Smoke in the Room (9 page)

‘What will I learn?'

Dom's eyes were closed and his mouth open. Katie leant in and put her ear close to his mouth; his breath came soft and slow. The angle of his neck was all wrong; she wished he would shift his body and let his head fall on her shoulder. She finished her beer and his wine, the side of her body pressed hopefully against his.

When she got home, Adam was in her bed. ‘Sorry,' he said, rolling over to face the wall. ‘The sun comes in my window in the afternoon. I couldn't sleep.'

‘It's fine. Sun's down now, though. If you want to go back.' She held her breath, waiting, but he didn't move or answer and, after a minute or so, she lay down on the bed, careful not to touch him.

‘I know you don't want to talk about it, but I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I can't imagine what it feels like.'

He swallowed loudly. ‘It feels unreal.'

‘Was it sudden?'

‘No. Yes. I mean, it's why we came here. She said she'd feel better at home and we both pretended that meant she'd get better once we were here. Even in the hospice . . . I mean, it's crazy. I remember thinking, Jesus, thirty-five years old and I never realised there were whole buildings set aside for people waiting to die. I remember her saying “a good rest is just what I need” and this nurse giving me this sad smile, like we were united in pity over Genie's delusion. I remember thinking “Fuck you, it might be true,” and then realised that every second person in this place is thinking the same thing. I remember thinking all that and still –
still
– being surprised when it happened.'

‘Katherine. I've been calling since I got in from work. Is your phone broken?'

Katie imagined Gran sitting in her navy work shirt and the pink pyjama shorts she changed into as soon as she got home. She would be holding a can of Diet Coke, looking out the side window onto the council park, shaking her
head at the take-away chicken containers and cigarette packets abandoned on the single graffiti-splattered bench. Tapping the cane phone table in frustration as the phone rang out again and again.

‘Battery went flat without me noticing.'

‘Is everything okay there? How's Graeme working out?'

‘Oh, fine.' Katie propped the phone under her chin so she could refill her glass. The wine dribbled out, reminding her that this was the last cask and she was out of cash again. ‘Hardly know he's here.'

‘And Adam?'

‘He's asleep,' Katie said. ‘He sleeps a lot.'

‘Does he?'

‘Mmm. Hey, did you know he's a widower?'

‘What? No.'

‘His wife was called Eugenie. It's so sad. I can hardly stand it.'

‘Oh, Katherine, darling. You're not getting involved with him, are you?'

‘Jesus. I just told you the man's wife died.'

‘And you sound very upset about it.'

‘Yes, I am. Because it's upsetting.' Katie slugged some wine. ‘Don't you think it's upsetting, Gran?'

‘Of course it is . . . Listen, darling, I'm sending you a brochure I picked up about a childcare course running at the TAFE up the road.'

‘Childcare, Gran? Really?'

‘Well, why not? You're energetic and –'

‘And unstable and irresponsible, not to mention –'

‘You're talking yourself out of it before you've even given the idea a chance.'

‘But being responsible for children, Gran!'

Gran sighed. ‘Just have a read of it, okay?'

‘Yeah.'

‘And Katherine, the American . . .'

‘What about him?'

‘Just try not to . . . Try not to take on all his problems. Try not to get too . . . invested.'

‘Right.' Katie wished she had a temazapam to go with the last of the wine. She wished she hadn't wasted all that money on drinks that Adam either threw up or slept off. She wished she hadn't answered the phone or told Gran about Eugenie or been so transparent.

The conversation had left Katie feeling jittery, fragmented. The guilt of her teenage years – the suspicion that she was coddling herself, cultivating this wacky but fragile persona just to avoid facing up to reality – returned.

She searched the flat for forgotten supplies of alcohol, smoked her last cigarette, kissed and poked Adam who refused to wake. She sat on the floor under the window and counted her breaths the way she'd once been taught, but Adam's snoring interrupted her rhythm. She tried counting his breaths but every one made her teeth clench tighter.

A noise from the living room sent a caffeine bullet to her heart. Her speeding heart sent a memo to her brain which told her legs to move. She ran towards the noise without pausing to consider if running away from it would be wiser.

It was just the TV, switched on by the man she had forgotten lived here.

‘Oh,' he said. ‘Sorry, is it too loud?'

‘No, no. I just . . . I forgot there was anyone else here and I heard it go on and . . .' She was stunned by the shrill, bright, stinking room. Her heart raced. A film of sweat prickled her forehead. She steadied herself with two hands on the back of the armchair.
Calm down, everything's fine
she told herself, told her body, but even as the words formed in her brain, she doubted them. Why believe that her mind knew better than her body? This mind that told her body to speed towards danger, told her a television was a threat.

‘Late night news. Bit of a habit. But I don't have to. If it's going to disturb you, I mean.'

‘I'm not disturbed.'
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Nothing's the matter. An ordinary conversation. Breathe and speak. Air in, words out
. ‘I don't know how you can stand to watch that stuff. Depresses the hell out of me.'

‘It can be depressing, yes. But there's always some good news in there, too. A new cancer treatment or the end of capital punishment somewhere or other.' He spoke softly and slowly, the way you would to an orphaned child carrying a gun. ‘Even the bad things are often signs of progress. War, for example. Now when one country invades another the rest of the world pays attention. Protests or observes, holds soldiers and their commanders to account. There are rules of engagement. Geneva conventions. Once upon a time leaders would just sweep into neighbouring lands and massacre every man, woman and child in their way.'

Her eyes stung and although she concentrated on
in and out
she could not get her breathing right. She couldn't remember how this man came to be here.

‘I mean, as brutal as the world can seem, when you take an historical perspective it really isn't so bad. Think of all
the dreadful things that used to be tolerated: human sacrifice, gladiatorial circuses, crucifixion, witch burning, the torture of religious dissenters –'

‘Yes,' Katie said. The man said something else, but she was already at the front door, then in the hallway, the door closed behind her, her hand on her belly, her body shaking. She ran to the lift and pressed the call button. She stood and listened, thought she could hear the mechanical whirr starting up far below.

‘Fuck this.' She ran to the end of the hallway and threw open the fire door. For a second she stood trapped in silent darkness, then the automatic light flickered on and she could see the slanted roof overhead, the scratched grey paint of the railing, the concrete steps spiralling down. She leant over the edge of the railing and blinked into the tunnel of light at the checked tiles of the front lobby fourteen floors below. All she needed to do was put one foot down on the first step and then the next down after it. She practised in her head, but kept tripping and falling. She reached backwards and found the wall, slid down it, breathed in, breathed out. The concrete was cold beneath her bare feet. She sat there until her chest was still and her head was clear.

It had been a while since her body had misfired like that, sending her into an adrenaline spin. She thought of the missed doctor's appointment, the unfilled prescription. It was too soon for that to have made a difference, she was sure. This was a random instance and she had breathed her way through it on her own, without alcohol or restraints or phone calls to Gran. She had panicked and recovered and best of all she knew that was what had happened which meant she was much better than before. It meant she was fine.

She got up and went back through the fire door and down the hallway and into her flat which was quiet and warm and safe.

The flat's kitchen reminded Graeme of a kitchen of his childhood, the one in Parramatta that belonged, as far as he could recall, to his second foster family, the one with the father who got up at first light and made fried eggs and vegemite toast for whoever was able to drag themself out of bed in time. That kitchen table was, like this one, an aluminium and plastic fold-out with matching moulded plastic chairs, and it was positioned, like this one, so that the sun came from the window over the sink and warmed the back of your neck. Every morning felt like the first day of a camping trip back then.

One Wednesday, as he sat in his usual chair drinking his coffee, the American came and sat down across from him. He was wearing jeans, but no shirt. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin blotchy. Up close and in the sunlight, Graeme saw that Adam was at least a decade older than he'd first guessed. Considerably older than the girl who looked to be barely out of her teens.

‘Hey, you're up early,' Adam said, stretching his arms over his head, cracking his neck from side to side.

‘I'm always up at this time. I start work at eight-thirty.'

‘Oh, right. Yeah.' Adam yawned.

‘Late night?'

‘Yeah.' He ran his hands over his stubble. ‘I hope we didn't disturb you.'

‘Last night? No, no. Barely heard you.'

‘Oh, good. Good. I mean, Katie can be . . . kind of loud.' He chuckled unconvincingly. ‘When she drinks, you know.'

Graeme took a sip of coffee. ‘Yes.'

‘But I'm putting a stop to all that, anyway.'

‘To her drinking?'

‘No, I mean . . . The late nights and all that. I need to get out there. Look for a job.'

Graeme put the last morsel of toast in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, while Adam tapped the table with his fingertips and bit his lip.

‘What kind of job?' Graeme asked.

‘I don't care. I just need to earn some cash, get out of here, you know?' He jerked his head towards the door. ‘What about you? What are your plans?'

‘For what?'

‘Getting out of here.'

Graeme took a large gulp of coffee. Stinging heat ran up the back of his throat and into his nostrils. He coughed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. ‘Sorry,' he said, and Adam flicked the word away. ‘I don't have any plans. I'm happy here. It's close to work, cheap.'

‘Really?' Adam leant forward. ‘I just assumed you were in the same situation as me. Not exactly the same,
obviously. But here for the same basic reason, you know – to get your shit together.'

Graeme shrugged. ‘I suppose my shit is already together.'

‘Well,' Adam said. ‘Well, that's great.' He tapped the table three times and stood up. ‘I've never known anyone who had his shit together.' He laughed, shook his head. ‘Good for you. I'll see you later, man.'

Graeme finished his coffee, rinsed and dried his plate and coffee mug. He went to his bedroom to collect his briefcase; on the way back up the hall, he paused outside Katie's room, his ear close to the door. He thought he heard that awful phrase –
shit together
– repeated, and cringed.

He walked to work fast. What's so funny about having it together? he thought, as he handed a twenty-dollar note to the red-tracksuited junkie outside the liquor store. What would a man like that know, anyway? Spoiled, lazy, tattooed nomad, killing time with whatever young chicky he could talk into bed, living as though AIDS and child armies and dignity-smashing poverty did not exist.

Graeme knew these things existed. His final, total acceptance of them was what allowed him to be so settled, to have his
shit
so very together. He knew and accepted also, that past horrors could decay your insides without your knowledge, that you could wake one day and find that an axe you thought was securely stowed has fallen and split your mind clear in two. He accepted this, too. He accepted it all and that was why he had moved into the flat and why he had no intention of leaving.

Adam's newest discovery, which now sat alongside the harsh light, the wetness of the heat and the existence of a secret underground civilisation on the list of things Eugenie had not told him about Sydney, was the flies. It was like a biblical plague had descended, so loud you heard them buzzing from across a busy road, so fat you felt heavier when they landed on the top of your head. He hadn't noticed them until this week, but whether that was because there weren't any or because he had spent the daylight hours in darkened rooms, he did not know. They were worse, according to Katie, when it was humid, and this week had been so humid that Adam was soaked before he'd finished towelling off after a cold shower.

‘However hot it gets,' Katie said, ‘Sydney flies aren't so bad.' In the time it took her to say it Adam brushed three from his face. ‘In Darwin, they're like a rippling wall you have to sort of swat your way through.' She showed him how it was done, stomping and swiping with her arms, fighting the air, as though it were a jungle.

‘I'll be sure to never go to Darwin, then.'

‘Don't let me put you off. I'm only guessing about the flies. I've never been near the place. I've never been anywhere.'

They pushed on through the flies and the heat. They were going ‘shopping' – Katie did the air quotes when she said it – at the ‘garbage-market'. Adam was surprised when she suggested it. He'd known people who dived for dinner every night. He'd even joined them himself a couple of times. But that was in San Francisco, where anti-consumerist freegans shared the dumpster spoils with hungry winos and crackheads. Here in Sydney where the few who weren't auditioning for
Wall Street in the Antipodes
still lived comfortably thanks to the social-security-welfare-safety-net, the idea of eating garbage was shocking.