Carnival Sky

by Owen Marshall

  ‘It’s an awful thing, but you can’t wind back the clock,’ she said. They remained rather awkwardly together until Sheff took his arm away.

  ‘Well anyway, he’s got the very best of care,’ he said, with emphasis to cover the banality of the response. Why was it that he could find original and pertinent sentiments with regard to his work, yet have nothing of true comfort for those closest to him?

  The limited empathy over, they set the table for lunch, and were about to start without Georgie when she returned with a woman Sheff didn’t recognise. She was introduced as Jessica Woolfe, Georgie’s friend from as far back as primary school. Sheff remembered her as a straight-haired, thin girl, said to be bright. In womanhood her dark hair still hung without wave or curl, but she’d become far more attractive in a way that was conscious physical appeal restrained. She wore a light skirt and a blue and black striped top.

  ‘I was just coming out of the post office and there she was,’ said Georgie. ‘God, I don’t suppose we’ve seen each other for a couple of years.’

  ‘You won’t remember me,’ said Jessica, putting her hand out to Sheff, ‘but I see Belize from time to time.’ She had a small mulberry birthmark low on the left side of her neck that he couldn’t recall from childhood. Perhaps her school clothes had covered it; maybe he’d never bothered to notice. Surely you either had something like that always, or not at all. She and Belize both belonged to the bridge club, and they talked a little of that, and Belize asked her to stay for lunch, but Jessica said she only had half an hour before she needed to be back at work. ‘I’d like to say hello to Mr Davy if he’s up to it – haven’t seen him for ages,’ she said, and so Belize took her through to Warwick’s room.

  ‘Well she’s changed a bit,’ said Sheff when they had gone.

  ‘But she’s still the same old Jess. We’ve clicked again just like that,’ and Georgie snapped her finger with a power that made him start. ‘We’ve kept in touch a bit, but I haven’t seen her the last few times I’ve been down.’

  ‘What does she do?’

  ‘She’s a vet.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Mum sees her from time to time. It’s no surprise – she always was a pretty bright cookie. Remember Kevin Hutton? Well, that’s who she married, but it didn’t work out. There’s a little girl.’

  Belize stayed in with Warwick, but Jessica came back to the kitchen. ‘I don’t want to hold up your lunch,’ she said. Georgie and she talked together so animatedly that Sheff had no opportunity to contribute, nor any invitation. He was surprised by his own awareness of her: not lust so much as a pleasure in her casual attractiveness. His father’s illness aroused his own sense of potency, and appreciation of health, as if some assertion of life and physical pleasure was imperative in the face of weakness and death.

  As the two women laughed over some eccentric and useless teacher from their shared past, he admired Jessica’s brown, well-muscled forearms, the sheen of her dark hair, the curve of breasts beneath her striped top. There are some women uncomfortable with the attributes of their gender, and others who wear them as easily as a garland of flowers in their hair. What if he broke in on the conversation to say she was fuckable? What response might there be – from her, from Georgie, from his mother coming back with the tray? He knew the answer, of course: it would be inappropriate, as so much of man’s natural inclination is deemed to be. Probably even resented. Chance, though, would be a fine thing.

  In his first year at university he’d shared a downstairs flat in a wooden house with a beautiful but leaky slate roof, and a guy with a motorbike would come sometimes in the afternoons to shag the skinny girl upstairs while her two flatmates were at lectures. Sheff would sit with his barren books while overhead was a joyous whirlwind of thumping, humping and urgent cries. So great was his frustration and envy that at times he’d almost felt faint. To see the skinny girl on other occasions, taking her bike from the shed, or coming back from the letter-box, was enough to make him wish to slap her for her lack of consideration. Only when he had a girl of his own could he talk to the skinny lover without considerable grievance for her generosity elsewhere. Twenty-five years had passed, yet any prolonged abstinence still unsettled him. Sexual satisfaction was spice for a life otherwise too bland.

  Jessica interested him, and he looked for the opportunity to join her conversation with Georgie. He asked about her job, her family, her commitment to a town from which most young professional people had moved on, and she answered easily, then turned enquiry back on him. ‘And what about you?’ she said. ‘I gather you’re taking a break from journalism. Will you go back to it? I always thought you’d end up as a lawyer.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘You were so argumentative. And you did debating and stuff at school, I remember.’

  ‘He’s still the same,’ interrupted Georgie. ‘A contrary sod.’

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Am so.’

  ‘Am not.’ Sheff played along.

  ‘See,’ said Georgie triumphantly, and got her laugh.

  Another thing Sheff remembered from his varsity days was Yardy’s belief that if you could successfully seduce a girl in your imagination, then she was so inclined in life. And Yardy was a womaniser with something of a reputation. It was an instinctive psychic communication, Yardy said: never failed. Sheff and the others had wanted to believe, but the fieldwork didn’t always stack up. Yardy was also convinced that a woman should be mounted once a day for the good of her circulation and the pleasure of her partner. Anyway, although Sheff found it easy to imagine making love to Jessica, he couldn’t concentrate on that and also take an intelligent part in the conversation. No one knew why Yardy was called Yardy: it had no obvious connection to his own name, or any aspect of his rather peculiar character, or events in his past.

  Georgie, Jessica and his mother began to talk of a Mrs Rose who had come from Nelson and set up a combined florist shop and art gallery in the old store building. How appropriate the surname. Various local watercolour and gouache enthusiasts had rallied to support her and themselves by displaying works there for the tourists. Jessica and Belize enjoyed describing the fierce and petty vanities provoked by artistic pretension.

  Jessica left abruptly, aware she was running late for work, and Sheff ate lunch largely in silence, while Georgie and Belize continued talking. Afterwards he left them to it, and went through to his father’s room, his old room, where Warwick half lay, half sat, ensconced among pillows. ‘What are they on about?’ Warwick asked. He had a yellow mug held loosely in both hands on the blankets, and it rose and fell with his breathing although his only exertion was the breathing itself. His mouth was relaxed, partly open, and Sheff noticed again how his teeth seemed to have gained prominence in his face.

  ‘They’re talking about the new flower and gallery place.’

  ‘We drove past a few days ago, but I haven’t been inside.’ And he probably never would. ‘I give it a year on novelty value and enthusiasm before it goes under,’ he said. ‘There’s just not enough turnover for that sort of place here, and the woman running it hasn’t any business background whatsoever.’

  ‘Jessica says the Saturday morning artists are loving it.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re all wanting to sell, not buy. No, eighteen months at best, unless she’s got money to keep putting in. But Jessica’s veterinary place does very well for her and her partners. There’s no mortgage at all on the premises now. We’ve done their books for years. It’s the sort of business that reflects the real needs of an area like this. Not just cats and dogs – farming’s becoming more of a science every day. It was good to see her.’

  Why were they talking about such stuff? Sheff and his father rarely saw each other, and surely there wasn’t much time left, yet Warwick still went on about his business and that of others. Was it simply habit, Sheff wondered, or couldn’t he bring himself to talk about the predicament in which he found himself? The past was a more comfortable meeting
place, and he’d been strong then. Most of the time they had been happy – close, even, but in an undemonstrative fashion. Warwick wasn’t given to displays of emotion: things done and things sustained were more important. The past was already charted, and so navigation was easier there than in the present, or the future.

  ‘What’s it like being in my old room?’ Sheff asked.

  ‘It’s a good room,’ said his father after a pause. ‘Belize didn’t want me to shift, but I was keeping her awake, and Andrew and the nurse come and go all the time now too. She doesn’t need that sort of invasion of her bedroom. All we took out were your books and posters. All we brought in was a La-Z-Boy.’

  ‘But there’s recessed lighting now too, isn’t there, and Venetians?’

  ‘Yes, I’d forgotten we did that. All of the rooms are done, and for no other reason than looks. Your mother has a fit of updating from time to time. It’s like spring cleaning, isn’t it? Women get this furious infection and turn things upside down for a few days, and then it passes and you can relax again.’ With deliberation he placed the mug on the trolley beside the bed. ‘We put your stuff in the garage,’ he said, ‘along with all the golfing gear. You don’t play now at all?’

  Before Sheff left home, and during the frequent visits over the university years, they had played together. In the end Sheff could outdrive his father, but his short game was never the equal of Warwick’s. ‘I don’t have the time,’ Sheff said, which was true for the years in which he’d been working, but was no longer. He’d lost the inclination, perhaps because he knew there would be the frustration of being unable to play as capably as once he had.

  Warwick asked no more about it, but lay propped on the pillows. His eyes were half closed, but he wasn’t asleep. He gave a smile, at once apology for not saying more, and pleasure to have Sheff sitting by him. Sheff thought of the times he’d been on the golf course with his father: the parched grass, the radiata pines and macrocarpas lining the fairways, the warning swoop and click of magpies at nesting season, and a tidal drift of scattered cloud across the blue bowl of sky. In winter the frozen stillness with frost white as snow on the shadow side of the trees, and the pond iced over. Nowhere else in his country had he experienced such extremes of season. He could recall few specific conversations of personal significance, or originality, just phatic communication and a sense of ease between them. That had always been his father’s way, because of the appalling vulnerability when inner life is broached. Warwick was happy within the practice of his profession, the marshalled figures and the set categories and regulations objectively applied. All he required of other people was goodwill, reason and a little distance.

  So the afternoon eddied, with Sheff sitting in the armchair while his father rested, and in the living room the two women talked effortlessly about things Sheff was too far away to make out. His father’s breathing had a drag to it, as if something far heavier than air was forced in and out, and his cupped left hand twitched suddenly on the covers, like a hooked fish flipping on the dinghy boards.

  ‘I should sell the clubs,’ his father said after the long, relaxed silence. ‘The whole caboodle in fact. The trundler’s almost new. What do you know about Trade Me? Rodney at work tells me it’s by far the best way of unloading stuff.’

  ‘I’ve never used it.’

  ‘Sell it all off if you like, and keep the money. But you don’t get much for second-hand stuff, do you, no matter what you paid for it, or what condition it’s in?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  They were quiet again, Warwick looking at his son, and his expression changing fleetingly as if mirroring the play of all those things he had stored up to say. ‘I need to talk to you and Georgie about my will,’ he said. ‘It’s all straightforward enough, but there’s some investment stuff you can help your mother with. I don’t want her worrying.’

  ‘You’ll have it all down clearly, Dad. You always do.’

  ‘She should be secure enough, and she deserves that.’

  ‘Do you need me to get anything from the office?’ Sheff asked. He wished to be helpful without signalling that a final settling of affairs was surely due. Warwick appeared not to hear, just gave a slow smile as if in response to a joke already known. Quite suddenly the energy for conversation left him, and he lay in a half-sleep.

  There was no further need for Sheff to be there, yet the closeness itself was a comfort. If he reached out he could touch his father’s feet through the one blanket. He did so, and for a time let his hand rest there.

  ONCE, AGES AGO, HIS FATHER TOLD HIM that he was claustrophobic and feared to be in any space so confined that he couldn’t freely move his arms. No worry with heights, or open expanses, he said, but a dread of confinement and suffocation. A classmate had burrowed into the tailings and died that way when the tunnel collapsed, he said. Warwick hadn’t been there, but he imagined it was the worst way to go, more terrible even than fire, or drowning, because you couldn’t fight. Sheff hadn’t thought of his father having such a fear, and the revelation impressed him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ON HIS GOOD DAYS, Warwick was sometimes taken for a drive by Georgie, or Sheff, maybe both of them and Belize as well. He would sit hunched in the front, held by the seat belt, and seemingly unable to alter his posture, or without the will to do so. Not much more than his head was visible at the window, and his toothy face looked out on all with passive indifference. If some place of connection to his life was remarked on, he would nod and give a dutiful, slow smile, but rarely reply. He tended to become involved in minor, stubborn struggles with inanimate things: the twisted collar of his shirt, the slide lever for the air-conditioning.

  Mostly, though, he stayed in his own home, where he was close to the bowl in which he was often sick, and to the medication, only partly effective, to relieve pain. Sometimes he fell into an odd, pitiable sing-song groan. Sheff could hear it during the night, and sometimes during the day they would hear it when in the kitchen, or living room, and one of them would go through to comfort him.

  Time seemed to slow and the atmosphere thicken. Sheff felt sometimes as if he were wading through the days with the tide against him. Necessary life – eating, defecating, sleeping, dressing – became distanced and pointless, yet had to go on. The end was with them even before it came.

  Lucy rang in the second week and talked to each of them in turn. Warwick was quite buoyed by talking to her, but had a retching fit afterwards. Sheff, the ex-husband, was the last in line and took the phone into his bedroom. ‘He’s not eating much now, and there’s a lot of pain,’ he told her.

  ‘It’s awful. What does the doctor say?’

  ‘A few weeks at most.’

  ‘There’s nothing at all they can do?’

  ‘Treatment now would only knock him about more, and not prolong things much anyway.’

  ‘It’s so sad, but I’m glad you and Georgie are there for them both.’

  ‘Georgie’s great with him, daughter and doctor all at once, and she kids him along. But she can’t be away from work much longer. Dad understands that, but it’s hard for both.’

  ‘I bet he’s chuffed to have you there too. I’m glad you didn’t go overseas right away.’

  ‘Yes, so am I. That can wait. Anyway, that’s enough of our worries. The world goes on. How are things for you? Lots of wealthy people from the cruise ships still wanting to see the sights?’

  ‘It’s been pretty steady actually. It’s always a staff thing: getting good drivers and guides and getting them to stay once they’re up to speed.’

  ‘Nigel okay?’ Sheff was rather pleased with his own tolerance in asking after him. He disliked the man for himself as well as for being Lucy’s new partner, but what was the point in being a sore loser? It was good of Lucy to ring, and she was entitled to keep a friendship with his folks even though she couldn’t bear to live with him. The longer they were apart the more inevitable that seemed.

  When the conversation was over, she migh
t mention Warwick’s sickness to Nigel, and Nigel, having never met him, would make some commonplace response and then go on to ask which of his good shirts should be worn to the dinner party that night. Indifference and connection come quickly at one degree of separation. Lucy used to tell Sheff to put the shirts on the bed and later she would choose for him. His total inability to match a tie with her selection had caused her spontaneous, affectionate laughter in the good years.

  When he came back into the dining room with the phone, both Georgie and Belize allowed a pause for him to say something about Lucy, but as he was silent neither of them prolonged the subject. ‘Nice of her to call’ was all his mother said. Sheff wondered if Lucy had tried to have another child. He was no longer entitled to ask her such personal questions, no longer part of her life. He avoided thinking of her, not because of any defect in her personality, or any of her actions, but because everything of his married life led to, or from, the death of Charlotte.

  Thoughts of Jessica were more pleasant. He wanted the company of someone outside the sad household: someone who understood why he’d returned, but who wasn’t a Davy. He decided to ring her. He mentioned it to Georgie, casually so as not to be in any way seeking approval. ‘Well, you don’t know anyone else here much now, and it’s a chance to get out of the house, talk to somebody else. What about some of your own schoolmates?’

  ‘Moved on, most of them,’ said Sheff.

  ‘Sure,’ said Jessica, when he rang. ‘Weekends aren’t so good. I’m on call one in three, and during the others I like to be with Emma as often as possible because I don’t see her as much as I should on school days. But I sometimes take Mondays off. We could take a walk around the vast metropolis for old times’ sake, and have a coffee. Would Georgie like to come?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Sheff, but had no intention of asking her.