Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (53 page)

“Am I right, young man?”

Stan was momentarily torn. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, let me spell it out.” The old man glanced at his watch. “You’re alone. You’re nervous. You’re here at the right time and the right place. And you’re
still
here, despite being accosted by two strange men in the bushes. All you need is the hardware. If you had that, I’d be one hundred percent certain of your intentions.”

Stan’s hand obeyed its own will and produced from his pocket the pair of plastic opera glasses he’d bought for five dollars at Cheap as Chips that afternoon.

“Ah.” Reg nodded and glanced at Tony, whose face unexpectedly broke into a white-toothed grin. Tony produced from his shorts a complicated piece of equipment as big as a small dog, the eyepieces of which he thrust into Stan’s face. Stan caught a green-tinged glimpse of Reg’s midriff glowing within.

“The Scope-O-Tronic Night-Sight 4000X,” pronounced the old man.

“XG,” Tony corrected.

“Me, I prefer something a little more stylish.” Reg reached into a pocket and showed Stan a collapsible brass cylinder with glass lenses at either end.

“Shhhhh!” came a call from nearby. “Someone’s coming!”

Tony vanished back behind his tree. Reg dragged Stan into the bush.

Footsteps crunched towards them, accompanied by a faint, regular panting. Stan held his breath and huddled down behind the leaves with Reg silent at his side. Bare seconds later, a man walking a Doberman on a leash passed through the park. His eyes glinted in the streetlight, but he didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t stop, anyway. Stan watched his departing back with breath still held, feeling like a common criminal.

Then the man was gone. Tony stepped out from behind his tree. His cigarette butt flicked in the general direction of the departing figure. “Loser.”

Stan rose shakily to his feet.

“You don’t look so flash, son,” said Reg. “Drink?”

The old man pressed a small flask into Stan’s hand. Stan tipped it up automatically and downed a mouthful of gin. Only then did he remember to breathe.

“This is insane.”

“Actually,” Reg said, “it’s probably the sanest thing you’ve ever done. You’ve taken a step forward, lad. You’ve taken charge of your life. If you hadn’t done this, where do you think you’d be in a month’s time? Like that turd-scooper we just saw, pretending to walk a dog? Driving around with your stereo booming? Panty-snatching? Everyone needs to let off a little steam every now and again, or else the boiler blows. We know where you’re coming from. Do
we
look crazy?”

“Fuck no,” said Tony, emphasising the words with the bright end of another fag.

Before Stan could reply, a car turned into the street.

“Will you keep it
down
back there?” hissed the same voice that had warned of the dog-walker. A silhouette of a man’s head appeared briefly in the window of a parked car, then vanished back into the shadows.

Reg waved and tugged Stan back down.

“You can stay here with me,” the old man whispered, “but only for tonight. This is my spot, you see. You’ll have to find another of your own.”

“But—”

Stan got no further. Headlights lit up the end of the street, blinding his night-adjusted eyes, then swung aside as a shiny purple hatchback pulled into the drive of the front unit across the street. With one final rev, the engine died and the door opened.

And there she was. A vision in lycra toting a bag over one shoulder and looking for her front door key among what sounded like hundreds.

“Evening, Sharon,” breathed the old man.

“That’s her name?” Stan exhaled back, eyes fixed on her back. Part of him knew he would’ve liked her name, no matter what it turned out to be.

“That’s just what I call her. I don’t check her mail or anything. Only sickos do that.”

The screen door opened with a clatter and Sharon disappeared inside. A moment later, the lights came on, visible around the edges of the blinds.

“You do this often?” Stan asked. He had to ask the question.

Reg replied without taking his eye off the brass telescope’s eyepiece. “We all do. Tony has a wife, but she goes to bed early. Rob comes after work. Steve stops by on his evening patrol; he’s a security guard. Dave—”

A rustle went up as Sharon flipped apart the blinds in the front room of her unit. Through that window Stan could see the central hallway leading to the main bedroom and bathroom—almost as though it had been designed that way. He raised the opera glasses; the view was only slightly better, but he was grateful for any improvement at all. Sharon stood in the window for a second, shaking out her hair. The bedroom door behind her was ajar; through it, he could see half a bed, a side table and a lamp. When she turned away from the window, she disappeared into the bathroom.

The two men behind the bush gripped their optical devices and sighed spookily similar sighs.

“She’s one in a million, isn’t she?”

Stan nodded. “How long have you been coming here?” he managed.

“A month or so. That’s when Sharon moved in. Before then there was Alice in Grover Street. When Alice bought new blinds we had to move on, and we’ll do it again if Sharon does likewise, or moves in with her boyfriend. We always find somewhere new to meet. Disperse and regroup. That’s life.”

“Sharon has a boyfriend?” Stan was stuck on that point, although the thought of asking her out had never seriously crossed his mind: in fantasies he was a different person, someone
she
would want, not the other way around, not quiet little Stan with his over-sized head and occasional stammer.

“Of course she has.” Reg seemed philosophical. “Sporty type. Plays football, I think.”

“Loser,”
hissed Tony from the tree behind them.

“You think everyone’s a loser, Tony,” Reg called back, sotto voce.

“They
are
losers.”

“What’s she doing in there?” Stan was getting restless, and his opera glasses were fogging up.

Just then, Sharon came back into view wearing nothing but a towel. Her hair was shining, damp.

“Ah, yes.” Reg’s telescope was unwavering.

She walked to the bedroom, rummaged around in a cupboard half out of sight, threw something on the bed, then walked back through the hallway and into the bathroom.

Stan’s hands were cramping on the opera glasses, he was holding them so tight.

“Keep going,” Reg muttered.

Sharon emerged from the bathroom with a brush and sat on the end of the bed, tugging vigorously at the knots in her hair. Her cheeks were visibly flushed.

There was no fan in there, Stan noted. It had to be hot. It just
had
to be. Boiling, in fact. Unbearable.

“Almost there,” Reg agreed.

She stood up, scratched her left buttock, then slipped out of the towel.

“Paydirt!”

Stan felt dizzy. Around him rose a muttering of excitement, uncannily like a dawn chorus, as her viewers were rewarded for their patient, unrequited adoration. She walked unselfconsciously across the lounge and sat on the couch, where she worried at her toenails and picked at a spot on her stomach. She flipped idly through a magazine, then fanned herself with it while she fiddled with the remote control of her TV. Bored by what she found, she got up to make a phone call. She paced while she talked into the handset.

Stan thought he might faint. He felt Reg’s hand clutch his shoulder.

“If you’re thinking about jerking off,” the old man whispered, “forget about it. We leave that sort of stuff to the Rugby Street mob.”

Stan shook his head. Sexual gratification was the last thing on his mind. It didn’t even matter whether she was attractive or not. Sharon was simply so new and delightful that he wanted to absorb every moment of her, while he could. He could have stared at her for hours. At her reality.

She hung up the phone a minute or two later, and got up to close the blind. The climactic glimpse of her face brought tears to his eyes.

Then she was gone.

The park erupted. Twenty or thirty men emerged from view to gather in the shadows and talk about what they had seen. In the ensuing mess of wise-cracks, back-slaps and hand-shakes, Stan kept carefully to one side, basking in the aftermath of the event. He felt as though all the tension had drained out of him and left only a warm glow in his stomach.

Relieved at a night not wasted, one by one the men took their leave, heading back to their homes, partners, friends, pets. Reg knew most of them by name, and introduced Stan to a couple. Barry was a bricklayer; Alan sold insurance. Stan gave them his name in return. It seemed the right thing to do.

Harry knew of a girl on Gormley Road that he had heard was worth checking out. He and Alan arranged to survey the area and report to the group later in the week. “Variety is the spice of life,” he pronounced cheerily while waving goodbye.

Within moments only the three of them were left. Reg took Stan by the arm and indicated a dark corner of the park, away from his bush.

“There’s a nice spot over there, Stan, by the bin. It used to be Sam’s, but he’s been quiet of late. If you want it, it’s yours.”

Then it was Tony’s turn. Stan’s hand was enfolded in an enthusiastic handclasp and shaken vigorously. “You’re all right, Stan. See you Wednesday.”

The two men looked around and headed off in separate directions. Stan was left alone in the park, feeling dazed and ... something else.

See you Wednesday
... ?

He headed home with a spring in his step.

Yes he thought. They probably would.

<>

~ * ~

WHITE CHRISTMAS

The view was exactly as he remembered it, except for the snow. Coming around the final bend in the winding road, with the bare shoulder of the mountain on his right and a yawning gulf on his left, Stewart slowed as the shack finally came into sight. The tiny building was crowded by half-hearted scrub, through which a narrow driveway led to a dark veranda. He swung the Toyota as close to the front door as he could, and killed the engine.

The shack was uninhabited; that was obvious even from the outside, and expected. Owned by Jack and Debbie Barnard, property developers from Sydney, it stood empty for all but six weeks of every year when it served as a private retreat. With no phone, fax or modem, television, radio or satellite dish, its isolation was complete. The nearest town, Blinman, was a half-hour drive back down the hill—too far to be a temptation, but near enough for emergencies.

On the odd occasion, it was rented out to others with similar needs. The shack was, as the owners liked to say, perfect for philosophers, writers, and honeymooners.

Stewart Danby didn’t smile at the last. He had come alone, this time. Jacqui was back in Adelaide ... in what was
left
of Adelaide, rather ... and he was trying not to think about that.

Leaning forward over the steering-wheel, fatigue making his hands shake, he studied the ground around the Toyota. The sun was setting, filling the Flinders Ranges with gold and blood, deepening slowly to royal purple. Drifts of snow lay like scraps of cloth in the lee of the building and in the shallow troughs of the rising hillside, but otherwise the area seemed clear. He took a deep breath and opened the car door, leaving the keys in the ignition.

The shack’s single door was locked, but he managed to prise open a loose rear window. The air inside was stuffy and hot; the coolness of the mid-summer twilight had yet to penetrate the thick stone walls. Opening the front door from within, he went back outside to unload the car.

Three boxes of canned food he had stolen from a supermarket were followed by: a sleeping-bag; a jerry can of kerosene and two bottles of butane gas; a set of scuba gear with half a dozen extra bottles, also stolen; a box of gaffer tape; half a carton of cigarettes; coffee, sugar and powdered milk; and five bottles of scotch, one of which was already open.

By the time the Toyota was empty, the sun had set. The air of the hills stank of rotten eggs, an odour he had gradually become used to during the drive. After his exposure to the relatively untainted air inside the shack, however, it caught anew in the back of his throat. He drank from the open bottle of scotch, wincing; the fire of the spirit wasn’t sufficient to overpower the stench, but it helped.

He stood for a moment under the pale, starry bowl, head tipped back, the scotch in one hand, a cigarette in the other. The deep valley below was in darkness. Above the opposite hills, the comet was rising. The feather of glowing smoke smudged the south-western sky like a fingerprint on a masterpiece.

He shivered, although it wasn’t cold, and lowered his eyes.

Snow, sparkling faintly in the comet-light, had already settled upon the pitted roof and bonnet of the car. Dropping the gearstick into neutral and disengaging the handbrake, he gave the bumper-bar a push with his foot and stepped clear. The car rolled backwards down the drive, across the winding road that had brought him to the shack, then disappeared suddenly over the lip of the chasm. A series of tinkling smashes accompanied its descent into darkness, followed by silence as thick as bedrock. There was no explosion.