The Other Madonna

by Scot Gardner

  ‘Like he was dead, you know. Blue around his lips, his eyes and then his cheeks.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Michelle asked.

  ‘CPR.’

  ‘You know CPR?’

  ‘Yeah, well, my version of it. We did it with dummies in year eight or nine or something.’

  Andrew ripped the Velcro band off Dad’s arm. ‘You’re very lucky, Mr O’Dwyer. I think Madonna saved your life.’

  ‘Call me Tricky,’ Dad said. ‘And I know I’m lucky.’

  Dad looked at me but he didn’t smile. His eyes were full of that something. He bowed his head in a single nod and held his hand out to me. I took it and he pulled me close, prickled my cheek with a stubbly beer kiss and whispered. ‘Thank you. I love you.’

  I told him it was all right. Andrew spoke with Dad about going back to the hospital with them. Dad wasn’t interested. He explained that he had no pain. He was fit as a trout. Just had a little . . . just a turn that’s all. Andrew said he’d organise some tests and that they’d need to keep an eye on him.

  ‘Yes, tests. I’ll go and have them tests.’

  They wheeled him to the ambulance on a trolley that only just fitted in the lift. He wore an oxygen mask. I wore a jacket and held his cold hand. My eyes were dry and Michelle told me I was brave.

  ‘You’re amazing. Do you know that?’ Dad mumbled through his mask.

  I thought of Jiff and felt a bit smug. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve been told.’

  ‘No. I mean it. Totally amazing. You worked a miracle there. You bought me back from the dead.’

  I scoffed. ‘I thump-started your heart and blew air into your lungs. Nothing miraculous in that.’

  He shook his head then stared at my face. ‘I saw all that.’

  I stared back. ‘What, on the action replay?’

  He shook his head again. ‘Nay, it was real. More real than you and me talking right here. I floated out of me body to right up near the ceiling above the kitchen and watched you in your birthday suit trying to get me going again.’

  Michelle flashed me a look.

  I put my hand over my eyes and groaned.

  ‘Bah. Stop your rot. You’re beautiful. You get that from your mother.’

  ‘Now I know you must have been dreaming.’

  He shook his head solemnly. ‘You heard the crash and you came scrambling out of the bath and I’m . . . I mean me body . . . is lying face down in the stuff that I swept off the sink as I fell. You dragged me by me feet into the lounge and rolled me onto me back . . . god knows where you got the strength from . . . and you peeled me fingers off me shirt. One by one. You thought they were like wax. ’Twas like you were talking right in me ear.’

  I kept my eyes covered. My lungs wouldn’t fill. He put his hand on my forearm.

  ‘My favourite plate. My blue and white plate . . . the one your mother . . . I broke it as I fell. There was a piece of it on my shoulder, sitting there like a slice of porcelain pie. When you came out of the bath I watched you brush it off.’

  ‘All right!’ I growled. ‘What’s that supposed to prove?’

  My skin was crawling under my shirt. I took my hand from my eyes.

  ‘Nottin,’ Dad whispered. ‘Proves nottin at all.’

  He thanked me again.

  Michelle told him to rest and take deep breaths.

  ‘I saw your mother,’ he said. He said the words casually, like he’d seen her down the street. Saw your mother, she was shopping for shoes . . . again. Saw your mother having a coffee with the girls on Lygon Street. My father was telling me that he’d walked with the dead.

  ‘Good,’ I said, and patted his hand.

  Michelle poked her bottom lip out and raised an eyebrow.

  I said a little prayer for Dad. I said a big prayer for me. I prayed that when I woke up, things would all be normal and we’d just . . . you know . . . get on with our lives. Prayed that the dead would stay dead.

  eighteen

  Dad was still wearing his oxygen mask when I phoned Rosie from the hospital. He’d slept with it on. It was 7.26 am but there was no answer. I put the phone in its cradle and she was there. Standing at the door with an armload of flowers.

  ‘I was just . . . How did you know?’ I asked.

  Her eyelids were red and puffy. She spoke to me but she looked at Dad. ‘A little bird told me this morning.’

  Red.

  She moved beside the bed. ‘Is he . . .?’

  ‘He’s sleeping. They reckon he’s okay. They did a thousand and six tests. Can’t find anything wrong with him. They’re going to check his heart more this afternoon.’

  She dropped the flowers on the bedside table and took Dad’s hand.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. I knew something . . . I cleaned up the mess.’

  I moved to her side of the bed and put my arm over her shoulder. ‘He’s going to be okay.’

  She grabbed my hand and nodded.

  I phoned Bianca’s place. It rang nine times. A man answered.

  ‘Hello?’ he said.

  I almost hung up. ‘Hello? Is Evie there?’

  ‘Who? Evie? I think you’ve got the wrong number. Goodbye.’

  I called the directory and checked the number then called again. One ring.

  ‘Hello?’ The man’s voice.

  I hung up.

  Dad yawned into his mask and farted at ten past eight. He blinked and sat up. He pulled the mask off. He rubbed his eyes and smiled.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, and coughed. ‘What’s for breakfast?’

  I hugged his head and Rosie held his hand to her face.

  ‘You scared the life out of us, Tricky.’

  ‘Hmm. Sorry about that.’

  A nurse dragged a curtain around his bed. Rosie and I gave her room. She asked Dad how he was feeling and checked the drip that was in his arm. She took his blood pressure and asked him if he wanted a shower. He was a little groggy on his feet but I’d seen him worse.

  I kissed his prickly cheek and told him I had to find Evie. He nodded and kissed my head.

  Our flat was clean. I phoned Colin. Got him out of bed at ten o’clock.

  ‘Have you seen Evie?’

  ‘Nup. Is that all? You woke me up for that?’

  ‘Well . . . yeah. I suppose. Sorry. My dad had a heart attack or something last night. He’s in the Alfred. If you see her, can you let her know?’

  ‘My god, Maddie. Is he all right? What happened?’

  ‘He’s all right. He had a coughing fit then flaked it in the kitchen.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  The phone ticked in my ear.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what to . . .’

  ‘He’s all right. Just a bit of a turn. Just let Evie know if you see her.’

  ‘Sure.’

  There were tissues on the floor in my bedroom. A hundred used tissues and a lump in Evie’s old bed. I gasped.

  Evie sat up and held her throat. One eye hadn’t opened properly and she bobbed like a boxer and blinked until she could see it was me. I sat on her bed and we hugged. She cried into my shoulder and dug her nails into my back. She howled and I hushed her, stroked her hair and rocked. My poor sister was broken and it wasn’t just a little chip. A Grand Canyon had opened up in her and she bawled like she’d never done when we were kids.

  It sounds mean but that moment was perfect. I was there when Evie fell down. I was there when Dad stopped going. And they were always there for me.

  ‘She just kicked me out. Told me I couldn’t stay there anymore. She wanted her husband. Said it was over. She told me it was just a fling and I should get over it. I told her I loved her and she told me to grow up!’

  Her body shook and new rivers ran from her eyes. I got her a new box of tissues and I phoned Colin again.

  ‘I found her.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She was in her bed.’

  He chuckled. ‘Stop looking, everyone! She was in her bed. Is she okay?’

  ‘N
o. I think she’ll survive. Bianca dumped her.’

  ‘What do you mean dumped her?’

  ‘You know . . . dropped her . . . they were . . . going out.’

  ‘Bullshit. Since when?’

  ‘I dunno. Ages. Evie had been living at Bianca’s. Philippe came home and Bianca kicked her out.’

  ‘The bitch.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Total user. I’m not going back to Sapphires. No way. That’s just not cricket. Poor Evie.’

  I realised my dream job was over before it really started. ‘You don’t have to give up work.’

  ‘Crap. It’s the principle of the thing. What a slag.’

  ‘But it wasn’t you. It was Evie. It’s a good job.’

  ‘I don’t give a flying fuck about the job. I can get another one. I can’t pretend to like someone that I used to love. Bianca would be the sort of person who gets a puppy for Christmas and dumps it in the suburbs at Easter. I’d rather be poor than take her money.’

  I thought about the things Bianca had done for me – the money she’d spent on my tongue piercing, my tattoo – and I felt like my dreams of being wild and free were always going to be dreams. The things I’d done to make myself different were paid for with Bianca’s money and Bianca was a fake. And a user.

  I gave the phone to Evie and sat on my bed in silence. Crumbling. I pulled my runner and sock off. Freedom, the tattoo said. Bullshit.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ Evie asked, and I realised that in our tide of gloom I hadn’t told her.

  ‘He’s in hospital.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He had a heart attack last night. He’s okay. They’re doing tests and stuff.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Never rains but it fucking monsoons in this joint. Where is he?’

  I told her the room number in the Alfred. She was dressed and out the door before I could gather my senses. I should have gone with her but the thought of catching up with her seemed too much.

  There was a knock at the door. An embarrassed tap like Evie had forgotten her keys or her wallet. I stepped across the room and yanked the door open.

  I poked my head out expecting to see Evie or maybe the hero-rat-boy Red.

  Nobody.

  My skin began to crawl. I slammed the door and locked it from the inside. I slumped against it with the thought roaring in me that the man in the stairwell, the one doing the kicking and hollering, had been Dartanian. He was out of jail. He would come for me, I knew it. He would want to take me.

  I’d fight.

  I stood up and opened the door.

  I’d fight the bastard. I’d tear his lips off and ram his nose into the back of his skull.

  ‘Come on!’ I shouted into the hallway. ‘Come on, now!’ I strode to the stairwell and the fear had turned to rage. I was flipping out. I wanted to find Dartanian and break him into pieces. I ran down the stairs with my fingers curled into my palms. My fists felt like hammers.

  ‘Come on!’

  On the eighth-floor landing, the tattoo man sat in his old school chair and smoked. One eye was blackened, the cheek below it swollen, red and stitched. We stared at each other. I was panting like a hunter.

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dartanian. The bloke who did that to you.’

  ‘Dunno what you’re talking about, love.’

  ‘Who smashed up your face?’

  ‘Nobody. I was in a car accident.’

  ‘Bullshit. I was here the other day. I saw him beating you.’

  He hacked a phlegmy cough and butted out his cigarette. ‘Oh, yeah. That’d be Anto.’

  He chuckled. No sound came out but his eyes were smiling and his body shook. ‘Anto was a bit pissed off with me for giving his missus the best root of her life. You want a demo?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ I hissed. ‘What’s Anto’s name?’

  ‘What the fuck are you on, girl? His name’s Anto!’

  ‘WHAT’S HIS NAME?’

  The tattoo bloke sat up in his chair. ‘Anthony Robertson. Mate of yours?’

  I shook my head and felt steam surging in my veins. ‘Not Dartanian?’

  ‘The only Dartanian I know is in jail,’ he said. ‘Little prick. That’s the best place for him, too. Not a name you hear very often, is it? Dartanian. I think his mum was stoned when she named him.’

  I stared at the man.

  The steam that had been shunting through my veins now whistled from my throat as a sigh. My fists uncurled and I opened the door on the landing.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  The tattoo bloke shrugged. ‘No probs.’

  I made it inside the lift before my muscles gave way.

  I slumped against the wall and stared at the tattoo on my one bare ankle.

  Freedom.

  It creeps up on you.

  The lift doors closed by themselves and I travelled down. When the doors opened again, people stepped in.

  ‘Fuck,’ a man’s voice said.

  People stepped out.

  Before the doors closed the man shouted, ‘Get a life, you fucking junkie.’

  I pushed the button for the twelfth floor. The door to the flat was still wide open. I locked it quietly and curled on my bed.

  Torn.

  Numb.

  Free.

  nineteen

  The phone woke me sometime in the afternoon and I answered it through the fog in my head.

  ‘Maddie?’

  It was Jiff.

  ‘Don’t hang up! Wait.’

  I breathed into the mouthpiece.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. I’ve just got to tell you straight.’

  I swallowed.

  ‘Erections happen for all different reasons. Wake up with them. Get them when I need to pee. Get them watching nature documentaries when animals are humping but it doesn’t mean I want to hump animals. Fucking embarrassing sometimes. There’s not much I can do about it. I can’t control it. It’s like getting angry. I can’t control that either . . . but I try. If I get angry and punch the fuck out of someone that’s when I’m a sick bastard. And those guys that hit on you, they were sick bastards. I’m not like them. Don’t say I’m like them.’

  I was holding the phone to my ear but no sound would come out of my mouth. I felt like I was going to spew.

  ‘Maddie?’

  The shadows were still inside me. They’d swallow me if I let them.

  ‘Maddie?’

  They fed on fear and they made me hate myself and mistrust everyone around me. They made it so I couldn’t see straight. They made me feel like free-falling from the balcony. I couldn’t see good or hope or love.

  ‘Maddie? Are you there? I’ve got to go.’

  They held me by the throat and they tangled with my thoughts as they flapped around.

  ‘Maddie? Ah, fuck this . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. It was a thin whisper and the phone booped in my ear.

  Later, as I lay on my bed in the darkness, wrapped in my blanket and a kind of emotional coma, I knew he was right. There were times when I was with Dartanian that my body felt pleasure. My body felt pleasure and my spirit wanted to die.

  twenty

  I spent days licking my wounds. Rosie made food for Evie and me and we zombied around to the hospital to see Dad a couple of times. How could I blame him for Mum’s death? She died in her sleep. She was sick. She killed herself while Dad was sleeping. She was so sick in the head that she didn’t want to get up in the morning. Ever. It wasn’t Dad’s fault. It happened.

  Dad came home that Friday. He’d been given the all clear. The doctor told him to give up the smokes and the grog. Evie and I bought some streamers and made a sign. We tried to think of something nice but the best we could do was ‘Welcome Home Old Fart’. Rosie picked him up in her new van.

  He’d used the shaver I’d taken in for him. The skin on his smiling face was warm and alive. Dad and Evie stared at each other like they’d been
doing at the hospital.

  Dad opened his arms. ‘Sorry, lov.’

  Evie let him hug her. She patted his back and I could see her face. Her eyes shut and her mouth wrinkled. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. So sorry.’

  Dad kissed her cheek and she grabbed around his neck. Buried her face in his shoulder and cried. Dad rocked her from side to side and shushed in her ear. They hugged and hugged and hugged and I wondered if they were ever going to let go.

  I snuck into the bedroom. In time, Evie came in and flopped on her bed with a box of tissues. Dad and Rosie went through the wall to watch TV. We lay on our beds and talked in whispers.

  ‘It doesn’t feel like home anymore,’ Evie said.

  I rolled on my side and looked at her. ‘Yeah! It’s different.’

  ‘I mean I still love Dad and that . . . and Rosie’s great but . . .’

  ‘Yeah . . .’

  ‘I’ve changed,’ she said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Yeah, but if you fall in and out of love like me, it’ll scar you forever.’

  I got angry with her then. Flopped on my back and looked at the feathers in the glass beside my bed. Self-centred bitch. She reminded me of Bruna: back of her hand to her forehead. Woe is me. Drama queen. I realised Evie had always been like that. Lying on my bed it hit me like a revelation. I remembered when I was about four – I fell down the stairwell and grazed my elbow. It really hurt. Evie had looked at it and told me it was nothing. That when she’d fallen down the stairs she’d got a much bigger graze than that. Blood everywhere.

  I laughed to myself.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘We should get a flat. You and me.’

  ‘Cool,’ I said. I could live with her but I’d be clearing out if she ever fell in love again. That much drama would kill a mortal like me.

  I realised I’d never fallen out of love. Only into it.

  I phoned Colin.

  ‘Maddie! How’s your dad?

  ‘He’s fine. Back home again now.’

  ‘I thought you’d gone underground.’

  ‘Underground?’

  ‘Oooh, Maddie the heartbreaker.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Pardon nothing. You ruined poor Jiff, you bitch.’

  ‘I . . . I didn’t mean to.’