people. My lifetime friends, like the Backwash crew have. It just . . . never happened. Maybe it doesn’t happen for people like me.’
‘It can happen now,’ said Safa, eyes zealously wide. ‘The fade is the only chance we have to make a place for ourselves.’
Kat took a shaky breath. ‘You really believe it’ll let you become another person?’
‘It has to!’ Safa said. ‘You think I made this happen just so I could steal some chips and mess with people?’
A façade had slipped, though only enough for Kat to know it was there, not to glimpse beneath it. There was so much Safa was hiding, so much she was pretending to be. She tugged at her jean shorts, and Kat saw now how uneven they were. Wildly frayed edges spoke of scissors and spur of the moment.
They jumped down from the mobility train when it stopped to let pass an already bedraggled hen party. When they returned to the square they found the night in full swing, outside seats at capacity with more standing around them. Kat yearned for each person they passed, as if they were tugging at her soul, coaxing it closer to become inextricably bound up with theirs.
She tried to ignore it. ‘Being ourselves has to be better than being nothing.’
‘The fade doesn’t make us nothing,’ said Safa.
‘So what are we?’
‘Whatever the fuck we want! Who do you want to be tonight?’
The answer surged to the surface of Kat’s mind, like flotsam on a swell. If the fade was an opportunity to be somebody else, anybody else, it would allow her to be who she had never been: herself. The person she had always wanted to be in the real world.
‘There’s something I want to do,’ she said. ‘It’s dangerous, and a bit stupid.’
Safa seemed to puff herself up, the façade snapping firmly back into place. ‘I like the sound of it already.’
17
The Fight Never Stops
Garden Hill was the focal point of the nearest park, a lump of mud and grass rising tall enough to be seen above the houses around it, a ring of trees scratching at the sky from its top. By day it was the domain of dog walkers and joggers, and by night an unearned reputation for being dangerous meant it was studiously avoided.
A lifetime of warnings jangled in Wesley’s head as he shut the metal gate behind him and made his way up the concrete path. It was beginning to drizzle, fallen leaves growing slick underfoot. It wasn’t the idea of unknown assailants lingering in the dark that worried him. It was facing who he knew would be waiting at the top.
Jordan was silhouetted against the sky, a human shape blotting the town’s jumble of lights. When he heard Wesley’s approach and turned, it was impossible to see the expression on his face.
‘Haven’t been up here in a long time,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Wesley, trying to remember his last visit, sure it must have been together.
‘I remember when I first came here – not specifically, you know, but when I was little – it seemed so huge. I probably thought I could see the whole country from up here. It’s weird, thinking how small my world used to be.’
Wesley gritted his teeth. ‘I bet you saw a lot more impressive things in Australia.’
‘You don’t have to go that far to expand your horizons.’
Being stuck at home, looking after the mess Jordan had left behind, hadn’t given him much of a chance.
‘Why did you want to meet up here?’ said Jordan.
‘I thought it would bring back some memories.’
‘It does.’ The low light caught Jordan’s smile. ‘Remember when we had that frisbee, and we thought if we threw it from up here it would go all the way to our house?’
‘It’s probably still in that bush.’
‘We must have lost so many things up here, man. Like that random baseball you had from the charity shop.’
Wesley remembered it. ‘It was signed by some American player. I really loved it. You dropped it in the mud and rubbed it off.’
‘Ah, shit. I don’t remember that.’
They stood with an empty space between them, and Wesley kept his eyes on the view. Headlights traced familiar roads and cranes blinked red and white. If his brother had forgotten what used to happen there, Wesley was ready to help him remember.
‘What about that time you invited me to come up here with all your friends?’
Jordan frowned. ‘You came up here with us a few times, didn’t you?’
‘Twice,’ said Wesley.