Watercolours

by Adrienne Ferreira

  I can hardly believe how much stuff there is in the shop and how many different ways there are to use the stuff. Two whole walls are full of paper and cardboard, all with different textures and thicknesses; some have sharp edges, some are shaggy, some look soft and pulpy as fabric. The creamy shades all seem the same until I read their names — Moonstone, Flannel, Lily, Bisque — then I can see the differences. I decide I like Moonstone best, then Lily.

  I move in dreamy, scuba-diver steps past blank canvases and frames and measuring equipment, right down to the shop’s murky bottom to find sea sponges and soft blocks of clay sweating under plastic wrap. Packets of moss and tiny trees are here, and rolls of wire-form and matchsticks packed like ammunition, and every other thing you’d ever need to make model worlds. Here there are a million ways to tie and wrap and hold. Glues and solvents wait side by side, ready to be set on each other. Turps and resin and varnish and wax, rice glue, pearl glue and cereal starch — so many brown liquids and so much pale, thick mush ready to be mixed and slopped. I turn the corner and cliffs of oil paints and acrylics rise either side of me like a giant social studies map ready to be explored: Indian Red, Windsor Blue, Naples Yellow, French Ultramarine. I tumble past Umber. Rose Madder snags me. There are palettes, spatulas, knives and blades set out like utensils in a kitchen, ready to prepare the most colourful, fantastic meals.

  On I wander, my fingers trailing over dust-masks and cotton gloves and visors, armour to guard against the wild-flying bits and pieces of creation. I stop beside a wooden dummy to rearrange its limbs, run my hands over a timber easel and a portfolio case way too grown up for someone like me. Here and there I come across things Miss Morrison has already introduced me to in my lessons up at the high school — woodblocks and silk-screens and pastels — but most of what I see I never even knew existed. And now that I know they exist, I start to think what I might do with them. And once I do this — imagine myself back home in the shed with all this at my fingertips — my anchor strikes rock bottom. The clang sends an awful shudder through me. Slowly, water fills up my lungs until I am suspended on the bottom of the sea, powerless, crushed by the weight of the treasures I have found.

  I sink down onto a pile of acid-free sketchbooks and slap my hand to my chest. My fingers press and search but they find only my own heart beating, nothing else. Why have they deserted me? At first I was happy to be rid of their constant buzzing and scratching; now my chest aches with emptiness. All I know is that I can’t face a project this big without them. I just can’t do it on my own.

  Outside, the street is horrible. Buses roar. Cars spit. People push past in both directions, none of them bothering to look in the art-shop window. Nobody notices me slumped alone in the shadows, my hand on my heart. For a moment I think I catch the rumble of thunder, but it’s only a truck passing.

  Back at the hotel at last, Eleanor kicked off her shoes, scrunched her stockinged toes and sighed with relief at the feel of soft wool carpet. She slipped her jacket onto a hanger and flopped face-down onto the bed with a groan.

  Her legs ached from all the walking and the varicose vein behind her left knee was throbbing. Her suede heels were generally good for getting about the city, but she and Novi had covered quite a distance today and by the afternoon a twinge had developed in her lower back. She knew it was time to get some sensible walking shoes and yet she resisted this surrender to middle age. Sensible shoes were dowdy and unflattering and would do nothing for her silhouette. No, she was not beyond heels just yet. Her calves were still too elegant for her to abandon vanity in favour of comfort.

  Poor Novi was exhausted, too. She had found him practically collapsed near the counter of the art shop. He barely had the energy to choose the materials he wanted and she was dismayed to realise she had run the poor boy ragged. It was only that she had wanted the trip to be stimulating for him, to give him some special experiences not available back home.

  She yawned. Such a dear little creature, so sensitive. It was fascinating to watch how he studied things so closely and then sorted it out in pictures with his pad and pencil. But she’d definitely overdone it. It was a pity because she’d been looking forward to the treat of the art shop. As it was, she had to encourage him along the aisles and make a hundred suggestions before he chose anything at all. He seemed unwilling to spend any money, even though she explained that Rotary would cover it all and urged him to stock up. In the end the shop assistant gave him a mail order catalogue to take home so he would be able to send off for more things when he needed them.

  Now that she was lying down and thinking straight Eleanor could see she should have left the art shop for the following morning; that way Novi would have been well rested and might have enjoyed it more. But there was the Gallery to visit tomorrow, and the Museum as well, which was enough to get through before their afternoon flight. It was just as well Gerard’s family didn’t know she was in town. There simply wouldn’t be a chance to visit them.

  She closed her eyes and stretched her toes luxuriously. High above the commotion of the streets, she let the city work its magic. Slowly, one by one, she felt the cells of her body unclench and swell. Somehow the crowds, her insignificance within them, allowed her to let her guard down.

  The air-conditioning purred. Her limbs felt so heavy. They would both feel better after a rest and some dinner. She had planned to take Novi to a movie afterwards, something foreign or art-house, but now she decided it would probably be too much.

  It was a wrestle, the tenderness she felt for him. She wasn’t sure how to express it. At times she wanted to scoop him up and hold him close but she resisted, not wanting to frighten him. It was his eyes, his expression sometimes, so much like his grandfather’s. She was wrenched between wonder and sadness when she caught these glimpses of Umberto, especially here in Sydney, the place where the two of them had finally come to know each other.

  Umberto had always been Gerard’s friend, both Rotarians and thick as thieves. He was ten years her senior, a lifetime when they were both growing up in Morus. She’d never met his wife — all that happened before they’d become properly acquainted, although she’d heard the story, how he’d met her on a trip to Italy and brought her out but she hated it, pined for home and went back after only a few years. Umberto had insisted Mira stay with him, and as far as Eleanor could tell he only missed his wife for Mira’s sake, sometimes feeling overwhelmed by the mysteries of femininity. Eleanor had offered to mind Mira now and then, and she gave him advice whenever she could, but he didn’t really need it. Umberto loved Mira with a ferocity that was apparent in everything he did.

  She and Gerard were connected with Umberto through the business and they all socialised together occasionally, but Eleanor had always felt a distance between Umberto and herself and it had been a surprise to run into him in Sydney that day. She hadn’t known he was going to be at the business management seminar and was caught off guard, they both were. They’d smiled in awkward greeting and approached each other across the room at morning tea. Unused to being alone in each other’s company they were unsure how to behave. Both were from the same town, had vaguely known each other all their lives, and yet here they were in a crowded auditorium, shy as strangers. They would never have thought to have lunch together had they bumped into each other in the street in Morus. In Sydney, so far from home and familiar company, it seemed the natural thing to do.

  A taxi took them through the city to a little Italian restaurant run by an old friend of Umberto. Here, Eleanor tasted carpaccio for the first time: thin slices of raw beef dressed with fruity olive oil and shavings of parmesan cheese. From childhood, she’d been reared on a diet of beef, but this dish was a revelation. She enjoyed it so much that Umberto ordered her a second plate, and then, in cahoots with the spirited restaurateur, proceeded to present her with a sample of everything from the menu that she had never tried before. She nibbled a tiny quail leg and found it sweet and gamey. Dipping a freshly steamed artichoke, leaf by leaf, into le
mon vinaigrette, she pulled at the increasingly fleshy mounds with her teeth until her mouth felt clean and tingly. The crisp salad of sliced fennel was sprinkled with crimson pomegranate seeds, little tart explosions against her tongue. The ladleful of rich goat stew was surprisingly tender. Every time her fork met her lips, Umberto watched her closely, anticipating her reaction. His moustache curled with triumph when she pronounced each dish utterly delicious.

  He asked her if she enjoyed opera — he tried to go whenever he made it to the city, his one indulgence. Would she care to join him that evening? The restaurateur rushed off to make the arrangements, popping a tape of La Traviata into the stereo before busying himself with a phone call to the box office. The prelude swept over them, the emotion in the strings bringing goosebumps to her arms, and the tape meandered from aria to aria until the lunch crowd bustled off and Umberto and Eleanor were the only customers left. They sipped espresso, then grappa, while the staff polished glasses, swept the floor and went home. They both agreed the seminar was overpriced and the guru a bit of a shyster. Neither of them needed to mention that the afternoon session had begun. It was clear they hadn’t any intention of returning.

  Afterwards they wandered up Stanley Street, past cafes with iron tables on the footpath and squashed-looking terrace houses with grimy facades. At the top of the hill, Eleanor paused for breath at a set of sandstone steps. Her heart was racing. On impulse, she walked up and Umberto followed.

  It was late afternoon and the Museum was almost empty. They wandered through the mammal room giggling like schoolchildren at the stunned stuffed animals, their mangy fur and stiff poses comical among the carefully arranged foliage. In the skeleton room they peered over backbones and through ribcages. In the insect room they saw hundreds of butterflies with unpronounceable names, stick insects with grotesque protrusions and giant horned beetles. When Umberto stopped still, Eleanor moved closer, curious to see which display had captured his interest.

  Silkworms.

  She stole a glance at him. She knew about Umberto’s father, his obsession with silk and the ruin it had caused his family; everybody did. In a small town like Morus, such a tragedy was never allowed to pass without the community sucking all the delicious woe out of it; the story had lumbered around town like a sick cow covered in ticks. She wondered how Umberto felt about it, whether he harboured shame or anger or sadness. His face only seemed thoughtful, his moustache at rest.

  Beside him, she peered into the glass cabinet. One of the silkworms had been dissected and a cross-section of its body was illuminated from beneath. The silk glands had been carefully removed and strung out in long, milky loops.

  ‘By the time a silkworm is fully grown,’ Eleanor read, ‘its silk glands make up more than a quarter of its body weight.’ They observed the life cycle set out before them, from tiny eggs to wrigglers, then five stages of growth until cocoon, metamorphosis and moth — shaggy-looking and completely covered in pale fur.

  Silk is the strongest natural fibre known to man, the display noted. Eleanor looked at the golden cocoons, their woven mass the colour and texture of finely spun toffee. ‘How do the moths break out of the cocoons, then?’ she wondered.

  Umberto turned to study her for a long moment. Eleanor stood very still as his eyes explored her face with the tickly caress of insect wings. Suddenly she was terrified he would kiss her. A moment later she felt disappointed when he did not.

  ‘A bead develops on top of the head,’ he explained, pointing. ‘When the moth grows big enough, the bead bursts against the cocoon and the fluid inside dissolves the glue that binds the silk together. See the antennae? How they’re feathered? They act as little combs to pull the threads aside and make space for the moth to crawl out.’

  Eleanor looked at the cocoons, struck by the wondrous design of nature. It was the same design that had thrown her and Umberto together that day. She met his gaze. They looked into each other’s unguarded faces as though for the first time. She felt desire gathering within her, filling her up, a pulsing along every fibre of her body. Then an attendant appeared and told them the Museum was closing.

  After the opera that evening they ate late in Chinatown, ordering dishes one by one until the staff turned surly and kicked them out. Eleanor insisted they take a taxi to her favourite all-night cafe in Kings Cross, declaring that the Spanish blend and lemon cake shouldn’t be missed. In truth she wasn’t the least bit hungry and knew the coffee would only send her already-galloping heartbeat to dangerous levels. But she couldn’t let the evening end. Some scheme of fate had brought the two of them together and tomorrow they would fly back to Morus, where there would be no room for further discovery, where the walls would close in and the old awkwardness would return to stifle everything.

  Later that night, alone in her hotel room, Eleanor wept as though she were dying. In fact she had come to life, but the effect was equally unbearable.

  I sit on the carpet, listening to the whispering air-conditioning and Eleanor, who is dozing on her bed and snoring softly. Orange juice trickles down my oesophagus like a cold worm. I want to cough but stop myself.

  Through the tinted hotel window I watch the sunset. The sky looks full of smoke or storm clouds, but it isn’t. The window masks the real colour of the city, just like it masks the noise.

  In the corner sit the bags from the art shop. I don’t want to look at them. To start going through them would mean they were mine.

  I can’t remember what we bought in the end, there was too much to choose from and no good place to start. As I glance at them now, the bags seem to hold hardly anything. The woman in the shop said I could order more, whatever I liked, over the phone, as long as I had a credit card. Eleanor said that wouldn’t be a problem.

  I feel tired but restless, too. My mind can’t focus on anything. The silence inside me echoes until it becomes a whine, circling round and round, searching for something that isn’t there. Like those concrete overpasses, my insides feel like an endless loop of people lost in traffic.

  I miss home. My chest hurts with missing. I try to imagine our house, how good it feels to be in the kitchen with Varmint on my lap, Mum attacking cloves of garlic, Dad poring over his blueprints. But they are all too far away and I am too changed. There is only this hotel room; this fake air, this filtered view. In the corner, my future sits waiting for me in a mess of plastic bags.

  The sun sets. It grows dark in the room but I don’t move to switch on a light. Through the window the city is glimmering. Traffic twists in streams of white and red, an endless flow of opposites.

  Eleanor is up now, padding in and out of the bathroom. She runs me a bath, which I have while she changes for dinner. Afterwards I feel a bit better. Heading back out into the night air when I am so clean and ready for bed feels special. A spark shoots up inside my hollow body. I let the thick night ooze over me.

  In the morning we pack our suitcases and leave them in the hotel lobby. I try to fill my empty-shell feeling at the breakfast buffet, forcing down buttery jam-eyed pastries and scrambled eggs and chewy bacon until I feel sick. The buffet room has a long wall of glass and overlooks a section of the harbour where boats flit like insects. Every time a ferry passes by, Eleanor sighs because there is no time for us to ride on one.

  At Hyde Park our taxi stops in front of a fancy department store. Inside there are giant urns of flowers on marble pillars and somewhere a piano is being played with lazy fingers. At the bustling make-up counters I let myself be sprayed with four different types of cologne, but none of them smell like Mr Symonds. The combination on my skin is bad. Trying not to think of scrambled eggs, I ride up a wooden escalator for the breeze and back down again. Still Eleanor isn’t ready so I wander through the display of silk scarves, pressing their cool material against my face, then over to the hats with exotic-looking feathers.

  Outside at last we cross the road and walk past a giant chess set into the park. Eleanor takes my photo in front of a fountain full of animals and naked pe
ople flexing their muscles. We take a tunnel under the road and come out at the Cathedral, then follow a line of big old fig trees to the Gallery. As I walk up the stone steps I feel suddenly nervous, it’s such an old and stern-looking building, a place where pictures are obviously taken very seriously.

  At the counter I give my backpack to a man in a grey coat and he gives me a ticket in return. Eleanor says we should see the contemporary Australian collection first, lots of bright blue with boats and birds and jetties squashed into the corners or pale hills and paddocks all hazy with drought dust. But I like the European rooms best, with their heavy frames and dark armies clashing under storm clouds. The soldiers look so powerful, even when they’re being slaughtered. Over the next two hours we look at so many faces and figures, so many splatters and splashes and blocks of colour, that my brain starts to feel numb. There are pictures I’ve seen before in books or on cards or even in prints around our house and it’s interesting how different they look here, the way they are bigger or smaller, how some colours are brighter; it changes what I think of them.

  The Norman Lindsay etchings make me miss my mother all over again. Whenever she wanders out after a shower, frowning and clutching at the handfuls of flab on her stomach or bum, Dad snorts and tells her not to be silly — she has a classic Norman Lindsay figure. This always gets him a kiss and sends her prancing off to get dressed with a smile.

  We eat lunch at the Gallery restaurant. Eleanor points out a piece by her favourite artist hanging across from us, a great big work made up of little wooden rectangles cut up and stuck back together in waves of black and yellow. Eleanor explains how it was made from old drink crates that the artist collected. I look at the picture all through lunch, wondering how it manages to be both clumsy and flowing at the same time, how a hundred bits of wood put together can look like hills and light and moving clouds. When Eleanor is paying the bill I walk over and I’m surprised at how rough the work actually is. The edges are torn, the gaps uneven, the broken black lettering doesn’t match and is faded and worn in places. Up close, the wavy pattern becomes a choppy sea. I put my hand up to explore the lumpy surface.