by Unknown
Francie felt the champagne she had drunk bubble back up into her throat as bitter bile. She swallowed hard and finally found her voice.
‘Who was there?’
‘Oh, you know, the usual crowd. Some of Poppy’s friends. Actually, they were a lot of fun, weren’t they, Olga?’ Johnno turned to Olga in a desperate attempt to drag her into the ring. She would rather have remained sitting outside the ropes as a spectator.
‘You were there too?’ asked Francie quietly.
Olga twisted her long black hair in her hands as she answered. ‘Yeah. It was like Johnno said, all very . . . you know . . . fun.’
‘So how old was she?’
Olga turned and looked at Francie over the top of the car seat.
‘Don’t do this, Francie,’ she pleaded. ‘You’re just torturing yourself. You knew this was going to—’
‘How old was she?’ Francie’s voice was louder now.
‘You know how old she was! She was forty-four,’ said Johnno as he stared at the windscreen. ‘She looked great. She gave a speech saying that she’d never been so happy as when Nick came into her life. He looked happy too. They held hands all night and everyone there was pleased for them.
‘Poppy’s a good woman, France. Really, they suit each other and they’re in fucking love. So there it is. You know all of it now, and if you were honest with yourself you already knew it.’
‘Johnno, that is so cruel!’ protested Olga.
‘Cruel or real? You think I enjoy saying this stuff? But someone has to. We can’t go on like this! None of us can. The Nick and Francie thing is dead. It’s like this corpse that’s starting to stink up the place. It’s like dragging around a dead body everywhere we go!’
Francie jammed her fist into her mouth as her other hand felt frantically in the dark for the door handle. Johnno leaned back and grabbed her forearm a little bit more tightly than he needed to. Hard enough so it would get her full attention.
‘Francie, I wanted you and Nick to stay together. We all did. But it’s done! We can’t change it! We all want you to get better and just get on with your life.’
‘LET ME GO!’ Francie tried to wrestle her arm from Johnno’s grasp.
‘NO! You can’t just run off. You have to face up to—’
Francie pushed open the car door and fell out through the soft night into the hard bluestone gutter. She scrambled to her feet and ran down the driveway. Olga and Johnno watched from the car as Francie frantically fumbled with the key to the door and then finally gave up and slumped on the front step.
‘Are you going to tell her about Nick and Poppy’s new baby?’ asked Johnno.
‘I’ll have to,’ Olga sighed. ‘The posters will be all over town in a few days. She’ll see them everywhere she goes. I can’t believe she doesn’t already know.’
Johnno banged his head repeatedly on the steering wheel. ‘Shit, shit, shit! This is a nightmare! When’s it going to end?’
Olga walked up the darkened path and sat next to Francie on the front step. Johnno kept watching as the blow landed. He saw Francie curl into a small ball and bury her face in Olga’s lap and was reminded of a mouse cringing in the corner of a cage.
Eight
‘So, the shortness of breath, the nausea, the heart palpitations. It sounds like you had a panic attack,’ said Faith Treloar of Faith and John-Pierre Treloar, Relationship Counsellors. It was Wednesday night—therapy night—and Francie and Faith were squaring off at each other in their respective blue and red velvet armchairs.
‘I suppose that’s what it was.’ Francie now had a name for the unfamiliar and overwhelming emotion she had felt on Monday night. ‘I’ve never had one before. I didn’t know that I could feel so physically affected by something that’s just emotional. It’s all in my head, but . . .’
‘Well, did you know—’ Faith sat up straight and smoothed her embroidered cheesecloth top over her prodigious bosom; her voice took on an authoritative tone—‘that centuries ago griefe was a notifiable disease? You can see it in the official records on the causes of death in London in the 1600s. It’s next in the list after the plague and smallpox.’
Damn right! A plague and a pox on both their houses.
‘People actually died of broken hearts in those days. Ladies took to their beds with draughts of laudanum. They sickened and just withered away.’
To Francie this sounded like a good plan. Laudanum had to be less fattening than Baileys Irish Cream. You’d be in bed a good year or two before you withered away drinking that stuff.
‘So when are we to see Nick and Poppy’s newest creation?’ asked Faith. ‘It often happens when people first get together. They come up with a joint project to express their commitment to each other. It’s just unlucky for you that they’re both actors.’
Francie thought she could detect a sardonic edge to Faith’s voice which she found most comforting. There had to be some place in the world where she could find a sympathetic ear. Someone who didn’t just tell Francie to ‘face it, get over it, get better’. She wasn’t paying eighty dollars an hour to hear that.
‘Their show opens the week before Christmas. It’s called Stupid Cupid.’
Faith pushed the box of tissues across the coffee table. ‘And it will be about . . . ?’
Francie had a fair idea from what she’d read in the arts pages of the newspapers and gotten out of Olga and Johnno after intense interrogation. It was to be a late night cabaret outing which would portray Nick and Poppy as star-crossed lovers battling to find true love against the odds (one of which would be Francie, obviously). They’d written all of it—the songs, the vignettes, the dialogues, the monologues—themselves.
As Faith pointed out, it was all too predictable. If they were just a normal couple it would have been a real baby, or an overseas holiday. If they were musicians they would have started a band together. If they were architects they would have built a house. But as it was, they were actors. It was a stage performance. They were vain enough to think that anyone else in the world could give a flying fuck about their lives.
Francie could see her own life reduced to an even smaller pile of rubble. She would be merely collateral damage in a war of propaganda designed to keep Nick and Poppy on the front page with their story of grand passion. Francie would be a footnote.
‘I saw the poster in the street today. Their faces were on it in two hearts,’ said Francie.
‘And how did that make you feel?’
‘It was the same as the other night. I thought I was going to collapse. I couldn’t breathe. I’ve never felt like this before.’
‘I think you have.’
‘What?’
‘I think you have had this feeling before. When you were a child. It’s something you’ve never talked about. When was it?’
This was odd. Was Faith a counsellor or some weirdo psychic?
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Francie stonewalled. She pushed the box of tissues back across the table and folded her arms over her denim jacket.
Faith leaned closer and brought her hand under Francie’s chin. She tilted her face until they were eye to eye.
‘You do know, Francie. I want you to tell me. When was the last time you felt like that? The shortness of breath, the nausea, your heart thumping so hard you thought it would explode?’
Francie knew alright. But it was such a long time ago in a land so far, far away that it seemed ridiculous to bring it up. It was more than twenty years ago. There had to be a statute of limitations on this stuff. But then the memory hit Francie with such force that she knew she was kidding herself.
‘There’s no point talking about it. It’s history.’
Faith leaned back in her chair. She took a deep breath which made her mighty chest expand like a dugong about to dive into the murky depths.
‘And that’s why I want you to talk about it. It’s not history . . . some ancient event that happened to someone else. It’s your past, what made you. There was grief b
ack then too, wasn’t there? As I said, grief can kill you. Maybe not you, not literally, but what if grief was making you want to die? Have you thought about killing yourself?’
Francie looked into her lap and nodded.
‘Why would a young woman like you, with everything in the world to offer, think she was worthless? That she wasn’t fit to walk the earth?’
It was an extremely fair question and Francie had no answer.
‘What if I told you that grief was something which crept up on you. That if you didn’t deal with it properly it hid in the shadows, quietly feeding on your pain and doubling in size until it was immense and unstoppable. What if one day it caught up with you and knocked you out? Don’t you think you should be brave? Turn and face it now, before that happens?’
It was true. The way Faith described it, it was like The Blob out of that fifties sci-fi movie starring Steve McQueen. Indescribable . . . indestructible! Nothing can stop it! Francie looked ahead to oblivion and knew she had to stand her ground.
‘It was . . .’ she began. She threw her head back and looked at the ceiling so her tears wouldn’t cascade down the spillway. But it was useless. They couldn’t be held back.
‘It was . . . on the day of my father’s wedding,’ Francie sniffed. ‘I can’t believe I’m crying again . . . fuck, fuck, fuck!’ She groped blindly for the tissue box. The words and the tears came in a torrent.
‘Oh . . . God . . . I was the flower girl. I was ten. Dad picked me up and Mum was standing in the doorway watching me walk down the path to the car. I knew it was killing her. I didn’t want to go. No-one, not one person in the whole wide world would listen to me! “It will be lovely, Francie. You look beautiful, Francie.”
‘It wasn’t lovely! It was a nightmare! My dad married someone else. And I had to stand there and watch. I had to hold her horrible flowers. They were Christmas lilies. I’ve always hated those flowers.’
Francie drew her legs up and curled into the corner of her chair. The tears came down steadily.
‘When I had to walk back up the aisle behind them—the new Mr and Mrs McKenzie—I thought I was going to be sick. I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t tell ANYONE!’
Faith listened to Francie cry. So much moisture in this little room night after night, it was a wonder Faith didn’t have a problem with rising damp. She murmured in sympathy now and then, and placed a warm hand on Francie’s heaving back. When there seemed to be a break in the weather Faith finally spoke.
‘I’d like you to do a little visualisation exercise with me. Do you know what that is?’
Francie did know because Olga had employed it once in her search for the perfect man. Olga had regaled Francie with the story of how she had visualised this tall, dark and handsome husband and carried the image of him in her mind for months. One day Olga had seen him at the Victoria Market buying onions. She had approached him, breathless with anticipation. This was the man of her dreams and he actually walked the earth! She asked him something about the time or the weather and he answered—in Spanish.
‘Next time I visualise, I’ve got to remember to put “speaks English” in there,’ Olga said, shaking her head ruefully.
Francie remembered laughing. So she did know about ‘visualisation’, but doubted this New Age rubbish would be of any help. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes anyway.
Faith’s voice was soothing, calming. ‘I’d like you to go back to the day of your father’s wedding. Imagine yourself as ten years old. Tell me what happened that day. Can you see yourself there?’
At first Francie could not see past herself sitting on the edge of her chair playing a childish game of ‘pretend’. But as Faith went on murmuring ‘relax’ and ‘go back’ in a hypnotic tone, she was persuaded to go with the flow. She was back in the family house in Blackburn, standing on the swirly purple carpet in the dining room and looking at herself in the mirror-tiled wall. Her dress was cream taffeta with big puffy sleeves like Princess Diana’s. Her mother was kneeling behind her fumbling with the matching satin sash at the waist. She looked like the old-fashioned bride doll which stood in the musty corner near the curtains in Grandma’s bedroom. Staring eyes and rosebud lips painted onto a pale china face. Arms stiff and outstretched, fingers splayed.
When Mum finally stood, Francie could see her eyes were red. She knew her mother had been crying half the night. She had heard her through the bedroom wall. Her mother had been playing the same mournful Irish folk music over and over on the stereo. Sometimes Francie couldn’t tell if it was her mother’s voice or a tin whistle or a fiddle that was wailing and moaning. Francie had tried to block out the sound. She pulled the blanket over her head, stretched the sheet tight across her mouth and wondered how many times she could breathe in her same stale breath before she smothered herself and slipped into unconsciousness.
Where was Dad? What colour were his eyes? Blue? Brown? He’d been gone six months and she couldn’t remember. Was that how it went? If people weren’t right in front of your eyes they just faded away? Her father’s boots were still in the bottom of the wardrobe. She had held them and tried to imagine there had been an actual pair of living fleshy feet which had pushed the leather into the worn contours, ground down the heels on one side. All she saw was a pair of abandoned old shoes.
That morning when Dad was getting married to someone else, Francie had found the empty wine bottles and the wedding album on the lounge-room floor. Francie made her brother Joel a bowl of cornflakes and he watched cartoons on TV. He was too young to understand.
Francie had sat on her bed for a long time looking at the wretched puffy dress on its hanger. Her dad’s girlfriend had chosen it. She’d dragged Francie off to a bridal boutique with Stella, her new about-to-be stepsister—a sullen seven year old with big front teeth who didn’t want to be there either.
Denise, that was Dad’s girlfriend’s name. What made him want to be with her instead of Mum? When she laughed she threw her head back and you could see right up her nose. She did this thing where she grabbed you and her orange fingernails dug into your arm and it really hurt.
Francie would tell her mum she wouldn’t go. You were only supposed to have one wedding and that had been when her dad married her mum. If she went to the church it meant that Dad really wouldn’t be coming home. If she didn’t go, maybe he would see how Francie really felt and realise it was all a mistake. Maybe he would come back home to Mum.
She was still sitting on her bed when her mother shuffled in and sat next to her.
‘You have to go, Francie. Your dad wants you to be there.’
‘Do you want me to go, Mum?’
Mum looked over the top of Francie’s head, and Francie had turned to see what she was looking at, but it was only the back of the door.
‘Well, darling, it’s not about what I want, apparently. You know I wish it wasn’t happening. But sometimes things just don’t work out the way we plan. We just have to try to go on with life as best we can.’
Francie had looked at her mother’s tired face and puffy eyes and declared: ‘When I grow up I’m only going to have one wedding. And my husband will never leave me!’
Her mother snorted as she took up a hairbrush and started pulling it through Francie’s long fair tangles.
‘Well, honey, I wish you luck! I really do. If you’re pretty enough, and young enough, and clever enough, and perfect in every way, then maybe he won’t leave you. But then again, maybe he will leave you anyway. Maybe you just have to be a better wife than I was. Because I tried, Francie, I really tried. But in the end I just wasn’t good enough. And so he went and found someone who is.’
As the brush tore through her hair bringing tears to Francie’s eyes, she made up her mind then that she would be good enough. She would be perfect!
Mum had sent her and Joel to wait on the front veranda until Dad arrived to pick them up in the station wagon. Joel was already pulling at the stiff white collar of his shirt, trying to loosen his tie
, and tugging at his black suit jacket. He was a reluctant miniature groomsman to her miserable bridesmaid. She was clutching a stupid basket sprayed gold and filled with the ugly lilies. She would have liked to hurl it into the street so it would be run over by a truck. Then Dad drove up and got out of the car. He was wearing a tuxedo and bow tie. He told Francie she looked beautiful, and Joel that he looked handsome, opened the car door and they had dutifully slid into the back seat.
Francie hadn’t wanted to turn to see her mother standing in the shadows. She knew she was crying. But now she watched out of the car window as Dad walked up the front steps and across the veranda to the flyscreen door. He looked like he was on his way to a ball. Mum, with her straggly brown hair tied back in a scarf and her old green dressing gown, was not invited.
Maybe Mum was right. Maybe she should have tried harder. Mum should have worn her best red dress with the pearly buttons, her pearl earrings, her white high-heeled shoes. Dad might have walked right on inside and never left.
But he didn’t walk inside. Instead, Mum opened the door and said something to him and pushed him away. Her father shouted. Her mother shouted back. Don’t shout, Mum! Ask Dad inside for a cup of tea! Show him the album with the photographs of me and Joel standing in front of the Christmas tree, then he will see we are a perfect family.
Then she saw Mum slap Dad’s face. So hard she saw him take a step back. Francie remembered focusing on the steering wheel, wishing the car would drive itself away.
When Dad came back to the car Francie could see a red mark on his cheek. He started the car and it lurched so the basket of flowers flew off the seat. Francie looked out the back window and saw her mother fall to her knees on the wooden veranda. She looked as if she might never stand up again.
Francie had tried to wrestle the door open. Her father shouted at her to leave the door alone and drove faster until her mother disappeared from sight.
‘So, can you see yourself there as a little girl?’ Faith asked.