On the bus Ina sat staring at the back of the head of the guy in front of her. He had ear buds in and she imagined he was listening to a podcast, something lame like personal finance and wealth building. He looked like the kind of guy who would have turned up to her statistics tutorial last year with all the answers but nothing actually original to say. She turned away and watched houses flash past on the other side of the road, windows glinting in the morning light. She thought about Ngaio and the text she had sent her as soon as she sat down on the bus. Sorry I had to do something important I can’t stop thinking about you. She wondered what Ngaio was doing right at that moment. Getting ready to go to her history lecture, she supposed.
Ina was listening to The Cure again. She turned up the volume and the happy jangle of Just Like Heaven, you-ooh, soft and only, you-ooh, lost and lonely filled her ears. It was a very good example of their punk-ish pop, she thought, the hopeful upwardness of the keys dancing around each other, she could barely hold herself back from singing. I found myself alone alone alone above a raging sea that stole the only girl I loved and drowned her deep inside of me. She kept going back to her first waking moment that morning, the warmth of her back as she pressed against Ngaio, that moment when everything felt so good, before she remembered. Niko.
She tried not to think about him. Not to think about what he was thinking, or feeling, or whether he was going to be ok. What could she do about it anyway? Would she go back and change what she had said? Was there any part of her that wanted to be with him? No. But she loved him. And he had been her closest friend all through that year which tossed and threw her as if she were a boat on that TV show about crab fishing. Those fishing boats which start off in Alaska and then head out into the wildest seas of the middle of absolutely nowhere, being plunged down waves as tall as five storey buildings. He’d been there with her. He knew about the waves.
The statistics paper hadn’t worked out. The numbers wore her down, like sandpaper on the inside of her brain. Story was what she needed in the end, and she threw herself into her English papers, spent three days in bed reading Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. She wrote an essay on the novel on the night of the third day, about destiny and artificial intelligence and the futility of a life you are unable to live for yourself. She had cried for an hour when she got to the end. She didn’t need the statistics paper anyway, now that she wasn’t doing psychology. That whole pathway, which gleamed bright and obvious during her last year of high school, had faded abruptly.
Ina picked up her phone. She found the thread of disjointed messages between her and her mother and started typing. Happy birthday I hope you have a good day wish I could be with you. That bit wasn’t completely true, but it was true in a way, and that was enough. She wished she could be with her for a moment, that she could fly up north and flit down into the room her mother was sitting in. She imagined it light and airy, with a pale institutional colour scheme. She would kiss her on the cheek and tell her she loved her, and then flit away again. The sky would open up and take her. That wouldn’t be so hard.
The bus was getting closer to work. The streets were busy, thick with rows of rush hour traffic. Small industrious ants all going places in a hurry, the world awake and moving. She hit play on Just Like Heaven again, it was a good song to have rolling around in her head while she worked. The music would buoy her. You-ooh soft and only. A flash of a memory from the night before. Ngaio’s belly, smooth and round. She had buried her face in the incredible softness, and kissed it over and over. It was the most delicious thing. Like a pudding, sweet and irresistible. How did she not know that something could taste so good?
She was only five minutes late for work. She rushed through the main doors and waved to the woman standing behind the counter. In the staff bathroom she ran the tap and pressed her hair down with wet hands. She looked in the mirror; tired eyes stared back at her, but there was a spark in them. Her phone vibrated. Ngaio? But it was her mother. I am going to have breakfast out on the patio with your poppa, he is bringing pink buns and coffee have I told you how terrible the coffee is here. Ina held her breath, waiting for the follow up. Thank you I will be thinking of you and thank you I know how busy you are. Ina let the breath out. I hope you are eating a variety of fruits and vegetables don’t forget the fish oil capsules I sent you did they arrive?
The song helped. She focused on the words as she put her phone back in her pocket and walked out into the shop. I found myself alone alone alone above a raging sea. She offered to take over at the counter but the children’s section needed tidying. Her favourite part of the shop, hidden away at the back. There were no customers there, and she hummed as she straightened the books. She wondered when Ngaio would reply. When she would see her again. When she would kiss her again. When she would know for sure that what she was feeling was something she could count on.
She was straightening the books on the display table when she saw it. A copy of Where the Wild Things Are, slightly bent at the bottom right hand corner, as if a kid had grabbed it and turned the pages clumsily. A memory floated up. She was sitting on the floor of her bedroom reading that picture book, a pile of books beside her. Light coming in from the bay window behind, landing directly on the open page. Did she remember or did she remember the photograph? What she knew she remembered was the light that came down onto the book, the way it lit up the page so brightly that if you turned the photograph upside down you could almost read the words themselves.
And then another memory came. Ina playing in her bedroom, hearing her mother singing in the next room. What was she singing? Something from the Phantom of the Opera? Which she had on vinyl and god she played it all the time. It was either that or the Smashing Pumpkins album which was released just before Ina was born, the one her mother thrashed, over and over. But what was her mother singing? Was it Music of the Night? Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams? Let your spirit start to soar? Why did the memory leave her feeling so empty? She had no idea.
She went and bought sushi for lunch and sat in the staff kitchen on her phone. The steady stream of moving images kept her attention completely and didn’t let go. Which was what she needed. There was no point in thinking about her mother. There was nothing she could do from down there, and nothing she could do anyway. God knows she’d tried. A notification flicked across the screen of her phone. A reply from Ngaio. Her heart spun for a second, and then settled as she read the words. Is everything ok? I can’t stop thinking about you either.
Lovely Idoya, beautifully written and a nice build up of exciting my curiosity. I want to read more xo