Spotted Lily (3 page)

—4—

The Higher LightBooks, Music & Crystals opened at ten, and I was supposed to open it. Except I was one minute out of bed, having slept through my alarm.

The responsible side of me panicked reflexively, but the logical side of me said I had time to sleep for another few hours. The Light was always dead before noon. And I had no worries that Leonie Bowes, the owner, would know. She was in Chicago now and for another six months at least, learning how to be a franchiser.

I found something almost clean to wear, ran my fingers through my hair and my hand over my face, digging sleepy out. My mouth tasted like sewage but coffee would fix that, and I'd get it next door to the Light.

I ran down the stairs and halfway down, stopped. How could everything be so normal? Why hadn't I thought first of
him
? Wasn't I supposed to wake thinking
Was it all a dream?

Voices from the kitchen said it hadn't been. I heard the word 'Brett' in two keys, along with some edgy laughter. I had to see.

He was standing at the kitchen counter, pouring soy milk into a bowl of Weet-Bix. At one side of him was Andrew, who took the carton from his fingers and put it into the fridge. At the other side was Simone, holding in her outstretched arms, like an offering, a bundle of cloth.

'Brett' turned to the kitchen table and saw me. 'What a welcome,' he said in a way that I'm sure was a smirk, though they just sidled closer to him. 'Simone's loaned me a set of sheets, and Andrew's let me share his soy milk this morning.'

'Brill,' I found myself saying. The sheets were black satin, but of course. Simone chose her look and her sheets to suit her man. She even had one set that must have been made by Brooks Brothers, a look doomed to failure in this sharehouse setting.

'I've gotta go,' I announced. 'Brett' flashed me an evil grin and a dismissive wave, so I had no choice. Simone and Andrew were preoccupied.

~

The day was uneventful, which meant maddeningly frustrating. I had tedious hours to fret over what he was doing.

A flock of customers came at fifteen minutes to closing time. I let them pick up and put down and take to the counter a large pile of things they wanted to buy. At 6:10, the assortment of things they had accumulated was gone over yet again in a group discussion. One of the flock made a disparaging remark about one book in the pile, and without further discussion, they all streamed out the door.

After closing for the night, I rushed home, a five-minute walk.

The only sound in the house was the tinkle of the fridge's faulty defroster.

So I had a shower, made a cup of coffee, and took it to my room. I would have checked my email, but now I didn't feel comfortable doing that. Anything I'd write would be a lie.

I tried to read, but couldn't, so I gave in and checked my email. Julie had written.

anj!

i've begun my screenplay! it is absoluto fabuloso. i've set it in a city so it could be shot anywhere. i sent a letter to the film board to find out about financing. but enough about that detail especially as anyone with half a brain can suck out the economics. it would be such a good deal for fox here or in hollywood whether they can get tax thingies or not. with me starring and directing they would save wads. I am, for the moment, unknown. but thinking pragmatically, I might just have to settle for selling the script. getting ahead of myself hahaha. the real thing is: I'm writing. how are you doing?

luv ya,

jules

I wrote:

Congratulations! Ditto with my book (begun...fabuloso)

Angela

And I sent it. For a moment I worried over whether I should have put 'luv' or 'love', but only for a moment. Julie liked my reserve. She called it my distinguishing characteristic.

A low level of frizzle began to irritate my stomach, my body's signal of an impending attack of almost unbearable happiness. I vaulted myself out of the chair and began to twirl Sufi-style, arms out, face radiant. The face was right, but I didn't have a skirt, and felt the need for long hair. A pile of books splayed across the floor, ending the dance, and I was dizzy anyway. The frizzle was still there. What would fame feel like? I had a sniff of my armpits and thought about the Devil as publicist. What image would he want for me? Would he be my stylist or would he contract out? Maybe, to be prepared, I should buy a pair of stilettos and practise walking.

My journal caught my eye. I picked it up with both hands and nuzzled it. The cover was Italian leather, tanned with mountain chestnuts. The volume was thick and heavy,  filled with linen-rag paper from a 600-year-old water-powered paper mill in Florence.

There was no entry for yesterday.

It had been neglected for a day—and such a day! There was
so
much to write.

The Waterman was out of ink. The wide-nibbed Lamy felt argumentative. The Sheaffer, though a present from Mum, felt right. I opened the journal and wrote:

The Devil

and stopped. I had to come to a decision about this. I couldn't think of him as the Devil, and call him 'Brett'. Besides, he looked like a Brett.

Carefully, I crosshatched over
The Devil
and crosshatched the other way, adding new furbishments till I paused to examine my work. It looked like a dog's dinner. If I had thought I would put ink on a page in such a way, I would have bought a ring binder.

The journal sat mutely in my lap till I had to respond. I opened to a random page, and began reading.

Got my locks off today. Inspired! They suggested a post-dread I hadn't seen before It has a name: 'peekaboo' because your scalp glows through. Hair colour: a yellowy-green-natural-nylon. I could hardly stop gaping into every window as I walked home, to see my head.

Mail today from Paris Review, Atlantic, N Yorker. Paris Rev's was so small that maybe they have $$ problems. Atlantic's was I assume a rejection but there wasn't anything in the envelope. N Yorker's came in an email, and although it was a rejection, it was the reason I spent two days' pay to get a new look. They almost took my story! These are their exact words: 'We're sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us, in spite of its evident merit.'

Staring sightless for what must have been a minute, I reached my psyche out towards that particular moment, to experience again that thrilling squiggle in my innard being that happened when I first read 'evident merit', but nothing happened. So I read on.

Felt good enough to ring Mum. Yesterday Dad's best dog disappeared. Dad spent all night looking and found him this morning. Snakebite. Dad had to do the dog in with the back of a shovel. Worst part was, when Dad swung Bonzer saw.

Dad asked for the phone, and it was He was only a pup when you left (pause) but already showing promise. Paaause. Mum took over (better for us) and it was all How soon is your book coming out??? I said I got my hair dressed then it was all Them Washing my hair and Massaging my scalp etc and it put her right for a while. But then it was Tell me More. I don't know which I hate more. Making up shit, or having to pry her off. Angus cut his thumb half off bunghole-crutching a stroppy old ewe, but he'll live. He was so mad he chewed the top of her ear clear off. Only halfway goodoh part of the conversation, as we all could laugh a bit then, even Dad, Nothing ever changes. Stoicism, girl, stoicism!

But calloo  callay! Even that didn't manage to wreck my day.

Tonight I went to a YWAE evening (haven't a clue what it stands for) at the old Arts School in Plunkett Street. Gordon told me about it.

Fiona Ransomme spoke (Gordon's heard of her) on How to Get Over the Thousand Word Mark. Awesomely fantabulous, but she had to leave right after her talk. Gordon and I were so hyped we went to Nostramamma's. In our mutual debrief, we realized that, illuminated by Ransomme, our problem is: we get bored with our characters too fast. I finally had to burst out my good news about just WHY I had celebrated today. So I told Gordon about the New Yorker being a fan of my work, and that it is just a matter of me warping my style to suit their taste. He got a funny look on his face. Gordon jealous??? He asked what their letter said exactly. I could only remember the 'evident merit'. I got one of those last week, he said. Has he been improving himself behind my back? He then asked Do I think they all  WANT our flash fiction? A funny question, considering we both seem to be almost THERE. But maybe he lied about his success.

It made me think of our goal again, and our focus. I rebalanced us with this reminder. Seriously, Gordon, I said, These magazine are only stepping stones. Our books are our real goal.

I don't know how he's going on his now. He said he's in the grip of writer's block.

He had some NY'rs with him  from the library, so we wrapped up the evening reading stories from them, howling ourselves hoarse they were so boring.

A line and arrow lead to a margin note. I turned the book sideways.

TRY-ON NUMBER 5: Gordon asked again if he could sleep with me. I again rejected him with gentle élan. He asked if I had saved my hair. My hair! I think if I had said yes, he would have asked for a dread as a fetish. Eeew!

The day's log hadn't ended, though the snake of the margin note ended with the book in the right position to continue reading.

SELF-ASSIGNMENT FOR TOMORROW: Explore the Name Issue. Is my name inhibiting someone who loves my work, but is put off by my name? And would it be the Angela part or Pendergast? Should I be a female? male? Or should I be a neuter (A.J. Pendergast—Gordon says this means female in hiding)

Till tomorrow!

My left foot tingled, half asleep. I closed the diary and closed my eyes, distancing myself from the mesmerization of the Story of My Life.

Reading it now had been like finding out that someone had watched me as I squeezed a pimple on the tip of my nose (leaving a blotch and gaping pore) and then subsequently performed a double-jointed strip routine in front of a mirror, with snakes.

Thinking of anyone reading this, my scalp crawled.

Of the piles of books all over the table and floor, the journal pile was the tallest. I had kept a journal since the first year of my escape from the bush. The journals chronicled with religious devotion, my undergraduate and graduate years at Sydney Uni (BA, Masters in English), my year backpacking, my few years at the Commonwealth Bank, Bettawong Branch (only a block away from my present employment) until I was retrenched, then a variety of jobs in the neighbourhood—cafes, mailbox droppings, and the present fill-in position at the Higher Light—every single day, every plan, dream, success, every bedding, longing, thought, every soggy wad of rumination, up until the day before yesterday.

I knew without having to read further, that I was bored with the main character. Bored, but embarrassed to tears.

The problem now was not easy. The journals could not just be dumped into the household rubbish. They were, for the most part, 'recyclable cardboard paper mix'. Cardboard and paper had to be sorted, tied, and neatly placed in specially marked recycled-plastic CARDBOARD and PAPER open-topped trays, and then stuck out on the kerb on the night of the second Tuesday and the second Wednesday of the month, for 4:30 am pickup.

I could not take the risk of these labelled journal covers (meticulously labelled) and naked pages being exposed to the perusal of a whole inner city's worth of passers-by, not to mention the gold strike this would be to my housemates. Besides, the size of the PAPER tray barely accommodated the house's discards without all the additional material that I needed to secrete between the pages of media dross. Getting rid of the journals by secreting them bit by bit would take twenty years.

Dropping the journals into bins around the city was out of the question. Too many people excavated, looking for food or opportunities. So I stripped the sheets from my bed and threw one on the floor, gathered up the pile of books in their variegated covers and shapes, laid them sideways on the sheet like bricks, pulled up the edges, tied them together, and dragged the lot into the corner, kicking the dirty clothes pile away first. Then I draped the other sheet over the bundle so that it fell over the mass with a suitable nonchalance, and dumped the rest of the laundry over it all.

Stepping back to examine my handiwork, I was satisfied. Now my room looked neater, one pile of books gone. The dirty clothes corner was still the dirty clothes corner, merely making a statement that I had become a shopper. And as far as my sheets went, I sighed.

—5—

A cough grabbed my hair, I could swear, down to the down on my labial lips. How long had
he
been watching? 

I spun on my sock-clad heels, the better to berate him. 'There
is
a door,' I noted.

He was leaning against the door jamb. 'I
did
knock,' he said dryly, and I felt my chest break out in a hot blush, rising quickly to my neck.

My shoes needed putting on, which took a while. He watched.

I grabbed my bag. 'Hafta go shopping. Wanna come?'

~

Growing up in a place where water is the gift of that miser, life, and dust is the daily ration, my mum's philosophy became my own. Why worry about the colour of your sheets if you are supposed to be sleeping? And if there's enough light to see their hue, what are you doing in bed? And if they smell natural, shouldn't everything?

I have always hated choosing things I don't care about, and sheets fall into that category. So whenever I had to, I bought a set of hospital-grade whites, and wore them till they would come out from a wash as laundry lint. The journal crisis had precipitated the present need to buy earlier than my wont.

And yet again, I wished they sold these in 'dust'. Or, in inner-city Sydney, 'grime' would have been the right colour.

By the time we caught the bus, there was only an hour of downtown late-night shopping left.

I had only asked Brett along because the words spewed out of my mouth. Now I regretted the decision. He wasn't Gordon. The guy sitting in the seat behind me in the standing-room-only 431 Bettawong Point to City was the Prince of Darkness, only a.k.a.'d 'Brett' at his amusement, and he was bound to do ... what? I could not face the thought, so decided that the only way to deal with it, was not to.

But he accompanied me in my grim mission to find, buy, get out, like a labrador on a lead—quiet, compliant, observant, dull.

'Have you eaten?' I asked when we were on the bus home, my sheets the only purchase.

His answer was a cross between 'uehh' and a groan. I looked him in the face for the first time since morning. The skin on his cheeks glowed with a celadon translucence, the sheen of a cold sweat—like the underbelly of a tree frog.

'You're sick!' I told him, as if he didn't know. 'Do you get car sick?' I asked. Did he know what car sickness was? When precisely
was
his last holiday?

'Uarghh,' he said, and put his head between his knees.

'Burp,' I instructed. 'All the bus drivers are the same. Start, jerk, stop. Want to walk?'

He wagged his head, which I took for 'Yes'.

We got out at the next stop. The air was typical for November—warm and sticky as an armpit, and thick with inner-city early-summer fug: two-thirds emissions and one third frangipani and jasmine flowers. We were a half-hour stroll from home, slightly less to my neighbourhood haunts.

'What kind of food do you eat?' I asked, as we stopped at a light. It hadn't occurred to me that he
would
eat, until I saw him with the bowl of Weet-Bix and soy milk (though, upon reflection, I could imagine them being served in hell).

'I'm not hungry,' he said.

The light was stuck, so we ran across—or rather, I ran, he plodded, and a cabbie nearly hit him.

He barely made it up the kerb, and leaned right over. I thought he was going to sprawl. Instead, he let me lead him to the nearest closed shop, where we sat on its windowsill.

He looked pitiful. 'What's wrong,' I asked. 'You can tell me.'

'I ate what I was given this morning,' he said, his head hanging. 'But your kitchen doesn't agree with me. And neither do any of the eating establishments in your neighbourhood.

Insufferable snob!

If I were a dog, my ruff would have stood. 'I live,' I informed him, 'and you are holidaying, in Bettawong! Sydney's intellectual cum artistic cum ... and I quote, best eats Mecca.'

My lips had drawn back, tasting blood and flesh and fight, when I came to my senses.

'What do you require?' I asked with a solicitude I felt not an iota.

'No garlic?' he asked in a voice so soft.

A host of black-and-white movies swarmed my brain, all streaked by lightning and scented by the reek of antiseptic garlic purifying the world of fiends. 'I thought garlic was an old wives tale.'

He laughed. It was a low laugh sounding like distant thunder, so it was probably coincidence that I heard glass shattering somewhere near.

He put his hand on my shoulder and turned himself so that we faced each other squarely. 'Angela,' he said. 'One old wife is worth a thousand preachers in the harm old wives have done to me. And garlic
does
hurt.'

We left our windowsill perch and walked together in silence.

I observed him out of the corner of my eye. He still looked ghastly, but over the worst of his attack. Had he eaten any garlic? Was it just the smell? How did the house affect him? Was he around during lunch? Or did Victor, Kate's dog,  whose favourite place was under the kitchen table, breathe on him?

But the Devil wasn't born yesterday, nor was he fiendish in only one part of the world. History and garlic were intertwined. Something didn't add up, but I didn't have the time to learn math now.

Question: Thinking preventatively, should I put a garlic clove in my bag, wrapped, for my protection? Would it?

Answer: Deal with the present, who walks beside you.

I ran my mind over Bettawong's eating establishments with a new criticality. Although they were almost the main business on the street, I could not think of a single one that wouldn't smell of garlic—from Rigamoto FX,  all the way to the old Chinese take-away frequented by pensioners and public housing types,  to ... crikey. The only place I could think of that maybe wouldn't have garlic was Nippon, across the street from the Higher Light, but it was always closed.

'I could use
something
to eat,' he mumbled beside me. 'I haven't eaten since morning.'

I glanced at him and tripped on a crack. His walk was almost sprightly, the tree-frog sheen gone. We were by now at the edge of Bettawong, in front of The Last, an ex-cafe that was between tenants. It inspired me.

'What you need is a restorative coffee and cake,' I said. 'But this one's expensive. Do you have money?'

I dug into my bag and began to fumble things around.

He put his hand on mine. 'I have.'

I nodded, being in the middle of a gulp of salivation.

Three minutes later, we were sitting at a table for two in The Troppo.

~

The Troppo's parties—tremendously dear (like everything at the Troppo)—with Chinese finger pulls and magic stone rings, and rattles—parties only for adults—Troppo's was not McDonald's—were what made The Troppo. And I'd heard that if you came just for coffee and cake and paid only a dollar extra, you'd get a little paper parasol stuck jauntily in your slice of cake.

I hoped Brett would shout me for the parasol, too.

We were lucky there was an empty table. It was almost ten o'clock. Come ten thirty, every table would be taken and no one would leave until kick-out time at half-past midnight. Brett looked introspectively quiet, which suited me down to the ground. He was hardly chit-chat capable.

I was blissfully daydreaming when he startled me by asking when someone would come and take our order. I checked my watch. We'd been here only twenty minutes.

'I don't know,' I answered, a tad annoyed, but I looked around to see who was working tonight. A girl with harlequin glasses that she was taking off and fondling, and putting on again. Did they have prescription lenses or plain glass? I watched for a while, deciding 'plain glass'. She was standing by the cash register. I thought of trying to attract her attention, but that seemed so
American
.

She'd come. They all did eventually.

~

A flicker of flame caught my eye, and I turned my head.

Brett was playing with himself. He had one elbow resting on the table, his arm raised so that his hand was in front of his face. His hand was clenched with his thumb up, and it was flaming like a candle-wick.

Before I could even ...
anything
, he blew it out.

Then he stuck his thumb underneath his fisted fingers again, and flicked it out Zippo-lighter style. It lit instantly. He quenched it, and lit again. Then he repeated the performance. And repeated it yet again.

'Stop that,' I whispered. 'What are you trying to do?'

'Get some—'

I deliberately turned my back to him, distancing myself in the eyes of everyone in the place. I heard snatches of conversation—'like him
trés much
', 'she can't smell the ferret, but the whole bloody flat stinks of its fucking pee', 'those little red peppercorns'. And by the cash register, those harlequin glasses were being taken off and put back on again. I smiled to myself, feeling a surge of national pride. Brett was looking weird amongst a typically tolerant group of Australians, which meant that he was playing to a totally inattentive house.

A roar at my back got all our attention. Brett's thumb now threw up a bonfire reaching almost to the ceiling.

That finally got a response. The harlequin glasses dropped to the floor, and I heard the lovely sound of crunching underfoot as their owner rushed to our table.

She leaned toward Brett, breathing down his chest.

'I'm only studying,' she panted. 'But that's the best act I've ever seen. Have I heard of you?'

'I dare say,' Brett said, quenching his thumb with a panache that was sickening to watch. I had never come close to that level of self-assurance.

'My dear Angela,' he drawled, 'Would you be so kind as to order for us both.'

The coffee came, and then the cake, with parasols.

He stuck his finger in his coffee, tasted it, and made a face. He stuck two fingers in his cake (
Over-the-Troppo: Troppo's own Devil's food cake Topped with Chocolate-covered Cherries, Filled with Hazelnut Cointreau Cream, and all Surrounded by a Lake of Raspberry Couli
) and held his fingers upright, splayed their widest. Then he tasted tentatively, each finger—one from the base up, the other from tip to base—at the same time, running the tips of his forked tongue up and down, down and up those fingers, and licking carefully around, sometimes having his tongue tips meet like mating snakes.

He was doing it on purpose.

'Eat,' he said.

'I'm not hungry,' I answered.

She was standing behind my chair like a waiter in a European restaurant. I could feel her there.

'Eat,' he commanded, and handed me my fork, never taking his eyes from his fingers.

I began to eat, choking back tears.

The coffee was lukewarm.

~

The finger and tongue performance ended. (I have excellent peripheral vision.)

Then the next performance began.

He removed the parasol from his cake and placed it by his plate. Then he
played
with his cake, using the long nail on his left little finger. I hadn't noticed this nail before, but it was the length of a hatpin.

Every time I stopped eating, he stopped playing, and repeated his command.

When he finally finished moving his food around, he stuck the parasol into it rakishly and sat back to admire his work. I was by this time finished with my cake, having pushed down the last of it.

The mess on his plate was nothing less than something murdered for pleasure.

He was not Gordon. Not at all.

He got up and walked out of Troppo's. I followed him out.

He was going in the wrong direction. Anyway, I needed to stop him. 'There wasn't any garlic,' I laughed (poorly).

'That's true,' he said, slowing down. 'But I'm not a sweet tooth. And I like my hot drinks hot.'

'We have to go back,' I told him gently. 'Home is the other way. 'And besides...' I had to add, hoping he wouldn't be angry, especially as it complicated matters because he hadn't paid the bill, which had never come. 'I forgot my sheets at Troppo's.'

'You don't have to worry about them,' he said, stretching his lips in a rictus of a smile.

He was trying. I felt enormously relieved.

And that was so nice of him to remember the sheets, but where were they? He wasn't carrying anything that I could see.

'You're not going back,' he explained, and began to walk again, away from home.

'What?'

'I can't live there,' he said.

I grabbed his arm. 'But I do.' I could hear my voice shaking. 'We can move if you like. I'll give notice and we can look next week.'

He peeled my hand from his arm, gently but firmly. 'No, my dear,' he said, and began walking again.

His stride was so long that my side cramped.

'But ... all my stuff is there!'

He didn't deign to answer.

There was a time when I was in a cathedral in Spain where the bannerless staircase corkscrewed up to a murk of infinity—and halfway up, I glanced down, towards blackness. I slid down the wall to grasp the stone step and the wall behind—unable to move, too frightened to cry. The next tourists found me, clogging the way. They tried to reason, but I was beyond that. As I heard their steps echo ever more faintly downwards, every muscle in my body locked except my sphincter, which relaxed so completely that half my insides, it seemed, ran down the stairs. Eventually an ambulance crew followed my trail up the stairs and rescued me, as I feigned unconsciousness.

 No kind tourists would find me now. No ambulance crew would save me. I forced myself to assess my situation coolly, and was glad that I was able to—that I had matured since the staircase incident.

I'd signed the contract, but the Devil hadn't provided anything. I could break it off, and this Devil business would be just like the staircase incident, just like other times when my body cruelly let me down, just like the journals, just like the book—something to forget and get beyond.

He was five long strides ahead when I stopped. Turning, I strode back over my own footsteps, my mood instantly lightening. Within a block, a wild regret even made me giggle. Those beaut horns and tail—such a waste on
him
.