by Peter Kocan
So he would arrive at Telford Square and buy a paper at the newsstand on the corner, deepening his voice and making a point of calling the vendor “mate.” He would slap the folded paper under his arm and stride away like a man with a hundred and ten per cent to give.
But it never lasted.
Devon Street, the main street that ran through Telford Square, was always full of traffic and people. There was always the Oncoming Look on the footpath. At first, while he still felt slightly tall and tough and tuned, he was able to keep up a confident return gaze and a half-grin of friendliness. But after a minute it got too hard and he would lower his eyes and hunch his shoulders. After another minute he’d feel so exhausted by the eyes and bodies and movements of other people that he needed to get out of the crowd.
He had found a coffee shop called Don Di’s along Devon Street. It was poky and not very clean, but the youth liked it because there were never many people in there and it had potted plants. The potted plants meant you could sit at one of the little tables and be half-hidden by some tall ferny thing, yet have a good view of the street through the window and enough light to read the job ads in the paper. The man behind the counter was always unshaven and there was always the same waitress wearing the same grubby apron. The youth figured they were Don and Di. Both had distant manners and ignored the customers when they weren’t actually serving them, so the youth felt fairly relaxed. After the first few times Don and Di had got used to him and Di would silently bring him a coffee without anything being said. He would spread the paper on the little table and start circling ads in the “Juniors Wanted” columns. He would circle half-a-dozen or so, then sit looking out at the street, feeling how good it was to be safe and hidden behind the potted fern. But then after a while he would start to feel he’d probably stayed too long and that Don and Di must be getting fed up with him occupying a table and only buying the one coffee. Sometimes he’d order another coffee just to show he was a proper customer and not abusing their hospitality. That phrase kept running through his head: abusing their hospitality. He began to sense that when they ignored him it wasn’t because they were indifferent but because they were seething with disgust. One morning this thought kept whirling in his mind until he felt sick with it. He felt he had to say something, to make his position plain to them, to address the hatred which he knew was festering.
As Di happened to pass his table he made a terrific effort and blurted: “Thanks for the hospitality!” He didn’t want to seem to be looking directly at her so he kept staring through the front window at the street.
“Beg yours?” she said.
The youth had used up all his determination and could not bring himself to speak again. He kept staring ahead.
“Did you say something?” she asked. “Did you want another coffee?”
He tried to say, “Thanks for the hospitality,” again before his throat went tight and he trailed off. Di thought he’d said thanks to another coffee and so brought him one. She went away and after a while he stopped shaking and got hold of himself.
The youth knew his thinking had gone peculiar for a while. He put it down to the way he’d tried to model himself on Ronnie Robson, the way he’d tried to be positive and optimistic and on good terms with the world. Diestl’s example never led him astray like that. Diestl had always been good for him and had always kept him safe.
After that the youth put on the Diestl mood whenever he entered the coffee shop. He would imagine the place half-wrecked from bombing and would mentally kick aside bits of debris as he limped over to his table behind the fern, unslinging the Schmeisser as he sat down. He’d had a false start at Don Di’s. But now he was back on track. Now he could even look Don and Di in the face if he had to. Now he could give them the blank stare of a man at home with death and ruin and who just didn’t care.
The youth never applied for any of the jobs he circled in the paper. He would leave the coffee shop intending to ring from the phone box on the corner of the square. He would stand near the phone box for a while and look down the list of circled jobs and try to decide which seemed least threatening. He didn’t quite know how to judge the threateningness of a job ad. He trusted his intuition. He would go into the phone box and spread the paper and lay the coins out on top of the phone. He would dial the first digit or two of the number. But then it became too real. If he kept dialling he would have to talk to a real person and state what he was calling about and maybe arrange to go for an interview. And if he got a job he would have to keep going there. That was the worst thing. You could front up once, maybe, and get through the ordeal of it, and then escape. But a job meant going back time after time. Of course he wouldn’t get the job anyway, even if he went for an interview, so why put himself through the ordeal? He would decide to leave the call until later. He needed to walk about. He could phone later with a clearer mind.
He developed a route that took him into a park in the city centre: past a pond, along the edge of some flower beds, through a tunnel of big overarching trees, past a World War I howitzer on its concrete base, round a statue of an explorer, and then to a big chessboard built into the ground with black and white squares of marble. By the time he’d walked this route, often more than once, he would tell himself that he’d lost his chance of job-hunting that day but would make a fresh start next morning.
Next morning would be a whole new ball-game. Next morning would be the first morning of the rest of his life.
AFTER THREE weeks his money was nearly gone. Not that he needed much—just enough for a coffee at Don Di’s, and a paper, then a cheese roll for lunch and an evening meal of baked beans on toast at a cheap cafe he’d found on the far side of Telford Square.
His only other regular expense was for exchanging magazines at a second-hand bookshop he’d discovered in the same area. For a very small sum you could get a bundle of Women’s Weeklys and Woman’s Days. And for an even smaller sum you could take them back and exchange them for a fresh lot. The youth went through a bundle of magazines every few evenings.
He loved the whole world of them—cookery, fashion news, gardening, home decorating, the doings of the Royal Family. He thought of these magazines as his direct line to knowledge he’d never have otherwise. He read the advice columns and felt he was getting to the heart of human intimacy. He read the beauty tips. He read the household hints. He was always alert for pictures of women who had a touch of Grace Kelly’s look. Now and then he found pictures of Sweetheart herself. He carefully cut them out and stuck them in an exercise book. He called this the White Book because it had a white cover. Sometimes he cut out pictures of women who didn’t resemble Sweetheart all that much but still had an appealing quality. These interested him because he felt he was being broadened, being helped to see the wonderful variety of the world. The shape of an eyebrow, the curve of a throat, an expression in the eyes—these could be enchanting even if they weren’t just like Sweetheart’s. But hers was the ultimate beauty. Nothing would ever change that.
He’d bought himself a bedside lamp at an op-shop. It was a bit chipped, and the on–off switch was loose, but it worked fine and had cost almost nothing. So now he had a really good light to see and read by. It made all the difference. The evenings with the magazines were his best times, even though he had to keep an ear cocked for trouble in the corridor. He had a procedure for when he needed to use the toilet. It involved listening at the door, opening it a crack, looking out and scanning the passageway, locking his door behind him, then gliding quickly and quietly along to the loo. The toilets and showers and washbasins were in a big dank room that echoed every sound. Now and then other men came in while he was there but they minded their own business. The youth would glide back to his room with door key in hand for a rapid re-entry.
One night as he went to return to his room there was a woman standing in the corridor. She was swaying a bit from side to side. The youth half-thought to turn and retreat to the
loo till the passageway was clear, but kept going.
As he went to pass her he got a whiff of alcohol. The woman turned to him as he was side-on to her, so that they were facing each other close up. He dropped his glance and saw how low-cut her dress was at the front. She put her hand on his arm and stopped him for a moment. He got the scent of her tousled hair and warm body mixed with the alcohol. She breathed some words. He did not catch what they were, but they sounded nice, like an invitation. He moved on and went into his room. He put his ear to the door and heard the woman come along the passage and stop and gently knock. His heart beat wildly. There was another gentle knock. He heard her murmur something and then she moved away from his door and was gone. The youth lay down on his bed, stirred and flushed. It had felt so good to be right up close to her like that, with her hand on his arm and her red lipsticked mouth so near. He hadn’t realised how the smell of a woman’s tousled hair and warm body could flood through you and leave you weak in the knees. He got out the White Book and looked at his photos of Grace Kelly. She would give you those feelings if you got right up close to her, but even more powerfully because she was so much lovelier than any other woman. The photos of her suddenly had a more physical meaning. Her beauty was embodied for him in a new way. He spent most of that night cuddling his pillow and whispering love talk. Mostly it was Sweetheart, but now and then it became the woman in the corridor, and that felt almost as delicious.
AT THE Astro you were supposed to keep your rent paid at least a week in advance. The youth was now less than a paid-up week ahead and he was afraid the manager would challenge him about it. The manager was a tall, pale man who spoke very quietly in a foreign accent. He had blotchy skin and looked ill. He sat all day long in the little office inside the front door and never appeared to do anything other than sit with his hands clasped in front of him. He was always there when the youth came or went, and if he was facing the corridor he would give a passive stare and a nod of the head so slight it was hardly a movement at all. If he was facing away from the corridor and you entered or left very quietly he appeared not to be aware of you. But one day the youth noticed there was a framed photo on the wall which reflected the office doorway, so even when the man was facing away he still saw you go past.
The youth thought of him as the Pale Watcher.
Entering or leaving the Astro was now an ordeal, because of the rent. Every so often at other times, too, the youth would remember that he was nearly penniless and would be homeless any day now. It sent a pang of misery through him, but he did not know what to do about it and so tried to let the thought pass.
He was lying on his bed one evening. He felt slightly unwell. He had been at the library and then spent a long time in the park in a strong wind. He’d enjoyed the bracingness of it, but it had chilled him, and then there’d been some rain as he meandered home and he’d got wet as well. So he was stretched out, thinking he’d rest with his eyes closed for a quarter of an hour and then browse through his magazines till he felt properly sleepy. There came a jingle of keys and his door opened and the Pale Watcher walked in and closed the door behind him. He put the bunch of keys in his pocket and stood looking down at the youth. He smiled, or at least the youth assumed it was a smile. It might have been a grimace of pain. The man said something softly in his foreign accent, but the youth did not catch it. Was he asking for rent? The man saw the pile of Women’s Weeklys and Woman’s Days on the bedside table. He flicked through some pages of the top one and said something. Again the youth didn’t catch it, but he did not want to seem too impolite so he nodded as though he’d understood. The man sat down on the side of the bed. The youth was very embarrassed by the closeness and looked up at the ceiling. The man was looking him in the face and the youth stared up more fixedly. The man stretched himself out on the edge of the bed and the youth could feel his breath on the side of his face. This was even more embarrassing, so the youth tried to keep focused on a smudge on the ceiling. He felt the man’s hand on the outside of his thigh. It lay heavy there for a few moments, then moved slowly to the inside thigh. It started to rub there, back and forth. The rubbing didn’t feel unpleasant, but the man’s breath had a slightly sickly odour and the youth wanted to get up and away from it. He was trapped, though, against the wall. The man began whispering words. They might have been words in his own language. They had a sing-song rhythm, like a lullaby. The man’s mouth came close to the youth’s ear and the hand came up and rested on his crotch. The youth could only think of the sickly breath going into his ear. He wondered whether it would offend the man very much if he scrambled up and off the bed. He could say he’d suddenly remembered he had an urgent appointment. The hand was trying to undo the zip of the fly. The youth made a slight turn of his body towards the wall, as though just casually adjusting his position. The movement took the fly zip from the man’s fingers. After a moment the fingers moved to the zip again and again the youth turned his body another slight degree. The man stopped whispering the words and took his hand away. He sighed and the youth felt the little rush of air against his face. The man swung his legs off the bed and stood up, smoothing his clothes and his hair. He gave the youth the smile or grimace or whatever it was, then left the room as swiftly as he’d entered.
The youth was glad to be free of the sickly breath, and of the embarrassment of the closeness, but he was worried that he’d offended the man. And there was something else—a small, sharp sense of loss. He wasn’t quite sure what he felt, but he knew it wasn’t a hundred per cent relief. What had just happened had been exciting as well as embarrassing. There’d been that half-scary flushed feeling you got when you thought of the Pleasures of India.
The Pleasures of India was a phrase which had popped into his head one day and which evoked for him the power and mystery of the erotic. It prompted a mental picture of himself in some sultry foreign place that smells of jasmine and sandalwood. It is dusk. The street is sinuous and there are many narrow doorways. There are windows red with the glow of lamps behind crimson curtains. Enticements of spice and wine fill the air. There is a tinkle of wind-chimes and faint hypnotic music on Eastern instruments. The thrill and sweetness of life are so close. Intoxicating sex is all around. But you are still out in the street. You don’t know which particular doors to approach, what kind of knock to give, what password to use. You need someone to impart these things, but since you’ll probably never have anyone you will probably always be out in the street, always outside looking in. Yet just knowing that those intoxications exist in the world is a kind of consolation. If they exist, there is perhaps a chance that you might get to experience them somehow. It might happen by dumb luck, or somebody’s sheer generosity, or an unlooked-for smile of Fate. And the person who might bring you to it—guide you to the door, tell you the password—need not be the most likely one. You wouldn’t know who it would be until it happened. There was the Magic of Possibility. That was the other phrase that came to him. The Pleasures of India came through the Magic of Possibility. The Pale Watcher had seemed the wrong person, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be the bearer of the Possibility. The woman in the corridor that other night had seemed much more the right person, but the Possibility wasn’t carried through. It had to be carried completely through and handed to you in a way that you couldn’t refuse. If that woman had had a key and had entered like the Pale Watcher did, if she’d got on the bed with him and put her hand on his crotch . . . Or if the Pale Watcher had persisted . . .
The thing about the Pleasures of India, and the thoughts of Possibility, was that afterwards they left you feeling sad and empty. You paid dearly for those moments of flushed excitement. But then again, he’d understood that. That was the bitter wisdom Diestl stood for and had drummed into him. Hope for nothing and you won’t be disappointed. Expect nothing but the long road and your limping shadow for company. Otherwise you’re bringing the misery on yourself and you deserve every bit of it.
TWO MORNINGS later th
e youth went to pass the office on his way out. There was another man there with the Pale Watcher, someone stocky and tough-looking. When he noticed the youth he barked a question in a foreign language. The Pale Watcher nodded in reply.
“What you do?” demanded the stocky man.
“Sorry?” said the youth, stopping.
“Why you no pay?”
“Pardon?”
“Must pay rent! I am Owner! You owe money for room!”
“Um, I’m a bit short,” the youth said.
“Must pay!”
“I can’t, at the moment,” said the youth. He was thinking that he could offer to get his things and leave at once.
The stocky man had come out of the office and was face to face with him against the wall of the corridor. The man looked him up and down as though he hadn’t really seen him properly until now. He seemed to soften a bit, although his voice was still an aggressive bark.
“Where your father?”
“I haven’t got a father.”
“Where your mother?”
“Up in the bush.”
“What bush?”
“The country. A country town. Up north.”
“Your mother pay. You give telephone number, I talk to her, tell her you owe rent.”
“I don’t know her number,” said the youth. “We’ve been out of touch.” He was feeling very intimidated now, backed up against the wall, and he felt his chin trembling with distress. He knew if he had to say any more he would not be able to keep his voice steady.
