Almost a Mirror

by Kirsten Krauth

  She leans in. The smell is strong, like vanilla. Milkshake syrup thick.

  The flower heads start to curve upwards towards the sky and then the petals open. Come back in a few hours and you’ll see.

  Upstairs from Dodge’s studio, Jimmy hauls books off the shelves and reads out bits to Mona when she points out the images she likes.

  Titian. Rembrandt. Grünewald.

  They wrestle with the fold-out couch and unfurl their sleeping bags.

  She wishes she could live here in Dodge’s little library.

  Jimmy picks up a cherry from the bowl and throws it in the air, catching it in his teeth.

  He spits out the pip.

  He throws a cherry for her. She misses it by a mile. He carries it to her in his mouth and sticks it between her lips with a flick of the tongue.

  Want me to pop your cherry? he says.

  She spits the seed and it hits him on the chest.

  Too late for that.

  Let’s play the game, Jimmy says.

  Okay, if you could be an artwork, what would it be? she asks.

  I’d be an El Greco. The boy blowing on a flame, lighting the candle. It’s like he’s lit from within.

  You always choose that one.

  She gets the book out of her bag and tries to get comfortable in the corduroy beanbag. Whenever she moves, different parts of it bulge and poke her. She lies on the sofa bed instead and curls up on her side.

  What’s the book about?

  A girl and her brother trapped in an attic and now they’re going to have sex. I’ve read it before.

  Does it look like we’re going to have sex too?

  If you read it to me, we might.

  She hands over the book.

  Dodge comes up the stairs with two glasses of Southern Comfort and Coke on a tray.

  He smiles at Mona.

  I’ve got a surprise for you.

  What is it?

  Come on, you know I’m good at keeping secrets.

  He flicks his eyes at Jimmy and heads down into his studio.

  When he’s gone, Jimmy slips his finger into a slit in her jeans.

  Can’t we skip the reading?

  It’s hard to move in her black lace bodice, snapped between legs and tugging up. As his finger negotiates her body, he swears.

  You’re dressed up like a fortress.

  Before they left Castlemaine, she’d ripped her jeans with Stanley knife precision. The gaps in the fabric were so wide she wore stripy leggings underneath.

  She wonders how long the jeans will last before they completely fall apart.

  She laughs.

  It’s more fun with more layers to take off, she says.

  She swirls the sweet spiced whisky in her mouth and kisses him before he gives up and heads downstairs.

  The smell of cooking curry wakes her up. Dodge’s house always absorbs spices. The rich warmth of browning onions matches the dark wood.

  A crowd’s out there now. Siren calls of laughter.

  She watches from the window, wondering what she’s going to talk about.

  They all seem to be wearing patterns that hurt her eyes.

  She heads outside to where Dodge is handing out plates of rice. He’s put big pillows and beanbags out the back and people are lying down. Some kissing, some pretending not to watch others kissing.

  Jimmy’s just out of reach, joint in one hand, Southern Comfort in the other.

  She lunges at him and takes his glass then sculls it before he can stop her. The Cure comes on and he pulls her close. They stand together, not really moving.

  Looks like Dodge has come into the twentieth century. Who chose the music? Mona asks.

  Jimmy smiles.

  I put some tapes together.

  Thought it was weird they were all your favourite songs.

  He points to a few teenagers, faces she knows from Dodge’s photographs, playing guitar and talking on the cushions. Everyone here seems really young or really old.

  You know, tonight? I thought it was just going to be us, she says.

  She puts her hand in his back pocket.

  Hang on, sit down, wait there!

  Jimmy pushes her onto a chair at the trestle table.

  He heads into the house and comes back carrying a large crystal bowl in one hand and lit sparklers in the other.

  Dodge starts off the round and she sits forward staring at the ground as all the strangers sing happy birthday.

  Jimmy runs towards her and shoves the sparklers in her hands like a bouquet of metal chrysanthemums, showering fire.

  Little sparks burn through her jeans, caught in the ripped edges.

  The crowd get to Happy Birthday, dear … and Jimmy goes shit! shit! and stabs at the tablecloth where small black holes flicker red in the white linen.

  She drops the sparklers on the ground and jumps to her feet, brushing the ash from her leggings. An acrid smell fills the garden and hurts her eyes.

  Jimmy stamps the embers out.

  What are they, fireworks? I’ve never seen them explode like that, Mona says.

  I lit the whole packet for you.

  Dodge hands her a big metal spoon.

  Make a wish, make a wish, everyone chants.

  Don’t hit the bottom!

  Does it count if it’s a spoon?

  It’s my favourite, Mona says.

  Jimmy grabs her hand.

  I got the recipe from Kaz and Dodge helped me make the custard.

  The spoon goes in through the jelly and cream and sodden biscuits like an incision into soft belly.

  She brings up the layers and they look beautiful for a moment before she dumps them into her bowl in a big colourful mess.

  As she puts the spoon in her mouth, Jimmy yells.

  Hang on! There’s one more thing!

  Dodge comes to the table and puts a present down beside her. He gives her a kiss on the head. It’s wrapped so tight it’s hard to open, sweet green curls of ribbon.

  She gives it a small shake.

  Gentle!

  She puts it aside to open later.

  Eating the trifle, her mouth tingles with the sharp metallic taste of aluminium.

  Mona wanders around the party with her present. Everyone wants to see how it works. They stand, looking at the camera, touching her. Asking for polaroids.

  You can keep that one, it’s fine, she says.

  People come up and pose. They all look the same as they watch the little mouth spit out the picture. The smiles on their faces like younger versions of themselves as they wave the photos around, drying in the breeze.

  They bend their heads together, echoing the flowers, and wait, watching printed light emerge out of the darkness as if from their own hands.

  It’s magic, isn’t it? Mona says.

  She holds the camera out in front of herself and Jimmy, arm wobbling with the weight.

  You always have your eyes shut, Jimmy!

  Again!

  Jimmy grabs the cocktail shaker.

  Would you like a Slippery Nipple? he asks.

  How do you even know what to put in it?

  He pours in crème de menthe, Baileys and Bacardi, and brandishes it above his head.

  I don’t. I just wanted to say Slippery Nipple.

  He hands her a glass. It seems curdled but she tries a sip as they look up.

  Jimmy moves away with the breeze and then everyone in the garden feels it. The cool change. Their bodies weather it.

  She’s ready to dance and as she bounces she loses Jimmy for a while.

  The flowers hover above, dainty plates spinning. The honeysuckle fragrance fills the yard and her Slippery Nipple tastes of it.

  But then he’s found. Lying down, lost in velvet.

  In a lush corner of the garden.

  He smiles at her but his arms are floppy as Dodge embraces him. She dances with the others.

  He’s pushed into a corner. He’s out of focus.

  She stalks the boundaries, the
Slippery Nipple making her spin. Her fingers start to ache as she holds her new camera.

  A flash is all it takes. Jimmy’s face pale. Dodge fuzzy around the edges. The uneasy sheen of a photo forgotten.

  Glossed over.

  She looks through the small viewfinder, hoping to capture the moment.

  The moment of unfurling flowers, of final display.

  ROOMS FOR THE MEMORY

  Melbourne, 1981

  Benny watches the ebb and flow, a pulsing current of all-sorts, move up and down the marble staircase and into the decayed grandeur of the Ballroom.

  Any hanger-on the band has ever met has been shown the secret way through the fire exit and the place is packed.

  The stairs are the place to be seen.

  Still they come.

  He can spot them now. From the outer suburbs, across the river, around the corner. The arts crowd in hand-painted T-shirts, the Rowland fans in badly fitting suits, the glam in ballgowns and red lipstick, the romantic leading men in silk scarves and purple velvet with girls trailing behind, the English punks in their Docs and tight jeans.

  All the people he never sees on the Broadmeadows train.

  All on the move, all leaving some part of themselves behind at the door, looking for adventure in the dark.

  The stream occasionally parts around a couple halfway up the stairs, wedged into a corner kissing, gold-dusted and glamorous. A stained-glass window with St George and the Dragon looks down on them, a small red cross blessing, the wood panelling like pews.

  Before they part, the girl looks up and sighs.

  Benny follows her gaze to the goddess on the ceiling, reclining on her bed, holding a mirror to the river passing below.

  On his way to the stage, weaving past the crystal ball pockmarked by greedy fingers, Benny gets caught in a rip of seething bodies moving back out to the bar.

  The room has the dog smell of damp woollen coats.

  Like many in the crowd, he’s wearing a black suit, too big, with a thin leather tie. His sharp white collar is done up tight and he feels hot.

  He tries to wade back against the tide but nearly everyone is taller than he is.

  Men laze in archways drinking longnecks while girls move faster, clutching small bottles of cider, plastic cups perched upside down on top like little hats.

  Everywhere, people lean and hands fidget. To find smokes, to light them, to share tokes with strangers they want to touch later.

  The mirrors reflect chandelier dazzle onto the boys and girls with David Bowie glitter in their hair.

  The ghosts of the Boys Next Door still live downstairs in the bar. Nick Cave was always the first person Benny noticed when he came in.

  When he climbs up on stage he’s the only one in the band who hasn’t been drinking all day. Guy has prepared him for the half-circle of indifference around the stage but Benny sings out to a full house.

  They’re all here for The Cure.

  He looks down at the mic or up at the chandeliers. The room whirls around him like a waltz.

  They do that strange dance weaving spider webs with their fingers.

  The melody defies him as he reaches for it and a couple of chic girls in stripey T-shirts turn around with their backs to him. As if they’re waiting for someone else.

  But soon the power of the sound hits the guys in the front row and Guy starts to move lightly on his feet and jab like a boxer.

  Benny’s nerves spiral into a howl that comes out of nowhere, his heart percussive.

  The beat of Lucky pounding the iron tank with a spanner bangs the crowd into a kind of awed submission. Each punch of the tank spurts a drip of water onto the stage.

  Benny wants to dance but he is anchored by the guitar. He wants to throw the thing off.

  In the sweaty faces looking up from the floor he feels the shape of him outlined, in sharp contrast to the boy he knows.

  The men at the front, they can’t move as more people push into the room. They start making the beat, heads and shoulders in time. They start to jump, the sprung floor bouncing with them.

  Benny sees the desire. To touch each other as they pogo, their bodies stiff, bulls with crushing horns.

  A gentle acid rain starts to fall on him and the stage gets slippery.

  Drips from the ceiling as the evaporated sweat of the men condenses.

  He imagines the plaster falling on the punters in the room below.

  Smash starts drumming faster, wanting to get off.

  But Benny feels like he’s just getting started.

  He takes his guitar and throws it, launching it into the drum kit, and he runs.

  His feet slip in drool from the tank and he kicks water into the faces of the men in the first row. When he goes to kiss the mic goodbye, a shock zaps through his lips, jolts his shoulders back. Fried tongue on a plate.

  As his head charges into the cymbals with a crash to end it, he feels the cuts and the burns. The wounds on his smooth face.

  The bruises to come that will make the moment last.

  When they come offstage, Guy takes his desert boot off and tips it upside down, pouring a stream of water onto the rusty carpet.

  Connie leads Benny downstairs.

  Corridors into darkness, doors locked, inaccessible. Trespassing in some rich person’s dilapidated mansion.

  A large crucifix hangs on a barrier blocking off a staircase, desecrated. Only the nailed hands of Jesus remain, tortured birds on a perch.

  In the bar, seven-inch singles are thumbtacked to the ceiling, some dangling, some smashed on the floor. ‘Itchycoo Park’. Sixties bands.

  At home Benny’s got a collection of Crystal Ballroom Records. Special-pressed singles they give away at the end of the night. He’s also got a crystal Guy stole from the chandelier.

  Connie laughs.

  It’s our first gig and we’ve already made it.

  Sandwiches!

  The others in line step back as Benny lunges for them.

  He takes a handful and crams the bread and mortadella in his mouth. Tomato sauce drops onto his crisp shirt.

  Connie tries to wipe it off with her finger, a smear of blood between buttons.

  Guy always gets any leftovers at the end of the night.

  Benny puts his jacket back on.

  An old man comes in, blinking in the dark, holding his hands over his ears.

  He stares at Benny and grabs Connie’s sleeve.

  He’s wearing dirty striped pyjamas and a blue dressing gown pulled in tight at the waist, slippers that fall off his feet.

  It’s okay, Georg. Are you hungry?

  She hands him a sandwich which he puts in his pocket.

  What are you all doing here? he whispers.

  It’s okay, Georg. Do you want me to help you back upstairs?

  He shakes his head and takes the stairs one at a time, bent, and feeling with his feet.

  Connie stands at the bottom of the stairs, waving back, hesitant.

  I’m always scared he’s going to fall down the stairs.

  How do you know him? Benny asks.

  Everyone knows Georg from the Ballroom.

  Connie leads Benny down another flight, into the underground bar. The walls are so black the shadows are reflective.

  Benny doesn’t have to worry. No one ever asks him how old he is.

  A large man lies on top of the bar. He’s wearing a leather waistcoat and his pale bearded face looks tired, puffy, as if he’s lost his glasses.

  His arms dangle over the edge. A tattoo on his forearm, a stark sundial against his skin.

  Connie sees Benny looking at it.

  For a second I thought it was Guy, he says.

  It looks nothing like him.

  Same tattoo.

  Benny waits for the guy to roll over and fall off.

  The room is still.

  The bikies are drinking and the glasses are piled up on the tables but no one is talking. There is no music.

  Benny looks up and sees
boots walking past the small windows above him on the street.

  The guy on the bar’s not breathing.

  Connie hisses at him.

  It’s a fucking wake. Fucking turn around! Or you’ll be the next guy lying on that bar.

  They head back up to the foyer, where Tina Turner is pouring out of the speakers and Connie grabs Benny and shapes him in her hands, deep, high.

  A strange smell is coming off her body, toxic, chemical, like oven cleaner. Benny pulls back from her and closes his eyes, his arms reaching out for fresh air.

  As he dances he sees the floor that night. Cold Chisel sweat extending to Top 40 mixes.

  He sees himself dancing under the blue lights in a Kmart shirt that his girlfriend had ripped the sleeves off.

  The only boy on the dance floor.

  He sees a man standing in front of him. And a punch in the face that comes from nowhere.

  The seams are coming apart.

  Benny takes off his tie, then his suit, then his shirt, and spins. He makes a wager with the world, sees that everything is up for grabs.

  He sees what’s possible.

  He lets the rhythm hammer him as he whirls around the girls in the room, beating like the small hand of a clock.

  He sees a new wave rushing to meet him.

  The world outside disappears for a moment and then the music is gone and he wants it back.

  EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD

  Castlemaine, 1987

  Mona can’t get rid of them. The photos that don’t work out.

  She puts collages on the bungalow wall. The contact sheets.

  At the tech she tests for exposure times. To see which exposure works best for each photo. Jimmy sneaks her in after class.

  They’re mainly shots of flowers in the garden. Chrysanthemums in bloom. Geraniums.

  The same images, strips and prints. Like something she’s created that she can keep. She sits in her room and pores over them. Like her old letters, photos, diaries.

  There’s an album of polaroids from the Melbourne zoo. A whole collection of animals she can’t quite make out.

  Chrysanthemums in a vase.

  She repots geraniums and grows cuttings and moves the pots around from place to place until she wants to photograph them.

  She sticks postcards of Barcelona to the wall with Blue-Tack.

  They fall off in the night.