“Oh, I don’t know.” Stinky’s dimple deepened. “Aren’t we all capable of it? I always think love is a kind of madness.”
“Love is a kind of madness,” repeated Julia. “That’s a very, hmm, poetic thing for a man called Bruce to say.”
“He’s trying to impress the laadies,” said Patrick.
“The point is,” said Julia, “we’ve all been hurt by someone, but we just have to get on with it, don’t we? That’s life.”
“You’ve never Googled an ex? When my last girlfriend broke up with me, I spent hours cyber-stalking her,” said Stinky. “Even if I didn’t physically stalk her, I stalked her in my mind.”
“So what? I might have raised my voice at my ex-husband, but that doesn’t mean I’m in the same category as someone who murders their ex.”
“But doesn’t it give you an understanding of how it could happen?”
“Nope,” said Julia.
“Oh, you’re a hard woman.”
“You sure are.” Ellen gave Julia a pointed look.
“OK, fine,” said Julia. “I once made anonymous phone calls to an ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Just for a few weeks and I was seventeen!”
“Aha!” Stinky pointed his chip at her triumphantly. “You’ve got a history as a stalker yourself!”
“I was not a stalker, I was just a silly teenager.”
“You’re not in the same league as my bunny-boiler,” said Patrick. He paused. “Sometimes I think she comes into my house when I’m not home.”
“You never told me that!” Ellen turned to look at him.
“Report her to the police, for God’s sake!” said Julia. “And change the locks!”
“What makes you think she’s been there?” asked Stinky.
“I’ve changed the locks more than once,” said Patrick. “And I don’t know what makes me think it. Just a feeling when I get home. Nothing is moved or anything. I just sense she’s been there. Something in the atmosphere. Maybe I smell a trace of her perfume.”
Ellen noticed that Patrick had avoided responding to Julia’s comment about the police.
Julia shuddered theatrically. “Oh, God, that’s like something out of a horror movie.” She pointed her chin in Ellen’s direction. “Lucky your new girlfriend likes horror movies.”
“Do you?” Patrick put his hand on Ellen’s knee. “I didn’t know that. I’m a wimp. They scare me to death.”
“I like my horror with popcorn and a choc-top,” said Ellen. “I don’t like the idea of Saskia going through your house! I don’t like that at all.” She shuddered, although part of her knew she was shuddering because it seemed like the expected response. She felt deeply sympathetic toward Patrick and understood his fear and anxiety, but for some reason she genuinely didn’t feel any fear for herself. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t met Saskia and she still didn’t feel quite real to her. Or perhaps it was just that Saskia was a woman and she didn’t really believe that women were capable of violence, even though she knew, of course, that they were. Whatever the reason, she still found everything about Saskia more interesting than frightening.
“Sorry,” said Patrick. “I never actually meant to tell you that. Anyway, I’m probably imagining it.”
“She’d never actually hurt anyone,” said Stinky to Ellen. “If that’s any comfort to you. She was a pacifist. She marched against the war in Iraq.”
“That was political,” said Patrick. “This is personal.”
“Didn’t she work for an animal shelter for a while?”
“An animal shelter,” snorted Julia.
“What’s funny about working for an animal shelter?” said Ellen.
“I don’t know,” said Julia. “It’s such a cliché.”
“Not for the poor little kitties and puppies.” Stinky looked mournful.
“What is this?” Patrick reached out and punched Stinky on the arm. “I’m surrounded by people who want to defend my stalker.”
“Sorry, Scottie” Stinky held up both palms. “I was trying to make Ellen feel better, let her know she’s not in danger.”
“Well, Scottie, unlike Stinky here, I’m not going to defend your stalker,” said Julia to Patrick. “I think she’s an absolute nutcase and you and Ellen should both be scared out of your minds.”
“Thank you,” said Patrick.
I went to the beach again today and fell asleep on the sand in my red dress.
Not the beach where the hypnotist lives, or any of the beaches I’d been to with Patrick. I went to Avalon. I’d never actually set foot on that beach before, so no memories.
I made myself ill on memories last night. I overdosed on them.
After I left Patrick’s family’s house, I didn’t go to the party. Maybe I knew all along I wasn’t going to the party. I don’t do parties. I drove for six hours without a break, except once, when I stopped for petrol and a bottle of water.
I drove to every place in Sydney I’d ever been to with Patrick.
I drove back and forth across the Harbour Bridge at least thirty times.
I was so in love with this city when I first came here. Sydney. Even just the name sounded exciting to me, like “New York” probably sounds to more sophisticated people who didn’t grow up in a tiny gray smidge of a country town right in the middle of Tasmania.
“You’re from Tasmania?” Sydneysiders used to say, with a lifted eyebrow and a half smile, when what they actually wanted to say was, “Really? That dear little place?” And I would duck my head humbly, as if I was saying, “Don’t hold it against me.” That doesn’t happen anymore. Now people murmur, “Oh, beautiful countryside in Tasmania.” I don’t know if it’s me who has changed or Tasmania.
Sydney is my big, brash, jewelry-wearing, credit-card-flashing ex-lover. Sydney dazzled me with beaches and bars and sunshine, with restaurants and cafés and music and with that big, hard, glittery sapphire of a harbor.
Like a silly, besotted girlfriend, I threw myself into finding out everything there was to know about this place. I know my way around Sydney better than any local or taxi driver. I can tell you where to go for the best yum cha and sushi and tapas. I know the theaters and the museums and the cool pubs. I know where to scuba dive, where to bushwalk, where to park. I’d only been living in Sydney for six months when I met Patrick, who has never lived anywhere else, and he didn’t know half the places I took him to even existed.