All the Tricks of Their World

by T B Gayle

  Get it together, Pascal, he told himself. He couldn’t mess this up. Not with someone as great as Maisie. How often was he going to get a chance with someone like her? That set him off into a bit of a panic, but then he remembered that she’d been the one waiting all day for him to come home. It wasn’t all up to him to make this work.

  ‘Hey, what were you going to tell me before?’ said Pascal. He tried to stay calm and pretend he didn’t know what she was about to say.

  ‘Can we do this tomorrow?’ said Maisie.

  That hadn’t exactly been what he’d been expecting. But it’s fine, Pascal told himself. It didn’t mean she’d changed her mind or anything. She wasn’t feeling the best, that was all, and telling someone you like them or whatever was hard enough without having to do it when you’re not feeling the best.

  ‘Yeah, maybe we can grab some dinner or something,’ said Pascal.

  VI

  Maisie wanted to tell him she wasn’t feeling up to it. The trouble was, her mind was in such a mess that she didn’t know how to even begin explaining that.

  ‘We could go here if you want?’ said Pascal, picking up the menu that Maisie had left lying on the kitchen counter, a souvenir from the place she’d used to work. She would have torn the thing up, except that one night her friend Sam had drawn this stupid squiggle on it that Maisie had grown quite fond of. It was a sketch of a crisscrossing curving knot pattern. ‘Looks alright,’ he said.

  All Maisie could think about was how horrible it would be to have to go back to her old work. From what little she could remember with her hurting head, she hadn’t exactly left on the best of terms with everyone. Sam was the only one that had liked her, and even they’d had a falling out. The weirdest thing was, it was Sam’s voice she’d thought she’d heard after waking on the floor; she wasn’t sure what to make of it. It seemed a bit like all the times she’d dreamt of people that she barely knew, who had no right to be there, stuck in her head night after night. Dreaming about someone was one thing though: hearing their voice every which way she turned had to be a whole lot worse.

  ‘I could meet you there after work and everything,’ said Pascal. ‘Should be great, hey?’

  Maisie just wanted him to go. It didn’t matter. Nothing did. She just wanted to lie down and close her eyes.

  VII

  The jump from the window shouldn’t have been too much trouble for Isobel. When she was a kid, she’d spent all her time climbing trees and balancing upside down. But she wasn’t a kid anymore.

  You should just go back inside, she told herself. But she knew what was happening inside. They’d made Maisie forget, and now Pascal was there to do the same to her, to make her think there was a happy life waiting for her here.

  She still couldn’t understand what had happened. One minute she was there amazed that she’d been able to find someone else like her trapped in this world, and the next there were people everywhere.

  She’s gone, Isobel told herself. She knew they’d made Maisie forget, and she knew they’d use her against her now just like they’d always been using Pascal. You have to make it out without her, she told herself. Isobel wasn’t sure she could, though. She could feel this terrible aching growing deep inside her.

  Jump, she told herself. The fence was only a few metres away. All Isobel had to do was leap and grab the top and put her feet on the railing. Then she’d be safe; she could get out of the city, away from Pascal, away from everything that wasn’t real. She felt like she had to find somewhere where no-one knew her, where she could hide and try to figure out what to do.

  Jump, she told herself again, but it was like they were making her feel that she couldn’t. She could hear them telling her that she’d been sick too long, that she was broken, that her days of handstands and leaping and fighting were over. Isobel could feel this pressure inside her, squeezing her. She knew they wanted her to go back and talk to Maisie. She knew they wanted her to see Pascal. But Isobel also knew who they were. She knew what this world of theirs was.

  She looked back at the fence and took a deep breath. She had to jump. She couldn’t let what had happened to Maisie happen to her. So she leapt and flew through the air, and for a moment it was like she was a light amongst the shadows again, but then she hit the fence and her grip failed her, and instead of holding on, she crashed to the ground.

  Isobel lay there curled in a ball, moaning. She tried not to moan too loudly in case Maisie or Pascal heard, but she’d landed all wrong on her shoulder and couldn’t quite manage not to moan at all. Her mum had always told her that pain and worry were nothing but illusions, but then, she’d never seen her mum leap from a window and land all wrong on her shoulder.

  You’re so stupid, she told herself. She didn’t know why she’d even tried to jump. That wasn’t the worst of it either, there were so many things she did without knowing why. It was like something wasn’t right inside her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t knocked on Pascal’s door all those times when she’d so wanted to talk to him, or why she’d kept telling Maisie all those crazy things.

  Isobel wanted to lie there and never get up. She wanted to close her eyes and admit to herself that she was never getting out, not from this world or the darkness that they were lost in. Before she could close her eyes, though, she noticed the strangest thing: her shadow looked wrong. It might have been because she was upside down, or it might have been the weird angle cast from the light of the house next door, but it looked like the shadow was growing, getting bigger and bigger, consuming the little yard between the flats and the fence. And it was like it hadn’t finished growing. It started on the flats, clawing at them, pushing itself up brick by brick.

  It was only at the sound of footsteps that Isobel managed to drag her eyes away from it. She looked up and saw the woman.

  ‘Is everything okay, Isobel?’ said the woman. It was the same woman who only moments before had helped do such dreadful things to Maisie. Isobel tried to nod, but it was hard to nod when she was crumpled up in a ball, lying upside down against the fence.

  ‘You sure you don’t need some help?’ said the woman. She was the last person Isobel wanted help from. ‘You don’t have much time with us here,’ said the woman. ‘You need to start trusting us.’ She put out her hand as though she was going to help Isobel up, but then the calm, beautiful look on her face changed. She was looking past Isobel, at Isobel’s shadow growing taller and taller against the backdrop of the flats.

  The woman quickly stepped back, not taking her shining eyes from the shadow. ‘It doesn’t need to end like this,’ she said. Then she turned and disappeared, fading away as quietly as she’d come.

  VIII

  It’d been the best day at work Pascal had had in a long time, mostly because he was too busy worrying about his date with Maisie to worry about all the usual things he worried about. No-one had barely said a word to him, but it didn’t seem to matter so much, not when he was about to spend the night chatting away with a beautiful woman. At least, he was hoping they were going to spend the night chatting away; it wasn’t exactly his strong point.

  You’ll be right, he told himself. He just needed to think of a few interesting things to say to her. The trouble was, he was only a few blocks from the restaurant and that wasn’t that far when he needed to be thinking up all sorts of interesting things. He looked up at the sky, hoping for an eclipse or maybe for a flying saucer to swoop down and zap someone with a laser, but when none of that happened, he looked down and saw a homeless girl huddled with her back to the building. Pascal wondered whether he should give her some money so he could tell Maisie about it and sort of shake his head and say what a big problem all that was becoming. It wasn’t that fun a thing to be talking about on a date, though. He doubted it would have been the sort of thing some footballer type would have spent the night talking to her about.

  It wasn’t like the homeless were that much of a bother anyway. They were a bit of an annoyance – always asking for this or that and
making up some story of why they needed it – but if he put his head down and walked past pretty quick, they didn’t cause too much grief. Pascal had pretty much stopped listening to them. You can’t help everyone, he told himself. Besides, if he’d stopped to give coins to all the homeless people, then he would’ve been late for his date, and worse, he probably wouldn’t have been able to pay for it. Maisie would have loved that. It wasn’t exactly the best way to get himself invited over for coffee or what not at the end of the night.

  About the only interesting thing about the homeless girl was that she kind of looked like someone Pascal had known as a kid. That’d be something at least, thought Pascal. He might get a few good minutes talking about that with Maisie. He knew it wasn’t really the girl that he’d known, though. Isobel had been this amazing kid. He knew she wouldn’t have ended up on the streets or anything like that. Whenever the Olympics were on, Pascal always watched, hoping to see her on the telly doing the flips and somersaults that she’d been so obsessed with as a kid. She hadn’t exactly been great at them, and most of the time she’d ended up in a heap on the ground, holding an arm or a leg and grimacing, but he figured she would have had a lot of time to practise and get better.

  The girl didn’t even look that much like her. There was something wrong with her eyes, like there were bruises all around them. About the only thing that really reminded him of Isobel, well, besides her nursing one of her arms like it was broken, was something in the shape of her nose and her mouth. He knew it couldn’t really be her; the long messy hair gave it away. Isobel had always had short, shaved hair. Her mum had been one of those hippy sorts that thought it was a good idea to dress in sheets and do stretches as the sun rose and all that. Pascal almost laughed, imagining the homeless girl getting up at the crack of dawn to do the same.

  It wasn’t her. Isobel was never going to grow up to be some stunner, but Pascal had always imagined she would have been one of those cute girls, the sort that made a guy want to smile whenever he saw her. He kept imagining her hanging out at some Brunswick Street cafe, flirting with some hipster bearded guy, them both laughing.

  Pascal wasn’t even sure what he’d do if it had been Isobel sitting there. They hadn’t exactly seen each other in a long time, and it wasn’t like they’d been best friends or anything. They’d just lived next door to each other for a while. It probably would have been the most awkward thing ever. No-one’s the same all grown up as they were when they were kids. He knew she probably would have felt as awkward talking to him as he would talking to her. About the only thing he would’ve wanted to ask her was whether she had worked things out with her mum. Her mum had just got up and walked out on her one night. Hadn’t even said why.

  God, it’d be awful if this is how Isobel ended up, thought Pascal. He didn’t even want to think about it. Isobel had been a few years younger than him, and so much better at everything. She’s probably studying to be some dancer, he told himself. Or he could see her as some artist, or maybe one of those never-getting-a-real-job philosophy types.

  Pascal looked back down at the young woman. Please don’t let it be her, he thought. But the more he looked at her, the more familiar she seemed. He kind of recognised the eyes. They were darker, duller, but still the same in a way as the girl he’d held crying when her mum had left her alone in that empty house.

  IX

  Isobel didn’t understand it; Pascal always headed home after work. He never came her way, not in all the times she’d sat watching him. It was like they weren’t even pretending it was a proper world anymore.

  ‘Hey, Isobel,’ said Pascal.

  She refused to look at him. It’s not the real him, she had to keep telling herself. His eyes were empty, and she knew that if she reached out to touch him, he’d be as cold as the shadows they’d spent so long fighting.

  ‘You remember me, right?’ said Pascal. She remembered him. He’d stood side by side with her in the darkness. She’d been so sure they were going to make it out together, but this wasn’t him.

  ‘How’ve you been and all that?’ said Pascal.

  She wanted to look up into his eyes and tell him that since she last saw him, she’d been tricked and trapped in a world of illusions. She wanted to tell him how she’d been getting sicker and sicker each day as they stole away more and more of what had once been good about her. She wanted to tell him how they’d made her think that he was here with her when he wasn’t.

  ‘Are you alright and everything, you know?’ said Pascal.

  I’m not sure I am, thought Isobel. She knew she couldn’t keep going on like this, not when there was a whole world up against her.

  ‘You’re not sleeping out here, are you?’ said Pascal. Isobel wanted to put her hands over her ears. She knew what was coming: he’d say she could stay with him for a while if she wanted. Then one night he’d take her hand in his and kiss her, and that would be that. She’d be there staring back at him with the same forgetful, vacant eyes as Maisie.

  ‘Well, the thing is, I’ve kind of got to go,’ said Pascal. ‘I’m meeting someone, you know. And you don’t really seem like you want to talk much or anything, which I get. It’s been a long time.’

  Isobel looked up, wondering who it was he was meeting. He never meets anyone, she thought. He always just went home. Something was happening, something Isobel knew she was best off not knowing, but that wasn’t how this world of theirs worked. As Pascal walked away, Isobel climbed to her feet and started creeping quietly after him.

  X

  All Maisie wanted to do was turn around. The last thing she felt like was having dinner at the restaurant with Pascal, and worse, having to see all the people she used to work with there. Her head was a mess. She wasn’t hearing voices, but she could barely walk more than a few steps without nearly falling.

  ‘Hey, Sam,’ said Maisie. Sam had been standing there, trying not to seem bored as a couple tried to decide on their orders, but when she heard Maisie’s voice she spun about, her eyes wide, looking anything but bored. There was something nice about that. Before they could talk, Sam had to spin back to answer a question. Maisie was left standing there awkwardly as people she’d worked with spotted her and nodded, but not in a ‘We’re glad to see you again’ way; it was more like, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  Sam eventually managed to slip away and drag Maisie to a table off to the side of the room. ‘Whatever did you do to your head?’ said Sam, reaching out and touching the red mark on Maisie’s forehead. Maisie just shrugged. She didn’t know where to begin with that.

  ‘So, what have you been up to?’ said Sam.

  ‘Oh, you know, all the things I never had time to do before,’ said Maisie. It was better than admitting that she’d been too sick to even think about doing much. She knew how that would have gone down.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry how things turned out,’ said Sam. Maisie wanted to roll her eyes. It wasn’t even that big a deal. It wasn’t like the job was something she’d cared about or that she’d been much good at. They both should have been there laughing about the whole thing. Neither of them looked like they were much in the mood for laughing, though. Maisie felt more in the mood for heading back home and trying to get some sleep. She probably would have, too, if Pascal hadn’t chosen to turn up just as Maisie was about to climb to her feet. He came puffing into the restaurant, looking like he’d run all the way from his work. He spied Maisie and headed over.

  ‘You’re not going to believe what happened,’ he said. Maisie was sure she wouldn’t. She had no idea what he did all day. She didn’t really want to know what he did all day.

  ‘I ran into this friend I used to know,’ said Pascal. ‘Only, she’s, like, homeless now. She was just sitting there on the street begging for money and everything.’

  The thumping in Maisie’s head grew even stronger. She supposed there was a chance he’d run into a completely different homeless looking person he knew, other than the one Maisie had woken up to in her flat, but she doubted it. Ev
en the thought of that girl was enough to get Maisie taking fast anxious breaths.

  ‘They’re everywhere these days,’ said Sam.

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t expect to know one of them,’ said Pascal. ‘It kind of puts things in perspective and all that.’

  ‘You should’ve invited her in,’ said Sam.

  Pascal looked across at Maisie. ‘Not sure how well that would’ve gone down,’ he said.

  Not well. Not well at all, thought Maisie. Sitting across from someone who she was worried was going to jump up and murder her was never going to make for the greatest dinner.

  ‘Were you two close?’ said Sam.

  Maisie kept having this feeling that something wasn’t right, that Pascal and his friend were up to something. How could he have only just met her if she’d been hanging out at his flat? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘No, it was nothing like that,’ said Pascal. ‘We just knew each other when we were kids.’ Then why was she about to knock on your door? Maisie wanted to ask him.

  ‘It sure makes you appreciate having a job and a place to stay and all that,’ said Pascal.

  ‘Do you think she’s alright out there?’ said Sam. Maisie almost jumped in at that point to say the girl was the opposite of alright, that she needed to be locked away in a padded room, but Maisie was starting to feel dizzy again and the thought of padded rooms and being locked away felt a little too close to home to be mentioning.

  ‘What am I going on about her so much for?’ said Pascal, looking across at Maisie in this embarrassed way. ‘I should be getting to know you. I’m not so great at all this. You can probably tell, hey?’