Too Close to Home

by Georgia Blain

  He hadn’t been surprised when she’d confessed. Sitting next to her on the train, both of them pressed close on the vinyl bench, she’d apologised for not being forthcoming immediately.

  ‘I needed to think,’ she explained. ‘He believes his father is dead and I didn’t know who you were or what you wanted.’ She looked at him then, her gaze clear and direct, and again he was struck by the disconcerting blend of the apologetic and the steel within her. ‘But you’re still you.’ She smiled slightly, shaking her head as she did so. ‘And he’s lucky to have you in whatever way this all works out.’

  Staring out the window, Matt didn’t even see the rush of trees and sky and backyard fences before they plunged into the blackness of the tunnel.

  Of course he was the boy’s father. She wouldn’t have come and asked for help if he wasn’t. And he had looked at the darkness until they emerged into the flickering light of the station, not knowing how he was going to incorporate this into his being, to adjust and shift his idea of who he was. He only knew he had to do it before he could face telling Freya.

  FROM FRANK’S BEDROOM WINDOW, you can see out across the tangle of railway lines and beyond that, the jagged city skyline. The lights are on in the office blocks, a glowing grid of gold and soft orange sequinned against the dusty darkness, with flashes of coloured neon, loud and chaotic swirls that sparkle and dance, the cancan dancers of the night.

  Freya had once organised drinks for Matt’s birthday at the top of the Summit, a restaurant and bar that revolved, slow like a giant sleepwalker, with windows looking over the great stretch of city, the curve of the harbour and then out to the expensive waterfront suburbs with houses that cantilevered down to small secret bays where yachts bobbed in the inky water. Freya had felt ill when she’d looked down, the slow turn wrong in something as solid as a skyscraper. She had told Matt it felt like watching a movie where the camera tracked in and zoomed out at the same time, and he’d put his arm around her waist, the warmth of him steadying her against the strangeness of the still motion.

  She feels the same slight nausea now as she stares at the lights, Frank lying behind her.

  ‘I once thought about writing a play …’ she says, and he moves a little closer on the bed. ‘Not really a play, more a performance piece. Every building in the city would have its lights out. And then just one window would be illuminated with action, silhouettes. Maybe the performers would be arguing, kissing, saying farewell. The audience would watch their moment until it dimmed. Then another window would light up, and we would see a new thread of the story – and then another. Characters could interact, moving from one tableau to the next – and if you want words, you could have an LED sign – something like a silent movie. Just brief exclamations of dialogue.’

  He kisses her shoulder and tells her it sounds good. ‘You should do it. Try to sell the idea to a festival with me as director.’

  His flat is a small studio. The front door opens onto a single room with a kitchenette in one corner and the bed under the window. There is also a couch, covered in what is meant to be leather but could well be vinyl, and a large flatscreen TV, the kind that Ella would love. A few shirts, trousers and one good jacket hang in the built-ins with the rest of his clothes folded in drawers underneath. He has also stacked the two pictures that once decorated the room – ‘the art collection’ he called it – in the wardrobe, because the images (a field of sunflowers and a country cottage) depressed him. ‘I can see why,’ Freya had agreed, when he had held them up for her viewing. ‘The hook on the wall is infinitely superior.’

  The only other room is a bathroom, even smaller than the kitchenette. It fits just a shower and a toilet, lit by a buzzing fluorescent light that bleeds a harsh yellow glow.

  The first night she had stayed she hadn’t wanted to meet her own eyes, round and scared, watching her watch herself. Opening the mirrored cabinet, she had seen the little he had with him there on display: toothpaste, razor, shaving cream, and moisturiser.

  ‘The selling point is the view,’ he had told her. ‘And location, location, location.’

  She had smiled. ‘Come on. I bet you love living like this. You have nothing. No one to worry about. Just you. Sounds like heaven to me.’ And in that moment it did.

  It was a life she hadn’t known since shortly after Ella had turned one, when she had gone away on a writer’s retreat for a week. Returning to a time when there was no one to look after but herself had seemed extraordinary, and on the first morning she had relished in the fact that she could just get up, shower, make her own breakfast and start writing. It was so very simple.

  But by evening she had missed them both, calling Matt and saying she thought she would come home.

  ‘Don’t,’ he had encouraged her. ‘Enjoy it. We’re not going anywhere.’

  She wonders now how much Frank misses Marianne and his daughter.

  Turning to face him, the room lit by the soft glow of the city lights, she asks him what he is going to do when the play is up and running.

  ‘Will you go back? To Melbourne?’

  He sits up, the sheet only just covering his waist, the fine hairs on his thighs soft against her legs. He rubs his calf against her shin, his hand tracing the smooth line of her hip as he tells her he doesn’t know. His smile is sad. ‘I mean, how do you walk out on your child?’

  How do you?

  Freya’s eyes sting and she closes them.

  On the evening Matt brought Lucas and Lisa home, Freya was here at Frank’s place. She had called him, saying she wanted to come over.

  Opening the door to her, he had taken her face in his hands, his lips on her mouth, breathing each other in, hesitant and then rushed, her hands lifting his shirt, feeling the flat line of his stomach, the ridge of his pelvis – and then he had pulled back.

  He asked her what she expected from him and she was surprised by the directness of his question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she had answered honestly. ‘Probably just what you offered – an escape.’

  ‘Because I can’t be the one that you are walking away to. I can’t be the answer.’

  Wanting only the grind of his body next to hers, his mouth covering her, she had told him she wasn’t looking for an answer. ‘I’m running away for a while,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

  But she wanted to be able to go back. That was the truth of it, and whether that was possible was something she simply didn’t know, and also not as much to do with Frank as she had feared. Or maybe it was? In any event, it was too late. She’d crossed the line and then kept right on walking.

  She’d caught a taxi home at two am, her skin rubbed raw and fine, taut across her bones, too tender to touch. She’d showered again, scrubbing herself with an astringent soap, and washing her hair, so that it hung wet and cool down her back, the dampness waking Matt when she had slipped into bed next to him.

  Where had she been?

  Telling a lie was easy. He wasn’t the jealous type.

  This time she has told him rehearsals will go late. There’s a small room out the back of the theatre and she may just stay there. It’s not a good lie. No one ever wants writers at a rehearsal, and no theatre can afford a room out the back to sleep in. But again, he didn’t question her.

  In the last few days, they haven’t seen much of each other at all. He gets up early for work and is home late, leaving her alone with Lucas and Lisa.

  ‘I have to write,’ she told them both on the first morning, hoping they would understand she didn’t want to be disturbed once Ella had gone to school. ‘Help yourself to food, and whatever you need.’

  When she came into the house from her workroom for lunch, Lisa was in the kitchen calling real estate agents, Lucas lying on the lounge, headphones in, the faint buzz of heavy metal audible, and an empty Domino’s Pizza box on the floor next to him.

  ‘Any luck?’ she asked.

  Lisa shook her head, pressing the receiver closer to her ear as her call was answered, a pen i
n her hand to write down open inspection times.

  After school, Ella asked when she would get her room back. ‘I don’t like him,’ she complained. ‘He stinks worse than Shane’s car, and he never talks.’

  ‘He’ll be gone soon,’ Freya promised.

  She took Ella out for the afternoon, wanting to avoid home. They wandered around a shopping centre, buying food under the harsh glare of the low lighting, finishing the expedition up with a plastic carton of cold sushi, the fish curled and dry at the edges.

  Over dinner, Lucas sat opposite her, headphones still in, eyes fixed on the bowl as he scooped up forkfuls of risotto.

  ‘Turn the iPod off.’ Lisa’s voice was tired.

  It was all right, Freya told her, and it was, because she didn’t want to have to converse with him and at least the headphones removed any need to try. But he did as Lisa asked, glowering at her as he unplugged each ear.

  ‘Happy?’

  A few nights later she rang Frank again.

  ‘You have no idea how good this emptiness is,’ she told him when he apologised once more for the sparse apartment. She grinned as he handed her a glass of wine, ready to down it in one long thirsty gulp.

  But now, as she lies here next to him in bed, the relief of having run has faded again, and she feels only that strange sense of still motion.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she suggests. She waves her hand to the window. ‘Find a bar, have a drink, not go to sleep.’

  He looks at her and grins. ‘It’s cold out there.’

  She is already up, legs swung out of the bed covers, and she stands awkward in her nakedness, to face him. ‘Just for a little while?’

  He relents, groaning as he tries to find his clothes among the tangle of bedding, and then leans over to kiss her on her neck. ‘Only if you promise to come back.’

  She has already told him she can stay all night, and she nods, but the truth is, the longer she stays here, the more she wants to go home.

  Outside, there is a sharpness in the air, the harsh chill of midwinter, and they walk close, not daring to put their arms around each other for risk of being seen, but still wanting that warmth and a sense of the connection they had because now, out in the world, it has only stretched further, fine, and ready to snap.

  An old drunk sits in the doorway of one of the deserted warehouses, his body slumped forward, and a few metres further up, a cluster of younger men huddle together, heads bent close, furious dealing under way. She doesn’t want to walk in that direction. There is a sense of menace in the air and it hovers, ready to smear itself across her skin.

  Matt always tells her she is too cautious, quick to assume the worst motives in strangers. And he is right – whenever she sees anyone in an unlit doorway or at the end of a laneway, her immediate response is to avoid.

  ‘It’s different for men,’ she says. ‘You have no idea what it’s like to walk the streets as a woman.’

  She thinks about Lucas, living in the tunnel that led from Central to the university, sleeping on a worn blanket in clothes that smelt of sweat and beer and cigarettes.

  She’d asked Matt if Lucas was using. Was that the problem? Was that why he tried to rob the old woman, beating her up when he found she had nothing?

  Matt didn’t know.

  Was there a mental illness? She’d heard Lucas talking to himself, his eyes cloudy, and she would be unsure whether it was something he was listening to – his earphones were always in – or an imagined conversation, springing from some delusion.

  ‘I don’t want him here,’ she’d hissed in the middle of the night, knowing how ugly her words were but unable to stop them. ‘I’m sorry for Lisa, it’s terrible. But I don’t want him here.’

  Matt had confessed that he didn’t feel great about it either. ‘But what do you do? I offered to help and I can’t withdraw it now. I’m sure they’ll find somewhere soon.’

  She leads Frank to the bar where she met Mikhala all those months ago. It’s a Friday night, so it’s crowded, the air thick with talk and laughter, alcohol, and hovering above it all, sex. Women lean in close to men, their lips scarlet, their eyes alive. Men sniff them out, pressing closer, breathing them in. Freya stands at the door, taking it all in. Too much, she thinks, but she doesn’t want to return to the empty stillness of Frank’s room. Not yet.

  She finds a table at the back of the bar while Frank gets a drink. When he returns, pressing through the crowd, she’s dismayed to see that he is not alone.

  ‘Look who I discovered,’ he tells her, his face impassive.

  Anna leans forward, crushing Freya in her hold. ‘It’s so good to see you. I feel like it’s been too long and I don’t know why.’

  She wears a simple black wool dress and tight fitting black boots, the heels making her almost as tall as Freya. Her dark hair is ruffled and her huge green eyes glint in the light.

  She had to go to an opening of a film around the corner – ‘it was bloody awful’ – and then a few of them came back here for a drink. ‘What are you two doing out together so late?’ She asks the question with no hint of knowledge, no suspicion of having stumbled upon anything illicit.

  Freya tells her she wanted to get out of the house. She explains briefly about Lisa and Lucas, trying to make light of the impossibility of the situation. ‘So I dragged Frank out of his warm bed and told him to come and meet me. We only just got here.’

  Anna sympathises. ‘You can come and stay with us,’ she suggests. ‘You and Ella, if it goes on. I mean let Matt deal with it.’ Then she leans a little closer. ‘Did I tell you my good news?’

  Freya knows it’s the pregnancy, but she feigns ignorance.

  ‘I’ve only just started telling people as it’s very early, and I feel incredibly nervous and strange.’

  They have to move in close to hear.

  ‘So promise you’ll keep quiet. I haven’t been making it public.’ She puts quotation marks around the last word, looking pained as she does so.

  Frank crosses his heart and swears to die. Freya just nods.

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Frank is genuinely surprised. He raises his glass in a toast and kisses Anna on the cheek, telling her it’s incredible, no wonder she’s looking so gorgeous.

  It’s Freya’s turn now. In fact, she should have spoken first and she’s aware of this as she, too, kisses Anna’s cheek and tells her how happy she is for her.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ she adds.

  Anna looks at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  Freya suddenly feels the hot intensity of the bar, the crush of people, the heat of the wine and low thud of the music, all colliding into one. She wonders whether she could faint. Anna’s face swims in front of her. ‘Nothing,’ she explains. ‘It’s just always amazing when someone gets pregnant. Particularly when you were only recently saying Paolo was so against the idea.’

  She shouldn’t have spoken. The wide smile on Anna’s face freezes, the glitter in her eyes crystallises. Freya doesn’t know where she has stepped wrong but she is suddenly out on ice, cracks beneath her feet.

  ‘People can change their minds,’ Anna tells her, her smile still fixed.

  ‘And obviously he did.’ Freya raises her glass. ‘What a pity you can’t drink. I’d buy you a glass of the most expensive champagne I could find. I will,’ she promises, ‘as soon as you pop that baby out.’

  But Anna has turned away. ‘It’s why I didn’t audition for Freya’s play,’ Anna explains to Frank. ‘I would so love to have worked with you on that piece, but I just thought it would be unfair. I hear you got Catherine White. Is she any good?’

  Frank tells her that he thinks she’ll be great. ‘She has no fear,’ he adds. ‘Really willing to take it to some ugly places.’

  ‘And it’s all going well?’

  Again, he confirms that it is.

  The alcohol tastes too sweet, Freya thinks, wondering what the wine was that Frank ordered. And she is drunk, which isn’t good. She tries to re
join the conversation, but Anna is already speaking.

  ‘So, you’ll be heading back to Melbourne once it’s up and running?’

  Freya is surprised when Frank says that he will. There’s no hesitation, and she wonders whether he is lying now or was lying earlier when he told her he still hadn’t made up his mind.

  ‘You must miss them,’ Anna says.

  ‘I do,’ he replies. ‘More all the time. I can’t wait to get home, in fact.’

  It seems to Freya that the whole night has been swimming, everything fluid, darting, slipping out of her grasp as soon as she has got hold of it. She wonders how many lies they are all telling. She finds it hard to even start counting her own – there’s her pretence to Anna that she didn’t know she was pregnant, her lies to Matt about the evening and then she wonders whether she is lying to Frank. Or perhaps with Frank she’s looking at something different, because what she needs and wants with him is impossible to grasp, floating in a way that leaves her reeling. She turns to Anna, who may well have lied to Paolo about contraception. And then to Frank, who is no doubt lying to Marianne. And then there’s Matt. She shakes her head as she realises he may be the only honest one of them all, or – just as likely – lying in his ongoing failure to tell her where he is heading with this business with Lucas.

  It is then that Frank mentions Marianne will be coming to Sydney with Lola, their daughter, next weekend.

  Freya had no idea.

  ‘You’ll have to bring them to Louise’s baby shower,’ Anna tells him. ‘I’d love to see her again, and meet the lovely Lola.’

  She stands, clear-eyed, ready to return to her other friends who wait at the bar. ‘Did you get unbelievably tired when you were pregnant with Ella?’

  Freya says that she did.

  After she has gone, Freya wants to go home.

  ‘Back to my place?’ Frank asks.

  She shakes her head. ‘Home.’

  They are out on the street, the air bracing after the heated crush of the bar, the road deserted and silent. Under the soft spill of the streetlight, Frank is pale and cool, silver-eyed and distant.