Steeplechase

by Krissy Kneen

‘I just hate these things, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she grins, grateful. ‘I never know what to do with my hands.’

  Her arms are folded, her hands tucked under her neat little breasts. She seems so young and I have to remind myself that she is John’s age. John is so young too. John is my student and the fact that he is also my lover is something that no one else knows. I wonder if she noticed how familiar I was with John before I realised she was there behind him. I wonder if she has guessed that he is more than just a student of mine.

  ‘Bec is Emily Reich’s sister.’

  She drops her hands suddenly to her sides. I notice the twitch in her fingers. Her eyes widen slightly and she presses her lips together as if she wishes she had not said anything to me at all.

  ‘You know Emily’s work, right?’

  She nods slowly. Of course she knows my sister’s work. People who have never seen an original work of art, people who decorate their walls with prints from a homewares store have heard of Emily Reich. She reaches for John’s elbow and holds it firmly between her thin birdlike fingers, as if the solidity could protect her from this unexpected brush with fame.

  ‘Lindsay goes to TAFE at the moment,’ he explains to me, ‘but she’s going to come over to the university next year. Aren’t you Lindsay?’

  The small girl nods, looks down at her shoes, which are too high and too shiny, straight out of the box. She holds John’s elbow between both of her tiny hands and he pats her fingers paternally.

  ‘I was just…’ I indicate the door.

  ‘Oh. I have some more friends who’d like to meet you if you have a minute.’

  ‘I really have to…’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Well. Good show. With the work and everything. See you in class?’

  ‘Yes.’

  When I am out on the footpath I realise that I am still carrying the champagne glass. I shake it and slip it into my handbag.

  Raphael

  The summer I turn fifteen, I stand by uselessly as the madness takes her. ‘Takes’ is the right word. All our hard-earned intimacy is stripped away. She whispers to herself when before she might have whispered to me. She plays games with the wind and the sky and the tall grasses by the gate but when I try to drag her to play one of our own games she stands and stares as if the real world is just an echo of something, a trick of the light. She gazes through me, smiles, then turns and walks away.

  When the madness took her is the way Oma has always put it, resting her hand lightly on our mother’s shoulder. I watch Emily strolling away from me, angling her head as if she is listening to someone beside her, and I know what Oma means by taken.

  I do not want to be left alone like this. Emily picks up the phone and holds it to her ear and nods. When she places it back in the cradle I am there beside her. I will not be left out of this change in her life. She eases out of the lounge chair and I settle into the warm hug, the scent of her lavender on the scratchy fabric. I pick up the phone, hold it to my ear. She is watching me closely, perching on the lounge chair opposite, tucking her feet up underneath her. Her gaze is steady and unwavering. I hold the phone hard against my ear and breathe in. The smell of her breath on the mouthpiece, the sticky slip of her fingerprints against mine.

  ‘Hello?’

  If I listen very closely there is the sound of breathing. My breathing perhaps, reflected back to me, but I want it to be his breath. I want to share him with her. Raphael has stolen my sister from me and I want so much to join them in their game.

  She is watching with her large dark eyes. I know that mine are pale and furtive in comparison. For now, just this moment, I have her complete attention.

  ‘Hello?’ I whisper into the handset. My fingers are trembling. I can hear the breathing, my own or someone else’s, but it is loud and fast, scrappy breaths as if whoever it is has been running or is perhaps afraid.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  I close my eyes but she is still watching me. I can feel it. My head throbs. A nerve in my temple starts to twitch.

  Please, please please please answer the phone. Answer the phone.

  If you don’t answer she will be lost to me. You will have her all to yourself.

  I hear a catch in my breath, a sob. I bite my lip, open my eyes. I think I might cry. I sniff. Don’t let her see you cry. My lip is trembling and the more I try to stop it, the larger the twitching seems.

  The voice is far off. It is like static. It is almost not a voice at all, it is the hiss of fibres rattling soundwaves from one place to another, the clicking of electric signals, but when I strain to make sense of the hiss there are words in it.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ My eyes widen, my hands are clammy on the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘yes I can hear you.’

  ‘You can hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I look up. Emily is staring at me. It is as if she is seeing me for the first time in months. There is a look on her face, relief perhaps, a relaxing of the muscles around her mouth. She smiles and it is a genuine smile.

  I can hear him. She knows I can hear him. It is as if his voice, tiny and muffled, hidden in a thick fog, is a ladder between her world and mine. I cling to the rung I am holding with everything I have. My knuckles are pale and tight, my fingers ache.

  I hunt for the staticky words and find them. ‘Is this you?’

  He says, ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am Emily’s sister.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ says Raphael.

  Paintings

  Paintings by Emily Reich. When I open my eyes they are all there lined up on the wall. John could bring his little friend around for a tour. I am rich. Under the painting of the burning cow my shoes lie scuffed and cheap and worn at the heel. My dress is a fallen thing beside them, fading slightly, the hem frayed. A small hole burnt into the skirt provides a peep show of the floorboards below. My car door does not close properly and the interior light runs the battery down unless I am vigilant. The pilot light in the gas heating is erratic. Yet here I am, rich beyond my wildest dreams if you count my sister’s work as currency.

  John reached out a finger the first time he was here, naked, all the awkwardness of consummation behind us. He stood with the comfortable overhang of his belly shading a shrivelled penis. Little snail, I thought, and watched him stretch out that one finger and touch the thick paint on the surface of the canvas. Like he was touching god. He seemed frightened, as if an alarm might suddenly trip and catch him here despoiling a national treasure.

  I am drunk. My face is numb. My hand is almost a blur in front of my eyes. I touch my cheek with clumsy fingers. A hot wave of liquid rushes up my oesophagus. I sit up and it retreats. I must not lie down. We lay down on this couch, John and I. I stand and move towards her paintings. I reach with my own finger and touch the surface. I watched Emily applying the paint, meticulous, using a brush with a single hair of sable for the very fine details, the lashes, the flare in the eye, the large pores at the side of the nose, the fine hairs spilling over the hooves.

  I take the stairs slowly, I am unsteady even without my high heels. The floor of the studio is cold and I wish now I had changed into some slippers. The spilt paint spikes up into the tender underside of my toes. There are paintings half-finished, leaning against the walls. A large close-up of an eye, part of an ear, the edge of a mouth, lips slightly parted as if to kiss or to shriek. It would have made it into the exhibition, this large work, if I had had two more days, three at the most. Maybe this one painting would have changed the whole thing, made everything better. Maybe if this canvas were hanging in the gallery now, John would be here beside me.

  I wear the key around my neck at all times. It is old and looks decorative. I like the shape and weight of it.

  What does that open?

  I remember him picking it up off my chest, the end of it grazing against my nipple. I remember him kissing the flesh there as if in apo
logy, the kiss opening to the wetness of his tongue, the pleasure of my skin entering his mouth.

  My heart, I told him, and he pressed his hand against mine which was wildly beating in my chest.

  Then you should give it to me.

  If you want my heart you will have to work for it.

  I pull the key up and over my head. It sits in the palm of my hand, heavy as history.

  The paintings are a solid weight against my thighs but I am used to the lean of them settling into my lap. Behind them there is a small door, a low cupboard, a lock. I fit the key into it and turn it.

  Bluebeard kept the bodies of the women he had killed: I remember the terrible heart of his story. When our Oma told us his secret, Emily’s eyes gleamed but I was scared witless.

  Here is my terrible heart. I pull the canvases out one by one. I study the colour and shape, the technique. I hold up a canvas that is almost an Emily Reich. I know how to make the light come from one direction, head on, giving a startling starkness to the figure there. I know how to make the feathers slip over into flesh, the arms disappearing into fur, the wool morphing into the curls on a baby’s head. I know how she does it because I have spent hours watching her do it, hours doing it myself. Like an insect hiding itself in the form of a leaf, my paintings are almost indistinguishable from the original Emily Reichs upstairs hanging on the wall.

  I count these canvases, adding them up in half-million units. A hidden fortune in forgeries, I suppose. I know the signature is perfect. When I was a child she sometimes made me sign her paintings for her and I did it laughing, knowing that it was wrong, insisting she sign my own paintings too. You couldn’t tell the difference between Emily’s signature and mine. I wonder if that painting at Sotheby’s carried my maker’s stamp on her work.

  I stop at a painting of a man who is a bird, anchored to a branch with a length of razor wire. I don’t remember painting this one at all. Perhaps this is an actual Emily Reich, hidden down here with all my fake Emilys by accident.

  I pull the painting out and rest it against the wall. Maybe I have just forgotten. I should hang it upstairs with all my sister’s true work. I pause just before locking the door, open it, put the painting back into the alcove. There is a chance that it is one of mine after all. I have a vague memory of realising that feathers need a steady hand, making one tiny line overlap another till the lines become feathery. Maybe I painted it early in my Emily Reich period, when it was impossible for me to see where Bec ended and Emily began.

  I lock the cupboard and pile my own worthless canvases in front of the door. I hang the key around my neck where it thumps gently against my right breast.

  You will have to work to win my heart instead.

  That’s fair enough. It’s okay anyway I am a really hard worker.

  The next Emily Reich I paint will have his face and perhaps the body of a bear. I can see it now, an image forming somewhere deep in my subconscious. John as a big warm friendly bear, only I will become Emily in the painting of it and therefore when the bear opens his mouth to take my nipple between his lips we will see the glint of teeth sharp enough to tear flesh and crunch up bones. With my own work the expressions are uncertain. So this, then, is where Bec ends and Emily begins. When I become Emily, my intentions are never ambiguous; they are awfully sharp and horribly clear.

  Best Friends

  I put down the telephone and Emily opens her wings like a dark angel. I am cradled in the gorgeous threat of her attention once more.

  ‘Did you hear him?’

  I nod.

  ‘Did you hear his voice?’

  ‘He was whispering.’

  She nods sagely. ‘He has to whisper. He is a secret.’ She is holding my elbow and her fingers clamp down on the sensitive skin there, pinching it. ‘You understand that don’t you?’

  I nod, but her grip tightens till my eyes start to tear up.

  ‘He is a secret from Oma and everyone. You can’t tell Oma. You can’t tell anyone about him. Do you understand?’

  I nod and she releases me suddenly. There are white marks on my elbow. The blood rushes into them and throbs. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

  ‘I understand,’ I say and she nods again.

  ‘He visits me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Sometimes. At night.’

  I feel the sharp prick of jealousy. My sister, who is all I have in the world, off with her secret friend in the middle of the night.

  I want more than anything for him to visit me too. There is a sudden emptiness in the centre of my chest. It must have been there all along but it feels like it has only just opened up.

  My sister reaches out and I cinch my elbows close in to my body. She puts her arms around me in a hug. Such a rare gift, I settle into the brief comfort of it.

  ‘You can hear Raphael too.’ She hugs me tighter. It is uncomfortable but I cling to her arms and breathe in the lavender of her skin, savouring the brief sweetness of it before she withdraws the warmth of her body.

  It is easy to hear his voice now that I know what I am searching for among the hissing. His voice is just a tiny crackle of static turned into words through a huge amount of concentration. I wonder, as I listen, if the furrow that I feel creasing my brow makes me look more like Emily. I certainly hope it does. She looks enigmatic whenever she talks to Raphael, mysterious, a creature from another world. Raphael’s world. I feel like an intruder. It takes me minutes sometimes to conjure his voice from the flat beeping of the phone but it gets easier with practice, and every time our Oma locks herself in her study to restore the paintings I pick up the phone. I practise hearing him.

  ‘Emily?’ he says.

  I smile because just this once he has mistaken me for her, and I hesitate. I do not want to correct him. I want him to say to me whatever he would be planning to say to Emily herself.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Emily.’

  I smile when he says her name. Her skin on my shoulders allows me to be confident.

  ‘Yes, Raphael, it’s me.’

  What would he say to Emily, I wonder. I strain to hear his voice through the dead flat tone of the telephone. What would he tell her?

  ‘Shall I come for you tonight?’ That is what he says.

  And I say, ‘Yes.’

  My heart is racing. There is a sheen of sweat on the palms of my hands.

  ‘See you tonight.’

  ‘Okay.’ My hand is shaking when I replace the handset.

  Emily sees Raphael. She has told me this. An apparition of flesh and blood and breath. Now is my time. It is wonderful but it is terrible as well. Now I will just have to make him real.

  Dead White Guys

  John is late for class. This is such a rare event that everyone grins and nudges him as he pushes past the rows of desks to find his regular position near the front of the room. He sits and I smile towards him and he looks down at his desk. I notice a blush creeping up and into his cheeks. It is raining outside and his hair is damp and he seems edgier than usual. Something is wrong. He shuffles his books onto the table and barely glances towards the front of the room. I am Emily Reich’s sister. That is how he introduced me to his pretty friend last night. The sister of Emily Reich, teaching him art history.

  I press the remote and the next slide flashes up onto the screen. A portrait of a dead white guy.

  The students are bored. I am bored. We talk about paintings that were made for silent contemplation. The painting stands for itself. I shudder. My head is still woolly from too much champagne, my feet still hurt from the shoes I shoved them into. I am Emily Reich’s sister and that alone was the reason I was invited to exhibit in the first place. When Emily exhibited in London six years ago she stepped up to the microphone and told the audience to go home. She shouted at them to go away. Go away. Go away. It is exactly what I felt like doing last night. When Emily did it the audience were thrilled. The media was abuzz with the news. Emily Reich Causes Scene i
n London Art World. Last night I did nothing but bore them all.

  I change the slide.

  ‘This,’ I say, ‘is a dead white guy.’

  The flick and flash of the slide changing.

  ‘This is a painting by a dead white guy.’

  Next slide.

  ‘Dead white guy.’

  ‘Painting by a dead white guy. Painting. Painting. Dead white guy.’

  I press the button faster and faster. The images flick on and off and there is a flare of white light in between. I notice John raise his wide eyes to the screen. I have his attention. He looks frightened. I didn’t want to frighten him. The rest of the class are awake now. People shift upright in their chairs. This must be what it feels like for Emily, throwing a tantrum in front of the artful elite. I remember her tantrums. I remember the frightening well of anger so easily tapped. The aftermath.

  There is no way I could muster the same kind of hatred and pain. I look at John directly and he looks guilty. I can conjure up the memory of the pretty young girl, the TAFE student and the pride in John’s face as he introduced me as Emily’s sister. I am certain she was impressed. He knows Emily’s sister. He knows her to talk to and to drink with. I wonder if he mentioned that we have been lovers. I am Emily Reich’s sister’s lover. Was Emily Reich’s sister’s lover, because it is clear to me that he has another lover now.

  He is a boy, my student and so very, very young. I am the responsible adult in this situation. I wonder if it is because of this that I can’t quite work up the same kind of anger that my sister could conjure at a whim.

  I press the button and the screen reflects my desktop. Folders for my files, folders for home, folders for ideas, a messy pile of files spread out across the screen, none of them snapped to any kind of grid, a whole big compost heap of downloads in the top right corner, file upon file upon file. Emily’s voice in my head, You should tidy your room Rebecca. I close the laptop and the screen goes blank.

  ‘So anyway if you want to pass your exam then you probably need the information that goes with the images of all those dead white guys, right? So if you want to you can look in your dossier and get the notes I have written for this week’s lecture and read them for yourself. You can do this now. You all have your laptops? You can download them from the website. Or else you can go home and do it there. It’s raining. The library is dry. Or you can maybe not bother until the night before the exam, which is what you all used to do in high school, right? Didn’t seem to do anyone here any harm. You all got into university?’