Perfections

by Kirstyn McDermott

  ‘I love you,’ she whispers. The truth of that is a comfort as well.

  Antoinette follows Loki and her sister up the stairs to Jacqueline’s apartment, balancing the foil-wrapped plate of pancakes on one hand as she reaches into her pocket for her mobile with the other. A text from Greta, the first for the day; she doesn’t even bother to open it, makes a mental note to figure out how to block the girl’s number. As if there isn’t enough for her to worry about now. The look on her mother’s face as they left the house still burns cold in her memory, that hard veneer of abandonment, like she expected never to see them again, like that’s all she has ever expected. The way she thrust the plate into Antoinette’s hands, warm and weighty with leftover pancakes, the bottle of maple syrup close behind.

  Waste not, want not. I didn’t make them to be thrown away.

  Sally Paige, up with the birds as usual, up before either of her daughters managed to drag themselves, stiff-limbed and poorly slept, into the kitchen to find her stirring an industrial-sized bowl of batter beside a warming frypan. Way too much for any of them to finish, even with Loki showing up to shovel half a dozen syrup-soaked slabs into his belly. The breakfast table a tense and lockjawed arena, with Jacqueline and Loki swapping the occasional frostbitten glare – how Antoinette longs for a moment alone with her sister to get the story behind that development – and Sally Paige hunkered taciturn over her plate, cutting her single, unladen pancake into bite-sized shapes which would, like her dinner the night before, remain largely uneaten.

  Not that Antoinette had much of an appetite herself. Not with her mother sitting right there, skin-and-bone shadow of the woman Antoinette knew, the morning light scalpel sharp and granting no favours to sunken eyes and hollow, wrinkle-hung cheeks. But still as stubborn as she is sick, quick to scuttle any suggestion that there might be possible avenues of treatment yet to be explored.

  It’s my time, Antoinette. You need to accept that.

  Her face set against further argument as, beneath the table, Jacqueline kicked Antoinette’s shin. Leave it, both clear command and silent appeal, please leave it for now, and so Antoinette did.

  But she can’t just accept it – they need to do something. Maybe hunt down Dr Chiang and give him a call, find out all the gory details their mother insists on keeping from them: how bad the situation is, exactly; what options there might be for them to consider – because there have to be options. This is the twenty-first century, for godsake, there has to be something modern medicine can offer Sally Paige beyond packing her off to die like some gangrenous, gut-shot beast. Maybe–

  Up ahead, Jacqueline cries out. A soft, breathless oh, half-moan, half-sigh, and Antoinette looks up in time to see her sister falling, face-down, that too-slight body folding like a puppet whose strings have been abruptly severed.

  Antoinette runs. Pancakes and mobile clattering to the ground as she reaches out her arms, too late, way too late, but it doesn’t matter – Loki is already there, lithe catlike crouch as he spins on his heels to catch Jacqueline one heart-stopping moment before her head hits the edge of a step.

  ‘What happened?’ Antoinette scoots down beside her sister as Loki turns her over, cradles her limp body into his lap. Jacqueline’s eyes are closed, her lips quiver soundlessly. ‘Did she trip?’

  Loki shakes his head. ‘She just fell.’

  ‘What do you mean? How did she fall?’ Antoinette can hear the pitch of her own voice ascending, an unbearable waspy-whiny buzz, and she forces herself to breathe. ‘Loki, what happened?’

  He doesn’t answer, just slides his arms beneath her sister’s body and lifts, rising to his feet in one graceful motion as if she is something empty and weightless, a Jacqueline doll made of plastic and air. ‘Get the door,’ he says.

  Rummaging in her bag for the keys, Antoinette stumbles up the remaining steps to the apartment. She swings the door open then moves aside to let Loki through, wincing at the mess left in his wake – scattered pancakes and shards of broken plate, her Nokia in pieces down on the landing – before following him inside to the living room. Gently, he lays Jacqueline down onto the couch and brushes the tangle of hair away from her face, folds those small, white hands carefully over her belly.

  Jacqueline moans, a slurred mouthful of speech that Antoinette isn’t able to decipher beyond one word which might have been blind, or might have been blood, or might have been nothing meaningful at all.

  ‘What happened?’ Antoinette asks again. ‘Is she hurt?’

  ‘She’ll be okay, she’ll come out of it soon.’

  Loki pats Jacqueline on the cheek, leans forward and whispers her name, whispers it again and again as if the third time really might be the charm, but she doesn’t respond, doesn’t open her eyes, doesn’t move at all. Just lies there on the couch, a strange and waxen sister-shape silent now but for the shallow rasp of her breath. Antoinette’s stomach sinks. ‘This isn’t right. I’m calling an ambulance.’

  ‘Wait.’ Loki springs to his feet, snatches her arm before she even has a chance to take more than two steps. ‘It’s okay, she’s going to be okay. I promise.’

  ‘You can’t know that, Loki. You can’t know . . .’

  But he does, or at least he knows something. His gaze shifts between Jacqueline and herself, guarded yet torn, and she can almost see the gears grinding inside his skull as he weighs allegiances, attempts to level whatever complicated scale he’s constructed to keep everything balanced within his head.

  ‘Loki?’ Antoinette grabs his chin, turns his face directly to hers. ‘This isn’t about choosing a side. We’re sisters; stuff like this has no sides.’

  ‘She didn’t want you to know.’

  The ground tilts beneath her feet. ‘That doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, Loki, you need to tell me.’ Her voice wobbles and she clears her throat, imagines herself not Antoinette but Sally Paige, iron-willed with tongue to match. ‘You need to tell me right now.’

  When her sister finally wakes up, Antoinette almost bursts into tears. The thin coil of dread that has cinched itself tighter and tighter around her heart loosens, dissolves to relief, as Jacqueline opens her eyes and blinks, glazed and unfocused, at the room about her. ‘Ant?’ she whispers. ‘Did I . . . how did we . . .?’

  ‘You fell on the stairs.’ Antoinette squeezes her sister’s shoulder. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, you idiot?’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘That you’ve been having seizures.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Jacqueline winces as she pushes herself upright. ‘I must have fainted, that’s all. I didn’t eat very much at breakfast and–’

  ‘You can stop there,’ Antoinette tells her. ‘Loki’s already filled me in.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jacqueline tugs at her skirt, straightens the hem along the line of her knees. ‘I asked him not to do that. I wanted to tell you myself.’

  ‘When? This has been going on for a month or more, he says.’

  ‘Not constantly. The last week has been the worst by far, and I did mean to tell you as soon as I got back from Brisbane, but then Loki was here and . . .’ Her sister pauses, a frown pinching at her features. ‘In any case, now you know.’

  ‘And you’re going to see a doctor, right? First thing Monday, you’re going to make an appointment–’

  ‘I have to go back to work on Monday.’

  ‘So call in sick, for godsake. This is serious, Jacqueline, you can’t just brush it off like nothing’s wrong. You would have hit your head on a bloody concrete step today if Loki hadn’t caught you. You could be in hospital right now with concussion or a skull fracture or . . . or worse.’ Tears burn angry tracks down her cheeks and she wipes them away with the back of her hand. ‘You and Mum. You’re both as bad as each other with this shit.’

  ‘We’re not your responsibility,’ Jacqueline says quietly.

&
nbsp; ‘Responsibility?’ Laughter builds in her chest, bubbles into her throat and she lets it loose; it’s either that or choke on it. ‘You think this is about me feeling responsible? Nothing at all to do with the fact that you’re my sister? That maybe, just maybe, I love you and don’t want to see you fucking die?’

  ‘Ant, please. You need to calm down.’

  ‘You need to see a doctor.’

  ‘Can we talk about this later?’ Jacqueline stands up, wobbling like some Friday night margarita maiden, downing a drink for every spike-heeled inch stacked beneath her feet. ‘I have a headache coming on.’

  Antoinette blocks her sister’s path. ‘When later?’

  ‘When I feel like it.’

  Words spat with more venom than Antoinette has ever heard from Jacqueline before and in her eyes a flash of anger mixed with something near to loathing – but just a flash, she tells herself, come and gone so quick she can’t be sure she saw it right, can’t be sure she saw it at all – because now there’s only Jacqueline, that serene and depthless gaze as familiar to Antoinette as her own reflection . . . and yet. There’s an edge, new and startling like a hairline crack in polished glass, visible at just the right angle, in just the right light, but now, forever, impossible to overlook.

  ‘Ant,’ Jacqueline says. ‘When you made him, was it . . .’

  The front door opens and closes, footsteps pad down the hall and Jacqueline shakes her head, raises a finger briefly to her lips as Loki strolls into the living room. ‘Thought I heard voices,’ he says. ‘You’re awake.’

  ‘I’m awake,’ Jacqueline agrees.

  In one hand, he carries a dustpan and the plastic shopping bag he’s filled with ruined pancake and rattling ceramic shards; in the other, what used to be Antoinette’s mobile, the flip-top now irrevocably severed from the keypad. Loki offers the pieces to her on a flattened palm, swings his head from side to side in slow and rueful parody of regret.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, deadpan. ‘I don’t think it can be saved.’

  — 15 —

  Jacqueline minimises her browser as Loki taps on the study door. Opens it without giving her a chance to answer. ‘You want anything? Tea? Wine?’

  ‘No.’ She nods at the glass of water by her wrist. ‘I’m fine.’

  He doesn’t move. ‘What are you doing in here?’

  ‘Researching palliative care.’ A lie, but one of omission. She did begin by looking into home nursing services. Hospices as well, because despite what their mother has said, there might come a time for that and there’s no harm in having the information at hand. None of them deem it useful to show costs on their website, of course; she will have to call them on Monday to make such tawdry enquiries. She wonders if she can apply for another credit card.

  Loki is still leaning into the room. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘A little better. Tired, but my headache is mostly gone.’

  ‘You want to do something later? Go out and catch a movie?’

  ‘I don’t feel that much better.’

  ‘I could run down the street and rent something.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I’m going to have an early night, try to catch up on some sleep.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Maybe I’ll just watch some TV, then.’

  Jacqueline swivels in her chair. ‘I don’t need a babysitter, Loki. If you want to go out and do something, then go. You have my blessing.’

  He hesitates. ‘Antoinette wanted me to keep an eye on you.’

  Ah, yes. Those anxious, sidelong glances as her sister readied herself for work that evening. The whispered exchange of words with Loki at the front door just before she left. A goodbye smile stretched thin enough to snap.

  ‘Ant doesn’t need to worry about me,’ she tells him. ‘Neither do you.’

  He stares at her with those opaque, impenetrable eyes. Jacqueline turns back to the computer. After a moment he leaves the room, the door latching softly behind him. She pulls up the browser again. Thinks for a moment, then types a new string of words into Google. Clicks through a handful of links, all of which prove as useless and irrelevant as her previous searches. Whatever kind of creature Loki might be, the internet knows nothing of him. Or else she simply doesn’t know where – know how – to look.

  Either way, she is wasting her time.

  Frustrated, Jacqueline holds up her left hand and studies again the thin, jagged scar that runs across the pad of her thumb. Faded after all this time but still visible at the right angle. Still clearly there. A fall from a bicycle. A broken bottle in long grass. Mercurochrome and butterfly stitches beneath a gauntlet of white gauze. Fourteen years old, that scar. Evidence of a memory which must be real – her sister doesn’t possess such attention for detail.

  Of course, the scar remains a part of her. It offers no external, conclusive proof of anything. She wishes she hadn’t thrown away the diary kept for those three months at the beginning of high school. A dull record certainly, little more than an itemised account of time passed, but a record nonetheless. Better than the drawer full of pretty, unfilled notebooks she has collected since. Each one bought in the hope it would inspire. Would unlock the creative, whimsical side of herself which so many frustrated art teachers assured her must exist.

  Let yourself wander. Draw the first thing that comes to mind; write the first words that pop into your brain.

  But her thoughts would remain staunchly unliberated, as blank and empty as the page in front of her.

  Jacqueline’s hand trembles. She rounds it into a fist. Enough.

  Antoinette is just about to tell the smarmy hipster dickhead in the checked fedora exactly what he can do with his prawn and coriander risotto when Michelle nudges her aside with a subtle hip-bump and scoops the dish off the table. ‘I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, sir,’ she says, turning on her best silver service smile. ‘Chef can whip you up another with vegetable stock right away.’

  Antoinette’s already back in the kitchen, waiting on the mains for her moon-eyed couple at Table 7, by the time Michelle catches her up. ‘What the hell is wrong with you tonight?’

  ‘Bloody liar never said a word about chicken stock till he tasted it.’

  ‘Since when does that matter?’

  ‘If he changed his mind, he should have just said so instead of trying to make out like he only ordered it because I told him it was made with veggie stock. As if he can even tell–’

  ‘Some vegetarians can taste–’

  ‘Vegetarian? Yeah, right. Last time I checked, prawns weren’t growing in the fucking dirt.’

  ‘Hey,’ Michelle says. ‘Don’t take your crap out on me.’

  Antoinette presses her lips together, draws a deep breath through her nose and holds it for a couple of seconds. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says at last. ‘I just . . . you wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had.’

  ‘Honey, you have to let him go. He’s not worth your sanity.’

  It takes her a moment to realise that Michelle is talking about Paul, not Loki – though the shoe would seem to fit either troublesome foot right now – and Antoinette shakes her head, bites down on the words lining up eagerly at the tip of her tongue. How simple it would be to play the cancer card, the mother-with-cancer card at that, a sympathy pass almost too perfect to shuffle back into the deck. But spouting advice to the lovelorn is one thing; dealing with illness and death is something else and, for all the months they’ve waited tables together, she isn’t sure Michelle is that kind of a friend.

  ‘It’s not Paul,’ she tells her. ‘Of all the stuff I’ve been dumped with lately, Paul’s the very least of it. Believe me.’

  ‘Well, if you ever need to talk . . .’ The smile on Michelle’s face is fleeting, coloured more by obligation than any deep-welled concern, and Antoinette knows she’s made the
right decision.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘But I’ll muddle through.’

  The service bell chimes and Michelle collects the dishes that slide across the line counter. ‘I don’t doubt it, honey.’

  At least that makes one of us. Dredging up her own version of the silver service smile – dented and tarnished, but the best she’s going to manage tonight – Antoinette grabs her Table 7 mains and follows Michelle back out to front of house. Behind the bar, Jackson catches her eye, brows drawn in silent question as he loads a tray with wine glasses. She shakes her head slightly – nothing to see here – then concentrates on making it through the rest of her shift.

  Hair dripping cold down her spine, Jacqueline opens the bathroom door and calls Loki’s name. No answer. Calls louder, with the same result. Satisfied that he is still out doing whatever it is that Loki does, she unwinds her towel and returns it to the rail. Flicks off the harsh fluorescent light but leaves the exhaust fan running to dispel the steam, then walks naked through the unlit apartment to her bedroom.

  This is the first time she’s been here by herself since returning from Brisbane. The space around her feels swollen with silence. With solitude.

  She switches on the beside lamp. The green glow from its shade is a familiar reassurance. All of her sister’s things have been hidden away, if only temporarily. Stuffed into the wardrobe, shoved beneath the bed. The floor is empty and clean, the bed made. A keen new blade waits on the pillow. Unwrapped, fresh from its little plastic case.

  Jacqueline sits, crossing her legs beneath her. Smooths the doona where it has rumpled. Holding the razor between thumb and forefinger, she closes her eyes. Breathes. Loosens her thoughts.

  And, at long last, allows herself to slide.

  Antoinette swears beneath her breath as she pushes through Simpatico’s rear door, wiping at the tears that edge, angry-hot, from the corners of her eyes. Fuck Ronan and his official warnings. Almost two years she’s worked at this place, two years of putting up with shit from prissy clientele and even prissier chefs, of rushing in to cover emergency holes in staff schedules because someone has woken up with a hangover or needs to stay home with a sick brat. Heaven forbid she be allowed to stumble through a couple of bad nights without Ronan feeling it his sacred managerial duty to keep her back for a private reading of the riot act.