The Other Madonna

by Scot Gardner

  The sweet stink of grog was on his breath.

  ‘I think she’s been faking it.’

  ‘Bullshit. You fixed her. Can I walk you home? No funny business.’

  ‘No thanks. I’ll be right.’

  ‘Nah, nah. I’ll come with you. Just look out for you and that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ he said, and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, Madonna, let’s go.’

  ‘Piss off,’ I said, and slapped his hand away.

  ‘Orright orright. You walk. I won’t touch you.’

  I stepped onto the wet footpath and pulled my jacket around me. Paolo followed.

  ‘Go home, Paolo.’

  ‘Yeah, when you’re home and that.’

  ‘I can make it by myself. What do you want?’

  ‘What do I want? Nothing. Just some of your magic, that’s all.’

  I turned to face him. ‘Some of my magic? You’re sick.’

  ‘Now now,’ Paolo said, and held his palms out to me. ‘No need to get nasty. I just want some help, that’s all.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a private . . . sort of . . . problem.’

  He stuffed his hands in his tracksuit pockets and I stifled a laugh. Probably got the pox, I thought. Some dick disorder from too much wanking.

  ‘Private?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he whispered. ‘I need a root. I think I might die.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  He grabbed my jacket.

  I spun and punched at his arm.

  My jacket ripped and he yanked me off balance. He grabbed my hair and I shrieked as my knees hit the concrete.

  I scratched at his wrist. ‘Fuck off!’

  He laughed and my skin crawled.

  ‘Just a head job then. Come on.’

  He shoved my face into the crotch of his tracksuit.

  I bit him.

  He let go of my hair and dropped to his knees, his hands buried in his groin.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran. I spat and listened to him screaming and cursing as I ran.

  ‘Arggghh. You . . . fucking . . . dumb . . . bitch.’

  It was good to hear him suffer. I’d been called worse things before. The smile on my face would have been forced and savage looking. The tears were real, though. They were always real but they’d never last.

  By the time I made it to the lift, my eyes were dry and a rage was barely clamped between my teeth. I didn’t think he’d try that again. If he did, I’d do more than bite him.

  Do I have ‘CHEAP SLUT’ written on my forehead? I should have run as soon as I saw him. Filthy prick.

  I could hear rasping in the flat. Dad was face up on his bed, fully clothed. His snoring had filled the room with ciggie beer breath. Nothing ever changes.

  twelve

  Dad had gone again by the time I got up on Thursday. Normally Thursdays are a bit of a write-off if I work late on Wednesday night. Normally I’d drag myself out of bed and drag myself through the day. I kind of wake up at about 5 pm, just before I need to get going to work again. Factor in that sick puppy Paolo and I should have been wrecked that Thursday. But that Thursday was something else. I woke just before nine in the morning. My eyes snapped open and I swung my feet out of bed. I’d had some creepy dreams. They lurked like the smell of something rotten in the fridge but I couldn’t remember them. I could remember the rage that I felt about Paolo. As far as monsters go though, he was only a novice.

  I showered and folded my Pepe’s uniform into my bag. Just in case. There was a note to say that Dad had gone out. Said he’d be back for dinner and that he’d bring food with him so not to bother making any. Love Dad. I left my hair wet and left it out but looped a hair tie on my wrist. I stood wrestling with the doubts that had flown in with the light of day. Jiff was bound to be a monster in disguise. It’d only be a matter of time until his dick got the better of him. No man is that perfect.

  I couldn’t find my keys. They weren’t on the bench. They weren’t in the door. I had to dig through my bag with one hand . . . my keys were in my other hand. I stood alone in the flat and blushed.

  Red was waiting by the lift. I wondered if he slept there. He pushed the button near the down arrow and stood with his hands behind him, his back against the cold steel doors.

  ‘You’d better watch it, Red. The doors are going to open in a second and the lift is going to gobble you up.’

  He blinked.

  The lift pinged and he rocked forward. The doors opened behind him. He stared.

  ‘You hopping in? I’ve got to get going.’

  He didn’t move.

  I stepped forward and he stuck out his fist. A wilted yellow gerbera smiled from the nut of his hand. I looked at the flower and then at Red.

  ‘For me?’

  He nodded.

  I reached out, fully expecting him to pull away. He opened his hand and laid the wilted stem across my palm.

  ‘Isn’t it pretty? I found it near the bins. It’s nobody’s. Do you like it?’

  It was my turn to stare. It was my turn for speechlessness.

  ‘Do you like it, Madonna? If you don’t I’ll give it to Bushka. You can only keep it if you like it.’

  For a moment I had to wonder if I’d really woken up, or if I’d dreamed the shower, the breakfast, the keys. ‘How did you know my name?’

  Red shrugged. ‘Easy. I listened.’

  The door began to close behind him. ‘Whoops,’ he shouted, and slapped the button then his forehead. The doors racked open.

  He looked past me and I knew she was there. The old hag. I turned. Her mouth opened in a snarl.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for bringing Shaun home. Thank you for helping him.’ It wasn’t a snarl, it was a smile.

  I looked at Red. ‘My pleasure, Shaun. Glad you’re all better.’

  His brow furrowed. ‘Heyyyy. How did you know my name?’

  ‘Easy. I listened.’

  He stepped aside and let me in the lift. Me and my bag and my flower. The doors were closing. Shaun waved. ‘You can call me Red if you want.’

  The air on the street was warm. I swear I could smell the desert. Not that I would really know what the desert smelled like but there was a dusty heat about the breeze that chased me down Sydney Road. Everything about the day felt just a bit weird. I thought I saw my dad ahead on the street and I waved but it wasn’t him. A car skidded and crunched into the back of a tram. Everyone turned to see the tram conductor and the driver of the car bounce onto the road. They watched them look at the damage with their hands on their hips. They watched them laugh. They laughed like they knew each other, like the accident was part of a bigger joke that only they understood.

  I arrived at Pepe’s at 9.17 am and dropped my bag on the step. I rattled the door. I cupped my hands against the glass and thought that it was the first time I’d been at the restaurant when the lights were off. First time I’d ever seen it darker on the inside than it was on the outside.

  ‘Whaddaya think you’re up to, young lady?’ said an unfamiliar wog voice. I looked around, startled by the strange man in the shades. He wore a frown but the frown quickly faded into a smile. A killer smile.

  I held my throat. ‘God, you scared the shit out of me.’

  Jiff chuckled and pushed his glasses onto the top of his head. He hugged me but I hadn’t quite recovered. Would have been like hugging a mannequin.

  ‘Hiya, Maddie,’ he said. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here so early.’

  ‘Nah. Oh, yeah. I had to . . . I wasn’t . . . I thought we were meeting at ten.’

  He shrugged. ‘Close enough, ay? Where we going? Do you want a coffee?’

  ‘Yeah . . . let’s . . . this way,’ I said, and started walking to Igor’s.

  Jiff didn’t move. ‘Do you want your bag? And your flower? That’s your bag isn’t it?’

  I scuttled back and pressed my flower in the side pocket. It was wilted beyond recovery but I couldn’t
chuck it out. I grabbed my bag. I heaved it on one shoulder and Jiff held out his hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I help? Give us your bag.’

  ‘Nah, it’s okay. Bag’s fine.’

  ‘Give me your hand then,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t have to . . .’

  He rolled his eyes and offered me his palm again.

  I took it.

  He smiled. A killer smile.

  As we walked, he talked. Raved, really.

  ‘. . . So I thought how am I going to live with half a finger missing? Will they be able to sew it back on? And then you grabbed it and something happened. Something . . . I dunno. Something magical. I dunno what shocked me more, seeing my cut finger or when they wiped the mess off and the bloody thing was healed. You’re amazing, Maddie. That can’t be right, I thought. I must’ve been dreaming or something. But there was all that blood, you saw it, didn’t you? You saw all the blood, ay Maddie?’

  He stopped and held up my hand. I hadn’t realised how big his hands were. He inspected my fingers. ‘How did you do that?’

  I shrugged. ‘I dunno. I didn’t do anything. I just . . .’

  He shook his head and kept walking. ‘Colin said you were something else. He was right, ay.’

  I felt my cheeks fill with blood. ‘So, how do you know Colin?’

  ‘He’s my cousin. His mum is my mum’s sister.’

  I stifled a sigh of relief.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought you and Colin were . . .’

  He rolled his eyes again. ‘The little poofter. He loves making out that we’re . . . you know . . . a couple and that. When we were little, and he and his mum lived in New Zealand, we used to play mothers and fathers only there was just him and me. Both our dads pissed off when we were little so we didn’t really know about mothers and fathers. We used to play mothers and mothers and he’d always kiss me when I’d come home with the shopping. He never grew out of it. I went on to play rugger and he shifted out here with his mum. It’s handy when I come to visit, though, ay. All of Col’s mates are . . . you know . . . gay. They think we’re a couple so they leave me alone.’

  ‘Are you a couple?’

  He looked at my fingers folded in his massive paw then he frowned at me. ‘I love him heaps but I don’t think so.’ He smiled.

  ‘Just checking,’ I said.

  We ordered cappuccinos and sat under a flapping cream umbrella. A tide of people washed past on the street. A guy in a suit and tie had the Age spread across the table next to ours. The desert wind tried to steal his paper and he slapped at it furiously then moved his cup to pin down the corner.

  Jiff held out his hand to me. I gave him what he wanted and he inspected my fingers again, shaking his head solemnly.

  ‘I just want to pack you in my suitcase and take you home with me.’

  A bell clanged in my guts. I gently pulled my hand away and used it to scratch the back of my head.

  Jiff sat back. ‘I really hoped I was going to stay. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. But they don’t want me.’

  I sat waiting for him to go on. He stared up the road.

  ‘Who’re they?’

  ‘The university boards, the faculty heads, the scholarship agents. In New Zealand we have these bursary exams and I got good marks. Great marks. I thought they’d be enough to get me into vet science here but here you need a better mark to be a vet than you do to be a doctor. How crazy is that? I scraped in but my mum can’t afford to put me through uni.’

  ‘You want to be a vet?’

  ‘Ever since I was little, ay. It’s always been my dream. Maybe a fantasy. I grew up on a farm not far from Wellington. Sheep farm.’

  He looked as if I was going to say something.

  ‘I never had sex with any of them.’

  ‘Whaat?’

  He laughed silently. ‘The sheep. Aussies reckon Kiwis root sheep. I never have. I went to school with a guy who confessed to thinking about it but he was an Aussie.’

  I laughed. I laughed hard and uncontrollably. It rattled inside me and burst from my mouth at squeal pitch. Jiff smiled and looked up and down the road. Tears flooded my eyes and I wiped my face on my sleeve. The laughing had rattled the strongbox of emotion in me. The place where everything was locked down. All the hurt and the loneliness. All my dreams and longing. A bit leaked out. It sloshed out of the strongbox and dribbled from my eyes. One minute I was laughing, the next I was crying. I hid my face in the crook of my elbow and my body shook. I hoped Jiff only saw the smile. How would I explain it? Oh, just PMT. Post-menstrual tension. That month was revolutionary. I experienced pre-menstrual tension, mid-menstrual tension and post-menstrual tension. Couldn’t blame my body every time I felt brittle. Couldn’t blame my hormones for every emotion that moved through me. Probably could blame my hormones for some things though . . .

  I came up smiling. Wiped my eyes again.

  Jiff was looking serious. ‘The Kiwis reckon the same about the Aussies. That they root sheep.’

  I laughed and had to wipe my nose on a napkin. ‘How long have we got?’

  ‘Ay?’

  ‘How long?’

  He looked at his foot under the table. ‘I’m booked to leave on Tuesday.’

  I almost invited him up to the flat. Right then. Right there. I wanted to show him my bedroom. I wanted to show him my bed. I wanted to show him that pleasure goddess Madonna. Powerful. Sexy. Wild. I knew I could be better than good. I knew that I could have done it with Jiff and still loved myself in the morning. It would have been honest. And bliss. Pop diva Madonna in full control.

  That pop diva sits beside a Madonna of more humble means. The other Madonna. The one that glows with the love and respect that balances the lust. The one that’s more interested in the size of Jiff’s heart than the size of his . . .

  Stop! Breathe. Change the subject.

  ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

  Jiff’s eyebrows jumped. ‘One younger brother, Alex. He’s fifteen just before Christmas.’

  ‘Get on all right?’

  He scratched his nose. ‘Yeah. All right. Some days we fight like bar rats. Mostly we’re good mates. I’ve been missing the little bugger since I’ve been out here, ay. So tell me about your mum and dad. You’ve got a sister, haven’t you?’

  He asked for it. I told him the whole story. About Mum dying before my first birthday, about Dad and his new lease of life, about Evie and how she fought with Dad. He sat there, nodding occasionally, stroking the backs of my fingers until the skin felt raw but I didn’t want him to stop. I kept talking until I’d run out of words. Our palms weren’t sweaty. Our cups were empty.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, standing. ‘I want to show you something.’

  ‘What?’ I didn’t move. The swirl of thoughts about what he might want to show me made me hold my breath. Is a monster still a monster when you willingly go with him?

  ‘It’s . . .’ He smiled. ‘It’s nothing like that. It’s a view.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘You’ll see. Come on.’

  I needed to pee but there was no time. I paid at the counter and Jiff grabbed my hand. We jogged to the station, my bag clomping and rattling, my bladder sloshing and fit to rupture. We slipped onto a Flinders Street train just as the doors were closing. We sat opposite each other, panting, with manic smiles plastered to our lips.

  ‘Where?’ I asked.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  Off the train, onto the street. Onto a tram. Off. Onto another tram. For a bloody foreigner Jiff sure knew his way around the city. We walked into the foyer of a beautiful hotel. My stomach muscles clenched. Maybe he had a room? The carpet seemed to glitter. The traffic noise died as the doors slid closed behind us. Jiff led me calmly across to the lift. The lift was carpeted. Half the walls were carpeted too, and where the carpet finished, mirror began. It smelled l
ike perfume, like a glamorous angel had just left. Certainly didn’t stink of piss, though it would if we had to travel very far.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  He ran his hand over the buttons and settled on floor number thirty-five. ‘You’ll see.’

  When the doors of the lift opened, I could hear water. Thirty-five floors up and there was a waterfall in the middle of the room. A full-blown rainforest cascade. I pressed my knees together and prayed. We walked around the front of the waterfall, past an empty bar and lounge, past a restaurant and down a long flight of stairs. We stopped in front of the gents’ toilets. The waterfall and the stairs had almost undone my bladder and I looked for the ladies.

  Jiff put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Wait right here. Just one second.’

  ‘I’ll just nip into the ladies.’

  ‘No! Right here. Wait.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Right! Hurry, I’m going to burst.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise!’

  ‘Good. Don’t burst.’

  He disappeared into the toilets and came out far too quickly to have used any of the facilities. He held out his hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on,’ he whispered. ‘There’s no one in there.’

  ‘I’m not going in there. That’s –’

  ‘Shhh.’

  He dragged me into the gents. We were in a hall between two doors. He clamped his hand over my eyes. I could smell his aftershave and his fingers were dry. Thankfully.

  ‘Jiff, I don’t . . . Where are we . . .?’

  ‘Shhh. It’s okay.’

  The inner door creaked as he led me through. It certainly didn’t smell like the boys’ toilets at school. Smelled like talcum powder. He was just like Dad, I thought. This is the sort of trick that got Tricky his name, I was sure. Then Jiff stopped and pulled his hand away from my eyes.

  ‘Ta daaa,’ he sang.

  I stood facing a plate-glass window that stretched from the floor to the ceiling in – yes, little white bowls hanging from the wall – the gents’ toilets. The view made me step back and grab for breath. The window was on the outside wall of the thirty-fifth floor. I could see forever. I could see the MCG below me and roads spidering off to everywhere. As my confidence grew and I stepped closer to the wall of glass, I could see people – specks – in the park directly below us, smaller buildings and, in the distance, mountains cloaked in trees.