Beyond Carousel (12 page)

So I held fast to routine and to numbness. I worked out. I sunbaked. I went room to room and built a wardrobe and a library. I watched the lightshow and barbequed with Rachel. My writing petered, then stopped completely. I settled back into the life of a Patron. No rules. No pressure. Just the day and the night and whatever it took to fill them.

Every second Tuesday Rachel took a battery-powered golf cart to a shopping centre in Victoria Park for underwear, batteries and whatever else she couldn't find in the resort. I sat out the first couple, worried about the Finns returning while I was away. But eventually I grew bored and restless and asked her if I could come along.

We set off around one pm. This was effectively midmorning for Rachel and she seemed tired and grumpy. The golf cart was one of hundreds housed on the adjacent country club. Rachel kept it tucked away by a taxi rank on the east side of the building with a stack of spare batteries. We slid aboard and she rolled us
out through the sweeping casino gardens and onto the highway.

‘Are there pit bulls in Vic Park?' I ask her.

‘Yeah. A few,' said Rachel.

I glanced at her. She didn't seem concerned.

We turned from the highway and climbed through some streets to the east. Before long the hills came dramatically into view. Great swathes of barren, grey hillside spread out as far as I could see. Within the mass of dotted tree stumps were small patches of bare earth where a house or shed had once stood. It was bushfire on a scale I had never seen. Like a giant firefront had charged across the deserts from the cities of the east and crashed like a wave into the hills.

Rachel ripped through side streets, parks and stationary traffic as if she was running late to pick her kids up from school. I held on for my life and couldn't help but smile at the sight of her. Blinged-up designer sunnies. Cigarette wedged between chunky diamonds on her fingers. Head to toe in Nike gear, ready for a workout that rarely eventuated. Before long she screeched to a stop outside the local IGA.

‘My rule is ten minutes and two bags,' she said. ‘Any longer and people start sniffing around.'

‘People?' I asked.

‘Loots,' she replied.

I looked around warily. It was quiet and suburban. Trolleys had drifted like leaves to all corners of the
car park. There was a long delivery truck backed up to a loading bay at the side. Rachel stepped out of the cart and headed in that direction. I followed her as she tracked alongside the vehicle. It had been frozen mid-delivery. The boxes and crates that were still aboard had been ransacked and scattered. A small forklift held up another stack of boxes. These were emptied too. Just a lonely crate of Chum dog food remained untouched.

Inside was pretty ghetto. It was shadowy and dank and the floor felt crunchy with dirt beneath our shoes. Fat insects circled about the roof space above. Rachel grabbed a couple of shopping bags from behind a register and headed off alone into the aisles. I took some bags of my own and looked around snobbishly. This wasn't the type of shopping to which I had become accustomed. People had gone to town on the shelves. Spilling and grabbing greedily as if the earth was about to be struck by a meteor. I picked my way through and eventually found some of the razors I liked. Also some sports socks, Minties and Vitamin C tablets. Otherwise the selection was dismal. It wasn't the biggest store, but I was still surprised at the extent to which it had been cleared out.

When I finished Rachel was already waiting impatiently at the front of the store. Her bags were stuffed full of who knows what.

‘Did you get paper plates?' she asked.

‘No. Sorry,' I replied.

Rachel sighed. ‘Aisle six,' she said.

I turned back obediently to get the plates. Arguing with Rachel was never really an option. The stocks of plates were diminishing but I grabbed a few packets and jammed them into my bag. Abruptly Rachel's voice boomed out through the aisles.

‘Don't fucking touch me, arsehole.'

I stood up.

‘Get a move on, Nox,' she yelled.

I freaked out, but ran back to her regardless.

Rachel was in stand-off with a filthy looking bearded guy by the checkouts. He glanced at me. Then back to Rachel. He looked super cracky and reminded me of a dexie fiend we had to fire from work.

‘What's going on?' I asked.

‘Give me the keys, hag,' said the guy.

‘Get your own fucking car,' replied Rachel.

The guy stepped forward. Rachel pulled a can of something out of her pocket.

‘Do you want to get sprayed in the face again?' she asked.

‘I need a car,' he replied.

‘Why?' I asked.

The guy turned and looked at me closely.

‘He's in the hills,' he whispered.

‘Who? The Curator?' I asked.

Before he could answer Rachel sent a shower of spray into his eyes. He shrieked and keeled over. She turned to
me and nodded to the door. The guy started groaning.

‘It's just Impulse, you big baby,' said Rachel.

We circled around him to the exit.

‘I need a car!' cried the guy.

‘It's a golf cart, idiot! You won't get past Cannington,' said Rachel.

She swung back outside without waiting for a reply. I glanced back at the crumpled, jittery dude on the floor, then followed. We threw our bags in the back and Rachel ripped a savage turn back out onto the street.

‘I told you. Ten minutes. Two bags,' she said.

‘Who was that dude?' I asked.

‘A poet or some crap,' she replied.

‘Do you know his name?' I asked.

‘His name?' asked Rachel. ‘His name is loser poet guy. Friend of skanky dancer girl and pervert photographer.'

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

For a week in autumn I hooked up with an actress named Georgia from Ohio. She was sitting in the foyer one night, waiting to see if anyone would make good on the note that was still stuck to the counter. I wandered inside in my track pants and froze.

Georgia kind of looked me up and down.

‘Sorry. I'm not T,' she said.

‘What?' I asked.

‘T. From the note. It's not me,' she said.

‘Oh, okay,' I said.

‘But you're Nox, right?' she asked.

‘Yeah,' I replied.

She stood up and moved over to shake my hand.

‘Georgia,' she said.

‘Hi,' I replied.

Georgia was pretty. She had a classic look. Her face was lightly tanned, proportionate and highlighted by magnetic green eyes and ringlets of dark-blonde hair that bounced around her shoulders like she'd just
teleported in from a Hitchcock film.

‘Is T your girlfriend?' she asked.

‘No. She's Taylor. And Lizzy. They're sisters. Twins,' I replied, confusingly.

‘Oh cool, Taylor & Lizzy,' said Georgia.

I nodded and tried to loosen the dorky white t-shirt that was swallowing my neck.

‘Have they been gone long?' asked Georgia.

‘Since the fire,' I replied.

She eyed me cautiously as if to weigh up whether I had lost my mind like the rest of the city.

‘Well, that sucks,' she said. ‘Are you a musician too?'

‘No. A writer, I guess,' I replied. ‘You?'

‘I'm an actress. I'm trying to be an actress. I
was
trying to be an actress. Before all this,' she replied and swung an arm out theatrically.

‘You're from the States?' I asked.

‘Ohio. Go Buckeyes,' replied Georgia.

I nodded as Georgia wandered the space.

‘Sorry. How come you're in Perth?' I asked, confused.

‘Acting school,' she replied.

‘You're at WAAPA?' I asked.

‘The one and only,' said Georgia.

WAAPA was the performing arts school famous for ex-student Hugh Jackman. I had met a couple of WAAPA students before. Friends of my old housemate. They were chatty and brash twenty-four-seven.

‘So you're living here in the casino?' asked Georgia.

‘Yeah, at the moment,' I replied.

‘That's cool. Are you here on your own?' she asked.

‘There's a lady in one of the penthouses. Rachel. She's been here for a while,' I replied.

Georgia nodded. She seemed restless.

‘Well, I need a place to crash for a few nights. Do you wanna show me around?' she asked.

‘Yeah. Sure. What kind of room do you want?' I asked.

‘Just something small and humble,' replied Georgia.

She stared at me for a second, wide-eyed, then shoved me like I was an idiot.

‘I want a palace, Nox. I haven't slept for like a week.'

I didn't want to piss off Rachel so I stopped a few levels short of the penthouses and ushered Georgia into a corner suite with a view of the river. She unpacked some of her stuff while I brought her up some food, water and candles from the kitchen below. I also grabbed a pot and one of the portable gas burners that Rachel and I used for hot water. Georgia thanked me and asked if I could come back later when she wasn't so ‘gross'.

I went back upstairs, changed out of my track pants and paced around like a teenager wondering what this meant.

When I eventually went back down Georgia was yawny and doe-eyed at the door.

‘Were you sleeping?' I asked.

‘No. No. Come in,' she replied.

I moved past her into the dim, candlelit space inside.

‘I just thought you might come back sooner,' said Georgia.

‘Sorry,' I replied.

‘You're fine. How much does it suck without Facebook or a phone?' she replied. ‘I'm constantly like
cool I'll see you around
and then realising I will probably never see that person again.'

‘Yeah. Totally,' I replied.

‘Oh my god. Sorry. I'm such a dick. I'm sure you will see Taylor and Lizzy again. I just mean like, random people,' said Georgia.

‘It's cool,' I replied.

The darkness made things awkward. Georgia moved around when she spoke and her face was slipping in and out of the candlelight. She looked at me and smiled, then yawned again.

‘God. Sorry,' she said.

We stood quietly for a moment and I considered leaving her to sleep.

‘Oh hey, the mini-bar is loaded. Do you want to take a shot with me?' asked Georgia.

‘Yeah. Definitely,' I replied.

She grabbed a handful of single-serve bottles from the fridge and scattered them across the counter. We picked out a couple of vodkas, clinked them and drank.

‘Wow,' said Georgia with a hand on her chest. ‘I'm so lightweight these days.'

I smiled, feeling the exact opposite.

‘Should we try a gin?' she said.

‘Sure,' I replied.

We looked through the bottles and found some Bombay Sapphire. The drinking felt mechanical. A high school regression. The necessary precursor to making out with somebody where you could avoid mentioning what you both wanted to do before somebody plunged in and it was suddenly, thankfully already happening.

We coughed and laughed and Georgia's arm brushed mine as we looked through the other bottles. Our eyes met and held for a second or two, then we started making out. With Molly this had felt foreign, part of the fabric of the strange new world. Kissing with Georgia was different. It was how I remembered it before the Disappearance. Where the world would blur out to just smell, texture and a sudden abyss of thoughts and feelings.

Georgia was kind of frantic. Her hands wrapping around my neck, then working off my clothes, then stopping to wrap around my neck again. We kept going until we were almost naked and Georgia pulled away and crouched down in the darkness.

‘Georgia?' I asked.

‘Sorry. You're fine. I have condoms in here somewhere,' she replied, rummaging through her stuff.

We had sex twice on the giant, dusty ensemble. Georgia's face dipped in and out of the blackness.
Looking down at me, her brow tight and focused. Underneath me, whispering
Nox Nox Nox
over and over as if she might forget who I was or everything that had happened to us.

Afterwards she slept and I sat up looking out a gap in the curtains to the dim outline of the river. I had forgotten the spike of clarity that would sometimes come with sex. Lying there I realised that I had settled into a life without the Finns. I was checking the foyer out of obligation to them, but now knew they weren't coming back. Worst of all, I felt safer without them. Like I could get on with a life that I could deal with. I didn't know who I was or what I was doing, but I also wasn't asking myself every other second.

Being away from them felt good and I hated myself for it.

Georgia was too chatty for the next morning to be awkward. She snacked on juice and biscuits and peppered me with questions.

‘What kind of stuff do you write?' she asked.

‘Just fiction,' I replied, still sleepy.

She nodded and laughed at my lack of detail.

‘Sorry. I'm not really writing at the moment,' I said.

‘I totally get it. God. It's so hard to focus on work once you leave your Residency. This city is full on,' said Georgia.

‘Where was your Residency?' I asked.

‘WAAPA,' replied Georgia. ‘I was there with a director named Claudia.'

‘How long ago did you leave?' I asked.

‘Bit over a year maybe,' she replied.

‘What have you been doing for a year?' I asked.

‘Mainly just trekking around, looking for work. I was shooting a film in Guildford over the summer. Hanging out in the Collective for a while before that,' she said.

‘The Collective?' I asked.

Georgia stopped and looked at me, wide-eyed. ‘Wait. Is this place your Residency?'

‘The casino? No. We were in a shopping centre,' I replied.

‘Okay cool. For a second I thought you hadn't been out of here yet,' she replied.