It’s the one I painted after Beth gave me back my stuff. The ghost in a jar. Lucy does a quick search for painting shadows before she looks at the wall. I stand behind her, watching her watching my work. I feel like I’m shedding skin, feel like if she turns she’ll see a skeleton man behind her and then she’ll know.
But she doesn’t. She looks at me and then back at the wall. ‘You ever feel like that?’ she asks, and I don’t say anything because anything I tell her will give me away. ‘Like you’re stuck somewhere and the lid’s on tight?’
The lid’s on tight, the lid’s always on tight, but there’s nothing that can open that jar but smashing. That’s how I felt sometimes, in the shop after I left Beth. All I wanted to do was paint. But then Bert died and I was out of the store and into a worse place because I didn’t have any money coming in. ‘He’s got airholes,’ I say, pointing at the top of the jar.
‘That’s the worst bit.’ She wheels the bike around so the light hits me. ‘His paintings are never hopeful, are they?’
‘Maybe he painted that on a bad day.’ I don’t know if I ever feel hopeful when I work. I feel a high kick in and then sort of a floating ocean inside and then relief. Maybe that’s hope.
I look across at the line of the city. The nights are mean in this place, full of smog that eats the stars. ‘Who does feel hope round here?’
‘I do,’ she says. ‘Al offered me a job as his assistant. I’m going to uni next year.’
‘Maybe Shadow’s not going to uni. Maybe he doesn’t even have a job.’
‘But he’s good,’ she says. ‘Really good. And he makes stuff better, just by painting. I was sitting at a bus stop one time, getting annoyed that I was running late and then I noticed this small piece by him across the road. This bug looked at me with eyes that said, Can you believe this? I’ve been waiting here for half an hour. The picture didn’t have any words. It didn’t need any. The eyes were enough.’
‘How’d you know it was his?’ I ask her. ‘If there weren’t any words?’
‘I know,’ she says, and because of the way those words feel I keep my eyes on her hands.
‘This blue’s from his sky,’ she says, turning them over so I can see. ‘I brushed against a piece of his earlier. A guy who paints like this is doing something. He’s not sitting around.’
Listening to her I feel like I did when Bert talked about where I’d be ten years from now. ‘Famous artist,’ he said, and I felt like I needed to run but my skin wouldn’t let me. I had this urge to throw cans at the windows so I could hear a noise that sounded like escape.
‘We should go,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not safe to stay in the one place at night.’
She doesn’t move. ‘What does he look like? In the glimpses you’ve had of him?’
‘Guys don’t really check out what other guys look like. I guess he’s tall. Dark hair. Muscles. Very big muscles.’
‘But you’ve never checked him out,’ she says.
‘It’s hard to miss this guy’s muscles.’
She still won’t drop it. ‘But what does he look like?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’ And she stares at me and I search around for a word to get her off the subject, grab the first one that comes into my head. ‘Lost,’ I say, without knowing that I’m going to say it. ‘I guess. I don’t know.’
That’s enough for her, for now, and she gets on the bike. I push off but I’m having real second thoughts about going further into the park. Leo and me can be out in the dark because he’s a giant and used to fighting. I know some of the other crews and they’re cool, but not everyone out at night is friendly.
Lucy won’t listen to me though and we go further into the park, on paths I’d rather not go with her. Twisted ones that lead to the centre and make me think of paths curving into the sky and stopping. It’s hard to see where we’re headed from where I’m standing. For all I know we could be on a path that ends and we fall into who knows what. Leo and me have fallen down a few hills around here before.
‘Maybe we should go back. Some of the path isn’t fenced. There’s a pretty big drop round here somewhere,’ I tell her. I want to go to Barry’s and have something to eat. Go somewhere with lights and other people. Somewhere far away from the things I paint.
‘We’ll feel gravel if we go off the path, won’t we?’ she asks.
‘I guess.’
‘Then stop worrying.’
‘Easier said than done,’ I tell her.
‘You have to let your mind go somewhere else,’ she says. ‘Let it drift to places you want to be. When I don’t want to do something, like give a talk or take a test, I imagine that I’m in Al’s studio, blowing glass. I’m turning the pipe and I’m breathing out and making something grow from my breath.’
Something about her voice puts me at a wall, in the night, darkness all around, with a world I made in front of me. We both stop worrying.
That’s when we fall off the path.
I might be jinxed. It’s either me or Ed. That thought occurs to me as I’m sailing over the edge and down a hill on my bike, and I feel Ed bouncing off the back. It would have been better for both of us if he’d held on tighter. Without his weight my bike gains momentum and I move so fast I think I’m going to die. ‘Shiiiittttt,’ I yell, and hold tight to the handlebars. My arms and legs and face cramp up. Uneasy rider, coming through. I go over a bump and keep moving. God I hope that bump wasn’t Ed.
I get this moment of clarity as I’m racing, a spark that hits me out of nowhere. If Dylan knows Shadow, and Dylan and Ed are good friends, why doesn’t Ed know Shadow better? The moment of clarity doesn’t go any further than that because smacking into a tree in the middle of the night will knock clarity right out of a girl, every time.
I take off my helmet and lie there, catching my breath. ‘Ed? Are you alive?’
‘Yes,’ he says from somewhere close by. ‘And that’s genuinely surprising since your bike went over me about halfway down. You’re a very dangerous girl to date.’
‘We’re not on a date.’
‘Lucky me. I might be dead if we were. Are you hurt?’
I do a quick check. ‘Nope. The rocks cushioned my fall. Are you?’ I get up to shine the bike light on him.
‘Uh-huh. Right down the line of that tyre track on my face,’ he says, and maybe it’s the shock but I lose all control and snort with laughter.
‘Don’t go listening to the rumours,’ he says. ‘Guys find snorting girls who run over them with bikes very sexy.’
I snort some more.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’
I catch my breath and calm down and we look up the hill and assess the situation. Mister Tough Guy says we have to walk back up and I know he’s right but I really want to call the police or the firemen to come and get us. ‘You can’t call the police to help you up a hill,’ he says. I wonder if my dad could drive his taxi down here. If he knew I was with a boy, he probably could.
‘Okay, we walk,’ I say. ‘But first I’m calling Jazz so someone knows where we are.’ We leave the bike light on between us and he limps over to a rock and sits down. He’s far enough away so he probably can’t hear me but I move even further from him to make sure.
‘Are you chewing gum?’ I ask when Jazz finally picks up.
‘Yeah. Wait a sec.’
‘Oh,’ I say, putting the pieces together, thinking back to the chewing noises at the party. It’s weird but I feel the tiniest bit jealous.
‘Okay, I’m back,’ she says. ‘Where are you?’
‘At the bottom of a dark hill with a boy.’
There’s silence for a couple of seconds. ‘Is that a metaphor?’
‘No. I’m really at the bottom of a dark hill. Ed and I rolled down it on my bike.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘A little shaky but fine.’ I look quickly over my shoulder to check Ed’s still far away on his rock and then I whisper, ‘Ed’s funny.’
‘Something’s going on, isn’t it?’ She moves away from the phone for a second and I hear her yelling across the crowd, ‘Daisy, Leo, something’s going on with Ed and Lucy.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘Okay, I’m back.’
‘I can’t believe you did that. Leo will tell Ed that I said something’s going on. It isn’t. He’s with Beth,’ I whisper.
‘Really? She’s here, you know. Talking to Leo.’
‘There as in within earshot of you yelling that something’s going on with me and her boyfriend?’
‘I didn’t think about that. Hang on. I’ll fix it.’
‘No, don’t!’
But she’s gone and I hear her yelling, ‘Lucy just wishes something was going on but Ed has a girlfriend so there’s nothing.’
This does not comfort me.
She comes back. ‘All fixed.’
‘All fixed? Now they think I’m delusional. I have to go.’ And find a way to spilt my conscious self from my unconscious self so I can erase this memory. I don’t think my chances are all that good.
‘Wait,’ she says. ‘We haven’t talked about Leo. We’ve danced but there’s no action.’
‘What was that noise when you answered?’
‘I told you. I was chewing gum.’
‘I thought you were kissing and being shy about saying it.’
‘I once chased a boy down the street to ask for his phone number. I’m not shy, Luce.’
It’s true. And she does love gum. ‘So you’ve put out the signals?’
‘I’m a lighthouse. He’s got something else on his mind. He keeps looking at his watch. I say, “You got somewhere to go?” And he says, “I have to be somewhere at one. I can come back to the party and get you after that.” And I say, “I’ll go with you.” And he says, “No, you can’t come with me.” And I think, well, he’s not interested.
‘But then he picks up one of my plaits and he twirls it, Luce. He twirls it round his finger and I get twirls in
the place
. Maybe he’s thinking about Emma. Maybe he’s meeting Emma later. It’s driving me crazy. Should I ask Daisy to kick Dylan in the balls so I can find out?’
‘It might ruin the mood.’
‘The mood is dead for those two. Dylan’s been trying to dance with her but she’s dancing with a guy called Gorilla. I think she’s mad about something more than the eggs. It’s sad to watch. He’s sitting in a corner now, staring at the two of them. Hang on. Beth’s telling me something.’
‘Beth?’ Oh my God.
‘Okay,’ Jazz says. ‘I’ve got news. Beth says she and Ed broke up about three months ago.’
I think about that. I think about that some more. ‘That’s bad, bad news.’
‘How do you figure? If you want him, he’s free.’
‘He’s free and he doesn’t want me to know he’s free because he doesn’t want me to think there’s even the possibility of us getting together.’
‘Are you okay? Your whispers have gone kind of high-pitched.’
‘I’m fine. I don’t even like him like that.’
‘This is me you’re talking to.’
‘Okay. Maybe I like him a little like that. I don’t know. I’m confused. I ran over him with my bike on the way down.’
‘You might want to ease up on the assault and battery if you do like him.’
‘No. I’m out here looking for Shadow. I should stick to the plan.’
‘Maybe Ed’s playing hard to get,’ she says. ‘That’s romantic.’
‘Lying isn’t my idea of romance.’
‘Your idea of romance requires a corset and a time machine. Loosen up for once. Hang on. Leo wants to talk to Ed.’
She’s gone before I have a chance to tell her the pieces I’ve learnt about Leo. I walk over to Ed and hand him the phone. He walks to where I was and I sit on his rock. I try as hard as I can to hear him. Trying. Trying. Nope. I can’t get no supersonic hearing.
Jazz says the universe tells us answers. I always thought that was stupid but no one else is giving me anything to go on so it might be time for last resorts.
I take out a coin and flip it. Heads means Ed didn’t tell me about Beth because he was playing hard to get. Okay. Best out of three. Best out of four. Okay, best out of five. Oh well, there’s always Shadow.
I stare at the coin in my hand for a while and do some tricks like Dad taught me. I fold it around my fingers, making it appear and disappear. ‘It’s about what you make your audience believe,’ Dad always says. ‘But it’s also about what your audience is willing to believe. People want to see you magically pull a coin from your ear. So if you’re quick enough, if you hide things well enough, they’ll believe.’
I stare at the coin. Tails, and Mum and Dad aren’t getting a divorce. Tails, and Dad’s only taking a break and the shed isn’t a permanent thing. I take a breath and flip the coin.
I watch Lucy talking to Jazz, watch the mark on her neck, watch her shuffling, watch her, watch her, watch her. Maybe I could tell her who I am while we’re standing in front of that wall in the skate park. Or take her to the one I did of Bert. Introduce them, sort of.
Or I could show her the scales I drew near the docks. Like those ones I saw in the Vermeer painting,
Woman Holding a Balance
. Mrs J told me once that those scales in his painting weighed something important, something like actions or a soul. Bert and me went to the Vermeer exhibition and while we were looking at that painting I asked him, ‘What do you think someone’s got to do to make a soul heavy?’