Elsewhere in Success (21 page)

At the second meeting of the art class the teacher has brought in branches of bougainvillea, wet with spring rain, which she places on a blue velvet cloth. The moisture makes random spatters of dark spots on the already-dark material. Louisa feels ill when she looks at it, but she is determined not to turn away. Not this time.

At the end of class she stands back from the work and is startled to see that there is an explosion in what was intended to be a benign depiction of branches. Her eye travels across the canvas to the depths of the painting. Hidden in thick swirls of paint turned to mud, shapes emerge. An interplay of destruction and human matter slips in and out of visibility.

She is unsettled and fearful. She focuses, desperate to see bougainvillea, but her eye travels to the outer perimeter, where she has inadvertently painted layers of despair. Death is hidden in the greenery.

Louisa had a premonition, but the trouble with premonitions is that they can only be called such after the event. This one happened about a year before Tom died. He had asked her to film him as he tried out for an important belt in karate.

Through the camera she saw something, or an echo of
something, as if another time and her immediate impressions had become entangled. She recalls a sense of unreality. She remembers feeling sick. Still holding the camera to her face, she stumbled into one of the plastic chairs that had been placed around the perimeter and continued filming.

None of it made sense. For the first time since she could remember, everything had been good. She had a new love in Harry. Tom was happier than she had ever seen him. She fought to comprehend what was happening.

Afterwards when it was too late to do anything else, she played the images over and over, reviewing what the camera had caught that day – Tom's struggle and desperation to succeed. How in his exhaustion he fell down, tried to get up, fell down again. She was searching for a clue, but something was missing. She recalled how she'd felt driven to put the camera down and rescue him, to hold him and tell him that it was going to be all right, but it wasn't allowed. He would have found it humiliating. It was her need, not his.

Tom was achieving manhood and he wanted the proof, so she kept filming. She felt heavy with grief, though there was nothing yet to grieve. She remembers fighting back tears when his name was called.

‘Thomas Bradley Peters. Congratulations.' They presented him with his new belt and hung a medal around his neck for his courage.

Later, when what had been foreseen finally occurred, it seemed like a rerun at first. Everything was familiar. Holographs surrounded her. She felt that she had to put her hand right through them to discover their true nature. She put out her hand and discovered their true nature.

At that moment she ceased to feel anything, but it was only a temporary reprieve. She hadn't escaped. As soon as she decided to go on living, the pain hit her like a king wave.

For a long, long time it was as if Louisa hung there uselessly in her own life, feeling nothing, watching from a distance
as her apparently unnecessary life continued. It is how she imagined the last of a species might feel – the vestige of an age that had already passed.

There are snatches of memories. She remembers sitting at the funeral with the medal hung heavily around her own neck, her lips kissing the cold metal, her face burned with tears that wouldn't stop. She has an impression of Victor near the back door at the funeral as she turned to leave. She seems to remember the warmth of Harry's hand on her upper arm as he helped her into the car afterwards. Time must have passed. Meredith looked back at her as she walked away from the house after the tea and sandwiches that her mother had insisted on. Did she have something left to say? She didn't seem able to find the words. Meredith left with Todd a little over a year later, with no plans to return.

There is an early hot spell. A cricket has found its way into the bedroom and increases their irritation in the hours before exhaustion gives way to restless sleep. They take turns at rising and feeling their way through the dark house to the relative cool outside. There are no stars, just the indifferent glow of a moon on the wane. As the nights drag on, Louisa finds her dreams increase in number and intensity, but when she wakes she remembers them as more curious than troubling. Despite Lucy's reservations about discussing her dreams, she'll bring it up at her next session. It might suggest some sort of breakthrough – except that she is losing faith in the idea of breakthroughs. Breakthrough to what?

‘I've been having more dreams,' she tells Lucy half-heartedly. ‘It's been so hot hasn't it? The heat has been keeping me awake. Everyone. Harry too. Weird dreams. I think the kids used to get that when they overheated. Night terrors. They couldn't be comforted. They'd look at me like I was some sort of alien.'

‘Do you want to talk about them?'

‘I don't really. I just want to talk generally, and then I'm thinking that we could call it a day for now.' She hesitates. ‘I feel I need to get on. We can't go on forever here, can we? I can always come back if I need to, can't I?'

‘Sure, absolutely. That's a good thing Louisa. We can keep it as a casual arrangement, if you like.'

‘I've been thinking about denial lately. It's one of those things you see in other people, but never recognise in yourself. I can't tell – am I motivated to forget, or am I motivated to remember? I wonder if you can forget something, if you can tell yourself another story so that it's almost as if it didn't happen? I've always felt as if there's some sort of barrier or wall inside my mind and on the other side there's this, this large room. And that room is dark, in darkness, but I can feel,' and here Louisa presses her hand hard to her chest, ‘I can feel that there is something there. It's not empty. It's not an empty room.'

Her mouth is dry. She takes a sip of water.

Lucy says, ‘What do you think it is?'

Louisa sits with her head down for a long time. ‘It's Tom, of course, and what happened. Before that it was Victor. Before that, I don't know.'

‘What are you feeling right now?'

‘Oh ... loss. I suppose that covers it. A great big gaping...' Louisa sighs heavily. ‘I lost him, Lucy. Somewhere back there before – it happened before he died – but then when he did, afterwards, the door was closed, sealed. The door disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place, and there was no way for him to get back. I mean, no way of getting him back.'

Louisa drinks more water. It is indistinct, this feeling of disquiet, the inevitability of something about to happen. Darkness swirls before her. A shadow of a figure waits in the gloom drawing her closer. She recoils from whatever she is on the brink of seeing.

Forcing a smile she speaks quickly and by rote. ‘But I feel like he's with me now. He's in a safe place. See, Lucy, I still
feel him around me all the time, here, now, I do.' Her voice trails off.

The image forces its way into her mind: Tom sitting in the car, his hands on the wheel, his eyes dark, staring into an emptiness that must have been all he could make of the future. She tries to remember. She tries not to remember. She wants to place her hands gently over his, take them from the wheel, to lead him away from the danger. She wants to make everything all right again.

‘How alone he'd become,' she says to herself. ‘My poor child.'

‘What are you thinking?' Lucy's voice is gentle.

‘Oh,' says Louisa. ‘Why did he do it? It's like something was started and he just kept going instead of stopping, just stopping there. If he just could have stopped, even at that point, we would have got through it. Things change all the time, don't they? We think we're in a black hole. Everything's moving so fast that all the light is swallowed up. We don't know if we're up or down. We don't know if time has stopped and we're going to be like this forever. I wonder if he felt like that. I don't know why he couldn't just stop and wait to see what happened. Stopping's the hard part for us human beings, isn't it? Putting the brakes on. Self-control.' She feels oddly detached. ‘Once, a long time before, when the end couldn't possibly have been in his mind, when we were going past the spot, he said, that tree with the bougainvillea around it looks like it's on fire. That was a clue, wasn't it? I should have picked up on that.'

A thick band of silence stretches between them. Louisa dries her tears and blows her nose. ‘In a way it was planned. He must have already known, as if he was in love with the idea of death, as if he was creating something predestined. But that's such rubbish. Such rubbish! Nothing is predestined. Everything is just what you make it. He was too young, just a kid with his life ahead of him, so much to do. I hate that
he threw that away as if it was nothing. It wasn't ... wasn't nothing. It isn't fair, is it?'

‘No.'

‘I feel so much shame. I'm implicated. I stayed with his father through more than I should, longer than others would probably, and my boy watched and learned. But he wasn't Victor. He felt for other people. There are consequences, Lucy. There is so much sadness.'

Lucy takes her hand, squeezes it reassuringly.

‘There's no answer to it, I know,' says Louisa.

‘It's complicated. It's really hard. You do the best you can. What else can you do?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Neither do I. I do believe Tom had to live his own life, and make his own decisions. Allowing another person freedom, which is their right, after all, involves some risk. And it takes an ability to surrender. It means giving up the desire to take control over what they do when you see them doing things you don't agree with. You can try to help, but ... What can you do? All you can do is to go on living.'

‘It's hard. It's hard to live and feel happy.'

‘If you can, it would be a wonderful way to honour his life. And all those you love. Harry, and your daughter. And a new grandchild. A beautiful new grandchild. Life is incredible, isn't it?'

The first time Harry saw Louisa he was with his mother at a flower show. Louisa came around the corner and they nearly collided. It was an excuse to start a conversation. It could have gone either way. He remembers having the strangest feeling, as if he recognised her, as if he knew her from somewhere. She seemed familiar. He told her as much.

‘I've got one of those faces,' she said. ‘Generic. People think they know me all the time.'

‘It's funny,' said Harry. ‘I could have sworn we'd met.'

‘We were just about to stop for a cup of tea,' his mother said. ‘Why don't you join us?' It was all too fast. They should have talked more first. Harry was about to demur, embarrassed by his mother, when to his surprise Louisa agreed.

As he plays, blowing wistful notes into the afternoon, this is running through his mind. He is remembering how it was that day, his feeling of anticipation, as though he was starting something that had been planned a long time ago, as though it was inevitable that he and Louisa would be together, as if it was already mapped out and he was simply joining up the dots. He remembers thinking that she seemed more cultured than he had expected. What had he expected? Why had he expected anything?

Was his mother matchmaking? Probably. After they bumped into Louisa, the old girl made herself scarce on some excuse.

‘I'll be back,' she said. ‘You'll keep my boy company for a few minutes won't you, until I get back? I won't be long.'

She didn't wait for her to agree.

What first struck Harry was Louisa's hair – long, dark, and dramatically contrasting with her pale skin and blue eyes. Unusual. It was like a secret or a puzzle that kept him looking at her.

Then the more he looked, the more he felt that they would meet again, that there was something here that needed more time to resolve. Not passion, nothing so hot, but something persistent. The expression around her eyes made him feel strange: as if she were carrying an unresolved sadness that he felt he understood.

His mother took her time coming back. Louisa was making her moves to leave, pushing back her chair and gathering her packages, and Harry began to feel mild panic. He asked her out. She hesitated for so long that he was about to withdraw the offer and make a joke of it. Then she said yes.

‘Great,' said Harry. ‘Fantastic.'

Things moved quickly from there. He'd been seeing someone not long before, but nothing had come of it. Louisa had been on her own for some time. They wasted no time in moving in together. Passion grew quickly and it went deeper than he'd expected. It stayed that way until the business with Tom.

After Tom's death, the whole thing just about went belly-up. She backed off, closing herself off from him, from everyone, even herself. He respected that, the distance she needed, but it didn't mean he liked it. It hurt.

He realised too that despite themselves people get older. Men get older and sex is not as important or as easy as it was.
In the beginning they made love every day, but eventually they were too tired more often than not. It happens, Harry tells himself. There is just so much a person can take. He thought he'd made up his mind a while ago that they were both past it. He was wrong.

It is a strange thing. In the last few days he has started to look at her differently. Maybe it's something about all the paintings that she is bringing home, and that she is not at home as much. She looks somehow clearer too, more in focus to him, as if a veil is slipping.

He wonders if he has been getting complacent. For the first time he seriously entertains the idea that she might find out about his aborted affair with Carole, and decide to leave him. It makes him nervous. And strangely, since Bella's reply to his message he hasn't spent as much time thinking of Yasamine. Somehow he'd never pictured her as a grandmother. He can't get a clear picture of her any more. She probably looks old now, just like everybody else.

He's printed out Bella's letter to him and keeps it in his top pocket, transferring it from one polo top to the next as he changes. Louisa hasn't asked him about it. He'll talk to her, but not yet, not until he is clear. Every now and then he looks at that bit of the letter about Yasamine and the other bloke. Each time he puts the letter away, he finds his feelings have changed slightly.

It's sunny and cool, quieter than normal because it's a weekday, and they both have the day off. Louisa is watering the front garden. She's been taking it in turns with Harry, who is now inside, trying his hand at some rice and dhal.

A van pulls into the street and stops suddenly, a little way up. It's the young man who parks under their tree sometimes. Louisa stands her ground, watering, watching, and resenting his presence.

‘Damn it,' she says. She drags the nozzle back to the tap, and
turns the water off. Progress requires action. Life is short.

She is walking purposefully up the street, meeting his eye. He looks away, looks back, hesitates, caught out, winds the window down.

‘Anything wrong?' he says.

‘No. I just thought I'd come and introduce myself. I've seen you around a few times. We haven't actually met, have we?'

He shakes his head, says, ‘You've got lots of trees out the front. They look like they've been there forever, but they haven't.'

‘We like them,' she says.

‘Sure.' He says, ‘How long have you lived here?'

She tells him.

‘Did anyone ever drop in who'd lived here before?' There's strain behind the question, overlaid by an attempt to sound casual.

‘No,' she says. ‘Nobody. Why?'

She waits for more, a story, but it doesn't eventuate. He looks deflated.

‘Is it someone special?' she prompts.

At that his eyes star up and he looks as if he might tell, but instead says, ‘I have to go.'

‘Hey,' she says, to give him a chance to reconsider, but he has wound the window up and is starting the engine.

He drives off. Louisa watches him until he's almost out of sight. As she walks back to the house, Brian saunters up to meet her.

‘Hey, Louise,' he says.

‘Oh, hello Brian.'

‘What were you doing talking to that guy?'

‘Oh, you know, I've seen him hanging around. I just thought I'd introduce myself.'

‘Yeah? He used to live in your house with his girlfriend.'

‘No. Really?'

‘Yeah. Funny guy. He used to lose it a bit from time to time.
She did as well. She had a good set of lungs. You could hear her right across the road, going off her face at the poor bloke. One day he buried a dirty great lawnmower in the front yard!' Brian laughs, looking to her to share in the joke. She chuckles.

‘Yeah,' she says. ‘You were the one that told us about that. Harry dug it up.'

‘'Course he did. I remember now. I took it to the tip for you. Never did get to use up all those tip passes you gave us. Seems like we had more council pick-ups back then. I dunno, I just got more junk now.'

‘Oh, well.'

‘Yeah, he was a bit of a weird one. Nah, he was all right most of the time, but he pretty much kept to himself. Anyway I heard they split up after they moved out. Lorraine saw her down the shopping centre one day and got the whole story. Reckoned he'd been playing around. Ha! Trouble is he'd got caught! Nah, just kidding. She was off back to England. Pregnant apparently, but she didn't want him to know. You wouldn't tell Lorraine, but, if you didn't want it to get around, would you? She had some family over there, I suppose. Anyway, a while back we heard she'd come back. It can get bloody cold over there, I suppose.'

Brian looks up the street to where the van disappeared. ‘Don't know what he's started hanging around for after all this time – like a dog sniffing out his old patch. Beats me.'

‘It's been a long time,' she says. ‘We've been here coming up for ten years now.'

‘Yeah, well, you know, some people cling on to things don't they?'

Brian hangs there, looking as if he is wondering how to take his leave.

‘Yeah, strange all right,' she says.

‘Yeah.'

Louisa says, ‘I could have asked him in for a cuppa, but he wouldn't have been interested.'

‘You never ask me in for a cuppa!'

‘Do you want to come in for a cuppa?'

He grins. ‘Nah. Better get on.'

He waves a pair of electric shears that he's been holding. He's wearing his steel caps for some serious gardening.

‘I can come and do yours when I've finished with mine,' he says.

‘Thanks Brian, but Harry likes to do it.'

‘Doesn't look like it.' It's become a running joke in the neighbourhood – a sure sign that they've settled in.

‘Think of it this way, Brian,' she says. ‘It makes your place look even better.'

‘True,' he says, and brandishes his shears again. ‘Any time but.'

Louisa waves him off, and heads back inside to see how Harry's going with the dhal.