Under night’s veil, slept Daniel and me in our separate rooms.
Night, the layered expanse of time: still on the surface but beneath it, cats vagrant stalk the shadows of movement both imaginary and real; insomniacs tangle in sheets sweaty and twined like ropes around their limbs, frustrating their need to break from the restraints of this earthly realm into dreamland; mentally disturbed and drugged roamers of the night; prostitutes seeking the shelter of a cab for time too brief too long, provided by men seeking the shelter of their flesh, the folds in which they hide from life as they know it, in temporary relief thereof; homeless hungered; lost souls searching the stars for the home they know exists but where, but where? In pockets of the night these people are placed, unseen normally except for those that tread their ways.
But in Cottesloe, Western Australia, the beachside suburb of affluence, not a will stirred. The only sound but for the occasional vehicle wheeling down Stirling Highway, was the ocean rolling through the streets, in echo. In dead end laneways the sound would rumble and froth, gather, then recede to the sandy shores and beyond, to the opposite side of the world. At some stage during the sunlit day a child running ahead of their Mother may bend down in a laneway to collect a shell from the ground, amongst the gravel and stones, turn it over in her hand and ask, “Mum, how did this shell get here?” Mother would imagine a crab carried its home so far, before dying, or another child dropped it from her bucket, overfull of shells and cuttlefish she was bringing home for show-and-tell. Who knows?
As I lay in the palm of sleep, stilled, sunk from light to grey, to dark grey to black, deep to deeper still – suddenly, I was clutched by darkness so suffocating that when open sprang my eyes with a snap swift as a mouse trap, I felt immediate terror. Never before have I felt so alive as when I warily edged my body upright on my bed, back against the wall, and drew my knees in, my skin prickling from toes to the root of hairs atop my scalp, goose bumped. It felt as if acupuncture needles were prickling constantly all over, so intense was the vigil of my senses in this environment I suddenly found myself, of presences upon presences, seemingly, gathered in my room.
With relief, I realized the faculty of my limbs – I was not overpowered – but I could not see a thing but normalcy in the semi dark of my room, not a thing. I only FELT, and what I felt was a heavy, suffocating presence. I shuddered and looked around me: my bag, chair, keys, jeans and other clothes, Daniel’s books. Yet, so undeniable was the clear knowledge of my instincts that I was not alone, that something ‘other’ breathed in my face, that I was frozen in fear trying, through eyes only just woken, to see, to see what I clearly felt.
Small gasps panted from my lips, and desperation began to weep from my eyes. I felt crowded, surrounded. How many were there crammed into my room? How can they be crammed into a room if they are spiritual? Are they angry at me for blocking the pathway? Did I really block a pathway with white paper, inked by lines of Asian script? Were they capable of harming me – Daniel – us? Did they think they owned this space? Why didn’t they appear when we first moved into the flat – or have I only just discovered them because I’ve only just begun sleeping in this room?
In fear, utter fear, I reached down the side of my bed for the container of urine. I fumbled for it and, spilling some, brought it up level with me. I dipped my fingers into it and, just like Chris had said, flicked it in the general direction of the space in my room. I HEARD A HISS, A SINGEING SOUND, AS IF I HAD FLUNG WATER ONTO A HOTPLATE. I could not believe what I heard – audibly heard.
I stood up on my bed, stared into the space. Had I burned someone – thing? I trembled. I took a few steps down my bed, my back to the wall. Looking into nothing but the normality of my room, I felt oppressed. I felt ‘they’ were crowding in on me. I flicked urine again, and again heard a ‘tssss’. This was impossible! This was crazy! Insane! What was happening to me? Had lack of sleep unhinged my perceptions?
I ran the last few steps down to the end of my bed and jumped off it, dribbling urine all the way. I strode through the lounge space, tears streaming down my eyes and poured the urine into the kitchen sink. I turned around, still seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but KNOWING something. In my tiny kitchen in the dead, dead, dead of night, I looked at the doorway to the sleep-out, just past the lounge. I imagined the energies were misting out of it, approaching me, rolling toward me on the breath of night. Petrified of being surrounded again, I scrambled through the lounge, no longer looking at the doorway to the sleep-out, straight into Daniel’s room. I knew it was futile to close his door. I looked at Daniel. I then strode through the lounge again, grabbed the pram and flung it open. When the four wheels hit the hard floorboards of the lounge with a thud, Daniel broke into a cry.
Ignoring his cries, I ran into the bathroom, grabbed two odd dirty socks from the wash and returned to Daniel’s room. As I stood over his cot, placing one sock on after the other, I soothed, “Shhhhh, Daniel, shhhhh, it’s okay”. I then ran into the sleep-out, grabbed my shoes, purse, keys, jeans, a top, and ran back into Daniel’s room. “Shhhhhhh, sweet heart, shhhhhhh.” I was so afraid of waking the neighbours, of having them complain. I didn’t want us to be noticed, because I thought if people knew we existed, they would not want us there. I felt very low in the fabric of society – of the edges, considered tattered but really tying my own knots day upon day so I wouldn’t fray. I don’t know whether it was my paranoid perception or the reality of the world but I believed that being a mother, single, attracted complaint where there would be none if a man were standing by; attracted disregard where there would be none if a man were standing by; attracted prejudice where there would be none if a man were standing by. As Stuart had said: “So. You’re going to be a single mum.” He sneered it disdainfully, as if it were a vocation I had chosen – a lowly, lowly vocation.
Gathering Daniel and his blankets all in one, I took my screaming baby from the cot and ran to the pram set up in the lounge. I felt that if I moved, continued moving, nothing could settle on me. I then looked around – the sleep-out, empty (but?), the lounge in which I stood, the kitchen dimly lit and empty (but?) – and I pushed the pusher toward the front door. I opened it, forced the pram to open the flywire door, shoved it through and shut the door to my home behind me. Then, in the blanket of mid-morning, stars twinkling overhead, I pushed the pram down the pathway of the flats, into the laneway, and with the wheels crunching along the gravel, at pace under the moonlight I hurtled us toward the beach.
Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel 50/50
