Blueberry

by Glenna Thomson

  Soon after they padded along the frayed floral carpet towards the kitchen. Nick pulled out a chair and sat down and rested his arms on the dining table. The same table we had eaten at for years and served meals on for our friends. Back then he was famous for his slow-cooked goat and honeyed figs and soft cheeses and pouring his specially selected wines.

  ‘Have you got any of our wine here?’ he asked. ‘We should open a bottle.’

  I wiped my hands down my sides and faked a smile. ‘I drank them.’

  He smiled, brows raised. ‘All of them?’

  ‘They were good.’

  Sophie seemed lost or bored. There was nothing left to show him and it was all too much. Whatever a six-year-old needed to say to her suddenly materialised father, it was impossible for her to form the words, and I didn’t know how to help her because I was fighting for breath myself.

  I sat, and she climbed onto my lap.

  It was almost time for dinner and I was watching the clock. Charlie always ate before seven and was waiting in the lounge.

  ‘I’ll show you where your things are,’ I said. ‘There’s about seven or eight boxes.’

  ‘I only want the old negatives and cameras, the notebooks.’

  ‘There’s much more than that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You know. Paintings, the giraffes, stuff. Lots of stuff. The Bangladeshi tapestry.’

  ‘They’re yours. I gave them to you.’

  ‘They don’t fit here.’

  He leaned back in the chair, opening his chest. I turned to the thrum of tyres across the cattle grid.

  ‘Someone’s come,’ I said. ‘Your car is blocking the driveway.’

  Nick stood, patting his jeans pocket for the keys. He walked through the lounge room and out the front door. The flywire slapped.

  I kissed the top of Sophie’s head and she burrowed into my chest. ‘It’s been lovely to see Dad and you’ll be able to Skype him again soon.’

  The sound of a car, and a second one, pulled up out the back.

  Shane. Behind his ute was a caged trailer and inside was a skinny ginger calf, its head down and legs splayed for balance.

  Beside the coat rack, I watched them shake hands, Shane and Nick. They stood two metres apart, talking. It would be about the weather, the calf, small talk about Huntly, and each would be wondering who the other was. They were the same height, but Shane was more heavily set. They were standing the same way, square on with hands in their pockets. And even though it didn’t matter what they said or thought, I felt confounded by my bad luck that Shane had turned up right now. I walked back into the kitchen and told Sophie to feed Blondie. In the lounge, Charlie was sitting deep and round-shouldered in the couch, staring into his hands.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

  ‘Shane’s just arrived with a calf.’

  His mouth twisted.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m aching and tired, love.’

  ‘You’re not due for another tablet yet.’

  ‘Does it really matter?’

  I sat beside him and weighed his white mottled hand in mine.

  ‘It’s time we visited the doctor. You need something stronger.’

  ‘Is Nick staying for dinner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But wouldn’t Sophie like that?’

  ‘Stop changing the subject.’

  Nick came inside through the porch, into the kitchen. He asked Sophie where I was.

  We met at the lounge room archway. ‘A neighbour wants to see you,’ he said.

  I pointed to the hall. ‘Your things are in the third cupboard along.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘What about?’

  Then he smiled and his eyes shone, and the old Nick was suddenly standing there – the man of a such long time ago, when we had first met. It was twelve years ago that he had delivered photos for a pro bono account and we had gone for coffee. Within minutes I had taken the bait – the stories of his intrepid travels, and his beautiful hazel eyes, and this other thing I admired and named as bravery and sincerity – until later when I called it stupidity and ego. Yet on that first special day, we parted on the street, both shy and unsure with our hands in our coat pockets, and our warm breath leaving our mouths like smoke. And when I approached the Number 8 tram, I turned for one last look – and there he was, already looking back at me. After that, for a long time, we couldn’t get enough of each other. I had loved him. And now he was blocking my way.

  ‘Let me pass,’ I said.

  ‘But can we talk?’

  I could feel the warmth of his body. ‘Not now.’

  The tiny pockmark on his cheek, the slant and curve of his nose, and line of his lips, and I felt an unreliable desire. Another woman had a claim on him – Lila, her honey skin against his. I saw them together, and felt a terrible ache.

  I left him in the hallway, dragging the cardboard boxes out. Then Enrico appeared from the bathroom and couldn’t get past Nick, and Ray Charles started playing loud piano from the lounge room.

  Sophie and I went outside.

  Shane had backed the trailer to open into a sheep pen beside the shearing shed. He was farm-dressed in dirty jeans that sat low on his hips, and a faded windcheater with a tear on the sleeve. The gap between his sideburns and beard was coloured in with tiny dark hairs. I saw him as Nick would have, an unkempt farmer.

  ‘It’s due for a feed,’ he said.

  Beside the pen was a large white bag of powdered milk. ‘Two cups of it with warm water, then give the bottle a good thorough shake.’ He handed Sophie a two-litre plastic bottle with a long black teat. He seemed in a hurry.

  ‘Is one feed the whole two litres?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. Twice a day.’

  Then he was back behind the wheel of the ute, an elbow out the open window. I went to him and he looked at me. And I wanted to lean in and kiss him – and there I was doing it and he didn’t turn away. Our lips touched, quick and dry, and his beard was soft. He smelled of a hard day’s work. He looked very serious as he reached out and gently gathered my shirt and pulled me back to him, a longer, soft, pecking kiss, like we were testing to see how it was.

  ‘Have you checked out Swanpool, the movies?’ he said.

  ‘They’re showing an old movie tomorrow fortnight, Last Days. I’ve always wanted to see it.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I stepped back.

  The car was in gear, and he pulled away.

  It took Sophie and me half an hour to get the calf to empty the big bottle, and by then our clothes were covered in thick, milky saliva – the white dress was stained, the pink bows had drooped. But we had worked out if we jiggled the teat against the back of its tongue, it sucked, and there was a lever on the bottle that increased the milk flow. Sophie called him Prince George.

  Enrico was making chorizo, kale and mushroom pasta, and set the table for five. Charlie had already taken his place at the table and Nick was still on his knees in the hallway making little stacks of things on the old carpet.

  Sophie and I washed and changed our clothes and by then Enrico had placed five full bowls on the table. So there was nothing for it. I called Nick, and he came as if it were expected. He sat down and picked up his fork.

  ‘Pity you polished off all the wine,’ he said to me with a wry smile. ‘I should have brought up a bottle.’

  ‘For us, this special occasion of Sophie’s papà coming, I have the wine.’ Enrico tapped his chest with his fist and was out of his chair and off to his van.

  Enrico put a cheap local shiraz on the table and I pulled glasses from the cupboard. Nick tasted it and raised his glass, a friendly compliment to a bad wine. We ate in uneasy silence until Nick started asking questions about blueberries – prying questions about packaging and labour costs and the expected tray price and what percentage the distributor
would take per tray. He was trying to work out what profit I would be making, which dumped me into the misery of my debt and the catastrophe I faced if the harvest failed. I couldn’t look across the table at him and pretend I liked him being there. I wanted him to go. And where was she anyway, my replacement, Lila? I knew then she was in Melbourne waiting for him. By now, she would have met all our old friends. They would be all over her, double-cheek kissing, loving her exotic beauty.

  Nick was scooping up the pasta, a loose, easy smile, enjoying himself.

  ‘So how’s Lila, the new girlfriend?’ I said. ‘Sorry, I mean your partner. I saw the article in the Australian mag. It was very good. Congratulations.’

  Nick glanced at me, then put a slice of chorizo in his mouth and chewed, and glanced around the table before looking back at me, dead on.

  ‘She moved to Geneva.’

  ‘That’s no good.’

  ‘It was amicable.’

  ‘Congratulations on that too,’ I said.

  ‘Mum.’

  I turned to Sophie, who was sitting beside Nick.

  She put her head down, dug into her pasta with her fork and had nothing else to say.

  ‘Eat up, and then off to bed. Dad can tuck you in,’ I said.

  Nick turned to her, cheered or confounded by her, I couldn’t tell. ‘Finish your dinner, honey,’ he said.

  Not missing even one beat, Sophie put her fork down and sat back. ‘I’m finished.’ She pushed the bowl forward.

  The second glass of the wine was better than the first and I wished there was more.

  Charlie was the first to leave and he didn’t finish his meal either. He turned his back on all of us and left the room. I chased after him with his night tablet and he took it from me without a word, and I found myself apologising.

  ‘I’m sorry, Charlie. He’ll be gone soon.’

  ‘That’s all right, love. He seems like a nice fella.’

  I leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and he pressed his face to mine.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ I said.

  ‘It goes both ways. Goodnight, love.’

  Enrico was standing at the sink doing the dishes and Nick was carrying out armfuls of folders, and whatever else, to his rented car.

  There was nothing to be said.

  Sophie had brushed her teeth and was in bed and I fetched Nick to come and say goodnight.

  They hugged and kissed and he said he missed her every day. Sophie rolled on her side and faced the wall.

  ‘I’ll be back at Christmas,’ he promised her.

  I had been burned too many times to believe him.

  Nick asked if he could make a coffee.

  ‘One for the road.’

  I knew how he liked it, so I got on with it with Nick watching me, frothing milk, feeling overwrought – this thing with Shane was exciting and a burden. I just wanted Nick to leave so I could put all the pieces of my life back together. So I was being polite and restrained and he didn’t know that, and my breath was shallow as I tried to work out how it was possible not to love Nick any more, or perhaps I still did. I put a latte in front of him and sat down.

  ‘Greer, this is fantastic. I can’t believe you’ve done this.’

  ‘Sometimes I can’t believe it.’

  He opened his arms. ‘You left Melbourne for here. The blueberries. It’s amazing.’

  I looked into his face, through his skin and into our story of love, sex, distance and loss. His hands were flat on the table in repose, waiting for me to say something. I always loved his hands, capable and sure, slightly tanned.

  ‘I was thinking it’d be better if we scheduled Sunday-night Skype calls,’ I said. ‘It’d be something regular for Sophie to look forward to, you know, like a normal routine. Less random.’

  ‘You know the deal. Half the time I’m out on a story.’

  ‘So nothing’s changed.’ I stood up.

  ‘Greer, please sit down. I’ve got something to say.’

  I felt anxious, unsure. ‘It’s all been said already, Nick,’

  ‘I want to apologise.’

  I sat, but looked at the floor.

  ‘I know it was hard on you – me being away all the time. I left you to juggle everything, working. I was selfish. I’m very sorry.’

  I didn’t trust it. ‘What brought that on?’

  ‘A rough twelve months, and time to think.’

  I had no words.

  He pushed out of the chair. ‘I’ve got to get going.’

  I wanted to ask where and for how long – the usual questions. Instead I hugged myself and stood away.

  There were a few other things he wanted. That lazy saunter between the hallway and out to the car.

  ‘Take care,’ he said.

  ‘Drive safe.’

  23

  I heard Charlie retching, and imagined him, his bony knees pressed hard on the unpolished bathroom floorboards, bending over the toilet bowl, all clammy and hot and getting weaker every time a spasm took hold. It was the new, stronger medication that was causing this. Julie Maxwell had said a possible side-effect was stomach upset. But surely not like this. I knocked on the door and called out to see if he was all right.

  ‘Go away,’ he said.

  So I stood quietly, and kept listening to him empty his already empty stomach, and cough and gag. And when he was finally silent and a minute had passed I knocked again.

  ‘Charlie?’

  He didn’t answer, so I pushed the door ajar, just a crack.

  ‘Get out.’

  His tone stung, and I slunk away, out of the house to pick up Sophie from school. When I returned Charlie was still in the bathroom. I rapped lightly again and opened the door enough to call through.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Leave me,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve been in there a long time.’

  ‘I’ll be right.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘No.’

  So I went looking for Enrico, following the sound of the ride-on mower somewhere deep in the orchard. He was mowing between the rows to keep the weeds down and couldn’t hear me over the noise of the motor. He finally saw me at the bottom of Row 28.

  In those minutes it took him to turn off the motor, pull the safety ear-muffs away, and walk up to me, I stared into the growing blueberries. Each was the size of a pea, and most had changed from pale green to light pink, although some were in between, a creamy colour. I found one that was bigger and riper than the rest. It was the bottom berry on a bunch, like a dew drop, as if the bush had put all its energy into growing that one berry. And there were others like it too, the end blueberry on each bunch. On every bush where I was standing it was the same, that one berry had grown faster and fatter than the others.

  I picked it.

  It was more of a pluck.

  And I held it between my pointer and thumb. It was not quite the deep purple of a fully ripe blueberry, but I put it in my mouth anyway, and bit down. It was sour, and saliva reacted to it, but I swallowed my very first grown blueberry rather than spit it out.

  Then Enrico was with me and we hurried back to the house.

  He was very clear about what to do – without hesitating, he opened the bathroom door and walked in and closed the door behind him.

  ‘Papà,’ I heard him say.

  I listened to Enrico’s soothing tut-tutting sounds, then the toilet flushed and water ran in the basin and the towel cupboard door opened and closed.

  A few minutes passed. They were talking quietly and I couldn’t make out the words. When I heard the shower was running, I busied myself and stripped Charlie’s bed and changed the sheets and fluffed his pillows. I boiled the kettle and put a teabag in a mug and two teaspoons of sugar. I waited. Through the kitchen window, a rosella flitted away from the crepe myrtle.

  Enrico paced down the hallway into the kitchen, towards Charlie’s room.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘This is not for the woman.’


  ‘But is he all right?’

  Two long strides towards me, he whispered, ‘Sickness from the new medicine. But a bigger problem is with the arse.’ He patted his. ‘He is very …’ and he couldn’t find the word.

  ‘Embarrassed?’ I said.

  ‘This is correct. He took the special pills to move the guts. Too many. This is the problem.’

  As if still hiding the secret, he slunk off to Charlie’s room and a few minutes later he walked to the bathroom with Charlie’s pyjamas and tatty old blue dressing gown. And as he passed me, standing by the sink, he turned. ‘I think there is some other thing for you to do.’

  Sophie and I mixed up the calf’s milk and went to the sheep pen where Prince George was waiting. He had eaten all the grass, only dried capeweed was left. I wondered about getting some hay. Sophie braced and pinned the bottle against her body to take the force of him pushing against her as he fed.

  We’d had Prince George a week and I’d not heard from Shane. I took a photo of Sophie feeding the calf and sent it to him with an attached message saying Prince George seemed to be going okay.

  He replied quickly. Princess Georgette. Lift her tail!

  So I did, and the folds of skin on the young heifer seemed complicated, so I supposed it was a girl.

  I’ll trust you on that!

  I waited, thinking the chat would keep going. And a minute later, my thumbs were desperately reminding him about Last Days. ‘Are we still going? Need to arrange a babysitter.’

  Across his paddocks and beyond the angular dip that led to a boggy patch with tussocks, was his house – and I wondered where he was and did he like me.

  His reply came straight back. ‘Absolutely. In Canberra. Back tomorrow. x’

  Charlie was propped up in bed against three pillows. Enrico had given him the sweetened tea and made toast, thick with butter and strawberry jam.

  I sat on the end of his bed.

  We looked at each other and I reached out and felt the thin ripple at the bottom of the doona, his foot.