Chameleon by Rebekah Jennings - © Copyright (e manga reader txt) 📕

/> “I know that I should get a pair of red glasses,” she said to me summarising her position, “my purple ones are not working as they should be.”

“No. I’ve always liked the purple on you,” I’d said.

“Yes, I do too.” She shook off her beliefs as one does a chill. “I mean I did too.”

I’d studied her, my glasses were the shade of intuition that day. She’d added, “Everybody has their own ways and I need to understand that.”

My eyebrows had risen, jumped. They did somersaults but it made no difference. They could have grown legs and walked away side by side, a squadron of two, full military uniform down my face, over the hills of my lips, sliding from my chin and still it would have had no effect.

“True,” I’d said, “but do you suppose he might need to wear your purple ones for a while?”

“No.” Her eyes were wide with astonishment. “No, he says mine are broken.”

It wasn’t long after Cliff had moved into Mum’s that Louise became so unhappy there. She was sick of his controlling ways, his begging for this or that, even having a say in what was her and Mum’s territory.

“I’m thinking about moving out,” she had said to me, “anything would be better than living with him.”

“But where would you go?”

“I’m thinking of moving in with Shane.” She looked at the ground, at her clothing, brushing some lint from herself. She looked off into the distance. Our eyes did not make contact.

“That should be a lot better,” I couldn’t hide the sing song in my voice.

“What?” now she looked directly at me.

“I thought your reason for moving was to avoid living with a control freak.”

“It is.” Louise’s face was firm, statuesque.

“How’s your smoking going?” I asked Louise as we collected up our things and began a slow pace toward her car.

“Good, I’m not having any during the week. Normally that is. A few months ago it was different because I had been spending a bit of time with Adam. I found myself so nervous around him and was drinking and smoking far more than normal.”

“Yes, I remember that. It’s such a shame you feel so much anxiety about men and relationships now.”

“I know...” In the past she would have added “Shane’s ruined me for all men.” She wasn’t saying that now.

“Shane has promised me he’s changed now.”

“How? Has he done counselling?”

“No. But his previous few girlfriends have been a nightmare for him. He now realises how easy things were with me. He realises now that all people are different and things don’t have to be his way.”

“So he’s not actually done any work to change himself? When was the last time he hit somebody?”

“I don’t know”

“Well how do you know he’s changed then?”

“Because he told me. He begged me to take him back. He swears he’ll be different this time."

All the years they were together were to be a casual arrangement as in no commitment from him, however, came with a monogamous clause. Interpretation being: no arm touching, friendly hugs or chatty banter between herself and his friends.

“Well, what if it is your friend who tries to hug me or who puts his hand on my arm?” she’d asked him.

“No,” he’d say, “still your responsibility, you should tell them not to.”

“But it’s rude. I feel like I would hurt their feelings. Can’t you say something to them?”

“No. It wouldn’t look right. I’d only look like a jealous tosser. You have to say it. You have to control it.”

When she told me this I didn’t see the logic and I let her know, but she’d advised me that she’d come to her senses and realised now that all people are different and she needed to try hard to see things through his lenses, hers being a little smudged, needed a bit of maintenance.

My thoughts went back to a holiday I went on with Louise and Shane. She’d been with him for about three years by then. We went to Apollo Bay; lovely place nestled along the Great Ocean Road, Otway’s behind, ocean in front, stunning coastal views. It was a three or four hour drive from where we lived and as such we stopped along the way for a bite to eat. My sister and Shane decided where they wanted to eat, he’d led the way. I picked a different place because I was after a healthier option and we planned to sit outside in a shared dining area.

After they ordered and sat to eat, I was still waiting in line and by the time I’d sat to eat they’d finished. My sister and I were chatting away and Shane sat fidgeting, staring at my food, glancing about and then studying his watch.

The small wrinkle in between his eyebrows seemed to grow a little longer and a little deeper. Nothing in and of itself, but when combined with the narrowing of his eyes, the rhythmic movement of his jaw muscle as he slowly clenched and unclenched his teeth. The way his hands moved, fingers drumming a soft, insistent beat on the table top and the occasional folding of his fingers into a neat fist and then gentle opening, unfolding and laying of his hand upon the table, caused me infuriating discomfort.

That meal set the tone for the five day trip. I actually came home early, on day four. It was a culmination of events such as his turning the television on and increasing the volume when I, in the same room as he, was listening to a CD. The idea of turning my music up to drown out the volume of the television was so appealing I had to bite my fingers for a few moments to get through the urge.

He was aghast and indignant upon discovering me cooking poached eggs and bacon on the second morning. He’d pulled out his food schedule and shown my sister that he’d planned scrambled eggs for every morning. I waited until his back faced us and mouthed slowly, exaggerating every movement, “food schedule?” My silent vowels stretched and poured out of my mouth like treacle.

My sister continued to emphasise the importance of wearing Shane’s specs as often as she could though she knew that her purple ones were her natural and automatic preference. Unfortunately, it turned out it was the colour of his glasses she and I disagreed upon. Where I saw a red, fiery sort of colour and a decidedly short sighted and monocular view, tunnelled even with the end result being a reflection of its wearer, she saw something else. She couldn’t explain its qualities because for her they changed all the time. His view to her seemed a reflexive, varied and reactive view. A view that was unpredictable yet belonged to a person who was definite and stable and controlled. Superior came to my mind, I’m not sure if it visited hers but I was suffocated by it.

She didn’t like my view of his view or my view of her view of his view. Our glasses became muddied and unclear upon discussion of each other’s glasses and she asked me not to share my view of either of their views about his view with her any further. She would have no more of it and neither would he for that matter.

He’d insisted she stop using her friends and family as a sound board for their problems, that their issues had nothing to do with me or anyone else and needed to be kept between them. After all, he’d said, who liked to be discussed when they weren’t around. This statement, by some incredible means, actually rang true for Louise. Shane discovered a pattern. It seemed that Louise, after talking to me, had an unpleasant tendency to bring up previous arguments with him, adding her new evidence and well thought out constructs, working their problems in her hand, twisting, turning, analysing and deconstructing.

A damn nuisance for him really. He’d insisted often enough that she use his glasses at all times. Her questioning only lead to the type of anger that saw him snatching her glasses, twisting them in his strong hands, squishing them and then wrenching them apart, into two pieces and throwing them to the floor. He’s spit at them and stomp on them for good measure.

Before our trip to Apollo Bay, when she’d told me that she wasn’t going to live at home with Mum anymore she’d said she didn’t know how anybody could put up with Cliff. I agreed with her whole heartedly on the matter. Her preferred glasses, the purple ones that she sneakily put back together when Shane wasn’t around, the ones made up of calming therapies, relaxation and vitamin B seemed to change in tone, thickness and durability when she spoke of Cliff. Her view of him was bleak. A depressing sort of grey when considered in reference to Mum but took on hues of orange and some sparkly flares when she imagined having to deal with him directly. She didn’t like his controlling ways and would tolerate them no more. The business with the eternal maze of keys to get in and out of the house, the myriad routines involving when she could cook dinner or watch television or use the bathroom. Not to her taste at all, she didn’t know how Mum put up with it.

Back then, after returning from the awful holiday, she seemed so much happier being away from Mum and Cliff. I wondered sometimes though about her anxiety levels, I’d noticed lately her quick movements and shaking hands, her asthma was playing up she had told me. She was relying on her reliever so much more because of the new living space with Shane and his cat. She said a few times she needed to give coffee away for a little while as it wasn’t helping her nerves.

Also, she said she was having trouble sleeping so she was exercising more to combat the insomnia and to encourage the production and release of her body’s natural endorphins. There was a day here or there where she reported anxiety so strong she couldn’t think or eat and she was so full of irritation she could barely speak to her colleagues without burning them with her acidic words. She was thinking about having an assessment with a psychiatrist. Shane encouraged it because he believed her thought patterns were strange, that her brain didn’t think like a normal person’s. She wished she knew what was so wrong with her lately.

Then there was the issue of clothes. I shook my head, confusion again worn on a chain around my neck. She didn’t have enough clothes to wear since she’d moved into Shane’s and money was tight given the new expenses upon moving out of Mum’s.

It was a while later when she’d told me excitedly that Shane had bought himself a new washing machine, one of those press button ones, all electric and it was larger.

“Won’t a larger machine cause more problems for you? I mean you already don’t have enough clothing, how will you get by?” I said

She shook her head, “No, Shane’s had a ban on mid week washing for some time now. Says it’s a waste of water.”

“Don’t you find that a bit restrictive, reminds me a bit of Cliff.”

“Not at all! Nothing at all alike. Cliff is a control freak and the thing is his