It’s an Amnesty protest organised by Mum’s best friend Heather. We got a day off school to come. I stayed up late with Mum to make the posters and, slowly, she started talking to me like a regular human being and not someone she was offended just to be in the same room as. ‘Pass the red paint. Can you hold that down for me? Is that too heavy for you to hold?’
The crowd gathers outside the State Library. People get up and talk and we cheer and chant and leaflets are passed around. The beauty-queen-robot-from-the-future costume was ready and Pip announced it was the perfect choice. ‘Because if a beauty queen robot from the future travelled back in time and saw how this country treated refugees she’d go to a rally too.’
‘Keep hold of your brother, Marlowe. I’m going to speak to Heather,’ Mum shouts in my ear. I nod and grab Pip’s hand. He’s got a history of getting lost at these things and I’m trying to make up for the swimming pool thing.
‘You let go and I kill you,’ I tell him.
‘Like you’d have a chance,’ he says. ‘Have you seen my twirling baton? It’s a secret laser!’ He points it at me. ‘Pew, pew, pew, pew!’
The crowd surges forward and we let it push us along. I lose sight of Mum but it’s okay because we have a meeting point – always under the clocks at Flinders Street station.
‘Tear down the fences; free the refugees!’ A guy to my right bumps me as he shouts and waves his sign around. But I don’t care. Getting elbowed or my foot stomped on is a small price to pay when I’m here, alive because of the lifesaving treatment the sheer dumb luck of being born in this country afforded me. I have nothing to complain about.
‘Ray?’
I’m used to Leo calling me that silly nickname so I panic slightly when I hear it. But a strangely warm, bubbly kind of panic that might even be, if I let myself admit it, excitement. Someone is shouting it loud enough to be heard over all the drumming and chanting. I swivel, searching.
‘Ray!’
There’s a girl pushing down the line towards me. Ponytail. Nose ring. Definitely hazel eyes. Scar between thick eyebrows. Tattoo. Luis with a heart.
Okay, now it’s full-blown panic. It’s the-ship-is-sinking-get-out-of-here panic.
Suddenly it’s like there’s a running of the bulls in my stomach. My hand automatically springs to cover my heart. What do I think I’m doing? Hiding the evidence?
Carmen squeezes through the crowd, grinning wildly.
‘I thought that was you. Remember me?’ She’s dragging a tall, willowy girl behind her. The girl has toffee-apple red hair that’s sort of shaved and sort of long and sort of curly. She’s wearing tatty sneakers and cut-offs and a gold t-shirt. She’s cooler than cool. I look down at my timid-tan shift dress and feel incredibly . . . not cool.
‘Hey, Kari?’ Carmen says to the girl. ‘You remember me telling you about Ray? The superstar who totally shot down those frat boys?’
Kari nods once, a jerky flick of her chin, and then looks away.
I stare at Carmen, frozen. Which is not a good state to be in when you’re in the middle of a thousand-strong march down Swanston Street. This is only the second time I’ve seen Carmen and she still gives me shivers. Like deja vu.
Carmen frowns. ‘I’m not making an idiot out of myself, am I? It is you, isn’t it? Ray? Rachel? You came into the –’
‘Yes! I mean hi! I mean, you’re not an idiot, I’m the idiot and, yes, it’s me.’ I smile as if the wider my mouth gets the less awkward this is going to be. The crowd pushes us forward and we’re locked into walking beside each other, smiling and frowning and smiling.
And, oh lord, my heart. It’s jumping and dancing and skipping in my chest like a little kid desperate to be noticed.
‘Imma beudy qween robofroda futa,’ says Pip. He shakes his head. ‘A beauty queen robot from the future,’ he says, slowly. ‘Take me to your leader.’
‘That’s so cool’ says Carmen. Her eyes meet mine for a conspiratorial smile.
‘This is my brother,’ I tell her. ‘Pip.’
She reaches past me to shake his hand but he offers the baton instead. ‘It’s an honour,’ she says, shaking the baton. ‘You must tell me what the future’s like. Do we still have detention centres?’
Pip nods. ‘But only for politicians.’
She laughs and bumps into my side. ‘Little brothers, right?’
I murmur – not a word, just a sound – and search for the cracks in her smile. Because she’s a big sister too. We share that. We used to share it. Or maybe that’s something you never lose. Do you ever stop being a sister?
‘Do you have a little brother?’ I ask, but the second I say it I wish I hadn’t.
Her smile grips to her face. I can see it straining, slipping, only a few fingers clasping the cliff’s edge. But she holds it there and nods. ‘One.’
Kari turns to me and works the dog-shit scowl like a pro. It’s not like she was giving me positive vibes from the outset but I think I’ve just given her a reason to engage full-on hate mode. I notice her inch closer to Carmen, bumping up against her, letting Carmen know she’s right there.
But Carmen’s holding tight to her smile. ‘He’d go mental over your brother’s costume,’ she says. ‘Crazy about sci-fi stuff.’
My eyes grow big and it takes everything in my willpower not to cartwheel because
I
Know
One
Thing
About
Luis
Castillejo.
He liked science fiction.
I hold this knowledge deep, deep inside me where it warms me, nourishes me, fills me.
I am a little less empty. I know Luis might not be my donor but the more I know about him the better I feel. Maybe I just need to feel close to a donor, not even mine.
Carmen catches me staring in a crazed stalker kind of way.
‘I like your t-shirt,’ I blurt, even though I haven’t actually looked at it. At all. Is she even wearing a t-shirt?
‘Oh. Yeah. Thanks.’ She looks down at what is thankfully a t-shirt. ‘Kill the Club. I’m seeing them Friday at the Tote.’
‘That’s great.’ Honestly, I have no idea what a Kill the Club is or even what a Tote is. Actually, I do know what a tote is – it’s a type of bag. But I don’t think Carmen is going to a bag to see the murder of a club.
‘It’s a band,’ she says.
Ah.
Kari rolls her eyes so hard it’s a wonder she doesn’t sprain them. She pulls out her phone to text or tweet or make a note to never talk to me again. She is gorgeous. She is beyond cool. She is on par with Zan.
I suddenly realise that Carmen is cool too. She’s not the kind to shove it in your face or make you feel like a sub-species, but she is undeniably, painfully, face-meltingly cool.
Were you cool, Luis? Would you have spoken to me? Ignored me? Laughed at me? Rolled your eyes at me?
I search for something to say, anything that will keep the conversation going. But Carmen just grabs my arm with both hands, eyes bright and wide. ‘I almost forgot. I got your drawing.’
Now I feel like a sub-species. A sub sub sub species. Like primordial slime that just crawled out of the sea and got stomped on by a super cool dinosaur.
‘Oh. Andy gave that to you?’ I say, but my response is drowned out by the crowd roaring.
I can’t believe I gave her that drawing. How big a loser am I?
Big. Seriously big.
‘I got it, like, yesterday,’ Carmen says. ‘It falls out of Andy’s locker at work and he’s like, “Oh yeah, this girl Faye or May or Ray dropped it off for you.” He’s such a dildo.’
Pip looks up, opening his mouth.
‘It’s like a bird,’ I tell him. ‘Like a Dodo but not extinct.’
‘Oh,’ he says.
Carmen mouths ‘oops’. Kari snorts.
‘Anyway, I loved it,’ says Carmen, tugging on my arm.
‘You’re so talented. Maybe I’ll have something like it for
my next tattoo.’
‘Really?’ There is nothing stretched or strained about my smile now.
She nods, still with both hands gripping my arm. ‘But I’d get my brother to draw it – he’s really good at drawing too . . .’
Kari clears her throat and frowns sidelong at Carmen. I’m not sure Carmen notices.
‘Anyway, I love it,’ she says. ‘Now I owe you twice. Once for the douchebags and once for the drawing.’
Luis
Castillejo
Was
An
Artist
Too.
My heart swells, soaking up this new knowledge, getting drunk on it. I am hungry for more. So hungry. There’s a voice in my head saying, but why is Carmen talking like Luis is still alive? What does that mean? And I hear it, I really do, but there’s a difference between hearing and listening, isn’t there? And I just can’t listen to that voice right now. It’s asking questions that are too damn big and too damn hard, and can’t I just enjoy this moment without dissecting it?
Carmen raises both arms above her head, pumping her fists and joining the crowd in their chant: ‘Free the refugees; lock up the racists!’ Her voice is singsong.
‘The beauty queen robots from the future do not like how you treat your fellow humans!’ yells Pip. ‘Pew, pew, pew!’
Carmen throws back her head and her laugh is deep and rough and from the gut. She grabs my arm and jerks it above my head. ‘Say something, Ray. Really scream it!’
I falter, mouth opening and closing. Because I have Carmen’s full attention and I’d like to grab it, hold it and keep it. But I don’t know what to say and I don’t want to yell anything – I never do. Even in a crowd, people can notice you. Judge you.
I close my eyes. I feel full with happiness and hope. I can do this.
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. Come on! Yell! Scream! Do something.
And then I feel it. It starts in my stomach and I feel it bubbling up inside of me, crackling through my lungs and chest . . .
‘Refugees in, racists out!’
It’s an explosion.
It’s a miracle.
I open my eyes and Carmen’s got crinkly, laughing eyes and even though she looks away, her attention drawn to someone else, someone else who is chanting, someone else who makes her smile, my heart keeps growing and growing and no one else is looking at me. No one is judging me.
It’s fine. I’m fine.
‘Refugees in, racists out!’ I yell again.
Carmen looks back at me. Crinkly, laughing eyes.
Did you know how to make her smile like that, Luis? I bet you did it all the time – I bet you were addicted to it.
‘Come on,’ says Kari. She pockets her phone and wraps her hand around Carmen’s wrist. ‘Naomi and Peggy are up ahead.’
Kari pulls Carmen away and I feel deflated. I grip Pip’s hand so tightly.
‘Ow! I’ll exterminate you,’ he says.
‘Want to come?’ calls Carmen, but the crowd is pressing in and I’m losing her. ‘You and your beauty-robot queen, of course.’
I can still see her between shoulders and heads and elbows and banners.
I can’t lose her. Not now.
Pip tugs on my hand. ‘Let’s go with her,’ he says.
I feel a kernel of hope settle inside my belly.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay.’
________
‘Catch you round, Ray.’
The rally has thinned. I step over a discarded placard, watching Carmen hurry after Kari.
‘Remember: anything you want. Anytime. On the house,’ she calls. And then she’s gone.
Somehow I got through the day without looking like a total dork.
Only a semi-dork.
But Carmen didn’t seem to mind that I was awkward and sometimes my words were too exclamation-marky. And I managed not to seem too stalkery, even when she caught me watching her.
She was so different away from work. More like her photos.
She has a silly happy dance. And as we marched down Swanston Street side by side I felt like I was finally seeing the Carmen I already knew. Which is weird because I don’t know her at all.
Kari doesn’t seem to want me to know Carmen. She only left Carmen’s side once, while we were sitting on a bench, drinking mochas and watching Pip do the robot.
‘Our brothers are so different.’ Carmen had turned to me then. Her shoulders curled forward and she’d hugged her knees to her chest. ‘Pip is so confident. My brother is a bit shy. But a shyness where you know it’s hiding someone worth knowing. Kind of more like you.’
I hadn’t known what to say to that. But I’d known exactly how to feel: whole again. It was as if each minute I spent with Carmen she was handing me back pieces of myself.
Luis was shy.
He was an artist.
He liked science fiction. Luis was kind of like me.
I knew I should have been listening to that voice in my head saying, ‘Why is she still talking about Luis in present tense?’, but happy Carmen, the Carmen I know existed a year ago, was drowning out that voice. Because that’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? To make sure she was still smiling?
Maybe next time I see her I’ll listen to that voice and what it means but . . .
Wait, ‘next time’?
Pip tugs on my arm, drawing my gaze from the space where Carmen had been standing. I look down. His beauty-queen-robot-from-the-future costume is worse for wear but he looks as happy as I feel.
‘Why does she call you “Ray”?’ he asks.
I grab his hand and lead him to Flinders Street. ‘It’s just a nickname.’
Will there really be a next time? Should there be a next time?
‘Hey, Pip?’
He looks up at me in that open, honest way he has.
‘If you don’t tell Mum about Carmen I’ll buy you a toy for Brutus.’ I feel icky asking Pip to lie, but I can’t deal with Mum and her fifty million questions. She’ll want to know how Carmen and I met and if she’s a vegan and she’ll invite her for dinner and I’ll have to explain why I’m not really called Ray and why my name is Marlowe and yeah that is the name of the girl who contacted your father on Facebook about your dead brother’s heart.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘But Brutus really wants a fedora, just so you know. Purple. Sparkly.’
I’d like to tell him that Brutus only deserves a dip in the sewer, but I smile and tell him ‘sure’.
Luis Castillejo, were you an activist? Did you spend your lunchtimes handing out flyers – free the refugees, end whaling, stop animal testing? Did you single-handedly revolutionise your school’s recycling program? Were you president of the student council three years running? Did you plan on studying international relations at university? Were you going to change the world?
I don’t know. And you can’t tell me.
But I’m going to find out.
Speaking of protests . . .
I am giddy and breathless and humming.
I am wearing head-to-toe black (except for the balaclava – pink, sequins).
I am fixing nine A1 posters to the window of Bert’s Quality
Butchers.
And I am out very late on a school night.
It takes me fifty-seven seconds to stick up all nine posters, ten seconds to take a picture of my handiwork, five seconds to zip up and hoist my duffle bag onto my shoulder and twenty-seven seconds to run down the street and around the corner.
I slide to the ground, back wedged against the brick fence of a blacked-out semi, struggling to hold back a fit of giggles because I am the Revenge Queen.
‘I can’t believe I did that,’ I say out loud, each word punctuated by a ragged breath.
Through the thin cotton of my t-shirt the bricks prickle my skin. Night birds chirrup and car engines purr in the distance, but the neighbourhood feels strangely quiet, strangely still. My shallow breathing is loud as I suck down air into my lungs. And my heart is thumping.
It’s been a long time since I ran in real life. Unsupervised. No physio. No treadmill in sight.
I send the photo to Zan.
I really wish I had Carmen’s number so I could send it to her too.
My phone pings.
What the hell is that?
I giggle – I can’t stop it. I must be delirious.
That is an artistic rendering of Leo the butcher boy. Like it?
My legs jiggle. I want to run back to the shop and take more pictures of my artwork.
It’s a wanted poster of Leo. Leo as a crazed-looking pig and underneath is a list of his crimes: rudeness, arrogance, coward-ice, throwing his balls in other people’s backyards, bad hair and a complete lack of imagination.
The reward is: ‘Keep him. No one else wants him.’ I cradle my phone, waiting; the screen turns black. My breathing is back to normal. Sort of.
I stand, brushing the pavement grit off my backside. All the giddiness and breathless excitement is gone and there’s something a little hollow, a little sharp, a little sour-tasting left in its place. Why is happiness such a hard emotion to hold on to? It’s like trying to hold water in your hand. But sadness, that stuff sticks to your skin like glue.
My phone pings and for a second, one beautiful, irrational second, I think it might be Carmen. Like my need to have her number floated up into the universe like a butterfly sending vibrations with its wings and the message was strong enough to make it happen.
But it’s Zan again: Come to my house. I’ve got something to show you.
It’s just after midnight. I should go home to bed. I should already be in bed. But it’s Zan and it’s Zan’s house and it’s Zan. The hollowness, the sharpness, the sour-taste fades away. I press a hand to my face and feel the curve of a tentative smile.
Another message comes through with the address and it’s not that far. I didn’t know we lived so close. I follow the directions to a narrow, plain brick semi. Her message instructs me to slip down a side path and into the back garden where an orange porch light illuminates the way.
There’s a jungle in Zan’s back garden. There aren’t any monkeys or parrots or snakes – then again it’s pretty dark so I can’t see much more than shapes. They could be the shapes of jungle animals.
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