Moonside
an excerpt

Keiran pushed open the big glass doors of the salon, squinting at the bright lights inside. He grimaced at Alice, who was slouched over the reception counter, and crept towards the backroom, making as little noise as possible. But his cowboy boots may as well have been tap shoes for all the chance he stood of keeping them quiet on the laminated floor.

"You're late."

"Ah, didn't I say last night?" He tried for his brightest smile, but knew in his heart that Julie would see right through it. He didn't have the energy to try that hard. And it's not like she could sack him, exactly. "No clients til ten."

"It's twenty past. Fortunately she cancelled."

"The blackberry perm?"

"Mrs Stirling, yes."

"Oh. Right."

"And your girl isn't in either."

"Courtney?"

"Apparently she has a college exam."

Keiran raised an eyebrow.

"Don't ask me," said Julie with an exasperated sigh. "She's your trainee. I suppose you want coffee?"

This time Keiran's smile was genuine, unforced, and Julie smiled right back. "Two sugars," he said.

"So who was he?" Julie asked, turning towards the back room.

"Nobody," said Keiran. "It just took me til three in the morning to give up looking, is all. And a lot of vodka."

"Sucks to be you," said Julie.

*

Nick reached the studio just before twelve which was, he decided, a triumph. The lift was out of order again, but he chose to look on it as an opportunity for some much-needed exercise, and bounded up the three flights of stairs to the attics. The door to his studio was ajar, and he could hear Freya singing to herself inside.

"Hey," he called out, slipping his jacket off and slinging it over the coatstand that stood next to the mirror in the tiny hallway. "Thought you were down at the community hall today."

"They cancelled." Freya looked up as he came in, shoving hennaed curls out of her face. She was wearing her usual combination of purple tie-dye and rainbow sweater, broad smile on her face: plump, psychadelic and almost overwhelmingly friendly. "I think the condom man could make it after all."

"Ah well, their loss." Nick patted her affectionately on the shoulder on his way past to the kettle.

"I was thinking maybe I could expand my repertoire," Freya said, wistfully. "I'm sure there's creative things you could do with condoms."

Nick had a sudden flashback to a party a few weeks ago and the minty-tingle durex, and found himself blushing. "Go for it," he muttered. "Want some tea?"

"Oh, yes please. God, I'm parched. I've been round leafletting all morning. It's hot out."

Nick put the kettle on and rinsed cups, focusing vaguely on the pinboard by the kitchen sink. The usual array of Freya's messages to herself, some new, some more ancient, faded and curling at the edges. A couple of out of date flyers for bands, one for a play one of Freya's friends was in and a cluster of phone numbers that didn't mean much any more.

Nick plucked a card out of his jeans pocket. James Mason. Bookseller.

Nice arse, if he remembered right. Yes. The gallery opening last month. That was James. Very, very shy. But, nice arse.

He pinned it up with the others, never to be called. Probably.

It's not like he had time for that kind of thing. Not really.

"Are there any biscuits?" called Freya. "I've fallen off the wagon again."

Nick consulted the cupboard. "Digestives? Or there's some ricecakes."

"Oh Lord no, not the ricecakes. Just a couple of digestives. Three."

Nick popped the packet on a tray along with the mugs.

"So, did you have fun last night?" Freya asked. Nick poured water over teabags and peered into the fridge in the search of milk that was still milk.

"Didn't do much. You?"

"Well, it was women's group, and you know, the usual. I mean, they're lovely women, really ~positive, especially considering all they've been through. But there's some fundamental problems when it comes to, um, deciding things. Well, money things, really. No-one ever wants to spend anything and honestly, what's the point? And Germaine, bless her, she works so hard but she doesn't seem to understand that everything changes once you have children, and Anna's second is due any time now. So Germaine says, we could extend the hotline hours, and Anna gets all upset and guilty, because she couldn't manage to do any more, not that anyone expects her too,well, except Germaine. So there's tears. But everyone made up in the end. Oh, tea! Thank you so much, lovie. Don't know what I did to deserve you."

Nick smiled, and opened the biscuits for her. Anna's half of the studio was a happy mess of wicker baskets and cheap storage crates full of paper, wool, odd bits of fabric, glue, shells, glass; if you could stick it to something else with pvc glue, it was there. There was a large pine table in the middle, but Nick couldn't remember the last time he'd seen more than a few square inches of it at a time; mostly it was covered in tetering piles of old ~Guardians, a range of books, plates and bills that may or may not have been paid. Anna's mostly-neglected laptop peeked out from under a collection of folders. She was sitting at the workbench that ran along the far end of the room, under the huge windows that washed the attic with crisp, exquisite light.

Nick cleared off enough of an armchair that he could sit, and settled in to listen for a while.

It wasn't like he was in any hurry to get to work, after all.

*

"Phone, Keiran!"

Keiran smiled at the boy in the mirror, and stuck scissors and comb in his back pocket. "Back in a minute, Jason. Don't dry out on me, now!"

Jason blushed through his acne, and glared painfully at his smock-covered knees.

Keiran took the phone from Alice, and blew her a kiss, which she ignored, resuming her seat at the counter.

"Yes?" said Keiran to the telephone.

"This is Sandra Flathery."

"Yes?" said Keiran.

"Courtney's tutor, from the college," said Sandra Flathery, with a trace of irritation in her voice. "You remember, we met last month?"

"Of course," said Keiran. Small woman. Very tiny skirt. Mascara like a row of tiny twigs. Got it.

"I happen to be in the area this afternoon, and I wondered if I could call in to complete Courtney's first assessment. I know it's short notice, but-"

"Ah, but unfortunately the lovely Courtney isn't here," said Keiran. "Exam at college, so I heard."

"That's ridiculous," said Sandra twig-lashes Flathery. "There aren't any exams in hair and beauty until the end of next term."

"Oh," said Keiran, trying his best to sound disappointed. "Naughty Courtney."

He could imagine the pursing of lips at the other end of the phone. "Well, yes." A deep sigh. "Please ask her to contact me first thing in the morning. Presuming she deigns to turn up then."

"I'll do that."

"Thank you. Goodbye."

The phone clicked off before he had a chance to answer. Probably just as well. Keiran had a problem with authority figures. It wasn't that he was a rebel, exactly. They just brought out the wicked in him, was all.

"Sorry about that, Jason." Keiran flourished comb and scissors again. "Woman trouble. You know how it is."

Jason mumbled something about his sister, and blushed all over again.

*

Nick lay the last of the prints on the drying cabinet, and stepped back to take a look. A line of trees in grey and black. Robbed of the summer tones that colour would have given, they could have passed for winter if it wasn't for the leaves.

Might be worth messing about on the computer some, giving them some blue tones. Greeting card winners.

He set about tidying up; his half of the studio was as neat as Freya's was a mess. He wasn't compulsive about it, by any means, but he liked a certain measure of order. He hated to lose things. And he liked simplicity. His furniture consisted of a large window seat which doubled as storage, a pair of modern armchairs, an Ikea desk with chrome legs upon which sat his Mac, which unlike Freya's laptop was always on, shiny and colourful and alert. An office chair, a filing cabinet and a japanese black-enamel screen that screened off his developing area, complete with a cupboard he fondly thought of as his dark room.

Best of all, the windows, just like Freya's. Perfect, glorious light.

Nick stretched and yawned, still contemplating his pictures. The radio informed him it was twenty past six, and that its current DJ was about to embark on a futile and embarrassing phone prank. Nick cut the volume just in time.

"Thanks!" Freya yelled from the other side of the partition. "I don't know why they do that, it's so unkind."

"Hm," said Nick. "You want to go to the pub?"

Freya's face peeked around the partition. "Already? It's only Tuesday."

"I've got nothing to do til dusk. You?"

"Well, I.... no, not really." She beamed at him. "I'll get my bag."

Nick smiled at her, and she scuttled off. He found his eye drawn to the pictures spread out on the floor, the ones he'd been looking at last night. He'd taken them a couple of weeks ago. Full moon.

Nick squatted down, thinking at first to collect them up and put them away. But he found himself staring at the image instead: a single black swan, launching itself into flight; the river stained silver by the full moon. He could see the power in the bird's wings, the grace of its neck; he could almost feel the heady rush of the first few wingbeats of flight.

He traced the outline of its wings with one finger, and his heart ached.

*
©Helen Nightingale, 2007