My face is smiling

rom the rear seat I can see her hair sweeping down in a glorious dark swirl to her shoulder. On the curve of her shoulder I can see the her bra strap etched against the white cotton blouse she is wearing. I close my eyes and think of the red and green embroidered hearts on the points of the collar and between the buttons. I feel the stirring of desire as I think about her face and her blouse and its buttons. She turns slightly toward the passenger seat, and I catch a glimpse of her high-cheek-boned, profile. I feel perspiration on my hands and brow. I look at her hands on the steering wheel, almost in the classic ten-to-two position, the knuckles of her left hand a graceful, sensuous cascade along the rim of the wheel. I look at the two rings on her finger: one, the extravagant beauty of diamond, the other the plain gold symbol of marriage.

A cold hand closes its iron fingers around my gut and crushes my soul. I look away to the head of the passenger showing over the headrest of the passenger seat. It is Paul, my friend. I look at my friend through a roaring, red-flecked funnel of hate and jealousy and shame.

Zanetta pulls in to the kerb, as she does each morning. The blood roars in my ears like a hurricane, the sound of my mind trying to blot out the world. My tortured telepathic veto cannot prevent that unbearable, casual goodbye kiss. I cannot stand the agony of the iron hand twisting and ripping inside me. I scream in silent pain.

Paul and Zanetta smile and make see-you-later noises, not noticing my torment. My body opens the car door and moves into the front seat, my mouth tells Paul to have a good day, my ears receive his reply, my face is smiling. My hands fasten the seatbelt, my body reclines in the seat, my soul is screaming for release, and my face is smiling, smiling, smiling.

From the front seat, I have more opportunity to see Zanetta as she concentrates on her driving. My cortex formulates commonplace, light conversation as it does every day. The real-time journey is ten minutes. For me it is a confusion of time flashing by as I revel in my closeness to Zanetta, and of slow, burning torture as my soul begs for its release. My eyes devour the curve of her ears, her neck, the thin blouse over her breasts. I smell her musky perfume. I always carry something - a book, a lunch bag, a coat. Many days I need them to disguise my unbidden, unwanted erection. Those days when she does not wear slacks are the best and the worst for me. Those days I fight to stop my thoughts from picturing my hand on her knee, moving along her thigh as we kiss and her legs parting for me...

I am disgusting. I hate myself and I hate the way I feel. Paul and Zanetta are my friends. My friends. I have known Paul since school. I used to look out for him, and he for me. We hitch-hiked around the country together. We play cricket together. I was there when he married Zanetta and it was a fantastic day. Everyone had a good time. Paul's parents, who have been divorced for ten years, were polite to each other and even got up and danced. My wife Amy was in full flight running the show, having a wonderful time. She had known Zanetta as long as I had known Paul. They met through Amy, at our wedding. I liked Zanetta. I thought she was good for Paul, and she loved him, that was plain. I pictured it in my thoughts: a happy foursome, common interests, children in time, holidays. An idyllic existence, and why not?

Amy and I had been married two years, and it was six months after Paul and Zanetta's wedding. Things seemed to be working out just as we all hoped. Paul and I still played cricket. The girls still came to watch. They still played netball. We boys still went to watch. I remember that Amy was the sexiest thing I ever saw. Those legs! We used to rush home after the game. I just could not get enough of her and it was mutual. You can tell when it is mutual. And anyway, I remember that she told me so. Often. Zanetta played a great game at wing attack or centre, but I don't recall her legs from those times at all. Amy played wing defence, and laughed about it being the 'left field' of netball. She did not mind at all that she was a hack: she just loved playing. When Zanetta did not make the State team, she was as disappointed as Zanetta herself. I remember her slim, smooth figure and her light brown hair in its neat chignon. She always looked so fine next to Zanetta's solidity. I remember that she was a really nice person, but I cannot remember her face!

When they told me Amy was killed, I could not react. My parents were puzzled. Amy's family were angry, I think, because I did not cry. "He has no feeling," they said. "He does not even look sad. Not at the church, not at the cemetery, not afterwards. Nothing. We can't believe he is so cold."

They were wrong. I cried. I railed. But not at the church, and not at the cemetery. She was not dead, so why should I cry? . It was a stupid dream and I would wake up. She would come back and I would forgive her. I told God how angry I was. I was so angry.

Later I cried, but the tears fell on the inside, my face still smiling. I was angry, but the anger chewed and tore and raged inside, while my face still smiled. Amy faded and my anger hid itself away. I went to the cemetery and read the message there, beneath the carving of the cross:

Amelia Caroline Costa 1975-1997 beloved wife of Frank "I will always love you"

It was not true. I felt nothing now, except a cold repellent lump in my chest, pressing all the warmth and feeling out of me. I was nowhere, I was nothing. I only knew that the world was grey, and nothing mattered any more. In the mornings I got up. At night from habit I went to lie down. I didn't go out except occasionally, to the supermarket. Maybe I bought food. Maybe I bought toilet paper. I don't remember. I remember buying Stones Green Ginger Wine. It's burning taste suited me, and it helped me to sleep sometimes.

The phone stopped working after a while. Probably I didn't pay the bills. Sometimes people came to the door, but I didn't have the energy to answer. One time, or maybe more than one time, Paul came round. He just hammered on the door until it I opened it. I told him I was OK, just wanted some time to myself. It seemed like a good line, or at least, people bought it.

I used to like to read, but I couldn't be bothered even with short stories. After a minute or two, I'd just skip to the end. Later, I did not bother to start. Sometimes I'd watch television. It seldom mattered what was on. Sometimes I just sat in the chair looking at the television, not caring enough to switch it on. Sometimes I ate. It didn't matter much what. I noticed after a while that i had to go to the shop every day for Stones Green Ginger Wine, so I started buying two or three bottles at a time. One day, the man in the shop introduced me to flagons.

I went to work, most days. I don't know how long it took them to work out that I was producing nothing. Probably they carried me for a long time. Eventually, though, somebody made me go to see a doctor. By then, I mostly did what people asked me to do, as long as I didn't have to remember it for long.

The doctor asked me what was bothering me. I told her about the cold lump in my chest. She told me I was depressed and gave me some pills out of her samples. She said it was good that I recognised that I had a problem. She said it was good that I wanted to resolve it. She referred me to a psychiatrist. She also signed a medical certificate for 3 months sick leave, told me I shouldn't drive any more, and sent me home in a taxi. When we got home, I remembered my car, so the taxi driver took me back to pick it up.

I thought the pills might help, so I took them. The next day, it slipped my mind that I didn't have to go to work. Somehow, I seemed to lose a patch of time. The car, in that time, climbed the median strip and got half way through a red light. I didn't feel anything then, although I was bruised badly and noticed over the next few days. No-one else was injured, I believe. My licence was subsequently suspended on medical grounds, so I stayed home. When I had too, I walked down to the shops. Mostly I sat at home.

I had my bedtime routine, and as time went by I added another ritual. At 2.30 I watched the Perry Mason re-runs. Mostly, apart from that, it didn't matter, although I could tell weekends because the programming was messed up. I sometimes watched television or cleaned the house. I did OK. I sat and drank my ginger wine and watched Perry Mason save the world. Then without warning, it stopped. They took off Perry Mason and replaced it with some total crap. I was furious. I tried to phone the station. I found the phone book and the number, but the phone was not working. I got angrier and angrier, with that stupid wrong program showing.

Somewhere, something let go. I don't remember, but later I saw the result. Somebody - Paul told me it was me - pulled the telephone out of the wall and used it to smash the television. Somebody had gone on a rampage through the house breaking crockery, wrecking furniture. When neighbours heard the windows breaking, they called the police. The police had apparently come on the somebody sitting, bleeding in the midst of the carnage. They eventually contacted the psychiatrist from the overdue appointment card in my wallet, and Paul, whose name I gave them sometime.

I spent a few days in hospital. The psychiatrist was an old guy in a brown, tweedy-looking suit. He said I was severely depressed, but that the pills I had been taking had not been right for me.

"It is possible that the medication may have contributed to your behaviour," he said, "although the behaviour was not inconsistent with your condition."

He gave me new medication. I recall his voice, a rusty, old school tie voice.

"Frank," he said, steepling his fingers, "you must get into a proper routine. You have to get exercise - walking or swimming, not anything more strenuous than that. And you have to take these pills. They are called prothiaden."

What did I care what they were called. I was alone, deserted, and I didn't care.

"Now what I want you to do is this. You go to bed at ten o'clock on the dot and you take six of these pills half an hour before. As well as helping with your depression they have a small sedative effect that will help you to sleep. In the morning, you take another two of the pills, you have something light to eat and you go for a walk."

"I don't know about walk," I thought, "but if they'll make me sleep, that will be good." I felt very, very tired. As well as I could remember when I was awake, I didn't have any dreams. He let me go after writing down his instructions and giving me a prescription. Paul was waiting for me and he took the bits of paper and sat me down. I sat there with my eyes shut, hoping everything would just leave me be. I suppose Paul went off to talk to the doctor.

I went to stay with Paul and Zanetta in their neat little townhouse not that far from....where I lived. Ostensibly, it was just until my place was fixed up, but they pointed out to me the sense of staying with them. They also pointed out that I was running short on funds, and only minimal fixing was going to happen. I said I would stay, and something prompted me to add, "thanks".

It was OK. They left me to myself, and I kept to my room, mostly. Sometimes I would sit on the bed and look out of the window. The window opened onto the local shopping centre, and it was like television, watching people come and go, into the shops, out of the shops. Meeting, talking, walking.

I live in a room three metres by four metres, sleeping on a folded out sofa bed. Sometimes Paul or Zanetta come and get me, but they forget that I'm there sometimes too. Once I saw a reflection of Zanetta in the mirror drying herself after a shower. I saw she had bigger breasts than....well, big breasts, but it didn't interest me very much. Another time, I opened the door and Zanetta was on the toilet. She laughed about it. I just wanted a piss. I see them wandering about, living life. If I had more energy, I would wonder what they find to laugh about in this dead, cold world.

In between times, I went to see old Holden the psychiatrist, but I don't recall that we talked of much. After a while, I began to feel more active. I decided that I would go for a walk one day, and I did. I played cards with Paul and Zanetta, or sat and watched television with them. I started eating with them. I even went out to the pictures with them once or twice, but it didn't feel right. I decided to go every third time they asked, so they would feel better, and I went and my mouth discussed the film, and my face smiled, and I kept the cold crushing weight of the rock in my chest to myself.

I started back at work. Zanetta and Paul organised me to go with them. Zanetta said she dropped Paul off anyway, and I would be no extra trouble. It was fine with me. I didn't have to overcome the problem of getting to and from as well as coping with a day at work. One night, while Paul was out at cricket practice, Zanetta decided that I was looking untidy again, and it was time for a haircut. I sat in the kitchen on a stool, swathed in a bath towel, and Zanetta got out scissors and brush and comb. I never liked haircuts, but this time it was different. Something changed.

I was conscious of her hand touching my skin. I burned like fire. As she leaned across on tiptoes to reach the top of my head, her breasts pressed against my shoulder. I held myself motionless, burning, terrified that I might react. I had a painful, throbbing erection, mercifully hidden under the towel. I glanced upward to see her throat close to me, the smooth skin dusted with the faintest down. The pressure left my shoulder and she disappeared behind me. I breathed again, and cleared my throat. I was caught between lust and horror. I wanted it to finish before I fainted from the strain, and I wanted it never to end.

"That's not too bad, Frank," she said in her sultry, sexy voice, "I'll do the front then we're through.".

Zanetta came around in front of me, her hands busy with scissors and comb in my hair, arms raised so that I could see the armpits and their growth of dark fuzz. I could not breathe. Her cleavage was before my eyes and my mind removed her shirt and bra and revealed her breasts to my gaze. My hands under the blanket grasped my penis of their own volition and I thought I would explode as the orgasm exploded between my hands.

Somehow, from a huge distance, I heard Zanetta, concerned, ask if I was all right. I could not answer, but nodded as I struggled to regain some control over myself. Zanetta was brushing my hair, now, admiring her handiwork.

"Pretty good for an amateur," she said.

We both heard the bang of the door as Paul came in. He admired Zanetta's efforts and told me it was good that I didn't look like my usual mess. He put his arm around Zanetta and gave her a friendly kiss.

"Go and have a shower," she said. "You smell. And if you're a good boy, I'll come and help you."

I felt a roaring in my mind. I felt the hate wash over me like a tide. I wanted to kill. And meanwhile, my mouth said I would be off to bed, now and thanks, Zanetta, very much for the haircut. Meanwhile, my body put the stool back where it belonged and picked up the brush and comb. Meanwhile my face was smiling, as I said goodnight and imaginary bullets riddled the rotting corpse of my friend Paul. I lay on my bed, weeping and masturbating, unable to stop, unable to face my thoughts.

How suddenly life changes. One day I am living life with Amy, and we are sharing our lives with our friends. Curly-haired, solid Paul with his friendly grin and classy off-cutters (if only he could maintain a length) and gap a mile-wide between bat and pad, convinced he is an all-rounder. Buxom, black-haired Zanetta, bouncing up and down the netball court indefatigably, always pushing the limits of dissent with the referees, always ready for a laugh. Amy with her shining eyes and happy soul, brightening everyone's life with her charm.

Next, I am alone, deserted, crushed of feeling, except for the slow, hidden anger. What does anything matter. Money, job, future? What is a future? I am tired. I have no energy; nothing to give. My possessions are destroyed and I am not sorry, I am not anything. It does not matter.

And then, like a raging flood of poison, I am desperate with desire for Zanetta. I shiver just thinking of her. My mind sees every curve of her face, every hair on her arms. I see the errant strand escape and fall across that sensual face in a way that turns my insides to liquid. I relive, over and over, her arms, her body as she gives me a haircut. I dwell with her in nightly sordid fantasy, over and over and over.

For the first time in months, I ask to go to the netball. Paul and Zanetta look pleased. Zanetta, fully covered in her track-suit sits in the passenger seat laughing and joking with Paul. As always they remember to include me in. My mouth produces my light-hearted contribution to the chatter, and my face is smiling, and I sit in the car, hidden in the dark, trembling with self-loathing and sweaty anticipation.

The game is a thriller. Paul is yelling and screaming. My hands are clapping and my voice is cheering, but my eyes are glued to Zanetta. The bounce of her breasts, the exposed length of thigh as she moves and spins and her skirt flies up. Once she is knocked off balance and ends up sitting on the floor, facing us, legs apart. She is laughing and calling out something. Paul is yelling for justice. I am staring at her knickers. My face is smiling, but I think I want to die. I know something is terribly wrong.

It is lunch-time. I am here in the office alone. I am not hungry. I have four hours and thirty-one minutes to wait until Zanetta comes to get me. The thought of Zanetta drives me to the toilet, where I lock myself into a cubicle and masturbate to the image of Zanetta. . I sit, buried in the shame and disgrace of treating my friends this way, feeling drained, banging my head against the cubicle side until I hear someone. I remain, quiet, until I am alone again, then quickly dress, wash and leave. It is now four hours and nine minutes until Zanetta.

This afternoon is worse than most. I cannot concentrate, and people are starting to lose patience with me. Marla is bulky and black-haired, like a caricature of Zanetta. She is impatient and crude. Today, she breaks into my thoughts about Zanetta. Suddenly I return to now, and there she is, monstrous, loud, and sneering. She feels about me how I feel about me. I cannot stand it. I start shouting.

I don't remember what exactly I have said. I remember that I wanted to be left alone. I feel the cold lump in my chest squeezing me, and my rage dies. I don't care any more. Someone brings me a glass of water. I sit in the sick room. I know it can't be time, but Zanetta comes anyway.

I follow Zanetta out to the car and get in beside her. She is solicitous, and I tell her I was just having a rough day. I try so very hard to look straight ahead through the window. I try so very hard, but I am forced against my will to turn my smiling, screaming face toward her. Today she is wearing a fine white woollen sweater, with a string of cultured pearls. The sweater clings to the slopes of her breasts and I see the shadow of her bra. The pearls slide down into the valley. She is wearing a long skirt, mid-calf perhaps, but it has a slit. As her foot moves between pedals, the skirt slides away and exposes her thigh. I am in agony. Blood is pounding through me. I feel as if I am being compressed until all feeling is in my groin. My mouth is dry but I maintain a conversation. My face is smiling.

We stop at the lights and Zanetta's skirt slides away, revealing the elastic top of her panty-hose. We move again and I see that a button is undone on her blouse. Under my jacket, I press hard on my erection, but it does not help. With the last of my strength I turn to look ahead. We are travelling west and I welcome the blinding sun.

Zanetta leaves me, to go back to work. She says she'll see me later, and to take it easy. The look of worry is strange on that sexy, desirable face. I rush off to my room, my face burning. I jerk and pull at myself until the skin of my penis is chafed and bleeding, but there is no relief. I am run out of tears. I am so tired of it all. I look for my pills. I look for my ginger wine.

When I return to consciousness, I see two concerned faces, the faces of my friends. I wonder where Amy is.

"Where's Amy?" I ask. "Is she OK? What happened?"

I see the strange look pass between Paul and Zanetta.

"What?" I ask them, "What has happened?"

Like a foul nightmare a vision rolls into my mind. A vision of myself lying on my bed, masturbating to a dream of my wife's best friend. "What have I done?" I think to myself, recoiling, "How could I do that?"

And my punishment comes in the form of returning memory. All others fade as I gaze, ashamed into the eyes of my own dead love. "Oh Amy," I cry, and I churn and writhe with grief and shame and guilt.

"She's dead," I say. "She's gone."

"Yeah, mate," says Paul, "she's gone. We all loved her but she's gone. We're sorry Frank."

"Zanetta." I look at her in shame.

Zanetta puts her cool hand on my forehead. "It's OK Frank," she says. "We were a bit shocked, but we had a talk with the doctor. We had no idea what you were going through."

I look away. My face is not smiling, and I cannot stop tears. I can't look at Paul, but I hear his voice. There is a shake in it, as if he is upset. "Yeah, mate, you're lucky you're in hospital, or I'd knock your block off, you silly bastard. Just don't do it again."

"OK, mate," I say, through my tears, "I won't. It hurts too bloody much."

Zanetta smiles and she is crying. "It serves you right you jerk," she says. She leans over and kisses me. I see she is wearing a black bra under her white top. Same old untidy Zanetta. Amy would always make her change it. I am filled with a warmth of affection for her and for Paul.

Suddenly, I am very tired. I feel as if I am drifting. It feels OK. Paul is standing behind Zanetta, his hand on her shoulder. I feel as if it is getting darker. I strain to see them clearly. Someone else is there too. I remember what I need to ask.

"Forgive me," I ask of the people at my bedside.

I can see that Zanetta and Paul, my friends, forgive me, but there faces are drawn and afraid.

Amy is standing next to Paul. She is smiling and she forgives me too. I smile back, with love and sadness and gratitude. Finally I am at peace.

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