Maggie Helwig - Girls Fall Down

‘Is this a safe place?’ she whispered, and then laughed. ‘Is this a safe place? I have to face my fears, you see – there are people trying to drive me crazy, there are people out there trying to drive me crazy, and you have to ask why? Don’t you? Don’t you have to ask why?’ She held on tighter to Alex’s arm. ‘Are they benefitting financially, are they benefitting spiritually? Is it a question of the war? Everyone here knows my obsession, you see, everyone knows my weakness… and it’s hard when there are people all over the streets trying to drive me crazy, do you know what I mean? Is it clear? Do you think this is a safe place?’

‘I think so,’ said Alex. ‘Sure. I think it is.’

‘I have to face my fears,’ she said, and then turned her head as if she had heard something, and pulled her scarf tighter around her hair and crept into a corner, nodding and moving her lips.

The frizzy-haired girl he had seen last week slammed suddenly into the hall, apparently in some temper, and stomped past the tables into the kitchen, kicking off her boots and whining in a high unintelligible voice, Evvy’s own voice soft at first and then sharpening, and the child stormed away into some other part of the building. Evvy leaned back against the counter and ran a hand over her face, and Alex wanted to do something but he knew that he couldn’t. Adrian moved closer to her and touched her arm.

‘Domestic crisis,’ announced Vojcek cheerfully, picking up plates from the table beside Alex. ‘Is difficult child. Has poor sense of responsibility.’

‘Mmm,’ said Alex vaguely.

He didn’t know how much he really expected Susie to be there. Not much, he thought, though he knew he was unnaturally aware of every person who opened the door.

Evelyn had come out of the kitchen now and was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the hall, sorting through a box of old mittens. A short woman in a red hat walked across the room, and for a moment things were suddenly vivid and sharp at the edges; but it wasn’t Susie after all, in fact she looked almost nothing like Susie. He went into the kitchen, where Adrian was turning an unlit cigarette in his fingers and staring at it with a vague suppressed longing.

Susie probably wouldn’t come. There was no real reason to suppose she would.

‘I was wondering about taking some pictures,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know I’d have to ask people. But would it be okay to try?’

Vojcek had no problem posing for a portrait, and neither did Joseph with the flowering cane; he spent a long time with Joseph, working on the textures of his skin, the fleetingly sweet expressions in his eyes, and trying to get the cane into the shots in the right way. Luis didn’t want to be photographed, and it was clearly a bad idea to ask the woman with the orange scarf. A girl named Mouse asked to be photographed with her ferret, which was living inside the sleeve of her coat.

‘Isn’t that a bit funny?’ asked Alex, slipping into the kind of easy patter he used with teenage patients. ‘A mouse with a pet ferret?’

Mouse grinned and chewed a loose bit of her hair. ‘I know a girl called Kat who has a hedgehog, what about that?’

‘A pet hedgehog?’

‘Yeah, but it kinda sucks as a pet. It can’t cuddle you or nothing. And it’s not very friendly. Actually it’s kinda mean. It really brings Kat down sometimes.’

‘Maybe she needs a better pet.’

‘Well, she don’t want to give up on this hedgehog. She thinks it can, you know, rehabilitate.’

He was focused now, working, and happy, and not even too bothered by the floaters, which were definitely diminishing, and then he heard the thud of the wooden door. Susie was partway into the hall, unwinding her scarf, when she saw him, and stood still for a second before she walked towards him.

‘I was just leaving,’ said Alex.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I think so, I think I should go.’ ‘I need to do some interviews, but if you could wait a little while… ’

He knew if he looked at her eyes he was lost. But really, he was pretty much lost anyway. He shrugged. ‘I guess I could wait.’

He took some more photos while Adrian and Evvy and a few others folded the legs of the tables and stacked them up, lay down mattresses, rolled out the TV. The movie was something about a comet destroying all life on earth, and the general level of interest seemed low, though Mouse said that there was a really excellent tidal wave later on, and the woman there died, and it was very sad and she’d cried like anything.

‘The fire next time,’ said Evelyn.

‘Nah,’ said Adrian. ‘ Men in Black II next time.’

Susie had set up a couple of chairs in the corner, and now and then he heard scraps of conversation. How many friends in this place, in that place. Would you say they were close friends? What kind of thing do they help you with, do you help them with? What word would you use to describe your relationship?

Adrian squatted down on the floor beside him while he was packing up his camera. ‘Did you know Suzanne was coming?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Is it okay?’

‘It was a very long time ago,’ said Alex, which was such a blatant lie he could hardly imagine anyone believing it.

‘If you say so.’ Adrian stood up. ‘I guess I should see if I’m needed somewhere.’

He should have told Adrian about the floaters. He could have told him that at least.

Susie crossed the room towards Evelyn, and they spoke for a minute with their heads close together, and then Evelyn stepped back and laughed, and moved in a quick twirling step that made Alex think of her dancing. He tried to remember when he had seen her dance. Susie hugged Evvy lightly, and looked over at Alex, and he picked up his bag and came to her.

They went outside, into a wind that was very strong now. ‘I have to remember to call you Suzanne,’ said Alex.

‘You don’t really.’ She played with the fringe of her scarf, and the wind blew her hair across her face, obscuring her expression.

‘So did you, did you get that paper finished?’

‘Well, it’s not like – it takes longer than that. I, ah, I did some work on it, I guess.’

They stopped walking at the same time, and then he took hold of her and kissed her, pressing her against the wall of a bus shelter, half angry, half desperate, her hands gripping his arms. He didn’t consciously think that her mouth no longer tasted of hangover and bad sleep, but he took in the sugar trace on her lips and the smell of her breath. Reese’s peanut butter cups, a small cheap treat for herself, bought at the 7-Eleven or the newsstand in the subway. An innocent, silly thing.

She had no mittens, and she was walking along the street blowing on her hands. He wanted her to be inside, somewhere warm. They ended up at the Kos Diner, piling their layers of heavy outdoor clothes on empty chairs; it seemed obvious that she was coming back to his apartment, but somehow he couldn’t say this, neither one of them wanting to take a step they couldn’t reverse. Susie ordered a coffee and french fries. Her hair, loose and disarranged, seemed to be a slightly different colour, a bit more golden.

‘I found a magic star last night,’ he said. ‘But Adrian tells me it has a mafia connection.’ He told her about the restaurant and the flock of balloons, trying to make it sound entertaining rather than grim, wanting her to smile.

‘Do you suppose it’s a sign of some kind?’ she said, shaking a blob of ketchup onto her plate.

‘Gotta be.’

Susie dipped a french fry into the ketchup and sighed. ‘Derek sent me a letter,’ she said. She reached into her shoulder bag and took out two ragged pieces of notebook paper covered with tiny dense handwriting. ‘The street nurses gave it to me.’