Disharmony Read online

  Sitting down was definitely best for the vertigo. He watched Dorm Four begin their third lap. And what with the hood up on his green standard-issue sweatshirt and the rushing sound in his ears, he didn’t even hear Mr Holt approach. His first warning was that vomit-sweet smell that always accompanied the senior warden.

  ‘Stand, Black.’ The voice was steel-capped boots crunching over gravel.

  Luke turned to face the warden, swaying as he got to his feet.

  ‘Off with the hood,’ said Holt.

  Luke peeled his hoodie back. The wind was ice on his brown buzz-cut.

  Holt stared down at him silently. For a second Luke saw a smile in the warden’s eyes as he surveyed the wreckage of his face. Then the dead darkness returned. Clad in a great-coat and heavy-weather hat, he towered over Luke like a battleship over a dinghy.

  ‘Why aren’t you running, Black?’ he said.

  ‘Sick report, Mr Holt,’ said Luke.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  What do I say to that? thought Luke. No answer was going to work for Holt anyway.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Luke.

  ‘Nothing what, Black?’

  Holt moved a half-step closer. Luke rocked back a bit with the vomit smell and the heat of Holt’s hatred.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, Mr Holt,’ said Luke.

  ‘Well then, get your arse down there and run, Black. You’re three laps behind.’

  Great.

  It was never the pain that was the issue for Luke. He couldn’t explain it to anyone, but it was the injuries themselves that slowed him down. Pain itself was something much more remote, controllable. He made his way down the hill to the oval, Holt striding before him. By the time he reached the others he was invisible to Ms McNichol, as he knew he would be. He watched her hunch deeper into her coat and turn back towards the dormitories, her face studiously blank.

  ***

  Luke was rounding the goalposts, a quarter through his first lap, when Zac Nguyen passed him, soundless, springing weightlessly over the sodden grass. Luke stared after him. Zac didn’t seem to kick up mud the way everyone else did. In fact, he didn’t seem to be making any footprints at all. Stupid, Luke told himself. Of course he’s leaving footprints. How could anyone see anything in this muck?

  He’d made it to his first halfway point when Zac lapped him for his final circuit. The new kid made no sound. No laboured breathing, no sign of sweat or strain.

  ‘Can you believe that skinny bugger?’

  Luke turned his head – Jonas was coming up beside him. Two years younger than Luke but almost as big as Toad, Jonas was a softly spoken Islander who bunked next to Kitkat and Barry.

  ‘Fast, huh?’ managed Luke.

  He was taking small sips of air as he hobbled, attempting to limit the stabbing in his ribs whenever he took a deeper gasp.

  ‘You look like hell,’ said Barry in his too-loud, flat, nasal tone, pulling up beside him.

  During his first night, Luke had watched Barry interacting with others. The scrawny blond kid always leaned in close, concentrating, like they were saying something really intense and meaningful to him. And then Barry had introduced himself.

  ‘I’m Barry and I’m deaf not dumb,’ he’d shouted in a singsong voice. ‘Don’t ever call me deaf and dumb. Some of the geniuses in here call me Deafy, but I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’ve got privileges with Matron, and if you do, well, maybe you won’t get all your re-ups from your friends and rellos.’

  ‘What are re-ups?’ Luke had responded.

  ‘Resupply. You know, chips, lollies, snacks from your visitors.’

  ‘I won’t be getting any re-ups, Barry,’ Luke had said. ‘And how come you can hear me if you’re deaf?’

  ‘I lip-read. So talk straight. Whatchoo-in-for?’

  Luke gave him the story that had impressed all the others. But it was when he’d tripped Toad on the way to giving ‘Deafy’ yet another friendly flogging that he’d won Barry’s loyalty and Toad’s undivided attention.

  Now, Luke tried to keep pace with Barry, Jonas and Kitkat. They’d slowed it right down to help out.

  ‘Don’t look, but Holt’s watching,’ said Kitkat.

  Kitkat was the tallest kid in Dwight, and definitely the skinniest. He looked as though he needed to eat a truckload of chocolate just to keep himself from snapping in half when he sneezed. Luke had assumed that this was where the nickname had come from. But who knew.

  ‘We’d better keep it moving,’ said Jonas. ‘We don’t need any more of Holt’s attention. Why does he have such a thing for you, Black?’

  ‘I’m just special, I guess,’ said Luke. The air tasted like metal, and he thought maybe he was bleeding inside somewhere.

  ‘Uh oh,’ said Kitkat. ‘Holt’s talking to Zac.’

  ‘Can you believe that friggin’ move Nguyen made last night?’ said Barry. ‘What was that? Matron reckons Taylor’s gonna need surgery on that arm. I didn’t really see what he did. Did you see it, Luke?’

  ‘I was pretty much just seeing stars,’ said Luke.

  ‘Do you reckon he’d teach us how to do that?’ said Kitkat.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Luke, ‘but it looks like I might have competition for Holt’s number one on his Most Wanted list.’

  ‘God, I can hear Holt from here,’ said Jonas, wincing. ‘What’s he screaming about?’

  ‘It’ll be Zac’s shoes,’ said Luke. ‘At least, that’ll be his excuse.’

  ‘It’s bullcrap, man,’ said Kitkat. ‘Everyone here knows he’s gonna put a rocket up Nguyen just because he took out one of his boys last night.’

  ‘But mostly because he helped you, Luke,’ shouted Barry between breaths. ‘Why do you reckon he did that?’

  Luke didn’t answer. Why does anyone do anything? He was the last person to ask about people’s motivations.

  ‘Whoah, Luke, you should sit down or something, man,’ said Jonas. ‘Your face is like white and green.’

  ‘And black and red,’ said Kitkat.

  ‘And purple,’ said Barry.

  Luke knew that the only reason his shoes hadn’t met his breakfast was because he hadn’t eaten any.

  ‘I just wish we could get there faster,’ he said.

  ‘What are we gonna do?’ said Jonas. ‘Zac’s gonna cop it now. You don’t take out one of Holt’s bouncers and then get the whole Disneyland experience in Dwight. You know that, man.’

  What Luke did know was that more than anything he wanted to get through the first lap to reach Holt and Zac, but he had no idea why. He knew that Jonas was right; he couldn’t help Zac right now. For some ridiculous reason Zac had hitched his wagon to the very worst star in here – him – and for that, Holt would make him pay. He also didn’t know why this was disturbing to him. He understood why it should be – he’d spent his whole life watching people bend and twist and flat-out breakdance under the influence of emotions like guilt and love and shame and rage. But these emotions were just concepts to him. He knew they were powerful. He’d just never felt their power himself.

  Nevertheless, he tried to jog faster.

  By the time Luke limped in, finishing his first circuit, the rest of the dorm stood at attention behind Holt. All except Zac, who stood before him, his head bowed.

  At least he’s standing, thought Luke.

  He shuffled to a stop next to Zac, seeing three of him. He longed to drop to the mud and lie there for a month.

  ‘What are you doing, Black?’ said Holt.

  Luke concentrated on breathing and trying to remain standing.

  ‘Dorm Four,’ said Holt. ‘Standing before you are the two inmates who have cost you all your television privileges this week.’

  Low groans from behind Holt. Luke closed his other eye.

  ‘And at the rate he’s going,’ Holt continued, ‘Black, here, might just cost you your lunch too, because we are all going to stand here just like this until he finishes his five laps.’

  ‘Aw,
come on,’ mumbled somebody.

  ‘You are so dead, Black,’ called Toad.

  ‘Silence!’ said Holt.

  Luke opened his eyes; well, as best he could, anyway.

  Sighed.

  ‘Back in a sec,’ he said, and started to jog.

  Ten steps in, it began to rain.

  Of course.

  A camp on the outskirts of Pantelimon, Bucharest, Romania

  June 27, 11.45 a.m.

  Without moving her green eyes from the rich woman’s face, Samantha White reached out her left hand and suddenly snapped her fingers closed. The droning of the blowfly stopped instantly.

  ‘Oh my. How did you do that?’ said the woman, Sam’s client, Mrs Nicolescu.

  Tucking a long, caramel-coloured curl behind her ear, Samantha tried not to sigh. The Gaje always asked such silly questions. Not even the youngest child in the gypsy camp would have trouble catching a fly. And here was a woman, at least forty-five, who was so far removed from nature that she screamed and froze when one of the camp dogs sniffed her in greeting as she climbed out of her BMW. Sometimes Samantha wondered how these rich people survived at all.

  She reached for another card and the errant curl flopped back into her face. God, it’s boiling in here, she thought. The frangipani incense thickened the still air in the caravan, but Lala insisted it must always be burning. The Gaje pay for the show, my Sam. You must give them the whole dream.

  The Gaje woman didn’t seem to notice the heat. Each time Samantha’s hand moved to the well-worn tarot deck the customer would hold her breath, her small, black eyes locked on every move.

  Sam turned the card very slowly for effect. She studied her fingers and decided that tonight she’d swap her acid-yellow nail polish for blue. Although the yellow did go well with her new emerald ring, she thought. Her cat-like eyes glinted with an almost-smile. A real emerald this size would buy her a castle in Pantelimon.

  Before she flipped it over, she peeked at the card. Hah. That’d be right. She met her client’s eyes, now wide with fear.

  ‘That’s…’ stuttered the Gaje woman. ‘Is that…?’

  ‘The Devil,’ said Samantha. ‘Yep.’

  Mrs Nicolescu’s hand flew to her throat, each fleshy finger choked in gold rings. She made the sign of the cross. Samantha hoped the woman’s prayer would work. Despite her genuine jewels and posh clothing, Mrs Nicolescu needed help: underneath her expensive make-up the flesh of her face was dimpled and yellow, and the smell of decay and cigarettes on her breath was doing a good job of competing with the cloying incense.

  Samantha shifted in her chair. Now was the time she was supposed to ramp up Mrs Nicolescu’s anxiety, warn her that seven generations ago a dying woman had made a powerful deathbed curse against her family. Drawing the Devil card was proof that the curse was about to come into play, causing misery and pain for her and all she loved. Of course – with some rituals and a talisman, created especially for her – there were some surefire methods to counteract the curse.

  For a price.

  The woman coughed, her voluminous bosom wobbling wildly. The crepe skin of her chest moved at a slightly slower speed, like an oil slick surfing a wave.

  ‘The devil?’ she said, breathing hard, leaning forward, pink lipstick smearing her jaundiced front teeth. ‘O Doamne! Help me, please.’

  Samantha’s snub nose crinkled and she leaned back a smidge.

  ‘Chill, Mrs Nicolescu,’ she said. ‘The devil card is a warning card, but it’s not as bad as you think.’

  Wrong move, Sam, she told herself.

  ‘Tell me, what does it mean?’

  Mrs Nicolescu reached her blood-red tipped fingers towards Samantha’s, but they seemed to reconsider at the last minute. They clutched instead at her wallet. Faux Gucci, Samantha decided. Birthday Jones had stolen one just like it from the market last Sunday. She wondered whether Mrs Nicolescu knew it was a knock-off. And whether she cared.

  ‘It’s the Temptation card, Mrs Nicolescu,’ said Samantha, dropping the gypsy witch voice. ‘It just means that you’re placing too much emphasis on the material world and its pleasures.’

  ‘I’m doing what?’

  ‘You’re eating too much, you smoke too much, and you drink a lot. Your kidneys are about ready to pack themselves a duffle bag and get the hell out.’

  Mrs Nicolescu sat back in her chair, her painted eyebrows raised. Her expression told Samantha: this is not what I came here for. Sam had seen the look too often lately.

  ‘What? What are you talking about? That I eat and drink?’ said Mrs Nicolescu, her voice now shrill.

  Samantha tried to wrangle the moment back. They never listen anyway, she thought. I should just stick with the script.

  ‘You’re disconnected from your spirit, Mrs Nicolescu,’ she intoned, gypsy witch voice back in place.

  ‘Disconnected from my spirit?’

  You’re an alcoholic, said Samantha in her head. An over-fed, under-exercised Gaje woman who won’t make it to fifty; you need to eat salad and ease up on the whisky.

  ‘Ah, yes, the spirits are speaking now, clamouring for my attention,’ she said instead. ‘Silence!’ She sat bolt upright in her gilded witch’s chair, its golden paint chipped and scratched. ‘Ah, yes, it is just as I thought. A curse, and an ancient and powerful one at that. A mighty spell has been cast, Mrs Nicolescu. You have come to me not a moment too soon.’

  Samantha placed her hands flat on her crimson-draped tarot table, eyes boring directly into those of her client’s. They met awe, fear, disgust, blind faith. Liver disease.

  She sighed again and turned another card.

  ***

  Samantha stretched in the doorway of the caravan, watching the dust swirl up from her client’s car as she left the camp. Mrs Nicolescu would be back tomorrow with nine candles, a chicken, a jar of honey, and three coins blessed in a church. Oh, and her wallet. Samantha had promised her a talisman ceremony. What she hadn’t told her was that three weeks of rituals were necessary to perfect the talisman spell, and that a visit each week would be required, each time with more money and gifts as offerings for the spirits.

  She blinked in the brilliant sunlight and held up her hand to shade her eyes.

  Oh my God! She ducked back into the van.

  Tamas!

  She raced over to the mirror framed in faded fabric roses and fairy lights at the back of the caravan. She leaned in close. What was he still doing here?

  She tugged her fingers through her tangled hair, scowling at her reflection. She wished – as she had every day she could remember – for the liquorice locks and dark eyes of the other Roma in the camp. Her cheeks burned the same pink as the favourite singlet top she wore, and her heart scudded in her chest. Tamas. She grinned and rummaged quickly through the jewellery in the painted box on the table. She unhooked the small green beads dangling from her ears and looped through her big silver hoops. She tied a thin leather thong around her forehead and then skipped back through the van, poking a rose from the mirror into one of the tangles in her hair. She didn’t know why she bothered. Tamas always looked straight through her, the same way that he did all the little kids in the camp.

  Well, I’m fifteen now, Tamas, she thought, jumping barefoot into the hot, dry grass. She ran across the paddock, her lime green skirt billowing behind her, the bells around her ankles clinking.

  Bo, Esmeralda’s little boy, smashed two toy cars together in the dirt by the remnants of one of last night’s fires. He jumped up when she passed him.

  ‘You wanna race me, Sam?’ he shouted, already bolting along beside her, cocoa cheeks smeared with ash, heavy eyebrows framing squid-ink eyes. His older brother’s tiny dog, Hero, who resembled a bewitched yellow washing-up rag, tore in from the other side of the camp and flashed in and out through Bo’s heels, yapping. Bo managed to run without tripping while grinning up at her, his smile an irresistible blend of six-year-old baby teeth and missing six-year-old baby teeth.

  She l
aughed down at him. ‘Not right now, Bo. I think your mamma is calling you. Shouldn’t you be getting cleaned up for lunch?’

  Sam didn’t feel too bad about the lie. Esmeralda wasn’t calling him, but she would be soon. Cooking aromas wafted over from the other end of the camp. She ran on when Bo stopped, head cocked, listening for his mum. You didn’t want to be called twice when Esmeralda was looking for you.

  Tamas stood under the trees with one of the ponies. The rest of their horses had been herded out with the men before light. Sam had half-watched them leaving, bundled under her quilt with Mirela and Shofranka breathing deeply either side of her. She’d frowned across the dying campfire, watching the dogs racing madly after the group, unused to such early-morning action. At the time, she’d figured that her day would suck – Tamas would be gone until dark came again – but there he was: red bandana, the bare skin of his back as brown as the pony, his jeans loose and low. Her stomach flip-flopped.

  She skidded to a stop next to the pony, who blinked up at her.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ she said, rubbing her palm over its muzzle.

  Tamas threw a rock out across the thirsty paddock. His favourite dog, Oody, bounded after it.

  ‘What are you doing here, Witch?’ he said, watching Oody. He twitched his head and his long, plaited ponytail whipped a fat, sun-addled fly into the sky.

  As always, she could not take her eyes from his dark lashes, his gorgeous, strong nose.

  ‘Making money,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here, more like it?’

  Tamas kicked at the dirt.