She Is Haunted

by Paige Clark

  He thought of his mother and his lifelong instinct to do the opposite of what she wished.

  He took the Cardinia Road exit. At the first roundabout, he saw the arm of a digger, positioned as if to intentionally block out the sun, which at this hour was bright, white, blinding. Then it started to sink in—the orange cones and the men lounging in high-vis. He would not be able to get to where he wanted to go. Roadworks. That was the first reason Tommy turned around.

  The second reason was this: when Tommy was seven, his father took him and Fernie to the Melbourne Show. On the drive home, Fernie marvelled at the city at night, propped up with cranes that glowed like Ferris wheels.

  ‘It’s another show,’ Fernie said.

  ‘No,’ Tommy’s father said. ‘It’s progress.’

  Tommy took the back way. He ended up on an incline and caught sight of the city in its entirety. A snake of brake lights led to a skyline of mid-rises, blanketed by smog.

  Tommy despised two buildings in particular. The first was a building so tall and thin, you could see it shake. The architects made it on purpose like that, but Tommy dreaded seeing it—swaying, as it did, in the wind. The second was a building with a cage that covered its entire exterior. For many years, Tommy had thought it was under construction. It wasn’t. Well, living in that building wasn’t that different from living out here, he guessed, trapped in a coil of cars, in an endless wash of tail lights, in not ever getting to where you wanted to go. Tommy remembered his unreturned calls to Fernie, of the mammoth distance between them.

  When he got to the Royal Melbourne, it was not dark yet, but it was dinnertime. Tommy did not want to find Fernie at his food. He did not want to see the mauve plastic domes that housed fibrous meats and sweaty potatoes. He did not want to see the tan cups of coffee with their polystyrene lids. Walking into the hospital, Tommy thought he could hear Fernie’s mum calling him for dinner. That he could feel the way her voice vibrated in his chest. Hear Fernie’s reply, in song. He longed to be inside their house again: where you see in, you can also see out.

  Tommy took the south lifts to level eight. Oncology. He crossed over a bridge that connected the old part of the hospital to the new part. He may or may not have passed a sign that said, ‘Under Construction’. He barged along, determined now to see his old friend—his oldest friend. He made his way past a group of official-looking doctors and a man dressed like a real-estate agent. Then he was in the new part of the hospital, a spaceship of medicine, as neat and sleek as he’d imagined the future to be. A cleaning woman mopped a clean floor.

  ‘What’re you looking for?’ she asked.

  ‘Fernie. He’s in a room here,’ Tommy said.

  ‘You’re here to deliver the plants?’

  ‘No, I’m looking for a patient.’

  ‘No patients here yet,’ she said.

  ‘He must be,’ Tommy said.

  ‘Sorry, honey,’ she said. ‘There’s nobody here but us.’

  Tommy ran back, past the group of official-looking doctors and the real-estate agent. He ran back over the bridge that connected the two parts of the hospital together. He did not stop and look out at the traffic on Grattan Street, the brake lights of the retreating cars flashing like eyes.

  In the new section of the old part of the hospital, he found Fernie’s room. A single. None of Fernie’s belongings were in the room, as if he’d been discharged. The bed was empty, but disturbed, not ready for another patient. Tommy touched the pillow to see if it was warm, but it was a temperature that gave nothing away. The white light of the fluorescents imitated daylight, but he knew that outside the clouds were losing their colour.

  He walked to the window and looked out to find more construction. The tradies had abandoned their posts for the day. The head of a large crane peeked in at him. Other than that, he was alone.

  Outside Fernie’s window they were building a staircase. Tommy could not tell where it began or where it ended. But he could tell that he was too late. He could tell that he was seeing something he shouldn’t be seeing, like making out the shape of the moon before the sky goes dark.

  AMYGDALA

  The memories will return easily, the doctor said. It’s why left frontal cortex removal is so popular with so many of our clients. An excellent choice indeed!

  Now, I’m not going to lie to you, Eliza. Some language skills, especially speech, might be difficult at first, and that can be frustrating. But the brain has the amazing ability to heal itself. See how it fuses here and here on this model? And here and here on this one? This is what we doctors like to call neuroplasticity. It’s what makes our surgery so effective.

  The partial LFC removal will make you immediately comfortable in temperatures of up to sixty-one degrees. Imagine that! A world without exorbitant energy bills. No sweaty, sleepless nights.

  You’ll spend so long outside, he said, you might even get a tan.

  Plasticity—that’s a word I remember. I fell asleep thinking of it, only sleep is not what it’s called when it comes with help. It also comes with the taste of metal. Bonus.

  In the clinic post-op room, I wake to find a man hovering over me and a woman in aquamarine pyjamas. She pours liquid from a pitcher into a clear, synthetic—there’s another word for it—cup. Offers it to me. A quick scan of the room finds two hands that are not moving.

  Are they mine?

  And two colourless circles peeping at me from another bed.

  Is that Adam?

  Aquamarine calls the hoverer doctor.

  ‘This,’ the doctor says, ‘is the worst of it.’

  The best of it: sweet relief from the heat.

  And the rest of it is just fucking plastic.

  Holy hell, Eliza! You lost your narrator. Plastic was the word you wanted. The oceans are swimming in it. Due to an abundant crop over the past hundred years, we’re eating the shit. Forget mama’s milk. Our babies are born sucking the polystyrene teat.

  ‘How are you holding up, dear?’ asks Aquamarine. ‘Some water?’ Again, the plastic cup.

  I can’t answer. I look past her to the next cot.

  It’s Ads.

  Eliza, you brain! You found him—two black holes to fall into.

  Hey, baby!

  The cows swimming got me, Ads said. We’d gone through the paperwork that morning. You’d decided on the left frontal cortex and you wanted me to do it too. I could tell.

  Afterwards, we stood on the balcony smoking ciggies and the cows floated by. I told you that I didn’t want to remember this. You told me it wasn’t that you wanted to remember, you just didn’t want to forget. Forget what? The cows splashing around in their own shit?

  I got my mind set on the amygdala instead of the LFC then, Adam said.

  Check this doll out!

  Adam is in motion, out of bed and lumbering towards me. All limbs function. He reaches out and puts a thick hand on mine. There is a reason now for the chill. See, he’s always had these moons in his head that make me swoon.

  But today he’s looking at me strange.

  It’s me! It’s me!

  ‘How you going, baby?’ he asks.

  Better now, I tell him in my mind.

  Before the surgery, we made a record of our life, marked on a map of the city. He circled two places—the clinic and our house. The only pen we had was yellow.

  He retrieves this drawing from his pocket, holds it out. For a minute, the world has two suns.

  The future is looking bright.

  Ha ha! You beauty, Eliza, at least you’ve got your sense of humour!

  Wait, look closer. What’s that buttery scrawl?

  Eliza Loo is your wife, it reads.

  And don’t you forget it, baby!

  Does he like the look of me? I’m not at my best, but this isn’t my worst. Once he saw me be sick into a bucket. He kept making me breakfast and I kept throwing it up until we ran out of food.

  ‘I ate it all,’ I said afterwards.

  ‘You didn’t eat any of
it,’ he said.

  Here he is, standing close.

  ‘I know,’ he says. He points to our house on the map.

  That’s not what I meant to write. What I meant to write was life.

  Your motor function will suffer, sure, the doctor said to me. Don’t drive a car. You might feel less inhibited and that might be a good thing! Have fun with it. A lot of the more challenging aspects of the LFC surgery diminish over time, which is why it’s one of the clinic’s recommended therapies for body temperature augmentation.

  The brain, Eliza, is a powerful organ.

  ‘Go home, Eliza,’ says the nurse, the artist formerly known as Aquamarine.

  Adam can still drive. Though I catch him double-checking the map—he’s forgotten the way.

  I’m shaky, too, every step a risk. I need Ads’s help just to get to the car. I use his arm as a crutch. All the while, his body presses nearer and nearer to mine. As if walking wasn’t hard enough already.

  Also, I’m turned on. A welcome side effect.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks. ‘Talk to me, baby.’

  I shiver. Say nothing.

  He says, ‘Jesus, can you believe it? It’s fifty-three fucking degrees. Celsius.’

  Get me to the car quick! I think.

  There’s a cold draught.

  If I go amygdala, you’ll remember things for me, Ads said. You’re good with all that shit. You can be my ears too, if there are tones I can’t hear anymore or whatever. The doc said there might be, at least temporarily.

  And I can drive you around. You’ll like that, baby. We’ll roll the windows all the way down. Let that dog of ours get some fresh air.

  You think giving up fear is not the same as being brave. You think it’s the same as being stupid. But you get it, right, baby? I’m afraid to live in a world like this, he said.

  Eliza, you are a genius navigator!

  I know every road in every suburb. I even know the ones to avoid when it’s peak hour. Which lasts, I might add, much longer than an hour. Unfortunately Adam’s gone the long way.

  For fuck’s sake, beep the horn! Hands that used to dance on the wheel are concrete.

  Surely the cows can swim faster?

  The word for this used to be road rage, now it’s just plain rage.

  Ads busies himself with the radio. He turns the volume up as high as it will go.

  ‘Is it cooked?’ he asks. ‘I can’t tell what song this is.’

  He fiddles with the dial but it won’t bring back what is lost. If I had a voice, this is where I’d chime in.

  Science! You got Eliza into this bloody mess. Now get her out.

  Where’s the goddamn plastic when you need it?

  But how will you know, I asked him, how will you know how much you love me? I can’t remember that for you.

  Like remember how, the day of the cow parade, we laughed at them fucking around in the mud until the dog got out and we saw him splashing around with the Herefords. You moved quick then, trying to get that dog out of hot water.

  See, I’m afraid to … I’m afraid too.

  There’s that hound. I’m home.

  We got the neighbour Laurie to look after the pooch and keep him shaved while we were away. She’d been looking for work since her body temperature augmentation surgery. She taught year two until she stopped hearing her students altogether.

  It was pleasant at first, she told me.

  Now she spends most days outdoors. Enjoys the breeze. Gets paid the big bucks to smother my mutt in sunscreen, to reapply diligently every hour. Cha-ching!

  Oh, Giacomo Poochini!

  I’m happy too. But don’t lick me with the tongue that licks your arse. Plus, you got sunscreen all over me and my best dress.

  You dirty dog!

  Still, it’s ace to see you.

  Who gives a damn that Eliza won’t get a tan?

  It was an old wives’ tale, sure, Ads said, but my mum put me outside every morning from the day I was born until the day I could walk. She believed it would help my sweat glands develop.

  She sang to me through the kitchen window. Her voice carried. It echoed off the water that dotted the land. Nothing was growing, except her voice, louder and louder.

  I need you to remember, baby, he said. Sing to me if I can’t.

  I will, I thought.

  He listens to music on full blast while he makes breakfast. I plug my ears with cotton wool anytime he leaves the room. I might be stuck in this bed, but I’ve got enough sense to keep the senses I’ve got.

  But I can still hear him through the cotton, humming the bass line while he stirs up a batter. I’d ask if what he sings is what he hears or what he remembers, but every time he walks back in the room, I’m speechless.

  Speaking of stir, the hound has gone stir crazy. He misses Laurie. Just now he got so bored, he tongued his shaved backside until the skin split clean open.

  Well, what a dog wants is an order.

  Bad dog, I think, bad dog. But he keeps licking.

  So much for the theory that dogs can read minds.

  Lucky, here’s Handsome with a plate stacked high with hotcakes.

  ‘Enough,’ Ads says. And the dog stops immediately. In my defence, the man has food.

  I hide the cotton wool underneath a decorative pillow. He slips into bed beside me, batter on his chin. We’re the poster children of post-apocalyptic bliss. Even the lucky mutt gets two bites!

  Eat up, pooch!

  Lick that glorious face clean!

  When I told Ads that Laurie knew a woman who’d had the LFC removed and was talking again in three months’ time, he said he’d wait four. I’ll always hear you out, baby, he said. I’m a good listener.

  You are, I thought, not thinking to say it when I had the chance.

  These old bones!

  If he could remember to, he’d correct me. It’s not the bones, he’d say, it’s the coordination. But he’s lost the function.

  He’s no longer always right.

  Goddamn, he can make a perfect pancake though! Granted, he uses a recipe. Still, these babies look like they were made by a machine. He puts a shiny pat of butter on top, and voila! Just like the plastic food we used to play supermarket with as kids. How did we get here?

  Put the groceries in a paper bag!

  Eliza doesn’t want to ring a bell when she needs to shit.

  If you decide to proceed with the amygdala, there is, of course, a standard level of risk. The memories, the doctor said to Adam, are not recoverable.

  They’re not a skill.

  With the assistance of photographs and your loved ones, you may relearn important facts about yourself. After time, they may feel real to you, like when you’ve heard a story so many times, you tell it as if you were there yourself.

  Ding-ding!

  Here he is, all body and bug eyes. The radio plays a sexy song. Thank heaven we both kept our desire.

  The toilet can wait. Don’t want to soil the mood.

  Ads draws the curtains but leaves the windows open. It’s cold enough to crawl under the covers again.

  Cat got your tongue, Eliza?

  Nobody in the whole neighbourhood heard you coming.

  On the TV in the surgery waiting room was an advertisement for a car that drove itself. They’re selling like hotcakes, the salesperson said.

  And Ads said to me, You don’t need one of those cars, baby.

  This was the last thing I could remember for him, the last memory of his life.

  Of this life.

  In the tub, Eliza floats.

  Splish-splash! Bless this new life of bubbles and hot water. Adam runs a soapy sponge across my stick legs.

  ‘You’re getting skinny, baby,’ he says.

  The word blossoms in my mouth—atrophy. But I keep quiet. With service like this, who cares about singing in the shower?

  You could never be an actress, Ads said to me when we met. You don’t have the face for it. Not that I don’t think you’re beautif
ul. Of course I think you’re beautiful. But your face—it gives everything away.

  Not everything, I thought.

  Eliza, diva!

  Today I decide to try my hand at opera. Though I hadn’t planned on a horizontal debut. True, the audience wasn’t moved by the previews; I couldn’t even get the dog to stay in his seat.

  When Ads brings in the pancakes, the show starts. And as soon as he sees me, he casts the breakfast aside, leaving a slug trail of maple syrup on the carpet. Another lucky break for the mutt.

  This is your tune, baby!

  The one your mum crooned through a kitchen window. I remember every word you ever heard.

  Even though I belt it out at the top of my lungs, I don’t make a peep. His lips move in sync with mine, but I make no sound he can hear.

  It isn’t in a language we know.

  But we are singing the same damn song.

  SHE IS HAUNTED

  The mathematics underlying quantum mechanics—or at least, one perspective on the math—suggests that all possible outcomes happen, each inhabiting its own separate universe. If a quantum calculation predicts that a particle might be here, or it might be there, then in one universe it is here, and in another it is there. And in each such universe, there’s a copy of you witnessing one or the other outcome, thinking—incorrectly—that your reality is the only reality.

  —Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality

  Part I. Blue Moon

  My brother is not afraid of cancer. He doesn’t believe in it, the same way some people don’t believe in ghosts. And even though he is a smart man, a scientist who invented a charging system for the electric car, he doesn’t trust that they put a man on the moon either. He thinks it’s a trick of photography and moon dust. The last time I went to his house, he talked me through photos from the landing.

  ‘I’m done,’ I said. ‘I believe you.’

  But I don’t.