by Steph Bowe
And Nina knew all to well that was when they began picking pockets, rolling servos, robbing banks. It started out small, just out of necessity, then grew and grew and grew, until he was stealing thousands and thousands of dollars. Until he didn’t need money anymore. Until he just did it for the thrills. Because it was thrilling. Because after a while, you get desensitised to crime, to the violence, to how bad it is. You forget how much you’re hurting people (or, worse, you start to enjoy it). It’s heady, the risk of being caught, getting away in a chase and feeling bulletproof. That’s how it seemed Sophia felt. But for Nina it was painful. She’d been part of three bank robberies, and dreaded the next.
She stopped listening. Sophia made crime seem such a logical decision. She made other people out to be the wrongdoers. And she made money into such an insignificant thing. Why not take it from other people? Given all the unfairness of the world, claimed Sophia, how could a stray wallet or the contents of one bank’s tills even matter? Despite her mother’s best efforts, however, Nina had managed not be brainwashed. She did not believe in Sophia’s worldview. On the contrary, she knew how profoundly wrong it was.
When Sophia told Nina and Tom these stories about her childhood, they were like fables, epics, good-versus-evil stories, all about love and life and death, and her family were always the good guys regardless of any bad things they did. Nina didn’t doubt Sophia’s recollections of crimes they had committed (sometimes she had to convince herself they were exaggerated, for her own sanity), but she did doubt the glowing image of Sophia’s dad in her stories. How could a good man turn into a criminal, and raise a criminal? How could he have been a good father if his child became a criminal? Unfortunately, Nina never got the chance to meet Sophia’s father and decide for herself how good a person he was. That’s always how it is, isn’t it?
Sophia began her life of crime at seven (they didn’t have her robbing banks until she was twelve, tall enough to pass for an adult). She was far better at most crimes than her father was—she could make a person hand over money faster, she could be more discreet when she lifted a wallet. Perhaps it was her age (it freaked people out more, being robbed by a child, or by a pretty teenager), and starting so young, she’d had more time to perfect her craft.
But Nina always wondered: was it Sophia’s destiny from birth to become a criminal? Or was she a monster created by circumstance, fed by a sense of indestructibility?
Thomas certainly wasn’t indestructible. As a child, Nina had known that he was dead, but not how he had died. Shortly before she turned fourteen, when her mother was out one day, Paul told her that particular story. Thomas was shot in the shoulder by a police officer while he and Sophia had been robbing an armoured van. Seventeen-year-old Sophia got away while Thomas was arrested. Nina often asked herself how Sophia had managed to abandon her father like that? Why hadn’t she tried to get out of crime then, and start a normal life? If Nina were to abandon her family—not if but when Nina left her family, for her own good—she’d do it so she could escape this. But Sophia was different. She was probably worse than her own father. And would probably abandon her or Tom if a similar situation arose. Nina could hardly bear to think about it. The only explanation she could come up with was that Sophia lived by a different set of morals, and that she was very very deluded.
Paul’s account ended with Thomas spending a few years in prison and dying at fifty. As far as Nina could tell, once Sophia’s father was in prison, he was dead to her. That was the end of the excitement, of the wonderful father. He was no longer invincible. And Sophia started forging her own path.
For Nina, on the other hand, a life of crime was never her choice. It began long before she was born and by the time she was old enough to figure out what was going on, there was little chance of her finding her way out.
Spencer
Friday night. The phone is ringing. Spencer’s parents are in separate rooms, living their separate lives—his father doing bank paperwork, his mother staring blankly at the blaring TV. His sister Monica is in her room, chatting on Facebook with friends she’s been with all day at school. Spencer doesn’t really see the point. Chance is sitting at his feet, snoozing. He’s an old dog.
Spencer is sitting at the kitchen bench, doing homework he was assigned three weeks ago and that is due on Monday. He sighs and picks up the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Spence, baby,’ says Bridie—she’s moved on from her hippie phase; it’s all about the sixties now. Mod clothing and free love. She’s made Spencer sit through nonsensical films that feature a lot of terrible dancing. ‘Guess who’s playing at the Soap Dish?’
The Soap Dish is a bar where, on Friday nights, you’ll find people who are too cool for school. They dropped out to work as waiters and children’s party entertainers. Exactly Bridie’s crowd. It’s so indie that Spencer suspects they kill the bands after they play there, so that no one else can ever hear them play again, and thus keep them as obscure as possible. When he told Bridie his theory, she laughed, which is exactly the response you’d expect from someone who is aware that the phenomenon of band-killings-in-order-to-preserve-indieness already existed. Spencer is still wondering what that says about his own imagination…
‘I’ve no idea, Bridie,’ says Spencer, continuing with his essay, the phone wedged between his shoulder and his cheek. ‘I’ll never be indie enough. I used to like Ricky Martin, you know that. I am as mainstream as they come.’
‘Very funny,’ says Bridie. ‘Vampires on Bikes are playing. And guess who’s supporting them?’
‘No.’
‘Swedish Lesbian Town. Their bassist is beautiful. I am in love.’
Bridie is in love with a different bassist from a different band every other week. She frequently leaves Spencer at gigs on his own so she can hang out with whichever bassist. She has never ever crushed on a drummer, or a guitarist, or a violinist, or a singer. Always bassists. Always unattractive, greasy-haired bassists.
‘I need you to be my entourage,’ says Bridie.
‘What do the bands play?’ asks Spencer. ‘I’m not coming if they play country music.’
‘Oh really Spencer. You know I wouldn’t make you endure anything like that. You and your middle-of-the-road pop. We need to broaden your horizons. Vampires on Bikes are indie synth pop-rock with an emo-folk edge. Kind of like an organist at a church, but on speed and covered in pig’s blood and with scene hair. And Swedish Lesbian Town do lullaby versions of The Ramones and Prodigy, and hard rock versions of Mozart and Bach. And, as I mentioned, their bassist is amazing.’ Instead of saying amazing like a normal person does, she draws out each syllable—uh-may-zing.
‘I have to finish the essay on Ethan Frome.’
‘They have this thing called the internet now. Ever heard of cut and paste?’
‘Teachers also have the internet, Bridie. As well as excellent plagiarism-detection technology.’
‘Finish it tomorrow. If you don’t come tonight, who knows what you’ll miss out on?
A couple of hours of shitty music? Being abandoned for some guy who hasn’t showered for a year but is deemed automatically attractive due to his possession of a bass guitar? He doesn’t give either of these answers.
Spencer inhales deeply. He can finish his essay tomorrow. He needs to escape his house, the suffocating silence, the separateness of his family. He’s willing to endure drugged-up Carrie-like organists and ugly bassists in order to do so.
‘All right. ‘
‘Yes!’ says Bridie. ‘I will see you at Cup Of Chino in ten! Rock and roll.’
Bridie is wearing a bright-orange floral chiffon dress, so big and froufrou that she looks like a bright-orange meringue. She has peacock-feather earrings and rainbow-shaded John Lennon glasses. A few people in Cup Of Chino turn and look at her as she arrives, and she curtsies in the doorway. Spencer, sitting at a table waiting for her, stares intently at the comics page of a newspaper, pretending he is not waiting for her. He discovers that t
he comics are just as unfunny as they were when he was a child.
Spencer always tends towards being stressed out, and Bridie is the opposite. Spencer is cautious, guarded with his real feelings. He has difficulty being honest with people, because his father insists that people are not to be trusted (as a bank manager, he has seen a lot of scamming and rip-offs and cons in his time, and believes everyone has ulterior motives). Spencer doesn’t want to attract attention to himself; he just wants to breeze through life unnoticed. But Bridie, she’s loud and out-there. Even physically, they’re opposites—Spencer’s tall and lean, as his mother used to say (he calls it plain old gangly), and always trying to make himself as small and as inconspicuous as possible; while Bridie is short and has a certain presence, only partly due to her largish size. He can’t help but be in awe of her confidence. But it’s not like their personalities balance each other out. He knows he’s just arm candy.
Bridie goes to the counter to order then joins Spencer at his table, tottering on perilously high heels.
‘So,’ she says, putting her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands. ‘We can spend half an hour here, head down at about eight.’
‘I better get back eleven-ish. I’ve got work early tomorrow.’
Bridie sighs and asks, ‘Why on earth did you get a job?’ She says job as if it’s a dirty word, like Spencer’s become a garbage collector or a prostitute. Her own jobs last year had been in the name of self-discovery rather than as a means to earn money.
‘You really have more money than sense, Bridie,’ says Spencer. He tells her this often, but she never learns.
‘That is so something your dad would say. Besides, if my parents are not going to give me emotional support, I might as well take all the financial support I can get,’ she says. ‘I’d rather take their money than earn six bucks an hour at Maccas. It costs more than that to look this good.’
‘One, your parents are very nice people,’ says Spencer. ‘Two, I earn eleven dollars and twenty-one cents an hour, thank you very much. And three, I hope you’re being ironic about looking good. You look like a dessert.’
‘At least I own it, darling. I know who I am and I am not ashamed to express it.’
‘Who you are changes every few months,’ he says. ‘What’s next, an eighties phase? I’m kidding.’
‘You’re supposed to experiment when you’re young. Maybe I should go seventies next? Keep it chronological. A journey through time via personal style.’ She grins. ‘Eighties would be fun. I can invest in neon parachute pants and yo-yos.’
‘I dread the bands you will make me see then. And the bad movies, oh my God.’
‘Don’t pretend we don’t have fun. And the movies of the eighties are brilliant. John Hughes, darling.’
‘Just promise me you’ll get over the bassists.’
She offers her hand, pinkie finger out. ‘I pinkie-promise.’
‘We are not twelve.’
‘Do you want me to promise or not?’
‘Fine.’ He reluctantly takes her pinkie and they shake on it.
‘You didn’t set a timeline,’ she says. ‘So maybe I won’t get over bassists until I’m eighty. Should have been more specific.’
Spencer shakes his head. ‘You’re ridiculous.’
‘You love it,’ she says, smiling.
Her latte arrives, and she glances around the restaurant.
‘What do you reckon this latte says about who I am?’ she asks. This is a favourite game of hers, trying to figure out things about people by the food they eat at a restaurant, or their shoes, or some other outward sign.
‘It says you like lattes,’ says Spencer, very matter-of-factly. He’s not good at the games she likes to play—he doesn’t like talking that much unless it’s something that interests him, and wondering about other people’s lives is something he prefers to do in his head.
Bridie frowns and looks at a man at another table. ‘Long black,’ she says. ‘Says, “I’m a little bit bad, but still classy.”’
‘My grandmother drinks long blacks,’ says Spencer, deadpan. He’s starting to regret going out with Bridie tonight. Though her massive personality has the potential to make you forget about the realities of your life, her non-stop talking becomes irritating very quickly.
‘Your grandmother’s a bad arse,’ says Bridie. ‘All right, your turn…uh, elderly couple, both with hot chocolates.’
‘They were high-school sweethearts,’ says Spencer. ‘Every time they go anywhere, they both have a hot chocolate, like they did on their first date.’
‘That’s sweet. Do you know them?’
‘I just made that up. Isn’t that the game?’
Bridie shakes her head. ‘You don’t make up a story. You have to decide what statement that drink makes, what kind of person they are.’
‘The kind of person who likes hot chocolate?’ says Spencer. ‘The kind of person who drinks the same drink for sixty years?’
Bridie shakes her head again and then smiles. ‘Hey, is that Nina?’
Yes, it’s Nina, the girl from the vet’s. She sitting at a booth with a boy about Monica’s age, who must be her brother, and a couple who must be her parents. She’s drinking a milkshake and Spencer has no idea what that says about her, but now he wishes he did. He looks away. He doesn’t want her to notice him looking, so he can’t look again, as much as he wants to.
‘We should invite her out with us,’ says Bridie. She says it as if this is the most genius thought in the world, as if she has just invented the wheel, or fire, or sliced bread. She’s too excited, and that does not bode well for Spencer.
‘She’s at dinner with her parents,’ he says quietly, even though it’s noisy and Nina and her family are on the other side of the room. ‘You can’t go up to a stranger eating with their family and say, “Hey, you want to come out with me? You barely know me and I may very well be a psycho killer, but come and see a weird indie band that play synthesiser while covered in pig’s blood?”’
‘The pig’s blood was not literal,’ says Bridie. ‘And she’s not a stranger. The Caro had me show her around the school. She is a very nice girl, and you are just being anti-social.’
‘I only came out with you because I wanted to see pig’s blood,’ Spencer says. He wants to distract Bridie, stop her from talking to Nina. Mainly he wants to avoid saying something stupid in front of her. Why does he care whether he says something stupid in front of her? Oh God, maybe he likes her? Well, he did like her smile…Bridie will never let him hear the end of that if she finds out. Knowing Bridie, she’ll probably send Nina anonymous love letters and pretend they’re from Spencer.
‘I’m going over to speak to her,’ says Bridie decisively. She begins to get up from the table.
‘No you’re not,’ says Spencer, reaching out to stop her. But she’s already halfway across the room, striding as quickly as she can while remaining upright on those heels, her huge fluffy dress bouncing around her with each step. Spencer can’t look, but he can’t look away either.
She reaches their table. Her back is to Spencer, and he can hear her voice, but he can’t make out the words. Nina’s mother smiles up at Bridie, who is shaking hands with both parents. Then Bridie points to Spencer…and everyone turns and looks at him. He waves awkwardly. Accidentally—he’s sure it’s not intentional—he makes eye contact with Nina. She smiles. He looks away.
Oh God, Bridie, thinks Spencer. Why must you do this to me?
Spencer likes animals because animals don’t talk, and he likes words and books for the same reason. Bridie is practically his only friend and he’s okay with that. Because with girls he finds attractive, he’s completely inhibited.
And now here’s Bridie inviting someone out with them, someone unaware of his social failings, someone who’s going to be stuck with him for the whole night as soon as Bridie dashes off with her Bassist of the Week. Someone really attractive, unlike the bassist.
Now they’re all getting up fr
om the table. Bridie looks to be engaged in intense conversation with Nina’s mother. What about? Bridie shakes hands with everyone again, like she’s closing a business deal, smiling broadly. Then Nina’s parents and brother are leaving, and Bridie and Nina are returning to Spencer’s table. Spencer checks his phone for messages. As usual, he has none. He pretends to text, types some random words into a message. It’s a habit he has, whenever he feels uncomfortable, or there’s an especially long embarrassing silence: he pulls out his phone and types as if he’s the most popular guy in the world.
Kill me now, kill me now, kill me now, he types now.
When he hears Bridie arrive at the table, he quits the message and glances up.
‘Nina loves Vampires on Bikes,’ says Bridie, giving Spencer a pointed look. ‘Finally, someone in this town who appreciates good music.’ She picks up her latte and sculls the rest. Nina smiles at Spencer and shuffles on the spot. She’s wearing skinny jeans and a black lacy top, a canvas messenger bag over her shoulder, and a jacket hung over her arm.
‘Vampires on Bikes have got nothing on Ricky Martin,’ says Spencer. He’s amazed he’s said something vaguely intelligible. At the same time he feels like a total fool. It’d probably be better if he didn’t open his mouth at all. It would definitely be better.
‘I’m more of a fan of Enrique Iglesias,’ says Nina, grinning. And her grin sets Spencer’s soul on fire even though he wishes it didn’t.
Bridie combs her hair with her fingers, checking her upside-down reflection in a spoon. ‘Let’s rock and roll, boys and girls.’
The bassist of Swedish Lesbian Town is, as predicted, kind of scary-looking. But he has a sort of grunge appeal, so Bridie’s attraction to him doesn’t seem entirely unfounded. Different strokes. Musically, they’re all right, in a cacophonous way.
The Soap Dish is cramped and musty, with green walls and scuffed floorboards. The dance floor is decent, but Spencer does not dance. Ever. And he’s not sure how anyone could manage to dance to this very inharmonious music. Not many people are.