The Opposite of Amber

by Gillian Philip

  I hit her till my arms were tired. Thank heavens we were below the mural wall and nobody could see us. I don’t think there was much to be heard, though I can’t be sure of that. I think she didn’t cry out and I’m pretty sure I didn’t scream at her any more, not after I started clawing at her face and hitting and punching. She tried to defend herself a little, but not enough. There was red lipstick smeared across her cheeks and my fists, I had fistfuls of fake black hair where I’d torn at her stupid wig, and the wig itself, when I came to my senses, lay on the tarmac like a crow that had crashed and burned. Jinn was blonde again, but her hair didn’t have silver sparks; it was dull and lank and squashed flat by the wig.

  She blinked at me, her lipstick all smudged across her chin and her mascara running with her tears and her ear red and sore where I’d whacked it. I think I might have bruised her jaw.

  ‘It’s cool, Ruby,’ she said, and wiped her face with the back of her hand. She was crying, hard, quietly. ‘It’s fine.’

  I didn’t have a single word left in my head. My palms hurt from slapping and my knuckles from punching and my lungs from crying.

  ‘And it’s only for a bit, you see. It’s only till Nathan gets sorted.’

  I wanted to call her what she was but I could no more get that word out than any others. She was going to end up like those other girls, those other girls who worked for a living. Those working girls, like the one they’d found in that trout pond, sleeping with the fishes. That’s what happened to those kind of girls, wasn’t it? In cheap crime novels with lurid covers, in gritty mini-series, in real life. They knew that when they started out but I expect they only did it for a bit, too. Just till they got themselves sorted. Just till they got themselves killed.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Ruby. Nothing’s going to happen. I don’t get in cars. I don’t go to their houses. I’m really careful.’

  You can’t be sure of that, I wanted to say, but I’d have been wasting my breath. I think she was sure of everything, and she was most sure of the stupidest thing of all.

  ‘I don’t have a choice, see.’ And she smiled like a fallen angel, and her red bruised mouth was a knife slash. ‘I love him, Ruby.’

  Sixteen

  I had to have it out with her. I had to try one more time. I was working that Saturday but I slogged back to Dunedin on the Sunday, and this time I didn’t stand on the pavement opposite; this time I opened the gate – I had to jerk it hard and my hand came away orange with rust – and walked up the path. My heart was banging so hard I thought it was trying to escape out of my throat. I pressed the doorbell.

  I had plenty of time to look at the house. Dunedin: it sounded like a medieval fortress, or something out of Middle Earth. Dunedin: Last Homely House of the Crack Elves. Foursquare and granite, the name was printed in gold letters on the semicircle of glass above the panelled front door. The grass was straggling up and over the steps; now that it had overgrown the cracks in the paving it was empire-building and if it ran on unchecked it would probably smother the house. I pictured Dunedin with a shaggy wig of yellowing grass. A magic house. If I broke off a piece of the crumbling window ledge, maybe it would taste of coconut ice.

  God’s sake, listen to me. I didn’t need drugs.

  I pressed the doorbell again, leaning closer this time and frowning. A tiny frisson ran along the nape of my neck. Perhaps they were all dead. That didn’t seem a possibility, not all at once, so maybe they were just coming back from some parallel world. I had to give them a minute to get through the portal.

  Something more prosaic occurred to me, so I made a fist and hesitated just once. I could turn and walk away now. My thundering heart was urging me to do just that. The non-working doorbell might be an omen.

  I made my fist even tighter, took a breath, and thumped twice on the door.

  It didn’t fly open like I thought it would. After about thirty seconds it creaked ajar, then swung wider.

  Nathan Baird didn’t say anything. He just watched me while I watched him. He was biting on his lip, which looked raw from the habit. He looked so pale, an underground elf who never saw the sun, or possibly a Ringwraith. He should be wearing a hooded cloak. Instead he wore a T-shirt loose over black jeans, and he was barefoot. It was that T-shirt with the Batman logo, now even more cracked and faded from age. I guess it hadn’t been washed for a while, because it clung to his thin muscles and I could smell his sweat, all mixed up with that crack smell I didn’t use to recognise. His hair straggled into his eyes like the grass outside. Lifting a hand, he shoved it back. That made me look at his sharp cheekbones and the brilliant golden eyes above them, and because I didn’t want to stare, I looked back at his feet, long-toed and elegant.

  I felt that little shiver of something. I wasn’t lusting after him – God almighty, no, but I could see so very clearly why Jinn did. He just smelt of sex. Sweat and crack and tobacco smoke, but mostly sex. I was glad it wasn’t me that had fallen for him. In the exact same moment I wished it had been, because then it wouldn’t have been Jinn.

  He gave me a hostile smile, his eyes crinkling slightly. ‘Ruby Red.’

  ‘Is Jinn in?’ I snapped.

  ‘Nope.’

  I rubbed my arms, then straightened them at my sides, annoyed with myself. ‘When’s she back?’

  He lifted one shoulder. His eyes were bronze now and shadowy. ‘Want to come in? You can wait.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘We won’t eat you, Ruby Red.’

  Oh yeah? I thought. You ate her.

  I bit back my hatred, choked it down my throat, and said, ‘You want to come back?’

  What made me say that? It just kind of came out, like Mount St Ruby erupting all over again. Maybe I contain my words so tightly, they burst out whenever they get a chance. I need to consider that.

  Nathan Baird was just watching me, smiling a little bit. No teeth were involved in his smile, just his twitching lips. He pushed his fingers through his hair again, and shook it back out of his eyes. I had the craziest urge to take his hand. Take him and Jinn home and tuck them up.

  ‘I think it’s a bit late for that, Ruby Red. And you don’t really mean it, eh?’

  I shrugged.

  He propped his shoulder against the door jamb. ‘Things are complicated just now.’

  ‘You owe some guys money, you mean,’ I said.

  His turn to shrug.

  I peered over his shoulder at Dunedin, the Elvensquat.

  ‘I’m sorry you left.’ My words came out on a snarl.

  His eyes crinkled more but his mouth tightened and he said nothing. He looked kind of hurt.

  ‘I want Jinn to come home,’ I said, still staring at the coconut-ice window ledge and the crackled toffee varnish.

  ‘You’d better ask her then.’

  He wasn’t making it easy, but who could blame him? ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe she’s with people she likes.’

  I didn’t want to turn my back on Nathan, not straight away. I took a couple of backward steps, eyeing him for any sign of lies, any complacent smirk. He just watched me back, expressionless, but then he lifted his gaze and his wide pupils dilated a little more and he stared over my shoulder.

  Oldest one in the book, I thought, narrowing my eyes suspiciously, but then I twisted round.

  Inflatable George was on the other side of the road, right where I’d stood before. He didn’t duck or hide, and he didn’t even look at me; he just stood there with his hands in his pockets and glared at Nathan. The look Nathan gave him back was rank with loathing.

  The face-off seemed to last for ages, and I’m not sure who won it. At last George smiled right at me, and gave me a small friendly wave, as if Nathan didn’t even exist. I heard the door slam shut, and even that sound was full of hate.

  I crossed the road. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi, Ruby. I came to talk to Jinn. She’s not in, then?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Bertha’s that upset about her
. She doesn’t show it, but she is.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘She pretends she doesn’t care and she gets all uppity, but you shouldn’t take any notice.’

  ‘I know. I don’t.’

  ‘She’s that fond of Jinn. I wish Jinn would come to her senses.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I shrugged uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know what to do either.’

  ‘Well, don’t be a stranger. Bertha wouldn’t want you to stay away cos you’re, like, embarrassed or something. OK? You’re kind of on the same side. You know? She doesn’t blame you for Jinn swiping stuff. Course she doesn’t.’

  Jesus, how did people get all those words out in one breath? I appreciated it though. I smiled at him. ‘OK.’

  He smiled back. ‘No point me hanging around, then. I’ll maybe try another time. Or maybe she’d just kick me out.’ He patted my arm, then stuck his hands back in his pockets and walked away back towards the mini-mart.

  It was nice of him, but it made me feel kind of guilty. Here were all these people looking out for Jinn, worrying about her, and I hadn’t really been keeping up, I’d been too busy feeling sorry for myself and missing my mother-substitute. I had to find the silly bitch, make sure she was OK. What had Nathan said again?

  Maybe she’s with people she likes.

  Well, the people she liked best, apart from me, were Wide Bertha and Inflatable George, and she was hardly going to go running to them right now. I had to think about it harder.

  Maybe she’s with people she likes.

  Or maybe it wasn’t people.

  I caught a bus up to Glassford and picked my ticket into so many tiny bits, I’d have been fined if a ticket inspector had got on. I had to hold my breath every time the bus halted, every time a little old lady had to manoeuvre herself and her pull-along trolley down the steps, every time a mother had to manhandle a buggy. We didn’t miss out a single stop; there was someone waiting at every one and the bus had to stop for them, as if I was under some evil bus enchantment and I was never, ever going to reach the Provost Reid Park.

  A wee man got on just as we hit the Glassford outskirts, sat down on the seat opposite mine and got going on his phone. I thought he was never going to shut up about his big night out. After a bit he lifted up one bum cheek and let loose a loud fart, and I couldn’t do anything but stare. He smiled and gave me an amiable nod.

  The boys in front of him exploded into giggles. Usually I would have too, but he’d distracted me so much I’d missed the stop for the park. I wanted to light a match and incinerate him with his own outgoings but I didn’t have time; I flew to the door just as it hissed shut, shouting at the driver and ringing the bell over and over to make him stop again ten metres on. Somebody behind me tutted and the wee man said, ‘Nae hurry, hen, nae hurry, it wis just wind;’ and the driver shouted at me, but I didn’t hear what he said. At least he opened the door. I jumped out and bolted back down the road and through the park gates.

  The petting zoo wasn’t as busy as it had been in the summer, but it was a weekend and there were still people around. I had to pay to get in; I hadn’t had a freebie visit since Jinn stopped working for Wide Bertha and wasn’t bringing free treats for the animals.

  The place was buzzing – obviously something was happening, so I didn’t hang around paying my respects to the guinea pigs. I ran straight to the goats, and that was where I found Jinn, right inside the pen. She’d opened the gate wide and the nanny goat was wandering out and nibbling the grass at the edge of the tarmac path, and a few children were laughing and taunting the creature, and a few more were squealing with fright as she took trotting steps towards them.

  Jinn was still in the pen, her arms around the billy goat’s neck, trying to drag him to freedom. He didn’t seem to want to shift but he seemed content to have her wrapped round him. In turn a park official in a green shirt had his arms round Jinn’s shoulders, trying to pull her off the goat. A group of boys on the other side of the fence was in fits of hysteria, and so would I have been. But because I was her sister, I felt tears sting my eyes and I ran into the pen and pulled at the ranger’s arm (yes, they called them rangers, like they were on the African savannah tranquillising lions, not in a squashed corner of the municipal park with a few guinea pigs). Now we were starting to look like something out of The Enormous Turnip, Jinn holding the goat and the ranger clinging on to Jinn and me grabbing the ranger. The boys at the fence were just about peeing themselves.

  At last the ranger got his senses back in gear and let go of Jinn, then turned and disengaged me.

  ‘Get her out of here!’ he yelled at me.

  ‘I’m trying!’ I was furious. Being furious stopped me crying.

  Between us, the ranger and I got Jinn off the goat and manhandled her out of the pen, just as the boy from the entry kiosk shut the gate. That was a waste of time, since the billy goat wasn’t trying to escape and the nanny goat was still outside, clearing great swathes of the path by her mere presence. I made a hesitant approach, but the ranger seized my arm and turned me and shoved me towards the gate.

  ‘Just get out!’ he shouted. ‘And take her with you.’

  Jinn wasn’t in a state to argue by this point. She was just standing there weeping over her failed rescue attempt, like the most incompetent animal liberationist in the world. The kiosk attendant gave her a sorrowful glance, but he was too scared to come near her – more frightened of me than of the ranger, I think. I left him and the ranger trying to round up a bolshie nanny goat, and I took Jinn home.

  I didn’t take her to the little grey house. I thought she’d want to go home-home, to the home where she was loved, so I took her to Dunedin.

  She was still crying when we got there, still mumbling about the imprisoned goats. I’m not sure she was stoned but she was certainly a bit pissed.

  Nathan didn’t really look at me when he opened the door. He took Jinn by the hand and I followed them into the sitting room, where the carpet felt sticky underfoot and plaster was crumbling from the ornate cornices. Out of the greasy back window I could see their overgrown square of weeds and paving stones, and a whirligig draped with limp grubby dishtowels. It wasn’t crisp flapping laundry like at our house, like when Jinn was with me, but she was trying. She was trying.

  Nathan pulled her down into his arms on the sofa and cuddled her and kissed the top of her head. Instead of raking through his own lank hair, his fingers were combing through hers. I didn’t want to sit down on any of the chairs and I didn’t know where to look, so I examined my feet, and the remains of Chinese takeaways, and the paraphernalia I didn’t use to recognise any more than I did the smell: bottles and dismantled biros and tinfoil rolls with little squares cut out.

  After a while I heard a faint snore and I saw that Jinn had fallen asleep with her face crammed into Nathan’s neck, and his head had drooped over hers too. I swallowed and hesitated, and then I just left the house and closed the door quietly and walked home.

  Seventeen

  What with my minimum-wage job and my part-time cowboy efforts at other people’s hair, I was going along quite nicely, financially. I let things like the landline fall into arrears and then it got cut off, but I had my pay-as-you-go mobile. I kept that topped up and I paid the electricity bill and the TV licence – that sort of thing. And the rent was covered, though I dreaded the day the social would find out Jinn wasn’t actually living in our house. I should have gone and confessed and made other arrangements, but I was scared to disturb the arrangements that were already in place.

  Another thing I should have done was buy proper flowers for Lara. You can get a bunch for £1.99 in Tesco, for heaven’s sake. But I thought Lara might actually prefer something out of her garden (not Livingstone daisies; they were long over, and anyway they just close up when you pick them). So I’d picked snapdragons and wrapped a rubber band round them and on the way to the cemetery I stopped by the Last Homely Crack House.

  Jinn was back to her old self. She looked quite b
right when she opened the door to me, if a little wary.

  ‘Do you want to come and see Lara?’ I said.

  She hesitated. She glanced down at the phone in her hand, lit up with a message.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Work.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said again.

  ‘It’s not what you think.’

  If I didn’t know by now when Jinn was lying, I wouldn’t have been much of a sister.

  ‘Does he – does Nathan –’

  Quickly she flicked the snib and shut the door behind her. ‘Listen. He doesn’t ask me to work. He doesn’t ask me to do it.’

  ‘I meant, does he mind?’

  ‘Of course he minds. He’d mind more if I didn’t have any money. He has his problems.’

  So I kept hearing. ‘Yeah. So do you want to come and see Lara?’

  ‘I don’t. Really. Want to.’ She didn’t quite look at me.

  She thought she’d failed Lara. I realised that quite suddenly. She didn’t want to go and look our mother in the face, loosely speaking, because she’d failed and she felt guilty about that. And anyway, I guess she was working.

  ‘I’ve got Maltesers.’ A tinge of desperation there.

  She gave me a sort of pitying look.

  ‘I’ve kind of gone off Maltesers, Ruby.’

  Sitting alone at Lara’s grave, I was angrier with Jinn than I’d ever been. Guilt was my department; Jinn’s was to be reassuring and loving-me-whether-or-not-I-deserved-it. That made me remember the one time it had been horrible coming to Lara’s grave, when Jinn had burst into tears because she was so tired from working (respectably) and looking after me and just missing Lara. I remember her flapping my awkward consoling hand away and shouting at me, ‘Ruby, I love you but that can’t be all I do!’