‘Do you think some of the recovered memories could be false?’
She sighed.
‘What can you remember from just before your hospital admission?’
She didn’t want to talk about that; she wanted to keep talking about Dean. ‘Which time?’
‘This last time.’
‘I was at our flat. I remember reading my book in bed. Christos had a night shift, and he brought me a cup of hot chocolate before he left for work. Then I felt a bit dizzy, and I fell asleep.’
Aimi nodded.
‘I must have woken up and gone into the kitchen. I turned on the gas and left it going for a long time. I had a box of matches, and if I’d lit one there would have been a huge explosion and fire.’
‘Do you remember that?’
‘No. It’s what Christos told me happened. He said I was delusional, hallucinating.’
‘I thought you said he was at work that night?’
‘Apparently I called him when he was still on his way in, saying I was going to burn down the flat, and he came back.’
‘Can you recall the book you were reading in bed?’
‘Yes. Wolf Hall.’
Aimi frowned. ‘Anything else?’
‘It’s a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry —’
‘No, about that night.’
‘Next thing, I was in hospital. Again. Heavily sedated. What’s your name? What year is it? Count backwards by sevens.’
‘At the time …’ Aimi opened a file on her computer and read the notes, ‘you’d decided to start confronting your repressed memories with your previous psychiatrist. Hypnotherapy.’ She shook her head and tutted. ‘An … interesting … approach for someone with a trauma history.’
Sidney remembered how upset Christos had been when she’d told him about that. He’d made a fuss about ‘dodgy shrinks and false memories’. Lucky she’d mentioned it so he could cancel her appointments and find her a new psych.
‘Do you think that might have had something to do with the episode?’
She shrugged, having lost the thread of Aimi’s questioning.
‘Have you been hearing voices?’
‘No.’
Aimi looked at her for too long.
She blurted, ‘But I did make up one part of ALL THAT I REMEMBER ABOUT DEAN COLA,’ and instantly regretted it.
‘The first part, at the river?’
How did she know? ‘Yes.’
‘So you did go to Sandro D’Angelo’s party.’
Aimi should have known that she never talked about that.
‘Do you remember?’
Funny how Do you remember and Don’t you remember mean the same thing. Like flammable and inflammable.
Aimi opened her mouth to say something else. Sidney stood up and said she’d had enough for today and wanted to go home.
THE FACES of the office workers weren’t exactly white; they were closer to yellow. Was the Bank of New South Wales, in the background, still in Collins Street or had it been turned into a glass tower? Sidney couldn’t remember seeing it. Had the mad truck driver sped past it? She sat on a chair in the art gallery, laptop open, staring at the John Brack painting. The canvas was bigger than she had imagined, having only ever seen a photograph of it in her Handbook of Art.
A group of tourists swarmed into the room, taking photographs. A school group dragged their feet through, the guide reminding them not to touch the artworks. Giggles and footsteps echoed.
Sidney closed her laptop, stood, and walked up close to the painting. She noticed a circular smudge on one of the buildings’ arched windows. Was it a light from within or a reflection from outside? A black-clad gallery attendant sauntered over, and Sidney took a step back.
‘Dreadful what happened there,’ said the gallery attendant. ‘Collins Street.’
He was standing too close to her.
‘I used to paint when I was young. A similar style to that,’ he said.
She sidestepped slightly.
‘Gave it away because I got too busy. Family. Lost the passion.’ He sighed, and told her that the facade of the Bank of New South Wales had been gifted to the University of Melbourne. He pointed out another Brack painting — The Bar — in which the office workers from Collins St, 5 pm were sculling beers behind a yellow-faced barmaid. So that was where they were trudging to after work. The days of early closing, the six o’clock swill.
‘It reminds me of something,’ Sidney said.
‘It’s a nod to Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.’
The gallery attendant moved on to share his life story with an older couple gazing at a John Perceval.
Sidney took another chair and opened her laptop again.
ALL THAT I REMEMBER ABOUT DEAN COLA CONT.
You must have moved away, gone to uni. I dropped out of school and became a barmaid. It was 1991 when I saw you again. I was 18 and you would have been 23, maybe 24. I was working at the pub that used to be Jay Jays.
Christos was there; we were going out together then. He was in the bistro, waiting for me to knock off so we could have a counter meal together. We were celebrating something. Our engagement? Or had he found out he’d been accepted by the MFB? He pinched my bum as I collected glasses and wiped tables. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure my manager wasn’t watching, and flicked Christos with a tea towel before heading back behind the bar.
You were with a mate, standing at the front — Heathcliff returned to Wuthering Heights. It was the first time I’d seen you since Sandro D’Angelo’s party. My heart stopped for a beat or two and I couldn’t look away. You leaned on the bar and asked if I remembered you. I tilted my head and, savouring the moment, pretended that I didn’t. You reached across and gripped my arm. I glanced back at the bistro, but Christos was engrossed in the menu. Your grip tightened. I had to use force to snatch my arm away. Your eyes were shiny; you’d had a skinful already, somewhere else. You reached for me again, and your mate pulled you back, telling you to settle down. I was ashamed that I wanted to kiss you, but I shook my head, hating you and feigning indignation while my pulse rocketed and my face burned. My manager appeared and asked if everything was all right. I nodded and poured the beers with trembling hands.
Time flaws the perspective of memories like the skewed angles of the mirror in A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. In the reflection, the barmaid (I think her name was Suzanne — I must have read that in the Handbook of Art) leans forward, friendly with the shadowy, top-hatted customer, but in ‘reality’ she is standing straight, hands firmly on the counter, ambivalent to his attention. In ‘reality’ — if the mirror were parallel to the plane of the painting — it was impossible for the man to even be there. Which is real: ‘reality’ or the reflection? Suzanne’s eyes are far away — she’s somewhere else, not behind the bar, nor in the reflection. Inside the locket on the ribbon around her neck — a token of another life? — perhaps there is a love lost or far away. From the grand balcony of the Folies-Bergère, reflected impossibly behind Suzanne, a woman looks through opera glasses at something beyond the frame.
Near the gallery exit, there was an installation in a room with kaleidoscope wallpaper. Spread across a table was a miniature landscape of mountains, valleys, and pathways constructed from foam, glitter, and pompoms, topped with coloured sugar and cake decorations. Sidney looked closer at the strange sculpture and saw little crystal forests and fluorescent Dr Seuss-esque flowers and animals. Her mouth watered with childhood memories of fairy bread and jelly crystals. Fruit Tingles. The sign said: Do not touch the installation. But she couldn’t resist. She glanced over her shoulder — no attendants in sight — reached out and crumbled off a piece. It tasted sweet, but stale and artificial. Hard to swallow, like a shard of illusion.
‘DOWN, DOWN, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. “Dinner —”’
‘Dinah,’ said Sidney, correcting Aubrey.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t keep apologising.’
‘OK. Sorry. “Dinah’ll miss me very much tonight, I should think!” (Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember her …” What’s this word?’
‘Saucer.’
‘“… her saucer of milk at teatime. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know.” This doesn’t make sense.’
‘Keep going.’
‘“But do cats eat bats, I w…”’
‘Wonder.’
Aubrey slapped her forehead. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t do anything.’
‘Yes, you can. You’re far more intelligent than most adults I know.’
She slumped back on the sofa, sighing a sigh too heavy for a child. ‘This is a book for little kids.’
‘That’s not true either. It’s one of my favourites, even now. I’ve read it so many times, I know it almost by heart, but every time I notice something new.’
Aubrey looked out the big living-room window. A woman, holding a daisy-patterned parasol, walked a fluffy white dog past.
‘It’s good for reading practice — lots of made-up words you can’t just guess. Dr Seuss is good too.’
‘My mum says Dr Seuss is bad for learning.’
‘Just keep going.’
Aubrey turned back to the gilt-edged pages, and struggled through chapter one.
‘We might need to think of some mnemonics.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Little tricks to help you remember hard words.’ Sidney took the brown-leather book from her. ‘We can have a go at that next time. How about I read for a bit now?’
Aubrey tucked her legs under her and moved closer. Sidney steeled herself for the sensation of cold worms in dirt, but there was only warmth and the smell of green apple.
‘Alice took up the fan and gloves, and as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!”’ Sidney looked up; Aubrey was cuddling a cushion and smiling as though she’d never been read to before.
‘“I’m sure I’m not Ada, for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she’s she, and I’m I and …”’ Sidney frowned, and stopped reading.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Just a little headache.’ She rubbed her temple. ‘Why don’t you finish this chapter at home?’ She marked the page with the bound-in satin ribbon, closed the book, and placed it on the coffee table.
‘Was Lewis Carroll on drugs?’ Aubrey said.
‘I don’t think he could have written such an intricately woven story while on drugs, do you?’
Aubrey shrugged.
‘The Alice books seem mad and random, but they’re not. Through the Looking Glass is based on the moves of a chess game. Do you have a copy of Wonderland at home?’
‘No.’
Sidney walked across to the bookshelf and selected an orange-and-white Penguin Classics edition. ‘Maybe you could borrow a talking book from the library and listen while you read.’
‘Mum says talking books are cheating.’
Sidney sighed inwardly. A cyclist in lizard-green lycra pedalled past, heading towards the velodrome.
‘Did you write this?’ Aubrey said, looking inside the old book. ‘To dear A. With love from S.’
Sidney smiled; she’d forgotten all about that. Loud knocking on the door made her jump.
Aubrey’s mother — sneakers, navy pencil skirt, white blouse, high heels poking out of a satchel handbag, crossed arms. ‘Aubrey here?’
‘Hi, I’m Sidney.’
‘Sarah.’
Sidney held out her hand and shook Sarah’s before she had time to recoil. Cold worms in dirt.
Aubrey rushed to Sidney’s side. ‘I thought you were working late.’
‘Not tonight,’ Sarah said with a smile that made no attempt to reach her blue-green eyes. The mask of weariness on her still-youthful face reminded Sidney of Faye.
‘Sidney was just helping me with my homework.’
‘Dinner’s ready.’
‘Don’t forget the book, Aubrey.’ Sidney left the Penguin on the table and handed Aubrey the collector’s edition instead.
SIDNEY AND Dee shared a slice of revolving door, and Dave followed. It was hot out, but an eerie amber light shrouded Collins Street. Rubbish danced along the gutters; trams churned up dust.
‘My Spidey senses detect a storm in the air,’ Dave said.
Sidney and Dee rolled their eyes at him. A gust of wind lifted Sidney’s dress like Marilyn Monroe’s. They laughed and walked faster. They stopped smiling when some flowers and a pink teddy bear from the memorial were blown along the street into the path of traffic.
The pub was dimly lit with shaded lamps and tea-light candles in jars. Sidney and Dee rubbed dirt from their eyes and chose a chesterfield sofa near the big front window, while Dave went up to the bar, smoothing his thinning cockatoo’s crest of hair.
A group of middle-aged men, in dark trousers and business shirts with sleeves rolled up, were drinking in the corner. They were all a little overweight, solid at least. Sidney gazed at their red arms and little bald spots on the backs of their heads.
Is that what you would look like now, Dean Cola? I picture you more in blue jeans and a T-shirt. You come to me at odd times throughout my days. In the supermarket, the tinned fruit and dairy products from back home remind me of you. Mr D’s Cola was in there the other day — I thought they’d stopped making that. Music summons you too — not just the oldies, but Aubrey’s Taylor Swift, and other new songs I hear in taxis. I see your colours in the waft of aromatherapy at the chemist. If I think about you hard enough while Christos is fucking me, I feel a shameful ripple of desire. I transpose your face and mine onto the happy couple in the TV ad for the Spirit of Tasmania ferry.
Dave carried over three glasses and a bottle of sparkling wine.
Sidney shook her head. ‘I said “mineral water”.’
Dave sat down and poured the bubbles.
‘Just half a glass for me,’ Dee said. ‘I have to drive.’
Sidney thought about texting Christos, let him know she’d be home a little late. In a minute. ‘So, what really happened to Lester?’
‘He requested a pay rise. Not much, just the Society of Editors’ recommended rate. And not only for him, for all of us.’ Dee sipped her bubbles. ‘In a nutshell, the powers that be said “No”, so he walked.’
‘And Her Majesty?’
‘Started two weeks after Lester left. And a few days later, Myffy,’ Dee narrowed her eyes, ‘Ros’s friend, started.’
‘Looks like they’ve been keeping the whiches in their place,’ Sidney said.
Dee frowned and Dave tilted his head.
‘Within parentheses.’
Dee and Dave laughed.
‘You’re a funny girl, Sidney Loukas,’ Dee said. ‘We missed you.’
Funny was not an adjective typically attributed to Sidney Loukas, not in a comical sense anyway.
‘Dave’s thinking of leaving too,’ Dee said.
Dave nodded and swallowed a big mouthful of bubbles.
‘He’s got Brian, though. Unfortunately, all I’ve got is —’ Ring, Ring … Abba’s song — Dee’s ringtone. ‘Yes … OK … On my way.’ She hung up and apologised — she’d been summoned to collect her granddaughter from after-school care. She kissed Dave’s cheek and blew a kiss to Sidney as she left.
Tall buildings blocked out the sky, but lightning illuminated the street.
‘I thought about you when Brian and I were in Tasmania last month,’ Dave said.
Sidney’s heart skip-thumped.
‘There was a stall selling bonsai at the Salamanca Market.’
A crack of thunder made her jump. The wine ran to the rim of her tilted glass, splashed up, but she miraculously caught it before it spilled. She and Dave laughed.
‘Apparently, that moss is quite dangerous,’ Dave said.
‘Sphagnum? Only if you get the fungal spores in your skin or inhale them.’
When Dave went to the bathroom, Sidney lifted her hands and arms a little, testing them: the right weight. She looked around: wooden floor, tables, and wall panels, all Christos-coloured. Shelves filled with leather-bound books, gilt-framed paintings of fox hunts — reds, greens, and golds, all within their outlines. All normal.
She poured some of her wine into Dave’s glass, and checked her phone. A text from Christos. She should reply. Soon.
Punters blustered in, rubbing their hands together, enlivened by the weather, chatty with strangers. A man with cold-blue eyes, like a husky-dog, smiled at her. He reminded her of somebody, and she returned his smile before realising he looked like Gareth Maher from back home. She shuddered and looked away, out the window.
The first fat raindrops hit the glass like cat paw prints, and then zigzagged down through the dust.
The street went dark as winter. The raindrops turned into a ferocious downpour. Elegant Melburnians became monsters scurrying in all directions, their hair and suits messed up, umbrellas blown inside out. A sandwich board cartwheeled past.
Sidney turned from the window when Dave came back frowning, phone in hand, saying he had to leave too. Brian had locked himself out of their house and couldn’t find the spare key. He sculled his wine.
All That I Remember About Dean Cola Page 6