What Came Before

by Anna George

  Plunging into the ice-cold, she made a decision. No matter what he threw at her, she would cope. Because she was strong: stronger than him.

  17

  A cockroach slithers through a crack at the base of the laundry trough. It’s dark brown, long and fat. In the pitch dark, it heads for the purplish-black puddle. Appalled, Elle watches as the roach skirts the wetness to climb nimbly up the damp towel.

  The roach roams the length of her trunk, with its long antennae twitching. It is taking its time, disappearing into folds of cloth. Briefly, she fears it might venture inside her, into the wounds that she can’t see or remember.

  Watching, she feels horrified and protective, as if her body were sentient, inhabited.

  I’m not a bad person, thinks Dave.

  He’s cramped in Reg’s deep, short bath. The water is tepid now, his skin goosy and his mouth dry. He’s very thirsty. Had he somewhere better to go, he’d be there. Any minute now, Reg will shuffle in, or call the police. The longer a jury takes, the less predictable the outcome. The same could be said, he supposes, for violent criminals the longer they are at large.

  From the hall, Reg is calling. Something like: ‘You’ve been half an hour, son!’ But Dave is turning to mush. It must be the tub. He’s only had half a dozen baths since he was a kid. And now he knows why. In the water there’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to look but at yourself. His skin – crinkling, hairy and wan – is scratched, and angry pink bruises are forming on his shins, his thighs. Inside, the story’s worse. Inside, it’s foul. He lowers his mouth to the water, takes a gulp to clean himself out. It doesn’t work.

  I’m not a bad person, he thinks again. I’m not.

  For the last half an hour, Dave’s been arguing with himself. The voice in his head, though, is his dad’s: ‘What’ve you cocked up now?’ the voice is saying. The old prick. It occurs to him he’s glad his dad is dead. At least Dave will be spared Bart’s fiery reaction to this. He pokes a leg out of the bath and pushes against the wall. For once, he’s done something deserving of his dad’s wrath. Something warranting the shame his parents bred in him. A sob bursts out of him. He was an unwelcome stray in their home, and tonight he’s become that cliché. An old mongrel hurt one time too many. He takes his other leg out of the water, slides his body lower, and sinks his head under. His heart judders. He tries to stay under. Can’t. When he comes up, he sees himself, grey and drawn, an older version of his dad, leaving jail, starting over. His self-pity is laced with panic now. Who’ll wait for him? Who’ll understand? Alex? Natasha? Amelia? No way. They’ll be disgusted. That blind spot threatens. He can almost see it. His breath is ragged. He’s straddling Elle, his right arm in the air.

  ‘Hello in there?’ says Reg. ‘That’s long enough.’

  Dave sits up. He eyes the bathroom; it’s long and narrow, its amenities in a tight row. The far wall is half mirror, half ceiling-to-floor window, fixed shut. Ignoring his reflection, Dave considers the window, as Reg raps on the door.

  ‘I’m coming in.’

  The door slides and Dave scrambles to stand. Water runs the length of him. Everything is shivering. Judging by Reg’s face, Dave doesn’t look good. Worry bounces between them and grows. Grabbing a towel, Dave clambers out. In the tight space, he and Reg jostle to find a respectable distance. Dave’s shocked by how titchy Reg is: barely up to his chest. Wavering, Reg puts a hand to the towel rail. Dave busies himself with drying.

  ‘We need to have another talk,’ says Reg. His voice is breathless – with worry or maybe exertion. ‘But first,’ he puffs, ‘if you don’t call Sheila in the next five minutes, I will.’

  Dave shakes his head, muttering, and fastens his towel.

  ‘You have to act, lad.’

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  Reg raises his arm, as if to pat or hold Dave; but Dave deflects him with an open hand. Reg’s face is pained, and also somehow complicit.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘We failed you.’

  Whatever he’s feeling, it’s thirty-odd years too late. Dave shoves him away. The shove, though not hard, skittles Reg across the tiles, fast. Dave sees everything, and then, a second later, hears it. It happens so neatly, like it’s choreographed. The skittling, the skull-on-china thud, the splash.

  Dave’s head is pounding as he breathes into the old man’s mouth. He pauses. Reg’s brittle old chest won’t rise on its own. Damn it. Too fast, Dave does another set of breaths and pumps. He stops again. How long’s he been at it? He scans the bathroom for a clock but sees only the mirror and his large frame kneeling over Reg’s wet body. He does another two rounds then stops. The old fellow’s definitely still. Dave waits, mumbling, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ He waits about thirty seconds. Then another fifteen. He can’t see what else to do. He lifts Reg up from the floor and repositions him in the water.

  Fighting tears, he hunts for buttons on the tiles. He’s gasping as he spies a robe on a towel hook and puts it on. Then, in a mad flap, he charges around the house. He does the dishes, grabs his dictaphone and Reg’s notes, and runs. In his head is the picture of Reg, face-down and bobbing in his bath. He can’t shake it. That grey hair moving in the water, one wrinkly foot sticking out of the tub. Oh, Reg, you poor bugger, he thinks. I’m sorry too.

  Within minutes, he’s speeding next to the mouth of the Yarra. He is scarcely aware of what he’s doing, where he is. He tries to get his head around how he feels, and what this means. This stay of execution. He is taking the curve on Douglas Parade when he sees another roadblock in the distance. The only way back, he realises, is the way he went out. He spins his wheel and his car twists beneath the bridge. It skids to a halt beside the barrier. He’s so close he can read the plaque about the thirty-five workers who died when the bridge fell. He climbs out of his car and runs to the edge of the marshy land. His chest is heaving and his headache is bursting his skull. Vomiting again is a real chance. He stops at the watery edge. Nothing happens.

  Then he sees it. Across the Yarra, downriver, smoky and dramatic in the heart of the port: an inferno, thirty metres high. The flame is surrounded by an army of lights – red, yellow, blue. Breathless, he watches the brilliant orange, the volumes of grey pouring from it. The air is toxic. Jesus. Guilt overwhelms him then, as if it were his fault. Everything else has been, so this probably is too.

  He watches for a long time. So long that his guilt fades and his body pulses in sympathy with the raging fire. He thinks about fault. And reactions. And disaster. Luck, too. What he’s done tonight is criminal and reprehensible, he thinks, but it’s not entirely his fault. And, relative to that inferno, it’s minute. He’s not proud of any of it, but he has been stupidly unlucky.

  By the time he’s back in his car, he has a plan. It goes something like this: over 35 000 Australians go missing each year. She can be one of them. Unhappy since making her film and leaving her marriage, she’s run away. That’s plausible. All he needs, before he disposes of her – God knows where – is that knife and a bit of help.

  Ten minutes later, he’s staring at Nat’s place. Her house is like her neighbours’: ugly and double-fronted, a blonde-brick box, built in the fifties. Though the eras are different, for his money, Newport and Seddon are the same: too close to industry and the West Gate. That his ex-wife and his current wife live – lived – so close together has bugged him. Often when driving on the bridge, he’d imagined he could see both houses. He’d come to think of them as fixed reminders of his fuck-ups.

  Though tonight, maybe that would change.

  He jogs up the concrete path, the night air tickling his chest. He pulls Reg’s terry-towelling dressing gown across himself. How to explain this outfit? Should he bother? He knows Nat still has some of his old clothes stuffed under her bed and plenty of odd socks. He knocks twice, pauses, then knocks twice more on the glass panel in the green wooden door. It’s his knock and she will know it.

  The hand that flicks the light switch is covered in red glittery nail polish. He suck
s in his breath. Amelia. He’s forgotten all about her. He fears her touch might just undo him. This gorgeous girl-child who was never his. But shouldn’t she be in bed? It’s well past nine. What a shame he can’t tiptoe in and play tennis with her on the Wii.

  ‘Hi, sweet pea,’ he says through the door. ‘It’s me.’

  The girl’s face appears, squinting through the glass until she recognises him. Then her green eyes become like grapes. Her eyelids are dusted with glitter too; her dark hair is loose and long. She’s taller than she was a fortnight ago. She’s wearing orange pyjama shorts and a green T-shirt covered in guitars. She’s less dancer these days, more fledging party-girl. Even so, seeing her, he craves the clutch of her thin arms around his neck. Skin-hunger. He’d never understood it until he’d inherited her, all too briefly.

  ‘Hi, Dave. Where’ve you been? Did you remember my birthday present?’

  Dave curses under his breath. She was fourteen in June; her first birthday missed, probably now one of many. Soon she’ll be all grown up, and he’ll have missed the final stage. He battles to keep his cool as the sparkling fingernails reach for the lock. Beneath the globe, he feels conspicuous and silly. An older woman appears on the other side of the pane. The tortured smile slides off his face.

  ‘Is that you, David?’ His ex-mother-in-law is short, darkly freckled and round. Her face is scrunched like a piece of news-paper. Her Kiwi accent is thicker than he remembers.

  ‘Hello, Marjorie.’ He steps from the door and speaks to his feet. ‘I didn’t know you were in Oz.’

  She cranes to see him on the edge of the shadows. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To have a word with Nat. Where is she?’

  Marjorie takes in his outfit as he tries to see inside. He can make out the usual debris of Nat’s life strewn across the purple carpet – dirty clothes, clumpy pelican sculptures, half-full mugs. Something numbing and addictive is playing on the TV: country girls becoming ladies. Nothing changes. Not the good and not the bad.

  He can feel his anxiety rising, like a weir in flood.

  ‘She’s gone out.’

  ‘But Gran, she’s on the —’

  Marjorie pulls the girl from the door as if he were a snarling dog. ‘Leave her be, David. You’re not welcome here.’

  Dave hops onto the front step, in full light. ‘That’s not what Nat said last week. Come on, let me in.’

  Marjorie frowns and shakes her head, as he knew she would. He knows, too, this news will rattle her. It’ll undermine her faith in her daughter, and in their recovering relationship. As he glowers, she retreats and another face appears: coquettish but cautious. Marjorie glances up to her daughter and sighs. They’ve all been here before. Married or not, it doesn’t change.

  ‘I’ll be right here, Natasha,’ says Marjorie.

  Barefoot in jeans and an orange jumper, Nat greets him and undoes locks. She has crimson toenails tonight. Her ears are dotted with a line of glassy green stones, which curl around her lobes like mirroring question marks. Unfortunately, he can remember tearing one of them. He can just make out the scar. He has his own scars too, though, like the one under his right eye. Thanks to a bottle of beer hurtling at him across a dance floor in Brisbane. And that night they weren’t even fighting.

  To his surprise, Nat barely opens the door – leaving him stranded on the mat. Her eyes are puffy. ‘Hey, Dave, can you come back tomorrow? I’m in the middle of something.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’ His hushed tone is more sinister than he intended. ‘Let me in.’

  ‘It’s not the right time, honey,’ she says, her tone placating. ‘Amelia’s on her way to bed.’

  ‘I’m not here to see her,’ he says and his voice breaks. ‘I need to speak with you alone.’

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Let me in.’

  She eyes the heavy night sky. ‘I can’t, Mum’ll flip.’

  ‘I’m in a fucking dressing gown.’ Marjorie coughs from close by. ‘You come out then, Jesus.’

  ‘No. I mean, we’re not meant to.’ Nat peers into the blackness and touches her puffy face. ‘Anyways, now’s not a good time, Serge wrote off my car this afternoon . . .’

  He badly wants to yell. How does she pick these Gallic losers? The bigger the arsehole, the better? He wants to shake her. He would, too, if her mother wasn’t loitering in the hallway. He tries to calm himself down. But she always makes him feel like this, like he’s had too much coffee.

  ‘Nat, I’m in a spot.’ He stops, inhales. One step at a time. ‘I need . . . some clothes.’

  Nat’s smooth skin rumples. ‘You’ve been back to Elle’s, haven’t you? And you’ve had a fight.’

  Dave tightens his flimsy belt. ‘Nat, please.’

  Worried now, Nat tugs her ear, stretching the question mark of cheap stones. He doesn’t look at the scar above the top dot of green.

  His ex tosses her head towards the north-west. ‘Just forget about her, Dave. Go home and get some sleep.’

  David blinks, disarmed. ‘I can’t.’

  His stare turns inward and he can’t hold her eye. His silence is tinged with guilt. She’s not the brightest woman but she could always read him. Her emotions skate across her face – victory, surprise, fear. Her green eyes glitter with tears. ‘Dave, what have you done?’

  God, he hates the tears. ‘She didn’t give me a fucking choice!’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she whispers, ‘oh, no.’ She pulls back to shut the door, but he shoves it. She stares at his fury, as if seeing it for the first time. And he makes a decision: to escalate. When he speaks, it’s an eruption.

  ‘I was here tonight, Nat. I don’t care what you say to your fucking mother. I was here from six, and I stayed all night. Now, let me in!’

  He is leaning into the space between door and frame. The door crushes his shoulder as Nat leans against it with her mother’s help. Together they push, until he yanks himself away.

  ‘Fuck, Nat!’ he yells, as he hears the bolts. ‘Fuck, fuck!’

  He kicks the green wood panelling and mangles his toes. No doubt Marjorie’s on the telephone, calling the cops. He can’t believe he’s done it again. Royally screwed up.

  18

  Passing Corio and its oil refinery, Mira feels a sense of dread. Please don’t let it be like last time. We simply won’t recover. Giving sage advice, having it ignored, is tough.

  Eyeing her stirring children in their booster seats, Mira promises to do better with them, to let them fail without judgement or recrimination. Briefly, she wonders whether she can pull that off. Then, speedo rising to 130, she remembers the shocking day when their friendship imploded.

  It was early one Monday morning in October, when Elle pulled up outside Mira’s house. Though it was barely daybreak, she was twenty minutes late. A long day lay ahead for Elle but she’d insisted on helping a car-less Mira. The boys were on the verandah, bags on their backs, a teddy in Jesse’s arm, Spiderman in Max’s, primed for their family day-care. Mira was behind them, squinting at Elle’s headlights, her mouth already a thick, straight line.

  ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Elle. ‘I got caught up.’

  Elle’s smile was instant and, in it, Mira could see a stencil of David strewn across her bed. The marital bed. Feeling the matching etchings of a frown on her own face, Mira turned away. Though she hadn’t seen Elle since the wedding, a fortnight earlier, how she felt was still red-raw. Ever since Elle took the man back, Mira had developed a recurring fantasy: in broad daylight, outside the Sun Theatre, she was slapping sense into Elle, as if they were living in a 1940s screwball comedy. The slaps went on and on.

  Mira had tried to calm herself by focusing on Yarraville through the car window. All along Francis Street grey semitrailers clogged the road, idling and unmoving, like massive, panting, prehistoric beasts. Inbound, the trucks were performing their morning ritual as they headed for the Port of Melbourne. Puffing, grumbling and poised. E
lle’s old Valiant, with its windows down, was like an ant surrounded by asthmatic dinosaurs. An oblivious ant.

  ‘Can you close that?’ Mira glanced back at Jesse. Quietly the window rose, and Elle set the air to recirculating. Fenced in by trucks, the car barely moved.

  ‘Okay,’ said Elle, her voice wavering.

  In the sealed space, Mira could feel Elle’s agitation. Perhaps this lift to the mechanics was more than a friendly gesture. ‘How’s it going with Yvonne?’ Mira asked. ‘Have you finished the rough cut?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Good. You’re on track.’

  When Elle spoke it was to the steering wheel. A whisper. ‘Mira, it’s not as I’d hoped.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re doing what we can. But you need to be prepared.’

  Max’s gaze from the back seat swung between the women, worried and confused. He thrust a thumb into his mouth. Mira peered into an enormous stationary wheel alongside her. She should, she realised, have seen this coming. She shouldn’t have left Elle alone to slog away with Yvonne. While that had worked beautifully for Daisy, this film was proving to be their difficult second child. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Well, Lucy, mainly.’

  Mira snorted.

  ‘Mira, Lucy is great with the banter. But the love scenes – she’s not feeling it.’