It struck me as I lie on the bed, doona up to my chin and my socked feet sticking out the other end. I have all this time and no idea what to do. A mythical calendar appears in my imagination, huge and white. Unmarked by those little jottings people fill in the squares with; ‘lunch with Magda’, ‘dinner at the Pugh’s’,’Simon – tennis’. I can’t think what I would write in those squares now. The calendar sheets start to rustle in an imaginary breeze, May sprouts a set of wings like angels and then June does the same. By the time I reach August I feel giddy.

Like a pie whose filling has been sucked out. What with Julia back at Agricultural College and her father dead. Simon dead? Why would he do that? We always discussed everything at length, every decision we might have to make. From big things like which house would we buy or holiday destinations, to small things like where to buy the best organic tomatoes. I hadn’t been in on the death conversation.

I watch the dust motes dance in the stream of sunlight looking like the beam from a flashlight. I notice the bedroom curtains need a wash and as I look up I see a damp spot. What did one do with a damp spot? Take a hairdryer to it? Apply blotting paper? There were so many things a 56 year old woman should have picked up and I hadn’t. We may have been equals in decision making but anything involving grouting or WD40, strictly Simon’s territory.

Such a fit man, tennis and jogging round the park every morning. Even the occasional yoga class. He’d been popping out in his lunch hour, Gayle from the office had said, for today’s newspaper and a packet of chewies. It hadn’t been a bus, just one of those four wheel drives everyone seems to have, with big clumsy bars at the front. BANG! CRUNCH! What was that? Your husband, love.

Miriam Flowers, the unlikely name of the woman driving the four wheel drive. She was distraught apparently. Came into town once in a blue moon for a spot of shopping, runs over middle-aged man. Poor Simon. Poor me. Not poor Miriam. I don’t think. At least she gets to go home to Mr Flowers.

I wriggle my pink-socked toes to stop them going numb. Next door’s car starts up. Gerald, as in Gerald-and-Susan. Now I am half a couple I resent the snugness of others. Gerald, a school teacher, drives a Camry and wears a bow tie. A bow tie that would probably be quite hard to tie. Not one of those ones on elastic. I hate that bow tie. He is making a statement with it, I’m not sure what kind of statement. Susan works in credit control, whatever that is. Working in a publisher’s office I’d never heard of such things.

I expect I should be weeping into my pillow, mourning poor Simon. But I’m not. I can only liken it to an operation, having something surgically removed but there’s no visible scar. I move my legs across to Simon’s side of the bed, cold and alien. I only ever ventured over to his side of the bed when he was there. The odd the things that catch you, filling you with a sense of loss, hearing something absurd or amusing and having no one to share it with at the days end.

Simon loved the absurd. He would have enjoyed the banality of his death. Of crossing the road to get a paper then being knocked down by Miriam Flowers. He used to read out the oddities of life from the paper while I cooked dinner. His strange bark like laugher and my high pitched giggle joining him while I sautéed potatoes or poured red wine into a casserole.

I hear the lock turn and a muffled slam.

“Celia! It’s only me! Are you up?”

Fiona, my sister, checking that I haven’t topped myself during the night. I have two sisters, Fiona and Emily. Both older, wiser and hideously efficient. Emily is more tactful, she’s the middle one. A willowy blonde who moves through my house silently, washing dishes I have let pile up. Cereal stuck like cement to ceramics. I find I eat a lot of cereal these days. It’s so much easier than cooking. Who wants to spend an hour or two rustling up something from a Nigella Lawson’s when I can just slide my fingers across the top of a box and pour. I believe Nigella’s husband has a fondness for Weetabix. I have variety, I buy a great many of the cereals displayed gaudily on the shelves of supermarkets. I run my trolley past and knock each type straight into it. It’s very satisfying.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Emily. She puts my washing in the machine, only once a week now. There was a time when the machine was on every day. When Julia was home. When Simon had work clothes, tennis clothes and gardening clothes. And those dreadful velour leisure suits that were in vogue for a while that I wore, a uniform for the middle aged. Emily does yoga and she’s a dressmaker, fingers neat and nimble. They alternate days to check I’m getting out of bed and making an effort. Fiona and Emily. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be making an effort for.

Fiona, she’s the loud one. I can hear her now; crashing cutlery into the sink, turning the hot on full pelt. Singing something Christian. My sisters. Like Wagner and Debussy. But united in their care of me.

I gave their telephone numbers to the kind policewoman. They had sat either side of me, talking, not talking, holding my shaking hands. Emily rang Julia and gently told her what had happened. She took the train home, Fiona met her at the station.

Julia, tall and broad, practical and precise. Now 20 she had grown past the age when Simon and I embarrassed her. Our way of seeing the funny side of everything. I felt angry that her father had been wrenched from her life, torn away quickly like a sticking plaster.

Julia stayed for the funeral. A cremation; Simon’s choice. Followed by neat sandwiches, cake and tea served from teapots, back at the house. Fiona and Emily did the catering, Julia served the tea. I sat in Simon’s armchair, not speaking, not smiling and barely breathing. Julia and I were like two points of a triangle. When she returned to college Fiona and Emily formed a small cluster around me.

“Celia, we want to help you through this season.” Emily, always gentle. “We don’t want you to feel alone.” I could see she had been crying however she was a woman who could cry and not look puffy with piggy eyes.

So they came and they stayed. Cleaning my kitchen, making me cups of tea, being there, giving me someone to talk to when there would have been no one. They bought books and placed them around my house. Books on grieving; Christian ones from Fiona and New Age ones from Emily. Leaflets on local support groups lay on the kitchen table. All their good intentions building soft walls of cotton wool around me.

Several months later I’m at the in-between phase, much like a child growing, only sadder. I had passed through the shock, dealt with the absence as best I could and I didn’t know what came next. It felt like driving along a bitumen road which suddenly disappears into the ground, along with the familiar points of the landscape; houses, signposts and boundary fences. Stuck. Stuck being minded by Fiona and Emily, unable to forge my own way forward, held by loving sisterly-ties.

“Celiaaah. Are you alright? Shall I come up?” Fiona is a nurse. The thought of her bedside manner helping me put my knickers on is too awful.

“No, Fee. Just getting dressed.”

I’m lying in bed while I visualise my wardrobe. I wish I still had one of those velour leisure suits or maybe a primary coloured jump suit. Something I could just jump into and zip up. Why hasn’t someone thought of that before. So easy. Sort of Play School meets prison.

Eventually I enter my kitchen dressed in something shapeless and grey. Its some minutes before Fiona even notices me. I shuffle over to a chair. It’s the chair legs scraping on the tiles that alert her to my presence. The singing stops.

“Oh! Celia, I didn’t know you were there.” She takes in the greyness of me. “You should have worn something a bit more cheery.”

Fiona stands there with a wide illuminating smile, dishrag in hand. A large lady, dressed in fuchsia. On reflection I prefer grey. I have an issue with clothes wearing people rather than the other way round. Like Gerald and his bow tie. Guess I’ll have to re-think those jumpsuits.

“Now, what are we having for breakfast?”

“I don’t know about you but I’m having coco pops.” This is just the sort of thing I would have told Simon later. Pertinence in the face of the matronly sister.

Fiona throws open the pantry door and gasps. Every shelf is crammed full of multi- coloured cereal boxes after yesterdays shop and in an Andy Warhol way they are quite beautiful.

“Oh, Celia.” Fiona bursts into tears.

“Come on, Fee. Sit down.”

“I’m sorry, it should be you weeping not me.”

I pass my sister a box of tissues.

“We didn’t know what else to do, Emily and I. We couldn’t imagine losing our husbands. We wanted to make you feel better. To make it all go away.”

“Fee, you’ve both wonderful. Don’t think I don’t appreciate everything you have done. But after 30 years of marriage…”

“Have you heard of the five phases of grief. Number one is…”

“No, Fee. I’m going to do this my way. You can’t honestly see me going to therapy and reading self-help books can you?”

Fiona managed a weak, watery smile.

“If I want to eat just cereal for a while I will. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this but I do know, if I need someone to sit with me while I cry or someone to talk to I will call you and Emily. Okay?”

Fiona nods, shaking more tears loose, tears which mark her silk blouse. We sit there in silence listening to the breeze combing through the leaves on the trees and the sound of children playing in the street.

“Fee, you don’t know anything about damp spots do you?”

This story came second in The Pages Short Story Competition (UK) March 2009 and was published in their anthology

The morning light seems starker. I hold a memory where it has a pinker glow and feels like fingertips which massage my limbs to life. Now the light falls like shards of glass, sudden and brutal; a rude awakening. The sound of crows cawing outside the window with its inadequate curtains; something else I should get round to. Light peeps through the holes rather like daytime stars. Katie would have loved that. Daytime stars, her face shining with pleasure trying to touch them. Not a day goes by when she is not my first thought. I hope she is one of those stars now, perhaps one shining on me now or in the indigo skies of night.

I take my breakfast a little later, sitting at the gnarled kitchen table. It bears the scars of years as I do. From the table I see the lane outside my house and the field beyond framed by gum trees. A painting the artist neglected to put people in. No distractions, that’s a good thing. Except this morning the artist has been busy with his brush. A young father chases after a child. A girl, wearing a red coat with mittens sewn on string and a green beanie pulled over her hair. Loose and dark, curls flowing like streamers behind her. I feel something sharp hit my breastbone. This girl is allowed to run with her father, why not Katie? Then anger. A house in a private lane, the reason I bought it. I didn’t sign up for distractions and uncomfortable feelings. The girl disappears from view and the man waves and smiles at someone not in the frame just yet.

Mrs Abercrombie on her bicycle, overdressed and wearing a scarf longer than can be safe, she stops and shoves a copy of The Tribune in my mailbox then rides away. Mrs Abercrombie produces The Tribune from her kitchen table, rather like the one I am sitting at now I imagine. Her daughter helps her with the computer work, professionally printed and sponsored by local businesses. I don’t read The Tribune but it is delivered on Tuesdays. I have very few markers to distinguish the days. Mrs Abercrombie on Tuesday, Trents deliver on Thursday. For me most days bring only work.

After breakfast I make myself a cup of coffee and sit down at the computer. I no longer smoke. I have to pay for the groceries and the electricity. Sitting down at the computer is like plugging into my life support machine, I have a gift for it. Love, motherhood; I failed. If I didn’t have my column I would have no voice. Imagine a life of silence, nothing to say, and nothing to hear. My voice has a name; Victoria O’Hara. Victoria has an acid tongue. She reports, sometimes scathingly, on the news of the day. Sharp tongued, smart suited, cutting her way through policy changes and the swapping of wives. My alter-ego. But Margaret Johnson would never have been so bold. Margaret Johnson is the one who makes the coffee and neglects to sew up the holes in the curtains.

First I look up the days headlines; easier now the papers are on the net. Another top bank in financial trouble; let me get my hands on the CEO. Mother stages kidnap of her own child; dig up all the dirt from friends and family. Actor in bar room brawl; any photos on phones? This world we live in keeps me busy. Political scandals, extramarital affairs, whose doing what to whom. How addictive is this nonsense served to us. Larger than life, larger than our lives.

I sit back with my coffee and take a break; cast an eye over my home of the last five years. Faded and bleached by the sun. Cornflower walls now baby blue, the rugs threadbare, reds and oranges now indistinguishable browns. I have worked too hard to pay attention to it. I was sadder when I first came here. My spark had gone out, stars hidden behind cloud. I’d always been a career girl. Worked in the city, mini-skirted, make-up troweled on, with a cigarette like an extra finger. I hadn’t reckoned on love. Gil, my editor, wavy sandy hair, hard and sure. I’d had lots of affairs but Gil was special. He made me feel worshipped. He had an apartment in town, a nice one, not like mine. I was nearly forty and I fell pregnant. It was a shock for both of us but we adapted, gave up both apartments and bought a house in the suburbs.

Life changed. I expected to go back to work and take on a nanny but pregnancy changed me, I lost my edge. My body was taking me somewhere new with its expanding and softening. I became emotional and I reveled in it. When Katie was born I thought I would explode with joy. This perfect child I had given birth to. My articles and columns had always been hard and gritty, with Katie I had produced pliant beauty, wriggling and squirming with a dimpled smile. I marveled over her sandy hair and eyes the colour of the sky. But I always felt she wasn’t mine forever. Too perfect, too lovely, a child the angels wouldn’t be able to resist. And so my prophesy was fulfilled.

I didn’t move in here alone, I moved in with a grief so big it covered all like a blanket, or a desert. All or nothing, consumed or blocked out? I’d had five years away from journalism but they welcomed me back. Gil had moved on. He had stayed with me until Katie died, each blaming the other for not noticing the illness which took her. Gil had mentally left years before. He hadn’t reckoned on a home mum, where was his hard-headed woman, but I found I couldn’t leave Katie. I am thankful I gave into that impulse; I had five solid years with my angel child. Remembered each new tooth, each strand of hair. I sang to her and read her nursery rhymes. Built towers of wooden blocks and knocked them down. Shared her tears, her laughter and even relished her tantrums.

I keep a framed photo at my desk. A fair-haired child smiling back at me. Her mouth is open, the word she is saying trapped in time. Mummy.

A loud and sudden knock from the screen door makes me jump.

“Hello! Margaret Johnson? It’s Joe Trent from town.”

The Trents didn’t usually make social calls. I put my cup down and walked slowly to the door. “Can I help you?” My voice slightly snooty. “Yes.” A pause. “Dad asked me to pick up any outstanding accounts. The mail isn’t so reliable. I hope it isn’t inconvenient.”

I snort. “I have got somewhat behind. You better come in while I look for my cheque book.”

Joe, tall, thin and copper haired, strode confidently across the threshold. He looked a little chilled, weather for apple cheeks. “Would you like a coffee? I just brewed a pot of the good stuff.”

A smile spread across Joe Trent’s freckled face. “That would be great. There’s a hell of a cold breeze today.”

“Sit down.” He sat and I poured two cups, using the only china I possessed. It was decent; emerald green and rimmed with gold.

“Thank you. Do you mind if I call you Margaret?”

“I prefer Maggie but I use a pen name in my job so I’m used to being called Victoria.”

“Are you an author? Would I have read anything of yours?” Joe leaned forward, obviously a reader.

“No, at least not yet. I’m a journalist.”

“You look like a Victoria. Which paper do you write for?”

“The Age. Do you read it?”

“No. I don’t get much further than The Tribune. I like books though”

“What do you read?”

Joe relaxed. “Fiction; Winton, Carey but what I can get hold of in the library usually.”

“What holds you in a small town like this?”

“I figure one place is much the same as the next.” “I can’t imagine this town would be like one of the big cities.”

“Oh, the things people do and see are different certainly. But I don’t think people differ greatly. They have the same needs, the same hopes. Why do you stay here, Victoria?”

“I’m not sure. Can’t picture being anywhere else. People leave me alone. I like that.”

When we had both finished the coffee I filled in a cheque and handed it to Joe. I had made a friend.

Later that week I worked on a story of a young actress who jumped from the 25th floor of a building. Nobody; friends or family knew that this beautiful woman was anything but happy. The sun shone brightly through the windows behind my computer and I bathed in the warmth, looked at the emerald green of the grass beyond the glass and wondered what could be terrible enough to make this woman take her own life. Then I remembered. I remembered what it felt like when Katie died. It wasn’t the pain that hurt, rather the lack of feeling, the numbness. I would never feel again so what was the point of being alive? I moved past this stage and I sit here now passing judgment on another woman’s pain. It didn’t seem right.

“Hello, Victoria! Are you in?” Joe’s voice rang out like a favourite tune.

“Yes. Have I forgotten again?”

“No. I thought I’d save you the bother of putting a cheque in an envelope and see if you had any of that great coffee.” I opened the door to a smiling Joe. His copper hair framed like a halo by the sun.

“Come in kind sir. I’ll put the pot on.”

“Why did you never marry, Victoria?” Straight to the point. We sat around the table; Joe had bought some biscuits from the store which I put on a plate. We held our coffee cups in our hands, breathing in the aroma. You have to get the coffee to the right heat without burning it. Burn it and it’s ruined.

“I don’t really know. I had a child once and that was the closest I came.”

“A child?” Joe leaned forward frowning.

“Katie. She died. Cancer.” That sadness, like a cloak again.

“That’s awful. I’m so sorry, Victoria.”

“Yes. Still is.”

“How old was she?”

“Five, almost six. I came here after she died.”

Joe’s face showed a mixture of horror and sadness as if he knew a little of how it felt to experience that measure of loss.

“I never wanted to go back out there. I didn’t want my life threaded with others. I lost the love of my life and my only child. I don’t believe in second chances.” I had a vision of Gil with a wife and new children. That route wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to repeat something as wonderful as what we had.

Joe came a few days later, this time bringing my groceries in a box. We didn’t speak of Katie again.

“Where do you get that coffee from? I know we don’t stock it.”

I laughed. “No. I get it mail-order from the city. It’s good, isn’t it?”

We drank our coffee and talked of deeper things. Not gossip or hearsay but the meanings behind choices and the details that make us what we are. Spring and Autumn, we were, each with our own weathers and characteristics.

One day when Joe was here the little girl and her father ran past again, playing the same game. Childish laughter filled our ears. “Those two again. I can’t bear the sound. I wish they’d go away.”

“Why do you want to stop people’s happiness? Just because yours has been destroyed?” Joe looked deep into my eyes which I was sure were cold and cruel.

“What would you know? Don’t suppose you’ve had anything bad happen to you in your short, carefree life. Don’t stand in judgment of those who’ve lost someone. You’ve no idea.” My words like poison seeped into the tableau of two friends chewing the fat over a warming drink.

Joe stopped and the room fell silent, like after the first snow, muffled and deadened. “Actually I do. My mum died. Three months ago.”

“Oh, Joe! God, I’m sorry. I had no idea. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Same reason you don’t talk freely of Katie I suppose. If I don’t say it out loud, maybe it’s not true. Maybe her old car with its squeaky brakes, which she never bothered to get fixed, will draw up outside and everything will be as it was. Mum and dad working side by side in the shop. Dad making awful jokes, mum laughing and pulling faces at me when he wasn’t looking. Christmas, when mum would buy me far too many presents and play Christmas songs on the music system from November driving us mad. Now we’re just two empty cotton reels rattling around in a box.”

“How did it happen?”

“Cancer, same as Katie. It’s terrible to watch someone you love so much slowly fade away, but not painlessly. She didn’t even get to have that. I look after dad now; mum would have liked that, her boys helping each other through. I guess that’s a good reason to stay.”

Joe and I had struck up a strange friendship, loosely passed off with deliveries and payments as excuses. We had death and loss in common but I think we would have been friends regardless. A shared love of coffee and books; I leant him a few of mine which lay around the place unread. We swapped photos of our childhoods and some of me in my twenties, globe-trotting. The obligatory shot in front of the Taj Mahal, another shooting the breeze with black clad Greek men in island villages. Joe brought pictures of his mother, young and dressed in mini-skirts with a copper-haired toddler balanced on one hip.

“What was her name, Joe?”

“Felicity. I think it means happiness in Italian.”

More family snaps; trips to the seaside in their old Holden, Joe’s dad with only one arm suntanned. Eventually I shared photos of Katie with him. We said nothing, just passed them between us. Robust and full of fun before disease claimed her. By then I was with her around the clock but still she managed to sneak away without saying goodbye. One day when the first warm breeze of summer filled the house, Joe arrived to find me packing boxes.

“You’re late.”

I put one arm across my arms to shield them from the sun. “Yeah. Busy day in the shop. How about you?”

“Packing some things away. Do you want my computer?”

“Are you moving?”

“Not exactly. Hey, it’s a bit late for coffee. Do you fancy a glass of wine?”

I set a bottle of wine and two glasses on the table on the veranda, pulling up the two bistro chairs. I’d hardly used them. It’s not quite the same watching the sun go down with a glass of wine alone.

“So?” Joe’s eyebrow lifted almost to his hairline.

“So, I’ve decided to try my hand at travel writing. I plan to visit different countries and the paper will pay me to write about them.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I only just made the decision. Squared it with the editor this afternoon. You can stay here if you like. Housesit.”

“I might do that. Won’t be the same without you.”

“I know it’s sudden but I don’t have any anchors to keep me tied to one place.”

Joe spoke softly. “Aren’t I an anchor?”

“No, you’re a friend. I won’t be away forever. And who knows, you might want to join me at some point. I’ll show you how different people and places can be.”

“You look different. Softer. Am I to call you Maggie now?” I raise my glass and smile thank you.

This strange tale won first prize and was printed in The Pages Anthology (UK) June 2009

I remembered the first time, walking home from work, I saw the poster.  They called themselves Birds of Paradise, one bird in particular caught my eye.  Stretched with languor on the stage floor, his body melting into a pool, a pool of molten flesh, the face of a boy, eyes widened, almost afraid.  Dark hair and brows, his mouth open.  I still heard the sound of broken glass but I bought a ticket for that nights show at the Midas Theatre.

     At home I ran a bath in preparation.  Put on a slow, seductive blues CD and slipped beneath the bubbles.  I wanted to look good but not too obvious.  He must tire of painted ladies falling in his path.  I practiced what I might say.

     “Hi.  Olivia.  Call me Livi.”  Then a laugh at something he said.  My head would tip back and a dainty laugh would escape my lips.  And how we would meet, losing my way, looking for the exit, we would stumble across each other.  Our eyes locked, we would both know, like animals.

     I walked to the theatre, wearing my dark cloak over a white dress.  The evening cooling as I strolled beside the river, avoiding the dangerous streets.  The first green on spring trees, blossoms in bud.  Big boats and small boats, people milled around, dressed up and expectant.  What would their evenings bring?  I knew what mine would bring.  I’d watch him closely all through his set, never taking my grey eyes from him.  And then I would disappear into the night.  A woman of mystery.

     “Good evening, ma’am.  Could I see you ticket?”

     A stocky man with salt and pepper hair, wearing a suit, leant towards me.  I passed him what he asked for.

     “Thank you.  Follow the lights down the steps, sixth row from the front.”

     “No.  There must be some mistake.  I bought a ticket in the first row.”

     “The numbering can be a little confusing, independent theatres, you know.”

     No, I did not know.  Rage flooded me.  I made my way to my inadequate seat.  And waited.  Things would proceed slower than I had planned, a rumba rather than a cha-cha-cha.  Three acts before him, mostly female dancers dressed in tight fitting flesh coloured gowns.  Others in white leotards, bright lip-sticked mouths but no smiles.  Then from centre stage, where one minute there had been a gaping chasm, the door between life and death, the boy.

     He led with his upper body, curled and weaving, dressed in white.  He slid to the floor, turning himself seemingly in knots, knots that bound and then unraveled. 

Later I couldn’t sleep.  As I tossed and turned a flickering image, like a flame, danced through my conscious mind.  The boy in tight white danced and turned until he rolled like a cocooned moth spinning inside my head.  Finally before night turned to day, I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt of dark streets lit by moonlight. 

     When I awoke, late, almost lunchtime and bathed in sweat, I couldn’t remember what had happened, although I knew something had.  A space, where something had moved in.  Scratching around my thoughts and memories I retrieved him, my dancer, not the other boy.  I thanked God I had bought another ticket for tonight’s show.  But I had missed work.  I heaved my bedding aside, untangled it from my legs, and wrapped a single sheet around me.

     “Hello?  Is that Simone?  Yes, it’s me.  Olivia.  Yes, I know.  I was sleeping.  I have the most horrible migrane.  Yes.  Yes.  I should be fine for tomorrow.  See you then.”

     The office would run along without me, I doubt they would even miss me, so efficient I’d become invisible.  Selling on the phones, role-playing, it came easy to me.  Selling advertising space to corporate executives, a work of theatre on its own.   

     I would go back to work tomorrow but I had to see him again today.  His beautiful face, pale with those dark brows.  Half moon crescents on pools of ink, his black eyes without expression.  Sinewy limbs that seemed liquid. 

     I opened my wardrobe in search of something to wear.  I may be older than the boy but I dressed well.  Mummy left me her tea dresses from her youth, my sister Rebecca didn’t want them.  She thought them too flimsy, said they lacked substance.  I loved them.  Dusty pink and cream.  Ribbons and silk.  Roses and lilies.  I chose cream roses on the palest green silk, my ivory court shoes and a cream shawl to wrap around my delicate shoulders.

     I would not eat.  I wanted to look pale and thin.  Besides I had no appetite for food.  I ran my bath and picked out golden ear-rings, the sort that dangled.  Pretty, glittery, jittery.  If my pale grey eyes didn’t hypnotise him maybe my ear-rings would.

     Sitting in the front row, old velvet chairs in cherry red, I watched those girls sashay across the stage.  How well they danced, turning circles in on themselves, throwing pale arms to the sides, east and west.  I bided my time.

     The boy walked onto an empty stage.  I stared hard but his eyes didn’t see me.  It was haunting, as if only a memory, he looked through me, ignored me.  Let him dance, let him perform, I’ll throw him pennies and he will move to my tune.

     Before I walked home, alone in the darkness, I bought a ticket for a front row seat for the rest of the tour.  I didn’t look for the boy’s name on the billing, I didn’t want to know.  He belonged to me and I would call him ‘the boy’ forever.

     That night I slept well, content in the knowledge that I had control.  I dreamt of doves, blurry against a night sky.  The doves cast no shadow.  When I awoke the dawn was coming up and I showered and dressed for work. 

     The wonderful thing about a city apartment and a city job is that I walked everywhere.  No need for a fuel-guzzling car or parking tickets.  Heels snapped on the concrete, the sound of birds perched in an occasional tree and small trucks dropping off deliveries.  Beep, beep, beep, the reverse song assaulted our ears.

     I stopped in front of a café.  Bright lights in the yellow glow of early morning with the smell of croissants and bagels, ground coffee.  I placed my hands on the glass.  The smell of scorched rubber and fear.  When did I last eat?  My mind swam as I entered the café.  I ordered a coffee to go.  The dizziness pleased me, it was euphoria.  The thought of hot food made me nauseous. 

     I stopped in front of a black glass and chrome building and took the lift to my office.  I walked across the blue carpet to my desk.

     “Liv, you can settle this.”  Simone was holding court, Tim and Adam on chairs rather than at her feet.  “The first non-native animal introduced into Australia, any idea?”

      A day away and things hadn’t changed.  Simone’s blonde hair swept up and held by a bejeweled clip.  She looked glamorous and felt competitive.  Long red finger nails, her chin jutted the air precociously.

     “Liv, you okay?”

     I sat down wearing a Mona Lisa smile.  Their faces all turned to mine.

     “Yes.  Why?”  I removed the plastic lid and sipped my coffee.  Would I keep him secret or throw snippets to the poor?

     “You look odd.  Maybe you should have taken another day.”

     “I’m fine, good actually.”

     Simone’s skillfully plucked eyebrows draw together in a frown.  I smile and say nothing.  I don’t want to share.

     The day dragged, a day in monochrome.  Printing machines whirred and buzzed and beeped.  Phones trilled melodically.  None of it meant anything.  No flash, no sparkle, no beauty.  Simone bent over her computer, worked hard, added value.  Tim and Adam on the phones, sold things you cannot see.  Smiling helps the voice sound happy.  I remembered all those bullet points in sales training.  Wear a dark suit, don’t wash the car on Sunday and don’t be ordinary.  What was this if it wasn’t ordinary?

     “Hello Liv, nice to see you back.  Can I tempt you to your usual?”  Matt, the sandwich boy.  Toothy and tall. 

     “I don’t think I will today.  Thank you.”

     “I hope you’re not on a diet, Liv.  You’re perfect as you are.”

     Perfect?  What did he know?  Those girls in flesh coloured dresses, willowy with clean lines.  No lumps or bumps.  Nothing to spoil their silhouettes.  Like lines on a page, some straight, others with a graceful curve, perfect.  But not me.

     The hum of a busy office blurred the afternoon.  Snatched conversation then heads down.  The strip lighting constant, denying us the colour changes of natural light.  Yellow through to white, then the pink grey of late afternoon.  I left before the light faded.

     I dressed all in black and twisted my hair into a chignon, standing in front of the mirror, with no make-up.  My skin pale and my enormous eyes, delicate silvery lashes.  In the partial obscurity I was just a white face suspended.  When I sat in the front row, like a girl from another place, he couldn’t fail to notice me.

     After six I slipped into the streets, a dark figure moving against a tide of office workers.  I felt ghostly, like an aberration walking through the tiny streets of Venice.  It was dark and the rain started, slate coloured clouds blocking out the stars.  It reminds me of another time, the reflection of light on rain on tarmac.  I swore as my dress soaked up the rain, absorbing it greedily.  I reached the theatre and walked through the enormous entranceway.  I dripped like a water feature.  I went to the ladies to repair the damage.  In the mirror I checked my face, now lined with messy tracks of mascara.  I look strange, otherworldly.  I don’t recognise myself, only the smell of burnt rubber, it won’t let me forget.  A sound behind me startled me.  The toilet flushed and a girl emerged from the small cubicle. 

    “Hi.  You here for the show?”

     “Yes.” 

     “Thought I recognised you.  You’re usually in the front row, right?”

     I nod dumbly.  The girl lights a cigarette. “Hope you don’t mind.  Dancers curse, ciggies.  Sadie.”  She held out her free hand and I took it.  I forgot to let go.  I felt awkward but Sadie just smiled warmly and waited.

     “Olivia.  Livi.”

     “Who’s your favourite bird of paradise?  It’s him, isn’t it?  All the girls love him.”

     “Do they?”

     “Oh, yes.  He’s oblivious of course.  Mar…”

     I put my hands over my ears.  I don’t want to hear his name.  It would spoil everything.

     “Are you okay?”  Her hand reached out to touch me, concern in her voice.  I pulled back and ran.  Out of the bathroom, into the dark corridors, the opposite way from the auditorium.  Doors everywhere, I tried a handle and it opened.  The room dark but I knew it wasn’t empty.  It had a muffled quality, as if lined in cotton wool.  Something feathery and soft brushed my bare legs, a store room.  I daren’t turn the light on for fear a sliver of light under the door would give me away.

     I must have fallen asleep.  I was awoken by voices and light footsteps outside.  “Come on, Penny!  We’re on in a minute!”  More footsteps, and voices, indistinguishable words.  I waited for the voices and footsteps to subside.  I turned the handle and closed the door behind me.  There is no one around.  I slip down the noiseless corridor.  A door sprang open and a white dressed figure emerges.  It was him.

     “Hello.  Are you lost?” His beautiful face, leaning askew. 

     “No.  No.  It’s okay.  I know where I am.”

     “Good.  I have to be backstage.”  He smiled and brushed past me. 

     Electricity.  Chemistry.  Isn’t that what they call it?  I faced his dressing room, I know he wouldn’t mind.  I could wait until he finished his performance.  A delicious surprise. 

     A large mirror, the bench in front on it lined with pots of make-up.  I sat down on a chair facing it, racks of clothes behind me, on chrome rails and every piece white.  I checked my appearance, pale without makeup and my hair is frizzy from the rain.  What must he have thought?  More hag than harlot.  I saw a photo and picked it up.  It’s him with a girl, a shiny shiny girl.  White blonde hair and honey coloured skin.  The frame slipped from my hands, fell to the hard floor.  The glass splintered.  My hot tears ran down over lines of mascara and rain drops. Time to go home. 

     Outside it is dark and a beautiful moon shined silver on the pathway.  I wandered near the river where the chatter of people having dinner or drinks after work filled my ears with noise and my insides with loneliness.  It didn’t seem fair.  I looked at their faces, interested in each other, laughing together.  I was an extra in my own life.  I didn’t even have centre stage in that production.  The moon as a spotlight didn’t shine on me.

     It must have been three or four days, maybe a week.  Or it could have been moments later, I heard pounding on my door.  Was it at the door or was it in my head?  I got up from the bed and pulled a robe from the back of the door, walked with a light head, in the direction of the noise. 

     “Livi, it’s me.  For Gods sake let me in!”

     Rebecca.  I buzzed her in, the door opened, all silk blouse and sensible shoes.  My sister, the only woman I knew who dressed up to come into town. 

     “Oh Livi!  You look awful, you really do.  Please don’t faint.”

     My head sped up, spinning and spinning.  I felt I could spin into another dimension.

     I sat in an armchair, the red one, and the light from the windows came in in shafts.  I couldn’t see the room, bleached of colour.  I heard a sound from the kitchen, water on glass.  “Here.  Drink this.”

     Ah, yes.  Rebecca.  “What is it?”

     “Water.”

     My throat felt so dry, as did my mouth.  I took small sips from the glass. “What are you doing here?”

     Rebecca looked close to tears.  Has somebody died?  Again?

     “Simone rang me.  You haven’t been in work for days and she couldn’t get an answer here.”

    “I had to sleep.”  I felt sleepy again.  My eyes began to close.

     “No, Livi.  We need to talk.”

     Rebecca took my hand.  “I know it’s been hard.  But it’s been months now and… I think you ought to come home with me, for a while.”

     “What about my job?”

     “Simone suggested it actually, no problem, she said you should take as long as you need.”

     “As long as I need to what?”

     “Oh for Christ’s sake, Livi.”  Rebecca paused.  “I’m sorry.”  She knelt in front of me, took my hands in hers.  “It wasn’t your fault.  There was nothing you could do.” 

     The accident.  Shards of glass inside me.  Splintering, sharp, that’s what pain is.  The rain, late, driving back from shopping.  So late.  The street lamps shone on the wet roads, no one around.  He was dressed in grey with his hood pulled over his head.  He stumbled out into the road, holding something.  I put the brakes on.  Thud.  He rolled across the bonnet.  I got out of the car.  Screaming, the boy was lay face down, hot greasy chips all over the road.  No blood, just screaming, who was screaming? 

     I looked down.  Rebecca was still there, crying.  I took a deep breath, the light rose, the lines aren’t as blurred, my focus regains.  The walls I’d painted midnight blue, my Louis Ghost dining chairs, transparent, barely there.  The Persian rug under my feet, my feet feel like ice.  And Rebecca, her face close to mine.  Where have I been?  What have I been doing?  Was the boy was real?

     “I want to stay here, Rebecca.  I’ll be fine.”

     She didn’t look sure.

     “Thank you so much for coming.  There are some things I need to face.  We’ll have that lunch though.  I’d really like that.”

     Later, after Rebecca left and I caught my breath, I knew what I needed to do.  I took an old ashtray from the back of a kitchen cupboard and placed the unused tickets for The Birds of Paradise tour inside.  Using a lighter that someone had left here, I set fire to them, watched the flicker of orange and red like a dance itself.  And out of the flames I could almost see the boy emerge as fire turned to ashes and he disappeared forever.

I wrote this light hearted story four years ago. The main character was inspired by a Mike Leigh television show character from the early 70s. It was awarded a High Commendation in the CJ Dennis Literary Award 2009 (Aus)

Thursday evening, Susanna’s heart sank as she walked from the bus stop home. She loved Keith but sometimes things got a bit ordinary, pedestrian even. In their little house, with their little jobs, their little lives. What did it all mean? What was the bigger picture? She’d once heard a fable, when the world began humans were created with no idea what they were doing on earth. They decided to divide into two groups. One group would go off looking for the meaning of life and the other group would hold the fort waiting for the other group to return. The first group never came back with the answers but still we get up each morning and distract ourselves with jobs and pay rises, weekend barbecues and visits to Bunning’s, the latest metallic nail varnish colour and flavoured waffles that go in the toaster.

“Bugger!” Distracted as always Susanna had stepped in a puddle. “Bloody expensive Italian leather too!”

Her key turned in the lock, she pushed the door and before she had even retrieved her key she heard him. “Is that you love?”

“Who did you think it was? The Pope?”

“Aw you! Come and give’ us a hug.” Keith came towards her arms outstretched.

“Let me get me put my bag down please, Keith.”

Ordinary looking with a gorgeous smile. He could be a bit wet sometimes but lovely all the same. Dressed in his smart casual attire, beige pants with his blue shirt tucked in.

“I’ve made you a mug of tea. Sit down and have a breather, love.”

Susanna dropped her bag to the floor and plonked herself in the nearest chair. Her mind ran with the theme of the people who got left behind. There had to be a plan didn’t there? She sipped her tea and thought about where she wanted to be, her plans for the future. The question they ask at job interviews floated in her head. “Susanna, where do you see yourself in five years time?” She imagined an earnest man in a sharp suit sitting in the spare armchair leaning forward with a notepad balanced on his knee. Perhaps with his elbows on the pad and two fingers resting on his chin.

“What’s up cherub, off with the clouds again?” Keith, ever perky, looked over at her with raised eyebrows.

“Nothing.” She looked up. “Do we have to go tonight?”

“But we always go to mum’s on Thursday.”

“Exactly. Can’t we do something wild and reckless and go to see her on Wednesday?” Her bottom lip stuck out and Susanna knew she looked childish.

“Silly.” Keith got up, folded his newspaper twice and laid it carefully on the coffee table then ruffled his wife’s hair.

“Hullo Keith love. Susanna.” A smaller, slightly more feminine version of Keith greeted them at the front door.

“Hello Ruby.” Susanna still couldn’t bring herself to call Ruby mum, after four years of marriage.

“You look thin love.” Ruby stared at Susanna’s middle. What she meant, Susanna knew, was that she didn’t look pregnant.

“Oh, Mam! Smashing dress!” Ruby beamed.

“Thank you Keith. I got it down the market.” Ruby did a twirl but the over bright turquoise polyester creation didn’t twirl with her as it was firmly stuck to her tights. Ruby was the only woman Susanna knew who still wore American Tan. She ushered them through to the good room while she put the finishing touches to dinner, which usually meant chopping a sprig of parsley to adorn the savoury mince. They always had savoury mince because it had been Keith’s dad’s favourite. Odd really as Keith’s dad hadn’t so much died as scarpered when Keith was born.

“Sit down you two. I’ll be through in a minute.” Ruby would never let either of them help in the kitchen. Keith was a man so she couldn’t possibly let him in, I mean, he bought home the bacon. Susanna wasn’t allowed in because of her incompetence, completely overlooking the fact that she earned a good salary. Anyway the time she threw the oven gloves on top of the grill and set fire to them was ages ago.

“Ta-da!” Ruby walked through holding aloft a serving dish of savoury mince, topped with a sprig of parsley. Ruby passed around dishes of mash and over boiled carrots, Keith tucked his napkin into his shirt and got stuck in. Ruby beamed proudly at her only son. “Hard day, love?”

“Same as usual, Mam.” Keith worked as a foreman for a building company, in charge of a building a servo on the other side of town. Good at his job, everybody liked him. Keith was hard not to like.

“Karen rang this morning. Those kids keep her on her toes.” Karen was Keith’s big sister. She had three children and lived near the sea. Her husband, Dave, worked in IT.

“Are you still enjoying your little job, Susanna love?” Ruby sipped from her beer glass. Here we go thought Susanna.

“Yes, thank you, Ruby. They’re installing new software so we’re all having training this week.” She answered knowing full well that Ruby would think software was cushions.

“That’s nice. ‘Course, looking after three kiddies, that’s real work!”

“Mam.” Keith shot his mother a warning glance. “We’ll have kids in our own time. We need two incomes with the mortgage and everything at the moment.” Ruby continued to sip her beer and eye them both like a maternal toad with glassy, blinking eyes.

Once the plates and glasses were cleared Ruby shooed them through to watch the telly and came through with dessert, an oversized packet of Jaffa’s, to devour in front of Wheel of Fortune. Susanna sat amongst the cat calls and crunching of Jaffa’s and felt, not for the first time that week, stuck. It seemed like they had got married and hit an oil slick which had brought them up smartly to the present, with no memory of what went before, save for three square meals a day and a pile of ironing. She used to feel glamorous, special, her and Keith’s lives would be different from all the rest.

They had met at that posh bar in town, the one that went bust shortly afterwards, both there on works do’s. He was celebrating the birth of one of his labourer’s first child and she was there for a 21st. She’d managed to spill three glasses of wine down his shirt, she was carrying a tray back from the bar. There was a reason she worked in a bank and not as a waitress. Keith, so gracious about it, said it didn’t matter as he always carried a spare shirt in his briefcase. And his smile! Even now it did things to her.

But his face used to stop her panicking only now the fear was so big nothing made a difference. She was scared to have children, not to have children, to move house, to not move house but the biggest fear of all – the fear of the ordinary. Life went on and on … Ruby’s on Thursday, fish on Fridays, Bunning’s on Saturdays, roast on Sundays, and so on and forever into the black of infinity.

“Where’s my fish?”

“I thought I’d try something a bit different.”

“What is it?” Keith gingerly put his fork into the unidentified meal, as if it might still be alive.

“It’s Thai beef salad.”

“Salad. For dinner?”

“Yes. Lots of people have it for dinner. It’s Asian.” Susanna smiled. “

Asian?”

“I thought it would be nice to have something other than fish on Friday.” A scream gathered in Susanna’s chest. It felt like unwanted furniture sitting on top of her lungs.

The next morning Keith brought up their identical mugs of tea to bed. He had made them at pottery classes and was very proud of them. Susanna hadn’t the heart to tell him how ugly they were. And heavy. Your arm got a workout just lifting the sodding things.

“Are you happy Keith?” Susanna turned to face her husband. He had such a kind face. She knew she should be grateful to have a caring husband. Some of the girls at the bank, their husbands were rough and treated them badly. Keith treated her with respect and love. Wasn’t that enough?

“Yeah, course I am. I’ve got you and this lovely house. And sooner or later we’ll have little Keith’s and Susanna’s running around.” Susanna didn’t answer. She was imagining her fairy godmother at the end of the bed, dressed in electric purple with arms crossed. She had a cigarette instead of a wand and on closer inspection appeared to be a man in drag. He winked a sparkly eye and dared her to make a silent wish. Susanna closed her eyes and wished to be anywhere but where she was. “You’re not going back to sleep are ya?” Keith looked over at her with a soppy grin pasted across his face. “We’re going into town to buy paint for the spare room.”

“Do I have to go, Keith? I’m not feeling too great.”

“Course you do! I’m colour blind. Remember what happened last time I picked paint for the lounge room?”

“Yes, Keith.”

“You wanted eau de nil and I got beige!”

Susanna threw her bag across her shoulder as she pushed the glass door of the bank as she left work for the day.

“Hey, hang on a minute.” Donna teetered on her stilettos as she made a grab for the door. “Sorry to make you wait. I had to go for a wee. Given up on me had ya?” Susanna could see Donna had reapplied Magenta Dream to her lips. Somehow she got away with it. It made Susanna look like an extra from a disco movie, probably one on roller skates.

“Yeah. Concentrating on what I was gonna do Keith for his dinner.”

“Sod Keith. Come for a drink with me.” Donna stopped and got her compact out to study her lips again. She flicked her hair, closed the compact and faced Susanna. “Well?”

“No. I can’t.”

“Yes you can. You’ve been right miserable all week. A G&T will cheer you up.” Susanna hesitated. “Oh, come on. It won’t kill you!”

They went to Pepe’s Bar on Central and sat on the high velvet covered stools with chrome legs. Susanna felt glamorous, gin and tonic in one hand, dangling her own legs. “So what did you get up to at the weekend?”

“Oh, decorating. The spare room wanted doing.”

“Decorating! Whoop de do!”

Susanna smiled. “You know Keith; he likes things done. He’s very steady.”

“You mean dull.”

“Oh, Donna, he’s not that bad. We just need a bit of a shake-up. Change our habits. We’ll be fine.” Susanna used the plastic stirrer in her glass to dash the ice cubes together noisily.

“Oh bugger it, Suse. It’s time to move on.” Donna retrieved her phone from her bag to check for messages then continued. “The way I see it, one of you is going to be miserable. Might as well be him.”

“What’s this then?”

“You know what it is, Keith.”

“Looks like fish fingers.”

“Then that’s what it is then. You don’t find fillet steak going around masquerading as fish fingers, do ya?” One gin and tonic had soon turned into three. The shops had closed and Susanna had had to be creative with the freezer compartment. Keith eyed her warily.

“Leave the dishes. I’ll make us a cup of tea. We should talk.” Susanna sank into her armchair and accepted the homemade mug of tea. “This is hard for me, Suse. Talking’s not my strong point.” Susanna checked her clothes for bits of fluff. “I know you’re not happy. Even a bloke as daft as me could work that out.” Keith’s face looked concerned. “The thing is, what do we do about it?”

“Oh, Keith, what can we do about it?” Suddenly a phantom judge appeared on the spare armchair, full wig and gown stuff. He took out a black cloth as if from nowhere just like those old court room dramas. Susanna was sure that she had to keep talking or he was going to put it on his head. And she didn’t want that. “It’s not you. I just feel life has got a little staid. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“But I do.”

“I didn’t want to upset you with all this, it might blow over. What? You do understand?”

“Don’t be daft, love. Of course I do. This is our life, how could I not understand?” Keith’s voice caught as if snagged in a zipper. “If you still want me?” Susanna felt that whatever she said next could change her life beyond recognition. A big sign shot out of the ground, the kind you have at t-junctions and crossroads. One way said ‘Keith’ and the other ‘No Keith’. She imagined the judge with the black cloth, the fairy godmother and the interviewer all awaiting her reply. Keith with his pale, sad face waited for her to speak. “Suse?” He sat on the arm of her chair. “I didn’t want to say anything to you but I’ve been mulling over things for a while and I know you think I’m careful and a bit boring and not very adventurous…”

“No, Keith, I…”

“Its okay, Suse. Instead of getting you the sort of anniversary present I usually get, flowers and chocs and the like, I got this.” Bugger. So wrapped up in herself she’d forgotten their wedding anniversary. Keith handed her a blue envelope. She tore it open mumbling excuses to Keith about forgetting. “Shhh. Tell me what you think?” Inside the envelope was a voucher. Surely not a book token, that would be the limit. No. In the middle of a large white card were two words – tandem skydive.

“This was your idea?”

Keith smiled happily. “Completely. You interested?”

“Bloody oath!”

“Now I know this won’t sort everything out but I thought it would be a start. The beginning of a new life together. The adventures of Keith and Susanna.” Keith grabbed Susanna with one hand and swept the other majestically across the space in front on their eyes. Susanna saw in her mind’s eye the pair of them, undies over tights in primary colours with great big grins splashed across their faces. The judge put away his cloth and the interviewer and her fairy godmother exchanged smiles. Keith nudged his wife. “And with your imagination, I’m sure we’ll work out the rest.”