One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries (18 page)

Mary glanced across at Charlie, who shrugged his shoulders.

“
You introduced yourself, held out your hand and when I shook it, the stillness filled me up entirely and we shone then, Mary, you and I, like a shooting star. ‘Here she is,’ you called quietly downstairs. And then you leaped up, Charlie, nimble as you please, to say hello.”

“
And the watch hand?” he asked.

“
My grandfather’s watch was there on the bureau. You fiddled about with it for a bit, then asked me to hold out my arm. You told me not to look and that it would feel a bit like a bee sting. When it was done, you said that it would remind me to wait for you. To wait for my new life. And I’ve been waiting ever since.”

Charlie began polishing the cocktail shakers, even though they were already clean. “And now that we’re back, what is it you want?”

Freya looked surprised. “To come with you, of course.”

The shaker clattered to the floor. “We’re not taking applications, here! This is a two-man gig.”

“
But I’ve been waiting
my whole life
. It’s already happened, don’t you see? My past, your future, it must all lead to now. You talk about taking people’s time, but I’ve given all my time just waiting, knowing you’d come back.”
 

Mary turned toward the window, unable to look at Freya’s hopeful face. Geraldine’s guests were scattered across the lawn in little groups; some dancing, others with their arms, or fins or wings, wrapped around one another singing. They were all having the night of their lives, in exchange for just a little of their time.

“
You know, Charlie and I have travelled an awful lot and seen some amazing things. This is a magical decade to be living through. You should be out there enjoying it, not wanting to come along with the two of us.” She turned to face Freya, who was twisting her hands anxiously. “Listen to that wonderful jazz. Doesn’t that make you want to forget everything and just
be
?”
 

In a shadowy corner of the garden, the band played, their instruments now part of them. The fat bellied bassist
was
the double bass: the trumpeter’s trumpet sprouted from his lips. Sharkey Malone, of course, was still Sharkey Malone; but with every gravelly note he sang, a bronze honey-bee flew from his lips and there was just a glimpse of the piano keys that had taken the place of his teeth.
 

“
When I hear it, it makes me think of timeless things, like I can see into forever. I’m not like them.” She looked mischievously at Charlie. “And I’ll prove it. I’ll have one of your special drinks, please. Gin,” she stated, before Charlie could ask.

Mary sighed, relieved, then smiled at Charlie, who was making a double for Freya. This would fix the whole issue once and for all. A drink, a transformation, a blissful forgetting would leave them in the clear. No matter what Freya said, she didn’t belong with them.

“
One more question. What do you do with the time that you take back?”

“
When we know that,” said Charlie “it’ll be time to go home.”

Freya lifted the tiny glass, the violet liquid shining. “To tomorrow,” she said, then downed it in one shot. She glided outside, where she was joined by a swarm of dragonflies, their wings shimmering Lalique-green and plum, which had previously been a rather prim man in a pinstripe suit.

“
So that’s that, then,” said Charlie. “I think we better—”

“
Go while we have the chance?”

“
Couldn’t have said it better, old girl.”

Mary and Charlie whisked around the room, collecting bottles and glasses and packing them into the black bag. She snapped the case shut and picked it up as Charlie climbed up onto her shoulder.

They went out onto the lawn, for their traditional last walk-through of a party. To their left the plump woman who had become a chrome goddess lay sleeping, like a fallen statue. The dragonflies buzzed about in a man-shape, hovering around the amber lights. And the band played on, a sad, sweet dirge.

Ain’t no sun, my autumn girl

Ain’t no moon or rain

Got an empty home, an empty heart

Since the sunrise stole you away…

“
Well, bugger me…”

“
Charlie! Language.”

On their right was a giant willow tree; at its base stood Freya, her eyes dark and sparkling.

Mary stared, her eyes wide. “You’ve not changed one bit. And that was a double dose. How?”

“
I told you, I’m not like them. I’m all still inside. Only after I had that drink, this happened.”

Mary and Charlie looked down at Freya’s wrist. The watch hand was moving, now, ticking away second by second. They reached out and rested their forefingers gently over it. Freya’s time pulsed through them and it felt like exaltation.

Mary clasped her hand. “Time is indeed the fabulous monster in us all. The difference is in what you do with it. Best you do come along with us, after all.”

They set out for the jetty, stretching out across the darkened river that held the night reflected.

On the shore sat Geraldine, propped against a fig tree and snoring softly. Her dark locks lifted gently in the breeze, rippling and shaking as they parted to reveal glossy black feathers. With a fierce beating of wings, the sky was filled with ravens from her hair.

Freya bent to kiss her sleeping sister, then followed her new companions waiting on the jetty. Mary sat on the edge, Charlie still on her shoulder.

“
What time does the clock have, Charlie?”

He swung from her shoulder and began to climb down her back, deftly unclasping the square silver buttons that ran the length of her spine. As he undid the last one, the doors of her back opened wide. She heard Freya gasp as she looked inside and wondered what it must be like to see it for the first time; a giant hourglass in the centre, surrounded by carefully hung fob watches, alarm clocks, chronographs and wristwatches, with a stone sundial sitting at her left hip. They softly ticked and swung, the silvery river of time swirling and twisting around them and shivering the sand in the hourglass.

“
21 July 1969. 2.56am.” He shut the doors, then gave Mary a wink before hopping into the bag.

“
Now that
does
feel like a celebration,” Freya said.
 

“
You just wait,” replied Mary.

The air around them quivered and flowed as they walked toward the end of the jetty…

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

M
y
mother had been gone for six months and things were a curious kind of normal. The Shadows were still there, of course, but they’d always been there. They’d been there before she disappeared. They never went away. There was a kind of comfort in that. Even though I knew they were impossible. Even though I knew they were wrong and crazy and
weird …
I was used to them. After all, they’d been there my whole life. I suppose you get used to even the strangest things, given enough time.
 

I woke up that seeming-usual morning to buttercup sun streaming in through my curtains, and the sound of the rubbish truck trundling up our street. Dogs barking, children laughing, real-life sounds drowning out the dreaming.

I threw back the covers to find a Shadow hovering beside me. I swatted it away. At least it was only a small one this morning. Some mornings I woke up to a swarm of them and had to fight through them to escape from my room, down the stairs, into the kitchen. They tried to wrap themselves around me. They nudged their way into my pockets and pushed themselves down my pyjama top. They clung to my ankles and grabbed at my fingers.

They didn’t want me to leave. They got lonely without me.

I could feel it.

I rolled over and looked up at the posters on my bedroom wall. The rock stars and movie stars looked down out me, all pouting lips and dangerous eyes.

My mum encouraged me to put the posters up. She thought I might develop a love of film. Maybe I might become a film-maker.

Like everything else, my interest was much more muted than she would have liked. How could I devote myself completely to anything, with the Shadows in the way?

My feet hit my bedroom carpet. I stretched, stood up and made for the door.

One small step, from dreaming to real, or real to dreaming. I was never quite certain which.

I found Dad downstairs in the kitchen, but instead of making breakfast he was scribbling furiously in one of his thousands of leather-bound notebooks.

“
Princess!” he cried when I sat down in front of him. “Hang on, hang on. I’ll just finish this stanza and then I’ll make you some eggs, okay? Now, can you think of a word that rhymes with silver?”

“
No words rhyme with silver,” I sighed, pulling an orange from the fruit bowl. I looked down at it. “Or orange. Everyone knows that.”

“
Good, good. I was just testing,” Dad said. He smiled, slightly maniacally, the way he always did when he was working on a poem; when he thought it would turn out to be a winner. He was usually right, too. It wasn’t arrogance. Dad had won most major poetry awards in the country. He’d had seven books of poetry published.

And yet he chose to live in this small town, in the middle of nowhere, at the end of the earth, far away from the centre — or even the outskirts — of the writing scene. My dad didn’t mind. He liked it here. He liked being left alone to write. And my mum had liked living here too. “Too many people in the city,” she’d said. “Too
dangerous.”
 

Dad was still scribbling when I finished my orange. “I’ll make breakfast, shall I?” I grumbled.

“
Sure, sure, Lena,” said Dad. “That’d be great. Would you mind knocking me up an omelette? No cheese, though. I’m off the cheese at the moment.”

“
Your rationale for the cheese-aversion?”

“
Bad dreams,” Dad said, shaking his head mournfully. “You know I keep having these nightmares, Lena. I’m thinking it’s maybe all the cheese I’ve been eating.”

“
Of course it is,” I said, rolling my eyes. Dad and his nightmares. He was obsessed. He’d been having them for years, since long before Mum disappeared, and he was always on the lookout for the cause behind them. “So you were eating cheese that night you dreamed about being chased by a giant rabid possum?”

“
Is that what I told you I dreamed?” Dad’s brow furrowed. “Just no cheese, okay?”

I walked over to the stove and grabbed a frypan from the rack hanging on the wall above me. I put it down on the stove and turned on the gas. As I did, instead of the usual blue flames, Shadows began to flicker around the bottom of the pan. I leapt back.

“
What is it, sweetie?” asked Dad, looking up from his notebook. His expression was part writerly distraction; part genuine concern.

“
Nothing. Nothing,” I said, quickly.

Dad didn’t know about the Shadows. I’d wanted to tell him so many times, especially when I was little and didn’t realise quite how strange they were. The words had always stuck in my throat.

I somehow knew, even as a child, that he wouldn’t understand. I knew that the Shadows weren’t part of his world as they were part of mine. Dad was flighty, floaty,
sunny.
 

He didn’t like dark things. And they were the darkest thing there was. No, I couldn’t tell Dad about the Shadows.

He’d probably start having nightmares about them.

The reason I never told Mum about the Shadows was different.

I didn’t want her to think I was weak. Mum didn’t like weakness. Mum was a businesswoman — a successful one. I knew this, even though I wasn’t quite sure what business it actually was. I knew she was someone to be admired. She was single-minded, ambitious and fierce.

Focussed.

Mum would often say she’d never intended to marry a poet — so lazy, effeminate and feeble.

“
Why
did
you marry me, then?” Dad would ask.
 

Mum would smile, a small, inscrutable smile. “Someone had to save the world from you.”

Dad would roll his eyes. He never got mad. And then he’d just pull her closer and kiss her on the cheek and whisper something in her ear about how lucky he was to have her. How much he needed her. How grateful he was that she was in his life.

They were so in love. I always felt certain that, no matter how much time Mum spent away she’d always come back to us and we’d be a happy family. She did love us.

I knew she did. Even though she was hard on me. Even though she thought I was
unfocussed.
 

It was true.

I didn’t want her thinking I was weak as well.

Seeing Shadows was weak. Seeing Shadows was
crazy.
I didn’t want my mum to think I was crazy.
 

My mum was the most sane person I knew.

Or, at least I thought she was, up until she disappeared.

And then the police told us, about the church she attended. About the travelling she did that
wasn’t
for business; the travelling to meet with other members of the church.
 

She’d never mentioned it to us; me and Dad. We didn’t know she went there. She’d never seemed religious.

And Dad wasn’t the things they suggested, either. He was a calm man. A happy man. He never got mad. He just wrote things down.

“
I just … nearly burned myself,” I lied.

“
Be careful,” Dad said. I heard a slight tremble in his voice. I saw the haunted look that always came when he was thinking about Mum, and the fear that came with those thoughts: that he would lose me, too.