And felt nothing. Nothing at all.
Antoinette carries her tea into the living room. There’s a dress draped over the couch, slinky red satin with corset-style ties at the back and a sequined pattern of black roses swirling over the bodice. Gorgeous, but too small for her to even consider trying on. More Jacqueline’s size but like nothing she could ever imagine her sister wearing. Too revealing, too sexy, the colour far too bold. At the Halloween party she and Paul threw a couple of years ago, her sister turned up as Jackie Kennedy, elegant pink two-piece perfect down to the final stitch and button, pill-box hat slanted just-so, and a look of priceless horror on her face when Antoinette suggested they finish her off with a spatter of fake blood.
It’s Halloween, Jacqueline!
It’s replica Chanel, Ant. Do you know how much this is worth?
She hangs the red dress over one of the chairs then settles down on the couch with her tea. Her eyelids scrape like sandpaper, her limbs feel leaden. Out in the hall, the door to her sister’s bedroom opens, but it’s Loki who walks into the living room, face creased with sleep and hair dishevelled.
‘Hey,’ she says.
‘Hey.’ He shuffles over to the couch, sits down beside her. ‘Where’ve you been? I was worried about you.’
‘Some of us went out for drinks after work.’ She hesitates, unsure of the boundaries between them. The tension in her belly, the perpetual weight of the Loki-stone that most of the time she’s able to ignore, shifts and eases. This close to him, the tug of it is stronger but, paradoxically, less insistent. ‘Sorry, I should have called or something, but I lost track of time . . .’
‘You crashed on someone’s sofa?’
‘Something like that.’
Loki lays himself down, rests his head in her lap. ‘You don’t need to lie to me, Antoinette. I’ll understand if you were with someone.’
‘Sorry.’ She combs his ink-black locks with her fingers, untangles the snarls gathered near the nape of his neck. ‘It wasn’t anything. I had too much to drink.’
‘You don’t have to explain either.’
Apologising once again, she separates his hair into strands, begins to weave them into loose plaits. ‘Hey, did I hear you coming out of my sister’s room just now?’
‘It’s not like that.’ His tone slightly defensive but tinged with a genuine and unexpected tenderness. ‘She was feeling pretty rotten last night. I don’t think that much vodka agrees with her.’
‘Jacqueline got drunk?’ Antoinette’s never seen her sister wasted before, never even known her to be on the wrong side of tipsy. ‘Was that a good idea? I mean, so soon after her . . . her seizure?’
‘She doesn’t think it was a seizure.’ A curtness to his voice, a tone that – with Paul – always signalled the need for time out, for a change of subject at least, and Antoinette decides to take the hint. For all of Loki’s hard-fought points of difference, some things have stayed very much the same.
‘What’s with the dress?’ She nods at the chair opposite.
‘I saw it in a shop window, thought it might cheer her up. It’ll look great on her, don’t you reckon?’
‘Um, yeah, but it’s not really her style. I’m not sure she–’
‘Maybe you don’t know your sister as well as you think.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘She’s more than you imagine her to be, that’s all. More than she imagines herself to be as well, which is the real shame of it.’
Antoinette stares at the dress she still cannot picture her sister wearing. All that glossy red satin, the sequins and ties, the bodice that would surely plunge too deeply for Jacqueline to dare. ‘Hang on.’ She frowns. ‘When did you get the dress?’
‘Last night. Jumped a tram out to Fitzroy. There’s this bar, they serve absinthe from a fountain right in front of–’
‘Jacqueline went too?’
‘Nah, just me. I think she wanted to be alone.’
‘Alone with a bottle of vodka. For godsake, Loki, you promised me you’d keep an eye on her. You promised.’
‘She didn’t need keeping an eye on.’ He sits up, too sudden, and Antoinette winces as the plait she’s working on catches and pulls, leaves a couple of loose strands wound round her fingers. Loki scowls and rubs at his scalp. ‘Nothing happened, Antoinette. So, she got a little wasted, so what? She’s not a kid.’
‘But she never gets drunk. This isn’t like her, she isn’t–’
‘Isn’t what? The sister you want her to be?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Antoinette.’
‘No, really, what the hell has this got to do with–’
‘Antoinette,’ he repeats, louder, eyebrows lifting as he nods over her shoulder and she turns in her seat, follows his gaze across the room to where Jacqueline now stands in the doorway. Though stands too upright a word for the way her sister slouches against the jamb, one hand all but digging into the wooden frame, the other cinching her pink kimono tight like it might be stolen from her at any moment, like they might be the ones to steal it.
‘Don’t stop on my account,’ she says, regarding them with eyes bloodshot and sunken. ‘While you’re at it, perhaps you should both decide what I’m allowed to have for breakfast.’
Not that Jacqueline wants breakfast. The thought of eating any kind of food is enough to make her stomach recoil. Her head pounds. A blunt, unmitigated throbbing worse than any of her recent migraines. She almost regrets leaving her bed. Wishes she’d simply rolled over after Loki’s getting up woke her. Buried herself in pillows and blankets until the world returned to normal.
‘You look awful,’ Ant says. She’s already up and crossing the room. Loki as well. Guilt flickers in their eyes.
‘I’ll live,’ Jacqueline tells her. ‘What was it you two were discussing? Something about me needing a chaperone?’
‘Only last night,’ her sister says. ‘I was worried about you after your–’ She glances at Loki. ‘After you collapsed, or fainted, or whatever it was. I didn’t think you should be alone, you know, in case . . .’
‘In case?’
‘If it happened again. If no one was around to help you.’
‘And would it? Happen again?’
‘How am I supposed to know? You’re the one who’s been keeping it all state-secret for god knows how long.’
Jacqueline glares at her sister. ‘You don’t get to lecture me about secrets.’
‘Sorry, what? I tell you everything. There’s not a single thing–’
‘You never told me about Loki.’
‘You weren’t here. It was kind of hard to explain over the phone.’
‘You didn’t even try.’
Loki steps forward. ‘Please.’ Steps between them, his expression anxious. Almost childlike. He takes Jacqueline by the hand. Rubs his fingers over her knuckles the way he rubbed the bones of her neck during the night when she woke to nausea and dread. ‘You need to tell her,’ he says.
‘Tell me what?’ her sister demands. ‘What else is there?’
‘As though you don’t already know.’
‘Lina.’ He called her that as she heaved over the toilet for the second time, his hand moving in circles over her back. Lina, my Lina, Lina Lina Lina. She’s still unsure about it. The sound is beautiful, the cadence subtle. Light. It feels like another woman’s name. A woman she could never be. ‘Lina,’ he says again. ‘Tell her.’
‘What is it?’ Ant asks. ‘What’s wrong?’ Her voice shakes. With anger, yes, and hurt. But also confusion, a very real and fearful bewilderment.
Jacqueline pauses, uncertain. Loki squeezes her hand. Trust me. And she does. Trusts him, trusts the connection that draws them together. The connection she can no longer dismiss as ordinary desire o
r lust. Moreover, she trusts what she feels within herself. And what she doesn’t.
‘Am I . . .’ She pauses, her tongue dry and stilted. ‘Am I like him? Did you make me like you made him?’
For a moment, Ant still looks confused. Then her face clears. ‘Did I make you? You can’t seriously think that.’
Jacqueline squares her jaw. Waits for an answer.
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ her sister says. ‘You’re older than me.’
‘Loki’s older than you. So to speak.’
‘He’s been here all of five minutes. You’ve been here my whole life, Jacqueline. Bloody hell, this is absurd.’
‘I only have your word for that.’
‘What? No, we grew up together, we went to the same schools. There’s not a single month of my life we haven’t seen each other, talked to each other at least. Come on, all those years? When was I supposed to have–’
‘Loki remembers things. Things he wasn’t here to remember.’
‘That’s not the same! Loki, tell her how crazy this is.’
He shakes his head. His gaze darts between the two of them. Uneasy, torn.
‘Don’t force him to choose sides,’ Jacqueline says. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Sides? There aren’t any sides to this; there’s just what’s real and what’s batshit fucking insane.’
‘What about the fendlies?’ Loki asks softly.
Ant stares at him. ‘What?’
‘The fendlies,’ he repeats. ‘You don’t remember making them.’
‘That’s different. That’s . . .’ Ant squeezes her eyes shut for a couple of seconds. ‘I kind of remember, just not . . . it’s not very clear.’
‘Maybe you don’t remember making Jacqueline, either.’
‘No!’ She shakes her head, vehement. ‘She’s my sister, she’s always been my sister. Jacqueline, you have a birth certificate, for godsake.’
Jacqueline glares at her. ‘Because those can never be faked.’
‘And baby photos, photos of you and Mum and Dad from before I was even born. Remember those tiny plaster casts Mum made of your hands and feet? Stuff like that can be faked too, I suppose?’
‘I don’t . . .’ Her stomach rolls. Pain forms a vice around her temples. She tries once again to recall something she has kept from her childhood. A memento, a favourite toy or book. Some useless, forgotten bauble. ‘I don’t have anything from that long ago,’ she says at last. ‘I remember things, yes, but perhaps that’s all it is. A collection of unlived memories.’
Ant snorts. ‘You don’t have anything, because you constantly throw stuff out, you always have. I’m too old for this now; this isn’t who I am anymore; et-bloody-cetera. You don’t even keep birthday cards.’
‘You don’t understand how it feels,’ Jacqueline whispers. Because there are no words to explain it. Only the gaps between the words, beyond articulation. Those formless, indifferent spaces where, until Loki, she has always dwelt alone.
‘We’re not saying you did it deliberately,’ he tells her sister.
‘I didn’t do it at all!’
‘I don’t feel real.’ Her own voice fights her now. Loki frowns. He hates that word, she knows that, but it’s all she has. ‘I’ve never felt real.’
Ant isn’t listening. Instead she’s talking about their mother. Who would need to be in on the whole thing, right? Lying to them and everyone she knew for however many years Jacqueline decides it has been, pretending she has two troublesome daughters instead of just one, forging paperwork and god knows what else. Does that sound remotely like the Sally Paige they know and love?
‘Maybe,’ Loki says. ‘If she did it for you. If you were so lonely, if you wanted a sister so badly that you went and made one, then maybe she did it for you.’
Ant looks as though she could rip his throat out. ‘You’re not helping,’ she says through gritted teeth. Then she turns to Jacqueline. ‘What about Charlie? Am I supposed to have made our brother as well?’
‘I don’t . . .’ Deep inside, that familiar, twin-shaped pang.
‘Because Charlie isn’t just a memory, Jacqueline. He lived, and he died – for real. His grave’s down in Springvale, you know that.’ Her sister points towards the front door. ‘Should we go and visit, take some flowers? Will that be proof enough for you?’
Jacqueline presses fingers to her temples. ‘You could have made him . . . the both of us at the same time . . .’ She feels like vomiting again. Loki touches her shoulder. She shrugs him off.
‘Well, why isn’t he here?’ Ant is asking. ‘If I made him, why isn’t he here with us right now? Why would I just let him–’
‘I don’t know!’ Her voice pitches so high it cracks. ‘What happened to the fendlies when you got bored of playing with them, or when you just wandered off, forgot they were even there?’
Her sister looks stricken.
‘Is that what happened to Charles?’ Jacqueline wipes at her eyes, surprised to find them wet. ‘Is that what’s happening to me? Now that you have Loki, perhaps you don’t need a sister anymore. Is that it?’
‘Lina,’ Loki warns, but she’s finished. She’s done. Each terror and nightmare-fed doubt sliced open. Pegged out for inspection. But still the tears won’t stop. She dries her face with a kimono sleeve. Breathes.
‘I think . . .’ She can’t even look at her sister. It’s easier to turn away. To walk away, to force one foot in front of the other until she reaches the kitchen. Open the cupboard. Find a glass. Fill it from the tap. Drink. Drink some more. Behind her, feet stomp down the hall, keys jangle in someone’s hand. Jacqueline stays by the sink and closes her eyes.
‘Fuck this,’ Ant mutters.
‘Where are you going?’ Loki asks.
‘To get some bloody proof, if that’s what she needs.’
‘Wait, let me . . .’
The front door slams shut. Jacqueline can hear the faint echoes of their footsteps going down the stairs. She finishes the water. Tucks her hair behind her ears. Then she bends neatly over the sink and allows her rebellious stomach to do its worst.
When her third series of knocks go unanswered, Antoinette sorts through her keys for familiar, tarnished brass – the oldest one on her ring, the key she’s had since she was twelve years old and could be trusted not to lose it – and lets herself into her mother’s house. ‘Mum? You home?’
No answer, even though the Commodore is in the driveway. She checks the kitchen window, in case her mother has got it into her head to do some gardening out back, to weed the dandelions or prune the oleander shrubs that grow half wild along the perimeter. But no, the yard is empty and overgrown, littered with mutant, misshapen lemons from the tree by the porch – and it’s these that really get to her. Normally the fruit would be collected long before it fell, squeezed into juice or boiled for chutney, or simply left in a bowl handy for cooking, and it hurts to see so much of it left to just rot in the grass. Hurts to know how ill her mother must be to let them lie.
Antoinette taps on the bedroom door, waits a beat before opening it. ‘It’s only me,’ she calls softly, but the room is empty, the bed made. There’s a small army of pill bottles lined up on the side table, most of them the shop-bought vitamins her mother has been swallowing her entire life, although there are a couple with more ominous labels. Prescription labels, plain and white with black type far too small to read from this distance, but she isn’t about to take another step unbidden and instead retreats, closing the door behind her.
Sally Paige’s bedroom has always been sacrosanct.
Back in the kitchen, she puts the kettle on. The only coffee in the house is instant and most likely stale, the half-empty jar kept solely for the benefit of guests, but it’ll still deliver a much-needed dose of caffeine. The house is so quiet. So still. Her mother must b
e visiting a neighbour, Mrs Jeminson from down the road maybe, if they’re still on speaking terms after the incident with, what was it, geranium cuttings? Antoinette has lost track of how many people have made it onto the Sally Paige blacklist, let alone for what obscure slights and misdemeanours.
The coffee is vile, bitter stuff. She stirs in extra sugar and tops up the milk, then takes it with her into the living room. The mahogany cabinet in the corner is where her mother stows Family Business, its two bottom drawers filled with photographs and greeting cards, old letters and other various keepsakes. It’s the photographs she’s after. Those of Jacqueline and Charlie as babies, as toddlers, taken before she was born or not long after, some concrete evidence to wave in her sister’s face – look, you were here first – to make her see the ludicrous depths of her paranoia.
To make Loki see it as well.
How can she even think it, she yelled at him as he followed her down to the car. And you, encouraging her like that.
Why won’t you admit the possibility that we’re right?
Because you’re not. Stabbing two fingers into his chest, right into the middle of his sternum. I would feel her, the same as I feel you.
After all this time? Maybe you’re just used to her.
Antoinette chewed on her anger all the way to the Dandenongs, seething and singing along with early Nine Inch Nails jacked up as loud as she could stand it. Anger as black and bitter as her mother’s coffee, but better that than face up to the hurt that lurked beneath it, the raw bloom of betrayal.
But now, as she pulls a thick, mustard-coloured album from the drawer and begins to turn its pages, the anger dissolves and drips away. Past the photographs of her parents looking far too young to be believed, past the candid wedding day shots where her mother’s smile shone wider and happier than it possibly ever has since, she comes at last to the baby snaps. Not all that many – Sally Paige now uncomfortable around cameras, it seems – but enough.
Perfections Page 21