Sweet Damage

by Rebecca James

  I go through the familiar process on autopilot, my mind drifting back upstairs, to yesterday. I’m certainly no virgin, and I don’t think I’m particularly inexperienced for my age or anything like that, but being in bed with Anna was a revelation. I’ve never spent so much time, gone so slowly, taken so much care. I’ve never before felt so conscious of the other person. I’ve never fully realised just what a beautiful, transformative thing sex can be.

  When I eventually take the mugs back upstairs Anna’s sitting up, the sheet pulled high and tucked under her arms. She smiles, lifts the doona for me.

  It’s strange, but Anna, naked like this, more exposed and vulnerable than she’s ever been, is more comfortable, more at ease, than I’ve ever seen her.

  *

  Anna and I stay in bed all morning and half the afternoon. A couple of painters arrive to fix the mess in the hallway and I get up to let them in but I go straight back to bed and leave them to it. I only get up because I have to take a shower, go to work. I get to the restaurant at four, at least an hour later than I should, considering I’m on my own in the kitchen and have a lot of prep to do. But I’m on a sex high, full of energy, and I get everything done in record time. I think about Anna as I work, what we did together that morning, the night before, what we’ll probably do again tonight, and every time I think of her, I get a buzzy, happy feeling in my gut.

  I notice Dad watching me from the kitchen doorway. I realise I’ve been humming and I have a big, dopey grin plastered on my face.

  ‘You’re in a good mood,’ he says.

  ‘Brilliant surf before work,’ I say. There’s no real reason to lie, but whatever’s happening between me and Anna is still too new. I don’t want to talk about it, spoil it by exposing it.

  ‘Yeah?’ He looks surprised. ‘Where was that?’

  It’s only then I remember that the wind had been onshore when I’d walked to work, and the entire northern beaches would have been crap.

  ‘Dee Why,’ I say. ‘Turned out better than it looked. There was an okay bank in front of the clubhouse.’

  ‘No kidding,’ he says. ‘Who’d you go out there with?’

  ‘Just some mates,’ I say, turning away, uncomfortable with the lie.

  *

  Later, in the middle of service, when the kitchen is hot and my hands are full, I hear a text come in. I only look in case it’s from Anna.

  Tim – Sorry!

  Lilla. I push the phone away, ignore it, get back to work. Another text arrives a few minutes later.

  Been thinking about it nonstop. I was totally and completely out of line. I feel terrible and I’m really, really sorry. Lilla xx

  I’m still busy, hands full, so I don’t text her back immediately. When I finally get a chance to pick up my phone, another message appears.

  Don’t torture me. I really am genuinely sorry. I was being a dick. Can we let it go? Be friends?

  Not torturing, I text back. At work. Flat out.

  Am I forgiven?

  This time.

  xoxo. Love you. Thank you. And SORRY.

  *

  After service I clean up faster and more efficiently than usual, and am ready to leave by half-past ten. Just as I’m turning the kitchen lights out, my phone buzzes again. Another message from Lilla.

  You still at work? Come and meet me for a drink at the Steyne? I’m here already. I’ll shout you a beer.

  It occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve ever felt inclined to say no to Lilla. She’s lost her hold over me. It’s just gone. And suddenly, despite everything she’s said and done, I feel sorry for her.

  What’s up? I write back.

  Several things. Can we just talk? Won’t take too long. Promise.

  I find Lilla in a corner booth, cradling a beer in her hands. There’s another full glass on the table.

  ‘That one’s for you,’ she says.

  I slide into the booth opposite her.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  She sighs.

  ‘Actually, don’t tell me,’ I say. ‘Let me guess. You’ve broken up with Patrick?’

  She nods. Her bottom lip quivers and her eyes grow glassy, but she doesn’t cry. Lilla doesn’t cry easily.

  ‘He’s a cheating arsehole,’ she says.

  I try not to look too cynical, too smug, too anything.

  ‘I knew something was going on,’ she says. ‘He was acting all strange when I got home yesterday. Something was weird. I just had a feeling, a sixth sense. Anyway, I left my phone in his van with the record function on. He goes out there all the time. Makes these mystery phone calls. He says it’s business but that’s just bullshit. Anyway, I totally busted him.’ She slaps her hand down on the table. ‘The bastard. I recorded him talking to someone. He told her he couldn’t wait to get her naked.’

  ‘You recorded him? Without him knowing? Wow, Lilla, the trust. It’s remarkable.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘So I recorded him. He cheated. I don’t exactly think I’m the bad guy in this particular situation.’ She digs around in her bag, pulls out her phone and starts fiddling around with it. ‘You want to hear it?’

  ‘No, no thanks.’ I don’t bother pointing out the hypocrisy of her outrage. No point kicking a dog when it’s down. ‘That sucks,’ I say. ‘But you’re better off without him.’

  ‘Whatever,’ she says. ‘I didn’t exactly expect sympathy from you. Not after the other day.’

  I don’t say anything. I’m not about to make it easy for her.

  ‘Speaking of which, I was wrong and I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I was being a bitch.’

  ‘You were,’ I say. ‘A complete bitch. Why?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She stares at her beer, takes a sip, puts her glass down. ‘I was thinking about it all last night. God, I had a shit night, Tim. Had the most enormous fight with Patrick, so I had to stay at Mum’s flat. And then I couldn’t sleep because all this crap was going round and round in my head.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The thing is, though, I wasn’t actually all that upset over Patrick. I mean, I knew we were going to break up eventually. It was inevitable. I was more upset about the fight we had. I felt like crap afterwards, thinking about some of the things you said to me. In fact, I think I just did the whole recording thing so I could bust Patrick and get my mind off my own behaviour. Make someone else feel like the bad guy for once.’ She takes another sip of her drink, and when she looks up she really has got tears in her eyes. She smiles weakly. ‘You did me a favour. Made me think a bit. And I owe you an apology. A big one.’

  I shake my head, ready to tell her to forget it, but she puts her hand over mine.

  ‘No. Just listen. I need to say some stuff.’ She leans forward. ‘I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I was feeling sorry for myself at first, feeling homeless and friendless and hard done by. I kept thinking how unfair everything was, how mean you were, what a shit Patrick was. And then for some reason, I don’t even know why, I remembered what the headmaster at school told me that time I got suspended for playing a trick on Kelly Putland.’

  ‘No idea what you’re talking about,’ I say. ‘Don’t remember the girl or the trick.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. The point is what the principal said. She basically told me I’d get exactly what I deserved if I didn’t wake up to myself and start treating people right. She said I was selfish, self-obsessed. She said I needed to learn some empathy. God, Tim, it was really horrible, really hard to listen to. So confronting and awful. Anyway, I stayed up all night and thought everything through – honestly, you know? I thought about how I treated Patrick, how I never properly committed to him, how I was always looking out in case there was someone or something better. I always do that. I always think the grass is greener somewhere else. Anyway, then I thought a lot about my reaction to Anna, and my fight with you, until eventually I had this, well, this epiphany, I guess, and I realised that I was being completely unfair to Anna. I lay there and I tried to i
magine what it must be like to be her, you know? I tried to make myself have some empathy for her . . .’ She lifts her hands. ‘. . . And eventually I realised how lucky I actually am. To have my sanity. To be mentally healthy. The thing is, Tim, Anna’s such a hopeless case I just couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be her. And that in itself says a lot, don’t you think?’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Don’t beat yourself up too much, Lilla. And, don’t worry, Anna’s nowhere near as hopeless as you seem to think. In fact she’s—’

  ‘Okay. Whatever,’ she interrupts. ‘That doesn’t actually matter. The point is, I want to apologise. You were right. I was being intolerant and bitchy and I’m sorry.’

  ‘No worries,’ I shrug. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And there’s something else too. Something you and I need to resolve.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s about the other stuff you said. In bed. The night of the party.’ She puts her hand on mine, squeezes. ‘You were right. I’ve been stringing you along. Using you as an ego boost, just like you said. I know how you feel about me and I suppose I wanted you to keep feeling that way. It’s nice having you there, just in case, you know? Like a big security blanket. But it’s not fair. I know that now. The truth is I just wanted you to want me, even if I didn’t want you back. It’s a crappy way to behave. Especially when I know I just want to be friends. I don’t want anything else. You need to know that.’ She takes a breath. ‘I’m sorry, Tim. Really sorry.’

  Her admission, which would have stung like hell a few short days ago, slides over me without leaving a scratch, and I’m surprised by the complete lack of hurt, by my own indifference. ‘It’s all good,’ I say. ‘Apology accepted. No harm done.’

  She looks surprised. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘What do you mean, that’s it? What were you expecting?’

  ‘I don’t know. A bit more than that. You were pretty angry with me the other day. And I probably deserve your anger. I certainly deserve something.’

  I shrug, lift my glass, drink my beer. Despite her supposed new insight, her insistence that she wants to change, she looks distinctly unimpressed by my lack of reaction. I’m sure she’d prefer it if I broke down in tears, begged her to come back to me. She doesn’t like me being indifferent, so eager to leave her.

  ‘So,’ I say. I’m impatient to get going now – I want to get back to Anna. ‘Is there something else? You said there were several things you wanted to talk about.’

  ‘There is one more thing.’ She lets go of my hand, sits up straighter, clears her throat. ‘I need a favour.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Can I stay at your place for a while?’

  That makes me laugh. Sometimes I can’t help but admire Lilla’s nerve. ‘Anna’s place, you mean?’

  ‘Anna’s place, then. Can I? Just for a week or two?’

  ‘I thought you said it was a hole.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Maybe I said it was weird or spooky. I probably said it was cold. I’m quite sure I never used the word hole.’

  I watch her face, take a slow drink of my beer.

  ‘Look, I’ve got nowhere else to go, all right? I can’t stay at the flat with Patrick. Not now. And if I stay any longer at Mum’s you’ll be visiting me at East Wing before long. I’ll go mental. I’m ready to strangle her and I’ve only been there one night.’ She leans forward. ‘Come on, Tim, you owe me. I let you stay with me and Patrick when you got back from Indonesia. And that wasn’t exactly the ideal situation. I just need somewhere to stay until I can sort myself out. A few weeks, tops. I know I’m going to have to apologise to Anna. And I will. And I am really sorry. I’m prepared to do a fair bit of grovelling.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I say.

  ‘Why not? Really. I’m genuinely sorry. Surely Anna will—’

  ‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘What I mean is you won’t have to grovel. I doubt that Anna has even thought about it since you left. We’ve been a bit preoccupied.’

  She looks at me carefully. ‘So? You’re really together, then?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘What do you mean, you guess? Either you are or you’re not!’

  ‘I suppose we are, then,’ I say.

  ‘You said Anna was having a hard time,’ Lilla probes. ‘So what happened?’

  I shake my head. ‘Not gonna say. It’s none of your business. If you really want to know about Anna you’ll have to ask her yourself.’

  Lilla begs me to tell her, promising to be discreet and sensitive, but I keep my mouth shut. While we finish our beers I direct the conversation onto other things – work, the weather, neutral stuff like that. She tries to convince me to stay and have another drink but I tell her I have to go. I say goodbye and promise to ask Anna tonight and get back to her straight away.

  *

  Anna is startled by Lilla’s request – not surprisingly – but I tell her what Lilla said and how sorry she is, and Anna is quiet for only a second before she gives me her answer. I text Lilla, letting her know she has a place to stay, and then I toss my phone aside and give my full attention to Anna, who is warm and soft and willing beside me.

  61

  LILLA TURNS UP THE NEXT MORNING. I’M JUST RETURNING FROM the shops when she arrives in her shitbox of a car. She drives too fast up the driveway and parks right up near the house, crunching on her handbrake so that the tyres skid. As if that isn’t enough of an arrival, she follows up by tooting her horn twice and jumping out of the car.

  ‘I’m here!’ she shouts, waving.

  ‘No kidding,’ I say. I leave my backpack on the front porch and go over to her car, which is stuffed full with boxes and bags.

  ‘Holy shit, Lilla. What have you brought?’

  ‘Clothes. Music.’ She shrugs. ‘Just the essentials. Not that much.’

  I reach into the back seat, grab a garbage bag full of clothes.

  Lilla takes another one and we walk into the house.

  ‘So where’s Anna?’ she asks. ‘Is she out?’

  For a moment I think she’s joking, or being deliberately mean, then I remember that she doesn’t actually know about Anna’s agoraphobia. I wonder if I should at least have told her about that – it might have spared us all some future awkwardness. But Anna appears at the end of the hallway and walks towards us, and it’s impossible to mention it.

  ‘Hi Lilla,’ Anna smiles. ‘Do you need a hand?’

  Lilla lets her bag of clothes fall to the floor. Before she speaks, she glances at me, looking sheepish, embarrassed. I almost feel sorry for her.

  ‘Thanks so much for letting me stay,’ she says. ‘Really. It’s fantastic. I just . . . well . . . I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.’

  Anna waves her hand dismissively. ‘It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.’

  Lilla looks down, pushes the toe of her shoe into her bag of clothes. ‘I was rude the other day and I’m really sorry. It was stupid. I don’t even know why I behaved like that. You must think I’m awful, a real idiot.’ She looks up, smiles tentatively. ‘But I’m not. At least, I’m going to try hard not to be from now on. You’ll see. And if I do behave like a dickhead again I give you full permission to tell me so, or just kick me out. Whatever you prefer.’

  Anna laughs. Lilla treads untidily over her bag of clothes and gives her a hug.

  Lilla insists on seeing each room before she chooses one – and naturally she barges her way into Anna and Benjamin’s old room.

  ‘This is gorgeous,’ she says. ‘I’ll have this one.’

  Anna is silent, bites her lip, looks down at her feet.

  ‘Maybe not, Lilla,’ I say. ‘Maybe you—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Anna says. ‘It’s fine, Tim. She can have it.’

  Lilla either doesn’t notice Anna’s aversion to the idea or doesn’t care. She claps her hands together. ‘Great,’ she says. ‘I just love this shade of green. So calming and fresh. I just love it!’

  We help Lilla get her stuff
upstairs. Anna manages to help without actually going outside, and without making that fact obvious. By the time we’ve emptied her car the room is covered with bags and boxes, clothes spilling out everywhere.

  ‘Thanks so much, you two,’ Lilla says, looking around. ‘You guys should go and have fun – I can pack everything away. I’ve actually taken a bit of time off work so I can move and get some other stuff done, but I promise I’m not going to be a nuisance. I’m going to get this done in a flash, then I’m going out. Shopping for some new clothes. Retail therapy. You’ll see.’ She looks at Anna. ‘I’m totally not going to get in your way. You won’t even know I’m here.’

  62

  TIM HAS TO WORK EARLY THAT DAY TO PREPARE FOR A BUSY NIGHT AND he leaves the house before lunch. Anna sits in the attic for a while but eventually gets hungry and goes downstairs. She stops at Lilla’s room and knocks on the door. Lilla’s room is tidy, her things packed away, her bed made. There are already a few books stacked in the built-in shelves, a retro vase, a large framed photo of Lilla looking glamorous. There has been nothing in those shelves since Anna removed Benjamin’s things and stored them in boxes: his books and rattles, his stuffed panda, a yellow giraffe that Fiona had bought him. The toys he was never old enough to appreciate. Seeing Lilla’s things where Benjamin’s used to be hurts like a blow, stops her dead in her tracks.

  ‘Hey, Anna.’ Lilla is staring at her. ‘What are you doing? What are you looking at?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Anna shakes her head, forces herself to breathe, to smile. ‘I’m on my way to the kitchen. Do you want something to eat? An omelette?’

  ‘Sure,’ Lilla says. ‘Sounds great.’

  Lilla sits at the kitchen table and watches while Anna cooks the eggs. Anna’s still not a versatile or creative cook, but Tim has shown her how to make a few things, one of those being a decent omelette, and she’s become good at making them light and fluffy, just the way Tim does.

  ‘This is good,’ Lilla says when she’s taken a few mouthfuls. ‘You can cook.’