by Evans, Ilsa
‘You can’t drink urine, can you?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ I had a fleeting moment of panic as I couldn’t locate my pants, struck by an image of my body being found sans bottom half of clothing. I dressed awkwardly, even that small effort ridiculously tiring. I wondered if it was the residue of the injection.
‘Queen bee.’
‘Queen wasp.’
‘Queen ant.’
I fell silent again, thinking. It occurred to me that I could use an earring to carve Leon’s name in the wall. I grabbed my ears and realised both sets of studs were gone. So were my rings. Okay, before I became too weak, perhaps tomorrow, I would use my own blood to write his name on the floor. Hell, I’d leave an epic. Maybe even my column for next week.
‘Your turn.’
‘Ah, quokka.’
‘Queensland groper.’
‘I think I went out with one of those once.’
Fiona sniffed. ‘I only ever went out with Leon. Thirty-three years old and I only ever went out with one man. Isn’t that pathetic?’
‘No,’ I said, not really meaning it. Particularly given that the man turned out to be a homicidal maniac and she still couldn’t stop talking about him every few minutes. I thought about Dustin Craig being Leon’s father, and hoped the whole Oedipus thing would send him around the bend. And I wondered if anyone would ever discover the truth, or whether Fiona would go down in history as a three-time murderer, with me her last victim. Mother of five felled by jealous rival. Lover devastated. Offspring peeved.
‘Your turn.’
‘Uh, quail.’ I thought of my column, and wondered who would be given the gig instead. How long would they wait? Would there be an obituary, a flood of letters, a feature article?
‘Quahog.’
I frowned. ‘Isn’t that from Family Guy?’
‘It’s a type of clam. And I don’t watch Family Guy.’
I wasn’t sure about the accuracy here but decided that a bit of creative licence was probably not our most pressing concern. ‘Quetzal. It’s a South American bird.’
‘I learnt about quahogs from Leon. He knew all about seafood and that sort of thing.’
‘A real catch.’ I thought about my mother, and how people would flock to the shop to see how she was coping. A hundred conversations, all going quiet as she came near. Then I thought of Petra, who would need to step up to the plate now. Lastly I thought of my girls, something I had been avoiding for hours. Almost immediately I was washed with waves of stomach-clenching nausea. How would they cope? Would this scar them for life? Tears pricked at my eyes, and I felt them fill with fluid I could not afford to lose. Quinn was only thirteen years old. Who would take her on? Scarlet? Ruby? My mother? Darcy?
‘Nell, can I ask you a personal question?’ Fiona’s voice sounded brittle, like sour candy. ‘When did you find out your husband was being unfaithful?’
I let this question hang for a moment, even though I knew the answer like the back of my hand. ‘Thirtieth of April at seven in the evening. We were sitting in the living room having a glass of wine. She rang, and told me.’
‘Tessa Sheridan?’
‘Yes.’
‘She was in the Wine and Cheese Society as well, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long had it been going on?’
‘A couple of years apparently. Although it wasn’t his first affair. He had a fling about fourteen years ago. We split up for a few months over that one.’
Fiona went quiet, and then sighed. ‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
I thought of Darcy and wondered how he would react to news of my demise. Would it interrupt his quest to ‘find himself’? Would she comfort him, in their Gold Coast apartment? Would they drink wine on their balcony and gaze out to sea, occasionally commenting on the awfulness of it all? Would he be just a little riddled with guilt?
‘I think it’s worse when you know the other person. If it’s a stranger, you can’t picture them together. But if you know her, then it’s sort of relentless.’
‘Yes.’
I ran my hand over the wooden insert of the bench, for a moment picturing Darcy as he had been fourteen years ago, ushering me into this very same cellar, grinning. My mind flicked shut, moved on. Like an old-fashioned View-Master, changing the scene. ‘Maybe someone will come down here unexpectedly. Before it’s too late.’
‘There’s just the two keys. Leon’s got one, which he’s going to pretend I had cut. And Sally Roddom’s got the other, because she’s the treasurer. But she’s off visiting her daughter till after Christmas.’
‘I see.’
‘I give up on Q. Let’s move to R. I’ll start. Rabbit.’
‘In a little while, Fiona, okay?’ I curled away, trying to nestle my back into the wedge of the bench. But everything was equally uncomfortable, with the bluestone so cold it was like ice. Even my bones felt chilled. I flicked the View-Master back because it didn’t make any difference anyway, my misery might as well be the only thing that was fed. And there I was standing by the door, my eyes closed and a huge grin on my face. ‘Now!’ cried Darcy and I opened my eyes to a magical sight. The bench was covered with a cloth and there were candles and wineglasses and a platter of food. Amazingly romantic, so far removed from everything except each other. I had been able to believe, without any doubt, that this was the way it would be forever.
I ran the memory through again, this time pausing on Darcy by the door. ‘Close your eyes!’ he said, a smile lifting each word. I rewound, played it again, and then frowned. He had been empty-handed. At the time this had added to the surprise because I hadn’t suspected a thing – but it meant he already had the things here.
‘Fiona, when the light was on, did you notice a cupboard at all?’
‘No. Why?’
I rewound the View-Master again. ‘Close your eyes!’ he said, and then … what? I knelt up, my chain rattling against the bluestone. I slowly ran my finger around the wooden slats of the bench until it dipped into a tiny alcove. Hardly daring to hope, I hooked my finger and levered the insert upwards. It came quite easily but then slipped and fell back. ‘Shit!’
‘Nell? What are you doing?’
I tried again, this time slipping my entire hand underneath as the insert rose. Now it was just a matter of lifting. On the other side of the bench I heard Fiona gasp and then the insert was tipping and I had to use both hands to haul it off. It was heavy, but not as heavy as I expected. I leant it against the stone and reached inside, my heart beating so loud it echoed in my ears.
‘What is it?’ whispered Fiona. ‘What have you done?’
‘Just a minute.’ I touched bottom and thought I would die of disappointment. There had to be something. I walked my fingers back towards me, leaning as far as I could go, and almost immediately felt something soft but lumpy. ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.’
‘Nell! You have to tell me what’s happening!’
‘The top of the bench comes away.’ I spoke rapidly, the words tripping over each other. ‘And there’s something inside. You feel your side and see if anything’s over there.’
There was a rattling sound as Fiona manoeuvred herself towards the bench. I dug my fingers into the soft cloth to get a better grip and heaved the bundle up, dumping it in my lap as I collapsed into a sitting position. Even before I started to unwrap it, I knew what I had from the rattling sound of the matches. Never had anything sounded as sweet. I held the box in my hand and kissed it, then took out a match and struck it with a shaking hand. Light flared and I was looking straight at Fiona, pale in the flickering shadows.
‘I have a candle,’ she whispered, rolling it across. I lit the wick and sat it on the floor, waiting for the flame to settle. ‘My god, Nell. How did you know?’
‘Never underestimate the ingenuity of a middle-aged woman.’ I stared around the room, pausing at each object. I was ravenous for sight. Finally I lifted the candle and looked back inside
the bench. There was an open packet of water crackers on Fiona’s side, plus two wineglasses from a set I had at home, one of which held an imprint of bright red lipstick against its etched rim, alongside a corkscrew and a condom packet. I blinked, realising quite suddenly that this was not the remains of our last picnic, where the latter had been most definitely absent, but a regular port of call. Never underestimate the ingenuity of a middle-aged woman, sure, and also the resourcefulness of a cheating arse.
‘Nell! Over your side! Is that a water bottle? Please tell me that’s a water bottle?’
Darcy was cast aside as I scrambled back onto my knees and pulled out a jar of pickles. Loretta Emerson’s Majic Dill Pickles. Most importantly, the plump juicy pickles were swimming in liquid. It might look like it had been collected from a swamp, but it was still liquid. I glanced over at Fiona, who was staring at the jar hungrily. ‘We have to be careful with this. Make it last as long as possible.’
She nodded, without taking her eyes away.
I turned the pickle jar over in my hands, delighting in the lumpy swish of juice as the pickles hit the glass. And also delighting in the thought that if we did die, then it would be obvious to Darcy that I had done so with the knowledge that he had entertained down here on a regular basis. That should be enough to riddle him with guilt. Nevertheless, it was a pity that he and his picnic pal/s hadn’t been more into tools, like a hacksaw or hatchet. Or battleaxe. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and pickles had never looked so good. They might have been more about prolonging our lives than saving them, but maybe, just maybe, that would be enough.
Chapter Twenty-One
Do you ever go on holiday? Or get ill? I ask because I would like to volunteer my services for such times. I have a writing diploma and am trying to build up my portfolio. I also have some great ideas for your column. I enclose a bio and a sample of my writing and look forward to hearing from you.
At some stage we exhausted the animal alphabet game and started on place names. Then people’s names, and professions. We also spoke about topics as diverse as the current political landscape (tedious), to whether McDonald’s should be allowed to get a foothold in Majic (no), to people we would invite to our last dinner party (George Clooney, period). Every now and again we slept, but with no idea for how long.
We doled out the supplies, making them last as long as possible. But the pickle juice ran out a long time before the crackers. After which we ate the pickles themselves, joking about how apt it was to have pickles as a last meal, and I felt sorry that I would never be able to tell Mrs Emerson just how good they were. Eventually our mouths grew drier and our throats became raspier, and words started to emerge with a husky edge that made them sound like gravel. But most of the time I tried to make myself think happy thoughts. Not just because they were required to balance out Fiona’s unremitting pessimism, but because I was convinced they would help me survive.
Perhaps Sally Roddom would return early with her heart set on a 1956 Cabernet Sauvignon. Or maybe there would be an earthquake that caused Sheridan House to collapse, leaving a gaping hole above the wine cellar. Or perhaps Ashley Armistead would do something more productive than flit around flirting. Something like figuring out that Leon was involved, from which it would just be a hop, skip and a jump to investigating all the places he had access to. How much time would that take? And how ironic that it felt like we had all the time in the world, and yet that was the one thing that was in short supply. As well as water.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Totally identify with everything you wrote about middle-aged invisibility. In fact, I think ASIO should recruit us. We’d make the best spies!
‘What’s it like, being a writer?’ asked Fiona suddenly. It was the first time she had spoken for a long while. And a definite improvement on her last conversation, which had been about an aardvark that was perched on the wall, apparently staring at her. ‘What do writers do about Christmas parties?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, they don’t work with people. So they don’t get a Christmas break-up?’
I ran my tongue around my lips. ‘No, they have them anyway. Only there’s less gossiping about inappropriate sexual liaisons.’
The silence stretched, and then her chains rattled as she moved in the darkness. ‘Do you realise my dream came true, about you having a picnic by candlelight? This was it. I was the tall person.’
‘I’m pretty sure you said it was romantic. No offence, but you’re not my type. With or without manacles.’
‘I read it wrong, that’s all. Perhaps it was supposed to be a warning.’
‘That might have been handy.’
She fell silent for such a long time that I thought it was the end, but then her voice came once more, gravelly in the darkness. ‘Nell, Tessa Sheridan didn’t wear red lipstick.’
‘I know.’
This time the silence stretched even longer, until it felt final. I didn’t think she had much longer because if I was feeling as bad as I was, then she had to be even worse. I smiled grimly at the fact my last ever conversation with another human being was about my philandering ex. But rather him, I supposed, than hers. Before the candle gutted, I had used the dead matches to spell out Leon did it both inside the bench cavity and out. I also laboriously wrote the same on top of the wooden insert with candle wax. This made me feel considerably better about what was in store. Of course, I still wasn’t happy, but at least I could try to ensure that Leon paid the price. Just in case I wasn’t reincarnated.
I knew the hallucinations would begin soon, because Fiona’s had started a long time before. I was actually looking forward to them, because I imagined they would provide some visual effects. At the very least they would counter the mind-numbing boredom. I kneaded my half of the torn cloth slowly between my fingers and began muttering my well-worn litany of names. Scarlet, Ruby, Red, Lucy, Quinn, Yen, Petra. I closed my eyes. Scarlet, Ruby, Red, Lucy, Quinn, Yen, Petra.
When I woke next, I knew that the delirium had started as there were repetitive explosions of noise. They were so loud that it hurt to listen, and they continued for a long time. I curled in on myself and pressed my hands against my ears. Suddenly they stopped, quite abruptly, and were replaced by an expanding strip of light in the distance. I blinked, because it was amazingly, blindingly bright. I knew what that meant. There were also people, one after the other. All men, and all tall and muscly with intense eyes. I smiled happily, because either heaven was everything it was cracked up to be or these were quality hallucinations.
‘They’re here!’ shouted Hallucination Number One, who looked oddly like Ashley Armistead. He started across the room.
‘We need the paramedics!’ yelled Hallucination Number Two, following him.
My smile widened, even though it hurt my lips. This fantasy was looking up, and it certainly shat all over Fiona’s aardvark on the wall. Hallucination Number One knelt beside me and took my hand. I peered at him. ‘Should I go towards the light?’
‘Not quite yet,’ he said. ‘Perhaps wait for the paramedics to look you over first.’
‘Fine,’ I said agreeably. ‘Do you like horses?’
‘Not particularly. How about we go sailing instead?’
‘Okay, it’s a date.’ I closed my eyes and opened them again to find myself being wrapped in tin foil, which seemed a little odd but I didn’t think I was in any position to argue. Then someone jabbed me in my arm and I jerked away, frowning. Were hallucinations supposed to be violent?
Now I was on a stretcher, surrounded by a bevy of illusion-men, and being raised skywards. It was like cheerleading meets pantomime. I could see the ceiling and the overhead light and the doorframe. I closed my eyes and opened them again to find even more people crowding around and there was a flash of even more intense light, and another. Somebody shielded my eyes but the light still glowed through their fingers. It was painful, but wondrous. I realised that people were cheering, which seemed a little over the top
but I felt so good that I wriggled one hand from the tin foil and gave my best interpretation of the royal wave.
Then my hand was grabbed, held tight. Scarlet, Ruby, Red, Lucy, Quinn, Yen, Petra. It seemed that they were all there, and it was wonderful.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dear Nell, I am writing to thank you. Your common sense and humour and empathy helps me get through the dark spots in my life. Thank you.
I heard their voices a long time before I opened my eyes, which was how I knew for sure that I had survived. I just hadn’t been wicked enough for the afterlife to consist of my daughters bickering. I lay still, listening, washed by a contentment that was laced with joy.
‘How can you deny wearing my black tank top when I can see it under your shirt?’
‘I don’t know why either of you care. It’s frigging ugly.’
‘You’re frigging ugly.’
There was the sudden clap of hands. ‘Shut up, all of you! How the hell does your mother put up with this?’
‘What day is it?’ I asked, and the words came out as husks alone.
‘Auntie Pet, you’ve gone out with policemen before. What’re they like?’
‘Lucy, it’s not like they’re generic. They’re all different.’
I opened my eyes a crack, took in Quinn sitting at the end of my bed fiddling with her phone. She looked up. ‘I need a word that has like five letters, second letter P, fourth letter S, last letter M.’
‘Spasm,’ I croaked.
‘Prism,’ said Lucy. ‘No, hang on, did you say second letter P?’
‘What about spasm?’ asked Petra, from somewhere to my right.
‘Thanks.’ Quinn keyed it in and then grinned. ‘I got forty-eight points!’
Maybe I was dead. I swivelled my gaze and took in Ruby and Lucy sitting at a circular table by the door. As I watched, Red swung through the doorway bearing a cardboard tray of coffee cups and paper bags. My heart puffed like a balloon. She looked well, her red hair tamed into sculptured curls that were a lot longer than when last I saw her. She held out the tray and there was momentary bedlam as cups were distributed, paper bags thrown across the room, gratitude voiced.
