Dreaming of Amelia Read online

  (Also, about the ‘shadow conversation’ — what makes you think I wasn’t there?)

  Interrupt again and I swear I’ll get a priest in to do an exorcism.

  Okay, listen. I’m going to tell you about an incident.

  The incident took place on a Thursday night, the night before the last day of term.

  A group of us were in the Art Rooms.

  We were there helping Em chase her ghost.

  Some of us believed in the ghost. Some of us were there to laugh at Em.

  Seb was there, and so were Amelia and Riley.

  We’d been hanging for a while, joking around, and, so far, no ghost. The group started to splinter; people wandering. I heard Seb say he was going back to his car.

  The art exhibition was happening in the gallery the next day. Seb had a work in progress in it, and he said he had something to add to it in his car.

  I saw the door to the auditorium close behind him.

  I was vaguely aware of one or two other people leaving the room.

  Decided I would follow Seb.

  There was something important that I wanted to say to him.

  I went to find him. The gallery’s just down the hall from the auditorium.

  Someone was outside the door.

  Thought it was Seb at first, but he heard my footstep, turned in my direction — and turned out it was Riley.

  Riley’s hands were pressed to the gallery door, about to open it.

  He saw me, gave his slow, warm smile, waited. I reached him. We were both about to speak, when someone screamed.

  The scream was loud.

  Instinctively, I reached for Riley, and he did the same to me. One of his hands held the side of my arm for a moment. Our eyes rushed into one another’s — he has this way of looking into eyes like he’s diving right in — then we turned down the hall.

  The scream faded — and I recognised it.

  It was Em’s scream. (I’ve known her a long time.)

  Already, a crinkle had formed in the corners of Riley’s eyes. Still, he tilted his head slightly, watching the empty corridor, listening, waiting.

  The silence continued. We dropped our arms and smiled.

  ‘I guess the ghost is here,’ I said.

  ‘Not any more it’s not,’ he said — meaning the scream would have scared it away.

  I laughed and so did he. He pushed open the door.

  One light was shining down the end of the gallery but otherwise the room had a dim, hushed feel.

  Windows were black with night. Walls were hung with paintings, neatly labelled. There was something calm and expectant about the room.

  I looked around for Seb’s piece. I knew he was doing something multimedia but hadn’t seen it yet. I’d never even been in the gallery.

  Then I realised Seb himself was not here. He must have been still out at his car.

  Riley had moved across the room and was standing by the window.

  There was a small card fixed to the wall beside him — Riley T Smith, it said — and a series of black and white photographs stretched beyond it.

  The first photo was a young guy with a goatee, slouching along in the middle distance. The next was a close-up of the same guy’s face, but now it had a huge, unexpected smile. Then an old woman in the same middle distance, eyes sad and lost, followed by a close-up of the woman, radiant with its smile. There was a series of similar pairs: a distant face, distracted or sullen; then a sudden, looming close-up, each with a smile that was lit with something vivid, fresh and warm. The effect was strangely confronting — the transformation was so complete, it was as if an otherworldy switch had been at work.

  I moved along the wall — and found myself looking at photos of me.

  It was intensely embarrassing. I felt as if they were nude portraits. I moved on, passing more pairs, and then I came to a small card labelled The Switch — so that was the name of the series. I’d been thinking of that exact word. Beyond the card was a final photograph: this one a close-up of a baby in a carrier, asleep.

  ‘That’s my sister,’ Riley said. He’d been gazing out the window as I looked at his photos, but now he moved to my side. ‘Chloe. I had this idea that I’d walk around with her for a few weeks and photograph people’s expressions before and after they saw her. There’s something about her face. Not like other babies’ faces.’

  I’d seen the baby, I knew what he meant. But I didn’t want to mention that — it would draw attention to the photos of me and I wanted to pretend they weren’t there.

  Riley reached out a hand and touched the image of the baby with his fingertips.

  ‘You should have seen her this morning,’ he said, smiling. ‘She’d got into the pantry and tipped a box of Cheerios all over the kitchen floor. I walk in and she’s crawling around eating them as fast as she can. Mum’s standing there, watching her — she got this embarrassed look when she saw me — she goes, “I know, I know, but I can’t bring myself to stop her. She thinks she’s hit the jackpot.”’

  I laughed but before I had a chance to speak there was a freakish, loud noise from somewhere down the hall, followed by screams from our ghost-hunting friends, then footsteps pounding from the Art Rooms.

  Riley and I looked at each other and laughed hard. We couldn’t stop laughing. It was like we were laughing at everything — his beautiful photos, his funny little sister, the image of her crawling around eating Cheerios, the fact that we both knew there were photos of me on the wall but weren’t mentioning them, the madness of our friends chasing terror — it all seemed connected. We were the observers, like Riley’s mother. Standing apart, watching fondly, laughing at the weird happiness of the kids.

  We waited a few moments, then went out into the corridor, chatted a bit, still laughing, and headed out into the night.

  And that’s the incident.

  Do you understand why I told you about it?

  Love,

  Lydia

  To prove that I was right about your secret? That it was no secret? Simply Riley out with his sister taking photos for an artwork? Well! That is generous of you, Lydia.

  No, I am proving that you’re wrong.

  When I saw Riley and Amelia with a baby last term, you know what I thought?

  That it was their baby.

  It explained their separateness. (And their sleepiness in classes.)

  I didn’t tell anyone cos I thought it was Amelia and Riley’s secret to tell.

  I wondered about their lives — 17 years old with a kid. How scared and trapped they must feel. No wonder Amelia was up to something, I thought. But it made her secret — and the space between their hands — even sadder.

  I thought about the knowledge they must have that we didn’t — how to change a nappy, get a baby vaccinated. Where to buy a pram.

  How much more grown-up they were than us. How childish we must seem.

  Next thing, Riley’s talking like an ordinary boy about his mum and his baby sister.

  I felt like an idiot. I’d been thinking I was the only one at Ashbury who could see Riley and Amelia clearly. But I’d made an ordinary scene — two kids out with a baby sister — into something extraordinary.

  I was just like everybody else: looking for a mystery, wanting a twist.

  I also realised that those few sentences — Riley’s cute story about the sister and the spilled breakfast cereal — was the most I’d learned about Riley all year.

  There’s no such thing as Amelia-and-Riley — I mean the mysterious, amazing Amelia-and-Riley; they don’t actually exist.

  Just like Em’s ghost doesn’t exist, because there’s no such thing as ghosts.

  Hmm.

  Something not quite right about your final thought there, but I can’t get my head around what it is.

  Oops. No head.

  Well. You know. Amelia and Riley? Whatever.

  I’m kind of ‘over them’.

  Much more interested to know what it was that you wanted to tell Seb that nig
ht. When you followed him to the gallery and found Riley there instead. Did you ever catch Seb? Did you tell him?

  Huh. I wondered when you’d get to that.

  No, I haven’t told him yet.

  Term 2 ended, the exhibition happened. Seb’s artwork was a surprise. My parents came home, the parties stopped, and I didn’t see Seb alone again. Now it’s about to be Term 3 and the Trials. There’ll still be drama rehearsals and I guess I’ll see him there —

  But what I wanted to tell Seb was that I lied to him on the first day of Term 2.

  Here’s my final story:

  First day of Term 2, early morning, Blue Danish Café.

  An all-night party at my place the night before.

  A group of us have stopped for coffee on the way to school.

  We’re sitting by the window and the white light hurts my eyes. I close them. But a voice across the table hurts my brain. Pick up my latte with both hands, open my eyes and study it. Such gentle twists and peaks in the foam. Such subtle swirls of caramel — and it’s so creamy — so creamy. I put the coffee down and push it hard away, so it begins to tip.

  Riley is beside me. He’s talking to someone, but his hand reaches out and rights my coffee. He keeps on talking, doesn’t look at me.

  I close my eyes again but that voice across the table.

  It’s the same pitch as a fire alarm. She should take a vow of silence.

  It’s Astrid from our school. Em made friends with her last year. They’re leaning close together now, their hair is entangled, and Astrid’s telling a story that goes like this: And he’s like and I’m like and it’s like like like so cold!

  I think suddenly of Christmas pudding so crowded with raisins that you can’t find any cake.

  I look at Em. How can she sit so close to Astrid and not throw up?

  I can’t even be in the same room.

  I push back my chair and get out of the café. As I leave I notice Riley’s hand reach out again — this time he’s stopped my chair from toppling backwards. Once again, he doesn’t even look around to do it.

  Nearly trip over Toby from my school on the way out — he’s sitting near the door with some woman. Maybe his mum. He looks sad.

  See myself reflected in the café door as I walk out.

  I look sad too.

  I think this childish thought: What’s to be sad about, Toby? You’ve got your mum. Where’s mine?

  And then, just outside the door, lost inside my mind, there’s suddenly a sense of something right.

  A sense of something falling into place.

  It’s so soothing. I can’t figure out — and then I can.

  It’s Seb. Standing in front of me. He’s so close I can’t see his face. It’s the smell of him, the closeness, that’s what’s right. He’s arriving at the café just as I’m leaving and his hand is reaching out toward the door. His arm has crossed right over my shoulder.

  He stops, we step back, and I look into his face. The surprise of the meeting, the physical closeness, makes our eyes honest for a moment.

  Then someone else is trying to get past us, and we step away, get shy again.

  This is the first time I’ve seen Seb since I ran into him at a petrol station first term, the night he warned me to stay away from Riley and Amelia. This is before the drama rehearsals and all the parties in Term 2.

  Now we step away from the door, stand together in the cold — talk about the cold. Talk about the fact that my parents are away in their Tuscan retreat. Seb’s art and soccer; the computer course he’s been taking in graphic design, how he’s getting into programming. Our words are smooth as latte foam. They’re tangling like hair. He’s listening to every word I say, and then I see he’s listening to more than that. Trying to hear the air between us, trying to hear my thoughts.

  There’s a shine in his eye as I tell a stupid-funny story about the party last night, but the shine outlasts the story and he says, ‘Lyd, I miss you bad.’

  He says, ‘Can we —?’ Keeps looking into my eyes.

  He means he’s ready to end the break.

  I turn cold as shadows.

  I’m still smiling but I’m cold: ‘We can be friends, but that’s all I want, okay?’

  ‘If that’s all I can get,’ he says, fast. He’s still smiling too, and the shine’s still there but fading.

  ‘That’s all you can get,’ I nod, and reach out to punch his shoulder like a pal.

  I want to touch him and hurt him both at once.

  I don’t expect to see him again, but he surprises me by signing up for the Ashbury-Brookfield drama. He tells me he isn’t stalking me; he just got invited to supervise set design. And when they all start coming to parties at my place, it makes sense for him to come too.

  So Seb’s my friend all term.

  And then, on that last night, I tried to find him in the gallery to tell him that I lied. That I’ve been pretending all term.

  It’s not all I want. It’s never all I wanted.

  Just to be friends. I want more than that.

  And you still haven’t told him?!

  Well, my child, you must!

  Call him now!

  Ha ha.

  I could tell him at rehearsals now that school’s going back.

  Or he can call me now if he wants.

  ‘Ha ha’? Whatever do you mean? You sure can be exasperating, Lydia! Call him at once and let him know!

  We’ll wrap up this assessment task so you can.

  If I may be so bold, I shall now retell your story of last term. Here it is. Last term:

  You were abandoned by your parents during the most stressful academic year of your life.

  You felt abandoned by Seb at a time when you needed him most.

  You were anxious about whether your parents’ marriage would return in pieces or not.

  You punished your parents by letting the house get trashed, and by siphoning money from their online bank accounts.

  You punished Seb by pretending you no longer cared for him.

  You punished yourself by pretending you no longer cared for Seb.

  You distracted yourself from the sound of your own thoughts by holding party after party after party after party — and when the thoughts were still louder than the backbeat of the parties, you buried them with Riley-and-Amelia obsessing!

  You did (I concede) consume enormous quantities of coffee, almonds, Magnums and pecan cookies.

  Ever yours,

  The Ghost

  Okay, now you’re just weird and annoying.

  Drop the ghost thing. Get out of my head. And call me.

  Drop the ghost thing. Hmm. How exactly?

  As to getting out of your head, why, I’ve only just got started! Are you not delighted with my insights?!

  Your obsession with secrets and shadows! While all the time you’re hiding from the truth! Now there’s a rich seam to mine! Which brings me to something that we haven’t even mentioned! The secret that your mother told you just before she left!!!

  How do you know about that secret?

  Well, DUH! I haunt this house. You haven’t noticed how much I’ve noticed? I was there when she told you the secret.

  Seb, what the f— are you talking about?

  Okay, setting aside the curious fact that you just called me ‘Seb’ — a few nights before your parents flew away, your mother was getting ready for a reception at Distressed Weasel Records, that ‘hot, new independent label’ she recently acquired (oh, your mother is transparent! Longs to be hot, new and independent herself!) (or does she wish to be a distressed weasel? Hmm. But why?). As I recall it, she had wandered into the living room to ‘take a break’ from getting ready. She was wearing her white bathrobe but had already set her hair and donned her jewellery, so her bangles slid up and down her arm as she mixed herself a cocktail. She was chatting to you about the olive grove she would see from the window of her Tuscan villa, when you both heard the sound of your father’s car in the driveway. And suddenly — i
n a warm, smiling, confiding voice — she told you her secret.

  [At this point, I stopped typing and picked up my phone. Here is probably the appropriate time for me to point out — if you have not already guessed this yourself — that I had believed, for almost the entire correspondence, that the ‘ghost’ was in fact my friend Seb. I assumed it was Seb because I recalled that, following a course in computer graphics, he had developed an unexpected interest in programming. I thought he must have hacked into my computer. The ghost’s praise of Seb — his soccer abilities, etc — seemed to confirm my assumption. I had revealed the truth about my feelings for Seb, thinking I was telling Seb himself.

  However, I had not told a single person the ‘secret’ that my mother revealed to me in the living room before she went to Tuscany. (Nor do I think it necessary, for the purposes of this narrative, to reveal that secret now — it’s a family thing.) In fact, until this moment, I have not mentioned to anyone that she so much as told me a secret. Yet the details set out in the letter above are accurate: the robe, the bangles, and so on.

  The only way anybody could know this was if they were spying on the room.

  I picked up the phone and called Seb.

  He did not answer. (The time was now close to 4 am, so this is not surprising.)

  I left a fairly garbled and angry message. (He called me back eventually, and left a message of his own — he seemed genuinely confused. In my experience with Seb, he has never, or rarely, been deceptive. I believe that, if the ‘ghost’ HAD been Seb he would have admitted it in the course of the correspondence — or at the very least confessed when I challenged him on the phone. But he insisted that he had not been talking with me online all night. He asked if I was all right. He sounded concerned.)

  Getting back to last night: once I had left the message on Seb’s phone I sat back in my desk chair, breathless for a few moments, and then, hesitantly, I typed:]

  Seb, you are seriously scaring me. You’ve been in the house? You’ve been watching us? What the f— is going on? This isn’t funny at all. I just left you a message. Call me back.