Spotted Lily (4 page)

As I walked, the air smelt less polluted, more frangipani'd, and my thoughts felt cleared of muck. Tomorrow I would wake and go to work, and tomorrow night, maybe think about saying
yes
to Gordon.

—6—

'You can't,' I heard him say.

He was stalking—too far back for me to hit him, just close enough to speak in a conversational tone.

'They're no good to you,' he said, as I went into The Troppo.

My sheets were gone. Some bastard had nicked them!

The dunny was out back, so that's where I went, passing it and the chaos of rubbish, to open the back gate.

Lost him!

~

I walked the back alleys knowing that he would look for me at home, and then, not finding me, leave to hunt elsewhere.

By 3 am, I missed bed so much, I decided it was safe to return.

On the corner of my street, the same obnoxious but comforting streetlight shone. I slid the key in the door and the key turned smoothly, and I shoved the door and it opened. Nothing jumped out at me in the hall. No fiends lurked in my room.

I threw myself on the bare mattress without even taking off my shoes, to sleep the sleep of forgetfulness.

~

He climbed the stairs on all four feet, his tail slashing against the railing. At the top of the stairs, he stood, six feet tall, and his forefeet became hands, and he pulled a handkerchief out of his jeans and wiped it against the wall, and the pea-green paint blistered and gasped. He waved his cloth and flames galloped across the wall, galloped toward my room.

I woke to the sound of breaking glass. Rough hands grabbed me, knocking the wind out of my solar plexus as they flung me over a shoulder, like a sack of wheat. I was handed out of my window, to be loaded onto another shoulder and carried down a ladder.

A stretcher, noise. Flashing red lights. Suck, suck, suuuuck. My lungs finally pull in air, my mouth tastes the acrid bite of wet ash. City ash—eucalypt, plastics, electric wires. An oxygen mask grips my face, and I shove it away. Professional words urge me down, and hands shove me flat onto the hard stretcher mat. Medics slide my stretcher into an ambulance faster than a sheep into a race, but I'm no sheep.

'Hey!' I crack my skull rolling off the stretcher, but I have to be fast. They're closing the doors already, ready to drive off. Not soon enough to keep me in.

They're not insulted when I hit out, resisting their assistance. I'm just a situation that fixed itself. They walk toward the fire truck. I feel bad momentarily that I didn't thank them.

A cacophony of noise, lights, confusion, purpose.

Firemen aim hoses. Fierce water shoots, thudding into the house. One hose is firing into my bedroom window.

I recognize some of the people in the crowd, but not many. None are my housemates.

'I told you,'
he
says, into the back of my neck.

He sounds gentle, but his next words chill. 'Where do you want to go from here?'

I didn't dignify him with an answer.

'Come,' he says,  and I let him lead me towards the crowd's back, and away.

~

'You didn't have to burn it.'

My teeth felt furred, my stomach contorted, I ached too much for
this
to be the dream.

We were sitting on the grass under a giant fig tree at the bay end of Bettawong Street. The sound of water lapping against the wharf was so pleasant, it was obscene.

I turned to
him
and didn't care what he did to me. 'Why did you!'

I didn't ask. I screamed. It didn't matter to me whether he would be angry—what my goddamn
punishment
would be. I didn't care about anything but screaming and crying and screaming some more.

So far, he hadn't answered. He had led us to this place and forced me to sit, to 'calm' me, he said. My head throbbed, and I wanted to hit something.

Now, I was too tired to do anything more than sit and try not to think of the present, the past, the future.

'You did it, Angela,' he said into the void.

I swung around but didn't say anything, as I needed to hear him say something I could understand, maybe for the pleasure of hating him.

'You didn't listen to me,' he said. 'You thought you could walk away.'

'But,'

'But nothing, Angela. The contract gave me a hell's week.'

He took my hands in his. I pulled away, and his hands tightened around mine like a Chinese finger pull—but this was no party favour. His grip only lessened when I stopped pulling away, but left a bruise of a promise that made my veins pulse with pain as blood flowed again. I lowered my eyes to the ants at the grass near my crotch, for lack of knowing where to look.

'Angela...' He cupped my jaw in his hand and tilted my head so that my eyes had to meet his. 'It isn't even a hell's hour yet.'

~

Fainting has never been part of my repertoire, but I wished I could then. As it was, all I could do was sit. Sit and think. Above us, fruit bats screeched in the fig tree, leather wings breaking figs from their stems as the bats squabbled. All around us, plops of ping-pong-ball fruits punctuated the gentler slaps of water against the harbour wall metres away.

All that stuff I'd read at the Higher Light suddenly became useful, as it helped me now to realize that things were possibly all arranging themselves for the best. But I could mull this later. Now was the time to say something. 'Did anyone get hurt?'

'Do you want?'

'Of course not!'

'Angela,' he said, a warning note in his voice. 'Tell the truth.'

I had to establish equilibrium again, so I asked a question. 'What did you do with Simone? And Andrew, for that matter?'

'You mean?'

'You know!' I hated his coy act. 'Did you let them ravish you? And how did you hide your, uh, tail?'

He seemed surprised at the questions, but answered. 'No to both, though they fought over me at breakfast.'

I was intrigued in spite of myself. 'How did you get rid of them ... or did you?'

'I did try to fend them off permanently, but,' and here he sighed theatrically, 'but I fear that I only whetted their appetites.'

He was such a ham I couldn't help grinning, something that made me almost more angry at myself than him.

'What story did you tell them?'

'Do you really want to know? Oh, only that I had fallen in love with you.'

He pulled a used tampon out of his breast pocket, dangling it between us like a warm dead rat.

I yanked away from him and smashed my skull against the tree's trunk. 'Where did you get that thing?'

His right eyebrow circumflexed. 'Don't you recognize it?'

'Mine?'

He ran it back and forth under his nose, like a Corona, and stuck it in his mouth and sucked.

I wanted to throw up.

'They had the same reaction,' he said.

'You ...?'

'Your essence, carried with me.'

Would they tell everyone they know? Wouldn't I? Could I stop them?

He broke into my panic. 'I asked you a question.'

'What?'

'They died in the fire,' he announced, casual as
it rained yesterday
.

'No!'

'Not yet, but they will have. Now make up your mind.'

'I don't want them to die! Of course not. I'm not a horrible person. But why did you have to ruin my life? I can't live in the neighbourhood now. Everyone here will know by tomorrow.'

He just sat there looking at me, his expression as animated as a dead shark.

Simone and Andrew's fate rested in the balance. And not just theirs. My head itched as my heart and my brain fought against each other. Even though this was his holiday, it was my life. It was important that I teach him compassion, even though my housemates were nothing to me—and in Simone's case, less than nothing.

'Well?' he asked.

'You haven't harmed Simone or Andrew, have you?' I answered, clutching his knee. 'Or Jason, or any of them?'

'Tsk, tsk,' he clucked. 'Now that I know your wishes, though I am not completely convinced ... no.'

'And the house?'

'A total loss, sorry to say.'

'Not so bad,' I said without thinking.

'Eh?'

'Insurance,' I explained. And then I felt remorse for people I didn't even know, and with the way my life was going, I was sure I would never know. I felt for the future of people wanting insurance. The more accidents, the more rates go up. Insurance companies must follow the rules of profit. No one I knew now would understand me in this silly remorse, but I learnt it at the bank, and it stuck.

But enough pity for them. I felt for my bag and something to blow my nose on. 'My stuff!'

I had to ask, hating having to. 'Where'd you put my stuff?'

He shook his head, and offered his hand. 'Ready, Angela?'

... everything ...? everything!

He stood and adjusted his crotch with an impatient jerk.

There was one thing left. 'The store. My job. I have responsibilities.'

'Sorry,' he said. That tone, I recognized. The same gentle élan I'd used on Gordon.

—7—

Brett gave me five minutes to think of a 'comfortable lodging with service to my desire, or I will choose for both of us'.

I assumed he meant super-fancy room service, and I only vaguely knew how room service works. As to the place ... But those years of browsing style magazines in Bettawong's coffee shops came in useful now as I remembered an intriguingly exclusive little hotel.

The Restonia, I recollected, didn't 'do bookings'. Its clients were 'friends' who 'come for stays'. The write-up had reeled off a list of rumoured friends—movie and music names I instantly forgot—and their memorable reasons for choosing the Restonia: its 'discretion' and its claim to service 'every desire'. The rumour of its secret vehicular access had been mentioned, and tantalizingly unconfirmed.

I had never progressed beyond youth hostel, so I didn't know how we would go getting in, assuming the Restonia wasn't full of friends. I looked like I had slept in my clothes, but everyone does when they arrive fresh from overseas in our arse-end continent. Brett looked fab, but I didn't know if an establishment this exclusive could deal with people without credit cards. Then I thought it was probably the only hotel I could think of, that would possibly be used to accommodating a man with wads of cash in his pants, and no memory of where he put his wallet.

In the pale light of dawn, I led off on our trek, walking towards the centre of town, and then veering off. The air was fresh, and there was almost no traffic. Brett walked beside me, and when I found an all-night city petrol station and went in for directions, he accompanied me, standing beside me as I asked to use their phone book, then handing me the petrol-smelling street directory they handed him when I asked if they had one. Our destination was only three blocks away, though these grease-heads had never heard of it.

When we finally arrived, I almost missed it.

The Restonia was a confusingly small, unremarkable upended shoebox packed between two defunct old clothing factories in a quiet street. Beside the solid front door, a small brass plaque saying only 'The Restonia' was screwed to the smut-dusted stone above a brass buzzer. It was 6:30 am. I pressed the buzzer and there was a thirty-second delay. Then, fast as a footfall brings red ant soldiers from their nest,  the door opened and three men swarmed, closely followed by another with a polka-dot bowtie and patent leather slip-ons—the manager, who introduced himself to Brett as Justin Abernathy and presented his staff, all dressed to casual perfection: Jim, Kevin, and Ferdinand.

Manager and staff were smooth as couli and possessed of intimidating levels of personal hygiene. They 'on behalf of the Restonia' embraced Brett's friendship almost immediately. A friend had been forced to cancel, as it were, only hours ago, due to his tragically awkward death. Oh, everyone would read about it soon enough.

And how long was 'sir'  thinking of staying? (and I had thought entertainment industry  types were casual).

'A week, or I don't know. I don't want to be pushed,' Brett answered peremptorily, which elicited a Pavlovian grovel response.

'And how would sir like to pay?' Bow Tie delicately broached.

And now, the bugger! I was holding my breath when Brett pulls out of somewhere on his person, a string of credit cards longer than a tapeworm, all naturally Mr Brett Hartshorn's.

I didn't catch his home address, but did see him sign the 'friendship book'. His signature was partly what I expected—jagged, thick, black. Well, this was a no-brainer. I know my graphology: 'Disturbed'.

What I did
not
expect were those forward and backward slants. They said, and loudly: 'I am Conflicted!'

I wandered away so he wouldn't notice my noticing anything odd, but my sensitivity was misplaced. No one saw me looking at his signature, because no one noticed me at all. I followed them all to his suite, and walked in like self-propelling baggage.

~

The Restonia 'might do', he announced after our breakfast things were removed. I had ordered for both of us by just picking up the phone. ('There is no menu as such, Madam. What is your desire?')

For me: Alhambra Bakery's fruit toast, macadamia butter, grilled fresh figs with double cream, a large pot of medium strong coffee (not bitter), and a bowl of demerara sugar and a jug of cream, not milk, and a chocolate-covered dried plum.

And for Mr Hartshorn (this was harder because I needed to put his desires into what I judged to be the proper culinary context—and he was no help there, his order to me being unusually crude and to-the-point—but I must have translated right): Heart tartare au Jus Masai, no dipping sauce, and hold the toast.

~

Now breakfast being over, I had time to soak thoroughly in my disappointment at our thousands-of-dollars-a-night luxury accommodation. We had eaten Eastern-style in this room—ironically, our 'lounge'—seating mats and a low table having been brought in specifically for the purpose, and removed.

The furnishings: mirrored walls, a tall pile of rubber-covered exercise mats, a gym (the whole gym, I think) taking about half the space of the enormous room, and in one corner a luxuriously appointed shrine to Ganesha, the elephant god.

Our bedrooms maintained the same motif of health, spiritualism, and pain. Their bathrooms were stark, and dedicated to extreme internal hygiene.

The water room, if one could call it that, had the redeeming quality of being the exact opposite in tone, though eminently functional. As large as our lounge, it was Egyptian deco style with Roman sybaritic requirements, updated for the twenty-first century. The water-use choices alone would have boggled me if I weren't already lost in the range of personal toys and odd beautification equipages. One hose ending in a long needle was typically mysterious. Liposuction touch-ups?

Brett hadn't commented one way or the other on the suite, other than glancing at the most evil-looking parts of the gym with a bit of a double-take.

I, on the other hand, told myself
I should have told you so
. I'd jumped from my own level of accommodation experience and expertise—'bring your own sleeping sack, and don't put your bare feet on the floor in the shower'—to this.

I should have known that at this level of friendship, there would be room enough for a Sufi celebration, but no welcome: chocolate waiting on my pillow (the cruellest blow), nor electric jug, tea and coffee in instant sachets, two cups and saucers and spoons, (one for night and the other for morning), nor jug of water from the tap and a carton of milk in a little fridge that would live near the bed, humming all night with a comforting
brrr.
And no shortbread biscuits in cellophane wrapping, nor little old TV. Here, there was not even a clock-radio. Maybe room service sang.

And my bed! At Kate's, my bed was a thick crumpet of a single mattress that she would have picked up at an op shop, and it lived on the floor. But now I missed it.

This mattress was also plonked on the floor or as close as dammit, and was a prison-bed-size rice cracker. The pillow, only one, was—yes, I picked it up to check—crunchily macrobiotic. I
hate
millet hulls! The bedclothes ensemble: sheets, pillowcase, and a penitential blanket, all in classic basic grime.

Continuing on. My bedside table: a slab of glass floating upon an egg of granite. No drawers filled with brochures for Olde Sydney, Harbour ferry rides, strip shows and escort agencies, sheepskin products, crumpled bus tickets, complimentary condoms.

Continuing on. A wall-length inbuilt wardrobe that didn't even offer me a forgotten shoe, nose ring, pair of handcuffs. Not even a used Cherry Ripe wrapper that I could smell for comfort.

That was my bedroom. Brett's was even worse. Only a rice cracker on the floor and a sword on the wall.

The Devil however, was happy.

Thus began the new chapter of my life.