The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories

by Fiona Kidman

  The woman’s husband looked vaguely embarrassed and glanced at his watch as if he had somewhere to go.

  ‘The view’s nice. I wanted to come here,’ said the young woman opposite them.

  ‘Oh. The view, yes.’ The woman who had spoken first turned her head and looked at the landscape, and turned back to her meal, her face set.

  The young woman, whose name was Cassie, continued to gaze into the distance. It was full of a dazed gold light. A long paddock, more like a rolling plain, stretched away from the hotel to a far belt of gum trees. The grass bent and shimmered before a light breeze, and the colour of the grass expanse was a delicate reflective blue green, changing as it moved. The gum trees were the same and even the sky appeared green around their outline, except for their white trunks. Closer, the dining room opened out on to a wide old verandah which ran right around the hotel at ground level. The garden beyond that was flanked by thickets of bougainvillea and hibiscus, and planted here and there were dense unpruned citrus trees bearing late fruit which laid a sharp scent on the evening air. Cassie breathed deeply.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ the man commented. ‘I like the view. Why can’t you make the most of it, Miriam?’

  She said nothing, so that the man turned back to their companion and said, ‘You can get too used to chrome and shagpile motels, can’t you? I mean, we’ve spent half the day waiting for the public relations people to ring around for us and missed out on a trip on the bay. Well, we could have been out sightseeing on the boat, but we’ve missed everything now.’

  ‘I think we should go home tomorrow,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Where do you come from?’ Cassie asked her, making her voice light and pleasant.

  ‘Auckland.’ She turned back to her husband. ‘I told you we shouldn’t have come in February. All the people who’ve been waiting for the school holidays to finish come in February and it’s just as bad as January. We should have waited till March.’

  ‘I’m Alan Forbes, and this is the wife,’ he said to Cassie.

  ‘How d’you do.’ Cassie smiled at them both, but already she knew that her presence would be of no help, for it was clear that Alan liked her appearance, and Miriam had noticed this too. Cassie imagined they were wealthy, but while Miriam might have practised having money for a long time, Alan was barely aware of what was expected of him. His shirt was open at the neck over a greying thicket of hair, a gold pendant nestled in the base of his throat. There was a coarseness about him, conveyed through thick hands with heavy hairs along the fingers, hands which looked as if they had done manual work once, before success had overtaken him.

  The conversation was hurrying on in the way of holidaymakers seeking faces for their albums, or at least for his part it was, and Cassie always found conversation irresistible. But there was an edge of danger in this one, as if the slightly drawn woman in beautiful casual clothes might suddenly snap, or bite one of them. She had very nice teeth, much better than Cassie’s own. Cassie thought she could probably bite well.

  ‘You’re a photographer, then?’ said Alan. ‘What are you photographing?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ Cassie told him. ‘Well, no, that’s not quite true. I lived here when I was very young. But I’m on holiday now. I’ve always remembered the light here. I wanted to take pictures in this light. Of the light, in a way.’

  ‘You’re taking pictures of the light?’ Miriam’s voice was incredulous.

  ‘Sort of. I know it sounds silly. Well it was something I wanted to try, and my mother offered to stay with the children.’

  Miriam’s eyes flicked over her. Cassie was round, a little overweight, with eyes like dark honey, and a bobbed brown fringe. ‘You don’t look old enough … you don’t look older than my children,’ Miriam said.

  At the end of the verandah there was a courtesy bar. Guests were able to serve themselves and put the money in a drawer under the counter. When Alan and Miriam walked past the open door, later, Cassie was sitting alone, drinking brandy and smoking a small cigar. She looked moody and tired.

  ‘Cheer up,’ called Alan. ‘Look at the view.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘It was a long trip today. I came up on the Road Services bus.’

  Miriam had walked on ahead across the lawn, towards the car park.

  He lingered. ‘Come with us, we’re going for a drive.’

  ‘Where to?’

  He named a bay. ‘Miriam’s got it into her head that she’d like to buy a beach place round here. I expect we’d have to build it though … I guess we wouldn’t find a place she liked that someone else had built. Lucky I’m in the building business. Anyway we’ve heard there’s some places out at this bay, and there’s still land to be bought there too. I thought we ought to go tonight. Just in case we do go back tomorrow.’ He shifted on his feet and looked over his shoulder, but Miriam was already sitting in the car, staring straight ahead.

  ‘Won’t she mind?’ Cassie knew her voice carried complicity, but the bay was far beyond her walking range, and it was a place she wanted badly to visit.

  ‘Of course not, love to have you along.’ She knew he had regretted asking her straight away, but he was committed, and so in a sense was she.

  The light does not cease in the north until late on summer evenings. The orchards are bound by hakea hedges which are a pale sharp green tipped with red, like a light flush of fire amongst the leaves. The banks cut away at the edge of the roads are red clay, the dust lingers above the metalled highways. In the Forbes’s car the air was close.

  ‘I can’t breathe,’ Miriam said once.

  ‘Do you want to turn back?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. No. Are we nearly there?’

  ‘I don’t know, how should I know that?’

  ‘By the distance, didn’t you take it? You’re always talking about your trip-meter, as if it matters a damn except when you need it.’

  But the bay was around the next corner. They came upon the settlement, a long line of houses built close to the shoreline. The sea was flat and glossy, like an ironed cloth, and the first lights being turned on in the houses were reflected on the water.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ breathed Cassie.

  ‘You like it then?’ said Alan.

  ‘Yes. But it’s more than that. I used to come here when I was a child. When you said you were corning here I couldn’t believe it, that you’d actually drive here. I used to come on school picnics on a barge — you could only get in by boat then. You see,’ she added, by way of an apology to Miriam, ‘I really am older than you think.’

  Miriam ignored her. ‘I want to go for a walk on my own.’

  The car had barely pulled up when she opened the door and leapt out. Her shoes were low heeled but still not suitable for the beach. She held her purse over her arm and her scarf blew up in her face as she reached the waterline.

  ‘It’s her age,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘Should we go for a walk too?’ asked Cassie, not wishing to watch her from this distance. She knew that if Miriam were to look back they would look rigid and disapproving, sitting one in front and one at the back of the car, as if waiting for her to return, but it would be worse if she were to go and sit in the front with him.

  She slipped her shoes off so that she could walk barefooted through the sand. Her feet were small and shapely and her toenails were painted bright red. He brushed her arm once with his as they walked along the beach, and steadied her with his hand when she leaned down to dislodge a sharp shell that had wedged itself between her big toe and the next one.

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘I told you, I’ve got two kids.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Doesn’t mean anything these days.’

  ‘Yup. I’m married.’ She held up her left hand with its thick shiny band.

  ‘Miriam didn’t think you would be … Your husband doesn’t mind you coming away like this?’

  ‘No, why should he?’

  He shrugged. ‘So you used to come here?’ />
  Cassie stopped, and thought.

  ‘Only once. Yes, I’ve been thinking about it. I only came here the one time. It was a most beautiful day. My parents came too. It was the school picnic, the big event. My parents were hard up you see, and we didn’t go to many places. So I looked forward to this day. We took a lot of fruit and bacon and egg pies and tomatoes and orange cordial that had been made up, and a thermos of tea. It took, oh, an hour, maybe two, I forget now, sitting on a barge towed by one of Blackie’s boats. Blackie, short for Blackwell you see, was a big man in these parts, he owned a lot of the boats in the district. When we got here we put out a rug on the ground like everyone else. I’m trying to remember where, but there were no houses here at all. Not one. There was a lot of white shell on the beach. A blazing white, so bright and hot you could hardly walk barefoot across it. The children changed into their bathing suits and before long we were all in the water. There was one boy in my class who was a lot bigger than me … that wasn’t hard of course, I’ve never been very big … but I thought he was my friend, because I helped him with his reading. I was sent to do it by the teacher. But he can’t have liked me at all, perhaps he really hated me, thought I was superior, how can one tell? Anyway, that day, he nearly drowned me. He came from under the water and pulled me down and held me. At first the sea seemed green and frilly beneath the surface and then it began to turn black. I struggled and fought. When I thought my head would explode, and that I would die, he let me go.’

  ‘What did your parents say? Do?’

  ‘Nothing. They didn’t see it happen. So I could have died.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell them?’

  ‘No. Because it was their picnic too, you see.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘I want …’ he began, and stopped.

  ‘Of course,’ said Cassie. ‘Of course you do. Shouldn’t we see if Miriam is all right?’

  They turned to make their way back up the beach.

  ‘Cassie, I’m drowning.’

  She reached out and touched his arm lightly. ‘Perhaps. People drown every summer.’

  ‘You should understand.’

  ‘I’d like to do underwater photography,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten until this very moment, telling you about it, that there was light shining through the water, the sun was actually bright even though I was surrounded by water.’

  Miriam was standing outside a house close to the beach. The house was built of stained timber and it was long and low, moulded more into its surroundings than most of the neighbouring houses. Although it was new, it was like the Homestead Hotel in that it too had a wide verandah almost at ground level, with only glass to the floor dividing the interior from the landscape. This verandah was also festooned with bougainvillea, as well as passionfruit, and a tub of zinnias made a bold splash in a corner. Inside, a lamp had been lit, so that the room was plain for all to see. There were Persian rugs spread about, brass and pewter shone with a subdued gleam from the shelves of a splendid dresser, the light was soft on the coral-coloured walls. There was a large dark bowl of shaggy white daisies on a low table. A woman with thick grey hair piled up on her head was seated at a piano, with her back towards them. She was a large person, but when she turned her profile slightly towards them, the features though prominent, even hawk-like, were finely drawn. Cassie guessed she might be Turkish.

  The woman at the piano paused for a moment from her playing as if aware of their presence.

  Miriam turned to Alan. ‘That is the house I want,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘I’ll build it for you,’ he said easily.

  ‘No. I want that one.’

  He took her arm and steered her along the beach, for the woman in the house had begun to get up from the piano. Cassie followed along behind them.

  ‘I could come back tomorrow and ask her if it’s for sale,’ he said.

  ‘It won’t do any good,’ said Miriam. ‘That’s hers. She won’t sell it to you.’

  ‘Then why say you want it? I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s the only house I want. How can you understand? It is the only house I’ll ever want.’

  They reached the car before Cassie, who had trailed further behind them. She thought of not returning to the hotel with them, but the evening light, filtered through the trees, was falling towards them like a heavy green curtain, and they were half an hour’s drive from the township. The road was quiet, as if few cars came this way except those of the residents and the day trippers. It was too nearly night. Cassie heard the word ‘slut’ as she approached the car, before Alan turned on the ignition to block out what Miriam was saying.

  As Cassie started to get into the car Miriam opened her door and got halfway out, as if she too had been thinking of walking home. She hesitated, changed her mind. She appeared to have also considered the distance.

  They would have driven back in silence if Cassie hadn’t talked about her children, and started to describe her four-year-old son’s tricks and turns of phrase, and soon Miriam began telling her of her own children when they were small. She said, then, that Cassie must take their photograph in the morning if she would, of course they would pay for the film, but it would be nice to have their photo taken by a proper photographer while they were on holiday, and they would take hers too, of course it would only be a snap but it was fun to remember the people you met when you were away.

  The warm scented night had fallen completely on the hotel when they drew up. Cassie suggested that they should all go to the courtesy bar for a few drinks together. ‘It’s sort of quaint being your own barmaid,’ she added.

  ‘They must be very trusting here in the country,’ Alan said, stalling for time so that Miriam could make his decision for both of them.

  But, ‘No,’ his wife said, ‘we’ve had a long day. Young things like you can keep going longer than us. Besides, I’m allergic to cigars.’

  Later, as it drew towards midnight, Cassie was shuffling cards at the table beside the bar. The two barmen from the public bar next door had joined her and one had his girlfriend with him. They were the only ones in the hotel still at large. The four of them had had too much to drink. Cassie wished she had gone to bed. The mosquitoes were clotting the lightshade; she had a large bite swelling rapidly on her forearm. As she scratched it she glanced along the verandah, thinking she heard a footstep.

  Alan had just stepped on to the lawn and was walking across to the carpark, not looking in their direction, as if unaware that they were there. He reached his car and placed his arms on the roof, leaning his head in them for a moment. Then he appeared to look straight at them, although from that distance his face looked like a blank white hole. Across the space Cassie sensed the blankness of horror. A shiver of recognition passed through her. She sat very still and did not tell the others that they were being watched. Soon he straightened up, and turned to go back the way he had come, still not looking to either side of him.

  ‘Drunk,’ said Cassie. ‘I’m drunk.’ Nobody was listening. She clutched the edge of the table.

  At the door of one of the annexe rooms, Miriam stood in her nightdress, the light out behind her but clearly visible in the moonlight. She watched Alan cross the lawn, going back to her.

  Beyond the Wall

  JEREMY ORDWAY is contemplating a wasps’ nest that must be removed before Sunday when he hears Eunice Brown singing in the church, over the sound of the organ. There is a touch of supplication in her reedy voice. He knows she would like him to go into the church and talk to her and he is not entirely averse to the idea. But he will not; it is not appropriate, and he has work to do. Her voice falters on, There is a green hill far away/Without a city wall/ Where the dear Lord was crucified/Who died to save … there is a crash of chords, a lid drops shut … died to save us all, quavers Eunice, and falls silent.

  In fact there seems to be a great silence all around him. Though if he listens he knows he will hear things on the solemn autumn air. For things are never what they
seem.

  Straining, he hears the shimmering whistle of Dash McLeavey working his dogs in the far paddocks, and then his voice, c’maway c’maway now halt there Rusty c’maway here here and the sad isolated cry of a cornered sheep. And coming along the road towards town there is the rattle of the iridescent green Subaru ute owned by Mortlock Crane, who is his plumber, a sensuous looking man with a full fleshy mouth for whom he has noticed his wife Sophie makes melting moments when he calls. Poor Sophie, he does not begrudge her her moments for Mortlock. Indeed, it has gone through his head more than once that some small advance by Mortlock, some reason why she could scream and clutch her breast and go to sleep dreaming might not be a bad thing.

  Perhaps she would say yes. Yes, Mortlock, enfold me to your greasy heart, God will take care of us.

  He raises his hand in salute to Mortlock, and his wave is returned. Mortlock will be eager to please. There is business in the air.

  His eyes lift to the steep sides of the grey-tiled church roof, to the rusted guttering where a green and luscious line of grass grows along its edge.

  And then it happens.

  Crash. Crash. Slither. Tinkle and crash. Although there has been no perceptible movement of the air, only Mortlock’s ute driving past, something has dislodged four more tiles from the roof.

  They lie splintered at his feet.

  As he stands contemplating them and grateful at least that they have missed his head, for his bald patch is covered only by a handkerchief knotted at the corners like a small tricorne, a voice calls merrily hullo hullo, and how are we today? Jeremy wonders if he can avoid looking around and knows that in decency, he cannot. It is Glen Frew from the Gospel Hall.

  Glen saunters towards him, amiable and pleased with the world. When Jeremy sits on the church roof, which he does quite often these days, he can see clear across town to Glen’s spanking new brick and decramastic hall (it is they who have deemed it a hall, he has decided, he makes no apology for refusing to call it a church) and he concedes that he is envious. What matter that he represents the church of the country, the true word? The state of Anglicanism must still be measured against Glen Frew’s gospelling. His hall does not have tiles falling from its roof, it is not about to be invaded by the elements, it is proof against many things, wind and water, and yes, wasps too. It has no beams arching high and shining above the stained-glass windows, ruby and turquoise and purple and gold like the cohorts of the Assyrians. But it is proof against the weather.