The Opposite of Amber

by Gillian Philip

  Foley and I walked through those woods again a week later, when neither of us was working. It was too pretty to stay away, too pretty to miss the transient snow. A path had been crushed into the snow but it was still hard going, except under the trees, because the flakes couldn’t fall so heavily there. Under the thick pines there was only a crusty skin of snow, and when I looked up, the lumps on the branches were turning translucent in the winter sunlight.

  The silence was cracked. There was a sound I didn’t recognise at first. It wasn’t water really. It wasn’t a drip-drip-drip sound, it was a gritty click-click-click, like tiny beads of ice pittering down.

  That’s when I knew it was thawing. It was the slow reluctant end of winter. Aslan had come back to Narnia, just like in the books, but too soon: we weren’t ready for him, we’d all been enjoying the fun and beautiful company of the White Witch, and hoping deep down that he’d never come back.

  counting games

  They found the fifth girl in the distillery pond when the ice melted.

  She’d been under the ice, under the snow, trapped against the grille where the burn ran out to the underground culvert. The water was deep at the edge there, and the bank sloped under itself, and the slow flow of the water had caught her like a small thing in amber.

  The man from the distillery could tell there was something there, so though he’d come only to brush the cement paths clear of thick frost-dust, he lowered his broom into the water to shift the obstruction. That’s when she was dislodged, that’s when he saw her hand drift to the surface. He saw it bob there, pale against the peaty water, and when he peered closer, fumbling for his phone with one hand, he saw the rest of her: a white slender ghost lost for ever in the portal.

  Twenty-three

  Not lost for ever, of course. Not really. They pulled Jinn out and put her in a plastic bag and zipped her up, and then they unwrapped her on the mortuary slab. There they unwrapped her again, right out of her skin, to find what had happened to her.

  She hadn’t drowned, they said. She was dead before she went into the water. There were marks on her neck. There was a good chance she was unconscious, they said; she didn’t have any defensive wounds. But unconscious wasn’t good enough, and he’d throttled her, partly with the cord of her gothic necklace and partly with his bare hands.

  I didn’t get to see the marks on her neck, with the sheet pulled up so high. There was a bruise beside her eye socket, that was all. I tried to look at her and see only Jinx, but it was no use. Lying there pale and waxy, no breath at all, she was back to just Jinn. She was very well-preserved: she’d been in a frozen pond. She looked as if she was smiling a little, but that was only the shape of her mouth; her mouth had always curved upwards that way. Her hair in the white glare of light was pale and lifeless, but if I narrowed my eyes and blinked some of the blur away I could make myself imagine the sheen of stardust again, and the Molotov beach girl.

  All my grief was in my head at that point. I’m not being facetious or saying I imagined it – I mean literally. I could only feel it in my head, throbbing behind my eyes and filling my throat and my nasal passages and my sinuses. I couldn’t feel it in my stomach and chest; they seemed to be numb. I thought my head might explode messily, and if I’d thought speaking was hard before, I hadn’t realised the half of it. I physically couldn’t get any words out, not without my skull collapsing in on itself, so all I could do was nod.

  A journalist came to the house to see me the next day, to see if I wanted to talk about it. I didn’t, but he made me take his number anyway, ‘for later’. Then a kirk minister turned up. She put an unasked arm around my shoulder and said that thing on the slab wasn’t really Jinn, I mustn’t think of it like that, it was only an empty shell.

  I wanted to slap her but I couldn’t be bothered; I couldn’t even be bothered arguing. It wasn’t a shell, it was Jinn. Jinn had hair that glittered in sunlight, and hands that fitted snugly round mine, and skin that smelt vaguely like Red Bull mixed with mown grass. Jinn had a tiny X-shaped scar on her chin where she’d fallen off her bike when she was seven. Jinn had warm breath; she could run her thumb up and down your spine to make you go to sleep. Jinn had this physical existence, and it was still there even if it had gone cold, and I’d seriously let her down, because I’d gone and left it lying on a slab.

  ‘Have you heard from Nathan Baird?’

  They both looked at me, the young policeman and the policewoman. They wore professional faces, the kind that make you think they get polished and put away in a cupboard at the end of their shift.

  ‘Has Nathan tried to get in touch with you?’ he tried again.

  What, so I could stab him with a kitchen knife?

  I didn’t say that – as if! me! – but I must have telegraphed it somehow because he looked down at his notebook and cleared his throat. It was really a formality, this.

  ‘No,’ was all I could say.

  They exchanged a look. I wondered if they were sleeping together. In their cupboard.

  Ever so tactfully and ever so gently, they asked me when Nathan had been away. Could I recall the exact dates? Had Jinn said where he was going?

  I looked out of the window while I tried to remember through the thick wet fog of grief in my brain. Jinn’s windmills were spinning in the breeze, flashing and glittering, and the wind chimes clinked, too tangled to ring properly. The sun was very bright and there were snowdrops pushing up through the hard earth already. The ugly gargoyle looked somehow more lonely than ever, as if his mask of cross-eyed aggression had begun to slip. Staring at him, I realised it had. The frost had split his head in two diagonally, and the top part had slipped a few millimetres. It kind of suited him, but he looked terribly miserable, the poor little sod. I’d have to try and fix him.

  ‘I’ll have to move,’ I said suddenly.

  Why hadn’t that thought struck me before? This was a two-bedroom house, I could hardly expect to be allowed to stay.

  Wide Bertha chose that moment to shuffle through from the kitchen, bearing a tray of mugs. ‘You will not.’ She glared at the police, as if it was somehow up to them.

  ‘I don’t think the council are going to be in any hurry,’ soothed the woman.

  ‘They better not be,’ said Bertha threateningly.

  I thought I might want to move out anyway, but I wasn’t about to say so and betray Bertha’s fierce loyalty. The two cops asked a few more questions about Jinn’s ‘lifestyle’, and her friends, and her clients. They knew about Jinx. They hadn’t found her phone, despite picking through every inch of mud at the bottom of the distillery pond, but I think that was no more than irritating to them. It seemed pretty clear-cut. But they asked questions anyway.

  They probably thought my monosyllabic answers were me being truculent rather than me being normal, but I couldn’t think. The only ‘client’ I knew was Tom, and he wasn’t even a paying customer.

  ‘Is there anything else you can think of, Ruby? Anything you can tell us?’

  I licked my lips. I didn’t suppose it was relevant, but I didn’t want to leave anything out. ‘I saw them fighting,’ I said.

  Both of them raised their eyebrows expectantly, deliberately not looking at one another.

  ‘Who, Ruby?’

  ‘Jinn and – him. Nathan.’

  When I thought about it, I’d never seen them fighting.Why hadn’t the strangeness of it hit me before? But there they’d been, in broad daylight, having a fight on the glass-speckled track behind the playpark. I was well back from them, and I’d come to a halt in shock, and they were too busy shouting at each other to notice me.

  Or rather, Nathan was shouting. That’s why I heard what he said. Jinn’s hands were fisted at her sides and she’d just snapped at him, and he must have lost it then.

  ‘You’re the one that says we need the money! You are!’

  I’d swallowed, backed off, gone the other way. I remember thinking that if he was angry about the prostitution thing, it wasn’t very g
rateful of him. But no way did I want to get involved.

  When she’d scribbled down the story, the woman officer put her notebook away. ‘If Nathan tries to contact you, call us straight away.’

  Bertha sat down and put an arm round my shoulder. I wished she wouldn’t; it felt smothering, like a gigantic tentacle, but I didn’t have the heart to shove her off. When the police stood up to go, I took the chance to stand up too and dislodge her. That made me feel guilty all over again.

  ‘We’ll be in touch again,’ said the woman. ‘We’ll keep you informed of developments.’

  Maybe I was overly pessimistic, but I doubted there would be developments. Not unless Nathan showed up, and even then he’d have to confess. Jinn had been in that water for too long. She was preserved but his DNA wasn’t. She’d been trapped in cold amber but this wasn’t Jurassic Park and they couldn’t rebuild her.

  Bertha stayed around to make sure I was OK. I didn’t really want her to, but it was sweet of her. She seemed terribly unsure about what to say. God, was I this aggravating when I couldn’t talk? I got so irritated with her, I found myself saying things just to provoke a conversation. I could see where Foley was coming from now.

  ‘They think he’s killed other girls, don’t they?’ I said.

  Bertha nodded and put too much sugar in my tea. ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘All those girls in water. I remember them.’

  She patted my hand. ‘At least they know now. They know who they’re looking for.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Except for that tango, and that look, the I-love-you look. When I remembered, I still couldn’t quite believe it.

  But maybe the tango and the look had a lot to do with it.

  I remembered Nathan’s teaspoon clinking against a delicate china cup. You know what she does for you, I’d snapped at him.

  And to her I’d said, Doesn’t he mind?

  God, I was a stupid mouthy bitch.

  ‘They’ll find him soon,’ said Bertha.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘He’s panicked, he’s run away, but they’ll find him. You don’t need to be scared. He won’t come back till they drag him back.’

  It hadn’t occurred to me to be scared till she said that. Cheers, Bertha.

  We wandered out to the garden, clutching cups of tea. It was cold, in that still, windless way that bites your bones. I felt about sixty years old. Here’s dear old Ruby, inspecting her dahlias. Her sister died, you know. Jinn never got old like Ruby did. Age did not wither Jinn. Even if she’d have liked the chance to wither, she didn’t get it.

  Anyway, I didn’t have dahlias, only dead Livingstone daisies and leafless stalks. Would I still be living here in a few months, so I could colour the garden in again, in Jinn’s bright crayon colours? Who knew? I hoped summer would be a long time coming.

  Somebody coughed. I glanced up, never in my life so glad of an interruption. Inflatable George pushed open the gate, all diffident, not wanting to intrude. It’s awful when people do that; you feel you have to be kind and encourage them.

  I didn’t though. I just smiled, which visibly threw him. But in his presence Bertha grew confident again, as if she’d needed the validation. She almost swelled with it, with his adoring attention. It didn’t annoy me, even though she hugged me. I was happy for her.

  I poured the dregs of my tea on to the stone gargoyle, like a benediction. (I swear he winced and grimaced and shook it off.) ‘You can go, it’s OK.’

  ‘Oh, Ruby. Are you sure?’

  ‘Are you sure, love?’ echoed George. He frowned and raised his eyebrows at the same time, giving him an odd and rather startled expression.

  ‘Sure. Honest. I’m fine. Right?’ I gave the last word a touch of belligerence, because otherwise I’d be stuck with Bertha for a fortnight.

  ‘You’ll be fine on your own?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Fine.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘if you’re fine.’

  ‘If you’re fine.’ There was that echo again from George.

  I made myself not roll my eyes.

  ‘I’m on the other end of the phone, Ruby. Just call if you need me.’

  ‘Yes. Course. Sure.’

  She took a breath to do a bit more protesting, but Inflatable George grasped her elbow. ‘I’ll get you home, Bertha.’ He turned his sad, Clooney-in-pastry eyes on her. ‘You’ve had a shock too.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Well, thanks, George.’

  Despite the distractions I liked the way Bertha’s eyes lit up, and I had to turn away to hide my smile. It wouldn’t do to be seen smiling so soon and I felt bad about doing it at all.

  Twenty-four

  I’d thought I wanted to be alone. I was surprised how the emptiness of the house weighed on me, and by the loudness of the silence. I couldn’t sit down, not till I’d pulled an armchair over to a corner so that my back was to the wall and I could see the whole room. It wasn’t fear; it felt more like anticipation, like I was waiting for Jinn to come in the front door. So the hesitant rap, when it came, was not as terrifying as you might imagine.

  I knew it couldn’t be her. I knew that in the front part of my brain, so I was fine about opening the door. When I saw Foley standing there like an awkward bollard, I was shocked by relief and even more by inappropriate happiness. I threw myself into his arms.

  ‘Bloody cold out there,’ he said.

  He wasn’t much of a cook – he could make dog food, of course, which now I think about it probably means he could handle a three-course roast dinner – but he dumped his jacket and a DVD on the sofa and kissed me again and went off to microwave some popcorn. His lips were cold from the outside air. I licked my own.

  ‘I was going to get a takeaway,’ he called from the kitchen as I surreptitiously sniffed his jacket lining, ‘but I didn’t think you’d be hungry.’

  Which was precisely right. I liked a boy with good sense in place of sympathy. I picked up the DVD and examined the back cover. ‘Did you get shot of her?’

  No names, no pack drill.

  ‘Uh-huh. Mum’s actually picking her up. After Brownies.’

  ‘Brow –’ I began, then shrugged and shut my jaw. I turned the DVD over again. The plastic case was mauled and punctured by teethmarks. Sometimes I was surprised that Foley and Mallory weren’t more chewed themselves. ‘I haven’t seen this.’

  ‘It’s a laugh.’

  There was silence for long seconds. Smugly I let it hang there, till his sheepish head appeared round the sitting-room door.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  I smiled at him. The things people think will upset you! My sister just got strangled and left in a pond, so Foley’s bad movie choices weren’t going to make things critically worse. Anyway, I needed something stupid and meaningless. I certainly didn’t need Saw III, I needed this lame, straight-to-DVD flick that had got such terrible reviews last summer.

  I heard the pof-pof-pif-pof of popcorn hitting the sides of the bag, and thirty seconds later Foley was back with me. I was using his jacket as a cushion for my head, but he didn’t move it, just smiled knowingly and shoved a cold vodka-and-Molotov at me. When he’d started the DVD and flicked through the trailers, he relaxed with a noisy sigh and put an arm round me. At that point I could detach my head from his jacket lining and snuggle it into his armpit. Boys’ armpits can be a thing of nightmares or they can be pheromone heaven. I was more than happy with Foley’s place on the spectrum.

  The movie was even worse than its reputation. Its only redeeming feature was the constant farcical stunts, which were so noisy and extreme, with such over-the-top acting, there was no brain space left to brood. I felt as if my cerebellum had switched to standby, and that was strangely soothing. I couldn’t think, could barely picture Jinn. I fell asleep, and when I woke up there was no plot worth Foley reiterating for me.

  ‘You’re not enjoying this,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘You were snoring.’

&nb
sp; ‘Oh.’

  His fingers ran across my scalp. ‘Nice snoring.’

  ‘Oh. Fine.’

  ‘As snoring goes.’

  I stretched out a hand to the Pyrex bowl but all that was left were tiny bullets of unpopped corn.

  ‘I’ll make some more,’ said Foley apologetically. Pausing the film, he started to stretch and rise.

  My hand shot out to hold him in place. It landed on his inner thigh. At his squeak, I uncurled my fingers reluctantly and loosened my hold on his flesh. He replaced my hand where it was and held it there with his own.

  The character on screen, frozen in mid-air at an hour and twenty minutes and sixteen seconds, goggled at us.

  ‘I’m not sure we –’

  Just in case should do this was following when he got his breath back, I moved my hand. That shut him up. I blinked at the on-screen guy. Foley clicked the remote with his free hand, and the irritating gurner vanished.

  I glanced up through narrowed eyelids. I expected to see the relevant pages of Cosmo and Bliss scrolling down Foley’s hungry eyes, but it wasn’t like that at all. I could hardly read his expression, or maybe it was so intense I didn’t want to. A lurch of lust hit me. Suddenly I wanted him ferociously, desperately, like I’d die if I couldn’t have him now. Now.

  Reaching up, I pulled him down and kissed him. He wriggled back, mumbled something like ‘Ruby’, and ‘Ruby’ again. And ‘Ow’, because the phone in my pocket had jabbed him in the groin.

  I jiggled it out and let it fall between the sofa cushions. Foley seized my hands and said, ‘Can we move?’

  So this is the part where you’re meant to be swept into his arms and borne regally to the four-poster. Instead Foley and I stumbled up, still attached at the lips and the hips. Mobility was difficult but detachment didn’t seem a possibility. I tugged his T-shirt over his head in a move that must have nearly dislocated his neck, as we did our clumsy crabwise dance towards the bedroom. He was having no end of trouble with my bra clasp, so I reached back with one hand and undid it for him. He banged into the doorway, almost fell, then both of us collapsed on to the bed.