The Beginner's Guide to Living

by Lia Hills

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And her parents used to be friends with mine.”

  This isn’t getting closer to anything. He’s waiting for more, but I don’t know what to say, we don’t do these kinds of conversations. Seb’s bangs stick in his eyes as he shakes his head. “You’re having sex with her, aren’t you?”

  I pick the Jeff Buckley CD up again and push the rest of the row back. The sound of plastic on plastic, an urge to smile that I resist.

  “Shit,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “Are you in love, or something?”

  “Yeah, maybe I am.”

  “Well, okay,” he says, scooping his bangs out of his eyes. Then he heads for the counter where the bald guy seems to be miming the opera, the girl with the nose ring having lost the will to live.

  * * *

  That night, I wrap Taryn’s CD in some purple paper I find in the linen closet where Mom kept all the birthday stuff. Apart from the fridge, my sounds are the only ones in the house. Everyone else is asleep. Adam came home early and had dinner with us, spaghetti carbonara, which Dad cooked. Dad’s getting the hang of it, I think he even enjoys it, except when he pulls something out of the cupboard that nobody’s touched since Mom died. This evening, when it happened, he turned the jar of peppercorns around in his hands as if he was jealous of its last contact.

  There’s no moon so I rely on body memory to find my way back to my room, but as I go past Dad’s half-open door, I hear a noise. Edging closer, I recognize his voice. I can’t quite make out what he’s saying—cat, maybe, or cut, but then, I’m sure of it, I hear the word will. Or Will.

  My father rolls over onto his back. He’s talking to Mom. “What would you do?” he whispers into the dark.

  Silence.

  I want to thrust the door wide open, tell him that I’m okay, that he only needs to take care of himself.

  “Fuck!”

  The word cuts through the stillness of the house. Dad rolls over again and I hear him punch into a pillow. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I close my eyes, press into the wall, don’t breathe until the punching stops. One last drawn out “fuuuck,” followed by a long groan.

  I want to go to him, but don’t. Back in my room, I draw my sheet over my face.

  IF WATER HAD MEMORY

  CHEMISTRY. The investigation of matter and the substances of which it is composed. Such as alcohol, which is what we’re meant to be distilling, except Henkel went to get some papers she’d been grading, so nothing’s happening. Standard Tuesday afternoon in Chem. Seb’s lending his earphones to Rick, “the dick,” or “prick,” depending on who you are.

  Henkel comes in. “Class!”

  Rick spins around, wires dangling from his ears, and knocks the burner over. Splintering glass. Water and alcohol everywhere.

  “Shit,” says Henkel, racing over.

  “Yeah, shit,” I say, as she goes past.

  “Stand back, everyone.” She frowns at me as she turns the burner off and points to Rick. “You can clean this up. The rest of you get on with the experiment. Will, can you come up here for a minute?”

  Rick rolls his eyes at me. Definitely “prick.” I go up to Henkel; her lab coat has a green ink stain on the pocket the shape of a squashed pear.

  “Will. You’ve always been a good student…”

  “What?” Arms crossed, I lean against the whiteboard, as she pushes her glasses higher on her nose. They never stay up on their own.

  “Mr. McKinley explained about your mother.”

  “Oh, yeah. So what did he explain?”

  “Well, that she died.”

  “I see. And did he give you any details? For example, that she was hit by a red Honda? Or that they cut her chest open to try and revive her even though she was technically dead?”

  She looks down at the papers covered in red marks, and takes her glasses off. She has nice eyes. “Will. I don’t think this is very helpful.”

  “No? Well, I think you can go and get fucked.” And before she can say anything, I go, down the deserted corridor, past the Year 12 lockers and out into the rain, and I keep going, across the muddy oval and over the fence, till my shoes are squelching and I’m soaked.

  In an empty bus shelter not far from the supermarket, I sit and shiver. Cars, trucks, bikes plummet past, tires flicking up the rain. God, I hope a bus doesn’t come along, I can’t do people right now. Though, if one does, maybe I’ll get on it, see where it takes me. Far away. Anywhere but here.

  * * *

  When I get home, I strip, climb in the bath, slide beneath the surface of the water and hold my breath. Everything is amplified, the squeak of my ass against the porcelain walls, distant hollow sounds as I try to stay under, but it’s too warm, I can’t. Before my lungs start to scream, I drag myself above the surface of the water. And for the hell of it, I fart.

  * * *

  I saw this program on TV tonight, before I went to bed. They were talking about water having memory. Most of your body is made up of water, they said, a constant process of evaporation and reabsorption: from the tap, moisture in the air, recycled sweat. Maybe that’s why old couples start to look like each other—they keep exchanging carbon and H2O. Like us. Adam, Dad, and me.

  I drag my arm out from under the sheet and turn it around in front of my face. Part of me used to be my brother, another used to be Mom. There has been an exchange. Some of my molecules went with her and now they lie unraveling in the earth. That’s if they were ever really mine.

  While I watched that show I thought about what kind of memory water might hold. Maybe somewhere deep down I have memories of being a watermelon or a fish. Then I got to thinking that maybe this is what Buddhists mean about being born over and over again. And every now and then you get a glimpse: you remember what it’s like to be part of the sea.

  I get out of bed, stand in front of the mirror naked, tall, scrawny, in need of a tan. My hair a bit anarchic, a birthmark like a tear on my left hip, my dick hanging there like some forlorn thing. So this is me, Will Ellis, this is my part of the world. I raise my arms above my head, wave them around—shit, I hope Adam doesn’t come in. The more I analyze myself, the more I feel detached. My body has disconnected from the flow of the world.

  I touch the mirror but it’s cold, so I concentrate on my hand instead, run my fingers over the skin with its tiny crevices, the knuckles, my nails where they go from white to pink. The palm with its lines, one of which is supposed to reveal your destiny, but I don’t know which one it is. Not sure I’d want to. These are my hands but it’s as if they belong to somebody else.

  I close my eyes, put my hands over my face, hear my breath going into them, feel the moisture in it. There’s memory held there. If I were to stop breathing now, because that’s all it takes, isn’t it, the stopping of breath? One lifetime extinguished. So fragile. If I were to stop, my body would drop to the floor, and I’d still seem the same for a while, as if asleep. I can imagine it if I concentrate, and visualize my body slumped on the floor, as if every part of me has been waiting all this time to become part of everything else, to remember what it once was.

  13. Do my mother’s memories live in me?

  ARROWS AND MAXIMS

  I’M WRAPPED NAKED AROUND Taryn when we hear someone in the house.

  “Who is it?” I whisper, grabbing for my clothes.

  “Probably Samara. Mom and Dad aren’t due home for ages.” She snatches at my T-shirt, tosses it back on the floor. “Don’t worry, she won’t care.”

  There’s a knock followed by Samara’s gravelly voice. “You there, Taryn?”

  “Yeah, I’m with Will.”

  “I’ll come back later, if you like.”

  “No, it’s all right, you can come in.” I raise my eyebrows at Taryn but all she does is laugh. “She knows we’re having sex, for God’s sake. Don’t be so shy.”

  I make sure I’m covered as Samara comes in and sits on the end of the bed, her eyes roving over my bare chest.

&nb
sp; “Got off work early and thought you might like to go for a swim. I’m going down to the lake.”

  “Samara’s just got a job at a Nepalese restaurant,” says Taryn, sitting up. The duvet falls to her waist. I want to lift it up and cover her but I know it will only make them laugh.

  “It’s only until I can get enough money together to hit the road again. What about going down to the lake?”

  “The water’ll be a bit cold, won’t it?” says Taryn.

  “Maybe,” Samara says, “but it’s so hot and I’m dying for a swim.”

  “What do you reckon, Will?”

  “Sure. Missing a few more hours of study isn’t going to make a difference. Anyway, it’s Friday.”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen making us something to eat,” says Samara, getting up. “By the way, I’ve got a present for you, Will.”

  She leaves the door open, but Taryn pulls me down on top of her, wrestles her legs around me. “Pity we can’t go skinny-dipping. Now that would be fun.”

  She feels so right against me, her mouth, her thighs, the life in her skin. And those eyes. She lets me look into them, doesn’t flinch, until we both crack up.

  “Get dressed, lover boy,” she says, almost pushing me onto the floor.

  * * *

  The breeze off the lake is liberating after the heat. Taryn heads straight for the water as soon as she’s stripped. Samara has a book of quotes by the Dalai Lama for me. “Aphorisms,” she says.

  “Aphorisms?”

  “You know, short statements that say something profound.”

  I think Samara’s decided she’s my guru—she’ll be asking me for ten percent of my income soon, which from lawn mowing isn’t that much. “Oh, yeah, I just didn’t know that’s what they’re called. Wittgenstein used to write them. And Nietzsche. I remember seeing some in one of his books.”

  “Nietzsche. Talk about depressing. I tried reading him, can’t remember which book of his it was. What an elitist prick. If you ask me, Western philosophy is too much in love with logic. No heart.”

  “You reckon?”

  “Absolutely. There’s no mystery, no place for what can only be felt.”

  “So, what about, I would only believe in a God that knows how to dance?”

  “Now, that I like. Who said it?”

  “Nietzsche.”

  “You’re kidding me. Still reckon he was an elitist prick. You coming?”

  “In a minute.”

  Samara pulls off her dress, straight over her head. I guess some things are genetic. She’s wearing a blue bikini and she’s tanned. Her belly button is pierced. The wind’s forming patterns over the lake. Except for a family down at the other end of the beach, we’re the only ones here. The kids are digging a huge hole, three of them working together like a mini construction company. Their mother is stretched out on a towel reading a book. Can’t see what it is from here.

  I pick up the collection of aphorisms, small and square-shaped, drop it open randomly to see what I find: Peace won’t come from the sky.

  I look up at the concentrated blue, almost purple. The clouds are like scrawled statements above the lake. There’s a rim of scraggy eucalyptus trees around its edge. Taryn’s waving to me from the tannin-stained water, her body hidden to the waist. She blows me a kiss. Only Samara’s head is visible, already far out on the lake.

  I close the book, check there’s nothing in the pockets of my shorts, and then I go for it, straight down the beach, my feet shoveling back the sand, smashing through the water, body arched into a dive—that perfect instant before impact—the water cold as I enter it, cold enough to remind me who I am.

  * * *

  That evening, in my notebook, next to a quote from Wittgenstein, I write:

  APHORISMS

  by Will Ellis

  [1]

  To open your eye is to risk getting something in it.

  [2]

  A dead leaf is still a leaf.

  [3]

  A bird cannot fly without ruffling a few feathers.

  [4]

  You’re unlikely to find a person’s heart between their legs.

  [5]

  The dead belong to the living.

  [6]

  Bird shit often contains seeds.

  Memory.

  I’m sitting on Mom’s knee, her arms around my shoulders, my legs reach only halfway to the ground. She’s telling me a story about an old man sowing seeds in his field and I like the way she’s touching my hair. “It’s a story from the Bible,” she says, “it’s called a parable. It’s meant to explain things.” I touch her face, feel the tiny hairs above her lip, see the light coming out of her eyes. As she continues her story about the old man and the seed, I let my cheek fall against her chest.

  * * *

  On my way to breakfast the next morning, I see Adam in the living room by the wall unit, staring at a photo of Mom. His body is bowed into it; he doesn’t see me.

  * * *

  Saturday night, Taryn and I go and see Casablanca—she’s into old films. In the café after the movie, I show her the aphorisms I wrote in my notebook. She likes the one about opening your eyes.

  “I might have a go at writing some,” she says.

  “There’s something I like about them.”

  “Me too, except they’re a bit of a cop-out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s a nice idea that you can explain things in the space of a few words. But you can’t, of course.”

  She takes my pen and begins doodling a star on her paper napkin. I look at the posters on the walls, a mix of old and new films. A few of the titles read like aphorisms or quotes, one I recognize from Macbeth: The Sound and the Fury. I skim the foam off my hot chocolate. “It would be nice though if you could find the answer to every question in a single line. One truth that you could cling to. Or a piece of it, at least.”

  Taryn holds up the napkin. Next to the star and a chocolate stain, she’s written: Run naked through your fears.

  * * *

  Seb’s composing his favorite sandwich—it has everything in it that could conceivably be found between two slices of bread. He’s invited me over to listen to the CD of The Anatomy of Melancholy he bought last Monday, the day I confessed.

  “So what did you do on the weekend?” he asks, swallowing. “I called but your dad said you were out with Taryn.”

  “Yeah, we went to see a movie. And I’m not telling you which one.”

  “Fair enough.” He offers me a bite of his sandwich. I decline. “Mom said you did a runner last time you were here.”

  “Yeah, well, couldn’t stand the sympathy.”

  “She does that sometimes. She’s just worried about you, that’s all. Thinks you should be seeing someone.”

  “I am.” I smile. “I’m seeing Taryn.”

  “You know what I mean.” He goes to the pantry and gets a handful of Coco Pops and crunches them into his sandwich. “There’s a party, Friday night, at Ritchie’s. You going?”

  “Don’t know. Friday night, Taryn and me are…”

  “What? Going to a yoga class?”

  “Watch it!”

  Seb chews his sandwich, his features focused around his mouth. He swallows. “Maybe you should take it slowly.”

  “What? With Taryn?”

  “Yeah. I mean…”

  “Since when were you the expert on women? Jesus, you’ve never even been laid.”

  “Neither had you till about a month ago, so, don’t go pulling that crap on me. Anyway, Mom reckons it’s a bit dangerous getting involved with someone so soon after your mother died.”

  “Well, that’s just crap!”

  Seb’s face wedges into a frown. “She was only trying to help.”

  “Look, I’m fine, all right. So you can tell her not to worry.”

  “You’re fine, are you?” he says, bits falling out of his sandwich. “Then what happened with Henkel the other day? You never did shit like that befo
re.”

  “People change.”

  “Not that fast. I hardly recognize you … you’re…”

  “What?”

  “All over the place.”

  “Why? Because I gave Henkel a hard time, and I’ve got a girlfriend?”

  “No, it’s more than that. You can’t see it, but I do. It’s like…”

  “What, Seb? You jealous, or something?”

  “It’s like you’re angry at me, at the whole universe, because your mom died, and I get that…”

  “Oh, you do, do you?” I shift my weight as he puts his sandwich on the counter. “What do you want me to do? Pretend she never died?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You know you can’t just fix this with some ideas you’ve discussed over dinner with your mom.”

  “Will.” Seb’s hand is up in front of him like a surrender as he moves closer, and for a second I think …

  “Don’t you touch me.”

  “I wasn’t…”

  “God, I am so sick of people…”

  “Trying to help?”

  “Trying to tell me how I should be doing this.”

  There’s a divisive silence. Seb moves toward me again.

  “Don’t, just, don’t,” I say. My heel collides with the table. “Shit!”

  And then for the second time in a month I leave that house at a sprint, and I don’t stop until my chest is pumping so hard my throat starts to ache. I lean forward onto my knees, try to take hold of my breath, even though I sense I’m not done with running yet.

  * * *

  Mom’s photo’s gone from the wall unit. Adam doesn’t come home for dinner. Dad cooks pasta and manages to burn the sauce. My favorite Paradise Lost T-shirt gets mangled in the washing machine.

  * * *

  Will, don’t forget the party at Ritchie’s Friday. I’ll be there. Bring Taryn. Seb

  * * *

  In my notebook I write:

  [7]

  If life could be explained in one sentence, it would contain no words.

  MANTRA