Nobody Real

by Steven Camden

  “You made it!”

  His smile makes him look stoned. He’s holding a bottle of beer by the neck, fresh white T-shirt against the dark of his arms.

  “Course,” I say, sliding the camera into the tripod saddle. “How you feeling?”

  Sean nods, reassuring himself. “Yeah. Good. We’re on in the second half. Nice T.”

  I look down at MF DOOM’s masked face on my T-shirt.

  “Thanks.”

  “Thanks for filming it, man. That looks expensive.”

  “It’s Cara’s. She’s directing.”

  We both look over to the bar, where Cara is explaining something to the scruffy guy serving drinks. I watch Sean’s eyes on her as he swigs from his bottle.

  “I hope you like it, Mars,” he says.

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “We’re still working on the live set, but Ben’s pretty sick on the sampler.”

  “Cool.”

  “I was actually thinking, you know, about asking you to do something?”

  His face goes sheepish. “I thought maybe, for the EP, you’d do some, you know, some artwork? One of your sketches?”

  I can see the tiniest edge of the scar at the neck of his T-shirt, and I try not to picture his chest underneath, the stretched glossy patch of the skin graft.

  “I don’t really draw any more. Haven’t for ages. I’m not—”

  “Course. Yeah. No worries. Just asking. How’s your dad?”

  “Still Dad.”

  We share the same knowing smile.

  “Yo, you should come by mine one time,” he says, playfully batting my arm. “I’ll play you some tracks. Nan’ll cook a banquet if I tell her you’re coming. It’s been too long, Mars.”

  I nod too much. “Yeah. Sounds good. Let’s try and find time.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do it. I’ll catch you after, yeah?”

  And he walks off, meeting Cara on her way over with two drinks. They exchange a few words, then he carries on to the front.

  “Man, I wish I could read that boy,” Cara says, handing me a glass of Coke. “Hot and cold, hot and cold. He’s like a frigging radiator. Did he say anything about me?”

  “Calm down, will you?” I say.

  Cara sips her drink and shakes her head. “I’m an idiot. Why am I such an idiot, Mars?”

  “Why are you an idiot?”

  The place is filling up, people taking seats, an excited energy in the room.

  “I told him he looked like Kano. Why did I do that? Of all the things I could’ve said …”

  I stop myself from giggling by taking a sip. Diluted cola sugar.

  “He does though,” I say, putting my drink down on the shelf behind me, “and it’s a compliment.”

  “Nothing’s gonna happen anyway. I need to let it go.” She twists her necklace and strokes the smooth well of her collarbone. “Promise me something, Mars. When we get to uni, if I meet someone, don’t let me be this lame, OK?”

  “You’re not lame. It’s just not the right time.”

  She’s not really listening to me though, her eyes flitting round the room, stealing glances of him by the stage.

  “He’s not on till the second half, Car. I might go get some food.”

  “No! Stay. Film everything, then I can cut something cool together.”

  “Are you serious?”

  People start to go quiet as the music fades down and a pasty boy in a trilby and waistcoat steps on to the stage. Cara rolls her eyes, and we both muffle our laughter as the house lights go down.

  Cold air kisses the sweat off my neck.

  Circles of people are gathered outside the pub under the fuzzy, post-gig spotlights of the patio lamps. Sean’s smoking in the middle of four girls looking up at him like he’s Jesus. There’s weed in the air.

  “I need a cigarette,” says Cara, next to me.

  “You don’t smoke, Car,” I say, double-checking I’ve not left anything upstairs.

  “Maybe I do. Maybe University Cara is a roll-ups and whisky kind of girl.”

  Her eyes are on Sean and his fawning audience. I bump her with my elbow.

  “Make sure you get a brown satchel and a dog-eared copy of On the Road to carry around with you too. Where are you going? Don’t leave me!”

  She smiles back at me as she walks over to Sean and the girls. Sean splits two of the others with his arm, making space for her in the circle. He glances over at me, as Cara fake smiles at her competitors, and something tells me to back her up, go over and help her talk hip hop, but the sad desperation of the situation keeps my back pinned to the wall.

  Across the street the chip shop glows like a white-tiled oasis. I’m not even that hungry, but food will get me out of this sorry scene.

  “You a DOOM fan then?”

  The topknot DJ girl is blatantly smoking a spliff. She’s shorter than she looked in her booth; younger. Maybe a year or two older than us and it’s pretty obvious that she’s a clean girl trying to look dirty rather than the other way round.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You?”

  “Big time!” she says through a mouthful of smoke, then holds out her joint.

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Yeah, course, whatever, man. You know my cousin met him one time.”

  I pull the interested expression she’s hoping for to carry on. “Yeah. He was DJ for his opening act, down in London, forget the name of the place. You’re Marcie, right?” She holds out her hand. “I’m Rumer.”

  You’re not here but I hear your voice. “Course you are.”

  As I shake her dry fingers, I notice the end of a sentence tattooed on the inside of her elbow.

  “It’s a quote,” she says, sliding up her T-shirt to show the full line. I squint to read the joined-up letters. “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

  And something about the line completely cracks my perception. I like the words. I wasn’t supposed to like them. She’s not supposed to offer anything that affects me. It’s too cool to be on her arm, or maybe she’s cooler than I let her seem, or maybe, after standing through a whole night of people up on stage spouting melodramatic crap, convinced they’re changing the world, it’s nice to hear a simple, succinct sentence.

  “Who said it?”

  “Miles Davis.”

  I nod like I know all about Miles Davis, his back catalogue, his personal story, his cultural impact. Not just his name.

  “What did you think then?” says Rumer. “You enjoy the night?”

  “Yeah. It was good.”

  I look over to Cara. Her and the other girls all have their heads tilted back in laughter like Sean just said the funniest thing ever uttered by a human being.

  “I can’t stand most of it, to be honest,” Rumer says, shrugging guiltily. “I just like the chance to play a set, even a shitty little pre-show one.”

  The honesty of her comment throws me off. This girl’s not what I made her, and I can’t quite work out whether I’m safe to say what I really think or if I should stay non-committal.

  “Me either,” I say, feeling the release of the truth.

  Rumer relights her joint, rotating it so it burns evenly. “It’s like having to listen to the diaries of people whose diaries you would never want to read.”

  “Exactly!” I say.

  We both nod, smiling together, and for a second I almost reach for the joint.

  “Look at them, crowded round him like pigeons.” She points over at Sean and the girls. “You not interested?”

  I shrug.

  “Got your eye on someone else?”

  We both look at Cara, and it’s suddenly like she’s too close. This stranger. I take a side step away from her. She doesn’t seem to notice.

  “He’s good though, eh?” she says, still looking at Sean.

  Three of the other girls are walking away, bowing out of the race, leaving just Cara and a girl in rolled-up dungarees and box-fresh black Huaraches.

  “He’s all rig
ht,” I say.

  “Says you’re a sick artist.”

  “What?”

  Rumer nods. “Comic stuff he said. Like, drawings and that. Is that your thing then?”

  Sean’s bedroom. Year Seven. Me on his floor sketching him while he rhymes into an Afro comb in the mirror. The two of us crying with laughter.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “So you’re not an artist?”

  The tone in her voice is too knowing. I throw the tripod strap over my shoulder and tuck the camera case under my arm.

  “Not at all.”

  Letting myself into the shop feels good. Like this place could be mine.

  There are a couple of bills and a brown, book-sized package on the mat.

  I lock the door behind me and drop the post on the counter. A flicker and a ping as the old strip lights blink into life. Full shelves feel like the warm walls of a den.

  Bookshops rule.

  Funny how some people think of books as torture, and some of us see them as gifts. Maybe it’s genetic? Maybe it’s upbringing? Nature. Nurture. Coral would have ideas.

  I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t any kind of ego-driven, intellectual satisfaction from being surrounded by hundreds of stories. There’s a definite sense of self-importance, of feeling like I own them all, and that my brain is richer for it, but it’s more than that. Underneath the self-congratulation of feeling clever, there’s a much simpler connection.

  A feeling of comfort and safety.

  And choice.

  Like I could go anywhere I wanted, whenever I want. Or just go nowhere at all.

  I load up Motown Classics on to the turntable and give Johnny Cash gun fingers on my way to the stairs.

  The little room that was a snowdrift is weirdly tidy. Just a couple of boxes of printer paper in the corner.

  “Dad?”

  He’s not in the living room.

  There’s two empty bottles of red wine and at least ten balls of scrunched-up legal-pad paper on the table. The jagged glass ashtray is overflowing.

  “Dad?”

  The kitchen is as clean as it can be. Empty sink. Draining board wiped down.

  I walk back through the little room, across the tiny landing to Dad’s bedroom door, and knock.

  “Dad? It’s Marcie. You up?” I hear stirring inside.

  “I’ll make coffee, yeah?”

  “Morning, gorgeous.”

  His hair is still wet from the shower, cheeks shiny from a shave.

  I point to the coffee on the table, the wine bottles and paper balls cleared away.

  “Thanks, Mars,” he sits down. “What time is it?”

  “It’s just after nine. You OK?”

  He takes a mouthful of coffee and closes his eyes, waiting for the caffeine to reach the tips of his nerves.

  “Dad?”

  “I’m fine. Got a meeting.”

  “Yeah? With who?”

  “Oscar’s arranged a lunch with some lady from Picador.”

  “Oscar, your agent Oscar? That’s great! About the new book?”

  Dad nods. “She’s getting the train up from London. They publish DeLillo. Have you seen my tobacco?”

  I pick up the pouch from the coffee table and take it over to him.

  “That’s exciting, right? Did they read some pages?”

  “What pages?” he says, starting to roll up.

  I touch his shoulder. “Good to start a dialogue though? Nice that they’re interested.”

  Dad forces a smile. “Yeah.” He sparks his cigarette. “Enough of my nonsense, how are you? How’s freedom suiting you?”

  “Dunno.” I go back to the sofa and sit down. “I was thinking I could get Cara to help out in the shop. I reckon between us we can handle it. Give you time to write.”

  “I don’t think so, Mars. You should be off enjoying your summer, not holed up in a dusty old shop. I’ll find someone, don’t worry.”

  I don’t feel like an argument, so I don’t remind him that the only reason he even met Diane was because she came to a reading he did and, since he refused to do any more readings more than two years ago, combined with the fact that he has the social skills of an ironing board, the chances of him actually meeting a prospective employee are pretty slim. As is often the case with Dad, the best thing to do is agree, wait for him to forget he even said anything and then do what you want anyway.

  “OK,” I say, finishing my coffee, “just until you find someone then.”

  The back room looks like a museum installation of a nuclear bunker.

  Even standing up, all I can see through the high strip of window is the dark top of the tree across the back alleyway. The naked light bulb hanging from its thin white cord in the middle of the ceiling looks like some forlorn Victorian attempt at fibre optics. An old schoolteacher’s desk pushed under the window has a line of books against the wall and one of those lamps shaped like a drooping, frosted-glass tulip. The sculpted pine chair underneath it has wheels and looks like it might recline.

  In the far corner, an old beige-and-brown filing cabinet acts as the headboard to a low single cot bed that hasn’t been slept in for a while. At the bottom of the bed, a battered brown two-seater leather sofa looks like it was plucked from a skip. The walls are empty and grey.

  It’s perfect.

  Apart from the books, and a faint hint of sunflowers, there’s no trace of Diane. It makes me think of Richard McGuire’s graphic novel Here. A space occupied and left and occupied again.

  “It’s probably haunted.”

  You’re leaning against the wall at the foot of the bed, red Charizard T-shirt hugging your muscular chest.

  “Any place that’s empty and neat is usually haunted.”

  “Says who?”

  “It’s common knowledge. Ghosts don’t like mess.”

  “Shut up.”

  You sit down on the edge of the bed. “I’m just saying. You won’t catch me sleeping in here.”

  “And where do you sleep?”

  You shake your head.

  “So your stupid rules still apply then?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “So no questions about where you go?”

  You shake you head again.

  “Convenient,” I say, stroking the cool wall.

  “Hardly. This is a surprise for me too, you know.”

  I drop my bag on the desk and lean on the wall opposite you.

  “I’m not crazy, Thor.”

  You frown deeply. “Neither am I.”

  You stand up, like you’re ready to fight. Your head almost touches the light bulb.

  “Shall I go?” you say.

  If the crown prince of Asgard and Ororo Munroe had a son, that’s what you look like. Except for the bear arms.

  “No. Stay.”

  Your smile makes all my questions disappear. You point at my bag.

  “Sketchbook in there?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  You wait for me to say more. I don’t.

  “Fine.”

  Then you start walking out of the room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think? We’ve got a shop to open.”

  One old guy, dressed like he came straight from a funeral, is the only person who comes in all morning. He shuffles around, checking over his shoulder every so often, like he’s waiting for someone. It would be creepy if he wasn’t so old.

  You ask him if he needs help finding something and at first he is cagey, like he speaks a different language, then your smile wins him over. Watching you help him, answering his fifty questions, taking books down for him, you look happy. Like you fit in the picture.

  I’m so bored.

  I try not to fidget, or make it obvious, but by midday I’m ready to rip every single book off every single shelf just to make something happen.

  Your dad comes downstairs looking like someone dressed him up for a job interview.

  “
I’m off,” he says to you.

  I laugh from the children’s corner. “You got that right, Karl. Way off.”

  You cut me evils, then go over and straighten his collar.

  “Hope it goes well,” you say, picking fluff out of his hair.

  “And you’ll be fine here on your own?”

  “She’s not on her own, Karl,” I say.

  You don’t even look at me as you walk him to the door. “I’ll be fine, Dad.”

  “I should only be a couple of hours. Unless they smell a rat early.”

  “Stop it,” you say, kissing him on the cheek.

  He’s lucky to have you.

  “Lock it.”

  “What?”

  “Lock the door. Flip the sign.”

  You’re doubtful. “No.”

  “Come on. It’s lunchtime. People have to eat, don’t they?” I walk over to the till.

  “What are you doing, Thor?”

  “Shut up. Is it locked?”

  I find a familiar record in the stack of vinyl. You lock the door and walk over as the piccolo intro starts. I turn the volume up as far as it will go. The acoustics of the shop are amazing, something about the books maybe. Leyland would love it.

  “You remember this?”

  I jump over the counter and take your hands.

  “No stopping till the record’s done, remember?”

  And your smile tells me you do.

  Surrounded by books, we dance.

  Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “Tears of a Clown” turned up full on the stereo and there’s something about the room, the low ceiling, blinds pulled down in the windows, the music running round the shelves. It’s like a dream.

  You swing my arms, then let me go and spin off around the display tables, your eyes closed, bear arms stretched out like one of those giant helicopter seeds that fall from tall trees. I’ve got my hands in my hoodie pockets, pushed out like wings, swinging my hips, surfing the floor, and everything else has fallen away.

  The song finishes. Another starts. We dance on. Beaming like babies.

  Let’s just do this.

  Let’s stay here.

  Everything else is so serious. Everything else is so pressured.