Deeper than the Sea

by Nelika McDonald

  A young man sidled up to them and squatted down on the log to the other side of Caleb. He wasn’t much older than them and had big blue eyes and a pretty bow mouth. He had a grey beanie on, and he winked at Beth as he slipped his fingers beneath it.

  ‘Evening, all,’ he said. Caleb put out his hand to greet him, and the boy took his hand from his head and put it in Caleb’s. Beth saw Caleb close his fingers around something as he shook hands, and draw it away.

  ‘How’s it going?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Psyched,’ Caleb said. ‘Love these full moons.’

  They all turned their faces up to it. The boy in the beanie lifted his chin and howled at it, and Caleb howled too. Beth laughed at them, and the boy in the beanie smiled at her. Down on the beach others howled too.

  ‘Werewolves,’ said the boy to Beth, pretending to look scared.

  ‘Just silly boys,’ Beth answered and he smiled again.

  ‘Dan,’ someone called out from the other side of the clearing, and the boy snapped to attention.

  ‘Got to roll,’ he said, and disappeared into the darkness.

  Beth finished her drink and leant into Caleb. ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Got us a little treat for later.’ He held out his hand, low down between them, and Beth saw two pills, white beads in the creases of his palm.

  ‘What are they?’ she said. Caleb put his hand in his pocket.

  ‘Just little pieces of moon,’ he said, ‘fallen to Earth. Cures all ills, this stuff.’

  ‘Does it stop people from turning into werewolves?’ Beth joked.

  ‘Only if they want it to.’

  ‘Caleb.’ She looked through the faces again for Jason.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You’ll stay with me tonight, won’t you?’

  Caleb looped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Course.’

  chapter thirty-seven

  In the end, Theo rang David to come back, yet again. And he did, of course.

  She’d had visions of passing out in a pool of her own vomit, the cat prowling around her lifeless form on the floor, David finding her there, her shirt twisted around her midsection, her breasts sagging to either side of her chest like half-full grain sacks and her mouth crusted with dried sick. It made her think of the woman again, how her shirt had ridden up and exposed her bra, down there on the side of the cliff.

  David hadn’t been able to find anything out about the woman’s life.

  She guessed that spoke volumes. The woman had trodden so lightly in the world that she hadn’t left a print to trace her by. It was beautiful and humble and sad, Theo thought.

  David fell asleep on the couch while Theo rested on the bathroom floor again. Her stomach was empty but she didn’t trust it, so she stayed close to the toilet.

  ‘I can stay with you,’ he said, and she could tell he meant it.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ she said. Near was good.

  He’d only been there for half an hour or so when Theo smelt smoke, drifting in the window. She heard David get up, and then heard the scrape of the door and his footsteps running out onto the verandah. Her heart churned and quickened. Beth, her body prompted, where is Beth? Her instincts still believed she had something to protect. Not here, she reminded herself.

  ‘David? What is it?’ Theo called out, but he wasn’t there. She got up and walked out to the lounge, pressing her hands against the walls to steady herself. Orange light was reflected in the glass of the doors and smoke surged up from somewhere below. Her chest tightened and she focussed on getting her feet to move, to carry her onto the verandah. From out there, she could see David below on the grass, wrestling with a hose that was tangled on the ground. At his feet, the grass was on fire.

  ‘Shit, what is that, what happened?’ Theo shouted. Her eyes stung from the smoke and she dropped into a crouch to try to get under it. She retreated back to the doorway.

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t see –’ David yelled.

  ‘Do you need help?’

  ‘No, just stay there!’ His voice was sharp.

  ‘Should I call the fire brigade?’ Theo pulled her shirt up over her mouth and tried to breathe through the fabric. Her eyes still stung but she didn’t want to close them. David didn’t answer and Theo lost sight of him for a moment. The fire seemed to grow every second, the flames twisting and arcing up like they were trying to reach something, sparks flying out from every angle.

  David’s head appeared again around the other side of the fire, and Theo saw his face, lit up and full of fear. He paused for a moment, then disappeared again. I should call the fire brigade, Theo thought. What if I don’t and this gets too big? It seemed to be gaining momentum, creeping up and out, only metres from the house. Move, Theo told herself, but she didn’t. She stayed where she was, eyes on the blaze.

  Just then, a jet of water hit the flames. David had gotten the hose on. She watched the fire shrink until it was extinguished. It seemed to take an age, but then the smoke started to disperse. David left the hose running on the blackened grass and pulled himself up the stairs, coughing. He sat on the top step, rubbing his eyes. From the doorway, Theo could see black smudges on the back of his neck, above the collar of his T-shirt. Suddenly, she felt tears rising and her breath caught in her throat. What if David hadn’t been here? Would Theo, weak and wasted as she was, have been able to put out that fire on her own? And if not, then what?

  ‘Are you okay?’ David asked her.

  ‘Yes. More to the point, are you?’

  He nodded and showed Theo a wet, blackened scrap of material.

  ‘It was just a bundled-up rag,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what was on fire?’ It looked like a shred of tea towel or a cleaning cloth, something innocuous.

  ‘Probably had a firelighter inside it.’

  Theo could smell petrol too. She couldn’t compute what he was saying. ‘What? How did that get in my yard?’

  ‘Someone threw it in there.’

  In the days before Alice was due home, Theo told herself she was ready to let go. Soon Alice would return and Theo would give Elizabeth back to her mother, give back her old school backpack full of swaddling wraps and singlets and tins of formula. Theo had bought a whole lot of other stuff that wouldn’t fit in that bag. Greta had encouraged her to spend Oliver’s money without restraint, and she had. Baby Elizabeth had a complete new wardrobe full of softness and colour. She had grown into a whole new size in the time Theo had been with her, that was how she justified it. Greta had even bought her a little red dress from the same stall that Oliver had bought Theo’s green one, so many moons ago.

  Oliver made half-hearted attempts to help with Elizabeth’s care in that week. Greta, unimpressed with Oliver in so many ways, had suggested he try harder to bond with the baby, being her father and all.

  ‘You’ve made your bed, now lie in it,’ she said to him on more than one occasion.

  But, whether it was because Oliver was nervous, or awkward, or impatient, Theo wasn’t sure, but Elizabeth would not settle in his arms. In the sunroom, Oliver would get shriller and shriller in his shushing, while Theo listened from the lounge, sitting with her back erect, her shoulder muscles knotted, her teeth clamped shut and her fingers twisting and twisting at the tassel on the corner of a cushion.

  ‘Don’t go in, don’t go in,’ she would say to herself.

  But, maybe it was the temperature, maybe Oliver would not think of that, or the light from the parting between the curtains that kept Elizabeth from sleeping. Or it could have been the tightness of the cuffs on the wrists of her romper; the baby had inexplicably fat wrists and some rompers constrained the flesh there. Theo thought of those ribbed rings of fabric pinching the plump baby wrists, the wrists turning red and lined from the indentation, and she sprang up from the couch and she was there, she was through the doorway and she didn’t even look at Oliver but just took the baby from him. With the damp heat of the baby’s breath in her ear, the tiny bottom perched on her forear
m, Theo would draw circles in the impossibly soft nape of her neck and Elizabeth would sigh, as if with relief, then sleep.

  When the baby cried, Theo found that in fact hearing could be a full-body experience. A certain pitch and volume could rid her of the ability to do anything else other than listen, her whole body straining towards the noise. When she knew she could comfort the baby, how could she not? How could she not go to her, time and time again? Taking her from Oliver, forgetting even to look resigned and irritated that she was taking over, it was sweet relief to take the baby, make that sound stop, to give her arms something to encircle.

  The date of Alice’s return arrived and Theo packed Elizabeth’s belongings. She had washed and folded everything carefully, paired up all the tiny socks and mittens. It seemed important that she do it properly. As the day went on, she checked the news for weather events, airport closures, delayed planes and trains and taxis. She took Elizabeth for one last walk, down at the creek. They watched the ducks flit and nibble at the edge of the water. Everyone who passed them smiled, first at Elizabeth and then at Theo. She rubbed vitamin cream on the baby’s lips and cheeks to stop the wind from burning them, and thought, I must buy her a warmer hat for winter. Then she remembered that Elizabeth would not be with her in winter. Alice would be the one charged with buying her hats and anything else she needed then. Theo had already had to stop herself from purchasing more things to send home with Elizabeth for the future, like a good pair of shoes for when she started to walk.

  On the phone the night before, Greta had told Theo she had to start extricating herself.

  Alice hadn’t been in contact once during whole time she was away, although she had sent a postcard a few weeks ago. Oliver had showed it to Theo. On the back Alice had drawn a raccoon. The raccoons had come to visit at the same time as she had, Alice wrote. She thought Elizabeth would like them. Her work had been received well at the gallery, so she was pleased. There were a lot of other artists there, some of them quite famous. She was learning a lot. It was interesting in Los Angeles but she missed Melbourne.

  Theo looked at the messy scrawl and wondered whether Alice had been told off for her penmanship at school. It occurred to her that caring about penmanship was something that probably didn’t figure in Alice’s world at all. Theo herself wrote in small, neat letters. She wanted to be sure she could be understood. Oliver said he expected Alice and Elizabeth would go and live with her parents when Alice returned. She kept the postcard in her hand and had folded and folded it while Oliver spoke, until it was a tiny cube and the raccoon drawing had been creased over and ruined.

  When she and Elizabeth returned from the creek, Oliver wasn’t at home. Theo decided she might as well give the baby her bath and put her to bed, even if she’d be disturbed when her mother collected her later. When she’d done that, Theo walked around the house, picking up things and putting them down again. She opened the door of the fridge and stared inside, then thought of Alice’s cheekbones and long thin neck and closed it again. She checked on Elizabeth, and then checked that she’d packed everything, again. She stood at the window and watched the street for cars. The rain slid down the window and flung itself against the leaves below.

  At about eight o’clock, the phone rang. It was Oliver. Theo could hear the hum of the restaurant in the background, the chefs shouting and the clink of plates on the service bench where the phone was.

  ‘I’ve had a call from Alice,’ Oliver said. ‘The gallery has asked her to stay for a few more weeks, so she won’t be arriving back tonight, after all.’

  Alice had told Oliver that she couldn’t come back to Melbourne yet. She was learning so much, she had said. The gallery owner had taken a particular interest in her work and said that Alice had a bright future ahead of her. She just couldn’t pass it up, she told Oliver. This could launch her career, other artists would kill for the sort of connections she was making there. Weeks, was all she was talking about. She just needed a few more weeks.

  ‘Of course,’ Oliver said to Theo, ‘we’ll definitely hire a nanny now. I understand how hard this time has been for you, it’s unreasonable to think it can continue any longer.’

  ‘It’s unreasonable,’ Theo said. ‘All of this is unreasonable.’

  ‘We’ll talk when I get home,’ Oliver said.

  Oliver was angry when Theo told him that she didn’t want a nanny, that she would care for Elizabeth herself. Over the next weeks she noticed how much it disturbed Oliver when he watched her with Elizabeth. He worried that she and the baby were forming too strong an attachment. It was unnatural, he said. Messed up.

  ‘Well, she needs someone to form an attachment with,’ Theo said. ‘And I don’t see anybody else putting up their hand.’ Besides, you’re much too late, she thought.

  Oliver left for work again, slamming the door behind him.

  In a slightly perverse way, it almost amused Theo how much it bothered Oliver, seeing her with his love child. He was so uncomfortable with it, but at the same time the arrangement was serving him well. What a sorry state he was in. Theo didn’t think it was unnatural or messed up. What would have been messed up was if she only cared for Elizabeth because of the way it made Oliver feel. But Elizabeth commanded love in her own right – in a way, Oliver didn’t even come into it.

  Weeks turned into months and Alice didn’t return. Oliver rang the gallery where Alice had done her residency. She wasn’t there.

  Oliver left messages for Alice, but she didn’t call back. Theo was relieved every time he failed to get through. She wasn’t sure what Alice was doing. Maybe she would be back the next day, or maybe not. But Theo couldn’t live as though she was waiting for her, just marking time until she returned. That wasn’t fair on any of them.

  She and Elizabeth had settled into a routine by then. Theo took her out every day, to stave off the cabin fever. She even took her swimming. One of the other regulars at the lap pool, a gentle, elderly man called Arthur, held Elizabeth while Theo swam, lifting her little arm in a wave whenever Theo came close. They went for a lot of walks, and Theo learnt every alleyway and bike track in the neighbourhood. Elizabeth liked it when the pram bumped over cobblestones, smiling and waving her fists in the air.

  Periodically, Oliver sent Ethan to Baby Barn, or went himself, and came home with bags full of paraphernalia. The sales assistants probably punched each other out to get to Oliver first, Theo thought. Guilty fathers with money to burn meant a hefty commission for them. They sold Oliver all sorts of nonsense, age-inappropriate toys and clothes two or three sizes too big. Sometimes Theo didn’t even bother to unpack the bags. Oliver bought a new pram, the best money could buy. It was too big and cumbersome though, and Theo soon went back to the old one. He bought a scooter for himself so he could leave Theo the car, but then he upgraded the car anyway, to a bigger one. Vehicles, all of them, for travelling. For going away. Theo wondered if Oliver saw the symbolism in that. But they didn’t talk about what it meant, those more permanent measures. They didn’t talk about much at all.

  Alice sent another postcard, from Nevada. A collector she had met in L.A. had invited her and some other artists to come and work for him. They picked berries in the daytime in return for their accommodation. They painted all night. It was a very productive time for her, Alice wrote. Her hands were never clean. She thought of Elizabeth every day, she said. This time, she drew herself and other women in a field, straw hats tied under their chins, buckets of berries at their feet. Oliver threw the postcard in the bin but Theo fished it out. Elizabeth might want to see those words one day. Theo bought a postcard and wrote down Elizabeth’s measurements from her last check at the health centre, length and weight. That was all she wrote, the figures and her name. She sent it to the return address on Alice’s postcard. It might be weeks before she saw it but she still might want to know those things.

  Theo and Oliver were becoming like ships in the night. Oliver left early and came home late, and Theo slept in the sunroom so she could ge
t up to tend to Elizabeth. They were almost like roommates, Theo thought. She couldn’t remember the last time they had touched each other on purpose. There was at least one moment in every day when Theo thought, ‘What am I doing here?’

  Yet certain things, not always the lovely things like the cooing and smiling and cheerful babbling from Elizabeth, but also the horrible things, like finding it in herself to come back to that child with compassion and gentle hands for the third time in two hours, exhilarated Theo. Her own capacity to care for this creature, to be there every minute for her, was the thing she loved. She didn’t think that caring for a child gave her the right to behave as though she had transcended the rest of humanity. On the contrary, she had never been more grounded, up to her wrists in excrement and beaten down by hours of screaming. But for Theo, there was immense satisfaction in it. It wasn’t martyrdom, it was commoner and less divine – it was just parenting.

  Theo had finally found something at which she was good.

  And Oliver was not.

  chapter thirty-eight

  Beth sat with Mia in someone’s caravan, braiding her hair around her head in a crown like Alice had in the pictures Beth had seen. Mia drank vodka straight from the bottle like it was a task she’d been given, grimacing after each sip. When Beth had finished, Mia inspected herself in the mirror.

  ‘I like it,’ she said, and Beth beamed.

  Caleb had told her he’d be just outside, but when Beth went out again, she couldn’t see him. Relax, she told herself. He’s probably just gone to get a drink or something. He’d be back any minute. She followed Mia back to the bonfire, and after a few minutes, Caleb appeared and sat beside her.

  ‘Where did you get to?’ she asked him, trying to make her voice sound loose.

  He smiled but didn’t meet her eye.

  ‘Just taking care of something.’ He dropped an arm across her shoulders and Beth caught a waft of petrol.

  ‘What do you mean?’