by T H Paul
“You must be invisible, Jack. You don’t want that type of attention,” she said, and he hovered for a moment about twenty feet above her, low enough to be covered by the trees around them.
“Why do you care?”
“Because I know, okay. I know I would never be accepted if people knew about me. If they really knew. It’ll be the same for you. It’s why you’ve never told anyone you can be invisible.” He had indeed never told anyone that.
“That’s different. I don’t want people finding out what I’m doing. But this is flying.” There were three minutes to go.
“You still won’t be able to explain it.”
“Then I’ll lead them to you,” he said. He didn’t care. He was through with Penny already.
“You can’t!” she screamed.
“Depends on what you’ll do for me,” he replied, his hand reaching into his pocket, throwing down the box of condoms which landed at her feet. Interesting; so objects can get close to her and are not repelled from her he thought. “You hold onto them until I get back,” he shouted down. “It’s your choice whether I’ll say anything or not,” and with that he started moving higher, going invisible soon after. There were less than two minutes left as Penny checked her watch, glancing down at the ground and she kicked the box away from her. She hoped it never came to that. Jack couldn’t be allowed to blackmail her about anything.
She counted down the one hundred seconds, give or take, that she figured remained. By then the small plane––which was flying out to sea, presumably heading for France––had gone into the clouds, its noise all but inaudible to Penny as well. Penny scanned the horizon, desperately searching for a sign of Jack or the aircraft, but it was impossible to see anything.
And then she spotted him.
Jack must have reappeared when he was flying through the clouds––presumably, he didn’t care, maybe he wanted to scare the crew––but Penny saw him now falling rapidly from the sky. He was at least a mile away, probably much further. All there was stretched out before her as she stood there with her mouth wide, was open sea, with a few rocks––rough and jagged––visible in the distance, though he was way beyond them. They might have made his end a sudden one, but that might have been too quick. This way, falling so far out into open sea, he would realise what she had done to him before it would be too late. He would understand. As he sank into the depths, breathing his last breath, in those final moments, he would know that Penny had got the better of him.
Penny couldn’t see the point where he hit the water––he was too far away––but she knew he was down. The ten minutes were over, his ability to fly now gone.
Jack Ferguson was history.
9
I will always remember that moment––the falling boy––as I saw Jack plunge to his death. If anyone else had seen anything––and I would check, there would be no news of any such sighting, any such search––no one was saying anything.
I’d finally done it.
As quickly as it had happened, however, a creeping paranoia entered me. What if someone found out? What if they already knew?
I realised I was no freer in his absence as I had been with his presence. At least he couldn’t hurt anyone else now. At least he couldn’t come for me.
Darkness was to live with me, however, as I left that place. Jack might be gone, but this feeling was to grow in me as those months of summer pressed on.
Penny collected together the empty packets, as well as the unfinished food. She threw the box of condoms––unopened, uninvited and very much unwanted––into a thick clump of bushes. She didn’t want to be caught with them, even if what she had in her hands would soon be in a rubbish bin anyway.
With one last glimpse out to sea––there was nothing there but rolling waves, sea meeting cloudy horizon in the far distance––Penny turned and left that spot, vowing never to return. It would forever be tainted, like that clump of trees next to her school, the same cluster she’d watched Jack and Abbey in. Stained, defiled, unspeakable. She knew then she could never come back there, would probably never revisit Margate at all, in fact.
She suddenly felt watched. Did anyone spot the two teenagers entering into that place only to now see just Penny leaving? She doubted it, but even then, those thoughts were there. Someone would surely know. Maybe the police were already on their way?
Penny dropped the shopping bag of rubbish into the first bin she got to, feeling it was as incriminating as if it had contained a bloodstained shirt with a murder weapon. It was nothing but food wrappings, but it might as well have been a smoking gun for how she now felt.
She had to get back on the train, which would take her home. At least the tickets she had purchased that morning had been two singles. Jack had never noticed, hadn’t said anything if he had, as to why she had bought two one-way tickets when they would need to head back that night. Maybe he had plans of them shacking up for the night in some Margate dive? Perhaps he had hoped?
Penny slid over the money, conscious of her hands––feeling she needed to wash them as soon as she was through with the purchase––as if they stunk of criminality as if they would give her away. She pocketed the change and put the ticket inside her purse, before going in search of the toilets. Penny washed her hands thoroughly for three whole minutes, applying soap four times, much to the bemusement of the odd woman or two who was also using the sinks. Penny didn’t care what they thought; she just had to be clean. She would wash her clothes when she got back home. His hands had been all over her. She might even just throw them all away or burn them. Yes, she would burn them, she settled on, as she dried each hand carefully on the paper towels.
Her train wasn’t leaving for another thirty minutes––it hadn’t even arrived yet, or if it had, it wasn’t showing on the screens, so she didn’t know to which platform to go. She found a bench and waited. Police officers were walking around in twos. Were they looking for her? Did they know already? Had the body of a teenage boy just been discovered by a fishing boat or something? She felt every eye pressing down on her, as if she was in the middle of the room with everyone facing her, everyone knowing what Penny had just done; everyone knowing who she was.
The train ride was not much better, but Penny had managed to doze––she figured if they were about to arrest her for murder, it would happen whether she was asleep or awake, so she might as well rest. She arrived in London and made the switch to the tube so that she was home by dinnertime, not that she kept those times now it was just her mother and her at home. Her mother’s meals were always liquid, and she wasn’t one to share such indulgence with her still teenage daughter.
Penny went straight up to her room, avoiding the television––whether news on Abbey the athlete or Jack the deceased, she didn’t need to hear it––and just rested on her bed. Penny stared at her ceiling as she laid on the bed, the paint in need of a little work, the edges peeling away from the coat underneath. Penny couldn’t recall the last time, if ever, her room had been painted. She decided she would make that her summer project, a change of colour in her room before school would start again. A freshness for her final year.
Having come to that conclusion, Penny decided she needed some air. The hardware store was a good thirty minutes away, and she would need to pass Millie’s house on the way, Penny wanting to hang out with someone, and her former dance class friend fitted the bill perfectly. They could get some food on the way, though the more Penny thought about eating––her last meal had been with Jack, which had been his last ever meal––the less like eating Penny felt. She was sure it would pass.
Penny had called Millie on the way, having left home without the need of a word to her mother, and was calling in at Millie’s about twenty minutes later. The two girls walked into town first––Penny glancing at the leisure centre as they went past it. She knew all these spots would feel like that for a while. The two girls grabbed some food, Penny paying for them both, happy that she finally had enough money to be abl
e to do that, before they later continued on the ten minutes it took to get to the slightly out of town hardware store.
Millie gave her opinion on what Penny should choose for her new bedroom colour scheme, and over the next hour, through many tester pots, Penny made her choice, finally paying for two large pots of paint and a new set of brushes. Between them both, they set out to carry the items home. Millie had also picked up a large box containing one-hundred tea lights––she had said you could never have too many candles––and they chatted happily to one another as they walked.
“Jack dumped me,” Penny said, wanting to make sure Millie knew she was no longer together with her boyfriend.
“You don’t seem that upset,” Millie said, picking up on her tone and the fact she’d long since heard Penny mouthing off about how impossible he was.
“No, I guess I’m not,” she said. She wasn’t upset, as such. She was feeling guilty and desperate that she was about to be found out. Jack was the last person who deserved her pity, however.
“You are well shot of him if you ask me.” Penny had only told Millie half the things Jack had done, and that was enough to know he was nothing but trouble. Millie knew the type of boy he was––she’d had to kiss him too that day at the cinema. Penny had made out she hadn’t known him then, too, she realised, but Millie let it go. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Penny paused for a moment. The truthful answer to that as her heart screamed its answer was an absolute yes. But she knew she couldn’t talk about it, not now, not ever.
“No, it’s okay, history now. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Millie could tell it was far from settled, though knew enough that now was not the time to probe. It had only just happened, and Penny would be hurting from the rejection. She would let it drop.
“So,” Millie said, some twenty minutes later, as they neared home once again, “do you want me to give you a hand with the painting?” Millie was handing the pots across to Penny, who had said she would walk the final bit to her house by herself.
“I’ll call you if I do,” she said. If Penny were to call Millie to invite her over, it would be the first time she had ever done so.
“Okay, let me know,” she said, regardless. Miracles do happen. Millie opened her front door and waved to Penny as she walked inside, closing the door shut behind her. Penny continued on home.
Now home, Penny walked through the door in stages, having needed to put the two pots of paint down on the doorstep to get her keys from her bag. She wondered if she had enough paint, especially if three coats were needed. She moved the pots through into the hall before shutting the door. Her mother walked out from the kitchen, chewing something, before swallowing.
“Have you eaten?” she asked, only then spotting the tins of paint on the floor.
“I got something with Millie earlier,” Penny said.
“What’s this?” Penny avoided the blindingly obvious response that came to mind. It’s paint; what else could it be?
“I’m going to decorate my room. The paint is flaking from the ceiling.”
“Where did you get the money?” she said as if Penny must have stolen it from her.
“I work, remember?” Penny retorted as if her mother was too much of a hopeless drunk to be able to retain the fact her daughter had been working in a supermarket that summer. Her mother didn’t reply, turning her nose up as if she still didn’t like the fact her daughter would waste her money on things like paint, and she walked back into the kitchen. Penny wasn’t even up the stairs when she heard liquid poured into a glass, the bottle knocking against the object, her mother’s hands no doubt trembling and unable to hold it still. It wasn’t her first drink of the evening. Penny knew it was far from her last.
Penny sat the pots down against a free wall now that she was in her bedroom, surer than ever that she probably didn’t have enough paint, but there was sufficient to get most of the job done. She planned to start tomorrow after she got home from work. Right now, Penny just needed some time to think. She switched on the television.
The news gave no mention of anyone being found dead and floating off the coast of Margate, though she doubted it would have done. The sport’s news which followed the main programme was less positive for Penny, with Abbey Lawrence mentioned, a replay on the screen now showing the moment from last night’s final when the British hopeful had pulled up suddenly, going from about third place to last in a matter of metres. The report would go on to mention that there was no serious injury and that Abbey was expected to compete in her other event later that week. Penny looked in bemused wonder at the television.
“I have got to watch that,” she laughed, bringing herself out of the mood she’d been in, for a moment at least, as she thought about Abbey trying to compete against her peers without any significant advantage.
Penny would wake in the early hours––it was half past two––having had her first nightmare about Jack’s death. She was in school, in a hall full of students, herself in the middle, all rows facing the front. Two police officers had appeared at the back of the lobby, every head––her’s included––turning around as one to face them. They walked down the aisle and approached the Head Master at the front, who had paused his address and was waiting silently for the officers. Whispers happened all around.
For ages, it seemed, the three people discussed something at the front. Then every face––student and teacher alike––suddenly turned to face her. She became the centre of the hall, the dead centre of the entire universe, it felt at that moment. She was also naked.
She had sweat coming down her face as she sat up in her bed, checking the time, her pulse pounding, her gift doing its thing inside her, though looking around, nothing was floating. No item was misbehaving.
“It was just a dream,” she said aloud, willing her heart rate back to normal, taking a few deep breaths interspersed with a few sips of water. “It was only a dream.”
10
Those nightmares dogged me for the whole of August. By the end of the month, I was desperate for some relief, anything that would stop me reliving the moment. Each time the dream would be different, each time I was exposed for who I was, caught out in what I’d done. In many dreams, I’d been arrested, marshalled away, with eyes on only me.
And then they suddenly stopped.
I don’t know why they did, at the time, but it rescued me. It stopped me following through with what I had known growing in me all summer. A feeling that would come back with greater force in a couple more years, but one that had nearly succeeded at the first time of asking.
It was darkness, a sickness asking for release. Asking from an escape from all that I was feeling, all that I was suffering; asking for an end to life.
It would plant the thought in me, that while I had pushed it away that month, would later come back to dominate me more than ever––the idea that I could always just quit this life.
Penny wouldn’t have said before that week that she was suicidal, but with all that she’d gone through, those were the thoughts waging war inside, each battling for a voice. She’d seen her father walk away, had a mother who wasn’t there for her and been sexually exploited by a man who she thought she could trust. Penny had seen a friend raped, a former friend by that point, but even that realisation didn’t change anything. She was getting hassle at work, trouble at home and nightmares while she slept. What Penny had done in Abbey that week didn’t seem to be limiting Abbey now at all. All that she’d done to Jack didn’t seem like it was enough, either, and she woke with a question as to whether it was even worth repainting her room––did she deserve to be alive to enjoy it?
She went into work troubled, the same boy hassling her for the thousandth time, it seemed. All because Robin’s sister had been too fat, too ugly, to get a job there herself. Penny was in no mood for it that morning and punched him in the face. He fell silent. He would never bother her again after that, and by September had left his job at the super
market altogether. Penny wondered why it had taken her so long to act, but realised she suddenly felt as if she only had so much time left. Sooner or later, it felt, her thoughts would win. She could quit, she knew that, and the temptation was strong.
The lack of a father figure was most pressing that month. Without the support of someone who could have spoken wisdom into her soul, given her hope, she felt more bleak about life than ever. Even Jack, for all his faults, for all his problems, fulfilled that role to some degree. Now even his voice was gone from her world. Her overtly camp manager, Julian––despite finding out he was happily married, to a woman, with three kids––couldn’t hope to meet that need in her. The start of school was still a few weeks away, also, so the male teachers she had, couldn’t help her either.
She felt lost already.
What she couldn’t decide was how to do it. Could she even do it herself? She started repainting her room the following night, at least thankful her time working on the checkout at work hadn’t been ruined anymore by the ginger-haired pest, nor that of Jack, who had often hung around, sometimes trying to steal money from the tills. At least they were both now silent, at last.
Penny finished the first coat of paint as she got ready for bed. The room smelt strongly of paint. Maybe that was the way to go, through fumes?
She woke the following morning––alive and her room very much odour free––and again pushed the thought back as best she could. Soon the days became a week and the week became the end of the month. The new school term was now just a few days away, the start of her final year in secondary, the year ending in her GCSE exams next May and June. She was surprised if she would last that long.
She’d finished her room, making the paint last enough so as not to require another visit to the hardware shop. The Olympics had played in the background on those nights she was watching, as Abbey made a surprise finish. Penny was at a loss to know how she felt about that.