by Tracy Farr
She turns the page. Each of the four, five other drawings are variations on the same theme. She tries to imagine Kurt, when he was four, or five, which he must’ve been when he drew these. Before she was born.
She flicks through the rest of the pad, looking for more drawings. There, in the back of the pad – she turns it over – are her own drawings, the safe, expected drawings of the happy little five-year-old. There’s the whole family, Mummy and Daddy and Lucy, all named in careful letters, each with a round balloon face, an egg for a body, sticks for arms and legs, circles for hands on the ends of the stick-arms, little spiky tufts for fingers. Mummy is biggest, a giant stretching the height of the page, her brush-stick toes touching the bottom of the page, her cloud of hair touching the top. The Daddy is tiny, with short legs and a black body – she remembers her dad always dressing in black, trying hard – and he’s floating up in the upper right of the page, disconnected from the ground. You got that right, five-year-old Luce. Lucy is in the middle, and middle-sized. Her stick-arms reach out, lengthened to connect to her mother on one side, her father on the other. Her left arm is elongated and reaches up to grab the Daddy, who floats like a balloon, drifting out of reach.
Kurt lies on the bed, sketchbook closed in front of him. He has tried to draw The Girl, but the thought of her – the look of her, the gone of her – has drifted away, out of reach, as it does, always.
He hooks his sleeve up. The cat scratch has faded to a line of clean red scabs, like fine silk stitches.
He opens his sketchbook, and turns to the page with the swan.
Luce stands in the doorway. She has the sheet of orange paper in her hand, with the song lyrics. Kurt’s on the bed, leaning against the wall. He has the sketchbook open on his lap. She rustles the paper in her hand. He looks up at her, and closes the sketchbook.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey.’
‘I’m making a song. For the baby.’
‘Oh yeah.’
Luce sighs.
‘So. Can I. Can you. Tell me? What you think. Is that.’
‘Sure. Go crazy.’
Luce sighs again. She can feel her eyes roll at him.
‘Sorry. I feel like shit. Hangover. Stupid.’ He closes his eyes, then, as if it’s a huge effort, he opens them, sits forward on the bed. ‘Go on. What’ve you got.’
She moves inside the door and has to push it with force, with the flat of her hand, to close it behind her. She takes a breath. Then, for the first time, she sings the song full voice.
Iris sits on the floor in the big room among boxes and books and paper and things. Marti is curled in the curve of the sofa, a rug pulled over her, nursing a mug of tea. They hear footsteps creak the floorboards, murmured voices. Doors open. Doors close. Then the sound of Luce’s voice cuts clear, like a glorious bell, through the old walls, the closed doors, the gaps in the floorboards. Marti gasps; she puts her hand to her mouth, covers it. She is bright-eyed; they both are, and both smiling. Iris pushes herself up to standing, and moves to the sofa. Marti lifts the rug that covers her, and Iris slides next to her and they hold onto one another and listen together to their gorgeous girl.
‘Kristin said I can sing it. She said we can all do something. Or say something. Whatever. Instead of presents. Because it’s not like a christening or anything.’
‘Yeah.’
‘She said they’re not going to tell the name until tomorrow, though. At the actual naming party.’
Luce sits on the floor. She’s folded the orange paper to fit in her palm, tiny and fat like a miniature book, or a matchbox. She closes her hand around it, and the corners prick the folds of her fingers.
‘So.’
She can’t think of words to use to tell Kurt about the phone. About Rosa. He’ d probably know what to do. But he’s all shut down and weird. After the party. After the bay. Like he doesn’t belong. Or doesn’t care. Or like he’s gone away, while he’s still there.
She knows that once the words are out of her mouth – once she tells Kurt, or someone, about the phone – she can’t take them back. She thinks of the screen, the last time she turned it on: 23 missed calls. Then: Battery critically low. Powering off. Bricked, for the moment, it’s back under her mattress, and – for the moment – only she knows it’s there. Like a niggling pea; but that’ d make her a princess, and she doesn’t feel much like one.
‘Well.’
She rolls over, stands up, puts her hand on the doorknob. Facing the door, she can’t see Kurt.
‘So, it’s okay? The song?’
She hears him breathe in hard, like a sucked-in sigh.
‘Yeah. ‘S’good, Lu.’
She turns her head a little bit, so she can see him, low over her shoulder, her hair hanging down in the way. His eyes are closed, his head leans back against the wall.
‘It’s good.’
A good house
Paul slams back in through the front door. Iris hears his keys chime onto the hall table, the chirp of his phone, his footsteps creak down the hall. He moves into the frame of the doorway, moves past it.
‘Paulie?’
He backs back into the doorway, leans in on the frame.
‘Hey, boss. Recycling’s done. Amazing what they’ve done down there. A whole recycling depot thing, everything sorted. I’ll do another run tomorrow. When the rain stops. If the rain ever stops.’
‘Yeah. Ta. Hey, is Kurt okay, do you think? You know, the drinking, last night. Passing out. The bay thing.’
‘What bay thing?’
‘He went to the bay. Last night, in the pouring rain and the dark, so pissed he couldn’t stand up. It’s so stupid. Dangerous.’
Paul blows air out through pursed lips, a kind of sigh, opens his hands in a whaddya-gonna-do gesture.
‘He’s a grown-up, love. You can’t tell him. Not any more. You’ve got to let him be stupid if he wants to be stupid.’
‘But,’ Iris shakes her head. ‘I just –’
‘I know.’
Paul walks over to her. He reaches his hands out. Iris reaches hers out to take them. He pulls her up to standing, pulls her in to him.
‘He’s okay.’ Paul rubs his hands on her back. ‘He’s okay, you know?’
‘I know. It’s just. Seeing him like that. Passed out. I just. And – the house. It feels so strange to be. I don’t know. I’m – just tired. Last night. I didn’t. Not much sleep.’
They break apart. Iris sits on the sofa. Paul stands in the middle of the room. He stretches his arms out wide.
‘Iris. This was a good house.’ He drops his hands by his side. He looks her in the eyes. His mouth is sad for a moment, then not. He nods at the truth of it. ‘The three of us. A good house.’
‘It was.’ She nods, too. ‘A good house.’
The rain squalls in at the windows. The baby cries in another room. Paul leans down and kisses the top of her head as he goes to the baby.
Wings in the night
They’re all around the table, now, all of them full as googs but still picking at bread and chocolates and the sweetest little mandarins, muscat grapes dried on the stem, almonds. Candles light the table, are dotted about the room, on the windowsill above the sink, on top of the fridge. It feels celebratory, like Christmas, or a wedding.
‘That was amazing.’
‘I can’t stop eating.’
‘Move the chocolates to the other end of the table before I eat them all.’
‘I’ll put her down in a tick.’
‘Her last night nameless.’
‘Here’s to Baby.’
‘To Baby!’
‘Babycake.’
‘Baby!’
Empty mandarin skins curl on the table, glow orange. The tang of them scents the air, mixes with candlewax and chicken skin, garlic and wine.
‘Has anyone checked the forecast?’
‘I’ve never known it to rain so hard, for so long.’
‘It was supposed to stop today.’
‘Is the café even open tomorrow? On a Monday?’
‘Holiday Monday. Course it is.’
‘We should go for a drive to the recycling depot. It’s bloody amazing. They should do tours. I’ d pay good money for that.’
‘A fool and his money.’
‘Café at the tip. Not sure there’s a market for that.’
‘Les Deux Maggots. Ba-doom-tish.’
‘I don’t even know what –’
‘Dad joke.’
‘Existentialist Dad joke. The worst kind.’
‘Why did the existentialist cross the road?’
‘To be.’
‘To be nothing.’
‘You’re so weird.’
‘You’re so right.’
‘You’re so welcome.’
‘Come on. Back on topic. Where’ll we go tomorrow?’
‘We don’t have to decide.’
‘Let’s see what the rain does.’
‘I think I’ll stay here. Keep packing.’
‘We can take two cars.’
‘Do you know where the café is?’
‘Head to the lighthouse. Can’t miss it.’
‘I don’t want to go if it’s raining.’
‘Shall I open another –’
‘No!’
‘Jesus.’
‘Marti!’
‘You’re remarkable.’
‘And then when I get back to the city, I’ve got so much to do.’
‘God, me too. I’ve got to finish sorting out what we’re doing for Mum’s one hundredth. It’s only a week away.’
‘She’ll go on forever, old Rosa.’
‘I hope not, poor love.’
‘Come on, your mum’s unstoppable. Good old Mrs Golden-Fortune.’
‘Are there –’
‘What, love?’
‘Are there, like, lots of people invited?’
‘No, it’ll just be family. Just us. And Kurt, for his twenty-first. It’ll be quiet.’
‘Do you really get a telegram from the Queen?’
‘What if –’
‘I think you have to send off and request it.’
‘I did.’
‘Iris!’
‘Just for a laugh.’
‘But, say if you don’t make it –’
‘Rosa’ll have a laugh at that.’
‘What about if you’re almost a hundred, but you don’t –’
‘I think you have to actually tick over. Like turning over the speedo.’
‘Time to replace the cam belt.’
‘What year are you even living in? Cam belt.’
‘What’s a cam belt?’
‘What about opening another –’
‘Oh, Mart, you reckon Rosa’s unstoppable!’
They’re all inside the house, now, all of them spread out, each in their room. Iris stands at the kitchen sink, looking out through the window into the dark blue night, and listens. The house breathes. You can tell it’s full of people; it does not sound like an empty house. And it’s not as simple as the sound of people breathing; it’s not snoring or footsteps, not even hearts beating. It’s a fullness, somehow; it’s their presence, filling the house again.
She walks to the back door and opens it. It creaks in the middle of its arc, as it always has. She stands in the doorway, not quite outside. The rain has stopped, for the moment, but the air – everything – is sodden, saturated. The night sky hums with the sound of wind in trees, the distant whisper of the river, the waves. There are wings in the night that might be birds or moths or bats or bugs, but are night sounds, never heard – not like that – in daylight. The wind gears up. She hears it before she feels it on her face. It bites through her clothes, straight through to her skin.
She shivers, hugs her arms around her, hunches in. She breathes in, then breathes out, emptying herself. Tomorrow’s the last day with all of them in the house.
Stitch Rosa
Iris stitches a rose for Rosa, makes it rose-red, open, blowsy. Around the rose, cupping it, holding it, she stitches C for one hundred. She forms the C with care, with one hundred tiny stitches, one for each of Rosa’s years. She stitches it in fine gold thread, for Rosa’s Golden married name. Gold serves to mark her maiden name, too; Fortune’s golden, after all. The stitches make Frank Golden, too (dear Frank, long gone; there’s only Iris, in this house, to remember him).
Monday
Here comes the sunshine to dry up all the rain
It’s the absence that wakes her. The missing of it. The quiet, where noise was before.
The rain. It’s stopped.
Luce sits up in bed, reaches out, lifts the edge of the blind. The sun’s not quite up, but the sky is bright. The clouds – the big black clouds that’ve hung over Cassetown for days – are gone.
Everything around her drips and drains and sops from the days of rain, but no more falls from the sky. She can hear it, softly now, still draining from the spouting and pipes. The waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Here comes the sunshine, to dry up all the rain.
Luce pulls her hoody on, and tiptoes to the loo on cold, bare feet. In the bathroom she can see her breath. She looks in the mirror and blows out, watching herself, her mouth like an O, breathing smoke.
In the kitchen it’s so quiet. The house. Everyone. She opens the tin on the table, takes a shortbread biscuit and puts it in her mouth, then takes two more and puts the lid back on the tin. She opens the back door, walks out on the cold cement to the edge of the back verandah, then past it, out from under the roofline, onto the back lawn.
The sun’s higher, now. The sky is so clear, crisp blue, diamond-blue, diamond-sharp, edged with gold, and cold as ice. Under her feet the grass, too, is crisp, but under that, the earth feels full, like a sponge, or a soft mattress.
She flicks her hood up over her head, and wraps her arms around herself. She hops from foot to foot, eating biscuits, until the cold sends her back inside, back to bed.
Stitch the rain
Now that it’s stopped, Iris stitches the rain. She sits up in bed, surrounded by thread, lit by the light on the wall by her head. First she stitches a ground of gold, and onto that, an outline of the house in pencil-coloured silk, quick tacking stitches (first to hold, then to unpick). Then over this she makes the rain, in long stitches of dark satin grey and deep dark black, angling down, elemental and solid, to flood the world with water.
All together now
All of them are in the big room, they’re in and out of it, and in and out of all the rooms of the house, as if the sun’s got them moving, like ants in summer. They’re all together now, working together to get it all done. Sun is streaming in through the windows, through the glass doors that line one side of the room. They open the doors to let the sunshine in, but the cold drives them to close them again. Still, the sun makes it feel warm, and they warm, too, with the lifting and carrying and packing and bending and hefting.
‘I think this box is too heavy.’
‘Split it between two. Use the small boxes for books.’
‘No more boxes.’
‘Are you keeping this? Iris?’
‘Kettle’s boiled.’
‘Mnh, I don’t think so. Have it if you want it.’
‘Yeah, there are. In the other room. I’ll get them.’
‘I’m going to scream if someone’s packed all the mugs. Tell me they’re not packed.’
‘Is there any more newspaper?’
‘They’re not packed.’
‘They’re packed, aren’t they. Crap.’
‘I can do a coffee run. Now that the rain’s stopped.’
‘Pastries!’
‘Extremely large skinny flat white, extra shot.’
‘Make that two.’
‘If you’re going to the shops, see if they’ve got any weekend papers left. Grab a couple, we need more for packing.’
‘Hot chocolate.’
‘Long black.’
&
nbsp; ‘Make that three.’
‘Right, I’m off. Last orders! I’ve got a long black, three extra large skinny flats, pastries galore, papers ditto.’
‘And whatever else you need for the cake, Mart. We’ve got flour and sugar. And there’s a cake tin.’
‘Cornflour? Caster sugar?’
‘Yep, all good, all in the pantry. And icing sugar.’
‘Okay, I’ll get eggs. And cream.’
‘I’ll come too. Help you carry.’
‘Um? Hot chocolate?’
‘Sorry love, got that. A hot choc for Lu. Rice?’
‘Oh alright, a skinny flat white, then.’
‘– never listen to me –’
‘Right, we’re off.’
‘The roads’ll be oily, after the rain. Drive carefully.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Stitch the house
Now that the rain has stopped, Iris sits outside and stitches the house. She stitches its face like the child’s drawing it resembles: a box for the house, a door in the centre, a window on each side of the door; a triangle roof overhead, and a chimney up from the triangle, with a cloud of smoke billowing up to the sky. She stitches the door in bright red thread, its knob a French knot in black. She outlines the windows in red, as well, crosses them, quarters them, makes panes. Long teal-blue weatherboards finish the front of the house. Steel grey lines on the triangle of roof map its corrugated iron, patterned with rust brown patches, satin stitch. She stitches the smoke, tinges it with grey.
Inside, outside, at the same time
‘It’s the only thing I bake but, by crikey, I do it well.’
Marti made her first sponge at ten years old, guided by her mother, Alba. Alba soon acknowledged that Marti had the knack, and handed over the family sponge duties to her daughter. Since then, it’s the rare Diamond family occasion that goes by without a Marti Sponge (like a Victoria Sponge, only bigger and ruder and noisier) in the middle of the table.
