The Girl in the Bath

By Robyn Bishop

Eighteen-year-old Lila is at a crisis point in her life. Alone and in the bath, she has just given birth to a premature baby she did not even know she was carrying. The baby is born dead. Numb with shock, denial, and disbelief, the young girl fears that her past will suffocate her. Now she must hide the truth from her family and friends, and she cant even begin to think what will happen if what happened is ever revealed.

Unaware of Lilas troubles, her mother and brother slog their way through unsatisfying lives of their own. Meredith, stuck in a menial job at a travel agency, seethes with inner frustration at the disappointing hand life has dealt her. Jason endures school and gets through his days only by obsessing about sex, as all fifteen-year-old boys must.

Feeling more alone than ever, Lila finds an unexpected ally in Doris, their dwarfish next-door neighbour. What Lila doesnt realize is that reclusive Doris has been spying on her for almost a decade. Lila is the daughter Doris always dreamt of having. Doris reaches out to Lila for her own reasons, and the two hatch a plan.

Will this unlikely pair of conspirators succeed in burying Lilas shame, or will her secrets be revealed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Mar 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452513676

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

LILA

L ila stood, pale and statuesque in the emerald, polished bath, unable to move as the water rippled cold around her ankles. All her tomorrows and yesterdays were meeting in this moment in the chilled, greedy water of the bath. She clasped her hands in front of her, mindlessly tugging at her crinkled white nightgown, which was tainted with sleek stripes of b lood.

Red ribbons slid silently down her thighs to join the ruby pool that reached the end of the bath. She tried to force the strained muscles in her head to look down and claim what lay there, but she couldn’t. Instead, she stared straight ahead at her reflection in the mirror above the bath.

Staring back at her was a young woman she failed to recognise. The stranger’s long, blonde hair was a matted mess of knots that clung to her face and neck. The eyes that looked back at her were huge and panicked, frozen in fright. The pallor of her skin had assumed a bluish hue, as if it had been bruised by an unseen force. The mirrored stranger moved a hand to her face and stroked it slowly in a caress. The caress kissed Lila’s own cheek.

Surely this apparition couldn’t be her?

Lila, like most eighteen-year-old girls, was obsessed with her appearance. Looks were so important if a girl was going to get by in this world. She carefully chose her image to imitate slim, long-legged, airbrushed models. Not that she was shallow. Lila knew looks weren’t everything, but they helped to ease her passage through the tedium of every day. A pretty smile could help secure an extension on a late assignment at school, free cruisers at the pub, and the best seat at the movies. Looks, however, were not going to help now. No amount of air-whipped makeup; black, extra-curl mascara; or volume-adding hair conditioner was going to get her out of the mess she was in. But still Lila couldn’t believe she looked like the vampirish creature that was reflected in the mirror. Forcing her eyes shut, she willed the image to disappear. Surely it was just part of the distorted reality she found herself caught up in.

Go away. Leave me alone, she whispered. Please, don’t let this be real.

Lila wanted never to open her eyes again. She wanted to be lost in a limbo that carried no consequences, no wrongs, no rights—just a floating never-never land. Somewhere else.

Somebody else.

But some part of her consciousness pried her eyes open and forced her to see, once again, the ghostlike young woman staring back at her from the mirror. She gulped, disbelief sliding down her throat. So this was really happening to her. The mess in the mirror was her. She was standing in a bloody bath of her own making.

Lila shivered, the cold seeping into her bones. How long had she been standing here like this? Minutes? Hours? All morning? She forced herself to think back. She had been in bed, pains in her stomach, when her mother, Meredith, had left for work and her brother, Jason, had left for school.

Meredith called out in morning ritual, Don’t forget your lunch, Jason! It’s on the bench. And make sure you turn the TV off! Then the impatience of her pause as she waited for Jason to answer. Jason, can you hear me?

Jason, stuffing peanut-buttered toast in his mouth as he slumped in front of a rerun of The Simpsons, answered with a grunt in the thoughtless way of teenage boys. He licked the last of the peanut butter off his fingers, reluctantly switched the TV off, farted loudly, and went to grab his schoolbag, full of unfinished homework, from his lion’s den of a bedroom.

Lila, you’ll have to get up some time today, Meredith, on her way to work, had instructed impatiently from the front door.

Getting up, Mum! Catch you later. Lila had forced a cheerful voice from the confines of her bed, and for authenticity she added, Better not have gutsed all the cornflakes, Jase!

Nar. But there’s no milk left. Suck on that, ya loser!

Loser yourself.

Are not.

Are so.

"Loser with a capital L."

Don’t talk to your sister like that, Jason, Meredith hissed as she shut the front door with a careful click.

Jason, emerging from his room, kicked a ball up the hallway, farted again, and banged the front door so that the ancient lead light rattled, threatening to break. Silence settled on 22 Pandora Crescent, their run-down, western-suburbs house on the wrong side of Melbourne.

Lila lay in bed, white sheets a crumpled, damp mess, dread creeping through her body as her discomfort increased, perspiration slimy on her forehead. Curling up, lying on her stomach, lying on her back, legs drawn to her chest—nothing diminished the nausea and the cramps. Her body smelt disgustingly of dried sweat and something else that reminded her of overripe figs decaying in a bowl.

You should go wash, Lila, she ordered herself, but trapped in strangling distress, her body disobeyed. She couldn’t move from the rankness of her bed.

Her pains had grown in intensity, becoming short, sharp, stabbing throbs that peaked and left her weak. Surely her period at last, that heavy dragging sensation in the abdomen before the blood starts to flow. The pain briefly subsided, and mastering her rebelling limbs, she threw off the ruined sheets and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. She ran the bath, warm water her friend.

The emerald bath was old and cracked but shone in uneven patches of cleanliness, Meredith’s attempts at making the old new. No scum or mould dared to creep unbidden here. The dated black-and-white tiles on the floor were antiseptic fresh and cool beneath Lila’s bare toes. Threadbare bottle-green towels that did not quite match the emerald of the tiles hung primly arranged on the chrome towel rails, except for Jason’s towel, which lay wet and abandoned on the floor, oozing defiance in its bunched shape.

Lila, clothed in her nightgown, stepped into the bath and sighed as the welcome warmth licked her toes. And then the blood started trickling down her legs— lots of blood—more blood than with a normal period. She gasped as the pain increased. She thought of going back to her room in search of a sanitary pad, but there was too much blood. It would leave a trail of stains on the hallway floor.

She rubbed her stomach hard, trying to reduce the cramps, but it only made the pain worse. Hot water bottles, warm wheat bags, painkillers—nothing was going to relieve this. It was consuming her. She had images of aliens and monsters thrashing around in her insides. Fear slid in sweat down her neck and stuck between the curves of her breasts. A scream echoed in the bathroom, sounding as if it belonged to someone else.

Mum! I need you… Mum…

But Meredith was not where she was needed. It seemed, these days, she never was. Lila was alone. Alone in the house. Alone in the world. Alone with the torture. She steadied herself against the tiles with one hand, lifted her nightgown away from her legs and the blood with the other, and waited. Waited again for the explosion of pain, the grip it had on her, and the moment when the pain was in its lull.

She was caught for what seemed like hours in this never-ending repetition of cruelty and release. The blood continued its journey down her legs. The water in the bath cooled down, becoming cold in the igloo of a bathroom. Then, all of a sudden, with the pain at its peak, the urge to push overcame Lila. Her legs apart, her body splitting, a mass from her insides fell silent into the water.

Just a splash.

No other sound.

Not a gurgle.

Not a sigh.

Then silence.

An accusing, complete silence.

Lila dared not look in the bath. Horror shifted across the face in the mirror. She gripped her hands, nails piercing flesh, indenting red wounds on her palms.

Oh shit, Lila! What… have you done?

But she failed to answer her own question, turmoil turning in her brain.

Trembling, she pressed a hand to her forehead and tugged at her hair, her reflection shaky and blurred, tears of exertion wetting her eyes, tears of disbelief sliding down her cheeks.

I’ll go straight to hell for this.

She wrapped her arms around her chest and rocked herself slowly from the waist up. A gentle rhythm meant to distract, to soothe.

A haunting song crept into her head, slowly circling, its fingers massaging her numb brain. The song came as if by magic from the pale, cracked lips in the mirror, a small dose of comfort in discordant notes. The song had come to try and save her.

But she couldn’t move out of the bath, no matter how the song coaxed. She was trapped in the emerald prison of the bathroom, the dark, splintery wood of the door between her and the rest of the house. It was slightly ajar. Why hadn’t she closed the door? She couldn’t remember. Normally she would have locked this door in a house where all was supposed to be private but was not.

Outside the bathroom, the world continued its daily repetitions and rhythms. It showed no concern that Lila’s life was in chaos. Through the gap in the door, she could hear the quiet of the daytime house whirring on. The silver clock on the mantel in the lounge room ticked and ticked. It would chime any moment its quarter-hour song. How many quarter hours of her life had it ticked away? The cream blind tapped at the window; her mother insisted on leaving a small gap so the house would hold no smells.

The one scent that snaked through the house, which fresh air couldn’t erase, reached her nostrils: the odour of the adolescent male. This meant football, grass, dirt, smelly socks, and Lynx deodorant. Lila’s nose crinkled in recognition as she sniffed in the smell of her brother with her tears. Meredith sprayed liberal doses of air freshener to disguise Jason’s smell of animal instinct and sex. She refused to admit either of her children had grown up and become sexual beings, especially not her favourite son.

Lila’s song grew stronger in her head and moved in a whisper from her mouth. It was joined by a chorus of other voices, voices of the words in all the books behind the locked study door. Books and words that Lila had adored when she was just a child. Her father, Cliff, had entombed them there years ago, long before he deserted Lila and her family. They were the voices of many writers, of many decades. Clever phrases—clever ideas brimming to cut loose on the world from their confinement. Cliff had once been a literary professor, making his living from teaching words—words that skipped and rocked from the pages, reaching into the ears of university students, full of surprise and pleasure. Words full of surprise and pleasure most of all for little Lila, who he had read to since she was months old. Lila had soaked the delight of the words into her small being and held them firmly there. But Cliff had left that world behind as surely as he’d left his family. Usually the songs that these voices sang, behind the locked study door, calmed her, but now they fogged her thoughts with their industry and clamour. She needed clarity. She needed to think this situation out. She needed to act.

Shivering violently, Lila rubbed her arms, trying to get some warmth back into her bruised body. Her breath came in short, swift bursts from the back of her throat. She was aware from her singing training that it shouldn’t be coming from there. It should be coming from her diaphragm.

Deep breaths, Lila, she whispered to herself.

Following instructions, she gulped huge gasps of fresh air that surprised her constricted lungs. The breathing calmed her a little but gave way to a renewed awareness of her aching body.

Sore… so sore, she gasped, clutching between her legs.

She imagined her genitals grossly pink and swollen as she had seen them on the pull-down chart in health class at school, the whipping-stick-thin PE teacher pointing at them with a cane, trying not to register embarrassment.

Got to pee… so got to pee, Lila murmured.

But that meant moving, getting out of the bath. The toilet was three impossible steps away.

Come on, Lila, she coached herself.

Forcing her stiff body, Lila moved with a groan and aligned her bare bottom with the toilet bowl. Better… so much better. She sighed as the urine flowed and stung.

She rested her head on her knees and allowed the muscles in her neck to relax. Lila needed time to think, to plan how to deal with this mess. If only time would stand still and clear the murkiness from her brain.

But Lila knew time did not stand still, no matter how much she wanted it to. She had tried to make it stop once with her boyfriend, Dean, on a sweet late-spring evening. They had lain on their backs on the soft, green grass, not yet scorched by the cruel summer sun and the lack of rain, looking up into the gentle blue of the evening sky. Cotton ball clouds filled the sky, floating and shifting in peaceful patterns. Lila’s head had been resting on his shoulder, and their fingers entwined. That’s all that it took to be within a heartbeat of Dean back then. No more. No need. Not at first. Their chests rose and fell with the same breath. They had turned their mobile phones off, and she had stopped her watch. No time ticked here, only their sweet breath. And it had almost worked — almost. But the clouds shifted, and the wind came to blow them all away. They had snuggled in closer then, his arm enfolding her to him, kissing her gently, so that the world wouldn’t intrude. But still it did. The summertime clock, even though it had given them an extra hour, still drew the darkness in. A faint greyness at first in the sky, a soft grey, but still it carried the threat of night like ants scurrying upon its blanket. The dark claimed the sky as it had done so many times before.

Holding her tighter, he had whispered, Wait for the stars to come out, babe.

But Lila, breaking the trance, had stated, Time’s caught us, babe… have to go home… or mum will be so pissed off.

This memory of Dean seemed to mock her now, the beauty of that time in sharp contrast with the current disaster that swamped her.

She didn’t want any of them to find her like this—not Meredith, not Jason, sure as hell not Cliff, and certainly not Dean. Lila, known for tough decision making by her friends, was completely lost as to what to do. She hit her head with anger and rebuked herself. "Do something, Lila!"

But what?

The door was close to her; she only had to reach out her arm to push it shut, to keep everyone out a little longer.

Forcing strength into her arm, she slammed the dark, heavy door shut, closing the world out and her shame in. Dragging herself off the toilet, she turned the lock in the door. The click echoed in the dim emerald bathroom, and Lila slumped, puppet-like, onto the floor, hoping to figure out a plan.

CHAPTER 2

MEREDITH

M eredith typed in a frenzied fury, keyboard a blur, at her sleek desk in the Travel Wonder Agency where she worked. How on earth could this young couple sitting before her afford to holiday in Italy? Why did they deserve to holiday overseas? They were too young to have earned the right to see the world. They’d suffered nothing. They didn’t show any sign of age or weariness. Surely she, Meredith Summers—forty-three, separated, mother of two teenagers, struggling to make ends meet—deserved to travel to the country of romance. Not them. She’d paid all her dues in this life. Disappointments and struggles had been her lot. Now it was her turn to live, explore, and es cape.

Meredith wanted to scream at their young, arrogant faces about the unfairness of it all, but following her upbringing full of politeness and manners, she firmly squashed this feeling down into the pit of her stomach and smiled a slow, distant smile at the young couple. After all, they were customers of Travel Wonder, and if she didn’t have customers, she wouldn’t be paid.

They didn’t smile back, too caught up in each other. The girl was draped over the young man as if she was a soft cashmere blanket, one thin, jean-clad leg lying over his legs, one tantalising bronzed arm casually swung over his shoulder, and one red-lipped and pouting mouth within a breath of his neck. The young man—ridiculously handsome and, Meredith supposed, to the young, hot—claimed his trophy of a girlfriend with his arm draped casually around her, his long, manicured hand rhythmically squeezing her shoulder. Every so often he’d whisper some sweet nonsense into her ear and a ripple of amusement would run through her body, starting with a flick of her long, black hair and ending in a flexing of sculptured, sandaled feet. Surely they should find a room and stop thrusting their desires into Meredith’s sexless life!

The girl was only a couple of years older than Lila. Did Lila drape herself over a young man like this when she was out of her mother’s sight? Did she ooze invitation like this from every pore of her body? Good heavens, Meredith hoped not. Not her sweet baby girl. But then Meredith had to face up to it; Lila was no longer her sweet baby girl. She was a sulky, secretive eighteen-year-old struggling to cast off anything to do with her childhood, ready to catapult herself head-long into her adult life. Lila had been so guarded of late, refusing to tell her mother where she’d been or with whom, coming home at odd hours of the day or night and then shutting herself in her room under the pretence of studying for SACs and exams. She hadn’t eaten much at the dinner table either. Meredith clung to her childhood discipline of the family eating dinner at the table with proper napkins and conversation. Not much conversation was forthcoming from either of her children, but shared silence was better than shared nothing. None of this grabbing food and lounging in front of the TV—not in her house anyway! One had to have some standards. Lila seemed to be putting on weight even though she was not eating, but Meredith, knowing the sensitivity of young women, decided not to comment on this.

Lila had a boyfriend, Dean, nice enough but not a match for Lila’s intelligence. He needed to sharpen up and cut off those hippy curls. She didn’t need a boyfriend until she graduated to university, and then she could find one capable of completing a degree or two. Lila had stopped bringing Dean and her other friends home long ago, accusing Meredith of giving them a hard time. Meredith had tried being nice to her daughter’s waifs and strays, as she called them, but really they were not suitable friends. There was that girl dressed all in black with coffin hair clips, a coffin-shaped bag, and spider web stockings, and the outrageously demonstrative boy who pranced and danced around her house, sticking his nose into every nook and cranny, proclaiming loudly, God, check this out!

Lila had tried to sneak them straight into her bedroom, but Meredith had been too fast for them. She’d stopped them in their tracks. Lila had sulked for days.

Look, Mum, they’re harmless. Sharon’s a Goth, and Steven’s gay. Got it?

"No, I haven’t got it. What’s a Goth? As for flaunting homosexuality… it’s just not done."

Get with it, Mum. You are so old fashioned. Lila sighed, shaking her pretty blonde head and giving her mother a look that reduced Meredith to the smallest size of small. After that, Lila had stopped trying to sneak friends into her room and had stayed out instead.

Excuse me, madam, uttered the young man as he nuzzled the hand of the girl.

One moment please, sir. I’m trying to locate a four-star hotel in Milan that’ll take you at such short notice, answered Meredith.

Meredith typed furiously. Why did they call her madam? She wasn’t that old. Madam shrieked of grey hair, enormous bosoms, orthopaedic stockings, and flat shoes. She had none of these! She was trim, careful of her diet. Her breasts were small and well rounded (once an old boyfriend had called them small but fleshy). Her legs were smooth in sheer pantyhose, and her heels were high. Meredith was not a madam and certainly not finished yet! Her usual acceptance of the fact that life was to be endured fought momentarily with the hope that it could still offer her more. After all, Meredith had kept herself well as her mother had taught her. She used eye cream for wrinkles; cleanser, toner, and moisturizer for her face; hand cream, nail cream, nail varnish; and she would not leave the house without her makeup finished impeccably. Of course, given her finances these days, the beauty aids were generic brands from Priceline, but they still did the job. Once, in her moneyed youth and early married life, she had used L’Oreal brought from David Jones. She’d show these two customers