Please Don't Leave Me Here (16 page)

She locks the door, showers quickly, and throws on some clothes before he comes back with her coffee. And one for himself. That's unusual, but he seems all right, harmless.

‘Got you a flat white. Is that OK?'

‘Perfect. Thanks. How much do I owe you?'

‘My shout.' He looks at his shoes — the toes are scuffed.

‘Is everything OK?' She sips her coffee. It's too hot and burns her lip. She winces, but he doesn't seem to notice.

He sighs. ‘Sorry, I don't normally bother tenants, but I'm just so shaken up. Have you heard? About Kurt?'

‘Kurt Cobain?'

He nods. ‘He was my hero. His songs were, like, my life, my feelings — I dunno. He just knew how to say stuff in his songs. I can't believe he's gone. Did you like him?'

Surely it doesn't look like grunge is her thing. Probably today it does — old jeans and T-shirt, no make-up. ‘Actually, I haven't really listened to his music so …'

‘You have to. I'll bring you some Nirvana CDs.'

Great.
She can't wait.

‘Sorry, what was your name?'

‘Brigitte.'

‘Right-o. Better get back to work then, Brigitte. Let me know if you need anything.'

She nods.

‘And, Brigitte.'

‘Yes, Sean?'

‘Light a candle for Kurt, OK?'

‘Sure.' She locks the door behind him.

It's a ten-minute walk to work. The cool darkness of the Gold Bar wraps around her like a security blanket. She pulls back her shoulders, sticks out her breasts, and swings her hips as she leaves stupid, awkward Brigitte at the door, and sexy, confident Pagan takes over.

Downstairs, her pseudo family is busy getting ready for the night shift: waiting for the middle-aged men whose wives don't understand them. Hannah, the housemother — ex-dancer, blonde, expensively groomed — is walking around with a clipboard, checking the roster. Al, the manager — ex-boxer, balding, black Italian suit — is looking over Hannah's shoulder, complaining about something, as usual. Brigitte hands him a shopping bag containing a brick-sized package from Eric, and that cheers him up.

Ember — aka Jennifer, Brigitte's former housemate — is dancing around the pool table next to the bar, singing ‘I Believe in Malcolm' to the Hot Chocolate song throbbing through the speakers. How many times does Brigitte have to tell her it's
miracles
?

She asks Ember where Crystal and Angelique are. She thought they were rostered on tonight.

‘Gone up to King Street,' Ember says. ‘Reckon the girls are earning more money up there.'

‘Yeah, but they're doing more than just dancing. Al says they're giving punters blow jobs in the back room at the Platinum Club.'

‘Dunno. Probably.' Ember shrugs, and dances off.

Tim, the bartender, pours Brigitte a glass of champagne with a dash of raspberry cordial.

‘Thanks. Saw you in the Hungry Jacks ad.'

‘It's just a start. My agent's lined up an audition for a film role.' He smiles as he cuts a lemon into slices.

‘Good luck.' She nods and sips her drink.

‘You're supposed to say break a leg, Pagan.'

‘I should know that. My brother's an actor.'

‘Really?' He looks up. ‘Who's his agent?

‘He's at
NIDA
.'

‘Lucky him.' Tim frowns, and goes back to slicing lemons.

She takes her drink to the dressing room. It's always freezing out here. The dancers warm themselves with alcohol and the hand dryer. Scarlett is doing her make-up, and Paris, a new girl, is hiding in the corner shooting up. She won't last long here. Brigitte plops her bag on the bench under the old theatre mirror with light globes around the edges. She undresses, then pulls on a silver-sequined bra and G-string, and squirms into a white dress that barely covers the tops of her thighs.

Scarlett looks up from her lipstick and says that Al says he saw Rita again last night. After closing. Rita is the resident ghost — apparently a dancer who was murdered at the Gold Bar back when it was a cabaret. ‘He reckons the cigarette machine started up by itself. A pack of smokes popped out, and then he saw a shadow on the ground.'

‘Al drinks too much at closing time.' Brigitte makes a ghost noise, and laughs as she slides her silver stilettos on.

There are only a few punters around when she climbs onto her first podium for the night. ‘Raspberry Beret': the DJ knows that Prince is her favourite. Her dress glows under the UV black lights. One guy — business suit — comes over to watch. He takes off his coat and covers his groin with it. His cigarette smoke hangs in a grey cloud, trapped in the dingy air. He waves a five-dollar note at her, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more than that. She swings around the pole, muscles flexing, the beat of the music pulsing through her body. When the punter holds up a fifty, she smiles down at him and blinks a slow blink, her eyelashes a stage-curtain coming down. She's in control up here, powerful, safe, where no one is allowed to touch her. She kneels in front of him, takes the money, folds it neatly, and places it under her garter belt. The beauty queens don't make the most. To do well you have to master the art of tease. Move hypnotically, slowly … slither — until he imagines he is the pole and you are making love to him. It's all done with the eyes. Removal of clothing is secondary. Once you capture him with your eyes, you can make him slip half his week's pay into your garter belt without thinking. Then your ten-minute set finishes, you dress, and you leave him sitting at the podium. Empty. Until the next dancer comes along.

***

Eric's colleague Ian is down from Sydney — two wrinkly toads sitting on the new white sofa, playing Nintendo, when Brigitte gets home from work at 4.30am. An expensive bottle of wine, white lines, and rolled-up hundred-dollar bills litter the coffee table. Ian never talks to her, and she ignores him. He jokes about Eric ‘playing house' when he thinks she can't hear, and he watches her when he thinks she can't see.

She double-checks that the bathroom door is locked before she showers and gets ready for bed.

Tendonitis has flared up in her arm again — a sickening cord of pain buzzes from her left bicep to her fingertips. She wraps a bandage around it, and swallows some anti-inflammatories, Panadol, and a sleeping tablet. A hot-water bottle makes it all feel better, for a while.

She dreams of Kurt Cobain standing in the apartment doorway, holding a gift box. Behind him, in the foyer, deliverymen struggle with plastic-wrapped furniture on trolleys. She grasps Kurt's arm, and whispers into his ear, ‘Please don't leave me here.'

He lifts the lid on the box. Inside is a puppy with a red collar around its neck. She reaches for the puppy, but a huge lizard jumps out. Rainbow patterns reflect off its shiny, silver-brown scales. A syringe sticks out of its back.

Heart palpitations wrench her from the dream, and she instinctively reaches for the Valium on the bedside table. Doctor O'Meara warned her not to mix alcohol with the anti-inflamms.
Rage
is on the portable TV in the bedroom, playing Nirvana all night. She feels around for the remote.
Where the fuck did Eric put it this time?
This film clip with the little girl in the Ku Klux Klan costume creeps her out.

23

The back gate at Nana and Papa's house is never locked. It's ‘pie night'. Brigitte can smell baking and wood smoke as she walks down the sideway. It's been raining, and moss is growing in scattered patches along the path beside the house. Nana always says,
Be careful, don't slip
. Brigitte has slipped a few times — on the way out after too many sherries. To fall over with her hands in her pockets would not be a good look, so she takes them out of her white woollen coat. The screen door bangs behind her as she goes into the kitchen.

Papa is setting the red Laminex table. He looks up, ‘G'day, Brigi. Where's ya new fella?'

‘Working.' She hangs her coat over the back of a chair.

‘When are we gunna meet him?'

‘Dunno.'
Hopefully never
.

‘Fancy a sherry?' He takes one green and one rose-coloured glass, and the bottle, from a bottom cupboard. He pours their drinks, and rolls himself a cigarette.

‘Got a house-warming present for ya.' He walks over to the open fireplace and touches the heavy, black iron object beside the mantel clock. ‘It was my grandmother's.'

‘Is it an iron?' Brigitte sips her drink, enjoying its warmth in her stomach.

‘Yeah. She used to heat it on the stove.' He picks at a tobacco thread stuck to his lip. ‘But you can use it as a doorstop at ya new place.'

‘It looks too heavy to carry home.'

‘I'll bring it over for ya in the car.' He throws some pieces of wood into the fire and sits back in the new Chesterfield chair that Brigitte bought for his birthday.

Nana comes in. She brushes flour from her apron and gives Brigitte a hug. Her face is cold, and her hands are red — she's been doing the laundry in the wash house out the back. She smells of vanilla, liquorice chews, and that stinky Joy perfume. Brigitte sneezes.

‘Have you buggers been into my cooking sherry again?' Then she frowns. ‘Where's Uncle Joe?'

Brigitte didn't call in at The Railway and walk him home. ‘I'm sure he can find his own way home from the pub.'

Nana narrows her eyes.

‘All right. All right.' Brigitte holds up her hands. ‘I'll go back and get him.' She's got her coat half on when the phone rings.

Papa gets up and answers it. He nods and says, ‘Right … Right … Right …' He hangs up and looks at his shoes. ‘It was Stefan from the pub. Uncle Joe fell off a bar stool.'

Brigitte and Nana stare at him.

‘Ambulance just took him away.'

Brigitte asks if he's OK.

‘He's dead.'

Shit.

Nana crosses her legs and holds onto the kitchen bench as if to stop herself from falling. Papa rubs Nana's back and asks Brigitte to ring Joan and Auntie Linda. Brigitte does as she's told, while Papa comforts Nana.

Beep beep beep
, STD pip tones. ‘This is Joan Weaver speaking.'

‘Hello, Mum.' It's been a while.

Joan pretends to not recognise her voice.

‘It's Brigitte. I'm at Nana and Papa's. You might have to come down.'

‘What for?'

‘Uncle Joe died.'

‘Oh, is that all?'

Nana wails.

‘Brigitte, what's going on?' Joan says.

Nana collapses, clutching her chest, into Papa's arms. Brigitte drops the phone.

‘Brigitte. Brigitte …' Joan's voice from the receiver swings on the cord.

Brigitte asks Papa if Nana's OK.

Papa shakes his head. He kneels on the lino floor, holding onto Nana. Brigitte cuts Joan off and dials triple-O. When an ambulance is on its way she kneels with Papa, stroking Nana's clammy forehead and soft, grey hair.

The pie burns, and Brigitte jumps up to take it out. Smoke billows from the oven.

Nana is conscious when the paramedics arrive, but they think she's had a minor heart attack. They make her comfortable on a stretcher, and joke about her burning the dinner. Papa goes with her in the ambulance. Brigitte wants to go, too, but Papa tells her to wait at home — he'll call with any news.

She checks the letterbox as she walks through the foyer. There's just some junk mail and two Nirvana CDs with a note from Sean, the caretaker:
To Brigitte. Let me know what you think.

She calls in sick for work. Al says she'll have to do a day shift to make up for it.
Prick.

She takes a Valium, and stands under a hot shower for a long time, trying to wash away stress with a bar of ‘chill out' aromatherapy soap. The phone rings, and she drops the soap. She runs, naked, to answer it, dripping water over the plush cornflower-blue carpet. It's Papa, from the hospital. Nana's doing fine. She should be able to go home in a day or two.
Phew.

Brigitte dries herself and puts on pyjamas.
Pop
: the happy sound of a champagne cork escaping. Into the bottle goes a big splash of raspberry cordial, and into the CD player, one of Sean's albums. She sits cross-legged on the floor with her drink. When she hears ‘Polly' she feels a connection — a shared knowledge of what it's like to be trapped. Cobain couldn't have written those words without understanding. Sean was right: he did know how to say stuff in his songs. No wonder the fans burned their flannelette shirts at his memorial. She should have taken more notice of him when he was alive.

She knocks back her drink, pours another, and thinks about Nana. There's a photo of her on Papa's bedside table; it's been there forever. Nana must be about twenty, maybe younger. She's at a party, smiling — perfect teeth, sparkly eyes, clear skin. She's luminescent, the way some movie stars seem to be — like there's a light shining on her but not on anybody else in that photo. When she was little, Brigitte wished she'd grow up to look like that. Joan looks like that, but without the shine. Nana is always so happy, but growing old and losing those looks must have made her sad. It made Joan sad.