‘What’s that?’ Helen asked suspiciously, as she let her in.
Callista followed her down the white hallway to the kitchen. ‘Sacramental wine,’ she said, sitting down at the table. ‘Don’t you ever do communion?’
Helen’s lips pulled back with distaste. ‘Not out of a bottle.’
‘Have a glass anyway,’ Callista said.
Helen took two tumblers from a cupboard and placed them on the table.
‘How are you going?’ Callista asked.
‘All right,’ Helen said with a tight smile, flicking her eyes away quickly. ‘We’re managing.’
Callista knew that meant Helen was barely hanging in there. She had heard all the outraged gossip going round town about Helen taking over the butchery. Mrs Jensen was promoting Helen’s takeover as scandalous. Silly old woman. Callista hoped it wasn’t affecting business, but, apart from the pitiful array of prepackaged sausages at the supermarket, there weren’t any other options in town for buying meat.
‘How’s the portrait going?’ Helen asked.
Callista hesitated. ‘I don’t think I’m much of a portrait artist. I’m having quite a bit of difficulty getting going on it.’
‘Aren’t the photos good enough?’ Helen’s face sharpened with concern.
‘They’re fine. But I’m frustrated. That’s why I’m here. I’ve tried a few sketches, but I’m struggling. I didn’t know Henry well enough.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Drink this,’ said Callista, pouring some wine into one of the tumblers. ‘It’s lubricant. To help you talk. Don’t worry, I’ll have one too.’ She poured a second glass. ‘Here’s to portraits.’
She offered her tumbler to clink and they sipped. Helen looked unsure.
‘Call it an investment,’ Callista said. ‘I’m hoping it will help me get to know your husband.’
‘He’d be cross with me, drinking this.’
‘But he’s not here. You can do what you want now.’
‘I don’t want to do anything wrong.’
‘Does it feel wrong?’
Helen glanced up and the suggestion of a smile touched her lips. ‘I feel like having another sip.’
‘Do it then. Be outrageous.’
‘What do you need to know?’ Helen asked, one glass down. She was already flushed and a little unsteady.
‘Everything except the saintly. That’s the boring stuff. I know all that. I read the obituary the church put out.’
‘You did? How did you get a copy? They were only supposed to be for the funeral.’
‘John Watson was handing them out at the newsagency. They were on the counter, so I took one. I hope that was okay.’
‘It would have been nice if he’d asked me first.’
‘Your husband was a local personality,’ Callista said. ‘Perhaps John thought he was doing the right thing.’
‘Perhaps . . .’
Helen drifted off somewhere, floating on wine, and Callista wasn’t sure how to press on.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I want to do this painting for you, but I’m having trouble with it. I need to know more from you. I need to get inside your husband’s skin.’
‘That sounds a bit strange.’
Callista shrugged. ‘Maybe, but it’s the only way I can paint.’
Helen sighed. ‘What can I tell you?’ she said. ‘My husband was a very good man.’
Callista stared at her for a moment then topped up both the tumblers. This was probably a hopeless mission, so she might as well enjoy the wine. She’d love to tell this woman what everybody really thought of her holier-than-thou husband, but it’d be too cruel. Even though the man was dead, Helen still wouldn’t betray him, despite his substandard treatment of her while he was alive. At least the poor woman was released from all that now.
‘Perhaps Henry could have spent more time with his son,’ Helen was saying. She gave a small strained laugh and fluttered her eyes nervously away from Callista. ‘I’m trying to think of some of the not-so-saintly things you said you were looking for. He . . . Henry . . . was very serious about his job and he was also very devoted to his church duties, so I think, perhaps, Darren might have missed out sometimes . . .’
Callista drank more wine and tried to look interested. Internally, she was rolling her eyes. Was this the best Helen could think of?
‘Perhaps, also, Henry might have sometimes been a little indiscreet about his donations to the church,’ Helen admitted. ‘I think perhaps he may sometimes not have been as wholesome in the giving as God intended. A little boastful, maybe. But then he was very proud of his efforts to support the church, and there’s nothing wrong with that . . . being proud of your service to God . . .’
Callista nodded and tried not to yawn. She noticed Helen take a deep breath as if she was psyching up to something.
‘All right then,’ she said with a small frightened smile. ‘I’m going to be very daring.’
She looked directly at Callista, and even before she spoke Callista knew it was a step in the right direction. Helen looked stronger.
‘I hope you won’t be too shocked if I tell you that Henry enjoyed making love.’ Helen’s face paled and her fingers tightened around the tumbler. ‘And he was very good at it . . . Is it wrong to talk about this?’
Callista laughed. ‘No. It’s just what I need to hear. When is sex ever wrong if it’s good?’
Helen took a nervous sip of wine. ‘I suspect Henry probably felt guilty about how much he enjoyed it. Our church says it’s only supposed to be for procreation. But Henry definitely quite liked it.’ Helen blushed. She stopped and glanced at Callista. ‘You’re not horrified?’
‘No. This is all normal stuff.’
‘I can’t think what else to tell you.’
‘Have some more wine.’
Helen giggled. Her cheeks were starting to fizz red from the alcohol. ‘This feels so naughty,’ she said.
‘But you’re having fun,’ Callista said. ‘It beats communion, doesn’t it?’
Helen nodded and took another careful sip. ‘Have you ever taken communion?’ she asked.
Callista snorted. ‘Even if I could get my blackened soul through the front door of the church, I don’t think the minister would have me.’
Helen shook her head over-emphatically. The wine was exaggerating her movements. ‘I’m sure he’d take you in,’ she said. ‘The church is the house of the Lord, after all.’
The wine was enhancing the evangelising, not drowning it as Callista had hoped. ‘I think I’m doing fine just as I am,’ she said.
‘Not according to Mrs Jensen.’ Helen’s eyes widened as she realised her gaffe and she covered her mouth and giggled. ‘Oh dear. I’m not being very tactful, am I?’
‘Since when was Mrs Jensen ever tactful?’
They laughed together.
‘You know,’ said Helen, wobbling a little drunkenly. ‘There are some things I could tell you about Henry that would turn your toes.’
‘Really?’ Callista topped up Helen’s glass again. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Oh yes.’ Helen wagged a finger at Callista. ‘But the story I have isn’t very nice, and it might change your opinion of him, so I don’t think I can tell you.’
‘Surely it can’t be that bad.’ She handed the glass to Helen.
‘Yes, it is bad.’
Helen took a few more sips of wine, her face pale. She had loosened up as Callista had planned, but she was so wrought and tense, Callista wished she hadn’t asked. She wished she’d just painted the bland portrait this tortured woman was looking for.
‘You don’t have to tell me this, you know,’ she said. ‘It was unkind of me to pry.’
‘No,’ Helen said, eyes wide with stress. ‘I really should tell it.’
Callista filled her wine and looked at Helen. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m ready. Nothing you can say will shock me, so don’t worry about that.’
Helen smiled faintly, and then
it all came out in a rush, as if she had been waiting for years to release everything she’d been holding so tightly within.
It had started two years after Darren was born. Henry had suddenly become serious about having more children. Before that they had been trying on and off, just on the chance that Helen might fall pregnant. Which she didn’t. Then two years after Darren, Henry decided it was time. Time to get on and fill all those rooms upstairs with children. They had a moral and religious duty to provide God with lots of little Christians. That was why they had married, after all.
For several months they tried to get pregnant. Henry was very persistent, and each night after dinner, once the kitchen was clean and they had showered, he insisted they make love. He wasn’t going to miss a chance. He said it was ‘God’s work’ and that there should be no rest. Then one month Helen’s cycle was late. She was just four days overdue and Henry was convinced she was pregnant. He made her cups of tea and sang hymns around the house with all the sunlight of heaven in his eyes. Then, of course, Helen wasn’t pregnant. She was afraid to tell him. Afraid to face her judgment. He had been waiting for so long.
So she waited all evening, until Darren was in bed, and told him when they were in the bedroom where she knew Darren couldn’t hear them if Henry raised his voice in anger. But Henry didn’t yell. He was silent, and Helen waited while he stared at her, disbelieving. Then his face changed and she knew she had to get away. She tried to escape into the bathroom, but he caught her and pulled her back. He hit her and tore her clothes off. He took her violently on the bed. That was the first time it happened like that, but it wasn’t the last.
Helen stopped abruptly, looking alarmed.
‘That’s enough,’ Callista said. ‘You can stop now.’
‘Can I?’
Helen looked so pathetically grateful. Callista was horrified she had pressed her into this. Then Helen turned even paler than usual and swayed to her feet.
‘I feel ill,’ she moaned. ‘What’s happening?’ She ran to the bathroom and vomited. ‘It’s Henry!’ she said between spasms. ‘He’s punishing me.’
‘No,’ Callista said. ‘It’s the wine. I didn’t realise you’d drunk so much.’
Helen clutched the bowl and heaved again, crying. ‘God will never forgive me.’
‘God will forgive you,’ Callista said. ‘What Henry did was wrong. No woman should be treated like that.’
Helen slipped to the floor, unable to stop weeping.
‘Come on.’ Callista helped her to her feet, found a bucket in the laundry and took her upstairs to bed.
Knowing about Henry didn’t bring inspiration. It brought only anger and disgust. Every time Callista pulled out the photos intending to get started, she wanted to kill him, to hurt him somehow, as he had hurt Helen. Henry’s violence was the most putrid thing she could think of. She remembered Luke kicking her on the stairs as he left, like she was a dog. And now there was Helen, powerless beneath a man with righteousness and the wrath of God in his spine.
There must be some way for Helen to be empowered now that Henry was gone. But Callista was appalled to see in herself that same powerlessness, even beyond Luke. She had tiptoed around Lex’s edges like a mouse, afraid to tell him who she was. The old powerlessness was still with her too. Had she learned nothing from Luke?
And yet lately her painting had given her new life. It was a fresh feeling, vital. The storm paintings had sung out of her, even though they had been hard work. Ridiculous as it sounded, it had been glorious creating moods of colour and light. The brush had felt strong in her hand. The colours were beautiful.
But Henry was something else. Each time Callista’s anger passed, it left her weak and lethargic. She tried to set him aside, attempted to block out the black emotions he stirred in her. But he nagged at her and depressed her. Eventually she was backed so far into a corner trying to flee that she realised she had to confront him. That he wouldn’t wait. She couldn’t paint the commission for Helen until she started another painting of Henry. There was so much of him she had to purge in order to master the painting that Helen needed. She had to work on the truth before she could muster a convincing lie. The decision felt good. She could hide the work afterwards. No one need ever see it.
She set up a canvas and started on Henry. She would paint him lit starkly with white light against black. For wasn’t that how he was? A man of studious contrasts: black and white, good and evil, life and death.
With fresh insight after Helen’s revelations, Callista now understood how to paint him. She used her hatred, the new anger at Henry Beck, and directed it all at him. The black and white was potent. No subtle shades of grey for Henry. She pulled him out of darkness in a way he would have understood: in stark sharp lines and rigid boundaries between black and white. Henry Beck was the clot of all the negative emotions she had carried through her life.
She kept at him doggedly, building up his features, shaping his face. And now, finally, she could paint his eyes.
Twenty-one
On the way home from work one Friday, Lex saw a young woman along the highway looking for a lift. She was standing by the 100-kilometre sign with her pack propped up against the signpost. He started to slow down. She was wearing torn-off denim shorts and a black singlet top with a low neckline, dusty hiking boots and creamy-coloured woollen socks. Lex took it all in, admiring her relaxed, unself-conscious, semi-seductive pose. Her legs were long and brown and appealing. As he pulled up he saw her hair was twisted into a mop of dreadlocks with beads sewn in like little nests. Her face was brown and heavily freckled.
She yanked open the back door of the Volvo, threw her pack in and slammed the door. Then she hauled the front door open and swung into the front seat beside Lex. There was an air of slackness about her that he couldn’t name. Nonchalance? Confidence? Youthful ignorance? Youthful arrogance? He put the car in gear and pulled out onto the highway. The girl rolled down her window and crooked her elbow out.
‘How far are you taking me?’ she asked.
Lex was uncomfortably conscious of the taut muscularity of her thighs and calves just a hand’s breadth away from the gearstick. There was not a hair on her legs. It was a long time since he had been this close to a young female body.
‘My turn-off is about six kilometres down the road.’
‘Bullshit! Why did you pick me up then?’
‘Does your mother know you’re out hitching on country roads alone?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘You’re lucky I’m a nice guy. There’s plenty around that aren’t.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ she snarled. ‘Let me out then.’
She swung open the door while they were picking up speed on the highway. Lex was surprised but didn’t slow down. He knew she was bluffing and he wasn’t ready to let her out yet. She was interesting.
‘Want some dinner?’ he asked.
She pulled the door shut. ‘I suppose I have to eat. Not much open around here.’
‘Nothing. Next town’s about forty ks away.’
‘And you were going to dump me six ks out of Merrigan. Thanks a lot.’
Lex wasn’t sure quite what he had intended to do. ‘So is that a “yes” to dinner?’ he asked.
The girl grunted impatiently. ‘Do you want me to beg?’
He swung the Volvo onto the Point road. They hammered too fast onto the dirt and skidded slightly on the corrugations. The girl’s open window sucked in the dust. In silence they drove through the bush and then over the rolling hills towards the sea.
‘Do you live at the end of the earth or something, man?’ she said, finally winding the window up.
‘The name’s Lex. Lex Henderson.’
‘Shit. Fancy name. Are you descended from royalty or something?’ She laughed. It was hard and detached, like she’d already lost something of herself in the few years of her life. ‘I’m Jen. I suppose we’d better get to first names since you’re going to feed me. And, by the way, I’m vegetari
an. Can you cope with that?’
Lex rolled his eyes. ‘It’ll stretch me, but I’ll give it a go.’
They pulled up on the grass outside the house. It was a calm evening, with the sea a blue-silver and the light melting to apricot on the horizon.
‘You going to take me to Eden after this?’
‘I’ll think about it. Depends on how well you behave yourself.’
‘Scoutmaster.’ She pulled her pack out and followed him inside. ‘Nice spot,’ she said. ‘Except for the trash-heap next door.’
‘My neighbour’s too old to fuss over tidiness.’
‘Looks like it. You should clean it up for her—an able-bodied man like yourself.’
Lex wasn’t sure he felt comfortable about her reference to his body. And he wasn’t sure he liked her critical young eyes checking out his belly and thinning hair. He gave her a beer then started rustling around in the pantry for vegies to chop. While he worked in the kitchen, she poked around the bookshelves and squinted at Callista’s paintings on the wall. He admired her easiness as she wandered around the house, touching things and exploring like a child.
‘Not a bad set-up,’ she said, glancing his way. ‘You on your own here?’
‘Most of the time.’
‘That sucks.’
She grabbed a book from the shelf, sat on the lounge and spread her arm along the back of it, drinking beer and staring out to sea. She made no effort at conversation and no offer to help with dinner. The silence didn’t bother her. She read the book intermittently, like she was waiting at a bus stop.
When dinner was ready, Lex laid two bowls of pasta on the table.
Jen didn’t look up from her book. ‘Mind if I just sit here with it on my lap?’
He sat down at the table and chose not to answer.
‘Okay,’ she said, standing up on those long lean legs. ‘I’ll eat with you.’
They ate for a while in silence.
‘Are you studying?’ he asked to break the silence.
‘Nah. I’m an activist.’
‘What does that mean?’ He masked a smile by plunging a forkful of food into his mouth.
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