by J M Donellan
“As I lay there I was so busy watching the blue splotches do their little dance I’d barely even noticed that I’d fallen or that my leg had been cut. I thought something magical was happening, that the blue splotches were fairies or something. I didn’t even notice Mr Stevenson was kneeling over me and calling my name until the trombone next door stopped playing and all the splotches faded away.
“Some of my blood got on my teddy bear. I remember I was still cleaning it off when the nurse came to collect me. I told her what happened and her face scrunched up like someone had said that her grandma had been arrested for indecent exposure. She called Dr Moo and I went to see him the next day, and told him the same story. He made some notes, asked me some questions, and two weeks later he called my parents and told them exactly what I was.”
“So, shapeshifter or garden-variety werewolf?”
“Well played, sir, but no. I’m a synaesthete. Granted, it sounds like I should be in the X-Men, but all it means is I have synaesthesia, a confusion of two senses. Some people associate colours with taste, or sounds with motion. I have sound-colour synaesthesia, which means I see music. It’s rare, around one in 100,000 people have it.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not usually, no. Though one time I was taking a driving lesson and my instructor flipped on a Cyndi Lauper tape and the explosion of yellow in front of my face nearly made me crash into a sex shop. On my fourteenth birthday I got startled by a storm of colour and cut myself with a pineapple cutter. That’s how I got this.”
She slowly, tentatively pulls back the cloth concealing her wrists and reveals the scar tissue.
Jack surprises her by gently smoothing his fingers over her skin. What surprises her even more is how much she enjoys it. She allows his fingers to move across her flesh, trying to remember the last time anyone has wanted to touch rather than avoid that part of her. His hands retract and she pulls the gloves back into place.
“It might seem strange to keep it covered, but I know how people think, and I couldn’t stand the looks of disgust or, even worse, pity. That’s why I made up the Audrey Hepburn thing. The truth is a long, complicated story.”
“It usually is.”
Silence hovers.
“You know Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote Lolita?” says Jack. “He had a similar thing, I think, seeing letters with colours.”
“A few artists had it. My hero, Kandinsky, used to paint the images he saw when he heard music, which is why I’ve always thought of the colours in my vision as ‘little Kandinskys.’ The composer Messiaen and Nikola Tesla, the inventor, had it too. Some people think Marilyn Monroe might have been a synaesthete as well.”
“It’s genetic?”
“Neurological. It’s not a disease, if that’s what you mean. You’re not going to catch it from touching me or anything.”
Jack coughs, then laughs. “Ah, that’s good to know.”
“Dr Moo says it’s why I have such a good memory. And it gives me ideas for paintings. One gallery owner said I had a unique view of reality, though she dropped acid like Tic Tacs so I’m not sure how credible her opinion was.”
The chirping of cicadas over the river pauses the conversation. She turns to say something but finds Jack’s lips on a crash course with her own and blurts a “Mrfmph!” as their mouths meet and his arms pull her towards him. She attempts a laugh through her otherwise occupied mouth, and the result is a comically awkward collision of spit, tongues, lips, and hands.
Jack pulls away and stammers, “Did I…um…I probably shouldn’t have…”
“No, Jack, it’s fine! You just caught me by surprise. I think you’re…”
But he’s on his feet and making a hurried escape even as her words trail after him. Freya sighs as the alarm on her phone beeps, a reminder that one of the other Vincettis is in need of her attention.
***
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Her hands delicately remove the sticky pads from Elijah’s chest, cutting the signal sending his heartbeats to the armada of sleek machines flanking his bed. With the whole weight of her body, she pushes him onto the plastic-sheeted stretcher. She finds the absence of beeping disconcerting.
“Well, Elijah Vincetti,” she says, bringing herself back to her task, “I believe it’s time for your sponge bath. You know the first time I told my grandmother that I had to give an old guy a sponge bath she said, ‘So you’re basically a prostitute who doesn’t get to wear fun outfits to work?’”
Again she tries to ignore the silence, but it makes her so uncomfortable it becomes all she can think about. She flicks on the radio.
“Oh dear lord, no.” Michael Bolton’s schmaltzy tenor appears as the most disgusting shade of green. It looks like the time she puked after too many green beers last St Patrick’s Day.
She changes stations.
“Ah, that’s more like it. Nina Simone. That is a woman with class.”
Freya removes his shirt, no mean feat given how heavy his dead weight is. His chiselled physique is undeniably attractive, although she’s curious how his muscle tone is still in such good shape. Nina’s inimitable voice dances over the piano keys.
She removes his pants and boxer shorts, folds them and places them on the bed. She soaks the sponge in water, the warmth gliding over her skin. He looks so complete, even without clothing. So calm, stoic. Like a marble Adonis. He is beautiful in his peace.
Freya squeezes the sponge and runs it over his chest, sending rivulets trickling over his chest hairs and down his sides. She listens to Nina and watches the smooth light purple fill the air and accelerate the sense of calm and rejuvenation she always feels when washing a patient. She almost forgets her hangover.
Freya lifts his right leg and washes the underside of his calf. She lifts his other leg and squeezes the sponge, about to wipe it across his skin, when she notices a tiny flick of crimson on his lower leg. She leans in close to inspect it, and discovers another, slightly larger splash of blood on the other side of his calf.
“What the fuck?” The implausibility renders this discovery hard to process. She rolls Elijah onto his side to check for other flecks, or possibly the source wound.
Although she doesn’t find either, she does notice a large bruise on his hip. “Elijah, you’ve been keeping secrets.”
***
Excerpt from The Sins of Adonis
I will admit there is a certain overbearing self-awareness that pervades these scribbles. It’s difficult not to be aware of one’s own greatness. Indeed, it is this awareness that distinguishes one from the common rabble. Does a lion survey a flock of sheep and think, “I am a quadruped and a mammal, and thus we are the same?” No. It sees and revels in its self-evident superiority. It hunts. Kills. Fucks. Eats.
18
Dreamers Often Lie
***
Rosaline smiles as the warm sounds wash over her. The music box melody she has played hundreds of times, dreaming of the day it will fall on the ears of her as-yet non-existent offspring. She loves these twin kingdoms she has created, perfect to the last detail. Every precisely placed, colour-coded teddy bear, every intricately arranged ornament, every thoroughly selected book and plaything. These two small rooms are perfect, save for one all-important detail: they lack occupants. They are museums dedicated to an era that has never existed.
She polishes. Dusts. Straightens. Wipes. Vacuums. Adjusts. Readjusts. Removes. Replaces. Everything is in its right place. She feels a quiet sense of calm wash over her with each tiny adjustment to the room. She picks up her most prized possession, Magic Wedding Dress Rosaline, and combs its golden hair with long and loving strokes.
Rosaline sighs and sits daintily on the light blue couch that she imagines she will someday occupy with a newborn baby cradled in her arms. This will happen, must happen, just as soon as Elijah re
turns to her.
And she has been waiting for so, so long, patiently, faithfully…
But it will happen.
It must.
She hears footsteps in the hallway. “Freya?” she inquires tentatively. The steps pause.
“Uh, yeah?”
“Come and chat with me!” A few beats pass before Freya appears in the doorway. “Hey, you. I was just cleaning. I love cleaning! It makes me feel like I’m fixing things a little, making things that tiny bit prettier, happier. Are you alright? You look a little bamboozled.”
Freya sits next to Rosaline with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm and nods. She eyes the dolls and teddy bears as though they are rabid animals ready to bite.
“This isn’t really your kind of thing, is it?” asks Rosaline, gently patting Freya’s hand.
“Not exactly, no.”
Rosaline picks up a snow globe from Canada, a perfect shade of powder blue. Its pink sibling sits on the other side of the five inches of wood and plaster that separate this room from the next. “You didn’t have a room like this when you were a baby?”
“I don’t really remember what my room looked like,” says Freya. “We moved around a lot, until my dad got sick. Then I spent most of my time hanging out with him at the hospital, sitting there watching him sleep. Wishing I could do something to make him feel better, like Florence Nightingale. I’d sit for hours listening to my Walkman, reading, maybe watching movies. I remember when Romeo + Juliet came out, I watched that movie about twenty times sitting next to my dad in the hospital. He’d drift in and out of sleep, his eyes would flicker open and he’d say, ‘Lord Almighty, Freya, this one again? There are other movies in the world, you know!’”
Rosaline is nodding emphatically, desperately waiting for Freya to finish before blurting out, “I love Romeo + Juliet! Especially Shakespeare’s description of my namesake: ‘The all-seeing sun / ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.’ I always thought she was so interesting and mysterious, and even though you never actually hear her speak, she’s so important. And how Romeo talks about her as though he’ll never find anyone else; it’s so romantic!”
“Well…yeah…Until he sets eyes on Juliet and the excrement hits the ventilation system.”
“Yes, exactly. With Rosaline, everything is so imagined and perfect, it never goes wrong. As soon as he meets Juliet, blood gets spilled and the world starts falling apart. The silly boy should’ve stuck with his first love, but because we never see Rosaline, she stays perfect and pure. Like a dream.”
“But dreamers often lie.”
“In bed asleep, while they do dream things true! You really did watch that film a lot. A dream is such a perfect thing, you can shape it, change it, make it yours. That’s why I wanted to become Rosaline, to make my own dream. To start again. And now I’m almost there. Almost. I just want my Elijah to wake up, more than anything else, and then my dream will be complete.”
She watches the tiny fake snowflakes flutter onto the houses and their inhabitants: a miniature nuclear family with poorly painted smiles adorning their frozen faces. They are forever staring at the same roast chicken, forks poised to spear food that will never be eaten.
“When he finally does, then we’ll be married and I’ll have everything I’ve dreamt of since I was little. All those hours spent gazing at Mum and Dad’s wedding album. Even after everything went…well, after things changed.” She stares at the snow globe.
“Changed how?” prompts Freya, suspended on the stray thread of Rosaline’s dangling narrative.
“I want my wedding day to be perfect. I mean really perfect. That’s why it’s worth waiting for. I never stopped dreaming about owning my own home, with the man I loved, and that special day when I would get to wear my own wedding dress, beautiful and white. And now I have that, at long last. I love Elijah, and I know he loves me, and he’s never, ever going to leave me.”
Well, you’ve got that part right. She takes Rosaline’s hand in hers. You poor deluded creature. You don’t need a husband, you need about twenty years of intensive therapy and the most potent narcotics known to man.
“That’s why I don’t care if Harland and Evelyn take control of the company; all I want is to be with Elijah.”
“Take control of what company?”
“My dad’s company. Firmatel. He left it to me when he died.”
“Firmatel? The pharmaceutical company? I thought you said your dad owned a toy company?”
“It was a toy company, but after he moved to California he started expanding or merging or whatever, I don’t really understand business stuff. But he bought a bunch of shares in Firmatel when they were only small and then ended up owning it. So, when Elijah and I met and started talking about marriage we decided that we should share everything, and that we’d merge all our assets. It’s all just stuff anyway, right? Who cares when all you need is love!”
“So, once you and Elijah get hitched, the Vincettis are going to control Firmatel, as well as Halcyon, Happymax, and the Davies Group?”
“And they’re gonna do a great job! Look at the wonderful work they did with the oil spill!”
Freya subdues her urge to scream and instead places a hand on Rosaline’s shoulder as she asks, “Do you ever wonder what Elijah dreams about?”
“That’s easy! Shakespeare said it all: I dreamt my lady came and found me dead—Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think! And breathed such life with kisses in my lips, that I revived, and was an emperor.”
Freya treats her to a contrived smile as she stands and says, “That’s very sweet. I should probably—”
“Wait! I want to tell you about what happened before, when I was a kid. It’s not an easy story to tell. Sometimes I like to pretend that it was all just a nightmare that I woke up from when I was seventeen. Would you stay? Please?”
Freya sits back down and looks at the smiling faces trapped inside the snow globe.
19
The Daughter of the Mad Bride
***
“My father used to bring me a new doll every week. I would unwrap it gently, tenderly, and place it next to its hundreds of sisters. I’d make up little stories for each of them; histories, hobbies, desires, and fears. While Daddy worked, I would go with my mother to the movies or the museum, and then we would come home and bake together, the smell of cinnamon and sugar pouring out from every window in the house. My mother was beautiful, like one of the dolls that I kept on my shelves. Smooth, flawless skin, pearly smile. As we walked through the city, admiring eyes would always turn to follow her.
Father would often be called away on business for a day or two, usually in neighbouring towns but occasionally interstate and once in a while across the ocean. Then one year he left to negotiate a deal in California. After a few days, he called to say that his trip was being extended. Something about negotiations taking longer than expected.
I crawled into bed that night, my stomach swimming with cinnamon, clutching a photo of my father in one arm and Magical Mermaid Rosaline in the other.
The phone rang.
I ran downstairs and picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey sweetheart! How’s my little girl?’
‘It’s late, Daddy. And I miss you.’
I heard a voice in the background saying something about hotel phone bills.
‘I miss you too, sugarplum. I have some exciting news, I want you to listen very carefully, okay?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You know how you’ve always wanted to visit California, where they make all the movies? Well, guess what! Daddy and his lady friend are going to get a little place there and you can come and visit whenever you want! Doesn’t that sound great?’
‘Isn’t California a long way away?’
‘Don’t be silly pet, it’s barely a hop, skip
, and a jump! Can you tell your mother and let her know I’ll make arrangements soon?’ There was more of the muffled whispering on the other end. ‘Anyway, got to go. Love you!’
In the morning, I wondered if perhaps the phone call had all been a dream. I walked down the stairs in my crumpled fairy princess pyjamas and found mother baking Anzac biscuits. I rubbed my eyes and breathed in the comforting, sugary scent.
‘Hey there, sleepyhead! I’m making your father’s favourite for when he gets home tomorrow!’
‘Mummy, what’s a lady friend?’
‘A what dear?’
‘A lady friend. Is it like a ladybird?’
‘Ah, no, it’s not quite…Where did you hear that?’
‘Daddy said he’s getting a house in California with his lady friend. Are we going to have two houses now? Where will the lady friend sleep? Is it going to share my room?’
The mixing bowl slipped from her hands. It seemed to take an age to reach the ground, where it smashed, scattering shards and dough across the kitchen tiles. I ran over and hugged her. Her skin was cold, but felt as though it had the memory of warmth, like a cup of tea forgotten and left to sit too long.
I waited for her to move, or speak, and noticed the little red rivers at her feet. I pulled the shard from her foot and went upstairs to get a bandaid.
I made peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, they were always my favourite. Mother sat on the couch and smoked, looking like she’d aged a decade in the space of a few hours: her face ashen, her hands trembling. I sat next to her as she stared at her wedding album. It was hard to believe the woman in those photos was the same person as the one who now held them in her trembling hands.
The next few nights were the same. Mother wouldn’t speak, and she barely ate. The only sounds were the drone of the television and the turning of the album pages. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the air.
