All That I Remember About Dean Cola

by Tania Chandler

  Outside, Mum and Stella were dancing in the rain with their tops and bras off.

  ‘Sid!’ Mum yelled as I stepped through the back door. Her hair hung in dripping wet tendrils. ‘The drought’s broken.’

  It was still hot, but the rain was cold. I thought about the beads at Cola Hardware. Am I going mad? I cried and couldn’t stop, and nobody noticed.

  SATURDAY 4 MARCH 1989

  Everybody knows about me & Christos. He keeps ringing & I keep getting Mum to tell him I’m not home. I did speak to him once & he asked if I wanted to see Noiseworks at The Exchange with him tonight. I really wanted to see that band, but I don’t now. Not with Christos (I told him I wasn’t allowed out). Not with Petra’s scratch across my cheek. I’ll be spending my Saturday night with Catsby watching me sew buttons back onto my school uniform. I love how I can see static-electricity rainbows in Catsby’s fur. I think he can see them too, & other stuff, & hear the voices. Cats are attuned to otherworldly things. He makes me feel calm & not so depressed. We are soul mates.

  Mum, Auntie Stella, Nan & Pop are having tea at the golf club. I didn’t want to go.

  Glad I’m staying home tonight. Won’t have to see Christos, won’t see Dean, won’t get drunk, won’t get on with anybody & then regret it, won’t hurt my best friend. Won’t cry myself to sleep & won’t have a headache tomorrow.

  We’ve moved on from haikus at school. I get the sonnet, but I’m still struggling with the sestina & villanelle forms. I find it so hard to fit my poems into the patterns; it feels like caging my words, trying to put a fence around them. Guess I’ll never be a poet.

  SUNDAY 5 MARCH 1989

  I dreamt that I was at Jay Jays looking for Dean. When I found him, he turned into somebody else. I’ve been having this dream a lot lately, where I finally get Dean, but then he’s a guy I don’t want — usually Christos. I can’t think of a way to describe the ache, the pain on waking from these dreams. Visceral? Substantial — I do love that word. Guess I’ll never be a writer either.

  I have a headache even though I didn’t drink last night. Period too. Petra hates me. Kim has gone away for the weekend. Mum, Auntie Stella, Nan & Pop have gone up to the pokies. I’m breaking my diet — sitting in bed eating grilled cheese on toast, all bubbly, burnt & bursting. Lucky I have Catsby to keep me company. I love him so much.

  Mum, Auntie Stella, Nan & Pop won on the pokies, so I got 50 bucks. They’re home now — playing pool & drinking. I’m sitting in my room, reading.

  More partying at Gatsby’s. Gatsby took Nick Carraway out for lunch in his gorgeous cream car & caramel-coloured suit, & spilled his life story. I think he’s lying. There’s something sinister about him, & it annoys me how he calls everybody ‘old sport’. Still not great.

  TUESDAY 7 MARCH 1989

  Mrs Froggett rang Mum at work. Froggy said she was concerned about my recent behaviour i.e. the fight with Petra. & very concerned about a short story I’d written for English. Froggy said I had described symptoms of schizophrenia in my story. Mum said she told Froggy that was ridiculous. The problem was (she had to tell Froggy, Mum said; if she hadn’t it might have made things worse) what I’d been getting up to — going out at night, hanging around with an older crowd, boys. I’m really angry with Mum for playing the poor-single-mother-of-out-of-control-daughter card. & now I have to see a fucking psychologist. I bet this is payback from Boil Head because I complained to Mr Haigh about my mark.

  I remembered a rumour about Froggy’s niece being in a mental hospital, so I thought she might have known what she was talking about, & I looked up ‘schizophrenia’ in the medical dictionary at the library. It said something like: “A mental disorder that causes loss of contact with reality, deterioration of everyday functioning & disintegration of personality”. I definitely don’t have that.

  THE PSYCHOLOGIST’S room was at the general-practice clinic in town. It must have been his part-time gig — there were only a few psychology books on the shelf, but lots of medical equipment: disposable gloves, tongue scrapers, a blood-pressure monitor. The bright red-and-blue Lub Dub Goes the Heart anatomy poster on the wall above the examination table made my own heart go too fast. The psychologist invited me to take the chair beside his desk. Mum hovered at the door, and he asked her to leave.

  ‘Why do you think you’ve been sent along today, Sidney?’

  I was staring at the bright-red aorta and had to ask him to repeat his question. Pay attention, Sid, or you’ll end up in an asylum like Esther, and Froggy’s niece. ‘The GP referred me because a fill-in teacher thought my story was weird.’

  He nodded and smoothed his dyed-brown comb-over. ‘You did describe some weird things. Your narrator stepped outside of herself, heard voices, and could see time stretching.’

  I smiled. ‘That’s just my imagination.’

  ‘And then everything turned grey. Do you feel grey sometimes?’ His shirt needed an iron.

  ‘I wonder what a psychologist would have asked Lewis Carroll.’

  He picked up a pen and opened a notebook. ‘How’s school going?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  ‘Good grades?’

  ‘I usually get A’s, except for that essay.’

  ‘Does that bother you?’

  Lub dub goes the heart. ‘Yes.’

  He wrote something in his notebook. ‘Make you angry?’

  ‘I didn’t start the fight at school.’

  He looked up. ‘Was it over a boy?’

  ‘No. Well, yes.’

  He nodded. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Bet you have a few?’

  I didn’t like the way he smiled, and I ignored his question.

  He cleared his throat. ‘How are things at home?’

  I pulled my sweater sleeves down over my knuckles. ‘OK.’

  ‘Is it hard not having a dad around?’

  ‘Mum and I are fine.’

  ‘You two must be very close.’

  Lub dub goes the heart.

  ‘And how have you been feeling emotionally? Happy? Sad?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Can you rate your mood out of ten, where ten is really happy, and one is as low as you could imagine being?’

  I wanted to get away from that heart so I said, ‘Nine.’

  ‘Nine? OK. What kinds of things are you interested in?’

  ‘Reading, writing, my new kitten.’

  ‘Play any sport?’

  ‘I run, and do aerobics.’

  ‘So you have lots of energy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How about sleeping? Is that the same as usual?’

  ‘I’ve been having a bit of trouble sleeping lately.’

  ‘Staying up late?’

  I nodded. He made more notes, and glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly lunchtime.

  ‘And how about your appetite?’

  ‘OK, I suppose.’

  ‘Has your weight changed recently? Clothes looser or tighter?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Do you think a lot about death or dying?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Have you been taking drugs or drinking alcohol?’

  ‘I’ve tried alcohol, but I don’t like the taste.’

  ‘Good.’ He selected a folder from a stack on the desk, and opened it to what I guessed was some kind of checklist. ‘Have you had any odd experiences recently?’

  The heart poster caught my attention again while I considered the question.

  ‘Maybe things that have happened to you that other people haven’t had happen to them?’

  I thought about the girl in the white dress, but that was just a dream. And I didn’t want to tell him about levitating.

  ‘Ever thought people were talking about you, or the T
V or radio was sending you messages?’

  I drew my eyes away from the blue right atrium and ventricle, and frowned.

  ‘These are just routine questions I ask everyone. Have you ever heard voices when no one was around?’

  I remembered the jolts and flashing blue lights of shock treatment in The Bell Jar — I didn’t want that, so I shook my head.

  ‘Ever heard your own voice out loud?’

  ‘What, like now while I’m speaking?’

  He smiled, closed his notebook, and, after a few more questions, picked up the phone receiver.

  Shit, he’s calling the asylum. Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub goes the heart.

  He asked the receptionist to send Mrs Madsen back in.

  Mum entered in poor-little-old-me mode, wringing her hands.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ the psychologist told her. ‘Sidney’s a very bright girl.’ He glanced at me. ‘Perhaps a little too bright.’

  I widened my eyes.

  ‘I’ll be writing a report, of course, but I can tell you now that I don’t think she has any psychiatric problems.’

  Mum smiled, relieved. Her smile turned upside down when the psychologist handed her a booklet on parenting.

  The nature strip out front of the GP clinic was dead, but the street was shaded with leafy-green elms. Mum and I walked to the Fairlane without speaking.

  Mum climbed into the driver’s side and stretched across to pull up the button on my door. She tossed the parenting booklet into the console and lit a cigarette. ‘What did you tell him?’

  Lub dub goes the heart. ‘Nothing. Just answered a bunch of routine questions. Bet he gives a copy of that booklet to everybody.’

  ‘Do you want to go back to school?’ she said as we buckled our seatbelts.

  ‘No. Can you please take me home?’

  ‘I can’t stay with you. I have to go back to work.’

  ‘You heard Sigmund — there’s nothing wrong with me.’

  She checked the mirrors, indicated, and pulled out into the street. ‘Have you got some homework to do?’

  ‘Yep. An art project.’

  She did a U-turn, and headed towards Broken River Road.

  I yawned, drowsy, dreamy, from the afternoon heat, as I cut out a death notice from The Adviser, and added it to my shoebox collection of death and funeral notices. Catsby circled my ankles. I had enough clippings now to start my collage. The flour-and-water glue I’d prepared in a mug was still warm; its texture was sexy, somehow, like the white stuff often on my undies. I shifted in my chair, and reached down to feel between my legs — yes, there it was again. Was it normal? My fingers lingered, slid inside. Ashamed, I quickly withdrew them, wiped the stickiness away with a tissue, and tossed it into the bin under my desk.

  I dipped an old paintbrush into the glue, and coated it onto the back of a death notice. I stuck it inside the outline of a gothic house, which I’d copied from a picture of the mansion in Psycho.

  My stomach growled, but I was denying it food, compensating for missing aerobics.

  ‘Aah–aah! Aah–aah! Harelip! Harelip!’ called Elton and Liberace. Barky barked.

  I ran out of glue halfway through my death-house project. On my way to make more in the kitchen, Catsby stalked and attacked my feet. He almost made me stand on a crack in the foyer.

  While the kettle boiled, I looked at the packet of shortbread biscuits in the cupboard, and then closed the door. I looked at the vanilla ice-cream slices next to my towel in the chest freezer, and then closed the lid. And opened it again. ‘Maybe just one?’ I said to Catsby.

  I lifted out the box of ice creams, unwrapped one, and placed it on the chopping board. My mouth watered. I sprinkled the ice-cream slice with hundreds and thousands, and sandwiched it between two shortbreads.

  Lub dub goes the heart. I couldn’t stop at one. I had another. And then another. The whole packet. I caught my reflection in the window — gorging like a wild animal, making a mess on the kitchen bench and floor of melting ice cream, hundreds and thousands, and biscuit crumbs.

  I ran to the bathroom, fell to my knees in front of the toilet, and vomited. The hundreds and thousands swirled through the bubbling ice cream, pretty like confetti on snow.

 

  ‘Who’s there?’ I scrambled to reach up for the toilet button to flush. ‘Mum?’

  There was nobody.

  I vomited again, and lay down on the floor, resting my face on the brick hearth in front of the chip heater. I could see a square of black rubber levelling the right side of the washing machine.

  Catsby stank up the bathroom with a shit in his litter tray. He kicked kitty litter everywhere, and then strolled out with his tail pointing towards the ceiling.

  Barky coming in and starting to eat Catsby’s shit drove me to my feet. I yelled at him to get out, cleaned up Catsby’s mess, and returned to the kitchen to clean up my own mess. Catsby was licking melted ice cream off the floor.

  FRIDAY 10 MARCH 1989

  I hope my ekphrasis assignment doesn’t get me sent back to the psychologist. We had to choose a painting from the ‘Handbook of Art’ & write a commentary about it. I chose Edouard Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergere’. The ‘Handbook of Art’ doesn’t say anything interesting really about the painting — the invention of the camera had a big impact on artists, but not on Manet, who was interested in pattern, light, colour & texture, which went beyond the realm of photography blah, blah, blah. “The solitary dejected looking attendant & the happy scene in front of her are reflected in the wall mirror that extends across the full width of the picture” (p109, ‘Handbook of Art’, Graham Hopwood). Manet’s model for the barmaid was a woman called Suzon (another book at the library says she was a prostitute). She has the same amber-coloured eyes as me. I don’t think she looks ‘dejected’; I think she’s clever, & distracted, far away, thinking about somebody, the one she loves — why isn’t he there instead of the shadowy guy in the top hat she’s talking to? The more I look at the picture of the painting, the more things don’t seem to be where they should be. The bottles on the bar are different in the mirror. The gold frame of the mirror is lower on the right side behind Suzon — there’s no way the two parts could join up. In the mirror, Suzon leans forward, talking to the shadow-guy, but in ‘reality’ she stands straight, leaning on the bar. The guy isn’t even on ‘our’ side of the bar. Which is real: the reflection in the mirror or the ‘reality’? Was Manet mad or a genius?

  My ekphrasis piece is a collage poem — descriptions of the painting blended with words taken from Leonard Cohen’s poem ‘Suzanne Takes You Down’ with the name changed to ‘Suzon’. I’m worried because it says Suzon was half-crazy, but it’s too late now — I’ve already handed it in.

  Speaking of reality & illusion: In ‘The Great Gatsby’, Gatsby & Daisy were reunited. Daisy cried when Gatsby showed her his shirts — I think she’s half-crazy too. At one stage Gatsby broke a clock. That’s got to be a metaphor for something. Trying to stop time? Getting the past back? I wish I could get the past back. I would do more to make Dean want me, somehow. & I would never, ever go near Christos.

  We can’t recover the past. Reality can never live up to the illusion of the memories we create.

  FRIDAY SATURDAY 11 MARCH 1989

  I was wrong. Reality can be better than the illusion of the past! Everything is amazing. I’ve never been happier in my life.

  Kim & I went to Jay Jays tonight last night, but it was dead. We wanted to go to The Exchange, but didn’t have enough money for a taxi, so Kim chatted up this guy called Tony, & he drove us there. Tony paid for us to get in.

  The Exchange is up a long, steep staircase. There was some sort of light-projector casting multi-coloured stars on the stairs: a galaxy of red, purple, yellow & green.

  Mahersy was there, so Kim went off with him, & left
me with Tony. Groffy, from the radio, was DJ-ing up on stage! It was ‘retro hour’ — songs from the 60s & 70s, & he was taking requests. I was dancing with Tony to ‘American Pie’ (I hate that song) when I saw Dean Cola walking through the crowd. He went up to the stage & said something in Groffy’s ear. I just left poor Tony standing there when Dean took my hand. I felt like such a bitch — well, I didn’t at the time, but I do now. Tony’s from Melbourne, so I guess I’ll never see him again anyway. ‘This song’s for Sizzle,’ Groffy said. I play-punched Dean’s shoulder. I couldn’t believe it: it was the poem ‘Suzanne Takes You Down’ — it’s also a song called ‘Suzanne’. Why would Dean choose that? So weird. Definitely a sign. Dean knew all the words, & he sang them to me (exchanging ‘Suzanne’ for ‘Sizzle’ — so silly) as we danced. Groffy cut it short when everybody else left the dance floor because the song was too slow.

  I got on with Dean & everything was wonderful, just like it was on New Year’s Eve. But he’d had too much to drink & he spewed up everywhere. The bouncers threw him out. I helped him down the staircase — it seemed as though there were more stairs than when Kim & I had come in. & stars. Star-lit stairs. Dean missed one & we both almost fell down the Milky Way.

  He said he’d just broken his parents’ hearts by telling them he wasn’t going to take over the business — he’d been offered a Bachelor of Science midyear intake place at Melbourne Uni. That’s why he was so drunk. He spewed up again in the green-&-white ivy in the garden out front. I rubbed his back & told him that his parents would be proud of him for getting into uni. I loved him again/still, & tried to help him sober up by walking with him up & down the street.

  When he felt better, I made him sit down in the ivy (Hedera helix — he knew the botanical name of the ivy, & of all the other plants) while I called Mum from the phone box across the road. I told her I’d lost my taxi money & needed a lift. She was too drunk to drive, so she sent Pop to pick me up. By the look of him he was only slightly more sober. We drove Dean home. I sat in the back seat with him, & he raved on about escaping the town, achieving something worthwhile, not settling for mediocrity like everybody else. Then he started singing & trying to kiss me & saying he loved me. & Pop was singing too & laughing & asking Dean about football & calling him ‘big fella’. I pictured Pop & Frank Cola bantering over Christmas lunch at the Colas’ house. What do Italians do for Christmas? It would have to be better than ours, where everybody gets drunk & argumentative before midday. Last year The year before last Pop fell off the pool table, on which he was dancing, & broke his big toe.