Ameliah stares at Heather.
— Don’t look at me like that, Am. I just want us to have fun.
Ameliah bats her eyelids dramatically and presses her palms together.
— Maybe I’ll find a miniskirt.
Heather bites her bottom lip and pinches Ameliah on the arm. Ameliah yelps. Heather nods.
— Yeah. That’s what you get. Come on, this is our stop.
The familiar nasal voice came out from the boom box speakers. Ryan sat on his bedroom floor, knees bent, his back against his bed. In his lap an A4 pad of yellow lined paper held three chunky block letters. He scribbled, shading along the edge of an E with his biro as the high strings played out.
From where he sat, the window framed a clean blue rectangle of morning sky.
Ryan looked at his boom box as the strings plucked to signal the start of the beat. He lifted his pen just in time to strike his pad with the first hit of the drums as they kicked in. He nodded his head, tapping the block letters with his pen tip as the boom bap filled the room. He felt the blood running through his body as the liquid electric guitar riff ran under Q-Tip’s spoken hook about Bonita Applebum.
Ryan stared at the page in front of him and smiled. His tapping pen tip had made speckles of blue ink across the last E of the word EVE.
He closed his eyes, letting himself float on top of the track. He pictured him and Liam approaching the circle of girls in the park. The back of Mary’s head as they got closer. The sun on his back.
He opened his eyes, reaching up with his hand, and clicked the stop button on the boom box. The track cut off and the room fell silent. Ryan smiled and closed his eyes again, not wanting any background noise as his mind replayed her voice.
— Why are there so many people?
Ameliah stares up at the different levels of the shopping centre. Crowds of people move along, in and out of shops, to the sound of nondescript background music. Sunlight streams through the high glass ceiling. To their right, large escalators carry people between floors.
— It’s like one of those experiments, with the mice.
She looks at Heather who is staring into the front window of a shoe shop eating a health bar.
— Don’t you think?
Heather presses the fingertip of her free hand to the glass.
— There they are. Those are the ones. Aren’t they gorgeous?
Ameliah follows the line of Heather’s finger to a pair of light pink ballerina pumps.
— The girly girl slippers?
— No. Underneath. The Vans. I want them so bad.
Ameliah looks at Heather’s feet. A pair of spotless white Vans hold fat double knots.
— Heather, you’re wearing Vans.
Heather looks at Ameliah, rolling her eyes.
— You can never have too many Vans, Am.
She looks down at Ameliah’s battered Converse.
— Maybe it’s time you joined the club.
Ameliah traces a circle on the lacquered floor with her toes.
— I’m fine with these thanks. Can we go to the bookshop now?
Heather turns round, stretching out her arms towards the crowd of people moving past glass shopfronts.
— Look at all this! And you want to go and look at books?
A toddler waddles past them like a penguin, straining at a cord attached to his mother’s hand. Heather watches him. Ameliah looks at the woman. The woman notices her watching and mimics being dragged along.
— Walkies!
Her voice is deeper than her face suggests and Ameliah and Heather look at each other surprised as the boy drags his mother towards the Early Learning Centre.
— Come on. We’re supposed to meet them in a bit and we haven’t even tried anything on yet.
As the pair of them step on to the upwards escalator, Ameliah puffs out her cheeks, blowing a fart sound out as she exhales. Heather shakes her head smiling.
— Didn’t you used to go shopping with your mom?
Ameliah tries to remember any shopping trips with Mom as she stares at her smooth fingers holding the jet-black hand rail.
— Yeah, of course, I mean we must’ve done. I’m just not very good at it.
Heather pokes her in the arm.
— Well, I can help fix that. It’ll be like in a film where there’s loads of clips of us trying stuff on while a song plays.
Ameliah looks at Heather.
— Montage.
— What?
As she opens her mouth to explain, she sees a man behind a young couple coming down on the busy escalator parallel to theirs. She recognises him but can’t place him in her mind. A dirty-blond nest of thick hair on his head, his face somehow old and young at the same time. Handsome but in a scruffy kind of way. He looks at least as old as a teacher. He stares straight ahead, not noticing her watching him as they cross in opposite diagonal directions. Ameliah stares at the back of his head and his sharp shoulders under his dark green T-shirt. There’s something about his face that makes her think of Mom and she can’t work out why.
— You OK?
Heather cranes her neck to try and see what Ameliah is looking at.
— That guy.
— Which guy?
— The one with the scruffy hair, in the green T-shirt.
Heather scans the downwards escalator.
— I don’t see any green T-shirt. Who was he?
Ameliah tries to place the man as he disappears out of sight.
— I dunno. He just looked familiar.
— Was he cute?
— Where do I know him from?
— Was he cute? I didn’t see him. How old?
They step off the escalator and move round along the glass barrier. Ameliah stares down to the level below, trying to find the man in the crowd.
Heather stands next to her looking down.
— Has he gone? How old was he?
Ameliah scans the tops of people’s heads.
— I dunno, thirty something?
Heather scrunches up her face.
— Thirty! What are you looking at old men for?
Ameliah gives up and turns round.
— I recognise his face, I just can’t think where from. But it’s like … I don’t know. Like it’s not a good memory.
Heather shakes her head.
— Forget the old man. Let’s try some stuff on, please? This is supposed to be fun, Am.
Ameliah looks at Heather. Heather sticks out her bottom lip and gives her puppy-dog eyes. Ameliah smiles.
— OK. OK. Let’s do your montage.
Heather’s face straightens as Ameliah walks away.
— What’s a montage?
The small flat stone skipped on top of the water four times before dropping through the surface. Liam punched a big fist in the air.
— Four times, suckaaaaaaaaaa!
Ryan sat on a thick tree root next to his bike and watched his best friend do an uncoordinated shuffle of celebration next to the edge of the stream.
On the other side of the water, tall light green reeds ran along in both directions. Beyond them an empty field stretched away towards an old farmhouse.
— How far do you think we rode?
Liam pulled at a thick branch above his head. The wood creaked as it arched under his weight.
— I dunno. What time is it, three? We must’ve been riding at least an hour.
He looked around them.
— I don’t even know where we are.
Ryan dug at the dirt with his heel and stared downstream.
— I didn’t even see a bus stop.
Liam let go of the branch, sending it snapping up into the one above it. Twigs rained down on them both.
— It doesn’t matter. All we do is ride back the way we came, right?
Ryan brushed a twig off his shoulder.
— Yeah.
He spotted a flat stone by his foot and picked it up, rubbing away the dirt with his fingers.
— Yo
u think she likes music?
He stood up and moved towards the edge of the water. Liam shrugged.
— Who doesn’t like music?
— I mean our kind of music.
He shifted his feet, ready to throw the stone. Liam cleaned his earhole with his finger.
— I don’t know. I told you what Mary said. I couldn’t find out any more without looking obvious. Why does that matter anyway?
Ryan gripped the stone and tilted his head.
— I bet she does.
He flung his arm forward, snapping his wrist, sending the stone skimming across the top of the water. Both of them counted six bounces before the stone sank. Liam wrinkled his nose.
— You’re just lucky.
He pulled his finger out of his ear and looked at his fingertip. Ryan took a bow.
— Yeah, right. Lucky. Again.
As he tried to straighten up his body, he felt weight pressing on the back of his neck. Liam’s hand squeezed on the pressure points behind his ears. Ryan winced.
— OK. OK. Enough, man.
Liam released him. Ryan felt the blood in his face as he stood up straight. He scowled at Liam. Liam smiled and waved a finger.
— Nobody likes a show-off, Ryan.
Ryan rubbed the back of his neck.
— OK, Geoff Capes.
Liam rubbed his stomach.
— Let’s go. I’m starving. You wanna eat at mine tonight?
Ryan bent his head back, rolling his neck across his shoulders, and sighed.
— I can’t. It’s Nathan’s birthday meal. We’re going out. I should get back.
Liam grimaced as he picked up his bike.
— Oooh. Lucky you.
Ryan puffed out his cheeks.
— Yeah. Lucky me.
The late-afternoon street is quiet as Ameliah walks alone past the terraced houses. A branded yellow paper shopping bag hangs from her right hand. She thinks about trying on clothes with Heather. Coming from behind the curtain in different tops like a show to a captive audience of one best friend and a few strangers in their underwear, Heather clapping her arrival each time with a huge grin on her face.
The others had looked shocked when she and Heather had arrived to meet them and they’d seen the bag Ameliah was holding. Each one of the girls asking a hundred questions and crowding round Ameliah like pigeons on a baguette.
She lifts the bag and peeks inside, reminding herself which top she bought. The navy blue material looks darker inside the bag.
A silver saloon car moves past her as she stands at the kerb and she pictures the man from the escalator. His stubbled face and dirty sand hair, like someone who used to be a skater.
She tries to give him a name, hoping it might jog her memory. Pete maybe, or Jack? Something strong and simple. No-nonsense.
Nothing seems to fit. But she has a funny feeling, like something isn’t right. Like he shouldn’t be here.
She fishes the new silver key from her pocket and feels the fresh jagged edge with her thumb. She thinks about the machine that cuts keys and looking up at it as a little girl, holding Dad’s hand. Watching the man in the brown leather apron concentrating as he held the old key next to the new uncut one, matching it up perfectly before pressing it against the edge of the spinning wheel. The sound of metal being sanded away, like a dentist’s drill on robot teeth.
She can hear voices as she closes the front door, muffled through the wall. Nan’s polite laugh intercut with the deeper weight of a man’s voice, steady and definite.
Ameliah treads slowly towards the bottom of the stairs. As she reaches the oval mirror, the voices stop. She looks at her reflection, her eyes wide, looking towards the door.
She can hear her own breathing. The voices carry on and she creeps up the stairs, tiptoeing on the edges.
In her room she flops down on her back on to the bed, dropping the shopping bag on the floor by her feet. Light from the window splits the room in half. She listens to the voices downstairs, the man’s deep tones followed by Nan’s giggled response, and hopes he’s not staying for dinner.
She sits up and reaches for the shopping bag. Standing in front of the mirror, she pulls her hoody over her head and drops it on to the bed. She looks at herself in just her jeans and white bra and thinks about Simone and the others with their make-up and earrings. The light from outside turns the skin on her slender shoulders a shade paler next to the dark of her thick curls.
She remembers doing dress-up with Dad back in the old house. Drowning herself in one of his shirts underneath a smart waistcoat, his flat cap on her head, pretending to be an important explorer. Dad wearing his clothes backwards as her incompetent but lovable assistant.
Her arms crossed in front of her chest, she runs her fingertips down the skin of her upper arms, remembering the feel of the cotton shirt against her.
She reaches for her new top and pulls it over her head. The dark blue vest hangs perfectly on her and her eyes widen at how she immediately looks older. She lifts her hair up into a high bun at the back of her head and lowers her chin, staring into the mirror, attempting a pout, then laughing to herself.
The living-room door opens and Ameliah freezes. The mumbled voices become clearer, the man’s deep laugh as Nan leads him out.
— Thank you again, Patricia, and I’ll call you about next week?
— You’re welcome, Richard. Yes, give me a ring.
— I look forward to it.
Ameliah doesn’t move as she hears what sounds like a small kiss on the cheek and the heavy door pushed closed with a goodbye.
She lets her hair fall and stares through her open door at the top of the stairs. She can’t hear any footsteps and imagines Nan standing there, lost in thought. She gets a flash of the man from the escalator, his thick scruffy hair, his eyes, and again she thinks of Mom. She remembers looking back towards the front door of the old house as she left for school, Mom waving to her like she was onstage in the school play.
Nan’s footsteps head back towards the living room. Ameliah waits, expecting to be called, but only hears the living-room door pushed slowly closed. Her eyes fall on the dark hallway carpet. Who was the man on the escalator? And why did he make her think of Mom?
Ryan stared through the back-seat window at the lines of pink in the evening sky. He thought about smog and how unfair it was that the gases that made such pretty sunsets could be poisoning the earth. Nathan sat to Ryan’s left, his face down in his new Game Boy. The leather fold-out armrest provided the barrier separating their halves of the car. In front of Ryan, Dad drummed the steering wheel along with the music as he drove. Sophia sat with her hands in her lap in the front passenger seat, smiling at the horizon.
— Can you see that sky, boys?
She craned her neck round towards the back seat. Nathan didn’t look up. Ryan nodded a smile.
— It’s like the apocalypse, he said.
Sophia’s smile faded and she turned back to face the front.
— Maybe a bit dramatic, Ryan.
Dad laughed and pointed out of the window.
— Look! I can see four horsemen. This doesn’t look good, guys. Nathan, we might have to skip the Harvester.
Nathan cursed under his breath, slapping the side of his Game Boy, then turned it off and dropped it between his thighs.
— What?
Dad raised his voice.
— I said, it looks like it’s the end of the world, I’m afraid. We might have to skip the mixed grill!
Sophia turned down the music, leaving the end of Dad’s sentence hanging in the air. Nathan cut Ryan a look.
— What’s he talking about now?
Ryan shrugged.
— He’s talking about your birthday causing the apocalypse.
He raised his eyebrows then turned back to stare out of the window. Nathan raised a sarcastic thumb.
— Yeah. Good one, Michael. Mom, how much did Dad send?
Sophia shuffled in her seat uncomfortably.
>
— I’m not sure. It’s not important now, let’s just enjoy our meal.
She glanced towards Dad. Dad kept his eyes on the road.
Nathan turned to Ryan.
— My dad sent £130. Just for me. That’s thirteen times ten.
Ryan stared out of the window and pictured a shoebox full of money. Large blue and white notes stacked up to the top. He thought about the excitement of getting the twenty-pound note inside his birthday card with the number 13 in thick red, and how many times he spent the money in his head that night.
It dawned on him that he knew almost nothing about Nathan’s father. Not a name, a face or a job. All he knew was that he now lived in America and was, according to Nathan, very rich.
As the car curved round an island, Ryan noticed one old shoe hanging from the signpost by its laces.
He felt a dig in his leg and turned his head. Nathan stared straight at him.
— How much did you get on your birthday?
Sophia turned her head.
— Enough, Nathan. We’re out for a nice meal to celebrate your birthday, don’t spoil this.
Nathan looked at her and faked a smile. Sophia turned back to the front. Ryan looked at the back of Dad’s head, the moulded plastic of his dark glasses tucked behind his ear.
They pulled into the car park right next to the large artificial yellow letters of the Harvester sign as the sunlight started to fade. Dad turned off the engine and clicked off the stereo. Sophia checked her hair in the small mirror of the fold-down sun visor. Nathan grabbed his Game Boy. Ryan tugged at his buttoned-up shirt collar and sighed as, all along the dual carriageway, streetlights flickered on.
Ameliah feels the thick play button depress under her fingertip. The crackle starts immediately. She turns the volume dial down, making the sound just audible, and stares at the stereo. Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out the shell and lays it on the bedside table next to the black mesh of the speaker. She stares at it as she backs away from the stereo towards the window. The familiar hiss she has heard every time she has played the tape now makes her smile.
She sits on the floor underneath the window in between a black bin bag full of clothes and a light brown suitcase turned on its side. She closes her eyes and lifts her chin, breathing in as though smelling her favourite meal. The mumbling voice speaks its underwater monologue over a bed of static and pops.
Tape Page 5