All I See Is You

by Lily Hammond

  'That sounds a lot of effort,' Clemency said.

  Riley glanced sharply at her. 'Effort you will appreciate when it comes time to eat.' She heaved herself to her feet, gritting her teeth against the groan that wanted to escape. 'There is no wasting food in my household. Certainly not in these times.'

  Clemency shook her head. She'd expected nothing less than the fierceness she'd received in reply. 'Perhaps,' she said slowly, still looking at Riley over the rim of her cup. 'Perhaps we could give Dot a permanent, and paid, position here, if you and she would be happy with the arrangement?'

  Riley stared at her, the basket full of carrots swinging loosely from one hand, the folded newspaper she'd meant to wrap a bunch of them in gripped in the other.

  'I believe I would be agreeable,' she said at last. 'And I shall ask Dot.'

  Clemency nodded, but she was already thinking about something else.

  'Riley?' she asked, getting up and trailing into the welcome dimness of the house after the woman. 'Do you have anything that needs taken around to Ruth and Maxine?'

  Eliza stood on the soft grass at the end of one of the vegetable gardens, a garden trug at her bare feet. She smiled in delight at the peas growing in their sweet little pods on the climbing green vines, and then reached out to sift through the plants, snapping off the pods just as Maxine had showed her. She dropped them into the basket, then bent down and picked one back up, opening it up at its seam and popping out the peas into her palm and then into her mouth.

  They tasted fresh and green, she decided, enjoying the surprising sweetness on her tongue. Maxine had also taught her it was all right to pilfer one for herself. She'd been waggling her eyebrows when she'd told Eliza that, and Eliza had laughed soundlessly, her mouth open in a wide grin.

  They were letting her stay in the room with the spaniel picture, and each morning she lay for a few minutes in her bed, stretching under the clean sheets, watching the early fall of light through the window, and taking in the comfortable four corners of her room, taking deep breaths and for a moment her heart would race as she thought just how close she’d come to not being here at all. Then she would climb hurriedly from the bed, changing into her blue dress with the boats, and making her bed, folding the nightdress with the lavender ribbon that Ruth had said she could keep. She tidied everything and opened the door, slipping out and down to the kitchen, to see if she could help Ruth with the breakfast.

  She'd met everyone now, her eyes turning from one woman to the next as they were introduced to her, noticing everything she could about them, their smiles, their frowns, the way the one with the children either side of her, a girl and a boy, knotted her hands into her apron even as she nodded in welcome at Eliza. Eliza wanted to put her own hands around those nervous fingers and make them still, make them realise they were okay now, they were safe.

  They were all safe here; she knew it like she knew the colour of her own eyes. She could read it in Ruth's face, despite the sadness in her eyes. She could see it in Maxine’s face too and knew that if Ruth was the mother to everyone here, then Maxine was the father, the one who somehow organised everything and made it all possible. Eliza thought about it as she plucked the peas from the plants and dropped them in her basket.

  She wished she could talk, she thought, feeling the sun heating the top of her head, even through the borrowed hat. Her hair was plaited in a long rope down her back, and she'd snipped a little of the lavender ribbon from the nightgown to tie around the end of the plait.

  If she could talk, she decided, she'd ask Ruth why she was so sad. She bent over the peas and rooted around in the leaves for pods hiding in the greenery by the dark soil, trying to think of a way to ask her with looks and gestures. She'd talked to her mother a lot like that. Waving her hands about, making her fingers wiggle questions into the air. But her mum had been used to her way of talking, and Eliza thought it would take a long time to teach Ruth to understand. And Ruth was very busy. Always dashing here and there, cleaning this and that, cooking, doing everything. Eliza wanted to slow her down, make her stop and talk for a moment, but she knew if she did that, then Ruth’s sadness would catch up with her.

  She sighed and cast her mind around for something else to think about. The trug was almost full.

  There was the noise of motor car and Eliza looked up, tilting her head towards the sound.

  The engine stopped, and Eliza thought it had halted at the top of the driveway, next to where Maxine parked her motor, a cheerfully old wheezing thing. She listened some more, curious, unconsciously squeezing the peapod in her hand, then bent to pick up the shallow basket and carried it around the large garden to the side of the house where she could peer at the visitor.

  It was the woman from the day she had moved in, and a little smile curved Eliza's lips upwards in interest and pleasure. She was here again, she thought, and watched her open the door and climb out.

  The woman wore nice clothes. A skirt that came to mid-calf, in the colour of the sky. The same colour as Eliza's dress, she thought, looking down at the blue on which the little boats rocked back and forth.

  Her blouse was a fine cotton that Eliza ached to reach out and touch. She blinked at it. That would bring her close to the woman herself, and her golden light skin with the freckles sprinkled over it. The thought surprised Eliza and made her shiver.

  Clemency stood beside her motor car, as though uncertain of what she was doing, and then she turned, sweeping her eyes over the house until they found Eliza standing there in the shadows at the corner.

  They looked at each other, and Eliza shivered again, as though she was cold. She touched a hand to her arm, feeling the skin there under her fingers. It was warm, smooth.

  In a tree somewhere behind her, a pair of sparrows argued suddenly, a stab of squawking in the drowse of the morning, and Eliza breathed in the sound, and the sight of Clemency by her motor, feeling her chest rise and fall, the push of her breasts against her underthings, and she shivered again, putting a hand to her pocket, and forgetting about the peas in the trug she'd put at her feet, she drew out a little white rectangle of card.

  Clemency couldn't find her breath. It wasn't that she couldn't catch it, but rather that she couldn't find it at all; the air seemed to have seeped right out of her. She heaved in a new breath and reached beside herself to put a hand to the roof of her motor car, the fabric warm under her fingers. Her mouth was dry. With the breath came the sound of her heart, thumping between her ears. Somewhere, a pair of birds squabbled loudly.

  There was a big basket of produce in the back seat, wrapped neatly in newspaper to catch the soil that still clung to the roots and leaves, but Clemency let herself know, standing there looking at Eliza, that she hadn't driven all the way around from Port Chalmers to deliver another load of vegetables from Riley's table to Ruth and Maxine's.

  She'd come here to see Eliza.

  The knowledge made her head pound.

  The square of card in Eliza's hand caught the sun as she walked over, holding it out. Clemency blinked at it, looked into the girl's extraordinary eyes, got caught by the depth of their blueness for a moment, then looked back down at the piece of card. She took it and turned it over, feeling the smoothness of the card against her fingertips, feeling each movement she made as though from a great distance, and read her own name and the address of her studio, and its telephone number.

  'You kept it,' she said, and her voice was hoarse, breathless again.

  Eliza nodded, and touched her fingers to the card, grazing them against Clemency's. She smiled and nodded again. Pointed at Clemency's chest, then gestured at her own.

  Clemency looked at her, then nodded. 'We met on the day of the march,' she said. 'Someone had knocked you down.'

  Eliza's smile widened, and she rubbed her knee and elbow. Then reached out and touched the back of Clemency's hand. It was her way of saying thank you.

  Clemency gazed at her. Her mouth was still dry, and her hand felt almost as if it burned where E
liza had touched it. She wanted to look at it to see if she had left a mark there but that would mean looking away from the girl's face.

  'Do you want to go for a drive?' she asked, not knowing at all that she had been going to say that until she heard the words.

  Eliza's eyes widened in surprise. She glanced at the beautiful dark red motor car then back at the woman in front of her and pressed a hand flat against her chest, tilting her head forward in a question.

  Clemency nodded, hearing things tumble and move in the back of her mind, but helpless against them.

  'If you'd like?' she asked.

  Eliza nodded, her brightest smile blooming on her face. She plucked the card back out of Clemency's fingers and turned, running back to her garden trug of peas, picking it up and hurrying inside with it.

  Clemency stood in the brightness of the sun that was edging past morning to its height at noon and rubbed at her eyes with fingers and thumb. She felt again as if she was under water, the summery air thick around her, baffling her senses.

  Eliza stepped out of the house a minute later. Her face shone, blue eyes wide and sparkling. Clemency swallowed down her heart and hurried around to the passenger's door to hold it open, the vegetables in the back seat forgotten.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  'Where do you want to go?' Clemency asked, which was a ridiculous question, she knew, since Eliza, who smelt of sun and soap and made those things smell better than Clemency ever knew they could, neither knew her way around the city, nor could answer.

  But Eliza did answer, in her way. She leaned forward in her seat, twisting towards Clemency and spreading her hands, shrugging and shaking her head. She flung her hands out, ending the gesture, and laughed. It came out silently, as it always did. Eliza's vocal cords had never made so much as a squeak.

  Her smile though, said everything to Clemency. It spoke of delight, and excitement, of a readiness for adventure that caught at Clemency's heart and lifted it, like a kite on a sudden current of warm air. She turned the motor car towards the harbour, towards Port Chalmers, not thinking about it, simply letting her body guide them, her feet upon the pedals, her hands on the steering wheel. They bumped along the gravelled road, kicking up dust behind it.

  Impulsively, once the Dunedin port was behind them, Clemency pulled over to the side of the road and leaned forward to fiddle with the frame of the fabric roof, finally unsnapping the hinges and drawing the soft top of the vehicle back and getting out to secure it. When she got back into the driver's seat, she was grinning.

  'It's a beautiful day,' she said by way of explanation, and took them back out onto the road.

  Eliza looked up at the blue of the sky, sailing there right above them, then squirmed around in her seat so that she could see the water. The road snaked along right beside the harbour, and she gazed at it, remembering the lonely mornings she'd spent looking out from her attic room window over the wash of water, watching the blush of dawn light reflected in it, thinking about her mother, floating deep out in the water...somewhere.

  She wanted to tell all of this to Clemency. Reaching out, she touched Clemency's shoulder, opening her mouth, wishing the words would just come out, flow in a stream from between her lips, say everything there was inside her head.

  But they didn't, and she was used to that, so she simply smiled widely instead and held her hands out to the world.

  'I know,' Clemency said. 'I feel the same way.'

  Eliza looked at her, then nodded, settling back into her seat, eyes still shining, and she took Clemency's left hand in her own and held it there in her lap, relishing their connection, that this woman had understood her.

  Clemency glanced down to where her hand lay in the warmth of Eliza's lap. She could feel the heat of Eliza's skin through the thin cotton of her dress, and she swallowed, feeling her face redden in a deep blush. Eliza squeezed her fingers and Clemency almost flinched, almost drew her hand sharply back, but she told herself not to be silly, that the girl didn't know what she was doing, that she was innocent, unknowing. And so, she let her hand lie there in the nest of Eliza's legs, their fingers loosely tangled, and she relaxed, lifting her face to the wind from the road, and parting her lips in an unknowing smile.

  'This is Lime Grove, my house,' Clemency said, when it was time to turn into the driveway. 'I didn't really know I was bringing you to it. But here we are.' She had made the drive in a haze of feeling, each thought a drifting thing that wafted away before she could catch at it and finish it, swamped by the simple sensation of her hand in Eliza's, and by Eliza's obvious, uncomplicated happiness.

  Eliza leaned forward in her seat, lifting Clemency's hand and dropping a kiss to the knuckle of her thumb before letting it go to place her own hands on the dashboard and crane her neck for a first look at the house.

  It sat on a hill, and the motor car's engine grumbled a moment as Clemency changed gears for the rise.

  The house appeared above them and Eliza lifted her face to it, taking in the green roof, the weatherboard siding painted a bright, clean white, the porch, and higher up, the little balcony on the first floor. Her eyes widened at the round turret at the eastern corner.

  'My grandfather built the house,' Clemency said, putting on the handbrake outside the garage that had once been stables.

  Eliza turned her heart-shaped face to her, and Clemency shook her head at the question there.

  'I’m the only one left of my family,’ she explained. ‘My mother died giving birth to me, and Father passed away several years ago, when I was almost twenty. It was a boating accident.'

  Eliza's eyes widened, and she put a hand to Clemency's arm and tapped rapidly at her, nodding her head up and down, up and down.

  Clemency caught at the hand and stilled it, feeling the palm warm against her own. She let it go and smiled instead.

  'I know,' she said softly. 'Your mother died at sea, on the crossing here, didn't she? I’m so sorry for you.'

  Eliza nodded, her eyes glazing over as she thought of the morning on the boat, the sun the barest glimmer over the rim of the ocean, and the ship's captain reading from the book, the pages of which had flapped in the breeze like thin wings desperate to escape. She nodded, and her mouth was dry. Then she sucked in a breath and shook herself, brought herself back to the present with an effort.

  It helped to look at Clemency’s face, but then Eliza realised – she didn’t know Clemency’s name. Biting her lip, she frowned.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Clemency asked, entranced with the play of emotions over Eliza’s expressive face. She’d never seen someone whose thoughts could so easily be read on her features. She wanted to photograph her. Her skin tingled. She wanted to do more, take her in her arms and kiss those bright, full lips. Instead, she swallowed silently and blew out a little huff of air.

  Eliza shook her head minutely, looking away, not seeing Clemency’s sudden desire, instead trying to work out how to ask what should have been such a simple thing.

  Drawing the card out of her pocket again, she turned it over and held it out to Clemency. But she did not relinquish it this time. Instead, she tapped a fingernail at the print there, drawing her brows together in a frown, then put the card down in her lap while Clemency watched her.

  She tapped her chest next, and linked her thumbs together, turning her hands into little wings, little sparrow wings, that fluttered over the dashboard. She watched them, then glanced at Clemency, who was studying her every move, and she touched her own chest again, before pointing at Clemency, raising her eyebrows with the question she wanted answered.

  They were parked in the shade and Clemency could smell the dusty warmth of the garage mixed with the scent of engine oil, and she strained to reach for Eliza’s question, determined to figure it out, to tease the meaning from her pantomime, to be able to answer correctly.

  She glanced down at the card that lay on Eliza’s lap, where her own hand had been so recently, and the words on the card, her own name and address and telep
hone number wavered in the dimness. She blinked at them in a sudden shock as she realised that Eliza, besides not being able to speak, also couldn’t read.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Eliza Sparrow. ‘I guess I’ve never been properly introduced, have I?’ She could have kicked herself – what a mistake to make. And then a little voice spoke up in the back of her mind, telling her yes, but she came in your car with you anyway.

  Clemency shook her head a little. ‘My name is Clemency,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘Clemency Westerly.’

  Eliza blinked over the name. She repeated it to herself, inside her head. Then lifted her face and smiled. It was a nice name, she decided, though she’d never heard of it before. It reminded her for some reason of oranges, which she and her mother had shared sometimes, on special occasions. Picking up the card, she held it so that Clemency could see the words on it, and raised her brows again, asking for her to tell her what it said.

  Eliza couldn’t read either. The knowledge hit Clemency again with a force she hadn’t expected. If she couldn’t read, then of course she wouldn’t be able to write – and she couldn’t speak. How had this woman survived in the world?

  The answer came to her of course, as soon as the question had. Eliza had been dependent on her mother to lead her through life. Which was why Maxine and Ruth had found her in so desperate and bedraggled a state. Clemency closed her eyes for a moment, an aching pain in her chest making her blink away tears.

  She read the card to Eliza. ‘It says my name, Clemency Westerly, then the address of my studio, and the telephone number for the studio.’

  Eliza looked at the little card, satisfaction at knowing what the black squiggles said tugging her lips into a smile. She tucked it back into her pocket, but then wanted to know more, and drew it back out, tapping it again with a finger.

  ‘You want to know what my studio is?’ Clemency asked, finding that one logical and easy to figure out.