That which can't be Faced

A clutter of chrome bits and bobs scattered on black laminate. Black light-fittings suspended from chrome, faux plumbing. A row of elevating chrome chairs upholstered with black faux leather, a wall of mirrors, their borders printed with chrome filigree. Black, chrome, black. Am I in there somewhere?

I remember that I’ve got my client’s hair gripped between the first and second fingers of my left hand, very firmly. In a moment of panic and embarrassment, I can’t recall for how long I’ve been standing like this.

Long enough for my client’s eyes to take on an anxious bulge and his eyebrows to have vanished up into his damp fringe.

He coughs gently, ‘You alright Sandi, luv?’

‘Oh God. I’m so sorry Mr. Wilkens.’ My hand twitched, and I released his hair. I put my scissors on the counter and picked up the comb and drew it through his hair a few times until my breathing had settled and Mr. Wilkens had closed his eyes.

Unexpectedly he spoke again, ‘I was sorry to hear about your grandad luv, hard to credit it, I remember watching him play footy for the Eagles. I don’t mean the AFL a’ course. I mean the local boys, Maclead. He didn’t take any prisoners your grandad. Still, they was all like that back then, hard as Castlemaine Rock, only not so sweet.’

I stared into the mirror, then blinked deliberately, lest I should get stuck there again. I measured Mr. Wilkens’ hair for the second time and got a nod to confirm the length, then, clickety clack, I got on with the job.

Ten minutes later, I slipped the Twenty in the twenty tray, the Tenner in the ten tray, and pulled out Five in change, when I noticed Mr. Wilkens in the mirror, staring at my legs. I glanced away and swallowed my flinch. After all, the mandatory short black leather skirt is what really kept the seniors coming to the shop. At least that’s what Bazza reckons. And he would know. The prick.

I handed over the change and wondered to myself, so what kept me coming?

‘You take care now Luv, it’s been nice havin you back. And your grandad, well, he’s at peace now at least.’

I nod. ‘See you next time Mr. Wilkens.’

And I think. He’s not at peace, if there’s any justice the old bastard’s burning in hell!

The old bastard’s funeral had been a significant event as far as the suburb was concerned. A pillar of the church, once. Life member of the Macleod Eagles. Life member of the CFA. Past master of the Masonic Lodge, and according to the aged care workers, a notoriously handsy perve to the very last.

And… Not my actual grandfather.

The funeral hadn’t started well for me. I sat alone in the front pew until the Millar sisters, both in their 80’s, took pity and sat either side of me, grasping an arm each.

Where were the others? Twelve foster children over 40 years, but only one little duck came back.

The full complement had come to Nannie’s funeral 18 months ago. They all called her mum except me. I was last by almost 10 years. A special case? Probably. Nobody seemed to know anything about my origins. The adoption papers were silent in the matter of birth parents.  

It’s 4:45. 15 minutes to closing. It’s been a long day since Mr. Wilkens followed me into the shop at opening. Many of the elderly customers offering condolences.  I’ve swept and cleared the till. Black, chrome, black. My life is colour free. 10 minutes. I grabbed the shoulder straps of my backpack.

The door swung open, and the bell tinkled. Shit! I looked up from my screen. Two! Shitty shit. It must have shown on my face, crap.

‘Whoa. Sandi, we come in peace.’

‘Oh, Juz! I’m sorry. It’s no trouble, we’re still open.’ I smiled my best fake smile and stood up. I mean, what was I going home to anyhow? And at least Justin and his friend were my own generation. Pull yourself together Sandi. 

‘Actually, we haven’t come for a cut. We umm, look, ah, this is Tangles, my flat mate.’

Tangles stepped forward, hand extended. ‘Pleased to meet you Sandi, call me Nick.’ I shook his hand.

‘Nick.’ I said, with a frown and the slightest of nods by way of greeting. Wary, that’s me. Nick’s smile faltered.

‘I umm.’

What is it with these two and their ‘umms’

‘Ahh, look this is probably stupid. It’s just I thought I might know you. Like from a long time ago.’

If this is a pick up, it’s pretty clumsy.

‘Like I mean when we were kids. But I thought your name was Alexandra?’

My stomach clenched, my legs failed, and I sunk back into the chair. For a moment I thought I was going to faint.

‘Shit Sandi. Are you ok?’ Justin grabbed my shoulders and stopped me sliding off the chair. I took two deep breaths with my head in my hands.

‘Oh, God, how embarrassing, I’m ok, it’s just been. Like, so much happening the last week, I haven’t eaten today. Umm.’

Now it’s me with the umms!

‘Ok, alright, look you don’t look great, let us drive you home.’

‘No, no, I’m fine.’ I started to stand up, and I wasn’t fine, I was wobbly.

‘You don’t look fine. It’s no trouble, seriously.’

Nick looked worried.

He thinks it’s his fault. Maybe it is? That name. It meant something. It means something. ‘Well, ok, thank you. It’s not far.’ But it is uphill.

Grandad’s house was a forbidding, double story dark brick house with one of those high-pitched roofs. It had a loft which contained three small bedrooms, like a third story. The house was on the high side of Mountain View Road. Justin pulled his dirty old Outback up the narrow driveway and wrenched on the hand brake until the car stopped rolling back down toward the road. As we climbed out, he found a rock and shoved it under a wheel. Then he wiped his hand down his jeans and took my elbow and turned toward the front door.

‘No! No, around the back.’ I said and pointed with my left arm. ‘The front door is only for visitors.’

‘Aren’t we visitors?’

‘Granddads visitors.’ And I led them around the side. Justin was maybe 3 years older than me. He was my youth group leader at church, we all had teenage crushes on Juz, including Hugh, the only boy in the group.

We passed through a gate and everything changed. The concrete path was cracked and uneven with moss growing from the damp edge where a rusted downpipe dripped. The paint on the windowsill was cracked and peeling and rotting.

We followed the slippery path around to the back door.  I unlocked it and shoved hard to open it against the swollen frame. Then I paused. I had never, ever, brought anyone home. Grandad will kill me. I take a deep breath. I’m pretty sure he can’t reach me from hell. Pretty sure.

I stepped into the small kitchenette and hit the light switch. ‘Thanks for seeing me home. Ah, can I make you a coffee, or tea, or…’ the last ‘or’ just hung in the air, in reality I had nothing else to offer. I ate the last pack of dried biscuits a week ago. Justin looked at me frowning, then walked to the bar fridge and opened it. Empty. Not even milk. He glanced at me, then Nick, then said, ‘Wait here.’

He walked outside, was gone for less than a minute and then returned with a glass casserole dish that contained what looked like Chicken casserole.

‘Oh! Did you bring that?’ I asked in surprise.

‘No Sandi. My mum made it and dropped it off this morning, in the front porch, there are 5 other homemade casseroles there. When I said I was coming to see you, mum mentioned it. What’s going on?’

‘Jesus. I had no idea! I never go to the front door. It isn’t permitted.’

‘Isn’t permitted? What?  The church ladies have a care-roster, shit Sandi.’ He raised his arms lost for words.

I looked at him in wonder. ‘I had no idea.’ I've never heard of such a thing!

‘Is there an oven?’ He asked.

‘No, well not here. It’s in Nanny’s kitchen.’ Justin made to walk toward the only door leading from the kitchenette. ‘No!’ I said too loudly and grabbed his arm. ‘It’s not permitted.’

At first I thought he was going to argue, but instead he just asked. ‘Saucepan?’ I pointed to a cupboard below the small, bench top portable hot plate.

While Justin heated the casserole in the saucepan, Nick drove back to the shops to buy some beers. Soon we were sitting around my small laminex table eating. God, it was the best thing I’d eaten for weeks, the only thing I’d eaten since the sandwiches at the funeral two days ago.

When the chicken was all gone Justin cleared the plates and Nick took long glances at me over the rim of his tinny.

‘Al… I mean Sandi, is it ok if we, um talk about, um.’

Finally! I twisted my fingers together on the table and just nodded. I had no idea what was coming, but if there was any chance he knew something about my background, I really needed to know.

‘So there was this photo at the funeral.’ He began.

‘You were at the funeral?’

‘Ah, yeah, sorry, I’ve been visiting Juz for term break and he said come along. So, anyway this photo…’

‘Wait.’ I said and disappeared up the narrow stairs that led from the corner of the kitchenette beside the back door. Past the first floor where a door led to a toilet, past the second floor where a door led to a bathroom, onto the tiny third floor landing and into my room. The box of photos from the funeral were on my desk. I brought it downstairs and dumped it on the table. ‘Which photo?’ I asked.

‘Ah well, there’s a small girl in it, with an old lady. When I asked Juz about it, he said it was you.’

I knew the one. I rifled through the box and pulled it out. I passed it across to Nick. It was the youngest photo I had of me. I think the photo was taken at a church picnic. I was in a red dress with large yellow flowers, thin shoulders straps. Nanny had my hand in hers. She had a weird smile, not happy really, her eyes turned down at the edges, her eyes were sad. In the photo I wasn’t smiling. I looked completely lost, bewildered. I was gripping Nanny’s finger like I was hanging off a cliff. 

Nick looked at the photo. ‘This is you yeah?’

‘Yes.’ I don’t think I ever looked at this photo properly before. The sad desperation of the child in the photo reached out and squeezed my heart. I sniffed and rubbed my sleeve across my face. Classy, that’s me. ‘This is the earliest photo of me I’ve got. I think, looking at it now, I must have been just placed with Nanny and Grandad.’

Nick looked at me with his eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know anything about your birth parents? Or where you come from?’ I just shook my head and met his eyes. Does he know something?

Nick reached for his phone and tapped a few times. He turned the phone so I could see the screen. A ‘Whats App’ conversation. The other person had replied, ‘this it?’ Then a photo of a framed photo sitting on what might be a piano. Nick tapped his phone and zoomed, and the photo filled the screen. A boy aged maybe 5 or 6, shorts, bare chest puffed out, brown hair sun-bleached blond at the tips. He was holding hands with a little girl wearing a red dress with large yellow flowers. Me. 100%. Me.

I gaped at the photo. The little girl was smiling. Properly smiling, but shy. Leaning in toward the older boy.

‘That’s me.’ Said Nick. ‘I’m 6.’

I was still gaping, like a stunned mullet. Willing him to continue, but afraid to speak.

‘So. If it is you, I think we’re like, second cousins. This photo was taken at Boat Harbour beach near Wynyard.’

‘Tasmania!’ I whispered, still gaping.

‘If I remember properly, I think you were visiting from down south somewhere. It was the first time I met you. You spent the day stuck to me like a puppy, but I didn’t mind, there were no other kids my age and, well, I suppose I liked the attention. But then we never saw you guys again.’

‘What do you mean?’

Nick shrugged. ‘I dunno. I mean my mum’s had this photo on the piano for, what, nearly 17 years. I think I might have asked mum once, when we would see you guys again, and my mum said something like, we don’t see them anymore.'

‘Them? What do you mean them?’

‘Huh?’

‘Your mum said, ‘We don’t see them?’

‘Oh; your mum and dad and you, and your twin baby brothers.’

I knew I was gaping again. With justification I thought. Baby brothers!

‘Surname! Do you know my surname?’

‘No. Wait! I’m not sure, but maybe, I have a feeling your dad was related to my mum. Her maiden name was O’Shea. So, yeah, maybe.’

I felt so close. I always knew Nanny wasn’t my actual grandmother, from as soon as I could understand such things. But she was always there. At least until I turned 13. Then I was a BIG girl, and I needed to move out of the Front House into the back house. Every evening Nanny left my dinner on the small laminex table. But apart from that I had to look after myself. I knew from the other girls at school and church that this wasn’t normal, but to be honest, I was relieved to be out of sight and out of reach of grandad...  so… yeah.

When I finished high school Nanny told me I needed to ‘go away’ for university. So, I did. She made sure I took all my things. She even gave me an old suitcase to put them all in. She said I could keep it, that her travelling days were over. In truth I don’t recall that she ever had a night away from home in the 15 years I lived with them.

I wanted to study literature, but grandad said I would die destitute, so instead I chose Psychology. I was 6 months into first year psych at Geelong when Nanny died. I finished first year, but I couldn’t face second year, the study required me to ask questions of myself that I had no context for answers. Like asking a fish about rain. I was human-adjacent, my imagination wasn’t up to the task of creating a life where the questions could land. “What was it like growing up in your family”, “How do you think your family might describe you?”, “What was your father's childhood like?”

In January I got a call from Miss Miller (the younger) to tell me grandad had been moved into Care because of his dementia. I moved back to The House. The back house. And for the last 6 months I visited him at Strathallen every Sunday. He never recognised me once, but I never abandoned him, he was my excuse for escaping Uni. I read him chapters from Revelations in the hope he would be agitated long after I had left, but I suppose his dementia saved him from the everlasting torment of the lake of fire and sulphur. It gave me fleeting satisfaction to see his eyes dart erratically, and his hands clench until the bones shone pale beneath the liver spotted skin.

Then he died too.

And now this boy was torturing me with a carrot held just out of reach. O’Shea? Was that my name. It sounded Irish.

‘Look, as soon as I get home I’ll speak to mum. She must know something.’

They left me sitting at my old table staring into space. At least Juz did the dishes.

Six months later the pale spring sunshine followed me through the door of Bazza’s Buzz 'n Blades. The fresh colours of the street faded to black and chrome and I felt the tension between my shoulders ease. Sandi’s addiction. I’m honest with myself to that extent. I know it’s not healthy living on my own. How does the song go?  There’s no change, there’s no pace, everything within its place. That’s my addiction. The pay-off is too good. Safe. Safe. Safe.

Nick never rang me back. I tried to reach him through Juz, but he went back to Hobart Uni after break.  Sometimes I see Juz’s mother in the IGA, the first time she apologised. ‘Sorry dear, he hardly ever calls. Boys, you know.’ And she shrugged. I shrugged too. I don’t know boys... so… yeah. Since then, she has always been in a rush to be somewhere else.

Today was the second Thursday of the month, so Mr. Wilkens will be in. And… there he was at the door.

‘Good morning, Sandi luv!’ He waved with his walking-stick, while he gripped the door with the other hand. ‘Top of the mornin to ya!’

‘Morning Mr. Wilkens are you well?’

‘Couldn’t be better. Wouldn’t be dead for quids.’

It was the same routine rain, hail or shine.

‘Just take a seat a moment while I finish opening up.’

‘Right you are luv no hurry, no hurry.’

I walked to the back of the shop and switched the lights on at the switchboard. I hung up my jacket and put away my handbag. I put fresh water in the spray bottle and checked the toilet was clean.

Then it occurred to me that the room was very quiet. I turned to where Mr. Wilkens was sitting. Normally he ran a constant line of chatter whilst watching my every move, but this morning he was reading the paper. His eyes were moist, and he was breathing through his mouth. The paper trembled.

‘Is everything alright Mr. Wilkens?’

‘Oh. I’m sorry m’dear. I get upset so easily these days. I don’t know why I read the news.’ He folded the paper neatly but slapped it down as if he might discipline the writers into reporting nicer stories. I helped him to his feet, and he walked across to the chair I had ready.

‘Did you see that story?’

I don’t follow the news, so no. I shake my head.

‘Oh, terrible, terrible. Three little boys. This bloke, I can’t credit it. Drove his car into a dam and killed himself and his boys.’ His voice faltered and he wiped his sleeve across his eyes. I wrapped the tissue band around his throat and flicked the cape over his shoulders and clipped it at the back. I started with a number four comb fitted to the shaver and clipped his sides and back.

‘It reminds me of that other horror story. Oh, you would be too young to remember I suppose. Terrible, terrible. Let me see now, Dingle Bay, on the Derwent River in Hobart, if I’m not mistaken. Some bloke, drove straight off the little jetty into the river. It was in all the papers of course. Terrible, you wouldn’t credit it. His family in the car, let me see now, killed his wife and was it twin boys? Yes, I think so, terrible. Now wait up. If I remember, a little girl was saved pulled from the sinking car.’

I put down my shaver and gripped his hair between the first and second finger of my left hand, very firmly.

‘O’Shea. That was the name if I’m not mistaken. O’Shea.’

The sound of scissors hitting tiles point-first is very distinctive and unpleasant. Likewise, the heavy thud of a soft body followed by the ugly crack of an unsupported head. It can be very disturbing, and Mr. Wilkens was already quite upset that morning.