‘I wanted to ask him out,’ Tab says. ‘But I didn’t know whether it was because I felt sorry for him or because I actually liked him. I have a thing for the underdog, you know. It’s almost pathological. I watch the footy with Nick and I can’t help going for whoever’s losing, and then if they start winning, I switch sides.’
Lona looks across at her friend. ‘Are you saying you only hang out with me because I’m a loser?’
Tab laughs. ‘I’m saying that I don’t know if I actually want any of the things I think I want. I’m saying—’
There’s a loud, tearing screech: the sound of metal shredding through metal, the sound of glass smashing into a hundred million pieces. Lona’s McFlurry jumps in her hands and her head snaps back to the intersection. There are two cars now, mashed into one another, the green people mover pushed halfway across the line. The green signal insists that it’s time to go. It is ignorant to the impossibility of go. The exhaust is billowing out the back of the other car. It has its nose buried in the passenger side of the people mover, devouring it. Lona cannot remember if there was a passenger in the passenger side.
‘Oh, shit,’ she says, somewhat belatedly.
Tab is already opening the door and getting out. Lona follows her in an uneven walk-run, like one leg is trying to hold her back. There’s a hubcap in the gutter. The road crunches with broken glass like the dance floor of a seedy nightclub. Lona catches up to Tab, who’s standing dumb at the pedestrian crossing like she needs to be told: walk. The strip of shops up the road is lit up, but nothing’s stirred yet. It feels apocalyptic, like it’s just the night and them. Lona is still holding her McFlurry.
They can’t see anything. There are airbags exploded in each car, making it look like they’re full of raw dough. Lona’s brain is associating wildly, grasping for something, anything explicable.
‘We need to call an ambulance,’ Tab says.
‘I don’t have my phone,’ Lona says. Tab’s is back in the console.
The door of the other car is forced open from the inside. The man doing the forcing is pushing at his airbag. He staggers out of the car and there is blood running from his nose. It’s split across the bridge. Tab rushes forward, Lona right behind.
‘Are you ok?’ Tab calls.
The man is bent over. ‘Fuck,’ he groans. ‘Fuck.’ He’s older than them, but he’s young. Tab reaches for him and he recoils. There’s a gash in his forehead, matted with hair. He’s concussed and confused. Tab draws back her hand like she’s been stung.
There’s a thump from the other car, as the woman in the people mover slams her door shut behind her. ‘You fucking psycho!’ she screams, and suddenly she’s in the other driver’s face and she lashes out with flat palms into his chest, pushing him back so that he stumbles. She’s bleeding from her nose and the corner of her mouth.
‘What if I’d had my daughter in the back of the car?’ she screams. ‘What if my daughter was in there?’
Lona and Tab are motionless. They look at what’s left of the empty infant chair in the back seat of the people mover. It’s been pushed halfway over the top of the seat in front of it. They look at each other. Lona can’t feel her hands around the paper cup. This time when the woman hits the man he loses his balance, and he lands on the asphalt with a soft thud.
‘Fuck,’ he says dumbly. ‘I’m sorry. I’m—fuck.’ He looks at the palms he used to break his fall. They’re studded with glass dust.
The woman glances at Lona and Tab for the first time and her anger snaps into smaller pieces. She’s shaking and her voice is brittle when she demands, ‘You saw that, right? You saw that he hit me? It was a fucking red light he went through!’
They don’t move, don’t say anything, don’t know how to explain: we weren’t looking, we don’t know, we believe you but we can’t put our hand on a bible or our heart or whatever and swear it.
Tab says, ‘Do you want me to get you some water?’ and the woman stares at her like she’s insane, until finally she says, ‘Yes,’ dully, and she begins to cry.
Lona says, ‘I’ll do it,’ because she doesn’t know what to do here, and Tab’s already got an arm around the woman. She walks back to Macca’s and only realises she’s been scooping the last of her McFlurry into her mouth when her straw hits the bottom of the cup. Several people are pushing out of McDonald’s as she walks in. ‘Water,’ she says, but no one hears her, and it doesn’t really matter, because the offer was only ever an excuse to say something instead of nothing, and her eagerness to fulfil it was just a means of being somewhere else.
She watches from the car park as more and more people crowd the intersection. There are cars slowing and stopping. Diners and staff spill out of McDonald’s and from the restaurants up the road. The sound of a siren is dull in the distance, and then seemingly instantly close and wailing. The red and blue lights are thrown across Tab’s back as she crouches beside the man, one arm on his shoulder.
Lona turns around and there’s someone she doesn’t know standing there. ‘Did you see it happen?’ they ask.
She glimpses the flash of foil shock blankets as they are wrapped around the drivers. A paramedic offers one to Tab and Tab waves a hand. She points to Lona in the car park, or probably more likely to her car that’s still sitting there, doors flung open.
A police officer is setting up cones around the cars and there is someone sweeping up the debris. It’s over, basically.
Lona goes to wait by Tab’s car.
Talk about it
Lona spends the night at her parents’ place. She sleeps in Ben’s old room in Ben’s old bed. In the morning she eats a bowl of Nutri-Grain.
George calls and he hasn’t heard, which means that Nick hasn’t heard, which means that Tab hasn’t told him yet. Lona says, ‘We witnessed a car crash last night.’ The words are mechanical and not exactly true, considering Lona was looking at Tab and Tab was looking at Lona when it happened, and what they witnessed was technically: cars crashed. George is concerned, which Lona is beginning to realise is his modus operandi.
‘You need to talk about it?’ he asks.
There are many things Lona needs:
a) a good sleep
b) a future
c) a spine
There are many things Lona wants:
a) the new Jay Kristoff book
b) Mum’s spaghetti bolognese without having to ask for it
c) a slow, exploratory fuck
What she neither needs nor wants is to talk about it.
‘Let’s go out tonight,’ she suggests.
This proposition coming from Lona is a blue moon, a dark horse, a Tasmanian tiger. It’s such a shock, George doesn’t know what to say. ‘Ok,’ he says warily. ‘If that’s what you want.’
When she hangs up, she sends a message to Tab:
Hey (SMILING FACE) how are you feeling? Crazy night, am I right?
She doesn’t get a response, which is ok, because she wouldn’t know what to do with one anyway. She lies on the couch and stares at the crack in the ceiling that always cracks no matter how many times Dad paints over it, and she wishes she were more motivated in life.
Rehab
Grandpa is moved to the rehab centre at Caulfield Hospital. He has been told he is going to have to use a wheelchair. He is being given rehab of the body so that he can adjust to this reality. He is not being given rehab of the mind, even though Lona thinks this is probably equally crucial seeing as he has spent 86 years of his life having legs that functioned, and now he has legs that have to be lifted by arms like they’re some cumbersome, malignant growth. Lona goes in on Tuesdays, when she has the afternoon off from Coles.
Grandpa is sometimes out of bed when she arrives at 3 p.m., but a lot of the time he’s not. ‘I’m exhausted today,’ he tells her. Lona tries not to feel annoyed at him for not trying harder with the rehab. She says, ‘Once you get the hang of the wheelchair, you’ll be able to get around a lot faster than you did with the walker.’
Lona sits down in the wheelchair. She takes off the gel cushion that’s meant to stop sores from forming and wheels this way and that around the room. She imagines that the patients in the other beds think she is: just darling. That they are bemused by her blue hair, and impressed with her attentiveness to her grandfather. In reality, they watch their televisions and breathe through their mouths and couldn’t care less. Grandpa raises an arm. The skin hangs from the bone in a way that makes it obvious that it is skin hanging from bone. ‘Stop mucking around,’ he says. Lona feels the muscles working in her arms. Her bones are nowhere in sight. She gets up and wheels the chair back over, puts the cushion back on. Grandpa presses a button on his remote control so that the mattress lifts his head slightly and he can see her properly.
She wants Grandpa to get better because she likes Grandpa better when he’s not in hospital. This is horrible, and this is true.
‘You’ll be home soon,’ she says. ‘In no time.’
She gets out her book and sits on the corner of the bed, starts reading aloud. It’s a story about an old man looking back on a love affair he had in his youth. The concepts examined are: the nature of time, the subjectivity of recollection, the weight of knowledge. The male gaze is strong, or in other words: it’s a literary novella. It’s written so beautifully that Lona forgives it, over and over, hand on her heart.
When she folds down the corner of the page and closes the book, Grandpa has this look on his face like he’s not been listening for a long time now. Maybe it was the wrong story. An unnecessary story for a man who is forced to look back because he can barely see ahead of himself. Who can’t even walk those few steps needed to get close enough to what’s out of focus. He presses another button on his remote that raises his knees for him. Lona is displaced from the end of the bed.
She stands up, says, ‘I’ll see you next week.’
Tab calls
Tab calls around 10.30 p.m. and wants to talk. She wants to talk but she doesn’t know what to talk about. Lona guesses she’s been fighting with her mum again. Tab says, ‘That was crazy.’
Lona agrees, even though she doesn’t know what they’re discussing.
‘I’m so glad they were both ok,’ Tab says.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Lona agrees, comprehending.
‘I keep thinking,’ Tab says. Lona waits to hear what Tab keeps thinking, but it seems that the sentence ends there.
Lona tries to discuss a book they’ve both just read. Tab mmms. She says, ‘I was speaking in class the other day and I couldn’t stop, I was just talking, talking, talking and the whole time I was thinking: who’s talking, who is this. Everyone thinks I’m this bright, happy person.’
‘That’s what the girl in the book feels like,’ Lona says eagerly. ‘Like when she goes to that party with Angelo. The abstracted self thing.’
Tab does not marvel at the cosmic synchronicity of this coincidence. ‘The abstracted self thing,’ she repeats.
‘Yeah, it’s a trope.’
‘A trope.’
‘Like alienation in coming-of-age narratives. Like, what’s more abstracting: abstraction or being abstracted from abstraction.’
Tab doesn’t say anything for a while and when she does it’s like she’s skipped ahead. ‘One size fits all,’ she says.
Tab does not seem to be enjoying the conversation, but she resists Lona’s attempts to let it die a painless death. Lona does the legwork. Lona is not used to doing the legwork. ‘Let’s see a movie tomorrow,’ she suggests. She expects Tab to say no, but Tab says yes.
‘Yes,’ Tab says. ‘All right.’
They hang up without having worked out where they’re going or what they’re seeing. Lona can’t remember the last time Tab was like this. She realises: Tab has never been like this.
At the movies
The film they see has been out for weeks, so there are only two other people in the cinema. It’s a cavernous theatre, rows and rows of empty chairs like a flood of red blood cells. Lona and Tab sit with their feet up on the seats in front of them and there’s the distinct sense: it’s us against the world.
The movie is loud and senseless. Lona waits for Tab’s usual commentary, the sarcastic remarks and genuine questions about what’s that actor been in and is that his girlfriend or the woman from the bank that usually populate any viewing and have infuriated Lona for years. But the most she gets is a murmured: how long did you say this goes for?
Tab’s phone rings and she walks up to the back row to take the call. Lona glances back at her. Tab’s hair is pulled back into a scraggly bun. She is wearing ugg boots and a long, floral skirt. She chews on the edge of her thumbnail. When Lona turns back to the screen she sees the other two people moving around on the carpet directly below the projection. They are dancing. She realises that they are girls, only just teenagers. One of them cartwheels, the other claps. Their laughter is like water moving through a maze of pipes. The music from the film cuts out as the scene switches, but they reach out for each other’s hands so that they can wash the dishes dry the dishes turn the dishes over.
Tab sits back down beside Lona. She doesn’t tell Lona who she was speaking to. Lona doesn’t ask. Lona doesn’t know what this feeling is, the one in her gut that makes her feel sick and impatient. She doesn’t know why Tab isn’t telling her what’s wrong when Tab always tells her what’s wrong.
The girls down the front of the cinema are taking selfies. The flash on the phone is bright white and stabs a hole through Lona’s vision. She blinks until it is gone.
Tab elbows Lona. ‘What’s that actor been in?’ she asks.
Lona saddles her feelings so that she can sit on them without being thrown off. She says, ‘The film we watched where the woman with the split personality disorder thought one of her personalities murdered her husband’s lover but it turned out that her husband’s lover was one of her personalities. He was the best friend.’
Tab nods. ‘Ah, of course.’
Indisputable maths
It’s March before Lona finally facilitates the being of George and her parents in the same room at the same time.
Dad’s having a birthday lunch at home, and Lona drops in a simple request: can George come. Her parents’ enthusiasm is deliberately muted, because they don’t want to scare her back into being the daughter no one wants: the smart, independent, single daughter.
She is taking this opportunity to introduce George to her parents because lunch is a safe meal. The maths is indisputable:
Lunch = less alcohol = less regret
Lunch can also be left at pretty much anytime, whereas with dinner there’s always the pressure to: stay until the night is over. No one ever ends up playing Pictionary at a lunch party. For that, humanity is grateful.
George stays over at Lona’s the night before Dad’s birthday. ‘So I finally get to meet the Wallaces,’ he says.
‘You know it’s me not you, right?’ she says.
‘It’s ok. I know you’re ashamed of me. I’ve come to terms with the fact I’m probably actually just your side piece.’
They are watching television and her head is in his lap and she looks up at him to make sure he is smiling. She can tell he’s joking, and she knows he’s fine and they’re fine, and it will all be fine, but she’s not entirely emotionally inept. She knows he wouldn’t say it if he wasn’t trying to make it funny not hurt.
She sits up and he says, ‘You’ve got your serious face on.’
She says, ‘I want to explain it to you.’
‘You don’t need to explain it to me.’ The television screen freezes on Hopper and Eleven. Lona has paused Stranger Things. George says, ‘Shit, ok, I didn’t realise it was that serious.’
She leans forward to kiss him. ‘I love you just for that.’
‘For what?’
‘For noticing things
about me and liking them.’ She stares at him. Up close she can see his pores and the dry skin at the edge of his mouth. ‘It’s not that I didn’t want you to meet my parents,’ she insists. ‘It’s just… I know…I know that me being with you will make them happier than anything else I could do, or could want to do.’
He shakes his head instantly. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s not,’ she says. ‘I know you won’t get this, but…’
‘It’s not that I don’t get it,’ he interrupts. ‘I get what you’re trying to say.’
She sits back on her heels, bristling. ‘No, you don’t.’ She squeezes her fists, and she knows she’s not angry at him, she’s not even angry at her parents, she’s angry at: the way things are. But George is here and easier to argue with than a societal structure. ‘All the things I want and I want to do will not make them as happy as me being in a stable relationship or being married or having kids. And I’m not saying I don’t want those things—I’m not saying I do. I’m just saying fuck that.’
‘It’s the same for me,’ he says.
‘No, it’s not,’ she says, frustrated. ‘You know, I sometimes thought I’d never be in a relationship. I didn’t care, but everyone else did.’
‘Well, what do you want me to do? Not be with you? Just so you can make some sort of statement?’ He gets up and gets the half-drunk bottle of rosé from the kitchen bench. ‘What the hell is the point in that? Would that make you happy?’
She rolls her eyes, looks back at the TV. If she cut her hair really short, she reckons it’d look like Eleven’s. She wonders what George would think. Fuck what George would think.
He says, ‘Are you listening to me or have you decided the conversation is over?’ He refills her glass, then his. When he sits back on the couch she can feel the sting of his eyes on the side of her face.
The male gaze. The thing she always wanted, despised, coveted.
Loner Page 11
