No Alarms

by Beckett, Bernard

  And then she was there, without having planned it, right outside the school flat where Trish had said she was staying. Sharon didn’t click at first, she only stopped because there were sounds coming from somewhere, and she thought it might have been a party. Then she realised, and next thing she was knocking on the door, just because she was there, with the writing in her hand. And because it meant not going home.

  ‘Sharon? Hey, good to see you. How’s it going?’ Trish had to shout above the music. Some dance thing, the same sort of stuff Justin listened to. ‘Here, come in.’

  The house was a mess, the sort of mess that made it hard to feel like a visitor. They walked in through the kitchen, where all the cupboards were open and empty, and the floor was covered in packing boxes. Bits of screwed up newspaper had escaped from most of them and Trish waded through it, kicking a path with her feet. The lounge was the same, except a space in the boxes had been cleared along one wall, room enough for the stereo and two large cushions. Trish sat on one and pointed at the other.

  ‘Sit down. Sorry about the mess. I decided it wasn’t worth unpacking, just for four weeks, but slowly all the boxes have come out because it’s like there’s one thing I need in each one. I’m a bit of a mess like that to be honest.’

  She smiled and shrugged, like she was explaining it to some old friend and Sharon only felt more awkward. She wished she’d kept walking. Derek was a pain in the arse, but at least he was easy to understand.

  ‘So what can I do for you?’

  ‘Ah…’ Sharon couldn’t think of much of an answer. She looked down to her hands where she was still holding her piece of writing. ‘Oh, yeah, I wrote this.’

  She handed it over, even though most of her was screaming not to. It was better than saying nothing.

  ‘I didn’t want to hand it in in class. I thought, I don’t know. I just didn’t.’

  And she shrugged again, just in case Trish still hadn’t worked out how stupid she was. Not that Trish seemed to notice, or care. The way she was in class wasn’t an act then, it was just how she was.

  ‘Great. Wonderful. I hoped you’d write something, I really did.’

  She stood and turned the stereo down till the room stopped vibrating. Then she settled back onto her cushion with the printout and Sharon shuffled across so she could read it again, over Trish’s shoulder. It felt so bad just waiting, seeing the words now like Trish would be seeing them.

  I’VE GOT PLANS

  I’ve got plans. Plans don’t have to be written down. They don’t have to have numbers attached to them, years at school, shit like that. Plans aren’t knowing what job you’re going to do. I don’t know where I’m going but it doesn’t mean I don’t have plans. I know where I’m not going. I know what I’m not going to be.

  People who tell me I’ve got no future, like that makes me any different. What the fuck’s the future anyway? The future’s now. Same as it was yesterday, same as it will be tomorrow.

  There’s all these people waiting, like waiting for something is enough to make it happen. That’s the future, having something to wait for. I’m glad I don’t have any future then. I hate waiting.

  I’m not a loser like them. I know what I’ve got and I know how to keep it, so that’s a plan. I’ve got other plans, plans so good I can’t write them down. They think there’s only one way. They think school and jobs is the one way. Well that’s only for people who don’t have any ideas of their own. I know what I want and I know how to get it. So fuck them. I’ve got plans.

  Sharon could see Trish’s eyes had stopped scanning the page. She was worse than Justin like that, the way she could keep you waiting.

  ‘How long did it take to write this?’

  ‘Um, not too long. How come?’

  ‘It’s great, I think. Yeah, wonderful. Thanks Sharon.’

  Sharon felt herself go red and she looked away.

  ‘Here, what do you drink?’ And she touched Sharon’s knee as she asked it, the way some people always do, with their friends.

  ‘Um, dunno.’ Sharon shrugged again.

  ‘Beer, coke, water, juice, there’s half a cask of wine in the fridge I think but it’s fairly disgusting.’

  ‘Coke,’ although a beer would have been better.

  She came back with two glasses and an unopened two litre, along with a six pack, like she knew there was only one way this evening was going.

  They got to talking again and there was something about it all that Sharon couldn’t keep fighting. Partly it was the music getting inside her head, loosening her up, but mostly it was Trish, doing the same thing. It wasn’t what she said exactly, more like the things she knew not to say. Not asking about school or home, not sounding all concerned. No advice or checking on her plans for the future. Just getting the beers open and letting the talk flow, like the start of a good party. Trish talking mostly, silly stories and meaningless crap, the stuff you’d only say to a friend. It was like she’d found some way of cheating, of working out rules that nobody else seemed to get.

  ‘So how come you’re a teacher then?’ Sharon asked her, because it didn’t make any sense, that a person like her would choose to spend her time in school.

  ‘Got to do something,’ Trish smiled like the question embarrassed her. ‘Nah, it is good though. I don’t know. It’s sort of fun.’

  ‘But don’t they piss you off, other teachers?’

  ‘More than you could possibly know.’

  ‘I hear they’re not going to let you paint the wall,’ Sharon said.

  ‘Yeah, I heard that too,’ Trish grinned. ‘You know what they say though. Easier to say sorry than please. I’m getting kinda good at sorry. Here, another beer?’

  And when the beer was finished and they saw it was past twelve it didn’t seem strange that Trish would go and get a sleeping bag so Sharon could crash on the floor. In a place where she would never have thought of looking, Sharon got the feeling she’d found a friend.

  The next morning when she left, Sharon was still on a high. So when she saw a curtain twitching in the next door flat, some uptight little teacher checking up on her new neighbour, Sharon had to smile and raise a single finger, a finger that said you can think what you like, cos I don’t need people like you.

  • • •

  There were three types of men in Kaz’s life. She’d said so herself, explained it all to Sharon in one of the mother-daughter chats Sharon knew other daughters didn’t get. First there were the locals. Men like Tom, from just down the road, or the guys she saw every time she went to the pub. Guys she’d have a laugh with, who knew her every mood, sad through to paralytic. Guys who’d step in straight away, if Kaz ever looked like she was in some sort of trouble. It was like having a huge collection of older brothers. They’d often call in, hang round the house, filling it up with laughter or complaining, depending on the mood. But they never stayed. It was one of the rules, according to Kaz. You never slept with locals.

  Then there were the casuals. Guys Sharon’d see once, coming out of the bathroom in the morning, looking sort of embarrassed, like they knew what it must be like for the daughter, starting her day with an eyeful of them. And they never did look too good first thing. But they’d be gone soon enough, shuffling up to Kaz’s room to rescue their clothes, then out the front door and back into whatever life it was they’d slipped out of. Sharon didn’t mind them too much. They didn’t try to befriend her, they didn’t hang round the kitchen, eating stuff out of the fridge. Their clothes never made it into the washing machine. They knew their place.

  It was the last group, the stayers, Sharon hated. There were less of them, maybe because of the stink Sharon caused every time Kaz tried to slip a new one into their lives. Or maybe Kaz was getting to the age where stayers were harder to find. Derek was a stayer. Sharon knew it first time she saw him. Soon he’d be buying them things, her and Zinny. Little stuff, meant to make them like him. Or worse, he’d try to take them places, the whole family, like they could ever belong
buckled into the back seat of his Jap import. He sold car stereos for a living, and had a speaker under the front seat that made the whole car shake. Sharon hoped soon someone on the street would steal it, and then he would go away.

  Sharon tried to explain it to Kaz, how awful he was, how stupid he was making her look, how she could do so much better, but Kaz wouldn’t let herself listen.

  ‘Look at you,’ was all Kaz said. ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old to believe in fairy tales?’

  So Sharon took to spending more time out of the house, just hanging round, like she was waiting for something to happen.

  Justin hung back, like he could, but he must have been watching all the time. It was like he could read her, sense her moods. He picked the perfect time to ask, one afternoon when she was feeling restless, ready to agree to just about anything.

  ‘Came into some money lately,’ is how he started, up in the trees just after interval, when the other smokers had walked back to class.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sharon replied, trying to sound as casual as he was, though she knew he wouldn’t mention money if he didn’t have a point.

  ‘Thought you might like to come out with me, movie or something.’

  He said it the same way he said everything, how he’d announce an itch on his leg or the death of a friend. If you wanted to get excited about the things Justin had to say, that was your business. He wouldn’t go helping you.

  ‘Maybe,’ Sharon replied, sucking too hard on the remnants of her cigarette, because she wasn’t as good at the game.

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up about seven then.’

  ‘You don’t know where I live.’

  ‘Yes I do. Got the stereo remember.’ Justin smiled, but not in the way that he was being a prick about it.

  ‘You don’t drive.’

  ‘We’ll take a taxi.’

  ‘Waste of money. I can walk.’

  ‘Not into town you can’t. Anyway, we can talk in the car. There’s stuff we need to discuss.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ Justin stood, deliberately not looking at her, trying to keep it mysterious. ‘Dress up, it’ll be fun.’

  He walked off and Sharon didn’t follow him. She lit another cigarette and breathed in the feeling she’d been waiting for, the feeling of life kicking back in. People could say what they liked, people like Derek or Mrs Flynn, people who’d never understand.

  Justin’ll get me outta here.

  • • •

  ‘It’s not the geek is it?’ Kaz asked when she caught Sharon going through her earrings.

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘It’s not natural. Think of the children.’

  ‘Oh, like I would.’

  ‘Who then?’ Kaz asked.

  ‘Justin.’ Sharon shrank at the sound of the name, not the sort of sound you make in front of your mother.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Don’t breathe all that smoke over my dress.’

  ‘My dress.’ Red, and too tight really, but at least it wasn’t short, like most of Kaz’s stuff.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘So who is he then?’

  ‘That’s him.’ A taxi tooted from out on the road. ‘See ya later.’

  Justin got out to open the door, wearing the same clothes he always wore, big denim jacket slipping off his skinny body, same green boots that would have looked stupid on anyone else.

  ‘I thought you said to dress up,’ Sharon said, feeling obvious now, and cold.

  ‘I did. You look great.’ Said so it was hard to tell what he meant. Not sleazy though. Justin wasn’t like that.

  The taxi took them all the way into town, thirty minutes, and the whole time Sharon waited for Justin to say something, do the discussing he’d promised, but he just looked out the window, at the dark water and the floating lights of the harbour. Half an hour of biting her lips, wondering if it was the dress, wondering if he’d changed his mind. Justin got the taxi to stop down by the wharves, across the road from the stadium, nowhere near any of the movie places. When Sharon asked what he was doing he didn’t reply, just handed the driver a fifty through the window and told him to keep the change.

  ‘Come on, follow me, through here.’

  Justin led her down an access way. Painted signs on the high wire fence running alongside explained that trespassers would be prosecuted. Sharon noticed a small bag hanging by a strap over Justin’s shoulder, bouncing on his hip as he glided on into the shadows.

  ‘Here, this way.’ The fence ended at the edge of the wharf. Holding the last support with one hand, Justin swung around into the container compound. Sharon followed him. It wasn’t too hard. Maybe this was another job, or another test.

  ‘So what sort of movie is this then?’ Sharon whispered. Justin had stopped walking and was looking out across the yard. It was bigger than you’d think from driving past, rows and rows of shipping containers, and back to the left a stack of logs that looked set to tumble. Beyond them, out on the waterfront, were the crouched dark outlines of the loading cranes.

  ‘Changed my mind.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘No worries.’

  A gust of wind passed through them.

  ‘So, what are you doing? It’s cold here.’

  ‘I want to get a photo, over by the cranes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bought a new camera yesterday.’ He patted the bag. ‘It’s for my photography assignment.’

  ‘You brought me into town to do school work? That’s fucked.’

  ‘Not just that.’

  ‘Whatever. Come on then. It’s cold.’

  ‘Just a sec. Sometimes there’s a guy does rounds with a dog. If you see it, go straight back round the end of the fence. It’s fucken fast.’

  ‘You been here before?’

  ‘Couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘So why didn’t you take your photo then?’

  ‘Like I said, the dog’s fucken fast.’ He smiled and the wash of the security lights blew up his features, making him look even more pleased with himself, and more frustrating. ‘Anyway, you weren’t here then.’

  ‘I’m not going in any photo,’ Sharon told him. ‘Not dressed like this.’

  ‘It’s perfect.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘No one’ll know it’s you. I don’t want to use your face.’

  ‘Well that makes it a lot better.’

  ‘I’ll show it to you first, promise. Come on, it’s clear now. Dog can’t be on tonight.’

  He ran across the yard, and although it hardly looked like he was moving Sharon had to breathe hard to keep up with him, and concentrate harder to stop herself from breaking an ankle in Kaz’s stupid shoes.

  Justin took forever to set up, hardly a shock. Sharon had to admit it was a cool place for a photo. Surfaces that would have looked old and shitty in the day time were painted with strange shadows. The cranes towered above them, black and staunch, and behind the lights of Mt Vic made it all seem even less real. She felt sort of stink, sitting in the cold while Justin stalked around her, playing with his lens, changing his mind every time it looked like he might have settled on an angle. It was good though, just because it was so weird, so Justin. And he’d said there was something to discuss. There was still that. There was still a possibility. So she sat and she didn’t complain. And when he put his camera back in the bag and suggested they go and shelter behind one of the containers to talk she said okay, and when they got there and he took his jacket off and draped it over both of them she had to smile.

  ‘Heard they’re trying to get you on contract,’ Justin said, maybe just to get a conversation started. It was hard to tell with him.

  ‘No, Mrs Flynn’s given up on that idea I think. She met Kaz. That helped.’

  ‘Good on her,’ Justin replied.

  Sharon tried to imagine what Justin would think of Kaz, if he met her. He’d like her,
she was fairly sure.

  ‘Yeah, she’s okay.’

  ‘Right.’

  There was silence then, and it belonged to Justin. It was obvious he had something else to say, something he’d been coming at the long way.

  ‘Got a proposition for you.’

  Sharon couldn’t look at him, in case her eyes gave away how desperately she’d been wanting to hear that. So she looked past him, back to the lights of the city, where the cleaners would be now, emptying bins and flushing other people’s toilets.

  ‘Sharon, is there something wrong?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Well it’s just this is really important. I think it could be our big break.’

  Sharon felt hope surging in, washing her clean of weeks of nothing.

  Our big break. Him and me together.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s another job. Simon wants you for it. No one else. And the pay’s real this time, bigger than he’s ever offered before. You got lucky.’

  ‘What will I have to do?’ Sharon asked but Justin acted like he hadn’t heard.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘this could be it for me. Here…’ He leaned even closer and whispered ‘5000 each’ in her ear.

  Sharon started to smile, at the way all the good luck that life had been holding back was starting to ooze out. Play it right and soon it’d be a flood. Then she remembered he still hadn’t answered her question.

  ‘So what’s the job?’

  ‘Well obviously it’s going to be a bit tricky, for that sort of money.’