Smoke in the Room (14 page)

‘I don't know.' He inched away from her, moving towards the bedhead. ‘Seemed the thing to do. I took some risks when I was younger and at some point I realised I had survived them all and perhaps better stop pushing my luck.'

‘Can't imagine you as a risk-taker. No offence. I just mean, you're so . . .' She plonked down beside him. The bed springs squealed in protest. ‘You're a very relaxing person, you know that?'

‘You haven't stopped moving since you came in here.'

‘Yeah, but imagine what I'd be like if I
wasn't
talking to you.'

‘I really can't.'

Katie slid from the bed and hopped from foot to foot. ‘Don't you ever get that feeling like you want to go for a run, but not for exercise, just for the hell of it? Just to be moving? I get that a lot this time of night. Like, soon after midnight, everyone else is crashed out and I'm suddenly all peppery.'

‘Do you mean peppy?'

‘Nope.
Peppery
. Think about it, it's exactly the right word.' She spun on her heels and danced to the desk, leaning over and peering at the map hanging on the wall above. She put her right hand on the desk drawer knob but before she could open it she heard the bed springs and Graeme's feet padding fast across the carpet.

‘Have you travelled much?' he asked, standing so close she could smell his minty toothpaste.

‘Nah. Up and down the coast a bit, that's all. I'd like to go to India. That'd be cool.' She let go of the drawer and squinted at the Atlantic Ocean. She sensed Graeme moving behind her and held her breath.

‘I spent some time working in India,' he said. ‘Years ago. Different place now. The scenes from Mumbai on the news . . . I didn't recognise it. Not only that it had become a war zone, but – why do you want to go there?'

Katie traced the outline of the subcontinent with her finger, balancing her weight on one hand. ‘This girl I knew once had been there and she said it was awesome. She said it was like, chaos, just people and cows and chickens and cars and food and streamers and dirt and flowers
everywhere
. She said you could do anything. Seriously anything. Like sprint to the next corner and then sing “Locomotion” or get so drunk you fall asleep in the middle of a road or wear so many ribbons in your hair your neck nearly breaks. Just anything at all and people just keep moving around you. Nobody stops and asks if you're okay, ever.'

‘Your friend may have –'

‘She wasn't my friend. I just knew her from around. She probably made it all up.' Katie straightened, stepped back and turned so quickly she was almost kissing Graeme's chin. ‘You have a great voice, you know. I guess you get told that heaps.'

Graeme took a step backwards, and cleared his throat. ‘Would you believe never?'

‘Don't believe it. It's one of the best voices I've ever heard. Deep and smooth but not too loud.' She moved towards him. He looked her right in the eye and with the tiniest of movements shook his head. Katie wanted to hug him and thank him, but instead she sank into the desk chair and stretched her legs out in front. ‘God, I can't listen to people with loud voices. I knew this bloke once and his voice was like BOOM, you know? It was like being lectured
by God! Plus he was super tall. Give you a sore neck and a headache. I had to stop seeing him.'

‘I'm sorry for him.'

Katie smiled. ‘I'll leave you alone,' she said, standing up. ‘You have work tomorrow.' She darted forward and kissed his cheek. ‘Sorry, can't help myself. Night, Graeme.'

The next morning, after she heard Graeme leave for work, Katie went straight to his room and opened the desk drawer. It was empty. She checked the wardrobe and under the bed and behind the bookshelf. She lay down and then, remembering the diary she'd kept when she was ten, reached under his pillow. There it was. She knew, as she rolled onto her stomach, that Graeme
wanted
her to read it. He knew she saw him with it last night and knew she noticed his anxiety, and yet he'd left it practically out in the open. He'd left it because there were things he wanted her to know, but he was too humble or shy or awkward to sit her down and tell her straight.

The cover was black leather. A white sticky label, brown around the edges said
Field Notes
:
1981, 2 of 3
. Katie read the first page: it was a list of unfamiliar words with dates and times next to each one. The page had been crossed through with a single red diagonal line. A few entries on the next page, which had also been crossed with a red line, made a little more sense:
Safe house 12miles east C/ville
and
Med supplies from Charles Fukaar
and
12/3 Meeting with elder council agreed on terms for clinic, see file
.

Katie flicked through the diary; every page was filled with black scrawl and most pages had been run through
with a single red line. A few bore a large cross. She stopped at one of these and read:

TL village, third house, girls clean, over 16
.

NT village, green door, ‘Sally'

CL township, 12 Hende, clean + powder & leaf

She flicked through thirty or so pages with single or double red lines and stopped when she came to an uncrossed section.

19/4
Incident in TL village. Girl of ten or eleven managed to get into the car, hiding herself under tarp. Discovered her when arrived at camp base, 3 hrs out of village limits. Too dark to turn back, risk of bandits & running off road. Fed & put her to sleep in camp bed. I slept in car. In morning she cried & begged to stay with me. No English, but I got the idea she was promised in marriage to a man she was afraid of. Followed protocol on interaction with locals & returned her to village at daybreak
.

Postscript: 5/10
Stationed in GR, visit from Mick J, who's come from TL. Told of a young girl who drowned herself after being gang raped by some local men. Apparently the girl's prospective husband had rejected her and her family had thrown her on to the street because she had spent a night with a white man who had discarded her after only one use
.

Then in red pen:
Relevant
. File under child welfare, dealing with local customs

Depersonalise. Rewrite in third person? Anonymous report from rookie field officer? Yes
.

Katie closed the diary and put it back under his pillow.

She wandered back to her room. Adam was still sleeping. She curled into a ball behind him, holding her muscles as tightly as she could, and sobbed noiselessly until she, too, fell asleep.

She went to Graeme's room again that night. This time she knocked and waited for his ‘Come in'. He was sitting at his desk, a red ballpoint pen in his hand. The desk was clear.

‘Hello,' he said. ‘Feeling peppery again?'

‘No, not tonight.' Katie sat on the edge of his bed. ‘What kind of lawyer are you?'

Graeme swung the chair around so he was facing her. ‘Hmm?'

‘Do you defend murderers or do tax stuff or what?'

‘Actually . . .' He rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Can you keep a secret?'

‘Jesus.
You
lied about having a job, too? Gran's going to have to start asking for paystubs or something.'

‘I
do
have a job. I lied about . . . I tell people I'm a lawyer because it's easier. It saves me having to explain . . .' He sighed, then opened his palms towards her. ‘I'm operations manager of a refugee assistance foundation, and that confused look on your face right now is exactly why I don't like telling people because then I have to explain and that's . . .' He sighed again. ‘Very often asylum seekers and refugees arrive here with nothing and with little idea of how to navigate the legal, medical and social service systems. We have people who meet with new arrivals, find out what they need – lawyer, doctor, trauma counselling, English lessons, housing, whatever – and then we try to make sure they get it.'

‘Why wouldn't you want to tell people that? That's so wonderful, Graeme.'

‘Again,' he said, ‘because of that look you have on your face right now. Like I'm a saint. I'm not, Katie, and I'm not just being humble. My staff do all the real work. I just sort
of manage their diaries, sign off on their reports and make sure the bills are paid.'

The mention of diaries reminded her of why she'd suspected him. ‘How long have you been doing this?'

‘Five years.'

‘And before?'

‘I was an aid worker. I travelled to war zones and disaster areas and I found out what people needed and then found a way to get it to them. It sounds like what I do here, I suppose but . . . it was very different. I was right there. I was part of it.'

Katie felt tears welling up. ‘You loved it, didn't you?'

He gave a small shrug. ‘All good things must come to an end.'

‘God, I hate that saying! It doesn't even mean anything really. I mean,
everything
must come to an end, good and bad and in between. Why state the obvious as if it's comforting wisdom or something?' Her voice broke.

Graeme leant forward in his chair, frowning. ‘Did something happen today, Katie? Did you and Adam have another fight?'

‘No, no.' She touched the scab on her forehead. ‘But I am worried about him. I don't think it's safe to be as sad as he is. I'm not sure a person can keep on living being so sad.'

‘You don't think he'd . . . do something silly?'

‘Oh, no. I didn't mean that. God, no, not him.'

Graeme sat back, a hand over his stomach. ‘Oh.'

She pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged. ‘I watch him sleep. Sometimes he actually smiles but mostly he just looks really peaceful. Then I watch him wake and I can see the exact moment when he remembers she's dead. I see his
heart break all over again every day. And then he kind of steels himself –' she braced her arms against her sides and made her face stern ‘– and goes on with his day but I can still see it, that brand new grief.'

‘His loss is pretty recent . . . Besides, you watch him sleep, you watch him wake, you watch him all the time. Most of us, were we observed so closely, would appear to be burdened with something at least once a day.'

‘He isn't burdened by anything. That's the problem.' The tears prickled her eyes again. ‘He really doesn't have any reason to wake up each day. That's what scares me. What if his subconscious or whatever figures it out and holds him in his dreams?'

‘I don't think that's possible, Katie.'

‘You hear all the time about people dying of broken hearts.'

‘It's not meant literally. Listen, if you're really worried maybe you could suggest grief counselling for him. I know he doesn't have Medicare, but perhaps we could –'

‘Please.' Katie climbed off the bed. ‘Grief counselling is such bullshit. If I knew I had to go to one of those dudes I'd tell my subconscious to not wake me up for sure.' She stretched her arms up to the ceiling.

‘You've been to grief counselling?'

‘I've been to every kind of counselling. You?'

‘No.'

‘See. You've managed okay all these years.'

He smiled. Katie walked across and put her hands on his shoulders. She moved slowly, giving him time to pull away. He didn't though and she stood on her toes and kissed his bristled cheek. ‘Goodnight,' she said.

Katie's grandmother was in the kitchen fixing lunch. Katie said she did this from time to time, particularly when there were new tenants. ‘Says she wants to cook me a Sunday roast, like when I was a kid, but I don't remember ever having a cooked Sunday lunch as a kid. Sundays were vegemite and lettuce on white bread, like every other day. You know, I'm pretty sure I never ate a roast at
all
until I moved in here and Gran started needing a reason to crash the place regularly. So stay alert.' The smell of roasting fat from the kitchen added to the fug of living room air. ‘She'll start off real casual and friendly, get you talking about your family and where you grew up, and then – bam! – before you know it you'll be telling her how much you enjoyed doing me in the arse.'

‘I can guarantee you I won't be telling her that,' Adam said.

‘You don't know what she's like. She has ways of making you talk.'

‘What about the old man? Have you warned him? He could say anything.'

‘He's not eating with us. He's got stuff to do, he said.'

Adam leant in close. ‘What
does
he do in there all the time? He's so damn secretive.'

‘Leave him alone. He just likes his privacy. Not everybody grew up in a hippy commune examining each others' stool samples each morning.'

‘I'm going to see if your grandmother would like some help. At least she won't taunt me about my abusive childhood.'