by Melissa Keil
All four walls, from just above my head to the distant blue ceiling, are lined with mounted shelves, row upon row that encircle the small space. They’re filled with double-stacked books and knick-knacks, weird stuff made of wood that I can’t identify. Placed in between, scattered over the shelves, are multiple ancient-looking clocks, all of which seem to be set to different times, and none of which appear to be working. There are a few dusty framed photos of Joshua with a dark-haired girl half his size, and along the very top shelf, rows of boxes and old stuffed toys. It’s like being cocooned inside a very tiny, ancient library. Or the cell of a well-read lunatic.
‘Um, the clocks are mostly presents from my folks,’ Joshua says from behind me. ‘It’s kind of been a running joke since I was a kid, I guess.’ He grins sheepishly. ‘I’ve been half-arsedly trying to learn how to fix them, but it’s harder than I thought. Clock-making used to actually be a master craft, you know, before they all became manufactured on assembly lines.’ He shrugs. ‘One day I might actually get around to learning.’
He takes a single step from the doorway and ducks his head under the shelves to smooth down his comforter. He flicks on the banker’s lamp mounted upside-down beneath the lowest shelf, and nudges the door closed behind him, all in one balletic move.
His hands are still, which is somehow more disconcerting than his ever-present tapping. I don’t know exactly what information makes me draw this inference, but I think he might be nervous. ‘It’s a bit much, I know. I was really into Harry Potter when we moved in here,’ he says with a crooked smile.
I look at him blankly.
‘The cupboard under the stairs?’ His eyes follow mine around the cluttered room. ‘Mum’s been trying to get me to move to a proper bedroom for years, but I dunno. I like it in here.’
I sit gingerly in his desk chair. ‘It’s … cosy,’ I echo.
Joshua takes a seat on the edge of his bed. ‘What can I say? I’m comfortable with small.’
We contemplate his space. With the door closed and the room lit only by a lamp, I should be right on cue for a momentous freak-out. I barely have the wherewithal to register that no school books of any kind are visible, and there are no study charts or timetables stuck to his walls, when from beneath the desk something soft brushes my leg. I yelp as a fat grey tabby launches itself into my lap and immediately proceeds to knead my legs with razor-sharp claws.
‘Ah, that’s Narda. Sorry. She has no boundaries.’ He reaches for the cat, but I shoo his hands away.
‘No, it’s fine. I like cats.’ I run my hands across the scruff of her neck. Narda flops into my lap with a huff.
The weight of the tabby settles the edges of my nerves a bit. ‘Joshua, considering the available evidence, I’m going to hypothesise that your parents aren’t exactly poor.’
Joshua makes a face. ‘They’ve done okay. So?’
‘Well, so, I guess then, a reasonable question would be, what the hell are you doing at St Augustine’s? It’s not exactly the type of school you guys go to –’
‘“You guys”?’ he says, sounding amused, I think, and maybe a little annoyed.
‘Yes, you guys. People with money. Aren’t there special schools with secret handshakes?’ I wave my hand at his room. ‘Places where you can live out your Hogwarts fantasies for real?’
Joshua stares at me for a long moment. Then he bursts out laughing. ‘After all this time, I still can’t tell when you’re serious and when you’re giving me shit.’
I don’t know what’s come over me, but I think I may be a little drunk on my own daring. ‘I am both serious and giving you shit,’ I say silkily.
Joshua flops backwards on the bed, bare feet dangling over the end. He’s still chuckling. ‘You make us sound like the Lannisters.’
‘Well, your house does have more than two storeys. And a turret. You are one incest-cousin away from being a Game of Thrones character.’
Joshua laughs. ‘I would so be the moron who gets beheaded in the first season.’
‘Turns out, far too much has been written about great men and not nearly enough about morons,’ I say distractedly. Narda leaps off my lap and pounces on Joshua’s dancing fingers.
He sits up again and shakes his head. ‘And she quotes GoT,’ he says under his breath. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever not be surprised by you, Sophia.’
I let my eyes wander again. One of his bottom shelves is stocked with old biographies, ancient-looking books bound with leather and gold. I reach above my head and slide out a random volume. The cover is a turn-of-the-century poster of a white guy in a turban, sepia-tinted, like the kind I’ve seen in his locker.
‘So what is it with you and these historical guys? Why don’t you have any biographies of Criss Angel or Cyril Takayama or David Copperfield –’
‘Um, excuse me?’ he says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His eyebrows are making a valiant effort to climb into his hair. ‘Since when are you interested in magicians?’
Even though I feel my face get warm, I refuse to be embarrassed for conducting an elementary investigation. ‘I met you. I googled things. You talk a lot, and I don’t always understand everything you say. So. Research.’
He shakes his head, smiling. ‘Wow. I’m flattered?’
I turn the book over, my eyes skimming the photo on the back. ‘Don’t be. I’m curious. What is it about these classic guys that you like? Or maybe I should ask what it is about the newer guys that annoys you so much?’
He takes the biography from my hands. ‘It’s hard to explain. I guess it’s because I like the stuff from a time when the thing was skill alone? Like, when there was still all this awesome stuff to discover, stuff that people had never seen done before. Those TV guys, the big Vegas dudes with all the expensive sets and tigers and stuff? No ordinary person can do that. It’s too … big. And they just keep making it bigger, and more and more flashy and professional – you know, you get run over by a steamroller or make the Statue of Liberty disappear live on telly –’
‘Hey, I saw that on YouTube. That was sort of impressive.’
‘I know, right?’ he says with a sigh. ‘But, like, where do you go from there? What kid who’s learning how to execute a perfect Double Lift card trick or something would even bother …’ He tucks his legs beneath him, sitting cross-legged on his bed. ‘I sound like a tool,’ he says, drumming his hands on his feet. ‘I just mean, once something’s been done, bigger and better than you could ever hope to pull off, why would you even try … why would you bother starting if you knew you were always gonna fall short …’
I stare at him. ‘Okay.’
He looks up, his fingers stilling. ‘That’s it? No counter point? No pep talk?’
I shrug, my hands suddenly prickly. ‘No. I just … no.’
Joshua reaches distractedly for a worn deck of cards. He flutters them through his fingers, his eyes focused on nothing I can see.
I watch his hands. ‘You’re ambidextrous?’
He looks down. ‘Sort of. I was mostly left-handed when I was a kid, but then I trained myself to use my right, so I guess …’ He grins, faintly. ‘Well, mostly, I think I had too much time on my hands.’
I rotate, slowly, in his chair. When I turn back to face him, he seems to be observing me extra closely. I plant my feet and stop myself spinning.
‘Sophia Reyhart. You’re in my bedroom,’ he says quietly.
‘Stellar observation,’ I mumble. More unexpected heat warms my cheeks.
He unwinds his legs and leaps up. ‘We should get going,’ he says, slipping a black waistcoat over his shirt and his feet into grey Chucks. He reaches for the trench coat and hat that are hanging behind his door. He pauses, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’
I straighten out my dress and zip up my jacket. I’m almost tempted to say no – there’s something nice about being in this space, something calming and almost flannel-pyjama comfortable.
‘Sure thing,’ I
say brightly.
Joshua holds his door open, and I reluctantly step out – and almost barrel into a scowling girl in black tights and an oversized T-shirt. Her face is set in that fierce look of undirected annoyance I’ve seen pubescent kids brandish so well.
‘Damn. Busted,’ Joshua says under his breath.
The girl’s make-up-heavy eyes travel over me. Her mouth curves into a slow grin.
‘Joshie,’ she purrs, leaning against the wall and giving me a once-over that feels like it’s scouring my skin off. ‘Look who’s being a sneaky little alley cat. Are Mum and Dad aware you’re entertaining lady-guests in your boudoir? You do know those condoms they gave you with the puberty talk have probably expired, yeah?’
An indignant flush creeps up my face. This girl can’t be more than thirteen, and she looks like a tiny, depressed elf, only with the measured voice of our middle-aged Latin teacher.
Joshua angles himself in front of me. ‘She emerges from her cavern, spreading sunshine and cheer,’ he says dryly. ‘Do we need to have a talk about appropriate guest-conversation again, Gillian?’
She brightens in a way that makes her seem infinitely younger. ‘The secret is not having bad manners or good manners, but having the same manner for all human souls,’ she says, in an accent that I think is supposed to be English. She also, bafflingly, does a little jig.
Joshua looks like he’s trying really hard not to laugh. ‘Okay, Eliza Doolittle. Stay real. Is it too much to ask that you, I dunno – don’t talk about condoms in front of my friend?’
‘What can I say? I’m precocious,’ she says, deadpan.
Joshua turns his back on her and gives me a pained smile. ‘I would apologise, but I should probably save the proper grovelling until I see how much damage she does,’ he says in a mock whisper.
‘And speaking of manners, are you going to introduce me to your “friend”?’ she demands, fingers forming air quotes and all.
He turns around and clasps her lightly across the back of the neck. ‘Gillian, this is Sophia. Sophia, my sister, who may or may not be the love child of Robert Smith and Nosferatu, Gillian.’
I suspect it’s a bad idea to point out that I have no idea who those people are. I’m crap with kids, and worse with sarcasm. ‘Hi. Um, nice to meet you, Gillian.’
Gillian wriggles out from Joshua’s grip. She looks me up and down again. I force my eyes to remain on hers. ‘Cute T-shirt,’ I say, which is something I’ve heard girls say to each other on TV. Gillian merely raises an eyebrow. ‘I mean,’ I babble, ‘Le Tigre. My friend’s brother used to be obsessed with them. I wouldn’t think someone your age would be into them?’
‘Yeah, I’m a paradox,’ she snaps.
‘Okay, that’ll do,’ Joshua says, straightening to his full height. He’s giving his sister a look that makes her steely gaze drop.
‘Sorry …’
Joshua raises an eyebrow. ‘And …?’
‘Nice to meet you too,’ she says sullenly.
Joshua wraps her in a one-armed hug. ‘Okay, we’re leaving. Don’t conjure any demons from the netherworld. And, you know – maybe you could make a start on that homework, or whatever? Love you.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Yeah, whatever. Love you too,’ she mumbles.
We don’t speak as we walk outside. I’m still reeling from my encounter with his sister; especially after Joshua’s brief detour to find his contact lenses left Gillian and me alone in their foyer, somehow discussing Monique Keraudren and the flora of Madagascar.
I’m filled with an odd sensation of melancholy as we walk down the giant driveway. It seems so easy for them, so normal. Even Elsie’s brothers, who once trekked en masse to our primary school to confront a kid who’d stolen Elsie’s lunchbox, don’t use the ‘L’ word. I have about as much chance of hearing those words in my house as I do of proving the existence of dark matter.
‘So, I’m sorry about Gillian,’ Joshua says, snapping me from my thoughts. ‘She’s a tiny rage-monster, true, but if you scrape away the attitude, she’s actually a really decent person.’ We reach the main road, huddling beneath the lights of the tram stop. ‘Gilly is just a hell of a lot smarter than most people, and it’s kinda like this weapon she doesn’t know how to wield –’ He pauses, looking at me strangely.
‘What?’
He shakes his head as the lights of an approaching tram crest the hill. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
The mechanics of being joined at the face
The tram is so packed that Joshua and I don’t even bother trying to speak over the noise. I avoid public transport whenever I can; this giant cylinder, reminiscent of the stomach of a steel whale, is exactly the reason why. Up the front is a big group of drunk girls decked out in pink bridal gear, whose voices carry octaves above the crowd. There are a few guys sitting on the floor blasting music through a phone, their hair in various unnatural hues, clothes covered in bolts and spiky metal things. A man across the aisle is yelling loudly into his mobile; he seems to be having an urgent conversation about a garden hose he just purchased. There are five giant older guys in football jumpers, voices fierce and booming. I can’t tell if they’re angry, excited or about to start a riot, and I’m more than a little relieved when they jump off after a few stops.
In front of us are a couple who have gone four stops without breaking their kiss; the activity on the tram seems irrelevant to them. Partly I find it remarkable that two people can be so absorbed in each other that they’re able to ignore the chaos surrounding them, but I’m also concerned that someone is going to lose a chunk of tongue as the tram jolts in fits and starts.
I huddle in a back corner near the door that doesn’t open. Joshua stands in front of me, one hand braced on the overhead rail. He doesn’t seem put out by the fact that he is being bombarded by bodies, sweaty arms and hands brushing against him. He plants his feet shoulder-width apart, and though he keeps getting jostled, he moves neither closer to me nor further away; it takes me six stops to realise that he has installed himself as an immovable wall, keeping marauding tram-people away from my corner.
He stares out the window into the dark, looking lost in thought, and it leaves me free to examine him up close. He has a small cluster of freckles on the right side of his neck, the only features on his otherwise unmarked skin. His hair is longer than I noticed when we first met, curling in tendrils around the collar of his jacket. His contacts seem to make his irises ever so slightly darker; behind his glasses his eyes had a lighter, bronzy tone. Intriguing. So many features that make up a normal face, no more or less extraordinary than any other face in the world. Yet it draws my focus, strangely beguiling.
Joshua turns his attention back to me when the tram makes a left down a busy street in Fitzroy. We push our way off at the next stop, and I take a second to catch my breath.
He watches me as I steady my breathing. He looks torn. ‘Sophia, we don’t have to go. We can turn around or do something else even –’
‘No.’ I straighten my shoulders. If I have learned anything from Ms Heller, it’s the way sham confidence can be suggested by the right posture. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine. Lead the way.’
I follow him down a laneway, the walls on either side covered with graffiti. It looks like someone has tried to cover up a sketch of a rodent with a giant willy, using a poster of the Channel Seven weatherman; only someone has ripped off half the poster and drawn a penis on his head. I don’t understand why graffiti seems to be so predominately penis-themed. I think it is a question to ponder another day.
Joshua keeps shooting looks at me. I’m starting to feel a little light-headed, slightly disconnected from my body. Though maybe this is a good thing? Perhaps if I can’t invoke a new personality in the next thirty seconds, I can leave my old one out on the street, like a gecko shedding a useless skin.
In front of a peeling blue door is a small group of people sitting on milk crates. The place looks like the back end of a dilapidat
ed bar.
A scruffy guy in a beanie, about our age, is sitting on a deck chair, holding a guitar. He’s playing a song that everyone else seems to know. Another guy, clean-shaven and wearing glasses and a matching beanie, is leaning lazily against his legs. Guitar-guy finishes playing to a smattering of applause. Glasses guy gazes up at him all moo-eyed. Someone else grabs the guitar, and the two guys mash their lips together.
Joshua waves at the people lingering near the door, and then he leads us inside.
‘Um. Oh,’ is all I’m capable of saying.
Beside me, Joshua grimaces. ‘Yeah. I know.’
The inside is something of a cross between a country pub my family visited once, and the house of a hoarder with eighteen cats that I saw on TV at Elsie’s. It’s jammed with ill-assorted furniture and giant speakers that are vibrating with the force of the music. It’s also wall-to-wall with yelling, laughing, gesticulating people, who all look like they dressed haphazardly in the dark. There seems to be a preponderance of tattoos, and unnaturally coloured hair, and beards.
I hug my jacket around me, unaccountably glad I picked my knee-length coat, even though it’s as humid as a greenhouse in here. Fashion is confusing, but the plain green dress I’m wearing is unmistakably out of place. It’s like that time I showed up at the Nayers’ wedding anniversary wearing jeans and a sweatshirt Raj gave me for my birthday. The sweatshirt featured the slogan ‘fractions speak louder than nerds’. For a long time I didn’t know what I had done wrong, only that I suffered through the night fielding brutal looks from various Indian aunts, with that horrible lingering feeling of having made a faux pas that I could have avoided by staying at home.