Memoirs

by Karen Goldrick

Sometimes one has to just … give up.

Sonya rested her chin in her right hand, her left hand doodled across the page. The baby had stopped crying. At last. The baby … the baby … it had a name. Sally … Sonia …

“No. No. That’s my name,” she said to herself.

The baby was in the next room with her mother. Sonia couldn’t see them because the timber slatted bifolds were shut, but she could picture them. Her mother, sitting in the old green rocking chair, singing softly as she fed the baby from … from … from that thing with the milk in … and a rubber thing like a nipple. Only this baby had never tasted nipple.

Sonya pictured them, but the picture was all wrong, because her mother now had red hair, no longer silver. And she’d gained weight.

“It doesn’t bloody suit you,” Sonya had said.

“That’s a nice thing to say, Sonya love.”

“Well. Why’d you change it?”

Her mother had given her that given her that sad solemn patient smile she’d seen too many times that day, and told her she’d dyed it for the wedding. Then she’d handed her the photo.

Sonya picked up the photo now.

He was dark. Greek. Or Italian, with a shock of too black hair. That explained the baby’s hair. But Sonya knew there was no way on earth she would ever had married some-one with hairy shoulders, and this man had to have hairy shoulders.

“What’s his name?” she’d asked her mother. And she’d replied … she’d said … was it Angelo … Angelus … Angelopoulous?

“No way,” Sonya thought, and put the photo down. “No way did I marry that man. I love David.”

Now she could see David. Feel him. Taste him. Tall, with light brown hair and glasses which made him seem too serious and studious. But David was just a clown.

She would speak with David. He’d know what had happened.

Sonya picked up the exercise book she’d been writing in, and reread the line about giving up. What had she been about to give up? Cigarettes? TV? David? She turned back a page. 28/3/03. That must be yesterday, because her mother had told her today was 29th of March.

“The baby is so beautiful,” Sonya read. “I’m sitting in the old rocking chair,gazing at her deep deep brown eyes, and she’s staring right back. I can’t believe how lucky I am. I’ve always wanted a baby.”

“Rot,’ said Sonya aloud. “I never wanted a baby. David said…says there are too many babies. Too many people. And that’s exactly what I think … thought … Oh fuck it.”

She flicked back a few pages. The baby’s name was Theresa. It’s father … her husband … was Joe. The thing with a teat was called a bottle.

Her mother had told her about the accident. That was the first thing she’d said. Even before the bit about the baby. You’d think she’d have mentioned the baby first. That was the biggest shock. But maybe she had wanted to break it to her gently. First the accident. Then the husband with the hairy shoulders. Then the baby. Or maybe she just wanted to present all the information in a logical and chronological order.

But, in that case she’d got it wrong. Surely it was first the husband. Then the baby. Then … the accident. It was all here on page dated 1/2/03. And on the 28/12/02. And going right back to the very first entry, on 7/10/2002. Each page recounted the details of the accident as they’d been dictated by her mother.

Short term memory loss. Did that mean it would only last a short term, or that she could only remember things for a short term, before forgetting them again? She could remember Newton’s Laws, Einstein’s theories. Even calculus. She could remember David. Sonya and David …

They had climbed to the top of the harbour bridge, after drinking too much College Port and daring each other to do it. Her teeth chattered so hard with the cold she couldn’t talk as they sat under the red light right at the top, their feet dangling over the edge.

That was it. They’d fallen. Down down down into the black harbour below. Into a black hole that had sucked her away into an alternate universe. She didn’t belong in this world.

Sonya could hear her mother singing again. A flat tuneless voice. A loving voice. One she should remember. Oranges and Lemons. What a ridiculous song. She idly flipped forward a few pages of the exercise book until she found one entry that seemed particularly untidy.

“I’ve been kidnapped by aliens,” she’d written. “Aliens from … from … that planet. The one with the little green men with antennae on their heads. Only we all know that’s a load of crap. They’re holding me in a small white room. There’s no smell. No sound. They’ve plugged electrodes into my brain and are downloading new information which is so convincing my brain thinks its a reality. But I can fight this. Just repeat after me. Sonya…it’s not true. Sonya…it’s not true.

Maybe I have to think of something…shut down and focus on one thing. And if I find the right focus my true reality will return. But that bloody baby keeps crying and I can’t concentrate.”

Her mother had stopped singing now. The baby must be asleep. Sonya wondered if the baby recognised its world. Did it wake up and see … mother … cot … thing with teat on. Or did it need to be reminded every day. As she did. Like being caught in some kind of Groundhog day, except for everybody else time moved forward.

She and David had discussed time loops in a physics prac. They’d been accelerating electrons in a vacuum, watching the green ray ping ping ping back and forward, trapped it its glass cage. David had hypothesised that time travel might be movement within a time vacuum, and that the traveller, too, might become trapped. Ping ping ping.

Maybe that was it. David had invented a time machine and now she was trapped. Therefore there must be some signal. Some way of communicating so he could get her back. She must speak with him. She could speak with him here and now in this 29th March 2003. The David in this time would know what had happened.

So why hadn’t she heard from him. If he knew … why hadn’t he helped her. In a flash she saw him again. This time his glasses were off. His eyes blurred and he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at … at … had his arms around….not her. Not Sonya. She gasped, as if realising form the first time there was no heaven. For her, there was no David.

For her … there was just this book. She picked it up again and reread the first sentence. Sometimes one has to just … give up. She stared at the words, and could hear the watch on her wrist tick tick tick the seconds and minutes of her life away for good.

Her mother opened the door. Sonya started, still unable to get used to the bright red hair.

“Would you like to hold her, love?” her mother said.

Sonya didn’t want to, but couldn’t find the words to say so. Her mother passed the small sleeping bundle onto her lap. Not so small really. Six months old. Its lips crunched up into a small rosebud. Newly emerged eyelashes not yet long enough to brush its cheeks.

Then, in its sleep, it curled its fingers around the little finger of her left hand. It was as if a small line, the finest of threads pulled at her. Anchored her to then here and now.

“Bloody hell baby Theresa,” Sonya said, “Your Mummy better get her act together.”

With her free right hand she picked up her pen. It wasn’t the hand she was used to writing with … or was it. There was only one way to find out.