The alleyway is barely wide
enough for one person. The buildings on either side rise high into the air. A bare ribbon of sky is visible overhead. The brick expanse to my right is graffitied from gravel to sky. I look for my favourite piece: six-foot-high white letters spelling out the word AMOEBA. Paul did it during his brief rebellious phase, around the time we all dropped out of school. But when I get to that section of wall, all that’s visible under newer graffiti is EBA. Someone has defaced my favourite defacement.
Paul, Thom and I always used to sneak in the back way to Umbra, to avoid the long queues, and because we were too cheap to pay the cover charge.
Nia follows me with her hand on my shoulder, and Blake brings up the rear. We walk in silence. The service entrance finally appears. I usher Nia and Blake across an empty concrete cavern. Even in here, the floor vibrates with bass.
I stop in front of a truck-sized doorway curtained with thick strips of opaque plastic. There’s light on the other side, leaking through. The thump-thump-thump of the music gets stronger. I turn to Nia and Blake, ready to deliver a serious speech about our aims for the evening, only to find them both standing there with equally inane grins on their faces.
‘I forgot how stupid you look,’ Blake says.
I look at my pale blue shirt and navy pants, then at Nia and Blake. They’re dressed similarly to me, in outfits borrowed from Nia’s work. Blake’s clothes are too big and mine are too small. Nia’s are just right.
‘Speak for yourself,’ I say to Blake.
Nia smiles and taps the bridge of her nose, until I remember I’m wearing Blake’s nerd glasses and a baseball cap. Oh, right. I do look stupider than them.
‘Lighten up.’ She pinches my cheeks. ‘Look at you. Your face is all frowny.’
‘I don’t want to be recognised.’
‘We’re just having a night out. So what if we’re dressed strange? We find out what we can. It’s acting. We can do that.’
I nod, trying to let her convince me. I’m pleased she’s here, but I’m too wound-up to show it. She seems to be suffering no ill effects from Paul’s attack, and she’s not pissed off at him, or me. And she’s ready to throw herself into the fray as an imposter blue person.
‘Will you call me Wildgirl?’ she asks. ‘It’s my stage name.’
‘Sure. Can we discuss some rules, though?’ I fold my arms and address them both. ‘Do not leave the club for any reason. Do not tell anyone your real name. And we meet in an hour outside the toilets. Have your phones on vibrate and call in an emergency.’
‘Yes, Dad,’ says Nia. She knows she looks cute in her blue pyjamas, and she’s taking advantage of it. She puts her hand forward. ‘Come on, let’s do a yay team!’
Blake immediately puts her hand on top of Nia’s.
‘I’m not doing that,’ I say.
‘Wolfie, do not deny us this simple pleasure. C’mon.’
I roll my eyes and put my hand on top of theirs.
‘Yay team!’ squeals Blake. And she’s supposed to be the sensible one.
Umbra is a tsunami of intense surgical light and earsplitting beats. The bass frequency thumps in my chest, tightening my throat. The room is a mess of sweaty dancing people. I didn’t expect it to be this crowded. I thought that Umbra wasn’t as popular as it used to be. I was completely wrong.
‘Why the hell is it so light in here?’ Nia clutches my arm.
‘It’s always like this!’ I shout. Behind Nia, Blake is frozen like a very small scientist in car headlights. She clutches her notebook to her chest.
‘You right?’ I ask her. ‘Remember the Kidds have gone.’
Blake puts on a brave face. I use my finger to indicate we should do laps. Between Nia and Blake we might not even last the hour in here. I grab Nia’s hand and drag her through the crowd.
Umbra is painted stark white all over, floors, walls, ceiling. There are lethal metal hooks running on tracks that cover the length of the ceiling, left over from the meatworks, and heavy chains hanging down from above. Dancers wearing little more than leather swimwear climb the chains. The sound system is so extreme it feels as if I’m going to be pushed over by its sheer volume.
Nia gets used to the light and sound remarkably swiftly, because by the time we find a step to sit on, she’s moving her feet and starting to sway a little.
‘Nuh-uh,’ I say. I’ve seen her dance before, at Little Death. She knows how to move, and I like watching her move, but—‘We’re not here to dance, we’re here to find blue people.’ I catch a glimpse of Blake looking up at the chain dancers in their skimpy outfits, her mouth open. I point it out to Nia.
‘You think she’ll be okay?’ she asks.
‘Sure. She’s tougher than she looks. She had to be to survive the Kidds.’ I have to sit really close to Nia to make myself heard. I sneak a look at her while she watches Blake. She’s counteracted the drabness of the blue uniform with glittery blue eye shadow and two small silver sequins stuck next to each eye. I don’t know if it’s the bass making my heart pound or something else.
When I spoke to her last night I lay with the phone down next to me on the pillow. It sounded as if she was lying right beside me when I closed my eyes. It was a nice illusion.
‘You know, after that night,’ she’d said, her voice wispy over the phone line. ‘It felt as if everything in my life was rebooted. So I asked my mum again about my dad. I didn’t get angry this time. I asked nicely. And she told me about him.’
‘What did she tell you?’
‘She said she got together with him when she was really young. She was working as a waitress and he was the chef. When she got pregnant with me they tried to make it work, but it didn’t take her long to realise he was a total arsehole. He used to hit her.’
‘That’s fucked,’ I said.
‘I know, right? So she wasn’t hiding who he was to hurt me, she was doing it to protect me. Now that I know that, I can’t believe I thought otherwise.’
‘And she also wanted to forget about him,’ I added, thinking also of Ortie and what she’s told me about Gram, and how she went overseas to get away from the mess. The difference is, Gram would have never hit Ortie.
Going over this phone call now in my head, I realise something. I turn to Nia. ‘Did you speak to your mum before she left?’
‘No. I don’t feel like forgiving her yet.’
‘Well, don’t leave it too long. You know what you told me last night, about your dad. It makes sense that your mum is overprotective.’
Nia makes a maybe-face, which morphs into something more alert. She leans in. ‘Don’t. Turn. Your. Head,’ she says. ‘We have blue people in the house.’
‘Where?’
‘Over there, on the dancefloor.’
I straighten up, and casually look to the right, adjusting my glasses so I can see properly. A cluster of blue-clad people dances among all the others. Looking at the real blue people I realise we look pretty authentic. I forgot for a minute what we’re here to do.
‘What do we do?’ Nia sits up straight. ‘Do we go talk to them?’
‘Nope. We sit here and watch and play it cool.’
‘What? No way. Let’s go talk.’
She stands, and I drag her down.
‘Trust me. It’s better if we can get them to approach us. It’ll seem more natural.’
‘How are we gonna do that?’ she asks.
‘It’s like when I first saw you at the Diabetic. I went up to you, but really you made the first move.’
‘Shut up!’ She remains unconvinced. ‘How?’
I don’t answer. I sit still. Then I look at her slyly out of the corner of my eye, before looking away. I look at her again, for longer this time, then drop my eyes. For my final look I stare, and bat my eyelashes provocatively.
I must do a good job because Nia laughs. It feels good to know I can do that.
‘You look like such a dufus in those glasses! It’s not sexy at all!’ She puts her hands to her reddening face. ‘Oh. Did I really do that?’
‘It worked, didn’t it?’
We look at each other too long, both smiling. I slide over, and then I put my hand up to her hair, lean in and place my mouth on hers. She parts her lips like she was expecting this, and we kiss. The glasses are crushing into my nose, so I pull them off quickly, not wanting to miss a second. I press myself closer until I can feel Nia’s heat against me. Everything about her is so soft. I close my eyes and I’m nowhere at all. Drifting without gravity.
I have no idea how long we kiss for.
When I finally pull away, out of breath, Nia is still smiling at me.
‘Hello, Wildgirl,’ I say.
She sighs with satisfaction and leans against me, linking her pinkie finger with mine. We watch the dancefloor together. The cluster of blue people has drifted closer, moving almost directly in front of us.
Even though the music has got deeper and dirtier and faster, the blue people dance with their arms at their sides, looking at the floor. Most hop from side to side, completely out of time with the beat.
‘They dance like Dreamers, don’t you think?’ Nia says. ‘I know the music’s different, but they move the same.’
One of the blue people hops until she faces us, lifts her head quickly and winks. It’s Blake. I didn’t recognise her at all. I’m suitably impressed. She’s done much better than we have.
‘Did you see that?’ I ask. Nia nods.
‘If Blake’s on the job, do you think that means we can, you know?’ She gives me a cheeky look with her bluerimmed eyes. I lift her hand and kiss it.
‘I think we shouldn’t get too distracted.’ I hate myself for saying it. ‘We should pull our weight. Blake can’t do everything.’
‘Tonight’s not all about us, is it?’ she says close to my ear.
‘You’re still having a good time, though, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, of course.’ She turns to me. ‘It’s just different. That was then, this is now.’