Ghost of Newsangtown

Escape

Once on the bus, Louise lifted her face to look around. "Where are we going?"

"The mall."

"No, not the mall."

Karla finished digging around in her bag and passed her a mini pack of tissues. "Sorry, it's all I have left. It's got to be the mall. It's the only place that can get us both home on time." The mall wasn't the largest one this side of the city. Newer ones had sprung up closer in, but for the outer suburbs it was still big. Two levels of shops with parking underneath and on top. The bus interchange out the front looked different in the middle of a school day. Maybe it was just less people, or simply knowing it was a school day.

As they got down from the bus they headed around towards the small entrance. "We have to hang out at Stinkies, otherwise we'll be busted." This end of the mall was packed with chemists, medicos and health insurance outlets. Dinkies café, squeezed in between them, still had the same décor it had when the centre was first built. The orange, laminate counter was so worn and faded that the centre was a thin white. Karla slid her hand full of change across it as she ordered, "Two coffees and some raisin toast please."

The woman serving her was at least in her fifties and something about the lines in her face said that she barely existed between her cigarette breaks. "Anything else luv?" She slid the change off the counter into her palm.

"Not for the moment thanks. We'll be here a while. Mum's going to be ages." Karla half smiled into the blank face, then watched as the woman picked up a pair of mugs and shuffled over to the coffee machine. Karla went and sat down across from Louise. After looking at her face for a moment, she got back up then took a serviette dispenser from the counter.

Karla sat back down then patiently waited, watching her until Louise finally looked back at her and said, "You think he's dead. Don't you?"

Karla nodded thoughtfully, "I'm guessing, like you, but that's what I think. Yes." The silence hung there between them. Noises from behind the counter seemed far in the distance, the hiss of the milk being frothed was remote. Louise glanced at her little, white phone, then put it on the table, occasionally giving it a spin with her fingertip. Eventually Karla continued, "We probably won't know for a day or so. Even if I'm wrong, whatever it is, it's still really bad."

Louise put her elbows on the imitation-wood table top and rested her forehead in her hands. Karla's clasped hands rested on the table. She was still staring at the top of Louise's head when the coffees turned up.

"Don't worry luv, things always seem much worse than they are." Karla looked up when the woman spoke and made room for the two mugs. The woman gave a twitch of a smile then went back to the counter. Karla picked up four sugar satchels by the top, gave them a little flick, then tore their tops off as one. She poured three packets into Louise's coffee then tipped a single packet into her own. Once she had stirred in the sugars she pushed Louise's coffee under her fringe of hair, then licked the spoon.

Eventually Louise spoke again, "He never knew that I wasn't angry at him. He still thinks I hate him." She looked directly at Karla who opened her mouth to speak but said nothing. Louise pulled out her phone and scrolled through the messages. She read with a voice that was little above a whisper, "Will be thinking of you tonight, birthday girl. Call me soon, noses, Josh. That was his last text. The last." She put the phone down in front of her then warmed her hands on the mug. "Thanks." Karla reached forward to run her fingertip down the back of Louise's four fingers wrapped around her mug.

They sat for a long while, Karla taking the occasional sip, Louise warming her hands. The smell of cinnamon arrived before the raisin toast was placed between them. Four thick-cut, large triangles, toasted a dark brown, with patches of butter still melting in. Karla looked into her half-empty mug before picking up a triangle. "You should eat, or at least try the coffee." Then she bit into the toast. Louise picked up her mug, propped her elbows back on the table then rested her lips against the hot edge. When she sipped, she always finished by sucking gently on the lip of the mug like a quick kiss. The heat of the coffee made her red lips go even darker and the wetness made them shine. She sipped again.

There was only one triangle of toast left by the time Louise put down her mug to pick it up. "I'm not hungry. You can have it, if you are."

"Eat it. Hungry or not, you still need to."

She only ate half of it before putting it back down on the plate, then pushed it towards Karla. The last of her coffee was barely enough to swallow it with. "I feel like I'm in a dream. As if I've never been anywhere but here. I can hear myself talk."

Karla looked at her watch, "Oh crap, your bus will be here now. We've got to move." Louise reached down to pick up her bag, but Karla had all ready dragged it up and, with her own bag over her shoulder, sped out the door. Louise stopped her chair from tipping over backwards as she stood up, then rushed after her. The two raced back along the front of the shopping centre, across the crossing and into the bus interchange. There was only one bus parked there and two people were still climbing in. Louise followed them in as Karla shoved her schoolbag into her hands then went around the front to check the number. "It's yours. Call me tonight." She waved through the doors as they closed, then walked off towards one of the other bus parks.

A dishevelled looking man, about forty, had been watching the two girls in the coffee shop while he leant against the mall entrance. As soon as they rushed out, he stubbed his cigarette out on the sole of his shoe then walked up to where they had been sitting. Seeing that the woman behind the counter was busy with the fryers, he picked up the little, white phone from the table and slipped it into his pocket, then strolled back out. As he headed out through the mall entrance he threw a look over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed. There was only a cleaner in blue overalls with rags over his arm, polishing a rail. He turned around the corner then slid his hand into the pocket of his old, brown suit-pants. Without drawing the phone right out of his pocket, he tried to look at it before turning into the betting agency just outside the entrance.

The cleaner, tall and lanky in his overalls, looked off in the direction the pair of girls had headed for a while. Then, after checking his watch, he pulled a phone out of his pocket and scrolled through some numbers. He selected a phone number, but without dialling it, put the phone back into his pocket. He cleaned and polished surfaces up and down that corridor for the best part of an hour before the man in the brown suit-pants came back through. The cleaner followed him back in towards the centre of the mall until he reached the door to the stairs leading down to the car park. He shoved the rag into his back pocket then, reaching into another pocket, pressed dial and followed the other man through the door to the stair well.

The man in brown suit-pants turned at the top of the stairs to face the cleaner, just as the phone in his pocket rang. He pulled out the little, white phone and held it close to his face to read it.

In that instant, the cleaner grabbed the white phone tightly in his fingers and pushed it hard into the other man's chest, forcing him backwards. Right when his trousered leg stepped backwards over the stairs, the cleaner swept his own leg underneath to lift both the man's legs high in the air. The man in brown suit-pants flailed through a backward fall. His gasp was cut short with a grinding crunch as the back of his neck crushed into the concrete steps. His body continued to tumble over, leaving him face down on the landing.

He looked almost comfortable there except for the oddness of the half-circle of white spine protruding through the gash in his neck. The cleaner took his rag back out of his back pocket and wrapped the little, white phone in it. He walked through the middle of the mall and out towards the main entrance, all the while rubbing the phone around inside the rag. The afternoon sun was streaming into the entrance when he walked outside. A woman was squinting into the sunlight reflected off the glass shop windows and almost bumped into him. Stopping suddenly she said, "I'm sorry, the sun..."

"It's okay. Can you do me a favour?" Because he was reaching out with his hand, she automatically held out hers. He dropped the phone from the rag into her hand as she squinted up at him. "Can you drop this into Centre Management, lost and found? Thanks." He continued walking past her into the sunlight before she could answer.

When we're dealing with Louise, the point of view is tightly controlled, but the scenes with the characters outside of her sphere I'm closer to the omniscient point of view. I know this is an unusual jump so I'd like to know if it is jarring or if it feels okay / unnoticed?