by Carmel Bird
‘I think I’ll come with you anyway.’
‘No, Alice. You stay here until I get back. And then, if you are very good, I’ll take you out.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll take you to a Chinese restaurant.’
He is gone.
Melody shrugs. She goes back to her easel.
She paints faces.
‘Happy at kindergarten, is she?’ Philip asks Brian.
‘Well, I suppose so. I haven’t heard really. You see I don’t think I get reasonable access.’
‘You were telling me about your marriage. You and Amanda.’
‘We were sitting watching the news one night. It was hot and I was tired and I was half concentrating on the news and half thinking about a file we had lost in the office.
‘Melody was sitting on the floor playing with big Lego. Amanda was staring at the screen and she had a martini. Suddenly she sat bolt upright in her chair so that the martini spilt all over Melody’s Lego and Melody screamed and Amanda stood up and said something like, “I can’t stand this farce any longer.” I think she said farce…Then she drained the martini, threw the glass at the fireplace and said, and this is exactly what she said, because I was listening, she said, “My mother was right. You are a zombie. I’m leaving.”’
‘And she left.’
‘She left. She said she was going to be with a man called Rex and I said who the hell is Rex and she just gave me a look. This really cold, contemptuous look. The way a snake looks.’
‘Did you go after her? What happened next?’
‘I got up and followed her into the bedroom and she got a suitcase out of the cupboard and I asked her what she was doing and she just said, “I am leaving, Brian. Will you carry this to the car, please?” She pushed the suitcase at me and it was full. “What’s in here?” I said. And she snorted and snapped it open and I saw that it was packed. I said something like, “Wait a minute,” and she sort of growled and closed the case and said she’d carry it herself and she dragged it out of the room and then she pushed it over the top of the stairs and it landed in the hall and she went running after it and put it in the car and drove off. I have this memory of her snorting and grunting and growling—it was as if she was doing imitations of animals. She kept baring her teeth at me. Honestly, Philip, she’s mad. And she shouldn’t be allowed to have Melody.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘This Rex was waiting for her at his place.’
‘And you say this was the first you ever knew. You were happy up to this point.’
‘Perfectly. It was the week after my birthday and Amanda organised the party. She did everything. We had about forty guests.’
‘You turned forty.’
Brian blinked and looked out the window and said that yes, he was forty.
‘Did anything happen at the party? Anything that seemed unusual to you at the time?’
‘No.’
‘You told me Amanda had a very severe haircut. When was that? When did Amanda have all her hair cut off?’
‘The morning of the party. Her mother was furious. It seems Amanda’s hair was her mother’s pride and joy. And at one point, quite late, during the party, I was sitting on the couch and Amanda’s mother came over to me and instead of saying anything she just bent down and straightened the rug where it had folded over under my foot. She gave me a sort of grim stare. That’s where Amanda gets the wild animal imitations from, I suppose.’
‘So she went off to this Rex’s place.’
‘In Hawthorn.’
‘And there you were with Melody. What did you do?’
‘I went into the sitting room and Melody was building a house from Lego and I stood there looking at her. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I was in shock. Melody said she was hungry and I said would she like a pizza and she said yes. So I rang for a pizza.’
Brian patted his mobile phone.
‘When the boy came to the door with the pizza I thought for one mad moment that it was Amanda coming back. But it was only the pizza.’
‘So you and Melody had the pizza and then what?’
‘It was getting very late and I still couldn’t think properly. It was like a bad dream. I realised I didn’t know how to put Melody to bed and I was hoping she would just fall asleep on the couch or the floor, but she didn’t. She went on building the house and watching things on TV. Then I had a sudden inspiration and I looked in the Teledex under R and there it was: ‘Rex’. Just Rex and a number.
‘Then I stopped because I didn’t know what I was going to say. What if she wasn’t really there? What if she was?
‘Do you say, “Oh, hello, Rex, this is Brian, Brian Saegesser. I wonder if you would happen to have my wife there with you? You do? Well, could you just put her back in the car and send her home for me, there’s a good bloke. I need her here to put our little girl to bed and so on. Thanks.” I just stood there stupidly staring at the number. Then I wrote it on my wrist. Then I got a black texta and wrote it in huge figures on the fridge. Then I printed his name on the fridge and Melody came downstairs and she looked at the fridge and said “Rex”. Just like that. She’s smart. I hadn’t thought to ask her about Rex. So I said, as calmly as I could, “Who’s Rex?” and Melody said, “Rex cuts my hair.”’
There was a pause while Philip took this in. He looked down at the desk and out the window and then he squinted at Brian and said quietly, ‘The hairdresser?’
‘You see,’ Brian said. ‘You can’t believe this either, can you?’
‘I believe it.’
‘So Amanda ran off with this Italian bloke that calls himself Rex of Rex. First he cuts her hair then he cuts out her stupid brains.’
‘Did you call him?’
‘What, and ask for a blow wave? No. I suddenly came to my senses and I just said to Melody, “You have to go to bed now.” And she did.’
Melody is standing on top of a box, attempting first position, her hands crossed at the wrist, her heels together. Tom stands beside the box with a xylophone. He runs the rubber hammers down the xylophone and then he says in a loud voice, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen! The amazing Alice will now perform her exciting tiger dance. Take it away, Alice!’
Melody in her scarlet tutu bares her teeth and curls her fingers into claws. She jumps up and down on the box while Tom plays random notes on the xylophone. Melody takes a huge leap and ends up on the pile of tartan cushions. Two girls who are watching laugh and clap. Tom beats a tattoo on the xylophone. He shouts ‘And again, Alice!’ and Melody jumps back onto the box and repeats her performance.
When she lands on the cushions the other two girls throw themselves on top of her and they all squeal with excitement. ‘A little less racket over there, thank you,’ Miss Moss says. ‘Yes, less noise please, girls,’ Tom says. The crowd and the performers disperse. Melody goes back to her easel.
‘Come here, Melody,’ Miss Moss says. ‘I need to pin back your hair. Let’s get it out of your eyes. You look a bit like a sheepdog. Now stand still while I pin it back.’ Melody barks like a dog.
‘So when did Amanda come and get Melody?’ Philip asked.
‘Not for a week. I was going well. We had a different takeaway every night and she used to call out in her sleep, but I think she always does. I sent the secretary to pick her up from kindergarten, and when I came home the three of us sometimes watched TV together. I was starting to enjoy it. Then one day the secretary rang me from the kindergarten and said Amanda had picked up Melody. That was when I rang Rex and things started to go badly wrong. He was so cool. He said Amanda had nothing to say to me and he had nothing to add and he hung up. So I went round to Rex and there he was, the pooncie bastard, farting around the basins waving his hands like a magician over the heads of the women in front of the mirrors. “Just another half an inch, Madame. And will you be having tips?”
‘I was perfectly reasonable to start with and said I wanted to speak to him privately. So we went into the kitchen and
I hit him and one of the girls called the police and…well, anyway, Amanda isn’t coming back. And she’s got custody of Melody and I don’t get proper access. He won’t let Melody have her fringe cut. She can’t see a thing. I think she’s going blind. Don’t tell me to pull myself together. The police said that. “Pull yourself together, Mr Saegesser,” they said.’
‘You need some help there, Brian. I’d like you to take some mild tranquillisers for a few days. Just until things sort themselves out.’
‘Things are not going to sort themselves out. I need to act. I need to do something. And I have. I’ve been to my lawyer. I will get proper access.’
‘In any case, take this prescription. No harm done. And blow off a bit of steam at the gym.’
‘I already swim every morning.’
Philip smiled and handed Brian the prescription. ‘Do more laps,’ he said.
‘More laps.’
‘Take a holiday. Think about buying a new car. Fall in love.’
‘I am in love. With Amanda.’
Philip almost sighed.
‘Take up water skiing.’
At last Brian smiled and Philip said, ‘Get a dog.’
Melody sits on Miss Moss’s knee while Miss Moss reads another story to the children. The day is long. The children take a nap on the cushions. The paintings dry. Miss Moss plays the piano while the children sing. Amanda comes to collect Melody. In the car she says, ‘Please take that thing out of your hair, darling’, and Melody explains that Miss Moss said she looked like a dog. ‘A dog?’ Yes, she looked like a sheepdog with her hair in her eyes. Amanda raises her own eyebrows and says nothing. Melody falls asleep in her car seat. She is hot, dirty, crumpled. Asleep.
Brian collected his tranquillisers from a pharmacy in Hawthorn. It was not far from Rex. He would often walk past Rex when the salon was shut, and he would peer in the window thinking of what he would like to do to Rex, to his salon. Photographs of glamorous women with wind-blown hair hung on the walls. There were big bowls of flowers and there were many, many mirrors and a tank of exotic fish.
He thought of Philip saying, ‘Do more laps’ as he watched the fish gliding through the weeds. He thought of Philip saying, ‘Fall in love. Think about buying a new car.’ Think about buying a new car. Brian turned sharply away from the window of Rex where the fish went round and round waving their glorious tails and crossed the street to look in the window of the car dealer. ‘Get a dog?’ No, get a car. Think about a car. He noticed he was crushing the packet of tranquillisers in his hand. Get a grip on yourself, Brian.
No, get a grip on that.
In a blaze of light on a platform turning in the centre of the showroom window was a svelte two-plus-two Mazda MX6.
It was red. Brian stared as the platform turned round. Fall in love. With a car. Brian fell in love with the Mazda MX6. It winked at him; it spoke to him; it sang. And two days later he took it out on the road; and three days later it was his. He bought a black leather child restraint. He drove to the kindergarten and parked under an oak tree. He sat in the Mazda and watched the children going down the slide. There she was. There was Melody in her little red tutu. She looked so vulnerable. Why didn’t Amanda dress her properly? Her hair hung right down over her eyes. Every now and then she would flick her head back. A boy was chasing her with a plastic gun. She was screaming with pleasure, her hair flapping, her red tulle skirt bouncing as she ran. Brian got out of the car and went to the front door. The bell was answered by pretty Miss Moss.
‘I came to pick Melody up and take her for a haircut.’
Miss Moss beamed at him. She was very pretty. And when Melody saw her father she shrieked with joy.
‘Clothes too,’ Brian said, and Miss Moss looked puzzled.
‘I’ll get her some shoes and a proper dress.’
‘Lovely idea,’ Miss Moss said. ‘Off you go, Melody.’
And Melody went.
Tom ran after her. He ran as far as the gate and then he stopped. He stared at the gleaming car, stared as Brian lifted Melody into the restraint and adjusted the strap.
Tom watched as his wife, his tiger woman, his victim, rode off beside the man in the red car.
They drove north. They stopped at a K-Mart and got a blue denim dress and some shorts and T-shirts and a pair of red plastic sandals. A handbag with a frog on it and a doll in a box.
‘Where’ll we go now?’ Melody said and Brian said, ‘We’ll go to Grandma’s. She’s going to cut your fringe for you. Then you can have a bath and put on your new dress.’
‘Good,’ Melody said. ‘Miss Moss said I look like a sheepdog. I want a Coke.’
And as they drove Melody drank from a can of Coke and Brian drank from a can of beer and they headed north to Bacchus Marsh where Brian’s mother lived. Brian hadn’t planned this properly, but it felt right. He overshot the turnoff, kept going on towards Gisborne. The Mazda handled like a dream. He turned back and headed for the Bacchus Marsh exit. Too fast. He headed into the sharp turn on the Bacchus Marsh exit and the Mazda left the road and rolled over and righted itself. By which time Brian was dead.
Melody was unconscious but unhurt. A man in a white Statesman called the police and then he called an ambulance. Sirens and flashing lights exploded and Melody opened her eyes and stared at the weird world around her.
Brian’s mobile was ringing and the policewoman picked it up from the floor of the Mazda and answered it.
‘Hello,’ she said, and Amanda said, ‘Hello, I wish to speak to Brian.’
‘Please hold the line for one moment,’ the policewoman said. As the policewoman conferred with the officer in charge, Amanda grew impatient.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Amanda shouted.
‘If you give me your number I will call you back,’ the policewoman said.
‘Who are you, anyway?’
‘Please give me your number.’
‘No way.’
Amanda hung up.
‘Now he won’t even answer his own mobile,’ she said to Rex.
‘Call the police, I tell you,’ Rex said. ‘For heaven’s sake, call the police. He has kidnapped a four-year-old child. Call the police.’
Amanda called the police.
The Right Stuff
You can’t book into a motel under a false name any more. They want to see your driver’s licence and your credit card.
What about people who haven’t got those things?, whispered a little voice to Caroline Jessup. And Caroline whispered back.
There are no such people.
Caroline discovered all this the night she went to the Whispering Pines with Graeme Frith. She discovered other things as well.
Caroline and Peter Jessup had been married for nearly ten years when this happened. The twins were away on a school camp; Peter was interstate on business; Caroline was a bit bored and lonely and was looking at the imported cheeses in the supermarket. There was Graeme looking at fish fingers.
‘Hello, Caroline. Long time no see.’
It went on from there. He came home with her and carried the bags of shopping from the stationwagon to the kitchen. He had forgotten all about his fish fingers. They had coffee in the kitchen and she showed him the fruit trees Peter had planted in the back courtyard, and the roses she had put at the front.
‘You ought to have a Josephine Bruce. Nice deep red. Jillian was very fond of Josephine Bruce. You remind me a little of Jillian actually, Caroline. You realise we’ve split up, Jillian and I?’
‘I had heard.’
Well, one thing led to another, and Graeme and Caroline ended up back at the supermarket where they bought a Josephine Bruce and something to kill the aphids and something else to deal with scale.
‘This stuff here is good for curly leaf. Does Peter get curly leaf? On the peaches?’
Caroline didn’t know the answer to that, but they got some of the stuff anyway. This time Graeme carried the bags from the stationwagon to the garden shed, and in the garden shed he t
ook Caroline’s hand and kissed it. She was half-surprised but rather pleased. With her other hand she stroked his face, and then he kissed her and they decided to plant the Josephine Bruce there and then.
‘She’ll have to go between Princess Elizabeth and Charles de Gaulle.’
‘Right.’
And Graeme thrust the spade into the earth with his foot. Healthy little worms wriggled out of the clumps of soil.
Graeme and Caroline gradually worked their way around the garden and around the house, and when they were back in the kitchen drinking their fourth cup of coffee, Graeme said, ‘You’re a sweet girl, Caroline. I always thought you were a sweet girl.’
And Caroline said nothing but kissed him again and then they both looked towards the bedroom.
‘Oh no,’ said Caroline, ‘I could never do that. Not in our bedroom at least. And besides, Peter could come home at any moment.’
Graeme had not realised that she (the sweet girl) would be so difficult. But he could see that she meant what she said.
‘We could go to your place?’ She looked at him.
(My God, she doesn’t realise I share the boarding house with six other marital cast-offs. What about the phone that never works because it’s been ripped out of the wall? How would poor old Josie Bruce go in the front garden with the broken chairs and the old mattresses? Caroline reminds me just that little bit of Jillian. Wouldn’t it be nice to get into a little bit of Jillian? Rather nice to hurt her a fraction too. You’re a complex person, Graeme. Go ahead, son.)
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Graeme. ‘Let’s go to the Whispering Pines.’
A little shock and thrill ran through Caroline. She had never gone to a motel with a man. Graeme watched her as she packed her suitcase. She reminded him of his daughter when she used to get her things ready to go to kindergarten. It was a small metal case, white with scarlet dots.
‘You don’t need all that stuff, Caroline. They don’t expect you to have a case. Necessarily.’