Monkey Grip

by Helen Garner

  The three of us and the rabbit slept in separate beds round the big fire. I dreamed, I forgot the dreams. Joss woke up in the morning and said,

  ‘I dreamed that we went back to Auroville.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘The three of us – you, me and Grace. And it had all been turned into an . . . electronic light show. There was a machine for making sand-castles. And on the beach we three did tricks, but no-one watched. They were all waiting in queues for their turn at the sand-castle machine.’

  If Gracie hadn’t been there, I would have lain and dreamed all day. She was restlessly energetic and, though Joss was her focus, she wore out my patience.

  I rang Rita and asked her to cancel my arrangement with Paddy. Hearing her light, slightly breathy voice, I filled up with warmth towards her.

  ‘Something weird’s happening,’ I said, cradling the rabbit under my cardigan.

  ‘Yeah? What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘But – is it good?’

  ‘Oh yes! It’s terrific. I feel really good.’

  ‘Javo,’ she said, ‘was really upset.’

  ‘Yeah? Because I went away?’ Runs of laughter kept bursting out of me. She laughed too.

  ‘That’s part of it. Also, of course, he doesn’t like Joss because he’s into that religion which he reckons is “fascist”.’

  ‘“Fascist”, is it?’ I was shaking with laughter. Maybe it is! I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know anything about anything.

  ‘Mark thinks – I was round at Easey Street the day you left – and Mark said, “Javo has a very tenacious personality”. He thinks Javo is still . . . really rapt in you – which is quite obvious. Javo is down in Hobart too, you know.’

  ‘What! He’s in Hobart!’ I was dissolving with internal laughter. A sudden memory: being up in the mountains and fantasising whenever the phone rang that it would be Javo, that he would say in his grating voice,

  ‘Nor, it’s me. Come back.’

  If he’s in Hobart he must be coming down something terrible. Poor Javo. I remember his face at Easey Street, the day I left Melbourne: he came to the door pulling up his jumper to scratch himself, revealing a pale swollen stomach creased from sleep; his face also puffy, the colour of putty, eyes staring with dope and fatigue; his voice, though, soft out of that battered face. As I turned away:

  ‘See you . . . Nora.’ He ventured my name. I accepted.

  We went up a hill with Charlie and the tractor to get some wood. Gracie and I wandered off on our own and began to build a hut. The timber lying about was inadequate to her design, and when I sat down she whinged and shed crocodile tears.

  ‘You don’t love me,’ she whimpered, looking at me sideways to see how I was taking it.

  My anger dissipated before it formed and I sat there on the damp hillside, staring with a dull peacefulness out over the valley. It takes a long time, longer than I’ve got, to clean out the city head, and longer still when you’ve brought most of your emotional environment with you.

  I got up before dawn and walked through the wet grass up to the dam and beyond into the orchard. I saw the sun rise over a thick mass of mist that stretched like a sword up the valley of the Huon river. The only thing to do was to chant OM, and I did, staring dizzily into the sunny mist, until the air was humming with my breathing.

  Night, now.

  The rabbit insinuates itself between my thigh and the bed. Grace asleep again, Joss reading an out-dated Rolling Stone by the light of a candle and a kerosene lamp.

  I would like to say, hey, sleep with me over on this side of the fire.

  Why? Because I love being near you. Underneath all the complications introduced by my addiction to words, there is one quite certain thing:

  Joss, I like being near you.

  Give me some of your peculiar warmth and stillness.

  When we part, there will be no ragged ends left hanging.

  I came into the house from a walk in the wet grass. He was sitting at the table, quietly smoking. I sat down opposite him. He looked up, straight into my eyes as he does, and smiled at me. At that moment, we were both a hundred years old and we had known each other for ever.

  We went back to Hobart on a bus, an hour’s drive on a sunny, still morning, along the Huon river: fruit trees coming into blossom, the river trimmed in places with rows of thin poplars reflected still as stalks in the calm water. We turned a corner and came upon a pear tree in full bloom, rich white with a shadowy tinge of pink at its heart. My breath stopped. His hands went up in an involuntary gesture: greeting and prayer.

  And that’s how it was.

  He drove us to the ferry. He took my arms, smiled right into my eyes, said,

  ‘See you in a while. I’ll almost certainly be coming back through Melbourne, but if by some chance I don’t . . . remember, any time I can help you, by the power which is diverted through me . . .’

  I did not trouble myself to wonder what this power might be, or where it came from. I just went on smiling, and nodding my head. He turned and walked away.

  On the ferry Gracie miraculously became her ordinary, cheerful self: instead of whining and clinging to me, as she had done at the orchard, she trotted off to the railing and spent the whole journey chattering to herself and staring at the water. I supposed she was confused by the gap between what I normally expect of her – independence and some kind of stoicism – and what Joss had offered her – complete openness to his time, and willingness to serve her.

  We got off the bus in Melbourne at six o’clock on a Saturday evening. Cars waving blue and white streamers cruised down Victoria Street as we walked up it carrying our two string bags.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Gracie, bewildered.

  I stared about me in confusion, still slow from the orchard.

  ‘Yew fuckin’ bewdy!’ bellowed a drunk in a T shirt, leaning out of a passing car and pointing at my blue and white striped jumper.

  ‘They are people who believe in football,’ said Gracie with disdain. ‘And you have got on one of those – what is it? – Richmond jumpers.’

  If I am not careful, my reservoir of quiet will be punctured here, it will leak or squirt out, and I’ll lose it.

  At home I took the pictures down from my wall. I slept well, and dreamed a lot, of urban delirium, lying quietly in my familiar bed. I woke up to the sunshine and began to think about simplifying my life. I ought to take care, though, that I don’t strip it of supports I need in order to live in the city. I can drop a lot of things – possessions, like the clothes I never wear – but in the city the thread that holds it all together is not easy to find.

  Willy teased me, as I knew he would.

  ‘Been converted, have you?’ he needled, grinning at me from behind his twinkling spectacles as I drove up Johnston Street in the rain. I laughed and picked up his hand. He jumped at the unexpected touch.

  ‘Come on, Willy. Let’s go up the bush and grow veggies.’

  Coming home was difficult. Dispossessed, even by minor changes. Nick had virtually moved in and had bought tons of market food, quantities at which the frugal soul rebelled, poor quality food, bought because it was cheap. He bought like Javo: to prove he could beat the price structure, come out on top with more for less. The apples, bought only yesterday, were already going soft. I thought about the kitchen at the orchard, where the sun came in on three sides and we ate apples and cheese and made soup out of lentils. Nick would tease me too, if I talked about it. I was afraid of the first moment of rage at the children, of the unnecessary masses of food Nick and Rita would fling on to the table, of the noise and our crowded living room, of what I’d have to do to protect myself.

  TOO RIPPED

  Already I was spreading myself too thin. I spent another coke night, almost till dawn, in my bed with Bill. We talked about things I had never talked about before: what it means to be alive in 1975, what change is and might be, how we see ourselves fitting in (or not) to
this society, what the next step is or might be. We talked about these desolate things. We couldn’t have slept longer than an hour and a half; the dawn came and we got up and attended to the children.

  Javo came in from the studio, already stoned at eight o’clock in the morning. He saw Bill in the kitchen wearing my dressing-gown. He laughed.

  ‘Great dressing gown, isn’t it!’

  He and Bill grinned at each other, two giants in the small room.

  Javo actually made the kids’ lunches. Rita and I raised our eyebrows behind his back at this display of agreeableness, too surprised to comment. He was doing the thing one does when one is a bit jealous but wanting to show that it’s all right. We spent the day together, wandering about the city, into the state library and out again, walking with our arms round each other, talking gently and laughing. We came back to the house and lay on the bed, and fucked together, looking into each other’s faces.

  And the next morning he stole the last five dollars from our food kitty. It couldn’t have been anyone but him. I stood in the kitchen with the empty jar in my hand, staring at Rita in silence.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get him.’

  We rode over to the tower and found him on the landing.

  ‘What about it, Javo?’ said Rita. ‘What about the five bucks? We know it was you.’ She was out of breath from the ride; on her face was a strange smile of anger.

  Javo dropped his face, also grinning but with embarrassment. ‘OK. I took it.’

  I had expected a denial. I was almost speechless. He sat down on the bench, face turned away, hands dangling between his knees, like a child waiting to be punished. I could not get my breath.

  ‘You give me the shits,’ I stammered, sick with anger. ‘You give me the shits.’

  He said nothing. We turned and thumped down the stairs. Too much victory too quick. We didn’t know what to do with it.

  An hour later I was in Lesley’s Ham and Beef Shop with Bill. The door flew open and Javo burst in, very stoned, ugly with it. He was fumbling feverishly in his jeans pocket. I thought he hadn’t seen me and, my anger having dissipated in the intervening hour, I said,

  ‘Pssst! Hey, Javo!’

  Instead of answering, he pulled a handful of notes and coins out of his pocket and flung them on the marble counter, at the same time turning on his heel and croaking over his shoulder,

  ‘What really happened was – I took the money to get a pie, and I forgot to put the change back.’ The glass door banged behind him.

  ‘Pretty expensive pie,’ observed Bill mildly, seeing that the scattered money did not amount to more than about three dollars eighty. I gathered it up, feeling as if I had been given a hard push.

  Gracie went to Perth on the train with Eve and Claire and the Roaster. The Roaster kissed me goodbye like old times. I felt sad when I said goodbye to Grace. I looked at her smooth-skinned, beautiful little face, and would have liked to . . . keep her forever, or something.

  The rain did not stop. I stayed in bed till midday. I ate too much for my needs and felt disgusted with myself.

  I would like to love and yet not to love.

  Maybe it’s all semantics.

  Where are you, Grace? putting your face against the glass. Rita went back to bed with Nick, and Juliet was on the loose. I cooked her an omelette which she didn’t like; still, it was bright yellow and I looked at it.

  Chris rang to speak to Nick.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ I said. ‘Will I wake him?’

  ‘No. Just tell him – the man didn’t show; but if he does, I’ll call again. It’s a score.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, and hung up, annoyed that Nick could insinuate even scoring into our household. I went upstairs and put my head round Rita’s bedroom door. There they lay in the black sheets, smoking and watching TV with the curtains drawn.

  ‘Nick,’ says I. ‘Chris rang. The man didn’t show, but if he does, she’ll call back.’

  He looked up at me and made a face which indicated, ‘Dunno what that could mean.’ The injured innocence of junkies.

  I came flying into the house at nine o’clock at night, panting from the bike ride. In the corner of the room I saw Gerald, a photo through a fish-eye lens, long legs sticking out of the armchair, glass of scotch in his thin hand. He reminded me of some large wading-bird, wary, stiff, and graceless.

  ‘Hullo!’ I froze in midstep.

  He smiled at me uncomfortably. ‘Hullo. I’ve been wondering about you.’

  ‘I’ve been out of town.’

  ‘Yes. Rita told me you were in Tasmania. I was hoping you would come back.’

  ‘I nearly didn’t,’ I said with a laugh. I pulled off my gloves. He twirled the glass in his fingers, their tips flattened from playing guitar.

  ‘Want some of your own scotch?’ He was looking at me with a funny sideways smile.

  ‘Javo’s mum gave it to me. I don’t usually live like this.’

  There was a stillness in the room. Wary. He was not a person to take lightly.

  ‘Do you want to come upstairs? It’s cold. I’ll make a fire in my room.’

  He loafed across the end of my bed while I broke up the sticks and lit the fire. Clever, cool fellow. I darned my jumper and listened to him talk. Seeing him now in my own house, out of the glamorous drunken smoky air of rock and roll, I felt dimly disappointed. There was some shadow in his face, a strangeness across the narrow cheek-bones, a self-consciousness about the wide thin mouth, that might have sounded a warning had loneliness not echoed more loudly in my ears. At some ungodly hour I said,

  ‘I’d like to go to sleep now. Do you want to sleep here?’

  ‘OK,’ he said cheerfully, and in a matter-of-fact way took off his clothes and got in beside me. Immediately I felt physically at ease with him: skins touched insignificantly, without sexual intent. I felt curious, and friendly towards him.

  In the morning, when he was leaving, he hesitated in the small hallway, one hand on the door knob:

  ‘See you soon?’

  ‘OK. You know where I live.’

  For a second, in his oddly closed, dark face, his brown eyes turned soft. He took hold of me with one long arm and hugged me, right against the front of his body, but gently. I fell back, surprised, and touched.

  But I let him railroad me. A week later I was sitting with Bill in the tower kitchen where I had arranged to meet Gerald to go out for a meal. I accidentally got more stoned than I could handle. I was very tired. Gerald rushed in.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, hustling me towards the door. ‘I’d forgotten I had to go to this meeting. It will be just people sitting round smoking dope and talking.’

  Bill raised his eyebrows, expecting me to refuse the rush. But I feebly replied, ‘OK,’ and followed him down the hall.

  Halfway down the stairs he added,

  ‘The meeting is in Caulfield. We’re getting a lift with Philip.’

  Caulfield! The other side of the river. By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs I knew I was doing something stupid, but some lethargy was paralysing me, and I got into the car unprotesting, with five other people and two dogs. The door closed behind me and I knew it was too late to escape. I started to hallucinate with the dope: Philip, sunk in the collar of his sheepskin coat and holding a well-bred dog on his lap, was the Prince of Wales at Windsor, and the old FX we were travelling in had become a Rolls-Royce with a long, elegant bonnet. Struck dumb, I let myself slip down into panic. There was no way for me to comport myself, because I had no reason to be there: I had come as an appendage to a man.

  The living room of the house we went to had one light, harsh, high up in the centre of the ceiling. I sat at a table. One of the women had a small child on her lap. I stared at it eagerly, as if it might save me. Someone handed me a joint, which gave me five minutes’ unexpected physical pleasure: going to be all right: but in my fright I smoked too much and stampeded myself further into the panic. I knew Gerald had noticed I was battling, a
nd I felt his anxiety not as comfort but as further reason to be frightened. My head clattered with fear. I was out of control. I experienced irrational dislike of everyone in the room. Their voices grated on me. Some thin thread of reason which I clung to did not lead me to safety, but into self-punishing thoughts: why can’t I be with people outside my normal social group? Can I only be comfortable with people who communicate in that clever shorthand we all use? Why don’t I give these people a chance?

  Through this fog of panic I noticed that Philip had been out of the room for ten minutes. I had to gather myself to the sticking-place to stand up and walk out, picking my way between dozing dogs and people’s feet: I stumbled out into a hallway, could not find the light-switch, but followed the sound of Philip very softly playing a guitar. He was in the bedroom. He smiled at me. I blundered over to the bed and took off my shoes and crept under the eiderdown. The thin wiry little sound of his guitar continued beside me, and the panic subsided.

  ‘I’m so ripped!’ I sighed helplessly.

  He grinned at me over his shoulder. ‘Too ripped.’

  And pretty soon I fell asleep.

  What seemed like two minutes later, Gerald was touching my shoulder. ‘Time to go home.’ I thought it was a sadistic joke. But when I looked at my watch it was nearly two hours since I had passed out.

  On the way back to Carlton we did not have to stop once: every traffic light turned green for us.

  When I got back to Peel Street, Paddy was there in the living room, sitting in front of the fire warming her hands round a cup of tea. I stumbled in, drunk with relief.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked as I fell into a chair.

  ‘Oh Jesus, I’ve got to start giving the dope a miss,’ I groaned. ‘I’ve just had the most horrendous evening.’

  I told her what had happened. She listened quietly with her thoughtful, deceptively dreamy half-smile, her eyes remaining fixed on the fire.

  ‘Why’d you go, in the first place?’

  ‘I knew I was mad to go, but I was so stoned, and I just let him drag me out the door.’