He went outside to check on the ants. They were dead. The bin stank of rotten food and insect spray. He closed his eyes as if that could erase the putrid mess, started back to the house, and suddenly he was on the ground with a fierce burning to his forehead. Blood was trickling into his left eye, and Horo was nuzzling against him whimpering. He had walked into a tree, a tree that had been in the same position forever. Was he going mad? He swiped the blood with his arm, his head was throbbing. In the past he would have worked off the pain at the piano; he didn’t dare try now. He went inside, past the music room to his bedroom. He pulled the curtains against the day, settled Horo on the bed and stretched out next to him. Music and George had formed him. If he could remember how, if he could piece it all together then perhaps it would return – not George, he meant the music. But in truth he wanted both.
He opens his eyes then closes them again. Anything to sleep a little longer. He counts slowly by sevens back from five hundred; at three hundred and ninety-five he gives up. He is awake, and no amount of wishful thinking will put him back to sleep. He glances at the clock, only two hours have passed. His head is aching, George is gone, his music has deserted him. Of course he can still play old and familiar pieces and no one would be any the wiser. But he knows he is done for: with no spine to learn new work he’s beached high and dry. And without George to save him, he is terrified. What now to do with his life? How to fill the music-free days? If only there were a list of things to do when your usual occupation has abandoned you.
His gaze traverses the familiar room. The photos, the stuffed hawk, the model he made of the Melbourne Cemetery. He lingers on the over-sized picture of Sean on the wall above his desk, wonders if his brother can help, knows in an instant he can’t. And then to the desk itself, with its clutter and the computer untouched for days. The computer with its infinite entertainments … And an idea begins to form. He rouses himself and leaves the bed, his thoughts crystallising as he crosses the room. He clicks on the screen, is tentative as he enters the web; there are lists and plenty of them, even a special term for them – listmania – and covering topics stunningly arcane.
He begins with a list of phobias, he has done this before and knows he won’t be disappointed. It seems that people can develop a fear of anything, and that makes him feel better. Apeirophobia: fear of infinity; defecaloesiphobia: fear of painful bowel movements (who would confess to such a thing?); hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: fear of long words – he laughs aloud, he hasn’t laughed in such a long time; panophobia: fear of everything – if he’s not careful he’ll be heading that way himself; scriptophobia: fear of writing in public. There is no listing for fear of playing the piano, but the word is obvious: pianofortephobia. There’s an ‘add your comments’ option on the webpage. He hesitates a moment then posts his contribution. He checks the list again; there’s only one phobia relating to music: ‘melophobia’ meaning fear of music. He returns to the comments page. Why not? the worst that can happen is his suggestions are ignored. He adds ‘musicophobia’ – fear of music, which he thinks more descriptive than ‘melophobia’; ‘syncopatophobia’ – fear of rhythm; ‘allegrophobia’ – fear of fast music; ‘lentophobia’ – fear of slow music; ‘violophobia’ – fear of stringed instruments; ‘maestrophobia’ – fear of conductors, he’s rather proud of that one and decides to quit on a strong note. He bookmarks the site and then does a search of lists. Top site is a domain called ask. mnemosyne, but it is haphazard in design and far too broad in its reach. The second-ranked site is much more focused, and humorous too. Who would think to compile ‘top 10 controversies surrounding cattle’ or ‘10 people who did not board the Titanic’?
Music is one of the major categories on this site. He selects it and there heading the list is ‘top 10 underrated Disney songs’. Further down the page is ‘10 famous musicians with hearing damage’. Most of the names – Neil Young? Phil Collins? will.i.am? – are unknown to him, but there at number one is Beethoven. There must be other classical musicians with hearing losses (he’s often wondered about his own hearing, bombarded with sound since before he could walk); he makes a note to research this and continues on. The music lists – there are nearly two hundred – are heavily biased towards popular music, and the classical lists that are included are obvious ones like top ten classical pieces, ten interesting stories behind classical compositions, great composers who died young. There are huge gaps – pianists, prodigies, mistakes and collapses; and again he makes a note before moving to other categories. He finds lists of animallike qualities: erinaceous (of or like hedgehogs), phocine (seal-like) and of course the more common feline, canine and bovine; there are lists of battles, others of battleships. The site is packed with lists but several of his own interests are missing. There’s nothing whatsoever about cemeteries.
Using a combination of Google earth and keyword searches he sets about determining how many cemeteries there are in Australia, how many in New Zealand, in Luxembourg, in Norway. And different methods of burial. And the number of people who died on a particular day. And where they died. And how old they were. He compiles several cemetery lists, and two death statistics lists and submits them. And because he can do it without research, he posts a top ten classical piano pieces using only the left hand.
He needs to go to the toilet, he has needed to go for hours but has been too engrossed. On his return he grabs a packet of chips from the kitchen. Back at the desk he applies himself to alphabets of the world, is experimenting with a unique way of grouping them when he receives an email from the host of the site. Great lists. Posting them up now. Keep ’em coming. The host, Listman, suggests that if he plans to be a regular contributor he should select a username and sign up properly.
And so he does. Almost immediately he receives another email from Listman. Welcome to the team. We’ve several Australian contributors – Ausliszt was a giveaway – must be something in the air down there.
It is dawn when finally he leaves the computer. He’s still in his pyjamas, he hasn’t showered for close on two days, the graze on his forehead is aching but he feels better than at any other time since George died. He has sat in one spot for twelve hours, the work has been rewarding and orderly, he is better, more efficient, at compiling lists at the end of the session than at the beginning, and he’ll never run out of material. It isn’t music but it has occupied him and will continue to occupy him until his music returns.
And there’s the crucial change. After a few hours of rewarding work he believes his music has not deserted him permanently. It will return. In the meantime he has a new job, the only job aside from pianist he’s ever had. It, or rather his list persona, Ausliszt, will keep him going until his music returns.
2.
Sean woke early. He rolled on his side, propped himself on an elbow and gazed at Tom.
Tom was lying on his back, quietly asleep; his hair, thick, wavy and reddish, was smoothed back despite the hours in bed. He was greying at the temples and around the ears, but his forehead was still unlined, and the skin of his cheeks was fine and smooth – ‘Like a pubescent boy who’s been spared acne,’ Sean used to joke, expecting that one day the skin would coarsen and the rosy flush would fade. But at fifty, with only the help of a mass-market moisturiser, Tom’s skin was peachy. This, Sean was thinking, was the face of an untroubled man.
It occurred to Sean, gazing at his partner of nearly twenty years that sex, interesting lusty sex, was the first casualty of a gay partnership, almost as if your legitimacy as a couple was incompatible with sexual excitement. But the fact was he still found Tom sexy – he was fortunate that some gym-slicked twenty-year-old hadn’t snapped him up – yet it was at least a month since they’d last had sex, and these days theirs was mostly we’d-better-do-it-otherwise-we-might-turn-into-one-of-those-sexless-couples-we-despise sex. Was it lack of time? Lack of effort? Lack of imagination? Tom was an attractive man by any measure, lying there in a take-me-I’m-yours position, just the sheet covering hi
m, the bulging crotch. Sean feels his own arousal, just like in the old days, and – why not? – lowers himself to the bed and slips beneath the sheets, glides down the side of the long body, isn’t touching, not yet, mustn’t wake him, saliva pools in readiness – and suddenly an excruciating pain explodes in his right hip, rips into the small of his back, and shoots down his right leg. He doesn’t move, can’t move, feels faint. Breathe, he tells himself, breathe into the joint that, according to the doctor, is wearing thin from carrying too much weight. Breathe, he tells himself again, and the pain contracts into a burning ball, the lightning rod begins to subside. A couple more minutes and he crawls up the bed to his pillow. He’s covered in sweat; he’s limp, all of him is limp.
No one would snap him up.
He was a mess. His right hip was giving up the ghost, his left was likely to follow, his liver was tender, his neck was sagging into his chest, his chest was sagging into breasts; soon people would be mistaking him for Tom’s dad.
He had turned into someone he abhorred. And while Tom had not yet given up on him, all it would take was a slender bloke with a nicely honed aesthetic sense, an Adonis with domestic flair who maintained a relationship by being present rather than skipping the country for months at a time, a man who’d left past baggage, like brothers and stepfathers, in the past where it belonged.
The pain in his hip had disappeared but not the memory of it; Sean moved gingerly as he left the bed. Time to make some changes. Firstly, a diet. He would cut down on alcohol, eliminate snacks and junk food, prune meals back to main course only. He had kept up his gym membership, a waste of money given his last work-out had been months ago, but he’d phone the gym and book an appointment with a personal trainer, and he’d do it today. That would take care of the body. Next: the boyfriend. Tom’s favourite meal was breakfast in bed. Sean decided to put his relationship ahead of his diet and set about preparing his signature Perico – scrambled eggs with fried onions, tomatoes and peppers – served on a slab of sourdough toast. He set the tray with cloth napkins and a flower picked from the neighbour’s garden, made a large pot of coffee and took breakfast up to bed.
Tom was propped against his pillows reading the latest Homme. He removed his glasses and put the magazine aside. ‘What a treat.’ His smile morphed into an expression of mock doubt. ‘Are we celebrating something? Have I forgotten an anniversary? A birthday?’ This from the date-keeper in their relationship.
Sean shook his head, set out the breakfast on the bed and slipped in beside Tom.
‘I’m lucky to have you,’ he said.
‘As I am you,’ Tom replied. ‘Although luck has nothing to do with it. It’s your brother we should thank. If Ramsay had held on to you, you certainly wouldn’t have wanted me.’
It was an observation Tom had made many times over the years. But while Ramsay had given him up long ago, Sean knew that the reverse was not true. Since Nina had forced the issue with him, he’d been questioning old behaviours and old hauntings. He had no answers yet, but the very questions were steering him in a new direction.
Some years ago, on one of the rare occasions when Sean was at Zoe and Elliot’s (it was a lunch party for Nina who was in Melbourne at the time), he noticed how Elliot, the non-drinking alcoholic, was keeping everyone’s glasses topped up. ‘Isn’t that hard for you?’ Sean had asked. And Elliot explained that you can be as hamstrung by fear of alcohol as by alcohol itself. The same could be said of any addiction, including a brother you once adored, a brother who had for far too long occupied the driver’s seat in his own life’s wanderings.
Chapter 16. Last of the Hot Days
1.
It was hard to know how to characterise his friendship with Beth. It certainly wasn’t a romance – no furies nor flashing lights, no sex nor the desire for it – yet they slept together every night. And even if she were not grieving for a husband she adored, he still didn’t believe they’d be romantically involved. But neither was it a normal friendship between a man and a woman – far too comfortable and intimate for that.
‘Why’s it so important to define us?’ Beth said. ‘Just accept it. We’re close and we’re uncomplicated.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘Afterwards?’
‘After I return to Zoe.’
Beth smiled. ‘The very fact of your return suggests we’ll have served our purpose.’
‘For me, maybe, but not for you.’
They were sitting in Beth’s garden. A full moon lit the broad planes of her face, her eyes were cast into dark hollows. She was wearing a sarong, her shoulders were bare, the skin was polished and warm; her hair was caught loosely on top of her head and wisps and curls fluttered about her face. She was lush, Elliot was thinking. This woman he didn’t want to have sex with was beautiful and lush and sexy.
She was still smiling, the gap between her front teeth more marked in the sharp shadows. ‘No need to be concerned about me,’ she said. ‘I always knew you were finite. A moment of reprieve.’
‘When the loss was greatest?’
The smile disappeared, she looked sad and resigned. ‘Perhaps. Although it’s hard to know. When Scotty first died I thought I couldn’t feel any worse. And when the visitors to the house thinned out I thought it couldn’t be any worse. And at the four-week mark when one of his bottles of beer fell out of the fridge, and I sat in the mess not giving a toss about broken glass, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. And bundling up his toothbrush and shaving gear and throwing them into the rubbish bin and then an hour later scrabbling to retrieve them and put them back where they belonged, I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse than that. And the morning at Dight Falls when I first met you, I’d passed the entire night sitting on the couch, staring at nothing, thinking nothing, being nothing other than a woman who had lost her husband, I was convinced that things were as bad as they’d ever been. But by then I’d learned that just because I can’t imagine anything worse doesn’t mean the worst isn’t still to come.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘Loss is a cunning beast. I’m sure it has a good deal more in store for me.’
Elliot went round to the back of her chair. He stroked the side of her face, felt her lean into his hand. He stood there thinking of furies – not avenging gods and goddesses, but the passions and energies that drive you, that can throttle you, too, and knock you to the ground. Alcohol, unequal love, loss – so many experiences riven by furies and all too familiar to him. He’d had his breaks, forms of oblivion, like his van life and the old benders, like that week spent alone on Kangaroo Island, but it was the furies that had dominated. Perhaps life had never been an easy fit for him.
Until now, with Beth.
When you were really besotted with someone you were driven to impress them, to add a little gloss here, shave an edge off there; but with Beth there were no contrivances, no fiddling with the fundamentals. He far preferred this relaxed, natural Elliot to the Elliot he had become with his wife.
He returned to his chair and stared into the night. A minute or two passed before he spoke. ‘Did you know from the very beginning that Scott was the man for you?’
She looked at him as if he were mad. ‘Love at first sight? Of course not. Why would anyone trust first impressions on which to base a lifetime’s happiness?’ She shook her head slowly, it was clear she found the notion absurd. ‘I’ll concede you might be struck by someone’s appearance or their wit or the work they do, but it’d be gross stupidity to make too much of these.’ And then she laughed. ‘Not that this prevents me from being a glutton for Hollywood romances: Roman Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, Some Like It Hot, Pillow Talk, Woman of the Year, Desk Set, even Sleepless in Seattle.’
The names of the films flowed with such fluency Elliot guessed how Beth had passed her own sleepless nights – not that he dwelled on this, it was her response to love at first sight that intrigued him. Romance and fantasy, was that all it had been with Zoe? That first glimpse of her in Riverside Park
when he’d been convinced she was the woman for him, was it nothing more than Hollywood puff? It was as if he had bottled that first sight of her, poured it into a clear and shapely crystal vessel and screwed the lid on tight. And there he could gaze on her, he could admire and love her, and every now and then he could reward himself with a sweet heady sniff.
Over the years he’d regarded his initial response as a trusted plumb line in his sinking marriage, but now Beth had thrown this constant into doubt. For she was right: love at first sight is love of a stranger; much of what he had assumed to be true about Zoe in those early days was proven to be skewed or just plain false. Zoe didn’t lie to him, his reading of her had been wrong, yet he’d held on to many of those early impressions.
He did not like these thoughts, was relieved when Beth reached out and touched his arm. ‘There’s one thing I’d like to do before we go our separate ways,’ she said.
‘Tell me.’ He kept his voice steady, as if her statement had been no more innocuous than a shopping list.
She wanted to go down to the coast, she said. And she could take leave from work for the next few days so she could go now. Her gaze wandered off to the middle distance, she was chewing her lower lip. ‘Scotty and I both loved the ocean, and I don’t want to lose it. But I’d prefer not to go by myself. Not the first time.’
Elliot couldn’t imagine making such a request dry-eyed, but Beth seemed quite calm, sitting there across the table waiting for his answer. He had told her about the family beach cottage and now he asked whether she’d like to go down there.
Her head was cocked to the side, there was a question in her expression. ‘It’s fine by me, but what about you?’
The Memory Trap Page 28
