The Forrests by Emily Perkins Page B

of tea or heated-up pie was served Grace would squall until Dot, refusing Eve’s help, took her outside. Mostly Evelyn wound up eating and drinking alone, reading the newspaper or watching her sister pace the footpath as she joggled the baby, and then Dot would flurry in all apologies and close to tears, slurp her tea, have a mouthful of cake and announce she had to go.
    Despite being a colonised baby domain, some weeks Dorothy’s house was the only really human place Eve found herself. She had to admit that her social life was out of control. She also had to admit that social life was a euphemism. Her random fucking was out of control. They lived in a small place. Sooner or later she wasgoing to fuck her way into a corner and would have to leave town. This was what she said to her sister one afternoon in the tiny back garden, Grace fatly in her nappy on a blanket, eating pieces of cut-up peach with her fingers, crawling to swipe at the Disney ball and watch it roll.
    ‘A corner,’ Eve said. ‘I can see it. There will be no one left.’
    ‘Well why are you doing it? I worry about you.’
    ‘It’s not that bad. I’m exaggerating. One day I’ll meet someone lovely.’
    ‘Not in a bar.’
    ‘Dorothy, nice men go to bars too. Anyway, I met this guy last night who was really sweet and so funny –’
    ‘And that’s another thing, you always go to their place. What if some psycho? It’s completely self-destructive.’
    ‘Do you want to hear the story or not?’
    Of course Dorothy did. At least one of them was having a life. Andrew worked until six every night and early in the morning he went to the gym. More than anything in the world she hated that gym. No, perhaps she hated karate more than the gym, because that was what he did there. If Andrew didn’t do karate, if he didn’t go to the gym, he got strung out, so she tried to love karate, but mostly she tried not to drink alone. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Nothing too grisly.’ More than once Eve had recounted some sexual disaster explicitly as she held the baby in her arms, which made Dot wince although Grace was too young to understand.
    ‘I might be off intimate detail for life.’ Evelyn went on to tell Dot how this man had talked non-stop, how he constantly described what he was doing to her or worse, what she was doing to him – ‘You’resqueezing my balls’ – until it had stopped being amusing and gone way past turning her on. He kept going even when she asked him point blank to stop. Finally, after ‘I’m reaching for the condom’ she’d jumped out of bed and yelled ‘LA LA LA’ in his face.
    ‘What did he do then?’
    ‘He asked me to leave. So I did – “I’m pulling my knickers on now, I’m getting into my jeans, you’re lying on the bed staring, I’m looking for my shoes, I’m not giving you my phone number, you’re storming out of the room, you’re slamming the bathroom door, I’m picking up my bag, I’m LEAVING YOUR HOUSE.” ’
    ‘Shh.’ Dot gestured at the fence, the closeness of the neighbours. ‘And what does Kimiko think? When you come home at three in the morning?’
    ‘I’m very quiet. I’m a good girl, Dot. She doesn’t mind as long as I’m at work on time.’
    ‘Fresh as a daisy.’
    ‘Ha.’
    ‘Seriously, you should be careful.’ An aeroplane inched across the sky. Dot looked at her sister, the tawny hair, the energy rising off her like tendrils of smoke, her undeniable fuckability, and said, ‘Do you regret coming back?’
    ‘Not yet. Sometimes. Yes. It’s only been a few months but it’s been like forever.’
    ‘You know Daniel’s in South America. Guatemala or something. Or is that Central? He sent a postcard, don’t tell Andrew. Wait, I’ll get it.’
    The mention of his name made Eve want to rip a hunk of grass from the earth. This could not be done, and nothing couldbe said to her sister. Better to bury Daniel because face it, she’d had no right to him and she’d wanted him for so