I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  ‘Look at it on the trees.’

  He stood at his door with a towel around his plump waist, and a cold and hairy chest, and pointed. ‘That’s freezing rain is what that is.’

  ‘You’d better get inside,’ Marbie told him. ‘You’ll freeze.’

  He said, ‘Look at the ice on the trees. Have you ever seen a Sydney winter like this? No, you wouldn’t have. Nobody has. That’s your bus now, at the lights on the corner. I think they should cancel the buses. I bet they do any moment now.’

  ‘You’d better get inside,’ Marbie said again. ‘What happens if the freezing rain hits your chest? The hair will turn into curly icicles and you’ll have to snap them off.’

  ‘I’ll watch you onto the bus,’ he said. ‘You be careful on that ice, won’t you? It’ll be a skating rink out there. Deadly.’

  ‘Don’t wait for me,’ said Marbie. ‘You’d better get inside.’

  ‘Kiss me,’ he said.

  This was only fair.

  Freezing rain crackled on the edges of the twigs, and shark-toothed its way along the turrets and the grooves. The ice was like lace, or like Spanish moss, or like hand-blown glass on the trees.

  Marbie sat at the kitchen table later that day and waited for Vernon to get home. He was driving Listen to Tae Kwon Do. When he returned, she would tell him. She was surprised at how simple this was. She had thought it would be anguished indecision: should I tell him, should I not, should I tell him, should I not? But at once, as she stood in that bathtub pink shower, at once as she filled up the room with its steam, at once as she reached for the change for the bus, as she stepped from the bus to an iced-over puddle that soaked through her boots to her toes, at once! she had known.

  She sat at the kitchen table with a Twix chocolate bar and a glass of lemonade. These were for Vernon.

  After a moment, she opened the wrapper and ate the Twix bar. She had never eaten a whole one like that before, in big greedy bites, like a starving Charlie before the Chocolate Factory. Then she drank the glass of lemonade in one thirsty, greedy gulp. She had never done that before either. The fizziness, for a start, would have stopped her in the past. Now her mouth was chocolate sugar and her eyes were startled red. She was so frightened it made her want to giggle.

  She reached into the kitchen drawer and took out the corkscrew, and then she began to play with it, rotating the top so that its arms rose up and then down, up and then down, like a person crying out for help. Giving up, crying out, giving up, crying out, the long thin body in an anguish of perpetual twisting.

  There was the sound of a key in the door. She dropped the corkscrew with a clatter. But then there was a tumble of voices in the hallway: Listen was home.

  ‘What happened?’ Marbie called down the hallway. ‘What happened to Tae Kwon Do?’

  ‘Cancelled!’ cried Listen. She danced, excited, and Vernon seemed excited too.

  ‘Teacher left a note on the door,’ he explained, opening the fridge. ‘We should have thought of it. The traffic was hell. We were skidding all over the road. There’s ice out there, Marbs, you should go have a look. Still, we weren’t the only ones, were we, Listen? There were other kids hanging around there waiting. They hadn’t seen the note. They were all trying to hit on Listen. Hey, Twix. I love Twix.’ He was staring at the wrapper on the table.

  ‘I know you do.’ Marbie felt terrible guilt. ‘I’m sorry. I ate it all. I’ll get you another one tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Vernon, turning back from the table to the fridge.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Listen danced. ‘They were not hitting on me, Vernon.’

  ‘Well that kid with the giraffe tattoo on his wrist was,’ said Vernon, pulling up a kitchen chair. ‘He’s got it for you bad, kid.’ To Marbie, Vernon indicated how the giraffe’s neck ran from the boy’s wrist to his elbow.

  ‘That’s Carl Vandenberg. He’s going for his black belt. No way he likes me.’

  ‘What say we go out for dinner,’ Vernon said. ‘We can walk down to that new Indian restaurant, to celebrate.’

  ‘Celebrate what?’

  ‘The ice storm. And the Zing Family Secret Meeting being cancelled. Not that I don’t enjoy the meetings, Marbie, of course. It’s just a reason, see. And Tae Kwon Do being cancelled,’ suggested Vernon.

  Listen pirouetted. ‘But I like Tae Kwon Do.’

  Alone in the kitchen again, Marbie thought sadly about buying another Twix for Vernon, only it was too dark and icy outside. She had pretended she was too cold to join them at the restaurant, but now she was too frightened to do anything. She couldn’t even make herself a curried egg sandwich for dinner.

  ‘Come on to bed.’

  Vernon sat up against his pillow, and Marbie stood at the foot of the bed, staring at him.

  ‘You know how Arnold Schwarzenegger can kill a person by applying pressure to exactly the right part of their neck?’ she said eventually.

  ‘He’s just an actor, Marbie,’ Vernon said gently.

  ‘Well, but he plays characters like that sometimes, and the thing is, Vernon, you know how I sometimes give you a neck and shoulder massage?’

  ‘Not very often.’

  ‘But sometimes I do, and the thing is, what if I accidentally pressed that bit that kills you and accidentally killed you?’ Her voice broke.

  ‘Marbie, I would tell you if you started killing me and then you could stop. Okay? There’s nothing to cry about. Look out the window, why don’t you? I think it’s snowing. I think I can see something white, and if I’m right, we should wake Listen and go outside.’

  ‘It doesn’t snow in Sydney,’ said Marbie tragically, tears now streaming down her cheeks. ‘But I could accidentally kill you with one little touch of my finger. Or what if you developed a spontaneous allergy to seafood, and I gave you a stamp to put on an envelope, and you got a reaction from licking the stamp because they use tiny fragments of fish bones in the glue on the back of the stamp. They do, Vernon, I read that. Or anyway they used to. And that could happen, you could die from a postage stamp.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s snow.’ Vernon was leaning forward. ‘Open the curtain.’

  ‘It doesn’t snow in Sydney,’ Marbie said again, listlessly.

  Finally Vernon paid attention. ‘What’s up, Marbie? Tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll tell you,’ said Marbie, through her tears, and she did.

  5

  EXTRACTS FROM THE ZING

  GARDEN SHED (Burnt Fragments)

  6

  SNOW STORM

  The first day of the winter holidays, Cath woke up in a ruffled, empty bed and thought: of course, he has already left. She wondered if there would be a single red rose on his pillow as a poignant goodbye but there was not. Instead, looking around her bedroom, she noticed a strange, almost exquisite light.

  Then, as she watched, Warren Woodford appeared in the doorway. There was snow woven into his eyebrows.

  ‘I’ve been for a walk,’ he said, hesitating. ‘If you can believe it, there’s still snow on the ground outside.’

  He was carrying a cardboard tray of takeaway coffees. His face was grey and frightened.

  ‘It doesn’t mean a thing,’ Cath reassured him, sitting up against the bedhead. ‘We were drunk and it didn’t mean a thing.’

  Warren raised an eyebrow.

  Then he moved into the bedroom, closing the door with his boot. He put the coffee cups onto her bedside table and sat down on the side of the bed. He placed one cold hand on her forehead, as if he was checking her for fever, and his gaze was so troubled and so searching, she realised that it did mean a thing.

  The first day of the winter holidays, Fancy woke when Cassie jumped onto her bed.

  ‘There’s snow outside! THERE’S SNOW OUTSIDE! MUMMY! THE WORLD’S GONE WHITE!’

  Radcliffe muffled his voice straight into his pillow: ‘Cassie, just lie down, honey, and have a little sleep.’

  Cassie bounced on her father’s ankle and he yelped
.

  Fancy blinked in the strange, almost secretive light of the room. Could there really be snow outside? Her daughter’s shouts faded into a curious middle distance, and Fancy stretched her arms like a ballerina. Why did she feel so poignant and so graceful? Then she remembered: my husband is having an affair.

  She had not yet confronted her husband about his affair. He had arrived home early the night before, and found her sitting on their bedroom floor, the sock hidden safely in her pocket. He stage-whispered, ‘If you’re working on a book idea, I’ll leave you to it,’ and tiptoed out of the room.

  One day, soon, she would tell him that she knew. In the meantime she would consider this poignant, graceful mood. Actually, she recognised the mood. It was the same strange, detached feeling that she had experienced at all secret yet significant times of her life: I am not a virgin any longer; I am on the Atkins diet!; I think I may be having a child.

  ‘COME OUTSIDE AND PLAY IN THE SNOW, MUMMY!’ Cassie’s shouts began to penetrate. ‘MUMMY, CAN I GO OVER TO LUCINDA’S PLACE AND THROW SNOW AT HER AND SHE COULD THROW SNOW AT ME?!’

  ‘Well,’ began Fancy, slowly, and gracefully, but then the telephone rang.

  The first day of the winter holidays, Marbie woke to a strange, almost haunting light which clouded her vision. For a moment she lay flat on her back, trying to see.

  A buzzing sound gave her a flurry of hope: it was all a dream! I never had sex with the aeronautical engineer! I never told Vernon about it! Vernon and Listen are out in the kitchen making banana milkshakes! But then she realised it was the sound of a leaf-blower somewhere outside.

  Slowly, she wandered the apartment, gazing at the empty spaces: the doorknob where Listen’s coat belonged; the shower rack where Vernon’s shampoo should be standing. How thoroughly they had packed in the middle of the night!

  She opened the front door and gasped at the strange little patch of white on the porch. It must be a message from Vernon. But what did it mean? She crouched down and touched it: it was icy cold. Had he hacked at the ice in the freezer, scraped it into a bucket, then tipped it out on the front porch? Meaning what? That her heart was as cold as an ice-patch? That he would return when the ice had melted?

  Then she looked up and around the neighbourhood, and, for the first time, saw that the white patches were everywhere. The white had dabbed at fence posts, letterboxes, tree branches. It sat on car roofs and bonnets, spread itself across front lawns, and tipped over the edges of the gutters. Across the street, two little girls were aiming at the white with a leaf-blower.

  Panicked, Marbie backed through the door into her hallway and reached for the phone. Her fingers shook as she dialled her sister’s number.

  ‘Can you meet me at Mum’s place,’ she whispered, ‘right away?’

  In Grandma Zing’s kitchen, Marbie hyperventilated, her mother baked a carrot cake, and Fancy sipped wisdom from her coffee cup.

  ‘He will return,’ was Fancy’s wisdom. ‘He won’t be long.’

  ‘I suppose he will.’ Grandma Zing measured a teaspoon of dried ginger. ‘But Marbie, darling, what were you thinking?’

  ‘That’s the thing.’ Marbie sat back up, wide-eyed. ‘I don’t think I was thinking.’

  ‘Someone as special as Vernon –’

  ‘Stop it, Mum,’ interrupted Fancy. ‘Vernon will come back eventually, Marbie.’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ murmured Marbie, turning to her sister. ‘You didn’t see his eyes. He was so calm. He listened to what I said, and then he got out of bed, and took out his suitcase and packed. He folded his clothes like they were going on display in the window of a shop. And then he slept on the couch, and in the morning when I got up, he and Listen were gone. And the snow was here.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Grandma Zing comforted, ‘the carrot cake won’t be much longer now. I’m about to put it in the oven.’ She glanced over to confirm that the oven was preheating. ‘We’ll leave your dad in the TV room for the moment. He loves that game show of his, doesn’t he? And he’s spent all morning in the shed.’

  ‘Look,’ said Fancy, firmly. ‘It was just once, wasn’t it, Marbie?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Marbie. ‘Just the once.’

  ‘And you don’t plan to see him again, do you? This aeronautical engineer of yours?’

  ‘No,’ insisted Marbie. ‘Never again.’

  ‘Well now!’ It was settled. ‘Vernon will come back.’

  ‘No, he won’t.’ Marbie shook her head, with tears blurring her eyes. ‘No, he won’t.’ Then she dried her eyes, looked thoughtful for a moment, and added: ‘I admire his resolve.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Fancy, ‘it’s still here.’

  They were standing at the front door staring at the snow which was just like icing on a wedding cake. It stared back at them, a little defiant, as if it knew it shouldn’t be there at all.

  ‘Honestly,’ said Grandma Zing, ‘I think you should both stay put now that you’re here. I think it was dangerous of you to drive over unless there was an emergency.’

  Then she looked at her two daughters and added, politely, ‘Of course, I understand that this is an emergency, Marbie.’

  ‘If you drive slowly it’s okay, I found,’ said Fancy. ‘Although I was skidding all over the road. Really, everywhere.’

  ‘It’s safe,’ declared Marbie, ‘because no-one else is driving.’

  ‘Yes, well, they’re saying all over the news that you should stay in your own homes, and only come out to get necessary supplies such as torches and blankets and so on,’ Grandma Zing confirmed.

  They all stood quietly on the porch for a moment, considering this, while up and down the street children and adults shrieked and played in the snow. Snowmen grew, snow fights flourished, and one or two people wandered around their gardens in their skis.

  ‘I might stay here for a while,’ conceded Marbie, eventually.

  ‘Well, I just arranged to meet Radcliffe for lunch,’ Fancy declared.

  ‘I’m going to go and lie down,’ said Marbie.

  ‘What are we going to do with that girl?’ said Grandma Zing in the driveway, at the window of Fancy’s car.

  ‘Look at that!’ said Fancy, surprised. ‘The windscreen’s completely frozen! The wipers aren’t making a difference. I suppose people in cold countries have some kind of a scraping device for situations like this.’

  ‘Let me see if I can get it with my fingernails,’ offered Grandma Zing. ‘Ouch, turn off the wipers will you, darling? Fance, who on earth is this aeronautical engineer? And Vernon will forgive her, won’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Fancy. ‘Vernon’s so nice and sensible, so – then again, men can be funny about affairs.’

  Her mother gave a sharp breath of laughter, and said, ‘Still. At least we don’t need to worry about Vernon and the Secret.’

  Fancy was playing with the vents in the dashboard, but at this she said, ‘I completely forgot about the Secret! It must be because you’re right. Vernon’s not that type.’

  ‘It was going along so nicely,’ sighed Grandma Zing, ‘what with Project 78 getting under way. Oh, and Fancy, I suppose I shouldn’t bring this up now, but you know, it happened again. Just last night.’

  ‘Again!’ exclaimed Fancy. ‘It’s blurry?’

  ‘No, it’s just slipped. I don’t suppose you and Marbie would be interested in another Intrusion for some Maintenance just now?’

  ‘Not in the middle of a snow storm,’ said Fancy firmly. ‘We’ll wait until it melts.’

  Fancy drove away from her parents’ place, skidding on the snow and listening to the radio. It was a State of Emergency, the radio said, the roads and public transport were in chaos. Also, some areas had lost power, and there were concerns about homeless people freezing to death. Still, things were in hand because Sydneysiders were battlers. ‘If there’s one word to describe a Sydneysider,’ the Premier was saying in a recorded message, ‘it’s the word battler. I didn’t say bull-headed there. We’re not to
o proud to turn to our countrymen for advice – Aussie battlers in colder climes than ours. Tasmanians. Canberrians. We’re not too proud to turn to other countries for advice either. Norway. Finland. Trust me. We have this in hand.’

  ‘There you have it, people,’ said the announcer, coming back on air, ‘I think the message is clear! And let me say this one more time: have as much fun as you can in your own back gardens, but stay off the roads!’

  ‘Oh blah,’ said Fancy, stabbing at the radio buttons. Four centimetres of snow! What must immigrants be thinking about this hullabaloo! She blushed to think of the Canadian next door – how he must hoot as he sliced his kiwifruit.

  Fancy kept her own secret, Radcliffe’s affair, buttoned up tight in her cardigan. She hadn’t told anybody yet, but it was affecting the way that she moved. Her elbows, for example, as her hands gripped and skidded with the steering wheel, stuck out at a curious angle.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s happened?’

  Radcliffe was excited as the waiter led them to the table. The restaurant’s lunchtime crowd was spilling out the door. It was the only place open in the neighbourhood and people wanted to bustle into public spaces, and chat with strangers about snow. ‘Magic, isn’t it?’ a man said to Radcliffe, shaking his head at the picture windows. But Radcliffe only half nodded: he wanted to know Fancy’s news.

  ‘Something has happened,’ Fancy had said, mysteriously, when she phoned from her parents’ place to suggest that they meet for lunch.

  ‘Well!’ said Fancy, then paused as the waiter took her coat for her, and paused as he drew out the chair for her, and paused as he swooped out the serviette for her.

  ‘Well!’ she repeated. Then the waiter jutted the menu at her nose, and she had to pause again.

  ‘Can I start you off with a drink?’