New Animal by Ella Baxter (speed reading book .TXT) 📕

to walk back down the path I hear him call, ‘And drive defensively, honey. There are some absolute idiots on the roads at the moment. Seriously, assume that no one else knows what they are doing.’

I think about my mother’s heart once being a conduit to my own and whether that means we are still connected. I think about Daniel’s heart lying at the bottom of the ravine and whether his mother would have felt it there. Her own heart might have dropped the same moment as his did, and she would have known right then that he had torn the cord between them. There’s too much responsibility with being tethered to someone else. They are at the mercy of your own decisions. Anyway, my mother is gone now, so I don’t need to think about her, or me, or anyone else, like Daniel and his mother. I don’t need to be safe or responsible. I can hit the bottom of the ravine and she won’t feel a thing. No one will feel a thing.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I’m surprised by the plainness of the entrance as I pull up in front of the Widow Maker. I turn off the ignition, move my seat back and sit for a moment, sipping a takeaway coffee. I am momentarily overcome by a yearning for Aurelia’s and the cold prep room full of utensils that my mother would have washed and set up for me. She had even gone to the effort of labelling the brushes so that I knew which ones were for the base primer and which were for colour. She always set me up to succeed. She would be horrified to know I was here.

I angle the rear-view mirror towards me to check my reflection. There’s a series of bumps on my chin and I lean in closer to see whether it’s a rash. I run my finger over the pointed tips of them; they feel oily. Pimples! Is there no mercy? I smack my cheeks lightly to see if I can detract from the breakout with even more redness, but now I just look flustered and splotchy.

I turn my attention back to the clubhouse. The Widow Maker occupies a mid-twentieth-century, single-fronted house that looks like it has been renovated on a small budget. Flowering hydrangea bushes obscure the lower half of the building, giving it the homey feel of a dental practice in a country town. Out the front is a plastic sign that reads: W.M. Associates.

I put my coffee down and clap my clammy hands together to create a bit of energy. ‘You are here to learn,’ I say, maintaining eye contact with myself in the rear-view mirror. ‘And you will find a way to cope.’

Long ago, soldiers would gallop onto battlefields screaming and waving their weapons to expel their nervous energy. I decide I need to meditate for a minute or two to gather my strength, and I visualise myself as one of these soldiers, enveloped in silver armour, hugging my horse with my legs, riding into the face of fate itself. I surface from my meditation briefly, realising that I was picturing a male soldier. Maybe I should make it a woman? Or not. I can be a man, I guess; it is my meditation. I don’t have to be beholden to my own gender constantly. I start again, visualising myself as a man on a horse, riding into battle, sword raised, yelling, Ai, Ai, Ai, Ai! An image of my mother lying crumpled at the bottom of the stairs appears briefly in my mind, and I rub my hands along my thighs quickly to dispel it.

Enough meditating. I check to see whether anyone from home has messaged back, and double-check that the messages I wrote actually sent. I don’t even know what time her funeral begins. I turn the volume up on my phone, so that I don’t miss any messages or calls that might come through, then I leave the car and walk into reception where I am relieved to see a fire extinguisher and two alarms amid the rest of the fantasy aesthetic. This calms me. There are two red velvet chairs arranged in front of a large framed photo of a naked woman wearing a pair of oiled thigh-high latex boots. The whole place has the distinct aroma of vanilla soy candles and bleach. Heavy red drapes cover all the windows, and the wallpaper is gold and black stripes. I wonder how it looks with the morning sunlight streaming in. A place like this loses its appeal as soon as rubbish trucks squeal to a stop out the front.

A woman sits in a huge leather chair behind a small wooden desk. She shuffles papers while, beside her, one lone fighting fish circles a tank with nothing but pebbles on the bottom. There’s an economy-sized bottle of hand sanitiser in front of her and a laminated card with the wi-fi password. Rolling my shoulders back and straightening my spine, I stride towards her, ready for my initiation.

‘Welcome,’ she says, pointing the air conditioner remote at the wall and pressing many of the buttons at once. The cooler jerks into action and begins noisily blowing air through the room. ‘I’m Tanya—you must be here for the training?’ She is still squinting at the remote and pressing buttons. ‘Amelia Aurelia—is that right?’ She sounds doubtful.

‘Yes, sir!’ I say, smiling at her until she offers a small, forced smile in return.

‘Any drugs or alcohol in the last twenty-four hours?’

I shake my head vigorously, and then slow it down because I don’t want to seem drug-affected. I try to calm myself again by looking at the fish, which nibbles optimistically at the edges of the pebbles.

Tanya is tall, potentially even six foot in her socks, and she’s much older than I expected; the face that peeks out from under the fringe of a neat bob is lined. She is wearing a pantsuit, and a thick stripe