by Nicki Reed
No postcards. I’m sending BJ a text.
Hey remember that time you said you’d send me a postcard every day?
It’s about six in the morning in France.
Twenty minutes later. The cheque is in the mail.
Nothing else.
A little abrupt. But that’s BJ.
The city at 7 a.m. Traffic is mainly taxis and my tram is half-empty most of the way. I recline into Frankenstein. Cliffs and ice and feeling misunderstood.
Library work is good for distraction from a guilty conscience and an empty letterbox. I catch up with subscriptions, journal abstracts, some of the more involved reference requests. A little like detective work, a lot like monotony, the library is what I need.
Too early to make any local calls, I send emails, interstate, overseas, across the building. My desk is proving too good a space for thinking. BJ and her hair, how it feels clumped in my fists, cool and soft, the last time I touched her, the glance over her shoulder as she wheeled her suitcase out my front door.
Manual labour.
I dust the shelves.
The cheque is in the mail. That’s never said without a tone.
I dial Ruby’s number at twenty minutes past nine. She answers, howareya, like Monday morning is Friday night, a good mood through the phone.
‘Ruby, what does “the cheque is in the mail” mean to you?’
‘Are you doing the cryptic? You know I hate those, so vague, the answer is almost always an accident.’
‘BJ texted that after I sent her a text asking where my postcards were.’
‘Sounds like she’s telling you it’s on its way. In the mail.’
‘You’re right. I’m just missing her.’
‘She’s due back soon, right? The twentieth? Nine days. Be cool. I’ll come round tonight and cook you dinner. Sevenish.’
Still looking after me.
I hang up hoping one day to return the balance to where it should be. I’ve lost so much credibility. One lesbian, one head injury, a busted marriage and nobody believes you can manage anything.
A meeting before lunch, two after, and Monday is gone. On the tram I climb back into the Swiss Alps.
Balwyn is coming home to itself. On the short walk from the stop, I smell dinners, the news on in the background, talking heads in the lounge room, all hands in the kitchen. Driveways fill with second cars. A nod at the Irish wolfhound bloke and his dog. From the corner I can see the shadow of my letterbox across the footpath.
No postcard.
A letter. French stamps, Australian scrawl.
I tear it open.
Peta, can you sell Thunder for me? I’m running out of money and I’m planning to stay longer. Justine will buy her. I know she won’t rip me off. Paris is amazing. The people are amazing. It turns out my French teacher wasn’t amazing. Love to you. BJ.
‘How much longer?’ Ruby dumps her bag on the kitchen table. I pick it up and put it in a corner of the hallway.
I’ve memorised the letter, especially the love to you, not love you, not I love you, but I still study it again before replying, ‘It doesn’t say.’
It’s more an instruction than a letter.
‘How much will she get for her bike?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care but it must be enough— Justine’s coming round. And anyway wouldn’t Carole Smart pay to keep her over there and away from me?’
‘It might not be too much to worry about. She’s in Paris, having fun, spending money, experiencing life.’
‘Having fun meeting young and sexy Frenchwomen.’
‘Pete, cut up the bread for me, and can you chop the parsley? We can do some more worrying after dinner. Did I tell you about Nathan?’
‘The altar boy?’
There are things you don’t want to know about your sister. There are things you wouldn’t want to know about the woman sitting opposite you on the tram. What she does in her time off—latex, fake fur, high-tensile steel—is no concern of yours. I have always known too much about Ruby. So I hear about the altar boy and them leaving the cinema early, too much to do at home, how he’d brought out a bit of a kit from the bottom of his wardrobe.
A knock at the front door. Justine. I can’t help being disappointed. BJ isn’t having me on, after all: telling me she’s not coming home, just to see my surprised grin at her unexpected presence on my doorstep.
I bring Justine into the kitchen.
‘Ruby Justine, Justine Ruby.’
‘Rude! Sorry Justine,’ Ruby shakes her hand, ‘Peta’s in a mood. I’ve made soup. There’s more than enough if you’d like to stay for dinner.
‘About this bike…’ I’m chopping parsley.
‘Thunder,’ Justine smiles.
Ruby is overseeing my chopping, she doesn’t want the parsley bruised. Bruised. For God’s sake.
‘About Thunder, do you want to buy it?’ I hope she says no. BJ would be out of money and have no choice. Love is selfish.
‘Her. Yes, I’ll buy her. BJ and I talked about it before she left and decided on a price if she had to sell her.’
Ruby is at the stove, her back to us. ‘BJ was planning on not coming home?’
‘No. But she likes a contingency plan. You know BJ.’
‘Actually, Justine, I don’t know BJ, not really. She’s brash, she spent a night unaccounted for away from home and Peta loves her.’ She places three bowls of soup on the table and reaches for the salt and pepper. To me: ‘You were supposed to cut up the bread.’ To Justine: ‘Peta doesn’t really know her either.’ To me: ‘Don’t look at me like that. Has it even been six months since the couch?’
Funny how Ruby has adopted the couch as the term for that night. I can’t see a black leather couch without wishing I was on it, back there, shocked, excited, disgusted with myself and unwilling to stop. Ruby wishes there had been hard-backed chairs, spine-breaking cold concrete and no lift home in the first place.
‘Contingency plan?’ Ruby continues. ‘I know she likes to smoke, wear leather, pash off married women, that kind of thing.’
‘Can we just eat?’ I nod at the soup, pass the bread.
‘All she said was that she might sell Thunder if she needed the money.’
‘If she needed the money to not come home, you mean?’
Ruby is all go tonight. I feel for Justine. Would you like an inquisition with your soup? Still, I can’t help asking, ‘There was the possibility she’d stay longer?’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘What does her Facebook say?’
‘She doesn’t do Facebook, Rube,’ I say. ‘She says she’s seen too many people virtualising their relationships. She also says she only wants to friend people with her skin. In real life, that is.’
‘I’ll bet.’
I’m happy she’s not on Facebook. If she was overseas updating her status and not sending me postcards, I wouldn’t be able to take it.
‘Peta, maybe she just needs more money,’ Justine says. ‘Anyway, I can put the money in her account tomorrow.’
‘I don’t have her account details.’
‘We’ve bought stuff for each other before. Bike stuff.’
‘What else do you know about her?’ I take over the inquisition.
‘I know she gave up her room. She talked about you all the time. Peta this, Peta that. She lost her brain over you.’
I’m feeling a bit better. ‘She did?’
‘Bloody hell. Nobody says anything else until the soup is finished. Get on with it.’
Letting go of a lifetime of big-sisterness is a consequence of the couch I hadn’t bargained on. If I’d known, I might not have done it. BJ’s bike in the hallway—I haven’t stopped touching it—and I’m thinking, might not…
Justine has come prepared. She’s brought her lights, raincoat, helmet and shoes. She wheels Thunder out into the night. Down the street, her tail-light flashing, she turns the corner.
‘Sugar soap will get that off.’ Ruby points to Thunder’s
scuffy prints on the wall.
‘When I’m ready.’
‘It doesn’t have to mean anything.’
I can’t be bothered saying it’s not true. Thunder being ridden by another girl means something.
‘Want to tell me what’s really going on?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You are a shit liar, Pete. The worst. The cheque is in the mail. Ha! When you don’t want to tell me what’s happening you concern yourself with bullshit.’
How could she be both so right and wrong like that?
‘And the other thing you do is withdraw.’
My phone bill loves the introspection.
‘Come on, Peta. Haven’t we been through enough?’
‘I did something stupid.’ I blow out a sigh and slump into the couch, hug a cushion to my stomach. A patchwork shield.
‘Stupid needs reclassification with you, Pete. Your recent something stupid has reached heights nobody could have seen coming.’
Ruby is opposite me in the armchair, waiting. Annie Lennox is reflected large in the windows behind her.
‘I had sex with Mark.’
She stands up. ‘I just don’t believe this. We’ve spent half the night trying to make you feel better about your girlfriend, the person you dumped your husband for, and now you tell me you’ve been fucking him again. Tell me, Peta. Was it nice, getting some proper sex?’
Now we’re both standing. ‘It was only one time.’
I don’t see the flash of her hand. Her palm on my cheek. It burns.
‘You are such a fucken idiot. I hate you.’ She storms into the kitchen, three wooden thuds of chairs hitting the floor. ‘Where’s my bag?’
‘What is your problem?’ I grab her bag, zip it open and spray its contents down the hallway. I empty her wallet separately, flung her cards, coins, everything, into the air.
‘You must be the stupidest person alive,’ she says. She’s in the hallway, picking up her lipsticks, condoms, perfume, wallet. I stoop to help, she pushes me over. ‘I don’t need your help. She just fucked your brain right out of your head, didn’t she? I love him.’
‘You love Mark?’
I’m still on the floor. I think I’ll stay here.
‘Yes, you stupid, fucken bitch. I love Mark. Are you happy now?’
‘You really love him?’
‘Well, I’ve always loved him. So there. I tried not to and it wasn’t too hard. You were happy, a unit. I knew you had problems now and then, but so what, every relationship does.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘Why? Why should I have told you?’ Her bag is over her shoulder, her keys in her hand.
‘I would have felt better about Mark.’
‘It’s all about you, isn’t it? What difference would telling you have made?’ She’s at the front door. ‘You think it would have made what you did less shit?’
‘And you know all about shit behaviour, don’t you, Rube?’
The front door is open, she steps out. ‘Oh piss off, Peta. You’re just as stupid and shit as I ever was. Nobody’s going to come out of this looking good. Especially you.’
There goes the door. Bang!
Ruby is right.
I haven’t looked good for months, only to BJ. And she’s gone.
37.
It’s late October and two weeks since Ruby has spoken to me. And no postcards. I’m thinking of selling the house, giving Mark his share and moving somewhere nobody knows me. Maybe south of the river. St Kilda, Port Melbourne, Elwood, a watery suburb. I can see myself standing at the window staring across the sea in the direction of Paris, leaving a two-footed impression in the carpet and a coffee-ring tattoo on the windowsill.
I stand in front of the fridge and re-read the old postcards. The last one arrived a week before the Thunder letter.
I love Paris, I love the French, they sound sexy and rude, but I love you the most. BJ. XXX
Haystacks. That’s appropriate. BJ is my needle. I pricked myself on her, more than once, luxuriated in the pain and in the slow skin-colour fade of the tiny scar.
Alone is okay. It’s good for worry and it’s good for running. Running is good for thinking. No Mark, no BJ, no Ruby. All in just over six months and almost no effort. Running is good for nothing. Running at night is good for nothing because you can’t see it.
The moon is a big white cut-out in the dark sky. It seems close. Craters, orange-peel clusters, shadows. I turn into my street and see my letterbox. I wish it had feelings so I could breeze past it, my nose in the air. I run the last seventy metres and check it anyway.
A letter from EJ. I can’t bear to see my dismissal in print. I’ll read it later.
A ringing telephone sounds much more urgent in the small hours. I roll over and fumble the phone into the doona. My clock radio glows two-fifteen.
‘You rang?’
I yawn: ‘You want to talk about this now?’
‘You have something better to do?’ She sounds positively chirpy.
I’ve nothing better to do than make things right with Ruby.
‘What time is it on your planet?’ I have her on speaker phone as I get into my dressing-gown and slippers, a cup of tea required.
The kitchen is middle-of-the-night cold. I turn the heater on and stand over the vent, hot air breathing up my pyjama pants, flaring the legs. ‘Are you bored, Ruby? Is there nothing to catch your eye on the home shopping network?’
I fill the kettle. The phone is off speaker and snugged to my ear.
‘You’ll get a sore neck doing that.’
‘What?’
Ruby is waving at my kitchen window. I should have known this was going to be one of those in-person, nowhere-to-go conversations. I unlock the back door and return to the heat.
‘Shit, it’s cold. Move over,’ she says, pushing me off the vent.
Mum’s best teacups are often privy to hard conversations. It’s as if we take comfort in their attendance, their gold-worn rims, the way your fingers catch in the crooks of their handles.
‘Ruby, I’m sorry. I should have known how you felt about Mark, and I shouldn’t have been so flippant when I told you.’ She starts to say something. ‘Don’t. Let me say it. I’ve had my head up my arse.’
‘And it’s not just since the couch.’
I want to disagree but I can’t be sure. ‘Who can say?’ It’s the best I can do. ‘I’ve looked at it in retrospect, Ruby. Believe me, I’ve had time. And really, you and Mark, you’re a little obvious, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, you’re funny. Tell me what else you’re sorry for.’
‘Making a night of it, aren’t you?’
‘My bed’s empty, Peta, I have nothing to be home for. Mark is in Chicago. Again. I hate Carole Smart, she’s killing my love life. And I hate Chicago, it’s like Queensland on Neighbours. Why can’t Mark be here so he can see how great I am?’
‘Ruby, you are singing my song.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
I glance at the clock. It’s just after three.
‘Can we have another Peta-says-sorry-and-takes-stock session tomorrow? I’ll skip work. God knows I’ve been living there lately.’
I take the cups to the sink, rinse them, straighten the tea towel on the handle of the oven and push my chair in. Pull Ruby out of hers. Propel her to my bedroom.
Too tired, I don’t get out of my dressing-gown and only take my slippers off when their rubber soles snag on my sheets.
‘We have to go out for breakfast. There is nothing to cook. I’d make us a tuna milkshake but the milk is out of date.’
‘Ruby, make yourself useful while I get dressed. See if you can find my keys.’ Shades of big-sister bossiness, I love it.
I don’t have a shower but tie my hair back. I pull on last night’s jeans—overdue for a wash, just like me—and BJ’s hey fashion victim, pull up your pants T-shirt and a cap. BJ-style clothes to suit a BJ-style mood.
Ruby comes back into my room.
&nb
sp; ‘Making sure you won’t attract anyone, huh? I didn’t find your keys, but I found this on the hall table.’ She’s holding the letter from BJ. ‘A French letter, geddit?’
‘Pathetic, Ruby. Give me that thing.’
I prop it against a framed photo of Mum and Ruby and me. It was taken not long before Mum died. She’s wearing her wig—she called it her hamster, Ruby called it her merkin. I laughed so much I fell off my chair. Mum: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ruby, and I’m sure I don’t want to. Get off the floor, Peta.’
‘You’re not going to open it?’
‘Nope. I’m not ready to be formally let go.’
‘It might not be like that.’
‘What else could it be, Rube?’
My keys are in the door. Spent the night outside in the dark.
I’m not in the mood for breakfast. I watch Ruby eat her eggs Florentine. I don’t know why she goes out for food, she only complains about how they make it.
I drink a coffee, empty it. She sips hers.
‘Can we go home?’
‘We just got here.’
‘We didn’t just get here.’
She checks the time on her phone, shrugs. ‘Fair enough.’
Seeing her, having her talk to me, friends again, is enough.
Ruby drives like she works: positive, bossy. Straight through a stop sign. I pull my cap down over my face, no comment.
‘Are you going to fuck him again?’ A red light and a direct look. Isn’t that the same question I asked her?
‘No, Ruby. It was a mistake.’
‘Why did you do it?’
We pull up next to a school bus and Ruby leans across, poking out her tongue. The kids make faces and laugh. The bus takes off and we slip in behind it.
‘Because I wanted to see if I could still have sex with men. First mistake. Mark is not men, he is Mark. All it showed me was that we’re still compatible. Because I needed to be touched. Masturbation has its limits. Because I was getting back at BJ for her lost night, for leaving me to go to Paris, for turning my life into something unrecognisable.’
‘You did it to yourself.’
‘I know, Ruby. I know. I’ll never be able to explain the feeling of being on the couch with her. It was exhilarating. Exhilarating is a start.’