by A. J. Betts
He tilts the plate until the cold fish slides into the bin. The room is too small for him and he’s anxious for fresh air.
When he goes out the front door, his father says nothing. The lights on his bike are dim, but he pushes off anyway, leaving the stuffiness behind. He has the suburbs to escape to, and there is a woman who’s waiting for him to find her.
16
He rides on the bike path beside the railway line, then weaves through the streets of Mount Claremont until he sees hers. His bike already knows the way. He has no plan, no clever monologue to deliver. He doesn’t feel that words will be necessary anyway. Just to be here will be enough. To say hi. To approach her as an adult.
He’d expected to see the red Ducati in the driveway but it’s not there. The house is unlit and quiet. He’d braced himself for knocking on her pale blue door, but now he doesn’t bother because he realises the empty house will once again answer with silence.
Is she never home? He wonders where she is now. Out at a pub? Covering a story or working late at the office? With a boyfriend? No, he’s seen her personal photos, and he’s sure there’s not a man. Besides, there’s something about her eyes that suggests she doesn’t need anyone.
He retreats to the bus shelter across the road from her townhouse. He leans his bike against the perspex ad for Pepsi and stands in the dark cover of night. The wind is cool against his skin. He wishes he’d worn a jacket over his T-shirt. He shivers. This is exactly where he wants to be.
A bus slows down but he waves it on. He sits on the bench and brings his long legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees.
A black cat crosses his path — is that supposed to be good luck or bad, he wonders before it leaps up to the seat and curls beside him. The cat purrs and he feels the vibrations. He pats it instinctively with his right hand, and its head pushes against his thigh. Its collar reads ‘Leroy’, and when Dustin speaks its name, it purrs more deeply.
The night is blue-black, with only a low murmur of cars from the distant highway. This street pacifies everything in it. This is what life must be like for Terri Pavish, he thinks: blue-black calmness, composure, ease of breath. Answering to no-one.
A light flickers once in her house, then suddenly she’s on the balcony. She’s home! The light outlines her silhouette and Dustin’s eyes adjust. She’s wearing men’s flannelette pyjamas and holding a can opener.
The black cat bolts to the front door and disappears through the cat flap. Within seconds, Leroy is on the balcony, pressing himself against Terri’s flannelette legs. She empties the contents of the can into a bowl and stands up again, looking down at the street. She looks toward him and he feels it right in his chest. Can she actually see him in the darkness? And if she can, does she recognise him? Can she feel it too?
She moves back inside, switching on lights as she glides through rooms. She walks down the stairs and the light there comes on. A narrow slit in a curtain is wide enough to see pieces of her — her shoulder while she waits for the kettle to boil; her right hand as she opens the fridge; then her left knee hooked over the armrest of the lounge. Leroy pads across the room, before settling by the window to stare out at Dustin through the gap in the curtain.
A phone rings and Terri answers it. She kills the downstairs light and moves back upstairs, turning off lights as she goes.
In the second before she turns out the bedroom light, he sees her smiling with the phone to her ear. He wishes he could capture that moment, lock it into a camera, keep it for later. But the room turns to black and the house is quiet again. The street resettles in the darkness.
Leroy shimmies through the cat flap and saunters across the road, springing onto the bench softly. This time he stretches out on Dustin’s lap and purrs.
Love. Is this what it feels like, Dustin thinks. There’s no other way to explain it. Is it this? To be drawn to a bench in the night-time and be content with a nearness to someone? Perhaps. There’s been nothing in his life to compare it to. It doesn’t feel strange or false at all — to sit here feels like the most natural thing in the world.
Dustin visualises Terri Pavish lying in bed. She would be on her back, eyes open, looking up at the dark contours of the ceiling fan. Soon she’ll be dreaming of a guy she has yet to know, and will wake up tomorrow with the gut feeling that her life is meaningful. That she’s too important to forget. Dustin cycles home slowly and the blue-black night is tranquil.
EXPOSURE
15
She’s the first thing he thinks of when he wakes at seven. He rolls to his side and she’s there, on his corkboard.
He thinks of her in the shower.
As he sits at the kitchen table to eat Weet-Bix, she’s knocking about in his brain. He feels calmer today; the thought of Terri Pavish is a narcotic.
She sticks with him during the ride to school, unlodged by wind and speed.
She’s in his mind in art, as he takes notes on exposure, focus and lighting. He thinks of how best to compose the photos — some with the Ducati, others with Leroy at home.
She’s still with him in maths, but Mr Carey’s having a shit day and he takes it out on the class. In particular he takes it out on Dustin, who’s been drawing in the back of his notebook. Carey tears out the page and critiques the sketch in front of everyone.
‘So this is what Da Vinci has achieved this lesson! Something else on your mind besides trig, eh? Well, how can I compete with legs like that?’
‘Fuck off, wanker.’ There’s nothing mumbled or slurred about it. Dustin picks up his bag and leaves the classroom before Carey can throw him out.
Walking down the corridor of E Block, his pulse remains steady. Carey’s not worth getting upset about. Not anymore. There’s more to life than taking shit from dickhead teachers. Out in the real world there’s freedom. There’s a world of adults and soft sea-breeze nights. And there’s Terri Pavish.
He cuts through the quadrangle, littered with chip wrappers and soft drink cans. The background noise of classrooms — teenage chatter and stupid conversations — embarrasses him. He’s better than all this and there’s nothing here he’s got left to learn. As he crosses to the bike shed, he promises himself that today’s going to be his last at this school. He just wants to hit the road hard, to sweat out Carey through his pores and let his bike lead him to somewhere that matters. Somewhere real.
‘Did you get off early today?’
How did she know to find him here, now? How does she always know?
Jasmine leans against the bike shed wall. Her tanned legs are crossed at the ankles, her short socks casually folded over. Her eyes shine up at him. She half-grins.
‘Yeah, for good behaviour. I hate this place,’ he says. ‘Me too. Music’s boring.’ She casts her eyes in the direction of a nearby music studio where a relief teacher is sitting at the front reading a newspaper. ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
‘I’m leaving,’ he says.
‘Where you going?’
He shrugs, then lies. ‘Home.’
‘Shit, it must be bad.’ She squints up at the sky, softly rubs the small bump of her tummy and considers her options. ‘I’m coming too, then.’
‘Why?’
‘I hate Thursdays.’
The bike lock rattles as it comes free.
‘Besides,’ Jasmine continues, ‘Mrs Hanson caught me with the turtle and said she’d confiscate it. She called it a wild animal, can you believe it? She doesn’t care. Nobody does. That’s the problem with this world …’
‘Ease up, Jaz.’
‘Well, what am I supposed to do with it? Let it die in the suburban jungle? Let it get killed on roads? Pecked to death by seagulls?’
‘Give me a break, would ya?’
She laughs, her goal accomplished.
‘I’m going.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘I’m coming too.’ She dangles car keys from her right hand.
He remembers she’s not the enemy. ‘Let’s go then.’
Jasmine sings aloud, unselfconsciously. It’s some Eskimo Joe song crackling out from the radio. The sun hits his face and he can’t help smiling. Today was worth getting out of bed for. Today he told Carey to fuck off, and now he’s hanging out with Jasmine somewhere between school and home, without having to feel stressed about it. Tomorrow he’ll be in the shit, not just with school but with his old man. But fuck it, right now it’s just the two of them, and the turtle, and they don’t have to be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.
14
There aren’t too many people at Cottesloe. Just some tourists tanning on the sand, and a group of dole-bludgers and part-timers out on boards, hoping the offshore wind will pick up.
It takes Jasmine four attempts to park the Mini, but she finally nails it. They walk down the stairs and settle on the lawn overlooking the beach. Jasmine prises open a few pistachios. Out to sea, a couple of old guys sit waiting for a set. In closer, some body-boarders play in the small waves.
‘Perfect day,’ she says. ‘Photo-perfect. Let’s get some shots for the assignment.’ She drags an old SLR camera from her bag.
‘You’ve got to practise your wagging technique, Jaz,’ he says, taking the camera off her. He looks at borders through the viewfinder. ‘You’ve missed the point.’
‘Come on, can we? It’ll be fun. I need a model and I want you, okay? I just gave you a lift here and I’m sure that’s equivalent to at least four photos.’ She smiles.
‘What?’
‘And you ate a pistachio — that’s another three photos.’
‘Since when? You know I don’t pose. I won’t,’ he says, suddenly self-conscious. He runs his hands through his hair, wondering how scruffy it looks. ‘I’m not a poser and I’m no frickin pretty boy.’
‘Thank god for that,’ she says. ‘You’re Dustin and you’re my subject, so calm down, relax, and help me keep up my A-minus in art, okay? I’ve been helping you pass all year — you owe me this at least.’
It’s a convincing argument. She pulls a black spiral notebook from her bag and flicks a third of the way through it. He snatches the book and looks at each of the pictures drawn in 4B pencil. There are least twenty pages of them.
‘This is me?’ Some parts look like him — the hair, the shoulders, the eyes — but many of the lines are too quick and sketchy. There’s just a lot of movement.
‘It’s rough,’ she says.
‘This is what I look like? To you?’
‘In parts. It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s more about the positioning and …’
‘But you’ve made me look messy! And crazy. And what’s that supposed to be?’
‘That’s the turtle,’ she grins, then grabs her art book back off him. ‘You are messy. Anyway, it’s hard to draw from memory. I don’t even have any photos of you, you know. Don’t you think that’s weird?’
‘You see me every day, you don’t need to see me at home.’
‘Well, that’s all going to change, with you being my hot male model. How’s your Magnum look coming along?’
‘Magnum’s not ready yet. You’ll have to make do with Blue Steel … Do I really have to do this?’
‘There’s a first time for everything, Zoolander. Shit, sometimes you just gotta give in.’
Overhead, screeching parrots flap about between pines. The noisy distraction gives Dustin some breathing space. ‘How ’bout calling it ET?’ he says, indicating the turtle scratching about on Jasmine’s school bag.
‘Don’t be cruel. Besides, it’s a girl. Now stop trying to sidetrack me. Seven photos!’
He runs his fingers through his hair again, brushing it behind his ears.
Jasmine leads him down to the soft sand in front of the surf clubhouse, where she opens her sketchbook. The ideas are simple — often they’re just parts of him against sand: a hand, an elbow, an eye. Each shot obeys the rule of thirds. She plays around with technique first — the ‘soul-stealing’, she says, will come later.
She fans out Dustin’s fingers and places the turtle in the palm of his hand. She switches films, inserting a black-and-white roll, and Dustin has a good look at this little creature close up, with its slow blinking eyes and scratchy feet. The turtle bites solidly on Dustin’s little finger when he offers it to her. He laughs.
Jasmine takes photos of this, then joins Dustin’s hands so he cups the turtle.
Dustin sees in its eyes a vulnerability. ‘Does this thing think?’
‘It’s an animal, Dustin. It thinks and feels.’ Jasmine smiles, adding, ‘I reckon she likes you. Lie back,’ she tells him, then before he can argue, ‘Trust me.’
So he does. He lies back in the sand, closing his eyes against the sun. Jasmine picks up the turtle carefully with her right hand, and with her left she smooths back Dustin’s shirt, revealing his stomach.
‘Hey,’ he mumbles nervously, eyes still closed. ‘This wasn’t in the contract.’
‘Shut up and trust me,’ she says, placing the turtle gently on his pale skin. ‘This’ll look cool.’
She kneels low beside him, getting the camera in line with his stomach, cutting the horizon with the turtle’s back. She flicks the camera to macro mode and takes a few shots. Dustin shakes his head at the madness of it — getting photographed with a turtle on his stomach. Luckily everyone else is at school.
She stands above them, straddling his legs, looking down. She takes one photo of his stomach, and then — without him aware of it — a close-up shot of his face, eyes closed, smiling. It’s the most relaxed and beautiful she’s ever seen him. Jasmine doesn’t need to take another photo — she’s not going to forget this.
It’s when Dustin sits up again that he’s caught off guard. There’s another surfer paddling out to sea now; a female in a black wetsuit, with short black hair. It hits him like a punch in the chest — it’s her. Again! It has to be. The ocean pulls at him, urging him out to sea, to follow her. To finally speak to her! She continues paddling out. But he’s aware of the strength of the undertow. He’s not a swimmer, never has been. The deepness of the ocean frightens him. The pull of waves unnerves him. The sea can swallow everything, and who knows what lies lurking below.
Jasmine’s already up by the clubhouse, rinsing the turtle of sand. ‘Come on,’ she calls to Dustin.
Even here in the shallows, the vastness of open water scares him. So he turns his back on the sea and walks up the beach.
‘Can I borrow this?’ he asks, picking up the SLR camera.
It’s nowhere near as powerful as the one Mrs Blackler’s lent him, but he tests out the zoom anyway. He scans the surface of the water, bumping over each crest of wave until he finds her. She’s sitting alongside the old guys out the back. And it’s not her. She looks nothing like Terri Pavish. This woman’s older, with darker skin. What the hell was he thinking?
‘You taking photos now?’
How had he imagined it could’ve been her? She wouldn’t be here anyway, he tells himself. She’d be working. She can’t be everywhere he goes. Had he made her up? He shakes his head. Fuck!
‘You looked like you were in another world.’
‘Let’s go,’ he says, suddenly keen to get home.
13
He has to give Jasmine directions as she drives to his house from Cottesloe. Even though they’ve been mates for years, Jasmine’s never actually been to his house. He’s never invited her. At first she’d felt insulted, but eventually she came to understand that he likes to keep his worlds separate.
The white Mini Minor idles in the driveway. She wai
ts, and then, ‘Well … can I come in?’
‘Do you want to?’
She nods and Dustin swallows. There’s a barrier that isolates this house from the rest of the world. This is Ken’s house, not Dustin’s home. It’s not a place for hanging out in, not like Nugget’s place where there’s always people shouting and stuff going on. This is a quiet house and it’s as private as Dustin is.
She knows this, but she turns the engine off anyway. When he unlocks the front door she’s behind him, with one hand on his shoulder.
They stand in the lounge room and he shrugs in surrender. She’s quietly respectful, touching nothing but taking it all in: the DVDs, videos and books in the bookcase; the three lounge chairs with a rectangular coffee table in the middle; the TV and stereo; and the lone desert landscape hanging on a wall. It’s an old print with sand dunes and a sunset. It doesn’t inspire anything in her and she turns to him. He goes to say something, but shrugs again in apology.
She smiles at him and knows what the house is missing — a female influence. The room is all corners and angles. Nothing here is meant for comfort or touch, or to warm two men on cold nights.
‘Got any beer?’ she asks.
They find a couple of six-packs at the bottom of the fridge.
‘Dad only drinks on weekends,’ he laughs. ‘It’s one of his rules.’
‘You know what they say about rules …’
They take a six-pack outside, where they sit on the grass by the clothesline. Dustin’s embarrassed at how shabby the backyard looks. Cleaning the pool was supposed to be his job.
‘Cheers, big ears.’
They polish off their first beers without talking.
‘My toes are tingly,’ she giggles.
‘You’re hopeless.’
‘Hey, I’m half the size of you.’
‘Saying I’m fat?’
‘You’re a stick. And a very good photography model too.’