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I can hear muffled laughter from outside.
You step forward. The light hits your cheekbones. Your hero’s jawline. Is there a trace of stubble?
“So do you,” I say, keeping a straight face, trying to ignore the fact that I can feel my heart beat in my skin.
“I guess we both do,” you say. A shrug of your bear shoulders.
My fingers grip the seams of my skirt. “What are you doing here, Thor?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
I swallow and watch your eyes scan my reflection up and down.
“You can’t be here.”
Your eyes meet mine. “Says who?”
Then we just breathe and stare at each other. How long has it been?
“I did it, Thor.”
Your wicked smile.
“I saw.”
“Mars?” Cara bangs on the door and you disappear.
“Mars? You OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just washing my hands!”
I push the lever on the swan-neck tap and swill my face with cold water.
The empty space in the mirror.
“You sure you’re OK? You look kinda pale.”
Cara’s concerned face, her cheeks slightly flushed from cheap wine.
“Yeah, I just feel a bit off. I didn’t eat. I think I’m gonna go.”
“You want me to come with you? We could get chicken?”
“Nah, I’m good, you stay, have fun.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Message me later if I miss anything.”
Her expression turns sheepish. “Nothing’s gonna happen. I’ve left it too long. He’s oblivious,” she sighs. “That ship has sailed.”
I smile and poke her stomach. “Maybe, but you’ve always been a strong swimmer.”
She hugs me again. “I love you, Marcie Baker.”
“I love you too, Cara Miles-Yeung.”
Our bodies shake with laughter and I go to squeeze her, just as she pulls away.
The bin men haven’t been.
One black bag leans on the wall under the hedge with a trail of its guts on the pavement. A bloated green tea bag, a clump of brown rice, the wilted carcass of a red bell pepper. It’s a miniature art installation made by a fox.
I step over the exhibit, through the gate and see the sign. It’s one of those cheap banners you buy from a card shop. CONGRATULATIONS! in somebody with zero style’s idea of exciting letters. I can hear Stevie Wonder singing inside. Coral always makes an effort.
Think of the end of Jurassic Park when the T. rex is roaring as the torn banner ripples down from the ceiling. Close my eyes.
You came, Thor. I needed you there and you came.
Nobody knows. Only us.
Open my eyes. Tear down the banner. And go inside.
Dusk. And I’m literally buzzing.
If you could press mute on these busy city streets and lean in, you’d hear my body crackling like a plasma ball.
I crossed over. To you. You saw me. There. In the real. And I helped.
You know I did.
At the lights, I lean on the stop sign as a fifteen-metre white limousine rolls past. Across the street, a line of five black-suited yakuza sit in the neon window of a noodle bar, slurping in unison, their dark sunglasses hiding their eyes.
The house is the bridge. Coral’s house. Has it always been there – just across the park – this whole time?
Walking in. The hall. The stairs. Your bedroom door. The heat in my chest.
A foghorn.
I look up and see a World War II German Royal Tiger tank waiting at the red light. The top hatch creaks open and a small man wearing military uniform and a white moustache as big as a broom head starts barking unintelligible orders.
I cross the street.
Why now? Why do I find the house now?
I stop on the corner. The grinding tread of the tank behind me. The neon of the noodle bar.
The fade.
Ten years since you made me. Six since you sent me away.
I finally have a new way to reach you.
And I have to knock it down.
The bin bag is still there outside next door.
The door is closed and I don’t hear anything from inside. Why wouldn’t they just take it to the rubbish chute? I’m not doing it. Not my job.
Inside.
Boots off.
My head is swimming. It happened. I was there. With you. Through the house, that I now have to destroy.
Alan.Unresolved feeling will fester, Thor.
No shit.
Who can I tell?
No one. No one can know, Marcie. Just me and you.
The need to see you pulls me to the table. The old typewriter smiles. Like it knows.
Like it knows.
You’re drying a dinner plate.
Coral stands next to you, washing the last of the dishes. Her Lauryn HillMTV Unpluggedalbum is playing from the living room. She hums along as she washes.
You thank her for dinner and for the banner and the cake. She tells you not to be silly and offers to drop you off wherever Cara and the others are. You tell her you’re tired and that you’re just going to watch a film and, as she passes you the pan, you notice a mobile phone number inked on the back of her hand.
You ask her if she realises that it’s nearly ten years since you moved in with her. Coral drops the sponge. Of course she remembers it, she says. She remembers it like it was yesterday. She tells you that becoming your legal guardian is the best thing that ever happened to her.
You smile.
She asks if you’ve seen your dad. You tell her you’ll go tomorrow.
She pulls you in for a hug and tells you that she is so proud of you and that you are so smart and so special and that university is going to be the best time of your life and, as she kisses you on the head, you close your eyes and see me.
(#ulink_f2302338-76c2-503d-a284-c29a9f39ab4c)
Diane’s gift-wrapping a slim hardback for an old man with a crooked spine and long ears.
They’re the only two people in the shop.
Street sounds are muffled as I close the door gently behind me. Deep breath.
The calm of being surrounded by books.
Something folky is playing quietly through the wooden speakers behind the till.
“Morning, Marcie,” says Diane, in her PhD voice. She’s wearing one of her self-knitted cardigans over a sky-blue denim shirt buttoned up to her slender neck. Hipster bookshop chic.
The old man is watching her fingers gracefully wrap the book, like a young boy watching his grandfather fix a precious watch. He gives a grateful nod as Diane hands him the finished gift and then he just stands there, like he doesn’t want their interaction to be over.
“Have a lovely day,” Diane says to him, and I get a little bit of leftover smile as he leaves.
“Bless him. That’s the third time he’s been in this week.”
“I think he likes you,” I say, dropping my jacket over the chair behind the counter.
“He’s sweet. I wonder who he’s buying them for?”
“Maybe it’s no one. Maybe they’re for himself, and he just loves opening presents.”
Diane looks at me, her glasses resting on top of her Disney-heroine hair.
“That’s so sad, Marcie.”
“Is it?”
I watch her try to see it my way. Her thinking face makes her look like a little girl. I’m not sure how old she actually is. Old enough to be doing a literary doctorate and to like Nirvana in a non-retro way. Old enough to be having a not-so-covert thing with Dad and it not be creepy. Early thirties? Pretty and clever and slightly vacant in the eyes. She’s the most English person I know.
“How is he?” I say, pointing at the ceiling.
Diane pulls a pained expression. “He’s ‘working’,” and the way she rolls her eyes tells me it was a long night.
“I’m just gonna go say hi. Do you want a coffee?”
Diane zones out, like she’s contemplating a tough life decision, then snaps back. “I’d love one, please. Wait, are you done? Last exam?”
“Yep. All finished.”
“Congratulations! You must feel amazing.”
“I guess so.”
“You’re going to love uni, Mars, trust me.”
I nod. She smiles again, then gets on with her stock check. I run my fingers along the spines as I walk, giving my usual wink to Johnny Cash, staring out from his autobiography in the music and film section next to the door for the stairs.
It looks like somebody poured a skip-load of paper through the skylight. A snowdrift of empty white A4 curves up the walls of the small shaded room at the top of the stairs.
There’s a kind of path, where someone has waded through the middle. I can hear Dad muttering as I follow it to the open living-room door.
He’s in the corner, past the sofa, standing on his head.
