The Forevers

by Chris Whitaker

  He watched her walk away.

  She knew he couldn’t really see her, because she was never really there.

  On the edge of the bay she heard footsteps, only this time she didn’t run.

  She was shoved hard, fell forward, hitting the ground. She turned over and looked up to see Hunter standing above her, fists clenched.

  Mae didn’t wait to find out what Hunter wanted, instead she grabbed a fistful of sand and threw it up into Hunter’s eyes.

  Hunter stepped back, and in that time Mae was up and on her. She knocked the other girl off her feet and came to land heavily on top of her. She pinned Hunter’s hands down and straddled her.

  ‘Get off of me,’ Hunter said, blinking back sand. She tried to heave herself up but Mae kept her pinned.

  ‘Calm down,’ Mae said.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘In a minute I’ll let you up. And then you can tell me what you’re so mad about. But if you come at me again I’ll knock your perfect teeth out. Tell me you understand.’

  Hunter stared into her eyes, that fire burning so hot Mae didn’t know how it would go.

  She got off, let Hunter up and took a single step backwards to give her some room. They were far enough from the crowd that no one saw the fight.

  ‘You stole my necklace,’ Hunter said.

  Mae frowned.

  ‘I want it for the Final. My father gave it to me. Everyone knows you’re a thief, Mae.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Bullshit. I thought I’d lost it, but I always keep it in a jewellery box hidden in the back of my wardrobe. And then I found out from Hugo that you broke into his house. And I realised it was you, you broke into my pool house. You’re a thief.’

  ‘You think I’m dumb enough to break into the headmaster’s house?’

  The fight left Hunter as quick as it arrived. ‘It’s special. Look, if you took it, even if you sold it, I’ll give you the money and you can get it back. I won’t even say anything to Sergeant Walters.’

  ‘I didn’t take your necklace. I never take anything special. I take shit that can be replaced. Nothing sentimental.’

  Hunter shook her head.

  Mae gripped the gold cross she wore. ‘My mother gave me this. It can’t be replaced. I’d never steal someone else’s memories.’

  Hunter sat down on the sand.

  Mae sat beside her.

  ‘He’s going to kill me. He thinks I don’t like it because I never wear it. But it’s too special to wear, that’s what he doesn’t realise. Everyone has a Selena story, right?’

  Mae nodded.

  ‘It was Saviour 3 when I got it. You remember that one?’

  ‘We were ten. It was autumn.’

  ‘That was the first time I understood it. Before it was just some fairy tale. The big bad monster in the sky. But Saviour 3, when it failed I saw it in their faces. You see my parents, they’re, like, perfect. They’ve got their shit together. I watched it unravel that night.’ Hunter swallowed.

  Mae said nothing, just watched her.

  ‘They put me first, they protect me from everything bad. That’s what parents should do, but how many of them actually do it? How many of them would live their whole life solely for their children?’

  Mae might have believed most would, but that was before.

  ‘But this was something they couldn’t protect me from. I repay them every day, Mae. I’m so sickly sweet sometimes I gag. My mother’s idea of her perfect little girl. We go to church, shit, we knit together. I bake. I wear a goddam apron and bake cupcakes for old ladies. I’m head girl. I counsel, I give speeches, I even take the mail to the post office since the secretary declared herself a leaver.’

  Mae watched her then, the shift, so slight others might not have noticed. The veneer didn’t slip, but maybe dulled a shade.

  ‘How I am, to you, to others. How I can be behind their backs. If I don’t do that I might explode. I’ll smile one last sickly smile and then my body will blow into a million pieces. I’ll splatter my perfect pink bedroom with brains and guts.’

  Mae let the warm sand run through her fingers as she watched a couple of Forevers slow-dancing on the beach.

  ‘It hit him hard. When he realised he couldn’t save me from this. He gave me the necklace and told me to hold on to it when I get scared. It’s shaped like the moon. It’s everything.’

  Mae felt her pulse quicken. ‘The stone. What colour is it?’

  ‘Blue. He said it matched my eyes.’

  28

  Stella woke in the night.

  Mae heard her and crossed the hallway to climb into bed with her.

  ‘Lady is here. Am I dreaming?’

  ‘No.’

  Stella touched the sleeping dog’s head.

  ‘I had that dream again. Everything was black … not everyday black, this was too black. I couldn’t even sense you. Not at all. What if that’s what it’s like?’

  Mae pressed a hand to her sister’s head. ‘It’s not. I promise.’

  ‘Will Mummy and Daddy be there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How will I know them?’

  Mae closed her eyes.

  Saviour 2 launched on a Saturday evening.

  Mae’s parents had taken her to London to see an opera.

  Rigoletto.

  When the world was still round and the future unblemished. Mae had worn a new dress. Her father looked handsome in a dinner suit and black tie, while her mother shone in her emerald ballgown.

  Mae did not know what an opera was, did not know the beauty of sacrifice or the power music could have.

  She had cried when Gilda was revealed.

  Her mother had taken her hand and told her it wasn’t real, but that wasn’t what she needed to hear.

  It would take two months to discover that Saviour 2 had failed.

  ‘Will they mind that I can’t see them?’

  ‘They won’t mind.’

  Stella found her hand. ‘What I said before –’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Will you sleep here tonight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She caught the first bus of the day, sat alone, now and then the driver caught her eye and smiled.

  ‘Not long,’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Thirty years I’ve driven this route. My wife wants me to stop. What the hell else would I do?’

  ‘Talk to her?’

  He laughed so hard the bus veered.

  At Newport she sat outside the pawnbroker’s for an hour before the lights flickered on and the man unbolted the door.

  He frowned when he saw her, coughed and held up a hand. ‘No more stolen laptops. I had the police here the other day. Think they’d have something better to do, what with the world going to shit.’

  ‘The laptop. I need it back,’ she said.

  ‘Five hundred.’

  She looked at him like he was joking. ‘You gave me fifty.’

  He said nothing when she pleaded, even when she swallowed her dignity and begged. He simply looked past her at the television as Morales talked. ‘He’s trying to stop a tank by tossing marbles at it. We’re doomed.’

  ‘That necklace you showed me last time,’ she said.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Blue stone, looked like a moon.’

  He pointed to the window, where she saw it on display. No doubt it was Hunter’s. It was too unusual, too unique to be anything but.

  ‘How much is it?’

  ‘You can’t afford it.’

  She kept her eyes on the stone. ‘Try me.’

  ‘A thousand.’

  ‘How much did you pay for it?’

  He didn’t even bother replying.

  ‘You said a girl brought it in.’

  He shrugged, like he’d said nothing like that.

  She walked over to the counter and stared at him, unflinching. He didn’t look like the kind of man who could be intimated.

&n
bsp; ‘What did she look like?’

  He looked up at the TV screen behind. ‘I don’t remember.’

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of notes.

  That got his attention. And she pulled out the photo Luke Manton had given her and showed it to him.

  He put on a pair of reading glasses and studied the photo.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Believe it or not, we don’t get many teenage girls coming in here. Especially not with a memorable piece like that.’

  She looked at the photo, at Abi’s smiling face, and felt that familiar stab in her gut. ‘Did she say anything?’

  He snorted, then met her eye and maybe he could see the pain because he softened. ‘She took less.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He looked down. ‘I said I didn’t have much cash on the premises, that she’d have to come back. It’s an old trick. People see through it.’

  ‘But she didn’t?’

  ‘It was clear she was desperate.’

  Mae watched him. ‘And?’

  He sighed. ‘The eyes. I’ve got nieces, you know when they’ve been crying, even if they try to hide it.’

  ‘You didn’t ask?’

  ‘Do I look like a counsellor? You don’t come in unless you’re desperate, and with Selena, everybody’s desperate.’

  Mae walked into the council building, up the stone steps to the first floor and looked for him. She tried offices. It was Saturday but the place was busy. A mother stood with three children, the youngest screaming herself raw. Their belongings were stacked in the corner, two suitcases and a cardboard box.

  He kicked us out.

  We’re going to die on the street.

  Mae sat for a while, and then she remembered the room she’d met him outside.

  Another flight of stairs before she found it.

  And then she saw him.

  He sat on a chair. For a moment she watched him, the way he looked down at his shoes. It was like he didn’t know what he looked like, what he had. She wondered about privilege and class, what they meant in a dying world.

  Mae stepped closer, the door was closed but she looked through the window and saw the circle he sat in.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ The man was older, maybe forty, he had long hair and a beard and the kind of eyes that told Mae he’d seen a lot.

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s not too late, you know,’ he said.

  ‘It is. Whatever’s in there, it’s too late.’

  He smiled sadly. ‘I’d tell you the first step is the hardest, but to be honest they’re all hard.’

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. And then led her into the room.

  Sail didn’t react when he saw her.

  She sat three down from him, took in the group, a mix of ages and genders.

  People talked, listened. Sail watched her the whole time.

  She wanted to go over, take his hand and tell him she was sorry. She wanted to tell him he could get his laptop back, that she knew where it was and that the cost was nothing to someone like him.

  Instead she sat mute as he stood.

  ‘I’m Jack, and I’ve been clean for eleven months.’

  They chorused ‘Hi, Jack.’

  ‘Don’t say that on a plane,’ Sail said.

  Mae closed her eyes for a moment, and then stood, and walked away from Jack Sail.

  29

  She watched Mr Starling struggle from the building.

  He carried a box.

  Inside she saw a framed photograph, a mug, keepsakes from his desk and a stack of notes from past students.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mae said.

  Sunlight bounced from the rusting bonnet of his car. ‘You’re a good student, Mae. I always said that. I know what you have at home, I know how difficult it must be.’

  ‘You’re leaving us?’

  He looked past her, back to the old school building.

  ‘This is because of what you did?’

  ‘I know my place, my role. I’ve been here thirty years.’ He said it with a smile. ‘I taught some of your parents. I’ve watched this school go from a struggling secondary in a small coastal town to one of the finest in the county.’

  ‘They should have let you stay till the end.’

  ‘I struck a student.’

  ‘Not hard enough.’

  He opened the boot of his old VW and set the box down inside, took a last look at the school. His wife had died three years before, the day after the funeral Mr Starling had sat down and told them about cancer. That day no one had messed around, just sat and listened as their teacher bared a part of himself they were quite unused to seeing. People said Selena humanised. Mae had not known what that meant until then.

  ‘What will you do now?’ she said.

  ‘I have an old boat. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to make her new again.’

  She nodded.

  ‘There’s been so much tragedy.’ His voice caught. ‘I think of James, Melissa and Abi. I know we failed, all of us who played the slightest part in their lives.’

  Mae looked down, his pain hard to witness as he started the engine and drove.

  She turned, feeling the heat in her cheeks as she pushed through a group of younger kids.

  She passed the empty reception desk and opened the door to Mr Silver’s office. She found him on the sofa, his eyes lost in the painting, so dark and threatening.

  ‘I saw Mr Starling,’ she said.

  Mr Silver wore his shirt open two buttons, the sleeves rolled over tan forearms, a Swiss watch on his wrist.

  ‘You must have known this would come, Mae.’

  ‘He was here thirty years.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘He’s a good teacher.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just …?’ She felt foolish then.

  ‘I know the student. I know he would’ve provoked him.’ He smiled at her, perfect teeth too white, then he walked over to the window and lifted the blinds. ‘I deny it. I tell students it’s a test of their faith.’

  ‘You believe though.’

  ‘Some days I want to tell you all not to come in. To go lie on the beach or go into the city. See things. Feel things. What’s tangible, while it still is.’

  ‘But you don’t.’

  ‘I can’t. The government, we avoid the chaos. You know they’re burning churches now. All across the world. Like this is proof of nothing, proof we’re on our own and always have been.’

  ‘We all know, deep down, doubt is what makes us human. It’s our ability to ignore it. Evolution is a four-letter word in this school.’

  ‘It’s a test, Mae.’

  ‘I’d rather fail.’

  ‘You saved my daughter.’

  ‘She didn’t. I had it totally under control.’ Hunter stood in the doorway.

  Mae left them, walked back through halls now empty, just the click of her shoes and their echo. Out into the sunlight.

  At the edge of the woods Hunter caught up with her. ‘You skipping?’

  Mae nodded.

  ‘Can I come?’

  ‘No.’

  Hunter opened her bag, showed Mae the bottle of whisky.

  ‘Okay, you can come.’

  They lay flat on the sand, shoes off, the water touched their feet and retreated, leaving them with goosebumps.

  Mae drained a quarter of the bottle, then sat up and passed it to Hunter, who drank liberally.

  ‘You stole this from your father?’

  ‘He gave it to me, told me to go find you and take the day off. He’s cool, you know, not like people think.’

  It was ten o’clock on a Monday morning and she was drinking with the headmaster’s perfect daughter. The world must be about to end.

  ‘Sometimes I think I can see it coming. Some days it’s angry, full of fire and metals and all that shit. And other days it’s just a dull rock, grey and too nothing to eve
r take us out,’ Hunter said.

  The sun rose high, the heat getting up but a breeze cooled them off. It was worse in the cities, the newspapers said London was burning. A last hurrah, a wild summer before eternal dark.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Hunter said, taking the bottle like she needed the courage.

  ‘Your hair looks fine.’

  Hunter looked to the waves. ‘What did she look like?’

  ‘Everyone wants to know that.’ Mae’s mind turned slow, the alcohol clouding over her thoughts. ‘Like Abi, but not. She was just … empty.’

  Hunter tipped the bottle onto the sand, and then reached for her bag and pulled out a pad and pen. She started to write.

  ‘Anything you want to say, Mae?’

  Mae lay back. ‘Fuck me, Selena.’

  ‘Poetic.’ Hunter wrote it, then rolled the paper and slotted it into the bottle. She stood, unsteady as she screwed the cap back on, and then threw the bottle far out to the water.

  ‘I wonder where it’ll go. I mean, how it will end. Will it smash in the middle of the ocean? Or will it boil till it melts? Will anything live?’

  They stretched out, arms and legs like starfish. Seventeen, young enough to clutch at the girls they had been, old enough to see the women waiting for them.

  They let the world spin for an hour, the booze and the sun reddened their cheeks. They felt the faint rumble of the town behind them, this time it was less, more a slight protest than a roar of discontent. A car alarm in the distance, no one noticed, no one cared. They waded knee deep and watched the small fish through water too clear, the waves died and the ocean turned into a lake.

  For a while they talked about nothing much at all, the drink still softening their words as they smiled towards the sun.

  ‘Have you thought about what you’ll do at the end?’ Hunter said.

  ‘I’ll get so wasted I won’t even be afraid. Then I’ll grab hold of you and maybe I’ll sneak my way in upstairs.’

  Hunter laughed again, so loud and hard Mae couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘You going to the Final?’

  Mae looked at Hunter, no emotion, nothing said.

  ‘Fair enough then. There’s a romance to it, like it really is the final dance or something.’

  ‘It really is the final dance.’

  ‘Then you should go. I’d lend you a dress but you’re so short … and it’d gape at the chest and –’