Names for Nothingness (14 page)

‘What do you mean?' Liam looked up from the book he was reading, shifting his body to make more room for Caitlin.

‘Work. Money. So that we can get our own place.'

‘Oh, I don't know,' and he grinned at her as though her question was just foolish banter, barely worthy of a response.

She was aware of a knot in her stomach, a tension in the tightness of her hands, but she said nothing.

‘Don't worry,' and he squeezed her shoulders. ‘We'll be fine' And then moments later, because she was still just looking at him, he told her that he had thought he might make films. ‘I don't really know,' he said. ‘But why not?'

Making films was never something that Sharn had seen as a job. It was little more than Liam playing with his camera, or an occupation that other people did, people so different from
them that it had never entered her mind as a viable possibility. But she wanted to believe, so she told him that it sounded like a good idea, hoping that the doubt she felt was not betrayed by her voice.

When she tried to talk to Margot, when she said she was sorry they had stayed so long, she had expected to find work sooner, Margot just told her not to worry.

‘It's lovely having you all, darling. Lovely.'

‘Liam's going to make films,' she added, not sure why she was attempting to confide in her, but she really didn't know who else she could speak to.

Margot was reading the paper. She put it down in a pool of coffee she had spilt only moments earlier. ‘He's always liked playing around with cameras,' she said, and she looked out through the kitchen window. ‘He used to say he wanted to be an artist.'

Sharn's anxiety only increased. She found a job as a receptionist with an accountant, and she enrolled herself in night classes. But still Liam did not seem interested in looking for full-time work or in moving out of Margot's. She came home in the evenings, exhausted. Liam would be reading, Caitlin would be lying on the couch drawing, and Margot would be sitting close to the television, watching a documentary, with at least three books open and balanced on her knees. Wanting only to be alone, Sharn would go straight to their room and wait for Liam to join her. When he eventually came in, carrying Caitlin in his arms, Sharn would be too tired to speak, and in the mornings she would be gone before he was even awake.

‘We need to move,' she told him.

‘Why?' he asked.

‘Because I want our own space. I want time with you, without her,' and she jabbed her finger in the direction of the lounge room, where Margot was still watching television.

A week later, she told him again, and again two days later.

Finally, she just packed her bag and Caitlin's and said they were leaving.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' he said, and as he tried to hold her in his arms, to soothe her, she only pulled away. ‘I mean, look,' and he pointed at the accommodation ads she had circled, ‘how on earth would we afford any of these?'

It was the first time he had seen her angry, really angry, and he was stunned by the fury she unleashed upon him, her words searing as she told him that she was fed up, that he was lazy, immature, ‘a fucking loser', and that she wished she had never been foolish enough to trust him.

‘I should have just left on my own,' she said. ‘I might as well have,' and she slammed the door behind her.

Three nights later she called him from the rented house she had taken. Caitlin was asleep on the single mattress she had purchased for them both to share, and the room looked depressingly similar to the shack she had lived in at Sassafrass.

She missed him. It was like she had a hole inside her, a great hole in which the wind whistled and twisted and turned, and although she berated him, it was reconciliation that she wanted.

‘I am so sorry,' he told her. ‘I will be there,' he promised, ‘in half an hour. It will be different, it really will. We'll have some money, it won't all be up to you, it isn't all up to you.'

When he turned up, she could only cry. He stood at the doorstep, one bag on the ground in front of him, and told her how much he loved her. He pulled her close and held her until she was calm. He had got a freelance job as an assistant editor. It was only a few weeks' work but it was a start. There would be others, he said. Now he had this break, there would be no stopping him.

But when the job came to an end, it was weeks before he
began to look again, and when he finally made a few calls, there was nothing.

It was the nature of freelance work, he told her, you have to learn to ride through the down times. Have faith, he said. It's okay, he promised.

She loved him. Every night he held her close and told her he adored her. But slowly she found herself hardening. It was not enough.

Years later when they saw a relationship counsellor together, a woman suggested to Sharn by Lou, she tried to explain her loss of trust, the slow erosion of her respect for him.

‘It doesn't matter how good a person you are,' she said, staring at the wall, ‘to me and to Caitlin. I feel like you've let me down so often I just can't afford to believe in you anymore.'

It was Liam who had asked her why she stayed, then, not the counsellor, and Sharn was taken aback by the directness of his question. Why had she stayed? She didn't know and she wanted to know, because she had stayed, for years and years, and that night as she watched him sitting in the bath, a flannel draped over his forehead, his fingers tapping out the tune of a favourite song, she thought about how much she had loved him. She had loved him more than she had ever loved anyone, more than she would ever love anyone, and she could not bring herself to acknowledge that something so strong and so good could not last. What hope for anything, then? If she did not stay, what hope for anything? And she had got into the bath with him, and held him tight, crying as she did so; ‘I don't want to go to the counsellor anymore,' she said, and he soothed her gently and told her that it was okay, that they didn't have to go, they didn't have to do anything, and that it would be all right, he promised, it would be all right.

Now, he was asking her to trust him again. But this time it had nothing to do with work or money. It was Caitlin. He wanted her to let it go, to have faith in the fact that Caitlin was sensible. He loved Caitlin, she knew that. He cared about her welfare. She knew that too. But she also knew that if there was a choice between inaction and action, he would always opt for the former.

The next day at work, she talked to Lou. They ate lunch in the courtyard at the back of the legal centre, the traffic loud enough to make conversation difficult.

‘Do you know their name?' Lou asked, and Sharn said that she didn't, but she did know the name of the leader or master or ‘whatever the fuck he's called', and she pulled out the readings that Caitlin had left behind.

Lou grinned, flicking through the book and then closing it again.

‘It's a load of crap.' Sharn threw her apple core at a rubbish bin a few feet away; it missed and the core sprayed into tiny pieces as it hit the cement. She turned towards Lou, the expression on her face suddenly hopeful, as though she had just realised that there might be an answer and that answer lay with Lou and Lou alone. ‘What would you do?' she asked. ‘You know, if this happened to you?'

‘I don't know,' Lou said. ‘I don't know that there is a lot that can be done. But I'd probably react like you.'

‘So I'm not being an idiot?'

‘Does he say that's what you are?'

‘No,' and Sharn looked down at the ground. ‘He's just Liam, he just never seems to see any cause for alarm.'

Later that day, she called him and left a message. When he rang back, he suggested that they go to a movie together, that it might take her mind off things and that he would meet her at the cinema at six. She didn't particularly want to, sitting
still in a theatre never appealed to her, but she agreed, still feeling slightly ashamed about the way she had treated him on the night that Caitlin left.

He was late, as he often was, and she walked up and down in front of the box office, counting the number of seconds before the lights changed from green to red. At twenty minutes after six, she gave up on waiting for him. If she was going to see a movie she didn't want to see in the first place, then she wanted to see all of it. She called him on his mobile, left a message and then turned for home.

But halfway to the bus stop she changed her mind. The anger she had felt on being left waiting had gone and she regretted the haste with which she had left. She almost went back to the cinema, imagining for a moment that she would be able to greet him without a sharp word, that they would kiss, hold hands and walk into the darkened theatre together. If she went back to the flat, she would only dial the number that Caitlin had left, over and over again. And it was fast becoming obvious (even to someone as stubborn as she was) that there was little point to the exercise.

Eventually she walked down the back street that led to Lou's house. She wanted company. She wanted to sit and have a drink with someone other than herself.

It was Christina who answered the door, the phone pressed to her ear as she beckoned Sharn in. ‘One minute,' she signalled, holding one finger up, and she tried to finish the call, telling the other person, ‘Yeah, that sounds good, sure, will do.'

There was nowhere to sit. The couch was covered in papers, and a cat and three kittens were curled up in the one chair. Sharn cleared a space on the sofa and waited, although it seemed Lou was not in.

‘Out,' Christina confirmed, eventually hanging up, ‘but she
should be back soon.' She sat on the floor opposite Sharn and started rolling a joint. ‘Want some?' she asked, and Sharn was about to say no, that she wouldn't wait, when she changed her mind. Why not?

‘So, what's the deal with Caitlin?' and Christina drew back deeply, eventually letting the sweet-smelling smoke out in a thin stream.

Sharn liked Christina, they had got on well ever since she had tried to help her sober up at Caitlin's fourteenth birthday. (Christina had spiked her soft drink with wine she had found in the fridge, and had rapidly become more and more drunk, eventually collapsing on the floor in a peal of laughter after attempting to impersonate Britney Spears, and finally vomiting in the kitchen.)

‘I have no idea,' and Sharn took the joint from Christina, realising as she did so that it had been a long time since she had been stoned. She coughed, and grinned as she coughed again, the smoke rough in the back of her throat.

‘Has she joined some cult?' Christina smiled on the last word.

Sharn said that she guessed that's what she'd call it, but she really didn't know who they were or what they believed in. ‘Or even where they are based.' And then she leant forward conspiratorially, trying to make light of the situation. ‘I've been ringing them constantly, harassing them senselessly, and getting nowhere.'

‘Got the number?' Christina held up the phone and winked, and for a moment Sharn was about to pass the scrap of paper over to her, to let Christina give them hell and to enjoy the game, but then she changed her mind. Rather than bringing levity, the dope only seemed to bring a strange sadness, damp and tired within each of her bones.

‘What did you think of her?' she asked, suddenly curious to
hear how someone else saw her daughter, to gain some outside definition of who she was.

Christina sat back and crossed her legs. She put the joint down in the ashtray and tied back her long brown hair. When she looked across at Sharn, her gaze was curious. ‘What do you mean – what did I think of her? It's not like she's dead.'

Sharn shifted uncomfortably. ‘I know. I just wanted to know what she was like – at school, with friends.'

‘She kept to herself,' and Christina stared up at the ceiling as she searched for the description she wanted. ‘She was performing a role. That's what it was like. She did everything she was meant to, but you never really knew what was going on, you never knew what she actually felt about anything.'

Sharn shook her head as Christina passed her the joint.

‘You know,' and Christina took another long drag, ‘you shouldn't worry about her. She's not the type of person to do something stupid. She's not the type to be pushed into something that she felt wasn't right. You should trust her.'

‘You reckon?' Sharn knew that her grin was as feeble as it felt.

‘Absolutely.' Christina smiled. ‘Besides, what choice do you have?'

Sharn sighed. Her eyes were heavy and her mind felt clouded, dense and slow. She wished she had waited for Liam. She wished she were sitting in the film with him now. As always, when she was away from him, she missed him. So much so that it hurt. But when she was with him, it was never how she had hoped it would be. She looked down at the ground. More than anything, she wanted someone to look after her. But instead, she had to find the energy to get up and get home.

‘So that's what you'd do?' she asked.

‘What do you mean?'

‘If you were me.'

Christina looked at her. ‘I guess so,' she said.

Sharn took a cigarette from the open packet on the table.

‘But then, I'm not you, am I?' Christina added.

That she wasn't, Sharn thought to herself. And thank Christ for that. Because who in their right mind would want to be the tense, fucked-up mess she had become? And she laughed, a stoned, lazy laugh, as she thought about the person she had been at Christina's age, alone in that single-roomed shack with a baby.

When she glanced up she saw that Christina was still looking at her, her gaze one of confusion and, undeniably, pity.

‘You all right?' she asked, and Sharn just reached for her bag.

‘I have to go,' she said. She leant across to take Christina's hand. ‘Thanks.'