by Sasha Wasley
He drew syringe after syringe of fluid out of her distended abdomen – I lost count when it got to about twenty. At last he felt around her underside and nodded.
‘That’s better. We got at least half a litre out of her. She should be more comfortable, anyway. Hopefully the antibiotics will clean things up in her insides, but you need to be aware that this condition often recurs.’
‘Yes, Angus said that.’
Paul regarded me for a moment. ‘Does he know you’ve got his chicken here?’ I hesitated. ‘Farmers don’t usually bring chickens into the clinic,’ he added.
I looked down at Chooky’s beetle-black feathers. ‘I promise I’ll pay off the bill.’ Paul seemed bemused but nodded. ‘When can she go back into the flock after the antibiotics? Angus said her eggs will be tainted.’
‘She’s not likely to lay for a couple of weeks after this, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Put her back when she’s better.’ Paul went to his computer. ‘I’ll just go and get the medication,’ he said when he’d finished tapping in the details.
He left me alone with the chicken. His computer-screen wallpaper was a photo of two fair-haired little girls laughing against a bright-green background of lawn. They must be Liv’s kids. The photo was crisp and dramatic. Karen had said Liv was a photographer nowadays.
When Paul got back, he showed me how to give Chooky her tablets. He caught her under his arm, opened her beak, and poked a ridiculously large pill into her throat. Chooky didn’t seemed fazed in the least. I packed her back into her crate and waited in reception while Paul mumbled to his nurse. She nodded, staring at me.
‘Bring her back if she gets any worse,’ Paul told me.
‘Thank you so much. Have you got an invoice?’
He murmured to the receptionist again. She did something on her computer and printed a sheet for me. In the car, I read the invoice in the fading light. They’d only charged me for the antibiotics – thirty dollars. The consultation was listed as zero charge. I was glad Liv had found herself a kind man.
Back at Brooker’s, I gave Chooky some water and food. I was delighted to see her peck at the crumble. She didn’t seem to be wheezing as much, either.
What Angus had said about their chickens being confused by the changed position of their cage was bothering me. I headed for the chicken yard in the falling darkness but stopped short when the pen came into view through the trees. Angus was in there. He had a chicken under one arm and was herding another towards the cage. He shoved the one in his arms inside, shutting the cage door quickly to prevent an escape. Then he waited while the other errant bird came closer, strategically opening the door at the right moment and taking a step to encourage the last wanderer inside.
I crept back to my caravan.
Chooky looked better again when I checked her in the morning. I changed her water, gave her a tablet and went outside. Mrs Brooker saw me sitting on the caravan step when she came out to hang some washing. She gave me a puzzled look that cleared after a few moments. It was as if she was surprised to see me every single day. She often got my name mixed up with my mother’s, too. She was only in her seventies, but it seemed Mrs Brooker was becoming forgetful.
‘Hello, love,’ she said, turning back to her washing. ‘You must have had a hot night.’
I was about to deny it, but bit down on the lie. ‘Yep. The easterly came in through the window about four am. That was nice.’
‘It’s going to be a warm one.’
‘Are you up for a bit more decluttering this morning?’ I asked.
‘Decluttering?’ She pegged a flannel shirt.
I wasn’t sure what to say for a moment. ‘Um, decluttering the spare room. Condors.’
‘Oh, yes, condors. Let’s do that. Come in whenever you’re ready.’
I sat and ate a muesli bar, wondering why she seemed so distracted. Was it something to do with Angus? Had they had an argument or something? It wouldn’t surprise me, after hearing the way they were snarking at each other about the chicken coop yesterday. I felt defensive of her suddenly. He should be nice to his mum. She was a total cinnamon roll and didn’t deserve his grumpiness.
It was roasting outside within an hour. Stepping inside, the house felt cool and heavenly, the wide verandahs doing their work and all the ceiling fans rotating lazily, making the daylight flicker. I found Mrs Brooker rolling a carpet sweeper over the lounge room.
‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘Ready for condors.’
She stowed her sweeper and came to stand at the spare-room door. I joined her and we perused the mess together. The wardrobe door hung open, exposing its shelves of junk.
She sighed. ‘That wardrobe.’
‘We could mix it up,’ I said. ‘These suitcases and bags on the bed – what’s in them?’
‘Clothes, I expect.’
‘Why don’t we do one of those today?’ I said.
‘Yes, good idea.’
I knew where she kept things by now so I fetched bin bags and boxes. Mrs Brooker pushed some papers to the corner of the bed, clearing a space for her to sit beside one of the cases.
‘I got rid of so many skirts and dresses when I sorted my room.’ I started to open the largest suitcase on the bed but discovered it was the wrong zip and all it did was expand the capacity. ‘Half of them didn’t even fit me any more because I was such a twig when I was younger. And the rest were out of style, or not what I would wear these days, or just damn uncomfortable.’
‘You seem to like wearing T-shirts and shorts, like a farm girl.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do, nowadays,’ I said. ‘There’s not really anywhere to wear cocktail dresses in Bonnievale. I made a list a couple of weeks ago of things I want to declutter from my life and one of them was caring about my looks too much. Maybe I’ve made progress.’
I was still struggling to locate the correct zip to get the case open but Mrs Brooker didn’t seem interested in the suitcase at all. She shoved more papers aside and patted the bed beside her. I abandoned the enigma of the zips and sat down.
‘What else is on this list?’ she asked.
I thought back to the cat notebook. ‘My phone. Bad friends. Lying. Faking.’
Mrs Brooker’s blue eyes were contemplative. ‘Were you much in the habit of lying and faking?’
‘Actors do that for a living.’
She smiled. ‘That’s acting.’
‘The acting had found its way into my normal life. I’ve been acting all the time. Sometimes I’m not sure what parts of me are real any more.’
She cocked her head. ‘Tell me what you mean by that, love.’
I fidgeted. ‘You might not like what you hear.’
‘Perhaps. But you’ve already said you’re trying to change.’
I gripped my hands together so I couldn’t fidget. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you a story. Last year, I was trying to get in with this group of women. A couple of TV actors, some influencers, wives of footy players. They were movers and shakers and I wanted to be part of the posse. One of them had been nice to me a few times – once at an awards night after-party and then she commented on one of my social media posts.’ This story was making my cheeks heat with shame, but maybe it was a kind of litmus test: go in hard with one of the crappiest things I’d done and see how she reacted. If kind Mrs Brooker looked at me with pure disgust and started to drop hints about me moving back in with my parents, at least I could measure how low I’d sunk.
‘There were rules, though,’ I went on. ‘I couldn’t just start following them around like a little dog. The friendship had to grow organically, or at least they had to think it was organic. I studied their social media posts and realised they caught up weekly for lunch on Thursdays. Then I saw one of them comment on the other’s post saying something like, Oh, I’ll make you try the quinoa arancini at Knave of Hearts! And I figured they would be at Knave of Hearts that Thursday.’
I checked Mrs Brooker’s face to see if I’d lost her yet, but she was listening avidl
y and nodded at me to continue.
‘So I decided I would be there, too,’ I said. ‘Only I had no money. I wasn’t working and the dole was so low it barely covered my share of the rent. I caught the train to the city, sneaked past the guard because I had no credit on my e-rider, and made myself look a mess – you know, mussed my hair, put on a dirty grey T-shirt – and started asking people if they could spare a train fare. People were nice and lots of them gave me money. I had seventy bucks at the end of an hour. I went into the station toilets and tidied myself up again – changed into designer clothes I’d bought last time I got paid, did my makeup and fixed my hair, then went to the bank and got them to swap all the coins for a fifty and a twenty. I walked to Knave of Hearts and waited in the bookshop across the road until the girls turned up, and after they’d all chosen places to sit and ordered some bubbly, I breezed in with my sunglasses up on top of my head, pretending to be on a phone call, yacking away. They were waving and I waved back, acting like I’d just spotted them. I finished the fake phone call and went over to give them hugs and blow kisses across the table. And I said I’d just stopped in to grab a coffee on the way to a meeting and they said, stay – have lunch with us. And I said no, I didn’t have enough time, and they said, Come on, stay for a drink, Charlize, and I said, okay, just for a drink.
‘So they poured me a bubbly and we all clinked and someone asked where my meeting was and I rolled my eyes and complained about how my agent was dragging me to meet some director who would be filming on the Gold Coast. I said I didn’t know how I was supposed to be two places at once because I was meant to be filming in Melbourne next month and they were all sympathetic and asked who the director was. So I said I wasn’t allowed to say who he was yet but American directors were the worst, weren’t they – the most renowned of the Me Too culprits – but hopefully the bad timing would be enough to get me out of it. Then I said I hoped I hadn’t given away too much and winked at one of the other actors and she pretended to know exactly who I was talking about. I stayed for the drink and they went to refill the glasses but the bubbly had run out, so I asked the waiter for another. And before they could pour me one I said Oh hell, I’m so late now – I really have to go. They all wailed and protested and I blew kisses to everyone and wished them a lovely lunch and urged them to try the quinoa arancini, then I went up to the counter to order a coffee and paid for the second bottle of bubbly using the seventy bucks I had begged at the train station.
‘I headed home, got booted off the train with a warning for travelling without a fare and had to walk for ages, but it was worth it. That night, two of the women sent me messages scolding me for paying for the bubbly and telling me to make sure I didn’t have any meetings next Thursday because they were buying me lunch.’
Mrs Brooker’s mouth was a little ‘o’ of astonishment.
‘That’s how hard I faked,’ I said, more disgusted with myself than she could possibly be.
She drew a long breath. ‘Goodness. That was quite an effort you went to.’
My cheeks and neck were so hot, sweat trickled down the collar of my shirt.
‘Do you think they might have come to like you without all that, love?’ she asked at last.
I shrugged. ‘I doubt it.’
‘Then were they really worth pursuing as friends?’
I laughed. ‘No, of course not. But you wanted to know about my faking and lying, so I was trying to show you how bad it was.’
I got up and finally located the correct zip and flicked the suitcase open. I don’t know what I’d expected, but a tangle of heeled ladies’ shoes was not it. There were dozens of shoes in there, all different styles and shapes. Classic seventies and eighties styles with straps, pointy toes and embossed leather. They were good quality, mostly nude, black or grey. I looked at Mrs Brooker.
‘My work shoes.’ She gave a heartfelt sigh.
‘These’re pretty fabulous.’ I held up a nude T-strap with a punched floral pattern over the toe.
‘I love nice shoes,’ she said simply. ‘They were my secret guilty pleasure.’
‘Why? Did your husband give you a hard time about it?’
‘No. Ted didn’t even know about my shoes.’
‘Really?’
Mrs Brooker had found a pair of maroon suede slingbacks and was inspecting them. ‘Of course not. He would have had kittens.’ She looked at me, her eyes clear. ‘But my income was the housekeeping money.’
‘Your pay from your job at the school?’
‘Yes. In my day, the wife’s pay was only ever “housekeeping” money, even when it was more than the husband’s income. We were expected to buy our clothes, shoes, feminine items – and the children’s things too, more often than not – using our money. Even the weekly food shopping. Somehow those things were considered frivolous rather than necessary – just like my income, I suppose.’
I was disgusted. ‘That must have sucked, especially for women who didn’t earn much.’
She gave a nod. ‘Thankfully, my salary was quite good. Ted pretended it was a little trifling bit of play-money, but actually it kept us going. Being farmers, most of my friends were in the same boat, pretending for their husbands’ sakes that their salaries were extra, meaningless nothings, and all the while that silly little pay packet meant the difference between eating a decent meal or not from week to week.’
‘And you made enough to buy nice shoes?’
She shot me a look that held something defensive. ‘These shoes weren’t all purchased in one season. I had an eye for a bargain. I bought quality shoes, chose them carefully, and kept them. I wore these shoes for years. I never bought a pair I couldn’t use for many, many years.’
I attempted to smooth over my faux pas. ‘You sound like the master. I ought to take you shoe shopping with me. I’ve bought so many duds over the years.’
‘Is that right?’
‘I would just throw them out,’ I confessed. ‘If they hurt me once, I chucked them. I was hopeless. I’d see a pair I liked and convince myself they felt okay, buy them on impulse. Then I’d wear them for one night, hate them by the end of it, and toss them away.’ I sighed. ‘So many incredible shoes, so many blisters.’
Mrs Brooker laughed and there was relief in the sound. ‘Occasionally, I made a mistake,’ she said. ‘Only once or twice. A shoe would rub, or pinch or squeak dreadfully. There was one pair that looked lovely and felt nice, but after I wore them for a month they smelled terrible. I had to get rid of them, but I could have cried.’
‘Thank God I’m not the only shoe-tragic,’ I said. ‘You know what my real weakness was, though?’ She looked intrigued. ‘Nail polish. Not shoes. I had so much nail polish. It drove Mum crazy.’
‘I was never vain about my nails.’ She showed me her fingernails. Short, clean and practical. I couldn’t imagine they had ever seen polish. I checked my own.
‘What do you think?’ I asked.
She examined my nails, shorter than usual, damaged and ever-so-slightly dirty from my work in the chicken yard. There were traces of pearl-pink polish on them.
‘They don’t look very fancy at the moment,’ was her verdict. ‘They look like they’ve seen an honest day’s work, though.’
I smiled, turning back to the shoes. ‘Right, let’s get these sorted. How many do you want to keep?’
‘Just two or three pairs. I don’t go anywhere much these days – not anywhere that requires heels.’ She looked at me. ‘Do you want any?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said, although I wore the same size.
As a self-confessed shoe-aholic, I expected her to struggle, but she managed the cull with barely a hitch, holding each pair for a moment before passing it to me with a ‘Donate,’ or a ‘Bin.’ Mrs Brooker stroked the leather of a tan shoe with a low wooden heel and pointed toe, pausing over it.
‘These ones are wonderful. They go forever and so comfortable. And you can wear them with almost anything.’
‘Keep?’ I said.
‘Definitely. And these.’ She reached for a pair of basic black heels. ‘My funeral shoes. They don’t quite give me joy, but funerals are a part of life and it gives me joy to know I don’t need to worry about what shoes to wear if I have to go to one.’ She paused. ‘I must have worn those to Ted’s funeral, but I don’t recall it at all. Do you know, I can’t remember a thing about that day? I was still in so much shock, I suppose.’
‘It was unexpected, was it? He hadn’t been ill?’
She kept her eyes on the shoes. ‘Oh, he’d been ill all right. His heart, blood pressure – you know. But it was still a terrible shock when he died. I believe it was a very well-attended funeral. Pris told me later that the funeral home ran out of food at the post-service tea, there were so many people there.’
Jai’s funeral swam into my head. It was at a Christian funeral home, which had surprised me – it turned out Jai was one of six, from a loving, Godly family with four brothers and a sister. His mother and father wept together in the front row, and his brothers, who looked like hardworking, practical men, were pallbearers, their faces strained with the physical effort of carrying the ornate coffin, or perhaps the struggle not to break down. His sister had a newborn baby.
Apart from the Carradine clan, the room was filled with industry names in fashion-label black and dark glasses. A couple of the women wore chic little black hats or fascinators with tiny veils and stilettos. That riled me. I wore a black suit and low heels, and kept my head down, hoping his family wouldn’t recognise me. I kept touching the healing cut on my chin, wishing it away. Cordelia Grocock, the desperately honest actor my friends and I despised, was there as well. We’d heard on the grapevine that she’d just landed a role and Tamsin had been messaging me continuously to bitch about her. Cordelia shot me a small smile, and maybe it was an attempt at comfort, but it felt like she was gloating.
Jai’s sister came over at the end, when everyone was standing around drinking percolated coffee and eating Monte Carlos. She’d handed the baby to her mother.
‘Charlize, right?’ she asked while I tried to disguise my panic. ‘I’m Zoe, Jai’s sister. Thanks for coming today.’ To my shock, she leaned forwards and gave me a light hug.
