Shutterspeed (2 page)

Skin stretches tight across Dustin's hard, bare chest. He is all bones and knots, knuckles and angles. He watches himself drink then refills the glass and drinks again. He wants to wash away the memory of the dream.

The house is still as he steals back to his bedroom and closes the door behind him. He moves to the bed, stepping over the wet clothes he'd dropped earlier that night. Something crackles underfoot. He remembers — it's that bloody photo that messed with the machine. Why did he put it in his jacket pocket?

After flicking on the lamp switch, his eyes adjust to the image of the Ducati Monster 620 in his hands. It's the standard model with S4 racing set-up and chassis. He exhales. It's awesome. The woman impresses him too. She's leaning against the bike like she's been dared. He grins and lets the photo fall back to the floor.

Mr Jose arrives late to form class and reads the daily notices with an apathy Dustin admires.

Nugget's more lively though, excited by the distraction of the new German exchange students, Hilda and Eva. Their caramel tans and clipped accents have aroused in him an appreciation of foreign bodies.

‘Your name is Nugget?' one asks.

‘Yeah, well, my parents call me Nigel but everyone else calls me Nugget.' He sits on a desk, one foot resting on a chair.

‘But why are you Nugget?'

Nugget prompts Dustin to jump in at this point, but Dustin shakes his head and laughs. The class watches as Nugget uses universal body language to explain that his
nickname originates from having one unusually large testicle. The girls are enthralled, but the rest of them sigh — they've heard it all before.

‘Geez Nugget, don't you believe in jocks?' Dustin says, unintentionally copping an eyeful.

‘My fellas need ventilation,' Nugget elaborates with generous sweeping gestures.

‘Could you ventilate somewhere else?'

‘Jealous.' Nugget rearranges himself and continues querying Eva and Hilda about
lederhosen
.

Mr Jose marks the roll while the Year Twelves lounge and wish for sleep. Sunlight filters lazily into the classroom. Tasman, Arvie and Rory pull beanies down over their eyes. Sarah reads
The Lord of the Rings
. Saxon and Mick eat chocolate Tiny Teddy biscuits. Four maths geeks try to break each other's codes. In the back row, the neo-Goths discuss last night's episode of
Australian Idol.

Dustin's peace doesn't last long as he's once again confronted by Shania Fenwick, house captain, holding the Athletics Carnival nominations form. She's acting perky, but he's not in the mood.

‘It's like this,' he says to her. ‘I don't jump. I've never jumped. I've never hopped or skipped or shot-putted.'

‘But you're tall …'

‘Geez, so are giraffes and do you see
them
high jumping?'

No-one speaks to Shania Fenwick in that tone. Armed with the Shenton House nominations form, she bends toward him, so close he can see down her school shirt to her size 10B Elle MacPherson T-shirt bra. ‘Fuck you and your giraffes, dustbucket,' she hisses in his ear. ‘I'm writing your name here, see?' Shania says, driving his name into the paper with her silver Parker pen. ‘It's in ink. It's permanent!'

If Shania Fenwick had taken any interest in Dustin's athletic history to this point, she would know his only sporting accomplishment has been to successfully wag every Athletics Day since Year Six, when he was told off by Mr Marfredo for showing lack of gusto in the finals of leader ball. Dustin learnt his lesson and he's boycotted sports carnivals ever since, choosing instead to watch back-to-back films in dark Freo cinemas. And this year will be no exception.

Nugget sits on the chair beside Dustin. ‘You made Shania say “fuck”. Good job!'

‘Cheers, I'm happy with that.'

‘Wanna come to Bob's Bikes this arvo? I'm thinking about the Yamaha FZX250 but my dad's still biased towards the Honda. I need your expert opinion, someone who can talk bikes without the bullshit.'

‘Well, you know if I were you, I'd be getting the Yamaha,
but a second hand one. You'll only keep it till you get your P's, right? Get something cheap to run into the ground. But then again, if your dad's buying …'

It was Nugget's dad who introduced Dustin to biking four years ago, on a hot Sunday afternoon of the school holidays. Crapping himself, Dustin had sat on the back of Mr Hooker's dirtbike, holding tightly to the sides of the big man's green T-shirt. Dustin's leg slipped and burnt on the exhaust, causing the first of many scars generated over the next few years of summer holidays with Nugget's family. All of them — mum, dad, two brothers and a sister — were mad, spending their days biking, surfing, kiteboarding and skiing. Speed was in their blood and Dustin tasted it too. Mr Hooker had tried to teach Dustin to surf, but he could never be tempted. The sea was a different danger altogether.

‘See you at Bob's Bikes?'

‘Yeah, maybe.'

At the sound of the bell the class evacuates. Nugget slaps Dustin on the back. And so his day unfolds.

In Period One, his English class watches Russell Crowe fight lions in
Gladiator.
Crowe looks like a dickhead wearing some kind of leather apparatus meant to excite women. And middle-aged gay men, apparently. Mr Ramsay is using
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
to conceal his erection. The bell blares into Ramsay's fantasy and he shouts something about characterisation and cinematography, but the class is already on its way out. Dustin doesn't hate Mr Ramsay; he's harmless.

So is Mrs Snowball in vocational studies. In Period Two she gives them a worksheet on Personal Presentation in a Job Interview Scenario. There are two cartoon characters, and the students are supposed to circle the positive aspects of personal presentation and put a cross next to the undesirable aspects. Mrs Snowball has probably never had a job interview in the last fifty years, and from the looks of it she should be thinking about retiring right now. She shouldn't be so concerned with the employment prospects of the next generation; she should be tending to plants. But at least she lets Dustin slip under the radar. None of this matters anyway, he thinks. Worksheets and gladiators mean sweet FA out there in the real world. It's the teachers who don't know this that make life difficult.

Like the asshole of a maths teacher, Mr Carey, who checks homework and threatens detentions, despite the students being Year Twelves. So Dustin does just enough work to keep him at bay. Today he does five problems from exercise 43, then turns to the back of his notebook and begins to draw freehand with a 2B pencil. His outlines are sketchy and careless — a horizon in the top third, bitumen road on the bottom, and a Ducati motorbike in the centre. He doesn't realise he's sketching her until she's looking back at him. Even drawn with a scratchy lead pencil, he recognises her — short hair, Kevlar jacket, jeans. Her bold eyes dare him to draw the rest of her. She's a pulse racing through him.

The bell rings and he flips back to exercise 43. Mr Carey grunts and Dustin exits, caught up in more important things. He leaves, engrossed, wanting to know her name.

Jasmine's already sitting on the grass leaning against the peppermint tree, her size six-and-a-half shoes pointing upward. She looks like a pixie as she plaits yellow crepe paper.

‘These stupid shakers are pissing me off. They keep
falling apart!' She holds a limp yellow mess up to Dustin as if he cares.

He laughs at her instead. ‘You're going to be a cheerleader, then?'

‘I said I'd help out. Shania didn't give me much choice.'

‘I'm not an expert on chick stuff, Jaz, but that looks like crap.'

She swears and hurls the yellow shaker onto the field, where five seagulls swoop on it as if it were edible. The grey scavengers fight, pecking at each others' heads and beaks.

‘Well, I'm supposed to do something for sports day, and I'm no good at sport. She can't make me run or anything, can she?'

‘Don't stress, just wag like me.'

‘Maybe,' she considers. ‘What're you going to see?'

Dustin shrugs and pulls the wrapper off his warm pie.

Jasmine leans back again, resting her head against the tree. She takes a pistachio from her lunchbox, prises it open with her fingertips and picks the green nut carefully from the shell. She's got small hands and her fingers are expert at this. There are other things in her compartmentalised lunchbox too: wasabi peas, pepitas, soya snacks, and hazelnut halva pieces. She grazes, looking out over the field as the sun soaks into her brown legs.

‘Geez, you eat loudly,' he says. ‘Can't hear myself think.'

‘As if you're thinking anyway.'

‘Why does bird food have to be so bloody noisy?'

‘Louder than cold dead cow, you mean?'

‘Be quiet, vegan,' he says, like it's an insult.

She punches him and grins. Having been raised by a father who is vegetarian and a mother who is biodynamicmacrobiotic, she doesn't get riled up too easily, especially not by Dustin. She offers him a pistachio instead.

‘You know I don't do green.'

‘Just thought you might be bored with beige and brown.'

‘I've got red,' he says, fingering the tomato sauce.

Lying back, she crunches loudly and squints into the brilliant blue. Last night's storm is long forgotten. The Fremantle sky has the ability to do that: forgive and forget. Her chest rises and falls with each deep breath. She's all air, Jasmine.

Dustin shoves his Mrs Mac's pie wrapper into Jasmine's top pocket for her to put in the bin later, and wipes tomato sauce from his fingers onto the grass.

‘My folks want to know when you're coming round again,' she says.

‘To their store? You kidding? Are they trying to convert me into a hippy?'

She laughs, remembering the look on his face when he
walked into South Terrace Wholefoods a week ago to catch up before a film.

‘It smelt like spew,' he tells her. There'd been little there resembling human food. The walls were lined with barrels labelled with names he'd never heard of: millet flakes, pot barley, urad dal, quinoa, buckwheat. On the shelves were boxes of prunes, linseed biscuits and suma black-eyed beans. In the corner by the window was a little cafe with fat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free muffins, and soy decaf dandelion cappuccinos. And two fat grey-haired women with body odour, wearing hemp clothes, talking about flower therapy. Everyone seemed to know each other, except for him, and that's how he wanted it to stay. He'd finally spotted Jasmine leaning beside the tofu fridge, watching him as though she was enjoying it.

‘You survived,' she reminds him. ‘You can order a hot chocolate with full-fat dairy with gelatinous marshmallows if you like. My folks won't force-feed you anything green or crunchy, I promise.'

‘I'm not risking it.'

They lie beneath the tree, their bodies at right angles. Seagulls squawk overhead. Down on the field, kids shout playing footy, and Nugget's voice is the loudest. Jasmine licks the salt from her fingers.

‘Did you dream it again?' she asks carefully.

He swallows, nervous that she knows so much. ‘Yeah.'

‘Was it the same as the others?'

‘Mostly …'

‘You saw more?'

Dustin blinks, thinking back to last night. ‘It's still all in flickers, you know,' he says, tapping his left heel against the ground, ‘like snapshots put together to make a short film, old-school style.'

‘Did you see her?'

‘No, not yet. The car's still turning, like before, and her hair's in the way. But I don't know … each time I dream it there's a bit more.'

‘Do you reckon it's your mum? Do you think you'd recognise her if you saw her?'

‘Shut up, would ya? Eat your bird food.'

He doesn't know what to think and Jasmine is the only one who makes him.

‘I'm finished,' she says gently, rolling onto her stomach to let the sun soak into the back of her legs.

Memories are shifty like ghosts. They haunt the corners of your mind, leaving you wondering if they really happened or if you created them. Memories of his mother are like that. She exists in parts, never as a whole person: a strand of black hair, a bra hanging on the clothesline, a soft black shoe with a silver buckle, a hairclip made from shell. And her smells: green soap in the soap dish, lotions with vanilla and coconut.

But the memories are probably not real. The more he's tried to remember his mum, the more he's conjured her. He was too young, after all, when it happened. And there are no photos of her at home — not on walls or in photo albums. Having grown up without a real image of her, she's become a montage of his imagining.

In Year One, when curly-haired Miss Simmons told the class to draw their mums and dads, Dustin closed his eyes until he could see her on the backs of his eyelids. He drew her onto butcher's paper with Crayola and his teacher called him a ‘little Picasso'. He carried the picture home on the bus and left it on the kitchen bench. But it never made it to the door of Ken's fridge so Dustin decided he must have got it all wrong.

One thing he does remember is when his father's father
— when he'd been alive — had asked him to help weed the garden on a hot afternoon. It was in Rockingham, by the sea, and the air was salty and dry. Gulls circled and cried overhead. Inside, the house smelt of old clothes and sounded like a ticking clock. On their knees, the two of them had pulled weeds and thrown them on a pile.

Dustin liked his grandfather and the way he shook when he spoke. He gave Dustin barley sugars to suck on.

‘Everything has to die,' the old man had said. He broke from his digging to unwrap a lolly for each of them with his soiled hands.