Candelo

by Georgia Blain

  And she flicked her ash down into the garden.

  He says he does.

  I was silent.

  And why shouldn’t I believe him?

  I did not answer her and I did not meet her gaze.

  She thanked me for coming up. She thanked me for coming to see if she was all right. Because when she opened the door, I had told her that I just wanted to know if she was okay. Speaking softly, knowing he was there, just on the other side of the wall.

  I appreciate it, she said, as I told her I had to get going, that I was late for work.

  I turned to the stairs, the stairs I had made Marco fix, and she watched as I made my way back down to my flat. I could not see her, but I knew she was still there, leaning on the railing, watching me, the ash from her cigarette floating down, drifting past me, and into the garden below.

  And I wished I had been able to speak to him.

  That it was over and done with.

  And not the unknown, still to be faced.

  five

  You see, Vi says to me, the personal is, by and large, a distraction. A self-indulgent excuse.

  I drum my fingers on the table. Loudly.

  I am not saying always. But often. We get embroiled in trying to make our lives measure up to petty fantasies and we ignore the larger issues in life.

  When she talks like this, I try to stay calm, but more often than not, I fail. I want to tell her that in her case, the global seems to be the distraction, the way of hiding from the personal. But if I begin to voice this, she gets furious.

  You are being ridiculous, she says. I always gave my utmost to the three of you. I don’t think you could ever say that I neglected you. You were enormously privileged, and she lowers her glasses so that she is looking me straight in the eye.

  I cannot explain to her that this was not what I meant.

  If ever a choice needed to be made, ever, and she pauses as she pushes her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose, I always chose my children.

  She shakes her head and I can see how much I have upset her. I loved you all, she says. I still do.

  I see the dark circles under her eyes, her grey skin, soft, paper thin when I kiss her cheek, and I feel ashamed for having criticised her.

  I tell her that I know she does.

  But as I reach for her hand, I wish it didn’t always end like this. I wish we could sometimes speak of the things we need to talk about.

  Like the decision I was trying to make at the time of Mitchell’s funeral.

  Like Mitchell himself.

  The fact that his name had remained unmentioned for so long, the fact that none of us had seen him or spoken to him for all those years, did not mean I couldn’t picture him. With my eyes closed, he was there.

  Mitchell Jenkins.

  His bag at his feet. The zip broken, a pair of underpants, leopard print, sticking out of the opening. The dust coating his feet dirty grey.

  I looked at him from the ground upwards.

  Tall, thin and slightly bow-legged. Tight jeans, thongs and a checked shirt, sleeves rolled up to tanned forearms. Dark eyes looking at us, the three of us, through a fall of long blond hair. Looking at us and grinning.

  This, Vi said, is Mitchell, and she turned to us. This, she said, is Simon, Ursula and Evie.

  He held out his hand and the smile widened. Impossible in its breadth. Challenging the wariness that was, without doubt, evident in our faces.

  Gidday, and he turned to each of us, one by one.

  But it wasn’t just his smile that I saw; it was his foot tapping, his mouth chewing gum, the fingers of his other hand clenched against his thigh; these small signs of nervousness beneath the bravado of that grin.

  And I did not give an inch.

  Simon, however, reached out to return the greeting, shy for a moment, awkward, as their grasp missed and then caught.

  I just met his gaze. Without a word. And in the silence that followed, I watched as he kicked his feet in the dirt, as he scratched a hole with the toe of his thong, and as he kept on staring at me, seemingly unperturbed by my failure to acknowledge him, until, with a further widening of that grin, he finally turned to Evie.

  It’s not ‘gidday’, she told him, mimicking Vi’s own words to us each time we lapsed into any semblance of lingo. It’s ‘hello’.

  Vi glared at her.

  That’s what you say to us, and she crossed her arms obstinately.

  All the time, I added, but under my breath.

  And Simon kicked me, hard, on the shin.

  Mitchell had been to four foster homes. He didn’t tell us this. Nor did Vi. I read it in the letter from the placement program.

  When I asked her why, I knew the answer I was going to get. A lecture about disadvantages. About abuse. About single mothers. About poverty. All punctuated by sharp, angry taps of her cigarette against the side of the ashtray.

  What I wanted to know was whether he’d ever been in trouble, serious trouble.

  Vi told me to stop being childish. Mitchell’s past is Mitchell’s business, and she turned back to her work. Stop being difficult and give it a try.

  I looked offended. I told her that of course I would. Who did she think I was?

  But I didn’t. Not at first. I remember.

  We were hot and cramped in the back seat. Simon, Evie and I pressed against each other, sticky skin on sticky skin, furnace blasts of air rushing in through the open window, while in the front, Mitchell stretched out and tapped his fingers on the dashboard in time to whatever tape he had put into the cassette player, singing out of tune to whatever song happened to be playing.

  Reckon I’ve got a voice? he asked Vi in all seriousness, and I saw her looking at him, uncertain as to how to respond.

  The white of his teeth was reflected in the rear-vision mirror as he caught my eye and smiled.

  Pretty bad, hey? and his look was sheepish, but he did not stop. He just turned the volume up another notch and sang a little louder, grinning with embarrassment whenever his attempts to hit the note went blatantly wrong.

  How come he’s allowed to choose what we listen to? I asked Vi at the service station. And how come we have to listen to that? I added, referring to his singing.

  It wasn’t that I hated what he put on. In fact it was a relief from the usual Joan Baez or Harry Belafonte that Vi always played, and I had to admit that his singing was amusing us all. It was the unfairness of it. Simon and I were never allowed to play our tapes in the car. We always brought them with us, but they stayed in the glove box.

  Mitchell hadn’t even asked. One push of the eject button and Joan Baez was back in her case, replaced by David Bowie.

  I had looked at Simon. I had waited for Vi’s response.

  Nothing. Simon had just shrugged his shoulders and Vi hadn’t seemed to notice.

  You never let us play our tapes, I complained to Vi as we waited at the counter.

  She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and searched for her money in her purse. She was ignoring me. But I was not going to be stopped.

  How come he can?

  Do you want a drink? she asked.

  No, I told her.

  Just as well, she said, and she held out her hand for the change.

  I looked at her.

  Because I certainly wasn’t going to buy you one, and she turned her back on me, leaving me standing by the cash register, still waiting for an answer to my question.

  Back in the car, Simon and Mitchell had swapped seats. Leaning forward into the front, Mitchell talked constantly. Asking endless questions about where we were going, the places we drove through and what Simon liked to do. Music, skateboards and surfing. He wanted to know everything. Comparing bands they liked, food, movies. He barely stopped to catch air as he leapt from topic to topic.

  But it was the surfing that fascinated him the most. He had never done it before.

  You surf, Ursula? and Mitchell was looking at me, grinning again.

  No,
I said, defiant, determined not to give him an entry, although I could see the exclusion that was going to occur. Him and Simon. Me and Evie. It was stacking up.

  So what do you do? he asked.

  I told him that there were other things in the world besides surfing. That I couldn’t believe the ignorance of his question.

  He just kept smiling, and as his dark-brown eyes focused on mine, I could feel myself beginning to smile in response, my mouth turning up at the sides. I could not help myself. But then I saw them, Vi staring at me in the rear-vision mirror, and Simon, sitting next to her and glaring, and I became all the more determined not to relent in my behaviour. Not in front of them.

  When we stopped for an ice-cream, Simon told me I shouldn’t be so rude. Imagine how he feels, and my brother’s eyes were wide with compassion. There’s all of us and only him.

  He’ll cope, I told him, irritated with the way he was always on the side of the underdog. Irritated with how well he and Mitchell seemed to be getting on.

  And I rolled my eyes in disgust as I heard him, Mitchell, hamming it up, yet again.

  Jeez, he said as Vi passed him a Cornetto, never had such a classy ice-cream.

  Evie couldn’t believe it. I looked at Simon, but he had turned away.

  Reckon the last time I had an ice-cream was . . . and he paused for effect, four years ago.

  Really? Evie stared at him. Impressed. Completely and utterly.

  True, he answered, solemn, pitiful, to an extreme.

  Back in the car, Simon stayed in the front seat, Mitchell in the back. Evie was sandwiched between us. Separating us. But I could still see his long thin legs in his tight jeans. The left jiggling up and down. Up and down. The tapping of his hand on his knee.

  Vi put her Joan Baez back into the cassette player. Simon did not even attempt to change it, but I wasn’t prepared to let things rest, not even from the back seat. I asked Simon to put Pink Floyd on. He waited for Vi’s response. I waited for Vi’s response.

  I think we’ll have something a little more peaceful for a while, she said.

  See, I told her.

  She ignored me.

  And on we went.

  Eight hours south. Hugging the coast. Small seaside towns with winding main streets. A pub, a post office, and a milk bar. Slow traffic clogging up each entrance and then dispersing out on the highway. Holding my breath each time Vi overtook a truck, clutching the steering wheel, foot flat on the floor, swearing loudly as she willed the car to go faster, faster. Swinging around a bend and being flung to the other side of the seat, Mitchell’s side, where I would have been pressed tight against him if it weren’t for Evie separating us. Just. And as I pushed myself up again, I could not help but touch him. There was no space for me to do anything else. My hand was forced onto his leg.

  He looked at me, at where my skirt had ridden up my thighs.

  And I looked at him, at where my palm had rested on his knee.

  And he grinned, yet again, his dark eyes resting momentarily on mine.

  We drove until it was dark, turning off the highway into the quiet of the country night, onto a narrow road that twisted and turned inland. It was too early for the stars, and the sky overhead was black, unbroken by lights. Nothing but the sound of the engine. Evie was asleep, Simon was asleep and Mitchell was asleep. Vi was hunched forward over the steering wheel, and in the reflection of the rear-view mirror, I could see how tired she was, the match flaring as she lit another cigarette, her face ghoulish in the momentary flame.

  But it was not her I watched.

  It was Mitchell.

  His head rolled to one side so that all I could see was his profile, half hidden by the long blond hair. His eyelashes, dark and thick, twitching slightly as he dozed. His wide mouth, soft, his lips pale against his tan. His hands resting on his thighs, square and brown, the nails bitten down, and on his index finger, a long jagged scar.

  When Vi pulled over for the second time, it was clear that she did not know where we were.

  We all woke up, all of us except Evie, who stayed where she was, her head tucked into Mitchell’s side as he leant forward to take the map from Vi.

  Jesus, and his mouth was wide open as he stared out the window, forgetting the map for one brief moment, as he gazed out across the black of the country to the sky, look at them all.

  I leant across Evie so that I could see, out past the reflection of his eyes in the window, to the thousands of stars now spread across the sky.

  That’s what it’s like away from the city, Vi told him.

  No kidding, and he shook his head in amazement as he spread the map out and traced the line of where we had been with the tip of his finger. I watched him as he paused for a moment, still stunned by the beauty of what he had seen, before telling us we were on the right road. Shouldn’t be much further, he said.

  And he was right.

  It wasn’t.

  Candelo. Right around the next bend.

  six

  Anton was not my first lie.

  But most of the untruths I had told before were small in comparison: white lies, telling friends I liked their work when I had slept through their performance, saying I was sick when I didn’t want to go somewhere, breaking up with lovers and telling them I wanted to be friends when I knew, without a doubt, that this was the last thing I wanted.

  These are the lies I tell.

  These are the lies most people tell.

  Marco, on the other hand, found it difficult to tell even these lies. He would say that he believed, always, in the truth; his eyes intent, earnest, the expression on his face one of utmost seriousness, as he explained what to him was an important principle.

  But I would watch as his attempts at honesty led him into awkward complications and I would become impatient.

  Just lie, I would say. It doesn’t matter.

  It did to him. Or so he said. Because sometimes I cannot help but wonder whether he clung steadfast to those small truths as a ballast against the greater lie that had grown between the two of us.

  Simon, too, does not lie.

  Once, we broke Vi’s favourite vase. The tennis ball flying too high through the air, out of reach, it hit the table and bounced to the ground, the vase clattering after it.

  The glue sticky beneath my fingers, I tried to put the pieces back together, to align rose with rose, thorn with thorn. But there was no point.

  Simon told Vi as soon as she came in the door. And as he held it up to show her, she said that it was not the breakage that upset her, but my attempt to conceal it.

  She was just trying to fix it, Simon offered.

  It was no use.

  Simon was honest and I was punished.

  With my brother, it is only ever truth or silence. And when he chooses silence he is stubborn, immovable.

  My father, however, is a consummate liar.

  One of the best, Vi says, and she does not attempt to hide her disgust.

  It was my father who got me the job I had at that time, the job I still have. A part-time position. Receptionist in a law firm.

  Ursula is an actor, he tells people proudly. Excellent on the telephone. Excellent voice, and when he suggests me for work, I usually get it. People know it is in their interest to do him a favour.

  There is never a lot to do. I type letters, make coffee for meetings, order flowers, book restaurants and file. And in the gaps between tasks, I try to learn an audition piece, to read, to do anything but just stare out the window and let the boredom seep in.

  On my first day of work, I was told that I was not allowed to make personal calls.

  You must be available to answer the phone after three rings only. Always, and I had nodded to show that I understood. But it was rare that I kept to the rule. And on that day, the day after I learnt of Mitchell’s death, I broke it, repeatedly.

  In each quiet moment, I called Anton. Number by number. Hanging up halfway through as the realisation of what I would have to say hit me, catc
hing a glimpse of myself in the glass doors and wondering what words I would manage to find.

  Anton loves the telephone. When he is trying to work, he turns the volume on both the phone and the answering machine right down, and then covers them with pillows. When it rings, he runs his fingers through his thick curly hair and sighs impatiently, but it is obvious that he is listening, straining to hear the message, and just as the caller is about to hang up, he will lunge for the receiver.

  Wait, he would say to me.

  I won’t be long, he would promise, his hand resting on my arm, asking me to stay.

  And I would wait, stealing glances at Louise’s half-read books, spines bent back and left lying open on the floor, each one discarded with the next one started, while I tried to listen to what he was saying.

  Anton loves to talk, to tell stories. Stories about his travels, his impossible love affairs, the latest mess he has found himself in, and with each tale he will shrug his shoulders helplessly as he says he doesn’t understand, just doesn’t understand, how it happened.

  He would settle back in the chair, light a cigarette, and I would know that it wouldn’t just be a matter of a few minutes. An ex-girlfriend, an old friend, a project officer from a funding agency – he would talk endlessly, his tales more elaborate with each telling. And despite knowing what he was, despite knowing that I, too, was another mess he had stumbled into, I could not resist him. I would keep going back. I would knock on his door and I would kiss him. Straightaway. Drinking in the warmth of his breath. The sea breeze through the open windows, sometimes gentle, sometimes strong enough to pull the door, slam, shut behind me, cupboard doors opening and closing, opening and closing, and the curtains lifting and falling, as I would tell him I had just come up to see him. That was all.

  And he would look at me, helpless, charming. I shouldn’t be doing this, he would say, but you keep seducing me.