No Shelter

 

By Nathan Hobby

 

 

      They’d wandered Fremantle for idle hours and now, by default, they found themselves on some rocks next to the dirty little port beach.  Kids were playing in the sand against the blustering wind;  McDonald’s loomed surreally above them. 

      James longed for home.  To be home.  He was so far from home.   He felt like he had been wandering for years and felt it with the frustration of knowing it was silly melodrama. 

      ‘Sit here?’ Claire asked him.

      ‘Okay,’ he replied.

      Home between her knees? he wondered as he sat there tensely.  A need burning through his eighteen year old body, a need to melt into her flesh.  For a moment her hand tossed idly through his hair and he felt on the edge of bursting.  He turned and kissed her, violently finding her familiar lips but she pulled away.

        He looked around, self-conscious.  Some people were swimming nearby and a tourist was just behind them at the edge of the rocks.   He felt all their eyes burning into him.  Always on display in the city, he thought.  Always. 

      Nothing was said about it.  They both stared into the water.  It looked murky and cool, which was better than the thick hot air. 

      ‘Want to go swimming?’ he asked, needing to shed the frustration.

      ‘Okay,’ she said.

      ‘Do you have your bathers on?’

      ‘No.’

      He sighed with irritation at femineity and changerooms. 

      ‘So are we going?’ she asked, not moving.

      He stretched out on the hard sharp rock and rested his head on her legs.  ‘Nuh.’

      He didn’t want to do anything.   The tension had turned to irritation, a disconnected hunger.   He shifted further from her.  He felt he was going to explode if he didn’t do something but he didn’t want to move.  He thought about tomorrow and felt angry.  Tomorrow was Monday and he would get up early for a lecture.  The lecture would be boring.  He thought of thirty years time and felt angrier. 

      Where was home?  Not in the past, not in the present, not in the future.  Trapped in three tenses, three futilities...

      ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘Why are you moving away?’

      ‘It’s uncomfortable.  Do you want to go?’

      ‘Okay.  Where to?’ she asked. 

      ‘Let’s get our bikes and ride.  I want to get out of here.’

      ‘I hate McDonald’s,’ he said as they passed it.  ‘I hate it so much.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because I always go there, even though it’s crap.  It’s wrecking our culture and health and I’m so inertialess I just keep on going back.  “One strawberry shake and a McPoo burger, please.”  Why the hell do they call it a shake?  What happened to the milk!  It’s a milkshake, not a shake.  And they’re not fries, they’re french fries or they’re chips.’

      He realised he was preaching as he came to the awkward moment that comes after a sermon.

      ‘So why don’t you stop going there?’

      ‘Because I don’t want to.  I don’t want to stop.  Because I hate myself.’

      ‘I don’t hate you.  So why should you hate yourself?’

      ‘Just exaggerating.  You know what?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘I don’t hate you either.’

      It came out so scripted, smug and he hated it for that.  But she smiled and put her arm around his waist and he thought:  I love you, but could not say it.  Layers of frustration stopped him. 

      The city was convict limestone interspersed with plastic that spoke of mediocrity spanning centuries.  They were silent, distant, and it made the irritation worse.  And then surreally: a castle in a sidestreet.  A castle with a for sale sign.  They stopped and looked.  It was so incongruous, fairy tale.  He wanted to go inside.

      ‘Do you want to live here when we’re older?’ she asked.

      He saw glimpses of huge hallways through groundlevel arched windows and he nodded.  ‘Yeah.  Yeah I would.’

      ‘I thought you wanted to move back to the country.’

      ‘That was last week.  I don’t know what I want.  I want both.  Let’s buy it, hey?’

      ‘One day,’ she replied, slightly dismissive but instead it sounded to him that she was taking it a lot more seriously than him, and somehow he could resent her for that.  To lack his cynicism, to take his stupidity seriously was contemptible in his eyes. 

      He watched her as she peered down the alley next to it and she was a stranger.  The distance... the layers...

      ‘Look!’ she called, ‘It’s just a facade.’

      He came over to look and saw she was right.  The castle bit was just the front.  The side wall was made of old red brick in warehouse style.  He regarded it with disgust for a moment and then took her hand and they walked on.

      He was thirsty.  People shops and cars crowded in on all sides and he hated them all.  I’d delude myself if I ever lived there, he thought,  because the castle would be just another suburbia.  I would wake up each morning and tell myself I lived in a magical fairy tale castle when in fact I lived in an ugly red brick warehouse with a pretentious facade. 

      Claire looked at him and smiled, sensing his irritation.  I’m being such a bastard, he thought, and he hated himself for it but could do nothing.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, again.

      ‘I’m just in a bad mood.  Sorry.  I’m sorry.  You thirsty?  Do you want to get a drink?’

      ‘All right,’ she said.  Their hands were intertwined sticky flesh.   They bought drinks at a newsagent and unlocked their bikes from outside the town hall.

      ‘Where we riding to?’ she asked.

      ‘Nowhere,’ he shrugged, ‘Along the river.  It’s no metanarrative.’

      ‘What’s that?’ she asked, as they set off.

      He felt sermon mode coming on.  ‘A purpose, a destination.  Trying to put a story into everything.’  A sudden thought occurred to him: I preach to put her down, don’t I?  I preach to elevate myself.  ‘But we’re postmodern now.  We don’t have metanarratives.  We just are,’ he smiled at his imagined sophistication and raised his voice into the wind, ‘I was reading this book last week... short stories are all about the destination, the end, everything’s just building up to that.  But novels... you have to enjoy the journey... know what I mean?  Sorry, I’m just delirious... rambling so much.’

      ‘No you’re not,’ she said, and he thought, don’t say that, just for once tell me I bore you.  Just for once make me inferior and force me to worship you.  And he laughed inside because he was so twisted.

      All this crap I learn at uni, he thought.  Social science is in a crisis.  Literature in a crisis.  University is in crisis because it doesn’t know anything any more...

      He broke off the spiralling thoughts because sex was a lot easier and a lot more appealing.

      ‘I want to kiss you,’ he suddenly blurted out. 

      ‘Yeah?’ she said breathless female, ‘We’ll have to do something about that.’

       He had a  perpetual dirty ache in his loins that made him say things like that.  He wanted sex, he wanted it more than anything.

      It seemed like hours had disappeared.  The sky was darkening.  He couldn’t see the sun.  They were on a cycle path in between the river and a huge bank. 

      ‘What’s up there?’ he asked.  He didn’t want to ride, he didn’t want to do anything but kiss.

      ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘Why don’t we find out?’

      He liked that idea.  He needed to hold her and feel her warmth.  Home in her embrace.  Or a little bit of home.  A little bit of home in there.   They scrambled up the bank with their bikes.  It seemed to take hours.   Each second weighed so heavily on him.

      They got to the top and found themselves in a park.  Kids were playing football in the darkening.  It was so open, visible and there would be no furtive scam.

      ‘We can’t do anything,’ he said.

      ‘I know,’ she replied.  ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘Home,  I guess,’ he said, ‘Why don’t you come back to my place for a while?  Then you can go to Freo and take your bike back on the train.’

      ‘Okay.’

      They rode on in new darkness through suburbs.  An empty black.  James thought of the bush and wished he was in it.  But then he thought of the bush at night, its hostility, desolateness and he knew he didn’t want that.  He wanted his home on the hill on a Sunday night where the television would be on and many lights would be burning and he would be bored, not scared, and frustrated but not this frustration. 

      He suddenly remembered he was meant to be interested, meant to be asking about things.   It seemed an effort and he wanted to ride in silence.   He considered that with contempt.  I love myself, he thought, and sometimes that’s what I hate about myself. 

      ‘How’s your brother?’ he forced out of himself, ‘You getting on better with him?’

      He didn’t listen as she answered.  They were riding along a bumpy footpath and the street was poorly lit.  He felt so lost. 

      ‘Yeah?’ he finally said, ‘That’s good.’

      They came out onto the first of the highways in a blaze of seedy orange light and people encased in cars.  He suddenly felt a terror.  He needed somewhere to be.  Not out in the open black like this.  Just a room, a room with a light and a door.  Somewhere to kiss.  Somewhere warm to kiss. 

      ‘I think there should be somewhere to stop soon,’ he said, the irritation immense. 

      They came to an oval by the side of the road, its edges obscured in darkness. 

      ‘Do you want to go there?’ he asked.

      ‘Okay,’ she said. 

      They wheeled their bikes in and sat on a park bench blacked in shadow.   Without preliminaries, they began kissing.  It was a desperate, unsatisfying kissing, his tongue forcing itself into her mouth, taking on all his sexual urgency and failing terribly, lust exploding through his body.  

      ‘I want you,’ he said, ‘I want you so bad.’

      ‘I want you too,’ she whispered. 

      His hand slid under her shirt and he felt the outline of her bra, the strange construction of it.  He shivered, as if he was on the edge of a chasm and his touch went limp.

      ‘Here,’ she said, ‘let me help you.’

      She reached back and undid the clasp of her bra.  It fell away to reveal her back bare to his touch. 

      ‘Oh God,’ he whispered.

      For a moment longer he teetered on the brink of the unfathomable chasm and then he suddenly jumped into it, closing his mind to all but the present and beginning to lift her red shirt away from her when they heard voices behind them and twisted violently away from each other and she swore as she crouched instinctively to the ground and he stood up sheepishly.  It was two people walking past on the footpath and James felt their eyes burning into him, certain they could see all.

      Lust disappeared instantly and a coldness settled over his loins.  The scene changed.  For the first time he saw people in all the cars whizzing past on the road; the lights he had vaguely noted on the other side of the oval... they were clubrooms, lit up, with the shapes of people sitting on the balcony.  He was naked in the middle of a massive stage and he burned in shame.

      ‘Quick,’ he said, ‘let’s get out of here.’

      They rode their bikes away in a deeper silence.  He felt the double agony of denial and guilt.   He had been deprived of satisfaction but he bore the guilt of knowing he had been prepared to do the wrong thing.  It seemed so unfair; to sin and yet not have the pleasure of that sin. 

      They came to the second of the highways like some framing device, stopping there in the same seedy orange glare of the streetlights. 

      ‘You know what?’ she said, looking to her watch, ‘I don’t have time to go back with you any more.  I’ve got to get to the train station.’

      ‘Oh,’ he said sullenly, knowing he shouldn’t be angry and unprepared to admit it.  ‘I guess I’ll see you later, then.’

      ‘Yeah.  I’ll call you tomorrow.’

      It was meant to an ironic, unthinkably truncated end to their day but instead she had replied to it in turn and he felt even colder.

      ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Are you going to be all right?  Riding back alone?’

      ‘Are you?’

      ‘Course.  I’m always all right.  I’m a survivor.’

      ‘Thanks for a great day.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘I love you,’ she said.

      ‘Love you too.’

      She pushed off, glancing back once.  He watched her disappear and felt totally, unbearably alone.  She had been his last shelter and she was gone.   He stood on the violent intersection kilometres from home (home?) and for some reason looked down to his tyre.  A cluster of double gees protruded and it was nearly flat. 

      He called lamely after her, dropping the bike and running across the first lane to the island but she was too far away and what could she do anyway?  He returned to his bike and started crying.  It was so cold.  There was no shelter, no shelter anywhere.

      On the far side of the highway a phone box stood in the glare of lights, a glass house.  He wheeled his bike across the road, dodging cars and leant it up against the side of the phone box.  He stood inside thinking who he could call.  His Uncle Ray... Samuel back at the student village... that was it.  That was all the phone numbers he knew.  At the mercy of a distant relative or a rarely seen flatmate, standing in a phone booth that people could see in from all sides... a line from a Whitlams song looping in his head: I’m drowning in the city with no saviour in sight... he began to cry again as he punched in Uncle Ray’s number.