‘I don’t want to let her down,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t want to feel like I’m inadequate …’
‘She wouldn’t think that. She doesn’t have wings herself. She …’
‘I don’t mean for not being able to fly. I mean for not being able to accept that it’s all changed and that my old life is gone.’
‘Clementine doesn’t think that, does she?’
‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’ Benedick took another steadying breath. ‘She’s so confident with who she is, with her life. I don’t know how to be that confident like this.’ He spread his hands, and his wings.
‘Well, I don’t think it. You’re my big brother. I’ve always looked up to you, and that hasn’t changed, whether or not you can fly. You’re not inadequate, in any way. You’re just …’ Peri sought for the words that would help, and couldn’t find any.
‘I’m just a fledgling again,’ Benedick said kindly, a little bitterly. ‘That’s what it feels like.’
Peri swallowed. Grimaced. ‘I want to help.’
‘You do. You have already. And … I can accept it, Peri. In time, I can. I know there’s a lot of life for me still. I want it. I want a new life, and to be able to celebrate it.’
‘You just haven’t finished grieving for the old one yet,’ said Peri gently.
Benedick managed a self-conscious laugh. ‘You and your Psych units.’
‘Bane of your life,’ Peri agreed. He ruffled Benedick’s hair and gazed on him with tender concern.
Benedick cleared his throat and Peri took his cue to lift away his wings and let his brother go. Benedick plucked a handful of tissues from a box and wiped his nose, then splashed water on his face at the kitchen sink. One more deep breath, then he stepped back to Peri. With a hand around the back of Peri’s neck, he drew their foreheads together.
‘You’re the best brother,’ Benedick said, voice mostly steady at last. ‘The sunshiniest best.’
‘You’re not too shabby yourself, Bento,’ Peri told him, voice thick with emotion.
Benedick huffed a laugh. ‘Bento. You’re never going to grow out of calling me that, are you?’
Peri patted Benedick’s flat stomach that in childhood had been adorably round. ‘Nope.’
‘Leave off!’ Benedick danced aside. ‘How about a beer? Or I have cider.’
‘Cider! There’s a good man. Come on. A toast to your extraordinary girlfriend, and to you hanging off a boat over the river to pull her on board, even though if you’d fallen off you’d have sunk like a stone.’
Benedick nearly hugged him again for the cheerful, fond mockery, and how back-to-normal it made him feel. ‘Thanks, Peri. You know how to make a man feel stupid.’
‘Well, I’ll give you this—you’re daft but fearless.’
‘I’ll take that,’ Benedick said, passing a bottle to Peri. They clinked the bases and drank to daft fearlessness.
Benedick was grateful to his little brother for a hundred reasons, but even as he drank, that fear still lurked.
What if I never stop grieving for the sky? What then?
***
Clementine dried herself with the largest, fluffiest towel she owned and inspected her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She placed her hands on the sink and leaned in more closely, giving her reflection a hard glare.
She imagined the accident on the boat through Benedick’s eyes. The wind lifting her small frame; then catching at his unwieldy right wing so that he knocked into her. The collision toppling her overboard and the backwash threatening to swamp her before the crew managed to get the life preserver to her. Benedick reaching out to her, face drained of colour, relying on Peri to hold onto him as he seized her and pulled her to safety.
The way he’d folded in on himself with misery as he said I couldn’t reach you. The way he’d folded his wings protectively around her and held her while his own body shook.
I don’t need him, she told her herself sternly. I don’t need anybody.
The eyes looking back at her flared with scorn. She knew she was making excuses.
Feathers-for-brains, she scolded herself. Be honest. The comfort of holding me was for him as well. I scared the squawk right out of him. Is he right? Was I showing off?
The vandalism of her work cut deeper than the hateful letters, but those letters weren’t nothing. Even if neither was the harbinger of a physical assault, they remained an attack against her. The paint and blood-red letters had scared her, and her fright made her angry. She’d worked so hard to shake free of featherweights who wanted to tie her spirit down to the earth along with her body. All those people who assumed she couldn’t do things, all those people who didn’t even notice her except to pity her and treat her like her limitations somehow made her deficient as a human being.
Clementine hadn’t meant to be showing off, and certainly hadn’t realised she was. Yet there’d been an element of defiance in showing the world she wouldn’t be cowed by cruelty. Defiance had made her careless. Little Fish was only a nickname: she wasn’t that strong a swimmer, and Clementine had been grateful to have been rescued from her dunking.
Frankly, she’d scared the squawk out of herself as well, as she’d fallen into the river, and then, buoyed by adrenalin and the knowledge she wouldn’t immediately sink, she’d laughed—all right, yes, a bit madly. Had Benedick been able to fly out and pull her from the water, she’d gladly have stretched her arms up and let him.
She hadn’t been thrilled with his panicked scolding once back on the boat, but Clementine knew she needn’t have been so aggressive in her response either. That was more of her defiance fuelled by feeling belittled and powerless. It was natural he should fear for her. Most people immersed in water sank within minutes, dragged down by the water in their wings and their inability to move them under the surface without pushing themselves further under. Benedick had a lifetime of knowing how people drowned, and less than two weeks of knowing a person who could swim.
He wasn’t trying to own me or control me. He was frightened for me.
Clementine placed her hand against the mirror and gazed at her reflection, challenging herself to honesty. She’d found comfort in the warmth of his arms and wings around her too, after her sudden fright and just as sudden relief at being out of the water.
I’ve spent so much of my life fighting to be treated as an independent adult, to be myself, I fight even when I don’t have to. Benedick isn’t my enemy.
She decided she’d apologise for that stupid speech, where she’d been all The Cat That Walked by Himself, walking on her wild lone. Perhaps it was time she took other cues from Rudyard Kipling. There was that poem her father had always loved. How did it begin?
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too
Maybe she didn’t need Benedick, but Clementine decided she didn’t have to be so strident about it. She could make allowances and still be herself.
After dressing again, she took a bottle of wine from the fridge and knocked on Benedick’s door. Peri opened it with his blue fringe swinging in his eyes.
‘You look a lot less damp and cold,’ he observed.
‘The miracle of plumbing and 100% Kemetian cotton towels,’ Clementine said, then waggled the bottle. ‘I brought wine, though I think you’ve started without me.’
‘Just a pick me up. Or two.’ Peri stood aside to let her pass then followed her into the living room where Benedick had risen from the sofa to greet her. He opened his mouth to talk, closed it again. Clementine wondered if he’d been about to ask if she was all right.
‘I needed that shower. I was shivering again by the time I got in it,’ she offered. ‘Who knew the Molonglo River was so bloody cold?’
Benedick took the wine from her hands, set it on the table and turned back to her.
‘I’m sorry I was such a
featherhead back there,’ he said earnestly. ‘I got a hell of a fright when you fell in. I shouldn’t have shouted. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry I was a sunblister back at you,’ said Clementine in a similarly gentle tone. ‘I gave myself a bit of a fright, too, to tell the truth. And I … I have a habit of rather forcefully insisting on my independence. I shouldn’t have flown at you like that.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Benedick.
‘It’s not. I get so used to fighting for wingspan, I can make everything a skirmish. I told you I was hard work.’
‘You’re not hard work, Clementine.’
‘Only when we’re having to fish you out of the river,’ interrupted Peri, returning from the kitchen, to which he’d retreated to give them some space. He handed her and then Benedick each a glass of wine and took up one of his own.
‘To two sunblistering featherheads,’ said Peri cheerfully, proving he hadn’t been oblivious to their discussion. ‘And the snappy response of the riverguard.’
That was something all three of them could cheerfully toast.
Clementine had hoped Peri would excuse himself after a drink and allow her some time to talk more privately with Benedick, but Peri was apparently oblivious and Benedick made no move to shoo his brother from the flat.
When Benedick invited Peri to stay for dinner, Clementine began to worry that he was deliberately making sure they weren’t left alone together.
So much for her plans for a more intimate kiss-and-make-up. She and Benedick hadn’t done nearly enough kissing yet and in the last two days she’d gone to sleep and woken up to the thought of him. His scent and the softness of his feathers, his dark eyes and slow smile, his beautiful hands, his strong body. Her skin ached with the lack of him and the desire for more.
Desire he apparently didn’t share.
‘I think I’ll head home,’ she said as Benedick rifled through his fridge for ingredients.
‘Oh.’ He seemed surprised as he shouldered the fridge door shut and emerged with cheese and a bag of tomatoes. ‘I was going to make pasta.’
‘I’m getting a headache,’ said Clementine, and it wasn’t a complete lie. Hitting the water had hurt. ‘I might get an early night. I’m planning to do some concept sketches tomorrow for a new piece but my shoulder’s aching.’
‘Can I get you anything?’ Benedick started towards her, concern in his eyes. Had she misread everything? Then he halted. ‘I’m sure you’ve got what you need at home.’ She felt a sting of accusation in that, but he glanced away from her, as though embarrassed to have even suggested he was interfering.
‘Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Coffee at Takahē?’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Good to meet you today, Peri.’ Clementine shook his hand.
‘And you.’ Peri’s response was warmer than Benedick’s. ‘Maybe we’ll catch up again soon, hey?’
‘I’d like that.’
Benedick put the groceries on the counter and came over to kiss her cheek. ‘Look after yourself,’ he murmured, taking her hand and squeezing it. ‘Feel better soon.’
Kiss me and I’ll feel better now.
‘I will. You, too.’
He smiled in an abstracted way. ‘I’m fine.’
But he still wouldn’t hold her gaze.
Clementine left them. She went to her front door, mind in turmoil about what was happening with Benedick. She was genuinely tired and aching though, and fumbled then dropped her keypass. She bent to pick it up and then she saw it. Just underneath the door, where it had been pushed through the gap into her flat. The corner of an envelope.
Her heart began to thud in her chest. She could feel the blood pulsing in her throat and temple. Her fingers shook. She tried to grab the envelope by that corner but only succeeded in pushing it further under the door. With a small whimper she pressed her forehead to the door and drew breath in between her teeth.
She wanted to get Benedick.
She didn’t want to need him.
Clementine straightened and, heart thundering, she swiped the keypass and the door slid aside.
The envelope lay on the carpet. It didn’t look like the others she’d received. Hands still shaking, she picked it up and tore the end raggedly off it.
In it were two tickets to the Wattlebird Gala Ball for Childhood Cancer Research.
Puzzled, Clementine turned the envelope over, and found the explanation scrawled on the other side.
Clem, dropped by but you weren’t home. Edward Callister wants you to be his guest at the gala next month. Do say yes! Call me! Dell.
Disgusted with herself now the apprehension had left her, she keyed the door closed, threw the tickets onto the kitchen bench and then stripped and threw herself into bed, where she curled around her pillow and refused to damn well cry.
Chapter Eleven
Benedick’s face was perfect, as Clementine captured it on the paper. His strong jaw and fine lips, the dark line of elegant eyebrows over his bright and intelligent eyes. The rise of his wings behind his shoulders, the right one slightly off-kilter. She’d sketched the lines of his wings sweeping away and fading into nothing. Nowhere.
With a snarl, Clementine scrubbed charcoal all over it, screwed up the piece of paper into a ball and threw it onto the floor with the others. She huffed a sigh, pressed her forehead to her easel and made herself breathe deeply and evenly.
Some days it was like this. Days or weeks and on one memorably terrifying occasion, a month and a half. She could make all the right shapes but the ideas wouldn’t come.
She was experienced enough now to know that these blocks were only temporary. Usually the absence of inspiration indicated she was tired, stressed or had been cooped up inside for too long. The creative mind needed input too: weather and people, scents and sounds, unexpected encounters or just quiet contemplation.
Clementine straightened and went to her window to look out at the sunny day. The treetops swayed with a wind that was steady but not wild. People flew by above, some walked below.
He’s still out there somewhere, the one who sent me those letters and wrote those things on my art. How close by is he? How much harm does he mean?
The fear alone decided her. She refused to be a prisoner to it. She washed charcoal from her face and hands and went out to the café to watch the river.
She tapped quietly on Benedick’s door as she left. He smiled as he opened the door and saw her. The flash in his eyes was definitely warm and welcoming, like he was happy to see her, but then he glanced away again. When he looked back, his expression was more guarded.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked, a touch aloofly.
‘Sort of. I can’t concentrate,’ she confessed. ‘I thought a walk and coffee by the river would help. Would you like to come?’
‘I’d love to but I have to fill out this application for Griffin Uni. Before I do that, I have to find where Peri boxed up my previous attendance records.’
‘Oh.’
‘Maybe dinner tonight?’ His tone was warmer for the invitation.
‘Sure,’ she said, burying confusion under nonchalance.
He gave her a kiss on the cheek, but before he drew away he kissed her forehead too, breathing softly over her face. She couldn’t help tilting up her chin, and he pressed a light kiss to her lips too.
‘Clementine,’ he said, softly but with intent, ‘I …’
Clementine’s phone rang and she pulled away from him. ‘I’ll just get this,’ she said, grateful for an excuse not to hear how he wanted to let her down gently. ‘Later?’
‘Yeah. Later.’
She strode off, phone to her ear.
‘Hi, Octavia here,’ said her caller. ‘I wondered if you wanted to meet today to look over those contact sheets from the launch. I’ve had time to print a few up, actually. They look fantastic, especially the ones of you and Benedick …’
‘I can’t today, sorry,’ Clementine said hurriedly. ‘Can I call you
tomorrow? I have to dash out now.’ The elevator pinged its arrival on the fourth floor.
‘Oh, sorry, of course. I’ll speak with you tomorrow.’
‘Look forward to it. Bye.’
Clementine clutched her phone and took deep breaths again. When her phone rang again, the vibration in her hand made her jump. She checked the screen, then answered the call.
‘Officer Sifakis?’
‘Ms Torres. I wanted to let you know we’ve made further progress in our investigation. We have someone helping with our enquiries, though no charges have been laid. I don’t want to give you any details until we’re done interviewing him, to see if there’s enough evidence to charge him.’
The phone grew slippery in her hand. Clementine transferred it to the other and wiped the sudden perspiration from her palm onto the thighs of her trousers.
‘Ms Torres?’
‘Thank you for letting me know, Officer Sifakis. When will you have more information?’
‘Well, these things are never clear-cut. I expect to know if he’ll be remanded in custody by the end of the day, though. I’ll call again, all right?’
‘Yes. Thank you. Very much.’
‘You’re welcome. It’s a bit against protocol to call you with enquiries ongoing but … Well. I figured you might like to know we got him and he’s off the street.’
‘I appreciate it very much.’
‘Okay. Well. I’ll speak to you later, ma’am.’
At the café, Clementine sat close to the river and watched the slipstream kids let their wings fly back in the wind at the prow of the boats. One young boy was lifted from the deck and, laughing, he flapped his wings while his friends caught at his feet and pulled him back onto the boat. Good, harmless fun.
Yet she’d watched with her heart in her mouth, afraid that somehow he’d tumble into the waves and be lost, like poor Percy Shelley.
She found no quiet by the river, let alone inspiration. She walked to the park but the dragons and clouds underneath the SunField only reminded her of being here with Benedick and the captivated look on his face. He’d looked at her like that sometimes, before her falling off Little Kingfisher yesterday. Her strongest memory of his face now was of his shock and fear as he strained to reach her. Perhaps he’d been thinking of Shelley’s drowning too, forgetting she had no wings to drag her down.
Grounded Page 13
