Dara’s Firebird Lovesong [Take Away Remix]

by Tessa Toumbourou

 

Jody had driven across the city that day with the doors on child-lock so the woman in the back seat couldn’t run out into the traffic like she threatened, testing the door handle at each red light to press her point. She drove, lips pursed in a red-slash and deep furrow brows mirrored by the woman in the rear-view, to an address someone on the phone had suggested takes people with those conditions. The voice was patronising and clinical, using the third person in a suggestive tone as if Jody might be asking not to help her mother but for herself.

 

Driving home, alone, Jody passed the bus stop where years ago she and her old school friend Dara had once laughed so hard they couldn’t breathe. Hysterical laughing, the kind that spasms from the stomach and leaves you breathless, the kind that even looking at each other had them exploding all over again. Life had been so simple and uncomplicated back then. Love was simple too - if you like someone you take something from them and hope they will see you clearer, hope that you can fill the spot that it took up in their lives. So simple she had asked Peter Tootslakis, the poor loser from high school who had liked her so much like a dog he’d done exactly what she asked him to do, to steal Dara’s guitar and he did. Easily. But, since then she had felt so guilty she could never really face Dara again and their friendship slowly disappeared. Jody let her slip from her life, and everything else that was good with it. Having Peter steal that guitar for her was something she now regrets more than she could have ever imagined. It symbolises everything corrupt in her life.

 

It was over six months ago now that Dara had found the guitar in her spare room in her flat, and had left again almost as abruptly, guitar in hand. In a terrible way it was an enormous relief to have been found out, to have the damn thing gone. The next day Jody had sent her an apologetic email on myspace, just two lines.

 

dara, i’m really sorry i did that to you. it was a long time ago in my life. please don’t hate me for something that happened so long ago. i want to change.

 

Dara wrote back a month later, almost exactly. To prove a point. Jody got it, loud and clear. You get what you give.

 

Hey Jody, I’m not really sure what to say to you. I can take the light with the dark with you but that was just fucked up. I’m playing a show next Saturday at the Tote. If your keen to chat, come see me there.

 

Jody had shown up at Dara’s gig, drunk and nervous, and the conversation lagged as Jody’s eyes wandered around the room. Jody couldn’t fix on Dara’s face long enough to finish her sentences. Dara asked her to wait while she packed up her gear and loaded the car with the rest of the band. When she came back Jody had gone. Well, fuck you then, Dara thought, and left it at that.

 

Now, months later, all Jody could think about was how much she wanted to see Dara. It was a need. She found Dara’s number that afternoon, written on a piece of paper she still had from six months ago when they first met up for a drink, when Dara had come to find her at work and they had gone out drinking. The night had turned sober the next morning. Now or never she told herself, dialling Dara’s number with shaking hands.

“I’m sorry to call you, are you busy?” Jody spoke too fast, her words spilling out incomprehensibly.

“I’m at work. Who is this?” But even as it left her mouth Dara knew. Jody. Always so blunt on the phone.

“I didn’t know who else to call. Can you come around? I’m at my parents, a lot of shit has just gone down and I don’t really know what to do.” Jody’s voice broke down before she could finish her sentence. She sounded exhausted, and in a strange, sad way more genuinely Jody than Dara could remember. Dara’s heart leapt.

“I just feel … at a loose end.” My mother, Jody wanted to say, I’m turning into my mother. Hearing the urgency in Jody’s voice Dara was compelled to say yes, of course, she would be there as soon as work finished.

 

Jody looked as exhausted as she sounded on the phone. Her eyes, once animated and daring were now bleary and red, with dark rings underneath. Her blonde hair was tied back roughly in a ponytail. She seemed thinner than Dara remembered, even wearing a loose cardigan over her jeans it startled Dara to see how slight her body was, hardly filling the doorframe as she made way for Dara to let herself in. The house smelt faintly of lavender, and the cream coloured curtains were drawn even though it was still light outside.

 

Dara hadn’t stopped at home to get changed and was grateful now as she stepped into Jody’s family’s home. She hoped her office heels and skirt gave a sense of efficacy - clean lines in a chaos world where children protect their parents from the destructive things in life. Dara knew - or had at least guessed - having put the pieces together even before Jody explained. Her mother, newly separated from her second marriage, had taken to drinking. The past few months had cumulated to the day Jody had come to visit her mother to find her passed out drunk on the kitchen floor, bleeding from the head.

“She could have died. And, when I got her up and took her to the hospital she didn’t even care. She just came home and went right back to drinking.” She paused, looking up at Dara with eyes filled with fear, then continued. “If she keeps this up she’ll kill herself.” Jody stared down at the centre of the table blankly as she spoke. Dara sucked her breath in sharply at the thought of it, not sure what to say.

Jody explained that she had moved back to her family home since that incident, to keep an eye on her mother, but it hadn’t made any difference. If anything it made things worse. “This morning I found mum passed out again, the final straw, so I took her to an emergency rehab clinic some phone help line told me about.” Jody shivered, and then looked around her, noticing her surroundings for the first time since she had started speaking. She stood up and filled the kettle to boil, fussing around in the kitchen to find tea bags. There was one left, an ex-motel English breakfast sachet in the nearly bare cupboards. The same motel tea-bag from that morning in Jody’s apartment.

“But there’s no milk or sugar.” Jody held the fridge open to prove it, its shelves held only a few aging vegetables and condiments. Jody laughed uncomfortably, apologising with a shrug.

“No one’s been shopping for a while. I eat out a lot.”

“Black is fine. Hey, I remember that motel tea-bag brand from when I stayed at your apartment that time.”

“Yeah? Want to know why? My step-dad, the fuckhead, he stays at hotels and brings the toothbrushes and shit home. He told us it was for work. Turns out he was sleeping with his secretary. Bitch.”

“Shit, that’s awful Jody. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry. That I’m a lying piece of shit like everything else in my life. That I stole your guitar to get your attention and never even talked to you after that. I can’t believe you would come over now, after all that. No one else would.”

 

Dara stood up, her chair scraping loudly in the quiet kitchen, and went over to where Jody stood to hug her tightly. Apology accepted.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve moved on with my life, things are working out with me.” Dara told her, breathing Jody in. Jody was warm and smelt sweet, the same slender body she remembered the one intimate time they had shared, all stolen kisses and warm hands on soft skin. Jody trembled in her arms and almost immediately she began to cry, huge gulping sobs that seemed to come from deep inside her. She crumpled at the knees and Dara couldn’t hold her full weight, together they sunk to the kitchen floor where they sat, holding each other as Jody pressed her face against Dara’s neck, her warm tears running in a shiver down her chest. Along with deep sympathy of friendship, Dara felt flooding back the teenage attraction she had for Jody. She felt the faintest feeling of hope - perhaps something new could come out of all of this. She hoped that she could make Jody feel the same, to take the edge off her sadness. She stroked Jody’s hair and her sobs eventually subsided. Finally, exhausted, Jody whispered to Dara that she needed to sleep. It was now completely dark and they had to feel their way out of the kitchen, along the hallway to Jody’s bedroom. Neither bothered turning on the light, it somehow felt easier to keep things in the dark for the time being.

 

“Can I cook you some dinner? You probably haven’t eaten all day. I can just go down to the supermarket, or we could order some Indian takeout.” Dara offered, wanting to make herself useful, to be a comfort. Jody shook her head.

“No, please don’t go anywhere. I’m not hungry. I just want to sleep. I haven’t slept in months. Every night I lie awake to listen out for what my mother might do to herself. Now I know she’s safe I can sleep. Anyway, I have to leave for work early in the morning.”

 

Jody had learnt the habit of drink before bed, keeping a half-empty bottle of whiskey by her bed. She shrugged when Dara asked her about it, said she needed it to sleep. She mumbled in protest when Dara took the bottle away but gave in on the promise that Dara would stay with her until she fell asleep.

 

Dara helped Jody take off her cardigan and jeans and climb into bed, perfunctorily, like a nurse. My role is a comforter, she told herself, as Jody lay on her bed in only her underwear, silhouetted by the street lamps that striped in bars of light across her face. She looked so beautiful Dara’s throat caught. Jody reached up to kiss Dara hard, urgently unbuttoning Dara’s shirt. Dara kissed Jody back on her tear stained face and neck, salty and sweet. Dara fell into bed beside Jody who turned over to tuck herself in against Dara and fell slack, falling asleep in almost an instant.

 

Dara lay still long enough to make sure Jody was asleep, while she waited to fall asleep. But sleep wouldn’t come as she lay awake burning with the heat of desire while the girl she had wanted for so long, and had tried so hard to forget, slept pressed against her side. She imagined waking Jody with kisses, starting from her perfect feet, but waking her up would be almost cruel, and that was, evidently, not why she was here. Even the house itself seemed restless, shuddering into itself to match Jody’s breathing.

 

In the early hours of the morning a noise in the front room made Dara sit up straight and pull herself out of the covers where she was tangled up in Jody’s arms and legs, and go out into the hall to see. Whoever it was had switched on the living room lamp, and she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. Jack, Jody’s younger brother who she had met only a couple of times many years ago, was home from his takeaway delivery shift. He had heavy bags under his blue eyes and his young beard was unshaven which suited him in a rugged, handsome way she rarely noticed in men. Perhaps because he looked a little like Jody.

“Oh, hi Dara. Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, I can’t sleep.” She was spun out, surprised Jack had remembered who she was, let alone her name.

“Must be contagious. It’s why I work so late - better than lying awake all night. I reckon its this house that does it to you.” His voice finished with a question mark - he seemed to be asking something else entirely.

“Jody asked me to come over. She took your mother to a clinic today, or yesterday rather.” He nodded gravely - it had been on the cards. He hung up his jacket and went into his mother’s room to find the bottles she kept hidden and emptied them into the bath. The alcohol slapped against the porcelain, echoing with a vulgar sound over the bare walls.

 

He crashed around in the kitchen to make a cup of herbal tea he had brought home, a sleep inducer. Dara didn’t want it, the smell was strong and she knew why she couldn’t sleep, but she sipped anyway to have something to do while he made polite conversation. He seemed to want to prove his family weren’t all like that. Dysfunctional. Everyone has their own defence system: their individual coping mechanisms.

“Sorry you had to be here for this. Its really not your problem.” He rolled his eyes towards his sleeping sister’s door, blaming her for inviting others to poke into their lives. He seemed much older than his eighteen years, teetering now on the edge of adulthood with his heavy-shouldered responsibilities. Dara asked questions in the pauses but ran out of things to say before her tea was cold.

“Don’t feel like you have to keep me company. You should just go to bed if you want to, you must be tired.” What was meant to be polite sounded halting and rude. She had caught him off guard. He shrugged and excused himself to bed to evade confusion.

“Bloody hell. Just trying to be polite.” She imagined him thinking.

 

Jody left early the next morning for her work shift. Dara woke up as she closed the door on the way out and couldn’t get back to sleep - her mouth was dry and tasted of metal. The herbal tea must have worked because she had fallen asleep on the couch after Jack had gone to bed. She dressed quickly and boiled the kettle for tea. The sink seemed to be piled with every dish in the house, there were no clean cups were left. She filled the sink to soak the pile of dishes - to be useful, to create some order, to not have to think. Sunlight caught the empty bottles Jack had left on the windowsill, casting thin beams of light to bounce off the white walls. She hummed quietly and focused on one dish at a time, washing twice to clean the congealed food that had sat for some time. A key in the front door startled her from her thoughts. The door swung open revealing Jody’s mother standing in the doorway, home to find Dara at her place at the sink. She was swaying slightly, keys in one hand and shoes in the other as though she was home from a nightclub. Dara wondered how she had got here. Taxi? But the street was empty behind her and she carried no bag or purse. She pulled herself from her thoughts to greet Jody’s mother.

“Hello Helen.” Soap ran down Dara’s arms and dripped off her elbows.

“Hello, Dara is it? Jody’s girlfriend from school. Doing our dishes. How presumptuous.” Helen muttered, as much to herself as to Dara, and pressed her lips into a smile but her eyes registered no emotion. Dara shrugged, bewildered.

“I used some for tea so I figured I’d do them all.” She looked at the kitchen clock, which read ten to eight. With relief she realised she had to go, immediately.

“I should get going to work. Jody is at work, at her General Pants shift.” Dara excused herself and left herself out the backdoor, face flushed. Jody’s girlfriend from school, is that what she had been? Jody’s family had even known and she hadn’t? She felt she had somehow caught Jody exposed, slipped into the vulnerable interior of a life that seemed so tough on the outside.

 

Jody called later that day to tell her that her mother had left ten minutes after she had arrived at the rehab centre and had walked home. It had taken her all night.

“I can’t do this much more.” She sighed. “So I’m taking a resort job up north, in Cairns. I can start right away. Can you take me to the airport next Wednesday?”

 

Dara drove Jody across the city to catch her flight. On the way Jody talked about her new job, at a luxury resort hotel. A good wage, they will reimburse her for the flight and accommodation after one month. It was a good deal - she can save way more money than she can at that cafe. And no early morning starts either.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” she said as they pulled out onto the freeway, past industrial warehouses and huge shipping containers stacked like box apartments. Big enough for people to live in. She could live out here in one of these - we could live together.

“There is nothing for me here.” Jody’s face was drawn, lips pressed in concentration on the passing factories as if trying to take in everything for the last time. She wouldn’t let Dara park the car and wait with her in the airline check-in, leaning across to hug her in the drivers seat before she had time to protest. Dara caught her familiar scent - lavender essence, perfume and the faint smell of whiskey - before she climbed out with her suitcase in tow.

“You know if you don’t like it you could always walk home!” Dara called from the window as she strode toward the sliding airport terminal doors. Jody didn’t turn around. Dara couldn’t tell if she heard or not.

 

The Take Away Remix by Tessa Toumbourou is licensed under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licence. It is a derivative work of Damian McDonald’s CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licensed story. The original is available at http://www.remixmylit.com/daras-firebird-lovesong-by-damian-mcdonald/. For details on how you can reuse the original and this remix see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/au/.