A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists

by Jane Rawson

  ‘Not so officy now, huh? Check this out.’

  He took her hand and stepped forward. The moon was dark red above them, then exploding into a billion pieces, Caddy screamed and Ray pulled her back out the door again.

  ‘Full on, huh?’ he said.

  She nodded, biting her bottom lip.

  ‘Want to try another one?’

  ‘Do you have something nicer?’

  He stepped her forward into ‘They’re dogs, but they’re knitting jumpers!’, which she liked a bit more.

  ‘Shall we go visit Simon and Sarah?’ he asked.

  ‘Ray,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘How will we find them? By now they should be off seeing Oregon or something. Oh no, wait, they were going to head back east again, weren’t they. Nevada then, I guess. Shouldn’t they be in Nevada? Does that mean we’ll go into San Francisco, where you were before, or will we go wherever they are?’

  Ray shrugged.

  ‘Cause if we go into San Francisco, well, they won’t be there anymore and we’ll have to go find them somehow, in all of America. But if they’re in Nevada and we go there, you’ll be unhappy because you wanted to go to San Francisco.’

  ‘These are all excellent questions, Caddy. I have no idea about the answers. Shall we try it and see?’ said Ray.

  ‘I bet we end up on the footy field with the guns.’

  ‘It’s more than possible.’

  They stepped forward, and they were in a dark room swimming with faces, some with bits of bodies attached to them – most popularly, shoulders and arses – some fully equipped and in suits, some entire and naked, plus a few penises attached to nothing else at all. The faces were all identical.

  ‘This is weird,’ said Ray.

  ‘I know that face,’ said Caddy.

  ‘How about the dicks? Know any of them?’

  ‘Shut up, I’m trying to think …’

  ‘Hi,’ said one of the faces. ‘You look lovely.’

  ‘Are you talking to me?’ said Ray.

  The face spoke again, ‘What’s that perfume you’re wearing? It’s intoxicating!’

  ‘I don’t think he’s talking to you, Ray.’

  One of the other faces piped up, ‘I had a pretty difficult childhood. So far I’ve never met anyone I could really trust. But you seem nice.’

  Another said, ‘No, I love children! The idea of being a step dad really appeals to me!’

  From behind her, Caddy heard another voice, ‘Can you twist it till it hurts?’

  Are you sure you know this guy?’ Ray asked.

  ‘Tarkin Collins,’ said Caddy.

  ‘Farking Collins?’ Ray replied.

  ‘Yep. That’s Tarkin Collins. Not the dead one, so much. But the face. That’s his picture on Lavalife. What did you say this place is?’

  ‘Suspended Imaginums.’

  ‘What does that mean, really?’

  ‘Oh my god! I love I Claudius too! No way! Do you like The Princess Bride?’ said a half-formed body in a thin, clingy T-shirt that showed pierced nipples.

  ‘It means these are things that someone imagined, then gave up on.’

  Caddy stared at the body parts milling around.

  ‘You want to go?’ said Ray.

  ‘Hang on, here’s a crazy theory,’ Caddy said. ‘Say someone looked at Tarkin’s pic on Lavalife, spent a bit of time thinking about what he might be like, then moved on to look at someone else and forgot all about him.’

  ‘So, never emailed him, never met the real Tarkin.’

  ‘Or maybe even met the real Tarkin and realized he was nothing like the imaginary Tarkin.’

  ‘It is true that only an imaginary person would claim to love the idea of being a step dad.’

  ‘Ray!’

  ‘No, seriously.’

  ‘Really, I think it’s sexy that you earn twice as much as me. Besides, I can always stay home and bake!’ butted in another Tarkin.

  ‘Imaginary,’ said Caddy.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Ray. ‘I’d love to stay home and bake.’

  ‘What have you ever baked?’

  ‘Nothing. But I’ve never been with anyone who earns twice as much as me.’

  ‘Maybe if you ditched the bumbag you’d have more luck.’

  ‘Really? Do you think so?’

  ‘Sure I can take my shoes off and roll my pants up a little,’ said one of the suited Tarkins.

  ‘An attitude like that,’ Caddy said, ‘would definitely get you a long way. Hey, do you think the dead Tarkin could have escaped from imaginary land? Do things escape from here?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘I hope that moon doesn’t escape.’

  ‘Shall we get out of here?’

  They stepped back out the door.

  ‘That dead fake Tarkin I found left a really weird shadow on the ground when we moved his body,’ Caddy said. ‘Do you think that was something to do with him being imaginary?’

  ‘No idea. If you want we could go ask the hot chick over in Shadow Storage and Retrieval. I wouldn’t mind visiting her again.’

  ‘I bet your imaginary version of her is in here somewhere.’

  ‘Remind me never to bring my mother to Suspended Ims, OK?’

  ‘Ray, never bring your …’

  ‘Shut up, Cad.’

  They stepped forward again and they were standing at the top of a park, the fog just starting to come in over the hills to their left.

  ‘San Francisco?’ Caddy asked.

  ‘San Francisco,’ Ray replied.

  A bulldog, off lead, sprinted toward them, stopped to give them a drooly, jowly grin, and sprinted off again.

  ‘Is that …?’ Ray asked.

  ‘You bet,’ said Caddy. She wondered if somewhere in Suspended Ims, she could step into her old house and find Harry there, making something good on the stove for their dinner. ‘Do you want to go look for those kids then?’

  ‘I guess. It’s nice here, huh? All cool.’

  And it was. It was pretty much just how Caddy had imagined it. Despite herself, she was surprised. ‘I like how the park is all grassy and there aren’t any humpies on it. Maybe we should lie on the grass in the shade for a while,’ she said. A nice lie down, that’s what she needed. To just sleep on the grass for a while.

  In the dappled shade of some ridiculously leafy tree, Ray and Caddy got down on the grass and stretched out on their backs. Some dogs ran by, and a small child stopped playing for a while to stare at them. Couples passed by carrying take away lattes, and they could hear a seemingly non-stop game of Ultimate Frisbee up the hill behind them.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone have anything to sell?’ Caddy asked, opening one eye and turning her head to talk to Ray. ‘Everyone’s just wandering around, all aimlessly.’

  ‘I guess it’s the weekend and they all have jobs.’

  ‘Weekend?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. You know, when people have actual jobs, sometimes they get two days off out of every seven days.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really! OK, it doesn’t happen so much now. I mean then. When we’re from. But it’s kind of how things are meant to be.’

  ‘I knew there was a reason I sometimes thought about trying to get a job.’

  ‘You probably wouldn’t get weekends now, Cad. I mean, then.’

  ‘When is now, again?’

  ‘Nineteen ninety seven, duh. The year you were born.’

  ‘Oh! Of course. What month is it? Am I born yet?’

  ‘I don’t know. You want to ask someone?’

  ‘Not really. I’d rather just go to sleep for a bit. What time is it here?’

  Ray looked at his watch. ‘Nearly four.’

  ‘When will the sun go down?’

  ‘Why do you think I know everything?’

  ‘Because you do.’

  ‘I don’t know when the sun will go down. But how about we find somewhere to stash our bags, and then we can
have a look around.’

  ‘We could sleep here tonight.’

  ‘It gets cold at night, Cad. We’re not used to it.’

  ‘Hello Ray.’

  Ray rolled over on his stomach and looked up into the sun. It was Sarah.

  ‘Hi Sarah.’

  Caddy tried to hide her face with her arms. Then she remembered Sarah had no idea that she even existed, let alone what she looked like. What did Sarah look like? She sat up.

  Ray was asking Sarah where Simon was.

  ‘He’s at the end of the world,’ said Sarah. ‘Who’s the lady?’

  ‘Is that a café or something?’

  ‘Is what a café or something?’

  ‘The End of the World.’

  ‘No, it’s the real end of the world. I guess it’s more like the edge than the end really. Like, it stops in space but not in time. The world’s still there, but it just kind of runs out if you go east. But it’s still there when you come back west. It’s not ended, really.’

  Caddy sat quietly, hoping Ray and Sarah would keep talking.

  ‘Who’s the lady, Ray?’

  Fat chance.

  ‘She’s a friend of mine. Caddy, this is Sarah; Sarah, Caddy.’

  ‘Is she from the future. Are you from the future?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess I am,’ Caddy said.

  ‘Future Australia?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’re not Aboriginal though, right?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Sarah,’ Ray butted back in. ‘What do you mean Simon is at the end of the world?’

  ‘Edge, Ray. Remember, I changed my mind. It’s the edge of the world now.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘OK, so we finished San Fran just after you left, right? And then we did Berkeley and all that stuff. So this morning we headed out to Walnut Creek, but it wasn’t there. It was all kind of bright and shimmery and there was no one around we could ask about it, so we came back into the city to see if anyone knew what was going on, but no one knew anything and also, no one had ever been to Walnut Creek, which maybe is kind of weird but seeing as how it’s not there I guess it makes some kind of sense.’

  Caddy wondered if she’d written that piece of dialogue. She didn’t think she had. She hoped she would have at least put in a bit of punctuation.

  ‘So I said we should stop cause there was nothing else to look at or tick off or whatever. I mean, there were no more places to make squares. America’s run out. But Simon wouldn’t listen cause he’s a shithead and we had a fight and he left and went back to see if America had come back, but I didn’t want to go. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘So hang on. You got to a place and there was nothing there. Just shimmery stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Simon went back there?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Caddy,’ said Ray, ‘did you do this?’

  ‘Me? No! This is nothing to do with me. It’s not my stuff.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Do you make toxic waste?’ Sarah asked her.

  ‘No. This is nothing to do with me. Just ignore him.’

  ‘I think it’s The Gap,’ Ray said.

  ‘What is?’ Sarah asked. ‘The GAP? We don’t get stuff from the GAP. Simon says they log rainforest.’

  ‘I’m very confused,’ Caddy said.

  ‘Well, you started it,’ Ray replied. ‘The Gap,’ he said to Caddy. ‘I think this imaginum has come to its edge and it’s running back into The Gap. Oh, you haven’t seen The Gap, have you. I’ll show you later. Never mind.’

  ‘WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?’ Sarah yelled.

  ‘Never mind,’ Ray said. ‘Do you want a soft drink?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Um, a pop?’

  ‘A soda?’

  ‘Yes, do you want a soda?’

  ‘No, I don’t want a soda! I want to know what the hell you’re talking about!’

  ‘Maybe we should go look for Simon,’ Caddy said.

  ‘No,’ said Sarah. ‘I told him to come and meet me back here. At the boarding house. We should wait.’

  ‘The same boarding house?’ asked Ray.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you check in yet?’

  ‘No. I don’t, see, I’m not sure how. Simon always did it before. I’m too little, aren’t I? Oh crap. I shouldn’t have let Simon go off by himself.’ Sarah looked like she was starting to freak out a bit.

  ‘OK,’ said Caddy. ‘I have an idea. How about all three of us go there, and we get a family room, and there’ll be a bed waiting for Simon when he comes back.’

  ‘No one is going to believe I’m you guys’ kid,’ Sarah pointed out.

  ‘No one is going to care,’ Ray pointed out.

  ‘Yeah, true,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ray. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Sarah, after they’d been walking for a bit, ‘Ray, do you think you could go look for him?’

  ‘He kind of hates me, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘If I tell him he should come back, he’ll probably tell me to piss off.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘If you want me to, I will.’

  ‘No, you’re right. It’ll just make him angrier if he knows I’m hanging out with you. He’s a fucking idiot, Ray! Seriously.’

  ‘You guys have gotten this far, he’ll be fine. He’s got a system, he knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘Yeah, but the system has never broken down before. I mean, he’s so – what do you call it?’

  ‘I don’t know, what do I call it? Caddy?’

  ‘Anal. Simon is anal.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ Sarah said. ‘He’s so anal. Like, if everything doesn’t go totally to plan, I don’t think he’ll know what to do. He’s got no imagination! He hates it when I do anything even a bit not part of the plan, like if I say we should do this bit first before that bit, or I want to go get food but the food is back in the bit we already did. That drives him nuts. I don’t know what shimmery haziness will do to him. How do you know he’s anal?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Caddy. ‘Oh. I um. I wasn’t talking about Simon. I mean, I thought from what you were saying about him that that might be the word you were looking for. Yeah?’

  Sarah frowned at her.

  ‘But you told him to come back here, right?’ Ray asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, maybe that’s kind of part of the plan now. I mean, he’s not going to go on without you.’

  ‘But I said I didn’t want to do it anymore.’

  ‘Surely you’ve said that before.’

  ‘Not really out loud. Like, you know, kind of as a joke; you know, the kind of joke where you really mean what you’re saying but you pretend it’s a joke? I’ve said it like that. But never serious, with yelling. I yelled at him.’

  ‘He won’t go on without you. Not now. Come on, one little bit of yelling doesn’t undo – how long has it been?’

  ‘Eleven years.’

  ‘Exactly. Pretty much your whole lives.’

  ‘I said his dad could go screw.’

  Caddy winced.

  ‘What?’ Sarah said. ‘Do you think that’ll make him not ever come back?’

  ‘Me?’ said Caddy. ‘Oh. I don’t really know.’

  ‘Your friend is kind of a dick,’ Sarah said to Ray.

  ‘See!’ said Caddy. ‘I told you this would happen!’

  ‘Stop talking!’ said Ray.

  SOLES OF FEET PRESSED UP AGAINST MINE

  This isn’t strictly part of the story. I need to tell you about what happened with Harry, but for most of this story I don’t get my own voice. It’s always, ‘Caddy said’ or ‘Caddy replied’ or ‘Caddy pondered’.

  OK, now I have an I. I’m an I, like Sarah. How come Sarah gets an I, when she’s only an imaginary character that I imagined? Who’s in charge of thi
s story anyway?

  Let’s pretend for a moment that it’s me. I’m in charge of this story. So here’s what I want to tell you.

  I loved Harry. I love him now, so much. The smell of his neck, where it met his chin – is there a word for that? That little corner, ripe for biting, for burying a face in when the world outside is too much and all there should be, as far as the horizon, is skin and warmth, and stubble, and the smell of Harry.

  When we first met I wasn’t sure. I mean, I was sure; I was sure that nothing much would come of it. He asked me to come home with him and I said no, that first time, but not because I had morals or anything – you’ve read the rest of this story, so you know I don’t – but because I was shy. I said no, thinking I’d have another chance soon enough.

  But I didn’t. I invited him to things and he didn’t show up. Then later, when he did, he didn’t want to talk to me. I’d been having a time of disappointments and rejections and I was hardened to it. I wrote him off. I mean, seriously, why would I need a guy like Harry? He’d never read 1984. He actually liked to drink Carlton Draught – give him a choice of beers and that’s the one he’d choose. So, you know, whatever. I started to look around.

  What is it with guys? That was what he needed, I guess: for me to not care. I went home with him one night, then again a few days later, and later again. But I still didn’t care.

  Here’s what he said to me: ‘Caddy, I love you. I can’t get enough of you.’ Just like that. Not anywhere special or anytime special.

  I don’t know why I’m still alive. When we were together it became impossible for me to imagine life without him. OK, that’s not true – I did. I’m that kind of person. I imagined him finding someone else and leaving, or getting in a car accident, or something falling on him at work. I imagined it all the time: how I’d pay the mortgage, would I have to get a boarder, would I have to move into an apartment and lose my garden. Of course I imagined life without him. But I did know that whatever practical measures I might take to manage, I would be, for all intents and purposes, dead. Harry’s kindness, his just not minding how I was and who I was, his refusal to be afraid or even all that interested when I got crazy, him cooking, him with the soles of his feet pressed up against mine in bed at night – I was ruined for any kind of life without him.

  People talk about great passions and they make it sound like it should be a tumult of fighting and declarations of undying love followed by public rooting and accusations of infidelity and then more declarations of how one would die without the other. It’s bullshit. I’m telling you, it’s bullshit! Seriously, that fucker Heathcliff and everyone like him? They can get fucked. You know what it’s really like? It’s quiet and calm and steady, and it doesn’t change that much from one day to the next. It’s always there. You can count on it. You can know that when you get home in the evening, someone will be there and he’ll love you. He might not tell you right away or anything, but he does. He loves you.