The China Garden

by Kristina Olsson

  He remembered the last time he’d had a bad cold, and spent a hot day wrapped in a rug in front of his re-run tape. Cress had fussed around him with lemon juice and honey and his mother had rung to warn him to rest, and apart from the runny nose and feeling like he couldn’t be bothered even standing up, he’d been fine. The thought sent a wave of relief through his whole body. She probably just had a cold. She’d more or less said so: Can’t do jack-all. She’d be better in a couple of days, just like he was, her nose would be red and her voice might croak but she’d be back at the park and swinging. Good. He dug his hands in his pockets and turned around, and whistled all the way home.

  Laura made milky tea and took the cups outside to where Fergus was sitting in a pool of shade on the deck with his back against the outside wall. The heat felt like a weight on her shoulders; after Fergus left, she decided, she’d drive down for a swim. I thought you had to keep moving. She handed him tea and he nodded thanks. The flowery shirt was stuck to his body with sweat.

  Took longer than I thought. I cancelled that meeting. He waved his hand in front of his face. Anyway, it’d be too hot to be running around in a suit.

  Laura lowered herself to the floor beside him. I met Kieran last night, she said. Fergus coughed behind his tea. You’re getting around, he said.

  He came to me. She sipped her own tea thoughtfully. He’s been visiting for a while, all odd hours. She saw the look on Fergus’s face and laughed. Harmless, Fergus. He visited Angela at night; I was expecting him.

  Does he say much? Fergus drained his tea and Laura took his mug to refill it. As she disappeared through the door she said over her shoulder, He says nothing and everything. A minute later, re-emerging, she smiled at him and said, I think I’m just starting to get it.

  Then she changed the subject and asked about the kind of clients he could drop at such short notice. Feeling lightness return, the relief of ordinary conversation with an ordinary person, of unguarded words. Work is just work, he said. I do it when I have to. I’d rather be banging bits of wood together, or surfing.

  Then he told her about the best beaches for waves between Byron and Brooms Head, about the beach at Angourie – Spooky’s – where he’d learned to ride a board. He talked about the sea the way other people talked about their houses, with the same familiarity, a kind of offhand love. She found herself telling him that she’d always wanted to learn how to surf. It was like telling a stranger a confidence, a confession. I’m landlocked in Italy and in London, she said, so I’m not sure why. Knowing that was part of the reason. These days I’d even be afraid of the rips.

  He nodded and finished off his tea. You just go with them, he said, saves paddling. As he spoke she had a clear image of him in the water, swimming, his body moving with the currents and forces around him, unworried by the depths. She was a little in awe of this easy co-existence with the sea. It made him seem like a different kind of being. You’re not afraid, she said. It was a question.

  He waited a moment, looking out over the valley separating them from the sea. Then he grinned and said: If there’s a shark around it makes you a bit wary. But it’s their territory. You have to give them that. His face creasing, eyes flashing like sun on glass. He held out an arm, palm upwards, ran a finger along a vein. See that? Salt water. She smiled at him, felt an urge to lean over and touch his skin, the seawater veins. He would smell, she thought, like salt and lemons. You should hire a beginner’s board, he said, nudging her. I’ll teach you.

  There was a bumper crop of zucchini from someone’s garden. A neat pyramid of them, along with trays of lettuce, mounds of tomatoes, boxes of avocadoes. Cress was glad she hadn’t offered any vegetables this year – she had nothing in any great quantity except chokos, and they seemed pale and unglamorous beside these others. But she was heartened to see, as she walked towards the loaded trestle table, that although they’d only just set up, some of her herb bags were already sold.

  The stall was in the shade of a tall camphor laurel at the side of the church. It was the consoling part of the job for Cress: she loved this tree, the shapes its branches made, its small leaves lively in the breeze. It was a pest now, she knew that – up and down the coast of northern New South Wales and up into the hills, councils were sawing them down. Somehow this one had survived, perhaps because it was here, in the grounds of St Barnabas, where children bored with sermons had played and climbed for years.

  They sat in folding chairs behind the table – Iris, Veronica, Ethel and Cress – and made desultory conversation as customers came and went. They were Ethel’s zucchinis, of course; she won regular prizes for them at the Ballina show. And so she would, Cress thought; they were the only vegetables she grew. But she was genuinely envious of Emily Hopkins’ potatoes, white-fleshed and unscrubbed, the clumps of red soil adding to their allure. She’d never had any luck with potatoes.

  At lunchtime Veronica and Ethel went off for a break. Iris poured tea from her thermos; Cress offered corned beef and pickle sandwiches, neatly cut. The two women leaned back in their chairs and watched the colourful ribbons of pedestrians on the esplanade as they ate. Cress held a quarter of a sandwich in one hand and sipped tea with the other and, with her eyes still on the moving figures, said: Did you know Angela when she was young?

  Iris paused briefly with her cup at her lips and answered, No, without surprise, as if this was a conversation they had been having for a long time. She too kept looking straight ahead. But my husband delivered wood there, she said, for years.

  They fell quiet again. There was the sound of the sea breeze in the leaves of the camphor laurel, the thump of the ocean. Iris said, He barely saw her. She was always in the shed, he’d hear the music. He’d leave the bill on the woodpile. She stopped, then: Only reason he found her that day was – there was no music. Nothing. Said he felt funny, knocking. Found her on the floor. She paused then, as if she’d said too much. You knew her, though, she added.

  Not really, Cress said. No.

  Iris sipped tea. When the cup was empty she put it on the table next to Pat Henry’s mangoes. There was this one time he spoke to her, she said. Cress felt the skin on her arms tighten; she brushed crumbs from her lap, feigning half-interest.

  Years ago. He backed the ute around and she was there, sitting on the verandah steps. Crying her heart out. When he went to her she just looked up at the sky. He remembered what she said – she said, ‘Black cockatoos’.

  From her chair Cress arranged and rearranged what was left of her herb bags. Strange thing to say, she said.

  She was raving. Said something about birthdays, offered him a drink. Stank of it, he said. Iris stood then as two young women approached the stall. She got up and tottered off to the shed and that was it. She smiled at the women. The zucchinis are half price now, she said.

  When the others returned Cress helped to rearrange some of the displays and decided she’d done her bit. She bought a bag of Emily’s potatoes and, even though her own was coming up, a bunch of silverbeet – Iris’s specialty – and took her leave. All the way to the car she kept seeing a younger Angela, eyes crazed and tongue loosened by drink. She pursed her lips. She liked the occasional glass of wine but it wasn’t the answer to anyone’s problems. Quite the reverse, she thought, loading her basket into the back of the car and unwinding the windows. The air inside was like a sauna.

  She drove towards home. It was an Enterprise Packaging day so it struck her as odd that, stopping to check to her left as she made a turn, she should see Kieran walking in the middle distance. His hands were in his pockets and his head was in the air, and as she watched he turned right, away from the fruit shop and into Archer Street. A car horn sounded behind her. She started with fright and embarrassment, forgot Kieran completely, pushed the car into first gear and made her turn. At home, her hand was on the back door handle when a thought completely stopped her, made her forget for a momen
t what she was doing. Why wasn’t Kieran at work, and who did he know in Archer Street?

  Late in the afternoon, Kieran sat on the floor with a cup of chai tea and watched the final of last year’s ‘Millennium Quiz’ for the sixteenth time. Somehow all his new taping, all the recent shows, hadn’t managed to erase this particular episode, so that every time he plugged the tape into the player, he saw it. Well, just ten minutes of it. But he didn’t mind. It was the episode that gave him one of the best words in his notebook. He ran his fingers over it on the page as he sat there and the tape finished and went black: somnambulist.

  He’d mentioned it to Angela one night as he cleaned up after their toast. She’d thrown her head back and hooted – a soft, lovely laugh that he didn’t understand. Ah, she’d said then, yes. That’s how people will think of me. Up here with my painting and my dreaming, alone.

  He’d felt lost then, confused by her laughter, but she said no more. So he picked up on the only word that seemed to connect with his thoughts: alone.

  No one lives here with you. His statement part question, needing confirmation.

  No.

  You’ve got a wedding ring. No pause in his movements as she spoke, his hands efficient among toast crumbs and plates. Dead flowers. A wizened apple.

  I was married. Years ago. I had a daughter. I wasn’t always here alone.

  He kept tidying, pencils now, all lined up with care, symmetrical, precise. Nothing suggested he had heard her.

  A minute passed, more. He began idly wiping a bench, rubbing at stains. Are you still married? He might have been asking where the turpentine was.

  She paused, staring straight ahead. Pushed out her bottom lip, considering. Well, she said, it depends how you see it. My husband died. People would say I am widowed now, not married. A widow, not a wife.

  He stopped his rubbing. Cress is a widow, he said, staring at the bench as if he’d read the words there.

  Yes. She had aimed her brush at the pool of rose pink on a tray, dipped and withdrew it. We are both widows, she and I.

  Now he traced the s of the word with the tip of his forefinger. Somnambulist. Since that night he’d looked up various dictionaries for every possible variation on the meaning of the word. Sleepwalker. Nightwalker. His favourite – he’d found it in an old thesaurus, and had sat, half-smiling on the floor as he read it, his notebook in his lap – was visionary. It sounded, to him, a bit like a sorcerer. Something better than human. He loved that.

  They drove down to the beach. Laura made no promises. I’m a middle-aged woman, Fergus, she laughed, but secretly she saw herself riding a wave all the way in, her body in tune with the board and the sea. She wasn’t sure about Fergus as teacher though. They stopped on the soft sand. Fergus drew the shape of a board and instructed her to lie on it. On the sand? she squeaked. He ignored her. There are three easy steps, he said.

  She eyed him. Fergus, give me a break. I’m not twelve. I’m not getting down there.

  He released an exaggerated sigh. You want to go straight to the big waves? Jesus, I’m glad I didn’t teach you at school.

  Laura laughed and shook her head. Her high school reports, buried in the middle of the paperwork in the school case, had brought back the arguments she’d had with Angela about toeing the line, not causing trouble. Bright but outspoken. Sometimes disruptive, read one from Year 10. Followed by the predictable Laura needs to concentrate, to learn instead of argue. Angela’s response was the same after each school report. It’s up to you, she’d say, you’ve got a good brain. You can choose the hard way or the easy way. Laura thought she was choosing the only way: question everything. Only recently had she begun to wonder whether things might have been different, if Angela had not been so remote – would she still have argued every point, taken it, as The Eagles’ song said, to the limit? Every time?

  She looked over at Fergus, who was grinning at her. Why don’t you get down there and show me? she said.

  Cress called from the kitchen. He switched off the tape and ambled in to join her. There was the wonderful smell of onions cooking, and meat, and potatoes sweating beneath the rattling lid of the steamer. He pincered up a half-circle of onion from the frypan. Kieran, Cress said, batting him away. He put his fingers in for more. It’s hot, she said. Get me some parsley from the garden, would you. Taking the second piece he disappeared quickly through the back door.

  Seconds later he was back, his fist full. Cress said, Lovely, and took it from him, and he heard, as she turned away, something like, enough for the next fortnight. But then she surprised him. Do you still see those nice boys from Enterprise Packaging after work? she asked, her arm pumping potatoes into mash. The ones who live up at Pottsville.

  It seemed to be a statement rather than a question so he ignored it, and went to the fridge for a drink. He could hear her labouring over the potatoes. Turning back with the cold water bottle, he said, I can do that, Cress. He put the bottle down and held out his hands. She handed him the fork. You should ask them down, she said. Or are there others you’d prefer to ask? We could get pizza. Choosing flowers of parsley from the bunch he’d picked.

  Kieran mashed and mashed and watched as the knob of butter melted into the potatoes. He loved that process, could do it for ages. He was the best masher in the house, Cress always said. Now she was talking again. He heard, Kieran? But he’d lost her words in the swirl and movement of the fork. He looked up from his work and grinned at her. Best masher in the house, aren’t I, Cress? She put down her knife and tilted her head. Yes, she said. You are.

  Laura subsided onto the sand, her long hair knotted with salt, arms aching, jubilant. No one ever told me it was that hard, she laughed. Fergus stripped off his ankle strap and laid the board beside her. It won’t be next time, he said. Next time you’ll get up and stay up.

  She didn’t believe him but nor did she care. After half an hour of slogging through white water to reach the swell, of paddling and kneeling and falling and fighting her way back out and repeating the process again and again, and just when her arms and her head were telling her to stop, she’d got to her knees and then to her feet and was miraculously balanced and found herself riding, flying over the water on a very small but very beautiful wave for ten seconds before the board tipped and the sea reared up to swallow her. But they were the most powerful, most exhilarating ten seconds. When she surfaced, punching the air, all she could see was Fergus, standing in waist-deep water, laughing like a winner.

  They sat for a while on the sand and watched the light slowly change. A phalanx of after-work surfers vied for waves. Laura scrutinised their moves, while Fergus spoke a foreign language beside her: goofy-footed, wipe-out, grommet, point break. Listening to him, feeling her worked muscles, she recognised a shift of feeling in her head, beneath her salty skin: the return of happiness. She didn’t want to think about how long it might last. Instead she jumped up and pulled on her T-shirt and said to Fergus: What’s the name of that wine we had the other night?

  They sat on the floor of the deck, as was their habit now. The timber was warm beneath them. Fergus talked about the years he’d spent in Ireland, after university; she talked about Kate, and about her trees. Her discomfort in Australia now. Why are people so afraid of difference? she said, frowning. Of beauty?

  How can you say that, he laughed, when you’ve just been out there in the ocean, with all those others? All of them looking for that, for beauty. He poured wine. Looked up at her. Did you know I was at your school for a year when I was sixteen?

  She stretched her legs in the late sun and crossed her ankles. Are you changing the subject? she asked.

  We were talking about beauty. Touching his glass to hers. You were one year ahead. I had the biggest crush on you.

  On me?

  Of course, you were way out of my reach. So pretty, so aloof. He put his palm t
o his chest. I was miserable the whole year.

  She shook her head at him and smiled. Your poor heart, she said.

  Friday

  Lying in the half-light, she tried to reconstruct Wednesday afternoon. Where was the beginning? The offer of a drink. The acceptance. It was all implicit in those two gestures, she thought now. Would you like...? Yes. From there a courtly exchange, the necessary words to proceed from that point. The words were important: the biggest crush, way out of my reach, your poor heart. The looks too: her hair, his legs. And the silences. Which allowed the breath of wind on skin, imagination.

  Then he’d touched her, light, unthreatening. Four fingers on her face.

  He kissed as if kissing was all there was. All that mattered. Holding onto her hands. A boy’s kiss, a man’s. Innocent and transgressive at the same time. And later his limbs, when they twined round her, felt the same. His body beneath hers, on top of hers, was now the boy now the man, now certain now tentative. Eyes wide then closed.

  She thought she might come just from the smell of him. Salt and sweat and something else, a hint of something from the beach, a briny animal smell. I should have showered, he said later. She smiled at him. That would have spoiled it, she said.

  Kieran pushed his way along the esplanade, slowed by the wind. He rounded his shoulders, trying to make himself solid and hard against the gusts. This wind, he thought, was like an animal, a bully. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the cruel shapes it made in the trees along the path and in people’s expressions. It twisted them. Mouths, especially. He lowered his eyes so he didn’t have to see the faces passing him. In the wind they looked like very bad brush-strokes, mistakes.