He looked up at her.
Samara studied the table.
“I said to my drummer we should do something darker,” he continued, returning to her work. “Offspring’s ruined the punk scene. Metal’s the way to go. Something a bit more—” He gritted his teeth and thrashed his head, riffing on an invisible guitar. “Something harder, you know?”
Please stop talking, she thought. I really don’t care.
From the corner of her eye Samara detected movement from outside. The thin face of the girl peered through the window; skin almost glowing against the glass. She opened her mouth—
A hand pressed into Samara’s back.
“Nothing!” Lily manoeuvred around her and collapsed into the booth, scooting along the bench to face Dale. “Bunch of time wasters. One of those arseholes is doing physics. Thought Schrodinger owned a dog for fuck’s sake. Colonel Mustard in the library with the bloody dagger.”
Samara remained standing, unsure of the social etiquette. “Dale is here. I didn’t say he could sit there.”
Lily waved her hand, throwing it away. “Hey dickhead. I hear your dad got you a new motor.”
Dale threw the sketchpad onto the table. He remained transfixed to the closed cover. “Yeah…well…it’s not new. Second hand. But yeah. Parked it ‘round the back.”
Samara followed the lead of her friend, sliding into the booth beside her. Resting her hand on the stained tabletop, she pressed her fingers into the wood, the fore and index fingers taking the brunt of the pressure.
“So what is it?” said Lily.
“Ford Mondeo,” Dale slurred.
“Oh, fancy. Colour?”
“White. Makes it look pretty clean, though.”
“Nice. Are you going to this art show?”
Samara glanced back and forth with each exchange. She had no interest in Dale’s car. Just a car. Just a white Ford Mondeo that his dad bought him. Why the hell should she be impressed? Why the hell should Lily be impressed? He didn’t earn it. It didn’t take much for a spoilt brat to get his daddy to buy him a car.
“If either of you girls need a lift home…”
Samara grabbed her bottle of Metz and raised it to her lips. Lukewarm now after the time spent on the quiz machine. Her bus would have been there. The same old bus she took home after college every weekday. She could have gone home, fled upstairs. Throwing off the day. Outside 2 in the VCR…
“CD player?”
“Cassette deck, but hey, I got my band’s tape in there.”
Samara stared at his eyes. Goddamn eyes. Window to the soul, so they say. They had no idea. Behind his designer lenses, those eyes…hazy.
Samara grabbed her bottle. She had abandoned her intended quiet drink with her friend for the time spent at the quiz machine, with strangers, who had ruined the entire point. Now her drink was warm. The equation of the evening made no sense. They had planned this: to do the usual. The investment and outcome ceased to add up.
She’d have better success completing a physics course. Schrodinger’s fucking dog.
Samara supped at the bottle neck, trying to restore a balance, glaring at Lily. Come on. Why? Why is Dale still here, in their booth, casting a lazy eye over her work? Why? Who is he? What has he done?
Been bought a car from his rich dad. Is that all it takes?
What did he do?
“All right, Sam?”
Samara looked up at Lily, fuzzy, horizontal lines blurring her vision. She shook them loose, mentally banging the top of her television to clear the picture.
Her fingers had begun to drum a beat on the table. A song. Perhaps a myriad of songs: various drumbeats, classic loops, thrumming along her fingers, typing out her song on the stained tabletop. A Morse code of suffering.
And yet on the other side of the glass, the girl nodded her head in time, loving the beat. She grinned, her mouth stretching, the hinges of her jawbone melting like soft candle wax.
Samara plonked her empty bottle on the sacred table and snatched up her discarded sketchpad. She flicked to a fresh page and, ignoring the mundane chatter between Dale and Lily, opened her bag to remove a sharp pencil. A fresh representation to occupy her mind. Samara began to draw, imagining the pain her creation could render.
4.
Breath fogging before his face, Dale shivered and pulled the zipper of his coat up under his chin. His single pint had barely touched the sides and done nothing to protect against the growing chill of the evening. Outside The Scholar, he looked up and down the road, seeking out one last excuse to head back inside the warm, friendly boozer. Like most of the student patrons, he’d spent so many hours inside it had become a second home. Down the street, a girl waited at the crossing under a streetlight, despite the lack of traffic. Dale watched her for a moment, wondering why she didn’t just head across. Probably just waiting for the green man to show. Being extra careful.
With his hands in his pockets against the cold, he turned the corner of the pub, trying not to look at the cheerful, cosy faces still drinking in the bright windows. The rear car park held a few scattered vehicles. His Mondeo shone triumphantly at the centre, pristine in the moonlight. Not much, but his. Keep your tank full and your motor clean, his dad had told him, and you can’t go far wrong.
Dale dug into his jeans pocket for the keys. Popping open the door, he slid into the driver’s seat, already reaching for the heater dial and sliding the key into the ignition. He closed the door, plunging the interior into darkness, and glanced in the rear-view mirror.
A thin figure sat behind him, silhouetted against the fogged rear window.
“Christ!” he hissed, realising he’d left his guitar propped up on the backseat. He reached back and gently laid it to one side, so it wouldn’t fall over on the drive home. Dale started the engine and flicked on his headlights. The dash sprang to life in a glowing row of dials. He hit the windscreen wipers, removing the light sheen of moisture the cold evening had deposited on the glass.
In the harsh beams that cut through the shadows of the car park stood the girl. Her shadow was thrown across the back wall of The Scholar.
Dale squinted in the brightness. It wasn’t the same girl. This one clutched a black sketchpad between her tight fingers, heavy bag slung over her shoulder, lending her an almost apologetic hunch. Cute though. He knew enough girls who dressed like her. Some did it for attention. You could spot those a mile off. Boots always brand new. The band logo splashed across their chests a little too…commercial. Trendies, they called them. Fishnets and black eye liner. Others carried it well, like they’d been born in a graveyard, complete with inked sleeves and rings through their lips. Natural mistresses of the dark.
The girl who remained transfixed in his headlight beams held that same organic fit. Certainly, no teenage Morticia, mysterious and sexy, likely to fuck you and devour you, oh no. Her long raven hair, solid boots, clothes that never revealed an inch of pale skin… Samara didn’t dress to seduce or garner attention. Her look was a high brick wall topped with barbed wire: intended to keep everybody out. Same as her art. The snarling gargoyles on the walls of the church, trying to scare the bad spirits away, prevent them from entering the most sacred of houses.
Dale wound down his window. “Hey! Need a lift?”
Samara surveyed him a moment longer, mouth slightly open, eyes wide. He doubted she could even see him over the blinding glare of the headlights. Finally nodding, she headed to the passenger side, steps awkward, head hung to hide her face behind her hair.