Sealed Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Sealed

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789091243

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789091250

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First Titan edition: July 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2017, 2019 Naomi Booth. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  For Dulcie and Laura

  Thy hands fashioned and made me; and now thou dost turn about and destroy me.

  Remember that thou hast made me of clay; and wilt thou turn me to dust again?

  Didst thou not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?

  Thou didst clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.

  JOB 10:8–11

  WE came out here to begin again. We came out here for the clear air and a fresh start. No one said to us: beware of fresh starts. No one said to us: god knows what will begin.

  Pete found the house online. Mountain View. We’d only seen pictures, but it looked so good – a whole house, the kind you can only dream of in the city, with scrubbed wooden floors, a bright, enamel kitchen, a verandah with views across the valley – that we took the risk, put down the deposit sight unseen. The drive out took longer than we thought and, by the time we arrived, the van was already parked-up in the driveway. The sun was going down, though it was still light enough, just, to see. I sat in the passenger seat for a while as Pete helped the removal men. The front of the house was pretty in an implausible way, like a house in a picture-book or a holiday brochure: a white chalet, edged with dark-leafed, tropical plants. Behind the house I could see the outline of the mountains in the distance, greying in the dusk, and, nearer-by, lights glimmering in the valley bottom. We never had asked why the house was suddenly vacant or why the rent was so cheap. It’s best not to pry, Pete says, it’s best not to worry. It’ll be nothing, he says: a redundancy, a divorce, a clean, old-fashioned death.

  By the time I get out of the car the blokes have already started carrying our boxes into the house. Pete has turned on the lights inside and I dawdle in front of the porch. The plants look weird: it’s been a while since I’ve seen anything this lush. I touch the leaves to check that they’re real and they’re waxy and cool like synthetic matter, but they tear through when I push with my nail. The blooms are enormous – frilly and faintly obscene. I can hear my mother’s voice in my head, naming them for me: gardenia, hibiscus, Angel Ivy. Their fragrance follows me, sweet and morbid on the cooling evening air.

  When I get inside Pete grabs my hand, pulls me into the living-room and points to a large box. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘you can sit on this until we get the chairs out.’

  ‘I’ve been sitting all day,’ I say, ‘I want to look around.’

  ‘Not while all this is going on,’ he says, ‘I don’t want anyone to bump our bump.’ He leans down and kisses my swollen stomach.

  The removal men don’t talk as they work. They sweat a lot and get everything into the house as quickly as possible. They’ve got another long drive ahead of them, back to the city. I watch them working, letting myself imagine what they’ll do tomorrow. Sunday in town. Maybe the younger one will lie-in, meet friends for brunch somewhere by the harbour. Bloody Marys and runny yellow yolks. Maybe he’ll go to see a movie in one of the old theatres downtown with dusty velvet seats and mice skittering about in the dark. Maybe he’ll sleep all day and then get wrecked on dirty beer in a bar by the market. Some of the things that we used to do. I turn my attention to the other man, the older of the two; he’s heavy on his feet, grizzled around his muzzle like an old dog. There’s something that draws my attention to his eyes, something at the outer corners. The skin of his eyelids is unusually pronounced, making an exaggerated fold. And the skin crinkles up at the outer edges of his eye sockets. I mean, it really crinkles, making deep crags whenever he lifts something heavy and grimaces. I pat my fingertips against the edge of my own eye socket: my skin feels soft and slightly puffy. It’s hard to imagine normal skin cragging like that, loosening and folding away from the face as much as his. Are his eyes too hooded to be healthy? I want to say something, to ask him if he’s had it checked out, but I know Pete will flip if I do. I’m supposed to be leaving all of this behind me. I think about it too much, Pete says, and that’s the main problem, he says, because when you think about anything too much your thoughts distort the thing itself. Thinking like I do, worrying all the time, Pete says it’s like repeating the same word over and over to try to learn it, until the word becomes just sound: and then the sound becomes a kind of hex, a weird noise that conjures something darkly different.

  I stay sitting on the box and I watch my things and Pete’s things being re-assembled next to one another: my bed-settee next to his shelves, my mother’s old dining table surrounded by the camping chairs Pete’s dad gave us. I guess this is what it looks like to try to build a life together: cast-offs and old family favourites forced into uneasy covenants; a mess. And I keep being drawn back to the man’s eyes, to their ragged corners.

  When everything has been unloaded I can’t help myself, I whisper to Pete: ‘I think there’s something going on with that bloke’s eyes. I think there might be something… look at his skin… at the edges?’

  Pete looks over at the man. He’s wiping his forehead on a blanket that a mirror was just wrapped in. He grins when he notices us staring. ‘A’right,’ he says, ‘just about done. Nice place you’ve got here.’

  ‘Fucksake, Alice,’ Pete hisses at me. ‘Fresh start, but?’ He strides over to the bloke. ‘Cracking job, mate,’ he says, shaking the man’s hand and then clapping him on the back. ‘Safe journey back.’

  ‘Beaut of a place this,’ the man says, standing in the doorway, jerking his head backwards to indicate the garden and the mountains beyond, disappeared in the darkness now. ‘You’re best off out of it. I’ve nippers, you know, and grandchildren. Three of ’em. You don’t want ’em growing up in that, do ya? The smogs, Christ knows what else. How long you got to go?’ He looks over at me.

  ‘Four weeks,’ I say and I look down at my bump. Its swollenness still seems unreal. I barely showed until six months.

  ‘Yep, best off out of it,’ he says.

  Pete walks him down the path, waves the van off. When he comes back in, he strides about the place, holding his mobile phone up in the air in the corners of the living-room. ‘Nope,’ he says, ‘bugger all connection. You got anything, babe?’

  I’ve stopped keeping my phone close by. I go to my bag and turn it on. The reception icon appears, and then a red cross. ‘Nothing,’ I say and turn the pho
ne off again.

  ‘Well, you’ll be pleased about that,’ he says. ‘No radiation.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘And no news for you to fixate on.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say.

  ‘And no way for you to post online.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ I say.

  After we’ve found my mother’s old linen and made up the bed Pete’s parents gave us, Pete says we should call it a night. ‘We’re knackered,’ he says, ‘let’s start on the boxes in the morning.’ Our cups are still packed away, so we drink from the kitchen tap, scooping water up in our hands and into our mouths. It tastes different: richer than in the city, a hint of iron. ‘Christ,’ I say, ‘Pete, what if it’s not filtered?’

  ‘Of course it’s filtered,’ he says. ‘It’s not the dark ages out here. There’s a pump, I’m sure they mentioned a pump. I’ll check everything in the morning.’

  ‘Can we go out onto the verandah?’ I ask. ‘I need some air.’

  ‘’Course.’

  From the back of the house there’s a clear view straight across the valley towards the mountains. It’s dark now, almost midnight, though the darkness is strangely luminous. I can still pick out the flowers in the garden: the greens of leaves are recast in shades of blues. There are jacaranda and oleander flowers gleaming deeply at the furthest edge of the borders and the jarrah trees rustle where the foliage plunges out of sight, disappearing down the steep valley edge.

  ‘It’s so lush out here,’ I say. ‘Why is everything still so… bright?’

  ‘Stars!’ Pete says. He sounds excited and kisses the top of my head. ‘Poor bub,’ he says. ‘You’re gonna need to get to know the bush. You’ve been in the city too long.’

  I

  WE make our first trip into Lakoomba the next day. We spend most of the morning unpacking, surprising ourselves with our own belongings. My mother’s old crockery, Pete’s dad’s old toolkit, stained towels and worn rugs and frayed tablecloths donated by Pete’s extended clan. It’s like unpacking a stranger’s life. Even my clothes look unfamiliar to me, here. Eventually, we get too hungry to continue. It’s so hot; Pete’s skin is shiny with sweat. He smells warm and sour, as though he’s fermenting. ‘Let’s get a beer,’ he says. I dread to think what I look like – I’m in dungarees and my hair’s electrified by something out here, my fringe frizzed-up with static. I glance in the mirror; then I remember where we are and I don’t bother with lipstick.

  The main street in Lakoomba is deserted. Low, white buildings on both sides, blisteringly bright in the sun, and no bugger out on the pavements. Half-way down the main drag the shop-fronts get more dramatic: raised, square facades in creams and browns, with painted shutters. It looks like the American West, after the gold ran out. There are a few trucks parked-up – faded paint-work, rust around the wheel hubs. One that we pass has corroded right through in places, light-blue paint peeling away, the metal-work lifting in a bright copper rash. It looks like it could have been parked-up here for the last century.

  Maybe we’ve come at the wrong time of day. Maybe the locals know to avoid the mid-afternoon heat and the town will spring into life later. Or maybe they’re religious out here and nothing opens on a Sunday. We pass a whole run of closed shops and deserted hotels, and then we approach a bar called O’Malley’s and there’s a thrum of human noise coming from inside. Pete shades his eyes and peers in through a small window. ‘It’s bloody heaving!’ he says. Pete’s practically through the door already. I follow, but it takes a while for my eyes to adjust, so I falter at the threshold. I blink a couple of times and see that Pete’s already made it to the bar ahead of me. There are lots of men clustered around small circular tables. The place is cramped. I see a bloke nudge another and point in my direction. His mate laughs and then widens his eyes, staring at my belly. He sloshes his beer around and licks his parched lips.

  ‘C’mon, darl,’ Pete calls to me from the bar. Darl? He’s never called me that before.

  ‘I’ll have a pint of your best grog, mate,’ Pete says to the barman. ‘And a schooner for the lady.’

  ‘I don’t want a schooner,’ I say, quietly. ‘Get me a protected lemonade.’

  ‘Don’t be a poof,’ he says, loudly. And then more gently, ‘Only joking. Get the schooner and I’ll drink it. This lot don’t look like they’re going to have protected lemons.’ He winks at me. He’s hamming it up, and I don’t think anyone’s going to appreciate the performance.

  ‘Remember you’re driving, Pete,’ I say.

  ‘Could you just try to loosen-off, babe?’ he says. ‘Just for a bit?’ And he smooches me on the cheek.

  I look around the bar. There’s not a single woman in here. It’s all white fellas, thumbing through papers, staring at the large plasma screen fixed to the wall, or staring straight at me. There’s no space at any of the tables, so I try to perch on a bar stool. It’s not an elegant procedure, now I’m so big. One bloke, his red hair flattened to his head with sweat, keeps on staring the whole time as I clamber up.

  Pete hands me the schooner. I suppose I’m meant to pretend to sip it. I put it down on the bar. Pete’s grinning like an idiot, turning this way and that, nodding at these drunk strangers. Pete’s always been good at making friends. He’s an affable bugger, you might say. He’s got his guitar, he likes a drink and a smoke, he’ll chat to anyone. He says I’m closed up, says I’ve gotten even more introverted these last few years. I suppose it’s true. I don’t try to make friends anymore. In fact, most of my friends feel like accidents I should have avoided: new ones used to appear after drunken nights out, like those bruises you can’t remember how you got. You inspect them the next morning, trying to remember something best forgotten, and then hope they’ll fade quickly.

  ‘G’day,’ Pete says to the man who’s leaning over a paper next to him at the bar. ‘You from round here? We’re brand new. Fresh in last night.’ Pete’s used to his openness winning people over in the city, but the man doesn’t look up for a while and it feels like the rules are different out here.

  When the man does respond, he stares past Pete and straight at me. ‘That right?’ he says. ‘Not ferals, are ya?’

  Pete laughs; the man doesn’t. ‘No! We’re fixed up in a place at the edge of town. After a change of scenery, is all,’ Pete says. ‘We’ve come down from the city. Best off out of it with a little fella on the way.’ He thumbs in my direction.

  ‘That right?’ says the man again. He speaks slowly. His skin is creased around his eyes – creased within a normal range, I’d say – and it stretches tight, chestnut-brown, across his cheek bones. ‘Thought you’d get away from it all, I reckon. You’d best not have bothered. Abos. Stacks of ’em out here. Health service can’t cope, social services can’t cope.’ The man picks up his glass, swills it, raises a toast in my general direction. ‘And you thought you’d come put some extra strain on the few doctors we’ve got with that sprog, did ya? Got four myself,’ the man says. ‘I wouldn’t have ’em again, but. Dirty little buggers. Youngest one, if you leave him alone, he’ll eat shit. No word of a lie. Found him face down in his brother’s nappy, didn’t I? Never heard the end of it. No one warns you about that. Little bastards the lot of them.’ He drains his pint and puts the glass down on the bar. ‘Bloody reckless having them now, with everything that’s going on, if you ask me,’ he says.

  ‘Well, mate,’ Pete says, still smiling sweetly. ‘I don’t think anyone did ask you.’ He turns back to me. ‘Bloody bogan,’ he says, loud enough for the man to hear. ‘Ignore him.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I mouth at Pete. ‘We’re bloody bogans, you know.’ We’ve had this fight before, a hundred times. We grew up on St Paul’s, a big public-housing estate in the city. Just because we got away doesn’t mean we’re not trash too.

  ‘Nah, babe,’ Pete says. ‘We’re not like this fucker.’

  The man bangs his empty glass on the bar and jostles Pete on his way past. ‘It’s a small place, this, mate,’ he says, dr
agging his shoulder against Pete’s back. ‘Not like your city. I’ll be seeing you.’

  Pete tries to make light of it. Cracks a few jokes about small communities in the mountains. Says that the bloke’s four children are probably half-sheep. After a while he strikes up a conversation with the two blokes on the other side of us. They talk about the footie for a while and then about home brew. One of them is making beer in his spare room. Pete tells them he plays guitar and they talk for a long time about recording software, and eventually they invite Pete over. One of them scribbles an address on a piece of paper.

  ‘Ta, mate,’ Pete says. ‘Gotta piss.’ He kisses my forehead on his way to the lavs. ‘See,’ he whispers, ‘they’re not all bad.’

  When Pete’s gone, one of the men leans over to me. Paulie, he’s called. He’s young and sharp-featured. His hair is the colour of coney fur, slicked back behind his ears. His fingertips are yellow from nicotine, and some of his teeth are caramelised with booze and god knows what else. He has the same look as some of Pete’s friends from St Paul’s, boys who are plagued by malicious boredom. Cleverness turned to spite. There’s a sneer across his face, and when he talks I know that he’s going to try to provoke me: ‘So, darl,’ he says. ‘Your old man. Where’s he from? Wogs, are ya?’

  I eyeball the two of them. ‘He’s second-generation Greek,’ I say. ‘There a problem here? You want to make something of that?’

  ‘No problem, love, simmer down,’ says Paulie. ‘Just interested. Bloody firecracker we’ve got here.’ His mate murmurs something and they both laugh.

  When Pete gets back he’s pathetically pally with them. He can’t wait to record some tunes with them, he can’t wait to try their toxic home brew, he can’t wait to see their shoddy bloody houses.

  ‘We need to go,’ I say.

  ‘Alright, love,’ he says. ‘Hormones,’ he mouths at them and they titter. ‘Catch yous later.’