Kite Spirit (3 page)

‘
I’m so sorry, Kite. I know how close you two were. No one can believe that she’s died.
’

In Kite’s view, people ‘died’ because they got old or sick, or were caught up in a terrible accident they had no control over. She didn’t care that the way you were
supposed to describe it now was ‘Death by S…’ Apparently, the phrase ‘Committing S…’ was a hangover from the days it was thought of as a crime. But
that’s exactly how it felt to Kite: a crime. Dying was something that happened to a person, but what Dawn had done, she had done to herself.

What was the other phrase people used? Oh yes, ‘passed away’. Kite hated this one more than anything. It was intended to be soothing, as if the person had quietly drifted off to
sleep and never woken up. Of course Dawn had fallen into a deep sleep, and quietly too, so that no one else in the world knew that she was drifting away. Not her mum or her dad or even her
so-called best friend who had been sleeping in the room above her. Deciding to end your life – what was soothing about that? Kite tried not to think of Dawn’s neat little bedroom where
they had spent so much time together when they were little, playing dolls, Lego and board games. In the past few years they had listened to music cranked up so loud that it seemed to obliterate the
whole world; in that bedroom they had tried on make-up and clothes and plucked their eyebrows disastrously; they had danced and teased each other about their latest crush. That room had felt so
full of joy – making Dawn laugh was the one thing Kite had always been able to do.

No, Dawn had not simply ‘died’ or ‘passed away’. There was nothing peaceful about what she’d done. Kite stared at the letter ‘S’ on her computer screen.
They had been in Year 1 when Dawn had taught Kite how to write the perfect ‘S’.

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

S is for silence, S is for sleep and S is for . . . the unspeakable thing that Dawn had done not only to herself but to everyone around her.

What little sleep Kite could grab these days was broken by memories of Dawn, and on waking Dawn’s presence was so bright and clear that she could almost reach out and touch her. Sometimes,
as it was today, Dawn’s lemony soap smell lingered through the morning. Kite wondered if she would ever sleep well again, knowing what her friend had done to herself in her bedroom below. She
would have liked to scream, to retch, to wash away of every memory of Dawn.

She’d overheard Seth and Ruby talking about how strange it was that she hadn’t once cried. But to Kite, tears seemed too easy a way to release the turmoil inside her.

At weekends Kite had been one of those people who sprang to life, threw open her curtains and felt a little bubble of excitement rising in her stomach as she considered the
multitude of possibilities for the day ahead.

Now Kite slowly pulled aside her curtains on to a pitifully grey day. She looked up at the dull sky and felt as if the roof of her world had been lowered.

‘It’s that Annalisa Pain again, from Circus Space!’ Ruby knocked, gently opened the door and held the phone out.

‘Tell her I’m not coming.’

Ruby placed her head on one side and paused to look at her daughter. Kite gazed back blankly. She had the oddest feeling of looking at her mother critically, as a stranger might have seen her.
She noticed that Ruby had new nail extensions with little sequins sparkling in half-moons at the tips. Ruby glided towards the bed and sat down beside Kite. She was a graceful woman with velvety
dark, unlined skin, it was impossible to tell what age she was, partly because she was so fit from all her dancing and choreography. She wore shocking pinks and mustards, or lime greens with
purples, and always a thick dramatic Cleopatra line skilfully drawn along her eyelids. Sometimes, as she had today, she twisted silver and golden threads into her long braids and added ‘a bit
of shimmer’ to her eyes. Looking again at her sequinned nails, Kite winced inside at Ruby’s refusal to blend in. Until now Kite had always been proud that her mum didn’t,
sheep-like, conform to a bland standard.

It was way back in nursery when Dawn had first made her realize that Ruby and Seth were a bit ‘different’.

‘Why don’t you call them Mum and Dad?’ Dawn asked.

‘Because they’re Seth and Ruby.’ Kite shrugged.

‘And why did they call you Kite?’

‘They said I chose it myself. They went for a walk and I was being carried in my baby sling and I kicked my legs cos I saw a kite flying.’

‘So what did they call you before?’

‘Nothing – Ruby and Seth think babies should choose their own names!’

‘That’s silly! Babies can’t talk!’ Dawn giggled.

‘I suppose!’

Kite still remembered the odd shifting feeling inside her that day when Dawn had first come for tea. Ruby and Seth had told her the story of her naming so many times that she could almost
picture her baby self reaching out and grasping her name from a sky full of floating possibilities.

‘What’s a hippy?’ Dawn asked.

‘I don’t know.

‘Ruby! What’s a hippy?’ Kite asked at tea later.

‘Why?’

‘That’s what my mum and dad said you are,’ Dawn answered.

‘That may be so!’ Ruby laughed.

There was something about hearing four-year-old Dawn’s thoughts that made Kite smile, until she remembered. Ruby smoothed Kite’s cheek as if she had glimpsed in her fleeting
expression a tiny ray of hope. Kite pushed Ruby’s sparkling hands away. Today she wished that the world could be as colourless and numb as she felt.

‘Annalisa thinks the training might do you good,’ Ruby coaxed. ‘What shall I tell her?’

‘I’ve told you I’m
not
going.’ Kite burrowed her head under the pillow. Why couldn’t they understand that she just wanted to be left alone?

‘OK, darlin’, you take your time,’ Ruby soothed, her soft, lilting Caribbean accent always at its strongest when she was concerned about someone. Ruby promised Annalisa that
she would call her later, hung up and eased the pillow away from Kite’s face.

‘Do you want to talk?’ she asked, gently tucking a coil of Kite’s hair behind her ear. Kite pulled away and turned her head to face the mattress.

‘Does it look like I want to talk?’

‘When you’re ready, my love, we’re here.’ Ruby sighed deeply as she stood up, walked quietly out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Kite had always been able to tell Ruby and Seth anything that sprang into her mind. No subject was off-limits, but now she felt as if they were living in separate universes and there was no way
that she could talk to them because the Kite she was now
felt
so far from the Kite she had been only a few days before. She knew it was unfair to take it out on her mum, but she was sick
of being told what would be good for her. She had overheard people saying things like, ‘If she would only get a bit of exercise, it might take her out of herself.’ Where did they think
she would go if she wasn’t
in
herself? It was as if everyone thought that, given enough time, she would forget Dawn, move on and get back to ‘normal’. Why couldn’t
they understand that what Dawn had done had changed everything forever; even the things that she had treasured about their past together were sullied now.

Why would she want to go down to Circus Space and turn herself upside down on the trapeze, of all things? Her ambition to fly on the cloud swing, the highest of all trapezes, seemed so
ridiculous now. She wished that she had never met Annalisa and got caught up with the whole scene at Circus Space. Maybe then she’d have had time to notice what was going on with Dawn.

‘I’ll only be an hour or so! I’m helping out a friend with a bit of choreography,’ Ruby called as she disappeared into one of the studios.

That ‘hour or so’ turned into a yawning three hours. Sick of waiting, Kite wandered into a vast brick warehouse to find a woman arcing through the air like a great bird of prey. At
the sight of her, something within Kite clicked into place, as if she’d discovered what she was meant to do, meant to be. Watching the woman fly made Kite’s heart leap out of her body
and gave her a surging feeling of hope that anything was possible.

Then there was the day she’d gone over to Dawn’s to break the news about training with Annalisa. She remembered the nagging feeling in her gut that the new friends she was making at
Circus Space would take her away from Dawn. ‘Don’t worry! You and me are
always
going to be best friends,’ Dawn had reassured her. Actually it had felt, at that moment,
more like a promise. Kite had been so relieved that she threw her arms around Dawn and hugged her tight. Dawn had always been able to read Kite’s thoughts. She was just that sort of person,
noticing things about people, being sensitive to their moods.

‘Lighten up!’ Dawn joked, as she pulled away from Kite. They did that sometimes, just for the hell of it, changed scripts. ‘So? What’s she like, this Annalisa?’

Kite sprang up on to Dawn’s mattress with such enthusiasm that she nearly bounced Dawn off the end of the bed and tumbled to the floor herself.

Dawn broke her fall. ‘Steady.’ She giggled.

‘She’s quite amazing-looking – really tall with this dyed blonde hair, almost white. It’s so short it practically looks shaved, and you’ve never seen arms and legs
as long as hers, not even yours!’ Kite joked, as Dawn tucked her legs under her. ‘After she’d finished this unbelievable routine on the cloud swing she somersaulted her way down a
rope and I waited for her at the bottom! I went over to say how good she was but before I could, she just stuck her chin in the air and marched past me. Then I followed her into this cafe area and
started talking to her anyway. You should have seen the way she looked at me, peering down from her long neck. Come to think of it, she does look a bit like a swan!’

‘She sounds kind of awe-inspiring!’

‘She is! She kept trying to fob me off though, but eventually she said she’d give me a trial!’

‘That’s what I love about you – once you’ve got an idea in your head you’ll never give up!’ Dawn smiled.

‘What? And you would?!’ Kite retorted, climbing back up on to the bed and peering down at Dawn imperiously. ‘What eez your name?’ she asked in what was meant to be
Annalisa’s French accent.

They played this game a lot. Kite had discovered when they were in Year 1 what an amazing knack Dawn had of mimicking people. She said it was because she was an outsider so she had the time to
observe them from a distance, unlike Kite, who was more a part of things. Kite was always trying to get Dawn to put herself forward for plays, but she never would. She amazed everyone when she
acted a part in drama lessons though. She’d even played Ruby once, slipping into her light Caribbean accent and making Kite roar with laughter with her over-the-top dancer’s
gesticulations.

‘Nice to meet you, Annalisa, I’m Kite!’ said Dawn, perfectly capturing Kite’s equally proud upright stance and direct gaze.

‘You cannot be serious!’ laughed Kite throwing back her head in a ridiculously exaggerated Annalisa gesture that sent Dawn off into a giggling fit.

‘Sounds like you’ve found your thing,’ Dawn smiled when they’d stopped messing around. ‘I knew you would. You’re as much of a perfectionist as me in your own
way.’

‘I suppose I am, once it’s something I want to do. Like you with your oboe. You’ve got to really love that instrument to bother with all that reed-scraping stuff!’ Kite
walked over to Dawn’s desk. A pile of thread and bamboo shavings littered the surface.

‘Maybe.’ Dawn shrugged.

Dawn often asked Kite what she thought of the sound of each new reed, and Kite had tried to explain that she could never hear the difference between the ones Dawn rejected and snapped and the
ones that ‘showed promise’.

‘Don’t you want to keep the reeds you’ve really enjoyed playing?’ Kite asked.

‘Maybe this one from the Brahms concert you came to see me in,’ Dawn pondered, picking up a reed that she’d tied with golden thread.

‘You should – you were brilliant that night.’

Dawn shrugged, cradling the reed in her cupped hand as if it alone was responsible for her playing well.

Later, through her bedroom wall, she heard Dawn practising the same phrase over and over again. It sounded like she was punishing herself for something.

‘You talk of her as if she’s still here,’ Miss Choulty commented.

It was true. Kite could not stow Dawn away neatly into the past like everyone else seemed able to do with their ‘She
was
so clever’ . . . ‘She
had
such
potential’ . . . ‘She
was
an outstanding musician’ . . . ‘She always
used
to’ . . . That would feel like packing her away in a big chest, closing the
lid, carrying her up to an old cobwebby loft and switching off the light forever. But the way she saw it, it was Dawn who had abandoned
her
.

When Miss Choulty had called around for a ‘chat’ Kite had been the only one in. The teacher hadn’t waited for an invitation. She’d walked straight in, as Kite stood
frozen in the doorway.

‘Your mum suggested I call. She told me you’re having trouble sleeping,’ Miss Choulty said as she patted the sofa for Kite to sit down next to her.

A blast of inexplicable anger towards Ruby flared up inside her. Why couldn’t her mum just leave her alone?

‘What do you miss about her?’ Miss Choulty asked as Kite stared down at her hands.

‘I miss her music most of all,’ Kite replied eventually.

Actually it had often driven Kite mad as Dawn repeated a phrase over and over on her oboe, going over every note until she’d got it exactly right, but then when she played the whole piece
through, usually right at the end of the day, you could never hear the joins and her playing transported you somewhere else . . . More often than not it had lulled Kite into a peaceful sleep.

Kite could picture the scene right now of the day in school when they’d all been offered the chance to learn an instrument. She’d chosen the violin and given up in less than a month,
but from the first day Dawn had been fascinated by the oboe. She had practised so hard that within a year she was playing pieces that put everyone else to shame. And then she’d been given
free lessons and the bursary to buy her oboe, and that had been her life from then on.