Atomic City

by Sally Breen

  Jade is starting to see the shifts, starting to precipitate change. She can feel the pull under her feet. What’s happening over there? And there? And there? That’s what she wants to know. The Dealer is forgetting to look past her because he’s lonely, he’s damaged and he needs to rely on her need. Jade is damaged but she’s still close enough to her history to be motivated by it, to be strung tight.

  The Dealer prefers how it is between them now. How their relationship isn’t too dangerous or too bad. He’s still got a handle on how it rolls out. A bit of sideways activity, a bit of slack, who doesn’t do that? He just wants the preparation to roll on and on but it won’t. He won’t be able to slow the sting and he won’t be able to stop it. The Dealer has learnt long and slow and hard that you can’t protect yourself from the fall, only ride it out.

  Degeneration always starts with something simple.

  THE DEALER

  We are in a Main Beach alfresco café and I’m edgy. I don’t like places where you can smell perfume and aftershave over the food and coffee but Jade likes it, she likes to watch. Our table is resting rather precariously on the slant of the footpath and I’m finding the constant tilt more distracting than I should. I fold up a coaster to place under the leg but the cardboard seems to snap rather than fold so it’s not really working. While I’m jiggling with the table leg Jade says, God, there’s a lot of wankers here.

  I look up from underneath the table, puzzled because she’s speaking with more amusement than disdain. Does she mean other than us? Because she seems to have overlooked the fact we’re here too, or is it just because their vulnerability excites her? I don’t press the issue, too focused on the task, the angle I have to shift my body into to get the damn thing under the leg pissing me right off. The waiter comes out, having seen my dilemma.

  Oh, I’m sorry sir, he says looking rather appalled at my ripped-up coaster. The legs unwind, see?

  Smug bastard. I watch him as he bends down with exaggerated bother, a ton of product on his head which looks like a sucked mango. These guys are always keeping an eye out for someone else. He adjusts the leg so that instead of wobbling, the table is now set on a more permanent angle.

  That’s great. Much better.

  My head’s throbbing. I ask him for a mineral water.

  Jade?

  Nothing yet, thanks.

  Jade seems to be preoccupied with something over my shoulder so I glance at the menu. As I do I hear her sudden intake of breath.

  Isn’t that …?

  I turn around.

  And I know why my equilibrium is off. This is PJ territory. My heart is thumping in my chest. My first instinct is to run.

  Yeah, I say as I try to play down my anxiety, my whole body gone stiff. That’s him. I turn back around. Three tables behind us I listen as the group of men take their seats. I know PJ but the rest are new. Russian maybe. Jade is staring. I listen keenly to the fawning ministrations of the sucked-mango head and chairs scraping.

  What’s he doing here?

  He’s from here.

  Really? She sounds like she thinks this is good news. Do you know him?

  I used to.

  I try not to notice that everyone else seems to be looking in the same direction as Jade. The notoriety thrilled me once too. I stay tuned to the menu.

  I can’t believe it.

  I check her expression to see if she really is that incredulous. She’s still staring, straining in her seat.

  Damn, he’s got his back to me.

  Oh fucking hell, Jade. Don’t be an idiot.

  Fuck you, she says and looks at me for the first time since we sat down and flicking open her menu angrily.

  Sorry. I fiddle with the edge of the table, trying to figure out exactly how not to say too much and glad of four small blessings: that I have my sunglasses on, that I’m thinner than I was, that he’s not facing me and that no one else in his entourage knows me. I’m still going to have to leave.

  He’s done some bad shit to me and a lot of other people, that’s all.

  Jade tilts her head up slightly and says: I think what he’s done is pretty smart.

  Yeah, I say as I wave my hand, dismissing the fact she’s just insulted me. It’s real hard running drugs and laundering cash on the Gold Coast.

  I look at her pointedly.

  And he’s only famous because he’s failed at it, rather spectacularly.

  I’m referring to the fallout last year that landed him in the papers across the world and me nearly in jail, but Jade doesn’t seem to get my meaning.

  He went to jail, didn’t he?

  Yeah, but not for that. He went in a long time ago and I bet he still jokes around about being fucked up the arse.

  Jade doesn’t laugh. Some stranger just shook his hand. I’m going to go over and say hello, she says.

  I roll my eyes. Knowing this is my chance. My leg twitching madly under the table.

  Get in line.

  No, I’m serious. I want to talk to him.

  Don’t.

  Why not? He could probably help us.

  Why would he wanna do that?

  I don’t know.

  And I can see as Jade sits up, righting herself and angling her chair to get a better view, that she thinks he would.

  Don’t flatter yourself, Jade. Stick to what you know.

  But you just said it yourself. He’s nothing.

  He’s not nothing. What he does is nothing.

  What are you saying?

  I’m saying if you don’t wanna end up with a tyre around your neck in the fucking Nerang River you’ll stay at this table. Know what I mean?

  Oh bullshit. You’re just exaggerating.

  Jade, I’m telling you, if you go over there I’m leaving. I’m out.

  What’s wrong with you today? Jade’s looking at me like she might be worried. Her instinct is bang on and though I can hardly register anything I’m saying because all I want to do is get out of this fucking restaurant, I push the issue.

  Don’t you listen? I said I knew him, right?

  Jade gets impatient with me again, leaning back as if trying to distance herself.

  Yeah, so what? So does half the fucking Western world.

  I move forward. I don’t want anyone else to hear me but already people are sneaking looks at us, sensing a fight. I stare down the lady at the table next to us with the cat’s arse face till she turns away. I return my focus to Jade.

  If you value my opinion, which I’m beginning to think counts for shit, you’ll leave him alone.

  Don’t tell me what to do. Just ’cause you came out the other end a borderline fucking defective doesn’t mean I will.

  Okay Jade.

  I feign calm, taking my napkin slowly out of my lap and refolding it graciously. I don’t mean anything I’m about to say but right here is my out.

  I’m done. As of now.

  What? she says, her eyes darting around nervously as I stand up.

  I’m going to work. You decide, Jade. If you go to that table, don’t call me.

  And I walk out facing the front, struggling to contain my anger, but I don’t falter and I don’t look over my shoulder. The last thing I want is for PJ to see me.

  The next day I wake to the prospect of PJ and Jade, her derision and her lies. Rain bears down heavily, drenching the city. Later the sun will come out and people will think it signals a clearing. But the sea knows better. You can always tell what kind of day it’s going to be by the colour of the ocean. When the water is ashen and churned the rain will not hold off for long. In the afternoon the black clouds will roll in and unload a torrent, drops so heavy and thick they sound like thunder. Rain and cold spell big business for a casino.

  If I was working, the floor would be hectic but I’m not going in today, maybe not for a few days. I sip my coffee, Jade’s blue and white ticket in my hand.

  I ring my supervisor, tell him there’s been an emergency. And there has been – just not the kind he would endorse
. I can tell by the resignation in his voice that he doesn’t believe me. I go silent, wait for him to speak. I haven’t done much to piss him off before, and so in the end he lets it go. I tell him I should be back by Friday. I hang up and put the ticket to my face. It doesn’t smell like money anymore.

  I still feel sick from yesterday, from how close I came to PJ. There’s a dark ache in my back from the memory. He was supposed to be in Thailand. The fact he’s back and hanging out with the Russians means things are shifting. He’s found another toehold, like he always does. Enough time under the radar and enough cash to make people forget. I just wanted her to stop looking at him. Damn PJ, for crushing in on our orbit so soon. Jade should never, ever know about him. Jade is good but she’s not built for that kind of take. The rising panic in me actually makes me want to hit her, to shake the lust for him out of her. I can’t explain this itch in my fingers, this desire to hurt her, the kind of desire that isn’t sexual but something more paternal. Like a frantic dad chasing after a runaway kid, I’m punched through with dread, with this horrible combination of rage and love and frustration. I’ve seen parents flog their kids for nearly running on to the road, for coming close, and I’m hysterical at the thought PJ will hurt her, will take her from me, will wreck our game. I want to get in there first but I know I can’t stop her.

  How we handle this is going to mean everything.

  I wonder why the hell I’m willing to risk so much for Jade, how she’s managed, so quickly, to get this hold over me. If I’m honest I do know. It always takes an equal amount of stupidity and guts to make anything interesting. For me the rush started with blackjack but if you count childhood it started way before that. I worked out early that betting was really about people. At first I conned them out of their cash because I needed the money to play and then I realised psychology was a much more fruitful game. Still, I’ve picked the wrong target before. And that’s why I need to know about Jade.

  I’ve told her I’m out because it buys me time. I’m not leaving her, because I can’t. I don’t think I’d be capable of letting go of this now. As much as I’m worried sick about PJ, it’s going to happen because I can’t protect her or shield her from the pull of his kind of reputation. I can’t compete. The jealousy just creates a diversion.

  Making a woman wait has never done me any harm.

  I watch the rain falling past the giant sheet of glass that forms the back wall of my apartment: puddles of water gathering on the edges of the veranda, drops sliding and slipping like a stream down the building. All this water the city needs but struggles to put up with. People get depressed here in the wet. They can’t move. Everything is designed for the outside, conceived in heat. People live here because they love exteriors; going internal doesn’t suit them, they dither around shopping malls and spend too much money, they watch movies and videos and cable TV until the walls start closing in then they head to the Casino to throw away what’s left. Jade must have brought the rain with her. Our first symptom of torment.

  SPLITTING PAIRS

  STATE OF PLAY

  Jade is on her way home in a brand-new car, with a brand-new man. PJ doesn’t drive like the Dealer. He drives like a man relaxed, sitting back in the seat, one hand on the edge of a very expensive wheel. Jade likes comparing him to the Dealer. His older rounder head, his older rounder body, but it is the way he holds himself, his defiance, that makes her want him and this desire has got nothing to do with how she actually feels, only what he can make her feel.

  PJ is rich and rough enough around the edges to make a girl presume she’s in control, a man who seems to do nothing but is always doing something. The wave of his notoriety carries him, makes him sexy when all he really is is dangerous. He is constantly in restaurants where strangers shake his hand, the kind of Gold Coast restaurants that pay him to come back.

  They have just had a long lunch and Jade is full of sparkling wine, full of promises and images, of how she looks with him, of what they might do, of how he looks at her – because he didn’t, not at first, and that indifference had unnerved her.

  Yesterday, when she introduced herself, she said PJ was a friend of her father’s a long time ago. Her father had mentioned him and said if she ever saw him while she was on the coast she should say hello. Jade knew she couldn’t just be another fan. There had to be a connection to ward off the dismissal. She had to get him wondering just what her game was all about. And he is.

  PJ avoided her eyes all through yesterday’s lunch, running the family name she gave through his head, failing to find an answer. PJ excused himself and on his mobile in the alleyway behind the restaurant he asked a few key people to run the name through their heads and what they came up with exposed her lie. Jade’s clumsy indiscretion. They tell him that family was from Armidale, yes, big money, largest holdings in the district, but they never had a daughter. Just a wayward son. PJ decides to fuck her anyway. Her courage has amused him.

  Back at the table Jade carries on the charade. She has always planned on being this girl so the transition for her is simple. She is at this table, with these people and she is the first person she ever wanted to be. Not the name she was born with, not the names she has stolen or invented but the name she has wanted. Weston. Jade Weston. A marriage made up in her head. A marriage she’d imagined so often the fantasy was never linked to the reality of the space between them. The gap. For the young girl watching the landowner’s son from the porch there was never any recognition of the upstairs–downstairs of it all. The futility.

  Everyone plays under the same moon. The Dealer is about to make a move that will not go undetected. Absence does not lend him immunity, absence lends him Dutch courage. The Dealer needs reassurance, not from Jade but from Camille, the only woman ever willing to give him more than one chance. Waiting means sooner or later he will open himself up to Camille’s distraction, to tiny moves in the atmosphere felt much later. He won’t think anything of making the call – of how it might affect her, of what might happen between them after, the sting of a slap always stronger than the initial impact.

  Back in the Casino this is the moment, the impact he can’t see. Jade entering the Casino. Looking for him. Walking the floor four times, scouring, searching, but finally realising he’s a runner, just like the last guy, just like them all – missing with the residue of their game still fresh on the table.

  See Jade’s face fall, see her drop the ball. Watch her leave the arena without even laying a bet. See further into the distance as the Dealer leans into the enemy, into his old love Camille, stupidly with his palms open. Hear the ricochet of his mistake travel into the night. A mistake that will etch itself fatefully on to all of their faces. Absence is a test only Jade can win. She will go now to PJ and she’ll up the ante. Jade doesn’t like it when people disappear.

  THE DEALER

  Morning and I’m looking at Camille turned away from me in the bed, at her blonde hair tangled at the back, at the pale skin of her shoulder and neck not covered by the sheet, the slight rise of her torso as she breathes. We are in her room above the hotel she works in, on the first floor, a larger space and more private, I imagine, than the rest rented out to a small but steady stream of backpackers and bar-flies below. I touch her shoulder. She doesn’t stir.

  I have woken slowly, not used to the more subdued light. At home the light burns, even at dawn ripping through windows and blinds, as if all the water stretching between the city and the sun is a magnifying glass, a concentration of white heat. Eighty kilometres up the highway in inner-city Brisbane the light seems somehow less magnified.

  Opposite the bed, small rectangular windows run the length of Camille’s walls; branches scratch occasionally against the glass. Camille is wrapped tightly in the sheet. I touch her arm under the soft cloth, letting my fingers slip through to her skin, thinking about how easily she has always slept and I wonder how much of that she now does alone. I have no idea what I am going to say to her. Staying here wasn’t part of the plan;
wanting to wasn’t either. The plan was simpler but something else has opened up between us. As it always does: the gravity, Camille’s heavy love, my old life. No matter how hard I try to keep things simple we’re too far inside each other.

  Camille still hasn’t woken. I lean over her shoulder to glance down at her face. She looks peaceful, like she might be smiling and I feel splintered, torn between this need to protect her and the need to stay on track. I could wrap my arms around her, she is so close, she is right there, but I don’t move. I turn away knowing I will leave before she wakes up, before she opens her eyes and looks at me, before she has anything over me. I have to leave, I know, but I lie back down.

  I don’t remember falling asleep last night but I do remember all the things we did to counteract it. I had tried to keep my eyes closed, tried not to look at her but I did, listening to her and really looking at her, into her green eyes, trying to forget about Jade and PJ, about the possibility of both of them fucking and I was thinking most of all about wanting to get deeper inside Camille, like surrendering might be a way to know something, possess everything, to get to the edges. The sex was a kind of frenzy and it frightened me, how much I used her.

  Camille will want to talk. The thought of talking, about everything we’ve never been able to solve, everything I’ve always failed to give her, propels me, makes me get up. I have to collect myself. I’m afraid of where a talk this morning might take us. I tell myself I can talk to her later. I should give her some space.

  I write Camille a note, I call her beautiful, I don’t hesitate, I sign: With love. I place it on her dresser and then I hear my name.

  What are you doing? She pulls the sheet back. Come back to bed.