Dancing on Knives

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘No need to make a decision now,’ Alex said. ‘Perhaps your father will recover.’ He put his hat back on and turned to go.

  Joe lit a cigarette. He dragged deeply, looked sombrely at the glowing tip, then blew a cloud of grey smoke out the corner of his mouth. Slowly he brought the cigarette to his mouth again.

  Sara could not have spoken if she tried.

  Augusto had only ever painted his eldest daughter once. He painted her leaning against her green-skirted rock, the sea in storm, her hair tangled with globes of sea-fruit.

  When Bridget died, her car leaving the sullen earth, taking flight in one last glorious burst of speed, Sara stayed on the rock all day and would not come away. Augusto had to carry her back to the house, scrambling over the boulders and rock-pools with her childish body limp in his arms, up the slippery red path and through the garden, her arms flopping at every step.

  Annie Halloran, who had brought the family a dried-up casserole for dinner, said it was ridiculous to let the child carry on so. Augusto, sitting in his armchair with Sara on his lap, stroking her black hair, said nothing. He cooked her fried churros and hot chocolate and put her to bed.

  Sara dreamt she could not speak. She tried to run, but every step was difficult, as if she trod on sharp rocks. She thought she must leave a trail of bloodied footsteps everywhere she went. She was looking for someone through a great house, a house full of empty rooms, a house full of echoes. No matter how hard she searched, she could not find whom she sought. She tried to run. She tried to call out.

  She could not.

  She was mute.

  Sara woke, gasping for air, tears on her cheeks. Her father was sitting by her bed, sketchbook and pencil in hand, a stray beam of light filtering through the blinds and haloing his head.

  ‘I … I … couldn’t speak,’ she gasped.

  ‘You are speaking, silly.’

  ‘I couldn’t make a sound, no matter how hard I tried.’

  ‘It was just a bad dream, that’s all. Come, look what I’ve been doing.’ Augusto showed her his sketchbook. He had been drawing her head, lying on the pillow, hair waving out like seaweed. ‘I’m thinking of painting you.’

  Sara glanced at the page, only half understanding, still caught in the dim, strange world between sleeping and waking. ‘I dreamt … I dreamt I was like the little mermaid. She had her tongue cut out and could not speak. Every time she moved, it was like dancing on knives.’

  ‘Yes, I remember that story,’ Augusto said, giving her a long, considering look. ‘My mother used to tell it to me. It’s such a sad story.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Sara said. ‘For she can fly in the end, and sing again, and she has a chance to win herself an undying soul. Isn’t that happy?’

  ‘To win oneself immortality,’ Augusto said in a strange voice. ‘Yes. I suppose that’s what it’s all about.’

  Sara felt so strange and light she was content to sit still for her father while he drew her. It took him three days to paint La Sirenita. It was a painting of green transformations, where flesh slid into water into scales, where floating hair tangled with shells and starfish, where tears slipped into pearls and eyes reflected deep green distances. He said later that a painting had never come so easily. It was his muse’s swan-song. She left the week Bridget died and did not come back for ten long years.

  Low Water

  high tide – 1.2 m

  11.33 am, Easter Saturday

  low tide – 0.6 m

  5.07 pm, Easter Saturday

  A car back-firing cracked like a shot.

  Sara jumped involuntarily. The next instant she was over at the window. She recognised the ute from Gunyan, and felt relief clamouring through her. She ran down the stairs and out on to the verandah.

  The ute pulled up in the front drive in a crunch of gravel, and the twins scrambled out the door. One of them leant through the window of the ute to kiss the girl driving goodbye, while the other swung the trail bikes out over the back. The ute turned clumsily, trailing a plume of smoke and giving another loud bang before disappearing again down the overgrown drive.

  ‘Dylan! Dominic! Where have you two been!’

  ‘I’d have thought that was pretty obvious, since it was Nya that dropped us home,’ Dylan said.

  ‘But why?’

  Dylan shrugged. Sara felt an unaccustomed rage flow through her. Dominic and Dylan spent much of their free time at Gunyan, an old workman’s cottage on Towradgi property which Augusto had rented out to an artist friend. Nungeena came down to visit Augusto sometimes, to drink wine and argue about art. Her daughter Nya usually came with her, though she stayed only long enough to eat before disappearing off with the twins somewhere. Joe always teased the twins about Nya and said they were in love with her. Sara could not believe they would spend the morning with her when Augusto was so badly hurt. ‘Don’t you realise I’ve been worried sick?’

  ‘Nope.’

  She had an urge to hit Dylan, to feel bone smacking on bone. He felt it, and glanced at her.

  ‘I didn’t know where you were, I didn’t want to leave Dad …’

  ‘Why? He was dead, he wouldn’t care.’

  Sara’s eyes spurted with unexpected tears. ‘Dylan, don’t speak like that! And he’s not dead, he’s alive, he’s not going to die!’

  Dylan’s eyes opened wide. ‘He’s not dead?’

  ‘No, he’s not, much that you seem to care,’ she snapped. ‘What were you doing at Gunyan? You should have been here!’

  Dominic dropped his face onto Dylan’s shoulder, who put up one hand to cover the back of his neck. They were silent. ‘We were upset, we thought Dad was dead … we just didn’t want to come home.’ Dylan’s voice was hoarse.

  ‘I just wish you’d thought to ring. I really didn’t need it, you know?’ Sara’s anger drained away, leaving her limp. She sat down on the verandah step, leant her head against the post.

  ‘We couldn’t ring you,’ Dominic said. ‘The phone’s dead, remember.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Sara said. ‘It’s working just fine now. I’ve rung Aunty Nita and the hospital already this morning. Dad’s in intensive care, if you’re interested.’

  Dominic stared at her in surprise. ‘The phone’s fixed already?’

  Sara said caustically, ‘On Easter Saturday? That’d be a bloody miracle!’ They stared at her. They had never heard Sara speak like that. She went on angrily, ‘There can’t have been anything wrong with it in the first place.’

  Colour surged up Dominic’s face. ‘But it was dead, I’m telling you. The line was dead last night. And Nya’s mum’s phone was out too, because we did try to ring you, first thing, when we got there. But there was no dial-tone.’

  Sara shrugged. ‘Never mind. Maybe a branch fell on the line or something and blew off this morning. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you guys are home now and I can stop worrying about you. It’s bad enough having Dad in hospital and Teresa trying to run away …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. That’s right, you weren’t here, you don’t know. Teresa tried to run away this morning. We’ve had the Hallorans over and Annie read her the riot act.’

  ‘Bloody Hallorans.’

  ‘Anyway, Alex found her trying to hitch a ride into town. He brought her back. He says we have to sell the farm. If Dad dies, I mean.’

  The twins nodded. ‘Yeah. We know.’

  The sound of the telephone interrupted them. Sara went running back into the house, her stomach twisting. But it was a journalist, wanting to know how Augusto was and how the fall occurred. Sara repeated the refrain, ‘He’s still in intensive care, I’m afraid … yeah, well, we’re hoping so … mmm, a terrible shock … oh, I’m sure he’ll be OK … thanks, yes …’

  She knew she was lying.

  Sara made a pot of tea and took it through to the living room, the quietness of the house weighing on her. Strange to think it was Easter Saturday – some holiday. Her thoughts skipped un
happily to her father, shrank away.

  ‘Any bickies?’ Joe, coming in for his tea, knocked her back down to reality. She shook her head, trying to hold herself together. She felt as if a touch would send all the little jigsaw pieces of herself flying out into space. Carefully she poured out the tea – first her cup, then the twins’, a little at a time to make sure the strength was equal, then lastly, Joe’s. He liked his tea strong and sweet and black. The twins sidled in, quiet and awkward, and the four of them sat in the living-room, drinking their tea and saying nothing. Both of the twins had a tense, expectant look on their faces, as if waiting for someone to say something. But no-one did.

  Sara remembered times when they were like what a family was meant to be – warmed with laughter and private jokes, playing long, involved games where no-one else knew the rules.

  After they had come to the farm, she and her brothers spent their days playing on the beach, searching for treasure, swimming and body-surfing, climbing the headland, looking for wombats under fallen logs, exploring the bush for miles around. They had hand-fed the orphaned calves, pretended to drive the tractors, searched for eggs, climbed trees, found a cave. They had their own little garden plots where they grew sweet corn, sunflowers and strawberries that they could raid whenever they wanted. Augusto was nearly always there. On weekends he took Joe, Sara and the twins on exploratory trips down the coast, and when they came home, Bridget laughed to see the muddy seats of their jeans where they had slid down a bank.

  In Sara’s memory, these first few years at the farm were hued with sunshine. But that was a very long time ago.

  Maybe it was Bridget’s death that had changed everything. Maybe the age difference was then taking effect. When Bridget died, Joe had been a thin, intense twelve-year-old, with knobbly knees and the first pimply extrusions of adolescence. The twins had been seven, robust and self-contained, with their own secret jokes, nicknames and hand-signals. Sara had been almost ten. Thinking about her mother’s death brought a lump into Sara’s throat. She took a deep breath, pressing her fingers against her eyes. When she lowered her hand, it was to see Dominic looking at her with a peculiar expression on his face. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  Dominic looked at Dylan, then at Joe, then leant forward. ‘It’s just – does anyone else find Dad’s accident kind of weird? I mean, I can’t figure out how he could just fall over the cliff like that …’

  His voice trailed away. Sara was surprised how charged the silence became.

  ‘Accidents happen,’ Joe said curtly. He dragged the paper towards him and began to look through it, gulping down his tea.

  Dominic looked stubborn. ‘Don’t you think it’s kind of weird though?’ he repeated.

  ‘Sure,’ Joe said. ‘Completely weird. But like I say, accidents happen.’ He rubbed the back of his neck, the premature lines on his forehead drawn in tight like a knot.

  Dominic and Dylan exchanged a look. Dylan gave a little shrug and said, with an odd note of challenge in his voice, ‘You don’t think it mightn’t have been an accident?’

  For a moment there was a pause, an exclamation mark of silence.

  Then Sara cried, ‘No! It was an accident. Of course it was an accident.’

  ‘I dunno, Sar, I just reckon …’

  ‘No. It’s not like that.’ She remembered the tension in the air like distant thunder, the fear that had grown in her all that afternoon. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘You boys have too much imagination,’ Joe said dismissively, beginning to scribble on the edge of the paper. He drew a square, turned it into a three-dimensional cube, then squares on squares, a maze of boxes.

  The twins said nothing. Sara tried to push down the rising sickness, but it welled up in her throat, thick and dark. Murder? Could they mean murder? It was a word like the double clang of a bell, the sort of word that could not be ignored. It echoed.

  She watched Joe’s pen scrape across the flimsy paper, and gripped her hands in her lap. Carefully he coloured in the maze of squares. Not once did he go over the lines, though once the pen scored too deeply and tore the page. Back and forth the pen moved, and gradually Sara swallowed and was able to breathe. She wondered, am I foolish, am I weak, am I blind? What had the cards been trying to tell her?

  Before anyone could say anything else, there was the scrunch of tyres on the gravel. Sara could not believe it. The third visitor in one day, more than they had had all year. She looked at the boys but no-one moved and so she had to get up and go to the door, scrubbing her face with her hands to remove any trace of tears. A green Gemini was parked on the drive. A broad back and a well-curved, denim-swathed bottom stuck out of the open car-door.

  ‘Gabriela!’ Sara cried.

  ‘I came as soon as I could.’ Her cousin turned and looked at Sara with grave blue eyes, opening her comforting arms.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come!’ Sara heaved herself out of her cousin’s hug, and rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s been horrible!’

  ‘I bet it has. I’m so sorry.’

  Together the cousins went back into the house, Gabriela carrying a small overnight bag. She seemed so solid and dependable that Sara was weak-kneed with relief.

  The only child of Augusto’s sister Juanita, Gabriela had inherited nothing from her mother’s Spanish heritage but her talent in the kitchen, being blonde and phlegmatic like her father, and comfortably large. Three years older than Sara, Gabriela lived with her parents in their small house an hour away in Bega. Their garden was very neat, with a small patch of trimmed lawn, and fat orange marigolds, carefully mulched. There was never a dead flower-head to be seen. Her father, John Carrington, was an accountant, while her mother, Juanita, owned a Spanish restaurant, where she and Gabriela cooked all of Consuelo’s best recipes and flamenco dancers in red polyester skirts stamped and twirled and trilled.

  Sara considered Gabriela her best friend. In fact, she was her only friend, her only contact with the outside world. Gabriela worked, had boyfriends, travelled overseas, had earned her independence. Gabriela knew how to cook zarzuela de mariscos. Gabriela was afraid of nothing.

  ‘Hey, Gabriela,’ Joe said and permitted her to embrace him. The twins stood stiffly as she kissed their cheeks. ‘So what happened? How did he fall?’ she asked, dropping her bag near the table.

  The twins looked at each other and seemed about to blurt out something Sara did not want to hear. She hurried into speech. ‘We don’t know yet. He went out after lunch and we didn’t see him again. I only got worried when the storm was so wild, and we still hadn’t heard from him. It got later and later, and wilder and wilder, and then I found out that Tess had sneaked out, and Dad still hadn’t come home …’ Sara heard her voice fading.

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ Gabriela grasped Sara’s hand. The touch caused Sara’s stomach to twist. ‘It must have been awful. When did you find him?’

  ‘The twins found him, around four in the morning. We’d been looking for hours, as well as we could in the dark,’ Joe said, lighting a cigarette and dragging back on it lavishly. ‘I still don’t know how they found Gus, it was black as hell out there, and blowing a gale.’

  ‘How badly was he hurt? Will he be OK?’

  ‘Dunno. He’s still in intensive care. They won’t let us see him.’

  ‘But how could it have happened? It isn’t like Gus didn’t know the cliff was there …’

  The twins exchanged meaningful looks. Joe scowled and said, ‘People do fall off cliffs sometimes. That’s why they have rescue helicopters.’

  ‘It began to rain, maybe the rocks were slippery,’ Sara said hesitantly. The sound of the word that had not been uttered clanged in the air between them.

  ‘How was he, before the accident?’ Gabriela asked uncomfortably. ‘I mean … was he in a bad mood?’

  ‘He’s always fucking in a bad mood.’

  Sara gazed at Joe in surprise. His face twisted. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Sar. You know what an arsehole Gus can be. He wasn’t exactly sw
eetness and light to you, either, so don’t look at me like I’m the one that’s being an arsehole.’

  ‘He’d been happy the last few months. He was painting again.’

  Joe laughed bitterly. ‘Happy again! That’s a good one. You’ve forgotten about lunch yesterday pretty quickly, haven’t you?’

  ‘What happened?’ Gabriela said. ‘I thought you were cooking samfaina y bacalao. Didn’t it work?’

  Sara shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have jumped off the cliff, though,’ Dylan said. ‘No matter how much of an arsehole he’s been lately, don’t tell me you think Dad tried to commit suicide! It just isn’t something he’d do.’

  ‘I don’t think that!’ Joe flared. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It was an accident, pure and simple. These things happen. Gus is not the first to slip and fall when clambering around on top of a headland.’

  ‘But he knew Towradgi Headland – he paints there all the time!’

  ‘Accidents happen, Dylan,’ Joe said.

  Sara looked from face to face, her nerves began to tighten.

  ‘Well, it’s a terrible thing to happen,’ Gabriela said. ‘Mum is so upset. I would’ve been here earlier but I had to calm her down before I could come, and then I thought I’d better arrange someone to look after the restaurant tonight – Mum’s in no state to be cooking. You know what she’s like.’

  They gave a little murmur of assent, as Gabriela lifted the lid of the teapot and checked its contents. ‘Anyone for more tea?’ she asked. Again they gave that soft murmur and she gathered up the cups, stacked them on the tray and went out of the room.

  The Sanchez siblings were left alone with their silence.

  ‘Accidents happen,’ Joe said again, insistently. No-one said anything and he huffed in exasperation and took a long drag of his cigarette, hanging his head back and staring at the ceiling. Then he let out a long plume of smoke and tried to smile. ‘Hey, kids,’ he said. ‘I know we’re all tired. It’s been a horror of a day. Try not to worry so much, OK? Dad’ll be fine, everything will be fine.’