Fresh Fields (20 page)

The Pleasures of India
was a phrase which had popped into his head one day and which evoked for him the power and mystery of the erotic. It prompted a mental picture of himself in some sultry foreign place that smells of jasmine and sandalwood. It is dusk. The street is sinuous and there are many narrow doorways. There are windows red with the glow of lamps behind crimson curtains. Enticements of spice and wine fill the air. There is a tinkle of wind-chimes and faint hypnotic music on Eastern instruments. The thrill and sweetness of life are so close. Intoxicating sex is all around. But you are still out in the street. You don't know which particular doors to approach, what kind of knock to give, what password to use. You need someone to impart these things, but since you'll probably never have anyone you will probably always be out in the street, always outside looking in. Yet just knowing that those intoxications exist in the world is a kind of consolation. If they exist, there is perhaps a chance that you
might
get to experience them somehow. It might happen by dumb luck, or somebody's sheer generosity, or an unlooked-for smile of Fate. And the person who might bring you to it—guide you to the door, tell you the password—need not be the most likely one. You wouldn't know who it would be until it happened. There was the
Magic of Possibility
. That was the other phrase that came to him. The Pleasures of India came through the Magic of Possibility. The Pale Watcher had seemed the wrong person, but that didn't mean he couldn't be the bearer of the Possibility. The woman in the corridor that other night had seemed much more the right person, but the Possibility wasn't carried through. It had to be carried completely through and handed to you in a way that you couldn't refuse. If that woman had had a key and had entered like the Pale Watcher did, if
she'd
got on the bed with him and put her hand on his crotch . . . Or if the Pale Watcher had persisted . . .

The thing about the Pleasures of India, and the thoughts of Possibility, was that afterwards they left you feeling sad and empty. You paid dearly for those moments of flushed excitement. But then again, he'd understood that. That was the bitter wisdom Diestl stood for and had drummed into him. Hope for nothing and you won't be disappointed. Expect nothing but the long road and your limping shadow for company. Otherwise you're bringing the misery on yourself and you deserve every bit of it.

 

TWO MORNINGS
later the youth went to pass the office on his way out. There was another man there with the Pale Watcher, someone stocky and tough-looking. When he noticed the youth he barked a question in a foreign language. The Pale Watcher nodded in reply.

“What you do?” demanded the stocky man.

“Sorry?” said the youth, stopping.

“Why you no pay?”

“Pardon?”

“Must pay rent! I am Owner! You owe money for room!”

“Um, I'm a bit short,” the youth said.

“Must pay!”

“I can't, at the moment,” said the youth. He was thinking that he could offer to get his things and leave at once.

The stocky man had come out of the office and was face to face with him against the wall of the corridor. The man looked him up and down as though he hadn't really seen him properly until now. He seemed to soften a bit, although his voice was still an aggressive bark.

“Where your father?”

“I haven't got a father.”

“Where your mother?”

“Up in the bush.”

“What bush?”

“The country. A country town. Up north.”

“Your mother pay. You give telephone number, I talk to her, tell her you owe rent.”

“I don't know her number,” said the youth. “We've been out of touch.” He was feeling very intimidated now, backed up against the wall, and he felt his chin trembling with distress. He knew if he had to say any more he would not be able to keep his voice steady.

“You pay rent tomorrow!” the man said. He looked at his watch and turned back into the office and began to bark at the Pale Watcher in their foreign language. He glanced back at the youth still standing against the wall.

“I have no time now, but I speak to you tomorrow. Not to pay rent is stealing! You steal from me, I call police. You understand?”

He waved the youth away and went back to barking at the Pale Watcher. The youth supposed it was a bawling-out for letting people get in arrears.

Back in his room the youth tried to think what to do. Maybe he could pack his things and slip away. But the thought of being homeless was like an icicle in his heart. This room, shabby as it was, seemed especially cosy now. But it wasn't just a question of a roof over his head. He was so broke that he could hardly buy a bread roll or a carton of milk to exist on.

He recalled what the Owner had said about contacting his mother. He decided to search his bag for the scrap of paper with the phone number on it, the number of the old lady the woman was working for up north. He took his bag from the wardrobe and began to rummage in it. He pulled out a woman's brassiere and a leather wallet. He sat on the bed and looked at these two items. He'd never seen them before. He was completely puzzled. He held the bra up by its shoulder strap and examined it. It was a bit frayed and not very clean. He took up the wallet and opened it. There were only a couple of crumpled bits of paper. One was a garage receipt for a car tune-up. The other was a doctor's appointment slip in the name of Tony Lee and dated months ago.

The youth felt that awful sweaty, swirling sensation that came when he was unsure about the reality of what was happening. Had he got the bra and wallet from somewhere and forgotten about it? Had he stolen them? He tried to remember himself stealing them. He could imagine himself doing it, but was he remembering it? He didn't think so.

He suddenly understood the items had been planted on him. His heart beat hard with the shock of the thought. Someone's wallet and a woman's bra: together they showed him up as a thief and a perve. How long had they been there? Couldn't be more than a few days, he figured. He thought of the way the Pale Watcher had come into his room so casually, key in hand. But why would the Pale Watcher want to plant stuff on him?

The youth racked his brains. After a while he felt the need to lie down and try to let the sweaty, swirling sensation fade. As soon as he'd stretched out, though, he got a mental picture of the door opening and the Pale Watcher looming in. He got up and slid the little security bolt, then lay back down. The wallet and the bra were on the bed. They felt very dangerous, like time bombs ticking beside him.

He went out early next morning. He wanted to take all his belongings with him, but was afraid they'd stop him if his bag was too full. He imagined the Owner grabbing him and barking right into his face again. He imagined the man searching his bag and finding the bra and wallet and calling the police. He was scared of the Owner and pictured himself trying to run away but going weak in the legs and not being able to move. Part of the reason the stocky man frightened him was that his manner was a lot like Vladimir's.

The youth intended to take the bra and wallet out with him and get rid of them in a rubbish bin. He put most of his belongings in the bag as well. He left behind a woolly jumper that was too bulky, and some magazines that he knew he could live without if he had to. The bag looked a bit full, but not absolutely bulging. He left his room and went quietly along the corridor. Another tenant was at the office door. The man was speaking quite loudly and breaking off every few moments with a hacking smoker's cough. Now and then came a faint murmur of the Pale Watcher's voice. The Owner didn't seem to be there. The youth darted past the other tenant and into the street and half-ran to Telford Square and joined the stream of people along Devon Street. After a minute or two of brisk walking he felt he was free and clear and slowed down. He came to the park. He sat on a bench and set the bag beside him. He thought what a nuisance it was going to be to be burdened with it all day long.

He'd not brought his bedside lamp with him. It had clean slipped his mind. How stupid! He loved that lamp, chipped and shabby though it was. He loved the little circle of light it made. He thought of the cosy times he'd had with his magazines in that circle of light, and the times of deep emotion too, reading and rereading the wonderful key chapters of
Year of Decision
.

He was hungry. He'd not eaten since the middle of the previous day. He searched his pockets for money and found he had enough for a bread roll and a carton of milk. He went to a shop and bought a buttered roll, then returned to the park. He had decided to keep his last coin for some milk later on. He ate the roll carefully so as not to waste any crumbs, then washed it down with gulps of water from a tap.

Across the street was the State Museum. It was a big stone building in an old-fashioned style that he liked. He had passed it many times, had looked in through the glass doors, and had read the sign that told what the hours were and that admission was free. He had never gone in because he had the State Library to go to and thought he'd keep the museum up his sleeve. Now he crossed from the park and went up the front steps and peered in through the glass doors. It was just past nine o'clock. He went in very cautiously, the way he did with any place that was unfamiliar, ready to retreat if anything seemed untoward. He had on his look of vague boredom. He always wore that expression in a new place so that if he was told to get out he could pretend he hadn't been interested anyway.

There was an information desk with postcards and souvenirs for sale, but no-one was attending it. A woman's voice was coming out of an open office door. The youth went through one of several archways which led off the entrance hall and found himself in a long two-storey gallery full of glass cases with stuffed animals in them.

There was a musty smell that he liked, the smell of an old building that had got shabby, with chips in the plaster and paint peeling off the walls here and there. It was also probably the smell of stuffed animals that had been there a long time. The youth stared into the yellow eyes of a stuffed lion. Its mouth was drawn back in a snarl. He wondered how long ago the lion had been alive. Fifty? A hundred years ago? He felt the poignancy of time and of life. This lion had been alive under the sun of a day gone forever. That phrase went round and round in his mind:
The sun of a day gone forever
. He stayed staring at the lion for a long time, then moved on to other creatures in other cabinets. There was an antelope with long spiral horns, a group of three chimpanzees lolling on a tree branch, a crocodile in a long narrow case, and a rhinoceros standing braced with its head down and its long sharp horn poised to make an upward hooking motion at an enemy. The gallery was so crammed with glass cabinets that the youth had to turn sideways to squeeze between them. There was a chair in a corner and when he felt like taking the weight off his feet he sat down and gazed around at the exhibits and the shabby walls and the little balcony that ran around the upper level. Nobody else came into the gallery while he was there and it was beautifully quiet. The hours drifted by.

On the walls were some painted scenes of African landscapes. They looked like they'd been there a long time and were a bit faded. The youth stared at these, gazing into the distance of the flat veldt, or up at the white peak of Kilimanjaro, or into a depth of jungle. All the while he was thinking about the sun of a day gone forever and some of the time he wasn't entirely in his body, or even in his own mind. It was as though he had entered into the lives of those animals under that sun of Africa long ago. He was in the heat and rush and desperation of those lives, and also in their stillness and alertness and self-control. He kept coming back to the stuffed lion and staring into the yellow eyes. At certain moments he felt he might swoon and faint if he wasn't careful. It was like the feeling you get once in a while when you gaze at the starry night sky and for an instant comprehend it—except this was a flash of the fiery sun and the pounding blood of the beasts of the earth.

It was mid-afternoon. The youth had wandered into a courtyard of the museum. There was a kiosk that sold sandwiches and drink, with a middle-aged lady behind the counter. There were no customers just then and the lady was reading a newspaper spread in front of her. The youth was drained of all emotion. He felt hollow and hungry and wanted to lie down. He thought of leaving the museum and going back across the road to the park and stretching out on the grass. He tried to decide whether to buy a carton of milk from the kiosk with the last of his money.

The courtyard was separated from the street by a high iron-railing fence. There was a pushbike outside on the footpath, leant against the railings. It was a very good bike by the look of it. The youth idly wondered whose it was and why it was there. It'll get pinched if its owner doesn't watch out, he thought.

He bought the smallest carton of milk the kiosk had and drank it quickly. Well, that's it, he told himself: now I'll be going hungry. For a moment he felt like bursting into tears but then decided he was too tired to care. He thought again about going over to the park for a lie-down. He wondered if he would soon be like those ragged men he saw scavenging in the park bins.

The thought of the bins reminded him of the bra and wallet he still had in his bag. He had to get rid of them. He could slip them into a bin as he passed. He could do it with one swift motion and without even slowing his walk. That way it would not catch anyone's eye. He could put the items into a paper bag first. But he didn't have a paper bag and didn't know how to get one. The problem began to seem enormous. He thought how many paper bags he'd used and thrown away in his life. If only he'd known how crucial a paper bag would be one day. He imagined himself going up to the lady in the kiosk and asking for a paper bag and her telling him to piss off. Or what if she demanded what he wanted it for? He tried to think of a reason he could give for needing a paper bag, but nothing came to him. And what if the lady guessed his real purpose? She'd have him thrown out of the museum and he'd never be allowed back in again. And the museum would send a message to the State Library, and he wouldn't be allowed in there either. He'd have nowhere to go in the whole huge city. He felt like crying again.