Names for Nothingness

by Georgia Blain

  Liam had taken Caitlin from her, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears.

  She had looked at him and she had been so grateful.

  She remembered; the three of them waiting in the deep indigo of the early evening until their first lift had finally appeared, a battered old ute that would take them as far as Brisbane, so long as they didn’t mind sitting in the back.

  She and Caitlin had sat on either side of him, the hiss of the tyres on the wet road drowned out by the tarpaulin flapping in the wind, and she had thought that this was all she wanted. Nothing else had mattered. He was, in that moment, perfection to her.

  Even though so much had changed, Sharn still respected Liam’s love for Caitlin. But on the night that Caitlin told her that she was leaving school and that she no longer wanted to live with them, she had dismissed his years of parenting. You are not even her father. She remembered her words, and the shame of them pulsed, steady and dark, beneath her fury.

  She had walked around the block for over an hour, seemingly unable to leave this grid of four streets, her thoughts tracing and retracing themselves as she rounded each corner for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth time.

  He was in bed when she eventually came home, lying there with the light on. His eyes were closed and a book was by his side, spine bent back on the page he had been reading. He was, she presumed, asleep, and although she had returned with every intention of apologising, her anger resurfaced. How could he just get into bed, seemingly unperturbed by both Caitlin’s departure and her words?

  ‘Liam.’ She said his name, harshly and loudly, and he woke, startled by the sound.

  They looked at each other and she could not think what to say.

  ‘Come to bed,’ and he lay back down again, pulling the sheet up over his body.

  ‘It really doesn’t bother you?’ There was disbelief in her tone.

  His voice was muffled by the bedding. ‘For christsakes, just calm down,’ he told her. ‘She says she’s happy and we have to trust her.’

  Looking at him, Sharn knew that she was an idiot to have expected any other response, but nevertheless she could feel the anger building. ‘You don’t even seem to care that she’s gone and that neither of us knows where. Or maybe you do know and you don’t see fit to share that with me.’ There was no stopping her now that she had started, and she wished that she could turn herself off, but she seemed unable to find the right switch. ‘I don’t understand you. You are so fucking passive about everything. There could be bombs exploding all around us and you would just lie there, asleep. For godsakes, Liam –’

  He didn’t look at her as he picked up his pillow and left the room to sleep in Caitlin’s bed.

  Suddenly alone, she stared at the blanket kicked right back, the book now on the floor. She picked it up and read the title: Emptiness and peace towards a spiritual prosperity: a new world order. She glanced at the words written on the inside cover, the name ‘Fraser’, a number underneath, and then threw it to the other side of the room.

  When morning came, Sharn did not get up. She stayed in bed and cried, intermittently wondering if she had temporarily lost her grip on sanity. She was so ashamed of what she had said to Liam that she could not apologise. She wanted him to come to her and say that he was sorry, so that she did not feel so bad about herself. She was also ashamed about Caitlin, and wished she had acted with more presence of mind. But she hadn’t, and after an hour of crying, she got up and looked at herself, drained and exhausted, in the mirror.

  In Caitlin’s room, Liam still slept, not waking until she came and stood right next to the bed. He lifted up the blanket and moved over to make space for her. She sat, right on the edge, and looked at the wall.

  ‘Come on, Sharn’ and he pulled her in close. ‘It really isn’t such a big deal. It could be far worse’

  For a moment she wanted to believe him. She wanted to just sink into his warmth and give in, to let herself believe that nothing really mattered; to no longer fight.

  ‘I’m sorry’ she eventually said.

  She felt his arm stiffen slightly, but other than that he did not respond.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did.’

  They both lay there, silent, until eventually she turned to look at him.

  ‘If she wants to do this, we can’t stop her.’ He reached across and stroked her hair gently.

  Wanting to trust the decision he had clearly made, Sharn said nothing, but as she looked around Caitlin’s room, she could feel the agitation resurfacing. It was not so simple. They knew nothing about where she had gone and the life she had chosen. Sharn moved out of Liam’s hold and sat up.

  ‘I have to get to work.’

  He went back to their bed while she had a shower. As she dressed herself, she had to repress the irritation she felt at seeing him still lying there. She did not want another fight. Standing by his side, she noticed the book on the floor where she had thrown it, and she picked it up absent-mindedly.

  ‘Do you know who Fraser is?’ she asked, and he stirred.

  He was about to shake his head in response, and then, rubbing at his eyes, he remembered. ‘Think he was a friend of Caitlin’s, the one who introduced her.’ He watched Sharn put the book into her bag. ‘But I don’t know for sure.’

  The first time Sharn rang the number written inside, there was no answer. There was not even a machine on which she could leave a message.

  The second time, a female answered, and she asked if she could speak to Fraser.

  ‘He’s not here at the moment.’

  ‘I’m actually trying to reach my daughter, Caitlin.’

  ‘She’s not here either.’

  Sharn hung up, realising as she did so that she hadn’t even asked if Caitlin was staying there. She rang back again. The person who answered was male.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sharn said. ‘I called just a moment ago, wanting to speak to Caitlin.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Caitlin.’

  There was no response.

  ‘Is she there?’ Sharn asked.

  She heard him rest the receiver on something hard, and then call out a name that wasn’t clear.

  ‘Sorry, no one here who can help. Call back.’

  ‘Who should I ask for?’

  He had already hung up.

  She listened to the beeping for a moment and then put the phone down.

  Later that evening, she tried again. Not once, but eight times. Liam was not home, and she sat in the flat, the book on the table in front of her, dialling the number over and over again. The first few times it rang out, and after that it was engaged.

  She went to the back steps. As she looked over the garden, she wondered at her own agitation. She had always trusted Caitlin, she had to remind herself of that. Caitlin had always been a sensible child. She lit a cigarette. It had been raining and the mosquitoes were out, whining about her head. She slapped at them, missing each time, eventually knocking over her glass of wine and sending it flying down the stairs, shards of glass shattering as they hit the cement, until the last piece finally splintered into fragments at the bottom.

  She should have picked it up. She knew that. But it was dark by then, and she would only have cut herself. For a moment, she had a vision of Caitlin as a child, navigating these stairs, the glass slicing into her bare feet as she made her way down to the garden, one small hand clutching the rail so that she did not tumble, head first, down to the paving at the bottom, and Sharn felt her stomach lurch at the image.

  Inside, it was dark. She had left all the lights off. She picked up the phone almost as though it were an automatic response, pressing the sequence of digits without thinking.

  It was engaged again, and as she swore loudly, Liam opened the door.

  ‘Who were you calling?’ he asked, and she told him she had been calling the number inside the book, the one Fraser had written down.

  ‘All day,’ she said, ‘I’ve been calling it all fucking day.’


  He reached for her. ‘You have to calm down,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in getting this worked up.’

  She just looked at him, her eyes wide and tense, her entire being fearful and ready to fight. Her hand hung stiffly by her side and he slipped his fingers into the palm, holding her tightly in a gesture of comfort.

  ‘What is it that is getting to you so much?’ He put his hands on her waist.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She wanted to give him an answer. She wished she had one to give him, but she didn’t. She hung her head now. ‘I am just so scared that if I let her go, I am doing the wrong thing, the irresponsible thing.’ She looked at the ground. ‘I keep failing her.’

  She bit her lip and wished she didn’t feel so alone.

  WHEN SHARN FIRST STARTED LOOKING FOR WORK, she usually impressed employers enough for them to hire her. She had not completed school, she had no previous experience in the position, but she was young, undeniably attractive, and she had a direct, sharp intelligence that appealed to everyone who interviewed her.

  Because they had no money, they had stayed with Margot after leaving Sassafrass, and because Sharn was in love with Liam, she found everything to do with his life wonderful, even – in those early days – his mother. She would sit at the breakfast table with the papers spread out in front of her, and Margot would sit opposite wrapped in a slightly soiled silk kimono, encouraging her as she circled job ad after job ad.

  ‘You’d be wonderful, my darling,’ Margot would say, dipping her toast into her tea, ‘absolutely wonderful.’

  And Sharn thought she was one of the most amazingly eccentric people she had ever met.

  Out in the garden, Liam would play with Caitlin, showing her the first bulbs coming through the grass, talking to her ceaselessly while she followed him around, silently. This was his home, this huge, falling-down house with its overgrown lawns, this was the place where he had grown up, and it felt like another country compared to anything she had ever known.

  After about three weeks, Sharn began to feel that they would never leave.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ she asked Liam one night, anxiously.

  The two of them were in bed, Caitlin asleep between them. This was the only time that they had to themselves. During the day it seemed that Margot was always there, talking, and Sharn had begun to feel a slight panic whenever she saw her, a sense that she was going to be invaded, to be sucked dry by Margot’s endless chatter.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Liam looked up from the book he was reading, shifting his body to make more room for Caitlin.

  ‘Work. Money. So that we can get our own place.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ and he grinned at her as though her question was just foolish banter, barely worthy of a response.

  She was aware of a knot in her stomach, a tension in the tightness of her hands, but she said nothing.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ and he squeezed her shoulders. ‘We’ll be fine’ And then moments later, because she was still just looking at him, he told her that he had thought he might make films. ‘I don’t really know,’ he said. ‘But why not?’

  Making films was never something that Sharn had seen as a job. It was little more than Liam playing with his camera, or an occupation that other people did, people so different from them that it had never entered her mind as a viable possibility. But she wanted to believe, so she told him that it sounded like a good idea, hoping that the doubt she felt was not betrayed by her voice.

  When she tried to talk to Margot, when she said she was sorry they had stayed so long, she had expected to find work sooner, Margot just told her not to worry.

  ‘It’s lovely having you all, darling. Lovely.’

  ‘Liam’s going to make films,’ she added, not sure why she was attempting to confide in her, but she really didn’t know who else she could speak to.

  Margot was reading the paper. She put it down in a pool of coffee she had spilt only moments earlier. ‘He’s always liked playing around with cameras,’ she said, and she looked out through the kitchen window. ‘He used to say he wanted to be an artist.’

  Sharn’s anxiety only increased. She found a job as a receptionist with an accountant, and she enrolled herself in night classes. But still Liam did not seem interested in looking for full-time work or in moving out of Margot’s. She came home in the evenings, exhausted. Liam would be reading, Caitlin would be lying on the couch drawing, and Margot would be sitting close to the television, watching a documentary, with at least three books open and balanced on her knees. Wanting only to be alone, Sharn would go straight to their room and wait for Liam to join her. When he eventually came in, carrying Caitlin in his arms, Sharn would be too tired to speak, and in the mornings she would be gone before he was even awake.

  ‘We need to move,’ she told him.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I want our own space. I want time with you, without her,’ and she jabbed her finger in the direction of the lounge room, where Margot was still watching television.

  A week later, she told him again, and again two days later.

  Finally, she just packed her bag and Caitlin’s and said they were leaving.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, and as he tried to hold her in his arms, to soothe her, she only pulled away. ‘I mean, look,’ and he pointed at the accommodation ads she had circled, ‘how on earth would we afford any of these?’

  It was the first time he had seen her angry, really angry, and he was stunned by the fury she unleashed upon him, her words searing as she told him that she was fed up, that he was lazy, immature, ‘a fucking loser’, and that she wished she had never been foolish enough to trust him.

  ‘I should have just left on my own,’ she said. ‘I might as well have,’ and she slammed the door behind her.

  Three nights later she called him from the rented house she had taken. Caitlin was asleep on the single mattress she had purchased for them both to share, and the room looked depressingly similar to the shack she had lived in at Sassafrass.

  She missed him. It was like she had a hole inside her, a great hole in which the wind whistled and twisted and turned, and although she berated him, it was reconciliation that she wanted.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ he told her. ‘I will be there,’ he promised, ‘in half an hour. It will be different, it really will. We’ll have some money, it won’t all be up to you, it isn’t all up to you.’

  When he turned up, she could only cry. He stood at the doorstep, one bag on the ground in front of him, and told her how much he loved her. He pulled her close and held her until she was calm. He had got a freelance job as an assistant editor. It was only a few weeks’ work but it was a start. There would be others, he said. Now he had this break, there would be no stopping him.

  But when the job came to an end, it was weeks before he began to look again, and when he finally made a few calls, there was nothing.

  It was the nature of freelance work, he told her, you have to learn to ride through the down times. Have faith, he said. It’s okay, he promised.

  She loved him. Every night he held her close and told her he adored her. But slowly she found herself hardening. It was not enough.

  Years later when they saw a relationship counsellor together, a woman suggested to Sharn by Lou, she tried to explain her loss of trust, the slow erosion of her respect for him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how good a person you are,’ she said, staring at the wall, ‘to me and to Caitlin. I feel like you’ve let me down so often I just can’t afford to believe in you anymore.’

  It was Liam who had asked her why she stayed, then, not the counsellor, and Sharn was taken aback by the directness of his question. Why had she stayed? She didn’t know and she wanted to know, because she had stayed, for years and years, and that night as she watched him sitting in the bath, a flannel draped over his forehead, his fingers tapping out the tune of a favourite song, she thought about how much she had loved him. She had loved him more than she
had ever loved anyone, more than she would ever love anyone, and she could not bring herself to acknowledge that something so strong and so good could not last. What hope for anything, then? If she did not stay, what hope for anything? And she had got into the bath with him, and held him tight, crying as she did so; ‘I don’t want to go to the counsellor anymore,’ she said, and he soothed her gently and told her that it was okay, that they didn’t have to go, they didn’t have to do anything, and that it would be all right, he promised, it would be all right.

  Now, he was asking her to trust him again. But this time it had nothing to do with work or money. It was Caitlin. He wanted her to let it go, to have faith in the fact that Caitlin was sensible. He loved Caitlin, she knew that. He cared about her welfare. She knew that too. But she also knew that if there was a choice between inaction and action, he would always opt for the former.

  The next day at work, she talked to Lou. They ate lunch in the courtyard at the back of the legal centre, the traffic loud enough to make conversation difficult.

  ‘Do you know their name?’ Lou asked, and Sharn said that she didn’t, but she did know the name of the leader or master or ‘whatever the fuck he’s called’, and she pulled out the readings that Caitlin had left behind.

  Lou grinned, flicking through the book and then closing it again.

  ‘It’s a load of crap.’ Sharn threw her apple core at a rubbish bin a few feet away; it missed and the core sprayed into tiny pieces as it hit the cement. She turned towards Lou, the expression on her face suddenly hopeful, as though she had just realised that there might be an answer and that answer lay with Lou and Lou alone. ‘What would you do?’ she asked. ‘You know, if this happened to you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lou said. ‘I don’t know that there is a lot that can be done. But I’d probably react like you.’

  ‘So I’m not being an idiot?’

  ‘Does he say that’s what you are?’

  ‘No,’ and Sharn looked down at the ground. ‘He’s just Liam, he just never seems to see any cause for alarm.’