by Tracy Farr
Kristin has the baby in her shirt, now, the baby’s head bobbing at her. Paul’s hand is still on the baby’s head, so that it seems that Paul is pushing the baby at Kristin. Iris looks away. Her eyes wander to the doorway on the other side of the room, the door that leads through to the hallway and the kitchen. There she is, finally: Marti, framed in the doorway. She watches Marti lift the wineglass to her lips. She imagines the taste of it, the wine, the sweet burn, the escape of it, the sweet of it, the cool of it, of one, then just one more.
Marti, Marti, life of the party
Iris moves towards the kitchen, but she’s lost sight of Marti – big, smoky Marti, the opposite of Iris, loud with that smoker’s croak of hers. She’ll be out in the rain, on the doorstep, having a smoke, probably on her own; no one Iris knows smokes any more. Just Marti. She doesn’t care. She laps it up. When she’s in the city, Marti goes to the same café every day, where they all know to bring her long blacks and clean ashtrays in the covered outside courtyard where the chemicals used to be delivered in its former life as a drycleaners.
There she is on the back step, just outside the door, so the smoke drifts inside in little wafts. Iris can smell it across the kitchen, the smell of Marti. She’s turned away, talking to someone, but Iris can’t see the someone – just Marti, her head thrown back, her big mouth wide in a laugh, wineglass in one hand, ciggie in the other.
Marti has pizazz, big hair; she swaggers when she walks, like a pirate. Iris has never, never, ever seen Marti look or seem uncomfortable in a place or situation. Marti is supremely confident. Marti wears red lipstick, and big colourful wide pants – palazzo pants, perfect for swaggering – and she smokes and drinks too much, and her husky voice oozes come and fuck me, but she’s a one-man woman, a one-man-at-a-time woman. She’s dedicated now to Marco (NewMark), as she once was to Luce’s father, OldMark. And to Matt, in between them; DoorMatt, she calls him, because she ended up showing him the door. He couldn’t cope with her bigness, her largeness of heart and soul.
‘Well, I’m not going to change now. There’s the door, Matt.’
Nothing’s quiet, with Marti, Marti, life of the party. She swoops, and whoops, a fire-breathing, smoke-belching dragon of a woman. No holds barred, take no prisoners. When you’re in her sights, you’re a goner: she will smother you with love; she will tell you what she thinks; she will tell you if and when you’re being a complete dick. Never fear. You’ll know where you stand with Marti.
Marti makes films, and she’s loud, like a teacher (like all teachers Iris has known). Marti claps her hands to get attention – even in a gathering of adults, of peers – like a primary school teacher with a class of six-year-olds. There’s nothing funnier than Marti, pissed as a parrot, standing on a sofa, clapping her hands over the roar of music, trying to get a party full of people to pay attention.
‘Everyone!’
No one ever believes that Marti and Paul are siblings, let alone twins. Marti’s like a supercharged version of her brother, all settings dialled up to eleven. Once in a while, though, Paul will crank it up, pull a Marti, and it’s like watching someone step into a costume for carnival. Marti Gras.
Iris watches Marti shift her weight, step aside, as the person she’s talking to steps into the frame of the doorway. It’s Kurt. Marti puts her arms around him – her beloved nephew – and he leans into her. Everyone does, with Marti. That’s her strength: her gathering in. Her warmth. Her big embrace.
And then there’s Marti, there in front of her, almost lifting her up with love.
‘Rice! Ooh, there you are.’
Marti kisses her, hard, on the cheek – touching, not an air kiss, so Iris can feel the waxy lipstick print she’s left there, like a saucy newspaper ad for a strip club.
‘Marti, you made it! I thought we’ d never see you.’
‘Wild horses, love. Said I’ d be here. Just needed to get some work out of the way.’ Marti waves her hand, waves work aside. ‘Marco sends his love. He’s flat out, can’t get away. So he says. I think he just wanted to avoid the packing and cleaning.’
‘Never mind. We’ll get by without him. Have you seen Luce? Does she know you’re here? She was in the other room –’
‘She’s fine. I’ll find her later. You still not drinking?’
‘Not tonight.’
‘Excellent, more for me. So: how’s it been, carving up the family home?’
‘Yeah, okay so far. Strange to be here though. With everyone. After so long.’
‘How is my brother? And the stick insect? Have they given their poor child a name yet?’
‘Actually, I think they’re close to deciding. And don’t be mean. Kristin’s perfectly lovely.’
‘I know. But still a stick insect. Bloody vego. She needs a good –’
‘She needs a good steak.’
‘That’s what I was going to say.’
‘No you weren’t.’
‘No I wasn’t.’
‘Anyway, Paulie’s been giving her plenty of, um, steak.’
‘Oh no, Rice, no!’
‘The walls are thin. The stick insect is loud.’
‘God. Oh well, good on them. I’ll put my earplugs in tonight. Which reminds me: I’m sleeping where?’
‘In the little room with me. I’ve made up your bed. Come on,’ Iris takes her arm, ‘you can dump your things.’
They push through, into the crowd, into the light and hum and noise of the party.
What happens next is like a play
Even through her closed door, even with her hoody flicked up over her headphones and the drawstring pulled tight for insulation, Luce can still hear the sound of the party, loud and clear. She’ d stayed out there for a while – looking through the records, talking with Kurt about music – but, once the house filled with random people she had no clue about (all telling her how much she’s grown, and how much like her mother she looks, and blah blah blah), even the music lost its appeal, and she took off to her room.
Since then, there’s been a stream of random strangers opening her door. She’s stared each of them down, and they’ve backed out, holding their hands up in front of them, all sorry love, sorry, just looking for the loo. She’s shifted a chair in front of the door. Not that it stops anyone opening the door if they really want to, but it must give them pause.
She should go out again, get some food. She runs her finger around the empty bowl on her bed, licks chip salt. From outside her room, there’s the sound of glass breaking, and a shout, and laughter. She rolls her eyes, though there’s no one there to see.
There’s no answer when Iris knocks. She opens the door only a crack before it touches something, is gently blocked. She knocks again.
‘Luce?’
She pushes the door, sees the edge of the chair that’s blocking it, hears the chair squawk as she pushes it and it moves across the wooden floor.
‘Luce? Brought you something to eat.’
She pushes the plate in ahead of her, to give Luce a moment, before she opens the door enough to poke her head around into the room. Luce is on her bed, looks up at her. Iris moves into the room, puts the plate (a piece of pizza, a chicken wing, bread, a tiny pile of rice) on the seat of the chair that was blocking the door. Luce closes her laptop, puts it to the other side of the bed.
‘Thanks.’
‘S’alright. Anything else you want?’
Luce shakes her head. Iris picks the chair up, moves it closer to the bed. Luce reaches out, picks up the pizza.
‘Your mum’s here.’
Luce nods. Or maybe she’s just chewing.
‘There’s cake. And pavlova. Come out and get some, eh? When you’re ready.’
Iris closes the door behind her. She stands for a moment in the hallway, her back pressed to the door, wishing she could do the same: go to her room with her threads and yarns, to stitch and stitch, and shut them all away.
Luce opens the door, just a crack. The noise of voices and the feel of warmth and t
he smell of wine hit her, and follow her down the hallway. The bathroom door’s open, the bathroom empty; she scoots in, flicks the hook over and into the eye on the doorframe to secure it behind her. As she pees, the door handle turns, the door opens a crack, but the hook holds in the eye, keeps it latched.
‘Wait!’
She washes her hands, wipes them down the back of her jeans to dry them. When she unhooks and opens the door, there’s no one there.
There are people she doesn’t know in the kitchen, standing around, filling the room. She can’t see any cake. She moves back through the hallway, squeezes between people leaning, talking in the doorway, to move into the big room. The noise of people loudens to a bell-ring sound that clangs in her ears, harsh like a fork in a metal bowl. She flicks her hoody up. She keeps her head down, squeezing through gaps, behind backs, smelling perfume and wine, sweat, more perfume, the sharper chemical tang of aftershave.
She makes it to the edge of the room where the big table is laid with food, and there is the cake, pavlova, fruit, a bowl of cream, chocolates in boxes. She takes a plate, starts to slide a little bit of everything onto it. And then she hears Marti. (She’s been experimenting with calling her mum Marti, which is her name. Marti sounds strange on her tongue, out loud, but good inside her brain.) As if at a command, the crowd parts, and Luce sees her mum – Marti – there, across the room, holding court, queen of the party. As always.
What happens next is like a play, as if the movements have been choreographed and practised. Luce watches, feeling like an audience of one. Marti sweeps her arm out, pointing theatrically and, as she sweeps, she knocks her glass, tips it over in front of her. Someone (Swordbearer One) leans over, scrambles to soak up the wine spilling across and off the low side table. Marti laughs, a deep, groggy laugh. She leans backwards in her chair, enjoying the laugh and, as Luce watches, Marti disappears in slow motion as the chair she is sitting on topples backwards. Iris is there, near her, and she stands up, one hand covering her mouth, the other outstretched towards Marti, who is lying on the floor, still laughing. She holds her empty wineglass in her hand, aloft, like a prize won.
It takes three of them – Iris, Kurt and Paul – to help Marti up, as Marti brushes them off, ‘I’m fine, fine,’ laughing. They stumble her to the bedroom, tumble her onto the bed, pull her shoes off, tuck her under the covers, leave the room dark. Iris brings her a glass of water, puts it on the table by the side of the bed. She places an empty bowl on the floor, tucks a towel over the bedclothes and up under Marti’s chin.
‘Fine. Fine.’
Iris sits on the edge of the bed, brushes the hair off Marti’s forehead. She sits there for the few minutes it takes for Marti to stop muttering and mumbling and slip instead into sleep, signalled by sonorous rumbling deep from her wine-soaked throat.
The noise of the party fades and builds. Doors open and close, lights are turned on and off, people come and go. No one talks to Luce, but everyone smiles at her. Iris touches her shoulder as she passes. The music cranks up in volume, and people start to dance.
Bright white, sharp with pain
Here is Iris, where she finds herself: here, on the bathroom floor.
She remembers going to the bathroom to pee, but getting no further than the doorway before she’s hit by the surprise of it, her mouth like an O with it, her eyes wide and breath caught with the sudden rush of it.
First there is pain: sharp and white, like paper; bright white, like light.
Then there is dropping to her knees, getting low to the floor so she can’t fall; so low, you can’t get under it. Then there is falling anyway, and darkness.
Here she wakes. Here she curls into herself, foetal, here on the cool of the bathroom floor. And here is the pain still, in her belly, low, on one side. Pain radiating from a solid point, like a star, like a spike, like a tiny stone. She hears her voice, quiet, a low breath, an aaaah, an ooooh. Then there is falling again – falling on the inside, for she is already so low, she can’t get under it – and again, darkness.
C-curve
She wakes again, on the bathroom floor, and the pain is gone, as suddenly as it came, as completely. Here she is, curled at the base of the toilet, a C-curve surrounding the turquoise pedestal. Up close, like this, the crazing in the old porcelain maps like veins, like rivers. There is the sound of the party outside the bathroom door. There is a tender ache in her belly where the pain has left her. There is the slick of sweat on her face, evaporating to leave her cold. She can feel her face pale, pearl-white (is that where the word ‘clammy’ comes from, she wonders, from oyster, from clam?); she imagines blood all sunk to her core, to her organs; the thick iron spine of it keeping her alive.
She pushes with her hands against the floor, raises herself – slowly – to sit, leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, equilibrating. When she feels herself stable, she half rolls, pushes up onto hands and knees, then – hands on the toilet seat, pushing up, catching the ammonia whiff of pee – she stands, shifting her hands to the basin, resting there. Breathing out through pursed lips – not because of pain, but for fear of it – she looks up to the mirrored wall cabinet over the basin. There is her face, as pale as she imagines it to be. There is the patch at bottom right of the mirror where the silvering has worn, where light falls like dull blank mildew. There are her careful eyes, the skin around them bruised bright from pain. There is her mouth, the lips parted to breathe each breath with a sounded exhalation – breathe in, breathe out; if you can hear it, it is happening.
After she pees, she stands up carefully, testing her balance. She runs the tap, washes her hands, splashes her face with water. The pain is still gone. She watches herself in the mirror, her colour slowly returning.
The doorknob rattles, a voice outside says ‘Sorry’ as Iris says ‘Just a minute.’
She breathes in, breathes out. She tucks her hair behind her ear. She pats her cheeks with her hands three times. She puts a smile on her face in the mirror.
Iris comes out of the bathroom as someone she doesn’t know goes in. She opens the door to the room she shares with Marti. In the soft, dim light through the doorway, Marti makes a broad peak in the bed. Iris picks up her bag from next to the bed, checks that her phone, her keys, her wallet are in it. She sits on the bed and pulls on socks, runners. She shoulders her bag, and shuts the door behind her as she leaves. Through the closed door, Iris can hear Marti snoring and muttering in her sleep.
Iris stands at the door into the big room, the music room. It’s only just after midnight; the party is still going strong.
As she walks past the door of the room where the baby sleeps, she hears an adult voice, low, quiet. She opens the door, just a crack, and looks in. Kristin is sitting on the floor, her legs tucked under her but out to the side, like the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour. She leans her head against the side of the cot, where the baby should be sleeping. The baby’s feet, in the corners of a merino sleep suit like a pillowcase, spring up and down, lifting up from the pale plain of the cot’s mattress, and she burbles at Kristin, who’s talking back to her, low-voiced, calm, tired.
‘You okay?’ Iris whispers into the room.
Kristin turns to her, and Iris sees her smile in the grey shadow light. ‘I’m hiding out here so I don’t have to talk to pissed people. But even she wants to party. I think she takes after her Auntie Marti.’
‘You need anything?’
Kristin shakes her head, ‘I’m fine. We’re fine. It’s nice and quiet in here. Our own little party.’
‘Okay.’
Iris closes the door to the bedroom. From the row of hooks near the front door she takes her coat, throws it over her arm. It’s only a ten-minute drive to the hospital; she’s not worried about driving herself. But she should tell someone. Not Kristin – she will offer to drive her, and bring the baby, and Iris can’t bear to drag them out into the rain. Everyone else is pissed – there’s no point telling them. But: Luce.
There’s a line
of light showing under the door to Luce’s room. Iris knocks, then puts her ear to the door. She knocks again, louder; she lifts her head away as Luce opens the door, stares out at her, eyebrows raised.
‘Lu, I need to tell someone so I’m telling you. I’m fine, but I’m going to the hospital.’
‘But. What –’
‘I’m fine now, but I had some dodgy tummy bug or something. I’m going to drive myself down to the hospital and just get checked out. I wanted to tell someone, but I don’t want to break up the party. Okay love? Just in case it takes ages for me to see a doctor, in case I’m not back in the morning, so someone knows where I am. Right?’
‘I guess.’
‘But don’t tell them tonight, okay? I don’t want anyone to worry. We’ll just keep it between you and me.’ Iris reaches into her bag, pulls out her phone. ‘I’ll text you when I get there, then I’ll turn my phone off.’
Luce’s eyes crinkle into worry, her mouth purses. Iris feels a rush of love for her, this girl she loves like a daughter.
‘I’m fine, Lulu.’ She lifts her hand to Luce’s fingers, where Luce holds the door just open, just closed, just on the brink. Iris runs her finger down the bumps of Luce’s knuckles, up again, and down. Luce’s index finger shoots out straight and loops itself around Iris’s finger and they stay like that, linked, holding on. ‘Sweetie, I’m fine. You hold the fort, eh.’ Their fingers unlink. Iris waggles her phone at Luce. ‘I’ll text you, okay?’
‘ ’Kay.’
Iris waves her fingers at Luce, then puts her phone and her bag down on the table by the front door as she wriggles into her coat, buttons it, prepares for the dash to the car. She opens the front door, stands looking out at the rain. She turns back to look over her shoulder. Luce is still at the door to her room, leaning into the gap, watching Iris. Iris waves, turns, and steps out into the rain.
