Twenty-Four Hours

Ellis started the car, wishing that Leona, rather than Ursa, were sitting beside him. Before he could stop himself, he was imagining light shifting on her rounded knees, outlining them in the darkness that lurked below the glovebox of his mother’s car.

“You know,” said Ursa, half-turning to glare at Jackie, “I was having a really nice time. Not wonderful! Not thrilling! Just nice! Instead of sitting around with a lot of screwed-up no-hopers, I was in a beautiful place with a beautiful garden, and I was enjoying talking to Christo and drinking champagne.”

“Some champagne!” said Jackie scornfully. “Made right here in New Zealand.”

“It did well in a competition in France,” said Ursa. “It came first – or almost first.”

“Second, say,” Jackie suggested. “Or third!”

“Don’t sit in the back, cuddling the bottle. You look disgusting,” said Ursa. “And don’t try to make out you’ve got taste of any kind,” she added. “You’d cuddle up to cat’s piss as long as it was free.”

“You bet I would,” Jackie agreed. “Cat’s piss has a delicate, crisp acidity, shot through with suggestions of grubby earthiness, the flavour of gooseberries mixed with a tang of acetone. It has a chunky chewiness to it which …”

But Ursa raised her voice and talked over him. “And don’t think you can joke your way out of this, Jackie. You purposefully set out to ruin things for me. You just hate to think I might drift away from the Land-of-Smiles, don’t you?”

Ellis, having driven between the chestnut trees, was turning out on to the road once more.

“Forget it, Ursie,” said Leona’s soft voice. “You’ll say something awful – something you’ll be sorry for. Or he will!”

“I don’t need him acting like a sort of Big Daddy,” Ursa cried impatiently.

“Well, I promise not to act like yours, anyway,” said Jackie, and Ellis could hear a sudden ferocious nudge in his voice – a peculiar emphasis twisting the ordinary words.

There was a sudden silence – a silence far more violent than the argument had been. Something had been said which changed the whole nature of the quarrel … something unforgivable.

Ellis longed to check out their expressions, but dared not take his eyes from the road. The car seemed to speed up, almost independently of his foot on the accelerator. Signs announcing that the motorway was a mere kilometre away, rushed towards them.

“OK,” commanded Ursa in an icy voice. “Stop the car! Stop right now!”

“Oh, no!” cried Leona. “He didn’t mean it, Ursie. You know he can’t resist a smart answer.”

“Stop!” yelled Ursa so fiercely that Ellis braked sharply and Leona fell silent. “I want to say something to that … thing in the back, and it’s not safe to say it in a moving car.”

Ellis brought the car to a graceful standstill. Ursa turned under the strap of her seatbelt and stared at Jackie – slumped behind her, eating – insolently eating – a sausage stolen from the barbecue.

“Get out!” Ursa said.

“What?” said Jackie, surprised at last, looking at her obliquely across the half-eaten sausage.

“Ursie!” groaned Leona. “It’s only making it worse.”

“Ursie! Ursie! Don’t make it worse-ie!” sang Jackie mockingly.

Ursa ignored her sister. “Get out of this car,” she repeated. “I don’t want to breathe the same air as you.”

“You’re going to dump me on the side of the road?” Jackie cried, sitting bolt upright, and making his voice deliberately pathetic. “How am I going to get home?” His voice was thickening a little. Words ran into one another. “And I’m beginning to get drunk, too,” he added accusingly, as if it were Ursa’s fault.

“Walk!” she commanded.

“You mean, ‘skate’!” said Jackie. “I’ve got my skates and …”

“OK! Skate, mate!” she said. She opened her own door. “Because if you don’t get out, I will.”

“Yeah, but maybe you’ve made some arrangement with Chris – oh, sorry! I should have said ‘Christ’, since that’s who he thinks he is,” Jackie said, making a rude gesture with the sausage. “Maybe he’ll come along in that new red car and …”

“Are you scared?” asked Ursa scornfully. “Frightened he’ll run you down?”

“He just might,” said Jackie. “He was the official school bully … got a cup for it at the end-of-school break-up, didn’t he, Ellis? A silver cup with handles and …”

“He could be a bit rough,” agreed Ellis.

“Get out!” said Ursa to Jackie.

“Oh, Ursa, leave him alone,” cried Leona. “He said what he said. You can’t change anything.”

“Look, I can’t just dump Jackie,” Ellis cut in, protesting.

“Then dump me,” Ursa cried. She opened her door and pushed one foot out into the darkness.

“No!” yelled Jackie. “No! I don’t care. Take her home, Ellis. I’ll skate. I’ll hitch. I’ll probably get there before you.”

Ursa slammed her door shut.

“Get where?” asked Ellis.

“She’ll tell you where,” said Jackie. “She’s good at laying down the law.”

A back door slammed. Then Ursa opened her door again. Ellis thought that perhaps she had relented. But she was only throwing the roller blades out after Jackie.

“Drive!” said Ursa. “Please,” she added.

“What did he say that was so bad?” Ellis asked.

“Oh, it’s a long story,” Ursa replied. “He’s sorry now, but that’s not enough. I want him to suffer.”

As the car moved off, Ellis saw through the back window Jackie’s shape, picked out in the red glow of the tail light, apparently giving a thumbs-up sign with one hand, and hoisting the bottle with the other …

“He’s drunk a lot,” Ellis said doubtfully. “He might flake out.”

“I hope he does,” said Ursa. “It’s not as if I give a stuff about Christopher Kilmer. I know he’s a bit of a creep – sorry, if he’s a friend of yours – but …”

“He isn’t a friend,” said Ellis shortly.

“It’s as if I’m being punished for wanting to have a good time,” Ursa complained. “I need it, too. Anyone needs a good time if their computer’s just been stolen, which mine was, last night.”

Ellis found he was beginning to remember Ursa vaguely from the days before he went to St Conan’s. In his head, a past version had begun flicking on and off like an inconstant ghost – shorter and fatter than she was now, and wearing glasses which had black tape wrapped around one of the arms. She had been a loud girl, he now remembered, always talking – the skirt of her school uniform hitched up over her belt so that it looked much shorter than the regulation length. She must have been wondering about him, too.

“I thought I knew everyone Jackie knew,” she said, turning her powerful gaze towards him.