No Room for Ghosts

I took her to that carnival, the one that’s always set up on the beach outside the city proper. It’s not Luna Park, but it must have been there nearly as long. It smacks of another century, a time when clockwork was innovative, and cotton candy and halls of mirrors were mainstream attractions, rather than simple, garish playthings to be set aside moving into a new age.

The carnival I’m talking about has a big Ferris wheel, and a few smaller rides. There are lots of makeshift, pinstriped tents that could be easily packed up and taken away, although the carnival itself never leaves. Perfect place for ghosts, I figured.

It was weird seeing Leanna in the daytime, I had to admit. We only ever met nocturnally, as a way of killing the hours that neither of us would have spent asleep. Even the ‘incident’, as Leanna called it, had taken place in the indeterminate grey period just before twilight. Now, though, the sunlight was bright and harsh, and so nothing could be hidden– neither Leanna’s frailty, nor my shabby clothing. It was like we were only seeing each other for the first time now, after a week of appearing in each other’s dreams.

I wasn’t going on any rides. They actually kind of freaked me out, which Leanna found hilarious.

‘Why did you pick this place, then?’ she had, with her hands on her scrawny hips and her elbows jutting out.

‘I just like the feel of it.’ I shrugged, having nothing else to offer. ‘I like watching the crowds.’

As I spoke, my eyes wandered, studying the bright sea of men, women and children. Their appearances were as mismatched as the avenues of pavilions, whose quaint, gaudy banners flapped and fluttered in the breeze. Yet, just like the tents, they marched on brightly. Everything here was on parade.

‘Suit yourself!’

With a toss of her long hair, Leanna made off for an old-timey merry-go-round that must have been a carnival relic. At the middle of the spinning platform, an organ cranked out brassy numbers, while the horses bobbed up and down on candy-striped poles. They stared ahead with glassy eyes and teeth bared in frozen grimaces. Their paint was cracked and chipped. They looked like they’d seen better days.

Leanna didn’t seem to care, though. Amongst the few, bored-looking children who regretted seeing novelty in this ride, and now thought longingly of ice-creams and fast roller-coasters, she clung gleefully to her mount’s mast, swinging like a stick insect.

I hung back in the shade with the ranks of equally bored parents, my hands buried in my frayed pockets. None of the adults commented on Leanna, or paid any attention to me. They must have assumed that I was like them, the father of a small child, feigning interest in this dull event. In the whirlwind of noise and speeding colours, perhaps they missed the worry on my face, or merely put it down to parental anxiety about a fall.

If that was the case, then they were half-right. If Leanna fell, she would doubtless break another bone, but that wasn’t what tightened my forehead and bent the corners of my mouth into a frown.

I was watching the way she hung from her horse’s handle, first by one arm, and then the other, her limbs seeming over-long with the effort of supporting her meagre weight. Her ponytail trailed behind her head like a ribbon, less silvery blonde than strangely lacklustre in the sunlight. When she smiled, her papery skin stretched taut across her sharp cheekbones.

She was a dancing skeleton, all flailing arms and legs and toothy grins. Against the dizzying blur of painted stripes and ignorant children she was juxtaposed, death’s doll on a carousel. The jolly melody marched ever on, speeding her towards its end, so that its progress was almost sickening. It was a carousel macabre, I thought, coining the term and testing it out simultaneously.

She was calling something out to me, but the wind was catching it and ripping it away. I was left to continue my silent monologue as the merry-go-round slowed, the children jumped off, and the cluster of now relieved looking adults slowly dispersed.

I would have had to have been blind not to see that Leanna was thin –very thin– but I had never noticed before just how unhealthy she looked. In the darkness she was ethereal, not emaciated. Her skin was lily-white, like porcelain bathed in the soft shining of the street lamps.

In the daytime, she was just pasty, like chalk or bleached coral. Every line was visible, every angle exaggerated. Her jeans clung like straws to her skeletal legs, as though they were the only thing keeping her upright. Every movement threatened to break her.

Even if they were too polite to stare, the carnival-goers must have noticed, too, in the same way that I noticed the way she stood out against them. That was the other thing I was starting to prefer about nighttime. There was nobody else around to make Leanna look or feel like a freak. Thankfully, most people seemed to ignore us, but there was one exception.

As we moved through the throngs of people, a teenage boy called out, ‘Hey, Ana!’

Leanna turned, evidently spotting the boy, although I couldn’t see him. ‘I think that kid knows me,’ she whispered, oblivious to his taunt.

I didn’t know whether to be comforted or infuriated by this. ‘Anna’ might have been the last part of her name, but other people would certainly know what he was talking about.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’ the boy went on, to much laughter from his friends. When I spotted them, they were jostling him, as though in confusion, or perhaps because they were baffled by his daring. They shook their heads, and then one of them pointed a shaking finger in our direction.

That boy was strangely dressed, I noticed. The finger-pointer was wearing a flat, banded straw hat, which might have been part of a grammar school uniform, but would have been more appropriate for a schoolboy in the nineteen-twenties. He also had his shorts, which buttoned at the front, pulled halfway up to his chest. Despite his costume, however, the others seemed to accept him. At least, they didn’t pay him any attention. The name-caller blanched, horror-struck, when the younger boy placed a hand on his shoulder.

Then, with a shout, the lot of them scurried away, their voices fading into the background. Perhaps the bully was ashamed of himself? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t catch sight of them again after that. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that as the oddly-clothed boy had pointed his finger at us, he had winked at me…

With some effort, I abandoned this thought, and turned my attention to the anger growling protectively inside my chest. I hooked an arm around Leanna, pulling her closer beside me as we walked.

‘We haven’t eaten all day,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘Do you want some food?’

Underneath her thin singlet, I could see the flatness of her chest, heaving with her laboured breath. Despite the warm weather, I saw that she was shivering, and instinctively placed my jacket around her.

Leanna beamed, but when she turned to me, enchantment, not hunger, glittered in her eyes. ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘No lunch for me. I’m having too much fun!’

‘Hmm.’ I felt my lips stretch taut, and my face harden. ‘Are you sure?’ I pressed. ‘You don’t want anything at all?’

At this, her posture also became stiff, her expression stern. ‘Harvey,’ she addressed me, patiently and wearily, as though explaining something to a stubborn child for the umpteenth time. ‘I don’t want to eat. That’s not who I am.’

I grasped fully what she meant, but I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I looked at my shoes again. The canvas and laces were all scuffed up with dust from the carnival ground.

‘Not even coffee?’ I badgered. ‘I could use some coffee, anyway.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine, Harvey,’ she caved in, sounding just the slightest bit apprehensive. ‘I’ll come with you for coffee, as long as it’s black.’