How Bright Are All Things Here

by Susan Green

  ‘Do you remember this, Rob? It was in the old gallery in Swanston Street. Sometimes I used to stand in front of it and just look at myself, vain little thing I was. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Is my young self hidden in there, in the depths, behind the glass?’

  ‘I used to glance in it to check my tie. If you’re in there, so am I.’

  ‘Think of that, Rob. In another world, we’re both in there together, forever young, checking our lipstick and tie.’

  For a long minute Rob and I contemplated our middle-aged reflections, and then he took my hand and kissed it.

  ‘Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you,’ he said.

  ‘Ah! A Robism,’ I replied lightly. ‘Blake?’

  ‘No, Shakespeare.’

  I glanced at my watch, and even though I knew it was early, I said, ‘Just look at the time. I must go, Rob. Alec will be wondering what’s become of me.’

  C’est fait. It is done.

  TO CHELSEA

  ‘Hold me,’ she said impulsively.

  Matty gave Anne a hug, but it was the kind he’d give one of their grown-up sons.

  ‘Okay?’ he said, releasing her.

  ‘Okay,’ said Anne, stepping away from him towards the fridge. ‘I don’t know what time I’ll be back; we’ve got to go all the way down to Chelsea.’ Matty was a country boy, and scarcely knew Melbourne. ‘It’s on the bay. Near Frankston. There’s soup in here for tonight’s dinner. Or else there’s some –’

  ‘Don’t worry about meals for us. We can fix ourselves something. Maura’s a great little cook.’

  ‘She certainly makes enough mess.’ Anne gathered her handbag and jacket. ‘See you tonight then.’

  ‘See you,’ he replied.

  When she arrived at Paula’s, Anne was surprised to see Dave still at home.

  ‘Day off,’ he explained, and then took Paula in his arms and kissed her. ‘See you later, love.’

  Paula melted against him for a few seconds, and Anne determined that tonight, she and Matty would talk. What was wrong? Matty was different, somehow. She couldn’t put a finger on it but whatever it was, he was far from her, and she wanted him back. Yes, tonight, she thought. We need to get things back on track.

  ‘Should we drop by to see Bliss on the way?’ she said, starting the car.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any point,’ said Paula. ‘They’ve had to increase the pain meds and it’s taking a while to get them right. She’s been totally zonked out the past few days. It’s still tricky. Sometimes when she wakes, she’s really distressed and agitated . . .’

  Anne tuned in and out. Mostly out, but if she just randomly repeated the last words of a sentence in a slightly questioning tone, the way she did with the kids, Paula couldn’t tell the difference.

  ‘Finally finished?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paula. ‘But I’ve got a couple of days’ work and I’ve been looking into the possibility of some nannying. Iris has a couple of friends – they’re both dentists – with a toddler and two school-age children . . .’

  A few minutes later, when Paula ended with ‘to Daylesford again’, Anne pricked up her ears and Paula had to backtrack. Dave’s brother-in-law’s business and his crook leg, the truck, the country deliveries.

  ‘You should have come and seen me. We could have met up in Kyneton and had lunch,’ said Anne. ‘You haven’t been up for ages.’

  ‘We didn’t have time,’ said Paula, stroking her pink scarf. ‘You know, Bliss was very mysterious about these paintings, Anne. She wouldn’t tell me anything about them, or about Judith Freeman. She used to know her in London was all she’d say.’

  ‘Have you read any of her books?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘J.P. Freeman. Judith Freeman.’

  ‘Not yet. I’m not really into historical novels but I’ve put one on reserve from the library, just out of interest. It’s funny, but I’ve realised that I’ve actually seen her name heaps of times, in bulletins from the Conservation Foundation. She’s a patron or something. Did you read her article on the coal industry and the Great Barrier Reef in The Monthly last year?’

  ‘I don’t read The Monthly.’

  Of course not, thought Paula.

  The traffic lights ahead were orange and Anne slowed down. She turned to face her sister, saying in an even voice, ‘And it’s easy when you live in an ivory tower, but for the rest of us, jobs are important. I don’t mean the environment isn’t, but you’ve got to have a balance.’

  ‘There was another piece recently, in The Age,’ said Paula recklessly, although she knew in a minute she’d feel ashamed of herself for baiting her sister. ‘She’s adopted a couple of Sudanese kids.’

  ‘Good on her. I guess someone like her can make that kind of point. You know, with her high profile and her money. I have to say, though, that there are plenty of Australian kids who need care.’ Anne, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she waited for the lights to change, redirected the conversation.

  ‘I actually had one of her novels in the bookshelf,’ she said. ‘From the late fifties. It must have been Maureen’s. Anyway, there’s this character, an actress . . .’ It hadn’t come to her while she was reading in bed, but now it was obvious. ‘It’s Bliss.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just some of things she says. Calling everyone darling, and saying, “Poor you.” Oh, and: “Mr Gordon or Mr Walker?” Remember that? Bliss used to invite them both on a pretty regular basis. She was a bit of lush, the old Bliss.’

  ‘Anne!’

  ‘Well, I should know. Anyway, she writes about the voice. “Like cream coming off a spoon.” If that isn’t Bliss!’

  Anne sounded both triumphant and cruel, as if she’d exposed some dirty little secret. Why? Paula knew better than to get into it. ‘Mmm, I don’t know. Perhaps.’

  ‘Well, I’m pretty sure she based the character on Bliss.’

  ‘Writers often use bits and pieces of people they know and things they’ve heard. She might not have been conscious of it.’

  ‘I know that, Paula. I used to go to a book group too.’

  Anne was more than usually prickly today and Paula was being punished for her politics. Even though she changed the subject, it was to the wrong subject. She registered too late that the topic of Bliss’s medical care would only lead to more combat.

  ‘The doctor came in while I was there yesterday. He really thinks it’s down to palliative care now.’

  ‘When I talked to him, he said it was hard to tell. And anyway, Matty’s mum was in palliative care for two months and then she went home and she lived another three years.’

  ‘I think her condition has changed.’

  ‘Well, it’s been changing all year, hasn’t it? I mean, we nearly lost her early on, and then she came good. This business with the pain meds wouldn’t have helped. And I don’t know why they don’t do something about her depression. We really have to follow that up, Paula.’

  They drove in silence after that. Which suited Paula. She was certain Bliss was not depressed, but there was no point trying to persuade Anne. She was also sure that the thought of Bliss’s death scared Anne; she sympathised, she was sorry, she’d do anything she could to make it better – but of course, Anne wouldn’t let her. Her defences were the work of a lifetime.

  Even as her thoughts formed a loose perplexing tangle of Anne and Tom and Bliss, she realised that right now none of it really mattered. She was happy. She could not coax from herself a single preview of disaster, a single twinge of guilt. Was it the sex? As simple as that? Top up all those feel-good hormones and your anxiety’s gone.

  But that’s not all – like the bonus steak knives. No, suddenly you find your depressive husband can reassemble himself into someone funny and desirable. Oh, not all the time. Some days he was the same old negative Dave, but she wasn’t the same Paula. Instead of a millstone, a burden, he was just Dave being Dave. Now, coming together, alive to
each other – it was like being released from solitary confinement, like coming out of a padded cell, like being reborn into a real, full living world. This morning, making love in the shower, they’d raced the clock (Anne was never late) and Paula had been almost faint with the abundance of sensation. They would lose the connection – of course, that was life, that was living – but if she could only believe that they’d always find it again . . .

  Paula stroked her scarf, and Anne turned on the radio.

  ‘Wake up,’ said Anne, nudging Paula with her elbow. ‘We’re nearly there.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘Could have fooled me.’

  Paula looked out of the window. It was years since she’d been down this way, but there along the Nepean Highway were the shopping strips and houses and the streets running down to the sea, and the railway line with stations, one for each suburb, like beads on a string. Everything seemed flattened – again, just as she remembered – and the shopfronts and sparse gardens looked as unconvincing as stage sets. In fact, the whole mission felt rather unreal.

  Anne abruptly indicated and turned right.

  ‘Is this it?’

  ‘No. I’ve got a cramp in my calf.’

  ‘Oh, Anne. Do you get them often? Have you tried magnesium? It’s –’

  ‘I just need to stretch my legs, okay?’

  They parked and walked to the beach access. Water, sky, sand.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Paula, pointing at a beam of sunlight which slanted down through the clouds onto the sea.

  ‘God’s eye,’ said Anne.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bliss used to call it that.’

  God, according to Bliss, was beaming down a trillion kilowatt of blessings on whatever fish were swimming randomly below.

  ‘What if the fishermen catch the fish?’ Anne would ask.

  ‘Then it’s good luck for the fishermen.’

  ‘And what if I eat the fish?’

  ‘It’s good luck for you.’

  You never could tell just by looking, Bliss said, so it was best to eat up and never mind the little bones.

  ‘I didn’t know that Bliss believed in God,’ said Paula.

  ‘No, I’m quite sure she didn’t. It was just something silly she used to say when we were at the beach house. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘No. You were probably there a lot more than I was. Tony didn’t like Portarlington.’

  ‘Neither did I.’ After a few more seconds, Anne said, ‘I saw Sam last week, visiting Bliss.’

  ‘Yes, he said he was going.’

  ‘He told me Sara’s expecting.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me? I would have sent a card or a note or something. I say to my boys all the time, don’t keep me waiting too long, I can’t wait to be a nanna.’

  This was Anne in her role of matriarch and Paula, by keeping Sara’s pregnancy to herself, had not played along. What could she say?

  ‘The truth is, I forgot.’

  ‘How could you forget? People don’t forget things like that.’

  ‘They weren’t telling people until the pre-natal tests had come in anyway.’

  ‘What were the tests for?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Paula. She was sorry she’d mentioned it; Anne was more Catholic than her sainted mother-in-law around that stuff. ‘Shall we get going?’

  ‘It’s just past the shops,’ said Anne when they were back on the road. ‘Keep a lookout, will you? She said there’s a level crossing opposite a big church.’

  Paula remembered the church. When she and Tony were young marrieds, they and other young marrieds used to drive down to family beach houses on the peninsula. Summer weekends were for drinks, barbecues, tennis, swimming, sailing. All along the Nepean Highway were landmarks – St Joseph’s, the railway bridge, the old people’s home with the stand of cypress trees in front. She used to count them down with a sinking feeling.

  Tony’s parents had a new and modern house with a flat roof, lots of decking and great expanses of glass everywhere. It was designed for entertaining. You could find the younger men with their beers on the deck, the girls (all the women were girls) drinking white wine on the patio while in the courtyard Tony’s father, Bruce, played captain of the barbecue. The odd child or two wandered disconsolately around the spiky garden. Tony’s mother, Dee, had designed the garden herself. She was known among her friends for her creativity, and though she never actually put spade to soil, the landscape of gravel and rock nevertheless had her signature. She’d done the interior, too. Several times.

  Dee was skinny, lively and blonde. A dynamo, everyone said. Where does she get the energy? At first she seemed to Paula like an Australian version of Bliss, but Paula was wrong. Dee was a bitch. With a few drinks on board, the vivacity would arc up into loud sarcasm. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m very outspoken,’ she’d say, and she’d say it again as the night wore on. ‘I have to say it as I see it.’

  With no attempt to hide her contempt, ‘What a sweet outfit, Paula.’

  ‘Unusual hairstyle, dear. Who did it?’

  ‘Tuna casserole! That’s so thoughtful but I’ve had the caterers.’

  Bruce seemed like a dull old boy, but if he could manage it, over each weekend visit, he’d cop a feel. It wasn’t subtle; even the first time it happened she couldn’t pretend it was just an accident. Once he’d even slipped his fingers between her thighs and inside the crotch of her bikini. Tony only laughed when she told him. ‘The old bastard!’ he said, almost admiringly.

  They kept in touch after the divorce because of Sam, but now Bruce had Alzheimer’s and Dee was deaf and almost crippled with osteo. The sting was long gone; actually, it had vanished even before she and Tony split up, as soon as she realised that Dee kept herself going on moselle and Valium and new colour schemes while Bruce philandered. Like father, like son.

  ‘Hey, here it is! Nearly missed it,’ said Anne, braking hard and turning right. ‘Thanks, Paula.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  JUDITH

  The door was opened by a very beautiful black girl. Her regal bearing, her serene slow movements, were at odds with her jeans and Nike windcheater, her bobbed hair that was dyed an improbable reddish-bronze.

  ‘I’m Asha,’ she said with a surprisingly Australian twang. ‘Judith’s expecting you.’

  A figure appeared at the end of the hall. ‘Here I am, Ash.’

  She was old, of course, with a seamed, lined face, hooked nose and fierce eyebrows, but her figure was trim and upright, and she wore an elegant lilac cowl-neck jumper over black trousers. Her silver hair was looped in a large knot at the back of her head. Not many elderly women bothered with long hair, thought Anne, putting a hand to her own neat crop.

  ‘You must be Paula. And Anne.’

  She shook their hands in turn and Anne noted her firm grip. ‘We’ve met, Anne, though it was a very long time ago.’ Judith’s voice reminded her of school principals and BBC classic dramas. ‘You came here with Bliss.’

  ‘Yes! I thought I remembered. A boy took me onto the beach.’

  ‘That would have been Malcolm. My son. Come in, won’t you.’

  Malcolm. Yes. The beach, a swing and a roundabout. A boy with straight black hair and hazel eyes. He’d pushed the swing and made sandcastles and held her hand as they walked to the end of the pier. There’d been a path to the beach made of slabs of marble which were an ugly brownish-red like liver, and he’d shown her the little fossil fish and shells in one of them. She’d bobbed down for a closer look, and he’d told her that once upon a time the sea turned into stone and she’d believed him because things like that happened all the time in Bliss’s stories.

  ‘That’s Malcolm there.’ Judith gestured towards a black-and-white photograph on the bookshelf. A lanky boy, wearing bathers and smiling for the camera. ‘And there.’ A bearded man wearing an academic gown and holding a scroll. ‘He died last year.’

 
‘I’m sorry,’ said Anne and Paula simultaneously.

  In the silence Anne could hear Asha in the kitchen, turning on the tap, filling the kettle, lighting the gas.

  ‘How is Bliss?’

  ‘Not well, I’m afraid,’ said Paula. ‘Since we spoke, she’s lost a lot of ground.’

  ‘I see.’ She paused, looking from Paula to Anne. ‘I gather she hasn’t told you a great deal?’

  ‘No,’ said Anne.

  ‘Just that there are some paintings here, and that they’re quite valuable,’ said Paula.

  ‘Quite,’ said Judith dryly. ‘You’ve heard of Gerald Grady?’

  Paula looked at Anne, who answered for them both, ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘He was Bliss’s first husband.’

  ‘What?’

  Judith turned to Anne. ‘Yes. Did she never tell you? The paintings are his. There are six of them.’

  Six. Six paintings. Six paintings by Gerald Grady. Anne’s mind whirled around half-remembered art history lectures, a school trip to Sydney for the big retrospective, the little, early cityscape that was a treasure in their regional art gallery. These paintings must be worth – just a guess – maybe fifty thousand dollars apiece. Or more.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why do you have them here? I mean, there was plenty of room for paintings at the house in Balwyn.’

  ‘There is a history to the situation. Gerry didn’t want the paintings; he said Bliss could have them; we stored them for her.’ Judith leaned back in her chair. ‘It surprises me – it really does – that Bliss has told you nothing.’

  ‘Not nothing,’ said Paula.

  ‘Next to nothing,’ said Anne.

  Paula turned to Judith. ‘She’s never really talked much about herself or her life before Dad. I mean, we knew she’d been married before but she never said who to. She’s – she wasn’t reserved, but she didn’t . . . well, talk about herself,’ she finished up lamely.