Touching Earth Lightly by Margo Lanagan Page B

vaguely out across the harbour.
    ‘Come on, I’ll get you a taxi.’ Chloe led her to the taxi rank, opened the car door for her. Janey stood nervelessly and stared in.
    Chloe pulled the docket out of Janey’s pocket and gave it to the driver. ‘Can you take her to this address please? Someone will meet you with the fare.’
    Janey returned her hug lifelessly, wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Take care, eh?’ said Chloe. ‘What’s more, let someone take care of you.’
    Janey gave the slightest nod and slid into the taxi. She didn’t look out as she was driven away.
    Chloe turned and ran, out along the quay and all along the endless walkway to the Opera House. Tourists had gathered in obstructive crowds, photographing each other, the city, the bridge and the Opera House in the morning sunshine. Chloe checked her watch every few metres and moaned to herself.
    She ran straight down to Wardrobe. Magda looked at her own watch severely, then grinned. ‘It’s a good thing James’s car broke down on the freeway, isn’t it?’
    Chloe’s shoulders sagged. ‘Isn’t it what.’

    It was a horror rehearsal. Everything went wrong that could go wrong; every piece of equipment played up that could play up. One of the footmen stepped on the Ice Princess’s train and ripped the waist of her dress during her regal walk, and the glittering frog-shaped cage that was supposed to glide down and close like claws around her juddered and hesitated and finally stopped entirely. Such elaborate things had been done to Chloe’s head and hair that she wouldn’t have dared put a telephone handpiece in among it all, so she sat trapped for most of the day, worrying, wondering where and how Janey was, calming herself down and then feeling agitation bubble up again. The rehearsal didn’t help; she thought if James stopped the production
one more time
to nag at the principal singers or shout at the soldiers, she would throw her own tantrum, tear off the coronet and the hairpieces whose pins were boring holes in her skull and scream at him, ‘For God’s sake, just let the song
finish
!’ But of course she was being paid
not
to do exactly that. She must sit still and stare straight ahead into the empty theatre, and ignore the anger and frustration all around her.
    Finally at about five-thirty she could shed costume and hairpieces and get to the phone. She was still in make-up, and she could see in the glass wall of the booth that incombination with her ordinary clothes and messed-up hair it made her look unhinged.
    ‘Oh, we were hoping you’d call back,’ said the woman at the Crisis Centre. ‘Your friend never arrived. Janine went out to wait about ten minutes after you rang and waited about three-quarters of an hour. We’ve kept an eye out through the window for her, but she hasn’t turned up. She must have changed her mind.’
    Chloe put down the phone with a surge of irritation. She hadn’t got through to Janey, after all; what she’d thought was resignation was in fact resistance, closing Chloe’s sensible actions out, closing out the Rape Centre’s helpful women. Oh,
God
.
    She stuck the phone card in again and called home. ‘It’s me. Has Janey shown up there?’ she asked Pete.
    ‘Nope,’ he said blankly.
    ‘Oh, bum! But it’s been
hours
,’ she added, thinking aloud.
    ‘Why, what’s up?’
    ‘I saw her this morning. She was really upset. I lined her up to see some counsellors but she didn’t get there; I thought she might’ve come there and waited to talk to Mum—oh,
bum
!’
    ‘Well, don’t worry. If she turns up, we can look after her.’
    ‘Yeah, I’m just worried she won’t.’
    ‘She might be at her new place.’
    But she wasn’t. ‘No, love, I just checked,’ said Bette. ‘There’s only a young chap in there, says he’s her brother.’
    ‘Nathan. He shouldn’t be there. Janey doesn’t want him there. That’s why she hasn’t come home—she’s frightened of him. This is why she’s gone