Steven Camden - Nobody Real

Sit up.

“It’s not that, Blue. I have to put in braces on the side walls, so I don’t damage the buildings either side.”

“But it’s the weekend.”

“I know. The removals guys have to come first thing Monday and, if the braces aren’t in place, we can’t do the clearing.”

She’s scowling.

“I’m serious,” I say. “It’s not like a castle. It’s not all just mindless smashing up, you know. There is some skill involved. I’m not just some animal.”

She smiles and touches my shoulder again. “I like you, animal.”

I am a liar. Say something true.

“I’ll cook later; you could come over?”

“You’ll cook?”

“OK, I’ll get Rocco’s. How long since we had chicken?”

“Too long.”

“Exactly. Say, nine?”

She nods. I get out of bed, part of me wishing I could step out of my skin and leave the me she wants there with her.

She deserves more than I really am.

Dad looks like a scarecrow trying to defuse a nuclear bomb.

I think I’ve seen him behind the till maybe three times since he bought the place.

Customer service isn’t his calling.

A woman and her little nursery-age daughter are in the children’s corner, looking at picture books. The old crooked man who’s in love with Diane is browsing classic fiction.

“Marcie, thank God!” says Dad, holding his head. “This thing hates me.”

I step behind the counter. The old monitor screen is showing “system error”.

“What did you do, Dad?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. It’s this piece of shit!”

He slaps the side of the monitor. The woman in the children’s corner gives us evils.

“Easy, old man. It’s not a problem. I showed you, remember?”

“I remember a simpler time, Mars, that’s what I remember.”

I push the keys and the blue stock search screen comes back up. Dad groans. He’s still in his dressing gown. “You’re a genius.”

“No, Dad, you’re a caveman. Why are you even down here? Where’s Diane?”

On cue, something bangs upstairs. Dad points up.

“Yeah. I’d better … You’re good here, right?”

I nod. He goes upstairs.

The little girl lifts up the Marvel Encyclopedia . “Look, Mummy!”

The woman shakes her head. “No, Rosie, I said a proper book.”

The girl puts the book back, frowning as she drags her feet over to where her mum is crouched in front of books for toddlers. Don’t worry, Rosie, superheroes will still be there when you’re old enough to choose.

Muffled shouts bleed through the ceiling. Another lovers’ tiff.

I load up Roy Ayers on to the turntable and sit on the stool behind the till. Crackle. Chants. Bongos. I turn it down to background level. Saturdays are the best days. Full of possibility.

Blank pages, waiting to be scribbled on.

I imagine the counter is the control desk for a spaceship, the two front windows either side of the door my navigation screens. I’m the captain. I could go anywhere in the universe.

Where am I going? My mind’s blank. Just a month ago my head was so full of stuff.

Stanley Milgram’s (1963) obedience experiments. John Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis. The Loop of Henle and kidney function. The ambiguity of Iago’s motivations.

All of it crammed in, facts and quotes and dates, loaded up, ready to regurgitate under exam conditions. Where is it all now? In a box tucked on to a shelf in the warehouse of my brain? Saved to the cloud?

I close my eyes and picture a pile of rubbish as big as a house, rough and jagged edges sticking out, but, instead of broken pieces of furniture and antique crap, it’s just words, different-sized letters and sentences piled up on top of each other, a massive dark scribbled jumble of everything I’ve ever been taught. And I’m standing on the pavement in front of it, my hand reaching out, holding a lighter.

Think of Cara. Want to tell her. I reach into my bag for my phone and find my sketchbook. I don’t remember putting it in here. Haven’t taken it out of the house for ages.

You.

You put it in.

Someone stomps down the stairs and the moment is gone.

Diane’s carrying a large navy-blue backpacker rucksack. Her face is flushed thunder.

I push my sketchbook out of sight.

The old man turns round, smiling, like he senses her presence. He’s wearing a full suit, eager to impress. Diane doesn’t even acknowledge him as she stomps over to me and drops her bag.

“Excuse me, Marcie,” she says, taking the red strongbox from the shelf under the till.

“Are you OK?” I say, like a child.

She bangs the box on to the counter, then tips over the old mug that holds the pens, fishing the key from a puddle of paperclips and drawing pins.

“I’m going to stay with my parents.”

She opens the box and counts out a stack of notes. “Just what I’m owed,” she says. I nod.

She gives me a sympathetic look, blows hair from her face, then waves her hand around like an untied balloon that’s just been let go.

“Alton Towers has got nothing on that man, Marcie.”

I glance at the door to upstairs. Why isn’t he trying to stop her leaving? Did he give up?

“A rollercoaster’s only fun because you know you’re getting off at some point, right?” she says, folding the notes into her hip pocket. “Nobody wants a rollercoaster forever.”

I’m supposed to say something. I can feel the old man watching from the shelves.

“When are you coming back?” I say.

Then she hugs me.

It’s 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.