Disquiet

by Julia Leigh

  After a long pause Grandmother made the sign of the cross. ‘Marcus, Sophie,’ she said. ‘We are so sorry. I… I… Is…?’

  ‘The hospital told us… Sophie wanted… They said it would be best to bring Alice home.’

  ‘Oh.’ Grandmother rearranged her hands in her lap. ‘The cord? But in the hospital? How…?’

  ‘It just happened,’ he said. ‘We don’t know how. No-one did anything wrong.’

  The woman said, ‘I am deeply sorry for your loss.’ She lowered her head and nodded to Sophie.

  ‘How long will the, the…?’ Grandmother fumbled.

  ‘A day or two.’ He and Sophie exchanged glances. ‘We’d like to get to know her before the funeral.’

  At the word ‘funeral’ Sophie baulked and shifted the bundle from one breast to the other.

  The top of Ida’s knuckles showed white. With a brisk flick of the wrist she caught the woman’s attention and indicated that the children should immediately leave the room.

  At morning tea-time Ida accompanied the woman to the rose garden; she had readied a tray, with tisane and an almond friand. The woman walked slowly, as if the broken arm had slightly altered her balance and her footfall was no longer automatic, was deliberate. The garden had been a favourite spot of hers as a girl.

  So many roses, roses trained to pillars and – when in bloom – cascading from wire umbrellas. Rugosa, Madame Alfred Carriére, Amiga Mia, Parkdirektor Riggers. There was a yellow-tipped rose named after her, the Olivia. Ida set the tray down on one of the wooden seats, the back of which was carved into the shape of fern fronds, and departed.

  The woman warmed her hand on the tea-plunger. Then she lifted the object, very carefully, moved it through the air, this glass-and-silver invention, and slowly poured. She poured the tea right to the golden rim of the teacup. Her left-handedness slowed her down, and each gesture, normally habitual, unnoticed, careless, was now new to her, not entirely new, but was seen in a new light, or was seen as if she had – for the first time in her life – lifted from the root of her being, taken a step aside. And there was an element of wonder in her movements, that all along she’d had a left-hander inside. She set down the plunger and brought the teacup to her lips, steady, not spilling a drop. She savoured the tea and then at the same glacial pace settled the cup. She picked up the friand. Heard footsteps; Marcus had found her.

  ‘Mother was right,’ said the woman, not looking at her brother but staring into the garden. ‘I married a brute.’ There was a long pause and then she declared, simply, ‘I am murdered.’

  Marcus gave a slight nod of the head to indicate he had heard her. She returned the friand to the tray. He sat down beside her and handed her the teacup.

  ‘We tried so hard,’ he said, and he too stared ahead, over the roses. ‘There was… another woman. There is… another woman. A foreigner, a musician on scholarship. Very little money. She’ll have to go home one day – poor girl. Sophie doesn’t know. Maybe she does – she lets me be. I still love her. I just wanted to give her what she has always wanted. For two years she endured nightmares – drugs, hormones, side-effects, more drugs to counter those effects, operation operation operation. The things she did. Everything, everything, on a schedule. Nothing natural about it. No happy accident. And when the baby was conceived we both thought it was – a miracle. I held my breath for the first three months. Every day for three months and every day after that I still feared… Only when we got to the hospital did I feel safe.’

  The woman had finished her tea but held the cup suspended in mid-air as if this helped her to listen. He turned to her and gently removed the cup. ‘Out of my hands.’

  He lay down on the bench and rested his head in her lap. For a long time she stroked the hair silvered at his temples. ‘Oh,’ she murmured. ‘Poor boy.’

  In the entrance hall Grandmother was supervising the twins as they removed the balloons. One of the twins cringed each time she went to stick a balloon, leaning back as if the pop, the noise, could hurt her. After a while she summoned her courage and let fly. The other twin was untying and popping those balloons secured to the stair-case. Amused by her sister’s antics she let her attention slip and in that moment one balloon escaped to the ceiling. Inhale – she covered her mouth in horror. Grandmother frowned. They watched the balloon bump along the ceiling and come to rest in a corner.

  At lunchtime the twins were on their best behaviour. They had set the walnut dining table so that it was resplendent. The finest snow-white linen had been aired and ironed, and they had dusted off a grove of cut-crystal glasses. The silver cutlery was polished and shining. Grandmother reigned at the head of the table, and everyone else was there. Sophie, in a new dress and neatly made up, had brought along the bundle and was cradling it in the nook of her arm. She still wore her hospital ID bracelet as if at any minute something could go horribly wrong. A twin held the silver tureen and Ida ladled out asparagus soup. When all the bowls were full Grandmother said grace. ‘Bless-this-food-to-our-use, and-us-to-thy-service, and-make-us-ever-mindful-of-the-needs-of-others. Amen.’ Quickly, under her breath. And she alone had her eyes closed, the others not being concerned to feign participation.

  They began to eat in silence. Straight-backed, elbows off the table. The boy was spreadeagled over his bowl, slurping the soup into his mouth. Mouthful after mouthful, as if he hadn’t eaten in a long while. ‘Andrew,’ said Grandmother. She lifted her spoon and demonstrated how to use it correctly, how to make a shallow scoop toward the outer edge of the bowl, to bring the spoon to the mouth, not the mouth to the spoon. ‘You see.’ He tried to copy her, took tiny bird sips, and the girl tried too. But her concentration was broken when she noticed Sophie dipping her little finger into the soup and bringing it to the bundle, trying to feed it. This mesmerised the girl; the others did their best to carry on as though nothing were wrong, the woman spooning her soup with her left hand, like a scientist taking an infinitesimal measure, and Grandmother sighing when at last Sophie wiped her finger on a serviette and reached for her glass of water.

  The telephone rang. It was rare for the telephone to ring in the house, and as for an interruption during the lunch hours, it happened once or twice a year. Ida sent a twin to answer the call. The woman was snap-frozen by the persistent ringing, her spoon airborne, and she spilt some soup on the table. Marcus, too, was on edge, and looked ready to stand and answer the call himself. Only the boy’s eyes were shining. As soon as the ringing stopped an unsteady peace descended and all resumed eating.

  The boy checked his watch and said to his mother, ‘At home it’s four in the morning.’

  The girl said, breezily, by-the-way, ‘Andy, I can smell your vulva.’

  Ha. ‘I don’t have a vulva.’

  The girl, furious, turned to the woman for support in this battle. Just then the twin returned to the room and the moment she took up her position by the commode the telephone rang again. Brrrrrrrrring: it had dominion. Off she went. The girl was tugging at her mother’s sling, wanting her opinion, but the woman waited and waited and waited for the ringing to stop before she responded.

  ‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘Only girls have vulvas.’ At this news the little one was downcast.

  And the telephone rang again. One ring. And another. And one more ring. As if it were repeatedly being picked up and immediately put down again.

  Marcus tried to strike up a conversation. ‘Andy, have you been down to the boathouse?’

  ‘No. There’s a boat?’ Interested, on the alert.

  ‘Not a boat-boat. But some old canoes. Mother, is that right? Are there still the canoes?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  Again, the twin was restored to the room. This time Marcus did make to stand.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I could not understand the gentleman, my English is poor. I have requested him to not derange the lunch. To call later.’

  Very slowly, the woman reached for her wineglass, as if there were a mountain ra
nge between her hand and the glass that could only be negotiated with utmost concentration.

  Marcus sat down, relaxed. ‘Maybe I can take you out on the water?’

  The boy nodded. Okay.

  ‘Can I come?’ asked the girl.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Mummy, will you come?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘I don’t swim.’

  ‘She means she can’t swim,’ said the boy, scornful. ‘She’s afraid of the water.’ He paused. ‘And escalators.’ Another pause. ‘And elevators.’ He held out two hands and mimed elevator doors closing on his nose, grinned. He looked to his mother and made a loop-the-loop loopy sign by his temple. But she drank her wine and did not chastise him.

  Grandmother turned to Marcus. ‘Remember Tahiti?’ He did not reply. She turned to the boy. ‘When your mother was about… about Lucy’s age, we all went to Tahiti. A special treat. The sand is black in Tahiti. And the men wear straw skirts. That’s right. And the minute we saw the sea the child started screaming. Screaming. And screaming. As if the water, the sea, was the most terrifying thing in the world. Those little waves. One after the other. Well, I walked into the water with her – holding her up high, quite safe, perfectly safe – and she screamed and screamed. I’d never heard a child scream so long before. It was only the sea. Incredible.’

  There was a thorough silence. The woman betrayed no reaction other than to keep her eyes trained on the centre of the table.

  The telephone rang again. Grandmother snatched up her serviette.

  The boy jumped to his feet. ‘I’ll get it!’

  ‘Sit down.’ His mother stood, said, ‘May I be excused.’

  She did not run along the hallway. She walked as if she had already walked a thousand miles and the hallway were the beginning of a further thousand miles before her. The telephone was crouched on a semicircular bureau in an alcove. A deer head had been mounted on the wall at eye level, giving the impression, at times, that the interlocutor was the deer himself speaking. She picked up the receiver and brought it to her ear. She listened for a few minutes, her features softening, losing form, and then – without speaking – she placed the receiver on the bureau, left it off the hook. She got down on her hands and knees, which was awkward with her cast, and fumbled around trying to unplug the cord. When she had done this she wriggled back out, and then had second thoughts, wriggled back under. She rested her weight on her cast and reached back with her left hand and removed her shoe. With her high heel she pounded the plastic telephone connector, damaging it so that it no longer quite fitted the socket. Finished, she wriggled out again, got to her feet, straightened her skirt and returned the receiver to its cradle.

  ‘Ida.’ Grandmother indicated her glass was empty.

  The girl was chit-chattering. ‘Because I can swim. I can swim. In my carnival I got a blue ribbon, which is first. It’s in my bedroom. For fifteen metres. That’s across the pool, not down the pool. You go across the pool. I beat Maxie and Beebee and Helen and…’

  The woman slipped in and found her seat at the table. Despite inquiring glances from Marcus and the boy no questions were asked. She picked up her fork and placed it in the fingers of her right hand that were peeking out of her cast. She held the fork steady and with her left hand began to patiently cut away a slice of duck.

  ‘Mummy, I’m a good swimmer aren’t I?’ asked the girl.

  The woman nodded.

  The girl, now bored, used her knife to smear the potato mash over every inch of her plate. Lay down the knife. She stared at the bundle, was transfixed.

  ‘I want Pinky.’

  ‘After lunch, darling,’ her mother replied quickly.

  Marcus checked on Sophie. Sophie, who had not said a thing the entire meal, who had not eaten, who had died every time her husband found words – ‘boat’, ‘canoe’ – sailing away from her on this ‘boat’, this ‘canoe’, so soon, leaving her with their baby. Sophie glared and clambered out of her seat, hurriedly left the room.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother,’ said Marcus. ‘It wasn’t my idea, Sophie insisted. And, well, if I’d asked what would you have said?’

  Grandmother gave this due consideration.

  He continued. ‘I have a favour to ask you. Olivia’.

  After lunch it was arranged that the woman would be driven to the village; one of the gardeners offered to be the chauffeur. The children and Ida rode with her just as far as the great gateway, the girl squirrelled on Ida’s lap so as to save room. Goodbye, goodbye. The boy climbed up the iron filigree. They watched until the car disappeared from view.

  ‘How far can you see?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Oh, very far,’ said Ida.

  ‘As far as Sydney?’

  ‘Not that far, not across the ocean.’

  Oh. They began the long walk back up the driveway.

  The ugly countryside was momentarily interrupted by the small ugly village. At the Town Hall the woman sat in a waiting room with an elderly couple for whom waiting seemed to be an end in itself, so that if they weren’t waiting in a waiting room they would have been waiting at home in the kitchen or in the bedroom. She noticed earlier visitors had stubbed their cigarettes out on the plastic plant beside her; the leaves were stippled with dark round holes. There were magazines on a small table, personal-investment and travel magazines, a magazine which promised to tell all about the diet of an Olympic swimmer, but she chose to ignore them. After a while a young pregnant woman was shown out of the office. Josette remained at the door. ‘Olivia?’ These two had played together as children at the local school and in those times Josette had also been invited to the château. She was slightly older than the woman, and though she had been a bureaucrat for many years she had maintained – or had developed – the demeanour of a sincere and kindly nurse.

  ‘Hello Josette.’ Softly spoken in French, without trace of an accent.

  Josette pulled out a seat for the woman, did not comment on the broken arm. She sat behind her desk and clasped her hands together, making a temple with her index fingers.

  ‘I’m here to ask permission – the family would like permission to bury another body, at home, next to my father.’

  ‘I heard the sad news. I’m very sorry. Please send my condolences to all concerned. I have already prepared the paperwork. There should be no problem.’

  The finger-temple collapsed and she pushed some sheets of paper across the table. ‘If you could sign here – and here.’

  The woman parsed the paperwork, and when she was halfway down the second page she stopped and asked, ‘One body?’

  Josette tipped her head and looked to the woman for clarification.

  ‘And Mother has not been well.’

  There was a long pause before Josette said, ‘Yes, I see, we can change this to…’ she crossed something out with her pen, ‘two bodies.’

  The woman signed the bottom of the page with her clumsy left hand and before handing it over studied her signature as if it were a child’s attempt at forgery or, worse, a black-lettered joke, a feeble excretion.

  ‘About the baby,’ said Josette. ‘I believe there would be a good case for negligence. A strong case. In a week or two come back, this should not be forgotten.’

  ‘Thank you Josette, I will mention it to Marcus. And there’s the other matter, the children.’

  ‘Ah yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I received your letter last month.’ She reached for a manila folder in a staggered wire file of dozens of folders and opened it on her desk. ‘Quite a surprise. Andrew? Lucy? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ She quickly opened her handbag and dug around inside, produced two passports.

  Josette flicked through the passports and kept them on her side of the table. ‘X-rays?’

  The woman handed over an envelope. ‘I had to fold them, please excuse the creases.’

  ‘The blood and urine?’

  Another small package was produced.

  ‘Good,’ said Josette. �
��Today I will accept these. That’s that. They will be residents in no time. Don’t worry, I will personally make sure to see this through to the prefecture.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And school? And what about the school?’

  ‘Les Quatre Vents.’

  ‘The boarding school?’

  ‘Yes. The arrangements are in place.’

  Josette wrinkled her nose. ‘I hear it is a good school. The headmistress, well, she is… But yes, it’s a good school. Although for me, the local school is the best. And term begins when? In four weeks. Do they speak any French?’

  ‘A little. I’ve been practising with them since they were born. They understand a lot, more than they can say. And the school is bilingual. They will learn.’

  ‘They will learn. So, the marvellous capacities of children. Imagine if we could be children again. I would speak five languages. Mandarin. Even Hungarian. Though maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to. Impossible to know. Sometimes I wish I’d never stopped somersaulting. Anyway, please, again – your signature.’ She passed more papers across the table and the woman carefully inked her name.

  ‘Thank you, Josette, thank you for everything. You’ve been very kind to me.’

  ‘It is good to see you, Olivia.’

  In the pharmacy she waited for Dr Steenbohm, a tiny elfin man, to finish serving a customer.

  ‘Good afternoon, Dr Steenbohm.’

  ‘Good afternoon. And what a pleasure – but at such a time… My condolences to the family. How do you make You Know Who laugh?’ She did not answer. ‘You make plans. Believe me, I know it. No?’ He sighed, continued. ‘And your mother? How is she?’

  ‘She is as well as can be expected.’

  ‘These shocks are not good.’

  The woman handed him some prescriptions. ‘Will you fill these, please?’