The Imaginary Page 4

  Rudger looked at her. It seemed she hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t talking to her.

  ‘I suppose so,’ her mum said. ‘I’ve got to go into town anyway, so maybe we could…’

  ‘Brilliant!’

  Gobbling the last spoonful of her cornflakes noisily, Amanda jumped down from the table and ran upstairs.

  Her mum picked her bowl up, then stacked Rudger’s on top of it. She tipped his uneaten cornflakes into the bin.

  She rubbed her eyes tiredly, put the bowls in the sink, turned on the hot tap and squirted a dribble of washing-up liquid into the water.

  Rudger went out to wait in the hall.

  He’d teach Amanda a lesson. He’d wait until she noticed he was upset and apologised to him, and then he’d forgive her and everything could be as it was before.

  It was a plan and he was going to stick to it.

  She ran downstairs with sparkling eyes and her rucksack in her hands.

  ‘I’ve got my costume and goggles and some towels and I got a pair of shorts for you. Let’s see if Mum’s ready yet.’

  By the time Rudger didn’t reply, Amanda had already run into the kitchen.

  The problem with Amanda, Rudger realised, was that she didn’t notice things.

  She hadn’t noticed his fear last night and she didn’t notice his silence this morning. She was off in her own world, nattering away as if Rudger was hanging on her every word, which of course he was, waiting for her apology. But as hard as he listened, none of the hundreds of words she threw into the air were the ‘sorry’ he longed for.

  And although a silence is as silent as it can get, Rudger’s silence still managed to grow even more so with each passing moment. Just because she’d imagined him didn’t mean she could ignore his feelings.

  He folded his arms and looked out of the car window.

  On the pavement across from the house, under the opposite neighbour’s tree, he thought for a moment he saw two figures just standing there, but as Amanda’s mum reversed out of the drive, the car turned in such a way that he could no longer see them. By the time he’d swivelled to look out of the rear window, they’d gone.

  Should he tell Amanda? But what could he say? She’d just take the mickey. If she hadn’t noticed them, then maybe they hadn’t been there. She was usually so good at noticing things, except, of course, he corrected himself, when she wasn’t. He kept quiet.

  Upon reflection, he thought, it must have been a trick of the light, just a memory from the night before echoing in his mind. He hadn’t slept very well, tossing and turning in his wardrobe, and now he gave a big yawn.

  ‘I’ve always preferred the backstroke,’ Amanda was saying, not noticing anything much but the sound of her own voice, ‘because you don’t get the water in your eyes so much that way. I’ve always reckoned that they should paint pictures on the ceiling, or maybe a comic strip or something, so you can read it as you swim. D’you agree?’

  She kept on talking to him, even though his arms were crossed and his eyes were glued to the window.

  ‘I’m probably the fourth best swimmer in my class. Vincent’s better than me ’cos he’s got longer legs, and Taylor’s got a face like a fish, so she’s better than almost anyone. And I’ve never seen Absalom swim, so I don’t know if he’s better or not. Maybe I’m third best. What do you think, Rudger?’

  There was a gap while she waited for Rudger’s answer, which he didn’t give, and then she went on again.

  ‘What I like best of all’s the smell. It’s sort of weird, isn’t it? And the sound of it. It’s like a church full of water, or a bus station perhaps. It echoes. And the smell is odd but nice. Some people don’t like it. Julia says it stings her eyes, but that’s the sort of thing she would say, isn’t it, because she’s allergic to peanuts.’

  Rudger felt so annoyed with her. His anger was stuck inside him and he felt his ears might pop off at any moment and let out great gushes of steam. And all she could do was blather on.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to say sorry?’ he blurted out when she finally paused for breath.

  Amanda turned to look at him with her mouth open.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked in a quieter voice so her mum couldn’t hear. ‘What do you mean, say sorry?’

  This time Rudger’s jaw dropped. After all this, after a whole morning of the silent treatment, of his cold shoulder, she genuinely didn’t know why he was upset. She hadn’t even noticed.

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘Last night,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, that!’ Amanda breezily waved her hand in the air. ‘I’ve forgiven you for that ages ago.’

  Rudger stamped his feet in frustration.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he said, gritting his teeth. ‘That’s not fair. You can’t forgive me. That’s not how it works.’

  ‘How would you know how it works?’ Amanda said shortly, having grown tired of the conversation. ‘You’re my ’maginary friend, Rudger, not the other way round. I’ve been alive for ages more than you. You’re only two months and three weeks and two days old. You know nothing. Without me thinking of stuff all the time you’d probably just…I don’t know, fade away or something.’

  ‘You alright back there, darling?’ Amanda’s mum called over her shoulder.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Amanda said cheerily.

  ‘That’s not true. I can’t fade,’ Rudger said, thinking it probably was.

  ‘Is too,’ Amanda hissed.

  ‘Hmmph.’

  Amanda’s mum stopped the car. They’d arrived at the swimming pool.

  ‘Don’t forget your bag, darling.’

  Amanda unbuckled her seatbelt, lifted her rucksack from between her feet and opened the car door. She climbed out.

  Rudger slid over the seat and got out of the same door and then they were stood on the tarmac between two parked cars.

  ‘Wait here, Amanda, guard the car for a sec. I’ll just pop across and get a ticket.’

  Mrs Shuffleup shouldered her handbag and headed off to the ticket machine to pay for their parking.

  Rudger stepped out from between the cars. Although their argument, the argument he was entirely on the right side of, had been interrupted, now they were on their own he wasn’t going to let it go.

  ‘If that’s what you think,’ he said, meaning that he’d fade without Amanda around to imagine him, ‘then maybe we should put it to the test. Maybe I’ll go off for a bit and show you I don’t need you.’ He walked across the roadway and stood between the two parked cars opposite. He held his hands up so they could both see them. ‘Look, I’m not fading yet.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Rudger,’ Amanda said, holding out her hand to him. ‘Come back here.’

  ‘Not until you say sorry.’

  Amanda sighed. Took a deep breath. She didn’t want to lose Rudger. Vincent and Julia were good friends, but only Rudger was her best friend. He was the one she could share the wild adventures with. Only an imaginary friend could do that. The others tried, but they could only pretend. Rudger was the real deal.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m sorry I’ve upset you.’

  Then, in a quick surprising dart, with just the sort of sudden leap that had saved her from tigers and aliens all summer, she ran out from between the cars intent on giving Rudger a friendly punch on the arm (she was not the sort of girl who hugged).

  She reached him a split second before an old blue car screeched, smoked and shuddered to a halt exactly where she’d just run. If she’d been slower or had started running a moment later, she’d be flat like toast right now, knocked down by the car, run over while running over to Rudger.

  Her heart was beating faster than she could remember. It hammered in her chest. She hadn’t run far, just a matter of metres, but she was strangely, unexpectedly out of breath.

  She felt cold, as if the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud. Looking up, she saw the sun had gone behind a cloud.

  ‘Oh, Amanda,’ Rudger said p
utting his arm round her, ‘that car …that car…it almost hit you.’

  ‘Little girl,’ said the driver climbing out, his worried voice wavering. ‘I didn’t see you run out. I got such a fright, a dreadful fright. Are you intact? Are you unhurt? Is your dear mother nearby in the vicinity?’

  Rudger and Amanda looked up together and saw a large tall bald man leaning with one hand on his open car door. His red moustache fluttered with each word and his Hawaiian shirt looked out of place on such a damp, grey morning.

  ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ Rudger said.

  Amanda caught her breath and said, ‘Yes.’ Then to the man she said loudly, ‘She’ll be back in a second, me mum. She’s getting a ticket. And thank you very much for not running me over, but I’m all right now.’

  The man nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad that you came to no harm. I have no wish to hurt you. In fact, as it happens, I have no interest in you at all. But I see your friend.’ He looked at Rudger. (Rudger had never been seen by a grownup before. He felt slightly sick.) ‘And I notice…’ The man, Amanda remembered him saying his name was Mr Bunting, lifted himself on tiptoe and looked back across the tops of the parked cars. ‘…that there is rather a queue at the car park pay and display ticketing machine. I suspect your mother will be a little while yet.’

  Rudger didn’t know what made him turn round. It wasn’t a crunch of gravel, because no gravel crunched; it wasn’t a scent carried on the breeze, because she wore no perfume; it wasn’t even a feeling that suddenly weighed his heart down, because…well, maybe it was something like that. Whatever the cause, Rudger turned to look behind him, down the passage between the parked cars, and he saw her.

  She was stood at the end of the car-walled alleyway, still and silent. She looked as if she was blocking their only means of escape, but she wasn’t.

  ‘Amanda, run!’ Rudger shouted, pushing her out past the big man. ‘Get to your mum!’

  Amanda saw the sense and, without looking back, ran past Mr Bunting’s blue car. She skidded her hand across its damp bonnet and sprinted up the ginnel between her mum’s car and the next, heading over towards the ticket machine. She was sure Mr Bunting and the girl wouldn’t follow if they knew they were running to her mum. They’d be safe with her. Wouldn’t they?

  But then she glanced behind and saw she was on her own. Rudger wasn’t there. And she paused for a moment, and saw that no one was there. No one had followed her. Not just Rudger, but no one else either.

  Rudger pushed Amanda, sending her running off. He’d meant to set off after her and get away from the odd couple, but a cold hand snapped round his wrist before he could take a step.

  The girl had moved faster than seemed possible, the whole length of two cars in the blink of an eye, and her grip on him was tight. He kicked out, but that didn’t help, and then she had his other wrist.

  Although he struggled, her hold on him was cold and draining. It was as if she’d injected him with some sort of soothing but nightmarish drug, as if he were a fish she’d landed, whisked out of his element and left to flounder hopelessly on dry earth. He fell numb, limp and dirty.

  He was kneeling in a puddle. His knees were cold, but hardly colder than his insides. He tried to push the girl off him, to kick out, but his attempts, while being tough and manly in his mind, landed on her like the blows of a jellyfish fighting off a shark.

  And then a shadow fell across his face.

  The man, Mr Bunting, was kneeling down, like a man might kneel to do up his shoelace, and his moustache was ruffling. It’s funny, Rudger thought, when you’re in a sticky situation, facing who knows what sort of fate, the things you notice. Mr Bunting’s moustache was ruffling, but he wasn’t speaking.

  Instead, he opened his mouth up, wider than any normal person would open their mouth, unhinged it almost, snake-like, and a hot breath wafted into Rudger’s face. It smelt like a desert might smell, dry and reddish and rotten with spice. It cut through the damp air, the overcast grey sky, the puddled tarmac. It filled Rudger’s world.

  With his mouth open so widely, so weirdly, Rudger saw that Mr Bunting’s teeth weren’t like those of a normal person. They were blunt and square, identical to one another, and circled round and round. They ran back and back into his head in neat rows. In fact, Rudger thought, it looked like a white-tiled tunnel running off into the far distance, with a pinprick of pitch darkness at the end of it. It went so far it should have come out of the back of Mr Bunting’s head, but obviously it didn’t, that would be mad. It went, instead, which Rudger realised was no less mad, somewhere else.

  And then the dry spicy wind that had been blowing gently into his face vanished. Mr Bunting began to suck, and at the same time the girl let Rudger go and scuttled away. He lay there on the tarmac, his back against the cold hubcap of a car wheel, and felt something of himself being dragged up, being pulled along with the wind.

  He felt as if the world had tipped on its edge and instead of being a tunnel leading off into some unknown distance, Mr Bunting’s mouth had become a pit, a hole, a shaft or well that he was on the very edge of falling into.

  And then he heard a voice he knew and loved calling his name.

  Amanda saw Mr Bunting leaning over Rudger. The weird silent girl was huddled to one side, staring blankly at them, but slowly rubbing her hands together.

  Amanda ran at them and she kicked the large man’s ankle as hard as she could. Twice.

  He huffed and puffed as he heaved himself upright. He put a hand out to lean on the bumper of the car beside him. The car creaked and wobbled under his weight. Mr Bunting slowly turned to face her, a smirk underneath his bushy moustache.

  ‘You came back, little Amanda,’ Mr Bunting said slowly, horribly. ‘How very sweet you are. How kindly.’

  Rudger scrambled up on to his feet, and, dodging round the big man’s legs, grabbed hold of Amanda’s arm, and they ran.

  They ran together.

  They ran, away from Mr Bunting and the girl, ducking down between cars, heading back the way Amanda had come, over to where the ticket machine was.

  Amanda didn’t dare look round. Through a break in the cars to her left she saw something dark flit past, something fast, something keeping up with them a row over. It was the girl, she just knew it, but this time Rudger was in front of her, she knew he was safe and she kept running. They had to get to her mum.

  Thunder grumbled above them and the first spots of rain hit their faces as they ran. And then she and Rudger burst out from between the last pair of cars and from their right, the way they weren’t looking, a moving car came out of nowhere.

  It wasn’t going fast, just pootling round the car park, but sometimes slow is fast enough.

  Rudger bounced off the bonnet and rolled with a thump to the ground. He hit his elbow and scuffed his knee, but it didn’t hurt, not much. He clambered to his feet, knocking gravel off his jeans with his hands.

  ‘Amanda,’ he said, looking round. ‘Amanda?’

  She was on the ground. She’d been knocked over too. Her head rested on the tarmac in a small dark puddle. Her eyes were shut.

  Her left arm was thrown out above her head at an unusual angle. She looked peaceful, but weird. Then he realised he couldn’t see her breathing.

  Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell.

  Before he could run to her there were people everywhere.

  The driver of the car had opened her door, was staggering, saying, ‘She just ran out in front of me… I couldn’t stop… She just ran out.’ Her face was grey. There were tears on her cheeks.

  Someone was phoning an ambulance. Someone was listening to Amanda’s chest, was holding the wrist of the arm that wasn’t bent oddly. Someone was pointing back the way they’d come, where they’d run from, saying something.

  The rain fell, harder now.

  And then Amanda’s mum was there, crying, lifting Amanda up. Someone tried to stop her, saying she shouldn’t be moved, but her mum knelt on the tarmac and held
her and stroked her hair.

  And then the crowd of people blocked them from Rudger’s sight and because they couldn’t see him, he got nudged out of the way, further back.

  And then the ambulance came and Amanda went away.

  There was a hole in the middle of Rudger. A hole where his heart had been, or where he’d imagined it to be, or where Amanda had imagined it to be. He was hollow now, echoing like an empty can.

  When he looked around he found he was still in the car park. The ambulance had gone ages before. Mr Bunting and the girl had vanished, scared off by the crowd perhaps. And now most of the cars were gone too. Amanda’s mum’s car was still there. She’d gone off in the ambulance. Would she come back for it? What did people do when such terrible things happened?

  Rudger didn’t know.

  There was so much Rudger didn’t know. He didn’t know the way home. He didn’t know if he still had a home. He didn’t know if he would be welcome in Amanda’s house without Amanda. What good would it do him to be there if Amanda wasn’t there to see him?

  What would Amanda’s mum do in an empty house? To be all alone is a dreadful thing. He thought of the photographs of Amanda and her mum on the hallway wall, and of the one of her mum and her dad before he’d died, right back before Amanda was born. He thought of the pictures of her grandparents and her aunts and uncles. All photos of other people. There were none of him. None of Rudger.

  Without Amanda there to see him, it wouldn’t be his house any more, would it?

  He lifted his hands up. They weren’t see-through, not exactly. He hadn’t simply faded away like Amanda said he would, but they were definitely greyer, definitely fainter than they’d been before. There was something smoky about them. When he moved them quickly they left a wisp of a trail behind them.