Lessons in Letting Go (11 page)
I watched anxiously as every single box was carried out to the van. I irritated the removalists with all my questions: ‘Are you sure things won’t move around?’ ‘What if you go over a speed hump?’ ‘What about if you have to brake suddenly?’ ‘Or slowly? Will things move then?’ ‘On second thoughts, I’ll take that mirror back out of the truck and put it in my car instead. I wouldn’t cope if anything happened to it.’ ‘Okay. I’ll go back inside and check I haven’t forgotten anything.’ ‘Are you sure that I can’t—okay, I’m going.’
I drove behind the van the whole way to the new flat, keeping an eye on the back doors just in case one of them unexpectedly flew open.
I started unpacking in the new place as soon as the last removalist walked out the door. I ran around the little lounge room and bedroom like I was on speed. In less than a week there was not a thing out of place—nothing hidden under tables or chairs, nothing piled up on the coffee table or down the side of the fridge. There was even one whole cupboard above the European-style laundry that remained empty. I can remember thinking that the architect wouldn’t have included so many cupboards if that wasn’t the amount an everyday person needed. Clearly I did not have a problem at all. Never mind that it had taken the removalists nearly the whole day to move me in, never mind that it had cost me nearly one thousand dollars to do it, never mind that Thomas thought that I was certifiably nuts. The packing, the move, the money, it was all worth it because now I was living like a normal person.
And I hadn’t had to throw out any of my precious belongings to do it.
Chapter Nine
I can’t put a finger on the exact date when it fell apart. It probably started the day after I moved in and I didn’t notice because I was so busy with the rest of my life. Things must have imperceptibly shifted themselves from the outside world into my house. It wasn’t as if I actively went out and gathered possessions—I didn’t buy unnecessary clothes or books or knick-knacks—it was just that if something entered my house, it never left again. I wasn’t so much a consumer as a hostage taker.
Over time, I got myself into a beautiful rhythm. Adam would come around every Monday night and we would sit on the balcony and gossip until the wine ran out. (The wine bottles were stacked up in the kitchen, waiting to be turned into candle-holders like I’d seen in French cafés.) Thomas, myself and a bunch of friends would catch up every weekend and occasionally we would go away on trips together. (There were photos and souvenirs from these trips somewhere in the flat, I just didn’t know where.) I even managed to get myself into a hopeless relationship with a musician that was so tenuous as to almost not exist. (There were letters from him stashed in a drawer, I just wasn’t sure which one.) My life had gone on as usual; the stuff must have crept in when I wasn’t looking.
The only real change had been to Thomas’ love life. He had met a beautiful woman called Sarah and it was obvious this was going to be a long-term thing. I surprised Adam by being thrilled when I heard the news. I didn’t want to explain it to him, but the guilt over breaking up with Tom had never left me. It was the most hurt I had ever inflicted on another person, and the look on his face when I had said I was leaving was something I couldn’t forget. It was even worse now I was back in our old flat. Often when I closed my eyes at night I could still see him—standing in the kitchen, right between the kitchen bench and the wall heater—his whole body seeming to shrink as he realised that I was really going. Ever since moving back I had not been able to sit on my couch because, if I did, I was staring straight at that spot and the whole awful thing would come back to me. It was the little girl in Waltons magnified to the power of infinity. But now Thomas had Sarah. Maybe my guilt would finally pack its bags and go.
The stuff, however, would not. The whole apartment was a catastrophe. It seemed like it hadn’t taken any time at all for the cupboards to fill up (including the one above the laundry) and I had resorted to hiding things on the dining chairs, stacking things against walls and hiding bits and pieces under the couch cushions. I was back at Level Seven and I knew I had to do something about it. So once again, I decided to make a start.
Things did not go to plan.
Every box I pulled out was too hard to deal with, so instead of going through it, I pulled out another one hoping to find that holy grail: the box that held nothing I wanted to keep. All I found were a lot of old memories—and not all of them were good. In one box I found the order of service from every funeral I had ever been to. In another, I found a letter I had written and never sent to some boy who had broken my heart in the early nineties. This was not like the time I had gone through my clothes; these were not the time machines I was hoping to find at all. It was like I had psychologically booby-trapped my own house. I carefully re-folded everything and put it back in the box, ready to be pulled out in another few years to distress me all over again.
I abandoned the box idea and homed in on the paperwork. It had managed to infiltrate the entire flat. Every cupboard was stacked with files and folders and plastic sleeves of god knew what. There was even paperwork in the wardrobe and the linen closet. I’d never kept a diary, I’d just written on whatever piece of blank paper I could lay my hands on at the time. I employed the same method for joke or story ideas, shopping lists, recipes, people’s addresses and phone numbers. As a result, I had stacks of scribbled-on envelopes, notepads, post-it notes and paper bags. I even once found half an idea for a play written on a sandwich wrapper. None of this stuff was filed together. It had snuck into every drawer and shelf and was stashed in piles artfully concealed by a sarong. I had created a paper-based diaspora.
I rounded up as much as I could and started sorting through it. It was imperative that I read every note, every script, every list; I might have unknowingly written a Nobel Prize–winning thought on a supermarket docket. There was so much of it that I soon realised I’d be applying for the pension before I finished. I jumbled it together and shoved it under my desk in the space where the office chair was supposed to fit.
I walked back through the hall and into the bedroom. It was full of half-emptied-out boxes and every drawer and cupboard was open. Strewn across the bed were clothes, yet more paperwork, novelty tea towels and what I supposed was one of my wisdom teeth, wrapped in surgical packaging, the blood still adhering to its roots. Even I recognised that was disgusting.
I felt like I was drowning. What I needed was a bit of control. I plonked down in my armchair and started making to-do lists. I made lists of each area that needed cleaning out. Then I made lists of each of those areas broken down into smaller sections. Then I made lists of those lists just in case they weren’t in the right order. I slowly started to feel better. I was doing something constructive, I was making
lists
. I was even using a real notepad I had found in the bottom of my wardrobe. It had Mr Men on it. Every now and then I would stop writing and look around my house, smiling proudly at the work I had not yet done. When I had finished writing out everything that needed to be completed—and had grouped and regrouped it all into themes and areas—I allotted estimations of how many hours it would take to do each bit, allowing sufficient time to reminisce, annotate and sit and stare out a window. It came to two years if I didn’t sleep. I wanted to scream.
How had I let this happen? This was supposed to be my fresh start—I was supposed to move back into this flat and my life would instantly become brighter. Not only would my stuff no longer be a problem but my career would pick up, my stomach would become flatter and my hair would grow to be smoother and more manageable. I was supposed to move back into this flat and turn into Heidi Klum.
I stormed into the bedroom and threw back the sliding door of the built-in robe. This was why I didn’t go through my stuff—because every time I did, something upset me or reminded me of what a failure I was. The first box I tried to shove back into the wardrobe proved unwieldy. I grunted and pushed and flapped at it uselessly, and when that didn’t work, I lost my temper and started yelling at it. I finally got it in and threw another one on top. The stack was sitting on a pile of old pillows and was therefore unstable but I was too mad to care. I picked up a third box and, attempting to reverse body-slam it into place, I lost my balance and fell sideways, just stopping myself from falling by grabbing hold of the sliding door. The box wasn’t so lucky. It tumbled back out, taking the other two with it and before I could catch them, they knocked over a full-length mirror. Broken glass splashed across the bedroom floor and into the hall.
I stood very still, just in case something else was about to come crashing down. Then I looked at the carnage in front of me. That mirror had been my favourite possession. I had hidden it away in the bedroom specifically so that visitors couldn’t accidentally knock it over. It was my greatest fear that something would happen to it and now it had. I could feel my heart start to beat faster. Thomas had given the mirror to me the first Christmas we had spent together. It was an antique, its frame made out of beaten silvery stuff with little tulips carved all around it. I absolutely adored it. It was the one thing I owned that was worth something. And now I had destroyed it. My ears started buzzing and I could feel the sobs sitting in my chest. It didn’t feel like I’d lost the mirror; it felt like I’d lost Thomas.
I looked down at the mess at my feet as the first tears started to fall. Then I stopped crying for a second. There was the photograph of Thomas and the sticks. I couldn’t deny it any longer. I was a hoarder.
That should have been as bad as things got—except that I also found something else lying amongst the chaos: the Bastard Man’s book. I went cold.
Had I really not returned that old man’s book? Obviously not, because it was here, lying in a pile of novelty handkerchiefs, magazines, disintegrating paper clips, candle stubs and shards of pointy glass. I had packed up and moved somewhere nice, with sunshine through the windows and white tiles in the bathroom and next-door neighbours who owned a cat and never cooked up amphetamines in their bathtub. I moved out and I left the Bastard Man behind in his dingy, mildewed hovel. Not only did I not return his book, I didn’t even say goodbye. Worse than that, I hadn’t even honoured my good fortune by treating the place I now lived in with respect. I’d just filled it up with crap like everywhere else I had ever lived. And, I realised, still holding the photo of Thomas and the sticks, if I did throw anything out, I behaved like a lunatic first.
I bent down to pick up the book—trying to avoid looking under the bed where Brenda Dykgraaf was grinning demonically at me from the side of
Le Marchepied’s
box—then I picked my way out to the lounge room and sat down in my armchair. I was trying very hard not to cry. I promised the book I would return it to the Bastard Man as soon as possible, just like I would sort out the devastation I had created in my flat, just like I would figure out how to tell Thomas I had broken the mirror.
Then I began to blubber uncontrollably. Snot ran down my face and because I was crying with my mouth hanging open, I dribbled. I had the book in my lap, petting it gently like it was a dying animal. I couldn’t believe that I’d let that old man down. I couldn’t even call him to tell him I was sorry because I’d lost my address book somewhere in the nest of crap that was my apartment. And I couldn’t bring myself to call Thomas and tell him about the mirror because I didn’t want to hurt him. Instead, I just sat there with the book in my lap and cried until the tears stopped and all I was doing was hiccupping. Then I made a decision; if I couldn’t get forgiveness from the Bastard Man or Thomas, I would get it from my father. I would call him, tell him how bad I felt about
Le Marchepied
and beg for his mercy.
I started dialling Dad’s work number, imagining how happy he would be that we were finally acknowledging this awful, silent hurt that had been sitting between us for so long. I could almost hear the joy in his voice as his prodigal daughter finally made good. When he answered the phone, no words came out of my mouth, just a lot more blubbering.
‘Mate? Mate, is that you? What’s happened? Are you okay?’
‘I’m okay, Dad. I’m okay, I just need to tell you some-something.’
‘What? What’s wrong?’
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He sounded really worried, like I was about to tell him I’d shot someone.
‘Do you remember that exercise stepper you gave me for Christmas when I was about fourteen?’
‘No. What? Mate, what’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong and then I can help you.’
‘I was mean to you. I didn’t say thank you and I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . .’
Now I was doing that awful sobbing thing where the words only half came out. What I had tried to say was, ‘I should have said that I loved it, Dad. I should have said you were a good father.’ What he had probably heard was, ‘I shuh-uh-–suh-I-–luh-–ee-–dah-–guh . . . guh..guh-–faaaathahhhhh.’
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
Then Dad said, ‘What?’ again.
I pulled myself together, took a deep breath and said, ‘I was mean to you, Dad, and I’m sorry.’
Now he was laughing, and not in the way someone laughs when they’ve heard a good joke but in the way someone laughs when they think the other person has lost their wits.
‘I don’t remember it at all, mate. I suppose I gave it to you. Why are you worried about it now?’ He laughed again. Nervously.
‘Because it’s under my bed and I know it’s there and it reminds me of what a little bitch I was.’
‘It must have been over fifteen years ago.’ More laughing.
‘I just feel guilty. I’ve been an awful person, Dad, and I feel guilty.’
‘Never feel guilty. That’s my motto. Never feel guilty.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ But I did. About everything.
Months later, I was still finding tiny splinters of glass all over the flat, not just in the bedroom but in the kitchen, the lounge room and underneath my desk. It got into my feet if I walked around barefoot. I found splinters in my elbows and fingertips. The stack of paperwork was still under the desk and piles of stuff, like droppings, were all over the floor of every room. The Bastard Man’s book was still sitting on top of the coffee table and
Le Marchepied
was still underneath the bed. And sometimes I found myself sitting on the couch, staring at the space between the kitchen bench and the heater, twisting my hands together and telling the empty air how sorry I was.