Closed for Winter

by Georgia Blain

  This is how he found her.

  It’s a damn good thing he comes every day, Martin tells me on the telephone, otherwise who knows how long it could have been?

  John Mills, standing at the back door, paper bag of sandwiches in one hand. He knocks, as he always knocks, and waits. But there is no answer. He tries the door, but in swinging closed, it has locked. He knocks again. Nothing.

  He looks up at the cool winter sky and wonders what he should do. The side window is open but he does not know whether he is agile enough to climb.

  Twenty years ago, he had run up the road with me running by his side, white-faced and frightened. It’s Mum, I had said, and he had grabbed his doctor’s bag, and tried to take my hand, both of us running fast in the hot still night.

  But that was then. He is now twenty years older and his leg is stiff with arthritis.

  He walks nervously around the house, calling her name and testing each possible entrance. The bedroom window is the easiest, lowest to the ground and wider than the others. It is open. But still he hesitates.

  Silly, he tells me when I call him after hanging up from Martin, but I felt I shouldn’t go in without being asked.

  He heard her before he saw her, and at the sound of her voice, relief flooded through him. She lay across the kitchen floor, her face chalky with pain, her arm bruised from where she had hit it on the table.

  I think it is a crushed vertebra, he tells me. Ideally, I would get her into hospital for an X-ray.

  But when he suggested it, Dorothy stared straight through him.

  Please? He implored.

  She pulled her hand away from his.

  She wouldn’t go? I ask him. I know what his response will be, but I am hoping that perhaps I am wrong.

  I didn’t want to push it, he says.

  So I pack my bag and call a taxi. She will not move and I must go down there.

  15

  It’s a damn good thing he comes every day. It is not the first time Martin has said this about John Mills and it will not be the last.

  He is right. And I am grateful to him.

  But.

  I don’t understand why you are so uneasy with him, Martin says.

  I cannot explain.

  To attempt to explain would be to reveal too much.

  I would have to tell Martin about my photograph, the photograph I have of Frances and me.

  I would have to tell Martin that this photograph was taken by John Mills.

  I would have to tell Martin that he did not ask us if he could take it, and I did not ask him if I could have it.

  John Mills likes to walk along the beach by himself, camera in hand, stopping occasionally to capture what he sees, the dried grasses swaying gold against the brilliant sky, the glitter of the sun on the ocean, a single seagull squawking angrily, a moment that he wants to hold.

  I know because I have seen him. Sitting in my rock pool, I used to watch him, solitary and peaceful on a beach that was crowded with families and their activity.

  The photograph I have is the only photograph he took of the two of us. There were others, but they were of Frances. I remember them clearly, even though I saw them years ago, there in a pile on his kitchen table. I looked at them all, quickly, furtively, while he found his doctor’s bag, and I slipped it, the one I wanted, the one I have now, into my pocket, moments before he came and took me by the hand, leading me back up the street to Dorothy.

  John Mills is good to us.

  But there are those photographs.

  I have never told him that I saw them, and in my silence they have become a barrier between us.

  Sometimes I think that he was just intrigued by her. That he saw what I saw, the fearless defiance that drew you to her. Perhaps he simply wanted to capture that, as compelling as the glint of afternoon sun on the surface of the ocean.

  But sometimes, when my search for her overwhelms me, I have doubts that I do not want to have.

  Because he is good to us. He is a good person.

  And I am grateful for all he does for us.

  I shake out my towel. It is time for me to go home. Fine white sand flies out in the first of the afternoon sea breeze. A beach tent flaps gently, and a man with large sunglasses peers out to see if there is, perhaps, a change coming after all. But the sky is still unrelentingly clear.

  I put my sandals on slowly, hoping that in these last few seconds Frances will suddenly appear. I pull my dress over my head, fearful that in the instant my eyes are covered, Frances will walk past without stopping. I roll up my towel. There is no more I can do to delay, and I turn slowly to walk back up the beach.

  It is emptier now. The few families that are left are drowsy with the day’s heat. Even the children are resting, curled up on towels under umbrellas, tracing pictures in the sand. In the distance, the noise on the jetty has died down. Only a few of the boys are left and they do not jump any more. They lean idly against the railing, drinking beer and occasionally jostling each other. Half-hearted and lazy.

  A couple lie, nestled in each other’s arms, at the edge of the dunes. They kiss, unaware of the world around them. Her legs are entwined with his, and his with hers. Further along a man sits by himself, a bottle of beer in one hand. He leans back against a cushion of sand. He does not look up as I walk past.

  But I steal glances at everyone I see, hoping that one of them will be Frances. Frances smeared in coconut oil, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine nicked from the kiosk; Frances lying flat on her stomach, brown back bared to the sun; Frances kissing one of the boys in the dunes, bored and uninterested as he runs his hand down between her shoulder blades and hopefully pulls at the tie on her bikini top.

  But she is not there.

  I pause before turning up the path to the road, wanting one last look before I give up. It all stretches before me. The blue sky, the sparkle of the sea and the miles of sand. And there is no sight of her.

  The dry grass stings my legs and I walk with my head down now, watching each step to avoid stumbling in the gaps between the slats of wood, until I come out at the top of the path near the kiosk.

  A group of kids hang out near the front, eating ice-blocks, hamburgers, chips. I know that Frances will not be there, but I wander over, just to check. This is the hang-out of the good kids, the ones who don’t get into trouble – The place where you belong. Frances laughs at the hurt look on my face. Besides, the owner is a Bloody perve.

  I want to know more but Frances will only expand on a good day, when she is feeling talkative, which is not often. You know, she says, an iceblock for a quick grope in the back room, a packet of fags if you touch him, that kind of stuff.

  The plastic ribbons flick across my arm as I walk in the doorway, shy, just wanting to look quickly and then leave. But it is not crowded enough to hide, unnoticed in the back corner while I scan the shop, hastily, for Frances, and I accidentally catch the eye of the owner’s wife.

  Can I help you?

  Nothing, I tell her. I don’t want anything.

  Outside a group of girls stare at me as I stand on the footpath waiting to cross the road. They whisper and look at each other before breaking into laughter. I glare at them, but they have turned away.

  I walk home quickly, along The Esplanade, down Grange Road, counting each step I take. If there is an odd number when I reach that tree, Frances will be waiting for me at home, if the number is even . . . If I count to twenty by the next corner, Frances will get home five minutes after me, and I make my steps bigger, larger, but I have only counted to eighteen by the time I reach Sea-view Street.

  I pass Tamara’s and Mrs Brownsword is bringing the shopping in. She calls out, wanting to know where Frances is, and I point towards home because I do not want to have to stop and explain but she beckons me over and I have to pretend I have not seen so that I can just keep walking.

  I want to get home now.

  I need to know.

  And as the gate swings shut behind me, I call o
ut Frances’s name. And again, but louder. I am not even listening for an answer, because in my heart I know there will not be one, but I think that if I keep shouting her name, it may make her appear. So I walk around the house, calling out, Frances, Frances, until finally I stop, once again at the back door and alone.

  It is locked. Frances has the key. I push each of the windows along the sunroom but they are all firmly closed.

  The bedroom window is open an inch, and I drag an old wooden box from near the back gate around the side. I have seen Frances scramble in and out of here a hundred times, late at night, cheeks flushed, unaware that I am awake, watching her as she undresses, the sand from her jeans spilling out onto the carpet, her cigarettes carefully hidden at the back of the cupboard, and then into bed, eyes closed like she has been there the whole time.

  But I have never done it myself. I push the frame up and it is stiff, swollen with the salty air. Head first, I wriggle through and tumble down onto the floor before I have time to balance myself.

  Were you worried?

  I nod my head.

  But why?

  I look up.

  How can I explain?

  I always knew. She was a person to whom something would happen. I can make no more sense than that, so I say nothing, nothing at all.

  16

  I ask the taxi driver to drop me at the shops.

  Here? he says, momentarily confused because I had, initially, given him Dorothy’s address.

  I nod my head and he pulls over.

  I know I should rush straight there, I know John Mills is waiting for me, I know I said I would not be long, but I delay. I buy flowers for her, wilted sickly pink carnations, the only bunch in the bucket outside the deli. I buy apple juice and a magazine. I do not know what she would like or want, so I keep adding items to my small pile, a block of chocolate, biscuits, lemonade, in the hope that one of them will be right.

  There is a rack of postcards by the cash register and I look at them while I wait. Dusty and curled at the edges, they show summer in another place, another time. Victor Harbor ten years ago, Moana, Port Elliot, Glenelg. In all the photos the sand is white and the sea is blue, once brilliant cobalt, now faded and tinged, dirty glass green. The name of each place is written at the bottom. The script is gold and elaborate.

  There are no photographs of this beach. It has never been a tourist destination. Despite its length and the calm of its gulf waters, it is and always will be a suburban beach, shabby and unremarkable.

  Is that all?

  I look up.

  Mrs Thompson, who owns this shop, stares at the postcards in my hand. Her eyes are fixed on the bent corners as though I am responsible for the damage.

  Is that all? she asks again.

  No, I tell her and I add the cards, one by one, to my pile.

  Thank you, and her voice is curt as always. I know her and she knows me, but she takes my money without a smile. This is the way she is.

  I squint when I step outside. There is a hint of winter sunshine, a flat white glare that washes out this wide empty street, draining the road and the shops of the little colour they have. I know each of them; Doreen in the chemist, Frank in the post office and Mr Hill in the newsagency. I know them and they know me and as I stand in this street, I feel the weight of that knowledge, heavy and solid.

  It is never easy coming back here, but to come back now, at this time, is particularly difficult. I do not want to leave Martin. Not now that I have pushed us to this point, the cliff edge, the brink. I am afraid that if he stands there too long without me, he may jump. You can want something but not know what it is until you have it.

  Perhaps, Martin said, when we spoke on the telephone, this would be a good time for us to assess our relationship.

  My knuckles whitened around the receiver.

  I don’t think either of us could honestly say that the last few months have been happy ones.

  What do you mean? I asked him.

  I am just saying that this may provide us both with a much needed break. A little clear headspace, Elise.

  I felt the panic, the first stirrings of what could amount to a hurricane in the silence of his mother’s house. Or, as he would say, a storm in a teacup, a mountain out of a molehill. All inside me, but he knew.

  Now calm down, he said.

  You are just being silly, he said.

  I am at work, he said.

  And the taxi beeped its horn, there at the door, to bring me back here to this place.

  We will talk later, he promised.

  And I think to myself that when we do talk, I will try and take us back to where we were, away from this edge, to somewhere safer, because I do not know if I could bear to be left standing alone on this cliff. I do not know if I could bear turning around and seeing her place, the place he took me away from, the place to which I would have to return.

  But it is not just my fear of leaving Martin that makes me drag my feet.

  I dawdle, I delay, walking slowly up the small hill that leads to Sea-view Street with my head down, but it is not just him, it is her, too. It is Dorothy. She is at one end and he is at the other, and they both pull at me. I am trapped between the two and I hover, weightless and still, like the space between the two magnets that the science teacher gave us, years ago. Caught between two poles, and the metal rod did not move. I remember. Feeling the resistance and feeling the pull. Feeling the space in between. All in that hot sticky classroom.

  Check this out, Michael Stick had said, his voice a slimy whisper near the back of my neck. Magnetic repulsion.

  I had turned around and wished I hadn’t. He had taped a piece of paper over the south pole on each of his magnets, my name written on one, his on the other.

  I remember.

  Look at this, I had said to Frances when I got home that afternoon, my two magnets hidden in my bag.

  She had wanted to magnetise the buckles on Dorothy’s sandals so that her feet would stick together. It didn’t work. Nothing, just a slap from Dorothy to stop us giggling as we watched her putting them on.

  What is so funny? Her voice exasperated when she realised we could not be silenced because even separated I could still hear Frances laughing in the other room and then I, too, could not stop. Both of us, laughing until we were sick.

  I remember that, too.

  I look up. I have been staring at the pine needles that curl like discarded snake skins at my feet, staring at the cracks in the bitumen, staring at the weeds that push through the cracks in the rotting fences, staring at all this and seeing nothing.

  I am filled with memories.

  This is the way it is.

  Elise is vague, Martin says to friends. Head in the clouds, and he squeezes my hand affectionately. He enjoys it when I forget, when I am slow at realising a point. He likes to be in charge of the practical.

  Standing at the gate to Dorothy’s house, I look down the road and I want to see it as it is now. I want my head to be clear and I want to see it as though I am seeing it for the first time.

  One hand on the latch, I am perfectly still.

  Salt in the air.

  Flat winter-white light.

  Potholes in this footpath, where the great roots of the trees have cracked and heaved their way through the cement.

  A straight road that stretches north to south, with not a bend in sight.

  Lavender in the next-door yard and I can smell it now.

  Houses that sag and paint that peels. Salt on the windows and a lonely cactus in an otherwise bare front garden.

  This is where I have come from.

  It is spread before me in all its ordinariness, unworthy of even a postcard.

  I open the gate slowly and I tell myself there is nothing to be frightened of.

  Nothing at all.

  17

  My father came from northern Italy, from the lakes near Como. This is what Dorothy has told me.

  He used to kiss my eyes, she would say, and she would
look at us, wide-eyed so that we could see and appreciate their different hues. One green and one blue, see?

  I would look at her as she asked, but Frances would not lift her gaze.

  This one, and she would point to her left eye, is the colour of the trees, and this one is the colour of the deepest lake. She did not shift her stare. Your father loved my eyes. They reminded him of home. That is what he told me.

  And Frances would roll her own eyes, dark-brown like my father’s, in disgust.

  Dorothy’s eyes are closed now. She lies still in her room, her curtains, which have never looked like the Como lakes, drawn tight against the last of the day. Flat on her back, she is sleeping the heavy sleep that follows shock and pain-killers.

  She will not wake for several hours, John Mills told me, his voice a whisper in the quiet of her room.

  I looked at her. She is not old, but lying there as she was, she seemed old, and I took her hand, her wedding ring hand, and held it in my own.

  From the framed photograph by her bed, my father looked at us.

  There are no other photographs of him. There are no photographs of the two of them together. There is only that photograph and Dorothy’s words. Her endless words.

  I sat by her side and I held her hand. She turned, slightly, in her sleep, and I stroked her hair.

  She will be all right, John Mills told me. It is just going to take time.

  Still and quiet. I looked at her and wondered where her mind was. Another night, a long time ago, The night that you were made, she would whisper to Frances when she was asleep. Lovely, deep and dangerous. A night to dance along the jetty, bare feet on the boardwalk, dancing high and low under the yellow moon.

  That was the night of you, and she would kiss Frances on the cheek, unaware that I was watching, silent and still, from the other bed.

  Warm whisky and cold cold sand between her toes as he pushed her up against the pylons, away from the others. Where no one could hear.