The Cry

by Helen FitzGerald

  Or because Alistair did not, in the end, turn out to love Joanna more. She was not more special; less so, in fact.

  The back of the house had been renovated into a large open-plan kitchen/dining/living area, with glass doors leading out to a pretty patio with a barbecue and outdoor furniture, and a grass area, which had a large round trampoline on it.

  An aviary filled with colourful chirping budgies was just outside the back door, a hamster cage was in the corner of the dining room, and a cat purred on the window sill. That’s right, Chloe was an animal lover.

  ‘I made fresh coffee for you.’ Alexandra pulled the kitchen stool out and indicated that Joanna should sit on it. She then walked over to the other side of the bench and leant her hips against the sink. ‘But then I threw it out.’

  Joanna almost laughed. She definitely smiled.

  ‘I’ve imagined this a lot.’ Alexandra filled two glasses with tap water and put them on the bench. ‘You’re usually bleeding by now.’

  Joanna pulled the glass towards her and looked at Alexandra. ‘I’d quite like that.’

  The fridge was covered in school notices and happy photographs. As Alexandra tried her best not to fidget, failed, and started filling the dishwasher with breakfast dishes, Joanna knew what she’d always suspected. This was not the house of a neglected child.

  Alexandra put powder in the dishwasher, shut the door, crossed her arms, uncrossed them, and took a large gulp of water. ‘I’m sorry about Noah, I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.’ She still hadn’t offered eye contact.

  Joanna hadn’t rehearsed what she wanted to say but it didn’t bother her now. Alexandra wasn’t making her feel uncomfortable. The opposite. Odd, but she hadn’t felt so relaxed for a long time. Perhaps because the lying was about to end. It reminded her of the day after she and Alistair were outed. She couldn’t stop smiling. It wasn’t a happy smile, but one of freedom. She didn’t have to lie any more. ‘Have you ever read Anna Karenina?’ Joanna found herself asking.

  ‘I’ve seen the film. Not the Keira Knightly one.’

  ‘Sophie Marceau?’

  ‘Is she French?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the best adaptation, but the book, God, I was obsessed with it as a teenager, re-read it year after year, and I bored my students silly with it before Alistair. Since him, I haven’t been able to look at it. I didn’t wonder why at the time, but now I know it’s because of the book’s theme: “You can’t build happiness on someone else’s pain”.’

  Alexandra turned the kettle on and spooned fresh coffee in the plunger, a sign that Joanna could go on.

  ‘Alistair doesn’t get the book, says, “What kind of woman would throw herself under a train for no reason?”’

  ‘It’s not the book Alistair doesn’t get.’

  The comment gave her shivers. How she wished she’d spoken to this woman as soon she heard of her existence. She felt sane for the first time in four years. ‘You’re not mad and you’re not an alcoholic,’ Joanna said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

  ‘You’re a good mother.’

  ‘That’s debatable too.’

  ‘What was Alistair like as a dad?’

  ‘He liked the theory of it.’

  ‘So you felt Chloe would be better off without him?’

  ‘I felt she needed me and her grandparents more.’

  Joanna stiffened at the thought of her own father. Tucking her in one night, gone the next.

  ‘He didn’t tell me about you for a month. By then . . . it’s no excuse.’

  Alexandra stopped pouring water into the plunger, shocked, and looked at Joanna for the first time. ‘I didn’t know that.’ She paused. ‘It is an excuse. One that expired at four weeks.’

  Joanna nodded slowly. Alexandra was funny, clever, wise. In different circumstances, she would have a girl-crush on her. She knew it would never be possible, but she wanted her to like her, or at least to connect. ‘I wasn’t a liar before him. Now that’s all I am,’ Joanna said.

  Alexandra put mugs and milk on the bench.

  ‘Maybe you’re not, but I’m definitely mad,’ Joanna continued, unperturbed by the lack of response so far. ‘I can never make my mind up about anything. One second it’s this, the next that . . . Last night I rang my counsellor in Glasgow. She’s probably working out how to get me sectioned today. I told her I was trapped on a drama triangle.’

  Alexandra raised an eyebrow and poured the coffee. ‘Milk?’

  Joanna nodded. ‘When I’m near Alistair now, it’s almost like I can actually see it.’

  ‘Victim, Rescuer, Persecutor,’ Alexandra said.

  ‘You know about that?’

  Alexandra came and sat on the stool beside Joanna. She sipped her coffee in silence for a moment. ‘If you’re here to say sorry, I don’t want or need to hear it. I’m okay.’

  Joanna knew she wasn’t lying. Everything about her, about this house, was okay.

  ‘A small, weak word, sorry, but I am,’ Joanna said. ‘If I’m honest, mostly for myself. That’s not why I’m here though.’

  ‘Why, then?’

  ‘A few things. Before I do anything I wanted to check what it’s like here . . . for Chloe, with you.’ Joanna knew what she’d just said came across all wrong: inappropriate, obnoxious. She cringed as soon as the words came out.

  Alexandra stood up. If there’d been any bonding it had come to an abrupt end. ‘Why don’t you leave that to the social workers, eh?’

  ‘That’s the thing. I don’t want the hearing. Now I’m here I know for certain I don’t want him to take Chloe away from you.’

  Alexandra walked back to the other side of the bench. ‘He’s not going to. Didn’t he tell you he came to see me, said he wants us to work it out together?’

  A wave of heat on Joanna’s face. Once again, Alistair had given her information that was different from the truth. He’d told her one thing, Alexandra another. She shook her head, annoyed that this should surprise her. ‘He told me he came to see you to warm you up. He still wants to take her back to Scotland, Alexandra.’

  Alexandra lost her grip on the coffee mug. ‘Fuck!’ She raced to the sink, grabbed a cloth, and wiped the spilt liquid with a trembling hand. Joanna could almost feel the fury radiating from her. ‘I assumed he meant we wouldn’t go to court, but he didn’t actually say that. God, I’m still such a fool. I should know how he works by now.’

  Joanna understood exactly what she meant. Alistair had a knack for making you think you’d agreed on something, when you hadn’t at all. ‘I want to help,’ Joanna said. ‘She should be here in Australia, with you.’

  ‘How are you going to help exactly?’ The contempt in Alexandra’s eyes scared Joanna.

  ‘I . . . It’s . . . Did he leave anything here? Have you found anything?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Are you sure? Can you have a thorough look?’

  ‘He left a box with photos. You came here because he forgot something?’

  ‘No, but I wonder if he did leave anything . . .’

  ‘I emptied the box, just three photo albums. Nothing else.’

  How should she say it? Did he leave Noah’s bib in the box? He said he burnt it, but maybe he didn’t. Or did he leave something else of Noah’s? ‘Just . . . have another look, to check. If there’s anything odd get rid of it. Also I think everyone should know I’m a bad mother. Chloe should know he’s a bad man.’

  Alexandra stood with her hands on the sink, biting her lip again, visibly angry. ‘I need to go to Chloe’s school.’ She was furious, and obviously wanted rid of Joanna.

  ‘But I need to explain . . .’

  Alexandra was already heading to the front door. ‘I’ll point you to the tram stop.’

  She was a fast walker, or she was trying her hardest to shake off this shadow. Joanna put on her baseball cap and glasses, and practically ran to keep up with her all the way to the school round the corner. The concrete playground was swarming wit
h groups of teenagers. For a brief moment, Joanna drank it in. She missed her old life.

  ‘I don’t want her to see you. The tram stop’s just over there,’ Alexandra said.

  Joanna wasn’t giving up, and wouldn’t leave, not yet. She stood behind the tree and hid, something she became good at during the affair. Alexandra whistled, using her fingers, and Chloe skulked over.

  ‘Checking up on me?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. Are you okay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why don’t you go sit with Blake? Look, he’s over there reading.’

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ She began walking away, then turned back, guilty, and added, ‘Sorry, Mum. I’m okay.’

  ‘I love you.’ Alexandra blew a worried kiss at her daughter and watched her walk back to her lonely bench.

  Alexandra then turned to Joanna and spoke with a don’t-mess-with-me voice. The eye contact she’d yearned for was so intense and assertive she now wished Alexandra would stop looking at her. ‘Listen to me,’ Alexandra said, ‘I am going to fight for Chloe and I’m going to win but I’m not going to turn her against her father. As much as I’ve hated him these years, I’ve bitten my tongue. I’m not a politician. I don’t go for negative campaigns, dirty tactics. It’s been almost impossible sometimes. But I don’t want her growing up hating him. It’ll screw her up. Despite her behaviour in the last two weeks, she’s a happy girl. She doesn’t want to live with him – with you – and she’s mad with him for being a fucking hopeless father, but she loves him. It’s really important for her happiness that it stays that way, that he’s this fabulously successful father figure who loves her from a distance. So whatever it is you hope to do to help us, please make sure you don’t mess any further with my daughter’s image of her dad.’ She paused and lowered her voice. ‘We are not sisters-in-arms. Never contact me again.’

  Before Joanna knew what was happening, Alexandra had turned and walked away, leaving Joanna and her stupid plan outside a secondary school in some place called Coburg.

  *

  A car whizzed by, brushing her handbag. ‘Get off the road, ya mad bitch!’ the driver yelled, tooting his horn until he disappeared round the corner. Joanna realised she shouldn’t be standing in the middle of the road. Other pedestrians were waiting for the tram on the kerb. She clutched at her bag, walked to the kerb, and stared at the tram tracks.

  She’d planned to be smiling by now but her lips were so heavy she felt she’d never manage to turn their edges up. Her eyes were fixed on the tracks. After satisfying herself that Alistair had not planted any evidence to frame his ex-wife, and that Chloe was safe and thriving, she’d planned to walk left, to the police station, where she would unload her torture. She even imagined Alexandra might come with her.

  She was such a fool.

  Joanna stood rigid and looked right, following the straight tracks that led back to her meeting spot with Alistair. She’d ruined Chloe’s life once already. She wouldn’t do it again. She wouldn’t be the one to make a happy little girl with a fabulously successful yet distant father figure a miserable girl with a father who buried her half-brother, who lied to the police, to the world, to her.

  Across the road a couple walked along the street, their little girl in between them. Holding a hand each, the couple counted to three and went Wheee! She remembered doing this in Queens Park with her parents. She remembered the things her mother told her after he left: that she should forget about him; that he didn’t care about her so why should she care about him; that he was a bad man, a selfish man.

  Oh, it was of such tedious interest to the counsellor that Joanna fell for Alistair shortly after her mother’s death.

  A tram was approaching. Joanna and her crime would get on it. They would go to the grave together. Until then she would live with Alistair Robertson and spend her days replaying the moment when she killed her son.

  The Number 19 screeched to a halt in front of her. Joanna tossed her baseball cap and sunglasses in the bin, followed the other passengers onto the road in front of a queue of obediently stationary cars and got on, not caring now if people recognised her. She had a part to play, and she must play it, for the rest of her life.

  *

  A part to play. A role to act. A punishment to serve, person to be. A shop with lacy underwear in the window. Joanna got off the tram and walked towards it.

  It was nestled in amongst the traditional Lebanese restaurants, organic cafes and slow-cooking eateries of Sydney Road. As she got closer, she saw it was called Rockabillies: vampire gear.

  The tiny shop was empty bar an enthusiastic assistant wearing jeans and a black latex top with red lace. The woman pounced: ‘Beautiful day!’

  She could feel her lips shuddering at the rows of bloodthirsty sex gear. She spent a month’s income on stockings, provocative pants and see-through bras when she and Alistair started dating. Dating: that’s what she thought they were doing, in fact they were heading to hell. In the first months, she used to shave her pubes sitting on the edge of the bath, checking her work with a small mirror, then exfoliating and moisturising. She used to try on her new purchases in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom. A couple of times, she took photos of herself to check if there were any stray hairs in the crack area and to hone her poses.

  ‘This would look fabulous on you!’ The shop assistant didn’t seem to care that Joanna hadn’t spoken. ‘The Vampire Vixen!’ She held up a short black dress with a high collar and absent middle except for the strings that tied it loosely from boob to pube. Joanna thought it was the least sexy thing she’d ever laid eyes on.

  She noticed something on one of the racks at the back. Not the garment, but the name of it. ‘The Immortal Mistress’, she said out loud, eyeing the gaudy latex skirt and skimpy top, complete with fishnet stockings topped with red bows.

  ‘That’d suit you too,’ the assistant said, putting the Vixen back on the rack.

  It sure would, Joanna thought. Immortal Mistress. It suited her down to the ground. ‘I’ll take it.’

  ‘We only have a ten. Don’t you want to try it on?’

  ‘No.’

  *

  It was 1.30 p.m. when she got off at the stop in North Melbourne: half an hour to wait. To survive this new life, she would need assistance. And there was nothing wrong with needing a little assistance, long as you’re careful not to confuse medicine bottles, long as you don’t kill your child. The corner pub was dark and grotty. She chose a glass of house red, and downed three Valium with the first gulp.

  ‘Hot outside?’ the barman asked when she’d finished her second glass.

  ‘Not sure.’ She hadn’t noticed the weather for weeks. Could be hot, could be not. She pushed the glass and nodded to order a third.

  ‘Hey . . . do I know you?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Yes I do. Definitely. Or do you just come here a lot?’

  ‘First timer!’ Joanna downed her drink, banged her glass down for another.

  ‘Ah, you play volleyball!’

  She shook her head. Was this ever going to stop?

  ‘You live in Moonee Ponds?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Edinburgh.’

  ‘Edinburgh . . . So your accent . . .’

  ‘Is Scottish.’

  ‘Scottish, eh. I know you. I’m going to work this out. Scottish.’ He thought hard, scrutinised her face, then it hit him like a very sluggish tsunami. ‘Oh shit, mate. Sorry, really sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said, finishing the fourth glass. ‘Why should you be sorry?’

  ‘Just, you know, I just am.’ The barman was so embarrassed he pretended he had something to do at the other end of the bar.

  She only left without ordering another drink to save him the agony of having to talk to her again.

  She fell over a crack in the concrete and bumped into a bin on the way to the meeting place. He was waiting in the
car at the side of the road, tapping at his iPhone. She popped a mint in her mouth, took a deep breath, and walked as steadily as she could towards him.

  ‘Hey, darlin’,’ he said, putting his phone in his pocket and kissing her on the lips. ‘You have a good time?’

  ‘It was fine,’ she said. ‘You?’

  ‘Yep, but it’s going to get better!’ Alistair’s surprise was a hotel on St Kilda beach. ‘We so need to get out of Geelong,’ he said as they drove along Beaconsfield Parade. ‘Just us. Nothing else. We should really try and clear our heads and spend some time together, just for one night.’

  ‘Did you catch up with Phil?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Left a message but he never got back. Haven’t seen Phil for seven years, can you believe that? My best mate and he hasn’t been in touch since the accident happened. Y’think he’d at least phone me back.’

  Accident. So that was the word to describe the moment she killed Noah. ‘What did you do, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Waited for you.’

  Liar. He must have done something other than wait. What? What did the arsehole do? For the rest of her life Joanna would have questions that she’d never even bother asking. That would be part of her punishment, she supposed.

  *

  It was a far cry from the hotels they used to meet in during the affair, when Alistair would sneak in a back entrance, Joanna entering the foyer a few minutes later. This one was five star, for a start, not the two-at-most they used to book online, using a false name and address, paying half each, in cash. Their room was on the fifth floor and had a view over the beach and across to the city’s skyscrapers. Alistair emptied his pockets onto the desk. She used to find this so cute. Now she had an overwhelming urge to check through the scrunched receipts to find out what he’d been buying and doing. He went into the bathroom for a loud piss, leaving the door open, which he never used to do, so even if she could be bothered, which she couldn’t, she wouldn’t get away with snooping through his receipts. He came back into the room, opened the bottle of champagne he’d ordered in the bar in the foyer and poured her a glass. ‘We shouldn’t feel guilty trying to be happy,’ he said, handing her the flute of bubbly. ‘Being miserable and guilty doesn’t bring him back. Noah wouldn’t have wanted it.’