I squeezed my fists into tight balls and tried hard not to lose it. How dare she talk about Scott like that. I hated her with a passion. I hated the revolting apricot damask suit with gold buttons and grid-iron shoulder pads she was holding against her small rounded frame. I willed Andy Bronson to be a small-dicked loser with a lisp, hairy earlobes and bad personal hygiene.
‘What do you think?’ She pivoted back and forth between the mirror and me.
‘Whatever. I don’t really care.’
Her face collapsed like a crushed petal. She looked at me, her doe-eyes baleful with hurt like she was going to cry. ‘I thought you’d be happy for me. It’s not easy, you know. After all this time.’ She put the apricot damask back in the wardrobe and picked up another one, sky-blue chiffon.
My rage sludged into guilt. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, but you said yourself you’ve never been in love so how would you know anything about Scott and me?’
She addressed her reflection in the mirror. ‘Face it, Rosemary, he treated you like dirt. You must have rocks in your head.’
‘You’ve got no idea.’
‘After all we’ve been through… ’
I let her ramble on about all the stupid, psycho things I did when Scott broke up with me. Like the nights I slept in her bed because I couldn’t bear to sleep alone and the time I went walking the streets in my PJs. I can’t believe now how mental I went. For months it went on. Thanks to Trish, I got better in the end. She toughened me up, got me into new things like tatts and pot and not taking life too serious. But I never stopped thinking about Scott. I knew he’d be coming back, sooner or later.
Mum put the sky-blue chiffon back in the wardrobe and held a purple paisley number with pearl buttons up against her.
‘How about this?’ she said.
‘It’s hideous,’ I said, and strode out of the room to take a shower.
I washed my hair, shaved my bikini line in to a thin porno-strip (how Scott liked) and plucked the spider hairs from around my nipples. Later on, after everyone had left the party and his parents had gone to bed, Scott would lead me into his bedroom, push me down on the bed and, not saying a word, undress me in the dark. He’d lick my breasts and tug at my nipples and bite my neck, whispering how much he’d missed me, how much he still loved me. I positioned the stream of hard hot water up into me and waited for the shock, the little weakening in my knees, then did it again. I turned off the taps. Fuck. No towel. I stuck my head out the door.
‘Mum! Can you bring me a towel?’
Her heels clacked across the tiles. The linen cupboard squeaked open and closed. I stuck my arm out into the hallway, my body shielded behind the door. Mum didn’t understand that once you got to a certain age it was no longer OK to see each other in the nude. A soft, lavender-fresh towel landed in my hand but then Mum was inside, decked out a pink gingham ensemble.
‘How about this?’ She twirled in the steam.
I shook out the towel and wrapped it around me. Too late, she’d seen two things she wasn’t meant to see:
My butterfly butt-tatt.
My porno-strip bikini.
For a moment I thought she would pull the towel off me for a closer look. I waited for the inevitable onslaught – the risks of catching AIDS from the tattooist’s needle, the slutty hairlessness of my pussy. She switched her gaze to the mirror, wiping a circle for her face in the mist. As she checked her frosted lips, her head shook like she was fighting some inner demon. For a few seconds it looked as though she was going to speak but she just gave a little restrained sigh and exited the bathroom.
Naked, I surveyed the pile of clothes on my bed. Should I wear what I used to wear? Denim minis and tiny tees. Or my latest look? Long hippy skirts and muslin tops. Underwear was easy – the black g-string he’d sent me from Harrods and a push-up, Grand Canyon setting. My body buzzed as if I’d been mildly electrocuted. Of course he still loved me. He’d called me babe, and why else would he invite me to his party? And what about the postcards he’d kept sending, even after we’d officially split up. Brief and chatty but always signed ‘love Scott’, with three kisses and three ‘R’s for roots. That was his little sign to me – wait for me, babe, I’m coming home for you. On the walls around my bed, I’d Blu-tacked each one of his postcards (seven in total) with the writing facing out. Over the past two years, his handwriting had changed a lot, from neat upright letters, to a broader freer hand. I lay down on the bed, my head on the pillow, and re-read for the zillionth time the last postcard he’d sent me. It was from Paris, dated July that year:
Yo babe!
Bonjour from Paris! Today we went up the Eiffel Tower and visited Notre Dame. Yesterday was Bastille Day and we stayed up till late partying and letting off hand-grenade firecrackers with these black dudes in the street outside our hotel. Like everyone says, the Frenchies are rude wankers but I still reckon you’d love it here, especially shopping on the Chumps-Elysées.
Love Scott xxxRRR
P.S. Hope uni is OK and you’re keeping out of trouble.
I’d become expert at decoding Scott’s hidden meanings, buried deep within his deceptively shallow prose. ‘Keeping out of trouble’ was his way of saying, ‘I hope you’re not with anyone else’, and ‘you‘d love it here’ meant ‘in the future, we can go back here together’. He didn’t know about me dropping out of uni to save money to go and see him, but with him back I figured none of that mattered. The only thing I worried about was that little ‘we’. I hated that ‘we’. Why couldn’t he just say ‘I’? ‘We’ made me edgy, that and the fact that he was in Paris, my number one overseas destination. I was pissed he’d gone without me. I mean, what a waste going to the most romantic city in the world with his mates.
I opted for the sexy look: a black, pleated mini with a gold sparkly halter-neck, which showed off my summer shoulders, and my new black strappies with wedge heels. Mum was in the shower when I left so I wrote her a quick post-it and stuck it to the fridge:
Mum,
Good luck on your date with Randy Andy. Hope you find true love. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!
Love R xxxooo
P.S. Sorry about before.
Outside the shadows were creeping in. There was not the tiniest breeze, the heat clinging to every inch of my skin. Across the street, I could see Mrs Leyland from number ten, silhouetted in the bright fluoro of the kitchen, her head bent over the sink. I took off my shoes and tossed them onto the passenger seat. The driveway was warm beneath my feet.
So, this was it. After all the waiting.
I got in my car and reversed out. A quick glance back at the house and there was Mum standing in the illuminated doorway dressed in a canary-yellow suit with square, black buttons. She looked like the Queen but she didn’t wave so I honked the horn and she gave me a little smile. I felt sad for her, all lonely and timid in the doorway. She’d had a rough time of it with Dad. As soon as he started hitting her she should have left. She said she’d stayed because she got pregnant with me and I hated her saying that. As she turned back into the dark interior of the house, her shoulders stooped. I pumped the accelerator and sped away towards Scott, my head crammed with sex thoughts about the first time we rooted.
I’m sitting next to him at the kitchen table. Sweat runs down the back of my thighs, collecting in little pools behind my knees. Outside, the air shimmers in a heat mirage. Scott wrestles with the edges of the sports pages, which flutter in the currents from the ceiling fan. I place two empty tea mugs at the top corners of the paper. He nods and reads on, his full lips pursed in concentration.
‘Mum’ll be gone by now,’ I whisper so that Mrs Greenwood, whisking eggs in the kitchen, doesn’t hear.
Today we’re doing it for the first time. At my house while Mum’s at work. I think about doing it on her bed because her room’s got air-con, but she’d find out somehow. She’d sniff out the sex germs. I wonder if I’ll look different after we’ve done it. More like a woman. Less like seventeen. I wonder if my br
easts will get bigger and if Mum will be able to tell I’m not a virgin any more. But I’m ready. We’ve been going out for almost three months and I’ve got my driver’s licence now.
‘C’mon.’ I try to sound calm but my words are light and breathless.
‘OK. Let’s go.’ Scott takes the tea mugs to the sink and kisses his mum on the cheek.
‘Where are you two love-birds off to?’ she asks.
‘Rosie’s place for a swim,’ says Scott.
I stare at the table, studying the spiral grains in the wood. In my stomach, my nerves jitter like bugs around a fluoro.
‘If I didn’t have to make these bloody sponges for the Women’s Auxiliary, I’d join you. It’s like a sauna in here.’
Scott urges me down the stairs, through the rumpus room and outside into the blinding midday light. We stand bare-footed on the grass: me with my freckly arms folded across my bikini top; Scott bare-chested in tartan boxers. I stare up into his purple eyes, smudgy in the heat-haze, and I think about all the hours we’ve spent pashing until my jaw ached and ulcers burned in my mouth. I think about him pushing his fingers up inside me.
‘Whose car?’ he says.
Scott’s rusty Gemini sits in the garage. Behind it, the brand-new Laser which I’d bought with Grandma’s will money, its shiny, red body roasting in the sun.
‘I’ll drive,’ I say.
‘No. I want to.’ Scott swipes for my keys.
‘My car’s in front.’
‘Yeah, I’ll drive yours.’
‘No way. It’s new.’
‘But you just got your licence.’
‘So?’
‘I’m a better driver.’
‘Crap. You drive too fast.’
‘Slow drivers cause as many accidents as fast drivers.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Babe, just give me the keys. Stop being a silly little girl.’
‘Stop being a silly little boy or I won’t keep my promise.’
‘You want it, too.’
I grin because I do but don’t give in. ‘C’mon, Mr Stubborn, get your scrawny butt in the passenger seat.’
‘I’ll race you instead.’
‘But your car’s a shitbox.’
‘You’ll be crying.’ He dashes into the garage.
I climb into my car, fasten the seat-belt and reverse out on to Jacaranda Avenue. Scott pulls out alongside me. He leans across and shouts through the window.
‘I’ll give you a handicap, OK? Because you’re just a chick.’
‘No way. I don’t need one.’
‘You’ll be sorry.’
He spends a long time lining his front wheels up with mine so there can be no unfair advantage on either side. When satisfied, he says, ‘On the count of three. I’ll hold my hand up like this to signal go.’
I nod and picture the new sexy lingerie – black lace bra and matching g-strings hidden in the bottom of my jumper drawer – and, as Scott revs the accelerator on his 1979 bomb-mobile, a thrill rips through my body. His hand goes down and he shoots off towards the traffic lights, his head bent low to the steering wheel, smoke billowing out of the corroded exhaust. He beats the lights on amber but I miss them. As he streaks ahead, gathering speed along the straight parallel with the train tracks, he shakes his fist out the window, whooping like a maniac.
Crossing Indooroopilly Bridge, he’s nowhere in sight, so I accelerate, flooring the pedal with my bare foot. The road is quiet as is usual for a hot weekend when BrisVegans flee to the coast or hang out in the backyard pools. Puddles of imaginary water vibrate on the tarmac as I turn left at Big Rooster – who wants hot chicken now? – and race up the hill towards the black, steaming bricks of the Uniting Church. On the crest I catch a familiar flash of silver, its tail end resisting then twanging round the bend as if made of chewing gum. But the traffic lights stop him and I pull up alongside in the other lane. Scott turns and winks, running his fingers through his hair like the Fonz. I lick my lips and pout. He looks ahead, pretending to ignore me, so I lean out the window and flash my right tit at him. He sees it and drops his gob. The lights change and I speed off, leaving him for dead. Ha!
Down the rollercoaster hill and up again. A slow choking mini approaches but I nip through. Adrenaline courses in my veins. My hair, loosened from its ponytail, flies around my head, trailing out the window, sticking to my lips, whipping my bare shoulders. I shout into the breeze and check my face in the rear-vision mirror, grimacing at the dark freckles, the pale refusal of my skin to go brown, and the scar which cuts in a diagonal gash above my right eyebrow. I hope there’ll be time to re-apply Max Factor before we get down to it.
Around past the Toyota dealership, car bodies glint like jewels and I slip dreamily down into Russell Terrace. On the right, my old primary school is empty, under the sun the squat fibro classrooms bake like square sponge cakes. How fast I’ve grown up, I think, pressing my foot hard on the accelerator, speeding away.
At the bottom of the hill, I check the rear-vision. Scott’s right on my tail. He honks and waves out the window, weaving about behind me, laughing and trying to overtake. We’re passing under the freeway when he darts out like a fish, shooting over the double line onto the wrong side of the road. A blue car’s coming the other way. It swerves, horn blasting, but Scott’s already gone, tearing out of sight. I strain to see his car but the sun smashes and explodes on the burning crest of Green Hill. Faster! Faster! I cry, riding the car seat like a saddle. The sun-glare knocks out everything but I go harder, galloping into the white. I can’t wait to get home, to show off my new underwear, to slam him down on the bed. He’s going to love it, I just know. He’s so going to love it. The engine wheezes as I change gear with a jaunty thrust and pull of the stick, and then I’m charging up the hill. My stomach floats, bumping soft against my heart. It all feels so good, so right. Scott loves me. Why me with my ginger hair and freckles, my too-big feet and skinny legs, my scar? I ask the shadowy grove of trees whose leaves turn wide and waxy to hear my question. They rustle back an answer but I’m already gone, dashing nifty into the bend. Curving into the apex, the wheel at its limit, there comes a spark of fear, a little quaking in my belly, a subtle shift in the car’s bulk and a horrible sliding out of control. The steering wheel whirls through my fingers and I pump the ball of my foot against the brake pedal but it makes no difference. The road buckles and loosens, billowing free from the earth like a streamer. I’m flying out across western burbia, soaring up and up through the tree-tops, and it’s all so quiet like my ears are jammed with cotton wool. Then it hits me, a gentle spreading, like a revelation or something I knew deep down already.
I’M GOING TO DIE.
The words appear giant, forged in tungsten, hovering silent in the air like a UFO. But I’ve got a calm, lullaby feeling, like I’m comfy with death. I see a single fluffy cloud, low-slung on the horizon, and a flash of rainbow lorikeet makes me grin. How strange, how beautiful the world is. But then, a pang that I hadn’t fucked Scott sooner. The bonnet peaks, sniffing at the heavens. A beat, no more in which I beam some love vibes to Scott and a couple to poor old Mum and Hollie, too. And then I’m hurtling down to earth, the car pitching sideways through the air. I’m screaming, my eyes scrunched tight, my finger bones locked around the steering wheel, queen of my firey spaceship.
The car slams against its side with a heavy boom and crunch of metal. We flip onto the roof and, for a blink, I’m hanging like a bat in a cave, limbs flailing. And then we’re spinning over and over, right ways up then upside down again, the seat-belt rasping at my neck, and it’s like we’re rolling down a mountain and I think it’s never going to end.
We stop.We’re upside down. Silence, complete as a vacuum. Am I dead? Ha. I could be dead. It strikes me as funny, being dead. Ha, again. I wriggle my toes, my fingers. I open my eyes. Grass is growing from the sky. Sounds come to me. The pretty tinkling of glass. Static on the radio. The hiss of air escaping. A breeze blows through the sh
attered windscreen, carrying a dank smell of soil, vegetation. Petrol. I get a vision of the car and me inside it, exploding into action movie flames.
Fuck. Get out. Quick. Gotta get out.
I unfasten my seat-belt and my body slumps forward. My legs crumple into my chest and my knees bash against the steering wheel. I twist around to fumble with the lock. My hands are shaking, my fingers slippery with panicky sweat. The door swings open, flattening the knee-high grass.
Curled like a foetus, I tip sideways out of the seat and onto the ground. I flip onto all fours and crawl fast through the spiky weeds. At a safe enough distance, I slump against a gravel incline and gaze over at the car lying, hidden from the road, in the middle of a vacant block. It’s on its back like a Christmas beetle, its wheels pawing at the air as if struggling to get upright. Its sides are buckled, the windows shattered, but it hasn’t exploded yet. A lone kookaburra peals with laughter and I tilt my head to the sky. Greenish storm clouds have gathered thick above, sun burnishing the edges.
I’M ALIVE.
The hum of freeway traffic. The rev of a lawnmower. Blue-skinned skinks chirping in the grass-roots.
Scott.
I turn and scamper up the bank, slipping and falling against the rocks. A strong gust sweeps across, blotting out the sun. A heavy raindrop splashes on my bare bikini-ed back and all the time I’m thinking, Scott, Scott. As I climb out onto the pavement and start walking, the storm hits with tropic force, rain pinging off the tarmac. My skirt sucks around my thighs and my hair hangs in wet clumps over my face. A car approaches, tyres hissing on the wet. Scott’s Gemini mounts the footpath, breaking onto a grassy verge. He leaps out and dashes over to me, his eyes wild.
‘What happened?’ he shouts above the storm. Water droplets stream off my face as I stare at him blankly. He grabs me by the shoulders. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where the fuck’s your car?’ He shakes me and a pain rips up my left arm. I wince and fold it like a broken wing between my breasts.
The Dark Part of Me Page 5
