Lil and Gerda were drinking warm Coca-Cola. Normally Gerda would have shunned it, or rather her parents would have shunned it for her. When Lil held out the can, Gerda shook her head. Lil was astonished and indignant. ‘Everyone likes it,’ she said. ‘Course you do. Try it.’ To be friendly, Gerda had a sip. To her surprise, it was delicious. They shared a can, shuttling it to and fro. Gerda watched Lil’s lips and teeth against the metal. She had big white teeth and her mouth was very red (Mum says Coca-Cola eats your teeth. Gerda took the can and sucked it down. This was another world, with different rules.)
From where they were sitting, on top of the rock, Gerda could see other rock islands through the trees, with little figures enjoying themselves, but as the kingdom of the sun shrank up towards her feet and the evening chill settled, they disappeared. Now it was just the two of them. Gerda knew she depended on Lil.
Lil revealed she was Danish. (My dad is half-Danish,’ said Gerda, excited.) Lil’s English sounded weird, the words were OK but the accent was a mixture of every accent you had ever heard. Quite quickly Gerda got used to it. Lil told her she lived in Central Park ‘when I’m not on the subway, working.’
Gerda thought, ‘She is not a ticket collector.’ She knew without asking what Lil Roberta did. It was very exciting. Now she knew a thief. But her gold bracelet burned a line on her wrist.
‘This rock is ours,’ Lil Robber said, ‘The birds. The shit.’ (A bulky pile was covered with a violently blue tarpaulin.) ‘Everything’s ours. No-one will bother us. You sleep with me. Put that thing’ (indicating, with a wealth of scorn, the pink case Gerda was trying to ignore) ‘under the tarp.’
‘That’s kind of you, thank you,’ Gerda said. It sounded very formal (Lil Robber’s mouth dropped open) and stupidly English, and she didn’t want Lily to think she was a twat, so without thinking, Gerda reached forward and kissed the other girl full on the mouth, and felt Lil pull away, and then kissed her again, and they stood on the rock like two gladiators, halfkissing and half-wrestling, and when they stopped, Lily was laughing.
‘You’re very full on,’ she said. ‘I like that. Come on, I’ll take you on a tour of the park.’
‘If I leave my mum’s case, won’t it get stolen?’ Gerda asked. ‘There’s no-one watching it.’
‘First, my people are watching it,’ said Lil, grandly gesturing towards the trees. ‘Secondly, no-one goes under that tarp.’
‘Why not?’ asked Gerda.
‘Because it pongs.’
‘What’s in that box next to it?’
‘Birds.’
‘Why are they in a crate?’
‘They’re pigeons. Racing pigeons. They fell off a lorry.’
‘You ought to let them go.’
‘Who says so?’ Lily jutted her brown jaw at Gerda, and after a split second of nervousness Gerda said ‘The Great God Gerda,’ and Lily chuckled and said ‘Fuck off.’
It grew dark as they walked round the lake in Central Park. You could see the lights from the buildings on the edge, but the lake itself was huge and black, with strange cracklings and rustlings running like rats through the bushes along the edges. Lily told Gerda she was beautiful. Gerda was pleased someone else had noticed.
‘We could swim in that lake,’ Gerda said to her companion. ‘I’m good at swimming. I’ve won medals.’
‘Not tonight,’ said Lil. There was a long silence. Their feet crunched on beside the dark water; a water-bird broke the surface with a splash. Then Lily asked, sounding oddly shy, ‘If you stay with me, will you teach me to swim?’
‘Can’t you swim?’ Gerda asked, astonished.
‘You can’t do loads of things that I can do,’ Lil flashed back, instantly angry.
‘I will teach you,’ Gerda said, though she thought ‘I won’t be here long enough.’ She was amazed to be here; Lily was a goddess; she was having the adventure of her dreams; yet somehow she already knew she would have to go back to the world outside, where she had Prospects, and Lil did not.