by Tej Turner
“Is this better?” Sam asked, as he/she led me down the upper corridor.
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
“What’s the deal with those kids? Do you know them?”
I nodded. “Well, one of them… she goes to my school. They aren’t nice there… and I am… in trouble…”
Sam opened a door and pulled me into a room. We stood there in silence for a few moments. I looked at Sam again and still couldn’t figure out whether Sam was male or female. I was tempted to ask but it seemed inappropriate. Who was I to grill someone about gender specifications, and what exactly would it change if I did find out?
“What kind of trouble?”
We were cut off by the door opening. An odd looking boy with a large mouth and one of his front teeth missing entered the room and turned straight to Sam.
“Hey dude. You’re back…” he said, somewhat awkwardly. Sam’s eyebrows narrowed and it became clear there was some kind of animosity between them.
“I thought you’d be here,” Sam said, dryly.
“Look, I’m sorry about what happened. I—”
“Pag, this isn’t the time,” Sam interrupted, flatly. “Do me a favour and look after this girl for a while. I need to find Frelia.”
“Errr… yeah. Sure,” Pag said, turning to me for the first time. “Hey dude, I’m Pag. What’s your name?”
“Tilly.”
When Sam first left the room all Pag did was stand gawkily by the door but then, after a few moments of stilted silence, he pulled up a chair and sat opposite me.
“Are you okay, dude?” he asked. “You look upset.”
“I’m not a dude!” I yelled.
Pag’s eyes widened at my outburst. “Oh shit, look du – oh shit, I mean – look, I’m sorry. I just call everyone dude. I know you’re a girl.”
“No,” I shook my head. “You don’t understand. I was born a boy…”
“Is that why those people down there were laughing at you?” he asked.
“You saw that?”
He nodded. “I saw Sam taking you up the stairs. They were following you, so I. Oh shit!” he exclaimed, slamming his palm on his head. “I didn’t mean to worry you. Look, just stay here, and you’ll be fine.”
I looked at the door nervously. They were looking for me, and worse, I was starting to need the toilet. I was trapped. This was even worse than school. At least there the corridors have a degree of safety because they couldn’t beat you when the teachers were around.
“I shouldn’t have to stay here!” I screamed. My blood was turning hot again; it had been in a tepid state all day so it didn’t take much to bring me back to boiling fury. It had been building up for a long time.
“I know…” he said. “I know…”
“And I need the bloody toilet!” I roared. I just didn’t care anymore. They could even kill me if they wanted to. I was sick of running away.
“No!” Pag yelled, coming after me. “Tilly!”
I burst out of the room and found the corridor swarming with people. I spotted the girls’ bathroom. It was only a few feet away.
“That’s her!” someone yelled and then suddenly everyone’s attention was drawn to me. I tried to ignore them but they ringed around me and blocked my path.
“Where are you going?” that girl from school said, appearing in front of me with an exhilarated gleam on her face. “You’ve already been banned from the ladies’!” she proclaimed, pushing me back. Another pair of hands behind me then pushed me forward and it started a pattern. I was flung back and forth while people laughed.
“Stop it!” Pag swiftly appeared, stepping into the ring and grabbing my shoulders. “Just leave her alone!”
“It’s not a ‘her’!” someone proclaimed. “She’s not a real girl!”
There was a disturbance in the crowd, and another girl shoved her way through the hordes of gathered people. She was dressed in torn jeans, and had three rings hanging from her eyebrow. She was making her way towards me.
“It worked! It worked!” she said, joyfully, as she grabbed my hands, as if I was an old friend, and looked me in the eyes. “You’re going to be okay now,” she whispered.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“I’m Frelia,” she greeted. “It’s a long story!”
Her attention then turned to the crowd of people around us, and her face went from warm and welcoming, to a cold and stony expression. The crowd all abruptly went quiet: somehow they already knew that this was a girl to avoid being reckoned with.
“You can all bugger off now! The show is over!” she announced.
“She – I mean he – is trying to use our toilet!” a girl protested.
“So what?” Frelia said, shrugging. “Why do you care?”
“It’s got a penis!” she retorted. “It should use the boys’!”
“My name is Tilly,” I said between gritted teeth.
“I don’t want it using ours either!” a boy declared. “He might look at my junk.”
My temperature was rising again. So was my need for the toilet. I exploded, scrambling my way towards the door. I made it a few feet before I was pushed and shoved and sent reeling to the floor. I yelled out in fury but a blow caught the side of my face and made me dizzy. I curled up into a ball to protect myself. I had been here before, and I knew a long sequence of kicks and blows were to come.
But they didn’t. Something changed. I heard loud thuds and other sounds of disturbance from a few feet away.
I dared myself to look up. Pag and Frelia were brawling with a crowd of kids behind me, while the ones in front were being fought off by a pair of young men I didn’t recognise. Sam suddenly materialised from nowhere, swinging his/her bindle to clear the area around them and then lunging it into a boy’s gut, sending him falling back. Another boy and girl emerged from the woodwork and called out Frelia’s name. It was chaos and people were fighting everywhere, but it was easy for them to figure out which side they were on because the enemy were all clad in black.
I got to my feet. By this point Sam and the two guys had managed to fight their way over, and they all formed a circle around me.
“Frelia!” one of them said. “I’m here.”
“Thanks, Pikel,” she said over her shoulder.
“So this is the really important thing I had to be here for,” Sam said drily. “You really know how to organise a party these days, Frelia. How the hell did you know this was going to happen?”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”
The kids were all clustered at the end of the corridor, none of them daring to get into the range of Sam’s broomstick handle.
“Are you okay?” a girl in a patchwork dress said, putting an arm around me. “I’m Namda.”
I nodded, almost in tears because I was so overwhelmed by the fact that so many strangers had come to my aid. Not one person had ever done such a thing for me in my entire life, and now I was being protected by numerous people I didn’t even know.
“Go use the toilet, Tilly,” Frelia said; this caused an uproar of protests, but Sam, Pikel, and Pag held their ground.
I pushed the door open and found the lavatory was completely empty. I could hear shouting coming from outside so I knew I should try to be quick.
I climbed up onto the counter where the sinks were, crouched, pulled down my tights, lifted up my skirt, and urinated, spreading a pool over the floor – to show Janus just how much I appreciated the venue and the clientele.
“You done?” Frelia yelled over the racket of voices when I ventured back to the corridor.
I nodded.
“Okay, time to leave,” Frelia decided.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Namda muttered.
“I know a way around the back,” Frelia said.
Some of the kids tried to follow us but a few swings of Sam’s stick kept them at bay. We rushed down the dimly lit corridor and Frelia guided us through a network of cluttered rooms and hallways, i
nto the labyrinth of Janus.
“Hello!” a voice called out, making me jump. We all turned our heads, and a group of teenagers carrying musical instruments in plastic cases emerged from the shadows.
“Who the fuck are you?” Frelia asked, suspiciously.
“We are Sunset Haze,” a petite girl in a grey dress said.
“I know you! You guys played last week!” one of Frelia’s friends exclaimed. “You were really good! I—”
“This isn’t the time, Kev!” Pikel interrupted him.
“What makes you think you should come with us?” Frelia asked. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“You’re not the only one who’s special here,” the girl replied, knowingly.
“Fair enough,” Frelia said, one side of her mouth curving into a half-smile.
“I’m Ellen,” she said, and then presented the rest of her band. “This is Patrick, Jack, Faye, Amelia, and Steve.”
“Well, Ellen, I have news for you,” Frelia said, once the introductions were over. “I don’t have a damn clue where we are going, yet…”
“Neal’s opened a new bar,” a young man with blonde hair suggested. “I think it’s pretty empty right now.”
“Good idea, Tristan. We’ll head there,” Frelia decided.
“Can we make a little detour?” Ellen cut in gently. “There are two more people we are meant to find…”
We ventured outside and I felt giddy and liberated. One of the girls from Ellen’s band introduced herself to me. Her name was Faye. She was about my age and had a warm smile. She pulled out a flute and began to play a song that lightened the mood a little as we made our way through this offbeat part of town. I looked around me, surprised at how large a crowd we had become. It felt like together we had created an energy, and it was intoxicating. We were on an adventure and I didn’t even know what its purpose was or where it was headed but that didn’t matter.
Ellen led the way and eventually we stopped outside an abandoned shack. After some coaxing, a girl with dishevelled hair and torn, dirty clothes crawled out from underneath the wreckage. Sam and Pag rushed over to embrace her, and the three had a touching, teary reunion. Her name was Halann.
With our number increased by one, we carried on making our way and I joined Ellen at the head of the crowd for a while. Her enigmatic eyes appeared to be following something that I couldn’t see, and occasionally her lips moved silently as if she was whispering to someone that was not really there. The other members of her band weren’t perturbed by this at all and seemed to accept it as normal.
The second stop she made was by a lane in some neighbourhood. She signalled for us all to halt and motioned a finger to her lips.
“You and you,” she whispered, pointing to Frelia and me. “Come with me. The rest of you wait here.”
We silently followed her down a dim alleyway and, after we turned a few corners, we heard something scuffling in the darkness. I caught sight of a girl. She was clearly scared, and she backed up against the wall of a shed like a terrified kitten.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed between panted breaths. “Just go! Go! Pretend you didn’t see me!”
“Don’t worry, Elaine,” Ellen called out to her softly. “We’re here to help.”
“How do you know my name? Oh my god! Look, I didn’t do it!” she cried, shaking her head frantically. “I didn’t do it!”
“I know you didn’t,” Ellen whispered, slowing edging closer. It was only then that I realised that this girl was covered in blood and was holding a large kitchen knife in her hand. “My sister – you can see her, can’t you. Just like you can see the other girls. They guided me to you. I am here to help. He’s gone now, Elaine. And I promise that from now things are going to get better for you. Drop the knife!”
Elaine stared at Ellen for a long time. And then she let the knife fall from her hand and it clattered across the ground.
Ellen then turned to Frelia. “Find a place in time no one will ever find it,” she said.
Frelia grabbed the blade and turned away for a few moments. I never quite found out exactly what it was that she did with it, but a few moments later she turned back around and it was gone.
“Tilly, give Elaine your coat,” was Ellen’s next instruction.
I pulled it free from my shoulders and helped her wrap it around Elaine, to hide the sight of her red-splattered clothes.
It became my duty to look after Elaine, because she was still in a state of shock from whatever ordeal she had been through; she didn’t say much and remained glued to my side.
Tristan led us the rest of the way to Neal’s bar, which was a large building with a small lamp shining above the door. Neal himself was a middle-aged man, and he could not hide his surprise when the whole gang of us showed up, though Tristan took him aside and gave him a brief explanation. It soon became clear to me that they were a couple, but what was even more surprising was that nobody seemed fazed at all when they kissed each other openly. They were all busy claiming seats from the jumbled tables, chairs and benches scattered around the room. I sat myself between Elaine and Faye.
“I’m sorry about the state of the place,” Neal eventually said, walking over a few minutes later bearing a tray filled with glasses of beer. “I haven’t had the chance to do it up yet.”
“I like it,” Kev said.
“You would, mess-head,” Pikel grinned. He was sitting next to Frelia, and couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
“I’ve already told you I’ll paint the walls for you,” Tristan said.
“I would love you to,” Neal said as he handed him a drink. “But I’m not quite sure what I want yet… I have to think of the clientele. Do you want a beer?” he asked when the tray came to me. He gave me a smile that made me understand what Tristan saw in him.
“Um…” I mumbled, feeling a bit ruffled. I had never been offered alcohol before and my grandmother never kept it in the house. “I… don’t know…”
“Do you drink?”
I shook my head.
“Never?” Neal said, barely veiling his surprise when I shook my head again. “My Gods. Do you want to try?”
“I’m not sure…” I mumbled. “What’s it like?”
He laughed. “You’re adorable! I don’t want to ruin that. How about lemonade?”
I nodded and he nipped over to the bar.
“Do you own the whole building?” I asked when he returned.
He nodded. “Yeah but it’s all a bit ramshackle, I’m afraid. So I’m not sure what to do with it… the rent’s cheap though... anyway, what happened? Some of you look a little roughed up.”
“They attacked Tilly,” Frelia said.
“Why would anyone want to attack you?” Neal said. “You’re only a little one. That place is a bloody disgrace these days. Just stop going!”
“You should all just come here instead,” Pikel said simply.
“Oh, I didn’t mean—” Neal began.
“No, I know you didn’t,” Pikel said. “But I do. Listen, I have been going to that damn place every week for months and I think I understand it now. Janus was once this great place where nobody gave a fuck and you could just have fun, but then some bloody kids who don’t have a clue tried to steal your vibe.”
By now everyone had gone quiet. Their attention was devoted to Pikel, and what he was trying to say. It felt important.
“You just need to move on,” he declared. “Look around you – this, what we have here tonight – isn’t it that feeling, that craziness you were looking for? You are Janus. Let those kids keep the empty shell. You can make a new one!”
“But what if they follow us?” Frelia asked.
“They will,” Pikel said, shrugging. “Slowly. And then, so what? Neal will have a packed out bar of consuming morons, and you can just move on again. It’s just human nature or whatever you call it. To keep yourselves free you just need to move every now and then.
“Sounds good to me,” Neal said, beaming.
“Me too,” Frelia said, leaning over and kissing Pikel on the cheek. His face went red. “Just do us a favour Neal, and don’t bloody do it up. Kev’s right, this place is perfect as it is.”
“Could we use one of your rooms upstairs to practice?” Ellen asked. “We don’t mind paying some rent.”
“If you’re good enough you can have it for free!” Neal said. “As long as you play down here occasionally. Nothing draws punters better than some music.”
“Lots of us are creative by nature,” Namda said. “You wouldn’t need to worry about decorating, Neal. People who come here will add their own bits and bobs.”
“And I will destroy it after!” Halann exclaimed with a grin on her face. I got the feeling she was only half joking.
Within moments everyone was talking and laughing again. Neil brought around more free beer and it gradually spiralled into a party. It was fun to watch everyone become drunk and giggly as the night went on, but I stuck to just drinking lemonade.
It wasn’t until I saw daylight peeping through the blinds that I realised a whole night had gone. By that time some of them had crashed out on the floor; Namda and Halann had taken Elaine away to get her a change of clothes and give her a makeover; Pag and Kev were engaged in some peculiar discussion about quantum mechanics which the rest of us didn’t understand; Frelia and Pikel had long ago disappeared together; Jack was playing his guitar; Ellen and Patrick were singing; and Faye and I were the best of friends, already discussing the possibility of me transferring to her school.
I knew I had a whole series of hells to go through when I went home to my grandmother, but I was ready for them. I was ready for the world.
~
Acknowledgements
Foremost I need to thank Roy Gilham, who from the day we met has read and critiqued pretty much everything I have ever written. Your feedback isn’t always kind, but it is honest and often constructive.
The teachers at Trinity College St David. Throughout the course of two degrees they managed to sharpen my writing skills to a level where I could finally begin to express some of those crazy things going on in my head in a manner where other people could, also, begin to enjoy them. That is a very precious gift to give to someone. Dic Edwards and Paul Wright are two names I feel a particular need to mention.