“Hello!” says Hiro. He's got his hands on his hips and is looking down at me from the stage. “I saved a space,” he says, pointing to a spot about ten meters away from the stage, where there is a pile of instrument cases. “I can sit here too, when we are not playing.”
We move the instrument cases to one side and lay out the blanket. Hiro sits down and I help Grace onto the blanket.
“Are you nervous?” I ask.
Hiro shrugs. “This is not new to me. I enjoy making music with people. I play these when I was …” He holds his hand about a meter off the ground; then he laughs. “… Maybe not. Maybe more.” He holds his hand higher, and laughs again. He leans back on his elbow.
“You look much …” He frowns. “No, what is it? Very beautiful.” He raises an eyebrow at me.
Oh my God! Oh my God! Be cool, Rach. Be cool.
I blush. I turn around to open the picnic basket. “Thank you. Would you like something to eat?” I pull out the loaf of bread and put it in his hand.
He looks down at the loaf of bread suddenly in his hands. “Ah, no, thank you. I will eat after.”
I snatch the bread back and thrust it into the basket.
That was not cool. Do something cool, quick.
I pull out the band that's holding my hair back and shake my hair out like they do on the shampoo ads.
That was fairly cool.
I run my hand through my hair. The buckle of my watch gets caught in my hair.
Ahh! Ahh!
He leans toward me and starts to pick at my hair. I can smell him. He smells sweet. I can see his Adam's apple under his caramel skin, right in front of my face.
“There,” he says, smiling. His face is close to mine.
You could kiss him. Do it! Do it!
“Harold, we're up.” A man in a dinner suit holding a violin is calling down from the stage.
Hiro stands up and brushes down his pants.
“Break a leg,” I say.
“You tried that already,” he says with a laugh. He bows slightly and walks away.
I watched as Hiro and the other three men settled into their places on the stage. They paused for a moment. The whole park went quiet. I felt a little delicious shiver of anticipation. Then they began.
It was beautiful. They had no sheet music, they just played, looking at each other. Hiro was frowning with concentration. A wisp of his hair came loose from the ponytail.
I looked at Grace. She was lying back on the grass with her eyes closed.
They played for about twenty minutes; then they stood up and bowed. The man with the violin picked up his microphone. “We'll just be taking a short break. Don't go away! We'll be back soon.”
I could see Hiro at the side of the stage, drinking a bottle of water, while the man with the double bass was speaking to him. Hiro passed his cello to one of the roadies, poured some water in his hand and threw it over his head, smoothing down the loose hair.
I reached into the picnic basket and pulled out the bottle of wine. I eased the cork out and poured two glasses, handing one to Grace. I made two sandwiches of cheese and pastrami and roasted tomato and put one in Grace's other hand. I started to munch on my sandwich.
I looked up and saw Hiro waving at me from the side of the stage. I waved back, inhaled a piece of bread and started coughing uncontrollably. I coughed up the offending crumb and quickly looked up again, but Hiro was turned the other way talking to the violin man.
They sat down and started to play again.
I filled up our glasses again. I rather smugly rubbed some insect repellent on Grace's arms.
Who's a clever nerd, then?
At the end Hiro jumped off the stage and came and sat down on the blanket with his cello in its case at his feet. “I will eat your bread now,” he said, smiling.
“That was wonderful.”
He shrugged. “We played well today.”
He reached into the picnic basket and pulled out a glass. I made him a sandwich and promptly dropped it on the blanket.
What is wrong with you?
I picked up the bits of sandwich and put them in one of the empty plastic bags.
“You are kind of, what do you say? Stupid?” He looked at my face. My jaw had dropped. “No, no, I think the word is clumsy?” Now he was embarrassed.
“Only when you are around,” I said. “I am as agile as the next person, when you're not around.”
“I make you, ahh … excited? Yes?”
Yes. Yes, you do.
I pulled out the insect repellent and handed it to him. “No, it's just … I don't know.”
He was looking at the bottle, turning it over in his hands. “For the food?” he asks me.
“No,” I laughed. “Here, you rub it on your arms.” I demonstrated. While he rubbed the repellent on his arms I made him another sandwich, pulled out the wine and filled his glass.
We sat together, talking about music and watching the roadies pack up the gear, winding cords around their forearms.
We talked about television. “We have some of the same television at home. They do translating.”
“Like “Monkey Magic,' huh, Tripitaka,” I said, “you know, Tripitaka?” I started singing, “Born from an egg on a mountaintop.”
“No, I don't know, but you could sing some more,” he said, leaning back on his elbows.
I'm imagining what he would look like with no shirt on.
Mmmmm, I bet he's got a muscly belly too.
After the roadies had packed all of the equipment, he sat up and looked at his watch. “We should be going home now?”
We packed up the picnic basket. He carried the blanket and his cello, and we walked toward the gate.
When we got to the gate he said to me, “Well, thank you for seeing.” He pointed back toward the stage.
“My pleasure.”
“I will see you again another day, maybe? Soon?” he handed me the blanket, bowed at me again and walked away.
I watched him walking for a while. He had his hand in his pocket as he sauntered along. The dinner suit he was wearing exaggerated his square shoulders. He turned around, walking backward, and waved at me. I sighed.
“Well, Grace, he thinks I am a dill.”
I took Grace by the arm and we walked home.
It's that day again. It's that day when you sit down and try to rein in your rampant hangover and make some halfhearted but well-intentioned declarations about how exciting your life is going to be in the forthcoming year.
Firstly, it's time to get your career in order. It's time to bite the bullet and leave Messrs. Preston and move into a company where you might even get a promotion one day. No more busting a gut. (Last year it was “no more busting egos” and look how long that lasted!)
You're not short of cash. Which reminds me, this year we're going to stop being angry about the project monstrosity that's been built on the rubble of the family home.
There's nothing much to keep you here, it's time to take “the big trip.”
Resolution one: New York. This year you're going to New York.
Secondly, it's time to address the big M issue.
Gentle Chardonnay-inspired musings aside, it might be time to exert a little pressure.
* Note: is he “the one”?
M issue unresolved c/o to next New Year's Day.
New York it is. Time to bring back your b-b-bounce.
… … …
Grace is out with Jan. I am sitting in her study again. I have the spooky box in my lap. This is the last piece of paper.
It doesn't make any sense.
I throw the last note on the desk in disgust. I don't know what I thought she was going to tell me, but I thought it would be something new.
I untie the ribbon and flick through the papers again.
Give me a clue, Grace. What's it all about?
I don't know what I was hoping for. I do know that I thought there would be some hidden truth in it all. I thought this was the box of k
nowledge. I thought that when I got to the end of it I would understand what she was all about, what life was all about.
The only thing I have discovered is that Grace was a real person, before me, before the accident.
Grace had a life.
Before the accident.
Grace had a lover.
Before the accident.
Grace had thoughts and pain and anger and love and plans for the future.
Grace had a child.
All of a sudden, I am so sad for her. I am so sad.
She had people who loved her. She had a career. She had a baby.
I am suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow. There is no inner truth here. Here is just a person—just a life.
Grace wasn't a supermodel, she wasn't a genius, she was just an ordinary person living an ordinary life.
I sit at the desk and cry for Grace. How can this happen? What kind of life is this?
What kind of world is this?
What sort of person am I? What kind of person could live here with this person and never think about what has been lost? How selfish am I? I even had the nerve to be frightened of her. I am so ashamed of myself.
I am eighteen and I know a few things. One of the things that I thought I knew was that time will eventually heal all wounds. It hasn't healed Grace's wounds.
I am overwhelmed.
I'm so depressed. I'm inside a big, black, swollen rain cloud. The sadness is right through to my bones.
I want to go home. I miss my mum. I miss sitting on her veranda talking and laughing and not caring about anything. I miss Blueberry Day.
It's as if the truth, the real truth, that life is a bastard has hit me square in the belly and I'm reeling.
I am crying again. I want my mum. I'm tired. I'm depressed! I want to go home. I want to be a child again.
I ring my mum.
“Mum?”
“What is it, Rachel darling?”
“Mummy, I need you,” I whisper softly. I can feel the prickle of tears in my eyes. I can feel the lump in my throat.
“I am sad,” I say down the phone. I can feel the tenseness across my chest. I can't breathe.
“Mum?”
I'm listening hard now. The line is dead. I press the redial button but the phone rings out.
I hang up the phone and wander around the house whimpering to myself. I look at my red, blotchy face in the mirror and then curl up on the couch.
Twenty-eight minutes.
Twenty-eight minutes it took my mother to drive to my present location. I'm sitting on the couch, in my jammies and woolly socks, feeling sorry for myself.
I'm listening to Jeff Buckley. He makes me so sad. He's wailing at me passionately. I'm crying because I'm thinking Grace didn't get to say her last goodbye to whoever he was.
This is our last embrace, must I dream and always see your face?
Does she dream of her lover? The front door is open. The mynah birds are squawking at Prickles lying on the front step. I'm hugging my knees up to my chest and crying and singing with Jeff.
Kiss me, please, kiss me, but kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation.
I hear a car screech to a halt at the front of the house. I'm not listening. I am singing through my tears. I'm wallowing. Jeff is wailing, beautifully, passionately. I am sobbing.
I've got to listen to it all again.
I stand up and shuffle over to the CD player with my sad shoulders stooped. I put my sad hand out …
Collide, according to the pocket English dictionary, is to strike or dash together.
My mother came down the corridor so fast I didn't even see her. She was a blur. There was a sonic boom in the hallway as my mother hit the speed of sound. If the hallway had been any longer, she would have gone into warp speed.
“I'm here, my precious, I'm here. It's all right.”
She nearly bowled me over.
I wrapped my arms around my mother's shoulders and cried and cried and cried.
Once my wailing had subsided a bit, my mother's first order of business was preparation of a nice cup of tea, followed closely by tucking of blankeys about my person.
“Now, what's all this then?”
“Grace had an accident,” I said.
“Yes?” said my mother.
“But before that she had”—I waved my arms about— “she had beers! Don't you see? Beers on the veranda with the old blokes up the street, and they helped her with the gardening.”
“Yes?”
“Well, she had a life.” I blinked. “It wasn't very happy, but at least she had one!”
“I see,” said my mother.
I drank my cup of tea. My mother put her hand over her mouth. Her shoulders hunched over. I thought she was going to be sick.
“Mum, what's wrong?”
She burst out laughing.
“What?”
“I'm sorry, sweetheart,” she said, patting my leg. “How about I make you some nice hot soup? Or, I tell you what, we could have Tomato Night! What do you say? We'll have gazpacho and Bloody Marys and bruschetta and you can tell me what this is all about.”
I frowned at my mother. “Why Tomato Night?”
“Well, with your head the way it is you won't need a costume,” said my mother, and she burst out laughing again.
“Oh,” I said. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Yes, of course, darling,” said my mother.
I sat quietly drinking my tea while my mother bustled about in the kitchen making tomato-based little deliciouses.
“So tell me from the beginning,” she said, settling on the lounge next to me. She picked up Prickles and placed him on her lap, smoothly stroking his fur. Prickles poked his little pink tongue out with bliss.
So I told how when I first moved in I hadn't paid much attention to Grace and when I did it was only from fear or disgust. I told her about Grace's sisters and how I didn't like them very much but I did think that they had problems. I told her about Mr. Preston and how he had loved her and still loved her and how sad that was for him. I told her about Herb and Bill and about Grace's parents. But I didn't tell her about the spooky box. I think I was ashamed.
My mother drank Bloody Marys, listened and patted the cat. At the end she nodded.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, what?” asked my mother in return.
“Well, what's the answer?” I demanded.
“The answer to what?”
“Life!” I blustered.
“Forty-two,” she replied, smiling. She put Prickles down.
“Very funny,” I say. “But what's the real answer?”
“I don't know,” she said with that indulgent smile.
“What do you mean?” I say. “You're old. I mean, older.”
“Ask Nanna, she'll tell you,” she said, laughing. “But seriously, that's what it's all about—the finding out. That's what makes it so much fun.”
Mr. Preston came over to see Grace the next morning. My mother had gone out shopping. She bounced out the door in a bright blur of yellow. She has decided to stay with me for a couple of days.
“No doubt Brody will have some wild party while I am absent,” she said as she left. “I daresay I shall have to overlook all manner of evidence when I return—not the least of which will be his dopey grin and extraordinary helpfulness.”
I wandered about the house, tidying. I went out into the garden and picked some flowers.
Mr. Preston sat with Grace for a while and then she nodded off and he joined me on the veranda. We sat quietly. I bit my lip.
“What happened to Grace?”
“She banged her head.”
“Yes, but how?”
“She banged it on the road.”
I squinted out across the street. The sunshine was very bright. A nuisance of cats gamboled in the garden. Prickles was amongst them. They rolled about together, biting and kicking with both back feet. Then they lay indulgently in each other's arms. Mr. Preston frowned
.
“Why won't you tell me?”
“Do you have a brother, chum?” he asked me.
“Yes, Brody. It means unusual beard, you know. He's a bit of a dill, but we get on all right.”
Mr. Preston frowned. “Unusual beard.”
“Yes,” I said, blushing, “my mother is whimsical.”
Mr. Preston sighed. Then he began.
“You know I have a brother. He worked in our office, as did my father and as did our father's father before him.” Mr. Preston was drinking tea, Earl Grey, hot. I hate it but tolerate it, because it's what Jean-Luc Picard drinks when he is upset.
“Anthony was always destined for bigger things. He had empires to build, egos to crush.” Mr. Preston was slurping on his tea. He had one ankle on his knee.
“I was beginning to build a relationship with Grace. I think she had finally decided to stop battling with me and we were becoming friends—good friends—but that was all. I was still married.
“I spent time with Grace, we worked closely together, but our relationship was a professional friendship and that was all, as far as Grace was concerned. That was all that I could offer. So I spent my days being stoically tragic about the whole thing.”
Mr. Preston was quiet. He was perfectly still. I blinked in the sunshine. A gentle breeze played in my hair, blowing it across my face.
“That's how I used to be, you see? Mr. Roll-with-thepunches. I had my share of free lunches. I did favors where I shouldn't and took them in my turn. I greased the wheels on occasion.”
Mr. Preston turned his cup around and around in his hand.
“Now I'm Mr. Patron. I volunteer for any number of community causes—environment groups, progress associations—busy, busy. Now I stand about being stoically tragic on behalf of others and sometimes I even make a difference, which is nice. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit better about my decades of selfishness.”
Mr. Preston paused for a moment and took a deep breath.
My mother's car came careering down the street and pulled up with a jolt in front of the house, behind Mr. Preston's car.
Mr. Preston frowned as he watched her bounce out of the car.
“Hello, Rachel darling,” she said as she threw the back door open and started to gather her bags of shopping.
Finding Grace Page 14