She looks around and takes a breath. This is where Mahalia has lived for most of the time she’s been away. All the time Emily was in the mountains, wandering the windy streets, sleeping in Pete’s bed in the afternoons and having cups of tea with Martin in the garden, this has been her life. Emily has been unable to imagine it. She was afraid to imagine it, but now she is here and they are gone she feels pain and sweet nostalgia.
Downstairs, the front room is a mess of boxes and old furniture; it looks as though it’s used as a storeroom. There’s a sound from the kitchen, and Emily walks down the short hallway in that direction. The girl who’d opened the door (Eliza, is it? Emily can barely remember her name) stands at the opened refrigerator eating fruit yoghurt from a large tub. She’s dressed in a fancy, old white lace petticoat, and scuffed work boots.
‘I’m going now,’ says Emily. ‘Can you let them know I was looking for them?’
The girl licks yoghurt from her lips and puts the tub away. She has a head of long curls that she has to keep flinging back from her face. ‘I’ll see you out,’ she says, and follows Emily back down the hall. Emily can hear the sound of her boots tramping behind her; she’s very heavy on her feet.
Emily returns to her parents’ place.
‘Where’s Mahalia?’ says her mother.
‘They weren’t there.’
Emily speaks without evident emotion, but inside she has a spring coiled up, threatening to unwind. If she allows it to snap she will let out a long, agonising wail.
She goes and lies on her bed. She won’t allow herself to cry. In a little while she gets up and rings Matt’s mother, who says that they aren’t at her place without a hint in her voice that something might be wrong.
So perhaps it’s nothing. They’ve just gone away for a day or two.
She paces about the house, can’t eat, and finally lies sleepless in the dark. Her father comes and sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing the hair from her forehead. ‘We’ll figure something out,’ he says. ‘She’ll be okay. Try to get some sleep.’
Very much later, as she still lies there with dry eyes, her mother appears at the doorway, a silhouette against the nightlight in the hall. ‘Emily?’ she says, in a hesitant voice. ‘May I come in?’
Emily doesn’t reply, but she feels the mattress dip as her mother sits down next to her. It creaks as Emily turns round to face her; her mother is a padded shape in the dark, round and plump in a summer brunch coat. She never wears perfume, but ever since Emily can remember she has smelt of the same floral bath soap. She doesn’t say anything, but reaches out and takes Emily’s hand. Emily can hear her clock ticking, her pink ballerina clock that she’s had since she was a child. The numerals on its face are lit up in the darkness. It must have been steadily ticking away like that all the time she’s been away.
Emily knows that she doesn’t need to do or say anything, simply sit there with her mother’s hand in hers. She falls asleep with her mother sitting there beside her. When she wakes in the morning it has come to her where Matt and Mahalia might be.
6
It isn’t possible to drive all the way to the van. There is a parking place near the top of the hill; from there on you have to go on foot. It is mid-morning, shrill with cicadas, by the time Emily walks into the clearing where Matt watches her approach. Mahalia is nowhere to be seen.
She is in the van, exclaiming over a butterfly flapping against the glass. Matt opens the window and lets it go, and Mahalia cries. Matt picks her up and sings to her to quiet her. ‘You’ve learned to sing,’ says Emily, her words seeming to rasp, sounding strange to herself. Emily looks at her baby with surprise. She still isn’t used to the realness of her.
‘You funny little thing,’ she says with wonder.
She bends down to look into Mahalia’s face and says firmly, in a louder voice, ‘You’re a funny little thing. Do you know that?’
Emily takes Mahalia down to the bed, which is unmade and tangled with limp bedclothes. She lies down and closes her eyes. Her body remembers being here. She imagines she can still smell herself on the sheets. Her fingers reach back onto a shelf above the bed and find a pair of star-shaped earrings; she tucks them into the pocket of her jeans.
She remembers how it had been then. But this is now.
She can feel the sweet weight of Mahalia clambering on top of her and makes no effort to push her away. Everything seems like a dream; she is sick and light-headed from grief and lack of sleep. And she finds herself somehow at the door of the van, and then outside, staring out at the hills, at that view, which once enthralled and then oppressed her.
‘I was too young. We were both too young. We should never have had her.’
And it feels like the truth and not the truth at the same time, but someone has said it. It must have been her, because Matt is crying. Real, unfettered tears are coming from his eyes, falling like rain. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t say that!’
‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
She knows that it isn’t all right to wish that your own child had never been born. She thinks fiercely that even though she now loves Mahalia enough to kill for her, enough to hurt Matt beyond belief it seems, it is still the way she feels.
‘There’s no chance of us getting together again, is there.’ It isn’t a question that he’s asking.
‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s gone beyond that.’
She can hear herself swallow.
Matt says, ‘You should have seen her the first time she walked. I might easily have missed it, but I was there.
‘She was holding herself up with this bloody washing basket and pushing it along. And then she saw me and let go . . .’
He has tears in his eyes. She can see he’s almost crying. But he blinks them away.
She and Matt spend a long time talking. Emily has an impression of hours passing, though it’s probably only minutes. By the time they’ve finally packed up and left the van for good, it is still not much after midday.
Matt says, the words coming from him with difficulty, ‘I just want you to explain why you went away.’
Emily looks out at the endless view – all that blue sky. Despite the difficulties she and Matt are having now, a feeling of hope and possibility has returned to her. She isn’t the same person who had gone away. She isn’t even the same person that Matt had once known, when they had planned for their baby with such foolish confidence.
No ordinary words can explain how she had felt. The heaviness, and blackness. The feeling of having a weight inside her, but at the same time having a huge hole there, too.
So Emily tries, and stumbles; she can hear how feeble it sounds, because no words can convey that feeling. So she rushes in with more words, and that’s all they are: words to fill in the spaces, because no one could understand. She doesn’t even understand it herself, and now that it’s over it seems as though it has all happened long ago, or in a dream, or to someone else.
She sees Mahalia, sitting on the ground putting stones into an old plastic pot, with such intent and beautiful concentration. Emily feels with exultation, I love her. I love her! She runs over and squats in front of her and tickles her on her fat foot. Mahalia squirms and laughs. ‘Incy-wincy spider,’ says Emily, walking her fingers up Mahalia’s leg.
But then Matt comes over and seizes the baby, scooping her up from the ground and holding her so tightly Emily thinks that he might crush her. She goes to him and puts her hand to his cheek. Her fingers are pale against his brown skin. ‘Don’t look like that,’ she says.
‘Like what?’
Like you want to die, or something. Emily doesn’t say anything. Mahalia wriggles to get free and he puts her on the ground.
‘I’m good at looking after her,’ he says. ‘It’s what I do really well. I won’t let you take her away from me!’
Then Emily says the thing she almost instantly regrets, and the words seem to make the world stop. Even the cicadas cease their shrilling. Only Mahalia continues doing wh
at she is doing, contentedly and steadily putting stones into the pot. And when she’s filled it up at last she tips them all out onto the ground again.
Afterwards, Emily drops Matt and Mahalia back at their place, and it feels like that, their place, as she watches them go up to the old shop door, where Matt puts their belongings down on the ground and searches in his pockets for the key. Emily doesn’t wait for them to go in. In the rear-view mirror she sees Mahalia still waving to her as she drives away.
Emily doesn’t go back to her parents straight away. She stops the car down near the river to think, and sits with the afternoon sun blazing in. She doesn’t like to think of what she said to Matt up at the van, but she has to remember it and own up to it.
She said, ‘I could take it court!’
And at that moment she meant it, because she wanted Mahalia all to herself.
‘And you’d probably win,’ said Matt, sounding defeated. ‘Because you’re her mother . . . But you don’t want that, do you?’
‘No,’ she admitted defensively.
It won’t come to that. Some people would say that Matt had won. But there isn’t any winning where children are concerned, and maybe Mahalia has won, because they’ve agreed, after all that, to share looking after her.
‘Let her keep living with me,’ Matt said. ‘For now, anyway. I don’t want to take her away from you – I’d never do that. But she’s her own person. Getting more like that every day. Maybe one day she’ll want to go and live with you.’
Emily thinks about the old shop that has been Mahalia’s home since she’s been away; the room painted dirty yellow, the verandah with the weathered timber floor, and people who cycle past and wave. The back yard has a sandpit. It isn’t a bad place for a baby. And Matt looks after her well, she can see that.
Emily starts the car and points the nose homewards.
7
(A postcard: the north head of the Brunswick River and New Brighton beach from the air)
Dear Pete,
This is the beach where I am today. There are some rocks in the water in front of me that look like a whole lot of shark fins, and I’ve just met a dog that wants me to keep throwing a stick for it to fetch. It’s a cute dog, so ugly it’s almost beautiful. It was great to get your phone call. I forgot that you were starting school this year – is it still good fun? I am also at school now, and Martin’s probably told you I have a baby, called Mahalia – maybe you’ll meet her one day.
Lots of luv,
Emmy XXXX
Dear Martin,
It was amazing to get a call from you and Pete last week – of course I hadn’t forgotten you. But I’m terrible at keeping in contact with people.
Fancy you being back teaching this year! But with Pete at school I guess you don’t need to stay home. I’m back at school, too. It’s okay too – just! – but difficult with a baby. Sometimes I get so tired I want to scream. I’m really lucky that Matt and I share looking after her, and my parents are keen babysitters, so is Matt’s mother – so as you can see I have it pretty easy really.
I didn’t say a lot on the phone the other night because my parents were kind of hanging around. So what am I doing? – can’t even remember what I told you cos I was so excited to hear from you – I’m living at home with my parents. That’s okay – we’re all trying to get along, which we do mostly.
Matt and I didn’t get together again but we have kind of figured things out – for now. We share looking after Mahalia, but she’s with Matt most of the time.
I have plans for the future. At the moment I’m living at home till I finish my HSC, which will be the end of next year. Then I want to get into uni here at Lismore. I had all sorts of wild ideas at first of going away and studying to be a vet or something glamorous, but with Matt living here I have to stick around. And – can you believe this? – I have almost decided that I will do primary teaching. So many reasons – like getting the school hols off etc., but I also think I’m pretty good at being with little kids – and I like them. When I do go to uni I’d like to get a flat on my own or go into a share house or something.
AND . . . I’m hoping to bring Mahalia to the Blue Mountains after Christmas for a holiday to see Charlotte, and visit you all. She’ll be almost two then – should I start getting worried? I can sometimes see my mother looking at us both when Mahalia’s playing up a bit and thinking, Just you wait till she’s a teenager!
That’s all for now. I’m on my own here today. Sometimes I bring Mahalia, but she’s with Matt this weekend. He and I plan to bring her to the beach together in a couple of weeks. As you can see from my card to Pete, this beach is long and almost deserted. There are a few houses along the beachfront, but you can’t see them from the beach – it’s all bush.
Who is here with me: a black dog that wants me to throw a stick for it (for the umpteenth time); two seagulls squabbling over a piece of old fish; a pregnant woman in a bikini holding the hand of her toddler in the surf; someone doing yoga; a small sand crab.
Please write back!
Love,
Emily
XXX
Emily folds the letter and puts it into her bag. It seems such a long letter but it still hasn’t told Martin everything. There are some things that she thinks you can never tell other people. Do you know what I think? she could have written. I think that people are mysterious and unknowable, especially your own self. I’m still finding out things about myself that I’d never dreamed possible.
Pulling off her T-shirt and hat, she runs down to the water and makes her way out into the waves, broaching them side-on until finally she takes a deep breath and dives under.
She stays in the surf till she’s waterlogged, emerges exhilarated, and flops down at the place where the waves run up onto the sand, the magical place where the sea kisses the land, and where the damp sand reflects the sky, so that it appears almost luminous.
She spreads herself out in a star shape and closes her eyes, rolling back and forth on her back in the shallow water. The only thing she can hear is the pounding of the waves – or perhaps it’s her own heartbeat. After a while she opens her eyes and looks at the sky.
She had forgotten that it’s such a clear, transparent blue.
8
(A postcard: Paris through the Window, by Marc Chagall, 1913)
The frame of the window is streaked with bright colours, yellow, red, green and blue. A bunch of flowers sits on a chair beneath it. A yellow cat with a human face sits on the sill. There is a figure in the right bottom corner with two heads, one of them blue. The city is outlined, with the Eiffel Tower predominating. The tiny figures of a man and a woman lie outstretched, floating. They look like insects. A man floats suspended in the sky beneath a triangular shape that could be a parachute.
It is such a mad, joyful, colourful picture that looking at it makes Emily smile.
She turns the postcard over and reads it again.
Hi Emily,
Took my Year Six class down to the city to the Art Gallery and found this card in the shop. Thought of you the moment I saw it – isn’t it great? No angels this time, just ordinary (ordinary?) people.
Looking forward to you bringing Mahalia to the mountains in the holidays. Pete’s wondering if she’ll be able to play soccer – it’s his latest thing.
Letter following (when I find the time) – or I’ll phone if I’m lazy.
Cat says to say Hi.
Love,
Martin
Emily slides the postcard into the textbook she’s meant to be reading. ‘Mahalia!’ she calls. ‘Put your hat back on!’
Matt says, ‘She’s always hated hats,’ and runs over to where she’s thrown it down. He goes after her and pops it back onto her head, tying it again under her chin. A woman walking past smiles at them all; Emily can see that she thinks they’re a family – which they are, after a fashion.
Emily lies down and soaks up the late winter sun. She has a lightness that is new to her. At the same ti
me she is heavy, but a pleasant heaviness, grounded in the earth. She feels a new pleasure in her body. Rubbing sunscreen into her belly she notices the faintest of marks there, a few fine, silvery lines where the skin had pulled and stretched when she was pregnant. On her inner arms the scars have also faded and are almost unnoticeable. Matt certainly doesn’t seem to have noticed them, though she doesn’t go out of her way to display that part of her body. I have changed, she thinks. I’ve lived. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve survived.
In the mountains it will still be cold and misty and damp. She thinks of Martin in his heavy black coat – how he seemed to recognise her that day at the lookout. ‘I didn’t see you standing there,’ he’d said. It astonishes her that it was a whole year ago she was there.
She looks over at Matt; he is sitting upright on his towel; never once has he taken his eyes from Mahalia. They both watch as she struggles up the soft sand towards them, spilling water from her bucket; she sings, over and over, in three descending notes, ‘La, la, la . . . La, la, la . . .’
‘Who’s been teaching her to sing?’ says Emily. ‘Eliza?’
Matt blushes and grins. ‘Yeah.’
‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ says Emily teasingly. ‘I know you two are an item. I’m okay with that.’
Though she wonders whether she is, really.
Emily looks at the sea where the waves roll in, the foam on their crests like the manes of galloping horses. ‘Remember the time I rode that horse up the beach?’ she says.
Matt grins and looks at her shyly.
‘I was so . . .’
‘What?’
‘Carefree. Self-centred. Still am a bit. I’m the most imperfect person I know.’
Little Wing Page 12
