Transcendent

Chapter 1

Mathew Faulkner, more commonly known as Mungo, is woken from a sleep that is less than perfect, four hours earlier than is usual for him on a Sunday, by the wakefulness of his bedmate. He remembers the girl, and as he becomes aware of the thick, pungent smell of dog fart he remembers the old dog that came with her as well.

"What are you doing Baby?" Of course Baby isn't anybody's real name but sometimes it's better not to get too familiar.

Mungo's hand moves towards Baby, who is sitting up beside him, naked and scribbling in a journal. She is a strange thing: turned up at his play last night, sat in the front row and didn't leave at the end. Insisted on discussing the play, his play, with him for nearly an hour. Somehow they'd ended up together in car that wasn't hers, with a dog that obviously is; and now she is here in his apartment, and so is the bloody dog.

The book eases his uncertainty in one way and increases it in another. She's obviously reviewing the play and didn't initially want him to know. Still, this isn't the first play he's written; not even the first he's written and produced. This sort of thing has never happened before.

Gently, so as not to irritate and perhaps illicit a negative comment, he turns towards her, resting on his side. He is now almost on top of her and doubts whether she'll be able to keep up the silent act much longer.

"Well?" he asks.

"Well?"

"Well, what did you think?" His stomach is feeling tight.

"I've had better."

"Shit!" he says, slamming heavily down onto his back.

She looks at him without smiling, disconcerting him. Girls usually smile at Mungo, if anything they smile too much and it pisses him off. She must have really hated the play.

"I have to go," she says, getting out of bed still clutching the book.

Mungo has had his fair share of one-night stands. Usually when he's been very drunk, or stoned, or a combination of both, and there's usually a fair amount of shit that goes on the next day. He's enjoying watch her moving around his room, bending now and then to reclaim an article of clothing – but he's missing the shit.

She's got a nice body: probably about 175 cm, nice tits, good arse, and not as skinny as some of the girls he's shagged lately. But there are the arms. They're scarred, not grotesquely burned or anything, more like she might have walked through a glass door.

"Why do you have to go?" he whines sleepily, pulling himself into a sitting position.

She turns and moves her eyes across his face, fixing him with a look that worries him for a moment, a look that says mind your own business.

She appears to reconsider. "My mother's arriving."

"Oh," he says, a little bit interested, "arriving from where?"

"India."

"Shit, how long's she been away?"

"Forever."

Baby's semi-clothed now in cute black panties and matching bra. A fitting, black long-sleeved top is being pulled down over long, dark wavy hair. He realizes he won't get any more out of her as she pulls a toothbrush from the leather satchel that arrived with her. The dog, as decrepit as it is, knows it too and is suddenly at her feet and they are both at the door, then through it and down the hall.

It is obviously a temporary departure because only the top half of her is convincingly covered and the satchel remains on the floor underneath his poster of Marilyn. Still, she has a presence whoever she is, and he feels the loss of it.

He wonders who else is in and possibly up. Shit if Ridley catches the dog there'll be hell to pay. Ridley would not handle the dog or the panties well. Jed would like it though. Big brother Jed has always been cool with dog's, even shaggy ones that look as if they've seen more than a few better days. Judging by the amount of talent that's passed through his room in the last few months, he'd be pretty cool with the panties too.

Mungo closes his eyes. He's still tired; Sundays don't usually begin until three in the afternoon. There doesn't seem much point trying to persuade Baby to stay – mothers are important shit.

"Fuck!" A pillow lands hard on Mungo's face, jerking his eyelids apart.

"Yeah, fuck all right, what the fuck do you think you're doing!" Jed's face has taken on angles that are alien to it.

Mungo cannot reply. This is outside his time zone and way outside his comfort zone. Housemates are not for fighting with, especially when he is also your brother. Psycho ex-girlfriends, directors, up-themselves actors, theatre critics, chefs, his father, his mother, his auntie bloody June. But not Jed and not on a Sunday morning.

"I have her for PE – Christ, Ridley has her for English – she's still at school, our school!"

"And now Mungo's had me too."

Baby and the dog walk passed Jed, who is also Mr Faulkner, and she finishes dressing, seemingly enjoying her enlarged audience. A smile creeps across her face "So you've all had a go."

At this point Mungo would be quite partial to dissolving into the fabric of his bedding. "Oh shit."

"Zephyr this is bloody awkward." Jed is speaking to Baby in a voice that Mungo has only ever heard used with parents during telephone conferences.

"Zephyr?" Mungo asks trying to convey an air of innocence, as if her name, and the fact that he doesn't know it, are both excellent grounds for acquittal.

She chucks her toothbrush into her satchel and swings the bag over her shoulder. "Relax Mr Faulkner, I don't think there's a school rule that says thou shalt not fuck the teacher's housemate. But brother? Well, who knows?".

...

Zephyr is relieved to slide Zen's precious car home into the curb outside their house with no more scratches, life isn't all bad. Isis isn't moving on the back seat but her stench is filling the car and making Zephyr feel sick.

"I know you don't want to go in there any more than I do, but you really need to start eating something besides cake." she says to the dog as she opens the back door. Isis lifts her hairy head in agreement and gingerly exits the car.

Her mother is older than her father. Of course she always has been, but Zephyr had forgotten. He's always been around and as bad as that's been at times it's been consistent and visible – fatherly in a dis-functional kind of way. Seeing her mother as she is now is like looking at a current picture of Julie Andrews when all your memories are tied up in raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. She, who hasn't been around for a very long time is everything un-motherly. In Zephyr's mind she was always young and stupid and she couldn't help it. The reality of her is ugly. She's old and she should have known better - could have done better. All this way and her age has stuffed everything up. But it doesn't really matter because the good one is always the way who stays.

Zephyr tosses the car keys at Zen.

"Glad you could make it," he says pocketing them in a relieved kind of way.

"I'm here aren't I?"

"Yes you're here but are you going to play nicely?" her father says, nervously pouring a drink.

"I'm not your play thing, or hers," Zephyr says turning to face her mother full on. "I guess you'll have to show that you're going to hang around a while before I commit to a play date."