‘She was never going back. Why couldn’t they understand that,” wonders Marina, the 14-year-old protagonist in Exposure. Much like the other women in Janis Freegard’s short story collection, they’ve had enough of the status quo and are on the verge of breaking free, though change comes with risks as well as rewards.
The wild women in this collection range from a biologist hooking up with an ex in Moeraki to road trips in a 1962 Daimler and picking up a hitchhiker who has revenge on her mind, to a woman who recognises her partner’s desire for children but can’t muster the same enthusiasm. We also get parties – in the 1980s with skinheads and fake IDs, through to high school students “hoeing into the Stollies” and having to live with the consequences of driving home the morning after.
For the most part, the collection is realist, but there are also more fantastical elements, like Lorelei, who is half-child, half-mermaid trying to work out how to live on land and water. In Fish over Mākara, ichthyology and surrealism combine when women are said to have “our own inner fish”, whether that’s a sardine or flounder, and failing to recognise our own nature could have deadly consequences.
The piscine theme continues in Swimming in New York. “Serena felt like a fish. A snapper, perhaps, silvery and dense, one who’d slipped away from the shoal.” Serena has flown to the Big Apple to swim in a pool three times a day for four weeks for the pleasure of a businessman, and to make a small fortune. But the gilded cage of a hotel room may mean she could slip away before the time is up.
The references to nature continue on land, too. In Moeraki Boulders, Nancy pulls fruticose lichen from Imogen’s hair. It seems to signal that Nancy knows Imogen has just slept with her husband. Details from nature are also used in Taking a Ride to Dulcie to foreshadow a change in the action hinting at the bittersweet connection between the pair. The narrator leaves Carly, a hitchhiker she picked up on the ferry, in the car while she goes for a walk, but all she can see are beech trees “black with sooty mould and dripping with honeydew from the scale insects burrowed into the bark”.
The wild, wild women in the collection are full of humour, agency and a lightness of spirit. In Boudica, the narrator, who has recently separated from her partner, sees the “queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe” in spilt milk and kebabs, all the while literally pulling her hair out. While the narrator is in mental distress, Freegard lets the character embody the queen’s attitude to find her agency.
The women, and the choices they make, largely appear without judgment. In some cases, they aren’t wild as such; more have had enough of their lives and recognise the need for change and find the courage to make it. These are women you won’t regret getting to know.
Wild, Wild Women by Janis Freegard (At The Bay, $25) is out now.
