Face (26 page)

“Cheer up Merlot!” Forest, even louder, from within the centre circle. “Updates not contributing to your happiness anymore?”

Forest is compelling and I have missed faces.
The fake stretched grins spread outwards from their leader: closed smiles, open smiles, faces cracking under the pressure to act all Merlot. The real smiles are contagious, and I am in no doubt as to the display of my Maverick dimple. The pointer fingers that struggle to indicate a fake grin whilst locked at the elbow, that’s kind of funny too. I spy a crooked smile on a boy tucked safe in the furthest circle, real happiness- but no gut jolt of recognition, nothing coming back from him.

I turn away from the protesters to scan the gathering crowd
, scanning for Cliff’s height and shoulder curve. His running shoes. In contrast to the members of C.O.F, this lot are a bunch of individuals suffering from the closeness of strangers, their growing numbers balanced on a narrow strip of pavement. There is markedly no body contact. The front row faces are controlled, and alert. A glance tells all. Faces that say: waiting for trouble. My gaze is returned in assorted colours, invitations to engage that I actively ignore. Cliff is not a colour. A man dressed for business turns to his female colleague and they exchange a few words in a low, serious voice. Strangers loiter six deep, eight deep at the pavement edges. All I need is a passing glimpse of a significant feature, somehow something of Cliff. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe it will be the steady grey stare, inviting me out of the crowd.

I turn
slowly on the spot, a signal designed to encourage his approach. Instead, an ambulance pulls up level to me, on the far side curb, blocking in the Van Gogh Cafe. A couple of police cars follow behind, dark sets of eyes at the front and back windows, the usual authoritarian effects undone by shadow. Three engines cut off.

Security forces gather in the doorway
of Ultiface, a separate and silent crowd in helmets with visors, waiting for a sign. I wonder what. The Originals are surrounded, and so am I.

A surge in the
babble of voices; a young man has pulled free from the middle circle and remains outside it. His hands are shoved deep into pockets, and his gait suggests anticipation. I can’t see his face, but the torso is not a C.O.F t-shirt and the outline of his body is all wrong- it isn’t Cliff. A young woman still turning the circle draws up opposite to him, and forms an Original face of recognition and pleasure. He seizes her around the waist and plucks her from the circle pulling her towards him until their bodies touch. He dips to whisper something in her ear, and some negotiation takes place in the private space between their faces. Something has been resolved. She leans back on her heels, but not for long.  His hand is on the small of her back and their faces tilt into each other, into a kiss, her arms completing their own private circle around him. The kiss belongs only to them; each face is shielded from the crowd by the presence of the other. Two faces that connect, at the softest most sensitive part. The C.O.F crowd whoops as the couple come up for air. Each face is perfectly compelling in the eyes of the other. Straight whites flicker on the faces of Updated strangers; everybody understands a kiss.

My phone delivers a text:

M
eet me on the tunnel in one hour Cliff x???

I have to read it
five times over to decide it’s a typing error and nothing more- the question marks belong after the question, not after the kiss. (Blame the real kiss for any confusion.) Texts cause trouble; he should have come for me in the crowd instead. Cliff’s kiss must be the start of an apology. Symbols are not enough, new boy.

Chapter Thirty-Two

This time I’ve seized the advantage, I watch Cliff enter the park through the archway of vines – and he’s all masked and knotted up again, especially for me. So he dares to keep that hat on in my presence! He expects an encore out of this overexposed face? Some kind of a happy ending for ‘Us’?

He’s early
, not early enough, the top of the tunnel is mine. His strides say, let’s get this over with. He flies past the bed of gaudy roses focused on the grass beneath his running shoes. You should be running, new boy. The tiniest lift of his chin and I’d be revealed glaring down upon him, but he’s over-confident as ever. He assumes he can still surprise me.

It’s the grey scarf again
, freshly washed and unfolded. The ridges on his chest come into focus as he draws nearer. I know what they feel like on the inside, densely weighted, yet soft to the skin. A brisk breeze shunts the rain clouds along- nothing to see here. I couldn’t risk any of this in earshot of Rex or Penny. I want him on his own, so the tunnel suits me just fine.

The gate clanks
. I don’t wait until he’s comfortable.

“How was I selected?”

Cliff climbs faster than
last time and slides closer, but a little bit of tunnel remains, exactly as I imagined.

“
You chose me too, remember?” His voice is steady. “You suggested meeting in the park. You needed to observe me, to decide exactly how messed up I was.”

“But I didn’t film your every move and record your every stupi
d thing you said! Was your Dad in on it? Am I some sort of C.O.F campaign?”

“Dad knows nothing about the film
. Nobody does, just us.”

I halt at his
use of the word: Us.

             
“Did you pay that thug to rip your scarf off? Was that some kind of test?”

             
“Nothing was set-up, I swear. The film had to be you reacting to me, precisely as it happened. Reacting to my scarf; and later, to me.”

             
“How can I believe anything you say ever again?”

That’s got
him, he hasn’t prepared a response this time. He swivels to face me, dropping a leg either side of the tunnel then walking his hands back to maintain the gap. He’s right to keep a safe distance, everyone in the known universe can read my face right now.

“
I’ll tell you everything you want,” he continues. “One thing was planned. Not a set-up, but a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing. After the cinema, when I whipped my hat off and temporarily stopped the filming? I thought you liked me, but I wasn’t sure. I knew after that.”

I practise
my PokerFace.

             
“Ask me anything.” he says

“The beginning is all wrong! It’s not how we started.”

“You mean the L
ibrary? I’m waiting for the footage. I really did need help downloading my essay, I never lied. I’m glad it was you that day.”

“
What about earlier in Mrs Singh’s class when you got stuck under the molecular model? Of course you wouldn’t put that bit in. You’d look stupid.”

“We didn’t meet in History of Science.”

“I saw you! Everybody saw Dollar floundering under that stupid model. I came in late, Mrs Singh was picking on the both of us for answers.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“I’d just done my Maverick mouth, everyone noticed me! You
laughed
.”

“
I’ll get hold of the classroom footage. Just for the record, I believe it will show that I wasn’t laughing at you...you were probably just-”

“
Just
what
?”

“
Being paranoid. Self-conscious, I mean. But we’ll open with that if you want! You’re the star.”

“I’m
the Editor. It’s a takeover.”

“Done.” Cliff nods. “But I demand a final scene: True’s side of the story. The bit where you get to say exactly what you think of me, from the beginning.”

Cl
iff actually has the cheek to adjust his fedora at me for a better angle. “So, are you ready to start?”

“Pass me that thing.”

If he wasn’t filming me I’d snatch it
harder.

“
My story has played out on my face.” I announce. “I’ve got nothing to add. Hand it over. Now.”

Cliff watches me position
the careworn black fedora. I turn to face him on the tunnel, because interrogations demand eye contact. We sit face-to-face, rigid backs. Is this to be the new ‘Us’?

             
“Right. This is Cliff’s story- it always was. Get explaining. Why’d you film me?”

             
“I was curious about what it feels like to get to know me.”

             
“So you changed schools...”

             
“I needed someone who didn’t already know me.”

             
“You lost a few too many girls through hidden camera?”

“
I’d never filmed anyone before. Only Dad, doing his thing, protesting.”

             
“So, you set yourself up as the good guy, the Rex Rayne.”

             
“Me as myself. You stood up to Seven, you can be Rex Rayne.”

             
“I’m no movie star.”

“
You were perfect.”

“I
t could have been anyone. Beijing for instance...”

“
No, it couldn’t. She wouldn’t have worked, not for me. You have this set range of...I mean, when you make up your mind, there’s these green flecks in your eyes, and then you go for it, your facial expressions are like a whole other language. But the Blocked Smiles are the best. Everyone will want a part of your face. Promise me right now for the cameras,
never
to sell that smile?”

Cold s
pecks of rain begin to decorate the surface of the tunnel, I glance at the sky. No threat of a sunset, not this time. Something else is niggling at me.

“
Aren’t you angry with me?” I say. “Angry at everyone?”

             
“Angry got boring. I decided to do something with it, to create something instead: a story. In the beginning, we have that day right here on the tunnel when your eyes were screaming stay back, and you couldn’t bear to look at me, so it’s all this one side of your face.” Cliff strokes the air down my dimpled side. “But you let yourself start to like me and your face changed. Especially that smile.”

             
“I trusted you.”

             
“The filming had to be a secret. That way, everything I captured is real.”

Cliff follows my gaze. His hair is flattened in a band where the fedora made contact with his scalp, the strands darkening in the rain. The edge of the grey scarf presses up against his earlobes where my fingers once lay. It’s okay to look.

              “Were you real?” I say

             
“If I was acting, the film would mean nothing. But it turned out better than I ever imagined- and that’s down to you.”

             
“I’m glad your project worked out. It’s been nice doing business with you.”

I extend my hand for a firm handshake.
Cliff turns my hand in his and raises it to where his lips would be, pressing my hand to the fabric. There is an exaggerated kissing sound. Confident.

“
Did you actually
watch
yourself
in the clips I sent?” he says.

“But what about
Seven’s text today?” I venture, cautiously. “You know, with the photo of, um...”

             
“Oh that. Not your most flattering picture. I deleted it straight away, if it makes you feel any better?”

He squeezes my knuckles gently.

The rain suddenly accelerates against the tunnel like badly timed applause, because we’re not finished yet. It’s time to take shelter. I seize the raised edge of the tunnel and shuffle backwards, lower my feet into the tunnel entrance with a wet squeak and a slip. Cliff grabs my upper arms too late, I’m fine. Stooping, I walk into the dry and settle cross-legged in the centre of the tunnel to film Cliff’s approach. He plonks himself in my exit and plants his running shoes up high, knees bent, arching his back and neck against the metal. I decide to let him have his profile shot. Beyond Cliff’s raised legs, the wind gusts and the tree branches all around the park surge like crazy. A metal-framed circle of pelting rain seals us in. The nanocameras are our witness: we haven’t killed each other, yet.

Cliff
falls still and I know he’s smiling and that’s galling because what has he got to smile about, exactly, in this moment? He concealed everything.