by Kirsty Eagar
‘Oh. Thanks.’
‘I tried calling.’
‘I, um … The phone’s inside and I didn’t really hear it.’
He does a slow nod, looking unimpressed. His sandy brown hair is soft and shaggy, like he’s washed it recently, and he’s freshly shaven. He’s wearing a retro Crystal Cylinders shirt and a faded pair of jeans; I recognise them as the same pair he was wearing the day we went to Dee Why by the tear across the left knee.
I pull my knees up to my chest and scratch my foot.
‘Sunbathing at night, eh?’
‘I went for a swim and it’s a nice night so …’ I shrug.
‘Where do you want this?’ He holds the board up.
‘It’s fine just there. Thanks for dropping it off.’
He lays the board down on its side, leaning it against the railing. He’s wrapped my leg rope neatly around the fins. Instead of leaving, he walks across to the railing and stands there looking out, tapping his fingers. ‘Pretty flat down there, eh?’
‘Yep.’ God this is hell, please make him go.
‘So you feeling all right?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing hurt or sore?’
He means from the accident.
‘No. Everything’s fine, thanks.’
‘Everything’s fine, thanks. Well that’s good, Carly, I’m glad everything’s fine.’ His voice is hard and angry.
I stare at his back, the solidness of him standing there on my deck, and a hand twists my stomach.
‘Your neighbour – Hannah – did she tell you I’d been over?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know about your car?’
‘You didn’t have to do –’
‘Don’t start with that shit.’
Something rustles in the bamboo but apart from that the night is quiet. Too quiet. And then I realise I can’t hear the surf. There are no waves, it’s flat.
He turns around, leaning back against the railing, sniffing again. ‘So you’re a smoker, eh?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, you don’t smoke.’
He’s dissecting me, looking utterly indifferent while he does it.
‘Can you remember what you said when I got you out of the car, Carly? Can you remember what you told me?’
I freeze, feeling terrified because I can’t remember. I don’t know what I’ve told him, how much he knows. The only thing I remember is him asking me the question later when he’d brought me back here. Who was it?
His voice softens. ‘Carly, I’m not going to … You gotta know me a bit better than that by now.’
I rub my face with both hands.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asks.
‘About what?’
‘About what happened to you.’
‘What happened to me? Like I’m some sort of freak?’
He shakes his head. ‘Mate, that’s not where I’m coming from, at all.’
I can’t look him in the eyes because then he’ll see it: my disgrace. He’s the first person to do this to me, to take the things I hide, and I think it’s cruel, unbearable, like having my chest torn open.
He’s the first person to know.
I get up then, not sure if I want to be sick or punch something, or maybe I should ram my head into the wall, do it until I pass out so I can get away from him. He shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not fair. I didn’t want to know his details. I don’t deserve this.
He takes a step towards me. ‘Carly …’
I try the sliding door, but it’s locked. The keys are in the wet tub, over near the railing. I go over to it, aware that he’s watching me, not saying anything, and I hate the way he’s just standing there.
‘Go away!’ I scream at him and it’s the start of a flood. ‘Get out, Ryan, just get out. Leave me alone!’
I tip the tub upside down, spilling its contents onto the deck: wax comb, wax, fin key, hair ties, hair comb, deodorant, spare towel, cigarettes, matches and the glass jar with dead butts in it, which makes a loud clunk and rolls towards the edge of the deck. Ryan bends to stop it and places it upright.
I scrabble through the mess of stuff from the wet tub, trying to find my keys. ‘Happy now?’ I say, throwing the packet of cigarettes at him. ‘Yes, I smoke sometimes. Congratulations, Ryan, now you know.’
My keys aren’t there. They’ve got to be in my shorts then. I go to pick my shorts up off the deck, but Ryan grabs me by the shoulders.
‘Don’t! Don’t touch me. Just leave me alone.’
‘Shh. Carly, settle down.’ Those eyes, seeing into me.
‘I don’t want anything to do with you.’
‘Don’t push me away –’
‘Leave me alone!’ I give a big jerk backwards and he tightens his hands for a second to stop me keeling over then lets me go.
Straight away I’m over at my towel, picking up my shorts, shaking them to feel whether the keys are there in the pocket.
‘Carly, I told you already it doesn’t matter. Everybody’s got something, it’s how you deal with it that counts. I’m not here to hurt you, or rub your face in it.’
‘Oh really? It doesn’t matter? Oh, thank you so much, Ryan. It’s so big of you. Thank you for overlooking all my revoltingness. You’re a real charity worker, you are.’
I’m crying, face all twisted up, snot and tears making the words bubble. Where the hell are my keys? I look about wildly, trying to find them.
Ryan stoops down and picks them up – they were on the end of my towel. I go to snatch them from him but he closes his hand.
‘Carly, I want to talk to you, but I can’t when you’re like this.’
‘Yeah? That’s because it’s just all too hard, isn’t it, Ryan? Isn’t that what you said? It’s just all too fucking hard.’
‘I never said that.’
‘Yes, you did. On the phone, in the beginning, before you scored with me. Well, you’ve had me now. So good for you – you scored, Rhino.’
‘Aw … now hang on a second …’ He shakes his head, eyes slitted. ‘That’s just bullshit, that is. That’s not how things are and you know it.’
‘Is that what you’re doing here tonight? Looking for a quickie? Two dry weeks ahead, better get one in with Carly before I go. She’ll be up for it.’
‘Aw – Jesus, Carly. That’s not –’ He kicks the glass jar and it slams into the side of the house, but doesn’t break. He looks at me, his face blotchy and hands clenched. ‘The trouble with you is that you’re still letting whoever it was do it to you. You’ve let him get inside you, so he can fuck you from the inside out. So get rid of me then if that’s what you want, but you’re only letting him win.’
I sit down slowly, my back against the brick wall, hugging my knees to my chest.
Ryan’s squatting down beside me, taking my hand and holding it in his. ‘Tell me, Carly. Get it out. Tell me what happened.’
Everything is so black inside my head. I don’t even have to think about it. I just tell him, let him have all of it.
‘It was at the Gold Coast. Schoolies week. I was at a club with my friends and I lost them – we were all drinking and I was off my head. I ended up wandering around the Mall, looking for them, pissed off because I thought they’d ditched me. I started talking to this guy and he said he was going to a party. He was really sunburned – I remember that. I asked him if he’d fallen asleep on the beach and he said it was from surfing. That’s why I started talking to him, because he surfed, not for any other reason – God, I was a virgin until that night.’
I blink for a moment, not really believing that I’m telling him all this, but then I just keep going. I’m unravelling. And if I keep it up soon there’ll be nothing left of me.
‘Anyway, he said I should come to this party with him. And I was pissed at my friends and I thought, you know, screw it. So I did. On the way there I bought more stuff to drink because I was nervous about going to a party where I didn’t know anybody. Vodka. I got stuck
into it as soon as we got there, drank it straight. Then, of course, I felt really sick. He said I should go and lie down for a while. Go into one of the bedrooms, sleep it off in there.’
I swallow and my voice loses its sharp edge. ‘So I did. I must have passed out. It was later when they came in. Three of them.’
‘Jesus Christ, Carly …’ Ryan looks paler than I’ve ever seen him.
‘I was still really drunk. I don’t know who they were. They must have been at the party, too. Maybe he told them I was in there. But he wasn’t one of them, so maybe he had nothing to do with it. I don’t know. I didn’t see them – I kept my eyes closed, pretended I was passed out. I just heard their voices.’
He’s squeezing my hand so tightly that it hurts. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it.
‘I don’t want to say the rest.’
‘That’s okay,’ he says. ‘That’s okay. You don’t have to say any more.’
We’re both quiet for a really long time. I feel dead now. Absolutely blanked out.
‘I’m sorry, Carly.’
And he is. I can hear it in his voice.
‘Can you go now?’ I ask.
‘I don’t want to leave you, Carly.’
I don’t look at him.
‘Carly?’
He waits for a long time, watching me, trying to draw me out with his eyes. Then he stands and picks up all the stuff spilled over the deck, putting it back in the wet tub, moving like he’s old.
And then he goes.
32
laying down
I watch television, which I almost never do. It’s a mistake because it’s rape night. I flick from channel to channel, dodging acronyms: SVU, CSI, CSI: NY. These shows, they’re all about things being done to females and children. If they were full of things being done to say, Asians or black people, well, that probably wouldn’t be allowed – not as many shows, all the time. But females and children are okay.
I can’t watch these shows. The way they treat it, as though it was nothing, just a thing, a fact. Rape for entertainment value.
I sit on the couch with my knees pulled up to my chest, working the remote. I’m scared to turn off the television because if I do I might think about what has just happened. About the fact that another person knows now. Ryan knows about me. He knows what’s under my skin, how disgusting I am.
When I’ve made it past midnight, made it to the next day, I switch the television off and go to bed where I don’t sleep. I lie there listening to the roar of silence, eyes straining to see in the darkness, each breath burning.
It burns, it burns, it burns.
Monday, I get up only to use the toilet and to ring Emilio, telling him I won’t be in to work the next day. But when night comes I feel anxious, and I have to get up and watch television again until I’m so tired there’s no choice but to go back to bed. On Tuesday I ring Emilio and tell him I need another day off. I get up long enough to do this and to hang a heavy blanket over my bedroom window, not to make the room dark, although the darkness is good, but to put that little bit more padding between me and the world. As the day dies my nerves start up again, little spiders crawling under my skin. It’s only the television that makes it stop. The bed is only safe during the daytime.
Emilio’s in the office when I get to work Thursday afternoon. He’s got the roster spread out in front of him and he gives a start when I dump my bag in behind the door.
‘Carly? I didn’t expect you in here. I thought you’d still be … Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine thanks.’ I pull my apron out of my bag, start tying it around my waist. Emilio’s watching me. He’s concerned, but not too much. Me being at work is less hassle for him than me not being at work.
‘Stu was lined up to do your shift if you want more time off.’
‘No, I’m okay.’ The only reason I’m here is for the money. I’ll be short for rent if I don’t do this. As soon as this is over I can go back to bed.
‘How bad was it? The accident?’
I shrug. ‘Not that bad. I just got a fright, I think.’
‘What happened?’
‘I hit a tree.’
‘Nasty. How’s your car?’
‘Um, I smashed up the front corner on the passenger side, but it’s just body work, apparently.’
‘How’d it happen?’
‘I wasn’t looking where I was going, which was good.’
‘How can that be good?’
I blink at him. I didn’t realise I’d said that. ‘Because it was an accident, not a crash.’
Carly? It’s me – Ryan. Thought I’d give you a call. Hope you’re okay, all right? I wanted to call earlier but I thought you might want me to leave you alone for a bit. So … yeah. I’ll ring again soon, okay?
Friday afternoon. I pull into the courtyard at Danny’s place to pick him up for work. As usual, I buzz his unit and then wait in the car. When he comes outside he stops and looks around with a confused look on his face, and I realise he’s expecting to see my car, but of course I’m in Hannah’s Barina. I wind the window down and give him a wave.
‘Hey, what’s this? Did you get a new car?’ he asks as he opens the door. He jumps in and bounces up and down on his seat, testing it out. ‘I liked the yellow one better.’
‘It’s my neighbour’s. She’s lending it to me for a while.’
‘How come she’s lending it to you?’ He turns to look at me then and actually recoils.
He won’t look at me all night.
How’re you goin’? Must have missed you, eh? Thought you’d probably be at work, but it was worth a shot. So … yeah. Mornings are killing me. What else? Food’s good. The big news is I’m moving up in the world. They got me an ensuite, so I’ve got my own shower and toilet now.
Adam’s working tonight and that’s a pain because he’s always out the back, yapping at me. I gently scoop poached eggs from a pan on one of the front hobs, the heat rising from the grill baking my face, saying, Oh yeah?, Is that right?, and after a while I say nothing at all and his talk fades into the background, a noise like bees buzzing. I plate up the order, zigzagging hollandaise over the eggs and toast, put it under the heat lamp and ding the bell loudly, cutting him off mid-sentence. He looks taken aback and then I realise he’s running the food tonight so there was no need to ding the bell. Face sulky, he grabs the plate and takes off, and that’s good because then it’s just Roger and me. I like working with Roger, he’s about the only one I can stand these days. Roger keeps his back to me and he slams dishes into the rack and sprays them viciously, but he never talks and that’s good. We’ve got things in common.
I never noticed people like us before, but now I see them everywhere. Last night Emilio sent me down to Coles to get some stuff we needed. There was this girl working in the aisle with all the cleaning stuff, stacking shelves, unloading dishwashing detergent from one of the cardboard boxes at her feet. I was looking for bleach and I hovered near her for a while because I thought it might be in front of her. Maybe she thought I was about to ask her something because she steadfastly refused to look at me, setting her mouth in a hard line. I spotted it further up and moved on. There were six different brands of bleach. While I was hesitating between them I glanced back at her. She’d forgotten all about me and had stopped her unpacking to straighten up her clothing. The waistband of her slacks was unbuttoned and she was tucking her shirt in with both hands, not seeming to care that she looked like a kid playing with herself, not bothered that her underpants were showing – printed floral cotton, the type with bad elastic that you buy in packets of five. I realised she wasn’t as old as I’d first thought, she just looked that way because life had been sucked out of her. Her hair was stringy and her eyes were sockets in her face. She was thin like Kylie, but she had a manic energy like Shane, so it was probably drugs.
That’s just the means though, the end result is the same. She was one of us. Her, Shane, Marty, Roger, Kylie, me. People being eaten alive f
rom the inside out.
Yeah, Carly, it’s me again. Not having much luck getting hold of you, but what can you do, eh? Anyway … Pretty tired, eh. These hours are killing me. Takes a bit of getting used to. Dunno if I told you but I’m gonna hire a DVD player to go with my telly. That way I can watch surf stuff and whatever – a guy here has got that Bruce Irons movie. And there’re movies you can hire out here, just like the telly and the DVD player. If you don’t have it, you can hire it – they’re gettin’ their money back that way. What goes around, comes around, I guess.
I make myself listen to Ryan’s messages. Not straight away, but the day afterwards when they’re not so fresh. I do it in the morning, the one thing I’ve got to do for the day, the rest of which I spend in bed. Sometimes he leaves them while I’m at work. A couple of times he’s tried calling late when he knows I’m home and should answer. I never answer, but I do make myself listen. It took me a while to work out why: it’s a way of punishing myself. I’m flogging myself with his voice because I make myself sick. It’s like I’m cutting open my own palm, watching the shame come spilling out. The day it stops hurting when I hear him, the day I don’t feel a cringe so powerful I want to rip off my own skin, that will be the day it’s over and I can go outside.
Just give us a call sometime, that’d be good, Carly. Please. I really want to talk to you. I’ll be back there in two days and I don’t know what’s going on.
Hannah’s outside, knocking on the glass sliding door.
‘Hey Cookie, let me in.’
I get up and go out to unlock the door for her. I’m wearing my work shirt and a pair of undies and I see Hannah’s eyes do a walk over me, but she doesn’t say anything.
She’s holding her tray with all the tea things on it. ‘Hey, but you haven’t even been to get the paper yet?’
‘No. I’m … tired.’
She doesn’t make a fuss. She tells me to sit down on the deck, so I do, and then she pours us both cups of tea, and I feel like it’s stupid, like two little girls playing tea parties.