He sighed.
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know. It’s possible.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Well, where else would they be?’
‘Where’s the unit? I’m going there.’
‘Hang on.’
‘I need the address.’
‘Let me speak to Warren first.’
‘This is complete bullshit.’
‘Hang on. Just step back.’
‘What is wrong with you people?’ I was yelling. ‘He wants to be here. What is the problem?’
He spoke quietly. ‘I don’t have a problem.’
‘Then help me.’
‘I’ll speak to Warren.’
‘How could you let this happen?’
‘Settle down. I’ll speak to Warren.’
‘When?’
‘When I see him.’
Enrico was standing at the door, listening with his hands covering his face, shaking his head.
‘I’ll call you back,’ Shane said.
He hung up.
And there was Charlie, sitting alone somewhere in a strange place on the edge of a bed in a beige room, too weak and tired to fight.
Enrico couldn’t grasp why Warren would take Charlie away to live on his own. He put his fist on his chest. ‘This is not good for Charlie. He is a sick person.’
The evening went slowly. Blondie kept looking at the door, her ears up. I thrashed clothes in the laundry trough, washing them and trying not to cry.
Warren called late, when I was in bed, and he didn’t apologise.
‘I’m informing you that my father is now settled in proper accommodation in Euroa. I’ve got all the services organised: council meals, a cleaner and a regular driver to take him to Shepparton for his treatment and future appointments. We’ve met with his doctor. I’m sharing this information with you so you understand that Dad is being cared for and that you need not bother yourself anymore.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I’ve also notified the local police of our situation.’
‘And what situation is that? You’ve taken your father away from here against his will. Give me a fucking break. I’ll go to the police myself.’
His voice was too calm. ‘I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for my father. But it’s all organised now. He’s quite happy.’
‘He’s not,’ I said, breathing away tears.
‘Please send me an invoice for all my father’s expenses to date.’
‘I don’t want any money. How on earth can you be related to Charlie?’
‘A van is arriving tomorrow to pick up Dad’s personal belongings and a catalogued list of his paintings. I shall now say goodnight.’
My heart was racing. I looked up at the chip in the ceiling dome. Charlie would be in a strange bed with a doona and a pillow that smelt department-store new and not human. The Meals-on-Wheels ladies would be kind and lovely, but they wouldn’t know he only liked food that was prepared with the mood of a glass of red wine and some jazz playing in the background. I closed my eyes and thought of him and who he was to me. In the months Charlie had lived with me and Sophie, in spite of my worries with the orchard, the floors and money, I finally felt I belonged somewhere. Charlie gave me a deep down sense of security that I hadn’t known as a child. My own dad had left me. Mum was always distracted, looking for her own security. Nick had promised it but he’d travelled all the time and was never home. For a short needy moment I had hoped Michael Foster might be the answer. I had tried to find the same thing within myself, just by being strong, but that was too lonely. I wanted Charlie back for his own sake. And because he was my family.
After the removalists packed and crated every one of Charlie’s paintings from his studio, boxed all his paints, the easel, his jazz CDs and player, and bottles of whiskey and gin, nothing was left. Then they rapped on the front door and I let them in. There were a few of Charlie’s paintings around. I watched his things leave the house – all the colour, his history, everything about him.
‘There’s one more,’ the driver said. He unfolded a piece of paper. ‘A large canvas. Marilyn Monroe.’
No one would believe me if I said she was mine, a gift from Charlie. I wasn’t about to fight Warren over it and, besides, I didn’t know how to resist, so I stepped back and showed them where she was. They carefully lifted her out. The art crate wasn’t big enough so they improvised with a white sheet, foam rubber and cardboard, which they taped around her before they strapped her into the truck.
‘And a West Highland white terrier,’ he said.
He pulled out a large wire cage. I found Blondie asleep on the floor beside the window in Sophie’s bedroom. I was glad she was at school so she didn’t witness me putting Blondie in the cage and the removalist pressing the clip down to lock her in. When she felt the lightness of being carried to the back of the truck her ears went up and she looked afraid. She gave two snapping barks as the double doors closed.
I sat on the stone wall, staring at the line of daffodils that had recently blossomed along the length of the driveway. I didn’t have one good idea on how I could change things, other than by driving up and down the streets of Euroa door-knocking. So I did nothing.
We ate dinner in silence. No jazz. The walls were empty and drab. Enrico shook his head and looked to me like I should do something.
‘In Italy this is a crime, a very bad thing. The son doing this to the father to get the money from the paintings.’
‘I think it’s more about Warren thinking I want Charlie’s money.’
Enrico slapped the palm of his hand on his forehead. ‘This is the bad nuts.’
When they’d taken Charlie’s old walnut bed, they’d missed the black-and-white photo of Audrey on the floor beside the bookcase. I picked it up, wiped the dust off the glass and studied her – the burning cigarette between the fingers of her left hand, the line of her nose, the curve of her painted lips, the shape of her eyes and her straight dark hair, which was curled under at the ends. I held the photo far and close. Except for the eyes, Warren was very like her – the fine bones, aquiline nose and high forehead. I put her on a bookcase shelf and tried to console myself that seven months earlier I hadn’t even known this family. And wherever Charlie was now, if I hadn’t bought the orchard, he would have been there long before now.
The next morning Shane drove down the grassy lane between the dam and the orchard and parked next to the corrugated iron pump shed. He pushed between the bushes, stepping over the black irrigation poly pipe. He passed Enrico in Row 58 and crossed over into Row 57, where I was. He was several metres away, close to a wombat hole that was mounded up between two bushes – a problem I didn’t know how to deal with. He tramped towards me, over the pink cuttings and the lichen-covered grandmothers that carpeted the ground. I kept pruning. On the canes, the leaf and flower nodules were close to sprouting and some had already burst. My arms and back were stronger now. I worked automatically, but I was also bored and tired with it.
‘You’re almost done,’ he said.
‘Just over two rows to go.’
‘I had nothing to do with Charlie going.’
I wasn’t sure if I believed him, so I kept working – selected a long pink cane in my gloved hand and angle-cut it above a node so it was less than half the height.
‘Greer.’
I lowered my secateurs and turned to him. In the lens of his sunglasses, I saw my tiny reflection.
‘I want the address,’ I said.
He shifted his footing, and with his boot he shoved a gnarled, broken cane away to give himself more standing room. ‘Warren’s leaving tomorrow. Then I’ll go and talk to Charlie.’
‘Aren’t we past this? I’ve had your uncle living with me for months now.’
‘I’m wondering if it’s best that Charlie stays there. If you go to him, he’ll never settle down and adjust. Maybe you should leave him for a while so he gets used to it. Greer, I want you
to think about it, okay? Do you really want to be nursing an old bloke? You’ve got your first harvest coming up in a couple of months and I don’t think you know what you’re in for.’
He said what he’d come to say. Then he put his hands in his jeans pockets, straightened his back and waited for my reply.
Two lorikeets glided into a bush and sat for a beat before they flew off.
‘You know how happy Charlie was with us,’ I said.
‘When he’s got used to the idea of the unit, you can visit him. Do some running around for him.’
‘Do I have to keep explaining this? You’re missing the fundamental point. Charlie doesn’t want to live on his own in some crappy unit in Euroa. He’s dying. And his last wish is to spend what time he’s got left here. I’m okay with that.’
‘Are you really?’
‘Have you ever heard me say anything different?’
Something shifted in the way he stood – his shoulders relaxed and he took a breath. ‘All right then. Leave it with me.’
We stood facing each other and when no more words came, he turned away and started to cross into the next row and back to his ute.
He stopped, caught my eye.
‘If you want to come to my place for a shower, that’s okay. And laundry. Whatever you need.’
‘Thank you.’
I clenched the secateurs and turned to the bush I had been working on – reined in the next long pink cane, angle-cut it, pulled it away and let it drop to the ground. Shane pushed sideways through the bushes and it wasn’t long until I heard his twin-cab reverse up and move along the laneway beside the pump shed with the long grass flicking against its undercarriage.
18
THE next day I went to Charlie’s empty studio to escape the builders’ noise – the constant mechanical sounds pairing with the drone of rap music. I opened my laptop and put the heater on and rolled it close. The only evidence an artist had once worked here was the thick mat of different coloured oils on the plywood board Charlie had used as his palette. The removalists discarded it because they thought it was rubbish. I brushed my hand gently across the thick, dried and lumpy paint and wondered how he was and where he was. It was eleven-thirty, so he could be on his way to the hospital with the driver, probably in a taxi.
I opened an email with the final order for the blueberry packaging – labels, trays and punnets. Line by line, I carefully checked every detail. Charlie’s design had been converted into a label – SOPHIE’S BLUEBERRIES. It was all correct. I hit send. The order would now go to China where the punnets would be pre-labelled and then air freighted back and delivered to the orchard by the eleventh of December. An invoice for eighteen thousand dollars would be due then, yet I had only budgeted twelve thousand dollars. I was agonising over how to find the extra money – thinking about taking out a loan of some kind – when my mobile rang.
It was a woman called Joanne that I didn’t know.
‘Are you Greer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Charlie Chandler asked me to call you.’
I stood up.
‘I’m with him now.’ She was speaking slowly, as if doing two things at once. ‘We’re at the park. I saw him sitting on this bench forty minutes ago on my walk along the river and he’s still here. The wind’s freezing and he’s only wearing a cotton shirt. He said his dog has run off.’
He should have been on his way back from the hospital. And where was Warren?
I asked to speak to Charlie.
‘How are you?’
‘Not so good.’
‘Why are you sitting on the bench?’
‘Blondie’s gone.’
He hiccupped and breathed hard and was quiet until he hiccupped again, and I realised then that he was crying.
‘You want me to come and get you?’
‘Please.’
‘Okay, I’m on my way.’
‘Blondie’s run off.’
‘We’ll find her. She’ll be all right. Put Joanne back on.’
‘He needs a blanket or a warm bed,’ she said.
‘I’m twenty-five minutes away.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Please wait. I’m on my way.’
I made it in twenty-two minutes. Joanne was sitting with him at the bench under the date palm near the bridge. Charlie looked asleep – eyes closed, his chin was close to his chest. She had draped her coat over him and was hugging herself to keep warm.
I gave Joanne her coat and leaned Charlie forward and wrapped my pink ski jacket around his shoulders. He looked up into my face, a tiny smile, those sad blue eyes.
‘Put your arms in the sleeves,’ I said. ‘We need to go back to your unit.’
‘Why there?’
‘Just for a bit, until we find Blondie. Come on,’ I said, helping him to his feet.
‘Will he be all right?’ Joanne asked, frowning.
‘He’s not well,’ I said. ‘But thank you so much for calling.’
She hesitated, then stepped back and watched us walk slowly up the green slope to the car, my arm around Charlie’s back, step by slow step.
His unit was not far away – less than one hundred metres and one street back from the main drag. He was in Unit 2 and I parked in front of the brown garage roller door. There were six identical units in the block – 1950s, cream brick and tired. There was concrete instead of artificial grass and the only garden was a large pink, budding weeping cherry on the verge. His antiques were inside, but no paintings. Not even Marilyn. The gas heater was on. Charlie carefully lowered himself into his old leather armchair and I put a throw rug across his lap and made him a cup of tea. A mobile phone was on the kitchen bench.
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘Doesn’t work.’
It came to life on the charger and I went through the contact list. There were only four numbers: Warren, Shane, a taxi service and Julie Maxwell, his doctor.
‘Why didn’t you call Shane?’
‘What was he going to do?’
I entered my number and for a moment tried to get him to practice. His fingertips seemed too big and slow for the little buttons. I tried to explain about keeping it charged, but he waved the phone away.
The kitchen was bare. A loaf of white bread and a jar of strawberry jam were on the table. The pantry had no more than a dozen items and the same for the fridge.
‘Have you eaten today?’ I asked.
He shook his head and shrugged, as if it wasn’t important and he didn’t care.
‘Who does your shopping? And the laundry?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer.
I looked in every room, disbelieving. Warren had dumped his father in this place with the basics of everything he needed, a bed, a chair, food, as if all that was missing was a positive attitude.
Charlie turned to the window and as the light struck his face, his pale skin became translucent and the wrinkles around his eyes deepened.
‘I’m sorry to be a burden, love. But I really just want to go home.’
‘Let’s find Blondie first.’
The local council and vet said they would call me if she showed up. I had a few minutes to drive around looking for her before I had to leave to get Sophie from school. I was standing on the small concrete veranda, about to pull the front door closed, when Shane drove in and parked behind my car.
He opened his door, and only half out, one leg on the ground, he said, ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’
I went to him and stood behind the side mirror.
‘How can Charlie be expected to live here? And Blondie is missing.’
He got fully out of his car and stared around as if he might see her.
‘I’ve called the vet and council,’ I said.
‘This whole situation is bullshit.’
Charlie pushed open the front door. He was still wearing my pink ski jacket.
‘Shane, come in here. I want to talk to you.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Love, you
go to Sophie. I’ll talk to you later.’
I looked at Shane, questioning what was going on.
He shrugged. ‘I’ll move my car.’
I left them and drove under the freeway overpass, up the winding road to the tableland and through the long tunnel of tall arched eucalypts that led to Sophie’s school. I parked at the end of the line of cars, beside a peppercorn tree. Mothers were talking at the school gate. I still couldn’t handle the friendly but stilted conversations with women I had nothing in common with. On the few occasions I’d stood waiting we had all tried, a strange pantomime of nodding and shuffling and mostly small talk about the weather. I’d volunteered I was pruning.
‘All by yourself?’
How did that school mum know I was alone with no husband, a single mother?
‘A backpacker is helping me.’
‘Audrey used backpackers all the time,’ she said smiling. ‘What are you going to do about Charlie? He’s a problem for you, isn’t he?’
When another mother called and she turned around and started another conversation, I had stepped away, alarmed that a stranger knew my business. I vowed then that Sophie would come directly to the car.
With my seat back, I wondered what Charlie would be having for dinner. Was a meal being delivered? At a rap on the window, I jumped. A dark-haired woman carrying a baby on her hip was smiling at me. I opened my window and blinked into the sun. She introduced herself as Renee, Freya’s mother. The baby stared wide-eyed at me as if I was very strange.
I said my name and thought about getting out of the car, but couldn’t quite make myself move.
‘The girls want a play date,’ she said. ‘I was thinking about our place this afternoon.’
I’d known this was coming – Sophie had been talking about Freya for weeks. But I’d been trying to avoid it. The other mothers just didn’t seem my type.
‘I’m sorry, it’s not convenient today,’ I said, forcing a smile.
When Sophie came to the car she couldn’t believe that I had said no, and begged me to let her go. Freya joined in too. Please, please, please. So my daughter climbed into the backseat of a stranger’s 4WD and I watched them drive away in the opposite direction to home. And I remembered the last time I’d left Sophie in the care of somebody else – that hideous night in Richmond when I’d found Sophie on Jane’s boyfriend’s black couch.
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