It appeared the week the four of us moved in. First it was a shadow in the corner, nothing. Then its territory started to expand, then recede, sometimes within the space of a few moments. You would turn the kettle on, and there would be a dark shadow under the windowsill, and then when you poured it out, it was gone like a trick of the light.
We noticed it at different times, in the rare moments when we were alone inside the house. As a result, each of us suspected, or perhaps feared, we were the only person who saw it. The other fear that we had was that this was something that the others had seen, but they thought it was normal. The possibility that our points of view were so misaligned was troubling. So, for a rather uncomfortable period we tried to convince ourselves that it wasn’t a big deal, assuming that the other three thought so as well. It made things a little awkward. We knew that it wasn’t right, but we didn’t want to cause trouble. In every pause, when the conversation would naturally move to another topic, there was always the option to bring up our concerns about the house. But it was easier not to talk about it, so we didn’t.
Finally, while we were sitting in the back porch eating breakfast, one of us lifted his piece of toast to his mouth and set it back on the plate, shook his head and announced that there was something that he really needed to talk to us about. When he shook his head, some of the small green flowers from the grapevine fell from his hair into his cup of coffee. One of us leant over and removed them by dipping her finger into the liquid and drawing them out. What’s going on, she said.
Well, he said, it’s happened a few times, I think. Have you ever noticed the mould on the walls?
It was a huge relief. The rest of us sighed, and our postures relaxed. One of us, her hand still on her forehead, the wide sleeve of her dressing gown falling down her upper arm, closed her eyes and shook her head. I’m so glad you said something, she said. I thought I was losing it.
I’ve noticed it too, said someone else. In the corners, near the ceiling. But it seems to go away, after a while. They turned to their neighbour, who nodded, blinking while she thought of how to phrase it, pressing her lips inwards. I don’t think it’s mould, though.
After that, the shadows solidified into dark red stains which started to appear everywhere and no longer disappeared when we looked back at them.
It felt good to know that we were living in a shared reality again. For a long time, we had felt that no one saw our perspective. It was true that we had been peripherally involved in a sequence of events that had precipitated several cardinal break ups in our circle of friends. While we were sure that we hadn’t done anything explicitly immoral, we still felt guilty. And everyone was still very hurt, and a lot of people had to move house, so we had decided to live together. For the first few days, we neurotically cleaned, swept the leaves in the garden and cooked large meals which we ate sitting on the floor, and passed around our evolving perspectives of our own imperfect behaviour. It seemed, during those conversations, that everything we said was completely understood. So when the red stains started seeping out of the walls, it was more the shock of the isolated experience than the content of the experience itself that caused the most discomfort.
Despite this, the stains were becoming unbearable. We all noticed and confirmed with one another that it was getting worse. It had reached the point where we would have to do something other than pass pained looks between ourselves.
When autumn came, we decided to build a shelter. We started a few days before the stains were due to reappear. We knew they were coming. When we had headaches and back aches, we imagined that we could see shadows on the walls.
By the time that the landlord returned our call, it was Thursday and, to our supreme irritation, the red stains had disappeared.
This sequence of events—the reappearance of the red stains, the call to the real estate agent, sleeping on the porch, and the sudden recession of the stains’ territory and the return to the house being in its previous state by the time the agent had returned the call—reoccurred several times over the course of the summer. To be fair to the estate agent, they did send someone around. But there was nothing we could show him and when he tested the walls with his machine, there was no humidity. We knew the stains would return and came to anticipate it. We could tell by our symptoms. At first, we thought we were very unwell and went to the GP: we filed into his consulting room, and because there weren’t enough chairs for all of us, two of us had perched on the examination table, swinging their legs. The battery of tests and examinations he subjected us to revealed that we were all in perfect health, despite how terrible we all felt, and, though he listened to our reports of the red stains, and peered at the dust we brought in an small jar, he assured us that our lungs all sounded pure and that these things did happen from time to time, and it was nothing to worry about.
In private conferences between individual members of the house, we acknowledged that we were kind of grateful for the intrusion of the stains. It seemed like it was a natural outlet for our frustration and anxiety, which might have found a home in some invented place in the new intimacies of our friendship. It was only human nature to search for some imperfection in life and, when one does not present itself, to create one to fill the void. We all knew too well this impulse and the necessity to contain it.
When autumn came, we decided to build a shelter. We started a few days before the stains were due to reappear. We knew they were coming. When we had headaches and back aches, we imagined that we could see shadows on the walls. One of us went to Bunnings and came back with a few rolled up mats of bamboo. We arranged these on the porch, covered the roof with a tarp and spread some of the thick leaves of the neighbour’s monstera over the top. Someone hung a string of fairy lights inside and an old sarong. We slept inside it the night before the red stains were due to appear. But in the morning the walls were still smooth.
Despite this, we anticipated the return of the red stains at any moment and spent most of our free time perfecting the shelter. We found old bits of furniture and sewed cushions. Someone saw a large wooden chest on the nature strip, and two of us walked it back to the house. In it, we stored the extra blankets we had acquired from an op shop for the cold nights. We talked about how we might make the shelter a permanent part of our house and how we could use it even when the house was clean. We had started to enjoy sleeping outside and had gotten used to the feeling of bodies lying on either side, the comfort of the childlike affection we demonstrated towards each other. It felt natural to sleep with each other’s hands on our flanks, breathing in the scent of their hair and skin. We had come to be familiar with the activity of the others during sleep; that one of us slept with their eyes not quite shut or that when we shifted away, others would fold themselves over us again automatically.
Weeks passed, and we started to feel like we couldn’t precisely remember the red stains. We still slept on the porch almost every night; the season was mild and the air was sweet, and we each realised that we felt more rested this way. But it couldn’t go on forever; someone had mentioned this practice to one of our friends, and they thought it was extremely strange, perhaps inappropriate. Feeling self-conscious, we returned to our rooms and laughed off our sleepovers, as if they were something we used to do long ago, when we were different sorts of people—but it didn’t feel right. It was almost a relief when the stains reappeared, and we were able to return to the shelter to lie in each others’ loose embrace, watching the corner of the tarp wave in the night breeze.
In winter, we reinforced the roof of the shelter and slept in camping thermals, our limbs knotted up like gestating lambs. It was so cold that we slept in beanies and cradled hot water bottles against our stomachs. One night a corner of the tarp became undone in a storm and after we had fixed it, we had to squish together on the dry part of our bed. Our old friends started inviting us to parties again and introduced us to their new partners. They seemed like very nice people.
The lease came up in November, and the landlord, perhaps as the result of our many complaints about the house, decided not to renew it. We agreed that we would prefer to live together and made plans to look at potential houses, but somehow, we never got around to it. Besides, nearly all of us had other offers, and as the last day drew closer, we accepted them. A week before the lease was up, everyone but me had moved out. The house was nearly empty of furniture—we never had much anyway—except for the shelter and its contents. I cleaned up everything but I couldn’t bring myself to take it down. Not alone. I decided to leave it all as it was. Before I left, I slept there one last night. In my dream, light scattered off the scales of shoals of fish, twisting and turning as one in secret seas beneath the house.