LIFT

When she first wakes up, she lies in bed, eyes closed, becoming aware of the signals from her body. If her belly fizzes, as though there is a thrum of moths’ wings inside her, she knows today will be a good day. If there is an emptiness, like the darkness inside a wardrobe, or the nothingness of an empty cardboard box, she will stay home. She will turn over, pull up the covers, sleep awhile longer. When she gets up, she may do some washing, or some house work. Or maybe not.

           Which is it today? She makes herself keep her eyes closed, because to add any stimuli would change everything.

           She is aware of her breathing, light and warm and she feels it against her top lip. The tread of insects’ feet on the soft peak of her mouth. She wants to wipe at the spot, erase the sensation but she keeps her hands still. Realises they are clasped together, prayer-like against her chest.

           Which is it today?

           She has no awareness of her legs yet, her feet. They may have become disconnected from her in the night. But no matter.

           It is the feeling in her belly that counts.

           And today, she knows, as she transitions from sleep to wakefulness, from unconscious to knowing, that she is filled with winged and buzzing creatures, with lava pits, with pots of bubbling porridge.

           Today will be a great day.

           Out of bed and into the shower then, and how the jets of water want to pierce the outside of her. She does not let them, turning off the water and stepping out of the shower onto the cool of ceramic tiles just in time.

           Into her clothes, her work clothes she thinks, as she dresses. Make up and hair and into the kitchen.

           She walks through the house with a cup of hot tea between her hands. The floorboards are cool and smooth under her bare feet. She loves this time of day. The quiet solitude. The freedom she feels wandering through the rooms of her house, alone, unconcerned. The anticipation that builds inside her. It is as if she is an athlete preparing for a race. This is part of her build up. Her warm up.

           She glances at the fat grandfather clock in the hallway. Its pendulum swings incessantly, a constant sway. It is almost eight-thirty.

           The tea in her cup has gone cold. She swallows it anyway, eager to rid her mouth of it.

           She thinks of her husband; he will be in his office by now, the small windowless khaki cube which he inhabits every day. She pictures his desk: the flat grey phone, the laptop computer, the mouse pad with a picture of Superman on it, and he’s soaring through a crayon blue sky. She pictures her husband’s coffee cup - failure is not an option stamped on the side, sees a skim of dried coffee in the bottom of the mug. How hard he works and how dull his days must be.

           She pictures his mouth, lips pulled together like a draw-string bag, how there is always a glob of milky spit at the corner of his mouth. She stares at it as he accuses her, in his dull grey monotonal voice, of being a lazy cow, of not contributing to the marriage and she wants to laugh as that spit shudders in time to his breath. You call this a marriage?

           It’s almost eight-thirty and her belly lets her know with its lurching and tumbling that it’s time to go and so she takes her cup into the kitchen. Tips the last of her tea into the sink. Picks up her big canvas bag, slings it over her shoulder and grabs her house keys. She hides them inside her first, smiles to herself, is glad again that she inherited her father’s big hands. The feel of the keys against her palm makes her strong. Gives her a reason to leave the house.

           Outside, the sky seems bluer than is possible, the green of the grass verges improbably lush. Small birds sing; they are surely characters from Disney movies: Snow White, Fantasia. She thinks she may be humming.

In town, the shoppers are ants on hot concrete. Her breath comes from the tops of her lungs in hot blasts. The strap of her bag is sharp against her shoulder. She scans both sides of the street, knowing that the shop where she will begin, will find her.

           And there it is. A discount jewellery store, its sign scripted in lolly pink. She crosses the road, barely aware of traffic, knowing somehow that she will be safe.

           The shop is bright with fluorescent lighting, glittering and sparkling. As she goes in, the shop buzzer sounds, announcing her entrance. Her husband’s voice is suddenly in her head, behind her ears, surrounding her like a cloud of hair spray. What on earth do you do all day?

           This is what I do, she thinks and her hand reaches out for a necklace. A foolish crystalline thing, a bright silver clasp. She holds it out in front of her so that the shop girl can see she has it. She’s all black eyeliner and chewing gum, this shop assistant.

           To the mirror by the centre display and she holds the necklace up to her throat. Looks this way and this way, smiles softly at her reflection. She isn’t really examining the necklace, how it sits effortlessly at her throat, how the beads capture the lights of the shop, throwing them off like so many tiny disco balls. Instead she’s making a play of holding it out in front of her again and then she takes it back to the stand. She’s sure the shop assistant’s eyes are on her as she strings it back over the hook and she caresses it momentarily as one hand draws away, just as the other slides below the necklace to one on another hook. Scoops it up almost imperceptibly, inside her fist, her fingers around it, petals surrounding a delicate stamen.

           She steps back from the display stand, as though distancing herself from it will remove any possible trace of her.

           The necklace is cool inside her hand, but the silver links of the chain soon warm themselves to her and now it’s merged with her and there is no difference between the soft of her skin and the smooth of the metal. She’s full of electricity and trickery and her body wants to jerk and shudder. Her heart is huge inside her chest, sending surges of red and throbbing blood through her.

           The shop is filled with mirrors, with bright lights and garish colors. She catches fragments of herself in the edges of mirrors, in the lenses of sunglasses, in the corners of metallic cubes. She looks so ordinary. So normal. She wants to smile.

           You’re just so lazy, she hears inside her head. Anyone else in your position would have a job. She imagines the shape of her husband’s mouth as he says the words and suddenly she feels strong and important. She feels like someone with a purpose.

           Her feet walk her out of the shop, the buzzer rings and now she’s on the street and she remembers lying in bed earlier that morning, listening to the signals of her body. The strength and energy that is now charging through her to every part of her, is exactly the feeling that was beginning to awaken then.

           Out on the street, daylight surrounds her, an invisible yellow bubble. The necklace has melted inside her palm. She is sure that if she opened her fingers right now, curling them back as if she were a child counting, she would find her palm empty, just a smudge left there on her skin, a necklace-shaped stigmata.

           Sounds have magnified: a van beeps as it reverses out of a parking space; a baby cries, restless in its stroller; shoes are staccato on the footpath. Her ears hear everything. She licks away a line of sweat from her top lip. It is salty, tingles against her tongue, as if she had licked the end of a battery.

           This is when she feels certain of herself.

           She takes long strides down the street, thrusts her hands in her pockets and only then, when she is marching and rhythmic, does she allow her hand to open and the necklace to slip to the bottom of her deep pocket.

           This was never part of the deal. This isn’t how things are supposed to be, she hears. Supporting you while I work every hour God sends me. His words make her stop. Her breath evaporates. Her limbs are unable to move. I didn’t imagine you’d be out of a job and then just decide to stay at home. But it wasn’t my fault, she wants to say. I was made redundant. And jobs are hard to find. She wants to say that this is so much more fulfilling than having a real job. Wants to say that she didn’t really try to find another position. Imagines her husband at his desk, his ridiculous comb-over is dun colored and greasy. His cheeks are too red. His nose too bulbous.

           And then her hand slides down the soft lining of her pocket and against the necklace and suddenly everything is all right again.

           Where to next?

           She’s drawn into a chemist shop and wanders the aisles, sprays herself with perfume, draws a smear of lipstick on the back of her hand. She rubs it away and it leaves the tips of her fingers bright, blushing. This is all so beautiful, she thinks. Small packets of pills, stacked up neatly on glass shelves, bottles and jars, symmetrical and shiny, their labels promising so much. Baskets of soaps that are shaped like shells, starfish, sea horses. Pearly angels, crimson hearts like oversized glo-heart candy.

           This is what I do, she says to herself and she goes to a set of black shelves, turned into a child’s paint box with tiny palettes of eye shadows. Nail polish, eyeliners. Lipsticks. She opens a mascara, draws the wand across her hand. Skinny spiders’ legs against her skin. Puts it back and as she does, a turquoise eye shadow finds itself inside her palm. The smooth edges of the container fit perfectly there. She manufactures a cough and somehow, with the dexterity of a magician, she slides the eye shadow up her sleeve, past the elastic wrist, so when she lets her arm fall the eye shadow will stay there, secreted. She’s glad of her work clothes.

           Feeling braver now, invincible. She goes to the perfume counter, where the shop assistant is older than middle-aged, heavily made up, hair immovable. She smiles a lipstick mouth; it is thick like crayon.

May I help you?

           Oh no, I’ll just help myself, she wants to say in reply. I’ll just slip some of this perfume into my bag. I’ll take it home and hide it at the back of my wardrobe. In a box along with all the earrings and socks, the pen and pencil sets, the sunglasses, the decorative candles and the babies’ booties that have found their way there.

           She thinks she might examine the contents of the box tonight. Maybe she’ll tip everything out onto her bedroom floor. Maybe she’ll count how many things she has. Maybe she’ll lay them out in straight rows and touch them. And then she’ll put them back in the box and put the box back in her wardrobe. With today’s things carefully laid there.

           Could I take a look at that one, she asks and she points to a bottle of perfume. And maybe the one next to it. Soon there are half a dozen bottles on the counter. More now and as the shop lady turns to fetch another one, a slim atomiser slips off the counter and into her bag. Tinkles as it settles next to her keys maybe, or the silver clasp of her purse.

           No, I don’t think there’s anything here that’s suitable, she says and she turns away. But thank you, anyway.

           Just as she’s about to leave the shop, she sees a display of aromatherapy oils. Dark blue glass bottles the same color as the stained-glass windows from church. She remembers sitting in the hard pews, her hands under her legs, looking up at the windows and the sun that strained to get in past the colors of the saints, the soldiers. This blue is the blue of Jesus’ eyes, as he stares heavenward, arms outstretched, waiting to die. It is flag-blue, held in a soldier’s dying fist.

Geranium, ylang ylang, patchouli. Such beautiful words. She wants to say them out loud, wants the feel of them in her mouth.

She slips one in her hand, a bottle of neroli, for depression, emotional exhaustion, the label says. Maybe this will be something I can actually use, she thinks. Picks up another bottle, rose oil, to stimulate romance. Suddenly she wants to laugh. Has to stop herself, but it’s too late. The sounds are out of her mouth like popcorn overflowing from a pan. Stop, she thinks and she tries to, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Is everything all right, she hears. She spins around and there’s a man behind her in a blue suit and a matching tie and how perfectly it’s knotted at his throat. He stares at her face, a wobbly pudding, then down to her hands and she’s holding onto the rose oil, and has the bottle of neroli in the crease of her palm. She swallows what’s left of her laugh, feels her face blanch, almost hears the blood being sucked away from her cheeks. This surely is the store manager, or a shop detective. He’s seen her taking the aromatherapy oil.

A chill, and at once, a streak of intense heat slides down her spine. Sweat springs out of her: behind her knees, under her breasts, in the small of her back. Her mouth is suddenly dry, her tongue a shrivelled strip of leather. Her vision becomes blurry and the man in the blue suit is now miles away from her, as though she is looking at him through the wrong end of binoculars. She has been caught.

Is everything all right, he repeats.

Yes, she says and her voice is small and childlike. She swallows, trying to work up some saliva in her mouth. She feels her head nodding up and down. It is a wooden puppet’s head. She cannot feel anything else. Her legs have vanished, her arms, the tips of her fingers.

Suddenly she hears a crash. Looks down and the bottle of oil has fallen from her paralysed hand and onto the hard of the chemist shop floor. Blue glass in splinters. Oil leaks out around the shards, spreading like a urine stain.

The man in the blue suit stares down at the mess.

Oh, she says. A drift of rose oil, thick and pungent, reaches her face. It catches in her throat, takes hold there. Gosh, I’m sorry, she says. I was just on my way up to the counter with that.

The man goes to say something. She catches sight of a glob of white spit at the corner of his mouth. Just like my husband, she thinks.

Clumsy cow, she hears inside her head. Sometimes I think you’re completely useless. Surely you could do one thing without fouling it up. Surely there’s something you’re good at.

Absolutely, she thinks. I’m so sorry about the accident, she says. She smiles broadly, confidently. I’m sure you have someone that can clean it up. The shop buzzer sounds as she steps out onto the street again. A tiny bottle of neroli oil bounces against her thigh from the bottom of her coat pocket. Absolutely there’s something I’m good at.

© 2019

2670 words