Mortal Ghost (7 page)

Sarah got the message. Apologetically—sort of—she came over. ‘They’re going skating. We could join them, if you like.’

‘
I don’t like.’

‘
Come on, it’ll be fun,’ she urged.

‘
I thought there was something you wanted to talk to me about.’

The friends looked at each other. One of them, the girl, spoke in a cultured voice that despite its well-rounded, honeyed vowels bit like a dash of sharp vinegar. ‘It’s OK, Sarah, we don’t want to interrupt anything.’

Jesse felt his hackles rise. Flicking back his hair, he stood to face Sarah’s mates. ‘You’re not interrupting anything. I was just leaving.’

Sarah’s colour deepened. She raised her chin. ‘Go on,’ she said to the four of them. ‘We might join you later.’

Jesse was pleased—very pleased—that Sarah had it in her to withstand her friends. He watched with a hint of contempt, his eyes cool and dismissive, as the kids shrugged, made their goodbyes. The girl looked back over her shoulder as they sauntered away.

Sarah crossed her arms. ‘You didn’t have to be rude.’

‘
Those are the kind of friends you’ve got?’

‘
Since when is it your business who my friends are? You sound like a mother, but not mine, thank god.’

‘
No, I suppose your mother’s too out of it to notice the types you hang around with.’

‘
Don’t you dare insult my mother! She’s a wonderful, generous person. You could show a little gratitude, you know.’

‘
Oh yeah, here it comes. I’ve been waiting for it—the gratitude bit.’

Sarah chewed her lip. At first she didn’t reply. ‘Jesse, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’

Jesse strode over to the bench to fetch the dog’s lead.

‘
Look, they’re mates from school, that’s all,’ Sarah said. ‘Kids you see in the canteen, kids to go to a film or drink a coke with. Not worth fighting about.’

‘
I think you’d better tell me about the call to Social Services.’

‘
Why are you so anxious about that call? Have you murdered someone?’ She was still laughing when she realised that his face had blanched. He gripped the back of the bench with both hands.

‘
Jesse—’

He looked up, his eyes pleading and frightened, a small child’s eyes, clear sapphire, brimming with the
no no no
no
that the world is supposed to listen to but never does. Sarah stifled a cry and took a step backwards.

‘
Go,’ he said, when he could finally speak. ‘Please. Just go away and leave me alone.’

Sarah turned and went.

~~~

Half an hour later, Jesse was still sitting on the willow bench, back hunched, head in his hands and Nubi at his feet. There was no point in just sitting here, yet he couldn’t bring himself to do anything else. He didn’t even want a cigarette. He tried to think where he should go.

‘
Jesse.’

Jesse looked up. Sarah stood with the sun behind her so that he couldn’t make out the expression on her face. The light was warm and liquid, dripping redgold highlights onto her chestnut hair. She held out a bag.

‘
Indian takeaway. I hope you like curry.’

‘
Yeah.’ He gazed at her. He had no idea what else to say.

‘
Come on, then. I know the perfect picnic spot.’

The small cornfield was hidden behind a stand of trees. Sarah pushed her way into the tall heads, fresh and colourful and heavy with ripening seed. Jesse sneezed once, then a second time. The sound was unexpectedly loud, and both of them giggled as if they were six years old and raiding the biscuit tin. As they tunnelled through the leafy grain they were completely enclosed, isolated from the outside world—even the sounds of the city had receded to an almost indistinguishable murmur. Occasionally a child’s high-pitched voice floated down through the dense matrix, but it was disembodied, androgynous, a reedy dreamtime fragment. Jesse was beginning to wonder if Sarah had lost her way when the corn ended abruptly. They emerged into a grassy clearing. Jesse swivelled, a smile slowly lighting up his face. They were in the midst of a perfect circle.

‘
Well?’ asked Sarah, her eyes zesting with delight.

Jesse gestured with his free hand. ‘Who planted all this?’

‘
No clue. One of the gardeners, I reckon. But it’s good, isn’t it?’

‘
Very.’

‘
I’ve never seen wheat in these colours before. Must be a special hybrid.’

‘
That’s because it’s not wheat. It’s amaranth.’

‘
English, please.’

Jesse grinned. ‘
Huautli
to the Aztecs, who even used it in their religious ceremonies. It’s been around for thousands of years—first known record dates from about 4000 B.C.—and now grows just about everywhere. Cultivated a lot in India, where it’s both a leaf and grain crop. Very high in protein. And very productive. I’ve read that from one plant you can get 100,000 seeds.’

‘
Is that so? Then it won’t matter that you’ve harvested several hundred of them.’

She pointed to his head and giggled once again. They had masses of seed, chaff, and torn leaf caught in their hair. A cloud of dust rose when Jesse threshed his own ragged crop with his fingertips, enough for both of them to sneeze.

Sarah picked a spot for them to eat more or less at random. There was no shade, though near the circumference of the circle the tall plants provided a little relief. Sarah knelt, began to unpack the carrier bag, then leaned back on her heels.

‘
Your memory’s starting to worry me,’ she said. ‘Petabytes beyond industry standard.’

Jesse reddened. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to show off.’

‘
There might be things to apologise for, but being intelligent isn’t one of them.’ She handed him a white carton. ‘That’s for Nubi.’

They ate. Jesse noticed that Sarah wolfed the food almost as hungrily as he did. No fine table manners here. They had plastic spoons to use, but Sarah broke off pieces of the chappatis to dip into her curry and didn’t hesitate to lick her fingers. Jesse was more fastidious.

‘
When’s the last time you had a proper meal?’ Sarah asked.

Jesse shrugged.

After they’d sated their first hunger, Jesse fiddled with his spoon, turning it this way and that in his fingers. ‘Thanks for coming back,’ he said at last.

‘
You scared me.’

‘
Sorry,’ he muttered.

‘
Not like that. I’m not afraid of you.’

‘
You ought to be.’

‘
Do you want to talk about it?’

‘
No.’

They were silent for a while.

Jesse lay back in the grass and stared up at the cloudless sky. Nubi was busy crunching away at his heap of bones. Nearby Sarah had twined her legs into a lotus, her eyes on the corn, her mind probably elsewhere; her breathing was faint but audible, reassuring. Otherwise, the world was still, waiting for deliverance, or at least a winning lottery ticket. The canopy of heat draped a fine gauze across his eyes. He laid an arm behind his head. Summer memories of a swing, high scratchy grass, an ice cream dripping through his fingers, a child’s giggle. There’s no going back. A butterfly flutters and the world changes. Always, it changes. It does no good to wish, to regret, to what-if. You take what’s handed out.

He must have slept. When he opened his eyes, the sun was lower in the sky. Nubi lay at his side, asleep, or half-asleep in the manner of dogs, for he cracked his eyes when Jesse stirred. Jesse realised what had awakened him.

Sarah was dancing.

Jesse tried not to make a sudden movement. Breathing as lightly as possible, he carefully shifted onto his side and propped himself on an elbow. With a feeling close to awe he quietened his mind, his noisy blood. He’d never seen anyone dance like this.

Sarah seemed to have grown taller. In an unbroken skein of movement she crosses and recrosses the nave of corn. Eyes shut, she sees with hands and feet and inner sight: a dreamweaver. Her body darts and flows to a music only she can hear, now bending, now reaching—gliding through the weft and warp of the universe, gathering the threads of time and space into a new pattern. Is she the dancer or the dance?

The earth slows, stops moving, turns black and cold. Against the deep velvet of space Sarah weaves a nebula of light. Jesse reaches out a hand, certain that he can pluck one of the stars—only one—from the glittering web. His fingers burn—the icy touch of a blade—and he jerks back with a cry.

Like a top Sarah spun to rest in the exact centre of the circle and opened her eyes, breathing gently.

‘
Jesse,’ she said.

She smiled, came over to him, sat down, crossed her legs. Jesse thought he heard the cello again. He took a deep breath, as much to smell her warm spicy sweat as the lavender.

‘
If you want to join your friends, I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘Maybe I was a
little
rude.’

‘
They’ll survive.’ Sarah stroked Nubi. ‘Do you know how to use a skateboard?’

‘
No.’

‘
I’ll teach you.’

She stood, brushed off her shorts. She extended her hand, and after a brief hesitation Jesse let her help him to his feet.

‘
My mother only asked for some information,’ Sarah said. ‘What happens to a minor who’s homeless, who gets to take him in, stuff like that.’

Jesse snorted. ‘Forget it.’

‘
Was it—?’ She stopped, unable to complete her question.

He looked at her with a guarded expression in his eyes. ‘It’s over. The rest doesn’t matter.’

‘
The summer won’t last forever.’

‘
Nothing lasts forever,’ he said with a twist of his lips.

Sarah tossed her plait over her shoulder, a gesture that he was coming to recognise as signalling impatience or even distaste.

‘
You can do better than that,’ she said.

‘
Like what?’

‘
Like not hiding behind some stupid cliché. Like having a little self-respect. Like dealing with whatever’s happened to you.’

‘
You know nothing about me.’

‘
No facts maybe. But I hardly need them to understand it’s no life shivering under a bridge in a snowstorm. Scrounging for your next meal.’ Sarah took a breath. ‘Scared and cold and hungry. Lonely. Desperate.’ She hesitated, then spoke bitterly. ‘Or dead.’

Jesse held up a hand as if to ward off her words. One by one they stung his skin like angry wasps.

‘
Let’s go,’ he said, his voice rougher than he’d intended. Quickly he bent to collect their rubbish.

Tondi’s body glistened with sweat, her meagre clothes clinging to her skin. When she offered to lend Jesse her skateboard, he mumbled his thanks and kept his head low as she came close, too close. Let her think that he was embarrassed or overcome or whatever. With her board tucked under one arm he approached the ramp.

They wanted to humiliate him, Sarah’s friends. They were practised skaters with lots of tricks and manoeuvres. At the skater plaza he’d watched them first on the concrete flat and ramps, then on the steps and rails and ledges, now on the half-pipe. All except Tondi, who skated well but kept in the background. The lads launched themselves from the top of the ramp straight into the air. They hung there, defying gravity, then twisted and flung themselves right back down. Impossible. Only they did it. No one in his right mind started there.

‘
Come on,’ called the tallest bloke—Mick?—who had gelled blond hair, hot and taunting eyes. ‘It’s easy, give it a try.’

Jesse knew it wasn’t easy. He wiped his hands on his jeans. He was beginning to be seriously annoyed with himself. At school he’d learned early on to keep a low profile, not to be drawn into lose-lose situations. What did he care what these stupid apes thought of him? He raised the board, about to toss it down in contempt. Sarah would be back any moment now. She’d never expect him to start with the half-pipe.

The sun had slid towards the trees, glazing the leaves with a shiny eggwash of light, as golden as his grandmother’s Easter loaf studded with sultanas and almonds. He could taste Mick’s mockery. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the packet of cigarettes that Sarah had bought him. He dropped the board on the patch of grass in front of him and put his left foot on the deck, testing its spring. It felt comfortable, right. Jesse lit a cigarette. His mind went back to Sarah’s words:
stop running.

Sarah rode into sight on Kevin’s board, Nubi racing alongside her. Though she’d obviously given it some practice, she wasn’t a skater like these four. Jesse could see that straightaway.