Where We Begin

by Christie Nieman

  ‘What’s wrong, my twisted sister?’ said Danny. ‘Even unplugged Nirvana a bit too hard for you?’

  ‘Too try-hard, more like. How can you tell what he’s even singing about, anyway?’

  ‘Don’t dis the ’bain.’

  ‘“Dis”? You’re not a gangster, Danny.’

  ‘Yet.’

  Leonie laughed at him. ‘We can totally put something else on, Cathy.’ Leonie started sifting through Danny’s vinyl. ‘Anything here take your fancy? Blur, Björk, Elastica, Pavement.’

  ‘Not bloody Pavement.’ The days they played Pavement were the worst – those songs were barely songs in Cathy’s opinion, the way they jangled away and Danny jangled away with them on his guitar. If that was all he was aspiring to, he might just make it.

  ‘Come help me choose,’ said Leonie, so Cathy came and perched primly on an upside-down crate after inspecting the surface of it for grime, as Leonie flicked the records for her to see.

  ‘No, not Björk, too weird,’ said Cathy. ‘Not Blur – they sound okay but they’re always taking the piss.’

  ‘There might actually be some Twisted Sister in there,’ said Danny from across the room.

  ‘Ha ha, Danny. Oh, yeah, I guess Elastica would be okay, poppy enough.’ Leonie started to unsheath Elastica and pulled the stylus off Nirvana while Danny was mid-jangle. ‘Oh,’ he said, with a complaining upward inflection, like a toddler.

  ‘You’ll be alright, Dan,’ said Leonie. She dropped the needle down and the opening strains of Elastica’s ‘Line Up’ started out of the speakers.

  ‘What about you, Leonie? Tuesday?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘Count me in. I always love a good Secret Cake Day.’

  For the last two years Cathy had run Danny’s ‘official’ party with all his white-boy mates, just the way Hessel wanted it, and then, during the following week, she and Bette had run the ‘unofficial’ one – the ‘bootleg’, Danny called it, with Danny, Leonie, Cathy, Becky and Bette. The big surprise was that while Secret Cake Day was Cathy’s workaround to Hessel’s hard line, once approached, Bette was absolutely on board. More than on board – she drove it.

  Two years ago, one afternoon after Danny’s twelfth birthday but before school went back, the three girls piled in the back of Bette’s car. Danny sat in the front where he could have control of the discman, and Bette drove them the one hour to Bendigo. The windows were down, the paddocks flew by. They were squished but happy. Bette stopped at a cake shop and then took them to the old Bendigo hotel where they all drank Coke and ate cake and played pool and Bette sat back and drank a glass of sherry. And afterwards Bette dropped Leonie and Becky at their houses and back home did an admirable job of telling Hessel that only the three of them had been in Bendigo, buying school shoes or textbooks or some other valid school-based enterprise which she knew he would be supremely uninterested in. It was so successful that they repeated it exactly the same the next year, and a tradition was born.

  And something happened to Bette on those two Secret Cake Days. It was like some great fun-mum instinct kicked in. Both years she had become bountiful, spending everything she could on the four of them. But the second year especially, when the man at the bar poured her out a third sherry on the house (no-one ever ordered the sherry, he said; he was trying to get rid of it) and Danny had been able to lure her into playing pool with them, she had become silly and gregarious, loudly discussing her shots with various punters at the bar, giggling too much when she completely missed the cue-ball with the cue. It was amazing. She was like a mother they had never known. In the car on the way home, Bette had repeated with a gleeful edge, ‘What Hessel doesn’t know can’t hurt him.’ And back at home, once the lies had again been successfully told to Hessel and Danny had gone off whistling happily into his bedroom, Cathy and Bette exchanged complicit smirking glances, an unspoken congratulations on a job well done. And suddenly Cathy had a sense of something precious. Something she hadn’t even known she was missing, a feeling that she could access now. It felt like she had a family.

  ‘So you’re going to go with Dad this weekend?’ Cathy asked Danny, flipping the Elastica record cover over to read the back.

  Danny was leaning towards his tinny amp, trying to match the chords of ‘Annie’ as the song filled the air around them.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘I liked your idea better though.’

  ‘Of course you did. Because my idea was shit hot.’

  For Danny’s official birthday that weekend Cathy had been going to hire a PlayStation and a projector and turn a room in Bromley Cairn into a games and junk food centre. But Hessel had suddenly wanted to be more involved. In fact, he’d taken over. ‘Daniël is becoming a man now,’ he’d said to Cathy. ‘Your parties are for little kids.’ He’d cancelled Cathy’s plans and decreed that instead, he would drive Danny and one friend down to the city to see a Dutch film at one of the bohemian arthouse cinemas and then he would take them both out to drink a Hollandia beer.

  Danny laid his guitar down on the bed. He couldn’t keep up with Elastica the way he could with Pavement – or perhaps it just mattered more if he got it wrong. ‘I’m not going to take anyone with me though,’ he said. ‘I don’t really want to make any of my friends do that.’

  ‘That might piss Dad off,’ Cathy said.

  Danny just shrugged. ‘Everything I do pisses him off.’

  Sometimes it made Cathy feel a bit wild, Danny’s meek acceptance of their dad. His strange passive resistance. But maybe she was missing something. Cathy thought about the two of them alone together, driving all the way to Melbourne, sitting in a darkened cinema, drinking a beer. She tried, but she just couldn’t see it working. But maybe that’s what she wasn’t getting. Maybe this was actually an opportunity. Perhaps them going out together, just the two of them, would be the moment their dad found something to like about Danny, the moment he might actually have a conversation with him and figure out how great he was in his own very Danny way, instead of being constantly disappointed in him for not being more like Hessel.

  Perhaps Hessel was trying. Perhaps it was the beginning of something new.

  This was what Cathy remembered later – that she had thought that. That she had actually thought that.

  ‘Well,’ she’d said. ‘Good luck with that.’

  ‘Cheers, sister,’ he’d said. And she’d got up and left the room.

  25

  I lay on the tangled grass in the dark for an hour, too sick and too heavy to move, giving up on everything and everyone, most of all myself. But eventually sense kicked in and, standing up, I shook myself down like a horse standing among too many flies, then took myself back inside and tucked myself into Catharina’s bed.

  In the morning the first thing I did when I opened my eyes was check my messages. No reception and nothing from Nassim, and impossible to tell whether my message had landed or been deleted. It was hell.

  I emptied the mouse traps – two babies this time – and then I studied, and then I checked my messages again. Still nothing. I packed Bette up into the car and checked again; still nothing. I delivered Bette to the waiting room at the doctor’s and went to the toilet to check again and, despite the consistent reception from being in town, nothing. And still no clue as to the fate of my message.

  I came out again and the doctor, a slender brown-and-grey-haired woman in an interesting purple-knit dress, was calling Bette’s name.

  ‘Come on, Grandma,’ I said, touching her shoulder. ‘You’re on.’

  Bette roused herself and looked around as though she had forgotten everything and anything up until this point.

  ‘The doctor, Grandma – in you go.’

  Bette looked at the doctor as though she’d never seen her before, but then she seemed to come to and found her feet.

  ‘I’ll stay here, Grandma,’ I said.

  But Bette turned and said, ‘Don’t be silly, come along. I want to introduce you.’ So I followed her to where the doctor stood wai
ting by an open door.

  ‘This way, Bette, come in. So good to see you. And this is . . .’

  ‘Anna, my beautiful granddaughter,’ said Bette, proudly.

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Anna,’ said the doctor, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Geraldine.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, too.’

  ‘Anna’s going to be a doctor,’ said Bette.

  ‘Crikey,’ said Geraldine. ‘Well, good luck with that. Anything you want to know . . . although not knowing what you’re in for is probably the best approach.’ She turned to look at Bette, who was arranging herself into a chair. I sat down in the seat next to her. ‘Now, Bette,’ Geraldine said. ‘Leonie says she thinks this burn needs looking at again.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Remind me, how did this happen?’

  ‘The stove.’

  ‘Okay. How exactly?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Just a silly accident. A stupid old lady moment.’

  Geraldine began scrolling on the computer screen in front of her. ‘Okay. Well, before I get you to unwrap Leonie’s handiwork, let’s see where we’re up to with you. So before Leonie dragged you in last week so we could have a look at this burn, we hadn’t actually seen you for a while. You missed your last two appointments. And the last time before that,’ Geraldine put her head to the side as she scrolled, ‘there was that nasty bump on your head. How’s that going?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Can I lift your hair there?’

  The doctor stood and lifted the feathery white hair at the side of Bette’s head to reveal the greenish-yellow remnants of a bruise and a shiny pinkish scar through the middle. ‘Looks alright,’ said Geraldine. ‘Still dizzy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you have a fall, Grandma?’

  ‘No, love, something fell on me. Too many things stacked up high at our place.’

  ‘Well, that’s true,’ I said. ‘So what was it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. A crock-pot, an iron. Something.’

  ‘And your wrist?’ Geraldine said, checking her computer screen and then holding Bette’s little bird-boned wrist gently between her fingers.

  ‘Fine.’ Bette wiggled her hand.

  ‘And how are we going with those exercises for your fingers? Any movement back? Tinkling the ivories again? I heard you were quite the player back in the day.’

  Bette seemed pleased. ‘Oh, not really. An amateur.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard,’ said Geraldine. ‘People rave about you at those dances.’

  ‘Well. Those days are behind me.’

  Geraldine had Bette’s hands in hers again, gently bending the gnarled bulbous knuckles, feeling up and down the length of her fingers, curving them, like she was playing with the hands of a baby.

  ‘That one there’s still a problem, that index, it’s healed a bit wrong. You should have come earlier.’

  ‘Ah well. Done now.’

  Bette looked down at her hands, gnarled and curled and knobbly with arthritis. I frowned. I looked at the doctor, who was frowning too, at Bette. And then Geraldine sighed, huffed really, quickly expelling the moment along with the air from her lungs. ‘Alright,’ she said, ‘let’s take your temperature and look at that arm.’

  The doctor quickly pressed a thermometer into Bette’s ear until it beeped, and then unwrapped Bette’s arm, making tsk-ing sounds, but ultimately approving of Leonie’s work. She picked up the phone. ‘Tanya, I’m sending Bette down to you for a new dressing and your expertise.’ She hung up the phone. ‘Alright, Bette, off you go, end of the hall, Tanya’s waiting. Nothing she hasn’t seen before, and she’s a very clever nurse, she’s all about wounds. Anna, would you have a minute to hang back?’

  I almost hadn’t understood what she’d said, asking me to stay, it was so tacked-on and unexpected. And then, for a moment an irrational panic flared: she must know. She must have a doctor’s secret way of seeing a pregnancy when it walked into her clinic.

  That was ridiculous, obviously, but my cheeks flared red anyway as I tried not to think about it. The door closed behind Bette and I sat down again. Geraldine waited until the receptionist had walked-and-talked Bette away down the hall and then she turned from her computer to face me.

  ‘So you’re here to stay with your grandparents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve been before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never been before?’

  ‘No.’

  Geraldine tapped her pen on the desk and looked out the window and then back to me. ‘So how do you think Bette burned her arm?’

  ‘Um, the stove. An accident. That’s what she said. I wasn’t there when it happened.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Geraldine sat back for a moment, and then leaned forward again and spoke seriously to me. ‘So what’s it like there? In the house? Do you feel safe?’

  I was thrown. ‘Um, yes? I guess. I’ve only been there a few days.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Five days – well, four and an extra night really.’

  ‘And it seems okay?’

  ‘Well, obviously I’m scared that something might fall on me too, or that a mouse might jump on my face in the night –’ Geraldine laughed with surprise. ‘The place is very . . . um, rustic. Have you seen it?’

  Geraldine shook her head. ‘I haven’t done a home visit. Perhaps I should.’

  She started typing into Bette’s file, asking questions as she did.

  ‘How old are you, Anna?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘Will you be staying with them for a while?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet, maybe just for the holidays, or maybe for a while longer.’

  ‘And they are Mum’s parents, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she is coming soon?’

  ‘Um, no, not. Probably not – So, why are we . . . I’m just wondering about these questions about me – I don’t think I understand . . .’

  Geraldine stopped typing and nodded. She looked up to the ceiling and then looked me in the eye. ‘I’m trying to get some background information because it seems to me that Bette has more injuries than she really should. I’m trying to rule some things out.’

  ‘Doing a differential diagnosis,’ I said.

  ‘Ah yes, of course, the budding doctor.’

  ‘So like, you’re thinking maybe it’s like an early sign of dementia or something. And that house . . .’

  ‘That’s how it works, yes, but it’s also important to remember social factors when trying to engage in diagnostics.’

  ‘Of course, okay, so . . .’

  ‘The recent X-rays of her hands revealed older finger breaks –’

  ‘– finger breaks?’

  ‘We were X-raying for her arthritis, but the images showed old breaks. Decades old. Your grandmother’s hands have been slowly debilitated by repeated breaks. We’ve asked her about it, and she doesn’t have an explanation that I feel satisfied with.’

  Geraldine was looking at me steadily, and I frowned but before I had time to think about what that meant and what to say and what to ask, before I had time to process some deep and undefined sense of shock, Geraldine stood up abruptly. ‘Okay, so I’m on shifty privacy ground here and I should probably wrap this up, but I just think the more eyes on Bette the better, okay?’

  ‘Um, okay?’

  ‘It was very lovely to meet you, Anna,’ she said and held her arm out away from herself, that civil gesture of showing the door which cannot be argued with. ‘Can you make an appointment for Bette for two days’ time, please? And keep taking her temperature. If there’s any fever she needs to go straight to hospital.’

  ‘Oh, okay, yes.’ I felt I was three steps behind the conversation, scrambling to catch up, not managing to respond to the last thing that had been said. ‘Yes, lovely to meet you too,’ I managed.

  ‘And if there’s anything else, anything at all, just call here, call for me or Leonie. And of course, any more being-a-doc
tor questions,’ said Geraldine, smiling but already looking away, ‘happy to answer them.’

  I sat outside the nurse’s station, waiting for Bette. I couldn’t get my head around what Geraldine had just said, or not said. How could you repeatedly break your fingers? Or had someone broken them? That thought was so disturbing that I had a lot of trouble thinking it. I would ask her about it in the car on the way back. There would be a straightforward explanation. There had to be. My own fingers slid into the back pocket of my jeans and found paper there, unexpectedly. The letter for Bette from the post office yesterday. I’d forgotten to hand it over.

  My phone gave a gentle ping. And there it was. A message from Nassim.

  Sorry? Sorry for what?

  Shit. Shit. Oh shit.

  You stop messaging me and calling me, and then I get this?

  I shoved the letter back into my pocket and stood and walked outside, as though the fresh air might make this go better. But before I even got there my phone was ringing. I looked at Nassim’s name on my screen and I froze and it went through to voicemail. A text came through with the hang-up message, and then another gentle ping from the app and a block of text from Nassim – more than he could have just written then.

  I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t want to crowd you, I know I’ve promised not to do that, but it’s super hard when you just totally disappear like this. You know that I can leave you alone as much as you want, so long as I know where I stand – I’ve said that right from the start. But right now I just don’t know where I am with you, and quite frankly it feels shit. You’re making me feel crazy, and like I’m too needy. You’ve been making me try to be that cool guy that somehow we’re all supposed to be and that now you seem to really want. But I don’t know if I can actually do it, Anna. I don’t know if I want to do it. I don’t really want to be that kind of ‘bloke’ that is just a body without feelings. I really didn’t know you wanted that kind of guy. And part of me still doesn’t think you do. Part of me still thinks you want someone like me – that you want me. But maybe it’s just the stupid part of me that thinks that. The idiot part. The part that is making a fool out of me.