Julia realises she is holding her breath.
He fiddles, bangs and knocks against the precious intestines of the espresso machine. Julia feels like she’s watching her child undergo surgery.
‘There,’ Bryant says, straightening. ‘That should do it.’
He places the jug under the nozzle. He opens the valve. A deep muffled boom comes from inside the machine, followed by a spout of gushing water and a wall of steam. Bryant stands back as sparks begin to whine and fizz around him. He chuckles, like the death of her baby is no big deal. ‘It was old,’ he says.
Oscar jumps up and down on his toes, laughing. ‘Make it explode again, Daddy.’
She listens to them laugh. All of them laughing, even Barbara. They laugh at her coffee machine exploding, or maybe they’re laughing at the expression on Julia’s face, which surely won’t conceal her horror, her grief, her world crumbling, and then she can’t take it anymore. She gets to her feet, and runs from the house, pretending for a moment that she has no idea where she is going.
Tom
I yell out for Mother, far over the paddocks. The cows lift their heads, watching me with nothing more than idle curiosity. I yell her name and the chickens pause in their scratching. Along the bush tracks and around the dam I call, but only the odd magpie answers. No sign of her in the milking shed or feed shed or surrounding buildings.
Is she really gone this time? Is it possible? I have no memory of burying her, except in dreams, but then I’ve had those dreams so many times before and they have never come true. With panic crawling up onto my shoulders, I run to the tool shed and grab a couple of spades.
In the back paddock I am possessed with superhuman strength. I lift up and throw aside tangled pieces of farm equipment like they weigh nothing, and rust soon covers my hands and arms like blood.
I start to dig.
Julia
Julia knows exactly where she’s going. She walks with determination. She marches, in fact. Straight there. To the dairy. She replays the coffee machine exploding, the way the water became a fountain. She remembers their laughter. And these images and sounds push her righteously in the back.
Drawing her forward is Tom’s calling. The sound of him fills the sky with full blueness. It fortifies the air she breathes so she doesn’t falter. It shakes the ground with powerful vibrations that run up her legs and make her tremble.
I’m coming, she thinks, or perhaps she says the words aloud. She’s not sure. It doesn’t matter. Tom will hear her either way. She knows now that they are connected. She feels it like a powerful knot in her abdomen. It rings in her ears. She doesn’t understand it, any more than she understands how electricity makes her oven hot. But she accepts it.
They are connected, just like Tom told her.
And soon — as soon as she gets up this hill — she will join with him, fully, with the entire length of her body, with the openness of her soul. Without guilt or restraint.
Then she will let Tom fill her up with everything good and pure and strong. And she will be transformed into the woman she always wanted to be.
Tom
The earth beneath the peppercorn tree lies in desperate furrows, assaulted by my diggings. A broken plough stands toppled on one side, leaning against an old laundry wringer. I am drenched in sweat, cold and feverish and out of breath. Rust and dirt cover my jeans and arms, pool at my feet.
Where is she then, if not here? What have I done with her? Have I buried her elsewhere?
I scan the horizon frantically.
I love her and hate her in equal measure. I want her back. I want her gone. I don’t know what I want.
I want my old dad to return. I want him restored. I want this terrible pain to stop. I want to be normal.
I want Julia to love me.
I want peace.
A mass of emotion builds inside me. For a moment I resist the pressure, but soon it becomes unbearable. I hear myself groaning. I slide down against the tree and let my head drop into my hands.
Only hell awaits a man like me.
A man who kills his own mother.
There must be something seriously wrong inside my head, or with my soul. A blight bestowed at birth. Too much even for a healer like Bryant to fix. The thought, the realisation, comes like a swipe to the side of the skull, and my knees buckle and I drop to the ground.
The world is better off without me.
I look down at my hands; the spade, the hole. Should I?
Should I join Simon?
I imagine myself lying down the bottom of that hole, staring up at the sky one last time; exchanging my pitiful existence, my pain and regrets, for the expansive wisdom that gave breath to the world.
My brother doesn’t answer, but I know what he’s thinking — Don’t.
Don’t quit, Tom. Don’t give in. Don’t surrender.
And because Simon has seen both sides of the world and knows what he’s talking about, I get to my feet again and wipe my eyes. Perhaps there is more purpose to this life than I know. All right then, I won’t collapse into pity. I’ll accept the consequences of my actions. I lean the spade against the tree. But now what?
‘Give me a sign,’ I ask him.
I sense my brother smiling down at me.
And then, from the other side of the paddock, I see her.
Julia
Exactly the way she remembers him in her dream. His body stripped down to the waist, jeans and boots covered in dirt, his muscled arms and chest golden brown, slick with sweat. A spade in one hand.
Even a hole in the earth waiting between them. What’s he doing?
She smiles.
He doesn’t smile back. Just stares at her, and his eyes carry a fever; something wild. She half expects him to jump into the hole. She takes a step closer. He’s out of breath, frowning a little.
‘Tom?’
He swallows. ‘What are you doing here?’ He pulls something from his back pocket and holds it out in front of her, angrily, like an accusation. It’s the letter she sent. He shakes it. The pink paper is creased and smeared with dirt. ‘You said you can’t see me anymore.’
‘I know. That was before …’ Before what? Before she lost her senses? Before she realised her life sucked? She is conscious of a time limit, time ticking away to be lost forever, wasted on words she can’t find, on excuses that aren’t worth the air they occupy. She can sense the momentum being lost and the courage it took to get herself here diminishing.
So she walks quickly towards him, closing the singing space between them, and takes the letter from his hand. She tears it into two pieces. ‘I was a coward,’ she says. She lets the pieces fall into the hole.
‘And now I’m not.’
He drops the spade and pulls her close to him. He holds her so tightly, it hurts. They stand with the length of their bodies pressed close, hanging onto each other, faces blurring, breath merging. Somehow they end up on the ground, beside the hole, with Tom’s fingers winding though her hair, with her ankles crossed over the back of his thighs, with their mouths sealed and hearts beating, and the sound of them almost screeching, and the world tilting off axis, and Tom hard against her, and she lets herself surrender to him this time.
He lifts her skirt up with one hand, without taking his mouth away from hers, and hooks his thumb into the lace of her bikini bottoms, slides them down. She helps him undo the button and zip on his jeans. He moves higher, out of his jeans. Now, she thinks, now.
‘Wait,’ he says.
‘What’s the matter?’ The words come out with a manic edge. She feels deprived of oxygen, without him breathing into her. She tries to pull him down to her. His back is hard and unyielding.
‘I have to find Mother first.’
‘What?’
‘She’s gone. I have to find her.’
‘But.’
‘Julia, please. I need your help.’
He gets to his feet, and pulls her up too. With some difficulty, he manages to get his jeans zipped
again.
She rearranges her clothes, shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She wants to cry, she can feel the pressure building up behind her eyes. This is not how she imagined things to be. They are supposed to be making love. She looks at the ground so Tom won’t notice, but he doesn’t notice; he’s searching for something around the hole and the tree.
‘Here.’ He comes back to her and holds out a spade. ‘Use this one,’ he says. ‘The handle is smoother.’
She takes it, uncomprehendingly.
‘I’ve dug here and here,’ he says, pointing. ‘But if you want to try on the other side, I thought we could work our way out from the tree. She has to be here somewhere.’
Julia hesitates a moment. ‘You want me to dig?’
‘Yes.’
She presses her foot against the top of the spade and jumps on it a little, trying to force the blade into the ground. It’s hard. Her sandals slip. She falls back.
‘You can do it,’ Tom says, gently. ‘Try there, in the shade. The earth is softer.’
So she walks over to a place where the weeds aren’t too thick and scrapes at the ground. What in God’s name is she doing? She giggles. Then immediately pulls her face into a serious mask. Tom is watching. She scrapes at the ground again. This is insanity, isn’t it? But she knows this game well enough; she played it as a child, with her mother — where actions and words and feelings have no meaning or logic. And the secret is to go along with it; don’t question, don’t analyse, just go along with it. Cosi è la vita. She giggles again.
‘You okay?’ Tom smiles at her. He presses on his own spade and it slides easily into the earth.
‘I’m fine.’ She stabs at the ground and feels the shock of resistance jar the bones of her forearms. She tries again. Every hit resists her and makes little impact on the tough earth, but she doesn’t give up. Hitting the earth. Jumping on the blade. Over and again.
And after a while she finds a way in. She starts to create her own little hole, next to Tom. They work together. She finds some satisfaction in the job. Grows serious. She is drenched in sweat, which runs in rivulets beneath her shirt. Her head is pounding, but she can’t stop. She knows what her mother must’ve felt now; this mania, this inner demon drive. But instead of being afraid, she feels released. Instead of trying to hold herself together, she exhales.
Nothing in the world matters, except this tiny point of time, this here and now, so she surrenders her being to it and falls, full, into the purity of nothingness.
She laughs suddenly, not trying to cover it up, and Tom looks at her and laughs too: both of them dirty, digging, laughing.
And that is how Tom’s mother, and Barbara, finds them.
Julia
After Julia’s mother had been placed in the ground, and the small group of mourners had cleared the leftover sandwiches and cake from the dining room table, and whispered their condolences, and Julia, her sister, and father were sitting in the lounge room, Julia had been filled with an unusual sense of hope.
She was certain her father would gather his two girls close to his chest and sob with them at the unfairness of life, the grief of losing their precious Moira. She had expected their communal tears to be the adhesive that would put them back together again.
But, without a word, Julia’s father had made himself a cup of tea, taken it into his bedroom and closed the door.
Julia and her sister had waited on the couch.
‘Will he come out soon do you think?’ Julia asked.
‘You know that he doesn’t love us,’ Yvonne said.
‘He loves me,’ Julia said.
‘No, he loved her.’ Since the accident, Yvonne had been substituting their mother’s name for her — or she. ‘You’re confusing love with looking after. And he only looks after us because he has to.’
Julia sat on the couch, staring at her mother’s photo, the one where she looked happy and normal. Julia studied all of the pictures on the lounge room wall that day, and realised that there were none of them all together. There were photos of her parents getting married. And both children had been snapped as babies, toddlers, and school girls. There was Mum alone again, close up, looking as beautiful and mysterious as a movie star. Dad laughing at something out of view of the camera.
But none of the whole family. That had to be significant, didn’t it? An early symptom. Perhaps their mother had a rare bonding disease, something that weakened each link in the family and made them separate from the other, like blood cells unable to coagulate. Will I pass it on? she had wondered.
‘Perhaps we should surprise him and clean the house?’ Julia imagined cleaning everything from top to bottom, removing the dust, grime and misery their mother had left behind. Making every surface sparkle. She imagined her father’s smile and gratitude when he came out of his room.
‘No, he will like it best if we make ourselves invisible.’ Yvonne had smoothed down the pleats on her best black skirt. She was, after all, the expert on these matters.
So Julia promised, ‘I’ll be quiet as a mouse.’
Yvonne nodded her approval and then went into her own room and closed the door.
And Julia sat on the couch, alone, her feet practising silent ballet steps against the floor, and she decided that when she got old enough to create her own family, she would love them enough to weather anything, and they would be closer to each other than breathing.
But in the end you probably create what is familiar, Julia realises, despite resolves and best intentions. You mimic the family you came from; absorbing your parents’ beliefs, copying their dissatisfying jobs, money issues and neurotic relationships. Like a medicine life forces you to swallow. Over and over again.
Until you finally wake up to yourself — and change.
Tom
Mother and the fat lady stand in the middle of the paddock, shielding their eyes from the setting sun or perhaps from a scene they feel is incomprehensible.
‘What in God’s name are you two doing?’ Mother stares at us in disbelief. Her mouth is actually hanging open.
‘I thought you were dead.’ I smile and point to the ground. ‘In there.’ I’m remarkably happy to see her. In fact, I could almost hug her.
I’m not a murderer.
Mother raises her eyebrows. The fat lady frowns. Their faces have as much warmth as the stone gargoyles guarding the bank in Shawtown’s main street. The fat woman takes a mobile phone from her handbag and starts texting. As she listens to Mother talking, she shakes her head and tuts and sighs.
Eventually, the fat lady puts her phone back in her handbag. ‘Come on, love; it’s time for you to come home.’
‘No, she’s staying here.’ I lay down my spade and pick up Julia’s hand.
‘Look at them,’ Mother says. ‘Just look at them. Good for nothing. Tom has neglected the farm since he met her.’ She aims her index finger at Julia’s head.
‘Well, my poor grandchildren have suffered dreadfully since these two started their fling, or whatever it is. The eldest child even ran away from home the other day.’
Mother sucks at her teeth in disgust. ‘I heard about that.’
‘Not that I blame Julia. Her mother was not quite right — killed herself — terrible affair. There was bound to be repercussions. And she was only nineteen when Bryant met her. Too young. I warned him, of course, but they never listen, do they?’
Julia squeezes my hand, tight. I can feel the bones in my hand being pressed together. But I don’t mind; I let Julia grip me as hard as she needs to. She leans into me and says, ‘I can’t stand the sound of them.’
I nod. ‘They’re in a different key to us.’
‘Is that why it hurts?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘My teachers never mentioned it. I think some people just lose the music and find it hard to be in harmony with anyone else after that.’
It’s not the only reason though. I don’t think Julia can see it, but the energy from the older women is like tarnish
ed silver blades, projected from their heads, thrown like old knives. Their judgements and accusations pierce the sensitive pink around Julia’s heart. I’m sure they have no idea what their words and thoughts are doing. If they could see, perhaps they’d be horrified at their callousness. Perhaps not. Is it jealousy, I wonder? And of what? That Julia is beautiful, and kind, and innocent? Do older women lament the loss of their own innocence? Who knows? But I put my arm protectively around her shoulder and lay a barrier of my energy like a shield across Julia’s heart.
Mother frowns; she must sense it. ‘Let her go, Tom.’
‘No. I’m going to protect her and love her.’ I hold my spine tall and stick out my chest. ‘You need to accept the fact that I’m a man now.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake you stupid boy,’ Mother says. ‘You’ve looked like a man since you were fifteen, but you’re not. Do you hear me? You’ll never be a man. And no woman in her right mind would ever have you.’
The fat lady leans towards Mother and says under her breath, ‘I’m not entirely sure my daughter-in-law is in her right mind.’
‘Say what you like,’ Julia shouts at them. ‘I can’t hear you anyway.’
But you don’t have to hear the words to be hurt by the energy, do you?
And then Bryant’s car is bumping up the driveway, and he yells at his children to stay in the car. He strides across the paddock, gives me a look I can’t decipher; kind of like, You’ve betrayed me, Tom. He continues to stare at my face, even as he holds out his hand for Julia to come.
Julia puts down her spade. She blinks, as if waking from a dream, and wipes her face, which has turned bright red from the sun.
Then she walks towards him, away from me and, although I want to call out to her, I’m struck mute by the song we are all singing in this paddock, the five of us, for once in harmony; a song of lament and regret, and I realise that we are all of us well and truly wounded.
And unlikely to heal.
Julia
How do you tell a husband that it’s over?
Milk Fever Page 26