by Lily Malone
Next week now stretches before me, totally blank.
Friday night after Seb’s in bed, I pop the cork on the bottle of bubbles that Emmy brought with her last weekend, and we never got around to drinking. It’s the same bottle I put in Jack’s fridge two weeks, and one day ago. Which is kind of apt.
I drink most of it in front of another one-day cricket game.
I remember pointing the remote at the television when the game finished. Then everything went blank.
Chapter 25
I wake up way too early, with a splitting headache and a taste in my mouth like the inside of a coal miner’s sock. The first thought that occurs to me is that Seb has slept through the night. The next thought overrides everything else.
I’m going to be sick.
Groggy. Fuzzy. I get out of bed, groping along the wall for the bedroom door, but everything seems back to front. My stomach churns. My knees feel like custard.
My shins hit something hard and low. The bed?
God. I’ll wake up Seb at this rate. Where’s the damn light?
I scrabble at the wall, one hand clamped to my mouth.
There’s a crash as something I kick flies into the wall.
Vomit trickles through my fingers. There’s a splat as it hits the floor. Desperately, I try to hold on.
Please God, let me find the light.
My fingers touch the smooth hump of a switch. Click it.
Yellow light spears my eyes.
I’m in the lounge, not the bedroom. I fell asleep on the couch.
I rush for the bathroom, stumble over Seb’s blocks, kick a toy flashlight that beeps as the light comes on. As I spin into the bathroom, my hip cracks the doorframe, and I have to grab at the basin so I don’t fall.
I never make it as far as the toilet. I vomit into the basin with a single burning, liquid gush.
Grope for the cold tap, turn it on — try to wash the grim-looking rim that now marks the pink bowl.
There’s vomit in my hair, on my shirt. I slink out of the stinking clothes, leave them in a pile on the tiles. In the shower, I stand under the hot water, rub shampoo in my hair.
When I clean my teeth, nausea grips my stomach again, and I end up crouched on all fours on the floor of the shower, vomiting the final contents of my stomach into the dark mouth of the drain. I have to poke my finger at soft bits that look like corn kernels, until they fall through.
When I can finally stand, I clean my teeth again, keeping one hand on the top of the shower stall because I don’t trust my legs to hold me upright. The bathroom won’t stop moving, it’s like being inside a pink washing machine.
Turn off the tap.
I dry my body, dry my hair, wrap myself in a towel, and shuffle to the kitchen.
The timer on the microwave shows eleven-thirty.
Eleven-thirty!
I’m worried if I lie down, the world will spin. I want to take a Panadol for the headache, but the way I feel right now, I’d probably throw that up too.
So I sit on a chair in the dark in the kitchen, my hair wet against my skull.
How pathetic am I?
What if I choked on my own vomit and they found me dead on the couch, Seb stuck in the portacot because he couldn’t get out? How long before someone sounded the alarm?
I disgust myself.
The clock ticks to midnight.
Crossing the kitchen, my hands shake as I rip into the foil packets of two Panadol tablets, find and fill a glass, drop the tablets in.
Tiny bubbles fizz, striking my lip and nose.
I swirl the glass, trying to make the white tablets dissolve faster, and when they do I grit my teeth against the lemon taste that makes my stomach want to hurl.
Tears leak down my cheeks, and I grip the countertop so hard, it groans.
I won’t do that again, Seb. I promise.
Never.
I will never put myself in a position where I can’t look after you if you need me.
Ever.
I can’t keep my eyes open a second longer.
My bed doesn’t call, it hollers.
Chapter 26
Morning.
I open one eye, carefully. Try moving my head to the side. It throbs like a box of hammered thumbs.
Seb is sitting in the portacot. It’s a mix of his sweet chatter and the birds that’s woken me.
Why Seb chose last night to sleep through for the first time, I don’t know, but I’m grateful.
Seb — all polka-dotted and wobbly on the unsteady mattress — stands. Little hands peek over the top of the cot as he looks to see if I’m awake. He smiles, and my breath catches so hard, it hurts my chest.
I pick him out of the cot to snuggle him close, inhale his scent of warm milk and crumpled quilt.
He looks at me. His nose touches mine. This boy has the softest skin, ever.
If I lost him?
I can’t think about it.
We get up not long after. I put a bottle of milk in the microwave for thirty seconds, shake it, and carry it into the lounge. Seb toddles after me.
Two steps into the room, I stop like I’ve walked into a wall.
It smells like a pub floor at closing time.
The champagne bottle is on its side on the coffee table. The table has been shunted so hard, there’s a line of paint scratched from the wall. Shards from my broken champagne flute float in a puddle of liquid, and they’ve spilled to the floor.
Vomit spots the couch and the carpet. Seb has already walked in it.
He’s in bare feet and there’s broken glass all over the floor.
I sweep my boy into my arms and rush him to the bathroom so I can wash vomit off his feet. I try to ignore the pyramid of crumpled clothes on the pink tiles, but they’re at the corner of my vision, staring at me like a sullen dog.
Carrying Seb to the kitchen, I hold him while he drinks his milk, then I put him in the portacot with some toys for company. Until I’ve cleaned up the mess, it’s the safest place.
I pick up all the glass I can see, then vacuum to suck up any I’ve missed. Then I spot scrub the couch and carpet, using pine-scented dishwashing detergent in an icecream container of sudsy water.
I rinse the bottle, take it out to the recycling bin, and when I get back I let Seb out of his prison.
Last thing, I throw yesterday’s clothes in the washing machine and then open the front door and the windows as wide as they’ll go.
I think of Jack and the marijuana smell his mother tried to hide.
I’m no better than they are, trying to hide the scent of my shame.
***
After a cup of tea for me and cereal for Seb, I strap him in the pram. I can’t stay in the house another second.
We walk for miles on the beach path, heading east. It’s Saturday, so there are lots of kids on bikes and skateboards, and more playing on the shore. The bay is so still, the jetty so sharp where it spiders over the water — it’s like walking through a sketch.
After the first kilometre, I feel better.
There’s something about the purity of the ocean — that constant renewal of water lapping the shore — that calms me.
Nature doesn’t judge.
The sunshine that’s travelled light-years to fall on my shoulders is the same sun warming every other person in the world, no matter what terrible things they did last night.
If I was religious, I might say it’s a religious experience. But I’m not.
Twice in my life I’ve tried to read the Bible. Both times, I haven’t got past the story of Moses. He’s such a great hero, Moses, and that bit where he parts The Red Sea? Awesome. He’s a hard act to follow. Maybe that’s why I’ve read no further. Everything after Moses is an anti-climax.
When I’ve walked so far my legs are stiff and even the friction of my socks hurts the soles of my feet, I let Seb out of the pram for a play on the beach. The orange bulldozer is in the bottom of the pram, plus a plastic spade and bucket. We pull the toys out a
nd while Seb digs, I hold the bucket.
It’s getting close to ten o’clock, so I rub sunscreen on both of us and find our hats.
Peeling a banana, I break the pieces apart and put them in Seb’s mouth so he won’t dirty the fruit with his sandy hands.
The slice of Seb’s spade, the swish of sand into the bucket, lapping waves, seagull cries, children’s squeals — it’s a wonderful rhythm.
For a while all I do is breathe, listen. Listen. Breathe. Finally, I clear room in my head for something other than guilt and shame.
All my life I’ve wanted other people around. My mother always said that, and I can see it clearly now.
I’m glad I was alone last night. I’ve been a train wreck waiting to happen for a long time and it’s good no one witnessed my crash.
As a kid I leaned on my sister, and then Emmy and Brayden to make my fun. After Brayden left I started the whirlwind of arseholes that eventually led to Jack, because I hated being on my own. I got my motorbike licence for one of them; took up yoga for another. I can’t stand motorbikes, and I don’t bend.
All I had of my own was golf and in the end, I let Jack stop that. I gave up.
Brayden knew that. He knows me better than I know myself.
I know Brayden wants to always be there for me — and I’m confident that he will be. That’s not what this is about. This is about Jennifer Gates making her own decisions — listening to good advice, sure — but taking responsibility for what comes next.
‘Come on, buddy. Let’s get back,’ I say to Seb, pushing myself up from the sand.
This time we start slow, but soon, my feet tread faster.
I have lists to write, plans to make.
The beach house is like a magnet hauling me home.
***
By four o’clock that afternoon, I’ve filled pages of my notebook with scribbled ideas. I’ve been on and off my laptop for most of the day.
There’s an old cup of peppermint tea on the kitchen table beside me, cold now, with the teabag over-steeped and soggy in the bottom.
Seb has ransacked the beach house drawers and there’s a trail of pots and pans on the carpet. Tufts of his blonde hair stick through the holes of the colander he’s currently wearing as a hat.
I return to my To Do list.
1 Update Facebook — let friends know where I am, and I’m looking for work
2 Write introductory email to all real estate agents in the area
3 Think of business name
4 Write bio/marketing blurb
5 Create Facebook page
6 What other opportunities for copy writing? Other industries? Wineries?
7 Do a business plan.
8 Make a budget!!
Number 1 is already crossed off, that was easy.
Number 2 is the one I’ve agonised over most.
I know Blain & Barrow want me to work exclusively for them. The problem is when they don’t have enough work for me — like this week — I miss out.
If they know I’m doing work for other agents, they might stop putting jobs my way.
If I promote myself to all the agents, and they — by some great stretch of the imagination — all want me to write property reviews for them, I won’t be able to handle that either.
So it’s a dilemma, and right now I don’t have the answer.
Later that night after Seb is in bed, I phone Brayden and ask him about it.
‘It depends on how busy you want to be, Jenn,’ he says. ‘I mean. Do you want to be working your butt off at this, or do you just want enough work each week to pay the bills?’
‘I need enough to pay the rent and bills and feed us, and I want to be able to eat out once in a while without having to save up for it for weeks.’
‘Don’t worry too much about rent. You know you’ve got the beach house.’
‘I can’t stay here forever. If it’s not rent, it’s going to be a mortgage. At some stage I need to find my own place.’
‘Sure. But there’s no rush to sign a lease. You’ve got time.’
‘Lucky that. There is nothing available for rent here anyway.’
He’s silent for a beat then he asks if I’ve thought about a business name. I click a key on my laptop to wake it up, and read him the first name on the list.
‘Jennifer Gates: Lost For Words.’
He hesitates a moment too long. ‘I’m not sure Lost For Words is the most positive message for a copy writer.’
He’s trying to be diplomatic.
‘What about if I use a strategic questionmark? You know: Lost For Words?’
‘Well, maybe,’ he says.
I cross it off the list. ‘You think it sucks.’
‘I think you can come up with something better.’
‘How about: Words Worth.’
‘Like the poet?’
‘Two words. Words Worth.’
‘Maybe.’ His tone is ever so slightly more encouraging.
I try it again. ‘Jennifer Gates: Words Worth.’
‘Do you think you need your name? It gets pretty long.’
‘Jennifer Gates. Word Smith.’
‘What about just: Word Works.’
I get a tingle. ‘Hey, I like that one. Word Works. I might have a play with that.’
‘The Seaside Scribe.’
‘Wow, Brayden. You’re good at this.’
He laughs — a rich, sunny sound that seems at odds with the deep black of night outside the window. ‘I’m glad you’re more into it now.’
‘You were right. I was sitting back, waiting for business to come to me.’
‘Can I get that on tape? The bit about: you were right.’
I giggle, getting really tired and fuzzy now, but feeling better than I have all day. Feeling better than I have for a week.
Almost feeling good.
Chapter 27
Three weeks later.
On our walks in the morning, people say howdy, or g’day. Some just nod their heads, and there’s a tall, lanky man, with too-long hair, who roller-blades on the cycle path. He takes his hat off when we see him and doffs it to Seb like a circus clown might. Seb loves him.
I know the locals from the weekend visitors who flash in and are gone. And I can tell the weekend visitors from the tourists who stay longer, but don’t walk every day, because they’re out early to climb caves, wine-taste, lunch, or shop.
I still don’t know the name of the man who checks his crab pots in his boat. Sometimes it’s the father and once or twice, it’s been the son. On weekends, they do it together. They wave when they pass our patch of the beach, and once they nosed in to shore and offered to take Seb for a ride.
I walked out up to my thighs, terrified of getting a stinger tentacle wrapped around my leg, and handed him to the fisherman. He put a life jacket over Seb’s shoulders and sat my son between his hairy knees. Seb’s blonde head peered into the nets as each pot was pulled and even from the shore, I could hear his squeals as the blue crabs came scuttling up, flicking at the net with clacking claws.
The elderly couple who tried to help me on the beach the day Seb had the eczema attack are permanent residents of the Caravan Park. Her name is Molly, his name is Len. She has stunning red hair that flows almost to her hips and a wonderful, vibrant laugh. He’s got a full head of greying hair that always looks like he’s spent a lifetime walking into a prevailing wind. Behind his spectacles, his eyes twinkle.
What I love about Molly and Len is how very much in love they are. Every time he looks at her, or she looks at him, it’s like the rest of the world melts away.
Most afternoons after four, Len comes to fish off the beach. Molly is always with him, sitting in one of her long, flowing skirts on a low-slung deckchair Len has carried to the beach for her, a book in her lap. Those books always look extremely well read.
It was one of those afternoons, with Len fishing, Molly reading, and Seb and I making footprints in the sand, that I scraped Brayden into the shoreline, carv
ing his name with my toes.
The waves washed it away.
I wrote Sebastian.
Then Jennifer.
Then beach, and half a dozen others — whatever word popped into my brain. Shack. Court.
Writer. Money. Emmy.
Each time, the waves erased my scribbles.
Words Worth. Gone.
Then I wrote SeaScribe, and as I swirled it in the sand with my toes, I glanced up the beach. Molly’s flowing cotton skirt fell still, as if nature closed the door on the breeze.
Geographe Bay smoothed to molten lead, and SeaScribe stayed scrawled on the sand. Resilient, it seemed to me.
Whether it was luck or good management, once SeaScribe had a name, the phone began to ring. Carl Barron, Kennett Pickering, Nathan Blain, and now Debbie Caletta, they all tell me the same thing. They say prices hit rock bottom late last year and the market is on the move. People want to list property again, and the agents are looking for a service like mine, to give them that exclusive edge.
All I know is, the day after I wrote SeaScribe on the beach, I got busier. Not enough to have me shouting success from the beach house porch, but there’s signs that I’m on the right track and this new life can work.
Brayden says it’s all in the name, but he would — he’s claiming SeaScribe as his.
He’s on night shift until the end of next week and then he comes home. I’m counting the hours. It’s been harder to stay in touch because he’s working 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. When he’s getting up at 5 p.m. for “breakfast,” I’m in witching hour with Seb. When he gets back to his accommodation for “dinner”, I’m still asleep.
I miss him.
***
I’m cleaning my teeth next morning when Seb comes looking for me. He stands in the bathroom doorway, pointing earnestly toward the front door, jabbering.
Spitting out toothpaste, I rinse and wipe my face. Then I come out to see what’s going on.
That’s when I hear the knock.
I open the front door to a gorgeous-looking girl of about twenty or twenty-two, with long legs and ebony hair in a loose pony tail.
‘Are you Jennifer Gates?’
‘I am.’