by Leanne Hall
I’m glad I found Wolfboy. I was more worried about him than I was about walking the mean streets on my own. I’m not surprised he’s got some heavy personal history. When he howled in the pub, the sound cut right through me. It made me think about every miserable thing I’ve ever seen, like when you see a lost toy on the footpath, getting kicked along and muddied.
I glance across at him. He stares straight ahead as we walk in step, his handsome face composed again. It’s already difficult to imagine that he’s the boy I saw sitting in the empty lot just minutes ago, looking up at me as if he was drowning. It’s difficult to imagine that he’s the same boy I saw go ballistic and kick a table. Family stuff can do that to you. I’m the queen of losing my temper. If I was as tall as Wolfboy I would probably look just as scary as he did. I feel like we’ve passed some kind of test the night set us. I don’t see what could go wrong from here.
Shyness isn’t that different from Plexus, on the surface. The narrow houses crowd together. People grow couches and bikes and concrete in their front gardens instead of roses. The shabby comfort is familiar.
‘You’re taking me to an ATM, right?’
‘No need. I’ve got enough money to last all night. For hours, I mean.’
‘That’s not the point though. I’ve got this card and I’m itching to blow some cash.’
‘How are you going to use an ATM when you don’t know the PIN for the card?’
I slap my forehead. A PIN. I must be cracking up. My face burns with the revelation that I’m a prize idiot.
‘Can I just say in my defence that everything is really confusing in this place, and I don’t normally drink whatever that foul thing was we drank at the Raven’s Wing, and—’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Wolfboy dismisses my embarrassment with an easy wave of his hand. ‘I have an idea where we can spend some plastic.’
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere top secret.’ Wolfboy raises his eyebrows. Some of my dramatic tendencies must be rubbing off on him. I don’t mind that he’s got troubles—in fact, there’s nothing worse than someone who’s too happy-clappy—but I’m glad his mood isn’t as black now.
The residential area gradually morphs into a semi-industrial area with super-sized buildings. We pass an autoshop, a fruit wholesaler and a ghost-town bus depot. The wider road and larger gaps between the buildings allow the wind to rush through, blowing dust and litter around our ankles. Shyness must be chock-full of opium dens, and illegal casinos and uh, diamond merchants and—I run out of ideas on places to spend dirty money. If we were in the City, well, I could think of a million ways. Wolfboy stops at a plain brick building with a neon skittle sign.
‘We’re going bowling?’ I can’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. Bowling is not badass. The foyer of the bowling alley is dark, even though one of the doors swings open and shut in the wind. ‘Are you sure this place is open? I’d rather go to the skate rink if we’re exploring lame entertainment options.’
‘Be patient.’ Wolfboy gives me an exasperated look. People are always telling me I talk too much. I vow to keep my mouth shut for a few minutes.
Instead of walking up to the main doors we take the laneway next to the building. A sprawling, multicoloured piece of graffiti covers the whole side wall: KIDDS RUSH IN. Someone forgot to use spell-check. Our footsteps are echoey in the quiet lane. Wolfboy keeps scanning the roofs on either side of us like he’s expecting a masked invader to come swinging in on a rope. I slip my hand into Wolfboy’s and he gives it a comforting squeeze.
The alleyway expands into a parking lot bordered by a row of unlit buildings with spindly fire escapes. A single weak streetlight illuminates the lot. The whole area is so deserted I expect tumbleweeds to barrel through the middle of it any second now. I swallow. Sketchy is good, right?
‘I think it’s somewhere near here.’
We cross the lot hand-in-hand. The last hand I held was probably Mum’s, before I was old enough to be embarassed by it. My fingers burn and I hope my palm doesn’t get sweaty.
‘You don’t even know where we’re going?’
‘I do know where we’re going. That old guy at the bar, the one who shouted us a drink, he was trying to impress me with all these underground things he knows about. He told me about this place and gave me directions. We’re searching for a green door.’
‘Like that one?’ I point at the back of the building. A green door next to a mountain of glossy garbage bags. Wolfboy drops my hand and presses the buzzer. The handwritten label below the button has smudged in the rain. Nothing happens. Wolfboy presses the buzzer again. Feet scuffle behind the door.
‘We’re looking for the market,’ Wolfboy calls out, leaning in close to the door. I notice there’s a surveillance camera above us, and try my best to look respectable. But maybe I should be trying to look shady instead?
The reply is muffled and terse. ‘Password.’
Wolfboy whispers the password to the door, practically kissing the peeling paint.
‘Can’t hear you.’
Wolfboy rolls his eyes. ‘PRINCE. OF. DARKNESS,’ he repeats in a louder voice.
I snort.
The door clicks and swings inwards. We shuffle into a dark corridor. The owner of the voice is a tall thin man dressed like an oversized bat at a wedding. He doesn’t look like an axe-murderer, but you never know.
‘Your password is three words,’ I say, to cover my nerves. The man’s glance is withering. He’s wearing more eye make-up than I am and it’s impossible to guess his age. His skin and his hair are exactly the same ivory-white. The concrete corridor is cold and unadorned; we’re in the part of the building the public isn’t meant to see.
‘Who sent you?’
‘Gary,’ replies Wolfboy.
The man’s face loses a little of its pinched look. Gary must be a favourite.
‘I’m Sebastien.’ He gestures with one crooked finger for us to follow him down the corridor, unlocking the door at the far end with a key strung around his neck. He makes us walk through first, before shutting the door behind us.
My eyes struggle to adjust to the gloom. I can make out a wall of shelves to the left, and something hanging from the ceiling. The only light comes from nine or ten small windows at floor level.
Sebastien’s bodiless voice is as dry and papery as his skin. ‘Welcome to the market. You will find I have a large variety of contraband and non-contraband items for sale. Please let me know if you have specialist needs and I will direct you to the appropriate section. I don’t do sweets but I have an associate I can refer you to if that’s what you’re after.’
‘I can’t see anything,’ I whisper to Wolfboy.
‘Uh, Sebastien? Can we get some light in here, man?’
There’s a dramatic sigh followed by several echoing footsteps. Sebastien clicks a cigarette lighter. He begins to light candles on a large candelabrum, his lacy cuffs swooping dangerously close to the flames. Wolfboy helps him, using his own lighter to spark the wicks. The room soon flickers with candlelight.
It’s bigger than I anticipated. There are dozens of bicycles hanging overhead, shelves full of unlabelled tins, a stack of mattresses and an impressive collection of samurai swords and machetes pinned to the wall. Bins filled with various goods—sneakers, fireworks, lemon-shaped things that look like hand grenades—dot the room. If weapons are out in the open here, I wonder what ‘specialist needs’ Sebastien means.
‘Do you take credit cards?’
‘I’m not running a trash ’n’ treasure here, darling,’ Sebastien replies. ‘Naturally I have card facilities. This is the largest black market operation in Shyness. I have a higher turnover than all the other so-called markets combined.’
Wolfboy wanders over to some shelves and picks up a tin, sniffing it suspiciously. ‘Gary said you had music gear.’
‘In the far corner, to your left.’
Sebastien folds himself into an antique chair behind a desk and snaps on a lamp,
making a great show of picking up a book and ignoring us. Wolfboy saunters to the back corner.
I bend down to peer through one of the floor-level windows. On the other side is a long, brightly lit room with matchstick people at the other end. The proportions are all wrong, as if I’m squinting into a diorama. I blink. It’s not until there’s a low rumble and something rolls towards me that I realise I’m looking into the bowling alley from behind the pins.
When I reach the back of the room Wolfboy is staring so reverently up at a wall of guitars that I don’t want to interrupt his moment.
‘Oh man.’ He whistles through his teeth. ‘He’s got a Les Paul Custom.’
‘A whatty-whatsy?’
The guitars all look the same to me, with only slight variations in shape and colour. Wolfboy leans forward and strokes a black guitar like it’s a thoroughbred horse. It rocks lightly on its hook. Is it possible to be jealous of a guitar?
‘A 1957 Gibson Les Paul Custom. Isn’t she beautiful?’
She looks like a guitar to me. A black guitar with strings and the things that hold the strings in place, and those knobby bits at the end of the neck. I watch Wolfboy look at the guitar, his yearning painted all over his face. It’s pretty adorable, even though I’d prefer he look at me like that instead.
‘Well, let’s buy it. We’re here to spend money, aren’t we?’
‘I already have a guitar.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t have that guitar. How much do they go for?’
‘No.’ Wolfboy turns away. ‘I don’t deserve a guitar that good. I don’t play well enough.’
‘That’s ridiculous—’ I begin but Wolfboy holds his hand up in my face.
‘Not everything is an opportunity for an argument, young lady.’
I slap his hand away, smiling at his teacher voice. I walk along the wall, stroking the instruments as I pass them.
‘Maybe I’ll buy one and join your band.’
‘Can you play the guitar?’
‘That’s not important, is it? I’ve got the right look for it.’
I stop at a collection of ukuleles. There’s an awesomely ridiculous hot-pink one that’s only fifty dollars. I pluck it from the wall and strum experimentally. Wolfboy leans against a bin full of headphones with his arms crossed, expectant. I clear my throat.
I don’t know any chords, so the sound I’m making is admittedly terrible. But enthusiasm has got to count for something, right? I croon along to my discordant strumming, making the words up as I go.
Oh, I’m so lonely in the night
I’m so hairy
There’s no light
I got the Shyness blues
I wear high-heeled shoes
The moon shines so bright
I’m so howly in the night
Time for the big finale. I thrash the ukulele for all it’s worth.
Pants! So! Tight!
End-less-night!
Aa-wooooooooh!
I attempt a howl but it comes out sounding more like a yodel. I compensate with some cock-rock thrusting and a few signs of the horns, before bowing.
Wolfboy claps slowly. He is devastatingly impressed, of course. More importantly, he seems to have forgotten all about the Ortolan business that got him so down in the first place. He is so sweet when he smiles. I want to see him do it more.
‘Is that an original?’
I put the ukulele down and brush the hair off my face.
‘Oh no, that’s a cover of one of yours. You didn’t recognise it?’
We grin at each other. I feel genuinely silly, not like earlier at the pub with Neil and Rosie when I was just doing a really good job of acting like I was having a good time. Wolfboy seems to like me acting the fool. That’s good. I’m no stand-there-and-look-pretty kind of girl, and I’m not interested in anyone who wants that.
‘So am I in? Do I make the cut?’
‘You can be in my band any day. But we’d better get a move on, before Sebastien throws us out for being drunk and disorderly.’
Sebastien glances up as we approach his desk. He doesn’t give any sign that he’s heard anything. Out of nowhere my heart thumps like it’s trying to break out of my chest. Time to test the card. I don’t know if I’m feeling sick or excited.
‘A good choice,’ Sebastien says dourly as I hand him the pink ukulele.
‘And this as well.’ Wolfboy holds up a guitar strap. I didn’t see him pick it up.
‘Sixty-five dollars, please.’
I rub the card between my fingers for good luck, and hand it to Sebastien, who swipes it straight through his machine, moving with bored efficiency.
Nothing happens. I hold my breath. I glance at Wolfboy and he is calm. His eyes, navy in this light, hold mine a moment longer than necessary and our secret passes between us.
The machine chirps and spits out a receipt.
Sebastien hands me a pen and I sign the slip of paper with a nervous hand. The card works. Part of me expected it to be a fake.
‘Thanks, man.’ Wolfboy hands me the ukulele and salutes Sebastien, who inclines his head a few degrees and returns immediately to his book.
My feet take me out the first door and down the corridor. I’m shaking all over. I know what I’m going to do with the card. I push on the outer door in a daze, barely registering the cold air rushing in to meet me. Tomorrow I’ll go to a travel agent and buy myself a plane ticket, somewhere, anywhere. I won’t have to go to school on Monday. I won’t have to go back ever again. The card is my way out of the mess I’m in.
The parking lot is still deserted. Wolfboy takes the ukulele out of my hands and fixes the strap to it. He’s got those blunt fingertips that boys have, but his hands are nimble. He pulls the strap over my head and under one arm so that the ukulele hangs against my back. I stand still and don’t breathe. Everything is going to be different from now on.
‘We’ve got a name for people like Sebastien.’ His hand lingers on my shoulder, straightening out the strap. He didn’t exactly leap on me after I asked if he had a girlfriend. Doesn’t he know what that question means?
‘Yeah?’
‘We call them “mushrooms” because they do well in the dark. Some people have made whole businesses out of the Darkness.’
‘Like Ortolan?’
His hand drops off my shoulder. Damn. I shouldn’t have mentioned her name.
‘I guess. I’ve never thought of it like that, but yeah.’ He pats me on the arm. A friendly pat. ‘Let’s get out of here. Are you hungry?’
eight
Saturnalia Avenue is dead as usual. The sight of Orphanville at the end of the street is enough to keep most people away. The trees lining the avenue are nothing more than dead wood in the ground. Every few weeks or so a branch breaks and crashes to the footpath, taking out anything or anyone in its way.
The dark is thick in this part of Shyness. The street is concrete, not tarmac, and is shot through with hundreds of cracks and potholes. No one bothers to fix roads anymore, or traffic lights or street signs. My body pushes against the Darkness, as if I’m wading through deep water. Even Wildgirl is silent.
Mostly Dreamers live around here. They’re not scared eight to live near Orphanville; the Kidds have no business with them. The Dreamer houses are paper cutouts, with balconies and lace and decorated roofs. Push the midnight silhouettes and they’d all fall over.
Thom and I broke in to a Dreamer house once. We found a broken window and laid our shirts over the jagged glass so we could climb through. We walked around the entire house without saying a word. There was no furniture, or light fittings, or mirrors, or carpets. Only bare floorboards and cobwebs, a wooden staircase leading upstairs, and dust everywhere. There was a bed on the first floor, in one of the smallest rooms. A couple of sofa cushions covered in twisted sheets as if the occupant had left in a hurry.
I have only one reason to come to this part of town, and that’s to visit Lupe. Everyone knows Lupe and her van. People go to her for the b
est kebabs in Shyness, and to get answers to their questions. Even before the Darkness my parents warned me not to speak to her, but after Gram died the pull was too strong. Lupe told me things I wanted to hear. It didn’t matter to me if they were true or not. She told me Gram wasn’t far away at all, just on the other side of a curtain. That was before the Darkness, or before we realised the Darkness was coming. Sometimes I think the sun must have started failing around the same time that Gram left us.
I quicken my steps. I’m anxious to see Lupe’s van shining in the night like a carnival ride. Lupe is definitely on my list of must-do’s in Shyness. I know instinctively that Wildgirl will like her. And now that I’ve had the idea of food, I can’t think of much else.
‘Look,’ whispers Wildgirl, leaning into me, spooked. It’s a moment before I spot him.
A man stumbles along the road, about fifty metres off, walking towards us. He’s got a classic Dreamer walk, dragging each leg after the other, hovering in mid-stride. His jumper sleeves hang as if he has no arms.
‘Dreamer,’ I explain. ‘It’s like a cult around here. All they want to do is sleep and dream. When they start out they take lots of pills so that they can sleep longer and dream more. But after a while they don’t need the drugs: they can sleep for as long as they like. They’re convinced that dreams are the true reality.’
The Dreamer passes us without seeming to register that we’re here, his gaze fixed somewhere on the horizon. He barely has any colour at all, like he’s been through the wash too many times. A lost soul. Wildgirl cranes her neck to keep watching him.
‘You can’t blame them, can you? You can do anything you want in your dreams, be anything you want to be.
When you’re asleep anything can happen, anything can be fixed, or reversed.’
She speaks like someone who’s tamed her dreams. ‘You should hear some dreamer-rock. It sends even me to sleep.’