The Painted Sky

by Alice Campion

  Nina rested her hand on the glass of the car window. The heat from outside made it feel as warm as a living thing. So, she was officially an orphan now, she thought. And maybe, at last, officially free of childish fantasies about a father who would one day reappear out of thin air.

  She glanced in the side mirror to see Theo and Olivia bickering in the car behind her. At the graveside ceremony, Olivia had held Nina’s hand as dust swirled between broken-faced cherubs and tilted checkerboard slabs. Through those last moments as they lowered the coffin into the grey dusty hole, Nina had tried to comprehend that it was Jim in there. But with Hilary standing opposite, Phillip’s arm around her, Nina was distracted. Everywhere she turned the woman was there. The last time they’d met Hilary had seemed to want to kill her. But now the same face that had been twisted with fury was impassive behind large sunglasses.

  The car buzzed across the cattle grid into The Springs’ garden, bringing Nina back to the present. To her dismay, twenty or so cars were parked randomly beside the house.

  ‘Oh my god, I had no idea so many people would come. I only bought a few biscuits …’

  ‘Don’t worry, mate, it’ll be okay,’ said Terence, holding the car door open for her. He and Harrison walked Nina around the back. The clink of glass and crockery greeted them.

  As Terence pushed the kitchen door open, Nina stood staring. The table was laden with food. Plates of homemade sausage rolls, pyramids of sandwiches and jugs of fruit punch beaded with condensation jostled for space. Two sponges bulging with jam and cream perched like fat hens on a pair of ornate silver cake stands. From the stovetop something – bolognaise? – emitted delicious smells under Moira’s supervision. Moira, elegant in black with an opal-coloured scarf draped around her shoulders, came forward to kiss Nina and give her a squeeze. There was no mistaking her concern, but her eyes were bright with enjoyment too.

  ‘Come in out of that wind, love. I hate these types of days. Makes people crazy,’ said Moira, brushing dust from Nina’s shoulders and ushering her towards the sitting room.

  ‘Look what your driver, Hamish, dropped in earlier,’ said Moira, indicating a flower arrangement in the shape of a spoon propped on the hall table. Nina picked up the card. For one of our finest. May you continue to Stir, wherever you’re headed. The names of the remaining members of the Sydney Stir were listed. Nina smiled. Jim would have loved it.

  A burst of laughter came from the sitting room.

  ‘Come on, love. Everyone wants a chat,’ said Moira, bustling her through the doorway.

  ‘Okay, next.’ A stocky man with a dark bushy beard held up his hands for silence. ‘What was Jim’s best practical joke? Any takers?’

  ‘I know, I know!’ piped up a freckle-faced woman from the back of the crowd. ‘When he rearranged the letters on the school gate to read anal laW High.’ The group broke into laughter. ‘They never did find the “d”,’ she added.

  ‘I remember telling Hils that when she was home on the holidays,’ called Lobby Murphy from the pianola stool, his red hair standing up as usual like the bristles on a scrubbing brush. ‘She thought I made it up, but I never.’ He laughed goofily.

  Looking around at the well-dressed crowd, Nina recognised many faces from the funeral and from Wandalla.

  ‘I reckon it’s got to be the day we got Tugger Reeves, the maths teacher, remember?’ said a man in a white jacket.

  ‘Oh, yeah!’ replied the bushy-bearded man. ‘Classic!’

  In response to a burble of questions the white-jacketed man took the floor.

  ‘Well, Rick Reeves was a prize bastard. Jim used to call him “Rick-With-A-Silent-P”. Which is how he got the nickname Tugger.’

  The crowd laughed appreciatively.

  ‘Anyway, one day, Jim got us all to talk so quietly that Tugger thought he was going deaf. We even found a way to slam the door so it was almost silent. So Tugger’s looking around, getting confused, waggling his finger in his ear to clear it –’

  The man caught sight of Nina poised in the doorway and came to a halt. Everyone turned.

  ‘Look, everyone, I just want to …’ Nina couldn’t speak for tears.

  ‘Go ahead, love,’ said the man kindly.

  ‘Thank you all for coming. It would have meant so much to …’ Her voice failed.

  ‘It’s all right. I think we all know what you mean,’ said Moira, handing her both a cup of tea and a glass of wine from the sideboard.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind about the stories,’ said the bearded man.

  ‘Please,’ she smiled. ‘I love to hear it. I’ve never heard them. It makes him real.’

  Nina felt a bump that pushed her into the room. She turned to find Olivia backing in through the door, holding a large canvas.

  ‘Recognise this?’ Olivia asked, turning to face Nina. It was Jim’s painting of the man walking away from the stone fountain. The one she had been echoing with her own canvas. Nina looked at her friend, puzzled.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Olivia shrugged. ‘This one wanted to come home. When I was walking out the door it just seemed to call out at me like a homeless dog and I couldn’t bear to leave it behind.’

  Nina stared at it for a second, her mouth open. Of all the pictures she had asked Olivia to look after, this was the one she’d chosen to bring along.

  ‘I swear you are spooky sometimes, Ms Olivia, the way you read my mind,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Take it to the dining room, through there. I think you’ll see where to put it.’

  The screen door banged and Phillip steered Hilary into the room. She was still wearing the sunglasses but had added an enormous hat with a drift of hailstone veiling across her face. In spite of herself, Nina couldn’t help admiring her style. It was always over the top, but she nailed it, just the same. The babble of voices hushed as everyone eyeballed the new arrival.

  ‘Drink, darling?’ asked Phillip, shepherding Hilary into an armchair. A group of guests moved aside to allow them to pass.

  ‘Oh no, not at this hour.’ Hilary removed her sunglasses to reveal vacant eyes. ‘Phillip, quick, is that the Bannisters?’ She wobbled out of the chair and glided forward with hand outstretched. ‘How marvellous to see you. I’m so glad you could come.’

  Nina raised an eyebrow. At least Hilary’s form was consistent, she had to admit. But she could feel apprehension making a knot in her stomach as it always did when Hilary was around. Stop it, she told herself. Tomorrow the settlement would go ahead and she need never see Hilary again.

  ‘Come on, Deb. We’ve made an appearance. Let’s head off now.’ Heath and Deborah were in the crowded hallway near the front door, their backs to her. Nina’s heart began to race. The nape of his neck. The way he held his shoulders.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re being so selfish,’ Deborah hissed, shaking him by the elbow. ‘We haven’t even talked to Nina yet.’

  ‘I reckon she’s had enough condolences for one day, don’t you think?’ Heath’s voice was insistent.

  ‘I’m not leaving, Heath, and neither are you. That’s it. Now let’s go find her.’

  Nina backed rapidly along the hallway and into the kitchen. Of course she’d have to talk to them, but not yet.

  ‘So, that hair – medical experiment gone wrong or just a way to say “up yours” to Mum and Dad?’ Ben’s voice was raised above the hubbub. Olivia held a knife poised over a sponge cake on the kitchen table, her hair a halo of fire in the light from the window.

  ‘Both, actually,’ said Olivia, winking at Nina. She handed a slice to Ben.

  Theo was making himself at home, noted Nina, with a longneck in one hand and a bowl of spag bol in the other. So much for ‘helping’.

  ‘So,’ Olivia commented to Ben as she picked at her triangle of cake, ‘why hasn’t Nina introduced me to the hot guy in the wheelchair?’

  ‘Olivia, meet the adorable Ben. Ben, meet the very naughty Olivia,’ said Nina.

  ‘Where’s she been hiding you?’ asked Olivia, sucking
the cream off her fingertip with a smile.

  To Nina’s surprise Ben blushed as he laughed, ‘I’m pretty hard to hide.’

  ‘I bet you are.’ Olivia looked to the back door. ‘Come on then, Big Ben, or whatever your name is, take me on a tour of this place before I eat myself to death.’

  Olivia flicked her pleated skirt and twinkled her fingers goodbye to Nina, who smiled back in relief. One of ‘her mob’ was here, someone she didn’t have to explain herself to. She felt herself unwind, just a little.

  ‘Nina, love, there you are.’ Shona held the back door open for Possum, who came bearing an armful of canvases, his long beard streaming around his head in the wind.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind we didn’t come to the church,’ Shona said, enfolding Nina in her soft bosom. ‘Can’t stand those places since I went to the mission school. Smell of that incense gives me the skeevies.’

  ‘Thought people might like to have a look at some of Jim’s work,’ said Possum, hefting his bundle. ‘None of them are finished. I’ve been keeping them in the shed. Guess I thought he’d be back for them someday. Where can I put ’em?’

  ‘Through here, in the old dining room.’ Nina led them to the room that had now become her studio. The big wooden table had been pushed against the wall to display Jim’s artwork and family photos. Nina’s unfinished canvas of the faceless man was propped at the back, beside its twin, Jim’s painting of the same subject.

  ‘Well, bugger me,’ said Possum, stopping to appraise the pair. ‘That’s Jim’s, I’d be able to tell it a mile off. But the other one … Yours?’

  Nina nodded, embarrassed. Beside Jim’s assured strokes, her efforts looked tentative, immature. ‘You know he was only three years older than me when he died,’ said Nina softly as she touched the frame of his painting. ‘His work is so good compared to mine. I’m still trying to get everything right. Every time I look at it there’s something else I want to work on, the shape of the tree, the colour of the grass.’ She sighed.

  ‘It’s nice, Nina, got a real dark edge to it,’ said Shona, putting an arm around Nina’s waist.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not the grass that’s bothering you, is it?’ said Possum. ‘It’s him, right?’ He gestured with his chin at the figure of the man.

  So true, thought Nina. She’d now turned the man around fully, to see his face the way she’d always wanted to. But after all her work, the face was still vague, as though viewed through milky water. She had painted it at least five times over the past weeks, but nothing worked. Layer on layer of different expressions and likenesses lay under the surface, like her old ideas of Jim.

  ‘I know that one all right,’ said Shona, her eyes on the man in Nina’s painting. She threw an amused glance at her husband and then Nina. ‘Bamapana, they call him up north. He’s the one who plays tricks. The one who messes with people’s heads so they end up fighting.’

  ‘It’s a story from the Yolngu people,’ said Possum. ‘We always did see that spirit in your old man, me and Shona.’

  ‘You mean you think it’s Dad?’

  ‘’Course it is. Who else is it going to be?’ said Possum. ‘He’ll give you the slip all the time, that one.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Nina said, relieved. That was why she couldn’t nail it. All this time she’d thought that if she could find Jim, her questions would be answered, but she still didn’t have a clear idea of who Jim had been. He’d been one person to her, another to Harrison, someone else to her mother, and Hilary’s idea was different again. Jim had been a trickster, a shapeshifter, like Shona said. Was it futile to try to pin him down?

  Possum carefully laid out Jim’s canvases and paper sketches. With pride he handed Nina a charcoal drawing of Shona’s face, much younger, illuminated from below by firelight. A few simple lines captured the beauty of her expression and the intensity of her dark eyes, a single spark glowing in each.

  ‘It’s wonderful. I love it,’ said Nina, laying it in the centre of the table.

  The next was a detail of the stone fountain at Durham House, painstakingly exact in its neo-gothic glory. And then a large canvas, obviously intended to be a major work. The outlines of the rocky side of the waterhole were sketched in, but only the foreground had been painted. The little beach surrounded by a shimmer of water reminded Nina powerfully of the last time she had been there. Before everything had changed.

  ‘How are you bearing up?’ Nina turned to find Kathryn Blackett smiling kindly at her.

  Nina kissed her cheek.

  ‘Thanks so much for coming,’ she said.

  ‘We were very fond of Jim, and how are you?’ Kathryn said, looking into her face.

  Nina nodded. ‘I’m just glad all the legal stuff is over.’

  ‘But?’ Kathryn prompted.

  ‘I’ve still got more questions than answers about Dad.’

  Kathryn grimaced sympathetically and squeezed Nina’s arm.

  ‘Mac, look here. The Springs in its heyday,’ Kathryn said, picking up one of the photographs.

  ‘Nina seems to be doing her best to bring it back from the brink.’ Mac’s eyes were shining.

  ‘Well, I’ve done what I can. It will be up to the new owner now,’ Nina sighed, nodding towards Hilary, who was making her way through the packed dining room. The crowd seemed to part before her like the Red Sea.

  Mac caught Kathryn’s eye and frowned.

  ‘She’s not so bad, you know,’ whispered Kathryn, patting Nina’s hand. ‘I know she can seem a bit –’

  ‘Kathryn, Mac,’ said Hilary, ‘can I get you something to eat? Lobby?’ She looked around in confusion. ‘I’ll get someone to bring you a plate. Lobby!’ she bellowed, and a hush fell on the crowd.

  ‘Here, Hilary,’ said Lobby. He stood at the door, his face anxious.

  Hilary paused as if she was trying to remember what she had called him for. ‘Um … bring me a scotch,’ she snapped.

  Lobby disappeared.

  Hilary moved forward to look at the paintings Possum had unwrapped. She picked up a sketch of Durham House, caressed it and laid it down over the drawing of Shona.

  Typical, thought Nina.

  Hilary surveyed the studio. ‘Jim loved this room. Some of his finest work was done in here,’ she said, way too loudly.

  ‘Oh, for the love of –’ began Possum, but Shona caught his eye and indicated the door with a nod of her head.

  ‘See you later,’ she whispered to Nina as they squeezed through the crowd towards the door, but not before Possum had reached over and brought the sketch of Shona back into the daylight at the top of the pile.

  ‘We were just saying what a good job Nina’s done with the old place, don’t you think, Hilary?’ said Kathryn in a soothing voice.

  ‘You seem to be taking quite an interest in little Nina,’ sneered Hilary as Lobby delivered a bottle of scotch and a tumbler. Nina felt the familiar clutch of apprehension. But it was okay, Mac and Kathryn were there.

  ‘Well, we –’ Mac seemed lost for words.

  ‘Of course we take an interest,’ Kathryn said.

  Hilary slopped whisky into the glass and took a gulp. ‘Ah yes. Interested in young women who’ve lost their way and wandered in the wrong direction, eh, Mac? Those wandering girls …’ She paused, seemingly mesmerised by Nina’s painting of Durham House.

  ‘Now hang on a minute …’ started Mac before Kathryn caught his eye.

  ‘Oh, Jim.’ Hilary’s smeary lips began to quiver.

  ‘Yes, we all miss him, Hilary,’ said Kathryn in a warning tone. ‘You should consider staying on, Nina,’ she continued, subtly moving to screen Hilary, who shot a venomous glance at Nina. ‘The bore might have dried up but people are doing all kinds of things with land like this nowadays,’ continued Kathryn. ‘Our granddaughter Jane’s got a place out Walgett way. She’s turned it into an artists’ retreat. Accommodation, studios. She had to make quite an investment, get water piped in, but it’s starting to turn a profit. She’d love to meet you.
’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ Nina replied politely. It was a pipe dream, all right.

  ‘Maybe you could start up a wrestling academy,’ said Hilary, laughing harshly. ‘She’s pretty good at the old hand-to-hand combat.’ She nudged Kathryn. ‘I’ve still got a bare patch where she ripped my hair out.’

  Kathryn turned to Hilary, disbelieving. ‘What are you talking about, Hilary?’

  ‘Did I tell you how she’s prone to having a go at defence–defenceless women twice her age?’ she added.

  ‘Hilary, that’s enough,’ said Kathryn, exasperated.

  ‘Watch out, Kathryn, there’s no telling what she could do to a grandma like you!’ Hilary laughed, and then coughed and spluttered, sloshing scotch over the edge of her glass.

  ‘Let’s get some fresh air,’ Mac said in a firm voice, taking Hilary’s arm. ‘Come on.’

  Nina and Kathryn exchanged glances, but Kathryn’s look was complex, a mixture of compassion and, was it fear? A shudder went through Nina. She put her empty cup down.

  Now was her last chance. She’d be leaving in a couple of days and would probably not return for years, if ever. Hilary was drunk and likely to let something slip.

  Nina went through the door Mac and Hilary had taken and resolved, for one last time, to give it her best shot, for Jim.

  The sharp, fatty smell of sausage rolls with tomato sauce made Heath claustrophobic, desperate to get outside, even into the dusty wind. The memory of his own parents’ funeral was stronger than ever. He had to get away from here. Hilary was on the rampage, and Deb was following Nina around like a lost calf. The whole thing was so messed up.

  But as he moved to the breezeway Ben intercepted him. ‘You okay, mate? You look peaky.’

  Peaky. Mum’s word. Heath mustered a smile. ‘Yeah. Reminds me,’ he said.

  ‘Me too, mate.’

  They sheltered in the breezeway together.

  ‘Wanker,’ said Ben, pointing to Theo’s BMW Roadster parked outside.

  Heath sighed.

  ‘Nina’s friend Olivia says he’s a real dick,’ said Ben. ‘Sure to try it on, coming up all this way. Staying overnight.’ He looked at Heath, who kept a straight face. ‘That thing must be worth a hundred grand,’ Ben said, nodding at the convertible, gleaming in the sun. ‘All hat and no cattle, I reckon. That’s the kind of wanker Nina has to hang around with, back in Sydney.’