Black Glass (14 page)

So [
insert client name
] please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss how to enhance your brand and protect your profit margin. There's a special package on this month that's proving very popular.

Respectfully etc.,

Arnold Knepp

Marketing and Accounts Manager

N-Vision Branding Solutions

[Condemned building, South Interzone: Tally | Blue | Moz | Pearl | miscellaneous unverified persons]

It wasn't a promotion, Blue insisted: they'd be stickering again soon. Whatever Diggy wanted done — posting ad stickers all over town, vandalising billboards, spreading messages or just messing things up — that was what they did. Job promotions didn't come into it.

Still, this paid better. Tally shook her spray can, felt the ball bearings swish through paint. Blue had shown her how to do it quietly. ‘Moz is one of Diggy's deputies and he's got a real bad temper,' he'd warned. ‘Just do what he says and don't be a smartarse.'

Moz, a big chain-smoker with a greasy ponytail, lined all the kids up against one wall of the old building and said to pay attention: they'd only hear this once. ‘Screw up or get caught,' he said, ‘and you won't get paid. Plus you'll have me to deal with.'

The guy thought he was funny.

‘You lot are the ones who learned your ABCs. Guess that makes you top of the bottom-feeders,' he said. One by one he made them do a spelling test, giving each kid a phrase, evidently made up on the spot. He looked like he was enjoying himself.

The first kid, a tubby boy with bad skin, got
I must not eat pizza
. He sprayed the words in orange paint, neat block letters a foot high, then returned to his place against the wall, face impassive. ‘You better speed it up when you get out there, this ain't art class,' was all Moz said. ‘Bigger — don't cramp the letters up,' he ordered one kid. ‘I before E except after fucken C,' he told another.

When Tally's turn came around, he looked her over, dragged on his smoke, indicated a space on the wall. ‘Short people are useless,' he declared.

‘What?' said Tally, confused.

‘
Short … people … are … useless
,' he said again, like he was talking to a retard. ‘Write it in capitals.'

As she pressed the nozzle and formed a perfect S, she imagined the bright red paint hissing into his face.

It would be night work. The billboards were mostly on railway hoardings, easy enough to reach, but for the higher ones they'd need to do some climbing.

‘Watch out for the three Cs,' Moz warned. ‘Cops, cameras and cunts. If some nosy bastard sees you and goes for his phone, get outta there. Don't get photoed.' They were unlikely to come across AirDrones, the cops only used them for big events, but there were cameras mounted everywhere. Half the job was knowing how to duck the cameras; the other half was being fast.

He told them all to pair up. They'd take it in turns, one slashing the billboard while the other kept a lookout.

Nine kids paired up meant one left over: a tough-looking girl a little older than Tally, rangy and shifty-eyed, with a fine lacework of sores dotting her neck and arms. ‘Pearl, you work with Blue and the short kid,' Moz ordered. ‘With them extra hands you lot should be able to cover six spots. The rest of youse can do four.'

He handed out scraps of paper listing sites and slogans, said to burn them when the job was done. Payday was Friday. ‘Stay clear of the casinos, no mess near the Double Six, or I'll have bloody Frank on my case. And remember: you get caught, you're on your own. Mention Diggy or me or anyone else and legs will get broken. Any questions?' Nobody had any. ‘Right. Vamoose the fuck outta here.'

The lanky girl walked right up to Blue and jerked her head at Tally.

‘Who's this?'

‘Tally,' said Blue. ‘She's alright. Don't give her any grief.'

The girl laughed. Tally tried not to look at the wonky tombstone teeth, the sores speckled up her arms.

‘Like 'em underage now, huh? Whatever.' The girl stared at the lump above Blue's right eye. ‘What happened to you?'

‘Some dickhead chucked a bottle.'

She made a snorting sound. ‘Meet you under the clocks just on dark. Don't be late.' And she was gone.

‘Don't worry about her,' Blue said. ‘Just don't piss her off and you'll be right.'

Back at the glass factory, as Blue swept their bedroom clean of grit, Tally couldn't help asking, ‘How do you know that girl?'

Blue shrugged. ‘Pearl? We used to hang out. Till she started on the bing.'

Her breath caught on the word. ‘Bing?'

‘Bing, sparkle, glass … whatever you call it. They make it by cooking up speed. My brother died from that shit.'

A twinge of guilt. ‘Jesus, I mean, sorry, Blue. I didn't even know you had a brother.'

He kept sweeping, head down. ‘Pearl used to be real pretty,' he said. ‘Now she's a mess, always off on some tweak mission.'

‘What?'

‘Running circles, all jacked up for nothing.'

‘Jacked up … Why you talking that way, that funny lingo?'

‘That's just how people talk,' he replied. ‘Not my fault you don't get it.' The floor looked clean, but he didn't stop sweeping.

On Friday they'd both collect forty bucks, not bad for three hours' work. Posting stickers paid only half that. Tally knew about money: like mercury spilled from a smashed thermometer, liable to slip away in an instant if you looked the other way. Every note she and Grace had managed to slide into their secret envelope had been dealt with firmly, as if it were plotting its own escape. She wondered about that money. If it was all gone. And if it was, what her sister would do then.

Now, with cash starting to trickle in again, Tally could think of nowhere to conceal it but her pockets — not much of a hiding place.

Yesterday she'd bought a fresh vanilla slice each for her and Blue, but that was a one-off. Next time she went to the bakery, she resolved, their meal would come from out the back. No way would she blow her cash on luxuries. She'd seen it happen with Max: the dollars flowing out as fast as they flowed in. Earn less, tighten the belt; earn more, splash out. It was canned spaghetti, cheese rolls, fish and chips every day for months — then suddenly one night smoked salmon on a huge white plate in a fancy restaurant; candles and waiters and creamy soup and stacks of fruit, more than you could eat.

‘Dress up nice, girls, enjoy the high life,' Max would say on these rare occasions. Then he'd laugh. ‘Just don't get used to it.' He'd shave, put on his blue suit, pocket his wallet, call whichever woman he was seeing at the time and tell her the same thing. At dinner he'd get drunk on mispronounced wine (‘Aha … you mean the
so-vee-nyon blonn
, sir?') and brag about the exploits of people they'd never met, while Sharon or Rayleen or Alison made small talk with the girls. Tally remembered a glass being lifted to a lipstick-frosted smile; spidery mascara, false nails, dangly earrings. But even if she shut her eyes and concentrated, she couldn't recall a single face.

[Platform 8, Flinders Street Station, Civic Zone: Milk | unidentified commuter]

‘Excuse me, miss — did you just drop this?'

‘Ah … no, don't think so … Let me check.'

‘Cos it looked like you dropped it.'

‘I don't think it's mine. My wallet's in my bag.'

‘Maybe it fell out of your pocket?'

‘Er, maybe.'

‘I really think it's yours.'

‘Well, I don't know …'

‘It's only five bucks. Seriously, I saw it kind of flutter down behind you.'

‘Okay, well, maybe it is mine. I'm a bit absent-minded today.'

‘Here.'

‘Well, thank you.'

[—]

‘When do you reckon this train is coming?'

‘Who knows. They're just hopeless, this privatised lot.'

‘Yeah. Couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag. There are worse platforms, though.'

‘True. Have they painted it recently, do you know?'

‘You think it looks different?'

‘Well … something's changed. Normally it's quite depressing, all the old chewing gum and pigeon doo-da, everybody grumpy about the wait. Seems like it's been spruced up. Sort of fresher … brighter.'

‘Long overdue, I reckon. At least no one's getting cranky. How long have you been waiting?'

‘No idea. To tell you the truth I've just been daydreaming. It's so nice here in the sun. Completely lost track …'

‘Nothing wrong with daydreaming.'

‘True. Makes time fly, they say.'

‘Sure does. Hey, whaddaya know. Here comes our train.'

[Legends Hotel, North Interzone: Grace | Macy]

The bulb in her room blew so often that Grace bought some candles to stash in a tin beside her bed. ‘Don't burn the place down,' was all the desk clerk said, sliding another home-brand bulb and pack of matches across the counter. His name was Kev, and he didn't talk much.

To avoid the empty hours, she was forcing the days into some kind of routine: wake around eleven, make toast and instant coffee in the tiny first-floor kitchen — basically a sink, a whining bar fridge, two hotplates and a stained plastic kettle.

Most days she then rehearsed, either in the cool of the basement with Merlin, or standing barefoot on the foam mattress in her room, practising stage gestures and handling the props. She'd found an old full-length mirror and leaned it against the far wall, which was closer than it should have been. Facing the mirror with arms outstretched Grace could almost touch the walls on either side of her. When you opened the door halfway it bumped up against the mattress. She needed to find somewhere else to run through her routines.

It was hot and airless in her room, but at least there was a fan. The walls were yellow, a pale creamy colour she'd always liked, and there were nails to hang up her two dresses. No furniture, no bedside drawer with a bible in it, not in this hotel. Merlin had given her an old cigar box to keep her things in: room key, money, cigarettes, notebook, the silver pencil sharpened with Kev's pocket knife, and a $5 stage lipstick called Pandora Rose. There was a plastic lily in a green vase she'd rescued from a pile of stuff Kev was throwing out, a tin ashtray from a cruise ship, and a wooden mahjong set she'd found on the street. The ceiling was a long way up and split neatly in two by a jagged diagonal crack that led onto darkness. She'd done what she could with the place, but unless you were sleeping, there was only so long you could spend in a room that small with no windows.

Early afternoons were easy enough. They could be spent in a back booth of Nick's cafe, where he would let her read old magazines and drink cheap tea. Some days she'd walk over to the theatre district to look at the billboards for upcoming shows, peep into the red-carpeted foyers; or wander down to the Commerce Zone to gaze at the jewels and dresses behind thick glass, the businesswomen chopping past in their heels and shades. There was a small park over there too, a rare slice of shaded green between two office towers, where she could sit without interruption. The people in this part of the city were all in a hurry, on their way somewhere else.

She had taken to making lists in this park: what she'd earned and spent, what she'd put back in the envelope; her role in their magic routines — the vanishing fish, the watch swap, the miraculously hypnotised volunteer; even ideas for lines she might say one day, if such a day ever came.

All that was fine. But then the late afternoon would roll around, long hours of sour heat, when the city began to stink and people set their shoulders and walked faster, and the traffic gathered in honking, squalling knots. The heat brought the bad thoughts back; the only way to fight them was to blank out, load up her mind with a calm white nothing, walk and walk until the panic fell away. It was a relief to meet Merlin at seven, have a kebab at the diner over the road while they ran through the show, then gather their stuff and head out for the night.

But Merlin was seventy-four years old; four shows a week was his limit, he said firmly. Who was she to argue? He was her boss. A phrase sprang to mind, a line from that book with the tissue-thin pages, back in the motel by the highway:
Bondservants, obey your masters …

Their weekly routine left her with whole evenings to fill, hours and hours when daydreaming only took you so far before other things started creeping in at the edges. Pictures you did not want to see, thoughts you could not bear. That's when Grace went onto the roof.

Six storeys up, the world seemed far away. The rooftop air smelled of tar and birds, the faint bread-scent of their grain, the tang of the disinfectant Merlin used to rinse out the cage once a week. He'd hunch over a broom and sweep the chalky poo out through the mesh, swill a bucket of water to chase it down the drainpipe. On hot days the tar on the roof melted and stray white feathers stuck to it, fluttering like alien plants.