by Jessie Cole
It didn’t sound too inspiring. I wondered what else there was. ‘What do you like best about living there? What’s your favourite thing?’
Hamish was checking out the décor, as though storing up all the particulars to tell someone later. I wondered who he’d tell.
‘There’s heaps of stuff, Mema. Cafés and restaurants, galleries and music, all that jazz, but it’s mostly the feel of it, you know, that buzzing feel of so many people doing so much stuff … I like it.’ He paused, glancing back at my face. I wasn’t really convinced.
‘I just like to go out at night and walk, all those strangers bustling around me. I don’t know … I guess I like the anonymity. Something about it is … invigorating.’
This was hard for me to conceive.
The waitress came out then with the food, placing it carefully in front of us. Hamish kept his eyes on his order, as though if he looked up he’d burst out laughing. I smiled at the girl and she wandered back to the counter. He turned the bowl so it was facing me. I think they’d chosen their biggest piece of fruit especially for him. It was a giant-sized banana dick and balls. I laughed and he laughed too. What else could we do? We were trying to keep it quiet but that was making it worse. Giggling like that builds on itself. It’s hard to stop once you start. Finally we calmed down and he had a spoonful.
‘Mema, that is one of the funniest things I’ve seen. It’s made my day.’
‘It’s always like that. No one ever says.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep.’
‘This place gets weirder every day.’
Sitting there with Hamish in my town’s dingy teahouse, spooning up my canned fruit salad, felt like something special. Sometimes you only appreciate things like that when they’ve already past, but I knew it right then and there. Soon Frank Brown would come and find us. Hamish would climb back onto the ute and they’d drive away. This moment would never come again. I wondered how to hold onto it, to stretch it to its limits, but then I saw Frank’s big body in the doorway and I knew that it was over. It was already gone.
14.
The next day I headed up to Anja’s. Mum doesn’t like me to go up there anymore, and usually I don’t. But Anja doesn’t normally stay away long and I was worried about her. Sometimes when I’m awake late at night I worry her dad will do her real harm.
Her place is on one of the hills behind mine. There’s a winding dirt road that crisscrosses up the mountain, but you need a four-wheel drive to get up there and I didn’t drive anyway. Anja’s so used to trekking up and down the mountain that she’s fit as an athlete. At school she used to win all the cross-country races by such a big margin that even though she’s weird-as-they-come the other kids gave her grudging respect, especially around race time. My brothers used to think it was hilarious ’cause Anja would hardly raise a sweat while everyone else jogged in half an hour behind her—chests heaving, looking half-dead. By that stage she’d be off somewhere making daisy chains, hardly even needing a drink. I liked to think about that—Anja’s once-a-year day of cross-country triumph.
I didn’t walk up the dirt road ’cause it was harder on my bung foot. I went straight up the mountain. It was steep but I wasn’t in a hurry. I took it real slow, zigzagging a little. Moving from tree to tree. When Anja was small she’d had names for them, all the trees. She’d take me for long walks and introduce me to her favourites.
‘This here’s Lucinda,’ she’d say, and wrap an arm around the trunk.
When you were with her it was easy to feel the life in everything. Back then Anja didn’t distinguish between people and other things. This seemed wacky for the first few minutes, but after a time it became natural. Being with her was like stepping into another world. The life in everything seemed heightened, the air almost glistening. Your blood pulsed in a way you could feel. It was hard to explain, but there was a magic in it. I guess there was a magic in her too. She didn’t talk to the trees anymore, but I felt those possibilities inside her lying dormant. Sometimes I wished they’d come out.
The house Anja lived in was a half-made thing—a real hippie bush shack, everything scavenged from the tip. Sheets of black plastic still filling in gaps, windows with cracked glass, taped over. All the walls were made from second-hand doors that didn’t quite match up. Anja’s dad used to call them the ‘doors of perception’, after some old book he’d loved, but there wasn’t anything illuminating about the place now. I glimpsed it in the distance and dreaded what I’d find within. Approaching it sideways, out of sight of the windows, I tried to get a feel for her father’s mood. If I wasn’t sure, or couldn’t see any sign of him, I’d make a whistling sound—a special noise we’d assigned years ago, close enough to be mistaken for a bird, but not so like one that she’d miss it—and Anja would come and find me. I could see Anja’s father off to the side. He was rearranging the woodpile. That’s what he did on a good day. Anja and he had the neatest woodpile in town. I looked around for Anja but couldn’t see her anywhere.
‘Jim,’ I said, stepping up to say hello.
He turned around to face me. ‘Mema.’
He was a bit bleary-eyed, but that was normal. Mum told me he’d been a handsome man in his youth, but there was no trace of that left. His beard was long, way past his chest, straggly and grey. When he spoke I could see the gaps where his teeth were missing. His face was sunken beneath his eyes, his skin speckled with brown liver spots. Ever since I was a child he’d frightened me.
‘Anja around?’ I asked, wondering why she wasn’t coming out to rescue me.
‘She’s up at the hut,’ he grunted, going back to his woodpile. ‘Been up there for a while.’
The hut was where Anja was born, where the family had lived while Jim worked on the door-house. It was further up the mountain. Just a few walls and a dirt floor. Nothing else in there except her mother’s old piano. Anja only went there when she was feeling really blue. I’d coaxed her out before, but not since we were younger.
‘She’s got a bee in her bonnet,’ her father said over his shoulder. ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into her.’
I watched him for a second, pottering there. There was nothing in his stance to suggest the loss of temper that sent Anja running down the hill at full speed, shaking and wordless. It was easy to hate him then, thinking of her, of all the things she’d seen. My hard thoughts darted against his back, but he didn’t flinch.
‘I’ll go and see,’ I said, and moved on up the hill.
The hut was hard to find. Covered in vines, over the years it had been absorbed a little into the mountain, indistinguishable from the surrounds. The forest was thicker this high up, and it took me a while of climbing to see anything familiar. Finally I saw Anja’s hollowed-out tree trunk and I knew I was getting near. When she was little her parents were fighting so bad, taking her blankets out there must have seemed like the safest option. I walked over and peered inside remembering her child’s body, once as small as mine, curled up inside. There was nothing within, so I turned and studied the forest looking for signs of her.
‘Anja?’ I called out, hoping that she’d give me a cooee. I listened for a minute but except for all the soft bush rustling I didn’t hear a sound. Wandering around some more, finally I saw the hut.
‘Anja?’ I whispered as I crept up to the door. There wasn’t anywhere to hide. She was sitting inside on the piano stool, leaning her back against the keys, as though she’d been waiting. I thought she might be bruised up from a scuffle with her dad, but she wasn’t. She stared at me, eyes all flinty, but she didn’t speak.
‘Anja?’ I looked at her, searching for signs of trouble. ‘What’s wrong?’
She looked down at the ground.
‘Anja?’
She didn’t usually give me the silent treatment.
‘You didn’t bring him up here, then?’
I didn’t know what she meant.
‘Who? Your dad?’ I asked, standing in the open doorway, confused. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘Hamish?’
It had never occurred to me that Anja might have a problem with Hamish.
‘You took him creek-riding, didn’t you?’ she said, standing up. ‘I knew the boards had been moved.’
I nodded slowly, watching her stricken face.
‘How could you?’
‘Anja.’ I was still standing in the doorway, unsure which way to move. I hadn’t known it mattered.
‘That’s our thing. It’s our secret, and you shared it with him.’
‘He won’t tell anyone.’ I shook my head. ‘I’ll ask him not to.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘He’s still there?’
I’d seen Anja angry, but not usually with me.
‘He’s staying with Frank Brown,’ I said. ‘He’ll be in town a little while. He’s here for work.’
‘You’ve got a thing for him.’ Anja hissed. I could see her biting the insides of her cheeks. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘What?’
‘I can tell.’ There was no hiding from her.
‘Well … it’s not comfortable.’ I guess I had to tell someone.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I feel edgy all the time, like I’m on high alert. Plus, it’s hard to tell if he even likes me.’ I shrugged, stepping forward, reaching out a hand to her, but she stretched away from me.
‘He said you were built like a thoroughbred.’ I don’t know why I told her that. It just slipped from my mouth.
‘What?’
‘That’s what he said, when we were rain-running. He said you were very beautiful.’
I suppose it was like I was giving him away, but I didn’t know then how Anja’s mind would work. That if she was unhappy she’d try to make me unhappy too. She turned around towards the piano, carefully touching a key. She pushed down and a clanging note played out, discordant and dull. We both knew what would happen next. The ants would stream out in their black lines, covering every inch of the piano, spreading out all over the hut. It was a giant ant’s nest in there, and it only took one note to disturb them.
‘Here they come,’ she said softly. ‘No stopping them now.’
From where I was standing I could only see the side of her face, so I stepped further inside.
‘Anja?’ I wanted to comfort her but I didn’t know how. ‘It’s okay.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she whispered, still not turning around. ‘Not for me.’
‘He’s just a bloke.’ Only a few days ago that would have been true.
She leaned forward, pressing her head against the puckered wood of the piano. I stood there feeling helpless and she started banging down hard on the keys. The sound was loud but woozy, harsh and cacophonous. I suppose that’s how she felt on the inside. The ants flowed over her fingers and up her arms, running up her neck and across her cheeks, but she didn’t stop. They wouldn’t bite you if you let them alone. I stepped closer and wrapped my arms about her shoulders, pressing into her tall frame. We stayed there a minute, me hugging her back like a frightened child, the ants spreading from her onto me.
‘I won’t leave you,’ I whispered into her neck, willing her to hear. She stopped banging the notes, but the crashing sound still echoed around us in the air. I could hear my own breath. She gripped my arms then, squashing against the ants.
‘Everyone leaves in the end,’ she said quietly, and I knew she was thinking of her mother. Hanging from the trees like a scarecrow. Anja never spoke about it, but I knew she’d had to cut her down. When she was just a child. Everyone knew. I squeezed my arms a little tighter round her. I didn’t know what to do with Anja’s pain.
‘I won’t leave you,’ I said again. I could feel a salty wetness welling at the back of my throat.
Swivelling around towards me, she stood up and took my face in her hands, kissing me dead on the mouth, the crushed ant smell wafting in the air. My eyes slammed shut and everything in me stilled. I’d never thought about Anja that way, all the years we’d been together. Sometimes I’d watched her apply her lipstick and admired the bow shape of her lips, the beauty of them, but I’d never expected to feel them against mine. I’d seen her body morph, swelling into womanhood, and she’d seen mine. Everything about her was familiar—her smell, her touch, the twitching of her mouth and the jittery movement of her eyes. I loved her. I’d always loved her. But she hadn’t made my heart quicken.
I stood there in the hut while she kissed me, paralysed but trembling. Unsure how to untangle myself, unsure how to be. The ants dashed across us in their startled fashion, from her hands to my face and back again. Her lips parted a little on mine, and I opened my eyes. She was watching me, through her eyelashes, staring at my mouth. I knew I would have to move but something inside me delayed. I guess maybe I wondered what might happen next.
A sudden roar from the doorway startled us, and we jumped together, still locked in our strange embrace. Anja’s father stood staring in, his eyes bulging in their sockets.
‘You!’ he yelled. It was hard to know who he meant. Anja stepped around me, holding out her arms, keeping him at bay.
‘Whore,’ he growled, menacing and low. ‘Nothing but a whore.’
‘Dad,’ Anja’s voice was cracking at the edges, ‘don’t be like that.’
I couldn’t breathe. If there was a window I would have run for it. Taken Anja’s hand and made her run too.
‘It’s not what you think,’ I stuttered. ‘We were just … trying it out.’
Anja shook her head. He glared at us, time stretching out.
‘Come on, Dad,’ Anja whispered, taking a step towards him. He stood rigid for a minute longer, then his body seemed to soften. It was faint, the slightest sag of his shoulders, but we both knew it was enough. Anja grabbed my outstretched hand and we shoved past him and took off down the hill.
My foot started giving me trouble part-way down, must have stepped on something, maybe twisted it a little too, and once we were far enough away I had to pull up and stop. Anja and I were both panting. Her eyes were large and flickering, searching for movement behind us in the shade.
‘I can’t keep running like that,’ I said, picking up my foot to examine it. It was bleeding at the side. ‘I’ve torn the skin.’
She looked down at my bare feet, not really seeing. ‘Okay, well, let’s walk. But fast.’
Gingerly, I followed her, until the rear of my house came into view. The ramshackle gardens that lined its borders, the uneven tilt of the steps. If I squinted I could see the brown shape of the old dog on the veranda.
‘Don’t tell your mum,’ Anja said, keeping up the brisk pace. I didn’t know which bit she meant. About the kiss or about her dad. I couldn’t see myself mentioning either.
‘I never do.’
I limped down the hill towards the back door but Anja didn’t follow. I turned around, wondering what she was up to. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ I called out, willing her to move.
She shook her head. My foot was throbbing, and it was hot out of the shade of the trees.
‘Anja,’ a few stray ants still crawled on my arms and I brushed them off, ‘it’s not a big deal. Please don’t make this more than it is.’
I glanced back up at her there in her miniskirt, all knobbly knees and long legs. She crossed her arms over her chest. She was peering down at the grass, her hair hanging in her face. ‘Please.’ My voice was low. I needed to go inside.
‘I’m not coming in. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She flicked her hair back, face all stubborn.
‘Where will you go?’ I asked.
‘I’ve got other places.’ I knew Anja sometimes just holed up in the bush.
‘Okay,’ I sighed, ‘but come round for dinner.’
‘Just go inside.’ She uncrossed her arms. ‘And I’ll see you tomorrow.’
I watched her as she disappeared into the bush, rangy and wild like a feral pony. Something in me surged, a kind of fear maybe. I’d known Anja forever, but
it was hard to predict what she might do next. Anja was a little like dynamite. Once you lit the fuse, who knew what kind of blast you were in for? I didn’t like the feeling of her sitting up on the hill. I was afraid my whole world might explode from one little spark.
15.
When I limped up the crooked back steps I realised Sophie and the babies had come for a visit. Rory came running to meet me at the door.
‘Mema!’ He wrapped his arms around my legs, nearly knocking me over. ‘Where were you?’
‘Just up at Anja’s place,’ I said, putting a hand on his solid little back and pressing him in against me. ‘What’s been happening?’
‘We came to play,’ he gazed up at me, ‘but you weren’t here.’
I couldn’t move with him attached to me like that, so I squatted down and gave him a hug.
He pulled away and looked me in the eye, real close.
‘Daddy’s gone.’ He said it as though it was something he’d only just learned. As though I might not know it either. ‘And he’s not coming back.’
I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t know what Sophie had already said. Pushing the wispy strands of his hair back off his forehead, I leaned forward and breathed in the smell of him, looking for comfort.
‘He’s gone.’ He said it again.
I nodded, but my foot was hurting, and I was still reeling from what had happened at the hut. I felt off balance, my bearings had slipped. I wanted to steal off to my room, but there was no way Rory would let me. Sophie came round the corner then, Lila on her hip. She had colour back in her, like she’d finally gotten some sleep.
‘Let Mema in, sweetheart,’ she said to Rory. ‘She might need a cup of tea.’
I stood up, but I was having trouble steadying myself. Sophie looked down at my foot. ‘Mema, you’re bleeding. What have you done?’
‘Stood on something, I think.’ I couldn’t meet her gaze.
‘Rory, help Mema inside so we can look at her foot.’
Rory lifted his arm and wrapped it around my waist, as though he was my crutch and the strength of his small body might hold me up. The tenderness of his touch made me want to cry.