Rebecca Lim: Mercy

I shake my head. It’s all beginning to fit. Ryan checked out Lauren’s Paradise High musical connections, but I bet it never occurred to him to look at the choirmaster of Little Falls Academy.

‘It was Laurence’s idea that they take on “The Flower Duet” in the first place,’ Paul continues, looking down at his fine-boned hands. ‘I doubt Gerard, with his pedestrian tastes — popular musicals, oratory and the like,’ he practically shudders, ‘would have thought to give such challenging material to a couple of high-school kids from the sticks. Jennifer probably caught the opera bug off Laurence as a child — he’s been a friend of the family forever. If he’s somehow involved in this, it’s going to break their hearts all over again —’

‘Well, thanks for your help,’ I cut in, my mind leaping ahead to how much new stuff I have to tell Ryan.

I wonder if he’ll be pleased. It’s disgusting how much I need his approval. I hardly recognise myself, and that’s saying a lot.

‘You’ve really clarified some things for me,’ I add, shouldering Carmen’s daypack. I shoot Paul a grateful smile, prepare to leave.

‘Hey, you sure about that coffee?’ he says with easy charm. ‘No time like the present. I can call the Daleys — Louisa knows me well — run you home afterwards.

We have a lot to cover. I can start getting in touch with all the best schools, get the trustees talking about you.’ I feel that strange discomfort again, as if Carmen’s trying to tell me something.

Paul’s face is open and there’s nothing sleazy about his body language. Unlike Gerard Masson and Laurence Barry, he doesn’t even try to touch me. Or hold me to a promise. In fact, he turns and tidies up his things while he waits for my answer.

‘You have a remarkable voice, Carmen,’ he says gently. ‘You’re very young. And Fiona Fellows seems to have a … blind spot where you’re concerned, doesn’t realise the treasure she’s been sitting on. Probably literally, the way she talks about you …’ The stitch in my side flares more painfully still.

‘I don’t think you’ve been made aware of all your options,’ he continues, snapping his messenger bag shut before turning to face me. ‘I’ve got links to the best music faculties in the country. That’s all this is about. I’m not like Gerard Masson, with his stupid little crushes and extra practice sessions. I’ve been at the receiving end of that kind of thing myself, and it’s the last thing I’d do to you.

This is purely about your future.’ For a moment I feel dizzy. Should I go with him or go find Ryan? Lauren or Carmen? The disembodied pounding in my side intensifies, like something torn.

When I still don’t say anything, Paul raises an enquiring eyebrow.

I shake my head, knowing any normal girl in my position would accept in a heartbeat. But that’s just it.

I’m sorry, Carmen, but I’m batting for Lauren. And for me.

‘Uh, thanks, but I’m good,’ I reply. ‘Got things to do tonight.’

‘Raincheck?’ Paul says good-naturedly. He straightens up, stretches elegantly. ‘Though you seem like a smart girl — I’m sure you’ve figured it all out already.’

‘You bet,’ I say, giving him a stupid, girly wave over my shoulder as I leave, hoping it seems natural. Not believing he means any of it for a second.

It’s dark by the time I make my way back from the lockers and head across the Paradise High car park, pulling Carmen’s hood up to hide my profile from the breeze, and from curious eyes. I notice Paul Stenborg herding the last of his charges onto the bus bound for Port Marie. He doesn’t give me a second glance as I pass under a nearby streetlight and head for the pedestrian gate next to the school’s main driveway.

I wonder where Laurence Barry is, and what he’s doing. Tonight, I think, we’ll see what you’re hiding down there, old man.

I pull the edges of Carmen’s hood forward even more, turn up the collar on her denim jacket, and start threading my way across town; peer into the windows of the family restaurants on main street, the town’s only video rental store. And I think about Ryan constantly, even look forward to eating his mother’s strangely tasteless but immaculately presented cooking in awkward silence, because he might be at the table, close enough to touch.

If I can bring myself to do it.

I walk slowly, enjoying the faint tang of salt in the air. Even the sounds of dogs going berserk in their front yards as I pass by just makes me smile. I don’t know how long I have, and, for once, I don’t want it to end. Though it isn’t the kind of boy-meets-girl scenario anyone in their right mind would wish for. You have to take it as it comes, I guess.

And then, within sight of Ryan’s street, I feel a light pressure on the back of my neck, a small sting, and I go down.

When I wake, it’s dark. So dark at first that my eyes have trouble making out anything. I’m on my side, facing a wall. There’s a heavy weight around my neck, unaccustomed pressure.

I think maybe I fainted on the footpath and I’m having difficulties focusing, but then I’m hit by a wave of smells so strong I gag out loud. Human waste, old food, rust, bleach, mould, blood. Layered over the top of each other, the air so foetid and soupy I can taste it on my tongue.

And I’m lying on something coarse. It creaks when I shift my free arm experimentally, lift my head an inch or two. A camp bed?

There’s breathing in here, not mine. The sound of a clock ticking.

‘You okay?’ someone whispers. It’s a girl.

For a minute, I wonder if I’ve fallen out of Carmen’s life into a new one. Where am I? What am I doing here?

I try to sit up, and discover the weight around my neck is some kind of iron collar. I follow the chain with my hands to find it padlocked to a metal cleat in the wall behind me. There isn’t much room to move once I sit up. And I’ve caught sight of that faint, telltale luminosity coming off my skin, so I stay facing the wall. I don’t want to freak out whoever’s in here with me. They’ve probably got enough to deal with already.

In my head, I am able to run, in order, through the full Latin verse that Mahler set to music over one hundred years ago, and backwards through every single thing that I have done since the bus from St Joseph’s first drew up in the car park of Paradise High, and I know that Carmen Zappacosta and I are not yet done. All the details are still there. Clear and sharp and immediately accessible.

So where am I?

Ryan! I think suddenly, my breathing quickening. I was supposed to meet him. What will he be thinking?

It’s like I fell into a rabbit hole between the school and his place.

I feel for my general shape in the dark and I recognise the same denim jacket I put on this morning over the same hooded sweatshirt, Carmen’s improbably narrow, little-boy jeans. The same dirty, canvas sneakers.

Carmen’s bag is gone, along with her sparkly wallet, her mobile phone and her music, but I’ve already committed that to memory anyway and earthly possessions seem the least of my troubles. I glance quickly through the hair hanging down over my right shoulder. It, too, seems the same. Curly. Long. Dense. Almost too heavy for my head.

Through my screen of wild curls I make out two shapes in the darkness on different sides of the room, both with long, straight hair, one big, one tiny, like a bird girl.

The taller one is visibly trembling, as if she is dangerously close to hypothermia. The small one is so still she might be made of stone. Though it should be too dark for me to make out their features, I can see them as clearly as if the sun is shining overhead and I know who they are. And I can make out the dimensions of the room, too, which is bare save for a staircase in the far corner. Like the staircase in Ryan’s dream.