The Other Side of Beautiful

by Kim Lock

  Mercy shook her head.

  Andy waited.

  ‘I loved her. Most people only get one mother in their life and she was mine.’ In spite of it all, Mercy felt herself smile. ‘Even when she woke up in the morning she smelled like perfume. Physically, she was perfect. Stunning. And it was effortless, too, you know? It’s just who she was, like it was her identity. I’m a doctor and you’re an aircraft mechanic and my mother was beautiful. She loved mandarins, and anything with raisins in it, and at Easter she’d make a huge slab of chocolate cake because she said there’s nothing like too much chocolate. And we lived in a small town; everyone knew who she was. Loretta Blain, wife of beloved local GP Harold Blain. Mother of one dutiful daughter, president of the Parents’ Committee, the Country Women’s Association, and maker of the best lemonade scones this side of the equator.’

  Andy was quiet.

  ‘But it was all on the outside. Inside, she was a mess. Fucked up by a dad who fixed things with his fists, she used to say in her rare honest moments. And she took that out on me. Her need to be beautiful and validated and adored—I had to provide that for her, every day. Sometimes I could, and that’s when she was good to me, and I would move heaven and earth to try and keep it that way. But most of the time I couldn’t, or worse, sometimes I did something or achieved something that might take the focus away from her …’

  For a long time Mercy was quiet. The sky went dark. The marbles slid into the night. Andy’s hands were warm on hers; she could feel his breath.

  ‘When I got into a medical degree at Flinders, do you know what she said?’

  She felt him look at her.

  ‘She said, “Yes, everyone knows their standards are slipping.”’

  A long silence passed. The grass whispered. A cricket chirped.

  Mercy said, ‘In the end I wasn’t in contact with her at all. It took me a few tries, but I’d finally done it. I hadn’t spoken to her for seven months before she died.’

  Andy didn’t say anything. The air was motionless and warm. More mosquitoes came out and Mercy felt stings on her ankles, elbows, the backs of her knees.

  Eventually, Andy said, ‘Shall we have some tea, then?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Dinner was steak sandwiches big as pallets and slabs of chips that they ate outside in the beer garden, sitting at a table made from old railway sleepers. Planter boxes around the tables had little white flowers that spilled out towards the ground, glowing in the evening light and looking to Mercy like fallen stars. From a jug they poured cold beer with heads so creamy Mercy could almost chew them, and the more creamy beer she drank, the brighter the flowers glowed. For the first time since leaving Adelaide, nightfall didn’t come with a drop in temperature; the evening air that circled Mercy’s bare arms and legs was warm as bathwater.

  Andy was nursing his beer and considering her, empty plates between them. At length he said, ‘Tennis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or hockey, maybe. Horse-riding lessons?’

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘There had to be something in your childhood that you did, that was yours and that wasn’t … you know.’

  ‘My parents’?’

  ‘Right.’

  Mercy thought about it. It had been too easy to forget that before everything, in spite of everything, she was perhaps still a person. What were the niceties, the pleasantries, the normal and simple things that spaced out all the darker chunks?

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘When I was thirteen I went to the roller-skating rink every Thursday night. Does that count?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Andy said. ‘That counts. So you roller skated. You zoomed around the rink, maybe to Kylie Minogue or Hanson and a disco ball. And did you get to be yourself then?’

  Mercy gave a small laugh. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ As if joining in their conversation, from a table nearby came a burst of laughter. Country music twanged from speakers hanging from the rafters. Mercy tipped the last of the jug into her glass; it wasn’t quite half full. ‘You know, I don’t miss being stuck inside my house.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ Andy said.

  ‘But I think you might be onto something. I do miss dancing.’

  ‘Dancing?’

  ‘Yeah. When it started I couldn’t exercise, and I got to the point where I was going stir-crazy. One day I just started dancing, right there in my living room. And then it was something I did every day. After dinner or whatever, I’d put on some music, put in my earphones and dance. Or in the afternoon. Or in the morning. Or sometimes in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. It made me feel like I wasn’t completely dead.’

  ‘What kind of dancing?’

  ‘The probably very bad kind.’ She emptied her glass in a few mouthfuls.

  ‘I’ve never heard of this probably-very-bad kind of dance. Is it modern? Classical? Do you need wee steel tips on the toes of your shoes for it?’

  Mercy stacked their empty plates and beer jug, and stood to take them to the bar. ‘Definitely no steel toes. Nothing that draws attention.’

  When she returned from the bar with another full jug, Andy wanted to know if she’d ever done any dance as a kid. Ballet maybe?

  Mercy poured. ‘Nope.’

  ‘So I’m wondering where the—’ he grooved in his seat, wiggling his shoulders, clicking his fingers ‘—comes from.’

  ‘You’re overestimating the dancing. There’s nothing deeper about it.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  What followed was inevitable. The steak sandwiches, the beer, the warm outback night: it was just that kind of evening. It couldn’t have gone any differently. Glass in hand, Andy sprang up and went to the jukebox in the corner. A country song halted mid-warble and someone from the table nearby called out, ‘Hey—’ but then the first strains of ‘Copperhead Road’ came on and everyone cheered.

  ‘Let’s do this,’ Andy said, holding out his hand.

  Mercy got up. And she danced.

  If Mercy had to guess what songs would be played in the beer garden of an outback pub she would have picked the exact same songs that played that night at The Devil’s Marbles Hotel: ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’. ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. ‘Run To Paradise’. But when ‘Mr Brightside’ came on, Mercy just about lost her own marbles.

  ‘Oh my god!’ she exclaimed to Andy, beer slopping over her fingers. ‘In my last year of med school I was obsessed with this song. I swear to god this got me through all-nighters poring over pharmacology text books.’ And then Mercy had an epiphany and she realised that’s exactly who Andy looked like, the lead singer from The Killers. And not only that, but that Mercy’s hair looked exactly as big as the woman from the ‘Mr Brightside’ video clip’s hair did. ‘Only she was blonde,’ Mercy finished.

  ‘Your hair’s not that big,’ Andy said, doubtfully. His eyes roamed up over the top of her head. ‘I don’t think.’

  ‘It is,’ Mercy said vehemently. Then she had another epiphany. She was positively popping with light bulbs. ‘I’m too recognisable like this,’ she said. ‘I can’t hide from Ann fucking Barker when my head looks like an alien space craft.’

  Andy threw his head back and laughed so hard he had to momentarily stop dancing.

  Mercy had a plan.

  ‘I have a plan!’ she announced. ‘Hold my beer.’

  The barman’s name was Steve—returning four times for a jug of beer will get a person fairly familiar with a barman—and while Mercy, Andy and the locals were cutting a rug in the star-flowered beer garden, Steve was looking on, smiling like a fond parent while he sliced up lemons.

  ‘Okay, here’s what’s gonna happen,’ Mercy explained to Andy, pressed right up against him to speak in his ear, because someone had turned the music up yet again and the Screaming Jets really were. ‘You’re going to distract Steve, and I’m going to get it. Got it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Andy said emphatically, although Mercy knew he had absolutely no idea what she was talking abo
ut. But right at that moment, as sweat sheened Mercy’s forehead and skin peeled from her thighs and they were running to paradise, she knew that Andy would agree to hide a dead body with her if that’s what she wanted to do.

  ‘Go now,’ Mercy said.

  ‘Okay,’ Andy said.

  Andy sauntered over to the bar. ‘Hiya, Steve,’ Mercy heard him say as she danced casually past. ‘Listen, I think there’s been an unfortunate situation over there by the flowers. Looks like someone couldn’t keep their tea down, which is a right shame really, because those piece and chips were pure dead brilliant. Have ye got a mop?’

  Steve sighed and plunked the knife onto the chopping board. ‘If that’s Larry who’s chundered again, I’m not letting him back in for a week …’ And Steve was gone, leaving the bar unattended.

  Mercy sidled up. Leaning forward, she stretched but couldn’t quite reach. She wriggled, heaving her belly up onto the bar, and leaned again. Her toes left the ground; her lungs squashed but her fingertips caught the knife and she grabbed it and kicked her legs back towards the ground but for a brief moment she was suspended, see-sawing over the bar on her guts, and she laughed until Andy grabbed her legs and tilted her back down.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mercy said. ‘Close one.’ Pushing the knife into her back pocket, she hurried out of the beer garden and back to her room.

  The knife was sticky with lemon juice. The light above the bathroom mirror was bright, and Mercy had to squint until her eyes adjusted. Wasabi sat at her ankles and looked up at her.

  The paring knife was small but ruthlessly sharp: the blade had sunk through the back pocket of her op-shop shorts right to the hilt, and now when she put her hand in her pocket she could stick her index finger through the seam and waggle it in the fresh air.

  She tried to comb up a neat section of hair, like hairdressers did, but her fingers were tacky with beer and lemon juice. Her grazed palm stung like buggery. In the end her fist was easier. Beginning at the top, Mercy took up a chunk of hair and lifted the knife.

  Clumps of matted hair fell into the sink. Mercy chopped and chopped and it worked: the face staring back at her became completely unrecognisable.

  ‘Hello, Eugene.’

  ‘Mercy?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me, Mercy Blain. You might not recognise me because I’m incognito.’

  She heard the shuffle and scrape of a man waking from sleep. ‘It’s two am. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Mercy smiled. A slow, genuine smile that stretched her cheeks. ‘You know? I really am fine.’

  ‘What’s going on? Where are you?’

  Mercy was sitting cross-legged on the bed in her room. A shaft of light from a lamp outside came in through the window. Wasabi was curled on a towel on the floor; she was not an inconsiderate smuggler, she would not let the dog on the bed. She had thoughtfully cleaned all the hair out of the sink—once again some of it didn’t even appear to be hers. In the corner, the lid of the bin bulged up and coils of hair snaked out.

  ‘I wanted to say that I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’ Eugene sounded clearer now; she heard the click of a bedroom door closing. ‘Where are you?’ he repeated.

  ‘Karlu Karlu.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Devil’s Marbles.’

  ‘Really? That’s … wow.’

  ‘It is wow. But anyway, I am very sorry.’

  He sighed. ‘You’re drunk, aren’t you?’

  Mercy considered it. ‘Look, I might be,’ she admitted.

  ‘I’m on an early shift in the morning; can this wait?’

  ‘Probably, but I’ll be quick. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’ve said that already. What you’ve not said is why. Have you done something …?’

  ‘You know what, Eugene? I actually haven’t. That’s partly what I’m sorry for. I’m sorry that, for the past two years, I have done absolutely nothing. I have stuck my head in the sand like an emu, and refused to face what was going on.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s emus that stick their heads in—’

  ‘I’ve done nothing for two whole years, Eugene. I shut myself in the house and hoped it could all just go away. I mean, isn’t that the cardinal sin of anxiety treatment—to give in to it?’ Her voice had pitched up, and she was waving her free hand. ‘The clinically effective treatment for panic and generalised anxiety disorder is medication and cognitive behaviour therapy,’ she recited, ‘not online shopping, denial and Facebook forums.’

  ‘Merce—’

  ‘Eugene,’ she said, stern now. ‘I’m terrified it’s my fault.’

  She heard the soft squeak of his office chair.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Mercy,’ he said quietly.

  ‘But what if—’

  ‘You can’t keep blaming yourself. You did everything you could. Everyone did.’

  ‘No.’ Mercy shook her head. ‘I should have done more.’

  ‘There was nothing else to do.’

  ‘I could have sectioned her earlier.’

  ‘Stop,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘You can’t go back in time. What happened, happened the way it did. Tamara didn’t want a C-section earlier, and you can’t give women surgery against their will.’

  ‘She didn’t want the induction either, but I still gave it to her.’

  ‘She was overdue, Merce. It’s hospital policy.’

  ‘Bollocks to policy. When did we stop seeing women as people?’

  They were quiet for a time.

  ‘It’s always been my fault,’ Mercy said softly, running her fingernail back and forth across the bedspread. ‘My whole life I’ve been blamed and scapegoated. It was my fault that Mum couldn’t have any more kids after I was born. Did you know that even when my dad left, Mum blamed me? I was only a kid.’

  ‘Your mother was a narcissist. The coroner won’t—’

  Mercy wasn’t listening. ‘I tried my best and she died, that woman died—’ Her throat jammed with a sob.

  ‘Mercy? Please listen to me. You’re drunk. I want you to have a glass of water and go to sleep. I know it feels very real and very scary right now, but this isn’t real, and it will pass, okay? Just know that these feelings will pass.’

  His voice was calm and contained, the authoritative doctor soothing an irrational, panicking patient. But rather than surge with irritation, Mercy watched with mild surprise as her body simply accepted it. Heard his words and shrugged. Something deep inside her, some sober part, was already there—the place he was trying to show her. Already centred and calm, and didn’t need his coaxing. Peace was already a seed lodged within her.

  Suddenly, Mercy felt very tired.

  ‘Okay, Eugene,’ she said, patting the bedspread as if it was the top of his head. ‘I’ll go to sleep. But I do want to apologise. My house burned down and you were a very kind ex-husband, taking me in to bunk alongside your barista boyfriend, and I repaid you by throwing perfume against the wall and buying a Daihatsu Hijet and running away up the track—that’s what they call the Stuart Highway here in the Territory, “the track”—and I hung up on you and made you talk to Legal. I shouldn’t have treated you that way and I’m sorry.’

  ‘Okay, Mercy,’ Eugene said patiently. ‘I accept your apology. Now get some sleep.’

  ‘One more thing?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tell Jose I’m sorry about his jeans.’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘His skinny jeans. I left them in a truck stop bin an hour north of Ti Tree. They smelled like arse.’

  There was a long pause, and then Eugene said, ‘Goodnight, Mercy.’

  Mercy pressed the phone to her cheek. ‘Nighty night, Eugene.’ Dropping the phone to the bed, she stood and crossed the room, then pressed her palm against the door and whispered, ‘Goodnight, Andy.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Road travel, Mercy had learned, came with certain unwritten rules and conventions, social niceties that formed on the road to ensure everyone’s co
mfort, safety and forward momentum. For instance, that roadtrain that had first overtaken her, south of Coober Pedy? The left-right indicator blinks the trucker had flashed weren’t a caged threat, as she had initially feared—it was a thank you, because Mercy had slowed her own speed and gotten the hell out of the truck’s way. Some drivers didn’t do this. Some drivers, Mercy had seen, actually sped up or cruised closer to the centre line when they were being overtaken, in some kind of egotistical testosteroney knee-jerk, a need to win, so Mercy figured that thank you was probably closer to code for a relieved cheers for not being an inconsiderate prick.

  And so as Mercy tumbled out of bed the next morning, dull-headed and with her mouth tasting like cardboard, and found the note slid under the door, she realised another road-travel convention was not to assume that any folk you met along the way by coincidence of timing and location—even if you’d shared your life story over sunset the night before—would make the assumption that you wanted to drive along together from now on, continuing to hold hands. Road-trip etiquette dictated that travellers value their solitude and autonomy and will, pretty much, catch you later.

  That’s what Andy’s note read: Hey Mercy, great hanging out last night. Didn’t want to wake you—hope you enjoyed your sleep in the luxury of a bed and your head’s not too sore this morning. Catch you later up the track. Andy. x

  It was nine thirty am. In a soft bed, with curtains over the windows and the white-noise hum of the air conditioner, Mercy had slept like a corpse. She tucked Andy’s note into her pocket and, in spite of her hangover, smiled. Then she remembered her conversation with Eugene and waited to cringe, but didn’t. Instead, she felt even lighter.

  This sense of lightness was made manifest when she went to scratch the back of her neck, found it bare, and remembered the sound of the paring knife sawing through her tangled locks. She ran her fingers through the shorn curls: ragged and uneven, and very short. This morning, Mercy had awoken with a lot less baggage—both on the inside and out.

  The room belonged to Mercy for only thirty more minutes. It was time for one last shower and to remove any and all traces of her hair or her contraband sausage dog before she was back on the road.