Sleeping In A Coffin

Sleeping in a Coffin

He can hear them downstairs. Even his oversized headphones and epic Vangelis don’t drown them out. Usually they leave him alone, his meathead brother and slapper girlfriend, Chaveen, or whatever her name is. Usually they go and drink cider in the park with the other deadbeats. Usually Saturday afternoons are safe. Usually - but not today. Today they’re having their own little private party downstairs, cackling and yelling and playing shite R&B. From here it sounds like somebody’s machine-gunning cats.
He’s supposed to be revising but instead he picks up the copy of Cahiers du Cinema he bought on EBay; Belmondo on the cover - aspirational cool even with that nose. He tries to make out the words of wisdom and wishes he paid more attention in French but French lessons never lived up to their euphemistic promise. He picks up a pencil and instructs the orchestra in his head to up the longing as Rachel’s Song blasts desire through his cortex. He has both hands raised and his eyes closed when he realises his bedroom door has opened. Prick, he thinks and turns in fury to spit bile at his brother. My room - fuck off!
Momentarily disarmed. The honey is standing with her back to the closed door, one hand on the handle, caressing the wood with long pale fingers tipped in pillar box red. She’s thin, a blonde, but not bottle. Her skin has an unnaturally orange gleam but she’s wearing black at least, tight jeans low slung on coat-hanger hips and a strappy vest that covers her small breasts but exposes her bellybutton. And those eyes…
Hello, through a white-toothed cherry-lipped smile.
Thrown off balance, his chair wheels spin and the headphones pop their connection filling the room with smoky brassiness.
‘What are you listening to?’ She smirks.
He spins his chair back to the desk and turns down the sound then clears his throat.
‘Can I help you Sugar?’
‘Sugar? Is it from a film – sounds like a film?’
‘Blade Runner.’ He frowns. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
‘They’re snogging each others faces off downstairs. They paired me off with Denny’s friend Baz but he’s a no show. Can’t say I’m devastated. Thought I’d come up and say Hello.’
He takes off his head phones.
‘Sorry, but do I know you?’
‘I’m in Denny’s year. Don’t you recognise me?’
He shakes his head.
‘We see each other every day - try and imagine a white shirt and a school tie.’
‘Still nothing.’
‘Well, that’s… flattering.’
‘Sorry Dollface, I’m only observant when I need to be.’
She looks at him like she scraped him from under her shoe and starts to walk around his room.
‘So, this is your room – I wondered what it was like.’
‘You’ve thought about my room?’
‘Well you know you’re a bit of a mystery, all that walking around scowling, the sunglasses, the trilby. Some of the girls think it’s cute - that you’re our very own R-Patz - I told them I’d see if you slept in a coffin.’
At the mention of sleep he looks at his unmade bed. It’s clean at least, his Mum changed it yesterday. The cup-cake looks at it too.
‘No coffin. What’s your name sweetheart?’
‘Why are you talking like that? You’ve been talking like that since I came in - do you need zovirax or something?’
He coughs and sits up. She laughs - a heartbreaking little girl laugh.
‘Amber,’ she says, holding out her hand. ‘My name is Amber.’
He takes her fingers lightly in his own; they’re as cold as ice. He lets go quickly.
‘Amber. The past distilled.’
She frowns again.
‘Denny’s right – you are weird.’
She looks at his posters - Breathless, Pulp Fiction, Miller’s Crossing – and then at him. She picks up the occupants of his fireplace one by one: his replica oscar, his spare ray bans, his classic zippo. Her opinion of his belongings registers across her face.
He flips a Lite into his mouth.
‘Match me,’ he says, offering her the pack, ‘want one?’
She grimaces, but flicks the zippo into life and bends to light his cigarette. He holds her hand steady and looks into those eyes for the delicious intimacy of taking the flame. She looks away, towards the bookcase that takes up the whole of one wall.
‘No coffin,’ she says, wafting smoke from her face, ‘but it looks like you’ve been buried in a library.’
She walks over to it and runs her forefinger along the cracked and faded spines of his dime store novels.
‘Have you read all these books?’
He exhales a huge plume of smoke.
‘Most of them.’
She picks one out and reads the back. The Big Nowhere.
‘Sounds intense,’ she says putting it back. ‘You need to get out more Vampire Boy.’
‘Don’t you like books?’
‘Not much.’
‘You must like some – what’s your favourite book?’
‘I dunno. Twilight I suppose.’
‘Twilight!’
She flashes him the daggers.
‘Okay – The Railway Children. I used to like the Railway Children.’
‘Sorry Baby, but I really can’t decide which is worse, virgin Vampire romance or middle-class schmaltz.’
She frowns and walks quickly towards him. For a moment he thinks she’s going to punch him but instead she leans over him, one leg between his knees and one hand on the arm of his chair, so close he has to lean back so they don’t touch. She taps the book on the desk behind him. The Great Gatsby.
‘I read that one. We did it in English last year. It’s alright. All that money and all that ‘old sport’ stuff – a riot.’
She moves away and he almost falls off his chair. She stands near the door again playing with the handle.
‘Bet you like Gatsby. Bet you think you’re like him. Better than everybody else. Thing is R-Patz – Gatsby doesn’t get the girl.’
With that she is gone, leaving the door wide open behind her.