All That I Remember About Dean Cola

by Tania Chandler

  They said I was in shock, and there was were probably drugs involved drugs were probably involved. I remember even less about my first few months in psychiatric care. I was initially diagnosed with depression. One doctor thought I had post-traumatic stress, but from what they couldn’t work out (I think Mum knew, but she didn’t tell them). Another, because I was delusional and hallucinating, said schizophrenia.

  At some stage, I fell into a catatonic state. Mum told me that the nurses bathed and fed me as I was unable to do anything for myself. I have no recollection of that time at all. I don’t remember the transition from consciousness to fetal position. My brain just shut down.

  In the end, the doctors suggested electroconvulsive therapy, and Mum consented. I have felt a lot of grief about the ECT, and that it was akin to an invasion of my soul. Is part of me missing? I have accepted now what was done to me — maybe it was the only thing that helped me get better, but maybe I would have healed without it. They give you a general anaesthetic before the ECT. No jolts and flashing blue lights like in ‘The Bell Jar’. Memory loss can be a side effect. Some patients say they have lost chunks of their long-term as well as short-term memory. Unfortunately, I have retained some memories that I wish had been fried.

  WEDNESDAY 15 NOVEMBER 1989

  I haven’t told anybody what happened at Sandro D’Angelo’s party (not even my psychologist). I pretended that the ECT made me forget. I thought I could repress it and eventually I really would forget. But it’s not that simple, and now I think I want to write about it. Writing has always helped in the past. If I get it all out on the page, perhaps then I can leave it behind, lock it in a box in my mind, never to be opened. OK, here goes …

  It took me a long time to decide what to wear to that party. I went with the red dress Mum made — the one I’d worn on New Year’s Eve. Sorry, I’m not ready to write this.

  THURSDAY 23 NOVEMBER 1989

  My psychologist suggested trying to write it a different way. Maybe in third person to distance myself. Or as a letter to the person I need to tell.

  Just get it out. It has to come out. Get the fucking thing over with.

  OK. It’s to Dean Cola.

  I deliberated for a long time over what to wear to Sandro D’Angelo’s party. Not jeans — too hard to get off (just in case). I settled on the red dress that Mum made — the one I’d worn on New Year’s Eve. I thought you’d say you remembered it, but you didn’t.

  I didn’t know Sandro D’Angelo. I don’t remember meeting him at his party. An enigma, like Jay Gatsby. There were a lot of older guys, your footy mates, not many girls. They were standing, drinking around a fire inside an old petrol drum. Headbanger music was playing. We took beers from an esky on the ground, and then you left me alone while you went off to talk with your mates. I considered walking out and catching a taxi home.

  I shared a joint with some guy. Then Christos, Mahersy, and Kim turned up. Christos was wearing a brown aviator jacket, like Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun’. He kissed me with an open mouth, but I was happy to have people I knew to talk to. I had forgotten that I’d told Christos I had something else on that night, but he remembered, and I felt bad for having lied. Mahersy and Kim had a fight; Kim stormed out and Mahersy went off with some other girl.

  I couldn’t say how much later Petra and Marie Caruso staggered into the party, arms linked, a six-pack of beer, or maybe UDLs, under Petra’s free arm. I smiled and said ‘Hi’ to Petra. She narrowed her eyes at me and Christos, and then grabbed at the diamante bracelet she’d given me for my birthday. It broke, fake diamonds sprayed, sparkling like morning dew across the grass. She laughed, and I’m sure I heard her call me ‘Psycho slut’ to Marie as they walked off.

  Christos got me another beer, and a can of soft drink for himself. The joint and alcohol made Voices louder; they were telling me to go home. First time ever they’d made any sense. Why, why, why didn’t I listen to them?

  Sounds hurt my ears. Colours hurt my eyes. I didn’t like the way the guys — including Christos — were leering at me, but I told myself it was just paranoia. And then you came back, and I felt safe. You said something under your breath to Christos. I was worried the two of you were going to fight, but Christos crushed his drink can in his fist and walked away.

  You took my hand and led me into the house. It was a nice house. It reminded me of the building-company display homes my mum had cleaned one summer for extra cash. The bedroom doors were painted primary colours. I followed you into the one with the red door, and you locked it behind us. There was an en suite, and a bed crisply made with white linen. You still had a stubby of beer in your hand and spilled some as you pulled me, giggling, onto the bed. When you kissed me, as always, I lost all sense. I didn’t care how drunk you were. I hitched up my dress, let my knees fall apart, and pushed up against you. I told you that I loved you, and that I wanted, needed, you to fuck me. There was a knock on the door. We ignored it. I reached down to unzip your jeans. Another knock. You got up, shaking your head. You spoke to the person outside the door; and then to me, saying you’d be back in a minute. I thought you must have been getting condoms or more booze. Why did you leave me, Dean?

  I lay there waiting for a long time, but I can’t be certain of that — time was behaving strangely, slowing down, speeding up, and disappearing. Perhaps it was my illness, but I think I was drugged. Did you slip something into my drink?

  The light flicked off. The room went black. The door lock clicked. I asked where you’d been. No answer. It wasn’t you. A different smell, different aftershave. He said ‘Shh’, fumbled in the dark, and covered my mouth. I sensed others in the room. I heard them breathing and drinking. The sound of jeans unzipping. One of them said, ‘What are you doing? He only said to scare her.’

  ‘Is this scary enough?’

  My underpants were ripped down. I remember thinking it wasn’t a joke, and I should get out of there. But I couldn’t move. And I couldn’t believe it was happening. Why, why, why would you tell them to do that to me, Dean? I told myself to do something: fight, scream, something. I didn’t do anything; I just lay there, frozen, thinking you would come back to help me, tell them the joke was over.

  The first boy was strong, but it took him a few goes. XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX He tore my dress. My eyes were adjusting to the dark, but I squeezed them shut, not wanting to see his face. Mr Haigh’s words came back to me: ‘You shouldn’t be so irresistible to men.’ And Christos’s: ‘You need to be careful of your behaviour around men.’

  The second boy on me smelled sour, of beer and sweat and cheap deodorant.

  The third boy was a swimmer — chlorine smell under his sharp, herbal-soapy aftershave. Something weird happened then: his smell became a colour I could see behind my closed eyes. My doctor has explained this condition is called ‘synaesthesia’. When a certain sense is activated, another unrelated sense is activated concurrently. Some people see colours when they think of letters or numbers, or when they hear music. (I can’t see the colours when I’m on medication.)

  I watched green and off-white — herbs swirling through dirty soapsuds. When the third boy — I think I know who he was — finished he asked who wanted to go next. They were cockier now, laughing and whispering. ‘Slag’. ‘Dirty dog’. I’m sure one called me ‘Psycho slut’.

  Petra had been right when she said it was different for guys, that they didn’t care who they fucked. I could have been anybody. Anything. Meat, an animal, a doll.

  I can’t recall exactly what happened after that — how many more boys there were. I have a sensation, though, that I can’t forget — like cold worms in dirt crawling under my skin. Like being buried alive.

  The sound of pounding on the outside of the door, and the frantic twisting of the handle reached me in my shallow grave. It was too late — th
ey couldn’t stop now.

  I must have blacked out, and when I came to, they were gone.

  The door opened slowly. You coming to the rescue? I remember thinking I didn’t want you to see me like that. I kept my eyes clenched shut and buried my face in the pillow — a demented game of peek-a-boo — as if not seeing you could make you not see me.

  I heard Petra’s voice, her laughter. She must have known I was in there. Did she know what was happening to me? ‘Please help me,’ I cried inside my head.

  You closed and locked the door again. Petra’s voice faded out. I focused on the sensation of the soft pillowcase; my hands found each other under the pillow — I held my own hand. I heard you breathing heavily, you didn’t speak; you were the same as the others. I left my body and floated up to levitate on the ceiling where touch and pain could not reach me. All I had was smell and colour. It wasn’t Fruit Tingles. It was brown.

  THE FIRE in the pot-belly stove was almost dead. Sidney hadn’t drawn the curtains, and a chill had crept into the house. She stood, still holding the spiral-bound notebook, shaking. Tick, tick, tick. Her hands that had long ago held each other under the D’Angelos’ soft pillow, now useless, balled into fists, crunched the edges of the diary. She dropped it.

  Groping along the walls, colours melting, body expanding, stomach contents rising, she made her way to the bathroom.

  She fell to her knees at the toilet and vomited.

 

  Spitting, she reached for the toilet paper to wipe her mouth. It looked as though the toilet had been vomited in recently, and the seat hinges not cleaned thoroughly.

  Breathe.

  One. I can hear the kitchen clock ticking.

  Two. I can feel the toilet seat against my cheek. It’s cold and white and … My husband set his mates up to scare — to rape — me. Maybe he had a turn of me too — who knows? Dean Cola wasn’t there.

 

  Dean Cola wasn’t there.

 

  She vomited again and again.

  Spent, scrunched up on the bathroom floor where the chip heater used to be, she could see the square of dusty black rubber still levelling the washing machine. She held her aching stomach in her hands, closed her eyes, and was gone for a few minutes, or maybe longer.

  Her phone was ringing in the lounge room.

  She stood, steadying herself against the basin. The pump whined as she splashed her face with cold water. Her phone stopped and then started again. Answer it, or he’ll drive back up here. She nodded at her pale, dripping reflection.

  Sitting on the arm of the chair, she cleared her throat and accepted Christos’s call. ‘Hi, Chris.’ Raw, gutted, but unready to confront him, she tried to play the game, put a smile in her voice, but it sounded more like a grimace.

  ‘How you going?’

  She pictured him holding his phone in his oversized Popeye hand. ‘Good.’

  A flake of ash from the stove, caught in a draft, floated up towards the yellowed ceiling. She felt floaty too, and Christos sounded faraway, harmless, like Voices when they were behaving. La la la … See you tomorrow.

  She snapped to attention.

  ‘… about lunchtime.’

  ‘What? No. You said “Wednesday”.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘I need a bit more time here. A few more days.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Sid.’

  ‘Sorting Mum’s stuff’s taking longer than I thought. One more day?’

  ‘No.’ The sound of a door being opened. ‘Sid, why are your little clay figures and houses standing out in the big bonsai tray?’

  A reflection, a better reality, in perfect miniature.

  ‘Did you spray perfume on them?’ He sniffed. ‘I shouldn’t have left you alone up there.’

  Why did you leave me, Dean?

  ‘Ring me during the night, anytime. If you need me, I’ll be on my way sooner. Or I can always organise for one of the local fireys or cops to come out and check on you.’

  A chunk of vomit that had been caught in the back of her throat dislodged; she swallowed it.

  ‘Miss you, Sid. Love you.’

  She looked at the diary on the floor. Fuck you, fuck your behaviour. And hung up. Her ear was numb from holding the phone too hard against it.

  Christos called back. ‘Must have got cut off. Sure you’re all right, Sid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Liberace screamed.

  She ran across the foyer, forgetting to avoid the cracks, her sneakers squealing on the tiles.

 

  She rushed from room to room, searching for a safe place to hide from Christos.

 

  Fuck off!

 

  Voices were yelling now. Covering her ears didn’t help. She shouted back at them that she was going to take her meds.

  In Faye’s bedroom, she caught her reflection in the dressing-table mirror, looking as contorted as the wood-grain faces in the wardrobe.

  She sat on Faye’s bed with her head in her hands. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Voices wouldn’t let her think. The clock tick, tick, ticked.

  She looked up and saw the solution in the wardrobe-tiger’s face. Nodding, she took out her phone, and googled Spirit of Tasmania. The big ferry-boat, a smooth sea, blue night-sky sprinkled with white stars that looked like snow. Escape.

  SELECT DESTINATION: Melbourne to Devonport

  TAKING A VEHICLE: Yes

  FIND A FARE: One way

  PREFERRED SAILING: Day

  WHO’S GOING: One adult

  SELECT OUTBOUND VEHICLE: Motor vehicle

  VEHICLE TYPE: Car

  MAKE: Ford

  MODEL: Fairlane

  YEAR: 1963–1987

  TOWING A CARAVAN OR TRAILER: Not towing

  DAY SAILING SOLD OUT

  Fuck.

  She booked a porthole cabin for tomorrow night’s crossing instead.

  Voices quietened; she pulled Dean Cola’s denim jacket tighter around her and stared awhile into the tiger’s face.

  You lower a log of wood into the fire, and push it in further with a poker. The dead embers come alive and spark red. You hang the poker up and sit back in your leather armchair, a peppering of greys through your dark hair, a few lines around your Johnny Depp eyes. You’re wearing a flannelette shirt. A puppy lies at your socked feet. Behind you, outside the window, Tasmanian snow powders down. ‘You used to love me,’ you say.

  All this time I’ve been ashamed for having never stopped loving you. Even after what I thought you’d done to me at that party. Should I forgive myself for that? Can I now remember, dream, and conjure you, without shame? Can I also forget, and let you go? No, not yet. If only there wasn’t more to our story, folded in time.

  SIDNEY’S PHONE rang. ‘Fuck off, Christos!’ she yelled at it. ‘I’m leaving you and I’m never coming back.’

  It was Aubrey. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘My mum died. I’m up in the country at her house.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. We weren’t close.’

  ‘You didn’t say goodbye to me.’

  ‘We left early.’

  A pause, breathing. Something wrong. ‘Mum’s just a bit drunk. I told her to go to bed, but … I hate it when she’s like this.’

  ‘She didn’t … do anything, did she?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you OK?’

&nbs
p; ‘Yep. Mum got a bit angry because she saw my tattoo.’

  ‘Tattoo! I thought you had to be eighteen?’

  ‘It’s a really small one.’ A sniff.

  There was more to it than that. Sidney thought about the twist-button locks in her townhouse. Perhaps Aubrey’s doors were the same. ‘Can you lock your bedroom door?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is there another adult you trust, an auntie or uncle who lives close, somebody you could call?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe just put a chair against your door handle, then? And if you get really worried, call the police.’

  Aubrey laughed, but Sidney recognised the fear in her voice. ‘No, no, she’s not like that. It’s just since Dad …’

  ‘Bree?’

  ‘Mum’s fine. When are you coming home?’

  Sidney stood and walked out of Faye’s room.

  ‘Mum’s gone quiet now. I think she’s gone to bed.’

  ‘Good. Call me back if anything happens.’ She crossed the foyer.

  ‘Wait, don’t go. Just … talk to me for a bit longer.’

  Sidney drifted through the lounge room, drawing the curtains. She pushed the billiard balls into their pockets.

  ‘I’ve nearly finished Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I think Lewis Carroll was definitely on drugs,’ Aubrey said. ‘Listen to this … “Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gree … Greyphon —’

  ‘Gryphon.’

  ‘Gryphon went on in a deep voice, “are done with witting —”’

  ‘Whiting.’

  ‘“And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great curry … currishity —’