His Other House

by Sarah Armstrong

  •

  After a couple of hours, he went out to the footpath to phone Marianna. Afternoon shadows lay across the footpath and road. She took a long time to answer. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, sweetheart. I’ll be in Corimbi tonight. The car’s playing up and I really don’t want to risk breaking down on the way home.’

  ‘Oh . . . okay.’ The radio was on in the background.

  ‘The NRMA don’t know what’s wrong with it.’ He could actually picture the NRMA truck parked by his car. ‘There’s a mechanic up the road and I’ll go there first thing.’

  ‘He’s open on a Saturday?’

  ‘So the NRMA guy said.’ The lies rolled off his tongue.

  ‘Okay. Keep me posted, then. We have lunch at Pete and Fay’s tomorrow, remember.’

  ‘Oh, shit. I’d forgotten. Hopefully I’ll make it back.’ A neighbour from a few doors up drove by and waved at Quinn. He waved back.

  ‘Well, call me in the morning after you see the mechanic.’

  •

  At midnight he curled behind Rachel where she dozed on a mattress on the floor. He stroked her arm.

  She stirred and half sat up. ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘Just the same. It’s midnight.’

  She slumped back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Where do we go, do you think?’

  ‘When we die?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Well . . . I like the idea that our energy continues in some way, in another form. I can’t imagine it just disappearing.’

  ‘Maybe Scotty’s energy went into the water. Into the tides.’ She turned to face him and touched his face. ‘Thanks for staying.’

  ‘I’m glad I did. Shall we change your mum’s shirt? She’s pretty sweaty.’

  Together they took off Emily’s nightshirt, carefully manoeuvring her stiff, thin limbs through the sleeves. The air freshener couldn’t mask the sour, slightly rotten smell in the room.

  He went to the bathroom and wrung out a washer in warm water and gave it to Rachel, who tenderly wiped her mother’s pallid face. She turned to Quinn. ‘Get some sleep. I’ll wake you if I need you.’

  He lay watching Rachel’s face in the candlelight, letting his mind go to having the conversation with Marianna where he would tell her that he’d fallen in love with someone else, that he was leaving. He could imagine saying the words, but his imagination couldn’t take him beyond that point.

  After what felt like a few minutes, Rachel woke him with a shake. ‘She’s gone.’ She kneeled on the mattress beside him. Her voice was calm. ‘I waited and waited for another breath and it never came.’

  They sat either side of Emily’s bed in the pre-dawn, each holding a still-warm hand. Emily’s face had softened at last, the mask of Parkinson’s gone.

  •

  After the funeral director took Emily’s body and while Beryl made another pot of tea in the kitchen, Quinn and Rachel sat on the cool back step. He looked at the neat rows of vegetables and the mown, lush lawn. An ode to her mother. ‘She died peacefully, you know.’

  Rachel nodded. ‘I know. Thank God.’

  Someone crunched down the back lane to the park. She said, ‘I’ve decided to go and live at the land. Up the valley.’

  His heart leapt.

  ‘If you don’t want to be with me, Quinn, then . . . I’ll do my thing. I’m used to doing my own thing. But I need you to decide. I can’t go on like this.’ She turned to look at him and he felt his life with Marianna receding.

  ‘Yes. I want you,’ he said. Just releasing those words into the air set things in motion. He could already feel the painful edge of the moment when he told Marianna the truth. He reached for Rachel’s hand. ‘I want this, I want us.’ The truth of it was solid.

  For the first time in months he felt the blessed relief of certainty. And honesty.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  He couldn’t go inside yet. He sat on the top step, the dog at his feet, looking over to the city. On the drive back to Brisbane he’d spoken the words out loud so often that they no longer had meaning. I’ve fallen in love with someone else.

  The smell of whatever she was cooking for their dinner drifted out to him and the kids next door squealed and laughed on their trampoline. He stood up, his heart racing, and slid his key into the lock. The hallway was dim and as he stepped inside he heard the rustle of clothes. Marianna was standing in the bedroom door, just a couple of metres from him. Did she know he’d been sitting on the verandah for ten minutes?

  ‘Hello.’ She sounded subdued.

  His eyes adjusted and he could see that her hair was out and wild. She wore a long dark dress.

  ‘Hi.’ He dropped his bag, his heart pounding. She moved towards him slowly, dreamily, and handed him something small and hard. Was it a pen? A thermometer? He fingered it and reached for the light switch, but couldn’t find it. His gut lurched. What was going on? Did she already know?

  Then his fingers found a small window in the plastic stick. It was a pregnancy test.

  She stepped in close. Her hair brushed his cheek and she hugged him. ‘I’m pregnant.’ Her voice shook. ‘She’s come back. Our baby’s back. And this time she’s staying.’

  He tightened his grip on the small tube of plastic and, his hand shaking, reached to stroke her hair.

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Every time he drove home along Mill Ridge, Quinn waited for the moment the mountain swung into view, jagged and blue in the hazy distance. The plug of an extinct volcano, it had been there for millions of years and would be there long after Quinn was gone.

  Some southerners found the landscape melodramatic and overblown, but Quinn loved the triangular mountains, the implausible green of the grass and the fleshy plants in the garden that had to be hacked back every few weeks.

  He steered the Subaru up the potholed driveway, where trees grew close to the track and wood smoke hung in the air. Even now, at the end of November, they still burned the woodstove; it was a couple of degrees cooler up in the hills.

  Inside the cottage, the kitchen was quiet and warm. Something was cooking on the stovetop and on the table was an open bottle of red wine and scattered textas. Murmuring came from the living room. ‘Hello,’ he called and shut the door behind him.

  ‘Hi there,’ called Rachel.

  ‘Daddy!’ Ned ran through the door and hugged Quinn’s waist. The boy wore a bright red cap and silver star stickers on his cheeks.

  Quinn picked him up and kissed his warm head. ‘Hello, Noodle.’

  ‘We made rooster cacciatore for dinner.’ Ned smiled, the stickers sparkling. ‘We hope it’s the really noisy one.’

  Rachel appeared in the doorway, her hair pinned up and cheeks pink. ‘I’ve cooked the bugger most of the day, so he better not be tough.’ She leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, a glass of wine in her hand.

  ‘Well, it smells good,’ said Quinn. ‘Did this one watch the execution?’

  She crossed the room and kissed him. Her lips were warm and tasted of wine. ‘He insisted,’ she said and raised her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t see why not.’

  Ned tapped Quinn’s cheek. ‘Daddy! I wanted him to run around when his head was off but he just did this.’ He flopped against Quinn’s chest, his eyes closed and mouth hanging open.

  Quinn rubbed his hand in a circle over Ned’s back. ‘And did it look funny, his head on the chopping block?’

  Ned sat up. ‘It looked amazing. Do you think people would run around once you chopped their head off?’

  ‘No, they don’t. I’m certain of that.’

  Ned looked disappointed. He was so much less squeamish than Quinn had been. Even as a teenager Quinn couldn’t watch Tebano behead a rooster.

  Rachel selected a wineglass from the open shelf and poured Quinn some red. ‘Is that the mail?’

  Quinn slid the envelopes across the table and sat with Ned on his lap. He pointed to the drawing in front of them. ‘What’s this, Noodle?’ />
  Ned began a lengthy explanation, but Quinn barely heard the words. Flushed with tenderness, all he took in was his son’s small, purple and green–stained finger moving lightly over the paper.

  Quinn was in love with his life there. In love with the easy way Rachel passed him the glass of wine and turned to stir the pot on the stove. The peaceful kitchen. Split wood stacked by the stove. The expanse of bush around them. And the knowledge that there were days and days of this ahead of them.

  Rachel sat and opened letters, tearing roughly at the envelopes. ‘A card from Mike and Heather,’ she said and propped it on the table. ‘They want to know if they can visit just before Christmas.’ She looked meaningfully at Quinn. ‘You realise that there’s an absolute assumption in certain youthful quarters that you will be here on the 25th of December.’

  ‘Is there?’ Quinn looked down at Ned painstakingly drawing a green car. ‘Looks like a low rider there, Neddy. It’d have trouble on our driveway, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It’s for a racetrack,’ Ned muttered.

  Rachel slotted loose textas into the pencil case.

  ‘Mummy! Don’t put them away!’ Ned reached over and grabbed at the last textas.

  She pushed the pencil case across the table with one finger. ‘So, the 25th?’ she said to Quinn.

  ‘Let’s talk about it later, hey? Any of that camembert left?’

  ‘No. There’s my cheese or that cheddar you bought.’ She flashed a smile at him. ‘We’ll convert Daddy to our cheese yet, won’t we, Ned? He’ll be begging us to make it.’

  ‘Mmm. Don’t hold your breath, you guys.’ Quinn stood up and put Ned onto the chair. He wished she wouldn’t talk in code in front of Ned. He didn’t want even to think about Christmas right now, not after such a busy day, not when he was feeling so good.

  He opened the refrigerator and heard Rachel tearing open more mail. ‘My god, they’re organised; season’s greetings from Philip, Dom, Jack and Gus,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to start making our Christmas cards, Ned.’

  Quinn’s contentment was draining away. He reached for the cheddar that Rachel had wrapped in a tea towel. ‘Any of those pickled cucumbers left?’

  ‘Yep. In the door.’

  He sat back at the table and cut a chunk of cheddar. Ned bent over his drawing, intently colouring a stretch of blue sky. A log shifted in the stove. ‘How are you going with that proofreading job?’ Quinn said.

  ‘Slowly.’ Rachel took the square of cheese he’d speared on the end of the knife. ‘Shaney’s funeral was today.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry! I forgot.’ He shook his head. Shit. ‘How was it?’ He had even driven past the church on his way to the hospital and noticed all the cars. Not that he could have turned up. He had met Shaney once, at Emily’s funeral. She’d seemed down-to-earth, a handsome woman with the same high cheekbones as Emily and Rachel.

  Rachel chewed slowly on the cheese, her eyes on Ned’s drawing. ‘It was . . . Beryl’s the only one left of that generation. I really felt the . . . changing of the guard.’ She seemed about to say more but picked up a crumb of cheese with the tip of a finger and put it in her mouth. He knew how much she had loved Shaney.

  ‘The pump finally carked it,’ she said. ‘I got an Onga. Pricey but hopefully it will last longer.’

  ‘What’s pricey for a pump?’

  ‘Nearly a grand.’

  He nodded and tried not to gobble the too-salty cheese. His lunch was still in the fridge at work. ‘The farm account should have plenty in it.’

  ‘It does.’

  Ned looked up. ‘She was in the coffin at the front. But just her body. Not her soul.’

  Quinn bent his head to his son. ‘Did that feel a bit strange?’

  ‘It was fine. How long ’til rooster cacciatore, Mummy?’ Ned pushed the sheet of paper along the table to Quinn. ‘That’s for you. To put up in your rooms.’

  ‘Thank you.’ DADDY and NED were written in big blue letters and beside the racing car was a Christmas tree topped by a star.

  ‘Ready now if you want,’ said Rachel. ‘Quinn?’

  ‘I’m starving. Let’s wash your hands, Ned.’ As Quinn turned to put the cheese back into the fridge, he glimpsed Ned slip from the chair. His face hit the table and the boy clutched at his mouth, eyes wide, blood already leaking between his fingers. Quinn picked him up and Ned began a high-pitched scream, brimming eyes fixed on his father.

  ‘Okay. Let me have a look.’ Quinn used his free hand to gently pull Ned’s hands from his mouth. Bright blood spilled down Ned’s chin and onto Quinn’s white shirt. There was too much blood for Quinn to find the wound. He moved his head to meet Ned’s eyes. ‘Take some slow breaths through your nose, sweetie.’ He demonstrated. ‘And I’m going to pass you to Mummy.’

  He bent to his bag and found his otoscope. As he straightened he saw a red and green paper chain looped over the doorframe and an inexpertly cut out Christmas tree sticky-taped to the wall. Shit. Christmas. ‘Open your mouth, darling. Let Daddy have a look.’

  Ned stopped crying and breathed shakily.

  Rachel pressed her lips to his head and murmured, ‘There you go. There you go.’

  Quinn shone the light into Ned’s mouth, which glistened pink with blood and saliva. He gently lifted the top lip. Blood oozed from Ned’s frenulum. ‘There’s a little cut. It’s getting better already. Press your fingers just under your nose here.’

  He put his own fingers over Ned’s, then cupped his other hand around Ned’s head, that warm globe that had fitted so perfectly into his hand from the day Ned was born. He knew that Ned would not love him any less for being absent on Christmas Day, and his boy’s devotion cut him to the quick.

  •

  He climbed into bed beside her and she shifted over and scissored her legs through his, her skin warm and dry.

  Their bed was in a nook, windows on three sides, so it always seemed to Quinn that they were floating in a sea of trees, a sea that reached all the way to the top of the hill and over into the next valley.

  ‘How are you feeling? After the funeral?’ he asked.

  ‘Okay, actually. Nothing could ever be as awful as Mum’s funeral.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘So, Christmas . . .’

  Rachel rolled to face him and a warm breath of air from the bed reached him, smelling of her. ‘It’s preschool,’ she said. ‘There’s been this ridiculous focus on Christmas and he’s got a thing about it.’

  ‘What? A kind of churchy-Christmas-Day thing?’ he said.

  ‘No, more of a romantic-Father-Christmas thing.’ She sighed and tucked herself closer to him. There was such comfort for Quinn in the way her limbs and angles fitted against him. ‘He’s decided he wants a Christmas tree with a star on top and for us all to open our presents under the tree on Christmas morning.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If he’d gone to primary school this year, I bet he wouldn’t have got all that sentimental Christmas stuff.’

  She sighed. ‘Let’s not have that conversation again. He’ll be at big school in a few months.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘You know, I started thinking up stories to explain why you wouldn’t be here for Christmas, again. And then I thought, no, that’s your job.’

  Heat bloomed in his chest and face. ‘Yeah. I can do it.’

  She didn’t reply and the silence stretched. The eucalypts soughed outside and he wished he was out among their steadfast, silvery trunks.

  ‘Listen.’ She leaned away from him and rested up on one elbow. ‘I need to know if Ned is always going to come second.’

  ‘He doesn’t.’ He reached for the bedside light, but she grabbed his hand.

  Her face was close, but he could barely see her. ‘Oh come on, Quinn,’ she said. ‘They’ve always come first.’

  He pulled his hand away and found the light switch. ‘That’s not fair.’

  She narrowed her eyes against the light and pulled the sheet up. ‘I watch
him making his paper Christmas trees and dreaming up plans for Christmas Day and he’s so excited . . . and all I can think of are the lies. This house is full of lies and I’m afraid they’re poisoning him.’

  Quinn sighed and pressed his fingers hard into his eyes. He wanted to tell her that lies were everywhere, that society was built on lies, and that what Ned had was the devoted love of two parents and that was more than many kids had. ‘He’s not being poisoned by anything,’ he said and took his fingers from his eyes.

  ‘Hang on. Lies are woven into his every moment. He asks when you’re coming home and what you are doing and I have to say that you’re working in Brisbane.’

  ‘Which is true.’

  ‘He asks why you don’t live at home all the time like Cory’s dad. And whatever story we come up with for Christmas, he’ll want to know it over and over and over. And it’s me who will have to tell him . . . over and over.’ She sighed. ‘And when we finally tell him the truth, how will that be for him? To know that we’ve been lying?’

  Quinn’s heart raced. ‘It sounds like you think I foisted this on you.’

  ‘No. It was me too.’ She rolled to face him. ‘Somehow I managed to convince myself that we could make it work. But . . .’ She shrugged. ‘. . . he has no idea that he has a sister or a grandfather . . . And I despair to think of what we’re teaching him about honesty.’

  ‘Why has this come up now?’

  ‘I got thinking after Shaney’s funeral . . .’

  ‘So what do you want, Rachel?’ He heard the edge to his voice and he knew it wasn’t fair.

  ‘I want things to be in the open. I should have made it happen long ago. Tell me when exactly you were imagining you’d tell him?’

  ‘Oh, Rachel. I don’t know.’ He flicked off the light and lay back down. It felt like a different bed from the one he had climbed into a few minutes earlier.

  ‘I don’t know if you saw the way he looked at you this evening when you were examining his mouth?’ Her voice softened. ‘I was watching him watching you. He was utterly unguarded. He doesn’t look at me like that anymore. He trusts you absolutely, you know. He would trust you with his life.’