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

doesn’t need anyone.
    He retreats to the bus shelter across the road from her townhouse. He leans his bike against the perspex ad for Pepsi and stands in the dark cover of night. The wind is cool against his skin. He wishes he’d worn a jacket over his T-shirt. He shivers. This is exactly where he wants to be.
    A bus slows down but he waves it on. He sits on the bench and brings his long legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees.
    A black cat crosses his path — is that supposed to be good luck or bad, he wonders before it leaps up to the seat and curls beside him. The cat purrs and he feels the vibrations. He pats it instinctively with his right hand, and its head pushes against his thigh. Its collar reads ‘Leroy’, and when Dustin speaks its name, it purrs more deeply.
    The night is blue-black, with only a low murmur of cars from the distant highway. This street pacifies everything in it. This is what life must be like for Terri Pavish, he thinks: blue-black calmness, composure, ease of breath. Answering to no-one.
    A light flickers once in her house, then suddenly she’s on the balcony. She’s home! The light outlines her silhouette and Dustin’s eyes adjust. She’s wearing men’s flannelette pyjamas and holding a can opener.
    The black cat bolts to the front door and disappears through the cat flap. Within seconds, Leroy is on the balcony, pressing himself against Terri’s flannelette legs. She empties the contents of the can into a bowl and stands up again, looking down at the street. She looks toward him and he feels it right in his chest. Can she actually see him in the darkness? And if she can, does she recognise him? Can she feel it too?
    She moves back inside, switching on lights as she glides through rooms. She walks down the stairs and the light there comes on. A narrow slit in a curtain is wide enough to see pieces of her — her shoulder while she waits for the kettle to boil; her right hand as she opens the fridge; then her left knee hooked over the armrest of the lounge. Leroy pads across the room, before settling by the window to stare out at Dustin through the gap in the curtain.
    A phone rings and Terri answers it. She kills the downstairs light and moves back upstairs, turning off lights as she goes.
    In the second before she turns out the bedroom light, hesees her smiling with the phone to her ear. He wishes he could capture that moment, lock it into a camera, keep it for later. But the room turns to black and the house is quiet again. The street resettles in the darkness.
    Leroy shimmies through the cat flap and saunters across the road, springing onto the bench softly. This time he stretches out on Dustin’s lap and purrs.
    Love. Is this what it feels like, Dustin thinks. There’s no other way to explain it. Is it this? To be drawn to a bench in the night-time and be content with a nearness to someone? Perhaps. There’s been nothing in his life to compare it to. It doesn’t feel strange or false at all — to sit here feels like the most natural thing in the world.
    Dustin visualises Terri Pavish lying in bed. She would be on her back, eyes open, looking up at the dark contours of the ceiling fan. Soon she’ll be dreaming of a guy she has yet to know, and will wake up tomorrow with the gut feeling that her life is meaningful. That she’s too important to forget. Dustin cycles home slowly and the blue-black night is tranquil.

E XPOSURE
15
    She’s the first thing he thinks of when he wakes at seven. He rolls to his side and she’s there, on his corkboard.
    He thinks of her in the shower.
    As he sits at the kitchen table to eat Weet-Bix, she’s knocking about in his brain. He feels calmer today; the thought of Terri Pavish is a narcotic.
    She sticks with him during the ride to school, unlodged by wind and speed.
    She’s in his mind in art, as he takes notes on exposure, focus and lighting. He thinks of how