A Hundred Small Lessons

by Ashley Hay

  ‘Hardly worth it,’ he said aloud, turning away. And found he couldn’t remember the last time he’d stood with her under a jet of warm water, washing away everything else in the world.

  Collecting his magazine from the kitchen table, he walked into the spare room where his laptop sat, its screen black and inert. He loved the way he had only to jiggle the mouse with the tiniest movement for the whole extraordinary machine to come to life.

  Iranian space mission, he typed, and animals, and he sat for the instant it took the complex mess of circuitry and processes to trek through the infinity of cyberspace and find him the exact thing he wanted to know. The Iranian government planned to launch a vessel with a monkey in the new year, and there were snide comments about those earlier astronauts with worms.

  What happened to the turtle? He idled through other pages about astronomy, about rockets, about Mars.

  I have no model for marriage, he thought in the expansive way he had when something had gone wrong and he felt he was somehow responsible. It’s no wonder I break it. As if all things were now on the brink of collapse.

  ‘It’s an argument I’d make for Tom having siblings,’ Lucy had said once, early in Tom’s life. ‘You only children, you’ve no idea how to fight without it feeling like the end of the world.’

  In the bathroom, the water stopped, and Ben listened to the noise of the rail as Lucy pulled down her towel. He’d lost count of the number of times she’d mentioned that one of them should tighten it.

  From outside, in the darkness, he heard two curlews with their strange, discordant cry. The sound came again, and once more, and then the noise of rain beginning. This summer, it seemed never to stop.

  ‘Can’t believe you don’t know there’s been a flood.’ The art-shop girl had laughed at him—he’d liked that. ‘Twenty-seven inches of rain on the weekend, my dad said. As if you can’t know about that!’

  He looked up the recent rainfall: they’d had half that this past month.

  At the front of the house, Tom cried one more time, so short that Ben hardly registered it before the house was quiet again. Then he clicked through to John Glenn’s description of the cloud of ‘fireflies’ swirling around his spacecraft. He could have recited it by heart. Brisbane. February 1962. When a spaceship first passed over this place.

  On the other side of the wall, Lucy was cleaning her teeth—he heard the tap of her brush against the sink, the spit of water as she rinsed her mouth. If he hurried, he could be in bed with his eyes shut before she came out. Then nothing would need to be said, or done—or thought—before the morning.

  He pushed his arms up towards the ceiling as far as they would go. What kind of a coward are you? And knew the answer as he heard his son call out, once again, and felt himself curse. No: he’d wait; he’d make the tea Lucy had started making. He’d think of something to say. He’d kiss her.

  He’d make it all right, no matter how his body ached. He’d put them together again.

  Somewhere outside, a car door slammed and the engine burst into life. The sound seemed larger in the night, and dangerous.

  Ben listened, careful, but Tom, the curlews and the car were silent—the only sound now was rain and more rain. And when he glanced up at the screen, it had dimmed itself down to pure blackness, so that all he could see was his own pale reflection.

  13

  The portrait

  On the train into town, Elsie watched her reflection in the window. It surprised her sometimes, the way she looked—if she caught herself unawares, she always thought she looked like she was frowning. And yet Clem always assured her, reassured her, she was such a happy thing. Which face would Ida Lewis catch? Which mood would she see? Elsie watched her smile stretch and spread in the window’s mirror, and blushed when she saw another passenger watching her.

  How you looked, who you were, how the world saw you. You must look your truest self when you were happiest, she thought, and she thought of the scene she’d described for the artist—swinging down from a tram in Adelaide Street, and Clem reaching up for her hand.

  Such a thing of chance; it still took her breath away.

  The moments when I’m most myself. She stepped off the train at Central and made her way down to the shops. At home, in the quiet, at the end of the day, with a fresh pot of tea before bed—that was happiness, even if it was only Clem who slept under her watch now; Elaine and Don in their own marriages, their own new beds and homes.

  That was happiness—that, and dancing. They should go to Cloudland again soon.

  She pushed open the door to the haberdasher’s, taking in its bolts of luxury. There it was: the clouded silver silk. She’d take a sample.

  ‘A ball gown, dear?’ the woman asked from behind the counter, her great heavy scissors making a satisfactorily loud chop across the grain of the fabric.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Elsie slowly. ‘It’s just so beautiful—it reminded me of moonlight. What sort of a dress could you cut from the night?’ The strangeness of the words. These sessions with Ida, they were doing something to her soul. Fancy words and fancy notions. The sooner she was dancing with Clem on that sprung floor, the sooner she’d be anchored in her world.

  The woman laughed, sliding the swatch across the counter. ‘Whatever you make, this colour will look lovely on you—bring out the pretty colour in your hair, among the grey. Make you look a bright young thing again. It’s always nice to see a lady make the most of what she still has.’

  Holding the fabric tight in her right hand, Elsie coughed, her other hand brushing her cheek. ‘And how much did you say it was, per yard?’ The woman’s impertinence, making her feel decrepit when she was only forty-one. Even if she was almost a grandmother. The silk bunched between her fingers, its magical promise gone, she barely paid attention to the woman’s answer before she walked out of the shop. There was an older lady who worked in the fabric shop on Saturday mornings; Elsie would buy the length from her instead.

  But back at home, sitting with her sandwich in the full sun of her deck, she pulled out the little square again and watched its colour change under the light. Here was her reflection again, in the window beside her, and she liked the way its imperfect mirror smoothed the lines from her face and lit up in her hair.

  ‘Radiant’ Clem had called it when they were younger—and still would now, if he came and found her sitting in the sunshine, her hair out and drying. It was one of the nicest things he ever said.

  Would her hair shine in the painting? Could Ida Lewis make it look like that?

  Elsie brought the silk up towards her mouth as if to kiss it, but rested it instead in the dint that shaped the top of her lips and ran up towards her nose. Soft things felt softer rubbed there—she’d learned that with her children’s skin, when they were little. It was the one way she could soothe their crying, to rub something gently—a silk-edged bunny rug; a furry bear—against the smoothness of their own young skin. She’d remember to tell Lainey that.

  And on Tuesday, she’d be back in Ida Lewis’s studio for the next session of painting. She watched her reflection chew hard on the day-old bread of her sandwich. How quickly something new became habitual—and now I pose weekly for an artist, she thought, feeling grand. When the picture was finished, she’d take Clem around to see it. She’d wear the new dress made from her shantung.

  In the meantime, these sessions. There was something exciting about them, as if anything might happen. Imagine me. She’d never much imagined anything. And here she was making conversation with an artist while she sat there. And was regarded. And was remade—a whole new version of herself.

  •

  On the fourth Tuesday sitting for her portrait, it rained and rained. Inside the glass studio, her body moulded to precisely the right pose by the regular sittings, Elsie watched as the garden was washed clean. The clouds were quite high and light—silver, she thought, like my dress—but the rain fell solidly, changing the layered leaves to their brightest green.

&nbs
p; ‘I love a rainy day,’ Ida Lewis said, squeezing another line of blue across her palette. ‘There’s nothing nicer than being inside when it’s wet and miserable outside. I hated that during the war: whenever it rained—in Moresby and in the jungle too—you felt that it might never stop. Nowhere felt warm or dry or safe. The first time it rained when I came home, I crawled into bed and stayed there, just crying.’ She flicked the crumpled paint tube back into its box with all the others, and settled her palette on her arm. ‘Do you cry much, Elsie? Are you a weeper? Or more stoic? You know, I never saw my mother cry. I don’t think she knew how. One of my sisters was the most lachrymose person I ever met, until her sweetheart was killed in the war. She never cried then, just got on with it and went out and found herself another soldier. My other sister, she was like my mum, but sunnier. No tears, but no tempers either. Me, I’m a jumble of everything, and there’s nothing like a good cry sometimes. I always wanted to paint someone in the middle of a weep—nothing howling and tragic, just a washout. If I’d have thought of it earlier, I could’ve tried it with you.’

  On the other side of the easel, Elsie let the artist’s words wash over her like the ocean. One more after today, Ida had said as she rearranged the fabric that served as Elsie’s backdrop. One more, and I’ll leave you alone.

  Elsie wasn’t a crier, never had been. But she’d been surprised by how much she’d cried when Clem’s mum passed on, and by how much she’d cried when she’d held Elaine’s baby, little Gloria, just last week, the day after the baby was born. A new life—and a new life for her.

  ‘I’m your grandmother, sweetheart,’ she’d whispered, scooping up the tiny mewling thing when Lainey went out to the loo. ‘You and me, well, we’re going to get along fine.’

  ‘The nurse says not to hold them when they’re crying,’ Elaine said when she was back on the bed, and she nodded at the empty bassinet.

  ‘Ah, one cuddle, just while I’m here,’ said Elsie, cuddling the small baby close.

  ‘Of course you’d think that you know best,’ said Elaine.

  Elsie remembered that as she looked out into Ida Lewis’s garden, and she did want to cry. She wanted to cry out as much water as the rain, and then some more. Because she’d antagonised her own girl yet again. And because she didn’t want this new thing now to end. She loved sitting here, listening to the painter—whether she was talking or humming; even if the only sound was the busy rustle of her brushes, the occasional clatter of something set down or taken up again. She loved listening to whatever the artist had to say—always something a little more, a little larger than Elsie expected. She loved sitting here, sitting still, being herself. And she loved the sense of Ida Lewis’s gaze, and the alchemy that converted whatever Ida saw into the image Ida made. Ida Lewis saw her in a way that no one ever had; Elsie was sure of it. And the very idea made her shake.

  ‘I won’t look until it’s done,’ Elsie had said at the end of the first sitting. ‘I want it to be a surprise, finding out what it is you see.’

  Ida had laughed. ‘You’ve a lot of faith in me,’ she said. ‘What if I get the shape of you, and not the features? What if I paint a version of you that no one sees but me?’

  The danger of it, the frisson: the only thing that had ever come close was when Clem pushed the door open while Elsie was in the bath, came in, and washed her, very slowly and carefully, and went away, all without saying a word. Twice or three times he’d done that in all the years they were married. Elsie cherished it.

  ‘But then I suppose mothers can’t cry,’ Ida Lewis said now, her words narrowed by the tapered brush she’d poked in the corner of her mouth like a cigarillo. ‘Spend all their time trying to shush their children, don’t they? It was one of the reasons I didn’t want children—they seem so upset for the first few years, and then you send them off to school. And Richard was older, of course. What about you? Did you ever regret having yours?’

  A single drop of water detached from the window’s top frame onto the glass, and traced a perfectly straight line down to the bottom. Elsie watched it the whole way, her eyes tensing to follow it.

  ‘People like me,’ she said as the drip pooled along the windowsill. ‘I don’t think we decide to have children. It was all I ever wanted—to get married, have a family. No one had me cut out for anything else. All I wanted was a baby of my own. Me and Clem, we never talked about it. We got married; we had the twins. I did wish there were more, but I was blessed with the two of them. And now we’ve a granddaughter and it starts all over again.’

  But for the first time, in the sound of those words, Elsie felt a great rush of exhaustion. If this new baby, Gloria, had her own child when she was twenty or twenty-one, Elsie would be a great-grandmother before she knew it. And you could fit another generation after that, if you were quick. Great-great-grandmother Elsie, up around eighty years old: the length of her life lived again.

  And she did cry then; not the kind of crying she’d done before, snotty and sobbing and gulping, the way it was in the most dramatic of movies. This was quiet and profound, the tears running as simply and directly down her face as the rain ran down the window’s glass. It was a minute, maybe more, before Ida noticed, and set down her brushes and her palette to cross the room, a man’s handkerchief in her hand.

  ‘Here, it’s clean—I am sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  But Elsie, silent, shook her head and let the tears wash out of her. She felt the handkerchief’s softness on her cheeks, the artist’s hand warm on her shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter, Elsie?’ she heard Ida Lewis ask after a while. She could feel the artist’s hand rubbing small circles on the skin at the top of her spine. ‘What’s all this about?’

  Outside in the garden, the rain was easing—Elsie caught the delicious smell of new wetness. Perhaps things weren’t so bad after all; perhaps life wasn’t such a short loop, played over and over.

  ‘I’m doing this because I wanted a dress—a beautiful one, made of silvery material. That’s what I want to use the money for.’ The pragmatism of her answer bruised against all the nuance in the question. ‘And it’s lovely, you know, just sitting here, being. I could sit here forever, in this lovely room, with you. It’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever done. And you—’ A deep breath. ‘And now it’s almost done, and I’ll go back to all the things I did before. Maybe nothing will be like this again.’

  She caught Ida’s hand and brought it up to her lips, kissing the painter’s fingers before she had time to stop herself, or to think. And then she let go the painter’s hand and closed her eyes.

  Somewhere outside, someone was trying to start a truck, its engine gagging and choking. Somewhere outside, someone was calling instructions—something about three pints of milk and some bread. Somewhere outside, the rain had eased off and the birds were beginning to sing. But here, in this glass room, Elsie Gormley sat still and alone in a wicker chair with her eyes shut, wondering what would happen when she opened them, and who, in that moment, she might be.

  She opened her eyes. Ida Lewis was standing again behind her canvas, the high rectangle obscuring anything her model might have seen of her face.

  ‘Your silver dress,’ Ida said, her painting arm busy again. ‘It sounds quite like starlight—I should have painted you in that for this new age. Those spacemen, whizzing by: I stood in the garden, looking for the Friendship. Well, I couldn’t see a thing. You know they crashed a spaceship on the moon the other day—it was supposed to send back photographs, but something went wrong. It’s some world, isn’t it, where we send men and great big cameras into space. I can’t say I thought I’d hear of that. But—’ Ida stepped out from behind the easel for just a moment, and smiled. ‘Well, anything’s possible, I guess.’

  Then silence, as she went back to her painting and her arm moved up and down. Sitting quietly, Elsie wanted to say something about surprises, about the unexpected—or about the size of the sky, beyond this world. But nothing she thought of seemed r
ight. The sleeve of her dress itched at her skin, and she tried to scratch it with an imperceptible gesture, barely moving a muscle.

  As the sun began to shine at last, Elsie heard a clock strike midday—it must have been in the house next door. She’d never heard it in this house before.

  ‘That’s time then,’ Ida said, putting down her brushes and smiling at her subject. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and we can have a cup before you go—I’ll see if Richard might like one too. That’s his dreadful clock; I’m sorry if it startled you. It’s always so peaceful when he’s travelling and has taken it with him.’ She set her brushes down and went into the kitchen.

  And from somewhere in the centre of herself, Elsie felt a new sensation—mortification, and a swirl of embarrassment that she hadn’t felt since she was a schoolgirl. Squirming, she realised she wanted to use the lavatory, and badly, but she could hardly walk through the house if she might run into Ida’s husband on the way. And who knew what he’d seen going on?

  ‘I won’t stay,’ she called towards the kitchen. ‘I don’t think I told you but my daughter’s had her baby—a little girl. Gloria. Most gorgeous dark red hair—like my Clem’s, before it faded down to ginger. If I get on now I can manage a visit and be home again by teatime. They’re so precious when they’re tiny.’

  Crouching down for her bag, she saw Ida, standing in the doorway, watching her.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Elsie,’ she said gently. ‘It happens sometimes. It takes some getting used to, having someone stare at you. If you’re sure you won’t have tea, that’s fine—go off to your little grandkiddy. But stay for lunch next week, and see the picture.’

  As Elsie reached for the handle to let herself out, Ida caught her hand and held it, firmly, for a moment. And then she let her go.

  Walking fast to the bus stop, Elsie felt more tears’ wetness on her cheeks. This time, these days; the baby and the painting. Everything was a jumble of big things to care about, and Elsie was tired. She paid her bus fare and settled herself in a seat, looking out through the window and determined not to be surprised by anything she might see. The bus pulled away from the kerb, and she leaned her head against the window frame. She was asleep before it had reached the next stop.