WHEN HE ARRIVED home Shaun saw the dark man in the backyard again, chipping concrete off the old bricks. What a task he had. The boy went downstairs into his own yard and approached the stepladder. Arman took a brick and reached up to put it on top of the neat row, just as Shaun’s head appeared over the fence in front of him. Arman reeled, tripped in the rubble and fell backwards onto the ground. Shaun climbed higher and looked down on him.
‘Are … are you okay?’
‘What you doing up there?’
Even against the bright sky Arman could see that it was the boy from the bus stop, the one that Benton seemed so interested in.
‘I just wanted to find out … I wanted to ask you about the bricks.’
Shaun watched him get to his feet and brush his clothes.
‘Nick pays me to clean them. The owner. Ten cents each.’
‘Do you want a hand? I can clean bricks. I don’t want any money though.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
Arman searched for an appropriate answer. ‘I don’t need a hand.’
Shaun noted the man’s dark eyes and thick black beard. He seemed too thin, or perhaps his pants and shirt were a size too large.
‘What about tomorrow?’
Arman studied the boy leaning precariously over the fence. ‘Okay, perhaps tomorrow when I get home from work. Perhaps.’
The next day Shaun waited at the window, and when the man appeared he went around to the rear lane. He found him already chipping away at the mortar. Arman looked up as he approached. ‘Two hundred and fifty-three already!’ the man said and smiled. Shaun picked up a small garden hoe and began scratching one of the bricks.
Arman decided it was appropriate to begin a conversation.
‘I already met your mother. I pick her up sometimes in the cab.’
‘She’s not my mother; she’s my aunty.’
‘You live with her, yes?’
‘Yes.’
Arman pictured the woman. What a tragedy that the boy lived with a person of such poor character. Not only did she take money for her services, but worse, she was taking it from a married man, another sinner who was also a neighbour. How deceptive life could be. It was impossible to know all the places where Satan could be found. Benton was so badly affected.
Arman told Shaun that he’d lived with his uncle when he first arrived in Australia, and how he had left when things were not to his liking.
‘Are you going to leave again?’ Shaun asked.
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Arman placed another brick on the stack and asked about the boy’s mother. She is gone, Shaun told him, matter-of-factly, and so was his father.
‘Mine too. My father died and our house burnt down. Then I had to leave my home.’
‘Our house burnt down. And I had to leave as well.’
Shaun placed his brick beside the man’s. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked.
‘Kabul. In Afghanistan.’
‘Is it bad there?’
‘Very bad.’
‘It’s bad where I come from too.’
‘Where you come from?’
‘Kilbana. In the bush.’
‘Will you be going back one day?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I won’t. I cannot. They kill me if I do.’
The pair continued to chip mortar and Arman thought about his homeland. Right then he felt particularly isolated. He glanced again at the boy.
‘You have any friends?’ he said.
‘Not here, but I have some where I used to live. Up in the bush.’
‘I have some friends where I used to live. I think so. I hope so.’
Shaun noticed a smooth stone amongst the rubble and picked it up.
‘What you have found?’ Arman asked.
‘I don’t know, just a stone. Maybe quartz.’
Between them they examined the object, Arman turning it in his dusty hands.
‘In Afghanistan we say, In the little bit left, precious things can still be found. In my country we have a very famous stone, I think you call it lapis. We have been mining that lovely blue stone for six thousand years. The Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, they all got their lapis from Badakhshan. But what you have found here is just as precious. It is the only one in the world. Like you and me.’
Shaun slipped the stone into his pocket and a little later went in for lunch. ‘Three hundred and eight,’ Arman called from the fence. ‘I see you another day, yes?’
SHAUN SEARCHED for a bell but there wasn’t one. He rapped hard on the wooden door, paint-peeling, cracked and bleached grey – the colour of juvenile gumleaves. It was his neighbour’s door in the side street. Aunty Adele had received an invoice for the repair work to her wall. She’d made a copy of it and gave the original to Shaun.
‘I have an errand for you, Duke.’ She’d begun calling him Duke, a nickname she hoped would endear the boy to her. ‘Could you take this bill next door for me? Give it to the one called Nick.’ She wrote the name on the envelope – it was all that his aunt knew of him.
Shaun knocked again and presently he heard footfalls on an internal staircase. He expected to see Arman but a rangy fellow with light-coloured hair opened the door; pale face, a vertical furrow bisecting his forehead, unshaven, eyebrows as fair as the caterpillars of tussock moths. The face seemed very stern but as Shaun opened his mouth to speak, it relaxed and transformed so completely that the boy saw a different person.
‘Hello, young man, what can I do for you?’
‘I … are you Nick?’
‘Nick? Do I look like a Nick? Come in, come in.’
Shaun followed him inside and Benton marvelled at his good fortune. The boy he’d seen at the bus stop had not returned, but here he was on his own doorstep and Arman had gone to the mosque.
‘You have a name, I expect?’
‘Shaun.’
‘Shaun. What a lovely name. I knew a famous Shaun once, a movie star. On personal speaking terms I was, can you believe it? Your mother know you’re here then?’
Shaun explained that he had a letter for Nick which came from his Aunty Adele.
‘Aunty Adele?’
‘Next door. We live next door.’
‘Of course! I know her well. We’re friends, you know.’ He noted the envelope in the boy’s hands. ‘Better give that to me then, eh?’
‘Are you Nick?’
‘As I said, do I look like a Nick?’ He smiled. ‘No son, I’m not, but I’d be honoured to pass it on. Nick is the landlord, you see, and he often drops by for a cuppa.’ Benton reached out and pulled the envelope from Shaun’s hand. The boy looked past him and saw the monitor. He recognised the bus stop.
‘That’s a security camera,’ Benton informed him. ‘Very popular in the old country. One of the very first models was installed right outside the manor gates.’ His eyes appraised the boy. ‘Now, let’s see, what can I fetch for a strapping lad like yourself? A glass of fruit juice? I wouldn’t mind one myself.’
‘No thanks, I’d better get –’
‘Wait a minute, you just arrived! What about a sandwich? You like cheese, Shaun, or peanut butter?’
‘No, I’d better –’
‘Tell you what, I have something I know you’ll like. Everybody’s onto it now: a new computer game called Eve Online. Have you seen that one? You have to take a spaceship right out into the universe. Best game on the market. I have it upstairs. Come on, son, come and have a quick look before you go.’
Benton’s heart quickened. Suddenly he was holding all the right cards and, if he was not mistaken, it was a lay down misére. Such a hackneyed expression, yet perfect for the occasion, and imbued equally with the suggestion of risk. But wasn’t it worth it? Wasn’t all of life a gamble, mustn’t one follow one’s intuitions despite the uncertain outcome? What can be achieved without it? Would Rimbaud have written his visionary texts if he had not first abandoned all th
e niceties of life; would Baudelaire have published his Fleurs du mal if he’d been worried about public opinion? With the small boy, Benton could soon be descending into a state of euphoria that outclassed any drug on the market. For that kind of reward he would chance everything. How rarely he experienced it; how cherished those instances were!
He headed for the stairs and Shaun took a few steps towards him. ‘I don’t like computer games that much. Only Spore and –’
‘Spore? Never heard of it,’ Benton said. ‘I thought I knew them all! Could you find it for me on the internet? Won’t take a second. I’d very much appreciate it. I installed your aunty’s new LCD TV – you can return the favour. You don’t want to be rude to your neighbour, do you? Come on.’
He climbed the stairs and Shaun followed. What a wonderful boy. The man’s knees weakened as he reached the landing. Shaun was close behind and Benton felt sure he could detect the sweetness of the lad’s shampoo. A wonderful boy, indeed! If he’d been lucky enough to have a child, he’d have wanted one exactly like this fine young man.
Just as he reached the landing, Benton heard the front door close and the sound came as cruelly as a slap. Almost as if it was part of his DNA, he recognised instantly all the hallmarks of the appalling bad luck that had dogged him since childhood. With infuriating innocence, Arman came ambling along the passageway down below, and Benton felt his expectations drain away like water from a split bucket.
His flatmate paused and looked up, trying to absorb the setting: Benton at the top of the staircase and the boy standing, one foot higher than the other. It was the child who had helped with the bricks. He greeted them both and Benton explained that Shaun was offering to lend assistance upstairs.
‘No!’ Arman blurted.
‘I beg you pardon? Stay out of this, Arman; it has nothing to do with you.’
Arman fixed his eyes on the boy.
‘I think you better go home. Go on! Go now, we do not want you in this house!’ He was almost shouting.
Shaun turned to leave and Benton grabbed him by the sleeve. ‘That won’t be necessary. Come on, son. Keep out of it, Arman. He’s just going to help me with a computer game.’
But Shaun pulled free, slipped quickly down the stairs, past Arman, and out into the street. The Afghan followed. He watched the boy turn the corner before marching off in the opposite direction.
BENTON CLIMBED the ladder and adjusted the surveillance camera. It had been pointing to the bus stop but that had proved fruitless. He turned it now, ninety degrees, and aimed it along the footpath where it might catch anyone going to or from number 42. He returned to the monitor and dropped heavily onto the kitchen chair. Bloody meddling Arman! What was wrong with the man? Go now, he had said. Wisely, Benton had stayed calm and allowed the boy to leave. Okay, never mind. See you another time, he had called and smiled. It would have been foolish to get upset; that kind of response was never effective. Yet inside he boiled; why had Arman interfered?
With that thought held, he saw movement on his LCD screen and watched a young, anorexic-looking woman with spiked, unnaturally coloured hair approach the neighbour’s door. Soon after, the boy and an older lad emerged. The three of them passed beneath his camera and appeared to loiter just out of sight. Benton cursed: he should have left the thing pointing at the bus stop. He went into the front room, stepping down onto the earthen floor, and crept towards the front glass that was papered over. He tore back a corner of the newsprint, just enough for one eye. The two older ones kept moving about, making observation difficult. Only the boy seemed to stay still. He tried to catch the conversation: You can, I’m not … I don’t care if it … What do you think, Shaun?
Shaun, that’s the one. There was a young British actor named Shaun Harris – or was it Sean? No matter, it was a sweet name for a boy.
As soon as the bus arrived, Benton returned to the kitchen and, from beneath the bench, took out a brand new bottle of spirits. He liked drinking during the day, for some reason sunlight seems to enhance the effects. And he was still there, hours later, when his flatmate returned. Arman appraised Ben gazing at the monitor, his hand clutching the heavy tumbler, gleaming liquid climbing up the smeary glass.
‘Ah, Arman. Just the one I wanted to see. What, pray tell, was that all about? Would you deny me a bit of neighbourly bonhomie, an ounce of cordiality? Do I detect a bit of jealousy; is that it?’
The Englishman was slumped and sloping – into the chair and away from the table – and his hand seemed affixed to his glass like a three-pronged plug in a socket drawing a peculiar kind of energy, his only connection to the exterior world. The bottle stood three parts empty, its contents organically converted into the man’s torpidity.
‘I … I have something for you, Ben,’ Arman began. ‘Something to help. I make a special drink for you, better than the other.’
‘A drink? Now you’re talking!’ He spun to face Arman, the centrifugal drift almost throwing him out of the chair. ‘Listen, Arman. I can put up with you living here and I feel certain we can eventually get over our differences. But don’t stand in my road. Do you understand?’
‘Benton. You have a problem. I can help you.’
Benton pushed the chair out with a squawk. ‘Are you serious? Have you heard a word I’ve said? Don’t interfere, Arman.’
He stood unsteadily, took up his bottle and tumbler and pitched towards the stairs. But even before he reached the top landing, Arman had selected an aluminium pot and added some water. He dropped in a heaped spoon of Kudzu powder, another of honey, and a little ground ginger. He brought the whole to the boil. Minutes later he carried a cup of the hot beverage to Benton’s room. He tapped on the door.
‘Ben, I have something for you.’
On the man’s beckoning he entered and found Benton sitting on the bed in his underpants. Arman’s hand shook.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘You must drink it. This will make you well.’ He leaned in solicitously and Benton took the cup with some reluctance. He eyed the syrupy liquid.
‘You’re beginning to irritate me, Arman, you know that? On more than one level, but uppermost among them: I am not sick.’
‘Yes you are, Ben, very sick.’
Benton put the cup on his desk and sighed. ‘What does it take, Arman? How does one get a message to an interfering, God-bothering, foreigner? Are you completely blind; are you utterly without sight? I never felt better in my life.’
EIGHT FLUTED columns rose to a broad, stone lintel which had the word VICTORIA carved into it, plated with gold. The steps leading up to the historic building reminded Jess of a scene from an old movie; was it Halloween or The Exorcist? Elton recalled the entrance to Elroth where Korderon was slain. Shaun craned his neck upwards, following the lines of the Corinthian pillars to the nests of wire at their apex. A short distance away, a towering bronze monument stood on the pitted concrete and Shaun approached it.
‘It’s a statue, Shaunie, a lump of brass in the shape of a fat chauvinist.’
Jess had dressed up for the library visit: her fuchsia-and-black hair was appropriately shaped, her purple lipstick and black eyeliner heavily applied, her special bat earrings boldly dancing. She wore her best studs, a Christian Death T-shirt with the sleeves cut exposing her tatts, bondage pants and industrial platform boots that placed her eye-to-eye with Elton. He, on the other hand, had donned a white shirt with the sleeves and collar buttoned, brown trousers with a good crease, and a favourite pair of tan leather shoes. Shaun had appropriately worn his father’s brown hand-knitted jumper, and from under it he took out his exercise book. He sat on a bench nearby and wrote: Sir Redmond Barry. Invaluable services.
Elton squinted up at the monument. ‘He’s staring at Hungry Jack’s over the road.’
‘He’s supposed to be looking towards Melbourne University. He started it; the university.’
‘Bully for him,’ said Jess and plonked down beside the boy. At her feet someone had spilled a can of Coke and it made a dark, irr
egular pattern on the paving. A flattened cigarette butt touched up to another as though in intimate conversation.
‘He also started the library,’ Shaun said. ‘And he got Ned Kelly hung.’
‘How do you know all this stuff, Shaun?’
‘It was a project at school, that’s why I wanted to come.’
Elton was still standing in front of them. ‘Can we go inside now?’
‘In a minute, Ello,’ said Jess. ‘Calm yourself. Come and sit down here.’
Elton checked to see that the seat was clean and cautiously sat down.
Shaun wrote in his book: One wire sticking out of the man’s head. It stops the pigeons landing.
Jess read it over his shoulder. ‘You forgot to mention the cobwebs in his crutch and the Spiderman sticker on his fat gut.’ She sighed. ‘This is boring, Shaun. Think of something else to do, otherwise we should just piss off.’ She stood up and peered at a plaque under the statue. ‘Here, Shaun, write this down: Erected by a grateful public.’
Shaun headed toward the library steps, the others following. They strolled into the foyer, cool, dark and quiet, and Elton immediately began to feel better. He asked Jess if she’d ever been there.
‘I might’ve, I might not have. Does it matter?’
‘I’ve been here. When I was at uni.’
‘You were at uni?’
‘For a while. I got sick of it.’
In the darkened interior, Elton looked visibly relaxed and Shaun noticed it.
‘You could work here, Elton, and get paid. I bet they need someone to manage all these computers.’
‘Oh what fun,’ Jess summoned her bored expression.
Shaun looked up at her. ‘What about you, Jess? You could get a job here as well.’
She gaped at him through her heavily made-up eyes and Noir lips, her bracelets jangling. ‘Do I look like a librarian?’
‘I bet a lot of people here aren’t librarians. Bet those people putting the books away aren’t librarians.’
They went through to the stairs and Shaun strode ahead of them.
‘Shaun,’ Jess called. ‘Is this necessary?’
They entered the domed Reading Room, an expanse almost the size of a sports field with an arching glass ceiling casting scattered light onto the lines of glossy reading-desks radiating from the centre. Shaun’s eyes danced along the shelves of multicoloured tomes. Elton looked unimpressed.
The Colour of the Night Page 16