end it was Octavia’s voice that stamped out the burning silence of the night. A quiet, courageous voice.
She said, “Just …” She hesitated. “Just think about it, Cam,” and after a moment of thought and a last glance into me, she turned and walked away.
I watched.
Her legs.
Her feet, walking.
Her hair, echoing down her back in the dark.
I also remembered her voice, and the question, and the feeling I felt rising up through me. It shouted in me and warmed me and chilled me and threw itself down inside me. Why didn’t I say anything?
Why didn’t you say anything? I abused myself.
I could hear her footsteps now.
They lifted and scratched just slightly as she walked away in the direction of the train station.
“Cameron.”
A voice called to me.
“Cameron!”
I remember clearly that my hands were in my pockets, and when I looked over to my right, I swear I could make out the figure of my spirit, also standing against the brick fence, also with its hands in its pockets. It looked at me. It stared. It said more words.
“What the hell are you doing?” it asked me.
“What?”
“What do you mean what? Aren’t you going after her?”
“I can’t.” I looked down, at my old shoes and the jaded bottom sleeves of my jeans. I just looked and spoke. “It’s too late now anyway.”
My spirit came closer. “Bloody hell, boy!” The words were brutal. They made me look up and stare, to find the face connected to the voice. “You stand and wait outside some girl’s place who couldn’t care less, and when something real arrives, you fall apart! What kind of person are you?”
It shut up then.
The voice ended abruptly.
What it wanted to say was said, and we resumed standing against the fence, with our hands in our pockets, and silence feeding on our mouths.
A minute passed, and another. Time scratched itself through my thoughts, like the sound of Octavia’s feet.
Finally, I moved.
It was after about fifteen minutes.
I took a final stare at the house, knowing it was probably the last time I would ever see it, and I began walking toward Redfern Station, under the electric wires, and through the cold of the street. The leaded windows of houses glimmered when the streetlights rushed at them, and I could hear my feet lifting and then clawto the road as I started running. Behind me somewhere, I could hear the footsteps and breathing of my spirit. I wanted to beat it to the station. I had to. I ran.
I let the cold air splash into my lungs as I thought the name Octavia, over and over. I ran till my arms ached as hard as my legs and my head throbbed with the blood rushing into it.
“Octavia,” I said.
To myself.
I kept running.
Past the university.
Past the abandoned shops.
Past a few guys who looked like they might try to rob me.
“Come on,” I told myself when I thought I was slowing down, and I looked hard into the distance to see the legs and footsteps of Octavia.
When I made it to the station there were hordes of people pouring through the gates and I managed to slip through between a guy with a suitcase and a woman holding flowers. I went to the Illawarra line and sprinted down the escalator, past all the suits, the briefcases, and the different day-old perfumes and hair spray.
I made it to the bottom, nearly tripping.
Look at this bloody crowd! I thought, but slowly I edged my way along the platform. When the train arrived all the people crammed and crushed and shook their heads when I got in their way. There was even a pretty bad smell like someone’s underarm sweat. It licked me in the face, but still I looked and rushed through the crowd.
“Get out of the way,” someone snarled, and I was left with no other choice.
I got on the train.
I got on and stood in the packed middle compartment, right next to a guy with a mustache who was obviously the owner of the putrid underarm sweat. We both held on to the greasy metal pole until both the train and I got moving.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Sorry,” and I made my way through the carriage downstairs. I figured I’d do all the lower levels of the train first and come back on the upper levels. This was the only train going to Hurstville. She had to be on it.
She wasn’t in the carriage I got in on, or the next.
I opened the doors between