‘Sorry about the meeting place,’ he says, and I tell him it’s fine.
‘It doesn’t seem fine,’ he says.
‘There were people in there who looked like us. Like me and Mum and Gran.’
‘And how do you look?’ he asks.
‘Sad,’ I tell him, and he takes a drink from his coffee and says I don’t seem sad today. ‘You seem kind of angry.’
‘Intuitive,’ I say, and he tells me to stop being a smart alec and tell him what’s wrong.
‘Where does that phrase “smart alec’’ come from?’ I ask, buying myself some time. ‘Henry would probably know. His dad would definitely know.’
‘Do you like working with them?’ Gus asks.
‘Michael, Henry’s dad, has me cataloguing the Letter Library.’ I explain what it is, and how frustrating I’m finding the job.
‘Does it pay you well?’ Gus asks, and I nod. ‘And it’s a nice place to work?’
‘I can set my own hours. I get free coffee and breaks whenever I need them, I don’t have to serve customers unless Henry or George are on lunch. Martin’s nice, the guy who’s been hired to catalogue the rest of the store.’
‘If it’s just the monotony that’s getting to you, wear headphones. Listen to music.’
‘That’d stop the questions, I guess. People are asking about Cal.’ I watch the blue wren moving near our feet. I let myself get mesmerised by the detail of it. ‘I haven’t told them he’s dead.’
‘Maybe that’s what’s bothering you?’ Gus asks.
‘It’s that I don’t have patience for pointless stuff anymore. What’s Michael planning on doing with my catalogue anyway? It’ll sit in a file on his computer and one day he’ll delete it and I’ll have done all that work for nothing. Seems stupid when there are more important things to do.’
‘What more important things have you got to do?’ Gus asks. ‘I’m just curious.’
When I don’t answer, he tells me to try writing about what’s making me angry.
I really like Gus. More than that, I respect him. But today I want to tell him to fuck off so badly I have to cover my mouth so the words don’t escape.
‘Any time you need me, call, and we can arrange another session,’ he says, and we spend the rest of our time staring at the wren, pecking at food we can’t see, somewhere under the grass.
I pull up at the bookstore at nine. George is waiting out the front and as soon as she sees my car she calls to Henry that she’s leaving, and gets in the front seat. ‘Let’s go,’ she says. ‘If we get to the party before them we can lose ourselves in the crowd.’
It’s not a bad idea, so I start the engine and let George direct me to Justin’s house. I remember him from high school. He was a little wild, but a nice guy. His parents always seemed to be away, so his house was available for parties. He grew a beard in Year 9 and refused to shave it off. I’m wondering who I might see – Amy for certain – when George nudges me out of my thoughts and tells me to take a left at the lights.
She turns on the radio, and skips around until she finds a station playing David Bowie, and then leans back and says, ‘So, how’s Cal?’
I can’t dodge questions for much longer so I tell her he’s good. I just leave out the part where he’s ash in an urn on Mum’s mantelpiece. I’m surprised George even remembers Cal. They went to the same school, but I can’t imagine their paths crossed that often.
Cal was a tall, skinny guy with a cloud of brown hair that made him look kind of like a dandelion. A dandelion with glasses, giant headphones around his neck and a book in his hand. George has long straight black hair with a blue stripe down the left side. These days she has a tattoo running along her collarbone; it’s the number 44 written in a soft blue-sky script.
I heard Martin asking about the tattoo during the week. ‘Forty-four. Is that the meaning of life?’ he asked. ‘That would be forty-two,’ she’d said, which is something I know only because Cal read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
‘But what’s he doing?’ George asks, and it feels like I’m un-writing Cal by not filling her in, so I tell her what he would be doing, if he were alive. ‘He’s on exchange, sort of. It’s not an official program. He’s living with our dad at the moment.’
It’s a sort of truth. The plan had been for Dad to spend three months in Paris, so Cal could stay with him. If Cal hadn’t drowned, that’s where he’d be right now.
‘That makes sense,’ George says in a way that makes me think she knew Cal better than I thought.
‘I didn’t know him that well,’ she says when I ask. ‘He was nice to me at school once. He gave me some Sea-Monkeys. I was having a bad week.’ She stops herself from telling me about it, and skips part of the story. ‘Anyway he said they’re like time travellers. They can hibernate until conditions are better. I haven’t put them in water yet. I’m saving them.’
I didn’t know that Cal had a crush on George, but he must have. He wouldn’t give Sea-Monkeys to just any girl. I look over at her – boots on the dash, humming to Bowie. I imagine Cal at school, holding the Sea-Monkeys, trying to get up the courage to give them to George. He probably wrote out a speech beforehand.
‘Did you two talk much?’ I ask. ‘After that?’
‘Not much,’ she says.
They would have been good together, I think, and I turn up the radio to let it drown out sad thoughts.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Letters left between pages 44 and 45
15 March – 15 April 2014
Dear George
So how’s Year 9 going? I’ve found this old typewriter that belonged to my grandpa in the shed, so I’m using it for our letters.
The y jumps a little yyyyyyy – see?
I like Year 9. I’m reading a heap – swimming, too, but obviously not the two together. I got a new haircut – my sister says I look good. I think I look weird. My ears are quite big. I’ve never noticed that before. You have nice ears – they’re so small I wonder how you fit all the piercings on them. I’d like to count them one day. Too much information?
Pytheas
Dear Pytheas
You’d be welcome to count them, if you ever told me who you are?!? You have a new haircut and you have big ears, so I guess there are two clues. No one at school fits that description.
This leads me to a question that I hope isn’t insulting. You’re not Martin Gamble are you? I don’t think you are but lately he’s everywhere I go at school, flipping up the cover of my book to see what I’m reading and even though I’m certain that you’re not, the thought keeps crossing my mind. Are you? Please say you’re not.
He’s going out with Stacy, so it’s highly unlikely that you are. Unless these letters are a joke, which I know they’re not. So I’ve just convinced myself that you’re not Martin.
On another, sadder note, my parents are fighting a lot. Dad says they won’t ever divorce, not as long as their copy of Great Expectations is in the Letter Library. It’s their book. Dad says it reminds them of how much they love each other, but I don’t know. They don’t seem to love each other at the moment and I don’t want to point it out but Pip and Estella don’t even end up together.