2.

The day was shaping up like any other in a Melbourne autumn. The weather’s ambivalence mirrored my own as I stumbled out of bed at 10 a.m., washed my face and leant forward, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror as if the whole scene was some disappointing news I’d just received. Two years out of university and I was still working in the recording studio of a small performing arts school in the city. What began as a Bachelor of Music and a make-do, part-time job had concluded in a degree in sound engineering and my entire foreseeable future. ‘Dreams are important,’ my mother insisted, ‘but nothing’s more important than security.’

Night shifts had become my bread and butter. Session fees were much lower in off-peak hours, and there was a near-endless supply of amateur, aspiring artists who couldn’t afford larger studios at busier times. Given their limited understanding of good mixing, it meant the job was easy and, most importantly, ‘secure’. The days bled into one another.

The previous night’s shift had run a typical 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. slot – its only notable event being when I forgot to start a recording as the hand of a wall-mounted clock ticked over to midnight. ‘Seriously? The whole fuckin’ thing?’ the drummer asked from the other side of the glass, leaning into his snare’s mic.

‘Yes, sorry, I was watching the clock. I just turned twenty-five,’ I replied into my own.

He shrugged at his colleagues and leant back in. ‘Yeah, alright. Happy birthday, mate. Can we go again now?’

I sat on my apartment floor later that day, flicking pages of a photo album as the midday news interrupted music on the radio. Stalling on the same page I always tended to, I ran fingertips back and forth along the foreground of a particular photo.

Me, sporting a dumb hat and grin with blank space where teeth should have been, holding a balloon displaying a large ‘5’; my mother standing behind me; a man with his arm around her; a fluorescent orange ‘12 3 77’ in the corner dating the scene. I’d studied this photo before, always focusing on one detail more than the rest, unsure if it was the ink of the print or my own memory that seemed to fade each year. The man’s eyes seemed empty – as if the film had failed to render them, or had maybe done it perfectly. I stared at the print for some time before turning to the next page. There were far fewer after it.

That evening, I walked up steps and flicked my knuckles into a Richmond home’s front door three times. Rustling came from inside, then the creak of floorboards interrupting the vague resonance of a television.

‘Who is it?’ a woman asked through the door.

‘Ma’am, please, I just escaped from the prison. I need a place to lay low for a while.’

The door opened as a hand thrust out, fingers bent into the shape of a gun.

‘Bang,’ she said, feigning recoil.

‘Argh!’ I keeled over with a hand on my gut.

‘You know,’ she said, blowing imaginary smoke from her fingertips, ‘they’d give me a reward for that.’

‘Ha. And you’d deserve every cent.’

‘Happy birthday, Mark,’ she said, wrapping arms around me.

‘Thank you, Mum.’

The house wasn’t large, but was too much for one person to maintain. She’d long since resorted to closing off rooms when they became too much work. I’d tried to convince her to live with me or find a smaller place after I’d moved out. ‘There’s been too much suffering in here,’ I’d reason.

‘A life doesn’t fold up inside cardboard boxes,’ she’d retort.

She poured herself a gin. I caught a whiff and felt ill, still unable to smell the stench of alcohol without hearing arguments, glasses smashing, doors slamming, and her cries. As a child, I’d believed that stench to be a ghost far exceeding any horror I’d seen on television, one that knew only anger and sadness.

It would sometimes blow in through the front door at night, forcing its way between the floorboards or through the keyholes, filling the house. When it entered my room, it would consume the air and make it cold. No position in my bed could stop it from reaching me and exhaling rancid breath into my nostrils.

One night I ran downstairs to confront it and was met with a shout so loud it shook my bones. I stayed in my room after that. Then, all of a sudden, the arguments went away, although the stench and my mother’s cries did not.