Ida Read online

  ‘Sorry.’ I smile at them. ‘My mistake.’

  When I get back to the counter, my boss is at the coffee machine. She’s checking her phone and hasn’t realised that only one of the shots she’s pouring is going into the cups. The other one is trickling down the side of the cup, leaving a sticky brown trail on the outside.

  ‘Hey Ida, can you finish these for me? I’ve just got to run some errands.’

  ‘Sure.’ I smile tightly. She’s only manager because someone she knows owns the cafe, otherwise I’m sure she wouldn’t be here. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Er, flat white and a … latte.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Mostly. Anyway, bye! Thanks.’ She’s gone before I can blink.

  I remake the coffees she messed up and take them out. It’s not too busy and I could really have been okay on my own, but it’s more that she should be here, not slacking off. I guess I’m always here to pick up the slack, because if I’m not, I won’t have a job.

  I end up closing the cafe on my own with no contact from my boss. I do the till, make sure everything’s locked up and I text her that I’m done for the day. If it’s not good enough, well I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I deliberately don’t check my phone as I walk to my car in case she’s sent me an annoyed message. I drive home and it starts to rain.

  ‘Pizza’s all right for dinner?’ I ask Frank. He’s wrapped up in blankets on the couch, watching a movie. He shrugs at me, eyes fixed on the screen.

  ‘Okay, what do you …’ And then I finally look at what he’s watching. ‘Are you watching porn?’

  ‘I have no idea. The TV guide said it was about elves. Guess it’s about gay elves shampooing each other’s hair naked in the middle of a river.’ He looks at me. ‘I’m very disturbed.’ He grins. ‘My fragile adolescent mind cannot handle this.’

  ‘You could always change the channel if it’s proving too difficult for you.’

  ‘Remote’s too far,’ he says. The remote is on the coffee table in front of him. I raise an eyebrow, and he groans. ‘It’ll disturb my perfect blanket placement. I’m completely one hundred per cent comfortable, Ida. Do you want to destroy that?’

  ‘I’m not getting it for you.’ I gesture to the phone. ‘So what pizza do you want?’

  ‘Dunno.’ He’s back watching the telly. ‘Whatever, no cocksicum. Capsicum. I don’t want any capsicum.’

  ‘Hawaiian, then?’

  ‘Yeah, whatever, I’m hypnotised and cannot be expected to make executive decisions.’

  I dial the number and listen as the tone sounds out, over and over. The flames in the fireplace are small, but still consuming the logs in the grate. My line of sight shifts and then I see there’s something scribbled onto the back wall of the fireplace.

  ‘Hello, Alessandro’s Pizza,’ someone on the other end says and I jump, almost forget the order, and they say it’ll be half an hour for delivery.

  I give Frank my wallet. ‘I’ll be upstairs, so can you pay when they get here?’

  ‘Sure sure,’ he says. ‘Give money, get pizza.’

  I remember that Dad wanted me to ask: ‘You done your homework?’

  ‘I done it.’ He smirks at me. ‘It was for English, funnily enough.’

  ‘Get lost. Your dad’ll kill me if you suddenly fail everything and drop out.’

  ‘What a bad influence you are.’ Frank reaches for the remote, but he doesn’t change the channel. ‘I’m very impressionable, you know.’

  ‘On that note, I’ll be upstairs with Daisy.’

  ‘Ooh.’ He wiggles his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, ooh. Now, back to enjoying your elves.’

  And sure enough, Frank’s already glued to the screen. ‘They’re not mine. But I will enjoy, thank you.’

  I leave the phone on the kitchen table and take the stairs one at a time. As I open the door at the top of the staircase, my window is filled with the orange sky. Daisy’s turned off the light, and the room is lit only by the sun.

  They’re sitting in front of the window, right in the middle, hunched over their sketchpad. The oil pastels have stained the skin on their fingers into a fiery mess. ‘I didn’t know pastels could look like that,’ I tell them as I sit down. ‘So alive.’

  ‘Tricky to get right,’ Daisy says. ‘It’s why I don’t use them a lot, too oily and I haven’t really learnt how to use them properly.’

  The sun slips into a darker orange and Daisy follows it on the page, like their paper is alive. ‘Look,’ Daisy says, grabbing a dark purple and smudging in a figure. ‘It’s you.’ They create me with their fingers.

  They use the purple in the sky now, adding to the dark blue creeping around the edges. ‘And don’t worry,’ they say. ‘I’m just off-frame.’ They grin at me, taking my hand briefly.

  The sun slips behind the tree line and soon the sky is dark and glittering. Daisy’s picture still has the memory of the sun, the orange too brilliant to be covered with the night sky. It peeks out between bolder strokes of blue.

  Daisy regards the picture with a frown on their face. ‘I’ll have to do the stars in paint or something.’

  ‘It looks amazing,’ I tell them, and now it’s so dark I can’t see their face. ‘Hang on, I wanna see your picture properly.’

  While I get up, I hear Pilgrim’s bell as Daisy lets him in through the window. I switch on the light and when I turn around, I gasp.

  ‘What?’ Daisy asks.

  ‘Christ,’ I say. I hadn’t noticed before because I’d been too focused on Daisy and the sun – it wasn’t light enough to see.

  ‘Ida?’

  The tea stains are back; this time there are four. But they’re not the only difference – my room isn’t my room. The walls are a shade lighter. There’s a poster of a band I don’t know. On the shelf I only recognise half the books. Some of them I know I’ve never read, but the spines are cracked. I can’t feel my body.

  Something on the bedside table catches my eye, an apple. A little wrinkled. The skin isn’t broken.

  ‘What’s wrong, Ida?’ Daisy touches my shoulder lightly and I start, somehow having forgotten they were in there, everything taken over by the appearance of the room.

  I scramble for words, some kind of lie, lie lie lie, but all I can think of to say is, ‘Oh, I just remembered I had to give Frank money for the pizza.’ Goddammit, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I hate that I have to do this to them.

  ‘What’s with the books? Is something missing?’

  ‘No, no.’ I smile at them but it comes out different, the lie transforming my face. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like nothing,’ they say, frowning. ‘When did you cut your hair?’

  I close my eyes and my self is bound. I wait for the warmth … wait … it’s taking too long. Floating in nothing and everything and … it’s never taken this long. But the warmth finds my hands and soon it takes the rest of me.

  I turn to the window and the sun has just finished setting. There’s nothing to indicate Daisy has been here, there’s no sign of their sketchbook.

  ‘Daisy?’

  Pilgrim is mewing from a branch outside the window and the poster with that band is still on the wall. Everything is the way it was, strange but too familiar. An extra step on the staircase.

  ‘Daisy?’ Louder this time, but their name still bounces around the room uselessly.

  Pilgrim’s now pawing at the window; I let him in and he rushes downstairs without looking at me. If he wanted to go downstairs and not say hello, he could have just gone through a window down there; the flicker of annoyance makes this feel like it’s real, not a dream. As I look out at the darkening valley, my skin crawls. I don’t know why, but I draw the curtains across so I can’t see out, and no one can see in.

  I follow the cat downstairs and I start to poke around, looking for Daisy.

  ‘Frank, you haven’t seen Daisy have you?’ He’s still watching the elves.

  He l
ooks at me, frowning. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Oh.’ A moment to think. ‘It’s a book.’

  ‘Sorry, Ida. Maybe Klaus borrowed it or something?’

  I swallow and get my phone off the bench. My hands are shaking. I turn my back to Frank so he won’t see. Not that he would, watching TV, but still. There are no messages from Daisy. But that’s okay, maybe I just deleted theirs and no one else’s … it’s okay. Scrolling down my phonebook, after Dad, there should be Daisy. They’re not there.

  What day is it? My breath catches. How far have I gone? Maybe back to before I met Daisy, but that was so long ago. I’ll have to re-live everything, fucking hell – has Mum died yet?

  Stop. It’s the same night. Frank’s watching the same movie, the sunset was the same. Pilgrim was at the window. It’s like when the tea stains came back. Everything’s the same, except not.

  It might be a bad idea, but I know Daisy’s number off by heart and so I type it in and hold the phone to my ear, gripping it.

  ‘Pick up,’ I whisper. ‘Pick up.’

  ‘Hello?’

  I sigh, empty out my whole lungs. ‘Hey, Daise. How are you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ they pause and I can picture their face wrinkled up, ‘but, um, who is this?’

  ‘It’s me.’ They say nothing. ‘Ida.’

  ‘Okay … Are you from uni?’

  ‘Ida Wagner?’ I can feel my pulse everywhere. You know the whole of me, Daisy.

  ‘Sorry.’ Daisy clears their throat. ‘Um, I hope you find who you’re looking for.’

  My phone beeps and is silent. They’ve hung up.

  I stare at my phone screen. Daisy doesn’t even know, and that is too much.

  The lightdark sets in and I try to find the warmth. It won’t come and it’s so cold. I wait and wait and wait and then, eventually, it reaches me.

  The sun is setting and my room is empty. I let Pilgrim in and he rushes past, but now there’s no annoyance. I reach down, call his name, then realise I’m the one he’s running away from. I pause, half bent over, and I don’t know what to do.

  I go downstairs, get my phone. Daisy’s still not an entry in the phonebook. This time I call their home number.

  It almost rings out, then Daisy’s mother answers the phone.

  ‘Um, hi. Is Daisy there? Please.’

  ‘Is this a joke?’ Her tone is ice and I can see her face, screwed up with sadness as she spits out the words.

  ‘What?’ I say, but she’s already hung up. Again, I stare at the screen like it could give more information, explain anything.

  Back upstairs, I search everything for even a hint of Daisy. There’s nothing on the calendar pinned to the wall; I check all the months, day by day, nothing.

  I give up, sit by the window and look out at the night. There’s never really anything out there at this time, sometimes there will be lights from other houses but usually I can’t see them from here. I run a hand through my hair, get it off of my face, and let my forehead rest against the glass. My breath fogs up the window and I can’t see anything.

  I’ll go back, that’s all. I must have skipped too long. I’ll go back and then everything will be all right. It will.

  There’s no warmth at all. I can barely feel the pressure keeping my arms at my sides, my feet together. I can’t move, but it almost feels like I could. After too long a time, the warmth rushes over in a huge wave, all at once.

  The sun has set but Pilgrim is not at the window. And Daisy should be here, but they aren’t. There’s a noise downstairs and then I can feel my heart again. They’re downstairs, and so I bolt down, manage not to trip over my own clumsy feet and then, in the kitchen, Dad is making the noise. He’s the one doing the dishes.

  ‘Dad?’ I say, still managing to breathe. ‘What are you doing home?’

  He looks at me for a moment, eyebrows creased. ‘I’m home from work.’

  ‘Oh.’ I shake my head. ‘Right … of course. I thought you were on day shift.’ Maybe Dad knows. ‘I thought I might give Daisy a call.’ Does he know?

  ‘Is she from work?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ I bite my lip, don’t taste blood, but wince all the same. ‘Anyway, see you.’

  So I walk as quick as I can to the bathroom. The lock clicks in with a safe, firm noise, and I put the toilet lid down and sit, my head in my hands. I don’t want to cry, but I do anyway. I hate the feeling of the tears, the salty drops run down my face, they chase one another and leave trails that are left to dry.

  I stifle a sob with my palm.

  I scrunch up my eyes, itching blurry vision, and the tears don’t stop. They leak out, clump my eyelashes together. It’s taking too long, too long, for the tears to stop; my feet start to fall asleep from sitting like this. Staring at the wall opposite, my hand slips from my face to my neck, where I let it rest, I can feel my pulse beating under my jaw, the tiny knot that reminds me I’m alive.

  I stop crying.

  The tap is stuck, but I manage to turn it on, splash some cold water on my face. My eyes are still red in the mirror. I scowl, steal away upstairs without Dad seeing me and lie on my bed. The doona cover is scritchy and one I don’t recognise.

  Pilgrim pokes his head into the room and I look at him, hoping. He looks at me, blinks slowly, then jumps up onto my bed, mewing as he does. He settles beside me and his tiny body vibrates as he purrs. We lie there, my hand stroking his fur, until he falls asleep. I sit up, manoeuvre myself around him and then look out the window. Remember Daisy. I have to find them.

  The window is a little dirty, the carpet could do with a vacuum.

  I stand, walk to the window and open it up. A slow breeze comes in, cool from the winter night.

  Closing my eyes, I try to find the dark light but it’s harder than before, I have to concentrate, focus focus focus. Now that I know I can get lost, it’s darker than it was, there’s so much more.

  I’m bound and the path is shaky, but I take it. I don’t know how I know it’s shaky, floating like this. Decades later, I find the warmth. It starts at my toes and travels up my legs, I’m going the right way.

  The sun has set and the sky outside is royal blue. I shut my eyes before I look around the whole room, because when I see Daisy isn’t here I don’t know what I’ll do. I sit on my bed, the mattress is so soft and it would be comforting, even relaxing, if it were another time.

  ‘Ida?’ a voice says, and it’s not Daisy – it’s a man’s voice.

  And then I realise who it is. ‘Dad!’ I call down the stairs.

  ‘Do you need the bathroom before I have a shower?’ Dad pokes his head into the room. ‘I just got home.’

  ‘I’m good!’

  And then Daisy walks past Dad and stands beside him.

  ‘Daisy.’ I see their face and I breathe.

  ‘All right, well I’ll see you in the morning.’ Dad walks over, kisses my forehead and goes downstairs after closing the door behind him.

  Daisy walks over and sits on the floor in front of the window. I can’t look away from them. They’re here.

  ‘You ’kay?’ they say, smiling. ‘You’ve lost the ability to blink.’

  ‘Sorry. Just missed you.’

  They kiss my cheek before picking up their sketchbook, survey the sunset picture. ‘I just went to the toilet, I wasn’t gone for that long, was I?’

  I sneak a glance at the wall before I move to sit opposite them. ‘I meant I missed you in Queensland when you went away for a billion years. With barely any internet connection. Or phone reception.’ I don’t know how else to tell them about how they were so unreachable to me just before.

  There are five tea stains on the wall, now. Darker than the other ones; they haven’t been washed off properly.

  ‘It was a black hole for technology, I know. As it turns out, I need the internet more than I care to realise. I missed you.’ They put down their sketchbook and squeeze my shoulder gently. ‘So what’d you get up to while I was gone?’

  I shrug, beca
use really there’s not a lot to tell. ‘I got that job in the park, a few days after you left.’ We went to the park last summer and I think working there has ruined it for me. ‘I want to quit every time I work there, but the money’s all right and it’s close. I work a lot of weekends … That’s more money and … Oh.’ My mouth twists around. ‘I’ve become boring.’

  Daisy giggles. ‘You’re not boring. Keep going.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I frown. And then poof, I can’t think of a single thing to say. Like magic.

  ‘Ida,’ Daisy says, my name rolls out of their mouth with heaviness, ‘Are you all right? You’ve been … just lately.’ They twist their fingers and look at their hands. ‘Ever since I’ve got back. I mean, it’s only been two days, but you don’t seem,’ they sigh sharp, look at the roof, ‘okay.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The carpet is more threadbare than the one I’m used to. And I have been patchy, but it’s fine, I’m fine.

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ they say. ‘I’m just worried.’

  ‘I’ve just been tired,’ I tell them, because it’s some of the truth. ‘I can’t sleep.’

  Daisy puts their hand on my arm, their skin is warm. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Promise.’ I don’t look away from their eyes, brown and soft, and I hate myself a little bit.

  ‘Okay. If I can help, let me know.’

  And then I yawn and they catch it from me.

  ‘You want to go to bed?’ they say.

  I nod. They kiss me on the cheek, and we stumble together to my bed. I sit, pull Daisy down with me and our foreheads clunk together. Daisy falls beside me and we both laugh, I kiss their forehead and they reach out and brush some of my hair behind my ear.

  When we move it’s like music.

  Days pass and nothing out of the ordinary happens, work is still shitty, the threadbare carpet remains through all my travelling. I go out, come home, the tea stains are still there but they don’t multiply, they don’t get darker.