Just in Case

by Meg Rosoff

  Wondering exactly how different it would have to be, Justin turned, held out his arms, and allowed Agnes to slip it on.

  He blushed. He suspected he looked like a lunatic but the truth was the coat fitted; it was much lighter and softer than it looked and he felt wonderfully cosseted in its shaggy warmth. He turned to face Agnes, who pushed him in the direction of a huge gold mirror. One of the models swivelled past, plucked at his sleeve and made an appreciative noise.

  Justin looked at himself. Then at Agnes, on whose face a tiny smile had appeared.

  ‘It’s good.’

  And God pronounced that it was good, thought Justin.

  ‘Ivan,’ Agnes called, ‘it’s perfect.’

  Justin felt his face burn. There was no way he could afford a coat like this, even if he’d wanted it. He turned away, furious, but Agnes grabbed his arm, speaking softly into his ear. ‘Forget it, Justin. You don’t have to pay. It’s the new barter economy. The pictures I take of you are worth far more than any coat. Go on, take it.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’ Justin tore the coat off and thrust it at her. ‘Take it back.’

  She looked at him mildly. ‘You heard Ivan, it will never fit anyone rich enough to buy it. You may as well have it.’

  She carried the coat across the room to Ivan, who wrapped it carefully in black tissue, placed it in a paper shopping bag the colour of heavy cream, and held it out to Justin with a neutral expression. He even bowed slightly, and Justin felt certain he was being mocked.

  Agnes took the bag. ‘Thank you, Ivan.’

  Ivan’s face was composed, expressionless. ‘He’ll pay me back someday.’

  She looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I said.’ Ivan shrugged. The soft oval of his face rotated away from them and then back again, like a periscope.

  Justin retreated across the room, arms crossed protectively across his chest, humming to tune out their conversation.

  After a minute or two, he noticed that the room had gone silent. He looked over to find Ivan and Agnes staring at him. Agnes’s expression was solemn. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Justin. I’ve been telling Ivan about the fate thing.’

  Ivan looked more interested than before. The longer he stared, the more uneasy Justin felt. His eye twitched.

  Finally Ivan spoke, so softly that Justin had to move closer to make out the words.

  ‘I have observed fate,’ he said.

  Justin’s heart began to pound with alarm. They were less than an arm’s length apart now, so close that Justin could smell the other man’s skin. A hint of something expensive rose from it.

  ‘And I can tell you for certain,’ he crooned, as Agnes watched, rapt, ‘you are doomed.’

  Justin couldn’t breathe.

  ‘In your life,’ Ivan said softly, ‘you will suffer inestimable losses. And then you too will die, causing inestimable pain to others. And all this will happen to you, not if, but when.’

  Justin swayed slightly.

  ‘That is the only truth you need to know about fate.’

  Justin struggled away from the seductive voice. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Agnes.

  ‘But–’

  ‘NOW.’

  He grabbed her arm but she pulled free, so he went alone, slamming the iron door behind him with a crash.

  ‘Goodbye, Justin Case,’ Ivan called, his face lit by an unpleasant smile. ‘And good luck.’

  At the bottom of the stairs, Justin fumbled with the catch on the outside door and stumbled out into the narrow lane, heart hammering in his chest. When Agnes caught him up, he spun around like a cornered animal, grabbing her shoulders.

  ‘He’s horrible’

  ‘Yes, I know. But his clothes are fantastic. And he can be very generous when he feels like it.’ She pulled free and dug through the layers of tissue paper. ‘Here, put the coat on and tell me how you feel.’

  She held it out to him, her expression soft. ‘Please, Justin. Please?’

  It was a stand-off, and he didn’t particularly want to win. So he took the coat and slipped it on. Boy sniffed it and growled, smelling goat, as Agnes clicked off a series of shots: Justin Embarrassed. Justin Startled. Justin Angry.

  Justin turned away from the flash.

  ‘Excellent,’ Agnes murmured, taking his arm and steering him back out to the main road towards a tiny, rundown Indian restaurant with flashing fairy lights in the window. ‘Now let’s celebrate.’

  Through the supple skin of the sleeve, the pressure of her fingers caused him to shiver.

  16

  Justin wore his new coat like a second skin. It protected him, kept him warm, yet was eccentric enough to satisfy his new identity. Inside it he felt safe, and he took it off only to sleep or run, activities that increasingly consumed his days and nights.

  Peter had been right about running. It wasn’t long before pleasure began to dominate pain. Justin had never considered himself athletic, but now, having offered encouragement to his lungs and limbs, they rose like Titans on the field of battle.

  My Body! he thought gratefully. It works!

  Often when he ran he lost touch with his physical limitations and began to cruise, aligning his heartbeat to the beat of his feet on tarmac. How could he not have known this was possible?

  He wasn’t particularly competitive. What he liked was the steady, reassuring tempo that regulated the surges of anxiety in his brain. Tick tock tick tock. His body fell into the mechanical rhythm of an old-fashioned alarm clock.

  The more he ran, the less like David Justin felt.

  These aspects of running were lost on Coach, who merely shouted at his team with increased resignation as competition loomed.

  On a grim Tuesday afternoon in late October, six schools’ worth of shivering boys huddled in a drizzle awaiting the starter’s signal. Justin had invited Agnes to attend, in a way that made clear how little difference it would make to him whether she did or didn’t, and how little he expected her to.

  As he approached the start, something caused him to look up. Following the direction of a hundred other pairs of eyes, he turned to see Agnes walk towards them under a huge lilac umbrella covered in bright polka dots, her feet steady on the soggy turf in a pair of green rubber knee-high wellies, her camera bag swinging from one shoulder. The rest of her was shrink-wrapped in what looked like cellophane. She looked preposterous. Sublime.

  The entire event paused as Agnes made her way across the field to the makeshift wooden observers’ stand. On arrival, she furled her umbrella and sat, to a ripple of spontaneous applause. She smiled at Justin and pulled her Nikon from the camera bag, followed by a single white glove. She waved the glove in the direction of the team.

  Peter waved back happily. Justin turned away to hide the expression on his face.

  Collecting its scattered wits, the meet continued.

  *

  Justin had no recollection of the starting gun. When next he noticed the outside world, he was running, or at least his body was. He was intrigued to discover that his feet came with cruise control. He didn’t have to think about what he was doing, just set them on ‘fast’ and they ran.

  Boy bounded ahead in a playful mood. Occasionally he would stop to look back at the seething, panting mass of boys with something like pity.

  Perhaps you people should stick to something at which you excel, said the look.

  Then he would fly off again, his body airborne for most of the length of his stride. He ran joyous circles around the leaders, accelerated to a mile a minute for the pure fun of it, crossed the finish line to the sound of his own ovation, spun around and returned to Justin’s side, where he slowed to an encouraging canter. Beneath the aristocratic condescension of his breed, he was kind.

  Directly to Justin’s left and a few metres ahead ran Peter Prince. He turned back and glanced at Justin, falling off the pace slightly as he did. Justin barely noticed. At the halfway mark, his mind was on Agnes. She had swept his protests away as if it
were nothing to give some boy you barely knew a fantastically expensive coat as a gift. The next time she’d phoned, his determination to remain distant had been crushed by the purring intimacy of her voice.

  Surely it all meant something. Something more than just ‘you’re not bad, as kids go’. He recognized the existence of a code, a secret language of the initiated that allowed them to translate the nuances of sexual intent. Her continued presence in his life must say something about her intentions. But what?

  A voice very close to his ear whispered words he couldn’t make out, and with a jolt he was reunited with his body. Running so fast hurt. He turned to see who had whispered. He could feel the horrible soft impression of breath on his ear like a dusty flapping moth. He tried to brush it away with his hand, but there was nothing there.

  Then the voice came again, whispery, urgent.

  Run!

  Justin bolted. Panting, he pulled ahead of Peter, who looked puzzled at the expression on his friend’s face.

  Run, run as fast as you can!

  Boy had moved in and now ran as close to his master as possible. Justin ignored him, hurtling forward, blind with terror.

  One hundred metres from the finishing line. The rest of the contenders made whatever moves they had left. Justin couldn’t see or hear them, didn’t know they were there. He heard only the voice in his ear and ran as fast as he could.

  RUN!

  He crossed the line first and kept running. Boy gently guided him into a curve, leaning his full weight against Justin’s hip as a brake.

  Coach looked pleased.

  It was a genuine moment of glory. Justin’s first. But he felt queasy, violated. Adrenalin continued to pump to his brain, his stomach heaved with fear, his pulse failed to drop below racing peak.

  Run, run as fast as you can.

  Peter caught up and thumped him happily on the back. With him was a girl of about eleven, with thick brown hair and her brother’s clear, fearless eyes.

  ‘This is my sister Dorothea,’ Peter said.

  The girl stared at Justin, recognizing the look on his face from an earlier encounter. There was no lamp post this time, but it didn’t seem to matter.

  Justin looked straight through her.

  That voice.

  He remembered the end of the nursery rhyme now.

  You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.

  17

  By the time Justin walked through the front door, the phone was ringing.

  ‘Justin!’ Agnes trilled. ‘You were brilliant today. I was madly impressed.’

  He was silent.

  ‘Justin? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I need to see you.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’

  He put down the phone. Charlie had appeared at his feet and he pulled the child up on to his lap. The little boy wrapped his arms around Justin’s neck.

  ‘I won a race today,’ Justin told him softly. ‘It was horrible.’

  Charlie tightened his grip and murmured urgently into his brother’s ear. Justin couldn’t make out the words, but the little boy’s tone was soothing and full of love. They sat that way for a minute, and then Justin stood up to leave, carefully disengaging the little boy’s arms. Charlie toddled over to the window and pressed his face against it, gazing after the figure of the older boy as he closed the front door and disappeared down the road.

  This time it was Justin who arrived second at the café. As he crossed the room towards Agnes, she couldn’t help experiencing a small surge of pride at her creation. Justin looked taller, fitter, more graceful. The soft grey coat hung lightly from his shoulders. Even his anxiety seemed more compelling than before: darker, less twitchy. In different circumstances, she might even have fancied him herself.

  Justin caught her glint of triumph and for an instant saw himself through her eyes. Pygmalion’s Galatea. Dr Frankenstein’s monster.

  He sat and Agnes peered at him closely. ‘So what’s this about?’

  ‘I heard something.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘The voice.’

  ‘Ah. What did it say this time?’

  ‘It told me to run.’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘You’re sure it was fate, or doom or whatever?’

  ‘Run, run as fast as you can, you cant catch me I’m the gingerbread man.’

  ‘Ooh, creepy.’ Agnes looked impressed. ‘Did it mean run away?’

  ‘I don’t know what it means.’

  He shivered, and she put a hand on his arm. ‘I don’t believe in stuff like this as a rule. But it does sound weird.’

  Justin sat wreathed in gloom, as Agnes waved to the waitress and ordered tea, then looked at him carefully. ‘Aside from the voices, how are you?’

  ‘OK, I guess. I get a lot of strange looks at school.’

  ‘Good strange or bad strange?’

  ‘Both.’ He sighed.

  ‘Are you complaining?’

  Justin looked glum. ‘Not exactly. Only, I guess I was hoping…’

  She waited.

  ‘I was hoping to feel better. Safer.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘Even when I’m not hearing voices, or imagining being murdered by snipers, I feel like a blinking neon sign. When girls look at me I feel like the cheese in a mousetrap.’

  ‘There’s a word for that, Justin. Lust. It means they fancy you. It’s because you look good.’

  She met his eyes and for a fleeting instant experienced a whirring sensation in her blood. Then raised her camera and clicked off a shot. Portrait.

  ‘It’s supposed to feel good,’ she said gently. ‘It’s supposed to make you feel desirable.’

  Justin looked at her. ‘It’s not me they want. It’s some strange hybrid-me made up of new clothes and insomnia.’

  ‘Look, Justin, you’re fifteen for Christ’s sake. What do you want? Everyone changes. I wore Moroccan gowns with African combs in my hair when I was fifteen.’

  ‘It’s not all about style.’

  She groaned. ‘Don’t tell me what it’s all about, Mr Wisdom of the Ages. I know it’s not all about style. You’re the one who wanted a new identity. I’m the one who occasionally suggests that fate isn’t some middle-aged man with a squint who won’t recognize you if you change your clothes.’

  She glared at him.

  ‘Jesus, Justin. I don’t believe in any of this stuff anyway. But you’re not an idiot, or schizophrenic, as far as I can tell, so I listen. Do I believe there’s some supernatural force out to get you? Look at it from my point of view. I never believed in the tooth fairy. This doesn’t seem a good place to start.’

  He managed a rather formal smile and stood up to leave. ‘Thank you for listening to me, Agnes. I know I’m a pain.’

  ‘Sit down, for god’s sake, don’t run away.’ But she felt the flaw between them, the imperfect connection.

  Agnes opened her bag and handed him an oversized magazine printed on heavy matte paper. ‘Take this, anyway,’ she said. ‘It’s just out today.’

  He rolled the magazine up like a weapon and left the café. Halfway home, he dropped it in a bin.

  Agnes watched him go and sighed. Such an exasperating boy. Exasperating, too, that it was beyond her powers to put him right.

  18

  At school the next day, a girl approached Justin. She was dark-haired and beautiful, with a scornful pout and perfect almond eyes. His peripheral vision automatically searched for her sniggering cronies lurking in a corner.

  She carried an oversized magazine pressed flat against her chest like a shield.

  ‘You’re Justin, aren’t you.’ She spoke without inflection, looking everywhere in the room but at him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Great pictures, Justin.’

  What pictures?

  She spoke to the opposite wall this time. ‘So. You going to Angel’s party?’

  Justin blinked.

  ‘Well,’ she rep
eated, slightly annoyed, ‘you going?’

  He stared at the girl. She had the most agonizingly seductive, contemptuous eyes.

  ‘I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘Shireen.’ She sighed impatiently.

  How perfectly the name suited her, shimmery and sheer, sensuous, serene.

  ‘So?’ She gazed at the ceiling with irritation, flicking her nails.

  He was desperate to say yes, go to the party, bring her alcoholic punch in a plastic cup, walk home with her afterwards in the cold night air, offering his coat and putting his arm round her shoulders for warmth. He was desperate to dance with her, kiss her goodnight when they reached her door, press his virgin lips to her silky pink mouth; he was desperate to see her again, make a date for coffee, the cinema. He wanted to sit close to her in the dark, breathe the flowery female scent of her, feel the brush of her glossy hair against his face; he wanted to nuzzle her neck, tell her he loved her and then slip his hand inside her padded push-up bra, stroke the delicate skin of her breast, feel the crinkly nipple between his fingers. He gasped, and shoved a hand in his pocket, pressing his quivering erection flat against his groin.

  Boy growled.

  ‘No.’ The word erupted from somewhere near his solar plexus: half suspicion, half alarm. He didn’t trust her. She was booby-trapped. Wired to explode in his face. A Venus landmine. ‘Thanks, anyway,’ he added, eyes glued to a poster just behind her describing the Heimlich manoeuvre.

  Shireen stalked off, shoulders hunched in furious humiliation.

  Justin went home and changed into sweats. It was drizzling; the pavements shone with oily water reflecting images of the miserable suburban street. He called Boy, who lifted his head far enough to see the thin curtain of grey rain, then put it down again.

  ‘Sill-ee-Boy!’ chortled his brother.

  Justin looked at Charlie impatiently. ‘Oh yeah? Well, what would you have done?’

  The startled child gathered his thoughts.

  I’m not entirely sure what the circumstances are, he said, but as a general rule I try to keep things simple. If I’m clear about what I want, other people have an easier time making me happy. It sounds basic, but most of the time it works.