You Belong Here

  She sat on the bed, and he pushed her down hard. His hands were at her breasts, first cupped within her bra and then released.

  He licked at her stomach, lapping circles with his tongue. Worked at her underpants, caterpillar shrug, fabric taut and bunched into a rope. He kissed her hip and then climbed on top. They met each other’s gaze.

  ‘You want me to put something on?’ said Dom.

  ‘You got one close?’

  ‘The bathroom.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘We could stop,’ said Dom.

  ‘No, don’t stop,’ she said, and as soon as she’d said it,

  he thrust forwards, muscles set.

  A lump in her throat the moment he entered. He’d seemed so quick to begin, fucking fast in search of a climax. As he worked in and out, she remembered to clench, occasionally grinding her hips. She bit her lip to stop the tears coming. As he came, he scowled, and then rolled onto the bed, panting. He rose again, almost immediately, walked to the shower, and she closed her eyes. The stickiness began to seep out, so she lay still, pressing her legs together so as not to leave a stain.

  Dom appeared minutes later amid a cloud of steam from the shower. He threw his towel to the floor.

  ‘You have to leave.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Emily.

  ‘She’ll be here in ten,’ said Dom. ‘You have to get dressed.’

  ‘You said you wanted to see me. In your text.’

  ‘And I did. I do.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Emily. ‘Pass me a shirt.’ He threw her a button-up from off the floor. She lifted away the sheet, bunched up his shirt, and wiped between her legs, a creamy trail coating the fabric.

  ‘So childish.’

  ‘You would know,’ she said. She slipped on her clothes as quickly as possible.

  On her way through the kitchen, considered pulling at the dish rack, a chaotic crash of broken plates, but instead she hurried to her car, ground the engine, hit the ignition once it was already running, and then drove away.

  Reached the intersection of Chelmsford and William. Checked her reflection. Frowned at her puffy, tired face, and turned left.

  Rain soaked the streets. She could barely see the road by the time she reached Hungry Spot. Picked up her phone, scrolled to Jay. Waited. Swallowed. Tossed the phone into her handbag and headed inside.

  The counter hand wore a faded name tag that said ‘Suresh.’

  ‘Water?’ he said. ‘Two-fifty.’

  He was an older man, not at all her type. Hairy arms, his hair on top already thinning. He looked tired, his frame that bit tauter than she was used to, a small man made even smaller by a loose polo, he couldn’t have been much over five foot six.

  She wondered if he had ever had sex. He seemed indistinct, other. Not unattractive, but obsolete. Another person that she saw, but only just. Such was Dom’s ability to stain her.

  She put the change on the counter. He scanned the bottle, swept her coins away and into the till.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  Emily nodded, staring ahead.

  ‘No shame in sadness,’ said Suresh, closing the till.

  ‘Then I guess I’m not sad.’

  Outside, the rain had stopped. To her right, a boy in a hoodie chugged from a litre carton of orange juice; he swallowed what he could, spat the rest into the soil. Strangers laughed as they turned the corner, bottles clinking. A boy pushed his girlfriend towards the road. She swore loudly, at first in shock, and then in anger. He kept walking and eventually she ran to catch up, tugging on his shirt.

  A text on Emily’s phone, from Dom. I’ll call you.

  She opened the driver’s door, got in, and hit the lock. Closed her eyes, whispered, Sleep is the suspension of all thought, until the words lost meaning and her mind had slowed to a standstill.

  She woke to a knock on the glass. Suresh, at the driver’s door. She raised her hand to signal ‘no thanks.’

  He motioned her to roll down the window. She opened it a quarter.

  ‘You need to move your car,’ he said. ‘We have to keep these spots free on Friday nights.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘It’s okay. Tough run?’

  ‘I’ve had better.’

  ‘Want to talk about it? It’s my break. I usually sit in the storeroom. Be nice to do something different.’

  Emily traced the outline of the steering wheel, tapped it twice with her hand, gauging the man’s intent. She was used to being hit on. This felt different: both better and worse. And yet, how often had she wished for someone to talk to?

  ‘You want to eat something in the Hungry Spot car park?’ she said.

  He glanced at the sky. ‘It’s stopped raining. Pies out front?’

  In his words, a hint of lonely. She’d always hoped she was the kind of person who could see another’s sadness, take it, make them feel better. She’d talked about it with Jay. He said if someone reached out, he always felt he should at least try to take their hand.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ she said.

  Emily grabbed a blanket from the boot, laid it on the bonnet. Suresh came back holding two pies by their wrappers. In his other hand were two sachets of tomato sauce. She felt, to her surprise, a dull groan of hunger.

  He hopped onto the car. It bounced, adjusting to the extra weight. He handed her a pie, careful to open the bag before passing it over. She felt the outside, checked the warmth. Bit in, a larger bite than planned. He joined her, matching bites.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said. ‘A guy?’

  ‘You’re good.’

  ‘I work all-nighters. You wouldn’t believe the things I see. The people. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, depending on which team won the football. I mean no disrespect. It’s just strange. They’ve no idea of what they really feel.’

  ‘How about you? What do you feel?’ said Emily.

  ‘Tired, mostly. I work eight hours, finish at six in the morning. Drive home, read the paper, and think of my love, Avantika. I miss her very much.’

  ‘She’s dead?’

  ‘She’s in Delhi. I’m saving to get her over.’

  ‘I used to love a guy,’ said Emily. ‘It didn’t work out.’

  ‘Sorry to hear it.’

  ‘It’s okay. He was a dick. It’s just——’

  ‘He hurt you.’

  A tear rushed down her cheek. She shook her head, embarrassed. She kept crying, and he held out his handkerchief.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Suresh. ‘You need to be careful holding in tears. They well up inside, make you bitter, like lemons.’

  She laughed, touched the handkerchief to her eyes.

  ‘I knew a girl, Asha,’ he said. ‘She was a friend of my sister. I had only seen her in photos. In one, she’s smiling coyly. I discovered later that my sister’s boyfriend had taken the photo. The smile was for him.

  ‘Things make sense, always. But do we want to see that sense? Can we take it if it means we have to wait for love?’

  ‘Like with Dom,’ she said. ‘I thought he liked me. But you’re never really sure with him. Meet a stranger on the street, you’ll get better conversation.’

  He picked at the lid of his pie, peeling pastry. ‘You think he loves you?’

  ‘I don’t know. What would that look like?’

  ‘You’d know,’ said Suresh. ‘Asha loved me, maybe. Maybe not. It’s not as if I ever knew. Perhaps you’re the same. The Portuguese, they call it saudade, a love for something gone. Makes you wonder why that never made the translation into English. Like forgetting to find a word for birth, or death.

  ‘For me, that word was Asha. And in the end, we said goodbye. The only time I really saw her, felt her there.’

  ‘But how is that right? Don’t you miss her?’ said Emily.

  ‘I’m not meant to be with her,’ said Suresh. ‘I’m meant to crave her. To never know how I could be there with her, for days, weeks, months, and still
feel so alone.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She cheated. It’s what she does.’

  Emily glanced across, assessing intent. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘When you came to the counter, you looked sad. I thought you’d understand.’

  ‘But still, you found somebody else, right? That’s a win.’

  ‘Avantika,’ he said, smiling. ‘She swears, she smokes. Messy. Gorgeous. Loyal too, and funny on a good day. Gets sad sometimes, but better sad than mean or stupid.’

  ‘I’d like somebody loyal.’

  ‘Be sure it’s what you’re really seeking,’ he said. ‘This Dom seems many things, but not loyal, more a dog forever searching for a butt to sniff.’

  She laughed loudly. Across the road, a light came on in a nearby house.

  ‘Who are you . . . Ganesh?’

  ‘That’s borderline racist,’ said Suresh. ‘And anyway, I’m Buddhist.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Emily.

  ‘It’s okay, just better to call these things out,’ he said.

  ‘So what did you learn from Asha?’ said Emily.

  ‘What was I supposed to learn?’

  ‘I don’t know. That you sit with people. Let them come to you.’

  He laughed. ‘Philosophy.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘No offence,’ said Suresh, scratching a greying sideburn, ‘but you’ll excuse me if I tune out as you tell me what’s what.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that. And anyway, isn’t that what Buddhists do? Develop wisdom and understanding?’

  ‘You’re generalising.’

  ‘But you know what I mean. And besides, there’s always something to take away, right?’

  ‘Are you serious? You really want to know?’

  She nodded.

  He took a breath, held it. Let it go, and sighed. ‘I learned that it’s better not to put the knife to your palm,’ said Suresh. ‘That some things hurt, but not all of them teach, or they teach in the way a blade cuts through flesh.

  ‘Know now that you need to be very careful who you let in. That Asha could be banging, bleeding at my door, and I’d keep it shut.’

  ‘That’s not very Zen,’ said Emily.

  ‘That’s true.’ He closed his eyes, breathed deep into his hands. ‘But it’s about as wise as I am going to get.’

  Her stomach gurgled, guilt rising to her throat. ‘Sorry,’ said Emily.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Suresh. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered you.’ He brushed crumbs from his shirt, gathered his rubbish, and hopped off the bonnet.

  ‘Wait, don’t leave,’ she said, but he raised his hand, definitive. Headed for the store as quickly as possible. The doors parted, closed behind him with a clunk. She stepped down from the bonnet and scrunched the pie wrapper, her fingers catching on the perforations.

  She walked to the front doors of the shop, kicked them twice. They opened, paused, and then closed.

  ‘Wait,’ she said more loudly, staring, hoping his gaze would again drift across, but he had busied himself with refilling the drinks fridge, and in time she grew tired of looking for a fight.

  She took out her phone. Hit Alex’s number, listened for the dial tone, but it went straight to message bank.

  The Gap

  A lex had driven to The Gap, outside of Albany, to the soundtrack of long-forgotten eighties songs. Though it hurt him to hear them, given history shared and lyrics misheard from brother to brother, there was a greater purpose to this particular trip. Alex was the first to admit he’d barely caught the scent of purpose in his own life. And maybe he hadn’t been there for Jay in the hope they might one day reconnect. Perhaps, he had simply decided to go elsewhere to think and reflect after ten years of Karrakatta, endless anniversaries of what would have been his best friend’s birthday.

  Getting Gap-ward, not so easy. No planes unless you counted the SkyWest flights, Perth to Albany, costing not much less than a trip to the UK. You could catch the bus, learn to handle the occasional waft of the mid-carriage toilet, the dense fug of the on-board smokers, sucking durries at every stop, stall, or toilet break.

  Or you could drive for hours and hours, counting k’s by the hundreds, crosses by the side of the road.

  The water at The Gap frothed and foamed, a limestone cliff jutted out, stained dark from crashing waves. An endless horizon, light sky’s contrast with the ocean’s dark blue, blocked together, an aquamarine Rothko. Through it all he felt distinctly juvenile. As though he wanted not to feel sadness, but for someone to see it.

  The Gap, now a rugged Disneyland. You could still walk the Natural Bridge if you were feeling brave, sneakers slipping on the wet rocks, but people rarely did, posing for pictures in zipped-up polar fleece and designer shades, up high, above the elements.

  He walked along the edge. Had to go slow because of traffic coming in from the car park. Japanese girls snapped the signs. Two teens laughed hysterically as the third lost her summer hat, rushing after it as it skidded towards one of the many edges. An older man in khaki shorts, black shirt, and a Panama half-smiled, and Alex waved back.

  In the car park, a mother, father, and son had hopped out, although it was clear something was up, the mother dabbing at her face with her handkerchief, the father going at her regardless, and in the end the kid taking off, outrunning his father’s raised voice.

  Took Alex back to his last trip to The Gap. A family getaway sans Emily, who had been staying with a friend. Not long after the divorce, with him in year seven and Jay in grade four, the two of them fighting over a bag of Twisties. Pull and pop, the back seat covered in bits. His mother sweeping up with her palm, handfuls ferried to the bin, two trips, and she’d swept and swept, but still some yellow gunk stayed stuck to the floor.

  The day had been blustery out, T-shirts flapping in a fluky breeze. They’d climbed down to the Natural Bridge. Alex hadn’t needed to take his little brother’s hand, such was the strength with which Jay climbed, the way in which he balanced, almost effortlessly, wanting only to make it to the other side.

  At first they’d seemed fine, but Jay started skylarking and slipped. Alex had grabbed his arm instinctively, and again Jay was safe, but he saw his mum’s face, even metres away, and knew he’d messed up.

  He’s just a little boy. He needs you to protect him.

  Jen had taken Jay to the car, wound the window halfway down, and walked Alex back to The Gap, her hand on his wrist for the entire walk. She yelled and yelled; waves crashed up against the rocks, but not so loudly that Alex was able to tune her out.

  He waited, angry, tired, and then, when she had finished, he said, ‘Just piss off and worry about yourself.’

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, a little too close to the edge. She realised just how close, and then hugged him, tight, saying, ‘Baby, please don’t do that again.’

  Alex took an envelope out of his jacket. Slid his index finger under the lip. Took out the enclosed paper, a letter from Jay he had brought along for the ride. He opened it up but baulked upon seeing his brother’s magpie scrawl, and instead kept it clutched in his hand.

  He walked around the edges of The Gap, bowing down at times to escape a gust of wind. A young boy was sitting at the top, his legs hanging over the edge.

  ‘G’day,’ said Alex.

  ‘Hey,’ said the boy. ‘We’re twins.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Hoodie and jeans,’ said the boy, tapping his chest.

  Alex glanced towards the car park. ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘Coming.’ He kicked at the rocks, a stray pebble bouncing into the distance. ‘They’re fighting.’

  ‘I’m Alex.’

  ‘Declan,’ said the boy. ‘My friends call me Dex.’

  ‘Why are they fighting?’

  ‘Um, they’re mental? Why are you carrying a letter?’

  ‘It’s not a letter,’ said Alex.

  ‘Fair
enough, weirdo. It looks like a letter to me.’

  ‘You sure your parents are coming?’ said Alex.

  ‘They’ll be here. Who’s the letter from?’

  ‘My brother.’

  Alex had expected him to keep going, but instead he just nodded. Dex walked around the ledge as if searching for the best vantage point, and then stopped, began to talk, although it wasn’t clear who he was speaking to.

  Alex turned at the sound of footsteps. A man and his washed-out wife arrived, in silence, as though already mourning.

  ‘I’m here,’ called Dex, waving from a few metres down.

  ‘Get away from the edge,’ said the woman.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Alex stood up. ‘Welcome to The Gap,’ he said. ‘You local?’

  ‘We were,’ said the man. ‘You like it here?’

  ‘Leave him, Ken,’ said the woman. She opened a Milky Way with her tubby fingers. Stuffed the wrapper in her dress pocket, eased the bar into her open mouth, chewing once, twice, as though taking in an attraction.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Alex. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘What do you like about it?’ asked the man.

  ‘Leave it,’ said the woman. ‘Come on, love.’

  The man nodded politely at Alex, as though being escorted from a pub, having already made a scene. They walked to their son, but Dex kept staring at the ocean. They talked, too long, it seemed, for a one-sided conversation.

  Dex nodded and then turned back around, as his parents made their way to the car.

  Alex walked over. ‘You okay?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Dex said. ‘Just Mum, she’s going through a bad patch. Anniversary and all.’

  ‘Wedding anniversary?’

  ‘No.’ He grabbed a rock and threw it.

  Alex felt the need to probe, but his gut told him not to. ‘We came here once. My brother and me.’

  ‘You like your brother?’

  ‘Who likes anyone?’

  ‘I liked my brother,’ said Dex. ‘You should read the letter. You’re the older one, right?’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘Don’t stay too long,’ said Dex.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Alex.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise,’ said Alex. ‘Might see you another time, hey?’