Dying for cake, p.7
Dying for Cake, page 7
Anyway, I’m pushing away furniture. I’m lifting up crates of dusty bottles and stacks of newspaper, trying to find my assignment before the five o’clock deadline. I’m simply positive it’s in the house somewhere. It has just been overlooked, and if I can organise the Easterns’ mess, I’ll find it. But I can never organise the Easterns’ mess.
The kitchen benches are full of dirty dishes, stacked in teetering piles. I have to clean up the kitchen because my assignment might be here, wedged underneath some crockery or a heap of rotting food. I need to fill the sink with soapy water so that I can start washing up, but the sink is already full of plates smeared with runny egg. I take them out one by one and balance them carefully on the leaning piles, but when I look back into the sink it’s still full. I can never empty it. My task is endless.
I move around the house in circles. Achieving one objective always requires me to initiate another, and somewhere, hiding in this intricate web of refuse, is my final paper. The search seems to consume the hours and when it’s nearly five o’clock, I still haven’t found my paper. I wake up. I’m covered with sweat and I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep.
Still Saturday, 8.15 a.m. — Richard says he’ll look after the kids. (Anything to stop me grumbling about lack of sleep. Says I haven’t been this bad-tempered since Laura was a baby.)
8.45 a.m. — Arrive at Easterns’ house. Pick up the mail. Letterbox already overflowing. (At least they’ve stopped delivering the papers. Steve probably hasn’t paid the bill in months.) Notice that the grass needs cutting. BADLY.
8.50 a.m. — Stand uneasily outside house. Unable to move for some minutes. Mouth dry. Sensation of SPIDER CRAWLING under shirt. Lift up shirt. Brush at skin crazily and find nothing. (Decide that skin irritation is psychosomatic response to extreme anxiety provoked by appearance of house.)
APPEARANCE OF HOUSE — With its fibro facade and closed-in verandahs, the house used to look sad. Now it looks sinister. It’s cold and secretive, hiding in a yard full of shadows. It looms. Large and leaning. Is it something to do with the strange tilt it acquired years ago when Evelyn’s father had it restumped? Clare told me that after Evelyn’s mother hanged herself, Evelyn’s dad had the whole house restumped. He didn’t raise it and build under like most people did in the 70s. He cut three feet off each stump. Clare didn’t tell me why, but I can guess.
9.00 a.m. — Finally resolve to stop procrastinating and walk up the front steps.
9.01 a.m. — Notice that Steve still hasn’t fixed the front steps! Broken balusters swing and creak in the wind. House needs painting too. All paint is faded or peeled away to a nondescript grey. (No wonder that dark, brooding shape haunts my dreams.)
9.02 a.m. — Open door. TERRIBLE STENCH! Saliva rushes back into my mouth and I start retching. Damn cat has been locked inside. SHIT and urine all over enclosed verandah. Cat shoots out between my legs and takes off down steps. (I have the urge to call the RSPCA but don’t. I know Steve didn’t mean to lock the cat in. He’s always loved the cat.)
9.10 a.m. — Put on pink rubber gloves. (I wouldn’t touch anything in that place without my gloves on.) Open up every window and door in the house. Throw every cushion and rug the cat has shat on, and some it hasn’t, down into the yard.
9.20 a.m. — Open up huge standing garbage clean-up bag (INVALUABLE for cleaning at the Easterns’). Pick up eleven empty tins of cat food and throw into bag.
9.30 a.m. — Pour half a bottle of disinfectant into a bucket of hot water and mop the entire front verandah (VERY SATISFYING).
10.00 a.m. — Enter main house and ponder over where to start. Decide to start in centre of house and work my way around until I end up on the verandah again.
Firstly — Notice that Easterns’ living room is incredibly DARK. Realise that the only light-fitting has blown a bulb. Stand two minutes while eyes adjust to the dark.
Secondly — Start vacuum cleaner and try to clean the cat hair off the sofa.
Thirdly — SWEAR because bag is full and the suction won’t work.
Fourthly — Stand outside trying to empty bag into overflowing garbage bin. Have mild allergic reaction to dust and cat hair.
Finally — Vacuum (between sneezing fits). Push couch out into the middle of the room to vacuum under it. Find bits of pizza, mouldy playdough, rat droppings, spider webs AND one tiny pink sock. (I cry because I can still see her foot in that sock. At least the crying helps to clear the dust and cat hair from my sinuses. I wipe my nose on the sock and then I put the sock in my pocket.)
11.00 a.m. — Take all the clothes that were lying on the floor down to the laundry and put the first load into the machine. (Throughout the day I fill the Easterns’ entire clothesline with wet washing. Consequently the clothesline threatens to cave in, but doesn’t dare.)
11.10 a.m. — Put all the shitty stuff to soak in some Napisan in the tub. Notice Evelyn’s nappy bucket. It is EMPTY. At least I don’t have to deal with that issue.
About 12.30 p.m. — Lounge room in reasonable state. Don’t stop for lunch.
Some time after 1 p.m. — Strip the bed in William’s bedroom. Remake the bed and tidy his toys. (Surprisingly, William’s room is the cleanest in the house, although I suppose he’s been living more or less with Clare these last few months.)
About 2 p.m.? — Find cigarette butts everywhere in Steve and Evelyn’s room. (A couple of them have even left burn marks on Evelyn’s dresser. The bedclothes are really rancid so I throw them out the window and they land right outside the laundry.) Take everything out from under the bed to vacuum. Feel the need to OPEN up every suitcase they have stashed under there. The need to CLEAN and REORGANISE. Looking. Searching. (Each time I lift a lid on one of their suitcases, my heart is in my throat. I think I get a bit frenetic because I throw a lot of stuff out of that window that isn’t laundry. I notice a big pile of Playboys in a corner of the room. I TOSS them out as well.)
Sometime between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. — Nearly reaching exhaustion point. Slight dizziness from lack of food. COMPULSIVELY clean the kitchen and spend an eternity washing up. (At least the kitchen isn’t as dark as the rest of the house. The window looks out onto that old jacaranda tree in the backyard. It must be pretty in November …) Notice ENORMOUS SPIDER WEB outside kitchen window while washing up. There is a big green cicada caught in the web. Think about rescuing it but its wings are so tangled and damaged by the web that the kindest thing might just be to leave it there.
Sixish? — PACKING UP to leave when I remember the little sock in my pocket. (REALLY HARD for me to walk into her room. Have been avoiding it all day.) I open the door to Amy’s room. The room is full of the last afternoon sun. WARM AND SERENE. Painted a sunny yellow. And those curtains Evelyn ran up on her machine, with the little purple violets … I think she must have known that it was going to be a girl. Open the wardrobe and the tears start to stream down my face. All those lovely little dresses, size 00. Liberty print dresses with smocking, fine cotton sunsuits with matching polly hats … She’d bought beautiful clothes for her. Open up the drawers. She must have spent a fortune on baby clothes. Everything is either from David Jones or those expensive children’s boutiques in Hamilton. Nothing even looks worn. Heart starts pounding. NONE of these things have been worn. Evelyn NEVER dressed Amy in any of these clothes!
GOD KNOWS WHAT TIME! — EMPTY drawers into the cot and RIFLE through the things. (WHERE are Amy’s little Bonds suits? WHERE are her singlets? Her pilchers? Her nappies? WHERE is the other pink sock? Where are any of the socks for that matter?) The room contains nothing of Amy’s. NOTHING at all. SEARCH on the shelves for the little Dalmation dog I gave her when she was born. (Evelyn used to put it in the pram with her.) Can’t find that either. Finally realise that Amy is not lost somewhere in the house. Not misplaced by a mother with some psychotic postnatal condition who has left her somewhere under a pile of clothes. (Ludicrous really. To let absurd possibilities haunt me like that, when the police must have scoured every inch of that house after she disappeared.)
LATE — Realise that Amy could be anywhere but she isn’t in the house. Probably not dead either. (What would a dead baby want with two dozen nappies? Evelyn bought a stack of them. She said she loved babies in real cloth nappies with nappy pins.)
EVEN LATER — Hands shaking. Stand on the verandah sipping a glass of water. Teeth chattering against glass. Holding that tiny sock in the darkness and seeing her face. Get cramps in my legs from standing so still. It is pitch black and I cannot see my watch face. My body shudders and I realise that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the time is. For the first time in my life I have LOST TRACK of the seconds and minutes that make up my day.
SOMETIME BEFORE MIDNIGHT LAST SATURDAY — The police station. Renewed affirmations that they are doing ‘everything they can’. Given a coffee that tastes like the polystyrene cup. Don’t show them the sock. Keep it in my pocket, covered with dust and spider web. Amy’s pink sock.
JEWEL BEETLES
Whoosh! The girl’s plastic jar captured a piece of the scratchy green world on the trunk of the lemon tree.
‘Quickly, William. Quickly! Put the lid on. I’ve catched it in here. See?’
The boy saw. He slid the red lid awkwardly under the jar with his five-year-old fingers. She upended the jar and pushed the lid down. Snap! Trapped.
The children crouched in the yellow-green garden beside the deeper green shadow of the lemon tree. Their heads were bent together, illuminated by the sun and tousled by the breeze. The boy’s sandy brown hair entwined with the red wisps that had wandered from the curls on the little girl’s head. They were a world in themselves. A child world where the universe ended at the garden fence and they were a pair of clumsy giants peering through the jar at their tiny captive. The jewel beetle scuttled across the hard plastic, skidding its tiny black feet over the unfamiliar surface, frantically feeling for the bark where it had been attached in the last moment of time.
‘It’s bwootiful, Sophie. Look how it shines. I see red, green, blue … Just like the rainbow on the side of a bubble.’
‘It’s a jewel beetle, William. Remember the museum last week? We saw lots of jewels. They were all in glass cases and lined up. Let’s put ours in a glass case too.’
‘What does a julie beetle do in a glass case?’
‘Nothing, silly. It’s dead. It just sits still and you can look at it and see how pretty it is.’
‘I don’t want to put it in a glass case, Sophie. I don’t want it to be dead. Let’s put it in a box with some leaves and keep it for a pet.’
The boy reached up for the jar but the girl pulled the prize away and held it above her. The jar caught the sun and the flash of white light made the boy cower and cover his eyes.
‘Mum says you can’t keep bugs as pets. Sometimes I keep them overnight in my bug catcher, but after that I’ve gotta let them go.’
‘I don’t want to let it go. It’s too bwootiful. Let me keep it, Sophie. Let me put it in a box and keep it at my house. My dad won’t mind. Lots of bugs live in our house already …’
The girl held the bug catcher up to her face again and her green eyes were magnified by the curve of the container. ‘In the museum there was a tea-cosy that was made out of beetle wings. They were sewed on with a needle and they looked like sparkly flowers. It took lots and lots of beetle wings to make that tea-cosy.’
‘How did they get all those wings?’
‘Oh, I suppose they catched lots and lots of jewel beetles and then ripped their wings off.’ She smiled at him and shook the jar a little so that the beetle landed on its back with six brittle black legs flaying in the air. She laughed.
‘Gimme that beetle!’ yelled the boy, snatching at the jar again in a futile attempt to save the beetle. ‘I want to keep it!’
‘Well, it’s my jar,’ said the girl, narrowing her green eyes and pouting her pink lips. She opened the jar and shook the beetle onto the grass. He scrabbled on the ground to find it, and when he did, he cupped his hands around it and sat holding it protectively under the lemon tree.
‘You can have it,’ she said, looking down the short distance of her freckled nose. ‘I’m going to catch a bee. Bees are more fun. I’m going to catch one and then it will make me some honey.’
She turned and he watched the hot-pink shorts and yellow top disappear around the side of the house. He heard her sandshoes crunch over the gravel path and, finding himself quite alone and removed from her bossiness, he picked himself up and tore some leaves from the lemon tree. The sharp smell of citrus tickled his nose as he stuffed the leaves into the front pocket of his navy shorts, the pocket with the velcro flap. He looked at the jewel beetle one last time and then popped it inside his pocket too. Very gently, he patted the flap shut. ‘It’s alright now, bwootiful julie bug. I’ll look after you,’ he said. It was nearly lunchtime and Clare was searching for the other melamine Pooh Bear mug in the plastics drawer. She could never find anything in her plastics drawer and when she’d finished looking she could never shut it either. There was always a lunch box lid or a drink bottle top wedged at the back of the cabinet. Finally, she fished out the cup and began looking for Sophie’s Teletubbies plate. She found it just as she heard Sophie shrieking in the garden. Her heart thumped and she dropped Po and Dipsy on the tiles. The crack as the melamine broke accentuated the crescendo of the child’s cry as Clare ran outside.
‘Sophie! What happened?’ Sophie was screaming, her face bright red as she clutched her wrist. Clare saw that at least there was no blood. She couldn’t deal with blood.
‘The bee bit meeeee!’ Sophie sobbed.
Clare gathered her child up into her arms. ‘Show me! Where, sweet pea?’
Sophie flung her wrist out for her mother to see. Clare pulled out the sting. ‘Don’t cry now, Sophie … Shhhhh. That’s what happens when you try to catch bees in your bug catcher … Shhhhh. I’ve told you that before. Come on inside now and we’ll put an icepack on it. You and William must be hungry. It’s nearly lunchtime.’
Clare found an icepack in the freezer, wrapped it in a tea towel, and pressed it over the bee-sting with one hand while she stroked Sophie’s curls with the other. The attention, more than the ice, seemed to soothe the child and, after a few minutes of this, Clare was able to put William in charge of holding the icepack while she made lunch.
Sophie and William sat around the little children’s table. William quietly sucked his blackcurrant cordial through a straw while Sophie, with a tear-stained face, chomped into her cheese and Vegemite sandwich. Clare felt guilty. Perhaps she should have been keeping a better eye on them. Even Sophie’s favourite pink biscuits, sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, didn’t cheer her up.
Clare sipped her tea and ate her cheese and salad sandwich. William was unusually quiet, his big brown eyes staring intently at Sophie, one podgy little hand resting, ever so lightly, on the pocket of his navy shorts. Poor thing. It must affect him, losing his baby sister and his mother all in one go … Clare tried to think of a small treat which might cheer them up for the afternoon. Then she remembered the little bottle of pink glitter nail polish she’d packed away at the back of her cupboard for Sophie’s birthday.
‘Here,’ she said, setting the bottle down on the table between the children. ‘How about we all paint our nails with this?’
Sophie’s face burst into a smile. ‘Pink polish! I’ve been wanting that for ages!’
‘I know. I thought you might like it now. A little treat to cheer you up.’
William looked sadly at the bottle. ‘My dad says that nail polish is for girls,’ he said quietly.
Clare put her arm around William. His sandy brown hair fell across his face.
‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll put some polish on your toenails, William. If you put your own shoes on in the mornings, your dad will never even notice. If he says something to you, just say that Clare said it was okay. Alright?’
William smiled and nodded his head, pleased to be part of the conspiracy.
Clare sat out on the front steps with the children and painted their toenails. They smiled to see the glitter sparkling in the sun.
‘My toes look like julie beetles!’ cried William, jumping up and down the front steps.
‘I want to paint my fingernails myself now, Mummy.’ Sophie grabbed the bottle and clutched it in her hand.
Clare looked at her daughter’s determined face. She didn’t want a tantrum. ‘Well, perhaps, if you’re very careful, you can paint your fingernails. I’ll get you some newspaper …’ The phone rang. ‘Don’t open the bottle, Sophie. Wait until I come back,’ she called over her shoulder.
The girl looked at the pink nail polish glittering in the jar. She picked up the bottle and tried the lid. It came off easily. She pulled out the brush. The nail polish clung to the brush in thick blobs and she got more on her fingers than on her nails. She smiled. The hot-pink colour was beautiful and she layered more and more on until it oozed all over her hands.
The boy watched her. ‘I want some on my nails too.’
‘You’re not allowed,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Your dad wouldn’t like it. Boys don’t wear nail polish on their fingernails.’ The girl shook her red curls to reinforce the point and pushed her tongue out between her lips while she refocused her attention on the task at hand. She finished her nails and looked around for some other body part to paint. She was enjoying herself.
‘I know, let’s paint your bottom,’ she said. ‘Your dad won’t notice it under your pants.’
The boy contemplated this proposition for a moment, biting his lip. ‘Okay,’ he said, stepping out of his shorts and carefully laying them aside.
‘You’ll have to take your undies off too,’ she said, the brush poised ready in her hand.
