Claustrophobia (15 page)

‘Who were you talking to?' Pen said, realising she sounded abrupt but too anxious to care.

‘Just a friend.'

‘Which friend?'

‘Cindy, if that makes you any the wiser. Pen, what's the matter? You'll catch a chill if you stand there like that.' Kathleen stood up and began brushing her hair. Pen examined her reflection in the mirror, bold and solid after the eerie white repeating image of the bathroom tiles. She stood behind Kathleen, contrasting their faces. Her own was set in a hard pallor; Kathleen's was still softly flushed.

‘I don't want to be gossip material,' Pen muttered. ‘I told you, privacy means a lot to me. I don't want you telling people about me, I'm not – not ready for that.' She knew it was lame. But how else to keep things contained?

A sickly wave swept through her – she'd never considered how many people Kathleen might already have mentioned her to. She'd just made sure they were always alone, so far. As alone as she could manage.

Kathleen sniffed, slightly put out. ‘Pen, you've no need to be so uptight. Cindy's an old friend, she's not going to advertise anything. She was just curious.
She
rang
me
, I didn't ring her. And besides, it's not as if I was naming names.'

‘Well, please don't.'

Kathleen laughed, her usual good humour getting the better of her. ‘What shall I call you then – Madame X? Or Mademoiselle, rather …'

‘I'm sorry.' Pen rested her hands on Kathleen's shoulders, thinking how slender, how vulnerable her neck was. And
how soft her skin. ‘I shouldn't have snapped like that. I just really want to be discreet.'

‘Understood. You want the strong and silent type,' Kathleen joked. ‘But if this thing lasts, Pen,' and she turned around and looked deep into Pen's eyes, ‘you won't be able to hide forever, you know.'

Pen swallowed.
If this thing lasts
. But what was
this thing
? It seemed to be taking place in a dream space, a parallel world, not the life she'd lived till now. She had no way of plotting her position, no way of understanding the course in front of her from what she'd already known.

If they could only stay here, away from others, and learn the contours of this new arrangement. But it was like the chalet, at once a home and a strange set of coordinates. Every time you woke, you had to remind yourself where and who you were …

Kathleen threw open the curtains and wound the window open to let in fresh air.

‘Now you get dressed, and let's have some breakfast,' she said, ‘and figure out what to do with the day. Because tomorrow will be all swallowed up with driving, you know.'

Pen pulled her overnight bag from the bedside shelf, and her mobile phone slid out. She thrust one hand down to cover it, but too late.

‘I didn't know you had a phone,' Kathleen said. ‘You'll have to give me your number. I thought you said you didn't like them.'

‘I don't.' Pen pushed it back into the bag. ‘I just got it. Only because of work shifts – they put pressure on me to be available. I didn't even realise I'd brought it.'

At least now she didn't have to hide it, deleting Derrick's texts and messages on the sly. But it meant Kathleen would eventually want to be ringing her, once they were back in the city, and she'd have to keep on top of that. Maybe she could write the number down for her with one digit wrong. That was plausible, with a supposedly new phone. She must be the one calling, not the one called.

By afternoon it was sunny enough, if not exactly warm enough, that Kathleen suggested going to look for Pemberton Pool.

‘You really love swimming, don't you?' Pen rolled her eyes.

‘Don't
you
?'

Their bathing suits were flapping on the tiny line behind the chalet, like two deflated bodies, parodies of themselves. ‘Second skins,' thought Pen. The salt smell of Busselton lingered on the fabric, despite rinsing. It was crazy the way you carried one place to another, unable ever to shuck anything off. The world of the senses was so heavy, indelible. Pen packed the suits into a carry bag with some towels and sat the camera gently on top of them.

Again she considered how to remove yesterday's photos. If she deleted them, there was surely a trace that remained on the memory card, as there was in computers, even when you thought you had got rid of something.

She was still thinking like someone plotting. If … then … Why would anyone ever check for traces on that card? Surely she wasn't still imagining murderous scenarios. Surely she only wanted there to be no photos that could betray her to Derrick.

But Kathleen would wonder how they had got deleted. Too
tricky. You could pretend to delete one or two accidentally, but not a whole series. And if she merely removed the memory card, that would be even weirder. There was nothing for it but to get rid of the camera itself. People lost cameras all the time, didn't they?

She thought: ‘Camera dumped in one place, memory card in another.'

That was the only way.

Pemberton Pool was still there, all right, open to the elements. Pen remembered the wildness, the dizzying overarching trees above the water. Yet now it didn't seem so vast.

‘I like how it feels as if you're merged into the forest,' she said to Kathleen, dipping a toe in at the edge. ‘Oh, too cold.'

‘I know what you mean. I went ice-skating once – in Zurich, it was – in the middle of the woods. Practically primeval. It was bliss. Ordinary rinks just don't feel the same way. Just don't
cut the ice
, you might say! Come on, I'll help you in,' and she reached out to draw Pen towards her, like someone inviting a dance partner. ‘Two kinds of people,' Pen thought – those who always plunge straight in, and those who dip the toe. And never the twain …

But here: the twain. She closed her eyes and let Kathleen take her in her arms; the liquid crept up her sides like a dark blanket. Kathleen had crouched into the pool and then come up again. Her nipples showed hard through the shiny bathing suit. Pen remembered her own first swim here at twelve or so, her mother's admonition: ‘Go and put a T-shirt on!'

It was a new halter-neck suit Dad had bought her, and
the two gathered cups – no cups really, just stitching – were wrinkled and limp as empty bags where her breasts should have been. The suit was the right size, but she hadn't
developed
yet. She laughed – must have been the first time any girl was told to cover up what she
didn't
have.

‘What's funny?' asked Kathleen, gliding out into the chill with Pen still in her arms, towing her so lightly they barely seemed to be touching.

Pen told her the memory.

Kathleen kissed her neck. ‘Well, you've more than made up for it now.'

Pen glanced around. There was scarcely anyone near the pool, and those who were seemed not to notice anything. She looked down furtively at her own front, the top of her bathers now close-fitting enough not to let her breasts float upward, yet they bulged in a way that made her ashamed.

‘Does it put you off?' she said, self-conscious. Kathleen's own chest was lightly curved and elegant, no sign of ageing or weight, as lithe as the rest of her. She was the sort of woman whose body would probably never change.

‘Don't be ridiculous!' Kathleen said. ‘They're gorgeous. How can you not know that?'

Pen was embarrassed and yet somehow relieved. Derrick had never spoken much about her body, or if he had, it seemed formulaic – he
knew
not to say anything that would hurt her, so she could never gauge the truth of his reactions.

‘You know, the problem with you, Pen,' Kathleen went on, resting her head backwards so that her hair spread out in the water like the rays of a pale sun, ‘is you just don't seem to know how lovely you are.'

‘Silly,' Pen said, and turned her face away.

‘No, seriously. Haven't you ever been to, say, a nudist beach? Then you'd see. Most people aren't a tenth as perfect as you are.'

Perfection has no degrees
, Pen's friend Sally used to say at school. You can't have
more perfect
. You can't say
usually always
. Oxymorons and tautologies, all the contradictions of language that were impossible and yet meant something. Nudist beaches! She looked at Kathleen in amazement. Maybe Kathleen had taken Derrick to places like that. Pen felt suddenly queasy. What was she doing here with this woman? Where was Derrick, after all? She was losing her bearings again.

‘I've got to get out now,' she said. ‘I'm starting to get goosebumps.'

Kathleen opted to swim a little longer. Pen went to get dressed, and saw her chance to extract the memory card from Kathleen's camera. She slid the little square into her pocket and waited till Kathleen got out of the water and went to change, then ditched it as far out into the pool as she could throw. No one could know she wasn't tossing a stone or a twig.

The camera itself was not so easy. Pen was about to walk further down beside the river and drop it in there, when Kathleen emerged and beckoned towards the car. Too late.

Pen crammed it back into her carry bag and thought, ‘Somewhere in the bush along the way.'

‘What were you throwing into the water?'

Pen started: how long had Kathleen been watching? She'd not seen her till afterwards.

‘Ah – just a little flat piece of bark. I wanted to see if I could skim it, you know, across the surface.' She knew she must hold Kathleen's gaze with confidence, despite the doubt flickering in it.

At last Kathleen smiled and nodded. ‘You're just a big kid at heart.'

Hungry from their exertions, they stopped for Devonshire teas before going back to the chalet. The tearooms were imitation colonial, with bushranger prints on the walls, and staff in what passed for period costume. These places never changed. But the scones were huge and fluffy, and the cream overwhelming.

‘Like the cream in that Katherine Mansfield story,' Kathleen said. ‘The one where they have a garden party while somebody's dying.'

Pen only vaguely remembered, from school maybe. ‘I thought you were French literature, not English,' she said.

‘Ah, yes, but my mother was a Mansfield devotee – I was named after her, you know. Her real name, Kathleen Beauchamp. Funny how we say ‘English', since she was a New Zealander.'

‘I meant writing in English.'

‘Anyway, we read all those stories. She's wonderful. You should read her. She was bisexual, you know.'

Pen looked around her: no one had heard. The mob-capped waitress went on serving teas; the other customers went on with their conversations. Why did that word sound so loud?

‘Meaning? Is that how – is that how you would describe yourself?' She was thinking inevitably of Derrick.

Kathleen patted cream from her lips with a serviette. ‘Isn't this dinky?' she said, ‘silver forks and cloth napkins … Well – I suppose so. I haven't been close to a man for a long time. But I certainly did
experiment
when I was younger. I just try not to use labels. And you?'

‘I don't want to think about it,' said Pen. Which was true. Thinking about any of it made this more real, instead of a brief deviation. One more night, and then they would be back in the ordinary world. She would have to resume her normal behaviour before Derrick came home from camp.

Act as if nothing untoward had happened.

‘One more night,' Kathleen said now, squeezing the last of the over-stewed tea from the pot, prolonging the moment. ‘I mean one more where you don't have to hurry off. Where we get to wake up together.'

Pen was silent. For an instant she thought, ‘I could come clean. Not about everything, but tell her – that I'm not free. Even that I'm married.' She pondered where that could lead.

‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean – I'm not trying to push you. I know it's early days yet. And they always say that time apart is healthy for a relationship, don't they?' Kathleen smiled and squeezed Pen's hand across the lacy tablecloth. ‘It's just that I've so enjoyed this little interval.'

‘Me too,' Pen said weakly.

‘How do
you
feel? You don't say much, Pen.'

Pen gazed into her large eyes, mesmerised and teetering.

‘There's something I have to tell you,' she began. Waited then, as if for Kathleen's reassuring prompt. But none came. Surely she couldn't do it. ‘I – I'm not the person you think I am.'

Kathleen laughed. ‘None of us is what others think, Pen.'

‘No, but I'm really not … not a very good person.'

‘Why do you say that?'

Pen faltered, fidgeting, pressing at spilt grains of sugar on her saucer till her fingertips were sore. Her breath felt stale with tannin and fear. Everything would fall apart. If she went further.

‘I'm just no good, that's all.'

‘Good enough for
me
!' Kathleen said, trying to break the spell. ‘Don't be morbid, Pen. Sometimes when things are just great, people feel they have to pay, you know. Self-sabotage and all that.'

‘What do you mean?' Pen was monotone, to stop herself teetering.

‘You've got a self-esteem thing, and from what you've said about growing up with your mum I'm not surprised. She seems pretty down on you. I'm sorry if that's too blunt. But you know what? You're exactly fine the way you are.'

The moment of madness passed. Pen forced a smile.

‘If you insist,' she said, with faint irony.

‘I insist!'

That night she lay awake a long time, contemplating Kathleen who was always, it seemed, a sound sleeper. The bed was firm, but the bedding was all feather-filled, which tightened Pen's chest and irritated the nape of her neck.

‘Just to think,' Pen mused, ‘I had ideas of smothering with pillows, of somehow getting rid of her.' And now here she was, utterly trusting, utterly in Pen's power.