Voyeur
a story I submitted to a competition. I assume it didn't place, as the winners are meant to do a reading this Friday
"I'm ... not who you think I am."
Her fingers pressed against cold metal sill, hoping the catch in that voice had been disguised by the radio crackle of a phone too far from base.
"I've ... well, I've talked to you before."
A silent response whispered and crackled through the connection. Was that the wrong thing to say? Perhaps it was the wrong thing. A pause, a breath, catching - or is it the static line, tricking her? Before a distinct sound of movement reassured - he was listening. She had his approval. He was still there.
Hazal had been lost, aimlessly mooching through deserted shopping centre. Nowhere to go, and since the argument, no one to meet. She'd felt the disappointment. Not wanting to feel helpless at the squabble, she didn't want to go home.
Cool autumn afternoon sun on her shoulders as she scuffed against a low wall, wondering how to prolong it, how much time to waste, how far she could stretch the excuse of bored people-watching at an hour when no people passed to be watched. Litter tumbled past, ignoring her, caught up in the breeze that reminded her of what Sunday should have been. If she trailed home now, it was all wasted - the hope, the tension, the waiting. And those words of offhand dismissal would become the sound she sat with all night. No. She would remain here, leaning awkward against pointless brick and faded tile, pretending to glance at her watch for ritual's sake; watch empty commercial boulevards echo with dead space until the sun faded and Sunday evening finally came.
That was as obstinately focussed as Hazal could manage to mould herself, sulking through her seventeenth summer in dissatisfied silent rage. Waiting for a preoccupied world to happen to her. Until the public telephone rang.
Reminded of some half forgotten science fiction tale, she lifted heavy black receiver; listened for a voice. Wary, but ready somehow for instruction. Open.
A male voice, young, direct, confident, recalling for her somehow uncle Jim's hair oil, greeted her with a question. Many questions. The game began.
At first, it was a game of times and phone boxes. Be here, now. Lift after six rings. When it rings, when the jarring call summons her, be ready. Obey its loud instruction.
Each call lasted eight to ten minutes, the voice always confiding, warm, insistent upon her secrets. Never giving away detail, but demanding she complete the next move. Soon, there came another stage - a note in the phone booth - behind the squat metal instrument, amidst the ash beneath the steel lean-to, once, inside the mouthpiece. Each message a single word, printed, in carefully blocked cheap biro. The game was to know the word, not to read a meaning, not to communicate. At last she felt things were happening.
In her short years, life had not yet left her a trail of breadcrumbs worth following. Soon she would track them to the source.
She listened for clues. One time, he was cooking. She heard the rustle and foil of a takeaway. Another, she detected a detail - a bus route mentioned that took him to the south end of town, the estates. He worked out, she deciphered, from the metal clanging against tinny pop soundtrack when he called her from a gym. He had other girls he called. He had other girls.
Three of them. "But they're not nice girls. They're a little bit slutty. Not good girls like you."
It didn't scare her, the darkness of waiting in the unknown empty spaces. All she need do was miss a call. Her curiosity grew.
One bright weekend shadow, she missed the two o'clock call. Ran late to the booth by the plane trees to answer the seven o'clock. His warm ooze had turned to hiss. Someone else had answered. A woman.
"She sounded old and disgusting. Someone's mother. Called me a pervert. She sounded fat and revolting."
Hazal searched, embarrassed, for an answer. Felt the distaste of his anger at her.
"I won't call you again if that's who you leave me with. I won't call you again."
Pushing her black stained fingernail into the very corner of the glass booth walls, she crouched to explain. She'd had to stay in. Trouble at home. Grounded. It had been hard to sneak out for this call, and now he was angry at her. It had been hard, but she'd done it. She'd made the second call. Her voice took on the whining tone of injustice and she tried to make him see through mounting detail that her apology was genuine. Nobody knew she'd gotten out the back way. They all thought her in her room, still, radio blaring, angry rebuttal. She'd fooled them. Risked yet more trouble, to meet him. Meet the voice. She'd done it because she wanted more.
His silence showed his satisfaction. She took it for displeasure. Sick of the empty piazza litter, tired of motionless shopfront displays of plastic desire, of iron statuary staring way above her, she pressed further.
"Where are you? Right now?"
A beat, filled with nothing, then, "watching you. From the gym window. Look up."
Shadows slipped from her face as she strained up at reflective glass. There was sudden vulnerability in the youth of her, in the shock, in the unexpected muscle reaction.
No sign above, no sign of movement or not of movement. No clue given in cold silver reflect of gym windows. Nor in the dark echo of empty Sunday car park.
"You're ..." she stumbled, silver cross glinting against smooth clavicle bone, "You're here? You're watching me now? Here."
"Here. Right here." Soft warmth returned to his voice, the familiar undertone of command, of low, insistent knowing. "I see you."
Her craning upwards seemed suddenly stupid, floundering, as she imagined herself caught in his eye. Trapped in glass-metal cage, leashed to the phone line and craning, stupid, bovine. Her previous apprehensions found form, now. Big. Older. Wrong side of town. Nearby. Watches me.
Charcoal eyes measured the steps to the darkened gym doorway. Glanced, fast, at the runnels of empty malls and coffee spaces that surrounded them: two strangers, connected by a line.
Posted by Sarsparilla at 12:01 am |
