by J. C. Grey
‘Go away, Maman,’ Marc murmurs, sparing not even a glance for her. His attention is riveted on me in the dress he asked Claire to design and make, and the look in his eyes makes me forget not just his mother but the whole world. In that moment, there is only us.
‘You look … you are …’ Marc falters and cannot finish. With horror, I see his eyes fill and his hand shake as he brushes the tears away.
‘That bad, huh?’ It is inane but it is all I can manage to lighten the awkward moment. It is enough to allow him to get a grip.
‘That bad,’ he agrees and he’s not wrong.
The moment I opened the dress box, I knew it was right. In my heart of hearts, I was certain they wouldn’t sentence me to some meringue or, God forbid, a Little Bo Peep outfit. But this is so me, it seems impossible that I have not had a hand in it.
Deceptively simple, it consists of layer upon layer of tissue-thin silk in various shades ranging from ivory to oyster, skimming from fine spaghetti shoulder straps to just above my ankles. Something about it pays vague homage to the twenties, while being utterly right for a modern beach wedding. A wide ivory band studied with tiny pearls and a small cluster of palely perfect roses at one side holds my hair off my face so that it falls rippling down my back. My feet are bare, save for pearly nail varnish. My only jewellery is my engagement ring and small pearl earrings.
Marc’s clothes are even simpler, an open-neck white shirt and light brown chinos. He has had a haircut, which sets off those perfect ears of his, and when we step out hand in hand onto the shack’s wrap-around verandah, the sunlight turns his eyes from devil-dark to a warm golden-brown that is free of the strain that has been there of late.
A cheer and a smattering of applause go up as we make our way down the steps and onto the beach, along the informal aisle created by the small crowd. The scent of salt and sun is heady, and I press my feet firmly into the sand in order to anchor myself.
‘About bloody time,’ one of the rugby boys says.
‘So sexy I could scream,’ Brendan whispers to Claire, his eyes all for Marc.
‘Mummy, I need to pee,’ Sylvie’s toddler announces urgently.
‘Last chance to escape,’ Marc murmurs, and my fingers tighten reflexively in his as we face the minister.
But it is already too late, for both of us.
Present day, early morning
Today, I wake laughing and crying at the same time, though I did neither at my wedding, my feelings too enormous to be let loose on an unsuspecting world. Instead, I had slipped easily into my performance as the It Bride—smiling, making small talk and dancing cheek to cheek with my husband. Marc, of course, was not fooled. He knew what my control was costing me, and the precise moment when it all became too much.
Determined not to wallow, I push the heels of my hands into my eyes and visualise the heavy garden spade tossing all the memories into the box of sorrows, before I press the lid down hard and deposit it with everything else in the locked room.
Maybe this is not the right moment to speak to Marc. If I feel up to it, I will text him later. The problem is my phone is not in the shed when I check, and I can think of nowhere else to look. I take my frustration out on the jasmine, and after another burst of work, the three brownish shrubs are finally free. I also make a discovery, down low and half hidden by larger branches—a short stem bearing a small mauve-blue ball of a flower, just beginning to die off.
I have an idea and take one of yesterday’s cuttings into the house. Running low on groceries and with next month’s rent due soon, I need to take a trip into Lammermoor in any case. I’m pretty certain the town does not boast a garden centre or nursery, but I recall the hardware shop where I bought the padlock has a small plant selection. It is possible that they will know what these brown plants are, whether they can be salvaged and what I can do to improve their chances.
The real estate agency is unusually busy. As I am waiting, I listen to the talk around me. There has been an interest-rate cut, a signal for people to dust off their mortgages and look for holiday homes before prices start rising again. I am just glad that Val has little time to chat when it is my turn to be served.
‘How is everything?’ she asks, pushing the card machine towards me.
‘Good, thanks.’ I key in my PIN. ‘I heard the house has been sold.’
Her eyes slide away from mine and she busies herself with the receipt. ‘Yes.’
‘I trust it won’t affect my lease.’ I am clear to make it a statement and not a question.
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘Good.’ I take the receipt and thank her. Sally catches my eye as I break free of the jostling crowd on my way to the door. I can see she would like to say something, but I do not wish to hear it. The house has a history, that much is clear without anyone spelling out the details. And now, to add to it, I have dumped my terrible baggage in its hall and hidden my memories in its mysterious locked room.
In just a few weeks, I have come to know the house. I may not know everything but I know it better than most of the townspeople. I even feel a little defensive. The house has protected me, now I must protect it, as long as I am able.
In contrast to the real estate office, the hardware store is empty except for a man in a beanie, who is stocking shelves behind the till as I walk in. My footsteps echo along the aisles as I find lightweight shears to replace the scissors and a large tub of something called slow-release fertiliser. I would prefer something quick but this stuff seems to be suitable for everything. The plants I remembered from my earlier visit turn out to be indoor species, and I see nothing that resembles the twig with its coppery leaves. I do spot a hose, however, and it occurs to me that despite the showers last week perhaps my shrubs are water deprived, cloistered as they have been under the rampaging jasmine.
Taking a coiled hose from the display, I lug it up to the single check-out at the end of the store. The fertiliser nearly slips from my grasp but I manage to dump all my purchases on the old-fashioned desk.
‘Credit, thanks,’ I say, card in hand and looking up at the sales assistant, expecting to see the long-haired man from before. But this one is older, more worn, and his watery blue eyes flare in recognition as they meet mine. I smile and prepare to deny I am that girl, until he steps out from behind the counter and I see the slice of pale skin between his socks and the hem of his pants. It is the man from the gates, today modelling a beanie.
Does he know who I am?
I back up as he comes towards me but he simply goes to a shelf, checks the price of the hose and returns, still having said nothing.
‘I wonder if you …’ I begin, brandishing my twig and leaf. ‘Do you know what this is and what it needs to thrive?’
He spares it and me barely a glance. ‘Hydrangea macrophylla. Cut it back to the first pair of buds.’
I pick up the slow-release fertiliser. ‘No good?’
‘Won’t hurt.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Needs shade. Better on the southeastern side.’
That wasn’t what I meant and I’m sure he knew it. If he wants to say something, this is his chance. But he says nothing more, not even to acknowledge he had been outside the gate that day. Perhaps he is embarrassed to have been caught staring at the house. Or was he hoping for a glimpse of me? Unlikely. He doesn’t appear the type to read the social pages.
Impatiently, I grab my card, gather up my purchases and turn to leave.
At the door I realise I have no free hands to open it and glance back at him. He is clearly reluctant to approach, as though I am toxic in some way. He begins to open the door and awkwardly I try to shuffle past. When he does not move his arm, I look up.
He moves his mouth almost experimentally as if he is trying to find the right words or frame them in the right way. When they come, they are hardly worth the effort.
‘Don’t wait until it’s too late,’ he warns.
I nod. Even I know transplanting plants is be
st done while they are dormant. ‘Thanks.’
It is only while I am driving home, thinking of other things, that I wonder if his warning had anything to do with gardening at all.
Seven
Present day, early evening
The sneaky wind has turned to showers and the showers have turned the soil to mud. The trees drip chilly droplets down my neck, vines cling limpidly to any exposed skin and the tall grasses manage to deposit mud inside my boots despite the tie tops.
After a miserable morning of gardening, during which I seem to achieve nothing except wet feet, I retreat inside and wander aimlessly from room to room.
With my phone still missing, I castigate myself for not buying a camera while I was in town. The gloomy day has transformed the house into a study in shadows, and I journey between the subjects of my last shoot, imagining how I would photograph them today. The curving bannister in particular teases me, and I walk up and down the stairs twelve times, investigating various angles until I have identified the one that delivers the most intrigue.
By mid-afternoon, I am almost stir-crazy and consider a last-minute dash into town, but the showers have turned into something more insistent. Instead, heavy socks on my feet, I wander into the library, switch on the lamp, pluck Jane Eyre from one of the bookshelves and settle in, the bear on my lap.
I read a few classics after moving to Sydney, inspired by a bookish girl I once shared a house with. Jane Eyre I have not encountered thus far, but almost immediately it sucks me in and under. Before I know it, Jane has endured her abusive childhood and student life, and is on her way to Thornfield House. Plain and poor, Jane is not on the surface a heroine who would appeal to me. But she has pluck, and I find myself wanting her to win the day.
Stiff, I shift my position and realise that I am sitting in the dark. The lamp spills a circle of light onto the page. The corner has been bent before so I reinstate the bookmark and head for the kitchen, switching on lights as I go.
The kitchen is as chilly as the rest of the house. The squally rain lashes the windows in bursts and the air feels damp. I light the gas cooktop and fry off some onions and garlic for a leek and potato soup. While it is cooking, I go to the front room to find a warmer cardigan. As I dig through my bag, I realise that the clothes I packed were for mild April and are not at all suitable for a draughty house in late autumn. I will need to do something about that.
Piled under the overhang of the shed are stacks of rough-cut logs that I will need to bring in to build a fire, but it is too wet to go out tonight. Tomorrow morning is soon enough so that they can spend the day drying in the hearth.
Eyeing my makeshift bed, I know that I will need more than a waffle-weave picnic rug to avoid shivering through the night. Before I go hunting for a quilt, I stir the soup and stick a hunk of garlic bread in the oven, as much to have an excuse to switch it on as anything. Drawing my cotton cardigan tightly around me and hoping I quickly find what I need so I can return to the warm kitchen, I start up the stairs.
As I climb, I can hear the wind shrieking around the eaves. Something is rattling. A loose pane or pipe, perhaps? The stairs creak under my socked feet and I grip the polished bannister. The air feels damper up here and I remember the black stain in the main bedroom. Dreading the thought that the water leak has worsened in the weather and that I may need a bucket, I walk into the master bedroom to check the damage. Just then, the lights flicker and die.
Startled at the sudden darkness, I almost lose my balance and have to brace myself against the wall. My ears are tuned for the sound of drips but all I can hear is the sound of my breathing. Relieved, I turn to head back downstairs. There is no point groping around trying to find bedding until the lights come back on. In any case, I can smell the garlic bread and am suddenly ravenous.
At the top of the stairs, I suddenly hear it and stop dead. My missing phone is ringing.
Christmas, the year before last …
Marriage, I quickly discover, changes nothing.
Morocco is an exotic brew of strange sights and scents and stories. By day we wander from landmark to bazaar to café. By night we make heady love. Then we are back in Sydney, and I realise the drama of the wedding has obscured the question of what comes after.
For Marc, work is a given. It has piled up in his absence, whereas I am floundering for direction by noon on the first day back. I call Claire but she is frantically preparing to take on a stall at Paddington Markets and cannot talk for long. Brendan, I know, has left early to return to the family farm for Christmas. Something about coming out of the closet, and admitting he is a photographer, not the chemical engineer they believe him to be. Even around the apartment there is little to do; the unobtrusive and ferociously efficient Rosa Saatchi comes in to take care of housekeeping duties twice a week as she has always done.
Christmas! It is the eighteenth, already, and garish lights are springing up across the city. Even our usually uber-cool inner-city street of terraces and warehouse apartments is suddenly strung with more glitz and glitter than the Las Vegas strip. Out on the balcony, I wince at the large inflatable Santa, half stuffed down the brick chimney of a narrow terrace. When did Christmas get so crass?
I want a tree, I decide, a real one as high as the three-and-a-half-metre ceilings in Marc’s apartment. Two hours later I have chosen it and arranged for it to be delivered, and have moved the furniture around to what I feel should be the summer configuration—to face the bank of glass bi-fold doors that open onto the breezy balcony with its expansive city view.
By the time Marc returns home, the tree is in situ just outside the bi-fold doors so that it can be enjoyed by others as well as us. A swathe of gold fabric conceals its pot, tied with an enormous red bow. I am hip-deep in fabric and ribbon when he walks in the door that yesterday he carried me through (over his shoulder, eschewing anything too romantic), having decided to hand-make our decorations—stars, suns and moons—with an invisible line of tiny fairy lights winding through the branches.
‘Wow,’ he says. ‘We have a tree.’
I have been so carried away by the vision I could see in my mind that I have forgotten that this is his apartment. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so rash.
‘I wanted one,’ I say lamely. ‘I’ve never had a Christmas tree before.’
‘No?’ He takes off his tie and comes and sits cross-legged next to me. He knows I never speak of my life before Sydney, but from time to time he says something that seems like an offer to listen if I want to share. I don’t.
Today, I just shrug. I can’t remember ever having a tree growing up. It just wasn’t the kind of thing my family did. But that’s old news. ‘It’s kind of big.’
He studies the tree, head cocked to one side. ‘It works with the way the room is now. I like the stars.’
We sit there, looking at the tree for a while. I am not sure what he is thinking, and suddenly I have the notion that, on returning to the real world today, he has realised he made a terrible mistake in marrying me. Having been the reluctant one before our wedding, I wonder now if it is now Marc who has had a change of heart and wants out? The lump in my chest is so heavy, I actually put up a hand to it and press hard.
All it has taken is three weeks of concentrated togetherness for him to see through the sham. The only question is why it took him so long. I am desperate, wondering how I can paper over the cracks before they become crevasses. If I promise to take a course, start a career, read the newspapers daily, be a good person, will he stay?
Then he bumps his shoulder companionably to mine. ‘You forgot something important.’ He waggles his eyebrows suggestively and my panic subsides. ‘Mistletoe.’
My anxiety eases but doesn’t disappear. Christmas, I discover, is littered with all sorts of meanings and rituals and family politics—mini landmines invisible to the untrained eye but designed to maim at the very least.
My big mistake is to presume to organise cocktails at the apartment for friends and Marc’s fam
ily two nights before Christmas. However, my beautiful hand-made and mailed invitation to Yvette and Gordon strangely never arrives and it looks as if I am trying to deliberately exclude them. I should have followed up by phone when they didn’t respond, but I put it off and when Marc finally calls them, they already have other plans.
I am nervous yet defiant as we drive towards Vaucluse on Christmas morning. On the back seat, artfully wrapped gifts are piled in bags, one for each member of the family. I am particularly pleased with Yvette’s, having agonised over what to buy a woman who has everything until I found an old black-and-white photo of Marc and his siblings as small children hanging from what looks like a Hills hoist, screaming with delight as it whirls. I have had it framed. Even Marc has no idea.
‘Welcome. Welcome.’ Gordon greets us at the door and ushers us inside where Léo waits with a tray of champagne.
Yvette comes out of the kitchen, where she has been hard at work supervising the catering staff. ‘Darlings!’ Her cheek skims mine and I smell something expensive. ‘Goodness, what’s all this?’
She’s staring at the gifts spilling out of the bags by our feet, dismay written all over her face.
‘Just a few little things to say Merry Christmas and thanks for having us.’ I brush damp palms on my sleeveless silk pant-suit, one leg sporting an iridescent dragonfly.
‘We prefer to donate to charity,’ Yvette says. ‘This year, we decided that there’s something a little … vulgar about gifting ourselves when we have so much to be thankful for. Remember, Emerald? I asked you to tell Marc.’
We both know that she has done nothing of the sort and I have to engage my full protective shell to deflect the fragments of the landmine. It’s not easy, but I manage.