The Nightside of the Country

by Meaghan Delahunt

  What about him? I prompt.

  He puts down the glass. Looks me in the eye. Well, now. Hard to believe but yer man was a tout.

  Him? I say, wary. Wondering how he knows this.

  The Movement was crawlin with touts.

  I take a deep breath. That’s what we always thought…

  And then he throws another name out. At this, I sit upright. I put my drink down.

  X?

  He sits back, stretches his legs in front of him. Just thought ye should know.

  Ah. He’s just lettin me know. Friendly-like. I stand up and steady myself against the cupboard door. Turn back to face him. Ye know what he done to me?

  He gives me a slant stare, the drink is in him now and he leers openly. We all know what we done to ye.

  I take a sip of my wine, eyes down. What he done was different…

  Lucky him, says the man, my former comrade, my so-called friend. And that was in the long ago, he continues. All that business with X. And that’s where it should stay. But there’s talk that ye’re not happy? That you’re goin to go public. Let sleepin dogs sleep, B, is what I’m saying…

  It takes all my will to stand up, to stand my ground and open the kitchen door. It’s time ye was goin.

  We’ve just got started…

  No. I say. Time ye should’ve went.

  He stands up, brushes past me, too close. I’m only the messenger, he says. Don’t shoot the fuckin messenger. You used to be more friendly, he presses me against the door…a lot more friendly…

  And the message?

  He leans in close: Don’t make trouble.

  He has one hand at my throat. Oh, yes. And didn’t ye used to be the beauty…

  He steps back, takes the unopened bottle of wine from the table, holds it up. Been good seein ye B. Oh. One more thing: he knows where ye stay. Just thought ye should know.

  And then he’s gone.

  I close the door and double-lock it. I sit down and my hands shake as I reach for the glass. I sit in my Port City kitchen and have to make a decision. If X is coming for me, I have to do something.

  My mind frets on other possibilities:

  So. If he was a tout, and the Movement knew he was a tout?

  And Empire…one of their own?

  But I push all this down.

  The interview will go live soon. Then the press conference. So, there’s been a leak. Someone has leaked this news to the Movement, how else would this get out? And X knows where I live. I try to absorb all this new information.

  I alert the police, my sister, the lawyer. I know a place to run and I keep this in reserve. A place where there are no oak trees. A retreat place where there’s nothin to remind me of home.

  Once more, I prepare to be a fugitive.

  I reach for my notebook.

  Today, I let a predator into my house. I write this in big uneven letters which fill the page. He wore the mask of a friend.

  ✳

  THE SAFE HOUSE

  At the first press conference, I’m asked: Why now ?

  I take a deep breath.

  Why didn’t you go to the police?

  I sit up straight and stare them down: Because... Then I hesitate, lose my nerve. Sit up straight again. Well…who, from our community, ever could’ve went to the police? Back then, they urged us not to. The Movement said they’d deal with it. Ye can’t go to the police. They’re not for the likes of us. And it’s true, this side of the border, the police were not for the likes of us.

  Why did you wait so long?

  I was young, I answer. I did everything I could. And then the Movement put me on trial. And right now is the right time. I think to myself: We have a sliver of opportunity: light slants through the door; keep pushin that door. But what I say is: We won’t know for a while what we’re living through. In this Time of the Felled Men we need to face facts. We need to face how things were dealt with. We need to clean up our act. All the mistakes. And after all these men, night after night on our screens, I come forward with a purpose: what was done to me was wrong. The way it was handled was wrong. We need to make sure this all never happens again.

  My decision to go public has left me homeless and in debt, I tell them.

  The men from the Press note this down. The questions start slowly. They build a momentum, they lull me into a false sense of security. Then they turn on me as one, like pack dogs. It all turns into somethin else:

  They say you’re MI6.

  They say you had an affair with the man.

  They say you’re trying to smear the Movement.

  I’m shifting in my seat, I look down at my hands and gather myself. Then I look up. I tell them straight: At the moment in this country – and not just in this country – there are men who got away. They got sent away. And not just by the priests. No. That is another kettle. These men are in homes and workplaces everywhere in this country. Many are good family men. But let me be clear: there’s nothin good about them.

  After, alone in my room, I think about how women are always navigating such men; mindful of dangerous situa-tions; like small boats aware of the reef. At a certain point – who can say which point? – this messes with your head. With your judgement. With my judgement. Who can be telling the good men from the bad? The white hats from the Ku Klux Klan? The men on your side are s’posed to be good men. And what happens when they’re not? Can someone, anyone, please tell me, so help me god – what happens when they’re not?

  Each night now, it’s a new place. A new safe house. This past week, a different bed each night. As if I’m still in the Movement, as if I’m back in the day. As if two decades haven’t passed and the Peace never happened. But it’s a different war now. Some of what I learnt is still of use. I have the discipline of an old soldier. I’m hyper-alert. I wake up and don’t know where I am or where I’ll be resting my head that night and I accustom myself to this state of affairs as if I’ve been born to it, which in a sense, I have.

  In war, a sniper only ever gets two shots. The third shot gives the game away. The third shot trigs the location. My three shots are fired. And those with somethin to fear now know where to find me.

  So, I must wait. Keep my head down and my spirits up. Waitin for someone else to come forward. I wait for A and B and C and the whole fuckin alphabet to step up because of course, we now know, even if we pretend not to: there’s always more than one woman.

  My limbs ache. My chest is hurting and my heart is heavy. Last week, before the first interview, I was bent double over the basin, my breath hard, hand to my heart; feeling its uneven flutter and beat. After I’ve went public, sleep eludes me. There is the hand at the throat, the head, the shoulders: the body memory of what happened. The weight of him. The drinking smell. And I ache in all those places again, as if time hasn’t passed and I’m back there, dealing with what exactly was done to me. The attack came from the front, I told them. Somethin you’d never expect.

  It’s said I’m Movement royalty, but this won’t save me. And though I gave my youth to it, I’m now the woman against the Movement. Senior men and some women from my past are saying this. They deny all what happened. I’m a liar and a traitor. These men, and some women, are angry with me, and ye’d say anyone in my situation would be very nervous. Some of these people have dangerous pasts; I myself have such a past. And some of these people have not adapted to the Peace, ye could say. Some have not adapted at all. Some would love nothin more than the border to come back. A hard border to return them hard to themselves, to how they were before, to the familiar dark.

  The police advise me to leave my own house, to stay with friends, to move south, to move abroad, to move anywhere, until the storm passes. They’re advising me to alter my appearance. To change my hair. A wig perhaps? I’m advised to keep offline because online there’s calls for my execution, calls for my rape, my dismemberment. Keep on the move, say the police. My newfound celebrity makes me a target. This is all for my own protection. And for how long must I kee
p moving? I ask them, but they can’t give a straight answer. So. I’m standing outside my flat in the Port City with a few clothes crammed into a small case. My toothpaste, toothbrush. My travel-size toiletries and make-up. A wig, hastily bought, concealed in the case. As if it’s a city break I’m off to – Barcelona, Rome, Athens – and not a brace of men come to get me. And now my lawyer, the police, my sister, the extended family all are saying: Keep on the move till you’re no longer a threat.

  X marks the spot.

  So – let me hold this up to the light: I’m a threat and also a target. I’m the victim returned as survivor – the most dangerous kind. And once again, I’m on the run. A gender fugitive in a different war. Let’s face it: it’s been one long war with the same rules of engagement as any other. And as we’re always told, as they’re always tellin us, and what our experience shows us to be true, in any war situation, in any conflict: it’s always women and children first.

  This anger seems new and taps an old seam. But until the first man, W, and until this Time of the Felled Men, I’d buried that anger. And seein W’s face, night after night – it got to me. It tapped into something bigger.

  He was the spark, ye could say. And everything fired from that. First W, then X.

  I knew X had got sent away, but where, that was the question. There was talk of a cheque, a car, London. The Movement would deal with it. Don’t you go worryin now. It’s an internal matter. But at the back of me, there was always the fear: If he got sent away he could always come back.

  Now, I feel compelled to come forward. Now I’m forced to move again. This time – perhaps to that island and the guesthouse owned by nuns. A retreat.

  I alert the police again because, online, a man starts to follow me with the name of X. I’m urged to pack my bags and leave again for my own protection. Online, I’m sent a photo of a noose and a female corpse. My face is attached to the corpse. My face is attached to a slaughtered animal. I’m sent a video link to a man who sings that he wants to kill all bitches. Women dance around this man, as if linked to him by invisible thread. I try to imagine this scene the other way round. The men in a circle and the woman in the centre, the same music but a change in the words: kill all …I struggle to find an alternative. There’s no male equivalent to the force of bitch. Even to imagine this scenario would mean the world was upside down. It’d mean that the women in charge would be wishin to use their power to destroy half the world’s population. It would mean war on men and their children. And who could possibly imagine that?

  ✳

  14

  B watches you set down the pages and close the journal book. She watches you look down at the table and stay silent for a while.

  Well? says B.

  That’s why you’re here? A threat on your life? More than one threat? And this man, X…

  That’s part of it, she cuts in. There’s more, she says. But it’s your turn now…

  My turn? You shrug, reluctant, wanting to change the subject. But tell me – why are almost all the men here named X?

  She looks surprised at the question. She tilts her chin slightly, and says: Every woman knows an X.

  B watches you writing. Then she says, It’s time.

  Time? You look up from the pages, still thinking about B and the man who visited her. The masks people wear. The idea of a safe house. Time for what?

  Time to drop the ‘you’.

  But…

  No buts, she says.

  I want it to be distanced, you say. General. To escape from the ‘me’.

  And now ye’re wondering if that’s even possible…?

  Well, no, actually, you say, annoyed. Not until now. Not at all. Not until you raised it…

  But now, maybe… She smiles and her voice softens. Maybe it could be seen as a cop-out?

  You’re stung by this and shake your head. I don’t see it like that. You do what you have to do. And, in any case, how can I dive in now, into my own story? You feel shaky at the prospect.

  For god’s sake, B throws up her hands. You can do anything ye want. It’s your book.

  It’s my book. You repeat this, uncertain. You keep forgetting and she keeps reminding you. Of course, you’re right. I can do anything I want.

  That’s what I’m tellin ye.

  But – to get back to the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ of the thing. It was necessary. To make it bearable. To continue. I can’t shake it now.

  To make it bearable? B repeats. I get it. I do. But. There’s no need to hide. Not any more. B is adamant: Ye can’t put it off any longer. You need to tell it like it is. You need to tell your own story. You need to tell what happened.

  But I can go back to the you? You want something to hold on to. You feel the net beneath the tightrope fray. You look to B for permission.

  You can do whatever the hell you want, she smiles. It’s your book. How many times am I having to tell ye?

  ✳

  15

  It’s late evening. At your desk in the guesthouse owned by nuns. The bedroom window is open a little and you can hear waves crashing to shore. The air is cool and you put a blanket around your shoulders. You pick up your pen and put it down again. You pace the room, wrapping the blanket around you. This is where it gets difficult to find the words.

  You’ve read up on this phenomenon. This wordlessness in the face of experience. It is not unique. For thirty years you’ve found it hard to find the words. Even now, especially now, in this Time of the Felled Men, you struggle. When faced with trauma, the pre-frontal cortex, the centre of rational decision-making shuts down. In particular, the brain’s language centre – the Broca’s area – shuts down. Without a functioning Broca’s area, you cannot put your thoughts and feelings into words. Some experiences are beyond the reach of language. This, you know.

  It’s New Year’s Eve 198— in Sydney. I’m living in the inner-city suburb of Chippendale, not far from Redfern station. I’m going to a party in Newtown, somewhere off King St. It’s a warm night; still and humid. It’s been a good year for me – three months at the Party School, then three months travelling around North Queensland with my boyfriend. We’d eke out our dole cheques each month in different northern towns and beaches, pitching our tent, like itinerant cane cutters; having the time of our lives. For the first time in many years, we’ve had a proper holiday, free from Party obligations and conferences. We don’t have to sell the Party newspaper on the street. We don’t have to attend fundraisers or demonstrations or Party meetings. I taste a semblance of a normal life and it is sweet. I could live like this, such a normal life could lure me in. I try to suppress the thought. We live simply. We pull mangos from the trees in Port Douglas. The weather is fine. We’re young and happy and don’t think of tomorrow. I’m happy, is what I need to say. For the record, in the lead-up to this New Year’s Eve, I was happy. But on this night, for some reason now forgotten, I go to this party by myself.

  At about 3 am, on the 1st of January, the party is winding down and I decide to leave. I announce that I’ll run home as I’ve got my running shoes with me, as usual, and it’s only ten minutes away. All the arguments for running home, with hindsight, seem plausible: I’m a healthy, athletic, young woman not far from home. Far better to run than to wait at Newtown station for the night train to Redfern – god forbid – both stations with reputations for violence after dark. Places that any woman should avoid, if she has the choice. But, really, under closer examination, what kind of a choice is it?

  All women are night-gamblers. We grow up learning this about ourselves and we’re inducted early into the dangers of the too-quiet street, the secluded bus stop, the late-night railway station. There’s the unwritten curfew for women after dark and we break it at our peril. This holds true from Basra to Brisbane from Sydney to San Jose. The West baulks at the ‘indignity’ suffered by cloaked women, cloistered women in traditional Muslim cultures. But the problem after dark is that women, the world over, no matter what we wear, become un-cloaked. Our f
emaleness is not shrouded, but exposed, magnified somehow, after dark. We become targets – sitting at bus stops, waiting for trains. Waiting for a lift on a dark corner. Walking through a deserted parking lot or underground car park. If we decide to walk, or run or cycle or not to stay still we then become moving targets. The stark fact is that there is no safe place for a woman alone after dark. Many women are not safe in even their own homes.

  We also learn, after a certain age, that if we chafe against these restraints on our movement, our freedoms, our human rights – we have a choice to make. We can roll the night-dice and take our chances, like any gambler – with the table loaded against us. You don’t subscribe to the adage that all men are rapists. But certainly, some men are. You read a statistic from 2002 that six per cent of the male population rape and assault women. Such men generally do this more than once. They are repeat offenders. Not all men fear and hate women. But evidently, some men do. A sizeable number of men do. The cultures of both the West and the East are male cultures which both control and collude in the night curfew. Most men are oblivious to the curfew because it does not concern them. They do not even notice, it is so ‘normal’ as to be invisible. And, as women, we accept this situation, because we all know the consequences if we don’t.

  To quote Margaret Atwood: Men fear that women will laugh at them. Women fear that men will kill them.

  In common with any other woman, I’ve always been conscious of what could happen on a dark street, by myself. Even in the middle of the day, on a quiet street, I know I am never-quite-safe. No young girl gets through life without at least one bad experience with a random man on a random street. I’ve always thought that being raped or attacked must be one of the worst things that could ever happen to a woman.

  And I always hoped that I would not be that woman.

  If I ever find myself alone on a street at night, I look over my shoulder constantly, hyper-alert, because who would ever expect an attack from the front? I have the keys in my hand, ready to get into the house/the car/the building quickly. Because the responsibility for not being attacked always rests with the woman.