The Hollowed

by Jay Caselberg

  She turned from what she was doing and put her hands on his waist. Only it wasn’t her hands; it was a pair of thick yellow rubber gloves. The bright orange smell of freshly chopped carrots washed around them. He hated the smell of carrots.

  “Okay. It’s probably a good idea, but I’m still not happy about it,” she said. “I think we both need to think about what we need to do—for each other. Maybe you can spend some time thinking about what we’re going to do with this place. Clean up the garden a bit. Whatever we end up doing, at least we can do something about the mess out there.”

  “Sure I can do that. But I’m not sure I under—”

  She put a hand up, her fingers covering his lips. “We have to make a few decisions, Chris, about what we’re going to do. What we’re going to do with the house. Where we want to be. Important stuff. Okay?”

  He nodded. She turned back to continue chopping vegetables. In Stase’s mind, her point had been made.

  The house and everything that went with it, everything that had happened, were still dominating her thoughts. The fact that all of her plans were on hold for the time being in a concrete sense seemed to be the only thing on her mind. It was all she wanted to talk about, and for the moment, there was nothing to talk about.

  For now, that suited Chris and played right into what he felt he needed to do. Discussions about the house itself could wait. Of course, there were choices, things they had to decide, and he knew that his thoughts on the matter were at odds with hers, but they’d been like that anyway, almost from the start. Events had not worked out as expected with Anastasia’s filigreed dream, and the tarnish had crept like a shadow across her expectations, stubbornly refusing to shift despite her constant rubbing. He was all for compromise, but he wasn’t quite sure you could really compromise a vision that had been so carefully and painstakingly fed to obesity.

  Chris left her there in the kitchen and wandered out to the tangle growing wild in the backyard, ostensibly to think about where he would start. The garden was a small, enclosed suburban space. A large eucalypt stood at the far end, dominating everything. Small decorative shrubs squatted against either side wall, running towards the back. In between lay a sea of weeds and hummocks, thorny vines, broad flat leaved plants darker than the rest. Vines had grown through and over the shrubs. He’d wanted to get started on imposing some sort of order on that tangle as soon as they moved in, because he knew it would take days, weeks, even months to make any significant headway. The yard, then entire garden, had been left to run wild for years. Stase had argued against him, saying that as they were going to make modifications to the house, build the extension, there was no point doing anything out there. There’d be workmen, tools, excavations and the garden would just end up being a mess again anyway.

  Chris sighed as he stood there, knowing how much there was to do. They could have paid someone to clean it up, but really, it was probably good therapy just to do it themselves. Besides, waiting to do it until the house was finished just wasn’t an option now.

  Houses sat on either side, neatly tended gardens and hedges, pride and diligence and care. The house to the right had carefully trained climbing roses trailing over one wall, and a thick night-scented jasmine vine trailing along the dividing fence. A small hedged archway sat near to the back gate. He glanced up at the top window, the one that overlooked their own tangled mess and wondered what the next person to live in the house would do. The woman who had lived there had sold up and moved after their brief conflict. It was a strange thing to do, considering how much effort she’d put into maintaining the sanctity of her surrounds. He thought Stase had had a lot to do with that decision.

  On the other side lived Stella, an old widow. Her garden showed all the peculiarities of her generation’s approach to what made good gardens—beds of flowering plants, a neat little concrete path, a small goldfish pond at the back and roses, roses, roses. She’d lived in that house for about forty years, working her way through two husbands in the process. When she’d initially moved in with her first husband, Stan, the area was very different. She had talked about it with Chris a number of times after they’d first moved in. Time and economics had changed the face of her neighborhood. Meanwhile, she had continued to exist in her little bubble, pushing a shopping trolley to the supermarket and getting picked up by her daughter the florist, who ferried her to the hairdresser for her regular dose of blue.

  He glanced up at the window on the other side again. There was no one there. Hollow, echoing inside, the neat little house was a shadow of itself. Did houses contain memories? He had often thought that they did. He looked back at their home, watching Stase through the back window as she fussed about in the kitchen. Stella had told them about the previous couple who’d lived in their house before the long period when it had lain vacant. Lived there properly, that was. After their separation and divorce, the owner had rented the house for a few years, not really caring about what went on inside. His wife had been an avid gardener, and most of what remained in the back was her personal touch. In the front, the bed of strong, sweet but damp smelling nasturtiums crawling with snails had been the husband’s legacy until Chris got rid of it and replanted it with hedging. From time to time, small green succulent shoots still pushed their way through and he had a constant battle to pluck them out.

  Tomorrow he’d feign to start on clearing some of the mess, and then he’d wander into the town and try to track down Patrick at the shopping center. There was so much disorder in the backyard that it would be hard, at least for a couple of days, to tell how much he’d done. How he was going to explain walking up to Patrick and talking to the guy was another thing. People studiously avoided the man, and yet he managed always to have enough to pay for coffee in the small sandwich place in the center’s middle. That would be his starting point. The tables gave a reasonable view of both main wings of the complex and he could watch the comings and goings. It was also positioned slightly towards the main glass doors leading to the street, so it would afford Chris clear sight of the people passing outside as well. He had his plan. He linked his fingers behind his neck and looked one more time around the garden. Then he turned and went back inside.

  “Have you thought about where you’re going to start?” asked Stase.

  “Yeah, I think I know how I need to approach it,” he said.

  Chris chose his table carefully, selecting one which gave him a reasonably uninterrupted view of the main doors. His back was to the wall and he was close enough to the rear to see all the other tables in the place. There was a mothers’ coffee morning off to one side, a huddle of women surrounded by baby carriages and strollers, coffee and pastries spread between them. They’d pushed three or four tables together and leaned forward, talking with each other, occasionally leaning back in mutual laughter, a strange multi-colored organism bound cell to cell by their circumstance and their progeny. The junction of the two shopping corridors was wide and echoing. A bench sat across the other side of the bright shiny space and an old man sat, huddled at one end of it, rocking gently back and forth. Chris pressed the plunger down on his coffee and poured a cup, breathing in deeply of the rich scent of the freshly ground brew. This place was upmarket enough to have proper cafetières, but some of its clientele most definitely was not. He had seen Patrick sitting here more than once. That incongruity struck him for a moment.

  He watched the people struggling past with their bags and trolleys seeking some sign of what he was looking for. Old ladies, couples, kids, it was an entirely different universe to the daily hustle and grind of the city’s workday. But there was no sign of Patrick.

  He observed as he waited, sipping slowly at his coffee. Before long, a little tableau played itself out in front of him. An old man, quite old, headed towards the tables. He was thin. Twig thin. All skin and bones. His limbs seemed almost to creak and stretch with every halting step. A woman stood on either side of him, supporting his elbow, helping him to walk. The one on the left was round of
feature and hip, her hair piled in artistic coils atop her moon-shaped face. She’d dyed blonde streaks into the black hair—black that was probably dyed as well—and a brown plastic clip held the strands draped at the back of her head. Here and there, a random trail hung trailing at the sides. She was dressed in black with a long brown cardigan that swirled around her hips.

  At his other elbow, another woman, a little older than the first. The swaying of her floral print dress rocked up and down and from side to side as she walked. Her flesh swelled upon her neck and back and hip, pillowing her in multi-colored flowers. She wore strong glasses, the sort of thick plastic lenses that looked as if they’d been steamed up by a shower, tinted vaguely yellow, and the frames were pale pink. She peered at the old man between them, through the foggy lenses, as they shuffle-stepped along to make sure he was all right.

  They sat him down, faced the old man’s chair to watch the crowds of shoppers, and then took up places on either side. They conversed across him as if he wasn’t there. The old man lifted a trembling finger to prod at his left eye. Something was annoying him. A bit of grit or dust. Perhaps an insect.

  Brown Cardigan leaned across and peered into his face, then tutted. She pulled a white handkerchief with a border of yellow and pink flowers from her sleeve, moistened it with her mouth and dabbed at the offending eye.

  “Is that better, dear?” she asked. In the wide-open space, their voices came to Chris clearly.

  The old man nodded slowly. It was all he could seem to manage.

  The woman nodded, her lips pursed, tucked the handkerchief away in her sleeve, and then turned to resume her conversation with Floral Print. The old man stared out at the passing shoppers, barely seeming to see them.

  A pot of tea, two cups and a small glass coffee plunger appeared in the center of the black metal table, shortly followed by two cream cakes. No cake for the man. The round ball at the top of the plunger’s handle sat directly in line with the old man’s right eye, just in front. He slowly worked his jaw.

  Floral Print reached for the teapot and carefully poured herself a cup. Eventually Brown Cardigan finished what she’d been saying and pulled the coffee plunger to her, taking her plump hand and pressing it down, slowly squeezing the goodness from the grounds. A young woman was watching them from a nearby table. Out in front, people continued walking past, their footsteps and voices echoing from the polished floor and glass-fronted shops. The voices swelled and faded, blurring.

  The pair had forgotten to pour the old man’s tea.

  Floral Print pulled out a nail file and started to work at the edges of her pointed nails as she talked.

  “Mmmmph,” said the man, forcing the sound from his throat. “Mmmmph.”

  “Now, Robert dear, what is it?” said Floral Print, peering through her thick yellowing lenses. A pause, a quizzical look, and then: “Oh dear, we’ve forgotten your tea, now haven’t we?”

  Floral Print put the nail file away and fussed about pouring a cup. She dribbled milk into the cup from a small white jug and then spooned sugar—one, two, three.

  “Nice and sweet. We need to keep your energy up, now don’t we, dear?”

  She watched him intently as he raised the cup to his lips, his hand trembling slightly with its weight. He slurped noisily then carefully lowered the cup.

  “There now. That’s better isn’t it?” She turned back to brown cardigan to continue her conversation.

  While he summoned the energy for another sip, the old man watched the space in front of their table. A wide circle of darker tiles marked the floor’s center. The central tile covered an access box for switches or controls or something, and when anyone walked across it, it made a hollow drum sound. A small round-faced boy with pink cheeks was there now. As he jumped, he looked at the old man and chortled.

  Jump, jump, jump.

  The old man closed his eyes.

  The child’s mother retrieved her noisy progeny and dragged it away, gripping it by the arm the same way the two women had gripped the old man’s arm. Slowly, slowly, the old man opened his eyes and took another sip of tea.

  “Right, Robert,” said Floral Print. “We’ve had a nice walk and a cup of tea. Time to go back home now.”

  He’d only had two sips.

  The two women pushed their chairs back and maneuvered at either side of him. They helped him push his chair back. As they steered him out between the tables, he watched his feet.

  Chris watched them disappear towards the outer doors and slowly shook his head. Would it come to that? Would he come to that? He didn’t even want to consider it. He wondered how much control people really had over their own existences. The old man had simply reminded him of the helplessness, about how reliant everyone was on someone else. He looked almost as if he’d been battered into numbness. Chris had the same sort of reliance on Stase—different, but quite similar—she led him where she wanted to go.

  He sat there for most of the latter part of the morning, and then reluctantly made his way back home after browsing in a bookstore for a while. He spent an hour digging up unknown growth from the lawn’s center and piling it nearby in obvious heaps. He wanted it to look as if he’d been working. The physical activity was good, because at the same time he was probing his memories, testing for the weaknesses that he knew had to be there. He was increasingly certain that the only way he could fill those blank spaces was to find the man he sought.

  That afternoon, he wandered the local streets, seeking, observing, watching, but to no avail.

  Chapter Ten

  The Tramp

  The next day he went through what was to become a ritual. Chris would do a bit of work in the tangled mess that was the garden, and then would head down to the shopping center. He varied his time of departure, walked up and down the local streets, even caught a bus on a couple of occasions, straining at the window, hopeful of spotting the disheveled, bearded figure with his blue knit hat, ratty sweater and long grey-brown coat.

  Late on the third day, he was standing outside the music store, looking at the latest video and CD releases in the window, really just passing the time and almost ready to give up hope, when something made him glance up. Further down the street on the other side came a familiar figure, slightly hunched, watching the pavement in front of him, two large plastic shopping bags clutched in either hand, one blue, one green. It was a busy afternoon, and Chris really didn’t want to race across and confront him in the street. There were too many people around. He still didn’t know what he was going to ask, but this was the first step; he’d found him. He stepped sideways into the shop doorway and watched. The man called Patrick was heading for the shopping center.

  Someone came from inside the store and pushed past Chris. He realized he was standing right in the doorway. With a quick apology, he stepped fully into the store and, pretending to have his attention focused on a CD rack nearby, watched Patrick out the window. It was funny that he still thought of it as a record store when they no longer sold records, hadn’t done for years.

  The shopping center’s main doors were recessed underneath a faux marble archway with a couple of pillars. Patrick pulled up under the shelter, turned a couple of times, like a dog trying to find his place to rest, then moved over to one side and placed the bags down by his feet. Chris drew in his breath, waiting for the opportunity. Patrick fumbled around in his pockets for a moment, shaking his head, then reached down and retrieved one of the plastic shopping bags. Chris grimaced. It looked like Patrick was going to be on the move again.

  People walked past and around Patrick, as if he wasn’t even there. Did they see him? We block so much of what we see, why not a person? Chris was ready to be on the move again too, but then Patrick placed the bag back down and reached into his pockets once more. He seemed only to half notice those that walked around him. He dug out a crumpled cigarette and a box of matches, lit the cigarette and stood looking across the street as he smoked. All the time, he was talking. Every now and again, he w
aved his hand as if dismissing something. Chris wondered as he stood there watching whether Patrick was talking to anyone in particular or just himself.

  Patrick was only halfway through his cigarette when he stubbed it out against the side of one of the square marble pillars and spirited it back into his pocket. This time, he was definitely about to move again. He reached down, picked up both bags and headed out from under the archway, or he was about to, then, as if changing his mind in mid-flow, he turned and headed for the double doors. He shouldered his way through them and disappeared inside.

  Chris was out of the record store in a heartbeat, looking up and down the street for a break in the traffic and dashing across the road, holding up one hand to stave off an oncoming car. He slipped inside the double doors and stood panting. Patrick was meandering slowly up the center of the polished wing, looking totally incongruous among the afternoon shoppers. Pretending to browse shop windows, Chris followed at what he believed was a discrete distance. Patrick stopped. Chris stopped too. Patrick stood there for several seconds, swaying slightly in the middle of the passing wave, a rock against the tide, or more like a branch. The next instant, he was walking—no, rather, hobbling—rapidly, heading towards the small cafeteria where Chris had been waiting for him for what seemed like weeks. Patrick found himself a table towards the middle, planted the shopping bags on either side, and sat.

  The staff evidently knew him, and as Patrick fumbled in his pocket and placed a greasy crumpled bill on the table, without saying a word, a steaming cafetière appeared in front of him with a large cup. No milk. The waitress took the money gingerly between thumb and forefinger, holding it some way from her body, and headed back to the till. She reappeared a few moments later and spilled some change onto the table. Patrick seemed barely to notice the transaction. He was gently rocking back and forth, muttering to himself. He pressed down the plunger and then slowly poured himself a coffee. All throughout, he had one hand propped just in front of his face, one elbow on the table, as if he held a phantom cigarette. Chris headed into the café and took up a table nearby. He ordered a coffee, barely glancing up at the waitress, and waited for it to arrive, watching Patrick all the while. Patrick seemed not to have noticed Chris’s presence, though it was hard to tell what he did notice. If the conversation he’d had with him that day on the street was any indication, it was a lot more than was immediately apparent.