‘It was Christmas Eve, a few years ago. I had come home late from Fran’s, you were really mad. You got right up in my face, screaming.’
Elsie stops her folding and looks at me with conviction.
‘That didn’t happen,’ she says. ‘Maybe it was a dream. You’re always having those crazy dreams.’
‘It wasn’t a dream,’ I reply.
She continues folding for a while.
‘If we can just come together tomorrow, for one perfect day, I would really appreciate it. I don’t ask for much, but this is important to me. Please try not to disrupt our plans, Nora. For this one day, let it not be about you.’
My throat catches and I try to return her smile.
‘Of course – one totally normal daughter, coming your way. It will be a Christmas miracle.’
Elsie’s whole body relaxes.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
I kiss her goodnight on her cheek and head to bed, ready to cry for the version of me my mother will never get to experience. I can see her so clearly in my mind.
I am graduating from my science degree, Mum, Dad, Olivia, and Luke in the crowd to see me make the first class honours list. Maeve is there too, smiling with delight in a beautiful dress that sparkles. I point her out to Cleo from the stage. She waves when she sees me, and Cleo and I wave back at her. Once the ceremony is over, we gather in the foyer where I introduce my friend to my family, and she introduces me to hers. Elsie makes small talk with Cleo’s parents, complimenting them on their fine daughter. They reciprocate, saying Cleo could not have made it through these hard-studying years without my support. We joke about how nice it would be to get jobs in the same field, to save the environment and therefore the world, together. The interaction goes so well, the two families decide we simply must go to dinner together, to celebrate our shared success. Cleo suggests the Italian restaurant she likes, and when we arrive, they have a table overlooking the river ready just for us. The food is perfect, and the energy unmatched. Dessert arrives with sparklers on top, people around us mistaking this celebration for a birthday, and we laugh when they begin singing, letting them be part of our wonderful night. It feels full of promise, this evening, this momentous occasion. The end of one thing that is also the start of something better. Real life awaits, and I am ready to step into its light.
In bed, more memories lie waiting to haunt me.
At the start of our third year, Cleo and I moved out of student housing and into a flat together, the top half of a terrace house in South Yarra. The heating did not work, and I am fairly sure the blooming shadows that spread across the ceiling and the walls were black mould. That is what I blamed anyway, when I started to get sick. It was cold after flu after chest infection after whatever miscellaneous contagion came for my failing immune system and aching body next. As the weather grew colder and more grey, the illnesses became more frequent. Migraines also became a regular occurrence, and I was nauseous more days than not. It was critical at that time to keep the body and mind separate, to ignore the ways one might be marring the other as both circled the drain.
I tried not to think about Fran, or my family, and did quite well at that. It was easy because I was distracted, busy, shut down, drunk. Turns out, if you put about thirty per cent of your daily energy into it, you can lock your feelings away and it is like they never even existed. For a time, anyway. My portrait was placed in the attic, leaving me free to pursue pleasure without moral restraint. Cleo and I spent every waking moment together, and often our sleeping moments too, as sharing a bed was the easiest way to stay warm. And we drank, all the time, and smoked, and dabbled in whatever else was being passed around, on trays or in little snap-lock bags. I quickly developed a reputation as her strangest and most feral friend, delighting all with my dazzling lack of care for personal wellbeing or social norms.
There was a night when we were at a local bar with a group of Cleo’s friends, mostly people she had bonded with through the committees and groups she had the capacity to join and eventually run. One of the girls’ boyfriends latched on to me with the kind of fascination that felt less to do with me, and more to do with whatever was going on for him in that moment. I was so ‘alive’, he kept saying, so full of life. That impression was more likely to be related to the lines Cleo and I kept sneaking in the toilet than my propensity for living, though I did not feel the need to mention this to him. Over round after round of drinks in our dark leather booth, I felt him focusing in on me more, inching closer across the seat, asking me questions and defaulting to me for my opinions on whatever topic was being discussed. I was drinking straight whiskey, saying a lot and not thinking of the repercussions of that. It was unmasking, in a way, but also reflecting back the energy that was being projected at me, as a way to deflect any risk of true perception. His girlfriend grew visibly annoyed, and demanded several times they leave and go back to his place.
‘It’s not even midnight,’ he said, dismissing her and turning back to our conversation.
‘It’s not even midnight,’ I repeated, avoiding her gaze as I could sense from her energy that she did not like me at all.
‘What are your plans for tonight?’ he asked me, leaning in with his arm draped behind me across the booth.
‘We are definitely going to stay out all night and watch the sunrise, aren’t we, Cleo?’ I said, and Cleo agreed but did not engage any further, eyes darting from me to her friend. ‘When was the last time you were still up for sunrise?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever stayed up all night and done that,’ he repeated, as though he could not believe he had denied himself such a formative life experience.
‘You’ve NEVER done it? Oh, you have to. It’s the best. First light is the most beautiful light of the whole day, I can’t believe you haven’t ever seen it.’
I described to this man all I could think of about the beauty of the light and the air, and the next thing I knew, his girlfriend was leaving, possibly in tears.
‘Is she okay? She is so welcome to stay – she would love it too,’ I told him, and he waved his hand to indicate she was no longer a consideration in his night’s plans.
We drank until the group dwindled, until it was only four of us left – another friend of Cleo’s stayed and I kept catching her watching me out of the corner of her eye. When the bar closed, we went back to our house, and drank some more, sprawled across the couch and floor of our living room, tinny music coming out of someone’s phone on the coffee table. Cleo’s friend was yawning, and Cleo had begun to tidy up around us, but this guy and I stayed locked in conversation about the universe, and the possibility of the existence of a God until the darkness started to lift.
‘It’s nearly dawn!’ I exclaimed with excitement. ‘Who wants to watch the sunrise from the roof?’
‘I do, definitely,’ he said, and when no one else responded it became the two of us climbing from the balcony trellis to the shingled rooftop.
The air and the light was indeed perfect, and I almost found peace sitting there, looking down on treetops that swayed lightly in the morning breeze. Until he leaned in to kiss me, and I was pulled back to Earth/hell as I pulled away just in time.
‘What the fuck? You have a girlfriend – she is one of Cleo’s best friends,’ I said, looking at him with confusion and disgust.
‘Yeah, but you’ve obviously been hitting on me all night. I’m not insane, you made it pretty clear,’ he said, retreating into a predictably defensive aggression.
