The blankets slid away from Aida’s upper arms and the cold air roused her from sleep.
‘Did I wake you?’ Thomas murmured.
Aida nodded and yawned.
‘Sorry. Elsie said you went to bed early. You’re not feeling well?’
‘Just a headache,’ she replied softly.
‘Do you need something for it?’
‘I’m fine. I had a Bex.’
Although the bedroom was dark, the bathroom light was on and an ambient yellow glow came through the open bedroom door. Aida could hear the sounds of the tap being turned on then off, the toop-toop of Elsie spitting toothpaste into the sink. The bathroom light went off, and Elsie padded into the room.
The door clicked shut.
Aida’s stomach sank a little. She wasn’t in the mood. She moved closer to Thomas so Elsie could climb into bed, and Thomas threaded his arm around her waist. Aida closed her eyes.
She felt Elsie’s lips brush her forehead; she came with the scent of Pears soap and lavender face cream. Aida breathed deeply and Elsie ran her fingertips down her arm; she felt Thomas move closer to cup his hand over Elsie’s hip on the other side of her. Sandwiched between them, Aida felt sleep rolling over her and for a brief moment she felt something like contentment.
Elsie kissed her lips. Softly, at first, and Aida kissed her back. Elsie’s kisses grew deeper and her fingers stroked the soft flesh on her belly. Thomas, his lips roaming over the back of her neck, grew firm against her rump.
Aida pulled away. ‘Sorry, I’m too tired.’
Elsie touched her temples, ‘Head still hurting?’
‘A little. But I’m desperately tired.’ Millie was getting another tooth; they were all tired.
‘Okay, honey,’ Thomas whispered. His penis was hard against her and she could feel his movements as he ran his hand over Elsie’s body. ‘Do you mind if we . . . ?’
Aida sighed again. Maybe, tonight, she did mind. She wanted them to lie down and sleep beside her. Or, she wanted to be awake and happy and to share their pleasure. She thought of the house next door, where there was a quiet, unoccupied bed with plenty of leg space, no one to pull the blankets from her shoulders and no explanations needed – nothing to do in it but sleep.
‘Just keep it down, okay?’ she tried to joke, but her head throbbed.
They kissed her; two sets of lips left cool damp spots on her cheeks. They slipped from bed; the door opened and closed. She didn’t hear their footsteps down the hall, nor the sound of them checking that Millie was asleep and pulling her bedroom door shut. Then they would make love in the lounge room, a husband and wife without her, and she wouldn’t hear that either.
*
It wasn’t long after Aida had returned to the house on Church Street – now mortgaged to Mullet – that the strange nervous attacks began.
The first time happened one morning, after breakfast. Elsie was trying to put a cardigan on Millie in preparation for their walk to the shop. Millie was fussing, unhappy about the cardigan’s snug cuffs around her wrists, and kept wriggling and wrestling herself out of the garment. At twelve months old, Millie had recently started walking and along with her newfound mobility, she also discovered the sentiment No, and applied it liberally.
Witnessing Elsie’s mounting exasperation, Aida had felt something invisible, hot and dreadful, slide over her. Her mouth went dry and she felt the blood drain from her face. Inside her chest her heart began to pump as though she had run a marathon and her entire body was washed with an indescribable terror. Her fingers flew to her throat as though she was choking, and every muscle in her body screamed at her to run. Flee. But run to where? And flee from what?
Elsie rushed to her side, anxiously urging her to breathe. Panicked tears were rolling down Aida’s face and Millie, startled, began to wail. When it subsided, Aida told them to go to the shop without her.
A few days later, it happened again. And this time, they weren’t alone. This time, the visceral, overwhelming bodily fear struck her as she was perched on the edge of Mrs Pellarin’s couch, eating a slice of tea cake and discussing a fundraiser for an air-conditioner for the CWA room, in the company of five other ladies – people around whom Aida had to maintain the galling fiction of being Mrs Shepherd, miner’s widow. Gasping out an excuse, Aida had fled to the bathroom and hid there until Elsie came looking for her twenty minutes later. Citing a headache, Aida had left.
It happened again, and again. It happened at unpredictable, random times – if Aida was out walking, if she was alone or if she was in company. But it was the latter occasions that compounded her increasing terror, made it all the more unbearable. Because the faces of those around her mirrored her horror, looked at her with distaste. Always looking, peering. Always wanting to know.
For Aida, it became easier to turn down invitations, to stay home. And eventually, the only place Aida could feel a semblance of safety was at her house. Hers, or Thomas and Elsie’s.
Elsie taught her to knit – scarves that Aida finished and then unpicked again, blocks of colour that she sewed into blankets and dropped nervously over the road to Mrs Scott for all her kids. Aida taught Elsie to flavour her cooking with fresh herbs that they grew in the garden: oregano, basil, thyme. Aida dug rows of vegetables into her own backyard and grew so many potatoes, turnips and beetroots that Elsie took basketfuls to Swaffers Store, pressing the coins into Aida’s hands. Together they cared for Millie, whose second word, after Mama, was Ay, and when she started school, Aida cut her Vegemite sandwiches into love heart shapes.
In that way, four more years passed.
Until one afternoon, Aida’s father’s heart seized while he was sitting at his desk.
Aida had no choice but to force herself to the bus station. Except this time, she only packed an overnight bag.
At her father’s funeral, Aida’s mother said, ‘I’m moving to Brisbane, to live near your Aunt Fay.’ There was a pleading look on Dorthea’s face: she wanted Aida to come with her.
But Aida shook her head and said, ‘I can’t, Mum. I can’t leave her’, and Dorthea believed that Aida was talking about the memory of the baby they had taken from her. And it wasn’t a lie – it was simply only one part of the truth.
John Glasson left his daughter half of his liquidated estate.
Even after Aida bought the house from Thomas, she stared at the figure in her bankbook and knew she could never spend it in her lifetime.
Though the loss of her parents weighed on Aida’s heart, the fear began to lift. Inside her, a sense of safety had taken root, and started to uncurl. Perhaps it was the passage of time, or perhaps it was the changing patterns of Aida’s grief, but she found herself able to breathe again.
Which was why, one warm spring Friday, after years of seclusion, Aida was able to be convinced by Elsie to visit the Spring Show.