The Heart’s Small Hammering

After three weeks the house was still not ready for sale. The bathroom was covered in a fine down of plaster and the floors were scattered with nails and screwdrivers, paint tins and brushes, soaking in turps. To reach the kitchen sink she had to navigate a fretwork of beams and empty space. The backyard was filled with broken bricks, wood palings, unwanted chairs. She ought to have moved out, really, for the month. A few friends had offered. Even Adrian. But Adrian was Jamie’s ex-husband. She couldn’t stay with him.

Jamie suspected that she was not finished with the big old weatherboard, not really, not yet. She waited for some small event to catapult her into crisis. But still it did not come. Perhaps, after all, grief did have a limit, though still it crept up on her, like some small creature coming in from the cold. Loneliness too. Vast, icy waves of it that filled up her gut as tides fill a cave.

At night, or when Mandy was with Adrian and the house quiet as a church, she craved someone’s arms around her like a drug. But whose arms? Not Adrian’s, surely. They’d been separated for almost a year.

That weekend Adrian had turned off the gas in the house so that he could lay the flat white tiles, large as dinner plates, in the bathroom and behind the stove. It was spring but still chilly, the garden covered at dawn in a fine net of frost. For the next two days there would be no heating and no hot water, no gas for the stove. At first, the idea of gathering up nappies, creams, bottles, dummies and all the other things that her two-year-old daughter Mandy required felt like just one more impossible task. It made her bones tired. But then she thought of the rooms cold as winter, the freezing showers. Relenting, she packed her bags and went to stay around the corner at Rick and Megan’s.

—

Rick and Megan also had a two-year-old daughter, called Ingrid. In the evening the three adults hunkered down to the routines of small children. Cutting up fish fingers. Doling out yogurt. Retrieving dropped forks and mopping up juice. As she ran the bath, Jamie admired, as always, the creamy texture of her daughter’s skin against the fire-red hair, the ivory complexion of her, almost edible, next to Ingrid’s olive, nutty tan.

‘Hot?’ asked Mandy.

‘No, not hot. Just right.’

Mandy sank into the bath, fish-slippery with soap and warm water. And Jamie was glad, then, that she was here, and not alone with her daughter in the big, cold house. Even now she could feel what that did to her, how the house made her heart ice over. But then the two girls began fighting over a blue plastic shark and she was catapulted back into the steam-filled bathroom.

‘Sometimes living with a toddler is like negotiating the Cold War,’ she said to Rick. He chuckled, dancing a yellow duck past the infants’ heads. Every morning Rick made sandwiches for Megan and packed them in a green lunchbox which she took to work. Jamie was unreasonably jealous about Megan’s sandwiches.

‘I’m going to clone Rick,’ she once said to Megan. ‘Just give me a strand of his hair and I’ll make a duplicate.’ But that kind of talk made Megan nervous. Not that Jamie had any intention of cracking on to someone’s husband. But now, sitting on the edge of the bath, Jamie was careful to keep space between Rick and herself, to keep the conversation light.

After their bath the girls sat on the couch while Megan and Jamie read Dr Seuss to them. But Mandy soon lost interest and began crashing about, turfing out Wiggles videos, spilling her milk. Then Megan put her daughter to the breast where she guzzled quietly, and Jamie took Mandy to the spare room. She folded out the port-a-cot and tucked her in beside the ragged dog that the child carted everywhere.

‘Kiss!’ said Mandy. ‘Kiss!’

Jamie leant over the sides of the cot to kiss her, then slid long arms beneath the child’s slight body, feeling her light, animal breath, the small hands in her hair.

‘Aaaah,’ said Mandy. ‘More hugs?’

‘Nigh-nigh,’ said Jamie, holding her until her back started to twinge and she had to unwind herself. ‘Love you.’

‘More hugs! More hugs!’

‘Nigh-nigh, Mand,’ said Megan, flicking off the light. In the kitchen Rick stood at the bench with headphones on, slicing zucchini. Most times Jamie loved this time of night, her daughter murmuring in her cot, the world restored, given back over. At home she’d sweep up the debris left over from dinner: the squashed peas and pumpkin, the bread crusts that Mandy had discarded with a casual toss. Then Jamie would pour a few glasses of wine, flick on the telly, maybe read for a bit. But lately she’d begun to dream of going out, somewhere, anywhere and having some man, any man, put his hands all over her.

When she began trawling dating services on the net, it didn’t take long to find a few profiles offering the kind of casual encounter she was after. She sent a few messages, got some replies. One guy was particularly persistent. His voice on her answering machine had been soft, and friendly enough. Jamie had thought of following it up but most nights she had Mandy and anyway, for a long time her need felt like an affliction; she was reluctant to reveal it. She’d kept his phone number in her wallet, written on the back of a supermarket receipt. Looking at it now, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

‘Okay if I use your phone?’ she asked Megan. What the hell.

‘Yeah sure, go for it. Take it in the other room if you like.’

Rick was dishing out curry and rice when Jamie came back into the kitchen. She sat down at the table, casually.

‘Mind if I go out for a while?’ she asked Megan. ‘Mandy’s asleep and you know what she’s like. Once she’s down, she’s out to it. I’m sure she won’t wake up but anyway if she does you can ring me on the mobile.’

‘Sure. Everything okay?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she said lightly. ‘Just meeting a friend for a drink. An old friend. Haven’t seen him for a while so it’ll be good to catch up.’ Now that she’d started, the lies had their own momentum.

‘I might take Mandy home just for the night,’ she said, thinking ahead now. ‘There’s this man coming over to the house early tomorrow to collect the rubbish in the backyard, so if we’re not here don’t freak.’

There’s no need,’ said Megan. ‘You could duck out for a while in the morning. Mandy could have breakfast with us.’

‘Maybe,’ said Jamie. ‘I’ll see how I go.’

—

She had a quick shower, combed her short brown hair, slapped on a bit of lippy. Then, leaving her station wagon at Rick and Megan’s, she caught a taxi. She never caught taxis. Travelling in one made her feel luxurious. As she waited for him outside the pub he rang her on his mobile and drove past, flashing his lights. Then he parked his big white van and walked towards her. He looked alright. Dark hair cropped short, solid build, kind of sleek. On meeting her he gave her arm a small, awkward pat.

Inside, the pub was dense with smoke and students. Girls floated past with jeans slung low, bare midriffs, navel studs. Some uni band was thrashing away out the back so to avoid the noise and cover charge they stayed in the front bar.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ he said. ‘A beer, maybe?’

‘Yeah, great,’ she said. ‘A beer would be great.’

The place was so crowded there was only one stool left, crammed in at the back of the room between the juke box and the counter. She felt prim perched upon it drinking her beer while he stood next to her.

‘So what do you do for work?’ she asked.

‘Fitness instructor,’ he said. Of course. Beneath the silk shirt she saw the muscles roping his arms, the chest thickened by weights.

‘What about you?’ he said.

‘I teach stuff,’ she said. ‘English. Mainly to adults.’ There was something snake-like about his eyes, a coolness that prevented the flirting she’d hoped for. Still, she was attracted to him. And wasn’t he, quite possibly, exactly what she’d asked for? Sometimes it seemed she spent half her life with her hand down her own pyjamas.

‘So what do you do on the weekends?’ he said.

‘Not much,’ she said. ‘I’m usually too stuffed. Catch up with friends. Go to the gym. Sometimes I see a movie. How about you?’

‘Ride trail bikes, mostly. Got a mate with a farm. We go up there and burn around the paddock. You should come up some time.’

He curled a large hand around his beer. Mandy wanted to take that hand and measure the weight of it against her heart, feel it ease her thighs open. Even if, in the end, there was not all that much to talk about – it didn’t matter, she told herself. It was not why they were here.

Jamie glanced at her watch. It was a quarter to midnight.

‘You could come back to my place,’ she said.

‘Yeah, that sounds alright.’

‘Long as my ex isn’t there. He’s been working late on the house.’

‘Yeah, well, if he is, I’m outa there,’ he said.

‘He should be gone by now. I have to pick up my daughter, but you can wait at home while I do that.’

Forgetting that there would be no heating, no hot water, no gas. That she would be cold and exhausted and probably unwashed come seven a.m. when Mandy woke up. And that Mandy always woke with a banshee shriek, and would keep on shrieking until Jamie stumbled into the nursery and scooped her up.

When she came back from the toilets he was standing in front of the Space Invader screen, firing the controls.

‘Hope you realise,’ she said, ‘that was your last chance to run away.’

‘I’m not about to do that,’ he said, eyes intent on the aliens, slamming the controls the way boys do. Little bursts of flame emitted from the rockets in red explosions.

‘I’m distracting you,’ she said.

‘Yeah well, it is a bit hard to concentrate,’ he said.

She laughed; an odd, tinkling, un-Jamie like laugh.

—

As he went to open the big, rusty door of his van they kissed; a wide, open-mouthed kiss.

‘You’ll stay?’ she asked.

‘Yep,’ he said.

‘’Course it’s not very romantic,’ she said, ‘waking up to a toddler.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Really. I just want to be with you.’ His tongue met hers softly. God, she missed this. In the van she felt the heat rise up in her, untainted by loneliness. The van’s engine thrummed roughly beneath them. When they reached the house she went down the long corridor and checked all the rooms. No sign of Adrian, though debris lay all about. Groundsheets across the floorboards, trowels and paint trays beside the photos of Mandy on the mantelpiece. She went back to the van.

‘All clear,’ she said.

In the living room, the round glass table and wooden sideboard had been dragged in front of the big blue couch to clear space for the painting and plastering. The armchairs were inaccessible. The television buried behind a tangle of heavy chairs.

‘Sorry,’ said Jamie, ‘I was going to say: make yourself at home, but…’

‘That’s okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll wait in the bedroom.’ He stripped down to a khaki singlet and jocks, and covered himself with the floral doona.

‘I’ll just go and get my daughter. It’s only five minutes away.’

‘It’s bloody freezing in here!’ he said.

She put on the central heating, forgetting that there was no gas to warm the air. By the time she returned with Mandy the house would be like a fridge. She went out to the street to find the station wagon and then remembered that, of course, her car was over at Rick and Megan’s place.

‘You’ll have to drive me over to pick her up,’ she said. ‘I’m an idiot!’ She slapped her head.

‘No drama,’ he said.

—

She left him waiting in the van while she opened Rick and Megan’s front door with the spare key, entered the dark house and the room where Mandy lay sleeping. Lying there on her back with fists uncurled, she looked soft-boned, unprotected; the kind of small prey that night creatures would soon sniff out. Jamie put a hand upon the child’s chest until she felt the breath rise and fall, then rise again. Then she scooped Mandy up, closed the front door quietly, and strapped her into the car seat. He followed them home in the van.

Jamie carried Mandy to her yellow, toy-strewn room and placed her, still sleeping, in her cot. She took a few extra blankets out of the drawer and placed them over the child, thinking of something she had read in the little book of prayers that Adrian had given her on Mother’s Day. Something about covering a child with blankets against the cold and, when they had grown, covering them with prayer. Adrian had given her the book because she’d started going to church, even though they were no longer together. She liked church, the cool comfort of it, even though sometimes the hymns made her want to cry. She smoothed the tendrils of hair away from Mandy’s face then, with a momentary uneasiness about the coldness of the nursery which she quickly pushed away, padded back to the bedroom.

‘Can you close the door?’ he said.

Jamie, who always slept with her door open, felt betrayal stir in her gut, then settle, as if turning over in sleep. No matter, she thought, if Mandy was really upset she’d cry loudly enough. She took off her jeans, feeling white and lumpy like somebody’s old eiderdown; her body soft from childbirth even now. While she undressed he lay with eyes closed. All muscle, he was, and tanned. Thighs like felled trees. He could at least look at her.

She turned off the central heating that was blowing cold air around, unbuttoned her shirt and they fell to, kissing.

‘Want a bit of a rub?’ he said.

‘Okay,’ she said, craving a slow hand, the kind of touch she was familiar with from Adrian’s lovemaking and the way she liked to touch herself. His finger pressed down so hard on her that she did not feel desire so much as friction. But his cock, when she was game to look at it, was large. She smiled and told him so, sitting astride him. Who was that? This woman speaking?

They hadn’t talked about condoms but when she mentioned it now he groaned.

‘Can’t you just take the morning after pill or something?’

Christ, she thought, wasn’t he worried that he’d catch something from her? But when she took out a condom from her drawer, he put it on.

‘God, that feels good,’ she said, feeling him in her, filling her up. His tongue firm against her teeth, his hands on her breasts.

‘Spread your legs wide,’ he said, ‘like you really want it.’

After a while he slid out from beneath and kneeled before her, hands on her shoulders. When she went down on him he smelt musty, like a forest, or earth, like he hadn’t washed much or very well. He didn’t do the same for her. Just seemed happiest in the end taking his cock in one hand and tugging it deftly until, with a quiet grunt, he came on her belly. She liked the feel of it, spurting across her skin then trickling down; warm and wet. Adrian liked to come that way. But they’d never talked about it.

‘Why don’t you play with yourself?’ he said, all loose and relaxed now, arms crossed behind his head, big feet hanging off the edge of the bed.

‘You just play with yourself and make some nice noises and I’ll lie here and listen.’

So this is it, thought Jamie, half-desperate. Masturbation with a stranger, damn it. She wanted to ask him to take one finger, wet it with his tongue and gently stroke. When at last she came, the sensation was so slight she might as well have faked it. They lay there then, listening to the rain. He dipped his finger into the semen which filled her navel and gently rubbed it in.

‘First coat dry,’ he said.

‘Jesus,’ she said, laughing. At least this would be something, she thought, to ruminate on when she was all dried up and alone in the TV room of some cream-brick, budget nursing home.

 ‘I – um – probably should go home,’ he said.

‘Thought you were going to stay.’

‘Yeah well, it’s just that I was at this party,’ he said, ‘before I met you tonight. And my friends, they’ll be wondering where I went.’

Jamie said nothing. So he said he’d stay and now he was lying. Well, what did she expect? She lay back against the pale-blue pillows, feeling the coldness creep in. There’s a decent amount of time, Adrian once told her, that a man feels he has to stay with a woman after sex.

‘You’d better go,’ she said finally. ‘Bloody hell. It’s nearly three o-clock. I’m going to be stuffed.’ When he leant over to kiss her he put his hand on her chest, not holding her close, but at bay. It was awful, being kissed like that. He dressed quickly, zipping up his jeans.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll get going then. I had a really nice time.’

‘Me too,’ said Jamie, thinking, Liar. She put on her flannel pyjamas and her green terry-towelling dressing gown. She didn’t give a stuff how she looked now.

‘Guess I’ll see you later then.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’ She opened the front door to let him out into the night. Then she turned around to face the desolate house.

—

Jamie thought about taking a cold shower but the bathroom was so frosty that instead she just rinsed a washer in the sink and wiped herself over. She checked Mandy, who slept quietly in the chilly nursery, then picked up the phone and dialled Adrian’s number. She let it ring eight, ten, maybe fifteen times. When his phone didn’t answer, she went out the back and had a couple of cigarettes, sitting on the old cane chair beneath the sagging verandah, looking into the dark garden.

Just above the fence a full, fat moon hung behind ragged cloud. When the clouds cleared the moon shone down on the fruit trees just like something out of a picture book. Inside her belly a black hole yawned. The moon threw down silver on the leaves, the grass.

She went inside, stripped the linen from her bed, filled up a hot water bottle, brushed her teeth. Then sliding beneath clean sheets, she slipped at last into a brittle sleep. Just before dawn when Mandy cried out, Jamie didn’t bother to resettle her but simply scooped the infant up and took her back to her own big bed.

Mandy kept crying for a bit, eyes half-open, till the crying became a whimper, then a sigh and she sank into sleep like a stone into water.

‘Shhh, now,’ Jamie whispered, holding Mandy close, hearing breath quiet as rain, her heart’s small hammering.

‘Shhh, now. Shhh, now,’ she said, falling back into sleep, traversing the edges of dreams, until she was not sure anymore if she were talking to the child curled up on her breast, or herself.