by Pip Adam
Over Again
It was Friday night. The city was busy and the bar was three deep. Lucy had been sitting at an outside table with Mark and Jane for most of the afternoon. Cyrus saw her on his way to the bar. He ordered a drink, came over, lit a cigarette and asked if he could join them. Lucy pushed her hair behind her ear. They drank some more. Talked about what brought Cyrus back from Melbourne and drank some more.
‘How’s Kate?’ said Jane.
‘Kate’s great,’ Cyrus smiled.
‘We should get some dinner,’ said Mark. ‘Are you coming to get something to eat, Lucy?’
Lucy smiled and frowned at the same time, like she’d already eaten something she shouldn’t have, and shook her head.
Mark and Jane left to get something to eat, shaking their heads.
‘How much money do you have?’ Cyrus said.
Lucy shrugged.
He said a friend of his was working at a bar and they could get more to drink. Lucy said, ‘Sure.’ They leaned on each other a little as they walked along the newly dark streets full of people shopping and going home. At the bar she paid for more drinks and they drank some more and shouted humid indignation in each other’s ears. Cyrus said he had gin at his place and she said she had her car. Lucy drove in silence and at fifty-five, changing down at every corner, coming to a complete stop at every intersection.
In his bedroom she said she’d drunk enough, thinking about the drive home. She asked for a glass of water. He handed her a glass of gin and she said thanks. Her jaws were fluid and he was talking and playing music. It got later and she couldn’t walk. Lucy thought, It’s okay I don’t need to walk to drive, and, I can’t stay here, and, Don’t stay here. Cyrus said, ‘You could stay here.’ Lucy said she needed to go to the bathroom. She climbed out the window and drove home, squinting and swearing and keeping all the street lights on one side.
The next day Lucy worked and every time the phone rang her stomach would lift and fall. Cyrus had her number – he had all her numbers. She left one client to throw up. One of the other nail technicians sent a trainee to see where she was. When the trainee knocked on the toilet door Lucy slid twenty dollars under it and told her to buy a small bottle of vodka, quickly. The afternoon went a lot quicker than the morning. One client offered her a breath mint and the rest fell into a parade of hands on towels. Hands attached to droning, underwater voices floating over her as she filed and stuck and painted in a cloud of acrylic. Her head swam for shore a little with every pull on her water bottle. She nodded and smiled and said not much. The last client left at half past five and Lucy stood with the trainee watching the till cash up. They drank the wine that was there for clients out of coffee mugs, swung in their chairs and talked about tonight. Lucy looked at the phone. As they pulled down the grille and locked it, the trainee said she should come out but Lucy said no, she was off for a quiet night.
On the way home, Lucy stopped at a supermarket and bought a lot of beer. The check-out person said, ‘Quiet night at home?’ She nodded and said, ‘Uh-huh,’ and, rubbing her face, looked down the long line of check-outs and people. At home she sat in her room and drank beer. Her flatmates came home, popped their heads around her door and left again. Two of them played some sort of robot game up and down the hallway with boxes on their heads and she laughed and said she needed to read some books. She thought she fell asleep with an ancient history textbook on her face.
Lucy woke up driving in silence and at fifty-five. There was a number written on her left hand in red ballpoint pen. The clock in her car said three thirty and her hand said 4. Cyrus must have rung. It was dark and probably Sunday morning. She was heading for town with the street lights on one side. If she closed an eye she could probably make it.
She parked her car on a back street and looked around. There was half a bottle of whisky in her handbag which was on the seat beside her. Lucy drank some more, opened the door and got out. Even with one eye shut the key wouldn’t find the lock, so she left it and wove her way toward the bar. She went upstairs and knocked on the closed door. No one answered. She knocked again and shouted and leaned against the door smiling until someone opened it. It was dark and loud and full of people.
The bartender said, ‘Lucy! Thank God. I nearly go out of business every time you stop drinking,’ and she laughed and he said, ‘No. Really.’ He leaned over the bar, touched her chin and said, ‘Lucy. Come on. How about it?’ She leaned back, pointed at him and looked around the room. She was still smiling.
While Lucy looked one way, a tap came from the other and Kate shouted, ‘Thanks for coming.’ Cyrus was beside Kate, in her arms. Arm in arm they stood there, in front of Lucy now that she’d turned round. He lifted his glass to her. ‘Shall we discuss this outside?’ said Kate. Lucy nodded, draining her drink.
They stood, the three of them, outside. Cyrus lit a cigarette and took a step out of Kate’s way. Lucy lit a cigarette and Kate started. Basically, it was just everything she’d said on the phone. Lucy wasn’t sure if she should run or nod politely. She looked at Cyrus for help and he gave her nothing and she looked at Kate still talking fast, something about her and something about him and something about Kate – and Melbourne, Cyrus working something out in Melbourne. The street fell away a bit from under her.
Could Lucy just see her way clear to do that? Kate stopped talking. No one was talking.
‘Well, yeah,’ said Lucy, ‘of course.’
Kate had tears in her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t ask otherwise.’
‘Yeah, sure, I totally understand.’
‘I just think,’ said Kate, ‘we’ve got a chance this way. Cyrus and I.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Lucy.
Kate hugged her. ‘Thank you Lucy. I forgive you totally and set you free.’
Cyrus was smiling and not trying to hide it. Lucy could see it but Kate couldn’t.
For a moment, Lucy saw how it would all turn out – in a month’s time or a week’s or tomorrow. Kate saying, ‘You promised.’ Lucy pretending she knew what that meant. Cyrus laughing behind Kate’s back. Kate saying again, ‘You need help, Lucy.’ But this time Lucy punches her and, as Kate falls to the ground, strikes Cyrus across the face with something heavy and says, ‘You can wipe that smile off too.’
Lucy woke up. Bright sunlight was cutting through a chink in the curtains – not her curtains. ‘Fuck,’ she said. She rolled onto her back – not her ceiling. ‘Fuck,’ she said more quietly. Cyrus slept. Kate wasn’t there. It was fantastic – Lucy’s life – like God had run out of things to happen to her and the same thing was happening over and over again and He was getting His inspiration from every stupid thing said about infidelity. Hopefully, it was Sunday, but running it through her head – the robot game, the conversation with Kate – there was no way it was Sunday morning. It must be Monday, she needed to get to work. She got out of the bed and started collecting her clothes. Cyrus stirred and said, ‘Where are you going?’ without opening his eyes or lifting his head off the pillow. She didn’t reply. Cyrus sat up and watched Lucy shake her head as she untangled her underwear and struggled to put them on.
‘Come back to bed, Lucy. It’s early.’
‘I have to go to work.’
‘Lucy, it’s Wednesday.’
Lucy stopped dressing for a split second, then started again, hoping Cyrus hadn’t seen her stop.
‘Lucy, come back to bed.’
‘Where’s Kate?’
‘Kate’s dead.’
Lucy looked at Cyrus for the first time.
Cyrus ran his hand through his hair and looked away from Lucy. ‘Lucy,’ he said sternly and then started laughing. ‘Fuck, okay, she’s not dead. I wish she was dead – but she’ll be at work by now, and she’ll be there all day. Lucy, come back to bed.’
Lucy said ‘Fuck’ again under her breath. She pulled her T-shirt over her head and started looking for her skirt – Wednesday. It wasn’t like she couldn’t remember anything since the conversation on the street,
it was just what she could remember felt like all part of one day, or an hour. It was an ordering problem not a loss problem. She picked her keys up off the floor.
‘Your car’s not here.’ Cyrus was sitting against the wall behind the head of the bed. ‘You might as well come back to bed. I carried you here over my shoulder. I went to your house and stole you from your bed while you were sleeping. You had nothing to do with it. I took complete advantage of you. Let me make you breakfast.’
They would have fired her by now. They’d probably fired her and hired someone to take her place if it was Wednesday. She put on her skirt. Cyrus was a prick, it was probably Sunday. Kate was probably on her way to take him out to brunch. Lucy couldn’t find her shoes. She looked around the room.
‘I told her not to call you,’ said Cyrus. ‘No, I begged her not to call you. I’m sorry you got dragged into it.’
Cyrus was a prick.
‘It’s not like she owns us,’ Cyrus said. ‘We’re nothing to do with her.’
She couldn’t find her shoes.
‘Where are my shoes?’ Lucy said.
‘You weren’t wearing them when you got here.’
She looked at her feet. She’d walked to his house in bare feet.
Someone who said they could help had written a phone number on the back of an EFTPOS receipt and handed it to her last winter in the lobby of the district court. The receipt was in the pocket of her warm jacket which was hanging on the back of the chair in her bedroom.
‘Lucy, come back to bed.’ Lucy looked from her feet to Cyrus. ‘If you don’t leave you won’t have to keep coming back.’ Nothing could help her. ‘Lucy. Come on. She won’t be back for hours.’
She picked up her sweatshirt from under the bed. She could call in sick. If it was Monday, she could call when she got home and say she was sick. It wasn’t Wednesday. She was due some good luck. In the whole economy of it she really was due some good luck. Her car was probably outside parked on the street with her shoes in it and it was Sunday, she could sleep the rest of the day and later on have a couple of wines with Jane and laugh about it. Kate wouldn’t find out and the next she would hear from either of them would be a wedding invitation.
Lucy put her sunglasses on, Jesus Christ himself only knew why the fuck she had sunglasses and no shoes but she put them on like having them there was part of her plan from the beginning. Cyrus went to say something and she raised her hand to stop him. She felt bad and a fool and like this would go on for ever and ever. Everything there was to say had been said and promised and broken and said again, but she looked around the room one last time for something to say and there was nothing.
One of Your Skies
They say it started in your lungs. That’s what your nephew tells me. Someone else tells me they can’t tell where it started, just that it’s everywhere now.
Your sister, Anne, asks what they’re going to do. They say, realistically, you’re not going to get better. She holds your hand. It’s in your brain, that’s why it hurts in your head. They’ve given you morphine and that’s why it doesn’t hurt now. They say you’re not leaving the hospital. You know they mean alive. Anne took you to Accident and Emergency three weeks ago and they said it was viral. Your son, Benny, called Anne a week later saying he’d found you thrashing around. She came to stay. A couple of days ago you said you felt like fish. Anne cooked you some fish. You said you felt like curry sauce on your fish. She went out and bought curry sauce. When she got back you said you didn’t feel hungry any more. This all comes out. They say you have options. You hear the word ‘titrated’ and think it sounds like bells. Your sister says it’s for the best. You agree, sign some papers and they put in a drip.
You feel like a cigarette. When they ask if they can get you anything they don’t mean cigarettes. By the afternoon, you can’t move any more. Anne says she’s just ducking out for a minute – for a cigarette. You try to ask her to get some patches while she’s out but you can’t move any more. You tried to give up once. You ended up wearing the patches and smoking at the same time and going to the doctor who said you were passing out because your heart was beating too fast. You’ve given up now.
Other people in the ward have their lunch. You’ve probably had your last lunch. The doctor explains to your sister that you’re unconscious now and will just drift off. This is not a technical term. You’re not thinking, I wish I spent more time working, and other clichés. You remember eating fish your son caught, and cockles you collected and opened over a fire by dark water alive with phosphorescence. It seems fitting but not altogether yours. You haven’t seen your oldest son in a couple of months, maybe a year. Anne tells you she called him, he’ll be here in a couple of days. So this drifting away, you think, and listen hard to see if anyone is mentioning time. You hurt. One at a time your insides expand, catch fire and start crawling around the dull ache that’s everywhere. The pain starts to make noise and smell like sand. It’s loud in your ears and the air around your face is warm and damp with it. You feel yourself drifting away from it and panic. Your sister’s face may be the last one you see. You haven’t seen yourself for days.
Anne’s son says hello. You almost forget you can’t move. Your sister’s trying to be something her voice isn’t. She asks her son to go to your house and get some of your spiritual books and find out where the hell Benny is. She tells him to stay here for a minute while she ducks out – for a cigarette. Her son sits down, then stands up, then tucks you in, then untucks you, then says nothing. The others wouldn’t play with him. When it was his turn the other kids said they didn’t want to play any more. He’s the youngest, the tallest. Your sons look like small men next to him and they’re not. He walks to the window, opens the curtains a bit and says, ‘What about this weather?’ and, ‘The sky looks nice, Aunty Jo. It’s one of your skies today.’ You and he dig a hole and the warm water comes up. It gets hotter the closer you get to the sea, you tell him. The other kids are off somewhere with Anne. You say the hole is big enough but he keeps digging so you keep digging. You both jump in the sea to get cold first. The others come back and he hits his sister and your sons for no reason and says it’s their fault. Anne comes back, tells him not to forget your books and to get Benny to call her when he finds him. She’s got her mobile. Then it’s you and her again like it has been for the last couple of months, since your mother died – old and confused.
You can’t feel your eternal spirit self, if anyone’s interested – hello? You can’t feel your eternal spirit self. So don’t start with don’t forget the books. Forget the books. Forget Shakti Gawain, Kahlil Gibran, and Conversations with God. Find Benny and forget the books. Look in the middle of the road. That’s where he was the other time he went missing, when he was four. In the middle of Panmure Drive, looking both ways like a dog off its lead. Your nephew should look there. That was the last place you looked. You checked all the closets. You checked under the car. You asked your oldest son over and over again; promising each time he wasn’t going to get in trouble, you just needed to know. You checked under bushes, in the garage, in the boot of the car, behind the washing machine and upstairs. Then you decided to go for a walk and shout his name for a couple of blocks, ‘Benny!’ You bundled up your oldest son and when you got to the top of the driveway there he was, standing in the middle of peak hour traffic, counting. He looked worried but he said he wasn’t. Your nephew should check there. That’s where Benny went to think.
You could find him. If you had one more hour you could find him. Haven’t you done enough for one more hour? You nursed your husband to death, you put your oldest son through flight school, and you gave regularly to charity. Surely that’s enough for another hour. Any time now would be good. You could rise and walk again, leave this hospital, leave this bed and find Benny. You just needed an hour. It’s not much to ask after everything you’ve done; an hour to say ‘goodbye’ and ‘stop using drugs’. Why didn’t you say that? In all the counselling and treatments, why did you say,
‘I’m here,’ and, ‘Whatever you need’? Why didn’t you say, ‘Stop using drugs!’ really loudly? Who would say that now? You need one more hour to tell someone to tell Benny to stop using drugs – loudly. Surely you’ve done enough for one more hour and any time would be good. Any time soon would be fine. Any time now would be good, or when your nephew brings him back. He should check the middle of the road, or the couch, or his bedroom where he keeps the curtains drawn and the stereo up – where he goes to think ever since he came home from Coolangatta. Ever since he came out of the psychosis he came home in from Coolangatta. Lots of sun in Coolangatta, people want to get away from the city, though. That’s the mistake people make. People only visit the city but they really need to get away and go to the rivers: Nerang and that. Nerang’s nice. It’s a very spiritual place. Where are your books? What happens now and where the hell is your eternal spirit self? Any time now would be good.
Sleeping feels more like waking. You’re padding round the ward in your bare feet, looking for a cup of tea. Waiting for the others to bring your clothes and take you home. You can’t find your handbag, so you can’t find your cigarettes, so you can’t have a smoke. A nurse offers you a cigarette and you smoke it under a No Smoking sign on the mezzanine that looks out on the indoor garden. They have an indoor garden and you start to lift off the ground. Your feet lift off, toes last, and you take one more drag and throw the cigarette away as you fly over the indoor garden and leave it all behind and then there’s a bang and you wake into darkness. More darkness and the pain’s back and you scream and yell. Does no one know how much pain you’re in and then there is no pain, as fast as that. You fly, like gliding, not swimming. You swoop and dive. The leaves from the trees flick when you pass them too close. You find your handbag in a high branch. You find your jeans and some underwear you haven’t worn yet – you got them a month or so ago and they’re still in their packaging. There’s a little plastic pin holding the price tag on. You sit in the tree and pull the price tag and the pin stays so you use your teeth to break the pin, kissing the cotton, leaving lipstick on it. You can’t remember putting on lipstick and you need a scarf because it was cold when you left. When you see a shoe you like, you buy two pairs – one in black and one in brown. If you had your handbag you could take yourself home, you could get takeaways on the way. It’s nice to be hungry. You swing your feet and wait for your sister to bring the car round.
