This is Shyness Read online

  three

  Wildgirl stands in the middle of Grey Street with her arms stretched out as if she’s a religious leader. She pushes her fingers against the air, trying to prise it open. A siren rises and falls in the distance like a long, drawn-out whistle of appreciation.

  I call out to her, ‘You won’t find anything. There’s nothing there.’ I hold her fire-engine handbag low by my side.

  Behind Wildgirl the west side of the street operates normally. Late-night pizza shops spruik their wares with flashing lights. People lug shopping bags along the footpath without watching their backs. An ordinary shopping strip, crammed with hopeful immigrant businesses: Asian grocers, kebab shops, old-fashioned barbers, a shop selling belly-dancing costumes.

  Grey Street is really two half-streets stitched together, with tram tracks running down the centre like a scar. The border between two worlds. It’s been a while since I’ve been up this way. I’ve been bouncing between my house and the Diabetic for what feels like forever. Thom and Paul come over to rehearse and then we all go for a beer. When I need to eat, I find something. That’s about as complicated as it gets.

  The east side of Grey Street is a mess. The shops that aren’t boarded up have broken windows and their insides are littered with drink cans, cigarette butts and broken glass. Graffiti splatters over every available surface. The smell of piss, fires and uncollected garbage hangs in the air. When you look up at night, the sky looks the same as in the west, but every streetlight is broken.

  Wildgirl calls out, ‘When did this happen?’

  Locals pass by, eyeing the girl yelling in the middle of the road. People in Shyness don’t normally stand around on the street having high-volume conversations. I sigh, and walk to the middle of the road so we don’t have to yell at each other.

  ‘It’s been three years now. Something like that. It might have been a while before anyone noticed. First thing was the sun stopped rising all the way. At noon it sank back down in the east. It rose less and less each day until eventually it didn’t show up at all.’

  ‘And the other side is okay?’

  ‘Grey Street’s the border. This side: Shyness. The other side: Panwood.’

  ‘What caused it?’

  ‘I don’t know. No one does.’

  Wildgirl chews on this a while before speaking again. I shift her handbag from one arm to the other. It’s heavier than it looks.

  ‘Do you know anything about Greek gods?’ she asks.

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘The Greek gods are just like mortals, always drunk and angry and getting it on with each other. The sun’s supposed to be Apollo, the sun god, driving his fiery chariot across the sky every day.’

  Wildgirl keeps talking as she crosses back to the footpath without checking the road. She’s lucky cars don’t drive down here anymore. If I don’t answer, maybe she’ll stop chatting and we can get moving.

  ‘So maybe Apollo got sick of driving his chariot?’ she says. ‘Maybe he’s striking for better pay?’

  I hand her bag back. She tucks it under her arm, still chasing her train of thought.

  ‘Maybe he’s gone on the dole and smokes bucket bongs all day?’

  I’d smile but out of the corner of my eye I can see balls of shadow flitting up power poles, clustering on the powerlines like grapes. They’re out tonight, lots of them. I walk faster, hoping Wildgirl will match my pace. Her bracelets jangle with each step.

  ‘Everyone’s got their theories,’ I say. It drives me crazy listening to people crap on about the Darkness. I don’t bother thinking about reasons; I just deal with it. If you don’t like the night, leave.

  I steer Wildgirl towards the Avenue. Maybe we can stop at Lupe’s for a kebab before I stick her in a cab and send her home. I think Wildgirl would like Lupe. They’ve both got a crazy goddess vibe.

  ‘There’s only one way I’ll believe you.’ Wildgirl turns to face me. Her cheeks are flushed. ‘We’ll stay out all night. You show me around and I’ll see for myself if the sun comes up in the morning.’

  ‘It’s not a good idea.’ Even as I say the words part of me is thinking it’s a great idea. It’s been a long time since anyone has thought my life was interesting. I could make it seem that way, for a few hours.

  ‘Why not?’ She reaches into her handbag without breaking her stride and pulls out her phone. ‘There. My phone’s off. Mum can’t call me. Not that she’ll care what time I come home tonight.’

  ‘You live with your mum?’

  A pained look flashes across Wildgirl’s face before she juts her chin out. ‘Yeah, so what?’

  I wonder where someone would learn so much about Greek mythology. I take a stab in the dark. ‘What school do you go to?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m still at school?’

  ‘I can tell. You’ve got that jailbait thing going on.’

  I can be mouthy too, when I want. I’ve had plenty of practice at the Diabetic, trying to get some respect from the regulars. It’s difficult when some of the old guys remember me drinking raspberry lemonade in there with my dad.

  ‘That’s bullshit. I was at the pub with work friends, get it?’

  ‘Didn’t we already discuss that Neil wants to be more than just friends?’

  I can tell she likes that, despite her irritation.

  ‘Southside,’ she admits eventually. ‘Southside Girls’ College.’

  I don’t know it. High school is a distant nightmare. I dropped out straight after my parents ran away to the country.

  ‘So that makes you, what? Seventeen?’

  ‘Yeah…and how old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen. Almost nineteen.’

  In nine months.

  ‘Ooooh,’ she cooes. ‘So ancient, aren’t you? So mature.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to be responsible for an…outsider, not around here.’ We come to a halt. Wildgirl faces me, her hands on her hips. Her hair almost crackles with electricity.

  It’s frustrating. Any guy would leap at the chance to spend time with a girl like this. But Shyness isn’t a normal place and I’m not the most normal guy. I stare at Wildgirl’s right shoulder instead of her face, to make this easier. It would be better for both of us if I walked her over to the far side of Panwood and put her in a cab. It would be better if I didn’t think about holding her hand, showing her my favourite spots in Shyness, and talking until we can barely keep our eyes open.

  ‘I can take care of myself. Mum and I live in a government flat, for godsake; I’m used to taking care of myself. I don’t need you to protect me.’

  I’d believe her too, if she knew what she was protecting herself from. I have that prickly feeling tonight that comes before trouble. It’s been too quiet recently. No fights, no raids, no kidnappings. I risk a look at Wildgirl. Her eyes are huge and brimming with crocodile tears and hope. Like a Kidd. She’s not that far past it.

  I open my mouth to say something else in protest, anything, but Wildgirl beats me to it. She folds over as if someone has punched her.

  ‘I have to go,’ she says.

  4

  I need to pee. One second I’m sparring with Wolfboy, and quite enjoying it to be honest, the next I feel as if my kidneys are going to explode. I don’t even bother trying to hide my pain. I shouldn’t have had the extra beer, but I wanted an excuse to talk to Wolfboy. Poor bladder control—there’s a way to impress a man.

  ‘I need to find somewhere to go.’

  Wolfboy finally figures out what I mean. The crossed legs might have given it away.

  ‘What are you, six years old? You should have gone at the pub.’

  I attempt to hobble along the footpath and justify my bodily functions at the same time. ‘I didn’t need to go when I was at the pub; otherwise, I would have, wouldn’t I?’

  Wolfboy sighs and throws his hands up. ‘Let’s cross the street and find somewhere.’ He scours the nice side of Grey Street for options.

  I calculate I have about thirty seconds left b
efore I disgrace myself. There’s no time to go begging in every shop. Squatting in an alley is beginning to look good when I spot a small functional building on the next corner. I stumble towards it. ‘Look, there’s a loo right here.’

  The toilet is one of those automated ones, next to a nuclear-power-plant-bright convenience store. For some reason the store is covered in a large metal cage, as if it has a big-time orthodontic problem.

  ‘You can’t go in there.’ Wolfboy sounds horrified. I’d like to see him stop me. I hobble towards the door.

  ‘No way. Druggies have probably been using it.’ Wolfboy grabs my arm and steers me away from the toilet, which, I must admit, looks like it’s been designed for cyborgs. ‘I know a bar near here where you can use the bathroom.’

  ‘How far away?’

  ‘Other side of the road. A minute’s walk, at the most.

  ’ Somehow I manage to keep up with Wolfboy, even though I can’t actually stand up straight. We cross Grey Street and take a narrow one-way street into Panwood. True to Wolfboy’s word it’s not long before we stop at a nondescript doorway, the only interruption in an immense brick wall. I look through the door and into the stairwell.

  ‘You didn’t mention stairs. Stairs could push me over the edge.’

  Wolfboy just rolls his eyes and takes me by the elbow again, dragging me upwards.

  ‘It’s all your fault.’ If I keep talking I might stop thinking about how badly I need to go. ‘If you hadn’t plied me with beer we wouldn’t be having this problem. Anyone would think that you were trying to make the poor, defenceless, under-age outsider drunk.’

  The staircase ends abruptly in a darkened vestibule, and so does my rant. Every noise has been sucked from the air and replaced with a tasteful hush. A man in black appears from nowhere, ninja-style, to open the door for us. On the other side, another waiter greets us and leads us into the room.

  The bar is super-ritzy: huge windows arching across two sides of the room, black chandeliers, leather benches, a perspex bar lit up like the mother ship. I’m stunned into silence. There’s nothing in Plexus that comes close to this. The waiter gestures minimally for us to follow him. I feel like a participant in someone else’s performance art.

  Every woman in the place turns and stares at Wolfboy as we walk through the bar, skimming over me without interest. My cheeks are hot; I drop my head so my hair curtains my face. Wolfboy puts his hand on my back as we walk, but it’s more like the touch of someone helping a little kid across the road than anything else.

  Wolfboy sits in one of two armchairs next to an arched window and a low glass coffee table. The waiter pauses for a few agonising seconds while I refuse to sit, before handing me some menus and backing away.

  Wolfboy points across the room as soon as the waiter is gone. ‘Go towards where we came in, but turn left before you get there. You’ll see a corridor.’

  I chuck the menus on the table. To get to the bathroom I have to cross an expanse of carpet wide enough to give every single person in the room an opportunity to size me up, now that I’m not eclipsed by Wolfboy. All the women in here are rake-thin, devastatingly sophisticated and everyone—everyone—is dressed in black.

  I walk as tall as I can, tugging my t-shirt down so it covers my marshmallow tummy. The carpet is so thick I feel like I’m walking in quicksand.

  Thankfully the bathroom is easy to find. The first room is lined with Hollywood mirrors, the sort with lights around the edge, each with a separate vanity table and stool. Everything is raspberry and gold and glowing. A woman sits at one of the mirrors, fixing her hair. I rush through to the adjoining toilets and into the closest cubicle.

  I pee for longer than I think is humanly possible, and then some. My brain had almost shut down under the strain of holding on. I flush and then sit on the closed toilet lid, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. My head rests on the cool wall next to me. The room spins gently when I close my eyes.

  I imagine crossing Grey Street in the daytime. Would night fall over me gently like a velvety curtain? Or would the day turn dark in the blink of my eye? I don’t really need to see the sunrise to know that Shyness is different. It’s like there’s a thin layer of static over everything that stops me from seeing what’s really going on. People here scuttle around like they’re scared of their own shadows. Even Wolfboy seems nervous. Maybe he’s worried his girlfriend will bust him hanging out with another girl. Maybe he’s already sick of my company and is trying to think of a polite way to ditch me.

  When I wake up tomorrow there’ll be only two days before I have to go back to school, with everyone staring and talking and laughing. Just like it was today. I don’t know what’s worse: the pitying looks or the disgusted ones.

  I push those thoughts away. I’m here to have fun, not wallow.

  The powder room is empty now, so I don’t feel shy about laying my cheek against the flocked wallpaper. A chandelier sends shards of light around the room. I sit on a frighteningly fragile stool at one of the marble vanity tables and gaze at my reflection.

  What am I doing, leaving the pub with a complete stranger, the strangest stranger I’ve ever met? I’ve got no idea whether the air of danger around Wolfboy is just part of a fashion statement or the real thing.

  I smile to myself.

  He’s so hot.

  If the girls at school could see me at this fancy bar with a guy this hot they’d be throwing up with jealousy.

  It’s a pity I look like I’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge. I didn’t bring my handbag to the bathroom so I can’t even touch up my make-up. I settle for smoothing down my hair and wiping the smudged eyeliner from under my eyes.

  I need to turn myself back into Wildgirl who’s not scared of anything. Wildgirl with no past.

  Something glints on the very end vanity table. I scoot over for a closer look. It’s a gold credit card, sitting all on its lonesome. Have people been snorting cocaine in here? I wipe my finger over the marble. It’s clean.

  The bankcard is slightly smaller than usual. FutureBank must be a Shyness company because I’ve never heard of it. There’s no name on the card, and no signature on the white strip on the back. It can’t belong to the woman who was in here earlier because she was sitting at the table closest to the door. I look around and then feel stupid. The only people watching me are a dozen mirrored versions of myself. I slide the card into the back pocket of my shorts.

  The trees outside scrape their twiggy fingers on the glass as if they want to be let in. I look out the window, beyond the reflected room and into the darkness. We float above the buildings around us, sailing on an ocean of black ink. On the very edge of the ocean there’s a family of taller buildings that remind me of Plexus Commons. The buildings are freckled with lit-up windows; a full buttery moon rests above them.

  I tear my eyes away from the night. The room looks like a carefully constructed bar scene in a movie—too slick and perfect to be real. I’m the youngest person here. Even if I were legal I’d still be the youngest by a mile.

  I dissolve into the chair, hoping it will hide me in its winged arms. I want to tell Wolfboy about the mysterious card, but I don’t want anyone to overhear and make me hand it in. You’d have to be pretty stupid or pretty drunk to leave your credit card lying around like that. People are still looking at us, probably wondering why Wolfboy would hang out with someone like me when clearly he could have his pick of the women here. The strange thing is that even the men are admiring him. Hot as he is, even I can see that Wolfboy’s shirt is almost frayed through in places, and he looks like he hasn’t been eating or sleeping or doing anything properly for a while now. The way everyone looks at him you’d think they want to be sleepless and hungry too.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘The Raven’s Wing.’ Wolfboy is strangely at ease in his brocade armchair and the opulent surroundings. His face is so sweet, but the rest of him, the hair and the muscles, belong to someone older. ‘Bit over the top, isn’t
it?’

  ‘I thought you were going to show me Shyness.’

  ‘This will help you understand things.’

  I don’t see how sitting around with a bunch of people with clever haircuts will help me. They’ve probably never had to struggle for anything; they’re the kind of people who don’t know what it’s like to really want something and not be able to have it. The kind of people Mum works for, cleaning their houses and doing their laundry. I’m the first to admit my mum is slightly ridiculous—her clothes are too tight, her make-up too thick—but you should see the way her clients speak to her sometimes.

  ‘I want to leave. I don’t like it here.’

  The waiter stops and places two drinks theatrically on our table.

  ‘We didn’t order—’ I start telling him.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Wolfboy, turning in his seat. A silver-haired man with square black-rimmed glasses waves at us from the bar. Wolfboy nods at him. ‘Please. We’ll have one drink here and then we’ll return to Shyness. Trust me.’

  I don’t want to know if he can be trusted. It’s not possible to trust anyone in this world. We’re all here to take care of ourselves, and ourselves only. This is how I look at it: if a gunman rampaged through the flats, I’d barricade Mum and me in our place and forget about anyone else on our floor. If the gunman broke into our flat then I’m not entirely sure I’d take a bullet for Mum, or vice versa. When it comes down to it, we’re all on our own. Once you realise that, life becomes simpler.

  ‘How come everyone knows you? Is your band famous?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Wolfboy doesn’t say anything else. Every other musician I’ve ever met was dying to tell me about their band. When Wolfboy first mentioned it I was disappointed. Everyone my age wants to be singers or models or actors. Imagine a world where people idolised nurses or scientists or environmentalists. But at least he hasn’t been crapping on about it. Maybe he’s into music for the right reasons.

  ‘What are you called?’

  ‘The Long Blinks.’

  I haven’t heard of them, but I’m not surprised. My taste in music is kind of unusual. I prefer the older, classier stuff. I don’t watch reality TV and I have no idea what sort of shoes are in this week, so as you can imagine I have plenty to talk about with the other girls at school.