The Slip, page 7
News travels quickly. Adam’s cousin emails with instructions for storm proofing the house. They find a ladder and start working on the gutters. The humidity reaches ninety-five per cent. Beneath the sweat Louise can feel excitement mounting once again. From the roof she can see all the way to where the land is licked at by the ocean; everything feels kind of sexual, the call of the unknown.
Helen texts to say she’s on the train.
‘I can’t believe it,’ says Adam. ‘Is she out of her fucking mind?’
Louise has no choice but to collect her from the station. Driving toward Frankston, a fatalistic part of her imagines that the storm will hit while she is on the road, the car felled by a tree. She sees the wheels spinning, the windscreen smashed, her body crumpled on a scary angle, blood. Imagines Adam’s face the moment he gets the call.
Arriving early, she goes to the plaza for supplies. The shelves are empty, reminding her of lockdowns they endured in the pandemic. People are pushing each other out of the way. Her mouth fills briefly with the tang of panic as she scans the aisles with a feeling for the end of days. She walks out carrying whatever they had left – a box of frozen spinach, some lavosh crackers, a small round tin of caviar.
Parked outside the station, she rolls the window down and looks for Helen. The sky is jaundiced with a sickly yellow hue and everything looks backlit, giving objects in the foreground haloes like those tiny, coloured cards her grandma used to show her with the pictures of the saints. Helen is already waiting, dressed in a white linen shift. Despite the chaos all around her, she looks beautifully composed.
She remembers the first time she visited Helen’s family home, being struck not by the size or beauty of the house, or the parents’ excellent taste in everything, but by the bookshelves lining all the walls. In her own house growing up there had been books about pruning, music, food; they contained instructions. But Helen’s family home was crammed with books about ideas. Louise was so impressed that she was almost frightened. She desperately wanted to be intimate with Helen and to live the way she lived.
Finally Helen sees her, waves and waits to cross the road. Despite her flaws, Louise loves her. She admires her self-assurance. Helen knows exactly where she’s going. In contrast, Louise is thrashing around blindly, striving to answer a question.
But she doesn’t know what question she is asking.
The roads are dead as they drive back to Shoreham. For some reason, neither of them mention the storm. Instead they hold hands across the console, Louise listening as Helen describes her time abroad.
As Helen speaks, a tremendous wind rolls in. It buffets the car and starts to sweep the sky of clouds. Louise feels panicky, as though she has been tricked. Just as quickly as it came, the wind dies down and leaves the sky a spanking shade of blue.
They drive through light and dappled shade and it gets hot and dreamy in the car. Helen’s speech begins to lull Louise into a kind of torpor. She finds it difficult to focus on the road. It’s a nice feeling, seductive. They fall into a treacly silence until Helen says, from out of nowhere, ‘Do you think that you and Adam fit together? What about me and Adam. Do you think we’d fit, him and me?’
‘Why would you—’
‘I met someone in Berlin,’ she says. ‘We ended up living together. He was an artist, quite successful, with this spacious apartment in the city. When I first started sleeping there I found the entire place so neat and impersonal it seemed like a pretence, as if he’d borrowed it from a friend and was faking living there because he wanted to impress me. There weren’t any toiletries in the bathroom – no razors, cologne, no creams or packets of pills. It was bizarre. I got really suspicious and began to think he must have a secret partner or a family somewhere else, where he really lived, even though he claimed that he was free.
‘I started looking in cupboards and under the beds when he was out of the house. It felt duplicitous, but I had this crazed desire to discover evidence he was lying. You know I’ve never been really jealous of anyone, and mostly my relationships have been open. But I became completely paranoid. Possessive. And I never found anything, no matter where I looked.’
Here she pauses, still clasping Louise’s hand. Her grip is almost desperate and Louise feels superior for the first time ever. It is an odd sensation. She moves her hand away.
‘Maybe that feeling arose from being away from home,’ Louise ventures. ‘You needed this man, this domestic arrangement, to provide the security you were missing.’
‘Maybe. But the weirdest thing was, I was right. He did have a secret family, two kids with a previous partner. He just mentioned them one morning as if they’d been a fact of our relationship from the beginning, and then a couple of days later they came to live with us at the apartment.’
Helen turns now and Louise can feel her staring at the side of her own face, though she keeps her eyes glued to the road. She has a strong sense of not wanting to hear the rest of the story; at the same time she is curious to learn how it played out, and what made Helen stay.
‘How old were his children?’
‘Five and eight, two girls. They’re beautiful kids. I just …’
Louise supposes Helen is about to say she couldn’t accept her partner’s children, no matter how great they were, because of the betrayal. But then she says, quite unexpectedly, ‘We became extremely close. I want to say the four of us fell in love. You know me, Lou – I’m not maternal. I didn’t expect to feel so passionate about this family life I’d never wanted, but as soon as I met them it was like something fell into place. I felt as though we’d always been together and I’d been missing them after a long absence, as if they’d been away at school camp. It sounds stupid, but I felt as though the children had come home. Like their home was with me, like we fit together. But then—’
Her revelation halts with crunching gravel as Louise turns up the drive. The splendid house looms from the bush like a sculpture or museum, and for a second Helen is distracted, taking it all in. Louise recalls how Adam said that Helen sniffed them out. She feels a little nauseous. Helen winds the window down and inhales in a big, exaggerated way.
‘Smell that air,’ she murmurs, feigning a kind of bliss.
Louise inhales too. The air smells good; the wind has made things clean.
Hearing the car, Adam emerges from the house. His face is grim and unsmiling.
What happened next, Louise wants to ask. And how did you leave? And what is the difference between us or are we the same, you and me?
But Helen is already out of the car, pretending to be happy to see Adam, and the time for candour is gone.
As he leads them to the room where Helen will be staying, Adam is cordial and even pleasant. Louise walks behind the pair and wonders what the hell they’re up to, herself included. The clean white walls and carpets seem suddenly fake, as though the three of them are play acting on the set of a television show, or the large characterless apartment in Berlin that Helen just described. In the bedroom, Helen deposits her bag and then they all go to the kitchen. Everyone is smiling. It’s incredibly bizarre.
On the deck they sit around a table where the shady gums protect them from the heat. Louise opens the lavosh crackers and the caviar she bought at the plaza. It’s not quite right as far as platters go, but it will have to do. She smells the sea. When she takes a sip of wine and licks her lips, they taste of minerals and salt.
‘Whoa,’ exclaims Helen. ‘Caviar. I would eat some, but I’ve been a practicing vegan for about a year.’
Adam snorts, and Louise can tell he’s taken umbrage at the phrase practicing vegan. ‘I might have been tempted,’ Helen adds, ‘if you’d bought my favourite.’
Louise cannot remember Helen’s favourite. ‘It was fairly apocalyptic at the shops,’ she says instead.
‘I can imagine! I thought my flight would be delayed. What happened to the storm?’
‘It’s weird,’ says Adam. ‘All morning we thought it was coming. We even did all the preparations. But now the weather is completely fine – better than it’s been the whole time we’ve been here.’
‘I can’t help feeling cheated,’ Helen says. ‘There are things I need clarified. You know what I mean?’
‘Not really,’ says Adam.
Yes, thinks Louise.
Helen leans forward and puts her elbows on the table. ‘Don’t you think there’s something absolutely momentous about a storm? It’s the sort of thing that inspires people to act.’
Adam snorts again. ‘If you mean fighting over toilet rolls, then sure.’
Helen looks at Adam and dismisses him, like he’s a rock or stick she picked up off the ground, considered for a moment and then failed to apprehend.
‘I wanted it,’ Louise says ardently, startling herself. ‘I wanted to experience the storm. Do you ever feel like you are waiting …’
‘Yes,’ says Helen simply. She turns to Adam. ‘Maybe it’s something men like you can’t understand.’
‘What do you mean, like me?’
Helen ignores him. ‘I missed you, Lou.’
‘I’m sure you say that to all your fans.’
‘Shut up Adam,’ says Louise.
‘You think I’m being facetious,’ says Helen, ‘but I mean it. There were things I loved about Berlin …’
Louise thinks she will resume her story from the car, but Helen shakes herself and smiles. ‘There were things I loved about it, but I didn’t have many friends. I was rarely alone, but even so, I think I was often lonely.’
There is a pause. Standing behind her, Helen begins to stroke Louise’s arms and shoulders, running her hands over the skin. It is so nice to be touched. Adam watches this display with annoyance, grabbing the sunscreen he has brought outside and placed before them on the table. He squirts a generous amount into his palm and rubs his own arms furiously, applying far more than he needs.
‘Is that why you came back?’ Adam asks, rising quickly from the table.
Helen looks away, toward the rows of vines. ‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘No, it’s not.’
Unsatisfied, Adam goes inside to find another bottle. While he is gone, Louise turns to Helen. ‘So you left them?’ she asks softly.
‘I left them,’ Helen replies.
‘But you loved them,’ Louise says.
‘I did. But living with them permanently was not part of my plan.’
‘You couldn’t have changed it?’
‘You’ve known me for a long time, Lou. Once I’ve decided on a course, I never change my mind.’
Louise thinks of the superstorm and how it should be making landfall now. ‘Not even if it would have made you happy?’ she asks.
‘Are you happy?’
‘I’m not unhappy,’ Louise replies. ‘I know better than to expect happiness from life.’
Helen’s eyes flash with a certain cruelty, which instantly disappears. ‘Sooner or later, Louise, you’re going to have to act.’
They keep drinking, and because there is nothing else to eat they soon get very drunk. Night falls so gradually they hardly register the change, until suddenly it’s dark and stars are numerous in the sky. Helen disappears and comes out wearing a gorgeous slip dress in a silky green material. It clings like water to her body, showing off her pointy nipples and the delicate ridges of her hips.
‘Thought I’d slip into something more comfortable,’ she says, mock seductively, although Louise glances at Adam and can tell by the look on his face that some part of the seduction is real.
Strangely, she does not feel envious or upset. Above them, the sky has clouded over. The clouds are low and round, pregnant with moisture. The humidity rackets up. A rough wind stirs the dust and leaves and then dies out. Once more, the air is still.
A fine sweat shimmers on Louise’s forehead; absently she wipes it off. The sense of being actors on a set returns and everything moves slowly. The camera pans the deck. We see Helen’s laughing mouth, Adam raising his glass, Adam looking at Louise, Helen looking at Louise, Adam looking at Helen, Louise wiping her brow. Then it stops and time resumes its normal pace.
There is music playing in the house. Adam goes inside to turn it up and when he comes outside again, Helen is dancing in that lustrous green dress, pulling Louise from her seat and spinning her around, pressing her body against Louise’s like they did to impress that drummer, or how they used to tease the private school boys at their university soirees. As they dance, Louise tilts her chin up to the sky, closing her eyes for just a moment, feeling Helen’s slippery dress against her body and the sensation of being spun very fast and close to the earth, like being on the whizzy dizz at the park when she was smaller. When she opens her eyes again it’s late and one thing has led to another. The house is dark and Helen has invited herself – or they’ve invited her – into their bed.
It is different to last time. Distance and the years have opened up a space between Louise and Helen and it feels like a first encounter. But the roles have been reversed; now it is Louise who thinks of leaving, glancing at the door to the bedroom which would take her down the hall and into quiet. Is she the kind of person who leaves when the party’s winding down, or someone who stays late, until or past the end?
She finds herself standing alone at the foot of the bed. Sooner or later …
‘Wait,’ says Adam, lightly panting. ‘Louise.’
Adam reaches for her with his eyes, trying to draw her back into their tryst. His desire is oppressive and she has a shocking thought: right now, all she wants to do is give it all away. Their life of luxury, their love, this strange and spacious house. And she realises she is angry with the failure of the storm.
Adam says her name again, ‘Louise.’
‘Helen,’ she says.
‘No,’ says Adam. ‘Louise.’
‘Louise,’ says Helen.
‘Helen,’ says Louise.
‘It’s okay … I know. Come here …’ Helen reaches for her arm. The pressure of her hand is gentle, but so insistent that finally it is all Louise can do to play her part.
Later, she has no idea what time, she wakes with a strange sense of anticipation. On one side of her is Adam, sleeping greedily. On the other, Helen lies so quietly it’s like she hardly even breathes. Flossy has curled up on the floor at their feet, put out at having been displaced, and the rough wind is back, throwing sticks and sand against the glass. Louise lies still and listens. She thinks she knows the nature of her question: a dynamic has shifted, something’s been distilled.
Gently, she rouses her sleeping friend. Helen stirs and turns to face her, although her eyes remain closed.
‘Helen … when you said I forgot to get your favourite. What did you mean?’
‘My favourite …’
‘The one you mentioned earlier, when I served the caviar. Your favourite. I can’t remember.’
‘Oh …’ Helen murmurs sleepily. ‘Smoked salmon. I don’t eat it anymore, since I’m a—’
‘Practicing vegan, yeah, but—’
‘I love it all the same,’ she sighs. ‘I thought you knew that, but maybe we’re not as close as we used to be.’
She lets her words hang between them and Louise can’t tell whether it is out of sleepiness, malice, sincerity or need. Adam stirs, demanding more of the blanket, and suddenly she leaps from the bed, sick of lying there between them.
‘Where are you going?’ Helen murmurs. ‘Come back—’
But her command is interrupted by the first hard slap of rain. Louise braces herself, for at this very moment, right above the house and only now that she has ceased to miss it, the storm has gathered itself and finally, resoundingly, arrives.
Peduncle Slap
August arrived on the wind, a chill southerly blowing off Bass Strait. I heard the humpbacks were migrating and suddenly felt inspired to take the children on a whale watching tour.
Our hope for the tour was to see a peduncle slap. This was the part, so my eldest daughter told me, when the whale stuck its tail out of the water and slapped it down on the surface with a big, resounding thwack. My daughter was almost five years old and clever, which is not to say she’s prodigious, just that she pays acute attention to language. She got ‘peduncle’ from a nature documentary and remembered it, this word I’d never heard.
Behaviouralists wonder whether peduncle slapping constitutes an act of aggression or one of jouissance – if whales can be said to possess psychic tonalities such as these. I searched peduncle slapping on the internet and found conflicting theories: some called it a playful ritual and others called it a warning. I wondered what humpbacks meant by this magnificent show of force and what emotions spurred it on. If we saw a humpback on the tour, would it slap its tail for us? Would it seem joyous or intimidating? Did we have the right to watch it?
These questions preoccupied me as I pulled up outside my mother-in-law’s house in the bristling dark of a Thursday morning. The forecast told me that the day would be windy but fine, although it currently seemed cloudy. The weather bureau was always getting it wrong. I’d heard they had a toxic culture of bullying and climate denial, which did not surprise me. You couldn’t work with weather and feel generous all the time. I looked at the sky through my windscreen; there were hardly any stars.
I thought my mother-in-law must be lonely. I was lonely too, but in a different way, because Alex was always travelling for work, leaving me alone with the children. My kids were cool, but I missed adult conversation. I felt like I was always waiting for Al to come home, for the children to grow up, for my favourite TV show to air, for my life to come back into focus. I supposed that many women felt this way. My mother-in-law probably experienced these feelings herself, when Alex was a boy.
