The Stranding (23 page)

Then she removed the mirror, replaced the canvas on the easel and meditatively linked with the storm inside herself so that it could begin the slow process of showing its face on canvas.

Eighteen

Sash came around the day after the funeral. While Lex was putting the dishes away, she sat quietly on the couch playing with two Barbie dolls. Mrs B was due home within the next couple of days and Lex hadn’t finished fixing things at her place yet, so he was a little impatient with Sash for turning up when he wanted to get things done. He felt guilty too, for being annoyed with her. She asked so little of him, playing there by herself, immersed in her imaginary world. After he’d tidied up, he sat down on the couch and watched her.

‘What game are you playing?’ he asked, trying halfheartedly to be interested.

‘Families.’

He stared out the window for a while then tried again to engage with her. ‘Which one’s the mummy?’

‘This one.’ Sash lifted a Barbie with a glittery purple dress and thick blonde hair.

‘Of course,’ Lex observed. ‘Mummies dress like that all the time. Which one’s the dad?’

‘This one.’ Sash raised the other Barbie, naked with obvious plastic breasts.

‘How can you tell that one’s the dad?’

‘Her hair’s cut short.’

‘Who are the kids?’

‘Me and Evan. I don’t have enough Barbies so I just have to pretend.’

‘Sorry. I’m not up on these things. You’ll have to forgive me.’

She stopped playing and looked at him for a moment.

‘They said stuff about “‘forgive” at church yesterday. “Forgive” and “sins”. What does that mean?’

‘Sins are when you do something that you know is wrong.’

She nodded. ‘Like when I hit Evan.’

‘Something like that.’

‘What about forgive?’

‘Well, you forgive someone if they do something wrong to you or hurt you, and they’re sorry, and you want to let them know you’re okay with that.’

Sash frowned. ‘I don’t want to forgive my dad. I’m not okay with what he did.’

‘That’s all right. Sometimes it takes time to be ready to forgive.’

She went back to playing her game.

‘What’s happening?’ Lex asked.

‘The dad has been away from home for a long time and has just come back again. See, they’re going to kiss and make up.’ Sash pressed the dolls’ faces together. ‘And then they’re going to get married again.’

‘I see.’ Lex’s heart crushed in his chest. Poor kid.

‘My dad’s not coming back home,’ Sash said. ‘I think he’s forgotten me.’

‘How could he forget someone like you?’

‘He forgot my birthday. That’s what I can’t forgive him for yet.’

Lex turned cold. He tried to be light, shift the topic a little. ‘Did you just have a birthday?’

‘Yes, I just turned six. But my dad didn’t send me a present. He didn’t even send me a card.’

He looked at her, feeling useless. ‘It’s pretty hard to understand,’ he said. ‘But sometimes grown-ups get so caught up in their own lives and troubles that they forget things that are usually important to them. Even birthdays of people they love.’

He ruffled Sash’s hair and went to make a cup of coffee. He felt sick. What choice did a kid have when a parent walked out? Sure, kids were resilient. They coped because they had to. What did they understand of the complexities of adult relationships? Thank God his relationship with Jilly hadn’t come to that. But then, perhaps Isabel had taken flight before it did. What had happened to them after she died?

It was as if the foundation of their entire relationship had died with her. Jilly had blamed him. She’d flayed him with words until he was stripped to the bones. At first he hadn’t responded. He’d just watched this alien person battering him, until one day his teeth had started talking, using the same language as her—the language of the doomed; cruel things that couldn’t be taken back. Between them they crushed the soul of their relationship, that fragile shell of mutual respect. Past that point, there was no fixing it.

Frank brought Mrs B home the next day. Lex saw the car pull up and rushed out to help, but Frank was already guiding the old lady towards the house with a hand beneath her elbow. She looked weak and frail, her face thinner and paler than usual, her back more hunched, as if life was getting heavier.

‘They kept me in bed too long,’ she was saying. ‘It’s no good for the bones, wasting away in bed. Old people like me need to be up and about.’

‘You needed to rest, Mum,’ Frank said, nodding at Lex. ‘They were worried about pneumonia.’

‘I can breathe, can’t I?’ she snapped. ‘It’s obvious I don’t have pneumonia.’

‘You were bruised after the fall.’

‘Yes. Well, I suppose that’s true.’ She turned to Lex. ‘Lad, it’s good to see you. Can you come over for a cuppa shortly? After Frank sets me up in bed? They’ve softened me up so much in hospital my legs are like jelly.’

Lex waited at home for thirty minutes, reading yesterday’s newspaper, then he went back to see her. Frank was wandering around the yard piling up sheets of corrugated iron that had blown around in the storm. He waved when he saw Lex.

‘Just let yourself in. She’s in her room. Her cup of tea will need a top-up by now.’

Lex went in via the front door. He found the teapot on the kitchen table and carried it tentatively down the hallway. He’d never been this far into the house before and somehow it felt like an intrusion.

‘Mrs B,’ he called. ‘It’s Lex.’

‘This way, lad.’

He followed her voice into a dim bedroom. She was propped up with pillows on a big old four-poster bed. The curtains were drawn and the lamp beside the bed lit the room in dull sepia tones.

‘More tea?’ he asked.

‘Please.’ Mrs B indicated her cup on the bedside table. Her face was shadowy and haggard in the subdued light.

‘Can I open the curtains?’ he asked.

‘Want to see what the storm’s done to me?’ she said.

‘I already know what it’s done to you.’

‘Open them,’ she said. ‘So I can see what it’s done to you.’

Lex dragged the curtains back and sat on a chair near the window. Mrs B’s eyes regained some brightness as she burned them accusingly into him.

‘Where’s the girl?’ she asked.

‘Who? Callista?’

‘Yes.’

Lex hesitated. ‘We had a disagreement.’

Mrs B’s lips pressed together into a flat line. ‘What about?’

‘I didn’t know who she was.’

‘You didn’t know she was a Wallace?’

‘No.’

‘Does it matter?’

Lex stiffened. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘You think so.’

‘It matters,’ he said firmly. He’d thought Mrs B would be nicer to him after the accident.

She pressed further. ‘Why does it matter?’

He thought she ought to know why it mattered. It was obvious and he wasn’t going to spell it out for her. She was being difficult and provocative after a forced week in bed. He was surprised when she started laughing.

‘And are you telling me you came to this with no baggage?’ she cackled.

He almost managed a smile. ‘None, of course.’

The old lady squinted at him. ‘How did you know I’d gone over the cliff?’

‘Your headlights flashed through my window. You must have been all over the road. It’s amazing they let you have a licence.’

‘You should have tried driving in that,’ she said. She leaned back against her pillows and lifted her cup to take a sip of tea. ‘So,’ she said. ‘The argument.’

‘Not worth discussing.’

‘You’re very quick to write the poor girl off.’

‘Poor girl!’ He gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. ‘Hardly.’

Mrs B tut-tutted. ‘So much anger.’

Yes. She was right. So much anger. He was seething with it. It burned through his trousers, burned him off his seat, pushed him to lean out the window trying to feel the breeze on his face. He could explode in this room.

‘Anger is good,’ Mrs B said.

‘Good?’ Lex turned back to her, disbelieving.

‘Yes, good,’ she said. ‘Anger means healing.’

He snorted. ‘Anger means anger,’ he said. ‘Callista lied to me.’

‘And have you been entirely honest with her?’

She kept pressing him with these invasive questions. He looked away. ‘She knows everything now.’

‘Everything,’ Mrs B echoed.

‘Everything she needs to know.’

Mrs B sighed and set down her cup on its saucer. ‘I need to tell you about the Wallaces,’ she said. ‘So you can understand some things.’

‘Not now.’

‘Why not? It won’t wear me out, if that’s what’s bothering you.’

‘You should rest.’

‘Rest! I’ve been resting for a week in hospital.’

‘I’ll bring you back some dinner tonight. When Frank’s gone,’ Lex said. ‘We can talk then.’

‘You make sure you come,’ Mrs B said querulously.

‘I wouldn’t want to see a sick woman starve.’

Lex walked off some of his anger on the beach then he cooked a chicken curry for dinner and took it around to Mrs B’s at about seven o’clock. She was sitting at the kitchen table in a blue dressing gown.

‘I feel better already, being at home,’ she said. ‘Frank helped me have a bath, and then he was happy to leave me for the night knowing you were bringing me some dinner.’

‘Good,’ Lex said. ‘We’ll be sure not to wear you out too much so I don’t have to carry you back to bed.’

Mrs B’s eyes flashed at him. ‘I won’t be letting the likes of you carry me.’

He smiled.

‘What have you brought me?’ She tried to peer into the pot.

‘Chicken curry,’ he said. ‘Mild. It’s my specialty.’

‘What else do you cook?’

‘Chop and three veg. But don’t hassle me. I’m learning. My wife used to do all the cooking.’

‘Wife.’ Mrs B raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s the first mention.’

‘Well, it’s out in the open now, isn’t it? After the storm.’

‘Does she know?’

‘Yes. Callista knows.’

‘Ahhh.’ Mrs B nodded to herself. ‘The argument.’

Lex served some rice and then the curry. ‘How much does an old woman eat?’ he asked.

‘Not as much as a strapping young lad like yourself.’

‘A bit too strapping these days, Mrs B,’ he said. ‘But not young anymore. I’m coming up to thirty-nine this year.’

She snorted. ‘Don’t complain till you have cause to, lad. It’s boring when the young indulge themselves.’

He smiled and pushed a plate towards her. ‘I’m indulging you tonight.’

‘No.’ She wagged her head at him. ‘This evening’s talk is a necessity. Perspective is what an angry young man like you needs. And perspective is what you’ll have by the time you leave here tonight. I’m going to tell you about the Wallaces and me.’

‘You don’t have to tell me, Mrs B.’

‘No, but I want to.’ She took a mouthful of curry and nodded approvingly. She waved her fork at him. ‘You bought more than a house when you became my neighbour. You purchased a history. There’s love and death and more than one betrayal in those walls. And I’m mixed up in it all.’

She ate quietly for a while then set her fork down. There was something about the deliberate way she did it that let Lex know this wasn’t going to be a casual chat.

‘The Wallaces bought the land here a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Must have been the late 1800s. Vic’s grandfather bought it when he was passing through with a boatload of whale oil to sell in Sydney. But nobody lived here till Vic’s father inherited the land and brought his family up from Eden. Vic was just a boy then. He helped his father build the house . . . I’ve told you all that before.’

She forked more curry into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. ‘Vic was a wild young lad. Tall and well-built.’ She glanced at Lex. ‘He caused a serious flutter when he first showed up at the school room. We local girls thought he was mighty handsome . . . Not that he was at school for long. Only a couple of years, then he was old enough to start working the logging gangs with his father.’

‘You fancied him,’ Lex said, teasing.

Mrs B glanced at him. ‘Oh, of course. We were all keen on him . . . That was the problem. We out-did ourselves trying to impress him.’

Lex smiled. He imagined Mrs B would have been a feisty young woman.

She laughed a rusty, self-conscious laugh. ‘I certainly got his attention a few times. Seems I was always pulling off some wild stunt to catch his eye—climbing the highest trees, swimming the river on the coldest days.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘But it was Queenie that won him over. I might have been gamest, but she was prettiest.’

He watched her tired old face. ‘You win some, you lose some,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

She retreated to quiet reflection while she finished off her curry.

‘So Vic and Queenie married young and headed west,’ she said, picking up the story again. ‘Vic was restless and adventurous and wanted to go whaling. He was sick of working on the logging crews and his grandfather’s tales of whaling were thick in his head. So off they went . . . They were gone for close to fifteen years.’

She went quiet, staring at some place up in the corner, roving somewhere in the past. It had been a big day for her, coming home from the sanitised cocoon of the hospital.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ he said, clearing the dishes away.

He washed the dishes, boiled some water and filled the teapot. When he sat down, she smiled at him wearily.

‘You’re a gem.’

‘We can leave this,’ he suggested.

‘No, let’s finish it. I’ll forget where I’m up to if I stop now.’

Mrs B told him many things. She told him how she met her husband, Ted Brocklehurst, about a year after Vic and Queenie left for the west. Ted was a good man, she said, a hard worker and a man of principle. He ran his father’s dairy while Mrs B worked at the cheese factory. When they’d saved enough money, they bought the block of land at the Point and built their home. Not long after that Ted started to lose his mind. He couldn’t run the dairy anymore and the farm had to be sold. Ted’s parents gave Mrs B his share of the money, knowing that she’d need it. And almost as soon as Ted stopped work, he worsened rapidly. It must have been brain cancer. He was only thirty-seven years old, but within a few months he couldn’t do anything for himself and Mrs B was nursing him full-time.