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The world sort of ends roughly where King Street meets the Princes Highway, which is where St Peters station is. Many years ago, out of the primordial swamps in the minds of a few european industrialists, this vast expanse of desolation began to form itself. It grew and grew, turning what was once a vast expanse of beautiful coastal rainforest into a nightmare landscape of factories, warehouses and rubbish dumps. The peak of its evolution came a few years ago when an almost inspired city council turned a filled-in rubbish dump behind the old brickworks into a grassy hill, now known as Sydney Park. The weird looking collection of gigantic chimneys at the edge of the highway, which used to belch out smoke from the brick kilns, were left stanging, towering over the otherwise characterless park and the still active dump next door.
The park's name was well chosen really. From the top of the hill you can see, spread out around you in all directions, Sydney as it really is. To the north there's the jumbled and daily more crowded collection of skyscrapers that make up the city itself. To the north east there's the featureless expanse of the eastern subburbs, with their horribly polluted beaches and the pacific ocean beyond. In the south and south east, there's the industrial area and the airport. And to the west King Street runs up into Newtown, almost the only part of Sydney with any kind of life or character - but the yuppies are working hard to put an end to that!
Anton woke out of a dream about London. A long, complicated and disturbing dream. He felt exhausted, like he'd been working all night rather than sleeping, and he felt confused.
But the haze slowly cleared and he began to recognise his surroundings. He was in a house. The first house he'd slept in for a long time. It was really weird waking up with walls all around him, he thought, and in the city too. It was so noisy. He'd been roused from his dream by the loud clatter of a train rushing through St Peters station, whisking its hundreds of deranged passengers off to their daily nightmare of work in the city.
It felt so different here to how it had felt in Goonabah and Mainline. You could feel it in the air straight away. Anton's nose was blocked and his eyes were all gummed up from breathing the city air all night. You could smell the air here, it was oily and gassy and dusty. It felt dead when it entered your nostrils. Not like the air in the rainforest, specially when it was raining. Anton began to wonder why he'd come.
It had been a decision made completely on the spur of the moment, the day before yesterday. They'd all been sitting in the Starlight, drinking Neville's disgusting coffee, when Muz had suddenly announced she was going to Sydney for a few days and did anyone else feel like coming?
Anton had hesitated at first, although he'd felt like saying yes straight away. But then he made up his mind. A trip to Sydney would be good, a change of scenery. He'd barely seen the place on the way through to Goonabah and he felt like he was missing out on something. He asked Sally if she wanted to go, but she didn't. She had a strong feeling it wouldn't be a trip she'd enjoy very much. Although she had some misgivings about Anton going with Muz, most of her worries about their friendship had gone recently as his strange moods had disappeared now and nothing had happened between the two of them. So she wasn't too bothered about them going off together. Not that she could have done much about it anyway, except go too, even if she had. And it certainly wasn't worth starting a fight over.
So Muz and Anton had set off early the next morning to hitch to Sydney. It had been a long journey, but not as long as the train would have taken. And it went quite fast for Anton as it was his first long road journey in australia. In fact, it was probably the longest journey he'd done by road in his life. He felt quite dazed by the time they arrived in Sydney - after spending all those hours staring at the wide ribbon of black, with its thin white lines disappearing quickly underneath him.
And then they were in the city, and surrounded by bright lights, fast moving traffic and the general deranged atmosphere that Sydney seems to pulsate with. It hadn't really been that long since Anton had left London - four or five weeks only. But somehow he'd adjusted really fast to life in the bush. And arriving in Sydney that night had felt similar to being hit in the face with a brick.
He'd had the impression, when he was there before, that Sydney was more berserk than London. But they'd passed through really quickly then, and it was hard to be sure how much of that feeling was because he'd just been in a plane for twenty six hours. Now, though, it hit him again and he realized it was true. Sydney moves faster and the people are much more spunout and psychotic than they are in London.
As he regained consciousness the next morning, he felt that craziness in the air all around him, trying to seep into his bones at the time when he was most vulnerable to its influence.
"I need a taste!" he said to Muz, who was lying on the floor beside him, awake now too.
"just what iwas thinking mate!" she answered, stretching her arms and legs to get rid of the stiffness from lying on the floor all night. Her hand accidentally made contact with Anton's back and, although she felt him tense up slightly, she left it there, feeling the warmth of his body through his tee shirt.
"I'm spinning out a bit." she continued, "It's been a few months since i was in the city last you know. And a bit of smack should help soften the blow. I reckon it's the only way to land here really. Otherwise you spend a couple of weeks totally spun out by all the electricity and the noise and the prisons that people have to live in here!"
"So d'ya know anywhere to score in Sydney?" Anton asked. He stood up reluctantly, after enjoying the feeling of Muz's hand on his back, and began to roll up his sleeping bag.
"Well, there's always the Cross." Muz rolled over and lay with her face pressed into the cushion under her head. "It's a bit early really, but you can get on there pretty well any time of the day or night."
"Really?" Although Anton had never been to Kings Cross and didn't have any idea where it was, he'd heard it mentioned a lot in conversations up in Goonabah. Almost always in relation to junk. From what people said, it sounded like some kind of drug mecca. He began to feel like a pilgrim about to go to the holy city.
"We're going up the Cross to get on." Muz told Morna casually as the three of them sat in the kitchen drinking cups of strong coffee and eating avocado on toast.
"Hmmm..." Morna replied thoughfully. "I wouldn't mind coming with yas, but i've got to go and get my sickies renewed today or they'll cut me off."
"What are you on it for?" Anton asked. It amazed him how many people he'd met since he'd been in australia that were on sickness benefit. He couldn't remember ever having met anyone on it in england, but it seemed quite normal here.
"Alcoholism." Morna replied with a shrug. She was still slightly distracted by the mention of scoring heroin. "How much are you getting?" she asked Muz.
"A hundred, i guess. There's no point trying to get fifty up there really. Not between the two of us anyway."
"You don't feel like splitting a hundred three ways, i suppose?" Morna asked hopefully. "I can just about afford that. I haven't had a taste for a couple of weeks now and i really fancy some!"
*-*-*
The loud clattering noise subsided a bit as the train popped out of the tunnel. And suddenly the dark underground concrete gave way to a startling view of Woolloomooloo bay, with the modern housing commision estate sprawling away from it up the hillside towards Kings Cross. There were a few older buildings along the waterfront and a long wharf sticking out into the harbour. Anton looked down as they rattled over the freeway and he got a quick glimpse of a strangely colourful house, with geometrical patterns painted all over the front of it. The cars on the freeway sped past it oblivious. Then before he'd really had a chance to adjust to the view that had appeared before his eyes, the train was back in the tunnel again. And almost straight away it was stopping at Kings Cross station.
"Kings Cross, Kings Cross, Kings Cross, Kings Cross." the platform wall said, the colours of the letters changing as the words got lower and lower down the wall. They joined the crowd queuing at the bottom of the escalator and soon emerged into the sunlight onto Darlinghust Road.
The Cross is a very strange and disturbing place on its first acquaintance. The main drag on Darlinghurst Road is always busy, all hours of the day and night, every day of the year. It's one of the few places in Sydney that actually feels like you're in the biggest city in the continent and not in some large and boring country town. Amazingly, the Cross has got a bit of life to it!
It's a strange kind of life but. There's the tourists - japanese, american, european - wandering around with expensive cameras on their chests or bulky packs on their backs, all looking slightly lost. Standing around outside the shops and cafes, looking for their next customer, there's a handful of working girls - more in the evening than at that time of day. The men in black suits, trying to talk you into one of the many sex show, follow you a few paces up the pavement, hoping to arouse your interest in what's inside. And then there's the small groups or odd individuals, some outofit, others hanging out, hustling around or just sitting down waiting - there because that's where the smack scene is. Dotted in among these other wilder groups of people, there's always the odd bank security guard, bored mindless and hoping for a stickup, and a shopkeeper standing on the pavement watching the shop from the outside for a change of scenery. And, very occasionally, a cop or two will walk along through the crowd, seeing nothing as conversations hush and dealers walk the other way.
The smackies don't all look alike. And thy're not so easy to identify, as a group or as individuals - unless of course you know what to look for. Some of them practically live there and others might only go there every now and then. Perhaps when their usual supply isn't available. Maybe they just want to check out what's going on there. Or possibly they just want to see other people like themselves on the streets, to stop feeling so alienated for a while and a bit less alone.
But the street community at the Cross is quite a tight knit affair. Everyone knows everyone else, and outsiders are treated with suspicion or as a potential source of easy money. Of course, sometimes there are people there who would knife you for a hit if the circumstances were right, but i've heard it said that the cross is the only place in Sydney where you'll never starve. It's certainly one of the very few places in that city today where there's any kind of community feeling - even though that community probably only exists on the streets.
"Jeezus! It's just like Goonabah station around train time!" Anton said, feeling lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces - although some of them had all-too-familiar expressions on them.
Muz laughed. "Not quite!" she replied. "But i know what you mean. When i first went to Goonabah, i thought the station was just like this place, only with a view of the mountains!"
They reached the end of the block. It was a long block, made up mainly of sex shows and cafes it seemed. Muz stopped and looked around her.
"The faces change so fast here." she said. "When you haven't been around for a while it's hard to find anyone you recognize."
They turned round and began to walk back down the pavement the way they'd come. Anton felt Muz looking around her constantly, checking people out. She was trying to get into the swing of what was happening, to feel the mood of the place. A lot of this she seemed to be looking for in the eyes of the people she passed. Every now and then, they'd pass a small bunch of people standing around on the pavement talking. Muz watched them all carefully as she passed, trying to pick up some clues.
"It seems pretty quiet up here today." she remarked casually, still concentrating more on the people around her than on what she was saying. "Compared to what it was like last time i was here. I reckon everyone's moving out to the suburbs because this place is getting too heavy nowadays."
"Quiet" was the last word that would have come into Anton's head as a description of what he saw around him. But he knew what Muz meant - not much business going on. They walked back past a sex show again. But this time the touts seemed to sense their reason for being there and didn't put too much energy into trying to get them inside. Then past a garishly lit cafe, where Muz had a good look through the window at the two or three customers, but recognised none of them. Eventually they got to the other end of the block, a bit on from where they'd come out of the station.
"Oy! Toto!" Muz walked over to a bench and sat down next to a strangely dressed man who had his eyes half closed and an outofit vacant look on his face. His longish hair was swept back, but fell over his face as his head dropped forward and his chin touched his chest.
"Uh?" He looked up suddenly as Muz sat down. "Oh... G'day Muz... Haven't seen you for a long time." He spoke slowly and his words were faintly slurred. He ran a hand over his face, rubbed his nose, then scratched the back of his neck before nodding off again.
"Wake up you bastard!" Muz elbowed him in the ribs.
Anton sat down beside her smiling. "He's alright, lucky bastard!" He laughed.
Just then, Toto sat up suddenly, turned round and threw up into a cardboard box that was sitting on the pavement at the end of the bench. None of the other people sitting around, on the other bench or on a low wall nearby, took any notice. A couple of passers-by looked over and then looked away again quickly, but generally it seemed to be a perfectly acceptable and not unusual thing to do around here.
He slowly turned back round again and wiped his mouth onhis sleeve. That action turned into scratching the base of his nose, and then to rubbing the side of his face.
"Uuuh..." He blinked and turned to Muz again. She was laughing.
"Who did ya get it off Toto?" she asked him, putting her arm round his shoulders. "It must be pretty good stuff!"
*-*-*
Muz's friend nodded off on the platform and they had to wake him up when the train came. Then they had to wake him again when they changed trains at Redfern. And a third time when they got off at St Peters.
"We should've fucking left you up the Cross, Toto!" Muz joked as they stepped out of the train. He just grinned stupidly and followed them up the stairs from the platform.
"Shit! We forgot to get any fits!" Muz said to Anton as they reached the road. "I hope Morna's got some. What day is it today?"
"Thursday." Anton answered. "I think."
"Oh well, at least the mobile needle exchange should be there today if she hasn't. But it's a bit of a walk."
"I thought you were never coming back!" Morna said, when they got to her place. "I've even been up the needle exchange and got some clean fits. There's water and swabs too."
"Yeah, sorry about that, we had to hang around for a while to get the stuff. But it should be the same as what Toto's got inside him, so it was worth the wait. Look at him!" Toto was already lying down on Morna's bed, eyes closed, dead to the world.
"Want a swab?" Morna asked as Muz handed her her fit, loaded and ready for use.
"Nah. Never use the things." Muz answered, pushing the point of the needle into the skin of her forearm.
"You should, you know." Morna wiped her arm down with a swab and then wiped the needle of the fit before hitting up with it. "It makes your veins last longer!" She pulled the plunger back with her thumb and a thin stream of blood shot into the clear liquid in the barrel. Then she pushed the plunger all the way home, before finally pulling a little blood back into the fit and then squirting that back into her vein.
"Mmm..." She felt that familiar taste as the heroin flowed through her blood stream and into her head. "That's nice!"
She picked up the little plastic vial, half full of sterile water and squezed a few drops into the wrapper the fit had come out of. She used this to rinse out the fit three times - squirting the water into her mouth each time.
The other two had had their hits and the three of them were sitting on the floor leaning back against the wall. Muz slowly lifted herself up a bit and moved closer to Anton. Then she twisted round and put her head on his shoulder and her arm round his chest. After a while, he shifted his arm and put it round her shoulders. They all just sat there like that for a while, not speaking.
"Morna!"
"In here Tony." Morna stirred out of her spike dreams and answered the voice that called from somewhere else in the house.
"Oh yeah? What have you been doing?" A mop of red and green dreads appeared round the door and looked at the slumped bodies in the room.
Morna smiled, but didn't say anything. Tony walked in and sat on the edge of the bed where Toto was still lying. He had a weatherbeaten face with pale, unhealthy-looking skind, he was dressed in tattered black clothes which had a greasy sort of sheen about them. On his feet were a beaten up pair of old Doctor Martens boots which, a long time ago, had ben painted red. Now the paint was all cracked and faded and some of it was flaking off.
"Pilar just rang." he said, after a pause, "The squat in Edgeware Road is having a bit of trouble with the housing department and they want as many people to go round there as possible to try and stop them getting evicted."
"Oh shit..." Morna groaned. "Why does this sort of thing always have to happen when you're stoned?" She closed her eyes and leant her head back against the wall for a moment. Then she said "Well, be'd better get going then, i suppose."
She stood up and looked at Anton and Muz, who were now sitting upright and looking back at her. "They're friends of ours who are squatting round the corner. You want to come?"
"Yeah." They both nodded and stood up too.
"It's always worth fighting the housing department. Sometimes you can get a bit of extra time out of them. Specially if you've got a lot of people around."
"What about him?" Anton asked, pointing to the body slumped on the bed.
"Leave him." Muz replied, "he won't be much use anyway!"
When they walked into Pilar's place they were met by a group of a dozen or so people, sitting and standing around in the hallway and the lounge room. It was quite a mixed group, or all ages and appearances - from full-on punk to fairly straight looking. Morna and Tony seemed to know everyone.
"This is Muz and Anton." Morna introduced them to Pilar.
"Yeah, i've met Muz before." she replied.
"What's the story?"
"Oh a couple of arseholes from the housing department just accidentally discovered we were here. They've gone off to get the estate manager from Glebe, who's apparently a real turd!"
"Yeah," Morna joined in. "I've had dealings with that prick before, he really deserves a bullet through his head - or at least a real good kicking!"
"Anyway," Pilar continued, "it's getting a bit late in the arvo for them to really do much today. They don't like starting this sort of thing just before they're due to go home." She smiled. "But i reckon he'll come round now, anyway, and tell us we've got to be out by the morning. So if we can go and see his boss who's in the city somewhere, before they get us out, we might be able to put pressure on him to let us stay a bit longer. They're only going to knock the place down eventually anyway. And if we go now, they'll just do what they normally do and leave it empty for eighteen months - when we could have been living there all that time."
There was a knock on the door and the level of tension in the room increased as everyone who could see down the hall turned round to look. But it was only a couple more friends, Zee and Daz, who lived with Morna and Tony.
A few minutes after they'd found a space and sat down in the loungeroom, there was another knock. A very different knock from the previous one. Three heavy bangs in quick succession. "Open up! Department of housing!" A loud, arrogant voice echoed down the hallway. Everyone near the door looked round to see who would answer it.
Pilar walked up and undid the lock. As she opened the door, everyone in the loungeroom stood up and crowded into the hallway.
The estate manager was an ugly sight, standing there on his own, trying to look imposing. He visibly sagged when he saw how many people were in the house, but quickloy regained his composure, resisting the temptation to look round and make sure his two henchmen were still standing on the pavement ready to save him if necessary.
He was wearing a daggy brown polyester suit, which was a size too big for him, and his neck was bright red where it squeezed through the too-small collar of his white polyester shirt. A look of disgusted hatred filled his pimply face and his eyes showed the fear that he was fighting back and turning into hate.
He wiped a sweaty hand across his balding scalp, putting the previously neatly arranged wisps of hair into a slightly more human-looking disarray and said "You are occupying this house illegally. You must leave at once."
Better not get too heavy, Pilar thought, putting on her friendliest smile. If he shits himself, he'll run and get the filth straight away. And then we really will be moving out today.
"We haven't got anywhere else to go." she said. "Can't you let us stay until you want to do something with the place?"
"I'm sorry." He still looked ugly, even though Pilar's smile had disarmed him a bit. "It's against housing department policy." He kept glancing over his shoulder at the crowd in the hall behind her. "It's more than my job's worth to let you stay here. This house is on our schedule for redevelopment immediately. I'm afraid you'll have to leave."
"But we'll move out as soon as the builders are ready to start work. And we won't give you any trouble. We're looking after the place for you." Pilar knew it wouldn't work, but it was all part of the game you had to play with these pricks.
"No, i'm sorry, i'm only doing my job. It's not my decision. It's policy. There's nothing i can do about it."
Like fuck there isn't! Pilar thought. "Well at least let us stay until we can find somewhere else to live then." She tried to look small and helpless and even thought about bursting into tears - just for effect. But she was aware of the intimidating appearance of the mob behind her so she didn't try and push it too far.
"I'm sorry, i can't do that. It's not within my power."
The estate manager was beginning to weaken, although he still didn't want to give any ground. He hated working in housing because he had to deal with people all the time. And he hated people intensely because he was scared shitless of them. Every night he prayed for promotion. Regional headquarters was where he should be, not in the estate office. There, he could shut himself away and conduct all his business by memos and faxes and never have to see any people.
People were horrible. You never knew what they were thinking. He was sure they all hated him, despised him for just being a nobody. But he'd show them he wasn't nobody. He could push them around in his job. That was the only good thing about it. He could try and make their lives as miserable as his was.
And he particularly hated squatters. They had too much freedom. They weren't scared of breaking into empty houses, where they were not supposed to be. How could they do it? He was even scared, sometimes, going into empty houses that he had the key to, where he had not only a right, but a duty to be.
And they didn't fit into the system. Not like tenants. Tenants were a big enough headache anyway. He was sure he wouldn't get his promotion while there were squatters in his houses.
Yes, HIS houses. These people were illegally in HIS house! And look at them all... Dirty degenerates. Homeless people made him want to vomit. Why didn't they all get jobs and conform with the rest of society, then everyone would know where they were and nobody would be afraid of them. His job would be a lot easier. He'd probably get promoted straight away.
He felt the fear and hatred rising up from his stomach again as he looked over Pilar's shoulder.
But she didn't look like the ones behind her. She looked vulnerable and afraid of his power. The power to take away her home - disgusting squat that it was. The others probably didn't live there anyway. Just a rent-a-mob of communist agitators out to destroy society. Maybe she lived on her own. Maybe she was as scared of the world as he was...
"Alright." he said sternly. "It's completely against the rules, but you can stay until tomorrow morning. If you're not out by midday, i'll get the police round to throw you out and you'll probably be arrested for trespass." He turned round and walked back towards his car, the sweat from his armpits pouring down the skin inside his plastic shirt.
Pilar closed the door and laughed. "Wanker!" she said, sticking her fingers up at him behind the door. Everyone else laughed too and began to move back into the loungeroom, all talking at once about the estate manager and what a shithead he was.
"Great!" Pilar said, "That all went according to plan. Better in fact. I thought he'd want us out before midday. Now we've got a good chance of putting pressure on his boss before he tries to chuck us out again. Who can come up the housing department tomorrow?"
*-*-*
Neither of them knew quite how it happened. They both lay down on the loungeroom floor that night, in the same place as they'd slept the previous night. They were both still a bit stoned and they just lay there and talked for a while. Then they were in each other's arms, kissing and holding each other close.
It felt a bit strange for both of them at first. But after a few minutes they relaxed and stopped thinking so much about what they were doing. As they relaxed, the heroin took over and cut them off from the outside world and from the self-consciousness within them. There was nothing else except two minds and tow bodies, touching and blending into one another.
Muz put her hand inside Anton's shirt and started stroking the skin of his back. It felt sort and velvety and she felt like her hand was slideng through his skin and underneath it. Slowly they began to take off each other's clothing. The more of their skin that touched, the more it felt like they were merging together into one body.
Suddenly there was a loud crash followed quickly by a cry of pain. Then the loungroom light went on, almost blinding Muz and Anton, who moved a bit apart and looked in the direction of the door, shielding their eyes from the light.
"Uh...Sorry about that..." Daz was standing in the doorway with a dazed look on his face, holding onto the doorframe for support. "Zee just fell over, i think she's hurt herself."
"No i fucking haven't!" A loud slurred voice came from behind the couch near the doorway. "I'm just fucking resting. Help me up!"
A hand appeared above the couch back, which Daz grabbed. But instead of pulling her up, he pulled himself over on top of Zee."
"Ouf!" There were a couple of groans, then laughter and then silence. Anton and Muz looked at each other and laughed.
"Bastards!" Muz shouted. "Just when we were getting to the good bit too!"
A snore came from behind the couch. Followed by the muffled sound of a punch. "Oy! Get off me you fucking deadshit! Don't go to fucking sleep!" Daz groaned as Zee tried to push him off her.
"There's no need to hit me! That hurt!"
"Serves ya bloody right, ya pissed arsehole. What do you think i am? A fucking mattress?"
This carried on for another quarter of an hour before the two of them managed to both get standing at the same time and stumble off to bed.
Muz shrugged. "That's what it's like crashing in other people's loungerooms!" She kissed him. "Better turn the light off again i reckon!"
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