Joiner Bay and Other Stories by Ellen Van Neerven

Author:Ellen Van Neerven
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret River Press
Published: 2017-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

Things to Come

Charlotte Guest

1.

It was a day like this she’d feared the most. Felt it approach like some predatory animal, quietly and with a fixed gaze.

The air hung thick and close. It was too hot to make sense of difficult thoughts, to make plans.

She picked up the brush and ran it through her still-long hair. Thin, but long. Angel hair pasta, she thought. Always preferred angel hair to spaghetti anyway.

Still wearing her heeled shoes, she wandered into the kitchen, opened a drawer and took out a wad of Post-it notes. She took the pen from the side of the fridge and stretched the chord over the bench top.

Kettle, she wrote. Keh-tal. She paused, thinking, thinking herself back.

It was as if he’d had her surgically removed from his life. Cut out. It was too painful, he said, to pretend at friendship. Not when he still loved her. Not when he wanted to carry on and she didn’t. I feel we’re at a fork in the road, he said, cupping her hands in his, you either decide to be with me or we end everything. I mean it. Everything. I can’t have your shadow if I can’t have you.

She never could persuade him that it’s okay to be unruly, that relationships are more innately liquid than he let them be. And yet she understood, like everyone understands, the need to alleviate pain.

In her parallel life he’s been here all along. She comes home from the doctors and cries into his chest. She’d insisted on going alone. He tells her they’ll work it out. He makes tea; they sit down. They Google what to do now. You be the body and I’ll be the brain, he says. Gives her a smile.

She peeled the note off the pad and pressed it to the plastic tub. Stared at it.

1. Fill the kettle with water

2. Place the kettle back onto the holder

3. Turn on the power

4. Flick the switch

5. Wait to boil

6. Light will turn off when ready

The doctor was young, concerned. She wondered if she was his first.

‘Olive. I have to tell you that—’

‘I know.’

‘There is medication.’

‘I know.’

His kindness was irritating. He leant forward in a manner that was meant to say I understand but in fact said I am not you and thank God for that. She hated him.

There were many things she wished she didn’t feel but did. She’d read a book that described mothers’ guilt when their children contracted polio in the fifties. Felt they should have known. Felt they did know and ignored it. Failed. It was an oddly familiar feeling, even though she’d never had children.

How many years had passed? Forty? The last time she’d seen him he was walking through the departures gate, bound for Tasmania. They’d mapped every centimetre of each other’s bodies in the years they were together. Seen the other change from adolescent into adult.

Don’t call me please.

I understand.

Don’t write to me.

I understand.

I love you.

I know. I love you too.

In the study she found the sticky tape and ripped off two even pieces, pressing her thumb to the serrated edge of the holder.

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