Carlie opens the hall cupboard to get the vacuum cleaner out and hears the watch ticking. She smiles when she sees the tweed overcoat hanging there. She imagines the watch in its pocket and feels snug with the thought.  The watch in its bed, cosy, fleecy lined... Carlie likes cosiness; you could say she's hooked on it.

She starts up the vacuum cleaner but its high pitched moan makes her turn it off and check the bag. It's full. She takes it out and heads for the kitchen.

Passing through the hallway Carlie pauses, goes up to the front door, and listens for noises on the other side. She hears nothing, but still peers through the spy hole. Across the hallway live a couple, a boy and a girl. He's tall and skinny and keeps his hair long and stringy so it fits in with his emaciated, gaunt look. She is dark, wears lots of jewellery and heavy eye make-up. Neither of them wear shoes. Neither of them work.

 
Carlie was a little put out when they moved in as one of her favourite pastimes is lying in bed and listening to the neighbours as they leave for work. She waits between the sheets until she hears them all go, and then relaxes so glad she isn't like them - relishing the privacy so much it becomes like secrecy. Carlie's secret. You don't have to work; if you like you can just take less of the pie. But then the kids came and now she takes a while to feel comfortable knowing she's got company across the corridor; knowing she'll have to be that little bit quieter so they don't know she's home. Those kids... they have big bags under their eyes and visitors anytime, coming and going. Carlie knows it's drugs. She's glad she didn't get into that racket; she's on the sickness benefit instead. A few weeks ago they asked her if they could borrow some money and she said: "No, I'm really sorry, but I get the sickness benefit."
They seemed to take it okay.

Satisfied with the silence outside Carlie moves away from the door and carries the bag of dust to the bin. She steps on the pedal and throws it in. Dust flies up on the impact and she quickly steps back, blocks her nose, and turns her face for fear of the mites. It's the invisible entities which are the most frightening: minuscule mites, chemical vapours, viruses, antibiotics...  They're all the same - dangerous in their minute measuring.

She thinks if she lived outside she wouldn't have to vacuum because the dust out there looks after itself. Imagining what it would be like to live outside is one of her  games. It helps her to live inside. When she's inside, she has the world in the pocket of her tweed overcoat.  When she's outside, she carries the world around on her wrist. It's been six weeks since she'd done that, since she last went to the doctor. But she'd be doing it again today which is why she wants to clean up because it makes her feel good to come back to a tidy place and you never know - she might have someone with her.

The vacuum cleaner comforts her. It's loud monotony drowns out the sound of the traffic three floors down yet the ticking of the watch has already started in her head. Her appointment is at eleven o'clock. In the cupboard the second hand clicks on the dots of the watch as Carlie pushes the machinery around. She glances up every now and then and looks out the window at the sky. It's pure blue. She carries on vacuuming and thinks it should be okay today. Today would be okay.
 

The discussion with the doctor goes something like this:

"When do you think, Carlie, that you'll be ready to get back into the workforce?"
"Um... not yet, I don't think. I've been put back a bit. I saw something which upset me on the way here actually."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. A headline - "Man Battered to Death in Fish 'n Chip Shop"."
"Oh! Ha ha..., that's funny."
But Carlie wasn't smiling. "I took it as being symptomatic," she said.
"Symptomatic?"
"Yeah... degeneration... you know?"
The doctor sighed and looked out the window.
"The lower they go," Carlie continued, "the lower the world goes with them. The way they write now - it's all crooked."
The doctor leaned forward. "Those papers sell because they're crap. People want crap." Then he leaned back and shook his head wearily.
"Carlie, we're getting off the topic."
"You know doc, if I wrote, I could be a philosopher."
"But you don't."
"No. So I guess that makes me nothing."
The doctor looked down at her file and waited for her comment to dissolve while he flicked through the pages which outlined her "case".
Carlie frowned at his bald spot.
"Carlie," he began, "have you thought any more about doing a course?"
"No. Not really."
"Well why don't you? Find something you're interested in."
Carlie shook her head and looked out the window. "You know doc... if I had known we were going to come to this after two years I'd have saved us a lot of time."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not interested in anything. I've known this since I was a child."
"There must be something."
But Carlie just looked back at him, exasperated.
"Well what are you interested in?" she snapped.
"Well... there's... psychology of course. But look, Carlie, this isn't about me."
Carlie nodded and put her hands across her lap. He wasn't really interested in psychology. The only difference between her and him was that he was prepared to pretend. Pretend his whole life away.
"I just want an explanation as to why you can't do a course in something. Even if you think you're not interested now, you may be once you start. Then you could go on the education allowance and get off the sickness benefit. You'd be on a borrowing system instead of a hand out. You'd be more independent, more responsible for your own affairs."
"You're not following me. There's too much evil. It affects me. It makes me depressed."
 "There have always been bad things in the world Carlie. There always will be."
"That's not the way I was brought up."

In the end she gets the certificate that excuses her from society for another six weeks. She smiles as she walks down the steps of the doctor's office, a converted suburban weather board house. She'd done it again - the doctor was a fool. On the way to the tramstop Carlie laments the fact that the doctor's office isn't a house any more. Somebody could be living there. Some homeless person like an old bag woman who collects watches in her coat pocket perhaps. Or an old bag man who's lost track of the time. But instead there's a crackpot doctor who lost his enthusiasm a long time ago.

Carlie crosses the road with a stray terrier trotting alongside. The dog isn't bothering to look where its going. Its head is down like it knows exactly where its headed. Carlie feels envious of the dog. She reaches the other side and the dog trots off. She watches it, wanting to follow.

She knows she has to learn not to care. She shivers and clutches herovercoat tight around her throat.

The tram pulls up and brake sand sprays the waiting passengers. Some grit gets in her eye and she blinks and bats her eyelids at the ground trying not to draw attention to herself. But nobody's looking. They're all pushing because the tram's full and everybody's trying to fit in. Carlie rubs her fingers hard against her eyelid and steps up.

Inside the tram she stands in the space by the door and scans the seats. She's got it all under control now. She's only crying through one eye; she can still see. She takes her time. The last time she walked too hastily down the aisle. It was too late to turn around and go back, too obvious. She had to settle for a suit with a moustache who was sitting up the back.

Today she sees a white haired man in the seat second up. He has a green Macintosh on. He looks clean. Carlie sits down next to him and smiles when he catches her eye. He smiles back and from there on she uses the prolonged touching of her knee against his technique. When her stop nears she winks at him and he gets off with her. They go up to her flat.

As he leans against the mantelpiece and weighs her blue glass vase in the palm of his hand the conversation goes something like this:

"What do you do Carlie?"
"I'm on the sickness benefit."
He turns around; she smiles. He smiles back and looks at the vase again.
"Why?"
"Oh, you know... one thing and the other."
He chuckles. "Don't you want to work?"
"I can't divorce a job from the entirety of my life."

Two years ago Carlie was an insurance clerk. She'd try to do her work but with increasing regularity she'd find herself thinking about her life as a whole - the whole finite thing. And she'd see herself sitting there in the office and it would be maddening. Like a glitch in the picture, an ugly, embarrassing thing which  made no sense. And she'd look at her watch and see it ticking...
"So it's better to stay at home?"
"Yeah."
The man chuckles again. "I'm not that keen on work either," he says, coming over and putting his arms around her waist. "But I like what money can buy."

Enwrapped like that they take small steps with her going backwards until they are in the bedroom. He uses his weight to lay her down so she hits the bed firmly and bounces a little. He unbuttons her blouse before touching her watch. Carlie pulls her arm away.
"No," she says, "this is part of the watch time."
He frowns at her, but tosses the remark aside in favour of kissing her neck.
"There's a condom in the top drawer of the dresser," she says.

During watch time Carlie watches her life. In an episodic way watch time is finite and wearing a watch seems natural. As the man moves in and out of her she ponders on the derivation of the word "watch". She thinks they must have called it a watch on purpose because you're keeping watch, keeping watch on the time.
She turns her head to the mirror on the back of the bedroom door and watches herself having sex. She likes what she sees and stops thinking about watches and starts thinking about naked bodies joining together as she lifts and rocks herself against him.
Carlie's not a whore but she doesn't mind being mistaken for one. Sometimes the men she asks up leave her money on the kitchen table. She accepts it with pleasure. Having never asked for money, she treats it as a little philanthropy being thrown her way even if they do think she's a whore. To Carlie, anything which is given without asked for is a sign of civility.

This man doesn't do that though. Instead he gets up as soon as he's taken the condom off and takes it to the toilet. He's neat, this man, thinks Carlie as she lies in bed waiting for him to leave. He's not one of those apes who drops it on the floor and leaves it for her to dispose of. When he comes back he gets dressed, bends down, kisses her and says:

"Thank-you. That was nice."
"My pleasure," she says.
He leaves and she has that sensuous feeling again. That feeling of privacy, secrecy. She dozes off in bed until the sound of the doorbell wakes her up. She hesitates, enough people for one day. Although she still has her watch on...

It's the boy delivering the groceries. When she takes the bags and counts out his money she wonders if he's expecting a tip. She feels bad about not tipping him because he probably doesn't get much more than she does.
"I'm sorry I don‚t tip. I'm on the sickness benefit," she says as she gives him the money.
"Oh it's all right," says the boy. "I wasn't expecting one."
She's about to go inside when the door opposite opens. It's them.
They're walking out at four and look like vampires. They see the plastic bags full of food in her hands and make eye contact with her. Carlie looks down at her wrist and decides she can cope with seeing people at four o'clock - just. She flicks her head towards her flat and they shuffle over.

She sets out some cheddar cheese, crackers and vegemite and lets them help themselves. When they've finished they offer her a joint back at their flat but Carlie refuses.
"I'm on the sickness benefit," she says.
"How do you get that?"
"You need a doctor to say you're sick."
"Are you sick?"
"Too sick to be on the unemployment benefit."
"So are we," says the girl. "We should go on the sickness benefit too."
She looks at her boyfriend. He shrugs.
"Still have to be tested," he says.
"I reckon we're the healthy ones anyway," says the girl, looking at Carlie, "mentally I mean."
Carlie nods, and they hold each other's gaze for longer than is necessary. Then Carlie looks away and after a few minutes of silence the kids get up and shuffle back across the hall.

Carlie looks around her place. Today was an interesting episode in the entirety of her life. She looks at her watch and follows the second hand around for the length of the minute. Perhaps it's time to take it off - her dealings with the outside over for another six weeks. Unbuckling the strap she looks around for her coat. It's lying in a heap on the lounge room floor. She picks it up and hangs it back in the wardrobe, slipping the watch inside the pocket. Dead still she listens to the faint background ticking for a minute or two before closing the door. 
 

(c) Penny Sell.  All Rights Reserved.