Читать книгу Flight of a Starling - Lisa Heathfield - Страница 11

CHAPTER TWO

LO

‘Your breakfast is getting cold. Hurry up, the pair of you.’ Ma throws my jeans on to the bed. ‘Or Da will start eating it,’ she says over her shoulder as she goes out of our bedroom and closes the front door behind her.

‘We should take her key away,’ I say.

‘What, ban her from Terini?’ Rita asks.

‘It’s our space. What’s the point of moving out of Mada if they can just come in when they want?’ I poke my hands into the wooden slats of her bed above me.

‘You try telling Ma that,’ Rita says. Her mattress huffs and I imagine her pulling the duvet tight around her.

‘Maybe not.’

I bring my legs round the bottom of the ladder, touching it three times with my thumb to keep the witch in there sleeping. She walked straight out of a storybook Ma read us one day and now she sits too often waiting to scratch our ankles.

‘Those boys last night,’ I say, standing on tiptoes and reaching to the ceiling.

‘Are you still thinking about him?’

‘Girls!’ Da shouts from the steps of their van.

‘Keep your hair on,’ Rita muffles into her pillow. But there’ll be bacon frying and that’s enough to make me dress quick and take me out of Terini and into Mada’s kitchen.

‘Morning, Grands,’ I say. He’s always the first person we go to, sitting deep in his armchair. He puts down his book to give me a kiss.

‘Morning, love.’

‘What was the town like?’ Ma asks. She’s washing up hurriedly in the sink.

‘Quiet,’ I say.

‘Just quiet?’

‘Everything was shut. We just walked around.’

‘Just you and Rita?’ She stops to look over her shoulder at me.

‘And Spides and Ash. We met a couple of locals. And I went swimming in the fountain.’

Ma doesn’t react. I wonder if she’s even heard, as she scrubs the sponge so hard round the mug that I’m surprised she doesn’t wear the china away.

Dean is in my mind now. I taste the toast I pick up, but I’m with him, back on the ledge. He’s looking at me as I look at him. Rita always said we’d know. The instant our souls met, that that would be it.

‘Rita!’ Ma shouts from the steps, enough to jolt Grands’ hand and make his book fall from his lap loud on to the floor.

The rain pounds on the roof of our empty big top, its noise echoing heavy inside, filling up even the tiniest spaces.

‘It better have stopped by later,’ Rita says. ‘Or the music will get swallowed.’

‘By a rain beast?’ I ask, raising my eyebrow at her.

‘Exactly,’ she says.

Between us, her costume sits on the ground, the snagged material needing to be tucked under and sewn. I’m unpicking a feather stuck in the way of the thread and don’t notice Rob before he’s standing next to us.

‘That doesn’t exactly need two of you,’ he says.

‘It’s because of her arm,’ I tell him, smiling up at him. ‘She can’t possibly do this on her own.’ He knows it’s not true. Lil insisted on curing Rita with one of her creams and the skin is healing quick.

‘Join us if you like?’ Rita asks, though he wouldn’t be much help.

‘No time,’ he says. ‘Tricks is making me double-check the bike engine.’

‘I could help you when we’ve finished this,’ Rita says, but she’s talking to the back of his coat, as he’s already walking away from us and through the ring door curtains.

I hold the needle careful in my fingers, wet the end of the thread with my mouth before looping it through. The rain still beats down above us.

‘Do you really think we’re lucky?’ I ask Rita. ‘That we live like this.’

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Why would you ask that?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.’

‘Then don’t,’ she says, sounding just like Ma. ‘Because we don’t fit anywhere else.’

I twist the thread into a knot and don’t say any more.

My make-up is so heavy I can barely open my eyes, gold glitter dancing across my cheekbones. I’ve threaded the feathers into my hair and stepped into the sequinned suit of my changeling skin.

For this part, I put the thin white dress over the top, its sleeves dipped in beads, and I loop my arms into the elastic of my purple wings so that they stretch out across my back.

I never look in the mirror in my costume – I once told Rita that the reflection of the fallen angel would step out and stick to her forever and I made myself believe it too.

I run across the muddy ground and up the wooden steps of Lil’s van. Inside, it’s almost dark. She’s sitting behind her table in her little wicker chair, the end of her cigarette glowing a pinprick of colour.

‘Lucky I wasn’t Tricks,’ I say. ‘Finding you smoking when customers are about to come in.’

‘What customers?’ The smoke twists and bends into the deep lines of her skin.

‘He’d sooner set you alight than see you smoking in front of them,’ I say.

She flicks ash into the bowl of water before her, her laugh collapsing into a cough that gets stuck in her closed mouth. When she opens her lips, it’s to spit phlegm into her handkerchief, which she tucks into her sleeve.

‘You wouldn’t tell though, would you, little Laura?’

‘What’s it worth?’ I laugh and she swats at me with a hand spotted with rings. I click the lamp on by her feet and a small light shivers up towards her face, leaving her eyes as hollow holes.

‘Get the customers in, girl. Let’s get the lova rolling and grow rich enough to live like queens.’

Outside, the sky is thick with clouds, but my eyes sting slightly in the daylight. We’re next to the entrance of the big top and I beckon to strangers with my long fingernails dipped in colour. There are droplets of fear in their eyes, before they look away and I want to tell them that I’m nothing like this really, that if they looked carefully, they’d see just me.

I’m spreading my wings high above me in an arc, watching the feathers mingling with the beads, when I hear people speaking.

‘It is one of them,’ a voice says. I turn and it’s two of the boys from the fountain. Dean and Will. They come right up close.

‘You look different,’ Dean says to me, making my heart quick.

‘You don’t,’ I say and I smile back at him, even though our angels are meant to keep a face blank of everything.

‘What’s this then?’ Will points his thumb to the closed van behind us.

‘It’s your destiny,’ I say and they both laugh.

‘A fortune teller?’ Will asks.

‘More than that.’ I look steady into Dean’s eyes.

‘What do we have to do then?’ he asks.

‘You’re not going in?’ Will pokes his arm.

‘Why not?’ Dean says. ‘It’s always good to know what the future has in store.’

‘It’ll be a load of nonsense.’

Dean ignores him. ‘How much is it?’

‘Three of your finest gold coins.’

‘Three pounds!’ Will says.

‘I’ll meet you here,’ Dean tells him.

Within my angel costume, I can watch as he puts his hands into his jeans and pulls out some money.

‘Suit yourself,’ Will says. ‘I’ll just be a no-mates, while you waste your money.’

I lead Dean up the steps, open the door and we go inside.

Lil sits motionless.

‘Is there anyone there?’ she asks. Dean looks at me, a half smile on his lips. I have to look away.

‘She’s blind,’ I tell him, but for the first time ever I don’t like the lie. ‘She feels the future with her soul.’ I’ve said the words a hundred times before.

‘Right,’ Dean says.

‘A boy,’ Lil says, her voice lower than before, a whisper in her lamplight.

She holds out her hands, palms up. Dean only looks at me.

‘I can’t touch your money,’ I tell him. ‘You need to give it to her.’ He steps forwards hesitantly and I hear the sound of his coins settling on to her skin and dropping into a pocket lost in her skirt.

He’s awkward as she holds his hand. In her other, she takes mine. I look away from Dean again. He’s made everything feel different and now we’re linked, almost touching.

‘Your angel will choose a number,’ Lil says.

‘Six,’ I reply.

Lil stares deep at him with her cave-like eyes and counts out the cards on to the table. As always, it’s the picture of an angel’s wing. Dean studies it so earnestly that I want to tell him that none of this is true.

‘There are obstacles in your path, but you have hidden wings that will help you,’ she says, as Dean nods solemnly. ‘But worry is weighing you down.’ Lil looks at nothing. ‘Am I right?’

‘Um. Kind of,’ Dean says.

‘I feel there is light, though,’ Lil says, her voice hazy. ‘Yes, there is light.’

Dean looks at me. ‘Three pounds,’ he mouths, but he doesn’t seem angry.

I take his hand before Lil can stop me. She’s meant to be blind, so she can’t pretend she can suddenly see. There is a painted door at the back of her van and I lead him through. Inside, it’s no bigger than a cupboard and it’s completely dark. Any outside sounds are muffled into almost silence.

‘What are we doing here?’ Dean asks. He has the remnants of a laugh in his voice, but it’s unsteady.

‘Are you scared?’ I ask, the angel dropping from me.

‘No.’ His voice is so close to me, sitting just on my skin as he speaks.

‘I want to know what frightens you.’

The air has never felt like this. If I move, I think it might burn me.

‘What frightens me?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper.

‘Is this in the old woman’s script?’

I wonder if he hears my heart beating.

‘Name three things.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Cotton wool.’

‘Cotton wool?’

‘I don’t like the way it sounds when I touch it.’ I can tell he’s smiling, his words tipping up.

‘Lo?’ It’s Lil’s voice, drifting urgent through the door.

‘A bigger fear than that,’ I tell him.

There’s a pause, where the darkness swells tight between us.

‘I’m frightened that something will happen to my mum.’

I struggle to find an answer.

‘Nothing will happen to her,’ I say, as if I know, as if I really can read Lil’s cards.

‘How are you so sure?’ he asks.

‘I just am. She won’t die before her time.’

I move slightly and I think the feathers of my wings brush against him.

‘Lo.’ Lil sounds angry now. ‘His time is up.’

‘The third thing you’re scared of ?’ I ask quickly.

I can feel him pause.

‘You,’ he says.

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

The door opens and dim light scuttles in, bringing Lil with it.

‘Enough,’ she says, her eyes clearly seeing into the room.

Dean looks awkward, unsure what to do. I know he watches me as I walk past him and he follows me to the van’s front door. Outside, Will is leaning against the steps.

‘Did you get your money’s worth?’ he asks, smiling wide at Dean.

‘Of course,’ I say, before Dean can reply and I leave them and go back in.

Lil is sitting in her chair in the silence, laying her cards of angel wings face down on the table. When she looks up, her eyes cloud with the future.

‘Be careful, Lo,’ she says.

The audience don’t know that Rita and I are here, crouched like lions way above their heads. The curtained ledge we’re hiding on barely fits us both, tucked high into the roof of our big top.

‘I think you should just marry Ash,’ I whisper, even though the music filling the tent will easily cover my words. ‘Say you will, or I’ll dive from here.’ I pull back the curtain until a small slice of light streaks steady across Rita’s face. ‘Say you will.’ I shuffle closer to the edge, her red fairy wings brushing like water against my arm.

‘Don’t be daft, Lo.’ There’s no fear in her eyes. She knows I’ll never jump.

‘Ma was eighteen when she married Da. You’ve only a few months left to match that.’

‘I don’t want to match it.’

‘You do,’ I insist. She looks older here, dressed as the fairy queen, her make-up thick and deep on her skin, purple feathers weaved tight into her hair. ‘Don’t you love him?’

‘Of course I love him. But maybe like a brother.’ She looks at me so seriously, leading our words to a different place. ‘And I don’t know if that’s enough.’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask, as the music runs circles round the bright lights just beyond us.

‘Maybe he’s too young.’

‘He’s the same age as you.’

‘Sometimes I think I’d like someone a bit older.’

‘Who?’ I ask.

But the crack of false thunder spears the inside of the big top and spins everything into darkness. Instantly there’s the feeling I have at the beginning of every performance, as adrenaline makes my blood beat. My heart ticks quietly under the sequins clinging close to my skin.

‘Good luck, sister,’ Rita whispers. I reply by kissing my finger and touching her nose, managing it first time. With me, she misses and her nail skims close to my eye. I’m laughing when I shouldn’t be and I hear her trying to hush me.

Through the gap in the curtain flashes of lightning show an empty hoop high above the audience’s heads. I wonder if Dean is among them, looking up, waiting.

‘Go,’ Rita says and I move to the edge, careful not to knock against her healing arm. I push back the heavy material and, as the fairy child, I jump.

In the air, I reach out and grab on to the hanging hoop. It jolts my arms, but I don’t let them know. Darkness again and I swing up my body, curl balanced in the floating circle. With each crash of white, I change position. One second they see me with my wings spread wide, the next my body bent almost in two.

A drumbeat of music shows Rita jumping high through the air, a wash of dark feathers. I cower, trapped, as she twists up next to me.

‘Fancy meeting you here,’ I whisper, my lips unmoving. She widens her eyes to tell me to be quiet, before she lets her body fall back, contorting herself over the circle like melted wax. And then my gentle older sister pulls herself up and pushes me from the hoop.

Even with the music, I hear the audience’s gasp snatch sharp around us. They didn’t see me hook the rope so that I spin safely down, the fairy child forced to earth.

I let go and step lightly on to the floor, where Sarah sits in front of me. She looks much younger than her eleven years, her golden-red hair tied back, her clothes matching the rag doll on her lap. She doesn’t look up as the music builds, doesn’t notice the angels creeping around her, Ernest and Helen with their faces covered in silver gauze, arms stuck tight with feathers. They’re fairies waiting to steal the human child, juggling rings of fire in the air as they move. Sarah doesn’t see the net they throw over her until it’s too late.

Her screams fill the big top, as Da lowers Rita’s hoop quick to the floor and the fairy queen steals the human child, taking her spinning to the roof. The rag doll falls by my feet. Faceless angels step towards me, ready to cut me from myself.

Does Dean watch as they rip my wings, strip feathers violent from my arms? Is he here? Slowly, I disappear, forced to become a changeling.

With no music, no audience left, we can hear the rain fall heavy on the roof of the costume tent.

‘Would you listen to that?’ Stan says, wiping cotton wool rough across his cheeks. When he stretches the greasepaint from his eyes he looks as old as my da again, the age-lines not hidden any more.

‘Shame for the people walking home through it.’ Helen unhooks the sleeves from her costume, the sequinned skin shredded into her palm.

‘I like the sound of it, though,’ I say, as Ma squeezes in beside me, making too many of us in the small space.

‘Don’t go thinking you can go out in it,’ she laughs.

‘I won’t be long,’ I say, turning from her and running back down the tunnel.

‘Lo,’ she says, but she doesn’t try to stop me. Through the gap to the outside, the sky is clogged heavy with clouds. The rain batters the ground and even though I’m still dressed as a changeling, I run into it. Already the grass has caught puddles.

‘Rita!’ I call out, although I know she’s not close by. But I wish she were here with me, holding hands as children again, when there was nothing more important than the rain hitting our arms and our eyelashes and spreading under our feet.

I glance around, wanting to see Dean, this boy I barely know, a stranger whose life stays still. I want him to look at me in that way again. Even though I shouldn’t, as we’ve always been told that flatties only bring trouble.

‘Lo! Get inside!’ The voice is muffled through the stamping water, but I know it’s Tricks.

I spin one more time, close my eyes to the dripped-down sky, before I run into the dry. ‘What the hell are you doing? There could be punters still around.’ His clown face has gone and a scowl is in its place.

‘I was dancing in the rain.’ My fringe clings to my forehead as I smile at him, but I know charm won’t work when he’s this angry.

‘Your clothes are soaked through.’

‘But they’ll dry.’

Ma appears at the end of the tunnel and she runs to us.

‘You’ll catch your death,’ she says, holding out a towel, which she curls round my shoulders.

‘I’d best get warm then,’ I laugh.

‘Sorry, Tricks,’ I hear her say as I dart back towards the costume tent.

Carla has Baby Stan balanced on her lap as she scrubs her face clean.

‘What are we going to do with you, Lo?’ she says, watching me through her little mirror.

‘We should’ve done the whole performance out in the rain,’ I say, as I peel back my changeling feathers, careful not to snap them. The white ponytail unclips easy from the back of my head, leaving me shorter-haired again.

‘Don’t hang your stuff there,’ Carla says. ‘You’ll have to dry it in Terini.’

Baby Stan holds out the hairbrush for me, with his smile that could stop a river.

‘Look,’ I say, as I gently knock the brush against a bottle on the table. ‘Fairy music.’

‘Don’t be filling his head with your nonsense,’ she smiles.

‘You hear it, don’t you?’ I whisper close to him and his laugh floats in wings from him.