Autumn Laing (35 page)

She opened her eyes and handed the cigarette back to him. ‘Thanks. I needed that. You don’t think much of them, do you?’

‘They’re okay,’ he said. He examined what was left of the cigarette. ‘They’re just people. I can only take so much of that crap. Art’s what you make, not what you talk about.’

‘It’s both,’ she said. ‘Art is many things. You mustn’t try to say what art is or you’ll be required to say what it’s not. And that will be impossible for you.’ She was silent a moment. ‘Wilde said it’s more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it.’

‘Well, Wilde, whoever he was, was wrong.’

‘He was a praying mantis,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure you know him. He was a satirist who meant everything he ever said. And I quite liked what you had to say in there just now. Only I don’t think it’s that simple. Louis is a very fine artist. It would be a mistake for you to dismiss Louis. He paints wonderful semi-abstracts. Like all good artists he renders the familiar strange to us. He has done a brilliant series of Luna
Park. Luna Park is your own backyard. It is the Luna Park we know and yet it is somewhere else, somewhere we wonder if we might have been in another life, a richer and more poetic life than this one. And a more tragic life. Louis is good. Make no mistake. He will be a success in London, I’m sure of it. His manner is too showy for you but he’s disciplined with his work. You would admire it if you knew it. He’s got an exhibition on at the Basement. It’s been getting good reviews. I’ll take you.’

There was shouting and laughter from the outer garden. The swimmers were returning.

Pat slapped her cheek suddenly, not hard but with a quick dart of his hand.

She flinched and put a hand to her face.

‘Mozzie,’ he said. He held out his hand for her to see the squashed insect in his palm. ‘One little bloodsucker less.’

The offence of the mild blow to her cheek had shocked her. She said with feeling, ‘I hate being struck.’

He saw that she was upset. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll let the buggers eat you next time.’ She did not respond. ‘I keep having to apologise here, don’t I?’ he said. ‘I made a mess of it in there. Why did you invite us?’

‘Oh, you didn’t make a mess of it at all. Don’t be silly.’ She was impatient with this.

‘George and Louis thought I did.’

‘And Barnaby loves you. So what? We argue and fight endlessly here. No one ever agrees with anyone else. Ever. That was mild. I invited you because I believe in you. They’ll be your friends next time you see them. They are all people of courage and integrity.’

‘And are you and I friends?’ he asked.

She drew back, the better to see him. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Friends? Is that our word? Say it often enough and we empty it of meaning. I don’t know if you and I are friends or not, Pat. But I know we are something.’

He took her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips.

‘Don’t!’ She pulled away. ‘Please don’t do that.’ But she had permitted the kiss for a moment before she recoiled, just as she had permitted it at the edge of the ocean.

‘A kiss between friends,’ he said. He was not sure if he had reached for the coarse response once again. Or had it been something more than that? The repeat of this impulse to kiss her lips? It angered him that he was not able to know himself with her.

She stood up and flattened her skirt with her hands. She looked down at him. ‘I don’t know what I am to make of you.’

‘Make of me whatever you like, then.’

‘Let’s go in to the others and have a drink,’ she said. ‘Freddy and George have gone. I need to be among people.’

‘You’re afraid of me,’ he said.

‘That’s stupid. No. Of course I’m not afraid of you. If I’m afraid of anyone, Pat, it’s myself.’

‘Well, I’m a bit afraid of you,’ he said.

‘Are you?’

‘Just a bit. Don’t get carried away.’

‘Come on!’ She reached for his hand.

He got up from the bench but he did not take her hand. ‘I’m going to look for Edith.’

They stood a little apart, uncertain. Neither quite able to decide to end this nor quite wishing to prolong it any further,
but held by their uncertainty about what ‘this’ was exactly, or was to become, if it was to become anything.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’d better go and find her. Barnaby said she went down to the river.’

But still they stood, not leaving.

‘What?’ he said.

‘I believe in you.’ She said this strongly, needing a response to it from him. It was important for her to say it.

‘Thank you.’

‘Does my belief mean anything to you?’

‘It helps,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why it helps, but it does. It’s why I came.’

‘I’m glad you came.’

‘I probably am too.’

They both smiled. And each of them wondered why they felt there was something sad in this. Their smiles an admission, it seemed to them, of something a little hot, of something to be regretted. Was that it? An expectation, or a fear, of some undisclosed element of this they would rather not have encountered?

He went down towards the river to look for Edith.

Autumn walked back to the house on her own.

The moment he was away from her Pat thought of things he might have said to Autumn and he determined to say them to her the next time they were alone. The taste of her was on his lips, her mouth, her breath, tainted with tobacco and wine, and something that was her alone. He rubbed his lips with his fingers and spat. Going to find Edith he struggled with the guilt of his betrayal and hoped she would not see it in his
eyes. Edith always looked deeply into his eyes. Would he be able to deceive her?

He found her sitting on a log by the water, her back to him. She was alone. The most intensely familiar figure in his life. He would have known the back of her head from a hundred miles away. A thousand. She was Edith and could be no one else. He could have wept for her and for himself and for their child. He was overcome with dismay.

She turned around and smiled at him. ‘I knew you’d come to find me.’ She held out her hands to him. ‘Isn’t it beautiful here? I just saw a yellow robin. We’re so lucky.’

He took her hands in his and lifted her up and held her in his arms.

‘You’re crying!’ she said, astonished.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What is it? Tell me, darling.’ She leaned away, anxious to see him. ‘You must tell me.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Nothing. Everything.’

‘You’re so silly.’ She pulled his head onto her shoulder. ‘There. Cry if you want. You gave me such a fright.’ She held him close against her. ‘Sometimes I want to be your mother. Do you mind me feeling like that?’ She stroked his hair and looked beyond him across the river to the forest of gum trees where she had seen the yellow robin a moment before he came to find her. ‘You are such a silly,’ she said again, and she smiled to think of his distress and that it was she who comforted him.

The four of them were in the library. It was after one in the morning. Barnaby, the last of the others, had left a few minutes before, hallooing and sounding his horn as he drove out the gate. Arthur was standing with his back to the dead hearth. He was looking at Edith. He turned to the mantelpiece and picked up his glass of whisky and took a drink, then placed the glass back on the mantelpiece. Edith was asleep on the couch to the left of the fireplace, her legs tucked under her, her head resting on the arm of the couch where Pat had slept with Autumn’s shawl over his shoulders. It was a warm night and the windows were open. Purple shadows rimmed Arthur’s eyes. He looked middle-aged and tired. His cheeks were dark with the day’s stubble. He was saying something that no one was listening to. He gave a soft belch, for which he murmured an apology. He would have liked to bring up the matter of Edith’s painting but he knew he would never mention it. He was daydreaming how simple it would be to go and retrieve it from the loft and put it on the mantelpiece in place of Roy’s abstract. When she woke she would see it there and he would witness the pleasure in her lovely eyes. He was very fond of Edith. He was not sure if he could detect a sign of her pregnancy or not. She had a much healthier colour than when they’d seen her at Ocean Grove. He had noticed that she had been happy all day. Her happiness had reassured him and made him feel less guilty about her painting. It was nice that she had become friends with Barnaby. Barnaby was one of the people Arthur liked best in the world. A truly trusted friend. He realised he had said something aloud and he looked at Autumn as if expecting a response.

Autumn was sitting beside Pat on the couch across from Edith. She had been selecting passages from Wilde’s
The Critic as Artist
and reading them to him. The book lay face down in her lap. She looked up at Arthur when he spoke and said, ‘I’m going to take Pat down to the river to see the moon.’

Arthur reached for his drink and waved his hand in a generalised gesture at the room. A slop of whisky lipped his glass and landed on the skirt of Autumn’s dress. His gaze fixed on the small stain. ‘Go on,’ he urged them. And, as if Pat was not present with them in the room, he added, ‘He should see the river by moonlight. It’s a painting. A David Davies nocturne.
The Yarra by Moonlight
. Or it ought to be if it’s not. Go on, if you’re going. I’ll finish this and turn in.’ He looked down at Edith. ‘I shan’t wake her. She’s sleeping the sleep of the just.’

Edith sat up slowly and looked at them. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I went to sleep.’ She looked across at Pat. ‘I’ll have to go to bed, darling.’

Pat said, ‘Autumn’s just suggested we go and have a look at the river by moonlight. Why don’t you come with us? The fresh air will wake you up.’

‘Can’t you do that in the morning?’ Edith realised what she had said and laughed. She struggled to her feet. ‘Sorry. I think I’m still asleep.’ She stepped around the low table between the couches.

Pat stood up and she put a hand to his arm and kissed his cheek, reclaiming him from the doubts of her solitary sleep. She said something to him then turned to the others. ‘Goodnight. Thank you both. It was a lovely day. I saw a yellow robin by the river. Did Pat tell you? I’ll see you in the morning.’ She
went to the door, turned and raised her hand and smiled at them, and went out.

A moment later they heard the door of the guest room close.

Pat was still standing beside the couch.

Arthur spoke into the silence, his voice tempered to the rhythm of the poem, ‘Where has Maid Quiet gone to, nodding her russet hood? The winds that awakened the stars are blowing through my blood.’ He looked at Autumn.

Autumn said, ‘And the rest?’

Arthur made an impatient gesture. ‘It’s gone from me for the moment.’

She kept her gaze on him until he looked at her again.

‘Has it?’ she said when their eyes met.

‘Yes, darling, it has. Now why don’t you take Pat to see the moon on the river if that’s your intention.’ His tone was just a little severe, just a little reprimanding or impatient. He lit a cigarette and frowned. He looked up and realised they had gone. Perhaps she had spoken to him on the way out.

He reached for his drink and sat on the couch where Edith had been sleeping. His gaze rested on the bottle on the table. He would climb up into the loft in the morning and get her painting and speak to her about it. He drank some whisky. He should go to bed. He sat staring at the bottle. He was not sure if everything was all right or not. It was just as well no one had wanted to finance the Flinders Lane gallery idea. They hadn’t really worked out what it was they wanted to do. They would have been left with it. Autumn’s idea of a one-off show was a much better way to make a start. He realised his eyes had closed and he opened them wide and breathed deeply. There were sounds out in the bush. Little howls and yelps
and the whip of a bird woken by the brightness of the moon. Perhaps their cock would crow. What had she meant when she screamed at him that he had always denied her the important things in life? Had he? He recalled fending off her blows with a feeling of sickness in his stomach. They couldn’t talk about it. Something stirred in the garden beyond the window and he turned to look. The moon was big and cold and distant and alone and very beautiful. A possum.

Autumn was lying on her side on the grass on the low flat bank of the river, her dress under her. She was naked, her body shining with the river water. Pat stood above her, his own nakedness dappled by the moonshadow through the silver wattles.

She said, ‘Lie with me for a little while longer.’

‘And suppose Arthur decides to come down after all?’ he said.

‘He won’t.’ She held her arms up to him. ‘Please, don’t just leave me like this. I feel empty. I need you to hold me.’ I am pleading with him, she thought. He will despise me.

Pat looked up the hill towards the house. He reached for his underpants and pulled them on.

She sat up on her elbow, her dress rumpled under her where she had laid it out for them. ‘You’re not attractive when you’re afraid.’

‘I’m just being sensible.’ He dragged his shorts on over his damp underpants.

‘You weren’t being sensible just now.’

He said, ‘Get dressed!’

‘No. Give me a cigarette.’

‘Not until you get dressed.’

‘I’ll get dressed if you give me a cigarette.’

‘It’s all very well for you,’ he said. ‘Arthur probably doesn’t mind. But this would finish Edith if she knew about it. It would destroy her.’

‘Then why did you do it? You’re a swine, Pat Donlon. It would kill my Arthur to know of this.’

A vixen barked across the river. Pat stood transfixed, staring in the direction of the deranged cry. ‘Christ! What the fuck was that?’

‘A girl fox. You are so panicky. I don’t like it. You are spoiling everything. This is a sacred grove for me.’

‘Who else have you brought here?’

‘I loathe and detest you! You are the only man I have ever
brought
here.’

He lit a cigarette, drew on it, then handed it to her.

She took the cigarette from him and smoked, leaning on her elbow like an odalisque, her body polished marble. ‘And how many women have you had since you married Edith?’