Claustrophobia

by Tracy Ryan

  Kathleen looked tentative. ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Actually, for some reason, I was thinking of tennis.’ Which was sort of true.

  ‘Do you play?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, I’ve tried, but I haven’t got the wrist-strength. Badminton’s about all I can manage.’ Only the well-off kids at Pen’s school had taken tennis lessons, extracurricular. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I used to play quite seriously. Speaking of which, have you seen the film Match Point? We should get it out while we’re here. I’m sure they’ll have films in town – or at reception. It’s a load of fluff really, but quite watchable. It’s a crime thriller. Scarlett Johansson.’

  ‘She’s very lovely,’ Pen conceded.

  ‘She’s practically edible,’ Kathleen laughed. ‘But eye candy aside – and the gaping holes in the plot – since you like suspense, Highsmith, Simenon and so on …?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Pen. Then she yawned.

  ‘I’ll assume that’s fatigue rather than boredom,’ Kathleen said, as if she were responsible for keeping Pen amused. ‘How about we have a quick bite and then retire? Curl up with that champagne. We can save the spa for another time.’

  Pen was more nervous than she liked to admit. This second time she could scarcely pretend she did not know what was happening. The honeymoon might be illegitimate, but it was no less daunting for that – she could not imagine any more anxious or apprehensive bride. Play house, Kathleen had said – but this was utterly, uncompromisingly real. More real to Pen right now than the empty pretend house in the Perth hills, abandoned and languishing in the middle of an eternal makeover. And in that house, Derrick’s insistent and treacherous letter.

  Morning in the karri forest was crisp despite the sunlight. Kathleen was an early riser.

  ‘Where do you get all this energy?’ Pen said.

  ‘You don’t do too badly yourself.’

  They ate crusty rolls warmed in the oven and swept the crumbs outside for the birds, before setting off for a walk.

  ‘Now these are what I call trees,’ Kathleen said, breathing in deeply. ‘Nedlands might have green verges and old gardens, but there’s nothing like the bush. You live up in the hills – you must have a fair bit of bush around you?’

  Pen nodded. ‘Not as much as there used to be, though. You can’t even walk much because of the dieback thing. It’s jarrah mostly, and banksia – nothing like this.’

  ‘And nothing like where I grew up,’ she thought – a drained swamp and filled-in rubbish tip, with cheap brick-veneer housing that flooded every winter and no one would take responsibility. Barely a tree left standing.

  ‘I expect there’s a dieback problem here too,’ Kathleen said. ‘You can’t get away from it. We’ll have to watch our step. Speaking of which, I’d like to climb the Gloucester Tree. Are you up for it?’

  Pen groaned. ‘I don’t know. Have you been up there before?’

  ‘No. Are you all right with heights?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, you’d know if you weren’t.’

  Derrick suffered from vertigo, so there’d never been any question of doing such a climb till now.

  ‘I like to try things I’ve never done before. It keeps you – aware you’re alive, somehow,’ Kathleen said, ‘I like to push myself.’

  ‘So long as you don’t push me,’ Pen joked. ‘Is it really safe?’ Imagine if she fell, or was injured – how to explain that once she was back home?

  ‘Safe enough, perhaps. Lots of people climb it.’

  But few made it to the top, they discovered from the brochure in reception.

  ‘Only about twenty per cent of people who attempt the climb,’ Pen read aloud as they arrived. The Gloucester Tree was a massive karri that had been used as a fire lookout tower, and was now open to the public. A small group had gathered to try the sixty-metre ascent, but they’d arrived early enough that it wasn’t yet a crowd.

  ‘How do you want to do this? I can go before – or after, if you think you’re likely to back down.’

  ‘Back down being the crucial term!’ Pen winced. ‘No, you can go first. It will give me something to aim for. In any case,’ she said, ‘there seem to be two sets of pegs.’

  ‘Steps’, it said in the brochure, but they really were pegs, spikes at most, driven at right angles in a spiral pattern all the way up to the lookout platform. Widely spaced enough to fall through: she could hardly imagine being able to latch on to one of the spikes if you slipped, dangling there like a Barrel of Monkeys toy… If you didn’t look, you might feel all right. But then looking was why you went up, wasn’t it?

  ‘Why are we doing this?’ she whispered to Kathleen as they approached the tree’s base. No harnessing, no supervision – just yourself and the tree.

  ‘Because it will be unlike anything we’ve ever done before.’ Kathleen seemed faintly amused at Pen’s timidity. ‘And because we can. Onward and upward!’

  Uncanny – it jarred – the same thing Leon Masters had said to her when she was leaving Boys’ College.

  Like anything else, Pen supposed, it had to be mind over matter. There was no reason her body couldn’t do this – she was fit enough, young enough, agile enough. It was one of those things where you had to fall into a rhythm and stick with it, tune out a certain level of your attention and bring it to focus on the crucial movement only.

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t resist looking up to see how Kathleen was getting on. Kathleen’s hair swung, Rapunzel-like, as she moved steadily up, just as easily as if she’d been on a treadmill or crossing stepping stones without the metres of gaping air beneath her. Pen felt a pang of fear for her. ‘And this is the woman I wanted gone,’ she thought. A horrible image of Kathleen, broken and askew, blood-covered, at the foot of the giant tree, flashed across her sight, and she paused, leaning on the spike ahead of her to get her breath. Tachycardia, everything irregular. ‘If I fell,’ she thought, ‘it would be something like justice.’

  She gazed out then across the miles of treetops, literally trying to get things in perspective. Ancient trees, which had long preceded her and should long outlive her, in the natural order of things. But what was the natural order of things? These trees had been altered, disfigured, to construct the lookouts, but she supposed it was necessary to damage a few in order to save the rest, if fire should rear its fearsome head.

  She thought of the forestry men, able to reckon the location and distance of the threat by taking this tree or that as reference point. With a trained eye. But she had no bearings for any of this. To Pen it was a sea of unearthly green: you felt you could almost dive out into it, as sailors were said to think they could walk on the ocean.

  She was lost, and she knew it, but she had to keep moving.

  At the summit, Kathleen hugged her, and nobody seemed bothered by it. There was a palpable exhilaration among the climbers up there; though, as Pen quickly pointed out, you still had to get down again.

  She looked at the high railing and said to herself, ‘Once I would have wanted to topple her. I would have been looking for the gaps,’ and she shook her head in astonishment. It must have been temporary madness.

  ‘Now tell me that wasn’t worth it!’ Kathleen said, and Pen had to smile. Alone, she’d never have attempted it, even apart from Derrick’s vertigo.

  ‘I think you’re insane,’ Pen joked, ‘and it’s rubbing off on me.’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ said Kathleen, ‘I’m afraid you were already there, milady, before we met … Now: a kiss for luck before we descend!’ and though Pen turned frantically, futilely, to make sure no one could see, Kathleen had grabbed her chin and planted a fat, deep kiss on her sweaty lips.

  ‘And a photo to prove we did it,’ she said with triumph, pulling a camera out of her pocket. Another climber agreed to hold it for her, and lined up to snap.

  Pen protested but was shouted down with good humour. Her legs went numb. Flustered, she realised she would have to delete the picture some
how later. Or lose the camera, whichever was easier. She should have thought, of course Kathleen would want photos. There were so many things to think of – she would have to smarten up.

  10

  When Pen stepped out of the shower the following morning, she heard Kathleen’s voice.

  ‘… in a few days. No, I’m not alone.’

  Pen stood still and quiet, oblivious to the cold with the towel only loosely wrapped around her. In the wall tiles, slick and glassy with damp, she could see her own stricken face ghosted over and over. She shut her eyes.

  ‘Not an old flame – a new flame.’ Kathleen’s soft laughter.

  Pen let the bathroom door clatter behind her. Kathleen, already dressed but still pinkly glowing from her own quick shower, looked up smiling, then quizzical when she saw Pen’s glare.

  She straightened her expression, muted her tone.

  ‘I’ll catch you later, got to go now.’

  And she folded the tiny gadget into her handbag.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ Pen said, realising she sounded abrupt but too anxious to care.

  ‘Just a friend.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘Cindy, if that makes you any the wiser. Pen, what’s the matter? You’ll catch a chill if you stand there like that.’ Kathleen stood up and began brushing her hair. Pen examined her reflection in the mirror, bold and solid after the eerie white repeating image of the bathroom tiles. She stood behind Kathleen, contrasting their faces. Her own was set in a hard pallor; Kathleen’s was still softly flushed.

  ‘I don’t want to be gossip material,’ Pen muttered. ‘I told you, privacy means a lot to me. I don’t want you telling people about me, I’m not – not ready for that.’ She knew it was lame. But how else to keep things contained?

  A sickly wave swept through her – she’d never considered how many people Kathleen might already have mentioned her to. She’d just made sure they were always alone, so far. As alone as she could manage.

  Kathleen sniffed, slightly put out. ‘Pen, you’ve no need to be so uptight. Cindy’s an old friend, she’s not going to advertise anything. She was just curious. She rang me, I didn’t ring her. And besides, it’s not as if I was naming names.’

  ‘Well, please don’t.’

  Kathleen laughed, her usual good humour getting the better of her. ‘What shall I call you then – Madame X? Or Mademoiselle, rather …’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Pen rested her hands on Kathleen’s shoulders, thinking how slender, how vulnerable her neck was. And how soft her skin. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped like that. I just really want to be discreet.’

  ‘Understood. You want the strong and silent type,’ Kathleen joked. ‘But if this thing lasts, Pen,’ and she turned around and looked deep into Pen’s eyes, ‘you won’t be able to hide forever, you know.’

  Pen swallowed. If this thing lasts. But what was this thing? It seemed to be taking place in a dream space, a parallel world, not the life she’d lived till now. She had no way of plotting her position, no way of understanding the course in front of her from what she’d already known.

  If they could only stay here, away from others, and learn the contours of this new arrangement. But it was like the chalet, at once a home and a strange set of coordinates. Every time you woke, you had to remind yourself where and who you were …

  Kathleen threw open the curtains and wound the window open to let in fresh air.

  ‘Now you get dressed, and let’s have some breakfast,’ she said, ‘and figure out what to do with the day. Because tomorrow will be all swallowed up with driving, you know.’

  Pen pulled her overnight bag from the bedside shelf, and her mobile phone slid out. She thrust one hand down to cover it, but too late.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a phone,’ Kathleen said. ‘You’ll have to give me your number. I thought you said you didn’t like them.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Pen pushed it back into the bag. ‘I just got it. Only because of work shifts – they put pressure on me to be available. I didn’t even realise I’d brought it.’

  At least now she didn’t have to hide it, deleting Derrick’s texts and messages on the sly. But it meant Kathleen would eventually want to be ringing her, once they were back in the city, and she’d have to keep on top of that. Maybe she could write the number down for her with one digit wrong. That was plausible, with a supposedly new phone. She must be the one calling, not the one called.

  By afternoon it was sunny enough, if not exactly warm enough, that Kathleen suggested going to look for Pemberton Pool.

  ‘You really love swimming, don’t you?’ Pen rolled her eyes.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Their bathing suits were flapping on the tiny line behind the chalet, like two deflated bodies, parodies of themselves. ‘Second skins,’ thought Pen. The salt smell of Busselton lingered on the fabric, despite rinsing. It was crazy the way you carried one place to another, unable ever to shuck anything off. The world of the senses was so heavy, indelible. Pen packed the suits into a carry bag with some towels and sat the camera gently on top of them.

  Again she considered how to remove yesterday’s photos. If she deleted them, there was surely a trace that remained on the memory card, as there was in computers, even when you thought you had got rid of something.

  She was still thinking like someone plotting. If … then … Why would anyone ever check for traces on that card? Surely she wasn’t still imagining murderous scenarios. Surely she only wanted there to be no photos that could betray her to Derrick.

  But Kathleen would wonder how they had got deleted. Too tricky. You could pretend to delete one or two accidentally, but not a whole series. And if she merely removed the memory card, that would be even weirder. There was nothing for it but to get rid of the camera itself. People lost cameras all the time, didn’t they?

  She thought: ‘Camera dumped in one place, memory card in another.’

  That was the only way.

  Pemberton Pool was still there, all right, open to the elements. Pen remembered the wildness, the dizzying overarching trees above the water. Yet now it didn’t seem so vast.

  ‘I like how it feels as if you’re merged into the forest,’ she said to Kathleen, dipping a toe in at the edge. ‘Oh, too cold.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I went ice-skating once – in Zurich, it was – in the middle of the woods. Practically primeval. It was bliss. Ordinary rinks just don’t feel the same way. Just don’t cut the ice, you might say! Come on, I’ll help you in,’ and she reached out to draw Pen towards her, like someone inviting a dance partner. ‘Two kinds of people,’ Pen thought – those who always plunge straight in, and those who dip the toe. And never the twain …

  But here: the twain. She closed her eyes and let Kathleen take her in her arms; the liquid crept up her sides like a dark blanket. Kathleen had crouched into the pool and then come up again. Her nipples showed hard through the shiny bathing suit. Pen remembered her own first swim here at twelve or so, her mother’s admonition: ‘Go and put a T-shirt on!’

  It was a new halter-neck suit Dad had bought her, and the two gathered cups – no cups really, just stitching – were wrinkled and limp as empty bags where her breasts should have been. The suit was the right size, but she hadn’t developed yet. She laughed – must have been the first time any girl was told to cover up what she didn’t have.

  ‘What’s funny?’ asked Kathleen, gliding out into the chill with Pen still in her arms, towing her so lightly they barely seemed to be touching.

  Pen told her the memory.

  Kathleen kissed her neck. ‘Well, you’ve more than made up for it now.’

  Pen glanced around. There was scarcely anyone near the pool, and those who were seemed not to notice anything. She looked down furtively at her own front, the top of her bathers now close-fitting enough not to let her breasts float upward, yet they bulged in a way that made her ashamed.

  ‘Does it put you off?’ she said, self-conscious. Kath
leen’s own chest was lightly curved and elegant, no sign of ageing or weight, as lithe as the rest of her. She was the sort of woman whose body would probably never change.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Kathleen said. ‘They’re gorgeous. How can you not know that?’

  Pen was embarrassed and yet somehow relieved. Derrick had never spoken much about her body, or if he had, it seemed formulaic – he knew not to say anything that would hurt her, so she could never gauge the truth of his reactions.

  ‘You know, the problem with you, Pen,’ Kathleen went on, resting her head backwards so that her hair spread out in the water like the rays of a pale sun, ‘is you just don’t seem to know how lovely you are.’

  ‘Silly,’ Pen said, and turned her face away.

  ‘No, seriously. Haven’t you ever been to, say, a nudist beach? Then you’d see. Most people aren’t a tenth as perfect as you are.’

  Perfection has no degrees, Pen’s friend Sally used to say at school. You can’t have more perfect. You can’t say usually always. Oxymorons and tautologies, all the contradictions of language that were impossible and yet meant something. Nudist beaches! She looked at Kathleen in amazement. Maybe Kathleen had taken Derrick to places like that. Pen felt suddenly queasy. What was she doing here with this woman? Where was Derrick, after all? She was losing her bearings again.

  ‘I’ve got to get out now,’ she said. ‘I’m starting to get goosebumps.’

  Kathleen opted to swim a little longer. Pen went to get dressed, and saw her chance to extract the memory card from Kathleen’s camera. She slid the little square into her pocket and waited till Kathleen got out of the water and went to change, then ditched it as far out into the pool as she could throw. No one could know she wasn’t tossing a stone or a twig.

  The camera itself was not so easy. Pen was about to walk further down beside the river and drop it in there, when Kathleen emerged and beckoned towards the car. Too late.