Steven Camden - Nobody Real

I lift the bag off the scales and put the stolen can inside, scoop out my change and walk away, leaving my receipt.

Scattered pensioners, filing in and out of the charity shops.

I can feel you over my right shoulder as I walk. This side of the street has the shade.

Push my phone on to vibrate and hold it to my ear like I’m making a call.

“That was so stupid,” I say as I pass Subway and catch a waft of vacuum-packed vomit.

“Felt good though, right?”

I don’t look at you. “What do you want, Thor?”

You move closer. “What do you want, shoplifter?”

I swerve to pass a shuffling old man wearing three different shades of pastel blue.

“I’m not a kid any more,” I say.

“Neither am I.”

You step up so you’re level with me. “Tell me that didn’t feel good though.”

I stop walking.

“It didn’t feel good.”

You shake your head.

“So why are you smiling?”

Then my phone vibrates for real and slips out of my hand. I scramble to catch it, smacking my shopping bag on the pavement and nearly falling over as the phone lands in my palm.

“Nice catch.” You stand there, clapping your paws.

Cara’s face, beaming out from my phone screen.

I stand up straight and compose myself. “This is a bad idea, Thor.”

You nod.

“Probably.”

And then you’re gone.

The old man tips his sky-blue flat cap as he slowly steps through the space where you were.

I nod back, then answer the call.

“Marcie! It’s a full house tonight!”

Cara’s dad Ken always greets me like I’m an old schoolfriend he hasn’t seen for years.

He’s a graphic designer and he looks like one. Bald like he did it on purpose, he’s got that flawless, poreless, older man skin that says water filters and gym membership. He’s holding an expensive-looking tea towel.

“Full house?”

Ken nods. “Morgan’s here. Hungry?”

It smells amazing. Don’t think I’ve ever been to Cara’s house and Ken hasn’t been cooking. I’ve had so many foods for the first time here. Wild boar. Quinoa. Pickled herring.

“Her highness is upstairs working on a new video. Dinner in a hour, OK?”

“OK, Ken. Thank you.”

And he’s off, back towards their massive kitchen, expensive tea towel over his shoulder, leaving me to close the front door, like I’m family.

Cara already has the tripod and camera set up when I knock and walk in. She’s checking her camera angles, deliberating over which pillows to have in shot.

“I’m not dressing up, Car.”

Cara stops fluffing pillows. “Who said anything about dressing up?”

I throw my jacket over the back of her 1970s super-villain swivel chair.

Cara’s room is like a cross between an FBI investigation wall and a retro furniture shop. The walls are collages of magazine articles, photographs and old B-movie posters. I always think of people’s bedrooms being like the inside of their head. Cara’s is busy and full, but organised. She was made for her journalism degree. Her hair’s tied up in a stubby ponytail and she’s wearing her pre-planned “I just threw anything on” outfit for the camera: black leggings and one of Morgan’s old sweaters.

“Morgan’s home?”

“Apparently,” she says.

“That’s early, no?”

“Dunno. Haven’t seen him. Been in his room since he got back. If he’s home early, he must be broke.”

“I haven’t seen him for ages,” I say.

Cara cuts me a disapproving look on her way to her backstage-style dresser.

“Don’t worry, you can stare longingly into his eyes over dinner. That’s if he even comes down.”

“Shut up.”

I try to think of the last time I saw Morgan. Maybe the Christmas before last. He rarely comes home from university in London.

“Can’t we just hang out, Car?”

“We are hanging out.”

“Yeah, but I mean just do nothing. Exams are over. When was the last time we just did nothing?”

Cara looks at me like I’m speaking Swahili.

Through her bedroom window, the sky is going dark. I picture the view from across the street. Camera on tripod, one girl fluffing pillows, getting ready, another standing nervously next to the bed. Some girls make thousands of pounds on their own in their rooms with their laptops.

“What accents can you do?” she says, pulling two bottles of what look like shampoo out of a yellow Selfridges bag, one seaweed green, one milk-chocolate brown.

“Accents? What are you talking about? What are they?”

Her face lights up.

“I had an idea.”

What started as a simple Year Ten drama project quite quickly evolved into Cara’s performance-art YouTube channel Jumblemind.

Jumblemind is basically a space where all of Cara’s social-commentary ideas are sporadically filmed and uploaded to an audience of 316 subscribers made up mostly of younger girls from school. Any little nugget of performance gold that’s been rattling around her head gets dumped out on film for her cult following’s consumption and, over the years, a high percentage of these nuggets have involved yours truly.

October 3rd 2014: “Genderrorists” –The two of us stand back to back, reading extracts from The Vagina Monologues in balaclavas.

February 9th 2015: “Pressure to Make Up” –Cara uses the latest, top-of-the-range L’Oréal products to paint my face to look like Heath Ledger’s Joker.

My personal favourite though was this time last year, when Cara just sat in front of the camera for ten minutes, stuffing an entire Black Forest gateau into her mouth and crying.

OMG! Don’t know why but can’t stop watching! So dumb but SOOO good! LOL!!!

– YouTube comment on “Gateau Tragic” from Trixabell496

“You’ll need to put your hair up,” she says. “There’s bobbles in the bedside drawer.”

“Car, what are we doing?”

“It’s a goodbye to school.” She holds up the bottles like she just won them in a raffle.

“Face-pack Shakespeare!”

The car still smells like new trainers.

Cara’s humming along to Lana Del Rey, effortlessly driving down dark streets towards mine, like she’s had her own taxi for twenty years.

It’s probably testament to her charm that getting a brand-new black Mini Cooper for her eighteenth birthday didn’t make me want to punch her in the face. I had the grand total of three empty supermarket driving lessons with Coral before we both decided I might be more suited to the passenger seat, for now.

“I can hear you thinking, you know,” she says.

“Imagine.”

“He’s such a dick.”

“Who is?”

“My brother. Can’t even come down to dinner? Locking himself away in his room? You know, I probably won’t even see him before he goes back. He hasn’t asked about the exams once. Nothing.”

“Maybe he’s busy.”

“Oh, shut up. Stop defending your prince.”

Her arm goes up to protect herself as she laughs. I just give her the finger.

“We could drive up to Leeds?” she says. “For the day, start getting to know our new home before September.” Excitement radiates off her as she speaks. It’s hard not to be drawn to someone who’s completely sure of what they want. “I could maybe even get Dad to sort a hotel. He gets things on account sometimes.” She pulls into the petrol station forecourt and parks next to the pump. The stereo display goes black as she turns off the engine, then flickers back to life.

High halogen floodlights turn up the contrast of the colours through the glass of the kiosk and make me think of that Edward Hopper painting, Nighthawks .

“Mars? Are you listening?”