How I Got This Tattoo
The notifications just keep coming.
Buzz. Buzz.
It’s on silent but in the quiet space it sounds like a bullhorn. It vibrates again. This time it keeps going. A phone call. I’d just gotten comfortable, or at least as comfortable as you can get, with your forehead squashed in the face hole of a massage table.
Buzz, buzz, buzz.
I’d tried to leave the chat group, ‘Bella Donna’s 40th Bali Bin Fire’ on WhatsApp, but then remembered I’d started the group. My sister is high maintenance, but she’s got nothing on these ladies. Twenty-four women in one chat is a recipe for madness.
The vibrating of my phone stops for a moment, and I sigh. The masseuse pulls the Batik sarong down over my lower back and pours on a small amount of warm oil. It feels so good. I almost groan in pleasure. She moves her hands slowly across my back, spreading the warm oil. I am so glad I ignored my fear.
Soft instrumental music swells over the tinny speakers. I nestle down into the massage table, allowing myself a tiny sigh. The notifications start again. The phone vibrates so much it falls off my bag and onto the concrete floor, where the buzzing is amplified. I try to ignore it. As a mother of three, I should be skilled at zoning out, but I’m not. No wonder I’m so tense.
The woman in the next cubicle hisses through the Batik curtain. ‘It's supposed to be switched off.’
The masseuse grabs my phone as it buzzes towards the door.
‘Sorry,’ I mouth. My heart is pounding in my chest, but she shrugs and hands it to me like it is no big deal.
Switching the phone off, I can only think about getting the masseuse’s hands on my back again, but I swipe and accidentally open the first message. I sit up and clutch the sarong to my chest.
‘Oh no,’ I whisper. Scrolling through the dozens of messages, I look up at the concerned face of the masseuse. ‘I'm sorry. I have to go.’
She smiles sweetly and steps out of the cubicle. I crouch down to grab my clothes and bag and pull my pants on as I tap out a quick response to the first message.
“On my way.”
I glance up at the "phones on silent" sign on the wall and let out a good sigh. I shouldn’t have come to Bali. No! I should have turned the damn phone off.
My shirt sticks to the oil on my back. I stop to take a deep breath and savour the air-conditioning for a moment longer. That woman in the next cubicle is the luckiest person in the world.
The masseuse meets me at the front desk and explains to the receptionist, a tiny, old woman with immaculately lacquered hair and nails, that I have to leave. I pull out a large note, a five hundred thousand Rupiah note, and stare at it for a moment before sliding it across the desk.
‘No,’ the woman says and crosses her arms.
Have I just given her five dollars or fifty? I scan her face but can’t tell if I’ve insulted her or offered her a huge tip.
‘You come back later. You have full massage.’ She smiles and my masseuse nods.
I nearly burst into tears and glance down at my phone.
‘I'm not sure I'll be back later. My sister has had.... An accident.’ Their concerned faces nearly make me cry. The young masseuse bends behind the counter and brings out a small plastic cup of water. It has a slim white straw that she punches through the film on top. I take it gratefully and sip the cold water.
‘I hope I can come back,’ I whisper to the masseuse as she leads the way to the front door.
I push on the door and I’m met with a wall of humid air. I dash down the steps towards the street, skimming a few more messages as I go. The security guard at the gate smiles and eyes his box of keys but looks back at me, a comically quizzical expression on his face. ‘You have a scooter?’
I shake my head furiously. God, no. ‘Walking.’ I try to smile.
He’s peering at me. ‘You been here a short time. You have a quick massage.’ He mimes a very rapid shoulder massage on an invisible client.
I shake my head. ‘Family emergency.’ I wave my phone at him.
‘Family here in Bali.’ He seems impressed.
‘My sister is ahh…’
He frowns. ‘Is she in trouble with police… Drugs?’
I look down at my phone. There are so many messages flying back and forth I can’t get a read on what’s happened. ‘She’s at the hospital.’
He draws a deep, dramatic breath. ‘I'm sorry. I hope she's okay.’
Me too.
I head out onto the footpath and search for the landmarks I memorised on the way here, not entirely confident I know the way back to the villa. I’d left early so I could take my time. It also helped that I would get to avoid my sister’s intense friends for a few more hours.
The petrol station with the old phone booths out front. Check. I’m sweating. Turn left after the statue place and the tiny closed-down cafe. Check.
I couldn't exactly say no when my sister asked me to “organise” her big Four-Oh. That I had to arrange everything to her exact specifications was beside the point. She loved telling people her sister was overseeing her birthday celebrations. For the life of me, I couldn’t work out why she wanted a yoga retreat slash gourmet cooking school slash beginner surf tour for her big birthday. She’d shown no interest in any of those things before, but since the divorce, she’s been keen to try everything. She has a Bali to-do list a mile long. I only had a couple of things on my list. Massage. Cocktail. Sleep.
My husband said I should come to Bali, but I wasn’t sure. I knew it would take less than a day for things to go sideways. Anything can happen with Donna, and it usually does. As it turned out, we'd only been here a few hours when the drama started. The woman who had been Donna’s Chief Bridesmaid all those years ago, Cerise, fell in the pool. She was adamant someone pushed her. She was wearing her Camilla and wasn’t happy. Other than me, Cerise was the only person she’d invited from her old life. The rest of the party were new friends from the gym. “Friends” should be in quotation marks because those women are fierce and not in a fun way. Who has twenty-plus close friends? Cerise has always been there for Donna, she told us when we gathered in the airport bar before our flight, even throughout her terrible marriage and divorce. I saw a couple of Donna’s new friends roll their eyes at Cerise’s speech, but I felt bad. Donna had pushed everyone away, so we wouldn’t see what was really going on. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough.
The big supermarket and the row of souvenir stores. Turn right. Check. Temple on the left opposite the café with the flags out front. Check.
The heat is killing me, but I’m impressed at how well I remember the route back to the villa. I’ve always had an in-built compass. Always know which way to go, in life and on the road. Sensible and boring and steady. Not Donna. Bella Donna. Dad’s nickname for her stuck into adulthood. It’s no surprise that her big birthday trip isn’t working out as planned. Things rarely do for Donna. It isn’t her fault. She’s always the centre of attention, the pretty one, the social butterfly. Belladonna. Beautiful but toxic. Drama follows her like a cloud of expensive perfume.
The row of tiny shops and the restaurant with the fish tanks. Go straight. Check. Next Left.
I turn into the narrow street. I’m drenched in sweat. No one would guess that behind the high white stucco fence and traditional carved gates lies a sprawling villa with more than a dozen private bedrooms opening onto a living area and a pool. Palm trees edge the grassy yard dotted with small, thatched huts for lounging on one side and on the other by an outdoor kitchen. Donna was so happy when we got here. She cried for about ten minutes.
Three gym-friends are out front smoking.
‘Where were you?’ They speak in unison.
‘Massage.’ Not that it’s any of your business.
‘Well, you picked a great time to get a massage.’
Rude. ‘I thought a massage was a good way to start. Obviously, it was less dangerous than whatever you lot were doing.’
Two of them seem shocked, but one laughs. ‘Who knew yoga could be so dangerous?’ she says and they all giggle.
Yoga?
I walk through the tiled entryway. The fountain trickles water over the head of a Buddha statue. It’s so calming and perfect, but my heart is still threatening to burst from the panic attack I am barely keeping at bay. I pause in the entry beside the fountain and put my hand to my chest. My sweaty tank top is sticking to me. I can feel the outline of my travel wallet under my clothes.
In the kitchen, Putu, our chef and cooking instructor for the week, is unpacking boxes of groceries. No one else is around. Putu wears a concerned expression and points to the hallway that leads to the room I am sharing with my sister. I wave my thanks.
The villa is quiet. Ripples of light reflecting off the pool dance on every surface. I want to throw myself into the cool water and order a cocktail from the extensive menu Putu’s daughter gave us last night. I can see her through the louvred windows, chopping fruit in the outdoor kitchen.
There are three women in my room. Cerise, the Chief Bridesmaid, and two more gym-friends wearing matching crops with tiny shorts. They could be twins, or perhaps they share a cosmetic surgeon?
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Cerise says, eyes are red and swollen from crying. She is packing clothes into my sister’s suitcase, and I remember suddenly that it was her who hardly stopped talking for the entire flight. She had an opinion on everything. At one stage, she picked up a trashy magazine with a Royal on the cover and read a two-page story out loud. In the queue for the plane toilet, I had sidled up to my sister and said, through gritted teeth, ‘I bet you’re regretting inviting her. I’m sick of her and we haven’t left Aussie airspace yet.’
Donna had looked around and put her hand on my arm, leaned in and said in a whisper, ‘Cerise? She’s got a good heart. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. She was my Chief Bridesmaid, remember, when you… Couldn’t.’
Donna always had a special knack for making me feel bad.
‘I was pregnant, remember?’
Donna sighed and squeezed my arm. ‘And you hated my husband, but at least we’ve got that in common now.’ I’d nudged her lightly, and she leaned her forehead on mine like we did when we were kids. In that moment, I actually believed the week might turn out alright.
Someone is yelling. Another voice rises. I shake my head to clear my thoughts. My hives will start up if I stay with these women much longer.
‘Calm down, Cerise,’ says the one sitting on the bed, flipping through a magazine.
I can see Cerise is about to start up, so I ask the others to leave. ‘We can take it from here, me and Cerise,’ I say. Not that the others were helping.
They shoot out of that room like I fired them from a gun. I watch Cerise pack the last of Donna’s clothes, the ones she had unpacked into the generous walk-in robe only the night before. My things are still in my bag. Takes me a while to get comfortable. Cerise’s lips are pursed, and she won’t meet my eye.
‘I thought she was here. The texts said she was here.’
‘No, they didn’t. It said she was at the clinic up the road.’ She shakes her head at me.
I pull out my phone to scroll through the five million messages. I swallow hard. ‘If you had just sent one message, I might have got the right information.’ I hold up my phone and show her the notifications.
Cerise ignores me and folds my sister’s pink swimsuit, the one she’d bought for the trip with such a thrill of excitement. The tears that had been sitting just behind my eyelids threaten to make an appearance. ‘Such a shame she won’t get to wear this,’ Cerise says, tucking the bikini bottom into the suitcase.
‘Christ, Cerise. She’s not dead.’
Suddenly Cerise is in my face, her manicured finger wagging at me. ‘No, but now she has to turn forty while she’s recovering from surgery.’ She glares at me.
I take a step away from the crazed banshee. ‘Where is she?’
‘She’s at the clinic, I told you. The paramedic from the consulate said she would have to be accompanied by someone responsible on the flight. I was there for her through the whole thing. She asked for me.’
I shake my head. There is no way this drama queen is going to accompany Donna back to Australia.
‘She’s my sister. I’ll take her home.’ My voice is soft but firm.
Cerise frowns at me for a moment, then goes back to the walk-in robe. Satisfied she has packed everything, she returns to zip the hard-shell suitcase Donna bought for the trip, her first trip overseas. Throughout her terrible marriage, she had dreamed of going to Bali. It was her only wish, something I used to think was sad. I think of her long birthday list. Bungee jumping, parasailing, learning to ride a scooter. A shiver creeps across my skin, from either the air-conditioning or my horror at riding a scooter in that traffic.
Cerise clears her throat dramatically. ‘It’s already organised with the consulate. They’ve got my passport. It’s done.’
She heaves the suitcase off the bed, pulls out the handle and stalks from the room, towing my sister’s belongings. I grab my pack, zip it up, and run the opposite way, through the utility room and out to the carpark. Voices waft from the house and Cerise appears, wheeling Donna’s suitcase and her own past the fountain. I dash out the front gate. My hands are shaking as I tap the name of the clinic into Google Maps and see the little blue dot that is me, and the larger red dot that is the clinic, five hundred metres away. I shoulder my bag and start to jog. I haven’t jogged since high school.
I’m a mess by the time I arrive, puffing and dripping sweat. A security guard approaches.
‘My sister is here. She had an accident.’
He nods his head towards the entry, and I try to catch my breath before I push the door open. Donna is sitting in the waiting area, her face bruised and bandaged. She’s wearing a t-shirt that says, ‘I Heart Bali,’ but at this stage I don’t think she does. I dump my bag on the cold white tiles and crouch in front of her.
I put my arm around her, carefully. ‘I’m so sorry. We’ll have you home in no time.’
‘No. I want you to stay, enjoy your holiday. Your hubby got time off work to be home with the kids. He’s a good man. Have a glorious holiday in my honour.’ Words slurring, she looks up at me with those big brown eyes. The painkillers are obviously working, but her voice is muffled and nasally. She exhales deeply and pulls a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘I only got one thing crossed off my list. Yoga.’ She pretends to check it off the list.
On the back is a line drawing of a bird leaving a domed cage. ‘I wanted to get this tattoo.’ She shrugs.
‘Next time,’ I say. ‘Bella, what happened?’
She shakes her head and tries to smile. The front door of the clinic opens and Cerise bustles in with the two suitcases. Donna nods her head at her friend.
‘Cerise was so keen to show her yoga skills she busted out a Three-Legged Dog and busted my nose.’
I stare at her for a moment. Cerise made me feel so guilty for not being there, and she was the culprit. Donna smooths my hair and whispers in my ear. ‘I asked the paramedic to tell Cerise she had to go with me. It’s only fair. I want you to stay and enjoy your holiday.’
I gently lean my forehead to hers and smile. Cerise is talking to the receptionist. She has the passports, and the taxi is waiting. I still feel guilty, but I’m heading straight back to the day spa to finish that massage. Donna hugs me tentatively and tucks the piece of paper in my hand.
‘The only thing I ask is that you finish my list.’
One week later.
I’m sure the flight attendant is smirking at me, but I’m past caring at this stage. The braids will surprise my husband, but I’ll brush them out before work tomorrow. No one will believe everything, anything, I’ve done this week, but when I see the little bird on my wrist, I’ll remember.
'Place' is central to Christine Betts' work. Christine left her heart in Paris years ago and her first two novels and a collection of short stories are all set in France. Current works in progress are set in California, England, and, because we've all mostly been grounded over the past few years, Australia. Two works of memoir (in progress) Remembering Paris and The Lucky Ones, celebrate her favourite city, Paris, and Ipswich, her childhood home. Her short story, Death of a Show Princess, set in country Victoria, was shortlisted for the Scarlett Stiletto Awards in 2021 (Highly Commended). Her short story, Tough Crowd, won the Queensland Writers' Centre RightLeftWrite competition in November 2021. Christine's blog, WriterPainter, rambles about Travel, Life, and Art. She is passionate about writing, animal rights, and her family.
Judges comments:
In the words of Irish Booker-prize-winning author, Roddy Doyle, “When you grow up on an island, what matters is how you stand to the sea.” Because of their liminality, islands can represent many things: isolation and connection; permanence and change; places of departure, and dreamed-of destinations. This year we received eighty-five stories from all around Australia and New Zealand, and each took their own unique stance on the theme of “islands”. We had stories on emergency rescues, imagined flights from post-apocalyptic landscapes, surreal visions of death (or birth?) by water, romance gone wrong at sea, dangerous journeys into deep waters, tender evocations of literary love affairs, haunting glimpses of ghostly forms, disturbing portraits of misogynistic minds, the isolating effects of old age, and new beginnings summoned from the relentless pulse of the tide. We were drawn to stories with vivid characters and startling situations, stories that made us laugh, or think, or feel. Our winning story did all of these things, and left us eager for more. Written in a lucid, conversational style, it captures a moment of shared understanding between women, and shows (with disarming humour) how flashes of insight can burst forth in the most unlikely circumstances.
Our judges Annie Warburton, Meg Bignell, and Rayne Allinson would like to thank all the entrants to the Tasmanian Writers’ Prize 2022, and offer congratulations to our winner and 10 finalists, whose stories will be published in the Forty South Short Story Anthology 2022.