Nan took a drag of the cigarette, trails of grey smoke winding up into the darkening sky, filling the air with that sweet scent that reminded me of her whenever I smelled it.
‘Were you really not going to say goodbye to me?’ I said. My voice cracked. I felt the sour saltiness of tears in the back of my throat.
‘Remi,’ said Nan. There was pity in her voice. I hated that. ‘I have never needed anyone to save me before, why start now? I knew if you found out I wasn’t coming you’d do something stupid like this. I love you dearly, but if I die now, I die happy. Alone.’
She passed me the cigarette. I took a drag. Although I didn’t really like smoking, I liked being connected to Nan in that way. I felt the tears hit my cheeks before I even registered that I was crying. Nan glanced over as she plucked the cigarette back from me, then returned her gaze to the city. All the windows of the skyscrapers were dark. The trees were still. We watched the final rays of light drop away below the horizon.
‘Take the photos. And the book. Don’t look back,’ she said.
‘Nan, I…’ But I trailed off. There was nothing I could say. She was leaving me. Again.
Nan turned to face me, grey eyes staring deep into mine. I felt myself unravelling. She scooped my hands up, so that they were cocooned inside hers. The cigarette hung from her lip. She pulled me in close, my ear to her chest. I breathed in her scent of tea tree and smoke, fabric softener and skin.
‘Don’t leave me,’ I cried into her, my voice muffled by the thick sweater she was wearing, despite it still being at least thirty degrees out.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nan. ‘I love you, Rem. I really do. But Frida needs you. Your mother needs you. You have to go. Leave an old lady to die in peace, would you? Goodbye, Rem. You’ll always be my girl.’
That hit me like a fist. The tears flowed. She kissed me on the head, and I knew from the way her kiss spread through my entire body, right to the core of my soul, that that kiss was the last thing she would allow us to share.
I ripped my hands out of hers, wanting her to know I was angry, but scared to let go all the same. I forced myself to stand, hoping she’d pull me back down, but she didn’t. I stumbled from the balcony toward the front door.
I scooped the book and photos from the kitchen bench, my body going through the motions of walking, with no conscious effort from my brain. All I could think of was Nan, and the pear, and how she would die there alone. Happily. My brain flicked back and forth between feeling sorry for myself and feeling mad as hell at Nan. How could she do this to me again?
I refused to look back at Nan as I left the apartment, not even after I heard the click, click, click of her struggling with the lighter. If I had, I probably would have tried to drag her frail old body from that stupid apartment, down the stairs and out to the car, driven her across the floodwaters to the camps and forced her to sit in the corner with her impractical jumper and her empty pouch of tobacco and live on like the rest of us. But I had to leave her there, as much as it killed me, and there was no way in hell I would have gotten her down those stairs. I had to keep going, for Frida’s sake, if nothing else. I needed Nan, but Frida needed me more.
I slammed Nan’s door shut behind me, then sank a punch right next to the rusted number 58. She must have heard it, but I didn’t give a shit at that point. The tears were streaming down my face, my cheeks burning, my throat feeling like it had closed over, but I let out a scream so loud that if Nan hadn’t heard the punch to her door, she sure as hell would have heard that. I wanted her to come out. I waited on the landing for what seemed like hours, body trembling, staring hard at that door, willing it to open and for Nan to appear, bag in hand. I imagined her saying, ‘All right, no need to throw a tantrum. Let’s get on with it then.’
But she didn’t. The door stayed shut. I attempted to punch the door again, but my arms were limp. I felt all the fight leave my body. I looked down at the book and the pictures of us and considered throwing them both off the landing.
I whispered my final goodbye to her, then turned and walked away.
It happened on the way down.
The bundle of laundry that wasn’t a bundle of laundry at all. I tripped, leaving one Converse lodged squarely in its armpit and the rest of my body catching air. The book and the photos were flung from my hand. Pictures of me and Nan fluttered above my head as I fell. I reached out to try and stop myself, but there was nothing to hold onto.
It wasn’t like my life flashed before my eyes so much. Just thoughts. Flashes of regrets. I thought about Mum, doing the best she could with the shit hand she’d been dealt. I thought about Frida, born into a world that didn’t give a fuck about her. She wouldn’t remember me. She wouldn’t remember all the nappies I changed for her, or the bottles, or the songs, or the stories, or the hours I spent rocking her to sleep when she was starving. But I would never forget her. I thought about the chick who gave me her car. I didn’t even ask her name. I thought of Nan and hoped to hell that she never left that apartment, because if she did she would find me obliterated at the bottom of her stairwell.
My world ended that day, but did I die happy? As the concrete rushed up to meet me, I was reminded of the bees, how they must have seen a similar final image as they fell from the sky. That was my parting thought. The bees went first.
Mum gave me this book on space when I was ten. The pages were deckled and there were pop-ups—ten-year-old me was easy to please.
One afternoon, after sunbathing with our Labrador, Cleo, I decided that painting my room with a can of glow-in-the-dark paint was a good idea. I saw it in the garage in the corner, just waiting to be touched. I didn’t use a brush because my hands were so much better. I smeared stars and moons and planets; they had their own solar systems, moons gravitating around them, and black holes didn’t exist on my map. Why would I want something on my wall that literally inhaled light?
When Mum came home, exhausted, I showed her my artistic masterpiece. She dropped her grocery bags at the sight.
I slept in my parents’ bed that night, the paint fumes tickling my nose, thinking about Saturn and its moons, about how I couldn’t see the stars in Strathfield.
I see them now. Those giant balls of plasma that hold people’s hopes, dreams and wishes. The same globes of light that decide our fate. It’s kind of silly how much faith we have in them; we believe the stars listen to us when humanity is but a tiny speck in the midnight fabric of the universe.
Isn’t that kind of tragic? Can stars pay our bills? Because if I had a dollar for every time I’d seen a Southern Cross tattoo on someone, I’d be able to afford that 3D pen I’ve been eyeing off for a while.
At the end of the day, they’re giant balls of plasma, not miracle workers.
This is what I’m thinking about as my panic attack dies away; my lungs start to open up as my eyes stay glued to the spaces between the pinpricks of thousands-of-years-old light. I’m lying on the bonnet of Liz’s 1996 Toyota Corolla in the middle of the Great Ocean Road. Ironically, I can’t smell the ocean from where we’re parked. I used to think the whole road was a long journey of sea salt, flowers and sun-bleached hair. How wrong I was.
After the tyre popped and I almost lost my composure, we had to roll the car off the road slowly so we didn’t lose the entire wheel. We were on the way to see the Loch Ard Gorge. Liz was giddy, ready to skinny dip and vlog as soon as we got there. It was 2:04 p.m. when I felt it: a sudden bump as Liz turned a sharp corner. The scent of burnt rubber filled the car and I was on the edge of my seat, gripping the dashboard.
‘LIZ, WHAT IS THAT?’
She pulled over and dropped her head onto the steering wheel.
‘For fuck’s sake, we popped a tyre.’
We were lucky to be close enough to a rest area. Liz decided to change the tyre in the morning. She popped open a couple of Coronas that we kept in an esky in the boot, and made us ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner.
I didn’t see it coming, the sudden wave of
everything. Popping a tyre isn’t that big a deal; yet my head blew the fact up so big I nearly fainted from the stress and tightness in my chest. Funny how anxiety works like that.
Liz is pulling out a blanket from the backseat and I’m holding my coin between my fingers, trying to find some sense of calm in the engravings on the metal. The rim of the metal feels like stuttered breaths against my skin, like what I was feeling a few minutes ago. It’s an old Australian penny, a gift from my old art teacher. Maybe it’s the copper hues or the fact it’s still around after all these years that grounds me when I touch it.
Liz places the blanket on my feet and climbs onto her car, sitting next to me. She wraps the blanket around my legs, sure to cover my exposed feet, and pulls out her phone.
‘Here, I saved this for when you’re feeling like the world is on tilt.’
It’s a video of Cleo wagging her tail and refusing to play fetch with Liz. I hear my voice encouraging Cleo to run after the stick, yet she’s rooted to the spot, loving Liz scratching her behind the ear. And I have to be honest, it lifts the weight in my chest a little.
Liz quickly checks her Twitter notifications, then slips the phone into her pocket.
I hear the rush of the sea and try to imagine the sea spray like tiny diamonds suspended in the night, the salt coating the rocks, the creatures beneath hunting and living. It takes me a second to notice the heaviness is fading. I can feel my body on the bonnet, the heat of the car receding second by second. I’m glad Liz remembered to turn the car off. Petrol prices are high enough as is, and we aren’t exactly rolling in money.
‘I don’t know why they don’t understand that on some days, your mind isn’t your friend. And that you need your meds.’ Liz’s voice is a knife in the dark, one that misses my heart, yet manages to dig into my ribs. I know how she feels about this, about what happened back home. About the tension I left behind. ‘This never happened with mine.’
I shrug. ‘I’ll handle it.’ When I go back. If I go back.
I want to remind her she’s also leaving, removing herself from the Lucy + Liz = Friends Till Death equation because reality has gotten in the way. But I don’t.
She gives me a withering look, one that I know too well. With a sigh, she wraps the blanket around us, pulls a cigarette out of her pocket and lights it up. We share the smoke until it’s nothing but ash between our fingers. Mum would kill me if she saw me like this.
‘So what happens in the next update?’
‘Well…’ Liz loves spoilers so I tend to indulge her. ‘Kelsey and Jane are on a date at the beach. There will definitely be a kiss.’ My fingers itch to draw on my Wacom— I left it at home to keep it safe. ‘Kelsey and Jane are living my best life. It’ll be the fluffiest update in a while.’
‘Eeeeeee! So excited.’ Liz grins and scrunches her nose with glee. ‘Yours is the only comic I read.’
I’m glad the darkness is hiding my burning cheeks. ‘I know.’
‘Well, we’re not going anywhere for a while so get comfy, honey.’ Liz drags me into the car where she’s pushed the seats down so they’re like stretchers. She reaches over us to grab the pillows from the backseat, tucking one under my head. We lie together, gazing up at people’s hopes and dreams through the windscreen, utterly silent, bar the earbuds in each of our ears. I think about Kelsey and Jane, about their future date, their first kiss, their everything. Will they be happy? That’s up to me, I guess. The thousands of Tumblr followers who religiously reblog my comic with comments like ‘MAKE THEM KISS’ seem to know they’re bound to last forever.
But will I be happy? Because I won’t last forever.
I wanted to run away from home a lot as a kid. Mum said I was too sensitive to everything, and that I needed to not take things personally. Perhaps they were the childish fantasies of a girl who hated school and was overshadowed by an overachieving brother. I used to open the trip planner for Sydney Trains and a timetable for a country train to the Central Coast or Goulburn. I’d bring Liz with me, of course. I couldn’t run away solo. Where I go, she goes. Where she goes, I go.
It was Liz’s idea to leave, to make it an adventure. Her parents bought her the Corolla as a present for being the first person in her family to finish high school, without realising she’d be going overseas a year later. Feeling quite indebted and guilty, she wanted to use it as much as possible. Really give it a whirl before flying away from home—from me.
‘So I’m thinking of driving along the Great Ocean Road. I mean—’ she showed me a vlog on her phone of someone’s trip around Victoria ‘—doesn’t it look so lush? Absolutely perfect for my channel.’
‘Yes, ma’am. When, though?’ My eyes were glued to the rapid footage of trees, clear blue sea, and photogenic sunsets. And the smiles.
She flopped onto my bed, silver hair curling around her round face. ‘When you finish exams.’
‘I might not even pass my exams.’ My stomach clenched with unease, and a sour taste climbed up my throat. ‘I didn’t think economics would be this mind-numbing.’
‘So you hate it?’
‘I never said that.’
‘You do hate it!’ A smile tugged on her lips. ‘I told you. Business and all that shit, it isn’t for you. That’s more your parents. You can do whatever you want.’
I sat at my desk, stacks and stacks of notes either side of me. Colour-coordinated, categorised by chapter, and covered in doodles of Kelsey and Jane. A scene for their comic I was working on was visible on my Wacom, my digital art tablet. I’d turned off my desktop to deter myself from getting distracted, but I wanted to get the setting right for their kiss.
Liz took my silence as a cue to continue. ‘I just can’t imagine you in a pantsuit working in a high-rise building in a cubicle. I see you in sweatpants with art everywhere. Like your room!’ She gestured to the various prints I had blu-tacked to my walls, mostly landscape digital art or Studio Ghibli fanart. ‘Also, are you taking your meds?’
I hesitated, then said, ‘Mum said I don’t need them.’
Liz tried to catch my fleeting gaze. I focused on the stationery on my desk, the pastel pens suddenly so intriguing… and not in their colour-coded sections.
‘Fuck it, Lien. Let’s just go now!’
I whirled on her, heart thundering, palms already clammy, the fear of failure looming. She had to be joking. There was no way she was suggesting I simply drop everything and leave? Yet I looked at her and she was serious—her face was split into a grin, excited energy radiating from her.
And the crazy thing is, I agreed.
So naturally, I told my parents I was going away for a while in a text message—the classy way to do it—flipped my middle finger at my brother’s bedroom door on my way out, and hopped into Liz’s car. I haven’t turned my phone on since then.
The sky is satin-pink and fluffy with clouds when I wake. For a second, I wish I hadn’t woken up, yet I immediately reach for my phone and turn it on to check Tumblr. It takes me a second to realise I’ve made a big mistake.
20 missed calls from Mum.
12 missed calls from Bro.
15 voice messages.
Texts from both Mum and Dad buzz on my lock screen.
Dad 4 hrs ago
iMessage
When are you coming home?
Dad 3 hrs ago
iMessage
Darling, let us know where you are and how you’re going.
Mum 1 hr ago
iMessage
Lien call us please.
‘Shit.’ My phone is on 2%.
I’m cranky, my neck is stiff, and Liz has been farting all night. I get out of the car and sit on the bonnet. The summer heat hasn’t quite reached its peak, but despite being parked in the shade of large trees, the metal beneath me won’t stay cool for long.
I take the plunge and call Mum. Whatever happens is Future Lucy’s problem. I find my coin in my pocket and run my thumb over the familiar metal.
The dial tone rings, and rings,
and rings.
It’s 10:07 a.m. She should be awake.
I check my phone: 1%.
‘Lien!’ She sounds… relieved?
The phone sticks to my sweaty palms. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Are you okay?’ She’s speaking Vietnamese. She’s stressed.
‘Yeah.’
She breathes into the receiver, a husky crackle coming through. ‘Good, good. When are you coming home? There’s a letter from the university. They said you have withdrawn. We can talk when you get home.’
Something twists in my chest. ‘Why did you open my mail?’ My phone makes a noise—that’s never a good sign. ‘Mum, my phone is about to die. Can I call you later?’
‘What do you mean about to die? Why can’t you talk to me now?’
‘Mum, I have no battery! I’ll call you—’
Oh shit, it’s dead. I pocket the phone, staring at the black screen, resigned to the fact that they know now. It’s rather deflating. I go to the boot to find the bag of apples we brought with us. They’re bruised from Liz’s insane driving. I find the one with the least damage, sit on the guardrail facing the ocean and have my breakfast.
Calling Mum wasn’t the best decision—but when do I ever make good decisions? Present Lucy is stranded in the middle of the Great Ocean Road with her best friend. I mean, that’s half a good decision, at least.
‘Oi Lucy, what the hell are you doing out there?’
Because I’m in good company.
‘Avoiding your stinky arse!’ I toss the apple core into the trees below and jump onto the road. ‘You didn’t stop farting allllll night.’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ She lights a cigarette and leans on the side of the car. Her silver hair is tied into a top bun, and her eyeliner has smudged under her hazel eyes. She shuts her eyes and takes a deep drag. She’s exhausted—from what, I can’t say.
Underdog Page 15
