Other nights, she would bring out photographs to show me, pictures of a beautiful woman with long honey-coloured hair. She would smile as she told me about the mud-brick house her father had built for them, and how they never wore any clothes, and how disapproving her grandparents and the rest of the town were, because it was all just too Scandinavian, too like a Swedish art-house movie. I could tell she had loved her father, before he left her, and that her mother, who had been a naturopath, was someone she still idealised, so much so that she had enrolled in a course, years later, that was so patently unsuitable for her, because she wanted to be just like her, just like her.
And then the conversation would darken, and the photographs would be put away, as she told me about her father, unable to comprehend how he could have left.
She would pour herself another wine as she said he had never even told her he was going and when she finally heard, she had made herself ill, vomiting to such an extent that she was unable to leave her bedroom and the coolness of the flannel her grandmother put on her forehead.
She lit another cigarette as she recounted receiving the news of his second marriage, and how she had jumped off the roof of the barn, only to succeed in breaking her leg.
It wasn’t the first time I’d tried, she said.
And as the thunder cracked across the sky, and the first rain began to fall, I tucked her long blonde hair behind her ears and I kissed her.
You know I lost my virginity when I was fourteen, she whispered. To the local doctor.
I didn’t.
I’ve had four terminations, she added.
And I just kissed her again, never really listening to the truth behind all she was saying, never really thinking about who she was, never really seeing all that she was trying to reveal.
The first time we slept together we were so stoned the room seemed to float around us. That much I do remember. The second time, I was surprised. I had thought it was just one of those things that probably wouldn’t be repeated. The third time, she told me she loved me and I laughed; you don’t know me, I said.
And she told me she did.
Sometimes, thinking I was asleep, she would lie leaning on her elbow and look at me. When I caught her, she would turn away, embarrassed.
Sometimes she would ask me why I was with her, if it was a mistake I regretted, and I would swear that it wasn’t.
I remember the extent of her need when we made love, and the extent of her withdrawal when I was not interested.
I’m too tired, I would tell her, and she would turn her back to me and not speak for hours.
I remember the extravagance of the gift she gave me when we had been together for a month – a collection of texts that I knew had cost her far more than she could afford.
I remember the slight uncase I felt as she clung to my arm when we were out together, kissing me passionately in front of others, claiming me as her own, sullen and unwilling to communicate if I did not give her all of my attention.
I remember the times she listened in to my phone conversations, the times I caught her searching through my letters, the tears and apologies, and the terrible feeling that I had become involved in something I was unable to end.
You have never loved me, she would say and I would usually end up lying, thinking that somehow this would all work itself out, she’d had countless lovers, she would move onto someone else, it would be all right.
Had I been older and wiser I would have attempted to extricate myself much earlier than I did, I would have realised that need does not equal love. But that’s not the way it was. In any event, the brief time of living by ourselves came to an end when Victoria arrived, and I suppose I thought it would change with someone else in the house.
Victoria was Greta’s best friend from high school. She had been travelling in Europe and when Greta had heard she was coming back, she had promised to save the other room for her. I came down one morning to find her there, in the kitchen, home a week early, and I remember thinking ‘Thank God’, because I was, by then, in a permanent state of anxiety. I had to end it, I knew that, I just didn’t want to leave her alone, and I didn’t want to have to deal with the consequences, not by myself. ‘Victoria will help’, I thought, ‘Victoria will help’, and I smiled as I told her who I was; Daniel, I said, and she grinned as she kissed me, once on each cheek; Victoria, she told me, and I said that I knew, that I’d heard all about her, that I was pleased she was back. Really? she asked, one eyebrow raised; really, I smiled.
When I saw Greta again, I was afraid she would ask me whether I had ever loved her, but she didn’t. Nor did she ask whether there was any truth to all she had accused me of; her references to our past were far briefer and more honest than I had expected.
She told me that she shouldn’t have tried to hurt me in the way that she did, that I had always been kind to her, that was what she remembered, and as she looked straight at me, I felt only shame at my own dishonesty, but still I did not speak, still I did nothing to ease some of the guilt she felt, and when she reached for my hand, I pulled away, scratching my arm, pretending I was unaware of her gesture.
3
Silas told me that once he had started the task, this division of who he was into different categories, he found it difficult to stop. The piles began to spread out across his grandmother’s Persian carpets, placed to map out the links that lay between each person he had been. When he finally finished, he counted 227 in all.
I was amazed, he said, at how fractured one life could be.
Kneeling on the floor, Silas looked again at the divisions he had created; all the aspects of who he was before he went to Port Tremaine. As he began to gather the papers, uncertain as to what he would do with them, he realised he had nothing to mark who he was now.
He stopped for a moment, a few sheets clutched in his hand, the latest scars on his arms right before his eyes.
In his bedroom he found the notes on Kirlian photography that he had made in the library, the countless attempts at a letter to Rudi, the lists he had written, and he gathered them up, placing them neatly in the centre of the maze. This was where it had all led to, he thought. This was what he had become, and he looked at it, complete now, before gathering it up, all of it put in boxes out in the hallway, ready to be burnt.
4
If it had not been for Constance, the accident with Mick would have marked the time for Silas’s departure. Whatever party there had been was now well and truly over, and he knew it. The place he had found for himself, there on the verandah with Thai and the others, was gone. He had been tolerated because, once again, he had supplied the drugs and alcohol. He knew that was how it was, he had never held any doubts about it, because that was how he had always found his way through life, purchasing a brief time of comparative ease that he could enter and leave as he pleased.
But in the days that followed the accident, Silas knew Mick’s broken foot had changed his status in the town. The next morning, after Matt drove off into the first fierce rays of the sun stretching across the flatness of the land, after the low throb of Steve’s car signalled his return to his place on the verandah, Silas left for the garden as he always did, but this time there was no nod in his direction as he passed, no joint held out for him. The snigger of the kids as he crossed the dirt yard let him know how far the story of the previous day’s ‘fiasco’ (as Pearl had taken to calling it) had travelled, but it did not matter. Constance was his only concern; all he wanted was for her to see him, to recognise how he felt and to perhaps even like him in return.
I guess that was what I always did, he told me. When one thing died, I threw myself headlong into the next. I was already heading that way, I was already making her into my single obsession.
And after the accident, he just took it that little bit further.
How do you do it? he asked her, pleased to have once again found that it was her, not Rudi, who had come to let him in as he had pressed himself against the gate and called out her na
me.
Do what? She had the keys in her hand and she shook them, the metal sparkling in the brightness of the sun as she pointed at the gate. Open this?
He was hot. The sweat was sticky on his forehead and he could smell the staleness of the alcohol he had drunk alone in his room the previous night, there on his skin, overpowering even the sweetness of her. When he had crashed out on the hardness of the floor, the bottle empty, it was snakes that he had dreamt about, thousands of them coiling, slippery smooth, the coldness of their flesh pressed against his own.
Or is it drinking venom that you are referring to? She unlocked the padlock and let him in, her smile amused.
He felt the coolness of the garden as soon as he stepped inside and he wondered at how she had once again been aware of his thoughts. I could try too, he offered, grinning at the idea. You need others. I could help.
She stepped back. I think you are poisoned enough as it is, and she waved her hand across her face, wrinkling her nose slightly at the sourness of his skin.
I’m serious, he told her, because the notion did entice him; the thought of entering their world was both exciting and, he had to admit, a little frightening. Why not? I could join you out here. There used to be others.
She was amused now. How long would you last?
I don’t know, and he didn’t. He looked at her smiling at him, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes glittering in the sharpness of the light. Oh, you are so beautiful. The words were out before he even thought to stop them. What did it matter? You have no idea, he was holding her hands now, trying to dance with her, to swing her round under the strange rush of the branches overhead, the cool sway of green, the gentleness of the breeze, all of it moving, none of it still. We could start it up again, just the three of us, and then there would be others, and who knows how far it would go. Why not? Why not?
Don’t. It was all she said.
And I could read to you, at night, because he remembered how she had once told him that there had been a young woman who used to tell her stories before she went to sleep, and another who had taught her songs, nursery songs that she could still recall, all from the time before, the early years when it had not been just her and Rudi, alone.
Please. Her eyes narrowed and her smile was close to a grimace.
It would not have been enough to stop him; he would have continued regardless, if he had not happened in that instant to see Rudi, right there on the path behind her, one hand raised in greeting, the other clutching what appeared to be a bird, its body limp in his grasp. At the sound of his footsteps, she moved back.
He is not well, she whispered.
Rudi looked pale. Silas could only presume he had been drinking again, but he knew better than to refer to Rudi’s occasional binges – he had seen Constance’s anger the few times he had come close to touching on the matter, he had experienced her sharp dismissals; you have no idea, she would say, you have no right to judge.
I meant it, he urged her now. Just think about it, he whispered.
She nodded but she had already turned away, she was already calling out to her father.
We have lunch, he told her, holding out what Silas could now see was a duck, the brilliant green of its feathers slicked flat against its still body.
Silas just looked in horror at the dead animal. You killed it? His agitation at what had failed to pass with Constance made him more appalled than he would otherwise have been.
Rudi smiled. Of course. If we are to eat flesh, we must take life. It can be no other way.
But Silas was not listening.
In that brief moment, she had gone again, disappeared into the thick tangle of colour, the path between the flowers seeming to close behind her so that all he saw was the crisp blue of the man’s shirt she always wore, and then nothing.
Wait, he called after her, the promise he had attempted to extract from her now floating around him, his whole body tensed with the frustration of having been so close, but only for a moment.
Come, Rudi’s grasp was firm. She has work to do, and so do we.
5
Samantha, another supervisor, has told Jeanie that she is a little concerned about one of her provers.
It is Megan, Jeanie explained to me. Apparently she has a crush on you.
Me? I was surprised, and somewhat confused.
I do not even know her. We had gone walking together in one of the gorges once, and she had told me about the novel she had been trying to write. I must admit, I barely listened. I had wanted to be on my own, but when she had asked if she could join me, I had thought it would have been rude to refuse. Apart from that, I have spent no time with her.
I began to apologise, but Jeanie stopped me.
It’s not your fault, she assured me. Apparently Megan is like that. Samantha was unsure as to whether she’d be suitable, but decided to give her a go. She just doesn’t know whether she should continue, whether it will affect her findings.
There are definite characteristics one needs in a prover: good health is one, attention to detail is another, and a certain level of emotional stability is another.
Maybe if I talked to her? I offered, hearing the reluctance in my own voice. I did not want this. I did not know what I was expected to do about it.
No, no, Jeanie rushed to explain, I only wanted to discuss whether she should continue.
I told her I didn’t feel I should be the one giving an opinion on the matter; I did not know why, but I felt uncomfortable.
Samantha knows her, I said. Besides, an attraction doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with emotional instability.
Jeanie smiled. I know, and she apologised again for having brought it up with me.
Tonight as we ate dinner together, I sat at the other end of the table from Megan and wished I had never been told. She has decided that she will go, and she has spoken to everyone except me. If I am honest, I have had moments of wondering why she was selected. When we went for a walk together, I was struck by her eagerness to be liked, by her nervousness. But perhaps I am overly sensitive to such character traits, perhaps I judge her in retrospect.
I remember the letters Greta sent me after she was taken to hospital. She blamed all that had happened on love (her excessive love for me and my lack of love for her) rather than her own precarious sense of place within the world. At least, in the ones I read, she did. She sent them to my father’s house, and he would bring them round to where I was living with Victoria. Eventually, I told him not to. I could not read them.
Why? he asked me.
Because I was the one who found her. I was the one who came home and called out her name. I was the one who got no answer. I was the one who opened the bedroom door to see her lying there, grey and limp, eyes blank; I was the one who shook her, trying to wake her, over and over again.
My father understood. He had, after all, found my mother once, years earlier, in a similar state.
I called the ambulance. I can still remember my inability to dial the number, uncertain as to whether it was triple 0 or triple 9 I should be trying. I can still remember vomiting, the cold fear remaining in my stomach as I washed my face. I can still remember begging her to wake up as I waited, for what seemed to be an interminable time, for them to arrive.
That was the way she had known it would be. That was what she had wanted.
I did not go with Greta into casualty and I was not with her when she had her stomach pumped. I did not visit her afterwards and I did not answer any of her letters. I could not see her. I could not open it all up again.
Eventually, she, too, stopped trying.
When we met again, she told me that after she had been discharged, she had gone back to her grandparents’ farm for a few months. I knew that already. I had seen the postmarks on all the envelopes my father had given to me. Eventually she had moved to another city. She had studied art for five years and then she had come back.
You know, she said, I can understand why you didn’t want to
see me. I even understood it then, she grimaced slightly, hating the memory of what she had been like, but I never understood Victoria. She looked away. She was my best friend.
And still I didn’t say a word.
6
I do not know whether Greta asked Silas to try a little harder, whether she urged him to attempt to talk to me again, but when he arrived for our next appointment, I sensed a greater desire in him to speak the truth.
He was tense when he sat down, his entire body rigid as he braced himself for what he knew was bound to follow, and his answers were, at first, monosyllabic to even the most innocuous of questions.
We spent the first part of the appointment talking about the isolation of his life, and he soon tired of it. He felt we were simply going around in circles.
I was always someone who just went along with whatever was happening, he explained. I never made any attempts to assert an identity. Even my rebellions, for what they were worth, were no more than what you would expect a bored rich kid to do. I was easygoing, so people hung around. And there was also my money.
I asked him whether he had ever considered the possibility he might have been liked by some of the people he had met. He did not respond.
And now? I sat back.
Silas looked at the ceiling without blinking. I’ve removed myself. It’s just the way it has to be.
I had chosen more regular follow-up visits than I would normally schedule because I had felt a concern, a need to closely monitor his progress, but I had delayed prescribing further treatment. I had wanted to assess the effect of the initial remedy over a period of time before I considered whether I should select another. When I told him this, adding that I am not always orthodox in my approach, that I sometimes choose a more dynamic intervention, he finally smiled.
The Blind Eye Page 12
