The Amateur Science of Love

by Craig Sherborne

  I said, ‘You’re the love of my life.’

  She answered, ‘I’m very respectful of Cameron, but I feel love like you do too.’

  Her saying that always gave me such resolve. I would go home from Neutral Motor Inn determined to tell Tilda goodbye. I whipped myself into a state of contempt for her, the right frame of mind to deliver the ruthless news. I rehearsed it: ‘I am leaving you, Tilda. I am walking out. I am not in love with you. I am in love with Donna Wilkins.’ I walked in through the back door without so much as a ‘Good evening.’ My jaw was clenched for conflict. I hadn’t showered, hadn’t washed Donna from me. Surely I reeked of the off-smell of wetness dried and clotted in my trousers. I deliberately breezed by her so she might catch the scent, but failed to provoke her into getting the whole smithereens of us underway. Call me spineless but I baulked at igniting it myself.

  Those six weeks provided me a sordid balance: I had Donna waiting in the forest and still had a home to return to afterwards. I had it both ways.

  I began writing these pages in the first of those six weeks. My daily regimen. I suppose I was hoping they would help me make my decision. The unhappiest people in the world must be those with too many decisions to make. Even one is too many. In my case, Tilda or Donna.

  Donna pressed me only slightly. She said, ‘Promise Neutral Motor Inn is temporary?’

  I promised. And I did mean it when I was with her, though I avoided giving an exact timeline.

  The excuse I used was Tilda’s health. Towards the end of the six weeks she got so thin. She didn’t eat, stayed in bed as if wasting away. Surely this time it had to be the cancer. How could I leave her in that predicament?

  ‘You can’t,’ Donna said, tears in her eyes. ‘This could drag your leaving on forever and ever.’

  ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘I know it’s not.’ We pulled up our clothes and lay in sun-leaf dapples. The only obvious utterance to make was: maybe Tilda will die and leave the way clear. We bit our tongues. Neither of us was going to reveal that we were capable of such a statement.

  Anyway, it wasn’t cancer. It was me. Tilda didn’t need Roff to confirm that for her. She’d put the whole heartwrecking puzzle together.

  Chapter 73

  Donna would park her car at the sundial area. I always left the Commodore out of sight up a narrow track half a kilometre from Neutral Motor Inn. In all the years I had run up the track I had never seen another person. It wasn’t our cars that gave us away. Nor did I ever call Donna from home—the phone bill didn’t spring us. Yes, I overused the Hastings Road phone box in broad daylight but I couldn’t help it: when you’re in love you simply have to hear your loved one’s voice constantly. I called from the office three or four times but I made sure everyone was out on a tea break.

  It was the underpants I bought from O’Connor’s Manchester. I believe I set out to sabotage myself. Brand new underwear after years of the same old saggy ones. I was ashamed of saggy ones with Donna. I replaced them with bright blues and purples—four pairs, tight-fitting with bulgy Y-front pouches.

  I didn’t take care to rinse off the stains before throwing them on the wash pile. Surely it was sabotage—my way of telling Tilda without actually telling her. I was letting dried wetnesses do the work for me.

  I was standing at our backyard oleander, running the filter end of a cigarette around my mouth to simulate Donna’s nipples. It was here I had first seen the crease of her bottom. I smiled at how far we had progressed from that to Neutral Motor Inn. I lit the cigarette and had just drained the dregs of a vodka and ice when Tilda walked up behind me. Her arms were crossed tightly. Her hair was frizzing loose from her plait as if it had been picked at. There was such a narrow-eyed strain in her face you’d have thought she was lifting a heavy invisible weight. She said, ‘Have you got a problem with your water works or something?’

  ‘Ay?’

  ‘What else would leave these kinds of stains?’ Her fist threw me the purple underpants I’d worn yesterday, which was a Donna day.

  I held cigarette smoke deep in my lungs for courage. Let it stream out of me like a long, calm purge. I did not answer.

  The weight in her face got heavier. ‘It’s Donna Wilkins, isn’t it?’

  Here it was—the smithereens. I filled my lungs for more courage. ‘Yes,’ I said. A pitiful whimpered yes. I was so scared. Scared of life itself for being so different with that yes—so wild and shattered and free.

  Tilda locked her two fists into one and threw her head back and made an awful vomiting sound. ‘I am such a fool,’ she said to the sky. She took one lunging stride towards me, eyes and nose teeming. ‘Get out. Get out of this house. Get out of my home.’

  I attempted a consolation sorry but she covered her ears to keep sweet-talk out of her mind. ‘Get out!’

  Plenty of windows would have heard her. I headed to the back door to get out of sight of neighbours.

  I ran up the stairs, stood in the bedroom, thinking: What do I need? What do I need? I need clothes, of course. My cheque book—it was a joint cheque account with Tilda—I had the right to keep my half of our money. My typewriter, I needed that. Toiletries—razor, toothbrush. Take a flannel, some soap, a towel. All would fit easily into the Commodore boot. If I needed to I could sleep on the back seat overnight.

  Then panic hit me. I could go to Tilda and undo the yes. I could lie that I was joking. Or I could beg with many apologies and congress with her until she wilted and changed her get out to please stay. Oh, I was scared of life all right. So scared I slowed my packing hoping she’d come and save me with kisses of tender absolution. I piled belongings on our bed and folded and shoved and slowed.

  Eventually fearlessness straightened me. Donna’s face, her two breasts were restored to my brain; her voice, her I feel love like you do too to my ears. I was in such a penduluming madness—packing, slowing down, terrified, ecstatic, Come save me, Tilda one minute, I’m on my way to you, Donna the next—I did not smell smoke until the air was faintly foggy with it. Even then I sniffed my fingers to check it wasn’t cigarette stink.

  It wasn’t. It was fire. The fog was denser the further around the hallway I investigated. It was coming from the bathroom. Smoke was blacker there and petrolly in its stench. It burst up out of the bathtub, curled off the top of rearing flames with chunks of half-burnt newspaper. Tilda was feeding the tub with splashes from a turps bottle. The invisible weight was still in her face but she had a sneery smile now, as if achieving something.

  A paper chunk broke up and blew my way. I stomped it to ash on a patch of threadbare carpet. Another chunk smoked and crumbled onto the lino at Tilda’s feet. She yelled for me to ‘fuck off’ when I tried to stomp it. She held the turpentine out like a liquid threat, gave it a shake to warn me off. I saw my Donna underpants, every pair, burning in the tub.

  Tilda let me stand and look at them. She smiled wider and said, ‘Every drop of the bitch’s cunt juice is going to burn. Fucking burn. Every rancid trace of her. It’s like burning her, that’s what it’s like. Wouldn’t that be justice and beautiful to burn her to fucking bits? Tell me you want that. Tell me she deserves it.’

  At which point the smoke got into her breathing and she gagged and threw the bottle into the tub and coughed her way past me to gulp fresh air. Flames flicked faster; half the shower curtain was melted. I turned on the shower head by dabbing the taps open with my thumbs—the steel was stinging hot. My arms had to bear a few seconds among flames before the taps were open enough and water ran. I yanked the window up as high as it would go and used a towel to fan away smoke.

  Surely neighbours would have called the fire brigade by now. How was I going to explain a burnt bath? I fanned and thought up excuses: an art experiment with burnt clothing as a medium. I kept the water running to rinse the tub down into a minor-looking incident. I didn’t know where Tilda had gone. I concentrated on fan
ning and throwing my sodden, flame-chewed undies out the window. I scooped ashy newspaper into the toilet and flushed.

  Chapter 74

  The neighbours were not a worry. I had put the fire out in time. If they were spying from their curtains they must have thought we’d taken to having barbecues indoors. Tilda was the problem. She was downstairs dialling the phone with a stabbing finger. She kept getting the number wrong she was stabbing so hard and furiously. She must have reached innocent people more than once because when I arrived she swore ‘Fuck, not again!’ into the receiver. She poked her fingernail into the back of the phone book where we jotted numbers. She recited Donna’s number with seething slowness.

  I ran up to her, snatched the receiver. ‘What are you doing? Give it to me! Give it here!’ She snatched it back and hissed and elbowed my jaw to keep possession. Donna had answered. I could hear her saying ‘Hello. Donna speaking’ down the line.

  Tilda let fly: ‘Slut. You fucking slut whore. You betraying slutty bitch. How could you? How could you touch my husband, you fucking lowest form of life?’

  I made another snatching attempt. Tilda grunted and gave me a shove, shouting, ‘Watch my arm! Don’t you dare hurt my arm.’

  I wasn’t hurting her arm. I had my hand on hard phone plastic, not her, but I retreated anyway to stop her accusing me. I tucked my chin to my chest to beg a truce but she jabbed the receiver into my cheek. I hunched to deflect another hit but bang came one on the bone behind my left ear. Ding on bone higher on my head. White wires of electric water fizzed across my vision. My skull went numb, then seared. Ding again between my shoulder blades. The cord had pulled out from the wall. Tilda followed, swinging the phone like she was batting.

  I took each blow, resigned to deserving them. What else could I do? I couldn’t retaliate—my size against hers? I would break her in half. So I took the hiding. Walked up the stairs more proud than defeated. The white wires and the searing were punishments I accepted. I withstood them. They were worth it to be able to be with Donna. They helped drive me towards Donna. I would be with her tonight. I was getting my belongings and leaving.

  Chapter 75

  I came back down the stairs, backpack on shoulder and reached for the Commodore keys on the hook beside the back door. They weren’t there. They should have been my priority, the first belongings I packed. Instead they were in Tilda’s fingers and she wasn’t about to let them go.

  ‘You are not going anywhere.’

  ‘Oh yes I am.’

  ‘Oh no you’re not.’

  ‘Give me the keys.’

  ‘No.’

  I reminded her that the keys were the property of the Wimmera Wheatman.

  ‘So?’

  I put my hand on the doorknob to keep my leaving flowing. I turned the knob. The door was locked. I had no way to open it—my house key was on the Commodore ring. ‘Hand it over, Tilda.’

  ‘You are not leaving me.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You are not leaving me and going to that fucking slut.’

  ‘Give me the keys.’

  ‘This is where you live. You are my husband. You are to take me upstairs and congress with me like my husband.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘Take me upstairs, Colin. Show me that you are my husband. Because that is exactly who you are. You are not leaving me. You are not going to that filthy piece of shit. Take me upstairs. I said upstairs. Now.’

  ‘What would that prove?’

  ‘It will remind you that I am the only woman in your life. By law.’

  If she had locked me in a tiny cell she could not have suffocated me more. Not being allowed to go here or there. Not being able to seize a key because of the grabbing and tearing and hitting I might have to do. I shouldered my backpack and said, ‘Okay. Okay. Let’s go upstairs.’

  ‘Good,’ she grinned. She nodded for me to go ahead of her so she could keep an eye on me.

  At the bedroom she ordered me to cover my eyes while she decided where to hide the keys. She checked that the window latches were closed. As if I was going to jump out! It was straight down two storeys with no pipes to climb on. The bathroom window was a different matter. It had a drainpipe against the bricks and was still wide open from the fire. Tilda seemed to think the bedroom was her cage for keeping me in and nothing else existed outside it, least of all the bathroom. She pulled down the blinds. She slipped the keys somewhere—under the mattress or a flap of carpet. Keys were not my focus now. The bathroom was.

  ‘You can open your eyes,’ Tilda said. ‘Take off your clothes. Do it please. Now.’

  I unbuttoned my shirt. Tilda unclipped her overalls and peeled off her sleeve. ‘Take your pants off, please. Now, please. Then lie on the bed and invite me to bed with you. I want you to hold out your hand and invite me properly and formally as your wife.’

  I unfastened the tongue of my belt but did not unfasten the belt altogether.

  ‘I said, hold out your hand and invite me to bed as your wife.’

  I distracted Tilda from demanding I get undressed by taking her good hand’s fingers to my lips and kissing them. She knelt on the bed and I distracted her more with kisses on her cheek and chin. I said, ‘Please come to bed with me properly and formally as my wife.’

  ‘Thank you. I shall.’

  I lifted her shirt to remove it over her head and get her naked. Nakedness would slow her running after me when I upped and dashed to the bathroom window, shimmied down the drainpipe to be gone.

  ‘Not so rushed,’ Tilda frowned, using her elbows to block the shirt’s removal. ‘Properly. Do it properly, like you adore me.’

  It took more kisses than I could stand. It took an effort of open-mouth ones. It took some biting of her neck and making breathy carried-away noises to get her bra and body part from her. I managed to keep my belt buckle clasped. My own shirt was still on, and most importantly so were my runners. I pretended I was trying to heel-to-toe them from my feet but that my passion was so great it was affecting my co-ordination. Tilda smiled, eyes closed, surrendering to my performance.

  As she eased her knickers down over her knees and said, ‘You may touch me and enter me,’ I ran. I scooped up the backpack and ran. Tilda screamed for me to stop. She hopped after me, pulling her knickers on, but I had already thrown the backpack out the window and was negotiating the pipe before she could cover herself. My only problem was thorns of pipe paint, years of them formed from undisturbed peeling. They stuck in my palms on the way sliding down and made me jump the last six feet and hurt my ankle.

  I didn’t care. I had the open air and no locked door or Tilda. I sprinted for a second, west up Main Street, then jogged so as not to attract attention. Just going for his usual exercise was the dignified impression I wanted people to get.

  Chapter 76

  My plan was to run to Donna’s, the entire ninety-five kilometres to Watercook. I would cover ten kilometres every hour, sticking to the highway for a smooth surface. I hoped the stars stayed unclouded to light the way.

  It was a bad plan. Nine hours of running? Not with my ankle starting to throb. I decided to call Donna to come and get me. I turned left off Main, ran across Kitten Lane—the little street we used to access our back drive. I was headed for the Scintilla forest. I intended to take a breather there, elevate my ankle before walking east to Hastings Road, using the forest leaves to hide. The cover of leaves seemed sensible because I expected Tilda would be after me, searching the streets in a desperate temper.

  I was right. She was searching. Not on foot either. She was tearing about in the Commodore. I had made it through the Methodist carpark, past Philpott’s place and onto the forest fringe where the tarseal ends when I spotted her—or, rather, spotted the Commodore with its shiny bullbar and CB aerial, Wimmera Wheatman lettering on the side. It was on the next street along. Tilda spotted me too and yell
ed for me to wait, stop. The car squealed, skidding to a halt. It reversed with another squeal and fishtailed into a right turn, the rear wheel clipping the curb. I sprinted up a dirt parting in the scrub in the direction of Ringo Point. Did so out of habit—Ringo Point was the opposite direction to Hastings Road. I kept running there anyway: its ironbark clusters would make me invisible. I got in among them and crouched to catch my breath and my heartbeat. I slumped the backpack to the ground but didn’t take off my runners. My ankle would have to ache and swell—this was no time to care about ankles. Dusk was setting just the other side of the treetops. A dark breeze was leaning heavier on the branches. The sky was cloudy, which meant the forest would blind me soon. I needed to stay in sight of streetlights to keep my night bearings.

  A car was going up the Ringo Point road. The Commodore, I was sure. But I wasn’t about to peep to check. I remained in the ironbarks’ protection and listened to the wheels grinding gravel. A sift of dust moved through the vegetation. I had so many choices of trunks to touch wood on I touched a dozen within two steps of me: ‘Tilda, if that’s you, go home. Don’t stop. Don’t get out and search for me. Keep driving, touch wood. Touch wood you’re keeping driving.’ But wood was only ever wood. The car slowed and Tilda’s voice called out, ‘Colin? You here, Colin?’

  At first she sounded clipped and angered. Then she called my name more sweetly. ‘Colin, sweetheart? Darling? Please, sweetheart, please come home with me.’ Then sharpish again: ‘At least do me the courtesy of answering. At least give me the respect of speaking.’ Her voice cracked as if she were talking through crying. ‘Come to me now, Colin. Come here, now,’ she yelled, so high-pitched she started losing her voice. She gave one last ‘Come here, you bastard’ and went silent for a few seconds. Then the car ripped away up the road in the sundial’s direction. I heard the faint rasp of it turning around on the loose surface, sliding from too much speed off the mark. Back down the road the car came. I touched wood it would not stop for more of Tilda’s yelling. It didn’t. It ripped past like a signal of good riddance to me.