Let Down Your Hair (22 page)

Jim doubled over, making strangled, staccato noises as if someone was choking him. For a few long seconds, the room went so still I could hear his beer fizzing on the floor. Then everything imploded. The bouncer charged, Jim’s friend lunged at me swearing, and I kicked off my stilettos and bolted.

I reached the exit, fended off a patron with an arm twist, and dodged past the startled security guard in the foyer. Like a panicking rabbit, I pelted into the streets, skirting crowds and turning corners at random. Like a felon on the run. Like I’d committed an assault.
Girls like us never win
.

Something tangled my legs and the pavement flew up to meet me with a shattering thud. The world turned to fireworks and then to concrete, gritty and cold against my burning skin. I lay motionless, and the pounding of my eardrums filled the sky. Time trickled back and with it came pain, first my palms and feet, then my shivering limbs, still caught in a torn plastic bag. I was in an empty laneway, where a dumpster half-shaded me from the glow of a single street lamp. The only other light was a convenience store sign, flashing where the lane met the street.

I sat up, and the shreds of my fishnet stockings flapped around my calves, like the lingering dregs of a nightmare. The nightmare was over, but I’d woken in a parallel universe, where I was trapped with no way home. A quiet, tearless whimpering was dribbling from my mouth. It wouldn’t stop, so I ignored it and focused on retrieving the feisty new Sage from before. The one who slept with Ryan, and refused Dirk’s patronage, and stood up for fashion models’ rights. I searched and searched, but she seemed to have abandoned me, together with the last of my pride. And I knew that if I could, I’d take anyone’s charity now. Live off Dirk, be Emmeline’s proxy, bite my tongue at shoots, even go back to Andrea. But I was lost after midnight in the red light district, half-blind in a torn bondage outfit. All I could do now was hide and sit tight, hoping I survived until daybreak.

A gust of wind blew down the lane, stirring debris from an overturned bin. Apart from the odd chip packet or condom wrapper, most of the rubbish was paper. Tickets to X-rated shows, burger wrappers, and a range of glossy flyers. And among all the photos of pouting naked women was a familiar trifold flyer with green and purple print.

The whimpering sound stopped as if I’d turned off a faucet. I jumped to my feet, chased it and swiped it from the air. The details were updated, but the layout hadn’t changed in the ten years since Andrea handed one out the car window. The paper was wrinkled with a sinister yellow stain, but beneath it the numbers were still legible. The women’s crisis center Andrea had founded on a shoestring budget was based in the city. She’d made sure the center had a toll-free number and a car to fetch women in trouble.

Clutching the flyer so tightly it cut, I hobbled down the lane to the convenience store, every step like walking on glass. Inside, a lone young man was slouching at the counter, watching soccer on a wall-mounted television. Next to the drinks fridge was a payphone. I picked up the receiver, turned my back to the sales assistant, and dialed the toll-free number.

A woman picked up the phone on the second ring. “Bodleigh House. Can I have your exact location, please?”

I cupped my hand around the mouthpiece. “I … I’m not sure. I’m in a convenience store. In the red light district.” I gave her the name of the store, told her it was on a corner and described what I could see out the windows.

“We’ll find it.” The woman sounded calm and staunch. “Is it safe to stay where you are?”

Across the shop, the man was still riveted by his screen. “Yes.”

“We’ll send round an unmarked white car. The driver will be a plain clothes female security guard, and she’ll wait in the car directly outside the door. When you see it, go out and she’ll let you in.”

About ten minutes later, a white car pulled up in a No Standing zone out the front. I limped out, and a hefty, freckled woman in a polo shirt wound the window down. “You for Bodleigh House?”

I nodded, and she let me in. A few blocks away, the driver pulled over by a nondescript building and keyed in a security code. A door clicked open, revealing a narrow flight of worn wooden steps. A strange sound rose and fell like a faltering motor.
Uh-uh-uh-uh. Uh-uh-uh-uh.

As I climbed the stairs my footfalls sounded hollow, and the stuttering sound grew louder. The foyer at the top smelled of musty furniture, and had balding mustard carpet that felt greasy against my soles. The reception desk was like a bank counter: glassed-in, with a chute for passing small objects. There was a coffee table flanked on three sides by pea-green couches, yellow foam showing through the threadbare fabric. Blu-tacked to the fake wood-paneled walls were dog-eared posters with pictures of bruised women and children, and slogans like
No one ever asks for this
.

At first I thought their haunted faces were the room’s only occupants. Then the
uh-uh-uh-uh
sound, less echoey up here, drew my eye to a photo booth-sized room off the side. Beside it, near a sign reading
Needle Exchange
, crouched two women. One was cringing like a beaten dog, clawing at her matted graying hair. The insides of her arms were marked with straight, raised scars. Sensing my white-eyed stare, she looked up. Her left eye was half-closed beneath a bruise, and her lips dangled open, forming an oozing, red-rimmed hole that grew and shrank, grew and shrank.
Uh-uh-uh-uh
.
Uh-uh-uh-uh
.

Goosebumps spread across my back. I looked away, not wanting to imagine what reduced her to this.

“Please don’t blame yourself, Jenny,” the other woman was saying, and her voice made me look back. It reminded me of a long-ago universe, one where I was warm, and safe.

She took Jenny’s hands, and Jenny wrung them as if they were a towel that wouldn’t dry. From the back, all I could see was neat red hair, and a familiar small frame in olive pants. “You’re safe now,” said the red-haired woman, and this time I was sure.

Pulse thundering, I stood by the stairs until my half-naked body caught her eye. She raised her head and I found myself looking at the shrewd, oval face of Fran Mackenzie.

Fran frowned, as if trying to remember something. Churning with shame and relief, I met her eyes until they widened in horrified recognition. Talking to Jenny in a reassuring murmur, she pressed a call button on the desk. The door behind us opened, letting in a low, troubled buzz of female voices. A woman stepped through, younger than Fran, with a heavy tread and a wide, suspicious mouth. She glanced from me to Jenny and then back at Fran.

“There’s no rooms left,” she said. “Not even to share.”

“Put an air mattress on the floor of the tearoom,” said Fran, with the same cool authority she used to enforce due dates for assignments. She turned back to Jenny. “Val’s here to look after you. She’ll get you a cup of tea and somewhere to sleep. Are you OK to get up now?”

Jenny nodded, her good eye bloodshot and vacant. Fran helped her to her feet and guided her to Val, who ushered her away. The door closed, smothering the voices into something just short of silence.

I swayed by the couch. “Hi Fran.” My voice buckled.

“Sage.” Fran took in my chin-length bob and makeup, my black vinyl outfit, my blistered, bleeding feet. “Take a seat,” she added, like I’d arrived at her office for a meeting. “Do you want a drink?”

For the first time in hours I realized my mouth was parched. “Yes, please.”

Fran filled a glass of water and handed it to me. Then she collected a towel, a facewasher, and a cheap tracksuit covered with lint. “The bathroom’s inside, on the right. Take a shower and get changed.” She added a pair of flip-flops to my pile and pointed me at the door.

The bathroom tiles were the same dingy brown as the laminate on the coffee table. I locked myself in, drank the water and undressed. The bustier and hot pants had left furrows on my body. I scoured off the makeup and let the shower wash off the residue of lecherous male eyes. When I finally felt clean, I dressed and went back to the foyer.

“I heard from Andrea last Monday,” said Fran, who was back at the desk. “She rang from the conference to say you’d been suspended from your PhD. I emailed you, but your account had already been shut down.”

She took out Band-Aids, cotton wool and antiseptic lotion, placed them on the coffee table and seated herself on the other couch. I unscrewed the bottle and started dabbing the wounds on my feet.

“I tried to track you down,” Fran went on, “but I don’t have your cell number and you weren’t answering at home.”

“No,” I said, applying a Band-Aid. “I’m not living with Andrea any more.”

Fran glanced at the lace-up bustier and hot pants beside me on the couch. “Yes, I’d guessed that.” We exchanged a rueful smile, and she added, “Good for you,” in a voice so warm and emphatic I sensed she meant it. Despite my arrival at a women’s crisis center. Despite the lace-up bustier.

“I would have kept looking,” Fran said, “but it’s been a hectic week. Someone broke into the building last Friday. Vandalized Andrea’s office, tried to hack into her computer.”

I adjusted my Band-Aid with great concentration. “Um, yes, I … heard about that.”

“So,” said Fran, getting me another glass of water, “what’s been happening with you?”

Her face was a cool, pale oval, like a mirror. I extracted a second Band-Aid, wondering where to begin. “It’s quite a long story,” I said at last.

“Well,” she said, glancing at the clock, “you’ve got an hour and a half. My shift ends at three.”

I took a bracing sip of water, and began. Meeting Ryan. Finding out about Emmeline’s letters. Having sex on Andrea’s desk. The police station, the taxi. My week in the penthouse with Emmeline. My shortlived stint as a waitress in a strip club. Fran listened without interrupting as the story poured out, barely a ripple on her cool mirror face.

“Quite a week,” she said when I’d finished.

“Yes.”

“So you’re pregnant. Have you looked at your options?”

A spasm went through my womb. In the frenzy of the last few hours I’d managed to forget that I had a serious decision to make. “A bit.”

“And?”

“I think I want to keep them. But I need to find Ryan first. Before I make a final decision.”

The thought of Ryan rose up like a mountain, making everything fracture and shift. I bit my lip.

“The university might give us his parents’ address. We can check.” A teaspoon of warmth swirled through me at the word
we
. “What do you want to do in the meantime?”

The warmth dissolved into a despair so crushing I could barely breathe. “I don’t know.” I sank my forehead into my palms. “It feels like I’ve ruined everything.”

Fran leaned across the coffee table and took my hands in hers, in the same way that she’d taken Jenny’s. “You’re more resilient than you think, Sage.”

I closed my eyes, clinging to her hands and words as if they were all I had left.

“And besides,” said Fran, ironic and wry, “you weren’t that devoted to your PhD, were you?”

I smiled, between anguish and laughter. “No. Not really.”

“I could talk to the board for you. Say you were unfairly dismissed, make a case. But to be honest,” she said, “you’d be better off finding a career you’re more passionate about. As for a place to live, let me make a quick call to Freya.” She squeezed my hands, released them and picked up the office phone.

My eyes widened. “But it’s the middle of the night!”

Fran shrugged, starting to dial. “Freya and Brett aren’t usually in bed until past one. They’ll cope.”

She sat in the desk chair, a faint
brr-brr
coming from the receiver. Someone picked up. “Hey, Frey,” said Fran. “Were you asleep? Oh, good. Listen, we’ve got a crisis here, and I was hoping you could help.”

Her voice was relaxed and natural, speaking with an intimacy that clenched my guts like a fist. Fran didn’t gush or use terms of endearment, but I could feel the love and trust between her and her daughter. I turned my face to the wall, unable to listen, the layers of dressings on my long-open wound peeling away.

Fran put down the phone. “I’ll pay a taxi to take you to Freya’s place,” she said. “She lives with her partner, Brett, these days, up in the mountains. They’ve been looking for a housemate for ages.” She started writing something on a small scrap of paper. “You can stay as long as you want. She said you can do her housework until you find a job.”

I tried to muster a smile. “Thanks so much, Fran.”

“My pleasure. Freya always liked you.”

Surprise made the grief retreat a little. “Freya liked me?” The fifteen-year-old Freya I remembered was feisty and tough, the sort of person who’d look down on someone as meek as me.

“She did. She missed you after the falling-out with Andrea.”

Missed
me? Andrea’s version of Fran flooded my memory. The irresponsible mother whose daughter would end up working in a strip club.

“What happened with Andrea?” I said, curious to hear Fran’s point of view.

She handed me Freya’s address and numbers. “Andrea’s a 1970s feminist warrior,” she said. “Angry, principled, bitingly clever. She wanted to bring you up completely cut off from sexist influences. No imposed beauty ideals, no gender stereotypes, no fairytales where marriage means happily ever after.”

My childhood flashed past like an empty train. No television, no shopping, no stories she hadn’t vetted for sexist content. At the time this hadn’t bothered me. But back when I met Jess I realized I’d missed out on a world other people took for granted. A world I fled, because my upbringing made me feel like a loser and a freak. Until Ryan made me believe I could face that world again. Until he made me feel like someone who mattered. I tried to push Ryan from my mind again, but the grief had grown too vast to shift. Tears gathered inside me, rows and rows of them filling me like pearls.

“As you grew older,” Fran said, “Andrea and I disagreed more and more. I taught Freya about feminism, but I sent her to a normal school and let her do normal things: date boys, watch TV, make her own choices. Andrea thought I was mad. I told her the battlefield had changed since the seventies, that being out of touch with the world makes it hard for you to change it.”

I’d heard some of this from Andrea, repeating Fran’s words with a sarcasm so scathing it carried me with it.

“She called me a deluded traitor and cut me off. At the time I was furious, but I realize now it was fear. She couldn’t bear the thought of you turning out like Emmeline.”

Pain welled again, like hot liquid poison trickling down the walls of my stomach. In the blank space between them, Emmeline’s hand flicked at the window, as if to say I might as well jump through. I curled into a ball, trying to blot the image out.

Fran’s arm circled my shoulders. “Should I say something to Andrea? I won’t tell her where you are, but she’ll want to know that you’re OK.”

“Will she?” The words came out broken.

“Yes.” She touched my hair, just briefly, and memories of Ryan flared. “Andrea’s trained herself to be tough and cold, but in her own way she loves you very much. You’re about the only person left she does love.”

What about Emmeline? Does she love Emmeline? Does Emmeline love me? Does Ryan?
The questions poured through my head like acid, but my heart didn’t want to know. The pearls were everywhere now, pressing against my lungs and gut and throat. If I opened my mouth, they’d gush out in a humiliating flood.

The buzzer on the wall went off, breaking the spell, pushing the pearls to where I could hold them for just a little longer.

“That’ll be the taxi,” said Fran, rising to her feet. “I’ll see you out.”

She guided me down the echoing steps to where a taxi was waiting. “Will you be OK?” she said, and I wondered if I would be.

“I think so.”

She opened the door of the taxi, and I climbed in, wanting to say more. How grateful I was. How I wished I’d thought of calling her when everything fell apart. How jealous I was of Freya, for having her as a mother. But I couldn’t say those things. It was easier to ask her something that didn’t really count. “Where did you meet Andrea?”

Fran gave me a cab voucher. “At this refuge, actually. About fifteen years ago. She founded it.”

“So you met when you worked here together?” I closed the door and wound down the window.

Fran said nothing for a long time. Then she shook her head. “That was a few years later.” A shadow crossed her face and she looked away, filling me with questions I couldn’t ask. When she looked back, her face was impenetrable once more. “You OK to go?”

I nodded. “Thanks Fran. Take care.”

We said our goodbyes and the taxi pulled away and left her standing, small and pale, beside the gray refuge door.

Thanks to Fran, I now had a home, which gave me space to find a job, look for Ryan, and plan for my babies. I could relax. I was safe. My future was restored. Yet somehow, now that everything was going to be all right, everything that was wrong was suddenly far too much to bear.

Something dislodged inside me, and the loss and grief of the last week came crashing down, forcing out the tears in deep, gouging sobs. Unable to contain them, I curled up and cried, fitting my finger into the dimple in my lip.