Smoke in the Room (27 page)

‘I'm here.' Her voice was softer than he remembered it. ‘I can be there in, I don't know, however long it takes to get to the airport and fly to Australia. That's when I can be there. Where are you staying?'

‘With a friend, but I'm okay. I'd rather see you at home. I'm coming soon.'

‘Are you sure? Because I don't mind. Even if I'm just there to share a cab back to the airport with you and sit next to you on the plane. I can do that.'

‘No. Really. I need to take care of a few things here and then I'll be home.'

‘Okay. But if you need me, you call. You have to promise.'

‘Yes, yes, I will. Thanks, Mom.'

‘Addy, I know I didn't . . . I know how much you– I wish I knew her better.' She sucked in her breath. ‘I love you.'

‘I know. I love you, too.'

Katie put on her favourite chequered sundress and white stilettos. She went into the bathroom and leant in close to the mirror. The burn marks had faded enough that after ten minutes' work with concealer and foundation, they looked like old acne scars. She applied a coat of black mascara and a slick of raspberry lip gloss and smoothed down the front of her hair with wax so it looked sleek rather than punk. She smiled at her reflection to check for lip gloss on her teeth and then taped a note to the centre of the mirror:
Adam, Visiting a friend, back by noon
.
Katie xxx

She caught the 8.15 bus, which would get her to the city with fifteen minutes to spare before the interview. She hadn't told anyone she was doing this; partly because she liked the idea of surprising Adam and Gran, partly because she dreaded disappointing them if it didn't work out, and partly because she just felt, lately, like a bit of privacy was a good thing.

The man sitting beside her sneezed, and Katie's
Bless you
was, unexpectedly, part of a chorus. When she had taken the bus with Adam he had been amused by the way everybody thanked the driver as they got off, even the schoolkids with their straw hats and knee socks. He had never known people to be so polite to each other on public transportation, he said. She made a mental note to tell him about the
bless yous
.

She got off at Town Hall and slipped into the stream of people heading to Pitt Street. Another stream moved towards her but she did not feel, as she had in the past, overwhelmed. She found the rhythm easily, striding between the suits and uniforms, looking ahead to the next street corner rather than at the back of the person in front of her.

She arrived at Shoebee Doo at ten to nine and stood in the mall smoking a cigarette. The sound of locks being turned and security doors being rolled up surrounded her. Heels clicked on the cobblestones. A fat man with red curls sat on a bench and began to unpack a crate of newspapers.

This was the everyday world. This – the shoes clicking, doors opening, people coughing, taxis honking – was life. She felt the coffee she'd drunk this morning percolating in her stomach. It was so
simple
. Every part of it, from making the application phone call to finding clean underwear to getting to the bus stop on time.

She dropped the cigarette; ground it out with her heel. Maybe the interview would go badly. Maybe she would not get this job or any other. Maybe this morning would be a one-off; a glimpse into the world before she receded again. The percolating subsided.

When she got home Adam was on his way out the door. ‘After work, we're celebrating,' he said when she told him the news. ‘So wait up for me or I'll be forced to drag you outta bed.'

She poured herself a glass of red and called Gran, not expecting her to be as thrilled as Adam. Gran had seen her start too many jobs over the years to allow herself to become excited at the prospect of another.

‘I really felt,' Katie said, ‘that I
belonged
there. It's hard to describe, but I sort of understood how it is people manage to do all this and felt like I can do it, too.'

‘Of course you can,' said Gran. ‘I've been telling you for years.'

‘Yes, but that's what I'm saying, Gran. I
felt
it. It didn't matter whether anyone told me I could do it or not, today
I felt
I could.'

‘Well, you've always been hard to get through to, you stubborn little bugger. Anyway, how's our American friend? Are you two still knocking boots?'

‘Gran, I gotta go. Talk to you soon.' She hung up before her grandmother heard her crying.

Graeme hovered in the kitchen doorway. Katie was sitting at the table, her eyes red and swollen. Her wine glass was empty; he could not tell if the bottle beside her was as well. She was wearing a pink and white chequered sundress that looked brand new even though the left shoulder seam was unravelling.

She looked up and smiled. ‘Hey, it's my sworn protector. Have a drink with me?' She slid the bottle across the table.

Graeme put his briefcase down, got a glass from the sink drainer, poured some wine and sat across from her.

‘Have you ever been to gaol?' she said, wiping her cheeks.

He shook his head.

‘Me neither. Well, an hour in a cop shop here and there, but never gaol. My friend Robbie got sent up for a robbery he didn't do. I know he didn't, because he was with another friend of mine when it happened, but
he
wasn't a reliable witness because he was a junkie. Anyway, after a while the bloke who had done it got caught for something else, ended up confessing to the other one, and, just like that, Robbie's out.'

‘It must have been overwhelming, seeing him again.'

‘I guess. I don't really remember. It was ages ago.'

‘Oh. So –'

‘Bet you really missed my rambling, pointless stories, huh?'

He reached across and touched the back of her hand. She turned it over, grasped him, let their hands fall together to the tabletop.

‘So, anyway, I had a good day today. Nothing out of this world, but I felt good about being here. The thought of all these days and weeks and months unfolding in front of me made me feel kind of excited instead of panicky and that's . . . well, actually that
is
out of this world. So I was just thinking this is how Robbie must have felt. Grateful and happy and wanting to seize the moment and all that, but angry, too, because he never should have been locked away in the first place. It's like I've been pardoned for something I didn't do.

‘On the bus today there were all these schoolkids and I was thinking what if I had been able to finish school? What
if I had made and kept even one friend? Silly to be jealous of little kids . . . I have all these memories and they'll jump out at me, from nowhere. Well, no, that's stupid, isn't it? They're not from nowhere, they're from in me. But they seem to be from nowhere because they're things I haven't thought of since they happened, things that I barely believe happened. They jump into my mind and I think – how the hell did I survive that?'

‘Have you talked to Jenny about this?'

Katie retrieved her hand and picked up her cigarettes. She lit one and sipped some wine. Said nothing.

‘It sounds like post-traumatic stress. Many people who've experienced –'

‘Have you ever in your life had a friend?' She looked directly at him. ‘Because you are the coldest bastard I've ever known.'

‘I have tried to be a friend to you and I have failed. I don't know how I failed, but I know I did and I am sorry.'

‘When are you planning to do it?'

He scrunched his face as though he didn't understand.

She didn't even blink. ‘See? You don't give me anything. Not even a tiny, tiny bit of credit. That's why you're not my friend.'

He held her gaze and then her eyes filled up. She leant in close, her voice low, urgent. ‘Graeme. Please.'

He felt the pull, moved with it for a second, moved towards her and the promise of affection, then he pulled himself back. He lifted his shoulders, let them fall. ‘There's nothing for me to tell you.'

Her disappointment barely showed. Just a series of fast blinks and then she was up, walking away from the table.

A trio of Japanese tourists and a single middle-aged man got off the bus at the top of Military Road. The man stood a moment at the beginning of the coastal path, getting his bearings. The Harbour Bridge was dead centre, Centrepoint Tower to the left in the background, incongruously jagged bushland in the foreground and the famed harbour in between. City, sea, bush.

Sandstone cliffs extended as far as he could see in both directions, as did a safety fence. The fence was hip height at most. He started along the trail to the left, nodding at the tourists who smiled and lowered their cameras as he passed. When the path widened he stepped up to the fence and leant in to the sea breeze. A couple in sneakers and knee-length shorts stopped alongside him and sighed. ‘Oh,' the man said. ‘Oh,' the woman replied. ‘Yes. But what if they didn't have a phone on them?' They both sighed again and set off.

A plaque engraved with phone numbers for Lifeline and the Salvation Army was bolted to the fence. On the
other side of the rail, the cliff was wide and flat enough to accommodate a three-man tent, and every couple of feet, an iron rescue hook was affixed to the rock.

The man followed the trail to the left, stopping to read the signs about shrubs and flowers and Aboriginal history. After several minutes of walking he noticed the fence changing from wood to steel mesh, the sweet smell of rotting vegetation, the stillness of the air.

At the next tourist-friendly flat spot he sat on a boulder to catch his breath. ‘Oh, look, honey,' said a woman, and he looked to the dead bouquets that had been poked through the holes in the mesh. A man went to the woman and placed his hand on her back, guiding her away from the memorial. They passed by, whispering, just as another couple approached the flowers.

The man took the trail winding upwards. Within minutes there was no sound but the wind and the leaves. Not even a bird. The track was barely wide enough for two people, then barely wide enough for one. The rotting smell grew stronger as the bush pressed in on him from the left. On his right was the fence. He held it as he walked.

When eventually the path widened again, he stopped. The fence was level with his thighs. He stood stock-still and listened. No footsteps or branches snapping down the trail. No voices on the wind. No helicopters hovering or speed boats approaching.

He cleared the fence easily. There was space on the other side for him to take two, maybe three big steps. He took one and then got to his knees, crawling to the edge. There were no crags or spikes beneath, no shrubs to catch his clothes, only clear air and then the water, astonishingly blue. Thirty feet to the left, branches protruded from the
rock face and below them, the water lapped at a cluster of boulders jutting into the sea. He crawled to the right, peered over the edge; saw only blue. He stood, stepped back to the fence, and then he ran.

In the millisecond it took for him to register that he was still upright, speed, like a cold meaty hand, spun him and spun him and spun him again so he did not know which way was up and which way down but he knew he was alive and conscious, falling and flying at the same time. He braced to hit
now now now
and then he was under. There was no time for terror during the fall but now it flooded him, a freezing gas in his mouth and nose and lungs and ears and eyes.

He was still falling and this was shock and freezing gas and salt and regret so sharp it was like pain, and this was pain jagged sharp pain icy and so sharp. Falling deeper and deeper and he'd never expected this, to taste the salt and feel the weed slap his face and his lungs cold and burning, never expected to know what a shattered spine felt like.

He stopped falling. For a moment, everything around him was still and quiet. The pain was so intense that he wished for death and in the moment of wishing for it his body rejected it, pushing up towards the surface. As he broke it from below he marvelled that seconds ago this nothingness parting before him had been bone-smashingly solid. Air and then the understanding it was now an enemy, assaulting his lungs, pushing his pain past what any person could survive. Light and the sight of low, dry boulders not ten feet away.

I have travelled thirty times that this very minute. It is nothing and I will reach it and I will tell the starved and scarred children that I understand about survival and it is
only ten feet and I will tell Katie that I understand regret but it's better, better to feel it, only ten feet but I don't remember how to move towards the thing that is there no memory of moving towards something and the sea is warm and my lungs are healed and I have no memory of how to do this thing, how to keep a dead body afloat
.

It was late morning and Adam and Katie were in bed, having spent the night together for the first time in months. They'd crashed out drunk on champagne – it only took her a glass and a half nowadays – and he'd woken to her lips on his stomach and been surprised at how much he wanted to make love. Afterwards, he told her he was glad of the night and the morning, that he felt something special, and now she was pulling the hairs on his chest and teasing him that his fit of sentimentality meant it must have been a farewell bonk.