by Hugh Breakey
‘Nothing happened. There was no decision. I would never just leave you behind.’
‘Oh.’
The rest of the meal passed politely, and Julie took the dishes away.
‘I was wondering if you wanted to go for a walk?’ she asked as she piled the dishes into the sink. ‘It’s a lovely day.’
‘Could I have that coffee?’
‘Sure. Absolutely.’ She turned back to the kitchen bench and flipped the switch on the kettle.
‘The timing must have been tight if you wanted us back together before the next forgetting. You had less than two weeks.’
‘I know, right? Twelve days. Not a lot of time for a girl to play hard to get.’
She had her back to me, adding instant coffee to two mugs. I stood up and moved to the end of the table, watching her carefully. ‘You faked your fear on the day of the fire.’
‘What?’ Julie turned.
‘Your panic drove us together. Without your reaction to the smoke that day, things wouldn’t have changed between us. You made it all up. The whole story about you smoking in bed. It was all just an act.’
‘An act?’ She scoffed. ‘Please.’
I pulled up short, a twinge of hope flaring in my chest. Maybe I’d been wrong. Perhaps the whole fire thing had just been dumb luck, and not some clever subterfuge.
She shrugged. ‘That was the whole point, after all.’
‘The point?’
She gazed evenly at me.
Her words made no sense. She spoke as if—
‘You lit the fire,’ I breathed, almost a whisper. ‘To push us together.’
‘Well, not fire exactly, but yeah.’ Julie shrugged again, and turned back to making the coffees. ‘Full disclosure. I did a trial run first, here in the sink.’ She nodded to the basin as she made her way to the fridge. ‘I had to make sure I’d get the right amount of smoke.’
My legs wobbled. I backed up to the table, feeling its welcome stability against the back of my thigh. ‘You could have burnt the whole place down. Killed somebody.’
‘No, no.’ Julie turned to me in alarm. ‘I used a smoke bomb. Not an actual fire. I got the recipe online.’ She waved her hand in a placating way. ‘No fire. No flames. Just smoke. Totally harmless.’
‘No, smoke is dangerous.’ My primary school memories recorded that fact. Smoke kills more than fire. All walls lead to a door. Get down low and go, go, go.
Julie sat the milk on the bench and strode over to stand in front of me, hard eyes fixed on mine.
‘Ordinary smoke is dangerous. That smoke couldn’t hurt a fly. It’s not even hot. I held the thing in my hands.’
‘No, it’s not right. It’s still…’ Words failed me. ‘It’s still—’
‘Still what? You’re worried someone else on your floor might have got scared by the smoke?’ I’d hardly started to nod, when she cut me off: ‘But everyone else had already left for the day. The last person was the lady in 14B, who left around ten o’clock. Like she does every Thursday. The only people on your floor were the two of us.’
Had she been staking out my apartment every day? ‘You mean—’
‘Or maybe you’re worried about sprinkler damage, right? All those alarms going off? Water damage.’ This time I kept my mouth shut. ‘Except sprinklers hook up to heat detectors, not smoke detectors. And there was no heat, because there was no fire.’ She glared at me. ‘Well? Have I missed anything?’
‘How do you know all this?’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘About alarms and sprinklers and making smoke bombs?’
‘It’s all public information. Online. Right there for anyone who has the time to look for it. And what have I had except time?’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘I worked it out. And I got it right.’
‘This is madness.’ My voice cracked. ‘Building smoke bombs, staking out my apartment, infiltrating my life. Who does all this?’
‘Your wife! I love you! That’s what I do. That’s what we agreed.’
‘Love isn’t about being strategic.’ My voice rose to meet hers. ‘We’re not at war.’
She ignored the kettle’s shrill whistle and strode towards me. ‘This is my war. This is life or death for me.’ Somehow, despite my size, she seemed to tower over me. ‘Wake up! The important things in life aren’t what you should be romantic about. They are what you should be smart about.’
‘It’s one thing to be smart,’ I protested. ‘It’s another thing to lie, and…and break the law. This isn’t normal, what you’ve done. It’s stalking.’
‘You’re my husband. You let me fall for you. You fell too.’
‘You don’t think this is all a bit extreme?’
Julie’s lips jammed shut, white with rage.
She held up her free hand, as if placating, but I got the impression she was trying to calm herself more than me. ‘Okay.’ She backed away a little, her steps jolting and clunky. She turned back to the kitchen. ‘So tell me. What would you have done? If you loved someone, made promises to them, and they were struck down by some awful accident? What wouldn’t you do to rescue them?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘It is the point. You say it’s not normal. Fine.’ She turned back towards me. ‘So put yourself in my position. When would you have decided it was too much? Too hard? Too crazy?’
‘I wouldn’t lie. I wouldn’t spy and light fires. Or smoke bombs. Whatever.’
‘So you would have just left me there, alone and scared? The person you’d sworn to support and love, in sickness and health?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ I folded my arms. ‘I would have tried something else.’
‘I did try something else! I tried everything else.’ She threw her arms up. ‘I tried getting a lawyer. When that didn’t work, I moved to the next “something else”. Like trying to get a room on your floor, or at least in your building. No luck. So I moved to the next something else. And the next. And here we are. Is there something I missed?’ She spread her arms wide. ‘What else could I do? Tell me!’
My insides squirmed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ Her hands went to her hips and she looked me in the eye. ‘That’s the talk of a man who knows exactly when he’ll give up. When it gets too hard. Too crazy. Too lonely.’
‘I just wouldn’t have done anything so over the top.’
‘Over the top?’ Her cheeks burned red with anger. ‘This is what we promised each other we’d do. This thing has destroyed my life. It has torn the best friend I ever had away from me, and thrown him lost into the world. I’d tell a thousand lies, light a thousand fires, break a thousand fucking laws if it would get you back.’
Julie snapped her hand to her mouth and took a step back. ‘Dammit. I promised myself I wouldn’t lose my temper today. Or swear.’
She raised one palm in what looked like some sort of apology. ‘Shit,’ she added, which seemed ironic, considering. She went to the kettle and turned it off. The piercing whistle continued a moment longer, and then quieted. ‘I know I swear too much. You’ve told me before.’
‘I didn’t used to swear?’ I kept my voice mild, trying to turn down the anger in the room.
‘Not much, no. You always said the best words shouldn’t be worn down by overuse.’
I nodded. That sounded sensible. ‘And what did you say then?’
Julie shrugged. ‘Fuck that.’
I burst into laughter. I don’t know why. It was just so easy to imagine some world where someone quite a bit like Julie would say that to someone quite a bit like me. And both of them would laugh.
But Julie just looked sad. ‘I’m sorry, babe. But you have to see.’ She went to the coffee table and picked up the framed photo. Then she stood in front of me, cradling it in her hands, its back still towards me.
I took it from her, and turned it around. A black and white wedding photo. More proof of our togetherness. Julie was leaning back into me, my arms around her. From what I could see of it, she wasn’t wearing a traditiona
l wedding dress. Just something long and elegant. Even so, the photo had a ceremonial feel.
She looked beautiful.
I looked happy.
My hands trembled. But I ignored them, ignored everything, and held my gaze on the photo. Every inch of it held some clue of difference or sameness. My sharp, stylish haircut. The press of my shoulder against the suit jacket where my arm curled around Julie, betraying the muscles beneath. The easy way the formal suit sat across my shoulders. And above all, overwhelming every other detail, shone out the togetherness of Julie and me. Of us.
I looked at her. Wide eyes searched my face, and for a moment she didn’t look clever or fierce. Just small. ‘Tell me,’ she said, her voice little more than a breath. ‘Tell me that’s not worth fighting for.’
‘I can’t.’ The photo seemed to draw me in, as if it were a window into another world. For me, forgotten. For Julie, lost.
‘What wouldn’t you do, to protect that? To save it?’
‘If that was me, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.’
She let out a deep shuddering breath. Then she smiled and squeezed my arm. ‘Thank you for saying that. It’s easy to go a bit crazy when you’re on your own, you know? Without someone there to keep you grounded.’
‘No. You were right to fight. To be smart.’ I remembered her words as the fire alarm sparked into life. ‘Strategic.’
‘Well, these are matters of the heart. “Strategic” sounds a bit clinical.’
‘What word do you prefer?’
‘Conniving.’
My smile mirrored her grin, her sense of humour growing on me. Or maybe I was getting re-used to it.
Her hand lingered on my arm for a moment. ‘Coffee.’ She turned to the kitchen bench, and busied herself.
I sat, putting the photo on the table. Not face down, but sitting up. Like a real photo.
Cutlery jangled against the crockery as Julie stirred the two cups. She walked over to my side of the table and put my coffee down. For a moment I just stared at it. Some step in the process had gone missing. ‘Aren’t you meant to ask me how I have it?’
Her eyebrows arched.
‘Oh. Okay.’ I sipped it. Apparently I have my coffee white, with no sugar. Who knew?
Julie leaned against the kitchen bench. Quiet, looking at her coffee.
‘So what did I used to do?’ I asked. ‘As a job?’
She pursed her lips. ‘We need to talk about the future. There’s only four days left, and then we all return to Go.’
I nodded, wondering what she had in mind.
‘Four days is enough time to really fix things. I could book plane tickets and we could get home to our real home, together. In our place, in Footscray.’
‘No.’
‘It’s just that if we do it that way you’d wake up at home, so it’d be easy for you to fall into that routine, that life.’
I shook my head.
‘Look, I know how hard those first weeks are. It’s scary for you doing unfamiliar things.’
‘No.’ I got up from the chair and folded my arms across my chest.
‘Okay, no problem,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we could set up this place for the two of us. It’d be easier if you just woke up here, together with me. We can work on bringing your other stuff over.’
‘Julie—’ I broke off, unsure how to say what needed to be said.
‘What’s going on? Why don’t you want to do this? Is this about your dominoes? You want to finish them first. We can work that in.’
‘It’s not just that.’
‘Then what is it?’ She put down her coffee on the kitchen counter and planted her hands on her hips. ‘You agreed we were right to fight. To do anything that needed to be done.’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I said I can understand why you would fight. Why if that was me, I would fight. But I don’t recognise the man in the photo. I don’t know him. And I don’t really know you either.’
‘It’s just us.’
‘But it’s not. It’s not us at all.’
‘You knew me well enough to kiss me.’
‘Everything that I believed when I did that was a lie. I don’t blame you for that. I hope I would’ve done the same as you. But a lie is still a lie.’
‘But I’m telling the truth now.’
I leaned forward over the table. ‘You’re trying to get back something you once had. And I’m trying to hold on to what I have now. I don’t think they are the same thing at all.’
‘I don’t understand. Tell me what you want. Explain it to me.’
‘I want the same thing anyone wants. To survive. To be in control. For my choices and plans to push through into the future.’
‘I can give you all that. I’ve done it before. We’ve survived this before. Together.’
We’d also failed to survive it before, by her own account. But there was nothing to gain from bringing that up again. ‘Even if you can give it all to me, would you?’ I scooped up the picture frame. ‘What if, instead, you could bring this back? Recreate the man you married, with all his hopes and dreams? Nothing would remain of my time and my plans. All that would be left of me would be some lucky stranger, swept up on the sea of life, pushed about by choices not his own.’
‘He would be happy. And loved.’
‘But he would not be me, and he would not be mine.’
‘It would just be you, babe. Just you, and just me, and that’s all.’
‘If you think that, then…’ I shook my head sadly. ‘You’re the last person in the world I should be with at the forgetting.’
‘Don’t say that,’ she snapped. ‘Look, I can learn more about you. You can tell me what’s important.’
‘And how could I trust you to do that? You’d lie and build smoke bombs to get your life back. Why wouldn’t you lie now, tell me what I want to hear, and then go back on everything the moment the forgetting hits, when you can do whatever you want.’
‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘Really?’ I still had the photo in my hands. I held it up. ‘Isn’t this worth fighting for? What wouldn’t you do, to get this back?’
She backed away from me, shaking her head. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘Say it then. Look at the photo and tell me you wouldn’t lie to get this back.’
‘You know I would. I would do anything.’ Her voice shook with frustration. ‘And why shouldn’t I? Why are your choices the only ones that get to count? What about me?’ She pointed at the photo. ‘What about him? What about everything we chose? Everything we promised each other.’
‘So what does that mean for me? That I don’t matter at all? I’m just a mistake you’re going to fix?’
‘All of this is a mistake I’m trying to fix.’ She waved her hands in the air. ‘You. Me. All of it.’
‘I’m not just something that’s in your way!’ I yelled. ‘I’m trying to live my life and make choices and survive. I’m not going to choose to stay with someone who doesn’t care about my choices. That moment, when I forget everything, I’m gone. My mind is basically plasticine. And there is no way I’m going to give it to someone who thinks I’m just an aberration. Someone who wants to fix me and make me proper again.’ My backpack was beside the couch. I went to grab it. ‘I’m leaving. There’s a word for people who just take what they want from another person, who trap them and keep them without caring about their consent.’
‘But you did choose.’ She stepped into my path. ‘You chose me. And you asked me to choose you.’
‘This is my life. I’m entitled to protect it.’
‘This is our life. And I’m entitled to protect it. I promised you all those years ago I’d be there for you. For better or worse. Well, this is worse. But I’m here. Just like I promised. Just like you chose.’
‘They’re words from another time. Another world. I don’t want them.’
‘You were there for me. You helped me through my drinking. Every day, every step. When I’d do anything to get a
drink, you held firm until I was okay again. I can’t walk away from that. The whole thing is my—’
‘I release you from your promise, from any debt to me.’
‘You can’t release me. You can’t just wish away a marriage.’
‘Marriages end. It happens. Divorces happen.’
She flinched. Happy enough to throw around curses, but unable to face the D-word. ‘Sometimes things happen, and two people grow apart. But that’s not what’s going on here.’
Funny, because that sounded like exactly what was going on here. Things happened. Two people grew apart.
Julie scowled, as if she’d read my mind. ‘Our situation is completely different. When people divorce they know each other, and they make a decision. This’—she gestured to the two of us—‘is nothing like that. You don’t know what we were like together. There’s no decision here, just a car crash of a thing that smashed our lives apart.’
‘There is a decision. I’m deciding, right now.’ I pushed past her and towards the door.
I’d got my hand to the doorhandle by the time she spoke, her voice suddenly quiet. ‘If you walk out that door, what do you think I will do?’
I stopped and slowly turned to face her.
‘I don’t need your agreement. I never did.’ Her eyes grew dark. ‘You think tossing a smoke bomb in a bin counts as extreme? If you leave me no other option, then on Sunday, I will tear down your door with a crowbar and take what’s mine. What’s ours. Get my Robbie back. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’
‘I could go extreme too,’ I snapped. ‘I could walk out that door and never go home. I could just jump on a train or bus to anywhere. The outback. It’s a big country. You would never see me again. And I’d be free of you.’
‘I would find you, just like I found you this time.’ She advanced on me, her fists white-knuckled by her side. ‘You can’t afford for this to become a battle between us, Robbie. I know you. And I’m smarter than you. I’m harder than you. And I will never give up on you.’
Maybe so. But I had one power she didn’t have. The power to destroy. ‘None of that will matter, because you’d be too late for either of us.’ I folded my arms. ‘If I’m picked up on the street again, they’ll put me into care. In an institution.’
