Shutterspeed

by A. J. Betts

  ‘I can shoot her?’

  ‘I value my safety too much, miss.’

  ‘So go to the harbour,’ Mrs Blackler tells him. ‘See what’s worthy of your film. You don’t have a partner today, so I guess you can practise on the public, without being intrusive, of course. Do I need to tell you about photography etiquette?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Photographing strangers can be tricky. You want to reveal something about them, but above all you’ve got to be respectful. Don’t get too close to your subject and don’t impose. Just use your commonsense.’ She smiles and looks at the clock. ‘I’ve loaded your camera with a roll of 36, which should do you until next week. Make them count, okay?’

  ‘Can’t make any promises, miss,’ he says as he sweeps the camera into his backpack.

  ‘Can you give Jasmine her assignment sheet? You’ll see her this afternoon, won’t you?’

  He shrugs again, keen to go.

  ‘And don’t forget to KISS.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Keep It Simple Stupid,’ she laughs. ‘It’s a saying, Dustin. What I mean is, keep the pictures clean. Just one concept per photo. One theme, one idea.’

  ‘I still don’t get the point of this.’

  ‘Relax, it’s not rocket science. It’ll sort itself out.’

  23

  Freo’s quiet today. There’s hardly any wind, making the old town easy to drift through. He aims for the harbour, keen for some sea air.

  By C Shed, tourists buy ferry tickets for Rottnest Island. Japanese girls huddle and giggle as they pose for cameras, holding rabbits’ ears above each other’s heads. An old man and woman in matching striped shirts push their bikes onto a ferry. A woman in the ticket booth blows gum into bubbles until they pop. Boring everyday stuff. Is this what Blackler wants?

  He buys a pie and sits on the grass, watching the commotion of seagulls having sex. They’re mental. The two gulls are locked into each other, their wings beating violently, heads knocking and beaks rasping at the air. Dustin can’t help himself. He opens his backpack, takes the camera out and switches it on. The shutter opens and closes as smoothly as blinking. The button clicks when he presses it, and the number 1 on the top of the camera rolls to 2.

  He marvels at the technology — that somewhere inside the plastic casing of the camera is an everlasting image of two seagulls fucking! They’re locked in there, stuck in a moment of frenzied lust, long after they’ve disengaged and gone back to pecking at food scraps.

  He wonders what else he can see.

  Further along the boardwalk sits a woman with a floppy straw hat. She holds a cheap fishing rod in front of her and Dustin can see her take a Kingston biscuit from a packet. Next to her is a boy whose back is as bony as a fish’s. He leans sideways, casually propping himself up on one elbow. With the other arm he dangles a line in the water, snapping it tight at short intervals, impatient at the disobedience of fish. On the jetty, beheaded baitfish coagulate in the sun. The boy’s right foot taps rhythmically at a wooden pylon.

  Through the viewfinder, Dustin sees light and dark become sharper. Sunlight beams off silver hooks and sinkers and the blond strips of the boy’s hair. Shadows spread under the woman’s hat and between the rolls in her back. And between them is the sea. Dustin presses the button and captures it — the lazy love of mother and son.

  At a sudden jolt, the boy jumps to standing, both hands pulling at the strand of fishing line. The line is heavy and bucking with resistance. He draws it up and up, and the mother looks on, until there is a flash of slippery life kicking in the air and he’s holding the fish at head level, getting a good look, getting her approval.

  But the fish jerks free and flips and falls, ending with a splashless re-entry into the sea beneath them. He swears — Dustin sees the words mouthed — and the woman laughs, her body shaking with the action. She slides him the packet of Kingston biscuits and he leans against the pylons, nibbling one. She says something else to him, but Dustin can’t read her lips. He takes photos instead. The number rolls to 6. Will this keep Blackler happy?

  He finishes his pie, then lies back and looks at the thin clouds smeared above him. The sky is the kind of blue that is about ten layers thick. He grins with the realisation that he’s missing maths right now, and knows he owes Mrs Blackler big time. Perhaps this photography assignment might not be as painful as he first thought. Besides, if Terri Pavish can do it …

  He closes his eyes as his thoughts return to her. The weight of the camera is squarely on his chest as his breaths rise and fall. He can imagine her sliding onto the red Ducati. Blood rushes through him like a heat. There are so many things about her that feel dangerous.

  He sits up, embarrassed but unobserved by tourists. Boats continue to slide through the channel of water, and he notices the mother and son have vanished, as lightly as ghosts. The jetty is swept clean of memory, but he knows they’re still here — locked away inside the camera. They’re permanent, regardless of whether they want to be or not.

  Freo looks a bit different as he walks back through it. He notices the movement of people, like a slow human traffic, around the immobile stone buildings. He sits on the cool step of the old town hall, and it occurs to Dustin that everything in front of him can be put into one of two groups. There are the permanent things, like the clock tower reaching above him, built over a hundred years ago, and the courtyard spreading out beneath him. And then there’s what’s left, the impermanent things — the people moving through the mall as if they’re already half-gone, fading with each step. They come, they shop, they go. But the buildings remain.

  He takes a photo, wishing he’d paid attention when Mrs Blackler told the class about how to make moving things blur; something to do with shutter speed. He’d like to do that — to show people as the ghosts they almost are.

  Terri Pavish would be good to photograph, he thinks. He can imagine taking one of those shots as she speeds past him on a motorbike, her face in sharp focus and a cherry-red smear right across the page. Now that’d be a photo worth taking.

  22

  He arrives back at school at the end of lunch, just as Nugget and the other senior boys are winding up their footy game on the field. Even so, he walks to the peppermint tree out of habit, where Jasmine sits with her legs hooked up underneath her skirt, her right hand resting on her flat stomach. The lunchbox beside her is unopened.

  ‘You missed art.’

  He gives her the assignment sheet from Mrs Blackler, which she folds and puts into her backpack. Her eyes are puffy and she’s quiet. Shit, he thinks, wondering if she somehow found out about him lying to her yesterday. He doesn’t know whether to stay or leave. But he chooses to sit beside her, his knobbly knees at all angles.

  ‘I killed a turtle.’

  ‘A turtle?’

  ‘Yes, a turtle!’ she says, her voice breaking. ‘I squished it under the van this morning before school.’ She wipes her snotty nose with the back of a hand. ‘Dad asked me to drive one of the deliveries to Bibra Lake because he was busy. I know there are Turtle Crossing signs but I didn’t slow down because I’ve never actually seen a turtle there. But I guess there must be because now I’ve murdered one.’

  The bell rings and groups of students meander to classrooms. Jasmine and Dustin sit until the quad is empty of noise.

  ‘You okay?’ he says, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘I tried to brake but I think that made it worse. It bled from its eyes and mouth.’ She rubs at a tear on her cheek. ‘I took it to the vet. That’s where I’ve been. They gave it a needle to kill it. It looked at me when I picked it up off the road. It was trying to tell me something.’ Her eyes lock on Dustin’s. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Can you?’

  He shrugs. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘There was another one, the size of my palm. It was still by the edge of the road. It wasn’t hurt.’

  And with that she lifts up her school shirt. A
thick bandage is wrapped round and round her waist, and in the centre there’s a bump.

  ‘What else could I do?’ she asks him, hoping for an ally. One of the corners of the pouch moves, and from a slit a small flipper scrapes along the soft skin of Jasmine’s stomach.

  ‘I couldn’t leave it without a mum. It wouldn’t survive.’

  ‘I did.’ The words just slip out.

  She winces. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  The lesson ticks on.

  ‘You okay now?’ he asks.

  ‘No … yeah.’ She instinctively rubs the hard shell with her fingertips.

  He slings his backpack over his shoulder and heads off towards physics and the certainty of formulas.

  21

  When he unchains his bike from the shed and cycles away from school, it’s with the intention of being alone. He rides along the esplanade and up to the cinema, where he locks his bike and buys a ticket for the next screening. It doesn’t matter what the film is, so long as it’s not about a teenager who has a wanker for a father, a save-the-wildlife chick as a best friend, and a mate with more testosterone than sense. Fortunately it’s a black-and-white silent comedy about a time-travelling inventor.

  After a half hour it’s easy to relax into the fantasy of the film, letting everything but the screen fade away. In the darkness of the cinema Dustin is inconsequential and the outside world can’t touch him. But a sudden movement in the eleventh row — a flick of short hair — brings reality sharply into focus.

  It’s her.

  He’s sure of it. Even in silhouette she’s unmistakable. Terri Pavish sits five rows ahead of him, eight seats to the right. She wears a denim jacket and she’s alone.

  He doesn’t find out what happens to the inventor. He spends the next hour unable to drag his eyeline away from the crown of her head and the sharp cut of her hair halfway up her neck. If she senses his gaze, she doesn’t turn around to acknowledge it. Does she know he’s there? Can she feel it?

  The film drags on, and with each minute his fixation becomes more acute. He can trace each line of her with his eyes. He tries to work out if she’s enjoying the movie or not, equating each movement — a drink from a water bottle, the recrossing of her legs — with a thought, a feeling. He wonders what she’s thinking. He wants to know how long she’s had the jacket, and if it was a gift from someone. He wonders if she’s got her camera with her in her bag, a photojournalist always prepared. He thinks about what’s led her to be here, at this movie on a weekday afternoon. Is she, too, seeking refuge?

  He can see the movie reflected in her red helmet on the chair beside her. The helmet is shiny and slick and he understands what he’s drawn to — the speed of her, that liberating speed with which she moves, jettisoning clues as she goes. She doesn’t belong to just one place — she’s as slippery and anonymous as he wishes he could become.

  Terri Pavish leaves before the credits. He watches, satisfied with glimpsing her profile against the screen. She wears a red shirt beneath the denim jacket. Then she’s gone.

  The credits roll and he walks down the aisle towards the exit. But the sight of a lonely helmet on a seat pulls him up short. He picks it up in both hands, clutching a reason to find her.

  He scans the foyer but she’s not there. She’s run away, like a rival in a game of hide-and-seek. He wonders how long he should count before he finds her.

  He tries to put himself in Terri Pavish’s position — where would she go? Home? He doubts it. Left, to the Norfolk pub or South Freo? Or right, to central Freo?

  He turns right, leaving his bike chained up, choosing to find her on foot.

  Even down Essex Street, he can’t see her. She’s a phantom.

  Still, he seeks her out.

  Dustin moves along the cafe strip, eyes alert. Pieces of pedestrians catch his eye. He’d never realised how many people had black hair or wore denim. They are everywhere. Suddenly — and it’s as though someone has switched on a light — the Fremantle strip is vivid and buzzing. This traffic of people has become unexpectedly three-dimensional. Women are animated as they emerge from clothing stores. Office workers chatter and laugh through crowds. Young girls push prams and old men amble. And each one of them is alive and vibrant, wearing colours and hairstyles that set them apart.

  But Terri Pavish isn’t one of them. She’s not anywhere. He carries the red helmet like a guided missile, honing in on its owner. His observation is acute. He looks for the colour red, hoping to see her red shirt, but sees instead the colour red on shopping bags and painted fingernails. It’s in shop windows shouting ‘Sale’. It’s the colour of bicycles being pushed, dog collars, and hibiscus hairclips. Moist red lipstick. He’d never noticed how much red there is.

  Then he looks for blue and he sees blue jeans. Shorts and thongs. Blue benches and blue cars. Eyes tinted with blue contact lenses. A sky so blue it could shatter.

  People brush past each other, burning with blue and red, as though their bodies were alight with colour and they themselves were colour-blind. And there’s an energy in it all. People are moving bodies of energy, kinetic and potential, their particles surging and pouring from the inside out. A dog barks and ice-cream melts. A busker’s song is practically visible. People are no longer extras in a film starring himself — there are spotlights contained within each of them, beaming out.

  Is this what it’s like to be in Terri Pavish’s shoes? To see things in colour and motion, then capture it in photos? Is this how life feels to her?

  He finds a seat at a table outside the Old Shanghai foodcourt and lets the smells of nine countries wash over him. Nearby, people drink beers and eat curries, sharing the afternoon with friends. He eats a kebab while the helmet rests on the table. He stretches out his long legs and feels grounded. This is exactly where he wants to be, surrounded by flavours and colours and music.

  But she isn’t here.

  When he returns to Luna Cinema for his bike, he knows the sensible thing would be to hand the helmet over to staff, admitting to mistaken property. But conscience has abandoned him and the thought of ending the chase here leaves him empty.

  It’s Tuesday, which means his father’s expecting him in the store. Dustin has to process films while Ken does the banking, so when he rushes into the store at five, Ken’s ready with his dialogue of disappointment.

  ‘You’re too late. You’ve let the shop down,’ Ken says as his son hurries past him, carrying the motorcycle helmet.

  Dustin ignores him and moves behind the counter, sliding open the third drawer, in which he flicks through the F’s.

  ‘Forget it. You’re late. I’ll finish it myself.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Dustin tells him, rustling through packets until he finds hers. ‘My maths homework … I left it here.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Some of it.’ He lies automatically, his attention entirely focused on the address handwritten on Terri Pavish’s packet: 12 Leticia Close, Mount Claremont.

  ‘I trust that motorcycle helmet isn’t for your use.’

  ‘It’s a present for Nugget. It’s his birthday.’

  And with that, Dustin leaves, squeezing the helmet into his backpack on the way out. The bell above the shop door jingles as he slides the door behind him.

  20

  He cycles north to Terri Pavish’s house with a tailwind that suddenly sweeps up and ushers him faster. He turns off the West Coast Highway and onto the railway path, dodging pedestrians and joggers with iPods. The smooth surface undulates beneath him. Wind fills his ears and clears his mind. He hasn’t prepared anything to say. Just to hand over the helmet will be enough.

  He turns into Amelia Road, then left into Leticia Close. He lets the bike’s momentum roll him under the eight peppermint trees that line the street. At number twelve he abandons the bike and lets it lie in the driveway, its front wheel still revolving as he bounds up the five steps. He knocks on the pale blue door. This is where she lives!

  He waits for a sound from
inside. He knocks again, listening for something to signal her movement toward him.

  He waits, knocks, waits.

  And as he waits — without the roar of wind in his ears — he can hear the real world: a dog running in the street; a radio from a neighbour’s bedroom; a sprinkler; a van reversing in the next block. The sounds remind him of reality. His heart rate falls and he can feel the pull of the earth.

  Suddenly the helmet is awkward in his backpack, digging into his spine. He feels a hotness rise from his chest, creeping up his exposed neck. He flushes red. He realises she probably wouldn’t have ridden home without a helmet. She’d be back at the cinema now, or in a store buying another one. He feels stupid.

  Peering into her front window, he’s met with his own reflection in the glass. The truth of it hits him — skinny knobbly shoulders, a long neck, scruffy hair, and the fretful face of a sixteen-year-old out of his depth.

  He pulls the helmet from his backpack, places it on the top step, then leaves. He cycles into the strong headwind, impatient and angry. He’s just a kid after all.

  When Dustin reaches home he’s exhausted. He drinks water quickly, refilling the glass twice but it doesn’t satisfy him. The house is empty of Ken, but even so the thought of his father sends him to the sanctuary of his own room.

  He turns off the light and stretches out on top of his duvet. His feet hang off the edge of the single bed, suspended in air. Everything here is too small for him — it’s a bedroom for a child. In the darkness, he feels the walls contract and the ceiling hover right above him. Tonight, there’s not even enough space to dream.

  PERSPECTIVE

  19

  He’s barely awake for the ride to school in the morning. Often it feels that way — like he’s still sleeping while cars and pedestrians part quietly without waking him. Today’s like that.

  He buys an egg muffin from the canteen and feels some of its energy seep into him.