by Alan Duff
Kay-lah? You in there? (I need you. My calling for you echoes more hollowly each time. The effin’ hell are you, woman?)
Alistair close to crying, shook himself out of it, he couldn’t go there, not there. His father’s voice, though, called him a cry-baby. (I’m not a cry-baby. Can’t I just be highly sensitive? Wasn’t that allowed, father of mine?)
Sharns? Sharns, have you seen Kayla? Sharn-nee-tah?
He tried the door handle, unlocked. Well, why wouldn’t it be? Every reason in fact, with the type of people who came round here. (Mum, Dad, you’ve never seen anything like it. You know the types you read about, front page of your newspaper, or on the court pages? Well, that type.)
Might as well open the door, see how she lived, I guess not a lot better than we do, though she did try her best to keep the common rooms tidy, even if we made it hard for her.
He opened the door, shocked at what he saw.
The curtains were a deep purple, almost black, how he never noticed that before from the outside he didn’t know. Then he realised that a white underside faced the street, not this depressing dark colour. It was like someone died recently in here (or is dying?). Deep purple curtains, creepy. (Familiar, too, Alistair?)
But that was only part of the shock; the other was how neat it was. Like perfect. Like his mother always was with her bedroom and brought her two children up to be the same. But Sharneeta, a slut basically, living like this? It didn’t fit.
He was several steps past trespassing — looking at everything so in order — pity she kept the light from showing it off. Dare he pull open the curtains? Better not. None of his business. So why was he still standing there? Spooky room like this, something might happen. Better watch out, Ali, a hand might reach out and grab your throat!
Smiling to himself, at a childhood memory, everyone had them. But guilt was still the same. At doing something against his principles, of not respecting someone’s privacy, especially a woman’s. Even Sharns’s. His mother would not be happy to know he was doing this. Then again, how long since he’d thought about principles?
So he was a couple of steps over a line he never thought he’d cross, and the first thing he felt was a sexual surge. (Jesus Christ.) Chastening himself: Alistair Trambert, you’re a degenerative screw-up. What are you doing in here? She is not your type at any rate. Sure, she’s bloody attractive, in a funny way more so than Kayla. Except Sharns has something about her, and it’s making itself known right here, in this disturbingly dark bedroom. I mean, what kind of person would live like this?
Listen, she’s just your flatmate, you’re each other’s convenience; you and Kayla might’ve hit kind of rock bottom but not the bottom written in Sharns’s eyes, anyone could see she’d been around the block, hung around a few waterfronts and done and been done every which way.
Another step. So now it was trespass — he’d hate it if Sharns were in their room like this. And with the mess it was, compared to this, compared to anything, including how he once used to live. What happened to you, Al?
(That’s just it: I never happened. My mental problems, though not like Sharns. Mine’s depression and if hers is, too, then it is a different kind because this is not how depression manifests. Depression gives up and the first to go is personal standards, even personal hygiene. I just never got going. Maybe I tried, or made kind of an effort from time to time, but overall I’d have to say — not your fault, Alistair. Not my fault! Go to hell, Dad! (You made me like this. I was always trying to please you and when I realised you could never be pleased, something broke in me.)
So neat it was unbelievable, didn’t go with the woman he knew as Sharneeta Hurrey. The sad woman, even when she was laughing on rare occasion. The woman who didn’t say a lot, except when she was drunk and then you couldn’t shut her up. Though it was usually deep questions she was asking, but too personal, too close to the bone, who wanted to go there?
Smelt kinda nice, too, if you liked perfumey smells. Soap. Shampoo that smelt like apples. But the bed cover was too navy-blue, another depressing colour like the purple curtains. Though it did make the folded white towel stand out. Never thought she’d live like this, it just didn’t fit. Think I’d better get out now.
In a minute. He looked around, something was not quite right, even beyond the shock. That was what was missing. Photos. There were no photos anywhere. Even I’ve got photos on my walls, including several of my father (in case he turned up and was displeased I didn’t have a reminder of him).
The sexual thrill had gone. It was like being in the bedroom of a phantom. It was like she never quite existed, no one cared about her (including you, Alistair Trambert, or you wouldn’t be in here like some damn burglar). Like she’d been trying to please someone specific, as Alistair had done, but he or she’d not been here to know, or refused to acknowledge what she’d done, the effort she’d made (poor woman, I know how you feel, if that is the main problem, feeling unacknowledged).
No one cared about you (or me), Sharns. Or they believed another truth of us, which became a truth in itself even when wrong. Even when it was not true.
I should leave here now. But not yet. A phantom’s bedroom. No books. No pictures, no posters. No statements or evidence of the inhabitant. Could be anyone’s bedroom if not for the dark-coloured theme. Anyone but Sharns. A dressing table with a mirror, hair-brushes, combs, hair clips, hairties, spray containers, all laid out square. Box of tampons — yuk. Hate periods, the blood. Couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
Another step and he could see his bare skinny white legs in the mirror, hairy, too. His underpants. How long since he’d changed them? Hey, Kayla’d never complained, she got what she wanted from what was underneath. Hahaha. Grinning at his image in the mirror, his fist bunched, arm ramrod straight to symbolise a (powerful, virile, manly) stiff member. Yeah, baby, ride this one. Like that. Ooo, she loves it. Loves me.
Now his face. Another shock. Is that me? Do I look like that in the mornings? All the time? It was afternoon, actually. Just gone quarter after twelve. Is that really me?
He couldn’t face the image, turned away, pulled his tee-shirt down over the undies to save thinking about washing them. Remembered his earlier sexual feeling, the thought of doing it with Sharneeta, and he felt sick. Not that she was ugly or had a bad body. She was better physically than most. It was the thought of sinking into the same swamp she dwelt in, never mind how immaculate this place was. Of sinking into her emotional cesspit, of getting sucked into the quagmire of her mental state (and it feeling too familiar) and never being able to get out. Just your head sticking out, yelling for help, to a world that can’t, or won’t, hear. Like the dream.
Time to go. Just as he saw there was a photograph. On a chest of drawers in the far corner, opposite the lightless window. It was a framed photograph of a rather beautiful young woman, fifteen, maybe younger: Sharneeta. It was her, when her eyes weren’t gone, no sunken bone structure, this was one very good looking kid. I know: this was when she still had her innocence. (So at what age did mine go? Did I ever have it to start with? After all, some people are born without innocence.)
He went over for a closer inspection of the photo, aware she could come home and walk in on him. But then she’d hardly ever been around when he got up, she either had a job or was out looking for work. Why did she keep this place so dark? I can’t see what she used to look like in this gloom. Damn it, he’d take the photograph out to the passageway to look closer. For this was some surprise.
But not as much as the one he got when he lifted his head and took a step toward the doorway.
Sharneeta. (And I’m in her bedroom.)
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHAT MEETS THE EYE
SHE LOOKED AT what he’d got in his hand. And only that. Why’ve you got the photo? she asked the framed picture of herself. Not that he was exactly aching to hold her gaze, even if she were looking.
What could he say? Looking for Kayla, Alistair mumbled.
Whe
re, in my bedroom, you’re looking for Kayla?
Well, yes. Obviously I didn’t start here. Just that I found —
You found yourself in my bedroom. Right? Why would she be in my bedroom?
Now she had his eyes, which naturally were embarrassed, excruciatingly so if she wanted to know, but clearly didn’t. Her eyes were hurting, they were showing confusion.
I was taking a better look at your photo, Sharns. Man, you looked good —
In my bedroom? Is that fair? Is it fair? What’ve I ever done wrong to you? Have I ever been in your friggin’ stinking mess of a bedroom?
Easy now, Sharns. Never meant any harm. And how do you know it’s a mess if you haven’t been in it?
Don’t have to go in it. Just have to walk past and see the state it’s in. Smell it halfway down the passage. Did I ever say anything? Did I?
She was hurt. Course she was hurt. He felt a real prick. Sorry, Sharns. Like I said, never meant anything. Just curious, I guess. I’d never do this normally.
So why’s it normal now? What made my bedroom, my privacy, all of a sudden normal this day over other days when it’s not? Least I s’pose it’s not on other days. Is it?
Sharns, you know I’m not like that —
Do I? Do I? Well, do you know how I’m feeling right this minute? I’ll tell you, okay? Like I been raped. Again.
(Again? Rape?) That’s going a bit far, isn’t it?
That’s what it feels like.
Except it’s not a bit like it. Rape? Me? You?
Rape, I said. Now gimme back that photo and get the eff outta here.
Sharns, let me explain. Please, I’d never do anything against you. I was looking for Kayla —
Kayla, yeah Kayla. Kaylaahhhh! Where are youuuu? Why aren’t you right here when I want youuuu? That the Kayla you’re talking about?
Yes, that Kayla. But this wasn’t the Sharns he knew. What was that tone of hers about? I’m sorry, Sharns. Honestly, I’m totally embarrassed about this.
Mister, you’re an effin’ whiner.
(What did she just call me?) I’m not. (You are.)
You’re a whiner and you’re a pervo who sneaks into my bedroom doing God knows what.
I’m not a pervo.
Yes you are. And you’re a big baby, walking round the flat, Kayla-Kayla-Kayla, come to me, Ali-stair needs you. Ali wants his bottle.
What is this shit, man?
I ain’t a man — I’m a woman. A woman got a right to her privacy, to her own effin’ bedroom without you, someone I thought I could trust, sniffing around. How do I know you ain’t been in my undies drawer?
Shit. This had gone far enough. He went to push past her but she blocked his way. Please, Sharns. I said sorry.
If you weren’t in my room like an effin’ burglar I wouldn’t have to be blocking your way. An hour ago I got treated like shit by a stranger. I come home, s’posed to be a shared place of refuge with people I like and I find you in my room.
And you’re in my face, woman. Had enough of this shit. He pushed past her. Could feel her eyes on him, his loss of dignity made worse by his state of semi-undress. (Women they’re all the damn same. You can’t reason with them.)
Into the kitchen, realising he was quite shaken up by the exchange. So I took a look around her bedroom. Didn’t touch anything, didn’t mean anything, more importantly. Just looked. Okay, the photo. Now that’s a major crime, taking her photo out of her room just so I could take a closer look at how she was when young and with some kind of hope. Maybe I was wanting to find some of that for myself. Maybe I was unknowingly trying to get a better handle on you, strange woman. Jesus Christ, cracking up over just a photo.
Kayla. Kayla just walked in.
Where you been, man? He could see she was carrying a loaf of bread and something else. But he had to ask the question again. Where you been? I was looking all over for you.
Sorry, hon. Do you have to call me man? Scratched up a few bucks from a friend to get us some bread, a li’l packet a luncheon sausage. You hungry, honey?
He was hungry. But for her. Not so much sexually, but selfish hunger all the same. (If selfishness was food, I could feed a whole army.) Why didn’t you tell me you were going out?
Out? Ain’t out when it’s a little walk down the road to beg money to buy you food. Come on, sweet. I’m not your Siamese twin, you know.
What’s that s’posed to mean?
Nothing. I’ll make you a sandwich. No butter though. Poppy only had five bucks and the rip-off dairy, you know what he charges for a few lousy slices of luncheon. Wish we had some tomato sauce, I know you love your sauce.
Kays, am I a good person? Or a bad person? The question just popped out of him, he wasn’t aware, not for a moment, that he was thinking about such a thing.
She smiled. Looked good when she smiled. It was open, carefree, even though nothing in her (this) life to be carefree about. She was regardless.
Don’t be silly, darling. Course you’re not a bad person.
So am I good?
Course you are. Want me to show you how good?
How would you do that?
You know how I would. She went all coy. Don’t you?
But he didn’t get aroused, when always he would. Always. Even beyond the sex thing he knew what a physical union with her gave him: a profound relief from some kind of inner burden that yet had no reason to exist. (Oh, yes it did. It had every right to exist. You made me suffer, Father.) Good or bad, Kayla?
I said: good. She opened the packet of bread, got a sharp knife to open the luncheon sausage, smiling, shaking her head at his little outburst — no, not outburst. She wouldn’t call his question that. But being quite a simple soul of ordinary education and not such a bad upbringing, basic but tender most of the time and the other she couldn’t remember, she had no words to give it, nor felt a need to have the words. The smile, the attitude shining off her was enough. (Was it not, Alistair, troubled son of your father?)
There you are. Lunch and breakfast and … Now her eyes got genuinely sad. And tea too.
It’s dinner, darling, he corrected. Tea is the stuff you drink. Dinner is what you eat at night.
If you got the money to have dinner, she said.
He smiled, kind of. Yes. If you’ve got the money.
Which makes it tomorrow, Thursday, before we do. So you’d have to call this snack tea not dinner.
All right, I concede here then. (Now, my question.) Good? Or bad?
I said good. Good. Got it? You-are-good. Hey, what’s up with Sharn, slamming her door like that?
Not a little bit bad? He made out he hadn’t heard the door.
Not one teensy bit bad. Sandwich or sex? Or both?
He tried to stay serious but couldn’t; she was such an innocent, how could he hurt her, how could he have doubted the reason for her absence?
In the bedroom another question came out of the blue. With a mouthful of butterless shit meat sandwich, he asked, Do women really enjoy it?
Sure they do. Or we wouldn’t do it, would we? How do you mean? And why are you asking all these questions? You’ve never asked them before.
In that kinda mood. He rubbed her upper thigh. The same lovely smooth warm skin, the same nerve to nerve connections, the same clogging up in his throat. Same tingling. Except not the same arousal. Not yet, he presumed of subsequent events.
No, I mean really enjoy. Like can you feel it inside you?
Kind of.
He was shocked. What do you mean, kind of? You either can’t or you can.
Well, I can.
But can, kind of.
Well, it’s more a thumping. No, not a thumping, a feeling of being with someone you like, a nice feeling down there but not, like, urgent how you men get.
Men? Or man?
All men, honey. We weren’t virgins when we met each other. Only gets urgent when you do. And when that spot is touched. You know I like it, honey. Why wait this long to ask a question with an obvious an
swer? Do you think Sharns is okay? Should I go and see if she is, like, afterward?
(Afterward?) The way she said it seemed like it was not so important — not urgent. And as she said herself, sex never had been urgent. He was rapidly losing what little real sexual desire he had. Don’t worry about Sharns. Worry about me — us.
She reached out for him, down there, giggled and said what a miracle of growth they are, thingies. From this to THAT. Said it with poppy eyes and those slightly uneven smiling teeth, speaking her working-class origins. You sure you feel like it? We could save it for later. Not as if we got a lot on in life, eh? I’ve never known Sharns to slam her door like that. Something’s upset her.
I did.
You did? But why? That’s not like you, hon. I don’t believe you. You respect women, that’s why I like you. The nice things you say about your mum. Tell me the truth, what happened? She in one of her moods?
She found me in her bedroom.
Kayla let go of his unresponding thingie. How do you mean, in her bedroom? Am I hearing things?
I was looking for you.
What, in her bedroom?
I ended up in there. Curious. Please, don’t look at me like that. I’m no sex case. I just looked at a photo of her.
What, naked?
No! Not naked. What would she be doing with a naked photo of herself?
I know girls who have. What photo then?
Kayla was starting to pout, not sulking, hurt. You shouldn’t’ve gone into her room, Al. Not a woman’s bedroom. It’s private. You should have figured that; we’ve got private woman’s stuff. You know we have, hon. What else did you do?
I did nothing.
You sure?
What else could I do — wank off in there?
Well, we both saw the TV programme where the tradesman was doing just that. When he was s’posed to be fixing —
Fixing the leaky pipe. I know and I was disgusted like you (but no man would be surprised). And I’m not a tradesman and I don’t do that. I was looking at a photo of her when she was a teenager. Her room, it’s as dark as she is.
Sharns is not dark. She’s quite pale. She hasn’t got much Maori blood in her.