‘We’ve been best mates since primary school,’ Ed says, resting his feet on the seat next to me.
‘But is he a good guy to his girlfriends?’
‘He hasn’t had a girlfriend for a while, not since Emma.’
‘The girl with the big . . . brains?’
He smiles slowly. ‘Uh-huh. The girl with the big . . . brains. She was smart and funny too, by the way. And tough. I liked her.’
‘So why’d they break up?’
‘Don’t know.’
He knows, he’s not saying, which is fair enough. But I’ve left Jazz on a dark dance floor with this guy and I want to know if she might need a heads-up about something. Jazz would like to think she’s tough but I’ve seen her crying during
The Notebook
. ‘So Leo just sleeps with girls since Emma?’
‘He doesn’t lie to them. Jazz’ll know the score before anything happens.’
‘
If
anything happens,’ I say, because I don’t want him or Leo thinking that Jazz has made a decision. I don’t think she has, but maybe I’m wrong and either way I don’t want Leo taking her for granted.
‘Okay,’ Ed says. ‘
If
anything happens she’ll know the score.’
I imagine that moment and how Jazz will feel. Nervous and excited. Hopeful that maybe she’ll spend the next day and the day after that with Leo. Days falling like dominoes in her head. And then he’ll tell her the score. ‘That’s awful,’ I say.
‘Being honest with her is awful?’
‘Being honest with her
then
is awful. He should be honest from the second he starts flirting with her.’
‘What, hi my name’s Leo and by the way I’m only out for sex?’
‘Is that all he’s out for?’
‘I didn’t say that. I was making up a situation. It looked to me as if he liked her.’
I pull out my phone.
‘You should leave them alone. Leo’s a better guy than everyone thinks.’
‘He doesn’t look like that to me,’ I say, and dial her number.
‘Lucy,’ she shouts. ‘This party is unreal.’ The phone fills with music and I know she’s holding it out so I can hear. ‘Finally, my life is exciting. How’s it going with Ed?’
‘It’s okay. Listen, Jazz, be careful. With Leo.’
‘Why? What do you know?’
‘Nothing. I left you there, that’s all. The plan was to stick together.’
‘Stop worrying about me. Have some fun.’ She blows what I think is a kiss into the phone and hangs up.
Ed gives me some eyebrow action. ‘You’re mad again,’ I say.
‘I’m not blocking your airway.’
‘You don’t know what it’ll be like for Jazz. I know what it’s like to feel disappointed, after the blood and broken bones on our . . . whatever it was that we had.’
He gives me loads of eyebrow action.
‘Okay, it was your blood. You were probably a little disappointed too.’
‘You think?’
The train stops at our station and we stand at the doors but they don’t open. The driver announces over the speaker that there’s been a slight technical problem but we’ll be on our way soon. I imagine him in the control room pressing all the buttons but nothing works to let us out. Press more buttons, I think as Ed and I stare at the doors. This could get awkward.
Through the glass I see part of the Shadow piece hovering in the sky. ‘Ironic,’ I say, not really expecting Ed to get it.
‘What, that we’re locked in a train, staring through the glass at a painted sky, or because we’re back where we started?’
‘Well, both I guess.’
‘Just because I don’t know who Atticus Finch is doesn’t mean I’m stupid.’
‘I never said you were.’
‘I know what irony is.’
‘Okay.’
‘Why’d you say yes to a movie if you didn’t even like me?’
‘It was an accident.’
‘You said yes by accident?’
‘No. I said yes on purpose. The other thing was an accident.’
‘You didn’t even put me in a taxi. Do you have any idea how much a broken nose hurts?’
‘You are still mad at me.’
‘Of course I’m still mad. You never even called to see how I was. After accidents like that, people usually call to apologise.’
‘That’s a really good point,’ I say, because it is a really good point. How could I not even think of calling? How did I not put him in a taxi? I could have called Dad. ‘I didn’t even think of calling.’ I pull back from a severe eyebrow raise. ‘I did vomit, though,’ I tell him. ‘Which I think shows some real remorse.’
He drops his eyebrows. ‘You vomited?’
‘When I got home. Barely made the sink. I had to throw out my clothes.’
Again we have a silence that only astronauts can fully understand.
Then Ed says, ‘That’s a shame. I really liked that t-shirt you were wearing.’
‘You remember my t-shirt?’
‘Up until the anaesthetic I remember everything.’
‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘Sorry that I broke your nose and really sorry that I didn’t put you in a taxi.’
‘And sorry that you didn’t call to check on me.’
‘I’m sorry about that, too.’
He leans on the wall of the carriage and folds his arms. ‘I’m sorry I grabbed your arse.’
I can’t resist. ‘What’s wrong with my arse, mister?’
Eyebrows up. Doors open. ‘Got it,’ the driver says over the intercom.
‘If Jazz is anything like you, Leo’s the one with something to worry about,’ he says, and lets me walk first into the night, which, I have to say, I kind of like.
Dance floor
11.45 pm
Maybe
Maybe you and me
Maybe you and me
Maybe you and me
But probably not
Maybe I hang out with you longer than a night
Maybe I hang out with you longer than a night
Maybe I hang out with you longer than a night
But probably not
Maybe I forget her
Maybe I forget her
Maybe I forget her
But probably not
‘I vomited,’ Lucy says, and I feel jaunty. Bert taught me that word and I like it. After my first date with Beth he drew a picture series of me being jaunty. He flicked through the pages and this little guy did a few side kicks in the air.
‘I felt like that after Valerie and I started dating,’ he said.
I feel like doing some kicks tonight. Lucy liked me enough to vomit. ‘I’m sorry I grabbed your arse,’ I tell her.
‘What’s wrong with my arse, mister?’ she asks and smiles with that extra beat and I see that spot on her neck and I have an almost unstoppable urge to touch it. I don’t, though, because the definition of crazy is doing something close to the same thing twice and expecting a different end.
You feel jaunty, so settle for that. Don’t go asking for more. Enjoy walking next to her. Enjoy showing her your pieces and hearing what she thinks about them. Enjoy saying goodbye before you rob her school. That last thought unjaunties me a little. Bert’s face floats in my head and he tells me that thieves don’t deserve jauntiness.
‘So we’re even,’ Lucy says on the way to Barry’s.
‘We can never be even,’ I tell her. ‘But we’re evener.’
We walk further and the people have thinned out in the streets so there’s only a scattering left. Every now and then we step over a guy still going nowhere from the night before, determined to get there tonight. Leo never passes one of those drunk guys without giving him money, even if he only has a few coins in his pockets. He hasn’t gone home since the day he moved in with his gran. ‘Nothing to go back for,’ he says, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I figure the few coins he flicks at the drunks in the street are his way of saying sorry he can’t deal with the zoo inside his house.
‘You ever notice how the night changes shape?’ I ask Lucy. ‘It starts out thick with people and sound and then gets thinner till in the middle there’s almost nothing in it but you.’
‘Are you often awake in the middle of the night?’ she asks.
‘Not often. I start work early.’ Or I did. Since I lost my job over a month ago, the urge to paint’s been hitting me hard and I go half the night sometimes. I sleep late and spend the afternoons in the free galleries in the city. Bert and me used to go to them on Saturday mornings sometimes. We’d take our books and make notes about things we liked. We’d eat lunch in the park and then I’d go home. I never got sick of spending time with Bert. Never got sick of watching his old hands draw the world.
‘My bike’s still there,’ she says, pointing ahead. ‘You never know in this place. What you leave isn’t always there when you come back.’
Her bike lock is the size of a chihuahua I had once and I tell her it’s unlikely someone’s carrying around boltcutters that big.
‘I like my bike. I want it to be safe,’ she says and buckles her helmet, which is blue with a lightning bolt on the side. I think about a piece I could do. A girl shaped like lightning in the sky and a guy on the ground with a lightning rod trying to catch her.
‘You like that helmet, too?’ I ask.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my helmet, mister.’ She points at two big steps on the back of her bike.
‘You have training . . . somethings? What are they?’
‘Feet platforms. My dad made them for my cousin to use. Step on.’
‘But I don’t have a cool helmet with a lightning bolt.’
‘Your head is hard enough.’
‘Funny.’ I steady myself without touching her.
‘To the train yard,’ she says and pushes on the pedals. We don’t move.
‘Anytime,’ I tell her. ‘You know. While we’re still young and beautiful.’
She pushes hard again. ‘You weigh a tonne.’
‘You need me to drive?’
‘I need momentum, that’s all. Get off.’
‘You’re very charming, but you must hear that all the time.’
‘Get
off
,’ she says. ‘I’ll ride and you run after me and jump on the bike.’
‘Do many guys ask you out twice?’
‘Only the ones with balls.’
I step off. She pedals away and I chase her tail-lights down the street. ‘Hurry,’ she yells. ‘I can’t slow down or I’ll lose momentum.’
I run as hard as I can till I almost touch the back of her bike. ‘I’m not Superman,’ I call. She slows a bit and I do a huge leap and hit the concrete. It goes like that for a while, me running and leaping and falling and wondering how doing this proves I have balls. ‘It’s not possible to get on this way.’
‘Try one more time,’ she says.
Once more and then that’s it, I think, and run, yelling all the way like that’ll give me speed. She slows a little and I leap and land with one foot on, which is a miracle. ‘A miracle,’ I shout.
‘Finally,’ she says.
‘You know, Leo’s brother’s hooking me up with a car when I get my licence. I’m making you get in while it’s still moving.’
‘You’ll drive me places?’
‘If your aerobic fitness is up to it, sure I’ll drive you places. Take a left here. We’re going to Fraser Street, you know where that is?’
‘Behind the school?’
‘Uh-huh.’ I close my eyes and let the movement take me somewhere else, let walls drop into my head the way they do when I feel space around me. Maybe later I’ll go somewhere and paint the dark that’s sitting behind my eyes. A dark filled with the sounds of the city and her breathing. ‘This isn’t bad,’ I say. ‘Feels like we’re not really here.’
‘Don’t get too comfortable. You have to get off and walk if there are hills.’
‘There aren’t hills. I’m not taking you anywhere that’s hard to get to.’ All my good stuff is hidden. Down on the docks and inside old factories. ‘I’m taking you to Shadow walls where no effort is required. Here,’ I say.
We get off and she clicks shut her chihuahua lock and we walk into the train yard. We wander through dead carriages sprayed with Leo’s and my late-night thoughts. Polar bears holding matches to glaciers, painted after Leo heard some politician say people didn’t cause global warming.
You’re right. It’s the animals.
The earth wearing a hand-knitted jumper and a beanie.
Maybe this is why it’s getting warmer?
Leo had a bit of a run about the environment and I didn’t mind doing the pictures for him. I understand some of his stuff and some I don’t. We walk past one of his poems,
The ticking inside
, and Lucy stops long enough to read it. I feel like she’s walking through my head and it feels strange, like we’re in a dream I’m having.
‘Sometimes he’s like a poet,’ Lucy says. ‘And sometimes he’s more like a social commentator.’
‘I guess.’ I never really thought about it. Lately he’s been writing longer stuff but I figure he’s just got more to say. Some days Leo wants to talk about what he’s heard in his Philosophy class and some days he wants to sit quietly and eat a sausage roll.