Part 7 (1/2)

'I don't know what it means.'

He s.h.i.+vered, and she put a hand on his arm. 'I don't believe in stuff like this as a rule. But it does sound weird.'

Justin sat wreathed in gloom, as Agnes waved to the waitress and ordered tea, then looked at him carefully. 'Aside from the voices, how are you?'

'OK, I guess. I get a lot of strange looks at school.'

'Good strange or bad strange?'

'Both.' He sighed.

'Are you complaining?'

Justin looked glum. 'Not exactly. Only, I guess I was hoping...'

She waited.

'I was hoping to feel better. Safer.'

'And you don't?'

'Even when I'm not hearing voices, or imagining being murdered by snipers, I feel like a blinking neon sign. When girls look at me I feel like the cheese in a mousetrap.'

'There's a word for that, Justin. l.u.s.t. It means they fancy you. It's because you look good.'

She met his eyes and for a fleeting instant experienced a whirring sensation in her blood. Then raised her camera and clicked off a shot. Portrait.

'It's supposed to feel good,' she said gently. 'It's supposed to make you feel desirable.'

Justin looked at her. 'It's not me they want. It's some strange hybrid-me made up of new clothes and insomnia.'

'Look, Justin, you're fifteen for Christ's sake. What do you want? Everyone changes. I wore Moroccan gowns with African combs in my hair when I was fifteen.'

'It's not all about style.'

She groaned. 'Don't tell me what it's all about, Mr Wisdom of the Ages. I know it's not all about style. You're the one who wanted a new ident.i.ty. I'm the one who occasionally suggests that fate isn't some middle-aged man with a squint who won't recognize you if you change your clothes.'

She glared at him.

'Jesus, Justin. I don't believe in any of this stuff anyway. But you're not an idiot, or schizophrenic, as far as I can tell, so I listen. Do I believe there's some supernatural force out to get you? Look at it from my point of view. I never believed in the tooth fairy. This doesn't seem a good place to start.'

He managed a rather formal smile and stood up to leave. 'Thank you for listening to me, Agnes. I know I'm a pain.'

'Sit down, for G.o.d's sake, don't run away.' But she felt the flaw between them, the imperfect connection.

Agnes opened her bag and handed him an oversized magazine printed on heavy matte paper. 'Take this, anyway,' she said. 'It's just out today.'

He rolled the magazine up like a weapon and left the cafe. Halfway home, he dropped it in a bin.

Agnes watched him go and sighed. Such an exasperating boy. Exasperating, too, that it was beyond her powers to put him right.

18.

At school the next day, a girl approached Justin. She was dark-haired and beautiful, with a scornful pout and perfect almond eyes. His peripheral vision automatically searched for her sn.i.g.g.e.ring cronies lurking in a corner.

She carried an oversized magazine pressed flat against her chest like a s.h.i.+eld.

'You're Justin, aren't you.' She spoke without inflection, looking everywhere in the room but at him.

'Yes.'

'Great pictures, Justin.'

What pictures?

She spoke to the opposite wall this time. 'So. You going to Angel's party?'

Justin blinked.

'Well,' she repeated, slightly annoyed, 'you going?'

He stared at the girl. She had the most agonizingly seductive, contemptuous eyes.

'I don't even know your name.'

's.h.i.+reen.' She sighed impatiently.

How perfectly the name suited her, s.h.i.+mmery and sheer, sensuous, serene.

'So?' She gazed at the ceiling with irritation, flicking her nails.

He was desperate to say yes, go to the party, bring her alcoholic punch in a plastic cup, walk home with her afterwards in the cold night air, offering his coat and putting his arm round her shoulders for warmth. He was desperate to dance with her, kiss her goodnight when they reached her door, press his virgin lips to her silky pink mouth; he was desperate to see her again, make a date for coffee, the cinema. He wanted to sit close to her in the dark, breathe the flowery female scent of her, feel the brush of her glossy hair against his face; he wanted to nuzzle her neck, tell her he loved her and then slip his hand inside her padded push-up bra, stroke the delicate skin of her breast, feel the crinkly nipple between his fingers. He gasped, and shoved a hand in his pocket, pressing his quivering erection flat against his groin.

Boy growled.

'No.' The word erupted from somewhere near his solar plexus: half suspicion, half alarm. He didn't trust her. She was b.o.o.by-trapped. Wired to explode in his face. A Venus landmine. 'Thanks, anyway,' he added, eyes glued to a poster just behind her describing the Heimlich manoeuvre.

s.h.i.+reen stalked off, shoulders hunched in furious humiliation.

Justin went home and changed into sweats. It was drizzling; the pavements shone with oily water reflecting images of the miserable suburban street. He called Boy, who lifted his head far enough to see the thin curtain of grey rain, then put it down again.

'Sill-ee-Boy!' chortled his brother.