Face (14 page)

Across the field I see MonkeyFace Adams do the gesture for
Seven to put her phone away, right now. My phone beeps a message. Seven says:

Everybody’s saying you needed to get hit by that ball- for a dent in the other side of your face. Get rid of it!!
!! S xxx

I stuff my phone back in my pocket
and hold my face. Keep it together.

On the
next strike the ball hits the ground and rolls straight out onto the running track as Cliff approaches. Surely he has seen the ball? Cliff flies over the still-moving ball without breaking his stride. His failure to return it has drawn attention; now the whole class sees the masked boy circling us, the boy running in a fedora. Everybody knows by now, of course they do- because Seven knows. The new boy is a Natural. I break into a light jog and retrieve the ball from the tracks. Beijing who is now bowling, runs forward to collect it.

Day is the last up to bat, he takes a swipe and misses. (If it isn’t happening onscreen it isn’t connecting with Day.) MonkeyFace Adams announces the final score, we might have
won; Beijing does a little leap and some of the sporty types punch the air. Cliff is almost out of time, and I’m in no rush to join the others. My face is throbbing.

Frida
y Sports is over for another week, but only a couple of kids head straight off- even to get out of this steady rain. A line of vivid eyes are following the Natural as he moves steadily away from me, towards the finishing line. Seven breaks from the crowd and makes for the finishing line, Day follows. He whispers something to make her display straight whites just as Cliff comes into the final bend. About fifteen kids swarm over the finishing line but Cliff’s pace only slows in the final ten metres. Seven steps into his path with a determined face. Now he will be forced to act.

Day takes a
playful swipe at the fedora from behind and Cliff ducks, clutching it to his scalp. Day says something in a normal voice that I can’t quite catch, even though I am closing in fast. Cliff stumbles; he rights himself, face-to-face with Seven on the other side of the finishing line. They exchange tense words. Cliff turns away and Seven goes for the fedora from behind- one last lunge, but this time Cliff is ready, he whips around and catches hold of her forearm.

             
“Hands off the hat.”

Seven jerks free
, her face twisting into outrage. Cliff takes an obvious detour around Seven and into the group, all the kids follow him with their shining eyes. Nobody speaks. (I’m beginning to understand the scarf now, it buys the silence.) Cliff leads with his right shoulder taking care to avoid accidental contact with anyone. Suddenly Cliff is flat on his face so hard he has no time to break his fall. He scrambles up and the crowd parts as one, concealing the culprit. Cliff’s hands cup over where his nose should be and I wait transfixed, for the blood to come seeping through the fabric.

Chapter Seventeen

             
“True.”

I’m standing at Cliff’s front door.
Cliff straightens, a double jerk. He has on a different scarf from earlier, this one is turquoise, with no blood. His eyes could be anything, I’m stuck at turquoise. Higher up the fedora is gone, and I find I can’t look at that missing part of him.

             
“Hang on.” Cliff says, and walks off.

I a
ct equally casual by examining the white exterior of his house. Normal paint, a normal front door, glossy black with a confidently over-sized silver eighteen.

Cliff returns tugging
the fedora into place. It isn’t much of a disguise. Somebody should tell him.

             
“I just came to check if you were okay.” I say all pre-rehearsed, to where his jaw-line should be.

             
“I guess,” he puts a hand on the back of his neck, exhales. “I’ve had to deal with all that crap before, at my last school.”

             
“At least you kept your hat.”

“Yeah
.”

“I think
Day was just curious y’know...”

“
Day was alright. It was Seven.”

“She...she doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time.
Motor-mouth.”

             
“Talking without thinking is a dangerous habit.”

I sense that I’m being processed
all over again.

             
“Why are you friends with her, exactly?” Cliff says

I wish I’d thought this conversation through
in advance, all the avenues. A sizeable shadow of someone moves across his front window. Are we being watched? Cliff remains on the doorstep where he’s taller than ever and I’m forced to confide in his school sports shirt, another soft surface concealing him.

             
“The thing with Seven is, she had a bad experience with this guy.” I’m aware of my voice going all perky. “She was fourteen, she got to messaging this guy, she used to pretend she was older. Stupid stuff. She was being an idiot. Anyway, he phoned her and it turned out he was a Nat..um, an Original-”

             
“That was the bad experience?” Cliff’s voice is abnormally steady.

             
“He turned out to be some sort of creepy pervert! You know, saying weird things, messaging her all the time. He wouldn’t leave her alone. He started hanging around outside her house and in the end her parents had to call the police.”

I’m staring at the hand on
his hip, the sunken fingernails; how come that story sounded so different out of Seven’s mouth and why did I even come here? Seven still has nightmares about the man with the chequered scarf, the moment he ripped it away.

“S
even thinks scarves are for hiding your intentions.” I mutter.

“On the basis of one dodgy guy?
”

One man using his
face all wrong. I dart across the surface of Cliff’s eyes, get nothing, no invitation to expand on my story. His shoulders are squared at me.

“Kind of puts you in an awkward position, doesn’t it?” Cliff continues, “having to justify your friend’s behaviour to a Natural.”

“Not justify.”

How has it become my fault that Seven got properly stalked? Cliff frowns, framed by the rim of the hat. ‘Repulsive Cliff’ with jagged eyebrows.

“Look, what I’m trying to say is, her reasoning gets all twisted up,” I continue carefully. “That’s why it happened today...whatever it was she said...”

“She t
old me to show myself; I declined.”

The
open doorway gapes behind him, a dimly-lit hall and a pale side door that clicks quietly shut. I totally feel sorry for him, the whole situation with his face and his deluded parents and everything, but none of this is my fault.

             
“You’re not like her.” Cliff adds.

I
take an urgent look around us, and find that the houses on his side of the street are the usual late summer colours, harmonious, no sign of a street show-off. A richly layered aroma of garlic and herbs comes from his house to scent the air. Proper home-cooking reminds me of Dad.

             
“Come to the cinema with me on Friday.” Cliff says in a rush. “Rex Rayne: The Cure.”

             
“I can’t.”

Curse that hidden face, I didn’t see that coming
. He stuffs his fists in his jeans pockets.

             
“Because of this?” Cliff points at the scarf.

He’s staring again, making this harder.

              “I’m going already- with someone else.”

             
“The lovely Seven, I assume?”

I make non-
committal noises. Cliff steps back into his hallway and grips the edge of the door. It’s over at last. My ordeal.

             
“Go on, I dare you...” he adds. “You’ve got to be a tiny bit curious, right?”

He gestures
theatrically, sweeping a hand from his face right down his body. I follow the hand. Struggle to get my own face under control. I swear he’s laughing at me under there. My reply tumbles out:

“Maybe o
kay yes but we have to go tomorrow not Friday because the film opens tomorrow and I have to warn you that I am probably in love with Dollar.”

“Probably in love?”
The soft voice makes its return.

Suddenly there are
other people in the street: small boys shouting a battle scene, two cars pass in rapid succession, birds sail overhead and the day accelerates like we stepped into a Rex Rayne action movie. Accelerating towards tomorrow night. A film means two hours in the dark with Cliff. What have I done?

             
“I’m in love with him too!” A male voice booms from the house. “I’ll be watching from this very sofa tomorrow, Special Preview release time is 8pm girls and boys!”

Cliff’
s twists around, the pale inner door is now ajar, about the width of a face. But there is nothing to see, only that voice that carries up the street.

             
“True doesn’t want to be distracted by your ugly mug, Dad. We’re going out.”

             
Chapter Eighteen

You and your bad decisions.
Rex Rayne’s best line runs through my head, on repeat.

Because Cliff’s
twenty minutes late, I’m nearly at the front of the queue and I don’t know whether to buy the tickets and trust he’ll turn up. The girl in front of me swivels and here I am, so obviously on my own, so I stare her out with an added flash of the Smile Blocker. She’s hanging off the arm of some guy. A lantern jaw beside a tapered chin. The girl has the jaw, strong face-strong mind, the boy is delicate, IntuitiveCreative. Turned away they display the usual neat profiles, advancing and retreating features, perfectly weighted both individually and as a pair. Nothing to hold my interest, so I tune into the animated gossip behind me- it’s impossible not to- sounds like five girls minimum on Dollar’s shock announcement:
How far will he go? Just one feature- like the Mavericks. I bet the eyes.
Opinions barked like a pack of dogs released into the fresh air.

Enhanced eyes surround me, exclusive gazes that scan and retreat
into their groups. The queue is moving fast. I wish I was the sort of person who could turn and walk away, like Dad. Put my needs first. But I’ve got something to prove to Cliff, something about myself. Problem is, I’m not convinced that a darkened room, an enclosed space for just the two of us, is the thing I mean to say.

             
The couple ahead of me stride into the darkness, fingers interlocked. I make a decision to step out of the queue and the five girls surge ahead, their loudest looks me up and down, her Merlot-mouth turning away. They all have it, the new down-turned Merlot mouth. It’s less ‘save me’ on a whole team of screechers. The petite one throws her head back and belly laughs, revealing a mouthful of straight whites. I examine the surface of the solar pavement. Behind me the voices peak and slide, each laugh a confirmation that I have been stood up. Cliff comes out of nowhere, a hand on my back. Instinctively I step into the road.

             
“Come on, we’ll miss the beginning.” He says

He
strides to the end of the queue, a shorter distance now, and I have to jog to catch him up. The scarf tied behind his head is black as the fedora, he doesn’t pavement gaze but marches fast, and gets double-takes. He fidgets as we wait; he chews a nail and exudes a need to get inside. No apology has been offered and we are the last in. He buys two tickets with his card.

             
“I’ll put the money back on your card...” I say

I offer
up my cash card, move it towards his for the touch-transfer. Our knuckles grate. Cliff jerks his cash card away. The transfer has not taken place.

             
“Let’s get inside.” Cliff says.

He
takes the stairs two at a time, pausing at the top.

             
“Sort it out later if you want. Come on.”

W
e’re through the doors and Cliff is slipping sideways through the group of Merlot-mouths, without contact. The surfaces of the reclining seats slide with the shadows; a car pulls out of the screen that curves over our heads to perform a sleek turn and a smooth-voiced lady is talking about the car like she’s hungry. The cinema is packed, Cliff is instantly swallowed up. Now I’m looking for his scarf, the black fabric and black fedora, a face in shadow, twice hidden. The Merlot girls push past me. I wander down the centre aisle, squinting at upturned bare faces shining in colours from the screen. If he’s going to be like this, then he may as well have come on his own.