It’s sweat, I thought, I must be sweating. But I knew that taste, it was the salt of the ocean, and I froze in place, the window finally shut. Wind rattled the window in its frame and the door slammed behind me. I went to it, afraid of being shut in the blackened room, and it stuck. What if it wouldn’t open? David wasn’t home, and he didn’t know about the room, or he might have forgotten; would he even hear me if I banged on the door and called to him? The boundary between the room and the house had never seemed so strange, so capricious and dangerous, a twilight zone. The water was cold on my feet and I thought of Conrad, in that nightmarish way I usually managed to push away from my conscious mind, the way that came to me now just in dreams: thoughts of the water closing over his head, the constricted breath that wouldn’t come. I saw his body sinking; I saw it on the sand, so still, so crowded around by people, useless people.
I thought of Kieran, the way he had lain once on the sofa, naked and spent after sex, his body so still I had felt a moment of worry until he’d moved his arm to push back his hair from his face. I wanted to call him, to know that he was safe, and wished I had my phone with me. Another burst of lightning came, and right after it a thunderclap that set the chandelier shivering with a faint tinkle. I pressed my palms against my legs and felt the wet denim of my jeans. I would call him when I got out, when the door opened. I gulped breath into my lungs and wiped my face, and tasted salt again, and I knew it now. Not the salt of the ocean. Tears. It felt unreal; I blinked and felt my own wet eyelashes clumped against my skin. Another flash of light, fainter; more seconds passed before the roll of thunder. It was moving away. I leaned against the wall and let myself slide down until I was sitting on the damp wooden floor. The water seemed to have drained away, and I wondered if I would go downstairs to find the house flooded, the furniture afloat in a flat sea. My breathing quietened and the roar of the rain outside dropped away to a hiss.
My eyes were slowly growing used to the darkness. The sofa, the lamp, the fireplace, were shadowy shapes in the gloom. Rain spattered against the window gently. I pulled myself to my feet and tugged at the door; it opened with a faint pop of suction as it left the frame. The house was in darkness and the numbers on the digital clock radio on David’s side of the bed glowed red. I went to the balcony, checking that the rain had really calmed, that it wasn’t just a weird effect of the room, with its own crazy weather system. It was still raining, but gently now, drops falling almost lazily. The party across the road had grown in scale and noise. I watched a couple dancing together for a moment on the narrow front porch in a small space between pot plants and boxes. The man pulled the woman close to him and they swayed together, out of time with the fast-paced dance music coming from the house, moving to their own rhythm. The tears dried on my face and felt stiff and salty.
David’s Citroën pulled up below; he parked at the end of the block and walked to the house with Janie, side by side, not in an intimate way but as though he was keeping her close to keep an eye on her. I went down to meet them. He seemed surprised to see me when he came in. Janie went upstairs without a word.
‘The whole house is dark. I thought you were asleep.’ He switched on lights. The house was dry; whatever leak had happened upstairs had been confined to the room.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘You’re soaked. Where have you been?’
I shook my head and tried to think of what to say. A hole of doubt opened inside me. The truth was that I didn’t know what to tell him; I couldn’t say where I had been. I felt starving, exhausted, as though it had been hours since I had eaten, although the thought of food or drink turned my stomach. ‘I got caught in the rain,’ I said eventually. He frowned at me. He was still angry.
I asked him how it had gone with Gwen. He shook his head. ‘It’s a fucking nightmare. Gwen wants to handle it, she’s in lawyer mode, the thing with the ballet school and the teacher. She’s still trying to get in touch with the manager, the head teacher, whatever her title is. She’s not answering the phone. I’m going to go in there tomorrow and find out where the bastard lives.’
Janie had told them about wanting to go with me to the doctor, to the clinic. They hadn’t agreed yet, but she was being stubborn about it. I could see him trying to put it together, this new outline of a relationship between Janie and me that he hadn’t previously noticed, that seemed so at odds with how it was between us day to day. He seemed reluctant to be near me, standing further away than usual. That look still there on his face, newly appraising, not trusting.
‘I thought it was the right thing to do, making her tell you herself,’ I said. ‘It’s not my job. It’s not like I went for weeks without telling you, or even days.’ He disagreed, I could tell, though the desire to fight about it had gone out of him. He had at least known before Gwen, and that must have been some consolation. But I had made a conspiracy with his daughter that excluded him. I should have guessed how much he would have hated that, with his mania for knowledge, his desire always to be in control of the details. No decision about his career, his books, the goings-on of his department, ever happened without his knowledge; he talked with Malcolm over every detail of his contracts, book covers, and the whims of editors and producers. The house itself was a monument to his eye for detail.
‘She was worried that you would make her stop ballet,’ I said.
He made a dismissive gesture with his hands, as if to push aside the idea. ‘Yes. She can go to classes somewhere else. We agreed.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, glad I hadn’t needed to intervene.
‘I try to talk to her,’ he said. ‘I do. It’s not like we never talk. I know it’s hard with Gwen, it’s always hard with girls and their mothers, isn’t it? I just had no idea.’
I waited for the conversation to begin, the rituals of blaming Gwen, blaming himself, blaming Janie and the divorce, the teacher and the ballet school, and what now seemed like the inevitable step of blaming me. I readied myself with things to say about how what mattered now was supporting her. But he didn’t need any of that from me. Silence spread slowly between us and became dense, disorienting. I wondered whether this was supposed to be my punishment.
‘I’m knackered,’ he said eventually, but he didn’t make a move to go upstairs. He came close enough to put a hand on my shoulder, a concession. I took my phone and went upstairs to the balcony, and heard him moving around the kitchen, tidying up, the faint clatter of cutlery. I checked the screen. There were no missed calls. I had missed my chance to call Kieran. I told myself that he was safe, there was no reason to worry, what I had experienced in the room was just anxiety, not a premonition. The past, not the present.
David came up a while later and knocked on Janie’s door. They talked quietly for a moment and he went to his study. I wet my face, scrubbing off the traces of tears, grateful for the clean taste of water on my lips, changed into dry things and went to bed, watching my phone on the bedside table next to me. The party across the road got louder and then eventually quieter. The night stayed warm and I left the balcony doors open.
When I woke the next morning it was a surprise to see David there next to me, asleep on his back, arms out, grey and black stubble darkening his cheeks. It was unusual for me to sleep through him coming to bed, and I had half expected to wake to find him still in his study or asleep on the couch in front of the television.
It was already late, and the sun outside was hard and bright. I got out of bed and came back a little while later with breakfast on a tray, Vegemite toast and coffee and a small glass of what was left of Janie’s grapefruit juice. He was still in the same position, like a sunbaker fallen asleep on the beach. I pushed away the image of Conrad’s body, the sand, that grey sky. They were nothing alike. I set the tray down on the end of the bed and watched him for a while, his solid chest rising and falling, the particular shape that sleep always pressed into his hair. He slept on and I didn’t want to wake him, even when it was too late for the coffee and toast to still be reasonabl
y hot enough to enjoy. The gesture would lose only a little of its value, and I had completed it.
I wanted to leave the two of them alone in the house and set out with my computer in my bag, telling myself I needed to work. The storm had cleared overnight, leaving a pale washed blue morning sky with low grey clouds on the horizon, the air finally cooler at last. I stepped over puddles on the footpath and called Kieran once I was a few steps away from the house, but there was no answer. I left a short message, conscious of not saying anything at all like what I was thinking or what it was I actually wanted. I was just calling to say hello. I was just calling to say hi. I was just.
I kept the phone close to me for the rest of the day while I worked but it didn’t make a sound, apart from a text from David telling me he was out that afternoon and evening for a seminar and dinner with some visiting person. When I rang the local number Kieran had called me from another time, it was constantly engaged. I tried searching for Oxford Antiques online but they didn’t have a website and there was no phone number listed anywhere. When I walked by the shop on my way to a cafe, my computer heavy in my bag, the doors were closed, although the front grate was partially open. A young woman stood by the door, shifting impatiently, checking her watch. I kept going. Once, at the end of the day, I tried Kieran’s number again but hung up immediately, unable to face the rings, the voicemail, the stupid message.
When I arrived home early in the evening I went to the room. The door gave that faint pop of suction again when I pushed it open. The floor was dry, and the sofa didn’t show any signs of damage. I thought I saw a patch of cloudy swelling on the wallpaper under the window, but I couldn’t be sure. The room felt close and humid, nothing like the clean, rain-washed air outside. I switched on the lamp, and it lit up obediently; I left it angled down, keeping the light low. I sat on the sofa but couldn’t relax. The room didn’t feel as spooky as it had the night before. It seemed more neutral, but also as though the atmosphere were balanced on a pivot, about to change shape or direction. It had the unstable, suspended feeling that a room has when everything in it has been packed into boxes in preparation for moving.
I wished that Kieran would call me, even though I couldn’t have invited him over, and I had tried to resolve not to invite him over again in any case. The room had felt complete with him in it. Without him it felt wrong in some way, irritated, restless. He went with the sofa somehow, the object that had made the room real. I wanted him, the fix of Conrad he provided, that addictive magical step out of time. I wanted to hold his body, to feel him alive and breathing. And the room seemed to demand his presence. I was projecting that desire onto the room in order to disavow it, but found myself surprised at how strong and authentic it seemed anyway.
I lay down on the sofa, although I couldn’t find a comfortable position in which to rest, and waited for the pivot to shift, to signal whatever direction it was going to take, but that suspended feeling stayed the same.
Nine
In the week that followed I walked by Oxford Antiques a few times; mostly it was closed, and once it was open. A couple stood in the entrance having a loud argument over whether or not to buy a hall stand, or a bathtub; it was hard to find out what they were gesturing towards. I tried to see inside to find out whether Kieran was there but a different man was standing behind the counter at the back, an unfamiliar face, and I kept walking, suddenly shy, leaving the couple to their arguing. My phone stayed silent. It was the longest we had gone without speaking since we first met. I had been planning to end it anyway, I reminded myself. It was true, but it seemed unfair that I wasn’t even being given a chance to do that. If the chance came I would have struggled to take it anyway, I knew.
I waited days before trying the door again, letting my anxiety about it settle, trying to think only positive thoughts about the door opening smoothly, the window sash lifting with an easy whisper, not that jarring shudder I had felt that night of the storm. Then I approached it one morning, calmly, but it refused to open. So much for all the positive thinking. I blamed the weather, the humidity, felt the sweat start up on my scalp and under my arms. I went downstairs, wanting to be far away from it, hating the frustration. The sculpture’s long metal arm was still there, reaching over the fence. Rob hadn’t moved it. Maybe Alicia hadn’t mentioned it to him. The last time I had seen Rob had been just a couple of days ago, on his way out of the house, a grey coat too warm for the weather pulled close around him. He had looked preoccupied, possibly talking to himself in a low mutter, and I hadn’t wanted to approach him to ask about the sculpture. He had never mentioned the sack of quartz stones, although he was always friendly when we saw each other, always ready with a wave and that sympathetic look. I pulled the glass doors closed with a slam.
The knocker on the door of the neighbouring house felt warm to the touch when I lifted it, the brass fingers smoother than skin. Alicia opened the door a short moment later. I had the feeling that she had been standing at the door when I knocked, and had just waited long enough to make it seem as though she had walked down the hall.
Her pants had more paint stains on them, white brushstrokes on her upper thigh. Her dark hair hung down, untied, bluish black. I recognised the smell of linseed oil, and that other smell too, the greenish, resinous smell of the house.
‘Hi, Shelley,’ she said, and looked past me, over my shoulder, up at the sky. ‘Hot again, isn’t it?’
I nodded.
‘Does it stay cool in your place?’
‘Usually. But not the last couple of days.’
‘We’re still waiting for the southerly.’
‘Still waiting. So, I wanted to ask about the sculpture.’
‘Come in, come in,’ she said, stepping aside and gesturing me in.
I tried to think of an excuse. I could have said that I was on my way out, that I had somewhere to be; the dark interior of the house repelled me. I didn’t want to be rude. I might be able to point out the sculpture, I reasoned, to show her, if it wasn’t already obvious. That would involve going into the yard, though, among them, and I didn’t want to get that close to them.
I stepped into the hallway. It was decorated with the same brown-patterned wallpaper as our own house had been when we bought it. The design reminded me of the linoleum floor in my parents’ kitchen, swirls within squares, the colour faded, sepia-tinged tones. ‘Recipe for depression,’ David had muttered as we had passed by it that first time. He had looked at it in a way I had come to recognise from touring various houses: seeing through wallpaper, paint, tiles, panelling, to the underneath, ‘the bones’ as he called it.
A hanging light in a round paper shade let through only a dim glow. The door closed behind us. ‘Let me give you the tour,’ Alicia said. She followed me down the hallway. The house was just like ours had been, almost, though more visibly inhabited. The carpet in our place had been Berber Brown; theirs was a rust red, uncomfortably like the colour of blood, and it looked dusty. A matchstick blind covered the window in the far corner of the living room. There had been something like that, too, in our house, though more tired, with sticks missing and broken. I wondered whether the former owner of our house had also owned this one, and had decorated them the same way. Through a doorway I could see a kitchen seemingly identical to the one we had torn out and replaced. There was very little furniture: a long sofa covered in what looked like a calico dust sheet, and a low coffee table littered with mugs and glass tumblers clouded with dirt and grease, and stubs of candles burned down to waxy puddles on the table’s surface.
Alicia started up the stairs and climbed them quickly, so that by the time I tried to protest she was already at the landing. ‘Come on up,’ she said. The stairs, too, were covered in the rust red carpet.
David’s passion for knocking down walls had been restricted to the ground floor of our house; upstairs we had retained all the separate rooms, laid out along the hallway and landing identically to the ones I looked at now, a mirror image of our house. The doors
were the same too, with those heavy crystal knobs, and they were all closed except the one opening on to the room at the front. I followed Alicia inside. I had been expecting the wallpaper again and it was there, the pale yellow trellised vines that we had stripped from our own walls. The paper was marked in places with faint spots of damp and mildew. Down by the skirting board a piece had started to bubble, under a spreading cloud of green mould.
‘It’s the same as our house,’ I said. ‘The same wallpaper.’ A futon lay on the floor in the corner, covered in a sheet, with tapestry cushions piled up at one end. But it didn’t look like a bedroom. Canvases of all sizes were stacked against the walls, from six-feet-high frames to smaller ones, as small as a paperback book, with their painted sides facing away. An easel stood in the centre of the room, positioned to catch the light, angled away from my line of sight. The smell of turpentine and linseed oil was sharp and strong in the hot air.
‘You’re a painter,’ I said. I fought the desire to cover my face, to block out the smell. ‘I used to paint.’
‘Used to?’ Alicia asked. She fumbled with the catch on the doors to the balcony, and they opened with a creak. The sun lay a bright shaft of light across the floor and she stood in it, her dark clothes reflecting nothing, her shadow a bulky shape of black beside her. The light dazzled me and her face wouldn’t come into focus. I stepped forward and looked at the canvas on the easel. At first I thought it was the light again, tricking my eyes as it struck the surface, but I blinked and focused and the image remained the same: the beach, the pale strand of the shore, the heavy grey clouded sky and distant cliff. It was a common enough scene. Every painter in Sydney had probably painted it at least once or twice.
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