Smoke in the Room

by Emily Maguire

‘Please, you’re an alcoholic. You wouldn’t know what I’ve asked you.’

  ‘Yeah, but since you’re a complete narcissist it seems pretty unlikely you would have. Besides which, you’re pretty soused most of the time yourself, not to mention the fits of delusional psychosis. So don’t talk to me about memory, you crazy bitch.’

  ‘You’re a real bastard in the morning, you know.’

  Dom filled her glass. ‘According to the wife I’m a real bastard all the time.’

  ‘You have a wife?’

  He held up the wine bottle. ‘Now you know how I afford such good wine.’

  ‘You have a wife who pays for you to sit in a pub and get blotto every day?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you if you were married to me?’

  ‘I’m shocked. How didn’t I know this?’

  ‘Like I said, you’re a narcissist.’ Dom twisted his hair around one wrist. ‘Plus, I don’t advertise the fact. Ruin my reputation as a ladies’ man.’

  ‘Yeah right. You’ve never made a move on me.’

  ‘You’re not a lady.’

  ‘Ha, ha.’

  ‘Anyway, I like pretty girls.’

  ‘Arsehole. God, I can’t believe you’re not allowed to smoke in here.’ Katie took another gulp of wine. ‘So, talking of arseholes, this bloke I’m living with installed bars on all the windows.’

  ‘I knew that dude wasn’t right in the head soon as you told me about the frigging Bible tattoos.’

  ‘What? No, not Adam. The tenant, Graeme. He put bars on the windows ’cause he thinks I’m going to jump.’

  Dom shrugged. ‘Not an unreasonable supposition.’

  Katie put her head in her hands and inhaled the smell of cigarettes. She wasn’t used to drinking so early in the day. She dug her thumbnails into the space below her cheekbones and clamped her teeth down on the tip of her tongue.

  ‘What does the Yank think about all this? Or is he out of the picture?’

  ‘He’s still around. God knows why.’ Dom’s face swam and she dropped her chin onto her hands. ‘I mean, it’s all about his dead wife, obviously. But I can’t figure out if he’s trying to ease his survivor guilt by saving me, or if he thinks my mystical crazy girl energy will heal his broken spirit.’

  Dom snorted. ‘Nothing in this world I hate more than losers who think the meaning of life is hidden inside drunks and nut-jobs.’

  Katie closed her eyes. ‘Yeah, well I don’t hate Adam. I’m just tired of people treating me like a puzzle. Decode Katie: peace and happiness will be yours.’

  ‘Last woman who tried that shit with me ended up with a broken jaw.’

  Katie opened her eyes. Dom was smiling into his glass. She picked up the wine bottle and left.

  23.

  The waitress with short black hair and a tattoo of a dove on her forearm stopped him as he was leaving work. She put her hand on his arm and smiled. ‘I was thinking we should go and get a drink.’

  Her name was Rosa. Adam had never spoken to her, except for excuse me when they met in the narrow space between the walk-in fridge and the sinks, or coming up when she yelled for clean water glasses.

  ‘Thanks, but I, ah –’

  She tugged his arm, leading him down the two back steps and out to the parking lot. ‘Come on, one drink. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘I’m married.’

  She let go of his arm and took a step back. ‘You don’t wear a ring.’

  ‘No. We – ah –’ He pulled his shirt up, showing her the entwined crowns above his navel. ‘We got these instead.’

  Rosa gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘That is so romantic.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Does your wife have as many tatts as you, then?’

  ‘Nah, she hated them. Really hated them. Early on she wanted me to get rid of them. A couple of days after I proposed, we were supposed to be going shopping for a ring and instead she gets in my car and hands me this drawing she’s done. And she says, “Promise you won’t tease me if I pass out.”’

  ‘Wow. And did she?’

  ‘Nope. Hardly even winced.’

  ‘She sounds cool.’

  ‘She was.’

  Rosa frowned and Adam inhaled spiced lamb and rotting garbage. ‘Was, yeah. So . . . she died, actually. I should have said, at the start. I was married. She was very cool.’

  They had a drink at a bar across the street from the restaurant, and then another at Rosa’s apartment. She talked about her love of travel, the trip to Russia she was planning and the one to Sri Lanka she had just returned from. He told her about his time backpacking through Indochina the summer before he met Eugenie. They kissed for a while, but when she started undoing his belt, he stopped her.

  ‘I can’t get into a relationship right now.’

  ‘Sure. I understand. You’re grieving.’

  ‘No, I mean, yes, I am. But that’s not . . . Things are complicated. I know that’s a cliché, but it’s true. I’m involved with this other – god, involved isn’t even the word. And I have some legal issues and financial stuff and once all that’s sorted, well, I’m going back home.’

  ‘Right.’ Rosa sat back and closed her eyes.

  ‘We could still . . . As long as you know that it’s not going to be anything more than –’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sort of over the one-night stand thing, actually.’

  ‘Okay. Sure. I understand. I mean, me too.’

  ‘So why did you come back here?’

  He paused. ‘You asked me.’

  ‘Do you do everything someone asks you?’

  ‘Pretty much, yeah.’

  She stood up, took his hand and led him to the door. ‘Go and sort your shit out, man. Then next time someone asks you out, you won’t be such a dick about it.’

  He gazed down at her neatly painted red nails, her glossy hair and healthy pink skin, at her clean white sofa and vacuumed carpet and shelves crammed with art books and novels. He imagined her bedroom: a brightly coloured quilt and cool, fresh-smelling sheets, a line of cosmetics running across the back of a solid dresser, more shelves with more books.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Can we start over? I’d really like –’

  Rosa smiled, baring her straight, white teeth. ‘See you at work, Adam.’

  When he got home, Katie was sitting on the bathroom floor with her back against the vanity, her blood streaked legs stretched out in front. By her side was a packet of bandaids, a box of tissues and a small bottle of mercurochrome. When she looked up and smiled he noticed the streak of red across her cheek.

  ‘Don’t look so terrified. I fell down some stairs. There was broken glass on the ground. My phone smashed, but I’m fine.’

  Adam crouched down beside her. The blood was mostly dry and none of the scratches looked deep. ‘What stairs?’

  She dabbed at her legs with a mercurochrome-soaked tissue, wincing. ‘Train station. I think it was Town Hall. Somewhere in the city, anyway. How was your night?’

  ‘Fine. Seriously, sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yep.’ She sat staring at her legs. ‘Actually, no. I’m not okay. No.’

  ‘What do you need?’

  She bent at the waist and fanned her shins with both hands. ‘I saw these girls tonight, on the train. They were sixteen, I guess, so pretty. Their skin looked all shiny and they had this sparkly stuff on their eyelids and they both wore these teeny little dresses and enormous, clunky shoes. Then this bloke got on. About your age, nicely dressed, and he sat across from them and started talking. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I knew it was sleazy because of the way he was leaning towards them and mumbling his words. I wondered if I should move closer, but these girls – god, they were wonderful – they told that creep where to go and they did it so powerfully, you know? I was scared of them! I just sat back and smiled and smiled and then I started thinking about this thing that happened when I was young. Young like them, I mean. I was at this party and feeling like those girls must have felt tonight: like I was eve
rything anyone could want in the world; like there was no one who wouldn’t kneel at my feet and lick my boots if I asked them to. And I remember meeting this bloke who acted just like I expected him to – like he was drunk from looking at me. I spoke to him like those girls spoke to the man on the train and he stepped back, he told me I was incredible, strong. He called me a goddess. Then later, when we were alone, he almost choked me to death.

  ‘So I was thinking about that and then I noticed the train had stopped and the girls had gotten off and so I jumped up and bolted for the doors, made the platform just as they closed. I heard the girls at the bottom of the stairs and I ran to catch them. I needed to tell them how important it is that they stay fierce.’ She sat upright, took another bandaid from the box and peeled off the backing paper. ‘I needed to tell them that they should always carry a knife and that if any man tried to make them feel scared and small they shouldn’t hesitate to cut the bastard’s throat.’

  ‘Katie.’

  ‘But I fell and when I got up I was bleeding and the girls were gone. Who knows what’ll happen to them now?’

  The afternoons were the worst. The pubs didn’t feel safe anymore, not in the daytime, anyway. It was too frightening to be around men who had given up even trying to get through the day in their right minds. A few times she walked with Adam to work, but the sun was so harsh at that time and the streets so busy.

  Inside was better but not good. The flat was uglier when the late afternoon sun beat through the windows and she could see the cigarette dust and wine rings on the table. Everything she did – making a coffee, flipping through her CDs, lighting a smoke – was loud.

  Squaw from outside and her heart was going deadly fast before the magpie even finished its call. Not just fast but loud and hard. She ran and shut the window with too much force, slammed the heel of her hand into the sill. The first time her heart had done this she’d thought she was dying. Even now, even with all she knew about heightened sensitivity and exaggerated startle response and panic attacks, it was hard to believe she would survive this. The bird squawked again. It was only a bird on a tree calling its babies home for the night. She leant on the windowsill and breathed in, out, in, out; just a bird, nothing wrong, just a bird, in, out, in, out; breathe because it’s all good, it’s all fine.

  24.

  Adam found Katie sitting in her underpants on the bed with a pile of papers in front of her. ‘Let me guess. You got a job as a stripper but are having trouble with the paperwork?’

  ‘Huh?’ She frowned, then looked down at her bare breasts. ‘Oh. I got hot. My shirt’s on the chair over there.’ She reached towards it.

  ‘Don’t get dressed on my account.’ He bent and touched her forehead. Her skin was damp. He blew cool air on her face. ‘Maybe you’re getting sick. It’s kinda cool out, tonight.’

  She continued frowning over the papers in front of her.

  ‘What you up to?’

  ‘The old creep came home from work early and then he went out again but he didn’t take his briefcase. So I cracked the lock.’

  ‘That was not a good –’

  ‘C’mon, as if you don’t want to know what I found.’

  Adam shrugged and lay back so his head was in her lap. He stunk of dishwater and ghee but she stunk of cigarette smoke and whisky-sweat. ‘Okay, tell me what you found, Detective.’

  ‘Not much so far. But I do know he’s cashed up.’

  ‘Is he? What’s he living here for?’

  ‘He must be involved in something dodgy, so he moves around a lot, stays in places no one would expect. I can’t see him as a drug king-pin, so I’m thinking maybe slave trade. He’s always going on about all those poor countries he’s been to – I bet he goes to pick out little kids to sell to brothels.’

  ‘Do you have any actual evidence of this? Photos of him bundling Thai virgins into the back of a van, say?’

  Katie jerked her knees, causing his head to slide off on to the bed. ‘Explain this then!’ She shoved a document into his hands. ‘Five hundred grand transferred into his bank account in one hit. And then –’ she thrust another piece of paper at him – ‘then a week later, the same amount of money transferred to a different bank. See! He’s trying to muddy the trail. And who receives huge wads of dollars and then moves them around to avoid detection? Drug dealers and slave traders, right? Right?’

  Adam started to point out that keeping the records neatly filed in a briefcase defeated the purpose of transferring money to muddy the trail, but then he noticed something odd. He held a hand up to Katie to shush her and examined the second statement. Although Graeme’s name was on the top, the account into which the money had been transferred was the Refugee Assistance Foundation.

  ‘What?’ She leant over his shoulder, her damp cheek against his. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? He’s laundering money!’

  ‘No, he’s giving it away. All that dough? He donated it to a charity.’ Adam compared the statements again. ‘Left himself with barely a thousand bucks.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. This first one is his personal account. The second one is a notice of transfer. It’s not his account and it’s not his money anymore. He gave it all away.’ Adam waited for Katie to make some crack about how the old man could have given her some since he was throwing it around, but she remained still and silent.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s going to die.’

  ‘What?’ Adam looked down at the papers then back at her face. ‘Because of this? No, come on.’

  She lay face down on the bed, kicking papers off to make room for her legs. Adam gathered the documents up and placed them on the bedside table.

  ‘Have you noticed him being sick? Because if it’s something terminal there’d be symptoms.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s sick.’

  ‘You don’t? So . . . ?’

  ‘God, it’s so obvious. He’s in love with death.’ Her voice was muffled by the pillow. ‘He wants to talk about it all the time. I thought – ha! Stupid – I thought we were talking about me.’

  ‘Is he . . .’ Adam didn’t even know what the question should be. ‘Why?’ he asked finally.

  Katie snorted. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No, I guess not. I just . . . I don’t understand why he would want to . . . if he even does. I don’t get why you’re so sure and I’m . . . I’m lost. It doesn’t make sense.’

  She sat up and crossed her arms over her bare chest, looking around the room and blinking as though she had just woken. ‘Not to you. You have no idea what the world looks like to someone like him, like me.’

  ‘Then tell me. What does it look like?’

  ‘Bleak. Intensely, endlessly bleak and then you realise there is, well, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. And the trick is that the light switch is right there.’ She stroked the air in front of her. ‘And once you know it’s there, that you can flick the switch at any time, well, it’s all you can think about.’

  ‘No.’ Adam grabbed a pillow, squeezed it hard. ‘No. I watched my wife . . . I understand bleak, Katie, but I still don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know, but listen . . .’ She put her hand on his arm, and leant forward so their foreheads were almost touching. ‘Think of it from Graeme’s point of view. He’s been to all these horrible places, right? Fed some starving babies in this place, helped build a hospital for people with AIDS in another. And now every day he deals with people who’ve done everything to get here. They’ve eaten grass and dirt and rotting animals, brought up their kids in tent-cities and refugee camps, spent months at sea worried the whole time that the boat’ll sink. They’ve been raped, tortured, watched everyone they love get murdered and they keep smiling and giving birth and kissing each other goodnight and begging to be allowed to stay here and clean our offices, drive our taxis.’

  Katie’s grip tightened, her eyes were wet and unfocused. ‘And then one day Graeme wakes up, right, and realis
es that even if he fixed it so no person would ever go hungry, that there’ll never be another war, that no baby will ever get AIDS – even if he could cure that damned disease and all the other ones – even then it wouldn’t matter because all of those saved would die in the end, same as him.’

  ‘Katie, calm down for a minute.’ Adam spoke loudly, trying to break through the miasma. ‘Has he said anything like this to you? Maybe you’re projecting.’ He was looking into her eyes, but there was no connection.

  ‘Awhile back I found this book, diary, whatever, and this thing about a little girl who was raped and drowned and he was – god, he was trying to make it right, of course. Make it mean something . . . And all those red crosses and notes about what was useful and what . . .’ Her focus returned and she blinked into his eyes. ‘All this time, he’s been preparing, see? I’m so dense. So self-absorbed. Everything he’s ever said and done and –’ She leapt off the bed. ‘Did you take my shirt?’

  ‘What? No, it’s right –’

  But she was already pulling it over her head. ‘I have to go out.’ She pulled on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and ran her fingers through her spikes. ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’

  Adam rubbed the half-moons her nails had imprinted on his forearm. Deep grooves for someone with short, bitten nails. Like marks on the wall of a cell. The front door slammed and a second later his body reacted. ‘Katie!’ He bolted down the hall, through the living room and wrenched open the door. The outside hallway was empty. He pressed the call button on the lift wondering if it would be quicker to take the fire stairs than wait for the lift to come back up – but the doors slid open immediately.

  He stood stunned for a moment, then charged down the hall and yanked open the heavy red fire door.

  ‘Katie!’

  Her neck was bent, the top of her head flush against the slanted roof. Her two bare feet gripped the steel rail, like a bird on a wire, over the open pyramid of the stairwell. The door slammed behind Adam and she flinched.

  He lunged, wrapped his arms around her knees, pulled against the force of her stumble. For a vertiginous second he felt himself moving forward with her, but the low roof worked as a brake. Katie cried out as her neck was wrenched backward then forward again and the top of her head scraped along the rough concrete.