Almost a Mirror

by Kirsten Krauth

  I do.

  She hauls herself up.

  But not tonight.

  She points to her belly and he rolls over onto his back.

  Beñat. Where’s it from, again?

  My father was Basque. French. Bayonne.

  Terrorist?

  That’s the Spanish side of the border.

  You’d look good in a beret.

  She runs her tongue along the trace of sideburns.

  You know orgasms are so much better when you’re pregnant, she says.

  And you’re making me hard to stop.

  He grins but she feels no pressure.

  How about you just tell me what you want to do to me while I make up my mind? she says.

  How about you just tell me what you want me to do?

  She gets under the doona and pulls him down so he’s a mirror image. She looks at the ceiling and compares him to Scott Carne.

  I want you to come in that door with a Grey’s Anatomy DVD.

  Don’t tell me. McDreamy.

  I want you to pretend we have a DVD player and a couch. I want to watch the DVD together, close to each other but not touching.

  Like we are …

  I want you to slowly move your finger up the inside of my leg – I’m wearing stockings – until you find a small hole. In the stockings, I mean. I want you to put your finger in the hole and stroke my leg through the stockings.

  He breathes.

  Are you sure you don’t want to do this now?

  I want you to do this under a doona so no one can see us. I want you to keep moving your finger until the hole is big enough that you can touch my skin. I want you to wriggle your finger until you find me. I want you to rub me with one finger while you move other fingers inside me.

  She opens her eyes.

  I want you to kneel down and rip the stockings off and find me with your tongue. I want all of this to take exactly the length of the show.

  We could watch a whole series.

  I want you to carry me to the bed. I’m fifteen kilos heavier than I used to be but I know you can manage it. I want to take all your black clothes off and lay you down behind me. I want to bring you into me and do it slow and soft and slow and soft until we both get tired and fall asleep.

  She closes her eyes.

  I think I’m ready for the sleep bit now.

  Beñat covers her with the doona and she pretends she’s already out.

  As the door shuts, she sees him walking into the night and back to his car through the dark streets. There’s no moon and the shadows of kangaroos deepen the edges of the road.

  She smiles. She knows he won’t be ready for sleep.

  Not tonight.

  Not ready. Not at all.

  Wide awake. Wide wide awake.

  Beñat buys her a Nifty Nabber with a claw so she can reach things without stretching or bending over. Dirty mugs and plates and pizza boxes topple into clothes pulled off quickly and left there forever and condom wrappers that have become a private joke.

  What’s the worst that could happen? I get up the duff?

  In the night when she can’t sleep, Mona sits on top of Beñat, her belly almost tapping him on the nose as she moves.

  Barely.

  Just enough for them both to breathe easy.

  He reaches up to a breast, lifts to hold a nipple in his mouth.

  Did you know that having sex is a good way to bring on labour? she asks.

  He lets go.

  When does the milk start to come out?

  He squeezes the other nipple between finger and thumb as if expecting a jet stream.

  Kaz thinks I should go to birth classes so I know what to expect. But it’s a bit late. I need a birth partner, apparently.

  Beñat puts his hands on her waist.

  What does a birth partner do?

  It’s someone to take me to the hospital, help me through the labour.

  Mona stops moving and looks around the bungalow. She won’t sleep in here when the baby arrives.

  Kaz has cleared out the spare room and put a post on Facebook looking for a cot and a change table. Mona is glad that someone has the nesting instinct.

  Kaz’s friends have started leaving bags of baby things on the front verandah, and food for the freezer.

  Would you be comfortable having me there?

  She looks at his face to see if he is serious. He looks back, unfazed.

  It’s a lot to ask. There will be pain and screaming and blood and stitches and you’ll get to see me at my worst. And that’s if it all goes to plan.

  Do I have to cut the cord?

  Kaz says they often don’t do that anymore. It’s good for the baby to get all the nutrients from the placenta.

  He lifts her off so she can lie down facing him. He puts his hands behind his head, curious.

  Kaz says I need to do a birth plan. I need to get a bag together for the birth. Snacks to eat and nighties to wear.

  Will I bring my video camera? I could set it up on the tripod.

  She slaps him on the cheek. Harder than she intended.

  I am not having images of my swollen vagina on YouTube.

  He rubs the side of his face.

  I meant for the baby when the head pops out.

  It’s late morning when Beñat knocks on the bungalow door. He sits on the side of the bed with his hands behind his back.

  Which hand?

  She points to the left and he brings it out. The DVD.

  Look, it’s got McDreamy on the cover!

  And the other?

  She points to the right.

  Beñat hands her a pair of black fishnet stockings. Size 20 from Target.

  They were the largest I could find.

  INTO THE GROOVE

  Castlemaine, 1987

  After Desperately Seeking Susan Mona dances at the Underground in lace gloves and bared midriff and weaves her arms above her head and moves through the room as if she owns it as if she’s a star in the making and each beat comes with a camera flash and she watches the boy dance and he watches her and they take turns and she kisses him and the smoke turns day into night and in the toilets she takes her shirt off and puts her armpit under the dryer and looks at herself in the mirror just to see what it looks like and that night the boy with black hair he comes to her in the darkness and she pulls down the shower nozzle and wraps the cord around her knuckles and changes the pressure to firm and wriggles to get it right and she lies underwater barely moving and she stays there barely moving until the bath has gone cold.

  After The Breakfast Club she cuts her red hair short and the boys call her a lezzo and she buys floral cardies at the op shop and watches how the boy walks and the way he doesn’t smile and his shoulders in a suit and his back talk to the teachers and his black band T-shirts and his belt buckle shine and how he can make her laugh without saying a word and his kisses when they’re unexpected and how they make her want to lie down wherever she’s standing.

  After Diner the boy takes her to the Bendigo drive-in to see The Year My Voice Broke even though they don’t have a car and they buy a tub of popcorn and as it reaches the bottom she puts her hand in and feels the soft furry grub growing and she keeps her fingers there until it all comes to an end and they don’t look at each other but start breathing together and the colour of the wheatfields reminds her of the paths they’ve taken the ones they’ve always walked on and she looks ahead and sees them in the city where they scream out and run down the streets because no one knows them.

  After Class the boy meets her in the stairwell and they pretend they’re in an elevator and she puts him in her mouth and she feels with her tongue and lips and says I’m not sure what to do and he says it’s good just keep doing it and her neck gets sore and it’s Rob Lowe not Andrew McCarthy but she imagines herself soft-focus and deepens her voice all Jacqueline Bisset and when the boy comes it tastes so bitter that it’s not like the taste of him at all and so she spits it all over the lino floor before the
boy does his belt up and slides down the railing and waits at the bottom to catch her.

  After Risky Business she dances in her bedroom with a broomstick and imagines Tom Cruise is watching and dresses up as a cute hooker and she says let’s catch the last train home and they kiss for hours on the platform and when they board she’s already thinking what if these people don’t get off and the boy says I’ll push them off and his fingers brush against her and he knows and he smiles as he looks away and she moves with the train and he takes his time and she says do you have a condom and he says fuck! and she rocks and says can you feel that and he says yes I can I can feel that and they end up in Kyneton and there’s no train to come back.

  After Nine and a Half Weeks she leads the boy behind the corrugated-iron tank and they take turns with the hose until her singlet is wet and she shakes her hair like Kim Basinger and imagines her silhouette in the moonlight and the boy turns her around to face away and it’s not as slippery as it looks and he says this is hurting a bit and she says me too and she says actually I’m freezing and he says me too so they try it inside the bungalow and she rubs herself in the spot that spot where she usually does and he’s always a quick learner and her hand falls away and his hand keeps going and she calls his name Jimmy and cries for no reason she can think of and they fall asleep like that in the spoon shape and when they wake up the night is fading and she pulls him back in to her now because all she wants is to try it all again.

  NICK THE STRIPPER

  Melbourne, 1981

  There’s no public access at night.

  Inside the gate, Benny can see why they’ve chosen the place. It’s crazy terrain. A toxic lake. The smell is the worst part. He wipes his nose with his sleeve.

  Weird metal contraptions stick out of the dirt like dead cow carcasses, tripping people over.

  Benny carries the backdrop and it’s flapping about him, a sail in a wild wind.

  They start putting the circus tent up. The sides roll, a travelling carnival show. It’s built around a pole.

  The director gets the shot list out and Benny positions the backdrop up the end so the band will be in front of it.

  Let go of it, Benny. Let’s see how long this fucker stays up.

  The cinematographer gives it a shove.

  The band straggles in at dusk.

  The set designer paints Nick Cave’s body. The writing – PORCA DIO – sweats off as soon as he starts moving. A dirty heat.

  Nick’s wearing a loincloth like an emaciated Roman.

  It’s the same Ballroom crowd at the start. The same two hundred punters at every Birthday Party gig. But then they come and come. Every nut case and junkie in Melbourne.

  Turning up at the gates. They’re raw, dressed in skulls. They come bearing knives and pitchforks and goats and a cage filled with strange coloured birds. Someone sets up a gallows.

  Rolling.

  Nick leads the way, wading through the whirling cesspool.

  Mick’s blindfolded. He’s missing the whole thing.

  The art director pours petrol across the lake and lights it up and then everyone’s throwing matches. The fires burn underground through the toxic shit, flaring when they hit something, exploding.

  People run around dodging the missiles of flame.

  A girl sits down in a bath and it becomes a sinkhole. Deeper than a metre. Run-off from the tip.

  Nick starts beating his chest, pig dog, or whatever it means. He kisses a goat, grabs its head. The chain is tight around its neck.

  Benny waits until the shot’s over and loosens the noose. The goat wanders off and starts nibbling at the dust.

  Roll up, roll up, put your bets on. Come and look at the lucky prize.

  A wheel’s spinning in the grisly fairground. A swirl of lollipop, a game of chance.

  A boy is naked to the waist. He lies in the middle of the wheel, propped up. His long fringe falls in his face as he does cartwheels, whipped around.

  Roll up, roll up. Come and see this fine specimen. He’s yours for just twenty dollars.

  A man rubs the boy’s sweating torso with a flourish.

  To stop the spinning, to save the boy, Benny calls out a number.

  But as he steps forward, another older man calls out a number at the same time.

  The red number is hooked and the wheel starts to slow and the boy dangles upside down.

  To the gentleman on the left, the man in the hat.

  When the boy steps down, he staggers and his knees buckle as he dribbles vomit into the dirt.

  The man squats down.

  The boy’s eyes roll still loose in his head.

  Are you okay to walk? Let’s get you home.

  A night porter from the local asylum brings sixty people for an excursion. Benny can’t tell who’s acting and who isn’t.

  An old hippie, decked out in LSD and Jesus cloth, slams a crucifix in the dirt and climbs aboard.

  He hangs there and waits to be worshipped.

  Everyone ignores him until two skinheads pick up the cross. They carry him as if part of a procession.

  Just keep rolling, the director tells the cinematographer.

  The hippie hangs there all night, in and out of consciousness.

  But everyone is turned towards the Devil as he winds his way around the lake.

  Every couple of hours, the director sends Benny off to round them up. The members of the band who’ve gone missing.

  He finds one fucking to fireworks in the putrid dust, toxic waste eating the tender skin of the girl underneath him.

  Just keep rolling.

  A fat man dressed in the slave robes of a eunuch sits on top of the gallows, minding the noose for Nick. Every now and then he howls at the moon. Slick and stoned, a Colonel Kurtz.

  When people climb up and get close he punches them and that makes them approach him even more.

  We’re nearly out of film.

  A thin boy, the spinning boy, who’s been everywhere and nowhere, lies at the edge of the swamp. Hair like a crow. Soles of the feet black.

  A group of men stand over him, swaying, their golden streams mixing in with the mud on his face, tracing swirly lines on his bare skin.

  He doesn’t move.

  Benny finds the art director at the perimeter of the tip. Ripping out fence posts in the dark. More fuel for the fire.

  The power runs out and there are no lights except the flames on the water. The generator’s gone by morning.

  In the dawn light, Nick and Rowland kiss like it’s the first time.

  As Benny rolls down the canvas sides of the tent, he finds a perfect love heart, shaped by the soft spray of blood.

  Benny watches the music video downstairs in the Ballroom foyer.

  The film stock is cheap. Expired. Grainy.

  The loopy drawing that he had to carry.

  A psychotic spiral. Getting sleepy.

  The skull head looks like the demon goat Nick kissed.

  Pulsing zooms and reds and blacks and shadows.

  It looks different from how he remembers it.

  It’s playing out in reverse sequence. The opening shot from late in the night. The debauchery etched on their faces. Shattered in dust and mud.

  Nick, bare-boned, HELL-chested.

  The red and white stripes of the tent jar against Rowland’s jailbreak shirt.

  With the pole as support, Nick is free to move. He pushes one ear then the other to the camera.

  It’s like he’s been shot in reverse too, strange jerky motions. The praying mantis dancer. Swinging around it like the world’s not big enough to contain him.

  The back curtain of the tent rises and those watching follow Nick out into the darkness. A pied piper through the landscape where he doesn’t walk on water but sets it on fire.

  It leaves Benny with a desire.

  To try to find the man’s heartbeat, to bring him back from that place.

  Nick runs by with a pig’s head covering his face. A mask rubbery with a persona
lity of its own.

  The camera tracks and weaves so fast the background’s really a blur. The costumes. The decadence. Spooling and leaking out.

  Benny can’t really get a fix on much except for the way Nick moves.

  The video finishes and it’s on a loop and it starts again.

  A few seconds in and the sound cuts out.

  Everyone in the foyer groans.

  It’s a new beast without the noise.

  But it means he can see it now.

  How they’ve changed since they got back and now they’ve left again.

  Nick wrestles with the goat, he yanks it by the chain. His eyes into the camera are vacant.

  The absence of them is strong. Benny feels the weight of it.

  At the Ballroom people stand in the foyer watching their videos.

  It’s like they’ve come through a war. Caught up in some underground struggle.

  He searches the screen for a glimpse of himself, of Connie.

  She nudges him and whispers, there we are. A demented zombie nurse.

  He wants to push Nick out of the way so he can see her.

  Benny searches the screen again through the chaos.

  And this time he can catch glimpses of it, the beauty, the heart, pushing back through.

  Nick twirls in a tipsy ballet like a little girl.

  As Nick drunkenly falls off a rock, Benny laughs.

  DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME

  Melbourne, 1987

  Kaz leaves the car running as she drops them at Dodge’s door.

  Did you want to come in for a drink? Come look at the flowers! Dodge calls.

  But she’s already sprinting back to the car.

  She’s going to see a movie. If she stops the engine, the car won’t start again, Jimmy laughs.

  In Dodge’s backyard, the Chinese lanterns drape from the fence but the large buds of the flowers give off the most light. White like fairytale dresses, they drift.

  A Queen of the Night party.

  Look, it’s starting.

  Dodge calls Mona over. He touches the delicate outer petals, closed and pure. They are soft and move in the night air.

  They only bloom one night in the year.

  How did you know it would be tonight?

  The end of the stalk becomes swollen and then it gets fatter and fatter.