Sunny said her mum called. It was in the middle of the night, but Babette couldn’t help it because the phone service in Sudan was so unreliable and she didn’t get many chances to ring.
‘Did you tell her about the orchid?’ I asked.
‘God, Ali, no!’
This is how it had been pretty much since I got back, me trying to be nice and Sunny snapping my head off for no reason. Mum said Sunny had some issues to deal with and that I should give her some room, but I thought she was being a total bitch. Danni agreed. ‘It’s not like she’s the only person in the world,’ she said. Though in a way she was the only person to me.
‘Do you want to go to the park?’ I suggested, changing the subject.
We went to the 7-Eleven instead. Sunny bought a pack of Alpine 20’s and we wandered around the side. A red Commodore was parked opposite the men’s. Heat reflected off the new cement. We leaned against the propane tank as we smoked, watching the way the ground seemed to move as it shimmered in the midday sun. Sunny pulled some Tiger Balm from her pocket.
‘Want some?’ she asked as she unscrewed the tiny glass jar. It had a picture of a tiger on the label and smelled like sports medicine, a balm for achy muscles.
I shook my head. ‘No thanks.’
She carefully dotted the ointment beneath her eyes and blinked hard as they began to water. It was supposed to look sexy to have watery eyes, but to me she just looked like she was crying.
Sunny stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’ve got to use the loo.’
As she walked to the bathroom the employees’ door opened. A man came out. He was tall.
‘Watch it,’ she said. ‘You nearly got me.’
The man didn’t move. ‘You watch it,’ he replied.
Sunny held his eye for a moment then walked around him and into the ladies’ and slammed the door. The man laughed and got into his car. He beeped his horn twice before driving away.
‘Fuck.’ I stubbed my big toe on the dresser. I was vacuuming up spilled glitter from the rug and forgot to look where I was going. Dad appeared in the doorway.
‘Is everything all right?’
I was bent over, massaging my foot.
‘Let me see,’ he said. We sat on the floor opposite each other. He placed my heel on his knee.
‘You know there’s no point beating yourself up,’ Dad said. ‘You’ve got to let people be.’ He was referring to Sunny and the fact that I’d been shitty all week, ever since I went around to her place and she wasn’t home. Being grounded for a month is a long time, but then it passes. I just assumed she’d want to spend her first day of freedom with me.
Dad kept squeezing my toe gently like he was milking a cow. He said, ‘Things change, Ali, and that’s okay.’ He was talking softly in his mellow voice, the one he’d use on the telephone sometimes when clients would call at home after hours. It was meant to make me feel better, but it didn’t. He tried another tack. ‘Are you meeting the McDonald’s gang today?’
I shrugged.
Dad said if I finished up the vacuuming he’d drop me at the train.
Silver glitter still speckled the carpet, but I didn’t care. I put away the Hoover and waited in the car.
Clouds hung over the station. They hung over the houses and the shops and on the rise of the horizon. From the platform I could see right into town. Dry leaves scraped across the sleepers, collected on the inside of the tracks. There was dust everywhere, on the seats, on the handrails, swirling in little eddies on the ground. I was thirsty. When I got to McDonald’s I was going to order a giant Coke with ice.
Sunny’s new boyfriend was twenty-three. He had his own apartment and because of that, she explained, she was never home on the weekends. It was strange talking to her on the telephone in this way, but since she’d changed schools we didn’t see each other anymore.
‘What have you been doing?’ she asked.
I told her about the excursion to the International Fair at the Exhibition Gardens and how I got my ears pierced at the Indian Culture & Society stall, two round silver studs that I had to rotate and dress with hydrogen peroxide every morning so the holes would heal. The woman at the stall dotted each lobe with a ballpoint pen then lined up the gun, like my ears were birds being tagged before being released back into the wild. She was wearing a sari and had a red dot between her eyes and she had to hold the gun with both hands to keep it steady. When she squeezed, it sounded like a real gun. Everyone was standing around watching. I could see Danni startle at the sound.
I didn’t tell Sunny about after, when the teachers saw me and freaked out. Wimple drove me home so he could explain to Mum and Dad, but of course they were still at work, so I had to make him a cup of tea with milk and three sugars and wait with him for hours until they got back. He looked weird sitting at our kitchen table, not like a child molester at all. He tapped his foot and made slurping sounds as he drank his tea. When he put the cup down, I could see his moustache was all wet. Mum said that the school was worried because they didn’t really supervise me properly on the outing. That meant that if anything went wrong with my ears we could bankrupt them with lawsuits. Then she gently pulled back my hair and squinted at my studs and said, ‘Not bad.’
I didn’t tell Sunny about the Indian lady either, how she reminded me of Babette, and that when she leaned over to dot my left ear with her pen I could smell the sandalwood perfume in her clothes, and I thought of the drought in Sudan and what it would be like if it were my parents getting the divorce, and of the flowering orchid in the Carsons’ front yard, and wondered if Babette got back in time to see it.
Hypochondriac
This time, when Daisy’s father calls to announce he is going to die, she doesn’t grumble about changing her plans. Yes, it puts a rapid end to any ideas she might have had for the weekend, but she is not generally one for weekends and so, in a twisted way, it really suits her (not that she’d ever admit to such a thing).
Besides, she quite enjoys packing. The whole process of choosing the clothes and laying them out on the bed gives her a quiet thrill. She likes to assemble little piles which she arranges by type of garment, colour and day they’ll be worn; this one going with this, and that one going with that. She stands back to admire her handiwork. The bed is patterned by neat ensembles which she complements with a simple, pastel floral scarf and a thin tan leather belt. It gives her enormous pleasure to mix and match in this way. Daisy wraps the outfits in tissue paper before placing them in the suitcase. As she lays them down in the bag, the paper softly crinkles, a small rustle of excitement at the centre of her house.
At the airport, the passengers must board the plane from the tarmac. This is not something Daisy expected, having to climb up one of those narrow, portable sets of stairs, but the terminal is under construction. She grips the handrail and tries to walk on her toes, paying special attention so that her heels won’t catch in the woven metallic surface beneath her feet.
The stairs remind her of teeth in a giant zip. Like an errant thread, she feels herself caught in a situation that she can’t quite define. It is something about her father. Something about his practical inability. Like the way he can be dying but still well enough to meet her at the airport. Even though she told him that she’d catch a taxi. It’s his crazy way. Because taxis are too expensive. And what’s the use of having a car if you’re not going to drive it?
As the captain waits for the all-clear from air traffic control, the flight attendants review the air craft’s safety procedures. Daisy watches as, like well-choreographed synchronised swimmers, they gracefully move their heads and arms in unison to the video demonstration, indicating the nearest exits.
Although Daisy’s father has forecast his death many times before, he is yet to be correct. This is frustrating for a man who takes himself so seriously. Which is why in his mind his headaches have become migraines, his stomach-aches ulcers
, and his lack of sexual desire a symptom of a low-grade form of pre-diabetes, a kind the medical profession has never heard of. That his doctors won’t corroborate his diagnoses does not perturb him. If anything, it confirms what he already knows, that doctors are stupid and far too expensive. Which doesn’t prohibit him from seeking their counsel, mind you, but does get in the way of him heeding their advice – exercise, George, and try to watch what you eat – what do they know, he thinks. And who could know better what he needs than he does himself?
And yet he does not die. He eats terribly. He calls on his GP far more frequently than he should. He makes frantic trips to emergency in the dead of night. But they cannot find anything wrong with him. Despite the hours of waiting, the tests, and the occasional overnight stays for observation, he is always dismissed eventually with, if not exactly a clean bill of health, then parting words such as take it easy for a couple of weeks, George, followed by some inane platitude like look after yourself. It is a brush-off equivalent to don’t call us, and although George seems to smile and wave as he goes on his way, somewhere just outside of his conscious awareness he is boiling mad that they won’t take him and his ailments seriously.
Even so, the prospect of surgery does not fully please him. He is frightened. The doctor attempts to comfort him with her this is routine routine. She sees growths like this one all the time. He shouldn’t worry, they have caught it in time. But George can’t help himself. He gets on the telephone. ‘Daisy,’ he says, ‘it’s cancer.’ The silence on the other end confirms what part of him has been hoping for. At last, it’s something serious. She asks him when they’ve scheduled the procedure. ‘Next week,’ he sighs. Daisy says she’ll arrange her flight then call him right back.
They have planned the rehearsal for two days before the operation, to be followed by the rehearsal dinner. Here is how it unfolds:
Daisy wishes to establish whether she should play herself or perform the role of the doctor. For maximum realism, she argues, she should play the doctor – being there with him in the operating room when he passes away, etc. That way it will make sense, she says, to urge him on, then to reluctantly accept his demise and so forth, right up to the turning off of all the machines and the pulling of the sheet up over his head. On the other hand, if it’s emotional punch they’re after, then it makes sense for her to play herself but for them to suspend some sense of disbelief. For example, she could be in the operating room ‘watching’ and they would just have to overlook the improbability that she’d be permitted to do that in real life.
Daisy’s father calls for a compromise: he wants Daisy to play herself, but also to perform some of the actions previously reserved for the doctor role. ‘I could die afterwards, in the recovery room,’ he proffers. ‘That way we get the realism, but with the enhanced dramatic effect – you can do the sheet thing and break down crying over my body, and nobody will throw you out because you’re not wearing sterile robes.’ This seems like the best idea.
Daisy also wishes to clarify some minor prop details: which clothes he would like to be buried in – a suit or something more casual – the kind of funeral service he has in mind, the exact wording of the epitaph. George says she should keep it simple, simple, simple. ‘Something to make them feel the tragedy of my passing, the senselessness of my death. But let’s not overdo it. I’d prefer to be interred wearing white.’
And so they begin. George lies down on the couch. Daisy places a sheet over his body, folding it in a sharp crease across the base of his neck. She sits beside him on the edge of the cushion. They stare at each other, just for a moment, then George groans and closes his eyes. For all intents and purposes he is dead. Daisy says, ‘Daddy. Daddy.’ George does not respond. Daisy leans over him and shakes his shoulders. ‘Daddy. Daddy.’ But George does not move. Daisy screams, ‘Daddy!’ She then throws herself down onto his chest and simulates hysterical weeping. After a couple of minutes she rises up again and, still crying, says, ‘Daddy, oh Daddy, how could you die on me, Daddy, how?’ There is a short pause, after which she says, ‘I will always love you, Daddy. Goodbye.’ Daisy then kisses George on the cheek and pulls the sheet up over his head.
George sits up and says he thought it worked very well. He found her emotion believable with out being over the top, and the dialogue was particularly inspired. Daisy agrees it made real sense to enact the scene in the recovery room, because she really enjoyed getting to play herself but with that extended range of emotion.
They continue to congratulate each other over the celebratory meal of vegetable soup, followed by roast chicken and potatoes, and for dessert, jelly with fruit and whipped topping.
After the operation, the nurse is telling Daisy that they only agreed to administer George a general anaesthetic because he is so neurotic. ‘Let’s face it,’ he says, ‘it’s on his thigh and not much bigger than a mole. We do most people under a local.’ Daisy can see his point. It is faster that way and the person doesn’t have to stay overnight. But George didn’t want it like that, so prosaic.
Even now, contrary to all of their preparation, it isn’t going as planned. For one, the room is too bright. And two, the nursing staff are so casual, breezing in and out, talking in anything but hushed tones. If he were conscious, he would be so disappointed.
George is still sleeping when the nurse leaves them alone.
Daisy sits for a while longer, softly stroking her father’s hand, until the time comes for her too to depart. She stands to kiss him once more on the forehead before placing the pillow over his face. Singing, ‘hush little baby, don’t say a word’, she tenderly caresses the last breath out of him with a lullaby. His favourite. The room is quiet. The tone, appropriately reverential. Then she says, ‘I will always love you, Daddy. Goodbye,’ and pulls the sheet up over his head, just like in their rehearsal, rendering what would have been an inadequate denouement just about perfect.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for providing a platform for emerging writers. For their part in helping me to make this book, I would like to thank Clare Forster, Meredith Curnow, Elizabeth Cowell, Gillian, Gregory, Anita, Andres, David, Mary and Bernie, Joel, Patrick, Erica, Giorgia and Jenny. Special thanks also to my family. And to Miss Kate for her longstanding support. Above all, I wish to thank Phillip, my most significant other, who made the writing of these stories possible.
About the Author
Catherine Harris’s fiction and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in Australia, Canada, England and the United States. She won the Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize in 2009. Like Being a Wife is her first book and was shortlisted for the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript.
Like Being a Wife Page 16
