All That I Remember About Dean Cola

by Tania Chandler

  ‘I’ll come back tomorrow night after work.’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘Thursday.’ Please just hurry up and fucking go.

  ‘Wednesday.’

  A fly was dying on the sill, kicking, spinning, spinning. She filled the sink, and found in the cupboard a pair of rubber gloves, a sticky bottle of dishwashing liquid, and a stiff sponge. Christos took off his shirt — underneath he was wearing a muscle T-shirt that looked too big for him — and started fussing around, picking up laundry and wiping surfaces.

  Three hours later — after he’d made a trip into town for food, cleaning products, and bottled water; and prepared pasta and sauce for Sidney’s dinner — Christos finally drove away. She’d wanted desperately to know if Cola Hardware was still in town, but couldn’t have asked.

  Once the Volvo had disappeared in a cloud of yellow dust, Sidney walked back through the house. Christos had left his shirt hanging over the back of a kitchen chair; his brown scent lingered.

  In the ‘new’ dining room, one chair faced the window. You could see the highway from there, watch the trucks zooming by. An old-fashioned record player sat on a shelf. A record had been left on the turntable, the needle trapped in the penultimate track. She turned on the power, and a tinny voice crooned: Mama hated diesels so bad, guess I knew it had somethin’ to do with Dad …

  In the ‘new’ lounge room, six billiard balls — three bigs, a small, the eight ball, and the white — lay on the pool table’s felt top, as if waiting for some long-ago game to resume. The sofa had taken on the colour of the road dust. So had the homemade curtains with loose threads dangling from the unhemmed bottoms.

  She held her breath at the frosted-glass doors etched with palm trees that led to the ‘old’ part of the house: the section that had survived the fire.

  The foyer was not as large as it was in her memory. Five steps across, don’t stand on the tile cracks. Touch the door handle ten times. Every time, or get cancer and die like Uncle Colin.

  In the spare room where Auntie Stella used to sleep over, which had become Nan and Pop’s room, a floral quilt lay smooth across the bed. On Nan’s old bedside table sat a lamp, an atomiser of evaporated Dioressence, a silver crucifix on a chain, and a glass bowl of dusty knick-knacks. Nothing touched, by the look of it, since Nan had died from a heart attack in the mid-nineties while vacuuming. Pop had died not long after, run over crossing the road outside the golf club. There was nothing on his side of the bed.

  In Faye’s bedroom, the wood grain in the birch wardrobe looked like faces: humans’, tigers’, Munch’s The Scream. The faces watched Sidney. As did the framed photograph on the dressing table — a cute teenage Faye in a debutante-ball dress. Sidney couldn’t remember having seen that photo before. Had it been taken before or after trucker Billy? Was Sidney already in there somewhere? In the frame next to Faye was a kindergarten-aged Sidney — the photographer had hand-tinted her alien-coloured eyes blue.

  The bathroom’s old chip heater had been replaced with an electric hot-water service. The rusty bathroom cabinet contained Valium, Lexapro antidepressants, Temazepam sleeping tablets, Panadol, no-brand toiletries, and loose cotton tips.

  Finally: Sidney’s old bedroom. She hugged herself as she entered. Still black. Books everywhere. An easel held a badly painted landscape — a mess of yellow ochre and scarlet lake blobbed on a Prussian-green stretch of water. She frowned, recognising the scene — her special place by the river: the little ‘beach’, a sandbank just after the bend — but unable to recall painting it. There was a long dark smudge in the foreground, right of centre, with footsteps behind it in the sand. She tilted the painting forward, revealing a haunted-house-shaped collage composed of death notices clipped from newspapers. She smiled, remembering how that piece had freaked out her Year 10 art teacher. She brought it to the front, covering up the bad painting.

  Under the window stood the wonky desk where she’d hunched, writing her stories and poems, writing her way out of there.

  Why had Faye left everything untouched, exactly as Sidney had walked out on when she was eighteen? In the cheval mirror, she saw her past self, wearing the red dress. She touched the glass and whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

 

  Voices had felt different since she’d arrived here, hostile — shadowy, thick like grease, sliding around inside her head. She turned from the mirror and crossed to the cupboard where the monsters had lived. Her heart pounded as she reached for the handle.

 

  ‘Aah–aah! Hell–p!’ the peacock screamed. Sidney jumped, her hand jerking from the handle as if from an electric shock. When she’d caught her breath and her heartbeat quietened, she heard the album finish playing in the dining room. The arm didn’t lift; the record kept spinning, spinning, crackling.

  She tried the cupboard again, slid open the door. No monsters. Unless you counted what was inside the Pac King box. Dean Cola lives in there.

  SIDNEY KEPT Voices quiet with Aubrey’s Taylor Swift playlist loud on her phone while she cleaned, avoiding the box in the monsters’ cupboard. She had opened all the windows and a dry breeze played in the curtains.

  When she was satisfied the house was as tidy as she could make it, she piled rubbish and useless items in the yard, ready for a bonfire tonight. Late-afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees.

  From the kitchen chair, she took Christos’s shirt to pack in her suitcase. Something fell out of the pocket. A piece of paper that looked as though it had been through the wash but was still intact. She unfolded it carefully. The words were smudged; the scraggly fringe was compacted, hard. She stared at The Poem, disbelieving, for a minute or so, before refolding and placing it in her own pocket. She tossed Christos’s shirt on the floor, took a bottle of water, and marched outside, through the yard and into the paddock.

  The neighbouring dairy farm looked as though it had been abandoned. The milking shed was more rust than steel; the old water tank lay on its side.

  The air was faded gold with an outer layer of pale green, like copper exposed to the elements. Eucalyptus and dust. Crickets clicked inside cracks of the dry earth. A willie wagtail flew out of a bush, startling her.

  Shadows grew longer as she walked the boundary. The fence wire was lifted and broken in places along the driveway, the posts rotting. The hum of traffic from the highway was constant — much busier than when she’d lived here.

  Voices rustled, murmured, conspired. Not just one or two, but many now — surrounding her, preparing to attack. ‘Go away or I’ll tell Aimi!’ She smacked her forehead.

  As she turned west at the dam in the top corner, a lone vehicle — a pick-up truck — turned off the highway and drove along Broken River Road, headlights flicking on. It did a three-point turn and went back when it reached her driveway, the end of the road, lost.

  There were a few more holes in the fence up here. There were also holes in the air the shape of horror-movie-werewolf scratches. If you reached through, you might touch another reality. She ignored the holes and thought about how much it might cost to have the property re-fenced. And the house painted — inside and out. Maybe a new water tank? The gutters probably needed clearing, but the roof wasn’t that bad.

  Picking up a long stick and dragging it behind her, she started to picture the house with different furniture: antiques as well as a few simple, modern lines; the carpet pulled up, polished boards, rugs; a few Swedish appliances alongside rustic touches. Garlic, chillies, and dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. Artwork on the walls — she’d contact the gallery, in Paris or London or wherever it was, that held A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, ask if she could order a reproduction. The beautiful colours of aromatherapy oils vaporising through the house. Nothing brown. She felt her pocket; The Poem crackled, safe, but she’d left her phone at the house.

  A fl
ock of cockatoos screeched overhead. She held out her arms, imagining what it would feel like to fly. Free. Tangerine clouds led the way to the river. There were some patches of green grass closer to the water. She kicked a drift of mushrooms and they scattered like confetti. You could be self-sufficient out here: a veggie garden, some chooks for eggs. You could even hunt rabbits. A pity Faye had made Pop sell his rifle after he’d shot Barky. Sidney remembered the thick, gamey ‘bunny stew’ Nan used to make with the rabbits Pop had caught. Sidney could learn to make that, buy a new gun. More realistically, she could get her car licence and drive to town for supplies.

  She could pick up some freelance editing jobs. Write the novel. The memoir. Whatever. If the internet connection was too dodgy, she’d go to the library in town to work.

 

  Shut up!

  A few head of cattle or sheep would keep the grass down. Or a horse. Aubrey could visit on the weekends, and they’d go riding. Two horses. Voices quietened for a moment and a very clear thought occurred to her: she would adopt Aubrey!

  What happens if you stop torturing the bonsai? Would they remain dwarfed, too damaged to reach their full potential if she planted them in the ground and stopped shaping them, controlling them? Or would they grow into the trees they were meant to be?

  She caught the first glimpse, between the trees, of the khaki-brown river, so calm and slow in the twilight you’d think you could control it. No hint of the snags beneath, or of its strength and the damage it could do.

  Leaves and bark like shed skin crunched under her sneakers as she walked to the edge of the eroded embankment. Loose earth crumbled and rolled down the almost-vertical drop, five or six metres. Willows and dying eucalypts reached from the bank towards the water. The trees that had fallen in were stripped naked-grey, their snarly roots exposed.

  Their pet cemetery was still down there. Beside the graves she remembered were crosses with faded inscriptions she could just make out for Barky, Glinda, several chooks, and a new-looking one for Elton.

  She looked for her special place but couldn’t see it. Perhaps her ‘little beach’ was further along or, most likely, washed away long ago. Some philosopher or other had said you could never walk in the same river twice; it’s never the same river and you’re never the same person.

  She felt cold suddenly, and as if somebody was watching her. She turned around. Just the trees.

 

  ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’ She stepped back from the edge and half-walked-half-ran in the opposite direction of the current. Ready now for what was inside the box.

  FROM HER bedroom, she could hear the new kitchen clock ticking as she stared defiantly at the box for a minute or two. You cannot hurt me now. I’m not the same person.

  She swivelled it around with her foot. ‘DO NOT OPEN’ was written in thick black marker-pen on the side. Not the same person. Not afraid anymore. There was dust or sand, something grainy, on the cupboard floor beneath the ‘DO NOT OPEN’ box; hairs or spider webs clung to the bottom as she lifted it out. She carried it from the monsters’ cupboard and set it down on her old double bed.

  Adrenaline somersaulted in her gut. Voices stirred. She flopped onto the desk chair and swivelled. Outside the window, leaves rustled. A truck rumbled, gearing down on the highway. Inside, the kitchen clock tick, tick, ticked.

 

  She ran her hands over the ‘DO NOT OPEN’ box.

 

  She slowly lifted one of the flaps just far enough so she could peek inside.

  When Sidney was six or seven, Faye and Auntie Stella had decided they wanted to see the ocean and had driven four hours to Queenscliff for a weekend. They bought Sidney a jar of raspberry lollies from the old-fashioned sweet shop in the town. The lollies tasted a little sour and a little sweet, and a lot like cough medicine. Sidney had gobbled them all, one after the other, unable to control herself even when their edges had cut her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Over time, in her memory, those lollies became the best things she’d ever tasted. Years later, when she and Christos had visited Queenscliff, she’d found that sweet shop again, and bought a jar of those raspberry lollies. She’d shoved them eagerly into her mouth, but they hadn’t tasted the same.

 

  She tore back the flaps on the ‘DO NOT OPEN’ box wildly, the way she’d unlidded the jar of raspberry lollies.

  Inside was a man’s denim jacket and, on top of it, the Chanel address book, two white Cs interlocking on the black quilted-leather cover. Her pulse quickened as she turned to D. Donna Doherty, Dom’s Cafe. No Dean Cola. She’d made him up, a hallucination — like Jesus in the door. Her mouth was dry; she looked around for her water bottle, must have left it in the kitchen.

  C. Kim Carmichael, Marie Caruso, Dean Cola (Coke). She laughed and swallowed tears, hiccupped, and wiped her eyes. He had existed!

  She traced a fingertip over the phone number that started with a two, remembering that sometime during the nineties the digits five and eight had been added to local number prefixes. What if she dialled the number, starting with five-eight? In her mind she heard a phone in an empty place ringing, ringing, echoing.

  Her hand went to her pocket. No phone. Again. Fuck. Christos would probably be on his way back now. She left the address book on the bed and hurried through the house looking for her phone.

  It was in the kitchen. Tick, tick, tick. She’d have to dismantle that fucking clock. Six messages and as many missed calls from Christos. She was about to call him, but he beat her to it.

  ‘Sid! What’s going on? Why haven’t you been answering your phone? I …’

  His voice was scratchy, garbled, dropping out. She stepped outside, where the reception was better.

  ‘… to drive back up there. Or get Mahersy to make a call-out.’

  ‘I just went for a walk, forgot to take my phone.’

  ‘Be careful walking around alone there — the river, snakes, spiders, and God knows what else.’

  ‘I’m a country girl, Chris, remember?’ As usual, he wasn’t listening.

  ‘You get onto the funeral place, and the Salvos?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And the real-estate agent?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Had your dinner? Sure you’re all right? You sound a bit funny.’

  ‘Phone reception’s bad here.’

  ‘Got the heater going?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Taken your tablets?’

  ‘Yes, Chris.’

  ‘Love you.’

  She touched The Poem in her pocket. ‘Goodnight.’

  Liberace cried, ‘Aah–aah! Hell–p!’

  It was cold. Her breath was a ghost in the air. She pocketed her phone and carried in an armful of firewood.

  Wind billowed the curtains. She closed all the windows, and got a fire going in the pot-belly stove.

  The address book was still in her room — not a hallucination — on the bed next to the ‘DO NOT OPEN’ box.

 

  She put on the man’s denim jacket and remembered a feeling she could neither hold nor give shape to, a full-body ache like when you have the flu or are in love. Was it her imagination, or did the jacket smell faintly of Fruit Tingles?

  She carried the box out to the lounge room, where it was warmer. Placing the box on the floor, she sat on a chair and leaned forward to fossick through the loose-leaf paper and notebooks filled with forgotten poems and stories. In the middle of the nest of paper, she found what she was looking for. The yellow spiral-bound notebook. Attached to it, with a crunchy rubber band, was an old audio cass
ette labelled ‘1991’. She removed the cassette, placed it aside on an arm of the chair. On the cover of the notebook was a Supergirl ‘S’ sticker, a coffee-cup stain, and a red love heart hand-drawn around S.M. 4 D.C. In the ruled box, in backwards-slanting handwriting, reaching towards circles instead of dots on i’s:

  Sidney Madsen

  Private diary

  1/1/89–23/11/89

  SUNDAY 1 JANUARY 1989

  Happy New Year!

  Last night I kissed a guy called Dean. Dean Cola. I think he’s Italian. His mates call him Coke (ha! I didn’t get it at first). He was at Jay Jays disco with Christos Loukas (the new CFA guy). Petra says she knows Dean, but I can’t remember having seen him around before. I was in his arms as the old year died & the new one was born.

  When the celebrations started winding down at Jay Jays, Dean & I went for a walk to the showgrounds to see if the New Year’s concert was still going.

  The concert was over. Dean called me Suzie (he’d misheard my name!). When I told him it was Sidney, he apologised & called me Sids (isn’t that a disease babies get?). I told him I didn’t like it, so he came up with Sizzle, which is even worse. I play-punched his shoulder, & he laughed & kissed me again up against the empty stage. There was a piece of white material or ribbon on the ground; a gust of wind picked it up & danced it in the air. We talked about books & music — he’s into Leonard Cohen & I pretended that I was too. He (Dean, not Leonard Cohen!) told me I smelled like heaven. From now on I will always wear the same blend of strawberry, vanilla & sandalwood perfume oils. He smelled of male, & citrus mixed with something sweet like fairy floss. He works at his family’s hardware shop, but he hates it here (we have so much in common!). He wants to move to Tasmania. From the way he described it — rough rivers, wild winters & summer snow — I want to go there too. He said he loved me & wished I could stay the night with him. I would have. I really would, but I had to be home by 2. I’ve never felt this way about any other guy before, never so deeply. It’s like I’ve known him forever.