The House of Memories

by Monica McInerney

They started talking about fate then, about preordained paths in life, saying that perhaps Felix was destined to have a short life. That if it hadn’t happened when I was looking after him that day, then maybe it would have happened another time. He might have been hit by a car, or got sick with leukaemia. I know they were drunk, I know they were trying to make me feel better, but I couldn’t bear to hear those things. They were talking about Felix, my little Elix.

  I had to stop them somehow and so I stood up and I showed them my tattoo. I had never shown anyone voluntarily before. It was in the smallest letters the tattooist had been able to do, but I had needed to mark Felix’s life somehow, and I had needed to feel pain for Felix. I know that sounds so stupid – as if it would change anything – but it hurt so much when the tattooist was doing it and I was glad it hurt, because I had hurt Felix. I had made him die and I needed to hurt in return.

  I got the man to put Felix’s name, in lowercase letters, exactly where Felix came up to on me when we used to play our measuring game. We had this game where whenever I first saw him, if I was up in Canberra visiting him or if Ella and Aidan brought him down to Melbourne, I would always say, ‘Wow, Elix! You’ve grown so much since I saw you last! Soon you’ll be taller than me!’ And I’d lift him up and hold him above my head and he would laugh and laugh. And I’d done it that day in the flat when I first saw him, and then again on the way to the park. He’d been walking beside me, holding my hand, and I’d lifted him up and then put him down again and said, ‘Let’s measure you again, Elix, because I think you might even have grown since we left home five minutes ago, don’t you?’ And so we’d stood side by side again, and I’d measured where his head went up to on me and I said, ‘You have grown! You’re like the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk! You go up to here now, look!’ And I’d shown him the spot by pointing to a flower on my skirt and I had worn that skirt when I went into the tattoo parlour so the man was able to put Felix’s name in exactly the right spot.

  That’s how it started, I think. The hurting. It made me feel better just for a little while when the tattooist was using the needles. Two nights after I’d had the tattoo done, I woke up with the nightmares again and I went out to the kitchen to get some water. I saw Mum’s sewing basket on the shelf, not that she uses it much, she isn’t really the sewing type, but I knew there’d be needles in there. So I took one and I brought it back into my bedroom and sat on the bed in the dark and I started pushing it into my skin, on my waist, where the skin was soft. It hurt so much but I knew it could never hurt as much as I had hurt Felix and Ella and Aidan. So I kept doing it and I could feel the blood but I didn’t stop until I had done it a hundred times. I counted as I did it. In the morning I got a fright because the bed had blood in it and the skin on my side was all bloody and starting to bruise but I just washed my sheets myself the next day and any other time I needed to.

  It was the wardrobe lady at work who told Mum about it. She’d been doing a fitting and I’d been in the dressing room in my underwear. I hadn’t done it for a couple of weeks so it wasn’t as raw as usual. I had almost forgotten about it, I really had. But she must have noticed something because that night Mum came into my bedroom and said, ‘Jess, I need you to show me your side.’ And I didn’t want to at first but then I started to cry and so I showed her and she started to cry too and she said, ‘Why, Jess? Why are you doing it?’ And I told her the truth – because it made me feel better, even just for a minute.

  That’s when they took me back to the doctor and got me into a counsellor three times a week. And I went to her for the next year. I only told Ben and Zach a bit of what went on in those sessions, even though they asked me heaps of questions. Did I have to lie on a couch? Did she shine a light on me? Those kinds of things. I told them a bit of it but not much, because it was hard and it was horrible and I don’t like remembering it. She wasn’t always kind but she helped me, I think. She taught me how to put other pictures in my head when the bad images came in, and she made me promise to myself and my body that I wouldn’t hurt it any more. She kept saying to me, ‘Your body is a precious thing, Jess. You have to love it and look after it. Hurting it won’t bring Felix back. You have to accept that.’

  Ben wanted to see the marks. Zach told him off. He was being so kind to me now, but the funny thing was I didn’t mind Ben asking. I had never showed them to anyone but Mum, but I’d had a lot to drink and it felt like it was helping me to talk about it and they were so interested. So I lifted my T-shirt up a bit to show my waist. There are still some scars but most of them have faded by now. It’s two months since I last did it. I’ve wanted to, I’ve even got as far as getting a needle a couple of times, but I’ve learned to stop it by thinking about Felix being upset at me doing it. That was my counsellor’s idea. She was right. He would have hated me to do something like that.

  After I’d shown them, Ben came over and he kissed the top of my head and it was so sweet I started to cry a bit. And then Zach said, ‘I’m really sorry, Jess. Is that why your mum and dad sent you here?’ And I said yes. And I told them the rest too, that it was especially hard around now, because of the twenty-month anniversary coming up.

  It still feels almost unbelievable that it’s only twenty months ago. Sometimes it feels like ten years ago. Sometimes it’s like it only happened a week ago. Time has gone all funny since it happened. But all of us, Mum and Dad and I think Aidan too and Charlie, and I don’t know about Ella, but her too, I’m sure, we’ve all had the twenty-month anniversary in our heads as being a big thing, an important date. I’m not sure why. I think it was a card someone sent or maybe something someone said at the funeral. My memory from that time is all a bit confused. But Mum and I kept kind of saying it to ourselves, that if we managed to make it to the twenty-month anniversary somehow, then we would be okay. But it’s not true, I know that now. It’s only a few days away and I know Ella will never be able to talk to me and Aidan has left Australia and I don’t know if Mum or Dad are in touch with him. If they are, they don’t tell me, but I haven’t talked to him for months. I’ve tried emailing him but I was never able to finish writing the message. What could I say? It’s like he left our family too. I heard Dad talking to Charlie on the phone one night and I was sure they were talking about Aidan but Dad never brought up the subject again so perhaps I was mistaken.

  I’m meant to be writing about what happened last night. I’d told Ben and Zach about the anniversary coming up and then Ben’s phone rang and it was a friend of his in London just for the night, and he said, ‘Do you mind if I head out and meet him for a few drinks, Jess?’ I said of course not, even though I didn’t really want to be there with Zach on my own, but he had been so nice and I was a bit drunk and I had also already made up my bed in Ben’s tiny spare room with lovely sheets that he’d stolen from the hotel, so I knew I could go to bed soon anyway. Ben asked Zach if he wanted to go out drinking too but he said no, he had to catch an early train the next day. He’d behave himself and have a quiet night too.

  But after Ben left, Zach opened another bottle of champagne and he asked me more about Felix. Not about how he had died, but what he was like. So I told him a few of the stories, especially the one about how obsessed Felix always was with brooms and vacuum cleaners. Felix used to make us laugh so much with the expression he’d get when he was pushing the broom around Ella and Aidan’s flat. He always looked SO determined. I hadn’t thought about that for so long and it all welled up inside me again, how funny he had been and how much we’d all loved to just sit and watch him do ANYTHING. He just had to stand there and we’d all laugh at him.

  I started crying again. Some of it was because of the champagne but then I couldn’t stop. I hadn’t cried properly since I got to London and I think it had all built up and once I started I couldn’t stop. Then Zach came over to where I was sitting and put his arms around me and before I knew it we were kissing. I wasn’t that attracted to him, he was good-looking but not my type, but it felt so good to be that
close to someone and to be kissing and he was a good kisser. And then he put his hand under my T-shirt and touched the scars and he said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that to your beautiful body, Jess. You have such a beautiful body,’ and he kept saying it and touching me.

  I knew why he was saying it. I knew what he was doing but I didn’t care. I wanted it. I wanted to feel beautiful again and he was touching me so slowly and he knew what he was doing, and so I took my clothes off and he took his off and there was a moment when I wanted to stop him. I knew I was drunk but it was too late by then. I didn’t want him to be mad at me and I was enjoying it. I was. I didn’t fight him off. It wasn’t rape. I said ‘yes’ when he asked, ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Jess?’ and I kissed him and I said, ‘Yes, I’m really sure,’ because anything was better than being on my own and feeling so scared, and he said, ‘Have you got a condom, by any chance?’ and I didn’t and he said, ‘Hang on. I’ll look in Ben’s room,’ and I could have stopped at that moment but I didn’t. I lay on the sofa and when he came back and said, ‘I can’t find any but I’ll be careful, I promise,’ I just let him do it. I let him and I can’t lie, I enjoyed it too. It was really good. It was actually nicer than it had been with any of my boyfriends in Australia – the champagne and everything, I suppose. And we actually did it a second time. This time we did use a condom. Zach got up and got dressed and said he’d be back in a minute and he was back in about fifteen minutes and he had bought some chocolate and a bunch of really cheap-looking flowers as well as the condoms.

  We went into the spare bedroom then, my bedroom, and we did it again and it was even better that time. And we both fell asleep and he stayed in my room and then I was woken up when Ben came back with his friend and a few other people. He must have wondered where Zach was because he was supposed to be sleeping on the sofa, and he turned on the light in my room and Zach kept sleeping but I woke up and Ben was drunk, or stoned or on something else, I could see. And he just kind of laughed and said, ‘Well, I see the two of you are getting on much better,’ and turned the light out again. I lay there and I could hear them all drinking and talking but I stayed where I was and eventually went back to sleep, and it was nice, it was really nice, to be in bed with someone. I felt safe for the first time since I’d got to London. And I actually slept and it was a good sleep, for about six hours, but when I woke up this morning it was a nightmare again.

  Zach was gone, but I’d expected that because of his train, and he left a note (Take care of yourself xx) but when I went out into the living room, Ben had already gone to work and not only that – and this is what I will have to call the police about – my purse and my phone were missing. I’d left my handbag in the living room when Zach and I went to bed. I didn’t even think about it, and one of the people who came back with Ben must have seen it and taken out my purse and my phone. All they left was my diary and my tissues and make-up.

  I panicked. It was so horrible. I was really thirsty and my head hurt from the champagne and the place was such a mess, glasses and ashtrays everywhere and a bong too. It really stank. I kept thinking, I’m jumping to conclusions. My phone and my purse will be here somewhere. I must have taken them out of my bag the night before and put them down somewhere. But they weren’t anywhere. I looked in the living room as well as Ben’s room and the room I’d slept in in case I’d brought them in when I went in there with Zach. I even looked in the toilet and bathroom, but they were gone. It was the most horrible feeling. I’ve never been robbed before. I thought, I’ll have to ring Ben at the hotel, but there wasn’t a phone in his flat, because everyone has mobiles these days after all. And I couldn’t ring him on my mobile because it had been stolen.

  I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t have any money to use in a public phone. I didn’t even know if there was a public phone nearby. It just all started to pile in on me. It was the most terrible feeling and I could feel my breathing going funny. But there was nothing I could do. I was there on my own, I had to handle it. I made myself calm down. I had to use everything the counsellor had taught me.

  I went back into Ben’s room and I found a pile of change on the dressing table and I went downstairs. I had to leave the flat door propped open with some shoes because I didn’t have a key, and I ran down the road until I found a phone box. I had trouble getting the number for the hotel and then the girl on reception wouldn’t get Ben until I started crying and crying (real crying, not acting-crying) and saying it was an emergency because it was. He eventually came on, and I told him what had happened and for a minute he thought I was accusing him, but it wasn’t him, I knew that. Ben is kind, and I had to ask, did he think Zach would have taken it? He said of course not. He could be a pain sometimes but he wasn’t a thief. It must have been one of the other guys who’d come back for a drink and a smoke.

  Ben was really apologetic, asking me how much was in the purse and was it a valuable phone, but he didn’t really understand how bad it was. He said to just stay there until he got back from work and he’d help me, but I could hear it in his voice, that he thought I should just ring my parents and get them to sort everything out. I asked him did he think I should call the police and he said ‘No!’ really firmly. ‘What, Jess, have them come and search the flat?’ and I realised he meant all the stolen stuff from the hotel, not to mention the bong. And then he said he didn’t even know the guys who came back, they’d all just met at some club, but it must have been one of them who took my stuff. ‘But what can I do?’ I kept saying and he said, ‘Just stay there. I’ll help you sort it out when I get back,’ and then I heard a voice in the background and he said, ‘Sorry, Jess. I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can after my shift.’

  And that was an hour ago. I can’t ring the police. What could they do anyway? The first thing they would probably say is for me to ring my parents but I’m not doing that. I’m not. I don’t know what to do now. I can’t ring anyone else because there isn’t anyone for me to ring. I don’t know what to do. I want to do it again. I want to hurt myself again. But I can’t. I won’t. But I don’t know what else to do.

  Chapter Forty-one

  I was waiting at Charlie’s gate thirty minutes before his flight landed. I saw him before he saw me. I had to stop myself running past the barrier to hug him. Then he saw me too and he started walking quickly and then his bag was on the ground and we were hugging. I had forgotten what a fantastic hugger Charlie was. No one hugged as well as he did.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Nor am I,’ he said.

  I stepped back. It was nearly two years since I’d seen him. He looked just the same. He hadn’t lost any weight. He had the same big smile, the same mop of black hair. I hugged him again.

  ‘It’s been too long, Ella,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘I’ve missed you too. How’s Lucy?’ Ask him. ‘How are the kids?’

  ‘They’ve all missed you too.’

  The arrivals area of Heathrow wasn’t the place for all we wanted to say. We switched into business mode. No, he had no luggage, just his cabin bag. We could go straight into London.

  Did he need a cup of tea, something to eat? He must be starving, I said.

  ‘I’m just off a flight, the first time you’ve seen me in years, and already you’re making remarks about my weight? Ella, I’m like a camel. I could live off my own body fat for months.’

  I could hear the American twang in his accent. ‘I’ve some snacks in my handbag if you need them.’

  ‘I’ll gnaw on my own arm if I get hungry. Thanks anyway. Let’s go straight to Lucas’s, drop off my bag and get to work.’

  We joined the stream of people walking towards the platform for the Heathrow Express.

  ‘Are you okay, Ella?’ he said. ‘Are you sure you can do this?’

  Lucas had asked me the same question. I nodded.

  It felt so good to be sitting there on the train beside him. I wanted to hug hi
m again. I remembered telling him for the first time that I loved him, when we were kids.

  I said it again now. ‘I love you, Charlie.’

  I thought he’d make a joke. He didn’t. ‘I love you too, Ella.’

  He asked for an update on Jess. I told him all that Lucas and I had done that day. He’d checked his emails as soon as he’d landed. Walter had emailed. They hadn’t heard from her. They were packed and ready to get on a plane to London themselves, just as soon as Charlie gave the word.

  ‘Do you think she’s okay?’ I asked him.

  ‘Of course she is. Of course.’

  He sounded confident, but how could he be? Jess was just a kid, alone in a huge city. What had Mum and Walter been thinking, letting her come here? I ignored the voice reminding me I was twenty-two when I came here on my own. It was different for me. I had Lucas. Jess had nobody.

  I’d made this happen to her. I didn’t say it out loud, but the thought wouldn’t go away. I’d wished bad things on her for twenty months and now something had happened.

  ‘You’re not responsible for this, Ella.’

  I turned. ‘You’re mind-reading now?’

  ‘I don’t need to. Ella, she’s nearly twenty-two years old. Having an adventure in London. Dad and Meredith are just over-reacting. She’s probably just lost her phone. And the credit card. You know how careless she is with her belongings.’

  Jess wasn’t careless with her belongings. She never had been. I let the lie go. It soothed me.

  ‘Besides,’ Charlie added, ‘I’ve been waiting for an excuse to come over to see you. I’m glad she’s gone missing. Walter wouldn’t have paid for my airfare otherwise.’

  ‘Charlie!’

  ‘I’m joking. I paid for my own airfare. I like your new do, by the way. I’ve never seen you with short hair. It suits you.’

  I pulled at the short strands. ‘It’s easier like this.’

  ‘Very now. Very gamine.’ He said it in an exaggerated French accent. ‘Very chic.’