From my perch on the kitchen table, I finally see the three months of dust on the fridge. I swivel my eyes towards the window, looking right across my garden and into next door’s sandpit. I stand every day at this sink and see nothing beyond the edge of the deck. Up in my eyrie, the view is clearer.
I watch the base of the fridge carefully and clutch my blanket around me. I can still sense Dave’s aftershave on it, a shadow rising from the woollen fibres, scentless. He packed his few things in minutes and left without so much as a lingering imprint on the sofa. He passed through this house and my life like a ghost and I wonder yet again how he managed to live here all these years and leave so few traces of his presence. Other break-ups have given me many tiny mementoes, left intentionally or not; an unused toothbrush tucked at the back of the cabinet, half a tub of my least favourite ice cream in the freezer, even a bunch of keys found months later down a sofa cushion when their owner was deliberately traceless. The mementoes provide links in the chain of recovery. They appear at regular intervals, grip my chest with their unexpectedness, play a movie of half-forgotten memories in my head, move me to screaming tears. I cradle them uselessly and without courage before flipping them into the bin and mentally toasting my returning strength. All part of the inevitable convalescence, fight it how I will. Dave, though, tidied himself out of my life three months ago without warning, leaving me defenceless, with no recognisable track back from the abyss.
A quiver on the periphery of my vision and I turn my head excruciatingly towards it. Still nothing. I turn my head away but keep my eyes swivelled towards the fridge in an illogical attempt at deception. And this time it works. The shadow at the base of the fridge trembles, dissolves and reassembles itself. Slowly, confidently, he slides his head out and regards the kitchen unblinkingly as my stomach dissolves into nothingness. He slides endlessly from his hiding place. As his tail flicks clear, he rears up to survey the room, giving me a clear view of his creamy belly. I hold my blanket more tightly, frozen to my perch, willing him not to notice me. I want to close my eyes in case he sees the flash of life. But then he might disappear and that would be worse still. I have a single, terrified urge to leap down, show myself and surrender. Anything rather than this cringing suspense.
He lowers himself and starts across the floor in confident, rippling swerves. The floor is shiny and prevents him getting the purchase he needs and he begins to wriggle in exasperation as he pulls himself across the tiles with the scraping rustle of autumn leaves. The only useful thing Dave did after we bought the house was to pull up the sticky carpet and lay shimmering, creamy tiles across the kitchen floor. I watched in fascination as he slapped the diamonds at top speed between the little pegs and smoothed a damp pile of grout across them, his hand whipping aggressively across the tiles and locking them into place. I have polished them lovingly every day since he left, something I sense the snake doesn’t appreciate right now.
I tossed a pile of sheets into the laundry room doorway this morning and he takes temporary refuge there. My fear sinks back into my throat as the sheets shudder and go still. He is in control now, hiding, emerging, taunting me as I cower helplessly on the table. Several times I consider leaping down and making for the door but my legs may buckle if I try to stand and I am very sure that he can move faster than me. For now I am trapped up here, at the mercy of his choices and not my own. I pick up my cell phone and switch it to silent, terrified that the handlers I rang ten minutes ago might call back and alert the snake to my perfidy. I want to call someone, to make contact with another human, but I don’t know anyone locally – we settled near Dave’s family, not mine. I dare not call my sister in Queensland to let her know I am sitting on the kitchen table in Canberra watching a snake and I need someone to help me, right now. She thought I was stupid moving right across the country for any man, let alone Dave. They were sweetly polite to each other each year when they met in public and she changed the subject every time he came up in private, even at that first dazzled stage where I had to speak his name every five minutes and every topic could be twisted to include a mention of him.
