Tamba answers for me. ‘Uh-uh. But it’s creepy. He’s a sexual offender, isn’t he?’
Meirong nods.
‘I wouldn’t like to be Malachi,’ Tamba says.
They turn to look at me just as Janeé slams down a slice in front of me. I lift my utensils, swallow the resistance that has gathered behind my teeth. First the octopus, now the flesh cut from the mouth of a cow, complete with taste buds. The scientific word is papillae.
I saw so my knife sings against my fork. I part my teeth and slip the meat in.
I flail for my water, take a gulp.
‘Take it easy, Malachi,’ Tamba says. The green streak in his eye has grown dim, no longer mocking me. He points at the tongue in the centre of the table, accuses Janeé: ‘A bit dumb of us. We didn’t think, did we?’
Meirong suddenly gets the tongue thing. ‘Ohhh.’
The final thread of Tamba’s angry day seems to snap. He sags, lays his hands on the table for everyone to see.
‘Meirong, do you think Olivia can help me out one more time tonight? The last time. I swear on my life.’
Meirong’s red acrylic dress bristles with the same splinters that coat the rude tongue. ‘No, Tamba. Definitely not.’
‘Why-y?’ Tamba whines like a small boy in the toy aisle.
‘Do you think this is the right place to discuss this?’
Tamba stabs towards the door. ‘Let’s go then.’
Olivia shuffles into the canteen with new, tired lines drawn by her overtime. ‘Hi everyone.’
Meirong’s mouth has gone white. ‘You, Tamba, are not going to ruin my career. A lot has gone wrong.’
Tamba speaks with a warrior stillness: ‘Are you blaming me for Dominic?’
Meirong is shaking imperceptibly. I stare to make sure. Yes. Her lips are trembling.
‘Only weaklings need sedatives to sleep,’ she says.
‘Shit. You’re such a bitch.’
‘That’s it!’ Meirong snaps. ‘You’re in for a disciplinary review.’ She leaps off the bench. ‘You’d better sleep tonight, Tamba. You’re going to need it.’
Olivia wails, ‘Stop fighting, you guys!’
Meirong flounces out.
‘Please, Tamba,’ Olivia begs. ‘We’re not here for us.’
I catch Tamba’s shifty sleight of eye, his uneasy foot-shuffle beneath the table. Tamba is here for his own benefit, somehow I know this.
Just like me.
I sit accused in the presence of a meat souvenir.
My mother, my father, my friends all dead. I am all I have left.
Fuck. Shit. I would say it, Hamri. If I had a tongue.
Ragged white light streaks through the portholes near the roof.
Fuck. Shit. I have a right to be here only for me. I stand up, seething. Leave a cold, empty space on the bench behind me.
* * *
As I enter the bedroom, Tamba barges in after me. He punches the wall. ‘Bullshit!’
There is blood on his knuckles. He thrusts out a finger. ‘One sedative! One!’
I turn away from the smear of red on his knuckle. For goodness’ sake, Tamba. Stop the histrionics.
‘What am I supposed to do?’
Go and play ping-pong, you idiot. I slip into the bathroom, shut the concertina door between us.
‘What are you, Malachi? Are you even human?’
Tamba’s words blast through the soft partition, hit their target. A sob dislodges in me.
He talks through the plastic panel. ‘Fuck. Sorry.’
Thunder smashes massive rocks together in the sky. I flush the chain unnecessarily, come out, glare at Tamba. He is licking the blood off his knuckles like a cat with a grazed paw. I catch a streak of pink on his tongue, strangely fat for a naturally lean person.
‘Sorry,’ he says again.
I see now Tamba’s knuckles have a row of pale stars where his skin has repaired itself with thicker scar tissue. He sits on his bed, sighs. I drop onto my pillow, lift my aching legs for the first time today.
Tamba hooks a finger beneath his top lip, turns it inside out. ‘See this, Malachi?’ he lisps.
I peer closer. Tamba’s gums are gouged with small, round potholes.
‘Cocaine.’ He lets his lip fall with a funny plop. ‘I rubbed so much it ate my flesh, man, burnt right through.’ Tamba turns his elbows inside out, shows me a massacre of sharp instruments. ‘I popped all my veins first.’ He pulls off his socks and shoes.
I blow out in disgust. ‘Pphhh.’ His feet smell like dead mouse.
‘Sorry. My nostrils are nuked.’ That makes a trio of apologies. Tamba props his foot on his knee, shows me a clutter of old punctures in his heels. ‘Eventually I had to shoot up in my feet.’
I stare at the scattershot marks, groan inwardly. I have already showered, please. Don’t smear your drug history on me.
‘I shot MDMA to try and kick the glitter, but it didn’t help. I worshipped the stuff.’ Tamba waits, like I might drop his sins in a shopping basket and go and pay for them. But after what I’ve heard today, cocaine addiction is an angel’s pastime.
‘I’m not kidding you, Malachi, when you hit your peak, there’s nothing between you and the old woman begging in the subway. You love her like she’s your mother. It breaks through the walls, man. But when you crash . . .’ He shakes his head, stares at the metal floor. ‘You’re the last man on earth.’
Of course I do not comfort him. I pick up Tamba’s socks with the tips of my fingers, carry them to the bathroom.
‘Oh, okay-y-y.’ He sighs. ‘I missed my shower yesterday.’ Tamba gets to his feet listlessly, a different man to the groovy guy I met on Friday. This Tamba has pitted gums and needle scars on the heels of his feet. This one is too lazy to even wash his own skin. Most of all, this Tamba thinks he is a waste of breath. As he passes me on the way to the shower, our bodies don’t touch, but a soft fur of compassion brushes against us.
* * *
I lie down on my mattress, exhausted. From morning to night, this has been a day of sinister surprises. The giant’s comment about
