Doll. Nicky Singer

and Charlie are coming towards the bus stop.

      And also panpipes. Inti, who took me on his lap when my mother was busy and told me the names of the Siku, the Latin pipes. Whispered Antara and Malta. Showed me how to fill the bamboo reeds with tiny green seeds. “You have to tune pipes,” Inti said, “in winter. When the pipes are cold, they play too low.”

      Mercy and Charlie are going home. They are going by bus. They are taking the bus from this stop.

      “Taquiri de Jaine,” says Gerda.

      The rhythm of the carnival, Inti’s favourite tune. I try to listen to it. But all I hear is the flip of two plastic seats. Mercy and Charlie sit down. And there I am, in the corner, trapped.

      Mercy and Charlie are animated, they talk loudly, excitedly. They are discussing “Celeb Night”. It’s a charity affair, in aid of the NSPCC, and Mercy’s mother is one of the organisers. Come dressed as your favourite star, that was the original idea. It was Mrs Van Day who introduced the idea of a talent contest. “Like they do on the television. Aspiring bands. Singers. A pound if you want to cast a vote.”

      Everyone’s going. Mrs Van Day’s promised the press, scouts from the music business. Everyone that is, except me. Why would I want to?

      Mercy is going as Britney Spears. She has the body, the smile, the eyes and she’s bought the hair extensions. Now all she needs is a dress.

      “Well, actually,” she’s telling Charlie, “I’m going to have trousers and a top. Cindy, you know my mother’s friend Cindy? The dressmaker?”

      “Your mother!” exclaims Charlie. “If she wanted a photographer from Hello! she’d have one for a friend.”

      “Yeah, well. Cindy’s copying something from a magazine. Something Britney actually wore. It’s gauze mostly. Blue gauze. It’s going to be amazing. Just you wait. Got a fitting on Sunday. Got to look my best, you see.” Mercy pauses. “Jan’s coming.”

      “Jan?” queries Charlie.

      “Yes. It’s spelt with a J but pronounced like a Y. Yan. Yan Spark. And that’s his real name, not a stage name. How cool is that? Ready-made star quality. But he’s the strong silent type, you see. So I’m going to need more than my sparkling conversation.”

      “Is he going in for the contest?”

      “Of course. He’s Mr Guitar, apparently. Plays brilliantly, according to his mother who told my mother. But forget guitar, you should take a look at his face. Is he gorgeous or what? His features, Charlie, they’re kind of sculpted. Like he was some Inca god. And his eyes, they’re so dark, so deep you feel like you are looking down a tunnel right into his soul. And …”

      And then, with her boy, comes my boy. The one up at the bridge. I’ve felt him tracking me all day, a hound at my back. But I haven’t turned round once to look. Because of his eyes. They are not tunnels you can look down, they are fierce, dark drills. They bore into you. Make you feel that, with a glance, he could pierce your heart right through. Know things about you that even you don’t know.

      But I could have stood that. Wouldn’t have cared, except that, at the bridge, he turned those eyes on Gerda. Stared like he could see right through her, too. My Gerda. And I couldn’t bear that again. Stared and stared, as if he had the right. As if he knew something.

      I cannot stop my hand, it’s reaching into my pocket. I have to touch her. Put my fingers on Gerda’s warm, white skin. My breath is slamming against the glass of the bus shelter.

       This is for you, beloved.

      But somehow I fumble. A bus is coming and someone is barging and pushing. It’s an old lady and the handle of her shopping bag is snagged round my arm. I cry out, so as not to drop Gerda. The old woman pulls against me, glares, curses and butts her way on to the bus. I’m still spinning when Mercy says:

      “Well, well. If it isn’t Tilly M.”

      I come to a stop. We are face to face. Mercy is not getting on the bus. Not this bus anyway.

      “Did you bunk off school today to assault senior citizens?”

      Charlie sniggers.

      I work at composing my features, pay attention to keeping my hand so still she will not see what is clutched at my heart.

      “What’s that then?” she asks.

      Did I look at Gerda? Did I?

      “It’s one of those creepy things her mum makes,” Charlie says.

      “Oh,” says Mercy. “A little dolly. Let’s see then.”

      A second bus arrives. This has to be their bus. People shuffle and move. Mercy and Charlie don’t move. They stay. The bus drives away. I could run. I could run again. If Mercy touches the doll … If she brings her hand anywhere near …

      “I said, let’s see.”

      “No!” I jam Gerda into my pocket. And then: “Nothing to see.”

      “How old are you, Tilly?” Mercy laughs. And I remember how that laugh used to be full of kindness. How it seemed “quaint” to her that I came to school dressed in non-regulation cardigans and black gym shoes when everyone else had trainers. Mercy was so sure of herself that difference didn’t seem to matter. How I adored her for that. And how bereft I was the day it stopped. The day she came to my house.

      “I said, how old are you, Make-Believe?”

      Make-Believe. That was my fault too, of course. I wouldn’t tell them my middle name. Mercedes Alice Van Day. Charlotte Elizabeth Ferguson. Matilda M. Weaver. They all had middle names but I didn’t, or not one I was prepared to admit to. Was I afraid they would trample my soul? No. I never shared the secret with Mercy, not even when we were at our closest. The reason was – shame. And, give credit where credit’s due, Mercy never pushed me. Other people did. Small enquiries, a few tentative jokes. But I never cared. What were a few jokes compared with the truth?

      It was Charlie who wouldn’t let go. It was how she wormed into Mercy’s affection. How she pushed me away.

      “What does the M stand for, Weaver? Go on, tell us. What’s the big deal? Friends are meant to share. Anyway, it’s only a game.”

      A Rumpelstiltskin game. What is Tilly’s middle name? Guess, guess, have a good laugh. Tilly Moron, Tilly Misbegotten, Tilly Misery-Guts, Tilly Misfit, Tilly Misnomer and then Tilly Make-Believe.

      It was Mercy who coined it.

      “Make-Believe,” she said, “it’s Make-Believe, isn’t it?”

      And I said yes. To stop the game, but also because it didn’t seem that unkind. There was something innocent in it, something creative, it contained the dust of fairies and of angels. And of course, after that day at my mother’s house, she’d called me many worse things, bitter things. So “Make-Believe” sounded, in my ears, like reconciliation. And I wanted her friendship so much. I wanted her back. How she was, how it all was, before …

      “I’m waiting,” says Mercy and she stands, her bus seat twanging upright behind her.

      Nothing can happen. This is a bus shelter. A shelter. There are other people here. A second old lady, looking the other way. A mother, fussing over a toddler. Or maybe the toddler’s fussing.

      “Are you deaf? As well as infantile? Bet you still have Barbies too.”

      “Walk away,” says Gerda.

      “I saw you this morning,” Charlie says then. “In Tisbury Road.”

      But she can’t have. I looked up and down the street. I looked for her bus.

      “That’s where your grandma drops you, when your mum—”

      Mum. Not even I called my mother “Mum”. I called her “Mama” because this – along