What Came Before

by Anna George

  Travelling too fast at 120, Mira slows, sets the cruise control and tries to calm herself. Once, she’d asked Elle why she so loved David Forrester. Contrary to what Mira had expected, Elle didn’t recite a list of attributes. Elle just knew, in her gut, they were a fit. Not because of his passion for film, his searing looks or his wry intellect. Not even because of his Cary Grant–like Mercedes Benz coupe. The man himself, the complex package of him, was simply it. A position, thinks Mira, with which it’s hard to argue, avoiding as it does hard evidence. A chill makes her flesh tingle beneath her pyjamas and thin trench coat. Adjusting the heater, she takes heart: Elle went back to him, yes, but eventually she left.

  It was the day after the first proposal. Relishing the sting of the sun, Elle was sitting on the patch of lawn in her backyard. Clad in a hat, Mira sat under the lemon tree. Hearing the news, she tried to suppress her relief. ‘You don’t see a future with him?’ she said lightly.

  ‘No, I do.’ Elle closed her eyes to the sun.

  Mira watched the dew forming on her friend’s brow. ‘What then?’ she said.

  ‘It’s barely been six months . . .’ Elle squinted across at her. ‘I thought by now I’d be swept off my feet and it would just work.’

  ‘How’s it not working?’ Mira’s voice sounded remarkably neutral. ‘Here.’ She offered her fedora.

  ‘Like all of us – ta,’ said Elle, ‘I suppose, he can be apathetic. Irritable.’ In her left hand, she spun the hat. ‘He’s not exactly sociable either; he doesn’t want to meet my friends.’

  Heartened if spurned, Mira watched the blur of woven straw. ‘That’s his loss then, isn’t it?’

  Elle shrugged, embarrassed.

  ‘Elle, it should be easy. You’re in the honeymoon period. Look at Troy and me.’

  ‘But Troy is permanently non-limerent,’ said Elle, stopping her play. ‘He says so himself. You can’t compare.’

  Mira laughed. ‘Yes, I can. And it works. Because he listens, and he does what he says he will. He knows who he is, and he’s good to us. We laugh.’ She paused. ‘You don’t really want to be swept off your feet. You saw what happened, after Jude. I ended up marooned.’

  Elle’s tone was defensive. ‘Not everyone ends up a single mother.’ She tossed the hat across the yellowed grass.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mira, I’m sorry.’ Elle patted Mira’s leg. ‘But the thing is . . . I came this close to saying yes.’

  Elle’s forefinger and thumb were a millimetre apart. Her eyes were fervent and confused. In them, Mira saw the awful truth of Elle’s words. She also saw an unfamiliar trace of self-doubt. Or fear.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t.’

  Reviewing the empty highway in her mirror, Mira knows her disapproval was obvious. The instant she met David she could see that he was damaged, or at least inchoate. She’d met complex, controlling men like him before. And, at the six-month mark, his behaviour already indicated his affections were waning. For a man like him, that spelled trouble. His irritability was only going to worsen. The great frustration was that her beautiful, intelligent friend couldn’t see it. Like Romeo, she was too in love with love.

  Flicking off the warm air, Mira drives on. She approaches Werribee and its low-grade sewage stink. With another 75 kilometres to go, she knows, like it or not, she’s going to relive this relationship all the way to the Surf Coast. That man took his toll on everything she held dear. Her friendship with Elle, her growing family, their film. Their glorious and fraught film.

  It’s become a habit of hers: mulling over the course of their second feature – from its script development to its post-production – and wondering what else she could’ve done. A frustrating habit and one she ought to give up. But there’s a perverse pleasure, too, in tracing the downward trajectory. Perhaps because it dovetailed so neatly with his.

  One morning, a few weeks after the proposal, Mira received the news she’d been waiting on. Instantly, she called Elle to say they’d got their funding. ‘That’s fantastic,’ said Elle, quietly. A bubble of dread formed in Mira’s gut. At the same stage with Daisy, she and Elle had raced to meet and break out the sparkles.

  Half an hour after the call, they were sipping lattes in silence. On Ballarat Street, the Feedback Cafe, typical of the inner-west with its unpretentious, meticulous coffee, was busy. That morning, the crowd had spilled onto the footpath and they found themselves by the kerb. Alongside their table, on the other side of a canvas fence, cars waited to turn from Ballarat Street onto Anderson. In the Yarraville village the two intersecting main and slender roads forced the traffic to form informal queues. Sometimes, cars banked up across the railway line. Often, horns tooted. Usually the women enjoyed the village mayhem but that morning Elle was glaring at the traffic.

  Mira retrieved a script from her bag and flashed a brave smile, ‘What’s this, then?’

  Elle stirred. ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘ “Do people always fall out of love?” ’ said Mira, with a pout.

  ‘It seemed more fresh to me. And not so overstated.’ Elle frowned, tugging at a piece of skin on her lip.

  ‘But we don’t need it.’ Mira was afraid her words would sound rehearsed. ‘Everyone loves the last draft we gave them.’

  ‘But I prefer this. I think.’

  ‘This draft is going backwards . . .’ Mira paused, battling to contain her frustration, ‘a long way.’

  Elle was staring hard, like a lip-reader.

  Mira smothered a sigh. She’d already put a huge effort into this film, liaising with everyone from the government funding bodies and local distributor to the international sales agent and other financiers to raise the budget. And what a budget – double that of modest Daisy. Thinking in millions was still surreal to Elle but not to Mira: she knew where every cent was going, and who had to be repaid what. And she intended to make it happen.

  ‘We’d be back at square one,’ said Mira. ‘The investors won’t accept this.’ She tapped the script.

  In that bustling cafe, Elle’s face fell, muscle by muscle. Mira watched as Elle’s gaze came to rest on a miniature, twisted image of herself in the stainless-steel napkin dispenser.

  ‘Elle, what’s happening here?’

  Elle shrugged. ‘All this redrafting is doing my head in.’

  Mira thought of how Elle had written Daisy. It had taken three months. It seemed to come out well-formed, like a poem or song, in a sustained flourish, and it had only needed minor tweaks along the way, over the drafts. Almost all of Elle’s other works at film school had been birthed as smoothly. This script had been written around the release of Daisy and its aftermath, and the advent of David.

  Mira frowned. ‘So stop doing it.’ She sat up. ‘There’s no need.’

  Elle seemed lost in the napkin dispenser. ‘You don’t think Freddie’s too strident?’ she said, softly.

  ‘Oh, she could be slightly.’ Mira braced herself. ‘How about, when the time comes, we do the final pass for the shooting script together?’

  When Elle lifted her gaze to Mira’s, her eyes were awash with emotion. On the surface Mira could see her disappointment and disbelief; deeper, perhaps, she saw relief.

  ‘And we have to change the title,’ said Mira. ‘People don’t know what it means.’

  Elle’s mouth opened but nothing came. Mira knew Elle had complete faith in her instincts. Some of Daisy’s best lines had come in the script-development process – from Mira – and Mira could write. Before the kids, she’d written and produced a handful of well-received shorts.

  Mira took Elle’s hand. ‘Elle?’

  Elle smiled weakly. ‘There’s so much at stake, now, isn’t there? Last time, we didn’t have careers. Now I can’t stop thinking, is this better than Daisy? What would the critics think? What will you think? What will David?’

  ‘David?’

  A car tooted and Elle started. The car was so near, the driver was practically seated at their table. Mira gestured for the
waiter. On Ballarat Street, two cars in opposite directions were vying for space. The car tooted again.

  ‘Give it a rest,’ Elle said through the car’s open window.

  The driver raised his middle finger and she raised hers. He was forty-odd, in a denim jacket, bald. They were angry statues, saluting each other.

  ‘Elle?’ whispered Mira. ‘It’s okay.’

  A second driver tooted.

  ‘Fuck off, why don’t you?’ shouted Elle. ‘Just fuck off !’

  Heads swivelled as Elle rose from the table. To Mira’s relief, Elle strode beyond the cars, without a backward glance. Mira moved stealthily, collecting their handbags, leaving a tip. On the footpath, catching up, Mira slipped her arm through Elle’s and tried to mask her worry.

  10

  A bitter odour is permeating the small laundry now; Elle can smell it, though technically she doesn’t have a nose. Otherwise, physically, she feels nothing. Pain, fatigue, discomfort: all gone. Even her uneasy niggles about her body have been eclipsed by what she is remembering. She is energised, somehow, as she absorbs it all. The wistful decisions, the lust and hope. Not for years has she understood herself so well, or him. It is like fuel, like oxygen. Oh, the stories she could write now.

  She sees herself, one memorable autumnal day. In the scheme of things, she feels proud. It was their first and only shopping trip.

  That Saturday morning, plump clouds were gathering in the marbled sky. The night before, David had arrived home from the office at eleven and fielded calls past midnight. Something was up at Freeman & Milne. When he came to bed, around one, he didn’t sleep. And neither did she. But she let him toss, too weary herself to muster interest in his legal skirmishes. Like a glum commuter, that morning he walked towards Seddon Station with his shoulders hunched and a light scowl on his face. Elle chatted at his side about the unseasonal humidity and a favourite, if gloomy, French film he’d chosen for their evening – Claude Sautet’s A Heart in Winter. And he perked up. But by the time they re-emerged at Southern Cross Station in central Melbourne, clouds were nudging one another, threatening to burst. And his scowl had deepened.

  He led her through the milling Melbourne crowds, his tower looming over them. Without slowing, he ignored it. He ignored the other office blocks too and the lure of big stores and split-level malls. He crossed Collins Street, tiered with trams and intrepid cyclists, and led her on, the gap between them growing to metres. He turned right at William Street, then left at Flinders Lane before slipping into a menswear shop.

  Alone on the footpath, Elle took a moment to locate him in the boutique. Irritated, she stepped into the expensive quiet. Within, David was greeting the shop assistant warmly and asking for trousers: black, size 34, classic cut. Then he disappeared behind red velvet. Sitting on an overstuffed stool, bemused, Elle tried to deduce the source of this new mood. Was it something she’d done? Or had he seen Amelia? Sometimes she could tell when he had spoken to his ex, or seen her daughter: he was preoccupied, short. Perhaps sad. Lately, she’d learned not to ask. But no. Given their sleepless night, she guessed what it was. His work. His relentless, soulless work.

  When he reappeared, he stood in front of a three-panelled mirror and looked fleetingly at his six black legs. He turned to the side, sucked in his belly and jiggled leg to leg as if he’d dropped something. The shop assistant was tending to another shopper, searching for jade silk ties.

  Although he stood before the glass, David’s gaze skirted from it. ‘What do you think?’

  She shrugged. ‘They look fine.’

  David eyed the approaching shop assistant. She was in her early fifties, with silver, oblong spectacles and discreet jewellery beneath her charcoal suit. Her hair was like a silver helmet and it shimmered when she walked. She carried an air of authority, as if she owned the shop. Elle smiled and felt foolish when the woman didn’t respond. She became conscious of her own outfit: a cream shift dress, scuffed taupe ballet flats and bare, whiskery legs.

  Gently, the shop assistant suggested to David that the fit was good, but perhaps a different style? With a nod, David retreated into the fitting room with two more variations on black.

  When he returned to face the glass, he studied Elle and the shop assistant: lean and long, and short and silver. She tried to focus. This fit, she guessed, was also good. To her, black pants were like black T-shirts – a quick and easy buy. Besides, he clearly had a good eye himself.

  Spinning from the mirror, David bent to her, so close that she inclined from him. ‘What about these?’

  ‘They look fine too,’ she said, flustered. ‘Black suits you.’

  With a grunt, David stepped into the fitting room. Elle eyed a row of striped shirts beside her and tried to anchor herself. This man of hers would spend a lifetime in corporate stripes. To what effect? She peeked at the changing room and across the racks of shirts and jackets. The infinite variations of the corporate uniform.

  When he called her name she jumped. He had an odd look in his eye.

  ‘What do you like, the straight-leg or the tapered?’

  She frowned at the ends of his legs. ‘Which are you wearing now?’

  David clicked his tongue and disappeared. He returned in yet another pair and avoided the mirror completely.

  ‘What about these?’

  Studying his legs, she tried to feign interest. The pants were black, not long, not short, not tight and possibly straight to the ankle. She tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t betray her. His recent irritability had been persistent, but not like this. Abruptly, David’s face changed: his forehead flattened and his wrinkles disappeared. He looked as if he was wearing a mudpack. A mudpack like the ones her mother liked to wear.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  Elle tried again to spot the difference between these black pants and the last. ‘I don’t like the crease down the front.’

  ‘They’ve all got that,’ he snapped.

  She tried for a smile. ‘Otherwise, they all look good.’

  ‘But which type do you like?’ David’s small eyes shot out the question like a needle.

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ she said, tired of her pretence, ‘I can’t tell the difference.’

  ‘These are stovepipe.’ David glanced at the shop assistant as if at an ally. Stepping to Elle again, he put his face too close to hers. Elle felt the layer of heat that was pulsing from his body.

  ‘Are you stupid, or what?’

  She flinched, as if he had spat on her face. Blood rose like a burning tide to her throat, her cheeks and ears. She managed to mouth no, before averting her eyes from his. Stealthily, the shop assistant stood behind her. In a strong voice, the woman spoke over her head to David – not in a gesture of protection; more as if Elle had lost the right to exist.

  They caught the next train to Seddon. At the end of a carriage, Elle found a seat by the window and, to her surprise, David sat next to her. Across from them, a group of baggy-trousered youths were bouncing off the walls. She ignored them. David turned his back to the youths and to Elle, facing the opposite window. The train slid in and out of darkness, slowed and accelerated, without enough space or regularity for Elle to find a rhythm. Her disgruntled silence was virtually unknown between them. The rope that ran between them had been pulled taut, and this time she had taken all the slack. It was for him to move to her. But he sat with his eyes skimming the landscape. His features were tight again, as though under that mudpack. As the tracks curved towards the west, she longed to be alone.

  She tried to lose herself in the passing stacks of rusty red, blue and white transport containers at the Port of Melbourne. Her eyes skated over the skeletal, reaching cranes and huge trucks, the white, squat tanks of Coode Island, the state’s central chemical storage facility. As the train slid along she pictured the frontier workers’ cottages of Yarraville, those homes within a kilometre of the so-called island. She thought of that cloud over Coode Island in the heart of Melbourne in 1991; the day mil
lions of litres of chemicals burned, ostensibly thanks to a lightning strike. Twenty-odd years later, that island and those rows of cottages were still the wrong bedfellows. Everything, everywhere, felt too close.

  David’s telephone rang. Turning it off, he muttered under his breath. She steeled herself for the remainder of the trip, conscious of how tired his company was making her and of how much effort she had put lately into deciphering or ignoring his moods. Effort best put, particularly given today’s behaviour, elsewhere. A flash of anger roused her; in its heat, she made a decision.

  As the train approached Footscray Station, she looked at him. Again, he muttered. This time she caught an expletive. Loudly, she said, ‘What did you say?’

  David levelled his eyes on hers. ‘I said it fucking stinks in here. Are you stupid and deaf ?’

  She rose and turned on him. ‘Are you a rude shit?’

  The station’s platform slid towards them and the train slowed. The moment of inertia was infinite. Around them, the baggy-panted youths fell silent, and exiting passengers, sensing the tension in the air, fled to the doors.

  Abruptly, David laughed, like a kid caught out, as if she’d pulled a better trick than his. ‘Yeah, I must be.’

  The doors opened with a whoosh but her words were louder. ‘Don’t ever speak to me like that again.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ He nodded, his gestures undersized; he was conscious now of their remaining, reluctant audience.

  ‘I mean it,’ she said, stepping away.

  ‘Okay.’ Surprised, he half rose. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m walking,’ she said as she alighted. ‘And by the time I get home I want you gone.’