by J M Donellan
“I did! Thank you!”
Maria begins to clear the plates and asks, “You like, senorita?”
“¡Si claro! Gracias, Maria. ¡Muy rico! Me gusta mucho.”
Maria’s eyes widen with excitement as Evelyn’s narrow into a tunnel of accusation. “You speak Spanish?” they ask simultaneously.
“Oh…only…you know, un poco. I learnt some at high school, but I can’t do much besides order food and tell someone that I think they have a very beautiful donkey…”
Maria laughs and touches Freya gently on the shoulder. Evelyn and Harland are eying her as if she’ll produce a basement-assembled explosive.
“So, Freya! We haven’t given you the tour yet, have we?” yelps Rosaline, breaking the silence.
“Quite so.” Harland rises from the table. “You’ve been admirably abstaining from questions as per our instructions, but it’s only fair that you know where it is you are working and what it is you are doing here, isn’t it?”
Freya nods. She feels suspended in a gorgeous bubble of opulence and luxury, but she is nagged by the voice at the back of her mind insisting that she is about to be press-ganged into becoming some sort of drug mule or high-class prostitute. She doesn’t want her little bubble to burst, but she can’t very well stay seated at the table with half a glass of a 1985 Merlot in front of her, can she?
She drains her glass, savours the exquisite oak-with-a-hint-of-fruit flavour enveloping her tongue and follows her hosts across the vast marble floor and up the lavish sweeping staircase. They pass room after room: billiard room, bathroom, exercise room and an entire room filled with crockery. What kind of family has an entire room devoted to crockery? she asks herself. The house is the size of a boutique five-star hotel, and twice as ostentatious. She needs to suppress her inquisitive nature, but she cannot shake the fear that a meth lab resides somewhere within these walls.
“Your room will be here, just a few doors down from Elijah’s. You will handle the majority of his care, but Rosaline, Harland, Maria, and myself will help with many of the basic tasks. Jack may also emerge from his cave to assist from time to time. I’ll give you a roster, but understand that we are paying you a premium rate and will expect premium service. You may be called upon at odd hours to perform tasks that are outside of your usual job description.”
Evelyn fixes her with a penetrating glare. Freya holds her gaze and starts planning how she’s going to spend her first pay cheque in order to distract from her mounting apprehension.
“Besides our bedrooms, most of the rooms in this house are yours to enter as you please, provided you stay within the boundaries outlined earlier, of course. We’ll give you a magnetic key, programmed to open only the rooms you are permitted to enter. Everything else will be inaccessible, to avoid confusion,” Evelyn says in a tour-guide voice.
“Of course.” Freya bites her normally razor-sharp tongue, which has been aching to deliver a hundred shades of sardonic scorn all evening. No comment, no matter how hilarious she may find it, is worth throwing away two thousand a week and all the lobster she can eat. She makes a mental note to record the evening’s events and reenact them in full for Callum at the earliest opportunity.
“Our work keeps both myself and Evelyn busy at unusual hours, so we won’t be around often, but Maria, Rosaline, or Jack, if you can find him, will be able to assist you should you need anything,” Harland states as he stops outside an ornately carved door. He removes his magnetic key and swipes it against the lock. It opens with a quiet bleeping and the lights inside automatically flicker to life as he enters.
The windows, in an extravagant European style, stretch nearly to the vaulted ceiling, which hosts one of the most striking chandeliers Freya has ever seen. The room contains a magnificent collection of antiques, a library that appears both expensive and expansive, and a small kitchenette with a collection of appliances that hum and blink and pulse with more streamlined gadgetry than the average fighter jet. The rear wall appears to be some sort of shrine, covered in a vast and incomprehensible collage of photos, certificates, trophies, ribbons, and medallions. Through an open door in the far right wall she can glimpse an en-suite with a spa bath and marble-topped vanity.
As impressive as all of this is—and Freya estimates the value of the room’s contents to exceed her projected lifetime income as a ward nurse—none of these adornments is the room’s most striking feature. In the middle of the room, a sprawling web of cables snakes and crawls into one central point. They connect the monitors and machines and gadgets and gizmos to an immobile young man lit by the soft green aura of the mechanical devices encircling him. The forest of machines produces a quiet choir of beeps. Freya feels as though she has entered the church of some esoteric pagan deity. She opens her mouth to say something, then thinks better of it.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“This is our son, Elijah. We’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Harland says before the three of them exit the room and click the door shut on Freya and the young man.
The beeping of the machines translates in her vision as a stream of tiny, slender, white ribbons. She does not approach him straightaway but takes her time to inspect the library—early and first editions of Keats, Poe, Austen, Eliot, Pushkin—the wall of awards and accolades—under sixteens state swimming championships, Substantial Contribution to Amnesty International, certificate of outstanding merit and achievement from Médecins Sans Frontières—and the various twenty-second-century appliances—toaster with weather display, oven with holographic timer, espresso machine with voice activation.
It is only after she has carefully assimilated all this that she ambles over to Elijah. Freya glances over the monitors; she’s seen similar equipment before, of course, but not of this calibre, not even at the best private facilities. These are either fresh off the factory line or custom made. Either way, expensive beyond the telling. He is in sleek satin pyjamas embroidered with the initials ”E.V.” across the top left corner of his chest. His skin is a surprisingly healthy hue, and his cheeks are freshly shaven, but it is clear from the apparatus connected to him that he has been comatose for some time. He’s handsome, strikingly so. He has the strong, well-proportioned face that would look right at home on a Greek statue. Freya notes the extensive scarring on his right arm, and draws her finger lightly across the scar tissue.
The obvious questions detonate like a cluster bomb in her brain—What happened to him? How long has he been like this? Who was he? What am I doing here? Will he ever wake up?—but for the moment she suppresses them, to let them exist as hungry ghosts at the outskirts of her psyche. She reaches out and places her hand against his cheek. She feels strangely comforted by the warmth that greets her palm.
“Hi, Elijah,” she whispers. “I guess you and me are going to be friends.”
The door opens, startling her, and she snaps her hand away as guiltily as a child caught stealing biscuits.
“Wait outside,” Harland commands crisply as he and Evelyn enter. She obeys and the door slams behind her. Her fingers dance over one another in an awkward series of arrivals and departures. A moment later the door opens.
“He approves,” Evelyn states simply. She does not appear to be referring to her husband. “Have Maria give you the paperwork with the detailed instructions of your duties, and your keycard. You may move in and begin work on Wednesday. We look forward to seeing you then.”
The door closes sharply, leaving Freya staring at the flowing vines carved into the oak. She turns away and studies each of the stairs as she descends them. In the living room, Maria is waiting with a folder with Freya’s name scrawled on it. She places it in Freya’s hands with a conspiratorial wink.
“Welcome to the family, chica.”
“Maria…”
“You gonna have plenty of questions for me, better you wait a little bit, get yourself settled
in, okay?”
“Okay. Gracias. Hasta luego, Maria.”
“Hasta pronto, chica.”
Freya sits silently in her car, staring at the manila folder. It seems appallingly mundane in comparison with the evening’s events. Finally, she places it on the seat beside her and switches on the ignition. The radio is playing her favourite Bowie song, but it fills her eyes with a heavy swarm of gold and orange rivers, so she flicks it off and drives home in silence.
4
Pineapple Cutter
***
Freya had told her mother that fourteen was far too old for novelty birthday cakes. But the poor thing couldn’t let go of her bible, the Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book. And Freya couldn’t bear to take away her mum’s special joy as she stirred, baked, iced, assembled, and presented her annual vibrantly coloured confectionary monstrosity. This year, she had chosen the caterpillar.
Butterflies infested Freya’s stomach as her mother and father carried it around the corner, awaiting the inevitable disapproval of Stacey “my family has six cars” Morrison and the unbearable eye-rolling of the one and only love of her life, Daniel Harcourt. Although thirteen days later she would stumble in on Daniel fingering Stacey in the staff toilets at the local Donut King and never speak to him again. To her surprise, her friends squealed with excitement when they saw the vast sugary mass offered before them.
“Cool, Mrs M!”
“Yum, this looks amazing!”
“Wow! Your mum is the BEST!”
She watched as her mum lit up with pride like an incendiary grenade. “My pleasure, kids…” Freya shot her mother a warning glare at the use of the forbidden k-word, “I mean…everybody.”
They sang the inevitable happy birthday song, which she had recently learnt was controlled by a corporation that charged ten thousand dollars per use in films and TV shows. She grinned, basking in the attention, but at the back of her mind she couldn’t silence the thought that if her life was a movie then this moment would cost more than her dad had earned so far that year.
“Make a wish!” her mum beamed.
Freya closed her eyes and wished with the sum total of her mental fortitude for Daniel to love her forever—though, had she been able to see thirteen days into the future, she may have chosen more wisely. She blew out the candles in one great heave, then cut the first piece of cake.
“Oh, we need the cake server. Hang on!” Freya ran into the kitchen and started pulling drawers open. Someone turned up the stereo in the living room and as the music swarmed across the house, the rush of colour filled her vision: a kaleidoscope of silvers, greens and golds. The little Kandinsky effect was stronger than ever before. Freya felt as though she had dived into a pool filled with food colouring and slammed her head on the concrete edge on the way in.
Melanie and Stacey were arguing over who had popularised the phrase “talk to the hand” at their school when she reappeared, her wrists covered in crimson. She was staggering, as though transfixed by the blood cascading from her arm. She watched as the wet, warm, droplets of blood splashed onto her naked feet.
“Oh my God! Honey, are you okay?” her father called as he ran towards her. Behind the cloud of colours her mother’s pallor stood out. Despite the warm crimson trail down her wrist, despite the fact that Stacey “I have a flat screen plasma in my room” Morrison would be gossiping about this in the locker rooms on Monday morning, all she really felt was guilt for taking away that particular once-a-year joy.
“It’s okay, Mum, please don’t be upset.”
“Freya, baby…what happened?”
***
“How much longer?” demands Freya, drumming her hands on the dashboard.
“Five minutes less than when you asked me five minutes ago.”
“God, Cal, you sound like my dad.”
“You know I can’t make them hurry and, for the money they’re paying, I don’t even particularly feel like trying. Why don’t you start telling me about your latest catastrophe so we—”
“No! I told you, I don’t want to open the emotional floodgates and get all weepy and confused and then get interrupted by a phone—”
Madonna’s “Vogue” blasting from Callum’s phone cuts Freya short.
“Sorry Frey, just a sec.” Callum whips the phone to his ear. “Yes? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Great, we’re right around the corner, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He hangs up and turns to Freya. “We have to switch cars; it won’t take long.”
“Switch cars? Who are you working for tonight? The Mafia?” she asks.
“Not unless they start paying me like these guys do.”
They drive to a nearby parking lot that has the delicate ambience of a crack den. Leaning casually up against a sleek black Lexus is a tall, slender man dressed in a severe black suit and tie. Freya and Callum climb out of the car and the suit throws his keys at them. In return, Callum tosses him the keys to his Mazda.
“Drive it to the restaurant and straight back here, okay? I don’t want a single scratch on it. You’ve got two hours. Here’s your info.”
Phil passes Callum a manila envelope. People really should start using more impressive stationery for such occasions, thinks Freya.
“Please, Phil, I’m a professional,” says Callum, rolling his eyes. They climb into the Lexus and sink into the plush leather seats as Callum opens the envelope. “Sooooo, according to this we’ll be going to ARIA this evening.”
“Ritzy!”
“Yes. But remember, this is an assignment. You have to play your part. Here, you can read the script out loud while I drive. We have to make an entrance; people need to notice us as we come in. We’ll laugh together, like we’re both incredibly funny and slightly drunk. Drunk enough to be having a good time, not drunk enough to start yelling about that time in twelfth grade when Kerry Atwell double-dared you to streak through the staffroom wearing a Richard Nixon mask and you gave Mr Jamieson a heart attack.”
“It was an Abraham Lincoln mask and I gave Mr Jamieson a stroke, thank you very much. And besides, it’s not like he didn’t recover. More or less.”
“Right. That’s a terrible story, by the way. Why do you always insist on telling it on first dates?”
“Why do you always insist on wearing enough cologne to immobilise all wildlife within a ten-kilometre radius?”
Callum laughs. “See? This is why you’re my favourite wingman.” He kicks the car into gear and pulls it quickly out of the parking lot.
While rehearsing the script, Freya’s mind fills with the image of Elijah engulfed by his machine forest. She can hear the gentle, soothing beeps of the monitors and machines, lilting, like a robotic lullaby. There is something alluring about him. Something mesmerising. She can picture each facet of his face with perfect clarity. Her palm still buzzes with the warmth of his cheek.
She is shaken from her daydream by their arrival at the restaurant. Callum roars the engine loudly as he does a loop around the block before pulling into the parking lot. Freya has walked past the grand entrance many times but never made it inside; the menu prices have ensured her absence as certainly as razor wire or any Rottweiler ever could have. It feels good to be walking through its doors, but she can’t help thinking of herself as a wolf in royal sheep’s clothing for the second night in a row.
“Remember what I told you: grand entrance, lots of playful laughter. We should look like the cast of a Moët commercial. Three…two…and…”
The second that his hands push on the door Freya unleashes a peal of laughter. She is conscious of eyes locking onto them as they swish inside: jealous, licentious, admiring. She rests her hand gently on Callum’s shoulder and bats her eyes at him. He throws back a charming grin, and the two of them appear to remember for the first time that the rest of the world exists.
The maître d’, who has been surveying Freya’s curves dis
played stylishly in a shimmering sky-blue dress paired with elbow-length white gloves and white Givenchy heels, snaps his eyes back to face level and greets them with the practised grin of his vocation.
“Good evening, sir and madam. Do you have a booking?”
“Yes, I believe my assistant booked a table for two under Fairweather.”
“Ah, yes. Please follow me.”
The table is located in the centre of the room, surrounded by a cluster of the city’s wealthiest, most prominent citizens. “This place looks like the line-up for a Fortune 500 listing,” Freya whispers.
“Ssh! You have to look like you belong here, remember? Don’t gawk like an orphan who’s snuck into the palace ball. Play along or I won’t be able to take you on these little missions anymore. You remember what I told you?”
“Be good, act posh, talk about the thing, blah blah blah. So, anyway, that card that Jane gave me—”
“Freya, we have to do the script first, then we can catch up on the soap opera of your life.”
“Fiiiiiiine.”
“Okay, project your voice. Here we go…”
He takes her hand in his and stares directly into her eyes as he almost shouts, “Darling, convincing me to get that new Lexus was the best thing you ever did. I can’t believe I doubted you!”
“Oh, I know! I mean, the leather interior alone is to diiiiie for! I know that you said we have to stop keeping up with the Joneses, but after I took a spin in Lisa’s new little model I knew I couldn’t go another day without getting one for myself!”
“You should have seen the heads turn at the golf club when I pulled up. Karl and Francine practically had to scrape their jaws off the floor!”
“Well, I’m not surprised, that crappy old Jag they’ve been getting around in is nearly six years old. Pretty soon they’ll have to drive it with their feet, like the Flintstones!”
They burst into laughter and she slaps his shoulder. She glances quickly around the room with practised subtlety and can see Armani, Giordani, Giovanni, and Versace-clad aristocrats pretending they’re not hanging on her every word.
