What Came Before

by Anna George

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘now you make romantic comedies to give other people false hope?’ He took her cocked eyebrow as a gentle concession. ‘There must be a law against that.’

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘those films give me solace.’

  ‘Do they now?’ he said, his confidence growing. ‘I get it from boxing, and Goya.’

  When she smiled, he rose from the bed.

  Her eyes grew serious. ‘David,’ she said, then paused. ‘Have you actually seen my film?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘twice. I liked it. And call me Dave.’

  Gently, he kissed her curving lips. Cupped her warm head beneath her hair. Untucked her towel and pulled her back onto the mattress. To his relief, she let herself become entwined in him again. Six hours later, he left.

  In his car, he groans and the black box clicks. Jesus, she was a gift. One of the two women in his life he’s loved. The enormity of what he’s done hits him. He is many things, he thinks – a drunk, a prick – but not a killer. He wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t for the evidence. The scratches on the back of his hands are deep and long, exposing the meat within. He’d been leaning, his hands tight around her long neck, his thumbs pushing down. That was all it took: his body weight and his two thumbs. Even with her hands on his, digging.

  In his right thumb is one of her fingernails. A pink, jagged crescent. He plucks it out and that pressure in his abdomen bears down. Hard.

  He blasts out of Tennyson Street, heading for the Yarraville Gardens. The bliss of a toilet. Or shadowy bush. The pain tightens and he lurches. He fears he won’t make it. Three long minutes later, the gardens come into view and he brakes, thrusts open his door and runs. In the near distance is the Port of Melbourne with its cranes and containers. What a goddamned place, he thinks. The scrapyard of the city.

  The concrete toilet block is icy and lit by a single bulb. He throws himself into a cubicle, yanks down his pants and erupts. The deluge is brief and fierce. Not the relief he expected. Perplexed, he hunches over the old wooden seat. He closes his eyes and sees himself. Bent and trembling, hot and cold. Totally fucking out of control.

  Without warning, his guts burst into his throat. It’s the perfect ambush. He swivels but doesn’t make it, splattering the cement floor. Mid-retch, he flushes to expel what he can of the stink. He kicks up the seat and retches again. Too late he remembers the two glasses of red wine and her homemade tzatziki; it’s all tasting far worse the second time. And the third. Had he eaten lunch he would’ve had a better chance. Breakfast too could’ve plugged him up. As it is, he’s going to relive last night’s Chinese, dim sims and all. He retches, his arse jutting from the cubicle like a pasty, ginger-haired invitation. He yanks up his trousers and belts them, mid-heave.

  Thirty years of drinking to excess and he’s never thrown up like this. He wipes his face with waxy toilet paper. Breathes. Waits. Heaves. It’s as if a gremlin is sitting in his belly and hurling the contents up at him, handful by handful.

  He stares at the foul toilet floor, then at the splatters on his shoes. He frowns. They aren’t vomit, or bile, or even shit. His trousers too – at the cuffs – are darkly soiled. His gaze inches up his legs, and he groans. His knees have matching stains and his blue shirt is a butcher’s apron.

  2

  Elle Nolan is on her laundry’s cool tiles. She is also on the ceiling, where she’s feeling gloriously light, as if she is a balloon. Floating and hyper-alert, she is unafraid. And calm. From within her darkened house, she can smell marinara and hear the Buena Vista Social Club. It is not the music she would have chosen. In the laundry, she can see one of her nephew’s socks and her long-lost silky g-string atop her wall-mounted dryer. And, two metres below, she can see her body. It is twisted, on its side, beneath a green towel. Though she feels sorry for it, she’s in no hurry to have it back. Fragments of memory return to her: a shove, his hands, her screams.

  So this is death.

  Briefly, she wonders if her father and grandparents are going to appear, open-armed, like tardy ghostly hosts. And where’s the swirling light or beckoning tunnel? She waits; nothing happens. Then, unheralded, in a fraction of a second, she sees the sweep of her life – its triumphs and mistakes. There she is as a ten-year-old, wearing a hot pink netball skirt in that ramshackle house in Kew; at twenty-one, with her father in their flat in Elwood; at thirteen, as a scholarship girl on day one at Melbourne Girls Grammar. MGS becomes Monash University becomes Freeman & Milne becomes the VCA Film School. Sundance Film Festival. The faces of friends forgotten merge with those of her boyfriends and her ensemble casts. She sees Mira; her brother, Jude; Doris; and her mother. Amid the busyness, she detects a thread. One portion of her life, in particular, is repeating. Looping. Almost as if, she thinks, she has something to learn.

  She sees herself the Wednesday after she met David Forrester. At 9 a.m., she was at her desk, pale sunlight framing the script in her hands. Where her last screenplay had centred on the idea that ‘courage is rewarded by lucky coincidences’, this one mused that ‘love can transform even the most reluctant lovers’. The focus on transformation was apt, as it was the core of romantic comedy. But of the depth of love’s power she was less certain. Could it make a critical woman tolerant, or an indifferent man passionate – permanently? She was still deliberating when the parcel arrived. In it were two things: a familiar business card and Katharine Hepburn. Youthful and beautiful, rosy-cheeked and aristocratic, gazing out from the cover of Me: Stories of My Life. Flattered, Elle fanned the pages beneath her chin and thought of David Forrester, and Cary Grant.

  Since she was twelve she’d had a crush on Cary. A crush spawned by midday movies and Holiday, a crush she’d not entirely outgrown. Over the decades it had extended, courtesy of An Officer and a Gentleman, to Richard Gere and, later, thanks to Out of Sight, to George Clooney. And now, of course, Ryan Gosling. Aged thirty-four, she still found those on-screen heroes and their great loves trumping her reality. Or at least she had – they had – until last Friday night. Since then, to her surprise, she’d thought often of David Forrester: his wit, enthusiasms and looks. Even his scent, delightfully melon, had stayed with her. In a handful of days he’d become larger than life. Perhaps she’d been wrong to let him go.

  Examining his business card, she flipped it over. In a corner, in blue pen, was a dining chair. She spent the day smiling and annotating her script. She wrote until she couldn’t resist the minute black numbers for another second.

  By 5 p.m. she was driving to meet him in Middle Park. En route through Seddon, she found herself considering cafes for their breakfast the next day: Le Chien, or perhaps Sourdough Kitchen. Unpretentious and thriving, they were typical of her suburb and she hoped he’d like them. The northern underbelly of a highway, tucked between the cafe culture of Yarraville and the Vietnamese markets of Footscray, Seddon was a secret kept by a shrewd few. A secret she was looking forward to sharing. She remembered then, at the Sun Theatre, when she’d told him where she lived, he’d said, ‘Sorry, where?’ As if Seddon had been created early one morning when the rest of Melbourne was facing the sunrise. As if Seddon were seven hundred rather than seven kilometres from the CBD. On Williamstown Road she laughed, charmed again by his bayside ignorance.

  Ten minutes later, snared in five lanes of traffic halfway onto the West Gate Bridge, she sobered. Sirens were wailing and smoke was wafting from the north. Craning, she tried to peer beyond the safety railings to the world below. Her best friend and ex-sister-in-law, Mira Raison, and her two preschool sons lived in a narrow worker’s cottage on Hyde Street in Yarraville. Their home, a car’s plunge from the bridge, was nestled between the Mobil terminal and a colony of electricity pylons. Unable to see the pylons through the smoke, Elle’s worry grew. Switching on the radio, she learned that a grassfire was burning but contained. As the tension left her chest, she retrieved her telephone from the console. Mira. She hesitated.

  Amid the crawling cars and thinning smoke, she thoug
ht anew of David. She thought of their sex and banter and film talk: a potent and unique combination. But then, with Melbourne’s cityscape jutting out in front of her, she thought of his suits. And his clients, and those unforgiving billable hours. Her excitement ebbed. That was a world she thought she’d left behind.

  She thought then of her mother. Elegant yet dour, her mother had spent years waiting for her father, a beloved English teacher, to come home each evening. Elle’s earliest memories were of her mother banging pots and slamming cupboards a tad louder than necessary. When Leo Nolan did return, around seven, to their draughty house in Kew, a light would go on in Isla Nolan. As a child, Elle realised that parts of her mother were sealed off from her and her younger brother, Jude. And, as she grew, observing her mother’s brooding unhappiness, Elle made a decision: when she married things would be different. She would marry a man who ‘brought up’ the children with her. A man who could be beside her at three in the afternoon on a Tuesday. Perched on that bridge, eyeing his fifty-floor office tower, Elle feared that man was not David Forrester: a salary man.

  Elle returned her phone to its console. If she spoke with Mira, she would mention David. But sharing him today felt premature. The traffic moved, taking her with it. She was tempted to do a U-turn but her old Valiant was swept over the bridge towards Fishermans Bend.

  At Middle Park, the silken bay was animated with racing boats. Yachts clustered in the mid-distance like miniature swans. Ten minutes late, Elle parked and slumped low in her bucket seat. She could just make out the leader of the flock and, fleetingly, she wished she was aboard. Six metres away, David sat cross-legged on a concrete wall and watched the faraway race. She took in his square shoulders, long limbs and tousled hair lifting with the breeze. His nearness returned her to the touch of his lips and the brush of his skin. His presence filling her dining room, her kitchen, her bed. She sat, motionless, listening to her heart thud.

  On the horizon, the purple in the sky was tapering now. On his concrete shelf, David rubbed his brow and checked his watch: it was 6.18. The possibility of being stood up was, she suspected, taking shape in his mind. And no doubt he had left Freeman & Milne early for her. She sighed. Four years ago, when she had resigned, she was aware of him. The firm was not known for its lookers, but a pacing Mr Rochester in its corridors was something else again. In the three weeks he was there before she’d left, she’d learned that he was a night owl who eschewed small talk and was estranged from his wife. Shortly after, she’d heard, divorced. Behind him in the lift, she’d noticed his suits were often crumpled and his socks odd. Glimpsing him at his desk, circled by files, she’d gleaned he didn’t smile often, for there was a glowering quality to his demeanour. Even then, she had been intrigued.

  Across the mouth of the Yarra, refinery chimneys were rising from the water like a distant charcoal kingdom. One light-studded spire rose and plunged as constantly as a slow heartbeat. She concentrated on its rhythm to clear her head, calm her body. She was so, so tempted. She told herself that his glowering demeanour suggested that he was actually unhappy. An occupational hazard. And she was done with unhappiness, giving it up the day she was accepted to do her masters at film school. She told herself they were indisputably from different tribes now . . . Through her grit-speckled windscreen she sneaked another look. David’s fine forehead was in his hand. It was nearing 6.30 and the sky’s show was almost over. Curtains of darkness were being drawn around him. She watched as he stood tentatively and stretched, showing, she thought, his age.

  Three things occurred to her then: if she didn’t leave immediately he would see her; it was fear – not his profession or his working hours – rooting her to the car; and, crucially, David Forrester was the most exciting man she’d met in years.

  In less than a second, she climbed out. The evening was surprisingly mild. Encouraging. She intended to move slowly and not bed him again – at least, not that night. At a trot, she approached him from behind. She was forty-five minutes late now.

  ‘Wow,’ she said loudly, ‘you’re still here.’ Seeing his rugged looks up close, she fought the urge to kiss him. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She remembered herself, told a half-truth. ‘The traffic was shocking.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ His voice creaked.

  ‘There was a grassfire beneath the West Gate, banking up the cars,’ she said, grateful for this fact. She turned to the west. ‘Did you see the smoke?’

  ‘No,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I didn’t see a thing.’

  ‘That’s odd, it’s right there.’

  Together they stared across the bay but the smoke had diffused in the night sky. The bridge remained oblivious to the recent drama and was bejewelled as usual with fixed and gliding lights.

  ‘I’m glad it didn’t jump the fence,’ she said. ‘My nephews live across the road from the Mobil terminal.’

  ‘Ludicrous place for children.’

  His tone pricked her. ‘Not everyone can bed down in Middle Brighton.’

  She fell silent. Standing so close to him, she could detect a whiff of alcohol. Perhaps he was nervous too. She surrendered their flagging conversation and took him in. Orange sneakers, washed-out jeans and a misshapen red windcheater covered in Spanish. His style, eccentric and chaotic, seemed fitting. And this clearly well-loved outfit was far preferable to his suit.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I’m starving.’ He sprang over the concrete wall to retrieve a backpack from the sand; from it a French stick and wine bottle protruded. ‘I hope you like cheese.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘But first things first.’ He tugged something from the backpack’s pocket. A modest bottle of sandalwood massage oil. ‘For a woman who thinks too much.’

  She felt herself blush, and he grinned. Wordlessly, they unpacked what he’d brought: a rug, still sporting its price tag; cheese and bread; pears and chocolate; wine and water. They worked fluidly, without touching. Once the rug was laid, he poured water and passed her a plastic tumbler. His grin at her was so broad that her breath caught in her chest. The sky was turning petrol blue and the air held notes of spring. The moment was like a snapshot. Heightened and pure.

  Two hours later, David was leaning against a pillar on her porch and watching her. Their evening, having transcended its jitters, was at its next juncture, but she couldn’t find her house key. She hesitated, awed. He was framed by the budding white star jasmine that overlaid her porch. It was intoxicating: his glowing brown eyes and creamy, gapped teeth. His maleness. Neither of them spoke. But as the seconds grew she couldn’t keep the smile from her face, and neither could he. He seemed to read her and, silently, he made his move. Pulling her gently to him, he kissed her. In the fragrant evening their lips were an even better fit than they had been days before. Pressed together, they filled the gaps in each other’s bodies.

  After a moment, she withdrew from him and took his thick wrist in her slender fingers. The feel of him excited her, perhaps too much. She thought of what she had learned since their night together. According to Wikipedia, ‘Female ejaculation (commonly known as squirting and gushing) refers to the expulsion of noticeable amounts of clear fluid by human females from the para-urethral ducts through and around the urethra during or before orgasm. The exact source and nature of the fluid continues to be a topic of debate among medical professionals.’ He’d celebrated her body’s cloudburst, and was if anything gratified by it. She’d appreciated his gallantry and felt indebted to him for it. But tonight, with his keen eyes on hers, she couldn’t avoid the fact: she’d been mortified.

  Her chest thudded. Whatever happens, she thought, I’ll cope. She gestured him inside.

  ‘Another one-night stand?’ he said, lightly but unmoving.

  She ruffled her hair, mildly panicked, and he smiled. Until now, neither of them had mentioned their first night together, not directly. She shook her head before locating her key and unlocking her front door. When she let the door swing open, he didn’t move. Simult
aneously, she became conscious of her excitement and his reticence. So she kissed him, insistently, until they were panting. Then, rising to the occasion, she peeled herself from him and cajoled, tossing first one boot, then the other, until, in her hallway, she was performing a homespun striptease. She removed her coat, her lemon A-line dress and her stockings. David watched, delighted at her clowning and the emergence of her skin. Lassoing her warm stockings, she entangled him in their silken strands and tugged. And he was in.

  Facing him on her bed, she felt a measure of calm until she saw an extra blaze of intensity in his red-brown eyes. She held her breath as he ruffled her hair, the way she ruffled it herself, so that it stood on end.

  ‘So,’ he said lightly, ‘what changed your mind?’

  Though she preferred to be honest, she was reluctant to reveal so much: that he was, at every turn, disarming. ‘I have a weakness for beautiful men,’ she said, ‘much like my weakness for sugar.’

  David laughed. ‘I thought you were smarter than that.’

  At 5 a.m., she stirred to see the bed beside her empty. Stretching, she touched cool linen and remnant dampness. Some of it was massage oil but most wasn’t. At least this time she’d been prepared. And they’d coped. Laughed, even. He was taking pride in the deluges and encouraging her to feel the same. It was a feat of sorts, not something to be embarrassed about. And she could see David was determined to interpret it as a good sign. To him, her downpours were heralding what was happening between them: their unlikely union. Perhaps he was right. She’d never had sex like it: his skin on hers was sublimely velvety; his body moved hers in ways she didn’t recognise. Naked and with relief, she’d shed all inhibitions, again. Sitting up dreamily, little by little, she took stock. David’s clothes remained scattered on the carpet alongside damp towels. But her ensuite was unoccupied. She roused herself. Wrapping a cashmere blanket around her shoulders, she tiptoed from her room. At the end of the hallway, light spilled. Puzzled, she crept towards her study. Naked and reclining at her desk, David was chuckling quietly, her new script in his lap. With alarm, she saw that he was almost finished.