Undine

by Penni Russon

  Then the police came to the door, a man and a woman. They were hot and flustered. They’d had trouble finding the place, and Undine heard Lou explaining to them about 21/2 Myrtle Street and 43b Camelot Road. The man just stood there, uncomfortable, looking all starched and stiff in his uniform. The woman smiled softly at Lou, a silencing kind of smile. Undine slipped up next to Lou, and Lou’s hand blindly searched out her own.

  Stephen had been in a car accident on his way home from work. Just before the policeman told them this, Undine saw, as though it were printed on the air in front of her, the moving image of Stephen’s little red car being hit by a bigger car, and Stephen’s calm face as he lost control of the car and was spun into one of those big concrete pylons at the bridge’s exit. Undine’s heart stopped racing for the first time in days, and then seemed to stop altogether. The floor rushed up to meet her, but then she realized it was her falling to meet the floor. The policewoman stepped in and caught her, just before she hit the ground, and carried her over to the couch, clutching too hard under her arms so she pinched the skin. Undine felt raw under there for days. The police stayed for a minute or two, their soft babbling voices caressing the air around Undine’s head, and then Undine seemed to drift off, because when she looked up they had gone. Lou was standing at the open door, staring into space.

  “I thought they were here about the parking tickets,” Lou said as she closed the door, and then she burst into terrifying tears.

  The dreadful immediacy of Undine’s feeling had dissolved then, to be replaced by the numbness of grief, and, horribly, a sense of relief, that the thing had just happened and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it. With the relief came guilt, and that guilt was pushed right down inside her, becoming so tangled up in her feelings about Stephen that after a while she came to believe that she was somehow responsible for his death. It was her worst and most secret thought; it was the thought she used to torture herself whenever she felt she had behaved badly and needed to punish herself, like when she picked on Jasper or was mean to Lou.

  Sometimes over the days after Stephen died, Undine had caught Lou studying her, examining her face as if she were written in a foreign language. Undine didn’t mention her feelings to Lou, or to anyone. That expression on Lou’s face had made Undine feel like a stranger.

  Stephen was Jasper’s father, but he was not Undine’s, though in a way he belonged more to Undine than Jasper, because Undine had known him and loved him and Jasper had not. Stephen had fallen in love with Lou when Undine was ten and together they had moved into the house on the steps. They’d only had him three years when he died, but Lou and Undine found they had to learn all over again how to be a family without him.

  Undine turned another corner and found herself on Mim’s street. Mim was her “aunt,” Stephen’s sister. Undine stood outside Mim’s redbrick house, wondering whether or not to go inside. An enormous brown cat, moving like a puppet on strings, made his way slowly and sleepily toward her, leaping surprisingly lightly onto the gatepost.

  “Hello, Lizard.” Undine scooped him up and buried her nose in the fur on his neck. Lizard had once been hers, from when he was a kitten and they lived in the little flat in Bellerive. When Jasper was born, Lou had wanted to give Lizard away, leading to fights and recriminations and some pretty dedicated sulking on Undine’s part. Mim, to end the argument, had agreed to “borrow” him until Jasper was older.

  Undine listened to the internal rumbling of the cat’s purr. It was like a hidden mechanism, a little machine pumping inside him.

  “Undine!”

  Mim was coming around the house from the back garden, wiping dirt onto the front of her baggy shirt.

  “I wondered what made old Boof take off so fast. Usually you can’t get him to move without a food-based incentive. That cat has a sixth sense when it comes to you.”

  Undine’s smile was almost a scowl. She didn’t want to think about extra senses at that moment.

  Mim cocked her head and looked circumspectly at Undine. She must have realized that it was a school day. She leaned against the fence and began digging through the many pockets of her green pants for cigarettes.

  “You know,” she said, between her teeth as she lit up, “if you’re going to wag school, you should really take a change of clothes with you.”

  Undine looked down at her school uniform. “It wasn’t exactly planned.”

  “Something up, mate? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  Undine shook her head, not looking terribly sure. “Not as far as I know.”

  “Come on,” said Mim. “Let’s grab a cuppa and you can tell me what’s going on.”

  One of the best things about Stephen was the instant family he had brought into Undine’s and Lou’s lives. It had always been just Lou and Undine. Suddenly, as well as Stephen, there were grandparents, aunts, an uncle, and cousins.

  Mim was extraspecial though. She was still in her twenties, quite young for an aunt. She had loved Undine and Lou, and they had loved her, from the moment they met. She was different from everyone Undine knew. She was too young to be a mum, so she never tried to mother Undine. She was surer of herself than the girls Undine knew at school, even though her hair was always in a messy ponytail, and most of her wardrobe consisted of secondhand men’s clothing. But she had what Undine supposed was style and looked sexier in them than any of the girls at school ever did in their itsy skirts and little huggy T-shirts.

  “Okay, you,” Mim said, putting a coffee in her hands. “What’s the story?”

  They were sitting on Mim’s back veranda, looking out over the garden. It was enormous, with what looked like hundreds of different kinds of plants vying for space. Undine fiddled with a frond of jasmine spilling over the edge of the veranda.

  “It’s…” Undine didn’t know where to begin. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Try me.”

  Undine looked at Mim over the top of her coffee cup. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I know you’re crazy. Come on. You’ll probably feel better if you tell me.”

  “It’s this…I’ve been having…feelings. A feeling. Since I woke up this morning.”

  Mim smiled blankly. “Can you be more specific?”

  “It really is hard to explain.”

  “Is it about a boy? Or maybe a girl?”

  “Oh no,” said Undine dismissively. “I wish it were something that simple. No, it’s more”—she looked at Lizard, lying on his back in the sun—“a kind of sixth sense, I suppose.”

  Mim raised her eyebrows but Undine couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Go on.”

  “Well, last time anything like this happened was when Stephen…”

  Mim winced slightly.

  “I’m sorry.” The sound of Stephen’s name spoken aloud was still shocking. The shape of his name hung between them for a moment, until Mim blew out a lungful of smoke with the force of a combustion engine, and it dissolved.

  “So you think someone else is going to…get hurt?”

  “I don’t know.” Undine studied her coffee again. “No. It’s different this time. Something’s going to happen. Something’s going to change. And I don’t want it to.” Undine had surprised herself. It wasn’t till she started thinking aloud, to explain the mysterious sensation in her most secret self, that the feeling began to reveal its true nature. It was the moment between dropping something—like a favorite china cup—and it hitting the ground. It was that sudden awareness of inevitability: the moment before loss, when you know something you love is going to break, or be irretrievably altered.

  Mim tilted her head. “Change isn’t always bad, you know.”

  Undine nodded, but she had to admit to herself that change, for her, was bad. She liked things to stay in their predictable patterns. She wanted Trout to stay her best friend forever, not to fall in love with her. She wanted Jasper to stay small forever, for the three of them to live in the funny little house in No-Man’s-Land
and visit Stephen’s parents and Mim on the weekends. Most of all she wanted Stephen back, for it to be how it was when he was alive, only with Jasper as well, living as an ordinary family, with ordinary feelings in ordinary places.

  “It’s hard work,” Mim said, “but it can be good. Change can be the best thing for everyone. Life would be a bit boring if you always knew what was going to happen.”

  Undine finished her coffee and Mim lit another cigarette.

  “You poor thing,” she said to Undine. “I can’t bear what my five ordinary senses tell me sometimes. It would be awful having another one.”

  “So you believe me?”

  Mim shrugged. “Sure,” she said, flicking cigarette ash over the side of the veranda. “Why not? Stranger things have happened.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mim let Undine stay for the rest of the day. She made a comment about school, but Undine shook her head. Mim didn’t push the issue. She produced a pair of baggy tracksuit pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and Undine gratefully wriggled out of her school uniform. She was glad to put on loose clothes and get out into the garden to do some body work. She weeded and planted and buried her thoughts in the garden. The feeling had subsided almost completely, and she was ready to call it a false alarm, when she heard a whisper that seemed to come from inside her, or rather, transmit through her, like radio waves through a transceiver. The sound was located just inside her ear, as if it were traveling outward instead of in.

  Undine, the whisperer said. Undine. It’s time to come home.

  She glanced up at Mim, who was at the other end of the garden.

  Undine…it’s time to come home…

  “Great. Now I’ve got feelings that speak to me.” Undine viciously pulled up onion weed, taking deep breaths to slow her panicky heart. She tried singing loudly to herself. She couldn’t think of one song from beginning to end, so she threaded together first lines and bits of chorus from a variety of songs to drown out the whispering voice.

  Maybe I really am going mad, she thought, but though she had managed to silence the voice, or at the very least it had silenced itself, she couldn’t help but consider the message. Glancing at her watch she could see it was almost three, and decided it was worth risking a slightly early homecoming. Lou was only half aware what time it was on a good day. She would have noticed if Undine had turned up mid-morning in school uniform, but it was unlikely she’d know the difference if Undine was twenty minutes early in the afternoon.

  Mim’s house was quiet and still. Undine went into the cool blue-tiled kitchen and helped herself to a glass of orange juice. She drank quickly. She was about to refill the glass when the whisper returned, garbling the same phrase over and over, the words rolling faster until they separated and began forming new patterns: Undine, Undine, it’s time to come home…time to come Undine…time to come home…Undine it’s home time, time to come home…it’s time Undine it’s home time Undine come home time Undine…it’s time to Undine…Undine COME HOME!

  The last two words were a shout. Her ears rang with it. She lowered her head to the bench, feeling the cool marble soothe her forehead. She was still like that when the screen door snapped shut.

  “Undine!” Mim’s voice was panicky. “Are you all right? Undine?” (Undine, Undine, it’s time to come…)

  “Stop it!” cried Undine, putting her hands to her ears. “Stop it, stop it!”

  Mim grabbed her arm. As soon as Undine felt her hand—the profoundly normal touch of human skin on human skin—the voice went away. “God, you’re really going to think I’m crazy now,” she said, almost managing a smile to reassure Mim that she wasn’t. “I’m hearing voices in my head.”

  Mim was looking at her hand, horrified. “Oh,” said Undine, her face growing pale. “I must have broken a glass.” Blood pooled from a cut on her hand onto the benchtop. Pieces of glass lay scattered on the bench and floor.

  “Here,” said Mim. “Let’s clean this up.” Undine leaned over, picked up a long piece of glass, and cradled it in her hand. “No, stupid,” Mim said. “Leave that. I meant let’s clean you up.”

  Undine perched on the edge of the bath while Mim mopped up the blood and bandaged the wound.

  “I look like a casualty of war,” said Undine, lightly, trying to break the tight, thin wire of tension between them.

  Mim forced a smile. She fastened the bandage, pulling to make sure it was tight enough. Already they could see blood petalling through the gauze.

  “You don’t think…” Undine hesitated. She was trying to translate Mim’s grim silence before she spoke. “You don’t think I did this on purpose, do you? You don’t think I’m really crazy?” For a moment Undine wasn’t even sure herself.

  Mim’s voice was strained as she answered. “First of all, I don’t think you’re crazy. Second, lots of non-crazy people cut themselves on purpose just to see what it feels like. God, even I’ve done that. Last of all, I know this was an accident. I just don’t like the sight of blood, that’s all.” She smiled wanly and Undine almost believed her.

  “Mim, do me a favor; don’t tell Lou.”

  “I think she’s going to notice,” said Mim, adjusting the bandage.

  “Come on, Mim. Not about my hand. I can explain that. About the other stuff. It’s just…well, it’s too weird for her. She’ll worry.”

  Mim looked uncertain, her face still strained. “What makes you think it’s not too weird for me?”

  “You still believe me, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I believe you. But look what’s happened to you. I can’t make a promise like that.”

  “Please, Mim, please,” Undine begged. “Don’t tell Lou. I promise, if I can’t handle it, I’ll tell her myself. But this was just an accident. And the voice has stopped now. I might even have imagined it.”

  Neither of them believed this. Reluctantly, Mim agreed not to tell Lou. “But, mate, if you’re getting hurt…just promise you’ll keep me in the loop. If anything else happens, anything at all, I want to know about it.”

  “Are you sure it’s not too weird for you?”

  “Oh, it’s bloody weird all right. But Undine…even though, in the grand scheme of things, I’m not that much older than you, the plain fact is: you’re the kid and I’m the grown-up, even if I don’t always feel like one. I have to be able to deal with this. I might let you skip the odd school day, but I can’t let you get yourself into any real trouble. Now, come on, I’ll give you a lift home. But before we go, promise me.”

  Undine promised.

  As soon as Lou saw Undine’s hand she went into full-blown mother mode. She redressed the wound, and fluffed and flounced Undine into bed straight after dinner.

  Lou loved looking after Undine when she was sick or injured. It didn’t happen very often, but a delighted gleam came into Lou’s eye whenever Undine had a sniffle or a temperature. Once Undine had said accusingly, “You’re glad I’m sick! What kind of a mother are you?”

  Lou had looked sheepish. “It’s not that I’m glad you’re sick, exactly….”

  At first Lou had just loved the company. When Undine was younger, before Lou met Stephen, they lived in a poky flat on the other side of the river. The flat was actually two damp, dark rooms under a house. The house was occupied by the owners of the flat, a dry, bitter old couple whom Undine remembered only as Mr. and Mrs. Pickle, though those weren’t their real names. They were just bumpy and vinegary, like pickles.

  Lou hated it there. The flat was always cold, even in summer, and seemed to be shrinking further and further into the ground. The Pickles’ garden was overgrown, with lantana and nasturtiums strangling every spare inch. Lou had been at war with that garden. Defend, retreat, defend, retreat.

  The Pickles discouraged visitors (by standing at their windows glowering at anyone who approached the house, until all Lou’s friends were scared to visit). Lou was glad when Undine was sick, because it was lonely at home all day in the dank rooms, listening to the Pickles shuffling around
upstairs. She loved having Undine in the other room while she was working. She could take a break and sit by Undine’s bed, listening to her breathe, or taking her temperature. At lunchtime there would be sandwiches and soup, and Lou, who on her own never bothered with lunch, felt mothered as much as Undine.

  So for Lou sickness signified secret, stolen time with her daughter. Their years in the flat had established a pattern between them, a pattern Lou cherished. Undine, who preferred not to be sick at all, was less enthusiastic about it.

  But tonight Undine enjoyed the attention. She lay in bed, the feeling gnawing at her like an old enemy. She was drained, exhausted, both from the physical wound on her hand and the terrifying pressure of the otherness that had been residing inside her. That was how she thought of it now: something outside her, something extra to herself, that had somehow found passage into her mind, and was trickling through the cracks and crevices of her consciousness.

  She dreamed of her wound. She dreamed she was peeling away layers and layers of bandage to the raw, damaged skin. The wound was clean and dry; there was no blood, but it was deeper than she remembered. She pushed the wound open, and inside there were sand and tiny shells, and miniature crabs scuttling sideways. And then, from the aperture of the injury, the whispering began, “Undine, Undine, it’s time to come home…”

  Lou shook her awake. Undine sat up in bed, still choking out sound.

  “Undine? It’s okay. I’m here. You’re awake. You’re home.”

  Undine shook her head, groggy, only partially present.