Roachville

Mac had done his work and my house felt emptier than ever. The first room beyond the tiny hallway was the kitchen and I was compelled to open the cupboards. The contents had been reduced to a few sad and lonely items:

In the other rooms, there were a few basics left:

And by the look of things, apart from a sad shelf full of papers, the laptop and the futon, the office had been cleared out too. At least I still had a bed to sleep on. Mac had taken more than half of our physical possessions, but I had lied about my level of love towards him in our last two years together. So as far as I was concerned, we were even. I flopped onto my last remaining item of furniture, like a castaway on a precarious raft in the worryingly calm eye of the storm.

I dragged myself to the bathroom, peeled off my clothes and stepped into the empty bath. I opened the taps, lay down against the cold white surface and let hot water rise above my body. He had even taken the only small album of photos that I had printed, I suppose as a memento of our life together. I started crying. Pulled down by gravity, the salty tears rolled into the transparent water. I was crying but not because I was sad that I had no physical object left to remember Mac by. Nope. I was crying because, despite the fact that I had seen him only a couple of hours ago, his face was already blurred in my mind. The tears kept pouring out and I knew it was because I couldn’t quite remember how it felt to make love with him, or what the touch of his skin was like. I cried because I realized that soon most of what we’d had for seven years would fade, little by little, from my memory; already I couldn’t quite recall the tender words he used to say to me, the kisses in the night or the hazel dots in his eyes.

After my bath, I lay down on the futon and turned my thoughts away from the past. Ely was a bit late and I really wanted a smoke. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift. As I wondered what it would be like to reach the bottom of the Mariana trench, the doorbell rang. I climbed out of my metaphysical hole and walked downstairs.

Ely’s blue and grey eyes looked down at me. He had a white linen bag with him. In the very empty living room, I grabbed one of the two red cushions, handed it to him and sat on the other one with my back against the wall. He sat down too and observed me with his eyebrows raised. I shook my head. He got out a small tin box, opened it and handed me a ready-rolled joint.

‘Alcohol?’ I ventured out loud. ‘If I have any.’

‘That would be great,’ he said. ‘Otherwise a glass of water will do.’

In the kitchen it seemed that the fridge had escaped the great clear-out. I found two Sol beers. They had been waiting for this moment for so very long.

‘Are you practising Zen minimalism?’ I heard Ely ask.

‘I’ve kind of been forced to.’

I came back with the beers and a salvaged ashtray made out of a fossilised tree. Ely passed me a lighter and after a few grateful tokes, I explained that my ex-boyfriend had come to pick up his things.

‘So he’s cleared you out?’

‘Yeah, but I’ve kept the car and the laptop, so I guess that’s fair enough… and to be honest I don’t think I care that much. Although I am surprised that he’s taken as many things as he’s done. I’m pretty sure the polka-dot mugs are gone and that’s a bit of a blow.’ I spoke between puffs of smoke. ‘But I reckon I’m better off without all this shit.’ I gazed at my empty room.

‘Really?’ Ely asked. ‘You know I’d say most people would be devastated if all their belongings had been taken away from them.’

‘You’re right, I should be upset, but truly I don’t feel a thing. I’m not even that angry with him. You know,’ I said, looking into his eyes, ‘sometimes I wonder what is wrong with me.’

‘Well, I don’t know you very well… yet,’ he said, after the slightest intake of breath. ‘But not caring so much about material possessions has got to be a good thing… so what else are you supposed to feel, but you don’t?’

‘Well, for example…’ I thought about it while sipping the beer, ‘I’ve never understood what is so fabulous about a wedding day.’

‘What? The day that all girls dream about?’ Ely narrowed his eyes.

‘Not all girls want a wedding. I’m so not into it. I pretend I’m excited for people that mean a lot to me, but in fact I don’t really care.’ I shrugged.

‘Oh.’ He looked disappointed. ‘In that case, I think I’d better just leave it at that…’ And he shuffled to his feet.

‘Really… but…’

‘Ah ah, got you!’ He laughed and sat down again, but closer to me this time. ‘You look cute with that look on your face. Don’t worry, weddings don’t do a lot for me either.’

I stared at him, speechless, and grinned. No words came to mind, so I made a fist and hit his shoulder lightly. He grinned back and enveloped my fingers inside his. I had a sudden urge just to rest my head on his shoulder and forget about everything, but I couldn’t quite do it. Gently he let go of my hand.

‘So where were you while your ex-boyfriend was packing your precious spotted mugs?’

‘Reading a letter in a cemetery.’

Exhaling pretty swirls of blue, he scrutinized me in the most intense manner and I had to avert my eyes.

‘You sure are a strange one.’

‘So are you,’ I retorted. ‘Your eyes are different colours!’

We laughed together in what was the best moment so far of this unending day.

In the semi-darkness, I studied Ely’s thin features, the stubble on his face and the tiny wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, and I liked all of it. The whole ensemble. He leant his head back and broke the silence.

‘For the last few days, in fact ever since I got this…’ He picked up the linen bag and took out the wooden sculpture of the leafy sea dragon. We both turned our eyes toward the exquisite shape, carved in a red wood that seemed to be glowing faintly from the inside out. ‘Weird things have been happening…’ he went on, ‘including you.’ He flashed me one of his wicked smiles, generating a small internal meltdown inside my ribcage.

‘I’ve been wondering how you got it?’

He lowered his eyes to the floor.

‘I’ve been thinking that maybe you took it from someone, maybe when they weren’t looking?’ I whispered.

He spread his hands in front of him and shook his head.

‘It’s okay, I don’t mind so much,’ I said.

‘You know, it’s not a habit of mine to steal things.’

‘No?’

‘Definitely not. The last time I stole something before this dragon, I was eleven years old, penny sweets from the corner shop.’

‘Me too, I felt like such a bad ass at the time. But I’m glad you’re not a real thief. So how did you steal the statue?’

‘A few days ago, I had a meeting in town with a new potential customer. He wanted a quote to build a vertical garden on a wall.’

‘Where was that?’

‘Ever heard of Blue Hotel near Baldwin Bridge?’

‘I sure have.’

‘The oddest thing happened. I was on my way out following the hotel manager. In the corridor, one of the rooms had been left slightly open and as I walked past it, I turned my head and this statue caught my eye. Out of nowhere, I felt the strongest compulsion to grab it. I just stopped thinking, like something had gone into my head and taken over. So I went in, hid it in my bag and went back to my garden shop as quickly as I could. After that and not knowing why at all, I displayed it in my shop, which is insane, if you think about it. And the day after, you turned up.’

‘I sure did.’

‘But the weirdest thing of all, is that nobody – I mean absolutely nobody – noticed it except for you. It’s like it was invisible and only you and I could see it...’

I cleared my throat. ‘Actually someone else did see it. My friend Vi told me about it.’

‘Let me guess – she came into my shop, saw the statue and had the strongest compulsion to tell you about it?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Annika, what the fuck is going on?’ His eyes locked onto mine.

I sighed and I turned my face to the dragon. ‘Ely, have you ever heard of a “naga”?’

The strange pair of eyes followed my stare. ‘This is one, isn’t it?’ he asked, tracing the delicate curve of the dragon’s neck with his fingers.

‘There’s stuff I need to tell you. I mean, maybe you’ll think I’m totally bonkers afterwards, but it doesn’t seem to worry you too much, so what the hell?’

It took all my willpower not to jump on him, but instead I got closer, shut my eyes for one second and concentrated. I started at the point when Kenneth Tann had called me a few days ago and I explained all I knew about Phuong, Mulalloo, Mei and the letter from her father I had just read in the cemetery.

Ely kept silent, glancing at the naga now and then and nodding at me when I faltered in my story-telling. It took time to recall everything that had happened and by the time I’d finished, I had goose bumps all over my skin. A great quietness had come over Ely. It was hard to tell what he made of it all. Maybe he was about to up and leave? He finished his beer and coughed.

‘So the biggest question in all this is – why you. I guess it has to be somebody, but there must be a reason.’

‘I guess… And that’s what everybody keeps telling me,’ I replied. ‘You’re not completely freaked out?’

‘Actually, I am completely freaked out. But I’m also glad.’

‘Why?’

He leant his face towards mine and an electric shock jolted my brain. I had to lower my gaze towards his chest. I breathed in and tilted my head. We both moved towards each other. His lips came close to mine and, slowly, I ran my fingers through his hair. I was sitting against the wall and as we kissed, the tip of his fingers moved from my neck to my shoulder and down my arm, then under my t-shirt. When he kissed my neck and hit that very special spot where my shoulder and neck meet, I sighed, wondering what bra I was wearing. His fingers pressed through the fabric and I remembered it was the black one with dark grey lacing, the one my breasts popped out of so easily and that I had selected in case this very situation between Ely and I arose in the evening. I arched my back when he made contact with my thigh and I pressed my body against his. He pushed me to the floor and I let him. Turning my head to the side, I caught a glimpse of the naga, but I was too busy to let my eyes linger on the statue for very long. After a while Ely tugged at my jeans. I wanted to feel his skin, too, so I half raised myself and tried to pull his shirt off. We fumbled with our clothes, but I didn’t care and I threw my jeans on the naga.

‘Good one,’ Ely whispered and we stopped for a second. I moved towards his boxer shorts and grabbed him. When he rubbed his fingers between my thighs, I looked down to check once again what underwear I had on. He moved the fabric to the side and I forgot about that. Penetration happened and before long we found a common rhythm.

A bit later, as Ely lay next to me among our randomly scattered clothes, his fingers followed the curve from the top of my hips to where my waist is at its smallest. There was a slight frown on his forehead.

‘So today your ex-boyfriend came to clear up your possessions, right?’

I nodded.

‘So, when did you break up?’ he said in a strangled voice.

‘Over six months ago,’ I said, lying back on my side and moving my foot over his ankle.

‘So I assume it’s been six months without sex for you. Did you miss it? Sex, I mean.’

‘Well… yes and no.’ I rested the tip of my fingers on his thigh. ‘I didn’t want to have sex with him anymore and neither did he. But I’ve missed feeling somebody touching me and kissing me and, you know…’

‘Proceedings.’ I heard him smile.

‘Yeah. General proceedings.’ I smiled too. ‘But I’m good with my hands.’ I put more pressure on his thigh.

‘Yes, I’ve noticed.’ He seized my wrist and rolled on top of me. ‘Wanna show me if you’re good with other things too?’

I looked directly into his eyes. ‘I’ve no idea what other things you could be talking about,’ I said. ‘Did you mean how good I am with my mouth, for example?’

Instead of answering, he pressed his whole body against me and pinched my left nipple. I squirmed, loving the fact that all his weight was on me and that even if I wanted to I couldn’t go anywhere. In a whisper I said, ‘I can show you how good I am with my mouth, if you show me how good you are with yours.’

‘We have a deal.’

‘Okay, but let’s go upstairs, I have a very comfortable futon in my office.’

Ely rolled off me and helped me up. We half stumbled, half kissed on the way up and for the next couple of hours, more proceedings took place and when we’d had our fill, I went downstairs to pick up the naga. Then, I found a couple of thin blankets for Ely and I to wrap into and sleep for a few peaceful hours.

At five in the morning Ely left. He whispered in my ear that he had an early start with some special delivery and he’d better shower and change beforehand. I made a tiny noise and let myself fall into a deep sleep. Soon enough, the leafy sea dragon appeared in my dream, but I knew it was in my house now, not just in my head.