I sit beside him. “Bad day?”
“Can’t remember,” he replies. “Why are you home early?” I hold up my watch and tap it. Dervish reads the time and sighs. “I’m losing it, Grubbs.”
My insides tighten, but I don’t let Dervish see my fear. “Losing what—your sanity? You can’t lose what you never had.”
“My grip.” Dervish looks down at his feet, bare and dirty.
“I wasn’t like this before. I wasn’t this distracted and empty. Was I?” He looks at me pleadingly.
“You’ve been through hell, Derv,” I tell him quietly. “You can’t expect to recover without a few hiccups.”
“I know. But I wasn’t this way, right? Some days I can’t remember. I feel like it’s always been like this.”
“No,” I say firmly. “It’s just a phase. It’ll pass.”
“All things must pass,” Dervish mutters. Then he looks at me sideways, his cool blue eyes coming into focus. “Why are you wet?”
“Took a bath. Forgot to strip.” I rap his forehead with my knuckles, then point to the windows and the rain battering the panes. “Numbnuts.”
“Oh,” Dervish says. “I should have picked you up.”
“No worries.” I rise and stretch, dripping steadily. “I’m going up to shower and change into dry clothes. I’ll stick this lot in to wash. Anything you want me to add?” I did all the jobs around the house when Dervish was a vegetable. Hard to break the habit.
“No, I don’t think so. I…” Dervish stares at his left hand. There’s a black mark on it, a small ‘d’. “There was something I meant to tell you. What…?” He clicks his fingers. “I had a phone call, a follow-up to some e-mails I’ve been getting recently. Ever heard of someone called Davida Haym?”
“No, can’t say…” I pause. “Hold on. Not David A. Haym, the movie producer?”
“That’s her.”
“I thought that was a guy.”
“Nope. She uses David A. on her movies, but it’s Davida. You know about her?”
“Sure. She makes horror movies. Zombie Zest. Witches Weird. Night Mayors—that’s, like, Nightmares, only two words. It’s about evil mayors who band together to set up a meat production plant, except the meat they process is human flesh.”
“Win many Oscars?” Dervish asks.
“Swept the board,” I chuckle. “I can’t believe she’s a woman. I always thought… But what about her? I didn’t think you were into horror flicks.”
“She phoned me earlier.”
I do a double-take. “David A. Haym called you?”
“Davida Haym. Yes.” Dervish squints at me. “Have I grown a second head?”
“Hell, it’s David A. Haym, Dervish! That’s like saying Steven Spielberg was on the line, or George Lucas. OK, not as big as those, but still…”
“I didn’t know she was famous,” Dervish says. “She told me the names of some of her movies, but I don’t watch a lot of films. She made it sound like she was a cult director.”
“She is. She doesn’t make films with big-name stars. But her movies are great! Anyone who loves horror knows about David A. Haym. Though I’m not sure many know she’s a woman.”
“That’s a big sticking point for you, isn’t it?” Dervish grins. “You’re not turning into a chauvinist, are you?”
“No, I just…” I shake my head. Water flies from my ginger hair and splatters the wall. “What did she want?”
“She’s making a new movie. Asked if she could meet me. She’d heard I know a lot about the occult. Wants to pick my brain.” He tweaks his chin, forgetting the beard isn’t there. “I hope she didn’t mean that literally.”
“Did you say yes?” I ask, excited.
“Said I’d think about it.”
“Dervish! You’ve got to! It’s David A. Haym! Did she say she’d come here? Can I meet her? Do you think—”
“Easy, tiger,” Dervish laughs. “We didn’t discuss where we’d meet. But you think I should agree to it?”
“Absolutely!”
“Then meet we shall,” Dervish says, getting to his feet and heading up to his office. “Anything to please Master Grady.”
I tramp up the stairs after him, pulling off my clothes, thinking about how cool it would be if I could meet David A. Haym… and also how weird it is that one of the world’s premier horror producers is a woman.
“David A. Haym’s a woman? No bloody way!” Loch howls.
“You’re having us on!” Robbie challenges me.
“How stupid do you think we are?” Charlie huffs.
“Of course she’s a woman,” Mary says. We gawp at her. “You didn’t know?”
“No,” Loch says. “You did?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Mary shrugs. “I dunno. Years.”
“And you never told us?” Robbie barks.
“It never came up,” Mary laughs. “I’ve no interest in horror movies. I always tune out when you guys start on that rubbish.”
“Then how did you know she’s a woman?” I ask.
“There was a feature on her in a magazine my mum reads,” Mary explains. “I think the headline was, ‘The horror producer chick who beats the boys at their own game’.”
They’re nearly as excited as I am. Most of my friends don’t know what to make of Dervish. In a way he’s cool, the adult who rides a motorbike, dresses in denim, lets me do pretty much what I like. On the other hand he sometimes comes across as a complete nutter. Plus they know he was a veg for more than a year.
But now that he’s in talks with the slickest, sickest producer of recent horror movies, his cred rises like a helium balloon. They want to know how she knows about him, when she’s coming, what the new movie’s about. I act mysterious and secretive, giving nothing away, but dropping hints that I’m fully clued-in. In truth, I know no more than they do. Dervish wasn’t able to get through to her last night. He left a message and was waiting for her to phone back when I left this morning.
* * * * *
“Did she call?”
“Who?”
I groan, wishing Dervish wasn’t a complete airhead. “David A. Haym, of course! Did she—”
“Oh, yeah, she rang.”
“And?” I practically shriek, as Dervish focuses on getting dinner ready.
“She’ll drop by within the next week.”
“Here?” I gasp. “Carcery Vale?”
“No,” he smirks. “Here—this house. I told her she could stay the night if she wanted, though I don’t know if—”
“David A. Haym’s going to stay in our house?” I shout.
“Davida,” Dervish corrects me.
“Dervish… the terrible things I’ve said about you… the awful names I’ve called you… I take them all back!”
“Thanks,” Dervish laughs. Stops and frowns. “What awful names?”
Everyone wants David A. Haym’s autograph. They want to meet her, have dinner with us, maybe snag a part in her next movie. Loch auditions for me several times a day, moaning and screaming, pretending bits of his body have been chopped off, quoting lines from Zombie Zest and Night Mayors—“We elected a devil!” “That’s not my hand on your knee!” “Mustard or mayo with your brains?” Draws curious stares from teachers and kids who haven’t heard the big news.
Bill-E talks up script ideas. Reckons he can pitch to her and become the brains behind her next five movies. “Writers are getting younger all the time,” he insists. “Producers want fresh talent, original ideas, guys who can think outside the box.”
“You’re about as far outside the box as they come,” Loch laughs.
“I wouldn’t have to write the whole script myself,” Bill-E says, ignoring the jibe. “I could collaborate. I’m a team player.”
“Yeah,” Loch snorts. “Trouble is, you’re a substitute!”
I let them scheme and dream. Smile smugly, as if they’re just crazy, dreamy kids. Of course, I’m as full of wild notions as they are—I just prefer to play it cool.
Days pass—no sign of Davida Haym. The weekend comes and goes. I bug Dervish constantly, asking if there’s been any further contact. Sometimes he pretends he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, just to wind me up.
By Tuesday I’m starting to wonder if it’s a gag, if Dervish never spoke to David A. Haym at all. It would be a weird, unfunny joke—but Dervish is into weird and unfunny. I’ll look a right dope in school if she never shows. I’ll have to invent a story, pretend she was called away on an emergency.
Thinking about excuses I could use as I’m walking home. Nothing too simple, like a sick relative or having to pick up an award. Needs to be more dramatic. Her house burnt to the ground? She caught bubonic plague and had to go into isolation?
Warming to the plague theory—can people still get it these days? — when a car pulls up beside me. A window rolls down. A thin, black-haired woman leans across. “Excuse me,” she says. “Do you know where Dervish Grady lives?”