The Furies. Katie Lowe

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СКАЧАТЬ the café, where the other girls sat whispering in a patched-up leather booth. ‘This is Violet,’ she said, pushing me towards them, thumbs pressed firmly into my shoulder blades.

      The two girls looked up at me, with a bland curiosity, as I stumbled, caught myself, and smiled; they said nothing. After a moment, the shorter of the two – a girl with green eyes and pale, almost translucent skin – smiled and waved her cigarette coyly, gesturing me to sit by her side. The two were sharing a pot of tea clearly designed for one, which steamed lazily beside a thick, leather book on the table.

      ‘Queen bitch here is Alex,’ said Robin, sliding into the booth beside the other girl and throwing an arm around her, swiftly brushed away. She nodded, coolly, and sat back, weaving her hair into a thick, rope-like braid as she watched me, eyes hooded, almost black.

      ‘And this little cherub—’ Robin pinched her own cheek between finger and thumb and squeezed it white. ‘This is Grace.’ Grace rolled her eyes, passing her cigarette back to Alex, who took it, smoke curling in the air between them. Robin turned to the girls as I wedged myself in next to Grace, who slid closer to the wall, as though to leave a foot of space between us.

      The girls smiled at me, dimly, before turning to Robin. ‘Did you …?’ Alex said, softly.

      ‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘But good things come to those who wait, right?’

      The waitress set two tall, black coffees down with a clatter, a pool forming around them, rolling down the almost imperceptibly slanted table towards me. She dabbed it with her apron, and I looked up, finding myself greeted by a girl with the same, deep features as the barista, but a good twenty years younger. ‘Hey, Dina,’ Robin said, the words sing-song, mocking. ‘How’s it going?’

      ‘Fine,’ Dina said, turning away and stalking into a back room behind the bar.

      ‘Religious nut,’ Robin said, sliding a coffee towards me. ‘I’m surprised she hasn’t come at us with the rosary yet.’

      ‘Or a stake,’ Alex laughed.

      ‘The power of Christ compels you, etcetera.’ Robin’s voice drew a swift warning look from the woman at the bar, and the girls went on in a whisper. I sipped the coffee, concealing a wince at the bitter taste, the dry, sickly layer it left on my tongue. This wasn’t the first time I’d tried to at least pretend I liked it – I had read enough to know all the people I admired adored it, and took it black – but then, as before, the taste gave way to a hot, fast-moving nausea, heartbeat racing like that of a rabbit in a trap. Still, I clung tight to the cup, feeling the warmth nip at my fingers, and made plans to jettison it the moment the girls were distracted, though the weary-looking plant at the edge of the booth, I soon realized, was plastic. The frayed leather seats, flickering light-bulbs and dusty, sun-bleached paintings had implied that from the outset.

      ‘So what else are you studying?’ Grace said, turning to me, Alex and Robin absorbed in some labyrinthine conversation whose thrust I’d long since lost. She peeled open a half-eaten stick of rock, sugary-sweet on her breath.

      ‘English, and Classics,’ I said.

      She looked me up and down briefly, so quickly I might have imagined it. ‘Annabel seemed to like your idea in class, yesterday.’ She paused. ‘I think she—’

      ‘Hey,’ Robin said, leaning in between us. ‘This is important.’

      Grace leaned back in the chair, a counterbalance. ‘What?’

      ‘Blood or cherry?’ We stared back. ‘Lipstick, dipshits. Jesus. Some help you are.’

      Alex elbowed Robin, pulling her bag from under the table. ‘I’ve got to go.’

      ‘But we haven’t decided yet,’ Robin whined, refusing to move.

      ‘Are you wearing the black dress?’ Alex said.

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘So wear the red. It’ll pop,’ she replied, smacking her lips. ‘Now come on, piss off.’

      Robin slid out of the booth and leaned over the table, one leg outstretched behind. Alex kicked her, and she withdrew it, Dina narrowly avoiding a fall. ‘Nice to meet you … Shit,’ Alex laughed. ‘I was going to … What’s your name again?’

      ‘Violet,’ Robin answered. ‘Her name is Violet.’

      ‘Alright,’ Alex said. ‘Well, nice to meet you, Violet.’

      I nodded, a little burned. She’d forgotten my name. ‘You too.’

      After she left, the conversation continued, Robin choosing by committee colours for nails, length of lashes, contacts in various colours for a party at her boyfriend’s dorm that weekend. Still heady from the caffeine and the cloud of smoke perpetually surrounding our booth (the girls passing a single cigarette between them at all times, Robin’s almost-spent lighter seemingly the only one they owned) I opted to make my escape – to quit while it appeared I was ahead.

      ‘See you next week,’ the girls said, as though there were no question of my return, and I flushed, grateful at the implication.

      I took the long way back, past the beach, where the sea whispered a soothing, steady rhythm, a tenor crooning from the pavilion at the end of the pier. In the streets close to home, lonely people watched families on flickering TVs, curtains illuminated in the same, mocking patterns; the neighbour’s dog sniffed at my hand through the fence, before the grizzled old woman who lived there called him in.

      ‘Good evening, Mrs Mitchell!’ I shouted, in my best talking-to-the-elderly voice. Her grandson – a squat, apple-cheeked boy with a bowl haircut, a year or so older than I was – sat at the lit window above, white walls papered in posters of dragons and wizards. I looked up at him, and smiled; he pulled the curtain shut as Mrs Mitchell slammed the door without looking back.

       Chapter 3

      All weekend, I couldn’t sleep. I paced the halls, watched reruns of Murder, She Wrote with Mum at 3am, the news at six, seven, eight. I scraped the mould off the crusts with a knife and made toast for us both, while I mimed conversations I might have with the girls (assuming they invited me back). I worked the theoretical common ground at which our personalities might intersect, making lists of topics I could raise that might somehow make me seem interesting, or witty, or both. I scrawled opening lines and points of conversation in my diary, before tearing them out, ashamed to see my desperation on the page.

      I found a stack of mouldering catalogues by the door, and made a list of clothes I thought might make me more like them, make-up they might wear, so wholly unlike my own. I mimed my mum’s voice on the phone while she slept, nervously peeling strips from the wallpaper by the stairs. She didn’t notice.

      On the Monday, however, there was no sign of the girls at school. I wandered from one class to the next, imagining them around every corner, among the faceless crowds. I walked by the sports fields, hoping to catch sight of Alex, whose name I had seen on the team rosters for both netball and lacrosse; wandered the cavernous halls of the library, looking for Grace; and by the art studios, imagining I might find Robin there. Not, that is, that I would have admitted this, to either myself or the girls I was balefully stalking. I told myself I was exploring, finding my way around.

      As СКАЧАТЬ