The Other Side of the World

by Stephanie Bishop

  Charlotte never had one of those things, a linen chest. At least he doesn’t think so. But maybe she did. That nice damask tablecloth now stained with gravy.

  26 down: Wise man (4). Sage.

  He drifts over the cryptic, his mind bouncing off the clues. Bury lost letters in an earthy way. Chop hardwood. Forced out. Weathers outburst. Lapse. My other. Windy, half heard. He prefers them as hints of a poem. What’s the point of an answer?

  “Trousseau,” says Charlotte. Very good. They sit close together, the armchairs at a slight angle, facing the fire. Their feet rest on the same footstool, clover-shaped, covered in carpet, turquoise with pink roses. Henry bends his foot to touch Charlotte’s, the two of them wearing the woolen socks she knitted by that very fire some winters past. Henry’s socks are blue-and-brown striped, Charlotte’s plain red. She leans her foot towards Henry’s. A strong gust of wind rattles the windows.

  “I do love you,” he says quietly, catching her foot between his. She reaches over, picks up his hand, kisses it. This is the apology. His skin smells of smoke from the fire, soap. She puts his hand down and knits a little more. After a while she says, “If you find a job. If you find a job, I’ll go.”

  Fine, she’d said. Fine. Then, on a whim: If you find a job, I’ll go. It was a token only, a conciliatory gesture. She’d thought this condition would make the move impossible. She thought, rashly, that it would be enough to stall him. But he applied for work all over Australia. Then the letter arrived, offering him a job in Perth. Dear Dr. Blackwood, we are delighted to offer you the position of ­lecturer in English literature . . . They could travel as sponsored migrants, no need to stay in the hostels and take some god-awful work just to eat. Henry found them a partly furnished house, a car, even a television.

  She lies in bed, thinking and listening. It is December, winter is upon them. Across the hall the children sleep. Lucie and the baby, already eight months old—a plump little girl whom they named May. From outside comes the sound of the wind as it tears through tall field grass, their small white cottage moored in this endless stretch of weedy green. She hears the wind whistling through the keyhole and at the gaps beneath closed doors. It passes through the worn seals of the windows—the thin current cold on the back of her neck.

  What will it look like, she wonders, the new house? She’d seen the blurry black-and-white photograph of a place ­surrounded by leaves. Clear sky above. There are four bedrooms, a big garden. There are fruit trees, Henry said. The river nearby. The beach not far.

  The floor creaks as the old boards shift with the gale. This is the ship, Charlotte thinks, sleepily—certain she feels the house pitch and sway under the onslaught. But no—that is tomorrow. Tomorrow they leave. Soon she will be at sea and the house ­empty. It seems impossible and therefore magical—the idea that they will soon find themselves on the far side of the world. One day I will wake up and I will be there, she says to herself, over and over. One day. And we will be there. One day.

  Beside her Henry dreams, his tongue flailing about in the dark cave of his mouth, trying to make word shapes. A loose, airy string of sounds reaches her as she lies there listening for the moment when she’ll need to put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him—the moment when his half-formed words become an inarticulate cry, preceded, always, by the twitching of his legs as though he were running from something. He always dreams this way. Then she will say, “You were dreaming,” and he will not remember of what.

  Around them the bedroom air is damp and warm, smelling faintly of old apples, fermented and sweet. In the dark, the dormant garden bed bristles under frost. Charlotte thinks of the bulbs nudging the dark loam, of the rose hips and the brown stems of last season’s hollyhocks left standing to provide a perch for small birds. She will miss the garden. It is a tiny plot, all mud in winter and little bigger than the rug on the living room floor, but Charlotte had planted it out, tended it, watched for signs.

  She moves closer to Henry. Her stomach turns at the thought of leaving—but it is done now, she tells herself. It is done. She has said yes. She said yes because he is her husband. She said yes because she didn’t know what else to do. Yes, she said, although she regrets it now—yes, it would be better for the children. She fusses with the pillows, restless, unable to sleep, her mind full of visions. She thinks of the place they’re heading for: Perth, City of Light. Charlotte imagines it—a bright speck on the edge of the world, glimpsed from space. The most isolated city on the most isolated continent. “But of all Australian cities,” Henry told her, “it is the closest one to England.”

  “And that’s meant to comfort?” she replied.

  She imagines it to be a city rising out of red desert, with kangaroos hopping down the main street. She imagines savages with bones through the cartilage of their noses and spears in hand coming to greet them at the port. She has read this—that such people live there—and that they themselves, the Blackwoods, may have to survive without electricity or running water. She does not tell Henry these fears. She wants to be brave. He has assured her that it will be just like England, only a little different. There will be plenty of sunshine and cheap meat.

  Henry’s breathing quiets. His tongue falls still, soft against the floor of his mouth. His hands rest beside his head as if in prayer. She moves her face closer to his—his breath gusts, warm and slightly rancid. She can hear his watch ticking. It is an old watch that his father gave him. It has gold hands, roman numerals. Each night he wears this watch to bed, although he cannot possibly see what time it is in the dark. She listens to the tick tick tick and when sleep finally comes she dreams.

  In the dream she is in hiding. She is in an attic and outside there is a war. The guns go click click click. Distant, but still too close. The other man hiding in the attic with her had escaped through the roof, pushing out a skylight, but she was afraid that if she stood on the roof she would be shot. Eventually Henry comes for her and they kiss. It has been so long since they have kissed. Her whole body softens towards him. He puts one hand to her back and takes hold of her long hair with the other. Their mouths press hard. When he pulls away he says, “I have brought you food and water. There is a car waiting.” She doesn’t know how they will drive away and says this and starts to cry. She doesn’t know where they are. How they got there. What country. He kisses her again. His mouth is so soft; his tongue laps and flicks at hers. His lips are even softer, warmer, than she remembers. Again there is the sound of gunfire. She is wearing a purple dress. His hands move up and underneath the silky fabric. “Don’t worry,” says Henry, “there is a road.” There is a road. It is a bright hot day. They do not know where the road goes.

  * * *

  The sky is still dark when Charlotte sits on the edge of the bed in the morning, frowning into a small mirror. The house is almost empty—all that remains are the items belonging to the landlord: the beds, the kitchen table and chairs, a set of cheap crockery. They made sure to sell all the belongings that were not worth the cost of shipping, and had sold, too, many things they wished they could have kept: books they could not afford to send, a Victorian needlepoint lady’s chair, an ornate mirror that Henry was too superstitious to ship. In the end they sent the sofa and armchairs, a mahogany sideboard, the writing desk, the grandfather clock, and Charlotte’s dressing table. They packed their wedding gifts: silver cutlery, the Wedgwood dinner set, a Gibsons tea set, floor rugs and framed photographs, a green glass punchbowl and vase.

  She twists her hair into a bun, then powders her cheeks and nose. Her pale hand flickers over her face, applying lipstick and fastening her earrings. The left. The right. Downstairs Henry plays with the children. Their delighted squeals ricochet through the kitchen and up to the bedroom. Charlotte checks her watch. Nearly eight. She must hurry; the taxi is picking them up at half past and driving them to the station, where they will catch a train to London, then the official train to the Port of Tilbury. She dabs perfume behind e
ach ear, then slowly buttons her blouse, broken images surfacing and cutting across her vision, distracting her. A purple dress. A dirt road. She thinks of these things as she tugs on a skirt and cardigan, then pushes her feet into a pair of sensible shoes, the dream troubling, half-forgotten.

  As she comes down the stairs Charlotte hears the children’s happy squeals escalate and collapse into sobs. Lucie sits on the kitchen floor, clutching Alfred to her sweaty little chest and wailing; he cannot come with them and is to be donated to Frankie, the unfortunate-looking boy who lives nearby. Lucie is inconsolable and too choked up to swallow her breakfast. A lump of toast is lodged in the side of her mouth. As she cries, bits of soggy bread fall out onto the floor. “Your turn,” Henry says to Charlotte. Charlotte takes Lucie’s plate from his hands and kneels down beside her daughter while Henry paces by the front door; the taxi is due soon and he’s certain it will be late. In the background May starts screaming for milk.

  When the taxi still hasn’t arrived by quarter to nine, ­Henry begins to curse. “Damned drivers,” he mutters. “You’d think they could have—I should have known—when the boat’s due to leave—” Charlotte is in the kitchen, helping Lucie into her coat. Henry’s voice rises and falls as he marches towards the door and back the other way. Here he is again, coming towards them.

  “Two more minutes and I’ll have to call them. I’ll give them a—” Henry sneezes. He came down with a cold a few days earlier and now pulls a large striped handkerchief from his trouser pocket, shakes it out, and blows his nose. Once. Twice. It sounds like a trumpet.

  “Again? Do it again?” Lucie asks.

  Henry folds the handkerchief and pushes it deep into his pocket. He is exhausted. The last months have been a flurry of train rides to and from London, organizing bank accounts, arranging the sale of the car, renewing their passports, firing off telegrams, arranging movers and accommodation, to say nothing of planning for his new job: a lectureship at a sandstone university by the river. All Henry wants to do now is lie down and stay very still for a very, very long time. He leans his forehead against the glass paneling of the front door. He feels the cold coming through the keyhole. He feels it lower down, on his ankles, as it leaks in over the floor. He closes his eyes. And then he hears it. The tires crunching to a halt over the loose bitumen beside the front gate.

  Henry dashes out with the suitcases. Charlotte ushers Lucie from the kitchen and towards the vehicle. May wails in Charlotte’s arms. The driver loads the boot and Henry takes the baby while Charlotte runs back inside to fetch her handbag and Henry’s hat.

  On her way out she stops to take one last glance about the living room. Her footfalls echo. The sunlight plays over empty walls. The cottage feels larger, brighter. Perhaps they might have stayed. They do not have to go. She feels sadness everywhere she looks, memories everywhere she looks. It is their home. Suddenly it is not their home. She does not know how to make sense of this. She thinks of Lucie standing on the windowsill and watching the winter birds, of May lying on her back and cooing at the leaves of the potted geranium that wavered above her head in the mild autumn breeze. Without warning, her eyes start to sting with tears and her throat burns. Henry calls her name.

  “Charlotte? Charlotte—we need to go!”

  She steps outside, pulls the door shut, and puts the key through the brass flap of the letter box for the landlord to collect. Then she turns away.

  The weather changes as the taxi pulls out from the house. It is just a light fall at first, but as the car moves into the countryside the rain comes fast, drumming against the windscreen. All about is the light hush of water: the wheels turning over the wet road, the rain on the metal roof and on the bonnet and on the glass. Silver rivulets course over the surface of the window. Inside, the mist from their warm breath begins to swallow up the view. Charlotte pulls the sleeve of her cardigan down over her hand and wipes a circle clear, then opens her palm and presses her fingers against the passing scene: the waterlogged fields, the haze of winter trees in the distance—apple and ash, hawthorn and hazel. Past the ­greenery—the hedges of holly and common box, the ivy strangling the high walls of the occasional cottage and the low walls of the villages, of Saffron Walden and Harlow. Lights shine in some of the windows. Just a small yellow blur and they are gone.

  Charlotte shifts May onto the other side of her lap. Lucie turns the pages of a picture book. Henry rides in front, although he doesn’t talk to the driver. He’d been so cheerful in the days leading up to their departure, when the life that he had chosen for his family stood ahead of them. Now that they are on their way he is silent, his elbow resting against the edge of the window, a loose fist pressed against his mouth, his gaze jumping from one passing object to another.

  * * *

  They step off the train at Tilbury to find the huge white boat towering over them, Castel Felice painted on the side in large gold letters. The dock swarms with people. Beside the gangplank a brass band plays bright tunes: songs from Oliver and The Sound of Music. The conductor—a jaunty little man in a blue suit, the silver buttons of his jacket fastened over a firm round belly—flaps and prods his baton, smiling and red-faced despite the drizzle. The instruments shine in the rain.

  Charlotte never believed this moment would arrive. She ­always hoped, always felt sure, that something would occur to prevent it. They would not go. They could not go. It would not happen. Yet now the moment is before her; she begins to weep. She does not mean to but once she has begun she cannot stop. She wishes her mother were here. She wishes she had not, after all, forbidden her to see them off. Charlotte cannot help it: she sobs into her gloved palm, Lucie clinging to her free hand.

  * * *

  Henry holds May in his arms—the crowd pressing and jostling against them as they wait to board. He wishes his wife would not cry now, not in front of the children, for whom he wants this departure to be an uncomplicated, happy experience. If only Charlotte would not cry. There is the clacking of her bracelets as she wipes her face. The waft of her rose perfume.

  Part of him wishes he could feel this sadness with her—that there was a place he, too, wished never to leave. He remembers this from a long time ago: a different boat pulling out from a different port. His mother crying. Crowds, smoke, the heat. Birds circling in the sky. In the heart of the country there were fields of marigolds. Elsewhere, high mountains of green camellia. He used to long for these things. But such memories are old and worn now, emptied of real power. For a moment he envies Charlotte’s loss, then quickly pushes this feeling away.

  For him, England has always been a land of fairy tales: a world of pictures, of black-and-white sketches depicting pale, chubby children eating currant buns. A land of fairies and ­witches, hedgerows and secret gardens, goblins and magical woods. When he arrived here he was surprised to find it looked almost exactly as it did in the stories. The trees, the meadows, the little brick ­houses. He had not come to a real country but to a story come to life. Every day, then, he woke to a fantasy. And no matter how solid and cold and uncomfortable it was, he could never feel it was a country as such, could never quite believe that it had been formed from the same molten stuff that had made his birthplace. England was always secondary, always derivative, always an aftereffect of a story. Perhaps this is why, now, he can decide to leave it.

  He realizes the girls are staring silently at their mother. Mascara-blackened tears course down her cheeks. Again Charlotte wipes at her face with a sleeve, her eyes flitting away from the gaze of her family. Happiness is related to cheerfulness, Henry reasons, looking at his sad wife. Not the same, but near enough to be mistaken—for cheerfulness to be wrongly taken as a sign of happiness. Henry wishes the girls would look somewhere else—all of a sudden cheerfulness is imperative. To distract his children Henry mimics the happiness he no longer feels sure he can possess. He knows he ought to take Charlotte’s hand but is afraid of touching her. He is afraid of the sadness he has
caused. Instead he hoists May onto his shoulders and takes Lucie by the hand. He throws coins to the buskers, smiles, waves. May lifts her chubby arms above her head. She laughs and bounces.

  The four of them board the Castel Felice and find a space on deck from where they can look out over the railing towards the shore and the crowd. Charlotte feels the engine begin to rumble beneath her and sees the grimy water start to churn. Visitors are asked to leave the boat, and the gangplank is pulled aboard. Thick coils of brown rope are lifted away from the pilings and a horn sounds before a jet of black smoke is released into the air. People ashore cry and wave, some run towards the ship, others turn away. There are whistles, hoots, and calls. Paper streamers in bright shades of pink, blue, and green are thrown down from the deck and strings of colored flags sway between the masts. Passengers cast flowers into the crowd and bystanders toss their hats in the air, while a young woman in a polka-dot neck scarf stands weeping on the pier, pressing a pale handkerchief to a red mouth. On board, a small child in a grey coat and pink shoes jumps up and down in an attempt to see over the boat’s railing, wanting to take a last look at the country she will soon hardly recall.

  As the ship prepares to leave, Henry raises his arm, to everyone and no one in particular. It is hard to tell whether his loose wave is a gesture made in greeting or farewell, a hello that says, simultaneously, good-bye.

  Charlotte stands beside him, looking out, wanting to remember the scene in every detail, knowing she will forget. The colors, the shapes, the round, white faces of her country’s people. Over this the smells: fish, smoke, wet concrete, damp wool, and dog. The low cloud keeping the odors close. There are the grey-and-brown brick shop fronts and behind these, out of sight, the green land—the place of meadow and field, oak and birch, aspen and yew.