The Grief Hole, page 23
His face flared and Theresa knew there was no way she’d fight him, not with what she knew of his strength, his anger and his lack of remorse. His hands were clenched and his mouth, too. Teeth pressed tight together.
“Is everything all right?” she said in the car. He sat in the back with her while Red drove and they spoke low. “Something happened to piss you off?”
“None of your business,” he said. She had to bite off a laugh at this childish response.
“No, sorry. It isn’t.”
“Things could have worked out differently, that’s all. I should be in a position where I’m not the babysitter.” He looked at her, grinned sideways. “Or the pimp.”
“I don’t want to think about what that means.”
“Most women are desperate to think about it. And we get lucky too, sometimes.”
“Well, lucky, lucky you.”
His stabbed ghosts were still there. Angry ghosts. Fists clenched. Join us, join us, they’d say if she could hear them.
“Yeah, lucky. We get to mop up, don’t we, Red?” he said, raising his voice. “Especially those who say no. Not that there’s been many of those. And not that we can do much for them.”
Theresa tried the car door, thinking, I can jump out, run. I don’t need the artwork, Scott will understand. If there’s a choice, I know what he’d choose, he wouldn’t want this.
But the door was locked. “It’s too late,” Blondie said. “Too, too late. He’s decided and that’s it. Don’t worry. We’ll mop up.”
Red hadn’t spoken. She wondered if he wished this wasn’t happening but didn’t dare stand against it.
Red drove her to the door. “Takehiro’ll let you in. You’ll be seen in the Inner. I’ll be there shortly. Blondie and I have to sort out a couple of things.”
The inner. She hadn’t heard them mention it and she hated to think what it was. She thought bowels of the building, deep inside, many doors, many passages.
And that was right.
Theresa was attracted to many elements of Sol Evictus. This filled her with self-hatred. But he could change her life. He could change it completely and part of her felt this would be a good thing. He had the power to help or destroy many.
She waited in the hallway for forty-five minutes, until Takehiro led her deep into the house to the Inner.
Sol Evictus, in a dressing gown, leant back. A young man gave him a pedicure.
The room was red velvet, curtains, carpet, walls. Red stood beside him; Theresa wondered what he’d sorted out. There was no sign of Blondie.
Sol Evictus waved the boy away. He looked, wide-eyed, at the shopping bag she carried. “You’ve brought me something heart-breakingly personal this time?” She looked away as he pulled the shirt from the bag and unfolded it carefully. Gasped. “My God, that’s a face. That’s a face.”
“It’s my boyfriend’s face. That’s Ben. He drowned, remember? After hitting his head. Blood everywhere. That’s his face.”
He held it up, his mouth open. He didn’t blink.
“It was over his face when he died.”
“Over his face, you say?” He clutched it to his face and breathed in. He seemed to writhe, almost, and a low moan escaped him. “This has a lot of meaning.”
He tapped her knee with his fingertip. He turned the shirt over in his fingers. Laid it out on his lap. Smoothed it. Smelt it.
“Is it a good likeness?”
“I think so. It smells of him. It looks like him.”
“It smells of the moment of knowing. This makes me happy. I wish there was something I could give to you. But what could match this? What possible thing?”
“You know what it is,” she said. “You know but you don’t want to part with it. How about this, then? You make me a promise.”
“What sort of promise?”
“Don’t send anyone else in to Paradise Falls. Close it down.”
He smiled. “My goodness, you are a saint, aren’t you? Always thinking of others. Anything for you. Consider it done. You are good to me. In my time of need.”
“Are you not well?”
“I feel the pressure of the world harder some days than others. I feel the hairs of the world in my throat. To be given this gift, and to hear what you want in return, fills me with joy. Let us pray this joy lasts a while. But you. You seem sad. What can we do to lift this sadness from you?”
“Your promise will lift the sadness. I’m sure.”
He cupped her chin, leant forward and kissed her gently on the mouth. Then harder. His lips were flaccid and cold. He caressed and squeezed her knee, rubbed his fingers up her thigh. Stroked her arm.
Red fidgeted slightly. Sol Evictus smiled at him, shiny mouthed. Wet-lipped.
“You wanna watch, Red? You a bit agitated?” He smiled at Theresa. “You know I like to have my guards with me. They know that if I’m ever hurt, they should instantly kill the perpetrator, no questions.”
“I’m not here to hurt you!” she said.
“I know, I know. I’m explaining why my man Red is here. Some women can get over-wrought at being alone with me. Others don’t like an audience.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” she said. She felt suddenly euphoric, desperately in love. She wanted him, she wanted him to be happy, she wanted to be the one to make him happy.
Sol Evictus left to ‘prepare’, he said.
Red said, “You need to be careful of him. He can trap you.”
She stroked his cheek. “Trap me? Does he trap people?”
“He’ll trap you in a box.”
“Like, a real box?”
“No, doesn’t need that. He’ll keep you trapped until he’s bored with you.”
“What does it matter to you?”
“He hasn’t had people like you here before. You make me look at life and wonder.”
He wore a bracelet made out of drinking straws; a daughter’s project.
“Sorry.”
“You are sitting very close to each other,” Sol Evictus said, treading softly into the room. He was dressed in a silk dressing gown with tiny stars on it and Theresa had to close her eyes not to laugh at him. He looked like a cliché, a joke. He’d brushed his hair, wet it down, and it sat neat against his skull. He’d poured on some scent; something expensive, she thought, because it didn’t hurt her nose. He’d washed his hands; they were still damp. He had soft slippers on his feet.
“Sorry, sir,” Red said. He stepped away. Stood with his face to the door, only a metre or so away from it.
“Who do you see around him?” Sol Evictus said. He almost purred.
“I see men with their throats slit. Fingers broken. No wedding rings,” Theresa said. It was the first time she’d lied about the ghosts to be cruel.
“Red,” he said. “The curtains.” Red drew back the heavy brocade to reveal a large four poster bed, made with pale pink bedclothes set with flowers and gold stripes.
Sol Evictus reached his fingers out for her throat and stroked. “Like silk,” he whispered. His hands smelt of expensive soap. The smell of a clean man.
He stroked her cheek, her chin, her neck. His fingers were soft, as if he used hand cream every night. Men didn’t usually have soft hands like that. But then he hadn’t worked physically for most of his life. He’d sung. He’d worked at that and she wouldn’t deny that was hard work but not the graft that some…she realised her mind was babbling, taking her elsewhere. She’d done this before. There were times. She’d taken herself out of it, let her mind babble.
She wasn’t even sure if this was worth it, if she would gain anything at all. But she felt as if she had no choice. She wanted it; she wanted to try him. See what sort of a lover he made.
“It’s lovely,” he said. “Oh, you smell so good.”
He kissed her. If she closed her eyes, concentrated on how he smelt, she could imagine he was someone else. Even Ben. The aftershave he wore smelled a lot like Ben’s.
“Do I smell good?” he said. “What do you think?”
“You do. I love it.”
“Do you know the scent?”
“It smells a bit like the one Ben used to wear. But that was a while ago. I’m not sure.”
“You never forget a smell. I bought this scent from the man who cleaned out his work desk.”
She stood up. Horrified. “You’re wearing Ben’s actual after-shave?”
“Did you make love before he died? Had you made love that week, before he left? Or did you have a fight and never got that last one, that farewell love? What a loss. What a shame.”
He kissed her again. This time she breathed deeply and he did feel like Ben, his body shape and his face. Had he changed? Was he different? She reached her arms around him and pulled him closer to her. He grunted, pleased.
She put her hand against his chest and she felt his heart beat faster, as if excited.
She tilted her head back to display her throat. He kissed it, licked it and she shuddered. His breath smelt like musk. She put her hands to his shoulders and they were firm, smooth.
He led her gently to the bed. He drew his fingers over the scar on her arm and touched her ankle. He sees beyond the obvious, Theresa thought.
She kept her eyes closed and he didn’t seem to mind. Some men liked your eyes open, so you could see them. Some men didn’t care. She went through lists in her brain; of the food she had in her cupboard. The stamps they had on the ‘ordered’ list. The clothes in her wardrobe.
“Call me Sol,” he said.
She went through the top ten list of music downloads, the last Oscar winners, she went through anything at all.
He whispered, “We may never meet again.”
There were ghosts hovering around the bed, hers or his or Red’s? She wondered if they were her potential lovers, all the men she could have slept with, and she put faces to them, imagined them as real people, watching over her. All the good men she hadn’t slept with, all the men who could have loved her.
And he whispered in her ear, “I knew your grandmother.”
His smell though, and the feel of him, the first man since Ben. He let her keep her eyes shut, thinking of Ben, Ben, Ben…
She awoke alone and cold. The bedcovers bunched at the bottom of the bed, only the sheet draped over her. Red stood at the door, still facing it. She wondered if he’d moved.
“Red?” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“I…” she sat up. She felt fine. It hadn’t been so bad. There was no pain. It was intense and strange, but she wasn’t hurt. “I’m tired.”
“He drains you, doesn’t he?”
“I guess so. But it was okay. As you know. You must have heard everything.”
“I try not to listen.”
“I think I’ll get dressed. Don’t turn around.”
When she was ready, she said “It’s okay now.”
He turned. Looked at her quizzically.
“I’m fine. Seriously. I don’t feel trapped at all. I’m sure I can walk away.
“Yeah, well. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. My wife was fine for ages, but now I can’t even get her to cook the dinner. She’s on about warming up soup or shit like that. Kids and I need to eat.”
“There must be something you can do.”
“What, quit? He doesn’t like quitters.”
“I don’t know, report him or something. Fight him, knock him down. He’s only a man.”
“He’s not that easy. That thick scar across his throat is from a slashing. We all saw it. His throat cut, and jeezus fuck, how much blood was there? Like a man emptied. And yet he didn’t die. God, we shat ourselves. He lay there and then he sat up, holding his throat, as if it was like a scratch or something. Then we knew we couldn’t go anywhere until he said we could.”
She picked up her dress.
Theresa felt something dark and cold inside her, as if a baby was forming, a devil. She knew this wasn’t possible, but still she felt his seed in there and it changed her. She felt darker than she had ever felt, even after the loss of Ben, even in the Grief Hole. She felt hopeless, wasted.
They walked to the car. Red helped her.
“I’m shattered,” she said, her legs weak.
“You’ll be right. He likes you. If he didn’t, if he wanted to get rid of you, you’d be chucking yourself under a truck right now.”
Theresa curled herself up in the back seat, thinking of the men she’d damaged and the woman and how detached she was from their final ending. How she’d set things off but not pulled the trigger herself.
She didn’t notice where he was driving, too caught up in her own ball of flesh.
“Anyway, he’s real happy with his new artist.”
“Has he found someone?”
“Yeah, a young kid. Knows the Falls so doesn’t have to get used to it, if you know what I mean.”
Andy. He means Andy.
She felt a loud buzz of ghosts she couldn’t see.
Theresa knew then she couldn’t let it lie. She had to intervene. She couldn’t let another child die. It didn’t matter that his music helped; the way he made his music, by sucking in the despair of art, was not worth it. A life should not be sacrificed.
At home Theresa showered, showered again, ordered the gross-est, cheesiest pizza on the menu, took the delivery, managed to smile at the delivery boy. Ate it all, greasy cheeks, full stomach, and then she showered again. She made toast and slathered it with her father’s jam, something she’d been doing since the age of three. Making a mess on the bench and usually her dad would wipe it up, pretending to be cross but happy that she loved his jam so much.
She sat with her dog, holding him until he wriggled free then came back to her for more.
There were three messages on her machine, two from Courtney. “We’re worried about you. You seem different.”
If I seemed different then, imagine what they’ll think now, Theresa thought. She knew she’d been odd with them, that the grief hole would always sit on the edge of her consciousness.
One from Tim. “Are you okay?”
She couldn’t cope with kindness, so deleted the message.
She showered again. She felt his saliva on her as if a snail had crawled across her skin. She felt his fingers in her hair and she wanted to shave it off but thought he would think she’d done it for him
She searched her body for his mark. His brand. She found a small star-shaped mole she didn’t think she had before, above her right hip. It felt slightly tender to the touch.
She remembered that he had told her he had no children.
She dressed and went to Passing Strange, her café. The owner’s husband was redesigning a wall, outlining a mural. The owner told him, “It’s gonna look great,” five, six times in the thirty minutes Theresa was there.
“Artists need a lot of reinforcement,” the woman said, smiling at Theresa.
“As do poets,” her husband said, and they crossed hands, the intimacy of it filling Theresa with deep envy for what she would never have.
She drank black mugs of a spicy brew and ate chocolate chip cookies. Her dog sat at her feet, snuffling up the crumbs, sniffing at the other customers.
“He’s such a sweetie,” the owner said. “Look at him. I think he brings good luck to the place.”
It was as if nothing had happened. As if Theresa was the same person she had been a few days earlier, could interact as she would have then.
Her phone rang. Scott. She couldn’t talk to him yet; she felt shame about what had happened, she didn’t want to face him, didn’t want to tell him what she’d done. Courtney, she didn’t want to tell her either. Courtney would feign jealousy and that would be embarrassing, she’d gone on about how she’d do Sol Evictus in flash. She answered the phone, faked a hangover. Scott understood hangovers.
Theresa walked naked around her house, trying to recapture herself. She read his list of lost loved ones, to understand him, make him seem lovable. Her list had one name on it. Only Ben.
“Mum?” She’d called her on a whim. Called her for help. “Mum? I’m feeling lost, I don’t know where to go next. I don’t know who to trust.” It was the answering machine and her mother didn’t call back.
She called Raul, telling him the same: I don’t know who to trust.
“You should know. You should know by now. I can’t tell you. But if you’re not sure if you can trust someone then you probably can’t.”
“I don’t know. I feel damaged. I feel changed.”
“Change can be for the better. You don’t want to stay the same all your life.”
“This is more damage than change. This is unwilling.”
“What’s happened?”
“It’s Sol Evictus. There’s something about him.”
“He’s got the magic, all right. Isn’t he too old for you? Or not. I have no idea how old he is. He does have a beautiful voice.”
“I know. He’s too old, he’s too strong. He’s too full of shit.”
“So you’ve answered your own question.” She recognised his tone of voice; she’d used it on clients. It said, I’ve sorted you out, move on.
She showered. She thought she would never have sex again; that her sexuality was wiped clean. She felt no desire, no interest. The dog whined at the bathroom door, not wanting to be apart from her.
She ate salads and vegies, expensive steak cooked fast and hot. She ignored the phone and the texts that came through.
She walked with her dog on the beach.
She showered.
Prudence sat selling her balloons by the shore. “Ah, there’s my poor little girl. My poor, dear girl.”
The sympathy, the acknowledgment, broke Theresa. She sat on the seat beside Prudence and cried.
