Atomic City

by Sally Breen

  Jade strokes her tentative fingers over my skin and I run scenarios, options and preferences through my mind. I want to take Jade to a new place where the coordinates will be different, where her desire to alarm me will not be as strong; an old city, a small town, anywhere where the future is more amenable to the past. And leaving seems possible, looking at her now, at her pale face without make-up, soft and natural and young; it seems possible that she could learn to move on and forget. But with a woman like Jade you can never be sure.

  She is looking at me tenderly, acting like she cares, fawning over me in remorse, but I can’t help thinking part of her enjoys my hurt. She wants it to happen. I have to keep telling myself this is not Jade, this is not her, this is merely a pacified version of another girl.

  I think about taking her to a more conservative city where outlooks would be more dependable, constrained. Places that would not egg her on. Then I realise a conservative small town made her what she is. A place that taught her about hierarchy, the privilege of acquired power and the danger present in the ingrained. That system scarred her and now the consequence of that history has been written onto me. And the Gold Coast knows how to use fallout, how to ameliorate injury; here all Jade’s pain has new uses. She is annihilating her history, all her uncomfortable baggage, in fast-track time along the clean-slate planes of my city.

  The situation is hopeless.

  I lie my head back on the cushions and close my eyes, failing to see where I can take her. Is there a place where the geography of her past wouldn’t make a difference? Where her plans for the future aren’t effusive? If I take her to the old cities will she fall again into a painful cycle of recollection, remembering what it was like to be overlooked, to be used, to be invisible? That would hurt her. But if we run to a new city more people will be hurt, I will be hurt and we will come to this point again: to a fated impasse where, bruised and battered, we find ourselves no longer able to fit into the world.

  Jade tells me she keeps dreaming about sand, about it sucking her in.

  STATE OF PLAY

  At night the Dealer sleeps in the next room away from Jade. His body needs time, breadth and stillness; he dreams to the sound of the sea throbbing. This high world, disconnected from the ground, has rounded off Jade’s past. Inside they build a fortress of forgetting; bubble-wrap themselves in the safety of air and wind as if, being caught up high in this static simulation of flight, the world will never catch them. Hostages to their own cause held tight. Never venturing far. They lie packaged in these white rooms, caught in the glare of the horizon, meditating on the sun. Watching it rise, watching it fall. Blue sky turning to black. The windows in front of them are a drive-in world, a giant blue screen everything disappears in.

  In the daylight she tells him about waterfalls. Waterfalls in her home town and how the people went to them, religiously, to listen, to be near the powerful sound and powerful light of water. In the country or on the edge, here salt, there fresh, everywhere the water beats infinite and fluid, making us feel, she says, everything we’re not.

  Jade tells him that living in a high-rise is like standing behind a waterfall. Your ability to see anything clearly is clouded by the spectacle of water. She tells him how lucky they are. Back home there was always a time when she had to leave, with the sound of water tinkling through her, shifting memories. Here she says the water is home; from the lounge room they can walk straight into it.

  In the mornings when the sun is as bright as it gets here, the glass in front of the Dealer is full of blue. Through the broad clear panes the light comes, like a hand through a waterfall. Searing retinas. The Dealer stands fragile and pale, steadying himself on the black marble benches in the kitchen, cold under his fingers. He always expects them to be hot in this white heat. But they are protected in here. He remains pallid and the benches remain cool. He hasn’t swum in weeks.

  He imagines throwing himself into the water, not from the edge of the shore but from up high, from up here, flying out over the sea and plummeting, dropping into its blue expanse like a black and white sea bird, vanishing without trace into the depths below. Feeling the sea salt sting his wounds and cleanse him. But such simple mercies are not possible. Everything is just beyond them.

  Jade will come to him, standing there on these burnished mornings, and understand his thrall. She knows about the power moving along surfaces; the ocean’s surface translating her secrecy and his fear.

  At night the sea disappears and the city gains ascendancy, turns into a wonderland of light. From their windows they watch the city switch on. Towers and floors of light. Swirling neon signs and the soft miniature glow of landscaped beams. Glowing apartments full of dark shadows, the black forms of women and men, moving through their rooms like dim apparitions. Fairy lights tinkling in trees. Seen from above, streetlights and headlights and yellow buildings, luminous gardens on rooftops, the heavy trunks of palm trees lit up in red, blue and green, sharp frond shadows climbing over walls and falling on to streets, the very edge of the ocean reflecting back the light, like a wild iridescent flame licking at the shore.

  And the Dealer and Jade will stand there missing the action, gazing longingly at the cars and the people and the lights moving along the streets. Wanting desperately to be turning around kaleidoscopically inside the city.

  They do not know this bright white night will signal a shift, that inside secret fluorescent rooms data is being compiled, evidence is being tested. Investigative officers working after hours on a file with Jade’s name on it, triggered by complaints. Complaints rolling in, her house of cards set to fall. Every card with a number, a picture of her and a story. Police taking the cards off the piles and turning them over. Slowly adding up the numbers, aligning the suits, reading the combinations. Getting closer by the minute to accounting for a full deck. Words like misappropriation, fraud, identity theft and impersonation are entered into notebooks, typed up on official sheets. The process of her unravelling, methodical and effective. A thoroughness that buys her nothing but time.

  The Dealer can smell them coming. His back is developing a taut ridge of fear, but he knows Jade will do little to save herself. She will register arrest only as a mild restraint, continuing her charades because they’re the only things she knows how to play. Jade isn’t in this game for the money; she’s in it for life.

  THE DEALER

  Jade and I are sitting in the lounge room when the police come for her. There is a knock on the door, heavy and authoritative, and it sparks our attention. I know for sure this is not the Mormons, or the Salvos, or some well-meaning geek from the Cancer Fund. I signal to Jade and her eyes narrow. We spring into action without any speech. As we move quickly, silently, a second knock echoes through the apartment but doesn’t scatter our focus. I grab my coffee cup, and my shoes and socks from the floor, and Jade smooths the indentation my body has made in the couch. She sends me into the master bedroom. I am shutting myself in the walk-in robe when I hear her open the front door. The projected voice of one cop, a woman, reaches me easily. There’s no sign or sound from the second officer. The woman is informing Jade about allegations of fraud against her and to assist in their investigations they would like her to accompany them to the station for questioning.

  And if I choose not to?

  We have enough evidence to arrest you.

  There is another pause while Jade considers this.

  I’ll have to change and collect some of my things.

  Do it quickly.

  There is a pause, and then Jade appears in the doorway in front of me. She winks in my direction as the frames of both police officers fall into view behind her.

  Go in with her.

  The direction comes from the second cop. A tall guy with a hard voice and a disinterested air and I can’t help but wonder if Jade’s fucked him.

  The woman cop comes to the door as Jade starts rummaging through bags she hasn’t fully unpacked yet and the woman watches her every move. Beyond the doorwa
y the male cop is surveying the apartment. Neither of the officers touches anything, but you can almost hear the shutters opening and closing in their photographic minds. We’ve been careful to hide most signs of the kind of place we ran up here, but the half-arc of my dealing table and the two circular wheels covered in calico kind of give things away. Jade likes to refer to them as the Bermuda Triangle of evidence, because she always figured her connections would protect us. But it seems the knife-edge balance between turning her on and turning her in has finally shifted. Someone’s woken up unhappy enough to rat her out.

  When Jade removes her shirt the woman looks down, turning in the direction of my cover. My face, hidden behind the robe’s wooden slats, is tense in the effort of holding my breath. The cop’s face is responsive to nothing but I wonder how many red faces there’ll be when they haul Jade into the station.

  Jade is ready. The female cop gestures for her to leave the room first. Jade hesitates and the woman says: Go on.

  I have to resist the temptation to call out to her, to let her know I’m here, but I know I can’t; I have to stay silent. From the hallway I hear the door close and the muffled sound of Jade’s keys clanking up against each other as she locks it. The latch falls. I wonder for a moment if the apartment is being watched but decide her alleged crimes wouldn’t really warrant the expense. I stay where I am for a moment just in case one of them comes back. I don’t have much to fear – few of my things are in this apartment now.

  I listen, ears pricked to the eerie sound of the wind lashing against the building. The rooms inside are suddenly so quiet. Just the wind whistling as it rushes and curls through the wide gaps of the long balcony, pushing up relentlessly against the glass doors, trying to get in: the force of a strong afternoon southerly. I push open the cupboard door and step out gingerly, my heart racing. I walk quietly, lean my head round the door and peer into the lounge room. Empty. I move faster now, straight to the front door, squinting one eye to look through the peephole: the hallway is long, distorted and deserted. I breathe a sigh of relief but I know I don’t have much time.

  I walk down the endless hallway curving around the south end of the apartment to get my things. I put everything I have into two compact bags and take them to the front door.

  Inside the ensuite I collect all the bits and pieces I may have touched and throw them in a garbage bag. From the cupboard below the sink I remove the bandages and dressings and pill boxes and take them to the bin in the kitchen. I put all the dishes Jade and I have used in the dishwasher and turn it on. Then I get a soft cloth and begin the task of removing any trace of my fingerprints from around the apartment. I don’t rush, going over all the areas diligently, erasing myself. And it’s like going backwards in slow motion over the past few months of my life. Wiping away all the traces of the good moments and the bad, remembering all the things that happened and wondering about the things that haven’t. I strip the bed and put the sheets on a quick cycle.

  I find the vacuum in the hall cupboard and scrape over the floors, then I take the bag and put it in the bin. I take the ashtray off the veranda, empty it, wash it, and put it back in the kitchen cupboard. In the centre of the room I look around, thinking about what’s left of me, about Jade and about things ending. I take the rubbish out of the bin and wheel out the trolley from the spare room. I load it up with my stuff and the rubbish, unlock the door and back out of the apartment slowly, pulling the trolley behind me. The door whacks shut.

  In the bright light of the elevator I look at my nearly healed face in the mirror. These scars could be all the reminders I have left. The skin around my eyes is still off-colour and I rummage in the bags for my sunglasses. No one else gets in and the elevator hits basement level. I push the trolley out into the car park, feeling a rush of anxiety, like there’s always going to be a hard-edged body round every corner. I pack the car hurriedly.

  STATE OF PLAY

  Jade and her bail tab are picked up by PJ. The Dealer’s phone doesn’t ring. She knows she has to cut him loose to protect him. Jade decides to call PJ because he won’t turn her in and he won’t turn her away. He likes to participate in ruin.

  When Jade has explained a tweaked version of her story, PJ cuts her a deal. The house he takes her to is one of his own. A rambling beach shack on part of the cramped gridlock of streets running between Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach. The first thing Jade notices when they pull up is that the windows are blacked out. At the front door PJ turns to her and says: None of what you see or do here goes beyond these walls.

  Jade nods to show she understands him. PJ presses the intercom and to identify himself just says: It’s me.

  A moment later a buzzer sounds and does not stop until they are inside. Here, two walls running either side of the internal staircase block any access to the lower levels of the house. The steps they take lead to a third level. From the narrow confines of the entryway Jade now finds herself in a huge room of which a bar is the central piece. It forms almost a full circle around the top of the staircase. There are thirteen other people in the room. Six men and six women paired off, and a woman decked out like Miss Tropicana behind the bar. The men are dressed, the women in various states of undress. There is enough music to smother intimate conversation.

  Jade notices the windows only block the view one way. Outside she can see cars and families passing on the esplanade. From the edges of the building in front of them white caps of surf are rolling in on the beach beyond and the regular traffic stream of a summer evening glides along the streets. Through the tinted windows it looks and feels to her like another world.

  PJ greets one of the couples at the bar but he does not introduce Jade or refer to her. She stands uncomfortably just behind him, staring at his shoulder, remembering other times. In return for Jade’s services he won’t add to her list of criminal charges and he’ll leave the Dealer out of it, the only condition Jade found herself asking for. PJ thinks her request is about conscience or love but Jade knows ties to the Dealer won’t help her case. Part of her is glad of the prospect of a life without him.

  Jade can see that the girl on the arm of one man is trying to catch her eye but, caught cold in an agonising moment, Jade has the sudden urge to cry, to touch PJ on the arm and say: It’s all been a mistake.

  But it’s too late for simplicity now. Instead, she looks down at her feet.

  PJ shows her the bedrooms, to the left and right of the main room. He takes her to the back of the house and down an external staircase. Jade can see through windows as she descends. Brightly lit rooms with women moving in them. Glimpses of running showers. All the time PJ moves in front of her as if he is barely aware she’s there. He takes her through this section of the house so fast that Jade scarcely registers it. First, a room with a series of couches, coffee tables, magazines and a huge television. Mirrors on the tables for reflections and the cutting of white powder. Next, a long hallway and on either side a series of small rooms with single beds. Some rooms occupied, others dark. Inside these pigeonholes, women sleep, curled in bland bedding. At the end of the hallway is the dressing room, a wide rectangular room covered in mirrors. On the edges of these mirrors bulbs run in fluorescent lines, some of them cracked and full of dust. PJ leans his weight on one of the chairs facing the mirrors and begins to talk to Jade.

  So you can live here, or you can come in, whatever. It’s up to you. You’ll make more money if you stay though, and all things considered, it’s probably your best bet. The cops are cool. The girls will show you how it all works …

  Jade stops listening. Her eyes have been distracted. Her mind infected by colour. Colour reflected back and forth in the mirrors, caught in every movement of her eye. And she realises it’s everywhere: the colour and the cloth. Hundreds and hundreds of costumes stacked on racks, thrown over chairs, hanging from hooks in the walls and dangling from brackets bolted into the ceilings; innumerable fantasies waiting for carriages to fill them; a theatrical invasion of gloss and glitter; a kal
eidoscope of black PVC, hot pink mesh, metallics, rayon and rose lace revolving against whitewashed walls. A place for make-believe.

  PJ starts stroking her breasts. She doesn’t pull away, soothed by the prospect of so much pretending. She guesses that even if she worked here every night for the next year she would never get through them all. This is how she sees her new role. Disguise as solid preparation for cruelty. PJ leaves, suddenly, and Jade is so enraptured she forgets to enquire about the rate of pay let alone the rate of his interest.

  THE DEALER

  I get back my job at the Casino, and I’m caught in the downside of false advertising.

  Without Jade, there’s no fun anymore in this arena of money, no laughter in these people who wrestle with their ability to stop, no spark in these punters who look more harrowed to me than they ever have before in their stupid and relentless pursuit of chips. I watch, impassive, as they dump whole towers of them in frenetic randomness, driven by their own bizarre rituals and superstitions. Anything to have an edge. And when they get what they want it only justifies the pursuit of more. They never know when to stop.

  I search the tables, desperate for laughter. For women that look like her. I focus on any resemblance. Winding up women who laugh, have fun in honour of her glow, but eventually the bug bites the best of them. Even in the bright faces of those who revel, the serious battle flickers; none of them plays like she does.