by Joy Dettman
‘What the hell was going on in your head?’ she asked the photograph.
What the hell was going on in mine when I was fourteen, fifteen? What the hell was I thinking when I let Dino Collins drive me home on his bike, when I let him kiss me?
A distrust of parents and a mindless trust of friends, that’s what had been going on in her mind.
She’d trusted Rosie Thomas. Had told her everything. Told her about Jenny, about Woody Creek. For a time she’d almost trusted Dino Collins, until the day she watched him tattoo HATE on his knuckles with a razor blade and a black biro – or she’d watched him cut the H.
The book closed, placed back on her coffee table, she stood, willing whatever was inside her to still, wondering if the wine had got into its bloodstream.
What if it started looking for a way out? Some of them came early.
I’d have to call an ambulance.
Stood staring at her rubbish bin, which wasn’t big enough. She hadn’t considered the amount of rubbish one person might accumulate in a week. Peel an apple and you had to get rid of the peel. Open a tin of peaches and you had to get rid of the tin. She’d need to empty it. Should check her mailbox too. Ought to start up Morrie’s car before its joints seized.
She gathered rubbish from her bench, stuffed it into the tidy, then, unstable with cheap wine, attempted to slip the safety chain from its slot. Its knob was missing; had to use the chain to slide the disc along the slot until it came out. She did it easily sober. It took a moment of fiddling, but she did it, and opened her door to check the landing for revellers, for the sound of revellers. Only room for solo parties in dogbox units. Television playing across the landing. Phone ringing downstairs.
Like a fugitive, she crept out and down. Checked for movement in the driveway, and when there was none, walked to the front of her block of units, to the communal bins, where she upended her bin, allowing her rubbish to party with the rest.
No traffic on the road. Everyone was somewhere by now, counting down to midnight and to 1970.
Last year she’d been at a party at Helen’s house, with Chris. The year before that? She’d been somewhere. Always celebrated New Year somewhere. She knew she could remember each one – if she could be bothered. She’d remember this one; remember standing in the shadows with the communal bins, the right place for discarded excess baggage.
The brick wall behind her was still warm from its day in the sun. She leaned against it. Leaned there for five, maybe ten, minutes, in the dark, waiting for 1970. Couldn’t see the face of her watch. Couldn’t count down that final minute. Whatever was inside her continued partying.
Her hand was attempting to still the movement when the first fireworks went off like shots from a gun and an off-key chorus of voices from a house across the road started singing in the new year. Rockets sprayed red and green stars into the night sky. Dogs barked. A car driving by, its musical horn playing a tune. Cop siren behind it, attempting to drown its tones.
There’d be a greater din in Woody Creek. Had the situation been different, she may have been up there with Georgie.
Probably wouldn’t have. And the situation was what it was. She had to get to the end of March, then the situation would be different.
SOLE SURVIVOR
One woman left alone on earth might survive for a week. Maybe she’d get through two – then she’d probably cut her throat with a blunt bread knife. There was no reason to get out of bed in the morning, and nowhere to go if she got out, so no reason to shower, to wash her hair. And every time she stripped to get beneath the shower, her belly had grown. She was feeding it too well. Each day an eternity, she gave up mealtimes and ate when she felt like eating. One loaf of bread disappeared in two days; a tin of peaches disappeared in one. She opened the can for breakfast, and kept helping herself to peach halves until there were no more to help herself to, then she drank the juice. Sickly.
Filled in time washing the empty cans, after a can of salmon had started stinking up her unit. Washed them well now, in detergent, dried them, then fitted the small cans into the larger, which saved space in her kitchen tidy.
She ran out of apples. Eating an apple stopped her from smoking, which meant she was going to run out of cigarettes. Ate raw celery dipped into mayonnaise, and discovered a crunchy delicacy.
January was two weeks old before she crept downstairs again, and crept back up clutching a phone bill. Her attitude to phone bills had altered. She opened it eagerly. Writing the cheque, addressing an envelope, licking the stamp, was contact with the outside world – as was her need to post it. It waited for two days on her desk before she crept downstairs in the wee small hours of a Monday morning.
The MG whined at her, ground its teeth at her, coughed like a consumptive old man, but refused to start. Its noise disturbed the occupant of one of the rear downstairs units. His light came on. He’d be out in a minute to see who was attempting to steal a car – or he’d call the cops.
The fool of a thing finally spluttered into a roar and she made her getaway, the rear-flat occupant peering between the slats of his venetian blind.
Left the motor running while she posted the letter, then continued on, north. Drove around the block, drove around again, afraid to go further afield in case the car stopped and she had to walk back. She wasn’t dressed for walking.
On her fourth trip around the block, she picked up a tail: a cop who probably thought she was casing the shopping strip. She drove down to the Williams Road lights, with him still behind her, then turned left and went up to Toorak Road, where she made a right-hand turn. She was making a right turn into Kooyong Road when the cop started flashing his lights and playing brief bursts of his siren. She pulled over.
‘I wasn’t speeding,’ she greeted him.
She didn’t want to get out. She was clad in her cotton brunch coat, the only item of clothing she owned that would still do up around her.
He peered in. ‘Licence,’ he said.
Her handbag was on the passenger seat. She found her licence and offered it. He glanced at it and asked where she was going.
‘I’m exercising the car,’ she said. ‘My husband is in England. He told me to exercise it. It’s been hot . . . during the day,’ she finished lamely.
He asked if she’d been drinking.
‘I’m seven months pregnant,’ the schoolmarm said, her tone suggesting alcohol had never touched her lips.
‘Drive carefully,’ he said, and went on his way.
Cara made a beeline for home, where she slept well for the first time since New Year’s Eve. She slept until midday, and rose in a positive mood; positive enough to wind another sheet of paper into her typewriter. She allowed aliens to have spread a ninety-day disease, and that cop was one of them. He’d taken over the body of a dead man. It was fun, but it didn’t work, and had been written before. The only way she could write her stories was to write what was real, and attempting to write from a male viewpoint was impossible.
She’d been keeping a diary; in the main it contained what she’d eaten and what the bulge was doing. She could write the tale of her incarceration from a pregnant female’s viewpoint, a female who needed to hide the fact that she was pregnant.
Why did she have to hide it?
Easy. It was her brother’s child.
Couldn’t write that.
Couldn’t write an alien scenario either. Ripped it up, tossed the bits into her bin, then went to her bedroom to get down to her knees – not to pray, but to reach beneath the bed for the dusty pages of Angel At My Door.
She’d started writing it at fifteen, and in the decade since had rewritten it half a dozen times. It was her story, or the story of how she’d come into being. She’d tried a variety of Jessicas, all patterned on Jenny. She’d tried Jessica the poor little victim, which had worked no better than Jessica the striptease dancer.
Jim Hooper’s photograph now jammed in her mind, she knew he wouldn’t have married a slut. And since seeing the teenage f
ace of Jenny, she knew she probably hadn’t been a slut. If she could find the energy, she could improve Angel. A huge job though. The last time she’d written it, she’d promised it would be the last.
Tossed it onto her desk, tossed her last frozen pastie into the oven, and went to the bathroom. Her brunch coat needed a wash, as did her hair, as did she.
Loathed seeing her naked body. It was all belly. A week ago, she’d draped a sheet over her dressing-table mirror and stuck newspaper over the bathroom mirror.
Her brunch coat left dripping over the bath, she searched for a replacement outfit that might go around the bulge. A pair of white stretch shorts covered the bits that counted; a singlet top, once too baggy, almost covered her upper half, and was cooler than her brunch coat.
Saw her distorted reflection in the television screen, the bulge further distorted by the television’s bulge, and wanted to vomit. Another sheet of newspaper and sticky tape fixed that. There was nothing worth watching on that box anyway, and if it was worth watching it was broken up by constant commercials.
*
She’d crossed a month of days off her calendar before she realised she should have stockpiled dishwashing liquid. She used the last of it to fight Morrie’s rings from her right ring finger. Always too tight there, they had become uncomfortable. Stood looking at them, the engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother. It had three big diamonds in it, and he’d left it with his car keys in an unlocked letterbox where anyone could have stolen it.
The rings are yours. I gave them to you . . .
She’d given him a ring. Wondered if he was still wearing it. She slid the two onto her wedding finger. Tighter there than when she’d last seen the Geelong doctor.
Should have seen him in December, now January was almost gone. Maybe she should make an appointment. Leave before daylight, come home after dark. No one knew her in Geelong. She could shop for dishwashing detergent, fruit, bread.
She looked at the phone, at its unplugged cord. The doctor knew her as Cara Grenville-Langdon; he’d booked her into the hospital as Grenville-Langdon. Her hospital insurance was still in her maiden name. She’d need to find out if there’d be a problem with that, and there were questions she needed to ask the doctor. The bulge spent its life doing backflips. She feared its size, feared the getting of it out. She knew they came out headfirst – if it had a head; that a few of them came out feet first – if it had feet?
Three o’clock when she got down to her knees to plug the phone cord into its socket, and not so easy to get back up, but she did, and a voice on the other end of the line was therapeutic.
‘We can fit you in at nine fifteen or at two ten,’ the stranger said.
Early was good. ‘Nine fifteen.’
That night she wound her clock and set her alarm for four thirty, eager for her day out.
*
In the shower before daylight, her eyes closed tight against shampoo, water raining down, and the phone rang. The thing inside her gave such an almighty kick it almost knocked her from her feet. She saved herself. What if she hadn’t? What if she’d fallen and broken her neck? What if she’d lain in that tub like a turtle on its back, shampoo in her eyes, water raining down, until someone from school missed her when she didn’t go back to work in mid-April?
Phone ringing, ringing. Who would ring at that ungodly hour?
Knew. Knew there could only be one person who would call at that ungodly hour, that it wouldn’t be an ungodly hour where he was calling from.
Or maybe it was a drunk who’d dialled the wrong number.
It stopped. She finished washing her hair and was about to pull out the plug when it rang again. She didn’t lift the receiver. Cara Norris was overseas – and drunks didn’t redial the same wrong number. And whatever was inside her, it didn’t like that telephone. Did it have ears, or had she startled it into movement? If she’d startled it, it must have reflexes to startle. Having reflexes didn’t mean it had a brain.
Back in September she’d bought a pair of black stretch pants to run in. They had an elasticised waist – too tight this morning – and by last night’s forecast, the day would be too hot for black running pants. She had no choice. She selected a T-shirt then covered it with a white shirt Morrie had left in her laundry hamper. The outfit brought back memories of Rosie Thomas: her uniform at fourteen had been tight black jeans worn beneath one of her brother’s white shirts – the height of fashion for Traralgon teenagers in the late fifties. This was the seventies and Cara looked ten months pregnant.
She checked the landing before stepping out, pleased to be out – as was Morrie’s car. It started first try, and they drove away, celebrating every traffic light, every car on that road, so grateful to be a part of the great human horde, if only for a day.
Mrs Grenville-Langdon presented herself on time for her appointment, then waited almost an hour to be called. She didn’t mind the wait. She had a long day to fill.
Everything was going to plan, the doctor said. As the pregnancy progressed and the infant ran out of space, its movements became more obvious. And yes, it was believed that babies heard from within the womb.
He weighed her, and she couldn’t believe the scales. He’d told her the last time she’d seen him that she needed to put on a little weight. He told her this time that she might need to watch her weight, that the baby appeared to be a large fellow with a larger than average head.
He asked her weight at birth. She knew that. He asked her husband’s. Didn’t know that.
He asked if she was taking regular exercise, and told her that good muscle tone in the mother led to an easier delivery. She lied about exercise, but maybe prowling in circles like a tiger in a cage qualified.
She found a beach and was dismayed by the effort required to sustain a pregnant waddle on sand. She used to run. She used to be a tennis player. Wondered who Chris Marino was running with now. Far better she’d married him than this. Wondered why Morrie had been calling. To have rung twice at that time of morning – it must have been Morrie. She’d told him not to phone, not to write, not to think about her. He’d written. She hadn’t replied.
She bought a tank full of petrol at five, and the attendant who checked her oil, water and battery told her the water was a little low, as was the air in her front passenger-side tyre.
‘How long have you owned it?’ he asked.
‘My husband bought it from a friend a few years ago,’ she said. Pregnant women required a husband.
She asked him the way to the nearest supermarket, and by five thirty she had a trolley full: fresh milk, small plastic containers in which to freeze fresh milk, a dozen cans of Carnation milk, three bottles of dishwashing liquid, butter, cheese, four loaves of sliced bread and one crusty loaf, apples, nectarines, bananas – six green and two yellow – a huge bunch of celery, newspapers and a booklet full of crossword puzzles.
At eight thirty, after a perfect vanilla milkshake and banana dinner, she started towards home, her replenished stores riding in her passenger seat and on the floor. No boot in Morrie’s car, no rear seat. Two trips up and down the stairs required to transfer her load indoors. Plenty of exercise today. She should have been tired. Wasn’t.
Invigorated by her day as a part of the great human horde, she crunched on celery while filling in the squares of a crossword, pleased that her brain hadn’t atrophied – until stumped by twelve across: a seven-letter word meaning threatened and beginning with M. Murdered didn’t fit with three down, and was eight letters besides, but once murdered fixed itself in her mind, it pushed out everything else.
Gave up on the crossword near midnight and turned to the television, its bulge still screened by newspaper. Some old movie playing. She stood listening, attempting to pick the actors by their voices. James Mason was one of them. Maybe James Mason and Richard Attenborough.
To prove herself right, she removed the newspaper and sat down to watch the end of a good show. The ABC had no commercials. And that seven-lett
er word popped into her head. Menaced.
*
One way or another, January was one hell of a month. Maybe God had a holiday shack on the backside of the moon and he didn’t appreciate man’s footprints in his pristine moon dust. Perhaps in his own incomprehensible way he was telling his children to play in their own backyard. On 18 January a cyclone hit Daydream Island, a popular holiday resort off the Queensland coast. Thirteen people lost their lives. On 23 January, a goods train collided with a bus and more died; then on the last day of the month, a mother, father and three children were wiped out on their way to a wedding when their sedan had a head-on crash with a fuel tanker. That night Cara dreamed of war and of Jenny locked into an upstairs Amberley room by Myrtle. A crazy dream; the woman hadn’t even looked like Jenny. Myrtle had looked like Myrtle. Determined to trap the Jenny of her dream, Cara wound a new page into her typewriter, and before her first coffee, she’d filled three pages.
Belted out another one while her coffee cooled, then five pages more before forcing herself away to the bedroom to dress. No bra. They were all too tight to tolerate. She pulled on her singlet top that didn’t cover much, stepped into her stretch shorts that covered less, made a fresh coffee, then sat down to read what she’d written.
The Jessica character had lost her golden curls and become a brunette with long, straight hair, like Jenny of the dream; Myrtle – Martha – had retained her whipped puppy-dog eyes but lost four stone. And they worked. They were real people.
By six o’clock, she had twenty-two pages. Her back was killing, but time, a previously stagnant thing, had gone up in smoke. As did the following day and the following week. Engrossed in this, the final, final draft, she forgot to cross the days off her calendar.
A DISASTROUS YEAR
On the fifth day of February, disaster struck her dogbox. She was typing up a storm when someone knocked on her door.
Her hands stilled over the keyboard. From time to time, a neighbour knocked. From time to time, religious fanatics came to convert her to their particular faith. Before Timothy had been born, Cathy had knocked at odd hours.