Exploded View

by Carrie Tiffany

  Warm piss between my thighs. I am running. I don’t run into the bush; I run across the road, down a driveway, into a double carport. I crouch between a warm Volvo and a cold Gemini – one hand on the door panel of each. The cars belong to a house I went to once. I know I won’t ever go there again.

  Last winter the girl of this house was cleaning her horse trough in the paddock by the road. She saw me walking past and called out and said I could help her. We dragged the green weed that grows on the inside walls of the concrete trough out with our hands. The water was so cold it hurt, then we went inside to use the soap. The mother was in the kitchen in her slippers. The girl said, ‘Mum, where’s the vanilla slice?’ There were baking things out on the counter and on the windowsill there were dolls-of-the-world on their stands. The Spanish doll is the one you’d want to be with her red lace dress and her wad of black hair. The vanilla slice was cooling in the fridge so we couldn’t have it for five minutes. Then the mum gave us both a plate, a paper serviette and a glass of Milo. You could see where the knife had dragged through the icing but apart from that it was the same vanilla slice that you buy at the shop. I felt sick in my throat from the custard. They had a rug in the toilet. They had a toilet brush with a doll’s head and a skirt around it. The girl’s mum was fat. The mum watched us as we ate. I think she was trying to make us fat like her.

  That time, there was only the Gemini in the carport with an empty space next to it, because the father was at work. Now it is night-time and the Volvo is home too.

  Here I am doing something nice for myself. There’s a bath in the bathroom but nobody ever uses it so you have to wipe the broken hair out of it first and pick a time when everyone is out. At the start of the bath you take off your t-shirt and jeans and underpants and put them on the top of the toilet with the lid closed. In the mirror above the sink the bra has left red lines on your shoulders and under your arms. Out of the harness now and into the water. There’s dishwashing liquid for bubbles. Use as much as you think they won’t notice is gone. The bubbles are cheerful and full of colours. They stick to the parts of you that are out of the water in the same way they stick to the cups and the bowls and the plates in the sink.

  Under the surface both of my ears swallow water. When I come up and reach for the towel a sound comes out that could have been laughing. Yes, it sounded like a girl laughing. If I’d had a knife I would have cut that sound out. It was a clean sound and you could have cut it neatly, without leaving any ragged edges behind.

  When my brother gets home from school he can do eight slices of toast and I can do five. Once you take the loaf out of the plastic bag you can’t predict where it will separate and fall apart. In America they have thin bread for sandwiches and thick bread for toast. The Brady Bunch maid can’t make up her mind which one to buy as the girls like it one way and the boys like it the other. I can’t see thin bread ever taking off here.

  My brother puts a butterknife in the toaster when the bread gets stuck and he never bothers to unplug it first. A problem for girls is you are often afraid and it always shows on your face. The time my brother threw kerosene into the firebox of the boiler because it wouldn’t light, the fire woofed back at him as happy as a pup. What were those black ticks falling from him? His eyebrows turning to twigs.

  The problem of my brother is that he must be left behind. He can’t drive yet. He has to have the television. He has to have a ball. The gap between boy and man is always bigger than between girl and woman. If there’s gravel in the hub cap my brother wouldn’t empty it; he’d cover his ears. Men have places inside themselves where they can put things. I hope for my brother it comes in soon.

  Vitas Gerulaitis is on television. Vitas Gerulaitis with his big curly perm bouncing on his shoulders. He does a funny dance with his tennis racquet and everyone laughs. Then it’s the news. Some Aboriginal boys are living in wrecks in the desert. The wrecks have different-coloured door panels and some have been burnt and some have been painted with leftover house paint so the boys look like they’re living under big, happy patchwork quilts, except that they are broken-down cars.

  When a part is damaged all of the surrounding parts are put at risk. The site of the fresh damage can be far removed, in time and in place, from the cause.

  The fat lady has knitted me a cardigan in hospital and now she’s home I have to go over and get it. It is a white cardigan with pink stitching on the collar. The size of the cardigan is tiny. It is for a small girl – a toddler, even. There are rows and rows of lumpy stitches so it doesn’t sit flat when I take it out of the tissue paper and lay it on the fat lady’s kitchen table. The cardigan looks like someone’s body is already inside it. I hold the cardigan up in front of my chest. The fat lady says sorry, when it should have been me.

  Last summer, before the trip in the Holden, I thought the cicadas sang only for me. Most days I parted the wires of the fence and walked up to the bush behind the house. It isn’t a sanctuary. It’s just scrub. The gum trees are all burnt. Some have fallen over. The bark of the trees is covered in charcoal that stains and doesn’t come off in the wash, so it’s a pity, but you can’t sit on them. There’s lots of holly banksia with every one of its needle leaves waiting to prick you. There might have been a kangaroo on its way to and from the tip. On the days that I saw a kangaroo I would tell myself the world was clean.

  This summer, now that we are back, I know that the kangaroo will never stop and look at me. Calling it on a gumleaf is no use at all; it won’t come like Skippy. A kangaroo can’t be bothered with someone like me. It will keep on bouncing as if I haven’t been born, or as if I am already dead.

  Another good thing about our trip on the road was that all of the bits of me were in one place for a while, on the back seat of the car. Now they are coming apart again. You don’t know how good a holiday can be until you get home. The other good thing about our trip, about being on the road that I miss, is that none of the people who were also on the road knew who we were, so nobody bothered to turn away.

  I buy a headlight globe for the Holden from the tyre boy at the automotive. I don’t have any need of it. It’s three dollars and seventy-five cents. I give him a five-dollar note. The boy is chewing gum and it isn’t a new piece. I can see, when he opens his mouth to say the price of the globe, the hard white turd of the gum tumbling around in his mouth.

  Buying the globe was a challenge I set for myself, a test. If I was someone else the tyre boy would have smiled and bought me a can of Fanta and told me that I could be his and that he would look after me forever and a day. The tyre boy hands me the change and I put it in my schoolbag with the globe. Neither of us speaks. It doesn’t matter. The boy is all the parts of his story. It wouldn’t be possible for him to say them to me as he stands behind the counter at the automotive, and if he did I would never be able to say mine in return.

  Walking home I notice a lucerne tree is upset by the wind but only one piece of it – the rest of the tree is too tired to shake its leaves around. I’d like to say the tree was waving at me, but it wouldn’t be true. Sometimes you see a woman with a man’s hands. That’s not so bad. When you see a man with a woman’s hands it’s best to look away. Any sort of machine can be a place to put your mind, but one with an engine is best.

  It’s a long walk home along the side of the highway, and because of the globe and the boy in the automotive I know now what has been taken from me. It’s confusing, this exchange, because sometimes you could think, with what’s left behind, that you are being given something. But no, it’s a taking. Father man has taken my chance to tell all of the parts of my story. There will always be this part that can never be told.

  I don’t go up to the workshop when I get home. I get the penknife out from under my bed. I stole one for Sharon from the camping store and I stole one for me. I unwrap the penknife from its rag and test how it does its cutting.

  A Monday/Tuesday dream: I am driving a cage down the highway. The sun paints the bitumen with leaf light.
The cage is tall and airy and clean. Its wire is made from tennis racquet strings. The view is good although a little crisscrossed. No door to be found. No escape.

  A Friday/Saturday dream: I am driving across the purple sea. My brother is in his bed on the back seat of the sea car. His lumps are in the right places under the blanket. All good. All sealed. No water is getting in.

  A Sunday dream: I am riding down the highway on a pony. There’s a lot of traffic. The road is thick with horses and ponies in both directions. Someone hollers at me as they pass. Cortina girl is in the next lane. Her silver spurs glint in the sun as she trots past.

  ‘Come with me,’ she calls over her shoulder. ‘Come on!’ Each horse and pony has its engine capacity painted across its rump. Horsepower is a unit to measure the rate at which work is done. It’s a happy dream. It’s fun to be in among them all.

  A throaty bird in the tall pines this morning. The roller door is open. I have never seen my mother in the workshop, but here’s her red and white headscarf balled up on father man’s stool. The scarf goes over my mother’s head and ties behind her ears. It’s colourful and on the weekends it takes the place of her hair. I don’t like to see it here. I don’t want it spoiled by the tools and parts.

  There are thoughts inside my head that require the death of everyone in the world, except me. I don’t need violence. I don’t need blood or corpses. I just need to be on my own but with fully stocked shops, and hopefully with TV.

  Do I take the manual? Can I just take the hands? There could be different views. Exploded View of Stroking of the Skin. Exploded View of Tickling. Exploded View of a Pair of Feet That Want to Dance. The dancing feet don’t worry about how they might look in the picture. The music throb, throb, throbs in their ankles just for fun.

  A last walk to the tip to say goodbye to the kangaroos. Not much rubbish around, the bulldozers have been in to bury it. No sign of Darren’s Valiant. It won’t be going anywhere for a while.

  A last episode of Mash with my brother.

  A last drive with my mother. We are out to buy milk in the dark. My mother has forgotten to put the headlights of the Holden on. A truck coming in the opposite direction toots its air horn at us. My mother cringes and makes a sour mouth. She applies more of her foot to the accelerator, but she doesn’t turn the headlights on.

  A last feed of flies for the skinks.

  A last lap around the garden to farewell the buried kittens, to farewell the buried parts.

  The fall of night, the break of day. All the metal on the hills, all the metal in the road. Too much is broken now. Time to leave.

  It’s dawn. The house is quiet. No big claims here. Just the usual. Except I take the keys from father man’s pocket, unlock the deadlock and leave the house through the door. I walk across the brown lawn, under the pine trees, to the workshop and roll up the roller door. I release the tools from the shadow board. As they fall to the floor, I say their names aloud: wrench, ratchet, saw, hammer, grips… My voice is a little rusty, but strong enough on top of the new day air. My feet are in my sneakers. I am wearing all of my best clothes. Hardly any choke is needed to start father man’s Holden, to drive it down the ramp, down the driveway, to press it through the glinting morning light.

  My hands are steady on the steering wheel. Just a little numbness in my chest. I remember our trip, when we were all driving together. If I look over my shoulder I expect I might see myself on the back seat. We were always coming into places and going out of places; we were always on the road. One day we crossed seven rivers together, but none of them had water. Steep descent, steep climb, narrow bridge, divided road, loose surface, crest, lane closed, stop. The road words are stored inside me now. I will keep them safe.

  I turn onto the highway. Up through the gears, gain some speed. It isn’t possible to drive in reverse for any great distance. Too much distortion. You wouldn’t get far – you would never reach the time before. A dawn rabbit in the roadside weeds decides to cross ahead of me. The rabbit leaps in front of the rolling tyres and, just making it, jumps at the bank on the other side of the road, but the bank is a wall of broken gravel – leavings from roadworks now forgotten. The rabbit’s feet contact the gravel but fail to grip. It falls backwards through the bright air towards the road again. The rabbit falls sweetly, without hurry, its ears long and heavy behind it in the way a child’s hair clumps, damp from the bath. On the road now, a sack of startled rabbit meat cracks to juice beneath my tyre. It’s something to feel sad about – the other rabbits huddled in the burrow, waiting for its return.

  What is left? Transmission and exchange, the coming together of the mating faces of the parts. If you use the windscreen for your eyes, the films of the mind can be prevented from playing.

  Your choice – keep driving forever through the day and night, or, if you want it to end, to be held, you can use the arrester bed.

  No one is about to see me so early in the morning, hurtling down the hill. I wind the window down. Goodbye to Sharon’s bus stop, to the petrol station with the automotive next door; goodbye to the new Olympic swimming pool, to the parked trailer waiting to be sold. Increasing speed, decreasing time. The warning signs have their faces turned towards the sun. Round the corner. A test for the tyres, to hold the curve at speed. The cage of gravel in front of me. Do I indicate? Too late.

  The gravel takes the steering wheel from my hands, snapping the tyres from left to right. The impact isn’t sudden; it isn’t hitting. Two elements are meeting in an exchange of motion, in a transfer of danger. Windedness. Grogginess. Thick orange dust, like smoke, like panic, rising. The gravel has control now. The body of gravel is rising fast, sucking motion into stillness. The gravel forces its way into the engine, into all of the spaces between the parts. It obliterates the exploded view. The gravel seeps into the car now. It pushes against me – it pushes against all the bits of me equally, as if my arm, my back, my elbow, my foot are no different to my breasts and to my sex. The gravel presses into me and some of its pieces are sharp against my neck.

  Quiet here now. The dust settling a little, air enough to breathe. I am the one that reared up. I am the one that got away. Very soon now, just a few minutes, before I shrug off these stones. When it happens it will be fast, so fast it will be impossible to measure.

  All the valves inside me are releasing. I use both feet to force the door of the Holden open. I fold onto the gravel, and away.

  About the Author

  Carrie Tiffany was born in West Yorkshire and grew up in Western Australia. She spent her early twenties working as a park ranger in Central Australia. Her first novel, Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (2005), was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Guardian First Book Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and won the Dobbie Award and the WA Premier’s Award for Fiction. Mateship with Birds (2011) was also shortlisted for many awards and won the inaugural Stella Prize and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. She lives and works in Melbourne.

  PRAISE FOR CARRIE TIFFANY

  Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living

  WINNER

  Dobbie Literary Award, 2006

  Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards (Fiction), 2005

  Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 2003

  SHORTLISTED

  Orange Prize for Fiction, 2006

  Guardian First Book Award, 2006

  Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2006

  Best First Book (South East Asia and South Pacific), Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 2006

  Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 2006

  Best Writing Award, Melbourne Prize, 2006

  LONGLISTED

  International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2007

  ‘A highly accomplished, adroit and funny-serious novel, which, unlike a Mallee farm, works almost perfectly.’ Age

  ‘Funny, sexy an
d darkly serious.’ Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘A peach of a first novel.’ Sunday Times

  ‘Beautifully written… kindly, sometimes hilarious and ultimately very sad.’ Times Literary Supplement

  ‘An unsung gem.’ The Millions

  Mateship with Birds

  WINNER

  Stella Prize, 2013

  Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, 2013

  SHORTLISTED

  Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2013

  Kibble Literary Award, 2013

  Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (Fiction), 2013

  Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards (Fiction), 2013

  Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (Fiction), 2012

  Best Writing Award, Melbourne Prize, 2012

  Encore Award, 2012

  LONGLISTED

  International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2014

  Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), 2013

  Kibble Literary Award, 2013

  ‘An original, tender, frank and funny version of the oldest story in the world: how a man and a woman get together.’ Kerryn Goldsworthy

  ‘It might just be the sweetest book about sex you will ever read.’ Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘Full of wisdom and humour.’ Monthly

  ‘Unforgettably rich and poetic.’ The Times

  ‘A frank and bewitching consideration of instinct, and of the ways in which it thrums through our every move… Tiffany writes superbly.’ Guardian

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © Carrie Tiffany, 2019

  The moral right of Carrie Tiffany to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.