The Forevers

by Chris Whitaker

  ‘We started with shovels.’ He lifted each bottle in turn, shaking them for beer. ‘Just me and my father, digging through the night.’

  There beneath that moonlight, the bruises so dark and angry, each print a reminder that no picture was clear.

  ‘My mother. What he does to me – it used to be her.’

  She could offer no words, no empty sympathy.

  ‘We were close, me and her. It was us, and it was him.’

  ‘She’s a leaver,’ Mae said.

  ‘We’re all going to leave, Mae. One day someone’s there, and the next … Remember Mr Fullerton, taught maths. I mean he even left all that shit on his desk. Family photos. We watched the caretaker bag it. Half this street, the houses are empty.’ He squinted towards the moon, raised his hand up and blocked it with his thumb. ‘I didn’t get a chance to … She was just gone. And that night he started digging. And it was survival and nothing else.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Shit, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’

  ‘So don’t.’

  Mae stared into the hole, so deep the light disappeared long before it bottomed out.

  ‘I look for her.’ He talked like Mae wasn’t there. ‘Sometimes I think I see her, or hear her. I’ll get up in the night and come outside and think maybe she’s come back, but I know –’ He shrugged. ‘Wherever she is, it’s got to be better, right. How can it be worse? I don’t even mean here. You see it, on the news, like those people in Paris, on the streets. It’s like, they’re angry, but they don’t even know what they’re angry about.’

  ‘Dying,’ she said, quiet. ‘You try not to think about death until you have to, otherwise you realise too much that it’s all too little.’

  ‘Abi … hearing her voice again.’

  Abi had come to her house.

  She’d tried to call her three times.

  Then she’d walked through the school grounds, into the woodland and jumped from the white cliff onto the rocks below.

  ‘Hunter thought there was something going on between us. But she always thinks that.’

  Mae looked at him and wondered if there was. Girls watched him the way boys did Hunter. She wondered if they even got on, or if maybe it was written in their stars, that pull to be coveted, the mutual attraction of self-satisfaction.

  Behind she saw the glimmer of a Ferrari.

  ‘It’s rare,’ he said. ‘That car. It has a place in the bunker. He talks about driving out into a new world.’

  ‘We’ll make the same mistakes again, each and every one of them.’

  ‘Not me.’

  She glanced at the towering white house in the distance.

  ‘Maybe Abi’s lucky,’ he said. ‘The wait is over. Maybe they should’ve told us one week before. Ten years, it’s like we’re all serving time for a crime we didn’t commit.’

  ‘On that tape, she sounded scared.’

  He stood. ‘We’re all scared, Mae. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others.’

  ‘Is that why you cut yourself?’

  He stared down at her and something in his eyes made her shiver.

  ‘No. I do it because I deserve to hurt.’

  10

  The caretaker swept away Abi’s shrine till all that remained were a couple of paper hearts he’d missed.

  Mae pressed a hand to the cold metal locker and thought just how easily Abi lifted out. Not just her, James and Melissa too. Theirs had been easier to understand – that undying love would soon die. Sergeant Walters had been in, found a diary in Melissa’s locker, the pages bursting with poems and drawings of another life, this one eternal. The tragedy was mitigated, they were inseparable till their shared end.

  ‘Hey.’

  Felix wore a black leather jacket, the collar upturned. Two sizes too small, the cuffs ended by his elbows, a white T-shirt hinted at the bony chest beneath.

  Most days Mae was grateful for his existence.

  ‘I don’t know where to begin here,’ Mae said.

  ‘Candice rented Grease seven times.’

  ‘And that’s why you’re so greasy?’

  Felix fussed with his hair. ‘No gel in the chemist so I had to use olive oil. My mother was pissed off. This shit’s a commodity now. Do you think I need a signature scent to go with this look?’

  ‘Body odour not working for you?’

  He dabbed sweat from his brow. ‘You try wearing pleather in this heat. I’m thinking something woody, possible side note of patchouli, that’ll take her home.’

  ‘Do you even know what you’re talking about?’

  ‘The damn trees outside her house,’ he snapped.

  ‘To keep perverts out.’

  ‘You can just hide among them. If anything, it makes it easier to prey.’

  ‘Save me that T-shirt, I’ll wring it into a pan tonight. Stella wants bacon.’

  Felix pulled a comb from his pocket. ‘Danny Zuko is the ultimate ladies’ man. Check it, even had my mother stud it.’ He spun.

  Mae frowned. ‘Tirds?’

  ‘T-Birds. The gang in the film.’

  ‘I think the B has fallen off.’

  He swore loudly. ‘That woman can’t stud for shit. I don’t know why the Reverend married her.’ Felix headed towards the toilet, trying to wriggle from the jacket as he went.

  Mae was about to follow and laugh when she saw Jeet Patel staring into his locker.

  ‘I think they pissed on it.’ Jeet held up a sodden copy of Hamlet. ‘I asked them to keep the noise down so I could read.’

  ‘Who?’

  He shrugged. ‘Hugo. Liam. No use crying over spilled … urine,’ he said. Jeet wore a blue shirt, the sleeves rolled back over thin forearms. On each wrist were white sweatbands. ‘My mum says to ignore it, the way they are. Dignified silence, Mae.’ He smiled.

  Mae nodded, she got it, knew it was bullshit but got it.

  ‘I remember when they did it to you,’ Jeet said.

  ‘Washing detergent.’

  ‘For the record, I don’t think your clothes smell, Mae.’

  She smiled, then walked into class and took a seat at the back.

  The kids in front watched a video on their phones.

  Chelyabinsk, Russia.

  The footage taken from the dashcam of a truck on the motorway. The bolt of light appeared in the sky and began to tail down like a rocket.

  It grew larger, brighter than the sun, faster, a speeding hunk of blazing rock.

  And then the noise.

  And the screams.

  A dozen kids had turned and run from the park because there was somewhere to run. And that was a small rock. No bigger than twenty metres.

  The speaker cut her from the nightmare.

  Morning prayer had been thrust upon them after Saviour 8 failed.

  Mae waited for Mr Silver’s smooth voice to lull them with talk of judgement and forgiveness, like the two could ever co-exist.

  There’s got to be more to it.

  More to what?

  Kids looked at each other, then up at the speaker fixed to the ceiling.

  This bullshit existence. I do my schoolwork, empty the dishwasher, hit the snooze button through my weekends. I dye my hair because the world order tells me individualism is social suicide.

  Miss Holmes was on her feet and ran out into the hallway. Abi’s voice followed from every speaker in the school, chasing the teacher’s frantic footsteps.

  We’re told to make a difference in a world where difference isn’t exactly tolerated. Too fat, too skinny. Too poor. Too good or bad at something; if you straddle the margins, you’re doomed.

  So what should you do?

  You should live life in the empty middle. You should work hard at school so you can work hard at work. You should covet a nine-to-five and a decent pension, and a house and a car and holiday in the sun. And then …

  Selena?

  The problem is … we crave the extremes, like some fatal flaw.

  Everyone stared up, like Abi’
s voice was a gateway to a world they couldn’t turn from, a world that was calling out to each of them.

  My parents think I’m depressed. Or maybe they just think I’m a teenager, because if you fall into that category then your problems are easier to dismiss, your needs are a fallacy, your beliefs change with the wind. You’re not a living, thinking, hurting person. You’re a whirlwind of unreasonable emotion, of fickle desires they’ll make sure burn out long before you’re deemed worthy of opinion.

  Your parents don’t listen to you?

  My mother searches my room, maybe for clues as to who I really am. She’s scared I’ll make her mistakes, like she owns them.

  Were you ever happy?

  Two years ago. I stood on the beach with Mae and we created a new world order and it was so goddam perfect. And now I’m just like them, I’m the nothing that makes Mae something.

  You left her behind?

  Mae was numb to the sounds around her, to the tears falling from Sally Sweeny’s eyes, the ghostly pallor of Hugo Prince as Abi’s face came back to haunt him. She didn’t notice the caretaker sprinting towards the comms room. All she heard was Abi. Her Abi.

  The exact opposite. She moved forward each day, and I did all I could to stand still. Except I was standing in a line of ra-ra perfect prefects, pristine emptiness and whitest lies. I’ve drifted through years that couldn’t matter more. I’ve drunk caramel macchiatos in shopping centres and smiled my way through dressing-room fashion shows. I’ve planned a future I’ll never have and a future I never wanted. I’ve listened to a dozen girls talk so much crap my ears bleed with faux feminism and boys, make-up and boys, asteroids and boys.

  Boys.

  Boys.

  Boys.

  But when you were with Mae?

  We talked about men.

  Mae laughed, so abrupt it caught her by surprise. She felt the eyes of Hunter and Lexi and Candice as they bored into her, but for a moment she was mute to them too, mute to their popularity and pouts, their smokey eyes and thonged arses.

  Why are you crying, Abi?

  I just … I know things are going to get worse now. And I know I’m not going to make it. I look just like them but I’m not what they see.

  Make it?

  Wherever you all are heading. I won’t be with you. I can’t now. I have to do something bad. Killing yourself, is it the same as killing someone else? A life is a life, right. If we’re all created equal, does that mean we all die equal, or do some people move ahead while others slip behind? I just need … I need to talk to Mae first. I need to tell her sorry. And that’s such a bullshit word.

  What are you sorry for?

  I didn’t back her. I stood by and watched, the way people treat her, blame her. She got caught stealing that time, from the shop in town. But they didn’t get it, what she stole. It was food, for her sister, for her grandmother.

  Stealing is wrong, no matter the circumstance.

  I want to lie on the beach at midnight and spin the world the wrong way. You think we can rewind time like that? I want another perfect, empty night with Mae. I want to talk.

  About men?

  And music. And art and science and where the two meet.

  Where do they meet, Abi?

  In the sky above us. Plato said every soul has a companion star that it returns to upon death, so long as a just life is lived.

  And how do you live a just life, Abi?

  That’s the thing, we finally worked it out. Me and Mae, we worked it all out.

  Tell me?

  You become a Forever. Only I messed that up too.

  And what exactly is a Forever?

  Their collective breath held.

  Like they were about to be enlightened, after years adrift in the dark.

  Mae could feel the excitement, the expectation that thundered around the school, around the five hundred faces trained on the voice from beyond.

  And then the speaker died along with the lights and the whirr of the fan as the power was finally cut.

  11

  The tape ended on the kind of cliffhanger that had her called back into Mr Silver’s office, where he demanded to know just what kind of sickness she’d infected Abi’s mind with.

  At lunch a dozen kids had sought her out, burning her with their stares and their questions. Like she and Abi had unlocked the meaning of life then swallowed the key. The rumour mill got to work and by the time the day was done they had entered into some Montague–Capulet pact, only Mae hadn’t followed her over the cliff edge.

  When she finally made it to her shift at West Video she was drained.

  She endured for the much-needed minimum wage, a place to hang out in the evenings and as many free movies as she could watch.

  Across the street, Felix whiled away the hours in West Wine, doling out fifty-pound bottles of red so people could soften the world in style.

  A couple of shops were darkened. The old ice-cream parlour, once owned by an Italian named Rosa, who headed home after Saviour 7. The last day, she’d given out free ice cream. Stella had eaten so much she was sick.

  She looked up to see Sally Sweeny crossing the shop floor, shoulders and head down, clothes so loose they hid the shape of her.

  ‘Felix said you have ice cream. He’s out.’

  Mae pointed to the freezer.

  Sally took out half a dozen tubs and piled them high on the counter. She retied her blaze of red hair, watching the ice cream intently as she handed Mae the cash.

  ‘Are you having a party?’ Mae said.

  ‘Every day is a party, bitch.’ Sally pulled at the neck of her sweatshirt, like it was cutting off the circulation. ‘You got Fifty Shades?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘It’s Selena, people are either fighting or fu—’

  Mae shrugged. ‘If you can’t get on, get off.’

  Sally smiled as Mae began to bag.

  ‘Leave one out. I’ll eat it on the walk home.’

  ‘You need a spoon?’

  ‘I carry one.’

  Mae went to hand Sally her change.

  ‘Put it in the pot. Cancer kids or deaf dogs or whatever.’

  Sally opened a tub of salted caramel, took a metal spoon from her pocket and stabbed it.

  ‘Is it true you found her?’

  Mae nodded.

  ‘It’s a long way to fall. Must’ve been so much blood.’ Sally stared at the counter as she spoke. ‘My mother said she was glad.’

  Mae felt the air cool.

  ‘Piano. It’s my life. I had a chance at more … Abi never took it serious. She could play, but she held us back. Missed practice. Turned up late to concerts. We don’t all have rich parents. Some of us need this.’

  Sally picked up the bag, walked towards the door and then stopped. ‘Her face … Was she still beautiful, or did the Abi Manton everyone saw just disappear?’

  ‘She was dead, Sally.’

  ‘She died the day she bowed down to Hunter Silver.’

  Mae watched her leave, then she saw him.

  He left West Wine with a bag, in front of him the last of the day burned off as stars edged out the sun.

  Mae walked out and sat on her kerb, Felix opposite.

  ‘That boy,’ she said.

  ‘Bought a single bottle of tequila. Means business. And that’s not all he asked for. Asked if I knew a short girl, dark hair and tattoo on her wrist.’

  Mae glared in the direction he’d headed. ‘And do you?’

  ‘I’m almost a Forever, right?’ He pointed to the F on his wrist. ‘Deny until you die. What did you do?’

  ‘Saved his life.’

  Felix dropped in the street and struggled to do press-ups. ‘Phase three of the wooship. Candice likes Liam, and he’s ripped,’ he wheezed. ‘I told my mother I’ll only consume protein from here on.’

  ‘I think your biceps are actually inverted.’

  He stopped mid-push and slowly lost all power. His cheek gently met the pavement as a passing car sounded th
e horn.

  ‘You keep looking down the road,’ he said from the ground. ‘Don’t tell me Mae Cassidy, she of stone heart and bad attitude, has a crush on a pretty summer boy.’

  She gave him the finger.

  ‘So let me get this straight. My attraction to Candice is banal and obvious, whereas your attraction to that kid is …’

  ‘Non-existent.’

  ‘Ask him out.’

  ‘Ask out Candice.’

  ‘I will once I turn myself into the kind of boy she might actually notice.’

  ‘She doesn’t like Tirds?’

  ‘I ended up in the nurse’s office before she could even see it. Pleather and thirty-degree heat don’t go well together.’

  Mae began to laugh.

  ‘She ended up cutting me out of it. Caught the goddam T-shirt too. I had to walk home topless.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder why we’re still friends.’

  At nine Felix brought out a couple of cold beers.

  Mae lit a cigarette and blew smoke towards the moon.

  They toasted each other. ‘To the creeps,’ he said, and stared at her, waiting.

  ‘And the weirdos,’ she said, finally.

  ‘Sometimes things feel too solid, you know? We’re too strong to break apart.’

  ‘But we’re not. Superiority is an illusion.’

  ‘I tried to pray again last night.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s my voice in my head. There’s no one listening, Mae. Our real eternity is made of supernovas and black holes and –’

  ‘Asteroids.’

  Mae didn’t notice the two girls until they were right beside her.

  They stood hand in hand, one tall and one short.

  ‘We’re Matilda and Betty,’ the taller girl said. ‘The Forevers –’

  ‘They’re real and they’re coming for you,’ Felix called from across the street.

  ‘We’ll be waiting, Mae.’ The tall girl nodded, and then they turned and headed towards the beach.

  ‘Lesbian crew,’ Felix said. ‘You think they’d let me –’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about if I just –’

  ‘No.’

  Felix closed his eyes and lay back on the pavement. ‘Maybe in the next month we’ll get answers to every question we’ve ever wondered about. We’ll find out the meaning of life. We’ll fall in love and get laid and meet the most amazing people and save a life and take a life and –’