The Shadow Girl

by John Larkin

  And the second time?

  Do we have to?

  It’s your story. We don’t have to do anything.

  We’ve come so far, I have to tell you this bit.

  Take your time.

  Okay, the second time she came over, it was because she’d beaten her destiny. Her kismet. And I was such a piss poor friend, I didn’t even know what day it was.

  THERE’S AN OLD TURKISH AND URDU WORD, KISMET, WHICH MEANS destiny. Although Miss Taylor didn’t believe in it, she was always telling us twist-in-the-tale kismet stories, like the traditional Arabian one about the young sailor who, while fleeing Death, runs straight into its open arms.

  I don’t believe in destiny either, though I am battling it on two fronts, and not everyone is going to come out of it well. I can just feel it.

  Firstly there’s Creepo. I know that he wants me out of the way. Should I, like the young sailor in the story, run to face my kismet, or flee like a wild thing? That’s the thing about kismet, whether you buy in to it or not: it’ll be my attempt to flee that’ll lead Creepo straight to me, and then it’ll be a short trip back out to the forest of bones.

  Cinderella worries me more. I don’t know what she was like before she ran into that fortune teller, but now she’s a mess. She doesn’t take care of herself. She doesn’t think right, she doesn’t eat right, she doesn’t exercise. She drinks, smokes and God only knows what that cut-down poison she’s plunging into her veins is doing to her – body and soul. She says she can’t embrace a future that isn’t there. She’s so convinced that she’s going to die soon, she’s killing herself in the process.

  I wake around two in the morning to someone or something whispering my name. The gum tree has been scratching at the roof all night but I’m so used to it that I hardly even hear it any more. If the ghosts in the walls know my name then they haven’t used it until now, so I don’t think it’s them.

  Through the haze of semiconsciousness I hear it again, only this time it’s telling me to let them in because it’s cold. I sit bolt upright when there comes a tapping at my chamber door, followed by a rap on the window. For a second I wonder if it’s that raven that’s been hanging around. Tapping at windows and doors is a funny thing for a bird to do, though. Even the bird of death.

  I crawl out of my sleeping bag, flick on my book light, and scurry across to the door. There’s more tapping at my widow.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, silly.’ This is followed by a machine-gun burst of laughter. That’s the raven out. At least whoever’s out there realises that anyone tapping on the door and window of a seemingly derelict house at two o’clock in the morning is the silly one, rather than the occupant.

  ‘Cinderella?’

  ‘Who else? C’mon. Let me in, I’m freezing my tits off out here.’

  I jerk open the door and she practically falls into my arms.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s going on?’

  She looks up at me with big puppy dog eyes. Big, glazed over, puppy dog eyes. ‘Hello, beautiful. I’ve missed you.’ Her speech is so slurred I can hardly understand what she’s saying.

  I pretty much carry her over to my sleeping bag, plonk her down on top of it and zip it up around her. She weighs almost nothing. The leopard that saved my butt on the train that afternoon is a memory. She curls up into a tiny ball in my sleeping bag and smiles at me.

  ‘God, you’re gorgeous. If you were ten year older . . .’ She trails off. I don’t know if she’s drunk or what. She’s definitely not herself. She’s never talked to me this way before.

  I stroke her forehead. ‘What have you taken?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t lie.’

  She snorts out another burst of laughter. ‘Okay, I’ve pretty much had one of everything. We had a party, see, in the squat. God, it went off.’

  ‘Do I need to call an ambulance?’

  There’s a pause while she stares off into space.

  ‘There’s a big black crow out there on your verandah. Did you know that?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s been hanging around for a few days. Actually I think it’s a raven.’

  ‘Ugly-looking thing.’

  There’s another pause.

  ‘Cinderella. Do I need to get you an ambulance?’

  ‘Nah. I’ll be all right. Probably.’ She bursts out laughing again.

  ‘How did you get here? There are no trains at this time.’

  ‘I took a cab. I just had to see you.’

  ‘Why were you having a party in the middle of the week?’

  She smiles at me. ‘It’s my birthday.’

  Despite whatever it is that she’s taken, and from her appearance it seems like plenty, suddenly I’m the one who’s feeling shit. I can’t believe I forgot her birthday. The one that she wasn’t supposed to make it to. I’d written it in my diary and everything but I was too caught up in my own selfish pink-dress, blue-sock-wearing world and my principal’s award for my stupid essay, that I completely forgot about Cinderella’s birthday. What sort of crap friend am I?

  ‘Well, happy birthday for yesterday.’

  ‘No,’ she corrects me. ‘It’s today.’

  I look at my watch. She’s been twenty for two hours.

  ‘But why have a party the day before?’

  ‘Because everyone knew that I was supposed to be dead, so they wanted to help me see it in. The new decade and everything. The rest of my life. Party kicked off about seven and it was still going strong when I left. But I wanted to see you.’

  I bend down and hug her. She’s trembling all over.

  ‘I made it, girlfriend. That stupid cow at the markets was wrong.’

  ‘See. Now you can start living.’

  ‘That’s right. As of tomorrow I’m getting my act together. No more drugs, no more drink, no more smoking, no more men, at least not professionally.’

  I knew it.

  ‘And no more vomiting?’ I add.

  She stares up at me. ‘You knew?’

  ‘Jesus, Cindy, look at you. I thought I was skinny. There are coat hangers fatter than you.’

  ‘Not from tomorrow.’ She flings her arms up and announces, ‘In the morning you and I are going out for a huge breakfast.’

  ‘Will you keep it down?’

  She holds up two fingers. ‘Scouts honour. Dib, dib, dib, dob, dib . . .’ She trails off. ‘Dib.’ Another burst of laughter. ‘Oh, wait a minute. We can’t go tomorrow. You’ve got school.’

  ‘That’s okay –’

  ‘No!’ she interrupts, suddenly donning her fairy god- mother guise again. ‘You’re not missing school.’

  ‘I mean if we go early enough I can still make it to school on time. There’s a café in the village.’

  ‘Great. We’ll get up early and power walk.’

  ‘But I’m paying. For your birthday.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Cinderella closes her eyes. ‘I’m so cold. Don’t you have a heater?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I crawl into the sleeping bag with her. She’s nothing but skin and bones. Even her tattoos have shrunk and appear less threatening than before.

  I feel awful that I don’t really know that much about her, apart from the abuse, apart from the sadness. ‘Were you born here? In the city I mean. Or had you always lived down south?’

  ‘No. I’m from Scotland originally. Inverness. Way up north. I came out with my folks when I was a wee baby.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were Scottish.’

  ‘Aye, lassie. A wee bairn I was. A bonny wee bairn.’

  Her affected Scottish accent makes me laugh.

  ‘That means . . .’ I trail off and look up the atlas in my mind. It’s not today in Scotland yet. It’s still yesterday. She w
on’t be twenty for about seven hours.

  ‘What does what mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ I’m being stupid.

  I flick off my book light and gather her up. I gently rub her back, my fingers bouncing over her ribcage like a car over a cattle grid.

  ‘No more heroin?’

  ‘Promise. And no more E either. Not even pot. That stuff blunts your mind. Whoever says drugs are cool obviously never takes them.’

  No matter how tightly I hold her she just won’t stop trembling. I suppose she’s got no meat, no muscle to keep her warm.

  ‘Tell me a story?’

  ‘Cinderella?’

  ‘Not that antifeminist shite. The Trans-Siberian Railway.’

  ‘We’re going on it remember? You pinkie promised.’

  ‘Definitely. As soon as I get my shit together. Get a job and save up the cash, then we are so gone. Have to be during the school holidays, though.’

  I have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying. Here she is, one of the most damaged human beings I’ve ever met, totally off her face on God knows what, and she’s still worried about my education.

  I take a deep breath to try and get my shit together. ‘We get up early on the first day of the school holidays. We power walk to the village and have a big breakfast at the café . . .’

  ‘Which I keep down because I’m not bulimic any more.’

  ‘That’s right.’ I stroke her cheek. ‘After that we come home and pack our stuff and catch the train to the airport.’

  ‘And I’ve got a passport and everything’s sorted out in my life.’

  ‘Yeah. You’re working as a youth counsellor. Helping street kids get their shit together.’

  ‘Sweet. I’d fully give anything to do that.’

  ‘Because of your great work the airline gives us an upgrade to business class and so we spend the entire flight eating, reading, watching movies and drinking tea and mineral water.’

  ‘We can have a small glass of champagne, maybe, to celeb- rate. A wee snifter.’

  I don’t know what a snifter is but it sounds harmless enough. ‘A really small one, sure.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Well, we have a couple of days sightseeing in Paris to recover from the flight and then we catch another plane to Moscow where we take a taxi to the train station and pick up the Trans-Siberian Railway.’

  ‘Do we have a sleeper cabin?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I close my eyes and breath through her hair. She’s trembling so much she’s practically rattling.

  I just want her to go to sleep so that she can start recover- ing, but she’s wants to know the details. ‘One or two sleeper cabins?’

  ‘What do you prefer?’

  ‘Two, so we can stretch out, but with a connecting door.’

  ‘Then that’s what we’ve got. And they’re both big –’

  ‘But cosy?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Really cosy. And then the train sets off and we look out our windows as the snow-covered Russian fields flash past.’

  `What do we do on the train?’

  ‘We get better. We sleep. We read. We play board games. We repair. And at meal times we wander down to the first class dining car and eat until we’re ready to burst.’

  ‘And there’s no one on the train to hurt us?’

  ‘No. It’s just us and some other travellers who are all really nice and friendly.’

  ‘No dirty old men who want me to do things to them?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘No youth ministers with ponytails?’

  ‘No. He’s been carted off to jail.’

  Cinderella lifts her head. ‘He’s someone’s bitch?’

  ‘Barking like a dog.’

  ‘What do we do when we get to Vladivostok?’

  I’m glad it’s dark because this way she can’t see the tears streaming down my cheeks. She just can’t stop trembling. It’s so deep within that it’s part of her. She probably doesn’t even realise that she’s doing it.

  I pull myself together the best I can. ‘The train stops here for a couple of days, so we do some sightseeing, but then we catch the train back and do it all over again.’

  ‘It’s cold outside, in Russia, I mean, but it’s warm and safe on the train?’

  ‘As cosy and as warm as it gets.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s great. I would have loved to have done that. With you.’

  ‘Don’t say that. We will do it.’

  ‘Are you crying? Don’t cry. I’ll always be here for you.’

  I would give anything just for her to stop trembling.

  I stroke my tears into her hair. Her breathing is laboured as she slips down the levels of sleep. Her chest rattles as it rises and falls in rhythm with mine but each breath feels like a struggle. A battle to keep going.

  I try to stay awake and keep watch over her, to keep the raven away, but eventually I slip into the dream world myself.

  Cinderella died around four o’clock that morning.

  I’M SORRY YOU HAD TO RELIVE THAT. IT MUST HAVE BEEN HARD.

  Not as hard as it was for her.

  What do you think killed her?

  Who knows? Drugs. Neglect. The streets. Life. All of the above.

  How did you know she died at four o’clock?

  I don’t. Not exactly. But it was around then. I had this thing about four in the morning.

  The dead hour? When the window into the next life is open, I think you said earlier?

  I used to set my alarm for three fifty-five so that I would be awake for when it arrived.

  Why did you want to be awake when the ghosts passed through? I thought you were frightened of them.

  I was. I mean, I am. But I’d rather be haunted by one than become one. My father reckoned that at four o’clock in the morning we get as close to death as we could get and yet still come back. So I wanted to be awake for it.

  You do realise that all this ghost stuff kind of contradicts your oblivion beyond the grave idea?

  Sure. But like I said from the start, I had more questions than answers. Still do.

  So what happened when your alarm went off that morning?

  When I woke up I noticed that her chest wasn’t moving up and down, and I panicked. I dragged myself out of the sleeping bag but she wasn’t breathing. I tried to bring her back, mouth-to-mouth and CPR but she was stone cold. She was gone. I could hear someone screaming ‘No. No. No.’ over and over again. It was me.

  I’m so sorry.

  I don’t think I want to do this any more. Talk about it. It’s so hard. It haunts you, you know? Always will.

  You tried to save her. To bring her back.

  Not that, but what I did next. I couldn’t risk ending up like . . . her, see, so I had to . . .

  You had to . . .?

  It sounds so awful, especially after she’d saved my life, but I couldn’t call an ambulance.

  That’s understandable given the circumstances.

  I had to get rid of her. God! It sounds fucked up just saying it. I didn’t mean it like that. But I had to put her where someone could find her and tell her mum and everything.

  So what did you do?

  I ran out of the house. Down the street. I don’t even know what I was doing. What I was looking for. But I ran all the way to the village, down towards the bookshop, although I had to stop a couple of times to throw up. But as I was vomiting into the gutter, I looked up and saw it. It’d been left outside in the supermarket car park.

  What was it?

  Fuck! This is so hard.

  It’s okay. You’re doing great.

  A shopping trolley. I wheeled it back home, up my path and . . .r />
  Do you want a tissue?

  No, I don’t want a tissue. I deserve this. I should feel guilty about what I did.

  So what did you do?

  I went back in and carried Cinderella outside and put her in the shopping trolley. She weighed almost nothing. How messed up is that?

  So there I was bawling my eyes out and wheeling my fairy godmother, my best friend, the only friend who knew everything about me, down the street like she was rubbish. Like I was just going to throw her away. And then I saw that one of her legs was wedged beneath her at an awkward angle and it took me some time to readjust her into a more comfortable position.

  Where did you put her?

  I was just going to leave her in front of the fire station and call triple 0 from the public phone on the corner. But across the road there’s this church, so I figured that if the church couldn’t look after her while she was alive, then they could bloody well take some responsibility for her now that she was dead. I also knew, despite my rage, that churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are packed full of good people, and for every Reverend Pembroke, there are about a thousand Father Kellihers, and what’s more they would take care of her.

  I wheeled her up the path and around the side because I didn’t want her to be a freak show out the front or anything. I bent down to say goodbye and kissed her on her forehead and sort of hugged her. I didn’t care if my fingerprints or my DNA were all over her. I loved her more than I’ve ever loved anyone and I wanted bits of myself left on her and her on me. The bars of the shopping trolley were icy cold. Cinderella hated the cold. She’d experienced so much of it and I couldn’t leave her like that.

  So I raced back home and got my sleeping bag. I was only gone for about ten minutes but when I got back a police car was out the front of the church with its lights flashing, so either a cleaner had turned up or someone had heard the noise I was making and called the police. I’d let her down again. She was going to be cold for ever. And because it was still yesterday in Scotland, she would be nineteen for ever too.

  So the fortune teller was right.

  No, she wasn’t! Don’t you see? She didn’t foresee Cinderella’s death, she caused it. You tell someone they’re going to be dead before they’re twenty, what happens? They go off and live life on a razor blade and, sure enough, they’re dead before they’re twenty.