String Bridge (6 page)

“At least help her with her pajamas,” I say, looking into the simmering sauce. “She always puts the zoo ones on inside out, for some odd reason.” But just as I feel calm teasing the edges of my psyche, the nag in me rears its grievous head and pushes calm aside. “It’s already Tessa’s bedtime,” I snap. “And she’s up late because of you anyway. This could’ve all been avoided if you’d picked her up from preschool like I asked. I
told
you I had a busy day ahead of me, and all I asked from you was one day. Just
one
day to pick Tessa up from preschool. Just. ONE. Day. But no. You were
so
hung up about our conversation this morning that you just had to leave everything up to me again. Out of spite. Right?” I throw the wooden spoon into the pot and a bit of sauce splashes onto my hand. It burns. Stings. But not as much as my impatience with Alex. All he does is
stare
. Arms folded in the doorway. Corner of his mouth hooked up in “he couldn’t give a shit-ness.”

“Can’t you do
any
thing around here? I’m practically doing everything in my sleep. I’m. Tired,” I hiss.

“I’m sorry, Mel, but you deserved it,” Alex replies in a complacent tone.

“I what? How many times have you done things to hurt me? Huh? How many?”

“Should I have made a list?”

“That’s not my point. My point is that I still sweep all your
crap
under the carpet and get on with things like a responsible adult. But what do
you
do? You play stupid manipulating games like a pubescent teenager. How dare you make me climb eight flights of stairs today with all those groceries. If I had done that to you I would never have heard the end of it.”

“Sweep under the carpet? What’s that mean?” Alex scoffs.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Alex.”

Alex snickers, then huffs “fuck you,” and turns to exit the kitchen. But an unexpected wave of physical strength stimulates me like a shot of adrenaline and I hook my arm through Alex’s and swing him around to face me.

“Why do you always
swear
at me? You
always
say that you won’t do that anymore and the next day you do it again. No matter how many conversations we have about
anything
, they make absolutely no difference. What’s the bloody point? What’s your
fucking
problem?” I growl under my breath in the hope that Tessa won’t be able to hear.

“You’re my problem.” He snatches his arm away.

“Yeah.
That
I know. You
always
say that. What I want to know is, what’s your problem
with
me?”

“Everything.”

“Argh! What are you? A broken record? Can’t you act like an adult, just this once? We have problems. We. Need. To. Stop. This.”

“And. You. Need. To. Fuck. Off.”

After I put Tessa to bed I sit at the end of our three-seater couch clutching my knees to my chest. Through the open balcony door I can hear a man yelling at some driver for double-parking and blocking his car. I lean my head on the armrest. Still in my blue dress. Sticky. Stinky. Too lazy to take a shower. I stare at the TV, which is off. I look at my reflection in the screen. Quite warped in a pretty, yet indistinct kind of way. Like an eighteenth-century portrait of my soul on canvas, in a gray hue as if painted in darkness. Like the darkness I live in my head. If only I could remain in that reflection, as a painting, on a canvas—motionless, flushed with gothic candor, a lost spirit, a drifter, in a place where I will never be judged; a place where I can be hung in a gallery and be praised for my unconventional individuality.

I close my eyes and the image fades and molds together like I had been staring at the sun. I’m just drifting off to sleep when I feel the other end of the couch move. I open my eyes. It’s Alex. I watch him as he takes my feet and rubs them.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

I don’t move. But I do smile at him despite feeling too sad to do so.

“Mel,” Alex says, lying down next to me and kissing my neck. “Let’s get Tessa dressed.”

“Pardon?” I ask, sitting up. Not quite sure if I heard right. “She just went to bed.”

“Well, get her
out
of bed. We have tickets for Patti Smith.”

Five

Patti begins a Jimi Hendrix cover on clarinet. It murmurs a tragic mellow vibrato through Lykabettus Theatre like a wilting willow pleading to be left in solitude to wither and fade. Chatter hushes like ebbing rain as the guitarist’s jazz scales move the clarinet’s tune through waves. Rhythm guitar suspends the melody and the crowd roars. Patti puts the clarinet down, approaches the microphone and sings in her deep, gruff, aching voice,

If you can just

get your

mind together
…

The slow four/four beat of the guitar and Patti’s voice thumps through the ground, through my legs, body, arms, tightening my throat. Synchronic drums, bass and distorted guitar unite with the rhythm on the beat, creating an eruption of sundry emotion within me that startles the cold tears falling down my cheeks. I wipe them away with my smooth silk, silver shawl; I smile self-consciously at Alex. He’s balancing Tessa on his shoulders so she can see above the crowd of bobbing heads. He winks and wipes a stray tear dangling from my jaw. I quiver from his touch, in shock at the tenderness, the warmth I feel through such a small gesture.
Has he realized what I’m craving? Does he understand?

“You okay?” Alex screams into my ear gripping onto Tessa’s legs as he leans over. We are standing right next to a speaker twice the size as us, so I just smile, shake my head, and indicate that I have some dust in my eye by pretending to get it out. I give him a peck on the cheek, face the stage again and nod my head to the beat reverberating through the floor.

I didn’t want Alex to see the tears. He says I cry too much. He also believes I use my tears to get what I want. But it’s not so. He overheard my mother one day, whispering in my ear when she thought Alex wasn’t listening: “There’s nothing wrong with a few tears to give a little push in the right direction.” The fact that Alex believes I’m capable of such a thing, alone, makes me want to cry. But if I was ever put on stage, or in front of a camera, and instructed to cry, it’d be like asking me to grow a penis. I can’t stop my feelings but I can’t fabricate them either.

Alex, on the other hand, doesn’t cry. I’ve never seen him cry. I’m sure there’s some psychological explanation for it, other than being an orphan and having to stay strong through the countless foster parents he’s lived with in his lifetime, like our (long gone) marriage counselor proclaimed. Somewhere below his skin is Lake Eyre—only once every thirty-odd years does that dry salt lake in central Australia flood.

There may not be tears to show my husband’s emotions, but I’ve seen how the melancholy turns his insuperable face pale with grief every time we talk about his deceased ex-wife, Angelica; a stunning, tall, olive-skinned Latina. My looks don’t compare to hers one bit. I sometimes wonder whether Alex still loves her. After all, her loss was not his choice.

Patti’s long gray hair hangs loose and scraggly over her eyes. She emanates an aura so potent that you have to look twice to realize she’s dressed in an unflattering flannel shirt and jeans.
I want to be her, drenched in visible inner-beauty.

As I look up at the stage I wonder if I ever knew her in a previous life. The atmosphere in this theatre and Patti’s presence feel so familiar and accessible to me I could catch it in a jar, put it on my mantle like ashes in an urn, and take sips from it every now and then as if it were an elixir for life.

I gulp down the last of Alex’s whiskey from his white plastic cup, crush it in my hand and squash it into his back jean pocket. I close my eyes; soaking up the melodious warmth travelling through my chest as one particular lyric Patti sings catches my attention. I open my eyes, watch her gifted thick lips move against her gaunt face; her jagged raw beauty weeping with roaring passion. She sings something about there being a wind over our land and that we live not to die but to be reborn. And right at this moment, relief flushes through me like holy water cleansing me of sin. Maybe not all is lost if I don’t pursue my dream? Perhaps I’ll have the chance to do so in my next life? Should I be patient, appreciate what I already have—take advantage of the good that already exists in my life?

If only I could remember this relief in the midst of a bout of my daily “what ifs.” I signal to Alex to pass Tessa onto my shoulders for a while so that we can share a bit of dancing frenzy. I have a sudden urge to really just have some fun and to share it with my daughter. It would be better if she were a little older, but I suppose by the time she’s old enough to appreciate having a bit of fun at a rock concert, she wouldn’t want to be appreciating it with me—so I take the chance now.

But it doesn’t last long enough. Tessa forgets whose shoulders she is on and swings her limbs around like a rag doll in a washing machine. I wince in silence as she accidentally whacks me in the face with her orange patent leather shoe. I tried really hard to get her to wear the black pair, but she’d insisted. I pass her back to Alex and we exchange head shakes. His meaning, “What’s wrong?” Mine, meaning “Can’t do it.”

When we return home from the concert, Tessa is asleep, hanging over Alex’s shoulder, her arms dangling down his back like thick rope. Our elevator is still out of order. We climb the eight flights of marble stairs listening to our breath and footsteps echo through the building. Exhausted, Alex puts Tessa to bed, and we both collapse on the couch in front of the TV. Alex has an absent smile on his face—one of those smiles we aren’t often aware of, but that bloom like flowers triggered by sudden sunshine.

“Must have been nice going to a gig where you didn’t have to run around networking,” I say. Alex twitches his head in my direction as if I have disrupted his sleep.

“Sorry?” he asks, eyebrows raised, resting his elbow on the left arm rest, and chin on his hand. “Oh, yeah. It was cool.”

A few moments of silence pass as I watch the blue TV light flash on his still smiling face.
I wonder what he’s thinking.
I could ask. But I just sit there, a little drunk, staring at the wrinkles around his mouth; wondering if I’m capable of feeling anything other than this repellent emptiness; wondering whether the emptiness is normal, if I should see a therapist, if I should tell Alex that he has crow’s feet and I don’t, and that his stubble is flecked with gray; whether I should ask if he has got everything out of life he desired.

“Did you have a good time, babe?” Alex asks, seeming to realize I was trying to start a conversation. How long has it been now? Since we had a decent conversation? I can’t remember. I can’t remember.

“Um … yeah!” I chirp, false enthusiasm squirting from my mouth like poison.
I don’t know how
to describe the time I had. Was it a good time? Moments of it were torture—a reminder of what I don’t have. Other moments were sanctified with sheer joy—a reminder of how much music resuscitates my failing pulse. But most of it felt like trying to cross the ocean on a bridge made of fraying string—Will I? Won’t I? Can I? Should I?

Alex rubs his eyes and mumbles, “Bed?” Looking at me with blind eyes, he slaps his hands on his knees in cue to stand.

“Er, not sure if I’m ready yet. I think I’ll read a bit. Go if you want. Won’t be long. I just need to get the buzz out of my head before I sleep.”

Alex smiles with horizontal tight lips. “Okay. Try not to wake me. I’m fucking tired.”
Try not to wake you?
I presumed he sympathized with me during the concert after the compassion he showed. I guess I presumed wrong. What
was
that? That moment when he wiped away my tear and I felt a hint of care?

Once Alex goes to bed, I close the corridor door so as not to wake him with my rattle. I shuffle into my office to grab a book to read, but switch on my computer instead. Perhaps I’ll send a couple of emails back home to Australia. Tell my family my news—whatever that is. But to my surprise and relief my best and lifelong friend, Serena, is online.

MelodyHill(Billy?)
Heya! You busy?

Serena_Servais
G’day stranger! What u doin up?

MelodyHill(Billy?)
Went to see Patti Smith!

Serena_Servais
Really? Fab!

MelodyHill(Billy?)
Yeah was pretty fab! You at work?

Serena_Servais
Nope. Day off. Sittin with my mini laptop in the morning sun drinkin latte, eatin eggs Benedict in Fitzroy. On my own. Lovin it. All peaches and cream, lovey! How’s you?

MelodyHill(Billy?)
I’m ok. Feelin bit low.

Serena_Servais
???

MelodyHill(Billy?)
You know me
been to gig
now feelin miserable
story of my life

Serena_Servais
Sorry, egg yoke just went down my chin. On dress. Egg foam on latte. Reckon I could patent new egg latte? … C’mon Mel! Just speak to him. Alex wonderful man. Alex angel. Alex luv u, u luv Alex. What’s problem? We both know he’ll give u gig if u ask! Alex do anything u ask!

MelodyHill(Billy?)
I just feel so alone …

Serena_Servais
You’re not alone Mel. You have beaut family. You have me too!

MelodyHill(Billy?)
But that’s problem. He’s really all I have. Not that I don’t appreciate having him, but it’s hard sometimes. I can’t talk to him about some things like I need to. Greek men have weird ways. Can’t talk without fear of maybe having fight if blurt out thoughts wrong. He always misunderstands my intentions. You live on other side of world. My parents live on island with weird ferry timetable. I miss you. I miss Australia. Can I join you for Eggs Benedict? Order me latte, full fat! I’ll jump on plane now! ☺