The Wrong Door

by Bunty Avieson

  Gwennie found herself warming to this earnest young man. If he thought there was anything odd about having a strange woman wiping her eyes in his sitting room on a Sunday morning, he gave no indication. He was as keen to help as he could. And his obvious respect and affection for his grandmother was touching.

  Gwennie realised she had relaxed. Only a minute ago she had wanted to flee, but now sitting here with Tashi and his other-worldly grandmother who came from a secret kingdom she had never heard of seemed the most natural thing in the world. She didn’t feel at all embarrassed at the tears pouring down her face. She had the absurd desire to climb onto the bed and put her head in Tsering Wangmo’s lap. Just being in her presence was soothing.

  ‘Grandmother says death came to him on a wing. She says your husband had a strong connection with his past. It never let him go …’ he continued. ‘She says a red woman has helped him for many years and she thinks she will help you.’

  Gwennie felt goosebumps along the length of her bare arms. It was as if all the hairs were standing on end. ‘What does she mean, a red woman?’

  Tashi spoke to his grandmother and they talked together for a few moments. ‘Red is an impression she is receiving and it can mean many things. It can be fire, energy, passion. It can mean a violent death. This woman has the energy of red about her. Grandmother doesn’t think it is bad. She says it is not a negative energy. She has helped your husband in the past. She has a strong connection with him. She will help you but only if you let her.’

  As Tashi spoke Tsering Wangmo had been rolling the die around in her hand again and dropped it into the pillbox. She spoke, never taking her eyes from the die.

  Tashi waited till she had finished then turned to Gwennie. He looked very grave. ‘She says you are in danger but that the danger comes from yourself. You must always act with the best intentions. If you act out of anger you will only hurt yourself. She is describing to me a picture. It is a small fat animal like a rat that has eaten a cat and has a big stomach. I don’t know what it is. The words she is using make it sound like it could be a child’s drawing or a cartoon or … I don’t know. Does that make any sense to you?’

  Gwennie shook her head.

  ‘She says that is in your future if you act out of anger or hate.’ Tashi looked concerned. ‘I’m sorry. I know this is making little sense but she is quite concerned for you. She says you must fill your heart with compassion. Leave no room for anger. It has the power to destroy you. She is worried for you.’

  Tsering Wangmo closed the pillbox and put it back in her handbag. Gwennie felt it was time to go and stood up. She intended to say thank you and take her leave but instead, on an impulse, she suddenly knelt in front of Tsering Wangmo. She had no idea what possessed her to do it but it just felt right. The old woman placed a gnarled hand on her head and gently stroked her hair. Nobody spoke for a few minutes.

  When Gwennie looked up the woman’s deep, black eyes were full of compassion. Gwennie felt terribly moved, as if for the first time someone really understood her pain, the depth of her sadness and the rage that was bubbling up inside her, threatening to consume her at any moment.

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘May I speak with Miss Clare Dalton please.’

  ‘This is Clare Dalton.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Dalton. It is the son of Sanjay speaking. You wrote to me at the hospital.’

  His voice was heavily accented and very polite. Clare felt a tremor of excitement.

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Sanjay junior, I mean Shree, I mean Mr Shree, oh … hello.’ She stuttered and stumbled down the phone line, feeling foolish but unable to stop herself. She was surprised, embarrassed and for some reason she didn’t understand, a little nervous.

  He replied with a deep chuckle. He sounded so much like her old friend Mr Sanjay that Clare relaxed.

  She tried again. ‘Hello,’ she said more calmly.

  ‘Hello,’ he replied still chuckling. ‘Thank you for your kind letter. I was very pleased to receive it.’

  Clare smiled. ‘That’s all right. I am relieved you got it. I wasn’t sure that I had addressed it correctly.’

  ‘Mmm. It wasn’t quite correct, but it found me, eventually. I was about to write to you, but when I received your letter I thought I would telephone you. I hope please you will forgive the … informality.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  ‘My father has left you a bequest in his will. I am executor and I would like to arrange an appointment, please, to give it to you.’

  Clare felt a burst of happiness. Mr Sanjay had remembered her in his will. It was both unexpected and delightful. ‘That’s so lovely of him,’ she said.

  ‘He spoke often of his friend Clare, who he said was like a fairy living at the bottom of his garden. He said you had a fine mind and a good heart. Two of his most favourite things.’

  Clare’s eyes filled with tears. Shree waited for her to respond but she couldn’t speak because of the lump in her throat. Dear Mr Sanjay. Hearing his son, who sounded so like him, telling her she had a fine mind and a good heart took her straight back to sitting on a stool outside his shed. It evoked the feeling of Mr Sanjay so vividly. Playful and relaxed. He always made her want to smile – when he wasn’t annoying her that is, teasing and poking her whenever she became puffed up with her own self-importance. She might not realise that was what she was doing but he did. And he never let her get away with it. Oh, how she missed him. Clare’s sadness passed and she was left with a gentle melancholy.

  ‘I would like to make an appointment, please, to give it to you. May I come to your home?’

  He wanted to come here? Clare didn’t think that was a good idea, with Peg and Marla around, likely to say the wrong thing. She didn’t want them offending Mr Sanjay’s son.

  ‘It might be easier if I come to the hospital. I could drop by there at a time to suit you?’ she suggested.

  Shree sounded doubtful. ‘I’m not sure that is a good idea. It is always so busy at the hospital. I never know where I will be or what I will be doing. Perhaps then you would consider to come to my home? I live quite close to the hospital.’

  Clare agreed and took down the address. They made a time for Monday evening. Shree expected to be home from the hospital at about 6 pm so Clare would arrive around seven.

  She raced up the stairs to tell Marla about the call and found her in the bathroom applying makeup.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she blurted out. ‘Oh, it is. It’s utterly, utterly wonderful.’ Clare bounced up and down, squealing with excitement.

  ‘What is it? What did he leave you?’ asked Marla.

  ‘I don’t know and really, who cares? I am just so touched he remembered me in his will at all. It shows he really cared about me. And one thing is for sure, whatever I think it will be, it won’t be that. So I may as well not even try to imagine. It might be a book by one of the great Indian philosophers. Oh, I hope so. I hope it’s one of his favourite books. That would be so lovely. His book of poems by Rabindrinath Tagore. He loved that. He was quoting from it all the time. Maybe his chess board? But no, I won’t even try to imagine. Whatever it is it will be special.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ said Marla, studying her reflection. ‘When do you get it?’

  ‘I’m seeing his son tomorrow night and he will give it to me then.’

  ‘Make sure that’s all he gives you.’

  ‘Don’t be crude, Marla. He’s married.’

  ‘Oh, is he now? Well, so what? Marriage means nothing to some men. I’ll bet he’s sleazy and wears a shiny suit.’

  ‘He does not,’ retorted Clare. ‘I met him at the funeral and he was nothing like that.’

  ‘I didn’t know you went to the funeral. You’re quite the family member aren’t you?’ Marla was being sarcastic, with an edge to her voice that Clare had heard before. It usually signalled a fight with Peg or the beginning of a ‘migraine’. Now that Clare knew the reality of those episodes, she watched closely as her sister applied lipstick. Marla
’s hand was trembling and she had to use a tissue to wipe the smudges where she missed her lower lip.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Clare softly.

  Marla snapped back. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Are you going to follow me around all the time checking I don’t want a drink? Is that it? Miss Goody Two-shoes who should be sainted checking up on her sister the drunk. Well, thank you for your concern but I am just fine.’ She turned back to the mirror, wiped off all the lipstick and started again.

  Clare felt the euphoria begin to seep from her body and a familiar heaviness return. She fought to regain her sense of happiness and pictured Mr Sanjay, sitting on his stool, chuckling. After a moment she said, ‘It isn’t always about you, you know, Marla.’ Then she turned and walked back downstairs.

  *

  Gwennie sat in Pete’s swivel chair, the remains of her takeaway meal scattered across his desk. It had been an overcast day and no moon or stars were visible through the clouds. Outside the glass windows the light from the desk lamp cast a wan glow on the start of the path, but beyond that the blackness was impenetrable. Gwennie’s reflection was staring back at her. It looked strange, incongruous. The image did not connect with anything in her brain. She was wearing Pete’s dressing gown, sitting in his chair, both legs tucked under her, out of sight. She looked ghostly and unreal, like she was levitating. It was how she felt. Disconnected. Surreal.

  She thought about her visit with the shaman. Had that really happened? Or had she dreamt the whole thing? It had been like stepping into another world. Tsering Wangmo had emanated such simple kindness. It was almost impossible to be uptight in her presence. Gwennie found it hard to identify exactly what it was that she had given her. It wasn’t that Gwennie had come away clearer about Pete’s death or the confusion he had left in his wake. She realised, in hindsight, that she hadn’t asked any of the questions that were burning inside her. She had been happy to just be there. That had been comfort enough.

  Gwennie had driven away from the little stone cottage feeling refreshed and at ease. The effect had lasted all the way home to Sydney. She hadn’t thought about Clare Dalton at all. Or Pete. It was late afternoon when she finally drove across the Harbour Bridge and though she had driven that way on hundreds of occasions, it was the first time she noticed the golden hue of the afternoon light. It was different from English light, which was bluer, greyer. When she came home she put down her bag, changed into some old clothes and spent the last hour of daylight pottering about in the garden.

  It was the first time her mind had stopped spinning since Pete died. She didn’t consciously think about anything, just moved around the garden, digging out a few weeds and watering the back corner beds that seemed always to miss the rain. Even the large empty patches that were to have been filled with tropical plants the weekend after Pete died hadn’t depressed her. A butterfly fluttered around and a sparrow washed itself in the bird bath as she worked and she felt she had company.

  Looking back it seemed that for some time after her visit with the shaman she had been in a bit of a daze. She wished she was like that now. Instead, everything inside her hurt. She felt a familiar ache in the pit of her stomach – a mixture of dread and hopelessness – that wouldn’t go away. She wondered if it was the beginning of cancer. It felt hard and solid, perhaps the start of a tumour. The thought didn’t provoke any feelings of concern, she noted. It looked like she didn’t care if she died but she hadn’t thought about those sleeping pills for a while. So maybe she was getting better. It was hard to tell with this grief thing. What was better? The only time she felt any good was sitting with the shaman. And yet no matter how hard she tried, she was unable to hold onto that peaceful feeling. It evaporated into the air around her.

  Gwennie hadn’t really thought about the content of what Tsering Wangmo had said. She had been strangely happy just to float along in its aftermath. But now the initial euphoria had passed, her words came back. She had mentioned a red woman. That was so uncanny it frightened her. How could she know? And how had she described it? That they had a strong connection, the woman and Pete. She said the red woman had a good, not a bad, energy, she had helped Pete. Well, that was a matter of opinion.

  Gwennie recalled the description of the rat that had just eaten a cat. Perhaps a children’s drawing. It meant nothing to her. That would be in her future if she acted out of anger. Was it an allegory for something, a metaphor? If so, Gwennie just didn’t get it.

  The way she described Pete’s death had made sense. Death came to him on a wing. It had been sudden and unexpected. It was as if a bird swooped in and took him away. As part of her degree in literature, Gwennie had studied Jungian archetypes and was familiar with the image of a bird representing death. She remembered the madman of Katoomba and shuddered. He had seized on birds as harbingers of death but had skewed their symbolism to include the supernatural and witches. His particular psychosis didn’t seem so hard to follow. It sounded textbook to Gwennie.

  But it still did leave a question mark against Pete’s death that she wasn’t prepared to drop. Why did he and all those other men in the Blue Mountains die from pneumonia? Why did he keep secret his trips to the Blue Mountains? And who was CD in his logbook? Clare Dalton?

  Gwennie’s rational mind still believed there could be an innocent explanation to it all. She clung to the belief that somewhere in Pete’s things would be the deeds to a little cottage or a piece of land that was to have had a wonderful Pete Darvill-designed home, somewhere in the Blue Mountains. Another thought occurred to her. Clare hadn’t been inconspicuous. The red dress made sure of that and then she had signed the condolence book. There was nothing furtive about her presence at the funeral. She wanted Gwennie to know she was there and yet she hadn’t spoken to her or come to the wake. Why?

  As Gwennie mused she ran her eyes over Pete’s things. His papers, books, magazines. It was all so familiar. It spoke to her of the Pete she knew. Not this other Pete. The one that drove to the Blue Mountains on secret visits. Her eyes came to rest on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Why had he kept that old year 10 mathematics book? Its shabby and torn spine stood out among the row of glossy European architectural magazines. For a man who kept nothing of his childhood it was out of character, an anomaly. She crouched down on her knees and slid it carefully out of the row. It was orange and covered in plastic with a sticker on the front. Blackheath Public Library.

  Gwennie’s heart skipped a beat. She turned the book in her hands. Mathematics for year 10. Calculus. Trigonometry. Logarithms. Why would Pete keep an old mathematics book from Blackheath Public library? He had grown up in Tibooburra in country New South Wales and had gone to school there. She remembered his excitement when a book about the town had been published. His father had been the local chemist and his mother taught at the local primary school. That’s what he had told her.

  She opened the book and flicked through the pages. It seemed to be exactly as it appeared. A mathematics textbook. She turned it over. Inside the back flap was a small envelope with the lending card. Gwennie slid the card out. It was covered in old dates, the last one stamped 11 June 1979. Obviously a popular book. She tried to slide it back in but it caught on something. Gwennie poked two fingers into the envelope and withdrew a small photo.

  In her hand she held a picture of someone who looked exactly like Clare Dalton, head on one side, smiling at the camera. Gwennie had seen her just twice, both times from a distance, but she would recognise anywhere that profusion of auburn hair spilling about her shoulders and the languid pose of that body. The face in the photo was radiant and vibrant. Beside her, with his arm around her shoulders, was Pete. He was partly in profile and he looked at least ten or fifteen years younger but still it was Pete. Her Pete.

  It changed everything. There was before. Before Gwennie opened the envelope and slid out the photo. And then there was that instant later, when its meaning lodged in her brain. The gap between breathing in and breathing out. In a heartbeat everything altered. Th
e world tilted and it was a different Gwennie kneeling on the floor of the study, holding an old year 10 mathematics book.

  She looked at her hands. She didn’t consciously sit down but she must have because some time later, she had no idea how much later, she became aware she was in the swivel chair, still staring at her hands, trying to steady the world again. They lay palm down on her knees and their familiarity was reassuring. The veins were a mouldy green, not purple like everyone said, but greeny blue, and crooked and knobby, climbing over tendons, twisting and turning like a meandering river.

  She looked from one hand to the other, concentrating on the pattern. They didn’t match. They almost did. But there were differences. The right hand was more knobby and the veins more pronounced. She supposed that was normal. She would ask Pete. Pete.

  She winced and fled from the thought before it fully formed. There was no Pete. There would never be Pete again. In fact … Don’t go there. To think about Pete would bring immeasurable pain. She didn’t feel strong enough. She felt she had cracked into a thousand pieces that were held together by chance. A breath of wind would blow her apart. And yet she also felt whippet strong. Like she had been pared down to her essence, and it was the thinnest, most slender rod of steel. It seemed to her that both were true.

  There was too much information in that photograph. Any doubts she had that there could be an innocent explanation, something that didn’t involve a romance between Pete and Clare Dalton, vanished in that instant. The look on Pete’s face told her everything. It was tender and full of wonder. He was half smiling and his eyelids were heavy. She knew that look and it pierced her heart to see it again.

  And it had continued. He had betrayed Gwennie every month. It was as the shaman had said. He had never given up his past. Her husband had never been hers. Their life together had been an illusion. So now she knew. There was no way she could tell herself it wasn’t true.