The River House

by Janita Cunnington

  Ahead, rain-blurred headlights mobbed and moved like the eyes of driven beasts. From time to time sunbursts put them out, and in their place were strings of crawling cars. Chafing against her situation, Laurie leant forward to clear the breath-fog from the windscreen, her hair turning from storm-cloud to halo with the oncoming lights.

  Earlier that day she’d been sitting in an old seagrass chair amid the washing that bedecked their small front verandah, neglecting her chores and rubbing balm into her feet. Cora’s current woes vaguely oppressed her, like an obscure bone ache. Under the bull-nosed iron roof, the sheets and towels hung lank and unmoving. For days the weather had been unsettled, heavy clouds bringing fitful rain where moments before the sun had dumped its treacly heat out of a royal-blue sky.

  A breath, blood-warm, stirred the sticky air on her skin, and another shower came wavering through. She ran her fingers between her toes. ‘Thursday, Friday …’ she muttered, reckoning it up. Still over a week of holiday to go. The plan had been to clean out her desk – ditch last year’s disappointments, half-realised projects, pitiful triumphs – and then settle down to some solid lesson preparation. But now, after Cora’s cri de coeur …

  From her vantage point on the verandah she had a view through washing to the houses opposite, now mostly gentrified, and, where the street ran down beneath trees, of a wedge of south-western sky. Monsoonal weather like this came from the north-east, so in that wedge of sky she could read a history of the immediate past, the shower that had visited moments before, the intensely blue sky that was now effaced by rain. It gave her the feeling that she stood in privileged relation to those who dwelt south-west of her, down-wind, downstream in the current of time, in the lag beneath that piece of sky. In such slight things people find distinction. A moment’s precedence. A little elevation.

  She was sitting there, knee up, both hands busy with her foot, keeping something at bay – some sensation of falling, some inward scramble – while turning over in her mind what Cora should wear for her All Saints’ gig (scarlet, she decided, thinking of the cello’s glow, to flame in the oblique light and restore her spirits), but also registering the pleasure of the massage, kneading the sore places along the edges of the soles, when the phone recalled her to her small, rain-darkened house.

  Wiping her hands on her shorts, she unwound from the chair, parted the sheets with a practised breaststroke and hobbled, toes curled, into the hall. Greasy footprints followed her across the polished boards. She lifted the receiver gingerly.

  ‘Laurie?’ Her mother. She stayed on her feet out of a fancy that being thus poised would return her sooner to her massage. To her thoughts. Which had seemed just on the point of clarity.

  ‘I’m worried about Miranda …’ Rosie’s voice had the minor cadence that never left it now, the loss of hope around the third syllable, the semitone of anxiety near the end. It was as if a lifetime’s grief had been conserved in it and set it to a different key.

  ‘Sadness accrues,’ she said once, ‘in a way that happiness doesn’t.’

  Laurie pictured her sitting on the silky-oak phone seat in the Wiley Street hall, stroking the slack skin of her throat.

  ‘It’s her meds …’ There was that unresolved ending. ‘She went to the River House and we haven’t heard from her for days. I’ve rung and rung but no one’s answering. She must be running low if she’s not completely out. I found a full packet here. When she left she had that – I don’t know, that fey look about her. I was wondering if you could possibly take them to her there …’

  ‘To the River House!’

  ‘Yes.’

  Laurie’s eyes closed, as if that could absent her. The task of lesson preparation, now that it might have to be set aside, began to seem pressing.

  ‘I couldn’t go until after tomorrow at the earliest, Mum. Cora’s talking about coming home again. She’s had some falling out with D’Arcy –’

  ‘You don’t think she’d understand, dear? It’s just that I’m sure Miranda had some mad scheme in her head. I can’t rest for wondering what’s happened, what –’

  ‘Mum, it’s very awkward. Cora’s –’ She broke off. It occurred to her that Cora might not take kindly to having her heartbreaks broadcast. ‘What about Maris?’ she ended. Maris was good at inverting the mother–daughter role.

  ‘In Melbourne. At a symposium.’

  ‘Well, can’t Tony go?’

  ‘He was my first thought. But it seems there’s a chance of a job with some kind of eco-architectural outfit and he has to prepare, I don’t know. I didn’t feel I could …’

  Laurie rang Tony.

  ‘Mum’s already been onto me,’ he said. ‘Only it happens to be the worst possible time. Any other time, fine. Just not now. I’m committed –’

  ‘I know, but –’

  ‘– to a meeting. Tomorrow. Here.’

  ‘But I’ve got commitments too. I –’ Laurie was on guard. Tony swayed people simply by the lustre of his eye, and its imprint on the memory was enough.

  ‘There’s no way I could get back in time. I’ve made arrangements –’

  ‘Me too! I’ve made arrangements too!’

  ‘I’m just explaining my situation.’

  ‘Fine, but –’

  ‘No need to get upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset! Look, if I was free, I’d go. Mum’s beside herself, and god knows I get twitchy about Miranda, too –’

  ‘All of us do.’

  ‘All of us do. So –’

  ‘You’re not the only one, Laurie.’

  ‘Yes, all of us! I said all of us! So it’s you or me. One of us has to go and I can’t. Don’t groan, Tony. I’d say me, but there’s Cora.’ Scruples about confidentiality must sometimes be set aside to press a point home. ‘I can’t let her down. I promised her I’d help her move tomorrow, and I can’t do that and go chasing after Miranda too. I shouldn’t be saying anything, but she’s in a state. Cora, that is. She needs me.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Laurie. I am. But. As I said, everything’s lined up. Carol’s father’s gone out of his way to talk to this contact of his, and … See, it could be good, Lol. Low-cost prefab. Eco design. Right up my alley. And they could be willing to overlook … Anyway, Carol’s keen to have it sorted out before anyone gets cold feet – All right,’ (this in an aside) ‘we both are. There’s no way I can back out now –’

  ‘And I can? So I just say to Cora, oh, sorry, can you postpone your life crisis, please? Oh cripes. Can’t you possibly do a bit of rearranging? Miranda is your sister, Tony. And you know that her condition – there is a special – You know what I’m saying. Are you there, Tony?’

  ‘I’m here. I get your point, Laurie. You don’t have to – I get your point. Christ. I’ll see what I can do.’

  She is his sister, too, Laurie thought as she sat on the edge of the bath, wiping her feet. She needed a cup of tea. And there’s no getting away from it – the kitchen was so dark she had to switch the light on – that Miranda’s condition –

  She filled the kettle and turned it on. Then turned it off and rang Jerry.

  ‘I do think,’ she said, ‘that Tony could take more responsibility for Miranda. After all, he was old enough to know better. He shouldn’t have –’

  Jerry heard her out. She let him go back to his charts and returned to the kitchen to make her tea.

  The phone again, issuing its bossy summons as the kettle began to simmer. Laurie flicked the kettle off.

  ‘Laurie?’ Carol. The house darkened and the rain came down. She was saying something in a low voice.

  ‘I didn’t catch that. The rain –’

  There was silence until the downpour eased a little. ‘I said,’ she began again, with a slight hiss on the s, ‘that that was pretty shabby.’

  Laurie hesitated. ‘You’re being cryptic, Carol. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Though she did.

  ‘Then I’ll be plain.’ She was still speaking in an undertone. ‘You�
��ve been playing on Tony’s guilt. You of all people, Laurie.’

  Heat rose up Laurie’s neck. ‘All of us need to pitch in where Miranda’s concerned,’ she said stiffly. ‘That’s all I meant.’ The conversation with Jerry two minutes before echoed in her ears, the self-righteous twang of it. She was glad it hadn’t been overheard by Carol. Or by Tony. By anyone at all.

  ‘Yes. Well. He doesn’t need reminding.’

  ‘I –’ Her brain was muzzy. A headache coming on.

  ‘I would never have thought you’d be so – sly.’

  ‘Sly!’

  Silence. She was letting it sink in.

  ‘Okay,’ Laurie said, pinching her forehead, suddenly weary. ‘I’ll go. Tell Tony not to worry. I’ll go.’

  ‘Sly!’ she repeated as she put the receiver down. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ Carol had transgressed, belayed their long détente, set foot in the territory of truth. Careless of her, for there dwelt shades she would not wish to see abroad.

  How – expedient was the word – that protecting Tony’s sensibilities should dovetail so neatly with her other plans. Sly. Well, that was a joke.

  Interesting too that, by Carol’s logic, Tony’s queasy conscience in relation to Miranda should somehow exempt him from responsibility for her. Which meant it fell on everyone else’s shoulders. Now how did she work that out?

  And Miranda herself. How much had her condition become a convenience? Wouldn’t decades of indulging your every whim and having people dance attendance leave the muscle of self-control a trifle flabby?

  Even to herself she sounded sour. It was this weather. It made everyone’s motives murky.

  She was standing with her hand on the receiver amid the wreck of her plans, wondering how to reach Cora and what to say when she did, when she was stopped mid-thought by a memory of Carol’s softly lidded eyes. This is for keeps, said the child that she was to those eyes, and pressed her mother-of-pearl – a milky, misshapen moon – into Carol’s palm.

  Laurie shook the memory away and became brisk. Cora. The Con was closed for the year. No point in ringing there. She tried the number at the conjugal flat, expecting it to ring out, hoping she wouldn’t get D’Arcy, and was taken aback when Cora’s sleep-husky voice answered.

  ‘Did I get you out of bed?’ she asked, surprise sharpening her tone.

  ‘No. Well, yes, but that’s okay, Mum. We should be getting up anyway.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Oh.’ She dropped her voice so that it was barely more than a whisper. ‘Yes. We. Everything’s sweet between D’Arce and I now, Mum – correction! – D’Arce and me. We had a proper chat and got things sorted.’

  ‘So you’re not moving out?’ And D’Arcy’s not a duplicitous cad and you’re no longer determined to live the rest of your life splendidly alone? Cora’s troubles were always so voluptuous. But when she rang off her own heart was easier.

  Rosie answered her call after the first ring. She must have been waiting by the phone. ‘I’ll be over shortly to collect the meds,’ Laurie told her. ‘I’m on my way.’

  Now Jerry.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘I thought you were helping Cora move tomorrow!’

  ‘Oh, that’s all okay now. She and D’Arcy are reconciled, it seems. So I’m off.’ As she said it, the long drive suddenly loomed ahead, and she felt – the truth was she’d been feeling it, on and off, for most of her long, solitary holiday – she felt lonely.

  ‘Jerry?’ she pleaded. ‘Take a few days off work. Come with me.’ These days her persuasive power was unreliable. As often as not it glanced off him, the arrow of her charm.

  ‘Not possible. And I’m not happy about you going either. There’s –’

  ‘It’s not a matter of choice. Miranda’s left her meds behind and Mum’s worrying herself sick. I’ve got to go.’

  Laurie heard an impatient huff. ‘Miranda’s a big girl, Nim.’

  ‘Jerry. I’ve made the decision. I’ve told Mum. That’s not what I’m asking you.’

  ‘But what’s your mum think the girl’s gonna do?’

  ‘I don’t know, she’s impulsive. Dive off Broody Heads because the water looks nice?’ A memory sprang to mind of Miranda rising like Venus from the river, of her father’s reaction, days delayed: For chrissake! What’d she think she was up to? Surfacing like a sea cow with her dugs dangling! Her mother’s startled face.

  ‘Come with me, Jez,’ Laurie begged. ‘I don’t want to travel all that way alone. In this weather.’

  ‘The weather’s a very good reason for not going.’

  ‘That’s hardly going to reassure Mum. I’ve got to go and I’d like you to come with me. Please.’

  ‘Not possible. Half the staff are off on leave, and there are some interesting developments on the chart. Don’t go, love. Miranda could be anywhere. Your mum’ll probably get a call tonight from – Sydney, or Adaminaby or somewhere. Don’t go. Laurie? You hear? I’m advising you not to go!’

  CHAPTER 14

  North

  1994

  Her neck was stiff. She spread her fingers to relieve the cramp in them. Through the frantic windscreen wipers was a reduced future into which she peered, an aisle of swimming lights advancing on her through dark torrents of rain.

  She felt – forsaken.

  If Jerry had cared sufficiently, he’d have agreed to come. As it was, all she had with her was a hastily thrown-together bag of clothes, an Esky of essentials and, beside her on the seat, a packet of Miranda’s anticonvulsants.

  The rain eased and the traffic became visible again.

  It had been a long time since Jerry had really –. She was not indifferent, no, to the amenity of a mate, a bedfellow, the post-coital kiss and the hand cupping the breast as they fell asleep, the reassurance of callused palm on tender flesh. But as for declarations laid at the feet, the breathing of each other’s breath, eyelashes meshing, that was all long gone. In the end, the fine grit of daily living produced no pearls, only, at best, intimacies worn smooth; at worst –

  The sun was bright now and she began to look for landmarks to help her get her bearings.

  – At worst the chafe of contrary habits.

  She could be anywhere. These days the trip was far more uniform, the freeway as wide and level as a landing strip and marked by vast, identical overhead signs, tile-roofed housing estates reproducing themselves all the way up the coast.

  The sky darkened. Descended. She turned the wipers on again.

  She was a practical woman. She did not expect life’s events to be, in sum, fulfilling. She knew that most of the time each of us is alone – on our sandbank or reef or northern shore – and only now and then do we, by some happy chance, hail each other. Meet. So Jerry’s deafness to the need in her voice, to her entreaty, did not dismay her.

  There were times, though, when relationships seemed to be scarcely more than an accrual of small disappointments. A store of insignificant betrayals.

  If she was honest – as the oncoming lights seemed to encourage her to be – she would admit that there were years when she tallied up his failings with an auditor’s cold eye.

  ‘You make a joke of everything,’ she complained. It interfered with closeness.

  He went to Willis Island eventually.

  ‘Why ten days?’

  ‘Well, the boat takes two days there and two days back, so that leaves less than a week on the island.’

  ‘Have you thought that I might like to come too?’

  The windscreen was fogging up. Laurie leant across and wound down the passenger window, leaving it down until the fogginess cleared, tolerating the fine spray that spun in and wandered on trapped currents of air about the interior of the car.

  Jerry’s jokiness with Cora was different. Its edges were soft. She could be as theatrical as she liked and all he’d be was amused, beguiled. Couldn’t he see he wasn’t even-handed? That Vit got the worst of it? Behind his easygoing manner, Jerry’s expectations were too exacting. Displaced
persons’ camps, Snowy River schemes. They made him hard. Secretly, Laurie blamed him for Vit’s failures, for how could the boy, born into Australia’s equable seasons, ever match his father’s tempering? Like Jerry in his colouring (a storybook boy, with flaxen hair and eyes-of-blue), he’d inherited none of his father’s heft. He’d grown lanky, as tall as Jerry but with his grandmother’s slight stoop. It was perhaps this rounding of the shoulders, together with an unguarded look about his face – as much as Jerry’s disappointment in him – that made her love Vit achingly.

  Once, when he was about five, Vit scrambled up a poinciana and when he looked down became afraid. He called for help.

  ‘You got up; you get yourself down,’ his father replied with perfect equanimity.

  Laurie was angry. ‘Too harsh, Jerry,’ she told him, after she’d climbed to the first fork and helped Vit to the ground.

  ‘You pamper the boy,’ he said.

  They did have fishing in common. The strain between them vanished when they stood within hailing distance on the beach, casting into the same gutter, feet sinking into the sand. Then she would see them as two slender up-thrusts among the horizontals of sea and sky, hunching forward, rocking back, their divergences of build and disposition trivialised by fixity of intention and the simplifying light.

  Children. They were sheer happenstance. They fell out of chance events, and then made histories for themselves.

  Laurie rubbed the foggy windscreen with the inside of her wrist.

  If everything was all right when she got there, regardless of the weather she’d go walking on the northern ocean shore. There where the waves were legion, rearing and crumpling. She’d walk past tiredness. Her arms and legs would find a rhythm that would take her on to the end, the end, the end …

  A car had pulled over on the edge of the road with its lights flashing. Perhaps she should stop. But it was already too late. Rain and the cars behind her had filled the rear-vision mirror and shut it from her view –