Perfections

by Kirstyn McDermott

  ‘Stop it,’ she tells him. ‘I’m not a science experiment.’

  ‘Come on.’ He grabs her hand again. ‘There’s a café up on Acland Street, makes awesome cakes. Pretty good coffee, too.’ They follow the foreshore a while, doubling back towards Luna Park. Faint screams from the rollercoaster reach over the growl of passing traffic. ‘You know,’ Loki says. ‘You really need to stop calling her Ant. She hates it.’

  ‘She does?’ Jacqueline is genuinely surprised. Ant has been Ant for as long as she can remember. ‘She told you that?’

  He shrugs. ‘It’s just something I know. She thinks it’s an ugly nickname; too short, too blunt. It makes her feel . . . insignificant? Close to insignificant. Overlooked maybe, taken for granted? It’s hard to express. I don’t think she’s expressed it herself, not even to herself.’

  ‘Well, I . . . what should I call her?’

  ‘Antoinette?’

  ‘That’s a lot of syllables.’

  ‘About as many as Jac-que-line.’

  ‘Sure. But consider the alternatives. My boss calls me Jacks.’ She grimaces. ‘Jackie is just as bad – which is how they tried to shorten it in high school. Sounds like, I don’t know, someone who isn’t me.’

  ‘I think you both have beautiful names.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ she laughs. ‘Honestly, our mother is so damn pretentious. Antoinette, Jacqueline, Charles. She’s never even been to France and yet it’s her favourite place in the whole world.’

  ‘Charles?’

  Jacqueline raises an eyebrow. ‘You don’t know about Charles?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘He was our brother; my twin brother. I thought this might have been something you already . . .’

  Loki taps two fingers against his temple. ‘It’s not Wikipedia in here. Mostly, I know stuff about me and Antoinette.’ His tone grows bitter. Thin as the edge of a blade. ‘About Antoinette and him, anyway. I’m trying to separate all that from me – from who I am – but it’s hard.’

  ‘Because you have his memories?’

  ‘No. Because I don’t have any of my own.’

  Uncomfortable, she fixes her gaze on the path ahead. The shopping strip is busier, the perennial café crowd filling alfresco tables with chatter and cigarettes. Too many people, too much noise. Jacqueline feels hemmed in, unsure of herself. Unsure of her next step.

  ‘Sorry,’ Loki says. ‘You said Charles was your brother?’

  ‘I don’t remember him very well. We weren’t even four when he died.’

  ‘Was he sick?’

  ‘He drowned.’ Jacqueline dodges a large pram parked right in the middle of the sidewalk. A woman bends over it, fussing with the child inside. ‘In the bath, just another of those awful domestic accidents, you know? I don’t think our mother’s ever gotten over it. Perhaps, if our father hadn’t left her so soon afterwards . . .’

  ‘You ever see him?’

  Jacqueline snorts. ‘Not so much as a phone call. We expect he’s still alive, only because we assume we would have heard from someone if he wasn’t. It’s not as though our mother would be hard to find.’

  Loki squeezes her hand. ‘I’m sorry about your brother.’

  ‘Thanks, but honestly, it happened such a long time ago. I rarely think about him these days, although . . .’ She searches for the right words. For any words to fit the queer tugging sensation that she sometimes feels. A nameless, formless dragging down, as though there’s a tiny black hole planted deep in the centre of her. As though Charles took something of hers with him when he died. She asked Ant about it once but her sister only shook her head.

  I really don’t remember him, Jacqueline.

  But you adored him. Of the two of us, I think he was your favourite.

  I’m sorry, I must have been too young.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she tells Loki. ‘It’s ancient history.’

  ‘Hey,’ he says, stopping in front of a clothes shop. Music pumps into the street through the open door. He points to a male mannequin in the window. ‘What do you think of that jacket?’

  ‘It’s very nice,’ Jacqueline responds. Thigh-length black leather. A flash of burgundy on the lining. ‘Also, very expensive, I’m sure.’ Inside her bag, her phone bleats the arrival of a text. Ryan, hopefully.

  ‘I’m trying it on,’ Loki says. He drops her hand. Disappears inside the shop.

  Jacqueline takes out her phone. The message is from Ant, short and not so sweet: Mum called. Knows you’re home. Have to come tonight. Dinner with their mother is not high on her list of sure-fire tips to avoid stress. Simply thinking about the emotional thrust and parry likely to be involved makes the muscles running down the back of her neck tighten. Her fingers hover over the screen. She could refuse. Could say that she has other plans. Could . . .

  Fine, she types. See you after work. Will polish the armour.

  Sends it.

  In the shop window, a slender blonde girl with lips the colour of strawberry bubblegum is removing the leather jacket from the mannequin. Jacqueline watches as she turns back to the floor, back to Loki. As she grins and holds the jacket up for him to slide into. Her pink mouth moves. She runs her hands over his shoulders and straightens the lapels. Points to a mirror hanging framed on the wall. Loki laughs and shakes his head. Jacqueline wishes she could hear the words that pass between them, but she prefers to stay out on the street. If she isn’t in the shop, Loki can’t ask her to pay for the jacket. If she isn’t in the shop, she won’t have to tell him no.

  She doubts very much if her sister has let him borrow a credit card.

  But he doesn’t so much as glance in Jacqueline’s direction. Simply removes the jacket and returns it to the blonde who folds it across her arm and sashays over to the counter. Loki follows. Says something that makes the girl laugh and smooth her hair. Loki laughs as well. With expert fingers, she removes the swing-tags and the security clip, then pulls a bag from beneath the counter. Folds the jacket, slides it inside. Passes the bag to Loki, whose smile is bright enough by now to power a small city. He reaches out, touches the girl’s face. Brushes the backs of his fingers against her cheek. Takes the bag with him as he leaves. Outside, he squints and turns away from the sun.

  Jacqueline stares. ‘Did you pay for that? I didn’t see you pay for that.’

  ‘It was a gift.’

  ‘A gift? Do you know her?’

  Loki shrugs. ‘She said I had amazing eyes.’

  Inside the shop, the girl is holding the security clip in front of her face. She looks confused, distracted. Her gaze shifts to the window, to the jacketless mannequin and beyond, to where Loki and Jacqueline stand on the sidewalk. Loki grins and lifts his hand, waves back through the glass. The girl blinks. Her own smile falters and her forehead creases.

  ‘Come on.’ Loki slips his elbow through Jacqueline’s and begins to walk. ‘You want to grab that coffee?’

  ‘Did you just steal a leather jacket?’ she asks.

  ‘I told you, it was a gift.’

  ‘But it must be worth, what? Seven, eight hundred dollars? You can’t just walk into a shop and have a perfect stranger decide to give you an eight-hundred-dollar jacket simply because she likes your eyes.’

  ‘You were there. What did you see happen?’

  ‘I saw . . .’ Jacqueline shakes her head. ‘I saw her give you the jacket.’

  ‘Right then.’

  ‘But I–’

  He stops. Places a finger against her mouth. ‘She said I looked good in the jacket. I told her I didn’t have any money. She said I could have it anyway – that I should have it anyway. People are allowed to be nice sometimes, you know.’

  Jacqueline says nothing. If Loki is lying then so are her own eyes. ‘I’m tired,’ she says. ‘Let’s go home.�
��

  ‘Okay.’ As they walk, he catches her hand in his. ‘Was that your artist dude before?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘You were looking at your phone.’

  ‘Oh, no, that was Ant. Our mother wants us over for dinner tonight.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  Jacqueline laughs. ‘You’re volunteering for An Evening with Sally Paige? But she hates you.’

  ‘She’s never met me.’ His voice flattens, and cools. ‘She’s only met him.’

  Jacqueline winces. ‘I’m sorry, Loki.’ She needs to do better than that. Needs to remember how he feels about Paul. About not being Paul. ‘You realise that we can’t explain you to our mother, though? If you do come, you’ll have to pretend to be him. Let her think you are him. It might be easier for you to stay home.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Loki says. ‘She doesn’t matter, what she thinks doesn’t matter. Only, I have some memories – of her, of her house – and I need to make them real. I need to make them mine. Understand?’

  ‘No entirely,’ Jacqueline admits. ‘But it’s important to you, I understand that.’

  ‘You’ll tell Antoinette? I don’t think she’ll be too happy about it.’

  ‘She’ll be fine. You can run interference for us.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ He stops walking, turns to look at her.

  And perhaps she can see how someone might be moved to hand over an expensive leather jacket. For those eyes, for those long, black lashes. Those lips, soft and certain to yield if pressed against her own.

  You fuck him, you’re so bloody keen.

  She moves closer. The air around them stills. ‘Ant might have made you, Loki, but that doesn’t mean she owns you.’

  ‘I never said she did. I just . . .’ He turns his head away. ‘I can’t hurt her. Not ever.’

  ‘No,’ Jacqueline tells him. ‘Neither can I.’

  Antoinette spots an opening and abruptly changes lanes, resists the urge to raise a middle finger to the jerk in the car behind her who thinks that leaning on his horn will solve anyone’s problems. There was no danger of a collision, not in this peak hour crawl-along, and she still has to get across at least one more lane in the next few kilometres before her exit.

  Beside her, Jacqueline sucks air through clenched teeth. ‘Careful.’

  ‘Anytime you want to learn to drive will be fine by me,’ Antoinette says. Still pissed her sister didn’t take her side in the argument with Loki, those precious fifteen minutes wasted on debating whether or not he should accompany them to dinner with their mother, fifteen minutes that might have seen them get ahead of the worst of the traffic.

  Loki leans forward from the back seat. ‘You don’t drive?’

  ‘It makes me anxious,’ Jacqueline tells him.

  Antoinette catches his eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘You didn’t know that?’ He shakes his head, sits back and returns his attention to the passing scenery, what little there is of it out here on the freeway. She still hasn’t gotten a handle on the vagaries of what Loki does and doesn’t already know, the extent of his data cache, so to speak, his pre-loaded software – not that she’ll ever admit to thinking in such terms.

  You don’t think I’m a person?

  She’s hurt him way too much already.

  She glances at Jacqueline, sitting with hands calmly clasped in her lap, face turned to the passenger side window. Her sister is wearing the dress their mother gave her last Christmas, coffee and cream roses on a bright orange background, an ugly combination not helped by pale yellow lace that trims the bodice and runs in triplicate around the hem. For Antoinette, it was a bottle of red wine and – because you don’t seem too fussy about your figure these days – a box of Belgian seashell chocolates.

  ‘You know you only encourage her,’ Antoinette says.

  Jacqueline looks around. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘The dress. You keep wearing those hideous things, she’ll just keep buying them for you. It’s a vicious circle.’

  ‘No skin off my nose.’

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry about before.’

  ‘I’m not the one you should apologise to.’

  Antoinette grimaces. Tonight will be bad enough without having Jacqueline offside. Her sister, who knows better than anyone how to handle their mother, how to deflect the worst of her barbs and defuse all the dire and well-hidden explosives that Antoinette would otherwise blithely stomp right over, who somehow manages to keep the peace and her temper both.

  ‘Loki?’ Antoinette checks the mirror. ‘I’m sorry, okay? It’s just weird, having you meet my mum. Like it wasn’t bad enough the first time.’

  Loki grimaces. ‘The first time?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Antoinette says. ‘With Paul, the first time she met Paul.’ Rushing on even as he opens his mouth, even as his eyes flash with wounded, wrathful pride. ‘And, yes, I know you’re not him, Loki. Believe me, I know that. But tonight, you’re going to be, right? You have to be Paul because I don’t know how else I’m supposed to explain to her that . . . what? What the hell am I supposed to say? Hi Mum, meet my imaginary friend?’

  ‘I’m not imaginary,’ Loki mutters.

  ‘Calm down,’ Jacqueline says. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘But what if she sees him and knows? What if she can tell?’

  ‘She won’t.’

  ‘You did. You knew straight off, you said.’

  ‘I saw a lot more of that imbecile than she ever did. Besides, Loki wasn’t trying to convince me he was anyone other than himself.’

  ‘Neither of you have to worry,’ Loki interrupts. ‘I know how to be Paul. I know how to be Paul better than I know anything else.’

  ‘Okay, but–shit.’ Snug in its nest in the centre console, her mobile starts to chirp and she reaches for it, fingers scrabbling as she tries to keep focus on the exit lane opening up to her left.

  ‘Give it to me.’ Jacqueline grabs the Nokia from her hand. ‘It’s Greta, should I answer?’

  ‘God no, just let it ring.’

  Greta, again. Add this to the two missed calls earlier today, plus the half dozen or so increasingly urgent texts that followed. Greta, wanting to talk, wanting to meet for purposes unspecified, some mysterious agenda of her own, or maybe in cahoots with Paul on matters more nefarious, and when is she going to get the message that Antoinette is just not interested? If Paul does need to talk with her, he can bloody well get in touch himself, and if not, if it is just Greta with some fresh-killed scheme to get them back together, then she can take a flying–

  ‘Greta?’ Loki leans forward again. ‘What does she want?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Antoinette mutters.

  Jacqueline returns the mobile to the console. ‘She’s that weird German girl, right? The one who sniffs around Paul like she’s his personal guard dog?’

  ‘She’s not that weird,’ Antoinette says.

  ‘Remember Paul’s birthday last year? She was wearing that little stuffed bat around as a brooch. A real bat, Ant, a real dead bat.’

  ‘So?’ Hackles raised now, automatically defensive. Most of the time, her sister is cool about the whole goth thing, but still there’s the occasional eyebrow lifted over a choice of corset or platform boot, the subtle makeup tips that always favour toning it down somehow, the suggestion from time to time that she consider running a colour other than black through her hair – you never know, Ant, it might suit you – and it grates, as much as she laughs it off, it does grate. ‘What’s the difference between a stuffed bat and that jacket Loki has on? It’s all dead animal.’

  Jacqueline nods like she’s never before considered this point, and maybe she hasn’t. ‘I suppose that’s one way to look at it.’

  Antoinette glances at Loki in the mirror. He catches her eye and grins. ‘B
etter than wearing a live bat as a brooch,’ he says.

  ‘Hell no, that’d be awesome. You could have it wear a little silver collar and leash, let it fly around and everything. And, hey, it’s way cooler than skulking about with an overgrown mouse on your shoulder.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Loki rolls his eyes dramatically. ‘Rats are so twentieth century.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Jacqueline says. ‘You’re all weird.’

  And if this is a truce, Antoinette will take it. She doesn’t know exactly what Jacqueline and Loki got up to today, but the new and tender bond between them is only too obvious. Curious looks and cautious smiles, the two of them circling each other like the courtship of strange, uncertain creatures, and part of her is amused by the dance, part of her disconcerted by the flicker of yearning in her sister’s face whenever Loki grins. Yearning enough to cover the cost of the leather that hugs his shoulders like it was made to measure – because no way did some St Kilda salesgirl just hand it over on a wink and a promise, even though Antoinette can’t for the life of her understand why her sister would lie about such a thing.

  Unless she fears Antoinette would be jealous.

  Which she isn’t, not even remotely. Not of Loki or Jacqueline or whatever might have seeded itself in the soil of their trepidatious hearts, not of that at all. But still it sits, raw and chafing behind her ribs, that same familiar anxiety. Paul and Greta; Jacqueline and Loki – and Antoinette shunted straight to a place soundless and cold, the realm of the third wheel.

  Stupid. Stupid and insecure. What does she think this is, high school all over again?

  Grimly, Antoinette steers the car along the winding mountain road, only half listening as her sister recounts tales of their mother driving like a demon back in the day, rounding blind corners like she owned the road and riding the horn as hard as the accelerator. ‘This, from a woman afraid to set foot in an airport,’ Jacqueline says with a shudder. ‘I used to let Ant have the front seat. Couldn’t bear to see what we might be about to slam into.’

  The last of the twilight is fading from the sky by the time they arrive. Antoinette pulls into the car port beside her mother’s old green Commodore and switches off the ignition. ‘Last words, anyone?’