How Bright Are All Things Here

by Susan Green

  Perhaps it was their fault. She’d been petted and spoiled since birth, poor baby, because it was having Anne, after all, that had tipped Nina into madness. Perhaps they’d overcompensated, Bliss especially. She’d seemed the most radiantly happy little girl. It seemed she hadn’t suffered like her sisters and brother.

  It was a pity for all of them that Bliss lost the child.

  Paula was fourteen. Bliss had picked her up from her lesson, but for some reason hadn’t started the car. They sat outside the piano teacher’s house while Bliss lit a cigarette and fiddled with her bracelets. And then, shy yet proud, almost like a young bride, she burst out, ‘Paula, darling, I’m pregnant!’

  Paula didn’t know what to say. The sinking in the pit of her stomach was wrong for the occasion. This happy occasion. Of course, Bliss would be different to Nina. Everything would be different.

  ‘When?’ she’d asked.

  ‘November.’

  Bliss’s eyes were sparkling, her cheeks pink, and by now Paula had recovered enough to be able to say, ‘Oh, Bliss, that’s wonderful!’

  ‘We’re both rather long in the tooth for this caper, but . . .’ She laughed and shrugged her shoulders, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  What was Paula meant to say? ‘No, you’re not’? Bliss must have been in her mid-thirties – which was bad enough – but Dad was fifty-one. Old. She tried to imagine a baby in his arms, or – and this was a bit of a stretch, but perhaps it was what Bliss had always wanted, after all – Bliss, Anne and Alec walking the pram around the leafy Balwyn streets on hot summer evenings.

  ‘I had to tell you,’ said Bliss, squeezing Paula’s hand, and Paula felt a rush of warmth. Bliss had chosen to tell her, one woman to another, as if they were both together in this life of husbands and fathers and children.

  ‘What did Dad say?’

  ‘He doesn’t know yet, it’s early days.’ She butted her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘I feel disgustingly healthy,’ she said. ‘No morning sickness at all. In no time, I’ll be sticking out to here,’ and she indicated the bounds of an enormous belly in front of her slim skirt. ‘Imagine!’

  But then three weeks later, Paula knew without being told what had happened. Not that Bliss actually said anything. It was a tiny shake of the head, a secret message between the two of them, woman to woman.

  ‘Just amazing.’ Anne wouldn’t stop chattering. ‘What a fabulous woman.’

  ‘I didn’t like her very much.’

  ‘I thought she was fantastic.’

  ‘I didn’t think she was very nice. You know, about Bliss.’

  ‘Oh, Paula! She was just telling it like it was. Why not, at her age? And she’s still writing and doing all that other stuff. The energy! She’s amazing.’

  ‘Can we stop talking about Judith?’ With an inward sigh and her words coming slowly, she said, ‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, Anne.’

  ‘Yes? What is it?’

  ‘I went to see a counsellor last year.’

  Anne missed a beat. ‘Oh,’ she said, and then, ‘Are you and Dave . . .?’

  ‘Not a marriage counsellor. A psychologist, a therapist. I was having a hard time, not coping, crying a lot, after Sue died. I felt depressed. I realised her death had stirred up a whole lot of stuff. About Mum.’

  Anne’s eyes did not deviate from the road.

  ‘Look, if you’d rather I didn’t bring this up, if it makes you uncomfortable, just say so.’

  ‘No, no, no. It’s fine. Say what you want to say. I’m all ears.’

  ‘I was worried that I might have what Mum had. Depression. Though in her case it was mania as well. Bipolar. It can be genetic; you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

  ‘My GP wanted me to start on antidepressants but I wasn’t keen and then a friend of mine, Iris, put me onto a therapist she’s been seeing. Even paid for my first session.’

  ‘That was kind.’

  ‘She thought it would help and it did. The therapist said that with the kind of childhood we had – you know, with Mum so ill and us on tenterhooks all the time – it’s no wonder I’d always suffered from anxiety.’

  ‘You just said depression.’

  ‘I’ve always been a worrier, you know that. Anxiety and depression often go together. But I wasn’t depressed, I was grieving. For Sue, for Mum, for Dad, for my childhood. It’s been helpful – wonderful, actually – to talk to someone.’

  ‘Well, so long as you’re feeling better. You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘I still get anxious, I think I always will, but I can handle it better. Well, most of the time. I realised I’ve always had this strange belief that if I don’t worry, everything will fly apart. If I don’t worry, something bad will happen. Do you ever feel like that?’

  ‘Me? No, I don’t really have much to worry about. I’m fine.’

  ‘I did this other thing, too, when I was a kid and even now sometimes, where I sort of cut off from whatever bad is happening to me. It’s as if I float up in the air and look down on this other me who can handle it. It happened when I got the sack last week.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s not just Caroline who was taking drugs?’ Anne laughed and then said quickly, ‘Sorry, Paula.’

  ‘That’s okay. I just thought you might be interested. As I said, it may be genetic. And whether it is or not, we were all in it together, never knowing whether Mum was going to be the good mummy, the crazy mummy or the mummy from hell.’

  ‘Well, Caroline had it, that’s obvious.’

  ‘She’d probably be alive now if she’d been treated. We all just thought she was –’

  ‘Yes, I know. Tom and I were talking about it on the way to the airport. He thinks he should have been able to rescue her, but I told him he can’t blame himself. It’s an illness. She couldn’t help it.’ She saw Tom’s face close to hers, with his eyes so blue it was hard to believe they weren’t coloured contacts. ‘And he couldn’t help her. We just didn’t know. I mean, I was only a kid, but it was stuff no-one talked about. There was no awareness, was there?’ Tom’s blue eyes were looking at her coldly and she changed the subject. ‘So do you still see this therapist?’

  ‘Not regularly. But she’s really helped me face some things I found hard to contemplate. I just thought I’d tell you in case –’

  Here it was; the freeze. Paula knew all its features. Head held immobile on a stiff neck, the face bland and mask-like, the eyes first looking away and then fixing you with the death stare. She regarded her sister almost tenderly. She knew Anne couldn’t help it, either.

  ‘In case? I don’t think so, Paula. Like I said, I’m fine. Oh, good, there’s a servo.’ Anne swerved, crossing two lanes, and pulled into a parking bay. ‘I need the loo,’ she said. ‘Too many cups of tea with the old lady.’ She yanked her handbag over from the back seat. ‘D’you want anything? I might get some water.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Guard those pictures, won’t you!’

  When she came back, with her water and a packet of mints, Anne was smiling and calm. Before she drove off, she turned on the radio.

  They called at Rosevale before Anne drove Paula to Richmond. Bliss was asleep. She’d been sleeping most of the day, Sunny told them. She didn’t want to eat or drink, but she was comfortable.

  ‘Your mum, she’s just dreaming all the time now. Happy olden days when she’s young.’

  ‘All those secrets,’ whispered Anne. ‘All that drama. All for nothing.’

  ‘What do you mean, nothing?’

  ‘Well, he never knew she was his mother. Malcolm, I mean. It’s so sad. Tragic, really. She wasted her life.’

  Paula turned to her, shocked. ‘Shh.’

  ‘You don’t have to hiss at me like that, Paula. Anyway, she’s sleeping; she can’t hear.’

  ‘You don’t know that. And her life wasn’t wasted.’

  Paula stared at her sister. How could Anne imagine that
Bliss’s full, wild, flawed life was tragic and wasted? By what criterion did she judge? Her eyes moved back to the figure under the blanket. Fountains, fireworks, flowers; explosions of colour and light; a sudden breeze that blew the fusty curtains open; a leopard-skin coat, a creamy voice, a wicked, almost dirty laugh. It was love, it was joy, it was art –

  ‘Wasted or not, it all comes down to this,’ Anne said, and Paula knew she now perceived only the skull beneath the skin, the withering, the waste, the decay.

  ‘It comes down to this for everyone,’ Paula snapped. For the beautiful, the irresistible and dangerous. And for the perfect wives and mothers too. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  At Paula’s, upstairs in the spare bedroom, Anne outlined her plan for the pictures. Safe storage was the first thing; contact the lawyer; insurance and valuations. How did you sell artworks like these? Auction? One of her friends was on the art gallery committee. She’d get her to ask the director.

  ‘I think I’d like to keep one,’ said Paula.

  ‘Oh well, if you want.’

  ‘They’re quite beautiful. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘I think they are. I like this one.’ It was the first painting Asha had pulled out from the storage rack and it showed a slim woman sitting on a bed. Seen from behind, her long naked back, her drooping head and swan’s neck made her seem oddly exposed and vulnerable, even in the shadowy privacy of a bedroom. There was only a suggestion of her face. And still, Paula had felt an electric jolt of recognition. This was Bliss. Her back, her neck, her shoulders. This was Bliss, young, in love, beloved. Judith’s story, of the abusive marriage and the unwanted child, seemed set apart from this image. Another chapter. Anne, helping to haul out the next canvas, hadn’t noticed Paula’s tears, but Asha had, and gave a small, shy smile.

  ‘They’re very different to his later work,’ said Anne expertly. ‘Even to most of his work from the fifties.’ She started to talk art history.

  Paula tried to listen, but the main thing she learned was that Anne did not like these pictures. Paula did. Perhaps it was the mood she was in, now, back home, knowing that Dave was downstairs and counting the minutes till Anne left. She felt suffused with longing. How incredible it was, this honeymoonish delight.

  Paula came out of her dream to find Anne undoing the garbage bag ties and taking Bliss’s clothes out, then methodically refolding them in piles on the bed.

  ‘What are you doing, Anne?’

  ‘I’m looking for the hat.’

  ‘Which hat?’

  Anne looked at her as if she was stupid. ‘The fur hat,’ she said. ‘And the brooch. Where’s the brooch?’

  ‘The fur things are in those paper carry bags – I didn’t think you should put fur in plastic – and the brooch is here.’

  ‘Here’ was a shoebox. Paula had untangled the outsize beads and chains, paired the earrings, sorted the brooches and pendants, and placed them in individual zip-lock bags. Bliss had chosen each item carefully, Paula knew, with a specific outfit in mind. The chains went with the skinny-rib polos, the beads with the silk chiffon caftans, the leopard brooch with the reversible trench and the Zhivago fur hat. Her other pieces – what Bliss called the real jewellery – were gifts from Alec, and, lacking a safe, Paula had tucked them into an empty oatmeal packet in the kitchen cupboard. Bliss had rarely worn them. They were Alec’s taste, not hers, and she’d put them on only occasionally, to please him.

  Alec liked giving jewellery. He’d given Paula her mother’s rings – the wedding band and the modest engagement ring – along with a string of pearls on her twenty-first birthday. Later he’d given her pearl earrings, too, and some gold chains. On her last birthday before he died, it was a brooch. Paula knew he’d chosen it himself, because if Bliss had been in any way involved it wouldn’t have been a diamond-and-gold daisy. He must have formed a plan, and one day while Bliss was out, ordered a taxi – because by then he could no longer drive – and taken himself off to the jeweller’s in Camberwell.

  ‘Pretty,’ he’d croaked, looking up at her, his face all twisted with the effort of speaking.

  ‘It is, Dad. It’s lovely.’

  ‘No; you.’

  Pretty? Yes, but it had always been a fragile prettiness, dependent on the day, the hour, the passing moment. At that moment, on her birthday, as she pinned the daisy to her lapel, she was radiant, blossoming this one last time for her father.

  Anne found the little leopard in black and gold enamel encrusted with tiny sparkly stones, took it out, examined it and put it back.

  ‘I thought Maura might like it.’

  ‘No,’ said Anne. ‘It’s not as nice as I remembered. I don’t think there’s anything worth keeping, do you?’

  Before bed, Paula went into the spare room again. The garbage bags of clothes would go to the Salvos, but there was also a plastic crate into which Anne had thrown all the odds and ends that had been left at the flat. Postcards, perfume bottles, a couple of powder compacts, a few bars of Bliss’s soap, some vintage women’s magazines. Fabric swatches. A jar of buttons. A handful of shells. There were also a couple of small framed drawings and a shoebox of tiny photographs.

  It was a biography in intimate bits and pieces. The life that she had built for herself in her flat – a delicate, complex mechanism of objects and habits – had been completely dismantled and, now, dispersed. It could never go back together again.

  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men . . .

  Paula picked up a photograph at random, but without her reading glasses, all she could see were a few vague figures by a bridge. More photographs showed more vague figures, along with statues, a fountain, what looked like an outdoor cafe by a river.

  Should she just bin them, as Anne suggested? She didn’t have Anne’s de-cluttering zeal. And anyway, did it matter if these things lurked at the bottom of a cupboard? Someone else could throw them out – Sam, probably, when the time came. He would pick over the objects just as she had done, finding them mysterious and incomprehensible, perhaps wondering what, if anything, they’d meant to her. Or perhaps not. It wouldn’t matter either way.

  She replaced the shoebox lid, put it back in the crate and opened the cupboard door.

  ‘You finished yet?’ Dave called from the bedroom.

  ‘Nearly.’

  As she shoved the crate onto the shelf, the buttons jiggled in their glass jar and she took it out. Simon and I can play counting games with those, she thought. She left the jar on the dressing table, turned the light out, and went to join Dave.

  ANNE AND MATTY

  Matty had been distant since he got home from work. Now he moved his plate, with his meal barely touched, to one side and put his elbows on the table. He placed his palms together and shut his eyes briefly before turning to look at her. The expression on his face frightened her.

  ‘Anne . . .’

  She pretended she hadn’t heard him. She got up quickly, saying, ‘I just need to fetch the wine, I’ll be back in a jiff.’ By the time she reached the fridge her heart was pounding. No, she said to herself. No. No.

  It had been a rotten day. She’d woken late after broken sleep and nearly missed her hair appointment. Then Irene, Matty’s sister, had been difficult about Albie’s birthday party and she’d had nearly an hour on the phone with a friend and her problems. That’s the trouble with being the strong one, the capable one – they all come to you. But who do you go to? She had friends, lots of friends, but no-one . . . Well, not that she needed it. Not often. And the phone call set her back so that most of the afternoon she’d been rushing around, shopping, getting Maura organised and off to the train, making dinner.

  With her back to Matty, facing the fridge, she said, ‘Did I tell you I saw Sam the other day? He was visiting Bliss. Sara’s expecting another baby. Five months, and Paula hadn’t even thought to let me know. I asked her about it yesterday, and she said she forgot to tell me. Forgot about a grandchild – can you imagine?’ S
he forced a laugh. ‘Well, knowing Paula I guess you can. She’s never been very family minded.’ She unscrewed the cap and poured herself a glass. ‘Want some?’

  ‘No. Anne, I want to talk.’

  ‘Did you want a cup of tea? I’ll put the kettle –’

  ‘Jesus, Anne!’ he shouted. Matty never shouted. ‘Sorry. It’s just . . . we need to talk.’

  Wasn’t that her line?

  ‘About what?’ she said as she sat down.

  ‘I’ve met someone.’

  They were sitting at the table with pasta and salad on the new red-and-white plates and he was saying he had met someone.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘You don’t know her. Nothing’s happened.’

  Suddenly she was furious. ‘You mean you haven’t fucked her yet.’

  ‘Don’t, Anne.’

  ‘Don’t, Anne.’ She mimicked his voice. ‘Don’t be nasty? Don’t be pissed off and angry that my husband is having an affair?’

  ‘It’s not an affair.’

  ‘Is it going to be?’

  ‘Anne, I need time to think. I need time to work out what I want.’

  ‘What you want? What do you want? Jesus, Matty, you have a wife and a family and a business. What is this, some kind of mid-life crisis? Why don’t you get yourself a red sports car while you’re at it?’ She stood up and slammed the two plates together, scattering macaroni and mixed lettuce onto the cloth. ‘Well, this’ll make for a happy time at your dad’s birthday. Are you going to make an announcement? “I’m thinking of having an affair, everyone. And by the way, Dad, Happy Birthday.”’

  ‘Well, we won’t go.’

  ‘We can’t not go. I’m organising the bloody thing, and Albie’s looking forward –’

  ‘Albie wouldn’t give a stuff! You’re the one who’s always organising us together. This happy family stuff, it’s all yours, it’s your thing, Anne. You don’t get it, you don’t have a clue, do you? Why do you think I didn’t want to live in Bendigo? I have nothing in common with my brothers – nothing. What is this compulsion you have to keep getting us all together? Christ!’