Call Me Evie

by J. P. Pomare

  ‘My hair,’ I say, looking up at him.

  He sucks his lips, standing so close that I can see the tiny constellations of blood vessels in his cheeks, the pores of his nose.

  ‘It’ll grow.’

  He stirs a scoop of white powder through the juice and brings it over to me. I block my nose and take a long sip. The taste is earthy and bitter. I cough.

  ‘Good girl. Keep it down.’

  He goes up the hall and returns with the camera, sliding open the door to the back deck, overlooking the yard and the sweeping bay far below.

  We step outside and the air, so cool and unfamiliar on my scalp, sends a ghost down my spine.

  ‘Right there,’ he says. ‘In your underwear.’

  I step out of my tracksuit pants, grasp the sleeves of my hoodie and pull it off. Standing in my underwear on the deck before the weathered timber wall, I face him. I clutch myself to keep warm.

  ‘Just be still for a minute, then we can take a walk.’ He holds the camera up and snaps photos of me from front on; I flinch each time I hear the shutter. Then I turn and he takes photos from the side. Looking down I can see the stencil of my ribs, the sharp ridges of my hipbones. It’s as though I have stopped ageing, no longer a seventeen-year-old girl but working back to being a child.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Let’s go.’

  •

  As we trek up to the headland, I draw my fingertips along the skin of my head; I palm the planes of my skull.

  At the top I step near the edge and I can feel the nervous energy coming from him, radiating in waves. The boom from the sea is so loud that I widen my stance, as if the wind driving up the cliff face could reach out like a hand and pull me over. Below, the water twists white in the channels between the rocks. He breathes almost silently and he’s light on his feet, yet I can feel he’s close.

  ‘Well, you’ve seen it now,’ he says from behind me. If I didn’t know any better I would say there was fear in his voice. ‘Let’s head back. It’s not good for you to be out in the cold.’

  Stepping a foot closer to the fence I peer down over the edge. There are people, tiny from above, standing along the crescent of sand.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, not disguising the strain in his voice. ‘Come on. Now.’

  I turn and start back towards the road. He looks grim, his eyes weary behind the clear glasses. His face is stiff as I pass. Does he regret shaving my head now? I stuff my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. We cross the farmland. There’s a rusted iron shed in one of the paddocks, the type of thing someone might take a photo of. I make a rectangle of my thumbs and forefingers, close one eye.

  ‘Funny how some things are different here.’ I wonder if he means the shed, or maybe the bird with the blue bill watching us from its eave. Thinking about home is a twist in the heart. I bite my cheeks and force my face to remain neutral.

  We climb the wooden steps over the last fence and continue along up to the road. Nearby, the black skeleton of a car leans down the bank. The grass, which is richer and greener than at home, reaches up to the door handle. This country is a million shades of green. Ferns plume out over a neighbouring fence like small emerald explosions, branches hang down towards the road under the weight of fat leaves, and there are those strange brown fingers from which the ferns unfold – punga, he called them. Some properties are fenced in almost entirely by them.

  Somewhere far off an engine rumbles. I press my hands into my thighs to help with the incline. In a way, my body has become unfamiliar to me; the drag of breath that comes with some small effort, the hardness of my skin where it’s drawn tightly over my femurs. I look up, shocked.

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘Need to get meat on those bones.’

  •

  Back at the house, I leave him in the kitchen. Stepping out onto the deck once more and leaning against the balustrade, I look out over the steep yard, towards the curl of the bay and the hills, moss green in the twilight. Two streetlights near the beach flicker on. I’m shivering with cold but I make a study of the land, particularly the road out, from where a pair of headlights can be seen tracing the route into town. I had tried to memorise the drive – the turns, the landmarks – but we drove for so long and the pills had made me so sleepy that it had all faded by the time we reached the house. I recall a tower; a steel-trussed structure of red and white thrusting towards the sky and held in place by wires.

  I see then, down towards the corner of the block, a steel shed, the roof thick with foliage from an overhanging tree. I climb down the steps and cross the yard to the shed. The door is clean, recently painted with a new steel door handle. I try it but it’s locked. I climb back up the steps to the deck as the back door slides open.

  ‘You’ll catch your death out here,’ he says. ‘I’ve made you a hot drink.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Dandelion and chamomile. Good for the liver apparently.’

  I drink the tea. Then, when I hear the shower drubbing in the bathroom, I pull on a sweatshirt and my Chuck Taylors. I’m allowed out of the house with him. What about on my own?

  I open the door, step through and silently pull it closed behind me. The driveway is steep and gravelly. It’s an effort to climb up it towards the road. We could have gone anywhere in the world, I think, but he dragged me here. An old bus shelter juts out at the corner, flimsy wood and a rash of flaking brown paint. I feel eyes and glance over. Inside, in the near darkness, sit two boys and a girl. One of the boys throws his head forwards, narrows his eyes at me. I look away.

  ‘You’re a lesbie, eh?’ he says, ugly and mean.

  I turn again and let my gaze creep up from the road. I remember my bare skull and feel a sudden urge to run.

  He flicks his tongue between his fingers. The others laugh. ‘Fucking lesbie,’ the girl says. She holds a paper bag to her mouth and sucks in a breath.

  I quicken my pace and when I get to the bottom of the hill near the beach, I can’t convince my feet to go any further or to turn back, so I stand rubbing warmth back into my arms. I look out around the bay, following the road with my eyes. Nearby, a white dog sniffs at the grass. By the way it hops along, I see it’s missing its front left leg. That narrow head turns to me. Its eyes are black and glossy as oil seep. It turns away and continues on in a rolling gait. The town is in shade now as the sun disappears. If I can get far enough away, if I can make it to the highway . . . then what?

  Something hits the asphalt. A stone? A sharp sting strikes the back of my head. I hunch forwards, touching where I was struck. Spots of blood come away on my fingertips. The headache is back, grinding just below the surface. Where the bus shelter sits at the road’s edge, the silhouette of a head pokes out, then disappears. I stand there weeping, holding myself together in the cold. Why here? I think. A lacquer of hopelessness pours over me, standing alone as the occasional car passes and the last light fades from the sky. There’s nowhere to run. We are so far from the airport.

  After we landed, before we got into the car, he made me swallow a small diamond-shaped pill. A calm rolled over me at once, and on the drive I drifted in and out of sleep. I regained consciousness to find we had stopped at a service station. I was too drowsy to get out, but I watched the world from the passenger seat. I listened to the strange accent of the other customers, short formal vowels, hard stops between words. I thought we were on the other side of the world. The birdsong, the quality of light, everything is different here.

  Soon enough the sedan comes around the bend. He pulls up beside me and when I climb in, he just stares. I brace myself.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Shit.’ He thumps the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. ‘What do I have to do? Tell me, what the hell do I have to do to make you realise what sort of trouble we’re in?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  A knot pulses at his jaw. I wait for pain, for anything. He shifts the car into gear and silently we glide awa
y from the kerb.

  ‘I just felt like a quick walk.’

  He lets all the air out of his lungs at once. ‘We had a bloody walk today. You know what will happen, don’t you? You know what I will have to do.’

  When we pass the bus shelter, I look in. The kids are gone.

  •

  All houses have their own quirks. This house is nothing like home. This house is nothing like anywhere I have been before. The cupboards don’t quite close all the way. Windows shudder when a door is slammed, and when the wind picks up the structure seems to yaw.

  The light is on above the deck outside and a pair of moths fly about it in delirious elliptical whirls.

  ‘You can’t disappear like that,’ he calls, marching down the hall. ‘Just say if you want to go for a walk and I’ll take you. It’s dark out there.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat.

  ‘What if someone saw you or recognised you on the road? What then?’

  He comes back, pulling a jumper on over his shirt. He slams something down on the bench. It’s a deadbolt. I look up into his eyes.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just something that will give me peace of mind in the evenings.’ As he says it, I notice the loops of sleepless bruising about his eyes. He didn’t sleep on the plane. ‘You don’t seem able to grasp what is at stake here. I’m protecting you from yourself.’ Then he’s off up the hall towards my room. ‘From now on, you don’t leave this house and you don’t leave this room, not without my permission.’

  I wonder if it is loneliness, his fear of me escaping, that seethes inside of him, or if it is something else.

  The headache still looms as I sit at the kitchen bench. I hope it’s just an echo of the slap or the stone that hit me, not something I now live with like the phantom pain of a missing toe. I press the bump at the back of my head with my thumbnail. Fresh blood seeps out. The pain is addictive, like worrying an ulcer with my tongue.

  I hear Jim testing the lock, sliding it into place, blowing the wood shavings away. The cutlery drawer is across the bench. It would be easy to reach in and pull out a steak knife, slide it into my pocket. Just something small to make me feel safe.

  When he comes back up the hall he stands before me, hands on hips. ‘You go taking off like that and things are going to get a lot worse. Right now, you’re free. But that freedom is tenuous. Understand?’

  I nod.

  ‘I’ve been through this before, and I’m not going to let you leave me.’

  •

  Jim finds me balled up on the couch with my blanket wrapped around me. I didn’t sleep well. Maybe it’s the spongy mattress, or could it be the lock on the door? There is something about the idea of being trapped that keeps me on edge. More likely it’s the dreams. While I lay in bed, eyes wide open waiting for sleep, I heard the floor as he paced back and forth. He didn’t sleep well either.

  ‘I’ll light the fire,’ he says, looking down at me. ‘It’ll get warmer soon. It’s almost spring.’

  Spring. He plans on keeping me here until spring.

  He heads outside to search for wood.

  The television sits in the corner. He lets me watch it during the day, but it’s not like home. We don’t have all the channels. No guilty pleasures, no Keeping Up with the Kardashians, no Ex on the Beach; the world through the screen is not the one I know. It seems absurd that there are only a few channels. Apparently he no longer believes in the internet or smart phones – not for me anyway. He’s trapped me in the nineties.

  It’s only been a couple days but already I miss what I know. Even the small things: Boost Juice; catching trams to the city; the Yarra River, churning with plastic bottles and shreds of rubbish. On sunny afternoons we used to watch the rowers from the banks as they dragged themselves along and the heat bleached the grass. One night, Willow and I pushed a shopping trolley into its depths without a second thought. Isn’t it strange how one moment you can be taken by a destructive impulse and the next you’re fine?

  I rise from the couch, shed the blanket and go to the kitchen. The old steel tea tin is where the white powder for my smoothies comes from. I pull the lid off and sniff. There’s something in it, strange smells that weave into my sinuses. He told me it’s a mix of protein and carbohydrates to help me gain weight.

  ‘Leave that,’ he says, coming through the back door. I jump. He crosses the room and takes the tin from my hand.

  ‘I was only –’

  ‘It’s fine, just don’t. There’s no wood.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ll organise some. For now we can collect driftwood and use that. How’s your head? Feeling better?’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  He takes me gently by the back of the neck and presses his lips to my forehead. I wince, resisting the urge to wipe the dampness away.

  ‘I’ll give you some pills,’ he says, stepping back, opening a drawer.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  He swivels at the neck like an owl. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  There is a tray of sealed pills in his hand. He punches two out onto the bench. ‘Come on. Take these.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Ibuprofen. They’ll help with the headache.’

  I hold them in my hand and steady my breath. When he hands me a glass of water, I swallow them, then show him my tongue.

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘When will you take me home?’ I hate the pathetic lilt in my voice.

  ‘You know what will happen.’ He reaches up and gently taps his forefinger against my temple. ‘Only time will heal this, and what happens out there –’ pointing to the backyard, the world beyond ‘– that’s out of your control, but it will only get better when everyone moves on.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you remember? Is it coming back to you?’ He leans forwards, his eyes sharp.

  ‘I just remember the car. I remember being in the car.’

  But I can remember more. I can remember gripping the steering wheel, the crunch of the car hitting something. Then there is only darkness. There is only me, my body thrumming with adrenaline.

  ‘I remember small things. That’s it.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I shake my head. ‘Not much.’ I can feel the tears coming.

  ‘It’s okay, we’ll get there.’

  ‘Can I send a letter now? You promised.’

  He regards me; I know he doesn’t want anything going out or coming in. Only he is allowed to use the internet – using a special Tor browser and VPN, only visiting certain websites. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Fine.’

  •

  I take up the pen but I can barely hold it. I go to my room and sit on the edge of the bed, plotting each word before I press the nib to the page.

  He doesn’t want anyone to know where we are. The first thing I want to tell you is I’m safe and happy. We must stay hidden for obvious reasons. I’m not allowed to text or use Instagram – he won’t even let me on the internet.

  I’ve actually been thinking about you a lot lately. Thinking about what we did.

  I do miss you. I miss spending afternoons lying in the study, listening to music. Maybe one day we can go back to that time.

  I sit with the letter in my hands, carefully folding it into thirds. I slide it into the envelope and leave it unsealed.

  When Jim calls to me I return to the lounge room and hand it to him. He removes the letter, unfolds it and scans my words while his cracked lips make subtle movements. ‘It’s fine,’ he says, stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans. ‘I’ll send it on our way.’ He steps back and gestures to the door.

  ‘On our way where?’

  ‘The doctor.’

  FOUR

  IT TAKES FORTY minutes to drive back to civilisation. I watch out the window, counting intersections, memorising the route to the highway. Left, right, straight through, right. I repeat it in my mind like a mantra. Left, right, straight, right. Focus on land
marks: tall trees, a rusted-out shed.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks. ‘Is it alright in the car?’

  My breathing is loud. ‘It’s okay.’

  Eventually we pass a McDonald’s and a BP, and I almost feel normal. A sign declares that a small square building, a place that looks just like a house, is the Te Puke police station. I stare as we pass by.

  Pulling into the doctor’s surgery, I see it also appears to have been a house once. A sign is stabbed into the lawn displaying the doctors’ names with all their suffixes and above them all: AROHA MEDICAL CENTRE.

  Inside it looks like any clinic, with posters for flu shots, a crate of children’s toys in one corner, and magazines so dog-eared they no longer stay closed but splay out over the low coffee table.

  A nurse with hair she gave up on years ago and clacking plastic bangles leans over the desk.

  ‘First time?’

  ‘Yep,’ Jim says, squeezing out a smile. He thumbs his glasses back up his nose.

  She hands me a clipboard. I look him in the eye pointedly as I let the pen hover over the name section. He takes the clipboard and pen from me. I watch him fill in the boxes with his leaning scrawl. ‘Evie Turner’ under name, then our new address. He checks his mobile for his new number, before scribbling it down. He takes the clipboard up to the receptionist, then returns and folds one leg over the other, looking down at his phone. The benches and seats are full. There is a child with a cast on his arm sitting beside his mother, who has sunken cheeks and the last millimetre of her thumbnail between her front teeth. An elderly man sits beside her, clearing his throat periodically. He hawks up a wad of phlegm, deposits it into his hanky.

  We sit there as the afternoon stretches out. The mother and son disappear up the corridor with the doctor. Eventually the nurse calls another patient. She calls the name again. She comes over, places her hand on my wrist. ‘Evie?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jim says, ‘I was daydreaming. Come on, Evie, doctor’s ready.’

  Why has he brought me here? It’s as if I’m peering at their faces from the bottom of a well. I can hear them, feel their hands on my arms, under my shoulders. They lift me to my feet but at first I can barely move. I’m as still and rigid as a china doll.