The Stranding

by Karen Viggers

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ he asked, a pleased smile curling his thinnish lips. ‘And keep those wide round eyes for the buyers, will you. They’re wasted on me.’

  By seven thirty the room was crowded and buzzing. Conversation bounced noisily off the bare wooden floors and walls and mounted a cascading sense of excitement. Bodies shifted around the room, mingling, chatting, laughing, perusing. Smartly dressed Sydney people wandered among the jovial Merrigan crowd who were mostly wearing their usual garb of wool knits, floral dresses and flannelette shirts.

  For Callista it was like riding on a wave. People surged constantly towards her and around her, congratulating her, shaking her hand, wanting a piece of her. Swanky city men eyed her cleavage, the curves of her figure. They pressed close. Flushed pink with excitement and champagne she tried not to notice, allowed it to happen, so that interest flashed in their eyes and they swung into a second perusal of her paintings. It was just what Alexander wanted. She worked hard to play the game.

  Red ‘sold’ spots quickly appeared on the title tags. Alexander moved smoothly through the crowd, smiling and nodding, passing comments with the suits from the big smoke, accepting their handshakes, topping up glasses.

  In between city onslaughts, locals swarmed around Callista, patting her on the back, smiling proudly and declaring her ‘our Callista’, like she was another exhibit on show. The room was packed. Almost the whole town was there. Even Helen Beck, slinking shyly between the exhibits with Darren’s hand gripped tightly in hers. Mrs Jensen stalked around the room looking important, her husband Denis shuffling along behind her. Sue was busily engaged in conversation with John Watson. She was too much of everything tonight—too large, too bright, too loud. But it didn’t matter in this room, thick with people and atmosphere.

  Even Jordi popped in for a while. He darted furtively around the paintings, inspecting them closely, then left like a shadow after a brief wave across the room. Her parents had made an effort as well. Jimmy had clipped his beard and borrowed a suit from someone in town, and her mother had scoured all the shops in the region to find something that was her style but not too hippie. She looked proud and radiant in a long loose orange dress with a low-cut neckline.

  Then there was Lex. He was smooth and neat in jeans and a white casual shirt. But he was too often by the bar, refilling his glass and watching her intensely. She knew he was agitated by the men close around her, by the invasive fingers placed on her shoulders, the eyes on her breasts. Every time she looked around the room, her eyes clashed with his. There was tension in his shoulders, anger in his cheeks. She made her eyes flow by him, as if she had barely noticed him. Otherwise, how could she hold him off? How could she keep him away?

  She was afraid of him tonight. With all that wine on board and the jealousy smouldering in his eyes, he could ruin it. She hoped she could trust him not to stage a scene if he got too drunk.

  ‘What’s with Mr Henderson this evening?’ Alexander asked, refilling her glass.

  Callista watched the bubbles fizzing and popping.

  ‘We were together a while ago.’

  ‘Ah, the jealous ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t like you getting all this attention, eh? Do you think I can persuade him to buy something? He ought to have city money. Unless he’s spent it all in the bottle shop.’

  ‘That’s a bit unfair.’

  ‘I hear he kept them in business when he first arrived in town.’

  ‘Alexander, you’ve become a gossip.’

  ‘And I’m loving it.’ He pecked her on the cheek. ‘There’s so much intrigue in this little town. Who’d have ever imagined.’ He leaned in close to whisper in her ear. ‘I’m going to give my friends a private viewing of Mr Beck after this.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘I just want to seek their opinions.’

  ‘I should never have shown it to you.’

  ‘But you did. And you’ll just have to trust me.’ He smiled and tickled her chin and moved off through the crowd to tackle Lex.

  When Lex arrived at the gallery, there was a tight knot of city people around Callista. Alexander was introducing her to a cluster of visitors, all dressed in suits. Lex smiled quietly to himself. Callista looked like a scared rabbit in the spotlight. For a while he stood at the edge of things, watching her as she smiled and shook hands with people. She was unbelievably stunning. He had never seen her with make-up before.

  Then Sue found him.

  ‘Lex. How are you doing tonight?’

  ‘I’m good,’ he said.

  ‘Heard you took a tumble at the Show.’

  ‘Ben Hackett’s damned bull.’

  ‘What a shame. Perhaps somebody should have told you about that.’

  ‘Perhaps they should have. The country grapevine let me down.’

  Sue laughed and moved on to collect another glass of champagne.

  He stood by himself a moment, smiling at various people in the crowd who waved at him, then Sally tapped him on the arm. She was wearing a large skirt and a long white T-shirt. He imagined this was about as dressed up as she could manage.

  ‘Have you seen the paintings?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet. I’ve just arrived.’

  ‘They’re amazing. You won’t recognise the place.’

  He smiled. ‘I thought the idea of landscape paintings was that I should recognise the place.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘What I’m saying is they’re good. She’s incredible.’

  ‘Where are the kids?’

  ‘I left them with Merv, my new fella. You know how it is . . . not much fun coming out to something like this with kids hanging all over you . . . Have you got a drink?’

  ‘No. I’d better get one.’

  He found a glass of wine at a white-clothed table. It was too full so he sucked off the first inch quickly, feeling the cool moisture condensed on the glass. Politely, he skirted a conversing circle of people he didn’t know and swung out into the crush to view Callista’s paintings.

  As he stood in front of the first of them, he felt time stop. The painting was of his beach, the headland illuminated by a flash of lightning that shattered a menacing purple-black sky. He could almost feel the wind whipping up the sea and lacerating the clouds. This was a shock. He hadn’t expected Callista to be so good.

  Slowly he moved around the room from painting to painting, waiting for the crowd to shift so he could get a clear view of each of them. The collection followed the lifetime of the storm and then its retreat to impossibly calm seas beneath a steely grey sky with stray shafts of creamy light cutting through onto restless surf. Then there was a series of works depicting a range of ocean moods: chopped by fresh winds, frisky in bright light, calm at dawn, reflective and still at dusk, silvered by moonlight.

  The exhibition was more than the storm. It was a celebration of light over water and the dark powerful moodiness of the sea. It was a festival of movement, of shadow, of tone, of change. Callista had married herself with the light. She was excellent.

  The final painting was one he recognised. It was the quiet sunset moon over water that he had seen at Callista’s house that first time he had visited. He clearly remembered the soothing pinks and mauves. He remembered her distraction and withdrawal when he had pulled this painting out. It seemed such a long time ago, when all was unknown and everything was possible. It was hard to believe he had made love with this woman, had shared his body and his bed with her. Yet he barely knew her. He had hardly scraped the surface of her. And it made him feel suddenly urgent. He needed her. He needed to know her, to have her, to discover her rich complexity. His feelings surprised him. They were hot, bloody and intense, and came from deep within his chest. The distance to her across the room was like a gulf. Inside him anger tumbled and he wondered if he was too late. It all seemed so far away.

  He left the paintings and moved back to the wine table, found a space at the edge of the throng. He watched Callista across the room, couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Those
men around her, they were wearing their interest in their eyes. He saw their hands intruding on her space, watched them pushing too close, trying to possess something of her. It made him angry, the way they moved in on her like that, as if she was something for sale too. There were invitations, he was sure. He saw her blush often and turn away.

  Alexander came over with a small, knowing smirk and a bottle to refresh his glass. Callista must have told him they had been lovers. It made him feel small.

  ‘What do you think?’ Alexander asked, pouring a glass for himself.

  ‘She’s magnificent.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t she?’ Alexander offered to clink glasses.

  ‘Wine’s good too.’

  ‘I see that you’re enjoying yourself.’

  ‘And holding it like a gentleman.’

  Alexander turned his back on the room briefly. ‘You should consider buying one.’

  ‘I’d have to ask her which one she’d like me to have.’

  ‘But then she’d have to give it to you. And that wouldn’t be fair.’ He topped up Lex’s glass and looked him daringly in the eye. ‘Which one do you think she’d choose for you? Surely you know.’

  ‘Perhaps I don’t know her as well as I thought,’ Lex said, with a smile like plastic. ‘But thanks for the suggestion. I’ll think about it.’

  Alexander moved on to mingle strategically with his guests, and Lex drank. He drank through the opening speeches, through the escalating noisy conversations as wine loosened tongues and wallets, just as Alexander had planned. He drank close to the bitter end, when the crowd thinned and people drifted off to their cars in the crammed car park. He drank, watching those men from the city standing too close to Callista, touching her while she laughed and smiled and avoided his eyes.

  Callista left finally, after having a nightcap champagne with Alexander and giving him a delighted hug. The gallery lights switched off as she stepped onto the walkway, but he left on the outside light for her so she could find her way to the car. She knew he would go straight back to the house where there was more entertaining and more drinking to be done with his guests.

  Alone in the silver night, the ache in her legs and feet reminded her of the strappy shoes and she bent to pull them off, then the stockings, which felt tight and unfamiliar against her legs. Her feet spread gratefully on the wooden walkway and she felt pleasantly reconnected with herself as she padded towards the car.

  Lex was waiting for her in the car park. She saw the Volvo palely illuminated at the far end and the shadow of him leaning up against its bonnet. Without pausing she walked softly to the Kombi, opened the door and slung the shoes inside. Her heart was galloping. How would he be with her after all that wine and all those men?

  She felt rather than heard him arrive beside her, swift across the car park, but she didn’t turn around. There was the sound of his breathing, deep and slightly ragged, and then the touch of his hand on her hair, infinitely gentle. She turned.

  ‘You looked stunning tonight.’ His voice was soft and low.

  ‘It was Alexander,’ she whispered. But he placed a finger across her lips to hush her.

  ‘Your work was magnificent,’ he said, his finger sliding down her cheek. ‘The world was taken by you.’

  His hand crushed gently into her curls and he kissed her, lightly at first, and then urgently as they pressed against each other, their breathing suddenly quick, their bodies alive. They grappled against the car, feeling the contours of each other, the tightness in their bodies, the need.

  ‘They all wanted you,’ he whispered against her neck. ‘But none as much as me.’

  They grasped each other with a wild desperation and made love, bent over the front seat of the Kombi, with the moon silver on Lex’s back and the faint stars sailing like jewels in the clear cold sky. It was passionate, but bittersweet. Callista felt like she was flying, and she didn’t know what she wanted it to mean—this embrace with Lex. With the spin of the exhibition whizzing within her, she was surprised to find she wasn’t sure whether she wanted it to be hello or goodbye.

  PART IV

  The Stranding

  Twenty-five

  Lex didn’t hear from Callista for about a month, maybe six weeks. It was a torrid time of hope, doubt, fear and worry. He had come home from the exhibition aflame with passion for her and keen for a fresh start. Seeing her paintings had kindled something in him. Something basic and incredibly clear. He was ready for her. Finally.

  He rang a couple of times and left messages on her answering machine, but she didn’t ring back. Haunted, he visited Alexander’s gallery and meandered amongst her paintings, trying to absorb something of her. It was pitiful and he knew it. And Alexander was onto him. He could see it in his smug smile.

  ‘Any closer to a decision?’ he asked each time Lex visited.

  ‘Still working on it,’ Lex would say gruffly.

  ‘Better hurry and make a choice or you’ll miss out.’

  At least two-thirds of the paintings had been sold. But they were still on the walls, waiting out their three-week time slot. When Lex dropped by in the last week of May, the walls of the gallery were clean. Everything had gone. Alexander walked back out to the car park with him.

  ‘You’d never know she’d been here, would you, now that the paintings have been taken down. But she’ll exhibit here again. If you want to buy anything you’ll have to wait till next time.’

  Lex left another message on her machine and waited for her to call. Eventually his fluster subsided to melancholy, then irritation, then bitterness.

  She rang finally on a Saturday evening, at the finish of a slow day thick with overcast skies and cool autumn winds. Lex stood by the window with the phone, looking out at the murky clouds and the iron grey waves riding in.

  ‘Sorry we haven’t caught up,’ she said. ‘It’s been so busy. Alexander had some work for me. I’ve been up to Sydney with him a couple of times. Interviews for commissions.’

  ‘He didn’t mention that when I was down at the gallery,’ Lex said, offhand, but his heart was thumping and he was swinging somewhere between hopeful and cross. ‘Has he been lining you up with some of those men from the opening?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s not what you think.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s your paintings they’re after?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Lex. Why this sudden concern for my soul? I think I’m big enough to take care of myself. Anyway, I have more good news to share with you . . . Alexander wants to enter one of my paintings in a portrait competition . . . It’s one I did of Henry Beck.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were painting him.’

  ‘There are a lot of things you don’t know . . . But enough about me. What have you been up to?’

  ‘The usual. Just the cows and me.’

  ‘I thought you liked the cows.’

  ‘Yes, I do—in a milky, manurey kind of way. And there’s not much else on offer in Merrigan, is there? Unless I want to sign on as a garbo.’ Lex couldn’t stop himself now. The words rolled out of him, fast and twisted. ‘No, I couldn’t do that. And it would just be a lateral career shift really. From cleaning away shit in the shed to hauling people’s shit to the tip. No, I’d miss the cows too much. And Ben. He’s such an entertaining bastard.’

  He stopped. A silence thickened between them.

  ‘I was going to suggest a walk early tomorrow,’ Callista said. ‘There’s a beach I wanted to show you. But maybe you don’t feel up to it.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Early would be best.’

  ‘Like how early?’

  ‘Around dawn.’

  ‘It’s not my best time of day.’

  ‘You’ll be right. Bring a coffee.’

  ‘It’ll take more than that to put a smile on my face.’

  ‘I’m sure the weather will cap it off for you then. They’re forecasting wild conditions.’

  ‘Great. I’ll pack some whisky and a hot water bottle.’

  �
��Just try to bring a warm heart. Forget the rest.’

  Lex woke in the pre-dawn and flicked back the curtains. It was a steely grey morning and the sky was streaked with dark wind-whipped clouds. Lovely! Just the day for a walk. In the bathroom, he grimaced in the mirror and flipped a washer across his face to wake himself up.

  Silence sat fatly in the kitchen—that hollow sensation of quiet that belongs to loneliness. He tried to ignore it and shuffled around making coffee and pocketing some snacks. Why was he getting up so early to go for a beach walk? He could walk on the beach any time.

  The headlights of the Kombi flashed through the front window. Pity Callista was so punctual. He’d have nothing to gripe about, apart from the cold. He poured his coffee, tied his boots and pulled his fleece and Gore-Tex out of the cupboard. On the way out he turned off the lights.

  Callista swung open the passenger door for him. ‘Hi.’

  He folded himself into the seat, saying nothing, taking special care with his coffee.

  ‘Not talking yet, I see.’

  Lex could feel her smile in the dark.

  ‘Old bear.’ She gave his arm a squeeze.

  ‘Be careful of my coffee.’

  ‘I hope it thaws you out.’ She tossed his gear onto the back seat.

  As the Kombi roared onto the road, Lex saw a light on in Mrs B’s house. Shame they had woken her. He didn’t like to think of disturbing her restless sleep. She always looked so tired these days.

  ‘Don’t forget to watch out for roos,’ he grunted, as the Kombi skidded on the gravel up towards the forest.

  ‘You forget. I’ve driven this road more times than you.’

  ‘Spare me. I’m not up for a Wallace history lesson this morning.’

  Callista laughed and Lex smiled quietly into his coffee. It was good to see her.

  On the highway, they drove south in silence. The countryside was muted in the low light of dawn. Fog lay in scattered blankets in gullies and across the low-lying flats. Occasionally the shadowy hummocks of grazing cattle appeared in paddocks alongside the road. There was nobody else around.