String Bridge (19 page)

“You heard me,” he replies, looking at the door handle as he turns it. He gently closes the door behind him—as if noise might render his words inappropriate.

I stare at the front door, listening to the echo of Alex’s footsteps as he walks down the stairs.

Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop.

I’m
alone
. I would
be
alone. Like this. Every night. Who would I talk to? Who would I cuddle up to on the couch when there’s a good movie on TV? Who would … love me?

No! I can’t crumple under this pressure!

I kick the wall—hurt my toe. I clutch at it. The throbbing ache that should be located in my heart is in a limb Ancient Chinese women used to break and bind beneath the soles of their feet. Well, my heart is broken. Can I bind it? Make it smaller to fit in with the Greek culture? With the ridiculously high statistics of anti-monogamous men?

I limp to the balcony and sit with Doggy on her dirty, hairy bed. I sob, gritting my teeth, hanging the need to scream on my tonsils.

Doggy licks away my tears, breathing heavily with affection. Her tongue hangs from the side of her mouth like a slab of meat—drools all over my crossed legs.

Get Tessa out of the country legally. Pft. Try and bloody stop me.

Sixteen

Driving in Athens is mayhem. A flight schedule delayed from bad weather. A special occasion with a burnt roast chicken. A forgotten open tap in the bathtub. A burst sewage pipe in your lounge room. Salt in your coffee. Oil on your new dress. Aerosmith singing with Frank Sinatra. Planes on the ground, cars in the sky. Must I go on?

I’ve stopped at the first set of traffic lights on my way to work. I’m late. Very late. So late I think I might slip in through the back via the underground warehouse when I arrive.

I look at my phone, resting on the passenger seat—vibrationless.
Serena. Call me.
Give me something else to focus on while I’m stuck here, breathing in toxic urbanism, and the stink of deception, through the rear of a bus that’s chugging like the motor’s about to cark it.

When the traffic lights turn green, it rings.
Typical
. I shift the gear directly into third from first, revving the motor until the car starts to rattle.
I left my ear bud at home. Damn.
I drive past a squinting cop as I answer the phone and hook it between my ear and shoulder. I wink. He smiles. Ignores the fact that I’m breaking the law.

“Hey, Serena,” I say with a puff.

“Hey. How’s things?”

“Good. You? Beer on your lunch break?”

“Uh, yeah. Charlie and I were both in the same area and thought we’d meet at the pub for lunch. Cool, huh?”

“I guess.”
Just tell her. But … you’ll sound like a cold-hearted bitch. You’re angry. Too angry to be upset. Right?

“So. Melon! What’s up? You thinking of finally following your dream? Wouldn’t it be great? Me, Alex, and Tessa, watching you up there on stage. It’d be fab. I know you’ve got it in you.”

“Um … I’d like to get back into it to some extent. Finally beginning to find a bit a free time.”

“Oh, yeah? That’d be really good for you, I think.”

“Yeah. It would.” I screech on the brakes when I spot a child about to jump onto the road. Shift into first. Nod sympathetically at the mother mouthing some sort of apology for her child’s sudden burst of energy, while I switch my mobile to speaker phone. I lodge the phone between my thighs, upside down so the mic faces upward. “Is Charlie still with you?”

“Yeah. Chat later, okay?”

“Okay, Luv ya,” I answer in forged confidence, feeling my forehead and ears to see if I have a fever. I’m shivery. Nervous?
Breakdown?

“Love you too, Hon.” Wind passes over the phone as she hands it to Charlie. She mutters something in the background that I can’t quite catch.

“Hey, MD!” Charlie shouts, in the carefree tone I remember well.

“Hey! Charlie. It’s been a while.” I try to imitate the same cheer as I pick up a little speed and screech around the bend into the street that leads to my office. A lone ray of sunlight targets one eye through a gap in the clouds. I blink, and flick down the shade.

“Sure has. Listen up. When I got your message on FB, I had a light-bulb moment.”

Wow, he still uses that phrase?
“Oh yeah? And what would that light-bulb moment be?” I smile, amused and comforted by his guilelessness.

“You.
Gee
-tar. Band. Tour.”

“What?” I stop the car in the middle of the road. Luckily it’s not a residential area and the only traffic it sees is UTD Publications staff. “Ha. You get straight to the point, don’t you? We haven’t spoken for years.”

Shouldn’t expect any less from him, I suppose.

“Yeah, well, beatin’ ’round the bush’s over-ahhed. Whatcha think?” Charlie prods in his old-time grisly heavy-metal voice.

“Well …” I find a park, turn off the ignition, grab my bag from the back seat, switch speaker phone off and put the phone to my ear. “I don’t think I could just get up and leave everything, Charlie,” I reply, knowing very well that I was willing to leave everything for London.
I’m not making any sense. Running away isn’t going to solve anything. Is it?

“The tour will only last a month. Com’on MD! You know ya wanna! Serena’s spilled the beans ’bout your life.”

“Has she now?”
Oh my God.

“I know the go. Escape the daily routine. Yada yada.” He imitates the twang of a guitar. “And look. I know there was a lot of shit between us, but hey, it’s all water under the amplifier ramp, right?”

“Ha. Of course. I’m not worried about any of that. It’s just …”

“Just what, kitten?”
Kitten. Wow. Memories.

“Charlie …”

“Look. Don’t answer me now. I’ll send ya an email. Tell ya all ’bout it. Decide when ya got all the nitty gritty. Deal?” he asks in an odd paternal voice I don’t recall.
Has he had kids I don’t know about?

I sigh, remembering the day I broke up with him, changed my number, and never contacted him again. I was horrible.

Why is he being so kind? Surely he can’t … still have feelings—

“What was that big sigh for? Sounds like a good deal to me.”

“Yeah, okay, Charlie. I’ll keep my eye out for your email. But I can’t promise you anything. I’m er, a little—”

“MD, don’t worry. I’m not gonna try ‘n’ get into ya pants.”

“Charlie.” I hang my head in my hands. Laugh under my breath. An image of Charlie and me, having sex on a plastic tavern table in the middle of the night, sends my knees into convulsion.

“I wasn’t thinking that. I gotta go. Thanks so much for the offer. I’ll think about it.”

“Cheers. I’ll be in touch.”

I hang up. Throw the phone into my handbag and get out of the car.

Am I insane? I’d really love to do it. Escape for a month and pretend I’m a famous musician. Is it normal to think this at such a critical time in my life? In my marriage? What if I sleep with him? What if I become the woman I used to be? Do I really want that? Now, after all I’ve been through, and grown to become? Am I … cut out for it?

Charlie and I used to attend each other’s gigs like a Sunday church service. Charlie’s gigs, however, were a lot different from mine, and I’m still not sure if we enjoyed each other’s music as much as we enjoyed the fact that we were both musicians. His band wasn’t the free-spirited, enlightening hippy-sort like mine. His band was the devil-worshipping, throat-hurting, head-throbbing, metal-cutting, and rage-enhancing type. I soon learned that I had to wear black makeup, chains, and spiky jewelry in order to not draw attention to myself at his gigs, and he learned to wear his rainbow-colored trousers and tie-dye T-shirt to mine.

Although our relationship lasted for three years, we weren’t in love. We just had great sex and a shit load of fun together. Music always came first. If love didn’t need to be a major factor in a relationship, the two of us would have been the perfect bride and groom. Looking back, it makes me wonder whether it makes more sense to marry a great
friend
, rather than someone you love. Friendship does seem to last longer.

We met each other competing in a band competition. He approached me after my performance—drunk, slurring, “A chick on guitar is really cool, man.”

Already editing at age eighteen, I snapped, “If you take a better look you’ll realize that I’m not male, nor am I a bird of any sort, the guitar is on
me
, I’m not on
it
, and in fact, it’s not cool, it’s pretty damn hot under those lights, so if you like,
man
, you can go and try that pickup line on my violinist. She’s blonde.”

“Ho, ho, ho, a chick with a dick! I
like
it!” he laughed, almost spilling his beer on my feet.

I bumped into him the next day when I was picking up some equipment from the pub. He was sober. Trying to speak as if he’d been raised in an upper-class environment—avoiding slang and whatnot. Although I could see through him, it amused me, and I ended up giving him my number. We hadn’t even exchanged names at this point, so I wrote on top of the number: “chick with a dick.”

He called the same night.

“Just one moment please,” my mother said, swaying a little from her one too many vodkas. She put her hand over the receiver and whispered, “Melody, there’s a guy on the phone saying that there should be a
woman
living here who gave him her number at the pub this afternoon. I thought it may have been for me—” She glanced around to see where Dad was, then whispered with gritted teeth, “I started speaking to him in my sexy voice, Melody! Then he said he thought he may have dialed the wrong number. So, I asked him if there was anything else written on the piece of paper.”

She stared at me, hunched over as if in pain, clutching the receiver to her stomach. I held out my hand. Shrugged. Wiggled my fingers as a gesture to give me the phone.

She put the receiver back to her ear. “Er. You there? Sorry ’bout the mix-up. Can I have her call you back? Melody’s not available to speak right now.” She wrote down his name and number and hung up.

“What were you thinking, Melody?” Mum yelled.

“What were
you
thinking, Mum?” I snarled, crossing my arms and leaning my weight on one foot.

“Don’t you
dare
speak to me like that.” Mum pointed her finger at me as if a sharp weapon.

“You just spoke to
me
like that!”

“I’m your mother! I’m allowed!”

“What happened to the equal rights you were trying so desperately to preach yesterday when you got all ooh-la about sexual discrimination and decided you shouldn’t be obligated to cook any more?” I maintained a level tone, trying to pretend the conversation wasn’t bordering on the aggressive.

“As long as you’re living under
my
roof, you’ll do as
I
say!” She moved her finger closer to my face. I can remember thinking,
Here we go again. Duck and run.
But I didn’t duck and run. I kept testing my new boundaries. I had just turned eighteen—the legal independent age in Australia. I could do what I wanted. If my mother had decided to flip out again, I could have just left. And she wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it.

“When did you start becoming so conservative?” I screeched. “Living under my roof? What are you talking about, Mum? Don’t give me that shite.”

“Shite?” She snorted. “The character on the agenda today is an unemployed Scottish bum. Let me introduce myself. I’m the Wicked Witch of the East. Nice to meet you,” she narrated like a DJ accepting a radio caller, holding out her hand.

“Shut up, Mum. The problem here isn’t me. It’s you! And what do you mean
sexy voice?
I
knew
I should have taken your diary more seriously! But I—”

“What?”

“Yeah. I read your diary. Something about dreaming of kissing that ‘lifelong’ friend of yours in Greece! Wasn’t he actually
Dad’s
friend first?”

“How
dare
you—” Mum’s jaw dropped. Her skin stretched so much her crying lines disappeared.

“Don’t ‘how dare you’ me! I thought they were just fantasies. But it looks like you actually like to
bring them to life
!”

Our aggressive whispering mimicked a female Godfather duet. We were both irate and red in the face—my mother from holding her breath, and me from giving myself a tonsillectomy.

Dad walked into the corridor.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his vocal cords doing a little dance as they do when there might be a threat of having his head bitten off. My mother was on the brink of telling him what I’d done, when I shot her an ambiguous glare. She responded with guilty calm—an invisible wink. So I took control.

“She took a message for me,” I said. “From a guy I met at the pub and forgot to write down his number, so I got angry ’cause now I can’t call him back and he’s going to think I’m not interested.” My mother moved the scribbled number behind her back with discretion.

“Ah,” Dad nodded with a hesitant laugh. “Well, at least it wasn’t me who answered the phone, ’cause then you’d
both
be having a go at me. I’ll leave you two to it.”

When Dad walked out, my mother pushed the number into my hand with the force of attempted crucifixion, walked into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. I stared at the number for about ten minutes before I recollected myself and dialed it.

“Ye-ah?”

“Hi, it’s me. Melody. You just called me.”

“Hi MD! Charlie here. But you can call me whatever you like.”

I chuckled. “Charlie’s fine.”

“Um, yeah, your roommate sounds a bit er … yoko.”

From that day forward, we stuck together like ‘cheese toast.’ Charlie said that he was the toast, because he was hot and crusty, and I was the cheese because I was hot and squishy. It was fun being an ingredient of cheese toast. Until Greece ate me.