She listened to the sound of car doors opening and shutting, then stiffened as the murmured voices became louder.
‘But I did… I saw a woman the other day.’ A young voice.
‘So, he’s got a visitor.’ A man replied.
‘What did we tell you about leaving Mr Clements alone?’ A higher-pitched voice interjected. A female voice.
‘He’s not alone…’ The young voice again. ‘Anyway, she looked…weird.’
‘You’d have to be weird to have anything to do with him,’ the man laughed. Was that Timmy? All grown-up? Ellie couldn’t move. She’d been seen. They thought she was weird. Her heart sank. But you knew that, she told herself. I’m not to be seen.
‘Don’t be rude.’ The woman, her voice kind despite the warning in her words. The bustle of their arrival faded along with their voices, and Ellie heard the back door to their house close. Ellie’s breath came in soft, short pants. When had the boy seen her? I’ll have to be more careful, he—they—can’t see me with Daddy. Not with his body. Not with Mummy. No one will understand. Not even the kind woman.
When she was positive there were no sounds of anyone outside, Ellie tried to move, uncurling her cramped limbs, and hit her shoulder on the slanted floor of the shed. Grunting, she tried to shift backwards and felt pins and needles shooting up her legs. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting her mother out of here.
With exquisite care despite her awkward position, Ellie tried to bring the bags out from underneath the shed. What was left of the bags seemed to shred as she touched them, leaving bones—Mummy—lying in the dirt. She tried to bring the bones towards her, bring them out into the yard, but she wasn’t sure she had them all. There were bits of fabric, bits of bag and bones and she couldn’t make them stay together. Gently, she pulled them closer to her as she wriggled backwards. She was pressed against the plants that he’d let grow out of control here. Ellie hadn’t been the only thing he’d kept hidden all these years.
‘Fucking bastard.’ No. She couldn’t bear to think of him right now. She had to work out how to bring her mother inside, where she would be safe. With her daughter. A blanket. Ellie hurried across the yard and into the house, ripped a blanket from her bed and took it back outside. She would protect her Mummy. She would wrap her up, take her indoors, and look after her. Only inside would she be safe.
In the laundry, Ellie let the cold water run over her hands and arms, barely registering the stings on her fingers and palms where the flesh had torn and blistered. She was absorbed in watching the water run brown through her fingers, then red, then clear. No thoughts of Mummy or of Daddy. Just the water changing colour on her hands. She hadn’t even realised she had fresh wounds until the dirt had washed away. She didn’t know which sores were from digging and which were from pulling off the boards. Her nails were broken and black, but Ellie didn’t mind. She had found her mother. She had earned the black.
Ellie unrolled the blanket that held her mother on the lounge room floor. The room seemed to spin and fade from sight as she saw how jumbled the mess of bones and fabric had become. Ellie clutched a hand to her clammy forehead.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy. I made it worse.’ She wanted to throw up. This dirty, horrible mess, this was Mummy. The dull gold band caught her eye. Gritting her teeth, Ellie tried to take the ring off the bone. The finger came loose. Ellie felt a fresh swell of nausea surge through her. ‘I broke you.’ She closed her eyes, clutching the wedding ring in her hand. She tried to picture it on her mother’s hand, but couldn’t. All she could see were bones. It’s my fault. Maybe her mother hadn’t wanted to be here with Ellie; maybe she’d killed herself. Maybe she’d had an accident. Maybe Daddy… Bile rose to Ellie’s throat.
‘Daddy.’ He’d hurt Mummy, she’d known that, seen that, but to actually kill her? It couldn’t be true. She looked over to the other skeletons she had tried to rebuild, to Maisie and the babies. It could be. Ellie threw up over the floor.
She stood, intending to go to the bathroom, but only managed to get as far as her father’s room. She opened the door. The poisonous air enveloped her as she made her way to the bed and looked down at his body. She spat. It landed next to him. She spat again, this time on his chest.
‘Why Daddy? Why?’ He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look like himself anymore. He was Daddy and he was something, someone different. She wanted to beat him, but didn’t want to touch him. She wanted to scream, but knew her voice would never be enough. Ellie looked at her father’s face and this time his eyes were open, glinting with merciless life.
‘Daddy?’
He opened his mouth as if to speak. Ellie ran from the room. She was weak. She was crazy. Stupid. She couldn’t help Mummy. She hadn’t saved her, or Maisie, or the babies. She couldn’t be here. She couldn’t stay in this house, not with his body lying there, decomposing—the word slid and slithered into her mind. He was still in there somehow; she had seen it, though it wasn’t him. His presence kept moving. She knew when he was near. She could feel him. She always had.
The room whirled and pulsed around her. She placed a hand against the wall. It felt as though it were alive, breathing. Her thoughts were slipping; she couldn’t keep them straight. Her breath came in odd, shallow pants. Something real, she needed something real to hold onto. She placed both hands against the wall and pressed against it. The wind was building up out there; she could hear it whispering against the wall. It wanted to come in. She usually liked feeling safe inside away from the wind, but not tonight. She couldn’t be in this house with that body that was not Daddy anymore. Daddy who had lied, Daddy who had killed. She couldn’t stay with those bones that were Mummy. No, not my Mummy. She felt her mind slip once more.
‘Hold on.’ She pressed her forehead against the wall as if through this and her hands she could keep the world straight. Her hands slid. It was useless. She couldn’t be in here, where everything, everyone, was so wrong. She had to get out.
The gusts coming off the ocean were fierce. They blasted her face, stinging her skin with sand and salt spray. Ellie opened her mouth and tasted their ferocity. The sharp ocean air engulfed her as she took off her shoes and let her feet sink into the sand. Running to where the waves touched the shore, she screamed into the night, her guttural cries consumed by the pounding roar of the waves. When she was hoarse, she stopped, her body swaying, buffeted by the winds. Her face and shirt were wet with tears that had run unchecked. She was alone in the world. There was no Daddy, no Mummy, no Maisie. No one who knew who Eleanor Clements really was.
‘Not even me,’ she whispered into the night. A high-pitched squabble sounded from the trees further down, seagulls bickering amongst themselves perhaps, and Ellie jumped. So she was not the only living creature on the beach.
‘All the little creatures come out to play,’ she whispered. ‘Play with me.’ Ellie swiped at her face with her sleeve. She was weird, she was a creature, not a person, not like other people. Not a girl, not a woman—a freak. Daddy had told her that often enough.
‘No!’ Ellie hit herself against the side of her head. She would not think of him. He was not here now. She had left him behind. For now, it was only her and the birds and the moonlight that sparkled across the distant roll of the swell.
‘My beach,’ she whispered, stepping closer to the waves. ‘Mine.’ Ellie bent down and placed her hands in the water. Despite the chill of the wind, the water was not as cold as she’d expected. The salt burned her palms where the delicate skin had blistered and broken with each strike of the shovel into the unprepared ground.
‘Yes.’ She wanted the salt to tear open her blisters and sear them with incandescent pain. Then she would truly know she was alive. Welcoming the sting, she kept her hands submerged. ‘A high pain threshold,’ someone had said about her at the hospital. She remembered the words, but not the face or the name of the speaker. Most of the words and memories of those h
ospital days came subdued beneath an anaesthetised blur.
It was not only her hands that hurt. Her arms, back, and legs ached. Ellie rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers, enjoying the feel of the waves splashing up her arms. The seawater felt warmer now on her hands. She pictured herself floating, buoyant in the ocean, her body cushioned by liquid depths. The sea would remove the pains that digging had caused. It would remove the smell of death that tainted her and the dirt that stained her skin. The ocean would cleanse her, strip her of her pain. She straightened and looked around. She was alone.
Ellie unbuttoned her shirt and let it drop to her feet. As she stepped out of the tracksuit pants that had once been her father’s—she’d had to roll them up to create an ugly cuff—her pale skin, made spectral by the moonlight, broke out in goose bumps. She shivered as she lifted her plain cotton singlet over her head, dropping it on the pile of clothes. It too was one of his.
‘No.’ She would not think of him. Of anyone. She was no one. As she moved her hands to the elasticised waistband of her underpants, she was startled by a noise, the dislodging of small rocks from the path where the stunted banksias grew in palsied contractions, their distorted limbs seeking respite from the coastal winds. Ellie stood frozen as her eyes scanned the shadowy recess, but from her position at the water’s edge it was impossible to make anything out clearly.
She shivered again and broke out of her immobility. Nothing appeared. No dogs, no people. There were no more sounds from the direction of the path, just the sound of the waves, those distant birds, and the far-away thrum of a car travelling down the street.
‘Just me.’ She closed her eyes and focused on the sounds and the expectant air feathering her skin, ‘No one.’ Leaves and branches moved with the wind and the tide lapped behind her. She was safe; she was alone. Ellie turned back to the ocean, stepped out of her underpants and into the water. To be immersed again in the swell, to have it saturate her skin and wash away the days of digging and the years of being Daddy’s little girl, his dutiful daughter, was all she wanted. The water could take control. Take her away from the bodies. She’d left them all behind, sleeping in the dark. She needed the sea to swallow her whole.
It scared her at first, the strength of the waves, the buffeting pull and push of them against her body, almost knocking her off her feet. If only she were able to walk across the seas, not on the water like Jesus from the Bible, but underneath, in the world of the submerged. The other world. As she stepped forward, Ellie saw herself moving through the emerald underworld, a slow dance that would see her arrive on the other side of the ocean to a new land, Daddy and the pain he’d wrought cast off forever. That had once been her dream, a little girl’s dream. She could still picture the luscious depths of her underwater world, a richer, deeper green than the bush that surrounded her. The sea flora, the weed that draped and swayed in the currents, would caress her body with gentle strokes. The oddly shaped sea creatures she had drawn would flock to her and sustain her, accept her as one of their own. A fresh wave struck her and she slipped, gasping as cold water splashed against her torso. All she had to do was keep walking into the waves, walking forever and she would be a part of the ocean. She had heard of coal seams that threaded underground, but that midnight land of mines slicing into the earth was Daddy’s world. It was the antidote to the fire, to the spewing forth of metallic heat and fury that she longed for.
If that old globe in the corner of the lounge room were to be trusted, there were other countries, other lands. She had imagined treading that ocean floor, her feet tangling in the anemones and scooting past the wobbegongs, although in her imaginings the water hadn’t been this cold. In her imaginings her arms had floated gracefully at her sides, her hair a drifting copper stream. She hadn’t been unsteady, her arms out to brace herself against the waves, the wind whipping her hair across her face and eyes. The imagined Ellie hadn’t had to breathe, hadn’t needed to. She had just walked. One foot in front of the other to see where they led.
She had once asked Daddy if anyone had been able to walk all the way from their coast to a faraway land. He had barked his cruel and abrasive laugh.
‘Fuck, you’re stupid.’
She had slunk away to lie on the floor of her room, her eyes drawn to the images of people from other nations in the picture encyclopaedia. She’d vowed she would walk out of here one day. She would journey to one of those foreign lands and maybe she’d find Mummy. A garbled cry burst from her lips. Mummy. She had been stupid, believing, hoping all those years that her mother was out there in the world.
Ellie gasped as water sprayed her upper torso and face. I can do this. I want to float. Another wave splashed her face and she spluttered, the sound bizarre in the dark.
‘I’m alive.’ Mummy, Maisie, the babies… They were dead. Daddy was dead. And not dead. But he wasn’t here. She was here, and she was real. All on her own in the world. She wanted to float like she had as a child, except instead of her dreams of crystal clear water and an ice-blue sky, she would be floating on the everlasting night of an endless sea. Her sea. Ellie fought the stiffness in her muscles and the drunken current and moved further from the shore. When the water reached her shoulders she kicked up from the ground and for an instant imagined her mother’s firm hand under her back, keeping her afloat. The hand changed into grey-white bones. She opened her eyes, ignoring the sting of the salt. She did not want to think of bones, of death, only of the waves and the freedom of the night. The winds had blown any cloud cover away. It was just her and a glorious field of stars.
‘I’m floating.’ She could feel the action of the waves pummelling her body. Her soul. She was aglow in the pitch-black water, her skin incandescent in the moonlight. I’m alive. She could feel the water taking control. The rocking of the waves soothed her. Let them wash me away.
She was amazed at how relaxed her body had become. Her aches were numbed and she felt refreshed, cleansed. Her legs dropped down and she touched the sand beneath her for reassurance. It’s still there. She kicked up again and floated, letting her mind drift with her body. A splash and spray of salt water up her nostrils seared her sinuses, but she didn’t mind the burn. For the first time in days, she couldn’t smell death.
She had drifted. She’d sunk slightly too, the lower half of her body angling towards the sea bed. Ellie dropped her legs further and gasped when she found herself out deeper than she’d thought, unable to find footing on the sandy floor. It was only now she realised that the water had become colder, her bare skin prickling with the chill. Something nudged her leg, something cool, smooth, and slimy. Was it a creature like her that didn’t belong in the terrestrial world, but existed in this ocean dark? Something drawn and hewn from the sprawling earth? Her mind flashed back to the creatures she had seen in the encyclopaedia, those ‘Freaks of the Deep’. Monstrous creatures of the nether regions, killer sharks with freshly grown rows of razor sharp teeth, gigantic squid with tentacles spiralling to entrap their next unsuspecting meal. Terror flooded her body. She couldn’t remember how to propel herself through the water. Her calf and foot became entangled in something slick and her entire body was wracked by a spasm. Weed, it had to be seaweed. Her head bobbed under a wave and she gulped a mouthful of salty spume that scored her throat. Ellie flailed and fought for the surface, her legs kicking frantically. She looked up and saw moonlight latticed through the waves.
I’m going to die. She sank beneath the water, her arms helpless against the strength of the tide. Her head broke the surface briefly before another wave drove her under and tossed her backwards. I’m going to be dead like Maisie, like my babies. Like Mummy. The thought brought her comfort. I’ll be with Mummy. And my babies. She stopped struggling and let her limp body be driven by the motion of the waves. She didn’t want to fight anymore. She didn’t want to see or hear Daddy anymore. To be in that house. With that body. She was engulfed by the gloomy swell. She opened her eyes and watched
the dark beneath her rise and swallow her. A terrible salted blackness smacked against her, rushed her ears with strange voices from this watery world. We’ll all be together, Mummy, Maisie, my babies…
…and I’ll be with Daddy again.
No!
Hatred and horror coiled within and she was spurred into action. Her legs thrashed, striking out with a violence and energy that surprised her even as her erratic kicks entangled her in more weed.
‘No!’ she yelled, a mistake that let water pour into her throat. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want all this death. Senseless, mindless, insane death. No more. Daddy would not have another body. He would not take her too. He’d stolen too much of her life already. It was time to fight. She wasn’t done. She kicked out. Un-done, un-dead, un-Dad. Kick. She had to bury him, had to make him go away for good. Ellie kicked again and again, her legs circling furiously, her arms stretching to reach the surface. Her searing lungs felt as if they were about to burst. Oh God, she’d left it too late. Too late to fight. The waves, the world was too strong. The water was too heavy. She was too weak. A pathetic girl, like he’d always said. She sank down and her foot kicked against a rock. A savage bolt of pain burst through her toes and rocketed up her leg. Her wail of pain was lost as a wave broke over her head. She struggled, gagging on a roiling mouthful of seawater, and was spun, disorientated by the waves. Where was the surface? Where was the light? The stars? They couldn’t be taken from her now. She had to fight.
Wheeling, she managed to break the surface of the water, gasping and crying. Both feet touched rock. She fought to stand, fell, and fought again, her feet sliding on the slippery surface. Her body felt numb, yet her throat and lungs felt as if they were on fire. She could burn up from within.
On shaking tired legs, Ellie made her way back to shore. More waves pummelled her and she fell to her knees, struggling to right herself. Her eyes felt gritty and grazed from the salt. She felt so weak, so little, as another pitching wave knocked her off her feet. On shaking arms she pushed herself up, her torso above the water now, the cold air chilling her damp skin. There were more rocks now underfoot, rough and sharp. Something pierced her foot, yet the sting of the water and the pain were reassuring. Pain she understood. It reminded her she was alive.
Path to the Night Sea Page 29
