“Don’t talk to me about Ben. This has got nothing to do with Ben. This has got to do with your stupid fantasies. I don’t know if I can make my own fantasies happen, let alone yours.”
“What is wrong with you? You were the one who got me into that place last night. Now you want to pull out just as we could have some serious fun?”
“I didn’t have any fun last night. It was stupid. I hate dancing.”
“So why’d you set it up?”
Joe shook his head and mumbled.
Smokey stood up. “What did you say?”
“I don’t know how it happened. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“That’s so unfair. You can’t do that one night and say it’s never going to happen again. You’re so fucked up, Joe.”
“Maybe I am.” He walked away.
Smokey took a final drag of his cigarette, then threw away the butt.
It was beginning to rain again, and Joe’s pace lengthened as he neared the school buildings.
“Okay,” said Smokey, jogging to keep up with him. “Just take me along whatever you do next. How about it? No pressure.”
“What’s it got to do with you?”
“I’m your mate, aren’t I?”
Joe turned suddenly and looked into Smokey’s liquid blue eyes. “Are you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You’re saying I’m not your friend. We’ve been mates since we were six, Joe. I know everything about you, including this little secret of yours. I don’t understand why you give something one minute then take it away the next.”
Joe didn’t know which way to go. He could go inside the school building now, which would end the conversation automatically and probably his friendship with Smokey. Or he could let Smokey talk him around and give in to this stupid fantasy. The next thing he knew he’d be providing hot tubs and Malibu cribs for Smokey, who ultimately wanted nothing less than the lifestyle of a major R&B artist, as vividly depicted in countless identical videos on MTV, complete with gyrating, bikini-clad girls with acres of undulating skin, customized cars and bling. Joe could see where Smokey was heading, and it was a direction that just didn’t interest him.
Except that flying in a private jet would be cool. It would be different. It would be useful to have the experience. Boffing a series of vacuous girls? Not so much. So he crossed his arms and said, “I’ll think about it.”
Which meant that he found Smokey accompanying him down the road to Liesel’s school at the end of the day, trying to persuade him that this particular idea was worth trying.
Smokey’s persistence was exasperating. Finally, Joe shut him up by saying that if Smokey said one word about any of this in front of Liesel, Joe would dream him into a one-to-one meeting with Elphick. Smokey backed off, but Joe could tell he hadn’t heard the last of it.
It was not the first time that Smokey had come down with Joe to Liesel’s school, or the first time that he’d come home with them on the bus. But it hadn’t happened in a while and Liesel inevitably noticed.
“Funny you coming home now, just as Joe’s got this stupid new car.”
Of course, Smokey started asking questions and in her throwaway fashion, Liesel revealed the existence of the Lamborghini.
“Sweet,” said Smokey. “Can’t wait for a ride in that. Babe magnet or what?”
Ben was already home and at work on the computer in the kitchen, halfway through an essay. He stood up as they all came in. “Been a while, kiddo.”
Smokey grunted. He hated being called kiddo, but it was Ben’s established name for him. Silas’ transition into Smokey had arisen on moving up to secondary school, and Ben couldn’t say it without sniggering. Sometimes Ben had the right instincts. He got up and switched the kettle on.
“Here to see the famous wheels, I suppose.”
Smokey nodded. Joe led him out to the garage. Despite his blasé façade, Smokey could not conceal his admiration for the car, involuntarily emitting small swooning cries like a mating pigeon. Ben joined them, bringing their cups of tea. He stood on the step into the garage, leaning against the doorway. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Shame Joe can’t drive her for another eleven years. You can’t be insured to drive something like this if you’re under twenty-five.”
Smokey laughed and went around the far side of the car.
Ben gave Joe a cautious look. “So now Mum’s out of the way, you can tell me exactly where this car came from.”
Joe shook his head. Smokey hadn’t heard, absorbed by the car’s clean lines and heady scent of leather.
“I can’t say. It wasn’t illegal, though.” He drank some tea. Ben wouldn’t let go.
“What’s the big secret, Joe?”
“I can’t talk about it.” Joe hid his nose in the mug of tea again. Ben shrugged and turned away, leaving Joe to Smokey.
“If you can dream up one of these, why can’t you dream up a flight on a Learjet with a couple of beautiful babes?”
Joe had no answer to that other than the simple fact that he didn’t want to, but Smokey was persistent. “Come on. We can go up to your room now and before we know it, we’ll be sitting up there at ten thousand feet, ready for action.”
So Joe led the way up to his room. He lay on the bed and Smokey sat on the floor, leaning against it, his head thrown back and his eyes closed. “Okay,” he said, “take us away, mate.”
But Joe couldn’t fall asleep. He lay there, eyes closed, but they kept flickering open and he kept thinking about mundane stuff like all the homework he had stacked up, what Mum was going to cook for supper, whether Ben would help him with his coursework and why Liesel was so aggravating. There was no space for Learjets and curvaceous girls. Smokey would probably want them wearing something tacky like bikinis or hot pants. The thing that freaked Joe out was that whenever he thought about girls, he would get a flash of one of Nell’s disapproving glares. She had this way of looking at him—withering, like weed killer or a really hot sun.
And there, suddenly, looking half astounded and half enraged, was a vague outline of Nell, standing at the end of the bed. Joe sprang upward, shook his head and bounded off the bed, his knee knocking Smokey’s head. By the time they’d both calmed down, Nell’s shade had vanished and Joe sank back onto the bed, out of breath.
“What the fuck was all that about?” Smokey was standing over Joe, his arms on his hips like a mother haranguing a child.
“I don’t know. Look, there was something there, then it went. You missed it. I’m sorry, Smokey. I just can’t do this Learjet business.”
It was a relief to see Smokey swing away, clearly irritated but unwilling to alienate him any further. Joe listened to him running down the steps two at a time, not bothering to say goodbye to Ben, simply clattering out of the house. Joe stood up and went over to the chest of drawers. He took out the golden carpet from the previous night and shook it out. It was soft to the touch, cool and delicately scented. He smoothed out the silk, lay face down and closed his eyes. At first, the fringe at the edges of the carpet started shivering, as though a breeze had ruffled it. Then Joe could no longer feel the floorboards under the silk. The carpet had risen a little from the floorboards, undulating slightly, its graceful borders reminding Joe of manta rays he’d seen at the aquarium. He rested there, flat out, suspended inches above the ground. The carpet swayed. He rose and rose, higher and higher off the ground until he was several feet above the floor. He closed his eyes and finally drifted away from his day.
The carpet thumped to the floor so that his nose, knees and forehead cracked on the wood. The pain from that was followed by a sharp series of kicks to his ribs, only partially muffled by the carpet.
“Explain to me, if you can. Explain exactly what I’m doing here.” It was Nell, utterly infuriated.
Joe raised his head and looked at her. She was wearing jeans and a black sweater that clung to her curves. She had curves that he hadn’
t known about, since they were normally swathed in her school uniform. Her eyes were small and mean, her mouth was a tight, narrow line and her fists were clenched. He rolled over, pulled himself up and edged away from her.
“I don’t know. It just happened. I can try to get you back, or maybe I could call you a taxi.” He tried to sit up, but she’d really gotten him in the ribs. He nursed his rib cage and waited. Nell stood there, arms folded.
“How are you going to try to get me back? How can I be sitting in my room at my desk one minute then here looking at you snogging a carpet the next?”
Joe had had enough of evasions and half-truths. He was tired, he hurt and he didn’t care if Nell thought he was deranged, because she’d thought that for the past three years anyway.
“If you must know, I fell asleep. I had a dream. You were in it. Somehow, when I have dreams, they come true.”
Nell did not laugh. She did not make a sarcastic comment. She did not kick him again. She unfolded her arms and knelt down beside him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s a bit odd.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. See if you can get me back home. If it doesn’t work, you’ll have to get me a taxi. I can get the spare keys off the neighbors. My mum won’t be back home for another couple of hours.”
Joe stood up. He shook out the carpet to straighten it. Nell stooped to help. Once it was flat, he lay down again and began thinking of how he’d gotten Dill back home, even though he’d never been to Maycomb. It ought to be easier to get Nell back home, since he’d been to her house hundreds of times, just not recently. Her room must have changed. When she was ten, she’d idolized a couple of girl bands, and she’d had hung pictures of unicorns and wild horses. Her room had had lavender walls. She’d had a cabin bed with a slide and a mosquito net above it, a string of fairy lights in the shape of crooked red hearts over the bed, and beneath the bed low bookcases absolutely packed with stories. There had been a neat little desk where she used to paint, and there’d been patches of paint on the walls, one magnetic, the other which let you draw on it in chalks. They’d been plastered with drawings and photos of her mum and her little brother, held in place with blobs of purple and pink fur. She’d loved drawing as much as Joe but where he’d been into superhero-style drawings, she’d been obsessed with animals—tigers, panthers, flying horses and huge grizzly bears. On the floor there had been a rug shaped like a polar bear. There had been a shelf unit stacked with all these kits she’d been given at her birthday—sewing kits, knitting machines, bead kits and friendship bracelet kits, none of which she’d ever opened. And under the window had been the things she really loved, her microscope and telescope.
“Joe, we aren’t in the right room.”
He opened his eyes and saw the picture of a unicorn galloping along a moonlit beach, the wild horses thundering across the prairie, the mosquito net and the photos of Mrs. Brennan and Kieran.
“We are, but my room doesn’t look like this anymore.” Nell looked more amused and less irked than he would have predicted. He shook his head.
“Shit, I don’t know how to do this.”
Nell came and sat beside him on the carpet. “How weird is this? I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t remember it being exactly like this.”
“What does it look like now?”
“Lie back and I’ll tell you.”
Joe followed her instructions. She began talking in a low voice, softer than usual.
“The walls are different colors. One is a turquoise. The other three are cobalt blue. I don’t have the bed with the slide anymore. I’ve got a double bed and it has a sea-green cover and pillows. I’ve got photographs of the sea on the walls. Well, posters of waves, but properly framed. I’ve got a dressing table. There’s a mirror above it and to the right there are hooks for my jewelry and stuff. I’ve got two big bookcases and a couple of smaller ones under the window. I don’t have that table anymore. Kieran has the microscope and the telescope now. Instead, I have a computer desk with my laptop. I think that’s it.”
“What about Mr. Speckles?”
“I’ve still got Mr. Speckles. He sits on one of the shelves in the bookcase. Turn around. You’ll see him there.”
Joe opened his eyes and found that Nell was right. There was Mr. Speckles, her old stuffed Dalmatian, his head drooping and slightly awry. Everything else was as Nell had described it.
“Where do you keep your clothes?”
“There’s a cupboard on the landing.”
“It’s like being in a fish tank. It’s like being on the bottom of the seabed. When did that happen?”
“About a year ago. Maybe more,” Nell explained.
“Why did I dream about you?”
Nell stood up and went to sit at the chair by her computer. “You have to answer that one for yourself. Now how are you going to get home?”
“I’ll be out of your way in a second or two.” He lay down again and thought about his own room.
He seemed to explode back into it, as though he’d been cartwheeled or spun like a top, coming to an uneven stop tangled around the trestles holding his drawing board.
Somehow, he’d left the carpet behind in Nell’s room, where it had clashed with everything. He wished he could go back there. He remained curled on his floor, thinking about her, thinking about the calm of her blue space and aching.
A knock on the door… Joe slowly unwound himself and stood. “Yeah?”
“It’s me. I heard a whole load of thumps. Are you okay?”
Joe went to the door and opened it. Ben was standing there, his hair on end. He looked Joe up and down. “You look gutted. Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I… It was stupid. I was spinning on my chair and I just fell off. Really dumbass.” He forced his mouth into a wavery grin.
“You’re sure you’re okay, then?” Ben couldn’t conceal his doubts.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
They both heard their mother’s key in the lock. Ben turned away. “Right.”
Joe nodded and shut the door again. He picked up his book bag from the floor and began to unpack it. Homework was like taxes, inevitable and all the more painful if you tried to avoid it.
Chapter Nine
Miles High
The engine noise and the constant vibration roused Joe.
He was sitting in a beige leather seat surrounded by a symphony of cream, tan, buff, ecru and fawn. He gazed out at the clouds below then he peered down the aisle. He was only two seats from the cockpit. He could see the shoulders of a pilot and a copilot and limitless sky beyond. He twisted round to check out the back of the plane. Across the aisle and two seats behind was Smokey, his face as smug as a politician’s after a landslide.
There was a feminine hand on his knee. He raised his glass to Joe. It was a champagne flute. It looked a little incongruous, a gangly teenager in hoodie and jeans, his puppy-huge feet in trainers, lounging in this luxurious steel cocoon.
A woman came forward and leaned over Joe. She was not tall, but conformed in every other respect to a standard blueprint for beauty—blue eyes, whose vividness was, Joe suspected, enhanced by contact lenses, long eyelashes, a trim nose, a full mouth, symmetrical face and shoulder-length black hair, slim as the stem of a wineglass and apparently as fragile.
“Can I get you anything from the galley, sir?” Her voice was huskily mid-Atlantic. Her breath was minty.
“Just some water, please. Sparkling, if you have it.”
Her look of astonishment mixed with a little contempt vanished almost before Joe had time to register it. Perhaps she’d been expecting him to order more champagne or some extravagant treat like caviar and blinis. It was true that he felt peckish.
She came back in seconds so he asked what there was to eat, then listened to a list of gourmet delicacies that would have graced the delicatessen back home. A smoked salmon sandwich seemed a safe and swift option. When she brought it, he ges
tured to the banquette opposite. She sat down.
“Can you tell me where we’re going?”
“Your friends said we should head for somewhere warm. Mediterranean. They suggested Sardinia, so we’re taking you to Sardinia.”
“Sardinia?”
“Yes. It won’t be hot, but it will certainly be a lot more pleasant than the UK at this time of year. We should be landing in another ninety minutes.”
“How long have I been asleep? How did I get onboard?”
“Don’t worry about any of that, sir. Your friend took care of everything. Smokey, yes? Such a charming young man.”
She turned and gave Smokey a hundred-and-ten-watt smile. He raised his glass to her. Joe noticed that the female hand he had seen before had reached the top of Smokey’s thigh. Smokey nodded at her, and she leaned around to say hello to Joe. It was Nell.
Her hair was pulled away from her face in a chignon, highlighting features that she usually concealed under a curtain of light-brown locks. Kohl made her eyes huge and exotic. The rouge dusted along her cheekbones emphasized the stunning structure of her face, and her lips were full and gleaming with raspberry gloss. Her face had become a mask and it was impossible to read any thought into her normally expressive eyes. Joe felt a hollowness in his stomach that was a prelude to nausea. He closed his eyes and opened them again in the hope that it would be some other girl sitting there. But it was still Nell, still impassive.
“Join us, Joe.” Smokey aped the manner of a sophisticate, swigging champagne and nodding casually toward the pair of seats across the aisle, behind Joe’s seat. “Bit of a surprise finding Nell here.”
Joe unsnapped his seatbelt and changed seats. He wanted both Smokey and Nell where he could see them. Nell was sitting back in her seat, toying with her glass. She was wearing a black dress—simple, sleeveless and short. Her legs were long and slim. Her sleek shoes had kitten heels. She was polished, groomed, buffed and gleaming, as unattainable as a Vogue model.
“Just like old times.”
Joe and Nell exchanged glances.
Smokey talking drivel again.
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