just_a_girl (11 page)

When is this soul-searching going to end, I mean, I knew coming off the meds would be hard as I’ve tried it a few times before but it’s like I’ve sunk into a bog, and it’s been a horrendous week because of that film that Layla hired,
Brokeback Mountain,
you know, she loves Heath Ledger and was completely devastated when he died last year and everyone thought it was heroin or something but it was the wrong combination of prescription drugs and it could have happened to anyone, so she went to the BigPond Movies site and found all the films he’d done and put them in her queue, so they’ve been sending out a few each week and we’ve been having a bit of a Heath fest and he really is a remarkable actor, I mean, we’ve watched
10 Things I Hate About You, Blackrock, A Knight’s Tale, Casanova,
and it’s one thing that we both love to do, watch movies together.

I didn’t really want Layla to watch
Brokeback
but there’s no way I can stop her these days, she can watch the DVD on her computer, so I decided to watch it on my own and I think it was a case of too much too soon because there were some moments in
the movie where I felt sick, you know, like where he’s kissing that man outside the house and his wife sees and pretends not to, and those men living in these small town communities carrying on with their lies, and so I was glad I was on my own because I broke down and couldn’t stop when I saw the two little daughters, and then I got to the part when he’s making love to his wife and he turns her over onto her stomach, and I had to turn the DVD off, because Geoff would do that to me and I preferred being face to face, it felt wrong to be looking away, and it was all a total lie, wasn’t it?

And the way Geoff handled it in the end, I mean, he said he wanted to stay living in the spare room for a while to give him time to adjust, and I was in denial and thought I might be able to save us, you know, and we were about to renovate the kitchen and bathroom and there was mess everywhere in the house and I wanted to focus on that, not think about losing my husband, and I felt that everyone would think I was so stupid, that I was an idiot to have married someone who wasn’t attracted to women, and so I let him stay and we kept organising the plumbers and builders and renovated a house for a family that was slowly falling apart.

When he finally confessed to me we were sitting on our bed and I wanted to help him through it, you know, I actually felt sympathy right then and held his hand and told him I would be there to support him through whatever it was he was going through because I thought there was still a chance to save my marriage, and he cried and I couldn’t really believe that he could leave us, and I thought perhaps the physical attraction to men could be overcome or at least put somewhere in a compartment safe, so I suggested we see a counsellor but Geoff said in the session that he had known he was homosexual since he was 11 years old
but he could never tell his dad because the thought would have killed him, so he denied it in himself, and then he said he didn’t love me any more, wasn’t sure if he really ever had, and he left it until that moment with a complete stranger to finally humiliate me and I wanted to lie on the floor and scream, and I sat there and wondered where Geoff had gone and who was this person in front of me, and he said all he wanted was to start a new life free of lies and deceit and then the counsellor asked me what I wanted and I could find nothing to say, and she commented that maybe I had trouble expressing my desires and Geoff looked at me and nodded, and I felt like the whole thing was blamed on me, that I was the bad wife and mother, if I was a real woman none of this would have happened, and I stared out the window and didn’t really listen and the counsellor said,
Time is up,
as if she was really sorry, and then charged us 150 dollars for the privilege, and I wish Jesus had been in my life back then because the whole thing may have had a different ending, before I got stuck in this long dark tunnel looking for answers, and what continues to amaze me is that this happened all those years ago, and I’m still playing it now like a movie in my head.

In the afternoon I catch the bus from granny’s out to Caves Beach. Sunburnt obesities kill themselves softly. Bodies everywhere. It’s not quite summer yet. But stinking hot. Dad used to take me to explore the rockpools at low tide. But I was always scared. The water was going to come in. I wouldn’t be able to escape. I wonder if
youami
ever comes here. He didn’t look like he could surf.

Caves is not like Coogee. The bodies are different. In Coogee the men sizzle. Size me up. Here the guys just concentrate on the waves. But it doesn’t matter which beach I go to. I’m the only one with a moontan. My body isn’t built for the beach. Mindless recreation and sweat. Salt and sand up your crack. Nah. After last night I’m beginning to wonder what exactly my body
is
built for. I watch girls with effortless long legs jog into the waves and duck under. I’m too hot even to swim.

The sand evaporates into scrubby bush and commercial waste-of-spaces. The perfect spot to murder young girls
and dig shallow graves. I wonder how many dead bodies I walk over. Newcastle’s torn apart from years of mining. Granddad was a coal miner who came out from Ireland. He left his family farm when he was 14. Granny said he used to walk under the ocean to get to work. The mines tunnel deep under the sand. He died before my dad came out. Which is lucky because that announcement probably would have killed him. Or so my mum says.

During the earthquake my granny was in a car on her way to the bank. She didn’t really notice it. She thought it was just the car wheels going over a speed bump. When she got to the bank everyone was screaming and she didn’t know why. I’ve always been interested in natural disasters. Imagine if another earthquake suddenly hurled my girly torso into the air. Or there was a 14-metre tsunami. Dragging me out to sea.

I’m tired of having to move aisles when Danny’s around. He seems to be able to see me wherever I am. Knows when I am alone. He probably has a security camera in the coolroom. And when I’m at the checkout I’m stuck. I don’t want to go back there. Not after what happened last week.

There’s this couple who come in every second Thursday. Probably cashed up after Centrelink. Or doped up more like it. The woman is the kind who usually gets on at Penrith station. Face like an old lime. Skin peeling and raw. The kind mum calls a
ya ya.
She’s probably on ice. Yelling at the kid in the pram when he wants to get out.
Fuckin’ sit there or you’ll get a smack.
Of course the kid just wants to go down the lolly aisle. Pull out all the chocolates and popcorn. She screams at him. Then hands him a packet of corn chips.

The dad is so thin if he turns sideways he’s the invisible man. On Thursdays he strolls up and down the aisles for ages. He thinks he’s being casual. But he’s off his face. You can spot a junkie shoplifter a mile off. Especially when he suddenly seems six months pregnant. At the end of the frozen food aisle.

Vanessa often follows him around and asks if she can help him with anything. Just to stir things up a bit. But he always comes to the counter with a box of nappies. That’s it. Every fortnight. He always comes to my checkout too. The wife and kid pretending they don’t know. I must look like I have the kindest face. The one least likely to check their bags. Although we’re meant to do it with everyone. But fuckadoodle, I don’t really care. Whether they steal from Danny or not.

Anyway. Last week they were standing in the queue as usual. I was on 12-items-or-less. Easy peasy shift. Danny was hovering around and I thought it was just for me. The dad got to the counter. Put down his box of nappies. The kid was pulling all the mags off the rack. As if he’d been trained to cause a distraction. Trying to get to the Freddo Frogs. Danny swooped like a noisy miner. Patted the guy’s stomach.

—What you got there? Planning to have another baby?

The guy crouched. Danny pulled the t-shirt from under his hoodie and dropped a cold load on the floor. Three small trays of meat. Chicken, pork, beef kebabs. Fuckadoodle, if you’re going to shoplift. You might as well take chocolate.

He sprang and made it out past security. But Danny grabbed the divider from my station. The one customers
use so they don’t pay for or touch anyone else’s stuff. Just near the supermarket entrance he whacked it. As hard as he could into the side of the dad’s head. Into his shoulders and neck. Blood was pouring out onto the guy’s shirt and the floor. He was trying to cover his face. But ended up cowering on the ground.

His wife, the kid and me just stood there in silence. The guy tried to make it out the door. But Danny chased him up the street. Whacking him as he went. Then the wife started screaming at me. As if it was my fault. My next customer quietly said,
Wouldn’t it be better just to call the police?
Danny brought the guy back. Made the family sit in the office.

He put the divider back on my checkout. It had a smear of the dad’s blood on the end. I couldn’t look at it. I rang in sick the next shift.

I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

There’s a man fishing off the beach near me. The way he reels and flicks reminds me of Danny and his knives. His bucket is still empty. The beach has gone quiet. Just surfers out in calm water.

Davo 4 Me 4 Eva.

I draw a heart pierced by an arrow in the sand. I spent years perfecting the arrow in primary school. I should have drawn it closer to the water. So the waves could lap at it. I scrub it out with my feet.

I hope wherever the Lord is tonight he’s somewhere cooler than Springwood because the heat is penetrating the walls, but it’s not affecting me because I’ve got that chill in my bones, you know, when no matter how many layers you put on you can’t get warm, and it started when I heard that song by Primal Scream on the radio, the one we used to hear in clubs that goes ‘Movin on up’, and it brought the true Geoff back in that world before Layla, the excitement of those early days in Sydney, when we were in love with the idea of a new city and the possibilities seemed endless, those nights we’d cruise into town at midnight with the promise of E’s in our pockets and that moment in a quiet corner in an old warehouse when he’d slip one under each of our tongues, and the lights became a soft fire and his hair would glow under the strobes with the thump thump of bodies melting into hard beats and he would stroke me, fingertips on my neck that’s all, and we’d heave and dance until the morning light reached in to yank us out the door, the sweat quickly cooling on our faces.

And it was like Geoff helped me to find something I hadn’t realised was missing, there was a real sense of community and of people linked by their love of music and dancing where you all experienced a sense of awe and wonder in the same space, hoping for a connection and that rush of recognition where all that mattered was sharing those intense emotions with everyone around you, but now I start to wonder who else he was stroking quietly in the chill-out rooms and how long after did he start to pull away, towards a new light, while I headed off in the other direction, down a long dark road where each turn led to a dead end.

And the thing about depression is it makes you feel fuzzy around the edges and you can never quite grab it with your mind, it is such a slow build, and I kept thinking that everything was okay, that I was dealing with the pain and grief and being in the moment and all those words that therapists love, and then Layla’s off to school and bang I wake up one day and I can’t keep up, there’s no way I can get out of bed, my body is listless and my brain tries to argue with it but there is no response and I remember wanting to become Sleeping Beauty and enter a world of oblivion, to live the life of dreams and never have to wake up.

But that’s where the Lord rushed in to rescue me and Pastor Bevan understood the depression, he said that he had been down low, and when that thing happened with his father, I mean, you could see the pain etched on his face as he was dragged along to the court cases with all those churchgoers who were called to testify, and you wonder what his childhood was really like, if he was also abused, I mean, you never know the full story, and it must be hard for him to trust anyone after they attacked his father in the media and questioned his own role in the Church, waiting for the latest bit of juicy gossip and hoping it would all come crashing down around him.

But even though I now have the Church in my life sometimes I lie here afraid that the black hole is sneaking up again and it’s worse when Layla is away, this year she wanted to spend Christmas Day with Geoff, the first time we’ve been apart, and I don’t want to be all alone during the festive season but what could I say?, this year it will be Rusty and me, and Geoff’s always spoiling her with outings, so when she comes back home I look like the boring old mum, I mean, he seems to get all the good bits and he’s split up with the latest, there’ve been so many over the years, so God knows what space his head’s in and I get a bit worried about Layla when she’s not home, we’re on such different wavelengths, so I wish she’d answer her phone up there but she sees my name flash up and hits the reject button.

I have been listening to Pastor Bevan’s podcasts each day as I find it so comforting to be able to plug him in when I’m driving to see a client, you know, he truly is created in the Lord’s image, and at home it’s even better because at lunchtime I can watch him streaming on the net and it’s like having your own takeaway church right there, drive on through, and today I heard quite a nice sermon on how to attract health and wealth into your life where he said that most of all Jesus wants us to be financially happy and secure, and that if we give generously to help our fellow Riverlay people, our seeds of support will be multiplied and returned tenfold and I liked the thought of gaining so much through giving, and Pastor Bevan had a good question,
How can we bless someone else if we don’t have any money?,
and he asked us to consider Deuteronomy 8:18 that says,
God gives you the power to get wealth to establish his covenant,
and that the Earth has to be poverty-free because poverty comes from the Devil and that if I ask the Lord for help he will provide for us in abundance, and so I’ve been praying really hard today
because I’d like to buy a house down off the mountain and move on from this place with all its old memories, and I’m so grateful to the Lord for new technologies, Layla may laugh but he really does work in mysterious ways, so I can hear Pastor Bevan’s voice in my kitchen as I do the dishes, because at Church it’s hard to get a word in with him edgeways and I’d like to talk to him more often, because when he shakes my hand there’s something in the softness of it that reminds me of Auntie Jeannie, and I like the way his eyes slowly move from person to person settling gently on them like rain, and last week at Riverlay he said from the stage,
You have the power to be free,
and he balled me up in his gaze as if a special meaning was locked in for me.