‘You don’t need to be sorry.’
‘But I appreciate that you’ve stayed this long. I really do.’
I stood and, as I turned to go inside, I lightly touched his shoulder. A gesture to show I meant what I had said, that perhaps I had forgiven him for leaving me – even though it had been at my begging command. A gesture that said we could now be adults and just get on with things.
He did not move or acknowledge me in any way, but stared ahead, into the grey silver streaks that only a few minutes before had been a blazing gold and aquamarine beach.
37
THE next morning the dam was silver glass in the dawn light. Frogs, insects and birds made their waking noises. The track to the pump shed was hard and dry and the warm air carried the sweet smell of eucalyptus and tea tree oil. It was peaceful.
I opened the pump shed door and held my breath against the stench of pooled water. In the monochrome light I turned the blue valve anticlockwise and pressed the button for section one. Then I hit the red button, ready to run out and away from the deafening beating roar.
Silence.
I breathed in the foul air and went through the process again and slapped the red button.
Jesus.
I went outside and looked around. Sulphur-crested cockatoos were in the bottom dozen blueberry bushes near the tea tree, flapping and squawking while eating breakfast, damaging the canes. With my eyes closed, I ran through the steps and saw my hands doing it, the anticlockwise turn, the button for section one, the firm slap at the red starter.
Back inside, I went through it all again, and there was nothing. It was dead. Not even a try. So I left the shed and sat on the dry grass to come to terms with this disaster. It was already warm, probably 18°C and rising and I had no water to irrigate. It was Saturday. Pickers were on the way.
I fumbled in my pocket for my phone and Googled Euroa irrigation plumber. I knew what was going to happen. The blueberries would soften and shrink, every bush would go limp with thirst. I had debts, and a whole year ahead to somehow finance before this all happened again. I watched my fingers dial … please leave a message. So I did. And I kept going. In the next few minutes, I phoned three more plumbers in Mansfield, Benalla and Shepparton, all of them out of hours asking for a message. It was an emergency, and I said so.
The pickers came, and without my usual friendliness I sent them to their rows. Nick and Sophie were in the packing shed – he was positioning the punnets and trays, getting everything ready. Even though there was a rule that no food or drink was allowed in the packing shed, he had a cup of tea on the bench.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nick said.
‘The pump’s not working,’
He looked in the direction of the dam.
‘Have you phoned anybody?’
And then my phone did ring. It was the Euroa plumber, the first call I had made. Whoever he was wanted the pump dismantled and delivered to him to check.
That was impossible – I pleaded with him to come to the orchard.
‘Can’t leave the shop. I’m the only one here.’
I repeated all of this to Nick. He took my phone from me and walked away, head bowed in concentration, listening and talking to the plumber.
Then he strode back, full of purpose.
‘You do the packing. I’ll take care of the pump.’
This was an hopeless plan.
‘I need the water, Nick.’
‘I’m your pump man,’ he said.
‘But you’re not a mechanical person. You won’t be able to do it.’
He smiled. ‘You got another option?’
There was nothing for it, so I started packing, my hands gliding like wings over the trays. All morning I weighed full buckets and poured them into the long trays and scooped them up and on and on. Sophie moved between the pump and packing shed.
‘What’s your dad doing?’
‘Swearing.’
‘Why is he swearing?’
‘Because the pump is a mean bitch.’
Soon after lunch I stopped the pickers – the blueberries were softening under my touch. San and Kalia drove off in their old Datsun with its dodgy odd-ticking motor. The Sikhs played cricket while waiting for the mini bus. There was competition everywhere – who picked the most kilos in a day, who batted the most, and how many wickets. As for me, I was on the way to packing more than two hundred trays in one day, a harvest record by a single packer.
I hadn’t seen Nick all day, but I knew, via Sophie, that he had dismantled the pump and taken it to Euroa. By five, when I’d finished packing off the last bucket, was too weary to stand or think and was walking away from the unswept shed, Nick jumped in front of me.
‘I’m fucking amazing,’ he said.
I looked at him.
‘I fixed the pump.’
He was grinning, eyes dancing.
‘I’ve never done anything like this before. I pulled the fucker apart and replaced the starter motor and now it’s working.’
I turned and saw the gentle droplets falling from the drippers.
Then he hopped in a circle, playing riffs on an air guitar. ‘Go on, say it. Nick is amazing!’
He was wild with excitement and Sophie came out from her cubby with Blondie and they were my family and my eyes welled and I couldn’t quite breathe.
‘Hey,’ Nick said, coming at me, his arms around me. ‘You don’t have tell me I’m amazing right now if it’s going to make you cry. Later will do.’
‘Stop it,’ I said.
Sophie was holding me too.
I tried to turn, but he wouldn’t let me go.
And then, into my hair, he whispered, ‘Babe, it’s going to be all right.’
And there it was – my old name, Babe, and I wanted to relax and feel him hold me, but I would not do that. I would not.
‘Please, Nick, I’m really tired.’
He let me go and I stood back.
I had killed the fun.
Nick picked Sophie up. ‘Want to go for a swim?’
Of course she did.
‘Greer, let’s go,’ he said. ‘We’ll chill out at Polly McQuinns.’
I would not let him in.
‘No.’
‘Yes, Mum, come,’ Sophie said.
And I heard Charlie’s voice, telling me to get my togs on and go have a good time.
‘Sorry, but I’ve got bills to pay. Some wages.’
They looked back at me blankly.
‘I’ll pack you a picnic dinner, if you like.’
‘Pack the picnic, and come yourself,’ Nick said.
‘Nick,’ I said sharply.
‘What?’
I didn’t have the words to explain that his friendliness was overwhelming, that I’d had enough of playing at this happy family.
‘See you when you get back,’ I said and walked away.
I collapsed in bed, flat on my back, and closed my eyes. I slept, sweet oblivion for an hour, and woke lying in the same position. The house was quiet. Then I heard the early evening warble of a single magpie. Staring into the wall, I considered all the old reasons that made Nick a bad partner, and there they were – lined up and waiting like the 1 pm row of full blueberry buckets. That three-week trip he took when Sophie was only a month old and I got mastitis and had to get myself to a doctor with a fretting, hungry baby. The Skype calls I had counted down for that he did not answer or seem to care about. But then he would walk out of customs at Melbourne Airport and grin, and be so happy to see us. He would embrace us and bestow his gifts and I would melt and off I would go again, with hopeless amnesia about how hard it all was.
I stood and stretched.
Nick was my lovely man. But somewhere in that lost hour I had decided it was time for him to go, to disappear on his next ego-trip, the job in Geneva, and leave us to ourselves. I would not wait for his return – I would not do that. I was committed to a future of being an orchardist. Of being myself, and a mother, being content, and forgetting Nick and all the res
t of it.
We went through the happy family charade again – cheerful Nick at the barbecue, singing with Sophie, teasing her and making her squeal. The noise was too much and I told them so. During dinner, I stared anywhere but in Nick’s direction, and I didn’t finish the meal but drank two glasses of wine.
I was waiting for Sophie to be in my bed asleep. And, by then, Nick was waiting too. I knew the signs – the way his sentences became shorter and he somehow became taller.
And so.
‘Let’s sit out the front,’ he said.
He had the wine bottle and our glasses by the necks.
The yellow veranda rose was in its second bloom. It sagged, needed cutting back.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘Being a selfish bastard.’
The mosaic veranda tiles were patterned in sectioned circles, reds and orange, Charlie’s colours. It was threatening, Nick’s apology, unknown territory.
‘You know I’ve loved my gigs, the travels, and the people. But I put myself ahead of you and Sophie.’
I wanted to say that it was all right, because I could not imagine the alternative. Nick being ordinary, Nick doing nine to five, Nick being boring.
‘This afternoon I decided to ask you to leave.’
‘I’ve delayed going to the job for a month. But I’d actually like to pull out of it completely. I want to stay here.’
I had no words.
‘I want to say here with you and Soph. I’m like Charlie. I never want to leave here.’
He opened the palm of his hand and rested it beside me.
‘I want you to put your hand in mine,’ he said.
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m afraid.’
‘You don’t need to be.’
‘I’ve trusted you before.’
‘I’m sorry. So sorry. But we need to start fresh. I know we both want it.’
‘Are you choosing here over Geneva?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Because of Sophie?’
‘Because of us, and her, and you, and me.’
I shut down the welling up of tears.
‘Put your hand in mine,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Please.’
It was his right hand on the arm of Charlie’s chair.
Charlie would say get on with it. If there was such a thing as a ghost, his would step forward to press my hand into Nick’s.
‘How do I know that when the call comes, a fantastic opportunity in Nairobi, or Kabul, you won’t go? This place will not be your home between jobs.’
‘I quit all of that. This is where I want to be. I’ve made my decision. Now it’s up to you to decide.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘It is fair.’
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend waiting for you somewhere?’
‘No.’
‘Who’ve you been speaking to then?’
He smiled. ‘Babe, I’ve been calling in favours, getting covered for work because I’m here. Christmas Eve when you went to bed early I figured you weren’t coping with the harvest, that I needed to stick around for a bit, after Adelaide.’
His palm was still open, his fingers slightly curled.
I wanted to seal the deal, but it seemed too easy. A nice set of words could not possibly wipe away all those sad and brilliant years of angst.
‘I need to think.’
‘Don’t think. Just fucking grab hold of my hand.’
So I did.
And he lifted my hand and he softly kissed the back of it three times. Then he looked into my face, our faces together, magnified and smiling and I thought to myself that he was beautiful.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘But are you sure?’ I asked.
‘You’re my family. This is where I belong.’
‘It’s hard work, you know.’
‘This isn’t a job interview.’
‘It is in a way.’
‘God, I’m so happy,’ he said.
When the midges started nipping our ankles, we went inside. We sat close on the couch, the length of our bodies together. We talked, mostly about safe things, getting used to the closeness – the orchard, my ideas to expand it, the varieties, netting and the new drippers. And when I yawned, we stood close and I rested my head on his shoulder.
‘I’ll put Sophie back in her bed if you want.’
‘Okay.’
And he scooped her up and carried her away to her bed.
I lay in Nick’s arms. The second pillow was under his head. His breath was warm on my skin. Sex was too real and dangerous and precious and there seemed no urgency for it. We whispered private and loving things to each other in the dark.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ I said.
‘We should get married.’
‘Are you proposing?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You really want to get married?’
‘Only to you.’
‘Sophie can be the flower girl.’
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.
‘I’ve missed you every day.’
In the darkness, I traced the outline of his eyes, nose and mouth. His kissed my fingers. Then we kissed lips, experimentally, tasting and gently remembering. And we drifted into a peaceful sleep, and I loved the weight and length of him beside me.
Epilogue
FAINT mist was in the air and it lifted from the ground as I walked to Charlie’s studio. The ruby maple was slow to winter, leaves clung to its branches. Underfoot was a soggy mat of brown and red. The rose garden was all rose hips and black-spotted yellow leaves. Lemons hung on the two trees inside the boxed hedge.
I hadn’t been here since before Charlie died. In the middle of everything else going on, the studio had been easily forgotten. The harvest had continued on longer than expected and had finished in the second week of March. We had even found a market for the seconds, a boutique jam maker in Coldstream. When we finally closed the packing shed door, Nick and I needed to rest. We took Sophie out of school for a week and drove to Apollo Bay. It had been a surprise to breathe in the salty air. One late afternoon we ate fish and chips on the beach, and when we’d had enough we fed the gulls. I thought of Mum and Dad, and Ewan, that horrible time when I wasn’t much older than Sophie was now. While we were away we had the floorboards polished – the syrupy high gloss on the Sydney blue gum was perfect. We installed a dishwasher.
Approaching the studio, I felt the weight of my neglect – I had been distracted and ignored this special place. Yet I could not honestly say that my inattention was out of sadness, an unwillingness to come. Nick, Sophie and I had become a happy family, with no insurmountable challenges, none that were apparent to me. In early May, Nick had a phone call from his lead contact in London pleading with him to do a short job in Kabul. ‘Two weeks only, mate … mate.’ I stood before Nick, alarmed he might consider it. He went to our bedroom and returned with his passport.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
I followed him into the lounge room. He opened the firebox and threw his passport onto the burning wood and closed the door. We watched the sudden orange flare.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
After the harvest we joined our bank accounts again. We paid all the outstanding bills and had some cash leftover for a couple of projects. Nick insisted the roof and guttering needed be replaced before we installed a new kitchen, and I supposed that was right. We were getting quotes on bird netting and trying to decide which blueberry varieties we would plant for a ten-acre expansion into the paddock near the pump shed. The money I had left over from Charlie, about thirteen thousand dollars, I donated to the Cancer Council.
Nick and I had started the winter prune. We worked side by side, and chatted. Sometimes we listened to the radio, other times we were
quiet. At morning tea and lunch we sat on the ground and ate sandwiches and drank tea with hot water poured from a thermos. Blondie was always close by, waiting for the treat Nick or Sophie had ready for her. We were already on Row 18.
I opened the studio door and stepped inside. It was cold and smelled of stale air and emptiness. Something was missing. Charlie. And then I did feel the loss of him. My steps on the boards reverberated in the empty space. The studio was half-filled, not in its earlier embodiment of interesting chaos. On the easel was the unfinished painting, the pencil outline of him sitting at the veranda staring out into the garden; the yellow palette knife scraps and frills of the climbing rose.
I pressed the CD player and Nina Simone cracked into the room from where she had left off, not missing a beat. I turned her off.
I looked around, trying to bring the presence of Charlie back. And there he was, for a moment, painting to an internal rhythm, moving in a concentrated way, yet he was standing still. Paint was around his fingernails. The studio was very cold and it was almost lunch time, so I blinked him away.
I would have to think what to do with the Fowlers jars, brushes and palette knives. His plywood palette board – heavily covered in thick colourful dabs – would come into the house and be hung somewhere. There were two whiskey bottles on the table beneath the window. Beside them was an open turps bottle, with a vague odorous smell, and smudged rags. The red velvet chaise lounge, Charlie’s daybed, was against the back wall. Perhaps that could go into the study off the porch, Charlie’s old bedroom.
Beside it, covered in a dirty, paint-spotted sheet, was the new Marilyn that he had refused to let me see.
I picked the painting up, my arms only a metre wide. It was light. I gently shook it to let the sheet fall away. Then I turned her around and rested her on the floor. It wasn’t her, no blonde hair or pouting lips. I stepped back.
It was me.
My face, neck and shoulders filled the canvas.
In thick layers of oil that seemed to lift off the canvas, my hair was rich, thick, like a brown mane with the sun touching it. But it was my face that was both confronting and intriguing. I was facing straight ahead – pale skin, tight lips, unsmiling. My eyes were staring back at me, yet distant, elsewhere. I was never as tall or thin as a catwalk model, but they, too, were interesting to look at – stiff and miserable, and so was I. And I knew then why Charlie had not given this painting to me, because he had got me right. Last year I was sad.
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