Black Glass

by Mundell, Meg;

  Of course she’d look after the birds. Violet had put an old wooden chair inside their cage and found it calming to sit in there, holding out one palm with a scoop of grain in it, snowy feathers whirring around her. How simple to be them, she thought: a trill in the throat, flick your wings, peck up your food, sleep safe each night in silent rows. Nothing to bug you but an occasional gust of wind or bossy cage-mate. And now, she thought, no need to be a prop in someone else’s stage act either, to vanish into the centre of that black box and maybe never come out again.

  Before, the birds had all looked identical to Violet, but already she could pick out differences: a speckle of ash-grey across a breast, a certain timidity, a broken toe that stuck out at a funny angle. There were sixteen all up, but she didn’t count them anymore, it made her sad. (One for sorrow, two for joy …) She never smoked inside the cage, thinking of their creamy feathers, their tiny bird lungs, the way the air seemed to belong to them. Nor did she wear her wig in here: on day two a bird had inadvertently shat in it, and while Macy had declared this to be good luck, the chalky goo had been tricky to remove. Each morning up here with the birds, that was the only time she went without her wig now, aside from when she went to sleep.

  This half-hour of birdwatching helped still her mind before she had to go downstairs and face what now amounted to her day: writing out columns of numbers, shaving off digits to string out her remaining cash as long as possible; walking around and around the city’s theatre block, or searching damaged-goods shelves for soft fruit and cheap instant meals; sitting for hours at the Belladonna cafe, sipping her way through a pot of Nick’s strong tea, turning the crinkled pages of trash mags she had turned many times before; watching TV in the lounge with the old guys, stopping by Kev’s office to ask how Merlin was doing (‘Same, same,’ he’d mumble, or ‘Haven’t heard’). And the whole time, trying not to think about the horror of the past or dwell on what might lie ahead. That would only lead to panic.

  All this activity had one purpose: filling in time before her audition. Her meeting with Diggy had been puzzling, but she hadn’t pushed him for details, or gotten up the courage to ask about his cousin, the filmmaker. He’d been efficient but polite, glancing subtly at his watch every few minutes; hers was clearly just one of many appointments that day. He’d met her in a back booth at the Belladonna, made brief small talk and ordered them some food, then asked a string of questions as he ticked boxes on a form. No, she didn’t remember getting any shots as a kid, but she hardly ever got sick — a cold maybe once a year, and the flu just twice that she could remember; yes, her teeth were pretty good, she’d never had a filling; no, she didn’t know her blood type.

  To Violet’s surprise he’d then pulled out a gadget and taken her blood pressure, right in front of everyone; as he peered at the gauge the waitress delivered their toasted sandwiches (his shout, he insisted) without so much as a blink; the woman usually greeted Violet, but today she gave no sign of knowing her. Diggy asked how many decent dresses she owned. Did she have any bruises on her legs or arms? Was she comfortable meeting new people? Did she enjoy dressing up, how much exercise did she get, was she taking her vitamins? Did she have a phone — no? Well, if the client took her on, they’d provide a one-way phone so she was contactable. So she could collect her first pay packet — which, no offence (and here he smirked), would be more money than she’d ever laid her eyes on at once.

  Now could he just snap a couple of headshots for the client? Relax your face a bit, that’s it, beautiful. Now a little smile. Perfect! Really, she was a knockout. (May the Lord cut off all flattering lips …) As the flash went off, a funny-looking guy with slicked-back hair, sitting a few booths behind Diggy, kept glancing their way. Violet hoped she was holding her head right.

  To finish Diggy recited a checklist for her audition. Grooming was important: clean, styled hair and light make-up (cover any spots, not that she had any); evening wear and polished shoes (heels, but not too high); don’t overdo the jewellery or perfume. That green dress, he instructed — he’d seen her performing in that dress, it was perfect for stage work, just make sure it was clean. Brush your teeth, and don’t go skipping meals (and here he squinted at her thin arms); the aim was to look both beautiful and healthy, not like some scrawny stick. And remember they’re not keen on smokers, so don’t turn up smelling of cigarettes; chew some gum on the way.

  ‘You got all that?’ he’d asked, shooting her a sharp glance over his glasses. Yes, she nodded. She had been listening closely, had dressed herself mentally according to his instructions. She imagined walking onto the empty stage, looking into the darkened auditorium, searching out the eyes of the director sitting there in the gloom, clipboard in hand; exchanging a nod of greeting. Make eye contact, that’s what you were meant to do. Establish a connection. Breathe, be confident, take your time. And then what? She didn’t even have a script.

  But Diggy was already sliding out of the booth so she followed him to the register. The slicked-back-hair guy was right behind them in the queue, so she kept her voice low as Diggy paid the bill.

  ‘But what will I have to do at the audition?’ she’d asked him.

  ‘Just be yourself,’ he’d replied with an encouraging grin. ‘The gorgeous Violet. You’ll knock their socks off.’

  On the footpath outside he shook her hand goodbye and was gone. She left their meeting none the wiser, holding an appointment card for an address downtown. Her audition was six days away.

  On the way back to the hotel she’d stopped off at a phone booth: one last try, she steeled herself, and then she would stop pretending there’d ever be an answer. She dialled the numbers and waited. It was the same as always: thirty rings, then it cut out; thirty more, then nothing. Her coin returned, that sick-to-the-stomach feeling. Don’t think about it, pull yourself together, don’t you dare cry out here in the street.

  So that was it. Violet shut her eyes and blanked her mind, drew down the white curtain over all the mess, sweet and painless as a tranquilliser. Then she went home to take a vitamin, polish her black high heels, and drain the rest of the wine cask as slowly as she could.

  As she’d passed through the foyer, Kev beckoned her over to his window. ‘Carol rang,’ he said. ‘She can’t make it in just now. She asked if you can feed the pigeons for a bit longer. Said to give you this,’ he added, sliding her a fifty. She thanked him and took the money, but without grabbing, as if she could afford to graciously decline and do the deed for nothing.

  ‘They’re doves,’ she told him gently, ‘not pigeons.’

  ‘No difference really, is there?’ he replied. ‘Doves just got a better reputation.’

  She’d wondered about this: sometimes wild birds would land on the roof and peck around the chicken wire for stray grains; most were grey with a darker hood of shimmering iridescent green, but she’d also seen a few white birds that looked virtually identical to her flock. The only difference she could see was that the wild ones had a ragged look about them, with stained tail-feathers and misshapen feet. She’d started throwing a daily handful of grain out for the wild birds to eat; there were five full sacks stashed behind the landing door, so nobody would miss it.

  Last night she’d been up on the roof smoking, rolling her cigarettes twig-thin to make the tobacco last, when the door gave its pained yelp, and Macy padded over to join her at the railing. She was barefoot and dressed in an ankle-length robe, black with her trademark polka dots. They watched the sky show for a bit: to the south a hologram danced over the city, a gymnast with a ribbon on a stick, swishing a rainbow figure eight then backflipping through a hoop of her own creation. Her ribbon spelled out the name of a vitamin company in cursive script before her whole routine began over again — the figure eight, the backward flip, the logo.

  ‘How’s tricks?’ Macy asked after some time.

  ‘Okay,’ said Violet. ‘I guess.’

  �
��I’ve seen all kinds of okay,’ Macy replied, ‘and this doesn’t look like one of them.’

  Violet stayed quiet. She didn’t want pity, and nor did she want to think too deeply about her situation. Daydreaming was more appealing, but lately that was getting harder too for various reasons — right now, for example, she was hungry.

  ‘When’s your rent paid up to?’ Macy asked, offering her a filter tip. Violet cupped her hands around the flame and drew in gratefully. Below them droned the patchy midweek traffic, headlights streaking the night air.

  ‘I’ll be okay for the next two weeks,’ Violet said, ‘long as I’m careful with my money.’

  ‘You worked out what you’re going to do then?’ Macy asked the question softly, like she was just making conversation.

  ‘I’ve got an audition lined up for next week,’ said Violet.

  Macy arched one drawn-on eyebrow, but that was her only reaction; she wasn’t one for asking nosy questions. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I hope you get a straight job, you deserve it. But otherwise … You come talk to me before you get too desperate, okay? There’s always work around, just depends on what you’re prepared to do.’ They’d never discussed Macy’s job, had an unspoken understanding on that front. As Macy once said, when you don’t have a whole lot else to call your own, privacy’s one thing worth hanging on to.

  So Violet phrased it carefully. ‘I’m not lazy or anything … but, you know, there’s some kinds of work I just can’t do. I just don’t have it in me.’ She remembered the pink room, the man staring blank-eyed at the TV with his robe splayed open, the woman’s bejewelled fingers knotting a plastic tube.

  Macy nodded. ‘It’s not for everyone. But if you decide you’re running out of options, come talk to me before you talk to anybody else, okay?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Violet. ‘I will.’ They watched the leaping gymnast, her tireless dance that ended neatly back at its starting point.

  ‘Speaking of hell,’ said Macy, ‘I’d better get to work. You take care — it’s getting cold up here.’

  Violet mumbled a reply and pulled her collar close around her neck. Macy’s cigarette packet was still sitting there on the ledge. ‘Hey,’ she called after her, ‘don’t forget your smokes.’

  Macy didn’t look back. ‘You keep ’em. I’m trying to quit anyway.’

  [Bloodhound TV, Flinders Lane, Civic Zone: Damon | journotainment unit | senior editorial staff]

  The plateful of vitamin biscuits was a dubious pink, a colour seldom found naturally in foodstuffs, and Damon glared at it as he waited for his turn to speak. His fellow journo had so delighted the VitFood company, they’d delivered the editorial team a whole carton of the things, and Damon was sick of the sight of them. Maybe he was imagining it, but a smug little smile seemed to creep across Alice’s face whenever she caught sight of the ever-present plateful at story meetings.

  For Chrissakes, he thought, biscuits are not news. They’re not even entertaining. Now Alice was animatedly pitching some story about tiny nano-pluckers that kept your eyebrows tidy. Seriously, he thought, eyebrow-grooming robots? They’re lucky they have me, at least I add some substance to the roster. Rochelle had loved his cage-fighting clip: juicy and revealing, she’d called it. Just the right mix of shock and substance.

  When his turn came he launched right in: a brief review of upcoming stories and a couple of half-sketched ideas, both of which got follow-up nods. Then the big one: the unrest surrounding the looming security summit. Damon leaned forward slightly and made eye contact all around the table; he gave a mini-zygomatic smile and steepled his fingers as he spoke.

  The resistance had now gained enough momentum to warrant the term uprising. The risk profile was climbing: in recent weeks, the power supply to the Commerce Zone had been hit by three separate sabotage attempts; meanwhile, police were stepping up efforts to push the undocs and homeless out of the city grid and deep into the Quarter, cleaning up the streets for the visiting dignitaries and zoom lenses that would soon converge. Tens of thousands had been spent on hydroponic blooms in nation-specific colours, fines for littering had quadrupled, and new categories of civil offence had been created; causing disquiet was just one. The police commissioner was to declare the entire CBD a Special Powers precinct, allowing partial strip searches —

  ‘Get to the point, please, Damon,’ interrupted George. ‘What’s your story angle?’ George loved quoting stats about attention spans.

  ‘It’s this,’ said Damon. ‘The police are pushing the undocs right out. They’re even moving them on from the Interzone — that’s never happened before.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Where are they all meant to go? There’s close to eighteen hundred of them within the city limits alone. Push them all into the Quarter at once and the result will be chaos.’

  ‘Better than having chaos in the city centre, don’t you think?’

  Damon kept his voice assertive, just short of insistent. ‘But my research shows it’s not the undocs who are leading the protests. It’s purely docs — the agitators are all docs. Your pink middles, your educated malcontents. That’s who should be targeted here. The junior intellectuals and social-justice lawyers who live —’

  George spoke slowly. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong here, Damon, but I get a sense you’re proposing to put some kind of bleeding-heart spin on this story.’ His chin was resting on one fist; Damon quickly mirrored his gesture.

  ‘Not at all,’ he assured. ‘That would be boring. But I think the finger’s being pointed in the wrong direction.’

  ‘What are you suggesting, Damon? That the police are wasting resources? Or that they’re scapegoating?’

  Diana was frowning; this was not looking good. He glanced at Rochelle for backup, but she was staring intently at her screen.

  George held up his hands like a stop sign. ‘You’re making this too complicated, Damon. Dig too deep and all you get is mud. Less talk, more action!’

  ‘Docs have opted into society, they’re contributors,’ said Brian. ‘What’s to gain by embarking on some middle-class witch-hunt? You’re meant to be our gritty guy. We know where most of the crime is generated.’

  ‘But my information tells me otherwise.’ A wheedling note was creeping into his voice as their objections mounted. ‘I’ve been doing research all over the city, the inner ’burbs, even out in the upper subzones, and it’s not undocs who —’

  ‘Polbiz is our major sponsor,’ said Brian curtly. ‘You’ll need to find another angle on this story. That old slant, the poor hard-done-by undocs … No legs on that old donkey.’

  ‘But it’s not about —’ Damon began.

  ‘I like your City Makeover story idea,’ interrupted Diana decisively. ‘Focus on that while you work out a better angle on the summit protests.’ She shut down her screen, and the others followed suit.

  Damon felt sick. This game was so precarious: one minute you’re the golden boy, then suddenly things pull a screeching u-turn, and you’re the dumb kid all over again. He stared at the table, trying to fight back the heat rising in his face. It wasn’t fair: they demanded the hard stuff, then tried to soften it; they asked for thought-provoking, then tried to dumb it down. He wouldn’t let them break him: they wanted strong stories, big juicy slabs of entertainment — well, that’s what they’d get. No more mister nice guy.

  ‘Damon?’ someone was addressing him. He looked up. Alice was holding out the plateful of pink discs. ‘Biscuit?’ she said.

  Meekly, he reached for one.

  [Defunct sewage treatment plant, outskirts of subzone W23B: 19 unidentified dissidents, Coalition for Civic Freedom]

  ‘Alright, now let’s try the one with the tampon.’

  ‘Are you sure this thing is safe? It’s not going to blow up in my hand?’

  ‘I never said it was safe, but if you light it
and throw it, it’s not going to hurt you. And don’t throw it anywhere near me.’

  ‘Light fuse and get away!’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But what if it blows up before I chuck it?’

  ‘It shouldn’t — the whole idea is to break the bottle. That’s what makes the explosion, when the bottle smashes. Throw it against something hard.’

  ‘That rock over there, the big one.’

  ‘Hang on, you have to put petrol on the tampon first! We’ll all have one of these little squirt bottles. Make sure you don’t spill it all down yourself.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Just wet it down. Come on, stop stalling.’

  ‘What’s that black stuff in there?’

  ‘Tar, helps the fuel stick to the target. Makes heaps of smoke when it burns too.’

  ‘And it’s just petrol, right?’

  ‘Expensive petrol. High-octane fuel burns better.’

  ‘Never heard of using a tampon. It’s kind of disgusting.’

  ‘Isn’t it meant to be a rag? The rag one worked okay.’

  ‘Tampons apparently work better. But if you just stand there all day we’ll never find out, will we.’

  ‘How long do I hold it before I chuck it?’

  ‘Just till the thing’s properly caught alight.’

  ‘Alright. Everyone get back.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Don’t throw it near that tree. The smoke’ll draw attention.’

  ‘I’m going for that rock. Alright. Here goes.’

  [WHUUMPH!]

  ‘Whoa!’

  ‘You’re right, it’s better than the rag one.’

  ‘Kind of primitive but it works.’

  ‘What happens if that hits a person?’

  ‘You mean a person person, or a pig person?’

  ‘Come on. We’ve talked about this already. Unless they get aggressive first, nobody throws anything.’

  ‘But once they get violent all bets are off.’