Broken Rules and Other Stories Read online

  He sat with his legs crossed at the knee, making notes on a large pad which he carried about in his briefcase. The briefcase was a burnished reddish-brown, the colour of a fox, and scratched, its straps always dangling open when he carried it. He smelled of a light soapy cologne.

  In the week he was there, I had only one real interaction with the ministry man. It happened after school on the Thursday afternoon. I was in the car park opposite school, smoking and watching the gates. The ministry man came out of the gates. I recognised him straight away. He checked to the left and the right, and then crossed the road. He’d removed his jacket, and it was folded over his arm. His line was directly towards where I stood. I felt sure he would recognise me from the classroom, and in the time it took for him to draw close I began to develop an idea that he might be coming over especially to speak with me. About what, the fantasy didn’t inform me, but I decided it must be on some friendly business and that I had no reason to feel any concern.

  I drew smoke deep into my lungs, enjoyed its familiar surge, and watched the ministry man make an unhurried path across the car park. A gentle breeze filled with springlike promises of salt tackiness and warm seas and beaches was playing at my fringe.

  I was disappointed that my cigarette was almost finished. I drew on the last of it, right to the filter, chemical-tasting and harshly hot; when I was sure he was watching, I dropped it to the ground and made a show of crushing it with my shoe. I put my hands into my pockets and touched the tops of my legs through the linings for reassurance.

  The ministry man approached and I smiled. This smile felt complicit, like an agreement or understanding. I was allowing him to know certain things about me: that I smoked, that I hung around after school on my own. These were activities which for my mother might signal the beginnings of a troubled career; for that reason, I preferred to keep them hidden from her.

  He didn’t return my smile, and seemed about to walk by. I thought perhaps I’d read him wrong, and that he might consider reporting my activities to someone in authority at school the following morning. But then he stopped and looked at the ground as if searching for something dropped. Then, ‘It’s Steven, isn’t it?’ he said.

  I nodded.

  He offered his hand, and there was a pause of uncertainty in which I could think of nothing to say. I was relying on him to fill in the gaps. He didn’t. We gazed at each other. His sunglasses were tinted by grey so faint that I could make out details of his eyes beyond my own reflections in the lenses. His face was a captivating composition of contrasts: milky pale skin flecked with coaldust stubble at his jaw; full fruit-red lips; blue-black hair that shone like a pool of spilled ink. He’d slicked his hair down so that it was immobile in the breeze. I didn’t allow my gaze to fall any lower than his tie knot. The knot, I admired, was impeccably centred and formed.

  The time stretched between us like a slow elastic. ‘Well,’ he said, eventually, ‘have a good evening. I’ll see you tomorrow morning in class.’

  I realised that I was still holding on to his hand, and pulled away, and a mirthful expression broke and spread over his face, easing the situation.

  I watched him to the corner, his briefcase straps flapping as he walked. His black pants had the shine of wear and were taut across his backside. It was appropriate and effective on him. When he’d rounded the corner and gone out of sight, I jammed my hands deeper into my pockets. All that remained of the man was a fragrant tang of soap.

  By the following week he had gone from the school along with his colleagues, their work completed. I invested, in the time that followed their departure, a great deal of energy into the recollection and exploration of that single brief encounter with the ministry man. I expanded and embellished the event, and attributed significance to every detail, however slight.

  I pictured the two of us together in my room. It had been necessary for him to come over to my house, as part of his duties, to examine the home life of a student. He wanted to see where and how I did my homework. Comfortable in my now familiar presence, he stretched out on the bed, took off his shoes, and made notes while I worked. After a while he loosened his tie and dozed. As he dozed, I approached the bed. I gazed at my pillow, saw his face in the folds of fabric, whispered hotly into his ear. I placed my hand onto the pillow and kissed the back of it, closing my eyes, savouring the sensation, and pulling at the soft skin with hungry lips.

  Over time, the fantasies became more intricate. One night when my homework assignments were completed, my mother insisted he join us for dinner. We talked, the three of us. And how we laughed! It grew late. ‘Goodness, look at the time,’ my mother said. ‘Won’t you please stay over? Steven won’t mind sharing his room.’ I rehearsed this particular night many times. There were endless possibilities. We went to my bedroom together, side by side, my mother smiling at us from the end of the hallway, and I closed my door and watched as the ministry man undressed to his underwear. I undressed slowly, trying to exhibit an appropriate shyness. I explained that I was accustomed to sleeping bare, and I hoped he wouldn’t mind. Or he wasn’t wearing any underpants, and undressed without care or explanation, standing stark naked while he slowly folded his clothes.

  On it went. I knew I was exploring alleys where madness lurked, and told myself that all this was a one off, for a short time, an indulgence. I was, I see now, like an addict swearing off their substance after just one more session of use.

  The fantasies persisted. I invented an entire life for him. His name was Christopher. He lived alone near the harbour in the city. He took frequent lovers. I imagined him waking in the mornings, checking the clock on his nightstand in the silver light of an urban dawn. As he watched the sleeping person beside him and tried to figure them out, I also tried to get a handle on their identity. Sometimes this sleeper was strikingly similar to me. Christopher unfolded himself carefully and considerately from the bed and its guest. Creaking gingerly across the floorboards, half asleep, finding the bathroom, he discharged a strong and quiet morning stream against the side of the toilet bowl. I tried to get a good look at his penis, at its length and girth, texture and colour and terrain, and to see how he handled it in his gentle slender fingers. I sometimes wondered what he thought about while he pissed, and if, like me, he observed his stream as it exited the head, or merely looked into the bowl or at the wall.

  One late afternoon I asked my mother about the men who’d recently visited the school. She was frying three fatty chops in a shallow pan over a high heat, and I stood in the doorway to watch her. She looked up briefly, to check that I was there, that she wasn’t hearing things in the sizzle of the meat. ‘I thought they’d gone,’ she said. I nodded. ‘They were working for the government,’ she said. Then she flipped the chops one by one. ‘Assessing,’ she added, as if the chops slapping into the oil had given her the word. ‘I suppose they have to account for the way the taxes are spent.’

  I waited for her to say more. She didn’t. ‘Is the ministry in the city?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Probably. It’s somewhere.’

  Over dinner I mentioned the ministry again, and she must have sensed a rat. ‘What is it with you and the ministry? Has someone said something?’

  I kept my eyes on my plate. ‘I’ve been thinking about jobs for when I finish school.’

  ‘Concentrate on your schoolwork,’ she said. ‘That’s enough for the time being.’ She was nibbling daintily on a chop bone. She placed it on the side of her plate and kissed grease from her fingers. An oily smudge glistened on her upper lip. Our eyes met, and she wiped her lip with her napkin. She smoothed an eyebrow. She offered me more bread. She’d start clearing away the plates soon. My mother didn’t like to eat very much, but enjoyed a smoke after dinner, and usually had two or three cigarettes on the veranda before watching the evening news.

  I mashed peas into my potatoes. She stood and wiped her hands on a tea towel. She paused, seeming to see something in the air in front of her. Then she cleared everyt
hing except my plate from the table, and wished me a good night, the way she always did before going for her smoke, because sometimes I wouldn’t see her again until the following morning. I knew that when I returned from my walk, the dishes would be done and the kitchen would be tidy.

  I put out the light, went to my room, and grabbed the cigarettes from my schoolbag. On the way out, I detoured to the back of the house. I could see her standing on the veranda. I went quietly to the screen door and watched her from the side. She was smoking in that unusual way she had, with her left arm folded across her breast, resting the elbow of her smoking arm on her left forearm so she was holding the cigarette near the top of her head. For a long time I stood watching.

  And then without moving she said, ‘I know you’re there.’

  I started, and went out onto the veranda.

  ‘What are you doing, hiding in the shadows?’ she said. She tutted. She was looking at the sky purpling above the trees.

  I felt for the bump of the cigarette packet in my back pocket.

  ‘You’re a strange boy,’ she said. ‘Queer, in many ways.’ She squinted, trying to figure me out. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I don’t mean that. Not in the way it sounded. You know what I mean.’

  I didn’t know, but said nothing. It was warm and still and sticky out there, and I felt stifled. I felt some faint premonition that this might be the time of my reckoning, a punishment for the things I’d been doing in my mind with the ministry man.

  ‘This is all I ever really wanted,’ she said. ‘To smoke, stare at the sky, collect my thoughts, sleep easy at night. Not very ambitious, is it? Maybe I’m flawed in some vital way. I should have wanted more, perhaps. For both of us.’

  I didn’t really understand what she was talking about. Sometimes her meanings were hidden beneath strange, lilting, cryptic language.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what’s with that government man who came into your classroom?’

  ‘You told me already. He was assessing.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said towards the bushes. ‘You told me he was well dressed. What did he look like?’

  I shifted my weight. ‘He was tall,’ I said. ‘And he wore a black suit. Nothing remarkable, but it fitted him well. You know.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Well, maybe I do. It was tight – is that what you mean?’

  ‘It was tight, yes. Fitted.’

  ‘I thought so.’ She turned to look at me. ‘Was he handsome?’

  At first I thought she might be asking for herself. So that’s what she thinks about when she’s out here alone, I thought. I felt an initial relief.

  But she raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to answer, and I knew from her expression that this wasn’t about her. There was a wilful smile playing at the edges of her lips.

  I’d seen that expression once before, that time when she’d seen me naked, not so long ago. I’d been twelve, thirteen. It had been during my evening shower time, after I’d been to the beach for a smoke. Sitting on the sand, I’d been dreaming of the usual, of climbing into a strange man’s car and escaping to the city. And in the shower I was probably thinking of one of those drivers, or perhaps a boy at school, or someone else. I don’t recall – it doesn’t matter. I’d finished off and dried myself and dashed out. My room was just across the hallway. But my mother was outside the bathroom, arms folded, leaning against the wall. ‘At last,’ she said. ‘I thought you were never coming out.’ I covered myself but it was too late: her eyes had run along my body. I was red with shame and anger, and gave her a look as she moved past. ‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ she said. I went to my bedroom and slammed the door. ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ she called from outside. I dressed quickly, imagining all sorts. She was in the bathroom for an age. It was an anxious wait, a torture of uncertainty. I grew progressively angrier. I hated her for seeing me, for being outside while I’d been unaware. For causing me grief with her proximity to my intimate desires. The toilet flushed, the cistern filled and gurgled, then a lengthy pause and the sound of the tap running. I imagined her fixing her hair, her gaze drifting to the shower curtain reflected over her shoulder. I wanted to go and check the scene, convinced a musky essence would be lingering, and that she would surely recognise the smell. Then I heard her leave. She went down the hallway to the living room, and I heard the door being closed. I went back inside the bathroom, switched on the light. The smell was of soap and damp towels. I looked into the shower area. There was nothing to see.

  After that I made sure she couldn’t catch me unclothed again. Not even shirtless. I wanted to place a softening distance between myself and the event, and the best way to do that was not to point to it or remind her of it in any way.

  I was remembering all this as I looked at her now on the veranda. This is the same woman, I thought. You can’t erase knowledge, and memories don’t go away. She thinks she understands my life.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Was he handsome?’

  I didn’t want to answer, because I didn’t know the right response. Any reply would reveal my hand. I couldn’t trust myself to dissemble effectively. I hadn’t yet learned the subtle tricks of the grown-up world. And it was too late to feign surprise at her question – I’d missed the critical moment, so I was trapped.

  She blew a huge plume of smoke into the air. It was thick like chalk dust. The whole thing had a theatrical effect. I tried to think. She was eyeing me. I didn’t like it at all. I felt behind me for my packet of cigarettes. Her eyes followed my hand and I thought she was about to say something, that she might ask me what I kept hidden there.

  But she went back to her cigarette. She made a moue with her lips and shrugged, but I don’t think it was for me to see. I think she was resigning herself.

  She ground out the cigarette on the veranda, and toed the stub into a loose pile of others. She wrapped her arms around herself. She looked finished. More than anything, I wanted a cigarette myself. I visualised the act of taking the packet from my pocket, in front of her, flipping it open, and so on. But my hand wouldn’t move.

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course you are.’

  I went for my walk, along the beach. I sat on the sand and smoked, looking out to sea. As usual I imagined what it would be like to go back onto the main road, and hitch a lift with a stranger into the city. But that night, the cigarettes didn’t taste the same or have their usual lift, and the sand felt inconvenient beneath me. I wasn’t able to give myself up to my imagination.

  I thought back to my mother on the veranda. It was a strange sensation I’d had when I walked away from her: a small event that felt bigger. It was as if I’d missed an important opportunity; and though I might want at some point in the future to try to bring it back, I had the feeling it would probably never return.

  TWITCH

  We do what we’re told. We keep our heads down and our noses clean. We go to work and we come home at night on crowded trains, barely able to keep our eyes from closing. Sometimes we attempt to join the dots and make sense of the way our lives are going, but it hurts. It hurts because it doesn’t make much sense, so we tune in to the noise around us instead. It’s easier that way. With no time or energy left to attend to proper nourishment, we cram our weary faces with pasty white junk. We iron a shirt for the next day, and then we fall onto our beds, exhausted, into fitful anxiety-ridden sleep, and emerge the next morning to repeat the process.

  Except I resist. I grab freedom in the small hours, when others sleep, in random anonymous online interactions on adult chat sites. Cam-to-cam, C2C. I watch as men and boys touch and finger and wank and come. I take part, reciprocate, but I never show my face. And I keep my tattoo, my indelible identifier, hidden, angled away from the webcam. I cavort through this nether world, and it swallows up my nights. But I take from it a steadying sense of control. Perhaps I’m kidding myself. Probably we’re all kidding ourselves.

  In recent days I’ve felt even this small unce
rtain freedom coming under threat. Since the heatwave started, three days ago, I’ve been meeting Fournier out the front, late at night. Both of us seeking cool relief from our stuffy boxes. When he sees me, he limps round to my side of the fence. Sits next to me on the step, smoking those cheap tarry cigarettes that smell like garbage skips on fire. And I’m there in my underwear, tight and white, semi-hardness outlined darkly through the thin fabric. I gaze at the stars, trying to lose myself in the scale of the galaxy.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said the second night, looking at my moonlit legs. ‘Online sex is turning risky. The laws have blurred.’ He said ‘risky’ like he was hissing. His stammer, that’s all. But it helped put the wind up me.

  He told me about the television ad. Then he sent me the link. It’s a short piece. A public information film. It begins in a house-lined night-time street, and ends with a man and his computer and peripherals being taken away by an official-looking group in an official-looking car. Seized. The camera pulls back to reveal neighbours coming to their windows and doors. Curtains twitching, faces pinching. Fournier says it’s been on every night for a week or more. Nationwide alarm has been activated. Millions of real curtains have begun to twitch in sedate suburban boxes. Eyes have started to shift sideways. We’re all watching each other now.

  But the ad is too short, and non-specific. What’s the crime? There’s something missing. It bothers me. Fournier says that’s the point – it’s nebulous.

  A notion that he’s part of the campaign, or in the government’s employ, sidles up to me. I shove it away. But it keeps coming back, whispering in my ear, trying to dissolve my trust in him. In my deep places, I know this is ridiculous. It’s a symptom of the times, of the fear that’s settling inside us all. Really, he’s just warning me. He likes me.

  So I probe a little. I ask him what he thinks we should be afraid of. He starts talking about metadata. He sees me chew the loose skin on my lower lip, and tells me that we can’t assume we’re not being watched.