A theatre foyer. Night. It is empty. The doors are locked. But if there were a woman there…
If I didn’t know you and were to wait for you after the show.
In the foyer with the wooden floorboards and the jelly snakes where I have stood, smiling, waiting, so many times before.
Maybe she waits outside, under the covered awning. A cool breeze. Mosquitoes. Because there are always mosquitoes here. Something about the plants. Or the sea.
You know I used to live on this street. Down on the next corner, the corner of Robe Street. I lived in a flat with Helen. She had a pet rat called Ernesto and a laugh that sounded like a water bubbler. It was in that flat I saw the ghosts across the road one morning when I’d been up all night. In that big, fancy place that I think at that time was owned by the Theosophical Society. I saw the ladies in their white dresses on the balcony. I miss living in a place with a balcony. Aspect makes life bigger somehow.
She might be on the balcony suddenly. One of those tricks of theatre magic. Or we see the ladies in the white dresses. Far off. They are hard to make out. But they are there.
So if I were waiting for you I’d of course be wondering what you will think of me. From what I’ve learned, you are young and fierce, almost zealous. You are a hero, a martyr, a virgin (possibly). You are cast in many lights. You are talked about incessantly and endlessly. You are building a pyre. You are being examined. You are burnt. You are dead.
She is walking. A crowd follows. Or she walks alone. Turns her head now and then. She thought someone was following. But.
We could walk past the place where I lived with Helen. She isn’t there anymore. She died a few years after I moved out. And I know that because she came onto the books of a palliative care agency where I was working. It was a weird moment. The ethics of it. I talked about it with the nurses and social workers at the agency and they said it would be okay to get in touch. I did. I went to visit. By then she was not very conscious. I held her hand because her partner said she liked that. He said afterwards she’d been pleased I’d come. She died the next day.
In Helen’s room. Someone else lives there now. One at a time, the audience sneaks in, trying not to wake the person who lives there now. Hoping not to scare them.
I suspect you would make me feel inadequate. No. That I would make myself inadequate in comparison with you.
Once everyone has been through, they wait outside. It’s fully dark now. The air smells of sea salt.
My partner says I shouldn’t compare myself to other people. I wonder how many people say that to other people, trying to make them feel better, in the course of a day. I wonder how many of them are men saying it to women. I wonder if comparison is such a bad thing. How else do we know who we are except by who we are not and who others are? I understand that constant negative (I am worse) or positive (I am better) comparison can make people’s souls turn ugly but I don’t think we can stop it all together. And I’m not sure that we should.
She has lost the audience. Has she? She has forgotten where she is leading them and why. If she keeps going down this street they will get to the McDonald’s and there has been a cluster. A McCluster. Not at this one. Still. It would be irresponsible.
You are always portrayed as thin and muscular. A girl who is like a boy. A girl who is a girl unlike most other girls. A girl who could be a role model for other girls who want to be less like girls and more like boys or just different kinds of girls.
Moving quickly now, a rising urgency to get back to the theatre. Past the flat where she lived with Helen.
I wonder about the ethics of telling you about Helen. That is her real name. She was a real person. She didn’t give me permission to write about her. She played an important role in my life. I was in my early twenties when I lived with her and she would have been around thirty. There is something about living with an older woman (not old, just older) when you are a young woman trying to figure out who you are and how to live in the world. Helen was happy in herself. She had a round body and went dancing a lot and had many lovers.
Outside the theatre. She looks at the poster for the show. One corner is peeling away. How long ago was it put up? What will happen to the show now?
What about the ethics of everybody telling me about you? You were a real person. You didn’t give us permission. What do you think about who you’ve become?
She stands very close to the door. She puts one hand up to the door. The red door.
If I waited in the foyer for you after the show and you came out, a bit timid but mostly curious, you would get a lot of love. Theatre people are generous like that. They’d tell you how great you were and what an amazing story you have and how inspiring you are. You’d stand, a bit bewildered. The red door would be open to the St Kilda night air. You’d wonder what to do next. What does a dead martyr do after a show? This is where I’d get worried. Would I be able to show you a good time, keep you entertained? Would our encounter satisfy you, or would you thank me politely at the end of the night and then disappear? Preferring to go it alone. Out into the streets of Melbourne. Or back to the theatre. How would you feel about sleeping where you’d died? Night after night.
She steps away.
I suspect that maybe I would find your intensity annoying. Irrational. That I perhaps would have little patience for it. But that wouldn’t stop me wanting you to like me, to find something similarly intense and worthwhile in me.
She is alone. Everyone has gone. For a drink. Or just home. To their houses.
I’m pretty sure this is what would be lacking.
She should leave too.
And I’d want to keep in touch but maybe you wouldn’t. And I’d say, well, here’s my number, call me any time. I can help with things like introducing you to people or finding a place to live. But you wouldn’t need me.
There is no point waiting. The theatre is closed. Was the show cancelled? Or did it go on? Is this a memory or an absence?
That’s what I imagine anyway.
But she can’t quite bring herself to walk away. What if…
While I’m standing in the foyer wondering if you are going to come out at the end of the show. Or if…