She Is Haunted

by Paige Clark

  ‘You’re letting yourself go,’ Janie says. ‘How will you—’

  ‘I won’t.’ I don’t need to know the rest of the question to know the answer.

  ‘It’s not criticism. It’s concern.’

  I am concerned too, mostly about shoes. When I took my husband’s to the cobbler, the cobbler laughed.

  Another time, in hospital, during the first round of chemo, my husband slept while I rubbed his long, flat feet. I sat beside his bed in a sticky vinyl hospital chair, swaddled in his robe like a child after a dip in an icy pool.

  I pictured that I was the one tied up in a paper gown. It was my arm connected to the IV—a grey bag for poison, a clear bag for fluids. The liquids crept through my veins and I dreamt of a mild day and cool water. The nurse took blood through my cannula and I felt nothing.

  My husband stirred, shaking me from my fantasy. I moved my hands gently across his skin. Across his thin, fragile shape. Me, I thought. Me instead.

  But I’m still here and Janie is helping me pack up some things to give away. She has brought more soup, this time sweet potato. I am wearing my husband’s pale green sweater—his favourite. It is pilling on the sleeves where I rub the wool between my fingers, remembering. Janie pulls out a red satin kimono from my closet, holds it up to her chest. She tries it on in her mind.

  ‘Let’s go shopping,’ Janie says, ‘for something new.’

  ‘I’ve got everything I want.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing.’ She’s forgotten the rows of soup she has left in my freezer, still warm.

  ‘Can I have this?’ she asks. The kimono.

  ‘It’s yours.’

  Despite her intentions, she is a good friend. I shouldn’t lie to her. There are things that I want.

  An earlier time, at home, my husband and I waited for news of trial or treatment. Our phone never rang. Instead, his eating slowed and I turned solids into soup. I fantasised that my skin was changing from white to cream to butter. Eventually I would be the colour of a vegetable, ready to be skinned and stewed and frozen in plastic Tupperware.

  In my mind, my husband was fine. He walked out the door and went for a swim. When he returned, his skin was a healthy olive hue.

  The man on the couch was me—yellow with cancer.

  When my phone finally does ring, it’s my mother-in-law. She’s found his wedding ring.

  I tell her to meet me at the jeweller’s and I leave Janie at our apartment, adrift in my collection of leather skirts.

  I get there before my mother-in-law does and exchange my dead po po’s jade ring to cover the cost of resizing. Paying, I sign my husband’s name instead of my own.

  ‘Good to see you,’ my mother-in-law says when she arrives. Her hair gone grey makes her look like she’s just seen a ghost.

  I am over the moon. The person she is glad to see is not me.

  My mother-in-law keeps a photo of my husband on her mantle. In it, he is a baby old enough to eat solid foods, bobbing in a pool. Inflatable orange wings keep him afloat. I imagine myself in this picture, suspended as if by magic. The water is tepid, the day clear. The chlorine washes over me. I know the feeling well by now. My husband was never a strong swimmer.

  Janie and I take my clothes, my books and a framed photograph of my po po to the Salvation Army. I exchange these items for a tax deduction. Janie wears my kimono, though it does not suit her. Sometimes it is easier to give up yourself than someone else.

  Back at my apartment, Janie heats up soup and I stare at a wall. She is an impatient woman, so the soup is cold. I spoon it into my mouth the way a mother feeds an infant, every bite a trick. I am overcome by the feeling that I am somehow both the woman with the hair gone grey and her baby.

  ‘Don’t you like soup?’ Janie asks.

  The first time, we were at the beach. My husband swam out too far. He was not my husband yet. From the shore, I spotted him—flipper feet and windmill arms making no progress in the rough surf. I ran to get a lifeguard, but in my head I was swimming freestyle. I made my way back comfortably to the safety of the sand.

  After the rescue, we sat and watched the beachgoers come in and out of the sea like ballet dancers entering and exiting a stage. We both fell asleep, cocooned in a striped lifeguard towel.

  Now the local bodies of water rise in temperature. Janie comes over, the kimono hanging off her narrow shoulders to reveal a fringed bikini.

  ‘We’re going to the pool,’ Janie says.

  ‘What will I wear?’ I ask.

  ‘Bathing suit,’ Janie says. ‘Now.’

  I put on board shorts, a T-shirt and a pair of leather thongs. I can make out the shape of my husband’s long foot, embossed into the sole and I urge my feet to grow.

  ‘Don’t trip,’ Janie says. Still she takes my arm and guides me out the door.

  At the pool, I dive in. Despite the T-shirt, I swim laps with ease, my hands parting the water like cake being sliced. On the deck, Janie sunbathes and reads.

  Then I remember my body, the dead weight of it. I flail as if I’ve forgotten how to swim and then make a dash for the shallow end, taking off my T-shirt, leaving it to sink. In the wading area, the kids in their floaties are stunned silent. Here is a woman, not a man—her wet, uneven breasts and her nipples shrivelled cold.

  ‘At least you didn’t forget the breaststroke,’ Janie says from her beach chair.

  There was a time I didn’t have to pretend. We went to the bathroom without closing the door. We stayed up all night playing strip chess, an endless game of knowing and not knowing what the other person would do.

  Sometimes it was dull. And I took it out on him.

  ‘When I’m with you,’ I said once, ‘I feel like I’m in a relationship with myself.’

  I captured his king. He stripped off his pale green sweater and cast it to the floor. It was brand new then.

  Sometimes, when he went to work, I ate biscuits on his side of the bed. My husband was a man who mopped the floor at his own parties before the guests had even gone home. But he never said anything about the crumbs.

  He let me have that.

  On the morning of my birthday, Janie comes over with a pitcher of tomato puree. Gazpacho, I think—a nightmare of cold soup. Then I see the bottle of vodka, the sticks of cut celery and the hot sauce.

  ‘I’m not in the mood for a party,’ I say.

  ‘You’re always in the mood for a drink,’ Janie says.

  The cocktails go down easy—the vodka bottomless and the day sizzling. At noon, Janie brings out the cake, decorated with buttercream frosting that’s split in the heat. Pools of it form beneath birthday candles that drip neon wax.

  ‘Carrot,’ Janie says, ‘your favourite.’

  ‘His favourite,’ I say.

  ‘I miss him,’ Janie says. ‘I get to miss him too.’ She tries to stop herself from crying.

  ‘I’m here,’ I say. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Janie says. ‘You’re bloody not.’

  She takes a fistful of cake and mashes it on my face. The frosting dribbles down my cheek, off my chin and onto a leather thong. It lands on the depression where his big toe should be. I lick the frosting off my face.

  ‘You can bake,’ I say.

  I pick up a chunk of cake and hold it out to her. She eats straight from my hand. I giggle and Janie does too. I listen out for her loud laugh, but some days, like today, it’s hard to tell it apart from mine. My husband used to say Janie and I laughed like twins. We sound like that now—both of us beside ourselves.

  ‘Happy birthday, Beth,’ she says.

  I let her use my name.

  The phone rings but I let it go to voicemail. Even on my birthday, the only person that calls is my mother-in-law.

  In the future, I don’t know when, I’ll find myself accidentally in the women’s section of a department store. The fluorescent lights will illuminate the fabrics—satin and velvet and lace. The perfume of new clothing will be more enticing than the memo
ry of his cologne.

  It will begin with an embroidered silk dress. Then a pair of black stockings, 50 denier, on sale. I’ll slip them on over unshaven legs. They will fit perfectly. I’ll like the feel of my skin again. I won’t remember the softness of his own.

  IN A ROOM OF CHINESE WOMEN

  An old flame of my husband’s was coming to the city. We’d met before but I didn’t know much about her, except that my husband knew her in college and that she lived abroad. She had married young, but then her husband died. There was a boyfriend now, my husband said. I did not care about the boyfriend, but I did not like that her husband had died. This made me feel like I would have to have a difficult conversation with this woman, which I did not want to have.

  My husband told me she was going to stay with us. We live in a one-bedroom condominium. The design is open plan. I told my husband it was fine by me as long as his friend didn’t mind sleeping in the kitchen. He said she wasn’t the type to mind. I said don’t imply that I am the type that would. Then, to change the subject, he asked if I would take a few days off work so that we could all spend time together—me, him and the old flame. I said I would see if I could get the time off. I booked a meeting with my boss for the day after her flight landed.

  The week before she arrived, my husband and I fought, but not about her. My husband was tidying up the apartment. I noticed he’d stacked up all of our friends’ baby photos and wedding invitations that we kept on the fridge and tucked them away in a box. The old flame wasn’t the kind of woman who put magnets on her fridge, apparently. I said put my photos back. He put a few of the photos back, but he kept the wedding invitations hidden.

  The woman was a writer and she did not make a lot of money. Sometimes she worked at a café as a dishwasher to make ends meet. My husband said that while she stayed with us, we should try to pay for everything. She was flying in from overseas for the visit, after all. The flight was expensive, I admitted. Many of the airlines had closed down. But she was mostly coming to see her family, I reminded my husband. Her family lived in other parts of the country. The air went out of him a bit and he didn’t mention the money after that.

  The afternoon the woman was meant to arrive came. I should mention it was January. I don’t think anyone should visit at that time of year. My husband lit all of the candles we kept in the apartment. I confess the place looked nice. The woman called my husband and said she was downstairs. He said he would be right there to help her with her bags. He asked me if I’d like to come down to greet her too and I said no. We live on the fourth floor.

  The woman let my husband carry all of her bags up the stairs. He made a number of trips. The old flame of my husband had plumped up since I’d last seen her. I guessed men still liked her anyway. She is exotic, but that didn’t excite me because I’m exotic too. We’re both Chinese. I didn’t worry that my husband had a type, though. He had dated lots of women.

  The woman did not take her shoes off when she came in and tracked wet footprints all through our living room to where I was standing. I stared at her big feet. Then she gave me a hug hello. I could tell that she didn’t really want to hug me the same way I didn’t really want to hug her.

  ‘Your apartment’s so modern,’ she said. ‘The candles are a nice touch.’

  From that comment, I knew that she disapproved of our condominium. My husband was pleased because he thought he’d impressed her. My husband did not want to sleep with the woman, but he was fond of her and that bothered me just as much. As for her, I could tell that she did not entertain those kinds of thoughts about my husband anymore.

  My husband went to the pantry and pulled out a bottle of pinot noir. The woman liked to drink and had expensive taste in wine. I had good taste in wine too, but I did not drink much, except for the occasional glass with dinner. When she and my husband were in college together, they went on binges. In those days, my husband told me, the old flame used to black out from drinking. She forgot entire conversations. This did not bother my husband like it should have. He said it as a fact. I wondered what the conversations were about. My husband obviously thought they were worth remembering.

  The bottle my husband chose was a Christmas present to both of us from his parents. He poured two glasses, one for himself and one for the woman.

  ‘Would you like me to make you a coffee?’ he asked me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  I went to the cupboard, got down another wine glass and poured myself one too.

  The woman was busy on her phone and didn’t notice us fussing about the drinks. My husband handed her a glass.

  ‘Oh, cheers,’ she said. She raised it slightly to us both and then took a big gulp of wine. She didn’t look up from her phone.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ my husband asked. He did not like her being distracted when they hadn’t seen each other in so long.

  ‘My boyfriend, sorry,’ she said. ‘He just woke up. It’s morning in Melbourne.’ That’s where the woman lived.

  Then she was paying attention again. I knew this because she started making a speech about the wine. She thought it tasted like all sorts of things—olive brine, anise, cherry blossom. I did not know the difference between cherry and cherry blossom. I thought it tasted like wine.

  ‘Hints of juniper berry,’ my husband said. I’d never heard him use the word ‘hint’ before, except when he was giving out a clue. And he’d only learnt what juniper was from drinking gin. I couldn’t be bothered with spirits.

  ‘What would you like to do while you’re here?’ my husband asked.

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I want to eat nice food.’

  ‘What else should we do?’ my husband asked me. The woman wasn’t giving him anything.

  ‘Well, you might not have heard all the way over in Australia,’ I said, ‘but there’s a slice shop renaissance happening here.’

  ‘I don’t even know what a slice shop is,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, you do too know what a slice shop is,’ he said. He reached out and nudged her on the arm.

  ‘Like where you buy a slice of pizza?’ she asked.

  ‘Exactly,’ he replied.

  ‘So, a pizza shop.’

  ‘Yes, but a pizza-by-the-slice shop,’ he said.

  ‘I thought every pizza shop in this town sells it by the slice,’ the woman said. She turned to me. ‘Pizza never really went out of fashion, did it?’

  ‘You should just try it and see,’ I said.

  The woman swirled her wine. From where I sat, I could see the fingerprints my husband had left on the glass when he handed it to her. She only held her glass by its stem. She took another gulp of wine. ‘Of course I’ll try it,’ she said. ‘I’ll try anything. Duh.’

  This word reminded me that my husband’s old flame wasn’t as worldly as she pretended to be. As far as I knew, she couldn’t speak any other language besides English. I speak Cantonese. My husband is fluent in French, which he learnt in high school. Plus, I am second-generation and she is third.

  I didn’t know if my husband wanted to be left alone, so I agreed to join them on a tour of the slice shops. The woman said that if it was such a revolution she’d better try more than one shop. She said revolution a few times on our walk to the first place. I did not correct her and tell her it was a renaissance. I just listened. She talked about how if she was going to eat pizza, then she might as well eat a lot of it. She also wanted to drink more wine.

  The first shop was called Frankie’s. You can expect to find pizza at any restaurant with that name, but this Frankie’s was special. There were vinyl booths and checked plastic tablecloths. There were large metal and glass shakers with chilli flakes and parmesan. There were all different kinds of people eating pizza.

  ‘What a relief!’ the woman said. She stomped her feet as if to shake off the cold.

  ‘You’ve forgotten the east coast is heated to the nines,’ my husband said.

  ‘That’s not a saying,’ she said.

>   ‘You knew what I meant though,’ he said.

  ‘Me knowing what you mean and something not being a saying don’t have any bearing on each other, do they? Plus, you didn’t understand what I meant. I don’t mind the cold. You know that.’

  My husband nodded in agreement. He did. I nodded in agreement too, even though I was surprised. The woman had always lived in cities near the beach.

  ‘What I meant was—you’re the only white person here.’ She pointed her finger at my husband.

  ‘You’re a bit white too,’ I offered.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘and I’ll never live it down.’ The woman chuckled as she finished speaking and I couldn’t help but giggle. My husband once said you could call his old flame funny if she didn’t laugh at her own jokes first. I giggled more, remembering.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘I’m not that funny.’ She gave me a little push.

  We walked up to order at the counter. My husband got the idea that we could all share one slice of pizza. That way, we could go to as many places as possible. The woman said as long as we could stop for drinks in between, that was fine. She didn’t care about the germs. My husband said we could get beers here at Frankie’s.

  The woman and I sat down at one of the tables. It was still wet from where a waitress had wiped off the pizza crumbs. My husband came back with one slice of cheese pizza and three beers. I couldn’t recall the last time I drank a beer. Maybe he thought his friend would drink two. The pizza was served on a paper plate. The grease from the pizza and the damp from the table warped the plate.

  ‘That’s not good for the environment,’ the woman said. I thought she was gesturing to the plate, but the plate was implied. She was reaching for one of the beers. I took one of the beers too. My husband took a bite of the pizza.

  He said, ‘The first bite is the worst bite.’

  ‘No, it’s not!’ the woman said. She was outraged. Her nostrils flared. ‘It’s the best bite. Don’t you think? Here.’ She handed me the plate without eating. She wanted me to have the second-best bite.