Please Don't Leave Me Here

by Tania Chandler

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your book?’

  ‘Told you I was distracted.’ He laughs and drinks. ‘I’ve decided to give up on literary fiction and try to write something that sells. A crime thriller.’

  ‘God. That’d be hard.’

  ‘Not really. It’s very formulaic. But the police aren’t helping much with my research. Told me to watch Law and Order, or make it up like everybody else does.’

  ‘How did you get to be such a great writer?’ She picks at the edges of a beer coaster.

  ‘I’m not a great writer.’

  ‘Did you do a course?’

  He tells her about his journalism degree at uni. He didn’t like it, so he did copywriting and editing, and wrote restaurant reviews while he was working on his first novel. Then he got into teaching.

  She leans closer to him, resting her chin on her hand. ‘You’re so clever.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I’ve just worked hard. Nothing to stop you from doing something similar. You write very well.’

  She scoffs.

  ‘Why don’t you do a writing course?’

  ‘I am. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘There’s only a couple more classes to go. And I meant a degree or diploma.’

  ‘Me?’ She laughs. ‘I didn’t even finish high school.’

  ‘How come?’

  She takes a big drink. ‘I told you about my mother?’

  He nods.

  ‘She decided she wanted to move to the country at the start of the year. I didn’t want to go with her, so I stayed in the city. A job and somewhere to live were more important than finishing V.C.E.’

  ‘This year?’

  She nods.

  ‘That would make you — eighteen or nineteen?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘No way!’ He leans back in his chair. ‘I thought you were a bit older.’

  Everybody does.

  He swishes the last of the beer around in his glass.

  ‘Does that mean you’re gonna run off on me this time?’ she says.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-eight.’

  ‘God, that’s old.’

  ‘Hey, watch it.’ He laughs, then says seriously, ‘If you studied at night, you could work during the day.’

  ‘But I work at night.’

  ‘You need to find another job. You’re better than that. Maybe give David Jones a chance.’

  She finishes her drink and looks at the plant growing up the fence, trying to remember the name of it. Matt leans towards her, and she mirrors his body language. He reaches for her hand and holds it gently. His knee brushes against hers under the table, and her leg is on fire. She has never wanted or needed anybody like this. Wanting is an ache through her body, damp stickiness on the tops of her thighs. Needing is something else all together: it fills every part of her — the places that have always been empty and hollow — with an unfamiliar substance, warm and viscous. So close. He’s going to kiss her. She closes her eyes.

  ‘Mummy! I can’t find my mummy!’

  She opens her eyes. A little boy of about five or six is standing beside their table, bawling.

  ‘It’s OK, mate.’ Matt lets go of Brigitte and takes the boy by the hand. ‘We’ll help you find your mummy. Probably over there.’ He points to a group of what looks like a few families celebrating a birthday or something. Some children are playing around them. Matt leads the boy back to his group, where his mother picks him up and wipes away his tears.

  When Matt goes in to order more beers, the boy runs back over to their table with a little girl in a pink fairy dress. Brigitte tries to ignore them; she doesn’t know how to talk to kids.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’ the boy says.

  ‘No. I don’t know.’ She weaves her fingers together on the table. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘He’s nice.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re back again?’ Matt places the beers on the table. ‘And I see you’ve brought a friend with you. What are your names?’

  The children giggle at him.

  ‘Is that your girlfriend?’ the boy says.

  ‘She’s pretty.’ The fairy girl does a ballerina twirl.

  ‘Her name is Brigitte. And yes, she is very pretty.’ He looks at Brigitte. ‘And also very clever.’

  Go away, Brigitte smiles at them. She wants Matt’s attention all to herself, but he’s playing with the children. Finally, the mother comes over and tells the kids to stop bothering them, and drags them away.

  ‘You’re really good with kids, Matt,’ Brigitte says.

  The boy comes back, throws a tantrum when the mother tries to pick him up, and knocks Matt’s beer onto the ground.

  Brigitte stands to avoid being splashed. The mother yells, and the child screams louder. She apologises to Brigitte and Matt.

  ‘It’s OK. It was an accident. Now be careful of the broken glass.’ Matt calmly picks up the pieces, goes in to get a cloth, and cleans up the mess. Brigitte sculls her beer.

  When Matt asks if she’d like to order some dinner or have another drink, she grabs his hand and says, ‘Let’s go.’

  Matt lives around the corner above a tattoo shop at the grungy end of Brunswick Street, opposite the high-rise commission flats. Drunks sleep in doorways, and small-time drug dealers do deals in the public phone box across the road. Brigitte kisses Matt hard up against his front door as he fumbles in his pocket for the keys.

  Inside, his bike hangs from a hook on the bluestone wall. He tells her to be careful not to trip because the light on the stairs is out. They almost make it up the staircase. Almost, but not quite. They kiss, trip, tear at each other’s clothes, and fall together three-quarters of the way up. She kisses his mouth, his face, his neck. His skin tastes salty, and smells faintly of spice and citrus. She slides onto him, forgetting her knee pain, glad now for the stockings and suspenders instead of pantyhose.

  A sensation she’s never felt before ripples, then swells and surges through her body. She curls up her toes, tenses her muscles, and stifles a cry against his shoulder, but she can’t stop the tears streaming down her face. The girls at work talk about orgasm all the time, but she never imagined it would be so … she has no word for it. Until now, sex has always been somewhat of a chore, mechanical and unsatisfying. But her experience has been limited to a rough schoolboy, an egotistical pop star, and semi-impotent Eric on the rare occasions he’s managed to get it up — not for a long time, thank God.

  ‘Are you OK, Brig?’

  She shakes her head, unable to speak.

  ‘And I thought you were so innocent.’ He laughs and strokes her hair.

  She’s not sure if she can move, and doesn’t want to anyway — wants to stay like this forever. Her hand rests on his chest. Something’s wrong — his skin feels strange, bumpy. It’s too dark to see what it is. She quickly pulls her hand away, thinking he doesn’t notice.

  ‘Still want to come upstairs?’

  She finds her voice — it’s croaky. ‘As long as you’re not going to try to take advantage of me.’

  He laughs and kisses her. ‘You’ll have to help me up. I think my back’s broken.’

  ‘Knew you were too old.’

  Her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and she sees a flash of a tattoo on his back as he stands, but he pulls his T-shirt on before she can see his chest. Maybe it was her imagination.

  Upstairs he leads her past a bedroom, a bathroom with a full-size bath, a tiny kitchen, and up another short flight of stairs to a big living room.

  ‘Feel like a glass of wine?’

  ‘Sure.’ She screws up her nose a little.

&n
bsp; ‘Sorry I don’t have any champagne. Or raspberry.’

  She feels awkward, and can’t meet his eyes after what just happened on the stairs. He goes to get a bottle. She slips the funeral shoes off her aching feet, and looks around the room: a scratched antique-looking dining table, brown-leather couch with worn arms, TV, desk with a word processor, and two big windows overlooking the street. Hundreds of books fill the floor-to-ceiling brick-and-board shelves: classics, lots of new-looking books, books on writing and teaching, cookbooks. She pulls her suit jacket tighter around her shoulders and rubs her hands together — she should have brought her coat.

  He comes back with a bottle of red and two glasses. He pours their drinks, and crouches to put pages of balled-up newspaper and pieces of wood into the open fireplace. ‘Why don’t you choose some music, Brig?’ He strikes a match and lights the paper.

  His CD collection takes up a whole bookshelf — lots of stuff she doesn’t know, classical music, Australian music: The Triffids, Died Pretty, Hunters and Collectors, lots of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. No Prince. She pulls out Nevermind with the baby swimming towards the dollar bill on the cover. How did they take that photo of the baby in the pool?

  Matt looks up from the fire, and groans. ‘I didn’t realise I had that. You don’t like them, do you?’

  ‘I think so. But I only really listened when he died.’ She returns the CD to the shelf. ‘But now I finally know who you remind me of. It’s him. You look like him.’

  ‘I do not,’ he says indignantly, and stands up.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘He was pretty cute.’

  ‘When — before or after the gunshot to the head?’

  ‘Don’t be cruel.’

  ‘Aw, I’m so depressed, I’m so famous, making so much money. I think I’ll go kill myself.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘He had a baby, you know? How could anybody leave their baby?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugs. ‘Maybe he was hurting so much he didn’t have a choice.’

  Matt shakes his head; he can’t understand that. He hands her the new Nick Cave CD, and she puts it on while he rolls a joint.

  She walks across to open one of the two windows, leans on the sill, and watches a pair of police officers arrest a shirtless man in front of the commission flats. Matt comes over, stands against her back, and wraps his arms around her. Her body melts into his. Gone. So gone. They blow smoke down over the rooftops of Fitzroy. The noise from the street and the corner pub drifts in: bottles breaking, junkies arguing, dogs barking.

  When they finish smoking, she turns to face him, and he tangles his fingers in her hair. ‘God, you’re so beautiful.’

  What happened to very clever? She doesn’t complain as he kisses her and leads her to his bedroom. A navy curtain hangs in place of a door, above mustard-coloured carpet. The room is neat: a double bed, made; two wooden side tables; black, bell-shaped lamps; a pine chest of drawers; and a makeshift wardrobe fashioned from a curtain rod, holding his shirts on hangers.

  As she lies beside him, the noise from the street disappears, and she is aware only of his breathing. She rests on an elbow, kisses him, and then cautiously pushes up his T-shirt. He’s watching her face, with something in his eyes — is it trust?

  ‘Matt!’ She recoils, pulls her hand away, and is immediately sorry for her reaction. His chest is covered with small scars — complete versions of the half-moon under his eye.

  He starts to pull down his T-shirt, but she stops him. ‘What happened?’

  ‘My mother. When I was little.’

  ‘Your mother did this to you?’

  He nods. A siren screams over the sound of empty bottles being dumped into a bin.

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The look on your face.’

  ‘Shh.’ She places a finger against his lips, wanting to regain his trust. She kisses the scars, works her way down to his stomach, undoes his jeans. She sucks him until he reaches down for her and slides her up his body. They fuck again, slowly, gently, this time, while Nick Cave sings about letting love in.

  Sex was always something to try to avoid, until you ran out of excuses at the end of the night — cold, rough, awkward, often painful, sometimes tainted with fear. This is so different: warm, safe, smooth. Velvet. She wants to do everything to him, with him, and for it to never end. She closes her eyes, holds his hands, and moves her hips faster when she feels that wave rippling, surging through her body again.

  Afterwards, she lies back in his pillows. The sheets are pilled, but they smell clean. He massages semen into her thighs. She reaches down for his hand, pulls it to her mouth, and sucks his fingers: the taste of him and the taste of her, combined. He kisses her so he can taste it, too. Salt and earth.

  They smoke another joint, and she feels drowsy. Her eyes are heavy as she traces the outline of the serpent tattoo on his shoulder blade: its spiky back and tail.

  ‘The first time you came into my class I couldn’t stop looking at your long fingernails. Fantasising about them scratching my back.’ His voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.

  The serpent tattoo seems to breathe as he breathes; blue-and-green scales rise and fall with every inhalation and exhalation. He rolls over, wraps his arms around her, and slides inside her again, but they’re both too tired to move anymore. She falls asleep with her face against his chest.

  She dreams that Kurt Cobain is sleeping beside her. The puppy with the red dog collar rests its head on the pillow next to him. Tentatively, she pushes the dirty-blond hair off Kurt’s face, ready for the horror of his dead eyes. But it’s not a dream; she looks into the ocean of Matt’s eyes. She reaches for his hand, curls her fingers between his, and falls back to sleep.

  The beep-beep-beep of a reversing truck wakes her. Sunlight floods through the window. Maybe she’s still dreaming because the dream puppy’s here. She rubs her eyes.

  Matt places coffee on the bedside table. ‘Good morning.’

  She stretches and smiles. The dream puppy moves, and she jumps. Matt sits on the edge of the bed and lifts the fat ginger cat onto his lap.

  ‘I thought that was a dog.’

  ‘She’s as big as a dog. This is Di.’

  She laughs, ‘Your cat’s name is Di?’

  ‘What’s so funny about that?’

  ‘Who calls their cat Di? It’s hilarious.’ She reaches for her shirt on the floor, pulls it on, and props herself up against the pillows.

  ‘My grandmother named her. She had another one called Charles. But Charles died just after Gran did.’

  It’s not that funny, but she can’t stop laughing, and he hits her over the head with a pillow.

  She reaches for her coffee, still laughing, and almost chokes on it. It’s in a mug illustrated with three rows of butterflies, their names listed under the illustrations: Dark Green Fritillary, Monarch, Swallowtail, Marbled White, Adonis Blue …

  ‘Di’s going to be a mother soon. Gran said she was spayed. But last month I took her to the vet’s, and they said she was pregnant.’

  ‘Poor thing.’ Brigitte pats Di’s head. ‘I thought ginger cats could only be males.’

  ‘That’s a myth. The gene for ginger’s carried on the X chromosome. A male cat has only one X chromosome, so if he carries the gene he’ll be ginger. Females have two X chromosomes, so they need two copies of the ginger variant to be ginger, and that doesn’t happen very often.’

  What?

  Matt lowers Di gently to the floor, lies down next to Brigitte, and she rolls into his arms. She tells him to be careful of her sore knee.

  ‘Old football injury?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Brigitte can’t fin
d any bubble bath in Matt’s cupboard — only shaving foam, razors, paw paw ointment, a bandage, toothpaste. No prescription medication. No meds at all, not even Panadol. What is wrong with him?

  She places her clothes on the washing-machine lid, and pours some of his shower gel under the running bath water. The scent of cinnamon and bergamot fills the room. The scent of Matt. She calls his name.

  He’s reading the papers in the living room. ‘Yes?’ he calls back.

  ‘Where do you buy your shower gel?’

  ‘It’s not shower gel. It’s body wash, from a shop down the other end of the street, near Mario’s. It has no sulphates.’

  ‘That’s good. Sulphates dry your skin.’

  ‘I know. That’s what they told me at the shop.’

  ‘Hey Matt?’

  ‘Ye—es?’

  ‘Coming to join me?’

  She smiles and lies back in the water as she hears him push the papers aside.

  ***

  After four nights, she emerges from the cocoon of Matt’s place, her thighs and back aching. She feels like one of the butterflies on his coffee mug: metamorphosed, complete. Adonis Blue.

  She almost trips over a man sitting on the street.

  ‘Hey love, could ya help me out? I’ve lost me wallet and just need me tram fare home.’

  She smiles, and hands the scarlet-faced drunk a twenty-dollar note, and he thinks it’s Christmas.

  36

  Brigitte walks through the gardens instead of along the footpath so she can see the apartment from a safe distance. She holds her breath as she gets closer. Her heart pounds, her stomach churns, but there are no lights on. The windows are closed, and the blinds are shut. Eric’s still away. She lets out her breath. But she doesn’t go in. She goes straight to work.

  Hannah says Al wants to see her. She can still smell the cinnamon and bergamot of Matt on her skin and in her hair. She thinks of the stairs, and smiles — it’s a dumb, teenage-love smile, no doubt, but she can’t help it — as she swaggers towards Al’s office.

  ‘Where have you been, Pagan?’ Al takes his feet, clad in brown crocodile-skin shoes, off the desk. He hasn’t extinguished his cigarette properly, and the filter section smells toxic as it smoulders in the ashtray. A poster of the Penthouse Pet of the Year is pinned up above his desk — she used to work here. Al taps his knuckles on the desk, his fat gold rings glinting in the fluorescent light. ‘I’ve been calling you for days.’