When he came down to the kitchen two of his housemates were already there, perched on stools at the small bar in their tracksuit pants and t-shirts. Not Yun, who would still be asleep, who loved to sleep and was impossible to wake. Adam swallowed his discomfort without letting it take shape as thought. Slowly, he became aware of the quiet. Marita had been telling Kate a story, but had fallen silent as he entered.
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he said. He dug around in the drying rack for a favoured bowl, poured cereal, milk.
They leaned their heads nearer like horses. Still nobody spoke. He opened the cutlery drawer to rummage and they both looked up, just briefly, assessing him.
‘When was this?’ Kate asked, turning back to face Marita. He had passed the test, or failed it. He thumbed the hem of his t-shirt and cleaned the spoon with it.
‘My first year out of home,’ Marita said. ‘In the granny flat behind my sister’s place.’
‘It’s so fucked up,’ said Kate. ‘I mean, who does that?’
They sat back on their stools. The conversation was not taking resuscitation well. Adam began to press the cornflakes with the back of his spoon. He liked to soak them for a minute so they softened, but without turning to mush.
‘Does what,’ he said finally. Marita turned to him.
‘I’ve told you this story, haven’t I?’ She watched his expression with her irrefutable lawyer’s eyes so he made it carefully neutral. ‘Some guy broke into my room at night. He just about climbed into bed with me, actually.’ She turned back to Kate, who gave a nod of encouragement.
Adam was not sure he knew the story. If it was familiar, he had forgotten many of the details. A stranger, he remembered now. An honest mistake. As she spoke, the blood rose to his cheeks. He turned away, eyes searching for coffee. The silver pot was on the stove. Still warm when he put his hand against it.
‘That’s terrible,’ he told it, lifting the lid. ‘Mind if I finish this?’
‘Go ahead,’ said Kate.
He tried to imagine what it would be like. He began to position himself in the scene. First as Marita, the outrage of a sleeper woken: shouting, gripping sheets to her chest. Then as the intruder, leaning in. But already he had moved into a third position, that of an observer standing at the threshold. The imaginary flat had white French windows, the lawn was trimmed and wet. The image had a familiar, worn feeling. Adam had the unsettling sense that he had dreamed it. He drank the coffee quickly. There had been, he remembered now, a police report, a whole drama. No suspect apprehended. It had been years ago, before this house; it had nothing to do with him. Just a man, the dark. These things had always happened. The observer remained neutral.
‘I remember now. You hit him,’ said Adam.
‘Punched him in the face, and he bolted,’ Marita said, tugging a black curl. Kate grinned.
‘They never caught him?’ Adam already knew the answer.
‘Nope. Cops tried to tell me it was a one-off.’
‘Some random drunk guy,’ said Adam.
The women rolled their eyes.
‘I didn’t sleep for weeks,’ Marita said. She had moved out of the flat, he remembered that now, and got this house. Her own name on the lease, bars on the windows, careful about who she let in. Well, not that careful. She had always seemed a little high-strung, though.
‘When something like this happens, you play it back to yourself,’ she said.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Kate. ‘All the what-ifs.’
‘Something like what?’ The last sip of coffee was grainy; Adam ran his tongue over his teeth.
‘You haven’t heard? A girl was murdered.’ Marita spoke darkly.
‘Last night, right near uni,’ said Kate.
‘Jesus,’ said Adam. ‘Who?’ His body was not taking caffeine well.
‘A girl from one of the colleges,’ said Marita. ‘Nineteen. There’ll be a vigil on Thursday.’
He exhaled. ‘Do they know who did it?’
The women almost laughed at him. It bruised like accusation. A random attack; these things happened. Why should he have to establish his innocence? But their expressions had shifted back to seriousness before he could object to them.
‘Does your sister still live in that house?’ Kate asked.
Marita nodded, curls falling over her face. ‘She’s installed a bunch of security since then. Sensors, everything. Anyway, it’s turning into a much nicer area. They rent the flat out to a gay couple now, so.’ She made the sign for money, thumb against her fingertips.
The conversation defaulted to the problems of real estate. Adam tried to relax. He concentrated on his cereal. Too soft in his mouth already.
He’d done nothing wrong.
When he thought of it, he saw the night from outside. Watched himself hesitating by their bedroom door. It had been that other Adam who had pushed it and slipped inside. The sleepwalking Adam. The memory separated from his daylight world like a layer of pastry. He had crossed into another place; everything was lit strange there.
It was not the same, of course. A look had passed between them, an understanding. It was hard to name. There was a connection, that was all. Yun would be asleep in the front room right now, their arm over their head, their eyes lashed closed. He had crossed over to join them. It was nothing like violence.
He did not think of it for long.
‘I better go, I’m supposed to be meeting my supervisor,’ said Marita. ‘Speaking of creeps.’ She and Kate sort of laughed. It was often hard to tell if their jokes were jokes. He looked out the window to avoid reacting in the wrong way.
It had rained the night before and the eucalypts were glistening; the city had a clean smell of moist forest that would soon decay. When the women left the kitchen, he stood looking out through the distorted glass at the wet trees. A few clouds floated, puffy and white like Marita’s bedding. Her soft life, her rows of potions, but a hardness beneath. Kate’s netball clothes. The balled sports socks. The texture of their possessions. It wasn’t anything serious. It did no harm.
His mother had started it. She had bundled up his father’s clothes and taken them to the op shop much too soon. As a child he had looked for traces of him in drawers, pockets, high shelves: anywhere he could gain entrance. There were photographs, some books, but he wanted the texture of life. The matter of it. He had a tiny pocketknife, a leather keyring, one check handkerchief that he had stolen from the garbage bags in the hall, folded into a square and ironed flat. These things had lost their scent entirely.
In her grief she was distant, unforgiving. Angry, he supposed. He had wanted something else. Over many months, he had learned to be consoled by the search itself. No-one there to show him how to be, in a house of women. He could not fill the space that was missing. It was in him too, an emptiness that he carried in his body, from the chest, the throat, the fingertips. Adam, he heard her voice from the door. What are you doing?
I’m not doing anything. I’m only looking.
She slapped his hand. Sent him to specialists. They told him what he needed (a father figure, one suggested), they gave him strategies. He promised he would stop.
After that he waited until she was out. He was careful, had learned to be careful, but would not have remembered to return everything to its place. And she was sharp, not much got past her. It was possible she knew, and just permitted it. Understood, or consented, or hoped he would outgrow it. Which he had, really. No thanks to her.
He thought of her telling her friends about it. A son who went rummaging in underwear. He imagined them saying: Let it play itself out. He imagined their laughter.
He heard a door open, then close, from the front of the house, and swallowed. His throat was milky from the cereal. He should go to uni, catch up on his reading in the library. And maybe he would take a break for a few weeks, a fortnight, until the end-of-year exams. Because of the vigil, his housemates would be watchful. The women especially.
It was harmless, it was only looking. But he would stop. A week would do. Until after the party, Saturday. Six days away. That would be generous.
They might not have a party now. It would be a relief if they decided to cancel. Though he would have to text the people he had told about it and tell them not to come. He would wait a day or two before he acted; he would let the women decide what to do.
He heard their footsteps, soft in the hallway.
A few days would do it. Just enough to get clear.