The Trapeze Act

by Libby Angel

  I went into the kitchen and rummaged in the drawers until I found the ivory-handled folding knife, which had, until then, been rattling around with the corkscrew and the tin opener.

  This, too, was mine.

  Seeing Gilbert so melancholy, as he always was before an important case, inspired feelings of tenderness in a whole new generation of women, many of whom were professionals in their own rights, but nevertheless understood their obligations in relation to men’s needs. If Gilbert’s eye turned in their direction, they reasoned, it was only because his wife did not know how to starch his collars properly, or because she could not cook. Or perhaps he had simply come to his senses.

  Many of these young women had never met Leda, so low did my mother fly in those days—she hadn’t attended the annual Law Ball in years. And let’s face it, the women told themselves, any woman who allowed her husband go to the Law Ball unaccompanied was pretty much consenting to his infidelity. Gilbert’s wife was either stupid or else she didn’t care. Either way, one of the highest-profile barristers in the state deserved a better deal. They shouldn’t wait on the sidelines until he got divorced, either. Men like Gilbert, accomplished men, needed a smooth transition from one domestic situation to the next.

  Leda barely seemed to notice my father’s increasing absences. When he finally admitted to her that he was in the thrall of a new romance, she merely shrugged her shoulders and resumed her owl watching. Only when I pointed out to her it had been more than a week since we had seen him did my mother acknowledge that this time was not like the other times, that either this woman, my father’s lover, was not like the others, or else my father himself had changed.

  Zo, she said, I am a jilted crone; in this town, any woman over thirty is a crone, after all.

  When, at last, my father returned home for long enough for my parents to speak about the matter, I listened in. Much of what I knew about my parents’ lives was gleaned like this—at night, pressing my left ear to the wall between my bedroom and the TV room.

  My father’s lover, whose name was Cara, was twenty-four and barely out of law school. She’d met my father at the university, where he occasionally presided over moots. My father claimed she was a talented young solicitor with a dazzling future; my mother, that Gilbert’s judgment was impaired. Like many of his ilk and contemporaries, she argued, he had become vain and susceptible to flattery.

  Either way, Cara had recently landed herself a position in a prestigious law firm, conveniently located on the same side of the square as my father’s chambers.

  When the owl did not return from its nocturnal flight one morning and all the next night, Leda took to her bed, their bed, the bed my father did not visit much anymore, and stayed there, sprawled across the middle of it for three days and three nights, reading War and Peace and eating nothing but corn chips, which my brother and I were also obliged to eat, since there was little else in the house.

  When the owl reappeared one afternoon, my mother arose, went outside in her dressing gown, and had a long talk to it. But afterwards, instead of taking up the opera glasses and keeping vigil over the bird as she had done before, she got dressed, climbed into the Volvo and drove away.

  For the next few months, she spent most evenings out and, like the bird, did not return until dawn. She was usually still in bed when we left for school, and always pleased to learn that she had missed my father’s calls.

  She became involved in a series of local theatre productions, playing Lysistrata, then Clytemnestra. A photo appeared in the entertainment section of the Saturday paper in which she wore robes, Jesus sandals, and a jewel-eyed serpent bangle coiled around her upper arm.

  She recited her lines around the house: to the bird, the plants, the furniture, and to us, her children, whom she enlisted to read the other parts.

  We lived in a Greek tragedy. My brother was the army, and I, the people, a chorus of foreboding: Our King is dead, our mother a murderer!

  The owl was our oracle, as it had been all along, in fact. Our mother consulted it before she went out every evening, and every evening was met with the same reply: Boobook, boobook.

  It was a matter of intonation, she insisted.

  Meanwhile, my brother’s experiments with explosives continued unabated. There were plenty of alternatives to gunpowder at our convenience after all: nail-polish remover, toilet cleaner, hydrogen peroxide, oil, petrol, my father’s childhood chemistry set, still well-stocked and perfectly preserved.

  Free from parental interference, Kingston busied himself pouring various concoctions into bottles and tins, fitting them with fuses, detonating his devices in the middle of the tennis court, burning patches of lawn. To protect his hands and face he stole a pair of gloves and a woollen balaclava from the army disposals in town.

  The apparel inspired a series of sideline activities, too. At around eight o’clock in the evenings, my brother would sneak into neighbouring yards and knock at children’s bedroom windows, until they woke up and screamed. Tim or Louise would have wet the bed, for sure, he would boast to me later. The prowling continued until one of the children’s parents recognised my brother’s orange jumper and reported him to Leda. It was one of the rare occasions my mother used my brother’s beauty as an insult against him. Well, at least you got the looks in the family, she said to him, if not the sagacity.

  I could not help but feel pleased with my lot. But I did my best to hide it, because whenever he felt a loss of traction, my brother would reaffirm the natural order of things by serving tennis balls at my abdomen or tackling me to the ground, or by pinning me down and forcing me to eat grass. Or, now that he considered himself an expert in weaponry, by pointing the .22 at my head. For he knew as well as I did where it was kept.

  Once, for example, after we had argued, my brother retrieved the rifle, chased me around the house and cornered me in my room. He tucked the wooden butt under his armpit, raised the sight to his eye and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger.

  You’re dead, he said.

  Except I wasn’t, because my father never kept ammunition in the house. It was locked in a drawer in his office.

  You’re dead! My brother repeated. He liked the sound of his own voice.

  Not if you blow off your face first, I countered.

  I will kill you!

  So do it, I dared him.

  But there was always some more urgent matter, like calling the fire brigade after one of his bombs got caught in the power lines, or scrounging through the fridge for a morsel.

  14

  THE ONLY puppeteer Leda ever introduced to Gilbert had missing teeth (due to drug use, safe to assume). And one of her thespian friends, the bursar of the local Theatrical Society, had allegedly stolen the annual subscription funds.

  No, Gilbert decided, he did not like the performing arts, and regardless of Leda’s natural inclination towards bohemian types—something which, Gilbert admitted, he had always found attractive in her—he could ill-afford to have his wife hanging around the fringes of any sort of illegal activity. It was bad enough their son was turning into a delinquent.

  It had never occurred to Leda that she should not go wherever she liked, whenever she liked and with whomever she liked. The children had been mollycoddled long enough. How else would they learn independence if not by example, through practical application? If Gilbert could do as he pleased, she would do the same.

  Looking at Leda now, Gilbert realised how little she demanded of him compared with other women in his life. She did not need him the way Cara needed him, to advise her on everything from courtroom procedure to whether or not her new shade of lipstick suited her (he had no opinion on the subject). Cara could barely park the car without reassurance.

  The more time Gilbert spent with Cara the more demanding Cara became, calling him at work on the pretext of some life-or-death matter, occupying his line just minutes before he had to leave for court, only to tell him that she didn’t think she could get through the day without seeing
him, or to accuse him of having slept with someone else (where did she think he found the time?). It pained him to listen to her histrionics on the other end of the line after one of her girlfriends had reported seeing him with another woman (his own wife!). Cara had twice rocked up, uninvited, to visit him at chambers, before he told her it was inappropriate.

  Whatever his feelings for her, he didn’t remember making any promises.

  Leda, on the other hand, required no such buffering from the realities of life, loneliness and the certainty of death—for Leda, these were trifles to be faced with the same pragmatism and flair with which she had faced the dangers of flying, with which she had borne the expectant faces of the audience beneath (some of whom, she suspected, had secretly hoped she would fall).

  Yet, even after thirteen years of marriage, Gilbert felt that for all her earthiness, Leda had never really landed. She was in the air and of the air, always beating her wings ready to escape through an open window. He had always been confident she would not leave the children—only a monster would do that—but now the fear rose again like acid in his gut.

  To the last Law Ball she ever attended Leda wore a black leather dress, laced up the front, back and sides, tight enough to blow the frocks of even the most desperate women right out of the water. She matched it with follow-me-home shoes and a curly blonde wig.

  The invitation stipulated Black Tie and Gown. As several other women at the ball noted, Leda’s ensemble did not even come close to the dress code.

  Cara didn’t get the memo that Gilbert was taking his wife to the ball (he didn’t think to tell her) and was hysterical because she had not heard from him for two whole days.

  He was probably occupied with work, Cara’s friends attempted to reassure her, and in the midst of trying to leave his madwoman wife. Cara should go to the ball on her own. If Gilbert showed up, he would no doubt explain his reticence, and if he didn’t show up, well, Cara should make like a liberated woman and enjoy herself without him.

  She was as much a member of the Law Society as he was, after all, they reminded her. Plus, she’d spent a small fortune on her dress, a red taffeta gown with a plunging crossover neckline.

  Leda picked my father’s lover out of the crowd the instant she saw her. She had long, almost-black hair straightened with a hair iron, heavy liquid eyeliner, and a thick layer of foundation that was, according to my mother, a shade too dark for her complexion. She compensated for her short stature (vertically challenged, my mother called it) with very high heels.

  There she is! Leda called out, striding over to introduce herself.

  Cara and her friends stood wide-eyed and slack-jawed, their fruity cocktails suspended mid-air, their twittering silenced at last.

  A circle of guests formed around Leda. She held the floor like a jester, ridiculous and wise, arms outstretched magnanimously, until she seemed to soar above the room.

  This is my husband’s lover, she announced to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in tones more maternal than unkind.

  Cara took on the Christ-like pantomime of the innocent, palms upturned. Was Leda out of her mind? She and Gilbert had a purely professional relationship! She respected him as a friend and mentor! Your Honour, I…I…

  Out of discretion, or because he was hard of hearing, His Honour nodded and smiled.

  There was something annoying about Cara, or a lot of things, actually, Leda decided. She used too much product in her hair and her eyebrows were over-plucked, probably out of nervous habit. She had wrists like twigs and the narrow sloping shoulders of a coward; she was so thin, in fact, that the stuff of her dress seemed to be the only thing holding her up. And red was a clanger of a choice, way too literal.

  Leda imagined the girl on the floor, flattened under her foot like a chocolate foil. At the same time, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Gilbert had apparently failed to tell her that Leda knew all about their affair, even more, perhaps, than Cara did herself.

  But Cara’s persistent denial proved too much for Leda to bear. Later in the evening she approached her from behind, unzipped her dress, breaking off the zipper end, and then watched, amused, as Cara walked around the room displaying her G-string. The other guests were either so drunk they didn’t notice, or else, despite being drunk, were too repressed to mention it.

  It was up to none other than Gilbert to save Cara’s dignity, ushering her towards the Ladies, borrowing nappy pins from a young mother who happened to have some in the pocket of a jacket she kindly retrieved from the coat check.

  When last drinks were called and Gilbert went to find Leda, she had vanished into the night.

  My mother returned home the next morning minus her wig and shoes, bubbling over with bitter humour about her conquest. Her hair, her real hair, hovered in pale wisps about her skull. My father didn’t ask where she had been.

  That night, I heard talk through the wall about how Cara had gotten her hooks into my father, as if my father were a flounder, or a Stelarc performance in which he was suspended from the ceiling by hundreds of fishing hooks, the skin pulled upwards away from the flesh. The conversation swelled into an argument and culminated with one of my parents storming out, slamming the front door, revving the car and screaming off down the hill. No wonder the gearbox needed repairs.

  It wasn’t the first time. On the other side of the wall, as I turned the pages of the journals, I was always wondering who it was that left, who stayed.

  …

  The Whistling Eagle is a dull and stupid bird, easily approached. Mr B also shot a Black-cheeked Falcon, a rare bird, the only one we have seen.

  …

  and continuing along the river we passed an empty village of some 16 huts—temporary accommodations for the collecting of seeds

  …

  A very bright meteor was seen to burst in the south-west quarter of the heavens; crossing the sky with a long train of light, and, in exploding, seemed to form numerous stars.

  …

  a peculiar rat. The nests they construct are made of sticks, varying in length from three inches to three feet, and in thickness from the size of a quill to the size of a thumb. They are arranged in a most systematic manner, so as to form a compact cone like a bee-hive, four feet in diameter at the base, and three feet high.

  …

  The sky was overcast but the wind changed from SE to N and the clouds vanished before sunset. Several men complain of disordered bowels and sore eyes, but Capt X attributes both to the weather, and to the annoyance of the flies and mosquitoes.

  …

  all of whom had hidden themselves in the polygonum, except an old woman who was fast asleep. With this old lady we endeavoured to enter into conversation.

  …

  The sheep, it is true, sometimes refuse to stir, and assemble in the shade, when on the march, whilst the dogs take shelter in wambut holes, and, poking their heads out, bark at their charge to very little purpose.

  …

  The sand here is of a deep red colour, and a bright narrow line of it marks the top of each ridge.

  …

  a snake, speckled bright yellow brown, tangled in his hooves, but luckily he was not bitten and it wriggled off into a small crevice in the rocks.

  …

  D led us to a small water hole. Some other Natives brought the cattle up the back for us. They regarded our party—animals, drays and boat—with curiosity, apparently failing to understand our purpose.

  …

  We worked, therefore, by the light of the moon, digging through the red undersoil, making two square pit wells as a precaution on our return.

  …

  building a chain line over the sand hills to supply men with water for up to 30 miles.

  …

  The next day is to be used for watering the animals, making necessary repairs to shafts and spokes, checking the instruments, and preparing and painting the boat in the event of her being required.

  …

  The white owl
appeared, like other birds, at noon-day; but there are also numerous other night birds. Here, too, the black-shouldered hawk collects in flights.

  …

  but Mr K has become worse and worse, and he is now wholly confined to his bed, unable to stir, a melancholy affliction. All his skin along his muscles has turned black, and large pieces of spongy flesh hang from the roof of his mouth.

  …

  agreed he would rather that his bones be left to bleach in the desert than yield an inch of the ground we have gained.

  …

  He had risen to take some medicine, but suddenly observed to J that he thought he was dying, and falling on his back, expired without a struggle. We buried him under a grevillea; his initials, and the year, are cut into it above the grave, and he now sleeps in the desert.

  …

  With the wind at east, and a cloudy sky, we crossed the grassy plain in a N.W. direction, and soon found ourselves

  …

  where the river thinned to a trickle then a chain of brackish ponds.

  …

  The ground is covered with pieces of quartz rock, ironstone, and granite. Some of the stones resemble those in the bed of a river, or on the sea shore. They are not, however, rounded by attrition or mixed together, but laid on the plains in patches, as if large masses of the different rocks had been placed at certain distances from each other and then shivered into fragments. There are many fissures and holes on these flats, into which the earth falls, with a hollow rumbling sound, as if into a grave. The shock, when the drays slip into any of them, is so great, that it shakes the brutes almost to pieces.

  …

  We saw several emus in the course of the day and a solitary crow.