by Peter Kocan
“You pay rent tomorrow!” the man said. He looked at his watch and turned back into the office and began to bark at the Pale Watcher in their foreign language. He glanced back at the youth still standing against the wall.
“I have no time now, but I speak to you tomorrow. Not to pay rent is stealing! You steal from me, I call police. You understand?”
He waved the youth away and went back to barking at the Pale Watcher. The youth supposed it was a bawling-out for letting people get in arrears.
Back in his room the youth tried to think what to do. Maybe he could pack his things and slip away. But the thought of being homeless was like an icicle in his heart. This room, shabby as it was, seemed especially cosy now. But it wasn’t just a question of a roof over his head. He was so broke that he could hardly buy a bread roll or a carton of milk to exist on.
He recalled what the Owner had said about contacting his mother. He decided to search his bag for the scrap of paper with the phone number on it, the number of the old lady the woman was working for up north. He took his bag from the wardrobe and began to rummage in it. He pulled out a woman’s brassiere and a leather wallet. He sat on the bed and looked at these two items. He’d never seen them before. He was completely puzzled. He held the bra up by its shoulder strap and examined it. It was a bit frayed and not very clean. He took up the wallet and opened it. There were only a couple of crumpled bits of paper. One was a garage receipt for a car tune-up. The other was a doctor’s appointment slip in the name of Tony Lee and dated months ago.
The youth felt that awful sweaty, swirling sensation that came when he was unsure about the reality of what was happening. Had he got the bra and wallet from somewhere and forgotten about it? Had he stolen them? He tried to remember himself stealing them. He could imagine himself doing it, but was he remembering it? He didn’t think so.
He suddenly understood the items had been planted on him. His heart beat hard with the shock of the thought. Someone’s wallet and a woman’s bra: together they showed him up as a thief and a perve. How long had they been there? Couldn’t be more than a few days, he figured. He thought of the way the Pale Watcher had come into his room so casually, key in hand. But why would the Pale Watcher want to plant stuff on him?
The youth racked his brains. After a while he felt the need to lie down and try to let the sweaty, swirling sensation fade. As soon as he’d stretched out, though, he got a mental picture of the door opening and the Pale Watcher looming in. He got up and slid the little security bolt, then lay back down. The wallet and the bra were on the bed. They felt very dangerous, like time bombs ticking beside him.
He went out early next morning. He wanted to take all his belongings with him, but was afraid they’d stop him if his bag was too full. He imagined the Owner grabbing him and barking right into his face again. He imagined the man searching his bag and finding the bra and wallet and calling the police. He was scared of the Owner and pictured himself trying to run away but going weak in the legs and not being able to move. Part of the reason the stocky man frightened him was that his manner was a lot like Vladimir’s.
The youth intended to take the bra and wallet out with him and get rid of them in a rubbish bin. He put most of his belongings in the bag as well. He left behind a woolly jumper that was too bulky, and some magazines that he knew he could live without if he had to. The bag looked a bit full, but not absolutely bulging. He left his room and went quietly along the corridor. Another tenant was at the office door. The man was speaking quite loudly and breaking off every few moments with a hacking smoker’s cough. Now and then came a faint murmur of the Pale Watcher’s voice. The Owner didn’t seem to be there. The youth darted past the other tenant and into the street and half-ran to Telford Square and joined the stream of people along Devon Street. After a minute or two of brisk walking he felt he was free and clear and slowed down. He came to the park. He sat on a bench and set the bag beside him. He thought what a nuisance it was going to be to be burdened with it all day long.
He’d not brought his bedside lamp with him. It had clean slipped his mind. How stupid! He loved that lamp, chipped and shabby though it was. He loved the little circle of light it made. He thought of the cosy times he’d had with his magazines in that circle of light, and the times of deep emotion too, reading and rereading the wonderful key chapters of Year of Decision.
He was hungry. He’d not eaten since the middle of the previous day. He searched his pockets for money and found he had enough for a bread roll and a carton of milk. He went to a shop and bought a buttered roll, then returned to the park. He had decided to keep his last coin for some milk later on. He ate the roll carefully so as not to waste any crumbs, then washed it down with gulps of water from a tap.
Across the street was the State Museum. It was a big stone building in an old-fashioned style that he liked. He had passed it many times, had looked in through the glass doors, and had read the sign that told what the hours were and that admission was free. He had never gone in because he had the State Library to go to and thought he’d keep the museum up his sleeve. Now he crossed from the park and went up the front steps and peered in through the glass doors. It was just past nine o’clock. He went in very cautiously, the way he did with any place that was unfamiliar, ready to retreat if anything seemed untoward. He had on his look of vague boredom. He always wore that expression in a new place so that if he was told to get out he could pretend he hadn’t been interested anyway.
There was an information desk with postcards and souvenirs for sale, but no-one was attending it. A woman’s voice was coming out of an open office door. The youth went through one of several archways which led off the entrance hall and found himself in a long two-storey gallery full of glass cases with stuffed animals in them.
There was a musty smell that he liked, the smell of an old building that had got shabby, with chips in the plaster and paint peeling off the walls here and there. It was also probably the smell of stuffed animals that had been there a long time. The youth stared into the yellow eyes of a stuffed lion. Its mouth was drawn back in a snarl. He wondered how long ago the lion had been alive. Fifty? A hundred years ago? He felt the poignancy of time and of life. This lion had been alive under the sun of a day gone forever. That phrase went round and round in his mind: The sun of a day gone forever. He stayed staring at the lion for a long time, then moved on to other creatures in other cabinets. There was an antelope with long spiral horns, a group of three chimpanzees lolling on a tree branch, a crocodile in a long narrow case, and a rhinoceros standing braced with its head down and its long sharp horn poised to make an upward hooking motion at an enemy. The gallery was so crammed with glass cabinets that the youth had to turn sideways to squeeze between them. There was a chair in a corner and when he felt like taking the weight off his feet he sat down and gazed around at the exhibits and the shabby walls and the little balcony that ran around the upper level. Nobody else came into the gallery while he was there and it was beautifully quiet. The hours drifted by.
On the walls were some painted scenes of African landscapes. They looked like they’d been there a long time and were a bit faded. The youth stared at these, gazing into the distance of the flat veldt, or up at the white peak of Kilimanjaro, or into a depth of jungle. All the while he was thinking about the sun of a day gone forever and some of the time he wasn’t entirely in his body, or even in his own mind. It was as though he had entered into the lives of those animals under that sun of Africa long ago. He was in the heat and rush and desperation of those lives, and also in their stillness and alertness and self-control. He kept coming back to the stuffed lion and staring into the yellow eyes. At certain moments he felt he might swoon and faint if he wasn’t careful. It was like the feeling you get once in a while when you gaze at the starry night sky and for an instant comprehend it—except this was a flash of the fiery sun and the pounding blood of the beasts of the earth.
It was mi
d-afternoon. The youth had wandered into a courtyard of the museum. There was a kiosk that sold sandwiches and drink, with a middle-aged lady behind the counter. There were no customers just then and the lady was reading a newspaper spread in front of her. The youth was drained of all emotion. He felt hollow and hungry and wanted to lie down. He thought of leaving the museum and going back across the road to the park and stretching out on the grass. He tried to decide whether to buy a carton of milk from the kiosk with the last of his money.
The courtyard was separated from the street by a high iron-railing fence. There was a pushbike outside on the footpath, leant against the railings. It was a very good bike by the look of it. The youth idly wondered whose it was and why it was there. It’ll get pinched if its owner doesn’t watch out, he thought.
He bought the smallest carton of milk the kiosk had and drank it quickly. Well, that’s it, he told himself: now I’ll be going hungry. For a moment he felt like bursting into tears but then decided he was too tired to care. He thought again about going over to the park for a lie-down. He wondered if he would soon be like those ragged men he saw scavenging in the park bins.
The thought of the bins reminded him of the bra and wallet he still had in his bag. He had to get rid of them. He could slip them into a bin as he passed. He could do it with one swift motion and without even slowing his walk. That way it would not catch anyone’s eye. He could put the items into a paper bag first. But he didn’t have a paper bag and didn’t know how to get one. The problem began to seem enormous. He thought how many paper bags he’d used and thrown away in his life. If only he’d known how crucial a paper bag would be one day. He imagined himself going up to the lady in the kiosk and asking for a paper bag and her telling him to piss off. Or what if she demanded what he wanted it for? He tried to think of a reason he could give for needing a paper bag, but nothing came to him. And what if the lady guessed his real purpose? She’d have him thrown out of the museum and he’d never be allowed back in again. And the museum would send a message to the State Library, and he wouldn’t be allowed in there either. He’d have nowhere to go in the whole huge city. He felt like crying again.
The youth left the courtyard and went out through the building to the street. Instead of crossing to the park he turned right and went around the corner and towards the pushbike leaning against the railing. He had decided to steal it if he could. As he walked towards it he saw there was a small side door to the museum. That was why the bike was there. Its owner had gone in that door. Drawing level with the doorway, the youth tried to glimpse inside but could only see the street reflected in the glass. Another couple of paces and he was at the railings, next to the bike. He paused and pretended to be adjusting the shoulder strap of his bag. As he did so he looked through the railings at the kiosk. The kiosk lady was now leaning with her back to the counter, holding the newspaper up in front of her. The youth glanced down at the bike. It was not chained to the railing. He took hold of the handlebars and began walking the bike away. After a few paces, when he saw that it wheeled freely, he swung onto the seat and began to pedal. The footpath ran quite steeply downhill and the bike got up speed while he was trying to get the feel and balance of it. His bag began to slip round to his side and he took his left hand off the handlebar to adjust it. This made the bike wobble. He tried to steady it but brushed against a wall, putting him more off balance. He saw he was approaching an intersection and tried to brake with the pedals, but found there was no foot-brake. He fumbled for the hand-brake and squeezed it and the bike began to slow a little, but not enough. He tried to slow some more by dragging his feet on the ground. He hit the metal pole of the traffic lights at the intersection. The bike at last skewed to a stop.
For a few moments he didn’t feel any pain. He was too concerned with whether someone might be chasing him. He looked behind. There was no-one. People in the cars at the lights were looking at him. A girl leant from the passenger side of one of them and asked if he was okay. The youth nodded yes. He lifted the bike and began to walk it away along the footpath. He found he could not hold the handlebars properly with his right hand and that his right arm and shoulder were full of dull pain. He walked for three blocks, the pain getting worse all the time. When he felt safe enough to stop he leant the bike against a bus-stop seat and sat down and tried to massage his shoulder, but that only made it hurt more. For half an hour he sat quite still and tried to think himself away from the pain. He still felt afraid that any moment he’d hear a yell of accusation and feel himself grabbed.
He got up and tried to keep walking briskly but his arm and shoulder were stiffening and there were such throbs of pain in them that he could hardly hold the bike upright or guide it properly. He shuffled along with painful slowness, the bike veering crookedly all over the footpath. At one point he let it overbalance and fall, and as he made a grab for it he lost his own balance and went sprawling. He was on his uninjured side, but the jar of the fall sent such pain through his hurt arm and shoulder that he groaned aloud. A young chap was walking past and asked him if he was alright and began to help him up. Just then a police paddy-wagon approached and the youth thought he was gone for sure. But the paddy-wagon cruised by and there was just the nice young chap being friendly and helpful.
“Haven’t quite got the hang of it yet, eh?” he said, indicating the bike.
“No,” replied the youth, forcing himself to smile. “I haven’t had it long.”
HE HAD THOUGHT, at the moment he’d decided to steal the bike, that he could sell it and get money. Now he had to think how. In one of the streets that ran off Telford Square there were three pawnshops close together. The youth had often stopped to look in their windows and had seen pushbikes there. He thought of the signs: SECOND-HAND GOODS BOUGHT AND SOLD AND MONEY LENT. He might be able to sell the bike at one of those places. Or maybe he could pawn it. He didn’t know what pawning involved, exactly, but he could play it by ear.
It took a long time to walk the bike to Telford Square and he was very tired and sore by the time he reached the pawnshops. He would have bought a cool drink if he’d had the money. He approached the front of one of the pawnshops, then lost his nerve and went on past. The second one was a bit further on. He got to it but again did not feel braced enough to stop and enter. The third pawnshop was across the street, but he could not face the ordeal of crossing through the traffic, so he turned and wheeled the bike back past the other two again. Then he turned and passed them a third time. This was ridiculous, he told himself. He was just making himself conspicuous. The pawnshop people would be seeing him through their front windows and thinking he was acting suspiciously. He had to brace himself and then do it.
He went straight to the nearest of the pawnshops and leant the bike carefully against the front window. There was a sign above the door saying: ready money, with a badly painted picture of a big hand holding a wad of notes. The youth went in. There were two men sitting on kitchen chairs amidst the second-hand goods. They were talking about football. One was saying that Ronnie Robson was overrated, and the other was replying that, on his day, and pound for pound, Ronnie was still the best player in the world.
“Nah, mate,” said the first, shaking his head.
“I’m sayin’ on his day, mate, on his day!”
“Ah well, yeah, on his day,” the other conceded.
“And pound for pound,” said the first one. “That’s what I’m saying: pound for pound!”
“Ah well, yeah, pound for pound.”
The youth was standing near the counter, looking around at the merchandise.
“And what can I do you for?” asked the man who believed Ronnie Robson was still the greatest on his day and pound for pound.
The youth was taken by surprise.
“Um, I’ve got a bike . . .” he began to say.
“Let’s have a squint then,” the man said.
The youth went out and got the bike and ma
nhandled it awkwardly through the door, his arm and shoulder throbbing from the exertion. The man came over and put his hand on the seat of the bike and ran his eyes over the wheels and frame and chain. He flicked the gears and squeezed the hand-brake. Then he lifted the bike slightly off the ground and let it drop down. It made a solid clunk of a sound.
“Yeah, I’ll give you somethin’ on it,” said the man. “How much were you lookin’ for?”
“I’m not quite sure . . .”
“I’ll go three quid. How’s that?”
“Good.”
The man went behind the counter and began filling in a form.
“Got some ID there?” he asked, putting his hand out.
The youth shook his head.
“I need somethin’,” the man said. “Anythin’ with a name on it will do.” He had stopped filling in the form.
The youth had a sinking feeling. Then he remembered the wallet.
“Just a sec,” he said. “My wallet’s in my bag.”
He rummaged in the bag and found the wallet and removed it carefully so as not to accidentally pull anything else out with it—like a bra, maybe. The man saw how he was having trouble with his arm and shoulder.
“Got a crook arm, mate?”
The youth said he had.
“Playin’ footy, was it?”
The youth said it was.
He fished in the wallet and took out the doctor’s appointment note for Tony Lee and handed it over. The man wrote Tony Lee’s name and address down on his form. Then he asked for the youth’s signature. The youth wrote “Tony Lee” as carefully as he could, but with his sore arm it was hard not to have it scrawling all over the paper.
“You’d play for, what, Under 16s?” the man asked.
“Yeah,” said the youth.
The man tore the top copy off the pad and handed it over with the money.
