giving what she wants, but she’s not about to leave.
“I won’t take my scarf off for the photographers.” Cliff adds, more to me. “Trust me Mum, it won’t help. It never does.”
You could practically twang Cliff’s voice like a guitar. I sense that this is a stunted version of a conversation, a longer one that’s run through many times before.
“How did it go?” I interrupt brightly, “the whole protest against the Family Resemblance Package thing?”
How did that come out sounding so trivial?
“We lasted just over an hour before they moved us on.” Penny says. “The same crowd...no arrests... no trouble-makers on the scene today.”
She’s after recognition, I can tell from her voice climb because Cliff’s voice does that too. Her oval face adds nothing. Her gaze remains on Cliff. This is turning into a stare-out, but perhaps that’s how they resolve things in this family.
“Mission accomplished?” I say. (That came out blunter than intended too.)
Penny regards me coolly. She has decided to treat my rounding-up of events, as a deeper philosophical question. She bites her bottom lip and those overlapping teeth come crowding out. Not quite Bugs Bunny.
“C.O.F’s mission is ongoing. You should come along one day and see for yourself.”
“True came to the last one.” Cliff says quickly. “She saw Dad get dealt his... special face enhancement.”
The grey eyes in this corner say: discussion over.
“You never usually wear your scarf in our house.” Penny says pointedly, and walks out without closing the door.
Cliff crosses the room to firmly shut it.
“I told Dad he should try a scarf today,” Cliff’s voice accelerates, “his face is always a distraction at these events, he’d get more listening and less gawping, he should be an activist not a freak. People need to listen. Really listen.”
I give it a moment.
“So, a photo of Cliff beside Forest has been requested, to make a point about Natural Family Resemblance...”
“I’m not Dad.” Cliff snaps.
“But would he agree with that sentiment?” I tilt my head to one side and get back into my Detective role, because it’s easier that way. An argumentative noise rises up from behind the scarf.
“I think about your face all the time.”
That’s got his attention. I watch him latch onto my words.
“Problem is... your face is not designed to give the answers I expect. It’s taken me a while to get my head around that.” He goes to interrupt. “Wait. I want to show you something on my phone...” he reaches for it, but I move my hand away. I locate the three portraits of Cliff.
“Remember how not so long ago, you sent me three pictures of you, and asked if we could be friends- now that I’d seen your face?”
“Yeah, Bugs Bunny! Err, Rex Rayne, and another one- I forget.”
“The third picture was a scary-looking man.”
“Was it?”
“An Original in a grumpy mood.”
“Yes! My wind-up shot. Brilliant.”
Suddenly I’m losing my nerve. I make a rapid change of plan.
“Well, here’s my...only portrait of you. My best attempt to guess you. I drew it right after we first met in the park.”
I hand Cliff the phone. He cups his hand around mine, and around the phone, so that we’re forced to look at it together- which is sly. He’s silent, and then he starts to laugh, a kind of muffled whooping sound that goes on and on.
“Those eyes. I’m...I’m really full-on staring, aren’t I? Like some kind of...stalker.”
“I never saw your eyes that
day-”
“You couldn’t bring yourself to look at me.”
I pull the phone towards me, but his hand and his arm and his real face comes with it, he isn’t finished.
“I’m kind of lovely actually...”
We’re squeezing the phone a little too hard now. I get my other hand to it, but quick as a flash he prises it from my grasp and leans away from me.
“You’re a talented artist... so...interpretive...”
Curse those stalker eyes and his real ones.
“... I especially love the shadows under the cheekbones. Anything else I should see on here?” He starts fiddling about with my phone, I overreact and grab a hold of his wrist and then he absolutely knows there’s more. “Any other items of clothing removed in your drawings, True?”
He dances away across the room, holding the phone far above my head and laughing manically and he’s found another picture, and he’s fallen still. I stop breathing.
“That one wasn’t meant for you.” I say weakly, into the silence.
Cliff crosses the room. His eyes are as serious as I’ve seen them.
“I know. It’s meant for Dad. It’s brilliant.”
Only a brilliant portrayal of his father? Or a brilliant likeness of father and son? Does he even recognise himself on the t-shirt? He loops an arm around my shoulder and allows me a look at the screen, my heart is pounding in my throat. I get my fingers around the phone at last. Now I absolutely have to know, so I point at the boy on the t-shirt.
“So, is that you?”
“What do you think?” he says.
I finally get the point of Cliff’s grey eyes- and they work, in their own way. They’re like one of those vintage black and white movies where nothing much happens. No explosions. But at the right time, all becomes clear. He dips towards me.
“I want to tell you about my hat.”
But I just laugh and pull it off. His fedora fits me- good enough.
“You’re not hiding from me.” I tell him.
I reach for the place on his chest where the scarf finishes in soft ridges. My flattened palms slide under, up and on to his shoulders, where my thumbs make contact with the base of his neck, finding the muscles taught and warm. I brush my fingertips higher and his shoulders tense, the tickle creases his eyes. His shoulders gradually soften and then, the smooth back of his neck curves down to meet me, our foreheads bump. My hands circle and I’ve reached the base of his jaw, so I take Cliff’s face in my hands and hold it. We stay like that for ages, his earlobes against my fingertips, my thumbs coming to rest either side of his mouth.
There’s only one more thing to be done. I slip my hands out from under the scarf and wrap my arms around the back of his neck, pulling my body in close. I find the knot: a tight bump with two loose tails. I grasp it. Cliff grabs my forearms.
“I can’t.” He says, simply.
He slowly lifts my arms off his shoulders and my empty hands come away from his face. His eyes are not even conflicted. We both take a step backwards. He is still holding my arms and I mutter something about privacy and personal space that doesn’t come out right, it’s not even a proper sentence, and then I lightly tug my arms free. Clarity comes in a hot wave: he never wears his scarf indoors, except for my visits. For Cliff, nothing has changed. He will not remove the scarf for me. So I remove myself instead.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
In the bathroom mirror I catch my face distracted and sliding across the glass, and I pause for a reminder of where things currently stand between me and my reflection.
Things have changed since Maverick me first dared to show her face. I started as a violent head-turner; the face of a girl who can’t get so easily left behind. A face that literally can’t forgive- she can’t physically pull those sorts of expressions anymore. Maverick started as a kind of revenge, but I’m not angry anymore.
I take a step back from the mirror and try to take in my face as a whole: what do I say to strangers? What is my first impression on others? My face is leftover SexyFace Seven, customized with a double-sided smile- and not everybody gets the real one. So am I a trick? I’m no Merlot, reeling in strangers with angles of the mouth. It was a face to create a reaction and force a change; and here is the face that got it. (I got a stalker who hides.) The Smile Blocker twitches at the thought of Cliff, my face is softer but there’s no chance of the dimple. I watch my reflection, searching for answers. My eyes stare back at me, desperate eyes that need to know.
A drained Liz Taylor appears behind my reflection, smiling vaguely.
“Now, what did I come in here for...?” Mum says
She’s actually scattier than ever since Dad’s return. I guess it’s not like she can borrow his brain. Daimon is a night bird, the shrieking kind. Mum is looking at my reflection in the mirror, without really seeing it; she can’t acquire any new information after 3pm. I, on the other hand, am enjoying not being distracted against my will by her lips. With them gone, and the bump, Mum is sort of mine again although I would never admit that out loud. She did the old Liz Taylor face for Dad anyway.
“Mum, why did you think I couldn’t handle the news about Daimon?”
“Sorry, what?”
“About his EMS sensitivity, why didn’t you tell me?”
Mum sighs, she knuckle rubs the sockets of her eyes.
“I was wrong wasn’t I? You’ve been amazing. I didn’t credit you for how grown-up you’ve become.”
“Dad did try to phone and tell me. Right at the end.”
“Did he? I’m sorry sweetie, it should have come from me. You and Seven, you two were always so into your Updates. I think I was afraid you’d take his side, and he’d already walked out on me. I’d be left even more ...”
Mum yawns, the exhale a slow moan.
“He’s perfect, Mum. You did the right thing.”
Mum pauses on my reflection.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m getting used to that funny little smile.”
“What, the Blocker?”
“No! Never! The single dimple...you did realise you were smiling in my presence?”
In my pocket I discover something that tickles my fingers, disguises their shape.
“What do you reckon to this?” I say
The faces of teddies unravel across my palm, the scarf Cliff wouldn’t take back.
“What is it?”
“A scarf, Cliff bought it for Daimon.”
“So tiny! Ah, look at their funny faces. How’s Cliff?”
Mum holds a neutral expression, unconvincing. She lowers her eyes to stroke the feather light fabric.
“Sweet pattern, I love it.”
“Would you put it on Daimon?”
“It must be safe- a breathable fabric- if it’s for babies? So why not? If he ever needs it.”
“It’s for a newborn.”
I don’t know how much everyday speech filters through to Mum at the moment.
“Cliff’s a thoughtful boy.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
So I have been lying on my bed, playing with the wording of this text to Cliff for what seems like forever. It’s the never-ending message.
It starts off as:
I really want to see your face.
I delete this because it’s not strictly true. There’s so much more I need to explain:
I want you to want me to see your face. But I’m nervous and I know that’s stupid because I know you. How shocking can any face be?
Far too much information for any boy to process. Delete. Start again:
Our first ever meeting in the park, I needed to see your face something chronic, it felt like you were hiding, but now, it’s different. I’ve seen Cliff beneath the avatars and the scarves. I’m confident your face won’t tell me anything I haven’t already guessed. The scarf doesn’t matter anymore. Keep it on. Take it off. Whatever makes you happy! True xxx (Remember me? The Maverick that groped your face?)
I delete the bit in brackets and
all the kisses right back to my name. Okay: now this sounds logical and clever and correct. So why do I hate it? Delete.
Did I guess your face all wrong? Did I say the wrong thing? Aren’t I good enough?
This is starting to read like one of Dad’s old pleading texts! Fast delete.
I need to see your face so much it hurts.
I actually send it. I sit there, watching my phone like it’s become the enemy. What if he never replies? I will surely die here, hunched over my phone. How my body aches. It’s been eight minutes.
The phone rings, it’s Cliff’s name, and I sort of twang off the bed. It rings some more and I stare at it. Resenting it, the power this device has over me in this moment. What will happen next is this: I will press the button to answer the phone and this action will bring Cliff’s face into my bedroom in 3D. What if it’s his actual face this time? It rings and rings. I fumble with the button.
First thing out of my phone is his fedora, with his grey eyes under the rim.
Then the edge of the fabric, the scarf is still on, it’s the grey one. How stupid can I be?
I can’t look at that scarf anymore. I look at my stupid texting fingers.
“There’s something I have to tell you.” Cliff says.
His voice is tense. Here it comes. My big fat NO. NEVER.
“Please don’t be angry, hear me out first...”
He’s nervous, as nervous as me. He fidgets, gearing up to speak.
“The thing is True, I’ve been filming us since we met.”
Chapter Thirty
“Us” turns out to be just me, my face captured in close-up. Cliff had a bunch of nanocameras concealed in that damn fedora of careworn black, 360 degree vision, even when his grey eyes lay elsewhere.
Cliff has sent me seven recordings, which together claim to form the sum total of “Us”: ‘Making Contact,’ ‘Park: First Meeting,’ ‘True’s Surprise Visit’; ‘Cinema,’ ‘New Baby,’ ‘Protest’ and ‘My New Avatar.’ The whole collection even has a title: “Behind The Mask: Girl Meets Boy.” Cliff has made a secret film about me.
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