Influence by Stuart Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page B

her though, keeping a
respectful distance at least. Unperturbed the boy leaned his head down into her
eye line apparently fooled by the headphones but not put off by them. ‘Hi,’ he
repeated. Lizzie could no longer continue to ignore him, not without descending
into an unacceptable level of rudeness which Lizzie’s character would not
allow. Lizzie pulled her headphones around her neck.
    ‘Sorry?’ she said in a tone she hoped was
neither rude, nor inviting.
    ‘I said hi,’ Lizzie
looked up at the boy who was smiling at her. He was obviously older than Lizzie
but only by a few years. He was very slim, even with the fairly rigid leather
jacket on.
    ‘Hello,’ she said throwing him a confused
look, ‘do I know you?’
    ‘Actually no, but
I’ve seen you around, or really I mean I’ve seen you here. What are you
studying?’ Lizzie didn’t want to lie if she could help it but she wasn’t sure
whether this guy was genuinely interested or whether he was checking to see if
she was sufficiently authorised to be here. She waited, allowing one of Mr
Pallister’s silences to slide between them like an awkward barrier. Lizzie
could feel the boy’s discomfort and was just about to put him out of his misery
and come clean about her situation and confess to trespassing when he broke
first. ‘Sorry, I’m being nosey aren’t I, here you are minding your own business
enjoying a bit of peace and some guy charges in interrogating you. Let me start
again, hi, my name’s Void,’ Lizzie’s confused look deepened.
    ‘You mean your name
has somehow expired, or is no longer valid?
    ‘What? Oh no, no,
that is my name, you can call me Void,’ Lizzie’s expression changed ever so
slightly in that one eyebrow raised a half inch giving Void here a look that
could only mean – Really? Again she allowed a silence and waited. ‘Frank, my
name is Frank, but my friends call me Void.’ He looked thoroughly abashed and
Lizzie couldn’t help feel just a little sorry for him. From a distance, and
standing next to his overtly painted friends Lizzie had thought he didn’t have
any makeup on, but up close she could now see a hint of white foundation, his
eyes and lips were also unnaturally dark.  ‘Hey, if you can’t reinvent yourself
at university then when can you eh?’ he said, his makeup failing to hold back
his blush.
    ‘I guess,’ Lizzie
offered him, making her feel a little less guilty for his embarrassment. She
was surprised just how effective old Pallister’s silence trick worked, she
wondered if she sat here long enough saying nothing whether he might give her
his bank card and PIN number.
    ‘I’m Lizzie’ she said,
and had considered giving him a false name but she was determined to maintain
the truth where possible, and there seemed no harm in his knowing her name. She
turned her head away from the boy.
    ‘So what you
listening to?’ Lizzie sighed showing her mild exasperation at his continued
attempts at communication.
    ‘Pumpkins.’
    ‘Ah yeah, Smashing
Pumpkins, not bad. Not really my thing though but you could do a lot worse.’
Lizzie could tell he was desperate for her to reciprocate an enquiry into his
tastes but instead she smiled, and again turned away, sure this would be the
end of the very one sided conversation. She was wrong. ‘Yeah, the whole grunge
scene is a big step forward from all that hairspray rock shit in the eighties
but it doesn’t really speak to me, you know?’ He swung his canvas shoulder bag
onto his knee displaying what was once a drab green satchel but now was
emblazoned with patches, handwriting and a drawing here and there. Lizzie
recognised only a few of the names. Sisters of Mercy, The Cure , and Type
O Negative were crudely and indelibly written in black marker, while the
patches, mostly in black, displayed names such as Paradise Lost and My
Dying Bride . Taking pride of place on the centre of the front flap of the
bag was a patch with just three letters.
    ‘Who’s NIN?