Replaced by a Doll

I know that most of us, at some time in our lives, have refused to believe something we don’t want to believe despite considerable evidence that it is true. Such denial is understandable, the truth can be painful.

But such denial can be dangerous.

I can place the day she changed, hell, I can place the hour. Twelve midday, Sunday the 7^th May. Two days after my birthday. She suddenly appeared from a visit home where her parents were clearing out their house preparatory to a move to a smaller residence. A box. Overflowing with bits of clothing and a weird strained noise whenever she bumped against something. She didn’t greet me, just briskly walked past me to the ‘spare room’. The spare room used to be the master bedroom but we had lately ended up using a number of bedrooms in the house, as our sleeping habits became erratic. Later on in the day I happened to walk past the room and saw all the contents of the box, now strewn across the floor. A small dollhouse, numerous articles of clothing for a large walky talky doll, a smaller doll, a rather ragged clown, a small cart, and incongruently, a keyhole saw.

I had lost my job, made redundant with little warning and I was struggling to find new employment. Little warning – hell – a late afternoon phone call to attend a meeting, no agenda. Then – ‘we are reassessing the needs of the organisation, positions need to be created for new management – we have decided to disestablish your position.’ No sorry, or thank you for your contribution. Now no-one seemed to want to hire a fifty-six year old. I had even gone to that space where any job would do but I was holding out for something that would give me some degree of pride in where I was going every morning. My wife was supporting me and although she had been very good about not harping on about this fact I could see the cracks appearing as week after week went by without me even getting an interview. Don’t get me wrong. We weren’t anywhere near the breadline but our former affluent lifestyle looked to be gone.

Nothing much happened for a couple of days and then came the first of a number of demands.

“I want to use the desk in the sunroom and set up my sewing machine. I want somewhere permanent so I can start sewing again. You use half the room for your stupid fly tying and I want to use the other half for my hobby.”

I must admit I had felt guilty about the flytying. I had been bitten by the trout-fishing bug the previous year and I had pretty much taken over the room. However, I needed a place that was mine.

“It’s really too cold out there. Why don’t you set up in the dining room? We usually eat in the kitchen these days and it’s warm there.”

She grunted and left the room but I noticed later in the day the dining room table awash in materials and the walky talky doll sitting imperially centre-table.

“ Thanks for that dear. I just want to make Jane a more contemporary wardrobe so when our grandchildren inherit her she will be up-to-date. Just like my grandmother did for me.”

Our first grandchild had been born a year ago and I had noticed my wife change subtly as she had when we had married and then had our first child. All these events had been followed by an increase in girls night, rummages, all-women trips to Australia for shopping, the making of clothing.

“You know she’s a Pedigree doll, don’t you. Quite rare. Not worth much yet, but!”

I recognised the same trick of logic I often used myself with my collection of flyrods and old motorcycles. Maybe one day when we were both near the grave the objects would be vaguely more valuable than a weeks salary.

I came into the room. The doll (now Jane) sat at the head of the bed, surrounded by her wardrobe. A striped, cotton-toweled dressing gown, with an intricately sewn yellow flower on the pocket lay to her right. To the left was a pile of summer outfits, in gay colors. Her winter wardrobe was arranged halfway down the bed. There seemed to be at least four outfits in shades of grey and black. Jane was dressed immaculately in a flowing negligee with frilly black lace. Her red hair glowed in the half-light and what appeared to me to be a sly smile adorned her face. As I approached her eyes tracked my movements and, as I leaned toward the bed she emitted a thin, desperate wail. I jumped back and nearly tripped over the dolls house. The room smelt faintly of lavender, and I felt like an alien, newly arrived on a planet governed and populated largely by females.

Over the next month the pile of clothing grew. And grew. By late July a new chest of drawers had appeared in the bedroom.

“For Jane’s wardrobe.”

“ I have to make the panties properly. What if the wind blew up her dress and ….”

“But it’s a fucking doll.”

It looked like a surreal teaparty. Three other new dolls surrounded Jane. They were dressed in the variety of summer outfits I had seen on the dining room table. A small, elaborate tea set was in the centre of the tableau and soft classical music played, as they looked, glassy eyed at each other. Jane, centre staged, looked at her three companions with a suspiciously erotic expression. My wife looked over the scene with a curiously satisfied look on her face. A look I had not seen for quite some time.

“I’m going to do up that dolls house next. I’ll need more room,” she said, as she ambled out of the room, looking over her shoulder at the little family, scattered around the little green plates, cups and saucers.

A parcel arrived. Another one of her TradeMe buys, I thought. Generally pottery, jewelry or books. She charged into the room.

“Oh! A parcel for me.”

She tore the outer wrapping away and three small plastic bags spilled out. I caught a glimpse of little shoes and some clothing.

“What is that,” I asked, knowing what the answer was going to be.

“Dolls shoes. I just hope the damn things fit.”

We were having some time together sprawled in front of our favourite TV show. The ads came and suddenly she was up and out of the room.

“Where are you off to,” I asked “ I suppose you might have time to whip another outfit between the breaks,” I added sarcastically.

“I won’t, but I have been thinking about a spring outfit in yellow with white lace edgings.

I felt a tiny tug at my heart.

I didn’t want to go to the restaurant but then what else was there back at the hotel room. Lie on the bed and watch the boring New Zealand television with sport, news, sport news, and ads. We wouldn't talk until we finally would, by some mutually agreed alarm clock, decide that it was time to retire to our separate beds. The restaurant seemed like a mutually agreed neutral zone to avoid this desperate nothingness that seemed to date from the appearance of Jane in our lives. The waitress took the orders. A light meal, chinese teas, some house wine. Then she left and we were alone again. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair that faced the wall. I thought of dead diners, couples sitting with each other but emotionally apart. Our food arrived. I was thinking of one other night when we had dined in another place in Atlanta. Pre-redundancy. In the good times. Oyster Galore I thought. No! - something like Passionfish. Yes - that was it the Savannah Fish Market. Why had I been thinking of passionfish? We had sat around a fountain or a wall of water and eaten seafood. Dish after dish. Clam chowder, served in the pot with a sauce to dip in once you had wrestled the clams from their steaming shells. Seafood cocktails. Garlic catfish served on rice. We had eaten in silence but a different silence from that we now suffered together. Later, we made flamboyant love in the hotel bed, as if we had become infected by the creatures we consumed and much to our embarrassment when the maid arrived in the morning. Now we sat and stared at our vegetable samosas and lamb hotpot while the clock ticked above us and we avoided each other’s eyes. My wife gently peppered my salad and I barely noticed or complained. She could have cut my food for me and feed it to my slackened mouth and I would have barely blinked an eye. We were used to each other; we had become ingrained in each other like dirt on a window, like a stained garment.

My wife smiled and surveyed the room. A young couple sat in the window seat. They looked as though they were still in love. I distantly, warmly, remembered what that could be like. They were filled with the joy of a warm, balmy night, some fine food, some wine, and then somewhere exciting to go on to. Downstairs I could hear what sounded like a wild party but when people came up from there, they looked far from wild. My wife turned to me and smiled. We were like an old married couple. Hell! We were! Married for twenty-nine years.

“ I wonder what Jane is doing?”

The spell was well and truly broken.

I wandered through the daytime desertion of my own home. The outer rooms were deathly cold in the middle of winter. My fly-tying room was perhaps the warmest of the outer rooms, warmed by the mid-afternoon sun. My gear had been rudely pushed aside and the dolls house lay gutted in the centre of my workbench. Piled to the side were the various furniture items that made up the interior. A new doll lay on her side, eyes glazed over, hands outstretched toward the upper bedroom where she would probably reside. I felt my hands clench, my jaw tighten.

It must have looked suspicious. A cold night with a watery moon just providing enough light to see twenty metres before events were lost in a murky gloom. A man, digging a shallow hole in the ground. Hot steamy breath, furious grunting. A small bundle hastily pushed into the hole. A stifled whine. The sound of dirt. A brief sound of triumph, furtive glances, a spade leveling off the surface, then scattering leaves over the upturned earth.

She was in tears.

“Jane’s gone!”

I tried to remain poker faced.

“They broke in and not only took jewelry and electronic gear but stole my doll. How could they? I doubt she is worth that much. What sort of monsters would do that? What kind of person would take a beautiful, innocent doll?"

I had to be careful how I handled this. Just the right blend of sympathy and scientific aloofness. Just hope that the police would note that a crime had been committed for insurance purposes but not investigate such a petty crime.

The days had drifted by. I noticed that the dolls clothes now lay untidily in a corner of the spare room. The sewing machine was still there but I hadn’t heard its high-pitched whine for the best part of a week. Then she appeared at the door to my fly tying room, wring her hands and sea-sawing from foot to foot.

“I’m sure I heard Jane’s cry. I was in the garden, just by the pear tree and I heard this noise. It sounded like it came from under the tree. How could that be? “