Please Don't Leave Me Here

by Tania Chandler

  Brigitte brushes her fingers through it.

  Kerry helps her wrap up Kitty, and drives her home.

  Brigitte walks through the quiet house, carrying a cold, heavier Kitty wrapped in the blanket. Aidan has cleaned up the cake, but left the spilt wine on the table — it’s the same colour as the big round stain on the road where Kitty used up his ninth life. She frowns at the cigarette butts in a saucer on the kitchen bench.

  He’s in the backyard wearing a black trench coat. The shovel leans against the plastic cubby house. Brigitte kneels, and places Kitty in the hole he’s dug in the garden.

  Aidan waits a couple of minutes before clearing his throat. He reaches out a hand to help her, but she pulls herself up on the cubby house. He dumps a shovel-full of dirt onto Kitty’s grave and smoothes it over with the blade. Brigitte shivers and pulls her jacket tighter around her shoulders. She looks up, and can only see one star in the sky.

  ‘Will you get another kitten for the kids? Or wait a while?’ Aidan says, leaning on the shovel.

  ‘Don’t know.’ She wipes the tears from her cheeks. ‘Maybe a female wouldn’t wander as much. We could make it an inside cat. I’d like another ginger one.’

  ‘Thought ginger cats could only be males.’ His breath is a swirl of steam in the air.

  ‘That’s an old wives’ tale. Females have two X chromosomes, so they need two copies of the ginger variant, instead of one like males. Less common, but you can still get them.’

  ‘Not just a pretty face.’ Aidan stands the shovel against the fence. ‘You’ve got cake in your hair,’ he says, with the hint of a smirk on one side of his lips. He brushes it off and tries to kiss her, but she turns her face away and tells him to please go.

  He goes to the bungalow.

  Inside the house, she locks the back door and has to lean against it as her knees buckle.

  No, no, no. She shakes her head. What have I done? She covers her mouth with her hands. She’ll never be able to look Sam in the eyes again.

  She makes it to the bathroom, turns on the taps, kneels, and vomits red wine and purple cake in the shower. When the last of her stomach contents gurgles down the plug hole, she washes her body thoroughly — inside and out. She brushes her teeth, shampoos her hair, and scrubs frantically with the bristle brush every centimetre of skin until it is red and sore.

  Through the window she can see torchlight in the bungalow. Is he doing the same? Washing away every trace of evidence?

  She catches her naked, dripping reflection in the mirror as she dries herself. We all have our reasons, our circumstances: Joan’s voice in her head.

  She winds Kitty’s window shut and locks it.

  In the bedroom, little sobs rise from her abdomen and shake her whole body as she pulls on her least-sexy night shirt (the black one with the sleepy cow) and a pair of old track pants. She balls herself into a tight knot of pain at the edge of the bed, and waits for sleep, which takes a long time. Sirens scream up and down Hoddle Street, trains blast and rattle through the station, cars slow for the speed hump in front of the house — some don’t decelerate and hit it at 60. A cat meows like a crying baby, and rain starts dripping.

  The serpent tattoo on his back breathes as he breathes; blue-and-green scales rise and fall with every inhalation and exhalation. She reaches out to touch it, but it slithers away as he rolls over and curls into a foetal position. Soft light, a silver mist on his dirty-blond hair. Sam? It’s not Sam. But somebody familiar. It’s … Kurt Cobain.

  A dream within a dream. She wakes and dozes, and he’s gone. A curtain flaps across an open window. Shoes? Where are her shoes? Not on the floor. Not under the bed. She hurtles barefoot — staggers, falls, twists her knee — down a long, airless corridor. She has to find him.

  He’s standing at the top of the stairs, wearing the brown sweater. She climbs towards him. In one hand he holds a red dog collar, and in the other, something metal — dark, heavy, shaped like an iron.

  Then she’s running — clutching a yellow bunny rug — down the stairs, out the door. She slips in a pool of blood on the road. A siren howls. Somebody screams — until she is wrenched from sleep by the image of the button on the floor under the table.

  6

  ‘Kitty’s not dead, Mummy,’ Phoebe says.

  ‘Yes, sweetie, he is.’ Brigitte presses down the dirt around Kitty’s plant with her fingers. It’s a little bush the twins chose at the nursery for its orange flowers — the same colour as Kitty — and heart-shaped leaves that mean they loved him.

  ‘No, him sleeping.’

  ‘Well, dead is kind of like sleeping,’ Kerry says. ‘But you don’t wake up.’

  ‘Him sleeping on my bed last night,’ Phoebe says.

  ‘No. He’s sleeping under the ground now.’ Brigitte stands and straightens her back, feeling a twist of pain.

  ‘Yes, him was on my bed last night.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy.’

  ‘Stop it, Phoebe.’

  ‘You stop it, Mummy.’ Phoebe runs inside and slams the door behind her.

  ‘Can we get a puppy now?’ Finn asks.

  Brigitte and Kerry sit on the old love seat on the back porch. It was a wedding gift from Sam’s parents. Now the blue paint on the arms is faded, and the floral cushions are torn; it’s ready to go out in the next hard-rubbish collection.

  Kerry opens the cheese and crackers and the bottle of wine she brought for the wake. She pours the wine, and they raise their glasses to Kitty.

  ‘How was the cake?’ Kerry asks.

  ‘Good. Thanks.’ Brigitte nods while her stomach churns.

  ‘What’s with all the furniture against the fence?’

  ‘It’s out of the bungalow. Somebody’s renting it.’

  ‘Who?’ Kerry squints at the sun.

  ‘Dunno. Just some guy Sam knows — a cop.’ Brigitte takes a cracker, and slices some cheese.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  Brigitte shrugs, pretending to concentrate on her cracker and cheese.

  ‘Young?’ Kerry balances her glass between her knees while she rolls a joint.

  ‘No. About my age.’

  ‘That’s young. Cute?’

  ‘Haven’t taken that much notice.’ She takes a big sip of wine, and feels like vomiting again.

  ‘You have! You’re blushing, Brigitte.’

  ‘Am not. It’s just the wine.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Kerry laughs, blows smoke through her nose, and passes the joint to Brigitte.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘You know that’s why Tony and I broke up?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The boarder.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  Kerry nods, mock-sadly, and pours more wine.

  7

  A pistol-grey sky threatens rain most of the way along the Eastern Freeway. It holds off until they turn onto the Gippsland Highway. Then it pours. Sam turns the wipers on full. The station wagon’s windows fog up, and it’s hard to see the road. The twins eat rice cakes, chatter, and fall asleep in their child restraints. Brigitte feigns sleep to avoid talking to Sam.

  The rain stops as they drive into Paynesville. They queue for the chain ferry at the water’s edge. It’s the only way to access Raymond Island, in the middle of a saltwater-lake system that feeds from Bass Strait. Moored fishing boats, cruisers — all different shapes and sizes — bob on the olive-green water. The ferry operator waves them on and collects the fare.

  The vehicle section is half-full with seven other cars on board. A local, with curly grey hair, wheels her tricycle on, with an I HEART THE R.I FERRY bumper sticker decorating the basket. Two more seniors shuffle into the pedestrian shelter, clutching string bags of groceries from the Payne
sville supermarket. A couple read a tourist brochure — koala sanctuary printed on the cover — while their child pushes his nose against the glass and makes faces at the twins.

  The hydraulic ramps at either end groan as they’re raised. Brigitte catches a whiff of diesel as the submerged chains engage and start to haul the ferry across the 150-metre strait. Sam checks his phone messages; something’s up, but he doesn’t say what. Finn and Phoebe unbuckle their seatbelts, and squeal and jump around in the back of the car. Sam yells at them to sit back down in their seats. The ferry wobbles as it juts and aligns with the concrete slip on the island.

  They drive past the park and community centre, and turn left into Sixth Avenue. A Blue-tongue Lizard slinks across the road. Sam beeps the horn and shouts at it to hurry up. Brigitte glares at him. ‘We’re not in a hurry.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He drums his fingers on the steering wheel while he waits for it to cross.

  ‘Remember the first time you and I came down here?’ It was their first dirty weekend. Not that it was that dirty — she hadn’t been out of hospital long, and was still fragile, almost a year after the accident. Sam doted on her then: cooked for her, brought her breakfast in bed, massaged her back and legs when she was in pain. She did really love Sam once. Still loves him, she reassures herself. Nothing has changed. She puts a hand on his thigh.

  He’s distracted.

  ‘And remember when the twins were little?’ She smiles. ‘They used to kick around on their mat on the porch.’ Finn rolled over for the first time, and Phoebe started crawling there.

  He’s still not listening as the tyres crunch to a stop on the gravel driveway beside the white fibro house. The last time he was here, Ryan painted green over the faded sky-blue window frames and doorframes. He missed a few patches.

  The twins bounce out of the car. Brigitte slides out slowly. It takes a while to straighten up, for the stiffness to leave her body after sitting for three-and-a-half hours. She inhales a deep breath of eucalyptus-scented air as she takes a bag from the back of the car. A mother koala cuddles her baby in the gum tree next to the house.

  Inside, the house smells of stale air, dust, fish, and mould. She opens all the windows and doors, Sam turns on the power at the main switch, and they start unpacking. There’s a shoebox on the breakfast bar. Brigitte lifts off the lid. It’s full of dusty shells. She picks one up and turns it over in her hand. Did the twins collect this? Or did she and Ryan when they were little? Or did somebody else?

  ‘What are you doing?’ Sam stands at the screen door, loaded with bags and soft toys. ‘How about helping?’

  She returns the shell, closes the lid, and walks across to open the door for him.

  The kids pull out the boxes of toys and pencils in the sunroom, and then abandon them for the little bikes with training wheels in the shed.

  Sam takes one of the adult bikes for a long ride around the island. Brigitte takes the twins for a short walk along the boardwalk, to the playground, and then for a ride on the ferry across to Paynesville and back.

  That night, the smells of wood fire and mosquito coils fill the air. Brigitte and Sam sleep in her Nana and Papa’s old bed in the middle bedroom. When Sam reaches out to touch her, she pretends to be asleep. The twins sleep together in the bottom bunk bed on the opposite side of the room — for a while anyway, before they climb in with their mum and dad.

  Brigitte lies awake. The pillow feels hot, and hair tickles her face. She kicks Sam — go into the twins’ bed, give me some room — but he doesn’t move.

  Pain curls its fingers around her lower back, spreads into her pelvis and down her legs, cramps her toes. She twists, and tries to shift the pressure to different nerves. Breathing away the pain — good air in through her nose, bad air out through her mouth, filling the pain zones with pure, healing white light — doesn’t help.

  Guilt competes with physical pain. It worms its way under her skin, stirs the juices in her stomach, and wraps darkness around her throat, making it hard to swallow. Something casts a moving shadow on the wall; it looks like the curtains, but there’s no breeze to stir them. She starts at the guttural, unearthly noise — not quite grunting, not quite screeching — of koalas mating. Maybe she should just tell Sam, and get it over with.

  ***

  On the second day the weather warms up, and they walk to their favourite swimming spot at the back of the island. Brigitte stares at her feet and concentrates on the crunchy, rhythmic sound her sneakers make on the dirt road.

  Brigitte and Sam sit on a beach towel in the shade of the gnarled tea-tree, watching Finn and Phoebe roll in the sand and splash at the lake’s edge. A big black swan leaves its bevy and waddles out of the water towards the twins. They scream, giggle, bump into each other, and fall over. Brigitte laughs, and Sam shoos away the swan. The sky reflects blue on the water, and sunlit-silver wavelets shimmer in the distance. Brigitte fears the water, hates to swim, never goes in.

  ‘Sleep better down here?’ Sam says.

  ‘Yes,’ she lies, and looks at a passing boat. ‘A bit.’

  He scoops up a handful of sand and lets it sift through his fingers.

  Sam takes the twins fishing at dusk. Brigitte stays at the house; she tries to watch TV, or read a book, but she can’t concentrate, can’t sit still. She walks through the rooms. Her grandparents and great grandparents look down at her from old portrait photographs on the walls.

  ‘What am I going to do, Papa?’ she asks the black-and-white shot of a young, handsome Papa fishing on the lake.

  He smiles at her from his old tin boat. He never caught the bastard in the blue Camry; he won’t catch you either. She runs her hands through her hair and looks away — straight into the big, gilt-framed mirror above the couch. She averts her eyes quickly. When they were kids, Ryan used to tell her that if they looked into that mirror they would see ghosts. She tells herself to stop being silly. There’s no such thing as ghosts. In the kitchen, the clock ticks loudly on the wall above the sink. She takes a bottle of white wine from the fridge and pours herself a glass.

  Footsteps pound across the porch, and the screen door slams. Fishing didn’t last long. Sam’s just behind the twins; he wipes his feet on the doormat. The house comes alive again.

  ‘We catched a big crab, Mummy,’ Finn says.

  ‘Yes, but it jumped off the line and back into the water, didn’t it, Finny?’ Sam picks up the twins’ abandoned fishing rods from the floor and stands them in the rack at the corner of the kitchen.

  ‘Seaweed, too,’ Phoebe says.

  ‘Yes, lots of seaweed.’

  ‘And did Daddy catch a fish?’ Brigitte asks.

  ‘No,’ the twins say in unison.

  ‘It was a bit noisy. Fish like quiet.’ Sam gets a beer from the fridge and puts it in his I HEART THE R.I FERRY stubby holder. The twins giggle and run off to play with the toys in the sunroom.

  ‘Would you like a little glass of wine?’ Sam takes the bottle from the fridge door. ‘God, Brig, you’ve drunk half the bottle!’

  ‘I’m on holiday.’ She holds out her glass for a refill. ‘So what are we going to have for dinner now? I was planning to cook the fish you caught.’

  Sam laughs.

  ‘Yuck, you smell fishy.’ His whiskers scratch her face as he kisses her. ‘And you need to shave.’ She pushes him away.

  ‘Fishermen don’t shave.’ He rubs the stubble on his chin.

  ‘Go have a shower.’

  ‘Coming with me?’

  ‘Maybe.’ She doesn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘Whack on a DVD for them, and come on.’

  She doesn’t go, pretending that the twins need her for something.

  ‘Somebody lost in this house,’ Phoebe says, in between screaming about having her hair washed in the bath.

  ‘Pardon?’ Brigitte co
mbs the conditioner through Phoebe’s hair.

  ‘Somebody else here. Lost.’

  ‘No. It’s only us here.’

  ‘Didn’t come with us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Somebody lost in this house. Forever. A kid. A baby.’

  Brigitte shivers. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Risotto’s nearly ready,’ Sam calls from the kitchen.

  ‘Phoebe, I love you, but sometimes you really creep me out.’

  ‘What that means, Mummy?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Brigitte rinses the conditioner, and Phoebe starts screaming again.

  Brigitte lies awake in bed again, with Aidan gnawing at her thoughts like a rat at electrical cords. A mosquito buzzes around her ears. Old dreams are trapped here; family secrets push down on her and mingle with her own dreams and secrets. Maybe there are ghosts. Somebody lost in this house. Forever. Sleep. Don’t sleep — heart palpitations drag her up just as she falls into the dark dream-place. She sucks in her breath, but can’t get enough air into her lungs.

  She gets up and walks through the house, pulse racing. Tick, tick, tick: the clock above the sink in the kitchen. She drinks a glass of water and goes outside. A lot of stars twinkle in the sky. She lights a mosquito coil with shaking hands, and flops in the old black-leather couch on the porch. Breathe. Breathe. When her pulse finally relaxes, she closes her eyes.

  It’s cold in her dream, so she goes into the kitchen.

  ‘Told you it was a good race horse, knew it’d win the Melbourne Cup.’ Nana is sitting with Kurt Cobain at the table.

  ‘I thought it was Dune — like the David Lynch film, with Sting.’ Kurt holds a shell in his hand; he looks at it, and tosses it into a bowl on the table.

  ‘No, Kurt, it’s pronounced Ju-ane. It’s French.’

  Nana holds a tiny baby swaddled in a yellow bunny rug. To hold that baby would be better than anything in the world. Kurt unties the white ribbon on a little blue box and, from the box, produces the red dog collar and a key attached to a glittery, silver letter-J key ring. ‘Put these somewhere safe. Don’t lose them.’ He hands them to Brigitte.