‘You might be right. But when someone is psychotic, living in an unreality, it’s not possible for their best friend to drag them out into the light again.’
My throat filled with grief.
‘She didn’t give you enough time to understand before she gave up. But it’s not your fault and it’s not hers.’
‘You think she gave up?’
‘I don’t know, Ness. I think in that moment, when she decided to be in the water, she gave up on anything else that wasn’t being in the water.’
I was sure this was true.
‘It’s okay to be angry about that. She gave up and she left you.’
I hadn’t let any anger come through at all, except towards myself. It felt like, if I let myself, I would drop dead or burst into flames or choke. I know now that I was very angry, at Hetty and at her family and at all the men who had let her down; at myself and Dill and Elaine, for not understanding. Nothing comes from anger except more of it, like fire or oil, but it felt good in that moment to let some of it rise.
‘Do you remember that day when I was strange at work?’ Minnie picked at her nails as she asked this, and furrowed her face a little.
I tried to remember.
‘The day I was on the phone here and then I got off and you asked me what was wrong?’
Nothing.
‘I think I must have looked worried?’
I remembered then, only a few weeks back, that day when I was worried about Hetty, like I always seemed to be but maybe even more so, and I had seen that Minnie was worried too, about something else, but I’d let her brush me off and ask me about my own things. She always did that, and it seemed she knew she was doing it.
‘Yes—yes, I remember! You had this strange phone call. I thought it was Sim being mean or something.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, no. No. It wasn’t Sim. Thank you for noticing, though.’
‘Minnie—you don’t have to thank me—I didn’t help you! I just let you focus on me.’
‘I didn’t let you help me.’
She shifted slightly on the stool, to get comfortable or to give herself some time to prepare. I doubted Minnie had had much practice sharing her own discomfort or sorrow. She was too busy sharing everyone else’s, trying to help, feeding and standing by. I watched her shift herself again. She was so pretty.
‘I was angry that day. But I’m not very good at anger. My brother called to tell me that he had stopped taking his medication. He imagined I would be excited for him, but of course I wasn’t.’
Her hands were folded against her knees.
‘He has done it before. And every time, he gets very sick. We make him promise to see his doctor and start again, and to tell us if he needs help, not to just stop the only thing that helps. But he doesn’t. Not until it’s too late.’
I hadn’t known about Minnie’s brother other than his name, Eugene. She had told me they were close when they were little, only just over a year apart in age: Minnie the elder one, protective and loving like she was with everyone. I hadn’t imagined him sick. He had been bright and well in my mind, safe with such a sister.
‘He starts not to make sense. But it’s slowly. Like Hetty. No one can help him, because every time he does something unusual, we hope it’s the last time.’ She looked up at me, her eyes damp. ‘I wonder if you were hoping too?’
I nodded, and put my hand on hers. I had been hoping and I wouldn’t hope again. Or maybe I would. Minnie was telling me that I would. I placed the idea down deep and swallowed my saliva.
We sat for hours there at the window, and Minnie brought small cold cucumbers with sauce and then lemon snow for us to eat. I wasn’t hungry but putting it in my mouth was a distraction. I wanted to tell Hetty how beautiful Minnie was, because I knew she would understand. We had always had similar reactions: our eyes becoming wet at the same moments, our faith in what life meant fuelled by the same things. At least, I had thought so.
GLACIER
frozen river
The next day I booked a ticket home. I told Dill and Minnie: Dill in the Marjorie kitchen, Minnie on the phone. I texted Faith, who replied immediately, asking to see me before I flew.
Toronto felt special in the days after I knew I was leaving, and I went walking to see all the places I’d grown fond of. It had only been nine months, but I felt like I’d lived so long and would never know another city in the same way. I smiled at the people I passed, trying to be airy. Sometimes they smiled back.
Faith and I met to say goodbye on a Saturday morning. The heavens battered my face as I walked towards our favourite cafe on Bloor. Toronto was very different in the winter, for the lack of people, the abandoned patios and the first snow clinging to the gutters like icing sugar. It began quietly to rain ice as I reached College and Bathurst, not cold enough for the real thing, and I tried to enjoy it.
I thought about all the things I wouldn’t do before I left—one last ride on the subway, one last Jamaican patty wrapped in coconut bread, one last visit to Dufferin Mall or Dollarama. I wouldn’t go to the gallery and see Emily Carr again; I wouldn’t lie on the High Park grass, the greenest I had ever seen. I would go to Tim Horton’s at the airport and get a sun-dried-tomato bagel with cream cheese, because that was easy. Dill had insisted I try one, and I was finally getting back my appetite, something small but helpful alongside the grief.
There was no one else in the cafe when I arrived, it being early and rainy and cold. I had my period, and needed to sit down, so I ordered a coffee and a white roll filled with a slice of round meat and some white cheese, and sat where I could see the door. There was no data on my phone and I couldn’t see any newspapers or magazines, so I just waited, and when the coffee came I concentrated on just the drinking of it—each sip—so I wouldn’t wonder what I would say to Faith when she arrived, and so I could make the most of my second last day in this city. The roll was soft and chewy and the cheese tasted like body, which I liked. I felt the mushed-up bread and animal and off milk travel down my throat when I swallowed, into the rest of me to be processed some more, digested.
I didn’t realise Faith was there until she was standing behind the other chair. I hadn’t seen her come through the door and to have her close so suddenly pumped my heart.
‘Hi,’ she said, and pulled out the chair. She began unwrapping a very long scarf from where it was circled around her, and when she had finished, her thin neck bare, she hung it on the back of her seat. The scarf was many colours, but mostly blue. I could see slivers of ice melting along the wool.
After she sat down she smiled, so warmly I almost swooned. I had missed her so much and now I was leaving and she would go on living her life without me and I without her. It felt almost dangerous to be here with her for such a short time, as if it might permanently damage me to remind myself of how good she was. I felt damaged already, though, and pleasure hadn’t happened since Hetty had died. I needed some pleasure. Faith’s face reminded me of that.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ I asked, preparing to get up and order her one, to get away from her for a second to gather myself.
She shook her head.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘What would you like, then?’
She shook her head again, and leaned towards me, just a small amount, so I could smell her chamomile hair. ‘I would like to go back to my house with you.’
We had sex as soon as Faith had closed the door, up against it, both of us coming quickly and heavily. The blood between my legs didn’t matter at all. Like trees filled with water from the sky we shook, and then Faith took off all of my clothes very slowly but didn’t touch my skin, and we walked to her bedroom, laid down a towel, and pulled the lilac covers up around us. I asked Faith to be naked with me, and when I let myself look at her beneath the covers I saw how delicate she was, how her stomach was just waiting there, and I started to cry and Faith moved to hold me, the whole of me, until I stopped. When I looked at her after I had finished
, there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks, too, and her mascara had painted two lines down either side of her face. She coughed and then gulped, as if the tears were complicated.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, with a wobbly voice.
I started to shake my head but stopped myself. Hetty was gone. I could let Faith tell me what she felt.
‘It’s okay,’ I replied, pushing back some of her hair that had fallen forward across one eye. ‘I’m sorry too.’
It was difficult to say goodbye that night, at Faith’s low white gate that was falling in on itself. Nothing was actually difficult, compared with losing Hetty, but it was as difficult as it could be without being anything at all.
I stepped my way back to Marjorie and imagined my pupils adjusting as the sky darkened. I felt the loneliness I used to feel at this time of night back in Melbourne, as if everyone in the world was quiet now, and nothing could change that. It felt good to have a feeling that wasn’t related to Hetty, and then she was back inside me and I was sad again, turning the corner of Queen and Spadina, looking through the window of McDonald’s at people biting at hamburgers and pulling at fries.
Our street was quiet. I was cold despite all my layers and walked quickly, to get to the house and up to the bedroom and the bed, where I would lie down and curl into a ball.
Ahead of me there was something standing. It didn’t seem like a person, and the air was thick with dark, so I couldn’t see properly. As I neared the thing, I blinked and saw that it was Hetty. From three metres away I could see her, dressed in her Silverchair T-shirt and pyjama pants. She was holding out her arms as if she wanted us to hug, and she wasn’t smiling but her face was round and calm.
‘Hetty,’ I said, loud enough for her to hear.
She didn’t move.
‘Hetty.’
I stepped towards her, very slowly, trying to make sure my heart slowed down too, from a race to a gallop. She was there, and then I took another step and she was gone, and then I blinked and she was definitely gone, and there was nothing on the ground where she had been, no Silverchair T-shirt or puddle of the outer layers of her. Nothing at all, and I felt my heart start to beat as it normally did, as if I’d never even seen her.
I walked up the steps to Marjorie and unlocked the door, turning once more to see if she was there again on the road so I could go back to her, but she wasn’t and I couldn’t. That was the last time I ever saw her, and I rubbed my shoulders until the skin hurt on that verandah before I entered: rubbed them for her and for me. It was the beginning of an ending.
Inside, it was warm.
YARRO-YARRO
ever-flowing
When I was eighteen, a few weeks after I’d said goodbye to the flat grey and beige of Ringwood Secondary College—after the Valedictory Dinner and the last cigarette behind Portable C, walking out one last time with relief in my chest and mouth and ears—a group of us met mid-morning at Warrandyte for a swim in the Yarra. There was nothing to do: exams were over, applications for the next part of our lives had been sent, the long summer was in everything like a bad smell. There was nowhere to just be in Ringwood, apart from Eastland or the train station or Lake Park, with its swing set and earnest wooden animal statues.
In Warrandyte you could hide along the water and terrorise the natural habitat for hours. There were so many spots to lay down blankets and stretch out dirty legs, spots behind thick bush where only the brown water would be disturbed. Hetty had told me the night before that Jump Rock had been chosen, because it was a weekday and wouldn’t be crowded, and some people wanted to jump it. I packed my duffel bag slowly: sun cream, cashews, vodka in a Cottee’s bottle, fading bathers and towel.
One of Hetty’s friends, Sam, picked me up in the morning. Hetty was happy when I jumped in, and she climbed through to the backseat briefly to pinch my cheeks and kiss my forehead, telling me we would have fun. Sam wound along Wonga Road with all the windows down, and Hetty’s hair whipped in and out of her window with the wind. I loved her as always, and watched her slim freckled arms gesticulate the whole way, as she told Sam her small quiet stories and he listened.
Sam was kind, and handsome, and had never had a girlfriend. Something about his face was so private that I never held his gaze for very long, but I imagined that if I ever kissed a boy it might be him, because of his careful beauty, and because he would hold me slightly back, his palms on my shoulders, neither of us wanting heat or sweat or love from each other, but touching lips because we could.
I wondered what Sam thought about me, and if he ever imagined his skin against mine. I didn’t sense the keenness for Hetty coming off him that I did with other boys, their bodies unable to contain their greed. He treated her with dignity and was clearly fond of her, but he didn’t watch her, didn’t tease her, and she told me she understood the way he was more than the rest of them, because it was uncomplicated.
Sam had been the first to get his licence: he had turned eighteen in January, before our last year of high school had even started, and had driven to school every day of Year Twelve in the second-hand Subaru station wagon his parents had given him. Sometimes he would pick Hetty up, then me, and we would arrive at school in the mornings together. I was calm and important walking through the front gate and past the locker bays with Sam and Hetty. I didn’t bother wondering if they felt the same.
I hadn’t asked Hetty how many people might be coming to swim with us. When we arrived there were already a few small groups of familiar faces spread across towels and blankets at the edge of the water, just at the spot where the river curved to head towards the Warrandyte Bridge and a wall of rapids. The surrounds of Jump Rock were slightly sinister, though I couldn’t quite work out why. We’d come to spend time there often over the years, and maybe it was the constant smell of pot in the air, the empty bottles always scattered around, the danger of the jump that we all felt we should make despite most of us being terrified.
I didn’t like how open it was sitting there, and wished we were down at some other more secluded spot. Older couples and young families wandered past with trikes and ice creams and sunscreen, but the seediness prevailed. I felt my breakfast of muesli and Rev mixing in my stomach.
It was hot and bright already but the air wasn’t wet, and I hoped that I might be able to avoid getting in the water, putting my shy body on display, asking for eyes. I hadn’t had new bathers since I was fourteen, and they were saggy at the bum and faded in dirty spots all over. My pubic hair had tufted out at each side of my groin when I’d tried them on the night before, no matter how I pushed it back in, and I had a pimple on my back that was deep and florid and made me feel oily.
I wanted Hetty to think I was beautiful, to wonder at my body and how I moved it, to want to touch me the way I wanted to touch her. I had hardly admitted to myself how much I wanted to hold her hips and smooth my fingers along the side of her, the length of her, but the want was there and it was only getting stronger. She’d never feel the same about me, I was sure. Reminding her of the whole of me was suddenly uncomfortable.
‘Ness, want to sit here?’ Hetty asked me, standing on a bit of grass, her face bunched up in the sun.
She’d chosen a spot close to the others, and I let myself look properly, to see who we were with. There were some boys I didn’t like much—they were crass and careless in their speech and movements, and had never bothered to know me at all. Jeremy was the loudest and most offensive, yet the most attractive to many of the girls in our year. He’d had brief intimate relationships with about ten of them over the last three years of school, and had dumped each one only after getting with the next one. I knew it was strange I didn’t want to be intimate with him, or maybe that wasn’t the right word and it was just different. I would have much preferred to lie down in bed next to the girls he had been with—to comfort them, to smooth their hair, to remind them of their power. He didn’t have a hold over me, and I didn’t want to sit near him, but we spread out a blanket and did, because
there was nowhere else, and it wasn’t something to protest.
I started drinking early that day and so did Hetty. It had always felt more dangerous to drink near the river, as if I was tempting the water to take me as I slowly inebriated myself. I didn’t feel good about finishing school, but I didn’t wish it wasn’t over either. I wanted to be numb, though when I drank I usually just felt tired and thick before I was able to escape anything.
The warmth of the vodka in my head was helping me drop down into the day, and while Hetty lay down in her bikini and the boys stared at her and kicked at each other and laughed and prepared to dive in, I sat and sipped and looked out at the brown moving water. Sticks and Pacific black ducks and invisible eels floated past. I felt the splash of river on my cheek as the boys hit the water. I was possibly, momentarily, happy.
Later, Hetty convinced me to jump off Jump Rock with her. It was on the other side of the river, above the banks of North Warrandyte, and was big enough to edge out onto and stand on: just jutting out from where the bush and the trees clung to the steepness. The rock was at least five or six metres above the water, and though I’d seen so many people jump off it and go under and swim back and laugh as they were drying themselves, I was terrified I would land on the wrong part of the river, where it was shallow and spikes lay just below, or that I wouldn’t even jump far enough out to miss the bank and would land on the side of what we had just climbed to get up to it, my face flattened and my body ripped apart.
I’d never been able to rely on my body the way others could on theirs—I didn’t know what it was capable of, but had always assumed not much. When Hetty fell over, there never seemed to be a mark left on her skin. I had bruises up and down my legs like lily pads, always, despite never remembering bumping in to anything.
Hetty was languid that day, from the sun and the drink and the eyes of many upon her. She stretched and giggled. She kept her eyes on me, and tried to reason with my long list of fears.
Cherry Beach Page 15
