Goodbye Sweetheart

by Marion Halligan

  Ferdie offered white wine, Nerys asked for herbal tea. Ferdie couldn’t find any, then he uncovered some rather old-looking peppermint at the back of the cupboard. I think the wine might be better, he said. Nerys shook her head.

  I’m so sorry about William, she said. Such a loss . . .

  Erin came in, in a rush, not paying attention. How’s your French? she asked Ferdie.

  Depends. He was phoning Lynette.

  La Tuile à Loup. How would you translate it?

  Say it again?

  Erin wrote it on a piece of paper.

  Oh yes. The Wolf Tile, I suppose. What’s it about?

  It’s the name of a shop in Paris. Mum took me. It has a whole lot of painted ceramics. Pretty nice. That’s one. She pointed to a bowl in yellow earthenware, thickly painted in brown and turquoise. I knew wolf. I need to know about wolves, I’m collecting them.

  Slipware, said Nerys. You must be Erin. I’ve got something for you. She picked up her bag, sparkling with mirror embroidery, and took out a small package in a purple organza bag which had a strong perfume. Erin sniffed. It’s patchouli, said Nerys. An ancient Indian scent. Don’t worry, I’m Aurora’s mum.

  Hello.

  Inside the organza bag was a big piece of quartz, much the shape of a heart. It was heavy, with a milky translucence. It filled Erin’s hand.

  It’s quartz, said Nerys. One of the most important crystals. It brings the energy of the stars into the soul.

  Oh, said Erin. Thank you. It’s lovely.

  Remember. The energy of the stars into the soul.

  How will I know?

  Ah, I think you’ll know.

  Erin said to Ferdie, What’s it mean? The Wolf Tile?

  Ferdie shook his head. I think I can translate it, but I don’t know what it means.

  I do, said Nerys. It comes from the high remote villages of country France. At certain times of the year, wintry times, the wind blows from a particular direction, and that causes a tile on the roof—I expect it’s placed on purpose—to make a knocking sound, and that is a warning that the season of wolves is coming. When the wind blows and the tile bangs, then you must beware of wolves.

  Erin shivered. Aurora said, How do you know?

  I’ve been to that shop too. They give you a slip of paper with the story written on it. It’s a very posh shop in the Latin Quarter, a long way from wolves.

  Listen, said Ferdie, the wind . . . Can you hear the tile knocking?

  You don’t get wolves here, said Erin.

  Don’t you? Are you sure?

  Yes, said Aurora. We’re all sure.

  Dangerous, said Ferdie. Dangerous to dismiss them. When we were small, driving through the pine forest, we always kept a lookout for wolves.

  The pine forest, said Nerys. The one near the dam? That’s about as big as a backyard.

  Room for wolves to lurk.

  Nerys said, You have to look them clear in the eye. Then they can’t hurt you.

  Really? said Erin.

  The thing about wolves, said Nerys, is they are much more endangered than we are. They might once have been a worry in the depths of the countryside in winter, but now, well, with our usual skill we’ve done a lot of work wiping them out.

  My wolves are beautiful, said Erin. Fierce, of course.

  And not very nearby, said Nerys.

  There was one of those odd moments of silence, when nobody has anything to say. Nerys looked at the people in the room. Aurora, and Ferdie, and Erin: One each, she said, he allowed each wife one child.

  Do you think it was allowed? asked Ferdie.

  It looks like it, wouldn’t you say?

  I thought it just happened.

  William was good at control.

  Lynette came into the house, looking distraught. At first she didn’t see Nerys, she went to the fridge to get a glass of white wine. Good heavens, she said, but recovered and gave her a hug.

  I’m sorry about William, said Nerys.

  Yes. Yes.

  I wanted to come to Canberra so I thought it would be a good chance. We’re at the Hyatt. Acacia’s with me.

  How’s Acacia? said Aurora.

  Who’s Acacia? said Lynette. She filled the wine glass too full. Oh shit. It’s all shit, isn’t it. I never thought that before. She bent her head and sucked up a draught of the wine.

  Acacia’s good on death and grief, said Nerys. Everybody needs help, even if they won’t admit it. You don’t look well at all, Lynette.

  I’m not. I’m not well at all. I’m going to bed. Sorry, but I can’t think of anything any more. And there isn’t going to be a funeral. Lynette paused then walked carefully out of the room, her arms extended as if to support herself on the furniture on her way, except there was a glass in one hand, but though she wavered she got to the door safely and on her own. She stopped there, didn’t turn round. You too, Erin sweetheart, she said, you should be in bed too. They heard her feet heavy on the stairs.

  I brought her some crystals, said Nerys. She took up the mirror bag again and pulled out a turquoise organza pouch. She held up several long faceted stones on fine loops of chain. The light glittered in them, endless sparkles. Teardrop crystals, she said. They symbolise the end of tears and the beginning of joy and happiness. Feng shui. Channels the energy. Looks like she needs them.

  Maybe we could hang them up, said Aurora, they could start working. In the window, perhaps. The end of tears and the beginning of happiness. We could all do with that.

  Nerys gave her a sharp look. Good thinking, she said.

  Keeping the wolves away, said Aurora.

  What did she mean, no funeral? asked Ferdie.

  No funeral, I suppose, said Nerys.

  THE GARDEN IS FULL OF FOG

  Ferdie slept with the bedroom curtains open, and woke the next morning to a dim grey light. He liked to wake early and not get up, to snuggle deep under the doona, the silky smoothness of the sheets. Egyptian cotton they were, 850 thread count, which meant they were very fine, you could hardly see the weave at all. They made him think of Berenice’s olive-green satin sheets, their quite other slipperiness. He had never slept all night in those sheets, never woken in the morning to them. He somehow imagined them being difficult to sleep in, inclined to fall off, get lost, ruck up, but he didn’t know.

  Lying in bed like this he recollected once more Socrates and his remark that the unexamined life is not worth living. This was what he was doing, examining his life, not with rigorous thought processes but with wandering steps that found strange pathways and connections. Berenice was her satin sheets and her spread of red hair, she took him to Pegasus and the lost Jimmy Choos (he’d found out what they cost and felt sick) and the sinister oak forest and Pegasus’s mistress, his gorgeous great-aunt Pepita.

  William was her nephew. She’d never had children and now William was lost: father, nephew, husband. Trying to examine the death of William was hard work. You could summon up grief but other thoughts came. Wives. Children. Ferdie’s mother, Helen as he had such difficulty calling her. Who didn’t pay attention to sheets; hers had an airless synthetic harshness. Would his mother be happier if she worried more about sheets? How could worrying make you happier? But it could if it was about something quotidian like sheets and controllable and easy, something orderly and ancient and the domain of women who kept good houses, rather than huge and black and unassailable like a husband’s betrayal. Nerys, Helen, Lynette, all betrayed. Lynette not finding out till after his death. Nerys, maybe not betrayed but betraying. Such a heavy word, betray, you could not use it lightly, it had to be heaved, and with a proper respect.

  Nerys and William: maybe not betrayal but consent. And Barbara? Was she betrayed?

  Ferdie wondered why the unexamined life is not worth living. Might not examining it wreck it? Might it not be better to go on heedlessly, simply living it? Being a lily of the field, being. Was that what Berenice did? He wasn’t sure he admired her for it. Envied her, perhaps. Whereas he did admire
Pepita, and she was an examiner, so it seemed to him.

  He pushed the doona back and got out of bed. The room was warm. Lynette had the central heating set to come on well before anybody might think of getting up. When he looked out the window he saw a dim grey light pressed up against the glass, still, palpable, faintly luminous. Close to the house it was thin enough to see through, farther away it was opaque. At the bottom of the garden he could make out a figure, standing, not doing anything, watching, perhaps, though Ferdie couldn’t tell whether it was the wall he was gazing at or the house. He was a shape, faceless. He was standing just where they were planning to plant the olive trees, and Ferdie thought that maybe it was the gardener come to do that, since the rest of them seemed to be failing. Day after day the olive trees were due to be planted, and never were.

  He dragged his clothes on and ran downstairs, thinking he didn’t need to do this, since Lynette must have organised it, but he hurried just the same. It took seconds to open the back door with its deadlock, and when he went along the path and across the lawn, through the uncanny silence of the fog, down to the place in the corner of the garden where the olives were to be planted, there was no one there. The trees, their roots wrapped in bulging sacks, stood about; forlorn was the word that came to mind.

  He walked over to the gate that gave on to the side street; it was locked, as usual, nobody went in or out that way. He looked at the lawn. He could see his own footprints in its wetness, no others. He went round to the front of the house. The big gates still stood open. The man must have been checking up and slipped away in the time it took Ferdie to get down the stairs. Still, he felt annoyed. As if something was happening that he couldn’t help. Unless, maybe, he had seen a shadow, a thickening of the fog; a trick of the light, as people sometimes said . . .

  Aurora’s car pulled into the driveway, turned aside and parked beside Lynette’s.

  You’re early, he said, kissing her.

  No I’m not, I’m late.

  What’s the time?

  Ten o’clock.

  What? Good grief. I thought it was about seven. What’s happening? Nobody’s about.

  It’s the fog.

  I saw someone, down near the olives, but he’s disappeared.

  Maybe it was William.

  A ghost, you mean?

  A spirit, not wanting to leave its earthly places?

  You don’t think that, do you?

  It’s a thing to think.

  Well, since he’s apparently not going to get a funeral, maybe he’s staying around.

  I don’t think Lynette meant that. She was upset.

  They went into the kitchen and Ferdie set to making coffee. Erin came sleepily into the room. Too late, she said, I can’t go to school today.

  What’s going on? he asked.

  Erin shrugged. Mum didn’t wake me up. Cool. I don’t want to go to school, everyone is so nice to me.

  Is she all right?

  Mum? I don’t know.

  Maybe you could go and see? Wait a minute. Take her some coffee.

  Erin pulled faces, but she went. She came back with the coffee. She’s asleep. I didn’t like to wake her.

  Aurora went into the downstairs lavatory. She was gone a long time. When she came back she was crying. I think I was pregnant, she said. Ferdie went to put his arms around her but she pushed him away and squatted on the ground in a corner formed by the cupboards, pressing herself into the space, her sobs coming in hiccups. Erin began to cry too.

  There was a ring at the doorbell. Nerys, with Acacia. Ferdie stared at the tall brown-skinned woman with the flare of white hair, the lean face lightly skeined with wrinkles. Nerys, looking small and round and smart and vivid in black jeans and boots and a poncho of crimson alpaca, introduced her. Acacia put her hands together in a prayerful point and bowed. The blessings of the goddess, she murmured. Nerys with a sketchy gesture repeated the action.

  Aurora pressed her face further into the corner of the cupboards and went on sobbing. Nerys seemed to understand this; she sat beside her and stroked her arm. I don’t like these high-tech interventions, she said. I don’t think any good comes of them. Poor violated creature.

  I think she should come and stay with us in the rainforest, said Acacia. In a healing environment. We’ll work out the right natural therapies for her. She needs soothing and healing.

  We don’t live in the rainforest yet.

  Soon, said Acacia.

  Aurora slid down the cupboards until she was flat on the floor. She pressed her stomach down hard and her legs twitched. She held her face in her hands and began to moan; the moans and the movement of her legs made a grim rhythmic pattern, a pattern she was locked into and could not stop.

  Ferdie was afraid of seeing red stains but she was wearing black trousers and there didn’t seem to be any. He walked to the other end of the room and looked through the French windows at the dripping garden. The fog still thickened the light. It didn’t swirl, it hung, in the bare branches of the elm, more thinly in the fruit trees edging the swimming pool fence, vaporous, breathless, waiting. For a moment he was in Pepita’s garden in the misty winter, with its moistness and cold smells, and it was quite a different feel, but then with a small snap it was Canberra again and the leafless trees of his father’s garden. My father’s garden, he said to himself. He always thought of it as Lynette’s garden.

  Aurora began to wail. First it seemed to be meaningless sounds, and then words, in a series of crescendos. Dead. Dead. He’s dead. Erin sat at the table, appalled. Nerys massaged Aurora’s back. Acacia stood, stately, formidable, inscrutable. Ferdie thought, if Pepita were here, none of this would be happening.

  He tried briskness. I shall make us all some coffee, he said. But the women had brought their own herbal tea. To release their psychic energy, said Acacia. Aurora should have some. Erin too.

  She found a big flowered teapot and took down a pile of small porcelain bowls from a shelf. Aurora went on wailing the words out and rocking her legs so that the sound and the movement were a kind of lament, a physical keening that filled the room. Nerys knelt beside her, spread the poncho over her and rubbed her back in the same rhythm as her wailing. She needs to do this, she said. The sound suspended time, except for Acacia placidly making her tea, handing out the porcelain bowls. Nerys sat on the floor and sipped, her fingers holding gingerly to the rim of the cup. Erin stared at hers. Ferdie touched his and thought, far too hot. He went and sat beside Aurora and pulled her up into his arms, quickly and quite roughly sitting her up and turning her around to him. Blood was pouring down her face, mixing in with tears and snot. My god, he said. She lay in his arms with her eyes closed. What have you done? What is it?

  I haven’t done, she said, it’s been done to me. Nerys grabbed a tea towel and mopped at her daughter’s face. Ferdie saw a thin shard of glass sticking into her temple. Gently he plucked it out. He remembered the glass that had been broken on this kitchen floor, how hard it had been to sweep it all up. This bit must have lain unnoticed in the corner where the cupboards met.

  Nerys looked at the sliver of glass and pressed at the wound with her tea towel. It’s because it’s on her temple, she said. Injuries to the temple always bleed a lot.

  Should we clean it up? Use some antiseptic?

  Erin, said Nerys. The child was staring at the steaming bowl of tea. Antiseptic? First aid? A look of terror crossed the girl’s face.

  Acacia opened cupboards and eventually found a basket with ti-tree oil, Dettol, plasters, cotton wool. She cleaned the wound and stuck a plaster over it. Aurora put her hand to her face and opened her eyes when she felt stickiness under her fingers. Nerys rinsed the tea towel in warm water, sponged her face, wiped her hands. Aurora lay back against Ferdie. He managed to stand up and pull her upright too and then with Nerys’s help got her into Lynette’s study, beside the kitchen, which had a daybed in it; they laid her down and covered her with a cashmere rug. Acacia brought the tea and tried to get her to drink some
. Ferdie pulled the curtains against the grey fog light.

  We’re going to have a look at the gallery, said Nerys. We thought we might have some lunch there. I was going to say does anybody want to come. But . . .

  Mm, said Ferdie, a nice thought. But I won’t leave Aurora.

  No, said Nerys. Well, we’ll see you later.

  He picked up his tea, which was cool now, and drank some. It was very herbal. He touched Erin’s arm. Why don’t you try a bit? She looked at him. I know, he said. Look. It’s still pretty foggy. You know the best place to be? In bed. He put his arm around her and led her away. I think we’re all really really tired. A good morning nap, that’s what we need.

  He wasn’t sure of this at all. He knew he was out of his depth in all this sadness. And what about Lynette? Was she all right?

  He looked out into the garden again. The distant fog was beginning to shred. He was in a house of sleeping women. All his family. Not his blood, that wasn’t it, but his family. All belonging in his heart. He would stay awake and watch over them. William is gone and I am the man of the family, said Ferdie to himself, who had never thought in such terms before.

  The end of tears and the beginning of joy. The crystals weren’t working too well yet.

  LYNETTE GETS UP LATE

  Lynette had slept late because of the fog darkness. When she looked at her clock it was already impossibly late so she didn’t try to get up. She was tired. She didn’t want to. She thought of that: I don’t want to. She thought what unfamiliar words they were to her. They weren’t words that shaped her days. She thought of William. He was good at I don’t want to. Just as he was at I want to. I am practising, Lynette said to herself. I don’t want to get up. I want to stay in bed. I don’t want to have a funeral. I don’t want to run a shop.

  That was a surprise. She hadn’t known she thought that. She could sell the shop. Not be responsible for all that detail. Would she? Could she? She didn’t know. But she did know that thinking it, lying warm under a many-feathered doona, was a wonderfully comfortable thought. That was William, of course, he sang a little song, Life is a many-feathered doona. With lots of vibrato. It was a joke but she didn’t know how. There’d be some obscure reference.