Ana - second draft, two opening parts

ANA

ON THAT FIRST CHILLY DAY OF DECEMBER it was fortunate that dinner had been started early.

The slam of the door told me all I needed to know. He would not be in any mood to wait for his food. I hurried into the kitchen and began serving roast beef onto his plate beside steaming green vegetables.

He’s home, I thought. He’s the same. He just needs his space. He’ll tell me when he’s ready. He’ll tell me, won’t he? Oh, Simon, why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?

Carrying the plate in one hand and a small earthenware vase in the other, I set his place, ready for him. I hadn’t dared to ask him for extra money this morning, to buy some flowers for the house. So a clutch of noxious wild daisies was all I could find for the centrepiece, but it didn’t seem to matter, anyway. He wasn’t paying attention to the table and he hadn’t noticed that the hallway vase was empty. He was vacant and unstaring and moving like a robot, his soft grey eyes unseeing, just as things had been for weeks. So I stood quietly as he entered the room, and while I didn’t actually expect much, I had hoped for a glance, or a smile, perhaps a warm greeting.

Nothing.

Why won’t you talk to me? I feel so useless!

For three months we had been married, and yet for weeks, he had ceased speaking to me in more than a grunt. And he was terribly worried. I had heard him pacing the floor, had heard him whispering in late-night phone conversations, heard books fly off the desk, seen the holes punched into the doors. The stench of anxiety sweat swam off him at all times of the day.

He was angry and furious and something was terribly, terribly wrong. But I knew my place. The women did not interfere in the men’s business dealings. They bit their tongue until they tasted metal, and their lips stayed closed until invited to speak.

I, Ana, quietly excused myself from the kitchen and left him to his meal.

***

I HAD BEEN BORN THE ONLY CHILD of older parents, and I had grown up in a house where my mother wailed for a son.

"A SON," she howled, "would have made my life complete! What good is a daughter? How can a daughter ever provide for me in my old age?" She would scowl at me with obvious contempt, and damn me for daring to be born a useless girl.

My father was as indifferent as my mother was cruel. A girl was no use to him, and nor was the useless wife who never produced another child.

I’m not useful. I’m only a girl.

Our small cottage didn’t offer much in the way of adventure, to a child whose life revolved around serving others. The backyard was tiny and bore nothing but dry, wispy weeds, and beyond the bottom fence was a stinking, festering ditch. We had a rose bush near the front door, and I inhaled its luscious scent any time it dared to force out a lonely bloom. My mother would find out, of course, order me out with the secateurs, and I would feel a moment of sorrow for severing it from its mother plant. Once indoors, the delicate beauty of the apricot flower faded fast, finally ending in a puddle of cast petals on our kitchen table. It was as if even a rose became sad once it was dragged into this pitiful home.

I’m sorry, rose. I’m sorry you had to die. You were lovely. Honestly, you were.

We only had two rooms, really. The smaller one held my parents’ bed and the stale, old smell of long-unwashed bedding. The sitting room had the kitchen along its far wall. I slept in a tiny lean-to containing the laundry area, attached to the house at the side. It gave me some refuge from the tedium of my parents’ living area, and it was everything I needed, anyway. Within that little room I could be anyone. In it I imagined that its walls insulated me from the universe, and its faint soap aroma was a safe harbour from reality.

My father had traded in firewood. When I was little I would watch for him from the front doorstep, hoping against hope for some affection, some refuge from the barked orders of my mother. Her grotesque, oversized form rarely moved from her favourite chair; from the moment I could walk I was handed a broom, or a serving spoon, or a scrubbing brush, while she dozed on and off in a book or a newspaper. We must have had the cleanest front doorstep in the land, with me forever hovering out there and waiting for Father’s return.

As I grew older his return grew less predictable. He would be hours late, or hours early, stumbling and exhaling the putrid fumes of whichever drink he had decided on that day. My mother’s wails fell on deaf ears. He was neither lucid enough to understand nor stupid enough to get within arms’ reach of her massive frame. At his reappearance I had learned to check certain things - particularly, whether he had remembered his cart, his axe, his tool bag. I would ply him with hot coffee at the front step, hoping my mother couldn’t hear him stumbling about, then send him back off to retrieve the forgotten items.

Don’t go in, Father. Just wait here for me, I’ll bring you some coffee. Father, where have you gone now? Get off the street. Here, sit down on the step, drink this.

His descent into oblivion had other repercussions. While he slept off his many stupors, the remnants of our house began to decay with neglect. I did what I could, with what little I could find. Patched roof, taped windows, glued furniture. I was not a natural in the handiworks department, had not been born a son, and had not been gifted with the talents of my father’s calloused hands. I did my best. It was usually enough, for the moment.

As for eating, that was another matter. His purse usually arrived home empty, and I would often wonder how long the food in our kitchen could last. It became harder and harder for me to keep it stocked. Father didn’t care, having little interest in food, but my mother certainly did, and there are only so many times that a girl can give up her dinner for a hugely fat and ungrateful mother.

It’s all the dinner there is, Mother. There isn’t any more. I’m sorry, Mother. I haven’t any coins today. He’s sleeping, mother, please don’t wake him! We’ll have bacon tomorrow. I’ll buy it for your dinner. Tomorrow.

Some days he had actually come home with the hand-cart full of firewood. Those were fortunate days, for although he’d done nothing about selling them and providing some precious cash, at least I had something to sell. I knocked door-to-door while he snored in the stinking front room, restless, moaning and shouting in his drunken haze. I could usually sell the wood in a couple of hours, but it annoyed me to return after school and find that cart piled high near the front door.

Of course, this was still better than seeing an empty cart. That usually meant he had sold the wood already, and drunk its proceeds. It also meant there would be no money for groceries that day, and I would tally yet another inventory of what little remained in our kitchen cupboard.

Eventually, of course, things scraped closer to the bone. I began adding household possessions to the pile of wood as I went door-to-door. Perhaps the neighbours really did need another frypan; perhaps they just felt sorry for the small girl selling anything she could live without. On some days, my black braided hair felt like I was dragging a noose, weighing me down as I trudged the dusty streets and hoped that the next household might just buy the tired clothes I’d outgrown. My worn-out shoes and ragged socks hid exhausted feet which barely carried the stick-thin and fair-skinned child. It was fortunate, perhaps, that I had no thought of the future, beyond whether we would eat tomorrow. No thought of the years ahead. I could not have conceived that things might get worse. That some day there would be nothing left to sell, nothing left to eat, and nothing left to do but go hungry and stare at the barren walls of our tiny cottage. And fortunately, I did not see such a day. We clung to existence, just.

My father drowned his sorrows at earlier and earlier hours, and one day while walking, tripped over a low wall and broke open his skull on the road below, never to draw breath or alcohol again. I should have been upset. I should have been heartbroken. Perhaps the only part of me which ached was that I had never had a father who cared about me, and now, I never would.

Would I have been useful if I were a boy? Would I, Father? Would you have taught me to cut firewood, how to build a chair? I’d have tried very hard, Father. I’d have done my best to make you proud.

The neighbours arranged his burial, fed us for the first week, humoured my mother with her incessant and helpless wailing, patted me kindly on the head and slipped a few coins into my hand. But before long, we were alone. And now, the firewood did not arrive unsold at the door. I continued with the cart, devoid of wood, but the customers soon dried up, having no interest in shabby, useless items.

The rose no longer bloomed, no longer blessed me with its captivating perfume.

My mother lived another six months, probably just to complain about having had her heart broken. And in the end it was her heart which gave way, shortly before my twelfth birthday. With little left other than the clothes on my back, I went to live in my uncle’s house.

***

Louise, first draft

I always thought that emotions are completely held inside our brains. That's where we think and remember and create ideas.

Marty left me this morning. And the very first thing that went through my head made no sense at all. I feel HOT. All my skin is hot and the heat is coming from my very insides and spreading outwards in a way that frightens me. It radiates like a bonfire's warmth emerging from a stone. It echoes in waves and in surges, that feel as if it has an inner source, like an unseen flame flickering, like the pilot light under the gas hot water heater in my laundry.

God, I need to go and wash the laundry. There's a huge pile of dirty clothes that don't fit in the hamper because the kids threw all their sports gear there this morning and there is also the pile of sheets from the sleepover party on Friday and the dog's blanket needs washing and OH MY GOD. What do I do? I don't know what to do. I just don't know how to function anymore. There's no room in my head for figuring out how to cope with this. What do I do?

Chapter 1 - Normal Chaos

Eleni was happy.

The girl sat in front of the blaring tv, feet splayed wide on the dirty carpet, eyes glazed over at the cartoon in the glass. Her mother was cooking something in the sweltering kitchen, slamming cupboards and swearing, the whoosh of water in the sink, the fisssk of another beer can opening. A bedraggled man was pawing his way through the debris heaped on the coffee table, looking for a cigarette lighter and angrily kicking each item that fell from a precarious pile. Ting, clonk, objects hit the opposite wall, leaving small marks on the grubby wallpaper. Finally giving up, he strode into the kitchen. On the tv, credits rolled and the ad-break began, breaking Eleni's hypnotic gaze and making her more aware of the adults nearby.

She listened as the man foolishly entered her mother's domain. Seconds later her mother was yelling.

"WELL! Don't eat it then, ya silly cunt! Get your own feed! That other slut will look after ya, fuck off back to her place, deadshit!" Thud, cupboards slamming again, the jank of a stirring spoon hitting the saucepan. Muttered conversation too low for Eleni to hear. And then more forcefully, "Get out. Don't come back."

His steel-capped boots clomped out the front screen door, which swung closed again in his angry wake.

Eleni's mother placed a pink plastic bowl in front of her. Sausages, mashed potato, and baked beans enticed her, and they smelled delicious. Fridays were always the best. Mum got paid and dinner was the best!

Eleni was happy.



*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***


Within minutes of her mother hanging up the phone, a small blonde woman had arrived, three children in tow. They bounced around the living room, screaming, while Eleni continued to shovel potato into her mouth with a teaspoon. The blonde's swollen belly stuck out from beneath a cropped t-shirt emblazoned 'Grab My Ass'.

Eleni's mother raised her voice over the melee. The bedraggled kids found floorspace and accepted their plastic bowls, finally quieting enough for the adults to carry a conversation at normal volume. "So yeah Jade, I told him to get the fuck out of my house..."


Jade blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke and rested a beer on her belly with her other hand. "Good girl. God, wish I could tell my dumbshit to fuck off, but it's his house. And I've only got three weeks to go anyway so I'm not moving now. What are you gonna do about yours? You gonna try and get rid of it?"

From the floor beside her, Eleni looked up at her mother, who was nodding agreement. "I don't need another kid. And that dickhead's bloody useless. Bastard reckons he hasn't got any money for the appointment. I got half the money now, next pay I'll have enough. But I'm fucked, hey. Too many weeks. Cunt doctor said they won't do it by then, it'll be too late."

Eleni took her bowl out to the kitchen, thinking about the cunt doctors, and the bastards who wouldn't pay for abortions, and the dumbshits who wouldn't fuck off.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

In the morning Eleni woke up to her bed-mate's giggling. Both girls were covered in sweat, while the hum of insects and the smell of mown grass wafted in through the open window. They sat up, squinting in the bright sunlight and chatting to each other about playing under the garden hose. As they entered the kitchen, the two boys were squabbling over cereal.

Eleni poured some into the blue plastic bowl, sloshed milk in, and bent her ear closer, in order to hear the crackling.

From across the table, the smallest kid watched in fascination, taking in Eleni's look of excitement and wondering what she could hear. He leaned his head too close and got cold, wet cereal all over his ear and cheek.

Three kids laughing, one crying, and Jade shuffling in hungover, with knots in her hair and a bleary expression on her face. The water gurgled into the kettle and she tossed a damp dishcloth in her son's direction. "Wipe your head, and then you little shits can get outside and play."

Chocolate cereal, hot days and getting wet in the sprinkler. That's what great weekends were made of.



*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

On Monday afternoon Jade's kids tumbled into the house. Eleni's mother set out a few hours' supply of junk food and told the four kids to stay inside until the adults got back at dinnertime. HA! Eleni knew that 'dinnertime' might be tomorrow morning. Cool! Staying up late was the best!

But when Jade's car finally arrived back in the driveway at 2am, two police cars followed and Eleni's mother was nowhere to be seen. The slamming of car doors had woken the children and they peered out the bedroom window at the flashing red and blue lights. Officers huddled with Jade for a moment and they whispered together. Eleni tried studying Jade's face in the glow from the streetlight, trying to figure out what was going on. Normal normal, mouth and eyes smeared after an ordinary night at the pub. Eleni guessed that Jade would take them all to school in the morning, like the last time her mother got locked up. Normal normal.

But nothing was normal.



*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

To her immense surprise, Jade didn't say a word about Eleni's absent mother. She didn't even speak to Eleni. All she did was order her own kids to find their shoes and go with the nice policeman.

NICE policeman? Nice? Jade hated cops. She was chainsmoking and irritible and on edge, gnawing the edge of her mouth and tapping one high-heeled foot, and her clothes were a filthy mess. A gust of wind whipped through the house and Eleni shivered; three officers were standing in the lounge room and staring back and forth between Jade and Eleni.

It seemed to take forever before two of the officers left with Jade's kids, and the woman moved towards an armchair, sinking like a deflating balloon. Rummaging through her handbag, she produced a packet of chewing gum. Then finally she seemed to remember that Eleni was in the room; and Jade handed her the rest of the pack. The remaining police officer shook her hair out of her uniform hat, then sat down on the sofa and tried unsuccessfully to get the busily chewing child to join her.

"Your Mummy is very sick, Eleni," said the cop, trying to speak in gentle tones. "We're going to take you to see her soon. But it's a long way. Can you get some clean clothes on for us, and we'll take your pillow for the trip?"