The smell of old money came to her nose as she stepped through the lounge-room window. Summer knew it well: lavender mixed with something woody. The pomeranian attempted to bark but it came out in husky coughs. It was old and blind and, when she reached down to pat it, was already wagging its tail. It remembered her.
She walked through the master bedroom to the walkin robe. At first she couldn’t see the silver shoebox, but as she stepped further in she saw a corner of it poking out from under the ornate dressing table. She picked it up and opened it. It was full of rolled-up wads of fifty and one-hundred dollar notes. Being vigilant not to look at her reflection in the dressing table mirror, she opened up the top drawer of the dresser and gathered up all the watches. She slammed the drawer and saw the little dog in the bedroom cock its head. It sniffed the air, trying to assess what was going on with one of its last remaining senses.
She took three handbags from the back of the wardrobe door and stuffed the shoebox and watches inside one. She stopped for a moment as she crossed the bedroom again. Breathing it all in, the draping opulence of the curtains, the luxury of the high, billowing, freshly made bed, the soft-edged furniture everywhere. There was nothing utilitarian or practical about the place, nothing to suggest any exertion. Nothing but obscene cleanliness and luxury. She gave the dog a scratch then left through the front door.
Getting rid of stolen goods was the difficult part. Summer knew that was where Francine would have come unstuck. Francine would have tried to take it to hock shops or, even more ridiculous, sell the stuff on eBay. Summer drove straight to an industrial area on the opposite side of the city. She knew the wife of a bikie who dealt in luxury designer labels.
***
That afternoon, the sun was setting over the rooftops of the housing developments as Summer pulled into Francine’s driveway. The suburb was quiet after all the excavators and front-end loaders working a few streets away stopped for the day. Every day they scuttled and chipped away like crabs at a sandy and ever-expanding shoreline of housing.
Francine and the kids shuffled out into the front yard as Summer got out of her car.
‘It’s a beautiful night out,’ Francine said.
The two of them looked over to the orange sky. The baby and the youngest boy padded naked towards her. Summer picked up the youngest, tucking the plastic shopping bag full of money under her arm.
‘I’m just making dinner,’ Francine said, ‘you wanna stay?’
‘Nah, just stopping for a minute.’ She put the baby down, saying she needed to use the toilet.
Summer went through the house to Francine’s bedroom. The bed was littered with soft toys and the top sheet was crumpled at the end of the bed. Summer put the toys in a basket in the corner. Then she pulled up the sheet and tucked it into the mattress. She found the doona on the far side of the bed, aired it then let it fall, square and plump, on top of the sheet. She put the plastic shopping bag under the pillow, on the side with all the books and papers and a half-drunk glass of water. Then she plumped up all the pillows. She stepped back and looked at the bed for any imperfections. There were none.
As Summer drove away from Francine’s house she looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. Pulling her lips back she gave herself a wide grin. It was disgusting, the sight of her teeth, but also strangely intoxicating.
Drowning
Jessica sat in the front right-hand pew like she did every Sunday morning. In front of her was Mrs Dobra at the church organ. She played a sombre ‘spirit builder’ for those still entering the church. Jessica watched the old woman’s gnarled fingers pressing hard on the keys. The woman had her eyes closed and her UFO-shaped hat seemed to weigh down her tiny wrinkled head.
Paul, from behind the pulpit, announced the first hymn and there was a rustle as the congregation turned to the page and rose. Mrs Dobra opened her eyes to the music in front of her. Jessica stood up, her body feeling as stiff and wooden as the old jarrah pew beneath her. She had been running hard yesterday, longer and faster than she had ever before. When she ran she imagined herself running from a tidal wave that was just on her heels; if she stopped or slowed down, it would engulf her.
She looked up at Paul, who was belting out the first stanza of the hymn, articulating each phrase, moving his mouth with a force that showed he believed every word. Paul hated half-hearted singing, especially when it came to praising the Lord. Jessica mimed along, too tired for pushing out any sound. She smelt Mrs Dobra’s musky Avon scent and looked longingly at her padded seat. Another hour of this, she thought. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper night’s sleep.
When everyone had sat down, Paul said, ‘Let’s turn to Mark chapter three, verse five.’ Jessica held the Bible in front of her and let it fall to the book of Mark. She brushed at the thin, gold-edged pages to chapter three. She knew the verse, she knew the entire premise and conclusion of the sermon before Paul had even begun. Her index finger moved down the page to verse five, which read: ‘He looked around at them in anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts.’
The more on fire he gets the more it feels like I’m drowning, Jessica thought, and a vision from her childhood came to mind. A scrub fire had got out of control and was threatening the house she and her mother lived in. The hose hadn’t reached and the two of them, still in their pyjamas, ran with buckets back and forth from the rainwater tank to put it out. She hadn’t even known her own strength, that she could carry two full buckets of water. She couldn’t have been older than twelve. The moment she’d seen the fire brigade come up the street, her legs had buckled under her and she’d dropped down on the driveway in exhaustion, water from one of the full buckets pouring out onto her.
She looked up towards the pulpit now and surveyed Paul’s ruddy face, the stubble that had itched her neck so rigorously last night. His chunky features and big shoulders were better suited to physical labour than the cerebral labours of the Bible. She watched the hairs on the side of his neck, they were strong and flat, like something fierce was gathering beneath the skin, like something angry was sprouting. She looked up at the small half-curved window to the patch of blue outside, wondering what other people were doing on a Sunday morning. She wished she could be out running now. It felt like a very carnal thing to long for, like something primal within her she couldn’t help, but it was a longing of the flesh all the same.
That evening Jessica went out to the kitchen to put the kettle on. The Bible study was almost over and they were closing in prayer. She got out ten cups and lined them up on the kitchen bench. She looked at the clock. Five past ten. That’s all she seemed to do lately, look at the clock, look at the clock. What was wrong with her, that she found it all so … so boring? Every night there was something – prayer meetings, Bible studies, dinners. All she seemed to do was wait for it to end.
Paul came into the kitchen talking with George and Rosie. ‘Hey Jess, what d’ya reckon we go down and help these guys at the outreach centre in a fortnight? Three days, it’ll be fun.’
Jessica had her back towards them, facing the boiling kettle, so no one could see the ugly grimace that shot across her face. She had wanted to get her assignments for her design course done on the weekends. Somehow that now seemed selfish and frivolous compared to helping the poor and godless at the outreach centre.
‘I suppose,’ she said, pouring the boiling water into cups.
‘You and Rosie can run the young women’s group on Thursday night,’ Paul said.
‘Oh great, it’ll be so nice to have you there, Jess,’ Rosie’s voice was always high-pitched and ridiculous.
Jessica turned and smiled at Rosie. She and George were the same age as Jess and Paul, and that seemed to mean they had to do everything together. Jessica got tired of their endless goodwill and praising God. They were like perfectly behaved children trying desperately to impress their parents or gain some prize, but they were pushing thirty now and Jessica could see right through it. She also secretly har
boured a feeling that Rosie had brain-damage; once at dinner Rosie told them a story about how she almost drowned in a swimming pool. ‘The doctors all said I’d have permanent brain-damage,’ she’d boasted, ‘but, praise God, by his grace, I’m just a bit forgetful!’
Paul closed the door after the last of them had left. It was ten forty-five. Jessica groaned and slumped back towards the kitchen. ‘God, they stay so long.’
‘Why are you like that?’ Paul’s voice was sharp and quick.
‘Like what?’
‘So unwilling to give of yourself, so … self-absorbed.’
‘We devote every waking hour to others, Paul. You can’t call me self-absorbed.’
‘But you do it so unwillingly; you may as well not do it at all.’
‘I’m not unwilling, Paul, I’m just … tired.’
‘Well, God’s put us here to be a rock for these people. That’s a real privilege. Serve the Lord with gladness, remember Pastor Chris’s message? That was a good message.’
‘I know. I’m just not feeling the gladness right this minute.’ She smiled and touched his shoulder as he passed.
‘Pray about it,’ he said. She nodded.
In bed she lay with her eyes open. She hadn’t prayed for two years, but she hadn’t told Paul that.
Often she was asked to pray for others in group situations, a terrifying and humiliating proposition, which she always managed to handball to someone else at the last minute. Praying made her feel silly, like she was talking to air. She tried to tell herself it was just like some kind of positive affirmation exercise or that if she prayed long and hard enough she might feel something. But she’d always just get lost in her own head and end up thinking about something entirely different – the words to a song, the name of a kid she went to primary school with.
***
When she walked into church the following Sunday, straight away she could tell something was not right. The two men stood at the back of the congregation. The cut of their shirts was soft and cottony, the creases in the back of their suit jackets indicated a linen blend – not right, she hadn’t seen men wearing linen for a long time. The way their suit jackets hung off their broad shoulders. When she got to the front pew she turned around to look at their faces. She recognised them immediately. They were the two with the white dog, they walked by the river every day where she ran, and they were most definitely, without a doubt, she had concluded in her mind – gay.
She chewed the side of her mouth, a flutter of excitement tingled under her tongue. Gays, in her church? she thought. She found herself brushing her hair away from her ears and standing up a little straighter. She looked down at her outfit – fitted pencil skirt with a white shirt. She had her red heels on in an act of rebellion; they went with her red lipstick and nails.
Paul was already laying out the bones of his sermon, but she wasn’t listening. What stupid fantasies were going through her head? Did she want to seduce one of these men? A hot flush of embarrassment came up her neck. What was she doing? Was she attracted? She couldn’t be.
After the service, she avoided all eye contact with the back of the room, she went straight for the kitchen to help the women set up morning tea. As she put out the teacups she hoped that they would leave without the traditional after-church mingle, but then she heard Mavis Cox at the door saying, ‘You must at least try some of Mrs Dobra’s lemon slice.’ What was the old bitch doing? Couldn’t she see they were two gay men? They couldn’t believe in God, a God that hates them. Jessica saw the teaspoon shaking as she brought a scoop of coffee to her cup. Imposters, she thought, would they sniff her out? Did it take one to know one? She put her coffee cup under the urn at the end of the table. Mrs Dobra took the glad wrap off her lemon slice and placed it next to the biscuits Jessica had arranged earlier. Then she saw the dark-haired one’s arm reach across the table to grab a cup, his light blue shirtsleeve perfectly framing his tanned, beautifully formed, gay hand. She felt the air change around her. The cup shook in her hand, she didn’t even want a coffee. What she wanted was to escape through the door at the back of the kitchen.
‘I’ve seen you,’ she heard him say, ‘you’re the runner.’ A well-practised, easy smile came to his face, and Jessica felt a sharp twinge in the back of her throat. ‘We own the white dog,’ he said, reassuringly.
‘Oh, oh yes.’ Her eyes flitted across his face, but she didn’t make eye contact. She couldn’t.
Why? she thought. Why come here? This was her place to be an outsider; she didn’t need more outsiders coming in, noticing her outsiderness. She looked up at his neck. At the park she’d noticed that neck; he was thin, but in a fine, tapered way – not too thin. She looked up at his eyes, which she knew were kind; they’d looked at each other before. What threw her was the way he fixed his eyes on her. It had thrown her at the river, too. When he looked at her, he really looked. It was like he was unpacking every one of her secrets, laying them out on the table in front of them, considering each individually.
‘This is Jessica, our wonderful preacher’s wife.’ Loudmouth Mrs Dobra sensed the awkwardness in that bemused way old women do.
He blinked, a hard blink, and his face flinched like an insect had flown into it. It was fleeting, but she caught it – was it surprise? A line of perspiration made its way down the back of her neck, under her heavy sheet of hair.
‘Right, well it’s very nice to meet you, Jessica.’ He held out his hand and smiled knowingly; yes, it was – knowingly. Perhaps it was just that they’d never met formally. She didn’t know, she took his hand, that big tanned hand, and felt her whole body being drawn into it, sucked in, not only to his hand but his eyes and his clean, distress-free voice. ‘I’m Gary,’ he said. She felt her face go into red blotches – she knew when that happened, it was all over.
***
On the following Sunday night they left the outreach centre at six fifteen p.m. Jessica felt too exhausted to move and the two-hour car trip ahead looked like a welcome rest. Paul still seemed full of beans, like the more he gave the more energy he got in return, like he’d been drinking energy drinks all day instead of talking about the Bible nonstop. Closing the door of the car, Paul started off down the highway. Something about her all-over-body exhaustion made her feel bolder and her problem seemed like it was a solitary candle in her hollowed-out mind.
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ she said.
‘Do what?’ Paul sounded perky and chuffed with himself.
‘All of this.’ She waved her hand around manically in front of her. ‘All this church stuff. I can’t keep doing it.’
‘Church stuff? This is our life, this is our reason for being on earth.’
‘It’s your reason, not mine. I don’t know these people.’ She sounded slightly crazy, even to herself.
‘Three years we’ve been leaders in this church. What do you mean, you don’t know these people?’
‘I don’t know them, I don’t get any of them, I don’t get … God.’
Paul’s knuckles were extremes of pink and white on the steering wheel. He pulled over into a gravel parking bay.
‘Jessica, I don’t understand you.’ He turned and looked at her and Jessica thought it was the first time he had done that in a long time. But he didn’t look at her the way Gary had. Paul seemed to see her only through some kind of cheesecloth of confusion.
‘No, you don’t. You don’t even know me. You’ve gone off down your God path, and left me behind here. Hello. Here I am!’ she waved an insane, frenzied wave.
‘Jessica, you’re my wife.’
‘Wife? What a stupid word. You’ve just got one coz everyone else has one and it makes you look the part.’ Her voice came out harsh and grating. She thought it was her real voice, her voice without the soft polish and buffing she usually applied to it.
‘That’s, that is not true. I’m sorry if you think I’ve left you behind, but God is doing things in my life, our life.’
She yelled, ‘God? I don’
t even believe in God!’ The silence between them felt good and clean. She had said it, finally. She clenched her teeth in satisfaction and looked out the windscreen to the road ahead.
‘I don’t believe you, Jess.’
‘Well, you better.’ She squinted through the windscreen again. The thought crossed her mind of what she would do. The last thing Paul would want is a divorce. The thought of moving out exhausted her.
‘I don’t believe you’d say that after all God has done for us.’
‘Well, it’s the truth.’ She felt the corners of her mouth curl up in a smile against her will.
‘You just need time, to, I don’t know, get right with the Lord.’
***
Jessica closed the door behind her and started a slow jog towards the river. It was six a.m. and the sun was just peaking its way over the tops of the trees. She saw the river in front of her; the sight of that constant, reliable body of water always made her face and eyes relax. Although she still felt that burning drive, that impetus to run, something about this morning was different. She noticed the satisfying force of her sneakers on the grass. She felt every stretch and pull of her muscles. Her joints felt strong and agile. She was made to run, built to run.
Today, she didn’t care if people believed in God. Good for them. Just as long as they weren’t bothering her, and from now on, they wouldn’t be. Somehow, her jaw felt loose and the muscles in her neck were supple, like they were no longer grinding tight and angry against her skin. She could notice the things around her – a row of purple flowers against a red leaf bush, two big pine trees reaching up to the wispy clouds above. This was all hers to enjoy, no one could stop her. She felt that sharp tingle on the surface of her skin, the feeling she always got when running, and she heard herself whisper, ‘Perhaps that’s God.’
The Whip Hand Page 13
