She Was.

I begin the day with chicken pie and work my way backwards to toast with honey and cream. Break   fast. I wake up in a green and black h&m tshirt and add trackpants. I swipe my hair into a topknot. High on my head. I reach for toothpaste in the afternoon.

[The girl is sitting on the edge of a tree stump, she is wearing a blue floppy hat to shield her eyes from the stinging sun. Her skin is pale, almost translucent. Her pink blouse is tucked into her long red skirt. She is wearing brown plaited sandals. She is sitting next to a black haired boy. He is holding a basket. In the basket there is a bottle of water and a cheese sandwich. He is wearing a wide brimmed straw hat and frayed at the knee denim shorts. His skin does not burn in the sun.]

I  dial around 4.00pm. No one answers. I vacuum the kitchen, stand on tiptoe to reach the spiderwebs. Behind the fridge there is a thick collection of dog hair. The dog watches me as I sway push the fridge in then out. The dog walks away when I’m finished. I sit at the kitchen table and look at the cloud sky. The neighbour has let his pigeons out again and they crap on the sheets that I washed yesterday. I decide to leave them there.

[The girl watches as a still-small crocodile crawls through the grass towards her. She is not frightened. The boy waves his hands at the crocodile to scare it away. The crocodile is steadfast in it's approach. The girl notices that although still-small the crocodile's 66 teeth gleam in the sun. She thinks that it would hurt if the crocodile closed its jaw around her flesh. She looks at her wrist and imagines the crocodile's sharp teeth sinking into her sinew. She smells her blood, fresh and warm, for the crocodile. The boy is yelling at the crocodile. The crocodile winds around the girls legs.]

I eat lunch at dinner time and burn the steak. I call again and this time they answer. They take my number and promise that they will call if they can use me. I hope that they can use me. I take the sheets off my bed and plump the pillows. I spray perfume on the mattress. I empty my handbag on the bed and throw away ticket stubs, receipts and chewing gum wrappers. I put more money into my purse.

[The girl lets the crocodile curl up in her lap. He wriggles around in circles, his claws flexing in and out digging into her thighs. He sits down comfortable. The girl strokes the crocodile's scales, right behind his head. The crocodile closes his yellow eyes and purrs. The boy looks at the girl and begins to cry.]

I take a shower around 11.00pm. I wash my hair and condition it, pulling a comb through the tangled length. I step out of the shower and wrap a clean towel around myself. I pluck my eyebrows in the mirror. I take a long time getting them just right. In the meantime, my hair begins to dry and I spot a grey hair at my temple (left). I find my nail scissors and cut the hair out. I put on my bra and underwear. I choose a brown, orange and purple patterned dress and match it with a black and grey striped long cardigan. Later, when it gets colder I will add knee high black and white striped socks. I wrap my hair back up in the towel.

[The girl asks the boy if she can have his sandwich. She must be hungry, he thinks, and so he unwraps the sandwich and offers it to the girl. The girl takes the sandwich and offers it to the crocodile. The boy gets mad. It is his sandwich and he doesn't think that the girl should be giving it to the crocodile. He snatches the sandwich and throws it on the ground. The girl says nothing and the boy leaves. The girl sings to the hungry crocodile.]

I sit infront of the mirror and towel dry my hair. I wet it with a spray bottle to get rid of the frizz. I brush my hair for a long time. I go to sleep in my dress with wet hair.

[The girl and the crocodile eventually fall asleep in the hot afternoon sun. The girl dreams of the boy and the cold smooth feel of his hands.]

Because I’m sad, you should let me cry. You could pat me on the back, or use the pad of your thumb to wipe my tears away. You could stroke my hair away from my spilling mascara eyes and maybe murmur ‘there, there’. I don’t mind if you’re heart is not really in it. That’s not what this is about. Maybe you could shuffle a little closer to me, take my hand and hold it for a while. You could lace your fingers with mine and pretend not to notice that my nose is running, dripping. You could turn off the television and pretend to listen to my sob words. You don’t have to really listen. That’s not what this is about. You could lean in real close, rest your forehead on mine, maybe inhale a little, like you were smelling my hair. Your fingers on my back could move lower, snake around and under my cardigan, find my skin, contact, stroke. You could make your way around to the side of my bra, flick your fingers underneath, feel the place rib meets breast. I probably wouldn’t notice at first and you could pretend to yourself that you were still comforting me. Maybe you could graze your beard along my temple, drop kisses here and there, lick away my tears, run your tongue over my lips. When I open my mouth to sob you could kiss me harder, fight me with your tongue. Your grip could get harder, just a little, maybe around my waist, or in my hair, you could clench whole fistfuls, I would already be crying. You could push your weight against me, lower me on the couch, your hand under my skirt. You could run your fingers over my white cotton panties, or maybe you could pull them to the side while you work your fingers inside me. Your other hand pressure across my forehead, your eyes closed, mine blurred. You could feel my in it heart beating against your chest and you could unzip yourself, tell me everything’s going to be ok, while I tell you that that is not what this is about, while you begin to fuck me, while I cry. Because I’m sad, you should let me cry.

1.   Madeline is a “fighter”. She did not become this way over the course of a “hard life”, she was torn this way right out of the womb. Her mother tells her that she was three when she first began building her sandcastles on the waterline. Madeline’s mother explained that the waves would lap away at her castles just as quickly as she could build them, but Madeline puffed out her cheeks, waved her spade and shook her head – no. This is Madeline’s mother’s favourite Madeline story. In her mid-twenties Madeline experimented with laying down and waiting, but found that that approach “just wasn’t for her”.

2.   Annabelle doesn’t have sex when it’s hot. She does not like to make “extra effort” and prefers her orgasms to be effortlessly, expertly, delivered, preferably by tongue or finger. She finds the feel of a body on hers alien, and the summer heat is oppressive enough. She saves her sex for winter, autumn and spring when she is more inclined to “put out”. During her “good” months she stores the touch of lovers in the bird shaped jar by her bed. In winter, when she rests, she looks inside the jar and “feels nourished”.

3.   Justine reads about the “lonely man” in the paper. She wonders how he made it to the front page. She is lonely too but no one writes about that. When she sees his photo, she puts down the paper and rummages around in her bag for her glasses. She puts them on and peers at his picture. She knows the “lonely man”. She knew him when he was less lonely and more married. When she was 20 and half his age and he wanted to “take her driving” . The “lonely man” says that he is lonely because he is less married these days. That is what Justine reads in the paper. Justine thinks the gun shot wound is self-inflicted and wonders what she did wrong.

4.   Cara says:

“and then there’s so many reasons and so many limited choices, I see that now, and there’s offers of work you know, nothing great, stripping or maybe  answering phones, fucking for money, well not fucking, but you know, almost fucking, and, I know, I know, right, and you know, after everything, stripping, I mean should I feel as validated as I do ? , and you know I have no problem with sex, with whatever you know me, (throaty laugh) I mean I understand trade and commodities, you know, trade, and fuck, maybe I was just born cynical, maybe smart-mouthed too, fuck, how much trouble has that gotten me into ? , these things just happen, you know, we don’t really ever choose, you just kind of fall into it, and nurture, what a load of shit, I mean, determinism – hello – it’s the mutation of cells and the division and the push to make it. Sex for money, I’m not repulsed, and you know I’m not judgmental, I mean fuck, how could I be ? , so it would probably be just answering phones and being polite and friendly and welcoming and you know maybe I could suck the end of my pen a little, (thrusts her chest out, smiling) push  my hair back off my face, I’m so curious, you know, but kill the cat and all that, right ? but fuck I’d think they’re pathetic, hold on, (coughs) yeah, yeah, I know, I already do.”

Cara says all this very quickly, wrapping and unwrapping her long hair around her finger.

5.   Christine “suffers” from “low self esteem”. This leads her to make some “bad” choices. She doesn’t sleep around, or seek attention or approval. She is not an “over-compensator”. Instead she says nothing. She walks away and does not “make a scene”. When she does speak she says the opposite of what she thinks/feels because her thoughts/feelings must be wrong. She thinks this because she “has low self esteem”. This means that she often “figures it out” when it is too late. Christine spends many hours laying awake at night wondering how to “fix” things. But because she spends so much time not doing / acting / saying / revealing / chancing / risking / feeling, the conclusion she comes to, is that “the moment has passed”. Each time Christine resolves that she will not let her “low self esteem” get in the way again. Christine thinks that this is a good plan, for now.