Candelo (16 page)

Well, Mitch-ell
, and I giggled,
I think I'm going to be a famous actor, or a writer or a singer
.

He laughed.
Piece of piss
.

That's what I reckon
, I told him.

What about your brother?
he asked.

I stared up, high up, at the night sky and tried to see the patterns that I knew were there.
An artist
, I said.
He's going to be an artist
, and I did not know if I should say any more. I did not know if Simon would want me to tell.

And Evie?

I shrugged my shoulders and looked out across the garden, the gate now visible, and beyond that the road, and somewhere that line of willows, and beneath that, the creek.
I don't know
, I told him.
She could be anything
.

Anything at all
, he said.

And in the silence, I watched him lean forward, looking straight ahead.
You know what my sister does?
he asked.

I didn't.

Manages a shop. Menswear. She got away from home young. Left us as soon as she could
.

And he moved towards me, just for a moment, hesitating, everything still as I waited and he waited, both of us, unsure, so brief, that I found myself wondering if it had ever happened.
Good luck to you
, his voice soft, and the grass damp between my toes, just the light from the stars and the tip of that joint, with the house behind us, solid and dark, and the pair of us, sitting side by side, hip to hip, on that step.

I think it's gone out
, I whispered, holding it between my fingers.

And as he leant forward to light it again, I watched as the match burnt and then flickered out.

Because his mouth was on mine.

And I could feel his hand brushing, a slow rush, just the surface, the inside of my leg.

And I didn't want him to stop. The warmth of his mouth, the smokiness of his breath, the cool grass beneath my feet and the brush of his hand, all of it, while overhead the night was still and dark.

I've gotta go
, I whispered.

Why?

I couldn't answer.

And as I shifted my leg from his, as I stood up, I felt the cool that comes just before dawn, unlocking my fingers from his and turning to walk back up the stairs, towards the house, unable to tell him that it was too much. All of it.

So I didn't say anything.

I just left him, the door clicking softly as I opened it, closing it behind me, leaving him out there.

Alone on the bottom step.

With the night slowly lifting towards day.

Vi still believes in marriage. Despite the fact that it was clearly a disaster for her.

Sometimes she stops what she is doing and looks up from the box she is sorting. She lifts her glasses onto the top of her head. Her eyes are cloudy now. Where they were sharp and intense, dark stones, they are milky at the edges and the whites have yellowed.

She stares across at me and I know she is about to make one of her pronouncements. I brace myself.

Her voice has always been deep, but it has lost some of its richness and it cracks, breaking in the middle of certain syllables, as she tells me that it would be a pity if I didn't get married.

Really
, she says and she reaches for my hand.

I try to explain that I don't see any need for marriage, that it is not an institution that means a great deal to me, nor, I would have thought, to her, but she doesn't listen.

You don't have to take all that dogma so seriously
, and she
waves her hand through the air, impatiently, dismissively.
Marriage is whatever you want it to be
.

I can't help but remind her that it was hardly one of her life successes.

That was your father
, she tells me with some irritation.

I ask her what is wrong with living with someone.

Nothing
, she says.
Nothing at all. It's just not the same
. And then she looks at me again, and tells me that she wasn't intending to be disparaging about my relationship with Marco.

I know
, I say, irritated with her now.

The way I felt about Marco is a totally separate issue. I know it was serious for you and I am not dismissing that
.

I bend down to a box and start pulling out the next bundle of files, dusty and creased at the edges, not wanting to look at her and not wanting to continue this conversation.

I know she never really liked Marco. She never used to tell me this, but when he finally left, she said that she had always thought he was
wrong for me
.

I was surprised. With his impeccable working-class credentials, I would have thought he was perfect.

You never had that spark
, she said.
You were never right together
, and then she turned back to whatever it was that she had been doing at the time.

She was right.

Not that I had ever talked to her about our relationship. I doubt whether I ever even told her I had started seeing him. His name just replaced the person before, just as his had replaced someone else's name before him.

But with Marco, I did try. I wanted something solid. I did
like him and, on the whole, we got on well. He was good to me. The problem lay not just in our fights, nor in our differences, which were probably no worse than most people's. There was, as Vi so delicately put it, a lack of spark.

Why don't you ever want to have sex?
Marco would complain as I would push him away, again and again.

How do you tell someone that you are not attracted to them?

There was something in the heaviness of his body, in the thick solidity of him, that I felt would smother me, suffocate me, and I would pull away.

But how was I meant to say that?

So I would lie, over and over again, until even the times when I did give in, when I would sink into his arms, even when I wanted to, would seem a lie.

When I told Marco it was over, that there was someone else, he asked me who it was.

I refused to say.

Is it serious?
he asked.

I said I didn't know, it might just be a sex thing; it was too early to tell.

He looked at me dumbfounded.
But you're not interested in sex
, and there was complete disbelief in his voice.

And then he hated me for what I had done to him.

Because he, too, had lied to himself. He had refused to see how things were.

I would kiss Anton in secret. I would meet him where no one would see us. I would wait until I heard Louise's footsteps on the path. I would plot and I would plan.

You can't tell
, Anton had said, horrified, when I had told him it was finished with Marco.
About us
.

Sitting out on the edge of the cliff, watching the afternoon light hit the north point, his face, which in its reflection had been so alive, so mobile, froze with fear. Holding his hand but knowing he was no longer there. Feeling his fingers in mine and then feeling them uncurl, one by one, feeling the shift in his body, away from me.

And as I lay in my bed and remembered this, as I thought about the decision I was making, I noticed that the rain had stopped.

It was the quiet that had woken me, the still that had come after what seemed to be days of a relentless downpour. Nothing. Just the sound of the sea.

I got up and I opened my front door. I could smell the freshness of the night. It was clear now, clear enough to see the stars.

At the end of the building I could see the light on in Mouse's room. He never turns it off. It burns all day and all night. I have never asked him why. And as I stood on my doorstep, one foot in, one foot out, the door to. Mouse's flat opened, slowly.

We looked at each other.

Still up?
he asked.

Can't sleep
, I told him.

He was smoking a joint. He held it out towards me. Beneath my feet, the path was still damp. I walked towards him, and I took it from his fingers without a word.

I looked up at the night sky and I remembered. Sitting out
on the steps with Mitchell. All those years ago. Waving his hands in the air, the tip like a pointer in the darkness.

I turned to Mouse and then looked behind me at the emptiness of his flat.
Burgled?
I asked him.

He took the joint from my hand.

Yeah
, and he drew back, sucking it in, holding it in.

This is what happens to Mouse. All the time. It is usually one of the many who knock on his door late at night, shouting out his name:
Mouse, Mouse, let me in
.

Find the guy?

He shook his head.

And we smoked in silence, not speaking as we watched the night sky slowly fade; tentative sunlight after days of rain.

Sometimes in the morning it is difficult to think about what you have done the night before. It is difficult to reconcile those actions with who you are during the day.

I left Mitchell sitting on the steps as the darkness slowly faded.

I lay curled up in my bed, listening to Evie asleep next to me. I was tired but not tired. I was wrapped in the thought of him, wrapped in the feel of him, wanting to sleep, but wanting to stay awake, as it all floated, exciting and terrifying, backwards and forwards through my mind.

And that was how I stayed, as I listened to the birds singing in the trees outside the window, sharp and piercing, cutting through the first morning light, the first pink in the sky, the clarity of the blue, until at last I fell asleep, closing my eyes to the sounds of the others getting up.

When I woke it was past midday. When I woke the sun was high, burning hot in the sky. I looked at the empty room.
I heard the still of the house. And I did not want to think about what had happened the night before.

The note on the kitchen table told me they had all gone to the beach. They would be back in the afternoon.

I was surprised Vi had gone, and I checked her room. The neatly made bed, the piles of papers, the books covering the floor, the stale smell of the ashtray, the row of high-heeled shoes.

I turned on her transistor and twisted the dial away from the national radio station to the local one, the tinny sound of pop music blaring out as I sat on her bed and lit one of her cigarettes.

The taste was foul. My throat was dry and thick, but I did not put it out; I persisted. Watching myself smoke in the speckled, scratched mirror that hung on the front of the wardrobe. My reflection swam in the glass. Yellow and hazy. And I stood up and stepped back. To see all of me. Narrowing my eyes. Imagining myself in another body confronted with me, there, in front of me.

The sunlight was slanting in through the doors that opened onto the courtyard, making it difficult to see who I really was, to see any more than just an outline. Short, skinny; curly black hair. I leant closer to the mirror, blowing out the smoke in a thick choking haze that hit the glass and dispersed in a grey fog. Peering closer. Dark eyes like Vi's, big mouth, long slightly hooked nose.

You have a face that you will grow into
, Vi once said to me.
You'll see
.

I drew back on the cigarette and held it in, watching myself,
turning to one side and then the other, smiling as I flicked the ash into the ashtray.

I had once asked Simon if he thought I was good-looking.

What do you mean?
he had said.

It was the day I had first kissed a boy. After school, behind the library. A dare. We had to do it for five minutes, in front of an audience. When we had finished, he had followed me home, finally summoning the courage to ask me if I wanted to go to the pictures with him.

I didn't.

It was his best friend I liked. And he only had eyes for Alana Smythe, tall, blonde and tanned.

You're just you
, Simon had said.

But am I good-looking?
I had persisted.
If you weren't my brother, would you like me?