Truly Madly Guilty (14 page)

She’d told her mum the truth when she’d said there was nothing on her mind. She was trying to make her brain like a blank piece of paper.

The only thing allowed on her piece of paper was school stuff.

Nothing else. Not sad thoughts, not happy thoughts, not scary thoughts. Just facts about Australia’s indigenous culture and global warming and fractions.

It was good that she was going to the new school next year. They had a good ‘academic record’. So hopefully they would stuff her brain full of more facts so there wouldn’t be any room to think about it, to remember what she’d done. Before, she’d felt a bit nervous about starting somewhere new, but now that didn’t matter. Remembering her old worries about making friends was like remembering something from when she was only a really little kid, even though the barbeque had only happened back at the end of term two.

Her parents still loved her. She was sure of this. They probably weren’t thinking secret angry thoughts.

She remembered her dad the day after, standing in the backyard, swinging that big iron bar over and over like a baseball bat, his face bright red. It had been terrifying. Then he’d come inside and had a shower without saying a single word, and her dad liked to talk. Things had to be serious for her dad not to talk.

But then, after that, slowly, her mum and dad had returned to their normal selves. They loved her too much not to forgive her. They knew she knew the hugeness of what she’d done. There had been no punishment. That’s how big this thing was. It wasn’t kid stuff. Not like, ‘No TV until you tidy your room.’ Actually Dakota had never got many punishments, or ‘consequences’. Other kids did heaps of little wrong things every single day of their lives. Dakota just saved it all up and did one giant wrong thing.

It was up to her to punish herself.

She had thought about cutting herself. She’d read about cutting in a YA book that the librarian said was too old for her, but she’d got her mum to buy it for her anyway. (Her mum bought her any book she wanted.) Teenagers did it. It was called ‘self-harm’. She’d thought she’d try out self-harm, even though she really, really hated blood. When her parents were busy on their computers, she’d gone into their bathroom and found a razor blade and sat on the edge of the bath for ages trying to get up the courage to press it into her skin, but she couldn’t do it. She was too weak. Too cowardly. Instead she hit herself as hard as she could on the top of her thighs with closed fists. Later, there were bruises, so that was good. But then she had come up with a better punishment: something that hurt more than cutting. Something that affected her every day and no one even noticed the difference.

It made her feel less guilty but at the same time it made her feel desolate. ‘Desolate’ was the most perfectly beautiful word for how she felt. Sometimes she repeated it over and over to herself like a song: desolate, desolate, desolate.

She wondered for a moment if Harry had felt desolate and that’s why he’d been so angry with everyone. She remembered how that afternoon she’d sat on this window seat, reading, and she’d looked up and seen a light on in a room on the second floor of Harry’s house and she’d wondered what Harry was doing up there, and what did he do with all those rooms in that house anyway, when he lived there all alone?

Now Harry was dead and Dakota felt nothing about that, nothing at all.

chapter twenty

The day of the barbeque

‘Here they come,’ Tiffany called out to Vid in the kitchen as she stood at the front door and watched Dakota walk up the driveway, hand in hand with Clementine’s pink tutu-clad daughters who were skipping by her side. As Tiffany watched, the littler one toppled over in that slow-motion toddler way and Dakota tried to carry her. The child was about half Dakota’s height, so her legs dragged on the ground and Dakota tilted to one side, staggering under the little girl’s weight.

‘Dakota is being such a good sister!’ said Tiffany as Vid appeared at the front door wearing his striped apron, smelling strongly of garlic and lemon from the prawns he was marinating.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Vid.

Fifteen years ago, when he proposed, while Tiffany was still admiring her engagement ring (Tiffany for Tiffany, naturally), Vid had said, ‘Before you put it on, we need to talk about children, okay?’ With three volatile, angry teenage daughters, Vid had no desire for more children, but Tiffany was a young woman, so of course she would want children, it was only natural, he understood this, so Vid’s compromise, in order to close the deal, was this:
Just one baby
. A one-child policy. Like China. He couldn’t take any more than that. His heart and his bank account couldn’t handle it. He said he would understand if one baby was not enough, but for him it was not negotiable. Take it or leave it, and by the way, if she walked away, the ring was still hers and he would always love her.

Tiffany took the deal. Babies were the last thing on her mind back then, and she really did not fancy stretch marks.

She had never regretted it, except sometimes, like right now, she felt a kind of twinge. Dakota would have been a loving, responsible older sister, just like Tiffany’s own older sisters had been. It seemed wrong to deny her that, especially as Dakota never demanded anything except more library books.

‘Maybe we should renegotiate our deal,’ said Tiffany.

‘Don’t even joke about it,’ said Vid. ‘I am not laughing. Look at this face.’ He pulled a mournful face. ‘Serious face. Four weddings will bankrupt me. It will be the death of me. It will be like that movie, you know,
Four Weddings and a Funeral
. My funeral.’ Vid chuckled, delighted with himself. ‘Four weddings and my funeral. You get it? Four daughters’ weddings and Vid’s funeral.’

‘I get it, Vid,’ said Tiffany, knowing that she’d be hearing this joke for months, possibly years to come.

She watched Erika and Oliver, Clementine and Sam, approach the house behind the children. There was something odd about their formation, there was too much space around them, as if they weren’t two couples who knew each other well but four individual guests who hadn’t met before this day and had happened to arrive at the same time.

‘Hi!’ called out Erika, timing it just a bit wrong; she was too far away. Their driveway was very long.

‘Hi!’ called back Tiffany, walking down the steps to meet them.

As they got closer, she saw they all had identical glazed smiles, like people who have recently got into drugs or religion, or a new pyramid sales scheme. Tiffany felt a hint of trepidation. How was this afternoon going to pan out?

Vid walked straight past her towards the guests, his arms outstretched.
Jeez Louise, Vid, you peanut, you would think they were beloved relatives returning from a long trip overseas.

Barney thought the guests were his beloved relatives too, and rushed to ecstatically sniff everyone’s shoes as though it were a race to get them all sniffed in record time.

‘Welcome, welcome!’ cried Vid. ‘And look at these beautiful little girls! Hello! I hope you don’t mind me sending Dakota over to fetch you. I didn’t want the meat to be overcooked. Barney, calm down, you crazy dog.’

He kissed Clementine on both cheeks. ‘Because I remember you’re a foodie, like me, right? We like good food! Last time we met at Erika’s place I remember we talked food, you know.’

‘Did you?’ said Erika suspiciously, as if all conversational topics should have been first cleared with her. ‘I don’t remember that.’ She handed Tiffany a jar of chocolate nuts. ‘I hope you don’t have allergies because these are nuts. Chocolate nuts.’

‘No allergies,’ said Tiffany. ‘Actually I love these.’ She wasn’t just being polite. They made her feel nostalgic. Her grandfather used to buy them every Christmas.

‘Really?’ said Erika doubtfully. ‘Well, that’s good.’

She was a real odd bod, that girl, as Tiffany’s sister Karen would say.

Clementine had lost her glazed expression and she was looking at Vid as if he were the answer to all her problems.

‘Mum, this one is Ruby and this one is Holly. Can I take them up to my room?’ said Dakota to Tiffany. Her eyes shone as she presented the tangle-haired little pixie girls, who wore fairy wings and appeared to have recently up-ended bottles of glitter all over themselves.

‘If it’s okay with their mum and dad,’ said Tiffany.

‘Dakota is very responsible, you know,’ said Vid. ‘She’ll look after them.’

‘Of course it’s okay with us,’ said Sam as he kissed Tiffany on the cheek, with a well-brought-up Aussie boy flick of his eyes at her body: up, down and quick,
away
!

‘It’s great to see you again, Tiffany,’ he said with a slight exhalation, as if he were relieved to be here too. He and Clementine were like people arriving at a wake after a funeral, ready to unloosen ties and let the tension drain from their shoulders, desperate to eat and drink and remind themselves that they were alive. He hunkered down at the knees and fondled Barney’s ears, and Barney reacted with no dignity whatsoever, throwing himself on the ground and offering up his stomach for a rub, as if no one had ever paid him any attention before.

‘We appreciate your hospitality.’ Oliver shook Vid’s hand and then awkwardly kissed Tiffany too, as if he’d been issued a challenge not to let any part of his body touch hers.

‘Come in, come in!’ Vid shepherded the group inside. ‘Let’s have a drink before we go out to the barbeque.’

‘I’m sorry the little girls are dropping glitter everywhere,’ said Erika, watching Dakota lead the girls upstairs, followed by Barney who was now in a state of manic excitement.

Tiffany saw an irritated spasm cross Clementine’s face, presumably because another woman was apologising for her children.

‘Oh, it’s fine,’ she said.

‘I set up a craft table for them,’ said Erika. ‘We thought they were doing crafts, but they were really just …’

‘Making a terrible mess,’ finished Clementine, but she and Erika were both smiling now, as if it were funny.

Tiffany considered herself a pretty good judge of character and situations – her instincts were normally spot-on – but right now these four had her bamboozled. Were they friends or enemies?

‘We brought champagne.’ Clementine held a bottle of Moët aloft, with the sparkly pride of someone who doesn’t buy Moët very often. (Vid had three cases in the cellar.)

‘Thank you! You didn’t need to do that!’ Vid grabbed the champagne bottle in one meaty hand like it was a petrol pump. ‘But the important question is, Clementine, did you bring your cello?’

‘Of course,’ said Clementine. She patted her handbag. ‘I never go anywhere without it. It’s right here. I’ve got a fancy new collapsible one.’

Vid stared blankly at her handbag for a fraction of a second and then he roared with delighted laughter. It wasn’t
that
funny, thought Tiffany. Vid pointed the bottle of champagne at Clementine like a gun. ‘You got me! You got me!’

Yes, she’s got you all right, thought Tiffany as she went quick-smart to the cupboard for champagne glasses, because Vid was about to open that bottle in his normal jubilant fashion.

It was fine that Vid had the hots for Clementine. Tiffany understood that, she kind of liked it, and judging by the way Clementine was touching her hair right now, she kind of liked it too. That was just sex. Sex was easy. What Tiffany didn’t understand was the other three people in the room, because as Vid uncorked the bottle with predictable ‘Whoa!’ results, and Clementine grabbed two glasses from Tiffany and danced about, laughing, trying to catch the spilling, frothing champagne, Oliver, Erika and Sam all watched Clementine, and Tiffany couldn’t tell, with any of them, if it was with deep affection or utter contempt.

chapter twenty-one

Clementine placed her book face down on her lap in the circle of lamplight reflected on the duvet. She listened to the rain and looked at the dark empty side of their double bed.

When Sam had come back from his ‘drive’, after her mother had gone home (‘Another time,’ she’d said robustly. ‘We’ll try again another time.’) they hadn’t said a word about their disastrous night out. They’d been polite and cool to each other like not especially friendly flatmates. ‘There is some leftover pasta in the fridge.’ ‘Good, I might have some.’ ‘I’m off to bed.’ ‘Good night.’ ‘Good night.’

Sam had gone off to the study to sleep on the sofa bed that gave whoever slept on it a sore lower back. (‘It was fine,
fine
!’ guests would always assure them the next morning, discreetly massaging their lower backs.)

It appeared the study was Sam’s bedroom now. They didn’t even go to the pretence of starting out in the same bed, and then one of them creeping off in the middle of the night, pillow under the arm.
We sleep in separate rooms now
. It gave her a shocked, sick feeling when she actually let the thought crystallise like that.

The last time she and Sam had slept a proper full ordinary night together in this bed, a night without twisted-sheet dreams or teeth grinding or tossing and turning, had been the night before the barbeque.

It seemed extraordinary now to imagine them going to bed, sleeping through the night and waking up together in the morning. What had that last night of extraordinary ordinariness been like? She couldn’t remember a single thing about it; except that she knew they’d been so different from the people they were now, just eight weeks later.

Did they have sex? Probably not. They so rarely got around to it. That’s why they were so susceptible that night. To the sex.

Her mother would have been hoping that tonight’s dinner at the fancy restaurant would have resulted in them coming home and ‘making love’. If they hadn’t come home early, if they’d walked in the door holding hands, Pam would have slipped off quickly with a wink, wink, nudge, nudge smile, and then she would have called the next day and said something horrifically inappropriate like, ‘I do hope you weren’t too tired to make love, darling, a healthy sex life is crucial for a healthy marriage.’

It would have made Clementine want to put her fingers in her ears and chant ‘la la la’ as she used to do when her mother delivered sex education lectures while she drove Clementine and Erika to parties. Erika, who practically took notes every time Clementine’s mother opened her mouth, used to listen attentively to the lectures and ask very specific procedural questions. ‘When exactly does the condom go on?’ ‘When the boy’s penis …’ ‘LA LA LA!’ Clementine would yell.

Her mother had always been far too open and jolly about sex, as if it was something good for you, like water aerobics. She used to have
The Joy of Sex
sitting unabashedly on her bedside table as if it were a nice novel. Clementine chiefly remembered the
hairiness
of that book.

Clementine wanted sex to be something subtle and secret. Lights off. Mysterious. Hairless. An image came to her of Tiffany in that crazy backyard, before all the fairy lights came on: Tiffany’s T-shirt bright white in the hazy light. A sweet taste filled Clementine’s mouth. It was the taste of Vid’s dessert. Now it was the taste of shame.

Two or three nights after the barbeque Clementine had dreamed she was having sex onstage at the Opera House concert hall with someone who was not Sam. Holly and Ruby were in the audience watching their mother have sex with some other man. Right there in the front row, legs swinging, while Clementine moaned and groaned in the most depraved way, and at first they just watched with blank concentration, like they were watching
Dora the Explorer
,
but then they started to cry, and Clementine called out ‘Just a minute!’ as if she were finishing the washing up, not her orgasm, and then her parents and Sam’s parents, all four of them, came running down the aisle of the concert hall with disgusted faces, and Clementine’s mother screamed, ‘How could you, Clementine, how could you?’

It wasn’t a hard dream to interpret. In Clementine’s mind what happened would forever be tied up with sex. Skanky, sleazy sex.

Fragments of that revolting dream had lingered for days, as if it had been an actual memory. She had to keep reassuring herself:
It’s okay, Clementine. You never actually performed a sex show at the Opera House with your kids in the audience.

It still felt more like a memory than a dream.

They’d both had bad dreams that first week after the barbeque. Their sheets got tangled, their pillows stank of sweat. Sam’s shouts would violently wrench her awake, as though someone had grabbed her by her shirtfront and yanked her upward to a sitting position, her heart hammering. Sam would be sitting up next to her, confused and gibbering, and her first instinctive reaction would always be pure rage, never sympathy.

Sam had begun grinding his teeth while he slept. An unbearable melody in perfect three-quarter time.
Click
-two-three,
click
-two-three. She would lie there, eyes open in the darkness, counting along for what seemed like hours at a time.

Apparently Clementine had started talking in her sleep. Once she’d woken up to find Sam leaning over her, shouting (he said he wasn’t shouting but he was), ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’

Whoever got the most frustrated would leave to sleep or read in the study. That’s when the sofa bed got made up and stayed made up. Eventually they’d have to talk about it. It couldn’t go on forever, could it?

Don’t think about it now. It would sort itself out. She had other more important things to worry about. For example, tomorrow she needed to call Erika and arrange to see her for a drink after work. Then she would tell her that
of course
she would donate her eggs. It would be her pleasure, her honour.

For some reason a memory came to her of the first and only time she’d seen inside Erika’s childhood home.

They’d been friends for about six months and Clementine was always (mostly at her mother’s insistence) inviting Erika over to play, but the invitation was never returned, and Clementine, with a child’s well-developed sense of fairness, was getting sick of it. It was fun going to other people’s places. You often got treats you weren’t allowed at your own place. So why was Erika being so strange and secretive and frankly, selfish?

Then one day Clementine’s mother was driving them both to some school picnic, and they’d stopped at Erika’s place to quickly pick up something she’d forgotten. A hat? Clementine couldn’t remember. What she did remember was jumping out of the car and running after her, to tell Erika Mum said to bring a warm top as well because it was getting chilly, and how she’d stopped in the hallway of the house, bewildered. The front door wouldn’t swing all the way open. Erika must have turned sideways to get through. The door was blocked by a ceiling-high tower of overflowing cardboard boxes.

‘Get out of here! What are you doing here?’ Erika had screamed, suddenly appearing in the hallway, her face a frightening grotesque mask of fury, and Clementine had leaped back, but she’d never forgotten that glimpse of Erika’s hallway.

It was like coming upon a slum in a suburban home. The
stuff
: skyscrapers of old newspapers, tangles of coathangers and winter coats and shoes, a frypan filled with bead necklaces, and piles of bulging, knotted plastic bags. It was like someone’s life had exploded.

And the smell. The smell of rot and mould and decay.

Erika’s mother, Sylvia, was a
nurse
, supposedly a perfectly capable one. She held down a job at a nursing home for years before she retired. It seemed so extraordinary to Clementine that someone who lived like that could work in healthcare, where things like cleanliness and hygiene and order mattered so much. According to Erika, who was now able to freely discuss her mother’s hoarding, it wasn’t that unusual; in fact, it was quite common for hoarders to work in the healthcare industry. ‘They say it has something to do with them focusing on taking care of others so they don’t take care of themselves,’ Erika said. Then she added, ‘Or their children.’

For years, Erika’s mother’s problems had been something they all referred to obliquely and delicately, even when those shows started appearing on TV and they suddenly had a word for the horror: hoarding. Erika’s mum was a ‘hoarder’. It was a thing. A condition. But it wasn’t until Erika had started with her ‘lovely psychologist’ about a year ago that Erika herself had begun saying the word ‘hoarding’ out loud, and discussing the psychology behind it, in this strange, new, clipped way, as if it had never been a deep, dark secret at all.

How could Clementine begrudge sharing her home and her life with Erika after she’d seen her home? She couldn’t and yet she did.

It was the same now. She hadn’t become a good person. She still didn’t feel pleasure at the thought of helping her friend achieve her deepest desire. In truth she still felt the same overwhelming aversion as when they’d first asked her to donate her eggs, but the difference was that now she
relished
her aversion. She wanted the doctors to cut her open. She wanted them to remove a piece of herself and hand it over to Erika.
Here you go. Let’s balance the scales.

She turned out her lamp and rolled over to the middle of the bed and tried to think about anything, anything at all, other than that day. That so-called ‘ordinary day’.