Cold place. Warm place. Mindspace. Crawlspace.
Safe place. Small space. Short space. Floor space.
Everybody had places they disappeared to. Bashir was one of the worst - he'd disappear for hours with his mobile switched off. In those moments, there was no way of contacting him, no means of knowing where he was. The number Zahara dialled wouldn't ring. It only led her to a pre-recorded message from a woman with a kindly, if digitised, voice. And Bashir floated off into a world she couldn't imagine, suddenly a spectre she could no longer catch hold of.
She wondered if he went off with friends into the carnival lights and dark corners of game parlours, if they strutted the streets looking for fights or drug deals. He wasn't that sort of person around her, but she knew what some of his friends were like. The gangs in their area were like potholes - things that couldn't always be avoided.
Her Bashir was a little bit goofy and always gentle, but she'd come across him one night playing with a flick knife as he waited for her. His hands danced through the air without a shred of fear, the sharp blade revealing itself in flashes as it caught the light.
She preferred to imagine him lying on a rooftop, staring at the stars, or by himself down at the beach, contemplating the water. The one thing she could never imagine was him disappearing off with some other girl. That was one thought which stuttered and waned before it could even pass into her conscious mind, and for that reason, she could let all the other things go without a word. Bashir needed to disappear at times. She understood that about him.
She understood the need to escape from a home crowded with parents and siblings, friends and relatives, hopes and expectations. On a rare Saturday when she hadn't been given shifts at work, she would silence her own phone and make her way out to the Paddington markets. To her, visiting the markets was like reclaiming summer. There was a comforting mingling of different smells - fried onions by the sausage sizzle and aromatherapy oils from a woman who sold crystals.
People wandered the stalls, faces relaxed and attitudes breezy, looking at beautiful objects. Zahara trailed behind them, running her fingers along hand-sewn dresses of crinkly silk and curious lampshades covered in dark velvet.
Zahara went by herself to the markets so that she could play her special game. She'd pretend she was a famous surgeon that lived just around the corner in one of those grand, old terrace houses. She'd just woken up, sauntered down the road for a lazy breakfast served on oversized plates in a café, and was now searching for something to bring back to the house.
When she came to the market, she'd let herself choose just one object to take back: a small painting, a pretty inlaid wooden box, a funky dress. In this way, she could choose things without buying them. She was happy to leave the markets empty handed, smiling to herself at the things she'd already secreted away in her house.
My space. Your space. Bookcase. Misplace.
Front place. Sidespace. Outrace. Backspace.
She didn't know where Bashir's place was in this house, or if indeed he even had a room there. He didn't like Paddington. He snubbed his nose at that sterile, old, yuppy backwater. But it still comforted her, to think of one day living there. She could smell its fresh pinewood floors as they drove up Oxford Street. The brass doorknob felt cool in her hand. She opened the door and seeing the delicate china vase on the hall table made her smile. She was home.
The sun was quickly setting, night encroaching. In the dusky light, the fluoro signs of sex shops and nightclubs popped out above unassuming doorways, made leery by the promise of dark. In the backseat of the car, Narelle leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the window and watched the shopfronts fly past.
She remembered her dad telling her that Oxford Street had once been an Aboriginal walking track towards South Head, and her own doubts about it. With her eyes half closed, the lights blurred into a mass of fireflies, but she still found it impossible to believe that this neat patchwork of concrete, steel, glass and brick had once been tangled bushland.
At regular intervals, plane trees were now bravely attempting to grow in their designated squares of dirt, but they seemed aware that they were poor specimens. Some had contorted themselves into geometrical shapes in their embarrassment, hoping to camouflage with the buildings behind them.
She was an unexpected passenger, but she wasn't bothered about being with strangers. They'd barely spoken since Zahara had come back to the car, warm and bashful, her anger swept away by the sand. Narelle had hopped inside, without really thinking, excited about taking off on a journey she had no control over. Their silence held them now, not awkward but easy. Narelle found the silence relaxing. It had been a long time since her family had allowed silence, wary as they were of what might be found within it.
Oxford Street had recently been given a makeover, but still retained a gritty flavour of smog and smut beneath its fresh coats of paint. Men in tight shirts ambled along with muscles bulging, shoulder squared, as ready to flirt as they were to fight. After Taylor Square, though, the street cred of the pedestrians magically evaporated. They may still have been sporting Chelsea haircuts and bondage pants, but against the backdrop of high fashion boutiques and fancy cafés, the punks suddenly looked like COFA students.
They hurtled down sidestreets, rows of terrace houses on either side of them indistinguishable from one another. Narelle felt lost, like a mouse in a maze. She didn't know where Bashir was taking them, only that he was desperate to get rid of the black bag beside her. The bottles inside it jostled and clinked. House after house had windows lit up; someone on the door stoop rustling for their keys, someone in the kitchen preparing dinner and yelling for the kids to set the table. She felt a fissure of homesickness yawn open and struggled not to cry.
Then, the car suddenly swerved to a sharp stop, perfectly in line with the pavement. Bashir cut the engine, rousing both girls from their thoughts.
- We're here. I'll be a minute.
Zahara pulled her shoulders back in a stretch.
- Where are we?
- It's a mate of Dave's place. I'll drop the bag off.
- Wait. I'm coming in.
Bashir gave Zahara a warning look, but she was resolute.
- No way are you leaving us to wait out here. What sort of mates does Dave have, anyway?
She raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged.
- Come in then.
Narelle didn't want to get involved, but she felt compelled to get out of the car and follow them.
You could have picked the party house two blocks away. In a neighbourhood of staid terrace house clones, this one seemed to pulse. All the curtains were drawn but a battle of frenetic guitar strains escaped from the open windows. Narelle recognised The Dead Kennedys playing in the background, with a live electric guitar riffing over them.
The door had been left ajar. Bashir simply gave it a push and they were standing in what Zahara at first thought was an underground club. A second later, she realised that it was actually a living room, but its lack of furniture and scuffed wooden floors had propelled most people towards its centre, where they mingled and danced. One side of the room was dominated by a large set of speakers and a flat-screen television.
On the other side of the room, people were clustered on piles of cushions. Some were watching Farscape on the television, most were yelling at each other over the music.
Bashir nodded to a guy whose hair was tousled into the shape of a birds nest, and they disappeared up the stairs. Narelle and Zahara instinctively huddled closer together. They edged their way around people flailing their arms about in the middle of the room, and finally decided to share a tattered cushion offered up to them by a curly-headed guy wearing a beret. The three of them squashed against each other, watching the strange, energetic poses people were assuming. Zahara placed her mouth to his ear and yelled.
- What are they doing?
- What?
- What are they doing?
- I think they're trying to dance.
- But I don't think this is music that you can dance to.
- Maybe not, but they'll try their best.
He put his hand out and she shook it, but she missed his name. It was something generic. Greg/Reg. It didn't matter. The people in the centre of the room were clearly enjoying themselves. A couple sitting to the other side of Greg/Reg were necking. He must have been feeling left out.
- Who do you know here?
- No one. I'm waiting for my boyfriend.
He looked momentarily deflated at the mention of her boyfriend, but almost immediately repositioned his smile and pointed his chin in the direction of Narelle.
- What about her?
- What about her?
- Does she have a boyfriend?
- Why don't you ask her yourself?
Sitting in a room full of strangers, Narelle felt on edge. The constant pounding of the music was making it difficult to think. The black arms of night were firmly grasping, and while it was warm right now inside the house, she'd started to wonder about where she might go from here. Running through lists of people she might stay with, she drew a blank. Every single one of them knew her parents, or knew people who knew her parents. One telephone call and it would all be over. She'd be sent home.
- Do you have a boyfriend?
It took her a moment to register that the guy who was leaning all over Zahara was talking to her. His mouth was too wide and moist, the lips gleaming. He was pushing his face so close to hers that she could see a long hair on the side of his cheek that he must have missed while shaving.
- Do you have a boyfriend?
- No.
The mouth grimaced, and a stubby arm reached out, dangerously close to Zahara's breasts. She looked awkward, like it was taking all her self-control not to push him away. He didn't notice. He was leaning over even further, trying to get closer to his goal. Narelle resisted the urge to reach out and pluck the hair from his cheek.
- Would you like a drink?
- Um, no thanks. I don't think we'll be staying long.
Zahara, in the meantime, finally lost her patience.
- Look, brother, let me breathe please.
She almost waggled her finger at him and went, 'unh-unnh, this cushion ain't enough for three of us.' She'd brought out her inner black person and she could see a newfound respect in his eyes, or maybe it was fear. He retreated towards his own cushion, and Zahara thought, as she often had in the past, how much cooler it would have been to be black.
Zahara often told people she was African. She wasn't, of course; she was Indian. And when it really came down to it - she wasn't that either, of course, she was Australian. This was a constant point of contention between her and her younger sister, Reshma.
- You're not black - not one little part of you is black. Stop telling people that. And you're not Indian either. You've never been outside of this country. Why don't you admit what you are?
But Zahara knew that it was only Reshma's own uncertainties about her place in this world that made it so important for her to clarify her identity to others. This was not a battle which Zahara wanted to fight any longer. If it was easier for people to think of her as Indian, then she would be Indian. If they wanted her to be African, then so be it.
You had to have a sense of humour about these things, otherwise you ran the risk of going crazy. Besides, it only annoyed Reshma because people then assumed she was black.
- No, she's Indian, Zahara would tell them.
- I was adopted, you know, by Angelina Jolie? Yeah, that's right, I grew really quickly once she took me to the Western world and I got some food on my plate. She looked at me and thought - hey, you ain't no baby anymore. What happened to the cute little half-starved sign of my saintliness? Man, I need to get myself another little baby. Here, you fatty, go to Australia. And she left me with Reshma's family here.
She was tempted to use the same lines on beret-boy, but she had a feeling its subtleties would be lost on him. He'd probably get excited and ask her what Angelina Jolie was really like. Her ears were beginning to hurt, and keeping tabs on Bashir was getting less important. She turned to Narelle, who was staring intently into space, biting her nails.
- Shall we wait at the car?
Outside, the music faded to low bass beats. They slowly walked back to the car. Narelle continued to worry her fingernails the way Zahara had seen seagulls pick at pieces of plastic caught around their legs. They couldn't remove it but they couldn't leave it alone, either.
- Are you okay? You seem troubled.
Narelle gave a half-laugh, something gruff and forced.
- I don't have anywhere to stay tonight. I've been through everyone I know, and I don't have anywhere to stay.
- Oh, hey.
She wanted to put her arms around Narelle and give her a big hug but the pools of water gathering in Narelle's eyes stopped her. Instead, she went around to her side of the car and developed a sudden interest in the paintwork.
- My family's got space.
More space. Raw space. Share space. Displace.
- You can come stay with us, if you need somewhere to go.
She didn't want to look up, but she could tell that Narelle was wiping her sleeve across her eyes. Narelle sighed, and the relief wafted through the air, tickled the back of Zahara's throat so that she wanted to burst out in laughter.
- There's always space for one more, after all.
She thought about her terrace house. Narelle would fit in a terrace house like that. She looked like those women Zahara'd seen at the markets, with their carefully layered hair and little handbags. Narelle didn't have anything with her right now but her cardigan looked soft, her shorts were cute and trendy. Zahara would place her in the other armchair of her rumpus room, teacup in hand and chessboard spread between them.
A small voice rose up within her, telling her that Narelle would look better in that colonial house than she would, but she pushed it down, wedged it back into the silence between her toes. She was allowed to cling to her dreams. She'd done an interview for a place in medicine at the University of Sydney.
For another month at least, she still had hopes of one day becoming Dr Zahara Kath. Another sidelong glance at Narelle and she nodded to herself, decided. It was the rumpus room. The highlights in Narelle's hair would match perfectly with the brass candlesticks.
