Blueberry

by Glenna Thomson

  Looks like you are having a good time.

  I thought about replying, but I couldn’t think of what to say. We were supposed to be doing this together. Three or four times we’d left the city and spent days off in a rented timber cottage on a farm near Beech Forest close to the Little Aire Falls. We liked the quiet and slower pace and we wanted Sophie to grow up in the country. Nick had made enquiries on a couple of properties, but we could never figure out how we would make a living. Then a job came up in South Sudan and I was put on the CAP account, and life moved on.

  The rain got heavier. My nose and fingers were cold. And in that space between closing my iPad and topping up the glass, the bulb inside the amber light-fitting flashed off and on. Then off. Sudden darkness. The room was only lit by the weak sepia glow from the firebox. The wind pelted the rain against the window. Hurrying out of my sleeping bag, into the icy room, I flicked the power switches. Nothing.

  I tried to listen beyond the storm, thinking that a tree had fallen over a powerline. But then another idea caught hold, that maybe the power had been deliberately cut. Standing on guard in the centre of lounge room, I angled myself so I could clearly see both doors. I was drained and tired and had half a bottle of wine inside me. Then the thought came that I could scoop Sophie up and run to the car. We could drive into Euroa and check into a hotel – but we’d get wet stepping out into the storm. And I had been drinking. And someone might be outside.

  I stood freezing, listening, holding myself together. Knowing by now that I had made a terrible mistake in coming here. The wind howled. The windows rattled and shuddered. Something outside cracked and fell. Time passed. The weak firebox flames wavered and slowly died, setting me in complete darkness. I slumped against the wall in my sleeping bag – a sort of fighting position – and, with the light of my phone, I tilted the wine bottle and watched it pour empty. I sipped with my eyes closed, listening to the busy hum of rain, and sometime past midnight I slept.

  When the power went off there was no water. I discovered that in the morning when the toilet didn’t flush and I couldn’t have a shower or brush my teeth or fill a glass from the tap. I was swallowing two Panadol with long life milk when Sophie ran in and said in a wide-eyed rushed whisper, ‘The little dog is here.’

  Then she was gone again with the back door slapping behind her. It slapped again as I ran after her, yelling at her to stop. She kept going. I shouted, but she didn’t falter in her short, galloping steps, through the long wet grass that would be the garden lawn if mowed.

  At the front of the house I grabbed her by the arm.

  She looked down at her sodden pink slip-on shoes; the little bows had flattened. Her thin face was pale and she had that nervous look I hated and hadn’t seen since I had left work.

  ‘Sophie, you must stop when I call.’

  ‘But Blondie is here.’

  ‘She can’t be. And it’s freezing out here. Look at our shoes, they’re soaked through.’

  ‘But I saw her.’

  ‘You couldn’t have. Charlie and Blondie don’t live here now.’

  She took my hand and tugged me forward to the edge of the garden, with its built-up beds and massive rhododendrons, azaleas, daphne and camellias. It was beautiful, and unreal that it was mine. The old maple above us was slow to winter; some ruby leaves clung on. We stood on a saturated red mat. I turned to the orchard path and listened. Somewhere down Josephs Road a truck groaned, changing up a gear. Birdsong was above us.

  A kind of intuitive alert made me nervous – the feeling of being watched. I quickly turned. Nothing. I swallowed, trying to concentrate, and all I heard was the roar of the truck coming closer.

  Sophie’s small hand in mine was an odd comfort.

  ‘How big was the dog?’

  She showed me its height from the ground, maybe halfway up my shin.

  ‘And was it white and fluffy?’

  She nodded.

  Charlie’s painting studio was to the left of the garden. The vague idea that I should go there drifted through my mind, but it was cold, our feet were wet and we hadn’t eaten breakfast, the power was off, so I wasn’t wasting my time looking for a dog.

  We turned and went along the side of the house and around to the back. A rusted wheelbarrow full of split wood was beside the door. I’d not noticed it when I ran out after Sophie. And it wasn’t there last night when we arrived. I stared at its neatness; the logs hadn’t just been thrown in and they were dry.

  My heart raced. I peered beyond the shearing shed, the wire fence and across the McCurdy’s paddocks. Perhaps the neighbours had delivered the wood as a welcome gesture. A thin cloud drifted along the embankment to the creek. I didn’t like the silence.

  Staring into the depths of the woodshed, I saw that these logs had come off the top row. I was confused and unsure if I should be scared.

  I turned to Sophie. ‘We’re putting our boots on.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re going to find Blondie.’

  Sophie splashed in the puddles along the path that led to the garden. It was all rose hips, dead roses and black-spotted yellow leaves. Lemon trees stood inside rangy unclipped box hedges. We continued along the path, through the bulbous cypress trunks and out into the clearing at the top of the orchard.

  Charlie’s old Merc was angled between a cluster of black wattle seedlings and the prefab cottage that was once his studio.

  I stepped up and knocked on the door. ‘Charlie?’

  Nothing.

  With Sophie behind me, I pushed the door open.

  At first glance, there was too much to take in. The space was a confusion of coloured stuff: canvasses along the walls, a wide easel. Some furniture.

  Charlie was standing beside a table next to the window. He glanced at me then turned away, hesitant and anxious. He hadn’t shaved in a while and white whiskers added to the sag on his face. He was wearing the same paint-speckled orange jumper and khaki pants. He stood straighter, as tall as his old bones allowed.

  Then Blondie stepped out of a spongy blue basket, and straight away Sophie was on her backside and the dog was in her lap, its stubby tail wagging, name tag jingling.

  ‘Charlie, what’s going on?’

  His hand went to the edge of the table for balance.

  ‘You okay?’ I said, going to him and catching a powerful whiff of old man’s wee and something else.

  ‘I’ve been doing this for you,’ he said, waggling a finger at the easel.

  He was working on a large canvas using different shades of pink and thick curves of green. Camellias. I was drawn to the contrast between the sweeping strokes and intricate paint carving.

  ‘I chose pink for you.’

  He was different to the angry jazz-playing artist I had first met. He was frailer, less confident. Something had happened to him.

  I looked around. Layers of canvasses leaned against the walls. Paintbrushes and palette knives stood in tall Fowlers jars on the table. A bath towel-sized piece of plywood was his palette. It was covered in thick dabs of every colour and was a piece of art in itself. Lying in rows on the table were silver tubes of paint with coloured identifying labels, each squeezed with indentations of Charlie’s thumb. A set of steel shelves crammed with a sound system, CDs and bottles of whiskey and gin. Paint-and-turpentine smeared rags lay everywhere.

  But the real story was sitting on the bench beside the sink: a carton of long life milk, darkened banana skins, a hollowed out packet of macaroons, and an open can of baked beans with no way of heating them. A bag of dry dog food was on the floor. Against the far wall, a pillow and a mess of blankets were thrown across a red velvet chaise lounge.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

  He stared at me with those blue eyes. ‘Three or four days, maybe a week.’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at the retirement village?’

  He looked at the floor. ‘Hate it there. I hate it more than anything.’

  ‘Why?’
/>
  ‘The grass.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The grass at the retirement village in town is acrylic, a kind of plastic.’

  I had worked for years in office buildings with plastic trees and was always astounded that anyone’s senses could be dumbed down enough to accept that kind of artificial beauty. Poor man. An artist who painted gardens was expected to live with artificial grass.

  ‘But Charlie, you can’t stay here.’

  ‘I’m not going back.’

  ‘This place is mine now,’ I said, sweeping my arm around the room. ‘I’m turning this into quarters for backpackers.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘I don’t want to go back there. I’ll pay you to stay here.’ His body seemed to shake as he tried to keep his balance. ‘Please.’

  ‘But there’s no shower. Nowhere to cook. No toilet.’

  ‘There’s the outside loo next to the garage.’ A desperate shrunken expression set on his face. He looked at me, pleading.

  ‘We need to speak to your son. Does he know you’re here?’

  ‘I’m not involving him.’

  ‘But you have to. He’s got you all set up in Euroa.’

  Charlie balanced himself along the edge of the table, then gripped onto the middle shelf of a cabinet. I stepped forward and put my hand on his arm as he dropped down on the chaise lounge. His shoulders slumped.

  ‘You’re not doing too well, are you?’

  He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  I was thinking I should call an ambulance. Or Mark Palmer, the real estate agent. Someone. I didn’t know anyone else in the district to ask for help.

  ‘I want to stay here.’ His lips quivered.

  Sophie and Blondie were at the open door. ‘Wait,’ I called to her before turning back to Charlie. ‘You’d better come into the house. You need to shower. After that we’ll work out what to do.’

  Then I remembered. ‘The power is off.’

  ‘It’ll be back on soon. It happens sometimes in a storm.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘There’s no way of knowing. It’ll just come back on.’

  Sophie and Blondie ran through the garden. Charlie and I followed, my hand a grab away from his elbow. I watched his handsome brogues get wet as he faltered along the path and into the grass.

  ‘Marilyn is still on the wall. Did you forget to take her?’

  He stopped and turned to me. ‘There’s no room for her in the unit so I left it here for you. She’s yours. A gift.’

  Charlie smiled, his dimples showed.

  I told him I loved the painting and everything it represented – Marilyn’s out-there personality, her beauty and sensuality, the colours alone were fantastic.

  ‘But I can’t accept the gift, it’s too generous.’

  ‘She belongs here, like me.’

  I gently touched his arm. ‘But you don’t belong here anymore.’

  He bowed his head and turned back towards the studio.

  It was more of a reflex than a thought when I told him to wait, that we would find a solution. He let me steer him towards the house.

  ‘I’ll call Warren,’ I said. ‘We’ll work something out.’

  ‘You can call Warren and talk all you like. But I’m telling you and the birds in the sky that I won’t live in that shitty place in Euroa.’ His hands were fists.

  Whatever Charlie thought of our camp on the lounge room floor he didn’t say. Instead he asked why I didn’t have the fire going.

  ‘It keeps going out.’

  He bent down and pushed a lever to the right. ‘The vent’s closed off.’

  I watched his slow and sure ways, balling paper and laying kindling, then the firm sharp strike of a match.

  ‘I need to call Warren,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not going back.’

  ‘At least he needs to be told you’re here.’

  In a small notebook, he showed me the precise handwritten numerals of his son’s Singapore number.

  I dialled. The long beeps went on.

  Warren Chandler speaking. I can’t take your call, please leave a message.

  So I told him the problem.

  And the power buzzed back on.

  When Warren called, Charlie was in the shower. I knew that busy voice, the curt hello and get-on-with-it tone.

  He apologised and explained Charlie had resisted leaving for years. ‘But he’s got some serious medical problems. Can you please put him on.’

  ‘He’s in the shower.’

  I looked up to the ceiling, the yellowing paint – a spider web was dangling midair.

  ‘I’ve got people waiting,’ Warren said. ‘I’ll speak to Dad as soon as I can. In the meantime, you must be very firm. He must return to his unit immediately. There’s no question about that. None at all.’

  Listening to his matter-of-fact tone, I felt relieved Warren had taken charge and was resigned that very soon Charlie would be living back in a place he hated. When he came to the kitchen he looked better, although he was wearing the same clothes as before.

  With Marilyn behind us we leaned against the kitchen bench and drank tea while I relayed the conversation with Warren.

  ‘You’re both missing the point,’ he said. ‘I want to stay here.’

  ‘Why did you agree to sell if you didn’t want to leave?’

  He spoke while staring through the kitchen window and out to the blueberry orchard: ‘Warren’s been on at me, and Shane, my nephew next door. It made sense. I’ve been ignoring the orchard. All Audrey’s hard work has gone to the pack. So I went along.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Didn’t you notice the fake grass before you went?’

  ‘It looks the real deal.’ He was wide-eyed, still astounded. ‘Everybody likes it because it doesn’t need watering or mowing and it’s always green. It’s everywhere, along all the paths and in my backyard. After rain, it drains, better than the real thing. And no one knows who Stan Getz is. It’s just not my sort of place.’

  ‘Who’s Stan Getz?’

  He didn’t say, just drank his tea.

  ‘Warren’s going to call you.’

  ‘How? I don’t have a phone.’

  I opened my hands, exasperated. ‘Charlie, you’re putting me in a very difficult position.’

  ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  I watched him shuffle his way through the lounge. Not once did he look left or right at the barren space where he’d lived for so long.

  The front door shut with a firm clip.

  I sent Warren a message.

  Charlie refuses to go to Euroa. He’s in his studio.

  8

  MY furniture looked pitiful in the large rooms. Everything I owned had been purchased for the apartment and until I saw it positioned in these spacious high-ceilinged rooms, I liked it. Only the wardrobes in our bedrooms looked the part.

  I was flapping out sheets to put on Sophie’s bed when a car sped down the driveway. It must have hit the cattle grid at sixty or more and it didn’t slow till the corner. Through the window, I saw the white twin-cab swing in and abruptly pull up beside my car.

  A fist on the flywire screen rattled the frame. As I approached, there was a quick movement and the back door flung open. A tall, bearded man wearing a felt hat was leaning inside the porch.

  ‘Hello. Anybody there?’

  He saw me and smiled.

  ‘Do you always drive that fast down a driveway?’ I asked.

  There was a slight change in his eyes, as if he was deciding something. He backed away, down to the first step, one hand on the door to keep it open.

  ‘I’m in a hurry,’ he said. ‘Warren asked me to come round and I don’t have time for any of this.’

  ‘Thanks for coming. I’m glad you’re here.

  His hat was low on his forehead, so it was difficult to see his eyes. As if he knew what I was thinking, he pushed it back. His hair
was brown, and the gap between his long sideburns and trimmed beard had been precisely shaved. He seemed confident, the way he stood tall, and the hard line of his shoulders. And there he was, nice-looking, and I thought he might be vain.

  ‘So you’re Greer O’Reilly?’

  ‘Are you my neighbour? Charlie’s nephew?’

  ‘Shane McCurdy. You’ve got an unwelcome visitor.’

  ‘He’s not exactly unwelcome. It’s just that he hates the retirement village. The fake grass offends him.’

  He smiled as he shook his head and I couldn’t tell which way he saw it. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘You can’t force him to leave.’

  ‘Well, he can’t stay.’

  ‘No, he can’t.’

  ‘I need to talk to him.’

  ‘He’s in his studio. My studio.’

  He pulled back to the path and I stepped down to follow. Standing in the tray of his ute was a thin black dog with golden eyes. It approached me, tail waving, and when Shane clicked his fingers the dog sat to attention.

  Shane headed off and I went after him, worried how this was going to be resolved. It was right that Charlie’s family were taking charge, but it seemed brutal to force an old man to live somewhere he didn’t want to be. They would have to relocate him.

  I could hardly keep up with him.

  ‘What’s the big hurry?’

  ‘I’ve got a pregnant heifer in the yards.’

  He marched at full stride through the rose garden, glancing back at me as he spoke. He said he would give her another half an hour and if she’d not done the job by then, he would do it for her with a winch. I had questions about that, but we’d arrived at Charlie’s studio.

  Shane pulled the door open without knocking and we walked into the sound of jazz piano. Charlie was using the tip of a paint brush to move dark-pink paint on the canvas. A hand’s reach away was a quarter-full crystal glass of whiskey.

  Shane snapped the music off.

  ‘Charlie. What’s going on here?’

  Poor Charlie looked to the floor then at me, eyes pleading for help. So I stood beside him and he sidestepped closer. The woollen sleeve of his orange jumper pressed against the sleeve of mine and that touch between us conjured a memory of my father, and then a feeling of togetherness. It was in that moment, standing together, I had the first inkling that I really cared what happened to him.