Where Have You Been? (26 page)

The story's pretty much as she remembers it – and the similarities to her own situation are striking. But the differences are even more arresting. For one thing, she and Carly are sisters not brothers. And the only father in their story is, according to Carly anyway, the villain – not the wise and loving parent of the parable. As for Carly's welcome, the robe, the ring, the sandals, the fatted calf, the eating and celebrating – well, it's been more symbolic than actual, she supposes, fairly low-key – with only Susan, and to a lesser extent, Ed, available to fall upon Carly's neck.

And Susan isn't at all like the angry, well-behaved brother – she hasn't experienced even the most remote pang of resentment. It's been quite the reverse: she'd been happy, more than happy, ecstatic about her sibling's return, more than willing to share the inheritance – and the future.

There are no clues in this parable – no answers to her own dilemma. Susan would like to know a little more about this biblical family, however. She'd like to know what happened next; wonders whether they all lived happily ever after.

She doubts it somehow.

Carly arrives home early on Sunday evening, full of energy, cheerful, light-hearted, she plays hide and seek with the kids, chaffs Ed about this and that, even offers to clean the kitchen after dinner. She's obviously had a good weekend, though she barely makes a reply when Ed, uncharacteristically, asks her what she's done, where she's been.

‘Oh, you know,' she replies with a casual shrug, ‘this and that; here and there. The usual.'

Susan hasn't mentioned it to Ed yet, he's been a bit off since Stella's accident – oddly distant, quiet. She had thought that she'd just casually mention Stella and Mitchell's account of the park visit, perhaps around the dinner table, introduce the subject breezily, as if it was of little importance, perhaps even let the kids do most of the talking. But she realises that that's not going to work, that in fact it's hard to be casual about such a thing. Stella's getting better, but she's still in some pain, she's pale, cries easily, hasn't yet recovered her starry twinkle. There's no way she can broach the subject of Carly's absence lightly – her daughter's been damaged, after all – and there's no way of avoiding the fact, no way of stepping over it, that if she really was elsewhere ... that Carly's responsible, Carly's to blame.

So she waits until the following morning – both children at school, Stella's first day back – and Ed at work. Carly's sitting in the lounge room with her coffee, she's lit up a cigarette, is ashing in a teacup, flicking impatiently through the television channels.

‘Oh, this is hopeless.' She turns the television off, tosses the remote onto the lounge in disgust. ‘Who do they think's
watching at this hour?' she asks Susan, who's passing through with a basket of washing.

‘People like me, probably. You know. Housewives. Or small children.'

‘Housewives. What's a bloody housewife? How can you be married to a fucking house, Susan?'

Susan's wondered this herself, recently, but shrugs, not in the mood for this sort of conversation. She starts up the hallway with her basket, but Carly follows her.

‘Come on, Suse, you've got to admit it's a bit of a bloody bore. That it's not really a life.'

‘What are you talking about, Carly?'

‘All this crap. Keeping the house clean. Cooking. Washing clothes. What's it all for? What's the point of it? Why aren't you out there, in the world, the real world – doing something useful. How do you settle for this?'

‘That's not fair, Carly. It's not nothing. You just don't understand. I've got what I want. This is what most people want. To have people that they love around them. It's simple Carly, really, it's simple.' Though Susan senses that she's hit on something, feels the truth lurking in her trite explanation, this obviously doesn't satisfy her sister.

‘But it's so little.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘How can you bear the thought of just being one person? Living one life?'

‘But that's all we get, Carly. We all only get to live one life.'

‘You don't have to, Susan. That's just from your narrow perspective.'

‘But you do – the only alternative is hurting people. Your life isn't just about you.'

‘So what's it about, then, Susy? It can't just be about other people.'

‘It's not. That's not what I'm saying. It's about – it has to be about – both. You have to find a ... a balance.'

‘Why are you so sure that you've found it?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘From where I'm standing, Susan, you know, just observing from the sidelines, your life seems to be all about other people. Susan Middleton – who
is
she? Are you sure she even exists?'

Now Susan's beyond patience, she's been stung, has had enough.

‘I'm pretty sure that I exist, Carly, everyone can see just how I exist, what I do to justify that existence. It might look boring, but it's real, Carly. I don't just sit around someone else's house, whingeing about the television programming. Eating their food. Leaving whenever I feel like it. Disappearing with strange women when you're meant to be looking after your sister's kids. Letting your niece – your own bloody niece – break her arm because you're too irresponsible to be where you've said – where you've promised you'll be.'

Susan's in the kids' bedroom, shoving their clothes into drawers, the wrong drawers, any drawer, slamming them shut. Carly's standing against the doorway, a forgotten cigarette burning away in her fingers, her mouth open, eyes wide.

‘Wow, I didn't know you could get so angry, Suse. Very impressive, girl. Not the Mrs Middleton we've all come to know and love.' She laughs, but there's no merriment in the sound.

‘I just want to know what happened, Carly. The kids have told me that you weren't there when Stella broke her arm. That in fact you were never actually there – that you'd dump them at the park the afternoons when you were meant to – and
you
offered – to look after them. That you'd disappear with some woman for an hour or so ... Carly, how could you? Mitch is only eight. Stella's virtually a baby. Anything could have happened.'

‘So what are you accusing me of, Susan? Of breaking Stella's arm? Or of not telling you I have a friend? A girlfriend. What the fuck is your problem?'

‘I'm not accusing you of anything, Carly. I just want to know...' she takes a deep breath, ‘Look, maybe you don't understand because you don't have kids; maybe Ed and I didn't make it clear – but you can't just leave them. They're too young...'

‘Jesus. Not accusing me? Not accusing me? Bullshit. I know an accusation when I hear one.' She purses her lips, speaks in a polite falsetto, ‘Carly dear, don't you think it might be a nice thing to stick around when you take our little darlings to the park. Then you can push them on the swings and wipe their snotty little noses. What fun! And Carly dear, what's this I hear about you running off with some tart in a little red car. Perhaps you'd like to bring her home to dinner. Let Eddy and me check her over. Wouldn't that be just lover-ley.' Carly's face is contorted, thrust close to Susan's, her voice venomous. Susan steps away from her, tries to come up with a suitable, a soothing, response, through her own churning stomach, her breathlessness.

‘Carly, you're taking it the wrong way. I really didn't mean to upset you. Why don't we...'

‘Fuck you. I've had enough of this. Had enough of the lot of you.'

‘Carly...'

‘No. That's it. It's over. The whole thing makes me sick. Shelly was right – I should have just made the claim and pissed off.'

‘Carly...'

‘And you can tell loverboy that it's like fucking a wet pillow.'

She slams the door on the way out. Susan finds a wall to lean against.
Loverboy?

She's always suspected it was there, like a snake coiled in a corner, sleeping through winter, waiting patiently for the spring, for its moment of reawakening. Tragedy. Calamity. She's seen it raise its ugly head before, after all. She knows – don't we all? – that it's inevitable, unavoidable; it comes for everybody, eventually; in the end there's no possible way to escape. But she wonders whether this is it, whether this is her moment, their moment. Here. Now.

It's only confirmed what she's always suspected: that the complication quotient of domestic bliss is extremely high.

Too high to risk.

She's had enough.

Story's told; game's over.

She tells Ed that Carly has decided on another night out, that she's not too sure when she'll be back. He seems surprised, but doesn't enquire too closely, retires to the lounge room with a newspaper while she gets on with the dinner. If he notices her blotchy face, her puffy eyes he doesn't say anything, though maybe he doesn't notice – she can barely look at him.

She has left dinner till late – it is already past seven; the children are starving and tired. They are supposed to be in the bath (‘Before dinner, Mum? That's stupid'), but are fighting in the hallway just beyond the kitchen.

‘Dad says brothers should spect their sisters,' Susan can hear Stella shriek over the noise of the bathtub filling.

And Mitch's reply: ‘Not when they're as stupid as you, dickhead.' There's the sound of flesh on flesh, a muffled scream, a thud. Silence – and then a howl.

‘Mum, she's hit me with her plaster.
Muuum.
' Susan ignores all this, leaves it to Ed to intervene. She cuts through a sausage, but it's still pinkly raw inside. She drains the potatoes and mashes them. This requires a certain amount of effort – they're not quite cooked and won't pulp easily so she tips them straight out onto the bench top and hits them viciously with the meat tenderiser.

Eventually Stella's screams are shrill enough to disturb Ed and he rushes in from the lounge room, does a double take when he sees the mess Susan has made. ‘Jesus Susan. Jesus. What's going on?'

‘Dinner's made, darling,' she says brightly. ‘Just add some butter and salt to the potatoes and they'll be delicious. I'm going out.'

‘What do you mean you're going out? You can't just go out. Get off your sister, Mitchell. Now!'

She finds a couple of addresses in the phone book; scribbles them down. She grabs her handbag, car keys.

‘Going out where, Susan? Susan?'

She backs the car out of the garage, wondering vaguely if Ed will think to turn off the water before the bath overflows and if he'll split the sausages to make sure they're cooked right through. She turns left at the end of the street and heads towards the city.

She knows that she should have noticed there was something happening between them. There have been signs – small, but significant – and so clear now, that she can't imagine how she ever managed to disregard them. (The way Ed watches Carly constantly, the way he smiles so widely, laughs so enthusiastically at her jokes, seeks out her glance when
they're watching television, the way he includes her in their every conversation.) So stupid – she'd been so pleased that they genuinely seemed to like one another, that her husband and her sister – both so dear to her – were establishing such a strong, such a solid, relationship. Now, too, she's suddenly aware of how little time the three of them actually spent together. It seems remarkable – or perhaps it isn't – that in almost every memory, each encounter, there is nearly always a neat pairing – Carly and Susan, Ed and Carly. Almost as if it has been arranged that way. She wonders whether it's at all significant, whether these twosomes were somehow deliberate manoeuvrings, cunningly manipulated, in order to keep all their stories separate. To keep them all contained.

She parks illegally in a loading zone, in a small back street. According to her street directory Darlinghurst Road should be only a short walk away, and the hotel itself several blocks along, but she's taken a wrong turn somewhere, can't quite work out where she is. Although Susan has lived in Sydney all of her life, she is unsure of herself in this part of the city. The buildings are high and crowded together, everything's grimy, even the air seems greasy. The street lighting is sparse, the narrow streets dim, and curiously empty. Her footsteps seem officiously loud. She's walking fast, but even so her steps can't keep pace with her heartbeat, her rapid breathing. She's feeling strangely exhilarated – almost as if she's drunk – but simultaneously afraid, although she isn't quite sure what it is that she's afraid of: Carly, the night, some hidden danger lurking in the unfamiliar streets, her own rather vague intentions?

She wipes her forehead with her hand, and it comes away wet, though the night is not hot. A man shuffles towards her out of the dark and she automatically, instinctively, moves from the centre of the footpath towards the gutter. The
man is weeping loudly, one hand covering his face. He is enormously, grotesquely fat and his other hand clutches at his unbuttoned pants, holding them up, holding them together. Susan looks the other way and hurries past. A shit smell wafts towards her. She walks faster.

At the next corner she pauses for a moment to check the street name against her directions. Brougham Street. She thinks if she turns back, and then takes the next left, she should be heading in the direction of her parked car – she can reorient herself there, start again. But then again she's not quite sure; perhaps she should turn right, head east. Brougham Street. The street name rings a bell, several bells. She checks the hastily scribbled addresses under a streetlight: 134 Brougham Street. Just in case, she'd thought at the time, but in case of what? Perhaps her disorientation is deliberate; perhaps Brougham Street has always been her objective.