The Susan Manuscripts

I have almost made it into the heart of winter without dissolving into the ether of my mother's stifling heat regime. I sit in a winged armchair facing a fire you can fall into, with a basket of wood beside that seems inexhaustible. The flames enter my mind and become my thoughts. The movement and the constant process of turning wood to black, coals to red, and ash to white, seizes me. Is this my fate, if fate exists? I feel my mind segment, one part dividing from the other; nothing makes sense, nothing connects, even if I try.

I have fallen deep into the hypnotic rhetoric of my family. Their reality is stifling any possibility of my own. I know that if I let myself truly succumb, I may never make it. I will be lost forever. If I can just get up and go outside, I may have a chance. But I can't look away from the flames. My soul is dead. It will take a greater force to save me.

I begin to lose all feeling of gravity. Am I still sitting? I can't tell. Am I even alive or sane, how can I know? My feet start to hover, lift, and pull me ceiling-wards. My head begins to fill with a red-hot sensation. I am floating upwards, but backwards, my wings folding in tightly. I hang by my feet in the rafters, like a human bat. A heavy sleepiness battles with what little will I have left. I am in two states, two minds, two places. Only half of one eye remains open.

At first I see only darkness and the kind of blindness that sends nervous pulses to the eyes, because the sense of comfort it has been providing is finally wearing off. Desperation wakes me, redemption stresses at the panes that encase my soul. My heart cries, I must see! Please let me see… whatever the consequence. I must know the truth. It has to exist…somewhere. It is inhuman to live without truth. I hardly know myself. Fresh words rush out from secret places, wound up tight by facade and fable. My restraining efforts keep weakening. My grip loosens, my strength wanes. I strain to renew my resistance, but it fails in fatigue. It is a futile vanity. A name is planted in my mind, repeating itself over and over. A name I have hardly heard mentioned for so long. It bursts forth from inevitable lips; 'Jesus,' it says, irresistibly, 'Jesus.'

My eyes spring open and light pierces my soul with a new spirit. The sound of crashing glass cuts all dark ties. The shock reverberates to my feet and they let go. I am diving headfirst for the floorboards. I am set loose from the prince of the power of the air. My head jolts back, bouncing off the well-sprung high-back chair. A log of hard wood cracks in the fire, sending out a cascade of sparks.

I have entered the world of the living. What I have seen changes me inexplicably.

'Wet. Wet! Everything's wet.' My hands search the sea before me, there is not one dry spot to land on. 'Wet. Wet.'

'Lie back now. It's just the fever.' She dabs my brow with a cool towel and a motherly hand. 'You're all wet with perspiration.'

'Drowning wet,' I tell her.

'No. There's not that much. Now close your eyes and rest.'

My insistent hands pat the surface. 'It's all wet. Feel it.'

'It's dry,' she feels, 'all dry. You're feeling the cold material of the quilt-cover.' A wave lifts above my head. 'Put your arms in,' she gently orders. They go deep into the warm ocean, the wave settles on top, my eyes close and I sink to the sandy bottom. I sink to the place where dreams appear, where fish fly and birds swim. Where waves roll, turning out sodden words; words eccentric and strained, disturbing and treacherous. I ride the dream absurdities. I see poems form in the undercurrent, as ideas tumble and collide:

Bagpipe spiders surf the rumbling

Stingrays flip on floors-a-mumbling

Screaming turtles

Hurtling Myrtles

Weeping mermaids drape the crags.

Hoop-snakes roll on water's top

Misfit words drive stars to drop

Floating bilious

Minds of bias

Snared between the snake and sea.

Heartbeats out the pounding quest

Treading the narrow line bequest

Grinding grit

Toes that split

Footsteps clear the rippling dark.

Keen eyes keep the way of parting

Sun sits on the water guiding

Embark or

Disembark

Daring to tread…

…tread with daring.

My mind floats on a hot sea of distorted emotions. I drift until washed up on a gritty shore that stands firm beneath my crumpled legs. I stretch out my hands to feel them sink deep into the pliable, oily fibres, of a thick fleece. Its head turns, nudging my chin with its wet nose, its eye influencing mine.

'Blaa,' the animal bleats, with charming intonation. 'Blaa,' it soothes, sauntering up the beach. It turns its head to see if I am following, continuing its way as it does. The sand is firm and easy to walk. The sheep hums with tranquillity, saying all the right words. It stops to wait for me to walk by its side and then keeps pace. It is a sensitive companion, and as it meanders along, it brushes lightly and woolly against me, in a friendly gesture. It is taking me somewhere safe; I can hear that in its song.

We come to a rocky opening in the side of a hill. Without falter, the sheep walks straight into its mouth. It moves ahead now, as the opening narrows. Its little hooves quicken with the dimness of light and clip on the hard stony surface. The path rounds a bend and I hear it bleat, telling me not to worry. The light grows, as its quad-steps fade silently, back on the softness of sand. The winding underground tunnel opens up into a cavernous room, carved from the dirt. It reminds me of somewhere I have been before. I look for my sheep, but cannot see it. I hear the delectatory growls of a wolf and fear the worst. I run blindly. The sheep is nowhere.

I move through a narrow doorway into another room. It is porcelain-bright and glittering with jewels. Jeffrey appears. His grin flashes incisors that gleam like sharp dagger tips.

'Where is it?' I ask, turning mutton-headed with frantic tones.

'What?'

'My sheep.'

'Right here.'

'Where's the wolf?'

'Right here.'

'Show me it's alright,' I entreat him.

'I have heat, to warm and dry you.'

I inspect myself. 'I'm not wet.'

He folds his arms in a leaning pose.

I instinctively listen for something I long to hear.

'You listen in vain. There are no Whisperers to interfere. He is gone.'

It cannot be. He wouldn't leave me. Not here. I don't believe you. He is playing tricks, his usual, nasty tricks.

'You want to touch them, it's perfectly natural.' He takes my hesitant hand and places it on a green jewel, set in the wall, then on a blue one. At first the crystal is cool and clear. It has powers to release mental tension; tension, it convinces, that is only imaginary. A vibrant heat seeps through, clouding the crystal's clarity. It turns to a red intensity that threatens to intercept my judgment, to distract me from my resolves. A slithering motion passes under my hyper-sensorial fingertips, my mettle tremors with the hypothesis - it is alive! I fling my arm back and jump away from its hissing.

'You feel its power, its seduction. You are one of us. You always have been.' He doesn't bat an eye, as he reads my oppositionist thoughts; 'Fantasy,' he says. He caresses my back, stroking and soothing the jagged edges. He fondly embraces and indulges and mollifies my senses to dust with his relentless will. 'You are my air. I am your fire. A king must have a queen.'

Voices - a multitude of vocal tones assail our space. I follow their source, walking into the next catacomb chamber to find a sea of distinguished people murmuring in mutual goal, each holding a champagne flute, each swapping indistinct realities. One man rises above them, stately and confident, commanding and astute. The sea crowds toward him, with an invading silence. I have known him all my life. I have sat under his tutelage, his guidance. He has been my mentor and minister. He is my adversary.

'Soon our alliance will be bonded. Our numbers grow. Our influence is inescapable. The system will be ours. We will be the law and the law will be for us. Our plan is at work and our work is the game. It is time to siege the castle. A toast to our new queen…when she awakes, she will be ours.'

Hands cup my shoulders. 'Soon my love,' he whispers behind.

'To our queen,' the crowd chants back to the speaker. 'Queen,' they chant, turning in my direction. 'To King and Queen.'

'Prudence. Prudence!'

It’s Mother’s voice. Help me, Mum, please…

'Your father is leaving. Say goodbye now.'

'Don't get up,' he says, 'just get well. When I return, we'll play one of our games.'

In the twilight of waking I hear the truth in his voice, the truth of his relief to leave, to leave behind this mess that is me. 'Where?' I think... Where am I now?

'California. Remember, your father is going there to play golf for some time.'

'Time?' What do they mean by time?

'It's five a.m.' She hands me a tissue. 'Wipe your face, then try and go back to sleep.'

'I'll send you a postcard,' he waves. 'Be a good lamb.'

'Yes be a good lamb and go back to sleep,' Mother says. 'The wolves are in the pen.'

'Wolves?!' I startle. 'The wolves are in the pen?'

'Did I say pen? I meant men.'

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

2 Timothy 4:4

'I’ve been seduced. I’ve been deceived. I’ve been heartbroken,' Luise says well-worn. 'They all say they love you - playing the dance of love without authority – and I believed it.' She says this as if quoting from the Ballet World’s Encyclopaedia and so Sean accepts her gospel. 'I’ll not go to bed with anyone, especially with you!' Venom seeps through her last words; they are an exaggeration and likely untrue.

Sean steps away, circling, walking behind her. She turns, following, and he grabs her firmly postured, swinging her into a more determined waltz-attitude.

The room dissipates as they twirl – Sean attempts to dislodge her past, free her from unhealthy obligations and liaisons. She looks troubled, burdened. He just wants her to be at peace.

'I’m sorry,' she exhales, giving into him.

'Do you repent then?'

'Of course I do.' Luise looks self-estranged.

'Well then?'

'It’s not happening again. I’ll not not be repeating myself.'

He smiles at this ironic linguistic botch. 'I’d be sorry if you did.'

He had rented Strictly Ballroom to re-learn the waltz. To his surprise, it sunk in, or perhaps it never left (his mother is a very persuasive teacher).

Luise holds him expertly, sharing her grace; it transfers into his limbs and heart.

Sean is too podgy, or so he thinks – doubtlessly true compared to all those male dancers she has known, muscular and fatless. He feels ordinary and puny, although his appetite is changing, his thirst for activity returning. She spurs in him his best – he is growing and he likes it.

She smiles now and he mirrors her joy. She looks into him, as if taking pleasure in all she sees. He believes her eyes are saying, I love you.

He doesn’t interfere, merely absorbs, allows her space to explore.

One tear wells and she looks away as if to halt its progress.

'What is it?' he holds her tighter.

'I love to dance,' she says, her words trailing into a sad whimpering tale.

'You are. We are,' he excites.

'I can’t dance forever.'

He keeps spinning her around the room, their mirrored twins keeping pace. He imagines her in a red flowing knee-length chiffon number, with antique swirling silver clasps in her hair. Sean feels God’s grace beam right through him.

'What is it?' Luise asks.

'I’m still in awe of the other day. Look at you – you’re healed!'

'It’s so surreal. Can you thank Him for me,' she looks away, 'you know, for my hip?'

'I have, believe me. Even though you didn’t get a role?' he guesses.

'Especially because I didn’t! It was just one of those exercises. You have to do something. You have to be seen or be forgotten.'

That is a cruel thing to live with, Sean thinks. He can stay in bed all day under the covers and know with every moment, every thought, God is aware of him. 'You can thank Him yourself. He can hear your thoughts.'

'Mm,' Luise tightens her face, likely unconvinced. Perhaps the reality still hasn’t sunk in. 'I feel pathetic,' she explains. 'I mean what do you say to an unseen entity who has given you the impossible?'

'Who created you? Who carried you for nine months? Who had you as close to them as is humanly possible? I want to know. Don’t you see how incredible it is...? You?' Fingers says, as her Mustang flies down the highway heading north. 'Where did you come from? How did you come into being? It’s such a mystery; I am completely captivated in the significance and possibilities. It’s going to be monumental, I can feel it.'

'God created me and it doesn’t feel that close. There has to be something beyond that. People touch all the time. They think physical intimacy is real intimacy, but I rarely see that. The greatest closeness is untouchable, unfathomable. It’s what keeps us striving. It doesn’t exist. Your ideal doesn’t exist.'

'You can’t say that and mean it. It’s you. You resist it like it’s the plague, like it will eat you alive. I just want to hold you.'

She glares so hard at him, the car swerves. He may as well have slapped her to cause the same reaction.

'Hey, you have your reasons, right!' The car straightens, missing a beat. 'I’m probably contagious. People say it. I exude an irresistible contagion.'

'Your smile?' she subdues, to appease him and to amend for her "outburst".

'That’s the one,' he beams, tipping his head affably.

They recover to their own views. He watches the gum trees flash and pant by, the clouds loom and leave. She pierces the road with her vigilant driving stare.

Slowing to town-approved speed is achingly snail-like. Emily turns off the main street making way for her parents’ place. They pull up to a Basket Range fronted house, with its flat pastel stone, square and rectangle cuts fit neatly like a puzzle, edged with a raised half-circular white mortar, subtly decorative. The garden is neat to a fault. Perhaps it is not a garden but a painting - a manufactured reality - its borders surrounded in the wildness of an old orchard in ruin, questioning, contrasting, at the borders of this impeccably kept block of land.

Fingers stands next to Emily at the stain glass front door. He has the look of wondering what he’s getting himself into, although possibly excited at the prospect. Any logical person would not have self-invited so eagerly without questioning, without probing for darker recesses, would have been looking for an out.

Her eyes still complusively watch him.

'Have you got it?' he asks. 'The unmentionable.'

In here, she mimes patting her bag.

The door opens and they are greeted with a quick retreat. Her mother politely says 'Hello', as she steps backwards making ample way, sending them into the lounge room, disappearing into the kitchen. It is a pretty room of wooden polished floors, painted cane furniture, floral cushions and décor-oriented artificial plants.

Emily’s eyes search for Finger’s response. She says 'Hi' to him, as if he is meeting a different "her". It is a reaching out and a kind of pleading to understand. She calls it small, halfway across the room, her chair separated from his.

'What are you going to do with that?' he refers to the nicely wrapped present now sitting at her hands, at her knees.

She looks for a place to put it.

'Hide it in the dining cabinet,' he suggests.

He seems surprised, when she takes him seriously. She carefully places it in a dish, in a place where she knows her mother will likely look after they leave. She smiles and returns to her seat.

'That’s it?' Fingers gathers. 'That’s the ceremony part over.'

'Yes,' Emily is pleased, seeing it in her mind’s eye, as if her mother is finding it, smiling to herself, satisfied with her daughter’s thoughtful application and by her not mentioning the embarrassing birthday thing. It is all part of the giving.

Emily walks off the street and into his music store. She hesitates at the front window display staring at a sampling of wares. This month’s featured instruments are the Korg keyboard and the new Gibson electric, which is an Angus Young SG replica in a devil-horned body.

A stairway leads up to another two levels for piano, sheet music and books; downstairs to drum kits, synthesisers and microphones.

The ground floor is another world, transporting her with walls hung tip to toe with guitars. Their glossy rich surfaces, curving and pointing smooth, spotted with dials and toggle switches, planted by bridges and tightly strung with silvery strings and tuning knobs, the shining metallic of fret markers measuring the way. She eyes the lacquered bodies in blacks and autumn-rich browns and deep burgundies, in classic and designer, signature, vintage and reproductions, in reds and whites and glitter effects. Her mouth waters like it did one street away, standing out front of the authentic English sweet shop.

Fingers is hunched over a white Washburn, doing an Eddie Van Halen impression for a customer; his hands middle-converging in tap-ons, the notes climbing almost unbearably in rapid possibility. He swaps to a red Yamaha and plays an insider’s well-known Guardian riff. She smiles to herself as her "just-browsing" cover is blown.

The customer gasps in a blissful shock, 'Ah! Totally regal. You’re blowing me away. Don’t waste yourself here, man.'

Fingers laughs with a hand on his ribcage, highlighting the Vox Amps logo on his black chest. 'Okay. See ya next week, Neil,' he says, hanging up the demo guitar. 'Can I help you, miss? Can I interest you in a Gibson guitar and a Fender amp? All the girls want a big sound guitar these days.'

'Shouldn’t you be promoting Maton, the domestic product?' Emily studies the detail on the Epiphone strung up on the wall in front of her, laying her worry in the sparkle finish, 'Don’t stop for me'.

'It’s sorted. He comes in every week asking me to play. He’s saving up. Still hasn’t decided what he wants.' He moves close as if to confide.

Emily can't breath.

'Maybe an axe is not what he’s really after. Did you like it?' He tries to elicit a smile from her, with his jovial, daunt-defying animated face. He notices a new customer perusing the range of overdrive peddles and compulators. 'Mike, I’ll be out back for a few minutes,' he calls to a boss at the counter.

'Sure, you will,' he grins. 'Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,' he chimes.

Fingers takes Em into a small claustrophobic room, where she imagines the guys must make coffee and talk about their weekends-past, their weekends-future, about music and the girls they meet. 'You’re the last person I expected to see walk in. You want a drink?'

They look awkwardly at each other.

'We could go somewhere nicer?'

'I just…' she starts, self-consciously diverting her eyes, feeling more messed up for coming to him. She opens her bag for him to look into. She has all kinds of wrapped exotic sweets jumbled in there. He chooses a sherbet candy-whistle, thanking her for the pure diversion. He’s the one - she thinks, attempting to unwind her tightened strings, re-tuning her out of all her comfort zones, making her twang and sweat, promising the mega-music dream - she wants to be free from. 'I just…'

Fingers is a fast study when it comes to body language. Nuance, should be his name. She can visibly see it on him. She's very tense - that’s easy – all her edges were harder, her little bones protruding in a flex. She’s desperately shielding herself, compulsively, obsessively - and besieged by it!

'Needed to see a friendly face,' he says, offering the rest of her unfinished sentence.

Her eyes sting at him to agree. 'There’s something wrong with me,' she allows. 'It feels…it feels like I’m only half-living. It’s not even a dream, it’s real.'

'I know. I know it’s frustrating and disturbing. It’s a burden. Do you want me to—'

The back door flings open. A delivery guy tries to barge in with a cumbersome load.

'There’s a wide entrance for main deliveries,' Fingers advises.

'The roller door’s stuck mate. It’s the electronics or something. It’s this way or not at all. They insisted it get here by four. It’s a push as it is.'

'Come in this way, guys,' a gruff voice follows behind. 'Staff Only entrance, but it’s private enough. Oh, it’s a bit squeezy!'

The delivery guy fights with his awkwardly-large wrapped parcel, resisting Fingers’ assistance. Half the delivery guys won’t accept it anymore. Not responsible for any unforeseen injury of any person other than themselves - they are the only ones who are properly insured.

Fingers and Emily get even more crammed in. She seeks out the corner, but the small room is filling with more and more bodies. The heat intensifies, the air is getting sucked out by all those lungs, as four borderline waif-like musicians with windy-grass streaked hair, bend through the tangle.

'We were promised anonymity,' their manager bellows, the band becoming hesitant and unsure with the blocking of their way. 'The boys needed some gear, and an outing.'

'Your timing’s off beat by an hour.” Fingers diverts the band manager’s attention by saying, 'the boss is out front. Mike’ll take care of everything.'

The room shrinks further still as the tallest band member looks Emily over in her long draped figure, deep in purple. He is in black, in slashed swath-like clothing and fashionably paint smeared.

'Wind Up from Sydney, lead singer Charlie Teaz,' Fingers whispers to her. Fingers knows Wind Up from Sydney?

The lead singer, Charlie Teaz, she pressumes, gives her a nod. 'Hello darlin', I’d give you a souvenir, but I see there’s a queue. Who is she I wonder?' He rhetorically asks. His voice resonates deeper from his sunken chest than looks possible.

Fingers tries to bodily cordon off Emily’s space, but elbows, feet, parcels, prevent it. It’s like being sardined backstage before a performance. He turns around looking sorry, knowing she is stressing. He is nudged further, unintentionally bumping into her.

'I’m sorry,' he whispers to the wall, as if not wanting to offend her with the touch of his breath. He leans his hands on the walls either side of her to form a protective bracing. 'I’m trying, Em.'
Her hands hover a hair’s breath from his chest. Her fingers reach shoulder-ward. She half-mimes her boundary wall, of a shrinking personal space, half-feeling for his, trying to find their invisibly-shared wall.

'You work here, don’t you?' Charlie’s eyes widen in the intense proximity. 'Fierce energy,' he says, mesmerised, almost breathing in their chemistry, feeding on it.

Wind Up’s manager handles the delivery guy through the store doorway with the band gathering closely behind. 'I’ll be right after you,' Fingers says, going to shake each band member’s hand. 'Charlie. Des. Rick. Tony.' Charlie re-hones in on Em with a want for introduction. 'Guys, this is Emily. She’s a singer.'

'Pleased to meet you, Emily, a fellow artist; I knew there was something about you.' He tries to come forward, to shake her hand, to hold it. Fingers skillfully dodges it with the imperative need to keep them moving forward.

'This guy is a whiz, you’re in great hands,' Em compensates Charlie. 'Literally...musically I mean. Look after him for me, Charlie.'

'I will. Might see you on the circuit,' he says, exchanging a smile.

'Nice to have met you, man,' they all say to her.

'Can I see you later?' Fingers trails out to her.

'It’s alright. I think I’ll go home.' She softens, 'Thank you, Fingers'.

'Any time.'

'You’re, Fingers?!' the pale lead guitarist probes him, leaving the small room behind. Em follows at a safe distance. 'What are you doing in Adelaide? You’re a legend in Melbourne,' he continues, strutting through the guitar section. 'You know Franky from The Blue Abscond?' They continue making connections as they fill the store’s internal lift-space to a private room. She exits for the front door, but not before Charlie gives her a wink and an airborne lip smack. A definite chill overtakes her body as the built-up heat of the backroom dissipates. Not because of him per se, but what he represents, the association he triggers. It’s that weak ghostly version in her head. The one wanting to overcome her senses with its flaunting stench. It is a flagrant murky past she has to beat back. She can’t think it now. She unwraps a piece of honey nougat and the deep chewing safely gets her home.