Read Online Shutterspeed by A. J. Betts - Free Book Online Page A

cinema. He buys a ticket and sinks into a red seat, the same one as yesterday. Terri Pavish isn’t in the theatre — hehadn’t really expected her to be — but when he looks to her seat in the eleventh row, it’s as if he can almost catch a glimpse of her; as though the silhouette of her remains.
    The film about a musician’s life rolls out on the screen. Near the end Dustin reaches for his bag and quietly, slowly, edges along his row. He walks down the aisle to the eleventh row, where he slides in. Looking at the screen, he can sense — with the hairs on his skin — her sitting beside him. And it’s the best feeling he’s ever known.
17
    Dustin wakes up groggily on the couch to the sound of his father washing dishes. His watch says it’s past 8:00pm. Slinking to the kitchen, he fills a glass at the sink and drinks. Ken moves around him, organising clean crockery into the correct places.
    â€˜Big day at school?’
    â€˜Must’ve been.’
    â€˜There’s fish on a plate in the fridge.’ ‘Okay.’
    â€˜Do you have homework?’
    â€˜Done it.’
    â€˜There’s a movie on TV tonight I want to watch.’
    Ken sits in the lounge room with a bowl of ice-cream and a cup of decaffeinated Nescafé coffee. He flicks through a newspaper as he waits for the movie to start.
    Dustin picks at the crumbed cod on the plate, watching the opening sequence before giving up on the movie and taking the plate to his room. He sits on his single bed, surrounded by plain walls the colour of sand. There’s nothing superfluous here except the three photos of Terri Pavish on the corkboard above his desk. Lying back, he gazes at her again. One day soon he’ll walk right up to her. What will he say?
You’re something different. I want to know you.
    Looking at each photo in turn, he sees everything he wants. Speed. Independence. Freedom. He wants her; he wants to be like her. He admires the impermanency of this woman — blink and she’s gone. Like vapour. Like a memory.
    But he won’t let her disappear the way his mother did. Dustin recalls Mrs Blackler’s advice — that some things are too important to let slide:
That’s why we take photos, Dustin. So people don’t disappear.
    And he knows that if it wasn’t for these photos on his wall, Terri Pavish wouldn’t exist to him either. She’d be as transient and meaningless as air, slipping past him on night roads, and dissolving into crowds in Freo. Without thesephotos, Terri Pavish wouldn’t be real. That’s why he must keep them on his wall, letting her breathe, making her permanent. She’s too good to disappear.
    He tilts the plate until the cold fish slides into the bin. The room is too small for him and he’s anxious for fresh air.
    When he goes out the front door, his father says nothing. The lights on his bike are dim, but he pushes off anyway, leaving the stuffiness behind. He has the suburbs to escape to, and there is a woman who’s waiting for him to find her.
16
    He rides on the bike path beside the railway line, then weaves through the streets of Mount Claremont until he sees hers. His bike already knows the way. He has no plan, no clever monologue to deliver. He doesn’t feel that words will be necessary anyway. Just to be here will be enough. To say hi. To approach her as an adult.
    He’d expected to see the red Ducati in the driveway but it’s not there. The house is unlit and quiet. He’d braced himself for knocking on her pale blue door, but now he doesn’t bother because he realises the empty house will once again answer with silence.
    Is she never home? He wonders where she is now. Out at a pub? Covering a story or working late at the office? With a boyfriend? No, he’s seen her personal photos, and he’s sure there’s not a man. Besides, there’s something about her eyes that suggests she