‘You’re afraid of water, aren’t you?’ he said.
They were taking the longer way this time, now that he was so much stronger.
‘Yes,’ Thomas said. ‘I nearly drowned when I was a boy.’
‘In the pond?’
‘Yes.’
The field was almost empty. No one could hear them talking.
‘Yet you still went in to pull me out.’
Thomas smiled. ‘Yes, I did.’
The evenings were brighter now, the ground dry again.
‘Thomas, I shall be leaving tomorrow.’
‘Oh.’ Thomas was surprised. Disappointed. ‘Where will you go?’
‘Somewhere you won’t follow, my friend,’ he said with a smile, taking Thomas’ arm. ‘Across the sea.’
Thomas knew he would not be any more specific.
‘But I have a gift for you. To thank you for saving my life.’
‘How very kind,’ said Thomas. He could not remember the last time anyone had given him anything.
‘It’s a painting,’ he said. ‘To honour your courage.’
His English has really improved, Thomas thought. ‘Oh dear, that’s far too grand for me,’ Thomas said, laughing. They wheeled back towards Fox Lane. Susannah would be waiting.
‘It isn’t grand at all, dear friend,’ he told Thomas. ‘It’s just a small, square painting. But I will make sure that you are not forgotten. That I promise you.’
Eddie watched the rental car being driven back to its bay. Mink-coloured mud fanned up its flanks in the shape of small wings, but there was not another mark on it. He had tried not to look too astonished when the young woman had said it was, ‘Fine, just fine, thank you, sir.’
He tried to get a clear vision of the journey back to Brooklyn but it would not come. He’d eaten somewhere. A vague memory of tuna sandwiches. Rain. Miles out, the car had meandered across the centre line before veering back, a blast of truck horn roaring across the hood.
‘Don’t you see?’ Mikey had said to him. ‘You’re related – we’re related – to everyone in the painting. Ivan, Rory, everyone else. Although God knows who they all are. Aunt Anne wrote down as much as she knew.’
It would be a long walk back to the apartment from the rental place. Eddie wanted to get home, he wanted to see the painting, but he couldn’t resist a detour. The place was less than two hundred yards off to the left now. The wind cut at his ribs as soon as he turned into the side road, but he needed to have a look. It was closed, of course, at this hour, the day’s discarded packaging twisting up the thin stairway.
At the glass door, Eddie looked in. The pictures were shadowy but visible. Everything seemed the same. He stood in the semi-darkness, under a row of halogen lights. The tattoo parlour nearby was still open. He could hear music coming from inside, although there was no one around. He thought of his mother coming here, a broken woman making her way up these stairs, carrying a painting she feared. In his own stilted way, Eddie thought, Walter had tried to help her. Burn it, he’d all but said. For the first time, Eddie felt glad that the painting had survived.
He cupped his hands on the glass, and squinted into the gallery. He saw that the little tree was gone.
He’s sick, Eddie thought. He was sure now. He remembered the minuscule shake in Walter’s head, the pronounced tremble in his hand. Eddie was surprised to find that he felt genuinely sorry. Turning to go, he noticed a small typewritten card mounted on the glass: Fennell Gallery is closed until further notice.
He probably lives near here, Eddie thought. He looked along the countless windows banked above the street. Any one of them could be his. It would be tasteful inside, Eddie imagined. Walter’s favourite pieces would be framed and hung, just so. It would be immaculately clean. Nothing out of place. And at its heart, Eddie felt sure, a man would be dying, stylishly, hopelessly alone.
Eddie waited for a moment, the cold threading around him in the narrow entrance. He thought of Walter’s note to his mother, the oddly confidential tone. He thought of the scratch of Walter’s fountain pen, the erratic slips in the ink, evident even then. Tiny lightning bolts of ruin.
Eddie watched the litter crackle and skitter around his feet, tumbling into the corners. Suddenly affronted, he reached down, scooped it all up, and stuffed it deep into his pocket.
On the walk from Walter’s place, Eddie imagines another man coming home, a world away, centuries away. A man with a Reynolds nose.
The man sees a body, face down in the local pond. Mortally afraid, he drags it to the side, peeling away the drown-heavy coat, spotting a tremble of life in the sodden chest. Somehow, he gets the man home, in by the fire, harries his wife for clothes and blankets. Two days later, eyelids flutter open. The man cannot speak English. He cannot, or will not, give his name. He has, it turns out, an uncommon dexterity in his hands. As his chest recovers, he helps Thomas with the keys and locks that he sells in the markets and street corners. He teaches Thomas a way with a tumbling mechanism that would keep the Reynolds family comfortable for the rest of their lives.
During the day, while Thomas is still at work, the man paints. Thomas’ wife resents the cost of the oils. ‘Leave him be, Susannah,’ Thomas tells her. She gets used to the man’s strange but unobtrusive ways. Before he disappears forever, he presents the couple with a magnificent rendition of their street, framed in black wood, thick as a child’s arm. Every stone, every wall, the sheen of the apples, the drain of foul water at the road’s edge is perfect.
‘But it’s empty,’ Susannah says to her husband. ‘Where are all the people?’
‘They will come later,’ the man says.
Susannah is stunned to find he can speak English. Thomas has known for some time.
On the roadside, before he leaves, he talks quietly to Thomas. ‘You will appear in the painting after your death. Don’t be afraid about this, my friend. It will not hasten your end in any way, although foolish people will tell themselves that it does, and grow fearful of it.’
Thomas assures him that he is not afraid.
‘There will be others,’ the man says. ‘The best of those who come after you. The ones who are like you.’ He shakes Thomas’ hand solemnly, and is gone.
Thomas Reynolds does not mention this to Susannah, for fear that she might think it the Devil’s work and put the painting in the fire. He keeps it wrapped, telling her he is afraid of smoke damage, hoping she’ll forget its empty street.
Thomas lives a long life, well beyond Susannah. When their son finds the hidden painting he takes it with him to America, puts it on his wall, and marvels at the portrait of his father with his bundles of keys as big as cabbage heads.
Not cursed. Haunted. That’s what Mikey had told him. ‘Some things we just have to accept, Eddie.’ And Eddie knew what he meant.
As he had driven away from the farm, he’d seen again the dogwood tree that Mikey had planted for Rory, its red buds heavy and beautiful, lifted up for the birds to come, to strip it down, to be bare and ready once more.
Brooklyn’s streets were cold. When Eddie pushed at the main door, he felt the full weight of his fatigue. As he took the last of the stairs up to his apartment, his mind ran with faces and roads. The uncertain voice of the screech owl, its lonely, tremulous cry. The sense of things shifting and settling.
There was a note stuck in the jamb of the door: Where are you? Give me a ring. Frank. PS: Grew up in Alaska, if you must know.
Eddie was not afraid, not like before. But his heart still knocked loud in his chest. He turned into the main room.
‘Hello, Rory,’ he said, going in.
He sat down.
Acknowledgements
Encouragement. It seems to me that this is one of the finest gifts a writer can receive. A great deal of it has come my way: from my extended family, from friends, from other writers. I acknowledge, with sincere thanks, every sin
gle time someone has asked how my writing is going, and cared about the answer. I thank those who have read early drafts of my stories, who have given of their time and expertise to provide valuable feedback, who have celebrated when publication and awards came, and commiserated when they did not. I dedicate this book to my husband, Adrian – always my first and best reader – and to our son, Louis, who spent his teenage years listening to my stories, and encouraging me to write some happier ones!
In 2016, I was honoured to receive a Queensland Writers Fellowship. Through this wonderful award, which brought financial and professional encouragement, I was fortunate enough to be mentored by Judith Lukin-Amundsen. Her assistance and support were invaluable to me. Thank you to my publisher, UQP: to Madonna Duffy, for believing in my work, and to Aviva Tuffield and her team, including Felicity Dunning and Jean Smith, for shaping and guiding my collection.
I am deeply indebted to many who have supported my writing in diverse ways, including Ruth Blair, Kate Eltham, Karen Hollands, Ann Hughes, Kay Kelly, Mary McHugh, Steve Plowman, Felicity Plunkett, Fiona Robertson, Jude Seaboyer, Chris Tiffin and Rita Tynan. I honour the memory of David Nokes, a fine teacher and writer at King’s College London, who encouraged me to publish my stories. Ronnie O’Callaghan, my ‘Irish agent’, did not live to see this book come to fruition but his uplifting support has not been forgotten. There are many others, too numerous to mention here, whose practical, professional and emotional support has meant so much to me. Thank you.
Versions of the following stories have appeared online and in print. Thank you to the editors of these publications and the conveners of these literary awards.
‘A Widow’s Snow’, Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2014.
‘An Uncommon Occurrence’, Allingham Festival Flash Fiction Competition, 2015.
‘The Turn’, Carmel Bird Award for New Crime Writing, 2015; and Crime Scenes: Stories, ed. Zane Lovitt, Spineless Wonders, 2016.
‘The News’, Things Left and Found by the Side of the Road, Bath Flash Fiction, Volume 3, 2018.
‘Things’, Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, Tangent Books, Volume 10, 2017.
‘The Mohair Coat’, Flash500 Flash Fiction Competition, 2016.
‘Legacy’, Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 5, Issue 5, 2013.
‘Thirty Years’, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Volume 11.1, 2019.
‘Cutting the Cord’, InkTears Flash Fiction Awards, 2016.
‘The Golden Hour’, published as ‘When the Pitch Drops’, Flash500 Annual Short Story Contest, 2018.
‘Death of a Friend’, Ripening: National Flash-Fiction Day Anthology, 2018.
‘Tying the Boats’, Bath Flash Fiction Award, 2017; and The Lobsters Run Free, Bath Flash Fiction, Volume 2, 2017.
‘The Memory Bones’, Amanda Lohrey Selects, Spineless Wonders, 2012.
‘The Way It Sounds’, Things Left and Found by the Side of the Road, Bath Flash Fiction, Volume 3, 2018.
‘The Painting’, Aeon Award, 2013; and Albedo One Magazine, Issue 47, 2016.
Also in UQP’s short fiction series
Trick of the Light
Laura Elvery
Shortlisted, Queensland Literary Awards University of Southern Queensland Short Story Collection – Steele Rudd Award 2018
With a keen eye for detail and rich emotional insight, Laura Elvery reveals the fears and fantasies of everyday people searching for meaning. Ranging from tender poignancy to wry humour, Trick of the Light is the beguiling debut collection from one of Australia’s rising stars.
‘Radiant, accomplished and exquisitely written, this is an outstanding collection.’ Ryan O’Neill
‘Trick of the Light is at times haunting and poetic, other times bright and sharp, and always memorable and hopeful … This thoroughly profound, bold and playful debut pulled me along and pulled me apart.’ Brooke Davis
ISBN 978 0 7022 6006 3
First published 2019 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
uqp.com.au
[email protected]
Copyright © Amanda O’Callaghan 2019
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cover design by Josh Durham, Design by Committee
Author photograph by Peter Taylor, Shotglass Photography
Typeset in Bembo Std 11/15pt by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
This project is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
The University of Queensland Press is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
ISBN 978 0 7022 6037 7 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6201 2 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6202 9 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6203 6 (kindle)
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