Crossing Paths

by Dianne Blacklock

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘What about your meeting?’

  Jo shrugged. ‘I’ve got a pretty good excuse, right?’

  He smiled, nodding. He turned back to the intercom. ‘No, we’ll be right, Mick, but we’d appreciate if they could hurry it along.’

  ‘I’ll call ’em back, see if I can’t put some wind up their sails. I’ll keep you posted.’

  Jo was beginning to feel very relaxed. Unusually relaxed. In fact she was so relaxed, her head was becoming heavy. But her lower back was getting stiff in this position and her bum was going numb. She sidled away from the wall and swivelled around to lie flat on her back in the middle of the floor. The outside border of the floor was tiled but here in the middle it was carpeted, and much more comfortable.

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Wow, look at that . . .’

  ‘What?’ He shifted closer, craning his head to peer up the shaft.

  ‘No, you have to lie down to get the full effect,’ she said, grabbing hold of his shoulder and pushing him down so his head was beside hers, but he was lying in the opposite direction.

  ‘Look how far up it goes.’ She raised her arm and pointed up into the shaft, one eye closed. ‘How far would that be, do you reckon?’

  ‘Well, the building’s thirty-two floors,’ he said. ‘And we’re stopped, what, at around the eighth, tenth floor?’ He paused for a moment. ‘So I’d say . . . about . . . seventy-four metres.’

  She glanced at him. ‘How did you figure that?’

  ‘Standard floor-to-ceiling height is around 2.7 metres, ceiling-to-floor cavity is a little under half a metre, times that total by the number of floors and it comes to approximately seventy-four metres, give or take.’

  ‘Wow.’ Jo was impressed. Numbers were not her thing, she was a wordsmith, after all. ‘Are you an engineer or something?’

  ‘No, I’m not an engineer.’

  ‘But you sure are something!’ Jo broke into a gentle rolling giggle. She turned her head to look at him. ‘Oh dear, sorry about that. Are lame lines a side effect of those pills?’

  He smiled. ‘Not that I’m aware.’

  She really was feeling incredibly relaxed now, as she stretched her arms up over her head. It was as though the stress of the last few days was unfurling up into the elevator shaft, like those twirling ribbons gymnasts used in their routines. That was a nice image, Jo mused, twirling whirly ribbons unfurling upwards into the shaft, taking all her cares and woes . . . What was that song . . . da da da . . . da da . . . da da . . . ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’. Who sang that?

  ‘Who sang ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’?’ she asked him suddenly.

  He turned his head to look at her. His face was upside down. How did he do that?

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ said Jo. ‘You held the lift.’

  He was frowning now. Upside down. Which should have looked like a smile. Wasn’t that how the saying went? A frown is an upside-down smile. Or was it a smile is an upside-down frown? What was the point of that saying, anyway?

  ‘Are you all right?’ he was asking her.

  Jo blinked a few times. Had she said any of that out loud? She roused herself, looking at him. Upside down. She felt dizzy again. ‘Would you mind turning around?’ she asked. ‘I’m going a little cock-eyed.’

  He smiled, then shifted out of her view, returning to lie beside her, right side up, still smiling. That was better. He had a nice smile, Jo decided. And nice eyes. Very blue, very striking. Maybe that was only in contrast to their setting. If he cleaned himself up, had a shave, washed his hair and got it cut properly, put on some decent clothes . . . well, he might not be half bad looking, she suspected.

  She sighed contentedly, gazing back up the shaft. ‘What if the roof wasn’t in the way,’ she mused. ‘How far do you think we’d be able to see then?’

  ‘I read somewhere that the most distant galaxy is over thirteen billion light-years away.’

  ‘Mm, was that in Geek Weekly?’

  He glanced at her sideways. ‘You don’t find stuff like that interesting?’

  ‘Vaguely, but I can’t even comprehend what thirteen billion light-years is,’ said Jo. ‘People get all worked up about the universe and what’s out there, but what about what’s right here. The world is enormous. Forget about outer space, you couldn’t even get around this planet in a whole lifetime.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I wish I’d seen more of it.’

  ‘We’re not going to die in here, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ she elbowed him. ‘But I’m still not going to see much of it in my lifetime, I reckon.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I think I’ve left my run a bit late.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What are you, late twenties, thirty?’

  He was playing it safe, underestimating, but she wasn’t going to confirm or deny.

  ‘You’ve got your whole life ahead of you,’ he insisted.

  ‘Which should give me just enough time to pay off my mortgage,’ she said. ‘I just bought a place, moved in yesterday.’

  ‘So you said,’ he nodded. ‘Where did you move to?’

  ‘The city, a few blocks away in fact.’

  ‘Congratulations. You must be feeling good?’

  She shrugged. ‘The mortgage part’s a little daunting.’

  ‘You shouldn’t let that bother you,’ said Joe. ‘I was a bit the same when I took out my first mortgage, but after a while you don’t even think about it any more. The money comes out of the bank the same as if it was rent. It’s really not that big a deal. What’s the worst that could happen?’

  ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ Jo repeated, incredulous.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said guilelessly.

  ‘Oh, let me see,’ she began, ‘I could get sick or have an accident or lose my job and default on the repayments so I’d have no choice but to sell. And if any of that happened in the next few years before I’ve been able to recoup my costs and increase my equity, and without a considerable boom in the property market, then I would in all likelihood end up out of pocket. But what’s probably the very worst that could happen is interest rates going up so high that I can’t afford the repayments. If I was forced to sell when there’s high interest rates, property prices are more likely to slump, so I probably wouldn’t even get back what I paid for my place, which means I’d still owe money but I wouldn’t have anywhere to live.’

  ‘Wow.’ He was shaking his head. ‘You’ve really thought of every possible thing that could go wrong, haven’t you?’

  ‘I think it’s wise to be prepared for the worst.’

  ‘I don’t know about wise,’ he muttered. ‘Pessimistic maybe.’

  He was hardly the first person to accuse her of that.

  ‘You should chill a bit,’ Joe went on. ‘Most people would be happy to own their own place . . . actually, most people in the world would be happy to have a meal once a day.’

  Well, that was certainly putting her in her place. But when she glanced at him, he didn’t look like he was judging her. He looked . . . like he was trying to reassure her.

  ‘So what did you say your name was again?’ he asked.

  Jo smiled. ‘I didn’t.’ She looked sideways at him. ‘You’re persistent.’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  She gazed back up the shaft. ‘Funny thing is, I don’t even use my real name.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I don’t go by the name I was given at birth.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I changed it.’

  ‘Really?’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘You’d understand if you heard it.’

  ‘Okay . . . let me have it.’

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ said Jo. ‘I never tell anyone my real name.’

  ‘Oh come on, how bad could it be?’

 
‘Oh, it’s bad.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Joe regarded her thoughtfully. ‘You don’t strike me as someone who’d be bothered by something like that. I would have thought you’d wear it with pride and challenge anyone to make fun of it.’

  ‘Not this name,’ she muttered. ‘There’s nothing you can do but make fun of it.’

  ‘You’re not being a little dramatic? I bet you most people wouldn’t even blink if they heard it.’

  ‘Yeah, because their eyes would be popping out of their heads in disbelief.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he said dubiously. ‘So it’s Gertrude or Ethel or something –’

  She grunted. ‘I wish.’

  He looked at her, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t believe there’s a name so bad that it’s worth changing it. It’s your identity, after all. It shapes you, to some degree it –’

  ‘It’s Bambi,’ she blurted.

  Joe blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘My real name is, or was, Bambi.’

  He looked at her, incredulous. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘Show me your driver’s licence.’

  ‘I will not. I told you, I don’t go by that name now.’

  ‘So you changed it legally?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well, I’d look pretty ridiculous with a name like Bambi, but you could get away with it.’

  ‘If I was an exotic dancer. Not if I want to be taken seriously as a journalist. Can you imagine the by-line?’

  He smiled at her. ‘So what’s your by-line now?’

  Jo opened her mouth and then stopped. ‘Aha, nearly got me.’

  He sighed. ‘Bambi. That really is bad.’

  ‘My sister had it worse.’

  ‘Don’t tell me she’s called Thumper?’

  Jo laughed. ‘We used to joke about that, but no, she was named Tinkerbell.’

  ‘You’re making that up.’

  ‘I swear,’ she said, holding her hand to her heart. ‘Clearly my mother should never have been allowed to have children.’

  It was true. Charlene Liddell had had no idea how to parent her girls – she was barely more than a girl herself when she had them – but she had certainly loved playing with them. And dressing them up, like they were dolls. She used to put them in matching outfits with ribbons in their hair and frills on their socks, but Jo complained so relentlessly that her mother finally gave up when she was about six and let her choose her own clothes. But it wasn’t till she read Little Women that she found a female character she could relate to. She wanted to be just like Jo. She would be a writer. She would travel the world. She would be strong and independent. She would cut off all her hair. Jo had never seen her mother’s face so white as the day she came into the bathroom to find her blonde curls littered all over the floor. The curls never grew back, and Jo never answered to Bambi again.

  ‘Do you really mean that?’

  ‘What?’ said Jo, stirring.

  ‘That your mum shouldn’t have been allowed to have children?’

  Did she say that? ‘Oh, she was just too young . . . and stupid,’ Jo dismissed. ‘I shouldn’t complain, I wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t been. Nor would most of us . . . be here, you know, if people weren’t young and stupid . . . generally.’ She probably could have put that better.

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘He left when I was four.’

  ‘Oh. Did you see him after that?’

  Jo shook her head. ‘According to my mother, he left because we didn’t behave. I’d try to be good so he’d come back, but we were always butting heads, my mother and I. She used to say “See? This is why your father won’t come back. He never wanted you in the first place, you think he’s gunna put up with this behaviour?”’

  He was just staring at her, his eyes drowning in pathos.

  ‘Oh, don’t look like that,’ Jo dismissed. ‘I know it’s crap, I’ve had the therapy. My mother was a nut job, still is.’

  Jo had consoled herself for a while there with the idea that she must have been adopted; nothing else would explain the utter disparity between her and Charlene. It had been suggested more than once that the problem was they were too much alike, but Jo would not have a bar of that. They certainly looked nothing alike. Jo reckoned she looked like her dad, in the one picture she had managed to salvage before her mother burned the rest. ‘The bastard’s never coming back,’ Charlene had declared as she lit a cigarette then tossed the match onto a kero-soaked pile of his stuff in the backyard. Jo’s dreams shrivelled up in the flames that day too. Dreams of a tall, handsome father who’d come back from the war – not that she knew of any particular wars that Australia was involved in at the time, but it had to be something noble to have kept him away so long. He would stride into the house and scoop up his girls, one in each arm, and take them away from the cheerless, tenuous existence that was their childhood. Different towns, different houses, different schools, different men. A lot of different men. But because her father was quite extraordinary, he would forgive Charlene and give her another chance, and they would be a normal family again.

  ‘Did your father keep in touch?’ Joe asked.

  ‘He phoned a few times,’ said Jo, ‘but Mum wouldn’t let him speak to us, she was too busy yelling at him. He soon stopped calling.’

  Not such a princess after all. ‘So your mother brought you up on her own?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Jo. ‘She got over being a single parent pretty quickly, and she decided she wanted her life back. She started going out at night, leaving me to look after Belle.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Eight or nine.’ Jo shrugged at his incredulous expression. ‘It wasn’t so bad, it was better than when she brought men home. It was when she didn’t come home – sometimes for days at a time . . .’ Jo’s voice trailed off. The first time it had happened she was eleven. When she woke up and realised her mother wasn’t there, Jo felt the greatest sense of panic. What if she never came home again, like their father? What if she was dead? What would happen to them? But she couldn’t upset Belle, so she closed their mother’s bedroom door and said she was sleeping in, which was certainly not out of the ordinary. Then she made breakfast and packed their lunches, and surreptitiously unlocked one window before they left for school so that they would be able to get back in, just in case. But Charlene was there when they got home, and when Jo held onto her for a long time, she firmly detached her and told her not to make such a fuss. So Jo never made a fuss after that. She taught herself to cook, use the washing machine, iron, and forge her mother’s signature for school notes. She became adept at pilfering small amounts of money, undetected, from her mother’s purse so she always had emergency funds for food and school excursions and the like. And she had a key cut. By the time she was twelve, Jo had the routine down pat and could manage quite well on her own for up to three or four days at a time.

  ‘Your mother left you on your own for days at a time?’ Joe was asking.

  She saw the mixture of horror and pity in his eyes. Jo had seen that look before, which is why she never talked about it any more. She wasn’t sure what had made her talk about it now. Probably those pills, they were like a verbal laxative. Well, that was enough personal disclosure for one day. For a year.

  She shrugged. ‘Who hasn’t had a crappy childhood?’

  ‘Me,’ Joe said without hesitation.

  She looked at him. ‘Not even a little crappy?’

  ‘Not even a little. Not one minute of it.’

  Jo had an idea he was seeing the past through a pretty powerful pair of your rose-coloured variety glasses. Nobody’s childhood was that happy. But who was she to shatter his delusions.

  ‘So, I guess you were lucky then,’ was all she said.

  ‘It shouldn’t
have anything to do with luck,’ said Joe. ‘It should be a birthright. I’ve seen people in the third world who have nothing, yet they give their children everything that matters – their time, love, attention. And here we have everything, but parents can’t seem to give their children what they need the most.’

  Jo was watching him. She didn’t know what to say, she’d clearly hit a sore point.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, noticing the expression on her face. ‘I’m preaching, aren’t I?’

  ‘Little bit.’

  Joe smiled self-consciously. ‘Hazard of the profession.’

  She frowned. ‘Are you a priest or something?’

  He laughed then. ‘No, I’m not a priest, or anything.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘You’re thanking God that I’m not a priest? That’s a little ironic.’

  ‘Is it?’ Jo mused. ‘Strictly speaking, I mean. I shouldn’t admit this, being a writer, but irony’s a hard one to pin down, don’t you find? I can never quite put my finger on it.’

  ‘Best example I know is Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic”.’

  ‘No, that’s the thing,’ said Jo. ‘It’s not ironic if it rains on your wedding day, it’s just bad luck. That song isn’t about irony at all.’

  ‘Which makes it ironic, don’t you think?’

  She grinned. She’d have to remember that one, she could probably get a column out of it. ‘Okay, so, ironically or otherwise, you’re not a priest and you’re not an engineer, and you’re clearly not an elevator technician, or a stalker who preys on unsuspecting women . . .’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘So what do you do?’

  He looked at her. ‘What happened to “no names, no pack drill”?’

  ‘I’m not asking for your name, and I told you what I do for a living.’

  Joe sighed loudly, stretching his arms out in front of him before tucking them behind his head. ‘You know what, I bet you couldn’t guess if we were here all day.’

  ‘Oh?’ He’d done it now. Jo could never resist a challenge, especially when she was told she couldn’t do something. Besides, she’d written a feature piece on unusual occupations only last year. He didn’t stand a chance. ‘You’re on.’

  ‘Okay, what are the stakes?’