Open Wounds Read online

  Two months ago, she saw ABBA play here. All the big acts play here, either here or Festival Hall, and if someone worth seeing does play here, you hope it doesn’t rain and pray you can get close enough to the stage to see them. She doesn’t tell anyone about Abba. They were cool for a while, but not anymore. She doesn’t tell anyone about Carols by Candlelight either. For years, she’d trail behind her mother lugging blankets and baskets through these gardens, so they could sing carols by the light of a candle purchased to raise money for the blind. She still thinks about the irony of that. They stopped going the year they saw a teenaged couple fucking on the grass in front of them. The boy was on top of the girl, his skinny arse making hard work of it. They didn’t make a sound. They didn’t speak. They didn’t moan. All they did was fuck. Graham’s like that. He doesn’t speak or moan when he fucks her. He just sneaks into her room and climbs on top of her when her mother’s asleep. When he’s done he warns her that if she tells anyone, he’ll hurt her. She used to love Carols by Candlelight. Now, on Christmas Eve, they sit at home and eat potato chips and watch it on TV.

  Russell rolls onto his back, pulls a scrunched-up cigarette packet from his jeans pocket, lights two, and passes her one. He gives it to her without even asking if she wants it. She swings around to lie on her back beside him. She watches the end of her cigarette burn a long shade of red as she drags on it. She likes smoking. She likes the feel of the smoke as it goes down into her lungs, filling obscure creases and crevices.

  Russell turns onto his side and props himself on his elbow. He stares down at her. With those ice blue eyes. She can’t believe she’s up here alone with the most beautiful boy in the whole school. The wind blows a ribbon of hair across her face and causes her nipples to jut out beneath her t-shirt like gargantuan icons to her womanhood. For months when she’d been ‘developing’, her breasts had steadily swelled and ballooned. Her mother decided containment was necessary. One night after her bath, her mother stood in the doorway and stared at her with soggy maternal eyes. ‘You’re a woman now,’ she said, whipping out a bright red spidery-looking thing from behind her back. She’d stared at it, totally mortified. This couldn’t be happening. With nowhere to go, her mother had charged forward and plunged the elastic contraption over her dripping wet hair and snapped it into place on her chest. A training bra; no awkward clasps. Her mother stood there full of oohs and ahhs and doesn’t it look lovelies. She stood there burning redder than the bra. But the earth declined to open up and swallow her, and God refused to smite her mother, so there she stood hoping death would come quickly to end the nightmare.

  Now, Russell reaches out his man-sized hand, callused and scared by the weekends spent helping his carpenter father, and sweeps the ribbon of hair away from her face. He reaches down to her chest. She gasps as he splays his fingers over the mound of her breast and squeezes. She lies there frozen like a chicken, the same way she does when Graham touches her. She doesn’t want to be a frozen chicken. She wants this to be right. She needs this to be right. The next thing she knows Russell is leaning over her, his eyes half closed, and his full pink lips puckered. She holds her breath as he presses his lips against hers. He wants this. He really wants this. She presses her back against the canopy. She wants this too. She wraps her arms around his neck and tries to savour the moment. Russell flicks his half-burnt cigarette over the edge, then slides his hand from the mound of her breast to the mound between her legs. Despite the layer of denim between their flesh, she can feel the heat in his fingers. His fingers are strong and forceful. She wants this. He reaches up and pops the button on the waistband of her jeans. She wants this. He tugs at the zipper and pulls it down. She wants this. He slips his hand inside, slides it lower and lower down towards her secret. Suddenly, she grabs his hand and stops him. It turns out she can’t do this. She can’t do this at all.

  Russell removes his hand and leans back to stare down at her. The look in his eyes is still hard, only now it’s hardened by disappointment. Then starts the long slide down the canopy towards the ground.

  He’s not going to wait for her.

  She lets the cigarette fall from her fingers then throws her forearm over her face as great gobs of sorrow begin ripping through her body.

  She hates Graham. She hates her mother. She hates God.

  She stops crying and wipes her eyes. As she stares up at the sky, she realises it’s getting late and that she should be getting home. But what’s at home? The usual Sunday night lecture followed by fish fingers, a bath, and a movie she’s not allowed to watch to the end because she has to go to bed.

  What will Russell go home to? Bet it’s not fish fingers.

  She sits up and looks down the length of the canopy. It’s a long way down.

  What would happen if she stood on the edge of the Bowl, stretched out her arms, and let herself fall? Would God’s almighty hand come swooping down from Heaven to rescue her? Would he whisk her up for the ‘what were you thinking?’ lecture? She doubted it. It seems God’s a bit fussy about what He hears and what He ignores. Some people say He’s the answer to all their prayers. But He doesn’t hear hers; He doesn’t answer her prayers.

  She gets up. She’s awkward and ungainly but finally manages to get to her feet. She stands right on the edge of the canopy as the wind whips around her, blowing her hair and shaking her balance. But the view… She can see for miles. It’s beautiful.

  She holds her arms out to the sides and lets the breeze rock her.

  What would her mother think of her standing up here?

  What would Russell think?

  She doesn’t think he’d think anything.

  What would her mother think? Or Graham?

  Or God?

  God can go fuck Himself.

  Heat

  She sits by the window skimming her tongue across her swollen bottom lip as she peers out at the sunburnt landscape through the near black lenses of her Best & Less sunglasses. They haven’t said a word for over two hundred kilometres. Exhausted, she rests her head back on the seat, then gasps as her heart skips a beat. A highway patrol car is speeding up beside them, overtaking the bus. Her heart pounds in her chest as she turns away from the window and glances at him, sitting beside her in the aisle seat, headphones in his ears as he stares down at the backlit screen of the phone he grips tightly in his hand. He didn’t see it. She breathes easily as she turns back to the window.

  The only coach out of town, the bus had been pre-booked by twenty-seven elderly women on a grudge match visit to the Wallalaga Lawn Bowls Club. An event, apparently, not to be missed. One woman, decked out in white pedal pushers and a white short-sleeved Polo shirt, grips the back of the seats with knotted fingers as she makes her way down the aisle towards them.

  He switches off the phone and quickly grabs her hand, forcibly weaving his fingers through hers in a slick show of unity. A picture of perfect happiness, he flashes the old lady a smile. The old woman narrows her eyes a bit as she smiles back and shuffles by.

  When the old woman is safely gone she looks down at her hand, at her fingers so tightly woven into his that her skin is white. She pulls her hand away-and catches sight of the drop of blood on the frill of her off-the-rack blouse. She pokes at it, shoves it into the folds of the diaphanous fabric, then goes back to staring out the window.

  The coach burns another hundred kilometres before finally pulling off the highway and into the carpark of a weather-beaten roadside café. She has no idea where they are. It’s the middle of fucking nowhere.

  The moment the driver kills the engine, the lawn bowlers are up, desperate for the bathroom and a cup of tea. He is desperate for a smoke. He pockets his phone, orders her not to take long, then bustles his way through the chock of little old ladies towards the door.

  When he’s gone, she plucks a compact mirror from her black vinyl handbag and checks her mouth. The skin is swollen and bruised, but the split has scabbed over. She grabs her tube of plum velour lipstick and spreads it over her l
ips. That will have to do.

  At last she unfolds her crumpled legs and makes her way to the front of the coach. At the door, the heat is like a slap in the face. She stands on the bottom step and looks around at the landscape. In every direction, as far as she can see, the scorched blue sky drips into the withered brown horizon. The heat haze is like a soft-focus filter. Nothing seems sharp or in focus. She knows some people have a connection to this land, but she doesn’t. It’s nothing like her homeland in Western Ukraine with its fertile plains and chains of mountains that stretch for miles across the open landscape. A Ukrainian bride, she was betrothed to him when he travelled to her country on a ‘Romance Tour’. Two of her friends had already come here. She wanted to be happy like they were.

  She takes two deep breaths then steps out of the airconditioned comfort onto the pavement and heads over to join him. He narrows his eyes and sucks on his cigarette as he turns around to look at her, then without a word, he flicks the cigarette away and heads inside the roadside café.

  Inside, aged yellow paint flakes from aged plaster walls, tattered curtains hang from sagging rods, and rattling ceiling fans stir the leaden air. He flings her twenty bucks and tells her he’s going for a piss then leaves her alone to queue for food behind the busload of little old ladies.

  Behind the counter, two overweight women with pendulous breasts and limp hair hanging beneath cardboard hats stand, tongs in hand, ready to serve up a disturbing array of deep-fried delights. Sausages in batter, fish in batter, hamburgers in batter, fried chicken, pork fritters, dim sims, crab sticks and mysterious squares on sticks. All come, of course, with a side dish of soggy chips.

  She tugs at the collar on her blouse. She never noticed before how it rubs the back of her neck. As she hides the bloodstain, she catches sight of a fly. Caught in the slipstream of the swinging front door, it lunges at crumbs spilled on sills and dives at sticky pools on the floor. It’s only a matter of time before the ultra-violet beauty of the bug zapper beguiles it. The insect version of the electric chair, it’ll fry for being a filthy little pest.

  The last to reach the counter, she orders food for him and coffee for herself. As the women sling food, they share a joke and laugh at the punchline. As she watches them, she can’t help but wonder about their lives and the choices they made to end up here. She can’t remember the last time she laughed.

  One of the women thrusts a plate of deep-fried food at her and says they’ll bring her coffee to the table.

  She takes the plate and weaves her way through the labyrinth of old ladies seated at the café’s laminate-topped tables. She can feel their eyes on her, watching her as they murmur and speculate. She pushes her sunglasses up higher on her nose as she strides defiantly towards the table by the window where he sits and waits.

  Once there, she slides the plate of food across the table in front of him and takes a seat. He upends the bottle of tomato sauce as she plucks a packet of cigarettes from her handbag. He glares as she lights one up and reminds her that he’s eating. She looks at him as she tilts her head to one side and drags on the cigarette, drawing smoke deep into her lungs and leaving a cheap plum velour lipstick kiss around the filter. He frowns at her and scoffs, then bites down on a sauce-soaked deep-fried crab stick.

  A cup and saucer rattle with the approach of a teenaged waitress, a stick figure in a uniform five sizes too big for her. She keeps her eyes down as the mousy-haired girl slides a cup of coffee onto the table in front of her then, as indifferently as she’d arrived, slinks away without a word.

  She turns back to the window. The sun burns through the tattered curtain, sears her fingertips as she presses her fingers to the glass. She rests her head on the back of the seat and stares at the ribbons of colour shimmering above the tarmac. A dribble of traffic passes by on the highway. Her eyes drift as she wonders who they are and where they’re going. More importantly, where is she going? Where are they going? And what’s going to happen when they get there? Another new life? Another new beginning? She bites her lip. She doesn’t think so.

  She couldn’t believe they’d paroled him. She’d moved on, got a good job, and was saving to buy a car. She’d warned him not to come back. But there he was, the day he got out, standing on her doorstep begging for her to let him in. She’d attempted to shut the door, but he’d pushed his way in and sworn it wouldn’t be for long. As usual, she gave in.

  Time had begun to alter her face, but his face, some five years older than hers, had become thin and drawn. His jet-black hair was hard against his sallow skin. Crow’s feet, long and deep, seemed like they’d been stomped into the edges of his eyes. And shadows, dark and unsettled, had dug into the hollows above his cheek bones. She couldn’t help but pity him. She thought she could help him, thought she could heal his pain…

  It wasn’t long before he was staying out all night. He wouldn’t tell her where he was going or how long he’d be. He’d just demand money and warn her not to ask questions.

  When he came home, he’d slip into bed beside her and stroke her hair with a gentle hand and kiss her with a loving mouth. He’d whisper in her ear and tell her that when he was in the nick, all he could do was think about getting out and coming home to fuck her. When he was done, he’d order her out of the bed and into the shower. He didn’t want to sleep with her when she stank like sex.

  When he told her to go to the gym she was surprised. Confused. She wasn’t stick thin, but she certainly wasn’t heavy. He told her that he wanted her to look nice. Not for others. For him.

  One night, she came home late from work. Rage bristled in the back of his eyes as he sat on the couch and demanded to know where she’d been. She told him she had to stay back at work. He demanded to know who else was there. Other men? He didn’t want her hanging out with other men. In fact, from now on he didn’t want her talking to other men. She knew the answer didn’t matter. He flew off the couch and snatched a handful of her hair. She reached up and grabbed his wrists and begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t let go. He dragged her backwards along the hallway. ‘Who are they?’ he demanded. ‘Who are they?’

  Inside the bedroom door, somewhere between the bed and the wardrobe, she heard a noise that sounded like a thump. And felt the crack. She bit the side of her tongue and drew blood. She couldn’t save herself as she stumbled to the floor. He hadn’t hit her with a fist since he’d broken her jaw.

  She sat there, trembling, with her eyes closed and just breathed. Her shoes were off, left somewhere down the hall. Her pantyhose were torn. Her skirt was rucked up around her thighs. ‘You’re mine,’ he growled as he grabbed her arms and hoisted her onto the bed, ‘you understand? You’re mine.’ Then he straddled her hips and held her down as he wrapped his hands around her throat. ‘And you’ll do what I tell ya,’ he seethed, his eyes bulging with rage, ‘you understand?’ Tears welled in her eyes as he glared at her, glared through her, like she wasn’t even there. She couldn’t get any air. Her heart hammered in her chest as her head swelled like a balloon. She clawed at his arms and tried to then pull him away, but he clenched his jaw and tightened his grip even harder. Tears rolled down the side of her face as she looked at him, begging him with her eyes to let her go.

  Then, as her fingers tingled, and her body turned cold, something snapped in him. He let her go. He released his grip and sat back. Just like that. As she clutched at her throat and gasped for air, he bent down to kiss her and stroke her hair as he whispered, ‘I’m sorry,’ over and over again. He wept and whined that it wasn’t his fault, that she made him do it, that she was to blame. She threatened to leave him and never come back. He held her tight and whispered that if she left him, he’d find her. He’d hunt her down, he’d find her, and he’d kill her.

  Now, she looks at him sitting on the other side of the table. Sweaty and anxious, he’d come home this morning as she was getting ready for work. His clothes were torn, and his knuckles were bloody. She knew better than to ask why. As she stood in front of the mirror butt
oning her blouse, he’d scrabbled around in the dresser drawers and told her they were leaving. She’d frowned as she’d told him she was running late and that she didn’t have time for his bullshit. Furious, he clipped her across the lip with a backhander that sent her into the mirror, shattering it for seven more years of bad luck. Blood dripped from her split lip as he grabbed her wrist and dragged her through the front door.

  Suddenly, crash, bang, clink, clatter! Startled, he jumps in his seat and snaps his head around as a tray of dirty dishes hits the floor. The stringy-haired waitress covers her mouth with her hand and dances on her toes as she looks down at the mess.

  He exhales as he dumps his knife and fork on the table. His appetite is gone, vanished in a fit of the jitters. She stabs the cigarette out on the saucer beneath her cup as she exhales a mouthful of smoke, then tells him she’s going to the bathroom. He warns her not to be long—and to get him coffee on her way back. She grabs her handbag, walks around the overwrought waitress and heads for the ladies’ room.

  The same aged paint flakes off the walls and the tiles, once pure white, are now cracked and riddled with mould.

  She peels off her sunglasses and slowly raises her eyes to look at herself in the mirror. The bruise around her eye is fading, but the bruise on the side of her mouth has spread like a grotty smear of Vegemite. She wets a paper towel and pats at the perspiration glistening on her forehead. It’s so bloody hot. She can’t wait to get back on the bus.

  Suddenly, a toilet flushes, then another, and another, as three old lady bowlers walk out of the stalls and stand beside her at the row of sinks. As the old women chat and run water to wash their hands, the smell of department store perfume encircles her, wends its way into her nostrils. It reminds her of her grandmother. She smelled exactly the same way. She reaches for her sunglasses and slowly slides them back on her face. When the old women are done, their looks of curiosity harden into pity or indifference, depending on the story they’ve made up about her, then walk out the door leaving her alone. She doesn’t care what they think. It’s none of their business. She fishes out her tube of lipstick and fixes her face as best she can, then heads back inside the café.