by Anna George
23
One Monday morning in July, Elle finally visited her new gynaecologist in a grey concrete building in Carlton North. In a windowless box, she wept as she described her medical history. Together, they discussed the psycho-sexual possibilities of her symptoms, as well as the merits of a laparoscopy. Then Dr Littlemore examined her and proposed a series of tests. Three days later, the gracious doctor herself called. It was unlikely, she said, that Elle was ravished severely by the disease – if she had it. And, most certainly, she was fertile. Elle was trying to understand this diagnosis when Dr Littlemore cleared her throat. There was more. By the call’s end, Elle had made another appointment, stunned; touched by something other. Pregnant.
Afterwards, she rode directly to Williamstown, where the sea was liquid steel. Overwhelmed, her thoughts rolled in with the waves. Disbelief, worry and embarrassment; joy and awe. Back and forth. She leaned against the bow of a slender tea-tree, which curved alone on the foreshore. The wind rattled around her as the charcoal sky rumbled. She knew she ought to move. The storm was shifting inland quickly. Lightning forked on the grey stage. Elle watched, feeling invincible. She’d survived David; she could survive anything. She waited, captivated. She was the tree now, bent from the wind but still growing. The first dollops of rain splashed onto the branches, onto her nose. She laughed. The storm was like her news: a universal miracle.
Within an hour, the storm had been replaced by sunlight. She emerged from under her tree and took in the born-again day. On that glistening foreshore, a coil of energy swirled inside her. It spun, its arms raised, its legs kicking, a happy, feminine tornado. It sounded absurd but that was how she felt. As she headed towards her bicycle, she was conscious of her body, her chest, her stomach, her womb. Amid the surging energy, she walked slowly, savouring it, knowing that she alone was in charge of her pace, the mode of her travel and the mood at her destination. She wasn’t anticipating his call, not tiptoeing through her day, or second-guessing his Friday night. There was nothing to crave, nothing to challenge, nothing to rise above or hold together. She could stay like this for as long as she liked.
How she’d deal with him and what she’d say could wait.
As her bike glided forward, she felt so light, she could soar.
That the facade of Mira’s worker’s cottage on Hyde Street was unchanged surprised her. She felt as if the entire planet ought to have shifted to reflect the shift in her.
As she knocked, she strained to hear the life within, knowing it would be anchored to the rear. Mira would be immersed in the boys’ dinners and bath, stories and bed, and the intervening, unpredictable mayhem, like an upturned bowl of beans or puddle of sand. Not a good time to visit, but perhaps exactly right.
She knocked again. Far above, orange-clad figures were working on the West Gate. She could see the flashing lights of crawling rollers, the wagon train of construction vehicles. Impossibly, yet another lane was being drawn onto the bitumen.
The door pivoted inward and Elle grinned.
There was Mira – smiling, singing out, dressed in heels and a frock. Over her bare shoulder, Elle could see Troy in the kitchen: Troy, the mousey-haired, sunny-eyed real deal. He waved a wooden spoon at Elle and smiled politely. Two heads edged the doorframe in the living room. Jesse and Max, already in Scooby-Doo pyjamas, damp-haired, grinning. Both boys looked longer, finer, yet still so new. Springing about behind them were two strawberry-blonde girls. And Jude, her grown brother.
Elle blinked tears.
‘Well, hello,’ said Mira. ‘You seem better. Still shattered-looking but not so tender.’
‘That sounds about right.’
Elle tugged a curl of dry lip, wondered whether Mira was going to invite her in. The traffic noise ebbed with a receding set of cars.
‘I’m sorry I went to ground.’
When Mira sighed, the light in her face faded. ‘It didn’t help.’ After a beat, she said, ‘And it wasn’t easy. We stuffed up. But we can recover.’
Elle nodded, cherishing the pronoun. But a question mark was poised between them, flashing amber. She put some anger into her voice.
‘He’s gone.’
A grin sprang from Mira’s face, wide and lovely. Elle could see her try to make it respectable by drawing across it a shadow of scepticism.
‘It’s been almost two months.’
Mira threw her arms open, like an invitation, and Elle didn’t hesitate. When the women separated, they were moist-eyed and tipsy with emotion.
‘Come in and celebrate.’
Elle shook her head, laughed, despite a twinge of misgiving. As much as Mira had her best interests at heart, as much as she wanted to share her news, she hesitated. In the kitchen, she could see Jesse coiled around Jude’s leg. Elle could remember that sensation exactly – the grip of her nephew’s twiney legs, the weight of him almost toppling. She’d felt like a tree clambered by a monkey.
She clasped Mira’s arm. ‘Not tonight. I’ll call you.’
‘Call down the coast,’ said Mira.
Back on the footpath, Elle glanced up to the workers on the bridge. Their lights were brighter and they had moved a centimetre. Her cautious excitement ebbed as she thought of those men who’d perished, over four decades ago. Some things, she thought, were transformative: negligence, tragedy, divorce; more rarely, for the lucky – love.
Perhaps, at last, her luck was back.
A week later, on the Wednesday, she found an envelope on her mat. It bore a single word: ‘Ginger’, entwined with flowers. Picking it up, she felt uneasy that he’d been so close. She examined her street, the parked cars and empty footpath. Then, relieved he was gone, with the paper in her fingers, she calculated the risk of letting his words back in. One thing was certain and it shocked her: she was tempted to read what he had to say.
Even now, wisps of hope remained. Her faith was defiant, refusing to admit defeat. Fingering the stiff white paper, she promised herself that while that temptation existed, she would avoid him. Her faith needed to be fed by more than romantic comedies and his unsatisfying words. Romantic comedies were, after all, penned by people like her. But, despite her resolve, she slid the letter into her handbag and carried it with her like a talisman.
One day she would read it, when her resilience was a given.
By early Thursday evening, she had visited three real estate agents. When she stepped out of the third, her house was on the market. With the decision made, her energy multiplied. She scrubbed her home, removing the last film of him with the tobacco stains from her walls, and took stock. She owned too many things. Lamps, fruit bowls, side tables. Paintings. She scheduled a garage sale to sell the mementos from her life. She studied maps of regional Victoria and drew circles around Castlemaine, Point Lonsdale and Macedon. On Friday morning, when she dressed, she stopped: gave thanks. The underbelly of those thanks, though, was ever-present and dangling like a question: David. The honourable thing would be to tell him. But being honourable with him would make her vulnerable. On balance, it wasn’t worth the risk. Not yet.
At twilight she arrived home, relishing the prospect of a nostalgic viewing of Alexander Payne’s Sideways. But as soon as she entered her silent house, she knew. She could feel the remnants of his presence as surely as if he’d painted his moniker on the walls. In her bedroom, pillows had been spun across the bed. A collection of short stories had walked from her side table. A bottle of her new citrus scent, too. Seeing her strewn belongings, she was needled, as though they were splinters of David himself. This homecoming in her absence wasn’t in the script. But then again, the script had changed. No doubt, somehow, he had sensed it.
She flicked on lights, slipped off her shoes. Remembered again her hunger. If she didn’t eat soon she would feel ill, gag. A pot of simple marinara awaited her on the stove; all she needed was the patience for the boiling water. She studied her bedroom for further traces of him and found none in the half-packed boxes. As she scanned the dining room, the locked-
up study, she felt herself frowning. That he could ambush her like this made her uneasy. She hadn’t thought to change her locks.
She heard a noise from the kitchen, like a cup upset.
Fear raised the hairs on her arms and quickened the thud in her ears. She thought to retreat, to hover at Doris’s – until he had gone. But she needed to eat and this was her house. For too long, she realised, she had lived with fear. Accommodated it into her psyche as she had accommodated him. Without ado, she swept down the hall. Her navy woollen dress was like a sheath; it clung to her, accentuating her shape, and she plucked it from her curves. When she reached the kitchen, she squared her shoulders, collected herself. He was bending over her laptop with a glass of red wine in his hand and a tea towel over his shoulder. On the bench, her tzatziki was out and crackers were scattered. On the stove, the lid was off her marinara, a wooden spoon balancing across it. As he straightened, jazz began to play from her laptop, something Cuban.
Her fear and exhilaration tripped into anger. It ignited within her – like a cinder in a drought – and its force shocked her. Even two metres away, he could see it and he edged backwards towards her glass doors and the garden. As his eyes flickered outside, she was struck by his feebleness. The odd, blue-black socks were back, the crumpled suit, the brown and ginger bristles on his cheeks. What once had been intoxicatingly vulnerable was now pathetic. Whatever clinging hopes she had were severed at the sight of him. With a heartbeat of disappointment, they were gone. And she was unafraid.
‘What are you doing?’
To her surprise, her tone was breathless, her anger aerated. But he didn’t respond. Beneath his gaze, she was aware of the dust motes alight around her in the last of the sunlight. She wiped strands of hair from her face, damp from her ride, and straightened her dress.
‘Well, look at you,’ he said.
She felt his stare linger on her swollen cleavage, her subtly protruding belly. She saw that there was no chance that he would miss what she had, so blithely. Somewhere, beneath her hostility, she was flattered. On some level, he had known her. It was a nod to the intimacy they had shared. She was both flattered and besmirched by it.
She stirred her pot of marinara and watched his face in conflict. In his eyes she detected a searing anger-hurt. The tea towel in his hand was damp where his fingers clenched cloth.
She entwined her own hands on the slight shelf of her belly. ‘I want you to leave.’
‘How far gone are you?’ His voice was a rasp.
She hesitated. She was too tired, not ready, but it felt unfair.
‘How far gone?’ His voice rose, with that hint of panic.
‘Another time, David; I’m tired.’
‘I deserve a conversation.’ He spat the words.
‘You don’t have any claim here,’ she said. ‘You forfeited your rights months ago.’
She saw a blatant flare of hatred shoot across his eyes. It riveted her and she understood: no matter what happened between them he wouldn’t take responsibility, look within. He was flush against the glassy surface of his own limitations. She felt her fear returning. The only thing between them now was a stone bench.
‘This’s bullshit.’ His eyes narrowed. She imagined him trying to separate his legal entitlements from the emotional debris entangling him. And from his rising anger.
She crossed her arms to make a fence around her belly; her resolve set like concrete. She would do whatever it took to keep him away – from intervention orders to disappearing interstate.
‘I want your key,’ she said, stepping towards the hall.
After a beat, David fossicked in his left pocket, then his right. Warily, she watched, wondering if he was play-acting. It was hard to tell; he seemed so shocked, so lost to his own reactions – perhaps the contents of his pockets were a mystery too. He stood for a moment, staring, as if undecided, and then he searched his left pocket again. This time he found his mark. He flung the silver key onto the stone bench. It caught the light as it ricocheted. An incongruous moment of beauty.
She was watching its spinning dance when he lunged at her. Her head was first to the floorboards. Pain erupted in her skull and shot tears into her eyes. What was he doing? The question exploded in her head like a blinding firecracker, eclipsing everything. She heard him cursing into her right ear.
‘You selfish cunt.’
She shoved him, using all her might. ‘David, get off me.’
When he eased back from her she thought that he was done, until she saw his face. There was none of the man she had thought she’d loved. None of the laughter or warmth or wit. It was stripped back to its base elements and she saw his naked fury. She saw his intention in it: ugly and determined. And it galvanised her.
She kneed him in the groin, as hard as she could. When his back arched, she pushed backwards like a scrambling crab. But before she could find her feet he charged, slamming her into the kitchen wall. The force jarred her left shoulder and sent pain driving down her neck.
‘David, let me go!’ She searched his eyes, trying to find him. At the same time, she felt that other-worldly flutter in her stomach, like wings spreading. Her thoughts jammed again. She was carrying a child. This could not, must not, happen.
As if reading her, he pinned her arms and, slowly and deliberately, sat on her belly. The pressure caused by the full weight of him was overwhelming and intense and nauseating. And she screamed. She tried to flip him, bucked and thrashed. Tears were spilling down her cheeks, pooling on her neck. She gave him everything she had.
‘Listen to me!’ she screamed. ‘Listen! I call her Rose. I’m twenty-two weeks gone.’ She thought she saw him listening, the cock of his eyebrow. ‘I’ve only known for a fortnight; I was going to tell you and I’m sorry I didn’t. Please, David, get off me. Please. You’re not this person.’
She spoke to him as if he were capable of listening, of reasoning, retrieval. As she spoke, in great, unwieldy sentences, her mind was trying to grasp what he was doing. This man was once her David. How much she had overestimated him. And underestimated him. The depth of it was inconceivable.
‘Please,’ she said into his smouldering stare. ‘David, please. Stop!’
He rose up from her and she felt an instant’s delicious relief – before his hands clamped her throat. It took her a second to understand. She was conscious of his fingers overlapping at the top of her spine, his thumbs meeting over her windpipe: pushing downwards. It was not until she felt their clenching pressure that she grasped what he was doing, his absolute intention, and another wave of disbelief took her down. He was watching her, wanting her acknowledgement of what he could do with his bare hands, his thumbs. She tried and failed to suck in precious air. She dragged her fingers down his hands, taking strips of him beneath her fingernails. She thrashed and bucked again. At the last, screens of silver slid over her eyes and brought with them a desperate sadness.
24
There is a child, aged five or six, kneeling beside Elle’s body. The girl’s narrow, heart-shaped face is furrowed as she tugs urgently at the soiled towel. Up above, in the midst of raging emotions, Elle can hear the pleading, singsong voice. And she can feel the urgency, though she doesn’t understand it. Images are colliding around her but not like before. Not causally, not logically. This time, waves crash over her dining-room chair, semitrailers surround her on a traffic island, and she is flailing in the Maribyrnong, gulping brown muck. Then she hears the distressed child again.
‘Wake up, wake up.’
The reedy voice pulls her downward.
‘It’s not your fault! It’s not your fault. You have to wake up!’
Abruptly, Elle is back. The first thing she notices is the wet. It’s the contents of her bowels and something else. Something thick and sticky. She knows not to move, and standing is out of the question. As she blinks, random flashes from her life linger but she can’t make sense of them. She tries to concentrate on her breathing. But what she hears is whistling, unearthly
and close. Her emotions distil then into worry and shock. She opens her mouth, tries to speak. Her lips move and her tongue responds, but nothing comes. Not even a whisper. She tries again but hears only that dreadful whistle. Gingerly, her fingers reach to her neck and it rises to meet them: hot and tight. The touch fixes her mind on an image: David, straddling her, his full weight on his hands, around her neck.
Unnerved, she banishes the memory, focuses on her bearings. In the dark, she’s horizontal and twisted. In front of her, she can make out a smooth surface. Below, she feels rather than sees hard ceramic tiles. On her tongue she can taste fine soap powder. Her world is almost unrecognisable from this angle – the tiles, her washing machine, even the wall – such everyday sights; she’s seen them a thousand times but not from this perspective.
She lies still, breathing noisily, and listens. Her house, usually so bright and warm, is jet-black and otherwise silent. How long has she been gone? She guesses some time: the tiles beneath her are wet and her flesh is cold.
Her fear takes hold then and she begins to tremble. But as much as she doesn’t want to, she needs to move. Days could pass before someone comes looking for her again. Scared or not, she refuses to die that solitary, clichéd death, observed by a basket of pegs. No. There will be no dying, alone, tonight. She untwists her legs, which feel new and stiff. Then, carefully, she tries to rise. But messages sent from her head to her torso are lost en route. Nothing in her mid-region moves. Not a millimetre. She blinks hot tears. Her body, her mind: she’s always assumed they would not fail her, at least not for decades. Her nose drips. She manages to raise her arm to wipe it with the back of her hand. Relieved that something works, she closes her eyes to better focus. Partially on her side, she wonders if she can inch onto her hip and lever herself up, bypassing her stomach. Bracing herself, she tries. To her relief, she rises into a sideways curl. She stills to catch her breath.
