The Other Side of Beautiful

by Kim Lock

  Something shifted. The thought of a future fear competed with the current fear and oddly, the future fear started to win. Feeling more afraid of having to do this again at some unknown point made her more convinced to get it out of the way now.

  At the end of the aisle was a small stack of baskets. Snatching one up, she dropped in the bread and cheese. She added a tin of baked beans and a can of soup. What else?

  Stacked in a pyramid shape on the floor by the counter were boxed casks of spring water. The casks held ten litres each; Mercy had no idea how much she would need. She set a cask of water on the counter along with her basket.

  ‘Going away for the weekend?’ the woman asked, giving her a big smile and not at all beginning to scan any of Mercy’s items.

  Mercy shook her head no, then nodded yes. Neither of those answers felt correct. Please, just start scanning.

  ‘Good on you for not getting bottled water,’ the cashier said, indicating the cask. ‘All that plastic, choking all the turtles. Have you seen those photos of the seagulls with their bellies full of plastic?’ She clucked her tongue. ‘Awful.’

  Mercy had seen the photos. Now she added imagery of dead sea life to her distress.

  ‘Of course,’ the woman went on, considering it, ‘the bladder inside is made of plastic, but it saves a dozen of them bottles, I suppose. In the end it’s hard to avoid all that stuff, isn’t it?’

  Mercy nodded frantically. Please, for the love of—

  ‘That your van out front?’ The woman leaned to one side, looking out the window. ‘Looks cosy. What’s it say? “Home is where …”?’

  ‘Home is wherever you are.’

  The woman pursed her lips, considering it. ‘Well, I suppose that’s true enough, isn’t it?’ Finally she began to scan the items in Mercy’s basket. Mercy exhaled silently in relief. She had almost made it.

  ‘The oranges are good,’ the woman said, sliding the water cask around in search of the barcode. ‘You should get some. Locally grown.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mercy said quickly.

  The woman beamed, pleased, and punched a few keys on the register.

  ‘That all then?’

  Shit. Toothbrush. And soap. Mercy dragged herself up the aisle, grabbed the first ones she could find, and hurried back to the counter.

  ‘Anything else today?’

  ‘No,’ Mercy snapped.

  The woman’s eyebrows jumped in surprise. Mercy swiped her phone to pay and left the store, forgetting entirely to collect her bag of good, locally grown oranges.

  Mercy’s hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t properly grip the steering wheel. Blindly she drove up the street, going only a few blocks before she pulled over, yanked on the park brake and put her hands over her face.

  ‘I can’t do this.’

  Paws pressed into her leg, then Wasabi climbed into her lap. He snuffled at her hands and she began to cry. The dog licked with more enthusiasm, his little body wriggling, butting into the steering wheel. Warm doggy breath puffed into her face, his damp tongue wormed between her fingers.

  ‘Sit down.’ She pushed him away, but he bounced right back, planting a wet slurp right in her eye.

  ‘Hey,’ she cried, and she couldn’t help but laugh. ‘That’s gross.’

  Her phone buzzed. Mercy took it out, blinking through tears.

  You’re going CAMPING for a few days? WTF does that mean? Where are you?

  Mercy stared at the screen. She started typing replies to Eugene—first indignant, then chirpily reassuring, then meekly asking for help. But in the end she sent nothing. Clicking off the screen, she dropped the phone back on the seat. The tears abated; her chest eased. She waited for her breathing to slow, then she wiped her eyes, clunked the van back in gear, and pulled away from the kerb.

  Mercy drove for another hour, following signs to a town named Crystal Brook because it sounded nice: it brought to mind pictures of babbling streams of calming water. There, she managed to fill the Hijet’s tank with petrol. When she raced inside to pay she saw cables hanging from hooks behind the counter and bought a car-charger for her phone, which was down to an anxiety-inducing thirteen per cent battery.

  It was growing late in the afternoon. In a few hours the October sun would sink towards the western horizon, blazing hot orange through the van’s windows, filling it with glare. Mercy rubbed her eyes, already fatigued.

  Besides the terror, the sense of doom and the pounding heart, one of the things she found most trying about panic attacks was how tiring they were. A flood of adrenaline, blood surging with oxygen, all muscles primed—a panicking body was a body responding to a perceived stressor in a purely reptilian, biological way. See a tiger behind a rock? Flee. Don’t think—just get out. A panic attack was her body preparing to run for its life. Digestion halted, all rational cognitive function ceased and she became a helpless passenger in a runaway body.

  For hundreds of thousands of years, Mercy knew, that particular survival instinct had not changed in humans, not even a tiny bit. Despite modern progress—despite the decided lack of predatory animals in grocery stores—fleeing from threat was an adaptive evolutionary response. In other words, it was a good idea. You fled, you lived. So it passed down the gene pool. Tiger or no tiger, the ability to panic was hard-wired into Mercy.

  And now she was utterly, completely exhausted.

  Though she had only been on the road a few hours, Mercy couldn’t drive another minute.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Up ahead was a sign for the Crystal Brook Caravan Park. Mercy followed the arrows off the main street, through a roundabout and onto a side road. Dipping down through a dry creek bed lined with skinny gums (was this the brook? Mercy wondered), the road finished in a small, sweeping patch of grass and enormous old eucalypts. A stop sign decreed that only caravan park patrons were permitted beyond this point, so Mercy parked next to the sign and sat, staring through the windscreen, engine idling beneath her seat for some time. Wasabi looked at her, ears pricked.

  She shut off the engine. Silence descended. Mercy considered the huge old-growth gums. Broad, gnarled trunks the width of three men, limbs soaring overhead; the trees had been there for centuries. Something about that fact was strangely comforting. An unfamiliar calm eased up, sliding over her fear: the thought that these trees, these living beings, pre-dated the stress and the pressure, the arbitrary authority of the current dog-eat-dog world. They represented a time before any of this mattered. They reminded her how short time could actually be.

  Scooping Wasabi into her arms, Mercy slid out of the van. The office was a box cabin set under the trees. Three steps up to the veranda, her knees weak, thongs slapping the boards. The door slid open with a whoosh and she stepped inside, clutching Wasabi to her chest. A tiny space, one wall lined with leaflets: Chinese takeaway, a bakery, the local golf course. When a friendly-looking middle-aged man emerged and took a seat behind the counter, smiling pleasantly up at her, Mercy found herself looking down at him and fought an attack of vertigo.

  ‘G’day,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ Mercy managed.

  ‘Where’ve you come from then?’ He was wearing an orange hi-vis shirt; his face was the dark tan of decades working outdoors.

  She pointed to the Hijet.

  He nodded. ‘Not a bad little bus, those. Bit slow, though—you come far?’

  Mercy wasn’t sure how to answer. She felt as though she had been driving for days. She thought again of the SUV she’d sold; in that, Adelaide was a sleek, comfortable two hours away. In the Daihatsu it was a rattling, teeth-shaking, hair-blowing half-day.

  ‘Just the one night?’

  Mercy swallowed dryly. She looked to Wasabi, as if he might have the answer. How long was this going to go on? She thought of the old-growth eucalypts outside. To them one night was nothing, not even a heartbeat.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘One night.’

  The site Mercy had been allotted was down the far end of the park. Gravel crunc
hed beneath the tyres as she crept forward, rolling past caravans tethered to power poles like little ships; she waved dutifully at other campers, who stared as she passed as though they had never seen another human before. She found her site and pulled in.

  A patch of sunlight fell through the windscreen. Mercy sat in the driver’s seat for a long time, tears coursing silently down her face. Eventually, she took a deep breath, wiped her cheeks and stepped out.

  The air was dry and warm. Birds screeched. The last of the cloud had burnt off and the sky was a smooth pale blue, the afternoon sunlight coming in bright ribbons through the leaves. Maybe, she thought, in another life—one without existential terror—it could be beautiful.

  Popping the back of the van, she clambered inside. Wasabi made a few attempts to jump up behind her, his short legs bouncing, before he sat on his haunches and whined. Mercy climbed out, lifted him inside and climbed back in. The handful of supplies she had purchased at the Spalding Welcome Mart had rolled across the small patch of floor and she gathered up the cans, bread and cheese, and set them on top of the narrow foam mattress. The van wasn’t high enough for her to stand; if she sat on the bed her hair brushed the roof. The cabinet with the gas-ring stove butted into her knees.

  It was almost four pm and the last thing she had eaten was the Iced VoVo she had dutifully nibbled at the old man’s house, and half of that she had shoved in her pocket and afterwards fed to Wasabi. Opening the bread, she laid a slice on her lap then picked up the block of cheese. She ripped it open, held the block in her hand and realised she was out of her depth.

  Wasabi stared intensely at the cheese.

  ‘Got a knife?’ she asked.

  He licked his lips, then sat perfectly still.

  Mercy sighed. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here.’ Leaning forward, she shifted her knees aside to open one of the cabinet doors. Inside was two shelves, and sitting on one of the shelves was an old plastic ice-cream container, its label faded and peeling. When she picked it up the container was heavy and rattled with something metallic. Peeling off the lid, she found two forks, one spoon, a can opener, a small, fairly rusted pair of scissors and two butter knives.

  It wasn’t easy slicing the hard cheese with a blunt, rounded butter knife but she hacked off a few pieces, folded the slice of bread around the cheese and bit into it. Wasabi thumped his tail, shuffling forward on his stubby legs. Breaking off a piece of crust, she handed it down; he took the morsel daintily in his front teeth and then it was gone.

  Though her stomach growled, her mouth rebelled against the food, refusing to produce enough saliva, so she had to chew for a long time. The bread was fresh and soft and the cheese was creamy and salty but each mouthful tasted like dust. Mercy forced the sandwich in anyway, and when she was done she sat and looked glumly out the open back door of the van, not really noticing the trees, the grass, the birds. If her house hadn’t burned down, what would she be doing right now? Sitting on the couch with her laptop on her thighs, web browser open to half-a-dozen groups. Maybe there would be soup simmering on the stove, or chicken portions roasting in the oven, filling the house with their aroma.

  After a while Mercy yawned, a yawn so huge her ears rang and her whole body shuddered. A breeze came up and brought with it the smell of barbecuing meat; it was dinner time, and the other campers were firing up their grills. Someone had turned on a radio and the faint twang of country music filtered through the park. Mercy sat in silence, Wasabi alongside her, curled up and snoring. She remembered a meditation technique she had learned: the intention was to notice the transience of everything—sounds, movements of light, bodily sensations—but also to notice the spaces, the gaps, between those events. So Mercy noticed the sound of someone coughing, and then the silence. The thump of a caravan door closing, and then the silence. The indignant shriek of a cockatoo, and then … nothing.

  This went on for a while, but Mercy remained uncomfortable, twitching with unease and exhaustion. She couldn’t stop wondering what the hell she was doing here. She really should just turn around and go home.

  But she had no home.

  The sandwich wallowed in her belly and she was thirsty again, so she checked the cupboard but there were no cups to be found. After a brief and decidedly unsuccessful attempt to lift the entire ten litres of water over her head and squirt it into her mouth, she set the cask on the cabinet, cupped her hand beneath the tap, and bent to slurp up palmfuls. It was tedious, and took a long time to drink her fill, but it wasn’t as though she had anything else to do.

  After giving Wasabi some bread and cheese and a few handfuls of water, she fished her phone from her pocket and created a new note. Cup, she typed. She thought for a moment, scratching her chin, then added: Dog food. Sharp knife. She racked her brains then added: Whisky. Ignoring the glaring red notifications, she shoved the phone back in her pocket.

  A cool breeze had come up and Mercy shivered. Rubbing the tops of her arms, she yawned again, then ground her knuckles into her gritty eyes.

  She didn’t hear the sound of footsteps until it was too late.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Knock, knock!’

  Mercy froze. Wasabi’s head jerked up.

  A face peered around the side of the van. A late middle-aged man with silver hair, a generous paunch and a khaki shirt with a vast array of pockets and epaulettes.

  ‘Can—can I help you?’ Mercy stuttered, shrinking back on the bed.

  ‘Happy hour!’ the man crowed. ‘At ours. Site number twelve?’ He pointed off to Mercy’s right. ‘Jayco Starcraft and the silver Cruiser.’

  He had just uttered a string of words that meant nothing to Mercy though evidently they should have. He was nodding, eyebrows quirked upwards as though waiting for nothing from her but a confirmation, an agreement.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Is there a problem?’

  He looked surprised, then laughed. ‘Were you planning to have happy hour at yours? Never mind, you can host tomorrow if you like. Unless you’re heading off first thing in the morning? Pete and Jules—the Avan, site ten—hosted last night. Oof!’ He gave another laugh, shaking his head. ‘They can put away the shandies, I tell you! Jan and I couldn’t keep up.’

  ‘I see,’ Mercy said, though she absolutely did not.

  ‘So,’ the man went on, ‘you’ll be swinging by, yes? Site twelve.’ He made to leave, then stopped and turned back. ‘I’m Bert. You don’t have to bring anything, if you …’ He surveyed the inside of the Hijet, as if seeing it for the first time. He took in the tiny cabinet, the narrow bed, the folding chair tucked against the gas bottle. The distinct lack of camping gear or supplies of any kind. ‘You just up for the weekend?’

  Mercy stared at him, blinking. Eventually, when she didn’t answer, Bert rapped smartly on the side of the van.

  ‘Righto,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at ours, then.’ And he left, footsteps crunching away.

  Mercy leaned forward, took hold of the door and heaved it closed with a thud. The van shook. She lay down on the stiff, stale-smelling foam, pulled Wasabi to her chest, tucked her arms inside her T-shirt and closed her eyes.

  Mercy jerked awake to blackness so complete she could have taken a bite out of it. In the short beat of time it took her to remember where she was—the Hijet, the long drive, the caravan park—she launched into a full-scale panic attack.

  Clammy naked skin and a shrill voice: Do something.

  Two police officers, expressions calm and loaded.

  Oh god, oh Christ, oh god oh Christ oh nononoooo she was so, so, so far from home. And there was nothing she could do, no way she could get there, without hours and hours of driving.

  Mercy wheezed in a breath, trying with every cell of her body not to scream. Though her fingers scrabbled at the mattress, she tried to keep her body still. If she moved, she might not be able to stop. She might start to run and then where would she be? But then she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t get enough air, so she launched herself agai
nst the back of the van, flinging the door open. Night air poured in, cold against her burning cheeks.

  There was nothing she could do to numb the panic. She had no sedatives, no alcohol, no bed of her own to curl up in. For a frenzied moment she thought of running to one of the other caravans and begging for something—Valium, brandy; hell, even a strong painkiller—but she knew she would only create a scene. Strangers in pyjamas with startled, concerned faces—no.

  Mercy was going to have to face the tiger.

  She lay down on the mattress. She folded her shaking hands at the base of her ribs, over her diaphragm. Her body screamed and twitched but as she inhaled a long, slow breath, pushing the air into her hands, she said to herself, Yes.

  Then she concentrated on the sensations: heart pounding hard, fat and juicy with blood. A rushing in her chest like heat. Tears streaming down her cheeks, all her limbs quaking. Her mind kept throwing images at her: the dreadful amount of time it would take to get home; the eternal black night; the horrifying unchangeable stuckness of this endless moment. But Mercy tried not to pay attention to those thoughts, tried to let them float past like clouds, tried not to let the images hook her in.

  Be here now.

  Heart pounding. Tingling limbs. Crying with fear.

  Mercy breathed.

  This fear was the unadulterated base emotion when all of its defences, its bodyguards—anger, justification, distraction—had been stripped away. Pure. Pristine. This fear was the boiled-down bones, the sheer cliff face, the very bottom of the well. An indescribable terror at the very fact that you exist at all. A headlong plummeting sensation that consciousness is suddenly, exquisitely, unbearable. Cannot be endured for even another instant. But at that same time, an undeniable knowledge that you do exist. And therefore, to exist is agony.

  Mercy breathed. It hurt. And it took a long time.

  Mercy didn’t have any siblings. After her, her mother said, there couldn’t be any more. When Mercy was younger her mother liked to explain to Mercy that she had taken so much blood to make that there wasn’t enough left for anyone else. One time Mercy had skinned her knee on the concrete path between the house and the washing line, and she had looked down at the blood welling in crimson jewels and felt selfish. All that blood she had taken from a potential brother or sister, someone who might have been able to be all the things she tried to be but couldn’t. Not on her own. Especially after her father left.