The bastard that stole her sounds took everything.
The fact that a friend had come to their house for the party and slipped into her room while she lay passed out on the bed, horrified and scared her: she'd been listening to the player through the headphones – Nick Cave's Fifteen Feet of Snow was the last one she could remember hearing before she herself was fifteen feet under.
Someone she knew; standing there beside her, over her, just helping themselves.
The silence was unbearable, going cold-turkey into free-fall. Music delivered more than any real or imaginary friend could: lifting, energising, cathartic anger; or when the swing had reached it's apex and she needed the gentle caress, tight comforting arms for the ride back down, there was a song for every step. Now she stumbled. Fuck. Fucker.
Sleeping and reading through the day, waiting for flatmate's to disappear and then out to eat toast, Marmite, cheese, whatever was around. The house had become unbearable, but there was nowhere else to go. Who was it? Who knew? Who was pretending? She locked her bedroom door and windows, listened carefully, moved quietly; this wasn't home any more. No one had bothered to see if she was all right, needed anything.
On the third day she rose. It was dark, so in solidarity she dressed in black. The night sky was blissfully huge, crystal clear and once up on the ridge above the city lights, stars swooped to embrace her. It was so nice to be held. She cried like a baby that night; the joy, the relief in just getting the fuck out of there.
Stars; they move at the most beautiful infinitesimal speed she thinks, feels; so unlike the mania of humans. Stars, whales, tuatara and the rising of great mountains, Christ they must laugh. Time crawled up there on that ridge, the thieves below trapped in the freeze frame of sleep. There was no one about; she felt safe.
That first night, that was the beginning of the end. The relief in finding such space, both physical and mental, got her up off her bed night after night. F'sure it wasn't a healthy cycle, she hadn't shut down that much, but home, people, the whole feeling of threat, it was all piling on top of her.
Once an Uncle had up-ended her sleeping bag so that she fell right to the bottom. The terror she’d felt, unable to find the opening, material wrapping tighter tighter as she struggled to escape; it gave her nightmares for years. And the wanker had laughed.
Why do people laugh so? It was like that; she’d tumbled to the bottom again.
__
A dog at the end of her road would always bark no matter how quiet her nightly escape. A man in a rattly old ute would pass her if she made it onto the ridge road by half-eleven, but he didn't acknowledge her as far as she could see. Once some cops slowed down to stare, but thankfully they didn’t stop. And that was it usually as she looped across the hills and down the fire-break to then cut back across the city. By then the softness of the dawn light would sharpen the skyline, and for a short time awakening birds sounded like they were taking on the world. She had never realised so many birds even existed in this city.
This was the moment she walked for; still beauty.
It was such a fraction of time, yet it was huge, engulfing. It was cold and she was buggered, but she'd got her fill, was smiling again. She would feed on this peace, deep sustaining breaths; and as she lay her head onto the pillow tui would be calling, alone in welcoming another day of stealing, of killing. But this was no longer her world; she slept.
__
In a town full of cabbages, dropkicks and total fuckwits, the small gang she had hooked up with were a life raft; they dragged her on board, administered CPR and then a beer. Yeah she had clung tight, needed them; you could say that she'd even used them to some extent, but she had always thought that it was a mutual dependency, that they were all pretty fucked up and needed each other.
Not now though; they just looked at her, went quiet if she entered the room; they just didn’t get it. Words she used, like betrayal or invasion, just drew a blank.
“Oh someone nicked Ruby’s sounds,” they’d say. Yeah, someone.
Someone she knew, had joked and laughed with; had being a friend too. Perhaps they didn’t care; but then maybe they didn’t know how too. So she left them behind; the cheap cider, pills, hangovers and the unspoken. She walked.
__
After a good 50k or so she spies Arthur, bundled up in a thick white dressing-gown and sitting alone at a suburban bus stop, two-fifteen am. The next time he was on the other side walking slowly up towards the bus stop and she was unsure if he saw her smile, a hand lifting briefly in greeting. No matter. After that is was almost a week before she again spied slippered feet poking out from behind an advert. One foot tapped ever so slowly, up down, up down.
“Ah, it’s the hiker, wondered who was coming up at this hour; beautiful night for it isn’t it?”
She stopped.
“You’re welcome to join me,” he continued, indicating space beside him. “I’ve left my teeth soaking back at the home so I can’t bite.”
She did just that; curiosity mixed with subconscious good-girl politeness towards the elderly.
Arthur cocked a thumb and waved it vaguely downhill towards what Ruby assumed was the old folks home. Arthur confirmed this - “they lock us stroppy ones up you know, we're all bonkers.”
Her first laugh in what seemed like eternity. Oops.
He leaned over towards her and winked, tapped his nose. “Escape from Colditz.”
“Um... yeah.” she replied slightly baffled.
“So,” he continued all brisk and business-like. “Where are you off to?”
It was highly unlikely that he could arrest her or cut her benefit, but her reply was automatically cautious. “Um, not really going anywhere actually.” Old habits and all that. “Just sort of round and round. I like the quiet.”
“Well this spot is just grand; makes my heart skip every time, despite the pills.”
Relaxing against formed plastic, she studied Arthur's view: road, scrappy weeds, and blackness. Perhaps he'd left his glasses behind as well? “There’s not much to see on this side.”
“I know." He holds his hands out before him. "But I'm an old bloke and it's the only damn seat around here…”
She laughed loudly; cool, he had good humour.
He lifted an arm up to the night sky. “See the toilet up there?”
Again her laughter; the stars, of course. “Love life not worth a shit? F'sure.”
Arthur was new to the city and not impressed. Amongst the manicured sterility this collection of renegade weeds was as close to the countryside as he could find. “They hauled me back in when I'd just finally got back on my feet after Fat Charlie flattened me. Can't look after yourself they said, already missed two weeks worth of medication and eating sandwiches for breakfast.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“What was in the sandwiches?
“Bacon and tomato.”
“Yum.”
Arthur had long forgiven Fat Charlie for the busted rib and a dislocated shoulder. “Young Bess was obviously up for a waltz; stupid of me really to get between them.”
“Bess is your...?”
“The youngest in the herd – too young to have a calf of her own, but the bugger got into the paddock somehow.”
“Bloody men eh.” She'd had a few bust into her paddock.
Away from the streetlights her eyes have adjusted to the deep night within the shelter. Sitting on her hands, feet scuffing at collected dirt and stones, fleeting looks build a picture: His hair is dead white and sprouts randomly from everywhere - head, brows, cheeks, and chin, pokes out from under pyjamas. When he briefly leaned forward into the milky-yellow light she could see that sunspots were eating at his face and his nose was a right honker, all red and busted up. A ridiculous brown felt hat perched high on his head, shapeless and full of holes.
“The dressing gown's not yours is it?”
His laugh was great, like an old car turning over on a frosty morning. “No, they supply them for the sake of modesty; and the PJ's too. Never had no need for them at home; can't see any neighbours, or the road for that matter. I like a respectable distance, lets you live as you wish. Does pay to announce your arrival nice and loud with some folk though!”
Turning slightly as he laughs, she catches his quick up-down and sighs.
“What happened to your hair?”
“Thanks, it's intentional.”
“Oh.”
(To be continued...)
