Second-hand Rain E-Book

Georgia Carys Williams

• Herausgeber: Parthian Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 231

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

I am the laugh of a kookaburra. I am a currawong. I am a galah. I am a lyre because I am a lyrebird. I am a performer and I am superb...Georgia Carys Williams' stories are dark, offbeat, rippling with watery memories and poetic unease. From the bluest Venetian lagoon where a merwoman saves a drowning gondolier to a glass harmonica playing itself along a tideline.Williams is a writer for whom the world is never the safe place: a phantom baby growing older, a granddaughter obsessively peeling tangerines, and a deaf sister conducting music in her sleep are all brought to life in an innovative and perceptive collection from a distinctive new voice.

Leseprobe

Contents

About Georgia Carys WilliamsTitle PageDedicationQuoteBeautifully GreekLyrebird LamentPushing BubblesSwansea MaladyLady VenetiaBlack and YellowSearching for the FogTangerinesDiary of a Waste LandTurnstonesConfidence ClassNostalgiaMy Sister, the ConductorThe BereavedThe Girl in the PaintingBelongingsAcknowledgementsCopyright

Georgia Carys Williams was born in Swansea. She won third prize at the Terry Hetherington Award 2012, highly commended for The South Wales Short Story Competition 2012, was shortlisted for the Swansea Life Young Writing Category of the Dylan Thomas Prize, 2008 and for the Wells Festival of Literature 2009. Whilst working on a PhD in Creative Writing at Swansea University, she writes forWales Arts Reviewand was commissioned by the Rhys Davies Trust to contribute toWAR’s fictional map of Wales series. Most recently, she was shortlisted forNew Welsh Review’s Flash in the Pen competition, published in Parthian’s Rarebit Anthology and awarded third prize in the Terry Hetherington Award 2014.

www.georgiacaryswilliams.com

@veryeglantine

Second-hand Rain

Georgia Carys Williams

For Mam and Dad

‘Death? Why this fuss about death? Use your imagination, try to visualize a worldwithoutdeath! […] Death is the essential condition to life, not an evil.’

— Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Beautifully Greek

My knees hurt. I’ve crawled for a very long time but Mummy won’t pick me up. I sometimes rest in the hallway, just to catch my breath, and then I continue to crawl towards the living room armchair where she sits. I want to be able to walk like Mummy sometimes does but I can’t make it by myself without falling straight back down again. I don’t know why she won’t hold my hands like she used to; maybe she doesn’t want me to grow any bigger.

She looks much older now; her roots have grown badger-like in their white tint and crow’s feet step in and out of the corners of her eyes as they blink at the book on her lap; she doesn’t turn any pages. I don’t know how she expects me to see the pictures when I’m sitting all the way down here; or hear her, when she doesn’t say anything out loud. If I know Mummy, she’ll soon slam the story shut and start another because that one isn’t colourful at all. Then, maybe I’ll stretch my arms open as wide as I can until she gives me a smile.

Unlike Mummy, I’ve maintained my bloom of youth. My romper suit is wearing thin after twenty-three years but fits as snugly as before, and my hair, which she always said was the shade of biscuits, remains three inches long with a marvellous shine. On paper, I was namedPseu-do-cy-e-sis, which is difficult to pronounce, soMummy always called me Baby, and if anyone used my official name, she’d cover my ears, then whisper straight afterwards how ‘beautifully Greek’ it was. As far as I could see, there was no Greek in our family and as far as the family could see, there was nome. That’s why they called me ‘unbelievable’; unwrapped my shawl as I laid in Mummy’s arms, then allowed its silk corner to recoil and steal my breath away. After that, Mummy cuddled me closer and promised she wouldn’t let them visit us again.

My earliest memory is of me and Mummy being sick; just sometimes, when we woke up during dark mornings. Then she became plump, which Dad said was my fault because I enjoy jellybeans so much. He used to rush out in the middle of the night to buy pounds and pounds of them, then laugh at us both gorging on them, especially the blue ones. Just a few weeks later, we visited the doctor, which made my stomach flutter but Mummy was smiling so much as we entered the special, square room with the dim light. She said she couldn’t believe it; I’d finally, after all these years, come true. The doctor said tests still had to be done.

When the phone rang at home a few days later, everything became dimmer as though we were back at the doctor’s office. Mummy was so excited that she accidentally dropped the telephone after answering, so it swung like a slinky beside my ear and there was the doctor’s voice echoing through Mummy’s tummy, to me.

‘We’ve received the results, and they were negative.’ I could feel Mummy’s heart racing above me, which made mine race after it. ‘Hello? Hello? Are you still there?’

I tried to speak back but nothing came out, and the next moment, Mummy was slamming the phone down so hard that it made me jump.

‘They can’t be sure of anything yet; not while you’re the size of a jellybean!’

That same day, Mummy told Dad he should begin to call me ‘Baby’ but he wouldn’t. Instead, he acted as though I wasn’t there, so I kicked him once when they were making love, entwined together like sugared, liquorice laces, but it was just to catch his attention. Then I watched him pause and lose interest in his actions for a while before he yanked the blankets over them and continued. He found it more difficult to ignore me on the next occasion, and the occasions after that. Yes, that must have been it because he didn’t get that close to either of us again, not for months. Mummy seemed sad about it.

A couple of months later, Dad sent us to another square room for psychotherapy. All we had to do was talk, which Mummy had no problem with; she always chatted to me. What she did have a problem with was the therapist saying my real name so many times and so quickly that there was nothing Mummy could do about it.

‘Now, you had the ultrasound again a few days ago and as I’m aware you’ve already discussed with your GP, there was no sign of foetal tissue, so we’ve established this as a case ofPseu-do-cy-e-sis,’she said, ‘which you have to believe. That’s the first step towards you getting better!Also, there’s more chance of you conceiving if you’re feeling less stressed.’

I could see that Mummy wasn’t listening, and I was confused: I remembered tumbling around as much as I could under Mummy’s tummy when they spread that jelly all over my back. ‘But I don’t need to conceive,’ she said, ‘my periods stoppedweeksago and my breasts feels so tender. I’m telling you, all the symptoms are here! You only have to look at me to see!’ Then she pointed right at me. I wanted to mention being thirsty all the time but the therapist was always interrupting me.

‘It’s all in the mind, I’m afraid. I know it’s extremely difficult to understand but what you’re currently experiencing is gaseous distension of the bowel.’ I was gladthatdidn’t turn out to be my name; it’s nowhere near as beautiful.

Mummy was offered pills another time, to prevent the ‘cessation of menstruation’ but Mummy defended me. She said swallowing them would be like aborting her perfectly healthy child. I stillamperfectly healthy.

‘This is a false pregnancy,’ the GP said. ‘I can’t stress how important it is for you to remember this baby does not exist.’

That’s when we left the room. Mummy wouldn’t stay unless the doctor believed we were both there.

I even remember the labour. Just before it, was ‘Braxton Hicks’, a name I wouldn’t have minded so much, but during my birthday, there was lots of disappointment. Dad was there and he looked sad holding Mummy’s hand, telling her it would all be over soon – and it was, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t difficult for us both; they were quite rough with me and kept calling me ‘a shame’, ‘Isn’t it a shame?’ they asked, and I wanted to spit out that I was a baby.

It was a home birth because I wasn’t allowed a bed at the hospital where there were going to be other, ‘real’ babies. I tried to make myself stand out; rolling and tumbling and crossing my legs over each other as I fought my way through, but ‘labour without delivery’ was what they called it in the end, at the precise moment I saw Dad’s hands were held open, ready to catch me.

‘He has no weight,’ Dad said, and Mummy sneered at him, her face as pink as mine, our wet strands of hair flopping onto our foreheads. ‘It’s as if he isn’t even here,’ Dad added, causing Mummy to cry even louder than me, but I was there, there’s no doubt about that; I remember how grainy his hands were as I wriggled in them, the roughest thing I’ve ever felt other than this carpet. I like to think Mummy’s cries were substitutes for what Dad was adamant not to hear.

‘I understand it must be awful for you to believe you’re bearing a child and then discover quite the opposite,’ another doctor said to Mummy weeks later. I was used to the dim light by now. ‘It might take a while for the shape to disappear entirely,’ he said, and I wondered where I’d gone. I didn’t want to leave but I was worried Dad was going to send me away and that was why Mummy had been holding the blanket so tightly around me before placing me in the nursery cot. She would sit alongside me for hours, quietly singing lullabies. Then one night, as my eyes were about to close, I saw hers become a teary glaze. ‘Phantom baby,phantom! They think you’re just imaginary, can you believe it?’ she was muttering to me: ‘As if you’re not a baby,’ she said, ‘but somethingelse.’ Then, telling me not to be frightened, she smoothed the frown from between my eyes. I couldn’t help feeling concerned; I worry a lot.

Mummy could see me for a while after the birth. She never forgot to kiss my forehead before we woke up together and always fed me her milk before rocking me back to sleep.

‘You’re not mad, Mummy,’ I used to say. At the time, I couldn’t pronounce my words very well but she’d smile back at me, whispering comfort. We always understand each other. Dad, on the other hand, kept saying how ridiculous it was, having a nursery for an invisible child and an intercom that heard nothing but the buzzing of its own on-switch. After that, I began to see myself in the mirror.

Dad didn’t like me; I’m not sure he does now. He never held me and always avoided eye contact, and yet once, I heard him mutter something in the nursery, just before he cleared it out and refurbished it to be a study. He just stood there, in the centre of the room, staring at the cot and the bears surrounding me as I rose onto my toes and clung to the wooden bars. I’d learn to keep things tidy, I wanted to say. Really, I would; I’d be the tidiest baby around, but he sighed, ‘Ah, we wanted you so much,’ which I did believe, but Dad didn’t realise that with no place for me to sleep, I had to lie between him and Mummy every night, growing a little as the weeks went on.

It wasn’t long before the milk dried up and I felt myself being held in Mummy’s arms, which seemed more limp than usual. Still, I clung on as tightly as I could, with my mouth open wide.

‘Mummy, can you not see me?’ I kept asking.

‘Mummy, can you not see me?’

But I think she only saw me in glimpses: when I learnt to sit up, when I learnt to crawl. That teary glaze must have altered her vision. I still can’t walk, but I learnt to talk just by listening to Mummy. I used to scream, but it had no effect. Sometimes I hold her hand, but she flinches. It’s difficult to comprehend; that space I took up when I was swelling up like a bowling ball in her stomach. Thatweightis in the space around her and yet she can ignore it so easily now. She ignores me as I crawl after her, grasping onto her stubbly ankles and hanging like a dead weight. What does it mean when my tummy growls at me?

I see other children sometimes. They tell me they have the same name, ‘Pseudocyesis’, so I tell them how beautiful it is, how Greek it is and they smile. They don’t have Mummies. We have learnt to be the children watching life and not playing a part. Sometimes I notice Mummy staring longingly at other toddlers in pushchairs and I feel jealous, I begin to hate them. Perhaps someday, Mummy will find me; surely she can’t forget. I can see her when she smiles false smiles and I wish people would notice as I do, saying ‘False! Unbelievable,’but I heard her talk about me after a few years had passed. It was when a lady walked past in the street and she asked how I was.

‘Oh, it’s a long story,’ Mummy mumbled, as though I wasn’t a child, but somethingelse. So I feel a little betrayed. I’m a much taller story now. ‘Don’t be frightened, Baby,’ she had told me all that time ago, yet I think she’s quite frightened of herself. I’m scared she’ll never call me Baby again.

Pseu-do-cy-e-sis. My paper-name is difficult to pronounce all by myself.Pseudocyesis? Is that all it is? I’m determined to learn as much as I can from Mummy. She knows a lot. She sees the world more openly than other people and the three of us have visited lots of places together since the beginning. She should know I’m only as old as she allows me to be but she’s not letting me grow; maybe she really doesn’t want me to get any bigger. Sometimes, I still try to lie between her and Dad, like the child they had always wanted, but neither seem comfortable with it anymore, not even Mummy; perhaps because I am older now, perhaps because I am twenty-three.

They’ve both retired now, but I don’t see them in the same room very often. When I do, I don’t hear them saying anything, not even about me, so I’m beginning to forget what their voices sound like. Mummy’s used to sound like whispers. I hope they’re not silent because I’m singing so loudly, but I want to show I remember the songs Mummy taught me because I don’t want them to forget how much I need to be looked after.

Most days, I crawl back and forth between the living room and the kitchen, then up and down the stairs with all the strength I can muster to lift each leg, but my knees, they hurt. I go wherever Mummy’s warmth goes, wherever that smell, sweet like jellybeans, goes, which I remember from the times she used to hold me against her chest and gently rub my back. It made me dozy with its deep sound,ba-boom,ba-boom,ba-boom. Sometimes, I fall asleep in the hallway, just thinking about it; sometimes for days.

I can’t help yawning now. The carpet makes my knees sore and my hands are bright red, look! I’m trying my best to stand without holding onto anything but I can’t, so I’m reaching out with my arms, trying to keep my balance, and smiling at Mummy at the same time. Oh, she’s sitting up. Now she’s added her book to the pile on the coffee table, but why isn’t she looking at me? I’m standing right here.

‘Mummy! I’m right here.’

Doesn’t she care to pick me up? Why doesn’t she want to cuddle me? My knees, they hurt. I want Mummy to kiss them better.

Lyrebird Lament

I am the laugh of a kookaburra. I am a currawong. I am a galah. I am a lyre because I am a lyrebird. I am a performer and I am superb.

I’ve performed every winter of my life in the lush, green forest. I was born into the drama, into the bellowing music of males I looked up to, or down on, depending on my position on a nearby tree. They were inspirational from the start, with their feathery tails fanned over their heads like stage curtains, almost tribal in their side-to-side and circling footsteps. They looked alive. That’s how I learnt so much, by observing, by remembering and recording: seeing their fifty-minute shows provided me with entertainment, but also something to look forward to, something to achieve. I was told I would have the chance to sing out like the others, eventually. ‘At the moment, you’re just a plain-tail,’they said.

Competition was always drilled into me. I knew I needed to have a good memory but also be a good listener, which meant a high level of self-interest was impossible. I needed to remember everything so accurately to impersonate it properly. ‘Practice makes perfect,’was another thing they said, and was mainly what my life consisted of: I am this, I am that. From the trees, it all looked so easy initially, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It took great concentration to get it right and when it happened, I felt elated. Other than thechoo chooof my own voice, I sounded my first call, which was the laugh of a kookaburra. I was attempting it over and over againoo oo oo oo oo OO, oo oo oo oo oo OO, oo oo oo oo oo OO, ahahaha.Then I heard the sound, exactly the same as the one I’d made. Whether it was another lyrebird or not, I couldn’t be sure, but I knew it was the feeling of success. I did it again and heard it again and then I was addicted; over and over I was chuckling and always looking for the next sound.

From that moment on, I truly became myself, which I discovered was alotof different things, but ‘one note wrong,’ the elders said, and the audience could end up on someone else’s side, and who was the audience? They were the plainer birds, brown like pheasants and never quite as noisy as the rest of us, but that didn’t matter, I knew I liked them, females were the prize. When I was younger, I used to forage along the forest floor in the company of other young males and females; we used to rake up leaves and soil to find earthworms and search rotting logs for insects and beetles. My interests changed when I was about three years old because even though my feathers had been falling away every year, they’d grown back longer each time. At that point, with my fully-formed lyre-tail, I was prepared to work alone. I could finally perform.

I began building mounds for the show and when I was ready and the weather was right, I would race up to one of them as fast I could and begin performing straightaway. I began with thechoo chooto draw attention to myself and when I saw the blemishes of brown appearing in the distance, I would really show off, first with the kookaburra and next, the squeak of the currawong along with anything else I’d learnt.I am I am I amwould whirl around in my head as I’d synchronise the sounds, such a colourful carnival of voices. Then I’d run to the second mound, then the third. I would walk backwards, then forwards, then backwards, and then spin around, rotating my veil of feathers.

I loved the sense of it all, you know, the atmosphere. For about fifty minutes, I would stand and perform with my ferny fringe fanning over my face, then tap my feet, seeing the excitement in their eyes, all because they were watching me. There was a sense of achievement in being able to finally display what I’d tried so hard to learn for so many years. That moment gave me confidence.

‘I can be anything,’ I told myself. It was clear that I could.

After that, my songs became more and more elaborate. It was a show that was only cancelled by the rain, which could ruin my lacy feathers and any future performances. I even chased other males out of my territory if I thought they’d threaten my success, my fame, my living to excess. At the end of the spinning, my head and wings would begin to shiver from left to right so fast: they must have looked like a blur, vibrating as though they were shaking something away. Then I’d start making a clicking sound until I’d impressed at least three of the females. Then I’d stop, standing still before the next scene, which was the most interesting to the birds in the trees. It involved only two of us: me and another female. Then the show would be over until next time.

As time went on, I began to hear different noises in the forest, more unsettling ones. There was one in particular, a sort of buzz that wentvrrr, vrrrr, VRRRRRRorwhoa whoa WHOAwith the background of a cracklyzzzzzzz. I spent as much time trying to ignore it as I did paying attention to it. It was quite difficult to mimic because its grumble seemed to fluctuate. I tried to warn it away by singing one of my most melodious tunes, which lasted a long time but I had to let them know, this wasmyhome.

As I said, it was rare for performances to be cancelled. Everyone had always been so eager and it wasn’t raining, so I didn’t understand why no one was rushing to my show. The sounds of other birds seemed so far away. While I was resting amongst the trees, I heard that sound again.Vrrrr vrrrrr, zzzzzzzzzzzz,but it sounded a lot closer than before. I considered how this could be the perfect chance to learn it properly, to possess it, just as I had with every other sound in the past. I managed to find a branch in the distance, from which I could see where the sound was coming from,Zzzzzzzzzzz, and then I spotted something moving. I jumped down and ran as fast as I could across the forest floor towards it. It wasn’t a bird, that I was sure of. It was a human holding something sharp, with huge, serrated teeth and it was cutting away at the forest. I watched, seeing tree after tree tumble down, causing the ground to tremble beneath me. I felt sorry for the creatures over there; they must have been terrified.

Days afterwards, I became ill. My eyes and nostrils became runny and I couldn’t breathe very well; I felt like there was some kind of dust trapped in my throat. I wanted to warn the other lyrebirds about what I’d seen but competition meant I’d chased them all away a long time ago, aggressively charged at them, so I probably wouldn’t see anyone anytime soon. I didn’t know whether it was the delirium of my illness, but I was sure that sound was moving closer. Everything sounds loud when you’re drifting off to sleep, but this was an unbearable noise.

One morning, it was all made clear. It was closer, very close indeed. It was a human holding a chainsaw and it was ready to cut down the tree I’d roosted in the night before. When I heard itszzZzZzznot yet upon the bark, I quickly jumped down from the log I was perched upon, then raced across the forest floor again, but it seemed there were trees being amputated before me and as they fell, the pounding caused me to be thrown against a log, which was where I stayed. Just across from me, I could see one of those plainer females lying on her side, a small branch across her tail feathers; that’s why she hadn’t come to watch me. I wondered about other birds perched high up in the branches and I hoped they’d escaped. I tried to shriek as a warning but nothing emerged from my beak. I tried to imitate what I’d been practising in recent weeks, that sameZzZzzzzZzzbut nothing sounded other than a raspy crackle and panting breath. I’d lost my voice.

I can’t be sure exactly where I was discovered but I remember waking up with at least three humans standing around me. I felt nervous but their faces weren’t as menacing after they’d laid the chainsaws down.

‘This one’s alive. We’ll send him to Adelaide Zoo. He’ll put on a good show,’ said one of them. That was the first mention of another show I’d heard in a long time, so at that moment, I felt excited, even when I spotted the trunks of my old home making their way out of the forest on an eight-wheeled truck.

‘They’ll have to get him better first, mate,’ another voice said, the sound too complex for me to even contemplate imitating for a long time. ‘He’s a skinny thing. Shouldn’t be that small. Looks like some sort of flu.’ I was lucky to be alive. Then I was placed in a box on the back of a different truck altogether and sent away to the new show. It must have been the nerves that caused me to vomit all over my face. I fell asleep breathing in the rich smell through my already stuffed-up nostrils.

I’m at the zoo now, in Adelaide, where I often daydream about my old home. I see the colours, hear the sounds and imagine running and running and running, chasing off all competition. I’d sing all day, marking out my territory, but now I wake up, dancing in circles, before crashing into the fencing that marks it. Gazing through the mesh, home always seems so far away that I wonder if I’ve imagined it all, even the males from whom I learnt my performances. I used to perch low in a tree and watch them, didn’t I? As soon as I approach this detail, my daydream always turns into a nightmare, with chainsaws that devour the trees. Sometimes I still hear their growl,zzzZZZZzzz, ZZZzzzzz,louder and louder.

I haven’t noticed as many female birds either. They don’t seem to be around here, no matter how much I sing, dance or run around. I miss their plainness, their brown dullness; they’re the audience I want. They used to make me feel better about myself; I was always a winner, but now, I reap no rewards. Sometimes, I put on a display and no one comes to watch at all. Whose side are my audience on now?

I regained my health after the zoo took me in. They do take care of me; I feel safe, which of course I’m grateful for, but even when my ability to make sounds returned, I’d lost all my previous identities: I can’t laugh like a kookaburra; I definitely can’t laugh, I need to practise but I can’t quite hear the sound. Instead, I cry the cry of a human baby. I’ve learnt every one of a writer’s words: he visits and sits alongside my fence each week and reads my story aloud as though he’s me, as though he’s stealing my identity. I have an audience I don’t want.

Now, I am the horn of a railway. I am a lumberjack. I am a car alarm. I am the shot of a rifle. I am a dog barking. I am a human voice. I am a camera. I am a lyre because I am a lyrebird. I am a performer and I am superb.