Lonely Girl

by Lynne Vincent McCarthy

  On summer nights they’d sit on the porch in the dark and Irena would make Ana tell her what she could smell and hear and sense beyond the house. Even what she could taste in the air on the tip of her tongue. There was always something to be grabbed out of what most people would call nothing.

  Ana makes her way around the car where she carefully hoists River off the passenger seat and settles him onto the ground, steadying him until he finds his feet. He immediately seeks out a spot to awkwardly pee before hobbling towards the front door. Ana follows behind, ignoring the stubborn thread of fear still tugging in her gut. It slackens its hold when they slip inside and she confirms with a flick of her finger that the globe in the hallway light is indeed dead.

  She pulls the door shut behind her, keeping pace with River, who limps down the dark hallway and collapses straight back into his bed.

  Ana switches on the kitchen light and heads across the room for the stash of pills secreted away in an envelope at the back of the cutlery drawer.

  She empties them straight onto the bench and does a cursory count even though she already knows there’s not enough to give her anything more than a very long and relaxing sleep.

  *

  In the dead of night, a new globe in the hallway sends a sharp angle of brightness across the bare floorboards into Ana’s childhood bedroom where she lies awake, her arm slung across River, who now sleeps by her side on top of the covers. Now that she’s safely tucked up in her bed with the hallway light back on, her earlier fear has receded. Her mind is full of River and the memories contained in this house.

  When the house became hers, she briefly considered moving into one of the bigger rooms but even stripped bare and scrubbed of all the evidence of their lives, the rooms still felt like theirs. She had always liked the close embrace of these four walls, along with the uninterrupted view the window gave her of the forest at the back of the house. Her one indulgence was the luxury of buying herself a brand new double bed and several sets of crisp white sheets to go with it.

  A messy outside means a messy inside.

  It was one of Irena’s many catchphrases, which of course her daughter hated with a passion, but in that way Ana was always more like her grandmother. Even as a kid, clutter made her uncomfortable. She was always cleaning up after her messy mother, collecting clothes strewn all over the floor, following the trail of half-drunk cups of coffee and tea and whatever else Ellen picked up and discarded. She never left a glass of booze unfinished but she preferred her hot drinks at room temperature and often forgot about them. It was just as well she had a willing servant in Ana.

  Memories of them are coming thick and fast now, things Ana hasn’t thought about for years invading the present. Maybe that is what it’s like for those who plan to take their own life. Rather than a lifetime of memories flashing before their eyes in a moment it’s a slower procession, a funereal process of letting go.

  River starts to run and yip on the bed next to her. He’s dreaming. Probably chasing all the balls he can no longer chase. Or maybe he’s running like the demon he used to be, swift and free along the endless stretch of Seven Mile Beach, dropping onto the wet sand only when he can’t possibly run anymore.

  He’s been restless in the night of late and has taken to wandering the house in the early hours. She’ll hear the click-clack of his paws on the floorboards through the fog of her own sleep and a short while later feel the shift of the mattress when he returns. In retrospect it was probably one of those signs she should have taken note of.

  From tomorrow she’ll make herself put a bed down for him on the floor beside hers. The leap on and off has been difficult enough for him lately and she’d not forgive herself if putting her needs first caused him further injury.

  River is quiet now and Ana’s eyes drift to his bottle of medication sitting on the bedside table. Since she climbed into bed she has been fighting the impulse to take some herself, just to quiet her mind and help her sleep. She holds herself back now, just as she did earlier. They don’t know yet how long River will have need of it.

  Next to the painkillers sits a framed photo, the only one in the house. A skinny mop-headed Ana stares out, a silent challenge to the world. Fiercely possessive of the small black puppy held in her arms, a gift from her grandmother the Christmas after her mother died. The photo, the first and only one ever taken of them together.

  Ana didn’t know it then but when he came into her life her grandmother was already being attacked from the inside by the cancer that would eventually kill her. The pain came and went, at first more an annoyance than a concern. There was always something else to blame it on, even when years of antacids and adjustments to her diet did little to ease it. By the time it hit with full force it was too late to do anything more than hold it at bay with chemicals that did more harm than good. Ana wasn’t sure if Irena instinctively knew she wouldn’t have long when she gave her River, or if she simply knew she was incapable of being there in the way a girl who had lost her mother would need. Either way with River’s arrival Ana was mostly left to her own devices. Not that Ana minded, she was already used to looking after herself.

  That particular day, she knew the moment the school bus dropped her on the road at the end of the driveway that something was different. The garden was tamer back then and Ana could see shreds of something scattered over the recently mown grass leading all the way up to the porch. From a distance she thought they were shredded flowers but the sight of a well-chewed rubber sole clued her in as she followed the trail up to the porch to find the little black demon passed out on the veranda, his head resting on the remains of Ana’s other half-demolished sneaker. As soon as her foot hit the first step he was up and scrambling for attention and from the moment she held his skinny wriggling body in her arms the two were inseparable. She didn’t even mind that he’d pissed all over her school uniform in excitement.

  As her grandmother told it, a local fisherman had come upon a man dumping an old rucksack off a pier and managed to pull just one half-drowned puppy from the water. His siblings hadn’t fared so well, remaining trapped in the death sack from which the tiny ‘Houdini’ had somehow managed to wriggle his way free. Irena was the one who named him River. She thought it fitting, since he’d survived a fall into one. The name suited him and Ana saw no reason to change it. She didn’t need to name him to claim him as hers.

  He was an intense creature from the start, the perfect match for Ana, except that while she held herself back from life River ran headlong into it. He was formidable in his protests if she ever dared to restrain him. It was as if he knew he’d been plucked from death and had to fully experience every moment from that point on. If Ana didn’t want to lose him she had no choice but to follow where he led.

  He opened up her world and just having him by her side made it seem like a better place. All that’s changed now. Since he got sick he’s been leaving her a little more each day and in his place is a dark void that terrifies her. If she has to live in that world for even one day she has no doubt she will go mad.

  If she had the courage she’d just get it over with right now and use her grandmother’s shotgun on them both but she knows she’d never be able to shoot River. It’s too violent an end.

  Ana rests her eyes on the darkness in the corner of the room, her ears straining to isolate the stealthy movements of the trees outside the house. She focuses on the big one at the back, its branches overhanging the roof. The one that has tapped a nightly rhythm above her head since she was a child. She’s always imagined it as the lookout, the rest moving freely to its beat until there’s a pause in the rhythm and they all freeze. Like that game kids play at parties, waiting for the signal to make their next move …

  Tonight the old tree is silent.

  The first time they fucked, she told him she wanted it out in the open where anyone could happen upon them. The danger of discovery added to the thrill.

  She said she liked the hard ungiving edges of the rock behind her.
The bruises she would later have to hide. Grazes she could make bleed again.

  It was easy to pass the marks off to her husband, to feign a level of clumsiness. Spills she took while running in the forest. Tripping over her own feet. Their youngest child was almost four but her night terrors made sure neither of them had had a full night’s sleep for years. Clumsiness went with the territory. And he, like so many others, only saw what he wanted to see.

  In the dead of night while she lay sleepless she could feel the deep ache in her body. His marks on her skin. Like a brand.

  A feeling that made everything else fade.

  FIVE

  Ana stands at the service counter in the back of the pharmacy, her uniform pristine white and ironed to perfection, willing no customers to enter until Lenny returns. He’s just stepped out to grab his morning coffee fix and she has already taken the opportunity to check the drug repository but only found half a packet of over the counter anti-inflammatories and a sticky bottle of kid’s cough syrup. With the repository a bust she now has her mind on bigger fish. She grabs a bottle of Windex and some paper towels from under the counter and steps behind the partition to the dispensing area, partially obscured from the rest of the shop.

  What she needs is behind glass, in the cabinets that house the prescription drugs. It’s the painkillers and sedatives she focuses on, so close she can almost read the fine print on the labels. At least her abandoned degree in pharmacology provided her with that much. She knows exactly what to look for.

  Even though these cabinets are always locked her fingers still itch to try the handle … until the buzz of the sensor at the front of the shop warns her someone has entered. She snatches up the Windex and is liberally spraying the already spotless glass when Lenny appears with his take-away.

  ‘It’s a ghost town out there.’

  Ana covers her guilt with a vague smile in his direction.

  She doesn’t take up the conversation. They’re used to spending hours in silence as they attend to their own business so there’s nothing out of the ordinary in her lack of response now. She’s aware of Lenny slouching back against the edge of the counter, momentarily consumed with eating a cheese Danish straight from the bag while keeping one eye on the shop. Ana attacks the glass with the paper towels, equally consumed with the problem of how to get her hands on the keys to the cabinet, which as usual are attached to a tab on Lenny’s pants. What did Ruth say exactly? It might not be tomorrow or next week but you need to prepare yourself. She could have said next month, or in two or three months’ time, but she didn’t. It’s unfortunate to have to involve Lenny like this but Ana can see no other way. This time has come sooner than she anticipated.

  Apart from the flakes of pastry now collecting on his shirt Lenny is a study in curated coolness. He’s one of those natural born nerds who styled himself out of op shops long before the hipster invasion gave him contemporary currency. Ana knows his current affectations are only skin deep – they come after years of hard work trying to fit in – an effort she recognises and even admires but has never been able to make herself. She can’t judge him for enjoying his moment in the sun.

  She can feel him throwing glances in her direction but pretends not to notice. If anyone could pick up that something was off about her it would be Lenny.

  ‘How’s River doing?’ he finally asks as he screws up the paper bag and tosses it in the bin. ‘I miss having him around.’

  It’s just like Lenny to go straight to the core of things. He has a gift for it, a sense for other people’s troubles. Or maybe just for hers.

  ‘River’s good.’

  Ana keeps her eyes on her task. It’s only recently she’s stopped taking River to work with her, partially for his own comfort but mostly because she couldn’t stand any more concerned questions from Lenny. She especially doesn’t want them now but the lie sits uncomfortably between them. They both feel the weight of it.

  It’s a weight that proves too heavy for Ana. It was saying his name out loud that did it, that cracked the brittle wall she’s been trying so hard to keep up between them. With Lenny’s body currently blocking the path back into the shop she’s stuck in the dispensary. Her only choice is to turn away. She stops when she feels his hand tentatively come down on her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ana.’

  ‘It’s okay …’

  ‘No, it’s not, you’re not, I know how much he means to you.’

  The next thing she knows he’s standing much too close, and before she can move she’s pulled into an awkward hug.

  Ana stands as still as she can, counting the seconds slowly in her head, waiting for him to let go, painfully aware that anyone could walk in and see them. When she’s reached ten he still hasn’t released her but rather than pull away she’s surprised to feel herself giving in to the embrace. It’s his smell – fresh and clean from his morning shower – she’s always liked that about him. He smells safe.

  Ana feels the weight of Lenny’s hand pressing into the small of her back. Something uncurls in her body, warmth spreading through her, not the exact twin to the feeling she had watching the boys in the forest but close.

  She imagines she’s standing outside of herself, witnessing the embrace of strangers. Following the movement of his hand as it travels up her back, hovering tentatively before landing on the nape of her neck, fingers entwined in her hair. She’s always known Lenny has feelings for her and has always pretended to be oblivious but this is something she can’t ignore and right at this moment doesn’t want to. She shifts her face closer, a movement so small it’s almost imperceptible but he feels it and responds.

  As soon as she feels Lenny’s mouth attach itself to hers Ana wants to take it back and there’s simply no nice way to do it.

  She recoils.

  Neither of them knows what to say but the horrified look on Ana’s face speaks volumes.

  Lenny throws a glance at the entrance of the shop at the same time she does, both desperate for a customer to save them. He’s on the verge of saying something when the buzzer sounds and they’re released by the woman heading straight for the counter, prescription in hand. Ana takes the opportunity to make a getaway, snatching up a box of new stock and heading for the front of the shop, leaving the customer to Lenny. With a few shelves now between them she puts the box down and remains there hunched over, hiding, wishing she could climb inside the box and disappear.

  If you were smarter you would’ve taken advantage of the moment and got your hands on those keys.

  ‘Please, can you just tell me what I did that was so bad?’

  Ana peeks through the shelving into the next aisle. The voice belongs to a man who has followed the woman in and now trails behind her as she browses the shelves.

  Grateful for the distraction Ana edges closer as they continue their quiet feud.

  ‘Come on! How can I make sure I won’t do it again if you won’t even tell me what I did?’

  The woman flicks her immaculately styled hair, throwing him a look meant to kill.

  Unperturbed by the silent treatment he gives up for now, switching his attention to a turnstile display filled with generic spectacles. He amuses himself there, trying on glasses and inspecting his reflection. The woman throws sidelong glances at him as she fills her basket, trying so hard to stay mad.

  ‘You seriously can’t remember?’ she asks.

  No one could deny the sincerity in the face looking back at her.

  ‘You vomited on my shoes!’

  A frown crosses the man’s face. He clearly has no memory of it. Ana is trying to stop herself smiling and is caught in the act when the man looks directly at her. He gives her a wink before returning his attention to the woman.

  ‘Which ones?’

  His wide smile is infectious, especially combined with the purple batwing ladies’ glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.

  ‘It’s not funny!’ the woman says, desperately trying, and failing, to keep a straight face.
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br />   ‘Come on, it’s a little bit funny.’

  Ana finds herself coming down on his side – it is a little bit funny.

  The sudden ding of a bell has them all looking to the counter where Lenny has appeared from out back having filled the prescription.

  ‘I will never go to a party with you again.’ The woman stalks back to the counter.

  Ana glances again at the man, catching him brazenly slipping a pack of condoms into his pocket. He flashes Ana a brilliant smile and continues his pursuit.

  Reeks of charm.

  It’s what her grandmother would have said, and she wouldn’t have meant it as a compliment. Unlike her daughter, Irena was immune to the allure of men. She rarely uttered a word to the revolving line that passed through the house when her daughter was still alive and there was no fond reminiscing about Ana’s grandfather either. Of him she had one good thing to say – that he was never coming back. Whether that meant he was dead, had simply left, or was thrown out with the trash she never volunteered. Eventually Ana learned to stop asking questions. Attention to detail might have been encouraged but curiosity wasn’t. Neither was digging up the past.

  The summer following Ellen’s death Ana remembers a man turning up out of the blue, having been unable to reach her on her mobile.

  She stood there listening to her grandmother lying to his face. I have no idea who you’re talking about, Irena said, maintaining the lie even when she spotted Ana lurking within hearing distance. There was no one by the name of Ellen there. He must have confused her house with some other.

  The alternative, having to explain to a stranger that her daughter was dead, was never going to happen. Before he left the man directed a puzzled glance at Ana, who he had clearly recognised from an earlier visit, just as she had recognised him.

  With her grandmother standing between them, Ana could do nothing more than shrug.

  *

  The rest of the morning passes in tense silence as Lenny and Ana teeter on the edges of the chasm that has opened up between them. Lenny takes care of the customers while Ana keeps herself busy pretending to take inventory of the items on the floor, a task they both know she already completed at the end of last week. It’s well past Ana’s finish time now but Kristy is late as usual. Ana could just make up some excuse to leave but she doesn’t want to make things worse by appearing too keen to get out of there.