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 before 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.
‘Why are you called that?’
‘The long blinks happen right before you go to sleep, when your mind fights it and your lids are heavy. The long blinks…’ Wolfboy demonstrates. His eyes are an amazing arctic blue, and his lashes are criminally long.
‘Why would you fight it?’ I love sleeping. Going to work straight from school and trying to write essays afterwards has something to do with it.
‘Because it’s terrifying.’ Wolfboy’s face darkens. Honestly, it’s like a cloud has parked over his head. ‘Every time I go to sleep I don’t know if I’m going to wake up again.’
I’m about to take him to task on this weird statement when I sip my drink and almost spray the entire mouthful. There must be at least four limes in this thing. Silver-hair is still watching us though, so I force myself to swallow, and raise my glass appreciatively in his direction. It’s a beautiful piece of acting, if I do say so myself.
I lean back into my chair and watch the cold front pass over Wolfboy, catching him in an unguarded moment. He wouldn’t look quite so wolfish if he wore his hair shorter and shaved more often. Not that I’m complaining. I love that bit in King Kong, the black-and-white 1930s version, when Fay Wray’s clasped in King Kong’s hairy fist at the top of the Empire State Building. Doesn’t everyone secretly want to be in the clutches of a big animal? Or is that just me? I’m not sure it would work in my case, though. I’m not little and blonde like Fay Wray.
‘So, what’s so interesting about this place?’
Wolfboy leans forward and lowers his voice. ‘That guy who bought us drinks? Well, I don’t know him and I doubt he knows my band either.’
The drink gets better once I’m used to it, especially if I don’t let it sit in my mouth for too long.
‘People like knowing Locals. It gives them cred. Waving at me will probably get that guy laid tonight.’
‘Locals…people who live in Shyness?’
‘Yeah. They’re easy to spot. You look for the moon tan.’ Wolfboy looks around the room. He points carefully, with his hand held low at his waist. ‘See those two over there? The girl with the curly hair and the guy with the goatee?’
I follow his finger. The girl with the curly hair is a porcelain doll in army pants. Goatee guy looks half drowned in an oversized black jumper. Their skin is so luminous I can see spidery blue veins just below the surface, even from this distance.
‘Now check out this group over here.’
Two couples in their mid-thirties sit at a round table. The women are skinny, pale and dressed in black. The men are pretty much the same, but have shorter hair. One of the women sees me watching her and stares back, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She knows I’m under-age for sure. The alcohol buzzes around my body. This place is getting stranger and stranger.
‘No moon tan, but a whole lot of make-up and designer clothes. They’re the converted warehouse crowd. They pretend they’re doing it tough on the dark side of town, but they don’t cross Grey Street, not even if their pure-bred wolfhound runs across the road and pisses on a homeless person.’
It’s no wonder I can’t read this place. There are different rules around here, things going on that I know nothing about. This must be what it feels like to be in a foreign country: confused and excited and unsure all at the same time. I shift in my seat and feel the sharp edges of the bankcard dig into me.
‘I found something in the bathroom,’ I say.
Wolfboy leans forward, interested for a millisecond before he is distracted by something over my shoulder. Or someone.
A woman stands at the foot of our table, her head tilted at just the right angle to set her shiny hair swinging around her face. A skintight catsuit the colour of gunmetal zips all the way from her bellybutton to her throat. She is teeny-tiny and beautiful and I desperately want to look exactly like her.
‘Jethro.’ She smiles at Wolfboy and ignores me. ‘I knew it was you.’
Jethro?
‘Jethro?’ I say out loud.
The woman turns to me. Her hair cups her ears in a smooth Louise Brooks bob. ‘I’ve never gotten used to calling him Wolfboy.’
Wolfboy doesn’t return the smile. ‘Wildgirl, this is Ortolan. Ortolan, Wildgirl.’