Double Exposure

Brian Caswell was born in Wales in 1954, and emigrated to Australia at the age of twelve. After some success in the music industry, he became a teacher and worked for fifteen years in high schools in Sydney's south-west, specialising in English, history and creative writing, and indulging his love of basketball by coaching the school teams.

Merryll of the Stones,
Brian Caswell's first novel was named honour book in the CBCA Book of the Year Awards in 1990, and this success led to a new career as a young people's author.

Since 1989, Brian Caswell has written twenty-four books, receiving many awards and shortlistings, including the Children's Peace Literature Award, the Vision Australia, Young Adult Audio Book of the Year Award, the
Aurealis
Award for science-fiction and fantasy, the Australian Multicultural Children's Literature Award, the Human Rights Awards, the NSW Premier's Awards (three times), and twice he has been included in the prestigious International Youth Library's ‘White Ravens' list. All his published novels have been listed as Notable Books, by the Children's Book Council of Australia.

More recently, Brian has moved into screenwriting.

He lives on the NSW Central Coast with his wife Marlene. They have four children and four grandchildren. He plays and coaches basketball, designs ‘cutting-edge' educational programs, listens to all kinds of music (usually far too loud), watches ‘an excessive number' of movies and DVDs, binges ‘periodically' on fantasy and space-opera and is hopelessly addicted to soda water.

Also by Brian Caswell

Young Adult Fiction

Merryll of the Stones

A Dream of Stars (short stories)

A
Cage of Butterflies

Deucalion

Dreamslip

Asturias

The View from Ararat

By Brian Caswell and David Phu An Chiem

Only the Heart

The Full Story

Younger Readers

Mike

Lisdalia

Maddie

Relax Max!

Alien Zones Series

Teedee and the Collectors or How It All Began

Messengers of the Great Orff

Gladiators in the Holo-Colosseum

Gargantua

What Were the Gremholzs' Dimensions Again?

Whispers from the Shibboleth

Just Another Dent in the Concrete (ebook)

Will the Real Roger Stand Up? (ebook)

Contents

Cover

Author Bio

Also by Brian Caswell

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Part One – Sketches

One – Everything in its place …

Two – Popcorn

Three – Living out loud

Four – T.J.

Five – Across the table

Six – All the gory details

Seven – Images

Eight – Debris

Nine – Double exposure

Ten – The prodigal

Eleven – Symmetry

Twelve – Normal behaviour

Thirteen – Relativity

Part Two – Drawing From Life

Fourteen – Someday I'll be Saturday night …

Fifteen – Emotional harmonics

Sixteen – Echoes of innocence

Seventeen – Muse

Eighteen – Storing the light

Nineteen – Healthy paranoia

Twenty – Payment in kind

Twenty-one – To feel safe

Twenty-two – Witness for the prosecution

Twenty-three – TLC

Twenty-four – The child inside

Twenty-five – Aquarium

Part Three – Self-portrait

Twenty-six – Because

Twenty-seven – Matrix

Twenty-eight – Greater love …

Twenty-nine – A day, a year, a lifetime

Thirty – A portrait in pastels

Epilogue – In the breathing dark

Imprint Page

To Nick and Ben, who understand ‘the link' – and to my wife, Marlene, who understands me.

Acknowledgments

With thanks to Tony Eaton, Lesley Reece, Rayma Turton, Kim Nelson and Dejay Vi – for their much-appreciated support and advice.

And especially to the management and staff of the Hoyts Cinemas at Wetherill Park – the most efficient and friendly crew in any cinema anywhere – for putting up with my intrusions, and for supplying me with innumerable cups of tea.

This novel was written while Brian Caswell was in receipt of a Writer's Fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council – the federal government's arts funding and advisory body – and he would like to sincerely thank them for their support of this and many other projects.

Part One
Sketches

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth.

– Pablo Picasso

One
Everything in its place …

In the dream, it doesn't feel like drowning.

In the dream, there is a surreal sense of … calm. A weightless floating. A slow drifting down towards the inevitable.

But no panic.

No fear.

The pale emerald of the surface shines, its ripples shattering the sunlight into random patterns, like chance images on a huge movie screen, and something in you knows that if you could just reach out your hand … just stretch your fingers up towards the light …

If you could just summon the desire …

But you can't. The water encloses you. It cools your skin, it whispers water-logic in your ears and slowly fills your lungs. You are drowning and you don't mind, though some small trace of conscience in you hints vaguely at regret.

You don't mind, because in the dream you are beyond guilt. Beyond fear. Beyond anything but the fact of drowning.

And floating.

Because below you, the dark shadow is sinking fast. Falling away from you. Away from the green light. And you know that drowning is exactly the right thing to do.

In the dream …

*

Cain's story

I lie awake, staring at the ceiling and timing my breaths.

Breathe in for three … Hold for twelve … Breathe out for six … Repeat …

It's supposed to calm you.

Sometimes it even works. But not this time.

Across the street, Dusan backs his lowered, metallic-green SX slowly out of the driveway, sub thumping, exhaust bubbling, angled so the skirts don't catch the lip of the concrete.

The blinds are closed, but I can imagine the machine's clear-coat shining immaculate in the sun, because I know without looking that the sky is flawless. Blue and warm, with the sun burning white-hot halfway up above the eastern skyline. I don't need to look. I just know. It's something about the quality of the light as it seeps in through the angled slats.

Early showers, clearing to a mild and overcast afternoon. A top of twenty-one in the city, twenty-three out west …

It must be twenty-eight already and I haven't even got out of bed yet.

Weathermen have absolutely the best job in the world. They can totally stuff it up – on national television – and they still get paid. And the next night, everyone still tunes in.

Figure that one …

What is it Chris says?

Your average television viewer has the artistic perceptions of a house-brick and the memory-span of a goldfish with Alzheimer's …

Chris is the cynical twin.

I lie there holding my breath and waiting.

Three … Two … One …

A sudden surge of acceleration, the rubber protest of the tyres and the asthmatic hiss from the blow-off valve as the turbos cut in, then the slowly receding roar as the long street is restored to silence and Dusan is gone for the day.

A trickle of sweat rolls down the valley in the centre of my chest.

Weathermen …

I throw off the sheet. A sudden brief draught as the thin cotton balloons away from me, collapsing onto the floor like a limp parachute. I wait for the momentary coolness to fade from my skin, scratching an imaginary itch on my stomach and listening.

A cricket has found its way in through the open window and its electronic chirrup shreds the quiet of the room, until the sudden ringing of the cordless on the table beside the bed shocks it into silence.

‘Hello?' The receiver smells of last night's bolognaise. Too much garlic. Part of me is trying to remember who I talked to for long enough to contaminate the mouthpiece.

‘Cain, baby … I know it's short notice, but …'

Amy. Of course. Who else would it be at nine-thirty on a Thursday morning?

‘Geez, Aim, are you going for the record? It's the third time since Friday. I'm pulling the four 'til late already …' The argument runs out. There's no point whingeing, I'm going to say yes, just like I do every time. I know it and, more importantly, Amy knows it. Predicability is my strong suit.

My mother prefers ‘dependability'.

Chris is a little cruder. Something about having seen bigger balls in a packet of Tic Tacs.

Amy is waiting patiently, as usual. And it's impolite to keep people waiting. I sigh theatrically, as a sign of token resistance. ‘So, who died this time?'

‘Fay. Actually, she only wishes she was dead. Her mum just phoned. She's got the bug. You know? The
bug?
Look, I know it's a big ask, babe, but I'm desperate. You couldn't cover a double for me, could you? Please?'

I swing my feet around and stand, catching my pale reflection in the mirror door of the built-in.

And watch the capitulation.

‘I'll be there in forty. And Amy, remember … you owe me big-time for this. If I didn't need the cash –'

‘Cain, you're a doll. Gotta go. I'm down two for the late shift and I want to catch Andy and Elise before they make plans for tonight. See ya.'

Abruptly, I'm left with the busy tone bleating in my ear, looking at myself in the huge glass. I suck in my gut and allow my chest to swell with the breath I'm holding.

No noticeable improvement.

Bending, I select a pair of boxers from the untidy pile on the floor beside the bed and slip them on.

The house is empty.

Pausing at the door of my parents' bedroom, I look in.

The bed-cover is perfect, uncreased, the bottom frill hanging its regulation distance above the polished wood of the floor, pillows and cushions precisely placed.

Pleasantville
revisited …

A single shaft of sunlight from the window falls at an angle across the bed, the one unbalancing element in a perfectly constructed image.

Then, as I turn to leave, a glimmer catches my eye and halts the movement. Deep red and shining in the sunlight, it draws me towards the dark-wood dressing table.

A single ruby stud earring. I pick it up and examine it.

‘Careful, old girl.' Opening the jewellery box, I place the earring carefully inside. ‘Don't want to piss off the General, do we? “A place for everything and everything in its place …”'

The opening of the lid has triggered the music box and its monotone rendition of ‘Somewhere My Love'.

I shut it carefully and the music cuts off mid-bar.

The shower is hot. It takes my breath away and I fumble with the cold tap, regulating the stream until I can put my head under and wet my hair.

Beyond the clear glass of the shower-screen, the door is closed. Locked. What kind of subconscious programming makes you lock the bathroom door when there's no one else in the house?

The steam is condensing on the glass and on the mirror over the vanity. It's like the shower scene from
Psycho
– except that there's no shower curtain and the sound track is just water hissing onto my body and gurgling down the drain-hole.

I remember the first time I saw
Psycho.
It scared the living crap out of me and for a week I was afraid to take a shower. I was twelve at the time and even Chris laughed at me. But only in private.

In front of anyone else, he always backs me up. It's been that way since the day we were born and instinctively I guess we've both known it.

Just the two of us. Identical and yet so different, but still the only ones we could ever really count on.

When your father's an anally retentive control-freak, given to enforcing his opinions with a leather belt, and your mother would rather have her fingernails ripped out with hot pliers than make waves, you develop certain mutual-support mechanisms and a united front.

Anyway, the only people in danger of being murdered while taking a shower, Chris pointed out, were hot-looking bimbos in B-grade horror flicks or minor members of the Mafia. And as I was reasonably safe on both counts, why worry?

When he put it that way, I stopped worrying and found more interesting things to think about in the shower.

But I still locked the door.

Even when there was no one else in the house.