Blueeyedboy, junior spy. He liked the stealthy sound of the phrase, its pearly string of sibilants, its secret hint of gunsmoke. He followed them into Malbry town centre, and into the pottery workshop, where Feather was waiting at a table for four, a cup of coffee in front of her, a half-smoked cigarette between her elegant fingers.
Blueeyedboy would have liked to have joined them there, but Feather’s presence daunted him. Since that first day at the market, he had sensed that she didn’t like him somehow, that she thought he wasn’t good enough for Mrs White or Emily. So he sat at a table behind them, trying to look casual, as if he had money to spend there and business of his own to conduct.
Feather eyed him suspiciously. She was wearing a brown ethnic-print dress and a lot of tortoiseshell bangles that clattered as she moved the hand holding the half-smoked cigarette.
Blueeyedboy avoided her gaze and pretended to look out of the window. When he dared to look back again, Feather was talking quite loudly to Mrs White, elbows on the table, occasionally tapping a little cone of cigarette ash into her empty teacup.
The pretty waitress came up to him. ‘Are you all together?’ she said. Blueeyedboy realized that she had assumed that he had come in with Mrs White, and before he could stop himself, he’d said yes. Against the sound of Feather’s voice, his small deception went unnoticed, and in a few moments the waitress had brought him a Pepsi and a lump of clay, with the kindly instruction to call for her if ever he needed anything more.
He was not sure what he’d intended to make. A dog for Ma’s collection, perhaps; something to put on the mantelpiece. Something — anything — to draw her away, even for an instant, from the Mansion, Dr Peacock’s work, and aspects of synaesthesia.
He watched them over his Pepsi, looking askance at Emily with her starfish hands splayed around her lump of blue clay. Feather was encouraging her, saying: Make something, darling. Make a shape. Mrs White was leaning forward, tensed with hope and expectancy, her long hair hanging so close to the clay that it looked as if it might stick there.
‘What’s it going to be? A face?’
There came a sound from Emily that might have been acquiescence.
‘And those are the eyes, and there’s the nose—’ said Feather, sounding ecstatic, though blueeyedboy couldn’t see anything much to provoke such rapt excitement.
Emily’s hands moved on the clay, gouging a hole here and there, exploring with her fingertips, scraping her nails around the back to form the semblance of hair. Now he could see it was a head, though primitive and misshapen, with bat’s ears and a ludicrous pseudo-scientist’s brow that dwarfed the other features. The eyes were shallow thumbprints; barely even visible.
But Feather and Mrs White crowed in delight, and blueeyedboy drew closer to them, trying to see what it was in their eyes that made it so remarkable.
Feather gave him a dirty look. He pulled away from the table at once. But Mrs White had noticed him, and instead of pleased recognition, he saw a look of alarm in her eyes, as if she thought he might hurt Emily, as if he could be dangerous —
‘What are you doing here?’ she said.
He gave a shrug. ‘N-nothing.’
‘Where are your brothers? Your mother?’
He shrugged. Faced with his long-pursued quarry at last, he found that speech had abandoned him, leaving nothing but broken syllables and a stammer that rendered him helpless.
‘You’re following me,’ said Mrs White. ‘What do you want?’
Again, he shrugged. He couldn’t have explained it to her even if they had been alone, and Feather’s presence by her side made it even less possible. He twisted on the seat of his chair, feeling trapped and foolish, with the taste of the vitamin drink in his throat, and his forehead like a squeezed balloon —
Feather narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You know this counts as harassment,’ she said. ‘Catherine could call the police.’
‘He’s only a boy,’ said Mrs White.
‘Boys grow up,’ said Feather darkly.
‘What do you want?’ said Mrs White again.
‘I-I just w-wanted to s-see E-Emily,’ said blueeyedboy, feeling nauseous. He looked at the lump of untouched clay and the half-drunk Pepsi at his side. He hadn’t intended to order them. He had no money to pay for them. And now here was Mrs White’s friend talking about calling the police —
He really meant to tell her the truth. But now he hardly knew what that was. He had thought that when he spoke to her he would know what it was that he wanted to say. But now, as the vegetable stink increased and the ache in his head intensified, he knew that what he wanted from her was something far closer to the bone; a word that came clothed in shades of blue . . .
Late that night, alone in his room, he took out the Blue Book from under his bed and, instead of his journal, began to write a story.
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ClairDeLune: Interesting, how this fic explores the evolution of the creative process. If you don’t mind, I’d like to circulate this to some of my other students — or maybe we could discuss it here?
4
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 22.40 on Friday, February 8
Status: restricted
Mood: ominous
Listening to: Jarvis Cocker: ‘I Will Kill Again’
Eleanor Vine called round early tonight while Ma was getting ready to go out, and took the opportunity to take Yours Truly to task again. It seems that my continuing absence from our writing-as-therapy group has been noted and commented upon. She doesn’t attend herself, of course — too many people; too much dirt — but I guess Terri must have talked.
People talk to Eleanor. She seems to invite confidences, somehow. And I can see how it’s killing her that she has known me all this time and still has no more knowledge of me than when I was four years old —
‘You really should go back, you know,’ she says. ‘You need to get out more. Make new friends. Besides, you owe it to your Ma—’
Owe it to Ma? Don’t make me laugh.
I adjusted my iPod earpiece. It’s the only way I can deal with her. Through it, in his rasping voice, Jarvis Cocker confided to me what, if given half a chance, he would do to someone like Eleanor —
She gave me a look of fish-eyed reproach. ‘I hear there’s someone who’s missing you.’
‘Really?’ I feigned innocence.
‘Don’t be coy. She likes you.’ She gave me a nudge. ‘You could do worse.’
‘Yeah. Thanks, Mrs Vine.’
Interfering old trout. As if that collection of fucktards and losers could ever throw up a live one. I know who she means; I’m not interested. In my earpiece Cocker’s voice shifted registers, now soaring plaintively towards the octave: