Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  ‘The doctor spoke to me today.’ Her voice was low. Arthur raised an eyebrow, but didn’t reply.

  ‘He said there would be a bed available for Ellie in Sydney, where they can work on her face so she won’t be so disfigured. They could fix her…’ One hand fluttered around her nose and cheek.

  ‘Oh, he did, did he? And did he mention how much this would cost?’

  ‘What does the price matter? This is our daughter. This is her face. There are things they can do for her.’

  ‘What does price matter? Did I just hear you correctly?’ His monotone voice disguised his rising anger. He watched her squirm. He’d thought that after all of these years together she would have learned when to stop talking. ‘You think I’ve got money to splash around, do you? Think I’m a fucking millionaire?’

  ‘She’s our daughter. Please, Arthur. It’s Ellie. Don’t you think we should try?’

  ‘There’s nothing the doctors can do in Sydney that they can’t do for her here.’

  ‘They can’t do the reconstructive surgery here. There are specialists in the city.’

  ‘Touting more crap. More treatments. Costing more money.’

  ‘It’s Ellie.’

  ‘I know it’s Ellie.’ His voice thundered as he picked up his plate and threw it across the table, narrowly missing Dolores’s head. He had to listen to this shit from the doctors; he wasn’t going to take it from his wife too. ‘I know it’s my daughter. You think I don’t fucking know that?’

  ‘I just want what’s best for her.’ Dolores’s cheeks were flushed.

  ‘And I don’t? Is that what you’re saying? Huh?’ He advanced upon her. ‘Is that what you’re fucking saying to me?’ He’d formed a fist without even considering it. ‘Fuck you, Dolores, fuck you.’ His fist struck her square in the face and she fell backwards onto the floor, the chair she’d been sitting on falling with her. He grabbed her hair and wrenched her upwards, so she stood, facing him. ‘You did this. You did this to my daughter.’

  ‘Nooo.’ Her words were blurred by the blood coursing from her nose and upper lip. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ She was hitting at his arm, trying to push him away. She was pathetic.

  ‘Too fucking bad.’ He couldn’t release his grip on her hair, couldn’t stop hitting her. She drove him to this and she didn’t understand. It was her fault. ‘I’ll take care of my daughter. Not you, not fucking doctors.’

  Dolores was moaning, but she kept looking at him. ‘My daughter,’ the words burbled out through bloodied teeth. ‘My daughter. I’ll take care of her.’

  ‘Ha!’ He pushed her and, off balance, she fell. She crouched for a moment, a quivering animal, before surprising him by raising herself to her feet, righting the chair that had previously fallen as she stood.

  ‘I’ll go. I’ll take Ellie to Sydney. I’ll take care of her.’

  He stared at her. She dared to answer back, to say she’d take his daughter away? ‘Over my dead body.’

  Dolores shook her head. ‘I’ll do it. I’m not bringing her back here.’

  ‘She’s my daughter.’

  ‘She’s our daughter,’ Dolores gave a bloody sniff and wiped her face with the back of her hand, leaving a rosy smear. ‘I’ll get her the help she needs.’

  ‘With what money?’

  ‘I’ll contact my family.’

  He laughed. ‘They don’t want anything to do with you. Nobody wants anything to do with you. You’ve only got me.’ He smiled, ‘And I don’t fucking want you.’

  ‘I’m going. I can’t take this anymore. You can hurt me, but I won’t let you hurt Ellie.’

  ‘I’m not hurting her.’

  ‘You won’t help her. You won’t get her the treatment she needs.’

  ‘She just needs me. Her father. Not you.’ He shoved her backwards towards the hall. ‘You want to go? So go, but don’t think for a second you’re getting my daughter.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘Like hell.’

  As Dolores turned towards their bedroom he lunged out, wrenching her arm behind her, propelling her towards the front of the house. She slipped and her head struck the plasterboard as she fell. As she pushed herself up, he could see the dent her head had left near the skirting board. ‘Get up!’ He spat the words out as she staggered along the hallway towards the front door. ‘You won’t touch my daughter.’

  

  When she returned home from the hospital, Ellie brought with her flashbacks and nightmares that featured the metallic taste of blood and the feral scent of the dogs. Thick, cloying, and overpowering. In dreams, Ellie’s screams were her song, expelled forcefully from her diaphragm as they never were in the daylight, trapped, choking her throat. On waking, Eleanor Clements was a clenched siren of fear and pain.

  Dogs barking outside, neighbourhood dogs establishing their territory, startled her for years afterwards. Her pulse would beat with a chaotic rapidity when she heard those deep-throated growls of warning and rage.

  Howling, baying dogs at night caused her to shake, the nerves vibrating under her skin. Those vibrations were how she imagined the stringed instruments in an orchestra hummed and throbbed when plucked. Ellie had heard orchestras playing on the radio, and she had seen the hand-drawn illustrations in The All-Picture Book of General Knowledge. She had fingered the thick pages for years—here was the orchestra pit, with the pictures of the suited musicians. Here was the cello, the double bass, the viola. There was a harp. She’d wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers along those strings, just once. She pictured herself a cello, a deepening resonant line, the undercurrent of the music. She longed to be seduced by an undertow.

  Another book on the shelf, The Bible in Pictures, provided the counter to the details in the encyclopaedia. ‘That was your father’s book when he was a boy,’ Grandmother Clements had once told her. Ellie believed her. From the opening pages with the Ten Commandments in imposing script and the terrifying headings—‘A sinful woman’, ‘The death of a tyrant’, and ‘The burning fiery furnace’—this Bible had coloured her visions. Those burning flames were what she saw when Daddy sang along to his beloved Johnny Cash.

  He wasn’t afraid of fire. Daddy had told her one night as they had lain together in his bed how he’d watched a man burn underground and how his own father had been killed in a gas explosion. His father had been identified by his socks, the only item remaining unmarked, protected by his boots. Ellie had clutched at her father’s hand, terrified he would burn and leave her alone.

  ‘Daddy, I don’t want you to go to the mine anymore. What if you don’t come back? What will I do?’ He had laughed at her fears and squeezed her hand before cupping her face with his free hand.

  ‘I won’t ever leave you, Ellie, don’t you worry about that.’

  She had believed him. His word was law.

  

  The quality of light changed as the evening dusk dulled the lounge room. A few fragile bars of late afternoon light lingered through the aged paper and dusty venetians on the front windows. She couldn’t strip their paper yet. Not while the next-door neighbours were back on one of their holiday visits. Besides, it’s dinnertime, she thought. Ellie stood, her knees creaking as she did so, and entered the kitchen, struck anew by the light through the thin curtains. It was golden. Alive. She could hear the birds, louder than they had ever seemed before, as if the paper had not only muted the light that had been denied her so long, but also the sound.

  She heard thumping footsteps behind her.

  ‘Daddy?’

  It was Percival, running down the corridor to the back door. He had been trapped inside with her all night and day. Usually he would take the chance to escape in and out of the door when Daddy came and went, but now… She followed Perce to the back door. The cat miaowed loudly.

  ‘I can’t let you out. Daddy has the key.’ T
he cat miaowed again, loud and impatient. Ellie placed a hand on the deadlock. Daddy has the key. He had come in, locked the door behind him as he always did, and gone to his room. The keys would still be in his room. They had to be. Ellie ignored the cat at her feet and took a tentative step towards her father’s bedroom. It wasn’t for her; it was for Perce. Daddy would hate it if Perce kept doing his business inside. Daddy always sent the cat outside to the garden. Ellie made it to the doorway and tried to ignore Daddy’s body on the bed. It was impossible. It’s for Perce, it’s for Perce, it’s for Perce.

  ‘For Perce.’ She took a deep breath and stepped into Daddy’s room. The keys hadn’t been in his pocket—they would have fallen out when she’d taken his pants to be washed. Involuntarily, her gaze drifted to the figure on the bed. Had the pyjama top moved? Was he breathing? Ellie froze. She counted to ten in her head. His chest hadn’t moved; she was imagining things. The keys. He must have taken them out of his pocket and put them on the dresser. Even as she stepped closer, she could see they weren’t there. There were his comb, his wallet, his watch. But no keys. Where had he put them?

  ‘I see you, girl.’ Ellie jumped. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  She turned around, to see Daddy sitting up on the bed, staring at her. Her stomach plummeted and her mouth became dry.

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ Ellie ran from the room, shutting the door behind her.

  She ran into the kitchen, only stopping when she hit the sink. Her hands clambered and scratched at the glass above as her breath caught in her throat in punctuated gasps. It couldn’t be real. He couldn’t speak, not to her, not to anyone. She slapped the glass with her hands. It vibrated. She tried to open the window, but it wouldn’t budge. Even though Daddy had left this window at the back of the house untouched, along with the small one in the bathroom—for ventilation, he’d said—when he’d nailed all of the other ones shut, she couldn’t make it move. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Percival jumped up on the bench and butted her arm with his head. Tears filled her eyes.

  ‘I can’t do it, Perce, I can’t…. It’s no use. You’re stuck here with me.’

  It had taken her time to settle down. It was only when she’d remembered there were things to do, a routine that she could still follow, that the tears had stopped. She wouldn’t think about Daddy sitting up, Daddy speaking to her, she wouldn’t think these things. There was an evening meal to prepare, a table to set.

  After making dinner for herself and Percival, a shepherd’s pie she struggled to eat, although Perce had no trouble with his portion of meat, Ellie placed her empty plate in the sink. She looked out into the back yard. The setting sun brushed the sky with a ruddy light. She could hear birds calling to each other as they readied to roost in the tall eucalypts that dominated the bush, making the wind-buffeted banksias and natives look stumpy and sullen in comparison. She wanted to feel invigorating whispers of the breeze against her face. She wanted to smell the bush, the ocean… She inhaled deeply and gagged. She could smell shit. Percival had used the oft-ignored tray in the laundry, and the smell slapped her from her reverie.

  ‘Bloody shit bag! Blasted cat!’ She reached into the cupboard for a plastic bag to scoop Percy’s mess into and realised she sounded like her father. It wasn’t Perce’s fault. He was just being a cat. Percival ran past her into the adjoining lounge room, and she heard him scamper down the corridor and circle back again. ‘Crazy cat,’ she said to his retreating tail. It wasn’t his fault. He wanted out. She wanted him out too. She dumped the bag of soiled litter into the small bin in the kitchen. Daddy always took the rubbish out. That was his job.

  ‘My job now.’ He wouldn’t like this smell inside his house. Nor did she, she realised. She could get outside to the bin, if she could just unlock the back door. She needed those keys. His dresser. Or the bedside table. She hadn’t checked the drawers. All she had to do was go back in there, not look at him, not listen to him, not be afraid… She heard the cat paw at the back door and miaow again. Loudly.

  ‘I can do this.’ Her drubbing heart belied her words, but this time she was determined.

  Ellie opened her father’s bedroom door. It was darker in here now, but she could still make out his figure on the bed. He would probably want to keep the keys close to him, safe. The bedside table. She tiptoed to the bed, trying not to look at her father. Surely he could hear her pounding heart? She wiped clammy hands against the fabric of her pants before sliding open the drawer of the bedside table as carefully as she could. There, on top of various papers and odds and ends, was his key ring. An image of a much younger, unblemished hand taking his keys and unlocking the dogs’ cage flashed before her, and she shuddered. She snatched the key ring before she could change her mind, and only then dared a look at her father. He hadn’t moved. Ellie slid the drawer shut and crept out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her. Her heart was thudding. She had done it.

  She walked to the back door, the cat pacing before it. Percival miaowed.

  ‘Shush, puss,’ she whispered. Daddy wouldn’t know. Not if they were quiet. ‘We have to be super quiet.’ Her hands shook as she tried to find the right key. On her second attempt, the key turned in the lock. She heard the click of the deadbolt. Ellie turned around, expecting to see her father behind her, expecting a barrage of blows, but there was nothing but empty space. Except for the cat, rubbing and weaving between her legs. She felt as if she would vomit. For Perce: I can do this for Perce. For me. Ellie left the keys hanging from the lock and turned the handle.

  The cat burst past her legs, hitting the screen door with such force it swung open. Percival disappeared into the night. Ellie opened her mouth to call him back, then closed it again. She couldn’t make a sound. Her eyes widened as the cool air touched her skin. She could smell the trees, the bush. There were no traffic sounds, no trains, no human sounds invading, just the murmur of birds and the ocean in the distance. Ellie held the fly-screen door open with one hand and stifled a sob with the other. Glorious, fresh air. She looked behind her once more into the empty hallway. Daddy wasn’t there. She faced the yard. She could be brave. All she had to do was pick up the bag of rubbish from the kitchen and take it to the big bin. If Daddy asked, she was helping him because he was sick. Sleeping. Dead. Not dead. Ellie hurried back to the kitchen and grabbed the plastic bag. My job now.

  She returned to the back door. The night air was cool. The big bin was at the side of the house. Ellie opened the screen door and stood on the top step, enjoying the rough, cool feel of the concrete under her bare feet. As she tentatively moved down the next two steps and into the back yard she felt the muscles in her stomach spasm. No dogs, no Daddy, no dogs, no Daddy. She tried to move onto the path and failed. Ellie felt the pull of the house behind her. Just one step, just one. She looked around her. No dogs, no Daddy. From here to the side of the house she thought would be nine or ten footsteps. Easy. She tried and failed. After many minutes and false starts, she made it, counting the whole ten paces.

  Ellie flung the rubbish into the bin and ran back to safety of the house. She pulled the screen door shut, closed the wooden back door and stood there, panting. She had done it. She had been outside.

  ‘Daddy, I did it.’ There was no reply from his room. She could feel her breathing and the thrashing behind her ribcage calming and slowing. I did it. She wanted to clap, to sing, to cry out, but it was impossible. Loud noises were forbidden. A giggle burst out of her and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Ellie half walked, half skipped into the kitchen, stopping before the now-empty bin. ‘I did this.’ Ridiculously happy, she took another plastic bag out of the cupboard and lined the bin. Standards had to be maintained. Daddy couldn’t complain about that. Sighing happily, Ellie looked out of the window. The world was out there. The yard, and beyond, the beach.

  The beach… Could she? She had missed it, dreamt it, imagined it, for
years. The sand—summertime hot—burning her bare feet, waves curling into the shore. Ellie had vague memories of the rising cliffs, blackened at the base where mineral-rich rocks cleaved from the earth. She imagined herself as solid and immoveable as one of those colossal rocks the earth had relinquished. More images flashed before her—small pieces of coal, insignificant next to those boulders, pieces that had felt so warm underfoot, their eroded surfaces having absorbed the heat of the sun; screaming gulls that circled and fought for food; the sand that had pooled in the cleft of her buttocks and in her damp swimming costume. She remembered she’d once owned a pink one with a little frill and had felt like a ballerina, a princess, as she’d giggled and run into the waves, squealing as they knocked her down.

  So many times she had gone there in her mind when Daddy was hurting her. It had been her secret place. Her safe place. But now with the door unlocked, maybe, just maybe, if she were super quiet, she could go there tonight. Daddy would never know. She’d already been so brave. She’d made it outside; she’d made it to the bin… Maybe she could go further, if she could remember the way.

  ‘My map!’ Ellie hurried to her bedroom and peeled off the hand-drawn map that she’d taped inside her closet. So many times she had imagined that walk down the sloping road to the beach that she probably didn’t need her map, but just in case. She didn’t want to get lost. She wanted the ocean and the sand. For a minute or an hour or a day. Time in which she could witness the sun coming up and watch it fall again, the waves lapping in and shrinking back, gulls swooping and squawking. The salted air. All alone. No people, no Daddy, just Ellie in the world outside.

  Ellie put on a pair of socks and then stopped in the corridor, outside her father’s room. She turned the knob and let the door open until there was a gap she could peer through. He was still lying on the bed, his posture unchanged.