Please Don't Leave Me Here

by Tania Chandler

  ‘God, Little Sis, you look how I feel.’

  ‘Take it that’s not a compliment?’ Brigitte orders a flat white, scrapes out a chair, and sits opposite him. ‘How are things with you and Rosie?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Don’t ask. She’s vegan now.’

  ‘And training for the marathon?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Looks like a stick insect. She’s gone all weird, had her hair cut really short. Something about turning 40.’

  ‘Well, you always had a thing for older women, so— ’

  ‘And what’s with the no-sex-ever thing?’

  ‘Too much information, Ryan.’

  ‘You’re a woman. Thought you could help me figure this stuff out.’

  She shrugs and yawns.

  ‘How come you look like shit?’

  ‘Late night.’ She’s bubbling to tell him all about it — like a silly teenager. Ryan probably knows Aidan; the Melbourne film industry is a small community. The waiter brings her coffee. She stirs in some sugar and sucks the spoon.

  A woman pushes a baby in a jogger pram along the street. Ryan looks over at the cakes on the counter. ‘You and Sam still having sex?’

  ‘Ryan!’

  ‘What? Don’t be such a prude, Brigi.’ He turns his empty cup around on its saucer. ‘Well, are you?’

  She twists her mouth.

  ‘How often?’

  She shrugs and sips her coffee. ‘So what is going on with you and Rosie?’

  He leans back and crosses his arms. ‘Rosie says I have to get a real job. I’ve just picked up this series of insurance TV commercials that’s going to pay heaps. Not good enough for her. Says it’s too hard paying off the mortgage with just her income.’

  ‘Well— ’

  ‘Like I don’t contribute, which is total bullshit.’

  ‘You agreed to the McMansion, so— ’

  ‘I was happier when we were renting the house in Groom Street and I had that role in Neighbours.’ He looks out the window. A man in lycra cycles past on a state-of-the-art bike.

  ‘That house was shit. It was falling down and— ’

  ‘At least we had a bit of money left over at the end of the fortnight — for a pizza or bottle of wine, something.’

  ‘Sam’s on at me to get a job, too. Not sure what he expects me to do with the twins. He has no idea what childcare costs.’

  ‘Maybe Maggie and Doug could babysit.’

  She laughs at the idea of her parents-in-law doing anything to help her. ‘Want another coffee?’

  ‘I want a beer. Let’s go to the pub.’

  They walk past the fish-and-chip shop, the hair salon where a woman’s having a blow wave, and across the road to The Royal. The bar is empty. Ryan goes up to order drinks, and Brigitte takes a table by the window.

  She sips her orange juice slowly. Ryan drinks his beer quickly and gets another.

  ‘You and Rosie are really having problems, aren’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Think it’s pretty serious this time.’

  She reaches across and squeezes his shoulder.

  ‘Sure you don’t want a beer?’

  She shakes her head. ‘You know I’m not drinking. And it’ll be time to pick up the kids soon.’

  ‘Come on — one won’t hurt.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘OK, just one.’

  The beer tastes good.

  ‘Ever wonder if you’re with the right person, Brigi?’

  ‘What, like a soul mate?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘No such thing. What’s the probability of finding the one right person out of all the billions of people on the planet?’

  ‘Thought women were supposed to believe in that shit.’

  She shrugs, sips her beer, and looks up at the specials board, pretends to read it, doesn’t want to talk about this anymore.

  ‘Brigi! You’re not having an affair, are you?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Ryan. Where would I find time for that?’ She laughs, and finishes her drink. ‘Another one?’

  She goes up to the bar, and spills beer down the front of her shirt on the way back.

  ‘You know, it’s really fucking hard being married to a cop.’ She puts the beers on the table, and sits down.

  ‘Try being an actor married to a project manager.’

  ‘Always thinking that today might be the day he won’t come home, waiting for the call.’

  ‘That would be pretty fucked.’

  ‘Like when we were little — waiting for Dad to come home. Joan carrying on about her bad feelings, telling us all those horror truck-crash stories. That’s where all the anxiety about being left alone comes from.’ She shifts in her chair, but can’t get comfortable.

  He nods. ‘Mum had depression, you know.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘You ever feel depressed?’

  ‘No.’ A lie. ‘You?’

  ‘Not really.’

  She sighs. ‘Whatever happened to fun, Ryan?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’

  ‘Cheers.’ She clinks her glass to his, and they drink.

  ‘Your back sore?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Should go back to the quack.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  They drink up and order one more.

  ‘Brigitte Campbell, has anybody ever told you that you drink like a man?’

  ‘You know, I think somebody did tell me that once.’ She laughs and looks out the window at the deserted street. ‘A long time ago.’

  Ryan takes a big drink, and his round, lineless face clouds over. He swallows and clears his throat. ‘I saw the police are reopening that old case.’ He weaves his fingers together on the table, and clenches them. ‘Sam say anything about it?’

  ‘Says it’s a waste of time. No new evidence.’ She scrapes back her chair and goes to the bathroom.

  The pub’s very up-market these days: organic handwash, polished stones in a bowl, a jar of fragrance sticks. Her cheeks are red, so she splashes cold water on her face. There’s a reflection in the corner of the mirror. She turns. Nobody there. Shit. She’s starting to lose it — she shouldn’t be drinking. She dries her hands quickly on a paper towel, afraid to look back in the mirror.

  She trips up the step. Deep breaths. OK. OK.

  ‘You OK?’ Ryan says as she sits back at their table.

  ‘Yep.’

  They’re too drunk to drive, so they leave their cars in Clifton Hill and catch a taxi to pick up the kids — just in time.

  ‘Ryan Weaver, you are a bad influence.’

  ‘You are.’

  They rush into kinder — Brigitte to the three-year-olds’ room, and Ryan to his daughter, Georgia, in the room for four-year-olds — sucking on Tic Tacs in a lame attempt to cover up their beer breaths.

  4

  Brigitte yawns as she parks on the side street in the shadow of the brown-brick building. The twins are nodding off in their child restraints.

  ‘Come on, sleepy heads.’ She unbuckles them, lifts them out of the station wagon, and reaches for the box of fruit on the passenger seat.

  ‘Can we go home? Papa smells,’ Phoebe says.

  Brigitte tells her to stop it; she’s not in the mood.

  The cigarette-smoking man with one leg — Brigitte can’t remember his name — waves at them from the bench seat on the porch. He’s always out the front of the home, cigarette drooping in the corner of his mouth, whether it’s 40 degrees or hailing. Brigitte balances the box of fruit on her hip and opens the childproof gate at the front. Oranges fall off the top, and ro
ll down the street and onto the road. The twins squeal with laughter as a van juices one under its tyres.

  ‘Good morning,’ she says cheerfully, through gritted teeth, to the cigarette-smoking man. She keys in the security code, and the sliding-glass doors open.

  She signs the visitors’ book in the foyer. The manager’s office door is open, so she sticks her head in to enquire about Papa’s health.

  ‘He’s doing really well.’ Petula swivels her chair around, away from the computer screen. ‘But you look tired, Brigitte. Those cheeky twins keeping you awake?’ She smiles at them. Phoebe scowls, and Finn hides behind Brigitte’s leg.

  ‘It gets better,’ Petula says.

  Brigitte forces a smile. Tiger, the resident cat, wanders past, and the twins rush over to pat him.

  They take the lift to level two, where it’s always overheated, and the smells of stale urine, vomit, and cleaning products sting Brigitte’s nose. She sneezes. The twins run down the corridor towards their great-grandfather’s room. They stop and wait outside his door, never brave enough to go in by themselves.

  Papa’s sitting in his old Chesterfield chair — its worn arms mended with gaffer tape — watching TV with the sound blaring. He’s wearing his favourite dressing gown, brown and threadbare, and slippers from Dimmeys. Ten years drops off his face when he sees them. He hoists himself out of his chair to kiss Brigitte and run a hand over her hair. Phoebe’s right: he could do with a shower.

  Brigitte empties the box of fruit into a bowl on his little wooden table. She removes her jacket, turns off the TV, and sits by the window on a green-vinyl chair. Papa finds some Freddo Frogs in a drawer for the twins.

  ‘Brigi?’

  She looks into Papa’s faded blue eyes.

  ‘Saw an old blue Camry on Bridge Road yesterday.’

  Here we go again. He pulls a small, no-brand notepad out of his dressing-gown pocket.

  ‘Got the rego number.’ His hand shakes as he tears off a page and passes it to her. ‘For Sam to check out.’

  She puts it in her handbag — to go into the recycling bin with all the other rego numbers Sam never checks out. Papa has a bigger, leather-bound book with hundreds of old blue Camry registration numbers recorded in his scratchy hand.

  ‘One of these days they’ll catch the bastard.’ He looks out the window. Construction workers are building another high-rise complex across the road. A tram rattles along Church Street.

  The twins jump on the single bed. Brigitte tells them off, and straightens the bedspread. They play with Papa’s service medals, and turn the hands around on the old mantel clock. They’re fascinated by his egg-shaped paperweight on the bedside table — how the blue-and-green swirls got inside the glass. They fight over it; Phoebe drops it on her foot and bawls.

  ‘Here.’ Papa produces a pink bag of salt-and-vinegar chips from down beside his chair.

  Brigitte shakes her head.

  ‘Just potata chips, Brigi.’ He hands the bag to the twins. Brigitte frowns, but it keeps them quiet. Papa talks about the war, and Fitzroy in the old days.

  Brigitte makes listening faces, but she’s distracted — as hard as she tries to stop it, her mind keeps drifting back to Manny’s party. The softness of Aidan’s flannelette shirt … a cold, empty fireplace, cinnamon and bergamot, sailing ships — no! That was somewhere else. Somewhere never to be thought about ... His crooked smile. The citrus cologne mustn’t have been synthetic — it didn’t make her sneeze.

  ‘I’m all right here. They’re good to me.’ Papa coughs. ‘You tired?’

  She was far away: Where the wild roses grow.

  ‘Not sleepin’?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Want some of me sleepin’ pills?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Phoebe pushes the buttons on Papa’s cassette player, and Finn pulls her hair. Brigitte wrangles them to the kitchenette at the end of the corridor for some biscuits and milk. She flicks on the kettle, and washes a spoon and a cup from the shelf — doesn’t trust the dishwashing of old people. There’s only instant coffee, so she makes a cup of tea and takes it back to Papa’s room. Papa never wants anything; he always says he’s just finished a cuppa.

  The twins are good for another ten minutes or so, and then it’s time to go. Papa puts his tobacco pouch and papers into his dressing-gown pocket and comes downstairs to see them out.

  ‘Thanks for comin’, Brigi.’ He kisses her at the front gate.

  ‘Love you.’ She holds his bony, brown-spotted hands. They’re cool, and feel like paper-tree bark. ‘We’ll see you soon.’

  The twins run off towards the car. The cigarette-smoking man waves as Brigitte rushes after them.

  Were his eyes dark brown or light brown? He had full lips ... She jumps when her phone rings.

  It’s Sam. The knife blade of guilt twists between her ribs. Nothing happened: just a dance. Not even a kiss. Not really. Thoughts don’t count. Sam says he’s coming home early — for a change — and asks her to put on some pasta; he’ll make the sauce. And he’s bringing a workmate home for dinner. Good — a distraction. It’s been hard to look into his eyes since …

  She opens a bottle of red wine — for Sam to use in the pasta sauce. Maybe she’ll have one small glass while she’s waiting for the water to boil.

  She’s on to her second small glass when she hears Sam’s keys rattle. She meets him at the front door. The smell of cold rushes in.

  ‘Hey.’ He laughs, surprised by the passion in her kiss. His face is freezing, his breath steamy. He wipes his feet on the doormat. He’s holding a new heater in a box. Behind him, she can see that his workmate has a slab of beer cans under his arm. He steps out of the shadows — tall, long limbs — into the porch light, and follows Sam in.

  ‘Brig, this is Aidan Serra.’

  No fucking way.

  ‘He used to work with Manny.’

  He’s from the police! Not one of Manny’s filmmaker friends? You’ve got to be joking. Panic raises every hair on her skin.

  ‘Brigitte.’ He reaches out and shakes her hand. ‘I think we met at Manny’s party.’

  She pulls her hand away. ‘Sorry, I don’t remember.’ Can Sam hear the quaver in her voice?

  ‘Really? I was dressed up as Jeff Buckley.’

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Her face burns.

  He brushes past her in the hallway, smirking. The floor seems to tip sideways beneath her feet.

  Sam unpacks and plugs in the heater in the living room. Brigitte glares at Aidan as he takes out two beers and puts the rest in the fridge. Make yourself at home, why don’t you? She pours herself another glass of wine — a big one — with her back to him, and spills some on the Laminex benchtop.

  ‘Serra needs somewhere to crash while he’s looking for a new place.’ Sam takes some garlic and an onion from the cupboard under the sink. ‘I told him he could stay in the bungalow. If it’s OK with you.’

  She chokes on her wine, frowns, and tilts her head at the bathroom. Sam follows her and closes the door behind them. ‘Don’t worry. He’s OK. Won’t stay long.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have family to stay with? Or a girlfriend?’

  ‘Give him a break. He’s had a pretty rough time with his wife.’

  ‘Is he in your squad?’

  ‘No. The Cold Case Unit.’

  ‘The Cold Case Unit! But— ’

  ‘Keep your voice down.’

  She turns on the tap and washes her hands. Kitty — a ginger flash of fur — jumps in through the window.

  ‘He shouldn’t be out this late.’ Sam winds the window shut and locks it. ‘I’ve put in for some leave.’

  Brigitte looks up as she continues to lather her hands with soap.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked,’ Sam says. ‘We need a h
oliday.’

  ‘You said we couldn’t afford a holiday.’

  ‘Just down to Raymond Island. Why don’t you ask Ryan to come?’

  She nods, and dries her hands on a towel. He leans closer to her. She takes a step back. ‘You stink. You’ve been smoking again.’ With him.

  In the living room, Aidan is sitting at the table, admiring one of Phoebe’s drawings, while Finn drives a car across the back of his chair and Kitty rubs against his calf.

  ‘Go wash your hands, guys. Dinner won’t be long.’ Brigitte stands in the doorway.

  ‘Aidan’s going to read us a story,’ Phoebe says.

  ‘No, he’s not.’ Brigitte puts her hands on her hips.

  ‘Yes.’ Phoebe copies her mother’s gesture.

  ‘Bathroom. Now.’

  Aidan shrugs, and smiles his one-sided smile.

  ‘Sam tells me you’re a writer,’ Aidan says over dinner.

  ‘He tells me you’re in the Cold Case Unit.’ Brigitte doesn’t lift her gaze from her bowl.

  Sam returns from the kitchen with a pepper mill and two beers.

  ‘Thanks.’ Brigitte holds up her empty wine glass.

  ‘What do you write?’ Aidan says as he grinds pepper onto his pasta. ‘Murder mysteries?’

  Sam laughs.

  ‘Because you’d have a bit of an insight into how the criminal-justice system—’

  ‘Parenting articles.’

  Aidan smiles at the twins, and cracks open his beer. ‘Thanks for letting me stay.’

  Brigitte pushes her bowl aside; she’s had enough.

  Phoebe asks Aidan to pass the pepper.

  Aidan reaches for the mill.

  ‘You don’t need pepper,’ Brigitte says.

  Aidan takes his hand off it.

  ‘Yes.’ Phoebe leans across the table and knocks over her glass of water.

  ‘Jesus, Phoebe!’ Sam stands up and pushes back his chair with so much force it topples over.

  Phoebe starts crying. Brigitte glares at Sam, and he goes to find a cloth.

  ‘Don’t worry, it was an accident,’ Aidan says.

  ***

  In a dream, he’s on top of her, moving slowly, rhythmically. He’s wearing a brown sweater; it comes off easily over his head. His body feels warm, hard. She claws, with long fingernails, at the serpent tattoo on his back. Desperate wanting, needing. Just about to come. Aidan? No, not Aidan. His hair hides his face. A flash of blue. Almost. Almost. But it’s gone …