by Joy Dettman
‘This place must be worth a fortune. How can you afford to pay out your ex?’
‘I can’t, can I?’ Sue claimed the notes, curled up and warm, flattened them and placed them in her purse. ‘Have you got any fags on you?’
‘Buy your own.’
A fifty-cent piece hit the cat. He spat and moved an inch. ‘Anyway, what happened to the married bloke you used to see on Mondays?’
‘Easy come, easy go.’ Gone, but not so easy. Not yet.
It was near two in the morning when she left Dandenong, and the freeway was just that, almost deserted. Eerie. The whistle of the wind through a slightly opened window sounded like the wail of the damned. Carla Miller’s body had been found beside this freeway, near the Springvale exit. They’d never found her killer. Sally put her foot down, forcing the near-bald tyres to turn faster.
Little traffic about, but a car with one light was tailing her; or was it a bike? It had been behind her since Stud Road. She slowed, hoping it might pass, but it slowed too.
Strange, the sound of a silent freeway. Her foot grew heavy again on the accelerator, eager now to get home. She took the exit to Toorak Road and the bike followed her off. Her doors were locked but she reached over, just to make certain. She checked the rear-vision mirror.
The bike was closer. He was following her. Then she was at her turn. No blinker on, she spun the wheel fast, and, thank God, the rider continued on his way.
Too tired, that was her trouble. Tired of sitting all day and half the night, tired of driving. She ran down the drive and up the stairs, one hand rubbing her spine. Matt’s last effort against the refrigerator door had left its mark. But it only hurt if she bumped it, and she wasn’t into bumping it.
Tuesday, so slow. Wednesday. Slower. Matt called again. She hung up and left the phone off the hook. Then she washed the bathroom floor and her mop picked up a dark hair. She held it in her hand, loving it, still loving him.
Every day was the same. The alarm that woke her, the drive to work, the phones, the faces. She worked through until 8.30 on Thursday night and went home to her dripping sink tap. She’d have to visit Mummy this weekend. Drive up and back on Sunday, ask Sue along for the ride.
Drip, drip. Drip, drip.
‘Shut up, you bloody dripping thing,’ she yelled at the tap. Like Ross’s dogs, the tap ignored her and dripped on. She sprang from the bed to place the washing-up sponge beneath the drip and it sang a different tune.
Splat-spat. Spat-splatter, splash.
How can I stop wanting what I want, want, want?
Splat. Splatter-splash.
‘Sally Trash. Trash. Trash. Why fight it?’
Splatter-splash-splash-splash. Splish-splash.
She began singing to the splat-splat rhythm of the dripping tap, singing crazy songs of junk-collecting policemen, then the spat-splat rhythm altered and her song changed, and old words returned to her tongue, each line leading into the next.
Hush now, Sally, go to sleep.
Into the land of dreams you creep,
Ride up high to the stars tonight,
Safe with Daddy and his gentle light.
Nicky’s up yonder looking around
In the clouds he’s safe and sound.
Robby and Shane play without a care
For God is watching all up there.
Lost, Sally De Rooze
December 1999
‘Wanted, female, 20–25, to make fourth for cruise. Leave name and number.’
It was pinned in a prominent position on the office noticeboard, a colourful computer print-out with a picture of the cruise ship, done by someone with more advanced computer skills than Sally, who now stood before it, pen in hand. She took down the phone number while strangers, locked with her all day in this phone-riddled space, bunched, punched the already glowing down button.
A lift arrived. Number one. The smokers, male and female, grasped their cigarettes, jostling for a place in the first lift as a second ding’d to a stop. Number three.
Old Ron approached, Pimples at his elbow, a gangly six-foot-six. He wasn’t thin, just uncoordinated, as if all of his parts hadn’t quite been connected, or were too far away from his brain to be under its control. He needed an extra brain in his hip. People would take them for a pair of gays, she thought. They were always together. The old guy in Number 6, the flat beneath her own, had had a young boyfriend for a while. Maybe old gay guys liked their boys young. But was Pimples so young? Maybe not.
Ron’s fly was gaping, again or still, his sweater halfway up his back, greasy grey hair falling over his glasses. Repulsive old coot. Pimples noticed the zip, touched the older man’s arm before disappearing red-faced into the lift.
‘Plenty a room,’ Ron said, tugging at his zip.
She shook her head. No, thank you very much. Wouldn’t like to be trapped in a lift with that pair, and she didn’t want to go down in number three anyway. She never used three these days. She’d met Matt in three at 5.25.
So many men. The world was full of them. She watched toy boy Norm enter the lift with married Red. There was something going on between those two. They kept flashing each other hungry looks.
‘For sale, small refrigerator. $70.’ Handwritten.
‘Computer and colour printer. See Dave.’ Colourful print-out. Nice computer.
She stood there, watching the strangers leave, taking notes, her mind like an unformatted computer disk. Couldn’t follow any file to its logical conclusion. Information fragmented. Abort.
She’d gone to an interview at lunchtime. Receptionist at a medical clinic. Why apply for it? Why go to the interview? She’d had enough of sick people.
Mummy. She’d been a prize misery-guts on Saturday; she didn’t like Sue, and she made it plain. Ross had been just as miserable when he’d called in and found Sue there again. Everyone had been miserable except Sally and Sue. They’d had a good day, the journey not so long with Sue in the passenger seat. Three times now she’d travelled with Sally to Lakeside, and one weekend they’d played tourist, sharing a twin room at the old Royal Hotel. They’d had a swim in the lake, eaten takeaway on a park bench.
Matt hadn’t called now for eleven days; he’d finally got the message. She barely thought of him, when she was away from Collins Street. Here she thought of him; hadn’t sighted him, though. When she walked past the coffee shop she thought of him, but most nights she worked late, and when she didn’t, she got away from Collins Street before five.
Not tonight. Ratsus had bailed everyone up for an impromptu pep talk, then weeded out six workers. None Sally knew.
A cackle from behind, she turned, met the cackler’s eye. Cindy. One of her crowd had got the shove, but it hadn’t killed that cackle. Varicose came limping along behind them, looking preoccupied. All she ever had on her mind were her twins, and getting a seat on the tram out to East Burwood, stopping off at the supermarket to pick up something easy to cook for dinner.
So many no-name people fighting for space in a lift, for space in the world. A green-bunch threesome approached. Varicose stepped back, gave way, always conscious of her size.
‘A long day,’ she said.
‘They’re all long,’ Sally replied.
‘I always thought I’d like to go on a cruise.’ Varicose sighed wistfully, looking where Sally was looking. ‘Are you thinking of going?’
‘Thinking about it.’
Christmas was coming. She’d opened a Christmas Club account with the Bendigo Bank years ago, and she paid twenty dollars into that account each week. There would be enough in it to pay for a cruise.
‘I’ve got a feeling it’s young Pam and her cronies. I overheard them talking about a cruise,’ Varicose said. A nice lady. At what age did a girl become a lady? Varicose wasn’t old. Her face looked about twenty-eight, her body forty and her legs sixty. Did size or age determine whether one was girl or woman, or was it motherhood? Become a mother, and the girl flew out of the bedroom and a woman fell into the kitchen.
Sometimes.
‘Which one is Pam?’ Sally asked.
‘The tall one with the short black bob. She’s on the workstation beside Dave.’
Dave? Pam? Varicose knew their names, but what was the use of naming people in this place when Ratsus’s hobby was weeding her patch.
‘I’m almost thirty. They want a twenty-year-old kid.’
Big brown eyes widened. ‘I thought I would have been years older than you. I’m thirty-one.’
Sally didn’t feel almost as old as this woman with problem legs. She didn’t want to be almost as old. Eighteen. She wanted to be eighteen, and Mrs Bertram still alive, still sprinkling her growing dust.
Number three lift opened its doors again and Varicose stepped in, held the door; Sally couldn’t refuse to go down. Couldn’t say, I never use three, thanks.
The time was 5.25.
They stopped at nine. Three women stepped in. They stopped at six. Two men. At five an anorexic girl stepped on board and Varicose stared at the broomstick legs. Then the lift stopped at four and he was waiting there, looking for Sally as the doors slid open.
He stepped inside but she pushed by him and out to lush carpet and grey-blue seascapes, and he followed her while the crowd in the lift watched the show, watched her run from him.
‘Don’t do this, Sall.’ He caught her hand as she tried the toilet door. Locked. She ran for the stairs, knew where the stairs were, but unlike Phonepross’s fire door, this one refused to open. She turned down strange passages, found a dental surgery, dentist working overtime. Matt caught her, drew her to him and he kissed her against a glass door.
Hewitt and Rodes. Financial Advisers. Opposite the dentist.
It was later, at the flat, that she asked the question. They were eating pizza, drinking wine. ‘You have left her, Matt?’
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said.
‘Have you left her, Matt?’
‘Be patient with me. Give me a month or two to get things worked out at home and we can have it all.’
Home. At home. His home. His wife’s home. In Hallam.
‘I don’t want to be responsible for breaking up your marriage.’
‘You are my only family, Sall.’ He bit into another slice of pizza. ‘What I can offer you at the moment isn’t enough. I know it, but for the moment we will make it enough, because it’s all I have to give.’
For the moment.
He kissed her, and he tasted of hot pizza. For the moment he was with her and she would make it enough. But moments alter from moment to moment. Christmas and its plastic Kmart doll was coming, coming to get her.
‘I’m booked into the motel, Ross.’ Seated on that hospital chair, back in that place, she couldn’t meet Ross’s eye.
‘You want to be on your own for a bit, love?’
She nodded, looked at her mother, who was sleeping – or playing possum.
Ross sat back, his eyes uncomprehending. He looked at the window. Looked at the floor. Looked at the vase of flowers. At the vacant bed in the corner.
‘Old Mrs Matthews died on Thursday. A pity she didn’t make it to the new millennium,’ he said. ‘The funeral is on Monday. Will you be able to stay for it?’
She shook her head. Then she said it. ‘I’ve met a guy in Melbourne, Ross.’
He flinched. He licked his lips and stared at her. She was his first love, his only love. His hand went to his mouth. Covered it. He swallowed hard, then drew his eyes back to the face on the pillow, remembering that mouth of seven months ago, and the words spat from that mouth: ‘She’ll come running back with her tail between her legs. You mark my words.’
Or keep on running. Take off with some other bloke. He swallowed again, rubbed his mouth, his chin. Christ, he wasn’t about to give her up to some city bloke. Probably just someone she worked with. It would blow over in a month, like when she was nineteen and Wally Martin had chased her up hill and down dale. She’d gone out with him. And that guy from the bank. It would blow over.
He stood, knowing that it wasn’t going to blow over, and he turned to the woman in the bed. He blamed her for Sally’s leaving. Blamed her for making them put off the wedding five years ago, blamed her, and her alone, for his babies unborn.
Cold sweat trickling down his spine, he knew he had to get out of this room or he’d kill the crazy bitch, suffocate her with a pillow. Had to get out. Do something. Fix something. Dig a hole. Pull out a motor. He stepped back and looked at Sally’s profile against the window. An old-fashioned cameo, head and shoulders. Precious. But too young when they first got together. That’s why he’d agreed to this year. That, and to let her try to break away from her mother.
Made a clean break, hadn’t she?
His head down, he licked his lips, rubbed a hand across them. Then he turned, walked away.
Christmas Fever
Santa was threatening from every shop window, from every batch of junk mail. Christmas fever had Melburnians in its grip. Like a virus, it infected the city’s collective consciousness, doubly infected this year by the millennium bug. So drive faster, Melbourne, get to the end of this bad old year sooner because there’s a brand-new century coming and a party to wash the 90’s sins away.
Sally was on her way home from Lakeside on Sunday night when a P-plate driver roared by, lane hopping, his passengers laughing. He cut her off. She braked hard, her tyres skidding on the tramlines, but the cars behind her had good tyres and brakes. No crunch. Not quite. Not this time.
The P-plate driver wasn’t so lucky at the intersection of Toorak and Chapel, and Sally was only six cars behind him.
The scream. The thunk. The crash. And two cars melded. The screaming and the steam that looked like smoke and they were going to burn and they were going to die.
Close your eyes, Sally, and you won’t see. Close your mind, Sally, and you won’t know.
Close up.
Shut down.
Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.
Smell the burning. Smell the oil.
Don’t think. Don’t think. Please God, don’t let me think. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five fingers. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. And five more. Count the letters in the sign, and the stripes on the blind. Count. Keep counting. 273 + 189 = 462 + 53 = 515.
Waiting and counting. Motor off. Couldn’t go forward. Couldn’t go back. Waiting, counting numbers until the cops cleared a pathway through, until their hands signalled the drivers forward, giving them leave to aim their weapons again at old Santa.
Santa gave Raelene a talking doll and he gave Sally a plastic thing from Kmart. He didn’t like her as much as he liked Raelene. Sally had written him a very nice letter, and she’d said please, Santa, and thank you, and lots of love, and she’d posted it off to the North Pole.
It will be over soon, all gone again soon. Brand-new century. Brand-new life with Matt.
And Mummy.
What was she going to do with Mummy when Matt got his divorce? He wasn’t the type to take on a live-in mother-in-law. But she’d been better today. Full of energy. Her pale eyes bright, darting things. She’d walked down the corridor, and talked.
Not a good sign. Good was bad. Miserable was great. Something was going to blow. Sally knew it, Dr Sleaze didn’t. He’d seen the bright eyes, heard the laughter, suggested an outing on Christmas Day; Christmas dinner at home with her daughter.
‘Wonderful, Dr Sleiman,’ Mummy had said. ‘It’s so good to feel well again.’
Home with her daughter? Where?
Before she’d left Lakeside, Sally had called in to the new motel, booking a room for a week, booking Christmas dinner for two. It would cost her a small fortune, but she had her Christmas account money.
Then what? Didn’t know what. No answer to that what.
‘Do a Scarlett, think about it tomorrow.’
Blank space tomorrow. Big fat gap. Spend your life waiting for tomorrow and when it gets there it never was anyhow. Just another broken promise.
And
Matt too. Just another broken promise.
‘Selfish mongrel!’ she screamed at a truck that wouldn’t let her over to make a left-hand turn, or at Matt, or at Father Christmas.
She’d see Matt on Monday this week, but they’d have no Wednesday. Santa stole it for Matt’s office party and she wasn’t invited. He never took her out.
I’m the other woman. I know the rules of the game. It’s like he said, if his wife finds out about me, she’ll take him to the cleaners. I have to think of the future. Think Monday. Stretch out Monday and make it a good one.
Monday. Just another lying tomorrow.
Matt arrived at six-thirty, drank her Jim Beam, swallowed her last three Panadols, used her fast, made her feel like a prostitute, then he dressed to leave.
‘Wham, bang, thank you, ma’am,’ she said.
He tried to smile, but his lips couldn’t make the grade. He raised an eyebrow instead. Monday had come and now it was on its way out the door.
‘How much longer do I wait for you, Matt?’ He glanced at her, didn’t understand. ‘The divorce,’ she said. ‘How much longer?’ He shook his head. ‘You’re taking her to your office party, aren’t you?’
‘Don’t start, Sall.’
She watched him turn, pick up his shoes, his face clamped, closed. He refused to argue. She watched his eyes as she rolled to the side, drew the sheet across naked limbs. Stranger Matt tonight. He had the Christmas virus with millennium complications.
‘I feel used,’ she said. ‘Abused.’
‘We used each other.’ His eyes had already left, gone home to the wife for a rest.
‘I don’t use you. I love you, and I want to be with you every day of my life. You say you can’t live without me, but you’re leaving me to go home to her.’ He knotted his tie, made no reply. ‘Let her have the house. Let her have the money. Who cares about money, Matt? I can keep working. We’ll buy our own house.’ He stood looking down at her, unmoved, unmoving. ‘Talk to me, Matt!’
