She measured the sleeve length, then went out to find Ned. He was on the front veranda reading the Saturday paper, pretending to be interested in the doings of the world. She knelt beside him and pressed the metal end into his armpit where his shirt seams crossed. Her thumbnail on the tape lay halfway down his shirt cuff. “Nearly there, eh?” he said softly.
She went back to the lean-to, wove, measured again and began the shaping; it all came back to her across the decades. She was that girl again, determined, lonely, with the whole town against her, in the dark before the day when everything would crash and burn for her. This flow through her fingers was all she had, its sureness, its grace, its knowledge of the shape and size of each brother’s body.
She passed the shuttle through for the last time and snipped the thread. She took the piece from the loom and sewed in the hem of the cuff, left the threads loose at the armhole end, took fresh thread and sewed the inside seam from cuff to armpit. And then it was completed, as grey as clouds, as soft as smoke.
As she sat with it across her lap, a car came along the road, and she raised her head to listen. Yes, it was slowing, and turning in on the gravel at her gate. She stood up and took the sleeve through the house, impatient for an end to this, ready to speak now, to come back to life; she hoped the visitor wasn’t some stranger who would require hiding from.
She pushed the screen door open; the low autumn sun gleamed on the veranda boards. Ned was out of his chair. “It’s Phillip,” he said, but she had seen that. “They’ve come anyway, when I asked them not to. Shall I tell him to—”
He saw the sleeve and stopped. She gestured that he should take off his shirt. “Here? Now?” She nodded. Warily he pulled the shirt-tails free of his trousers.
Phillip killed the engine as Ned undid the first button. Car doors opened. “Aunty Dawn, Aunty Dawn! Uncle Neddy!” cried the kids strapped into the back seat. Said Phillip, “No, you stay right there, Nathan.”
Dawn hadn’t seen the wing in years, but it was exactly as she remembered it. That corner of Ned flowed seamlessly from man to bird. The first feathers were hardly more than glitters in his skin; the muscle and bone adjusted millimetre by millimetre as human chest gave way to feathered wing. Young Nathan, running from the car, stopped on the frost-burnt lawn to stare. Dawn stared herself, and Phillip and Martha stared, at the reality of Ned that he alone had lived with all these years, binding his secret to his side to protect them all from the sight, from the impossible sight.
He cast a glance of dismay and shame across his nephew, his brother, his sister-in-law, the other children open-mouthed in the car. Tears stood in his eyes as he turned from them, jabbing the wingtip at Dawn; feather whispered on feather, and the trailing edge rustled.
“Come on, Dawnie,” he said. “Make this right for me.”
She threw the sleeve over the wing as she’d thrown all those shirts years before, wildly, almost carelessly, the crowd silenced around her. It filled with air as it flew in the sunlight; it landed and sank away into the shining dark feathers. She had known it would. The loose threads of the armhole knitted inside him, rippling the feather-sketched flesh of his shoulder. When they were done, this arm would plump out to match the other one.
She looked to Ned’s face, to reassure him or to be reassured herself. One of his tears fell, but the emotion behind it had passed; he was busy now with all the changes being worked on him.
They amazed him, those changes. He lifted his slow smile to Dawn. His eyes were bright blood-stained gold, with pinprick pupils.
“Oh, Neddy! But I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right, it’s all right, honestly—” And then words were beyond him to form, as his mouth reddened, flattened, lengthened out of his face. Black feathers sprang flat across his cheeks, fanned out on his forehead, and in the next moment he was wholly swan, a cob the size of a man, wings out, grey webbed feet paddling above the sunny veranda-boards, the shoulder-mass of him sunk and spread into the shining belly, the long black neck kinked to keep his elegant head clear of the veranda-rafters. Martha exclaimed, but Dawn had no voice to spare; hands to her cheeks, she only gasped in the air that the vast wings huffed her way.
The change complete, Ned shrank to swan size. He fitted his wings in against his feathery body, and the cosiness of that, the tidy self-satisfaction, turned Dawn’s next gasp into a hoot of laughter. From the car came the tiny voice of her niece: “Wow, Uncle Neddy turned into a bird, Daniel! Did you see?”
The swan lumbered to the edge of the veranda. It spread its wings, tipped out over the flowerbed, and after brushing the lawn grass with its breast-feathers, rose over a quailing Nathan, and Phillip who flung up his arms, and began a great circle out along the drive, over the fields and cows, the sheds, the dam, the stands of gum-trees with their loose heads of leaves.
Dawn went down the steps to the grass. Nathan ran up and clung to her, and she held him at her side while the long-necked bird passed trumpeting over the house and the lawn again, and began another circle.
“Can you change him back?” said the boy.
“I don’t know, Nathan.” The three little ones were out of the car now, and all seven faces swung as one to follow the swan’s flight. “Do you think he wants to be changed back?”
“Yeah,” said Phillip, “would you want to be a person again, if you could do that?”
Martha turned, baby Daniel in her arms. Phillip’s head was tilted back to watch the swan fly over. But Dawn saw the look his wife gave him, and the shock in Martha’s face, the betrayal, pierced her to the very heart.
Hell Is Where The Heart Is
Janeen Webb
Tell me who invented the human heart. Tell me, and show me where he was hanged.
—Lawrence Durrell
The man in the immaculate Saville Row suit was talking at her, his words spilling across his polished desk in her direction. Each phrase held some new horror, the deep-down visceral gut-wrenching personal horror of words like terminal, and transplant, and urgent. She felt paralysed, trying desperately to focus through the shock. His lips moved again: “Mrs Hardcastle, Penelope, would you like someone with you through the rest of this consultation. It often helps. Is that your husband in the waiting room?”
Penny nodded, numbly. The surgeon patted her shoulder encouragingly as he stood, moving past her to speak softly to his secretary. Penny was not encouraged. She stared through the window at the park below, where other people were going about their lives. She barely noticed when John, his face frowning deep with concern, eased into the seat beside her and took her cold hand in his.
The surgeon went on, his composed, professional voice grating on her nerves. “I believe in being honest upfront about these things. In the long run, false hope is much more damaging than plain truth. And I believe these final tests I’m ordering will confirm my opinion that Penelope’s situation is dangerous. All the indicators tell me she will almost certainly need a heart transplant in the very near future if she is to survive.”
“How soon,” said John. His voice was hoarse with worry. “How long have we got?”
“There’s never an exact answer. But we are talking weeks, not months. I want to re-admit Penelope into the hospital as quickly as possible. It is absolutely essential that the heart is monitored constantly, and that the patient is rested and fully prepared for the procedure as soon as a suitable donor organ becomes available.”
The conversation went on, the surgeon drawing diagrams and explaining procedures, roughly sketching out incision lines and insertion points on office notepaper. The consulting room smelled of disinfectant, and soap. Penny was trying hard to concentrate. She felt as though the men were discussing a technical problem, a problem in pipes and valves that happened to need replacing. Not Penny. Not her body.
Her husband was speaking again: “Forgive my asking, but how many of these transplants have you done?”
The surgeon spread his hands wide. “You don’t want to know how many,�
� he said wearily. “I lost count a long while back. By all means seek a third opinion. All I can do is assure you that this is routine surgery for me. There are never any guarantees.”
John shrugged. “For you, this happens every day. For us, it’s new territory. It’s traumatic. We need to understand what is happening here.”
“Of course. And there will be a whole support team looking after Penelope. I’m just the first step in the process. I’ll give you some literature, put you in contact with our special psychologist, make sure you both have a chance to meet the rest of the surgical team. The safety net is there for you both, and for your family, John. You won’t be alone.”
They rose, shook hands. The surgeon said: “Let me know what you decide. If there’s something you want to go over, any point you need clarified, just call.”
He walked them to the door.
Despite John’s comforting arm about her shoulders, as they left the consulting suite Penny felt very, very alone.
* * *
When she awoke in her narrow hospital bed, the world seemed far away. She seemed to have been transformed into some strange fleshly machine, a machine whose purpose was unclear. There were wiggly green lines on a monitor screen whose pulsing lights confirmed her existence. The machine hummed gently, its needs fed by the tubes that snaked in and out of her body at various points, monitoring vital signs, carrying blood and saline and God-knew-what else.
A tired-looking man came softly into the room, sat himself down wearily beside her bed, gently took her cold fingers in his warm hand, careful not to disturb the taped needle that dripped measured painkillers into her veins. His creased face looked slept-in, as rumpled as his suit. With him were two pale children, radiating anxiety. The girl clutched a drooping bunch of flowers from the downstairs charity shop.
“It’s me, Penny. John. Your husband. Will and Emma are here. Your children. Can you hear me?”
She nodded, lifting her head a fraction from the pillow.
He squeezed her fingers. “Look. Emma has brought you flowers. She’ll pop them into a vase for you.”
Emma fiddled with the blooms, obviously glad of something to do.
“Mother sends her love.” John turned away briefly, depositing a plastic bag in the closet. “Your clean pyjamas are in there, if the nurse asks.”
His monologue dragged to a halt when Penny did not respond. John’s need of her was clear as he gently buried his face in her dark hair, hiding his tears from his children. He sniffed, blew his nose, then kissed her lightly on the forehead.
Penny managed a weak smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be alright.”
She lapsed back into her drugged doze after the effort of acknowledging her visitors. She knew them, of course, but it didn’t feel right.
The feeling still wasn’t right when she finally returned home.
The new heart did not make that little skip the old one always had when John took her in his arms.
She wept her frustration, feeling miserable and disconnected.
John was patient. “You’ve been through a huge trauma, love,” he would say. “Let’s just give it time.”
So she let him love her, feeling warmth, appreciation, sympathy, and companionship when he was with her, sometimes even desire. But not love. The new heart did not love him, no matter how much she willed it.
It was months before she realized it loved someone else. Someone she didn’t know. Someone she’d never even met.
And it meant to have him back.
* * *
After a dreary convalescence, the day came when Penny returned, thankfully, to her job at the bank. The tedium of customers worrying about their small holdings seemed like bliss after her boredom at home.
On Friday afternoon her friend Cassie caught up with her in the tea room. “Come on Penny. Let me take you for drink. We’ll celebrate your release back into the world. Everyone shows up on Friday, and they’ll all want to catch up with you.”
Penny hesitated, twisting her scarf in her fingers. “I don’t know that I’m ready for crowds.”
“Nonsense. We’ll just go for one drink. The Heartache’s just next door, after all. It’s not as if you have to go out of your way or anything.”
“John will worry if I’m late.”
“So phone him. Leave a message. He’ll understand.”
“Okay. But just one drink.”
“Great. I’ll meet you in the foyer at five.”
* * *
They rode up in the elevator with a chattering group of colleagues to the top floor of the plush Intercontinental Hotel, where the Heartache bar was popular with city employees. Throughout the week the sleek cocktail lounge furnishings and spectacular view over the city made it a favourite pickup spot for the well-heeled and terminally single. But on Friday nights Happy Hour was thronged with black-suited bankers and insurance executives swapping stories of this week’s ups and downs, exchanging hot tips and office gossip. The five o’clock rush to nowhere.
Penny was enjoying herself. She was the centre of curious attention. She was ordering her second glass of Riesling when Cassie tapped her on the arm.
“Don’t look now,” said Cassie, “but we’re being stalked by the head-office wolf.”
“Who?”
“Grant Simpson. Hot-shot broker. Corporate Accounts. Private clients. Thinks he’s God’s to gift women.” She giggled. “The women he dates mostly want to give him back! A new girl for every party—no-one sticks around long enough to go out with him twice.”
“Is he really that awful?”
“Worse, now that his wife died. Poor Anne, she adored him. God knows why. He cheated on her every chance he got. He was always on the prowl. She didn’t deserve to be treated like that, and now she’s dead. And,” she added significantly, “he was driving.”
“Car accident?”
“Intersection smash. The passenger side was hit. Anne was killed outright. Broken neck. He walked away without a scratch. There’s no justice in the world.”
“You’d think he’d die of guilt.”
“Fat chance. Brace yourself, Penny, here he comes.”
The man closing in on them was stylishly, fastidiously turned out. A wolf in wolf’s clothing: suit by Armani, hand-made snowy fine linen shirt set off by a Hermes dark patterned silk tie, shoes by Gucci. He was a real fashion plate. His thinning, sandy-blonde hair was cut boyishly short, parted on one side so that its ends flopped deliberately over his forehead to set off his ice-blue eyes. He should have been handsome, but the effect was too calculated to be convincing. His open features were overlaid with complacency, a sneering self-regard that Penny loathed at first sight.
The heart skipped a beat.
His advance was downright predatory. Penny felt frozen, trapped in the headlights of his intense regard as he moved in on her.
The heart was beating faster.
“Hi Cassie. How’s business with the middle classes? Who’s your lovely friend?”
Penny tucked her corporate-logo scarf tighter about her neck, suddenly self-conscious about her surgical scars.
“Hello Grant. This is Penny. She’s married.”
Penny smiled weakly.
“Grant Simpson. Pleased to meet you.” He was standing too close, his Poison after-shave using up all the oxygen. He held out his hand, shook hers for a beat longer than protocol permitted, smiling engagingly.
Penny looked down, flushing slightly. She noticed the engraved initials on the stylish Dunhill cigarette case and lighter he’d placed carefully on the bar.
“That’s nice. What’s the U stand for? Unusual?”
He sighed, dramatically. “Everyone asks that. Might as well get it over. My father was a Civil War buff, and with Simpson for a surname, he just couldn’t resist naming his son for his hero. Read it with an imaginary comma: Grant, Ulysses S. It was hell at school, but I learned to fight real quick. Respect through skinned knuckles, grudge matches, and long hours in the gym.”
He posed for her. “Anyway, I think of myself as more the original Ulysses type, always up for a new adventure.” He leaned closer. “And my best friends call me Gus.”
Penny smiled again, finding it suddenly difficult to breathe in the thickening atmosphere.
“Gus. We had a tomcat called Gus once—short for Asparagus. The most exotic name the kids could think of at the time.”
He swallowed hard at the implied comparison, recovered immediately to say, “You have children then?”
“Two. A boy and a girl. Teenagers now.”
“Charming.” He lowered his voice. “You look like you could use some air. What say we go somewhere quieter . . . ”
Penny looked around quickly for her friend. “Sorry, Gus. Cassie, we have to run. I promised I’d be back by seven,” she said brightly. She took Cassie by the arm and steered her firmly in the direction of the door. “I can’t believe I was flirting with that creep!” she said.
“How much wine have you had?”
“Just the one glass.” Penny blushed. The heart was still racing. “Is he really as bad as the gossips say?”
“He’s worse. Heartless. I used to find Anne sobbing her heart out in the Ladies. She really loved the bastard, and he treated her like dirt.”
Penny sighed, willing her heartbeat to slow to a calmer rate.
The ride home was uneventful.
* * *
Next Monday morning when she arrived at the office there was a single red rose on her desk, with a card bearing one word—Friday.
Penny spent the rest of the week in an agony of indecision, listening to the argument between her head and her heart. Her mind rehearsed the overwhelming evidence against anything so foolish as a comfortably married woman getting involved with another man, especially one who was everything she despised, especially one who was already the mainstay of city gossip. The heart did not listen. It just felt warm at the thought of him.
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2013 Page 10