‘I’m not feeling very easy.’
‘Slow breaths.’
When he opens his eyes he stares at the floor in front of the bathroom sink. ‘Those people… They were just some blood and bone that got in the way while someone was looking for the drugs and the cash. It was so clinical. They were expendable.’
He’s saying something about himself, somehow. And I can tell we’re both reacting differently to the whole scenario. The fear of it, of these killings, makes me want to hide here in the house. For Harris, it makes him want to run. To get out, get in the car and drive away as fast as he can. I feel the energy in him, the way he’s containing the urge inside his body, the way it threatens to spill out.
I remember something my dad told me once about emergency situations: it’s really hard to wait and take a breath, think about what to do, consider the consequences. It’s hard to do nothing if you’re a person used to action.
‘We’ll figure it out. Relax for a second.’ I touch Harris’s neck gently. ‘Let me do this, then we can talk about it.’
He closes his eyes and exhales with a shuddering effort, as if more than breath is escaping him. I concentrate on what I’m doing. My fingers ease up from Harris’s nape. His hair has a dark sheen at the roots, but the gold is splintered all the way through, like a lion’s pelt. I’m not cutting the blonde out, just the whitened ends scorched by sun.
The bathroom is quiet, the low timbre of our breathing only punctuated by the crisp sound of the scissors. Hair falls in thick strands onto the floor, into the bath, into Harris’s lap. I turn his head or shift sideways for a better angle, working quickly, running my fingers through to check the length. It’s a choppy job but it’s all we’ve got time for.
When I’m done, Harris doesn’t look at himself in the mirror, just turns to me. ‘How’s that?’
‘It looks…different.’Better, I want to say. His face is more open now. You can see his eyes. I wonder briefly if the curtain of hair he had before was useful, if he’s going to miss the shielding that a fringe can provide. I hope he doesn’t feel too exposed. ‘I would’ve cut it shorter, but I didn’t know if you’d want that.’
‘As long as the cops don’t make me, sitting in the Pitbull.’
‘Amita!’ There’s Nani’s voice, coming down the hallway.
I step out of the bath quickly, leave the scissors in the sink. Harris stands, nudges the hair trimmings closer to the bathmat with his foot, as I push the bathroom door fully open and step out. ‘Nani, it’s mostly cleaned up in here but I think Harris would like a shower. Were you able to find any clothes?’
Nani is cradling what looks like half the contents of a laundry hamper. ‘Some shirts and things are here. Hansa had clothes in a plastic box.’
I take the armful Nani is thrusting in my direction. ‘Oh, that’s great. That’s really good, thank you.’ I pass the pile back to Harris, step right into the hall and close the door behind me. ‘Let’s give him some space while he’s getting himself together.’
I walk back to the kitchen with Nani and wash my hands at the sink. The shower is running, water rushing in the pipes. I’m trying very hard not to think about Harris in the shower – this is not the time to be thinking about that at all – but when Nani speaks, I jump guiltily.
‘He will be all right, this Ouyen boy? He looked white in the face.’
I consider the best way to reply. ‘He should go home to rest. He’ll feel better when he’s washed and changed. Harris is new to Mildura, and he has no family to look after him.’
‘Then he should come to eat here!’ Nani looks aghast at the idea of someone struggling alone. ‘You should invite him!’
I backtrack quickly. ‘Well, that’s a good idea, Nani. But…he’s proud. He likes to think he can take care of himself.’ I see her look. ‘But I’ll invite him. You’re right, it couldn’t hurt.’
When the pipes stop gurgling, I give it five more minutes then walk down the hallway to knock softly on the bathroom door. ‘Are you right in there?’
‘One sec.’ There’s a pause, then: ‘Okay, I’m coming out.’
The door opens, and I have a brief dizzying moment when I’m hit by the smell of Harris’s skin carried on the hot steam. Then he steps out into the hall and I don’t know whether to laugh, or frown, or…
‘This shirt’s a bit much,’ he says, still buttoning it up from the waist. ‘What d’you reckon?’
I stare – I can’t help it. The shirt is a wide-lapelled number, pale pink with a silvery pinstripe. Harris has used the scissors to cut his beard back to stubble, and towel-dried his hair. He looks fresh and clean. His trackie pants have been replaced by a pair of my uncle’s old brown trousers: they’re not bell-bottomed, but it would be ungenerous to call them boot-cut. They’re tight at Harris’s hips though. In fact, they’re tight in so many interesting places I have to look elsewhere. His new haircut, with his smoother jawline and the pink of the shirt, makes his eyes stand out like green lamps.
I press my lips together against a smile, which doesn’t work very well. ‘I reckon if you grew out the moustache you’d look like an escapee from a seventies porno.’
‘Thanks,’ he says drily. ‘Trousers are a bit, ah, snug.’
‘Really? I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He eyes me, then his eyes track to someplace behind me just as I hear Nani arrive from the kitchen. She bustles forward, takes Harris’s face in her hands.
‘He is looking better.’ She turns his head from side to side as his eyebrows lift. ‘Mm. He is quite handsome. The green eyes. And tall, like my Anupam.’ She holds Harris’s head so he’s looking at her level, lowers her voice confidingly. ‘My husband. Such a man! He has a full beard, you know.’
