All That I Remember About Dean Cola

by Tania Chandler

‘Curiosity.’ Through the dining room window, Sidney saw a truck zoom by up on the highway, lit up like a Christmas tree — white, orange, and red.

  ‘“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: “any shrimp could have told you that.”’

  From the hook in the kitchen, Sidney took her mother’s car keys.

  ‘“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, “I’d have said to the poorise —”’

  ‘Porpoise.’

  ‘“Keep back, please: we don’t want you with us!”

  ‘“They were ob … liged to have him with them,” the Mock Turtle said: “No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”’

  Sidney opened the back door and stepped into the frosty yard. A full moon illuminated the way to the Fairlane.

  ‘“Wouldn’t it really?” said Alice in a tone of great surprise.

  ‘“Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle: “Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going on a journey, I should say, ‘With what porpoise?’

  ‘“Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice.’

  ‘Good reading, Bree,’ Sidney said.

  ‘“I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added, “Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.”

  ‘“I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little tim … id … ly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”’

  A crash against the side of the house. Sidney cowered and dropped her phone.

  ‘Aah–aah! Hell–p!’

  A scrambling, scratching sound. Sidney looked up but couldn’t see Liberace — he must have misjudged the roof.

  ‘Sid, are you still there?’ Aubrey said from the ground.

  Sidney picked up her phone.

  ‘What’s that noise?’

  ‘Peacocks. A peacock.’

  ‘Peacock? Sounds like somebody screaming.’

  ‘Yes.’ A strangled laugh escaped her throat and steamed in the air. Sidney had a flash of her and Aubrey riding horses beside the river — the daydream she’d had yesterday, when she was a different person. When she’d thought Christos was a different person.

  ‘I think Mum’s asleep now.’

  ‘Good. Call back if you need to.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Sidney squeezed her phone. ‘Good night.’ Something was very wrong.

  Go save Aubrey now. Watching for snakes, she stepped through the long grass around the Fairlane. It was unlocked. The smell of the interior — baked leather gone cold — reminded her of childhood, of carsickness. Her stomach squirmed. She tossed her phone onto the passenger seat and stuck the key in the ignition. Turn. The old bomb coughed to life. She heard Pop’s voice, teaching her to drive: Accelerator to go, brake to stop, wheel to steer. P for Park, R for Reverse, N for Neutral, D for Drive. Piece of piss. Gear stick to R, press accelerator with right foot, turn wheel. Reverse. Brake. Drive! Like riding a bike, Pop would have said. She reversed, did a three-point turn, and drove slowly towards the gate, but couldn’t work out how to turn on the headlights.

  Voices screamed. She stopped, and banged her head against the steering wheel.

  Aubrey’s fine. She’ll be asleep now. So will her mum. Sort it out before Tasmania. Tomorrow. First thing. In the light. When Christos is at work.

  She killed the engine.

  As she stepped out of the car, her phone buzzed with a text from Christos: Good nite. Luv u. She deleted it, deleted all his messages, and his contact details, every trace of him.

  There was something blue near the fence line. Iridescent. Plumage? Sidney walked across, and knelt beside Liberace in the dirt. His train of tail feathers, with their cosmos of green-and-gold eyes, lay like a half-closed fan on the ground. His long, elegant neck was stretched full length. She’d never seen either of the peacocks this close up before, had taken no notice of them when she was young. The beauty was sublime, supernal, almost too much to bear. She cradled the dead bird’s head in her hands, lifted it to rest in her lap, and sang to him a while, Leonard Cohen’s song about half-crazy Suzanne’s place by the river.

  It would have been easier to cremate Liberace on the bonfire, but she thought of Catsby burning, and struggled to sling the limp peacock — heavier than she’d imagined — over her shoulder. She took the shovel but didn’t need a torch — the moon was bright enough to light the way to the pet cemetery.

  ‘HELP ME,’ Aubrey says.

  The room is full of huge white pillows. Sidney expands, grows heavier, as she tries to stuff the pillows, like giant marshmallows, into boxes that are too small. She dream-knows that if she can pack all the pillows impossibly into the boxes, she’ll be able to save Aubrey.

  ‘Please help me,’ Aubrey cries.

  ‘I can’t find you.’

  Peacocks scream.

  Christos is here! No. Just a dream. She sat up in Nan and Pop’s bed. Something scratched and squeaked. Mice, rats? She scrambled for the lamp. It didn’t work. She found her phone, the torchlight app. Nothing in the room. An auditory hallucination?

  She couldn’t get back to sleep, couldn’t find a comfortable place for her mind to rest. She got up and went to the kitchen for a bottle of water. The clock ticked 3.00 am. The moon was still big outside the window. The wind teased a final glow from the embers of last night’s bonfire.

  She went to the toilet, shivering and rubbing the goosebumps on her thighs as she urinated. The water pump moaned when she flushed. There were cracks in the dirty-white-and-green soap on the basin. Psycho slut … He only said to scare her … Sniffing up tears, she took one of Faye’s sleeping tablets and headed back to bed.

  A distant dog barked. Trucks grunted and hissed along the highway. Wind howled around the house, rattling things that were loose. As the Temazepam was zonking her into sleep, what Christos had done to her slipped from her mind. She thought instead about Dean Cola, about Aubrey, and, finally, about the moon, tides, and blood.

  A rooster crowed. The smell of damp ash from the bonfire filled her nose. Her stomach was a ball of rubber bands; her eyes felt grainy, her mouth dry. The road dust caught in the back of her throat felt like the start of a cold. Coughing, she reached for her phone. Nothing from Aubrey. A 5.00 am message from an unknown number (Christos, not so easy to delete): kisses and love hearts. She left on her Supergirl pyjama top, but swapped the shorts for track pants, and pulled on the denim jacket.

  She opened all the curtains, hoping for a flood of light harsh with reality, normality — sanity, or something like it. But there was disorder in the colour of the sky, indistinguishable: white, grey, or blue?

  She phoned Aubrey. It rang out, went to voicemail. You’ve got Aubrey. You know what to do at the tone.

  Breakfast first, or just get the fuck out of here? The thought of food nauseated her. The sticky jar of instant coffee and the ant army marching across the kitchen bench sealed the deal. She tried to remember the dream she’d had about Aubrey, but it had been washed away like footprints in sand. Perhaps the memories from last night were just part of that dream. The diary, Aubrey’s desperate call, the full moon, burying old Liberace, the bonfire. The Temazepam hangover wasn’t making things clearer.

  No peacock cries. She looked down at her bare feet — her toes were freezing red. Socks, a priority. She headed to her suitcase in the lounge room. It was getting light quickly. Dewdrops glittered on a giant spider web spun between the house and the maple tree.

  She’d thrown her diary on the bonfire, reduced it to ash with Faye’s lifetime of belongings. But she’d kept the cassette that had been attached to the diary; it was still on the lounge chair. Through the windows, she could see the big black circle in the yard where flames gold and red had licked the darkness, spitting
sparks like dancing fairies up against the stars.

  Beyond the circle, in the middle distance, a police car bobbed along Broken River Road. Routine check? Not unusual. Nothing to do out here, nothing ever happened, nowhere to go. They’d do a U-turn in a minute and head back towards the highway.

  The cop car kept coming. It turned into the driveway. Sidney shoved the cassette into her case, hiding it underneath her clothes as if it was something unlawful. She pulled on gloves as the car crawled towards the house. There was a fluttering like a trapped bird in the cavity between her chest and stomach. Christos had sent the police. She was going back to hospital. Run to the river, hide somewhere — her thoughts, not Voices.

  The car pulled up just inside the gate. The driver’s door opened, a grab of police radio. A tall, broad-shouldered officer with dark hair stepped out, and stretched.

  Sidney held her breath, listening to the pounding of the bird in her chest, and the ticking of the clock. A magpie carolled. Voices shifted inside her head, preparing to say something, yell something. ‘Shh, please not now.’

  Bang, bang, bang. She was expecting the knock, but still it made her jump.

  The unused front door was stuck; she had to jiggle it and pull hard to open.

  Mahersy — Sergeant Gareth Maher, according to his name badge — stood on the step, chewing gum. ‘Sidney Madsen!’

  She didn’t correct him. She willed her face calm and pulled the denim jacket across the Supergirl ‘S’ on her chest, vulnerable without a bra underneath.

  His husky-dog stare lingered on her gloves. ‘Sorry about your mum.’

  She nodded and struggled to swallow.

  ‘Christos here?’

  She frowned as he looked over her shoulder, leaning in close enough for her to smell him. Still a swimmer. Chlorine, underneath green-and-dirty-white aftershave. Her stomach clenched, and she took a small step backwards.

  ‘Heard there was a bit of a fire out here last night. Not supposed to burn off at this time of year. You should know that.’

  She looked towards the deserted dairy farm.

  ‘Could let you off with a warning, I s’pose.’ He relaxed his stance, bent a knee, leaned his left arm on the doorframe so she could see his flexed muscles through his shirt. ‘You look well.’

  She glanced at the Fairlane. Mahersy must have thought she was looking at his ringless hand.

  ‘Divorced. Two years back.’

  She cleared her throat, but her voice still sounded scratchy. ‘Kim Carmichael?’

  ‘Nah. Donna Doherty. Took the two kids with her up to her oldies’ place in Mildura.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘You’d know how it is. Fireys’ hours aren’t much different to coppers’.’ The disdain in his tone suggested there was more to their break-up than shiftwork.

  ‘No need to tell Christos about the fire. Don’t want him to worry.’

  Mahersy tilted his head.

  ‘Just burning some of Mum’s stuff.’ She crossed her arms and waited for him to leave. He didn’t. ‘Thanks for checking on the house.’

  He still didn’t go. His icy gaze slid over her body before he turned to survey the property. He was going to tell Christos. ‘Fancy a drink for old times’?’ she said. ‘Tonight?’

  He brightened. ‘Here?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I knock off at three today.’

  Acid climbed her stomach walls, but she forced a smile.

  ‘I’ll drop back about four.’

  Swallowing a gag reflex, she watched him swagger back to his car.

 

  Mahersy waved as he swung into the driver’s seat. She shoved the door shut, locked it, and ran to the toilet.

  THE FAIRLANE coughed. Please start. Cough. Please God, Jesus in the door, Dean Cola, let it start. Cough. Cough. Roar. The smell of petrol. Thank you.

  Sidney remembered Faye letting the car warm up on cold mornings. While Sidney did that, she called Aubrey again. No answer.

 

  She drove slowly up the driveway, and out onto Broken River Road. The steering wheel slipped in her gloves, so she took them off.

  A couple of cars overtook her on the highway before she turned onto the back road. It was smoother than it used to be. Firewood was stacked in piles outside the far-between houses. Rusted letterboxes made from milk cans stood next to school bus-stop signs. The trees in the orchards were losing their leaves. Ghosts of memories faded in and out like dissolves in a film-montage sequence.

  Kissing you. A flash of moon behind clouds. Headlights in the rear-view mirror. Grass, earth, screaming, broken glass.

 

  She turned on the radio. An ad for Strepsils. A car show in town with donations going to the local hospital. Never been a better time to get into a Merribell Home and land package. After a frosty start, a mostly sunny day expected with a top of twenty-six degrees. A Red Hot Chili Peppers song.

  Sidney wondered what had happened to DJ Groffy. Had he left the small pond to spin discs in some city? Or ended up working in the cannery?

  Trees arched, reaching for each other, but not quite touching, their shadows lying across the road. A cream convertible, ZEPHYR across the bonnet, appeared in the Fairlane’s rear-view mirror. Too close. Sidney frowned and gripped the wheel as tightly as her hands could. Finally, the Zephyr pulled out to overtake. It drove alongside for about a minute. The driver — a man in a blue velvet jacket — grinned, something dark that looked like a bug was caught between his front teeth. He knows. He can sense my superpowers growing.

  When it became impossible to avoid the freeway, she merged into the traffic, jaw clenched, praying to God, Jesus in the door, and Dean Cola. A car beeped as it zoomed around her. She caught up to two slow-moving trucks travelling together, and stayed behind them, safe.

  Ten kilometres or so later, she became impatient, her need to reach Aubrey urgent. She overtook the two trucks. All the traffic seemed to be moving too slowly, so she kept overtaking. It was hot in the Fairlane, where the air conditioner didn’t work. She wound down the window, and struggled out of the denim jacket while balancing the wheel with her knees.

  The wind in her hair felt good. Driving felt good. Free. First thing she’d do when she got to Tasmania, after ordering adoption forms, was apply for a driver’s licence. She turned up the music.

  The temperature dropped on the Melbourne side of the Great Dividing Range. The sky was woolly with grey clouds. The radio station died.

  The Fairlane’s petrol gauge — if it was working — showed the tank was nearly empty, so she pulled into a service station at Kalkallo. She put on her gloves and went inside to ask an attendant to show her how to use the bowser. The attendant was young; he told Sidney he’d never seen a car as old as the Fairlane while he looked at the Supergirl ‘S’ on her chest. He knows my powers too.

  Back behind the wheel, Sidney found a Melbourne radio station. The host played Taylor Swift’s new song. A sign. She had to get to Aubrey. Faster. She imagined Aubrey’s phone ringing, ringing, echoing, in the same place as Dean Cola’s.

 

  Close to Melbourne, the 90K blocks of land beneath power lines became 300K house-and-land resort-living packages amid bald hills and scrub. Sidney heard the siren before she saw the police car’s lights flashing. Shit. She slowed to the speed limit. The cops flew past in pursuit of another vehicle. Or morning tea. When they were out of sight, she looked down at her T-shirt, and floored it.

  CHRISTOS’S VOLVO wasn’t in their street. Neither was Aubrey’s mother’s Skyline. Sidney parked on the velodrome side and watched the row of townhouses for an indiscernible amoun
t of time.

 

  Shut up! Fuck you! She punched her forehead, hard.

  Her phone rang. Unknown Caller on the screen. She left it unanswered as she stepped out of the car but somehow, at the same time, did not step out. She ran, and did not run, across the road to Aubrey’s house. The part of her that ran looked at her and Christos’s front garden next door — Christos had weeded, and the rubbish and recycling bins were lined up neatly by the fence.

  There were two pairs of shoes on Aubrey’s doorstep. Sidney used her superpowers to open the door. ‘Hello?’ she called, one foot inside the threshold, one still outside. No reply. She took another step in, holding on to the doorframe. The floor plan was the same as hers, but flipped around, inside out.

  A set of three framed, glamour-studio photographs of Aubrey’s mother hung on the living-room wall, and one smaller, moving three-dimensional photo of Aubrey playing in a kindergarten sandpit.

  Aubrey’s school bag was on the floor in the lounge room. There was a fit ball and some plastic-coated dumbbells in the corner. Sidney called out again. The computer on the desk came alive as she passed it. Wild horses lit up the screen background.

 

  On the kitchen bench, there were a few fashion magazines, a satchel handbag, and a set of keys. Next to an empty wine bottle was the amber-glass spider, smashed to pieces. Sidney glanced back at the front door, saw Faye’s Fairlane parked across the road, saw herself sitting in the driver’s seat. Voices clicked and crackled rather than spoke.

  There was more broken glass, and a small spill of something red on the bottom step. Wine? Closer, it looked like raspberry jam. Sidney stared at the glass and the jammy spill for a long time before stepping over.

  The colours she was seeing were making her feel faint. Yellow. Brown.

 

  Red.

  Her feet left the ground and she flew up the stairs, slowly, like swimming breaststroke. A breeze caught her, and she was floating, floating away. No, she wasn’t, she held tight to the banister and pulled herself back down, kept going to where she knew the bedrooms would be, flipped around. ‘Bree?’