How it feels to float, p.13
How It Feels to Float, page 13
We sit on her brown chairs. Afternoon sun plants a triangle of light over the top of my foot.
She says, ‘It’s okay, Elizabeth; this is not uncommon. Nothing to be ashamed of. I can help you. Now, the trembling, how long has that been happening?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Think about it. Let’s just step slowly. When was the first time?’
I remember it happening after the waves, with Jasper.
I remember it happening—worse, longer—after Tim in the dunes. I went and shook in bed and my teeth chattered and my limbs seized. I crawled into the shower and crouched and shuddered. The water hit my back and at some point, the water went cold.
And then—
my mind leaps back in time like a cat, and lands, four-pawed, on the night after Dad died, the first night in bed.
The dark was smothery. The air felt like soup. The shaking came and Mum held me, and then she shook too, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. I remember I could feel Mum’s heart, ricocheting inside her body—ratatatat—my heart thumping back—our skin frozen, the sky falling and—
I look around.
Everything is blurry. I’m looking at Bridgit from the wrong end of a telescope. I’ve gone too close to the sun.
Bridgit’s leaning towards me. ‘That’s interesting, Elizabeth. And if we step a little more into that day, what else—’
No.
She shifts forward. ‘It might be helpful to—’
No. No.
Bridgit sits back. She eyes me, measures me gently.
‘Okay, Elizabeth,’ she says. ‘How about I give you some new breathing exercises to do?’
I nod.
‘Shall we try them now?’
We breathe in.
We breathe out.
In, out, around. Count to four. Hold for four.
In. Out. Around.
I feel my body, here in the chair. I feel my hands in my lap.
I’m back.
And our time is up.
Bridgit smiles. She recommends a meditation app. ‘It’s excellent. I use it myself,’ she says, writing it down. She’ll also send me links to articles, so I can understand myself better. ‘All will be well, Elizabeth,’ she says as I leave. ‘It will be okay.’
Yes. Of course it will be. I’ll read the articles and totally figure myself out. I can send those to Sylvia and Jasper so they can understand me too.
Here: look at these charts, these graphs, these lovely informational tools! Here is Biz: isn’t she a harmless and fascinating creature?
‘I’m okay,’ I tell Sylvia when she calls, the night after I see Bridgit.
‘Are you really, dear? I was so worried? About what happened?’
Everything’s a question. Sylvia’s rattled. She’s almost never rattled.
‘I guess it was a panic attack—’ I begin.
‘Oh no? I made you have an attack? I’m so sorry? Oh, how terrible?’
I can’t help but laugh, which must seem weird to Sylvia. A day ago I was a mess, now I’m laughing? I must be the strangest person she knows.
‘No. It’s okay. Really. I’m okay. Lots of people have them. My psychologist said it was just a bit of overload. I had a lovely time. Thank you so much, Sylvia.’
I can hear Sylvia processing. Her thoughts are a buzz of whirrs and clicks, things trying to go into place, which is hard when you’re as old as her and you’re talking about processing me.
‘So you’re okay?’
‘Yes. I’ve been cleared by my psychologist. Fit to travel. All is well.’
‘Oh, I’m so relieved!’
We agree she doesn’t need to worry. We agree that I’ll come over again soon. We agree I’m not broken at all.
It’s good to settle her, even though I’m only a little settled myself. What is it they say on planes: put on the other person’s oxygen mask before your own, so they don’t die of worry?
Yes, that’s exactly what they say.
Wednesday 1:30 a.m., two and a bit days after the party, I get a notification.
PING!
Jasper Alessio wants to be your friend on Facebook.
Three minutes after I press accept, a message comes in.
PING!
JASPER: Hey.
BIZ: Hi.
JASPER: Are you okay?
BIZ: Yeah. I am.
JASPER: Oh good. Smiley face emoji.
BIZ: Sorry for worrying you. Sorry about the lunch.
(And sorry for the taxi ride home and the crying all the way in the car, and thank you for patting my hand and saying to the taxi driver, ‘Her cat died.’)
JASPER: That’s okay. I just wanted to be sure you were all right.
BIZ: My psychologist says it was a panic attack. I don’t know why. The camera was an excellent gift.
JASPER: I thought it might be that. I’ve heard about panic attacks. I did some research.
BIZ: You researched me?
JASPER: Not you. Just what it could have been. I thought, Well it’s not Parkinson’s.
BIZ: Definitely not Parkinson’s. Smiley face emoji.
JASPER: A relief! Smiley face emoji.
BIZ: I really liked the camera.
JASPER: Good.
BIZ: I loved it. I love it.
JASPER: Gran told me she was getting it. From what she’s told me, it sounded like a good present for you.
BIZ: It’s amazing.
JASPER: Good.
BIZ: Yeah.
Then I stare at the screen.
Time tick-tocks.
I start typing as he starts typing:
BIZ: Why didn’t you talk to me at school? After that night at the beach?
JASPER: Well, I’d better go. Lots of homework. Glad you’re okay. Smiley face.
Our messages go through microseconds apart, so I’m guessing one goes PING! in his house and one goes PING! in mine at almost exactly the same time.
(A beat. Two beats. Too many beats.)
BIZ: Jasper?
JASPER: I’m really sorry about that.
BIZ: That’s okay. But why?
JASPER: Interesting story . . . I thought you hated me.
BIZ: Sorry?
JASPER: After you walked away at the beach. I thought you were pissed off with me.
BIZ: I walked away?
JASPER: You stood up and walked off without talking to me or looking at me. You went back to the fire with that girl, what’s her name?
BIZ: Evie.
JASPER: Yeah. You went over to her and didn’t look at me for the whole rest of the night. And then at school, you wouldn’t look at me, and when I went near you at school, you were always looking down at your phone, so I thought, Okay. I get the hint. So then I thought maybe my first hunch was right, and you might actually be a bitch. Again, sorry about that. Then Gran told me you weren’t a bitch and you actually thought I hated you. Which sucked. So I came to Gran’s party. So you could see I didn’t hate you. And don’t.
How is this possible? I remember Jasper getting up, at the beach. But was I already up? Was I walking away from him? And sure, I looked at my phone outside class as I waited for him to come out and speak to me. But he was always looking down at the floor or at his phone when I looked up at him. So, what the hell?
Truth and truth split in two and walk side by side.
I want to take a photo of it, to see which one is real—him hating me or me hating him.
If I took a photo what would I see?
Perhaps this:
Me and Jasper. We’re back at that night on the beach. We’re both soaked. Me with my clothes torn, him with sand in his hair.
Evie has come over with a bunch of others. She stands over us, making stupid jokes. The slick boys look us over and decide our story. Everyone laughs. Jasper says nothing. Why doesn’t he speak? Does he want them to think that’s what happened?
His arm has fallen from my back, where it was because I was shaking and he was rubbing my back, saying, ‘It’s okay, Biz. You’re okay.’ And then the others came and his arm fell and we were two sodden lumps looking stupid on the sand. Unbearable.
I spring up; I bound over to Evie and grab her arm, and I guess Jasper stands too, and the boys pat him on the back and he’s the hero of this, and I’m at the whole other end of hero. Evie keeps making kissing sounds into the air and I want to thump her, thump everyone, thump them into the dunes or out to sea. I sit by the fire, knees on my chest, and stare hard at the flames. I stare at the fire until I am the fire.
Fuck Jasper, I think. Fuck them all. I rage silently until I’m dry and then I walk home.
And then I play ‘Wait For Jasper to Talk to Me’. I play so hard, I forget to talk to him.
So that’s how it was.
Perhaps.
Was that how it was?
We have no proof, so we can’t pin it. All truth does is float, travel in these impossible, unpredictable zigs and zags, out to space and back. You can’t find truth if you haven’t captured it. You can’t be sure, if you don’t take a photograph and hold what happened in your hand.
PING!
JASPER: Biz?
BIZ: I’m sorry.
JASPER: You don’t have to be. It’s kind of funny, if you think about it. Don’t you think?
BIZ: I guess?
JASPER: Like, neither of us actually hating each other? Neither of us talking. It could be a film. Two young teens: he from the wrong side of the tracks, she driving to the beach in her Porsche. He with his perfect hair and she . . . also having hair. They connect! But then! Alas! A misunderstanding! It can’t possibly untangle! But then something happens! A climactic event! And, voilà. Resolution.
BIZ: Haha. A for effort.
JASPER: Thank you very much.
BIZ: Come to think of it, I could do with a Porsche.
JASPER: Can’t you just see it, Biz? We could be a story.
BIZ: (Ah, Jasper. Couldn’t we just?)
Four days after Sylvia’s party, I stand on the bridge that goes around the cliff up north. The bridge is like a snake—it ribbons around the sheer rock and swoops out over the sea.
The bridge opened ten years ago. Rocks used to fall on the old cliff road, so all the cranky drivers wrote to Council and said, ‘We would rather not be pulverised to death!’ and Council listened and built the bridge. This is what is known as teamwork.
They really went above and beyond with this bridge. It’s basically gorgeous.
I’ve come here with the dog and Mum and the twins. The twins love scootering over the sweeping bends, feeling like they’re flying. Bump loves to try and keep up with them. Mum loves to walk here; she says it’s like being at the edge of the world. Once, after a few wines, she told me she liked to lean against the railing and listen to the sea sing. And I said, ‘The sea sings to you, Mum?’ and smiled, and she nudged me with her shoulder and said, ‘Let me have a little poetry, Biz,’ and we laughed.
The afternoon is big and blue, the waves sparkly. The twins have raced ahead on their scooters. Mum and the dog have speed-walked after the twins while I’ve stopped to stand at the curve that sits furthest over the sea.
The cliff rises up behind me. The sea beats underneath. I look out and all there is is ocean and sky.
Mum’s right—it’s exactly like the edge of the world.
I pull out Sylvia’s Polaroid camera, and take a photo— my first.
Out from the camera, making a little zip sound, shunts the square. I flap the photo, and in time I peel the paper off to see what’s inside.
Here is the bridge. Here is the railing, here are the tips of my feet tucked under the railing, and here is the sea below, churning white and fluorescent blue.
Your mum stood here, says the bridge. Right at this spot.
What’s that? What?
Words rise out of the square, rustle-rustling.
Seriously? I stare down at the photo.
She was alone, the bridge says. It was raining. She was crying. She stood here for a long time. It was cold. She walked over me. And then she left.
I gape at the photo, at the camera in my hands.
She comes here a lot, Biz. Didn’t you know?
Yes. No. Shit.
I didn’t know Mum came here to cry. I thought she came to listen to the sea sing.
I see a lot of unhappy people, the bridge continues. I see sad-happy people walking and stopping, walking and stopping. Are you happy or sad, Biz?
Am I? I don’t know what to tell it.
Mum was unhappy here and that makes my heart hurt. I can picture the grey of her, the lowering sky of her. I feel the ache of her, all the way up through my feet. And of course Mum cries here, because when does she get to otherwise? She’s always trying to be Glass-Half-Full everywhere else.
And that makes me sad.
But then a photograph is talking to me after all these weeks and that’s wonderful, isn’t it? Oh my God, yes. It feels like zinging and the edge of delight and holy shit, maybe I’ve got stories again? And that has to mean something like happiness.
And a bridge is asking me how I’m feeling . . .
so that’s updown and basically crazy, right?
Absolutely.
So I’m happy/sad/updown/crazy as always, and every other feeling there is, if ever I’m anything at all because I’m mostly blank, mostly rubbed out actually, which is what I tell the bridge, and it says,
Well, okay.
I take a bunch of photos then: of the cliff beside the bridge, a silver convertible going over the bridge, two women walking past holding hands, and the clouds above the bridge.
I flap them all to life—
and words crash in.
I have been here for millennia!
He hasn’t told his wife yet about us; will he ever tell his wife?
I love her, I love her, I love her.
I don’t know if I love her anymore; let’s hold hands until the silence fills somehow.
We fill we empty we scud we race we fill we empty here we are!
I will fall. When will I fall? I will crumble into the sea.
Fast! Fast over fast over fast fast fast!
Are you happy or sad, Biz? We can’t tell!
Oh my God. So much noise.
The moral of this tale is: be careful what you wish for. I shove the photos into my backpack. The voices keep yelling. It’s like they’re actually wrestling inside the bag.
I look down the wide bridge path, and I can see the twins’ neon helmets like tiny UFOs streaking towards me. I see the dark dot of Mum’s hair tracking through space. I need them here, now. I need their rumpled laughter and Mum’s face after a walk: open, bright.
I walk towards them, and—
Isn’t it lovely that we’re back?! muffle-shout the photos.
Stay and chat, Biz!
We have so much to tell you!
Biz! Hey! Stop! Hey! Hey!
I walk fast, faster, and here’s Mum and the twins and Bump—four flying bodies—and Billie stops her scooter and says, ‘I win!’ and Dart stops beside her and says, ‘You started before me!’ then Billie says, ‘No, I didn’t!’ and Dart says, ‘Yes you did!’ and Mum laugh-shushes them and Bump barks and thank God, I fall into their light.
Saturday, 12:54 a.m.
PING!
JASPER: Hey.
BIZ: Hey.
JASPER: What are you doing?
BIZ: I’m drawing a possum.
(It’s true. Billie got an assignment to draw a native Australian animal. She had a meltdown about it at dinner. I said, ‘It’s not that hard!’ and she said, ‘Bet you can’t do it,’ and I said, ‘Bet I can.’ So here I am. It looks like a potato.)
JASPER: For real?
BIZ: It’s not very good. (I send him a photo from my phone.)
JASPER: That’s really bad.
BIZ: I’m not born for art.
JASPER: Me neither.
BIZ: A shame. One of us could have been someone.
JASPER: So true.
BIZ: What are you born for, then?
JASPER: Not dance. Or cabbage. Or social media.
BIZ: All excellent decisions. Smiley face.
JASPER: I know!
BIZ: But hang on—you’re here. Online. I found you.
JASPER: The relatives require Facebook. Big family. But that’s it.
BIZ: So you’re invisible. A covert operative.
JASPER: Exactly.
BIZ: Bummer—I totally pictured you doing a Swan Lake tribute, and posting it on YouTube.
JASPER: It will never happen.
BIZ: Haha. Laughing face.
JASPER: Actually, I am a little bit born for machines.
BIZ: Machines . . . like Transformers? Smiley face.
JASPER: Haha. Bikes. Cars. Anything really. I like figuring them out. I’m thinking about industrial engineering for uni. Though maths really stresses me out. What about you?
BIZ: I don’t know. Doubt I’ll be going to university. No HSC.
JASPER: I’m doing distance ed. It’s really boring. Aren’t you doing it?
BIZ: No. I’m a proper dropout.
JASPER: Ah. So, petty crime and reality TV in your future, then. Smiley face.
BIZ: Most likely. Or maybe I’ll sail around the world. Yacht emoji. Water drop emoji.
JASPER: That doesn’t sound so bad.
BIZ: True.
JASPER: Lots of time to fish. Fish emoji.
BIZ: Or not. Leaf emoji.
JASPER: Oh, yeah.
BIZ: Sometimes I think it would be good to go somewhere new . . . and not have anyone know me.
JASPER: Yeah. I go for rides on my bike, and sometimes I think, What if I just didn’t stop?
BIZ: Yeah.
