The China Garden

by Kristina Olsson

  When he got to the beach, he sat leaning against a warm rock, feeling the morning and early afternoon stored and recorded there. That is what the rock knows, he thought: the sun, where it was, its precise strength, and its weaknesses, at each hour of the day. Everything has a memory, Angela had said to him one night when they were drinking tea in the shed. It was one of the rare occasions when she stopped painting to sit for a moment. It had seemed novel to him, sitting down with her. Out of the ordinary. All their movements felt new, made up. He always saw her standing. When he thought about her, that’s what his mind’s eye saw: her back, or her profile, as she stood at her easel, as she bent over a drawing.

  That night, though, she seemed to almost subside into a chair. Bring your chair, she’d said, motioning to him. Let’s stop a minute. He’d tried to smile, to appear relaxed with his cup on his knees and his back rounded for balance. In his other hand, a cleaning cloth. Angela nodded, and then sighed.

  This place feels different now, Kieran, better, she said, looking around and then back at him. It’s because you’ve been here. It’s because of you.

  He’d been looking at the floor as he drank his tea and now he kept looking, unsettled, hoping meaning would show itself there. But she was quiet so he glanced up, trying for the right words. They didn’t come. Angela waved her cup around and said, All kinds of things are precious. He kept looking at her, but her eyes were somewhere else. Around them the night was waiting. Kieran realised he was still holding the cloth and that Angela was staring at it. His fists were clenching and unclenching so that the cloth had become a damp, untidy ball.

  And everything has a memory. Stones and earth have a memory, Kieran. Like muscles. Like cells. This place, these walls, they’re porous, they’ll remember you. Your hands, the words you’ve said.

  Now he wondered if that was true. Would the walls of Angela’s shed remember him? Would this rock, this sand, the grass in the park, the swings? He jumped up, his mood lighter and his limbs springy and loose. He hoped it was true. His feet were slow in the sand as he made his way towards the road and he kicked a piece of driftwood to see how far it would go. Stuck his hands in his pockets and thought of the colours he’d seen in the water, in the sandstone, which was the same colour as Abby’s hair. The first day he’d seen her he’d touched that hair as it hung below her on the swing. Maybe, he thought, and began to whistle as he reached the path, maybe, if what Angela said was true, Abby’s hair would remember him.

  Laura stood with the piece of paper in her hands. So light. But confirmation that there was another Angela all along, a shadow mother she had never known, someone so affected by the words of a popular song that she would write them down, tuck them away. Laura shook her head. The Angela she knew would never have done that. She carried the page out into the sun to Fergus.

  Look. She put it in front of him, right under his eyes. He frowned, wiped his hand across his mouth. It was in a box. He read and then looked up at her, eyebrows raised.

  I thought the only music she liked was opera, or classical, Laura said.

  He shrugged, and squeezed her shoulders briefly – the same way he had, she thought, at the funeral. She frowned and said, She really was two people. Laura tucked the paper into her pocket and went back inside.

  By the time Cress had finished, the afternoon was nearly gone. She gathered the fragrant little bags, settled them in a cardboard box and took them outside. Shafts of late sunlight striped the back garden; she decided to drive down, there and then, and deposit the box in the church store-room, when there would likely be no one else there. If she was fast enough, there would be time to get home and have the sausages cooked before ‘Gardening Australia’. She looked down quickly – the skirt and blouse would do, even if she did run into someone – and climbed behind the wheel.

  At the church, she hurried around to the back with her key, and was almost up the stone step to the door when she realised it was open. She pursed her lips, swallowed a mild curse, and went in. The room was unlit and gloomy; Iris was bent over a tray of seedlings, marigolds and pinks, her back to the door. She looked up at Cress’s greeting, then down again. For some reason, she said, these remind me of Angela. The colours, perhaps. Or maybe it’s the time of day.

  Cress said Hmmm, and busied herself finding a place for the box of herbs. She always said, Iris went on, that she preferred the nights. Something about colours.

  Iris’s words stirred memory. Cress pushed aside what seemed to be bottles of apricot preserve, she wasn’t sure, to make some room. But felt irritated, anyway. Perhaps if you put the light on, she said, turning towards the switch.

  Iris leaned back against the counter. Do you remember, she said, when she came down with the painting, the one she donated? A Save The Children raffle, I think. I remember because she said night was her territory. Someone asked her about her work routine. She said she liked nights because they were uncomplicated. She liked their texture, I think she said.

  Cress threw a clean tea towel over the open herb box and turned to Iris. Yes, she said, texture. Now can you make sure these are out of the sun tomorrow, she said. It was more an instruction than a question. I may not be here when you’re setting up. Iris nodded. Cress walked to the door. Have to get back for Kieran, she said, and lifted her hand as she left.

  On the drive back up the hill she tried to think about dinner but the clear image of Angela at the auction kept playing, over and over, across the windscreen. It must have been twenty years before, just as Angela’s paintings were gaining recognition. Cress had taken Kieran to the auction, unaware Angela would be there. She’d found herself standing with Kieran – how old had he been? Twelve, thirteen? – on the edges of a loose group that had gathered to look at the donated painting, or perhaps at the reclusive painter.

  Cress hadn’t heard the words texture or uncomplicated, but she had her own memory of what Angela said that day and it had never entirely left her. Mainly because of Kieran. He’d become fascinated as soon as Angela began talking about night, the way the air thickened in moonlight, she said. Daylight thins things out, bleaches colours, flattens surfaces. Beside her Kieran was nodding, his eyes fixed on a spot beyond the group. Cress had thought he was dreaming, but later, as they walked up the hill, he would repeat back to her everything Angela had said.

  Now she climbed out of the car, and watched as the last of the sun blazed pink and peach beyond the clothes line. She wandered over and turned the line, checking Kieran’s T-shirts. Someone at the auction that day had fawned, But your canvases are full of colour and light, or something like that, and another voice had chimed in, Those wildflowers – it’s like there’s a soft lamp on behind them. A glow.

  Cress remembered Angela’s smile. It was for all of them, Kieran too. But night allows colour to bloom in your head, she’d said. Don’t you think? Daylight makes everything too obvious. Like mini skirts.

  They’d all laughed then, putting it behind them. Cress, on the fringe of the group, nonetheless saw that Angela was dismissing them, and ushered Kieran away. Of course, she thought now, fingering a sleeve, the waistband of jeans, they were all a bit younger then. All of them must have assumed they understood pain and disappointment. That they’d felt the grip of grief and let it go. Processed it, dismissed it. How else could Angela be so brazen about what day gives, and night appropriates? How else could she herself keep the mantle of her faith, her head bent to her own certainties in St Barnabas twice a week?

  She frowned at the dew-damp clothing. Grief never entirely disappeared, she knew that now. It was a chameleon, ducking and weaving among other emotions, disguising itself. So clever that, years after the catastrophe, you might be mistaken for someone who had never felt pain. For someone who was good at it. Now that she was older, she knew that was the assumption: you are old, you have lived, you are versed in pain. And she might have thought it herself, once. But the chameleon had change
d its skin again in the past week. Pain – or grief – had reappeared, a reminder that age did not bring immunity.

  Inside she flicked on the television and in the kitchen chopped tomato and onion for gravy, lined up sausages in the pan. Then looked at the time and ran water into the sink to wash the vegetables. From the other room came the voice of a newsreader: it must already be after seven. Cress dried her hands on a tea-towel and walked through the house, flicking on lights, listening to television voices speaking of drainage problems, a bushfire in Queensland, some political fracas she had no interest in. She had no desire to hear any of it at all. She went to her bedroom for a clean towel, determined that tonight she would not even worry about Kieran and Angela. She would get dinner in the oven, watch her gardening show, and have a long hot shower.

  In the late afternoon, after Fergus had left, Laura stood with the fridge door open and stared at the piece of fish she’d planned to cook for dinner. Suddenly it was all unbearable, the house, the idea of eating, the humid air trapped in the room. She walked from the kitchen and pulled on her boots and headed off through the rose garden and up the dirt track, turning onto the road towards the national park. She would walk and walk, would let her body take over, let it tell her what to do. At this time of day, the collision of air – forest and sea, sap and salt – was almost tangible, she could feel it, taste it on her tongue. She breathed deeply.

  Every shade of green was there. Every measure, every pattern of leaf and bark too, tear-drop, grey daub, tree ferns with finger spans and fists. Everything living and dying. Lives and deaths, embraced in willing soil. She had to tread carefully: the great trees and vines and roots pawed at the paths, the forest was dank and fecund and insatiable. She walked on down the track, and the words to Angela’s song rose and fell around her, echoed back from whipbirds as they snapped their calls in the forest, in the screech of small robins, and in the rhythm of her legs and feet. It is a flower, she heard, and it was in her fingers and on her lips and swelling in her lungs, it is a river. An endless, aching need.

  The front room had a couch, like a sitting room, there were bookshelves and a fireplace, he remembered that. He remembered the mound of ash, untouched since winter, the way he had to sweep the hearth over and over. The books and magazines scattered, lying on every possible surface. It had taken ages to get them into tidy piles. He wondered if the woman had scattered them around again, or made a mess of her own. There was probably quite a bit of dust from all the sawing and planing, it had probably settled on the furniture and shelves once more.

  If the woman was in the room in the daytime, and he was very careful not to jerk his head or twitch, he could watch her for as long as he liked. The shadows here were a good camouflage. He knew this because a few days before, she suddenly stopped washing one of the windows, it was taking her forever, and stared through the glass straight at him. The cloth in her hand froze in its circular movements halfway up the pane. He was strangely calm, waiting for her scream, or a volley of abuse, and then – how many seconds or minutes later? – she looked away and began the rhythmic washing motion again, around and around.

  He’d stared back. She hadn’t seen him. Couldn’t have. She was probably just thinking – about what? That’s when he felt a bit sick. Wanted to run back up the hill, through the overgrowth, along the road to his own home, his own room. But knew he couldn’t, not while she was at the window. He suddenly felt it was all arse-up, that he was the object under the microscope, trapped by someone’s gaze. Cow, he’d thought, sinking slowly to his haunches among the leaf litter of a hundred gum trees. And suddenly grinned. Silly cow. It must have been the third time this week. And still she hadn’t seen him.

  But it was night now. He hovered at the edge of the darkened yard, under an overhang of mulberry leaves, keeping his eye on the front windows of the house. He didn’t want to go any closer. He wasn’t nervous, exactly, though his belly flipped around as if he was. It was more the feeling that, in darkness, the whole place belonged more to him than to her. The shed in particular. But there she was in the front room again. From here he could only see her head and upper body and it was hard to make out exactly what she was doing without moving, without getting way too close. Just as he thought that, she moved again and was gone, probably to the kitchen, he assumed. Of course she was; it was dinner time. That’s why his belly was flipping: he hadn’t eaten for ages. And there was this other thing: tonight, he really wished he could talk to Angela. It made the flipping worse.

  He thought about the tall trees on the other side of the house, and the rocks near the shed, their line of sight to the back deck. He’d watched her cooking dinner from those trees before. Watching her cook, it occurred to him, was like watching Angela paint. That helped. He kept very still, just in case she reappeared, and thought: Maybe if I zig-zag around and get up high. He sidestepped from beneath the leaves and branches, dropped to the ground and stayed low. A minute later he was just another shadow merged with the darkness between the house and the shed.

  But she wasn’t in the kitchen. All he could see through the windows was the bulk of the fridge, the walls. He bunched his fists, confused. Why had he assumed she was? Maybe she’d just gone to the toilet and was back in the front room now. That was possible. Or gone to bed early. Very early. If she was in the shower he’d be able to hear it from here. He was certain of that. But how would he–

  Hello.

  His heart leapt to his mouth where it stopped any words, any sound. His head jerked around and his fists tightened and he took a step back without realising he had. The woman was only a few metres away, standing as straight and still as he had been. Her mouth was half smiling. He froze with one leg behind the other, ready to run. The rest of him was saying just that – Run! – but his legs didn’t seem to be listening. He looked down at them briefly, confused, and then up at the woman again. The smile, he saw, wasn’t a mean one, and his heart at last returned to his chest. He put his hand on it. But kept watching her, just in case.

  I’ve got something for you, she said.

  Laura leaned back against the low bench and folded her arms. Kieran was silent in front of the painting. He’d been silent a long time. Just nodded at first, when she said Kieran? and said nothing as he followed her to the shed, and nothing when she indicated the big canvas propped against the wall. He just stood there, looking from the canvas to her and back again, so she’d lifted it onto an easel and retreated to the bench and said, It’s yours. From Angela. Watched as he took several steps towards it, extended his hand, ran a finger over the scrawled title, I Go Looking for Signs of Contentment #2.

  In the silence time became fluid, became elastic between them. For the first time since she’d been back, Laura felt some hint of Angela’s presence. She was utterly calm – as Angela must have been, she realised, here with Kieran and the quiet. As she watched him she thought the silence might be a current of time, moving around and between them, the three of them: she was now Angela in the shed, now Laura in the orchard, both of them sharing the pool of calmness that Kieran brought. Any moment one of them might speak and break the current, but this quality in the air would remain.

  This was where Angela had found her contentment.

  Kieran turned to look at her. His face was blank, as if he was waiting for something, a bus, or an answer. Laura unfolded her arms and tilted her head, looked back at him. Can you tell me, she asked, about Angela? Realising as she said it that she didn’t expect any answer.

  And there wasn’t one for perhaps a whole long minute. He stood there with that same air of expectation, then shrugged. She was sad, he said.

  Kieran walked home through the humming dark, thinking about the woman. Laura. That was the name she told him as he left. Laura. He said it aloud as the road sloped down and his legs swung. It was a good name, he decided. He liked the way it went up at the end, the a like the end of Angela. It made a good sound.

&nbs
p; He felt much better than he had when she said hello. He hadn’t been frightened but he’d been unsure about her, unsure if he wanted to be there, in the same space, then in the same room. He felt stupid and angry that she’d found him. And he didn’t want to go into the shed. Not at first, not with her. And there was this other thing: she might want him to talk to her, and he didn’t want to talk.

  But something had happened in there. He’d stood looking at Angela’s painting with the woman nearby and felt that even though Angela wasn’t coming back, it was all right. He would be all right. There were all these pieces of her, parts of her, in the world. Eventually he’d lifted the painting off the easel and felt its weight and said, I don’t think I can carry it home.

  And she had laughed, the woman Laura, with her eyes – more of Angela, the blue eyes – and told him she would arrange it. She knew his grandmother, she said – just, he thought, like Angela had. He’d said goodnight and walked up the path. It was good not to have to scramble up through the bush. When he reached the backstreets of town he felt like he’d stepped back in time. He knew the word: déjà vu.

  Sometimes, after summer nights at Angela’s, he would lie on the damp beach and close his eyes and imagine what was happening inside the sounds around him. The slap of waves and the hiss of their retreat over a universe of sand. He wondered if the same sounds existed at the bottom of waterfalls, beneath the pools and streams they fed. He thought about those sounds again now. He was already late for dinner, but was tempted to go down to the beach anyway, and rest his cheek on the damp sand. The sand at least held no surprises, was as predictable as his pillow. But that very thought, and the image it produced of his bed, its welcome, made him forget the beach and turn towards home. He was suddenly tired; wanted to lie down with something good on the stereo, something he loved. The thought drew him on through the scented streets.