WHAT MEETS THE EYE

SHE LOOKED AT what he’d got in his hand. And only that. Why’ve you got the photo? she asked the framed picture of herself. Not that he was exactly aching to hold her gaze, even if she were looking.

What could he say? Looking for Kayla, Alistair mumbled.

Where, in my bedroom, you’re looking for Kayla?

Well, yes. Obviously I didn’t start here. Just that I found —

You found yourself in my bedroom. Right? Why would she be in my bedroom?

Now she had his eyes, which naturally were embarrassed, excruciatingly so if she wanted to know, but clearly didn’t. Her eyes were hurting, they were showing confusion.

I was taking a better look at your photo, Sharns. Man, you looked good —

In my bedroom? Is that fair? Is it fair? What’ve I ever done wrong to you? Have I ever been in your friggin’ stinking mess of a bedroom?

Easy now, Sharns. Never meant any harm. And how do you know it’s a mess if you haven’t been in it?

Don’t have to go in it. Just have to walk past and see the state it’s in. Smell it halfway down the passage. Did I ever say anything? Did I?

She was hurt. Course she was hurt. He felt a real prick. Sorry, Sharns. Like I said, never meant anything. Just curious, I guess. I’d never do this normally.

So why’s it normal now? What made my bedroom, my privacy, all of a sudden normal this day over other days when it’s not? Least I s’pose it’s not on other days. Is it?

Sharns, you know I’m not like that —

Do I? Do I? Well, do you know how I’m feeling right this minute? I’ll tell you, okay? Like I been raped. Again.

(Again? Rape?) That’s going a bit far, isn’t it?

That’s what it feels like.

Except it’s not a bit like it. Rape? Me? You?

Rape, I said. Now gimme back that photo and get the eff outta here.

Sharns, let me explain. Please, I’d never do anything against you. I was looking for Kayla —

Kayla, yeah Kayla. Kaylaahhhh! Where are youuuu? Why aren’t you right here when I want youuuu? That the Kayla you’re talking about?

Yes, that Kayla. But this wasn’t the Sharns he knew. What was that tone of hers about? I’m sorry, Sharns. Honestly, I’m totally embarrassed about this.

Mister, you’re an effin’ whiner.

(What did she just call me?) I’m not. (You are.)

You’re a whiner and you’re a pervo who sneaks into my bedroom doing God knows what.

I’m not a pervo.

Yes you are. And you’re a big baby, walking round the flat, Kayla-Kayla-Kayla, come to me, Ali-stair needs you. Ali wants his bottle.

What is this shit, man?

I ain’t a man — I’m a woman. A woman got a right to her privacy, to her own effin’ bedroom without you, someone I thought I could trust, sniffing around. How do I know you ain’t been in my undies drawer?

Shit. This had gone far enough. He went to push past her but she blocked his way. Please, Sharns. I said sorry.

If you weren’t in my room like an effin’ burglar I wouldn’t have to be blocking your way. An hour ago I got treated like shit by a stranger. I come home, s’posed to be a shared place of refuge with people I like and I find you in my room.

And you’re in my face, woman. Had enough of this shit. He pushed past her. Could feel her eyes on him, his loss of dignity made worse by his state of semi-undress. (Women they’re all the damn same. You can’t reason with them.)

Into the kitchen, realising he was quite shaken up by the exchange. So I took a look around her bedroom. Didn’t touch anything, didn’t mean anything, more importantly. Just looked. Okay, the photo. Now that’s a major crime, taking her photo out of her room just so I could take a closer look at how she was when young and with some kind of hope. Maybe I was wanting to find some of that for myself. Maybe I was unknowingly trying to get a better handle on you, strange woman. Jesus Christ, cracking up over just a photo.

Kayla. Kayla just walked in.

Where you been, man? He could see she was carrying a loaf of bread and something else. But he had to ask the question again. Where you been? I was looking all over for you.

Sorry, hon. Do you have to call me man? Scratched up a few bucks from a friend to get us some bread, a li’l packet a luncheon sausage. You hungry, honey?

He was hungry. But for her. Not so much sexually, but selfish hunger all the same. (If selfishness was food, I could feed a whole army.) Why didn’t you tell me you were going out?

Out? Ain’t out when it’s a little walk down the road to beg money to buy you food. Come on, sweet. I’m not your Siamese twin, you know.

What’s that s’posed to mean?

Nothing. I’ll make you a sandwich. No butter though. Poppy only had five bucks and the rip-off dairy, you know what he charges for a few lousy slices of luncheon. Wish we had some tomato sauce, I know you love your sauce.

Kays, am I a good person? Or a bad person? The question just popped out of him, he wasn’t aware, not for a moment, that he was thinking about such a thing.

She smiled. Looked good when she smiled. It was open, carefree, even though nothing in her (this) life to be carefree about. She was regardless.

Don’t be silly, darling. Course you’re not a bad person.

Course you are. Want me to show you how good?

How would you do that?

You know how I would. She went all coy. Don’t you?

But he didn’t get aroused, when always he would. Always. Even beyond the sex thing he knew what a physical union with her gave him: a profound relief from some kind of inner burden that yet had no reason to exist. (Oh, yes it did. It had every right to exist. You made me suffer, Father.) Good or bad, Kayla?

I said: good. She opened the packet of bread, got a sharp knife to open the luncheon sausage, smiling, shaking her head at his little outburst — no, not outburst. She wouldn’t call his question that. But being quite a simple soul of ordinary education and not such a bad upbringing, basic but tender most of the time and the other she couldn’t remember, she had no words to give it, nor felt a need to have the words. The smile, the attitude shining off her was enough. (Was it not, Alistair, troubled son of your father?)

There you are. Lunch and breakfast and … Now her eyes got genuinely sad. And tea too.

It’s dinner, darling, he corrected. Tea is the stuff you drink. Dinner is what you eat at night.

If you got the money to have dinner, she said.

He smiled, kind of. Yes. If you’ve got the money.

Which makes it tomorrow, Thursday, before we do. So you’d have to call this snack tea not dinner.

All right, I concede here then. (Now, my question.) Good? Or bad?

I said good. Good. Got it? You-are-good. Hey, what’s up with Sharn, slamming her door like that?

Not a little bit bad? He made out he hadn’t heard the door.

Not one teensy bit bad. Sandwich or sex? Or both?

He tried to stay serious but couldn’t; she was such an innocent, how could he hurt her, how could he have doubted the reason for her absence?

In the bedroom another question came out of the blue. With a mouthful of butterless shit meat sandwich, he asked, Do women really enjoy it?

Sure they do. Or we wouldn’t do it, would we? How do you mean? And why are you asking all these questions? You’ve never asked them before.

In that kinda mood. He rubbed her upper thigh. The same lovely smooth warm skin, the same nerve to nerve connections, the same clogging up in his throat. Same tingling. Except not the same arousal. Not yet, he presumed of subsequent events.

No, I mean really enjoy. Like can you feel it inside you?

He was shocked. What do you mean, kind of? You either can’t or you can.

But can, kind of.

Well, it’s more a thumping. No, not a thumping, a feeling of being with someone you like, a nice feeling down there but not, like, urgent how you men get.

All men, honey. We weren’t virgins when we met each other. Only gets urgent when you do. And when that spot is touched. You know I like it, honey. Why wait this long to ask a question with an obvious answer? Do you think Sharns is okay? Should I go and see if she is, like, afterward?

(Afterward?) The way she said it seemed like it was not so important — not urgent. And as she said herself, sex never had been urgent. He was rapidly losing what little real sexual desire he had. Don’t worry about Sharns. Worry about me — us.

She reached out for him, down there, giggled and said what a miracle of growth they are, thingies. From this to THAT. Said it with poppy eyes and those slightly uneven smiling teeth, speaking her working-class origins. You sure you feel like it? We could save it for later. Not as if we got a lot on in life, eh? I’ve never known Sharns to slam her door like that. Something’s upset her.

You did? But why? That’s not like you, hon. I don’t believe you. You respect women, that’s why I like you. The nice things you say about your mum. Tell me the truth, what happened? She in one of her moods?

She found me in her bedroom.

Kayla let go of his unresponding thingie. How do you mean, in her bedroom? Am I hearing things?

I was looking for you.

What, in her bedroom?

I ended up in there. Curious. Please, don’t look at me like that. I’m no sex case. I just looked at a photo of her.

No! Not naked. What would she be doing with a naked photo of herself?

I know girls who have. What photo then?

Kayla was starting to pout, not sulking, hurt. You shouldn’t’ve gone into her room, Al. Not a woman’s bedroom. It’s private. You should have figured that; we’ve got private woman’s stuff. You know we have, hon. What else did you do?

What else could I do — wank off in there?

Well, we both saw the TV programme where the tradesman was doing just that. When he was s’posed to be fixing —

Fixing the leaky pipe. I know and I was disgusted like you (but no man would be surprised). And I’m not a tradesman and I don’t do that. I was looking at a photo of her when she was a teenager. Her room, it’s as dark as she is.

Sharns is not dark. She’s quite pale. She hasn’t got much Maori blood in her.

He felt nasty and succumbed to it. Not Maori blood, no.

What do you mean by that?

No shortage of Maoris been in her.

That’s mean, Alistair Trambert. It’s no one’s business but hers who she’s slept with. Who cares what race you have sex with? And what do you mean dark?

Her thoughts, her moods.

Sharns isn’t that moody, only sometimes.

You asked yourself was she in one of her moods.

I didn’t mean in a bad way. And you can talk. I should go and talk to her.

What about? She hasn’t died. (And what about me, my problems? My needs?) She wasn’t raped.

Her privacy was. Kayla’s body language had moved her to a disapproving distance on the bed. Naked, she could be wearing armour now. Seeing this, Alistair stared at the ceiling, knowing he was sulking.

Kayla got out of bed. Poor Sharns. No one cares about her. Well I do. Kayla threw on a sleeveless dress. Won’t be long. Left him to his strangely questioning thoughts.

Kayla hadn’t been gone that long. Came back really upset. Won’t talk. With a look saying, it’s your fault.

Did she say anything at all?

Only what you told me.

Come and get back into bed.

I don’t feel like it.

Bully for you. Do it to yourself. I’ve gone off the idea.

And she slammed the door, for the first time since they lived together. He didn’t think he deserved that. The self-pity came and he felt like crying again. Always crying.