HE WAS DREAMING about drowning. Not himself, but this group of kids who were happily swimming in a flat sea with low rolling surf and next a huge wave was racing towards them and they didn’t see it.
He was screaming for them to get the hell out of the water, but the monstrous wave was drowning out his voice and then it got them. They were gone. They were just flailing limbs and crying heads in an unbelievably powerful onslaught of water, then it crashed at the foot of a high cliff he was standing on and sent furious foaming water up as if trying to claim him as well.
A child’s arm flung up and landed at his feet. He kicked it away but its fingers grabbed desperately for his bare feet. And it could speak. It begged him to please save at least his arm so he’d not be completely gone before his time.
Alistair said, What do you mean before your time? Your time is your time, pal. If your number’s been called, then it’s called. He was only assertive in his dreams and more with kids. Alistair in the dream kicked away at the grasping fingers, aghast that they were cold. Go away. Piss off. Even though he felt kind of bad talking like that to a poor little drowned kid’s only remaining arm. But what the hell?
The arm slipped back over the cliff. He watched it plummet to the now roiling sea. It became a full human being again on its way down. With a face pleading Alistair he must save it. Look at me, now I am back together again! Am I not worth saving? I’m just a child. Weren’t you once a child? Weren’t you drowning once? Didn’t someone save you?
With that Alistair woke. Damn dream. The kid said someone had saved him, Alistair Trambert — since when? Who saved me? (I’m still waiting.) So why was he so disturbed by the dream? What time was it anyway? Stuff the kid, it was only a dumb dream.
The time was on his watch, if he could be bothered to pull his arm out from under the blankets and look. But he couldn’t be stuffed. Too tired. Didn’t know why. Been like this for some time now, maybe a year or more. Maybe two, even three years. Like I’ve been living in this haze. Walking in a mist that weighed me down every leaden step. No reason to feel like this, not really. Life hasn’t been that bad. (Oh, yes it has.) Feeling a wave of self-pity come over him, that other, shrill voice in his head: yes, life has been hard for you! A different kind of hard to what others might know. But pain was pain. My pain has every right to be like everyone else’s pain.
So he reached out for Kayla. (Kayla? Need you, hon.) But she was an empty cold space on a sheet he knew was dirty. Curtains were closed but light enough to see the room was more than a mess — he could hear his mother describing in disgust — an indescribable hovel. Alistair, how could you live like this? Because I do, mother. I am living like this. I am, therefore I am — messy. Hahahaha. (Where the hell are you, Kayla? I need you, man. Your loving, what it does for me. Me.)
But after many minutes of going back to that still-troubling dream (you poor little sod, I would’ve saved you if it was real. I want you to know that, kid. To know I would have saved your life if you were real and not a weird talking arm changed back to a full human being. Alistair would have saved you) and no sound of Kayla and no cooking smell to say she was making him breakfast — more like lunch if a man’s sleeping habits were the call — he was prompted to make the effort to lift his arm out and see what the time was.
Three minutes past noon. So, he’d been sleeping — how long’ve I been sleeping? — twelve hours. Around about that. And sober, too. Only because they’d run out of money and people to (use) borrow from. How have I got like this, fallen this far? (Don’t worry, Father, who instilled in me all financial responsibility and honour. Your turn is coming. You’re going down in a screaming, public heap of financial scandal. Your luck and lies will run out eventually, unless your inherited land runs out first. Then you’ll find out what it’s like down here. On Struggle Street, they call it.)
Asking himself if struggle meant no fault of your own. Or was struggle unto itself demanding, or implying only that someone else fix it?
Not the first time Alistair Trambert had asked himself that question. Nor the first time he’d said to himself: Right, that’s enough. Going to do something about it — about me. Now. Well, soon. (Like later. Another day, when I’m feeling better about myself. Shortly. In the nearer future a little further off from immediate or tomorrow. Certainly not today.)
The hell are you, Kayla? (Wanna bury myself in you, my refuge place. When I’m not taking refuge in long hours of sleep, my what’s-the-use life.)
Kayla! Calling out for her. Getting angry she was not there for him. Feeling like a kind of betrayal, her immediate absence. Hurt welled up and mixed with self-pity. That self-pity. But fighting against going there. Not there, man. Don’t go there, Al. It’s too dark. You get lost in there.
Kayla? You in the bathroom, sweetheart? Calling her what his father called his mother. But Alistair knew his had a different tone, his was always loaded, with irritation or selfish want. So the sweetheart wasn’t life, a father’s son, repeating itself. It was just a young man struggling to come to terms with himself and life calling out (and on) to a woman that he needed her, without saying as such.
Sometimes, in hearing himself call out to Kayla in that whining tone, he’d get a picture of his father in his mind, disapproving strongly, shaking head and clicking his tongue how he used to, looking (staring) at a son as if to say, Where did I get you? What did I do to deserve you? His whole remembering life, Alistair saw his father like this. At everything he did: playing cricket — Not good enough, no ticker, he used to say; rugby — Pitiful, scared of tackling means scared of taking on the world; though academically Alistair did stand out. But good enough for Daddy? Not a chance. Charlotte’s exam marks were always better.
(You were never like that with Charlotte, oh no, not Charlie. Good girl Charlie, wonderful girl, Charlotte. Isn’t she brilliant, sweetheart? Isn’t she beautiful, darling? Aren’t we blessed to have one of our two children so gifted, so special, so effin’ perfect?)
Wasn’t my sister a conceited bitch as a result? Though you two adoring parents called it self-confidence. But then you would. She was always your favourite. Now she was Doctor Charlotte Trambert. (And you, Alistair? What title do you have? What are you? Are there letters to denote unemployed?) Didn’t my father see the damage his ignoring me was doing? (Me, Dad. Your son? ME, Dad! Look over here. I say? Look this way, it’s me, Alistair Seymour, of your surname. I’m a Trambert, too. We can’t all be born perfect. Someone had to get dealt the hand that was not so good. You didn’t exactly play your own good inherited hand well yourself — Dad. So who are you to judge?)
The dream kept returning. Something kept him standing on the top of that cliff, watching an innocent child drown (calling my name), calling out his name: Alistar! Alistar! And me correcting him: It’s not ar, it’s air. Alist-air. (So get it right.)
Then a penny dropped: was the child myself and was it me calling out my own name, even if incorrectly as so many have done all my life? Am I the one drowning?
Kayla! (Kays, I need you, hon. I don’t wanna face these thoughts in my head. Don’t wanna get into that self-analysis, too much of a drag. I’ll get my shit together, man. Just not right now.) Kayla! Kayla! (You never said anything about going out of the house today. The hell’ve you got to?) Oh, please don’t let it be you’ve walked out on me.
What if she’d got someone else? What if she got sick of living like this and just up and took off with a man who’d got a job, got prospects? A man who was a man, not this wimpy shadow, this hollow-chested skinny sixty-five- kilogram weakling who couldn’t be bothered getting a job. (I don’t have to. No law to say I have to work, be like normal people. I’m not normal. So why should I play by their rules?)
KAYLA! (Kill myself if she has found someone else.) No, that would be impossible. She loves me.
Down the passageway, he searched through the living room to where it became the kitchen, a small wall a stride in width said the two areas were different. The living room was swamped by the two oversized second-hand — no, make that third-hand — sofas, sitting fatly out of place there, only thing in common with the surroundings was they’d had a whole lot of lazy butts sitting on them, a whole lot of idle fingers scratching and digging at the armrests worn through their material. Butts and fingers of people I never knew existed before; before I took myself out of what I thought was the stifling middle-class — upper-middle-class, old boy, there’s quite a difference you know — home and found this. (This? Is this found, or is it lost?)
Kaylaaahhh! Kays … ? You home, hon?
He turned to the unlikely last room, Sharns’s bedroom. Kayla? Now what?
Been a lot of things the last few years of this wretched young adulthood, as in every definition of laziness and what it reduced you to doing, the loss of dignity, pride. But I was never a sneak, never an invader of someone’s privacy, let alone my own flatmate’s bedroom. (It’s okay, Sharneeta, I’m just trying to find Kayla. If your room was a lion’s den I’d probably go in as long I could find Kayla. I need absolute assurance she’s not anywhere in this house, don’t ask me why I need it.)
Kay-lah? You in there? (I need you. My calling for you echoes more hollowly each time. The effin’ hell are you, woman?)
Alistair close to crying, shook himself out of it, he couldn’t go there, not there. His father’s voice, though, called him a cry-baby. (I’m not a cry-baby. Can’t I just be highly sensitive? Wasn’t that allowed, father of mine?)
Sharns? Sharns, have you seen Kayla? Sharn-nee-tah?
He tried the door handle, unlocked. Well, why wouldn’t it be? Every reason in fact, with the type of people who came round here. (Mum, Dad, you’ve never seen anything like it. You know the types you read about, front page of your newspaper, or on the court pages? Well, that type.)
Might as well open the door, see how she lived, I guess not a lot better than we do, though she did try her best to keep the common rooms tidy, even if we made it hard for her.
He opened the door, shocked at what he saw.
The curtains were a deep purple, almost black, how he never noticed that before from the outside he didn’t know. Then he realised that a white underside faced the street, not this depressing dark colour. It was like someone died recently in here (or is dying?). Deep purple curtains, creepy. (Familiar, too, Alistair?)
But that was only part of the shock; the other was how neat it was. Like perfect. Like his mother always was with her bedroom and brought her two children up to be the same. But Sharneeta, a slut basically, living like this? It didn’t fit.
He was several steps past trespassing — looking at everything so in order — pity she kept the light from showing it off. Dare he pull open the curtains? Better not. None of his business. So why was he still standing there? Spooky room like this, something might happen. Better watch out, Ali, a hand might reach out and grab your throat!
Smiling to himself, at a childhood memory, everyone had them. But guilt was still the same. At doing something against his principles, of not respecting someone’s privacy, especially a woman’s. Even Sharns’s. His mother would not be happy to know he was doing this. Then again, how long since he’d thought about principles?
So he was a couple of steps over a line he never thought he’d cross, and the first thing he felt was a sexual surge. (Jesus Christ.) Chastening himself: Alistair Trambert, you’re a degenerative screw-up. What are you doing in here? She is not your type at any rate. Sure, she’s bloody attractive, in a funny way more so than Kayla. Except Sharns has something about her, and it’s making itself known right here, in this disturbingly dark bedroom. I mean, what kind of person would live like this?
Listen, she’s just your flatmate, you’re each other’s convenience; you and Kayla might’ve hit kind of rock bottom but not the bottom written in Sharns’s eyes, anyone could see she’d been around the block, hung around a few waterfronts and done and been done every which way.
Another step. So now it was trespass — he’d hate it if Sharns were in their room like this. And with the mess it was, compared to this, compared to anything, including how he once used to live. What happened to you, Al?
(That’s just it: I never happened. My mental problems, though not like Sharns. Mine’s depression and if hers is, too, then it is a different kind because this is not how depression manifests. Depression gives up and the first to go is personal standards, even personal hygiene. I just never got going. Maybe I tried, or made kind of an effort from time to time, but overall I’d have to say — not your fault, Alistair. Not my fault! Go to hell, Dad! (You made me like this. I was always trying to please you and when I realised you could never be pleased, something broke in me.)
So neat it was unbelievable, didn’t go with the woman he knew as Sharneeta Hurrey. The sad woman, even when she was laughing on rare occasion. The woman who didn’t say a lot, except when she was drunk and then you couldn’t shut her up. Though it was usually deep questions she was asking, but too personal, too close to the bone, who wanted to go there?
Smelt kinda nice, too, if you liked perfumey smells. Soap. Shampoo that smelt like apples. But the bed cover was too navy-blue, another depressing colour like the purple curtains. Though it did make the folded white towel stand out. Never thought she’d live like this, it just didn’t fit. Think I’d better get out now.
In a minute. He looked around, something was not quite right, even beyond the shock. That was what was missing. Photos. There were no photos anywhere. Even I’ve got photos on my walls, including several of my father (in case he turned up and was displeased I didn’t have a reminder of him).
The sexual thrill had gone. It was like being in the bedroom of a phantom. It was like she never quite existed, no one cared about her (including you, Alistair Trambert, or you wouldn’t be in here like some damn burglar). Like she’d been trying to please someone specific, as Alistair had done, but he or she’d not been here to know, or refused to acknowledge what she’d done, the effort she’d made (poor woman, I know how you feel, if that is the main problem, feeling unacknowledged).
No one cared about you (or me), Sharns. Or they believed another truth of us, which became a truth in itself even when wrong. Even when it was not true.
I should leave here now. But not yet. A phantom’s bedroom. No books. No pictures, no posters. No statements or evidence of the inhabitant. Could be anyone’s bedroom if not for the dark-coloured theme. Anyone but Sharns. A dressing table with a mirror, hair-brushes, combs, hair clips, hairties, spray containers, all laid out square. Box of tampons — yuk. Hate periods, the blood. Couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
Another step and he could see his bare skinny white legs in the mirror, hairy, too. His underpants. How long since he’d changed them? Hey, Kayla’d never complained, she got what she wanted from what was underneath. Hahaha. Grinning at his image in the mirror, his fist bunched, arm ramrod straight to symbolise a (powerful, virile, manly) stiff member. Yeah, baby, ride this one. Like that. Ooo, she loves it. Loves me.
Now his face. Another shock. Is that me? Do I look like that in the mornings? All the time? It was afternoon, actually. Just gone quarter after twelve. Is that really me?
He couldn’t face the image, turned away, pulled his tee-shirt down over the undies to save thinking about washing them. Remembered his earlier sexual feeling, the thought of doing it with Sharneeta, and he felt sick. Not that she was ugly or had a bad body. She was better physically than most. It was the thought of sinking into the same swamp she dwelt in, never mind how immaculate this place was. Of sinking into her emotional cesspit, of getting sucked into the quagmire of her mental state (and it feeling too familiar) and never being able to get out. Just your head sticking out, yelling for help, to a world that can’t, or won’t, hear. Like the dream.
Time to go. Just as he saw there was a photograph. On a chest of drawers in the far corner, opposite the lightless window. It was a framed photograph of a rather beautiful young woman, fifteen, maybe younger: Sharneeta. It was her, when her eyes weren’t gone, no sunken bone structure, this was one very good looking kid. I know: this was when she still had her innocence. (So at what age did mine go? Did I ever have it to start with? After all, some people are born without innocence.)
He went over for a closer inspection of the photo, aware she could come home and walk in on him. But then she’d hardly ever been around when he got up, she either had a job or was out looking for work. Why did she keep this place so dark? I can’t see what she used to look like in this gloom. Damn it, he’d take the photograph out to the passageway to look closer. For this was some surprise.
But not as much as the one he got when he lifted his head and took a step toward the doorway.
Sharneeta. (And I’m in her bedroom.)