The Truth and Lies of Ella Black

by Emily Barr

  ‘Whatever you think,’ I say, and I notice Mum giving me a sharp look.

  At nine o’clock I say (my voice both casual and trembling with the importance of getting it right): ‘I’m just going to go down to the lobby.’

  Mum frowns, because of course she does. ‘Are you, darling? Why?’

  ‘I want to pick up some leaflets from reception. I’m sure there are more things we could be doing since we’re here and I’d like to see what they are.’

  Dad gets up as if to come with me.

  ‘On my own,’ I say. I smile and try hard to look casual. ‘For once. I’ll be back in less than five minutes, and if I’m not then you can come down and find me. I promise I won’t leave the building.’

  They look at each other. They sigh. I leave the room.

  Christian and his two friends are sitting on the sofa in the lobby, waiting for me.

  I look at him.

  He looks at me.

  Time freezes, and I hold my breath, and everything is as glittery and magical as it was this morning.

  ‘Hi, Ella,’ he says. They all stand up, ready to go.

  ‘Your hair is so cool,’ says the girl.

  ‘This is Susanna, and this is Felix,’ Christian says, and he walks up to me and kisses me on the cheek, right next to my mouth. All my skin quivers. It is the strangest thing.

  They think I’m coming out with them. I could. I could just follow them and get into their taxi and worry about everything later.

  I wish I could.

  I can’t.

  ‘I can’t come now,’ I say. ‘Sorry. But I’ll get away in a couple of hours. Can I come and meet you? Where are you going? And hello. Sorry.’

  I think Christian looks a little disappointed. ‘Sure you can,’ he says. ‘You’ll need to get a cab. Ask for Lapa. Meet us in a bar called Antonio’s. It’s on a corner. If you can’t find it, ask anyone. I hope you can make it.’

  ‘Eleven o’clock,’ I say, and he nods, and they go.

  When I know that both parents are properly asleep I slide out of bed. I have changed under the covers, and I did my make-up in the bathroom when the bedroom light was off so they wouldn’t see me, and now all I have to do is pick up my shoes and check my pockets (money in one; the spare key card in the other) and open the door as quietly as I can.

  It makes a swooshing noise as it crushes the carpet, but the parents don’t stir.

  I stand on the threshold of the room for a moment, but all is calm and peaceful, and I step out into the corridor and pull the door very gently closed behind me.

  It clicks and locks itself. I stand still for a moment, listening, and nothing happens. I walk down the stairs to the floor below, because I know the lift makes a loud ping when its doors open. I walk down another floor, just to be sure.

  I call the lift to the ninth floor. It arrives. I stand in it and look at my reflection. I pull my hair over one shoulder. I pout as if I was posing for a photo. I look critically at my body, but it looks all right. I am wearing little denim shorts and a light-blue beaded vest.

  I’m worried that whoever is working on reception will see me sneaking out and call up to my parents, but the man barely looks up as I cross the lobby. The bright lights glint off the marble everywhere: the whole place is dazzling. I smile at the night doorman, who nods and steps aside to let me out of the automatic door.

  ‘Taxi?’ he says.

  ‘Si,’ I say. ‘Por favor. Yes please.’

  He steps on to the warm pavement, and I follow him into the hot night. He holds out his hand, and within half a minute a yellow cab has pulled over. The doorman opens its door for me, and then he slams it and the taxi starts up, and I say: ‘Lapa. Antonio’s?’ as clearly as I can, and we are off.

  I have escaped.

  I am in a taxi in Rio.

  I am on my own for what feels like the first time in my entire life. The world is filled with possibilities. My parents don’t know where I am: I’m not sure that has ever been the case before. They have always known approximately what I am doing. I have always been locked in, watched over. And now I’m not.

  I hope I find Antonio’s. I said eleven and it is now ten fifty, so, depending on how long this journey takes, I should be all right.

  I gaze out of the window. I am actually here. This is happening. I am out alone, being my real self for the first time in my life. This is me. This is the real Ella Black. Everything feels hyper-real, and I want to hold on to this feeling and keep it forever.

  I stare out of the window. Mostly it’s dark, with occasional spots of nightlife. The road is like a motorway and there are not many other cars, and the taxi goes faster and faster, swerving between lanes for fun, edging through red lights when there’s nothing coming through the green ones. Bright lights come the other way, speeding closer, flashing past. I might not find Christian when I get to Lapa. I might not find Antonio’s. I almost don’t care.

  I got away from them. Sitting in the back of this cab, I can breathe. Whatever happens next, at least I will have this.

  I watch the road as we follow signs to Lapa. Eventually the driver slows and drives under a set of huge white arches. I look out at the scene and gasp.

  This is where all the people are. On either side of the road there are tables, and people are sitting at them, and standing around, and drinking and talking and laughing and dancing. It’s so packed that I’m not sure I will ever find Christian and his friends, but that is OK. I took two hundred reals from Dad’s wallet, so if it comes to it I’ll get a taxi straight home again.

  The driver pulls over into the forecourt of a closed garage. ‘Lapa,’ he says with a laugh.

  ‘Antonio’s?’ I ask, and he shrugs, so I do too, and the meter shows forty reals, so I hand him a fifty note and he gives me change.

  I say, ‘Gracias,’ and he corrects me.

  ‘Obrigada,’ he says, and I repeat it as I step out on to the pavement, and am enveloped in noise and music and instant acceptance.

  No one comes to rob me. No one threatens me. No one takes much notice of me at all. I walk slowly past all the people, trying to see the names of the bars. There is loud Brazilian music coming at me, clashing, from different directions, and it is heady and joyous and it makes me feel wildly alive.

  Even if my parents have woken up they will never find me here. Never. I can stay as long as I like and no one will know where I am. I inhale the night air, the heat, the music, the life.

  I find Antonio’s down the road, on the other side, on a corner like Christian said. It is frantically busy, with every table taken and hundreds of people standing up between them. The whole bar is open to the street on both sides.

  If the boy of my dreams is here, as well as everything else, I will be the happiest girl in the world; the happiest girl there has ever been.

  I weave between the tables, looking at each of the people with their bottles of beer and their glasses of the green cocktail Mum likes to drink.

  This is nothing like going out at home.

  People smile at me as I push my way through. They move aside if they can. Several men say ‘Hola’, or ‘Hello’ (I clearly look foreign), but not in a threatening way, and they don’t seem to expect me to reply. I push my way around the whole bar, and I don’t see the gorgeous boy, but that barely matters because I am happy. Even if I just walk around here and don’t find them and go and get a cab back to the hotel, this outing will have been a massive success.

  Someone says, ‘Ella!’ I look round, but I don’t see him. It was his voice – I’m almost sure of it; and anyway it had to be him because no one else here could possibly know my name.

  ‘Ella,’ he says again, and this time he taps my shoulder, and when I look he is right there, standing beside me, and I am so happy that I just turn and hug him. He hugs me back, and then he is holding me. My face is pressed against his T-shirt, and I can feel his heart beating against my cheek.

  He strokes my hair and keeps a tight hold of me. I don’
t let go either. He kisses the top of my head. I think we have skipped quite a few stages of getting to know each other.

  I feel, just like I did the first moment I saw him, that he’s always been there, and that all my life has been leading up to meeting him. I knew him already; I just hadn’t been in the right place until now.

  ‘You made it!’ he says quietly, just up from my ear.

  I pull back far enough to be able to speak. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I did. I waited for my parents to fall asleep, and then I crept out and got a taxi.’

  ‘My friends were so sure you wouldn’t show. I knew you would and you did.’ I nod. ‘But, hey, we’d better make sure you get back without your folks finding out. I don’t want your dad to freaking kill me.’

  ‘He wouldn’t. If they’re awake when I get back I’ll just say I couldn’t sleep and went for a walk. They’ll be cross and tell me I’m stupid.’ I shrug.

  ‘Hey – you’re good at this.’

  Briefly I picture them awake now. The doorman would tell them he put me in a cab. He had slammed the car door before I said ‘Lapa’ and so my trail would go cold right there. They’d probably think I’d gone to the airport.

  I look at Christian. His arms are still around me. I want to stay like this, pressed up against his chest, forever. I look at his beautiful face, his cheekbones, his glossy hair; everything about him. I need to keep looking at him for the rest of time.

  ‘Let’s get you a drink,’ he says, and we disentangle ourselves and he leads me to where his friends are. He reaches a hand behind him and I take it and walk close, attached to him, through the crowds. They have a tiny table, a high round one, and one of his friends (Felix, I remember) gets off his stool to let me sit down. Or, rather, to let me climb up.

  Both Felix and Susanna grin and say ‘Hey’ and things like that. Susanna, who has beautiful long black hair, says: ‘You made it! Great to meet you properly, Ella.’

  I try to say the right things back. No one seems to mind what actual words come out of my mouth. Christian says he’ll get me a drink and would I like a caipirinha? I say ‘Yes please’ even though I don’t know what it means. A waiter appears and the three of them talk to him in Portuguese and I sit back and let things happen. A drink arrives, and it’s the pale-green one with the straw in it, and I sip it through the straw and try very hard not to cough or splutter or betray in any way the fact that this is my first one and that it’s far stronger than I thought it would be and that I wasn’t expecting it to be so sour and to taste of limes. I can’t believe Mum has been drinking these, one after the other, right in front of me.

  I seem to get away with it; or perhaps nobody is interested in what I think. I’m not the centre of the universe – I am a hanger-on, and I am all Ella with no hint of Bella, which is amazing and makes me feel full of joy and possibility. The alcohol goes straight to my head and I feel so dizzy that I don’t think I could stand up. I take another sip. Christian is beside me, his hand between my shoulder blades. I sway towards him, and he steps closer so that we are touching all down the side. His hand is on my shoulder. I lean on him so the side of my face is pressed up against his side.

  I don’t even know what they are talking about. I piece their story together a bit: they are Cuban Americans and they live in Miami, and when Felix asks where I live I say I’m from close to London, because I am, close enough, and when he asks what I’m doing in Rio, I just say: ‘I have no idea.’

  They all laugh and Felix says: ‘Right?’ and raises his glass.

  ‘No,’ I say, shouting so they will hear me. ‘I literally don’t know. My parents came and collected me from school and brought me here and I still don’t know why.’

  Saying these words is the most liberating thing that has ever happened to me. These thoughts have been going around my head without stopping, and now I can say them. I tell them all about my fears and suppositions, and they listen. They are quite surprised when they realize what I mean when I say ‘school’.

  ‘You’re still at high school?’ Felix is incredulous. ‘Hey, Christian. She’s at high school.’

  Christian shrugs. ‘She’s not there now. So when do you think they’re going to tell you?’

  I suck on my straw. That drink vanished quickly. ‘Soon, I hope.’

  Susanna leans across and kisses my cheek. ‘God, that must be strange for you,’ she says. She smells lovely.

  Some time has passed. Christian and I are walking, his arm around my shoulder, my arm around his waist. The streets are packed with people, and we are walking on the edge of the road. I am woozy and happy and I need to go back to the hotel soon.

  A man is standing on something, visible above the crowd, singing into a microphone. The backing track is coming from a speaker somewhere. It is all about the drum beat. It is infectious. My feet want to dance. The people gathered around are dancing. I watch a woman’s feet. She is stamping fast, dancing irresistibly, the top of her body calm as her feet do wonderful crazy things. I want to do that too. I pull away from Christian and follow her feet, and try to make my feet do the same. I’m not getting it right, but the movement clears my head and I feel wonderful. I sense Christian watching but I can’t look at him because I cannot take my eyes off the woman and her feet. The music vibrates right through me.

  I feel amazing.

  This lady is a million times better at dancing than I am, and I like it that way. I carry on stamping, feeling the rhythm, trying to get the steps.

  Then the music stops.

  Christian takes me in his arms.

  I know I’m going to kiss him.

  I know he is going to kiss me.

  I have never kissed a boy before. Everything about this feeling is new. I have never held on to someone who is holding me and pressed my body up against his and felt myself pulled to him as if we were magnets.

  This is the only thing in the world, and we are the only people. I never knew this was the way it could be. I never had any idea.

  I tip my head back. He leans down. Our lips touch, gently at first. It goes through me: an electric shock that harnesses all the power of the universe. Then we kiss properly, two people joined at the lips, and time stops and I want to stay here, now, in this place with this boy, forever.

  At some point the music starts up again but I barely hear it. People are dancing around us but I don’t care. We stand in the middle of it all, in the hot Brazilian night, and I kiss the boy.

  This is all I have ever wanted, and I never knew it existed. I am on a pavement in Rio on a hot autumn night, and I am a new person. I am happy Ella, dancing Ella. I am Ella In Love.

  Later Christian buys us each another caipirinha from a stall under the arches and asks if we can spend some time together tomorrow. I am desperate to see him tomorrow. I never want to be away from him. I want to stare at his perfect face, the little mole on his cheek, forever.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I can’t tell my parents but I’ll work it out.’

  ‘You will? You’re sure? I don’t want to be the bad guy.’

  ‘You couldn’t be the bad guy.’ I think about it. My head is clear. ‘Maybe I’ll pretend to be ill. If I can get them to go out I could meet you at the hotel.’

  Those words hang in the air.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, that would be awesome. I’ll maybe see you at breakfast? You’re a fabulous girl, Ella.’

  I laugh. No one has called me a fabulous girl before. No one has come close. It is a strange phrase, but I love it because it’s Christian who said it.

  ‘And you’re a fabulous boy.’

  He smiles. ‘If you do manage to send your parents out,’ he says, ‘then maybe you could just come over to my room. You know?’ He takes my hand and our fingers interlock.

  I am so pleased he said it. I remember, vaguely, Jack and I implying to other people that we were having sex. I never actually wanted to, obviously not with Jack but also with anyone else. It was just not a thing that was on my mind. And now that I have Christi
an it’s the only thing in the world I want to do.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. Yes, please.’ I will tell him it’s my first time. I’ll tell him everything. I want Christian to know all of me.

  The cocktail from the stall is rough and boozy and I can’t drink any more because I know it will make me sick. The first sip is enough to make me see that.

  ‘Can you get me a cab, please?’ I ask. ‘I need to get back. This has been the best night of my life. Truly it has.’

  We stare at each other.

  ‘Of your life?’ he says quietly. ‘That’s quite something. Yes. Let’s get you safely back. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No. Don’t. If they’re looking for me, you can’t be a part of it. Put me in a taxi and I’ll say I went out on my own and I’ll see you in the morning.’

  He looks at me, smiling a lopsided smile that makes me want to stay right here and kiss him all night long.

  ‘You fabulous girl.’

  And then I am in the back of a yellow cab again, and Christian has told the driver where the hotel is, and he’s given me a fifty-real note for the fare even though I have money left since I’ve spent nothing this evening beyond the cab that brought me here.

  I try to sober up as we go, but I am glowing and dancing and I don’t want to feel ordinary ever again. I will never be the same. I kissed a fabulous boy. I will have this evening forever. It really is the best night of my life. It has changed everything. I am going to Christian’s room tomorrow and I can’t wait. I want to tell Jack. I know he’d be delighted for me. I want to tell Lily. I know she would squeal with excitement, then tell me to be careful.

  The taxi pulls up outside the hotel. The same doorman comes and opens the car door. I pay the fare and give the man a hefty tip because I love everyone.

  My stomach is churning as I step on to the pavement, but there are no police around. I can see into the reception area, and my parents aren’t there. No one is behind the desk. The doorman does not look remotely interested in my arrival. I say hello and walk across the deserted, half-dark lobby to the lifts, and as I wait for one to arrive I look at myself in the full-length mirror.