How it feels to float, p.9
How It Feels to Float, page 9
The platypus gazes solemnly at me. I hope James had a good life before he died. Did you have a good life, James? I ask the platypus. The platypus can’t say.
We go through the animals, most of whom are named after suitors: dead loves, boys she let go, boys who broke her heart. Sylvia has had a lot of lovers. Who knew old people were so busy? Then we stand at the photographs. She points from frame to frame.
‘My brother,’ she says. ‘My sister. My mother, bless her soul. My children. And ah! This was my eightieth! A lovely day.’
Sylvia points to a photo in the centre of the wall—there’s a sea of faces on white steps outside a cottage, a banner above saying happy 80th!, babies in arms and children running, and just out of focus, leaning in the background on a verandah post with his arms crossed: Jasper.
Jasper? What the hell?
I must have gasped, because Sylvia turns to me and says, ‘Are you all right, dear?’ And she touches me on the arm with the same look my psychologist gets when I talk too much and forget to breathe.
‘Uh,’ I say, because now the world is shrinking into itself and of course—this is Wollongong—what did you expect, everyone knows everyone, and yet, how? And again I think, It’s because I’m a story, and again I think, It’s because none of this is real, and I sway where I stand.
Sylvia decides I need to sit. She fetches me a bowl of nuts because she thinks I haven’t had enough protein—she’s so sorry, what was she thinking filling me with sugar? The nuts rattle in the bowl.
‘They’re roasted, dear,’ she says, as though I care.
‘Uh,’ I say, again.
And she says, ‘Take your time.’
Which no one ever says to me.
We sit quietly while I think of a way to explain that I am a story, that Jasper is on her wall but has disappeared, and that Jasper saved my life but in fact I nearly killed him in the sea.
Sylvia leans back on her chair. When I don’t speak for a good few minutes, she pours herself a cup of tea and sips it. After I haven’t spoken for more minutes, she smiles at me and pats my hand. Then she picks up the newspaper and starts doing the crossword puzzle—and somehow, the silence feels so good I want to live here always, because Sylvia doesn’t seem to mind if I never speak again.
At some point, Sylvia stands up. She goes into the kitchen and makes me some noodles. She tells me about the first time Ronald kissed her. ‘Sparks!’ she says, and she tells me about travelling through Europe when she and Ronald were sixty—‘All those mopeds! Those ruins! I couldn’t stop taking photographs!’ and an orange cat sidles in and rubs itself against my leg. ‘That’s Zelda,’ Sylvia says. ‘She likes you!’ Then a clock in her hallway dings and Sylvia says, ‘Oh! Look at the time!’ and it’s five o’clock and time to go. We get up, without me explaining anything, and we take the train to class.
Carol might be the photography teacher, but let’s not kid ourselves: Sylvia teaches me photography.
By class three, Sylvia has shown me how to develop my film. How to swoosh the developing solution around inside the plastic canister and pull out the negatives, little flat babies. I clip them into a drying cupboard. I trim them and take them to the developing room, where enlargers hulk against the wall and trays of chemicals wait in line. The room smells hospital clean. The light is womb red.
I learn how to print a test strip, then a contact sheet. I learn to clip the negative into the enlarger, turn on the light and lay the idea of the image on the base below. I learn how to switch off the light, pull the photograph paper out from its thick, black, plastic bag and lay it on the enlarger base. I learn how long to expose the paper to light. How to lay the promise of the paper into chemical trays, move it around for the allotted time, and watch a story come to life under the tongs in my hands. I pull the paper from the trays, wash it, clip it to the line, where it hangs, newborn, from a peg.
My first print:
Here is the dog. Tail waggy, tongue lolling, bright eyes, head turned my direction, ears turned towards the birds on the field.
Bump doesn’t understand why I keep stopping. Why I point that box everywhere. Don’t I know about the rabbits? Which require chasing? And the birds, which also require chasing? And all the lovely dead things?
The dog rolled in a dead thing once. I washed him; it was awful. Bump loves dead things more than he loves anything. Don’t I understand love?
My second print:
Here is a man at the wheel of his boat.
He is pulling into the open ocean through the harbour’s arms. He’s hungover because last night his wife said she wanted another kid. He doesn’t want one; already there are too many kids and not enough money. And all he could do was drink because he couldn’t think of an answer that would make her happy.
He feels like shit now.
My third print:
Here is a boat. It goes out to sea and back. It sits on the water and hears the mumble of the fish and the bottomless call of the whales.
The boat has been a boat for as long as it can remember. Other boats say they were trees once. But this boat knows only boat.
And the rise and fall of waves.
And the rain. And the slap and pull of water.
And the weathering hulk of the boat’s insides, reaching for a deep it hopes to meet one day.
My photographs drip and whisper from the line.
All around the room: the muted bustle of people standing at enlargers, pulling paper from black bags, tongs clacking the sides of the plastic trays, and the hushed opening and closing of pegs.
No one in class seems to hear the voices. No one has turned to gawk; no one has started screaming.
The photos are talking to me, and I don’t know why. I don’t mind not knowing—the universe is filled with incomprehensible things. We exist inside a multitude of singularities. I accepted this a long time ago.
This would make Bridgit the psychologist happy. She keeps saying acceptance is key. Bridgit has been using an approach called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with me. It’s all very mindful. I am supposed to not fight my grief, my hollow bones, my loss of Dad. I’m supposed to notice all my thoughts and feelings, Om, let them pass through, Om, instead of pushing them away.
So okay, fine.
Here I am. Here are voices, ribboning out from rectangles of paper.
Om.
Hi. I am listening. Welcome.
Om.
The photos keep whispering in my bag, on the car ride home. Voices rustle in their sleeves; the sound is like long grass, like kicking through it, wind thrumming through it, the dog rolling it flat.
Mum doesn’t hear anything either. She’s driving us home, telling me about her boss at work and singing snatches of songs from the radio. She doesn’t hear the dog’s bark, the man swearing as he steers, the slick-slick of a boat slipping through water.
So I guess the stories are just mine?
When I was nine, I caught the flu. I had a fever of 39. I threw up, then slept and slept and slept. I dreamed I was rolling down a hill. The hill wouldn’t stop and I couldn’t stop and I needed to pee, but I kept rolling and the grass pulled at my arms and legs and went over me until I was in a tunnel of green.
I couldn’t breathe—I couldn’t see—I couldn’t stop moving—and then I heard Dad’s voice.
‘Biz.’
And there was Dad on the end of the bed, in his board shorts and palm tree T-shirt. He was all wispy; he kept blinking in and out. He said, ‘Breathe, Biz, okay? One, two, three. Just breathe.’
Then Mum came in and she sat on the edge of the bed. She said, ‘Shh, shh, sweetie,’ and put a cloth on my forehead.
I pushed it off.
I said, ‘I want Dad,’ and Mum’s face turned a funny crumple in the dark.
‘I want him too, Biz,’ she said, her voice full of fuzz.
‘No, I want Dad. See? Here he is.’
And there was Dad, floating, all hopeful on the end of the bed, looking at Mum. But when she turned, I guess she saw only air.
‘Shhh. Dad’s not here. He’s in heaven, sweetie.’
‘No! He’s here! Dad, tell her.’
Dad opened his mouth.
Out he went like a light.
And I cried and cried and the fever swept up and over me like a wave and I peed in my bed where I lay.
It was awful. I was all staggery and had to lie on the floor while Mum re-made the bed.
I said, ‘Sorry, Mum, I’m sorry.’
She said, ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not,’ I said. And of course we meant two different things.
Two days later, I was mostly better. I kept looking at Mum when she came in with toast, when she checked my temperature, when she brought me lemonade. Should I ask her again about Dad? Should I tell her?
Mum sat on the edge of my bed, telling me some story about the last time she was as sick as me. Dad hovered, cross-legged and silent, over my desk. I looked from one to the other, one to the other, and understood. Dad was all and only mine.
Somewhere, sometime, Mum must have let him go.
‘I went to school with him,’ I say, pointing to Sylvia’s photograph with Jasper in it.
It’s our fourth Friday and we have a routine now, Sylvia and I. We take photographs three mornings a week, and every Friday she has me over for a vegan meal before class. The noodles were just the beginning. ‘I can do better than that!’ she said. Now Sylvia plies me with tofu mini quiches and Thai stir-fry, and I’m eating better than I ever have.
So, I’ve gotten almost comfortable. Today I’ve relaxed and breathed and dined on lentil dhal. I’ve washed dishes, listened to the story of Sylvia plus Ronald for exactly an hour and then stood by Sylvia’s photographs, and I’ve been able to say, ‘That guy. Yeah. We went to school,’ super casually, like he isn’t Jasper who pulled me out of the ocean and never spoke to me again.
‘Oh? Jasper? Really?’ says Sylvia, delighted.
‘Yeah. He goes to my old school.’
‘Oh, sweetie, he hasn’t been to school in ages,’ says Sylvia.
‘No?’
‘That’s right. He had to have an operation.’
‘For his leg?’
‘His leg?’ Sylvia frowns.
‘The one that’s, um?’ What do I say if she doesn’t know what I mean? Am I imagining the leg? Maybe I invented it, like I invented myself and my being here in this living room, sipping tea and having a third banana muffin, though it tastes wonderful—can you be invented and eat muffins? Is that a thing?
‘Oh, yes, that’s right, his leg!’ says Sylvia, her face clearing, and I have to remember that Sylvia is old. There’s a lot to process, loaded as she is with memories of being every age up to eighty-three.
‘Yeah, his leg,’ I say. ‘So he had an operation on it?’
‘He did. Now, what exactly did they do? Something with the bone? The knee? I’m not sure, dear. But he’s been away from school for months, the poor thing. How lovely that you know him!’
‘I don’t know him well,’ I begin, but Sylvia is off and running.
‘We’ll have to have him over for tea!’
‘Oh. No—’
‘He’s not vegan,’ says Sylvia. ‘But I’m sure he’ll be okay eating your food!’
‘Um. We don’t need to have him over for tea.’
‘We don’t?’
‘Well, I mean, you don’t. I mean. We weren’t friends.’
‘You weren’t? Why ever not?’
‘Oh! Nothing against him. It was me. I—’ And I can see from her face that it’s time to let my history out.
It takes a while to explain. I start by telling Sylvia about the waves. I tell her about Jasper appearing, poof. Then I tell her about everything that happened afterwards. About everyone giving up on me, about losing Grace, and me turning to dust in my bed.
I get quieter and quieter in the small room—orange cat on my lap, Sylvia gazing at me, tea going cold, a wall of faces in frames.
Just before I finish, I tell her about Dad leaving.
Then it’s completely, completely quiet.
Sylvia sighs. It’s long and sad, like when Bump heaves out his breath, head on paws, watching me with his eyes, wishing for something better to happen.
Sylvia reaches out and holds my hand.
And we sit together for ages before the old clock in the hall dings and it is time for class.
My fourth print:
Here is a little boy, digging in the sand at the harbour beach. He’s tunnelling to China! He has his bucket, his shovel. His face is set, determined. He’s been going for over two hours. His mum just called out, ‘Come and have lunch, Jack!’ But Jack will not.
I’m digging till I’m there. I’ll go all night! I’m strong!
The photo hangs from its peg. I could have helped Jack out. I could have told him if he made it through the earth’s molten core, he would actually pop out in the ocean, adrift in an unfathomable sea. I could have shown him on Google Maps.
It’s good to know all the facts; then you can decide. ‘Is that what you want, Jack?’ I could have said. ‘Do you want to keep digging?’
° ° ° ° °
My fifth print:
Here is Sylvia, smiling at me from a bench in the Botanic Gardens.
Sylvia sat on this bench sixty-three years ago, with her second boyfriend, James. He’d just told her he was leaving for Ecuador. She’d just found out she was pregnant. She didn’t tell him—he was so excited to leave, she just . . . couldn’t.
He held her hand and said, ‘Come with me, Sylvia.’
She shook her head and smiled. ‘I think I’ll stay,’ she said.
And afterwards, after their baby wasn’t born, and after she had time to stand by windows and think of him, and after his mother had called with the news of his death, Sylvia thought of what it would have been like to ride those mountain passes with him, on that bike. The things they would have seen: the green valleys, the blue, swallowing sky. How he would have spoken to her and she would have plucked his words from the wind and filled her lungs with them.
Sylvia stands two feet away from me, focused on her print of the lighthouse.
I stare at her. Can’t she hear her own story speaking?
Sylvia looks up, catches me staring. She smiles. It’s the same smile as the one in the photo, the same smile she offered me on the train to class, after I told her about Dad.
Just a few hours ago, she patted my hand. She said, ‘I’m sure your father will come back, sweetheart. It’s a beautiful thing, Elizabeth, isn’t it? To love this much?’
A week later and I’m home alone. This is a new development. Mum is out with her salsa class friends and the twins are at a sleepover. Which must mean I’m considered well enough to be left alone at night, when Mum’s worries are loudest. What a success I am!
Mum took up her salsa class when I took up my photography class. She saw a flyer at Coles, and asked, ‘Hey, do you mind if I go to this?’
I heard the sound in her voice, the careful Hey, whatever; I don’t mind one way or the other, but of course it mattered. Of course she minded. I’ve been a weight for months. I’ve had to be monitored, fed, have my barnacles scraped. If it’s been exhausting to be me, imagine how everyone else has felt, watching me wither. Probably terrible.
Mum does her class on a Wednesday night and I look after Billie and Dart. Mum loves it. She comes back and talks about her classmates—bald, divorced Ken with his shaky hands, Susan the manicurist who sings as she dances, and Maxine, who steps on everyone’s feet but never stops smiling with her big false teeth.
And now it’s Saturday and Mum’s really letting her hair down. She has gone out for drinks and dancing, wearing a dress she couldn’t stop tugging at before she left.
‘Do I look okay?’ she’d said. ‘Does this fit? Do I look like I’m trying too hard? Do I look like a cougar? Should I even go?’
‘You look gorgeous, Mum,’ I said. I handed over her favourite earrings, gave her a kiss, and headed her to the door. I waved her down the drive to her friend’s car, and you could see Mum shucking off her mum-self as she went off to play.
It must have felt fantastic.
The twins are at a friend’s house; they were so excited when I took them over, they bounced the whole way, pillows under their arms.
‘We’re going to have marshmallows!’ Dart said.
‘Hot chocolate and marshmallows!’ said Billie.
‘And we’re going for a midnight swim!’
‘And we’re going to watch a movie! I think it’s horror!’
‘Not horror, silly. I think it’s M-rated, though!’
‘And we’re going to have marshmallows!’
‘And we’re going to swim!’
‘Did you pack our swimmers, Biz?’
‘Did you pack our towels, the ones with the hoods?’
Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!
So it’s just me at home. My photographs from class are spread out on my bed, murmuring.
Tonight’s stories: the man selling used books at the local markets is stealing from the register at work—a twenty here, a fifty there; his fingers itch with want and guilt. The girl scribbling in a notebook by the water is writing to someone she wishes she still loved. The woman walking her dog wants to be an actor but is studying optometry. She can’t remember why she chose this course—at night she dreams she’s on stage; she’s about to go on; she’s kissing a young woman in the wings.
My darkroom photos are never quiet. I keep them in my desk drawer. If I leave the drawer open when I go to bed, I can fall asleep to their muffled whispers, and it almost feels like Dad’s here.
