by Lia Weston
A line of palm trees runs through a centre road. There’s a single light by the caretaker’s cottage at the gate, far across the other side. Nothing else moves but the animal and me.
The fox stops as quickly as if someone’s pressed pause. With no wind to telegraph me, I can’t tell if it knows I’m here. The radar dishes of its ears swing forwards and upright.
I wait under a weeping angel that’s carved so badly it looks like it’s got a raging case of conjunctivitis. Clumps of dried flowers have expired at the feet of white marble and polished black, but the grave in front of me has a fresh bouquet and tealight candles.
A school friend took up ghost hunting for a short period and talked constantly of orbs of light, lit souls of the dead that remained with their remains. She showed me photos of blurs and blobs floating above headstones like tiny dust motes caught and refracted in lenses, which they most likely were. To her, however, they were concrete proof of the afterlife. Everyone looks for patterns, I guess; no one seems to ever believe that things just happen without reason. Then again, IF wouldn’t have half the work we do without this theory; many clients seem to think that we’re not so much rewriting history – Dan’s comment unfortunately comes to mind – or creating a new future than setting right some terrible wrong.
There are no orbs in this graveyard. Only me, the fox and the conjunctivitis angel.
The fox’s head snaps forward and then the body freezes again. The strangely gracious stop-start dance continues until the final plunge. The fox lifts its head, its mouth full. It checks its surroundings, then starts moving again. I follow the white tail tip until we reach the west corner, and then back up on top of the wall. I duck under crescents of overhanging branches from the residential gardens bordering the cemetery. Jump, hop, skip, chase the fox. A bizarre childhood game in a graveyard in the dark. I won’t be able to track it much longer from up here. There are too many exit points.
We’re almost at the perimeter, only a few hundred metres or so from the caretaker’s cottage.
The fox pauses to look left to right, its meal still clamped in its razor teeth. I balance with headstones behind me and someone’s backyard in front. The house I’m facing has a few lights on, illuminating a bedroom with a lamp, a wardrobe and a dark-haired girl studying at a desk. I pause to look, as I do with every dark-haired girl I see now, just in case.
A black shape streaks across the lawn. I’m still registering what it is before it lunges up the wall and snaps at my sneakers. I involuntarily step back. My foot meets air.
There’s something bright and blurry above me. I blink a few times to clear my vision, but can’t. I also can’t move. After a moment I realise my arm is wedged underneath me.
Silence on the other side of the wall. I imagine the dog circling the yard, cruising the boundary like a shark. It probably has five rows of teeth like sharks too.
It takes three attempts to haul myself out from between the bricks and the headstone. I sit next to the grave and rub my eyes. My hands come away with a blood crust.
The fox has well and truly gone.
My ankle feels like Lego pieces. I limp home under the curious gaze of a moon that has finally decided to rise.
CHAPTER TEN
‘Christ, what happened to you?’
Mica comes down the basement stairs. She’s wearing a green hooded coat with a high collar. I decide not to ask her if she’s taking a ring to Mordor.
‘Fell over.’ Technically true.
‘Where, in a rock garden?’ She comes over to survey the damage.
‘I was chasing a fox through a graveyard and fell onto a tombstone.’
‘You know, there’s no shame in admitting that you got into a fight.’
‘I did,’ I say. ‘With Agatha Mullan, 1854–1899.’
Tarik stops mid-yawn halfway down the stairs. ‘What ha –’
‘Fell over,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’ My eye feels like it’s being pulled shut.
‘Yes, you look wonderful,’ Tarik says.
‘You should see a doctor,’ says Mica.
‘I’ll take that on board.’
‘I know what it means when you say that,’ she replies, throwing her bag under her desk.
I go back to splicing my client into The Empire Strikes Back. One day someone will ask IF for a film book that’s not sci-fi or fantasy. ‘Surprise, honey! You’re guest-starring in Schindler’s List.’ Who said romance was dead?
I manage to stay downstairs for nearly the whole day, knowing what’s coming, hoping it might pass overhead, like a bushfire or doomsday apocalypse. By four o’clock, however, Mariah Carey is telling me that I’m all she wants for Christmas (you’re fooling no one, Mariah) and it’s getting harder to escape my festive fate.
‘I need you to drink this.’ Mica clomps downstairs and thrusts a custard-coloured glass at me. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘If you’re trying to chat me up, you’re doing it wrong.’ I push the glass away. ‘It’s eggnog.’
Mica sits on the edge of my desk and sniffs the liquid with suspicion. ‘What’s in it?’
‘A fucktonne of booze.’
‘Are you going to stop being antisocial and come upstairs at any point? I’ve already run out of small talk, and Felicity keeps trying to get to know me.’
‘Gee, I’d love to, but I’ve got a whole ewok army to try and fit into this engagement party.’
‘Come on, Howard Hughes.’ She gets up and links her hands around my arm. Her only nod to the festivities is a gold tinsel crown. ‘No one will even notice your face.’
‘Fine.’ I allow her to drag me to my feet. ‘I’ve got to talk to Tarik about the Pannell book anyway, because there’s no way I’m going to be able to make that guy look like Lara Croft.’
‘No work talk tonight. It’s one of the rules.’ Mica lets me lean on her to get my crapped-out ankle up the stairs. ‘Or else you have to have a shot.’
‘Says who?’
‘Kain. The other rules are that everyone has to do at least one round of karaoke, no one’s allowed to tackle the tree, and stop trying to ruin Kris Kringle, Mica,’ says Mica.
We step out into a nightmare of Katy Perry proportions. Silver icicles hang from the mezzanine floor. There’s a Christmas tree in the waiting area, weighted down with baubles. The lights are dim, presumably to make everyone more attractive, but Kain is proving that it’s not working. Next to the tree but fortunately dormant, the dreaded karaoke machine lies in wait.
Felicity is making drinks at the reception desk, apparently resigned to dealing with festivities that are getting in the way of her administrative duties. Tarik and Rohan are chatting by the tree. They share the same personal trainer and can talk about protein powder until one of them goes into ketosis.
‘Woah, he wasn’t kidding,’ Rohan says, spotting us. ‘What happened to you?’
‘He’s fine,’ chorus Tarik and Mica.
‘Do you need to go to hospital, dude?’ says Rohan.
‘I was only knocked out for a minute. I don’t have a head injury.’
‘You don’t really know how concussion works, do you?’ says Mica.
‘Does it sound like people repeatedly asking what happened to me?’
‘Sometimes,’ says Mica.
I limp to the bathroom to have a look. Cheekbone is puffy, long cut running along the ridge. Colours are rising to the surface – violet, marigold and poppy. My eye is now practically swollen shut. No wonder the cab driver almost refused to take me into work this morning.
Felicity barely flinches when she sees my face. Seriously, the woman must have a machinery heart.
‘Can I help with anything?’ I say, more out of an excuse to avoid chitchat rather than a desire to hand out snacks.
‘Can you go and get Alex?’ she says, pushing a sandbag into place at the base of the Christmas tree with her foot. ‘And ask him if he’s signed off on his end of financial year payroll slips yet.’
‘No work talk,’ ch
irps Mica at my elbow, handing Felicity a shot glass.
Felicity sighs and drains the shot. ‘This is going to be hard for me.’
‘That’s what she said,’ says Rohan, wandering past.
I limp up the stairs to the mezzanine and head to Alex’s office.
‘Hey, dude! Good to see you, man.’ Alex bounces out from behind his desk like a tiny grinning jack-in-the-box. Alex-in-the-box. He pumps my hand. ‘How’s it going? Think I saw you on Shatterleg Hill the other day, was going to say hi but you were focused, man, like whssst, ran straight past, you were like a dot in the distance. I was just slogging, too many pilsners the night before, you know, right? How’ve you been?’
He sweeps some charger leads aside, offers me a half-eaten box of Ferrero Rocher, and mutes Daft Punk. A collection of bobble-headed figurines is neatly lined up next to one of his monitors.
‘Like that T-shirt!’ he says. ‘I love that band. That’s an original design. You must’ve had that for ages. Did you see them at the Bull Bar? Oh, man, awesome show. How’s it all down in the basement? Saw the book with the pyramid thing, nice, man, nice. Quality work.’
I see him assess my face, wonder whether we can bond over my injury, and sensibly dismiss the idea.
‘Coming to the party?’ I say. ‘Come on, there are only six of us down there. I need help hiding from Kain.’
‘Sure, sure, of course. Sorry.’ He indicates his screen. ‘Got kinda stuck into the fact-finding thing. Cloud systems, you know. Crazy. Research coming out of my earballs.’
Earballs. Right. ‘We’re not going to the cloud, though.’
Alex freezes, just like the fox. After a moment, his eyes start swivelling in panic. ‘Uh,’ he says, then, ‘Uuuh.’ He looks around the desk as if he’s got a certificate to show me that, yes, IF is taking all of its confidential files online. ‘Kain . . . said . . . we were?’
‘It hasn’t been decided yet,’ I say.
Alex is clearly torn between the desire to correct me and the need to stay on my good side.
‘Are you two talking about work?’ shouts Mica from downstairs.
‘We should go down,’ says Alex. ‘Felicity’s been decorating for ages, man, she’s really thorough with stuff, and Rohan said it’s good for company bonding.’
He’s three seconds away from combusting so I stand back. Alex darts past and almost falls down the stairs in his haste. Mica, at the bottom, cheerfully offers him a shot. I take my time, limping down each step.
‘You haven’t seen the party’s pièce de résistance,’ says Mica, giving me another shot and taking the arm on my good side. We thread through the tinsel curtains to the doors leading out to the garden. There, in all of its inflatable glory, is a Christmas-themed bouncy castle, complete with man-sized candy canes and wobble-headed reindeer. Bouncing between the reindeers with unadulterated joy is Kain, a giant ginger toddler.
Eggnog plus bouncy castle. This is going to be awesome.
‘So, what do you have planned for the weekend, Mica?’ says Felicity, making the requisite effort.
‘Sawing some guy in half and trying to make it look like an accident,’ says Mica.
‘Sounds great,’ says Felicity, who’s not listening.
‘What’s your compulsory karaoke song going to be?’ I ask.
Mica leans her upper body back against the wall. ‘I’d rather talk about work.’
The three of us watch Alex, who is steadily murdering each song in the U2 backlist and dispatching the bodies.
Rohan is on his phone a lot. I don’t think it’s IF related; he’s smiling too much. New girlfriend? He shakes his hair back and looks pleased with himself before tucking the phone away again. New girlfriend. Who’ll it be this time, a friend of his aunt? Helen Mirren?
Actually, Helen Mirren would be OK.
Kain bounces away outside, the demented king of his inflatable polar landscape.
Mica hands me a present. ‘Merry Kringle from your Secret Santa.’
I unwrap a red box. ‘Emergency underpants.’
‘Ooh,’ Mica checks the back, ‘it’s a bulk pack.’
Fucking Kain.
‘What did you get?’ I say.
‘A new collar for Bunsen.’
She shows me the card. Felicity has tried to disguise her handwriting, but not well enough.
‘Will he appreciate it, or will he do that thing where he sleeps on your face?’
‘All cats do that,’ she says.
‘No, they don’t. Your cat is genuinely trying to kill you.’
It’s true. I’ve never known anyone to get attacked so much by their own pet. He likes to hide on the tops of doors and then leap on Mica’s head like the facehugger from Alien.
‘Trivia time,’ says Mica. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
I shift over to whisper into her hair. ‘Felicity’s drunk.’
‘Already?’ Mica leans forward to look.
‘Three shots in.’
Felicity, although still immaculate, is definitely listing sideways. She watches unblinkingly as Alex reluctantly gives up the microphone to Rohan.
‘I’m so tempted to push her over,’ whispers Mica.
Rohan launches into ‘New York, New York’. It’s a perfect choice, really; it needs very little musicality but a strong sense of showmanship, both of which Rohan has in spades. Alex and Tarik nod along in different tempos.
‘Your turn,’ I say to Mica. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘I know how to pickpocket.’ She holds up both hands, fists closed.
‘That’s kind of unnerving.’
‘My mum taught me.’
‘That’s even more unnerving.’
I tap one of her fists. Mica uncurls her fingers. There’s a set of keys in her palm. ‘Kain will not be driving home tonight.’
‘Nicely played.’
Tarik, up next, surprises everyone with ‘La Bamba’, only because he’s the only person I’ve ever come across who knows all the words.
Rohan is heading out to the bouncy castle, rolling up his sleeves. At the back door, Kain is missing his face with the eggnog.
I need another drink.
Alex has taken over Flick’s desk bar and is mixing cocktails. ‘Hey, man, hey! Whatcha drinking? G&T? V&C? L&S?’
‘Just beer, thanks.’
‘Have you tried Skittle Ape pilsner? It’s pretty awesome, hoppy but not too floral.’ He ducks behind the desk with a clatter and emerges with two bottles and a corkscrew. The Skittle Ape label looks like it’s been drawn in crayon. I take the bottles from him and twist the caps off.
‘Hey, you know, about the cloud thing . . .’ he says. ‘Oh, wait, work talk. Hang on.’ Alex disappears again and comes up with two shot glasses and a bottle of vodka. He pours us both a drink, clinks my glass and downs the shot. ‘Right. The thing is . . . Wait, you have to have your shot. It’s the rules.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ I dutifully down the vodka.
‘Tom, it is your turn,’ says Tarik from the karaoke stage.
‘Can’t sing,’ I say. ‘Head injury.’
‘Then I do not think you should be drinking,’ Tarik replies.
‘It’s the only thing that’s helping,’ I say.
Tarik laughs and heads outside.
‘Hey, do you think she’s all right?’ says Alex, nodding at Felicity, who’s sitting on one of the couches, gazing at the Christmas tree. ‘She sort of winked at me earlier. Well, I think she did. She could have had something in both of her eyes. Maybe she needs water. I’ll get her some water.’ He scampers off to the kitchen.
Rohan is now on the bouncy castle, expertly doing backflips. Tarik is taking off his shoes. It’s going to be Inflatable CrossFit at any moment.
There’s a squeal of feedback from the karaoke mic. ‘Hello, my name is Felicity and I would like to start with “Summer Nights” from Grease.’ Felicity waves at us as if we were a great distance away.
That’s it. I’m going ba
ck downstairs.
‘Mr Lash?’ Mica’s dulcet tones over my intercom wake me out of my half-sleep. ‘You have a phone call on line two.’
‘I thought we were closed.’
‘We are, but this client has left four messages in an hour, so I made an executive decision.’
I sit up. ‘Where’s Felicity?’
In response, Mica holds the phone out and I hear Alex and Felicity both ably demonstrating why they are at IF and not in the entertainment industry. ‘Don’t you love “Islands In The Stream”,’ says Mica, getting back on the line, ‘because I hated it before and I really hate it now. Anyway, Mr Pyne would very much like to have a chat.’
‘To whom am I speaking, please?’
The voice is a crisp tenor and clearly furious.
‘I’m Tom. I’m the creative director. What can I help you with?’
‘Well, Tom, I’ve got a bit of a problem. You did a book for me last year. A holiday in the Philippines with my friend. The elephant rides were a highlight. Do you remember? You probably don’t remember.’
‘I do. Puerto Princesa.’
‘That’s the one,’ he says.
Wife and kids erased from pictures, boyfriend in their place. Pretty standard. For IF.
‘Is there an issue with the work?’
‘The photos, Tom, are not the problem. What I want to know is how they’ve ended up on a gay tourism website.’
‘I . . .’ I catch a glimpse of myself in my screen. Kaleidoscope eye, jaw around my chest. ‘. . . I don’t . . .’
‘You don’t know? Well, that’s reassuring.’
‘They’re definitely the photos from our book?’
‘You think I can’t tell?’
‘No, no, sorry, of course you can. Sorry, I’m just . . . a bit surprised.’
‘So was I. And now thanks to your company, I’ve essentially been outed.’
I can feel the sweat starting to bead down my back. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll find out what’s happened. It shouldn’t have happened.’
