Names for Nothingness (11 page)

They were doing as Liam instructed. Humouring him. That was all it was. And yet, he could never see it.

‘I am sorry,' Sharn whispers, but each time she says that word out loud, it seems that he is asleep.

She wishes that it were different, and she tells him, knowing he cannot hear her. But it is not, and it never can be, and she is sorry for that, she truly is.

I
N THE HOUSE
, Caitlin slept in the room that she used to go to when Fraser was there. It was not her room, there was no such space, but it was where she could stay until she was moved somewhere else, either in the same house, or to another.

Her duties were simple. For the first few days she helped Laura with publications. They sat at an old office desk in a small room off the kitchen and proofread. Initially, she was given pamphlets for weekend courses, fliers advertising evening readings, and an abridged version of Satya Deva's teachings. Soon the material changed. She read glossy brochures offering reproduction artworks for sale, or discounted encyclopaedias, atlases and classics, all with mail-order forms. She did not ask what these were for, she was not even curious. Her role was not to question, but simply to absorb through
observation, and she obediently marked up errors in the manner that Laura had demonstrated to her.

On the fourth day, this work came to an end, and she was told to help Jacinta in the kitchen. Side by side they prepared dishes, and Caitlin did as she was instructed, chopping vegetables or preparing and freezing soups. She did not know for whom the food was intended. She had been put on a fast, and for three days she made countless meals without touching one herself.

At the end of the first week, she came back to the room where she slept to find a man, whom she had met some time ago, lying on the mattress. She backed away from the door, believing she was meant to move elsewhere, but he stopped her.

‘The house is full, and we are sharing,' he told her.

‘I am Damon,' he reminded her, and she said that, yes, she knew his name, she was sorry if she appeared confused.

He had been working, he explained, bringing in money for the community. He was only stopping here for a few days and then he was going south. He sold a food substitute. ‘A health drink,' he said. ‘The money helps fund a couple of our houses.'

They slept side by side under the thin flannel sheet, their limbs not touching.

When Caitlin woke in the morning, he was already up and gone, only his bag giving any indication that he had actually been present in the room. But the next night he was there again, coming back when she was almost asleep.

‘I am sorry,' he whispered, ‘I didn't want to wake you.'

And again they slept on the same mattress, both taking care to avoid any physical contact.

The next evening, before he left, he gave the reading, followed by a brief testimonial to his own liberation through Satya Deva.

‘I was married,' he said, ‘with three children. I loved my wife and I loved my kids, but I did not love the life we were leading. We both worked two jobs. We never saw each other. And still we did not have enough money to cover our mortgage. We were drowning in a struggle to try and attain something that was never going to be reached. It was crazy. I was depressed and angry all the time,' and as he looked out to the devotees, he clenched his fists at the memory. ‘I didn't even believe in what we were trying to achieve. I didn't believe in any of the promises the world was holding out as possible. I didn't believe in anything. Until I discovered Satya Deva, and then I felt as though a door had opened for me, a way in which I could turn my back on all that was false and walk towards truth.

‘I wanted my family to come with me. I wanted them to share in what I had found. But they wouldn't. And leaving them was hard.

‘Walking away becomes easier when you realise you have been clinging to an illusion. That is what Satya Deva taught me. And that is what I had to do.'

Caitlin listened. Later, as he packed his bag in their room, she asked him if he still missed his family. He did not answer straight away. Struggling with the zip, he swore under his breath, finally freeing the canvas that had caught in the teeth. She thought that he had perhaps forgotten her question, that it may have been inappropriate, and she did not ask it again, but as he slung his bag over his shoulder, he told her that no, he no longer missed them.

‘Not even your kids?' she asked.

‘There are things that you have to renounce,' he said. ‘It is essential to spiritual growth.' He did not look at her as he spoke, but as he opened the door, he turned back to her, and she wondered for a moment whether his eyes were shining from tears or joy.

‘This is my family,' he said, and his words were certain. ‘This is where I belong.'

At the end of the week, Caitlin caught the bus home, picking a time when she knew that Sharn would be at work. She had called the flat twice, leaving messages to let them know that she was fine and promising that she would come and see them soon. But she was not ready to see Sharn yet, even though that meant she would also miss Liam. She would just take the last of her clothes, leave a note and go. Another time, she told herself. The dust would settle. It had to.

When she got off at her street, a slight breeze shook the bottlebrush that grew along the edge of the road, lifting discarded rubbish and sending it scuttling along the pavement. Nothing had changed; there were still the same flats, the same scruffy strips of dry grass, even the same drunk on the corner leaning back against the wall of a run-down backpacker hostel, asleep with his pants around his ankles. But it all seemed alien to Caitlin, an environment that she felt she had never known.

As she crossed the road, she noticed Caroline, a girl who had been in her year at school and who lived only a few doors down. She was in her sports uniform, a windcheater tied low on her hips.

‘Hi.' Caroline's hand was raised in greeting, which surprised Caitlin. In all the years they had caught the same bus home together, they had never really spoken.

‘How are you?'

Caitlin told her she was fine, good, in fact, and Caroline grinned.

‘So, you dropped out,' she said. ‘Last thing I would have expected from you,' and she looked slyly at Caitlin as she said that Christina had mentioned some ‘cult'. She waited for Caitlin to elaborate, to confirm the numerous rumours that
had, no doubt, raced across the schoolyard – she's found some crazy guru, some loony sect.

‘Don't you have to wear a uniform, robes and stuff?' Caroline's quick glance had taken in Caitlin's ordinary jeans and T-shirt.

‘Not really,' Caitlin told her, ‘not unless you go and live on the community land.'

‘So, what's it like? The Hare Krishnas or something?' The desire for salacious detail was sharp on Caroline's face. She wanted bizarre rituals, orgies, anything to take back to the others and further fan the gossip, and for a moment Caitlin was tempted to satisfy her, because she had never particularly liked Caroline.

‘I don't know what the Hare Krishnas are like.' She resisted any inclination to lie.

‘Well, what do you do? What do you believe in?' Caroline took a cigarette from her bag and lit it, blowing the smoke out in a thin stream as she grinned.

‘Come and see for yourself.' Caitlin smiled. ‘Everyone's welcome.'

Caroline laughed. ‘Not likely.'

‘Why?' And Caitlin's gaze was direct. ‘There's nothing to be afraid of.'

‘It's not fear.' Caroline took another long drag on her cigarette. ‘I just couldn't think of anything worse than obeying some tripped-out guru. I mean, they fucking brainwash you.'

They were outside Liam and Sharn's flat. Caitlin saw the front door was open. Liam always left it like this, oblivious to any possibility of being robbed, just propping it open so that the air could flow into what would otherwise have been a stifling four rooms.

She glanced across at Caroline, and told her that she had to get home, that it had been good seeing her again.

Caroline just looked at her.

‘You know,' she eventually said, and then paused.

‘What?'

And Caroline exhaled another thin stream of smoke. ‘He tried to chat me up.'

‘Who?'

‘That guy. The one on the bus.'

It was a moment before Caitlin realised she was referring to Fraser, and she was dismayed to feel herself blushing.

‘Even gave me his crazy book. Fuck, he was a nutcase.'

Caitlin said nothing.

‘But not bad looking,' and Caroline turned, raising a hand in farewell as she did so. ‘See you round, I guess.'

Caitlin did not move. Leaning against the letterbox, she watched Caroline walk up the street, surprised at the momentary disturbance she had felt. It didn't matter, she told herself. It didn't matter in the slightest, and she called out to Liam as she walked in through the front door, glad at the prospect of seeing him again.

But it was Sharn who answered, Sharn who was there on her rostered day off, and Caitlin stopped at the entrance to the lounge room. She could see the shock on her mother's face and she knew that her own expression was not dissimilar.

‘Caitlin.'

They looked at each other, and neither of them knew what to say.

‘How are you?' It was Sharn who spoke first.

‘I'm okay,' and Caitlin could hear the nervousness in her voice. Unable to either retreat or step forward, she just stood, perfectly still.

Standing up from the couch, Sharn asked Caitlin if she wanted anything to eat, anything to drink, and then she stopped herself. ‘You know where everything is,' and
she waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen.

‘I am okay,' Caitlin told her once again, ‘and they do feed me.'

‘Spiritual crap?'

Caitlin did not respond.

Sharn put down the book she had been reading, and Caitlin looked at the title:
How to Invest in Property.

Sharn grimaced. ‘Michael at work lent it to me. Says he's about to buy his third house.'

Caitlin shrugged her shoulders. ‘Why would anyone want three houses?'

Sharn smiled. ‘One would suit me fine.'

‘We've got one,' Caitlin said.

Sharn did not shift her gaze. ‘No, we don't,' and she reached to open the window a little further. ‘We're renters.' The breeze lifted the pages of the book, her place now lost. She picked it up and closed it.

‘So, you're back,' and she put the book down, her words still floating in the air.

Confused, Caitlin told her that she wasn't. ‘Back, that is.'

The window came loose, the frame clattering against the brick wall as it swung in the breeze.

‘Why?' Sharn did not reach to close it, she just let it bang. ‘I don't understand,' and she seemed to be speaking to herself.

Caitlin looked at the ground.

‘School, the chance of a good job, of earning money, of all those things …' her voice trailed off. ‘They shouldn't be taken lightly, they really shouldn't.'

Caitlin didn't want to fight. Not again. She told Sharn that she was just there to get the last of her things and then she would go.

Sharn reached to re-clip the window onto the frame. She wiped at a strand of hair that hung in her eyes.

Caitlin looked at her. ‘Please,' and her step towards her mother was hesitant, unsure, one hand reaching out for her in a gesture that felt so awkward she did not know if she could finish it.

But Sharn only moved away. ‘It's easy to do things when you are young without thinking of the consequences.' She was twisting the silver ring that Margot had made for her, the skin whitening beneath the metal. ‘And then you are left wishing you had never made the mistakes you made, but not being able to do anything about it.'

Her hand still held out, Caitlin could not stop the words before she spoke them. Later, she would remember the smart of Sharn backing away from her, of standing with one arm out towards her mother, and she would feel the rejection that made her speak. ‘Like having me?' Words that were uttered without thought, words that were bound to have consequences and that came from a place she had always done her best to ignore.

The denial, when it came, was too late and too feeble.

‘I was talking about leaving school,' Sharn said. ‘Staying too long at Sassafrass.'

‘No, you weren't.' They had entered the territory now and Caitlin did not know how to go back.

‘I was, actually. I shouldn't have left school. I shouldn't have stayed in that place.'

‘But you did.' The room felt too hot despite the cool of the autumn breeze. ‘Because of me.'

Her mother did not respond.

Caitlin wished she were anywhere but here.

When she finally spoke, Sharn's voice was clipped. ‘If you are doing this to get back at me, then you are an idiot.'

She should never have let it begin. Breathing in deeply, Caitlin knew this. She stepped away and wiped at the tears
that were starting to form. It does not matter, she told herself once again. None of this matters, and she looked around the flat that had once been her home, and wished she had not come back. She had to pull herself away, to walk out without further anger.

‘I have to go,' she said, and because she could hear the slight tremble in her own voice, she closed her eyes for a moment, wanting only to find the calm that had become the very essence of each of her days in the house. ‘It doesn't have anything to do with you.'

Sharn turned away, her own attempt at controlling her voice also failing. ‘Trust me. You're too young to know what you want.'

Reaching into her bag, Caitlin felt for the book she had brought to give to Sharn and Liam. It was a book of testimonials. She was going to leave it behind for them to read. For Sharn to understand. She looked up at the ceiling and bit her lip.