Sweet Damage

by Rebecca James

  ‘Tell me everything,’ she says.

  I don’t tell her everything – partly out of a vague sense of protectiveness towards Anna, partly a bitter reluctance to always let Lilla have what she wants. I share just enough to explain my unease. My confusion.

  I don’t tell her about Anna’s agoraphobia, or her parents, or what little I know about Benjamin. I only tell her part of the story: the person I saw watching me that night, the mess in the kitchen, the late-night banging on the door.

  ‘So you think it was her? Anna? Watching you while you slept?’ She shudders dramatically. ‘That’s so creepy. Weren’t you scared?’

  ‘No,’ I say firmly, and then I shrug. ‘Well, yes. A bit. It’s pretty freaky waking up and seeing someone like that.’

  ‘Totally. Bloody hell, Tim, I’d be petrified,’ she says. ‘Can’t you ask her about it?’

  ‘I did kind of ask about the mess in the kitchen. In an indirect way. She said she didn’t do it.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘So do you think she’s some kind of fruit loop?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I think she’s had a hard time. I think she’s dealing with a lot of . . . stuff.’

  ‘What kind of hard time?’

  I shake my head. ‘Dunno. But I’m not particularly worried. I think she’s harmless.’

  She looks at me cynically for a moment, then grabs my arm, whispers melodramatically, ‘What if you’re wrong? What if she’s dangerous?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think she’s depressed but I don’t think she’s dangerous.’

  I tell her about the night I found Anna crying, the strange dazed look on her face. The way she didn’t make any sense.

  ‘Oh man,’ she says. ‘You have to talk to her properly. You can’t live with that.’

  ‘I will. Later. Maybe.’

  ‘Not maybe, Tim. You have to.’

  Neither of us talks for a moment. Eventually Lilla leans against me, shudders.

  ‘I knew there was something weird about that house. I knew it,’ she says. ‘It’s probably haunted.’

  ‘It’s just a house. Bricks and mortar. It’s not haunted.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to live there. In fact, you couldn’t pay me to live there.’ She turns to look at me, eyes wide. ‘What if Anna goes psycho in the night? Cuts you up and puts you in the fridge?’

  I roll my eyes.

  ‘I’m only half joking,’ she continues. ‘You could be in danger. I mean, why would she watch you like that? Do you think you should take a knife to bed with you for protection? I’d hate to find out that something bad happened to you.’

  For some strange reason I feel defensive. Disloyal. Lilla is enjoying this too much. I’m glad now I didn’t tell her the full story: Anna’s problems would only be juicy gossip to her.

  ‘It’s not actually funny,’ I say, irritated.

  ‘It is actually a little bit funny, but it’s scary too,’ Lilla says. When I don’t respond she puts her arm around my shoulder and my irritation dissolves like honey in hot water. ‘Never mind. You knew it was too good to be true. If it doesn’t work out you can always come and live with me.’

  ‘I’m sure Patrick would love that.’

  ‘Hmm. Well. Stuff Patrick.’

  ‘Things okay between you two?’ I ask. I try hard not to look eager, or sound hopeful.

  ‘I don’t know. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes I think we’re really happy together. But then he can be such a selfish jerk and I wonder if I should just start again. Move out and find a new place.’ She looks down at her hands. ‘I even sometimes wonder if you and I should get a place together. We might work well as flatmates.’

  I don’t say a word. I can’t, my heart is too busy getting stuck in my throat.

  23

  I’VE KNOWN LILLA SINCE HIGH SCHOOL BUT I DIDN’T GET TO KNOW her properly until I was twenty. We were loosely in the same social group, and she was often at the parties I went to. We’d say hello, sometimes have a brief conversation, and I definitely always thought she was hot, but not quite my type – too aggressive, too edgy and maybe, if I’m honest, a little bit intimidating.

  One night at the tail end of a party Lilla and I were among a group who ended up down at Narrabeen Beach early in the morning. It was one of those days where the beach looked like something out of a postcard: the water tinted an unbelievable shade of Brett Whiteley blue, the sand white, the sun yellow. When we came over the dunes and saw the ocean we all gave this spontaneous gasp in collective awe at the beauty of it, and without saying a word we ran down to the edge, stripped off to our undies and ran straight in.

  Lilla and I ended up mucking around. She splashed me, I splashed her back. When I was out deeper she crept up behind me and pushed me under. We stayed in the water for a good half-hour, then got out and lay down side by side on the sand, puffed out. I was still half-pissed from the night before, and it felt natural and easy to roll over so that I faced her, to put my hand on her bare brown belly, to kiss her.

  We escaped from the others and went to a nearby cafe, where we shared a huge plate of bacon and eggs and sausages. Then we went back to the beach and swam and sunbaked until my skin was red and Lilla’s had turned a deeper, darker brown.

  Lilla talked. She told me how she wanted to do something creative. She told me secrets about her friends, her past boyfriends. She told me how she had been brought up by a single mother, and how she’d always hated the dingy flat she grew up in, resented her mother’s lack of ambition.

  ‘I want something better,’ she told me. ‘Much better. No way am I going to spend my life rotting away in some stinking home unit in Narrabeen.’

  Then she asked me all about myself. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and was surprised when I said I had no idea. She asked about my friends, my parents. I told her how my dad had started a restaurant, how it was a dream come true for him. I told her I was more interested in being happy than successful.

  ‘But you need to find an ambition,’ she said, putting her hand on my chest. ‘The most interesting people are always ambitious.’

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I moved my face closer to hers and kissed her salty lips.

  I’d never met a girl who talked so much, who probed so deeply.

  I was still living with my parents back then. I knew Mum would be at work until at least seven, and that Dad would be leaving at around three to go to the restaurant. Which left me with a four-hour space of opportunity. At ten to three, I asked Lilla if she wanted to come back to my place and when I asked, the way our eyes locked, I knew she knew what I was really asking, what I really wanted.

  She said yes.

  I made instant coffee for us both and we took our mugs and a packet of chocolate biscuits to my room. I only had a single bed, but I was relieved to see that at least it looked reasonably clean and in order. We sat on the bed, face to face, legs crossed, and drank our coffee. We ate the entire packet of biscuits.

  When she’d finished her coffee, Lilla stood up and put her empty mug on my desk. I thought she was going to leave and started desperately trying to think of ways to get her to stay. But instead of leaving, she pulled her T-shirt up and over her head, undid her zip and slid her skirt down over her hips. She took her bra and undies off too, and I sat there gaping like a fool, too scared to move in case it was all just a dream.

  She lay down on my bed, took my hand and guided it to the neat bush of black between her parted legs, where she was warm and soft.

  I was lost.

  Afterwards, she wrapped her arms around me, kissed my lips, my cheeks, my eyes. Then she sighed and got up, started pulling her clothes on. I was confused, scared to death I’d done something wrong, committed some kind of unforgivable sex sin. But when she was dressed she bent over and kissed me again.

  ‘Lilla, wait,’ I said. ‘I need your number. I mean, can’t I call you? Don’t you want to . . .’ I sat up an
d reached for her hand. ‘Please don’t go.’

  ‘I’ve got to.’ She pulled her fingers away, kissed me again, this time very softly. ‘Let’s not ruin a perfect day.’

  For the next few months I didn’t stop thinking about her. The way one side of her mouth went up and the other side down when she smiled, the way her hair hung around her face. The way she tipped her head back and exposed her neck when she laughed – all these things had imprinted themselves on my brain. In the few short hours we’d spent together, the certainty that Lilla was the perfect woman had managed to burrow beneath my skin, swim the length of my veins, and flood through every artery and cell of my body.

  It took a year and a half until she was single again, and then another three months of dedicated effort on my part to convince her to go out with me.

  We went out for eight months. Eight fiery, electric, fucked-up months. I’d never felt so elated and chewed up and miserable, all at the same time. We fought. We laughed like maniacs. We fucked. It was both the most adult and most ridiculously childish relationship I’d ever had. Once Lilla screamed at me for ten minutes because I ate more than my share of jellybeans. I found her quick anger and her sense of entitlement sexy.

  Lilla was renting her own flat. I didn’t officially move in – I was still living at Mum and Dad’s – but I stayed there almost every night for the entire eight months.

  Lilla got to know my parents pretty well because we had dinner at home at least once a week. My dad liked her, I could tell. He laughed at her jokes, teased her when she got too arrogant. Mum was always polite, but she was quieter than usual when Lilla was around and spent a lot of time in the kitchen.

  ‘You don’t like her, do you?’ I asked Mum on one of the rare nights I stayed at home.

  She stopped what she was doing, frowned.

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I don’t like her.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. She scares me a bit, I think. Her drive. Her hunger. She seems a bit . . .’ She kept her eyes averted, shrugged. ‘Desperate or something.’

  ‘Desperate?’ I was getting irritated. I hated it when Mum criticised my friends and yet I knew it was my own fault for asking. Now I needed to know exactly what she meant – just so that I could tell her how wrong she was.

  ‘That’s not quite the word. I mean she just seems very driven. Very ambitious. The type of girl who knows what she wants and goes after it.’

  ‘And you’re always telling me I should be more ambitious,’ I said. ‘Double standards or what? Or is this a sexist thing? Okay for boys to be ambitious but not for girls?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Tim,’ she said, and then she looked at me directly. ‘It’s not that at all. It’s just that sometimes I look at the two of you and I think she’s going to eat you alive. She’s ruthless. That’s the word I was looking for. Ruthless.’

  I still hadn’t even met Lilla’s mum. Whenever I suggested it, Lilla made excuses, brushed the idea aside.

  ‘Why bother?’ she said. ‘She’s the least interesting person you’ll ever meet.’

  But every few weeks I would bring it up – it just felt too weird to go out with a girl for eight months, to practically live with her, and know nothing about her family – until she eventually agreed to introduce us.

  *

  We went to visit Lilla’s mother one Sunday afternoon. Her name was Hazel and she looked a lot like Lilla, only with an extra fifty kilos of weight and bad posture and all the vitality drained away. It was bizarre to meet her – like meeting a potential future version of Lilla – a Lilla who’d led a hard, sad life.

  Hazel was clearly pleased to have us there. She smiled widely and bustled around getting coffee and a big plate of cupcakes. The flat was surprisingly clean and bright, the coffee good, the cakes delicious. I wondered why Lilla had been so reluctant to introduce us, what she was so ashamed of.

  Despite Hazel’s warmth, and the obvious effort she was making, Lilla was rude and cold. She brushed Hazel’s hand away when she tried to touch her hair, rolled her eyes at everything Hazel said, sat on the couch with a sullen look on her face and flipped through magazines and refused to talk. She sighed repeatedly, noisily, as if she couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  Lilla’s rudeness embarrassed me and to compensate I gave Hazel as much attention as I could. Asked question after question. Listened to story after story.

  At one point when Hazel was talking, giving me a detailed description of one of her many medical complaints, Lilla sighed and picked up the remote control. She switched the television on, turning the volume up so loud that Hazel’s voice was drowned out.

  Hazel looked startled for a moment, but then only nodded as though she expected nothing more. It was as if she had no ability or energy to stick up for herself, as if life had taken her backbone and ground it to jelly. She stood up and went to the kitchen. ‘I’ll get us some more coffee,’ she said.

  When she’d left the room I snatched the remote from Lilla and turned the volume down.

  ‘Stop being such a bitch,’ I hissed. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘My problem? I don’t have a problem, Tim,’ she said, making no effort to keep her voice down. ‘I just can’t stand people who sit around feeling sorry for themselves. I hate all this inertia. I look at my mother and know that’s not how I want to be. She’s the perfect example of how not to live a life.’ She looked at me with a sneering expression. ‘But then you and Mum are quite similar. That’s probably why you get along, why you like her. You’re both willing to sit around and watch life pass you by.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Though Lilla could be sharp and abrasive this was the first time she’d been so deliberately and personally insulting towards me.

  She gave me a small, cold smile. ‘You’re both useless. Passive. The pushed rather than the pushing.’

  I stood up. I was so angry I could feel my hands shaking.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ I said. ‘I’m going back to my place. And I’m going for good. You’re a bitch, Lilla. A spiteful bitch.’ I went to the door without looking at her. ‘Apologise to your mum for me. Tell her something made me feel sick.’

  I collected my stuff from her flat the next day when I knew she’d be out at work. I left my key on the dining table. I was angry and humiliated and determined to teach her a lesson. I wasn’t the passive and weak bloke she thought I was. She couldn’t treat me like crap and get away with it.

  But my anger didn’t last long and after a day or two it became more of an effort to stay away. Lilla called and left messages and I had to make myself ignore them. I surfed all the time to keep myself distracted, to stop myself calling her back. She turned up at the restaurant one night and I got one of the waitresses to tell her I was too busy to talk.

  I managed to stay away for almost three weeks but one afternoon while I was out surfing I realised how dumb I was being. I was playing the kind of manipulative game I hated. The truth was I missed her. I didn’t care if it seemed weak or if it meant I was a passive bastard. I just wanted to be with her. We could talk. Sort things out. I took the next wave back to shore and ran all the way to her place.

  I knocked on the door. I was dripping wet.

  ‘Oh,’ was all she said when she saw me. She was clearly surprised, but not in a happy way. ‘What is it, Tim?’ She didn’t invite me in; instead she stepped out, partially closing the door behind her.

  ‘I missed you,’ I said.

  ‘Could have fooled me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I reached out and tried to take her hand but she stepped away. I spoke quickly then, desperate to make things better, to remove that distant, indifferent expression from her eyes. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. I’ve been a dickhead, I know. I just want, I just really want to go back to how we were. I still . . . fuck . . . I miss you, Lilla. I love you.’

  It was the first and only time I’d ever said those three words to anyone. It was a
lso one of the only times I’ve seen Lilla look so uncertain. She blinked, and maybe I’m flattering myself, but I’m pretty sure she was trying not to cry. But then she stepped even further away, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

  ‘I’ve met someone else,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ I nearly laughed.

  ‘And unlike you, Tim, he’s got his shit together. He’s good for me.’

  She almost glanced behind her, back into the flat, and that’s when I realised that he must be in there. Through the partially open door I noticed her hall table. There was a man’s leather satchel sitting on it, with a striped tie draped over the top. The satchel had a fancy red monogram engraved in one corner. It looked like some kind of royal crest and I wondered what kind of wanker would walk around with pretentious crap like that on their bag.

  I left then, before I did anything stupid.

  24

  WHEN WE GET TO CIRCULAR QUAY, LILLA BUYS ME A COFFEE. WE stroll up towards the Museum of Contemporary Art and sit on the grass beneath the shade of a tree. We don’t talk any more about Anna or the house. Lilla tells me about some new sculptor she likes, a woman who uses old wire coathangers and crepe bandages. I lie down and close my eyes, intending to rest for just a second, and accidentally doze off.

  ‘Hey!’ Lilla is leaning over me. ‘Way to make a girl feel boring!’

  I sit up, run my fingers through my hair. ‘Shit. Sorry. Haven’t been getting much sleep.’

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘Seriously though, Tim. What are you going to do?’

  ‘About what?’ I say, immediately defensive. I assume she’s talking about my future employment prospects again.

  ‘About your flatmate. The crazy girl.’

  ‘Dunno.’ I shrug lazily and tell her about the lunch with Fiona and Marcus. The emails.

  ‘Although I feel a bit weird about it,’ I explain. ‘Like I’m invading Anna’s privacy or something. I don’t think I’ll send any more. Just feels wrong.’

  ‘Oh God, no, Tim,’ she says. ‘It’s not wrong at all. Imagine if something happened? You can’t be responsible for that. Don’t be stupid. If they’re such good friends of hers, of course they’re going to want to make sure she’s okay. Of course they are.’