The young man at the counter was clearly bemused by her choice but he said nothing. He searched under the counter and found the cassette. ‘Twenty dollars.’
‘What?’ She was staring at a poster for a magazine called Kink. A woman’s ecstatic face was drenched in a thick paste of semen.
‘That will be twenty dollars.’ The man’s tone was patient.
‘Of course.’ She fumbled with the catch of her purse, took out a fifty-dollar note and gave it to the youth. She knew her face was flaming red; she did not look at him again. He handed her the change and put the video in a brown paper bag. She allowed herself a smile at this small conceit. Like a greengrocer, she thought to herself; only greengrocers and, evidently, pornographers still use brown paper bags. She accepted the package and stuffed it deep into her bag, covering it with her scarf.
‘Goodbye.’
She did not answer him. Making her exit she nearly collided with a man. He too was young, with slightly chubby cheeks on which the unshaven down could not quite muster to form a full beard. He stepped back, threw himself against the wall, and turned his face away from her. He cringed, his cheeks and neck flushing to bright pink.
She walked quickly into the light, into the street, making rapid strides away from the store, looking at no one, experiencing a humiliation that was visceral. She was terrified that one of the shadows rushing past her in the city street would not belong to a stranger. She only stopped when she reached the corner of Russell and Lonsdale.
That boy she had so nearly collided with — he was still a boy to her — who had been mortified by her presence, he had a sweet, charming face. She had wanted to hug him, stroke his hair, his cheek. She had so wanted to comfort him.
•
‘A packet of Supa Mild cigarettes, thank you.’
‘What?’ The girl at the counter was surly. Customers waited impatiently behind her.
‘Supa Mild.’
The girl stared back blankly. ‘Never heard of them.’
‘They finishing to make them long time ago. I smoke them too once. They very good cigarette.’
She turned. The man behind her was beaming; he was her own age and his trim beard was speckled with silver.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She was apologising to everyone. She scanned the tray of cigarettes and recognised a brand from her past. ‘Peter Stuyvesant, please.’
•
She had not had a cigarette in over fifteen years when she had asked for one in Los Angeles, in the tiny grim office at the back of the police station. She and her husband had flown across the Pacific, mostly in silence, to collect their son’s body and take it home.
There had been two policemen. The older, white one had seemed a little bored, as if detailing the particulars of an overdose to distressed kin was a familiar, tedious routine for him. As it probably was. But the young black officer had been courteous and gentle. His broad face had worn a sad smile throughout. She had found herself talking to him, asking him questions, though it was often the other one who answered her, reading directly from his notes. They had found a combination of heroin and cocaine in their son’s body, he explained, as well as traces of alcohol, marijuana, Viagra and Zoloft. Had their son been suffering from depression? There had been an embarrassed silence. She was ashamed to admit that it had been years since they had seen Nick, that they had not spoken since that phone call in the middle of the night, when he had been slurring, making outrageous accusations, making no sense at all. Her husband had grabbed the phone from her and slammed it down so hard that the casing had cracked.
Clearing his throat, the white officer had then informed them that their son had been HIV positive.
Her husband had made a whimper, like a frightened animal, and then, rising, his voice cracking, he had excused himself. She had put out a hand to him but he had refused to take it. She was alone with the strangers.
‘I don’t understand. AIDS?’
The white officer had nodded.
‘Oh.’ She felt nothing. He was dead, what did it matter?
The older man swallowed. ‘Mrs Pannini, did you know your son was homosexual?’
‘Yes.’ She knew, she had guessed. Of course, she had always known. Always.
‘Did you know the work he was doing in LA?’
She stared confusedly at the man. ‘Acting? That’s what he wrote to us.’
‘Mrs Pannini, I’m sorry to inform you of this, but your son worked as an actor in pornographic movies.’
There was silence. The black officer had lowered his eyes.
‘Did he use his real name?’
‘No.’
She then addressed the black officer. ‘Can I please ask for a cigarette?’
He rose immediately to obey her request but the white officer frowned and looked directly above her shoulder at the no-smoking sign next to a portrait of the grinning President Bush.
She turned again to the younger man. ‘Please, I must have a cigarette,’ she pleaded.
‘Of course, ma’am.’ She was astonished at his old-fashioned courtesy.
The first inhalation of smoke hurt, she had a fit of coughing, and then she felt a dizzying euphoria. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m a smoker too, ma’am.’
For the first time she glanced down at the tag on his shirt. James B. Franklin. ‘Thank you again, Mr Franklin.’
‘You’re welcome, ma’am.’
‘Can you please not tell my husband about my son? The pornography? Please, let me tell him — I need to tell him in my own time.’
She saw the two men glance at one another. They seemed unsure of how to proceed. They were embarrassed. Of course they were. It was sordid and awful and disgusting. The foolish, foolish boy; so easily led, never thinking of consequences.
‘We thought it best to inform you directly.’ Officer Franklin cleared his throat. ‘Sometimes people can be cruel.’
She thought immediately of her sister-in-law. Oh, how Sonja would gloat over it all, her sympathy poisonous and insincere. ‘Thank you, I do understand you had to tell me.’
When her husband returned, his eyes were red and there was a trickle of snot on his top lip. She moved to wipe it, and he broke out into wounded, terrified sobbing. They had collapsed into grief, watched quietly by the two Americans. Her arms encircled him, she held him tight. He must never know. It would destroy him. She made up her mind: if he ever found out she would deny it. Of course not. Of course not. How can you say such things? Nick would never do such things.
•
On entering the house, she was conscious of a strange vibration all around her: the walls, the floor, the very air seemed to be pulsating. She walked through every room, her hand still clutching her bag, as it had done throughout the train journey. She was alone. She opened her bag and laid the video on the coffee table.
She looked around and closed the lounge curtains, blocking out the daylight. She deadlocked the front door and took the phone off the hook. The house still seemed to be breathing.
She slotted the video into the machine and fingered the remote controclass="underline" there was the hum of the television coming to life, the sunburst of snow, and then colour flooded the screen. The volume blasted music and noise, a woman was exercising on a bike. She grabbed the second remote and pressed a button. The screen went black and there was silence. She waited.
The music began and she was struck by the harshness of its sound. She pressed the remote, and the five green bars became four, then three, and then finally one. She had reduced the volume to a whisper. She fixed her eyes on the screen and took her glasses out of their case. Names flashed across the screen, and then a series of close-ups. Her son’s face appeared, his hair shorn to the scalp in a military cut. He was smiling, and winked at the camera. The pseudonym he had chosen for himself, Pallo, had been the nickname of Con Pollites, his best friend in primary school. They had lived in Brunswick then, at 33 Edwards Street, and the Polliteses had lived at number sixteen. The children were always running in and out of each other’s houses.