‘Well, hello, Rose.’ She squeezes my hand without shaking it. ‘I’ve heard so much about you!’
‘Have you?’ I say warily. It suddenly doesn’t seem possible. How could she have heard about me? What would Dad have told her? I pull my hand away, shaken in some deep way.
‘Your results,’ she says, as though reading my mind. ‘Justus is . . . Your dad,’ she corrects herself, ‘is so very proud of you!’
A bemused smile hangs on the edges of her mouth. She is taking in everything about me, from my tight, slightly grubby jeans to my cheap, bright earrings and my sweaty, sandalled feet. I’ve never felt so young and hopelessly transparent before. She can see right through me and I know nothing about her.
But she is waiting for me to say something. What? Something sassy and witty to show what a cool and hip eighteen-year-old I am? Then we’ll all be able to laugh together. Most of all, she wants to laugh. I know this instinctively. We laugh and everything will be hunky dory.
‘But what brings you to the city?’ Dad cuts in, embarrassed by my hostile stance and refusal to meet his girlfriend’s eyes.
‘I’ve been shopping with Zoe,’ I say, indicating the bags at my feet.
‘Did you have any luck?’ he wants to know.
‘A bit,’ I mumble, ‘I got a few things.’
‘Aren’t you wonderful?’ Cassandra coos, as though we’re best friends already. ‘I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet!’
‘Listen,’ Dad takes command, ‘why don’t we all go and have a coffee?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say, ‘I’d better go home.’
‘But why, darling?’ He puts his arm around me. ‘I’m so pleased to see you.’
‘I’ve got to do . . . things.’ I shrug and try to move out of his reach but in the process I stumble over my bags. This makes me feel doubly stupid. More than anything I want to get away.
‘Please,’ my father pleads, ‘we’ll just go and have a drink.’
So even though sitting with them in this trendy little low-lit café is the last thing I want to do, it’s exactly what I’m doing. This is my dad, after all. I’m confused as well as miserable because I know there is no legitimacy to my feelings. My position is . . . ridiculous. I am not a little kid whose life has been turned upside down. I am not going to be neglected or wrecked in any way. My whole future is assured. And yet . . . a mass of raw pain, like strong acid, bubbles and ferments in my chest. I swallow and gulp and try to breathe it away. But there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to ease it. This is not like you, Rose, I chide myself. Dramatic fluctuations in mood are not you. You are, and remember this, the queen of calm.
We sit down together and order tea and cakes. The café must be a favourite haunt of the legal fraternity because every second person seems to know Dad. They stop by our table in droves for quick chats, congratulating him on recent wins and commenting on current cases. I remember how I loved this kind of attention only a few months ago. And now? Who are these sycophants? With their soft handshakes and polite voices. All the knowing nods for Cassandra and the careful fake smiles for me! I am the sour-faced bitch of a daughter. And they remind me of dead fish. Stuff them all.
Cassandra bubbles on about her time in Italy, when she put on three stone because all she ever ate was cakes and pasta and crusty bread. I guess I’m meant to find this amusing. Dad seems to. He smiles at her and touches her hand every now and again as she blathers on. I hate to see him pandering to this woman. I can see, now, under the glamorous clothes and fancy hairstyle, that she is not all that young. There are lines around her mouth and eyes. I am longing to know if she has a family too, that she has left. Exactly how many lives have you wrecked? is what I want to ask her.
‘I just couldn’t resist all those divine cheeses!’
Why on earth does she think I’d be interested in listening to this crap? Why doesn’t she shut up? Dad has his arm around me the whole time. Through my misery I see that he seems genuinely glad to have me there.
‘So how are things at home?’ he asks me when, at last, the woman stops and there is a gap in the conversation. I glance up at him in surprise. Surely he doesn’t expect me to go into details here.
‘It’s okay,’ Dad says, frowning deeply and taking the woman’s hand briefly. ‘Cassie knows things are tough. They’ll get better though, pet. I promise you, they’ll get better. Your mum is a . . . sensible woman.’
I take a glance at Cassandra. Her eyes are downcast. She has a sympathetic expression plastered across her face and . . . I am filled with such a burst of sudden hatred that my breath gives way again. What was it that Cynthia had planned for this woman? I try to remember the Greek story Dorothy told us but I can’t remember any details. I want to pick up the small knife on my plate and stab it through her little white wrist. Pin her to the table and then run away.
‘A sensible woman?’ I repeat lightly.
‘Well, what I mean is,’ he mutters uncomfortably, taking a brief look out through the lace curtains, ‘your mother is strong. She’s one of life’s survivors.’ He gives a short, dry laugh that means something, but I refuse to consider what.
‘A survivor?’ I choke on the word. Is that all you can come up with?
I decide that I’ve had enough. The half-eaten cake and unfinished cup of tea sit in front of me like a couple of glaring mistakes on an exam paper, too late now to try and correct them. I’ve run out of time. I push my cup aside and get up.
‘Sweetheart?’ Dad looks alarmed.
‘I have to go,’ I say shortly, picking up my bag from the table.
‘Oh, Rose.’ He half stands, sits and then stands up again, looking perplexed and utterly miserable. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve said the wrong thing. I know this whole business is all so . . . fraught and terrible for you girls.’
‘Justus,’ Cassandra insists softly, pulling the sleeve of his jacket, not looking at me. ‘Rose wants to go now.’ She looks up at me coolly and holds out her hand. ‘Nice meeting you, Rose.’
‘Yeah.’ I take her hand. It feels soft and slightly clammy.
‘See you again?’
‘Yes,’ I say weakly. I hope not.
For a brief moment I see myself picking up the cup of tea and sloshing it out onto the stiff white tablecloth in front of her. Then the half-eaten slice of blueberry muffin from her side plate, I’ll mash it up before dropping it over her expensive red suit, and what’s left into her hair. I don’t, of course. I just stand there and let it run through my head like a sick little movie.
Don’tcha just hate it . . . when you meet your father’s new girlfriend and you have to shake hands and be polite, when all you really want to do is cut her throat? I mean, it’s not her fault, and it’s not his fault, and it isn’t your fault, but hey! That doesn’t mean you don’t want to see everyone dead . . .
It is only when I am halfway down the street that I realise I’ve left all my bags of shopping on the floor under the table at the café. Damn. No way I can go back without losing face. My hard-earned savings have gone on presents that no one will get. Right! Well, that seems to be in keeping with the rest of my life at the moment. I decide it doesn’t matter. This year I want to forget all about Christmas.
I stare out the train window, watching the shops and houses roll past, wondering if all those ordinary-looking people out there, the guys in suits, the mothers with their prams, the old codgers shuffling along with their walking sticks, have secret lives too? Weird desires they don’t understand? Would theirs be as bad as mine? I pull my phone out of my bag and stare at it a while. Then I flip through the numbers and laugh to myself in this black, totally nonsensical way.
Zoe gave me his number when I drove down to see her.
‘Ring my dad,’ she said, writing it out on a piece of paper and handing it to me. ‘If you get lost, just ring him.’
You see, I haven’t forgotten. I’ve been thinking about it: the soft candlelight, his hands on my neck. That deep, murmurin
g voice. ‘You’re a lovely girl, Rose.’
I punch in a quick text message. When can ICU?
He calls back within five minutes.
‘Hey, Rose, I’m going to be in Anglesea on Boxing Day.’
‘Right,’ I say breathlessly.
‘Feel like a surf down there?’
‘Sure!’
And so we arrange to meet in Anglesea after Christmas. It’s only days away. His friend owns a place there, but is overseas. So it’s Zoe’s father and me meeting in an empty house. Use your brains, Rose. And yet, I don’t admit to myself what is going to happen. No way. For a start, he’s got some other reason to be there. He has to pick up something for the car he’s fixing . . .
Anyway there is still time, heaps of time, to call the whole thing off. There are a few days to get through before Christmas. I don’t even have to talk to him. I can send a text message any old time. Anything could happen between now and then.
And anyway! Why shouldn’t I hook up with an older guy for a while? Not as though I’m going to marry him. He . . . made me feel good, alive somehow in a way I’ve never felt before. I shiver, thinking of his voice, those hands on my back, rubbing my neck, his tongue probing my mouth. And I decide I want more. More, more, more of everything! No one need know. It’s my turn now.
I let myself in. My mother is sitting at the table on her own, drinking tea. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon and she’s still in her dressing-gown. My irritation intensifies. Can’t she get it together to even get dressed! Yesterday, she seemed so much better and now . . . it’s back to square one. What am I meant to do here? Where the hell are my sisters? How come all this falls to me?
‘How did you go with your shopping?’ Mum asks. I can tell she is trying to sound bright and cheery and, in spite of everything, that tugs at my heartstrings. My mother, who has always been so naturally bouncy and loud and full of beans, has been reduced to this! Trying to be cheery. Trying to sound normal. Angry tears well in my throat but I don’t let them come any further. I take a few breaths and close down. I’m an expert at this, I remind myself. Remember, Rose, the queen of calm.
‘Just fine,’ I say sharply, ‘except I left it all in a café.’
She looks up quickly. I see my tone surprises her but I don’t care. I can feel her eyes following me as I get myself a glass of water from the tap. She is waiting for me to turn and smile and tell her something about my day out shopping with Zoe, but I suddenly can’t stand it.
‘Gotta check my email,’ I say and leave the room.
I check the paper, and note that the surf is likely to be good. The van needs a long run . . . I’ll have a day on the surf. Cynthia will be home so she can look after Mum. That’s what I’m going to tell everyone. We’ll meet up by accident. Yeah right, Rose!
That evening, when dinner is over and Mum is taking a bath, I begin a blow-by-blow description of my hour with Dad and Cassandra for my sisters. What she looked like and sounded like. What she was wearing, and everything else I can think of. But an important part of me isn’t even there. I’m going to escape all this, is what I’m thinking, underneath. I have a sudden image in my head of the ocean swelling, back and forth along the shoreline, and I’m filled with longing. In just a few days I will be hurtling along the highway in my van, towards . . . the rest of my life.
Who knows what will happen?
The next morning I find my parcels outside the front door. No note attached but there they are in a neat pile. Dad, I guess.
Road Trip
It’s only just after six when I pull into the little car park above Childers Cove, but the darkening sky makes it seem later. I turn the engine off and sit a while, brooding over this beautiful, secluded little beach where everything fell apart last summer. The choppy green water is held by two mammoth, jagged arms of dark cliffs. When the sun is out, these rocks are all the many shades of earth: ochre, bronze, almost fire-orange in parts, and punctuated with tufts of green where the coastal scrub has found dirt in which to grow. But in this light, they are ominous, like two heavy piles of rusting war machinery, great black monstrosities of destruction. I shiver as I get out of the van and slide the door shut. The wind has died down and the air is very warm, but thick now, heavy with the promise of rain.
The track that descends down to the steps which in turn lead down to the beach is only a few metres from the car park. Now I’m here, I guess I’ll go down, but I wish I’d arrived earlier and I wish there was someone else about.
Once down the steps, I pick my way through the rocks, testing each one for slipperiness and stability before I jump. In this rapidly dimming light it would be easy to break an ankle. Every now and again I stop and straighten up, look out at the sea rolling in, hungrily beating, sucking the shoreline. Against the black sky, hundreds of white gulls wheel and dive like maniacs, their shrill screeches filling the air with wild discord. They must be able to feel the approaching storm. Go home, they’re telling each other. Something might happen. I feel like I’m being warned.
This is where I almost drowned. It’s where he saved me and where that crazy, doomed love came undone. How tightly it held me in its fist. I couldn’t move. Oh Zoe . . .
When I got back in the van after leaving Mum I found another message from Zoe’s mother asking me to call back. I deleted it straight away. It was basically the same as the last one, ‘Oh, Rose, it’s Elaine here . . . .’ in that clipped, annoyed tone of hers. Like I’m at fault for not being there when she wants me. Hasn’t she twigged yet that I never want to have to think about her again, much less see her, much much less talk to her! But what if Zoe is . . . really sick and . . .?
Slowly and methodically, I start to dial the number, dread pumping into my heart like poisonous gas, but when my finger hesitates over the last digit I take it as a sign. Whatever that horrible woman wants to say to me will be encased in her agenda of trying to make me feel as bad as possible. Do I need another dose of that? No. I clear the punched-in numbers, snap shut the phone and slip it into my pocket. If there is big news, I’ll find out soon enough. It isn’t as though I’d be welcome at any funeral anyway.
I take off my shoes and walk slowly down the sand to the water. But I don’t stay there long. The tide is coming in, and every now and again a maverick wave crashes higher than the rest and catches me unawares. By the time I’ve moved up to the dry sand, my jeans are soaked through to the knees.
I see a man in the distance, near the rocks up the other end of the beach, throwing sticks to a large, playful dog. My mouth goes dry because, for a second there, I think it’s him. It’s the angle of the shoulders, the profile against the sky and the way he lifts his arm to throw. The dog is running in circles and bouncing up and down as it waits for the man’s next move. My heart begins to beat wildly as I watch the stick being thrown again and again. Each time, the dog careers off as though its life depends on bringing it back. The man begins to prance about, running after the dog, calling to it as he runs a few feet into the surf and out again. At one stage, he does a couple of cartwheels on the sand, just for the hell of it, and my throat contracts again, this time with a hard stinging joy. I’m glad. In spite of everything, I’m glad I was drawn into that dark, murky world of strange houses and shady bedrooms, of hours snatched here and there, of my own helplessness in the face of the avalanche of desire. Sorry, too, of course . . . but inside a few short weeks I lived a whole life and so how can I be sorry for that?
The dog stands by, watching the man, barking loudly with excitement. Ray was like this, so ebullient and strong. Once, when I complained that the hot sand was burning my feet, he insisted on giving me a piggyback ride all the way up from the water to the car.
‘You’re no burden, Rosie girl,’ he said, when I suggested I might be too heavy. I remember laughing all the way and planting one of my shy kisses on his ear when we reached the car, my heart nearly bursting with the whole business of loving him . . . Zoe was back in Melbourne with her mother so there was no
one to see us.
It’s not him, of course. Ray is overseas again. It’s over and it’s gone and it will never come back. The last time we spoke he told me no, he didn’t think it was a good idea for us to meet again, that things had now become uncool and that we both should get on with our lives – along with a few other clichés I can’t remember, but which basically amounted to piss off.
A rough sob pushes its way out from my chest and into my throat before I find the will to gulp it away. Enough tears. I’ve cried enough. He collapsed on this beach after rescuing me and was put in hospital for a few days. Although he didn’t have an actual heart attack, the whole exercise had strained his heart. I walk towards the stranger and his dog, glad for their presence on this lonely beach. There isn’t another soul about. The man smiles at me as we pass. He looks nothing like Ray. He’s much younger, only about thirty.
‘Might have to go back for your umbrella,’ he calls cheerfully, pointing at the sky, ‘it’s gunna let loose real soon.’
‘Yeah.’ I bend to pat the dog who is sniffing me curiously. ‘Sure looks that way.’
The first raindrops splatter and sizzle against my face and arms as I come at last to the rocks at the other end of the beach. Okay, here it comes. Better find somewhere to shelter. I feel a bit daft that I didn’t think to bring my waterproof jacket because it is actually sitting rolled up on the front seat of the van. I could head straight back, I suppose. But I don’t want to return just yet.
Last summer, Anglesea
‘I hope you’re not regretting this, Rose.’
He is peering out the window through the slatted blinds, frowning thoughtfully. It’s just Ray and me in this huge old ramshackle house at the back of Anglesea. I shake my head and whisper, ‘No,’ but his back is still turned to me and he gives no indication he has heard. I don’t repeat myself. Does this mean he’s regretting it?
Rose by Any Other Name Page 19