The Spill

by Imbi Neeme

  Samantha closed her eyes and counted to ten inside her head. Whenever she was faced with the full force of Rosemary’s determination, the Other Samantha started to rise up inside her, like an ancient demon, ready for battle.

  ‘Okay, darling,’ she said, when the moment had passed and her eyes were back open. ‘Let’s watch more Wiggles, shall we?’

  As she pressed play, she thought about how all the toddler books said you needed to be consistent and persistent. And here she was, feeling as consistent and persistent as wet toilet paper.

  She lay on the carpet next to her dancing daughter and closed her eyes again. She thought back to the day Rosemary was born and wondered if things would be different if she’d managed to stick to her birth plan and birthed Rosemary the way she’d wanted to birth her, instead of being sliced into like a watermelon on a hot afternoon.

  She remembered sitting in the hospital bed with everyone treating the arrival of the baby like it was something to celebrate and not the end of life as Samantha had known it. They’d brought champagne, for god’s sake. She thought now of that glass of champagne and its taste of star-shine, a glimmer of light on a dark day and, for the second time in almost fifteen years, she felt like having a drink.

  ‘Let’s dance!’ Rosemary exclaimed, jumping up and down. If Rosemary had been any older, Samantha would have sworn she was rubbing in the fact they were watching her show and not Samantha’s.

  ‘Let’s drink!’ Samantha exclaimed back. She got up from the floor and romp-bomp-a-stomped over to the small cupboard where Trent kept the spirits and liqueurs that had been left over from his twenty-fifth. At the time, she’d reluctantly agreed he could serve cocktails to his guests – as long as he didn’t drink any himself, that was – but now, Samantha was incredibly glad about the decision, even if there was only an almost empty bottle of gin and an unopened bottle of blue Curacao to show for it.

  She slugged back the gin. Even though it tasted like old flowers, it hit the spot. She quickly twisted the lid off the blue Curacao and held it to her nose. She grimaced. No chance. How something so blue could smell so orange was beyond her. But even as she poured it down the sink, she began to regret it. What could she drink now?

  She looked up at the clock and then back at the TV. Captain Feathersword had almost finished singing ‘Nicky Nacky Nocky Noo’, which meant there was only ‘Dorothy’s Dance Party’ and the titular ‘Big Red Car’ to go. If she waited until the end of the video, she’d have enough time to get Rosemary into the car and to drive to the bottle shop and back before Trent got home.

  For the first time in months, she felt a little bit excited about life again.

  She didn’t even mind that Rosemary was asking her to play the Wiggles on the stereo before she’d even started the car. The tiny amount of alcohol in her system would surely soften Dorothy’s screeching.

  As she pulled into the drive-through bottle shop, she checked Rosemary in the rear-view mirror and saw that she had fallen asleep during the five-minute drive. Her heart sank. If Rosemary napped now, she’d be a nightmare to get to bed tonight. But then, she realised, that could be Trent’s problem. After all, he owed her for being so late.

  As the drive-through attendant walked over, she unwound her window.

  ‘What can I do you for?’ he asked.

  As she scanned the rows of bottles, she realised she had no idea what to ask for. They all looked the same.

  But then something caught her attention.

  ‘What’s that bottle with the little red hat?’ she asked.

  ‘Tequila,’ he said. ‘Personally speaking, I think more bottles should come with their own hats.’

  Samantha found herself agreeing with him as she gently placed the bottle on the seat next to her, as if it were a passenger. There was something about its little red hat that seemed to promise happiness.

  As she started the car, the stereo came back on, and even though Rosemary was still sleeping, Samantha turned the volume up. For the first time in forever, she wanted to sing along with the Wiggles. The road ahead no longer felt like it was leading her back to a domestic prison. She drove and she sang, and life felt so much lighter.

  When she took the next corner, everything shifted. Something came loose, maybe in the car, maybe in her head, like a weak leg giving way under the weight of the rest of the body, and the car went into a spin, sending everything into slow motion. Samantha felt like she had slipped in between the minutes and the seconds into an infinite space where she would spin forever.

  But then the car stopped.

  She immediately turned to check on her daughter, but Rosemary was still sleeping, completely unaware of the danger they’d just been in. Samantha then looked around the car to see if anybody had seen the accident, and was relieved to find the street was empty.

  As she got the car back into gear, she noticed her hands were shaking. At the first opportunity, she pulled over and rang Trent to tell him what had happened.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Trent said in a low voice. It sounded like he was on the bus.

  ‘No.’ Samantha swallowed. She realised she had begun to cry.

  ‘Is the car okay? Can you drive it?’

  ‘There’s no damage.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’

  But Samantha couldn’t stop crying. ‘It’s made me think of that accident, the one Nic and I had with Mum on the way back from Esperance. I can’t remember if Mum cried afterwards, if she’d felt any shock from putting us at risk like that. I mean, we could have died. I could have died, if I had still been sitting in the back seat.’

  ‘I’m sure she would have been upset,’ Trent said, trying to soothe her.

  ‘But I don’t think she was. She was drunk, remember? She wouldn’t have been thinking about anything except maybe where her next drink was coming from.’

  As she said that, she looked at the bottle of tequila, still sitting there on the passenger seat, and she felt sickened by the fact she still wanted it. In fact, if she were to be completely honest with herself at that moment, she wanted to drink it more than ever. She grabbed it and shoved it onto the floor of the back seat, out of her sight and out of the way of temptation.

  As she pulled into their small car space, she could see Trent coming up the street from the bus stop, his work bag slung over his shoulder. Rosemary was stirring in the back of the car, her cheeks rosy with sleep.

  Samantha turned the ignition off and closed her eyes. She imagined the car was still spinning and she was trapped between the seconds, lost in time.

  ‘How’s my favourite girl?’ Trent was opening the door on Rosemary’s side of the car. Samantha kept her eyes closed. ‘Did you have a little sleep?’

  ‘Wake up, Jeff!’ Rosemary shouted.

  ‘Hey, what’s this?’

  Samantha opened her eyes and saw that Trent had picked up the bottle of tequila.

  ‘It was on special,’ Samantha said, thinking as quickly as she could. ‘I bought it for you for New Year’s. I thought I could make paella and we could invite Nicole and Darren. You know, have a bit of a party.’

  Trent gave a nervous laugh. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my wife?’

  ‘I don’t know. New millennium, new me?’ Samantha said.

  ‘Uh, okayyyyy . . .’ Trent stretched the word out as he tucked the bottle away into his bag. ‘Are there any more groceries for me to carry in?’

  Thankfully Rosemary distracted him. ‘Out!’ she shouted, her arms opened wide. Trent unclipped her and lifted her out of the car onto his hip. Rosemary threw her arms around his neck, and shouted, ‘I love Daddy!’ She turned back to Samantha and gave her a knowing, defiant look. ‘I love Daddy,’ she repeated.

  Samantha didn’t respond. All she was thinking about was the seventeen days that remained until New Year’s and that bottle.

  Piece #16: 1982

  Nothing had been the same since the accident at Bruce Rock. Whereas once, Tina and Craig used to fig
ht behind closed doors, hissing like snakes, now they stormed around the house, each shouting at the top of their voice, and it was Nicole and Samantha’s turn to hide behind closed doors and whisper to each other.

  While they hid in their room, Nicole lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling rose, trying to find faces in the plasterwork, while Samantha dressed and undressed her doll. Occasionally, when there was a loud crash or the sound of something breaking into a thousand pieces against a wall, Samantha would look over at Nicole. But, Nicole would always avoid meeting her sister’s eye, because it would mean acknowledging something that she didn’t want to acknowledge: that their parents were splitting up. Nicole preferred to stay in her own head and pretend it wasn’t happening at all.

  One Saturday, there was silence. Craig stayed in the bedroom while Tina grimly pruned the roses in the front yard with a large pair of garden shears. When neither of them noticed it was lunchtime, Nicole snuck into the kitchen to make some Vegemite sandwiches, which she and Samantha ate on the rug in their bedroom, like they were having a picnic.

  ‘Do you think they’ll get divorced?’ Samantha asked her, after they’d finished eating.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What does divorce even mean?’

  ‘It means two people stop being married.’

  ‘Davina’s mum and dad are divorced.’

  ‘Good for them,’ Nicole said, and then regretted it. Samantha’s eyes were filling with tears. ‘I’m sure Mum and Dad won’t get divorced. All couples fight.’

  She thought of the fights in the comedies that she watched on TV; arguments with a laughter track in the background. But when Craig and Tina fought, Nicole and Samantha were their only audience and they didn’t find any of it funny at all.

  ‘Davina lives with her mum all the time and never sees her dad. I don’t want to never see Dad.’

  ‘I’m really sure it will be okay.’

  Samantha bit her lip and picked the lint off the rug. ‘She had to choose which parent she wanted to live with. I think if Mum and Dad get divorced, they should take one of us each.’

  Nicole thought of school and how she was always being picked last for team sports, except basketball because she was so tall. She imagined Craig and Tina as team captains, standing at the front of the gym, fighting over who was going to take Samantha. Of course they’d both want Samantha because she was much neater than Nicole. She was also small and cute.

  ‘I don’t think it works that way,’ she told Samantha, not wanting to think of it anymore.

  Suddenly, voices erupted in the hall.

  ‘I’ll leave, shall I?’ Craig was shouting. ‘I mean, Kalgoorlie is too far for you to drink-drive to.’

  ‘Jesus, Craig, I wasn’t drunk when I crashed that car. I told you a billion times.’

  ‘And I haven’t believed you a trillion times.’

  ‘You’re the one lying!’ Tina shouted. ‘What about what you were up to while me and the kids were in Esperance?’

  The shouting moved down the hallway to behind a closed door.

  ‘They keep talking about the car accident,’ Samantha whispered.

  ‘I know.’ Nicole felt sick to her stomach every time the topic came up. She knew it was her fault for rushing Tina, for wanting to be in Kalgoorlie in time for Young Talent Time. She kept waiting for Tina to tell Craig the truth.

  ‘Dad thinks Mum was drunk. Do you think Mum was drunk?’

  ‘No,’ Nicole said.

  ‘But what about the bottle at the motel you told me about?’

  ‘I told you I wasn’t sure about that.’

  ‘Well, I told Dad,’ Samantha said, crossing her arms.

  Nicole frowned. She should never have told Samantha about the bottle. Ever since Craig had asked her if Tina had been drinking before the accident, the bottle had been weighing more and more heavily on her mind. She’d thought that talking about it with her sister would lighten the load. But now it was clear it had only made things worse. Yes, she’d seen Tina with the bottle and yes, she’d seen her go behind the building. When she’d come back out, the bottle had been empty. But she hadn’t seen Tina actually drink from the bottle, she kept telling herself. And now Samantha had gone and blabbed, and Tina and Craig were getting a divorce.

  She climbed back onto her bed and picked up her book. She was reading Flowers in the Attic for the third time, and somehow, returning to its world of captivity, incest and arsenic poisoning felt comforting.

  Back on the carpet, Samantha was sniffling in front of the bookcase, trying to hide the fact that she was crying. Nicole put her book back down and gazed at the ceiling, wondering what she could say to make her sister feel better. And then she realised that she was looking at the answer. ‘Have you ever seen the faces in the ceiling rose, Sammy?’

  Samantha lay back on the carpet and looked up. ‘Kind of,’ she said, her nose blocked from her tears.

  ‘See the roses? That’s their eyes. And the leaves are their ears and noses.’

  ‘I can see them,’ Samantha said.

  ‘They’re our friends. They’re looking after us. They’ll make sure we’ll be okay. All of us. You. Me. Mum and Dad.’

  Samantha smiled, happy for a moment, and it was like the sun had come out. But then they heard the bedroom door slam shut again and the smile disappeared.

  At around two, Nicole ventured out to the garden to see what was happening.

  Tina was sitting on the love seat, a drink in her hand and the pruning shears on her lap. Nicole looked around the garden. All the roses were lying on the ground, their red petals spilled, like blood, all over the grass.

  ‘Tell your father I finished the gardening,’ she told Nicole.

  Nicole quickly beat a retreat back to her room. She didn’t want to be around when Craig discovered what Tina had done to his roses.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Samantha wanted to know. ‘Can we come out?’

  ‘I think we should stay here.’

  ‘But I’m bored.’

  This was starting to feel like the worst babysitting job in the world. Nicole imagined them being trapped in the bedroom forever, like the kids in Flowers in the Attic. She’d definitely have to take up a hobby like ballet or learning medicine from a book.

  ‘I know, let’s play Monopoly,’ she said, fishing the game out from under her bed and lifting its lid off. She knew Samantha loved being the banker and the real estate agent. Maybe by the time they set up the game the fighting would be over and they could all have dinner and then watch a TV show together.

  ‘I’m the iron,’ said Samantha.

  She picked up the wad of money and was carefully sorting it out into denominations when they heard Craig’s voice booming from the garden, like a tenor delivering an aria on a large stage. ‘Jesus, Tina. Not my fucking roses!’

  And Tina’s voice, like the soprano responding: ‘Yes, your fucking roses, you fucking bastard!’

  ‘Let’s play,’ Nicole said, focusing as hard as she could on the board before them.

  An hour or so had passed. It had been so quiet outside, and the girls had been so consumed by their game that they’d almost forgotten that their parents were fighting. Samantha rolled the dice and landed on Trafalgar Square, now adorned with a hotel.

  ‘GTBH!’ she exclaimed.

  Samantha had been using the expression all game, obviously dying for Nicole to ask her what it meant. So Nicole had decided to annoy her by not asking.

  ‘Girls?’ Craig opened the door. ‘I just wanted to have a quick chat with you both.’

  He came in and sat on the edge of Nicole’s bed. His eyes were red, like he’d been crying. Nicole didn’t know what to think. She’d never seen her father cry.

  ‘You might have noticed your mother and I have been having a few, um, disagreements lately.’

  Nicole knew that was putting it mildly, but she nodded nonetheless. So did Samantha.

  ‘And so we’ve decided that it’s probably best for me to go away
for a little while.’

  ‘Don’t go, Daddy!’ Samantha jumped up onto his lap and threw her arms around his neck. Nicole stood up but then hung back, unsure of whether they should make him stay or not. She didn’t want her father to leave, but she also wanted the fighting to stop.

  ‘It will just be for a little while. I need to think. Your mum needs to think.’

  Nicole immediately thought of what Samantha had said and whether they might be deciding which child they were going to choose, but then she pushed the silly notion out of her head. Samantha was just a baby who still had baby thoughts. She didn’t understand how the world worked.

  But then it occurred to Nicole, neither did she.

  Craig hugged Samantha, who was now sobbing.

  ‘Be a brave girl. Mummy and Nicole will look after you until I get back.’ Craig looked past at her at the board. ‘Monopoly? I bet you’re winning.’

  ‘I have a hotel on Park Lane and on Trafalgar Square,’ Samantha said, through her tears.

  ‘That’s my girl. You playing Free Parking rules?’

  ‘Yes. Nicole landed there twice and she’s still losing.’

  Craig gave a little smile and then stood up. He turned to Nicole. ‘Look after your sister, okay?’ He paused for a moment, before adding, ‘And your mum.’

  Nicole nodded and watched as her father left their room, slowly closing the door behind him. Samantha remained in the same place, clearly unsure of what to do.

  In the hallway, Tina and Craig started shouting again.

  ‘Daddy?’ Samantha said, her voice painfully small.

  Nicole tried to distract her.

  ‘Come and finish flogging me,’ she said, sitting back down at the Monopoly board.

  Samantha joined her reluctantly and threw the dice.

  ‘GTBH,’ she said again, sadly as she landed on one of her properties.

  ‘Okay, okay, tell me what GTBH means.’

  ‘Good to be home,’ she replied, her eyes filling up with tears. ‘GTBH.’