There was no way I could process the fact that there had just been a cleaning lady in the centre so I put on some Bright Eyes and drank the remainder of a hundred-dollar shiraz that had been airing in a carafe. When it was finished I curled up under the quilt and tried to think about my fantasy Fiesta owner. Picture her lightly tanned skin or something she would say. Normally I was good at imagining this stuff. But our reality had grown too complex. She would only surface in fleeting, superficial waves that I couldn’t cling onto.
Home, however, had started to flood into my subconscious with vivid and unexpected clarity. Lying there on the bunk I could see my dim, grungy share house in full colour. My roommates and I drinking on the couch with plans to go out that would never eventuate. The stale quiet of the morning when I got ready for work while the others slept through their ten-thirty lectures. The four months with Chloe when she would stay over and I would cook something in our dirty kitchen and we’d eat outside in the overgrown garden before having quiet, friendly sex in my bedroom. Afterward when Heather came back from Berlin and we decided wordlessly to hook up and eke out some security in our collective limbo. Trips to my parents’ place in the hills for birthdays, long weekends and sometimes without a reason, just to sit in their routine and feel okay about a regular life.
Carousel had drifted me welcomingly away from these things, and only recently had they returned. Our existence in the centre was in flux and I think my subconscious was trying to figure out what this meant. The possibility of a return to my previous life was an assumption but surely not a reality. My visions weren’t tinted with sadness or anxiety, but they probably should have been.
These thoughts took me to sleep and kept me there until late in the morning. I woke feeling dopey and hungover. The spiking cold of the bathroom woke my skin, but nothing far beneath. I wandered downstairs and found the Finns making smoothies at Pure ’n’ Natural, having only just arrived themselves after a long night wrapped in their own emotional blankets.
I sat on a stool and continued to wake up. Rocky wasn’t around. I took out my radio and was about to call through to him when Taylor stopped me.
‘He’s in the security room,’ she said.
‘Oh. Okay,’ I replied. ‘Did he go there on his own?’
She nodded.
‘I guess there’s a chance she’ll come back,’ I said.
‘Why?’ asked Taylor.
‘It’s her job,’ said Lizzy with a chunk of sarcasm.
‘You think she’s been coming here every week since we arrived?’ said Taylor.
‘Maybe,’ said Lizzy.
‘She doesn’t think it’s weird that the bathrooms stay clean and there are gnomes all over the floor?’ said Taylor.
Lizzy shrugged.
Taylor shook her head. ‘I’m pretty sure we would have run into her by now,’ she said.
‘This place is massive, Taylor. Aside from you and your door fetish we hang out in like ten percent,’ replied Lizzy.
Taylor gave her daggers.
‘Can we not do this,’ I said, surprising myself with the sharpness of my tone.
‘What?’ said Lizzy.
‘Try to make sense of all the bullshit,’ I said.
‘You’re going to have to eventually, Nox. You can’t just float around in here for the rest of your life saying “oh well”,’ said Taylor.
‘Who says I have a choice,’ I replied.
‘The cleaning lady does. And the Fiesta,’ she replied.
‘A hatchback says I have a choice?’ I replied.
Lizzy smirked. Taylor glared at me.
‘Seriously?’ she asked.
We held onto a silent stand-off for a little bit before Lizzy broke in.
‘Let’s just wait and see if she comes back, and if she does we’ll be quicker and we’ll follow her out that door. Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ said Taylor.
I nodded.
‘I’ll go sit with Rocky for a while,’ I said and rose from the stool.
Taylor stopped me and handed over her smoothie.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
I climbed awkwardly onto one of Rocky’s bikes.
‘Are you hungover?’ asked Lizzy.
‘Probably,’ I replied.
I stabilised myself and wobbled off with the drink in one hand. As usual I would have given anything to hear what they were saying once I left.
Rocky didn’t turn from the screens when I arrived. He just sort of sniffed a greeting and kept up his vigil in the black and white flicker. I sat beside him and watched for a while. It wasn’t that Rocky looked overly serious about the surveillance. He held the same distant expression I’d seen on him as he watched TV or ate potato chips. But there seemed to be something attracting him to the screens. I wondered if it was connected to his stepdad.
‘How long has your stepdad been at Guardhouse?’ I asked him, casually.
‘Ages,’ he replied.
‘He alright?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ he replied.
Rocky sniffed, then coughed a little. It wasn’t the sort of question that would get much out of him.
‘Man, I wonder if she’ll come back,’ I said.
‘Might be someone else,’ said Rocky.
I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t think the Finns had either.
‘Yeah, maybe. Whoever is on shift,’ I said.
Rocky nodded.
‘Geri works here as a cleaner,’ he said.
Geri was the sister of one of Rocky’s schoolmates. I’d only heard him talk about her once, on the way back from a drinking session at Liquor Central. But I think he liked her.
‘Ha. It would be pretty awesome if she came in,’ I said, joking.
Rocky nodded seriously. I glanced at him. He seemed to think this was a possibility.
I guess it was. Shit, pretty much anything was.
But normally we didn’t hope for stuff like that. I felt a rush of concern for Rocky that was hard to shake. I needed some air.
‘You want a mocha?’ I asked.
Rocky nodded absently.
‘Cool. I’ll be back in a sec,’ I said.
I put on my iPod and walked down to Woolworths for some powdered milk and coffee beans. There was plenty left so I grabbed a bunch of packets and carried them to the Muffin Break island so that we would have coffee supplies for a few weeks of surveillance. I made Rocky a jumbo mocha, heating the chocolate powder with the milk so that it cooked a little and tasted better. It looked pretty delicious so I made myself the same, knowing that all that powdered milk would probably churn up my guts all afternoon.
My radio crackled through the music. I paused the iPod.
‘Hello, Nox?’ said Lizzy.
‘Yeah hello,’ I replied.
‘Who were you listening to?’ she asked.
‘The Panics,’ I replied. ‘They’re local.’
‘Okay. When do you and Rocky want to be replaced?’ she asked.
‘I’m okay,’ chimed in Rocky.
‘Oh, okay,’ said Lizzy. ‘And you, Nox?’
‘How about two thirty?’ I said.
‘Awesome. See you then,’ she replied.
I put the giant mochas in a carry case and shuffled back to the surveillance.
14
Rocky didn’t break his surveillance vigil for a week. It might have gone on even longer had the cleaning lady not reappeared. Same time, same camera. Coffee cup in hand, ready for another shift.
His reluctance to leave the security room had divided the Finns, while I hung in the middle like a kid in the back seat. Lizzy thought it was fine, as arbitrary as any other activity we used to kill time in Carousel. Taylor thought it was out of character and obsessive, a sign of Rocky’s mental instability that needed to be addressed. I tended to agree that it was unusual, particularly given his comment about Geri. But on the other hand it wasn’t like he was neglecting anything to take up the surveillance. As Lizzy said, his existence in Carousel was as arbitrary as
any of us, and it was normal to cling onto something that offered a hint of purpose.
One thing we were all concerned about was his cough. It had been around forever now, but had only recently gained a rattle that rose from somewhere deep within his spindly frame. When it was obvious he wasn’t keen on leaving the room I moved a couple of heaters up there and Lizzy increased his daily doses of vitamin C and E. Other than this all we could do was keep an ear out for it. Taylor and I read a couple of articles in a book that outlined the differences between Rocky’s symptoms and something like pneumonia. It all seemed pretty grey.
Taylor was up there with him when the lady arrived for another shift. She radioed Lizzy and me immediately. We weren’t going to sit back and watch this time. She had a key and Taylor wanted it badly. We bounded out of the studio in Rugs a Million and cycled for Coles where the lady had just entered.
We arrived before Taylor and Rocky and found the lady with her head in a storage cupboard. We lingered behind her for a second before it seemed like one of us should say something.
‘Hi there,’ said Lizzy.
For some reason we were both on the edge of hysterics.
The lady backed out of the room and turned around. She was middle-aged, maybe just into her forties but thin and still held a good figure so it was difficult to tell. The skin on her face was a little too tanned to be healthy. She looked at us vacantly for a second or two before replying.
‘Yeah?’
Talk about an anticlimax. The first person we’d met in who knows how long, and it was as if she’d seen us a million times before.
‘We’re um … stuck in here at the moment. Would you mind letting us out through that door?’ I said, nodding in the direction of her entry.
She looked at me, then Lizzy. Weighing up if she gave a shit.
‘I gotta finish my cleaning first. Then I’ll let you out,’ she replied and turned back into the cupboard. ‘If you help me, it’ll be quicker,’ she added.
Lizzy and I looked at each other. It sounded like a fair trade.
She wheeled a bucket out past us into the main corridor. Taylor and Rocky arrived simultaneously. They pulled up from a full sprint and sucked in some air. Rocky coughed, dangerously. The lady glanced at them and continued across toward the bathrooms. Taylor dragged her eyes away from the new human in Carousel and looked at Lizzy and me. We gave her a stupid thumbs-up.
‘What does that mean?’ whispered Taylor, stepping closer.
‘She’s going to let us out once she’s finished cleaning,’ I said.
Taylor shook her head, not satisfied.
‘Excuse me,’ she called after the lady. ‘Sorry. We really need to get out of here now.’
The lady turned and looked at Taylor tiredly.
‘It’s a long story but we can give you some cash,’ she said.
The lady lightened a fraction. Cash was a good idea. Lizzy and I hadn’t thought of that.
Taylor pulled out a hefty wad of fifty-dollar notes and passed them to the lady. She pocketed them and looked at Taylor, then Lizzy. I was pretty sure she had no idea who they were. But maybe I was wrong. She sighed and left her bucket in the corridor. The four of us followed her back toward the cul-de-sac where she entered.
It all felt so mundane and underwhelming. This woman was about to rescue us from a lifetime of shopping centre imprisonment.
I looked at Lizzy, then Rocky, then Taylor. None of them would meet my gaze. Everyone’s eyes were stuck on the cleaning lady as she reached the door and rummaged through her pocket for the security card. My pulse began to thunder. She stopped and lifted a white card to the scanner.
The light stayed red.
She tried again. Still red.
Taylor’s head dropped.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ said the lady.
She pushed on the door and waved the card about. Still nothing happened.
She was stuck here, too.
‘Oh well. Fucked if I’m cleaning anything until this is sorted,’ said the lady.
None of us could bear the thought of explaining our situation. But eventually we would have to. It wouldn’t be Taylor though. She was inconsolable, even to Lizzy.
‘Are all the doors fucked?’ the lady asked.
None of us answered, all hoping someone else would do the job.
‘Yeah,’ I said eventually. ‘I’m Nox. This is Rocky, Taylor and Lizzy,’ I added.
‘Rachel,’ she said.
Lizzy offered a tiny smile. Rocky coughed.
‘Security here are useless,’ said Rachel.
None of us responded. I think we were all trying to process what had just happened.
‘You been helping yourself to some food? I would have,’ said Rachel.
I nodded and wondered what she would say when she saw the shelves at Coles.
‘Was everything okay on your drive to work, Rachel?’ asked Lizzy.
‘Who says I wasn’t on the bus?’ asked Rachel, suddenly defensive.
‘Oh, sorry. I just assumed,’ replied Lizzy.
‘What number?’ asked Rocky.
Lizzy and I looked at Rocky curiously. Rachel seemed to notice him for the first time.
‘I take the five-oh-nine,’ she replied. ‘But since it’s not running I drive. Nothing I can do about that.’
Rocky was silent.
‘How was the drive?’ asked Lizzy.
‘Fast, sweetheart,’ she replied, deadpan.
‘What about when you got up? Or last night?’ I asked.
Rachel looked at me, then the others, as if she was trying to figure something out.
‘Same old,’ she replied, and lit up a cigarette.
Eventually we led the increasingly agitated Rachel back to JB’s for some TV and a reality that we worried might break her tiny suburban brain. Along the way we waited as she tried her card on dozens of doors. Even trudging up to the east end to the door she apparently used to use. None of them opened.
I think she began to fully process what had happened to us when she saw what we’d done to the store. We didn’t even notice anymore, but I guess to a fresh pair of eyes it must have looked pretty crazy. Our living area took up a huge section in the middle of the shop. All the stereos and DVDs that had once been there were piled up against a wall in a shiny electronic mass. A series of huge flatscreens bordered our enclosure and cut off the draughts that drifted around the centre like wraiths.
‘Shit. You guys have made yourself at home,’ said Rachel.
Lizzy, Rocky and I sat on the couches and waited for her to register. Taylor distracted herself in the kitchen area.
‘You’ve been here for a while, haven’t you?’ said Rachel, like it was a big fucking secret.
I nodded.
‘And none of youse can get out?’ she asked.
We shook our heads. Lizzy glanced at Taylor across the room.
‘How long have you been cleaning here, Rachel?’ I asked.
‘Fifteen months. Nine to go,’ she replied.
‘Until what?’ I asked.
‘Bullshit parole deal is over,’ she replied.
I nodded and stole a look at Lizzy.
‘How come we haven’t seen you before?’ asked Lizzy.
Rachel shrugged. ‘I work the east end. Switched down here a few weeks back. Sick of freezing my arse off in that mouldy shithole.’
My stomach tightened. I’d smelt her bleach down in the food court not three or four months ago.
Rachel took a seat on our couch.
‘Mind you, you guys could be cleaner,’ she added.
‘You knew we were here?’ asked Lizzy.
Rachel looked at her dully.
‘Hello. It’s fucking gnomesville in here,’ she replied.
‘Why didn’t you come and talk to us?’ I asked.
‘None of my business,’ she replied.
She flicked through a gossip mag, tossed it aside and flicked through another. We watched her in a kind of stunned silence until she finish
ed that one too and sat back and looked around.
‘Well, it’s nicer than my place. And there’s no kids around.’
‘You have kids at home?’ I asked.
Rachel shook her head. ‘They’re with my ex,’ she replied. ‘If he hasn’t left them somewhere.’
I held my head and tried to work out what her being stuck in Carousel meant for the kids. Lizzy seemed to be doing the same. Rocky seemed anxious and had barely moved a muscle, instead just swallowing down his cough with a noise that sounded like a small dog.
We weren’t adjusting to our new roommate very well.
‘Rachel. We were going to crack open some liquor this afternoon. Are you interested?’ asked Taylor, stepping over from the kitchen looking suddenly casual and composed.
It was a good call from Taylor. Getting on the booze couldn’t hurt. Judging by Rachel’s positive reaction, it may even help. It had been a long time since we drank properly and with all this stuff going down we desperately needed to get outside our heads. No thoughts of tomorrow. No plan for how we would deal with Rachel. No talk about what her arrival meant for our existence in the world.
We just trudged across to Liquor Central with an iPod and some beanbags and reassured Rachel that taking some drinks wouldn’t get her in trouble with the law. She seemed pretty paranoid about this. Probably for good reason.
‘Why do I feel like I’m on fucking Big Brother all of a sudden,’ Lizzy whispered to me as we cracked open our first bottle of vodka and mixed it in with some Deep Spring Lemon Lime.
It was true. Carousel didn’t feel real with Rachel around. It felt like an experiment to see how we would handle this new arrival, coupled with all the other shit facing the four of us.
‘Yeah totally,’ I replied.
It would pass, of course. Rachel would eventually see what was going on. She would settle into the strange rhythms of the centre. Bring things to our group that we didn’t like, and surprise us with other things that we did. We would eventually regain the faux equilibrium we once had, and live out our weirdo lives the best we could.
But not tonight.
Tonight we would drink and convince ourselves that we could be anywhere.
Lizzy played DJ on the iPod as it grew dark and we worked our way confidently through the first bottle, and onto another. She played a bunch of great artists: The Smiths, Arcade Fire, PJ Harvey – later in the night even a bit of Taylor & Lizzy. Taylor pretended to ignore it, while Lizzy and I watched Rachel to see if anything about the catchy songs and the identical Canadian twins drinking with her would register.
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