Wednesday drifted by. I mooned, preoccupied about the house, and watched my neighbour through the slats of the blind. She was scattering little grey pellets on the bald bits.
I read the books I had taken from Jonathan’s. There was nothing about his disappearance in the daily paper. I supposed it was of little general interest.
In the evening James phoned.
‘How are you, love?’
‘I’m fine thank you, James. How are you?’ It was hard to form words after a speechless day. I didn’t talk much to Angelica. She would probably grow up deprived.
‘I’m fine too, darling. Tired, of course. Been bloody busy. Sorry not to have phoned before. I didn’t get a chance until late last night and then I was scared I’d wake you or something. Listen, darling, I know it’s a drag, but it doesn’t look as if I’ll get home again tonight. We’re still flat out finishing off a bit of film we need tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll try to be home at a reasonable hour. All right?’
‘All right. But you know I won’t be home till late. It’s Thursday tomorrow. Couldn’t you come home this evening instead, and work tomorrow? It would be so nice.’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I’ve made all my arrangements now. Besides, I told you I’ve got to have this film ready for tomorrow. Can’t you cancel Thursday? I mean, it’s only one of many. There’s always next week. If you can put it off that long, that is.’
‘I’m sorry, James. They’re expecting me, you see. I couldn’t let them know in time.’
‘No, I suppose not. Never mind. At least we’ll see each other for a bit tomorrow night. And we’ll have a lovely weekend, I promise you. We might borrow the car and go for a picnic. I could use a bit of fresh air and a day away from all this carry-on. What do you say? Would you like that?’
‘Yes, James. That will be lovely.’
We played our word games for a little longer, told each other that we loved us, and hung up.
I could safely begin anticipating tomorrow—but not quite. As I sat in the dark on the floor by the phone, a scrambling began at the fly-wire door.
‘Hello in there,’ came the voice of my neighbour. ‘Are you home?’ She paused. ‘Only—if you are—I’ve something to show you. If you can spare the time.’
Was she being sarcastic?
She entered the room. The light clicked on and I rolled sideways on the carpet, covering my eyes.
‘Whatever’s up, pet?’ she enquired, prodding me with her hush-puppied foot. ‘Not still feeling crook, are you?’
I sat up and assured her of my excellent health.
‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ she said. ‘Now tell me, what do you think of this?’ She waved a glossy booklet in front of my face.
I took it from her and flicked through it. A line of little gnomes danced before my eyes, performing a series of tiny gnomic steps. They stood up, sat down, spun round—a whirling chorus line in little green breeches and bright red hats.
‘You’re not looking at it properly,’ accused my neighbour. ‘You’re going too fast to take it in.’
I flattened the booklet out on the floor and we went through it together while she explained her plan.
‘It’s for those bits where the grass hasn’t taken right,’ she told me, as we paused to admire a wrought-iron lace-work Spanish-colonial-style bird table. ‘I thought that if I put a few pieces of garden furniture over them and maybe one or two of these little fellows’—her grass-stained forefinger stabbed a passing gnome—‘the whole effect would be better.’
I agreed with this, but she wasn’t listening. Her mind was racing on, anticipating problems. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘it won’t be that easy, you know. All that dust off the road. I’ll have to be out there dusting quite a bit, I can see that. All work and no play, that’s me.’
I smiled encouragingly and she prepared to leave.
‘Well, that’s that, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll get off home now and fill in the order form straight away.’
I saw her to the door, which creaked shut behind her. Her voice drifted back through the darkness.
‘That door could use a spot of oil, dear. I’d get hubby on to that right away, if I was you. Goodnight then.’
‘Goodnight,’ I said and went inside to bed, falling straight to sleep.
It was dark when my heartbeats woke me, thumping in my ears; and I lay very quiet while the drumming subsided. Feeling cold, I stretched over the edge of the bed and groped underneath for a nightdress. I dragged it out, shook it free of dust and put it on. I went into Angelica’s room and stood over her, listening to her breathing, trying to match her light rapid breaths with my own. This had been a habit from her birth. I had waited then, half in agony, half in hope, for the breathing sound to stop. Angelica showed no sign of waking, so I went back to bed; but before going off to sleep, I got up again and dragged the big bag from the wardrobe. I crawled under the bed, found the whip and put it into the bag with the boots and jumper. I returned to bed and lay sleepless, waiting for Thursday to start.
It started badly. Mother-in-law said she had a cold.
‘Not a bad one. Just a sniffle, really. But I’m wondering if we should risk Angelica’s catching it.’
‘Oh no. Look, don’t worry. Really there’s no need. She’s very tough.’ I shook her up and down to prove she had no rattles or loose parts. I hadn’t the faintest idea how tough she was. Angelica had never been ill. Her face shone, pinkly trusting, up at me.
‘Well, I don’t know, my dear. A cold can be a very nasty thing for a little baby. I’m not sure I should be with her today.’
‘Well, perhaps it will be all right if you don’t breathe on her.’ I was beginning to panic. ‘Just keep her at arm’s length or something. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to go now because of the bus. I’ve got to go because I’m expected. It’s too late to let them know. They’re not on the phone, you see—that’s the trouble.’
I pushed Angelica at her and retreated through the double windows. I kept up these disjointed justifications until I was halfway across the lawn. Then I ran. I ran up the road repeating ‘I have to go’, like the Little Red Engine thinking it could, but not so worthy.
The bus to town was running late and I almost missed the second. The driver was looking over his shoulder. When he saw me he gave a cosy smirk of welcome and started up. ‘Gooday, as the natives say. Bit late, aintcha? Waited for you, though, didn’t I?’
‘Thank you very much.’ I smiled and tried on a grateful expression.
‘Hold very tight, please. Ding ding,’ he yelled. The bus lurched out of the depot and into the oncoming traffic. The street exploded with furious car horns and blazing sun, and the black tarmac ahead danced and dazzled, liquid with heat. The transistor roared with static. I started to feel better. I felt in my bag for my purse, opened it and handed him the fare.
‘No, love. Forget it. Can’t charge you for it, can I?’ He curled his lips and vibrated them together thoughtfully. ‘I’ve washed me hands, see.’ He waved them both at me. The bus lumbered towards the middle of the road, and the passengers gave us a collective glare. He hauled it back, half-standing in his seat, both hands heaving on the wheel. ‘And I’ve cleaned me nails. Like you said.’
‘Did I?’ I looked at his hands. The tops of his nails were white and scraped-looking against the plastic steering wheel.
‘Yeah. You said, “Next time clean your nails first. I’m scared I’ll catch something.” Well, it’s next time and I have.’
‘Yes, I see you have. Well, that’s great. I’ll see you later then.’
‘Yeah. See you later. See you tonight then, eh?’ This time he winked and rolled his fat top lip into a passable Presley sneer.
I walked down the centre aisle to an empty seat at the back of the bus. He was yelling something after me. ‘I’ve got a nailfile in me pocket. In case they get dirty during the day, like. And I’ve got a packet of them impregnated cleaning pads from the chemist to wipe me hands with.’ I smiled
and waved in a feeble parody of the Queen, shoved my bag under the seat and sank down with relief.
My fellow passengers sent me brightly enquiring looks. I smiled and waved at them too, and then turned and gazed fixedly through the window at the retreating city centre. When everyone had settled down I took out my comb and dragged it through my hair. My eye caught the driver’s in the mirror fixed above his seat. He sent me a cheerful wink and ran his tongue greasily round his lips. I went back to window-gazing.
The bus stopped at the large general hospital on the outskirts of town, and an old man in an almost floor-length grey raincoat got on. As he walked down the bus towards me, I saw that the raincoat was open. It covered a synthetic shirt buttoned to the neck. A string vest matted with grey sweaty chest-hairs peeped through the shiny transparent nylon. Knee-length grey shorts, varicose veins, tartan ankle-socks and plastic peep-toed sandals flashed at me intermittently as the raincoat swung open and shut.
He carried a large Gladstone bag. He settled himself into the seat opposite mine and started to cough: something rattled deep down behind his string vest. He began searching through the bag on his lap, desperately. It was clearly a race against time. The rattling was getting higher, and whatever it was down there had nearly reached the surface. A red-and-blue striped pyjama jacket landed limply in the aisle, raising grit-bursts of dust and trampled chicken feathers. The old man was throwing everything out of the bag in an effort to find something. With a sigh of relief, which collided in his throat with a sickeningly gurgling cough, he pulled out a clear plastic container. He held it up triumphantly, like a happy hostess displaying the latest line at a Tupperware party, and spat loudly into it. He fitted a lid on it, taking great care to make it airtight. Satisfied, he held it up to the window and swirled its contents round and round, watching rapturously.
‘They give me the little pots at the hospital. I’ve got a lot more in here.’
I leant over and picked up his pyjama jacket and a squeezed-out mangled tube of toothpaste that had landed just under my seat. He took them from me and tucked them carefully away. Then he gently placed the plastic pot on top and cuddled the bag against his chest. Resting his chin on the pot, he looked over at me and said: ‘What they do is, I send this stuff back to them at the hospital and they look at it under a microscope. I’ve got this chest infection, see. Had it for years. Don’t seem to be able to shift it.’ As if reminded of its tenacity, the chest rattling started up again, followed by the frantic scrambling through the bag.
The routine was repeated many times during the journey. Being nearest to him, I helped manage his possessions each time as they flew about the bus, and there was no time to gaze out of the window at the passing scene.
The bus stopped dead just as I was feeling under my seat for the old man’s comb. I fell forward and banged my forehead on a box of bananas.
‘There’s yer dopey-looking boyfriend waiting for you. Pretty, ain’t he? Here’s his fan mail.’ The driver waved a fistful of letters at me.
I handed the old man his comb. It was metal with wide teeth—designed to do battle with a good deal of thick hair, clearly a relic of his youth, since now he was almost bald.
‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘Nice comb, this. Used to use it on me dog. When the dog died, seemed a shame to throw it out.’
‘You gunna stand chatting all day then?’ yelled the driver. ‘Only I’ve got a lot of stuff to deliver, you know. People waiting on me.’
I said goodbye to the old man.
‘See you tonight then, darling,’ whispered the driver, as I took the letters and left the bus. As it pulled off I realised too late that I had left the boots and jumper under the seat. And the whip.
Ben crossed the road. I handed him his mail, and we walked arm in arm towards the house. I told him about the forgotten bag, but he said it didn’t matter. It was too hot to think about jumpers and boots; he had no use for a whip right now. He didn’t ask where the things had come from, and I envied his lack of curiosity.
It was a golden morning, and the fence posts were touched with it. Ben’s hair blazed. The gums shed golden shadows.
There were lots of extras in the yard that I couldn’t remember seeing before. Tiny bright butterflies played in a holly bush, whose tough, deep-green leaves were cracked from summer heat, each crack lined with gold dust—veins of rare richness. Fluffy, comic-book yellow baby chickens scurried resolutely in the dirt under an old iron ploughshare which was covered in sun-tinted saffron-coloured rust. The air smelt of Vicks vapour rub. I thought of something I’d been told: that every returning Australian knew he was nearing his homeland when, after days at sea with no land in sight, the eucalyptus smell drifted on the wind from the unseen coast and touched his nostrils. This morning I thought it a lovely story. Sentimental tears started in my eyes, and I sniffed to stop my nose running.
Ben heard. ‘Listen, I told you it doesn’t matter about those things. Things just aren’t that important. Not ever.’
‘It’s not that. It’s just so beautiful here. Specially beautiful today, somehow.’
We stood on the old wooden verandah looking over the golden yard.
‘Yes, it is beautiful. Feels good. Nobody near. Lots of space to think in.’
We were standing in a cloud of strange perfume: a heavy scent. Ben said it was called patchouli—a friend had sent him a little phial of it from Sydney, and he would give me some. Prostitutes had used it during the reign of Queen Victoria, he believed. It was Indian, he said. Mystic. Oriental. Sexy.
We went into the kitchen. I sat at the large scrubbed-pine table and took off my shoes, flattening my feet on the cool grey stone floor. Ben put the kettle on the stove and a Bob Dylan record on the stereo deck in the living room, a nice sunny countryfied Dylan to go with the morning—‘Country Pie’. He turned the volume up and opened the serving hatch in the dividing wall. We sat opposite each other, drank tea and smoked, feet tapping, heads nodding, mouths making silly smiles.
I was waiting for playtime, but Ben left the kitchen and returned with a block of drawing paper and a clutch of thick draughtsman’s pens. He put them in a small brown rucksack.
‘Come on. We’re going for a walk up the valley.’
I felt my face doing various well-recorded surprised things: jaw dropping, mouth opening, eyes widening. I was wondering what I had done. Sure it was to do with last week’s scene—my punishment. I had hoped for something more interesting.
Ben was filling a flask with water and putting biscuits into a paper bag. He left the room again and came back wearing one digger hat and carrying another. He jammed the second on to my head. It came down over my ears. He pulled it off and balanced it carefully on top of my hair.
‘These belong to the old man. Genuine World War Two army issue. How about that? Getting any warlike vibrations?’ He put his pouch of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers into his jeans pocket, took off his shirt and picked up the rucksack. ‘That’s it. Get your shoes on. Let’s go.’
He walked out into the yard, and I watched him through the window. He turned and beckoned me. I followed, through the yard and across the brown paddock nearest the house. He zig-zagged across it, avoiding the biggest clumps of thistles, and I followed a few yards behind. The hat was making my head hot and itchy, and I stopped to take it off. I also removed my T-shirt, which I draped over a large woody-stemmed prickle, placing the hat on top.
Once through the paddock, the way along the valley led in a stretch of boulder-strewn rough grassland round one side of a conical hill, but Ben didn’t go that way. Instead he started up over the lower grassy slopes of the hill. I hurried to catch up.
‘I thought you said we were going along the valley?’
‘Yes. But then I thought of climbing the hill. It’s great up there. High up, hot and grassy. Tucked right up under the sky. You can see for miles. Like a plasticine map. You’ll see.’
We were at the edge of the strip of bush that curled round the middle
section of the hill. As we entered it, the silence wrapped itself round our heads. The air was cool and fragrant, and the bush sparse. Four years before a bushfire had roared up the valley. The flames had crept up the hills on either side, scouring them clean of growth. There were groups of new, slender, dusty green saplings among the remaining large trees which bent and rustled in our ears, tickling our armpits as we pushed through them. Twigs snapped under our feet. Strips of bark layered the ground.
The growth became slightly thicker as we climbed, and we returned to single file. Large fallen tree trunks, some still blackened at the edges, made their own clearings in the bush. Most were half hollow, the wood inside a soft, damp, sawdusty, insect-riddled, rubbery pulp, the outsides covered with open-pored sponges of beige fungi and emerald-green mosses. We rested on one, sitting back to back. I sealed my skin inch by inch to his. We drank water from the flask. Ben rolled two thin cigarettes and passed one to me over his shoulder. We sat in a cloud of fragrant head-blurring smoke and admired the view. Below us, through the trees, was his neat wooden farmhouse: the paddocks, the creek, the duck pond, the yard. Beyond that was the township. A central group of simple square Georgian houses, with tiny rectangular windows and doors, stood clustered round a sandstone church—small boxes arranged round a bigger box topped by a tall narrow triangle, a geometrical study in gentle local stone. Behind the township, little fenced-in fields backed into grassland dotted with miniature cows, distant blobs on four short sticks. The grasslands climbed halfway up the rounded hills on the other side of the valley, the tops of the blue-green trees blurred smokily against the bright blue sky. High up, centred in the blueness, was the sun. Golden shafts came straight at us from its central silver disc: fine playground slides of gold. It looked just right for the sky to split and God and all His angels to come streaming down—sliding down the fat sunbeams, sandalled feet pink and kicking, white robes billowing.
Blue Skies Page 7