The Fog Garden

by Marion Halligan

  Rennie dipped her biscuit in the coffee. She didn’t answer the question, in her tranquil polite way. She often didn’t, Vivian had noticed, and at first it had seemed to her rude, but then she decided it was because Rennie didn’t know the answer; she thought about it, but nothing came to mind, and then she forgot.

  So Perry came and pleasured Rennie on her satin quilt, soon to be protected from Rennie’s unreliable bladder by a rose chenille throw. Etiquette or passion? Lust, I reckon, said Vivian to herself, and snorted a bit.

  What? said Rennie. Vivian didn’t answer, she could play that game too though she wasn’t good at it yet.

  I mean that velvety kind of chenille, said Rennie. Not that terrible half-bald candlewick stuff. Tidiness, she said, I couldn’t stand having to make the bed four times a day.

  When she’d gone Vivian punched in the rest of the protruding nails, then remembered she’d left the coffee cups in the garden. She turned on the hose and stood gently spraying the plants in pots, that always dried out too fast. Then she got herself a glass of wine and sat in the twilight. Dusk after rain, she said, smelling the wetness and enjoying the words, though it wasn’t rain but hosing. There were mosquitoes so she lit a candle.

  Linda next door looked over the fence, so Vivian asked her in for a drink. Oh I can’t, I’m flat out, she said, I shouldn’t, oh well just for a minute, a glass of wine is what I need.

  Linda was a thin young woman with a son of eight. He’s watching telly, she said, leaning back in her chair and taking rapid pecks at the wine. She was a single mother; every fourth weekend Matthew flew to Melbourne to see his father. Linda worked in Parliament House, she was secretary to a junior minister, personal assistant was what she called herself, a terrific job except that when the house was sitting she often had to stay late, eight, nine, even ten o’clock.

  My father’s coming to live with me, she said, pulling a face. I hope it’s a good idea. Seemed silly, him living on his own and me paying a fortune to have Matthew minded after school.

  The words It’ll be good to have a man around the house came to Vivian’s mind but she didn’t say them. Rennie words. Though Rennie’s man was not about the house, he was on the bed and off again, home. And Vivian knew that it wasn’t a man but the particular one that counted. After all those years with Tony she couldn’t imagine fancying anyone else. Yet when she met Linda’s father, who was called Tom, she couldn’t help thinking of him like that; blame Rennie, Rennie’s Perry, three times a day, four sometimes, on the bed not in it. Tom was a small nuggety man, with brown skin and heavily corded arms; he wore a hat low down on his head and spectacles that went dark in the sun. She was surprised that his voice had quite a thick accent; his English was good, he had learned it well, but too late in his life to sound like a native. He strode about the garden in old R. M. Williams boots, pruned all the trees and swept up the leaves left over from last autumn. Vivian spent more time in her garden. Tom tipped his hat to her, but wasn’t conversational. Vivian remembered an expression of her mother’s, how she would say someone was a worker. Usually a woman. She’s a worker, she’d say, no adjective, it was stronger like that. Tom was a worker. Not to be confused with a fast worker, that was to do with sex. Like Perry. Or perhaps sometimes trickery, cheating. A worker was somebody who was visibly so, it didn’t apply to people who thought and read and wrote, who worked in that way. It was physical. Vivian hearing it wished it could be said of her, though she didn’t particularly prize that kind of on your feet all day activity. I bet he never reads a book, she said to herself. She wondered if Perry ever read a book.

  She became conscious of Tom being there, next door. It made her feel peculiar; youthful, a girl again, not a comfortable feeling, who wants to be a girl again. Not since that time had she looked at a man with speculation. Not since before she was married. She’d looked at men over the years, discreetly but closely, paid attention to their sexiness, flirted with some of them, but always from the safety of being married to Tony. In play, not need. And now Tony was dead, she’d believed herself looking from the safety of having been married. Out of curiosity, not real interest. But now, blame Rennie, she didn’t seem safe any more. Of course, nobody else had to know. But she did, and it unsettled her.

  Tom climbed the ladder and pruned. He seemed a keen pruner. Vivian fiddled in her garden, it was looking unusually neat. She planted white petunias in pots, with blue salvia and pink impatiens, very pretty they looked. She imagined herself offering Tom a cup of tea, but never did. Or would he like coffee. Europeans often did. After school he and the boy Matthew put their heads together over jobs in the garden, or disappeared into the house. Often there was hammering to be heard.

  By the side fence that separated their gardens was a Manchurian pear tree. Vivian could see it from her kitchen window. In autumn its leaves turned a dazzling vermilion colour, so full of light she would stand and gaze at it and feel her heart glowing and trembling like the tree. This autumn Tom took to it with a chainsaw. Lopping the branches down to the trunk. What are you doing, she shrieked, rushing out of the house, forgetting the difficulties of conversation. Cups of tea might be too intricate but the beautiful Manchurian pear was simple.

  He turned the saw off. Looked at her. It’s a pity, I know. But I can’t leave it here and build the carport. It’s exactly in the way.

  But you can’t chop this tree down, she shouted. You can’t destroy something as beautiful as this.

  The leaves on the chopped-off branches were still living and full of light. Vermilion. It wasn’t often you had a word like that in your life. Tony had come up with it, when the branches first showed above the fence. Its leaves are vermilion, she said in a hopeless voice.

  Tom gazed at them, too. Do you believe that trees go to heaven, he asked.

  What?

  That trees go to heaven. That they have an afterlife, as well as us.

  That tree was making heaven for us here. You’ve ruined that. Who will forgive you for that?

  She turned and strode inside her house. Leaned against the sink, shaking, not looking where the chainsaw whined and slashed. For hours that day and the next it laboured at destroying the tree. The carport was built, with lengthy headache-screaming noise of drills and hammers. It was a kind of roofed pergola. Tom planted banksia roses which would soon grow and cover it with a mass of yellow blossom in spring. But she mourned the vermilion tree, the mysterious trembling light that had made her heart glow. Even bare in the dead of winter the memory of its colour had been alive. And its summer green was a pleasure too. But now it was gone this memory had lost its power. Often she found her eyes filling with tears. She hadn’t wept like this for Tony. Her face had ached but the tear channels had been tense and dry as salt pans and all the weight of her sorrow had stayed trapped in her head. Maybe if he’d been here the tree would have been safe too. Tears ran down her cheeks in grief for Tony’s lovely lost vermilion. She kept her eyes turned away from the bleak wood and metal of the carport.

  Linda put her car under the carport and Tom used the garage as a workshop. He and Matthew spent a lot of time there, but at least the hammering was muted.

  It was winter. Vivian and Rennie drank their tea and coffee and white wine in warm inward rooms. How’s Perry, Vivian would ask, and across Rennie’s face would flit that sly visceral blind look that is the intelligence of sex. She’d get rid of it with a quick little giggle. Oh Perry’s fine. As ever. Rennie had bought her rose-coloured chenille throw. Two in fact. One to use, one to wash. They had big swaggy tassels in the corners. Rennie was pleased with them.

  In the spring, when her roses were just beginning to bud, Rennie died. Quite suddenly, instantly in fact, on her bed, one afternoon. Perry found her, said the woman in the newsagent, with the round important eyes and careful air of one who has gossip but is nervous of offering it. In fact, she said, I heard he was with her, you know, and they . . .

  They were great friends, said Vivian.

  It’s a good death,
said the newsagent, quick, like that.

  Mm, said Vivian. Well, a good death is what we all hope for.

  That’s what people had said about Tony, a good death, and so maybe it was, but hard for the rest of them, with no warning, no preparation, no time to get used to it.

  She met Perry at the funeral, a white-haired small man, nimble and grief stricken. You were a good friend of hers, too, weren’t you, he said. We who are left must comfort one another. As she left he asked for her phone number. Perhaps we could have a cup of tea, he said, wrinkling his small brown eyes.

  That would be nice, she said, but felt panic in her throat.

  One morning Tom knocked at her door. He had with him a rather large object, made of some reddish-brown highly varnished intricately grained wood. It looked like a butler’s tray, an oblong shallow box on crossed over legs, and it was full of sand.

  I thought you might like to have this, he said. He picked it up and she stood aside to let him in. He scraped his feet on the mat, then stepped carefully inside. His boots creaked and clicked on the wooden floor. I hope you have a place for it, he said.

  Oh, she said, meaning, what is it? what’s it for? what’s going on? Oh.

  He pulled two little wooden rakes out of his pocket. It’s a sand garden, he said. The Japanese have them. They are charming . . . like a charm.

  He used the smooth side of one of the rakes, stroking it across the sand until it was perfectly smooth, taking his time, putting his head on one side, protruding his tongue.

  Now, he said, you make patterns. He turned the rake to its pronged side and drew a wavering line through the sand, forming ridges that curved and crossed one another. The sand flowed and sifted in the wake of the rake’s passage.

  Some people have stones, round smooth ones, and make rings around those, but I like just the sand. I like to be pure, said Tom. Here, you have a go. No, make it smooth, start again.

  It seemed to take a long time and at first she was anxious about being slow and clumsy, but Tom stood solidly calm and so contemplative of what she was doing that she took her time, and smoothed the sand, then furrowed it. Her strokes were stiff, and awkwardly angled, but she supposed they’d become more fluid with practice.

  You see, the rakes are different sizes, so you can change the patterns, make them coarser or finer. Tom frowned as he said this. I believe that Japanese people often start the day with them. They begin with raking it all smooth, and then they let the rakes in their hands form the patterns. They say it calms the spirit. Maybe it does.

  Maybe it does, she said to herself. Though she could also imagine herself forgetting about it, and walking past wherever she found to put it without registering, the patterns neglected, fading, collecting dust. But perhaps not. Perhaps she’d get into the habit of its curious austere beauty. Accept its daily ritual.

  Her hand slipped and the rake flicked over, scattering sand that pattered down on the floor. Under her feet it crackled like spilt sugar.

  You have to cultivate a delicate touch, he said. You won’t find it difficult.

  It’s an unusual present, she said.

  I suppose it is. He smiled. His glasses out of the sunlight were paling, she could see his eyes hopeful, with a faint anxious squint.

  An amazing present. I wonder what made you think of it. She said this, not asking a question, not sure she wanted to know. I hear you hammering often.

  I like to keep busy. The evening is reading, but the daylight is for keeping busy.

  I like to read in the daytime sometimes. It feels wicked.

  Do you like to feel wicked?

  Well, it’s only a very little bit. I can’t feel very wicked about reading a book in the daytime. Not these days.

  I see you work hard in the garden.

  Oh, I like to potter a bit. It’s a useful hobby, she said, her cheeks warm. Ah . . . how about, a cup of coffee?

  I should be getting back.

  Or tea? I could make tea.

  He frowned again. She walked towards the kitchen. The sand crunched. I’m sure you can spare a moment for a cup of . . . whatever.

  He followed, his boots clicking and creaking.

  Perhaps a glass of water.

  If you like. I think I’ll have some coffee. A good worker deserves a break, she said.

  He looked out the window. When the rose grows you’ll hardly see the carport. The banksia rose has a profusion of flowers.

  Yes, well, it’s not a Manchurian pear, though. Not vermilion. She was afraid her eyes were going to fill with tears.

  Things rarely are what they were. We all learn that.

  She filled the jug and set it to boil. She filled a glass with water for him. Did you decide, would you like some coffee as well? Or tea?

  Oh, he said, okay, coffee. He patted his breast pocket. And we’ll have a bit of this. He took out a flat glass flask full of colourless viscous liquid.

  Slivovitz. His voice was proud.

  Plum brandy, she said.

  People say brandy. I prefer alcohol, he said. But yes, made out of plums. A friend of mine has a still.

  I didn’t know you could do that.

  Oh, it’s not legal. We’ll have a bit in our coffee.

  Isn’t it a bit early?

  How, early? How is an early or a late time better for a little alcohol in the coffee? It is good, the time does not matter.

  Like reading in the morning.

  But not even a little bit wicked. You will see, it is not the taste, it is the feel, the warm, the glowing.

  She could taste the slivovitz in the hot sweet milky coffee, it bit through the familiar drink. It was a hard taste, a bit dangerous, it made her gasp. But she saw what he meant about the warm feeling. Down her throat, into her stomach, and flowing out from that dark pit, warming places she’d forgotten.

  the sins of the leopard

  That day we got no further with our reading . . .

  But we could listen. Not like those long-ago lovers, those two who could get no further with their reading, with their startled glances and trembling lips. They put the book aside, stopped reading of the loves of others, and fell to making their own story. One kissed away the other’s smile, as did the lovers in their book, and on they went from there. So we 700 years later could lie in bed and hear it read to us, and no need to stop the kissing of our trembling lips.

  This is adultery with technology, and a great help it is. No more claiming to be a Luddite. Not with devices so useful. Take the phone for instance. Switch it through to the mobile. Nobody knows whether you are at home or out of town. It rings and you answer, firm-voiced, no trembling of the lips now. Spouse, or the plumber, the good friend coming to visit; one lies poker still while the other speaks the mundane details of daily life. Afterwards they murmur, breathless again, of how the person at the other end would marvel could they see what was actually going on. Marvel, or be filled with fury at the betrayal. Technology does not cancel out betrayal, just makes it easier.

  A pander was that book, and he that wrote it, says the voice out of the machine. Referring indeed to the narrative of Lancelot and Guinevere, which is what the lovers were reading.

  Oh, she says, I know this bit.

  It’s supposed to be the most famous of all.

  I didn’t know that. Well, it’s probably because it’s the saddest.

  At least Dante had his lovers only as far down as the first circle, he says. Could have been worse.

  And they are forever united, she says. Hand in hand, drifting on the dark wind.

  The thing about lust, he says, is that it is a shared sin. So it’s not wholly selfish.

  Dante is told by Virgil his guide that the first circle is for people without hope. Things aren’t too bad. Not like the lowest frozen level, where Judas has his head forever locked in Lucifer’s jaws. Lucifer the bright one, the son of the morning, now filthy and matted and shaggy-hairy, encased eternally in ice. Endlessly chewing on the head of Judas, whose legs hang out and jerk in t
he air. Judas of course the wickedest man ever, as is Lucifer the wickedest angel, both betrayers of their lords. But going on forever without hope is clearly not pleasant for people whose only sin is to have died without Christian repentance.

  She wonders if it is tempting fate to listen to The Divine Comedy on a compact disc after making love, this greedy ecstatic plotted-for illicit love-making, to be kissing and stroking and listening, not always with attention, and this is a new experience for her, who has always read every word so carefully, to be listening to these moving cadences as one listens to music, drifting in and out of its sense, the soft seductive voice speaking only privately for them, and so she wonders, are they wishing the same fate upon themselves, inviting it, summoning it; will they end up forever punished. Like Francesca and Paolo, who read together in their book about those other adulterous lovers, and looked on one another with the same illicit passion, Francesca the wife and Paolo the husband’s brother. The husband ugly and lame, and Francesca given to him in marriage because of his bravery (and his wealth), the lover handsome, this lad with the lovely body, she sadly describes him to Dante. The story goes that the beautiful Paolo was sent to woo her, that she was allowed to suppose he was the one to be married to, and that is why she accepted. But extenuating circumstances don’t help, it is still wrong to put your reason in thrall to lust. So here they are, shadows driven on the wind, hopeless of any rest.

  The thing about adultery is that it has been going on a long time. It isn’t new. Though it is always news. Always dark, and full of delight, and dread. And death. Paolo and Francesca killed by the angry husband, stabbed as they lie in bed together, in flagrante delicto and all its heat, so there is no moment for repentance, not a second; condemned forever to hell. The punishment for sin is sin itself, experienced without illusion. Maybe this is the punishment for all adulterous love, to be left with the sin, and none of the delight that went with it. Maybe they will be punished in this way.