Double Exposure (7 page)

Twelve
Normal behaviour

Cain's story

I don't know when I first got hooked on movies.

The truth is, I don't even remember the first movie I saw. I couldn't tell you what it was about or who was in it, or even how old I was. All I remember is the sensation, sitting there in the dark, watching the giant figures on the screen, hearing the music building and feeling the emotions surge to match the size of the image.

It's so totally different from television.

At home with the TV on you can read a book, have a conversation, even eat a meal, while the lives of the characters unravel in the corner, out of focus, diminished by the limits of the screen and the medium, smaller than life, glancing off the angles of your own existence like a background commentary. A flickering soundtrack to the everyday chaos.

In the cinema, when the film starts it's like the darkness isolates you – or rather, like it owns you – and there's nothing but the story until the final credits roll. At least, that's how it is for me.

In a way, I suppose it's the same as Chris's reaction to Art. I've watched him in a gallery, standing motionless in front of a painting or a sculpture. For that moment the world disappears for him and there is nothing but the creation.

I'm betting there must be a genetic component to obsessiveness.

Of course, there's one big difference between Chris's obsession and mine. Chris lives his art. He's creator as well as consumer. I never made that transition. I don't know if I'll ever move beyond my fixation with reliving other people's dreams from the safety of the breathing dark …

*

The lights rise and the people begin to move: a human river, washing down the aisles towards the exit doors, each element of the flow whispering opinions, discussing moments, looking for a place to toss the rubbish; or staring up as they move, to catch the names scrolling slowly up the screen and into oblivion.

Beside her, Cain sits watching the credits, looking for familiar names among the support cast and allowing the identities of the second unit and the special effects teams to wash over him. Or is he just listening to the score, allowing the mood of the film's final moments to linger a while longer, slowly diffusing through him before he makes the break and stumbles back into the real world?

Dave comes in to clean up for the next session. His blonde hair is hacked into an untidy shag, surfer-style. The reluctant westie with dreams of the beach.

She asked him once if he ever got to surf.

‘Not enough,' was the reply. ‘Too busy.'

There was no malice in the response, just a slight regret in the shake of his head. For Dave, the long hours of study and the shifts at Hoyts are the means to an end. The taste of salt, the sun on the sand and the exhilaration of a running surf are memories that sustain him.

The hairstyle is the reminder that all things are temporary -even separation.

She smiles at him and he rolls knowing eyes towards Cain, who hasn't noticed his presence. They all know of Cain's obsession. It is a running joke behind the candy bar and in the coffee shop after a shift, and in recent weeks she has been a part of the banter. A surrogate member of an elite assembly.

Shamerin who has such beautiful eyes, but never learned to take a compliment. Nilgun with her dark, exotic looks, who smiles at the jokes, but mostly maintains her silence – and her mystery. Sarah and Sara – similar in name, opposites in personality. Cesar the Serious. Kyle the Cool. And Sanja, who can change her hair-colour at will but not her mania for the rules, and is free with her opinions of the shops you would or wouldn't be seen dead shopping in.

Dressed in their yellow and blue and black, they are both a cross-section and a sub-culture and Cain is a different person when he is with them, like he draws something from their energy, while they draw something from his presence – and she loves being there among them.

Following Cain's lead, they have all adopted Ty, sneaking him lollies and chocolate bars, taking turns to hold him or play with him, and the kid loves the attention. Naturally.

Even Amy – irrepressible, unpredictable Amy, who can joke with them all, then within a moment assert her authority with a movement of the eyebrow or a subtle alteration in her tone – when it comes to Ty, all her authority melts and she turns a blind eye to her staff's frequent lapses.

The credits end, the screen goes blank and the ubiquitous Corrs CD cuts in mid-bar over the PA, shattering what was left of the lingering ambience.

‘Ready?' he asks, as if he has been waiting for her.

They stand and make their way out into the deserted corridor.

‘He paid and I handed him his ticket, then he gave me this.' Leonie fishes in her bag and pulls out the silver and leather bracelet and tosses it on the table. Leonie is the baby of the group and her innocent enthusiasm is contagious. ‘Just like that. “This is for you,” he says, tosses it down next to the eftpos machine, smiles and walks off.'

Cain is sitting with his arm around T.J.'s shoulder on one of the lounges in the coffee area, and a small group of the others has formed, following the shift-change, filling up the seats around them.

‘Does that count as a tip?' Sanja asks. ‘Because –'

‘Have you ever seen him before?' Cesar cuts in, serious as usual.

‘What d'you mean?' Leonie turns to face him.

‘What do I
mean?
For freak's sake, Lee. You work at a movie theatre – don't you ever watch the movies?
Silence of the Lambs, Fatal Attraction, Copycat, One Hour Photo
–'

‘Finding Nemo …'
Cain interrupts the flow, watching Leonie's face for a reaction to Cesar's line of argument. ‘What Cesar is suggesting, kid, is that the guy could be a deviant. A stalker who spends his waking hours cutting up photos of the girls he can't have because he keeps his mother's corpse strapped to a rocking chair in the master bedroom. In which case, Ces,
Fatal Attraction
doesn't apply. The stalker in that one's a woman and Leonie doesn't have a pet rabbit.
Do
you?'

Leonie looks down at the bracelet on the table in front of her.

‘He didn't look like a stalker,' she says, to no one in particular. ‘He just …'

‘No one
looks
like a stalker!' Cesar is uncharacteristically animated. He picks up the bracelet. ‘And besides, giving something like this to a total stranger doesn't exactly qualify as normal behaviour.'

Sara takes the offending jewellery from his hand and slips it onto her wrist, holding it up for appraisal.

‘Unless he's a secret admirer. Look at it, Lee. It's beautiful. Why do you guys always have to look on the dark side?'

Leaning back on the other lounge, Dave shakes his head slowly, pushes his hair back from his face and sighs knowingly.

‘Because, Sara my love, the line between “secret admirer” and “totally deviant freako” is just a bit too thin to call. By the way, if you're going to put that thing on, I'd be washing it first. Just in case …'

Sara looks at the bracelet, then removes it, dropping it on the table.

‘You guys,' she says and moves towards the counter. ‘Anyone for a coffee?'

A couple of responses, but T.J. is watching Leonie's face. The excitement has disappeared and she looks scared. Leaning forward, she takes the girl's hand and motions her away from the table with a movement of her head.

When they are out of earshot, near the entry doors, she pushes a lock of hair away from Leonie's face and attempts an encouraging smile.

‘Don't let them get to you, Lee. They all watch too many MAs. It's a shitty world when someone can't make a nice gesture without everyone assuming the worst. They wouldn't have a clue about what a real stalker is all about …'

The words trail off, as she forces down a sudden fear.

Then Cain is beside them. He slides an arm around her, but his words are for Leonie.

‘Hey, kid. Look, I'm sorry about that, it was just a bit of fun. Still, if you want a lift home, we could –'

‘No, it's okay. My dad's picking me up in half an hour. What do you think I should do? About the bracelet, I mean.'

Cain pulls T.J. close and kisses her hair almost unconsciously.

‘The way I see it, ninety-nine point nine percent of the population are basically okay. Which means you have to assume it's just a harmless gesture. So it's not going to do any harm to wear it. Hell, it's only a ten-dollar trinket. Maybe he works for someone who imports them and he gives them out to anyone he thinks need a lift in the middle of a long shift. Maybe it's just a desperate attempt to gain your attention. If so, it seems to have worked. At least until Cesar got in on the act.'

He turns to T.J., winking.

‘Hey, you don't think Cesar's got a thing for her, do you? I mean, he did come on pretty strong back there.'

Taking his lead, T.J. smiles, then shakes her head.

‘Cesar? Nah. I think he has the hots for Amy.'

Finally, Leonie smiles.

‘Look,' Cain continues, ‘the session's due out in a few minutes. When he goes past, we'll check him out. If he looks like he's going to turn into Norman Bates – or Robin Williams – we'll gang-tackle him and beat the crap out of him right here in the foyer. If he looks innocent, or starts reciting love poems to you, we'll buy him a coffee and act as chaperones.'

When they return to the table, they are laughing.

*

T.J.'s story

Colin, my old grief-counsellor, told me once that dreams are just your subconscious doing a bit of spring-cleaning, shucking out the debris from the previous day so that you can start the new one with a clean slate.

Mind you, Colin also thought that Barbra Streisand was the greatest singer of the twentieth century, so I was never sure I could trust anything the guy said.

I've read books that claim dreams are the symbolic language of the subconscious; that because we can't communicate directly with better than ninety percent of our own mind, dreams are the only way – apart from hypnosis – for the inner-self to communicate with the outer-self.

Some people make a pretty rewarding career out of interpreting the symbolism of dreams, claiming to make sense of the random events and images that cross your mind when you're asleep and have no way of editing or controlling them.

Whatever you believe about dreams, personally I'd just as soon ask my subconscious to put it all in an email and leave my sleep alone.

Like the night of the bracelet incident.

We never did catch sight of Leonie's mystery admirer. Either he'd left halfway through the movie or he'd sneaked into another session – or else he was hiding somewhere up in the projection room like the Phantom of the Opera, waiting to pounce.

That last one was Cain's suggestion – which, thankfully, he didn't voice in front of Leonie, who was already nervous enough. His sense of humour can be a real liability sometimes.

Whatever the explanation, the whole thing triggered something deep in my mind that surfaced while I was asleep and had me waking in a cold sweat.

As far as I can remember – and I'm probably making it a whole lot more logical than it really was – I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, writing a letter to my father, when suddenly I was five years old and he was standing right there in front of me, holding out a present. It was a small box about the size of the one jewellers give you when you buy a ring. Not so strange so far, I guess, but from that point on it began to get weird.

When I tried to open the box, I broke my nail and the skin around it began bleeding, pouring down onto the white cloth. The mirror from my mother's vanity set was lying face-up on the table so that I could see myself in it. My child's face was made up like a doll, with rouged cheeks, red lipstick and dark mascara. It scared me and I tried to rub off the make-up with a white linen serviette, but the more I rubbed the worse it got. The lipstick spread like blood and the black around my eyes soaked into the skin like bruises.

I picked up the box and it clicked open, but now it wasn't small and I wasn't five years old any more. I looked inside and there was the bracelet, leather with worked silver shapes threaded onto it, and I picked it up, holding it on my palm. Then he was taking it from me to put it on, only instead of my wrist he began to put it around my neck, and as he fastened it I could feel it tightening, so that I couldn't breathe.

I turned to tell him to stop, but it wasn't my father who was doing it. It was Ian. He was standing there, tightening the leather around my windpipe. I could feel the silver digging into my skin as he pulled it tighter and tighter, and I tried to scream, but nothing would come out. I sat there with the pulse thumping in my ears and he started to walk away, holding Ty's hand, leaving me there, and as they reached the door, Ty turned around to wave, but his face was made up like the doll's face and though the mouth was fixed in a smile there were tears in his eyes, which ran down his cheeks in two black streams.

I tried to call out his name, but the leather was getting tighter and I couldn't make a sound.

Which was when my mother woke me. She said I was calling out Ty's name and thrashing around on the bed.

I told Cain about the dream the next day and he held me close for a long time, but when I asked him what it might mean, he didn't say a word – like he was thinking about things he wasn't ready to discuss.

Thirteen
Relativity

Ruth Eveson is sitting in the bedroom, staring at herself and applying a frosting of eye shadow, when he walks past.

‘Cain?' she calls out and he stops. ‘Come in here?'

As he moves up behind her, she looks at him in the mirror and summons a weak smile.

‘Your father is taking me out to celebrate. They made the decision, finally. He got the promotion.'

He studies her for a trace of pride, but there is nothing there in her face. Nothing but the vacant acceptance of a life unfulfilled.

‘Have you seen my other ruby stud? I seem to have …'

The words trail off, as she searches in the open drawer of the dressing table.

‘I can't find it anywhere and you know how your father feels about us losing things.'

‘No, Momma, why don't you tell me? Exactly how
does
my father feel?' She turns to face him, stung by the tone. When he continues, the anger is gone, replaced by a near-desperate pleading. ‘What do
you
feel, for Christ's sake? It's not
his
earring, it's yours. Don't
you
care that it's missing? Or are you just scared of what he'll do when he finds out?'

No answer. He stares at her for a few more moments, then turns towards the door. After a few steps, he turns back to face her. ‘When did you decide it was easier to stop trying, Momma? When did you give up on living?'

Slowly she slides the drawer closed and stands up.

‘It's so easy to judge, isn't it? So easy … But I don't expect you to understand, Cain. It's a different world now. So different … Your father was a different man back then. Strong, dependable. A good provider. When my parents died, he was there for me and I knew …'

‘What?' But the curtain has dropped again. She sits down on the end of the bed, smoothing the creases from the coverlet.
‘What
did you know? Did you ever
love
him?'

‘Love …' A humourless laugh and she picks at a thread until it snaps. ‘What does someone your age know about it? He made me feel safe and I –'

‘
Safe
? Was that before or after he started hitting you?'

She looks up at him.

‘I told you. He was different then.'

‘So why didn't you leave him? When he started to change …'

‘Why? I suppose you just keep hoping. That things will go back to the way they were. That you can recapture … whatever it was that's disappeared. Then suddenly it's too late. But it doesn't have to be this bad, Cain. I tried to tell your brother, but he would never listen. It doesn't have to …'

The words trail off at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. She stands and moves back to the dressing table.

‘I have to get ready,' she says and looks at herself in the mirror.

Cain pushes past his father as he leaves the room.

*

Cain's story

When I was … I don't know, seven I suppose, my father came home from work with a present for my mother.

Jewellery, I think.

It wasn't that he never bought her presents, it's just that this time he was smiling when he gave it to her. I guess that's why it stuck in my memory. That tentative smile, so utterly out of place among my other memories of him.

It's just one moment from my entire childhood, but it surfaces sometimes and I wonder if some part of me wants to remind itself that there's a little bit of good in everyone.

I don't recall what the occasion was. All I know is that he was smiling and my mother was happy, so it must have been something special.

I asked Chris once if he remembered it too, but he shook his head.

‘I don't remember one good thing that bastard ever did,' he said and went back to his painting.

It served me right. For as long as I can remember, Chris has had a tendency to become disturbingly monomaniacal when he's working. It wasn't the time for ‘deep and meaningfuls'.

I was beginning to worry about him. He had one of the most prestigious galleries in the country waiting for a glimpse of his work, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry to impress them.

‘If it's good enough, they won't mind waiting,' he argued. ‘If it's not, I doubt that getting it to them earlier will make it any better.'

He had a point, I suppose, but I don't know what was more frustrating – the suspense, or the fear that he was blowing his big chance.

‘I think you're just scared. In case they don't like your stuff.'

He stopped for a moment with his brush a centimetre from the canvas. Then he carried on painting as if I wasn't there.

A portrait was taking shape. Her again.

Her haloed image stared down at me from the end of the room, every time I came in to check his progress. The whore with the face of an angel. The angel with the body of a whore. I found myself drawn back again and again to the photograph of her selling herself on the street. What had he seen in that face, in those bottomless eyes, that had captured the artist in him?

Of course, the history of art is full of painters with obsessions for particular faces, so it's not like he wasn't in good company. I just … Well, I guess I couldn't get the photo out of my mind.

If he knew what I was thinking, Chris never let on. It was only later, when the shit hit the fan, that we even talked about it, and by that stage it was already too late to stop it from happening …

*

Midnight.

Abby stares at the sky above the Coke sign.

A bank of cloud closes in around the full moon and for a brief second the silver glow illuminates the leading edge of the dark mass. Then the light fades and the sky loses its definition.

Without warning, a hand grabs her shoulder, startling her. Swinging around, she finds herself face to face with a bottle of something cheap and alcoholic.

Tess shakes the golden liquid in front of her. ‘Want a belt, Ab?' There is a semi-drunken precision to the words and her eyes are reluctant to focus. ‘Tessie's little helper. Liquid amnesha.'

‘Tess, you bitch. You scared the juice out of me, sneaking up like that. I thought it was Sal.'

Tess waves a gloved finger in front of her face and shakes her head emphatically.

‘Not this side of twelve-thirty. He's at Rosie's drinkin' doubles and lookin' for someone to beat up on. Saw him when I went for supplies. Get it into you, sister.'

Abby shakes her head and takes the bottle from her friend, holding it behind her back.

‘You know I don't. And you shouldn't either. Especially not on the street.'

Tess laughs through her nose.

‘Oh, yeah. Tha's right. Can't drink booze on the street. 'Gainst the law.'

Then Abby is laughing too, aware of the ridiculous irony of what she has just said.

‘Still,' she replies at last, ‘you shouldn't. You'll end up even more screwed than you are already. And you can't exactly afford that.'

A moment's silence. Tess watches her, the question hovering unspoken.

‘What?' she prompts, impatiently.

‘How do you do it sober? How can you stand them touching you?'

On an impulse Abby reaches out and pushes the hair away from the other girl's empty eyes. Tess, who wears lace gloves even on the hottest nights – just so she doesn't have to touch their skin.

How can you stand them?

‘Relativity,' Abby whispers, more to herself than to her friend.

‘Relativity? I don't get it.'

‘Ask my stepfather.' The words hang in the chasm between them. She looks up the hill at the Coke sign flashing on and off, progressing through its endless boring sequence. She blinks and the image distorts.

‘My mother died when I was fourteen and left me alone with him. I was too young to get drunk then. I guess I never developed the habit.'

She hands back the bottle. Tess looks at her for a moment, as if she has something more to say, then she shakes her head slowly.

‘I guess I did,' she whispers and moves slowly away.

Twelve-thirty.

The lightning flashes and a few seconds later thunder rolls threateningly, but the pavement is still dry, radiating back the long day's heat.

She wipes the sweat from her eyes and scans the street.

Slow night.

Deathly slow. A few metres down the hill, Tess leans against her wall, asleep on her feet. In the angle between the pavement and the wall, the bottle lies on its side, empty.

No wonder you can't keep your eyes open, sister. Jeezuz …

‘Psst! Tess … wake up!' The words are barely more than a frantic whisper, but the other girl's ears are tuned to the street. Her eyes flick open and she looks around for a sign of danger.

Too late.

Sal emerges from the shadows of the narrow laneway behind her and closes the gap between them with a menacing sense of purpose. His step is unsteady. As he leans towards her, Tess can smell the Scotch on his breath.

‘We keeping you up, Tessie?' The words are dangerously calm.

The girl retreats backwards, but the solid wall offers no escape. Then he is on her, the back of his hand arcing down across her cheek, snapping her head sideways into the rough brickwork, drawing blood. She cries out, a pleading whimper that dies in her throat as he closes his huge hand around her windpipe.

‘You sleep when I say you can. Got it?'

She tries to nod, but the pain limits the movement. His eyes are centimetres from hers and in them she reads a disgust that she has never seen in the faces of her customers, no matter what they call her while they …

‘For God's sake, leave her alone!'

From behind him, Abby's voice intrudes and Tess can see the rapid changes reflected in the pimp's eyes. Disdain is replaced by surprise, then anger, as he tosses her aside and turns on the girl who dares to challenge his authority.

Abby stands facing him, trapped by her words, pinned under his furious gaze.

Shit …

‘Are you talking to me?'

She weighs her limited options, while part of her racing brain tries absurdly to remember which film the line came from.

Nice one, motor mouth … Talk your way out of this one …

She steps slowly backwards off the kerb and onto the hot surface of the road. It is late and the traffic is thin, but she steals a quick glance down the hill, alert to the danger. Sal moves towards her and she retreats a step further.

‘You know what happened last time,' she says, angling for an escape clause. ‘You don't want her out of action for a week while the bruises go down. It's bad for business …'

‘And what are you now, my accountant? I don't
think
so.' The brief sarcasm evaporates and the grey eyes go ice-cold. ‘What you
are
is a fifty-dollar hooker and cheap sluts need to learn the rules. Turn the trick, pay the tick – and don't open that pretty mouth unless it's going to earn you money.'

He advances towards her, stepping off the kerb and raising his fist. For a moment she is frozen, then something snaps.

She ducks under the raised arm and hits him in the chest with her shoulder, then follows up by shoving him away with all her strength. It is a pointless and dangerous act of defiance and part of her knows it. He is much stronger than she is and his chest is like a stone wall under her hands.

But suddenly, inexplicably, he is falling. As he takes an involuntary step backwards, surprised by her show of resistance, his heel catches the kerb and his balance, already affected by the drink, is lost.

Hands flailing, he half-turns as he falls.

‘Bitch!' he yells.

Then his head hits the pebble-crete support of the litterbin – a dull thud – and his heavy body thumps into the pavement. It bounces once, slightly, solidly, like a misshapen medicine ball. One hand moves briefly, clenching into a weak half-fist, then it loses all tension and drops to the pavement.

A small trickle of blood leaks out from beneath his cheek and he lies unmoving, the pale skin of his face reflecting the endless movements of the red neon from the distant sign.

She hesitates for a moment, then turns and runs.

‘Abby!'

From the shadows behind her, Tess screams her name, but she doesn't look back. She is beyond hearing. Beyond thinking. The world has shifted out of focus and she cannot feel the road beneath her shoes.

You killed him …

A car approaches up the hill, high-beam flashing, horn blaring. She can feel the wind of its passing. Too close, but her trajectory is set and she has no power to alter it.

‘Abby!'

You killed him …

At the corner, she stumbles to a halt against the pole of the traffic light. The rain has started, heavy drops striking the warm surface of the road in dark starbursts. She sucks in a shuddering breath and staggers on, drawing together the threads of her thoughts, forcing them into order.

Then the voice inside her head cuts in. The interior dialogue that always helps make sense of a world that has no logic, no justice. The conversation that forms a silent soundtrack to the endless round of incident and threat. Analysing, quantifying. Forcing sense from the chaos of emotion that has frozen her resolve.

- If he dies, they'll come for you. You know that?

- Of course I know that.

- ‘How do you plead?'

‘It was self-defence. Believe me. You have to believe me.'

‘Of course we believe you. A fifty-dollar whore … Why would a whore lie?'

- Maybe they'll pick him up with the rest of the trash and that'll be the end of it.

- I'll say a couple of Hail Marys and pray for a freaking miracle!

- Of course, if he doesn't die, he's going to come for you. You know that too, right?

End of discussion.

End of everything …

The rain is heavier now, soaking her clothes and cooling her skin. Slapping into her face like tiny open hands.