Nobody Real

by Steven Camden

  Cara skips out, arm in arm with Leia and Naomi, like a half-Chinese Dorothy and her friends, off to Oz. A stream of other sixth-formers follows them, squinting as the sunlight hits them. I stand up, and wait for her to see me.

  “What the hell, Mars!” she shouts, breaking off from the others and walking over. “How do you do it?”

  We’re the same height, but my dandelion Afro gives me a few extra centimetres. Cara lifts her arms in celebration and a strip of smooth, pale midriff shows itself above the edge of her skirt.

  “How’d you finish so quick?”

  I pull my blouse away from my stomach and shrug back. “Said what I wanted to say, I guess.”

  She smiles. She has more teeth than she needs, little white overlapping roots that on anyone else would look weird, but on her look like evidence of intelligent design.

  “Marcie Baker, super-brain,” she says, and we hug. I close my eyes and breathe her in.

  Honesty, confidence and ambition. That’s Cara. Since forever.

  “We did it, Mars,” she says over my shoulder and squeezes me with her thin arms. I can feel her little pointy boobs pressed against my fuller chest.

  “Yeah.”

  People are scattered down the wide school driveway, hugging and hi-fiving each other. Sean, Mo and Jordan are tearing pages of revision notes into confetti over the bonnets of teachers’ cars. Jordan already has his tie around his head. Cara lets go of me and wipes her eyes.

  “I feel like I can breathe again, you know?” Her sharp bob shines like black ribbon. “I can’t wait for uni! We’re gonna have so much fun! Did you do the ‘role of women’ question?”

  I look down at our feet. Her crisp white Vans. My battered Chuck Taylors.

  “Yep.”

  Then she screams. Like a proper animal-type scream, head thrown back, arms stretched out. Someone else behind us takes their cue and screams, then someone else, and someone else, like car alarms triggered by each other, until I’m watching a school driveway full of A-level English students howling at the sky like wolves.

  The pack starts to move towards the main gates.

  “Everyone’s going to Jordan’s,” says Cara.

  “Cool,” I say.

  She flashes a knowing smile. “You’re coming, Mars. Don’t you dare even start.”

  I nod. “OK.”

  “We did it, Mars! It’s done!”

  Nod again. It’s done.

  No undoing it now.

  What looks like half our year is sprawled across Jordan’s big back garden, like a sixth-form Where’s Wally? Shirts are undone. Cigarettes rolled. Detention memories and impressions of teachers are shared. Miss Langley’s cleavage. Mr Kelsey’s breath. Stormzy’s “Shut Up” pumps out through open French doors.

  Some people managed to get boxes of wine and cans of Red Stripe from the outdoor, Old Mr Thomas serving teens in school uniform as a “fuck you” to the new Tesco Express.

  I sit in the shade of the big oak tree, on a cast-iron garden chair, making cloud prints on the stretched cotton of my navy skirt with the wet bottom of my glass.

  I can’t tell whether I feel light or heavy. Have I let something go or picked something up?

  I scan the party, looking for you. Like you might actually be here. Stupid.

  Cara’s on the grass, part of a captive horseshoe audience listening to Sean tell a story. His untucked shirt hangs open off his bony shoulders. His limbs have got longer this year.

  “You remember, Mars? How mad they were?” he says, looking over, smiling. Audience heads turn my way. I wasn’t listening to the story at all.

  “Yeah,” I say, “course.”

  Sean waits a second for me to say more, then just dives right back into the narrative, taking his audience with him.

  Nabil and David are trying to scale the concrete garage at the bottom of the garden, their shirts long discarded, shoulders gleaming with a sheen of sweat.

  I scoop up my stuff just as Nabil gets to his feet on the garage roof like he conquered a mountain.

  “I’m gonna jump!” he says. “Somebody film me!”

  As people turn to watch, I walk inside.

  Jordan’s mum’s downstairs bathroom is easily the most glamorous bathroom I’ve ever been in.

  From the waist up, the entire wall in front of me is mirror, the sink a chunky white porcelain square set into the glass. The shower cubicle to my right is as big as our entire bathroom, the white towels neatly stacked in a pyramid on the shelves to my left look like they’ve never been used, and it smells like a swimming pool.

  I drop my stuff and stare at myself. My uneven ’fro is wilting. My school blouse grips my chest like my skirt grips my hips. “Full bodied”, that’s what Coral said, the day she took me for my first proper bra fitting. Standing in the Selfridges changing room, arms out like a new prisoner. Remember it felt like I’d gone from nothing to too much, in one summer. Like my body was some fast-tracked puberty experiment. Cara’s face when she came back from France. She wanted to be the one who got boobs first.

  There’s nothing more attractive than a full-bodied woman, Coral said. Just look through history, real history: full-bodied women are nature’s queens.

  Not really the most humble way to describe yourself in Freshers’ Week though, is it? Yeah, hi, I’m Marcie Baker, I’m from Birmingham, I’m into reading and films, I used to draw a bit, oh, and I have the attractive, full body of a natural queen.

  Something about this mirror having no edge makes it feel less like looking at my reflection and more like staring at someone else. A nearly eighteen-year-old girl.

  I make myself smile and she smiles back. Smooth cheeks, more dark freckles than a face needs. The gap between her two front teeth is big enough to be embarrassing. An unwanted hereditary gift from a woman long gone.

  I close my eyes. And breathe.

  “You look older.”

  My body stiffens.

  You’re standing behind me, big enough to almost completely block the door.

  I can hear muffled laughter from outside.

  You step forward. The light hits your cheekbones. Your hero’s jawline. Is there a trace of stubble?

  “So do you,” I say, keeping a straight face, trying to ignore the fact that I can feel my heart beat in my skin.

  “I guess we both do,” you say. A shrug of your bear shoulders.

  My fingers grip the seams of my skirt. “What are you doing here, Thor?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  I swallow and watch your eyes scan my reflection up and down.

  “You can’t be here.”

  Your eyes meet mine. “Says who?”

  Then we just breathe and stare at each other. How long has it been?

  “I did it, Thor.”

  Your wicked smile.

  “I saw.”

  “Mars?” Cara bangs on the door and you disappear.

  “Mars? You OK?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just washing my hands!”

  I push the lever on the swan-neck tap and swill my face with cold water.

  The empty space in the mirror.

  “You sure you’re OK? You look kinda pale.”

  Cara’s concerned face, her cheeks slightly flushed from cheap wine.

  “Yeah, I just feel a bit off. I didn’t eat. I think I’m gonna go.”

  “You want me to come with you? We could get chicken?”

  “Nah, I’m good, you stay, have fun.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Message me later if I miss anything.”

  Her expression turns sheepish. “Nothing’s gonna happen. I’ve left it too long. He’s oblivious,” she sighs. “That ship has sailed.”

  I smile and poke her stomach. “Maybe, but you’ve always been a strong swimmer.”

  She hugs me again. “I love you, Marcie Baker.”

  “I love you too, Cara Miles-Yeung.”

  Our bodies shake with laughter and I go to squeeze her, just as sh
e pulls away.

  The bin men haven’t been.

  One black bag leans on the wall under the hedge with a trail of its guts on the pavement. A bloated green tea bag, a clump of brown rice, the wilted carcass of a red bell pepper. It’s a miniature art installation made by a fox.

  I step over the exhibit, through the gate and see the sign. It’s one of those cheap banners you buy from a card shop. CONGRATULATIONS! in somebody with zero style’s idea of exciting letters. I can hear Stevie Wonder singing inside. Coral always makes an effort.

  Think of the end of Jurassic Park when the T. rex is roaring as the torn banner ripples down from the ceiling. Close my eyes.

  You came, Thor. I needed you there and you came.

  Nobody knows. Only us.

  Open my eyes. Tear down the banner. And go inside.

  Dusk. And I’m literally buzzing.

  If you could press mute on these busy city streets and lean in, you’d hear my body crackling like a plasma ball.

  I crossed over. To you. You saw me. There. In the real. And I helped.

  You know I did.

  At the lights, I lean on the stop sign as a fifteen-metre white limousine rolls past. Across the street, a line of five black-suited yakuza sit in the neon window of a noodle bar, slurping in unison, their dark sunglasses hiding their eyes.

  The house is the bridge. Coral’s house. Has it always been there – just across the park – this whole time?

  Walking in. The hall. The stairs. Your bedroom door. The heat in my chest.

  A foghorn.

  I look up and see a World War II German Royal Tiger tank waiting at the red light. The top hatch creaks open and a small man wearing military uniform and a white moustache as big as a broom head starts barking unintelligible orders.

  I cross the street.

  Why now? Why do I find the house now?

  I stop on the corner. The grinding tread of the tank behind me. The neon of the noodle bar.

  The fade.

  Ten years since you made me. Six since you sent me away.

  I finally have a new way to reach you.

  And I have to knock it down.

  The bin bag is still there outside next door.

  The door is closed and I don’t hear anything from inside. Why wouldn’t they just take it to the rubbish chute? I’m not doing it. Not my job.

  Inside.

  Boots off.

  My head is swimming. It happened. I was there. With you. Through the house, that I now have to destroy.

  Alan. Unresolved feeling will fester, Thor.

  No shit.

  Who can I tell?

  No one. No one can know, Marcie. Just me and you.

  The need to see you pulls me to the table. The old typewriter smiles. Like it knows.

  Like it knows.

  You’re drying a dinner plate.

  Coral stands next to you, washing the last of the dishes. Her Lauryn Hill MTV Unplugged album is playing from the living room. She hums along as she washes.

  You thank her for dinner and for the banner and the cake. She tells you not to be silly and offers to drop you off wherever Cara and the others are. You tell her you’re tired and that you’re just going to watch a film and, as she passes you the pan, you notice a mobile phone number inked on the back of her hand.

  You ask her if she realises that it’s nearly ten years since you moved in with her. Coral drops the sponge. Of course she remembers it, she says. She remembers it like it was yesterday. She tells you that becoming your legal guardian is the best thing that ever happened to her.

  You smile.

  She asks if you’ve seen your dad. You tell her you’ll go tomorrow.

  She pulls you in for a hug and tells you that she is so proud of you and that you are so smart and so special and that university is going to be the best time of your life and, as she kisses you on the head, you close your eyes and see me.

  Diane’s gift-wrapping a slim hardback for an old man with a crooked spine and long ears.

  They’re the only two people in the shop.

  Street sounds are muffled as I close the door gently behind me. Deep breath.

  The calm of being surrounded by books.

  Something folky is playing quietly through the wooden speakers behind the till.

  “Morning, Marcie,” says Diane, in her PhD voice. She’s wearing one of her self-knitted cardigans over a sky-blue denim shirt buttoned up to her slender neck. Hipster bookshop chic.

  The old man is watching her fingers gracefully wrap the book, like a young boy watching his grandfather fix a precious watch. He gives a grateful nod as Diane hands him the finished gift and then he just stands there, like he doesn’t want their interaction to be over.

  “Have a lovely day,” Diane says to him, and I get a little bit of leftover smile as he leaves.

  “Bless him. That’s the third time he’s been in this week.”

  “I think he likes you,” I say, dropping my jacket over the chair behind the counter.

  “He’s sweet. I wonder who he’s buying them for?”

  “Maybe it’s no one. Maybe they’re for himself, and he just loves opening presents.”

  Diane looks at me, her glasses resting on top of her Disney-heroine hair.

  “That’s so sad, Marcie.”

  “Is it?”

  I watch her try to see it my way. Her thinking face makes her look like a little girl. I’m not sure how old she actually is. Old enough to be doing a literary doctorate and to like Nirvana in a non-retro way. Old enough to be having a not-so-covert thing with Dad and it not be creepy. Early thirties? Pretty and clever and slightly vacant in the eyes. She’s the most English person I know.

  “How is he?” I say, pointing at the ceiling.

  Diane pulls a pained expression. “He’s ‘working’,” and the way she rolls her eyes tells me it was a long night.

  “I’m just gonna go say hi. Do you want a coffee?”

  Diane zones out, like she’s contemplating a tough life decision, then snaps back. “I’d love one, please. Wait, are you done? Last exam?”

  “Yep. All finished.”

  “Congratulations! You must feel amazing.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’re going to love uni, Mars, trust me.”

  I nod. She smiles again, then gets on with her stock check. I run my fingers along the spines as I walk, giving my usual wink to Johnny Cash, staring out from his autobiography in the music and film section next to the door for the stairs.

  It looks like somebody poured a skip-load of paper through the skylight. A snowdrift of empty white A4 curves up the walls of the small shaded room at the top of the stairs.

  There’s a kind of path, where someone has waded through the middle. I can hear Dad muttering as I follow it to the open living-room door.

  He’s in the corner, past the sofa, standing on his head.

  “What are you doing, Dad?”

  His eyes stay closed, still mumbling something to himself.

  “Dad.”

  He slowly lowers his bare feet and stands, blinking slowly, readjusting to being the right way up.

  “Better. Feel my face.” He pushes back his black pipe-cleaner hair. I don’t move.

  “Come on. Feel my face.”

  He takes my hand and presses it against his cheek. His skin is stubble-rough over sharp cheekbones. “You feel that? Morning, gorgeous.”

  He leans in and kisses my cheek. I smell Imperial Leather soap and tobacco.

  “Circulation, Mars. You know, in some cultures people believe that ideas exist in the blood. More blood to brain, more ideas.” He taps his temple.

  “So vampires must be geniuses then,” I say, looking out of the tall window on to the sleepy high street.

  Dad smiles and sits down at the little table. His yellow legal notepad is pristinely empty.

  “Exactly.” He starts to roll a cigarette. “Is it Saturday already?”

  “It’s Friday, Dad.”<
br />
  “Don’t you have an exam?”

  “I finished. Yesterday.”

  Dad jumps up like someone just tasered his arse. “Yes! Freedom! Come here!”

  “I still have to wait for results, Dad.”

  He lets go. “Who cares about results?”

  “Erm, UCAS? The universities?”

  “You’ve aced them. Coral’s academic skills have rubbed off.”

  “I’m glad you’re so sure, Dad.”

  Dad’s not listening. “We should celebrate! This is the best summer ever. No more school, getting ready to leave. Have you got any weed?”

  “Dad …”

  “No, course.” He nods to himself. “Is that my shirt?”

  “No, it’s mine.”

  “Hmm. Looks like one I used to have.” He sits back down and finishes rolling his cigarette.

  “I’m just here for coffee,” I say. “You want one?”

  The kitchen is a thin sideboard city of dirty dishes and hanging pans.

  There’s still half a large glass bowl of tar-black coffee in the diner-style maker.

  “How’s my big sister?”

  I pretend I haven’t heard him as I search for the least dirty cups and swill them out.

  “Did she get you a gift? I bet she got you a gift.”

  I bring the pot through and Dad holds up his empty cup.

  “What was it, vouchers? Coral loves her vouchers.”

  “No gift needed, Dad.” I pour. He raises a finger.

  “I’ll get you something then! What do you need? I could get you a new sketchbook?”

  “Still got the last one, thanks.”

  “Anything in it?” he says, his smile almost desperate.

  “Not really.”

  His face drops for a second. “Can’t rush ideas, Mars. New trainers then?”

  “From the man who doesn’t even own a pair of socks?”

  He lights his cigarette. “I do own socks! I have multiple pairs of socks. Casual socks, dress socks, sports socks.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just because a person doesn’t reveal something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Besides, socks are for sheep, Mars. I want to feel what I’m walking on.”

  “How convenient.” I nod towards the small room full of paper. “Busy night?”

  Dad blows smoke. “All part of the process, my young padawan. Did Diane seem pissed off to you?”