No Safe Place

by Jenny Spence

  We get down to work as he runs through his latest masterpiece, an addition to one of Derek’s smartest and most popular bits of software. Several companies are willing to pay lots of money for it, and they’ll be pretty happy with what Carlos has come up with.

  “Wow, Carlos,” I say. “I never imagined I could get excited about a parsing engine, but this is really clever.”

  To his vast amusement I take notes by hand in an exercise book. But although he scoffs, he knows that my method works for me, and he won’t allow anyone else to write about his stuff. We’ve made a good team for three years now. In fact he’s been dropping hints about me leaving Derek and setting up a business with just the two of us. Much as I respect Carlos, the thought of working here with him every day makes me feel claustrophobic.

  While I explore his software on my own and take more notes, Carlos busies himself doing half a dozen other things. He’s got a chess game going with an unseen opponent on one computer, he’s up to some staggeringly high level in an adventure game on another, he’s ingesting a steady stream of music CDs and he’s engaged in several cryptic online conversations. He swivels and scoots around in a specially reinforced office chair, like a bee attending to a flower garden, in his element.

  At the same time he’s chatting to me, eager to give flesh to his ghostly visions of the outside world.

  “Been to the movies lately? Seen anything good?”

  “You’ve probably seen all the stuff that’s out,” I say, gesturing towards his big screen.

  “There is a slight lapse,” he grins. “Some of them aren’t even digitised yet.”

  “You don’t say.” I laugh. “My neighbour Jason was annoyed that he couldn’t buy a pirate version of the latest Baz Luhrmann in Bangkok. I told him I’d heard that it wasn’t even finished yet, and he just said ‘So?’ ”

  “That’s the neighbour who works in the Supreme Court? Has he told you anything about that Athena Resources swindle?”

  “He’s just a lowly clerk, Carlos. All he talks about is his next holiday and the woman in HR who’s got it in for him.”

  A display changes on one of his screens, and he zooms in for a better look. There’s a map of Texas with some annotations in gobbledegook.

  “What are you tracking there?” I ask. “The killer behind the grassy knoll? Proof that they never landed on the moon?”

  “You may scoff,” he says, “but those guys who stole the moon rock from White Sands in New Mexico had it analysed before they put it back, and it came up totally terrestrial. I’ve got the data somewhere.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “What’s Miranda been up to?” he asks.

  I squirm whenever he mentions Miranda. And I always get the impression he knows exactly what she’s doing. To avoid personal talk, I start griping about the Department of Water Resources. For some reason Carlos has always been very interested in anything to do with water, and he’d been quite excited last year when I told him I was putting their procedures online.

  “Carlos, it’s the most tedious material you can imagine. Paper clips and fire drills,” I’d said at the time.

  “Well, you never know. There could be gold dust,” he’d replied.

  He’s always on the lookout for ‘gold dust’, by which I assume he means anything dodgy or scandalous. He hadn’t bothered to ask me for a copy of the procedures, though, and we hadn’t pursued the conversation. Today he’s not terribly excited to hear that Surinder’s people have added more information to the system, so he may have hacked into the site and seen for himself that there’s nothing interesting.

  “Derek should drop Water Resources,” he says now. “They’re going to be closed down in the next eighteen months, and all those people will be out. Derek should be going for that tender with the Bureau of Meteorology.”

  “I don’t know where you get this stuff,” I say, “but if you want to give Derek advice you should tell him yourself.”

  He’s not listening, his mind still on water.

  “Do you ever do any work for Water Conservation and Catchment since the Water Department was split up?” he asks.

  “No, even though Derek has had the Water Department contract for ages, I’ve always worked with Surinder in her department,” I reply.

  “Well, there might be something interesting there. I’ve found an anomaly. Don’t you love that? Like Finding Nemo: ‘In an anemone.’ I’ve watched that DVD a thousand times. Special director’s cut. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Director’s cut of an animated movie? You’d think they’d plan it all in advance, frame by frame. No dispute about what’s in and what’s out. ‘In an anemone’.”

  As he talks he rolls past the shelves that hold his precious DVD collection, and his hand hovers lovingly over the special boxed sets before it moves on to his chess game and sends a bishop shooting out in pursuit of his opponent’s queen.

  “Yeah, an anomaly. You’d be interested,” he says, wheeling himself close to me. He has this habit of invading your personal space. I press back in my chair.

  “That public servant who disappeared on the mountain was from Water Conservation and Catchment,” he says. “He was on a bushwalk, just checking out his kingdom, so to speak. They tried to track him by triangulating the signals from his phone? Said they knew where to look? Huh.”

  Carlos does seem to know a lot of stuff from behind the scenes that he probably shouldn’t, courtesy of his obsessive hacking, but sometimes I lose patience with his conspiracy theories.

  “Carlos, if you’ve got something, spit it out.”

  “Got nothing yet. Just an anomaly. But I’ll give you an analogy.”

  He looks up gleefully. “What if someone sends you hunting an asp, but they know what you really need is an anaconda?”

  “Carlos, that’s a metaphor, and you only said it because you’re playing with words!”

  “Possibly. But here’s you thinking I was an analphabet!”

  I have to laugh. And I’ll have to look up analphabet when I get home.

  I finish my notes and pack away my exercise book.

  “Do you want to have lunch?” he asks. “There’s a great Vietnamese that does home deliveries.”

  “It’s a nice day,” I say teasingly. “We should get something and have it in the park.” He shudders. “Seriously though, I’d love to, but I’ve got stacks to do at the office. I need to scope out this Surinder thing so I can insist that Derek passes it on to some contractor.”

  “Okay. Well – I’ll Dropbox the screen captures . . .” he says, gesturing at the computer I’ve been working on.

  “Sure, Carlos. Thanks. It’s all great stuff, as usual.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Possibly not for a few weeks. I might be going to Sydney.”

  His interest is aroused. “What would you be working on in Sydney?”

  I immediately regret mentioning it. “Some development application for the coal industry. Derek only just told me about it. He’s sending me the email.”

  “The coal industry? Who’s the job for? Elly, I’ve got something I think you should . . .”

  “No, Carlos, it’s just an editing job. I really have to go.”

  I make my escape, and breathe the fresh air with relief. The rain is still holding off, and there are a few people strolling through the streets, enjoying the respite. A man is hovering in a doorway on the other side of the street, possibly trying to decide if it’s safe to go out. He raises his head and looks around. When he sees me watching him he puts up the hood of his jacket and hurries away.

  4

  On the way back to the office, I get a text from Miranda:

  1 horse town weird adults gr8 kids

  I smile at her message. So she got to Augusta Creek in one piece, and has already started work. The part of my brain that’s reserved for worrying about her relaxes.

  Have a nice lunch I reply.

  wd if you cd get real food here is her huffy response.

  Ba
ck at the office I find a comfortable corner in the lunch room where I can eat the soup I’ve bought for lunch and have a flick through the paper. At the pool table, India is playing The Rest of the World and thrashing them, as usual. Ravi and Sam, for India, are watching attentively while Viet Lei, for the Rest, lines up her shot, giggling. Chang, her partner, lounges by the window, talking on his mobile.

  “I’m going to bounce it off the cushion and into the middle pocket,” declares Viet Lei. Sam sniggers. Chang, waving his free hand around, takes no notice. “Wah, wah,” he says into the phone.

  Viet Lei’s ball wobbles back and forth across the table, knocks a couple of the opposition’s balls out of position and disappears into a corner pocket. Sam and Ravi confer, frowning.

  Luke sidles up to me – tanned skin, white teeth and dreadlocks.

  “How’s Carlos? Any new stuff?”

  Between mouthfuls of soup I try to describe the latest electronic gear Carlos insisted on showing me. Squeals of excitement come from the pool table as Viet Lei, on a roll, wipes the floor with India.

  I spend the afternoon fielding emails, outlining the updates of Carlos’s software, writing a proposal for the dreaded re-hash of Surinder’s material and day-dreaming about Miranda’s country experience. I imagine her meeting some brooding young country type, like a nice Heathcliff. Even Heathcliff as written would be an improvement on some of the company she’s been keeping. I see her in a picturesque rural school-house with apple-cheeked kids gazing adoringly at her, or sitting at her feet under a spreading peppercorn tree – no, get a grip, Elly, it’s winter. Perhaps a big roaring fire in the schoolhouse, Miranda with her hair blowing and an armful of logs . . . I see her falling in love with the quaint country community and deciding that this is the place for her, she can’t wait to get back after she’s qualified, there’s a little miner’s cottage on the edge of the town that’s ridiculously cheap and . . .

  I wish I could stop imposing my own dreams onto my daughter. The truth is I don’t know what fantasy is right for her yet. All I know is that she’s placed a faltering foot on the path to her future, and I lie awake at night worrying about where it might take her.

  *

  At last it’s time to go home to the luxury of an empty house. The same morose people from this morning crowd onto the tram, the white of the cables snaking into their ears the only relief from their black and grey clothing, the tinny beat of the bass line leaking through like a tap dripping. No cello girl to provide a splash of colour.

  I don’t mind. I’m thinking about the nice solitary dinner I’m going to have with Sunday’s leftovers, and playing with a book idea in which Vermeer fakes his own death and travels to London with John Evelyn, the intrepid seventeenth-century diarist and founding member of the Royal Society. Vermeer’s got his own fantasy: to start a new life without his crippling debts and the mother-in-law from hell, Maria Thins. Something goes wrong, though. He completes one painting – a jewel waiting to be discovered in our century – and dies.

  But when I think it through that plot seems corny, and I’ve got a weird feeling that I’ve already read that book. Better start again.

  It’s drizzling and nearly dark when I get off the tram. I pull up the hood of my raincoat and hug my bag close as I turn into our narrow street. Cars are already parked on both sides, dripping branches overhang the footpath, and I walk in the yellow pools of streetlights on the road. Cats wait expectantly on front verandas, and here and there neighbours greet each other as they fumble for their keys. Jason, who lives directly opposite me, whizzes past in full cycling gear, then I see him up ahead at his gate, un-strapping the panniers from his bike. Headlights wash over me as a car turns into the street and I draw to one side of the road. I hear it close behind me, but it seems to be moving very slowly. The headlights give me a long, long shadow, extending crazily the length of the shimmering street.

  My house is a single-fronted terrace, nestled up against its mirror image. As I step onto my front path – there’s no gate – my next-door neighbour, Mabel, darts out. She’s thrown a shapeless old cardigan over the faded garment she wears to do her cleaning – her house-dress, she calls it. I groan inwardly. Mabel’s a goodhearted old thing, but I’ve tried all sorts of tricks to sneak in without her spotting me, especially on cold nights like this when all I want to do is pour myself a glass of wine and put my feet up.

  “Oh, Elly!” she carols. “I’ve . . .”

  Then she makes a little “Ooof” sound and slumps forward, knocking me onto my back. I land heavily on the rough, wet path, with Mabel sprawled on top of me. She gives a little cough, then goes quiet.

  Heart thumping and winded by the fall, I can’t move because of Mabel’s weight. I hear a car accelerating, then the sound of running footsteps.

  “Mabel!” I gasp. “Can you please . . .”

  But she doesn’t move, and I struggle to get into a position where I can breathe. Looking down, I see my raincoat has fallen open and my front is wet. I hold up a hand and look at it in the fading light. It’s dark and sticky.

  The screaming is getting closer and next thing Jason appears and half drags Mabel off me. He holds his hands up in front of his face and they’re dark and sticky too.

  I gaze down at Mabel who lies twisted on the wet path, her legs still sprawled across mine. The top half of her cardigan is a crumpled, shiny, dark, wet mess. I see her face properly for a moment in the streetlight. Her eyes are open, her mouth is slack and there’s a trickle of blood running down her chin. I twist my head away, knowing already that it’s a sight which will haunt me for a long time.

  “Jason! Jason!” I shout, struggling up and grabbing him in an awkward embrace. “It’s okay. Come on. It’s okay.”

  It’s a pretty meaningless thing to say, but it does the trick, and he stops screaming. My brain still isn’t processing what I’m seeing, but one thing is clear. Poor old Mabel is lying dead on my front path, and I’ll never again come hurrying in through my gate on a freezing night, rain burrowing like needles under my collar, or sit on the veranda with a glass of wine exchanging gossip with neighbours in the balmy summer dusk, or stand on the path with the hose, coaxing my straggling pot-plants into life, without seeing her staring eyes, her obscenely gaping mouth, her ruined house-dress and her blood on my hands.

  5

  Once I begin to take in what’s happened, I start shaking and can’t stop. Rocco, Jason’s partner, takes control, putting a blanket around my shoulders and making me sip a cup of horrible sweet tea. The street soon fills with police cars and ambulances, and all the neighbours stand together in little knots, talking in awed whispers. Things like this don’t happen in quiet neighbourly streets like ours, especially to someone like Mabel. The worst thing you could say about Mabel is that she’s nosy. Surely no-one is going to kill her for that?

  The two nervous young policewomen who were first on the scene holster their pistols, thank God. I was really scared when they were waving those around, jumping at every unexpected sound.

  They keep repeating the same question, and they won’t stop because I can’t give them the right answer.

  “How many shots did you hear?”

  “I didn’t hear any shots,” I answer for the tenth time.

  It was when they first mentioned shots that I started shaking. Obviously I was in shock before then, and my brain wasn’t really functioning. But suddenly it all came together: the car, the blood, the hideously random nature of it, poor Mabel suddenly pitching forward into my arms. It was on a cold night just like this, all those years ago, on my way home from the university to my North Fitzroy hovel, that I found the streets blocked by police cars, flashing lights everywhere and huddles of anxious people standing in the drizzle. Seven people were dead in Hoddle Street – ordinary people like Mabel, like me, like Jason on his bike. It turned out that the shooter was exactly my age. My friend Pete remembered him from Melbourne High School. Since then, a car backfiring, a sudden shout can set my heart thu
mping, and now this has happened there’s a sick feeling of inevitability.

  “Has anyone else been shot?” I ask, but they won’t tell me anything.

  Finally the younger police officer pats my hand when her colleague isn’t looking and says, “No, there’s no other reports. Looks like you’re the only ones.”

  It hits me then that my right arm is hurting and I look down and see that the sleeve of my raincoat is ripped. Soon after, the paramedics lead me to one of the ambulances, then suddenly Carol is there, a sane, familiar face at last, and she gets into the back of the ambulance with me.

  When we arrive in casualty I assume we’ll have to wait for hours, so I’m impressed when they put me into a cubicle where I can lie down. Someone gives me a shot while I’m not looking, and I stop shaking, and suddenly feel very tired. Nurses fuss around stripping off my bloody clothes and cleaning up the nasty-looking graze on my upper arm. I groan when I see the chunk torn out of my new cashmere jumper then look up and realise Carol has tears in her eyes.

  “’S all right,” I croak. “It was an awful colour.”

  She blows her nose. “Don’t you know how lucky you were? It went right through Mabel and somehow just missed you. Well, nearly.”

  It’s not often I see Carol upset and I’ve known her nearly all my life. We’re the same age, but she’s more like a big sister. We pretty much grew up together, playing in the bush at Canton Creek while our parents made mud bricks and tried to get their vegetables to grow in the stony soil. In the communal shack they never finished, loose sheets of corrugated iron crashed and shrieked in the whistling wind. Our parents and their friends drank red wine and argued politics into the night as we whispered secrets to each other in the rickety attic, huddling together for warmth.