How Bright Are All Things Here

by Susan Green

  A web of forty weeks spun out in pain . . .

  I saw what ruin I’d sown, breaking and smashing and never looking back. This is not my real life, I told myself, but I knew that there is a day of reckoning, a day to pay. There always is. A bargain, sealed with a kiss; all my old wrongs against this present right. But there is no bargaining with life, or if there is, it’s a one-sided kind of deal. If you have a lucky roll of the dice, you come in naked, crying and alive; then all bets are off. Silly me, I thought that I deserved to be rewarded for my sacrifice with ‘they lived happily ever after’. You know:

  Grow old along with me,

  The best is yet to be.

  And then there is Malcolm. He should have grown old, too. I wouldn’t have minded only knowing him from a distance, from Hilary’s Christmas cards and the odd newspaper item. I would have hugged my secret pride to my chest, even as I demonstrated outwardly that I knew my place.

  I will admit that, once, I did try to cheat. In my grief – the present grief of the lost child, and the older one that I’d carried with me, unknown and unsuspected, since his birth – I asked for another chance, an extra roll, a supplementary card.

  It was close to what would have been my due date. I drove down to Chelsea with Anne. Rob wasn’t home; it was just Judith and me. I was on edge but I tried to talk calmly. To seem casual and even cool, as if it was no big deal after all.

  ‘I thought Malcolm could come and stay with us at the beach house.’

  ‘He lives in a beach house.’

  I couldn’t keep it up. Knowing he was mine, feeling that irresistible call of blood to blood, seeing him only minutes before hand in hand with Anne, I burst out, ‘Oh, you know the beach isn’t the point, Judith! I’d like him to get to know the children and Alec and me before we tell him –’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t mean immediately, but –’

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Isn’t it odd? At the time, I couldn’t hear the childish desperation of her reply. Why not? Why hadn’t I understood how afraid she was?

  She said, ‘Because you promised.’

  ‘. . . a drink?’

  Drinkies? Shall we have Mr Gordon or Mr Walker? No, it’s a plastic sipper cup such as babies use, and the water is cold, as if drawn from a deep, deep well.

  ‘Did she say something?’

  ‘She said, “Stay with me,” I think.’

  ‘I will, Bliss.’

  Who’s she talking to? A man. It’s not Tom. Is it David? David, dear, if you make her happy, I forgive you everything. In fact, I can’t remember what it was you did. You didn’t beat her or lie to her or sleep with other women. You were deeply uncomfortable with me, I know that, and it was because I never thought you were good enough for her. You never thought you were good enough, either, but Paula had good enough in her for you and me and a dozen innocent bystanders. I should have pitied you, for I of all people should know how hard it is to love someone good. I know too how hard it is to be loved by such a one, how terrible to be loved when you know you’re not worth it.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ says David. What does he think? ‘Do you want me to go and get a nurse?’

  Has something changed? Am I closer?

  ‘I could ring.’

  ‘I’ll go. I’ll ask if there’s anything . . .’

  Anything they can do? There isn’t. Apart from a sipper cup of hemlock, and I can’t see Paula allowing that to happen. The bother is that this is all taking an inordinately long time. Hurry up!

  That makes me think of Edward. Always so rude to waiters, snapping his fingers, calling out, ‘Garcon!’ and talking over them as if they were automatons. He was rude to porters, maids, conductors, stewards, gardeners, shop assistants and all the others who served him or, like me, serviced him . . .

  No, no. I will not think about you, Edward. How like you, to just walk in, as if you have a right. Because you can. Like Gerald . . . No. I’m dying and I don’t want you here. I want Alec.

  *

  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter. She seems agitated. Do you think she’s in pain?’

  Someone takes my wrist. Fingers on my pulse. They say softly, ‘Bliss? Bliss?’

  Wedded bliss. That’s what people say. Usually with an edge, for it so rarely is. Except, I think, at the beginning and at the end.

  I know people wondered about Alec and me. Bridget said, when I first told her, ‘Do you really . . . I mean, he’s not quite . . .’

  ‘Quite what?’

  ‘He’s very . . .’

  I laughed at her. ‘Spit it out, Bridget. He’s very what?’

  ‘Not your type, I’d have thought,’ she said evasively.

  ‘My type? My type has given me nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  I could see what she was thinking. The little grey man. An engineer; precise, probably rather dull, and not an imaginative bone in his body. How would vivacious, capricious, scintillating Bliss settle down to that every morning and every night? Bridget was young. She didn’t, couldn’t, know how battering the world could be, the sheer effort of corseting and dressing and making yourself up, putting on the gay (in the old sense, darling) mask to go out, and taking it off when you came home, alone. It was almost worse if you came home with someone. Then you’d be making love with men who could almost never sleep the night. Or whom you wanted to kick out of bed the minute they were through.

  Alec may have seemed, next to my peacockery, a little grey, even a little dull, but he loved me unreservedly, and I had reached the age when that counted much more than admiration or desire. And he was to be my great project. As soon as we plighted our troth I had plans; oh, such plans . . .

  You know, the cancer was probably already crawling crab-wise around Alec’s thorax by the time I finally learned to love him. I was a slow learner. It was in late middle age, as we sat together in front of the picture window at the beach house, watching cargo ships and yachts and the unwieldy progress of pelicans as they flew home at sunset. Cigarette smoke uncoiled in the air above us, and we talked, but only in a desultory way. Words were not needed. The feeling that began to swell my heart was so unassuming that at first I didn’t recognise it for what it was. Tidal waves, earthquakes and erupting volcanos had always been much more my line. Oh, Alec! When at last I was able to love you, when I was able to put all prevarication and performance to one side and see you, really see how good you were, and how imperfect, and how imperfectly lovable – then it was already too late.

  Alec was honest and brave, brave enough to be honest. I should have put that on his gravestone, but he had none. I threw him into the sea, and I wanted to join him there, down, down, full fathom five, with ashes in my mouth and my heart the stone anchor to tether me as I drowned . . .

  The beach at Portarlington is very safe, as a matter of fact – just shallows and sandbars – though of course one can drown in just a few inches of water. Children often do.

  Like Edward’s daughter. I told you it was a car accident, didn’t I? It was. His wife skidded off the road into an ornamental lake. It wasn’t deep. The car landed on its nose; she sustained head injuries and lacerations but the child flew like a bird out of the open window straight into the water. A tragedy, the papers called it, for she could have stood up, she could have walked out through the rushes and stood, muddy and shocked on the bank, but she sank. Sank like a stone.

  *

  A great grey stone is sitting on my chest. It’s been there for days – or is it weeks? It doesn’t hurt, but what scares me a little is the darkness that seeps from it like smoke and gathers under the bed and in the corners of the room. What if I fall backwards into it, backwards into black . . .

  What then?

  I can’t see, but Paula’s there. Ah, Paula! Darling Paula. Holding my hand, but I feel only the ghost of her touch. I seem to be numb.

  She’s saying goodbye. She’s saying I can go.

 
; ‘You can go, Bliss, if you need to.’ Need to? Do I have a choice?

  ‘Darling Bliss.’ A little choke of tears and another voice, a man’s. David.

  ‘Darling,’ he says. Darling Paula, not darling Bliss. ‘Darling, it’s okay,’ he says. He puts his hand over hers, and I can feel it. I can feel his hand, a big man’s hand; it’s warm and overlaps hers onto mine.

  ‘We’re all right, Bliss. I’ll look after her. You can go,’ he says.

  How manly and managing! But I am touched. What’s the phrase I used? Rough diamond. Mother’s diamond, rubbing and smoothing away mistakes. The brooch Alec chose for Paula, ridiculous, old-fashioned, girlish, beautiful . . .

  ‘Is she still breathing?’

  I would like to tell you, Paula, that you are your father’s daughter. You are good and kind and constant, and if I was your fairy godmother you would have had the prince, the palace, the pearls and diamonds and gold . . . But you wouldn’t have wanted them, would you? All you ever wanted is what you have now.

  Each breath a little harder than the last. Is this what it is like to drown?

  How like an angel came I down!

  How bright are all things here!

  I reach up into the dancing sparkles that shimmer and spin.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many thanks to:

  My family. Douglas and Helen Green, my parents, were both children of the 1930’s Depression; they’d appreciate my ‘waste not, want not’ approach to their lifetime of memories and stories. My brothers, Charles and Michael, shared this precious hoard. Around the dining table of our shabby little house by the beach there was art and literature; gossip, conversation and argument; traveller’s tales, music, laughter, politics. We were entertained, intrigued and inspired. I can never thank them enough.

  Marg Taylor, for her stories, humour and generous response to the first draft.

  Varuna, the Writer’s House, for a Publisher Fellowship.

  Lee Fox, Julie Gittus and Simmone Howell, my Castlemaine writer’s group, for soup, writerly conversation and support.

  Sheila Drummond, my agent, for refusing to give up on Bliss.

  Editor Janet Blagg, for understanding what the story was about, and showing me how to take it further.

  Ali Lavau, for yet more expert editing.

  Georgia Douglas and Claire Craig at Pan Macmillan for their enthusiasm and care with the manuscript.

  Rose Lavery, for her eagle eye.

  And, as always, Howard and Lachlan. This book has been on the go since 2007 and you’ve been with me and for me all the way. Your love and pride (and by the way, vice versa, darlings!) make everything so much sweeter.

  ABOUT SUSAN GREEN

  Susan Green has worked as a teacher, cook, radio producer, education writer and bookseller. She lives in the Victorian goldfields town of Castlemaine with her husband and miniature schnauzer. Her writing has won several literary awards, including an Age short story prize, and she is the author of the bestselling Verity Sparks series for children. This is her first novel for adults.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.

  First published 2017 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

  Copyright © Susan Green 2017

  The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  The author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for material used in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked should contact the publisher.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available

  from the National Library of Australia

  http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  EPUB format: 9781760555627

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters

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