Fabulous Lives Read online

  FABULOUS LIVES STORIES

  First published in Australia in 2019

  by Margaret River Press

  PO Box 47

  Witchcliffe WA 6286

  www.margaretriverpress.com

  email: [email protected]

  Copyright © Bindy Pritchard

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover design by Debra Billson

  Edited by Josephine Taylor

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Published by Margaret River Press

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry data is available from the National Library of Australia

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

  trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN: 978-0-6484850-4-9

  Bindy Pritchard is a Perth-based writer whose short fiction has appeared in various anthologies and literary journals such as Westerly, Kill Your Darlings and Review of Australian Fiction. Her stories have been shortlisted in numerous writing competitions, and she was runner-up in both the Margaret River Short Story Competition and HQ Magazine/ Dymocks Short Story Award. Bindy has a Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing from Curtin University.

  BLURB: FABULOUS LIVES, BINDY PRITCHARD

  A lonely woman helps a beautiful man in the midst of Mardi Gras; a suburban father imagines a prehistoric egg to be his ticket out of a loser’s life; a monkey puppet returns an elderly woman to a childhood secret…

  At times darkly comic, always deeply affecting, the stories in this collection feature life’s outsiders at critical junctures. In a wry, wise voice, Bindy Pritchard juxtaposes the marvellous and mythical with the quotidian, the whimsical and surreal with the everyday, bringing her motley cast of characters to moments of revelation and, perhaps, re-evaluation.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  These stories would not exist without the love, patience and support of so many friends, family and colleagues. So a big shout-out to my beautiful writing goddesses: Maureen Gibbons, Maria Papas and Dee Pfaff—your wisdom and gift of words have helped shape and refine these stories. Thank you to my very first beta reader, Rebecca Braasch, for her friendship and laughter; Jodie How, for the insightful writerly advice; and the Dampier, Rossy and Rivo friends for your sustaining encouragement. To Caroline and John Wood, heartfelt gratitude for supporting the local writing scene and giving me (and others) a much-needed break with the Margaret River Short Story Competition. Thank you to the incredible talents of the editorial team of Josephine Taylor and Camha Pham, it was a joy working with you both. Thank you to Debra Billson for the fabulous cover. I am also indebted to the generosity of established writers such as Laurie Steed, Evan Fallenberg, Laura Elvery and Cate Kennedy who helped pave the way. Some of these stories were previously published, so thank you to the following publications and their editorial teams: ‘The Egg’, Kill Your Darlings, October edition, 2018; ‘Warm Bodies’, Westerly Magazine, Flux, October 2017; ‘The Shape of Things’, Review of Australian Fiction, vol. 13, issue 1, 2015; ‘In Transit’, SALA Anthology, Arts Council of Mansfield, 2015; ‘Dying’, The Trouble with Flying and Other Stories, Margaret River Press, 2014; ‘The Bees of Paris’, Knitting and Other Stories, Margaret River Press, 2013; ‘Last Days in Darwin’, HQ Magazine, November issue, 1996.

  Finally, thank you to my family, The Pritchards, Nairns, Millers and Fites, especially Dad and Ann who came to every reading, no matter how small, Susan Cole for sharing her life and being an inspiration in many ways, my brother Kim (the funniest guy I know), and my late mother, Sandy, who used to lovingly type up my first attempts at poetry. Love and thanks to my darling twin sister, Karyl, who is always my greatest cheerleader from the front stalls of London, and of course Stuart, Freya and Martha (my teenage adviser!) who help anchor me to the best part of my life.

  for Sandy

  BINDY PRITCHARD

  FABULOUS LIVES STORIES

  CONTENTS

  THE SHAPE OF THINGS

  DYING

  HAPPY DAYS

  FABULOUS LIVES

  BEES OF PARIS

  IN TRANSIT

  THE EGG

  THE RETURNING

  MONKEY PUPPET

  ARROW

  IN MEMORIAM

  GODDESS OF FIRE AND WIND

  WARM BODIES

  SEA WRACK

  THREAD

  LAST DAYS IN DARWIN

  THE SHAPE OF THINGS

  W hen Leonie found the young man lying outside her ground floor apartment he was naked and perfect, and when she felt his pulse for a sign of life there was still a warmth in his skin that made her wonder if he was alive, or was it the residual afternoon sun in the concrete that was reheating him like leftovers? It was too early for foot traffic; city workers were still caught up in meetings or texting friends from bus shelters. With no expert to defer to, no alpha male to take on the responsibility, Leonie knew everything now rested with her. She knelt over the body, spanned her hands like butterfly wings across his sternum, found the heart, and began to pump. Thirty beats and two breaths, or was it fifteen beats to two breaths? She settled for twenty, starting slowly and then increasing the pace to match the rhythm of the Bee Gees song ‘Stayin’ Alive’, something an instructor at a workplace first aid training course had taught her years ago. She could still think of other things though; it was uncanny how the mind worked in that way, thoughts still twisting through the action of CPR. She thought of the gays on the third floor, the girl who left a copy of Water for Elephants at the laundromat, and whether there was a reporter from Today Tonight hiding behind the Moreton Bay fig ready to expose her on national TV because she was supposed to be on sick leave. Two minutes passed by, and nothing happened. She pumped his beautiful hairless chest, a perfect male torso triangle, and willed whatever life-force she could gift from her hands into this younger body. A pity for him to die now, she thought.

  ‘What happened?’

  Leonie didn’t stop, managed to still keep up with the Bee Gees as she glanced at the guy leaning over her. She recognised him as one of the men from the third floor—Gavin, he’d told her one day, unasked.

  ‘I think he fell,’ she answered.

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No. I thought he was one of your lot.’

  ‘If only.’

  It didn’t seem right for him to talk in this way. She wished she had a blanket to cover the young man’s nakedness.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Gavin bent over the body and Leonie could see the failed plugs dotting his sweaty bald head.

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘I can see his muscles twitching. Is that normal?’

  ‘The muscles have memory,’ she said, though she wasn’t sure if she’d read that in connection with exercise.

  ‘Must be a good memory.’

  It was something in his voice, a sardonic, lewd knowingness that made Leonie stop pumping and look down between the man’s legs to where his penis grew erect like a giant pink cobra. She stared at the wonder of science, how the blood must pour into all the extremities of the body in a last-ditch attempt at procreation, the way it did after she got sick, and on the day before her operation when she’d bled through a packet of Libra. But then she heard the groan, saw the fair eyelashes flicker away the sunlight, and knew that he was slowly traversing back into consciousness.

  ‘He’s alive!’ Gavin moved closer, breathing oily pleasure over them. In the sunshine, his textbook moustache had th
e flat colour of a home dye job. Leonie could almost feel his greasy pores gape and wink at the young man.

  ‘Can you get him a blanket and some water?’ she asked, making her voice strong and masculine.

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ she yelled out, watching him lope away, his body not a triangle but a hulking, overworked frame.

  She never got to call the ambulance. The young man sat up, shook his head as if to shed some unwanted memory, and stared at his erection like it was a strange creature.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, searching him for any visible signs of trauma.

  ‘I must have fallen.’

  ‘From the third floor?’

  ‘No. Not the third,’ he said, and she felt the relief flood her chest.

  ‘Do you live around here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  Leonie wasn’t used to such mysteries in life. Her own was there for all to see. Toothy gaps in a picket fence, an iron gate opening into a small front courtyard with a bike, and a single director’s chair that used to be red but had now faded to salmon pink, where lately she sat each morning dressed in her jammies drinking a cup of chamomile tea and watching the workers hurry by. There was nothing sinister in her leading him through the open gate, nor telling Gavin—when he came calling by much later with a fluffy pillow, bottle of Mount Franklin and the smell of the shower fresh on his skin—that the young man was fine and being watched over by family members.

  If you walked by later that evening, it should have been possible to see a woman’s head bobbing at the kitchen sink window, but tonight the curtains in the living room were firmly drawn—over-drawn, so that not even the glow of the television could escape the double-banked edge of fabric.

  * * *

  The young man had nowhere to go. It was as simple as that, thought Leonie, as she mashed the avocado into the light sour cream and added the chopped tomato and taco seasoning. He gave no name, no hint of an address, told her nothing of his circumstances. She wondered if he was running away from family or hiding from a drug dispute, a mugging, but somehow she doubted that. He didn’t have the look of the hunted or haunted. Like a small child, he had allowed her to lead him by the arm into her place, into a chair in front of the television with that unquestioning, open look that suggested he was willing to take in anything proposed. Like his nakedness for instance. He took that in his stride—and the offer of a T-shirt and trackie pants. She carried the dip to him, slightly conscious of the fact she was making an effort, going through the motions of entertaining, something which she hadn’t done for some time—not since the operation, when a couple of work colleagues had paid her a polite perfunctory visit. Even then she never offered any food, wanting them to quickly leave her small apartment, which was infected with the sour odour of her illness.

  ‘I think you should stay tonight,’ she suggested.

  ‘Okay.’

  He took little nibbles of food, eating gingerly and being careful not to make crumbs on the furniture. God, he’s barely a man, she observed, imagining the kind of childhood training his mother must have recently imparted. Seventeen? Nineteen? It was hard to tell his age; his face was soft like a boy’s but his body belied its manhood.

  ‘You can stay longer if you like.’

  ‘Sure.’ He stared unblinkingly at Leonie, drinking her in with his pale blue eyes until she felt he had seen enough. She wasn’t used to being looked at in such a strong single dose.

  She went to busy herself in the kitchen and catch her breath. Those eyes. They were of an exquisite paleness, a paleness she normally associated with people without depth, a certain stupidity—‘the lights are on but no-one’s home’ kind of blue. Had he lost his memory? She knew she would spend half the night restless and awake, checking all the internet news sites. Anyone who had eyes like that, who looked as amazing as that, would surely be missed. All those Facebook and Twitter accounts would be firing across one billion optic fibres tonight.

  * * *

  In the days leading up to Mardi Gras there was always a feverish energy in the air, like the countdown before a prom or a wedding, when people with a future got pleasure from making plans. You could feel it at cafés; hear it on trains, in hotel lobbies, from men dressed in tailored suits—the air was thick with it. It was hard to move through the gossipy streets. Not even the shrill blanket blue of the sky could take the edge off that sticky expectancy. Was it always this potent, wondered Leonie as she hurried to buy some supplies: some fresh labne at the local deli, a rack of lamb to marinate with sprigs of rosemary and garlic—having a bit of a splurge, as her mother would say. Thirty years ago it had felt different. Less crowds, and a free viewing of the small number of gay and lesbian pride floats. Nowadays, a trendy and straight crowd paid a premium for the right to sit at upmarket bars and restaurants on Oxford Street to watch the spectacle unfold as if it was merely street performance.

  Leonie went into her favourite deli, averting her eyes from the swinging mirrored doors as always, and saying hello to the same woman standing behind the counter, whose name she still didn’t know after all these years. The woman wore a hijab, a brightly patterned swathe of cloth, and without hair or the sense of a skull her face seemed like a framed snapshot of a vulnerable, much younger self. She was always polite to Leonie. Each week they shared the same sort of conversation about weather and weekends as if they both were rehearsing a cultural expectation, and in the background Leonie had the feeling that a husband or father listened in. She examined the cuts of meat, the slabs that had been drained halal style and smelled cleaner, fresher than at the larger supermarkets. There were tubs of glossy olives, pyramids of fried, cigar-shaped pastries, ceramic bowls of hummus, and salads sun-drenched in colour, and when Leonie asked for a serve of tabouli for two, the woman didn’t blink but overstuffed it into the medium-sized take-away container so that it squeaked under the plastic lid.

  The shopping bags were heavier than usual, and as the surgeon had warned her not to carry more than five kilos Leonie stopped along the way home, sitting at benches or on café chairs and releasing the plastic bags from her arms, where the loops had cut ugly red indentations into the skin. She realised she was now sitting opposite the laundromat, the place where she came to wash heavier items like her sheets and towels ever since her old Whirlpool had seized up, and where she was forced to wait for the whole wash and dry cycle. It was too risky to leave, she’d found, because sometimes stuff would go missing or, worse, loads would be removed halfway through a cycle and dumped onto the floor.

  Leonie noticed that someone had pasted copies of the same poster over the windows, so that it looked like a series of postage stamps: a hot-pink triangle in a green circle, captioned ‘This is a homophobic free zone’. She wondered if it was the girl she saw last week, the one covered in an armoury of piercings who tipped out her dirty clothes from a khaki surplus bag, so that a musky taint invaded the room. She asked Leonie for change—they always did—and Leonie had begrudgingly given her two one-dollar coins. The girl was no different to those itinerants who drifted in and out each fortnight: English backpackers dressed in midriff tops with tans verging on sunburn, or local druggies pale skinned and all in black. But what made this girl stand out was the novel she was reading. Water for Elephants. She sat and read the whole time, never taking her eyes away from the pages, only stopping to transfer the washing across to the dryer. When it was time to leave, the girl left the book on the cracked plastic chair and Leonie didn’t know whether she had forgotten it, or had deliberately discarded it, discovering that there was nothing in the lightweight pages for her after all.

  When Leonie finally made it back to the apartment with her groceries, Gavin and another man were circling the pavement in her small courtyard. They didn’t have the decency to look surprised.

  ‘Any news about the boy?’

  She frowned at the men. Gavin’s f
riend was a smaller compact version of him: the same overworked body, the same simian gait.

  ‘I haven’t heard a thing.’

  Gavin shot a knowing look at his friend. ‘Are you sure? A little birdie told us otherwise.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Leonie’s voice rose with the indignation of someone who is clearly lying.

  ‘Tell the beautiful boy we’re having a party tonight.’

  That she didn’t doubt. There were parties most nights on the third floor. She quickly unlocked the door, and banged it shut behind her. She hesitated, sensing the men still there on the other side. Inside the apartment it was deathly quiet. Too quiet, and she panicked about not taking the young man to the hospital straightaway for a brain scan, but there he was, still asleep on the sofa, his soft breath leaving a light film on the television screen. Or pretending to be asleep, for she could see the curtains had been moved slightly apart so that a narrow shaft of light now entered the room. Leonie went to the kitchen, flicked the switch and then pulled down the stiff blind, the sensation of grease and dust tingling at her fingers.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He had startled her, coming up behind without a sound. He looked sleepy and tousled and she felt a tug of desire as she remembered his erection.

  ‘Look, is there someone I should ring? Let them know you’re all right?’

  ‘Is it still okay to stay?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Of course.’ She hurried the words out, knowing that things would get tight in two weeks when the sick leave ran out. ‘Do you have a headache?’ she remembered to ask. ‘You have to tell me if you notice any onset of sudden pain.’

  ‘It’s sore here,’ he said, lifting up his shirt and pointing to the two bruised shadows beneath his shoulder blades.

  ‘You must have fallen on your back. You don’t remember anything?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ he said, and from the clarity in his eyes she thought he was telling the truth.