Smoke in the Room

  Some hours later he woke to footsteps thundering past the bedroom door. I’m gunna be sick someone choked out. There was the sound of glass breaking, a thump on the wall by his bed, then a cry that could have been pain or ecstasy. Graeme covered his head with a pillow and reminded himself he’d been in far less comfortable waiting rooms than this one.

  4.

  In the five days since he’d moved into the flat, Adam had slept twelve or thirteen hours a day. Katie had asked him if he was still jetlagged or if he felt sick, but he just rolled over and said that he was tired. He rarely answered her questions and so she didn’t know much more about him than she had the day he moved in. She’d found, though, that he loosened up after he came; and for the ten minutes or so before he fell asleep again he spoke to her as though they were friends.

  As dawn broke through the blinds in her bedroom on Thursday morning, Adam seized Katie’s hips and held her still. She had been bouncing up there for what felt like hours and her thighs and lower back ached, but that sound he made, like a sigh that came from deep in his belly, and the way his forehead smoothed out and his mouth fell open made it worth the effort.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘Please, like I’m doing you a favour.’

  She went to climb off him but he held her steady. ‘What is that?’ he asked, running his finger over the tattoo on her right hip. ‘A cockroach or something?’

  ‘It’s a fairy!’ A muscle in the back of her left thigh twitched. She resisted the urge to stretch. ‘Geez, when have you ever seen a hot pink cockroach?’

  He almost smiled. ‘Why a fairy?’

  ‘Dunno. I don’t even remember getting it. I just woke up one morning about three years ago with blood under my nails and this itchy, scabby mess on my hip. Once I realised what it was I tried to pumice it off, but no luck, obviously.’

  ‘Mmm. Colour’s really strong still. Good quality work.’

  ‘Yeah. Pity it’s a bloody fairy.’ Katie shifted her hips forward to stretch her lower back and felt Adam slip out of her. ‘Do you regret any of your tatts?’

  ‘Hang on.’ Adam reached between their legs and removed the condom that Katie had, for once, remembered to put on him. ‘All my tattoos are significant.’ He tied the condom and wrapped it in a tissue from the box on the bedside table. ‘They’re like a diary. Even when I’ve moved on from the moment that inspired them, it’s good to remember the intensity of the feeling.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s smart. From now on I can say that although the fairy is meaningless I remember the intensity of the alcohol-induced blackout I was in when I – shit, that doesn’t work, does it?’ She sighed and pointed to the ivy climbing up his ribs. ‘So, what inspired this one?’

  ‘Ivy is a symbol of strength. When I was seventeen, I thought I needed a little extra.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘This one,’ Adam said, touching the red star under his collarbone, ‘I got before I went travelling for the first time. It’s like the stars sailors used to find their way home.’

  ‘Nice. But I want to know why you needed strength when –’

  ‘These Chinese characters –’ he pointed his chin in the direction of his left bicep ‘– say “Love begets love” and the ones on my right arm say “Justice for all”.’

  ‘Like the Metallica song? God, that’s way lamer than a pink fairy.’

  ‘No. It’s got nothing to do with Metallica.’ He made a jerking motion with his head. ‘Get off me. My legs are going numb.’

  Katie lay on her back beside him and pulled her legs up against her body, stretching the overworked thigh muscles. ‘What’s the significance, then?’

  Adam made a noise that was the closest to a laugh Katie had heard from him in five days. ‘They’re a reminder of how crazy love can make a person. When I got them, they were proof that I was sufficiently committed to my girlfriend to have her favourite quotes tattooed on my body using her favourite language.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah. She was a force of nature. I was in awe. It’s a good thing tattoos are all she asked of me. There’s not much I wouldn’t have done for her. The feeling was not, unfortunately, mutual.’ He sighed. ‘And that’s what happened when I was seventeen.’

  Katie turned the image over in her mind: the clean-skinned teenager gritting and clenching in the tattooist’s chair; the magnificent girlfriend standing over him, her interest already waning. She sat up, cross-legged. On his chest was a silver scythe, its twin blades arcing over each nipple. ‘Did she design this one, too?’

  ‘Nah. I got that one a couple of years ago in Thailand.’

  ‘God, this is recent? You were a fully mature adult of sound mind when you chose this? Ugh. It’s so violent.’

  ‘It’s not violent. It’s a traditional harvesting tool. It symbolises the natural life-cycle of all living things. It’s beautiful.’

  She poked his chest. ‘Trust me, that thing coming at my face while you were pounding me, I wasn’t thinking beautiful. I was thinking serial killer.’

  ‘Pounding you? Real nice, Katie.’

  She shivered at the way he said her name, like it was two separate words: Kay Tea. He made it sound like something refreshing he wanted to drink. She bent and kissed his closed mouth and then the tip of his nose. His eyes were shut; she kissed his eyelids, then three places on his forehead. He seemed neither to enjoy nor be disturbed by her kissing. She understood he would not resist her advances but neither would he make any move to touch her or know her. She was a puppy and he was a Persian cat.

  Katie moved down the bed, clasped his left ankle in one hand, and swung his leg across her lap. ‘This one is beautiful,’ she said, smoothing her palm over the blue-red fire that raged up his left leg from ankle to thigh.

  ‘The legs go together,’ Adam said, allowing her to pull him down the bed and position his calves so that the flames sizzled against the blue-green water flowing from a fountain on his right hip. ‘It’s about balancing the elements. Fire and water. Masculine and feminine. Spiritual and material. Never allowing one aspect to overpower the other.’

  ‘Wow. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds very, ah, Californian.’ She lifted his legs, squirmed between them, lay on her stomach and kissed the peacock feather floating below his navel. ‘I can guess what this one means, you kinky bastard.’

  ‘After a peacock sheds its feathers, new ones grow back brighter and more beautiful.’ His voice was flat. ‘So the tattoo is a reminder that loss is not only natural but necessary.’

  ‘That’s really beautiful.’

  ‘I thought so when I was your age, too. I found the idea comforting then. Now it’s . . . it’s a reminder of youth, I suppose. Of innocence.’

  ‘Oh, sad, wise old man.’

  ‘Tired old man, actually. Let me go to sleep.’

  ‘But this is fun. One more, huh?’ Katie kissed up the trail of hair to the entwined gold crowns over his bellybutton. ‘I love this one. What’s it mean?’

  He was quiet a moment. Katie rested her face on his belly, rose and fell with his breath.

  ‘It means I’m king of the world.’

  ‘No it doesn’t. Tell me really.’

  He put his hands in her hair, urged her down. ‘Really. I’m the king. Gotta be served.’

  His tone was jokey, but the pressure on her head was not. She was grateful he had initiated something but surprised that it was this, now. He wasn’t even slightly hard. She started sucking anyway, wanting him to know that he was as capable of inspiring unquestioning submission as that girlfriend of long ago, wanting him to know she found him magnificent.

  When his cock began to stiffen he released her head, and said, ‘No, no, hey, you don’t have to.’ She felt a surge of pity that he thought she wouldn’t want this. She tried to keep going but he wrenched his hips to the side and curled himself into a ball.

  She stroked his back, kissing the eyes and lips of the gaudy goddess tattoo. After several minutes
his breathing slowed and Katie smiled at the gentle gurgle he made in his sleep. She slid out of bed, got dressed, then bent over and kissed the back of his neck. ‘Beautiful man,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be back before you wake.’

  The government paid Katie’s pension into her bank account every second Thursday. It had been Gran’s idea that Katie should make her fortnightly doctor’s appointment on the same day so she wouldn’t forget it, and the plan had worked well so far; she hadn’t missed an appointment in months. Still, Gran’s text arrived at 8 am, just as Katie was lacing her boots. Remember doc @ 9. Call me after.

  On my way worrywart she sent back.

  Passing the mailboxes out the front, she noticed that Phyl’s was stuffed with envelopes and made a mental note to check in on her when she returned. She noticed too that the weeds around the mailboxes were at ankle height and tried to remember whose job it was to clear them. Carol used to do it, but someone must have taken over after she died. Katie was sure she’d never seen the weeds so long before.

  At the bus stop two women in business suits sat reading magazines. The glamorous blonde on the beer ad behind them had furry black eyebrows, a cigar hanging from her lips and a dick the size of her arm. ‘Okay,’ Katie said. ‘’Fess up. Which one of you did that?’

  The woman closest to Katie looked up at her and then twisted to see the poster. ‘School holidays,’ she said. ‘Kids with too much time on their hands.’

  ‘They’ve done a good job, though. Kind of makes me want to drink that overpriced watery shit she’s holding. Who wouldn’t rather party with that hairy, cigar-smoking she-male than the sulky waif underneath?’

  The woman smiled but lifted her magazine in front of her face. THE SECRET SEX MOVE HE WISHES YOU’D TRY it said.

  ‘Hey, sorry. I know you’re reading, but I have to know. What’s the secret sex move?’

  The woman raised her eyebrows.

  ‘On the cover,’ Katie said.

  ‘Oh.’ The woman glanced at the cover, sighed and began flicking through the pages. ‘Um, it’s . . . Here.’ She held the open magazine out to Katie.

  She scanned the text and started to laugh. ‘Stick a finger up his arse? That’s a secret? Even a two year old can figure out that holes like to be filled.’

  The second woman made a tutting sound. Katie looked up from the magazine and saw the women making the face at each other. That face people made when they didn’t want to talk or hear or notice you and they wanted other people to know they didn’t want to talk or hear or notice.

  ‘Thanks,’ Katie said and handed the magazine back. She stepped a few paces out of the shelter and stood watching the road. She checked the time on her phone. Bus was due exactly now.

  A girl of six or seven wearing a yellow swimsuit and denim shorts ran towards the bus stop from the direction of the UniLodge Hotel. Behind her trudged a pale man in board shorts and a woman in an enormous sunhat.

  ‘Off to the beach?’ Katie said as the girl skidded to a halt beside her.

  ‘Yep, I’ve never been to an Australian beach,’ the girl said with an English accent. ‘Dad says they’re different to English beaches. He said there’ll be lots of yellow sand.’

  ‘He’s right, there will be. What are the beaches in England like?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘Just normal.’

  Katie laughed and turned to the women on the seat but they were busy not hearing.

  ‘I’ve told you before not to run ahead like that, Sal,’ the girl’s father said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

  ‘Sal was just telling me that the beaches in England are different to here,’ Katie said to him. ‘That the ones you have are normal.’

  The man nodded at her with a tight smile, then turned to his wife who was a few steps behind him. ‘This is our bus now. Just made it.’

  The women on the seat stood as the 440 approached. Katie shuffled towards the gutter, feeling in her pocket for her transport card. Behind her she heard the Englishman say in a low, angry tone, ‘How many times, Sal? Don’t run ahead and don’t talk to strangers.’

  Katie looked back over her shoulder – the girl was staring at the footpath, biting her lip. ‘It was my fault,’ Katie said. ‘I asked her a question. She was just being polite by answering it.’

  ‘Well.’ The man looked at his wife. ‘She should know better.’

  ‘Just being friendly. It wasn’t like I was asking for her address and a spare set of house keys.’

  ‘Come on,’ the man said and walked past Katie. She watched as the two women and the family boarded the bus, none of them speaking or looking back. A fluttering started in her chest; she couldn’t bear to sit on the bus with them all not looking and not speaking.

  She stepped into the shelter, sat on the empty seat and lit a cigarette. There would be another bus soon. She had plenty of time before her appointment.

  A few seconds after the bus pulled away a grey-haired bloke in jeans and a faded U2 T-shirt sat on the other end of the seat. ‘Um, excuse me,’ he said.

  Katie smiled. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Can you smoke somewhere else? It’s blowing right in my face.’

  Katie kept smiling. ‘Yep,’ she said, standing up. ‘No problem.’

  She walked quickly, past the kebab shop and 7–11, to the ATM, where she withdrew her fortnightly pension. She doubled back behind the bus stop, paused and crushed out her cigarette before continuing on to the Liquorland at the end of the block. She bought a bottle of bourbon, a six-pack of Coke and two packets of cigarettes. At the newsagency next door she bought the week’s magazines, The Sydney Morning Herald and a jumbo bag of salt and vinegar chips.

  She checked her phone; if she ran all the way, she could drop this stuff home and still make it back in time for the 8.35 am, which would get her to the doc’s office only five minutes late.

  Back at her building, panting hard, she rapped on Phyl’s door. ‘Just me, Phyl,’ she yelled. ‘Brought you the paper. Got your mail, too.’ After a few seconds she heard an odd metallic clunk from inside, followed by a shuffling sound. Another clunk, another shuffle. And again.

  The door opened a crack, then there was more shuffling and a thump, before it opened wide enough for Katie to see Phyl bent over a metal walking frame. There was a yellow bruise on her left cheek and a bandaid under her eye.

  ‘Bloody hell! What happened?’

  ‘Not as bad as it looks, love. Tripped over my own feet, knocked my face on the corner of the telly. This enormous bloody thing is to stop it happening again. Doctor threatened to have Aged Services swoop in if I didn’t agree to use it.’

  ‘You should’ve called me.’

  ‘What for? I’m fine. You’re the one needs worrying about. How you going up there with the new bloke?’

  ‘Fantastic. He is, just –’ Katie kissed her fingertips. ‘Yummy.’

  ‘Why your grandmother keeps renting to single young men, I’ll never know.’

  ‘Speaking of single men – not young, though – Gran’s renting out the third bedroom. This old guy moved in, um, I don’t know, three days ago or something. I haven’t seen much of him.’ She leant forward and grinned. ‘Me and Adam have hardly left my bed all week.’

  ‘Oh, Katie. You just throw yourself right in, don’t you? I thought after the last –’

  ‘Ugh, let’s not talk about that. Adam is totally different.’

  ‘I’m sure he is, love, but you’re –’

  ‘I’m still me. Yeah, thanks, I know.’

  Phyl sighed. ‘Just go easy, eh? Take your time. Life’s long.’

  Katie laughed. ‘Everyone else says it’s short.’

  ‘Everyone else is an idiot.’ Phyl sighed again. ‘Feel like a cuppa?’

  Katie glanced at her phone. If she ran all the way and didn’t have to wait for the lights . . . ‘About time you offered.’

  At 9.45 am Katie went back out to the street and called Gran.

  ‘Calling to report mission completed.’ r />
  ‘Good girl. Same doctor as last time?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And he’s still happy with your dosage?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘And you’re feeling okay?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How are the new tenants working out?’

  ‘Good. Gran, I’ve got to go, the bus is coming. Love ya, bye.’

  Katie was lying on her bedroom floor reading about a British singer’s drunken rampage through her recording studio when Adam finally woke.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Almost three.’

  ‘Shit. Shit.’ He coughed. ‘I’ve gotta stop this. I’ve gotta find some work. Tomorrow morning, early, I’ll hit the streets.’

  Katie climbed onto the bed and rested a hand on the lump of his covered feet. It was, she knew, as much contact as she could get away with this early in his day. ‘No point looking tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Who’s going to hire you on a Friday? Wait ’til Monday.’

  ‘I’m nearly out of money.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I have some influence with the landlady. You won’t end up on the street if you get a little behind with the rent, I promise.’

  ‘It’s not just the rent.’

  ‘No, I know. You need drinking money. Well, check it out!’ She whipped the freshly withdrawn cash from her pocket and fanned his face with it.

  ‘I could swear you spent your last ten dollars on cigarettes around two this morning.’

  ‘I know, but do you think I can find them anywhere? I had to go out and buy some more already.’

  ‘With the money you found since two this morning.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Adam yawned and rolled towards the wall, tucking his feet up away from her hand. ‘What is it that you do, anyway?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘For money.’