Heart of the Grass Tree

by Molly Murn

  Lucy fills up the sink with hot soapy water, and beside her Joe slices onions for dinner. Alfie is napping on the couch and, through the bay windows, she can see Ariel turning cartwheels down on the beach with Pearl. As she swishes the first of the glasses through the suds, her kimono sleeves flop into the water.

  Oh shit. Joe, help. She stands back from the sink and holds out her arms, the points of her sleeves wet.

  What do you want me to do, he laughs.

  Take it off!

  Joe puts down his knife, wipes his hands on his jeans, and slips behind her, standing close.

  This isn’t a sexual thing, Joe, just take it off.

  Okay. Okay. Joe puts his hands on her shoulders and drapes the kimono off, nuzzling her on the back of the neck.

  Have you told Pearl yet? His hands rest on the small curve of her belly, the kimono dropping to the floor.

  Lucy rolls the glasses around in the bottom of the sink. No, I haven’t. Can’t bear to yet. Lucy chews her bottom lip.

  You better tell her soon, Joe says, picking the kimono up from the floor and slinging it over his forearm.

  I know, I know, but I spoke to Nico on the phone yesterday, and he’s really worried about her.

  You are allowed to be pregnant, Lucy.

  I know. Soon, I promise.

  Lucy remembers that even when they’d had Alfie, it was difficult. Not just because of Pearl, but because Ariel was still so little, too, and it was exhausting. She’d swayed and jiggled Alfie in a continuous state of motion to become the tiniest version of her. A streak of moonlight, Joe called her. When Pearl came to stay she’d held Alfie in the bathroom while Lucy showered, the steam and the white noise sending him off to sleep—the only thing that sent him off to sleep—and Lucy had wished, while the water drummed over her tired body, that they could have shared becoming mothers together. But Pearl was such a help to Lucy and the kids back then that she was also guiltily relieved for the time Pearl was able to devote to them all, unencumbered by children of her own. Beautiful aunty.

  Where’s Di? Joe asks, scraping the onions vigorously into heating oil.

  Um. In the shed?

  What does she do out there all day?

  Lucy has been wondering this herself. Between Diana and Pearl she is the only one keeping things humming along. Because of the children she cannot stray too far from the order of the day. It is comforting to know that things will largely unfold in the same way—Ariel will have toast for breakfast, Alfie will nap in the afternoon, they both will have stories at bedtime—but sometimes she thinks she is unravelling. She is like one of those silkworm cocoons that Ariel brought home from kindy. The family will start unwinding her silken layers, and eventually she will be revealed, exposed and translucent. Her mother and sister keep threatening to upset the fabric—last night Diana had clattered dishes away just as she’d taken Alfie off to bed, and he had taken more than an hour to fall asleep, and this morning Pearl clomped down the hall to go to the toilet and woke Ariel before dawn. She is just so tired. Too tired to be sad about Nell. She wonders whether she has it in her to handle the next few days.

  Lucy peers out the window to the shed. She’s probably sulking. Smoking, Lucy adds.

  I might go check on her, Joe says, tipping the chopped tomatoes into the frying pan. Take her a drink.

  Don’t smoke, though.

  I won’t. And then in a bit, I’m gonna go fishing.

  What! Now?

  In a bit. Just a quick sunset fish. He runs his hands through his dark sticking-up hair. Massages his stubbly jaw.

  What about dinner and the kids?

  If I don’t go now, I’ll miss the light, Joe says, grinning.

  Lucy rolls her eyes. Right. Yep, just go. She leans on the sink and pulls off the gloves.

  After he leaves, the screen door banging shut behind him, Lucy looks around her. Every bench surface is cluttered with knives and chopping boards and plates and pans and wooden spoons. She sighs and begins piling the debris up by the sink. Joe can do these later, she thinks. His turn. Fucking fishing! She pulls the plug from the sink and the water groans away. It was Nell who taught her the order in which to wash the dishes. She was methodical about it. Glasses first, followed by the cups, and then the bread and butter plates. Lucy used to stand beside her on a stool and pass her the dishes. She slides the breakfast bowls into the water.

  Lucy loved to clean Nell’s paintbrushes for her, dipping them in turpentine and then blotting the colours out onto paper towelling. Vermilion, verdigris, madder. She would form the strange and delicious names with her tongue, and she would dip and blot until the stiff, smooth bristles left no stain. Indigo, cyan, cinnabar. Nell mostly painted birds. Close-up birds in bright, bold colours that took up the whole frame so that you could see them only in parts.

  She turns the heat for the sauce down to a simmer and puts the lid on the pot. Peeling off her damp socks, she wanders over to the couch to check on Alfie. His arm is flung over his head and his cheeks are flushed. She nestles in beside him and Alfie takes a deep shuddery breath and rolls towards her, plugging his little thumb into her ear. She falls into the quiet. The kimono hangs over the arm of the couch and she stares at the patterned flowers blooming. It is strange to be here without Nell. She has never really been alone in this room. The saucepan lid rattles on the pot, but she can’t move. Mustn’t wake Alfie. She dares not even shift a muscle and he rolls more towards her, so very warm and yielding. I’ve been such a good daughter, she thinks. Keeping everyone happy. Sometimes Lucy felt so outside of Pearl and Nell that she would deliberately play up. She remembers the upset and confusion at having to go home from the island a week before Pearl, back to Diana and David to spend half of the holidays with them. She remembers painting an angry red splotch in the corner of one of Nell’s paintings right before she was due to go back. Lucy never did understand why she had to leave without Pearl. This arrangement was just part of the strange deal between Nell and Diana.

  Nell didn’t ever notice the glary blotch. Either that or she never said anything about it. Lucy closes her eyes, fatigue descending heavily and swiftly—she’d forgotten the black tiredness of early pregnancy—and she is falling through Nell’s painted birds flashing and winging past her in silent busy flurries.

  Ariel is turning cartwheels on the beach. Having just mastered how to do them over and over in a row, she reminds Pearl of Lucy at the same age. Eight. Ariel’s been practising pointing her toes and stretching into her legs like a starfish, as Pearl has shown her. And she puffs out her chest in preparation to propel forward just like Lucy used to. Pearl remembers Lucy’s spangly little green leotard that she insisted on wearing everywhere for a couple of months. Even to school. She remembers Lucy on this very beach in that too big leotard, cheeks tear-streaked, asking Nell if she could stay for as long as her sister. Pearl had felt so much older than Lucy in that moment, even though they were only three years apart. Lucy understood nothing. Your mother needs you, Nell had responded matter-of-factly. And Pearl knew she was betraying her little sister somehow, but did not want to go home. She would have lived here if she could. Poor Luce, she thinks.

  Soon Ariel collapses in a heap, and rests her chin on her hands, lying flat in the sand. The sea lapping behind her is a clear unruffled blue. The sky is feathered with milky clouds. Ariel leaps up and runs towards Pearl, kicking sand behind her. Come on, Pearl, let’s see which one of us can do the most cartwheels in a row.

  Oh, sweetheart. I’m not sure I can do one right now. Pearl leans back on her elbows and stretches out her legs. Her skin is luminous in the sun—never goes brown.

  You can you can you can. Come on, Pearl.

  Ariel grabs Pearl’s hand and tries to pull Pearl up, puffing out her cheeks with the effort. Please Pearlie, I’m begging ya. I promise to be your slave when we go up to the house.

  Pearl smiles at her and stands slowly, hitching up her dress into her bather bottoms. Okay, Ariel, let’s do some cartwheels and the
n we really better be going back.

  Yay. Lots of cartwheels. So we’re going to start here. Ariel draws a line in the sand with her toe. And then whoever gets the furthest without falling over, wins. Got it?

  Got it. Pearl sucks in her stomach.

  Together they spread their arms long and place their right foot forward. Ariel tries to make herself as long as Pearl, her little face serious with effort. She swallows and juts out her chin.

  Ready, set, go, she shouts.

  Together they start turning over—one slow, one quick; one graceful, one gangly; one lagging, the other light—a sprite—veering sharply towards the shoreline. Pearl stops after a couple of rounds and kneels to massage her wrists. Her arms are heavy; her ears thud. Ariel falls into the shallows and turns quickly to make sure Pearl is watching.

  How many, Ariel? Pearl stands.

  Twenty-three, Pearl, twenty-three! How many for you?

  Erm … five, I think, calls Pearl.

  I win then. And she flips up into a handstand.

  You win, Ariel.

  Ariel collapses down, arms and legs everywhere. But Pearlie, what’s that?

  Pearl follows after Ariel, who is loping towards something small and grey in the distance, lying just above the shoreline. Ariel’s bathers are blue with a white frill around the bottom, and as Pearl hurries to catch up with her, she feels like she is chasing the tail feather of an exotic bird. Wait, Ariel. Slow down, let me catch up with you, she says, as Pearl realises that the clump they’re approaching is not seaweed or a large rock, but seems to be moving slightly. Ariel stops suddenly and stoops forward from the hips. From the little clump a small head peers round in an awkward judder to look at them.

  A baby seal, whispers Pearl, cupping Ariel’s thin fingers in her own.

  Its breathing is laboured and Pearl notices the unsteady rise and fall of its breath, the skin hanging loosely over jutting ribs. Pearl coaxes Ariel to kneel down where they are and Ariel leans into Pearl, subdued by the wildness they can both sense in its sharp twist of neck and the shudder of its flipper. Is it okay, Pearl?

  It looks deep into them with its brown eyes. Pearl reaches out and strokes its damp and sandy fur. It is too weak to protest, and for a moment it reminds her of a trusting puppy.

  What’s the matter with it, Pearl? Is it sick?

  Pearl rests her hand on its back lightly. I think it’s lost its mother. Not sick. Hungry and heartbroken, possibly. Sad.

  Sad? Why?

  Um. I’ve seen this before with Nell. Exactly here, too. When a baby seal gets a bit older, its mother leaves it to fend for itself, Pearl says, gently flicking sand away from its lashes.

  Is it going to die?

  Pearl looks out to the water. I don’t think so, darling. Eventually it will make its way back into the water. It’ll be sad for a bit and then really brave.

  But it has a broken heart, says Ariel, matter-of-factly.

  Pearl nods. If grief is tangible, it is in the sheen and glimmer of those vulnerable eyes—so glassy and brown and knowing.

  Water whooshes over the seal’s tail, and it lurches up on its flippers and propels itself forward with a lumbered strain. Pearl and Ariel drop hands and move back to give it space. The seal turns to look at them again, beseechingly almost, as if to say, You have seen my sorrow, please do not use it against me. And then it disappears.

  Poor little thing, says Ariel. Can we come and check it in the morning?

  Yes, we can.

  It was so lonely, wasn’t it?

  Yes. But it will know what to do. It will just keep swimming until it feels better or hungry. I’m sure its mother taught it well.

  Pearl?

  Yes, darling.

  Do you think Nell knows where to go?

  Pearl turns to Ariel. What do you mean?

  Now that she’s dead does she know where to go? Because I think she’s still here.

  The wind picks up as if to take hold and shake them. Ariel squints against the flurries of sand. Before Pearl can answer, Ariel’s on her feet and running up the dune towards the house.

  It’s cold, she calls out, and I’ll beat you home, Pearl. Easy.

  Pearl stays kneeling in the sand. The sky is darkening, the sharp lines of the day softening. The beach has never felt so mute, so unable to give her anything. She looks for the seal, but it is gone.

  When Pearl came she was a scrunched red thing. Her tiny crinkled eyelids dewy and luminous. Tulip petals. And her little mouth sucked and mewled even when she was resting. Pearl’s fingers were long and grasping, and those fingernails—so perfect and small like periwinkles. I kissed them. She was the exact size and weight of my grief. She was hope. I held her in my lap when she was just hours old and looked at her for a long time wondering where she’d come from and marvelling at her. My own daughter, Diana, lay on the bed, pale and beautiful and utterly transformed by childbirth—heightened, other-worldly, exhausted and ecstatic both. Only a little older than I was when my own first child was severed from me. I was determined that Diana would never feel that terror, and this was the one thing I could give her. I could support her so that she could be a mother—a very young mother, an accidental mother even, but a mother who would not be taken from her child, for the severance goes both ways. But Pearl was the lost child returned. I could see her in no other way. It pains me deeply to write it, but Diana was not that; she could never have been that to me simply because she was not Samuel. That first one, Samuel, whom I whispered to every night in the girls’ home while he grew inside me, oh how I needed him. Samuel—my only solace in that strange place of limbo. He was a dream, a promise, a prayer. He was my invisible thread to Sol, or so I hoped.

  The pregnancy with Diana had been some kind of awful re-enactment of grief. My body could not forget. All I could think of was that first one. Who was he? Did he think of me? What was he doing now? He was the first one and I had lost him. I lost Sol, too. And so, I was not ready for Diana, this new being, this new gift that wouldn’t be taken away and whom I should have loved more generously. But I could not understand her. It is my own fault, but both my children are burning stars that char the inmost heart of me.

  With Pearl, I could rise from the ashes.

  1822

  Antechamber Bay

  William leaves out damper in the same place for the little girl each morning. Sometimes he leaves a piece of driftwood for her as well, or a tiny hollow eggshell from a fairy wren, or a shard of smoothed green glass, or a length of string. He watches her approach his offerings from a distance, on top of a splintered wooden crate that once held supplies from a ship his father had bartered skins for. William knows that she is aware of his presence, but somehow the gap between them puts her at ease. Always she comes softly down the track, deliberately not looking in his direction. William thinks she is like a bird—small-boned and agile. She makes herself quite invisible from the sealers. He thinks she is very clever. He can tell by her large, shiny eyes that she notices everything, and that she might even know more than him about hunting for lizards.

  She kneels, undoes her basket and handles his presents with a delicacy that makes him reel, before placing each gift carefully in her woven bag. Without acknowledging his presence she stands up, remaining perfectly still for a moment before flitting down the track.

  On the morning that William likes to remember as the day of the scrimshaw, he leaves out a whale’s tooth—carved into a scrimshaw. He had found it a few days before, wedged into a split in a sugar gum near the camp. It is polished and engraved with a woman’s face. Fine mouth, sad eyes, high forehead, and hair twisted and pinned loosely back. Not like any of the faces that William knows. He had decided not to show his father, but to keep the carefully hidden treasure a secret. On this morning, the girl picks up the smooth bone and fingers the intricate design. She seems to consider it with both fascination and dread. And while he is thinking that the next thing he wants to find for her is one of the splendid blue feathers of the tiny wre
n, she turns towards him. She is half-smiling, but with her lips pursed together out of shyness. Not wanting to frighten her he stays where he is and nods in her direction.

  From then on, William and Maringani always exchange a silent greeting that William knows to be louder than any talking he has with his father.

  Anderson likes the way his son rests the full weight of his palm on the side of his face, almost lovingly, without shrinking away from him. William holds the knife firmly with his other hand and is carefully removing the bristle from the dip just below Anderson’s right cheekbone. He is slow but precise. Anderson leans his head back and shuts his eyes to the glare. The red that thumps beneath his eyelids makes him think of seal blood mixing with seawater. The blade against his stubborn hair makes a scraping sound that Anderson finds strangely comforting. Anderson jumps as the boy nicks him under his jawbone.

  Watch it, says Anderson, and sits up straight, knocking the boy back a few steps with the swing of his arm.

  William doesn’t say anything, just takes a slow breath and lifts his father’s hand down from where it is rubbing at the cut, spits on his own thumb and presses it against the wound to staunch the bleeding.

  Concentrate or yer’ll slit me throat, Anderson mutters as he allows William to take his head in his hands, lean him back and swap his thumb for a damp piece of rag that William holds firm against his neck.

  William’s steady pressure to the wound eases the sting. Anderson likes the feel of someone taking care of him.

  You needin’ practice before I let yer at me again, he blurts out to William when it is all done.

  I’m sorry. I—

  Anderson fingers the clean lines of his beard before interjecting, It’s yer hands, they shake like a gerl’s.

  William examines his hands and Anderson looks at them as well. They are nothing like his own thick-palmed and square ones, Anderson thinks to himself. William’s are brown and scratched, and the fingers are finer than Anderson’s, tapering at the ends like William’s mother’s fingers. Beatrice spoke with her hands. They fluttered and danced about her. Sea fronds in the current. When Anderson thinks of those days back in the old country before she died—her lungs hacked with tuberculosis—they seem so distant that it’s like he is remembering a life that he was never a part of. Like he was there, but only as a bystander. Perhaps it was all a dream? He can no longer picture himself in those narrow streets—the damp, the stink, the filth—with the sky hanging so low you could almost pull it down. But Beatrice is a visceral memory beyond the limits of time. The physical absence of Beatrice makes her everywhere around him. Sometimes, burying his face into handfuls of saltbush with its faint crystalline spice, he feels as though Beatrice is there and it is the hollow at the base of her throat that he smells. It is not to Him that he prays, but to Beatrice. Anderson reaches out and tousles the boy’s hair, causing him to stumble.