"Octavia," I said.
To myself.
I kept running.
Past the university.
Past the abandoned shops.
Past a few guys who looked like they might try to rob me.
"Come on," I told myself when I thought I was slowing down, and I looked hard into the distance to see the legs and footsteps of Octavia.
When I made it to the station there were hordes of people pouring through the gates and I managed to slip through between a guy with a suitcase and a woman holding flowers. I went to the Illawarra line and sprinted down the escalator, past all the suits, the briefcases, and the different day-old perfumes and hair spray.
I made it to the bottom, nearly tripping.
Look at this bloody crowd! I thought, but slowly I edged my way along the platform. When the train arrived all the people crammed and crushed and shook their heads when I got in their way. There was even a pretty bad smell like someone's underarm sweat. It licked me in the face, but still I looked and rushed through the crowd.
"Get out of the way," someone snarled, and I was left with no other choice.
I got on the train.
I got on and stood in the packed middle compartment, right next to a guy with a mustache who was obviously the owner of the putrid underarm sweat. We both held on to the greasy metal pole until both the train and I got moving.
"Excuse me," I said. "Sorry," and I made my way through the carriage downstairs. I figured I'd do all the lower levels of the train first and come back on the upper levels. This was the only train going to Hurstville. She had to be on it.
She wasn't in the carriage I got in on, or the next.
I opened the doors between each carriage and went through, with the cold tunnel air coughing around me before I entered the next carriage. Once I nearly slammed the door in my spirit's face as it closed in on me.
"There!"
I heard its voice point her out to me in the crowd of humans locked up in the suburban train.
I saw her just after the train rattled and burst out of the tunnel and into the paler darkness of the night. She was standing, just like I'd been standing a few carriages back, but facing the other way. From the lower level of the train I could see her legs.
Footstep. Footstep.
I edged my way closer and made it to the stairs and started climbing them.
Soon I could see all of her.
She stood and looked out the smeared window of the train. I wondered what thoughts she was thinking.
I was close, and I could see her neck and the movement of her breathing. I saw her fingers holding the pole as the train stuttered and the lights flooded and blinked.
Octavia, I said inside.
My spirit shoved me forward.
"Go on," it said, but it didn't dare me, order me, or demand anything anymore. It was just telling me what was right, and what I needed to do.
"All right," I whispered.
I walked closer and stood behind her.
Her flannel shirt.
The skin of her neck.
The ruffled streams of hair landing on her back.
Her shoulder ...
I reached out and touched her.
She turned around and I looked into her and a feeling lurched in me. God, she looked beautiful. I heard my voice. It said, "I'll stand outside your house, Octavia." I even smiled. "I'll come and stand there tomorrow."
That was when she closed her eyes for a moment and smiled back.
She smiled and said, "That'd be good, Cam." The voice was quiet.
I moved closer and grabbed hold of her shirt at her stomach and held on to her, relieved.
At the next stop, I told her I'd better get out.
"See you tomorrow?" she asked.
I nodded.
The train doors opened and I got out. When they closed I had no idea what station I was at, but as the train pulled and dragged itself along, I walked with it, still looking into her through the window.
When the train was gone I stood there, eventually realizing how cold it was on the platform.
Something struck me.
My spirit.
It was gone.
I searched everywhere for it, until I realized. It didn't get off the train with me. It was still in the carriage, with Octavia.
TRACK
A crowded train drags itself through me.
I own it now. I live inside the carriages, letting them carry me home.
If I stay inside long enough, the train slowly empties, until it's just her and me standing inside it, under the flickering fluorescent lights and above the metallic shifting of the wheels, rolling over the tracks.
The train breathes.
It speaks.
Its voice is made up of memory and the words of now.
Sparks flick and fall from above.
We stand.
I hold her by the shirt.
My spirit's at my shoulder, whispering.
Even when I get out of the train, I find myself running alongside it, bargaining with fatigue, and making sure I'll always remember it.
Finally, it goes too fast. It shivers in front of my eyes and fades, and I bend down, amongst the words. I allow my hands to fall to my knees. I suck the air hard. I can't breathe it quick enough, it tastes that good.
CHAPTER 9
"Oi," Rube said to me when I made it in that night. "What the hell happened to you? You're a bit late, aren't y'?"
"I know," I nodded.
"There's soup in the pot," Mrs. Wolfe cut in.
I lifted the lid off it, which is usually the worst thing you can ever do. It clears the kitchen, though, which was pretty useful that night, considering. I wasn't really in the mood to be answering questions, especially from Rube. What was I going to tell him? "Ah, you know, mate. I was just out with your old girlfriend. You don't mind, do y'?" No way.
The soup took a few minutes and I sat and ate it alone.
As I ate, I started coming to terms with what had happened. I mean, it's not every day something like that happens to you, and when it does, you can't help but struggle to believe it.
Her voice kept arriving in me. "Cameron?"
"Cameron?"
After hearing it a few times, I turned around to find Sarah talking to me as well.
"You okay?" she asked.
I smiled at her. "Of course," and we washed up.
Later, Rube and I went over and collected Miffy, walking him till he started wheezing again.
"He sounds bloody terrible. Maybe he's got the flu or somethin'," Rube suggested. "Or the clap."
"What's the clap?"
"I'm not sure. I think it's some kind of sex disease."
"Well I don't think he's got that."
When we took him back over to Keith he said Miffy got fur balls a lot, which made sense, since that dog seemed to be made up of ninety percent fur; a couple percent flesh; a few percent bones; and one or two percent barking, whingeing, and carrying on. Mostly fur, though. Worse than a cat.
We gave him a last pat and left.
On our front porch I asked Rube how the Julia girl was going.
"Scrubber," I imagined him announcing, but knew he wouldn't.
"Ah, not bad, y' know," he replied. "She's not the best but she's not the worst either. No complaints really." It didn't take long for a girl to go from brilliant to run-of-the-mill with Rube.
"Fair enough."
For a moment, I almost asked how Octavia rated, but I wasn't interested in her the way Rube was, so there was no point. It wasn't important. For me, it was the way that thoughts of her could keep finding me that was important. I just couldn't stop thinking about her, as I convinced myself about everything that had happened.
Her appearance on the street in Glebe.
Her question.
The train.
All of it.
We sat there a while on the worn-out couch Dad put out there a few summers ago and watched the traffic amble by.
br /> "What are youse starin' at?" a scrubberish sort of girl snapped at us as she idled past on the footpath.
"Nothin'," Rube answered, and we could only laugh a while as she swore at us for no apparent reason and continued walking.
My thoughts turned inward.
In each passing moment, Octavia found a way into me. Even when Rube started talking again, I was back on the train, pushing my way through the humans, the sweat, and the suits.
"Are we workin' with Dad this Saturday?" Rube stamped out my thoughts.
"I'm pretty sure we are," I said, and Rube got up and went inside. I stayed on the porch a fair while longer. I thought about the next night, and standing outside Octavia's house.
I didn't sleep that night.
The sheets stuck to me and I turned and got tangled in them. At one point, I even got up and just sat in the kitchen. It was past two in the morning then, and when Mrs. Wolfe got up to go to the toilet, she came to see who was there.
"Hey," I whispered.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I couldn't sleep."
"Well, go back to bed soon, all right?"
I sat there a while longer, with the talkback radio show talking and arguing with itself at the kitchen table. Octavia filled me that whole night. It made me wonder if she was sitting in her own kitchen, thinking of me.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Either way, I was going there the next day, and the hours were disappearing slower than I thought possible.
I returned to bed and waited. When the sun came up, I got up with it, and gradually, the day passed me by. School was the usual concoction of jokes, complete bastards, shoves, and a laugh here and there.
For a few anxious seconds in the afternoon, I wasn't sure what Octavia's last name was and feared I might not be able to look her up in the phone book. I was relieved when I remembered. It was Ash. Octavia Ash. When I got the address, I looked the street up on the map and found it to be about a ten-minute walk from the station, as long as I didn't get lost.
Maybe for comfort, I jumped the fence and gave Miffy a pat for a while. In a way, I was nervous. Nervous as hell. I thought of everything that might go wrong. Train derailment. Not being able to find the right house. Standing outside the wrong house. I covered all of it in my mind as I patted the ball of fluff that had rolled over and somehow smiled as I rubbed his stomach.
"Wish me luck, Miffy," I said softly as I got up to leave, but all he did was prop himself up and give me a look of Don't you stop patting me, you lazy bastard. I jumped the fence anyway, though, and went through the house. I left a note saying I might go to Steve's that night so no one would worry too much. (The odds were that I might end up there in any case.) I was wearing the sort of thing I always wear. Old jeans, a jersey, my black spray jacket, and my old shoes.
Before I left, I went to the bathroom and tried to keep my hair from sticking up, but that's like trying to defy gravity. My hair sticks up no matter what. Thick like dog's fur, and always slightly messy. There's just never a lot I can do about it. Besides, I thought, I should just try to be like I was yesterday. If I was good enough yesterday I should be good enough today.
It was settled. I was going.
I let slam shut behind me and the fly-screen rattle. It was as if each door was kicking me out of the old life I'd lived in that house. I was being thrown out into the world, new. The broken, leaning gate creaked open, let me out, and I gently placed it shut. I was gone, and from down the street, maybe fifty yards away, I looked back for a second at the house where I lived. It wasn't the same anymore. It never would be. I kept walking.
The traffic on the street waded past me, and at one point, when it all got blocked, a passenger from a cab spat out the window and it landed near my feet.
"Christ," the guy said. "Sorry, mate."
All I did was look at him and say, "No worries." I couldn't afford to be distracted. Not today. I'd picked up the scent of a different life, and nothing was going to get me off it. I would hunt it down. I would find it, taste it, devour it. The guy could have spat in my face and I would have wiped it off and kept walking.
There would be no distractions.
No regrets.
It was still afternoon when I made it down to Central Station, bought my ticket, and headed for the underground. Platform Twenty-five.
Standing there, I waited at the back of the platform till I felt the cold wind of the train pushing through the tunnel. It surrounded my ears until the roar entered me and slowed to a dull, limping sigh.
It was an old train.
A scabby one.
In the last carriage, downstairs, there was an old man with a radio, listening to jazz music. He said hello to me (a very rare event on any form of public transport), and I knew that things would have to go right today. I felt like I'd earned it.
My thoughts veered with the train. My heart held itself back.
When Hurstville came, I stood up and made my way out, and to my amazement, I found Octavia's street without any problems. Usually when it comes to directions I'm an absolute shocker.
I looked at each house, trying to guess which one was number thirteen Howell Street.
When I made it, I found the house to be nearly as small as where I lived, and red brick. It was getting dark, and I stood there, waiting and hoping, hands in pockets. There was a fence and a gate, and a close-cut lawn with a path. I began wondering if she'd come out.
People came from the station.
They walked past me.
Finally, when the same darkness as the previous day overcame the street, I turned away from the house and faced the road, half-sitting, half-leaning on the fence. A few minutes later, she came.
I could barely hear the front door open or her footsteps coming toward me, but there was no mistaking the feeling of her behind me when she stopped and stood within reaching distance. I shiver even now as I feeling of her cool hands on my neck, and the touch of her voice on my skin.
"Hi Cameron," she said, and I turned around to face her. "Thanks for coming."
"It's okay," I spoke. My voice was dry and cracked open.
I smiled then, I remember, and my heart swam in its own blood. There was no holding back anymore. In my mind, I had gone over moments like this a thousand times, and now that I was truly in one, there was no way I could blow it. I wouldn't allow myself.
I went along the fence and into the gate, and when I made it over to Octavia, I picked up her hand and held it in mine. I raised it to my mouth and kissed it. I kissed her fingers and her wrist as gently as my clumsy lips could.
Her eyes widened.
The expression on her face came that little bit closer.
Her mouth merged into a smile.
"Come on," she said, leading me out the gate. "We don't have long tonight," and we moved onto the path.
We walked down the street to an old park, where I searched myself for things to say.
Nothing came.
All I could think of was utter crap like the weather and all that sort of thing, but I wasn't going to reduce myself to that. She still smiled at me, though, telling me silently that it was okay not to talk. It was okay not to win her over with stories or compliments or anything else I could say just to say something. She only walked and smiled, happier in silence.
In the park, we sat for a long time.
I offered her my jacket and helped her put it on, but after that, there was nothing.
No words. No anything.
I don't know what else I expected, because I had absolutely no idea how to confront this. I had no idea how to act around a girl, because to me, what she wanted was completely shrouded in mystery. I didn't really have a clue. All I knew was that I wanted her. That was the simple part. But actually knowing what to do? How in the hell could I ever come close to coping with that? Can you tell me?
My problem came, I think, from being inside aloneness for so long. I always watched girls from afar, hardly getti
ng close enough to smell them. Of course I wanted them, but even though I was miserable about not actually having them, it was also kind of a relief. There was no pressure. No discomfort. In a way, it was easier just to imagine what it would be like, rather than confront the reality of it. I could create ideal situations, and ways that I would act to win them over.
You can do anything when it's not real.
When it is real, nothing breaks your fall. Nothing gets between you and the ground, and that night, in the park, I had never felt so real. I'd never felt so lacking in control. It the way it was, and the way it always would be.
Before, life was about getting girls (or hoping to).
Not about getting to know them, or actually getting what they were about.
Now, it was much different.
Now, it was about one girl, and working out what to do.
I thought for a while, trying to find the elusive breakthrough of what to say. Thoughts pinned me down, leaving me there, to think about it. In the end, I tried convincing myself that everything would turn out. Nothing turns on its own, though.
All right, I told myself, trying to pull myself together. I even started listing the things I'd actually done right.
I'd chased her down on the train the day before. I'd spoken to her and said I'd stand outside her house.
God, I'd even kissed her hand. But now I had to talk, and I had nothing to say. Why don't you have anything to say, you stupid bastard? I asked myself. I begged inside me. Several times.
The disappointment in myself was bitter as I sat on a splinter-infested park bench with her, wondering what to do next.
At one point I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
In the end, I could only look at her and say, "I'm sorry, Octavia. I'm sorry I'm so bloody useless."
She shook her head, and I saw that she was disagreeing with me.
She said quietly, "You don't have to talk at all, Cameron." She looked into me. "You'd never have to say a thing and I'd still know you're big-hearted."
That was when the night burst open and the sky fell down, in slabs, around me.
GETTING THE GIRL
I think about it hard -- about silence and getting the girl.
Getting.
Getting.
When you're young and dirty, everything's about getting your hands on a girl ... or at least, that's what people say. It may not be what they think, but it's what they tell you.