Leaf was standing by the window, lit by mountain sun, talking about the view. He turned his bright hazel gaze on Adam. ‘The clothes? No.’
Adam said, hesitant, ‘I could put them in another closet, another bedroom, there must be plenty of room—’
‘No.’
‘But …’
‘Please, let’s not fight.’ Leaf looked plaintive and young suddenly, and Adam felt like a bully.
So the shirts and pants and sweaters are still hanging in the closet. They’re not clean and they’re not his size. In fact, they are many different sizes. There are a couple of flannel shirts, which would fitsomeone taller and more rugged than Adam. They bear brown sweat stains under the arms and still hold the sharp odour of the man who wore them. There is a grey suit which smells faintly of cologne. There are running shorts and a singlet, marked with green grass skid-marks where whoever it was slipped. There’s a Grateful Dead concert t-shirt, worn soft with use. That one smells faintly of pot.
These untenanted clothes are the only thing Adam doesn’t like about life at Nowhere. At night sometimes he dreams that the past inhabitants of his room return. They materialise in the dark closet. A body fills the sweat-stained flannel shirt slowly, like a tyre being pumped up. A head grows slowly from the collar of the grey suit like a balloon. Legs descend down into the empty pants legs. Adam thinks of them as the mirrormen. They step out of the closet, grinning. They look at Adam with their mirror eyes.
Now he showers and dresses quickly, taking his clothes from the pile he keeps neatly folded on the chair beside his bed. He doesn’t use the wardrobe.
Adam wipes his brow, leaving a streak of sawdust. He’s pleased with the wood he chose – aged cedar to match the house. The scent of it fills the air.
‘How’s it going?’ He hadn’t heard Leaf approaching over the sound of the drill. ‘Can you take a break?’
‘Sure.’ As Adam takes off his safety glasses he sees Leaf pass a hand across his own brow, wiping away imaginary sawdust.
‘Stop it,’ Adam says.
‘What?’
‘Stop – storing me. I’m not a character. I’m a person. You should learn the difference.’ Adam strides out of the house into the sunshine. There’s a light breeze and the woods rustle with life. Somewhere there’s a woodpecker.
‘It’s my job,’ Leaf says. He stands on the steps, arms folded. ‘You want paying? You let me do my job.’
Adam blinks. He feels calmer than he has ever been. ‘If you speak to me like that again I quit.’
‘Fine,’ Leaf says, mouth creased with anger. ‘I’m sorry, ok, please – look, let’s take a walk.’
They go up the sloping paddock. Seven or eight horses follow hopefully, ears pricked. Sometimes the horses touch Leaf or Adam with their velvet muzzles, hoping that they’ve brought food.
‘I used to think,’ Leaf says, pushing a grey horse gently away from his side, ‘I’ll wait a little, until I’m more famous. Until people will miss me just a little more.’
‘Wait, until what?’
‘Until I kill myself.’
‘That’s messed up.’ Adam stumbles as a friendly bay noses him in the small of his back. He rights himself and turns to Leaf. ‘What kind of person would say that?’
Leaf kicks a tussock of grass across the field. ‘Do you want me to lie?’
‘No.’
‘Sometimes I feel I’ve given everything I am to the characters,’ Leaf says. ‘Maybe there’s not much left.’ He puts a conciliatory arm on Adam’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go see Tinkerbell. If you understand Tinkerbell maybe you’ll understand everything.’
The horses follow them all the way to the fence, nosing at their pockets.
Leaf and Adam go past the staff block, where some children are running through the long grass, chasing each other. It’s nice, Adam thinks, through his anger, how everyone lives together up here. The kids get to grow up in this beautiful place.
They go through the dappled light of the orchard, until water gleams ahead.
‘It’s over this way,’ Leaf says. ‘He needs a temperature-controlled environment so I built a tank by the lake, using the water.’ Leaf speaks briefly into his walkie talkie.
Leaf leads Adam to a stairway down into the earth. The entrance is nearly concealed by sedge grass. Adam follows, heart beating fast. They come out into a small chamber below the water. A bench sits between two glass walls on either side. Carefully placed lights show waving waterweed, gravel and sand, floating particles.
