Maria in the Moon

by Louise Beech

  She called over the rustling of the bag that a man called Jake might call. Except for my hurt, it was as though she’d never been gone. She came to the counter and sat on it as she had done many times, yellow plastic bag in hand. ‘I met him by the pool,’ she said. ‘His shorts were the same pink as my bikini and he reckoned we were meant to be.’

  I laughed, perhaps too hard, and Fern looked at me.

  ‘Catherine,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’ I put the dirty teaspoons in the sink.

  ‘I’m sorry with all my heart that I called you grumpy and moody and that I said you were a jealous bitch. You’re not. I was so pissed off at losing my column. And I nearly lost you too.’

  ‘I am moody though.’ I pulled the drawer open and rummaged for a cloth to mop up some tea I’d spilt. When there weren’t any I shoved it shut and dragged out the other one.

  ‘I didn’t miss those drawers,’ she grinned.

  ‘I like them.’ I did.

  ‘This is for you.’ She handed me the carrier bag, a yellow gift. I was glad it wasn’t red, did not signal danger. Perhaps optimistic yellow signalled a new start. Inside was perfume.

  ‘You shouldn’t have. You don’t have a job now.’ I paused. ‘It’s a shame about your column.’

  I considered telling her about Celine, but it would only make things worse. Such a revelation would make Fern angry now, take away from us working things out. Maybe later. Maybe when I had forgotten it and remembered again.

  ‘What will you do now?’ I asked Fern.

  ‘I haven’t told you.’ She clapped her hands. ‘My mum told me this afternoon that apparently my editor John rang Sean while I was away; funny really since they know I’m not even with him now. Anyway, they want me to write a sexy single column after all.’

  ‘What about whatshisname who does one on a Thursday?’

  Fern shook her head, her streaked hair flowing. ‘Mick Mars got married to some woman called Cassie and discovered Jesus so he doesn’t want to write about humping everything that moves anymore.’ She sipped her tea. ‘Think what I can write about – you and me and our relationships. I’m going to have to start remembering names, though, or at least develop your skill for making them up.’

  ‘Always find out the real names,’ I said.

  Downstairs Victor and his Happy Housers began their late-afternoon ritual, clattering implements and playing the radio loud.

  Fern looked sad. ‘What happened while I was away, Cath?’

  ‘I’m not ready,’ I said. ‘Let’s just talk about you.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  I nodded.

  ‘But my stuff is so trivial. And you seem so…’

  ‘I need trivial,’ I insisted.

  ‘OK. Well, my editor wants to call the column “Learn from Fern”, but I think that’s pathetic – what does that have to do with sex and the modern world? He said he’d have a sub-heading underneath like, “The World of Dating with Fern Fielding”. What do you think? It’s bad, isn’t it?’

  ‘I like it.’ I put my empty cup on the worktop and whispered it aloud. ‘It’s poetic and simple. Means it doesn’t just have to be about men – it can be about you. Keep the title but tell him his sub-heading sucks.’

  She sprayed my perfume on her wrist and smelt it with a hearty sniff, nodding at her great taste in scent. Its heady fragrance barely concealed the smell of chicken and spices that emanated from below.

  ‘What would I do without you?’ she asked.

  ‘You’d have a crap sub-heading,’ I said.

  Fern laughed. ‘How come you don’t have a column?’

  ‘Because I don’t have anything to write about,’ I said softly.

  ‘You’ll have to help me think of a sub-heading. How about we do it now and I’ll start the first piece? I’ve already got some great ideas.’

  I didn’t like the idea of creating stories; I was just coming to terms with truths. I was suddenly exhausted, despite my nap.

  ‘Not now,’ I said. ‘I need to sleep.’

  ‘But we’re OK?’ said Fern, softly.

  I paused. ‘We will be,’ I said.

  The next morning Fern gave me space. That she did touched me. I knew how hard it was for her not to talk every five minutes. So later that night we chatted until almost morning. I admitted I was still angry with her and that it might take time to trust again. She listened. We created one-and-a-half articles for her column, and Fern finally disappeared into her room. I looked at Christopher’s red watch on the coffee table. Thinking of him made me smile. People did come back, but things were not quite the same as if they’d never gone.

  I fell asleep without difficulty and dreamt of the room.

  Its door was smooth and painted pale blue. I opened the silver handle with ease and entered. Inside, snow covered the floor, the windowsill and the rabbit hutch in the corner. Geraldine sniffed at my ankles, so I picked her up and held her close and let her whiskers tickle my skin. We left one set of footprints: mine. The ball of familiar fur fidgeted to be let down. I relented and watched her run in circles, tiny imprints marking the white powder. Ring after ring of dots. But I knew she had to run, make her own way and return to me only when she chose.

  It was cold but I wasn’t. It was the room not me. I was not the room.

  I sensed someone there. A ghost. I was not afraid. Ghosts cannot hurt us. Only humans do. I turned. By the smooth, pale-blue door was my mum. Mum. She was not faded or out-of-focus. Gentle waves of golden hair framed her face. Eyes the same as mine shone. She smiled and closed the door behind her.

  I was not the room. I was not Katrina. I was Catherine-Maria.

  Maria in the Moon.

  25

  Editing out the wrong words

  Jangly Jane dropped onto the Flood Crisis lounge sofa, her colliding bracelets almost tuneful. She said she’d read a theory in a magazine that we write our own lives before we’re even born; like some sort of futuristic blueprint. I still could not help but call her Jangly Jane in my head, though I was careful never to say it aloud.

  ‘Which magazine was it in?’ asked Christopher, half closing his book but leaving a thumb inside to mark where he was.

  ‘Why does that matter?’ She raked through the pile of newspapers.

  ‘If it was in OK! I might be sceptical.’

  Christopher put his book on the coffee table. Someone had perched the all-singing-all-thrusting Santa on top of a Ford Escort manual. For now, he was silent, his battery likely dead.

  ‘It was Psychologies magazine,’ said Jane, unable to find one.

  ‘So what exactly did it say?’ I asked.

  She looked at me like she’d only just realised my existence, her left earring dangling lower than the right as she cocked her head. ‘It suggested that we’re on a path that we alone have created and so we can only blame ourselves for everything that happens to us. We’ve written everything we do and everything we are.’

  I was surprised at her poetry; Jangly Jane the stickler for rules, the lover of authority. I considered asking her if we got a spellchecker when we wrote this life, but knew I’d sound sarcastic. She opened a newspaper with a dismissive crunch, her earrings even again.

  ‘It’s an interesting theory,’ said Christopher. ‘I like it better than the idea of a God. We write ourselves. Wish I’d given myself big biceps and a washboard stomach; perhaps a French accent. Can we go back and edit?’

  I smiled and Christopher mouthed ‘What?’ at me, but I wasn’t about to say that I thought his biceps and stomach were fine, so I shook my head. The phone in booth two pealed and I stood, but it stopped after one ring. The caller had perhaps lost their courage. It takes so much to dial, I imagined that hearing it ring might frighten many away.

  ‘Maybe he forgot to write what he’d say,’ I mused, resuming the sofa.

  ‘You’re mocking me,’ said Jane.

  ‘I’m not, I’m serious,’ I said. ‘You have to consider that some people might mess around wi
th their words. Maybe forget them occasionally or even regret the ones they chose. And what if we outlive what we wrote?’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Jane, her bracelets clashing.

  ‘So we write our deaths?’

  ‘According to the article, we write ourselves seven exits and then pick one as we see fit.’

  ‘Just think,’ I said, unable to resist a little teasing. ‘If the spellchecker wasn’t activated, you might end up being hit by a speeding brain.’

  ‘Spellchecker wouldn’t correct that,’ sneered Jane. ‘It isn’t spelt wrong; it’s just the wrong word. You’re such a smart-arse, Katrina.’

  ‘So there is a spellchecker then.’ I licked my lower lip.

  ‘I won’t rise to it,’ she said.

  ‘So what kind of writer would you say Norman is?’ Christopher grabbed the pack of photos from the shelf under the magazines and took out one from Saturday night. Norman was topless, red-faced and being supported by Chantelle and her friends. One of them brandished an empty champagne bottle, the contents of which Norman clearly wore in his hair and down his almost-hairless white chest. ‘In this one I’d say he writes great fantasy.’ Christopher held up another of Norman reclined on a sofa in some club with Chantelle sitting astride him, her skirt hiked up so far she showed her pink knickers.

  ‘Definitely a self-indulgent writer.’ I squinted at the image. ‘Wouldn’t it be good if we could misbehave and make mistakes and just go back and edit it so we never did?’

  ‘Like, edit out all the wrong words,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Give me a red pen. I could be here all day.’

  ‘I’m making tea,’ said Jane, abandoning the paper. ‘You two can mock me. I simply won’t rise to it.’

  ‘Jane, don’t be so sensitive,’ said Christopher. ‘We’re only playing.’

  When she had gone, I asked him, ‘Do you think when she wrote her life that the pen ran out halfway?’

  He laughed and said, ‘I bet it was a pen with a dangly toy hanging from the lid.’ Then he put a picture of Norman burying his face in Chantelle’s chest between the pages of his book and looked at me and asked, ‘How are you doing, Katrina?’

  I considered my answer with the deliberation such an honest question deserved. I thought how angry I’d felt when Fern first returned. But, like spring sun on the last snow, she’d slowly melted those feelings. The previous three mornings had been less dark, and I’d smiled when I woke to the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard or Fern swearing at the two drawers.

  Then, each morning, I’d remember my mother. My breath suspended every time our phone rang, then escaped in a gasp when it wasn’t her. Graham had called to say Aunty Mary was home from hospital, but I was yet to visit her. Since remembering Uncle Henry I’d avoided her. I didn’t want to take the same pain to her that I had given my mother; I couldn’t bear her also wishing I’d taken my confession to a crisis line.

  My hands no longer itched and the nightmares had stopped.

  But … how was I?

  I was breathing and not scratching and I could remember and I didn’t dread sleeping and I had Fern. But though I had all these lights the street remained half lit. The darkness had not all gone.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said to Christopher, settling on that feeble word I knew belied my search for more.

  ‘How did it go with your mum?’ he asked.

  I didn’t correct him; I looked away. Someone had propped a neon star on top of a booth; it flashed so infrequently you could count the seconds in between. You might think it had finally packed up and then ping, it flashed. Every gadget in the Flood Crisis lounge was either faulty or worn or broken: the grotesque Santa, the fickle star, the stark tree, and the hideous, cracked Virgin Mary.

  ‘You were right,’ I said. ‘I should never have told her.’

  I didn’t tell him about slapping her. I couldn’t bear his harsh judgement of my violence. I still heard the ringing sound as my skin met hers, sharp in the cold air.

  ‘Katrina, I never thought you shouldn’t. I was just concerned because you were so vulnerable that morning. I felt bad leaving you.’ He paused. ‘You didn’t ring me this week.’

  ‘You never rang me either,’ I snapped.

  He shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to push you.’

  I nodded. ‘No, you’re right. I haven’t made any of this easy for you.’

  He touched my wrist with his warm, familiar fingers. ‘You’re not wearing the watch.’

  ‘No.’ I wanted to take his hand and hold it in mine, like I had on Sunday, but couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Why couldn’t I? I didn’t know. Eventually he took it away. ‘Fern came back. I meant to bring your watch today.’

  ‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I’m really glad she’s home. You must be happy.’

  ‘But you said that you wanted it back when she returned.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You did.’ I frowned. ‘We were sorting through the decorations, and I was laughing at that Santa and you…’ He smiled and slowly I smiled too, realising his game. ‘You tease,’ I said. ‘You remember.’

  He sat forward in his seat and the cushion squeaked resistance. He put one hand on my knee where I’d cut it that first day, just below the hem of my skirt. His face grew serious. ‘Katrina—’

  The door opened and Jane came in with drinks. I held Christopher’s look for a second more, wondering how tired and messy I must appear, but enjoying his gaze. A second is only as long as the things you fill it with.

  ‘The milk might be off,’ she said, plonking a drink next to me.

  The phone rang so I picked up my sour tea and stood, my leg briefly touching Christopher’s knee.

  I headed for the booth and answered on the fourth ring, saying, ‘Flood Crisis, can I help you?’ I grabbed the pen and scribbled, but it wouldn’t work. I would not write this caller’s life today.

  A shrill woman squeaked that she didn’t think she’d spoken to me before and I thought momentarily of Helen: Helen’s acting lessons, Helen’s tree, it never being about the trees. I felt sad that she would not call again. It was selfish; she was happy and no longer needed a crisis line. I’d done my duty. So, I thought of Sid and wondered if he’d ring. I’d helped Helen and myself and it would be good to help him too. Perhaps he was the final light that would illuminate the whole street.

  The ones you get attached to on a crisis line – against all better judgment and against all training – are the ones who keep you there. I wanted to make sure he was OK; he’d been my first caller here, after all.

  The woman on the phone demanded if we were the suicide place and asked for Ben. I could hear Fern Britton talking about masturbation on This Morning. The woman grumbled that she missed Richard and Judy. She said that Judy had always had such beautiful, coiffed hair, and that she wanted to talk to Ben because he’d understand.

  I hadn’t written anything on the pad. What was she really saying? How could I define her? When I opened my mouth to ask what was troubling her, she hung up. Dissatisfied, I went back into the lounge area.

  ‘No one seems to be able to remember what they wrote.’ I squeezed between the cushion and the sofa. ‘That woman must have forgotten her blueprint. Let’s just go home, shall we? A day in bed – that’s what I’ll write for today.’

  Christopher looked at me, his expression giving little away.

  ‘Anyway,’ Jane said, continuing whatever conversation they’d been having as though I’d never interrupted. ‘It was only pre-1991 that suicide rates in women were higher. Since then men kill themselves far more frequently; I think three-quarters of suicides are committed by men.’

  ‘Maybe they’re better at it.’ I sat down opposite Christopher. I’d left my half-drunk tea in the booth but couldn’t be bothered to go back. ‘What are the statistics on people who try but fail?’

  ‘It’s not suicide if they fail,’ sneered Jane.

  ‘Perhaps that’s worse,’ I said. ‘How must they feel when they come
around? They failed at living and then they failed at dying, too.’

  ‘Have you ever wanted to die?’ Christopher asked us, though he looked at me.

  ‘Not me,’ said Jane, shaking her head vigorously.

  I thought about it. ‘No,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

  Suddenly the Santa on the table thrust twice and sang half of ‘Jingle Bells’ in a voice that sounded like it came from The Exorcist before falling backwards onto the floor. Christopher stood him up and seemed to consider his life while smoothing Santa’s beard.

  ‘I’ve wanted to not be here,’ he said finally. ‘But that’s not same as wanting to die, is it? I’ve never wanted to be dead, but there have been times I wished I didn’t exist.’ He shook his head, then got up and left the room.

  I stared at the door, still seeing his shape in my mind. The room without him in it was empty. I followed him into the hallway.

  ‘You can’t leave just one of us in here for the phones,’ said Jangly Jane.

  I let the door close on her voice. In the kitchen Christopher rinsed out cups. I watched him for a moment, picturing those hands on me, but it only made the last streetlight I was looking for seem to flicker more.

  ‘I did think about ringing you,’ I said.

  He dropped the cup into the bowl of water and fished about in the suds for it. ‘I thought about ringing you too,’ he admitted, wiping wet hands on jeans. ‘I even picked up the phone a few times and started dialling. But then I hoped you’d find your way to me when you were ready.’

  ‘I’m just a bit nervous about a relationship,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ He smoothed his hair.

  ‘Not cos of you.’

  He nodded.

  I moved towards him and pressed my mouth to his; I tried to mute my confusion about what I wanted. I wanted to be able to just have a normal relationship. To turn on that last streetlight. He spun me around and pushed me into the cabinet, banging my head against the top cupboard. Gripping my upper arm, he kissed back. We fought to be close.

  I stopped, suddenly afraid. Not of him or even of me, but of being happy. It was such a risk to take. What if I got used to it and then something happened? That was why I’d always ruined relationships. Why I’d hurt people. I had to get in there first. Had to hurt before I got hurt. But I didn’t want to do that to Christopher. He held my face and kissed me more, but I pulled free, still holding his hands, not wanting to break from him altogether.