Chapter Twelve
The rest of the summer was a stupidly warm one. Hot and close (though not quite in the way that Luna might like it to be) like an ice lolly that melted in the sun, leaving a sticky, sweet residue all over your fingers.
Luna had a strange sense all summer that she was neither here nor there.
Like she was standing on the border of two countries, a foot in each one.
She saw the friction between Emmett and Cadence now, like dark fissures in an otherwise beautiful landscape.
It should have helped her. It should have made her feel better about everything.
Except it didn’t. Because Emmett wanted to leave, Luna now knew for sure.
And when Emmett got into another fight, one of his worst, Cadence wasn’t there holding a wet tea towel to his cuts; she was asking him why he couldn’t control his anger, for her sake if nothing else.
Emmett’s mood worsened. Becoming stormy and sullen.
Luna felt in some way responsible for this, though she wasn’t sure why.
She painted and drew and listened to David Bowie on repeat.
Anything to get the feeling out of her. She read grown-up books like Brave New World and The Grapes of Wrath, both loaned to her by Earl, and then she drew some more.
When she wasn’t drawing, or trying to coax a smile from Emmett, she sketched in her head.
‘Another super cheerful piece, I see.’
Mae had appeared at the edge of the garage that Earl used as his studio. The door had to be kept open. There was a good chance the paint fumes would knock them unconscious if it wasn’t.
Luna stepped back from the canvas. She’d painted an eye. Not as part of a face, just on its own. It was dark and bloodshot, and she’d got the inspiration from 1984. The flecks of green, so similar to Emmett’s, were pure coincidence.
It was quite dark.
‘Eyes are really interesting,’ she said defensively.
‘And technically very challenging,’ Earl added over his shoulder. ‘Watch your lines there, Luna.’
‘I get that. But painting dismembered body parts over the course of summer wasn’t quite what The Man Plan was meant to achieve.’
Earl laughed; it was unspoken between them that Luna felt the way she did about Emmett.
‘Are we having a fire tonight?’
It was their last night. A fact Luna was trying not to think about. It only added to the sense that she was floating, hovering somewhere between two opposite worlds. One here, and one at home, which didn’t feel like home.
‘Yeah, let me just finish up. Earl, are you coming?’
‘Perhaps, if I finish here.’
Earl’s piece was decidedly brighter than Luna’s.
She wandered over to look at it, tilting her head at the way the shapes were all blurred.
There was a face in the middle, the clearest thing on the canvas, but there was something not quite right about it.
In the background, there was a white building on a hill, its borders also blurred.
‘Is that?’
‘Paris,’ Earl nods. All his pieces lately were set in Paris. ‘It’s Montmartre. Sebastian and I were very happy there. Lots of artists you see. It was always so busy. Buzzing, as you say.’
‘It’s just like, really interesting.’ That was the best way that Luna could describe it. It didn’t feel adequate, but it wouldn’t be right to describe it as beautiful. Deep and interesting, maybe. ‘What will you call it?’
‘I’m thinking Montmartre in Motion.’
Luna looked some more at the blurred lines.
‘How did you do that? Make it so that the people in the background look like they’re moving?’
‘It’s easier when you have a subject that gives itself over to movement. But I used brighter colours at the front and kept the desaturated tones for the shadow. That helped.’
‘It’s perfect.’
‘Thank you. Here, you try.’
Earl handed her the pallet knife and she very carefully added a small sliver of shadow to the edge of one of the people in the background of the painting.
‘That’s all I dare do,’ she said.
‘You artists are so dramatic,’ Mae said. ‘Couldn’t paint the sunset, could you? I’m joking, I’m joking,’ she tacked on quickly. She knew that Luna worried about the fact that she didn’t want to draw or paint nice things. That she worried that there was something dark inside her.
‘We don’t paint things Mae, we paint—’
‘Feelings,’ she cut Earl off. ‘I know, I know. Always the drama.’ They were both smiling, though.
‘We’ll meet you at the beach, Earl.’
Luna dumped her brushes in the bucket they kept for cleaning.
‘Can we go home first, Mae? I need to change.’
‘I wouldn’t go home,’ Mae warned her, still waiting in the sun by the entrance. ‘Mum is in the garden with Eyebrow Clive. She’s wearing a bikini. It has frills.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I know, what a time to have eyes.’
Luna felt like there was a rock in the bottom of her stomach, as if she was weighed down by guilt. It was impossible to ignore the fact that their mother had been spending an awful lot of time with Eyebrow Clive.
Mae told them how Eyebrow Clive had asked her mum to apply some bronzing oil as she’d gone into the kitchen.
‘The door was open – I heard it all. Who wears bronzing oil any rate? It’s like dousing yourself in butter and getting cooked. No wonder his skin’s so leathery. So that’s when I decided to make a run for it. It’s four o’clock anyway.’
Four. Wow, the whole day had passed Luna by, though time always seemed to speed up the less they had of it.
Luna had been surviving off a family-sized bag of cheese crisps; the tips of her fingers were stained orange.
Dorito dust and sand were not a good combination, experience had taught her this, but she’d no desire to see her mum with Eyebrow Clive either.
‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll take your word for it. We can go straight to the beach.’
Luna looked a mess. She was sure of it. The heat of the garage had made her frazzled and her clothes were paint splattered.
She thought of Ariel, the mermaid, and how great she looked on the beach in that sparkly dress.
Unfortunately, Luna was not Ariel. She felt like the love child of King Titan and Ursula.
‘Excellent,’ Mae says.
Earl’s garage was just on the edge of the village, alongside three others; an old couple let him rent it because they didn’t have a car. They called goodbye to Earl and headed towards the beach, cutting across the bowling green and behind the castle to get there.
Luna kicked her flip flops off; the sand hot under her toes. She loved this beach. No beach that she’d ever seen was as nice as this one.
She and Mae trekked along it as Luna tried to commit every detail of the scene to memory. They wouldn’t be back for another year. Even with all the darkness swirling around inside her, she still loved it here more than anywhere else in the world.
Mae snaked an arm over Luna’s shoulders and Luna realised that she was crying again.
‘Is it because The Man Plan failed?’ Mae asked, hanging back and looping an arm around Luna’s shoulders.
‘No, it’s not the Man Plan. That was a terrible idea. You made me sound like a sex addict.’
‘When in reality, you’re more like a nun.’
‘I just don’t want to go home.’
Mae linked their hands together. ‘Don’t blame you, it’s a hellscape there. But the end of summer means we’re another year closer to getting out.’
‘Yeah, that’s true.’ Luna didn’t exactly feel great about getting out either. It was just hard to envision a future that involved quite so much writing, quite so little drawing.
‘And maybe this year you really will get a boyfriend, since Emmett and Cadence have lasted way longer than I’d predicted. I’d wonder what he sees in her, since they always fight.’ Mae thought about it for a second. ‘Her tits are great, so it’s probably that.’
It was impossible not to laugh.
‘Speak of the devil,’ Mae said, nodding ahead. Emmett sat alone on the beach, just down from The Edge.
‘Couldn’t fall for someone a bit more cheerful, could you?’
He was looking out to sea. His knees were up and his arms were resting on top of them. Luna thought that the vast expanse of sand before him made the sea feel a million miles away.
‘Emmett, hi!’ Mae went running towards him. Luna didn’t run. Running wouldn’t resolve the unending pressure she felt, so what was the point and – oh no.
‘What happened to your eye?’ Luna asked Emmett, sitting next to him on the warm sand, Mae sat on his other side as he held a bag of frozen peas to his eye.
They were used to seeing Emmett with cuts and bruises, though it was always still shocking to Luna to see his face all marred.
And this was much worse than normal. Luna was sure he needed stitches.
‘Mum,’ is all he said. Luna knew that he was trying to hide how much the bruises made his face throb.
This couldn’t keep happening. Could it? Why wasn’t anyone doing anything about it? Whenever Luna looked at the cut on the side of Emmett’s eyebrow, it was like white noise in her head. There was already a bruise there, and now this.
Luna saw Zadie and Ahmed, sitting together a little way off, looking their way. She moved over to talk to them.
‘I can’t believe his mum actually did that.’
‘It’s been bad this summer.’ Zadie was cool and Luna felt this like the slight it was. She’d barely seen Tanya this year, too busy stewing in her own dark thoughts. ‘Emmett threw out her supplies,’ Zadie finished.
‘Crap, that’s bad. But why is Emmett on his own? Where’s Cadence?’
‘He said he wanted some peace,’ Ahmed answered. ‘We’re just giving him space.’
‘It’s different for you and Mae,’ Zadie finished.
Luna looked back; Mae still had her head on Emmett’s shoulder. He’d shrugged an arm around her. Maybe Luna was wrong, all this time thinking that Emmett only wanted to be friends. Maybe Emmett had always thought of them as family.
Luna was making her way back towards him, totally at war with the soft sand.