'What do you mean she hasn't been in?'
'I mean she hasn't been in. Not today.'
'Is she sick?'
'How do I know? She hasn't called. Una hasn't called has she, Debbie? No, she hasn't. Sorry.'
I called the apartment. Sheree didn't always bother to answer the phone, but this time she did.
'Is Una there? It's me.'
'Hi Clarice. No — she'll be at work, won't she?'
'I thought she might have gone home. Don't worry.'
'I'm not worried. See you later, will I?'
'Mm. I might be a bit late but I'll be home for dinner, yes. Tell Una if she gets there before me. Are you okay?'
'I haven't swallowed any more stuff.'
'Of course you haven't.'
I left work and crossed the road to catch a bus to Newtown. I'd decided to visit Beryl and bugger the woman's reluctance to expose her shabby home. It was Beryl or Kevin and I didn't want to bug Kevin again when he was busy before the formidable wife's arrival. The bus drove jerkily, laden with early rush-hour travellers. I lurched in the aisle, flinging a hand onto a window to save myself; beyond the hand I caught sight of Beryl walking determinedly in Adelaide Road, in the opposite direction. 'Damn.' I leaned a finger on the bell cord and prepared to get off.
I caught up with her outside the liquor store.
'Where are you off to?' I heard a whiff of accusation in my tone and tried to smooth it away. 'Sorry. You're allowed to buy grog if you want to. I'm just curious. I was actually on my way to visit you but then I saw you from the bus . . .'
Beryl was looking startled. Then she gave her grey mop a shake. 'I'm not buying grog. I was coming to see you!' And she gave a grunt of laughter. 'I thought Monday was one of your early days.'
'Not very early. I finish at four today. Anyway I'm glad I caught you — what a bit of luck!'
'Yes!' Beryl nodded with unexpected fervour. 'And how's the little mother?'
'She's not a mother yet!'
'Well, that's how I think of her. I'm so envious.'
'You wouldn't want to do it at your age,' I laughed.
'I certainly wouldn't. I'm not sure she wants to do it either.' And as we walked together beside the swooping traffic I told Beryl something of the trip to the hospital and the anticlimactic return home. I presented it again as a funny story, a piece of entertainment. It struck me it wasn't only with Beryl that I chose this approach, almost as if I thought people would despise me if I presented my own feelings cold, without a dressing of humour. I didn't, however, tell the funnier story of sex in the laundry cupboard with my downstairs lover.
Sheree had the kitchen radio blaring. We could hear it as soon as the lift doors parted.
'Where are your earplugs?' I shouted so that the girl turned and jumped. I leaned across her and turned the radio so low it might as well have been switched off. 'No Una yet?'
Sheree looked at the clock and shrugged.
'She wasn't at work. She must still be at Garth's place, I can't imagine why. He must have got himself sorted by now. Have you remembered where he was shifting to?'
'I've never been there,' the girl reminded me.
'But she said she'd given you his address.'
'Not that I know of.'
'For an emergency, she said.'
'Oh yes. Well, I must have forgotten to write it down. It's not an emergency.'
'She should have been at work. Perhaps something's happened.'
Beryl was looking about her uneasily, waiting to be invited to sit down. 'Is Una really missing?' She propped herself awkwardly on an arm of the burgundy chair.
'Make yourself comfortable,' I said but at the exact moment Sheree slid into the wine-red cushions. Beryl moved herself off to the sofa. 'I'll put the jug on. No, she's not exactly missing. It's nothing to do with us how she spends her time. But . . .' I continued after a pause, 'it's just useful knowing how many people will be here for dinner.'
'Oh please!' Beryl started up as if someone had prodded her in the back. 'Don't think I came expecting to be asked! I'm just here for a quick visit. Really.'
'I didn't mean you. I was only thinking of Una. No, it would be nice if you stayed. Yes, please stay.'
While Beryl and I sat with knives and forks at the dining table Sheree propped with her plate at the far end of the room where the television set occupied a flickering corner.
Beryl said, 'Sometimes getting older reminds me of holidaying in Noumea — like a sort of culture shock. You can't quite understand the language, the way people talk, the eating habits. Oh, I don't mean here . . .'
Suddenly Sheree gave a shriek and sent her plate flying from the arm of her chair.
'I told you . . .' I warned.
'It's on the news! I bet it's Garth!' She was on her knees, crawling clumsily to retrieve the plate and the few scraps of food that had scattered with it.
'What about Garth? What's he done?'
'Ssh! No, it's gone now. But it sounded like him.' She was clutching her throat: whatever she thought she had heard appeared to be making her nauseous. 'African wild dogs. They found one shot dead at the zoo and it wasn't the first time, they said.'
'So what made you think of Garth?' We'd left the table to come and join her in front of the TV set. 'Was it someone who worked at the zoo?'
'A volunteer, they said. Could have been a volunteer worker, whatever that means.'
'But that's not Garth.'
'What about all that dodgy meat? Eugh! What did we just eat for dinner?'
'That was chicken — I bought it myself.'
'Ssh!' The advertising break was over and the glossy newsreader reappeared on the screen but she had nothing more to report about the incident at the zoo.
'There might be something on the late news.' Beryl was surreptitiously picking something out of a back tooth.
'I don't know why we're even thinking about it,' I said. 'He had a proper job at the zoo and anyway it was his last day on Friday.'
'So where's Una?'
Sheree wanted to know.
'And the wild dog was discovered shot, wasn't it? Did they say it had been hacked about?' I shook my head as Sheree shook hers.
'I don't think so.'
'Not exactly Waltzing Matilda,' Beryl said.
'So where's Una?' Sheree repeated. 'It's Monday.'
'Where do you think she is?' I asked her and the irritation gravelled in my throat.'You're not saying they've taken off together with suitcases of wild dog?'
'I don't know what I'm saying.'
'We should have been watching for ourselves instead of telling you what to think,' Beryl said. 'I don't really know Garth, of course but I'm sure he's not a bad person or Una wouldn't have had anything to do with him.'
Sheree snorted disbelief and I cast her a sharp look.
After Beryl had gone home — she accepted the money for a taxi since it was so late — I went to bed and worried. We had sat around waiting for the late news to deliver a clearer version of Sheree's news item, but there was nothing more: a former volunteer worker was suspected of causing deliberate trouble, very much as Sheree had reported. She'd ducked her head and smirked satisfaction before rubbing her back and hauling herself out of the armchair to take herself to her bedroom. I noticed she was carrying the baby very low in front and waddled rather than walked. And still no sign of Una.
How long were you supposed to wait before someone became officially a missing person?
Punching my pillow to knock these ideas out of the way, I was remembering how sceptical Kevin had been about Garth's job at the zoo. But perhaps Una's boyfriend was nothing but a volunteer worker who'd lied about why he was being given the boot. I saw a rifle levelled below his lumpy forehead and his pale eyes squinting toward a loping wolf-like creature. The man could shoot a dumb zoo animal without thinking about it twice, I felt sure of this. But things like that didn't happen near me, violence didn't play a part in my life any more than rugby or winning at Lotto. Neither of my husba
nds had pursued any kind of sport and they certainly hadn't owned guns. This was when I remembered Roy, the ex-husband of Una whose telephone number was still in my handbag.
Beryl called in at the audiology rooms where I was sitting plugged into my computer. She'd been to the second-hand bookshop close by; apparently she'd worked in a shop something like that one when she was a young wife forty years ago. She came bearing a paperback novel, a sort of thank you, I supposed, for dinner on Monday.
'Goodness.' I stood up, smiling. 'I don't suppose you're having a hearing test.'
'No, although perhaps I should be.' She'd held out the book, still in its crumpled paper bag. 'I thought you might like something to distract you — it's not a bad read. I buy a lot of books at that shop and then I sell them back again. Oh, but you can keep that one. I want you to.'
'That's thoughtful. Thank you.' I glanced briefly at the book. 'It's all about recycling these days, isn't it?'
'Yes — actually you're right. Even the plots. Recycled.'
I laughed, surprised. 'I didn't mean that. I haven't done a lot of reading lately, so I wouldn't know.'
'Still nothing from Una?'
I shook my head and had to turn away as a client claimed my attention. 'Don't go. I won't be a sec.'
It was Wednesday. Yesterday on the answerphone I'd found a haughty message from Una's department store pointing out that she would need a doctor's certificate if she stayed away much longer before returning to work. I remembered then that I was going to ring Roy, the husband with a face like junket. He'd been unhelpful, which didn't surprise me, but he'd taken my work number in case he thought of somewhere she might possibly be. This afternoon he'd telephoned suggesting we meet. 'I'm at The Jimmy, down the road from you. I often read my paper here — it's below my new office. Would you care to join me?'
'Er — right now, do you mean?' I restrained myself from asking what for.
He seemed to have heard the question. 'I'm a bit worried for Una. I thought you might . . . Can't you get away?'
'Not for half an hour, no. That's when I finish. I only work part time.'
'Oh. Right. Well, I've got my paper, and something I can be working on. I'll wait for you. Okay?'
I told Beryl some of this while I was closing down my computer and sorting the last of some papers.
'Where's The Jimmy?' she asked me. 'It sounds a bit rude.'
'Rude?'
'Like Jimmy Riddle — Cockney for piddle.'
I gave a puff of laughter. 'Trust you to know something like that.'
Beryl looked gratified.
'It's where Una and Garth had their first date, funnily enough. I think that's the only reason I'm meeting him. He can't have anything useful to tell me.' I looked doubtfully at Beryl. 'I'd ask you to join us but . . .'
'Oh no, I wouldn't. But let me know what happens. I'd appreciate that. Sheree must be worried sick.'
Sick? No, not sick, I thought. It was a word to conjure with just the same. I remembered telling Una in those early days — not very seriously — that I believed Sheree was certifiable, and the look that closed Una's face when she heard the word came back to me now. 'Not certifiable,' Una had frowned, as if it mattered. She was funny about mental illness, hoarding details of her own depressive moods jealously as if they were too precious to share. Didn't she know I was as neurotic as anyone else and not immune to my own feelings of despair?
Outside on Courtenay Place the rain was falling quite heavily now. Two sad-faced old women were on the pedestrian crossing, under half-collapsed umbrellas that flapped in the wind. The bus shelters milled with sodden commuters. I saw Beryl onto her bus and applied two quick strokes of lipgloss before retracing my steps towards the St James Theatre foyer. In a shop window I caught sight of myself with draggles of damp hair plastering my forehead. Not that it mattered what I looked like for Roy — 'the king is dead', I remembered. It wasn't impossible that Una might be drinking there herself.
'It's not that I've had any useful ideas,' he said when he'd bought me the single gin and tonic I'd requested. 'But I thought you should be aware she's tried to do away with herself before this. Did I tell you that?'
'Oh no! No, you didn't.' I was startled. 'But it doesn't surprise me. Not much I can do about it, though, when we don't know where she is.'
'It occurred to me . . .' He stopped and looked at me with a sudden focus of interest I hadn't been aware of last time. He was observing me as a person in my own right, perhaps even as a woman. Goodness. Could he see by looking at me so searchingly that I did stuff like that in the laundry alcove with Kevin? I felt a faint blush beginning on my forehead and moving down my cheeks. He said, pulling a serious face, 'I just hope she's set up automatic payments or direct debits, so you don't get left in a mess.'
'What?' He'd shocked me. 'Is that all you can think of? Money?' I pushed my glass away, disowning it. 'I've got to go.'
'What's up? What have I said?'
'I've got to get back. I might be needed at home.'
'Let me give you a lift. It's raining.'
When I reached the apartment one of my soft boots was squelching; it had developed a leak while I splashed through puddles. My head was hunched inside the moist hood of my coat. Perhaps I should have let him drive me. No, I was glad to have turned down his offer. He was a creep. I'd squelched up to the second floor and was jiggling my badly behaved key in the lock when the door suddenly sagged inward and a strange woman was standing looking at me. My head was so occupied by Una that at first I imagined this must be one of her friends, but then the woman's features distorted slightly until she was somehow familiar. Where had I seen this face just recently?
On Kevin's piano.
'Oh! Hello,' I said, before I realised I wasn't meant to recognise his wife. And a moment later it ceased to matter when I looked past her and heard Sheree making noises similar to the ones she'd entertained us with the previous Friday. 'Sheree?'
Kevin had followed me into the apartment — he must have been only a few steps behind — and now he nodded at me without smiling. 'She's started again. We think it's real this time — don't we, Dale? Dale, this is my neighbour, Clarice. I just brought the car round.'
I approached Sheree, who was wearing Una's rainproof jacket and holding onto the back of her favourite chair, rocking slightly. She didn't seem to want to let go.
'We'd better get moving,' Kevin raised his voice. He indicated the cheap plastic zip bag that slumped pinkly against Sheree's ankle and I reached down to pick it up. 'Are you coming with us, Clarice?'
'Yes! She's coming,' Sheree shouted.
'Of course,' I agreed. 'I'll just change my coat and get a towel.'
'A towel? That's a new one,' Kevin raised his eyebrows. 'What for exactly?'
'I'm wet!'
'Oh, sorry. You don't have to come,' he said to his wife.
'I certainly don't. I'm jet-lagged.'
'Yes. Sorry,' he repeated. 'I shouldn't be long.'
The rain was easing now but the traffic was building on the main bus route. When I took off my glasses to wipe them clear of raindrops the headlights of the car on the road ahead of me splashed and diffused. Sheree wasn't exactly holding my hand but her fingers clutched at my wrist intermittently.
'Jesus,' Kevin complained from the front seat.
'Rush hour,' I agreed.
'I'm just so glad you turned up,' he threw at me over his shoulder. 'Is she all right?'
'She' was emitting a low continuous moan punctuated with gasps.
'Just think,' I told her. 'It'll be all over soon. They'll give you something for the pain. And at the end of it . . .'
'A baby?' Sheree yelped. 'Jeez, I hope you're right. Feels like an elephant. It'll be a monster anyway. I just want it out.'
'You might feel very different when it's over.'
'Too right I will! I'd better!' She held onto her stomach as if she was trying to push it away from her. The contractions had abandoned her for the time being and she breathed
normally.
'What do you mean — monster?' I probed, in the lull.
'Killer genes. You must know. Tyler's granddad went to prison, didn't he? Una's ex. And then Tyler . . . He said he'd be in hell and I believe him. That's where he'll be. Oh shit!'
An ambulance plunged by, pulsing with alarming noise, as Kevin turned into the hospital entrance and nosed about looking unsuccessfully for a park.
'I might have to just drop you off,' Kevin said, pulling a face of apology as a four-wheel drive vehicle claimed the parking space he had been heading for.
'Oh shit!' Sheree shouted again, accidentally pressing her finger on the electronic device that opened the window. 'What you gawping at?' This was delivered to a passing couple who had turned with a look of concern.
I marvelled at the girl's lack of interest in the spectacle she was making of herself. I rested a light hand on her shoulder and imagined I felt powerful currents quivering under the warm skin.
'I'm having a baby, aren't I! You're allowed to make a fuss.'
A car was backing out in the path of Kevin's progress and a vacant space appeared fortuitously. He drove into it and turned to see how we were coping in the back seat.
Sheree tumbled herself out of the car and leaned her forehead against the rear door with her feet placed clumsily wide apart. I came around to take her coaxingly by the arm. Kevin checked that the car was locked and moved to join us. He had the pink zip bag, which I'd forgotten, under his arm.
Playing Friends Page 14