‘You went for a farewell drink. I remember that.’
‘That’s when it happened. Or rather, when I made it happen.’
I can see the scene: two long thin women perched at a bar, a bowl of nuts placed symbolically between them, two glasses of over-priced wine at their elbows. There is a sharpness, the tang of muted disclosure then their backs stiffen and their faces invert. Around them people laugh too loudly and make corny jokes to hide their displeasures. The monotony of arrivals and departures is preceded by a bell-like doh-ray-me. The perpetual shuffle of excited migration and wistful return continues but the two women are silent, erect like pinnacles of stone on a hot bare plain. Their stillness continues; then, as if they are joined marionettes, they both arise, swallow the remainder of the wine, pick up their valises and move fiercely into the concourse.
‘What did she say?’
Francesca swirls her drink so that the ice clinks.
‘Nothing at first, which was really infuriating. I wanted more than that, much more — some yelling and screaming, a good old-fashioned cat-fight. But she didn’t even react, just sat there and said nothing.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Not until the end. Your flight was called so we had to leave the bar. As we did, she just turned to me and said: “It won’t work.” And that was all.’
From the direction of the mountains, I can hear an owl calling its partner in perfect tenor.
‘She never told me.’ I lean forward, perplexed. ‘Why didn’t she just come out with it, confront me?’
‘I don’t know. Because it was my fault, I suppose —’
‘We were both there, Frannie.’
‘I know, I know.’ Francesca’s accompanying cough is hoarse, tired-sounding. ‘But I’m sure she felt that I was principally to blame. Hence — It won’t work. She must’ve thought I was trying to win you back.’
We are silent for a moment then she says, ‘We never mentioned it again. In fact, whenever we met we shut up, stopped being sisters and became like everyone else — restricted to safe, mutually agreed topics of conversation so we didn’t have to admit how we really felt. Stupid. The whole thing was too damned stupid for words.’
Francesca doesn’t say too much more but she does stay, drinks most of a cask of cheap moselle, weaves into Amelia’s room around midnight. At the front of the house I try to sleep but I cannot: it is the writer’s curse, to lie in bed and let other lives unravel within you. My characters seldom lie dormant. I rarely see them with any distinction but I hear them constantly. Their voices ring clearly as they gather in the half-light, engaging, jostling, competing for space and authority.
Another Saturday morning. Banks of cloud shifting daylight to shadow, no school, no commitments beyond the spectre of a shaggy, weed-infested lawn.
A slow comfortable drift of coffee, newspapers and cartoons.
‘Let’s go,’ I tell them after we have feasted on slabs of ham and hot bread rolls. ‘The rose leopard awaits us.’
Francesca says nothing but she and her long woollen dress are both with us as we stride through the wet grass and shovel the old doors back. She looks around then makes her choice, perches rather awkwardly on an upturned crate.
‘Frannie,’ I grin, ‘you’d be the first person to ever wear Carla Zampatti into a disused barn.’
She rubs at the pain behind her eyes.
‘I’d like to hear the end of this story, please,’ she tells me quietly.
In the spirit of no-more-bad-blood, I am happy to oblige.
The rose leopard had finally reached the Mother Star. It was smaller than she expected, more compact and its light was different — not just bright but warming, as if you could lie down and sleep inside its pink and orange rays.
The rose leopard approached tentatively. She knew that she had to stop the Swicks but she did not know how. Her only clue was that fresh, strong beams of light — any new brightness that was extraordinary and dazzling — would hurt their darkness-loving brains and send them scurrying back to gloom and misery. But there was no time to lose; she could sense that the Mother Star had lost some of its power. There were probably already Swicks here, quietly connecting to the Mother Star and beginning to blanket her life-giving brightness.
‘Whatever can I do?’ The rose leopard stopped in the heat and thought hard.
‘Why don’t you just give up?’ suggested Dragmir.
‘Told you!’ Milo is triumphant. ‘I knew he was evil’
‘The rose leopard will still win,’ says Otis in her most emphatic don’t-you-understand-anything voice. ‘Don’t you understand anything?’
The rose leopard was stunned. Why was Dragmir, a powerful young Eternal, out here in Cosmosia? She searched her mind for an explanation but there was only one possibility.
‘Of course!’ scoffed Dragmir. He’d been sitting back contentedly, reading her thoughts. ‘I’ve long been on the side of the Swicks. We’ve been planning our takeover of the Bright Universe for eons now.’
‘But why?’ The rose leopard watched as Dragmir hovered before her, blocked her path to the Mother Star.
‘You and your precious Enlightenment,’ he hissed. ‘You think that’s everything?’
‘Yes, yes it must be …’
‘Ha!’ he cackled cynically. ‘You think I’m happy with being one of so many useless Eternals, stuck in this never-ending cycle of maintaining the peace and tranquillity of a pathetic, miserable place like the Bright Universe?’
‘But it’s … it’s our lives.’ The rose leopard edged slightly away from Dragmir, loosened the ties on her magic cloak. ‘It’s everything: the gardens, the rivers and mountains, the stars, the air, our place, our children, our entire history! You’d throw that away?’
Dragmir lifted his head and laughed — and as his eyes momentarily left her, the rose leopard loosened her cloak even further.
‘Oh yes,’ snarled the Eternal. ‘Very soon the Bright Universe will be plunged into eternal blackness. With the death of the Mother Star; all other light will cease. Plants will wilt and then rot, the seas will thicken with algae and carry disease, the air that you breathe will become rancid. Your precious Garden will stop replenishing and your children will be no more! Life will be no more!’
‘No!’ I look up, see Otis’s pale, worried face. Francesca holds out her arms and my daughter goes to her, snuggles in.
They nod for me to continue.
Dragmir strutted around the rose leopard.
‘Best of all,’ he said proudly, ‘is the fate that awaits the Eternals. Because they will be rendered powerless, all shall go into the Void. Except me, of course.’
The rose leopard gathered the ends of the cloak into her long, slim hands.
‘But why?’ she asked again.
Dragmir shot her a look of total disdain.
‘Because I want control of the Spectrum,’ he said coldly. ‘Total control. I want to be the Absolute, the one whom all will obey and none shall defy. And with the Swicks on my side — and your Enlightenment out of the way — that is exactly what I will be!’
He cackled and lunged towards her then but the rose leopard was too quick. She swivelled and ducked; instantly she was wrapped inside her magic cloak, untouchable. As Dragmir roared with anger and ripped at the cloak, she flicked her powerful tail and spun hard towards the Mother Star. But Dragmir hung onto her and together they twisted and turned, closer and closer to the heat and brightness. Outside the protection of the cloak she could hear him screaming at her. She knew that if she went too close to the Mother Star then they would both vaporise. But she hoped desperately that the magic cloak, for so long a part of her life, would save her one more time.
The voice, when it came, was faint, but she knew that it belonged to Charyb.
‘Rose Leopard.’ Charyb sounded weak and old. ‘The Mother Star is fading. You must go to her.’
The rose leopard kept moving. Inside the cloak, the heat was becoming unbearable; she couldn’t im
agine what Dragmir was feeling. Despite the immense pain he was still yelling at her, still hanging on.
‘I am here, Charyb.’ The rose leopard tried to transmit her thoughts. ‘But what now? What can I do?’
This time Charyb’s message came through more powerfully.
‘Donate your Enlightenment,’ she pleaded. ‘It is the only way. Donate your Enlightenment.’
And finally the rose leopard understood her mission.
Milo taps me on the ankle. ‘I don’t get it,’ he says.
‘Wait,’ I tell him. ‘Just a little longer’
She was very close to the Mother Star now. Outside the cloak, she could feel Dragmir’s grip slowly loosening, then she coughed as a horrible burning smell invaded her nostrils.
She heard Dragmir cry out in a strange high-pitched voice, then there was a mighty explosion that shook her hard — and he was gone, vaporised to nothingness by the intense heat.
And now, she knew, now it was time for her to go too — for it was her Enlightenment and only hers that had the power to help the ailing Mother Star. She had to become part of the Mother Star, feed her light into it, donate her goodness and beauty and purity and everything else that shone from the Keeper of the Gardens of Replenishment.
The rose leopard paused for a moment and whispered a quiet prayer to her children. She asked them to look at the Mother Star every evening for the remainder of time, and to think of her well. Then, ignoring the intensity of the heat and the screeches of the Swicks, and remembering all of the wonder and grace that existed in the Bright Universe, she moved closer and closer to the Mother Star — until finally, she merged … and like ice melting into water, they became one, a beautiful radiant wholeness. Her Enlightenment was donated forever.
And down below, in the gardens and rivers, the mountains and plains, the deserts and forests, the light suddenly lifted. There was a newness and clarity to the world, and everyone stood taller and smiled — because they knew that the rose leopard’s sacrifice had meant that the Bright Universe could continue to shine throughout Eternity.
The children are silent, Amelia and Francesca too.
Finally, it is Milo who asks: ‘So she died, right? The rose leopard is gone?’
Francesca answers for me.
‘No,’ she says with a mother’s calm confidence. ‘Not gone. She’s — elsewhere. And she’s lucky. She’s lucky because she’s part of the Mother Star, and we should be very proud of her.’
We sit in our tableau and consider this a while as the warm spangles of morning gather about us.
‘I’m going to miss the rose leopard,’ says Otis in a funny voice.
‘There’s no need.’ I reach across, pull her small brown body to me, feel her skinny warmth between my hands. ‘Because she’s here, with us, every minute of every day, every month of every year. Okay? She’s here with us now.’
It is later that day when I realise that maybe the story is not quite complete. I leave the study, leave the glue and my diminishing pile of photos, disengage myself from the sticky labels and go to Amelia’s door. I tap twice, answer her call to come in, expect to find her squeezing paint onto a palette but see instead that she is reading.
‘So, what’s the book?’
She looks momentarily embarrassed then shrugs and holds it up by the spine so that I can see the cover.
Pears Amid Paradisio, An Allegory by Vincent Daley.
Pause for reflection.
‘Why did you call yourself Vincent?’ she asks slyly.
Why indeed? Because it’s my baptised name, the statistic that adorns my marriage certificate and driver’s licence; or because Stu thought it sounded more grand and impressive, like someone whose professionalism entails writing exactly five thousand uncompromising words every day before breakfast; or because, as Kaz said, it looked scholarly and it said things, right things like: Hey world — take me seriously! Take my creations seriously!
‘I wanted to be taken seriously,’ I tell her, trying not to sound sheepish. ‘See, authors with completed christian names are always taken more seriously than those without. It’s an inevitable, though poorly documented, occupational hazard.’
She nods, grins, slides her fingers through unruly hair, plonks the book face-down on her quilt, stares at me a while.
Time to plunge. I frown once, maybe twice, lean against a window-sill.
‘You know how we’re related,’ I say to her.
She looks away for a moment then nods again.
‘Amelia, it’s just … well, I’m not really your uncle.’
She barely hesitates.
‘You’re my Dad, aren’t you?’
Still air, still life, an absence of everything. Then: ‘You knew? How did you know?’
She shrugs, rolls over onto her back.
‘The numbers didn’t add up. I was always told that I was something like eight weeks premature. The birth extract that I … borrowed from the back of Mum’s undies drawer shows that I was way above normal size when I was born. Either I was a monster, or I was full-term. Besides, I knew that old Leo could never be my Dad. Have you seen the photos? He was ancient even then!’
‘Men who are advanced in age can still become fathers. We’re biological marvels —’
‘Not this one. Check the photos. He was falling apart at the seams.’
We laugh together too hilariously. Eventually I cross the rug, old and congealed, and sit beside her.
I ask, ‘But how did you know it was me?’
She shrugs once more.
‘We look alike,’ she says, with an acceptance of the fact that is endearingly uncomplicated. ‘Haven’t you ever noticed?’
The eye of an artist, I reflect ruefully, knows no boundaries. It may even extend into the dim realm of family conspiracies.
Six
On a poet’s lips I slept … and am awoken around eight by the shrill come-hither of the telephone.
‘Vince?’
‘Stu, you slubberdegullion. It’s Sunday morning. Normal, rational people are either asleep or thinking they should be’
‘Sorry. I’m an agent. You can’t be normal or rational in this business. Either one would be counter-productive.’
‘Point taken. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?’
He pauses, sucks in some breath.
‘Bad news actually. Rosalie O’Shannon rang late on Friday. Editorial at DataPage have rejected Pears.’
He waits, perhaps in anticipation of the stereotypical writer-tantrum — long-winded claims that publishers are commerce-driven heathens to creativity, that as an agent he has the balls of a eunuch and the acumen of a gnat, that publishing is a miserable soulless industry where the phrase quality manuscript equates to a screenplay masquerading as prose with adjectives inserted via Microsoft Thesaurus.
‘And so they should,’ I tell him eventually.
‘Pardon?’
‘If they’ve got any corporate nous, then they should reject Pears. It’s not very good.’
Another pause, definitely more laden.
‘Are you … Vince, are you okay?’
‘Never better, O Long-suffering One. See, I know that Pears Amid Paradisio, An Allegory by Vincent Daley, is crap. Not just your average run-of-the-mill crap either, but full-blown crap. It’s pretentious, self-satisfied, turgid, over-written and mind-screamingly uninteresting. Crap, crappy, crapped off. The book — my book — is a wank, Stu. Actually that’s unfair; at least a wank feels good. In literary terms, reading my book is like having your stomach pumped. It’s like being disembowelled with a hacksaw, like seeing your mother-in-law en flagrant —’
‘I get the picture, Vince.’ He sounds suddenly disconcerted, his perfect world inexplicably in ruins.
‘Then get this. Our problem — no, let’s attempt a modicum of honesty here — my problem has always been that drivelling, babbling, dick-wipe of a book.’
‘Vince —’
‘Stu, I’ve been kidding myself all along. Jus
t because I actually finished it, I thought it was automatically publishable. Just because there were two or three nice sentences within, I imagined sales of thousands. I finished it, sat back, congratulated myself that it was brilliant and life-affirming, waited for the royalties to roll in. And, on all counts, I was wrong.’
He considers, coughs politely.
‘Can I ask — why the change of heart?’
‘You can ask and I’ll willingly tell you. I’m seeing things with a new clarity, Stu. And look, Kaz was always really supportive — but deep down, down in that place where self-delusion can no longer rule, I knew she was disappointed. Actually, my daughter tried to read it last night. When she couldn’t, and then stopped wanting to, my suspicion was confirmed. The book is garbage.’
‘You let Sara read Pears ?’
‘Otis? No, Amelia. My other daughter.’
‘Eh? Vince, this is very confusing —’
‘Not really. Not when you know the real story.’
There is a brief silence, then I hear the glimmer of a laugh in his voice.
‘You know what’s funny,’ he says. ‘I never even read it until after I contracted you. I was desperate for clients at the time, just went ahead without thinking, then I did read it and thought it was pretty awful too — but I got so used to spruiking for it, so down-pat with my whole presentation, that I started to believe otherwise. I convinced myself that it was somehow original, startling, courageous even —’
‘Wank words.’
‘The staple diet of salespeople, Vince. And that’s all I am — a salesman with a fancy title. Funny, isn’t it?’
‘Funny,’ I agree. Then I put the phone down and think how lucky I have been, how lucky that Stu has been such a BIG , if occasionally misguided, friend to me.
Francesca says, ‘I’m taking Amelia and Alex and Sara to the beach. Is that okay with you?’
Of course it is. Beaches are fun. You can draw squiggles in the sand, brace your body against the scrolling waves, lie like a pancake and absorb the sun.
‘They want to collect some shells,’ she continues. ‘Then we’re taking them to the cemetery.’
She places her long, cool fingers into mine and shunts me gently towards her.
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