Now You See Me (6 page)

‘Yeah. Why?'

‘What in?'

I focused my eyes on the book.

‘Lighthouses.'

‘Lighthouses
? You can't be a student in lighthouses.'

‘Lighthouses is only part of it.'

‘Yeah?' He pulled the book away from me and flicked through, stopping at a dingy photo. A lighthouse with a seagull in front of it like a flying moustache. He lost the wariness for a minute. ‘When I was a kid I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper.' He moved his chair nearer to mine and even though it was warm in the library I shivered. He smelled like tobacco and mushroom soup.

I strained my thigh away from the warmth of his. It was weird though because when he said that about wanting to be a lighthouse keeper I remembered that so did I once. I wanted to live in a lighthouse on a rock, only not be bothered with the lights and shipwrecks. I just liked the idea of being in a tower of rounded rooms with waves crashing against it and nobody else for miles.

‘You coming outside then?' he said. He stood up. The librarian had her eyes fixed on us now like she was waiting for a scene. It was a moment of choice, like a hinge, a door swinging this way or that. Saying no might have been the end of it, the door swung shut. On the other hand he might just have gone out and waited for me anyway. I looked at his soft mouth. He needed my help, he actually said that,
my
help. I stood up.

I shoved the book back on a shelf, probably not the right shelf. I couldn't think straight. Old strawberry nose looked up and practically winked, probably thinking I'd been picked up, maybe he'll try
his
luck next time.

It felt very strange to be walking down the library stairs with someone. I'm so used to walking alone with empty air all around me and now there was someone by my side. Someone I didn't know. It felt like the world was tilting.

Seven

When we got outside the library he stopped. There were two dogs tied up. I was about to say how mean of someone to leave two dogs tied up like that but he crouched down to untie them.

‘They yours?' I said instead.

He just gave me a look. One of the dogs was tiny and bright-eyed. It did a frisking dance of pleasure; the other one, the same sort only bigger, dragged itself up and yawned.

‘What are they?' I said. ‘What make?'

‘Jack Russells.'

‘So what do you want?' I said. ‘What help?'

‘You never fucking turned up,' he said.

‘I'll just go back in if you talk to me like that.'

He stared at the ground for a minute. ‘OK,' he said. ‘Yeah.'

‘So?'

‘Mind if we get out of town?'

‘Where?'

‘Just out of town.'

He looped the leads round his wrist and started walking. I didn't have to follow him. It was another chance. I could have gone back up the library steps, but I didn't. It was OK as long as we were in public. Nothing he could do to me in public. I was in control. And any minute I wanted I could walk away.

We hurried along, taking the whole width of the path, the two of us and the dogs. A woman with a double buggy had to steer into a doorway to give us room. She flicked me the filthiest look I have ever seen.

‘Normal' Doggo said, tugging at the lead of the little one who was skittering about under our feet and tripping us up. The other one just plodded along with his head down. ‘What's he called?' I said.

‘Gordon,' he said. I nearly laughed. I mean,
Gordon
and
Norma
. We kept on walking for a bit till we got out of the city centre.

‘Where are we going?' I said.

‘Pub?'

‘If it's money you need I can't help you there.'

‘Let's get to pub,' he said.

I was watching the way he kept looking round everywhere as if he thought
he
was being followed. His hands were blue with cold. He had LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles. Not the usual blurry home-made schoolboy effect, ink and a compass point, but ornate lettering and in a different colour on each knuckle. The fancy letters were stretched out over his knuckle bones. He saw me staring at his hands. ‘Want to take Norma for a bit?' he said.

‘K.' It felt nice holding the lead with a live creature on the end of it, like a sort of connection. She didn't notice the change though, just kept looping about and tugging and stopping to sniff at stuff.

We got to the Duke's Head and had to sit outside because of the dogs. It was freezing. We sat in what they laughingly call a beer-garden where there were some kids skate-boarding about.

‘So?' I said.

‘Just get a couple of pints in,' he said.

I don't know why I did. Being ordered about by a complete stranger is not my usual thing. I stood there a minute wondering whether to tell him where to go. ‘What about some crisps and all?' he said.

When I got back with the slopping pints and a packet of prawn cocktail, I said, ‘What do you want? Apart from the pint.'

He slurped half his drink in one go, then ripped the crisps open. He crammed about half in his mouth and shoved the packet at me. I took a crisp and nibbled the edge.

‘Well?'

‘You got a place?' he said.

‘Yeah, sort of.'

‘Not one of them student halls?'

‘No.'

‘You sharing?'

‘No. No. I like to be alone.'

‘Good.' He got his tobacco out of his pocket and rolled a fag.

‘Why good?'

‘What you doing?'

I looked down and saw what I was doing. It was a thing I did as a kid, nibble and nibble round a crisp so it gets smaller and smaller. You can make a single crisp last for ages like that. ‘Nothing.' I chucked the half-nibbled crisp to Norma who snapped it up, mid-air.

‘So, what do you want?' I said.

‘I need somewhere to crash. Lie low for a bit.'

‘What's wrong with your mum's?' I could hardly look at him for fear of seeing myself. ‘Don't you ever take your shades off?' I said. I hate talking to a person when you can't see their eyes and if you ask me only posers wear sunglasses when it's not sunny.

He looked round then took them off. I'd forgotten his eyes were such a cool sharp grey. They made me flinch. He shook his head and took a deep breath like someone about to jump. ‘Look. I'm in deep shit. There's reasons I can't go to my mum's, OK?'

‘But why ask
me
? You don't even know me.'

‘Yeah well, exactly. No one would come looking for me at yours, would they?'

‘But how do you know I won't … I don't know … call the police or something.'

‘Because I know you,' he said, reaching across the table to touch my hand. He took my breath away saying that.
I know you
. His fingertips were slippery ice.

I couldn't help the smile. ‘No you don't,' I said.

‘So?' He squeezed the tip of my middle finger between his finger and thumb. I pulled my hand away but the sensation stayed there. One finger-end in all the big cold world.

I nearly got pulled in. At that moment I wanted to help. It was a pity I couldn't but no way could I let him in. The cellar was mine and mine alone. I was quite safe and balanced. And not scared. It was quite simple. He just had to lie low for a time, well I know about that. I am the expert. Except I would never in a million years ask anyone else for help. It puts you in their power. There was a kind of glow in me from his words.
I
know you
.

I had to concentrate. I took a sip of beer. His was nearly finished. ‘Did you steal your mum's bag?' I said.

‘What the fuck's that got to do …'

‘Am I supposed to be scared of all this swearing?' I said.

He did a weird kind of laugh and looked at me hard, a different sort of look as if he was weighing me up. ‘How old are you?'

‘I
got stuck with that bloody bag,' I said. ‘I saw it in the kitchen after you'd gone. I didn't know what to do so I took it.'

He laughed.
Laughed
. ‘Why?' he said.

‘I don't know. Because you told me not to say you'd been. She left a note saying it was gone and I thought she'd think it was me that brought it back and then what?'

‘Fuck. So where is it?'

‘On a shelf,' I said, ‘at my place.'

‘Which is …?'

I could feel myself starting to get in a stew, partly the effect of the beer which I haven't drunk for ages. I don't drink much and I don't smoke, I don't do drugs or sex. I am a vice-free zone, me. It would be the most stupid thing to take Doggo back to the cellar and I wouldn't. He was a stranger. Even though he knew me. He could have been a killer for all I knew. But I was starting to like the cold clearness of his eyes.

Then, by coincidence, a guy called Simon wandered into the beer-garden as if he was looking for someone. Doggo shoved his shades back on fast. Simon was wearing his usual Metallica T-shirt and reeking of patchouli. I mean coincidence because I can go for weeks without talking to anyone except Mr Dickens and the ladies then all in one day there's Doggo and Simon. Simon is someone I was at school with, then I bumped into him here one day. He came to Sheffield to go to university, dropped out but stuck around. It's amazing to me that people my age are halfway to degrees already. I didn't think I'd meet anyone I knew in this city. I didn't want to meet anyone who knew me ever again. But Si was always out of it at school, and he probably never heard anything about me, if there was even anything to hear. He's that dreamy sort. Lives on his own little planet behind his long hair and thick glasses. Top of everything at school, probably got about sixteen A levels. But he doesn't do anything now except take drugs and play keyboards in an awful band called The Sticky Labels.

‘Hey, Jo,' Simon said, squinting at me through his smeary glasses, and I could have killed him. Doggo raised one eyebrow at me and I noticed a scar in it, rucked up like a bit of bad sewing.

‘Jo, hey?' he murmured.

‘Come to party?' Simon said. I nearly said I wouldn't, then I thought, well maybe if Doggo came too so I said, ‘K then. Can I bring my friend?' but Doggo shook his head. ‘Nah, you go,' he went. ‘Parties aren't my thing.'

I wanted to say that parties weren't my thing either but it was too late so I said, ‘Cool,' and stood up. I should have been glad. Now I could go and he wouldn't follow me and that would probably be it for ever. Doggo looked down into his pint. ‘You can finish mine,' I said shoving the glass towards him.

‘Cheers,' he said. ‘See you around.'

‘Cheers,' Simon said. His wreck of a Beetle was parked on the road outside all loaded up with amplifiers and Tortilla Chips. The traffic was so bad it took about half an hour to go a hundred yards. He stopped outside someone's house and went in and was in there ages, then he came out and said, ‘Sorry, you should have come in too, had to, you know, sample the goods.' He looked as if his eyes had melted.

He put a thundering tape on. ‘This is us last Saturday,' he said, thrashing his head around and beating the steering wheel like a drum. I wanted to scream. Of course I didn't want to see Doggo again, it was just that we hadn't finished the conversation. I wanted to get that conversation finished. I hate leaving ends trailing like that. It's the sort of thing that keeps me awake.

Simon stopped the car to get some vodka from Oddbins. I went in with him and just stood looking at all the bottles of chardonnay and Chablis. I thought how the party would be with everybody stoned and drunk and how out of it I'd feel like always. People are so boring when they're drunk and they think everything's funny and it's even worse when they're stoned.

I didn't get back into the car. I said, ‘Sorry. Just remembered something.'

Simon shrugged and said, ‘Oh yeah.'

I said, ‘Yeah.'

He got into the car and slammed the door. ‘Shame. But maybe see you around?' he said out of the car window. He gave me a long meaningful look – which was spoiled by the fingerprints on his lenses and the moss growing on the bridge – and drove off. I stood there for a minute trying to think what to do next. It was miles back to the pub and it was coming on to rain. I should go back to the cellar. That would be the safest thing. Doggo was sure to have gone anyway. Finding someone else to help him lie low. But I thought I might as well walk back and just see. Not as if I had anything else lined up.

It was that time in the afternoon just as it begins to get dark when things huddle together and the lit-up shops look cosy and inviting. The rain wasn't actually falling, it just hung in the air soaking everything. I only had my denim jacket and the denim sucked up the rain like a sponge. The road was bumper to bumper with buses and cars, their lights smearing runny colours on the wet road.

A crowd of students came out of the off-licence with clanking carrier bags, all laughing and practically knocking me off the path. One of them called out
Bailey's, Natasha
and they all keeled over laughing. I felt like yelling, I'll tell you where to stick your Bailey's,
Natasha
. I know it's ridiculous to feel left out when you don't even know the people you are left out of, or even want to know them.

I walked along towards the Duke's Head which is a long walk and the rims of my ears ached with cold. I felt weak and thought maybe I needed to eat. I was just going past Tesco when I thought that so I went in to get something for later on.

It was blindingly bright inside and smelt safe and bready. I picked up a basket and walked round choosing things as if I was someone else. I chose a packet of croissants and some Irish butter and French strawberry jam. Then I changed my mind and put back the croissants and got scones and a tub of clotted cream. I even looked at a piece of chicken but there was blood smudged against the cellophane, and anyway, how would I cook it? Then I lost my appetite seeing the greedy baskets of the people. All that stuff that would just go through them and be in the sewer pipes by tomorrow. I left my stupid basket on the floor and went out where at least you could breathe. It was properly dark now and the lights were a scribbly blur.