I nodded.
‘Do you think you and Lizzy will still be able to work on music once we’re on the road again?’ I asked.
Taylor shrugged. I swirled some water around with my legs.
‘Pack some writing pads in your bag tomorrow. You’ll figure something out,’ said Taylor. ‘There will be time.’
She kissed me on the head and left.
6
Tommy’s interviews were weird.
By the time they happened we were all a little drunk, Tommy included. I guess it might have taken our inhibitions and left us more honest and open, but for me I just felt vague and dopey. Plus we had to do them in the garage so we could hide the lights. Our bikes and gear were already in there, packed up and ready to go. Sitting down next to it all felt like hovering in limbo between one world and the next.
Lizzy went first, taking a good hour before returning to the pool and immediately resuming her position at the keyboard, where Chess had been waiting. I sat alone and listened to her play as Taylor went down next. She wasn’t gone for as long as Lizzy. A half-hour or so later she returned, said a quick goodnight and headed straight to bed. I finished my drink and wandered down a few moments later.
Tommy had a half-empty bottle of water with him and seemed to have sobered up since I had seen him last. I took a seat in the chair he had set up and tried to talk some crap with him. It didn’t really work. Tommy was focused from the last two interviews and it just felt like I was stalling.
Eventually he hit record and stopped me.
‘You were sheltered in a shopping mall with Taylor and Lizzy Finn, is that correct, Nox?’ he asked.
I took a breath and steadied myself.
‘No,’ I replied.
Tommy raised his gaze from the viewfinder.
‘You didn’t live in Carousel?’ he asked.
‘I did. But I was dropped there by accident,’ I replied.
The words bounced around the concrete, sounding like they had come from somebody else.
‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.
‘I was waiting at a bus stop when a taxi pulled up and the driver asked me if my name was Stuart,’ I replied.
Tommy stared at me. His lens drinking up my every word.
‘I lied. Told him it was. Figured it was better than waiting for the bus,’ I continued. ‘The driver believed me and we set off towards the city. He seemed kind of stressed – driving fast, watching the clock. About halfway there he swung into Carousel and said he couldn’t take me any further.’
I exhaled, finally laying bare the truth of my existence. It had happened suddenly, without any planning. I looked up at Tommy, wondering whether he might stop the interview then and there, saving his gigabytes for a real Artist.
‘Can you tell me about the art you created during your time in Carousel?’ he asked.
I looked up, surprised.
‘You were in there for a long time. What did you write?’ he asked.
I hesitated. ‘Short stories, mostly,’ I replied.
‘Is there a common theme or are they all individual works?’ he asked.
‘Fate, I guess,’ I replied, not having really thought about this before.
Tommy continued to coax me until eventually I was able to talk about the writing I had done in Carousel with at least some detail. He asked about how being in the shopping centre influenced the work. Whether being isolated from society was a help or a hindrance. What kind of hours I kept. All kinds of stuff. Rather than feel like a fraud, in a way it made me feel more legitimate. Answering questions about the work proved that it existed, and that in creating it I had invented, made decisions and done whatever else an Artist was required to do. Once I got talking I forgot about my arrival and focused on what I had done since.
After half an hour Tommy said he had enough footage. I felt flat, but tried not to let on. We packed up his equipment and put the batteries back on charge. Tommy looked tired. It was well into the night and the morning loomed like an unwelcome relative. We hovered above the chargers, waiting for the lights to turn green.
‘You haven’t told that to anyone before?’ asked Tommy.
I shook my head. ‘Sorry. It just came out,’ I replied.
‘It’s the camera lens,’ said Tommy. ‘People think it will keep them from talking, but it does the opposite I think.’
I nodded and took a breath.
‘Have you spoken to anyone else that was taken to a shelter without being a real Artist?’ I asked.
Tommy looked at me squarely and shook his head.
‘Have you met a guy named Stuart anywhere?’ I asked.
‘No. Sorry, Nox,’ he replied.
I looked away, feeling about ten years his junior.
‘Maybe it is just about the timing,’ said Tommy.
‘What?’ I replied.
‘Maybe everything,’ said Tommy.
I rubbed my tired, stinging eyes and tried to think this over. A hangover was doing its best to check-in early.
‘Have Taylor and Lizzy gone to bed?’ asked Tommy.
‘I think so,’ I replied.
Tommy nodded, looking suddenly pensive.
‘If you are going to the city to find the painter, there is something you should know I think,’ said Tommy.
‘The painter?’ I asked.
‘The girl who came to Carousel on Boxing Day. Taylor asked me about her. At first I didn’t remember anyone like that. But the other day I was doing some editing and something triggered my memory. I was in the city for a while, just hanging out and interviewing some people. Just before I left, a painter arrived. She said she had come from the suburbs in the east. I was going to interview her but there were rumours of some Loots around. I was stressed out for my cameras so I got out of there.’
‘But you think it’s the same painter that came to Carousel?’ I asked.
‘Oh yeah, I think so,’ he replied. ‘Taylor gave me a pretty good description.’
Wow, I thought. That’s why she wants to go to the city so bad.
‘Anyway,’ said Tommy. ‘The city is cool. There are some great Artists there. But you need to be careful.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘The place has been without maintenance for a long time now. Parts of it are starting to break down. When I was there last winter a storm blew over a huge crane and it smashed up a bunch of buildings and roads pretty bad I think. Some people say that it took out gas lines, too,’ said Tommy. ‘I don’t really know how this stuff works but some people say it’s a matter of time before there is an explosion. And when it happens there’ll be no firefighters to put it out.’
I looked at him. It was as serious as Tommy got.
‘Just before we got out of Carousel we started hearing these noises. Kind of like thunder, but from the ground, not the sky,’ I said.
‘Pockets of gas going off,’ said Tommy.
‘You heard them, too?’ I asked.
‘Oh yeah. Everyone did, I think. Sometimes you could see them, too. Little flashes of light,’ he replied.
‘Did you see many of these in the city?’ I asked.
Tommy shook his head. I thought this over.
‘Maybe that’s a good sign,’ I said.
‘Yeah, maybe. Or maybe there will just be one big one,’ he replied.
The two of us stood in silence.
‘Maybe it’s not such a great idea to only save Artists,’ I said.
Tommy smiled and nodded. He looked young again. Like the student he was. I patted him on the shoulder and tried my best to be reassuring. The battery lights turned from red to green.
7
Tommy had left before we woke in the morning. For some reason none of us were surprised. Maybe he had said his goodbyes to the Finns after their interviews. I guess my talk with him was also a goodbye of sorts. We had said a lot of stuff, and there were other things that probably didn’t need to be said. I think each of us felt a void somewhere deep and important upon Tommy’s de
parture. We were alone in the world again. And we couldn’t hide out any longer.
After breakfast we spent a few hours cleaning the house. It was an odd and excessive place, but it had been good to us, and our only home since Carousel. We didn’t feel right about leaving it ransacked and messy. The three of us worked away, carefully returning the place to its sparse and minimalist self. The only real difference was the empty pantry and sparkling-clean pool. I had a feeling we would miss that pool severely.
We loaded up the bikes with the last of our stuff. Taylor and I couldn’t help but smile at Lizzy’s reaction to the alterations on her fixie. Chess hovered anxiously at her feet as she tested the new load. Somehow he knew completely that this was no daytrip.
It reminded me of when I was a kid and Mum, Dad, Danni and I would sometimes head out for a walk through the hills at night. It was rare for us to carry out such a structured, all-in family outing. But sometimes, amid the slow drag of summer holidays, on a night when the four of us might linger at the dinner table rather than slip away to our own corners of the house, Dad would suggest that Herb, our scruffy old Jack Russell, might like a walk. So the five of us would head out into the quiet hum of the patchy forests surrounding our place. The lights of the city blipping into view as we crossed streets and passed neighbouring houses and properties. Herb sniffing his way along, more vibrant than on his morning walks, which had become something to tick off before school, work and – for him – a day shuffling about the deck, following the sun, then the shade. What Danni and I loved was that our cat Ezra also came along. His senses triggered by the irregularity of an event that saw all five of us leaving the house together. He would slink along behind us. Watching out for signs that our journey might be something permanent like when we shifted to the hills from Bull Creek.
There had been no discussion over bringing Chess. He was in this with us now. A Patron in dog form. Poor guy, I thought. Lives through the apocalypse and the only people left are a straggle of wounded and aimless Artists. What he would do for a simple life with a farmer or fisherman.
I propped up Taylor’s bike as she hit the controller on the garage door and dashed out as it angled slowly to the floor. Lizzy circled the driveway in slow, distracted loops. Taylor clipped on her helmet and tested her tyres. I looked westward through the trees at the murky spread of Perth below.
‘Sayonara, you weird, awesome house,’ said Lizzy.
She shot me a mischievous grin.
‘Sorry about the cellar,’ I added.
‘You guys up for the highway?’ asked Taylor.
‘Totally,’ I replied.
‘Just don’t leave me and Chessboard behind,’ said Lizzy as she swung out of her loop and down the driveway.
‘Hold up,’ said Taylor.
We stopped and looked at her. She was fiddling with something that was taped to her handlebars.
‘What?’ asked Lizzy.
A song licked out into the morning air. Taylor had strapped an iPod and speaker to her bike.
‘A bit of Cold War Kids,’ she replied. ‘For the journey.’
‘Nice,’ said Lizzy.
The two of them shared a smile before Lizzy and Chess took off again. Taylor ramped the volume and shot off after her sister with a spark I hadn’t seen in her for a long time. Maybe it was the thought of the painter she had almost met in Carousel. The girl she was secretly heading toward. Maybe she was just excited to be moving again.
I felt something too. Coasting down that long concrete driveway. Bush, sunlight and wind washing across my senses. In my mind I dressed it up as fearlessness. The four of us hurtling downhill into battle. But I think it was more about something Tommy had said. The possibility that down there, ahead of us, was the chance to make something of my sheltering. To become what this Curator had intended. To somehow morph an accident into fate.
As it turned out, it was Taylor and I that had trouble keeping up with Lizzy and Chessboard. Given the delicacy of her bike, the two of us had taken on the majority of the supplies, leaving us heavy and unstable. We sat back on our brakes, careful not to shift our weight too far and scatter our cargo into the trees. Lizzy rolled freely and with Chess a born runner, they set a cracking pace. We caught them on the straights, but lost them around each bend as the bush closed in and the highway snaked back into the outer suburbs.
When we began to level off and slow down I started looking around for signs of life. It was still pretty green on the lower slopes. There were patches of brown and yellow where lawns and gardens had been starved of irrigation, but in many places the natives had survived and started to spread. We passed a big Italian house with pillars and a double-door entrance being rapidly engulfed by a runaway creeper. A cluster of kit homes, part of an estate for young families, pushed to the very edge of the city by a booming property market. An accompanying primary school looking lifeless and sombre in the morning sun. Whenever I saw play equipment now I got a flash of Sarah Connor in T2 watching kids on swings being blown to pieces by the robot apocalypse.
If there were other Artists up there, we didn’t see them. Maybe it would be easier at night when a light might give them away. Or maybe they would try to stay dark and quiet like we had. By venturing into the city we were assuming that people there would be out in the open rather than hidden away. Tommy had made it sound like this. For the most part I hoped he was right.
By lunchtime our legs were already starting to tire. Taylor was the only one of us in any shape, and even she seemed to be flagging without the help of the slopes. We ambled along at pedestrian pace as the road started to radiate heat like some giant, never-ending pizza stone. Shade became sparse and I noticed Chess seemed reluctant to remain stationary on the bitumen for more than a moment.
We had all but left the hills and reached what looked like a series of market gardens when Lizzy slowed on the road ahead of us. Chess peered up and circled her curiously. My hand dropped down to my golf club. Taylor stopped and glanced sideways at her sister.
‘Do you think there’s any food here?’ asked Lizzy.
Taylor had become a bit of a plant expert during our last year in Carousel, growing all kinds of things under the dome without much to work with. She looked around at the messy, browning pockets of land.
‘Could be some tomatoes. Maybe citrus. If the birds haven’t got to it all,’ said Taylor.
‘God, that would be awesome. I have hella scurvy right now,’ said Lizzy.
‘We can’t really carry anything else on these bikes,’ I said.
‘But we could have a fresh lunch for once,’ said Lizzy.
Taylor looked around and thought it over.
‘Okay. We gotta head this way anyhow. Let’s check it out,’ said Taylor.
She turned us down the remnants of a dirt road, eyes scanning the passing foliage as she went. One in four of the large, rectangular planting areas had some hint of life. Here Taylor found several patches of tomatoes and capsicum. They were clustered from self-seeding and stunted badly from the lack of water. But even so there were countless pockets of fruit and vegetables tucked under leaves and spread out across the cooler dirt. We put the bikes aside and trudged our way through, eating as we went. At first we took anything that was half ripe and bug free. But as we realised how much was on offer we quickly became fussy, taking only premium produce to eat or stash for later.
Lizzy was excited and hopped about at each new discovery. She jammed tomato after tomato into her mouth, before holding her stomach and forcing down some more. Taylor blissed-out in the peaceful, sprawling gardens. This was probably what she had dreamed about for all those days stuck in Carousel. I could see her here, making a life for herself. Bringing the gardens back to life. Collecting water and cooking by the fire in winter. Harvesting and preserving in the baking-hot summers. It seemed as good an existence as any these days. If it wasn’t for her painter I wondered if she would have stopped dead ahead of me and announced that she was staying.
The gardens g
ave me another flicker of home. I thought of messing about in Dad’s veggie garden with Danni after school. Sprinklers tossing fat droplets of water in circles across the rows of green. Dad with his pants rolled up to the top of his calves. The three of us thumbing seeds into soft warm soil while Mum looked down on us with a white wine in one hand and the phone in the other. I meandered in the warmth of this for a while, getting a small pang of sadness on the way back out.
All of the fresh fruit and vegetables rocketed through our unsuspecting stomachs and left us bailed up in a rusty outdoor toilet for the rest of the day. The toilet was beside a machinery shed on the border of a few acres of soil and wilting citrus. We felt stupid and hoped that the vitamin hit would be worth it. Night seemed to close in much quicker now that we were off the hills. Tired and edgy, we took our final visits to the toilet, then locked ourselves in a four-wheel drive parked in the shed. It was musty and cramped and smelt like canine. The sprawling king beds and fresh linen of our previous home were a million miles away now.
At first light we staggered from the car and set off again. We weaved our way along the grid of roads servicing the market gardens until a sweep of tiled roofs appeared and we surfaced into a subdivision. The drone of insects disappeared and an unnerving silence took its place. Lizzy hummed and chatted away to a skittish Chessboard. The more blasé she acted, the more I knew she was worried sick about him. We rolled quietly past the dormant houses. Some of them had paved frontages instead of gardens and looked no different to how they might if inhabited. I cooked up ridiculous fantasies of the cute uni students that could be inside. Killing time on Facebook and sunbaking in the backyard. Home alone until their mum brought their brothers and sisters back from school. Flirting with me on text about how they were bored out of their mind.
It had clouded over during the night but the heat had remained. Now the air felt sticky and we heard the distant echo of thunder somewhere to the north. At the outer edge of the houses was a long, high wall blocking them in from whatever lay to the west. We traced along this wall for a while without any luck. Eventually Lizzy stopped and looked back behind us.
Beyond Carousel Page 4
