My Invisible Boyfriend

by Day, Susie

  Then Simon tugs the Feste costume to the top, the one which will be Fili’s: a Pierrot, a sad clown with painted tears, all very David Bowie circa Ashes to Ashes, somehow all very Fili at the same time. It’s exactly how I pictured it, only about four thousand times more brilliant.

  Teddy is a star. A pencil-wielding angel. A cupcake with legs. I’m going to do all the washing up for him next Saturday; that’s how awesome he is. But still, I feel so proud of myself. I mean, I didn’t do the clever bit, the pretty-making bit, but I did the thinking-up-stuff part when I’ve never done anything like that before.

  “Ace,” says Venables, impressed to the point of almost shutting up.

  He also says I’m amazingly talented, which is where I get fumblingly and awkward and start trying to explain that actually that would be someone else. But then he starts going on about responding to the inherent cultural subversion of the post-punk era, exploiting the androgynous themes, and how my faux-militarism is an amazing critique of Thatcherite economics. The rest of the Artistic Team starts to crowd round and make cooing noises, patting me on the back. I go sort of blushy and giggly and un-Heidilike, and the chance to explain that I hadn’t really intended any of that, and actually the impressive parts weren’t me at all, kind of passes by.

  Simon’s too busy still gazing adoringly at the Pierrot and her jaunty little hat to mind anyway. I feel a little stab of envy, watching him as one black fingernail traces the curve of the painted face, his lips slightly parted. No boy has ever looked at me like that.

  And then she’s there, at my side, stepping in as the rest of the Artistic Team go back to their glitter paint.

  I wait, a little breathless, for her reaction. She’s not going to leap around squeaking like Ludo would, obviously. But I know she’s going to love it. It’s impossible not to love it. And even though it wasn’t actually me who drew it, she’s going to hug me, and give me one of those rare smiles, and case number 3 can be forgotten about because everything’s perfect.

  She blinks. Flicks her eyes up at Simon. Flicks them back to the sketch. Flicks them to me, and holds them there. No smile. Then she sighs and takes Simon’s hand, walking away looking even sadder than the Pierrot.

  Heidi Ryder PI gets a little flashback to ITP: to gloomy Fili who doesn’t like Ed. You like who you like, that’s just how it is.

  And I get a little shiver, and I realize it’s not that I’m angry. It’s that I miss her.

  to: bloodwinetears@letterbox.com

  from: gingerbread_ed@frogmail.com

  dear fili,

  this is probably a really weird thing to do, but heidi seems kind of upset about whatever it is that’s happened between you. though i don’t really know what that is. anyway she doesn’t know i’m writing this, but i have her passwords in my laptop (that’s how i got your e-mail address) and i thought i’d just write and say that she seems kind of sad about it, whatever it is. and that she’d still really like to be your friend. and she misses you.

  i think she doesn’t really know how to say it to your face, though, so I decided to send this.

  hope it isn’t too weird,

  ed (heidi’s boyfriend)

  to: gingerbread_ed@frogmail.com

  from: bloodwinetears@letterbox.com

  Dear Ed,

  I know how you must feel. I feel very strange writing to you like this, too. It helps me to write things down when I’m feeling like this, shape the feelings into words, find the order in the chaos. I might not even send this message, but I feel calmer already now I’m sitting still, alone, still alone. Talking, without having to speak out loud.

  The thing of it is, I’m a terrible person. I don’t think Heidi would like me too much, if she really knew what I was like.

  So it’s a very kind gesture, you writing on her behalf, but I think I deserve to meet this darkness alone.

  Fili

  WOE.

  UH.

  I was enjoying Ed being Mr. Sensitive. I hadn’t really expected him to turn into my own private Secrets Box.

  I’ve always thought Finches—even Leftover Squad Finches—had a sort of shell that I wasn’t born with, that made them somehow unbreakable. But it looks as if we’re all equally squishy under our skin. Even Fili: Fili the Unique, Fili the Tower, not Fili Who Does What It Says On Her Tin, Yawn, Next Please. She might look and sound like another Flick Henshall, but we kind of laugh at Flick Henshall and her Epic Emopain as Expressed Through Her Poetry/ Wrist Warmers, and no one laughs at Fili.

  Maybe no one listens to Fili, either. I thought I’d tried, but I didn’t, not really: I got distracted by my Precious Ed. I watched her and her doting Gothboy, and maybe possibly perhaps I was a little bit jealous, and I didn’t realize that she could have a perfect non-imaginary boyfriend and still feel lost.

  I want to wake up the Mothership, and make her drive me up the hill so I can give Fili a hug, and tell her whatever it is, I’ll understand. But Heidi doesn’t know about this stuff. It sounds like Fili doesn’t want her to, either.

  That hurts. But I need to be grown up and non-whiny about it, because Fili’s the one who matters right now.

  to: bloodwinetears@letterbox.com

  from: gingerbread_ed@frogmail.com

  dear fili,

  i’m really glad that you wrote to me. not that i’m glad about what you wrote, obviously, because you sounded really sad, and even though obviously we’ve never met i wouldn’t want that for you. but it sounded like maybe it helped to tell someone, and i’m happy i could be that person. heidi told me that sometimes you feel blue, but it’s different hearing you describe it. like i can see it from the inside a little better now, or something.

  i’m sure heidi wouldn’t hate you, if you wanted to talk to her. i hope simon’s being supportive and boyfriendly, too? but you can always write to me if you prefer. i know what you mean about writing things down being a way of getting things out of you. so you can write to me whenever, and i won’t share any of it with anyone unless you ask me to, i promise.

  i hope you’re feeling better anyway.

  ed

  The penthouse, on a dark night. Mycroft Christie is seated at his desk, delicately sipping a cup of tea. His youthful associate, Miss Heidi Ryder, does not have any tea. She is not very pleased about that, but cannot be bothered to go all the way downstairs to make some, talk to the Mothership, stand in cold kitchen, etc.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: So, Miss Ryder. How goes the investigation?

  HEIDI: Horribly. Or brilliantly. It’s a bit hard to tell. I’ve definitely found some stuff out.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Very good. Although I understand your colleague Mr. Hartley has done most of the work?

  HEIDI: Yes, but he is actually me. Try to keep up.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: It is all rather confusing, you know, even for a time-traveler like myself.

  HEIDI: Tell me about it. I keep forgetting which one of us is meant to know things.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Try keeping World War Five under wraps, my dear.

  HEIDI: Four. World War Four.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: (chokes slightly on tea) Yes. So. Progress report?

  HEIDI: Case number 1: Ludo and Peroxide Eric. Have interrogated her and gathered valuable evidence. No Girl B suspects as yet. Propose further interrogation of relevant witnesses, and possibly hitting Eric on the head with something heavy.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Excellent. Case number 2?

  HEIDI: Dai and Henry. Can confirm that Henry is not evil, that Dai does really like him, and that the two of them are kind of ridiculously adorable. Propose gently squishing them together, until they definitely see it, too.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: I’m positively moved. And case number 3?

  HEIDI: Um. That’s the horrible bit. She’s not a witch. She’s just really sad. About…something.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Proposed course of action?

  HEIDI: Feeling really guilty for thinking mean things about her? Followed by crying?

  MYCROFT C
HRISTIE: Or, perhaps, confrontation?

  HEIDI: Definitely can’t do that. She says she doesn’t want me to know. I might make it worse, if she thinks she can’t even talk to Ed about it. And maybe I don’t want to know what the problem is. I just want it to go away. Could I borrow your Time Bureau guest pass from episode 3.9 and just go back to when we were friends?

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: I think you’ll find I’m dressed in the blue pinstripe suit and have completely perfect hair, meaning I’m Mycroft Christie from somewhere in the middle of season 2.

  HEIDI: Oops. Bad fangirl. Don’t grow that beard, yeah?

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Might you, perchance, be changing the subject away from the emotionally distressing topic of Fili to something silly with which you feel more at home?

  HEIDI: Yes. Which is a bit pointless, since you’ll already know that.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: It’s getting confusing again. You really should stop being quite so many people. Dressing yourself up as others. Wearing a different costume. Playing a new role?

  HEIDI: You’re being kind of weird.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: I’m hinting. You’ll work it out in a minute.

  HEIDI: Dressing up? But I’m not wearing a costume for PAG; I’m just designing them. Or pretending to anyway. I don’t even dress up for…

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Halloween?

  HEIDI: Ooh.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Isn’t that rather soon, Miss Ryder?

  HEIDI: Yeah.

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: And wouldn’t a certain fond-of-black-clothing person be the ideal person to ask for costuming assistance, thus offering a fine opportunity to casually drop in on said person and say hello?

  HEIDI: You’re a bit good, you know that?

  MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Unfortunately, I do. But I have it on good authority that my overwhelming self-belief is all part of my charm.

  Mycroft Christie sits back in his chair and looks unbearably smug, if also quite snoggable. Miss Heidi Ryder takes the opportunity to stick out her tongue and steal his teacup.

  Recipe for a Spectacularly Scarilicious Halloween

  INGREDIENTS:

  Fili, keeper of the stripy tights

  Dai, formerly known as Mr. Big, now known as Mr. Beloved

  Ludo, shiny happy person

  Agent Ryder, Undercover Genius

  Handcuffs

  Pumpkins, plastic bats, fake cobweb spray stuff, etc.

  METHOD:

  • Mix all ingredients in the Little Leaf café.

  • Hug till everyone is all right again.

  Special Agent Heidi has been working hard on Operation: Simply Belonging. Not on her World Map displaying the distribution of coffee growers versus coffee wealth, or a certain Poem, or even the costume designs for the musical, which is allegedly the talk of the staff room (“Didn’t even know you could draw, babes. You made me feel ever so silly.”). But a cunning plan is underway, and the foundations have been laid. Henry and Ludo have already been provided with the relevant equipment, stolen from Venables’s props cupboard. I’m well on my way to restoring the Leftover Squad to happiness.

  All I need now is to distribute one last item and sort out my outfit for Halloween at the Little Leaf. Betsy might have adopted the tea and biscuits but she’s still an American when it comes down it. I’ve seen the photos from last year: There’s going to be some serious festive decoration going on, not to mention a whole new menu. Me turning up dressed as a Schoolgirl Waitress isn’t going to cut it.

  Usually the Mothership heads straight home after classes on Fridays, but (uncannily, almost as if some clever person arranged it) Dai’s asked for some extra swim time (which, strangely enough, Henry might have had a text suggesting he goes to watch), so I’ve got a window of an hour or so. I flutter my eyelashes at Dad Man, and he fake sighs, pretending to look the other way as I sneak up the huge Manor staircase to Ludo’s room.

  She has a single, which is lucky for whoever might have ended up being her roomie, because the Ludo approach to decoration is insane: every inch of wall covered in photos, postcards, stickers; every mirror draped with necklaces and beads; desk and chair invisible, reachable only by excavation party with laundry basket. Tonight it looks as if a small explosion may have occurred and destroyed the wardrobe. There are more clothes than I think I’ve ever owned in my entire life, piled up on her bed. I’d assume it was for my benefit, or maybe some consequence of the Girl B scenario, if it hadn’t looked exactly the same last time I’d sneaked up here.

  “So we’re going for, like, American Halloween, where you don’t have to be all warty,” Ludo explains, holding up multiple sparkly, un-Heidilike items. “You know, you can be a slutty nurse, or a slutty cat, or a slutty…slut.”

  “Maybe I want to be warty,” I say, as she drapes a pink feather boa around my neck and pouts at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Oh my God, Heidi, nobody wants to be warty. You should let go, you know? Lose the big coat, show a little skin! We could take pictures, send them to your Ed. Or are you worried he’d get jealous?”

  “He’d probably laugh,” I say, imagining a squished icing eye crinkling up in amusement. “Besides, he likes me being…me.”

  I see her face, reflected next to mine, go still for just a moment. She’s smiling but in a sad sort of way.

  PAW.

  LOO.

  DOE.

  Dating someone as perfect as Ed does make it hard on everyone else, I guess. Even if Peroxide Eric weren’t possibly doing the dirty, he’d still struggle to measure up.

  Ludo pokes through the selection of stretchy sparkly things on the bed, which wouldn’t fit me anyway, though she’s much too sweet to say so.

  “I don’t really have anything warty,” she sighs.

  “Well, maybe not warty. But witchy. Traditional spooky stuff. Hey, you know who’d have that stuff? We should go and ask Fili.”

  The casual “I only just thought of this and haven’t been planning it at all” tone doesn’t quite come off, but it doesn’t matter: Ludo just flops onto the pile of clothes on the bed.

  “Good luck with that,” she says, tartly.

  I think about arguing with her, but there’s not much point. I think I only wanted her to come with me so I wouldn’t chicken out. Or to make sure I wouldn’t be the only unwelcome one.

  I head up the top flight of stairs alone anyway, and hesitate outside Fili and Yuliya’s bedroom door.

  Part of me hopes she won’t answer, but there’s a thump, and the door opens.

  Simon.

  He’s not really supposed to be upstairs in a Manor bedroom.

  Then again, neither am I. And the chickeny part of me is sort of relieved. I’m here to just gently prove I’m still Fili’s friend, more than anything. It doesn’t need to be a big dramatic scene, with weeping and guilty confessions.

  Fili’s curled up on her black and silver bedcover, eyebrow shooting up as Simon shuffles back to let me in, and I mumble my explanation. It feels so odd, seeing her and knowing things I can’t say. It’s like episode 1.10, “Insight,” the one where Mycroft Christie can suddenly read everyone’s minds, and it turns out to be kind of inconvenient and upsetting. Except I don’t have to wear an Ugly Magic Ring to do it.

  And maybe it’s Ed who’s got the Ugly Magic Ring anyway, because I can’t figure out what she’s thinking at all as she sighs and waves me toward the wardrobe, instructing me to help myself.

  “You are coming tomorrow?” I say, poking through the black shirts, and the black skirts, and the…other black skirts. “To the Little Leaf? For lunchtime? There’s this theme for dressing up,” I add, taking the wrapped-up prop out of my Bubble Wrap bag and throwing it to Simon. “Everyone’s doing it.”

  “OK,” says Simon, nodding through his wispy hair, then looking to Fili. “OK?”

  Fili shrugs. “If that’s what everyone’s doing,” she says softly.

  She doesn’t sound exactly pleased about it. But they’ll be there at least. And Operation: Simply Belong
ing’s Project Pumpkin can’t possibly go wrong.

  Betsy does not disappoint.

  The rest of town is getting by on moldy-looking pumpkins with a few triangles cut out of them and the occasional five-year-old dressed as as a witch (and getting some harsh fashion critique from the local emokids sitting on the war memorial). The Little Leaf, on the other hand, has transformed from a weird-looking place into…a slightly more defined weird-looking place. You can barely sit down for rubber spiders. All the usual cakes come with jammy bloodstains and sinister new names. Today’s dunkable biscuit is a range of Unhappy Faces with grumpy and/or scary expressions carved into them (and, thanks to a morning’s giggling, individual names: My Little Dead Pony, Mr. Sad One-Eye, Mouthless Pete). The Daily Wisdom reads THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING: ENJOY A CAKE NOW, BEFORE YOU CRAVE NOTHING BUT HUMAN FLESH!

  Betsy’s dressed as the Starbucks Mermaid, in shimmery green with two tails tied to her hair and a necklace made from coffee beans. Teddy is Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, with The Lovely Safak in a red wig and blue face paint as his Sally. I’ve cheated a little bit, and gone for an ultra-Gothic take on Wednesday Addams, on account of the hair making it somehow inevitable.