Days like that brought out the best in people; in a little under an hour I’d made thirty-eight dollars. But by midday the sun was overhead and I’d fallen into shade. There was too much foot traffic outside a gallery, squeezed between a couple of cafés, too many shoes scuffing through my words, leaving them smeared and unreadable. I started packing away my chalk and prepared to move to another spot.
I lingered a few minutes too long, mesmerised by a painting in the gallery window—a woman, standing still in a city street while people jostled past. She was rendered in black and white as if she hadn’t been finished. The rest of the streetscape was in vivid colour. Her face was expressionless and her feet were anchored in concrete. The brushstrokes were thick and glossy as butter; it was the kind of painting you itch to touch.
The artist had so perfectly captured my feeling of isolation—of being different, motionless, while everyone around me was moving—I reached out. I pressed my hand to the window. My palm left a faint, chalky imprint on the glass, like it had been dusted for fingerprints. I saw the reflection of someone just behind me, a young woman. She was staring at the painting too.
I gave her a quick smile and made room.
‘It’s pretty,’ she said.
I nodded.
‘Makes you want to touch it.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Do you paint?’ she asked.
I shook my head.
‘Do you do anything?’
It was a pointed question from someone I had never met. I frowned and looked at her more closely.
She was in her early twenties, dressed smartly in suit pants and a matching jacket. Her hair was cut blunt, dyed a colour too red to be real. She held a briefcase-style handbag that looked heavy enough to be carrying bricks, and her shoes were plain black, flat and scuffed. Cheap shoes. There was a newspaper tucked under her arm.
‘Are you living on the street?’
‘What?’
That was like asking if you’d ever wet the bed. I took it as personal and offensive, even though it was just a straight-up question with a straight-up answer. I was wary and I backed away.
She reached out and touched my arm. ‘Don’t go. I want to ask you some questions. If that’s okay?’
‘I’m in a hurry,’ I said.
There was something about her that made me squirm. Her eyes were too blue and direct. She was looking at me as if I was something she wanted to unravel.
‘Look, I’m sorry…maybe I should explain who I am?’ She sighed like I should have known who she was, and handed me a business card. ‘I’m Alison Dunne. I’m a journalist.’
‘That’s not what the card says.’ It only had her name and a picture of a typewriter. ‘You look a bit young to be a journalist.’
‘Actually, I’m an intern,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m writing a profile piece on some of the city’s homeless.’
‘Do they let interns do that?’
She blushed and seemed uncomfortable.
I held out her card. ‘I can’t help you.’
‘Keep it. Maybe I can help you.’
‘I don’t think so.’ I picked up a stray piece of chalk that was too worn to use again and flicked it into a rubbish bin. ‘You have a good day.’
‘Wait. Why won’t you talk to me? I want to know why you would choose to live on the street. Tell your side of the story.’ She fell into step behind me.
‘Stop following me.’
‘If you tell me your story.’
‘What story?’ I said over my shoulder. ‘I don’t have a story. What makes you think I’m even living on the street? And what makes you think it’s a choice for some people?’
‘Some people,’ she said. ‘But not you.’
Something in her tone made me stop.
She opened the newspaper and snapped out the crease. She licked her finger between pages. It reminded me of Vivienne, thumbing through a book of maps, singing eeny-meeny-miney-mo.
‘This is you. You’ve cut your hair, but it’s you.’
She showed me a smaller version of the train station photo, next to a précis of the saved-baby story. Relegated to page fourteen, but still there, weeks later. It was accompanied by an article about the dangers of sloping platforms.
‘That’s not me,’ I said.
The sly look came back. Her red fringe hung so perfectly straight I wanted to hack a big V in it with a pair of sharp scissors.
‘So, if that’s not you…’ she opened the paper to another page, ‘…and this isn’t you, then tell me why there are two people who look exactly like you taking up space in the paper this week. Look.’
I felt the sudden ache of shock. My hands were instantly clammy.
MISSING, it said in black, fat letters. Smaller: Liliane Brown, 17 years, 157cm, dark brown hair, grey eyes.
The print underneath was too small to read without leaning over the bloodhound’s shoulder, but there was no mistake. The girl was me. The photo was taken two years before, when I still had some idea of who I was and where I was going and who I was going there with. My hair was so long it ended out of the shot. My gaze was steady and knowing, which was weird, because back then I didn’t know anything. Not about death or about losing everything I had that defined me, about love—nothing at all.
‘Do you realise how much it costs to put a half-page ad in a newspaper?’
I shrugged.
‘So, who’s trying to find you?’
I smiled at her. She seemed caught off-guard and took a step back.
It wasn’t exactly a revelation; I knew who was looking for me. I knew exactly who could afford a halfpage ad, who was rattling around in an empty mansion, who thought he owed a debt to his dead daughter and runaway granddaughter. I figured he had too much time and money and guilt. In a city where it should have been easy to disappear, I’d turned into a billboard.
The bloodhound’s cogs were turning. She was stuck between digging deeper and letting me speak, trying to figure out whether her best strategy was attack or retreat.
‘What would you say if I called this number and told the police I’d found you?’ She tapped the bottom of the ad.
‘I’d say that the whole point of disappearing is not to be found.’
‘Okay, so what if I don’t tell anyone. Instead, you tell me your story?’
‘I’d say what I said before.’ I leaned close and breathed in her ear. ‘I don’t have a story.’
I gave her credit for persistence. She chased me for a few blocks, but eventually gave up. Following Silence around had given me a crash-course in jaywalking, slip-streaming and evading capture. I outran her in no time.
When I finally stopped running, I realised I still had her homemade card clenched in my hand.
I tore it in half and tossed it. The breeze caught one half, the half with her number, and blew it back. It stuck to my shoe, but I shook it off.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I dreamed about water.
I was the clueless girl who opened the door that she shouldn’t, who ignored all the signs telling me to leave it closed. There was the cinematic suspenseful music, the close-up of my hand turning the handle, the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. My hair was long again, whisper-soft against my bare back, and I was naked. The door beckoned, yet repelled.
I opened it, stepped through, let it slam behind me.
I was standing in a long, grey corridor with another closed door at the far end. There were five people, like wax mannequins, lined up along the corridor, arms outstretched. Their faces were blank, no eyes, noses or mouths. Four held objects, offerings: a bundle of clothing, a pair of scissors, a key and a pair of boots. The fifth held out an empty hand.
I knew instinctively that I could choose only three and that I had to use them in the correct order, like a game of strategy. I heard a steady drip, drip, drip and felt bulldust under my feet even though the floor was cold, cold concrete. A chilled draft wound itself around my legs. There was a hand in the small of my back, pus
hing me towards the other end of the corridor. When I turned around, there was nobody there.
I chose the key, of course. I chose the clothes, because I was cold. And I chose my boots.
There were four skirts, seven blouses, three pairs of stockings and one Sunday hat—I put them all on and immediately felt a weight, not just physical, as if all the good had been sucked out of me. I put my boots on and laced them tightly to mid-calf. The key was in my fist, solid and certain, but when I tried to fit it into the lock it shattered into four rusted, metal screws.
I felt no fear. Only fury.
I kicked the door as hard as I could but it was impenetrable. I beat it until my hands were bleeding and I realised that I was alone. Creeping vines had grown over both doors and the ends were coiling around my ankles. The mannequins were gone, the pressure on my back released.
In the silence, I heard a click. A latch being released. I went back to the first door but as I got there it locked again. Click. The other door unlocked itself. I ran to it but the same thing happened—click.
I positioned myself in the middle of the corridor and took off my boots. I stripped off the clothes and left them in a pile. Lighter. Nothing to weigh me down. But it made no difference, I was still too slow. The doors locked themselves just as I grasped the handle, every time.
Bawling, I collapsed, choking in bulldust I could feel but couldn’t see. Dust that then began turning to mud—water was seeping like dark blood through the cracks beneath the doors, rising, up, up, to my chest, to my chin, to my face. But I couldn’t breathe because I had no eyes no nose no mouth…
I woke. That’s when you’re supposed to feel relief that it’s just a dream and even though the dread lingers, you can savour it because it isn’t real. And I could have stayed safe in that realisation if I hadn’t sat up and turned around.
My pillow was damp. It might have been the sweat of fear, but there were several long hairs on my pillow that I could have sworn weren’t there before. They were mine. I reached up and touched the stalks on my head—still short.
It was as if a hole had been punched between worlds.
The others were still sleeping. I knew I had woken myself with a noise—a gasp or a moan—but nobody had stirred. I staggered upstairs to the bathroom, dry-mouthed and panicky. I glanced sideways at my reflection and found nothing familiar—cropped hair, dilated pupils, pale as death. I splashed freezing water on my skin and the pipes rattled all through the house.
I tiptoed down to the kitchen. I wanted some time to myself to shake off the disorientation, but Arden joined me after a few minutes.
‘Hey,’ she said, eyes still puffy with sleep. ‘You’re up early.’
‘Bad dream,’ I said and cupped my hands around my steaming mug.
‘Wish asked about you,’ she said, out of the blue. She cocked her head, as if she was trying to decide whether she cared about that, or not. She reboiled the penguin kettle and held a flattened hand over the steam. ‘Looks like he’s finally getting on with his life.’
‘I didn’t know you were…’ I stopped. I let her talk. I’d made up some smooth explanations in my mind, like they were neighbours, he was just an old boyfriend, a relationship that didn’t work out. Funny, the spin you can put on something to avoid the truth. The last thing I wanted to suspect was that they were connected by something that couldn’t be broken.
‘It’s hard, seeing him again,’ she admitted. It sounded flippant, but there was an edge of emotion. ‘When I left home the first time, he wanted to take care of me, make sure I stayed out of trouble.’
‘Why did you leave home?’
She gave me a sharp look. ‘It was leave, or suffocate. The old man’s a cop. The worst kind. A control freak. Used to lock me up whenever I got out of line, you know, slap me around a bit.’
‘I’ve never had a father,’ I confessed. ‘It was just me and my mum.’
‘Well, you’re lucky,’ she said. ‘I think I could have been close to my mum if he hadn’t kept getting in the way. She only ever stood up for me once and he made sure it was the last time. Knocked her silly. That was the first time I left, when I was fifteen. He’s dragged me back a few times, but I think he’s given up now.’
‘Hence the tattoo?’ I asked. ‘No more tears?’
Arden smiled. ‘It sounds like a shampoo ad when you say it like that.’ She tossed her hair. ‘There comes a time when you decide you’re done playing the victim. It just came a bit sooner for me.’ She sipped and winced. ‘Ouch. Too hot.’ She looked relaxed and happy. Softer, as if sleep had rubbed away her sharp edges.
‘So, what did he say?’ I ventured. I had to ask.
‘Who?’
‘Wish,’ I said, stumbling over that single syllable.
She sat across from me and rested her chin on her hands. Stabbed me with her stare. ‘Nothing Wish wouldn’t say about anyone else. He was worried that I took advantage of you. He said you looked lost.’
‘Really?’ I choked out.
‘He said you were pathetic, if you must know. So is that what I did? Did I make you do something you didn’t want to?’
‘No,’ I lied out of pride. I rephrased it to convince myself. ‘It’s no big deal.’
‘Wish wants to save everybody,’ she said. ‘But he and Malik hate each other. It’s impossible. I can’t have them both.’
Carrie and Darcy wandered in.
Arden closed up.
A few minutes later AiAi was bouncing off the walls and Silence was brooding and Joe was trying to make conversation with anyone who’d listen.
I felt squeezed out. I went to our room and made my bed, quietly, so I wouldn’t disturb Bree.
She woke anyway, blinking and groaning.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘S’okay.’
I picked up another long hair from my pillow and wound it around my finger until the tip turned purple. When I released it the sudden flow made my finger throb. I dressed slowly because my hands weren’t working properly, fumbled with my laces, one of them so frayed it snapped. I rethreaded it and tied a minuscule bow that barely held.
‘Where did you go last night?’ Bree asked.
‘Shower. At the Y.’
‘No, after that. I woke up and you weren’t here.’
‘I was here all night,’ I said. ‘Right there, next to Silence.’
‘Whatever you say.’ She winked.
‘No, really,’ I protested.
I remembered the dream and wondered if my subconscious could spirit my physical being away, if I really wished I was somewhere else.
I found Silence on the stairs again, papering the walls.
‘What’s up?’ I asked him.
He flashed me his notebook. He’d been writing. There was a page full of scrawl, a neat, tight first sentence that turned into lopsided scribble, as if he’d written it in the dark. The final sentence ran off the paper.
I sat on the step next to him.
‘Can I see?’
He shook his head and glanced furtively at the wall.
I looked up. There was a page of his writing plastered over the top of his hero clippings.
I am nothing.
I feel like nothing.
I want my life to matter.
What if one day I’m gone and nobody ever knew I existed?
‘You’re quite the philosopher,’ I said gently.
He grabbed my arm and squeezed it, a sudden move that made me flinch.
‘What? What is it? Has something happened?’
He shook his head fiercely and pressed a fist against his temple, as if there was a voice inside his head.
I felt the same frustration and helplessness that I used to feel when Vivienne started rolling down her slope, throwing our gear into a suitcase, flipping her thumb on a highway somewhere. Why did everyone have to be so goddamn needy? I knew that feeling of panic, too. I was hard-wired to run when I cared too much.
I prised his fingers from my arm and stood
up. ‘Look, I don’t understand. I can’t help you. I don’t know what you want from me—I’m barely holding it together myself.’
He slumped. Snapped his notebook shut. Squeezed his eyes shut.
‘I have to get going. I’m still short this week. Will you be okay?’
Silence nodded but I knew he didn’t mean it. Still, it was enough for me to disengage, to walk away from him. I felt guilt, followed by relief that I could still do that. Walk away.
At about nine, we all left the house and headed off to ‘work’.
What started in the spirit of freedom was beginning to feel like a cycle of pointless wandering. Incarceration in a wide-open space: no bars or locks, but a prison just the same.
The city was cloudy and grey. The people were moody and miserable and I spent ages trying to write something inspiring. I ended up with a numb backside and three stilted lines. Nobody gave me money.
On a whim, I went to the university and hung around for a few hours outside the library building. I lolled on the grass with students, mingled with the swarm between classes. I bought a coffee in the student cafeteria, thumbed through books in the library and smiled at strangers. I gave myself a new name, a new address, a new look, a new personality, a new past.
For three and a half hours I pretended to be someone else.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By early afternoon I was back at the squat. I felt jumpy.
I punched the trapdoor open and it swung back hard, into my shoulder. The grass was flattened all over the backyard. Dying off. A workman stood on a ladder behind the house next door. I ducked and tried to slink past, but he spotted me. He waved and, a reflex, I waved back.
In my absence, a towering stack had appeared in the cellar, under a tarpaulin in the corner beneath the stairs. A battered jerry can was tipped on its side and the air smelled strongly of petrol.
I ran my finger around the nozzle and sniffed.
I had hoped the house would be empty but Arden rarely went out during the daytime and Malik always slept then.
Darcy was in the kitchen, making a coffee. She jumped. ‘Shit. What are you doing here?’
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