THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 1

THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS

Today is the first anniversary of my beloved Edgar’s death and burial.

The camellia bush I planted on his grave a month after I buried his powdery remains in
the front garden has grown unusually quickly and is thriving very well with large luminous-
white flowers and healthy green leaves. I like to think that through this bush Edgar’s
reminding me of his zest for life and love of nature, and that he’s always watching over me. Is
he perhaps also afraid that I might forget him as I’ve forgotten many of the lovers I’ve had
over the past three thousand years? I’d like to be able to say that I’ll never forget Edgar and
most likely I’ll never find another lover as exuberant as he was but when you’ve lived as long
as I have and experienced as much as I have, well … let’s just say the next lover is always
going to have a link to a memory locked fast in my brain, in a way that gives that memory a
new aspect and which points towards something that’ll definitely happen even further in the
future.
I water the bush around its roots, take off any wilted petals (there aren’t many) and rake
the leaves and other garden waste around the bush. Keeping the front and back gardens tidy
and looking fresh was always important to Edgar. Our neighbours set great store by
appearance which is why Edgar and I always dress properly if perhaps conservatively, muted
greys and browns and navy blue being our usual colours, always speak in sharp, crisp accents
and never touch alcohol; that way, no-one would ever suspect that at nights we prowled the
alleys and secluded areas in parks and reserves for our cat and fox victims. Since Edgar died I
haven’t hunted at all and I’ve been subsisting on raw meat from the butcher to relieve the
cravings which lately have been coming back stronger than ever no matter how much meat I
eat or blood I drink. I must find a new hunting partner soon.

Today some new neighbours are moving into the house next door.
When I finish my gardening tasks, I look over the wall and watch the workmen carry
the heavy furniture and boxes into the house. A huge, red-faced man with a large stomach
barks orders at them. One workman brushes a box against the front gate. “Hey! Watch where
you’re going!” the man yells at him, “if anything’s broken in that box, I’m not paying a cent
to the company!” Behind Mr Cranky is his shadow, a small young woman with straight
mousy-blonde hair and wearing a long, faded-looking floral dress. She glances in my
direction and I wave to her and smile. She blushes and looks down at her shoes. She says
nothing unless Mr Cranky addresses her. I don’t hear what she says but I hear what he says all
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 2

too well: “Useless bunch of idiots! I’d do it all myself if I hadn’t put my back out carrying the
bookcase the other day! And you – trust you to phone for this bunch of incompetents! Idiot
woman!” The young woman blushes again and continues to study her shoes without saying
anything.
I wave to the couple. “Hello there! Lovely day for moving, isn’t it?” Mr Cranky looks
in my direction and glowers at me. The woman looks away.

The new neighbours turn out to be less careful with some of their belongings than the
furniture removalists were.
I’m watching the evening news when I hear Mr Cranky’s voice again: “You fucking
burnt these chops! You lousy cook!” Then there’s the crash and clatter of a plate and cutlery.
A gasping, sobbing woman’s voice pleads: “Look, I didn’t mean to burn the chops, I’ve just
got to get used to using this electric stove! Please!” Mr Cranky replies, “I’ll show you what
you should mean, then.” Suddenly the woman screams, “No, no, please!”, there is a loud
heavy thwack and the woman starts to groan and cry. “I’ll get my own fucking meal!” Mr
Cranky declares and heavy foot-steps stomp through the house, a door slams and more foot-
steps crunch the grit hard on the footpath up to and through the front gate and down the street
accompanied by a steady stream of cursing and swearing.
Instantly I see the time many centuries ago when a new lover I had picked up (this was
well before Edgar’s time) had swooped onto a small girl, grabbed her wrist and drained all the
blood out of her through an artery in her arm. The body was dumped in a stable later to be
discovered by her teenage peasant mother. I well remember the girl’s screams of horror and
grief, followed by the moaning and hysterical crying. (Not long after that incident, I dumped
my lover – I don’t believe in taking small children as victims.) I don’t know why that memory
came to me; this is the first time I remembered it and the crying I hear next door is nothing
like the frenzied gasping, sobbing crying of the young teenage mother when she found her
tiny one’s body.
I go next door and knock on the front door. No answer. I call out a few times but there’s
no response. I walk across the lawn, trying to peer inside the house but the curtains are drawn.
I turn the corner and go down the side of the house opposite my home and I see a side
window that’s open. It’s high and narrow but I can leap up and squeeze through, light as the
cat I’ve just turned into. When I land on the window sill on all fours, there’s a bathroom
before me. I leap onto the cistern and then onto the floor, changing back into human form in
the time it takes most people to blink their eyes, and walk out of the bathroom into the
hallway that takes me to the dining-room and the kitchen. There are boxes of unpacked things
in the way but I skip around and over them easily.
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 3

There she is, slumped beneath the kitchen sink on the floor, moaning and weeping
quietly while a huge purply-red bruise is growing across her forehead. I stare at that bruise,
fascinated by the sight. Shards of crockery mixed with black-tinged lamb chops, egg yolk and
vegetables lie scattered across the floor.
“Excuse me,” I say, “I’m the lady from next door. I heard noises so I came to see what
happened.”
The woman opens her eyes. I see the pupils aren’t even. The bruise on her forehead is
deliciously large and I force my stomach to stop rumbling.
“What are you doing here?” the woman whispers, “how’d you get in?”
“The front door wasn’t locked,” I fib. I change the subject. “Let me help you. You’re
seriously hurt. You should see a doctor. I’ll clean up the mess.” I help her to her feet and take
her to the lounge-room so she can lie down on the sofa. I go back to the kitchen, stepping over
the mess, and look in the freezer of the fridge for some ice. There’s none so I go back to the
bathroom, wet a sponge with cool water and take it together with a plastic cup into the
lounge-room to pat the bruise. She puts her hand on the sponge when I lay it on her forehead.
Then, more to quell my hunger at the sight of the bruise than out of compassion for the
woman, I go back into the kitchen, find a broom behind the door and sweep the crockery and
food into a pile on the floor. I rummage through some cupboards, find a plastic garbage bin
and sweep the pile into it. When I finish tying the bag, I leave it in the kitchen and go back to
the lounge-room to check on the woman.
“Now, how are you feeling? Let me check the swelling.”
“No, no,” she says, waving me off with her free hand, “I’ll be fine, you go, my husband
may be coming back soon.” She tries to get up.
“Don’t get up. I’ll call a doctor for you.”
“No, no,” she repeats, “don’t call any doctor. You’d better go. I don’t want my husband
to see you here. I don’t know what he’ll do.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods. “Please go and thanks for helping me.”
“All right, I’ll go,” I say, “but if your husband doesn’t come back and you need help,
you can phone me. Here’s my …”
“No, no. He didn’t like you when he saw you this morning. That’s why you have to go
now.”
“Well, I’ll be close by anyway. My house is just opposite your bathroom and kitchen
windows. There’s a camellia bush in the middle of the front garden, you can’t miss it. Come
over and knock on the door if you need me.”
I go into the kitchen to pick up the rubbish and then go out into the hallway which takes
me to the front door. I see it isn’t locked after all.
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 4

Next morning, I hear a knock on my front door. “Hello, who is it?” I call out.
A familiar voice replies. “It’s me, I’m Donna from next door.”
I open the door and there she is, the small, frail-looking young woman with the grey-
blonde hair framing the large and temptingly crimson bruise on her forehead. The eyes of a
small lost child gaze up at me. I study the bruise. “Are you all right, Donna?”
“I’m all right. I went to bed after you left. My husband came home late.”
“Would you like to come inside? I’ll make some tea if you like.”
“No, no. I just came by to say thank you for helping me and cleaning up the kitchen last
night. There’s also something I’d like to take with me if you don’t mind.”
“No, of course I don’t mind. What would you like?”
“Well, um – I’d like to take a couple of flowers from the camellia bush for the kitchen.”
She quickly lowers her eyes and bites her lip.
Oh – I said I wouldn’t mind. What can I do, Edgar? I take Donna to the camellia bush
and I wince as she plucks two very beautiful flowers and sniffs them. A huge iron stake
couldn’t have cleft my heart more deeply and painfully than when I saw her take those
flowers. Edgar, forgive me!
“They’ll look lovely in a little bowl on the window will above the kitchen sink. I hope
he doesn’t notice them.” She breathes in the scent and for a moment I could swear a slight
pink colour flushed all over her face, the same pink colour Edgar sometimes had when he
used to smell flowers. “I’d better go. My husband might be phoning home soon. Thanks for
the flowers.”
“Can’t you stay a while?”
“No, I can’t. He calls me from work throughout the day and I have to be at home when
he calls or he’ll be angry when he gets back.” She looks fearfully over her shoulder as if he’s
already on his way home. “It was nice to meet you.” And she quickly scurries back next door
with the flowers.
Later, while cutting the grass along the side wall, I glance up at her kitchen window.
There is no bowl of camellias sitting behind the screen.

Donna comes the next morning to ask for another two camellias.
“I – I really like your camellias. I’m not sure why but I do. I’d like to grow my own
flowers but my husband doesn’t like plants much.” She lowers her eyes, tilting her forehead
slightly towards me, and to my surprise I see the bruise is almost flat and has shrunk to less
than half its original size. The colour has already gone yellowy-green.
Again she doesn’t stay for long, five minutes at the most, though she accepts a biscuit
as well as the flowers. For the next few days, she continues to turn up on my door-step to ask
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 5

for more camellias. Every time she comes, the bruise shrinks more and more at an astounding
speed and her face fills out as well, the colour changing from its sallowness the first time I
saw her to a light pink. Her hair looks better and is bouncy with less grey and more blonde. I
try to get her to stay longer with each visit, asking after her health, her relationship with her
husband and whether she has family and friends (not many). She always says she is fine and
doesn’t need to see a doctor, her husband has been all right and hasn’t hit her and, about the
camellias – well, she just blushes and looks away. She really does remind me of that little girl
I should have saved from that lover I ditched ages ago, I don’t know why but she does.
Then one morning she doesn’t turn up.
I think I should check up on her. You never know with a husband like hers. There’s
been shouting most evenings when they’re in the kitchen but it’s usually been about the
people he works with. I go next door and knock on the front door. No answer. I try to open the
door – this time it’s definitely locked – and I call her name a few times. No answer. I cross the
lawn, around the side, and come to the narrow bathroom window again. After getting into the
house through the bathroom – you know what I did – I go into the kitchen. It’s empty and
clean. I look around and catch sight of a couple of stems and leaves in the sink. Camellia
stems and leaves!
But where is Donna? “Donna, it’s me here, are you home?” A faint noise comes from
the bedroom across the hallway from the bathroom. I approach the room and open the door.
She is sitting at a table before a mirror but she’s not looking into the mirror; she’s facing away
from it and from me, her hands are covering her face. Her whole body is heaving and shaking
with muffled crying.
“Donna, what’s the matter? What has he done to you now?”
“Don’t look at me! I don’t want you to see me!” she bursts out. But I can see her hands
are bloodstained and I can smell blood and salty tears behind them. I guess he’s mutilated her
face somehow. I kneel down beside Donna, put my left hand around one of her shoulders and
with my right hand pry her fingers away from her face. She starts crying afresh. “Please! I
don’t want to look at myself in the mirror.”
“Hush, I’ll turn you away from the mirror. Close your eyes for me.”
She does as she’s told and I turn her face gently towards me. Wo-o-oh … there are slash
marks across her cheeks, nose and mouth; her lips are dribbling blood. Donna’s husband is a
sadist as well as a bully. My stomach is churning. Fighting myself, I try to get Donna to go to
the bathroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up. It looks awful but once I get your face washed, you
might not look so bad.” She lets me lift her up from the chair and I put my arm around her
back and my body touches hers. Ah – big mistake. As soon as my body is in close contact
with Donna’s, the fire that’s been simmering in my stomach since I smelt the blood surges
through my abdomen, up my chest and into my throat … I turn Donna around and kiss her
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 6

furiously on the mouth, sucking and slurping on the blood, chewing on the moist tissue of her
lips to get more blood out … then I’m licking her face … I’m kissing her eyelids softly. She
just stands there and lets me do it all, her eyes closed, the expression on her face dreamy.
Eventually I recover myself and take her to the bathroom, washing her face with a pink face-
towel with running water. I wistfully watch blood swirling with the water down the plug-hole.
“Are you all right, Donna?” I ask. She doesn’t answer so I get her to wash her face
herself while I hunt through the bathroom cabinet for bandages. When she dries her face, I
press bandages all over her wounds. She holds the towel to her mouth as it’s still bleeding a
lot. She opens her eyes and looks at me with an expression of wonder.
“You – you’re a vampire, aren’t you?” Her voice is muffled but I hear her all right. The
secret is out.
“Yes, I’m a vampire. Have been so for over three thousand years. Lived in a lot of
countries, met lots of people and had all kinds of adventures and escapades. Well, now that
you know, it’d probably be better if we didn’t see each other again. But I think you should
leave your husband before he does anything else to you. I don’t know where you can go but
you have to go far, far away from him.”
“But what will happen to me? Will I turn into a vampire too?”
“No. You won’t turn into a vampire. For that to happen, you have to drink a vampire’s
blood.” I start to move away from her towards the bathroom door. “I’m sorry I took advantage
of you. I’d better go.”
“Wait, please,” she says, “what’s it like to be a vampire? I want to know.”
“You do? Well, it involves hunting for fresh blood most nights, eating raw meat if you
can’t get any blood and being able to transform into any animal you like. You are vulnerable
to hepatitis and most other blood-borne diseases. It isn’t pleasant feeling cold and hot and
cold again when you have malaria.”
“Are there many vampires like yourself?”
“Not many. I used to have a lover, Edgar, who died a year ago. I haven’t yet found
anyone to replace him.”
She moves towards me. “Make me a vampire then. I want to be a vampire like you.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“You really want to be a vampire?”
“Yes!” That’s the most definite I’ve heard her sound. But I want to make sure. “It’s a
big decision to make. Once a vampire, always a vampire. The blood craving can hit you very
hard like a bomb going off in your body. You won’t last as long as I have – Edgar only lived
three hundred years as a vampire and you will too. You won’t age but once you live out your
three hundred years you shrivel up quickly and turn into powder. Do you want that? Do you
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 7

want to outlive all your mortal friends and relatives? Do you want to give up a social life?
That’s what you have to consider. You should …”
Donna chuckles in spite of her wounds. “I don’t have a social life already. My husband
sees to that. And I haven’t seen my family in the two years we’ve been married.”
“But you don’t have to be a vampire if what you really want is to get away from him. I
can help you escape. If he comes after you, I’ll get rid of him for you. I can help you contact
your family again …”
She shakes her head. “Please, I’d rather be with you. You’re the first person I’ve met
who’s shown me any kindness. I actually married Clifford to get away from my family. My
father used to beat my mother, me and all my brothers and sisters. No-one was ever nice to
each other. Please, I want to be a vampire and stay with you. I’m definite, I really am.
She gazes at me pleadingly and I think, yes, she is serious. I lift my hand to my mouth
and gash the inside wrist. I show my wound to Donna who stares at the crimson-black blood
oozing out shiny and smooth like dark chocolate. “It’s not too late to change your mind. You
don’t have to do this. Once you swallow, there’s no turning back.”
Donna nods, takes a deep breath and sucks the wound. I can hear her swallow.

We both feel faint so we lie down on the bed together in the bedroom. After a while I
look at Donna and say, “You can take the bandages off now. Vampire wounds heal very
quickly. Go and look at yourself in the mirror.”
She peels off the bandages and goes to look at herself in the mirror. “You’re right! All
the slash marks have gone!” She examines herself: “My hair’s different now – it’s really gold
now and it’s wavy too. I like it!” She turns to look at me. “I thought vampires had no
reflections in the mirror. How is it I can see myself and you as well?”
“Ah, you don’t believe everything in the movies.” I yawn and stretch my arms. “Excuse
me but I’m so tired and sleepy. I need to rest. I’m always like this when I bleed myself for a
new vampire.”
She comes over and sits down on the bed. “Oh, of course, you can rest here as long as
you need to.” I close my eyes and the last thing I feel before drifting away is the light touch of
her lips on my eyelids.

I must have slept a long time. A loud bang wakes me up. I sit up and discover I’m
alone. I get up and open the bedroom door and come almost nose to nose with Mr Cranky.
“Who are you?” he bellows, “what the hell are you doing here in my house?”
Donna’s voice rings out from the bathroom behind Mr Cranky. “Hey, this is my house
too, Clifford darling. I let her stay in the bedroom here/”
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 8

Mr Crank turns to face his wife, leaning against the bathroom door frame. “You did
WHAT?! Are you stupid or what? You know the rules of this house.”
“What rules, dearest? The ones about not inviting any of my friends here without your
permission? Or the ones about having people you don’t like here? Or have you made up some
new rules while you were at work?” Donna raises a quizzical eyebrow.
He gapes at her, his face a deep flustered red, and he trembles from head to foot. “You
haven’t learnt anything this morning about those stupid white flowers. Well, this time I mean
business!” He lunges for her and she grabs his wrist.
“What business, Clifford sweetest?” she asks sweetly, “you mean – this?” She twists
his arm until he screams.
“AARGHH! What are you doing, woman? For fuck’s sake, stop it, stop it!”
“Careful, Donna,” I say, “you don’t know how much strength you’ve got. And your
emotions – you’ve got to keep a handle on them too.”
“Stop doing this!” Mr Cranky pleads, “stop! Who – who are you? You’re not my wife.
Let me go!”
“Clifford,” I say, “listen to me. Are you sorry that you hit your wife, mutilated her and
threw her into a wall? Are you sorry?”
“I’m only helping her,” the sod blubbers, “a – a man’s got to be in charge of the wife.
The Bible says so. Women need direction. I – I …”
“If we let you go,” I continue, “do you promise never to hit Donna or abuse her again?”
“Promise! Promise! Now let me go!” he cries.
I look at Donna. “What do you think?”
Donna makes a wry face. “Don’t believe him,” she says, “he’s not a man who’s ever
kept his word.” She throws her husband into the wall down the corridor. His skull and neck
vertebrae crack and a red explosion suddenly appears on the wall where his head hits it. Tiny
red droplets rain over the floor. Mr Cranky slumps against the wall, leaving a dripping red
column above his bloodied head and a long groan streams out from his mouth.
“Oh my goodness! I didn’t mean to throw him that hard!” Donna exclaims, “I only
wanted to scare him a bit, let him taste his own medicine and then I was going to kick him out
of the house forever.”
“That’s your first lesson on being a vampire,” I say, “learning to control your power
and your impulses.”

We clean up all the mess and pack Mr Cranky’s remains into a black plastic garbage
bag. I take the bag out to the station wagon and dump it in the back using Mr Cranky’s keys to
unlock the car and then I return to the house to help Donna scrub the walls and the floor. After
we finish cleaning the house, we drive the car out to a faraway beach. By the time we get
THE ATTRACTION OF CAMELLIAS by Jennifer Hor Page 9

there, the moon is already out and the beach is deserted. We take out the bag, poke a small
hole in it and hurl it out to sea as far as we can. We hear a distant plop.
“Well, that’s that,” Donna sighs, “the end of Clifford and the end of my life as a
human.”
“Don’t say that,” I say, “it’s a beginning. A beginning for both of us. Welcome to a new
destiny.” I take her hands in mine and we gaze at each other for a long time, then we embrace.

Several months later when the police investigation into Mr Cranky’s disappearance is
dropped for lack of evidence and witnesses and Donna’s name among others is removed from
the list of suspects, we both put our houses on the market and start making plans to buy a
caravan to drive around Australia. We’ve already ditched our old wardrobes and have bought
new clothes in bright colours and casual carefree styles.
“I’ll miss the camellia bush,” I sigh, “I hope any new owners will look after the gardens
as well as Edgar and I did.”
Donna clears her throat. “I have to confess something to you,” she says, “I knew you
were a vampire before that day you made me a vampire and I killed Clifford.”
“Really?” I’m flabbergasted. “How did you know?”
“Well, you remember those camellias I kept asking for each day when we first moved
here? The first time I took the flowers and sniffed them, I had this strange urge to eat them so
when I got back home, I scoffed them all. And every day I ate the flowers you let me have
until I got careless and Clifford caught me eating them.”
“That’s weird,” I say, “but what’s the connection between the camellias and knowing
I’m a vampire?”
“After eating the camellias I heard a male voice in my head – a pleasant male voice,
sort of cultured and young – telling me that you’d seen me in a past life when I was bled to
death as a baby by another vampire who knew you. The voice told me that you would help me
and save me somehow. Do you think someone has deliberately brought us together?”
I stare at Donna in astonishment and I have the sudden intuition that after the next three
hundred years when like Edgar she too will die suddenly and turn to dust, she’ll also lead me
to a new lover to keep me company.

THE END