Like I Can Love

by Kim Lock

  ‘Jenna, give it a rest. You don’t want to leave – I know you don’t. And to be honest, I’m getting pretty sick of this conversation.’ He flung an arm across the back of the couch and regarded her with narrowed eyes. ‘We’ve been through this. You have nowhere to go.’

  She had his attention. ‘I’ll get my job back. Then I’ll get my own place.’ She left out the hidden truth growing inside of her, resisting the urge to dig a thumb beneath her pubic bone.

  ‘All right, buddy,’ Ark said to Henry, ‘Daddy’s gotta talk to Mummy for a sec, okay? Go watch your show.’

  Jenna went on. ‘I’ll start packing –’

  ‘Jenna, cut it out.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  Something changed; a shadow stole across his features. ‘I hope you’re joking,’ Ark said quietly, ‘because if you’re not,’ he leant forwards and began to tap his fingers on his knees, ‘we have a real problem.’

  Jenna lifted her chin. ‘I’m not joking.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you even have to ask?’ Jenna said. ‘Because I’m not happy. We’re not happy.’

  Henry approached Jenna and began to whine. She ignored him. ‘This isn’t working, Ark. I’m miserable. You’re . . .’ How could she say it? He was abusing her? He was raping her?

  She was pregnant again, and it was impossible?

  ‘I’m not making you happy – I’m not living up to your standards. This isn’t working anymore.’ It all sounded pathetic.

  Calmly, Ark stood up, picked the remote from the floor and turned off the TV. The room plunged into silence, punctuated by the sounds of Henry’s plaintive requests to go outside and look at the dead grasshopper. Jenna forced herself to hold Ark’s gaze.

  ‘Who is he?’ His voice was like steel.

  ‘Who is who?’

  ‘Don’t act dumb,’ Ark said. ‘You’re obviously fucking someone. I’m asking you who he is.’

  Jenna wailed and dropped her face into her hands. And then, right there, she knew she could never tell him about the impossible pregnancy because she could already hear his accusations: the nasty, vile, abhorrent charges that would rain upon her like exploded glass.

  He advanced on her so quickly she took two steps back.

  ‘You can forget it,’ he said. ‘We belong together, you and me. You selfish bitch – have you forgotten everything I’ve done for you? Everything I’ve given you? My grandmother died to leave me this place, I’ve given it to you, and you want to walk away?’ His voice cracked and he grabbed her hands. Henry began to cry. ‘And you expect me to believe it’s because you’ve changed your mind or some shit?’ He wouldn’t release her hands, despite her tugging to get to Henry. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Ark, you rape me,’ she finally blurted, hot pressure between her legs as she fought an urge to urinate. ‘You’ve treated me like shit for years. I can’t stay here.’

  Ark recoiled as though she had slapped him.

  ‘Rape you?’ He frowned. ‘I’m your husband. You think wives aren’t supposed to fuck their husbands?’ He gave a short laugh. His face crumpled. ‘Babe, listen to what you’re saying.’ He released her hands and turned his back.

  Jenna sank to her knees and allowed Henry into her arms, forming a shield for them both. For a time, the room was filled with Henry’s hiccups and Jenna’s murmured assurances. When Ark finally faced her again, he was a restored picture of composure.

  ‘Nothing has happened that you didn’t want,’ he said. ‘I know what you like. You were always up for that kind of play.’ He smiled. ‘Do you think anyone will believe you, babe? It’s my word against yours.’

  ‘Look, I just want to leave, Ark. I don’t intend to tell anyone –’

  ‘I’ve seen all of you, every little deep and dark place.’

  ‘I just want some space. Some time to think.’

  ‘There are parts of you that I know like the back of my hand – that no one else will ever see or touch.’

  ‘I need to go.’ Jenna closed her eyes against him. ‘Please.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  He had moved so close, towering above her, that she could smell the laundry powder from his jeans. When Henry began to whimper again, Ark joined them on his knees.

  ‘And how do you think you’ll get where you need to go?’ He laughed again. ‘What do you think,’ he said after a pause, ‘really happened to your car?’ He was smiling at Henry and the child grinned in return.

  Jenna’s bowels twisted. ‘You did it?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ he said it slowly, like he was humming.

  ‘Oh,’ was all she could manage. My car. He burnt my car. Of course, it was right after they’d argued about her returning to work at the hospital – the day she’d missed the ultrasound she was legally required to withstand, first.

  She had no control. There was nothing left of her but a hollow, repulsive shell; nothing but an obscenely beating heart, a blood supply, hot flesh for someone else. Her life was a farce.

  ‘Hey little buddy,’ Ark said warmly to Henry. ‘You love your mama?’

  ‘Ark –’ It came out like a weak groan.

  ‘Guess what?’ he said brightly, fake. ‘She wants to leave. She wants some space.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Jenna said. ‘He’s too young.’

  Henry, confused by Ark’s disingenuous sing-song voice, frowned and reached for his mother, but Ark took him up under his arms and stood, pulling Henry away. Henry launched into a loud wail.

  ‘You want to leave?’ Ark raised his voice over Henry’s cries. ‘Fine. Go right ahead. But he stays here.’

  Jenna thought she might dissolve. Another child torn from their mother.

  ‘Off you go then,’ Ark continued. ‘But remember this: no one will believe you. I will take you to court and tell everyone you’re crazy. I’ll show them your health records. He will be mine. And one day, who knows . . .’ He clucked his tongue. ‘You might never see him again.’

  On her knees, Jenna begged, ‘It doesn’t need to be like that –’

  Henry’s cries escalated, his face red and his arms stretched desperately towards his mother. Ark took a step forwards but kept Henry out of her reach.

  ‘Fathers have rights now, Jenna. I’ll never give up. My family has money – you don’t even have a family anymore. I’ll throw tens of thousands into this. I know court psychologists, I know cops. You will get nothing. One day, he will disappear.’

  Jenna’s limbs trembled. ‘Please. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.’

  He stepped closer to her, his boots under her nose. There was dried grass stuck to the laces.

  ‘Face it, babe,’ he said, holding Henry screaming above her head. ‘As long as you’re on this earth, you’re mine.’ He lowered Henry a fraction further, and then dropped him into her lap. The child landed with a thud, startled from his crying for a moment, and then he bawled even louder.

  Ark strode from the room.

  Jenna held Henry on her lap and felt her eyes glaze over, her breath scrape back and forth across the roof of her mouth. He was right. She could never leave.

  Henry’s skin was hot beneath her fingers, his body stiff and indignant. When had his limbs grown so long? He wasn’t a baby anymore. Another mother and child, living yet estranged. Could she cope with that? A lifetime of Henry shuttled back and forth, in and out of court – never having a real home, real roots? At one time they had shared a body, would she forsake him now? Rip him loose like a wild animal caught in a trap might gnaw off its own limb rather than face capture?

  Ark’s final words rang through her mind: As long as you’re on this earth, you’re mine.

  Gently, Jenna lifted Henry from her lap and set him on the carpet. Then she rammed her fist into the soft space between her hips.

  And then, with the blinding flare o
f pain, the solution came to her.

  19

  NOW

  ‘I was enamoured with Stephen Walker,’ Evelyn says, ‘from the first moment I met him.’

  ‘I’ve already heard this story,’ Fairlie breaks in. ‘The supermarket thing?’

  Evelyn gives a far away smile. ‘My trolley had become wedged on the kerb, and he helped me haul it back onto the footpath.’

  ‘How quaint.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Evelyn either doesn’t notice Fairlie’s sarcasm or chooses to ignore it. ‘In the beginning, it was an endless stream of dinner parties, weekends in Adelaide or Melbourne and gilt-edged occasions. He was such a successful, older man!’

  ‘Is this going to take long?’ Fairlie refills her glass.

  ‘Stephen Walker offered me a place in upper-middle-class normalcy – where people I had never met knew my name. We just were, Fro. In this small town, we were that couple.’

  ‘Spare me.’

  ‘I know how pathetic and conceited it sounds. But you need to know that I was swept up in being someone.’ She wrings her hands in her lap. ‘More than just a hippie kid from a Kombi van. No roots, no connections.’

  Fairlie glares at her. ‘Poor white girl didn’t know her heritage?’ she snaps. ‘How truly awful for you.’

  Evelyn has the grace to look ashamed. ‘It wasn’t about Stephen’s money. Never. I know that’s what everyone has said, but it wasn’t like that. We loved each other. I always loved him.’

  This, Fairlie knows. As soon as she was old enough to notice, she could see the pain on Evelyn’s face at any mention of Jenna’s father. Stephen’s absence had been normal for them all – but it had never become comfortable for Evelyn.

  ‘And then . . .’ Evelyn’s voice takes on a strained tenor. ‘I hadn’t intended for . . . things with him to last. It was just a . . .’ Fairlie’s gut churns as Evelyn searches for the right word, ‘. . . a bit of fun. Two people in the moment.’

  ‘Some fun,’ Fairlie repeats, robotically.

  ‘I never meant to maintain anything underhanded. I never meant to hurt anyone.’ She looks to Fairlie again with a gaze that prickles Fairlie’s spine. ‘Haven’t you ever loved anyone? You can’t control it. And the thing is, Fairlie . . .’ Helplessly she spreads her hands. ‘I loved him, too. He is a beautiful man with a dear heart.’

  Fairlie thinks: My father. She’s talking about my father.

  Jenna’s mother (her mother, Fairlie corrects herself) recounts the guilt and shame of loving two men in a world that frowns upon such generosity. (At this, Fairlie clenches her teeth and thinks narcissist and takes a heavy hit of Johnnie Walker.) The inevitable pregnancy; her struggles to retain the job she adored, and by which she – and the society around her – defined herself. The anxious nine-month wait, unknowing. Deep down, knowing that the answer would be immediately apparent upon her baby’s birth because skin colour cannot lie.

  ‘And back then,’ Evelyn says, ‘we didn’t have routine ultrasounds and so on. I had thought all along that I was only having one baby.’

  ‘And it would either be black or white,’ Fairlie says.

  Evelyn looks up, her expression pained. ‘Exactly.’ She clenches her fingers together. ‘When I went into labour I was terrified.’ She closes her eyes. ‘But then the baby came out, and she was creamy and pink and shrieking. I was so relieved.’

  Nausea washes up Fairlie’s throat. ‘But it wasn’t over.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t.’

  Because a second baby emerged. A baby no one had known was there. And Evelyn’s secret became hopelessly clear.

  That second baby, with her betrayal of dark skin, was her.

  Fairlie.

  *

  The silence has stretched so long Fairlie cannot remember who last spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come and see you,’ Fairlie says, eventually. Slumped into the couch, she has finished her fourth whiskey. So much for her resolution to drink less.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Evelyn says. ‘I never got in touch with you after she walked out, for the last time.’

  ‘Neither did I though,’ Fairlie admits. ‘I mean, I know Jen and I are close –’ the present tense grabs at her ‘– but I shouldn’t have written you off because she said so.’

  Evelyn inclines her head, a half-nod of acknowledgement. ‘I went to the funeral,’ she says softly.

  Fairlie frowns. ‘You were there?’

  ‘I stood within a clump of trees at the edge of the cemetery. You had your back to me during the service.’

  ‘You should have come closer,’ Fairlie says crossly. ‘You’re her mother.’

  Evelyn lets out a long breath, and the two sit in silence for a time.

  ‘Is that why she was so angry four years ago?’ Fairlie asks. ‘Because you’d told her about . . .?’ Fairlie sweeps her hands up and down herself.

  ‘Yes.’ Evelyn takes a deep breath. ‘But she never let me explain. I don’t know why, but she just ran out. Shock, I guess.’ Evelyn looks desolate.

  ‘So why did you finally decide to tell her, that day? After twenty-two years of lies?’

  Overhead the ceiling fan spins lazily. Evelyn’s fingernails make soft scuffing noises on the fabric of her pants. ‘I had a health scare,’ she said. ‘A lump in my breast. It turned out to be nothing. But it was quite the reality check. I suppose you could say I became aware of my own mortality.’

  ‘You weren’t aware of that before?’

  Despite herself, Evelyn smiles wryly. ‘I panicked, realising that I’d been taking life for granted. What mattered before suddenly didn’t seem to matter so much. So finally I told her the truth.’ She goes on to explain her conversation with Jenna that fateful morning.

  ‘I find it hard to believe she never said a word to you,’ Evelyn finishes.

  ‘No,’ Fairlie says, picking at the hem of her shorts. ‘She knew for four years and never said a word. Sure she acted a little different – but she’d met Ark, you know? I thought maybe meeting him . . . and then Henry. I thought,’ she shrugs sadly, ‘I thought maybe all that was causing the distance between us.’

  Evelyn gives a sad sigh. ‘All these years. She kept it to herself.’ Her eyes go glassy. ‘Just like her mother.’

  Fairlie fixes her gaze on a spot on the far wall; the spot moves, a fly scuttling across the stone. ‘Maybe I didn’t know her quite as well as I’ve always thought I did.’

  ‘People can surprise you,’ Evelyn says, without even a hint of irony.

  ‘The day you told her? That night, she met him.’

  ‘I figured as much.’

  ‘She was upset. Vulnerable. Maybe if it weren’t for . . .’

  ‘I know.’ Barely a whisper.

  Fairlie feels a flush of anger. ‘I can’t believe it. All those years. Fuck.’ Her head shoots up. ‘This is nuts,’ she cries, leaping to her feet. Whiskey slops onto her shoes. Before she can stop herself she’s dialling her mother and when Pattie Winter answers, Fairlie hears herself yelling, sobbing down the phone for Pat to get her arse over here right this minute.

  *

  Light is fading from the sky as Fairlie waits on the front porch. Pattie had promised she’d be right over. One hundred and fourteen steps. Every time Fairlie had walked those one hundred and fourteen steps each one had reinforced a bond that had been kept from them, but that they’d shared anyway.

  Her and Jenna. Sisters.

  Fairlie touches her hand to her curly hair, her fingers brushing the tip of her nose, the bulge of her hips. Was that why they’d always been so close? Because they shared a womb? Her head hurts. And then she sees her mother striding up the road, skirt flowing in the evening breeze and Fairlie is running across the lawn.

  ‘Is it true?’ she pants.

  Pattie nods briskly. ‘It’s true.’
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  Fairlie’s legs sag.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ Pattie says. ‘It’s getting dark and the mozzies are coming out.’

  Pattie meets Evelyn’s eyes and the two women exchange a long look, a thousand words passing unsaid.

  After seating Fairlie on the couch, the two older women disappear into the kitchen. The susurrus of their voices slinks across the carpet like toxic fumes and it infuriates Fairlie. ‘Stop with the whispering!’ she shouts. ‘You have no right to hide anything anymore!’ The murmuring stops. Pattie comes through first, Evelyn following with a tray of coffee. ‘I don’t want coffee,’ Fairlie says, petulantly. ‘I want answers.’

  Evelyn speaks first. ‘What do you want to know?’

  Fairlie laughs, flinging her hands in the air. ‘Where should I start?’ She tops up her drink, slamming the bottle onto the coffee table. The other women jump. ‘Let’s start with why.’

  Evelyn takes in a shaky breath, lets it out so slowly that Fairlie fights the urge to snap her fingers.

  ‘Fro,’ Evelyn begins. ‘The first thing I need you to try to understand is that I never wanted any of this to happen.’

  Fairlie opens her mouth to retort but Pattie flings her a pleading look, lifts her hands and lowers them gently, as though stroking an imaginary animal. Fairlie closes her mouth.

  ‘I know that’s a dismal excuse,’ Evelyn continues. ‘And I’m aware that I have no right to expect you to understand, or even to forgive me. But if you’ll do one thing for me,’ she pauses, gathering herself, ‘please keep in mind that none of this was my intention. And if I could take it all back I would.

  ‘My reasons are . . . well, they sound so trivial on the surface. But I stood to lose everything. It meant you both would have suffered.’ Evelyn spreads her hands. ‘I had to do something. It was the eighties, and this is a very small town. Conservatives still have the strongest voice, even today. For heaven’s sake, we haven’t had a Labor member for parliament since –’ she glances at Pattie, who only shrugs, ‘– the ­seventies? And Stephen and I were . . . well.’ She smiles ruefully. ‘Everyone knew who we were. They still do. Would you believe I still have people at the shops asking me questions about what happened between Stephen and I? Why he left when Jenna was only a little girl?’