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  “So where are we going, Jody with a y?”

  We pause momentarily outside some junk shop that sells everything, including flip-flops in winter and model double-decker buses. A grey cat slinks towards him. He bends down to stroke it.

  “I love nature and animals, don’t you? Impressive creatures.”

  He gives the cat one last rub for the road. It purrs, stretching.

  We’re on the move again when he finally answers, “I’m meeting my mate Donny in the pub. Salt of the earth, that guy! I tell you, he took me under his wing when I first got here. He’s full of surprises. We’re sitting on the train one day and he starts saying, ‘fucking spades this’ and ‘spades that’! I’m shocked by this because we all bleed the same in my eyes. Do you know what I mean, Opal? Anyway, we’re sitting in the pub one day and in walks his missus. I nearly fell off my chair! She’s black like you. And I’m thinking, that fucker talking ‘spades this’, ‘spades that,’ all the while he’s got a black missus. I tell you, I was dumbfounded!”

  He waves his arm about, stops before a betting shop where a couple of guys are shifting about slowly, sullenly, almost disappearing into their coats before the bored cashier.

  “Well, Jody, that is conflicting,” I say ruefully, swallowing the salt in my throat. “People are complex creatures.”

  In the betting shop light, I notice the scar on his neck, a handmade bracelet sewn in.

  “Good guy, though,” he continues, bright and animated, beaming at me, yet looking ahead. “How old are you?” he asks.

  I want to tell him I’m a hundred, two hundred, a newborn in borrowed limbs. Instead, I curl my lips up mysteriously. “Lead the way, Don Juan.”

  The pub is dingy, all depressing dark décor and animated white men watching football with beers in hand. There’s a Thai woman in a tight, corset-like top behind the bar. The large, dominating snooker table is surrounded. As I stash my stuff in a corner booth, I hear balls rolling into pockets.

  A boy brandishing a snooker cue lunges at Jody. “What’s she doing with you?” he says. “She’s pretty.” He laughs, darting from side to side.

  Jody ruffles his hair playfully. “Get away, you little scamp!” He takes one last mock swipe at him before heading to the bar to order me a vodka and orange.

  “Dad! You won’t believe this!” The boy calls across the room. “Jody’s got a girlfriend.” He plonks himself in the stool beside me and then, as if he’s been dialled down several notches, says shyly, “Hi, I’m Mason.”

  “Hi, Mason, I’m Opal. Did your dad teach you how to play snooker?” I glance up at the screen, still mystified by the level of emotion a game of grown men chasing a ball could evoke from other grown men. Mason nods, fishes a handful of sweets from his pocket and spreads them on the table. “Do you want one?”

  “Thank you, darling.” I lean forward, pick one in an orange wrapper and unwrap it before popping it into my mouth.

  Jody and I are about ten minutes into our conversation when a handsome, dark-haired, bearded burly man in his mid-forties ambles over.

  “Well, fuck me with a toothpick! Jody, she’s a beauty. What on earth is she doing with you? Did you drug her to get her down here? Stop copy-catting yours truly by getting a black girlfriend.”

  “Fuck off!” Jody retorts, guffawing over his beer. “Am I ever, you and your ‘spades this’, ‘spades that’ only to have a black missus. You’re wrong in the head.”

  The man slurs his words. “I’m Donny, sweetheart. You met my boy Mason earlier. Don’t listen to him.” He angles his head at Jody. “He’s a prick. Good heart, but a prick.” He parks himself at the table, studying my features.

  Simultaneously, I feel the gaze of other men, aware I must be somewhat of a rarity in a place like this. None of this fazes me though. I shrug my coat off, leaning into Donny’s gaze.

  “God, I wish I was twenty years younger looking at you,” he remarks. He’s rakish and the gleam in his eye begins to circle the rim of my glass. He pulls out his iPhone, swipes it open to reveal several pictures of a striking, statuesque black woman who looks capable of catching all kinds of things expertly with her mouth.

  “That’s my lady.” Donny beams. “She’s the boss and I like it that way.”

  “Lovely,” I mutter, sinking into the chair.

  “Jody’s alright,” Donny continues, “but he’s an idiot. He needs training.”

  “Training? What is he, an animal?” I can’t keep the sarcasm from my voice.

  “Yes!” Donny replies. “He’s rough around the edges and ugly as fuck! He looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.”

  I grimace at that. “You’re not exactly being a good wingman here, Donny.”

  “Ah, he knows I’m only messing. But seriously, Jody, how the hell did you manage to pull her? What did you say to get her down here?”

  Jody sticks his middle finger up, smiles. “Charm, something you wouldn’t know anything about, you munter.”

  “How old do you think she is?”

  “She won’t tell me. She’s got a young face but wise eyes. She’d make a good chess player, I’m telling you! And she’s Nigerian, you sneaky Russian.”

  Donny shakes his head. “Be a gentleman. I told you, you can’t tell with black women. Leave it alone.”

  Jody visibly reddens. “Why not? I told her I’m thirty-eight. I’m no saint, I’ve done some bad things but I’m straight down the line, me.”

  “Yeah? And you smoke too much skunk and weed,” Donny says.

  They go back and forth. I’m amused by their hearty exchange, oddly warmed by the lack of pretence.

  “I don’t want to find out she’s some fourteen-year-old,” spits Jody.

  “Oh she’s not fourteen, Jody, come on!”

  They’re unaware that the lines in my palms have changed colour, silver in the subdued pub lighting, curling stealthily over the rim of my dwindling glass, or the sand in my zipper. I look up. The Thai barmaid is in the middle of the snooker table, shooting glass mouths into the side pockets instead of balls, Mason is in the TV screen on the football field, legs folded Buddha-style scoffing the rest of his sweets. Several footballers from the game are behind the bar, searching for a ball that went offside an hour ago.

  By the time I drain my glass, I hone back into the tail end of the conversation and Donny saying, “She’s age appropriate. God! I wish you knew what to do with a woman, you idiot.”

  I discover several things as time progresses; Jody is down on his luck. He has two kids his ex won’t let him see, but he doesn’t tell me why. The scar on his neck is from being bottled in a fight by a guy he calls “that fucking all-time loser”. He lives in one room, shows me the stitching on his knee from leaping off a wall drunk.

  “This is going to be my year, I tell you. Something’s going to change. I’m going to grow my own weed in that room, make some money.”

  There’s an urgency in his tone that un-sticks the cork I swallowed from a white wave. I feel it floating between my organs. I recognise the pain in his voice, the fangled thing roaming across his irises intermittently.

  He doesn’t realise that I have no silhouette. It’s not something a person would notice. My silhouette travels through coloured seashells dotted around the city, filled with foreign noises inhabiting it unrepentantly.

  Every now and again, he brings the conversation back to his one gripe. “For Christ’s sake, will you tell me how old you are?”

  I continue toying with him about it. “I’m sixteen,” I answer. “I’m carrying my broken hymen inside that rucksack.”

  “Pfft!” he responds, half-intrigued, half-horrified.

  Jody is from a place called Whittington. “It’s beautiful, you’d love it,” he confides. “My ideal day is at the beach, maybe with a nice lady like yourself or game fishing. I might buy a caravan, travel around. I like the idea of upstarting, you know? Taking old things and revamping them.” He sidles up to me; the smell of alcohol lingers on his breath. His eyes
are wild, intense. “I’m telling you, Opal, it’s going to be my year. Got some family in Australia who know a few people into metal detecting, made a shit load. Might go up there, do that for a bit. Gonna get my kids back.” He runs his tongue over his lips. I’m somewhat distracted; lines of sand have made their way onto the pub floor.

  In the next hour, Jody explains the difference between sympathy and empathy, calls me a twat for not revealing my age, then apologises since he thought “cunt” was much more offensive. He measures my hands against his, tells me they’re older than my face. He’s never met his father. His only sister runs a stable.

  Midway through my fifth drink, I hold his hand; place my finger over the pulse on his wrist. “One of these days, you’ll go fishing. You’ll catch something at the end of the line you never expected.”

  His eyes crinkle. I feel his heart rate increasing. “You’re a funny woman, you know that? Peculiar.”

  I don’t take anything from Jody. After he scribbles his number on a piece of paper, he nips out for a smoke. I head into the toilet, call my friend off a mobile I took from a guy I left in his own blood in an alleyway the night before. He wasn’t like Jody. The thing I took from him sat beating at the bottom of my rucksack.

  My friend is apologetic about the wait. If someone were to listen in to our conversation, it would sound like static and gibberish. I say goodbye to Donny. Since Jody hasn’t come back, I grab my things and slip out discreetly.

  Outside, a hollow-faced man is hollering about spotting Jesus holding a pint on the roundabout, a homeless black woman who asks you for money at least three times is being silenced by a blue plastic bag, a cocker spaniel in a priest’s collar searches for its saint in dank corners. The dark is sly and full of possibilities. I think of Jody. This year’s going to be my year, I’m telling you. I think of his moist eyes when he said this, how he seemed to suck the air out of the room.

  “I hope so,” I say aloud, blinking against the image of him losing his fist in a mouth in the river, a metal detector on his body, unearthing all the hidden things locked inside. I hoist the strap of the rucksack up my shoulder. It digs into my skin, grooves in the cold evening air.

  I can feel my gills crying out the alcohol I consumed, shrinking beneath my coat. It’s always like this. I talk to them silently. I tell them tomorrow we’ll drink water from a bridge, that liquid is coming.

  Following

  I plucked you from the garden like a root vegetable. A tiny man, you still had soil in the creases of your skin after I dusted you off on the oak kitchen table.

  You pointed at me. We studied each other as if we were foreign objects. You spoke in a low, guttural language I didn’t understand. Your arms waved at the light breaking in my eyes. I stared at the tiny slit in your miniature penis, growing it with my mouth. The garden door groaned open, a piece of torn, white plastic bag blew in. I remembered the fortune-teller then. I remembered paying for a flower that died on the way back and being handed white seeds after a loaded smile. That night, I’d slipped one seed beneath my tongue and planted the rest, only for things to grow in sleep.

  That was three months ago.

  Now, you jumped up and down on the table, baring jagged teeth, curling your hands into fists. I hunched down, held a finger to my lips. “Quiet!” I ordered. “Or I’ll put you in the freezer for a few hours.” You stopped then, understanding my tone perfectly. You smelled of soil and dampness, of things newly born. I pressed my lips to your face, wanting to swallow you whole.

  “Bath time,” I said, pleasant, almost chirpy. I rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, implosions playing noisily in my head. I filled a deep, plastic bowl with warm water and soaped you down as you wriggled reluctantly.

  “Be still,” I instructed. Slick from soapy water, you dodged my grasp, settling into sly limbs.

  “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!” you hurled, suddenly speaking English. The words were a rope dangling between my organs. I grabbed you and dumped you in the cutlery drawer, slamming it shut. The clatter of utensils followed me to the sitting room where the wide screen TV waited.

  I flicked it on. Images of you rolling between knives and forks interrupted my programmes.

  Later, I fished you out. You were bloody and smiling.

  “Haha haha. Set me on fire, find the matches.” Your grizzly smile stretched, threatening to leave your face. I carried you upstairs, wiped your cuts with cotton wool, watching them become blood clouds in my hands.

  At night I plied you with vodka. It was funny to see you stumble around drunk, beneath the cruel glow of flickering candlelight. When you collapsed, I pressed my ear to your chest, comforted by the sound of your heavy panting.

  I bought a yellow hamster wheel that squeaked. It sat by the crack on the white window ledge in the bedroom. My eyes returned to it repeatedly, as though it was a small piece of thunder waiting to snag the wheel. Running on that wheel kept you busy and resentful, a tiny fist under the world’s crinkly curtain. The sound of turns haunted the rooms. I heard it while drying dishes and polishing cabinets downstairs that housed pictures faced down. It bounced off the thin, silver hands of my leather watch. At times I saw you rushing towards me, waving your fists and talking in another language I couldn’t understand. And the wheel had replaced your right leg, squeaking loudly, punctuating the sentences of an unfamiliar language.

  The next day, I served you a portion of pasta coated in a wild mushroom and leak sauce.

  “Please eat,” I said, pushing the saucer of steaming food towards you. Five minutes earlier, you’d torn clumps of matted hair from your head. It lay next to the food as though part of a twisted menu. You took a teaspoon full. I watched your lean, changeable face for approval.

  “This isn’t very good. I wish you’d disappear.” You scrunched your features up. The words formed a stone map in my gut. Later that evening, you ran on the yellow wheel, till it became snippets of a life spinning beneath your feet. The night was a canvass studded with stars, morphing from one day to the next. In its sky, we made love on a knife’s edge, blinded by the blood from our cuts.

  We sat in my white bathtub under a sea. Above, a man wearing tattered black trousers played the piano, Beethoven’s “Symphony 9” to us taking our clothes off. Clothes that became fish in the grip of ripples. A minute or so later, a polka dot fish swam past.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” you muttered at me as though it was a mantra.

  “Why are you telling me this here?” I asked, a naked woman next to a little naked man.

  “It’s so blue!” you laughed. “Like waking up having a different lens and because things lose their definition here.”

  Just then, a white and gold packet of Marlboro Lights floated. We took deep breaths, tasting cigarettes on our tongues.

  “Well, it’s shitty! It’s shitty of you to say my pasta wasn’t good.” I pointed my finger accusingly. It felt like slow motion.

  “I didn’t say you were a bad person. I said your pasta was average. Sorry you cooked a crappy meal. Sorry, sorry. Sorry.”

  Mouth over my belly button, you pulled three threads. The piano man played frenetically. I sensed urgency in his strokes. His reflection was a shimmering looking glass. Your mouth curled over my nipples, sucked gently. The sweet sensation felt like falling into a trap. The bath tub spun away. Fish made from cotton and polyester wrestled things down into the bed of the sea. Only I couldn’t see what they were, distracted by tiny tremors of pleasure spreading over my body. The coolness of the water kept me semi-alert. I noticed that the fish were wrestling memories. Images of me laughing on a bridge, dancing in the supermarket aisle, buying a lamp with the half-lizard woman emblazoned on the shade. In each one, the grip of someone holding my hand just outside the frame loosened.

  “I brought you here because…” You left the sentence hanging, strung up on the three threads that tugged it away.

  “Why are we having this conversation here?”

  We came up for air, back in the tub with
cold water sloshing down the sides. Our clothes stuck to dimpled bodies. A wooden afro comb had fallen in and was unpicking a tide. I held you in my hands as you tried to scramble off. You were speaking Japanese. And I could have sworn you did that on purpose.

  In bed I tossed and turned. I worried about all your possible routes of escape; through a watermark in the bathroom ceiling, hidden in a beer bottle I’d accidentally throw away, disappearing into a pause from a conversation outside.

  The following morning at breakfast, you began to speak a language that sounded like Arabic. Crumbs of toast spilled on the table as you talked. You spoke this dialect running up my thighs, eyeing the front door from the thinly carpeted staircase, as if you wanted to squeeze your limbs through the keyhole. You watched my face. I waited for you to walk into my iris and become a tiny silhouette trapped there.

  I stuck needles in your skin to silence the noise inside my head. I made you become a doll. When bulbs of blood appeared, I used them to colour the sea beneath a ship I’d drawn.

  Days passed, a week became a fortnight and then a month. Our dysfunctional routines continued. I blindfolded you and rammed cockroaches down your throat. Tied you inside bags of rotten fish and listened while you vomited. I stuffed small things inside my vagina, forcing you to find them as I stroked my collarbone. We went out on day trips. You stayed in my pocket on rumbling trains. The feeling of you burrowing reassured me. You tried to grow other heads in there, between the seams and warm lining. I put a stop to that, squeezing them until they disappeared. On one outing to the Science Museum, you spoke in Swahili. I had become used to these random bursts of language and travelling by tongue.