The Opposite of Amber

by Gillian Philip

  I didn’t see why not. It seemed a noble calling to me.

  I tried to be Jinn. I wanted to be more like her, I did. Once I’d even tried to emulate her, sentimentally and pointlessly. I found a baby starling. I know now, of course, that you’re supposed to leave them where they are, like baby seals. Starlings and seals do not get bladdered and walk in front of Vauxhall Astras, so there is a good chance the mother will return to its baby and look after it.

  But with only Lara for a model, I thought the mother had probably come to grief, so I rescued this pathetically ugly creature and took him to the kitchen, where I created a shoebox nest for him, lined with the local free advertising rag. I fed him bugs and bread and milky cornflake dregs; I named him Ozzy, though I don’t know to this day what sex he was, and I nursed him proudly. I fancied myself the Saba Douglas-Hamilton of suburban Scotland, reintroducing native species to the wild. I encouraged Ozzy to totter around on his little legs, and at last there came a time when I felt I should let him socialise (this entire episode only lasted about forty-eight hours, by the way. I had little patience). So when a flock of grown-up startings clustered in the trees, yelling at each other like fishwives, I let young Ozzy flap out to the grass, in his sweet ungainly way. Whereupon the flock of grown-ups swooped down and pecked the little bastard to death.

  I kept quiet about this. I was ashamed, and starlings being starlings the same way scorpions are scorpions, I couldn’t blame them. The death of ugly little Ozzy was entirely on my conscience.

  There were starlings in the cemetery when I got there, and gulls fighting over a leftover sandwich they’d fished out of the bin. Ozzy and his tragic fate cured me of being sentimental about birds. If those starlings and gulls could have robbed a few graves, they would have; they’d have hauled up the corpses and had a go. They’d strip poor Lara down to the bones.

  I emptied dead petunias out of the jam jar (it had been a while) and tried to arrange my snapdragons artistically. Some of the graves never had any flowers; they looked sad and bare and lonely. Some of them were practically smothered in carnations and cellophane and broad garish ribbons. I reckoned Lara enjoyed a happy medium. Nicer than Tesco’s £1.99 bunch. Though I should get her some of those too, some time. For a change.

  ‘I’m not sure what to do about Jinn,’ I said.

  No answer.

  I felt like an idiot. I couldn’t open my mouth and speak to the living, so I don’t know why I was trying it on with the dead. The wind stirred a sickly birch tree, and a few dry leaves drifted down. I shivered. When you speak out loud like that, it’s as if you break something. I felt they’d all been chatting up till then, all the dead people under the ground, and I’d walked in like an eejit and interrupted an interesting conversation. I felt as if they’d all fallen silent and now they were listening and waiting for what I was going to say next.

  I thought about Alex Jerrold, and wondered if he thought he’d be in here by now, but he’d blown it and caught himself on that truck. Safety-netted like a fly on a web. No wings though.

  I stood up sharply. I looked out past the headstones to the industrial estate and the bypass. I could hear cars on the bypass, and the sudden blare of a lorry horn, out there where I wouldn’t have to listen to the soft rustle of the birch or the murmur of the dead.

  I picked up my bag and took my Maltesers somewhere else.

  Eighteen

  Cut N’Dried had big plate-glass windows facing on to a narrow one-way street. That meant you could all too easily see passers-by, if there was a moment’s peace. It was always hot in the salon, with the dryers going constantly, and today was a mild day, so I edged across to the open door when I got the chance, just to catch a breath of the outside air. It wasn’t busy anyway; it was one of those quiet days and I was only sweeping clippings.

  I opened my mouth to suck in air that didn’t taste of coconut shampoo and conditioner. It stayed open, and my eyes goggled. Nathan Baird had just come out of the surf shop opposite (like Glassford was a small town in California or something), and he was looking happy. Too happy, I mean. Happy like Lara: bad-happy.

  I mumbled something just low enough for the boss to miss it, and headed outside.

  ‘That your coffee break, Ruby?’ Clarissa’s sharp voice floated after me.

  She could assume so. Fine with me.

  ‘Nathan!’ I yelled.

  He semi-glanced over his shoulder, then mockingly walked on.

  I came to a halt, undecided. But I knew the reputation of that surf shop; hair salons are good for gossip. And Nathan hadn’t emerged with a shiny new surfboard. I ran after him, dodging two old women, jumping on and off the kerb to avoid a pushchair and getting blared at by a souped-up boy racer.

  Nathan kept walking. He knew I was there; he was just taking the mickey. Pausing teasingly, then walking on when I called his name. I hated him. I wanted to shove him under a bus. Sod all that, I just wanted to catch up.

  At last he swung open the door of the staidest tearoom in town, where the waitresses were more than a hundred and eighty years old and wore white aprons. In here they’d never heard of a hazelnut latte. Nathan sat at a lace-frothed table in the window, ordered a pot of Darjeeling and grinned at me.

  I yanked out a chair opposite him and sat down. I wanted to shout, hit him, but I couldn’t make a scene in here of all places. There’d be multiple cardiac arrests. Nathan 1, Ruby 0.

  ‘Have a scone,’ he suggested. To rhyme with ‘bone’.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ I blurted.

  Quizzically he studied the old dear behind the counter, placidly rearranging day-old pancakes. ‘I’m sure she won’t mind. It’s her job.’

  ‘Stop it. I mean Jinn.’

  He leaned forward, smile gone. ‘It’s not your business, Ruby Red.’

  ‘Just leave my sister alone. Please leave her.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’ For an instant he looked perfectly serious. Sad, almost.

  ‘You know what she does for you,’ I hissed.

  A pause, a sip of Darjeeling. He was mocking me again. ‘What she does for me?’

  ‘Stop that! If you just –’

  He was eyeing me over the rim of his cup, lasering resentment. That was funny.

  ‘You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.’ He shrugged, all indifferent again, the shutters down over his eyes.

  I wondered, suddenly, if he’d known at all, or if I’d just blown it wide open.

  Whether by bad luck or good luck, Jinn picked that exact moment to swan into the tearoom, all smiles and glitter. It was her nail varnish that had sparkles though. Not her skin.

  ‘Hey, babe.’

  ‘Hi, Jinn.’

  ‘Ruby!’ She blew me a kiss.

  Nathan was perfectly cool as she half-sat on his lap and smiled at me, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

  ‘How’s things, Ruby sweetie? How’s the job?’

  ‘Fine . . .’ So how was I meant to ask about hers?

  As if she understood, she turned away to put her arm round Nathan’s neck and delicately kiss his ear.

  He seemed very easy still. He laid his hand lightly on her bare forearm, his forefinger stroking her skin. His Batman T-shirt was really loose and misshapen now; I could see his prominent collarbone. Jinn kissed it, still smiling. I hated him, I hated her. I wanted him to be using her, I wanted him to be a loveless bastard. He wasn’t obliging me.

  Nathan was watching me, and I wondered if he could make out the green veil of jealousy across my eyes. I didn’t even know who I was jealous of. Him? Her? Their whole insane, enviable, rare-as-rockinghorse-shit love affair?

  His lips brushed her throat; she giggled and arched her neck. It was worse than the tango and it earned them a disapproving glare from the old waitress, muttering behind the Victoria sponges and the Empire biscuits. While Jinn laughed at the ceiling, he smiled directly at me. He didn’t have to open his mouth.

  She loves me.

  I love her.

  I win.


  I stood, scraping my chair back. Under Nathan’s victorious stare I stalked out of the tearoom and back to the salon, beaten and seething and hateful, and wanting more than anything a lover like him; a lover who’d one day shock a waitress by loving me in public.

  I couldn’t imagine her with another man. I knew fine she was, frequently; I just couldn’t imagine it. As for the man I saw her with . . .

  When I saw Jinn with Tom Jerrold that same night, to say I was surprised would be putting it mildly. It was dark, the clocks had gone back a week earlier, and if I’d turned the corner a minute later I’d have missed her. But I saw her.

  I stood stock-still, shocked by what she was doing, slouched against the wall between the harbour master’s office and the marina. Her skirt was too short for the cold of the November night, and her boot heels were too high for the cobbles. Her hair glittered, though. She stood in the white light of a cast-iron retro-Victorian streetlight. They’d put those there just a few months ago for the heritage tourism. Not many tourists around at this time of year, so Jinn was making the most of it, the white light striking sparks off her hair. Which was lanker and yellower than it used to be, but not in this light. In this light she was magical, a white witch, an elven queen in trashy boots. She leaned down to the car, talked for a while to the driver and then – oh my God – she got in. I had to stop my jaw hitting the cobbles.

  See, if you don’t get in a car, it’s safe. It’s easy money and it’s safe.

  So much for that, then. I scuttled back into the shadows as the car went past. It was a very distinctive car, bright yellow with a soft top, and it was driven slowly, so I saw his face; I saw Tom Jerrold. He wasn’t smiling but Jinn was; she’d turned to him and was touching his face and she was actually laughing, like she was his prom date or something. So Jinn didn’t see me.

  Tom Jerrold did. Tom Jerrold saw me, but he still didn’t smile. He let his eyes rest on mine, then steered the car up the bumpy lane behind the harbour master’s office, and I stood for twenty minutes or more, trying to breathe right, trying to think what to do.

  There was nothing, really. So I went home and watched CSI, so that I wouldn’t worry.

  I’d always wanted them to get together, of course, but not like that. And suddenly I was seeing Tom Jerrold all the time.

  Saturday morning was very cold but it was brisk and blue and sunny, and as I opened the door into Cut N’Dried I was in an excellent mood. I even smiled at Mrs Bolland, who had a head full of foils and a face that could melt bricks. She shook out her magazine and gave me a scowl that was slightly more like a smile than usual. You wouldn’t want to look at her for terribly long, so I looked in the mirror next to hers. And there was a reflected Tom.

  Leanne was just brushing the clippings off his neck, and as he stood up, shaking hair off his jumper, he spotted me. Making a slight face – either friendly or sort of facetious, I’m not sure which – he walked to the counter to pay.

  Still no hello, then.

  I understood why he’d come back, but I wished he hadn’t. I saw him in Glassford; I saw him in Breakness. I saw him unpacking his clubs in the golf club car park; I saw him walking briskly between his office and, I don’t know, some other office.

  He was something hot with a firm of surveyors. His job must have been pretty high-powered, because that glossy yellow car was brand new and fully loaded and top of the range, all those things that I don’t understand because I’ve never had a car of any description. It wasn’t a Porsche or anything – it was a Toyota, but it was a sporty, fast, beautiful Toyota. He seemed truly to love it, caring for it the way he might care for a racehorse. I wasn’t likely to forget it even if I hadn’t seen Jinn step into it smiling, skirt up to her arse.

  I saw Tom Jerrold in the big Glassford Tesco, I saw him going into the nicer Breakness pub with his suited mates, I saw him eating his lunch alone on a bench by the river in the Dot Cumming Memorial Park. That was the time I glanced up and he was there, seven or eight metres away. I was sitting on the high river wall, dangling my legs over the side, eating a rice salad with a plastic fork and trying not to spill anything out of the flimsy bowl. I was concentrating so hard I was amazed anything could make me look up, but I must have felt Tom Jerrold’s stare again, because there he was. There he was, making me nervous.

  The river was a different beast altogether in the winter. It was opaque and cold, rushing down to the sea in a brown flurry, no summer meandering and no glittery sparkle. I still liked to sit on the wall and look at it but I’d hate to fall in, and I didn’t like the way Tom Jerrold was walking so purposefully towards me. All my muscles tensed, and I forgot to eat.

  He didn’t shove me though. He hesitated, then sat down at my side, but not close enough to touch. Neither of us spoke. I thought: if he seriously thinks I’m going to open my mouth to him of all people . . .

  He leaned forward, studying the rush of water beneath us.

  ‘You’d never jump, would you, Ruby?’

  I couldn’t speak. Too scared. I shook my head.

  ‘Didn’t think so. You never know, of course, but I didn’t think so.’

  I licked my lips. I picked up a last grain of rice with my fingertip and put it in my mouth. ‘I saw you with my sister.’

  I am not sure what I was hoping to achieve there. It sounded vaguely like a threat but I hadn’t meant it to. At least, I don’t think so.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He was still staring down at the river. ‘I like her. Always liked her.’

  Be careful what you wish for, Ruby.

  Tom looked a good bit older, but not in a bad way. He had the same solemn look as Alex, but without the gawky geekiness. He looked self-contained, another guy who didn’t give a damn. He had sad and handsome eyes and a straight mouth but he looked like that didn’t matter, that it was fine to be sad and handsome, no big deal. Happy and ugly would have been just as acceptable.

  I felt even worse now about not visiting Alex. I’d have liked to be able to say, ‘I saw your brother,’ or ‘He’s looking better,’ or heck, even ‘He isn’t looking so good.’ Any of it would prove I cared enough to call on him. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

  Well, I did. I cared hugely, enormously, violently. It was just that my shame (and my sheer embarrassment) overwhelmed the caring part. Go and see Alex? Oh, just no way.

  I shook that thought off, and told Tom, ‘Jinn kind of liked you too.’

  ‘Jinn liked me.’ He shrugged. ‘Jinx couldn’t give a toss either way but I still like her.’

  ‘Who’s Jinx?’ I don’t know why I asked. The way the name landed hard in my stomach, I knew fine who it belonged to.

  ‘That’s what she calls herself.’

  ‘She’s got another name?’ My throat was all dry. I didn’t want to hear about Jinx. This person Jinx.

  ‘Nice name,’ he said, with an edge of viciousness. ‘Not much of a camouflage, but it’s got a ring to it.’

  ‘Shut up!’ I snapped.

  ‘Yeah, right. ’Kay.’ He got up and walked away.

  ‘Her name isn’t Jinx,’ I shouted after him.

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘I mean it!’

  He turned on his heel. ‘So do I.’

  ‘Tom! Did you – did you –’

  He waited: he stood there and waited for me to finish the sentence. He made me finish the sentence because, though it was clearly none of my business, I felt like I had to know, and I was pretty certain he’d tell me. So I took a deep breath, and I asked.

  He smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was a sad and bitter one but still I got the funny impression he enjoyed it, he enjoyed baiting me, he’d enjoy lying awake thinking of me lying awake. A little revenge. He hadn’t turned my sister into a prostitute, but he’d paid to have her. I hadn’t pushed his brother, but I’d told him to jump. Was that us quits? I hoped so.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t. Not with Jinx.’

  I glared at him, sure he was lying.

  ‘W
ith Jinn,’ he said. ‘Sure. But not Jinx.’

  And you know, that made me feel even worse.

  So there was this girl called Jinx, and there was my sister, whose name was Jinn. They were not the same person; they lived in different worlds, different dimensions. Jinx was the elf queen in tarty boots who lived in the Last Homely House of Dunedin. Jinn was the lost girl, the girl with no existence on our plane. She was trapped between the worlds, trapped in a bubble in the past, trapped till the magic was broken and the ending was happy and the talisman was found. And then, only then, could she finally have her name back.

  Nineteen

  The irony is that I thought at first, on that fateful day, I was helping Alex Jerrold. I was actually concerned for him. It was the way he was crouched over the river under the iron bridge, like a predatory bird but without the attitude. I saw him as I walked back from the library through the park, and I wouldn’t have seen him if he hadn’t moved, wriggling something out of his jeans pocket so awkwardly he nearly fell over into the muddy grass. Then he crouched again, staring at whatever it was.

  I hesitated. I didn’t really want to get involved. But there was something about his posture I didn’t like, and I felt I had a duty to go and ask him what was wrong. I’d once been his nearly-girlfriend after all, even if it was in my prepubescent days and even if it was a kind of mutant holiday romance. And last year, I’d just avoided kissing him at the Halloween Horror. That had to count for something.

  So I left the path and swung down under the iron bridge, and said, ‘Hi, Alex.’

  He jerked his head up, more like a nervous bird than ever. Was that what gave him the notion he could fly?

  He blinked. ‘Hello.’