The Colour of the Night Read online

  He took a deep breath and opened the door just a few centimetres. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘Gone out.’

  ‘She’s gone to Sydney with my dad. They fancy each other.’

  Elton kept the wedge of daylight to a minimum which controlled also, the onslaught of the girl’s remarks. Reluctantly, he took the security chain off the door and let her in. She did a scan of the interior.

  ‘You better get one thing straight, Elton. I don’t care what your mother does for a living. In fact I quite like it. I might try it myself one day. And I don’t care less what my father does.’

  ‘I know you think she’s a hooker but she’s not. She’s a high-paid companion, that’s all.’

  ‘You got somethin’ against sex? Everybody does it, Elton. Even your mum.’

  ‘Is that what you came here to tell me?’

  Jess shrugged. ‘I dunno.’ She looked around. ‘What d’you do in here all day? Can I see your room?’

  ‘No. It’s just random computers. You wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Got any speed?’

  ‘I don’t do drugs.’ Elton stood behind the couch, his fingers restless on the backrest. Jess took a few casual steps across the carpet, inspecting things as she went.

  ‘Got any cash you could give me?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For survival, Eltone. So I don’t starve; so I don’t commit suicide.’

  ‘What do I get for it?’

  Jess turned quickly, fixing him with her graphically outlined eyes.

  ‘Oh I get it. You want to see if I really would take money for sex.’

  ‘No I don’t. I just wondered what you think is a fair swap for some cash. What do you have that you could give me?’

  Jess scrutinised his neat appearance.

  ‘Are you gay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you bi?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You could be bi. Lots of peeps are. You don’t have to be one or the other. I’m probably bi. Maybe. I don’t care, I don’t want to decide either/or. Why do we have to be just the one thing?’

  Elton wasn’t sure what to say. It was true, sometimes the internet would throw up naked men as well as women and he found the appearance of both stimulating – the male body and male organ were curiously arousing – or was it just arousing his curiosity? Who could tell? He didn’t find either gender particularly persuasive. He noticed that Jess was still watching him.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘You get some money – about a hundred dollars – and come over to my place in about twenty minutes, okay?’

  She let herself out. Elton remained standing, tapping the back of the couch. Seconds later, he went upstairs to his mother’s room. From under the bottom drawer of her dresser he pulled out a metal box and opened it to expose wads of fifties and hundreds. He’d once heard his mother say on the phone, Why give it to the taxman, I’ve paid taxes all my life. Perhaps so, he thought, and now she sometimes worked for cash, though she was not aware that he knew of the biscuit-tin hoard. He took two fifties, before extracting a third.

  He left the house and walked along to Jess’s door. But his confidence waned as a disturbing idea raised its cynical head; was the girl setting him up? Elton aimed his finger towards the button and with it poised centimetres from the bell, the door abruptly opened. Jess had changed into a cotton skirt and he tried not to look at the bumps under her T-shirt. Without a word she headed for the stairs and Elton followed. She hummed a tune as they went up and the young man was drawn to the hairlessness of her bare legs. She went into her room, sat on the bed and turned her attention to the repaired PC.

  ‘What do you know about me? From the computer?’

  Elton tried to decide which fact to reveal. ‘I know you like Atreyu.’

  ‘Bet you don’t know how they got their name? It’s the name of the little kid in that old movie, The Neverending Story.’

  Elton accepted the detail with no particular interest. But he was pleased to have discovered that she liked that hardcore metal band. It was obvious really; Atreyu was preoccupied with the bleak nature of modern existence. They wrote songs about self-loathing and self-doubt and he’d found a quote by their lead singer on her computer: I’m not singing about dark things to promote them, I’m singing about them so I don’t go insane.

  ‘I’ve got their best album,’ he said, proudly. ‘Lead Sails Paper Anchor, a copy of the original 2007 cover, before they re-released it.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll bring it over some time.’

  His response surprised Jess. Was he attempting to befriend her? Seemed unlikely. She glanced at Elton and noted that the prolonged silence seemed to disturb him. ‘Which track do you like the best?’ he asked.

  ‘“Slow Burn”,’ she said instinctively. ‘Wicked lyrics: Pain is the only thing I feel, scars are all I see.’ A meditative glaze overtook her, but a moment later, she refocused.

  ‘You got the cash?’

  Elton pulled out two fifties and held them by a corner. The notes hung limply and when he saw that Jess wasn’t going to respond he placed them on the computer keyboard. Jess swung her legs.

  ‘This is funny, don’t you reckon?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bet that’s not your money. Bet it came from your mum. That means my dad pays your mum for sex and now you give that money back to me … for sex.’

  Jess sat on her hands and continued her leg-swinging while Elton did his best to look comfortable, feigning interest in his iPhone which lay annoyingly mute nearby.

  ‘What do I have to do?’ he asked, as casually as he could.

  ‘Take your gear off.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I haven’t got any gear on.’ She parted her legs slightly.

  ‘What about the dress?’

  It took several minutes before they had successfully negotiated the removal of a few items of clothing, Elton folding his pants and placing them on a chair. He turned to see Jess lying naked on the bed, thin and white, knees up, her arms across her stomach. But his attention was drawn elsewhere: across her upper torso several prominent ridges of puckered skin glared at him, easily outrivalling her small breasts.

  ‘What … what are those?’

  ‘Come and lie down, Elton,’ she said. He paused momentarily, and then arranged his pale body beside hers. It all seemed so strange: lying naked on a discoloured bedspread with a real person almost touching him. And evidence of some past calamity.

  ‘So what are they?’ he asked again.

  ‘Ritual scars. I belong to a secret order of sorcerers. You can join if you like, but I have to cut you.’

  Elton frowned and listened to a phone ringing downstairs. Jess sighed. ‘You ever done this before, Elton?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sex.’

  ‘I dunno. What about you?’

  ‘Course! You can’t be a woman of eighteen without being shagged. Unless you live in an ivory tower like you do. Tell you what, why don’t you kiss me?’

  Elton turned on his side and tentatively rested his hand on her ribcage. It surprised him to feel bone beneath skin and the sensation of another living body; someone else’s flesh. He noted the fine hairs on her arms. He brought his mouth nearer and immediately sensed her breath: he could hear it and smell it, so unlike his own. He put his lips on hers, she opened her mouth and he was alarmed to taste her saliva and feel the hard ball of her tongue-stud, yet he dared not draw away. He touched her breast – it was cold. Was that normal? He pressed it slightly and felt it slide on her torso. He reached down across her stomach and turned his head to observe the trace of his own hand. Her skin was not uniform: it was pale and mottled and her navel irregular. He saw a forest down there and beneath his fingers he found a substantial bush of brownish hair as robust as his own.

  ‘You look
startled, Ello.’

  ‘No, I’m just not really used to –’

  ‘Will you lend me the Atreyu CD?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, but he hardly heard her: his hands and eyes were otherwise engaged, tracing unfamiliar territory – terra incognita. She parted her legs and he was surprised to find his penis rising. Unexpectedly, Jess took hold of it and he recoiled involuntarily. He tried to move closer, somehow. It was all so awkward: their bodies bumped, knees and elbows got in the way, an arm was crushed, hands and fingers moved clumsily. Where was the smooth and seamless bonking so evident in good movies?

  Finally, when he was in position, Jess said, ‘Do you have a rubber with you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Protection, so you don’t give me any diseases.’

  ‘I don’t have any diseases.’

  ‘Alright … But don’t come inside me, okay?’

  In this way, Elton Bright had his first sexual encounter, paid for by the girl’s own father. And afterwards, he rolled onto his back, gasping like a trout on dry land, and felt a little mystified – yet somewhat experienced. Looked at obliquely, he was now in the same domain as his mother, an inner circle he quite enjoyed. What did she think when such acts were performed? What did both his parents feel the night he was conceived? Whatever it was, it had been trashed like a faulty computer program; a piece of corrupted software. At least both he and his mother now lived with a decent firewall.

  He certainly didn’t need any more romance in his life. Known only to a few online friends, Elton was already deeply in love. Aela the Huntress was a Nord living at a farm outside Whiterun and when Elton discovered she was immortal, he’d made plans for a wedding. From vast experience he knew not to marry a mortal; it would limit his powers. One day when none of Aela’s quests were active, he’d tried to kill her. She’d fallen to one knee and then rose again: definitely marriageable. She had flaming red hair and a piercing gaze, not unlike the girl lying beside him now. But Aela was invincible.

  Jess, for some reason, was thinking about her parents and their devotion to art, a single-minded engagement that eclipsed everything else.

  ‘Elton, do you like art?’

  The boy surfaced; he’d been venturing far out into the hostile and snowy mountains of Stonetalon.

  ‘What sort of art?’

  ‘Painting, sculpture, installation, video art …’

  ‘I like video.’ He stared blankly at a billowing watermark staining the ceiling.

  ‘What about painting?’

  ‘Painting? Nah; that’s old-world. Stuck in time; static. Nobody’s interested in stuff that doesn’t move. If it doesn’t move it’s not … it’s not … relevant.’

  Not relevant. What was relevant? Jess found herself invoking her childhood, a time before the confusion, before the heaviness. There was a doll’s head she’d once been devoted to – no body, just a head. As an eight-year-old she’d loved that head and nurtured it, pressing bread and mashed potato into its hard little mouth and carrying it everywhere, nestled in a soft bunny-rug. When James was near he’d flick the head onto the wooden floor and she’d scramble to retrieve it, her bald but cherished companion more vital to her sense of self than any family member. For a long, vital portion of her tender years she’d nursed her disembodied charge, talking to it about life and all the other important things. What were they?

  And then there were the tears. As a child she’d cried and cried, and when no more tears came, she’d gone to the bathroom, turned the tap and dabbed on a few more. She’d faked it. All she’d wanted was for her parents to notice her and say something. No, that wasn’t it, she had no need of more words, perhaps she’d just wanted them to stay quiet and hold her close for a very long time. Too late now; time had taught her never to expect the things you want the most.

  She watched Elton pull on his clothes and smooth them neatly before beginning his retreat. ‘See you,’ he said. He hesitated at the door, his knuckles tapping the architrave. ‘Thanks.’

  Jess lay still for an hour until Elton’s sperm hardened in her pubic hair. Eventually all thoughts left her. With eyes open she saw nothing, felt nothing, and entered a torpid state approaching that of a Buddhist’s trance where the defining emotions of all sentient creatures – fear and uncertainty – are temporarily suspended. Lying that way, it was not impossible to imagine a frictionless world. Then she turned her head and saw the two fifties lying across the computer keyboard. Her heart lifted; she might buy another tattoo, or perhaps a little bag of crystal meth.

  IT WAS JUST an ordinary shoebox, Hush Puppies printed on one end, Brown – 7½, but in it Arman kept his life. Everything he owned of the old country was there: his passport, letters from home, photos, a lock of his mother’s hair, a picture of the prophet Muhammad, a calligraphic rendering of the prophet’s name and a book of Sharia law. It was the last of these that, one afternoon, he came home to find in Benton’s hands. The Englishman was standing with his back turned and all the other items were scattered on Arman’s bed.

  ‘What’re you doing!’

  Benton was visibly startled. ‘Arman! Sorry, old chap. I was looking for … I needed a … Sorry, Arman,’ he breathed, with added emphasis. ‘I heard a report on the radio and … You can’t be too careful, you know – but I meant no harm, you can be sure of that. Apologies, old chap,’ he muttered again. His arms fell to his sides and he dropped the book on the bed. Arman observed that the long axis of Benton’s body tilted markedly and that his thigh against the bed was steadying him. ‘I’ll leave you to it then, eh?’ he said, finally.

  Benton strode towards the door and Arman caught the distinct smell of spirits attending him like an aura. The whole business pained Arman – on so many levels he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He stood staring at the array on his bed; why was his housemate prying; what gave him the right to disturb his precious and sacred things? Why had he been in there at all – with his shoes on! He followed Benton along to the man’s own room and pushed open the door.

  ‘Why were you in my resting room? What’re you doing in there?’

  Benton was sitting on his bed, his shoulders slumped, his large hands resting in his lap. He clearly hadn’t shaved and a pronounced golden bristle covered his pock-marked jaw. In different circumstances Arman would approve – a beard brought him closer to the Law. Another time he might even have regarded it as quite pleasing; many of the young he transported in the cab sported a similar look. But sitting there in a stained long-sleeved shirt, his deadened eyes staring back, Arman could find nothing of the Ben he liked.

  ‘What you were doing in my room?’ he repeated, more forcefully.

  Benton raised his spotty face. ‘Nothing. Just making sure, that’s all. Let’s face it, Arman, I don’t know anything about you. Do you know anything about me? Who knows anything about anyone? Do you follow? Do you understand what I’m driving at?’

  ‘You hear the report on the radio, did you?’ Arman suggested.

  ‘What report?’

  ‘The government man telling people to watch out for terrorists.’

  ‘Well, let’s face it, old chap, we all need to be alert; all of us. Have you any idea how many suspected insurgents there are in this country?’ Benton had trouble with suspected insurgents and as his words slurred, Arman winced. ‘The Federal Police have just arrested twenty-three Australians. Twenty-three. Don’t take offence, Arman, but anyone of us could be a facilitator.’ He slurred his words again.

  Even in the poor light, the whites of Arman’s eyes showed prominently.

  ‘Oh don’t look at me like that, old boy. I said I’m sorry. Of course you’re not an insurgent, I never thought you were.’ He stood up shakily and put out his arms. ‘Listen, old pal; give me a hug, will you? Bygones be bygones, eh? What do you say?’ He inclined his head and smiled felicitously.

  Arman stood his ground. ‘How dare you accuse me of … of terrorism. How dare you touch my things!’

  Benton let his arms fall and his f
ace dropped, the colour rising. ‘Listen, Arman, I think there are a few things we need to get straight. You’re from Afghanistan, a Muslim country. You’re a stranger here; no one knows about your people, your culture, your religion … Of course you’re going to attract attention. Look at you; you stand out. I’m not accusing you of anything, not for a minute, but every single terrorist organisation on the planet is of Islamic origin.’

  Arman smouldered.

  ‘Oh, stuff it, Arman. Just get the hell out. Go on, just get the fuck out, will you.’ Benton stepped back and slumped onto his bed again.

  Suppressing his desire to take out the man’s eyes, Arman returned to his own room. Across the way, he heard Benton let out a roar, a cry of rage, at what, at whom, Arman did not know or care. He replaced his items tenderly and for a moment held the cracked wedding photo of his parents. His father would be sixty-eight now if he hadn’t died; if he hadn’t been mistaken for a Taliban militant in a coalition raid. Arman studied the photo through a watery film. A dark crease ran directly through his mother’s face but she looked beautiful, wearing the most expensive items she owned. He tried to evoke the Ahesta Boro, the wedding song of all Afghans. He hummed a few bars as his vision blurred.

  Outside, Nikos started the excavator again and Arman went to window. He looked down and observed vaguely the jerking motions of the machine, the chunks of clay spilling into the skip. His landlord was progressing well with the cellar. Maybe he could go a little deeper, create a burial pit for a cold-hearted Englishman. How would he die? There were those at home who could approach a sleeping enemy and deftly pass a bone-handled shafra across the jugular. But that wasn’t Arman’s way – he couldn’t kill a fly. And he was no warrior among his father’s people championing the cause, fighting on their behalf. Wasn’t that why he’d fled?

  ARRIVED SAFELY, no problems. Sunny here in Sydney. xx. Simon completed the text and switched off his mobile. He glanced at Adele in the other room hanging up her clothes. His heart skipped: she looked terrific. What was this going to cost him? Shouldn’t he have discussed that first? Now it all seemed too difficult – and indiscreet. Then again, there was the possibility she might like him so much that she’d overlook the charge. Wasn’t there a chance that she might fall a little in love with him and thereby disregard her business plan? He glanced at her again. What were the chances of sex before the art event? No, he’d wait. Classier to be patient – and he had two nights, after all. That should be plenty.