The Cry

by Helen FitzGerald

  She laughed. What a fuckwit.

  Alistair handed her the flute of bubbly, fear on his face. Only crazy women laughed like that.

  ‘You think Noah wants me to get pissed and shag you?’

  Alistair put his drink down and looked at her lovingly. ‘I think Noah would want you to forgive yourself.’

  ‘Do you forgive me, Alistair?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Ha, caught out. If he forgave her, that meant he thought it was her fault, all her fault.

  ‘See, I don’t think Noah would want me to forgive myself at all. I think he’d want to be alive.’ She drank the champagne and poured another.

  Alistair sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. ‘Joanna, come back,’ he said. ‘Where have you gone? I can’t take this any more. Please come back.’

  Joanna gulped her glass down, refilled it, and drank another. If only she could be more like this dickwad. He was okay. He was coping. Right now, she envied him. Somehow he even managed to make her feel guilty about how he was feeling. As if she didn’t have enough to feel guilty about. ‘I’m going to get drunk.’

  He lifted his head, optimistic – ‘Good idea’ – and poured her the third glass in twenty minutes. Four reds at the pub, three bubblies here. She was on her way to being proper wellied. ‘Did you get some lingerie?’

  Joanna took the Rockabillies bag out of her handbag and threw it on the bed.

  ‘Ooh, stand in front of me!’

  Joanna used to like doing as he asked, standing, stripping, touching herself, moving this way, that, while he worshipped her body.

  She stumbled and fell to the floor as she took her shoe off. Neither of them giggled. She sat on the floor and ripped the rest of her clothing off in a hurry then staggered to a wobbly but upright position in front of him. The windows were open. The sun highlighted her luminous pale skin, bruised here and there from banging into pool fences and bins. She looked down and giggled at how unsexy she was. If only she’d always been this way. She wouldn’t be here now.

  ‘You’re gorgeous, Joanna.’ His expression did not match his words. ‘How about I order some food?’

  Joanna looked down and examined her thin pale frame. Her inner thighs were concave and a fold of skin had appeared on the inner edges at the top. Her breasts had burst like balloons: tiny, floppy, weak, empty. Fine pink spider legs spiralled out from each nipple. She touched the top of her pubic hair with her finger, tracing the fire-like stretch marks round and round, following the light brown line that first appeared during pregnancy all the way up to her belly button. She put one foot on a chair and examined herself in the mirror. Hard to tell, but different, definitely.

  She stood in front of the mirror and smiled. Her body was beautiful. There were signs all over it saying: ‘Noah was here.’

  ‘Why don’t you put your outfit on?’ Alistair sounded a little afraid of her. She liked that.

  ‘Whatever you say, Alistair.’

  She shut the bathroom door and sat on the edge of the bath. Right, where was she at again? Living this life – as it is now, with no prospect of change. How would she do that? When her father left she coped by burying herself in books and making lists of the positive things in her life (her mother was happy and healthy and beautiful, their home was lovely, Kirsty was always there for her, and always fun). When she and Mike split up she threw herself into gardening and made the list of positive things again (her mother was beautiful, her job was fun, Kirsty was always there).

  And now, she would do the same, for Chloe. She had to live with Alistair for the rest of her life. And it would be better if she didn’t hate his guts. Shaving at the side of the bath, she listed the things she used to like or love about him. What were they again? Um. He was successful. She liked that, didn’t she? Confident, that had seemed nice. He was sporty, a bit, got on a bike every now and then. Well he did when they met, although often the bike ride was just the lie he told his wife. He twirled her in the hallway once and repeated ‘I love you.’ He bought her great birthday presents – once, a trip to Amsterdam, where they walked along canals, smoked in a coffee shop, giggled, walked, made love, smoked, ate an enormous Indonesian banquet in a weird bright room, smoked, made love, smoked, ate chips with mayonnaise, made love. And he was a beautiful writer, used to send her love letters every night – well‚ emails. She could remember one, almost by heart.

  My darling,

  There is no end to us. We are for ever.

  Last night I was walking to the station and I spotted you with some friends in Hanjo’s. I watched you through the window. Do you realise how people gravitate towards you? You were surrounded, and it’s not because you’re the most beautiful person in the room (which you are), or because you’re the cleverest person in the room (which you are), it’s because you are the most interesting person in the room. I can listen to you all day. I intend to do this for the rest of my life. Meet me tonight, Joanna. I need to hold you in my arms.

  There is no end to us.

  I am forever your

  Alistair

  This letter had made her giddy. She drank it in, over and over. On the train to work the words floated around before her eyes, coating her in a bliss-induced nausea, making her smile. She printed it out when she got home from work and held it to her chest in bed. Alistair was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Alistair was the greatest man on earth. He loved her. He thought she was interesting.

  If he wasn’t feeling those things right now, he might again. And she could live with a man who felt that way, even if it did seem a bit odd in retrospect that he had ‘spotted’ her in a bar at night. Banish that thought, Joanna. He was not following you. He’d been at a meeting and had merely spotted her.

  And banish the memory of the letter she found in the attic, which Alexandra sent him all those years ago. ‘Al, this is the longest summer ever! When do you arrive at Spencer Street? I’ll be the one wearing no knickers! Love Lex (The most interesting person in the room!) xxx’

  So what if he’d used the same phrase with Alexandra? Joanna had used similar phrases with Mike and Alistair, and she’d meant them at the time – You’re my best friend, You’re my soul mate, I love you, for example. Anyway, perhaps Lex and Joanna were the most interesting people in the rooms to which he referred. It wasn’t definitely a total crock of shit.

  Oh fuck, she’d nicked herself with the razor.

  She covered the bleeding spot with a small piece of toilet paper the way Alistair did when this happened to his face. She took the Immortal Mistress outfit out of her bag and put on the skirt. She had to keep her legs open a little to stop it from falling down. It hung on her hips precariously. A few minutes later, she opened the bathroom door, placing one hand on the frame to avoid falling over.

  He was watching television and eating from a tray filled with room-service sandwiches.

  ‘Hello!’ Eyes up, down, up. No, not turned on. ‘That’s . . . is that a bit big? What size is it? Come, have a sandwich.’

  As Joanna nibbled the pastrami sandwich on the bed, she wondered if this is how he had behaved with Alexandra: one moment she was his queen, sipping champagne on a steam train. She was perfect, pretty, his: all the way up there on a pedestal. Then, boom, toppled.

  Of course this is how it had been for Alexandra. Why would it be any different for Joanna?

  ‘What did you do while you waited for me today?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘So from, what, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. you did nothing?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I had a coffee and I read the paper. Why?’

  ‘And that took you four hours?’

  ‘Why are you being like this? I didn’t ask you how you spent your time. How did you spend your time?’

  Joanna moved over to the dresser and started looking at the scrunched receipts from Alistair’s pockets.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just having a look.’

  ‘Fine, read them.’ A thr
eat. Okay then, but I won’t be happy.

  ‘Forget it.’ Joanna threw the receipts on the floor. She wasn’t sure if she’d done this because she couldn’t be arsed reading them or because she didn’t want Alistair to leave. Oh God, yes, she was sure which one it was – the latter, she didn’t want the fucker to leave. She was just the same as Alexandra was when he left her: unhappy, insecure, confused, needy, upset, pathetic, unattractive, and full of vicious fucking rage.

  The arrival of another bottle of champagne from room service halted the argument. When the door closed again, Joanna skulled another glass and stared out of the window.

  She was old-Alexandra, but worse. Added to the mad alcoholic paranoia was the role she had to play. She couldn’t pack her bags and run. She had to stay and suffer. This would be her punishment, holding this in, keeping silent, all on her own.

  She drank another glass.

  It was 4 p.m. In the old days, they’d have had sex once by now and be working towards round two. She’d be doing things his boring wife never did, like swallowing. Although that was probably a lie too. Alexandra probably downed bucket loads.

  Alistair finished his last sandwich, turned the television off, and undressed. She noticed he’d put on weight: small love handles on his back; a bulge in the pelvic area which made his dick look smaller, or actually disappear into it a bit.

  ‘Joanna,’ he walked over and hugged her. His sticky nakedness made her sick. ‘Hey, baby, no more of this, okay? I love you. I want to laugh with you again. I want to make love to you again.’ He loosened the embrace so he could look at her. ‘I want to marry you.’

  The first thing that struck Joanna was that a proposal should not be made by a naked standing man unless you have just had sex with him, and even then it should be outlawed. It seemed the worst possible thing to do, worse than proposing underwater or in Japanese when your prospective fiancée doesn’t swim/understand Japanese.

  They’d talked about it before. Marriage obviously didn’t mean much to him, she’d said to him. What we have is too good for marriage, he’d said to her.

  She knew why he was asking now. He needed to own her, to watch over her, to make sure she never left him, broke down, ruined him, told the truth. This would be his part to play, she supposed, for the rest of his life.

  Fair enough, Joanna thought. She needed someone to do those things. ‘Do you still love me?’ she asked.

  He stood up straight, serious. ‘You’re my soul mate.’

  ‘None of that shit. Just convince me you still love me.’

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I still love you.’

  ‘That’s not convincing.’

  ‘You’re part of me. I wouldn’t exist without you.’

  ‘That’s bollocks too. Do you still find me attractive?’

  ‘Of course. Look at you, how could I not?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You have the most beautiful smile. I miss it. It’s your lips, your lips are my favourite part. Just the right size and shape and it looks like you have lipstick on when you don’t and when you smile they take on this totally different, perfect shape. And those eyes . . .’

  ‘Am I interesting?’ She wasn’t finding him so.

  ‘You’re definitely that!’

  ‘I’ll marry you on one condition.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What’s that?’

  ‘I’ll marry you if we stay here. For Chloe. We leave Chloe with Alexandra, and you see her on weekends or work out some arrangement.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘No.’

  He let go of her and headed to the bathroom, turning on the tap for a bath. ‘I’m not leaving Chloe with that woman.’

  Joanna followed him in. ‘You said you had a good talk with her.’

  He poured bubbles into the bath. ‘She’s nuts, I’ve told you that.’ He pointed the bubble-bath container at her like it was a gun. ‘She’s a fucking alcoholic. What kind of woman kidnaps a child? What kind of person does that?’

  ‘It wasn’t kidnap. I don’t think she’s mad.’

  ‘You don’t know her.’ He slammed the bubble bath down on the sink and got in the bath.

  She was dying to tell him she did know her now, and that she liked her, hell – admired her. She stopped herself. ‘We’re worse.’

  Covered in bubbles, Alistair sat up and pointed at her with his fist, the way politicians do. Don’t use a finger, it’s aggressive. ‘We made one terrible mistake. What she did was deliberate and unforgivable.’

  ‘Well I’ll only marry you if we stay here.’

  His fist retreated. ‘Let’s not talk about this today.’ He ducked his head under the water. Conversation over.

  Joanna left the bathroom, and started getting dressed again. She could hear Alistair splashing about. Both her legs wound up in one hole of her pants. She was so drunk. She corrected it and pulled on her dress.

  ‘Joanna, what are you doing?’ he yelled.

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘C’mon, Joanna, we’ve got all afternoon and all night. Don’t spoil things.’

  She was drunk and fuming, but she would never forget her new mantra. To live the lie. To put an end to other people’s suffering, even the arsehole she had to live with till she died. And maybe Alistair would soften. Or maybe they’d lose at the hearing. For now, she had to get the hell out of that hotel room. She put the Immortal Mistress outfit back in its bag and yelled back. ‘I just need some air. You have a soak and a rest. I’m going to take this stupid lingerie back.’

  *

  Joanna hadn’t planned on visiting Ms Amery. It just happened. She took a tram as far as Carlton, and headed towards the stop for the Number 19. She walked past the sunbathing students on the flat grass area of Melbourne University. Alexandra had studied law here. Alistair, politics and an MBA. The students looked happy here. Joanna imagined Alistair and Alexandra were happy here too: carefree, confident of a brilliant future, in love.

  By the time she got to the main road, she’d tossed the Rockabillies bag in a bin, and typed Ms Amery’s address into Google Maps.

  Her house was only a five-minute walk. It was a two-storey Victorian terrace with ornate iron balustrades on the balcony and stained-glass windows. Seems she had money, this old lady. Joanna rang the doorbell, not sure why she was there or what she was going to say. She was about to ring again when Ms Amery opened the door wearing gardening gloves and a large straw hat. She looked much younger than she had on the plane, around sixty perhaps. She was slim, but not frail as Joanna had thought. Joanna didn’t need to identify herself. ‘Joanna! Come in, quick, out of the sun. You don’t look well.’

  The hallway had checkerboard tiles. They passed two large rooms on the way to the kitchen, both with hardwood floors and stunning fireplaces, one with a grand piano. She had taste as well as money.

  Ms Amery took off her gloves and hat, put the old-fashioned kettle on the Aga and cut some slices of brownie from a baking tray. ‘Good timing,’ she said, putting several pieces on a plate and taking one. ‘Eat!’ She put a slice in Joanna’s hand. ‘Have you been drinking? You need to eat.’

  Joanna struggled to chew the tiny bite she took. It was alien and unwanted and hurt her throat as it went down.

  Books filled the shelves of the whitewashed antique dresser in the corner. Smooth Radio, or its Australian equivalent, played softly from the radio on the enormous country kitchen table.

  It wasn’t a very Australian garden, from what Joanna could see: winding brick path on a neat lawn, with curved borders bursting with colour. ‘Your garden is beautiful.’

  ‘It is! This summer’s been hard on it. I’m afraid my bottle brush didn’t make it.’

  Joanna looked at one of the books from the dresser: Illywhacker by Peter Carey. ‘You’re a bibliophile.’

  Ms Amery took the whistling kettle off the Aga and poured water into the pot. ‘I used to be an editor. I’m good at details, noticing things others might not. That’s my gift.
I believe we all have one.’

  Joanna put her hand under her chin and stared into the brownie tin. ‘Yeah, I had one.’

  She was crying, and Ms Amery was moving towards her with arms extended. It was the only hug Joanna had welcomed since. She sobbed on this stranger’s chest. She imagined it was her mum holding her: her mum, who was always there when Joanna was upset, who told her she was perfect, and that she didn’t need men. She remembered her mum’s lingering, difficult death. Joanna had spent every spare minute trying to repay the selfless devotion she’d been given by taking her to the park in the wheelchair, reading books out loud, giving sponge baths.

  A bright red rosella with blue and yellow wings flew in through the open door, the memory of her mother disappearing as it brushed her hair and landed on the sink.

  Ms Amery laughed. ‘Ooh, look who it is. It’s Harold.’ She moved over to the sink and put her hand out in front of the bird, and to Joanna’s surprise he hopped on. She lifted him out the door and he flew away.

  ‘You don’t have a phobia, do you?’ she asked Joanna.

  ‘No.’ Joanna watched the rosella fly once around the garden before settling on a lemon tree. She knew it was silly to wonder if it was the same bird she’d seen the morning after Noah died, but she did. ‘I suppose you don’t remember much about my baby,’ Joanna said.

  ‘My perfect bum’s gone – believe me, it was perfect! – but not this.’ She tapped her head with her finger. ‘I remember everything.’

  ‘I’d love it if you could tell me, please, anything.’

  Ms Amery meant it when she said she noticed things. She started at the beginning – when she first spotted him in Joanna’s arms at airport security in Glasgow. ‘Babies don’t all look alike,’ she said. ‘He had a cute little pear-shaped face, same as yours, exactly. Okay, so his eyes were his father’s, but otherwise he was just like his mummy. Even his eyebrows.’ She scrutinised Joanna’s. ‘Great shape. You don’t even pluck them, lucky . . . I over-plucked in the day. Don’t ever do that, don’t touch yours! They stop fighting back . . . Noah. He was sleeping when you first boarded.’