Perfections (30 page)

Ant looks worried. ‘What do you mean? What could she take?’

‘
Your
energy,’ he says. ‘Your life, if that’s possible. Maybe she doesn’t like the idea of dying so much now she’s getting close to the end.’

‘No,’ Ant tells him. ‘It’s not like that. She just wants to make sure Jacqueline survives after she’s gone. That’s all.’

Lina laughs. ‘Because she’s such a wonderful mother.’

‘She tried to be. And it couldn’t have been easy, feeling the way she did.’ Ant glances again at Loki. ‘She’s
still
trying, even now. So cut her some slack, okay?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lina says. ‘I know you still care about her.’

‘God knows why,’ Loki mumbles and turns a page in his book. Something called
The Pygmalion Effect
, its glossy cover sporting the famous painting by Raoux. He seems to spend most of his time reading these days. Reading, or chasing links around obscure corners of the web.

There has to be something written about us, Lina. We aren’t the first of our kind, and surely we can’t be the last. Give me time, I’ll find it.

Lina takes her sister’s hand. ‘What aren’t you telling us?’

‘Nothing,’ Antoinette says. She looks away. Rubs at her knee which is already beginning to bruise. ‘I mean, Mum won’t tell me hardly anything about how this stuff works. She doesn’t want me to know, doesn’t want me to ever try and use it again. You know she thinks it’s some kind of curse.’

‘Maybe she doesn’t really know how it works,’ Loki says.

‘Maybe,’ Ant concedes. ‘But she knows more than me right now.’

‘You’re afraid,’ Lina says. Her sister looks up. Eyes cagey as Lina has seldom seen them over the course of their lives. Usually only when there is something Ant thinks Lina would be better off not knowing. ‘There’s a risk to this, isn’t there? Something you’re keeping to yourself.’

‘No, I already said–’

‘Could I be hurt somehow?’ Lina studies her sister’s reactions. From the corner of her eye, she is aware that Loki is watching them both carefully. ‘Could
you
be hurt, is that it? Are you putting yourself at risk for me?’

Ant opens her mouth. Closes it again without speaking a word. She doesn’t have to. The look on her face is enough.

Lina feels ill. ‘Then you can’t do it. Not if you might get hurt or . . . or worse. No, I won’t allow it.’

‘You’d take the risk for me,’ her sister says. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘That’s different, that’s–’

‘No.’ Ant shakes her head. ‘You’re my sister, Jacqueline, and I love you.
I love you
, do you understand what that means? For me, now? There’s no way I can just stand by and let you die, not if there’s anything I can do to prevent it.’ Her voice is close to breaking. Her eyes glisten.

‘All right.’ Lina reaches our her arms. Pulls her sister into them. ‘All right then. Just promise me you’ll be safe. That you won’t do anything rash.’

‘You’re my family,’ Ant whispers. ‘You’re the only family I’m going to have left. There’s nothing I won’t do for you, Jacqueline. Not a bloody thing.’

And Lina holds her tight as Ant snuffles into her shoulder. She smiles at Loki, who smiles back. She loves him. Sometimes, like now, she can’t quite believe how much. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmurs, pressing her lips to her sister’s hair. ‘Because we
are
family, the three of us. You and me and Loki. And no one – especially not that old witch on the mountain – is ever going to come between us.’

Lina taps on the study door. Waits for her sister to invite her inside before she opens it. Ant is sitting up in the futon bed, brow furrowed as she taps away at the screen of her phone. ‘You’re up late,’ she says, not raising her head.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Lina tells her. ‘How was your last night?’

‘Kinda weird. Ronan was pissed about the late notice until I explained I had to go look after Mum, and then he was actually pretty decent about letting me take as much leave as I wanted. Of course, he also must have spread the word around. Even the bloody chefs were giving me the kid-glove treatment.’

Lina surveys the room. The futon which takes up almost every inch of spare space when it’s folded out. Her sister’s work clothes crumpled over the back of the desk chair. The suitcase crowded against the wall. They can’t keep living like this. They need to find a bigger place, one with two proper bedrooms at least. With her and Ant both working, they should be able to afford it. Soon perhaps. Once the Sally Paige situation has been . . .
resolved
. She likes that word. Likes the way it sounds in her head. Resolved, yes.

Her sister swears. ‘I hate typing on this thing. Bloody autocorrect.’

‘Are you busy? I can talk to you in the morning . . .’

‘No, no, I’ll only be a sec. Just trying to reply to Greta.’

‘Greta has your new number?’

‘Fat chance. I sent her a message through Facebook before work, told her to make it clear to Paul that whatever beef she has with him, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with me. For what that might be worth.’

‘And?’

‘She apologised, said she’d talk to Paul. She also asked if I wanted to catch up for coffee.’

‘Why? I always thought she was more Paul’s friend than yours.’

‘Why does Greta do anything?’ A few more quick taps before she grimaces and tosses the phone onto the mattress beside her. ‘Fuck it, I’ve played the cancer card. Told her I’d be away caring for my dying mother for the foreseeable. Maybe she’ll take that for an answer seeing as she doesn’t seem to understand
no
.’

Lina perches herself on the end of the futon. ‘I need to ask you a favour.’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s not a small favour.’

The smile falls from her sister’s face. Without it, she looks exhausted. Shadows darken the hollows of her eyes. Twin grooves etch deep at the corners of her mouth. Briefly, Lina considers simply letting this go as a bad idea. But she’s been lying in bed all night, listening to Loki breathe and rolling words around in her head as though they’re magic beads. As though she simply needs to figure out the right pattern, the right combination, for them to work.

She has to ask. If only once. ‘Could you . . .’ Her throat is dry, her tongue thick and unwieldy. ‘Would you make me . . .
perfect
me a child?’

Ant says nothing. Merely stares, wide-eyed and white-faced. A night-dwelling creature caught sudden in torchlight.

‘You know I can’t have children of my own,’ Lina rushes on. ‘I’ve lived with that fact for years, accepted it – and, of course, now I know why. But if you could create a child for me . . . it would be the only thing I would ever ask of you, Ant, I promise. Just one child, that’s all I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.’

Her sister is already shaking her head. ‘Jacqueline, I can’t. Even if I knew how to do something like that–’

‘You made Loki. Can’t you just–’

‘Loki was an accident, and look how that turned out.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He could have
killed
Paul this afternoon.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘He wanted to, I saw it in his face. Jacqueline, I was so scared.’

‘Loki has some difficulties,’ Lina says carefully. ‘You might too if you were just dumped into the world with a head full of memories not your own. But this would be a child, a baby even. We would love it and raise it and–’

‘I wouldn’t love it. That’s what happens, remember?’

‘Even if you’re not making it for yourself?’

Ant smiles, bitter and close to breaking. ‘You’re right. But if I do this for you, out of my deep and abiding
sisterly love
– what do you suppose the price might be then, Jacqueline?’

She thinks of Sally Paige. How her eyes would flatten and glaze whenever she wasn’t playing Mother of the Year. The eyes of a hooked and landed fish. Resentful. Resigned. Waiting to drown in the air. Lina can’t imagine what it would be like if Ant ever turned such eyes on her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I don’t want that. I would never want that.’

‘Mum’s right, you know. This is a curse.’

‘Don’t say that. If you hadn’t made Loki . . . I love him so much, Ant, you’ve no idea how important he is to me. To have someone who understands what I am, who
is
what I am. That’s enough, really.’

Already, she’s packing it away again. Her need, her longing. Folding it back into its child-shaped casket. Pushing the casket beneath her ribs where it has been lodged for so long she barely feels it. She shouldn’t have asked. Shouldn’t have allowed even the slimmest hope to slip its bonds.

‘I’m sorry, Ant. Honestly.’

‘If I thought there was a way . . .’ Her sister looks utterly miserable. Huddled there in her baggy, black pyjamas. Knees drawn close to her chest. The weight of at least two worlds pressing down upon her shoulders.

‘I was wrong to even ask,’ Lina tells her. ‘You have enough on your plate right now without me adding to it.’

‘It’s okay,’ Ant says. Attempts a weak, tired smile that stretches into a yawn. ‘But the nurse is coming at nine tomorrow. I have to be up at Mum’s before then, and I really need to get some sleep.’

‘Of course.’ Lina stands. She wants to give her sister a hug but the futon is too wide to reach across. Too awkward to inch her way around its side. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says again. Pathetic, inadequate words for the person about to save her life. To sever her from Sally Paige once and for all.

‘Grab the light on your way out, will you?’ Ant says.

After she closes the study door, Lina remains outside in the hall for a few moments longer. Listens to the creaking springs of the futon as her sister makes herself comfortable. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers into the darkness. ‘Thank you so much.’

— 21 —

Antoinette shuf
fles the deck and deals, flips the top card to reveal a king of spades and stifles a groan when she finds the left bower and queen nestled snug in her hand; more than enough to declare trumps, especially with a stray ace or two as kickers. They’ve been playing euchre out on the back porch for the best part of Sunday afternoon, and she’s been trying to let her mother win at least one hand in four but Sally Paige is too distracted, slouched across the table in her pink cardigan with a dazed-dull expression on her face like she’s mildly drunk, like she’s been woken too soon from too deep a sleep. Her lips move wordless and dry as she studies her cards, then suddenly clamp together, press together white as frostbite.

‘Mum? You feeling okay?’

‘Just a bit nauseous.’

‘You want some more lemon squash?’

Her mother scatters her cards on the table, face up. There’s nothing to them: low pips in a medley of suits, topped by a single unsupported queen. ‘I think I’ll go back to bed for a while. I can barely keep my eyes open.’

Antoinette helps her mother shuffle back to her bedroom. Eases her out of her cardigan, then removes the syringe driver from its cloth bag and sets it carefully on the side table, watches for a few seconds to make sure the little green light is blinking. After checking that the tube isn’t kinked or tangled, she tries to inspect the cannula in her mother’s chest for signs of inflammation or infection, but Sally Paige pushes her hand away. ‘It’s fine.’

‘The nurse said to check regularly.’

‘I’m not so much of an invalid, I can’t do it myself.’

Antoinette holds up her hands. ‘Okay, okay.’

Her mother hates the machine, hates that the pain medication makes her feel so sick all the time, dizzy and nauseous and too drowsy to do much more than stare at the ceiling. That morning, walking the nurse out to her car, Antoinette asked if maybe there is something else her mother could take, something that might not make her feel so rotten all the time.

Talk to her doctor, honey, see what he recommends. But whatever she takes, there are going to be serious side-effects. You don’t get to knock out that kind of pain without paying for it in some other way.

‘When are they coming?’ her mother asks.

‘Who?’

‘Your sister and that boy. When will they be here?’

‘Jacqueline’s still really upset, Mum. I don’t think she’s ready to–’

‘You haven’t called her? I asked you to call her.’

‘Um . . . no, you didn’t.’

‘Yesterday, after you came back from the chemist.’

‘I’m pretty sure you didn’t.’

Her mother has spent much of the previous two days either sleeping or watching television on the old portable set Antoinette dragged into her bedroom, flicking irritably through the channels as she nibbled on dry Sao biscuits and sipped lemon squash through a bendy straw. Antoinette spent a lot of the time cleaning the house, secretly hoping to unearth some scrap of information about the other women in her family – old letters, any kind of records or documents her mother might have forgotten about, even just a name would give her something to go on – but of course, nothing.

She also burned an embarrassing amount of hours playing Angry Birds before finally, guiltily, wiping the game from her phone.

‘She should be here,’ Sally Paige is saying. ‘Both of them. It’ll be much easier, having them close by.’

‘With the, ah, transfer, you mean?’

‘What do you think we’ve been talking about all afternoon?’

‘Mum . . .’ Antoinette bites her lip. ‘You’re getting mixed-up. Remember, the nurse said sometimes the drugs can make you feel confused?’

‘But I
told
you.’

‘Okay, sorry. I must have forgotten.’

Her mother stares at her for a moment with eyes sharper and clearer than Antoinette has seen them for days, then slumps back against the pillow. ‘All right then,’ she says quietly. ‘I’m telling you now. They need to be here.’

Antoinette glances at her watch. ‘It’s almost four. I can drive down and–’

‘No.’ Her mother coughs, wincing as she shakes her head. ‘Not tonight, I’m too tired. Tomorrow, once the nurse has gone. Then you go and get them. Tomorrow, we’ll get this thing done.’

‘Tomorrow? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.’

‘You do what I tell you. You do
exactly
what I tell you and everything will be fine.’ She flaps her hand dismissively, coughs again. The machine makes one of its wheezy hissing sounds as it pumps another dose of meds into her system. ‘I think I’d like to rest now.’

‘Okay,’ Antoinette says. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘You could make me a pot of tea.’

‘Black, camomile or peppermint?’

Her mother pauses, brow furrowed in concentration as if this is one of the most important questions she’ll ever have to answer. The tip of her tongue edges between her lips; she looks ludicrously, poignantly childlike. ‘Peppermint,’ she replies at last. ‘And make sure it’s strong. I want to be able to taste it.’

The kettle has just finished boiling when the doorbell rings. Antoinette pours water into the teapot and swaddles the thing with one of the brightly coloured knitted cosies that seem to breed in the bottom drawer along with enough batteries to power a small village. The bell rings again, too loud in the too quiet house, and she hurries down the hall to answer it.

‘Hi,’ says the girl standing on the front step, voice so high and tentative her greeting is almost a question. She’s clutching a large plastic container with both hands like it might be about to leap from her grasp and make a run for it.

Antoinette has already started to ask the girl what she wants, is getting her
thanks, but we’re not interested
speech ready to roll, when recognition kicks in and the words die in her mouth. ‘
Greta
? Is that you?’

Greta, sans any skerrick of makeup, freckles scattered over her cheeks.

Greta, black hair pulled as much into a ponytail as its length will allow, that once severe fringe somehow mollified, coaxed into softer bangs.

Greta, wearing flat sandals and grey cargo pants, wearing – shock of all shocks – a plain cotton tank top, loose and long and whiter than funeral lilies.

The girl smiles, a shy toothy grin that seems more out of place than all the rest. ‘Not exactly,’ she says, no trace whatsoever of a German accent, and sticks out a hand. ‘My name’s Sharon.’ Her eyes roll. ‘I know, right? Goth. As. Fuck.’

It’s not a long story, she tells Antoinette, nor is it all that complicated, really. They’re sitting out on the back porch with bad instant coffee but a pretty kick-arse batch of chocolate brownies that Greta –
Sharon
– says she made herself, because by the time Antoinette returned to her mother with the peppermint tea, Sally Paige was asleep and Antoinette didn’t want the sound of voices in the house to wake her.

‘So you’re not German?’ she asks. ‘At all?’

‘Not even remotely. I barely speak the language.’

The German angle part of the whole Greta act, although
act
is not precisely the right word, and neither is façade. Performance, persona; something closer to that, something which doesn’t imply so much of the artificial, the disingenuous. Sharon almost cripplingly shy when she moved across from Perth – god, almost
six years
ago now – to start an Arts degree at Melbourne Uni. No idea what she wanted to do with herself back then, just that she didn’t want to do it in Perth. Her parents second generation out from England, more British than British and possessed of enough class snobbery to proudly fund an east-coast sandstone education.

‘They were disappointed I didn’t land a place at Sydney,’ Sharon says. ‘After all, Melbourne is only the
second
-oldest university in the country.’

A lecture in first-year cultural studies gave her the idea, those accounts of sneaky urban ethnographers who lost themselves in the very subcultures they set out to infiltrate, becoming consumed by identities created with the sole intent of covert observation. More native than native in the end, their alter-egos providing an absolute – if highly quarantined – freedom from the petty and mundane demand of their everyday lives. Of their everyday selves.

And so Greta was born. Confident and mysterious, audacious and sexy, knifing her way through the night-clad crowd on little more than gall and a pair of immaculately drawn, derisively raised eyebrows. Greta, who could do anything, say anything, who lost not a moment’s sleep on what anyone might think of her. Panther-sleek in PVC and black velvet, towering above the plebs on her fearsome platform heels and downing glass after glass of white rum and cranberry juice which, she said with all the maudlin-eyed assurance of an ex-pat, was
the
beverage of choice back in the smoky basement clubs of Cologne.

Sharon laughs. ‘Ever notice how much easier it is to be what you
aren’t
?’

She likens it to getting dressed for battle, or at least cold war ops: cinching herself into corset after corset, outlining her eyes with ever more elaborate swirls and curlicues. Stepping outside of her
self
before stepping outside her front door, and the times when she wasn’t Greta – when she was merely Sharon Eddings with an essay to write, a phone call to make to her folks, a tutorial to find an excuse to miss – those times were soon playing a second, tuneless fiddle.

Antoinette grabs another brownie. ‘So, you were what, studying us? Like we were all some sociological experiment?’ She thinks she should feel angry, or at least used in some way, but she doesn’t. It’s too surreal, this Greta-Not-Greta sitting pale and plain-faced across the table, re-shuffling the deck of cards in her hands after having already sorted it twice into ranked and ordered suits.

‘No,’ the girl says. ‘I wasn’t
studying
you. I wanted to
be
you. All of you. Paul did become my friend, you know, for real. You all did.’

Of course, in the beginning, she hadn’t really thought it through. And the longer she wavered, the harder it became to picture herself standing up one night over drinks and proclaiming her identity to the surrounding faces.

Hey, guess what, you guys? I’ve never even been to Germany!

Impossible. And so, Greta. Entrenched. Ingrained. Unshakeable. The more she lived within her German alter-self, the less real – the less authentic – it felt to be Sharon Eddings. Going to class, doing the shopping, ducking around corners whenever she spotted someone who looked like someone who might know her as Greta. Until it came to seem that the timid, soft-spoken girl from Perth was the fiction.

‘Kinda screwed up, right?’ Sharon smiles ruefully. ‘But hey, at least I got my dissertation topic out of it.’

After semi-serious flirtations with philosophy and world literature, she ended up majoring in cultural studies, did well enough in her honours year to score a doctorial scholarship, which pleased her parents – and their purse strings – no end, and now spends much of her Sharon-time researching the performative aspect of the feminine, particularly in relation to descriptive/proscriptive portrayals of hair in fairytale culture. Which is a lot more complicated than anyone might think, and kind of scary, when you consider the kind of hair women are allowed to have – and where they’re allowed to have it – and what it says when they wander hirsutely across the line.

‘It’s like we’re supposed to have these long, luxurious locks in order to register ourselves as female – but only on the tops of our heads. Grow that shit anywhere else and a woman risks the verisimilitude of her entire performance. The fourth wall isn’t merely an attribute of theatre, not when you take into account . . .’ She laughs. ‘Sorry, I’ll save that stuff for chapter three.’

And then she’s quiet for a while, focused on dealing her cards into suits for the third time. It’s like this too has been a performance of some kind, a confession rehearsed and refined down to each inflection and self-conscious chuckle. And now that it’s over, she’s nothing more than an empty windup girl, the key in her back run all the way down.