by J M Donellan
Marilyn laughs and places one gloved hand gently on Freya’s shoulder. It feels warm and heavy. “Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
“I think…um…I think actually that’s pretty good advice.”
Marilyn rises elegantly to her feet, plants a kiss on Freya’s cheek and walks towards the whales. Her humming blends with their music.
“Wow. Who knew a delusional method actress could be so eloquent?” says Callum. They watch her walk away.
Freya’s lips feel numb and this makes her giggle.
“Hey, hey, your pants are singing!” laughs Callum.
Freya removes her phone from her pocket and answers. “Hello? Hello? I don’t understand—Oh, right, si, hablo español. Pero, no mucho. Si, si, ah…I can’t, um más despacio, más despacio, por favor. Maria? Shit. Shit. Christ. Si, claro, ah, of course.” Freya drops the phone to the grass and falls backwards onto the bench.
“Frey? What’s the matter?”
Freya squints at the water. The whales’ gold rivers swim in front of her eyes. She wants to lie in them and sleep forever.
“What happened?”
“Maria’s in hospital.”
The sound of the whale song echoes through the corridor.
22
The Ice Queen Calleth
***
The air here tastes different. Sterile. Torpid. Stale. No matter how hard Freya tries she can’t fill her lungs, like she’s stuck in a box with no airholes and the oxygen is slowly being depleted.
“There is nothing in this life I will ever hate more than sitting in hospital waiting rooms.”
“Not the best quality for a nurse, is it? Like a teacher who doesn’t like kids?”
“No, it’s different when you’re on the other side of the glass. As a nurse, you’re in control. Or at least at the controls, but right now…? I’m helpless. There’s a dead body in there, a ‘cadaver’ as they say in the biz, and a few hours ago it was a living, breathing, singing, dancing human with a penchant for eavesdropping and now it’s just a lump of flesh.”
The shuffling of shoes echoes down the hallway. The air is thick with the weight of nothing happening. “Being here makes me miss Valerie something awful.”
Callum throws her a commiserating smile and hugs her.
“Thanks for driving us here, Cal.”
“Of course.” An awkward silence.
“I’m filled with angstxiety.”
Callum smiles. “I’m still not sold on that one.”
“Oh come on! Angst and anxiety go together like vodka and hangovers.”
“Maybe.” A less awkward silence. “Do you want something to eat?”
“Oh, gods, yes. I think those hash brownies have mostly worn off but I could eat a horse and all its children right now. Here.” She reaches into her pocket and excavates a fistful of change. “Go to the vending machine. Get me all the things.”
“Don’t you want something more substantial? A sandwich?”
“Grief needs to be killed by sugar. Vast quantities of waistline-expanding sugar. I won’t eat anything that doesn’t come wrapped in eye-gougingly bright colours.”
Callum shakes his head and disappears down the corridor, leaving Freya more alone than she would like to be. She fingers the packet of hair in her pocket and listens to the world collapsing around her. She leans back in the plastic chair and stares at the fluorescent light above her. Moment follows moment in a slow and uncomfortable shuffle.
A shower of brightly wrapped confectionary hits the seat beside her. “Callum, I love you.” She rips open a Snickers bar and stuffs it into her mouth. She tears open a packet of M&M’s and pours them in, too.
“Jesus, Frey, are you trying to get diabetes?”
“Chocolate makes the sad go away.” She is in the process of devouring a fresh mouthful of brightly coloured candy when she looks up to see half a dozen sad brown eyes staring down at her.
“Are you Freya?”
She coughs and splutters a small explosion of caramel, biscuit and chocolate all over the speaker. “Aghthm! Ah…ah…gebruvellem, sthorry…” She chews and swallows the last of her food and tries to continue, “Yes, I am…you must be Maria’s familia?”
“Si. I’m Niki, Maria’s niece.”
“Niki, yo estoy muy, um, trist…ah, fuck it. My Spanish disappears when I’m upset.”
“It’s okay.”
Freya stands and reaches out her hand to shake Niki’s, but finds herself enveloped in a warm hug. The rest of the family does the same, passing her round like a new puppy. A storm of Colombian kisses and commiserations enshrouds her.
“I should go,” Callum says quietly in her ear when she is at last released.
“Okay. Thanks for everything, Cal. One last thing. Do you think you could get these to that friend of mine?” She presses the plastic baggies into his hands. “I’ll message you his details later.”
“Yeah, sure.” A smile clambers onto his face but then loses confidence and slips into a frown.
Freya squeezes his hand and says goodbye, then spends the next few minutes trying to grasp snippets out of the Suarezes’ wailing. Her Spanish is fairly rusty as it is, but the tears and gnashing are mauling and mangling the words so badly that their own mother can’t recognise them.
A young doctor with tired eyes and a mop of tangled brown hair enters the room. His face conveys the news before his lips even open. She wonders how many times he’s had to give this speech, and if it ever gets easier. Has he practised it in the bathroom mirror? Or is this just another inconvenient duty that’s keeping him from his evening’s television and glass of merlot?
“Hello, my name is Dr James Walton. I’ve been in charge of the team overseeing Mrs Suarez since she was admitted this afternoon. I’m going to do you the courtesy of being honest and direct. Mrs Suarez’s breathing and heart had both stopped by the time the ambulance arrived here at the hospital. There was an attempt to resuscitate her, but this was unfortunately unsuccessful. All signs point towards a sudden onset heart attack. I hope it’s of some comfort that it was quick, a few minutes at most. Someone will be with you soon to help you make arrangements. If any of you want to see her before we take her to the morgue, I’ll get one of the nurses to sort it out for you. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
As Niki translates for the rest of the Suarezes, the doctor frowns politely, then nods and walks away. The wave of tears and wailing resurges.
***
Freya wakes up to drool on her face and M&M’s in her hair, and a polychromatic sea of chocolate bar wrappers around her. The sight of the Suarezes chowing down on the rest of her sugary bounty stirs feelings of both amusement and confusion. She is slightly concerned that her leg seems to be trembling and is about to call for a doctor when she remembers she has set her phone to vibrate. “Hello?”
“Freya.”
Ah, the ice queen calleth. “Evelyn.”
“I’ve just heard the terrible news. Such a tragedy.”
“It is.”
“She will be dearly missed.”
“She will.”
A cold, firm silence.
“We have made arrangements for the body to be collected and the funeral service is all booked and paid for. Florists, catering, and all the rest. Please let the family know.”
“That’s very generous of you, Evelyn.”
“It’s nothing. Maria was like one of the family. I’ll see you at the service tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Don’t you think you should give the family a little more time to notify everybody? What if people can’t make it?”
“For heaven’s sake, dear, it’s a funeral. I’m sure those people will be able to clear eating enchiladas and watching telenovellas from their schedules.”
Evelyn hangs up and leaves Fr
eya silent and seething. There’s no way the Vincettis could have organised a funeral so quickly.
Freya realises that the eyes of La Familia Suarez are watching her, waiting. “That was Evelyn Vincetti,” she explains. “They’ve made arrangements for the funeral. They’ll contact you with details.”
Niki translates and the Suarezes once again collapse into a storm of wailing.
Eventually, Niki comes back to Freya and asks, “Do you mind if I ask you something, something that maybe sounds a little strange?”
“Honestly? To compete with the rest of today’s events you’d have to be trying really hard to even make a dent.”
“Perhaps we should sit down.”
A Chokito wrapper crumples under Freya as she sits.
“My Aunty Maria. Did you get to know her well?”
“I’d only been working at the house for a week, but Maria and I talked a lot. She likes…she used to like to chat.” Referring to Maria in past tense makes Freya feel like she is digging a grave with her tongue.
“If I asked you to bring me something of hers, something that she touched recently, could you do that? It doesn’t have to be anything special, a toothbrush or a hairpin would do. As long as she’s touched it. I know that might sound weird but…”
“Yes. Of course.”
Niki hugs Freya tightly. Freya’s arms squeeze weakly in a confused and feeble effort to return the affection.
“Thank you so much for meeting us here, but you know, the next few hours will have a lot of Colombian weeping. If you want to leave…”
“Yes. I should go. Give me your number.”
Niki rattles it off and Freya taps it into her phone. She steps out of the room, the corridor, the building. Outside the sky is bright and glaring. Somewhere there is a radio playing an old Massive Attack song. Freya watches the colours spread like food dye dripped into a bucket of water. She feels the strength drain from her legs and sits on the pavement, her back leaning against the hospital wall for support.
Her hands touch the concrete beneath her. This is where it happened. Where Valerie’s future shifted from being unknown to non-existent. Where a bright young girl with a truckload of sass and a mean Scrabble game was transformed into a mangle of flesh and formerly functioning organs.
She imagines the screeching tyres, metal dancing with metal, glass hurtling through the air. A tempest of chaos ending in the worst kind of silence and stillness.
23
Dove
***
He walks down the hall whistling, with his prey in his hands. He approaches his brother’s door and knocks loudly. “Hey Jackie! Jackie O! Jack-in-the-box! Openupopenupopenupopenup! I’ve got something to show you!”
Jack opens his door. His pimply, bespectacled face and red-rimmed eyes radiate irritation and fatigue. “What the hell do you want, Elijah? I’ve got a physics assignment due tomorrow.”
“Like Mrs thirty-year-old-virgin-squinty-face-McGee is going to fail her one and only student.”
“Whatever. I don’t care what your surprise is.”
“Oh, I think you might!” Elijah holds it aloft, his face lit by a brilliant smile.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Elijah! What is wrong with you?”
“Shot it from forty feet away, I shit you not!” He holds the bird proudly in the air, suspended by its legs, its pure white feathers desecrated by a patch of red.
“You shot a fucking dove? With what?”
“How’s it any different from shooting a crow, except that it’s white? What are you, racist?”
“That’s not funny. And you didn’t answer my question. And it’s bleeding all over the goddamn floor!”
Elijah shrugs. “I shot it with Dad’s old Webley. Isn’t that a ridiculous name for an arms manufacturer? They sound like they should make English sweets. ‘Webley’s Famous Suck ’n’ Chews! Get ’em right here, baker’s dozen for thruppence apenny!’ And don’t worry about the mess, Caecilla will clean it up.”
“You mean Delora. Caecilla got fired last month because you told Mum that she stole the Florentine vase that you smashed, remember?”
“Right, well. Whatever illegal immigrant they got to fill her shoes.”
“You’re a creep, you know that?”
“You’re the one with the crooked back, weird eyes, and agoraphobia.”
Jack’s face flares at his brother’s use of that forbidden word. He tries to calm himself, remember that Elijah is just trying to get under his skin, provoke a reaction. But his brother has always had such a gift for bringing out the worst in people. He tries to restrain them, but the words charge out of his mouth.
“I do not have agoraphobia!”
“Really? When was the last time you left this house?”
“When I saw the specialist last week.”
“No, the last time you left by choice?”
“I don’t have time for this shit, Eli. Would you please get that fucking thing away from my door? Look! You’ve already got blood all over the place!”
“Boys! Boys! You aren’t fighting again, are you?” Evelyn’s roar rips through the mansion.
“No, Mum! Jack and I are just both really upset! Come look, come look!”
Her heels clack down the hallway towards them. Jack is silent and sullen.
“Oh my God! Eli, what are you doing touching that horrid thing? You’ll get sick!”
“I had to save it! I found it by the road. I think somebody shot it! A dove would never hurt anybody. Why would anyone kill such a beautiful creature?” Tears well in Elijah’s eyes and his lip starts to tremble.
“I don’t know, baby. Thank goodness for good people like you to care for poor injured creatures like this, you little saint.” She kisses him on the head and hollers, “Delora! Come clean this up right now!” Her manicured talons enclose Elijah in a protective embrace. “Shh, shh, little one. Everything will be fine, I promise,” she soothes.
Over her shoulder, Elijah treats Jack to a smirk.
Jack wants nothing more than to pull back his fist and ram it into his brother’s nose, despite the vengeance their mother would unleash on him, and in spite of the fact that his bones would shatter like glass upon impact.
None of this logic assuages Jack’s fury as Evelyn leads his brother outside to the garden to dispose of the dove. Jack is left staring at the congealed crimson pool soaking into the carpet runner and trickling onto the marble at his feet.
***
Jack can’t sleep. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Ever since the age of twelve he has had the sunken black eyes of a middle-aged alcoholic. Lately, however, things have been a different kind of strange. Usually anxiety related to his condition is what keeps him awake; fear of a too-short life spent locked within the tiny Vincetti kingdom. But lately, things have been different.
He has been dreaming of his brother. Or, more correctly, he has been dreaming as his brother through Elijah’s eyes, and more than that, through his skin, fingers, teeth, and tongue. In these dreams he sees, feels, and tastes everything as though he were Elijah. He has just awoken from a dream where he watched as the dove’s chest burst with red and the bird plummeted gracelessly to the ground. Some unholy mirth flowed through him as he ran towards it, felt its limp, lifeless body in his hands, felt its hot, wet blood run over his fingers.
Jack sits up in bed, examines the Rorschach blot of bruises that has appeared on his chest while he slept. One of them vaguely resembles Japan, another in a long list of places he will never see.
He goes to his desk and turns on his computer. His fingers tap away at the keys and the horrors of his existence are transformed as he brings his characters to life, shapes their faces and speech and thoughts. Finally he falls asleep, his hands resting on the keyboard. In the morning he will awake to find he has written 180 pages of:
adfslkhfskkk
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkhjladsssssss ssssssssssf;a;jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjaaaaaaaaaaaa aaa;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;dsssssssssssssaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaa jjjjjjjjkkkkkkkkklllllllaaaaaadddddddddddddhu; ghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhakrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrri;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;fddddddddnsfads’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ghijreoooooooooooooooooooooo…
***
Despite her hours of scrubbing—immediately prior to her abrupt dismissal—Delora is unable to remove the last vestiges of red from the marble floor outside Jack’s bedroom. The washed-out bloodstain is the first thing he sees as he exits the relatively safe confines of his room to enter the world outside. He steps over it quickly and heads to the kitchen, where he pours himself a bowl of Captain Choc’s Chocolaty Chocoflakes—now with more chocolate!—and exits onto the back verandah to watch the first ferries of the morning sway across the river.
The crunching of the cereal reverberates inside his head, preventing cohesive thought. The ferries thrum across the river with their cargo of lawyers and teachers and waiters and builders and nurses and parking inspectors and abattoir health and safety protocol regulators; all jobs he will never have. He is happy, for a moment, to be peaceful. He is unsurprised when this does not last.
“Jaaaaaaaaaccckkkkk!”
He considers his options.
1 Run. (Not possible.)
2 Hide. (Plausible, given the number of rooms in this house, but ultimately fruitless. Will have to eventually surface for food and amenities.)
3 Patricide.(…)
4 Walk proudly towards the gallows.
He stands, leaves his Chocoflakes to slowly wilt in the bowl and walks inside.
