Addition (22 page)

Harry, Jill and Seamus stand together in a triangle speaking in loud whispers. From the slit between my eyelids I can see the three of them, arms crossed in exactly the same fashion—left over right. Peas in a pod. I try to focus and listen. I close my eyes again, and snippets of their words float past. Mum’s always been unlucky…accident prone…just as well there are no stairs in that house.

Seamus says, Grace told me all about the accident when you were kids did you and Grace get another puppy when you moved to this house I mean.

‘Puppy?’ Jill says. ‘Mum’s always been a cat person. We never had a puppy.’

15

It’s nearly dawn when we get home. Even in the car I can’t stay awake. I am dozing on and off but Seamus doesn’t say anything. Not one word.

When we pull up he jumps out and comes around to my side and helps me out. He still doesn’t speak. He takes my keys from my fingers and opens the security door. Not one word, up the stairs or as he opens my door.

He helps me out of my clothes and into my pyjamas, the reverse of a few hours ago. He brings me a glass of water and puts my slippers next to the bed. He tucks me in, squeezing the sheet and the blanket so tightly under the edge of the mattress that my arms and legs are pinned. I can hear him sigh, and feel him sit down beside me. His weight is heavy on the edge of the mattress, dragging me down so steeply that for a moment I feel I am falling. My eyelids are glued shut.

Seamus says, ‘I know you can hear me, Grace.’

There is a silence.

‘There was no puppy,’ he says. ‘Was there, Grace?’

I dig my fingernails into my palms. I open my eyes and stare straight at him.

‘No. No, there was no puppy.’

He leans towards me, one arm resting on the bed on the other side of my body. ‘What did happen on the back stairs?’

I feel a wetness on my palms. My nails have drawn blood. ‘It was an accident. Exactly how I told you, except it was my brother. My baby brother Daniel fell down the stairs.’

He stands up and walks to the door, head in his hands. He comes back and kneels beside the bed so his face is level with mine.

‘I’m so sorry, Grace. I didn’t realise.’

I think of all the small acts of love he has given me. The wonderful sex where he cares as much for my pleasure as his own. How I felt more alive naked with him than I have ever felt before. Reading the papers in bed on a Sunday morning. His kisses on the small of my back. Laughing in the park, when he told me something he had heard on the radio. Cooking me spaghetti when I was tired. The way he could eat chilli like his mouth was made of asbestos. The two of us, under the shower.

And all this time he thought I was someone else. ‘Well, you do now. Now you know exactly what kind of a person I am.’

He reaches out and tries to touch my face. I turn away. ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ he says.

My mouth is so dry I can barely speak. ‘Bullshit. It changes everything.’

‘No, Grace. It doesn’t. The only thing that matters is why you lied to me.’

I try to laugh. ‘Why didn’t I casually mention on our first date that I killed my baby brother? I can’t imagine.’

‘Since then, I mean. I’ve never felt as close to anyone as I feel to you. For God’s sake, Grace. You were just a kid. It was an accident. Why didn’t you trust me?’

I can’t feel my palms anymore, so I dig my nails into my thighs. I can do this.

‘So this is all about you, now, is it? About poor Seamus, whose girlfriend didn’t tell him the truth. Newsflash, Seamus: it’s not about you. It’s about me.’

He tenses his jaw. ‘I hoped it might be about us.’

‘Well it’s not. For fucksake grow up. You don’t own me, or my mind or my memory. I owe you nothing.’

His hand forms a fist, and he holds it in front of his mouth. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t talk now. The shock of your mother’s accident. The medication…you’re saying things you don’t mean.’

‘I know exactly what I mean. I’ve been meaning to say it for ages.’

He turns his head away.

‘I’m sick to death of you, you self-righteous, controlling shit. I’m sick of being judged by you. I am. God, I’m so sick of sitting there watching TV. I want to be myself again. No, don’t touch me. Just get out.’

He doesn’t move.

‘Get out,’ I say. ‘I mean it.’

‘Think about what you’re saying, Grace. Please.’

‘I’ve thought about nothing else for weeks. Find someone else to rescue, you average,
average
man. There’s nothing wrong with me.’

Those final words exhaust me. I can’t manage any more. For such a long time I’ve been so tired. Now I am finally lying in my bed, all tucked in. I can sleep for as long as I want. For weeks. For years.

I feel the bed move as he stands up. I feel him walk away and hear him pick up his keys and cross the room. I hear the front door shut. Then my eyes open wide.

I can’t keep them shut. Can’t sleep after all. So I lie there, still as a corpse.

And I think. I think about a lot of things. About my mother and her house and her cat and her orchids. About our phone conversations every Sunday night. About how she painted my room, still a faded, peeling tan, now full of her gardening books. About nursing homes. All her meals would be cooked for her so there was no risk of burning the house down. No midnight snacks. No housework to do. No sheets to wash and iron and fold.

I look down the length of the bed. Under the quilt are the larger-than-expected mounds of a torso and two legs. I think about that body lying there, plump and flabby, under the covers; the same body I see every morning in the bathroom mirror. I wonder whose it is. It doesn’t look like Jill’s or Larry’s. But it can’t be mine.

I think about my two brains, thankfully sleeping. They are lying on the floor of the red padded room in their matching red jammies in each other’s arms. At least they’ve made up from their most recent squabble. I think about where they came from and where they might go after I finish with them.

I think about how long it is since I’ve spoken with Larry; what it would be like growing up with Jill and Harry as parents. I think about Francine; good, kind, helpful Francine. And the Germphobics, most of whom, everyone agrees, are getting better.

I think about babies. How beautiful they are. How soft. How so many women I see in the street and at the shopping centre seem to be at ease with them, as if it was completely ordinary for a woman to have a baby. How babies are brand new, and to have one would almost be like starting life over. Getting another chance to make things right.

I think about what Harry said. It was possibly the only true thing he has ever said: ‘There’s safety in numbers.’

I look around my bedroom. It is mind-numbingly ordered. It looks like a Country Road catalogue. The walls are white. Plain. No numbers. The drawers of my repainted dresser obviously hold clothes. So does my wardrobe. I have no idea how many.

On the bedside table, still in its silver frame, is that photo of the dead inventor. He has a face that seems out of time, as if there is no way that face could be alive now. His eyebrows are on a jaunty angle and his moustache is freshly preened. He is looking right at me with an insolent kind of dare in his gaze. He’s daring me.

I look at the digital clock by the bed, the only remaining numbers in my whole life. The green glowing lines say 5.55 a.m.

It is time to get up.

16

When a grown woman wearing stretched mauve baby-doll pyjamas and matching fluffy slippers and carrying a portable television knocks on your door at 6.05 a.m., I suppose it might be slightly disconcerting. At least the 5 Indian students in the flat downstairs seem to think so when they answer, rubbing their eyes, in their grimy T-shirts and Y-fronts. They wake up quickly enough when I give them the TV. (I did consider tossing it out the window— more rock star, less World Vision.) Their own set died four months ago and is in the corner of the room in 17 pieces. They shake their 5 heads in unison. No, they couldn’t possibly. Surely I will need it. You can’t live without a television. Besides it’s almost brand new. Finally one brave soul says yes, and then they all laugh.

‘Is there anything we can do for you, Madam?’ the tall one asks. ‘In return for your kindness?’

‘Now that you mention it, there is,’ I reply. ‘Could you nip down the post office this afternoon? And would you have a spare cardboard box?’

When you phone the aged care division of the Department of Human Services, especially at 1 minute past 9 in the morning, they can organise things at a clip. First, an appointment for mother with an aged care assessment team. Then, based on the results, meals on wheels three times a week consisting of soup, a main course and dessert. Most geriatrics eat the soup for lunch (reduces unnecessary day-time chewing) and the main and dessert for dinner (reduces unnecessary night-time fires). Day trips once a week, so she can get out and meet new old people. Even a cleaner, not that she needs one. It turns out there’s a raft of services designed to keep the oldies out of expensive nursing homes. It’s also a good idea, they said, to replace the gas oven with electric so it’s easier to use and she won’t be tempted to misuse the microwave.

When white pills—when 22 little white pills—hit the toilet bowl, they float. They bob up and down like Francine’s apple would have. Unlike Francine, I have no desire to pluck them out and eat them. When I push the button, they hesitate for a moment then huddle together in a paroxysm of fear. They shudder. They’re going down! Bracing themselves, they hurl violently clockwise before disappearing in a scream and a gurgle. I suck in my tummy (what a pointless gesture) to give the illusion of military pomp and offer a final salute. ’Tis a far, far better thing, etc.

The cardboard box I place in the middle of the living room. Then, in a rotating arc starting from the north I open every cupboard and drawer and scan every hidden spot. As I find each foreign thing—a toothbrush that isn’t one of mine, running shoes and two pairs of socks, a box of cereal that’s too sweet, a jar of Asian chilli paste, a navy blue baseball cap, sunglasses, a packet of supermarket safety razors, DVDs of
Mulholland Drive
and ‘The Sopranos’ series 3—I place it in the box in the exact position it was found, as if the box was a scaled-down apartment. Then I fill the box with newspaper, scrunched so that nothing will move in transit. I seal with duct tape over and over and write the contents on one side and the address on the other. Even thus entombed I can’t touch it. I yell over the railing and the Indian boys come upstairs and pick it up.

When a significantly overweight, terminally unemployed, friendless, recently frigid, probably eternally childless spinster phones to cancel her therapy, some questions will be asked. I leave these calls for a day or so to make sure my strength is up.

‘Well, I’m astonished!’ Francine says. ‘I thought you were going to make it, Grace! Are you sure I can’t convince you to change your mind?’

‘Francine, therapy has taught me many things. The first is this: life is like a bunch of flowers.’

‘Yes?’

‘Not a bunch of roses, not a bunch of lilies. A mixed bunch.’

‘Yes, yes?’

‘Different flowers bloom at different times, Francine. When the rose is full and red, the carnation is beginning to open. When the petals of the lily are shrivelling and dropping that annoying orange dust all over the hall table, the gerbera is still perfect. Often because it has a wire stuck up its stem. I understand this now, deep within myself, and I have you to thank.’

‘Oh, Grace. That’s beautiful. You’re very welcome. And remember, when your carnation is ready to open, we’ll be here.’

Professor Segrove is more circumspect. ‘Well, it’s your decision of course, but we were making so much progress. You were more than halfway up the staircase.’

‘And I’m sure the view from the top is magnificent. But I’ve decided I prefer both feet on the ground.’

Harrumph. ‘Grace, please make sure when you come off the medication you taper the dose to minimise withdrawal symptoms.’

Memo to self: when next considering coming off antidepressants cold turkey, choose something easier instead like teaching a Big Brother housemate advanced trigonometry. I spend the next two weeks feeling as if my brains are renovating. I can see them in their little matching pink overalls, dust masks and ear muffs, pulling out cabinetry and slamming sledgehammers through plaster board. I wish they would take more care. For all they know some of those walls could be structural.

During those first two weeks, the phone rings and rings. 5 times on Monday. 5 times on Tuesday. 8 times on Wednesday. Twice on Friday and twice on Saturday. On Saturday, there is also some insistent knocking on the door. And again on Sunday. I lean with my back against the door so I can feel the knocks through my body. On Sunday night, at 8.00 and 8.20, I take the calls. Mother (still slightly hoarse) and Jill, trained like labradors. The phone rings again the following Wednesday. When the phone’s not ringing, my life is silent. I walk to the kitchen to tell Seamus something, but he’s not there. By the third week, except for Mother and Jill, the phone doesn’t ring at all.

It requires some time to get back to my routine. Obviously I need a new café, but in Glen Iris there are more cafés than people. What is everyone doing in cafés all day? Not much further than the old one, but in the opposite direction, is a café I like just fine. No Monet prints; instead violently coloured artworks by local students. No annoying Cheryl; instead bustling teenage girls and a barista named Roberto.

It takes some time to catalogue all my belongings again, but this time I count everything. Not just clothes and plates and books, but cotton balls, paper clips, tea bags. I measure all the walls anew and record them in my replacement notebook. I work fast. The streets surrounding my flat I capture again in paces and—an innovation long overdue— one morning as the sun is rising I count and measure in height and width all the plants in the front garden of my block. I cannot yet take the length and circumference of my digits, limbs and torso, because they are still not mine. Every surface he has touched is scrubbed. The sheets and towels I throw away and replace by mail order.