New Kahala

The drive to work on Monday is quiet. I guess everyone is navigating their own grief. Mine seems to have settled in my stomach like an anchor. For the first time in a very long time I am grateful for the distraction of work. Nesting in the mountain of paperwork, I feel safe. But only for moments. Sasha finds me just on five o'clock. She busts through my door crying and tackles me in a needy embrace.

"I'm fucking angry and I don't know why Jim."

"Grief darlin."

"I know that, I just don't like it." She sobs against my neck. "Take me to the range."

We'd taken up target shooting as a kind of couple's hobby. Sasha had years of pistol training and has got me to the point where I can almost group as well as her. The suggestion suddenly seems like a wonderful idea. I'm angry too. I'm angry at the universe. I'm angry that I can't fix Sasha's pain. I'm angry that I can't change this whole thing. At the unit as I open the safe and take out our pistols. I'm not angry any more.

A little blue box reminds me all over again and I fight off tears as I change my clothes and meet Sasha back down at the car. She sees straight through me and wraps me in her arms. When I settle again, she asks, "Are you able to do this? If it's too painful we can just do it like a band-aid."

"Like a band-aid?"

"Just split. Just do it now so we don't have to spend every day thinking about it ending soon."

"Does it have to end?"

"Two years is a long time Jimmy."

"I don't want anyone... I could-"

"We can promise each other all sorts of things but neither of us knows the future."

"Fuck it. Fuck it all." I'm angry again. "This isn't a great idea. The guns I mean."

"Take me upstairs and fuck me Jimmy."

The elevator ride is frantic but kept only nearly decent by the threat of the doors opening. When we make my bedroom, I'm wearing only my shirt and Sasha only a grin and the bag containing guns and ammo. She pushes me back onto the bed and smiles, "Just gonna put these guns away, you know 'safe sex' and all. Don't want any UD's."

I'm pulling my shirt off when I hear her scream. She is kneeling on the floor crying like she's just been gut punched.

Holding a small, open, blue box.

When she eventually settles in my arms and her body has shed its own weight in tears, she looks up at me and says, "I would have said yes."

"I know."

We fuck. It's leisurely and sad. I've never had a sad fuck before, but I have now. Our bodies are moving in each other and our grief combines us in sorrowed need. There are no tears just a deep acknowledgement of each other's need for intimate connection. And in that intimate connection the knowledge that it will end. If I never have a sad fuck again, I'll die happy.

Later, there is a knock at the door and I call, "Decent, come in."

"Sasha, Jim." Dad is using his best barrister baritone. "Tidy up, come have tea. We need to talk."

Mum's made roast chicken and enough vegies for twelve people. It's like some kind of 'last supper'.

"So, kids." Dad begins putting his fork down and arranging it carefully while he thinks, "I've been talking to Garry and Neil. We can't have you pair moping around the office for the next month. Effective immediately you are both suspended on full pay."

"Dad... It's not-"

"Jim, it's done. Enjoy Christmas, New Year's Eve, whatever. Go on a holiday. Just don't come near the bloody building or I'll have you both thrown out."

When he takes that tone you just comply.

DARKNESS

My Aunt died from cancer when I was a teenager. Because of my age I wasn't privy to the details but I remember watching my Uncle through the months between her diagnosis and her death. He was a model of dignity, always there for her and always thinking of her pain and not his own. Part denial, part savouring every good moment, part letting go, it was like he was moving through the grief process before she left. It was only at her funeral that he was able to fall apart and feel for himself.

Those last few weeks with Sasha were a lot like that. We held ourselves together, each for the other. Sometimes we failed. I remember one night when we were sitting by the pool feeling sorry for ourselves, I saw Trina in the kitchen and my heart broke afresh.

She was standing staring at nothing and I could tell by the way her chest racked with sobs that she was crying. Nudging Sasha I pointed and said, "Go to her."

"No Jimmy. You. You are going to have to be here for her. You'll be all she has when I'm gone."

Great, now I had two crying women. Sasha pushed me gently, urging me to go so I did. I had no words for Trina, but we shared the same grief. So, when I found her in the kitchen, she welcomed my arms around her and sobbed into my chest.

"I hate you Jim." She told me in a voice that rose with fury. "Why can't you stop her? Why won't you try? She'll be gone and then you'll be gone, and then it will just be me. You're all leaving me. And I need you."

"Shh." I held her and kissed the top of her curly head. "Shh. She'll come home one day. Until then you'll just have to put up with that dickhead who uses you for slave labour on his F truck."

"Arsehole."

"Bitch."

"Jim?" She untangles herself. "Will you leave me too?"

"No Kitty-Kat. I'm gonna need you I think."

"Good."

"You'll be sick of me in no time."

"I'm sick of you already dickhead. Want me to order pizza?"

"Sounds good."

"Now fuck off. I'm embarrassed about being all sooky. Go. Fuck off."

There were a lot of those moments when one or more of us fell apart. Hell, there were even times we all sat and moped like fucking muppets. But there were also a lot of times when we tried to squeeze as much joy as possible from the moment.

With both of us effectively on holidays for a month we spent every day trying to fill it with memories. We dragged Trina along whenever possible, but she was still working so we made 'dates' with her for the weekends. Ice-creams and beaches seemed to fill her need for normality.

One evening after a long day of swimming and making love, Sasha and I were almost asleep when the door opened to let a crying Trina in.

"Come on Trinie." Sasha said and lifted her sheets to let her in for a cuddle.

Then one day it all finished. One day with red eyes and broken hearts Trina and I stood in the international departures lounge and watched a plane take off with both our hearts on board.

Just like that.

We drove home in stony silence, alone with our grief. It was only ten in the morning when I dropped Trina off at the empty duplex.

"Hey dickhead?"

"Yeah?"

"Hang out for a while?" Her bloodshot blue eyes implored me, "Just be around for a bit?"

There is a hollowness to spaces when someone who used to fill them with their personality is no longer there; a tangible wake left by their movement away, and we both felt it that afternoon and many more afterward. Before I left that day, Trina had another of those teary moments and sniffled against my chest as we watched kid's afternoon TV.

"I am going to be a fucking pain in the arse."

"Never..."

"Sarcastic arsehole." She handed me her phone. "I'm going to need you now and then. Put your number in. I promise not to spam you but sometimes I'll need an ear ok?"

"Any time Kitty-Kat. Any time at all." I hand her my phone. "Besides, we still got Effie to finish, you and I."

"True dickhead." For a moment her eyes look lavender and there is a hint of a sad smile on her lips.

The first month felt surreal. It was like I thought she was just in the next room or gone to the shops, temporarily absent, not thousands of miles away over the sea. Countless times I turned to tell her something or reached for my phone to ring her. On Fridays I still expect the door to open and for her to march in with coffee and cake.

I've spoken to her a few times. The time difference and her busy schedule makes it difficult. She calls me on the weekend, usually around six o'clock at night which is just after eight in the morning for her. She cried at the end of each call and told me she missed me but what I took mostly from those calls was the wonder and adventure that she was feeling.

It hurt to speak with her but it helped to hear that her studies fascinated her and she sounded genuinely excited for the learning. At least that felt like she had done the right thing. Each time she called I broke again. I'd have just reassembled my world, thrown myself into work, or found a distraction when she'd call and the wound would open again.

One Sunday in mid-February Sasha rang to wish me a happy late Valentines Day and we laughed and reminisced about our Valentines date the previous year. When we finished that phone call, I asked her not to ring again. It hurt too much. She understood, saying that every phone call left her disoriented for days. We agreed to stick to occasional facebook messages and for the most part that worked.

It was still a little bit of a sting to see the chat head picture of her pop up on my phone but at least I could wait until I was prepared emotionally to open it and hear about her study or her touristy exploits. She kept in phone contact with Trina though and quizzed her about me.

On the weekend before Saint Patricks day Trina helps me load Effie on the farm truck. We've got her to driving stage and now she's off to visit Blue for a lick of paint. She still has no interior but sitting on a fold up camping chair, Trina grins from ear to ear as she turns the key and presses the starter button.

The big 460 chugs over on the starter then coughs into life. Trina rolls the ute up the loading ramp at an idle and I guide her onto the tray.

"Fucking hell dickhead, the sound of that motor is enough to give me a boner and I don't even have a dick."

"Pretty girl like you could have as many dicks as she wanted. Besides, I'm told I've got two of them and they're both rock solid."

She's blushing for some reason. I didn't think there was any innuendo in my attempt at humour.

"I don't really think you're a dickhead. It's just got to be like a habit. I'll try to change it."

"You could go with cock-womble. What about jizz-trumpet?"

Laughter seems to help. We spend a lot of our time trying to find something to laugh at. She has an eclectic sense of humour and on weekends while we work on my F350 or sometimes when we go for an ice-cream and a walk on the beach, she surprises me with her intelligent irony. She always has a funny story from the day care centre and we sort of feed off each other's banter.

"Cock-womble? It has a ring to it..." She giggles.

Sasha's messages these days seem to gravitate to questions about Trina. How she's doing with work, whether she is happy, have I seen her lately, am I trying to include her and keep her busy. Fuck, anyone would think that she'd left Trina, not me. I'm not complaining, it's not a chore. The little minx is a lot of mischievous fun and quiet mystery.

There are lots of things I'm learning about her. She doesn't like me calling her "Kitty-Kat" for example. Her father used to call her "Katty". So, I've dropped the 'Kat' and stuck with 'Kitty'. It suits her. She's like a little Kitten. Loves affection one moment, wants to scratch you the next. And she carries herself with a strange aloofness that I still don't understand.

"Give it." She gestures at me, "Keys Jim."

"Really? You have to drive everything?" I hand her the keys to the truck. I learned soon after Sasha's departure that every trip to the farm was an opportunity for Trina to drive another piece of machinery. Apparently, her father taught her to use every implement they kept on the farm. Tractors, trucks, bikes, quads, you name it. Trina explained that her father grew up in a poor farming family and that women and men shared work equally.

So there you go. A day-care worker, who has a truck licence, swings the big old Dodge out onto the highway and brings us up through the four-speed box. It's a slow old girl and pretty thirsty with its fireball 318 and I watch the enjoyment spread across Trina's face as we bounce along the highway. Her wide full lips curl in a smile that goes all the way up over her high cheeks to her almond shaped eyes.

"What?" She asks having caught me looking.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Really? Right this moment?" She wrinkles her nose.

"Yeah."

"Okay, but remember you asked dick- I mean, Jim."

I shrug and she continues, "Well, I've been taking vitamins this week. Good ones. Cost me around forty dollars. Been feeling a bit run down and well, when I piss it's bright yellow."

"Okay..." I laugh at her. "That's pretty normal you know."

"Yeah, I know but what I was thinking just now was, why yellow? If the chemists are so smart, why don't they make them so you can piss in different colours. Like each pill makes a different colour and you don't know what colour today is going to be. You'd be like looking back in the bowl each day going, 'wow cool, green' or 'ooh pretty, pink'."

"You're a fucking drongo." I tell her laughing, "Red would be no good, I'd shit myself if I pissed red."

"Like what about rainbow coloured?" She laughs, "If someone was sad you could be all, 'here sad person, let me piss you a rainbow'." Her laugh is raucous like a sniggering donkey. It's not at all feminine but its bloody cute.

"I think you've been taking something stronger than vitamins Kitty. Remind me to be more careful if I ask what you're thinking in future."

"Scare myself sometimes Jim." And the smiles falls from her face almost audibly. "Heard from Sassy?"

"Oh... Just a couple of facebook messages."

"No phone calls?"

"No. We stopped ringing. Too hard -- you know." I don't like talking about this stuff.

"She asks about you. How you're doing, what we're up to."

"Oh."

"I told her you seem to be coping by keeping yourself knee deep in cocaine and hookers. That seemed to shut her up."

"Harsh..."

"Gives me the shits sometimes is all." She mocks Sasha's voice, "Look after Jimmy for me. Make sure he keeps busy... Like you need some sort of god-damned baby-sitter."

"Sorry." She says a few moments later, "No more ranting."

"I do appreciate your company you know, but don't feel like you're obliged."

"I know and I don't. I like the company too. Just... it's like she's the one who left, and she is trying to run our lives by remote control. She has no right to. Selfish bitch."

We drive in silence until we reach Kilcoy where we pull in to a service station for fuel. While Trina fills the truck, I wander around the service station taking in all the touristy knick-knacks. At the counter I pay for the fuel, a stuffed bigfoot and a packet of Winfield Blue cigarettes.

Back at the Dodge, she hands me the keys. "Can you drive for a while, Jim. I'm a little weary. Didn't sleep well last night."

In the cab, she sits against the window with her feet up on the bench seat fiddling with her phone. I have to shift her feet to plug my belt in, so I give her ankles a tickle while I'm at it.

"Hey," she giggles, "Stop it dickhead."

"Hot date keep you up last night?"

"As if... Nightmares. They're worse when I'm home alone."

An hour later as we pull up outside Blue and Denise's, I have to shake her gently to wake her. With all the noise of the truck and the bouncing she was still able to fall asleep with her head on the backrest and her legs stretched out and her tiny feet pressed into my thigh. Human contact was lovely. I didn't realise how much I'd missed it.

I wander around to her side and open the door for her to step down. She stretches and yawns beside the truck.

"Blue! Kids are here!" Denise yells from the front door.

"Gidday Denise." I wave and she meets us at the bottom of the stairs.

"Hello Jim, and I've told you before it's 'Mum' to you. That stupid daughter of mine left you, not me." Her arms fold around me and she hugs me tight.

"And look at you, Katerina..." She plays with the curls either side of Trina's neck. "So much like your mother. So beautiful. It's been too long."

"Stop fussing or I'll cut it off again." And she squirms under Denise's scrutiny.

"You need to eat better young lady. Come on inside I'll make afternoon tea. Jim, Blue's gone up the shed. Said for you to head up to the ramp and he'll help you unload."

"Thanks Mum."

Sasha's father Blue and her Down's Syndrome brother, Tony are waiting at the loading ramp and guide me back to it. It's a better set up than what we have at the farm, with a concrete face that I can snug right up against. I'm met with a firm handshake from Blue and the same from Tony.

"Now you've got a Ford Jim I have to shake your hand like a man. No hugging anymore."

"Okay Tony. I spose you won't want this then either if we're being all grown up." Handing him the bigfoot, I laugh as he breaks his no hugging rule then kisses me on the cheek.

Blue is walking around the F350 inspecting the body work.

"Who did the lead wiping? No one does that anymore. Workplace health and safety would crack the shits and it's so time consuming."

"Ah, that would be Dad. He's a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to panel-beating. Says bog might be quicker but it doesn't flex."

"Well he's right and he's pretty fucking good at his work too."

"His dad was a panel beater. Still got all Grandad's tools."

"Not much work in this for me Jim. Just prepsol and spray by the looks. Might just run an eye over some of your Dad's work but it looks good."

"I'll tell him you said so, Blue. He was worried about the patch job in the top of the windscreen. Had to cut a section about this big out. Then the section we welded in warped a little with the heat. Took him about an hour with the mallets to have it how he wanted it before he wiped it."

Blue is running his hand along the bodywork in question.

"Nah, yeah. Can't even feel it from the top. Can't get work like this done anymore. So have you settled on your paint yet?"

"I was hoping for some help with that Blue. I want the original mint green but these two samples are the closest mixes I can find."

He shakes the cans as I drive the F350 around into his paint booth where he stands with a screwdriver levering the tops off.

"Two-pack yeah?" He asks and I nod in answer.

"You won't get the exact same colour with two-pack. The original paint was enamel. Carries the tint differently and dries slightly different in colour. The two-pack is more durable and doesn't chip or scratch quite so easily. Good paint but if you want original you'll need some of this."

He opens a cupboard and pulls out one of three twenty-litre tins.

"Factory enamel bases. Got em at auction when Geelong closed its doors. Bunch of old tints and such too. Leave it with me Jim. She'll roll out of here looking like it would have in the dealers once."

"Thanks Blue." I hand him the packet of cigarettes and he smiles at me shaking his head.

"Silly bitch... I told you to be careful of her. Come on, come and have a look at this."

In the rear of the larger shed where his cars are kept there is what looks like a small office. Blue takes a cigarette out of the packet and lights it, drawing greedily on it and exhaling a trail of smoke. He gestures at a shelf above the desk that is covered in trophies.

"They all yours?" I ask believing them to be car show trophies but upon closer look, some have footballs, some swimming figures, a tennis trophy.

"There's two of Greg's up there. Kick-boxing trophies, but the rest are Sasha's. All her life she's been chasing the next big thing. She's been driven all her life. Everything seems to come so easy to her that she's always hungry for a new challenge. When we first met you, I was afraid you'd end up on the shelf one day too. And here we are."

We stand there, Blue and I. Him smoking and describing each of the wins that went with the trophies and me just listening and pondering whether I was just another trophy for the shelf. Not much of a fucking trophy I decided. And hey, I knew what I was doing all along, I did a fair bit of the pursuing and enjoyed a whole lot of the catching.