adelaide sprawls

They shared both the cigarette and its figure, passing it one to the other, pinched between finger and thumb by one, scissored by the other.

All of them - the cigarette, the brunette, the blonde - long, straight and increasingly lined.

Each deep drag thinned.

They had, like everyone else in the line, suitcases at their feet. Padlocked zips and ribbons (one gold, one red) wrapped around the handles. They wore, both of them, tight jeans, high boots and jackets that weren’t tasselled or denim, but could have been.

Cars drove up, boots popped, people got out, gave quick and cursory hugs, lifted suitcases in, doors slammed, cars drove off.

Like everyone else in the line, the women glanced at their watches, checked their phones and hunched their shoulders against the cold. They spoke, but not loud enough to be overheard.

Their car, when it arrived, was loud and black, or perhaps deep blue. Its tyres were rimmed with silver and its windscreen wipers were fast. The boot popped. Nobody got out.

The blonde woman, the last to hold the cigarette, looked right, looked left, then twisted to look behind. She looked to the right again. Frowned as she took one last drag.

A short beep from the car.

The blonde woman pressed the butt against the pole she had not leaned against, twisted her hand to look at the ashed end of the cigarette, then, using her thumb, she pushed the butt into the pocket of her jeans.

She pulled at the handle of her suitcase and wheeled it to the car.

‘She wouldn’t be quite so annoying if she wasn’t quite so short,’ she said.

She scratched her head and pulled her hair behind her ears in the way that she always did. He looked down at the table and closed his eyes for a second longer than a blink.

‘Like the cardigan she was wearing was a perfect fit, except for the sleeves, and so she’d made a cuff which was four rolls thick.’ She cleared her throat and he knew that if he looked up now he would see her biting her lips.

She blew on her cup of tea. Had her blows always been so loud?

‘At least four rolls.’

Pip put his cup down, picked up the pen, pulled the newspaper closer, began drawing a moustache.

‘And she giggles when she can’t reach things,’ she said.

She took a sip which became a slurp.

Pip added glasses to the face he had moustached.

‘And I don’t mean suitcases on the wardrobe or cobwebs on the cornice…anyone can get a stool and reach those kinds of things.’

Devil’s horns. A moustache, glasses and devil’s horns.

‘But no, she can’t reach the salt.’

Snot drips out of the nostril.

‘Can someone pass the salt she says and then she giggles. Every. Single. Time.’

And now the other one.

‘Like she thinks it’s funny having arms that short.’

Earwax! God, how long had it been since he’d drawn wax dribbling from ears? Twenty years? At least.

‘She could wear heels,’ she said. ‘No-one needs to be that short.’

Pip put his pen down, picked up his cup. It wasn’t the one he liked. It was all right for coffee, but not for tea.

‘Heels wouldn’t help her to reach the salt,’ he said. He brought the cup to his lips. The tea had cooled enough to drink.

She looked down at the things he had drawn, then up again.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘You know what I mean.’ She scratched at her head again. ‘And do you have to swallow like that when you drink?’

He put the cup down, picked the pen up. The next time they had this conversation Pip promised himself that he would say you’re only five foot two.

When Victoria rings – already she knows the number by heart - Jack is at the laundromat.

He calls it the laundrette.

Jack’s voice softens the ette, and Victoria pictures him. His shoulder is holding the phone up to his ear and he is lifting wet denim out of the washing machine. His shirt is tight, button undone, the curve of his neck is exposed. He has not shaved today and tomorrow he will need to wash his hair.

Victoria holds her phone tightly in her hand. She closes her eyes and she imagines that he leans in and leaves a kiss on her cheek, before his lips brush hers. Because – in her mind - he has not shaved, his cheek scrapes – but gently - across hers. And then he holds his fingers at the back of her neck.

His fingers are feather-strokes.

Victoria thinks of telling him all of this and more, but she does not. Instead, she opens her eyes, she sniffs, she clears her throat. She licks her lips and she scratches her head.

They talk.

‘I couldn’t stop thinking of you last night,’ he says.

‘I know.’ She giggles, stops herself, laughs.

She had gone to bed with her phone on the bedside table. She had turned off the lamp and watched for the glow of the telephone as his messages arrived. The sound of the phone was turned down, because it was too harsh in the night, made the house seem lonelier than it really was.

She had sent her final text at twelve. I’m going to sleep. Goodnight.

She had stopped texting, and he had too, but she had not stopped thinking of him, of the place where he was. A house with the lights turned down, the music up. She pictured him drinking beer, although with her, he had only ever drunk wine. She imagines that at parties, he spends his time leaning against the kitchen bench watching the flow and the ebb, that if she were there, they would leave early, and they would take the long way home.

She does not tell him any of this.

Victoria can hear the steady thrum of the machines at the laundromat. Laun-drette. Zips click against the dryer’s steel tube. She sees, in her mind, waist-high tables in the middle of the room. Square and sparse, laminated brown, they promise ordered piles of washing. Clean and dry. She wonders what Jack folds and what he irons. Are there things he doesn’t iron, but hangs all the same? Jeans or pants or shirts. Does he put his clothes on a chair at night or leave them strewn across the floor? And then she wonders: what does he do with his shoes.

They talk some more and the dryers drone.

Victoria thinks of the warmth of the laundry when the dryer has been on. She thinks of the laundry windows in the house where she lived as a child. They dripped with winter condensation and the panes were painted white. She used her fingertip to write boys’ names at night. I love Stephen, I love Charles, I love Pip. And then she flattened her finger out to wipe their names away. Before anyone else could see.

She puts the phone in her other hand, wipes her palm down her jeans.

She writes Jack on the pad she keeps by the fridge. The pen is black, the pad yellow. She draws a flower near the J, and then a star. Another flower, another star. And then she thinks I’m nearly forty years old.

Jack is telling her of his bike ride home as the sun came up, of seeing the car door just in time. She gasps, then laughs where she should, but she is thinking he stayed out all night. She has forgotten that it is something people do.

He tells her more of the story, then laughs. At the place where nobody got hurt.

His laugh makes her close her eyes again. She runs her fingers through her hair, her hand down the back, then the side, of her neck. She opens her eyes to listen.

He is working tonight, but not tomorrow, so perhaps they could catch up.

She says I can’t get a babysitter, not now and he says yes, I know, as if he really does, and there is a small moment before she says do you want to come here.

It is a question, not an invitation, but he says yes.

The beat of her heart has slowed.

She hears the kids outside, in the yard. There are loud shouts between them. Screams. Silence. Laughs.

Jack says I could cook. His is an invitation, with a tiny question mark.

There are other people at the laundromat. She can hear their voices, but not their words. They laugh strangers’ laughs.

Victoria thinks of Sunday nights. She thinks of washing dishes and wiping the table down. Of readers to be read and homework which should already be done. She thinks of ironing shirts and handkerchiefs.

Five of each.

Every week.

Jack says can you hold on a minute, I have to get some more coins.

Victoria thinks while she waits, if I have to wash his clothes, what load will I put them in? Whites? Colours, kids? Colours, hers? Sheets and towels? No, no, no and no. But would his be a load of their own?

Are you there? Jack asks. Sorry about that. I never bring enough coins. He laughs although there is no joke.

His voice is deep and his laugh is smooth.

Victoria closes her eyes. She reaches for the feel of his hand on her neck, and for the memory of feather strokes.

It is Thursday which makes it five days since anyone addressed her directly by her name. She does not count letters which come in the post, her husband’s endearments - honey, love or hon - or people who ring and begin by saying is this Mrs so and so? Of course she doesn’t count mum.

The calendar code for unaddressed days is red. She marks the days one by one at ten past ten which is a more random time than it seems. She counts, although she knows. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. It is the record since, six years ago, she first began to count.

And then she writes:
I leave pink smudges on white coffee cups and plastic spoons. I drink capuccinos and lick my lips between sips. I carry a black handbag and always have the right change.
I have had jobs – six - but never a career. This matters to me much less than I suppose it should. If I’d had another daughter, she’d be called Amber, Scarlett or Rose.

The phone does not ring. She thinks: perhaps it is time to record the silence as well as the noise. And then she thinks: I would use a golden pen to mark silence on the page.

She writes some more:
My husband brings me duty free perfumes. I store the bottles in the bathroom vanity. He seems not to notice that most of the bottles are more or less full.

She thinks, but doesn’t write: Except that he never brings the same one twice.

She writes:
When I am seeking comfort, I eat plates of noodles with grated parmesan cheese.
And then she writes:
Noodles and spaghetti are variations on a theme, but I would never eat spaghetti with soy sauce.

She thinks of the shopping which must be done, the washing which must be hung. There are two birthday presents to send and she will write love from gran on one. She is not sure what colour she will use.

She writes again:
It is eleven o’clock and I have heard: a kookaburra; a willy wagtail; the neighbour’s cat in the roof. She uses a different colour for each and then goes back to black. Last night: an owl; a rat; and possums danced on the roof.

She looks at her watch and then checks it against the clock. It will be her last entry for today: I want to poison the rat, but not the possum. I’m not too fussed about the cat.