by James Roy
‘Yes, it’s a Canon,’ Anonymity replied. ‘It’s pretty old. But I’m saving for a new one. Another Canon.’
‘I’m a Nikon man myself,’ John said. Then he grinned. ‘But I won’t hold that against you.’
‘Luckily the McGeorges tip well, don’t they, so the saving’s going well,’ Corinne said. ‘He’s a doctor, isn’t he?’
‘A dentist,’ Anonymity replied.
‘Still. And you’re doing photography as your major art work, aren’t you?’ Corinne went on, and Anonymity wished she’d just stop talking.
‘I am, but I don’t have a theme yet. There’s still plenty of time, though. I’m just waiting to get my new camera now. And yes, Dr McGeorge does tip pretty well, especially when the twins behave like they did today.’
In something of a production, Raven dropped her bag on the floor, right where she was standing – where she’d been standing motionless for this entire conversation – and strode across to John to shake his hand. ‘Hello. And you are...?’
‘John.’ He smiled briefly, perhaps wondering why Raven hadn’t been paying attention.
‘I know your name, but I want to know who you are.’
‘Oh. Just a friend. Of your mum’s.’
‘Just a friend. Good. That’s good.’
‘Megan,’ Corinne said, a little like a snarl, but with a thin smile.
‘I told you, Mum, it’s Raven. It’s been Raven for a couple of years now.’
John brightened, spotting a way into this latest exchange. ‘Raven, did you say? That’s a nice name.’
Raven frowned. ‘Is it? That’s funny – it was never meant to be nice. You know what a raven is, don’t you, John?’
‘Like a crow?’
‘Yes, that’s right, John, like a crow. Ravens love to eat carrion, especially the eyes. In fact, they don’t even need their prey to be dead before they peck out its eyes. Did you ever see Passion of the Christ, John?’
‘Megan.’
‘Did you, John?’
‘I saw some of ... You know, it wasn’t really my kind of–’
‘Remember the crow, pecking at the man’s eye?’
‘I think so.’
‘Megan,’ Corinne warned again.
‘Ravens have a role in mythology, John. They represent horror, and death. And dark spirits.’
‘I see.’
‘Read much Poe, John? As in Edgar–’
‘Megan, I said that’s enough.’ It was now rather more than a snarl.
Raven picked up her shopping. ‘It’s Raven, Mum, and it’s not meant to be a nice name. Come on, sis.’
As they went into Raven’s room, Anonymity shone with delight. ‘You’re amazing,’ she said to her sister. ‘I like how you’re so brave.’
‘It’s not about being brave,’ Raven replied. ‘It’s about people knowing who you are, and who you’re happy to be.’
‘Sam didn’t seem too worried. I thought he might hate John, being a stranger and everything.’
Raven shook her head. ‘Sam hasn’t growled at anyone for years.’
‘He doesn’t have to growl – he just has to look.’
Later, when John had left and Raven had gone to do her shift at the local video store, Anonymity made two cups of tea. Corinne was reading a magazine at the table, and she looked up and smiled as Anonymity placed one of the cups in front of her.
‘So,’ Anonymity said, sitting down. ‘Tell me more about this John guy.’
Corinne closed the magazine and sat back. ‘Well, you met him.’
‘For about five minutes. Tell me more. Where did you meet him, what does he do, is he married, does he have kids?’
‘He’s not married. He’s widowed, with one grown daughter. His wife died about ten years ago.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I met him through a friend. You know Dawn? Her husband worked for John.’
‘As what?’
‘A truck driver. John had his own transport company. But he sold it and retired.’
‘So he’s rich?’
Corinne smiled. ‘I think he’s done OK. And he’s nice. And he seems kind.’
‘Is he the One?’ Anonymity asked.
‘A little early for bold predictions like that, my love. But I do like him.’
‘Raven doesn’t.’
‘Yes.’ Corinne sipped her tea. ‘Well, you know what? Raven might need to just deal with it. When life gets unpredictable, sometimes we just have to do our best.’
There were four Musketeers. Anonymity plus three – Andi, Viera and Tina.
Andi was a dancer, lithe and supple. She wore flowing dresses, her auburn hair was a mass of tight ringlets that tripled in length when she swam, and she read thick books set in fantasy gypsy worlds, written by obscure authors. Her star sign was Libra, which she insisted was at the centre of her friendship with Anonymity, since Geminis and Librans are supposed to enjoy one of the best combinations in the zodiac. Anonymity didn’t care much for star signs and planetary determination, but she liked having such a good friend.
Viera was a drummer, and the music she listened to was deeply inaccessible to Anonymity. In that way she had more in common with Raven. And yet she and Anonymity had been friends since seventh grade, when Viera had arrived from Central Europe, with her asymmetrical haircut and her interest in graphic horror novels.
But the closest of Anonymity’s three friends was Tina, whose long hair was so silky-black and straight that in some lights it almost appeared blue. Her eyes were dark, her skin creamy and her lips like a pink rosebud. Tina’s was a ready smile, and her gaze could hold a boy’s attention like a tractor beam.
As a group they’d go to the movies, or wander through the tremendously huge shopping mall two stations from where Anonymity lived. They’d stroll the levels with little apparent purpose, sipping on huge, brain-freezing juice blends, to a soundtrack of echoing voices and piped music. They would wander into boutiques and rub the fabric of clothes between their fingers and thumbs, although Anonymity always stayed a moment longer, enjoying the sounds different fabrics made when they were rubbed against themselves. The girls would try on shoes, twisting their ankles back and forth in front of the floor mirrors, and Anonymity would hold the mouth of the shoe close to her face and breathe in the deep, warm smell of leather. Sometimes the girls chose mobile phones for when their current plan expired, or they’d stop and tap on the glass in the pet shop, trying to get the puppies to prick up their ears, or to entice kittens to pounce at their fingers. Occasionally one would crouch and wriggle its hindquarters and leap at the glass, its tiny, innocuous claws scrabbling for some kind of purchase on the smooth surface as it fell onto its side in the shredded paper. And Anonymity’s friends would laugh and say ‘How cute!’ and ‘Oh my God, how adorable is that?’
But Anonymity blinked back the tears to see something as pathetic as a baby animal thinking that the world it saw through the glass and the shredded-paper world it really lived in were even slightly similar. Or that something as transparent as glass could keep those two worlds so completely separate.
None of the other Musketeers knew Anonymity’s pain. Was it pain? No, perhaps more angsty irritation. Even so, it did hurt, to be so close to the epicentre of her family’s disintegration, and yet to have no say in how it might all turn out.
She was certain that her friends failed to understand what she was feeling, and anger swelled in her like a burning indigestion when they suggested they did, in their favourite coffee haunt, over iced chocolates and an enormous shared plate of nachos. She’d just related the story of John’s arrival, and how hurt she felt on behalf of her father. ‘He’s got no idea that this John guy is sniffing around,’ she said. ‘Man, he’d be so pissed off if he did know.’
‘He left your mum, didn’t he?’ Tina asked.
Anonymity brushed the question aside like an annoying insect. ‘Details, mere details,’ she said. ‘They broke up mutually. What?’ she added, as s
he caught the exchanged glances between the other three. ‘Well it’s true. It’s not that I’m saying he’ll come back, or that he should, but he hasn’t been gone that long, and Mum’s already got this ... this dick turning up all the time. I just think it’s a bit soon, that’s all.’
‘Look, I understand,’ Tina said, twirling hair between her fingers, through and around like strands of silk. ‘We all do, don’t we? But he’s gone and he’s not coming back, so you’ve got to stop whining about it.’
Anonymity shook her head. ‘No, you don’t understand. Your parents have never separated.’
‘Which one of us are you talking to?’ Tina asked.
‘You. All of you. None of your parents have separated. So...’
Andi reached across the table and patted Anonymity’s hand. ‘OK, we might not have been through exactly what you’re going through, honey, but we do share your pain. That’s all we’re saying.’
Viera’s mouth had twisted into a grimace. ‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘That is not what we’re saying.’
‘Then what?’ Anonymity demanded.
‘What you are talking about is having things change around you. You do not like this. But that is what happens. Circumstances change.’
‘Sure, but–’
Viera raised her hand. ‘Please. Remember when we first met? I had just come from Czech Republic. We were young. And I was change.’
Anonymity frowned. Sometimes Viera’s syntax could still be a little dense.
‘I was change for you, I mean. But you adjusted. You accept me into your group, and I was glad of this. So you see, changes. Which you made.’
‘It’s hardly the same thing,’ Anonymity retorted.
‘But not just changes for you,’ Viera went on. ‘When I came here, I didn’t speak that good of English. Did you think that I left friends behind? Did you think of this? Did you think that it was easy when my parents said that we were moving to other side of the world, even though Prague is very cold, grey place? Besides, Czech Republic is landlocked country.’
A long pause, as the other three considered what she was saying, and tried to understand how some of her sentences fitted – or didn’t fit – together.
Finally Viera shrugged and picked up her coffee. ‘So you see, my parents are still together, but I understand.’
‘Hmm,’ Anonymity said, feeling an unwelcome warmth rising in her face. ‘I guess I’ve been told.’
Tina slipped her arm around Anonymity’s shoulders. ‘We love you. And we’re sad for you. But we think it will be OK, that’s all. Are you still seeing your dad?’
‘Twice a week, usually.’
‘Sometimes you just have to take what you get, and be happy for that.’
The honest truth was that Anonymity had expected her father to be better at separation than he actually was, even though he was the one who’d done the leaving. After all, he’d done it once before. But when she visited him, she saw the signs of a man who hadn’t read the fine print on the brochure for his fantasy.
He’d always wanted a boat, and when he left, part of Anonymity expected him to move to the harbour, or the lower reaches of the river, where he’d rent a houseboat or perhaps even a yacht. She imagined that she might be visiting him on his yacht, calling to him from the jetty, or meeting him next to a boatshed so that he could ferry her out in a dinghy. She’d thought she might stay with him for the weekend, and he’d cook fresh prawns under the tiny gas grill in his galley, and they’d talk and laugh, and she’d sleep on the couch beside the table. And in the morning she’d wake up to the smell of coffee and frying bacon, and the soft splish of wavelets against the hull, right by her ear.
Perhaps all of this was to come. And she’d never factored the sales rep from work into the picture of her and her father spending weekends afloat, because she rather expected that he might quickly lose interest in Kellie, and find himself living on a boat alone, being the bachelor that he’d always seemed most comfortable being. Or seemed most comfortable fantasising about being.
In the end there was no boat. There was no yacht, no dinghy. There was just a man, vaguely familiar, if a little older, living with an old school friend whose wife had died of cancer less than a year before. The house was built of red brick and had a brown tile roof and aluminium window frames. The windows were speckled with grimy rain-spots and dust, and some of the rubbers that held the glass in place were cracked. The street was quiet for most of the day.
Anonymity’s father was living in the bedroom across the hall from his friend’s powder-blue bathroom, which still featured a row of dusty, cut-glass perfume bottles along the windowsill. Richard hadn’t allowed himself to move in properly, judging by the suitcase that lay unzipped on the floor by the unmade bed. The electric alarm clock on the bedside table flashed its green numbers all day and all night: 12:00, over and over, too complacent about the passing seconds and minutes to advance. When Anonymity put her ear close to the clock she heard a thin, tiny, hard-edged electric buzz with each flash of the digits. There was dust on the buttons used for setting the time and alarm. And when Anonymity stood in the doorway and saw the crumpled flat sheet on the single mattress, and the zipped-out sleeping bag doubling as a duvet, she felt like crying. Her father was living back in a share house. Sharing a house at fifty-something, with a slow-growing collection of James Bond DVDs scattered about the place. It felt terribly wrong and achingly sad.
Each Wednesday Anonymity would catch a bus from school instead of her usual train, alight near a small suburban shopping complex, and walk the five hundred metres or so to the house where Richard now lived. The first three times she waited on the step, doing her homework, and after he came home from work he took her out for dinner, before dropping her home with a goodbye kiss in the car. When he finally realised that she was waiting outside for him to come home each time, he got her a key. She’d let herself in, make a cup of peppermint tea and sit at the kitchen table and work. Then, at dinner they’d talk about her photography and her friends, then about Raven and Sam, whom he saw at different times, and finally he’d ask how her mother was doing.
She didn’t try to talk him around. She wanted to, but what can a girl do? What does a mere girl know of matters of the heart, and love, and ending marriages for the sake of a sales rep who never seems to be around – not her, nor any sign of her – and who never even comes up in conversation.
So Anonymity sat quietly and picked at her food, and answered what questions she could and skirted around the others, and listened to her father sigh.
Early on, but just after she got her own key, she would buy flowers at the little convenience store where the bus dropped her off, to brighten up Richard’s dreary room. The first couple of times she left them lying on his bed, but they turned into dried flowers, still in their tissue paper, so she began putting them in vases, teasing them out into airy, bright, cheerful arrangements. But they continued to dry, and were never mentioned – she often wondered who he could possibly think was leaving flowers in his room for him – so one afternoon she threw all the desiccated, browned bunches of flowers into the big green bin beside the back door and vowed to find another way.
Then Raven announced that she was leaving her job and heading off to Europe. She was having a gap year. She was finding herself. She was spreading her wings. She was working out what she wanted to do with her life. Quite simply, she was deserting.
Anonymity wanted to ask her not to go, knowing all the while that her sister was counting down the days until she boarded that flight. At night, when she was trying to go to sleep, as the dog in the tall white house on the corner yelped in some kind of protest, Anonymity would run through the various ways she could ask. She could just ask, like a big girl. ‘Please, Raven. Please don’t go. Stay for me. Stay for us.’
But she didn’t, because to ask like a big girl she needed to feel like a big girl. And when Raven told her and Corinne what she was planning, Anonymity felt like a very small, very young g
irl. Like the kind of girl who’d just been told sudden, slightly confusing news about something that only grown-ups could fix. Let the adults talk, Little One. No need to worry your pretty head. And turn that frown upside-down.
But it did worry her. She knocked on Raven’s door later that week, after she’d had a chance to mull it all over.
‘So tell me, what’s so special about Europe?’ she asked, sitting on the edge of Raven’s bed.
Her sister was aghast. ‘What’s so special about...? It’s Europe, sis! Haven’t you ever wanted to go to Europe? To see Paris, and Rome, and Amsterdam and ... and the cathedrals? And castles?’
‘We’ve got cathedrals here.’
‘But no castles, sis. Anyway, our cathedrals aren’t the same as the ones in Europe. Sagrada Familia – heard of it? Oh my God! Almost a hundred and thirty years since they started building it, and it’s still not done!’
Anonymity was aware of a rising pressure near the top of her chest, and she tried to push it down. ‘Jesus, listen to you! You haven’t even gone yet and you’re already sounding like an expert.’
Raven shook her head. ‘No, it’s not like that. It’s just that I’ve been into it, you know? Reading up on it and planning where I’m going to go – it’s all so exciting.’
‘Yeah, for you.’
Raven nodded. ‘I know. But the stuff I’m going to see! I can show you if you like. Do you want to see my brochures?’
Anonymity wanted to scream at her sister, tell her that she didn’t want to see any of her stupid brochures about Amsterdam and Berlin and Brussels and all the other places she’d never been, but she didn’t. Instead she flipped through the guidebooks, and saw names that Raven had circled in glittery pen, a ring of shimmer on a shiny page. Foreign names of bars and restaurants and tourist sites and hostels and haunts. Foreign names with strange characters and grammatical rules that seemed to make no sense.
Anonymity wanted to know. She wanted to be able to read Ministero delle cose perse and understand what it meant. She read Das größte leere Quadrat and wondered what kind of place that might be, and what you’d do once you got there. And she wanted to stay at the Erinomainen Kaikota Hotelli in Helsinki. She wanted to order their in-house specialty, Leipäjuusto with cloudberry jelly, and to know what to expect when it arrived.