The Hollowed

by Jay Caselberg

  “Stase?” he asked her. “Don’t you think you’re taking this a little too far? We don’t even have the place yet.”

  She looked up at him, scissors poised. “But we will,” she said with finality.

  “Jesus. Anything could happen yet. It’s not guaranteed, you know. He hasn’t even accepted the offer yet, and the agent’s already told us that there’s someone else in the frame.”

  She slowly placed the scissors down beside her next to the clippings with a clink of metal against glass. “Look, he’s just saying that,” she said with the hint of a smile. “There’s no one else. The place has been empty for how long?”

  “Yeah, I know, but—”

  “Listen. I know we’re going to get the place. I know. If you’re so worried about it, why don’t you call the agent and see what’s happening?”

  She looked back down at the magazine she was currently holding and flicked another page, leaning forward to peer at the picture, lifting one hand to brush her hair out of the way.

  Chris sighed and watched her for a while, not quite understanding the depths of this obsession. That driving focus was something he’d not seen from her before, at least not to that extent. And in those few moments, he saw something he didn’t really want to see. She looked up again, half-tearing her gaze away from one of the magazine pages.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” she said, glancing briefly back at a picture halfway through the words.

  He sighed again. “Okay, okay.”

  He went to make the call.

  Eventually, after several back-and-forths, offers, and negotiations, they did get the house and went through the ritual of packing and moving. Stase had everything under control. There were labels for the boxes, color coded for different rooms. She whipped around the removal men, pointing at this or that, telling them to be careful. Cups of tea and little pastries were already laid out for them, neatly arrayed on round plates. As they arranged the boxes in the various rooms under her watchful, purse-lipped gaze, he wondered if he might not be better off with his own label. Already, in the new house, her pile of magazine clippings was in place on the coffee table in front of the couch, which had been positioned carefully to her instructions. It was left to Chris to tip the moving guys. As the moving men left and packed themselves away in their truck, he could already tell it was going to be a long few weeks.

  After they left, Stase stood in the center of the box-filled living room and looked around and around, at the ceilings, the walls, the furniture, all with a critical eye. She took a few minutes doing this, and then grinned and motioned Chris towards her. She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them.

  “It’s ours,” she said. “Finally. It’s really ours.”

  “What do you want to do? Would you like to open a bottle of wine to celebrate?” he asked.

  “No, not yet,” she said, her attention wandering back to the room. “Let’s start on the kitchen. Then we can do the bedroom. At least then we’ll have made a start.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “The bedroom sounds like a good idea. There’s more than one way to celebrate.”

  She became all coy then, dropping her gaze and swinging his hands slightly back and forth. “Oh, Chris, not now,” she said. “We’ve got more important things to do first.”

  “Yep, you’re right,” he said, the enthusiasm of the moment gone already. “We should make a start then.”

  By the time they’d finished unpacking the boxes in the two rooms, collapsing and folding the packing material, arranging the stuff in some sort of way so that they could get in and out of the rooms, they were exhausted. He put some water on to boil—the kettle had been packed right near the top with the coffee making stuff. Stacks of boxes still sat at one end of the room, and he leaned back against one pile, sipping at his coffee while he looked around at the mess, the strong smell of dust and cardboard all about him, and he wondered what the hell they’d done. Stase cradled a cup of tea in her hands, hardly aware of his presence. Her head was still ticking with plans. She glanced over at Chris tiredly, gave a half grin, and turned back to looking at the schemes and visions rolling past the file of magazine clippings in her brain.

  They had already made their presence felt in the house. The windows were wide open, the internal shutters of the front room latched back into their recesses, and the smell of cardboard and packing stuff overlaid the must. A slight breeze gave a sharp crispness to the air inside. Not wanting to get into yet another conversation about what they were going to do with the place, he wandered to the back window and looked out into the shadowed garden, the riot of untended vegetation forming bizarre clumps in the darkness. Out there was the smell of earth and growing things, inside was the scent of his growing desperation.

  The next morning, he set to ripping out the carpet. Moldy, rotten, it was mottled with black stains beneath and slightly damp. Sweating and dirty, he dragged the offending stuff outside and made a big pile at the side of the house. Inside lay revealed bare, paint-spattered boards, long darkened holes where the wood had split, and pieces of the wood had gone missing. Bare nail heads stuck up around the edges of the room. He stood in the doorway, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans.

  “Jesus, Stase, will you look at the state of this?”

  She joined him in the doorway, her hair tied up behind her, wearing an oversized tee and a dust smear across one cheek. She looked and grinned. He wondered whether she was seeing the same room.

  “Wow,” she said. “Imagine what this is going to look like when it’s all polished.”

  “But look at the condition of those boards.”

  “They’ll be fine,” she said. “We can fix them.” She patted Chris on one shoulder and disappeared back upstairs to continue her unpacking and arranging, leaving him to stand and stare dubiously at the decay and damage he had revealed. He wondered how long the carpet had been sitting there, nailed in place, hiding what lay beneath. Again, he wandered to the back window and stared out into the garden. He ran his fingers back through his hair, looking out onto the tangle, suddenly feeling overwhelmed at how much there was to do. He stood there for a while, knowing that there was no longer any choice; they were committed.

  He’d started on one of the boxes in the living room when Stase appeared in the doorway.

  “Chris, what are you doing?”

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “Just leave it.” There was clear annoyance on her face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We should only unpack what we really need. We’re going to be doing things to the house. Just leave all that stuff there. We can worry about the rest of it when the house is done.”

  He sat back on his heels and looked at her. “But that’s crazy. It’ll be months before we make a start on it. We can’t live like this.”

  She had her hands on her hips now. “I’m serious. We only unpack what we need. We’d only have to pack it all up again when the builders and decorators are in. There’ll be dust everywhere. Just leave it. Why don’t you set up the television?”

  And that would set the tone of their life in Stase’s fuck off house. A few rugs on a cracked and nail-studded floor, a television in the corner and piles of boxes containing the bits and pieces of their existence together—it wasn’t much to show, but then they weren’t allowed to show it to the outside world. Stase had decided that they weren’t going to have visitors until the house was done. They could make excuses, go out to dinner, visit, but they weren’t to have anyone around. The house looked fine from the outside, but inside it remained incorporeal and half-formed, except in Anastasia’s mind.

  Chapter Seven

  A Bolt from the Blue

  The first time Chris saw Stase was at a college party. She walked into the middle of it and all around her the room made way. He stood, drink in hand, cigarette in the other, and his perception telescoped into a fragmentary instant that denied all else. And he knew then, knew she was the one. She looke
d across the room, their gazes locked for the briefest of electric contacts, and in that moment, he was lost.

  Bill Mathews stood beside him. He was talking about some new legislation the government was about to bring in, and Chris was listening with half an ear.

  “So, what do you think, Chris?” Bill said, as Chris’s awareness reluctantly filtered back.

  “Um, sorry,” he said. “I guess I was just somewhere else for a minute.”

  “Right. Come back to earth will you, man? These are issues that will affect our futures—all of them.” Bill’s voice had that edge of passion that said it was going to be a long night.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Chris said with a sigh, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of her across the room. “I was just thinking about something else.”

  Bill’s head turned to follow his gaze. “Hmm, I see. And very nice too. But way out of your league, man.”

  He knew Bill was right, but Chris ignored the little voice telling him it was so.

  The other member of their triumvirate, Andy Gevers, came up between them and put a hand on each of their shoulders.

  “Hey, guys. Have you seen what’s just walked in? Wow, I’d love to have a piece of that.”

  Bill grinned. “Typical Andy, eh? Reduce it to the lowest common denominator.”

  He was right. It was typical Andy.

  Bill, Andy and Chris, had shared a house for about two years. For some reason, they managed to tolerate one another. It may have been something to do with being an all-male household, or the fact that, in their own ways, they were all so different. Whatever it was, the arrangement worked. Andy Gevers was in the final stages of an Economics postgrad degree. He was small, dark and full of energy, like a terrier. He never talked much about his background, but from the little he let slip, Chris got the impression that his parents were strict religious types, and he’d had a hard time growing up with them. He seemed to have come out of it all right. He was naturally gregarious and sailed through life on the back of an easy, unforced bravado. How much of that was real, Chris never knew.

  Bill was doing Law, but had none-too-secret political aspirations. He was tall, blond, good looking and had the physique of a football player. He had a long flick of hair that rode in a wave above his high, smooth brow. Bill kept himself pretty much to himself. His liaisons were even kept low-key and quiet, normally in the privacy of his own room, not on display for his fellow residents to see. He was rarely home anyway, pouring all his energy into achieving, setting himself on the path to his inevitable ambitions.

  And Chris, he was working towards a postgrad degree in English Literature and doing some casual teaching on the side to make ends meet. He had fallen to English Lit more by default than anything else. It felt natural—as if he belonged. His undergraduate degree was a mish-mash of disciplines with nothing holding him for very long. English electives had featured throughout, and it seemed like the inevitable choice. Somehow, the sheltered environment of academic life guarded him from having to make any real choices. So, he coasted along, comfortable and reasonably content. That was, until Anastasia appeared on the scene.

  The three of them stood there, together, the party swelling in waves around them, and looked across the room, Andy grinning like an idiot and Bill just shaking his head. Chris stood there, the moment wrapped around him like a cocoon, Andy’s hand still resting on his shoulder.

  They weren’t the only ones she captured. She drew people’s gaze in her wake, and plucked at their attention merely with her presence. Dark hair fell to her shoulders. That slightly wide mouth flashing her infectious smile. Clear, green eyes speared her opponent’s attention and held it until she’d done. A dapple of freckles traversed the bridge of her slightly aquiline nose, complementing the pale skin. She was slender and long-limbed like a colt and her narrow hands conveyed a vibrant energy when she spoke. She stood across that room and heads turned as if drawn by something far greater.

  None of them had seen her before that night, but, oh God, they saw her then. She cut through the smoke and boozy laughter like a knife. Though the party surged around her, it existed only in a half-formed haze and Chris could see nothing else. There are life-changing moments in everything we do.

  Bill was the first resident of their house; he’d been there about a year when they met. He interviewed Chris, and then, later, they interviewed Andy together. He came from a family dripping with money, but he wasn’t overt about it. He tried not to let it come between him and others. He was that sort of guy—a man of the people. In some ways however, although he was the first there, he was somehow on the periphery. He had so many things to be involved in, that they rarely saw him. He organized things from the background, unobtrusively. Rent, bills, all were attended to with the minimum of fuss and the place functioned. If it had been left to Chris or Andy, things would have fallen apart in a matter of days, so, wisely, they let Bill get on with it.

  The house was one of those large, multi-story affairs with three bedrooms and inconsistent plumbing. Damp and mildew crawled in the high far corners of the walls, but they didn’t really notice. They could have had four of them there comfortably, or even five, but once the three of them were established, there didn’t seem to be the need.

  The party came and went, and within a couple of days, Chris had more or less resigned himself. Life descended, firmly entrenched in its own secure foundation. He had another paper to write and he became immersed, knowing that the deadline was in a few days. He didn’t think of her consistently, but now and again images of her face would flash before him. He didn’t know what was special about her, but there she was, following Chris around inside his head, haunting the unaware snatches of his thoughts. Eventually, he thought he’d managed to put her from him, and he dismissed it as a one-off, another opportunity missed. He used to play games with himself like that, about what might have been; here he was, playing the same old game and being stalked inside by his own knowledge of the unattainable.

  Two weeks passed before he saw her again.

  He was sitting in the library, struggling with a particularly difficult text. Then bang, he looked up, and she was there. A line of desks ran up one wall of the library, pale wood, utilitarian, each separated from the other by a chest-high partition. She was about two-thirds of the way along from Chris, leaning on a partition and talking to someone he couldn’t see. He chewed on the end of his pen as he watched, his notes forgotten. He observed the arch of her back and the way she moved her hands. He wished he could see who had captured her time; he was suddenly, irrationally, jealous of the faceless object of her attention.

  After about ten minutes, she straightened and ran her fingers back through her hair. Then she smiled and turned to leave, glancing back once over her shoulder. He groaned inwardly, staring at her as she left. He hoped that she’d turn, check along the length of desks, but she glided towards the stairwell without another backward glance. He corrected himself; glide wasn’t quite right, because she had a forcefulness to her step that he found surprising. It was accentuated by solid, black, square-heeled boots. He kept watching even after she’d gone, and found himself staring at an empty space on the wall. In the briefest moment, she had stolen the rest of his day.

  He made a half-hearted effort to regain concentration and get back to the paper, but it did no good and, finally admitting defeat, he shuffled his notes together and headed for the cafeteria. He walked oblivious, head down, and chewed at his bottom lip as he walked his useless notes beneath his arm. The drizzle made a fine mist in the air before him, a screen upon which to project those inner thoughts. People pounded past him, trying to keep out of the wet, their feet slapping on the damp paving, but all he saw was her tight black sweater and that last final flourish when she had pulled her fingers through the ends of her hair.

  The cafeteria was sparsely populated when he got there, and Chris moved to the table at the far end, where he huddled over a cup of what passed for coffee in that place. His notes were dam
p and so was his hair. The smell of half-wet clothing washed around him. He had barely taken his place when Andy wandered in, scanned the faces from the door. He grinned and sauntered over.

  “So, what are we doing sitting way over here, all by ourselves?” he asked and pulled up a chair. “In a sulk? In a damp sulk, by the looks of things. You’re all wet, my man.”

  “Couldn’t concentrate, I guess,” Chris said, busy wiping his notes with his sleeve and running his fingers back through his hair. “Just needed a break.”

  “Fair enough. So what’s happening?”

  “Oh, not much. Shouldn’t you be in class, or the library?” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah. Got bored. Nothing world-shattering going on. So, lighten my life. Tell me something interesting.”

  “I’ve seen her again,” Chris told him.

  “Who? Who have you seen? Which her?”

  “You know, the one from that party a couple of weeks ago.”

  Andy thought for a moment. “Oh her.”

  “Yep, her.”

  “So…what happened?”

  “Well, nothing. Nothing happened.” Chris shrugged. “I just saw her.”

  “Uh-huh.” Andy smiled and tilted his head in acknowledgment as someone he recognized walked in.

  “So?” Andy said, turning back to face him.

  “So, I think I’m in love.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said. “You’ve seen this woman, what, twice? And now you’re in love. In lust more like it.”

  “Call it what you want, but there’s something about her.”

  “The only thing about her is that she’s hot, and you’re not getting enough. Too much of the old five-fingered exercise, my man. That’s your problem. It unbalances the perception of reality. What you need is some healthy bar time, pick up a little number. That’ll sort you out.” Andy grinned at him.