Undine

by Penni Russon

  Downstairs the house was quiet except for Jasper sniffling in his crib. Undine went to see him, but he began to grizzle sleepily as soon as he saw her and she thought it might be better to leave him alone for a while.

  She made herself a cup of tea and some toast and sat at the kitchen table. Last night’s newspaper was gone, replaced with Friday’s. She flicked the pages disinterestedly, but was unable to absorb even the headlines.

  Jasper woke sometime after nine, very sorry for himself. “I’m sick,” he announced sadly over the bars of the crib when Undine went to scoop him out, though he was quite capable of clambering out on his own.

  “You sure are.”

  Jasper chewed mournfully on toast and together they watched the kids’ programs on morning television. Jasper’s face was hot, his cheeks flushed red, and he leaned heavily against Undine. It was not unusual for Jasper to be sick—he picked up any number of bugs at day care—but today Undine found herself enjoying his presence, this slightly wilted, damper, softer, and more compliant version of Jasper.

  Still a few hours later, the novelty of caring for sick Jasper began to wear thin. The television failed to hold Jasper’s—or Undine’s—attention, coloring books and modeling clay quickly lost their appeal, cars and dinosaurs and balls were pushed aside, and Jasper wandered restlessly, grizzly and bored of being inside.

  After an early lunch of white bread soaked in chicken soup, Undine had a moment of inspiration and built Jasper a cave, suggesting they play hibernating bears. They crawled in together and Undine cuddled Jasper, still all snuggly in his flannel pajamas, until he fell asleep. She dismantled the cave around him and picked him up off the floor. She knew it defied the laws of gravity but somehow Jasper always seemed a lot heavier when he was sleeping. She transferred him easily to the crib and crept out, closing his door behind her.

  And suddenly, though only minutes before she had desperately wanted him to be asleep, she found herself absurdly missing him. The house seemed empty and silent without his presence.

  She mooched around the rooms, wondering at turns when she would next see Richard, the thought of which made her both sick and excited at the same time, and when she would next see Trout, which simply made her feel sick. Was there anything she could say to Trout to make it right between them?

  She rehearsed such conversations in her mind, and they would start off well, until she seemed to lose control of even her pretend Trout, and in her mind he would push past her like he did last night, his face ugly with resentment and betrayal.

  In the end, feeling entirely unqualified to manage her own life, and for want of anything more productive to do, she decided to study. She switched the television on as a study aide.

  By the time the midday soap started, she’d forgotten all about exams. The show was about unlikely people called Blake and Thorn and Charity. They seemed caught up in a love triangle in which Charity loved the wrong brother. Undine found herself feeling quite sympathetic toward poor Charity, with her bleached hair and overplucked eyebrows.

  She sank into the couch, ready to share Charity’s heartbreak, when the doorbell rang. She froze for a minute, feeling caught, as if the person might have X-ray vision and could see her wallowing in the awful presence of daytime television.

  It was Richard.

  He came in and sat, not at the kitchen table where most guests sat, but on the arm of one of the ratty old couches that crowded the television in the corner. Undine surreptitiously killed the show as Charity said, “Oh, Blake, can’t you see it would never work for us?”

  She stood beside him. With him perched on the couch, their eyes were level. There was what could only be described as an awkward silence. Without Richard’s elegant and witty banter, Undine realized she was at a loss for something to say. Am I boring? she thought suddenly.

  She was about to offer coffee—neither witty nor scintillating but it did promise ensuing busyness to fill the ragged hole of silence—when he took her by the hips, brought her toward him, and kissed her. She inhaled quickly at the unexpectedness of it, gasping the air right out of his mouth, and then felt like a complete idiot. Richard only kissed her harder.

  It was not unlike the kiss of the night before, and yet there was a palpable difference. She realized that last night’s kiss had been a good-bye kiss, and therefore finite. But this kiss had the potential to go forever, or at least for a few hours, in which case, she suspected, it would turn into something else. She felt a tingling anticipation at the thought of what that might be. Part of her wanted to give in to it completely. But she wasn’t ready to let go of herself. After the storm, the thought of losing control made her nervous.

  Undine felt in need of some air. She pulled away. Richard’s eyes remained riveted on hers and she found she had to look away to regain her composure.

  “So,” Undine began uneasily, “how’s Trout?”

  Richard cleared his throat nervously. “Not so good. I think. He’s not really talking to me.”

  “I don’t think he’s talking to me either.”

  Richard looked away and grimaced. “I should never have kissed you.”

  Undine didn’t know what to say. Why was Richard here? To kiss her and then tell her he shouldn’t kiss her? She moved away and sat at the other end of the couch.

  Richard followed her with his eyes. “Are you sorry I kissed you?” He sounded almost cross. “Because it sure felt like you were kissing me back.”

  “Oh god, no. I mean yes. I was.” Undine was finding this conversation agonizing. She covered her face with her hands, peering out at him sideways. “I mean, I’m not sorry. I’m glad you kissed me.” She wanted him to kiss her again.

  Richard slid over the couch toward her, smiling slowly, and pulled her fingers away from her face one by one.

  “I should never have kissed you,” he said, and leaned in.

  She wasn’t really aware of how they went from sitting side by side on the couch, kissing, to lying on the couch, Richard mostly on top of her. His mouth tasted sweet and fresh, like spring water, and his skin smelled spicy and warm. She relaxed into the rhythm of their kissing.

  She became aware, or some small conscious part of her became aware, that Richard’s hands were beginning to explore her body, moving over, and then under, her top.

  “Undine,” he murmured.

  “Richard.” She pushed him. “Richard, we should probably stop.”

  “Do you want to?” he asked throatily.

  “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “But we should anyway.”

  “Should we?”

  “Yes,” said Undine firmly. “We should.”

  But Richard’s hands kept pushing at the folds of fabric. She could hear his breath, rasping erratically in her ear. For a moment she thought he was going to force himself upon her.

  “Richard!” she said forcefully. “No!”

  He sprang up and groaned loudly. Undine sat up too.

  “God, Undine,” he said, and prowled around the couch like a caged animal. “What have you done to me? I’ve never felt like this before.”

  It should have been…romantic, but it wasn’t. He sounded almost angry, as if he really thought she had done something. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Why couldn’t he kiss her the way she wanted him to?

  Undine took his hand. He flinched, as if burned. She saw herself—not her regular self, but the girl who could harness the power of a storm—reflected in his eyes. And this time it was different.

  Power surged through her hand to his. She was in control, not Richard. She was making this happen. He would do whatever she wanted him to do. She pulled him down to sit beside her. She kissed him—she kissed him—fiercely. He seemed to dissolve, to surrender, not just his body, but his will. Undine felt it, the same way she had felt tame air pass through her and become transformed by her body into the storm, dangerous and wild. She was dangerous, potent, and strong. Richard was weak. She almost, for a moment, despised
him for it.

  Neither of them heard Lou come home. Suddenly she was there, over them like a great wild bird, filling the room.

  It was compromising. There was no doubt about that. Though both fully clothed, Undine was more on Richard than off him. Undine knew what it looked like to Lou.

  “Get out,” Lou said.

  Richard flinched. He looked ashen. He looked half dead.

  Undine still felt the power coursing through her. The presence of Lou seemed to have broken its thrall for Richard, but the magic didn’t dissipate. It wanted to spill out from her and it took all her physical power to keep it in. Undine avoided looking Lou in the eye, frightened that Lou would see her transformed.

  Richard didn’t look at Lou either, just slunk out of the house and was gone.

  “Nice guy you’ve got there,” Lou jabbed. “At least Trout had the decency to stick around.”

  Anger fueled the magic inside her as effectively as throwing petrol on a fire. The effort of containing the magic was superhuman. She almost vomited, buckling over.

  “Oh my god!” There was sudden, genuine concern in Lou’s voice, and some small interior part of Undine wanted to bend to it, to collapse into Lou. “What’s wrong? Undine, are you sick?” This was her chance to let Lou in. But the magic surged and bowed in dizzying waves.

  “Nothing,” Undine snapped. “Nothing. Get away from me.”

  Lou backed off. “Fine,” she said, quietly. “Undine, go to your room. I don’t want to look at you right now.”

  As Undine limped up the stairs she felt the magic drip away, leaving only the tired knowledge that somehow her relationship with Lou had moved to a stage that was practically beyond repair.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Trout?” his mother called as she heard him on the stairs.

  “What?” He stood where he was on the top stair, even though he knew he was being summoned.

  “Can you come in here for a minute?”

  He stomped down the stairs, feeling petulant yet powerless.

  “What?” he asked again, standing in the dark heavy oak doorway, looking into the kitchen.

  Mrs. M had her head in the oven. She was prodding a large garlicky beef roast, the smell of which filled the kitchen.

  The kitchen was Trout’s favorite room. It was built so that it came off the rest of the house, like an afterthought. There were windows sweeping around the three external walls so that light poured in. There was a long Tasmanian oak table in here where they usually ate, sitting on heavy pine benches which gave off a sweet, slightly oily smell.

  “Can you set the table, please?”

  It was only just past midday and the thought of having to eat that meal made Trout’s stomach churn. He huffed his way over to the kitchen drawer, where the cutlery was kept.

  “No,” said his mother. “Not the ordinary cutlery. We’re having a special good-bye meal for Richard in the dining room.”

  “Good riddance,” Trout muttered.

  Mrs. Montmorency shut the oven door. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I know something is going on with you boys. Why don’t you ever talk to me?” His mother’s voice was plaintive.

  “It’s nothing. Really.”

  Trout felt vaguely sorry for his mother. She had once been the center of the universe to all three boys, but the universe had changed—grown colder but bigger, thought Trout, more immense with possibilities. They no longer orbited around her, but around their own things. Or around Undine, Trout thought bitterly. At least two of them did.

  Sometimes, in certain lights, his mother looked old and ineffectual, as if, like the Singer sewing table that was covered in vines in the backyard, she had outgrown her usefulness. She was not attractive like Lou, but small and round and mother-hennish.

  “I know something’s going on.” Mrs. M frowned, and her face, all slanted downward like that, looked so unappealing that Trout’s sympathy instantly dissolved. “It’s that girl, isn’t it?”

  Trout bristled, feeling defensive of Undine despite himself. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  Mrs. M kept frowning as she opened the oven door and violently prodded the roast again.

  “Well, this is going to be a nice family meal. I don’t want anything to ruin it. Set the table, please.”

  The dining room was paneled in dark wood, and held a large oak table and an old-fashioned meat safe that served as a sideboard. The chairs were odd, a collection harvested from antique shops in country Tasmania over many years of family excursions. Each one signified an uncomfortable trip in the family car in which the backseat was shared by the three boys and an oak chair carefully arranged on top of them.

  Trout fetched the placemats and the boxed cutlery from the meat safe.

  “Soup spoons!” his mother called out, and he laid out the soup spoons along with the knives and forks. His mother brought in a basket of rolls.

  “Can you gather everyone up? And nicely, please. Don’t just stand at the bottom of the stairs and yell.”

  Trout found his father and Dan hiding in the lounge room. Mrs. M and her nice family meals were an awesome force of nature.

  “Where’s Richard?” he asked his father.

  “Went out to visit some girl,” Mr. M said, and winked at Dan.

  Dan rolled his eyes.

  “Up in his room, I think,” Dan said. “I’ll get him.”

  Mrs. M appeared in the doorway. “Dan, come and help me serve up.”

  “But…”

  Mrs. M raised her eyebrows and Trout went upstairs to fetch Richard.

  “Lunch is ready,” Trout said to Richard’s bedroom door.

  Richard opened the door. Trout didn’t notice that he looked grayish and worn out.

  “Trout. Let’s talk?”

  “Lunch is ready,” Trout repeated by way of an answer.

  “Do you have to be like this?”

  “No,” said Trout, threateningly. “I don’t have to be like this.”

  Richard shook his head and went to push past him.

  Trout shoved Richard’s shoulder. “Why couldn’t you leave her alone?”

  “I just…I just…” Richard struggled for a way of explaining it. “I couldn’t. I mean, what’s with her? It’s not…natural.”

  There was something in Richard’s voice that Trout couldn’t bear to hear. Anger? Helplessness? “You could have stayed away. You could have. You’re just selfish. You always get what you want.”

  Mrs. M appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s on the table,” she said, a determined smile fixed onto her face.

  “We’re just coming,” Richard said impatiently, but she stayed and watched them descend the stairs.

  Richard tried to speak to Trout again after they’d eaten, but Mrs. Montmorency made Richard help with the washing up so she could have him to herself for a while. Meanwhile, Trout went to his room, fully intending to hide until Richard drove off with Grunt.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Undine still fought the occasional wave of nausea sweeping upward from her gut as she stood at the doorway, surveying her bedroom. Now that she was here, she was not sure what to do with herself.

  She had come close, really close, to surrendering herself. Not to Richard but to the magic. It hadn’t been like the storm this time, which had happened before she even knew it was happening. This time she had almost been in control of it. The sensation had been heady, tempting. For the most transient of moments, she had wanted to transform herself, let the magic change her completely, irrevocably. She’d held Richard, dangled him as if he had been one of Jasper’s plastic toys. If she’d wanted to, she could have—

  Downstairs, glass tinkled; something had broken. Lou’s anger seeped through the floorboards. Undine flopped onto the bed. She looked at the rumpled covers and thought maybe she should just get in. Despite the streaming early afternoon sun there was definitely something tempting about burying herself in
her duvet and sleeping for, say, the next five years. But she was restless. The magic was almost totally gone now; however, a faint undertow of it tugged inside her.

  She had tried to push the magic away. In the pub the night before, she had pretended, almost successfully, to be a normal girl. Today was proof that there was nothing normal about her.

  At the thought, she felt an unexpected thrill of excitement. What she could do, her power, it was…it was amazing. It was dangerous: it was the glittering blade of a knife; it was the momentum and single-mindedness of a bullet. It was also vivid and intoxicating. She was almost tempted to use it again, to find Richard and see what would have happened if Lou had not come home.

  It was clear that no one here could help her. Not Lou, or Trout, or Richard, or Mim. There was only one person in the whole wide world who could make sense of the last few days of her life, and she had no idea where to find him.

  Should she confront Lou, rage, force her to tell her? Beg? Beguile? Did Lou even know? A phone book was no help, Undine didn’t even have a name.

  Undine, Undine, it’s time to come home…The voice. The magical manifestations in her room. If it was her father communicating with her, then could it work both ways? Could she find a way to return the call?

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on the residual magic she could feel lingering inside her. She imagined it to be a small burning thread. Experimentally, she tried to provoke the flame, tease it into life. Suddenly it sputtered and burst, and the flame arced through her. Undine nearly lost control of it again. She reined it in, with an enormous effort, and tried to make it a soft, friendly, flickering light.

  She focused on the voice, tried to find it inside her. There it was, faint but ever present. She tried to locate it outside, in the world, but it was no good. She couldn’t focus the magic, couldn’t push it in the direction she wanted it to go.

  She opened her eyes and sagged, defeated. It was no use. She simply didn’t know enough about her power to make it work for her.