Bonkers

by Michelle Holman

  Sherry watched her coldly, her hands curled into fists, wishing she wasn’t wearing her uniform. Maybe she’d get lucky and Linda Brogan would shoplift a pansy or something. From the corner of her eye she saw Ray Tanner stroll into view, his gaze riveted on Linda Brogan. Sherry’s upper lip curled. Ray seemed to have an in-built radar system capable of detecting an attractive woman through the walls of buildings. He made her think of a shark circling for the kill. But instead of a great white, he reminded Sherry more of a hammerhead—he was certainly ugly enough. ‘Hey, Dad,’ she muttered from the side of her mouth.

  Brian lifted his head. ‘What?’

  Sherry nodded at the far side of the display area and began to hum the theme from Jaws. ‘Dah dum! Dah dum!’

  Ray cut around a display of tulip bulbs and sauntered closer to Linda Brogan, who remained oblivious of his approach, her gaze still fixed on Sherry and Brian.

  ‘ Dah dah! Dah dah! Dah dah! Dah dah!’

  Brian began to smile.

  ‘Do-do! Do-do! Do-do! Do-do!’

  Suddenly sensing danger, Linda Brogan lifted her head and spotted Ray. She jumped with fright, a horrified expression unfurling across her face. Pivoting on her crutches, she looked right at Sherry and pulled a face that plainly said Yuck! A face Sherry had seen Lisa pull countless times over the years. Sherry froze and watched Ray smile his unctuous smile and try to strike up a conversation. Linda looked like she wanted to hit him with her crutches.

  Brian had lost interest and returned to arranging trees.

  Linda Brogan looked pleadingly across at Sherry before turning reluctantly back to Ray. ‘I’m married!’ she cried loudly.

  Brian looked up again and frowned.

  ‘And I’m a lesbian!’ Linda shouted triumphantly, which drew the attention of the handful of customers wandering about the outdoor display.

  Ray was clearly taken aback. His smile slipped and he looked about anxiously to see if anybody had heard. He scowled when he realized that everybody was watching him looking a fool and, even worse, one of the people watching him was the boss’s smartarsed daughter.

  Sherry choked back laughter.

  Ray recoiled and backed away from Linda Brogan, a surly expression on his face. His scowl deepened when he saw Sherry walking towards him.

  ‘Wow, Ray. Which charm school did you go to again?’ she asked admiringly. ‘Because I know a guy I’d like to send there. He’s a slug too.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Ray snarled.

  ‘Oh Ray!’ Sherry and Linda Brogan cooed almost in unison. ‘You’re so butch!’

  Sherry’s voice faded away.

  She stared into Linda Brogan’s blue eyes.

  ‘Here, Butch…here, Butch,’ Linda said softly, staring straight back. Her eyes began to fill with tears.

  Brian came up behind Sherry. He’d heard what Ray had said to Sherry. Anger vibrated from his wiry frame. Ray’s fate was sealed when Linda Brogan looked at Brian and tears began to slide down her cheeks.

  ‘I’m so sorry about this!’ Brian exclaimed, clearly distressed. He turned to Sherry. ‘Sherry? Can you—?’

  Sherry nodded distractedly, never once taking her eyes from Linda Brogan.

  ‘Hang on a minute!’ Ray began to protest. ‘I never—’

  ‘Ray,’ Brian said through his teeth, ‘come with me! Right now!’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Now, Ray.’

  Deeply shaken at seeing his easy-going boss so furious, Ray slowly followed Brian back into the shop.

  Sherry gave Linda Brogan her most intimidating stare. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She stared right back. ‘I came to see Dad.’

  Sherry recoiled. ‘He’s not your father!’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ Linda replied stubbornly, her expression defiant. ‘I wanted him to look at this plant for me. It’s sick.’

  ‘It’s not the only thing that’s sick,’ Sherry snarled, trembling with a violent desire to hit her.

  Linda flinched but ignored her. ‘And you’re my big sister, Sherry.’

  Sherry stepped up to her, making the most of her extra inches to try to intimidate the other woman.

  Linda refused to budge. ‘Don’t you dare try and intimidate me with your height, Sherry Jackson! I’m not much shorter than you now, and besides, living with a man who’s six feet five inches tall makes you look small.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Sherry whispered. ‘Shut up! I’m not your sister. My sister is dead. You killed her.’

  Linda was shaking and her face was chalk-white, but she refused to back down. ‘I saw you, Sher. I saw you at the hospital when they sent me back. You were in a corridor outside a room with Dillon Taylor. He was stopping you from going into the room. When I went by I said your name and touched you, and for a moment you looked right at me.’

  Sherry’s eyes widened. She felt as if somebody was trickling ice into her bone marrow, so deep was her shock. She recalled the odd, eerie feeling she had experienced outside the Resuss Room when she could have sworn she’d felt a fleeting touch on her arm and heard Lisa’s voice calling her name.

  How? How did this woman know?

  Her head began to swim. She made a grab for a green wooden display table. From a distance she heard Linda Brogan cry, ‘Sher!’ She began to fall. They both landed on the concrete with a thump, Sherry’s long, slender body cushioned by Linda Brogan’s smaller one.

  ‘For God’s sake, Sherry! Don’t faint on me! I’m the one who faints—not you! I won’t be able to pick you up, you silly cow!’ Linda was crying in her ear in a tear-clogged voice.

  Sherry raised her chin off her chest to look dazedly at the woman sitting on the ground beside her. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  16

  They went to a nearby café.

  Sherry had collected a white, hooded Esprit sweater from the back of her car and worn it to conceal her telltale blue uniform shirt. When they reached the café, she sat down at one of the tables and looked at Lisa expressionlessly, making no offer to help her with her chair or crutches.

  Lisa swallowed her disappointment. She knew better than to think Sherry would be easily convinced, particularly when she’d had time to regroup since they’d left the garden centre. Lisa checked how much money she had in her purse. She hated asking Dan for money: she already felt guilty about living in his house and eating his food when she didn’t have any right to be there.

  Since the unforgettable scene in the kitchen, they had pretty much avoided each other. Lisa had always been an early-to-bed-early-to-rise type of person, but she disappeared into her bedroom as soon as they’d finished eating the dinner she cooked each night and tried to practise her reading and writing. She had contacted SPELD, the learning disabilities centre in the city, and planned to start taking classes there as soon as she could find a way to pay for them. Lisa knew Dan would have instantly agreed to cover the cost, but she didn’t want to take any more from him than she absolutely had to. So she kept her plans to herself. Slade spent his spare time helping her on sentence construction with flash cards they’d made after getting books from the library on dyslexia. Lisa didn’t know what she would have done without him. He was so sweet and kind and wise beyond his years.

  Dan had given up asking her if she needed anything because she always said no. Instead he just left her a generous amount of cash on the kitchen counter each morning. So far Lisa had only taken some of it twice. By catching buses instead of cabs into Browns Bay and the shopping mall at Takapuna, she made the money last quite a while.

  Slade had offered to take her on the bike, but out of respect for Dan’s feelings Lisa had declined. Slade had surprised her by sometimes coming along with her on her lonely bus rides around the North Shore, and he helped her with the more difficult household tasks like getting bits and pieces of shopping for her from the supermarket. Dan did the rest on the weekends from the list Lisa gave him. She always found an excuse not to go with him. She couldn’t bear being in his company when she recalle
d how he had pushed her away. Her sense of humiliation and rejection was deep, and the hurt too painful to examine. Lisa felt like a leper. Unloved and unlovable, she needed her family more now than ever.

  Dan got up after dawn most mornings to either run or take a bike ride. On the weekends, he often took his windsurfer down to the beach and spent hours criss-crossing the water, unaware that Lisa sat in the garden on top of the cliff nursing a cup of tea or coffee and watching him. She had almost dropped a basketload of cutlery on her feet when she was unloading the dishwasher, the first weekend Dan arrived home to clean his board and wetsuit. He’d come strolling through the kitchen from the garage with his short-legged black Neoprene wetsuit slung over one shoulder, wearing only a pair of wet, black Speedos slung low on his hips.

  Lisa almost swallowed her tongue and drooled all over the kitchen floor. After nights of horny dreams and a constant state of semi-arousal, the sight of Dan almost naked and looking one hundred times better without his clothes on than she ever could have imagined almost made her whimper. He was beautifully made, with wide shoulders, a broad chest, washboard stomach and the tightest bum Lisa had seen on a guy in a long time. She was surprised at how dark his skin was. If he had been a Kiwi, she would have guessed at Maori blood. A quick glance at the bulge at the front of his togs indicated everything was in proportion to the rest of him. She realized Dan felt quite comfortable walking about in front of her like this because he still thought of her as Linda.

  Lisa looked at Sherry’s cold expression and felt as if an icicle was being driven into her chest. It reinforced her awareness that she belonged nowhere and to nobody. But she wasn’t about to give up.

  ‘I’ll get the drinks,’ she told Sherry.

  Sherry shrugged ungraciously. ‘I’ll have an—’

  ‘Earl Grey tea,’ Lisa interrupted. ‘Yes, I know.’

  Lisa was pleased to see this perturbed Sherry, even more so when she ordered a trim moccachino without the marshmallows for herself. Lisa hated marshmallows. She hopped back to the table and sat down, wishing she could give in to the impulse to throw her arms around Sherry in a bear hug and then go across the road and do the same to her father. Instead she said, ‘Dad doesn’t look very well.’

  Sherry sat back in her chair with her arms folded across her chest and stared at her. ‘He’s just buried his daughter.’

  Lisa looked appalled. ‘You buried me?’

  The man and woman sitting at a nearby table looked across at them with raised brows.

  Sherry shifted uncomfortably. ‘Mum and Dad couldn’t face the thought of a cremation. For Lisa,’ she added pointedly.

  ‘Oh.’ Lisa pulled a face again at the thought of being cremated. ‘How’s Mum?’

  ‘Smoking.’ Sherry retorted, watching her intently.

  ‘She’s what!’ Lisa snapped. ‘After I nearly gave myself lung cancer getting her to stop?’

  The couple got up and shifted to another table.

  Sherry began to look at her with a wondering expression on her face. ‘I don’t know who the hell has filled you in on us, but I have to admit I’m impressed.’ There was a white line of tension about her wide mouth. ‘What’s your game?’

  The waitress arrived carrying the drinks. ‘Moccachino and Earl Grey,’ she announced brightly, the braces on her perfect white teeth glinting along with the bolt in her eyebrow.

  Lisa gestured distractedly at Sherry and said, ‘Earl Grey.’ She was aware that Sherry had only just stopped herself from pointing at her and saying, ‘Moccachino.’ It was a repetition of a scene they had played out countless times before in cafés. Lisa tried not to smile. Sherry pressed her fingertips over her lips; Lisa could see that her hands were shaking.

  Once the waitress had gone, Lisa began to talk, hesitantly at first, but eventually the words were rushing out in a torrent as she finally told the whole story for the first time, editing some of the more recent events. For instance she didn’t mention almost having sex on the kitchen counter with Dan Brogan or that she’d been preoccupied with having sex with him ever since.

  Sherry listened in stunned silence, her tea going cold on the table. ‘So you’re saying some renegade angel sent you back, but in the wrong body?’ she said at last.

  Lisa winced and checked to see if anybody had heard her. ‘Well, not an angel exactly, he said they don’t have angels—or at least not the way we imagine them.’

  Sherry’s brows rose incredulously. ‘I don’t believe I’m having this conversation,’ she muttered, before adding, ‘You’re sure you didn’t actually go the other way?’ She jabbed a finger at the ground.

  ‘No, I did not!’ Lisa cried indignantly. ‘I don’t think I led that bad a life. If anybody was likely to go south, it’d be you.’

  ‘I’ll ignore that,’ Sherry said in a strange voice.

  Lisa saw that Sherry’s bottom lip was trembling and her eyes were flooded with tears. ‘Sher?’

  ‘What?’ she snapped.

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

  Sherry took her time answering. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. It was too unbelievable. People didn’t die and then turn up in somebody else’s body. But the woman sitting opposite her sat just the way Lisa would have sat, she shrugged and pulled faces just the way Lisa did. She knew things only Lisa could know.

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ she muttered at last. ‘Although it’s just the sort of mess Lisa would have got herself into.’

  Lisa’s lip began to tremble too. She felt a thrill of hope, but knew better than to rush things. Sherry would fight her all the way. She sighed when she saw the way her sister leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowed and feline. Typical Sher. She’d spotted Lisa’s quivering lip, and the sign of weakness in her opponent had shored up her own wavering confidence.

  ‘You could have found out about what Lisa did to stop Mum smoking from family friends,’ Sherry pointed out coldly.

  Lisa glared at her in frustration. ‘What about back at the plant shop with Ray?’

  Sherry raised one black brow. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Here Butch! Here Butch!’ Lisa sing-songed.

  ‘I’ve heard other people make the same joke.’

  Lisa ground her teeth. ‘What about the scarf joke? Have you ever heard anybody else say that besides you and me?’

  ‘Besides me and Lisa,’ Sherry replied icily. ‘No.’

  ‘Tia Maria. Cointreau. Jack Daniels. Remy Martin.’ Lisa leaned across the table and hissed at her. ‘Harvey’s Bristol Cream.’

  Sherry’s eyes widened. Lisa saw her throat convulse as she swallowed.

  ‘Have you still got the ashtray, Sher?’ she demanded.

  ‘What…’ Sherry regarded her with a kind of horrified fascination. ‘What ashtray?’

  Lisa leaned closer still, her palms flattened on the top of the table, and replied through clenched teeth, ‘The awful old orange thing Mum’s Auntie Violet sent her for Christmas one year and we’ve been trying to get rid of it ever since. The one we send to each other for birthdays and any excuse we can find to make it a gift. The one I broke and glued back together and we gave to Ben and Brenda as part of their engagement present. The one I sent to you in England when you were on your OE. The one—’

  ‘Alright!’ Sherry burst out. ‘I get your point!’

  There was a prolonged pause.

  ‘Do you believe me?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘I…don’t know…what to believe.’ She looked away. ‘Anybody could have told you about the ashtray.’

  Lisa attempted to leap to her feet, banging the toes of her injured leg on the table stand in the process. ‘Ow! Fuck!’ she yelled, gripping the edge of the table tightly as pain ricocheted up her foot.

  ‘Now I know you’re not Lisa,’ Sherry said calmly. ‘I can count the times she said fuck on one hand.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Lisa snarled. ‘Well that was before I died, went to heaven and got booted out again! I think that entitles me to say fuck as much I
like!’

  The elderly couple sitting at the other table were slack-jawed with shock, while the woman operating the espresso machine behind the counter looked as if she was about to throw them out.

  ‘Sit down!’ Sherry hissed, darting an apologetic glance at the café owner.

  Ashamed to find herself in danger of being asked to leave a shop for the second time in a matter of days, Lisa blushed scarlet and sat back down. However, if Sherry thought it had taken the wind out of Lisa’s sails, she was sadly mistaken. ‘You are such a pain in the arse, Sherry Jackson! There’s nothing between your ears but bone! I don’t know why I love you!’

  Sherry took Lisa back to her house in Torbay. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe Linda Brogan was Lisa, but they couldn’t continue their heated discussion in public without Sherry being forced to arrest her for disorderly conduct.

  For Lisa, going to Sherry’s house was the next best thing to going home to her parents. Ben had built the house for Sherry a couple of years earlier and their father had been gradually landscaping the gardens. Lisa was shocked at the signs of neglect outside.

  ‘Dad’s not really been in the mood lately,’ Sherry said tightly.

  Lisa was appalled. Gardens and plants were a passion for their father—he couldn’t bear to see living things neglected. ‘They’re bad then?’

  Sherry nodded distantly. She was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, her hands clasped between her knees. ‘It’s knocked the stuffing right out of them both. They miss Lisa…so much.’ She cleared her throat. ‘We all miss her so much.’

  Lisa limped closer and tentatively reached out to touch her sister’s hair, but Sherry tilted her head backwards, deflecting Lisa’s palm with the flat of her hand.

  Lisa curled her fingers into a fist, fighting the pain of rejection. ‘I know. I miss all of you.’ A tear plopped down her cheek.