Tape

by Camden,Steven

  Ameliah can’t fully tell if it’s the voice of a girl or a boy, but it sounds young. She catches her reflection in the long mirror on the old wardrobe, her top teeth biting her full bottom lip.

  The crackle seems to cough more words she can’t make out then:

  — I miss you.

  She feels herself shiver. Who is speaking?

  She turns the volume dial a little and static fades up. Like somebody scrunching up a newspaper right next to her ear. The voice seems to be speaking but in a murmur. She moves her face until her nose is almost touching the speaker. The crackle gets louder and then:

  — Eve.

  Ameliah sits upright, feeling the hair on her arms stand up.

  She stares at the speaker. Its dark mesh chipped in places, showing the metal under the black. The static gets louder, drowning out the voice. Ameliah turns the dial, trying to save it, talking into the speaker.

  — Hello? Come back. Hello?

  But the voice has gone. The static dies down, leaving nothing but the low hissing of the speakers. She sees her own face in the mirror, confused and tired.

  She reaches out and pushes the stop button. The hissing cuts off. She looks again into the mirror. Her reflection stares back a frown.

  She reaches for the marker pen on her bedside table, grabs the lid of the opened shoebox and scribbles words: since he showed up, it’s different now, I miss you, Eve.

  The black ink seeps into the old cardboard making the edges of her letters seem fuzzy. Ameliah stares at the words, feeling her eyes fighting to stay open.

  She sighs and rolls on to her back, the shoebox lid still in her hand. Staring up at the ceiling, her head fills with questions.

  Whose voice was it? What were they talking about? Since who showed up? And, most of all, why did they say Mom’s name?

  Sunlight seeped through Ryan’s closed eyelids. His whole body felt like a rock that hadn’t moved since cavemen walked the earth, embedded into his mattress like a boy-shaped jewel. He could hear his own breathing.

  — Is she naked?

  Ryan sprang up from the waist and opened his eyes. Across the room, Liam filled his desk chair like some kind of Bond villain.

  — Is she naked?

  — What you doing?

  — Answer the question, Mr Bond, was she naked?

  — Who?

  — The girly you were dreaming about.

  — Shut up, man.

  Ryan scratched his head.

  — What time is it? How did you get in?

  — Your mom let me in, I mean stepmom. Do you say stepmom? What do you call her?

  Ryan swung his legs from under the covers and rubbed his eyes.

  — Sophia.

  Liam’s eyes scanned the room.

  — Course. Sophia. She seems nice.

  Ryan scratched his stomach through his Chicago Bears T-shirt.

  — She’s fine. Why are you here again?

  — It’s Saturday, Ryan. First day of the summer holidays. We’ve got stuff to do!

  — What stuff?

  Liam stared into space, looking for an answer.

  — Good stuff. Get up, man.

  He pushed himself out of the chair and walked over towards Ryan’s bed. His baggy jeans and thick grey hoody made his body look like a man’s.

  Large movie posters and smaller pages cut from magazines peppered the light blue walls.

  Liam stared at a poster showing a white-haired man in a lab coat and a younger man wearing a body warmer both looking at their watches in amazement, the words Back to The Future II emblazoned across the top in flame–coloured angled letters. Liam opened his eyes wide and spun on his heels, pointing a finger at Ryan.

  — Great Scott!! Six weeks off!!

  Ryan looked up at him, frozen in his shocked pose.

  He thought about how Liam had pretty much talked the whole way through any movie they had ever watched together. How he often asked the same question more than twice, seemingly having not much grasp of what was happening, and yet always ended up loving every movie they saw. When they’d watched Batman on video at Liam’s house, Ryan had spent each scene having to go through every character saying whether they knew Batman was Bruce Wayne or not, even though only Alfred did.

  Ryan jumped to his feet and grabbed Liam’s outstretched finger.

  — 1.21 jiggawatts?!

  The pair of them laughed. Ryan moved to the windowsill and pulled a cassette from the full black plastic tape rack. He moved back to his bedside table, slotted the cassette into the boom box, turned up the volume, pressed play, then, lifting one hand and extending his index finger, he mimed along with the opening words.

  The sound of scratching then the track started. Ryan and Liam began to bounce along with the beat, shuffling their feet on the carpet, bending at the waist, slowly punching the air in time as the female voice sang the chorus to Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.

  The pair of them heard something at the same time. Ryan turned down the volume just as Nathan burst into the room, his chest puffed up.

  — You better turn that rubbish—

  Nathan looked at Liam, surprised to find someone else in the room. Liam looked at Ryan. Ryan glanced at Nathan then looked down. Liam stared at Nathan. Nathan’s chest seemed to deflate.

  — Yeah, well, I don’t know why you listen to that stuff anyway.

  Liam’s eyes never left Nathan.

  — Because we like it.

  Nathan looked at Ryan.

  — What’s he even doing in your room this early? Did you two have a little sleepover or something?

  Ryan looked at Liam. Liam smiled then turned to Nathan.

  — Yeah. We did. We had a sleepover and did each other’s make-up and talked about kittens. What’s your problem?

  He stepped forward. Nathan moved back into the doorway, reaching for the handle.

  — Yeah, well, you two lovebirds have fun doing each other’s hair.

  He backed out of the room, his eyes moving between them both. Liam stared him out the whole way. As the door closed, the cassette tape finished and the play button clicked off. Liam looked at Ryan.

  Ryan frowned.

  — Kittens?

  Liam shrugged his shoulders.

  — I don’t know, do I? I was freestyling.

  — Yeah, but kittens?

  — Yeah, fluffy ones, with big eyes. Is he always such a knob?

  Ryan opened a white drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe and pulled out a large navy blue T-shirt.

  — Pretty much. So what are we doing?

  Liam flopped down on to the unmade bed, his arms spread out and stretching over the sides.

  — Everyone’ll probably be in the park.

  Ryan dropped his Bears T-shirt on the floor and pulled his head through the clean one. The end of the dark sleeves reached past his elbow.

  — All right, but can we ride through the woods first?

  Liam sat up and smiled.

  — If you can keep up.

  The light tan A4 envelope is creased from being rolled up. Written in untidy writing across the top right-hand corner are the words Personal Effects. Ameliah reaches her hand inside and pulls out a small moulded keyring. The clear plastic holds a green four-leaf clover against a white background. She runs her thumb over its smoothness. A window-shaped rectangle of sunlight sits on the deep red bedroom carpet. Through the floorboards Nan sings along to Nina Simone.

  Ameliah turns the keyring over in her fingertips. One deep scratch cuts diagonally across it, blurring the words ‘The luck of the Irish’.

  She runs her thumb along the scratch, pressing her nail into the gouged-out valley.

  Downstairs, Nan struggles with a high note. Ameliah lays the keyring on the bed and reaches back into the envelope, pulling out a small pearl-coloured shell. Roughly the size of a fifty-pence piece, it sits like a miniature fan in the palm of her hand, thin grooves running from the curved edge towards what would be the fan’s ha
ndle. Just in from the edge a small perfectly round hole has been drilled, where the thread used to be. Ameliah touches the shell with her fingertip. She thinks about it against Mom’s skin. The creamy white catching the light around her neck on its black string.

  — Am!

  Nan’s voice comes through the floor. Ameliah slips the shell into her pocket then her hand back into the envelope. The small mobile phone looks out of date but brand new. The charcoal-coloured plastic unscratched, its smooth lifeless screen framed in silver metal.

  She holds the phone carefully, tracing the small dark buttons with her fingertips.

  — Ameliah! I thought you were meeting your friends?

  Nan is calling over the music from the bottom of the stairs. Ameliah slips the phone back in, then the keyring, and folds the envelope in half. As she pushes it underneath her pillow, her eyes catch the dark letters on the shoebox lid. She stares at Mom’s name written in block capitals. Her fingers feel the smooth shell in her pocket as she stares at the old stereo.

  — The universe.

  Her words hang in the air and for a second she’s not sure whether she actually said them out loud.

  — Ameliah! I’m leaving now!

  Ameliah closes her eyes and inhales deeply.

  — I’m coming!

  Ryan planted one foot and spun the back wheel of his BMX behind him, leaving the perfect arc of a skid. Dust from the ground floated up, caught in the tractor beams of light cutting through the high canopy of the tall trees.

  Liam hit his back brake, leaving a long straight line in the ground, stopping right beside Ryan. The pair of them looked out beyond the edge of the trees, where the noise of voices let them know the park was already packed.

  — Mary might be here.

  Liam’s voice travelled up in the open space.

  — She might give us money for chips.

  Mary was in the year above, but was always nice to Ryan. At school people knew not to mess with her and, as far as big sisters went, he always thought Liam dropped lucky.

  — She likes you. Smile at her and we might get enough for a scallop as well.

  Liam digged Ryan in the arm and rode off towards the noise. Ryan felt the warm burn of his arm going numb and, even though nobody could see him, he pretended it didn’t hurt.

  Groups of kids huddled together in different-size packs, some standing, some sitting as the sun moved into the afternoon side of the sky. A few stray kids sat in pairs or threes with the odd individual flitting back and forth between groups like a carrier pigeon.

  Ryan stared out across the wide stretch of green and imagined that from above they all looked like a game of Risk in full flow.

  Over to the right, he made out Nathan involved in a football game with too many players. He looked across at Liam who was scanning the area for his sister.

  — It’s like the Serengeti.

  Liam was busy focusing, moving over faces and frames like the Terminator.

  — Where is she?

  Ryan saw Nathan slide into a tackle with a boy with long blond hair, sending him up into the air before crashing on to the floor. Nathan got up and carried on with the game, leaving the blond boy in a crumpled heap.

  — Just the lions and the gazelle.

  Liam looked at him.

  — What are you talking about?

  Ryan made out a circle of girls from the year above over to their right.

  — Doesn’t matter. There’s Mary.

  As they approached the group of girls, pushing their bikes, Ryan felt his stomach tighten as his mind turned the group into a pride of lionesses, stretched out in the sun, all capable of killing him with one swipe.

  He slowed his stride down slightly so that Liam was clearly leading, hoping that would mean he could ride out the whole encounter without having to speak.

  Mary was sitting with her back facing them. Her strong arms propping up her body, her dark hair cropped above her neck. Liam nudged Ryan.

  — Just play it cool, yeah? And don’t forget to smile. I want that scallop.

  Ryan wasn’t listening to Liam, his ears had picked up on a voice. A girl’s voice, with an accent that made his head swim.

  An accent he hadn’t heard for what felt like ages. An accent that felt like home.

  The sounds of the park seemed to go underwater as she looked up, her green eyes staring straight at him.

  Liam mumbled as Mary handed him something. Ryan stared at the girl. He could feel the blood in his hands as his fingers tightened round his handlebars.

  — Come on, Spanner.

  Liam’s backhand across his chest brought him crashing back. The noise of the park seemed even louder than before as Liam pulled him by the arm. All around them other kids carried on.

  Ryan felt light as Liam led him away.

  — What happened to you smiling at her? She only gave me a quid.

  Ryan turned his head as they walked, trying to get another look at the girl, but the circle had closed up and she was out of sight.

  — Who was she?

  Liam threw his leg over his seat.

  — Who?

  — The girl. The one next to your sister. With the dark hair. Did you see her?

  — I didn’t see anything, except you ruin our chance of a scallop.

  Ryan stared into space.

  — She was Irish. Why was she Irish?

  He smiled to himself. Liam looked at the small gold coin in his shovel hand.

  — Who cares? Why are you such a flop? We’re gonna have to share a bag now. Forget this, let’s go to Allsports and look at the trainers.

  Ryan nodded but wasn’t listening. As he climbed on to his bike and they rode away, all he could hear was her voice.

  Ameliah rubs sleep from her eyes with her knuckles as she cuts across the grass towards the little kids’ playground. She feels warm in her grey hoody hanging over the waist of her jeans, the edge of her dark curls poking out from the hood. The high sun bounces off the climbing frames, making her squint.

  A group of young moms chase toddlers round the slide like chickens. On the other side of the playground a band of girls sits at a dark wooden bench wearing different colour combinations of the same denim leggings and vest top outfit. Ameliah makes out Heather, her hands moving quickly in front of her, like a conductor leading the conversation.

  Beyond the girls the smooth cream bowl of the small skate park is busy with boys trying hard to look cool.

  Ameliah looks at her watch. It’s two o’clock.

  — Am!

  Heather’s voice booms across the park. The other girls at the table look round. The young moms and their toddlers all turn towards Heather like meerkats.

  — Ameliah!

  Heather is standing up, waving her arm. Ameliah smiles. Heather beams back. The other girls shake their heads as Heather sits down, moving along to make space on the bench.

  Ameliah hears the auto-tuned voice of some pop star among the park sounds. As she approaches the bench, she sees a sleek touch-screen mobile phone resting on the grainy dark wooden table. The voice is spiking out from its tinny speakers.

  She climbs on to the bench, feeling all eyes on her, as though her arrival has pressed pause on the conversation. Heather puts her arm round her shoulder.

  — You look half asleep, Am. You stay up too late?

  Ameliah hears the voice on the tape in her head. She rubs her eyes again and nods.

  — I got distracted.

  Heather smiles.

  — By that old machine?

  — Yeah.

  Heather turns to the others.

  — You lot should see the stereo Am found. It’s crazy. Like older than us, it’s got these massive buttons.

  The other girls watch, but are clearly not listening. Ameliah sees Simone’s face change as she brushes one side of her jet-black hair over her shoulder and stares past her, smiling. Turning to look behind her, Ameliah sees three older boys walking side by side, a stone’s throw away, towa
rds the exit near the main road. All three of them are wearing coats too big for the weather and New Era caps that hide the top halves of their heads.

  Ameliah stares at the boy on the side nearest to her. She can make out sharp cheekbones. The line of jet-black hair against the pale skin of his neck. Something about the way he moves makes him stand out from the other two, like his feet barely need to touch the ground, the bottom edge of his charcoal tracksuit bottoms almost swallowing his trainers.

  — There he is. How fine is he?

  Simone’s voice is excited. Ameliah turns back to look at her. The other girls all nod as they stare at the boys. Simone stands up.

  — Hey!

  Her voice sounds out like a car alarm. Ameliah turns back to the boys, who are now almost at the exit. All three of them look back and Ameliah sees his face. His dark eyes stare straight at her. She feels her chin retreating into her hoody, but her eyes never leave him. She watches his head tilt slightly, as though he’s trying to place her.

  The biggest of the three boys slaps his shoulder and they all walk through the gap in the fence and away down the road.

  Ameliah turns back round slowly, feeling a warmth in her stomach. Simone smiles cockily.

  — You see him look at me?

  She sits back down.

  — He’s a lot. He wants me, I can tell.

  The other girls seem to congratulate her with their eyes. Ameliah stares into her lap.

  Simone looks at her.

  — He was in my cousin’s year. I think he works at the supermarket.

  — What’s his name?

  Simone glances at Heather then back at Ameliah and smiles.

  — Why, Am? You like him?

  Ameliah avoids her eyes. Simone scoffs.

  — Ha, you do!

  Ameliah feels the others staring. Heather nudges her elbow.

  — He was nice, Am.

  — Ameliah likes a boy!

  Simone’s voice cuts into Ameliah’s ears as she looks up.

  — No offence, Am, but I think you might be aiming a bit high. He’s clearly into me.

  Reaching for her phone, she strokes the screen with her slender thumb. Ameliah’s fingers squeeze the shell in her jeans pocket as she watches Simone scroll through her playlist.

  — Where you been anyway? she asks Ameliah. Didn’t you get the text?