by Joy Dettman
Sue had known. She’d seen him, said he looked married. Sue knew men.
Her throat too tight for words, Sally drew back, away from him, away from this thing she had done.
‘It alters nothing. I love you,’ he said.
‘Alters nothing?’ she whispered. ‘You’re married.’ She picked up her knife, tossed it into the sink, snatched his plate; it followed her knife. Landed hard. Broke. Scattered china splattered the tiles with burned steak grease. ‘Get out of here, Matt.’
‘You love me. You said you’d never leave me, Sall.’
‘You’re married.’
He talked then. He wouldn’t go. He said he was going to leave his wife, that they were sharing the house in Hallam, but not a bed. Hadn’t in years. He said he stayed with his wife because the house was in their joint names, but now he had a reason to leave, and he would. He was standing, and he tried to take her in his arms, but she had the sharp knife in her hand.
‘It won’t end like this. You’re mine. I found you and I’m not letting you go.’ He backed off, though, away from the blade. ‘I can’t function without you in my life, Sall. I won’t lose what we’ve got here.’
‘Go.’
‘Don’t do this to us. I come here and forget the world. You are my world, Sall.’
Talking. Talking. Would he never stop with his talking?
She leaned, gaining support from the kitchen bench, and the bench pressed hard against her bruised back. The knife still gripped in her hand, she backed past the kitchen bench, past the wardrobe to the door, and she tugged it open. ‘Go. Please.’
‘I’m not going to lose you.’
‘You should have told me. You should have told me that first night.’
‘And this is why I didn’t.’ He tried to take the knife, but she held it like a weapon before her, and his hand drew away.
‘Don’t do this to us, Sall.’ He was outside the door, still pleading when she kicked it shut in his face, locked it with the chain. She turned the television on, the volume high, and she howled and couldn’t find a place to stop.
Fool. She’d been such a gullible bloody fool. He wouldn’t give you his phone number because it was his wife’s number too. You gave him the perfect out. Dumb bitch.
She walked to the refrigerator for wine, tripping over her handbag on the floor, landing on one knee beside her briefs.
Shivering-cold shame hit her in the stomach like a block of ice. May to May. The grand planned year of Sally De Rooze, and now October was almost gone. She hadn’t found herself, hadn’t found the great love of her life, either. She’d found Sally Shame, a cheap slut who’d been getting it off with a married man.
Better if she’d stayed in Lakeside, cleaned up after her mother. Better than this. A home-wrecking slut, that’s what she was. Prostitute from Phonepross; half a pizza bought her for four hours. Name your position. Name your game.
She picked herself and her briefs up, and what was left of her pantihose, and she tossed them into her rubbish bin. She kicked her handbag across the floor, then picked it up and threw it hard at the wall. More junk fell free.
‘Bloody city. Lying, cheating mongrel city. I want the last month back. I want to live it again.’
Need more than the last month back. Need to be eight again, or ten again. Need to be eighteen again. Need a whole bloody life back again. She took her case from her wardrobe, snatched a handful of clothing, tossing it in, then she tossed her case at the wall, concrete wall, and her case was cheap, cheap like her life. It bent. She sat then, sat on the end of her bed, looking at her scattered clothing.
‘I’ve been sleeping with a married man, Mummy,’ she said. ‘Well, not actually sleeping with him. He goes home to his wife to get some rest. But I’ve been doing everything but sleep with him. It’s sex with a capital F, Mummy. Your eyes would pop out if you had seen the things I’ve been doing. I’ve learnt such a lot.’ Rubbing the guilt in. Forcing it through her pores. ‘On the floor, behind the door and on the kitchen table, Mummy. I never said no to him. You never allowed me to say no, so I never learnt how to say it. Everyone knows how to say no, but not Sally mush-mouth. Yes, I said. Yes. Yes, Matt. Yes, please. And I loved it, Mummy. And I love him. I love him.’
Sinking now beneath a mountain of guilt, she closed her mouth, and guilt became an internal thing, bludgeoned her from within. She crawled into bed, because she couldn’t crawl beneath it, curled into a tight ball, her thumb in her mouth, knees beneath her chin, quilt pulled over her head.
Didn’t ask him to use a condom either. Brand-new packet in the zip compartment of her bag. Unopened. Didn’t know the rules of the big city game. Didn’t follow Sue’s first rule. Get their phone number. Give them a call around nine on a Sunday morning. Best way to catch a married guy. That’s what Sue said. And no sex without a condom. No sex ever without a condom. Sue was smart. City smart. Man smart.
And I’m a dumb blonde country hick and I never do anything right. Never have done anything right. Not in my whole life. I should have stayed in my seat that night, kept my seatbelt done up. I should have helped Daddy watch the road. I would have seen that kangaroo – or got burnt with them.
Shivering. Shivering cold. Shivering beneath the quilt. Shivering and crying, creeping away. Away.
Close your eyes, Sally, and Mummy can’t see you.
Close your mind, Sally, and you won’t have to see yourself.
Close up.
Shut down.
Poor simple Sally De Rooze, green clay in a fucking artist’s hands.
Washed Out to Sea
The black hole came for her in the night and it got her, it sucked her down, buried her. She was an insect, fallen into a cast-iron pipe that ended at the bottom of a pit of sludge. She wallowed there, her brain feeding on old sludge.
Daddy. He’s got my Teddy. Make him give it back.
Daddy’s driving, Sally-gal.
Couldn’t make the pictures go away. Had to make them go. She turned on the television at dawn but it wouldn’t kill the internal pictures.
So she’d do a Grandma. That would kill them. She’d drive out to the Westgate Bridge and jump. Jumping was permanent, Grandma had known that. No bungee-rope doctor to spring her back, pump her stomach, sew up her wrists, put a stitch in her breast.
She walked down to the car park in the late afternoon, but the road traffic was a roar. Too hard to force the car out there, find her way to Westgate. Too much traffic tonight to go for the long jump. She emptied her letterbox instead.
Only bills and a wad of junk mail. She redelivered the lot to the bikie in Number 14, then returned to her flat and crawled into bed, stayed there all day, all night. Must have, because the clock bleated its call at 7.15 a.m., and it wasn’t Thursday morning so it had to be Friday.
She thought of work. Payday yesterday. Got to get my pay. Got to. Got to keep on going. Got to find away to keep on going.
Junk on the floor. Junk everywhere. Steak on the sink. Twisted case, open against the wall. Her good blouse on the floor.
Should hang it up. It cost a fortune.
Why bother? Why bother with anything?
What right has she got to live when she killed my beautiful boys?
Screamed. Loud as anything, so half the world could hear her. So all the world would know whose fault it was that Daddy and the boys had died.
What right has she got to live when she killed my beautiful boys?
Cold blue killer eyes, killing little Sally with guilt.
Why didn’t you die instead of my Shane?
‘Why didn’t I die?’
Around two in the afternoon she found a clean glass and the wine cask, and a packet of stale biscuits, and she sat with them on the floor, close to the television, drinking, nibbling biscuits, watching the noise, seeing nothing.
The phone rang. She ignored it and poured more wine.
It rang and kept on ringing.
‘Cut the bloody thing off,’ she screamed. ‘You keep threatening to, so cut t
he bloody thing off.’
It rang.
Maybe it was him.
But it wouldn’t be him. He’d be at work, selling promises, selling lies. It wouldn’t be Ross either. No one else had her number, except the hospital, and Sue. Sally De Rooze wasn’t in the Melbourne phone book and she’d never be in it now. As soon as she was drunk enough she was going to pick herself up and drive out to the Westgate Bridge. The newspapers would wrap her up.
PROSTITUTE FROM PHONE A PRO WASHED OUT TO SEA
Mummy would be pleased.
MIRACLE CURE – DYING WOMAN RISES FROM HER BED TO ATTEND DAUGHTER’S FUNERAL
Phone ringing. Ringing. Ringing.
And when she couldn’t stand it any more, she reached for it. Snatched it up. Shut it up and it was Jolly Julie wanting to sell Miss Wong some fertiliser for her garden.
‘You hab da wong number,’ Sally said. She laughed then, black laughter, but Jolly Julie decided to sell her some fertiliser anyhow, so Sally told her that she was in the fertiliser trade herself, and she wanted to get rid of a tonne of it. Where would Julie like it dumped?
Julie was lost for words. Her spiel thrown off course, she floundered, still too new at this intrusion game. Sally was not new at the game. She was an old hand and she let all the black pour out on poor Jolly Julie.
‘Oh, but Julie. This is an opportunity you can’t afford to miss. It’s well-matured swan shit, and everyone knows that birds make the best fertiliser. I’ve got tonnes of it. We will deliver to your door. Six months interest-free. No payments until the year 2000.’
Jolly Julie hung up and Sally laughed and dropped the hand-piece to the floor, let it beep. She laughed as she poured more wine, and for an instant remembered other laughter, remembered Daddy.
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone, Sally-gal.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
She looked at the phone, thought of calling Phonepross, asking Ratsus if she had some raffle books for sale. That would be funny. That’s what she had to do, think of something funny. Do something funny. Like the fertiliser. That had been a good one. Or . . . or if she owned a hose she could tape it onto her dripping tap and poke it under the bikie’s door. Or . . . or she could drive into the city and paint a suicide note on Matt’s car with nail polish. She knew where he parked.
Her lips stretched in a smile, she forced a laugh and almost saw a glimmer of light at the top of the black hole. ‘Let him explain that to his bloody wife in Hallam.’
All afternoon she made her mad plans, forcing herself to laugh as slowly she crawled towards the light, gaining two centimetres, slipping back one.
Got to go to work, get my pay. I’ll go in tonight. Friday night. Ratsus will be pleased to get me. I’ll work until eight. Got to go. Sell. Sell. Sell. I’ll need money for Mummy’s funeral. Grandma’s bloody dining room suite won’t pay for it.
Too bad. Let the taxpayers dig a bit deeper, and with a bit of luck they might get two for the price of one. I’ll climb in with her and we’ll rot together, Mummy and me. Haven’t we been rotting together for twenty years? I mean, why stop now?
And she was down again, drowning in old sludge.
The beautiful guitar smashed against the wall. Mummy wishing it was Sally’s head.
Why didn’t you die? Why didn’t you die?
And after school. Little sprays of red dye, fanning out from Mummy’s wrists to get lost in the pink water. And thinking, how long would it take for all her blood to run away?
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Night coming now, she flicked on the light switch, but the globe had blown, so she sat in the dark.
Daddy used to drive Mummy to the bookings and she’d come home on a high.
Daddy in his shirtsleeves.
Daddy with melted chocolate frogs.
‘Daddy! I want Daddy! Daaaaddy!’ The scream touched base. It hurt her throat, frightening her. Silencing her.
Saturday, lost deep in the black hole.
Sunday.
Silent.
No roar of traffic on the roads. She’d stopped fighting. She was dying unborn in the black womb. Embryo cockroach on its back, its legs in the air. Couldn’t roll over and crawl down the birth canal. Didn’t want to live.
No wine left, she opened the fridge and found the half-bottle of Jim Beam, and she slammed the door on it and the old fridge rocked. A bag of overripe bananas fell to the floor. She took one in her hand, looked at it.
Phallic.
Ran her finger down the smooth skin, peeled it with her teeth. Sucked it. Held its soft mush in her mouth. Choked on it, but she swallowed it.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy. I’m sorry.’
Mummy could always squeeze a few more tears out of her. She wept then, loud and uncontrolled, wept until there was nowhere deeper to go, sobbed and hiccupped until the tears slowed to a trickle. Then she picked up the telephone and dialled the hospital’s number.
‘Could I speak to Mrs De Rooze, please?’ Voice full of tears.
‘Sally? It’s Kate here. Are you going to be okay for tonight?’
Kate? Deb knew a Kate.
Deb?
She cut the connection and screamed. ‘Shiiiiiiiit! Deb! Shiiiiiiit!’
News travelled fast in Lakeside. It always had. Three minutes later her phone rang. She covered her ears and let it ring until it rang out, but it started up again so she shut it up.
‘Sally? What’s going on with you? You were supposed to be up here last night for Deb’s hen party.’
She couldn’t answer him. Couldn’t talk to him. Couldn’t ever look him in the eye again, look Deb in the eye again. Not ever. She hung up, and seconds later the phone rang again. She took it off the hook, let it dangle.
‘Are you there? Sally! Answer me!’ Little voice. Distant voice chatting to the cheap beige carpet. ‘We’ve got the wedding tonight.’
Deb’s wedding at six. She was supposed to have picked up her hire dress yesterday. Maroon. Forgot the dress and the wedding and Deb.
Couldn’t talk to Ross. Wanted to scream at him. Wanted to blame him too, offload the blame onto someone else. Wanted to yell, Give me back all those years I’ve spent in your bed, years when I should have been out sampling life. Sampling people. Learning slow. Learning easy. Not like this.
‘Sally! Pick up that phone.’
‘I’m contaminated,’ she said, but she reached for the phone, picked it up, held it to her ear.
‘Pick up that bloody phone, Sally!’
‘Stop your yelling.’
‘You need someone to yell at you. Everyone is up here waiting for you, and you can’t even pick up a phone and call. I’m up here running around after your mother and you leave your bloody phone off the hook all day. She’s up. I tried to call you yesterday to tell you. She’s out of bed and eating.’
‘For how long?’
‘A couple of days. She’s been sitting with old Mrs Matthews, reading to her.’
Sally stilled her mind. He’d just dropped a lousy lifeline into the pit of sludge. She could see it coiled there. Lakeside. Mummy. Its ends were mucky, frayed. She didn’t want to reach for it.
‘Why didn’t you call Deb?’ Nothing to say. No defence. ‘Are you going to be okay for tonight?’ Silence. ‘There’s a lot of flu going around up here too.’
‘I’m fine.’ Why bother? Too much effort. Let go this fraying line and slip back in.
‘Kate said you sounded full up with it.’
‘I was holding my nose.’ That’s what Sue did when she wanted to take a sickie. Held her nose and rang Ratsus. Smart bitch, Sue. She’d known Matt would be married. You think something like that gets to that age unmarried? That’s what she’d said. Smart city bitch.
Ross was still talking. ‘You’re not looking after yourself down there. Give it up and come home where you belong.’
‘I don’t belong anywhere, and I haven’t got the flu.’
‘Have you been to the doctor?’
‘Will you listen to m
e? Will anybody ever listen to me? I’m fine. Can you hear me? I was holding my bloody nose.’ She did it now, yelling the words at him through pinched nostrils, and her eardrums popped. She thought she’d burst them, and she swallowed, once, twice. She shook her head, changed the telephone to her other ear. Deaf in one and couldn’t hear with the other. She picked up a tear-wet tissue and blew her nose. Her ears began clicking. She wasn’t going to do that again in a hurry.
‘I was just getting dressed to come down and see what was going on with you.’ She didn’t reply. ‘I’ll be there in two hours.’ Silence. ‘Did you hear me, Sally?’ he yelled.
‘I can hear you. So can half of Lakeside.’
‘Take a couple of pills and get a few hours’ sleep. I’m leaving now.’
‘I can’t do it, Ross.’
‘There are people relying on you. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Did you get your dress?’
‘Stay out of my life.’
‘I’ll be there around two.’
‘I didn’t get a bloody dress.’
‘Jesus, Sally! What’s happened to you lately?’ Matt happened. That’s what happened. ‘What about the one you wore for Gina’s wedding?’
‘It’s in one of the boxes in your garage, and it’s blue and probably mouldy anyway. No-one will miss me.’
‘We’ll pick up something when I get there.’
‘Oh Jesus, Ross.’ He wouldn’t give up. He’d be down here. He’d break her door in. She moaned, looked at her skirt, at her bare feet, and the mess. She’d been doing a Mummy. She wasn’t her mother. She wasn’t. ‘I’ll get something. I’ll be there.’
‘Are you well enough to drive?’
‘I said I’d be there.’ Better there than here.
He let her go and she walked to the bathroom, picking up jeans, shoes, junk, tossing them onto the bed. She turned on the hot water and slowly stripped; her clothing stank of sweat and stale Matt. She looked at her face in the foggy mirror. Pale, and more like her mother today, eyes swollen, half-closed by too many tears, her hair a mess.
‘I didn’t find me, Mummy. Just lost the rest of me.’ Through the fogged mirror her hazy reflection stared at her. ‘Was I ever meant to be, Mummy?’ A ghost in that mirror, hazy. Her ghost. Written down to die at eight and something had gone wrong. Lost ghost.