Golden Deeds

by Chidgey, Catherine

  8 January 1988

  I have a present for him, a real present, not socks or writing paper or hankies. I’ve wrapped it in shiny silver paper, so he’ll see himself as he opens it, and me looking over his shoulder.

  9 January 1988

  He was very happy with his present, and said it would make him think of me. To say thank-you, he took me to lunch at Lorenzo’s, and I had venison with a rich berry sauce. After that we fed each other chocolate soufflé which was so light I could hardly feel it on my tongue, but the icing sugar made me sneeze and he laughed and said I was so unspoiled, and that was why he loved me.

  I2 January 1988

  We went ice skating today. The lake was frozen over, for the first time ever, and it was very beautiful in the late afternoon. The sun was hanging so low I thought I could touch it. He held me around the waist as we glided across the frozen water, and in some places we could see right through to where there were leaves and sticks suspended in the ice, and one silvery fish.

  Children had found the Mini first.

  ‘Look,’ said the boy, ‘a tennis racket.’

  The girl peered in the back window. ‘There’s some CDs too.’

  They tried the doors and windows but the car was sealed tight.

  ‘I know,’ said the boy, and he ran to the river’s edge, where the willow trees made green caves. The stone he chose was smooth and heavy, as big as two fists. He struck the passenger window. The glass cracked, but it wouldn’t break.

  20 January 1988

  Although I’ve only known him for a short time, I know were meant to be together. He’s asked me to go skiing with him, and says he’ll teach me how. Were going to stay in a cabin owned by his family. I’ve never been up the mountain. I’ve never even seen snow before.

  26 January 1988

  I didn’t want to come home. Up there it felt like there was nobody else but us alive, and the white went on forever. When we skied downhill I thought I might fly off the edge of the mountain.

  27 January 1988

  I bought a new dress today, especially for him. It has a deep cut at the back and is very fitting. I think it makes me look older. I’m going to wear my hair up so I can feel the air on my skin. He likes my hair up, he says it gives him easy access to my neck.

  30 January 1988

  When we went out last night he said he had a present for me. Lying at the bottom of my wine glass was a key, and he held his hands over my eyes and led me outside. Parked there on the street was a silver car, and when I tried the key in the ignition it sounded just like Smoky does when she’s purring, and I nearly said so but I’m glad I didn’t because it would have sounded so babyish. We drove and drove, and I could feel the leather seat against my bare back, and when we reached a quiet spot on the waterfront we stopped.

  Ruth didn’t show the photocopied diary to Malcolm. It would only upset him, she told herself, to read the romantic fantasies of his little girl. And they were fantasies, that was obvious. Laura had never been wooed by a rich man, she’d never owned a silver car or been skiing or skating on a lake. No lakes froze this far north, Ruth knew. It wasn’t cold enough in winter, let alone in January. Every word was untrue, but still she read on, upsetting herself page by page, unable to stop. On 6 March Laura didn’t mention the eclipse. She didn’t say how she’d had breakfast with Ruth, how she’d dripped her blackberry toast on the tablecloth and had then driven in her rusting Mini to the wind turbine. Instead, she described a moonlit walk on a beach, tender words, a kiss. It could have come straight from a hackneyed movie, or one of Laura’s romance novels. And then Ruth saw that it wasn’t the last entry. Every page had been filled, every day of the year described. And although she knew it was ridiculous, she couldn’t stop thinking that perhaps these things really had happened, that perhaps this dream life described where Laura was now.

  The police returned the original diary to Ruth seven years later, when Laura was officially dead. The pages had been tested for clues; they were smudged with purple and still smelled faintly of chemicals.

  Malcolm had always been fond of gardening, and after Laura disappeared it occupied more and more of his time. He gave up landscape photography. There seemed little point in taking pictures of ice, snow, water. He wanted to make things look nice, he said, to create his own living, growing landscape, and he spent hours weeding, digging, scattering the soil with blood and bone. He familiarised himself with the phases of the moon, with the different varieties of iris and how they ranged from white to deepest purple. He learned to distinguish between jonquils and split-cupped daffodils. He understood words like Chrysanthemum morifolium, Pyrostegia venusta, Aquilegia caerulea. His garden was a machine, an engine; if one part malfunctioned then everything was thrown out of balance. He worked on it with the devotion other men lavished on cars. Sometimes he had the odd sensation that the roots were humming beneath his feet, knitting together, eating up the earth.

  In summertime, the garden shook with flowers. Tea roses and clematis hid the back fence, delphiniums grew waist-high. At work, Phil teased him about it, asking in a lisping falsetto how the pansies were coming along, whether Malcolm had seen any fairies. ‘And he bakes bread, too,’ he told the rest of the office.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with all the flowers. I wish I had somewhere to take them,’ Malcolm said to Ruth, who didn’t understand.

  ‘But you take a bunch to Mum every week,’ she said. ‘She loves them.’

  Malcolm preferred the garden in winter. He relished the emptiness of it, the sense of waiting, the ribs of the fig tree bare and clean, the daphne filling cold days with perfume. He liked to dig the vegetable patch, to turn the black soil over clod by clod. Sometimes he found things: pieces of fat green glass, broken plates and teacups, coins, jars. Once he found the leg of a porcelain doll with a tiny shoe painted on its foot, and once a thick old bottle with a marble trapped in its neck. He kept all the pieces he dug up. He rinsed them off and displayed them on the bottom shelf of Ruth’s china cabinet. She didn’t like him digging too much; she said it worried her.

  ‘You never know what you’ll hit,’ she told him. ‘You can’t just go digging haphazardly, it’s dangerous.’

  Sometimes she stood at the front door and called him for lunch or a cup of tea. ‘Malcolm?’ she said. ‘Malcolm?’ As if his name was a question, although she could see him from the porch.

  Malcolm knew he wouldn’t hit anything. He was too careful, and besides, there was nothing dangerous buried in their garden—he knew the location of every power cable, every water pipe. Sometimes, as he dug, he thought about the wind turbine turning its white arms on top of the hill. It was noisy up close; on blustery days the blades swooped and whistled, and you had to shout to be heard. On still days, though, they barely moved, floating against the blue sky like fingers in water. The turbine provided enough electricity for seventy average households, Malcolm recalled. He wondered which seventy, whether their house was powered by wind.

  There wasn’t a big garden at the new place; the back yard had been almost entirely paved. Malcolm was disappointed when they first looked at the property, but Ruth seemed to love it.

  ‘Imagine all the extra time you’ll have,’ she said. And when she was arranging the lounge furniture, stacking her teacups and teapots and cake plates in the china cabinet, she filled every shelf. ‘Much better,’ she said, ‘don’t you think?’

  Ruth was glad to be rid of Malcolm’s bits and pieces. She didn’t like having them in the house; they made her uneasy, so many broken things. She couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the remaining parts; whether, for instance, there was a doll’s hollow head still underground, its glass eyes stopped with earth. Malcolm gave the garden at the old house one final dig before they moved, to tidy it up for the tenants, he said. She watched him from the window. He sliced the soil, pushing the spade in with his heel as if stamping out a fire, then turning it. He never broke his rhythm. Daniel played in the puddles at the edge of the garden
, examining worms, slaters, ants. He was covered in mud, but Ruth didn’t mind. At least he was showing an interest in the natural world, in things living. When she came out with a jug of iced water, Malcolm was holding two shards of porcelain on his dirty palm.

  ‘Do you think these were part of the same plate?’ he said.

  The surface of the china was crazed, and it reminded Ruth of the brittle toffee made for school fairs or during school holidays, as a treat. She didn’t know why pieces of china made her think of toffee; she hadn’t made any in years. But it could be sharp like broken china, she remembered. It could shatter on the tongue, and the only way to avoid jabbing the soft walls of the mouth was to wait until the pieces melted, disappeared into nothing. She wished Malcolm could get some time off work, come away on a holiday. They hadn’t been on holiday since Bali, and that was four years ago.

  ‘Daniel was a baby then,’ he’d said when she suggested a break. ‘It’s different now, it would be too hard. It wouldn’t be a holiday at all.’

  Ruth poured two glasses of water, but Malcolm didn’t drink his. He trickled it over the porcelain shards, rubbing them clean until they shone like bones. She wondered what he thought about as he worked; if he thought about anything at all. It was unhealthy, all that digging.

  The man had been thrilled with his idea. He was dying to tell someone about it, but he stopped himself each time he felt the words welling up. It wasn’t the girl he wanted to talk about. She was gone and forgotten; that had been easy. There was no drama, just a few kicks and scratches, a bleeding nose. No, the idea was the clever part. The plan. He was so proud of it, he could hardly sleep. He wondered what his mother would say if he told her; whether it would shut her up for a minute or two, make her look at him through new eyes. He would love to see the expression on her face.

  He didn’t know how he’d come up with the idea. Once, at school, he’d got a perfect score on his maths test and the teacher had asked him to stay behind after class.

  ‘How did this happen?’ she’d asked. ‘How did you do this?’ And he said he didn’t know, he’d figured out the right answers, he supposed.

  ‘I see,’ she said. She’d be watching him closely, she said. She was most interested to see if he could repeat his extraordinary performance the next time. He couldn’t.

  The man’s idea had come out of nowhere just like his good mark had. It was better than good, it was brilliant. It was so brilliant he was a little afraid of it.

  Nobody noticed that Walter Hicks’s grave had been disturbed. He’d only been in there a day, the soil above him still a swollen mound, filled with pockets of air. That first night, as his children and his grandchildren drank to him, as his wife Edna read cards and watered vases of flowers and froze leftover cakes and savouries, the man began digging. Quickly, quietly, the loose soil was removed and then, just as quickly, replaced and smoothed over so that in a weeks time, when Walter’s headstone was laid and his family brought flowers, nobody noticed a thing.

  ‘Poor old Walt,’ his grandchildren said at Christmas, or on Anzac Day, or over a pint of beer. They continued to bring flowers to his grave a couple of times a year, skinny bunches of carnations which they bought at the dairy and which were always too tall. At the cemetery they lifted the squat concrete vases from either side of Walter’s headstone, removed the old, slimy stems and added fresh water. Then they poked the flowers in, arranged them as best they could, replaced the vases and left. They didn’t linger the way other mourners did. They didn’t talk to Walter, jab plastic windmills into his grave, picnic on top of it. They didn’t attach photographs sealed in plastic bags. They were dignified and quick, and went home feeling pleased with themselves.

  Walter’s widow Edna wouldn’t visit the cemetery. She preferred, she said, to remember Walt as he was. Slowly, the soil settled.

  ‘The No. 115 Shipbuilding Outfit has arrived!’ yelled Patrick, running to the front door as soon as he heard his father’s key, hugging the parcel to his chest.

  ‘Now then, now then,’ said Graham, removing his hat and coat, uncoiling his scarf from about his neck. ‘Bring me my knife.’

  He pushed out the blade and screwed it into place, inspecting its edge under the reading lamp. He turned the parcel this way and that as if looking for a secret catch, his own name and address revolving in his hands. The contents made no sound. He sliced the string, then ran his knife under the paper, where the folds were so he didn’t damage the box. ‘The No. 115,’ he said, clearing the severed wrappings—suddenly of no interest—away from the box. ‘A very limited edition, made exactly to scale. This’ll be worth a lot in a few years’ time.’ He lifted open the box and checked each part. ‘Good,’ he said, Very good. Mint condition. I’ve managed to track down an Aeroplane Constructor Outfit too, Doreen, did I tell you? And I’ve ordered another No. 7 Outfit.’

  The unassembled ship sat on the sideboard for the rest of the evening, on display alongside the meat platter and the gravy boat from the new dinner set. Patrick kept glancing at it, but it wasn’t mentioned. The next day was Saturday, though, and his father would have some free time. Perhaps he was saving it until then.

  Patrick could hardly sleep that night. He kept thinking about the ship, about how magnificent it would look when assembled. He hoped his father would let him do the funnel. His toes tingled and he gripped the sheet with his fists. It felt like the night before his birthday.

  In the morning, the Shipbuilding Outfit was gone.

  ‘Dad’s put it away for safekeeping,’ said Patrick’s mother. ‘He didn’t want it to get damaged.’

  ‘What could happen to it?’ said Patrick. ‘It hasn’t even been taken out of its box.’

  Patrick’s mother bit her bottom lip. ‘I’m not sure he wants to unpack it. I think he might want to keep it nice and new. As an investment.’

  ‘But it’s not new,’ said Patrick. And it’s meant to be put together.’

  He gulped a mouthful of green beans.

  ‘Combine, son, combine,’ barked his father. ‘It aids the digestion.’

  Patrick eyed the space on the sideboard where the shipbuilding box had stood. Andrew and his brother got a No. 4 Outfit for Christmas and they’ve just made a mechanical crossbow,’ he said. ‘It’s not as good as the Shipbuilding Outfit though.’

  ‘It looked like a complicated one, Graham,’ said Patrick’s mother. ‘How many hours does it take to put together?’

  ‘The labour’s not the point with a model like that, Doreen,’ said Patrick’s father. He pushed a piece of sausage, a slice of carrot, some mashed potato and a bean on to his fork, and waved the laden utensil at his wife like a stern finger. ‘I have no intention of assembling the Shipbuilding Outfit,’ he said. ‘The reward is in the knowledge that such a construction is possible. It’s not necessary to put it all together.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Patrick’s mother. She ate a single sliver of carrot. ‘Do you remember, years ago, Graham, before Patrick was born, there was that pantomime with the giant Meccano models?’

  ‘Pantomime?’ said Patrick’s father. ‘Why would I remember a pantomime?’

  ‘It was The Sleeping Beauty. Prince Florizel passes through a land where everything is made of Meccano. They used special parts eight times the usual size, do you remember, Graham, and there was a giant arch bridge spanning the stage and glittering under the lights, and they had a windmill, and cranes, and a ferris wheel, and all sorts of other giant models. And Prince Florizel builds a Meccano aeroplane, and flies away to the turret chamber of the witch’s tower and rescues Sleeping Beauty,’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ said Patrick’s father.

  ‘Could you go up on the stage?’ said Patrick. ‘Did they let you touch the models?’

  ‘Oh, we didn’t see the play,’ said his mother. ‘Did we, Graham.’

  After dinner she found the brown paper the Outfit had been wrapped in and she smoothed it out. There are some good stamps on here, Patrick,’ she said. ‘You could soak them off f
or your collection.’

  Patrick dropped the scraps of paper into a dish of water. Slowly the stamps came away, floating like flimsy life rafts. When he fished them out the gum on the back was slippery, and he placed them to dry face-down on a clean handkerchief.

  The next morning they were all curled up, and they felt grainy and brittle, like dead leaves. He went to the museum.

  ‘We have some new acquisitions,’ said the curator. ‘Would you like to earn some pocket money?’

  All Patrick had to do was insert a filmy piece of tissue between the pages of each manuscript, to prevent ghosting. The curator showed him a miniature, ‘The Lover Admitted into the Garden. It had been imprinted with text from the opposite page; backwards writing surrounded the garden and the lover like shadows. And the miniature had left traces, too: superimposed on the text was a backwards lover, a mirror garden.

  As Patrick covered up pictures and words, the curator talked. Didn’t the manuscripts look as if they were painted yesterday? Weren’t the colours still luminous, untouched by time?

  ‘Stale urine,’ he said. They added it to the pigment. Or egg white, or gum, sometimes honey. Or crushed egg shell, glue made from the bladder of the sturgeon,’ he scratched his ear, ‘or ear wax.’ He listed ingredients as if reciting a spell. Red, he said, was made with cinnabar, commonly found in Spain, or with brazilwood, or madder root. Dragonsblood red was made with the sap of the shrub Pterocarpus draco, although some medieval recipes called for blood from elephants and dragons which had killed each other in battle. Vermilion was produced by heating mercury with sulphur, then collecting and grinding the deposited vapour. Licking a vermilion paintbrush, he said, was unwise; the pigment was poisonous. White came from white lead, green from malachite or verdigris, yellow from volcanic earth or saffron. Blue came from azurite, a very hard stone which was slowly ground to powder. The seeds of the turnsole plant produced a more violet shade, but ultramarine was the blue most highly prized and most costly. Made from lapis lazuli brought from beyond the sea—ultra mare—a 1403 inventory of the Duc de Berry’s possessions listed two pots of ultramarine among his riches.