Fine

by Michelle Wright

  After my mum has spent her time with him, she goes off to finalise details with the doctor and I’m alone with Dad. I close the curtain around us and pull the padded vinyl chair up close to the head of the bed. His face is stiller than any face I’ve ever seen. I watch it for maybe a minute, waiting for a change in colour, a twitch, any final sign of recognition that I am here with him. I wonder how long it takes after the last heartbeat for the final neuron to fire. Are there still sounds echoing in the vacant space once all the thoughts are done? If I whisper in his ear now, what will he hear? Will my words still have meaning once he’s no longer there to understand them?

  I watch my father’s body lying silent just after the machines are turned off; the family crowding round as if there might be one last word to hear. And then the muted conversation, the whispered platitudes, filling the room like bathroom steam, thin in the air, but clouding over mirrors, hiding the naked truth. Like the words they use, that even my mother uses—passed away, passed on, departed. I walk away from the ward and phone my boyfriend back in Paris. I don’t cry, just tell him of my frustration. How, although I know I should be comforting my mother, all I really want to do is to confront her, to stop her from using those cowardly words; too soft and comforting with their whispered [p], like a bedtime kiss on the forehead. I want to confront her with a word that sounds as hard as it needs to be—dead—bookended by a pair of [d]—a final sound, the tip of the tongue lifting up against the back of the teeth, cutting off the airflow. The English example our phonetics teacher had given the class was dad.

  When we arrive home from the hospital, I claim jetlag and lock myself in my old bedroom at the end of the hall. I lie down on the bed and look up at the fluorescent stars on the ceiling, left over from my childhood. I wait for the sorrow to come, for the love I feel for my father to ferment into grief. The sky outside darkens and the stars begin to glow as my eyes lose focus and start to ache. I hear doors open and close as people leave, and the sound of dishes being done is all that is left. When the house finally falls silent, I allow my eyes to close and my mind to quieten down. For the briefest moment I think the footsteps approaching down the hall belong to my father, coming to say goodbye. I hold my breath as the door opens slightly and silently, and the yellow hall light flows in over the ceiling and extinguishes the stars. I close my eyes but through my eyelashes I can see my mother in her dressing-gown with a plate of warmed-up food. As I watch her back away and close the door behind her, the stars reappear and the tears finally come, hot and continuous, rolling one by one into my ears and overflowing into my hair.

  Later, when I wake, the hall light is off and the stars have run out of glow. My tears have evaporated and I can feel the tracks of salt across my temples. I get up and walk quietly down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. My mother is asleep on her side of the bed, her breathing soft and regular. I slide under the blanket next to her. She stirs and draws herself close into my back and lays her arm across my side. I shiver with the intimacy of our positions.

  Lying in the quiet warmth, I repeat a phrase silently in my head. My dad is dead. My dad is dead. I decide I need to hear the words pronounced, to accept the fact of them and give them voice. Already the words my father spoke are losing their shape. I can’t be sure his voice is truly stored away. If I heard it, I would know it, but to re-create its sounds from memory is beyond what I can do.

  Lying there in my mother’s grasp, I take a breath, but the weight of her arm keeps it shallow. My dad is dead, I try to say, but the air leaks limply from my mouth. I open my lips and move my tongue, but not a word comes out. I think of trying others—words with different sounds, other movements of the tongue and lips—sad, lost, loved, gone, forever. But they too refuse to form. The words I spoke about my father and those I need to speak are lodged in my lungs, bound up within the tarry residue of grief. I take no pleasure in their meaning, their feeling on my tongue, the shape of them on my lips. In the silence of my mother’s room, all these words are nothing more than sounds.

  West of Stile, South of Clay

  All there is when she gets off the bus is a thick black arrow pointing left. Izzy hesitates for just a moment, then shuffles behind the others, one by one along the lit-up concrete walkway and through the whine of the sliding doors. The headlights of the bus sweep around across the front of the building and disappear back in the direction of the highway.

  In the four corners of the arrivals hall are small clusters of people and they turn their fluorescent faces towards her in silence as she enters and gazes around. She can’t tell if these people have been here for hours or days, or why they’re waiting here at all.

  Izzy sits down opposite an older woman with orange hair and a broad straw hat. She looks like she’s been to a garden party or a day at the races. Her hat is piled high with flowers, but her face is like a grave. She reminds Izzy of her mother with her miserable eyes and the way she has of sighing for no apparent reason.

  From the other side of the room a young man with pale hair walks slowly across and sits down right up close to Izzy, even though there’s no one else on the bench. His pants sit low on his hips and his arms are thin in the sleeves of his faded black t-shirt. His blond eyelashes and brows glow white against his sunburnt face. It makes him look a little scared.

  ‘Hey, girlie,’ he says, even though he looks no older than she is. ‘What you doing turning up here so late?’

  His voice is friendly but his face shows no emotion. Izzy looks him up and down to show him she’s not fearful.

  ‘Waiting for a bus,’ she says.

  ‘Where you heading?’ asks the young man.

  ‘I dunno,’ says Izzy. ‘Home.’

  ‘What you been doing in the big smoke?’ he asks, and Izzy thinks of how she’s never heard anyone use that expression in real life.

  ‘Came out to get some acting jobs,’ she says, knowing very well she ought to have lied.

  ‘And how did that work out for you, girlie?’ he asks, the corners of his top lip pulling back.

  Izzy holds his gaze and doesn’t answer. She pictures the five-dollar note in her empty wallet and shifts her arm away from his.

  ‘Not so good, huh?’ He smiles, and with his thin, dry lips she can’t tell if he’s being creepy or concerned. He tells her the night bus out of here doesn’t run anymore and invites her back to a place nearby where there’s a party on. There are lots of people there, he says, and plenty of booze and cakes. She can sleep there and take the bus the next morning at ten forty-five. She feels like she should say, ‘No thanks,’ but she’s too hungry to make the effort.

  He carries her travel bag for her and they walk along the empty streets in silence till he stops at a beige brick house. There are people standing in the doorway talking and music playing loud inside. As Izzy walks in, her head starts to spin from all the smoke and stagnant heat. She bumps up hard against the wall and her knees shake like they’re going to come undone. The young man grabs her arm and holds her up around her waist.

  ‘Hey, girlie,’ he says. ‘What you doing to me here?’

  ‘Can you get me something to eat?’ Izzy asks. He laughs and leads her into the front room. He sits her down by an open window, next to a girl whose name he says is Kip, and then he disappears along a hall to the left.

  When she turns back to look at the girl, she’s slumped down in the chair and is looking up at Izzy’s face. Her hair is red as blood. It’s cut short across her forehead and falls straight along her jawline. She’s wearing a canary yellow skirt and jacket. The jacket has square shoulders and black piping, and looks like it’s from the eighties. The neon sign of the burger shop next door glows blue on her face. The whole primary-coloured image gives her the look of a Mondrian painting.

  The young man comes back and holds out his palm with a slice of chocolate cake on it. Izzy tries to pick up the cake with her fingers, but it’s heavy and dry and starts to fall apart. She leans forward and he scoops the whole thing from his palm int
o her mouth. She tries to swallow, but the dry crumbs make her choke and she sprays half of it back out onto her lap. The young man laughs and walks away and Kip sits up straight and slaps Izzy’s back.

  ‘Don’t go dying on us, sweetie!’ she says, her stiff red hair brushing against Izzy’s neck. She wipes the crumbs from Izzy’s dress and tells her she should go have something to drink. Izzy stands up and walks towards the centre of the room, where there’s a folding table with a huge glass punchbowl filled with lime green liquid. Big round grapes and shards of crushed ice float on the surface, along with a children’s novelty mug in the shape of a frog, for ladling out the drink. Izzy fills a glass and sips at it standing by the bowl. The lime flavouring scratches at the back of her throat and stings the sides of her tongue.

  In the furthest corner of the room there’s a man sitting on the floor with a set of bongo drums between his thighs. He wears a cap like Castro’s and has a bandage taped over his right ear. She wonders whether there’s an ear underneath, or just a bloody hole, and the thought of it makes her nauseous. She dips the frog mug back in and refills her glass. She finishes it in one long swill, the crushed ice inching its way down. The alcohol rises like vapour, warm behind her eyes, and the muscles of her cheeks and jaw start to slacken.

  Izzy walks back over and sits down by the window. Kip has disappeared and, sitting on her own, she suddenly feels the flow of cooler air seeping in through the window and over her shoulders. The young man comes back into the room and sits down beside her. He sets two glasses of punch on the floor and turns his face slowly towards Izzy’s. He beckons her close and she leans over to him. He raises his hand and pushes her hair back behind her shoulder.

  ‘You look sad,’ he says. ‘Do you want me to make you happy?’

  Though she finds his words ridiculous, when she rests her cheek on his shoulder, she feels the urge to cry on it. He brings his cheek close to hers and his sun-chafed lips touch her ear.

  ‘I want to have sex with you,’ he whispers. ‘I’ll pay you fifty bucks.’

  Izzy lifts her face until it’s touching his and the heat from his cheek makes her want to sigh. He sits back up straight and looks, not into her eyes, but at the cleavage in the v of the sundress she’d worn for the hot bus trip east. His eyes remain lowered and he doesn’t speak, so she studies his face; the pale stubble along his jawline, a fine white scar above his left eyebrow, the peeling skin on the tops of his ears. He reminds Izzy of her little brother and that makes her feel like he’d be safe. Without looking up at her face, he reaches down to pick up the glasses from the floor and hands her one. They both drink without speaking, then he takes her by the wrist and pulls her to her feet. Izzy stands, unsteady from the heat and alcohol, and moves her fingers till they slide tight into his. His palm is rough like a labourer’s and his grip is so firm she wants to tell him to let go. He starts walking, moving ahead, pulling her behind him like a child. He leads her down a corridor lined with framed movie posters to a bathroom at the end. He turns on the light and closes the door behind. Izzy pulls her hand from his and links her arms around his waist. She feels his hipbones through his pants and wonders if he’s even younger than he looks. He holds her shoulders tight and kisses her, his lips still cold and lime-flavoured from the punch. He turns away and pulls three towels from hooks behind the door. He lays them on the tiled floor and tells her to get undressed. Izzy turns her back to him and hangs her clothes on the empty hooks. He takes his off and throws them into the bathtub. His body in the weak bathroom light is yellow, like a hospital patient. Izzy lies down on the towels. They are damp and thin and smell like wet dogs. He lies down next to her and his rough hands are squirming and rubbing all over her like he’s got no idea what he’s doing.

  After they’ve finished, Izzy puts her clothes back on and asks him for the money. He looks up at her. ‘I was kidding.’ He laughs. ‘Where the hell would I get fifty bucks?’ She looks down at him and wishes she had the guts to kick him in the head. Her nostrils are full of the smell of the towels, and she turns her back on him and starts to cry. The young man stands up and places his palm flat in the small of her back. He reaches over and pulls a length of toilet paper from the roll and pushes it into Izzy’s hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘You know, if you need somewhere to stay, my parents would be happy to put you up for a while. My mum would feed you heaps. She’d spoil you rotten.’ Izzy doesn’t turn around. She blows her nose into the toilet paper.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she says, opens the door and pulls it shut behind her.

  She heads out towards the garden at the back of the house, where there’s a small rectangular patch of grass surrounded by a path of concrete slabs. Down by the rear fence, Kip is sitting cross-legged on a table, wearing just the yellow jacket and her underwear now. In the shadows Izzy sees an older man in a shiny suit, seated on a folding chair. Kip is drinking from a bottle and talking between swigs, but Izzy can’t make out what she’s saying. She doesn’t go any closer, just waits next to the back door away from the light of the hallway and watches them from there. Kip turns towards the house and calls out to Izzy, ‘Hey, sweetie. Come have a drink.’ Izzy shakes her head and Kip shrugs and puts the bottle down on the table. The man stands up, takes his suit jacket off and hangs it on the back of the chair. Kip unfolds her legs. The man moves in closer to her and she hooks her legs around his waist. She leans back and knocks the bottle off the table, and it shatters as it hits the concrete slab. From a back window someone screams, then laughs hysterically, and Izzy goes back into the house.

  The pale-haired young man isn’t in the front room and the space seems emptier than it was before. The man with the Castro cap is playing his bongo drums now, but very softly. Izzy lies down on a beanbag next to him and closes her eyes. The drumming is regular like a heartbeat and soothing like the rain.

  * * *

  When Izzy wakes the sky is just starting to get light. She walks quietly past sleeping bodies and goes to the bathroom to pee. The towels are back on the hooks, but the boy’s black t-shirt is still in the bathtub. She fishes it out and stuffs it in her handbag. She walks back down the hallway and finds the kitchen. There are half-eaten cakes out on the counter, so she wraps a couple of slices in a serviette and puts them in an empty plastic bag. She returns to the front room and looks around for her things. Kip is lying on the carpet, her yellow jacket over her legs and her skirt folded under her head. She’s looking up at Izzy, smiling.

  ‘Hey, sweetie,’ she whispers. ‘You off?’

  Izzy shrugs. ‘Have to keep going,’ she says.

  ‘Might just join you,’ says Kip, sitting up and pulling her fingers through the tangles in her hair.

  ‘I like your dress,’ she says. ‘You wanna trade?’

  Izzy nods and Kip passes her the yellow jacket and skirt. She lifts the sundress up over her head and hands it to Kip. Izzy steps into the skirt and pulls it up. It’s loose around her waist and the jacket feels too heavy and hot. She puts it on anyway and they stand and look each other up and down. ‘Woohoo!’ says Kip and Izzy smiles. She looks down at her yellow clothes and it’s true it feels like it’s a new day, not just waking up from the night before.

  * * *

  They leave the house and walk back through the empty streets. The morning mist is cool in Izzy’s throat and she feels calmer than she’s been in many weeks. When they arrive at the bus depot, they follow the concrete walkway along the length of the building. Fixed along the wall, there are signs with thick black arrows pointing in all directions. A young Asian couple stands alone by the bus bay, outlined by the slanting sun. They are holding on to each other, arms locked around torsos as if they’re afraid they’ll be blown away by a hurricane, and yet there is not a breath of wind. A bus pulls in and hides them from view, and other people get off the bus and follow one of the arrows pointing right.

  Izzy and Kip leave the depot and start walking along the road. Izzy has an inclination that she should be head
ing east. She knows the town is west of Stile, south of Clay. The highway’s down below and she can see it stretching off towards the rising sun. If they could find an on ramp, she thinks, then maybe they could hitch a ride, or at least get going a mile or two on foot. They see a road that seems to lead to the highway, and they start to walk along it, but soon they stop in the shadow of a big red sign. They look up at the huge white letters, each of them three foot tall. WRONG WAY. GO BACK, it reads.

  They pause and Kip takes a pair of big black sunglasses out of her handbag. Izzy looks behind to where the sky is still a cool blue and the stars have not completely disappeared. She turns back towards the sign. Kip looks at her and then up at the sign.

  ‘Well, we’ll just see about that,’ she says. Izzy squints into the sun, fully up now over the horizon and warm on her cheeks and forehead. Kip turns to face her and, in the lenses of her sunglasses, Izzy sees her own face reflected twice, glowing white like the headlights of a car.

  Long Thin Strip

  They are pushed up north and east as far as they can go, into what is called the No Fire Zone, driven onto a long thin strip of land between the Nandikadal Lagoon and the sea. There they crowd under blue-and-white tents in the sun and wait for the end to arrive.

  When the shells start coming, from both land and water, Ajanthi and her husband dig a hole deep in the sand and shelter under broad palmyra leaves. Their bodies form a fleshy shield over their newborn baby girl as sand and blood sift down onto their backs.

  During a pause in the mayhem, they manage to board a truck that takes them, with many others, old and young, to a school building where they’re told they will be safe. They sleep that night on the classroom floor among left-behind notebooks and worn-down pencil stubs.

  As dawn breaks, the youngest children whine softly with thirst and hunger, and mothers smooth their hair and hum soft lullabies. Then, before they can cover their ears and duck down low, all is dust and deafness as a shell falls in front of the building, blowing in the cement walls and bringing down the roof. When the choking releases her throat and she opens her eyes to the haze, Ajanthi finds her daughter somehow in her arms, but her husband no longer by her side. She crawls through the rubble, her baby tight against her chest, until she finds him lying on his back. His face is calm as though in sleep, but his chest is bloody and his legs are crushed. She presses her forehead to his fingers and kisses his blood-wet palms. There isn’t time for the tears to start to come before a doctor, with blood dripping from the middle of his mouth, comes yelling and pulling and tells her and the others to get back into the truck and leave.