Nothing to Fear
2008; Springer International Publishing; Volume: 34; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0311-4198
Autores Tópico(s)Contemporary Literature and Criticism
Resumo'You really don't want to go home?' She shakes her head. She's embarrassed. She's thirty years old and scared of the dark. 'What are you so afraid of?' She looks out of the car at her house. It sits on a corner block and is lit yellow by the setting sun. 'What if someone were standing there?' 'Standing where?' 'Outside my bedroom window.' She points to the side of the house where a window faces a fence and then the street. 'What if someone were watching.' 'Watching what?' 'Watching me sleep.' She senses his suggestive amusement. She does not look at him. She gets out of the car. She does not turn to wave. She lies in the blue, moon-lit darkness of her bedroom. It's hot. It's been hot for weeks now but she still pulls the doona right up to her chin. Under the covers, one of her hands strokes her stomach. Her skin is too sweaty to make the motion smooth, but it feels good to know that she's there, real and there, under the covers. Her other arm lies stiff and straight by her side, sticking to her skin where her nightshirt has rolled up. She looks at the ceiling, at the cornice above her and pretends that the tracing of her body is the tracing of that same ornate, historic design. It is a movement that she knows by heart, that her body decided all by itself when it offered her its own permanent, and finally unchanging shape. All of this under the covers - so no one can see, though no one is there - is the only way of forgetting, and the uncurtained window clouds opaque with fantasy. His skin sticks to hers. Under the covers she can feel his heartbeat, fast, thrashing against his rib cage. 'Are you afraid?' she says. He does not reply. 'I thought you said I had nothing to fear?' Again he inhales, suddenly, sharply, as a deep-throated rattle shakes the night-time outside her bedroom window. 'What was that?' he says, trying to find her hand under the covers. He can't. She doesn't offer it to him. He clutches fiercely to the flesh of her stomach. He's hurting her. She says nothing. 'What was that?' he says again, turning into the curve of her, so that he can smell her hair and feel her pulse beating beneath the skin of her neck. 'Nothing.' Another rattle shakes the night and a thumping can be heard coming closer, further away, and closer again. They can hear the fence creaking, splintering, under an unexpected heaviness. And then silence. 'That's not nothing.' 'It's just the possums,' she says, finally, letting him sweat beside her. A smile sounds in her voice. 'Possums?' 'That's all it is.' She folds her arms behind her head and, looking up at the cornice, she begins to recite: 'With closed eyes, little girl, you pretend that you're dreaming but hear sudden screaming and a crashing of wood. You sit up in your bed and you face the closed curtains Why won't you lie still, as a little girl should? You open the curtains: the possums stop screaming, stop fighting for buds from a tree that won't bloom. You're looking outside he's standing there, watching, and oh how you wish for a windowless room.' He withdraws from her. He turns on his stomach, watching her face. 'Did you make that up?' She shakes her head, looks at him. His face is pale, paler, even, than a moonlit face should be. 'It's something someone used to sing to me.' 'You're kidding?' 'No.' 'What the Hell sort of a nursery rhyme is that? No wonder you're ...' She smiles. She unentwines one of her arms from behind her head. She cups his chin in her hand. 'The moral of the story is, if the possums are screaming, the little girl is okay. If the possums are quiet, someone is there.' She kisses him. …
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