The Changing Room

by Christine Sykes

  23

  ANNA

  Anna followed Molly out of the interview room, down the stairs and through the front door. They stood on the kerb, watching the bumper-to-bumper traffic snake past.

  ‘That’s where we agreed to meet Claire, if you’re up to it.’ Anna pointed to Antonio’s Café Bar across the road.

  Molly shot out into the traffic. The driver beeped his horn. Molly stuck her finger up at him, hit the car bonnet and dashed through the traffic to the other side of the road.

  Anna let the car go, waited for a break in the traffic and followed Molly into the cafe. It was deserted after the lunch rush, except for a waiter piling empty plates and cups into a plastic container. Molly marched up to him and ordered a shot of vodka.

  ‘I don’t think drinking is a good idea,’ Anna said.

  Molly gave her a murderous stare. Anna ordered tea for two and tried to guide Molly to a table near the window so she could keep watch for Claire. Molly shrugged her off and headed for a table at the back of the cafe where it was dim. Anna followed and took the seat that was left, with her back to the door.

  The waiter arrived with the tea and vodka. Molly grabbed the vodka and drank it in one gulp. She coughed.

  ‘You all right, dear?’ said Anna.

  ‘No, I’m not bloody well all right.’

  ‘Here, have a cup of hot tea.’

  ‘Leave me alone, ya tight-arsed bitch.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ Molly sneered. She waved to the waiter and ordered another vodka.

  ‘You don’t need to talk to me that way,’ said Anna. ‘And I really don’t think you should be drinking now.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t, don’t you?’

  ‘Molly, I’m only trying to help you.’ Anna’s heart raced. She felt sorry for Molly but didn’t know what to do or say in the face of her anger.

  ‘What the fuck d’ya care about me? I’m just a project you got stuck with.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I care about you.’ Anna searched her mind for something soothing to say. ‘I think you need to calm down and have a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘Tea? That’s your bloody solution? Have a nice cup of tea. What would you know in your well-ordered, privileged world? Huh? Neat and clean and uptight.’

  ‘That’s not true, or fair.’

  ‘Fair? Fair? And what’s fair about me losing Joe and almost losing my kids again due to you?’

  ‘Molly, it wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Molly mimicked Anna. ‘Not my fault I couldn’t stand up for Molly when she needed me.’

  ‘Molly that’s not what happened, I –’

  ‘You what? You tried to get rid of the problem, like ya got rid of your own child.’

  Anna felt like she’d been slapped. How dare Molly throw the termination back in her face? She took a deep breath to compose herself.

  ‘You ran to Claire,’ said Molly. ‘At least she had the guts to stand up for me.’

  ‘But Molly, I wrote the reference and got Claire to sign it.’

  ‘I wrote the reference,’ Molly mimicked. ‘Well bloody good for you.’

  ‘Molly, you’re upset; you don’t mean to be nasty.’

  ‘Upset! Of course, I’m bloody fucking upset. What do you expect? My Joe is gone. Dead. Killed by the cops.’

  ‘Molly, that’s not the case. You heard Sophie. It was an accident.’

  ‘Accident! Bull bloody shit.’

  ‘Molly, he brought it on himself, speeding away like that.’ Anna regretted the words as soon as she uttered them. Molly stood, almost knocking over the table.

  ‘What? You toffy-nosed, stuck-up bitch. What did you say to me?’

  ‘Molly, please calm down. I only meant if he hadn’t tried to run away from the police –’

  ‘So now you’re blaming Joe? How dare you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’ Anna’s mind was a confusion of thoughts and feelings. Maybe she did mean it. Maybe she did think Joe had been responsible for his own death, just like he’d been responsible for Molly’s broken rib.

  ‘Joe had no choice. He had to run. The cops shouldn’t have chased him.’

  ‘Of course he had a choice; everyone has a choice.’ Anna’s neck ached from looking up at Molly.

  ‘What planet are you from?’ Molly called out to the waiter for another vodka. She reclaimed the seat opposite Anna, dropped her voice a few octaves and said, ‘You act all high and mighty, but you chose to kill your unborn child and to steal another woman’s husband.’

  Anna was shocked. It was the tone of her mother berating her, sneering at her.

  ‘Molly, that’s not true,’ she said, louder than she meant to.

  ‘True? Of course it’s true, and you have the audacity to tell me what to do and not do.’

  Something in Anna snapped. She pushed herself up from the table, trying to suppress her words.

  ‘Now, look here, you brat.’ Anna clenched her jaw. ‘Don’t you dare –’

  ‘Dare? I dare ya to say one thing that’s not bullshit.’

  ‘You do, do you? OK. Your beloved Joe was a thug and a wife-basher.’

  Molly’s head jerked back for a moment as if she’d been slapped. She stood back up and heaved her body to full height over Anna.

  ‘Don’t you dare say that about Joe.’

  ‘But it’s true and you know it!’

  Molly raised her arm as if she was going to punch Anna.

  Anna flinched, stepped back and knocked her chair over. ‘What on earth is going on here?’ Claire said, approaching.

  ‘What’s happened to you two?’

  Molly’s arm was still raised above her head.

  ‘Molly, are you all right?’ Claire put her hand on Molly’s raised arm.

  ‘No. I’m not. Joe is dead.’ Molly crumbled into Claire’s outstretched arms and sobbed.

  Claire gave Anna a quizzical look.

  Anna felt dizzy and sick. She put her hand over her mouth and rushed to the toilets. She locked the door and slumped onto the toilet seat, sobbing. The same wrenching sobs as the day she was fired. And now here she was again, in a grotty bathroom, crying her eyes out. Thoughts of the past six months raced through her mind, jumbled with memories of her mother. She could hear her mother mouthing every slight against her. You’re not pretty. Just as well you’re not dumb as well. You’ll never get a husband.

  William had told her she was a unique beauty and she now realised he had seduced her with his flattery. When he helped her to move house, he’d made the first move on her. Maybe he’d planned it all along. Maybe she was easy prey for a man like William. Her sob caught in her throat and her tears stuck to her cheek. Something shifted in her body and her mind stilled. She noticed her jaw jutting out, and her hands gripping her thighs. Her back straightened, as if a steel rod was holding her up. She felt icy. Not cold, but like a block of hot ice. She shuddered and tried to shake away the feeling. She searched for a word to match her feeling.

  Anger. She was angry. Angry at her mother for berating her, angry at her father for dying and angry at William for betraying her. Angry at herself for putting up with the humiliation for so long and with Molly for being so nasty. At least Molly had told her the truth and, for the first time in her life, Anna had retaliated in kind.

  The anger subsided and she felt remorse. Anna knew it was about time Molly faced the truth about Joe, but she regretted the way she’d said it. What would Claire think of her for upsetting Molly at such a time? That poor young woman. Anna resolved to face the consequences. She rose, washed her face and went back into the cafe.

  Claire and Molly were sitting at the table, drinking tea. Claire looked up. Molly hung her head.

  ‘I hear you two have had quite a deep and meaningful,’ said Claire.

  ‘Sorry,’ Molly mumbled. ‘Guess I needed to lash out at someone.’

  Anna saw Molly with fresh eyes. They had both been targets for unsafe p
eople.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ said Anna.

  Anna had protected herself by compartmentalising her life. She’d built a veneer of reserve that had grown old and started to crack when William dumped her. Molly had seen the weakness and sliced through the veneer.

  ‘I have to admit that much of what you said was true,’ Anna added.

  ‘Yeh. I know. But I went straight for ya jugular.’ Molly paused and looked at Claire. ‘What you said about Joe. He did beat me. I dunno why. Well, maybe I do understand it a bit. His dad beat his mum. Joe didn’t want to hit me, but I guess it was the only way he could get his feelings out.’

  ‘Molly, that might explain his behaviour, but it doesn’t excuse it,’ said Claire. ‘There’s no excuse for domestic violence.’

  ‘Nah, I guess not.’

  ‘You do know it wasn’t your fault, don’t you?’

  Molly sat quietly. She looked from Claire to Anna.

  ‘I guess. But I did niggle at him. Sometimes I was a real bitch.’

  A weight lifted from Anna’s shoulders. She had also been abused. Not physically, but verbally and emotionally by her mother’s constant negative comments. It wasn’t her fault. She raised her head and looked at the two other women at the table and smiled.

  ‘Molly. You were upset, hurting and angry,’ Anna said. ‘I was available, like a punching bag, waiting to be hit. Much like you were for Joe.’

  ‘Anna, that’s so wise,’ said Claire. ‘But there are other ways to deal with anger and grief. You don’t have to take it out on the ones you love or who are nearest to you.’

  ‘Maybe we need a real punching bag,’ said Molly.

  ‘Great idea. I’m sure I have one somewhere at home.’ Claire laughed. ‘We could all use it.’

  Anna was relieved when Claire offered to drive Molly home. She needed peace and quiet to reflect on what had happened at Antonio’s.

  24

  MOLLY

  Molly managed to hold herself together through Joe’s funeral with the help of Lindy. Claire and Venera had offered to go with her, but she didn’t want to turn up with strangers.

  It poured with rain as the line of bikies thundered up Flowerdale Road to the Liverpool Cemetery and Crematorium.

  When they entered the packed chapel, Greg tried to hug Molly and sniggered, ‘You’re in trouble now.’

  ‘Come near me or my place again and I’ll call the cops.’ Molly pushed him away.

  ‘Call the cops and there’ll be a massacre,’ threatened Greg.

  ‘You heard her,’ said Lindy. ‘Piss off and leave her alone.’ ‘Come on, mate. Leave her be.’ Dickhead Dave grabbed Greg around the shoulder and nodded at Molly. ‘You’ll be all right.’

  Molly sat in the front row with Lindy and ignored the sideways glances of Joe’s family. She thought about Grandma, who was about the same age as Molly when she became a widow. And now Molly was a widow. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

  She nearly lost it when the coffin was lowered into the grave. Molly wanted to jump in after it, but Lindy held her tight. When the first sod of earth was thrown into the hole, she knew she’d never see Joe again.

  Afterwards, when she was safely home, and Lindy had left, Molly lay on the lounge and sobbed her heart out. Joe had been the love of her life and she would always love him; after all, she had four wonderful children by him. But over the last six months, she’d come to admit he’d been violent towards her. He’d dumped her – literally – on the side of the road.

  *

  The next morning, Molly was sore from sleeping on the lounge and raw from purging her feelings. She rose and prepared for the kids’ next visit. This would be the real test, she knew, and she was determined not to fail. She worried about how to tell the kids about Joe’s death, especially the boys.

  While she made the single beds in the boys’ room, Molly decided she didn’t want them burdened by the reality of their father’s failings. There would be time for that when they were older, and when she could help them understand and learn how to act differently.

  She went over the tips for dealing with toddlers from a session on managing children that Venera had taken her to. She’d put the tips on the fridge with a smiley magnet. Beside the list was the telephone tree to use if things got out of hand. She did the relaxation exercises Venera had taught her, trying to breathe in and out at the right times and not laugh as she did the child’s pose. Afterwards she placed the photo of Joe on the sideboard next to a scented candle that she would light in his memory.

  When they arrived, the kids seemed to sense her calm and were not as boisterous as usual. They helped each other get milk and fruit and take it into the backyard for a picnic. It was a sunny winter’s day, with a cloudless blue sky and no wind. A pigeon warbled from the bare maple tree and they heard a kookaburra laugh somewhere in the distance – an unusual sound so close to the city. Molly took it as a sign that they could once again be happy, the five of them, without Joe.

  Daniel and Mathew didn’t fight over the truck Molly had salvaged from the council pickup and the girls were happy to play in the sandpit, which Steve had set up for them.

  Molly spread a blanket out on the small patch of grass and, while the twins dozed, she talked to the boys about Joe. She told them how they met, what she’d loved about him, his good points, his love of bikes and his sense of humour. She pulled out the leather jacket Joe had given her and let Matthew wear it. Daniel lit the candle and they sang ‘Candle in the Wind’, substituting Joe Sinclair for Norma Jean.

  After the kids left, Molly poured herself a sherry from Grandma’s dusty bottle, put on Saxon’s Wheels of Steel album, remembered the first time she met Joe and danced in her nightie till the end.

  ‘And now he’s gone, he’ll never love me or hurt me again.’ Molly turned off the lights and went to bed.

  25

  ANNA

  Anna created a space among the piles of papers on her cluttered kitchen bench. Rufus rubbed up against her leg and whined for a morning walk.

  ‘You’ll have to wait,’ she told him.

  She felt overwhelmed by commitments and stemmed her feelings by writing a list of all the things she needed to do and categorising each one under a separate heading: urgent, important and can delay.

  The most urgent task was to finalise the speaking notes for Genevieve’s interview for a current affairs program that afternoon. She attended to this and sent them to Genevieve.

  Next, and most worrying, was to come up with a strategy regarding Molly. Anna felt out of her depth and conflicted after the scene at Antonio’s. Molly was relying on her for support and she couldn’t walk away, go home and close the door. Yet Anna was frightened of the damage she could cause if she let Molly down.

  Focus, she told herself, focus on the practical activities you can do. Anna had identified volunteers from Suitability who lived near Molly. She called all of them and several agreed to become part of the support group. Anna developed a telephone tree for Venera.

  The gala fundraising event was on 26 August, a month away. She’d tried to talk to Claire about what needed to be done, but Claire wasn’t responding. Anna figured she needed to rely more on Genevieve.

  Rufus nibbled at her slippers and looked at her with his pleading eyes.

  ‘I said, not now. We’ll walk later.’

  The next item on the list was the hardest. Suitability still had nowhere to go. One space, a shopfront in a declining suburb, had looked promising, but fell through when the owner decided to let it out as a pop-up shop. To date, Genevieve hadn’t heard anything from Ted about his friend’s premises.

  She took Rufus for a short walk up the street to settle him down. He insisted on sniffing every tree and bush on the way and refused to return when they reached the end of the street.

  ‘Damn dog,’ she said as she picked him up, carried him back to her house and put him in the laundry.

  The freshly drycleaned clothing from Suitability was hanging on the door. Anna wa
s determined to return the jacket, the suit and the fuchsia scarf. She hadn’t had a chance to explain why she still had them and worried about what Claire might think of her. Anna collected the papers for the media interview, checked the locks on the doors, gave Rufus a snack and grabbed the garment bag, which she put neatly in her car alongside a folder of notes and her laptop.

  When she arrived at Suitability, Anna opened the showroom, put the scarf back on the rack and the garment bag on a hanger. She cleared a space for the cameras. Genevieve sent a message she was running late and asked Anna to look after the film crew until she arrived.

  They needed her to pretend to be Genevieve so they could get the lighting and the camera angles right.

  ‘The colours you are wearing are all wrong,’ said the wardrobe assistant. ‘There must be something here which will suit the lighting.’

  ‘Not those,’ said Anna as the wardrobe assistant opened the garment bag.

  ‘This jacket is great; here, try it.’

  Anna received another text from Genevieve: Caught in traffic. Hold the fort. Be there soon.

  The interviewer arrived. Anna tried to delay him by making cups of tea and coffee for the crew.

  ‘Look, I’m on a busy schedule and can’t wait all day. Can you do the interview?’

  ‘No, I can’t. Genevieve will be here soon.’

  Anna received another text. Traffic’s not moving. Anna read the message aloud.

  ‘Well, we might have to give this whole thing a miss. Pity, I think the program would have helped your cause. Is there anyone else who can do it?’

  Anna rang Claire. ‘I can’t, I have to go to the doctor’s. Can you do it?’

  ‘Me? No, I don’t think I can. I’m no good at interviews.’

  ‘But you know the facts, and it would be better than not having the coverage. I’m sure you’ll be all right. Sorry, I have to go.’

  Anna stood in the showroom with the phone in her shaking hand. Neither Alice or Valda had answered her calls and she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  ‘What’ll it be then? Do we call it a day, or can you do it?’

  ‘She looks great on camera,’ said the wardrobe assistant. ‘Here, see?’