Nobody Real. Steven Camden

the first time she’s ever done it and it’s not the reserved, polite embrace I’d imagined it would be. It’s the kind of firm, animal hug of an older sister who’s going travelling and knows you’ll be getting all the grief she would have got from your parents.

      When she lets me go, we’re both on the verge of tears.

      “I’m sorry, Marcie.” She picks up her bag and wipes her nose with her sleeve. “Oh, a guy phoned up and ordered a couple of books this morning. I don’t remember his name, but it’s on the system. He’s picking them up on Tuesday.”

      “OK.”

      Diane looks at the doorway to the stairs.

      “Look after him, OK? He needs you.”

      And there’s another space for me to speak. But I don’t.

      I don’t say, Him? I can’t even look after myself, Diane.

      I don’t say, My head is playing games with me right now.

      I don’t say, Please stay. He’s been so much calmer since you’ve been around.

      I don’t say anything. I don’t even nod.

      I just watch her leave and, as the shop door closes, I catch the broken look in the old man’s eyes, like a young Bruce Wayne in that Gotham City alleyway.

      Quiet with Dad has its own quality.

      It’s not like the painful tumbleweed wasteland it is with other people.

      Growing up, I got used to him wandering off with a thought midway through a sentence and not looking back. Some new story idea that immediately superseded anything in the real world.

      Sitting quietly with him while he stared out of the window, chewing over an idea, was as normal as watching TV.

      This is different.

      Watching him from the sofa, chin resting on his hands, he doesn’t seem like he’s lost in some plot point or character he’s trying to grow. This feels like the stilted silence of a man digesting what has just happened. That thick silence that leaks out through the cracks of a mistake.

      If there’s one thing I think I’ve learned in my nearly eighteen years on this planet, it’s that there is no situation the wrong words can’t make worse. So I just sit with that double negative in my lap, staring across at the dormant fireplace.

      Resting on the mantelpiece, in a cheap glass frame, is an A3, eight-panel, black-and-white comic strip. The first three panels are a creature that might be a bear, looking left, then right, then up. In the fourth panel, the bear looks at us and a speech bubble says, “Where Squirrel?” Five is him shrugging, six is him standing up, and in seven he turns around and half a squirrel is sticking out of his bum. Panel eight says “Lost Squirrel” by Marcie Baker. Age 7.

      I laugh without meaning to. Dad looks over.

      “Sorry,” I say, covering my mouth.

      “Don’t be,” he says, and the ten-ton mood lifts just enough for me to slip a question underneath.

      “Will you call her?”

      Dad looks at his hands.

      “Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”

      “Dad?”

      “Orwell. She’s made her choice, Mars.”

      “What, and that’s it?”

      He shrugs. “It is what it is.”

      He glances at me, then goes back to the window. I swallow my frustration and just watch as the invisible elephant clomps into the room and plonks itself down in front of the fire, the word “MUM” painted in dripping red letters on its arse. I could say something. I want to.

      But every sentence I run through in my head feels pointless.

      Watching Dad like this, it’s easy to remember he’s a younger brother. The kind of boy who’d get escorted around by an older sister like Coral, taken to the playground, told not to wander off and pretty much left to his own devices. A boy who’d happily spend an entire afternoon inspecting leaves.

      “Circles, Mars,” he says after a while, stubbing out his cigarette. “What has happened will happen again.”

      “Bullshit.”

      You’re standing where the elephant was, bear arms folded in front of the fireplace.

      “Tell him that’s bullshit.” You’re gesturing at me like a sports coach giving a pep talk.

      “Go on.”

      I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut, willing you away.

      “I’m not leaving till you tell him,” you say.

      I open my eyes.

      “Do it.”

      “Dad—”

      “Amor fati, Mars,” says Dad, starting on a new roll-up. “Amor fati.”

      “Do it, Marcie!”

      “Bullshit!”

      You smile. I stand up. Dad drops his tobacco.

      “The pitiful fortune-cookie lines I can just about handle, Dad, but when you start with the Latin … Get up.”

      “What?”

      “Tell him again.”

      “I said, get up! Get your shoes on: we’re going out.”

      I walk over to him. Dad looks almost scared.

      “I don’t want to go out, Mars.”

      “I don’t care what you want, Karl, we need air. This place stinks of self-pity.”

      I take his jacket off the hook next to the kitchen door and throw it at him.

      “Yes!” you say. “Go on, Marcie!”

      And I feel good. Better than good. I look at Dad.

      “Come on. We’re leaving.”

       You’re eleven.

       It’s the night before secondary school starts.

       You’re sitting at Coral’s kitchen table with her and Dad. He’s now living in a bedsit nearer town. Coral’s made curried goat and rice and peas. Dad compliments the food for the twenty-fifth time. Coral ignores him. She looks at you and asks what you have to say. The windows are all open, but there’s still the faint smell of burnt polyester from the sofa.

       You picture the green flames dancing as the paisley cushions ignited.

       The light flickering in my smile.

       You say you’re sorry. That you were conducting a science experiment and it got out of control.

       Coral stares at Dad.

       Dad stares at his food.

       You slide your hand into your pocket under the table and feel the smooth envelope, its edges worn almost furry from being held.

       Coral tells your dad to say something. That it’s getting ridiculous.

      Your dad forces a smile and says a movie studio offered to buy the rights to Dark Corners. Coral asks how much. Dad says it doesn’t matter: a book is a book, and a film is a film, they’re not having it.