Yearning (16 page)

‘No more stupid ideas about bloody college.’ – ‘He’s a bloody useless hippy. A bad influence.’ – ‘She’s out of that damned school.’

She turned a blunt shoulder to her mother’s attempts to talk. She refused to speak to either of them. On Monday she refused to go to school. She lay in her bed, the covers pulled halfway up. Her mother brought food – hot pie and cake – and left it by her bed only to take it away hours later, untouched. She heard her father leave for work early and return late, thundering through the front door, bottles clinking as his beer-heavy body lurched against the wall.

She bore her mother’s lectures with mute stubbornness. She couldn’t weep. She refused to get up. She was empty and withered. Her teddy bear clock ticked as she watched the light change on the wall and the days melt away. School could wait. Hunger roared in her stomach like a lion, but every time she tasted food nausea consumed her. If the phone rang or someone came to the front door her pulse quickened, a desperate hope filling her, only to be washed away by disappointment when she realised it wasn’t Solomon.

A hollow space opened up inside her as she waited with fading hope for him to come, her confidence that he would rescue her disappearing with each hour they were apart. Time passed without word from him and her misery deepened, expectations falling loosely into the vacant space in her belly. So. Perhaps Solomon didn’t love her after all. He’d left her alone to fight these monsters, had made no attempt to see or speak to her. It was unbelievable, that it could be true. But it must be. Otherwise he’d be there by now. Why didn’t he come? She gazed out her window at his empty study, praying that he’d find a way for them to be together.

After a few days her mother forced her out of her bed to the shower and downstairs to eat. She dragged herself to school, weakly hoping she would see Solomon, perhaps find some moments with him so he could explain what he had planned for them, only to find he’d taken holidays and would be away for two weeks. Without energy for anything, she struggled through her day in a state of atrophy.

A week later her father burst into her room, triumphant. As usual she was lying on her bed, her face turned to the wall.

‘I forced the bastard to move,’ he announced. ‘He’s gone. The house is up for lease.’

She stared at the wall, refusing to acknowledge him.

‘You got anything to say to me?’

The clock ticked loudly. A lawnmower droned somewhere. Her shoulder lifted as she breathed but she didn’t move. She hated her father right then. Hated him for the tight grip he held on their life, and the constant insinuation that she owed him something. She said nothing. He slammed her bedroom door as he left.

A little later her mother crept in and stood by her bed looking down at her. ‘You need to apologise to your father.’ Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact.

Fury burst inside her and she turned on her mother like a wildcat. ‘What for? That bastard has taken everything from me. Everything!’

Her mother held up her hands and took a step back. ‘How dare you use language like that about your father! He’s given you everything. He hates being a builder but stays at his job for us. He worked extra hours so we could afford your tutoring with that . . . that . . . ’

Tears of frustration fell from the girl’s eyes as she gawped miserably at her mother. ‘That
teacher
, Mum, a fantastic, wonderful teacher, the best I’ve ever had. It’s not fair. Dad doesn’t want me to be happy.’

‘Don’t be silly, of course he wants you to be happy.’ Her mother was pouting like a child, as though she were the one who had been wronged. ‘After all he’s done for
you, you should be grateful. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

Was she? Was she ashamed? She didn’t want to be, didn’t think she should be, but perhaps she was. After all the sneaking around and lying, maybe now she could look her mother in the eye and tell her the truth. What difference could it make now? It was over anyway and she was still in love with Solomon. And she thought he loved her back. She needed to be with him, must be with him. They couldn’t be held apart by her parents anymore.

Under the chill of her mother’s stare she started to sob. She thought she’d cried herself out, but new tears slid down the side of her nose and dripped onto the doona. Her mother watched warily before speaking again.

‘What really happened between you and Mr Andrews?’

A small question going begging for the truth. She wouldn’t look at her mother, couldn’t look at her. ‘Nothing.’

She sensed her mother’s doubt. Her grief was like a dam inside her, the weight of it pushing against the silence she kept.

‘Nothing?’

‘Oh, Mum . . . ’ The words ‘I love him’ hovered on her lips and quivered like a drop of water clinging to a tap, waiting for gravity to draw it to the ground. Could she tell her mother the truth? She needed to trust her, so badly, but would she understand? Would she hear the sadness in her if she told the truth?

She let the words drop. She saw her mother wince as they hit dead centre. Barely a breath was taken before her mother’s outrage lashed back.

‘Love him? You stupid girl! He’s your teacher and a grown man. You have no business with him, nor he with you. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Is that what this is all about? A stupid schoolgirl crush? For heaven’s sake, you silly, silly girl.’

Humiliated, she buried her face in her pillow, letting her disappointment sink into its softness. She should have known better. Her mother was like the moon, beautiful and cold and far away. But now there was something else.

Her mother had stopped speaking. Sharp realisation had broken through. ‘You’ve slept with him, haven’t you?’

She lay still, holding the pillow hard against her face, listening to her mother’s breathing, the sound of it filling the room.

‘My God. My God! You’re not pregnant, are you?’

She sighed with exasperation, her voice muffled by the pillow. ‘Oh, Mum. Do you think I’d be that stupid?’

Horrified, her mother took a step back, revulsion in her face. She put her hand to her mouth. When she spoke again her voice was rasping. ‘You bad girl. Stupid girl. How could you do this to us?’

Stillness filled the room. She pulled the pillow away from her face and watched dust motes floating in shafts of sunlight through the window. A spider climbed over the lump in the plaster on the wall. The only reason she knew her mother had left the room was the click of the door as it closed.

*

Dreaming. Dreaming of Solomon. He is sitting silently on a white bed in a white room. Naked, as if he’s waiting
for her. She is changing out of her clothes behind a white screen; she’s talking to him, but he’s ignoring her. She is woken by the sound of her bedroom door opening. Her mother stands, exhausted, leaning on the door handle.

‘We’ve sorted it all out. You’re father is furious. But we’ve agreed that we should keep it quiet. We have our name to protect. We must get you away from here, so we think it’s best if you move to the city with your Auntie Eva.’

She pretended she was dead.

‘You can come home and visit during the holidays. Although I think for the next holidays you’d best stay with Eva. We don’t want to run the risk of you running into him. You need to start fresh and forget him.’

She breathed in silence.

‘You’re a silly girl. You’ve let yourself be taken advantage of. I hope this teaches you some sense.’

With that the door closed and she was spinning free in a world she no longer understood. Moving. Moving? House, school, friends, all of them changing. But what about Solomon? How would he find her? She had no way of telling him, no way of letting him know where she’d be. He’d never find her now. Fresh tears came with the realisation she would probably never see him again.

In her misery she let her mind rest against the idea of living in the city, testing it for resilience. She welcomed it in, tasting it, seeing in it an opportunity to be free from her parents’ grasp. It would be a relief to be out of their reach. Auntie Eva was okay. She was a bit churchy and straight, but she’d always been kind. She was a lot warmer than her mother.

She was so tired of being treated like a child. She was even more tired of lying, and of feeling guilty and afraid. She saw now that Solomon wouldn’t come. He’d disappeared, and maybe it was for the best. She was alone and fat with longing for a man she wasn’t allowed to have, who perhaps, in the end, didn’t want her.

In the days before she left she drifted, bereft and untethered, like loose change falling through a hole in a pocket. Aspirin did nothing to relieve the constant headache and the tightness in her throat. She had no appetite for food or life. All she wanted to do was sleep. Occasionally she sat at her desk and tried to write, staring down at the blank window to the empty room next door. Nothing came. A few forgotten scraps of paper, torn from her diary, littered the carpet. Everything was empty. Solomon. Solomon. His named buzzed around her like a sticky summer fly, stinging her eyes and biting her skin. Nothing would banish it.

Finally, with each passing day, she began to accept that Solomon had left her for dead. Her grief swallowed her whole, a dull fog descending around her. Depression nipped at her heels and without the energy to run from it she let it bite, allowing it to sink its teeth deep into her marrow. He was gone and what could she do to forget him when his scent lived under her skin and his name was tattooed to the length of her bones?

The wind leaned into the window panes as Max stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Fucking fancy dress. Didn’t they know fancy dress parties were for kids? His friends were idiots. Adult men aren’t supposed to get in their cars and drive through stormy nights dressed as gorillas or nuns. He adjusted the silver belt buckle at the centre of his belly. Determined not to make a dick of himself he’d dressed as he always did: western shirt, jeans, denim jacket and cowboy boots. A fancy belt buckle, the wide silver disc emblazoned with large bull horns, was as close to fancy dress as he was willing to get.

Picking up a comb he dragged it through the short, tight curls that stuck close to his scalp. He couldn’t be bothered. He was only going tonight because it was New Year’s. He didn’t give a shit about 1996. It was just another year, the same as all the others before it, and he saw no reason to celebrate. But he was expected to show up because Danny’s girlfriend, Lisa, had been raving about some new chick she wanted him to meet. He hated being set up but Lisa had insisted, dismissing his protest with a flippant wave of her
hand. And now he couldn’t suppress the seed of anticipation in him. He wouldn’t admit it to Lisa, but he was lonely.

‘She’s sane and stable, Max, which is more than you could say for Skye.’

Lisa was right. Skye had turned out to be a New Age nut. She’d shown up on one of their camping trips, a radiant and aimless stranger looking like a refugee from the 70s in retro gypsy gear with wedge platform sandals and carrying a plastic bag full of weed. Homeless and lost, she’d been kicked out of her last flat and was bunking on friend’s couches and floors until she found somewhere to live. Max was pissed when he offered her his spare room. She threw her arms around him and toppled him over a guy rope, covering him in grateful kisses.

He helped Skye move in, filling the tray of his ute with boxes of books on pagan rituals and a dusty collection of porcelain cats. He sweated and heaved at suitcases spewing scarves and healing crystals and laboured under the dead weight of her foul-smelling futon. It wasn’t until he saw her drop the two kitty litter trays in the laundry that he realised she had real cats. There were four of them. Ali, Kali, Bali and Bernice had taken to his lounge suite and bed with the arrogance of royalty. Their fur rising on the air currents in the house made his eyes water and his nose run. He put up with it for the pleasure of watching a naked Skye waft through his hallway to the bathroom.

Three days after Skye moved in Max arrived home to find his bedroom laced with smoky incense and candles. There was Skye, draped in white scarves, a goddess lying seductively across his bedspread. She drew him to her with a curling finger.

‘We’re meant for each other,’ she whispered. ‘My tarot never lies.’

He couldn’t believe his luck. Never before had it been so easy to get laid. Each night he lay in his bed, stunned and stoned, while she incanted strange words in the next room between the clang of Tibetan bells and inexplicable thuds on the floor. He would wait, stiff with anticipation, and she would come to him in the darkness, carrying a candle and smelling of sandalwood. Once in the room she would devour him like a she-devil. He had no idea what took place in the spare room beforehand, but as long as she lavished her demonic attention on his cock every night he didn’t care.

He fucked her for weeks until the night he was woken by the sounds of drawers opening in the kitchen and no Skye in his bed. He crept out to investigate, freezing in the hallway as he spotted her standing ghostlike, the neat shine of a knife blade glimmering in her hand.

‘What are you doing?’ His voice resonated loudly in the quiet of night.

Skye had started and slumped to the floor, the knife still clasped in her hand. Cautiously he approached her, swiftly disentangling her fingers from the knife-handle and pushing it far out of her reach. She came to with a groggy cough and smiled up at him.

‘What happened?’

‘Looked like you were sleepwalking.’

Skye shrugged and rubbed her eyes sleepily. ‘Really? That’s funny.’

‘You don’t remember?’

She shook her head and threaded her slender arms around his neck. Something about her teeth shining in
the dim light disturbed him. He carried her back to his bed and lay awake the rest of the night wondering if she’d lied. Three days and two sleepless nights later he asked her to leave.

‘Sorry, but the cats give me hay fever.’

Skye pushed him hard in the chest. ‘I thought you loved me.’

‘I never said that.’

‘I thought you were a good person. You’re just as selfish as the others.’