Carousel Page 3

  Lizzy was the opposite. Funnelling time and energy into the studio with an unflinching resolve. She would blast the rest of us with impromptu DJ sets from Carousel’s huge library, and power through music magazines and autobiographies.

  And she would play. Cross-legged on a couch or bed. Pacing around an abandoned corridor. Her pale, perfect fingers skipping across a keyboard or guitar. One of my favourite things about being stuck in the centre was hearing Lizzy’s music drifting the empty halls. Rocky and I would stop cycling and coast in slow circles while we listened to the fractured and beautiful sounds. Once I had seen Taylor stop to listen also. Her back was to me but I could see that her head had dropped slightly and she might have been smiling. Or crying.

  She and Lizzy lived in different cities on the outside and the confinement of the centre had complicated both their relationship and their music. But Carousel offered them time. It was its foremost gift.

  We stopped for a break and some honey-flavoured trail bars. Lizzy had chosen a big circular rug for the floor of her studio. We lay on our backs, looking up at the cheap fibro ceiling, and slowly chewed down the bars.

  ‘Okay, so after Michelle in high school there was Heather, then Chloe in college?’ she asked.

  ‘Uni,’ I said.

  ‘Uni, college, whatever,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ I said.

  ‘What does I think so mean? You’ve forgotten because none of them were really serious?’ she asked. ‘Or is it some guy thing where you act casual about this stuff?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s probably it,’ I replied.

  Lizzy sighed and tore open another bar.

  ‘Sorry. I should be more open about the details of my intimate relationships,’ I added. It was pretty sarcastic and Lizzy sighed again.

  ‘We’ve been here for what, six months now?’ asked Lizzy.

  ‘Seven. Nearly eight,’ I replied.

  ‘You can’t expect to be trapped in a mall with the last three people on earth and not get to know them eventually,’ she said.

  ‘There’s just not that much to tell. Michelle and I were on and off from Year Nine till first year uni.’

  ‘Freshman,’ Lizzy cut in.

  ‘Yeah okay, Freshman,’ I said. ‘I met Heather. Stuff got weird and confusing. She went overseas. I listened to The National a lot. I met Chloe in a film theory class. We both liked Tom Tykwer films. Went out until June last year.’

  I had Lizzy’s full attention but there was a smirk in her just waiting to surface.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing. It’s just like dot points or something,’ she said.

  I sighed.

  ‘And stuff got weird and confusing. People call that love, I think,’ she said.

  ‘Right, okay. Thanks,’ I replied. ‘Do you want to tell me some more about Erica now? Maybe how her hair looks after a hot shower as opposed to a cold one. Or how she makes those tiny noises when she reads exciting books. Or how toast tastes different when she makes it.’

  Lizzy smiled and punched me twice in the shoulder. I glanced at her to make sure I hadn’t overstepped. Carousel kept each of us on emotional tightropes that were increasingly shaky. Despite Lizzy’s ribbing this was the main reason behind my general silence. I figured not bringing stuff up decreased its opportunity to affect me.

  Pretty mental, I know.

  Lizzy seemed a little reflective, but fine.

  ‘Did you hear that truck noise outside a few nights ago?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ she shrugged.

  ‘No big deal?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, a little tiredly. ‘We hear weird stuff out there all the time. It doesn’t mean people are just carrying on with their lives and forgetting that there’s a giant ugly mall sitting here. Plus we arrived here via the same cab,’ she said.

  I smiled. Lizzy had a theory that the taxi that dropped them here most likely dropped me also. And that this driver alone had the answers to Perth’s countless mysteries. Unfortunately none of us could confirm this. Our memories of him were vague to begin with, and grew more so with every day that passed.

  ‘Worst shopping advice in history,’ I said.

  ‘Or the best,’ replied Lizzy.

  We gazed back up at the ceiling and finished another trail bar. A dull banging rang out from some distant corner of the centre. Taylor and Rocky were trying to break through a door. We lay in silence and listened.

  ‘Why do you think that none of the doors will break open?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re not supposed to,’ answered Lizzy after a moment.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The same reason that the windows won’t smash. And there’s enough food to eat. And the power stays on.’

  I nodded. It was the best explanation. We stared at the ceiling some more.

  ‘Have you thought about what you’re going to record in here once it’s ready?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is that normal?’

  ‘No. Yeah,’ she replied. ‘God, I don’t even know,’ she added.

  I looked at her and nodded so that someone would understand. Even though I didn’t at all.

  After another hour or so of shifting equipment it was alone time. Lizzy and I were getting along fine but it was kind of unspoken that the four of us needed a certain amount of time away from each other each day to stay at least a little sane. It was strange to feel crowded in a massive abandoned shopping centre, but we often did. Taylor and Lizzy would usually declare it outright and head off alone to go shopping or read books. Rocky and I were less direct. He would just be cycling around us one moment, then slowly coast away out of sight the next. I usually had a plan worked out early in the day for somewhere I wanted to go later. It wasn’t a secret, and I knew the others wouldn’t follow me or anything, but I still didn’t really like telling them about it. It had been the same outside of Carousel. I just hadn’t realised it then.

  After leaving Lizzy, I had gone to the men’s bathroom in the north wing of the centre. Having hundreds of toilets to choose from weirded me out a little so, having looked around a bit, I really only used the first cubicle in this room, and the last one upstairs on my level of Myer. If I ventured into another it was because we were ‘out’ somewhere unusual and I treated it like a public toilet. Mine I washed weekly and kept my favourite paper and fresheners inside. And some magazines.

  I opened one of these and jerked-off quickly to the crouching bikini model inside. This was followed by the usual incapacitating rush of embarrassment and guilt. I couldn’t believe that I had done that again in this place, with Taylor and Lizzy and Rocky probably just around the corner. Eventually rationality would swallow this down, but it always took some time, and I had to do something that made me feel better about myself in the hour or two that followed.

  Reading through the literary section of the centre’s three bookstores was my main focus at the moment. I had finished an arts degree but felt like I only just touched the surface of what it was to write or be an artist. Since then I’d been buying books online and convincing myself that every one was moving me closer to knowing what the hell I was on about. But really only getting security in the fact that there was slightly less that I didn’t know.

  Lizzy was probably in Dymocks so I headed to Collins where I had gotten through a shelf and a half of the Penguin classics and some of the film theory. Rocky and I had shifted a couple of sofas in there a while ago and I sat on one until I had read four chapters of Scorsese on Scorsese and felt like less of a loser.

  By then I was hungry and always liked the process of walking through a section of the centre until I decided on something to eat. A lot of stuff was coming out of code so the selection wasn’t quite as extensive as it had been, but with three supermarkets and almost a hundred food-selling outlets, it was still enough to make me a little excited. Nowhere near the first week or two mind you. That small window when the fresh food was still edible. The Fi
nns and I had taken long breaks from our confusion and hysteria to gorge on gelato and mud cake and curry. Food really got us through those first weeks. Food and shopping.

  For a while Carousel was like some giant grown-up playground. Rocky and I would pull the cash drawers out of shops and carry them up to the arcade games in the foyer of the cinema. There we would bunker down with bags full of Pringles, Mars bars and Red Bulls, feeding games with coin after coin until we were bored and moved onto another. Some games like Hoop Fever even stopped working because the coin slots were chocked full and we couldn’t find keys to empty them.

  Then there was the real gaming. Carousel had every console on the market and two stores full of games. Like a couple of teenage stoners, Rocky and I burnt weeks bedded down in futuristic cities fighting the undead with masses of state-of-the-art military ammo. For lightness we broke this up with epic FIFA tournaments.

  I had always been solid at gaming but Carousel sharpened me to a level that would have destroyed any of my mates. Rocky was on another level entirely. Within a few days of playing a game he would be so good that he would get bored and start to experiment. How quickly could he kill a room full of zombies? How many times could he lap the field? How long could he survive with just a knife, when the other avatars held AKs and grenade launchers? Half of our time on FIFA was spent watching replays of the epic, ridiculous goals he scored on me.

  For Taylor and Lizzy it was all about the shopping.

  Tucked among the trashy discount stores selling torn-up daisy dukes and fluoro camis, there were enough big-name outlets to keep them busy. The two of them would drift off to one wing of the centre and return with trolleys full of jeans, tops and accessories. It was hard not to just grab anything that was remotely cool when price and time were taken out of the equation. This often left them sorting through their selections upon returning in a process that Lizzy called trolley shopping.

  The rules of trolley shopping seemed pretty specific. Firstly it couldn’t involve any shops. The base items had already been gathered and no further additions were allowed. Carousel was big and tiring, and this aimed to take that factor out of play. The only exception to this was sizing. If you liked an item but the size was wrong, it could be put aside and noted down for collection later, or Rocky could be asked to fetch a suitable size from the store in question. This sounds harsh but couriering clothes throughout Carousel on his pristine selection of mountain bikes was actually one of Rocky’s favourite things.

  Due to the ban on shops, trolley shopping had to take place in a corridor or corner somewhere. The Finns would drag over a couple of movie standees and some mirrors and set up a makeshift change area. Outside of this would be a couch or something comfortable to sit on, and a bank of clothes-filled trolleys. The two of them would walk along the trolleys, selecting items and trying them on in the cover of the standees. If an item made the cut it was placed in a smaller trolley that they each kept by the couch.

  Trolley shopping was a gradual and relaxed process. There would be music and magazines, and pauses for smoothies and snacks. Only premium selections made it to the smaller trolleys. It would break my brain to see Taylor wheeling back a single pair of jeans and a scarf after a six-hour session. But often that’s how it was.

  Lizzy just shrugged and said that this was how Beyoncé would shop. No trudging around looking for needles in haystacks. Most of the choosing would be done already. Like you had a store just for you. You couldn’t go wrong, just really right.

  There were also the challenges we devised for each other, usually on trips to and from Liquor Central. Who could get their tongue to turn the bluest from drinking slushy. Who could stand amid the rotting fruit section of Coles for the longest without gagging. Who could get from the north end to the south on a bike without stacking once the corridor lights had timed out.

  But gradually these things lost their shine. Like winners of some bizarre lottery, we had become jaded and were now only excited in rare moments by new discoveries.

  I decided to cook myself a cheeseburger at McDonald’s and make some extra to take back to the others. None of us had quite perfected the equipment in the fast-food outlets, but we could fumble our way through enough to make something recognisable. The packaging was the most exciting part. Whatever we managed to throw into a brown Macca’s bag or a KFC bucket seemed at least slightly enticing.

  I took enough ingredients out of the storage freezer for three burgers and fries. Rocky was a vegetarian aside from red beef curry. He also loved chicken nuggets so I grabbed a handful of these and shut the huge frosty door.

  The freezer reminded me of my idea to check some of the other stores for frozen supplies also. I switched on a deep fryer and headed out to take a look while it heated.

  McDonald’s was part of a semicircle-shaped food hall at the south-east end of the centre. It had all of the regular fast-food chains you would expect, plus a clichéd selection of ‘world food’ such as Tasty Thai, Burrito Plus, Stars ’n’ Stripes Carvery and Curry in a Hurry. I wandered over to the Indian place in the hope of finding a stack of delicious frozen curries out the back.

  Each outlet had a counter, bain-marie and some drink fridges, as well as a small area used for storage and cooking at the back. I remembered venturing into a couple of these during the first week. But there was still plenty of food out the front at that time so we had never had a proper look.

  Curry in a Hurry had a lock on the door to the storeroom. I knelt beneath the counter and looked around. There were a few dusty receipt books. Some spare till rolls. A half-full bottle of water. And, on a hook, a singular key. It matched the lock on the storeroom. I opened the door just a sliver and reached around for a light switch before going inside. Standard practice in Carousel.

  With the light came the smell.

  Dense and thick. It pushed me back like a pillow to the face.

  Something was clearly rotting in there, but the smell was also spiked with a chemical sharpness I couldn’t place. I stepped back and took a few breaths.

  With my shirt pulled up over my nose I tried again. I got another snap of dizziness. Intense and warm like I’d stepped into heavy drunkenness. My legs wavered and, for a moment, it seemed like I would fall inside. Again the fractured visions of the Carousel floor plan swept past my temples.

  I swayed back and brought the door shut with a bang.

  I placed the key back under the counter and sat at a table in the food court for a few minutes while the sweat dried on my face. I felt nauseous and the place smelt overly bleachy for a centre that hadn’t seen a cleaner in months. Curry in a Hurry stood dormant beside me. The trashy yellow sign with its chubby Indian cook full of kitsch and indifference. Something about the place unnerved me. I subconsciously added it to the list of places in Carousel that creeped me out.

  It was growing.

  Having put together my best impersonation of some Happy Meals, I picked up a bike from Sports Power to cycle them back to the others while they were still hot. Taylor informed me via radio that the three of them were watching Breaking Bad reruns in JB Hi-Fi.

  ‘Awesome. What did you get?’ she asked when I arrived with the Macca’s bag. We still said ‘get’ like we were buying stuff rather than taking it or making it.

  ‘Happy Meals. Nuggets,’ I said and dished them out across the massive leather lounge we had positioned in front of a flatscreen.

  ‘You’re the best,’ said Lizzy.

  She resumed the show and we ate in silence while I tried to wipe the fetid smell from my mind.

  Despite the massive library of films offered by the abandoned centre, we had drifted pretty quickly into watching television series. The extended narratives gave us all something to talk about, but also a sense of structure and rhythm. It was good to have something consistent in our weirdo lives, and if a TV series could offer this, albeit temporarily, we gravitated toward it, irrespective of the quality.

  One of Taylor and Lizzy’s favourite things was watch
ing Neighbours episodes on DVD. Neither of them had seen one of Australia’s most clichéd and long-running soaps before arriving in Carousel. They would talk pretty much the whole way through. The acting was bad and the plot lines seemed to repeat every season, but the massive bank of episodes held the security of continuation that most series couldn’t.

  Rocky and I had grown up with Neighbours and weren’t keen to revisit something we didn’t like the first time. Instead we found our structure and security in Futurama and Grand Designs.

  We also only really watched stuff on the one TV. There were countless others, a lot of them bigger and with surround sound or 3D. Sometimes during alone time or at night we would watch other sets around the centre. But most of the time we would sit happily on a couple of couches in front of our seventy-two inch. If Taylor and Lizzy were watching Neighbours, Rocky and I would kick a soccer ball around for a bit until they were finished.

  I think this was like Taylor and the books. She would drive Lizzy crazy waiting on her to finish a book rather than get a new one off the shelf. Lizzy probably knew best why Taylor did it. Something about keeping a lid on the world. About making sure she still wanted things, because wanting was important. In some way, wanting was tied to survival. That’s what I thought. But a lot of the time I didn’t really know what was going on between them. Sometimes I felt like one day the doors would open and we would go our separate ways without any lasting impression. Like I was bouncing around outside of them this whole time and it meant nothing.

  We finished with Breaking Bad and Rocky left for bed in Camping World. He kept a tent in there with a mattress on the floor. For a while it was a blow-up plastic one like he had in Target. When we realised, Taylor and I dragged in a pillow-top from Bed Bath and Home and got him the hell off the cold lumpy air. Rocky slept more than any of us, yet he always looked tired.