My Candlelight Novel (6 page)

The sun was out, and everything shone, even the receding brown water. Dev came out onto the verandah dressed only in jeans, towelling dry his long, black hair. He stood surveying the scene; with his smooth, brown chest he looked like a proud god. When Pagan arrived moments later, her face still bleary from sleep, he flashed a smile at her and said boldly, ‘Would you like to go out and take a look around?'

She went inside to get dressed, and came back looking perkier than I'd ever seen her. I noticed then the beauty in her face. Going down the muddy steps she slipped, but Dev caught her arm, and they both giggled. When they reached the ground, they turned to wave cheerily to me. They sloshed away through the mud together.

There's always a feeling of celebration after a flood. People slide down muddy streets smiling at strangers when once they wouldn't have even nodded to them. Dev and Pagan came back with excited stories – of cars stalled in the water, and soggy carpets and appliances piled up in the streets, and people pushing mud from their houses with brooms. They'd seen a trailer full of caged chooks someone had rescued; one of them had laid an egg as they watched. Dev held out his hand and opened it like a magician – he'd taken it! (More smiles and giggles from the pair of them.)

That night they went out to get a meal at a pub. They invited me, but I could see they didn't really need company. I watched a little wistfully as they went off down the street again, their arms around each other.

Lil went out as well, borne away by a posse of friends who called for her in an ancient pumpkin-coloured Mercedes. So Hetty and Tess and I were left alone at Samarkand. It was so quiet I could hear the click of Tess's claws as she followed me about the house.

I wandered around from room to room, not able to settle to anything. I picked at leftovers from the fridge, and made some mashed vegetables for Hetty, which she hated. Hetty had always liked real food, not mushy stuff for babies. She loved nothing more than gnawing on a piece of steak, and even though she had very few teeth at that stage, she gnawed with her bare gums.

There was no meat, so I placated her with a jar of baby custard and stewed apples, which we shared. Afterwards, I went to my room (Tess following with her bone) and flipped through books, reading the choicest parts from the ones I loved best. In between, I built towers of blocks for Hetty so she could knock them down.

And finally, desperate to occupy myself, I put on some music and danced.

I'm not a dancer. I'm self-conscious and awkward and I know I look ridiculous. But sometimes that is what you must do with music, or it seems pointless. It's like seeing a shooting star and not gazing in wonder, or having a baby and not kissing it at every opportunity. Not moving to certain kinds of music is a crime against life.

So I danced, and Tess sat and watched me in a faintly embarrassed way (dogs are so conventional!). I picked up Hetty and whirled about with her in my arms for a bit. I danced for so long that I became breathless. Eventually, I became convinced that my dancing was graceful and wonderful and inspired. I ended up believing that I
could
dance.

I noticed that Tess was whining and shifting about, disturbed by something out on the verandah. The French doors were open, and I stopped dancing to see what she was looking at. In the puddle of light from my room, I saw someone standing outside in the dark looking in at me.

It was a woman in a long skirt made of creased grey silk, and a knobbly jacket. She was my height and build, with dark, crinkled hair worn loose to her waist. I feel sure I wore the same look of curiosity that she did, a kind of delighted recognition, because it was like looking into a dark mirror and seeing myself reflected.

The woman spoke first.

‘Hello,' she said, and her voice had an edge of amusement to it. ‘I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm looking for a room. Is the manager in?'

I told her that I could help her, and she followed me downstairs. ‘How many nights would you like?'

‘Just one, for now.'

I selected a key and showed her to a room – one of the nicest, as it happened – that Lil had done up with freshly painted green walls and an old carpet of dusky faded red on the polished boards.

‘It's perfect,' she said.

When I went to the window and pushed it up, cold night air came in, and with it the stink of the flood. She went to the window and leaned out. ‘I love the night,' she said with a sigh. ‘Don't you?'

I didn't reply, going out to the hall for the guest book to take down her particulars. She followed me, and collected an overnight bag she'd left at the entrance.

Her name was Maggie Tulliver, she said, smiling with what looked like practised charm.

‘And do you have an address? Or phone number?' I asked, without much hope, as many of our guests don't. We attract a lot of nomads.

‘None at the moment. I'm in transit. But I've been staying with people in Brisbane – I can give you their details.'

I took them down. I had Hetty on my hip, and while I wrote I noticed the woman frankly inspecting me. When I'd finished the paperwork she took herself and her bag off to her room.

I sat at the kitchen table with my chin propped on my fist, while Hetty crawled around on the floor. Tess sat at my feet with an awful, devoted, long-suffering look on her face that was already beginning to get on my nerves.

Maggie Tulliver had disconcerted me. I thought of the first impression I'd had of her. It was almost like looking at my double. We were both curvaceous women with long dark curly hair. But in the light, and on closer inspection, she wasn't so much like me. She was a good twenty years older, for a start.

There were already strands of white in her dark hair.

I looked up when she came to the door in search of the bathroom; I'd forgotten to show her where it was.

‘What's your baby's name?' she asked.

‘Hetty,' I said cautiously, not wanting to give away too much about myself. I hate the way that living in a guesthouse can rob you of your privacy.

But something in me must have wanted to please her, and I offered her my own name soon afterwards without her even needing to ask. We were in the lounge at the time, and she had her head down inspecting the bookshelves for something to read. Coming up with a copy of
On the Road
, she threw back her head, tossing the hair away from her face in a gesture I knew well in myself. ‘Sophie,' she repeated with satisfaction, as though I'd given her a gift.

She took herself to her room, and I didn't see her for the rest of the night. But very late, when I was almost asleep, I thought I heard someone singing. Getting up and going onto the verandah, I stood and listened. I remember shivering in the cold, but I couldn't go back inside, and stood watching the mist drift up from the river as the singing continued. The voice was beautiful, and arresting, but I remember most of all thinking how
confident
it seemed – to sing like that late at night, in a place where you were, after all, only a guest.

She was there at breakfast, but when I served her we didn't speak, except for her to say, ‘Thank you.'

‘Someone checked in last night,' I told Lil, as I took in her tray and whipped the curtains open.

‘Oh, love, the light! The light!'

I pulled them closed again.

‘I know. She was still up when I came in,' said Lil. ‘She's coming back in a few weeks – booked in for long-term stay.'

When I went out, Maggie Tulliver was standing in the hallway looking at the ads for taxis and takeaway food on the noticeboard above the phone table. ‘Oh!' she said, reaching up and taking down the strip of photos that Kate had taken in the booth. ‘What a pretty girl.' She looked at me. ‘Is this your sister? She looks so much like you. But everyone must tell you that.'

I took the photos from her. ‘Actually, they don't,' I said, pinning them back on the board. She was correct about us looking alike. Only you had to know both of us well to see it.

She left while I was taking a shower. When I went to clean her room I found the house copy of
On the Road
on the bedside table. She had pulled out one of the long, white hairs from her head and used it to mark her place.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

W
ITH MY LIFE
at university tantalisingly close, I got into an irritable state of hating the whole world. In that mood, I took Hetty and Tess for a walk downtown, and we must have been a miserable sight. Hetty grizzled and gnawed at one hand, dribbling a trail of spit down her front. Tess trotted behind, tail down, at the end of a filthy bit of rope I was using as a lead.

I tramped along the street, preoccupied with my foul mood. As I passed the café where I used to work before Hetty was born, someone ran up behind me and touched me on the elbow.

‘Sophie.'

And there was Becky Sharp, her little lobeless ears miraculously unchanged. In slim black slacks and white shirt, with a blue beret on her head. She slid her hands casually into her pockets.

I said her name aloud, hesitantly, as though I'd almost forgotten she existed, though in truth I think I'd called her to mind almost every day. She gestured towards the outdoor tables. ‘Hey! Come and sit a while – do you have time?'

She was with a boy she introduced simply as Lawson, and whether that was his first or last name I couldn't tell. He was very tall, and dressed in a thick grey army coat. When he stood up to shake my hand he towered over me. Becky Sharp left us alone while she darted inside to order me a coffee, and he and I sat there silently, neither of us knowing quite what to say, though really I can only speak for myself. Perhaps he didn't want to talk.

But I liked him. He had the face of an ugly, faithful hound, with sincere eyes that turned down at the outer corners, and an immensely long nose that dominated a long face. Tess perked up at the sight of him; he smoothed back her ears firmly in a way she didn't mind at all, and when I let go of her rope she went to sit with her head in his lap.

Becky Sharp returned, and Lawson said he had to be going. He shook my hand again, patted Tess one last time, and departed. I had to call Tess back, as she had started to follow him, trailing her dirty rope over the footpath.

Becky Sharp and I looked at each other. It was difficult to know what to say to her, as I didn't want to say anything ordinary. She looked so extraordinary sitting there in the thin afternoon sunlight, her lovely pink mouth pursed in thought.

In the end, I said something absolutely commonplace:

‘I took the books back.'

‘I know.'

Taking a deep breath (I was so happy to see her I had forgotten to breathe), I added, ‘I'm starting at uni after the break.'

‘I'll probably see you about the place, then.'

I looked down into my coffee and took a sip.

Then, ‘Have you ever cooked with Parisian essence?' I asked her. Only the Goddess, in all her wisdom, would know why I said something as pointless as that. I had noticed it the night before in our cupboard, and Lil had told me that its function was simply to make food brown.

‘Um…no,' she said. ‘What exactly is it?'

I started to prattle. I do that when I don't know what to say and I want people to like me.

‘It's just kind of brown. That's what it is. Brown stuff, to make food brown. It sounds exotic though, doesn't it? Essence of Paris. Who
wouldn't
want it in their food?'

Becky Sharp pushed her empty cup away to make room for an elbow, which she placed on the table, resting her chin in her hand. Her hair, which I think I said before was black, wasn't entirely black at all. Like my sister Kate's, it had green strands in it, and red.

‘And some food really needs to be brown, doesn't it?' she said, with a smile. ‘I'll look out for this Parisian essence.'

Hetty, still strapped into her pram, was starting to fuss. I picked her up and opened the buttons on my dress to feed her. Becky Sharp watched, frankly and openly, but it didn't worry me. What I hate is when people look at anything else
but
my breast.

She got up and went into the café and came back with blueberry muffins, which we ate silently while Hetty fed. It was nice not having to talk, and I felt most comfortable with Becky. She seemed to understand without being told how much I loved and needed food.

She took Hetty while I went off to the loo, and dandled her on her knee. When I came back she indicated that she was happy to keep her. And I can't remember what else we said to each other. I think we just sat there for a long while, looking at each other and smiling.

Eventually I said I had to go. And I got up and went, collecting up my baby and my dog, adjusting the pram, feeling slightly self-conscious at my disreputable-looking entourage.

I went home the long way, walking over the three bridges that cross Lismore's rivers (for Lismore is a place built on multiple converging rivers – no wonder it's such a place for floods). I thought about Becky Sharp almost all the way. Picking a flower that leaned out over a front fence (what was it? – let's say it was a gladiolus) I carried it as far as the bridge near the Winsome Hotel, where I leaned over and threw it into the river. I'm in the habit of throwing things into the river; it seems to me a gesture both practical and symbolic. A river brings, and it also takes away.

I know that at some stage I should give an account of myself: how I, an apparently not-too-badly educated girl, not too stupid (perhaps not too clever either), came to be blessed, as I see it, by a child at the age of twenty-one.

I remember this:

It was the middle of a morning in hot December; shafts of light shot from the surface of the river. Amazing to think that something as miraculous as Hetty could have her beginning with Marcus hugging a tree and exclaiming how good it felt.

I found my own tree to hug, and Marcus came over and embraced me against the slender, half-grown gum. Things went on from there. Slipping my knickers from underneath my skirt, I took Marcus by the shoulders and moved him so that I was on the outside and he was the one pressed up against the tree. We were hidden down near the riverbank, among weeds and tall flowering grasses. My knickers (red silky ones, my favourites) were scrunched up in one fist.