“Leyland …”
“Either or. Neither nor.”
He looks down at me. “Pain is just fear leaving the body.”
He holds out his arms and turns his back on the city.
“The real us lives in dark corners, Thor.”
“Leyland, please! You’re not making sense. Why are you doing this?”
He smiles. “Just playing my part.”
Then he steps backwards and drops off the edge.
“No!”
I dive forward, holding on to the ledge, just in time to see him falling, face up, smiling like a little boy.
Clawing.
Swiping at his face.
Trying to hurt him.
Scratch his eyes out.
His hands are up. Defending himself.
A few blows get through. The knife of pain in my wrist as I connect.
He falls back. I fall on top of him.
Screaming.
The heat of the fire on my side. Inside me.
A lie.
An idea built on nothing.
“Sorry.”
The word slips out of his mouth so easily.
I stop.
Panting.
Salt on my lips.
Heat in my fists.
“I’m so sorry, Mars.”
The guilt in his eyes. Pleading.
No.
Not enough.
Up and off him.
“Marcie?”
I don’t listen.
As I run to the shop.
I slump. Back against the ledge.
Head in my paws. He’s gone. Smiling.
Everything muddy. The real us lives in dark corners.
Everything riddles. Stupid words. I don’t understand. It feels like I’m wearing someone else’s skin. A stranger. Outside of myself.
Sirens, somewhere across town. Coming for his body.
Whatever’s left.
I close my eyes. To hide. To escape.
And somehow
I see you.
You’re tearing books from the shelves.
Wrenching them off in twos, threes, flinging them to the floor, moving on to the next, grunting like an animal.
I know this feeling.
I know it well.
Smash.
Break.
Destroy.
You charge a table full of books and they topple like cards. Pools of novels on the dark shop floor. And still you go. Ripping more and more out of their wooden bunk beds, trying to smash them like priceless vases.
Your dad is in the open doorway. Not trying to stop you. Just watching.
He wipes blood from his lip and breathes heavily.
You clear another shelf and fall to your knees, exhausted.
He says your name.
Again.
That he understands. You have to believe that.
You look at him. Backlit by the fire along the corridor.
You see the slump in his shoulders. Years bent over a typewriter.
The frame of an author.
And you stand up.
He holds out his hands as you walk to him, but you push him aside and head for the stairs.
“No, Marcie!”
Open my eyes.
Feel it.
Sinking down through my spine.
Regret. Mine from back then. Yours to come.
No.
I can help.
You need me to.
But I have to be there.
The pages are still next to the typewriter.
His first new chapter in years. The typed letters blurred through my tears.
This will hurt him.
This will cut.
I grab them and run back to the stairs.
He’s at the bottom, waiting for me.
“Mars …” He sees the pages in my hand. “No!”
But I’ve got momentum from the stairs. I charge him and he falls back, hitting the wall and sliding down, and I’m outside, at the fire, staring into the flames.
Running.
Stupid legs aren’t fast enough.
Why can’t I fly?
What’s the point in an imaginary friend who can’t fly?
Reach the park. Cut through. Shadows and dark corners.
Legs burning.
Lungs stretched like balloons.
Too slow. Need to be faster.
Hear the drums.
Close my eyes and see you. Standing by the fire. Pages in your hand.
No, Marcie.
I’m coming.
I’m coming.
“Marcie, please!” He’s struggling to stand, leaning in the doorway. “Don’t …”
I hold the pages out. “This is what matters to you, isn’t it?”
The cold air chills my sweat, my T-shirt stuck to my back.
“Isn’t it!”
Dad coughs. “Marcie. I was wrong.” He eases himself down the wall and slumps on to the back step. “I wanted to do something. To help. But I didn’t think past myself.”
The white pages glow in my hand.
All his energy. His wrestles with ideas. The breakdowns. The tantrums.
All for some crooked black footprints on stupid paper.
“You are what matters. My special girl.”
I hear his words but I don’t believe them.
I want to do it.
I want to drop these pages in and watch them turn black. Demolish his ideas.
For letting her go.
For being so weak.
If you were here, you’d tell me to.
You’d help me do it.
Where are you, Thor Baker?
I need you now.
My legs are jelly.
Can hardly breathe.
Leaning on my knees, I stare at the rubble. I’m here.
I’m here, Marcie. But you have to call.
Call me now.
“Don’t do it.”
The little cat is on top of next-door’s bin. There’s no one else around.
“Did you just …?”
“It’s too late. The door is gone.” It’s a little girl’s voice, six or seven maybe. We both look at the broken pieces of the house. My lungs feel like they’re full of needles.
“She can still call. If I’m here.”
I step forward. The cat raises a paw. “You have to let go. A mind can’t exist in two worlds. If you cross now, you won’t exist anywhere.”
I see the spots. Dots of light hovering around her head.
“You don’t understand. I can help. I know what to do.”
The cat looks at me, pleading. “But what about you?”
My legs are going. Head fuzzy. I force myself to stand up straight.
“It’s not about me.”
My hand won’t move.
I want to throw his pages on to the fire. Burn his work to nothing. For all of it.
Why can’t I?
“Do it, Mars.”
Dad is hunched over on the step. He points at the fire. “I deserve it.”
And he does.
For giving me hope. A tiny pebble of it, thrown into my lap, that wasn’t even real.
His stupid book. Mining our life for a story. A wad of stupid, worthless words. Gimme a rock. Or a bat. Something that does something. Something useful. “It’s your fault, Karl.”
I turn back to the fire and go to throw them in.
“Don’t!”
You’re on the other side, staring at me through the flames.
“Don’t do it, Marcie.”
What?
“Put them down.”
No.
“You don’t want to do it.”
Yes I do.
“No. It’s not his fault.”
What are you saying? You’re supposed to be on my side. You’re supposed to help me. That’s why you’re here.
“I am. This time.”
I want to hurt him. I want him to lose what matters.
“He already has.
”
You look past me to Dad, arms cradling his chest, head against the wall.
“He lost what matters before you did, but he stayed.”
I look at the pages in my hand.
Chapter 1 (rough)
Forgetting Ghosts.
Don’t do this, Thor. Not you.
“You know the truth, Marcie. I know you do.”
The fire between us. The fire in me.
“It was her. She left. Her choice.”
But he could’ve stopped her. He could’ve made her stay.
“People do what they want. And he stayed. He’s not perfect. Not even close. But he’s here.”
I look at Dad.
His tentative smile. Leaning on the doorway with a bloody lip.
“Time to let her go.”
Karl Baker.
My dad.
Forlorn.
A mess.
But here.
And mine.
My arm goes down. And the blame falls through my feet.
Wherever she is.
Wherever she flew away to.
She can take it with her.
“You are so strong, Marcie.”
A smile.
Then the tree miaows. High up in its black branches.
The unmistakable squeaky miaow of a cage-fighting kitten.
You in the camping chair, your dad on the step, me on the floor.
All three of us staring up at the dark tree.
Everything is glowing.
The fire is fading.
It’s done.
What happens now?
“How long are we supposed to wait?” you say.
Your dad scratches his head. “As long as it takes, I guess.”
He starts to roll a cigarette. “Instinct will kick in at some point. She must be hungry. Survival first.”
Calvin miaows from the tree just to prove she’s not dead. I think of the cat on the bin. A mind can’t exist in two worlds.
You roll your shoulders and point. “Can I have one of those?”
Your dad smiles, handing you his finished roll-up and starting another.
I think of Leyland.
Checking out.
Choosing to.
The real us lives in dark corners.
You hold your cigarette to the fire and then take a drag to make it burn.
You look older.
You are older.
Something touches the back of my neck, but, when I turn round, there’s nothing there.
“Maybe we should call Dr Dolittle Morgan?” your dad says, pointing up into the tree. “He probably knows some ancient cat call from Wakanda or something.”
You both laugh. I laugh too, but no sound comes out.
“You owe him one hell of an apology,” you say, throwing your half-finished cigarette on to the fire. “He had a concussion.”
Your dad nods. “What can I do?”
You sip your drink. “I think he’s writing something. He’d probably die of joy if you took a look at it.”
I look at my paws. Watch them flicker.
“If he liked my book, Mars, he’s probably got terrible taste, right?”
“I wouldn’t know, Dad. I haven’t read it.”
“Oh.” He cracks a smile. “I always figured you just thought it was shit.”
He laughs to himself. “Full of surprises, my girl.”
He watches you, like he’s seeing who you are and someone else as well. Someone you have in you.
A quick rustling sound, the scratching of claws on bark and a frightened miaow as Calvin drops on to the cobbles of the alleyway like a dark apple.
She shakes her legs, sneezes, then trots into the yard, past my feet and jumps into your dad’s lap.
“Hello, trouble,” he says, cuddling her to his chest. “Had enough adventure for one night?”
He stands up, holding her close. I look at her. She looks at me.
And smiles.
“I’ll give her some food. Douse this before you go to bed, OK?”
You nod. He leans down and kisses your head with so much tenderness, I have to look away.
“Don’t forget these,” you say.
He takes his pages. “Thank you, special girl.” And he goes.
You stare into the fire. The flames have settled into a slow waltz, and I can feel myself slipping. I have one last thing to do.
“Marcie.”
“Want to watch Harvey?” you say. “Like we used to?”
I smile.
“Perfect.”
Elwood P. Dowd says goodnight to the security guard as the metal gates close.
We’re lying together on the shop sofa, under my blanket, you behind me, chest against my back, breathing together in our miniature midnight cinema. The black-and-white picture flickers from my laptop screen on the table.
Something stops Elwood from leaving. He leans back towards the bars of the gate and they open again.
“I love this bit.”
“I know.”
Elwood smiles up at his imaginary friend.
“Why, thank you, Harvey. I prefer you too.”
They walk away together as the strings build and the white words appear.
THE END
“Best ending ever.”
I pull your arm around me and squeeze it as the screen goes black. Slithers of street light sneak through the gaps at the edges of the shop blinds. The dark heaps of thrown books look like rubble.
“I prefer you too, Thor Baker.”
I close my eyes and I can feel your heart beat against my back.
The lub dub of aortic and pulmonary valves. The science of feeling.
“Are you OK?” you say.
“I’m not sure. I feel … kind of blank.”
“Blank is good. Ready to be filled.”
Close my eyes. “Yeah.”
I feel your mouth next to my ear. “I need you to do something for me.”
And I see you. On the floor. Legs crossed. Ten years ago. Here to save me. Just like I needed.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Your breathing stops.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to,” you say.
I’m fighting to breathe as you stroke the back of my paw.
The weight of your head on my arm. You are seven. You are ten.
You are thirteen.
I close my eyes. “You have to.”
You are nine. You are eleven.
“But I need you, Thor.”
You are nearly eighteen. You are twenty-one.
“Marcie, I am you. Don’t you see? I’m the part of you that shows up when it’s needed. And that part will be there, inside you, ready to fight when you have to.”
“But it’s not the same.”
“No. It’s better. I am wherever you are. Always.”
I am falling.
I am parting from the real.
I lean in.
Your body tenses. You are crying.
“Marcie, please.”
And you know.
You know I’m right. I have helped. And now it’s time to let me go. You have to say the words to make it real.
“I love you, Thor Baker.”
A kiss on my paw.
“And don’t you come back.”
Your voice becomes music as I start to drift.
And then
with a smile
I fade.
What is this?
What do you think it is?
Am I dead?
Do you think you’re dead?
I don’t know. How did I get here?
How do you think you got here?
I’ll punch you, Alan. Stop answering questions with questions.
Would you prefer answers?
I’m serious.
You’re not dead, Thor. It’s Thursday.
What?
You did it.
I did what?
What you were made to do. The choice. Yo
u put her first.
And now I’m here, with you?
Exactly. Now she’s ready.
You’re not making sense, Alan.
How do you feel?
I don’t know. Last thing I remember I was with her. Lying down; she said the words, to let me go, then I don’t know. I felt myself float and then … nothing.
Nothing?
Not nothing nothing. Just nothing around me. Air. And black. And I was moving. Like I was flying. It felt like I was flying.
That’s good.
What is this, Alan? How am I here? How are you here? What about the fade? A mind can’t exist in two worlds. I should be gone.
You are.
So where are we?
We’re here. Where we’ve always been.
Stop doing that! Just talk normal, please. Where are we, Alan?
In her.
Who? Marcie?
Yes. It’s all her.
What is?
All of it. In her mind.
All of what?
Everything.
I don’t understand.
Yes you do.
But how?
Quite incredible, isn’t it? What the human brain can build when it wants to.
It’s all her?
Every last bit.
That’s not possible.
Isn’t it?
What about the others? Blue? Leyland? Everyone else.
All of them.
And you?
Me too. Impressive, right?
The castles? The train? Fridge City?
All her.
Everything? This desk? That crappy plant? Your bubbly fart water?
It’s a lot to take in.
I don’t … But … What about this? Us, here, now?
This too.
Holy shit.
Quite a mind, right?
It’s unbelievable. It’s unreal.
Real is but what we make it, Thor.
And we’re still here?
We are.
But I can’t go back?
I’m afraid not. Your purpose has been served.
So what do I do now?
What would you like to do?
Can I still see her? Can I still watch?
Of course. You can do whatever you want to here, Thor. Anything is possible in her mind.
Yeah?
Yes.
Whatever I want?
Whatever you want. You helped, and now you get to see who she becomes. All you have to do is close your eyes.
Nobody Real Page 21