‘I was never able to grasp the beauty of numbers, Mister Grange. What you have in your notebook are works of art.’
‘He’s a genius,’ said Angel.
‘I have tried,’ said Winifred. ‘I do so love the look of numbers and their symbols – mathematics. I tried, and please don’t laugh, Mister Grange, but I once tried to work a triangular Pythagorean triplet in relation to something I was doing at the time – I must have seen it in a book. But beyond enjoying the beautiful scribble of it all the whole thing was a mystery – in the end it meant nothing at all.’
Barnaby Grange, however, did laugh in his way. It was as though Winifred had said she’d found it difficult to add two plus two.
‘O, Miss Varnham, I’m sure you could do anything you liked – you’re so grand. You look like a duchess,’ said Angel.
‘Well, of course I’m nothing of the kind but thank you, dear Angel. Probably the purple – I do rather like to splash up a bit.’
‘Will you teach me how to “splash up”? I might not be poor forever. We could teach each other all the things we know.’
‘Well, Angel Martin, that is a most delightful thought but I think it must be time for your bed.’
‘O, Miss Varnham, I could stay here with you forever.’
‘No she can’t!’ Missus Potts, appearing at the door with her pinny back on and a worm of cream on her lip. ‘She’s got things to do before she’s off.’
‘I have to help with the dishes and clearing up,’ said Angel. ‘Sometimes I get something for it.’
‘I simply wouldn’t know what to pay a genius, Angel, but I imagine Missus Potts is very fair,’ Winifred Varnham said with a smile as narrow as her chopstick.
‘No, it’s not. I mean not enough, really,’ said Angel.
‘She gets bed and food for nothing at all, Miss Varnham, and if she gets a bit here and there for extra help it’s enough for what she does. And with respect, Miss Varnham, that’s none of the boarders’ business and if you don’t mind me saying so I don’t need a genius to wash dishes.’
‘Well, then, I shall go to my room and read and perhaps Mister Grange will retire to his room and create more works of art. I hope to see you in the morning.’ And she swept from the room all purple and red and silver and chopstick, leaving behind her a void drained of everything but the colour of stains.
Later, on the way to the stairs that led to Angel’s room Barnaby Grange beckoned her to his door. He showed her three pages of his notebook crowded to the edges with numbers of all sizes and arrangements.
‘What is that, Mister Grange? What does it all mean?’
‘That,’ Barnaby said in words, ‘is Winifred Varnham.’ And he looked shyly to one side but proud as Punch.
‘I don’t understand it, Barnaby, but I think you’re just the cleverest person I know.’ And they wished each other goodnight. Angel grinned in her way down the hall to the room she called her broom cupboard. She thought of Elsa and the touch of skin against skin that Angel was sure must be close to love – and she thought of Clara and trams, and how excited Winifred Varnham and Barnaby Grange would be when they met the sea nation, Mariana, and she ran into her room and jumped into bed to dream the whole day all over again.
On a day that was not a Sunday, three curious travellers set off to be introduced to Mariana.
‘And what arrangements have you made with your school, Angel?’ asked Winifred Varnham, who wore a full-length gown of smoky green, a purple scarf, a black chopstick in her bun and rings and baubles all over the rest of her. Barnaby Grange, in contrast, was all beige and paper-pale as an Englishman of questionable genetic breeding might be. He had taken with him a larger-than-normal notebook and a pocket of change. Angel, of course, wore her going out dress, which was showing, after so many washes, wear and tear and faded colours.
‘Mister Daisyfield doesn’t care when I take a day. He complains to Missus Potts but he doesn’t say much after what he did.’
‘What, my dear girl, was that?’
Angel told Winifred – Barnaby already knew.
‘Mister Daisyfield is school headmaster,’ whispered Barnaby, in words. Barnaby seemed to be as comfortable in the company of Winifred Varnham as Angel.
Winifred was reminded of her first impression of a certain steeliness behind the beauty of Angel’s eyes, which, in her opinion, were as sharp as weapons. She had seen ‘Take care’ eyes and ‘Damned if you do’ eyes and Mister Daisyfield must not have looked into them in the dull light. She was reluctant to make too much of the incident. ‘O?’ said Winifred. ‘Perhaps when Mister Daisyfield was made headmaster his brains slipped to the wrong end – it’s not uncommon in males. Of course, not for a moment would one think you, Barnaby Grange – a fine genius and gentleman, as I have come to regard you – foolish enough to be employed as a local school headmaster.’
Angel was in love with this brilliant star of a woman – she would have done anything for her.
In the tram to the Bay, Angel arranged the seating so that Winifred had the window all to herself. Barnaby began to make notes in his book. As soon as they sat down she was aware that other passengers were trying not to stare. One even put his hat over his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. Angel was used to it but was anxious that Winifred and Barnaby might be offended. She was pleased that of all the tram drivers she had travelled with to the Bay, their tram driver was one who knew her.
‘Who have we got here?’ Asking the question by raising his brows while watching the road ahead, ding ding.
‘These are my friends, Miss Varnham and Mister Grange – aren’t they beautiful? I think I have four friends now.’ Angel, thinking of Elsa. ‘Mister Grange is a genius and teaches me and I love Miss Varnham for everything she is.’
‘Nice to have friends.’ Ding ding. ‘Off to the Bay? Your aunts?’
‘It’s not Sunday – Sunday is aunts’ day. You should know that by now.’
‘Sorry.’
‘We’ll get off at the high stop at the lighthouse. I’m going to show them Mariana.’
‘What’s Mariana?’
‘It’s what I’ve called the sea nation, the ocean, and I’m going to explain it to them.’
‘Take care, girl. Don’t let that mind of yours run too far away from the rest of us.’
Near the lighthouse, the highest point for the trams, the three stepped off the running board and walked across the grass to a seat overlooking the ocean.
‘Well, there’s Mariana. What do you think? It’s got its own climate and everything.’
‘Heavens, Angel! I feel I’m seeing it all for the first time. The Mariana Trench,’ said Winifred Varnham, ‘I believe, is seven miles straight down – it is hard to imagine such a depth. Of course, I have been to this place and seen the ocean and the Bay from the other side, but not in the way I see it now, Angel. You have made it all so magical. O, my goodness, it’s so beautiful here – so high. I can see the ocean as Mariana quite clearly now with its sandstone borders. It is so vast. On and on to the edge of the world. No little housetops and winding lanes out there – no hedges and little churches like that one down there, near the Bay, with its spire like the top of a teapot …’
‘You can’t see what’s there. It’s all deep down.’
‘When one thinks about it, Angel, your Mariana could be the stuff of nightmares. I hope it’s a friendly place?’
‘I dreamed about it one night. It was very dark. It’s hard to see in your mind what’s underneath the water. Like the trench and—’
‘But what about the islands? Have you considered why they are there? I think there must be many of them.’
‘Stepping stones, that’s what I think they are. Stepping stones and somewhere for birds to rest and seals and turtles to have their babies.’ Angel pointed, not in the least unsure of herself. ‘See, they’d have to have something for t
he birds and the turtles. I don’t know how many islands—’
‘Twenty thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight – approximately seven thousand, nine hundred smaller and uninhabited.’ Barnaby Grange held up a chart he’d dashed off. ‘But there are more.’ He numbered on. ‘Work to be done.’ In words.
‘He’d be right. He knows everything,’ said Angel.
‘And if one were to tour Mariana, Angel, how would one know where everything is? The forests, canyons, the shallows and depths?’
‘The colour of the water changes – lighter for shallows and reefs, a sort of brown over the kelp forests and dark over canyons. And near the trench it would be black as ink.’ Angel was lost in her imagination and music and colours.
‘Trench seven miles, six thousand, one hundred and sixty fathoms, and …’ Barnaby Grange had not put so many words to his numbers for a very long time.
‘Thank you, Mister Grange. Let us be silent and admire the extraordinary view from this point … O, look, there’s a ship on Mariana. Do ships have to have permission, Angel? Is there a charge?’
‘That’s a Navy ship. Navy ships don’t have to pay, but one day tourists will have to pay.’ And Angel laughed in her way, so proud that her friends did not treat her as a fool. ‘Everyone will have to pay to go to Mariana – just like other nations but I think the white horse races will be free.’
‘O, my darling girl,’ said Winifred Varnham. ‘What a beautiful mind you have. You really must write it all down one day. Are we to visit your aunts now? Shall we walk down to the village and have a bite to eat and visit your aunts? Do they know about Mariana?’
‘No, only you and Mister Grange.’ Barnaby Grange was quietly calculating a portrait of the little church and appeared not to have heard a word. ‘They wouldn’t understand – my aunts think I’m not right in the head.’
‘Then we must tell them that you are nothing of the kind. We’ll have a bite to eat and visit.’
‘We can’t.’
‘Why, Angel?’
‘It’s not Sunday.’
‘O, I see. Well, then,’ said the duchess from a height. ‘We’ll take off our shoes and simply stroll in the park and along the harbour beach and look for shells and feed the gulls with our crusts. Come along, Barnaby, tuck your book away for a moment.’
Angel felt very grand walking across the park and along the harbourside sand with Barnaby Grange and Winifred Varnham. She enjoyed the attention they were drawing – foxy eyes sliding their way, people standing and stretching their necks for a better view, a battalion of gulls. Even three curious dogs followed them. It was lovely …
‘This is so lovely,’ said Angel. She did not tell them about the baby shop lady or her mother knitting in what was their shopfront home, Bon Ami. Just for that one wonderful day she did not want them to know her painful beginnings, being sick and hungry and very unsure, helping her mother with her pills, her book with its pages stuck together with tears and no one caring or wanting her. No, on that one wonderful day she enjoyed every moment of the stroll along the Bay with a duchess and Barnaby Grange. She wished she had a moon hat and was wearing purple.
The aunts’ house
The shop on the corner of Brooklyn Street with its old bell over the ruined flyscreen door had begun to sell ice-cream cones and Angel had just enough to buy a small McNiven’s scoop, lime-flavoured and coloured green by a substance unknown to the fruit. She bit off the cone point at the bottom and sucked like a bubby at a bottle. It was a Bay Sunday, fine and warm with a cake-icing sky of blue, streaked with high clouds going the wrong way and she strolled and sucked ice cream in an unusually peaceful mood on her way to the aunts’ house.
With one hand on the gate she held her head up to suck the last of the drips and threw the cone into the gutter and only then did Angel realise the gate was locked. The gate had not been locked for a very long time for, according to Barnaby Grange’s calculations, Angel was past her eleventh year and for a very long time she had not had to climb over anything at all. She could hardly remember having to do that or sneak through the laundry door or the bathroom window. It would not have been Elsa who’d locked the gate, or even Aunt Clara, who had recently invited her to look through her ballet books thereby forming a crack of friendship. No, it would have been a stranger going in or coming out not knowing.
Angel, wearing a skirt the colour of gully moss she had found in a Red Cross shop, her old yellow top and a moon hat she had made from gully vines, leaves and fern, hesitated to climb the curls and twists of metal rusted now and broken in parts with age. She thought she could hear the faintest music from ‘up’. Someone must be home, Angel whispered to Angel.
‘Man and a woman.’ The voice belonged to the old octopus fisher with his bucket, sneaking up behind her on his bare pads like a cat. ‘Skinny him, with a beak, she telling him what to do, half his size. Carried something heavy under a sheet, loaded it into a truck and took off. Want a leg up?’ Angel tried to be calm. She tried to be ‘right in the head’ for thinking clearly.
‘What was under the sheet?’
‘Can’t rightly say. Don’t know.’
Angel peeped into the bucket for the thrill and pins and needles the old man’s catch gave her but the bucket was empty.
‘There’s nothing there.’
‘Bucket’s not empty so stick your nose out of it – there’s star fish and a crab for the cat.’
‘Where’s the octopus?’
‘Stuck under a rock – stuck in a rock – how do I know? Couldn’t reach it – can’t get down there anymore.’
‘Why?’
‘Hips. Do you want a leg up or not?’
‘Yes please.’
And over the gate she climbed to the side that touched the stone wall, but with care because of the skirt and her moon hat. On the other side she thanked the old man with his hips and for a moment watched him waddle down Brooklyn Street as though he’d just got off a fat horse. Even from the back of him she could see a man angry and frustrated with his age, his hips and no octopus.
No matter what clothes Angel wore on her visits to the Bay it was always bare feet. It was necessary. It was for the memory of that place.
That day the pebbles of the driveway from the gate to the house gave a sombre feel to her soles – not quite right. For a reason she could not possibly have explained, she trod carefully. There was an atmosphere around her that was heavy. She felt it, she felt as though she was wrapped in it.
There was never a front door to the aunts’ house and Angel had only used the laundry door or, when she was even younger, the ‘down’ bathroom window. But she knew there was another door on the west side and on that strange day she followed an instinct and, with no more weight than a sea mist, crept over pebbles undisturbed by her and found the west door opened a little. The west door led to a passage and to the stairway to ‘up’ and to Elsa’s ‘down’. She pushed the door open further and had no idea why she was suddenly so nervous.
‘Hello … It’s me … It’s Sunday …’
No human voice answered, just the faint strains of music and fainter sobs of someone weeping. Angel very quietly, and with great care, continued down the hall.
‘Hello … It’s Sunday …’
‘What do you think you’re doing now? Do we have to lock every door and window in the house until we can’t breathe!’ Clara sat on the bottom step of her stairway under a drift of the faintest Chopin from above, dry-eyed, dry, as dry as everything about her, legs sprawled and her arms plaited tight across her grieving breasts, all of it held together by her miserable breath.
‘Is that Elsa I can hear crying?’
‘What would I know! She cries if the washing’s not dry by sunset! She cried when the clothes prop broke! She—’
‘I can help her, Aunt Clara.’
‘Don’t call me Aunt!’
‘I
s it all right if I go to her?’
‘Go! We can’t keep you out, so go! What in heaven’s name is that on your head?’
‘It’s a moon hat. I made it.’
‘You look like you’ve just crawled out of a dress-up box – go!’
‘What’s the matter with Elsa?’
‘And for that matter, why do you chew your hair – why does your hair always look as though it’s having a fever, all wet and stringy. Go to Elsa if you want – just go! Away from me! Go!’
‘O, poor Clara. I know why you don’t like me. I know why you don’t like children—’
‘What?’
Elsa’s bedroom was painted black, floorboards and all. It was a large room, one step down into the kitchen and a long time ago it was where Clara taught her ballet students. Angel had wondered about the black room but after hearing Clara’s story she realised the choice must have had something to do with that. On the black walls hung a framed photograph of Elsa and her husband on their wedding day. Angel had often looked at it, the photograph, all lilies and satin with a long train curled around and him in a good suit. There weren’t many other things to look at in the room and she had paid little attention to the mirror hanging opposite the bed, other than casually observing that it was large and oval in shape with a gold frame – ornate – like mirrors she had seen in some artworks in the gallery, very nice. But Angel rarely looked into mirrors. Elsa sat, sobbing on the side of her bed.
‘It’s me, Elsa. It’s Sunday. Why are you crying?’
‘O, Angel. There’s no dinner for you … I’m glad you came.’
‘I don’t care about dinner.’ Though she was so hungry she could have eaten the leg off a chair. ‘What’s happened?’
The Aunts’ House Page 11