She pulls a green woolly beanie from the clothing recycling bin. A circle of small holes pierces the back. Ramming it over her head, Angie ignores the dead rodent aroma curling around her nose. The hat is soft and warm.
Hungry brown eyes watch her movements. She bends, strokes the dog’s smooth head, speckled black from the buses’ diesel. He leans his skinny body against her goose-fleshed legs. Angie searches her pocket for scraps of bread, rejects from City Mission dinners.
‘No luck, mate.’ She shrugs. ‘Life’s a bummer, eh?’
Ned has been with her since they collided a month ago. She’d been waiting on platform four at Wellington Railway Station. Teeth chattering, jiggling up and down, Angie hadn’t felt the dog’s impact. But she heard the heart-deep whine. A guard nearby rocked on steel-capped boots, glaring at the dog. Eventually, he’d stomped off, followed by a trail of vape smoke, sweetly strong, guava and vanilla.
The southerly bites across her bare shoulders, nipping at her bones. She presses into the doorway, neon flickering over faded ink on her pale freckled skin …
… California Girls echoed from the tape. Tayn’s finger traced the dark blueness across Angie’s shoulder. The caress made her wince. The tattoo was raw, the curves edged with red.
‘Awesome, babe.’ He bent closer, nuzzling into her neck. ‘But … what is it?’
The lover’s close embrace was needle-point thin, the colour stark on Angie’s whiteness.
‘Dickhead, can’t you tell?’ She pulled herself upright. ‘It’s The Kiss.’ She scrabbled for the art book, held it in front of Tayn’s face, ‘Look, Gustav Klimt.’
The golden painting oozed swirls and spirals, erotic phallic shapes and haunting Byzantine imagery.
‘It’s only a copy but …’ Angie sucked in a deep breath, exhaled noisily. ‘Even so …’
‘Jeez.’ Tayn grinned. ‘Shame it isn’t real gold.’
Laughing, he shifted his gaze towards the open window. The thump, thump of surf … magnetic, hypnotising … triggered rolls of adrenaline … but that tattoo …
‘I’m gonna get one.’ He turned to the tattooist, charm in his eyes, a smile curling his lips. ‘Can you do it now?’
She frowned, the dream of a sit-down, a coffee dissipating. But there was rent, a failed WOF, the new tyre for the old blue Honda.
‘Yeah, you’re lucky. I’ve had a cancellation.’
Angie lay comatose. The sun licked in scorching swirls across her day-old ink. Wincing, she reached for the kawakawa balm, her arm connecting with Tayn’s airborne jandals.
‘What the …?’
‘Whoop, whoop.’ Tayn leapt across the hot sand. ‘Surf’s up.’ He hauled at her feet. ‘Come on, babe.’
‘Shove off.’ She pushed at him till he collapsed down beside her.
‘Hey, check this.’ Tayn put his brown shoulder against Angie’s milky one, pressed his tattoo against hers. ‘You and me, we’re kissed.’
They laughed, moved shoulder to shoulder, lips to lips …
Angie yawned, stretched her limbs across the iridescent sand. One hand clutched Tayn’s transistor, the tape deck gaping open like a hungry fish.
‘Bloody idiot …’ Feet thudded on wet sand; dry grains smashed into her body. Her eyes flicked open. She heard the throb of the club’s lifesaving boat. ‘… surfing outside the goddamned flag!’ She saw the red-and-yellow banners billowing like gaudy mushrooms, tearing at their poles. The sea surged, waves foamed, plunged.
But … Tayn understood Makorori’s rips and currents; he’d surfed the East Coast since he was a kid. He knew about swimming between flags. Where was he? Angie touched Tayn’s Superman towel. A whisper of fear moved in her belly.
The next morning Angie drove their rental kombi van back to Wellington, the smell of Brut aftershave lingering over the bed, Tayn’s jar of Vegemite rolling over the bench at every corner. She stopped at Wairoa and threw it in a roadside bin. Why had he been such a dickhead? Tayn, always the practical one. Why had she gone to sleep? Why hadn’t she heard him leave? Why hadn’t she stopped him?
They never found Tayn.
She hasn’t smoked meth for four weeks. Holding Ned close, Angie lowers herself to the shop steps. Withdrawal cramps in her stomach pummel at her ribs. The spasm eases. She lifts her head, ignoring looks from the bustle of office workers, smart corporate types. Had she really been one of them?
In the beginning, she’d loved advertising. The creative buzz, blanketed in non-stop adrenaline. She’d become the firm’s top art director. But deadlines, long hours working on the latest brief, short periods of sleep, often on the office couch, before getting home to … nothing. Aloneness. No Tayn, no stupid, wonderful, irreplaceable Tayn.
Meth had taken away the emptiness. Darkness replaced it. She’d lost her position at the agency.
Angie hauls herself upright. She walks around the corner and stares at the City Hostel building. It’s huge, long rows of closed windows. All but one. She steps back, looks up. A geranium, petals as red as an East Coast tomato, tumbles out of a pot on an upper floor window ledge. She pushes at the entrance door, Ned pasted to her leg.
The office is snug. The community worker pats Ned while she talks, enters Angie’s details into the PC. Her eyes are the colour of a Gisborne summer sky.
‘We’ve got a twin room free.’ Elise looks up, notes the gaunt cheeks, the gaps in Angie’s mouth where teeth had been. ‘Course you’ve got to keep off the meth, love.’ She takes Angie’s hand. ‘Kick the habit.’
Elise shakes her head. Her gelled pink spikes remain immobile, stiffly upright. ‘Cold turkey is hard … first 31 days are the hardest.’ Rising, she flings plump arms around Angie’s thinness. ‘But you’ve already survived that, eh?’
She turns to Ned, rubbing his head. ‘Um, perhaps we can accommodate you too.’
Angie nods, her heart racing.
‘It’s not City Hostel policy to have pets, but Ned is a special case, isn’t he?’
Angie nods again.
‘But no barking, you,’ Elise points at Ned and laughs.
Angie strokes the plant’s flowers, fingers the tendrils of veined leaves. Her room is cosy. A woollen patchwork blanket lies on the bed. In the corner, a small empty space.
‘There’s an op shop up the road.’ Elise gestures towards the corner, pulls a twenty dollar note from her jacket pocket, presses it into Angie’s hand. ‘Get a blanket or something for Ned to sleep on.’
Buying the blanket uses all of Elise’s money. It’s grey and heavy, with a row of dark burn marks down the side. But it is big and warm. Her benefit will be in tomorrow. Ned can have some dog biscuits then.
The dog whines, snuffles his nose into her hand. Streetlights are coming on. Shop doors are closing, shutters clattering. Flinging the blanket across her back, she pulls Ned towards the pavement and heads back to the hostel.