On Brunswick Ground Read online

  There is a silence after that. I wish we were on the hill again. Somehow the room feels too small for this kind of revelation.

  I saw a man once, painting the floor of his shop in Brunswick. He was standing, stranded, on a raft of unpainted floor in the middle of the room. He had painted himself right out of the place. I saw his eyes as I walked by on the footpath. Sarah’s green slits have exactly the same expression. Above them, her dark fringe is still as slick and straight as the shadow of a knife in Hitchcock.

  She snorts.

  ‘He wanted to disappear. Well, let him, I thought. The others understood at first, even Mary. They were pissed off with him too, of course. And he and I were divorced, after all.’

  I frown.

  ‘But why did he do it? Because of your quarrel?’

  She swings her arms in a rowing movement. ‘I have no fucking idea.’ I take a chance.

  ‘Do you feel the whole thing has hardened so much that it can’t be resurrected?’

  She bites her lip and stares at me.

  ‘He never bothered to explain.’

  Then her voice jerks out of kilter.

  ‘But I know he’s okay. Mary sees him. My mother sees him. They all see him. It’s a giant unspoken mess – not only between me and him, but between me and them.’

  I gulp down my wine.

  ‘So when you talk with Mary it’s as if he were still lost?’

  She turns back towards the fire.

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  I look into my glass.

  ‘Oh.’

  I don’t know what else to say. But somehow I understand. It reminds me of Russian dolls. The smallest one, the heaviest, the densest, locked into all the others, is the most important. But you can’t reach her until you’ve opened all the bigger ones. I get up and sit down again.

  ‘Did you ever find out what happened to him?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘No, and I didn’t ask.’

  I swallow that information and ask feebly, ‘What about his car?’ more to break the silence than to get an answer.

  She snorts again.

  ‘The car was offered as a sacrificial victim – a scapegoat.’

  I sit there as Sarah stares straight through me.

  ‘The joke’s turned so bitter. I can’t make head nor tail of it. And now of course Mary’s draped in her own bitter blue joke.’

  Pressing against the French windows, night has stepped up. The chestnut trees have been drawn into its black coat. Sarah’s still standing and kicking a log with the toe of her boot. She looks thoughtful and strong, her lonely strength oozing out of her – a strength that has brought me here with her, another person who has had to curb her enthusiasm. It’s not about bitter jokes, it’s not about the stupid misunderstandings; it’s about all we leave unsaid – about what brings us to these conundrums. When we paint ourselves out of our own lives our situations become just as desperate as some more tangible tragedy. I expected some secret about Sarah, some mystery, of course, but this hard, weird anticlimax is a non sequitur. It leaves no road for her, no bridges, no avenue for empathy. It reminds me of the Korean philosophy of Han – of a sadness that is so great there are no more tears.

  I bend towards her.

  ‘Sarah, I’m sure that all this has nothing to do with Mary’s burqa. Nothing. This is Mary’s business alone; it has no connection with her father or you. Don’t ask me why. But it feels obvious to me.’

  The relief on her face is palpable, as if we had reached the smallest Russian doll.

  ‘Do you really feel that?’

  She dusts herself suddenly.

  ‘Shall we go for a walk? That is, if you’re not off taking nature walks with me. At least there’s no creek around here and any rapists must be huddled by a fire.’

  Then we are walking in between the shapes and the shadows of the chestnut trees, towards a smear of bush leaking out into the thickening night. I tell her about Werribee Zoo. It’s more like a weather report. I don’t want to dwell on it. We both know it’s no use saying too much. It was a wild bet and I lost it. She drops her arm for a second around my shoulders. We hear the sudden screech of a bird in the bush and a scamper in the undergrowth. Then we walk on, stumbling on dead branches and wading through shrubs as the sounds of the bush crackle and hiss all around us, a bit like the fire. We make out a path in the dark, meandering between tall eucalypts. Sarah shoots me a glance.

  ‘Makes you feel like bloody Hansel and Gretel, doesn’t it?’

  I laugh for the first time in days. And suddenly we both know we have a chance in this life of ours, even as the moon appears above us in between the branches, sailing her ship, blessing everything in her glow.

  14

  PHILIP

  It’s late afternoon at the beginning of autumn. My journey to the zoo is now a few weeks old, and I am again thinking of how Jill Meagher’s death is woven into the fabric of Brunswick, with the recent deaths of a brother and sister, and that of a French girl, so far from home, killed by a collapsing wall in Swanston Street. Their mementos are wilting fast as their lost lives seep into Melbourne, into the bird cries, the bedraggled paperbarks, the solemn ghost gums and the comings and goings of Australians having coffees on the footpaths, whose laughter echoes as trams shudder, as city and suburbs carry on, knitting into eternity.

  I’ve just come back from buying some food and bump into Mary in my gardening clothes, my boots squelching with mud. A raucous motorbike tears Lygon Street in two, and a chuckle wells up from the blue fountain of material walking beside me:

  ‘O-ver-com-pen-sa-ting for something.’

  I find myself rummaging through my thoughts to find something innocent to say to her. But my mind is suddenly a dark bedroom where Sarah’s revelations about her ex, Gerald, are dim lurking shapes – an armchair or a monster, a gaping abyss or an old chest of drawers. Information is never just information, it takes invisible space in the shadows; it clutters our presence.

  ‘How’s your job going?’ I ask at last.

  Mary nods and pats me on the back.

  ‘Swimmingly. How’s yours?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Diggingly.’

  The swish of her step slows down.

  ‘I’ve just heard that Jill Meagher’s murderer has admitted his guilt. It’s a bit of an anticlimax, isn’t it? I don’t know why. Maybe because we all knew he was guilty. It’s a terrible thing to be sure of from the first day.’

  As we approach the cat’s street, I say:

  ‘Instead of giving in to a media-driven thirst for atonement, I like the way her family is quiet and contained about it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m with you.’

  Then, I don’t know why, I’m telling her about the cat – how I haven’t seen him for a few days, how I even loiter in the street in the hope of meeting him, how his strange comings and goings haunt me slightly, how I hope nothing has happened to him. Out of breath, I stop. Mary turns around and asks:

  ‘How do you know it’s a male?’

  I look at her, surprised.

  ‘I don’t know. I never thought of him as anything else. If he’s a female, he really took me in.’

  It occurs to me that I relate to her as if she were a bit of a cat herself. You need to develop a sixth sense where Mary is concerned. The usual give-away signals are not there. It makes me realise how much I rely on eyebrows, lips, nostrils, cheeks, chins and eyelids, even skin, rather than words. Faces quiver, harden, frown, pale and blush. With Mary you have nothing much to go on. You can only notice her hands, concentrate on her tones, and become attuned to every inflexion of her voice, listening for another music.

  ‘We’re near his street,’ I tell her.

  And, of course, because I had given up, because I am not expecting him, he appears, right there sitting on a fence, licking his paws. Cartloads of apricot clouds are being emptied in the sky by some invisible wheelbarrow. He throws me a cool tiger X-ray glance that sto
ps at nothing to recognise you. Then, to top it all, he lets us both pat him. He is a cat of dusk, a grey cat. No wonder it is now that he unwinds. Mary duly acknowledges that this cat is quite special.

  ‘A bit king and a bit pauper, isn’t he? Kind of cocksure and sensitive – a Humphrey Bogart of a cat.’

  I like this blue woman. Even though they’re so different, I recognise the same streak of sympathy I have for her mother. I forget about the dark furniture in the bedroom of my mind, I forget Sarah’s revelations about Mary’s father, and don’t worry about skirting round them anymore. Now we’re walking in front of Bea’s house, where I gardened last year. I touch Mary’s shoulder.

  ‘Do you want to meet someone I like?‘

  She shrugs.

  ‘Why not? It’s better than meeting someone you don’t like.’

  I hesitate because I don’t usually pop in on people without phoning, even if only two minutes before, because they’re sure to be in the tub, or procreating, or in the throes of a painful bout of diarrhoea. But it feels like the only way of seeing her again. I ring the bell at the gate, wincing at Mary.

  ‘I have only just met her the once.’

  There’s a minute’s silence as if the garden were listening, then steps walk up and Bea appears.

  ‘He-llo,’ she says.

  I tell her I don’t have her number and wanted to see her again. She smiles and steps back and we all seem to float up her garden path. Bea also floats between seventy and eighty, without that decade touching her in the usual ways. Her personality rests in her peaceful wrinkles – both accepting and free of them.

  The place is how we left it, with its big tree overseeing the state of things. She takes us inside, through the sliding glass doors to a wide room with a low sofa, and low armchairs that have a Japanese feel to them. A tiny table scuttles close, as if begging for something. There are books everywhere and drawings on the walls – of gardens, of fish. I am sure they are Bea’s. She moves behind the worktop of a white open kitchen and puts the kettle on. We wait, almost crouching on the floor.

  ‘Do you feel like Goldilocks?’ I whisper.

  Mary nods. I feel her exuding a smile.

  ‘In spite of the absence of bears, I have this feeling of delightful trespass.’ She pauses: ‘I think I read that in the Jane Austen novel I’m reading.’

  Somehow I never imagined her reading Jane Austen – Steinbeck, more like, or Henry Miller, even Bukowski. The inhabitants of Brunswick are a constant surprise.

  Bea returns with herbal tea and biscuits. She sets them down on the tiny table which seems of much sturdier stuff than its appearance would suggest. Then, suddenly, Mary’s small, efficient hands are moving forward of their own accord to pour the tea. It feels just right, as if it were meant to be her role. Bea seems to feel it too, for she leans back in her chair. Mary lifts her cup with two hands the way you would lift a bowl.

  ‘This cup is beautiful. It reminds me of a tale I heard.’

  Then, as if her veils had sheltered her in an oasis of The Thousand and One Nights, her voice rises from her blue robes, like a ventriloquist’s.

  ‘A princess is under a spell, captive of a magic house surrounded by speaking objects in charge of her education. The piano teaches her music, the books instruct her in languages, philosophy and literature, the carpets explain how they have been woven, the tables and chairs describe the forests they have come from, her shoes whisper advice – each object imparts its knowledge to her. But only one of them is really alive – a small cloud, prisoner of the eiderdown on the princess’s bed. He whispers words of rebellion every night, promising to lead her to her to freedom if she will only unstitch his silk cover on a sunny day, and shake him back into the sky.’

  She stops and I feel her looking at us again.

  ‘Of course, one fine morning, the princess eventually obeys him, in spite of the warning from the other objects. She kicks off her enchanted slippers and sets off. But before he can lead her to freedom, a storm gathers in the sky, chasing her cloud away, and the princess ends up barefoot in the desert.’

  No one says anything, as if the air itself were listening. Because Bea is who she is, and everything seems part of the flow with her, it hasn’t crossed my mind to wonder what she thinks of Mary’s appearance. But after the story, I am sure that Bea, just like me, is seeing Mary float out of the blue silk eiderdown cover revealing a face we can only both imagine.

  I break the spell.

  ‘She reminds me of a character in One Hundred Years of Solitude called Remedios the Beauty. She shakes the bedsheets outside and floats up to heaven.’

  Mary chuckles.

  ‘I liked her, too. Do you remember when she cuts her long hair because it hangs in her soup?’

  Bea frowns.

  ‘Where did you read that story you told us?’

  Mary slips a hand under her veil to touch her cheek. It’s the first time I’ve seen her do this, it’s the first time I feel her body expressing itself on its own terms. She must be comfortable here.

  ‘I didn’t read it,’ she says, ‘my next-door neighbour in Adelaide told it to me before she died of Alzheimer’s. She had written it herself.’

  Mary lays her hands flat on her lap as if she were holding her knees down.

  ‘She was the kind of person you never forget.’

  Bea frowns again.

  ‘What sort of person was she?’

  Mary concentrates a second before answering.

  ‘Unexpected. Traditional, but also rebellious. A bit like a nervous hen, always looking over her shoulder, pecking in someone else’s yard. But suddenly she would stop and talk to me on the landing and say extraordinary things.’

  Bea pours more tea and asks perceptively:

  ‘Was she my age? The idea of someone young with Alzheimer’s is nearly unbearable. If I had to die young, I’d rather have cancer and keep my mind. But when you’re old, death can have many faces, death can become more mysterious.’

  Mary nods, but her shoulders hunch, as if she were cold.

  ‘She died like someone younger, like someone not ready. It wasn’t a peaceful death. I always thought that story was about her.’

  The dog next door has wriggled under the fence and has sidled up to Bea.

  ‘Hello, Larry.’

  Then he sees Mary and starts barking furiously at her. She freezes. He’s obviously averse to burqas. I’m relieved when Bea quietly gets up to walk into the garden and he follows her. Mary, I notice, is very still. When Bea returns, she asks me what I’ve been up to. I find myself telling her about the zoo and the tiger without mentioning Jack. Mary bends forward.

  ‘Felines seem to be on her mind today.’

  Bea takes a chunk out of her biscuit.

  ‘Animals seem to know things that go under our radars, but they’re important things.’

  I cringe, hoping Mary won’t think Larry has ESP about her, but you can see Mary gets Bea’s drift. Bea continues blithely.

  ‘My mother was good with animals. She knew how to be with them. I’m better with plants.’

  Mary sighs.

  ‘I’m good with shapes. I like shapes. Everything has a shape. One tends to forget that. People usually only think in terms of colour and sound.’

  Some people get each other from the start and see each other right through the clouds of words. It usually takes me years to realise who the human beings around me really are. I must be staring at them, because they are both staring back at me. I cough and come out with something I don’t expect.

  ‘Do you know the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic? The neurotic knows two and two make four and it makes him unhappy. The psychotic thinks they make five and he’s very chuffed.’

  Mary lets out a cackle.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘A drunk at Sarah’s bar, I think that’s the way he counts his beers. He told me a guy called Desproges wrote it.’

  At that very instant, as if the anecdote heralde
d him into the room, a handsome young man in tight jeans appears – fair, tall, slim, about thirty-five, with curly hair and a wide-open shirt. He looks like an advertisement. Yet as soon as he opens his mouth, you somehow forget about his looks. He could just as well be fabulously ugly. He crouches near Bea.

  ‘What’s going on here, Bea? What are you up to?’

  She smiles at him and the tenderness between them is palpable. In the same kind of way she doesn’t bat an eyelid about the burqa and the fact that being in her late seventies has no discernable impact on her behaviour, he, in turn, shows no signs of having an immediate reaction to Mary’s get-up. He just sits down next to her. Some people, when put together, change the air, the pictures on the wall, even the shape of the room.

  ‘What was Larry on about?’

  Bea shrugs.

  ‘Oh, he was in a blue fit because he didn’t get his usual snack. I forgot to buy some.’

  Then she pours her friend a cup of tea.

  ‘Philip is sharing my house for a while. He’s a painter. Philip Paulson.’

  He turns towards Mary.

  ‘I could paint you. It would be a challenge to paint you.’

  He’s obviously a visual freak, living in his eyes, his tone a comment without any agenda. He could have spoken of someone’s nose in the same way. For the first time in my experience, I see Mary take a comment personally, nearly irrationally. She shakes her head.

  ‘I’m not hiding behind this.’

  This seems quite untrue to me, even though it’s the first time I hear her justify herself, or directly mention her veils to a stranger. No one says anything. Bea and Philip are the types that instinctively know when just breathing is better.

  His eyes have kind, reflective irises, as if their colour and texture were infused with a deeper brand of empathy. One which takes no prisoners.

  ‘Would you mind if I painted you?’

  Mary doesn’t react straight away. Her blue folds become statuesque and forbidding. Bea sighs.

  ‘Philip, you can’t ask to paint everyone you meet – and that’s on top of your being an unregenerate womaniser.’