Touching Earth Lightly by Margo Lanagan Page A

it.
This is what it feels like to pray. Please tell me what to do
.
    ‘And he said he would stay in my room—he shouted after me, “I’ll be waiting!” And I—and I—
left my photos
there! I was running—away!—didn’t have time!’
    ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. It wasn’t Eddie himself—just photographs.’
    ‘But—I can’t remember—was an
address
on—envelope! Oh God oh God—’ She collapsed on herself, then lifted herhead and groaned out, ‘I can’t even protect him from two hundred kilometres away!’
    Chloe started to feel unreal, as if all this, the train interior, the tunnel noise and suburb-flash outside, were a dream inside the other reality of Janey’s fragile state, thrown by blows of terror and pain. She could feel the suck of this larger reality on her, through her hands, through her forehead, the energy being drawn off her as it had been during Eddie’s birth, to help Janey weather each new blow. She felt herself waver, and feared that there wasn’t enough of her.
    ‘I’m going to get you some help,’ she said as the train dived into the blackness under the city. ‘I could do it on my own if it weren’t
now
, if it weren’t
today
. I’ll find a phone, I’ll call the Rape Crisis Centre, I’ll put you in a taxi,’ Janey looked up imploringly. ‘I
have
to. This is a
crime
. You’re hurt, you’re in shock, and I’ve got this
thing
on—if it were any other day I could come with you, and you know I would.’
    ‘Please come with me? Just to drop me off? I thought the opera was at night.’
    ‘It is. Tomorrow night. Today we go through the whole thing, in costume. There are always stuff-ups to be fixed; there’s new stage machinery we haven’t worked with. Every-one’ll be—’ It seemed so frivolous. Chloe suddenly lost a handle on what was important and what wasn’t. ‘It’s not like they couldn’t whack a wig on someone and muddle through, but I’d never get to work there again—I mean, it says right there on my CV, I’m “always on time”, that’s why they hired me.’ She was talking to herself as much as to Janey. The opera was looking more like an enormous, decorated, irrelevant
cake
with each passing moment.
    ‘Go and see my mum, then,’ she suggested desperately. ‘Stay on the train and go back to the uni.’
    Janey uncurled and sat normally on the seat. Chloe saw her pull herself together, blocking out thought after thought, forcing herself to return to the train-interior dream-world. ‘No, I couldn’t do that,’ she said in a leaden, almost drugged voice.
    ‘Of course you could. You’ve been there with me, you remember. You know where her office is. She wouldn’t mind a
bit
if you turned up.’
    Janey sat on her hands and shook her head at the floor.
    ‘Can I put you in a taxi, then?’ Chloe murmured, an arm around Janey’s shoulders. She felt as if she’d asked,
Can I abandon you, then? Can I give up on you? Can I shrug you off like so much unpleasant garbage in my life?
    ‘If you want. If you think—’ Two tears dripped to Janey’s knees and she looked away. The train burst out onto the bright harbour-side.
    Janey stood shaking against the telephone booth as Chloe made the call. As she explained down the line, Chloe reached out and held her hand tightly—apologising? holding her together? she didn’t know—and Janey leaned her temple against the smoked glass of the booth and closed her eyes.
    Chloe hung up and wrote the address on an old cash register docket from her wallet. ‘They sound good. Sensible and kind and sympathetic.’ She pushed the docket into Janey’s hand, and a ten-dollar note. ‘That’s all I’ve got. If it costs more, she says they’ll pay it at the other end. There’ll be someone out on the footpath there, waiting for you, a woman called Janine.’
    Janey pushed the papers into her pocket and stood as if she were standing all alone, not knowing what to do with herself, not even trying to decide. She looked