The Precipice

by Virginia Duigan

  Instead I heard myself saying, ‘You must promise me, Kim, that you won’t ever go near the edge.’

  I should have predicted the response.

  ‘I can’t promise that I won’t ever.’ Lightly, ‘You wouldn’t have promised when you were my age, right?’ I had to acknowledge the truth of this. She added, ‘And I bet you wouldn’t at any age.’

  I observed her looking at Teddy. He strolled, with a sangfroid borne of years of familiarity, towards the edge in question, the tipping point where the foaming waters disappeared. I called him back, but I had a feeling she drew her own conclusions.

  She pondered, then repeated that whatever happened in the future, she knew she would always come home, to these two places. ‘It’s like they’ll be my spiritual homes, Thea,’ she said with a mischievous look.

  I told her I thought she had stumbled on something. Perhaps our true homes are not the houses we build or buy or save up for. Unlike those products of bricks and mortar, our spiritual homes can never be taken away from us. They lie in a different realm, in the realm of the imagination, and when we find them we have them for life.

  Is this a consolation of any kind? Only if ideas can ever be comforting. And about that I am ambivalent.

  As we pushed through the thickets close to home, separated by bushes, I judged it reasonable to bring up the subject of the two guys, Marek and Marlon. I was only going to touch on it, I wasn’t intending to have an interrogation. We’d been together for some four hours, and I thought it was safe.

  Did they have any plans for the evening?

  ‘I dunno.’ Refractory, but I ignored the signs. I’d almost forgotten how children of that age can have quicksilver changes of mood.

  ‘How well do you know them?’ I queried. I realise this was incautious.

  ‘You asked me that before. A bit, I said.’

  And were they nice, did she think?

  ‘Why? Would you like to have a drink with them, or something? Watch the movie? Is that what you’d like?’ It was an energetic response, not rude exactly but with an edge that took me by surprise.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t like,’ I said at once, without thinking. ‘I don’t like what I’ve seen of Marek’s film and I don’t think Marlon is a particularly admirable character. I doubt very much if either of them is.’

  ‘But you’ve never met either of them,’ she said defensively.

  ‘By their deeds ye shall know them.’ Elevated eyebrows. ‘It’s a biblical quotation.’

  ‘Biblical? I never heard you quote from the Bible before.’

  ‘No? Well, it has some uses. It’s a good doorstop. It’s a reliable source of aphorisms. And much of the language in the King James version is very fine.’

  She shrugged. She and Andie overtook me, pushing through the scrub.

  I remembered that the director, Marek, had been to their house once before to work with Frank. She must have met him then. The actor had not visited however, to my knowledge.

  ‘Where did you say you met Marlon?’ I couldn’t help myself. He had been a porn star. A discomfiting vision of Marlon’s nakedness rose in front of me. Awesomely well hung is how he would be described by the uninhibited young women of today. Young women and not by children, one hoped.

  A fractional pause. ‘I didn’t say.’ She strode forward.

  ‘Well, can you say now?’ She had moved further ahead of me with Andie. No reply. She wants me to assume she hasn’t heard the question, I thought. I quickened my pace. ‘What did you and Frank do last night?’ I asked.

  ‘Watched an amazing science fiction movie,’ she replied promptly. ‘Blade Runner, the director’s cut. It’s very famous.’ The information conveyed nothing much to me.

  ‘Did it have subtitles?’

  ‘Subtitles?’ She looked round. ‘No, of course it didn’t. It’s in English.’

  Where were the visitors going to sleep tonight?

  Another shrug. They’d probably doss down somewhere. There was tons of space. ‘Like there is out here,’ she said, gesturing. We had emerged from the scrub behind the hovel.

  I knew how she didn’t like mess, I said. Three guys were likely to create havoc. If she needed to escape from them, just come to my place. At any time. We could make up a bed. We could rent a DVD, or she might like to bring one over.

  She had my phone number, didn’t she?

  I don’t care if this is overdoing it, whatever Sandy may think. I don’t give a fig. As I said to him, she has no one else.

  I’d just turned the computer off when Frank appeared. I was having a restorative cup of tea on the verandah. He wanted to warn me that he was having a bit of a party tonight. Apologies in advance for the noise. He hoped I wouldn’t mind. A small gig, only about a dozen or so.

  I motioned him to a chair. He sat on the edge, with discernible reluctance.

  ‘When the cat’s away,’ I said. I didn’t offer him any tea.

  He crossed his legs.

  ‘Who’s coming?’ I asked.

  Well, Marlon and Marek were here already. Their girlfriends were coming up. The usual suspects. He did not suggest an introduction, I noticed, and just as well. I have no desire to meet any of your grubby friends, I thought. He was watching me with a quizzical expression.

  ‘What is Kim going to do, Frank?’

  ‘Kim? She can pass things round.’

  ‘She doesn’t like parties.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be fine. As long as she’s got a book, and now Andie, the Wombat’s happy as Larry. Or Harriet.’ He obviously hadn’t given her any thought. ‘That puppy’s a great success, Thea. A real cutie, in spite of the fact she chews up everything in sight. Thanks for your role in that.’ The thanks sounded perfunctory.

  ‘Kim should come over here tonight,’ I told him. ‘It’s an adult party. And I strongly feel she should not be around people like actors in porn films, Frank.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, she’s cool with that. Marlon’s quite harmless, Thea.’

  I felt my blood pressure rise. It wasn’t a matter of her being cool with it, I said, or of him being harmless. That was not the point.

  ‘Okay, okay, Thea, relax,’ with exaggerated, humorous annoyance. ‘Chill, huh? I’ll tell her. We could use her bedroom tonight. Some of them might stay over. Hey, she said you took the dogs on a bushwalk today. Wouldn’t tell me a thing about it, where you went or anything, she’s such a secretive kid. Said it was awesome, though.’

  An upward inflexion and an inviting look. I did not respond.

  ‘I was quite jealous. Got no info even after I tried to bribe her with a back rub. That usually works a treat. Not this time.’

  ‘Furthermore, Frank, you must stop giving her massages. It’s completely inappropriate.’

  He gave a loud theatrical groan and jumped up, planting a quick kiss on my forehead as he left. I had no chance to take evasive action. I know this is automatic, an unthinking habit of his, but I no longer want to be on the receiving end of any of his habits.

  What I once found endearing and affectionate in Frank I now see as seedy. Queasily so. He should not be giving her back rubs, that is beyond doubt.

  Nothing was said about the toolbox or the missing discs. He probably hasn’t even noticed.

  Several cars arrived in the early evening, disgorging loud, casually dressed occupants. Initially crowding in to the kitchen, they gravitated to the deck. He was right about the noise. It blasted in our direction, upsetting Teddy. Making me even more troubled in my mind, if that is possible. I picked up the binoculars and swivelled among the guests. I located Kim. She was talking to a tall young man with his back to me. It could have been Marlon or Marek. She had a glass in her hand.

  It had clouded over without my noticing and began to pour with rain. This put paid to the deck. They all scurried inside. You’d think that might have decreased the decibels, but there wasn’t much difference. The French doors remained wide open.

  I made a small supper and turned on the TV, for on
ce, in the hope of distraction. Sat in front of it for some considerable time before realising I had no idea what programme it was.

  I was only partially relieved when Kim did, surprisingly, show up, carrying a toothbrush and Andie’s bed. Frank said he needed her room for the friends staying the night, she explained, rather off-handedly I thought. No idea what time I went to bed. Thought she better get over here by ten-thirty. But the party would go on for ages, she added. I detected a touch of asperity.

  ‘I thought you didn’t enjoy parties,’ I said.

  ‘My age group I don’t. I don’t mind hanging out sometimes, with adults. Like, if I know some people a bit.’ She gave me a sidelong glance as she said this.

  And she knew several people there, as it turned out. Very vague about where she had met them. So, were they film people? Sort of, yeah. Musicians and stuff. People who’d worked with Frank. I judged it counterproductive to single out Marlon again. I suspected she had met all of them.

  She spotted the binoculars. Struck by what you could see in the front room, she quickly picked out Frank with Marek’s fiancée. Wiser not to say anything, I decided. I had a look. They were dancing, if you can call it that. Jiggling on the spot and flinging their arms in the air.

  I was surprised that Marek would have anything as conventional as a fiancée, I remarked. Kim seemed to regard this as disparaging. She had become rather uncommunicative, with a heightened demeanour. I could tell she’d had something to drink. More, unquestionably, than a single glass.

  ‘How much did you drink?’ I inquired.

  A pointed shrug. Not much. Some punch.

  Some strong punch, I thought. I held my tongue about this also.

  We made up a makeshift bed on the couch. A little two-seater, not a big sofa like theirs, but she said she could sleep anywhere. I told her to look at something on TV if she felt like it.

  ‘I don’t. Might look through the binoculars, but,’ she said. She is aware that I disapprove of putting prepositions last, and had been eliminating this practice.

  She is in the first flush of adolescence, I reflected. This is the period when girls are at their most impressionable. More susceptible to influences, perhaps, than at any other time in their lives. And consequently more vulnerable.

  It was not only the noise that kept me awake into the small hours.

  What am I going to do? What options do I have?

  This morning she was more or less back to normal. I left a packet of Aspro on the bathroom basin. Two tablets went, I noted. We had a quiet tea and toast on the verandah with the dogs. Teddy is more at ease with Andie, who has toned down her boisterousness somewhat. His outbursts of snarling growls, which can be quite terrifying, have reduced in frequency and in force. At one point the two of them were lying alongside each other. Kim entwined their tails. A pity there was no camera handy. She said she could always borrow Frank’s.

  I’ve never owned a camera since taking those pictures of the cave paintings, and that was a throwaway. I might invest in one. Or even in a digital. They’ve become much cheaper and easier to use, apparently, and you can take as many pictures as you like.

  It was cool but the sun was out. Everything was as quiet as the grave opposite. Some of the cars had gone, but there were still four parked at the side.

  Kim was engaged in the task of spreading peanut butter thickly on her toast, very slowly and deliberately; she appeared mesmerised by the process. Finally she put down the knife.

  ‘Thea.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve decided something.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘It’s something I really, really want to happen.’ Still seemingly riveted by the glistening grooves of peanut butter.

  ‘Hurry up, for imaginary god’s sake.’

  She sat bolt upright and transferred her gaze to me. ‘I want to have a writing life, Thea. Starting from this moment in time, sitting here at this little cane table. Shall we have another tea?’

  She poured tea from the teapot into the two mugs, staring at the amber stream with a powerful intensity. She was going to do what Oscar said. You know, Thea, what he said about developing the correct sensibility? Sort of squeezing every drop of juice from every small experience? And she was going to start writing every day. Like he said, just do it until it became a habit she couldn’t do without. A journal, to begin with.

  She looked at me searchingly. Did I think those were the right essential ingredients? For an ordinary existence to evolve into a writing life?

  ‘Writing a journal every day sounds good. Obsessively looking at everything might have value, if you can overlook the mind-numbing tedium,’ I said. ‘A love of reading is important, and you have that. But I also think the desire itself must be there. A desire that comprises wish, intention and – most crucial of all – the fierce drive to write.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I have that all right,’ she said. ‘I do definitely have a true, fierce desire and intention. A ferocious desire.’

  I was no expert, I said, but I thought those were the essential ingredients.

  Where that ferocious desire comes from in anyone remains a mystery. Must be a gift from the gods. Or the goddesses.

  I showed her the photographs I had taken of the cave paintings. They had sat in a drawer away from the light for thirteen years. This had the advantage of keeping the colour from fading. We pored over them for some time, no closer to solving the identity of the third set of marks.

  It was noon before there was any sign of life from across the way. Kim took her toothbrush and gathered up Andie and departed. She was going off to write an account of the party, she said. She assured me she would get her bed back tonight. All the gang were going home today.

  This is not reassuring to me. There is a certain safety in numbers. The cars departed at intervals during the afternoon. By nightfall, Frank’s was the only one left.

  It was colder tonight, and I lit my first fire of the year. I always leave the fireplace set at the end of winter. The supply of firewood will be well dried out in the woodshed, and we have collected a big heap of pine cones. Teddy and I have always enjoyed bringing kindling back from our walks. He carries a few sticks in his mouth and I take a basket.

  Lately I haven’t been very hungry at mealtimes. I have lost my appetite. But I know it is important to eat. I made myself some baked beans on toast with a grilled tomato and poached egg on top. Comfort food, I suppose, dating back to childhood. Then I succumbed to the urge that had been niggling at me for the past few days. From under the bed I took out the DVDs labelled MISTER WOLF, 1/2.

  Something prescient and methodical had made me tape Frank’s instructions to the DVD player and keep the remote control on top of my TV. I inserted the first disc tentatively and pressed play, without much confidence. To my considerable surprise, a picture came on.

  A whole series of pictures. It took a while before I realised these were disconnected phrases, a collection of unedited takes from different camera angles of the same scene. A rocking chair, then an animal’s head. A wolf’s head, under bedclothes. Shots of a cottage not unlike mine but considerably more charming. Huge daisies and other flowers in garish colours. Some full-screen close-ups of body parts – it took me some time before I realised what these were. They were entangled limbs. Then the rocking chair on the verandah with a motionless occupant seen from the back. A wolf’s snarling jaws. Various shots of a skipping figure among trees, distant, sometimes in silhouette, sometimes blurry and overexposed.

  After a while I tired of the disjointed nature of this. I removed the disc and put in number 2.

  Taking up the whole screen was the rocking chair in close-up, on the verandah of a timber cottage. Big, obviously artificial flowers curled over the verandah posts. The chair made a loud rhythmic squeak as it rocked. Then a pair of dirty old sneakers attached to legs in jeans. The long legs belonged to someone unseen who was lounging in the chair.

  The scene switched to sparse bushland in blinding sunlight. On
the soundtrack was the traditional children’s nursery rhyme, ‘Girls and Boys Come Out to Play’, only it crackled, as if it was on a radio but not quite on the station. In the distance you could just see a figure, very bleached out and indistinct, skipping towards the camera.

  Then a startling change. One after the other, coloured drawings of Australian animals, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, possums, sugar gliders. They occupied the whole screen. They looked like exuberant kindergarten pictures made by small children using thick crayons. And then a crudely drawn black snake in the grass. I thought of Frank.

  Back to the rocking chair. The abrupt buzz of cicadas. Swooping cockatoos and parrots. The camera panned slowly upwards from the narrow blue jeans to a toned, muscular chest. A brawny young man seen from the front, his face obscured. The camera reached the head, which suddenly spun round. I jumped. It was the head of a real wolf, an actual animal superimposed on the young man’s torso. It echoed the famous scene in the old Psycho film of the 1950s, when you suddenly see the head of an old woman in a rocking chair and it is revealed to be a skull. I had watched that film on TV with Matthew Rhode.

  The skipping figure. Now you could just see it was a girl. A little closer, a little less fuzzy but still very washed out. I supposed this was deliberate. As she advanced you began to make out white ankle socks and black patent leather bar shoes, and a very short pinafore dress.

  The wolfman was climbing into a narrow bed, pulling up the covers. Now the wolf head was an obvious model. It was set on the neck at an awkward angle, with a grandmother’s bonnet tied under the chin and large, round spectacles.

  The girl approached the house. A slender girl in bright light. No music, but in the background a children’s chant – ‘What’s the Time, Mister Wolf?’ – repeated hypnotically and increasing in volume. The girl, skipping lightly up the steps of the verandah. An alice band over cropped dark hair. The glint of a jade bangle on her wrist.

  I lean forward, nearly hitting my forehead on my small TV screen, unable to believe the evidence of my eyes. Is it? I cannot be sure. The hair is very short, as it was when I first saw her. The camera moves behind her back as the chant intensifies. She enters the bedroom. The bedclothes are humped over a long, lumpy shape, with only the bonnet visible.