Protest
“Protest.” The earnest girl stood on the steps outside Neslihan’s front door. She had leaflets, a clipboard and a script. “Look what the government is doing to your beautiful neighbourhood.”
Beautiful. Neslihan picked out this word. She lived on the steep slope below the Sülemaniye Mosque. Her house was tall, wooden and precarious. Her street was narrow and potholed. Her neighbours’ houses were in even worse condition than hers. She nodded politely. It would be a pity to interrupt such passion.
“The government wants to change forever the essential character of this area.”
Essential character. It didn’t have one. Above her loomed the stone wall protecting the trees of Istanbul University’s faculty of Botany. Below were the metalworking shops that gave out a continuous banging during the day.
“They want to demolish all the lovely old houses and replace them with fake replicas. The new Metro is just an excuse for them to knock down the buildings without seeking permission.”
This was true. The area to the north was just about empty of people by now. They had been moved out to new houses in new suburbs in places that Neslihan had never heard of. The empty houses were falling down. They were occupied only by eskici, the people who collected rubbish and sorted it out to sell. A few places were restored and made beautiful. Islands of mansions stood out in what looked like a war zone.
“I’ll show you a map. The Metro will go right through here.” The girl pointed to a well-used piece of paper. “Here’s your house.” Her finger traced a red line. “The new line to Aksaray passes right through here. Your house will have to be knocked down to make way.”
Neslihan had thought this too. Turgut and Gülfem down the hill had already been told. Their houses were going soon. They had been offered money or new flats in Alibeytepe or somewhere else in the parts of Istanbul that were so far away that they weren’t Istanbul. She had seen the men in suits, walking from her neighbours’ houses to the Mercedes Benz cars that would hardly fit into the streets. She had thought that it was better not to know. Then something made her ask. They consulted their little computers. They turned to each other. They shook their heads and smiled. They were like men who had spent all day needing not to smile.
“Do you want to lose the place where you have always lived, where it is your right to live?”
Neslihan could see the girl’s point. She was sorry for her neighbours. She would be sorry to lose them. It wasn’t right to make them go away. But there was nothing that anyone could do about it.
“We have to protest. We’re organising a flash mob in a pop-up venue.”
Neslihan had no idea what the girl was saying. She seemed nice. She reminded her of her own daughter. Melis was someone in the art world now. Neslihan didn’t know what that meant either.
“Anyway, my name’s Duygu.” The girl was holding a leaflet out. “We’ll be in touch soon. We don’t want to give out the details now because the authorities will find out.”
Duygu looked lovely when she spoke that way. She was passionate. She believed in her role in something important. Neslihan could not remember ever having felt like that. She wanted to protect Duygu’s fragile self-belief.
“Of course, dear. I’ll do what you want. You enjoy yourself.”
Duygu clattered down the steps and made her way to the next house.
Neslihan made herself a cup of tea and sat down. She liked her house. It had once been beautiful. When she and Nuri bought it, they had had dreams of living in the real Istanbul, of inhabiting the world photographed by Ara Güler and remembered in the rose tones of what was becoming known as Istalgia.
Nuri started making money and they moved out to Levent. Neslihan moved back when the new house and the flashy cars were repossessed. When Nuri’s mistress had showed up, crying about being evicted. Nuri had done that begging act on his knees. Neslihan had viewed him as if he were a cheap soap opera. He had escaped somewhere overseas, trying to hold on to whatever that accountant had not managed to take. Because of his financial debacle, Neslihan was not allowed to leave Turkey. This did not bother her at all. Their old family lawyer had drawn up his documents well. Neslihan could keep the house.
What she couldn’t do was maintain it properly. It was better than the rest of the houses in the area. Melis’s well-dressed boyfriend Hakan would ask for a tour of the house every time he came around. A few days later, some tradesmen would turn up to do some minor repairs. The place needed painting now but there was no chance of that.
Neslihan thought of the red line of the Metro cutting through her neighbourhood. She was struck with a desire to see her view. She put her tea down and walked to the staircase. Three floors and an attic. The attic had two triangular windows. One faced the stone wall of the Botanical Garden. From the other, she could see a cascade of roofs falling down to the Golden Horn. She couldn’t quite see the water but she liked being able to see Galata Tower.
The view had changed over the years. New skyscrapers were always going up. There seemed to be three or four that hadn’t been there last time she checked. She could see the tall buildings around Sishane, mostly expensive hotels. The new railway line was coming her way from there.
The doorbell rang. Neslihan put the teapot back on the double boiler. Her tea could wait.
It was that girl again, Duygu. She was just as excited and alive as before.
“Good morning…” Duygu checked her clipboard. “Neslihan Hanim. I’ve come to give you an update on our action against the government.”
“Good.” Neslihan was pleased to see the girl again. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Oh, no.” said the girl. “I need to get round to all the houses on this list before…” She looked at her watch. “Yes, please. My feet are really hurting.”
“Come on.” Neslihan led the way to her living room. She was normally embarrassed about this relic of the days when she and Nuri had been pretending to live in the time of Süleyman the Lawgiver. There was a big Van kilim on the squeaky parquetry. Neslihan indicated a divan next to a round, copper table. “Sit down there, Duygu. The tea’s ready.”
“You remembered my name,” said the girl. “Nobody else does.”
“Of course I did.” Neslihan moved into the kitchen and raised her voice. “You remind me of my daughter. She’s the same age as you. Neslihan realised as she said this that she was wrong. Melis was years older. It was just that she remembered her as the age just before she left home. “Maybe a little older.”
“I love the way you’ve done this room,” said Duygu. “It totally suits the house. You must feel really strongly about having to leave and going somewhere soulless.”
“Yes,” said Neslihan vaguely. She put two glasses of tea onto the copper table. “I’ll just get some kurabiye.” She went back into the kitchen. Are all the houses on this street going to be knocked down?”
“I think so…” Neslihan put a plate of pastries on the table. Duygu was searching the room for something. Sugar. It must be sugar. Since she had lived alone, Neslihan had found that she didn’t need sugar any more.
“I’ll just get that, dear.” The dear seemed so natural, the same as it had when Melis had been younger. Neslihan put the sugar and a spoon down beside Duygu’s tea. “How many houses do you have to go to today?”
“I don’t know.” Duygu held up her clipboard. There was a computer printout of an aerial photo. Each house was marked with a dot and a number. “Hundreds of them.”
“And it’s important that you do them all.”
“Yes. We need everyone involved. If we don’t have solidarity, we won’t be able to show the government how strongly the entire community feels.”
“Do you think it will make a difference?” asked Neslihan gently.
“Yes.” Duygu’s eyes were wide. “Look at the Gezi Park protests. I was down south in Olympus when they were happening but everyone in the country knew about them. The government cracked down but international pressure made them leave it alone. They don’t dare build their shopping centre now.”
Neslihan nodded but said nothing. Most of the people she knew had no sympathy for the protesters. It wasn’t right for people to shout rude things at the Prime Minister.
“They say this is a democracy but it’s only the power of the people that will ever make this government act democratically.”
Democracy. Had Turkey ever been a democracy? When Neslihan was growing up, the illusion of democracy was only protected by the threat of a military coup if anything out of the ordinary happened.
“Yes,” said Neslihan. “Put your feet up on the divan. Please be comfortable.”
There were rumbling sounds at night now. They probably happened all the time but Neslihan only noticed them when she was in bed. It must be that Metro line tunnelling underneath her. She thought she felt the ground shaking but it was probably her imagination.
The sounds she heard in the daytime were of houses being knocked over. Big, yellow machines swaggered up her street in the morning. After a day of crashing noises, they would return in the evening like conquerors. People stopped talking and watched them pass. Some of the boys threw stones.
One day, Neslihan opened her front door to find a big sheet of metal in front of Remzi Bey’s house on the other side of the street. She recalled Remzi Bey saying that he would be moving out to Bahcelievler. When Neslihan returned with her bread and copy of Hürriyet, the yellow machines had begun their work.
Neslihan opened the curtains in her bedroom and moved her chair to the window. This was real entertainment. It was amazing how easily Remzi Bey’s house came apart. It had always looked like nothing more than a loosely attached collection of planks. The yellow machines just pushed them apart and let them clatter onto the ground.
Neslihan made herself some more tea and returned to her viewing. The front of the house was off. The place where Remzi Bey once carried out the events of his life was now like a doll’s house. All the rooms were exposed. She hadn’t known how horrible the wallpaper in the bedroom had been. The doorbell rang.
It was Duygu, the girl who believed in her cause. “Neslihan Hanim, It’s awful! They’re destroying that wonderful house. It must have been your view for a lifetime. It’s as if they’re smashing up all your memories.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t lived there all that long. She and Nuri had bought it twenty years ago but she had only moved back recently. She decided not to tell Duygu this. “I can’t believe it.”
“I’ve come to tell you what we’re organising,” said the girl. “If you’re too upset, I can come back later.”
“No.” Neslihan could see the yellow machines changing position for a new assault. The front door did not provide the best viewing angle. “Do you want to see how they demolish the houses? It’s very interesting.”
“Interesting?” Duygu frowned and turned to the wreckage across the street. “I suppose it is.”
“I have a very good view from one of the upstairs rooms,” said Neslihan. “I’ve just made some tea.”
“Really?” Duygu smiled. “That would be lovely. The hills around here are very tiring.”
The window was exactly the right size for two wicker armchairs with a coffee table between them. Neslihan put two glasses of tea on the table. Both women leaned forward to see what the yellow machines would do next.
One machine extended an arm high in the air. The top of the arm began to approach the upper level of Remzi Bey’s house. It made contact and pushed. The house began to tremble.
Neslihan gasped. A whole new view appeared. She could see the entire shore across the water. It was all there: Galata Tower, the new skyscrapers, the big hotels, all laid out before her. She tried to take it all in.
Neslihan was aware of a movement on her arm. It was Duygu shaking her. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s all gone.”
No it wasn’t. It had all arrived. Neslihan stared at her new world. It stretched out into a future untrammelled by Remzi Bey and his hideous house.
Posted October 18, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
“You’ve got to sleep with your Mum and Dad.” Vanessa brought her head down with a single, emphatic nod.
Julie did not think of disbelieving the older girl. Vanessa had been the first person she met at her new school. She knew everything. She knew the best place to sit in the class. She knew what to say. She had deflated a big boy making fun of Julie. The miracle of transformation from grinning threat to retreat. I’ve seen your willy. It’s stupid. Julie would never dare say this. She wouldn’t even think of it. But Vanessa had known the secret. She could do anything.
“Every night,” she added. Julie nodded with her. This must be so. Vanessa had spoken. “If you don’t, they won’t love you any more.”
Julie was startled. This was inconceivable. Vanessa conceived things that Julie had never realised it was possible to conceive. She learned far more from Vanessa than from Miss Grant. Miss Grant was full of 225 divided by 5 and how many kilometres from Adelaide to Sydney but she never told Julie anything she could actually use.
Vanessa dispensed important information. She knew the weak points of everyone in the class, how to cheat from Mary Hartshorne and not get caught, how to get Miss Grant to let them out early for lunch. She was a goddess and she had to be worshipped.
Jeff surveyed his realm. The sea stretched in lazy swells to infinity. The sky was an unbroken tribute to the serenity of his new existence.
This was Jeff’s dream. He had endured five years in the Musgrave Ranges near the Northern Territory border in order to get here.
The sand was firm and cool. A wavelet rinsed Jeff’s feet and retreated with a pleasant, fizzing sound. The morning sun evaporated a faint tightness from his upper back. There was a smell, a composite of salt, seaweed and old fish, that somehow gave him a freshness, made him as free as he had been when he was eight years old and collecting frogs and yabbies in the creek.
He ran, for no reason, and turned three cartwheels. A brown lump on the beach moved and grunted. Female 73:05. Jeff hardly had to look to recognise the individual animals now. He called this one Cecily.
He had visited the sea lion colony on Kangaroo Island when he was a boy and had been fascinated by the way the shapeless sloths on the beach became streamlined quicksilver in the water. There was one particular memory of a big bull surfing ashore and rearing up, shaking his shaggy head and roaring his dominance. This impression had propelled Jeff through school and into a Park Ranger course. Then he had to do his time of remote endurance until this post became available.
Now he was here. A sleek torpedo arrowed out of a wave and bounded up to inspect his feet. Jeff peered at it. 82:01. The first pup born this year.
Julie didn’t ask why. She just needed to know how. Vanessa took her to a corner of the schoolyard.
“You listen for when they get into bed.” Julie nodded. “Count exactly ten minutes on your clock.” Julie visualised the big hand moving across two spaces. “You make yourself start crying. Can you do that?” Julie just had to think of Mum and Dad not loving her any more. “Then you go into their room. To your Dad’s side of the bed.”
“Dad?” Julie’s Dad was frightening. He wore big boots and grew spiky bristles out of his face. He was quiet but Julie remembered him shouting. This had been in the old house in the place where it was always too hot. He had shouted when Mum said things to him. Julie had stood, unable to move, tears ploughing from her eyes to her open mouth.
“Always your Dad.” Vanessa pronounced incontrovertibles – as authoritative as the manual for the generator. When it went dark or the pump stopped working, out came the manual. Her Dad would spend the day in the shed with the book. When the ceremony was complete, the generator would clatter into life and there would be light and water. Julie did not understand the manual but Vanessa’s instructions were clear. “You go to his side of the bed and cry.”
“But I don’t make a noise when I cry.”
“Even better.” Vanessa made a satisfied face. “You don’t want him to think you’re trying to wake him up.”
“What if he doesn’t wake up?”
“Good. Then you go down to the end of the bed and get under the covers. Get between your Mum and Dad.” Vanessa’s hands made a simple-as-that movement.
Three pups flopped around Jeff’s feet, gambolling in and out of the water. They gathered in front of him and stretched their necks, gazing up with huge, black eyes.
Jeff smiled. The pups were his family now. Susie loved the sea lions and when she produced a son, Julie and her new brother would grow up in the wild, thinking of the big creatures as a natural part of their lives.
Jeff imagined his son playing on the beach with the sea lions. They treated adult humans and children differently. Sometimes the males would react to men, flapping along the beach after them with surprising speed and menace. The tourists didn’t disturb the animals much. If anyone came too close, the sea lions would make open-mouthed lunges towards them. There were signs warning of bites going septic. The threat of death by infection kept people away.
But the sea lions didn’t mind children. The males might show aggression towards human males but they would almost disregard women. Children were different. The sea lions seemed protective of them. Jeff had once seen some females shepherd a little boy out of the sea when he was getting in too deep. Perhaps he was mistaken. But he would trust the sea lions with his children.
All he needed was the son with which to interest them.
Julie lay in bed, listening furiously, as if she could amplify the sounds made by her parents if she sent out waves of attentiveness. She followed her Mum and Dad through the rooms of her mind. Dad was cleaning his teeth. Mum was still clattering knives and forks in the kitchen.
Julie reviewed Vanessa’s instructions. Wait until they’re almost asleep. Then they won’t have the energy to get out of bed and take you back to your room. Cry. This would be difficult. She couldn’t cry when she was tense. She just froze.
Julie could hear the thick stream of falling liquid that Dad produced before leaving the bathroom and going to bed. Mum was clinking plates and shutting cupboard doors. Eighteen minutes past ten.
Julie tried to cry. She thought about how she felt when she had left her friends in Indulkana and when Billy, her brown cattle dog, died. It didn’t work. Nothing moved her monumental task from the front of her mind. Getting into bed with her parents would take all of her concentration. She might have to do without crying.
Her father was now in the bedroom, making grunting noises and yawning. Mum had moved into the bathroom. Julie could hear the movement of bottles and jars, could see in her mind how Mum would select containers and rub liquids and creams on her face, neck, eyelids. Sometimes Mum rubbed something from one of the bottles onto Julie. Then she would smell like Mum.
Dad was settled. Julie could hear the dry crackle of the newspaper he had taken to bed. Mum was finishing in the bathroom. The taps went off. The hook hanging from the top of the bathroom door clicked as Mum took her face towel from it. It was nearly time.
What if something went wrong? What if Dad shouted at her for being out of bed after bedtime? What if Mum put on her disappointed face? Julie recalled Vanessa’s awful words: If you don’t, they won’t love you any more. Julie wished she didn’t have to do this. But she did. The consequences of not doing it were terrible.
Mum’s footsteps creaked up the passageway to the room next to Julie’s. There was the familiar sound of Mum’s voice and shorter, bass notes from Dad. Julie could not hear what they said. She had never wanted to. Now she knew that they might be talking about not loving her. Julie listened. A rhythm of gentle murmur from Mum. A deeper note from Dad. Rattle of newspaper. Another short exchange. Julie could understand nothing. What did parents talk about when they didn’t love their children any more? Maybe she should listen outside the door. What if they caught her?
The bed protested as Mum sat on the edge. Julie knew the sound. Mum would take her slippers off and swing into bed beside Dad. The familiar strum of the bedsprings. The sounds of the bed broadcast Mum and Dad’s movements. Julie checked her clock again. Still just after twenty past ten.
Jeff stretched up at the sun. He loved getting up early here. He hadn’t really minded the desert. It had its beauty and he was glad that he had spent time in the arid north. He had never felt comfortable there. The Aboriginals watched him all the time. He was foreign and different and irritating. Jeff’s job had nothing to do with the indigenous population of Indulkana but they always saw him as one of the meddlers from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
Why wouldn’t they? He looked the same. He drove around in a government Land Cruiser doing things that seemed useless. Jeff had dreaded the times when a deputation of women would approach him to sort out some kind of problem. Never the men. The men were the problem. Jeff never had any idea what to do. He would nod, shrug, shake his head, be useless. The women would go away. Jeff would feel an unworthy relief.
Kangaroo Island was different. This was what he had been trained for, where he wanted to be. It bothered him sometimes that he had a greater affinity for sea lions than for his fellow humans.
Except Susie, of course. She was almost a yogi. This was what the other students at Uni had called Jeff and the others on the Park Ranger course. Susie was doing a teaching course at the same college as Jeff. They had married in Adelaide and got the post at Indulkana, the only one available in the same place for two people. A married couple had left just at the right time.
Susie was pregnant before they arrived at Indulkana. They hadn’t planned it that way but Jeff and Susie had felt good about it. Their daughter would have an unusual upbringing, growing up in the real Australia, knowing and understanding the Aboriginal people.
It hadn’t been like that. Julie was introverted. She had shied away from the other children. Perhaps it was the way Jeff and Susie had brought her up. He wondered if he had been frightened of Julie becoming part of the community, of her not wanting to leave.
He had never belonged. He always had his mind on being somewhere else. Now he was here. Seal Bay was his personal paradise. He ambled along the beach in just a pair of shorts, doing his morning check on the sea lions. They lay prone on the sand, soaking up warmth and digesting fish.
There was a splashing from the sea. A gleaming cylinder of muscle launched itself from a wave. It surfed up the wet sand and came to rest a couple of metres from Jeff. Sally, 78:08. The sea lion turned liquid eyes on Jeff then undulated up the beach. At an apparently random place, she flopped into the sand, a lump distinguished from the others by her dark wetness.
Jeff walked among the motionless sea lions like a governess in a room of sleeping babes. He had a protective feeling that had never shown in his response to his own child. The sea lions lay there, prone and trusting. Jeff felt a warmth known to mothers and kings.
Jeff sat down near Sally. She rolled over in the warm sand, wiping her bristly whiskers with a flipper. She lay on her back with one of those smiles that sea lions have, lightening from streamlined smoothness into shaggy brown.
Jeff gazed out to sea. The horizon stretched out like an unachievable future. He wondered whether he would ever have a son. He couldn’t work out why he wanted a son. Susie didn’t seem to be getting pregnant. Maybe Julie would be their only child. She was a fretful girl, afraid of so many things, Jeff included. He had never made the connection with his child the way he had expected to. He would get on better with a son.
“I don’t like them, Dad.”
This did not seem possible. “Don’t like what, Julie?”
“Them.” Julie sulked her hand at the beach, at the sea lions. “I don’t like them.” Her foot rubbed against her calf. She twisted with the need to express an unpalatable truth.
Jeff looked for a possibility that would not be what he did not want it to be. “The waves?” Julie’s head was shaking. “The seaweed?”
“Dad…” Julie was forced into candid betrayal. “The seals.”
“Sea lions.” This slid out between the bars of his concern.
“Dad.” Julie’s wail of ceaseless torment.
“I’m sorry.”
“You always do that.”
He did. Jeff went through his struggle mentally. Why couldn’t she understand that seals were different, inferior? Sea lions were beautiful. Jeff concentrated on the beach. Sally 78:05 flopped over onto her back. She looked straight at Jeff for a moment. Her eyes were huge. Jeff saw another life.
Julie was waiting. Her eyes were screwed up. Her pale skin had reddened. Jeff tried to love her. The contrast was too much.
“I’m sorry, Julie.” Jeff tried to see the part of himself in his daughter – the half of him reincarnated in that alien temper. Julie wanted something from him that he could not identify or did not want to give. She gazed at him and snuffled. Jeff looked back at 78:05. Sally. Dark, lustrous, confident.
“Dad?”
Julie checked her clock. Not even twenty-five past ten. She didn’t want to get into bed with her parents but she knew that she had to. The waiting was unbearable. She needed to do something while she waited.
Onetwothreefofisiseneighnintelentwel… If she counted to a hundred, that would have to be more than a minute. …sixynisevenysenyone… Nearly there. …nineyeighninyninehunned. Julie turned to the clock. Still not quite twenty-five past ten.
Jeff’s twice-daily counts were no longer a simple roll call. He recognised each member of the community – saw relationships. He celebrated births and mourned deaths and disappearances.
Jeff stopped near the boulder that was Samson. Samson was the largest male, the one whose behaviour could change the feeling of the colony. He had seen the bull in mating frenzy, bouncing over the sand like a grizzly bear, a locomotive, a tornado made flesh, scattering suitors and claiming mates. The other males would not challenge him. Their rearing and snorting were nothing more than gestures of submission to the mighty Samson.
Jeff sat a cautious distance from the slow-breathing mountain. Samson sneezed and shuddered, turning his head slowly. His black eye met Jeff’s. Jeff’s head ducked meekly, reflexively. Samson grunted. It felt like a benediction.
Julie tensed forward in her bed. She could hear nothing. She willed her eardrums to pick up the vibrations of her parents. Dad had told her that her ears were so sensitive that they could hear bats. She had a plan. If her ears could hear better than old people, all she needed to do was make no sounds that she herself could hear. Then her parents had no chance of hearing her.
Julie shifted her weight and lowered her legs to the floor. Her bed twanged. She stopped and listened. If she had heard her parents’ movements, surely they could have heard hers. You’ve got to sleep with your Mum and Dad. She had to go on. She bent forward to transfer her weight to her feet. No sound. She stood, arms clasped around her chest. Waiting. Until there was no possible reason for delaying.
She moved her weight bit by bit to one foot and lifted the other. She moved this foot to the front, pointed her toe and brought it down until she felt the floor. She shifted her centre of gravity forward and transferred her mass a little towards the light. Julie’s door was ajar. She always slept with it slightly open so her room was never completely dark.
Julie stood in the shaft of light that projected into her room from the passageway. She craned her head around to see outside her room. Her foot moved slightly and the floor creaked. She froze. No noise from next door. If you don’t, they won’t love you any more.
Julie rotated her foot to fit squarely on the strip of metal that separated the floor of her room from the passage. It did not creak. She lifted the other foot and put all of her weight on the metal. This was the one thing she could do in gym classes. Balance. She swivelled and extended her other foot.
The dark promise of her parents’ bedroom doorway was three steps away. Now she stood at the entrance. The door was slightly open. It usually was when Mum was last to bed. Sometimes Dad was less tired than usual and came to bed after Mum, closing the door decisively behind him. She heard their voices on those nights.
Not tonight. Julie could hear even breathing from the bed. This was the hard part. Julie moved her foot onto the separator at the threshold. She opened her eyes wide to try and see inside. The breathing went on. If she turned sideways, she might not have to move the door. Julie pushed a leg into the darkness. She shifted on her supporting leg and let the exploring foot touch the floor. Her body began to glide into the darkness as she let the front foot take more of her weight. There was a slight groan from the floorboards. She stopped. She hadn’t heard any noise from the floor when she tried this in the daytime. The breathing was still slow and rhythmic.
Julie lifted her back foot and took another step. She squinted towards the bed. Too dark. Julie closed her eyes to get them used to seeing in the dark. She counted to twenty and opened them. Now she could differentiate the darkness of her parents’ forms from the lighter wall. They were motionless.
Julie took the next two steps more quickly. Her legs touched the eiderdown bedcover. She stood over her sleeping Mum and Dad. She felt tall. This must be how they felt when they watched over her. She could see a gap between them. Both Mum and Dad faced to the outside of the bed, leaving a Julie-sized channel between them. Her plan fell into place.
Julie sank to her knees and gripped the bedcover. She lifted it slightly and put it over her head. She could see nothing now. She reached into the gap. It was snug and secure. Vanessa was right. If she could get between her parents, everything would be all right. She moved her hand to see how much space there was. She touched warm flesh. It twitched. Julie froze. The body shifted. Something brushed Julie’s hand. Dad’s arm. His breathing was uneven. Julie waited.
He was still now. The movements of air were back to a measured pattern. Time to move on. Julie slipped her other arm under the covers. She lifted from her knees onto her toes and put more weight onto her elbows. Pushing with her feet, she slid herself into the cocoon in the middle of the bed. She could feel the mattress sag under her. She stopped. The breathing either side of her was reassuring. She felt the twin rhythms through the bedclothes.
She pushed as far as she could with her feet and lifted one knee onto the bed. Almost in. She brought the other knee up to join the first. She felt as if she was praying. She slowly straightened her legs so that for the first time she would be lying down between her parents. As the bed took her whole weight, the sagging increased. Mum and Dad felt closer now. She was moving them towards each other.
There was another movement from Dad’s side. His arm snaked across her, smoothing her hair and tracing the line of her back. The hand moved beyond her body and in the direction of Mum.
“Was that you, Susie?” It was Dad whispering. Julie pushed herself into the bed, willing Dad not to notice her.
“Are you awake?” No answer from Mum. The hand returned. Julie could feel it move from Mum to her. It crept up her back to her hair. It paused.
“WHAT’S THAT?” The bed erupted into an explosion of movement and noise. The cover was wrenched off. Julie stayed face down, eyes scrunched tight. The redness from her eyelids told her that the light was on.
“Jeff! What are you doing?” Mum’s sleepy voice.
“Julie!” Dad’s angry voice. The one that said that he didn’t love her.
“Is that you, Julie?” Mum sounded wide awake now.
“Julie! Sit up. What are you doing here?” Julie was unable to move. She felt rough hands on either side of her body. She was rising into the air. The hands hurt. She gave an involuntary cry and opened her eyes. Dad’s face was terrible.
“Don’t ever come into our bed! You’re a bad girl.”
Julie felt a piece of her core cease to exist. Her heart tightened around the vacuum.
Posted October 17, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
Paul Stonemore is convinced to take his daughter (Marie) to a gallery opening with Monica, the glamorous academic barmaid from his local. Tina, his wife, is enthusiastic about the plan because it enables her to go out drinking with friends from her schooldays.
“We’re nearly there,” said Monica. “Give me your mobile number in case we get separated during the night.” I didn’t have time to get her number before the cab drew up at a footpath heaving with artists drinking cocktails. I could tell that they were artists because they were clad in skintight black and I could tell that they were cocktails because they displayed secondary colours with clashing proximity.
Marie was suddenly back in my arms. Monica managed to pay, get out and unfold the Bugaboo before I had worked out an appropriate course of action.
Monica greeted several people, took the Bugaboo through a door and came back without it. “We won’t need that.” She disappeared, leaving me on the pavement with Marie.
Lord Byron Gallery, I read. Aaron Holden Sculptures. I peered through a window. The space was populated with huge anthropomorphic animals. Marie wriggled as she noticed this. “Bear.” She pointed at the grinning animal closest to the window. She wriggled to get herself into a better position to see the exhibition. I felt her turn and go still. There was something in her hand. She was holding a bright green cocktail. A forest of fruits on sticks stuck out of it. It looked poisonous.
I picked out some of the more recognisable fruits and waved them at Marie. She giggled and grabbed at them. As she transferred her attention to the fruit, I took the glass away from her. She took her first mouthful of mango. She grinned at me. There were orange fibres in her teeth. I gave her a slice of dragonfruit and tried her cocktail. It was sweet and didn’t taste of alcohol at all. I knocked it back and took a purple version of it from a waiter’s tray. I would need more fruit to keep Marie busy.
“Ah, you’re here.” A young man smiled at me. His horn-rims showed a miniscule area of lens in the dense, black mass of the frames. “Shall we do the photos now?”
“Photos.” I found myself nodding. Marie perked up even more when we went in. She was in a forest of bronze cartoon animals, a version of heaven for her.
“Can I take her?” Monica had appeared beside me. Marie’s welcoming grin gave Monica the opportunity to remove the fibres of fruit from her teeth. Lights went on and variously shaped reflectors were deployed near the bronze bear. Monica held Marie in front of the metallic creature. She giggled and reached for the vapid face.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Tina.
How’s Marie going with your glamour girl?
I looked up. Marie was in the arms of the bronze bear while an army of sycophants attracted her attention, gave her fruit, stroked her hair, photographed her.
She’s the centre of attention. Having a whale of a time.
That would stop her worrying about Marie. There was an almost immediate answer.
Good. Don’t hurry back.
She certainly wasn’t worried about me. I wondered whether Tina was having an affair. I had no idea what I would do if she was. I purloined a cocktail with horizontal layers of pink and orange. It didn’t taste alcoholic either.
The black-clad cognoscenti turned out to be good company. A band started up, playing heavy metal covers in an ironic way. “So post-modern,” said the girl in front of me. I realised that I was dancing with her. I immediately became self-conscious and stopped moving in whatever way it was that had made her think that I might be worth dancing with.
“It matches the art,” I said, trying to get myself back into some kind of time.
“So true,” she said. I noticed Marie wafting past me in the arms of a gothic beauty. Everyone there seemed to have a pallor but this woman was like Lily Munster, as if light would be death to her. Marie reached out to me and the woman steered her my way. Marie grabbed me and planted a kiss on my nose before relaxing back into Lily’s vampiric grip.
“Wow,” said the girl I had been dancing with. “You know Marie?”
“Yes.” I didn’t think it worth explaining.
“Let’s go to the toilet,” said Lily.
“About time,” said the first girl.
Marie gurgled in an affirmative manner. I grabbed a purple drink with cream swirls and followed.
We all crowded into a cubicle. I noticed as I got in that it was large enough not to be crowded. There was a mirror-finish, free-standing structure that I imagine was the lavatory itself. Marie was sitting on this with a selection of exotic fruit. Everyone else folded metal plates from the wall and sat on these. Lily opened a hatch above the toilet and pulled out a sheet of rigid plastic. She took a little sachet from her bag and poured some powder onto the shelf. She pushed it into four long lines with a Tate membership card. She rolled up a twenty pound note and used it to suck up one of the lines into her nostril.
She had a satisfied look on her face as she passed the note to me. I had heard of things like this. It had always had an air of simultaneous style and sleaze. Now it was no different from standing or kneeling in church when everyone else did. I felt the powder disappear into my sinuses. It had no effect at all. The other girl hoovered up another line. One left. Lily pointed at my innocent fruit-eating daughter. “Does she…?”
“No,” I said. The extra line stayed there like an exclamation mark of reproach. Lily and the first girl aimed blank looks at each other. Lily shrugged, and emptied another sachet onto the plastic. She mixed the original powder in and formed three fat lines.
About this time, I realised that everyone was talking very loudly. So was I. That was good because I was saying some amazing things. The girl I had been dancing with was agreeing with me. What she said seemed very wise. Lily had picked up Marie. Her voice was loud too but Marie didn’t mind because she was getting so much attention. She let her head fall against Lily’s marble-white neck. I knew what was going to happen. Marie’s gently smiling mouth opened and turned. She closed her mouth in a loving kiss. I saw her masseter muscles tighten. That signature twist of her head.
I dived at Lily as she fell. I managed to catch Marie before she hit the floor. I had time to notice that this was the cleanest toilet floor I had ever seen. Maybe because nobody used the place for anything that would dirty it. Marie crawled happily up to the stricken Lily. She loomed over the stained neck and brandished her teeth. Lily opened her eyes. She wasn’t dead. She had a stream of blood running out of the wound in her neck. It accentuated the vampire look. I grabbed Marie. The girl I had first danced with had her phone out and was taking pictures. She was sniggering like a loon. I could feel Marie quivering as she decided whether or not to cry now I had separated her from her blood meal.
But Lily was all right. Marie hadn’t killed her. I wondered whether to call the emergency services. Lily might go the same way as my mother. The consequences of bringing the events of this evening to official notice might be catastrophic, especially in terms of whatever I had going with Monica. If the amount of cocaine in our toilet session was representative of the whole party, the unofficial economy of Colombia was in no danger.
Cocaine. If Marie had bitten Lily, she would have ingested some. What would the effect of extravenous narcotics be on a baby? I checked Lily. She seemed to be fine. The girls had opened the door of the cubicle and other people were hearing the story. Marie had stopped struggling to get to her blood. There was too much attention available. She posed for photos with an endless array of people.
Everyone was making jokes.
What’s black and white and red all over. Yvonne. (Her name wasn’t really Lily.)
How did the baby get high? It bit Yvonne.
Marie did seem a bit high. She had no social inhibitions and, whatever she was saying, she was saying it loudly. When she did come to me for a brief photo stop, I noticed that her pupils were dilated.
My phone buzzed again. It was a photo from Monica. It showed Marie, mouth dripping blood, in the arms of that artist with the glasses. WTF? said the accompanying text.
I was too busy trying to keep track of what Marie was doing to answer. I could see Marie now, posing with a completely recovered Lily or Yvonne, beside a giant bronze wolf. I battled through the crowd to reach her. I didn’t need any cocaine, Marie’s behaviour provided enough stimulant to keep me going through the night.
“Oh, there you are.” Monica surfaced from the crowd. “Did Marie bite someone again?”
What did she mean again? “Yes. Look, I think she’s got cocaine in her blood now.”
“What?” Monica stared at me. “I know you’ve got a bit of a laissez faire attitude to bringing up your child, but that’s a bit extreme.”
“I mean Marie bit someone who had been using cocaine.”
“I see.” Monica pointed at the photo session. “Yvonne?”
I nodded.
“How much did she have?”
“Two lines. The second one was really big.”
“How soon after she’d snorted them did Marie bite her?”
“Immediately after the second. About ten minutes after the first.”
All right.” Monica looked meditatively at the ceiling. “No appreciable input from the second, then. Not enough time to diffuse into the circulation. Any visible effect from the first?”
“What?” Monica seemed to have a new persona. “Effect on Marie?”
“No.” Monica looked like a Maths teacher glaring at a pupil forgetting the square root of four. “Yvonne. Did you see any changes in her behaviour after she had the first line?”
“Yes. She was talking loudly and she was making wild movements,”
Monica nodded. “How big was the line?”
“She emptied out a bag and divided it into four.”
“I see.” Monica’s calculating face returned. “About 250 milligrams. Let’s say 300. Fairly strong. Maybe eighty percent benzoylmethylacgonine.” This was like watching a highly specialised round of Mastermind. “Rapid diffusion rate. Let’s say it was all in the blood. So… 240 milligrams in eight litres of blood. That’s around…” She focused on me. “How much did Marie drink?”
“Very little. Lily fell over as soon as Marie bit her.”
“Who’s Lily?”
“Yvonne.”
Monica gave me a strange look. “What… a millilitre? Ten millilitres?”
I pictured ten millilitres in a syringe. “Maximum of ten.”
“And most of that ran down her face.”
Monica smiled suddenly. “There’s nothing to worry about. If she drank ten millilitres of Yvonne’s blood, she got less than a microgram of active ingredient. Spread that through her blood supply and that gives a concentration of … That’s less effect on her opiate receptors than the stimulation she gets from seeing a new toy.”
“Good.” I nodded sagely while my brain tried to keep up with Monica’s quickfire calculations.
“She’s been a hit.” Monica laughed. Marie has made a bigger impact on the art world tonight than all of Aaron’s animals. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Marie still didn’t look sleepy. Where was she getting her stamina if it wasn’t from Yvonne’s coke?
“Bluebird Café.”
“They’ll be closed at this time.”
Monica performed another in her complex range of smiles. “Not to me.”
Posted October 16, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
Posted October 15, 2014 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
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