by Pip Adam
‘I’m going to get a coffee.’ Ned took off his coat. ‘Does anyone want a coffee?’
‘I’ll help,’ Hope said and followed him into the kitchen where he sat on a stool and she made coffee. She asked how his night had been and he sighed by way of a reply.
‘How about yours?’ he said.
Hope shrugged then nodded and said, ‘Yeah. Good.’
‘Where’s Alba?’ Ned asked.
‘Yoga retreat,’ Hope said. ‘She gets back tomorrow. Alex is picking her up later in the afternoon.’ She straightened the tea towel that was hanging on the oven handle.
When she came back into the lounge, Alex was gone. She tried to hide the fourth mug; ashamed of it – of herself. Like she and the mug were the only things in the world. Hope drank her coffee fast and it burned everything in her mouth – tongue, cheek, gums. She looked at her watch. It was the tilt forward that did it. Hope said, ‘I better go,’ looking up to hold the large tears where they were, to stop them from tipping.
Molly said, ‘Oh Hopie – stay.’
‘No,’ Hope said.
Molly saw Hope to the door and they hugged. Hope stood back and wiped her eyes as if she was tired, and looked at the wall behind Molly.
‘You two,’ Molly said – or, ‘You too,’ Hope wasn’t sure.
‘Your coat!’ Molly went to get it.
Hope walked across the lawn in the sound of the night and the moon. As she drove home, she thought maybe Molly had said ‘You to . . .’ like she was telling Hope where to go – to make everything all right – but it was late now and it made no sense – none of it.
When You’re Sick
She liked to imagine herself places. A small coastal cottage on the way out to the albatross colony, perhaps Otakou, with the fire going and some soup on the stove and people on their way, or perhaps already there – staying over. People visited her wherever she imagined she was. Unexpected people – Henry James, her aunt, the Tudors – mostly dead people and ones she wanted to have sex with, or had stopped having sex with after things went cold, usually through her fault.
Or Portland, Oregon on a spring day with snow still on Mount Hood – the Clearing. She made new friends in Portland. Portland was alive with possibilities, jobs she’d never heard of, halls full of red and orange food, sweating with beta-carotene and antioxidant. She would see the world from a different angle in Portland, go to some sort of department store and buy toxin-free, fair-trade sneakers made entirely from old tyres.
On Friday she went to a gallery opening, the launch of a video installation. She looked around and thought, ‘This could be Portland.’ She looked and tried not to listen and soaked it all in, the feeling of being in Portland in her new sneakers. Michael said, ‘Sally – you look well.’ She wanted to shout, ‘Portland, Portland, Portland – they call it the Clearing, don’t you know?’ As she walked home she imagined her feet on Portland footpaths, going past Ankeny, Burnside, Davis and Flanders until she lost herself in the chatter of it all – the Willamette and the Columbia rushing by, or perhaps quietly, hardly even moving. She wasn’t sure what rivers that size did.
On Saturday she went to the acupuncturist. The acupuncturist said, ‘Honey, you don’t want to go to Portland when you’re sick – bad energy in Portland.’ She showed her a book that explained why she had eleven needles in each of her ankles and why she needed to surround herself in positive light. The acupuncturist gave her an envelope with a postcard in it and said, ‘This is for you to think about.’ It was a postcard of Claremont – the city of trees. She imagined herself underwater – sleeping on a bed of bull kelp. Everything was exactly the right temperature. When she moved her arm, or her head, or pushed her hair behind her ears, the whole ocean – all of it – moved to adjust things so she stayed completely comfortable; every part of her supported and held by the perfectly temperate waters. There were no fish but the people who visited could breathe there, like her. She left the postcard, back in its envelope, for the next person to think about.
On Sunday she breaks the surface of the water in Landmannalaugar, with the Northern Lights spread out above her. She leans back and lets them take her breath away. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Michael says.
‘It’s ridiculous how beautiful it is,’ she says.
Iceland had never occurred to her.
Like a Good Idea
It was a sunny day. The receptionist gave Polly a form to fill out and said she would get a nurse. She came back carrying a Polaroid camera and said, ‘Can you stand by that wall?’ Polly stood by the wall and the receptionist took the photo. She shook the photo for a minute, said Polly could sit down and walked away. A nurse came and took the form off Polly and told her, ‘Follow me.’ They went into a small room with a high window. Polly could see the top branches of a magnolia in flower outside. The nurse looked at the form.
‘It says here you’ve been thinking about killing yourself,’ the nurse said. ‘When did you last think about killing yourself?’
‘An hour ago?’ Polly said.
The nurse wrote something. ‘It’s not okay to think about killing yourself. Thinking about killing yourself is not okay. Understand?’ Polly nodded. ‘If you think about killing yourself while you’re here you need to tell someone. Understand?’ Polly nodded. ‘Understand?’
‘Yeah,’ Polly said. This all seemed like a very bad idea right now.
The nurse turned the form over. ‘It says here you haven’t had a drink or drug for a month. It’s important that’s the truth. If you go into detox you could die, so it’s important that’s the truth. Do you understand what the truth is?’ Polly nodded. ‘Is it the truth that you haven’t had a drink or a drug for a month?’ Polly shook her head. ‘How long has it been since you had a drink or a drug?’ Polly looked at her watch. ‘I see,’ said the nurse and wrote something down. ‘We need to look in your suitcase now.’
Polly opened up her suitcase on the examination bed in the small room. The nurse took her perfume, her hairspray, her vitamin C tablets, her paracetamol and the small amount of vodka she had hidden in a toner bottle. ‘If you get a headache, tell a nurse,’ she said. ‘If you get a cold, tell a nurse. You won’t need hairspray here.’
The nurse wrote some more on the form then took out a laminated sheet of paper with writing on it. ‘These are the rules of this drug treatment facility. You need to read them.’ Polly picked up the laminated sheet, looked at it and put it on the desk. The nurse finished writing, put down her pen and looked at Polly. ‘Have you read the rules of this treatment facility?’ Polly nodded. The nurse pointed at the sheet. ‘If you drink you’ll be discharged. If you take any drugs not given to you by a member of medical staff, you’ll be discharged. If you form an emotional or physical bond with another patient which is deemed inappropriate by a member of therapeutic or medical staff you will be discharged. If you start a fight, start a fire, disobey – do you get the picture?’ Polly nodded. ‘There’s no pressure to sign this form.’ The nurse pushed another form towards Polly. ‘By signing this form you’re admitting yourself. You can turn around and leave right now. There are twenty other people who want your bed. I’m a taxpayer, so if you’re wasting my money don’t sign the form.’ Polly signed the form, mainly to prove something to the nurse.
‘You can have cups, not bottles. You’re not allowed to have water bottles.’ Lorna was Polly’s buddy. They were going to be in the same therapy group. She was a middle-aged woman, wearing track-pants and slippers. They both wore name tags. ‘There’s a lot to take in on your first day.’ When they got back to the dormitory, Lorna said, quietly, ‘Do you think you’ll be hanging out?’
‘Oh, no.’ Polly shook her head and stuck her hands in her pocket.
‘It’s just, if you are, you should probably tell a nurse.’
Polly nodded.
‘You’re in now. That stuff about being one month clean – they don’t really mean it once you’re in.’
A group of about ten women arrived in the
dormitory, shouting and laughing.
‘You’ll have your own room soon, anyway.’ Lorna left.
The next morning Polly went to Occupational Therapy. The nurse told her she could paint a scarf or make a belt. Polly said she didn’t care which and the nurse said she needed to start caring around about now, and did she realise where she was? Polly said nothing and the nurse said, ‘You’re in a mental institution, an asylum, because of the choices you’ve made. I’m giving you a choice. Right now is where you need to start caring about the choices you make.’ She had a silk scarf in one hand and a length of leather in the other. She was holding them up like they were two fish she was about to win a prize for. ‘Do you want to make a belt or a scarf?’
‘I really want to make a belt,’ Polly said.
‘So there’s no one in the world you could give a scarf to?’
‘I could make a scarf for my grandmother.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ the nurse handed her the scarf. ‘Thinking of others is always the right choice.’
An hour later the nurse came over to the table Polly was working at. It was beside the window and the sun was streaming in.
‘Are those poppies?’ she said to Polly. ‘You can’t draw poppies. I think I explained that.’ Polly turned the flowers into balloons. They looked awful but the nurse said they were much better and she needed to get used to not being such a perfectionist. The scarf really did look awful – like a five-year-old had made it. Her grandmother was dead so it didn’t bother Polly.
She wasn’t ready to tell anybody but when the judge had said she could have prison or treatment, treatment seemed like a good idea. It was testing her, though. It was like prison but with smiling nodding people sweating earnestness, every moment of every day: psychotherapy, meditation, interpretive dance. She’d been there three days and was already carrying round a stuffed blue bear. She’d been to grief group, and the facilitator, a large woman wearing peach, had said Polly needed to look after her inner child, since she seemed to hate her inner child, and she’d given Polly the bear. If Polly was seen without it or damaging it in any way by any of the staff she would be discharged, and if she was discharged the sentence would stand and she would go to prison. As she sat in the big dining hall, eating lasagne with the bear on its own chair, she wondered if prison might have been the better option. She had to write her life story up until today and read it to her group tomorrow.
She’d come from a good home. She’d gone to a good school then she’d gone off the rails. She didn’t know if she could stop because she’d never tried to stop. They sat in a room with no windows, in a circle, ten of them and the counsellor, Bill. She’d fleshed it out a little, but it boiled down to that. Bill wasn’t convinced. He asked if she was convinced. Polly said quickly, ‘Yeah, sure, I can see it all now.’ Bill said again that he wasn’t convinced and asked if anyone else in group wasn’t convinced. People started mumbling that they weren’t sure.
‘You don’t sound very remorseful,’ one of them said finally.
If they’d wanted remorse she could have done remorse. She hadn’t wanted to lay it on too thick. The counsellor suggested Polly write a letter to her mother and ask how her drug use had affected her family. Polly said she wasn’t allowed to contact her mother so that probably wouldn’t work. The counsellor said he would contact Polly’s mother and ask her to send a letter explaining how Polly’s drug use had affected her family.
‘I don’t think that’s really necessary,’ Polly said.
No one talked for what seemed like a long time.
‘Well,’ said Bill, ‘if you don’t think it’s necessary Polly, I think it’s absolutely imperative that I do it today.’ He turned to another new woman and asked her to read her life story.
‘I was born into an alcoholic family,’ she began. ‘I never wanted to turn out like my parents.’ She began to cry. ‘I was molested when I was three years old and that’s when I stopped feeling.’
‘I would really prefer it if you didn’t contact my mother.’ Bill and everyone else in group turned toward Polly, while the other new woman cried in quiet chokes.
‘Polly,’ said Bill, ‘we’re listening to Rebecca’s story.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry, but I would really prefer it if you didn’t contact my mother.’ Polly was folding and unfolding the piece of paper she’d written her life story on. ‘Maybe I can rewrite this tonight and present it again tomorrow.’
‘Where’s your bear, Polly?’
Polly looked around the legs of her chair.
‘Fuck.’ She’d left the bear in her room. ‘I mean – flip!’
‘Does anyone else find it interesting that Polly has lost her bear?’ Bill asked the group. No one answered. ‘What do you think it says to me about you that you’ve lost your bear, Polly?’
Polly shrugged. It was hopeless.
‘Rebecca,’ Bill said, ‘what does it say to you about Polly that she loses her bear and then interrupts you at your most vulnerable?’
‘Umm.’ Rebecca grabbed a tissue from the box on the table in the middle of the circle. ‘I don’t think it shows much concern for me – or her.’
‘What do you think of that, Polly?’
If she left now, she could be in Christchurch within a couple, maybe three, hours. If she was smart about it, she would leave after group. It was free time. No one would miss her until dinner and that would give her a head start. She could score by nightfall. The police were busy, too busy to worry about her for a couple of days. She could get a couple of days out of it, surely.
‘And if you stay you could get a lifetime of freedom.’ Polly looked at Bill. It was a lucky guess. She could take him. It was a lucky guess. He was small and weak and stupid. There was no way he would fight back. There was probably something in his contract that said he couldn’t fight back. He was an idiot. Not even that lucky – she doubted there was anyone in the room who wasn’t thinking about leaving. He liked to tell people what to do, that was clear: he liked to be right. He was a very small man. The smallest in the room. If she started it, there were at least five in the group who would join in.
‘You really want another assault charge?’ Bill said. Polly knew it was a trick, like this whole stinking place. She shook her head.
‘I’m sorry for interrupting, Rebecca,’ Polly said, and Rebecca carried on.
Polly sat on a balcony outside the nurses’ station smoking a cigarette and watching a game of touch rugby. More than one staff member said, ‘You could join in’ as they walked past her. Crying was the key. They were trying to break everyone, and crying was the key. Bill would ring her mother, her mother would write a letter and when he read it out she needed to cry. Rebecca had cried. It was the opposite of anywhere else Polly had been. In some ways it was worse. They wanted you to do certain things and the easiest way through was to pretend to do those things. She’d done that for years. She’d just got off to a bad start because it was different here. She’d be fine now.
‘You’re shaking.’ It was Bill.
Polly threw her cigarette into a sand-filled ice cream container and folded her arms.
‘Have you seen the nurse about that shaking?’
Polly nodded.
‘Polly, do you have any idea about the truth?’ It was like a nightmare of compassion.
‘I saw the nurse yesterday, is what I meant.’
‘Okay, were you shaking yesterday?’
‘No, but I figured you were just talking in general, had I seen the nurse kind of thing. Sorry.’
‘You can’t con a con, Polly.’
‘Is 28 Days like your favourite Sandra Bullock movie, or do you and your boyfriends sit around watching all of them?’ She hadn’t meant to say it. She hadn’t meant to say it then, anyway. From Bill’s immediate reaction she wasn’t even sure she had said it. She’d been hoping to save it for later; the end, where she throws her chair and storms out and goes to prison and tells them all to fuck themselves and scores.
> ‘I wish I could show you what it’s like, Polly. Just for five minutes, I wish I could take my life and give it to you, just for five minutes. You have no idea what you’re about to miss.’ For a split second she wanted it. Then it was gone.
A Lightness
They were on the top of the slide when it happened. He pushed her and she fell and as she hit the ground all the life punched out of her. It was three days before Christmas and they were two years old.
He didn’t remember it. His mother said she arrived at Playcentre late because she’d been shopping and his father had walked to the fence to meet her. His father said he said, ‘Your son has been very violent this afternoon,’ then his mother’s face went, ‘Oh.’ His father turned to see what she was looking at and the girl was on the ground dead. They said Mickey was leaning over the top of the slide looking at her, that when he saw his parents looking he smiled and waved. He slid down the slide and ran to the swings. The girl’s mother saw Mickey push her. Earlier he’d pushed another child’s head into the corner of a table. The week before he’d gone up to several children and grabbed them in what parents thought was a hug, then, with all his weight, dropped them to the ground. When he thought about it now, he couldn’t imagine what could have made him that angry.
He didn’t think about it now, not much. His grandmother had lived in a council flat at the time. He would stay with her while his parents were in the business of apologising and wondering. They’d waited a long time to have a child; his grandmother was old and slightly disappointed. He had memories of being in her flat; the warmth that hung there and expanded inside him. He remembered wine biscuits and orange cordial. In the sobbing days after his father left, Mickey’s mother said his grandmother blamed her completely. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. When his mother got older and went swimming every day and to the church hall on Wednesday mornings for yoga she said that, once, on the way to Playcentre, Mickey had asked if the dead girl would be there. She said it while she was doing dishes one cold night, out of the blue and unprompted; jazz was playing. In his mind there had always been a pop. He supposed it was the small girl’s kidneys or her heart.
