Closed for Winter

by Georgia Blain

  He spends most mornings working on a mosaic in his garden. It is the image of his wife, who is dead. I have never seen it, but I have heard him describe it to Dorothy. Sometimes he will bring tiles to show her.

  The colour of her lips, he will say, and he will lay dark china-red on the table. Her eyes, and the blue will glitter like the icy tips of winter waves. Her hair, and it gleams, deep dark gold.

  He works from a photograph. A picture of his wife as a young woman. When he showed me, I was surprised. Her hair was brown and her eyes were hazel.

  It’s called artistic licence, he laughed when I pointed it out to him.

  I was young and I did not know what he meant.

  He washes up before he leaves, checks that there is nothing else she needs, and then he is gone, leaving Dorothy alone.

  In the early afternoon the kitchen is cool. The sun has moved to the front of the house. In summer this is a relief, in winter it is cold and she lights the gas heater, the blue flame hissing and flickering by her feet.

  This is the time for her clippings.

  She sits, oblivious to the day slowly folding into night, and reads until she is surprised to find herself with just the light from the heater illuminating the room. I know. I have come home to find her hunched over the paper in the dark. I have flicked on the fluoro light and seen her startled, stunned by its sudden brightness, because in her search, she has lost all awareness of the world that surrounds her.

  Dotty Dot.

  Martin sees the surface only. This is the way he is. And it is not just with her.

  He looks at me and I doubt that he can hear or see all that I do not say or show.

  There is a fear inside me. I hold my photograph up to the light and I try to see more clearly. I, too, become lost in my search. This is my flipside. Dorothy’s letters are hers.

  Sometimes I think we are just reverse sides of the same coin.

  7

  I am late for work.

  It is not like me and when I arrive, I can see that Jocelyn is anxious.

  I am also anxious. All morning it has been difficult to do anything.

  This cannot go on.

  I know that Martin is right but I cannot see a way to alter what we have become. We have walked too far down the wrong path. In moments of honesty, I have to admit to myself that we have never been on the right path.

  But Martin is not my only anxiety.

  This morning as I soaked Dorothy’s blue satin nightgown in the laundry, I found myself staring out across Martin’s neat square of lawn and native shrubs. I remembered how I had once wanted to plant vegetables and flowers and I could not remember how and when I had finally given up on the idea. I saw the pebbles in my mother’s back garden. I saw that house, and I saw her. I had left her to come to this. This had been my escape, but the thought of her eats at me. Constantly.

  Jocelyn asks me if everything is all right.

  Fine, I tell her, unable to speak the truth.

  Jocelyn and I have worked together for seven years. For her, and for most of the other people who work on the box office, this is just a job for money. She is a sculptor.

  I would like to do you, she had once said. She had been showing me her work. Most of them were nudes. You have such a beautiful body.

  I had not known how to respond.

  Later, when I told Martin, he teased me. She’s probably trying to crack on to you, he laughed, nudge, nudge. Better not wear those short skirts to work any more.

  I did not speak to him of it again.

  But I did model for Jocelyn. When she asked me the second time, I agreed.

  I sat for her for six months, once a week. When we finished work, we would go to her kitchen and drink beer. She would show me books from art school and we would talk about what we liked and what we didn’t like.

  I never told her a lot about myself, but I told her more than I have told other people, sometimes surprising myself with what I would reveal.

  I know that Jocelyn does not like Martin. She would not tell me that now but she used to, when I first started working here. She would make faces behind his back when he came to check on how the ‘box office girls’ were doing.

  Pompous prick, she would say when he headed back to his office.

  When I first started seeing him, I did not tell her. I put it off for as long as I possibly could. When he brought me flowers for my birthday, she laughed. Oh, God, I think he’s got a crush on you, she said. I blushed and turned away from her. A week later, she saw that my address had changed in the staff files. I told her that I had moved in with him and she did not say a word.

  Since then, she has stopped making faces behind his back when I am around and she has stopped calling him a pompous prick when I am within hearing distance.

  But I do not kid myself that her feelings towards him have changed.

  Nor have I ever tried to talk about the reason why I am with him. I wanted to, once, but the few words I began to speak just made me feel ashamed, and I stopped.

  Jocelyn is always having affairs with actors who are performing at the theatre. It never lasts. When she is feeling good, she tells me it is because she gets bored, but when she is depressed, she tells me she is lonely.

  It’s a co-dependency problem, she says. But I am working on it.

  I know that she once loved a man. Too much, she says.

  She was living with him when I first used to sit for her. I saw his clothes over the end of the bed, his dirty plates, his records and his books, but I never saw him. He was a musician. He worked in the evenings.

  One night I arrived at her house and it was all gone. Everything that had marked his presence. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I let myself in, calling out her name as I made my way down the long, empty corridor.

  She was in the kitchen. When I saw the bruises, I wanted to call an ambulance, but she stopped me. Just stay with me, she said, and I did.

  She told me she felt like a fool. Please don’t tell, she asked, and I promised her I wouldn’t.

  I made her tea, and when she didn’t drink it, I poured us each a scotch. His scotch. And then another. I told her it would be all right. Over and over again.

  I kicked him out, she said. Do you think I was stupid?

  And she looked at me for reassurance.

  No, I told her, not at all.

  And I took her hand and held it tightly in my own.

  Thank you, she said. I just needed to hear someone say it.

  We did not refer to it again. Once I asked her how she had been feeling. She said she was fine, and she smiled for a moment. The bright smile she always has. I was an idiot, she said. And then she looked away.

  This morning Jocelyn is anxious because she is behind in her work. She has been preparing for an exhibition and she has not done enough.

  I am tired, she says. I have been up all night.

  She tells me the telephones have been ringing all morning and there has been a mistake with several bookings. She says the computers have gone down and it is chaos.

  She has pinned her motto of the week over the screen. Each Monday there is a new one. This week’s is shorter than most: Do Not Accept Second Best.

  As she talks, I am trying to see past her to Martin’s office. It is open and I catch sight of his arm.

  He stands up and walks to his door. As he closes it, he sees me and I see him.

  I’m sorry, I say to Jocelyn. I will be back in a minute.

  When we are at work, Martin likes us to behave in a professional manner towards each other. He tells me that we should not bring our home into the office, nor the office into the home.

  When I knock on his door, he calls out, Enter, and I enter, feeling like a fool.

  Problems? he asks, and I know he is talking about work. Financial matters. He is the person we are meant to see if we need money, or if there are mistakes.

  I am responsible for the financial vision of the company, he says when people ask him what he does.
And believe me, he will laugh, I often have to be very creative.

  I close the door behind me.

  What did you mean? I ask him. ‘This cannot go on.’ What did you mean?

  I want him to take me in his arms and tell me that it is all right. I want him but I do not want him. This is the problem. We keep going round and round. And as I speak, I know what I am doing. I am making myself upset. I am making myself angry. I am bringing tears to my eyes so that he will be forced to comfort me, so that he will be forced to apologise for those four words. It will not be enough, but it will be a start.

  But he does not respond in the way I had wanted.

  Not now, he says.

  I slam the door behind me when I leave but I make sure it is not too loud. Just enough for him alone to know what I have done. Not the others.

  This is the way it is.

  And I do not like what I have become.

  At lunchtime, Jocelyn and I go to the bistro. We sit by a window that looks over the park to the grey of the river beyond. She talks constantly, her words tumbling out as she picks at her salad, but when I catch her eye, she stops. She is still.

  What’s wrong? she asks.

  Outside it is cold. It looks as though the rain will come back.

  Nothing, I tell her. It is just a bad day.

  I am not looking at her as I speak. I do not trust myself to be able to look her in the face and continue lying. If I started to tell her, if I started to unravel all that was tying me up, it would be endless. You pull at a thread and you find the whole garment disintegrates in your hands. This is the way it is.

  She puts her hand in mine and it is warm and sure.

  It is just a bad day, I repeat, and she lifts her palm. I know she wants me to open up to her but I do not know how.

  You have been my friend, she says. Let me be yours.

  I look down at the table.

  It’s what friendship is about, she says.

  I know, I tell her.

  And she offers me a cigarette, forgetting, as she always forgets, that I don’t smoke. We both smile as I shake my head.

  It’s me, isn’t it? she says. I talk too much. I don’t give you a chance. Always going on and on about my own problems. You must think I’m terrible.

  And then she sighs and stares down at her plate.

  I want to tell her it’s not her. I want to tell her not to give up on me, but as I am about to speak, she holds up a limp lettuce leaf and looks at it in disgust. There is definitely something wrong with the new chef, she says.

  I lift the top off the pie I have been eating and we both examine the congealed meat, stirring it round with a fork.

  It’s revolting, I say.

  It looks it, she agrees.

  And she drums the table with the tips of her fingers.

  You know what?

  What? I ask.

  I’m going to take them back.

  And as she pushes her chair back, she gives me a wink.

  Do Not Accept Second Best, I say.

  Do Not Accept Second Best, she repeats, and as she turns towards the kitchen, I can hear her repeating those words. Over and over again.

  8

  You can see the jetty in my photograph.

  From a distance the pylons look like matchstick legs, splayed at the thighs, a giant centipede that has risen out of the ocean and is walking, ungainly and awkward, to the silver ribbon of the horizon beyond.

  The wooden planks have been bleached by the sun. Rough and worn, hammered down by heavy iron nails. The railing, too, has weathered and splintered, the white paint streaked by rust, bitter-orange seeping down the cracked posts.

  They have carved their names into the wood. Darren waz here, Sharon, Mick is a spunk, AT 4 GB 4 ever.

  She, too, has been immortalised. I know. I have seen the initials and I am sure it is her. FS is a slut. The words are small and insignificant, now lost in a tangled web of other names.

  Black skid marks lead to the end of the jetty. I have heard that Gary McPherson drove his car out here, skidding to a screeching halt only inches before the final drop into the ocean. The fishermen scattered in his path, throwing themselves over the railings, rods and all. This is the story.

  I do not know whether it is true.

  The end of this jetty is covered by a domed tin roof. It is dented and cracked; jagged sheets of tin flap in the wind. This is the place from where the toughest boys dive. Climbing up to the cheers of the others below, they bounce until they have enough spring, some diving with the grace of an athlete, others, knees to their chests, send wild eruptions of spray flying up into the faces of the onlookers.

  Diving is forbidden. So is jumping, drinking, swearing and littering. The list of offences is written on a tin sign that hangs loose from the roof of the shelter. It is covered in graffiti, the words illegible beneath the scrawl of texta and paint.

  This is the jetty. In my photograph it looks small. In reality, it is much larger than it appears.

  By three in the afternoon, the heat is no longer bearable. I am sitting under the boards and I am wet and shivering. It is not a chill from the ocean. I am not cold. I am frightened and I do not know what to do.

  I trace a pattern in the sand, circles that link in and out of each other. I write my name underneath. Elise. Over and over. I print each letter carefully, with a concentration aimed at banishing the fear, then I rub them out, replacing them with the letters of Frances’s name. This time I write in capitals and it is a spell, an incantation, to summon my sister from the jetty, the dunes, the kiosk, as far and as wide as I can cast.

  You look like you’ve had a bit too much sun, a woman says as she walks past, and I am about to speak, about to ask for help, but the woman has gone.

  Here the sand is damp and hard. I can see out through the crisscross of the pylons to where the water slaps and swirls and surges against the barnacles ringing the base in crusty circles. Above my head, I can hear someone running, pounding. Hollow and heavy.

  This is where the older kids come at night. This is where they do it.

  Frances has told me this, in the hushed voice of a rarely given confidence. When she tells me these things, she speaks with the superiority of someone who knows. I have never asked her if she, too, has been down here, pressed against the pylons with the water licking at her ankles. I have never asked her if she has lain, flat on her back, on this dark wet sand. I do not want to know.

  She’s done it, Frances has whispered, pointing in the direction of our mother’s bedroom, down there, with him. She is talking about our father. That’s why I was born. He did it to her, under the jetty, and I was born. She looks disgusted. He didn’t love her, and she speaks the word ‘love’ with a curl of her lip. He just wanted to stick it into her. And she let him.

  I do not want to hear. I have my face buried in my pillow, but I cannot block out her words. They slip, insidious, through any barrier I put up.

  There are soft drink cans, chip buckets and cigarette packets floating in the water. Bobbing up and down on the surface. I do not like it here, but it is too hot on the beach. I can see my rock pool from where I sit and I watch it, terrified that each time I take my eyes away, she will have been and gone and I will have missed her.

  Why didn’t you ask someone if they’d seen her? Or get someone to look for her?

  Because I am shy. Too shy, and it leaves me locked, frozen, wanting to move but unable. I can hear them, out on the end of the jetty, and I know I should go and look for her. If she is anywhere, it is likely that she is there. But I do not know what I would say to them. I rehearse it, over and over in my head, Have any of you seen my sister Frances? unable to imagine how I would ever speak those words out loud.

  Did you go? Did you go up there and look for her?

  Yes I did, I tell them, I did.

  And they lean forward, wanting to know what I saw.

  I never go near that jetty now.

  I never really did, but now it is a place I c
onsciously avoid. I do not know why it has become a place I have marked, but I tread warily when I am near the edge of that circle.

  I am not so different to Dorothy. She has marked the one safe area, the house, and I have marked the unsafe. People think she is mad. Perhaps if they realised how much time I have to spend avoiding my zones of danger they would not be so harsh. She has been wise in making it simple. She stays where she is. Day after day.

  Once Martin tried to take me out there, out along those wooden boards that lead to a vanishing point. We were walking and he turned, as all people do, to the jetty.

  You go, I told him. I’ll wait for you here.

  He did not understand.

  It’s not far, he said, pulling me by the hand.

  I was surprised at how strongly I resisted.

  So was he, and because he is Martin he wanted an explanation. This is the way he is. To say no is not enough. There must be a reason and it must be articulated.

  But when he pressed me to talk, I had nothing to say. I stood in front of him, the sea breeze cool in my hair and cool on my burning cheeks, and I could not give him an explanation. Not one that would make sense.

  He opened his arms wide and he circled me close. He did not ask me again and I was grateful.

  Sometimes I wish I could enlarge my photograph so that I could see the details more clearly. I know it is foolish but I think there may be something out there, under the outline of that tin roof, or under those boards, that I have missed.

  Impossible, I know, but on some days my search back through that day is more desperate than on others.

  Yes I did go up there, I tell them.

  Tell us, they say, and I try.

  Step by step through that day.

  Over and over again.

  9

  There is a moment of perfect dark before a performance begins. A black silence. This is the time when I am uneasy. A few seconds where I wait, tense, for what will follow.

  I have seen every show that has been on at this theatre. Often with Jocelyn but also by myself. I sit at the back, near the soft green light of the exit sign, and when the first lights come on I can feel myself breathe again.