Listen (30 page)

‘Aren’t we lucky, Rose?’ he said softly. His mother looked up quickly, surprised. ‘Aren’t we just incredibly lucky, you and me?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, almost whispering. ‘Yes.’

James went for a run, to clear his head. As he loped steadily along the little narrow roads the phrase ‘everyone needs protection’ kept pace with his regular footfalls like a heartbeat. He veered off and took a path that led through a small forest, and as he ran between the tall verdant trees he felt piercingly aware of all the life that surrounded him. He ran for almost two hours and when he got back to Marsh Farm he couldn’t even stop to take a shower. He sat down dusty and sweating at the kitchen table, snatched up a sketchbook and began to draw.

It came pouring out of him, flowing from the end of his pencil like water. Landscapes and cloudscapes, trees thick with summer leaf, holed trunks and gnarly branches, buds and leaves, roots poking through the
soil. Birds and bunnies, hares tall and alert in the fields under a full moon, sheep clustered by a hedge, mole mounds and badger sets, a goat and a horse grazing together companionably, raspberries on their canes. A trout fisherman casting his fly, a farming woman at her gate, a group of children walking down a lane. It was like a flood. Eventually he stopped, not at all exhausted. Satisfied.

‘This is exciting!’ Rose said, looking through the sketchbook James brought to the dinner table. He had filled it in just those few hours, and he knew he could do it again tomorrow. It was almost like his hands weren’t his own. He tried to explain it to Silver on the phone that night, but he didn’t feel like he was making much sense.

‘You’ll just have to see it, Sil,’ he said. ‘It’s almost got me spooked, you know?’

‘Be spooked, hon,’ she said calmly. ‘It’s okay to be spooked sometimes.’

The next day they all walked down to a swimming spot in the nearby river, James and Rose and Roland, with Jacinta and a visiting friend of hers lolloping along near them but not quite with them, full of high spirits, chatting and giggling. As they crossed from one harvested field into the next the two girls raced on ahead. James watched them, their lanky limbs flying as they ran pell-mell across the yellow stubble towards the line of trees marking the river in the distance. It was a scene perilously close to pretty, these two joyous racing figures in the small tamed field, and even in mid-summer the golden English light was soft, so much softer than Australia’s. He felt the thrill of challenge: how to capture something so ordinary and innocent, infuse it with a whisper of the sublime, yet not get sentimental? But it was so clear in his mind’s eye.

When they came back to the farmhouse he went upstairs to a room next to Rose’s studio, one she had suggested had perfect light
for painting, stapled a section of primed canvas to the wall, and immediately set to the sketching in. The next day he started painting.

As James worked, something struck him: this was the first painting he’d done in a decade that didn’t feature water. This time there was not a drop in sight. He felt a stir of unease. He was known as a painter of water, famously skilled and imaginative in its depiction. Who was he without that? He pushed these thoughts aside and worked on, quickly, deftly, lovingly.

Normally Silver was the first person to see his new work, but she was still in the States. When his mother asked if they could have a look at the work-in-progress, James was nervous. This was the first of his paintings they’d seen; what if it disappointed them? But what he got was a domino effect of delight. Jacinta was clearly thrilled: she had never been the subject of
a proper painting
before, by
a real artist
, and at the age of sixteen this was quite a thing. Roland was delighted by his daughter’s pleasure, and this in turn made Rose happy and proud, quite apart from her estimation of the work itself. James felt that familiar sensation of good luck resting its hand lightly on his shoulder.
I don’t deserve this
, he thought, but there was no guilt in it. All gratitude.

By the time Silver arrived, the painting was very near completion. He showed her the sketchbooks first, the half dozen he had filled by now, and then led her to the new painting.

‘Ah,’ she said, smiling enigmatically as she took it in. Enigma was not Silver’s way, not usually. Again James felt a nervous prickle; Silver wasn’t only his wife, she was his agent. And she was also his voice, in a way: she’d always had more to say about his work than he had himself. He didn’t care for this silence.

‘Well, what do you reckon?’ he asked finally. ‘Is it a load of hooey? Am I any good without the water?’

Silver laughed and kissed him, rapidly, several times. ‘Oh, it’s good, my darling! It’s very good. By which I also mean: I can sell this, don’t you worry. But that’s not the best thing. The best thing is where this is coming from.’

‘What do you mean?’ James asked, rattled. ‘Where
is
this stuff coming from, Sil?’

‘From in here, baby,’ she said, placing her hand on his chest, just above his heart. ‘It means you’re – what is it? You’re
earthed
. At last. Like – you’re not – ’ Silver’s hands moved fluidly in the air making the shapes of waves.

‘I’m not wishy-washy any more?’ he asked, pretending to be offended – and maybe even truly so, a little.

Silver laughed again.
She looks so happy!
he thought, and that made him glad. ‘I didn’t say that!’ she exclaimed. ‘But it’s like you’re… grounded. Home. You know what I’m saying?’

James was staring at her, trying to get a handle on it all; now he turned to look again at the sketchbooks spilled across the table, the large near-completed painting on the wall. He pulled a loose sheet lying on the table toward him. It was a drawing of half-a-dozen fat full-blown roses in a vase, dropped petals forming a soft carpet at its base. In one corner he’d written ‘Rose’s roses’ and the date. James smiled. ‘Home,’ he said wonderingly. ‘Yeah.’

CHAPTER 22

The first thing Olivia became aware of after she fainted was the sound of a voice, a voice she knew she liked. It was calling,
Liv! Liv!
Calling her back from the darkness, the coolness. She was lying on something that felt wonderfully hard and smooth against her cheek. Reassuringly solid. She remembered a sensation of things whirling, then a flood of heat through her whole body; she could feel the sweat prickling as it cooled on her back. The voice. Fleur. Of course. She was at school. There had been gym first up, then maths. The room had felt so hot. And this coolness now was the concrete floor of the girls’ toilets. She knew she’d made it to the girls’ toilets, but wasn’t sure why. She opened her eyes and there was the familiar scuffed, dark green concrete, and there, too, in alarming close-up was a number of
enormous
drops of extraordinarily bright red blood. Slowly she levered herself up onto one elbow. More blood poured down her nose and dripped onto the floor beside her hand.

‘Wow!’ said Fleur, who was kneeling next to her. ‘That’s impressive. Say something.’

‘What happened?’

‘Not very original, Liv. Maybe you’d better lie down again.’

‘No, I’m okay,’ said Olivia, lying down again.

‘I’ll be back in just a tick,’ said Fleur, and she was, in a couple of ticks anyway, with the teacher of the maths class they’d both been in and which Olivia had suddenly walked out of without a word, feeling too peculiar to speak. The maths teacher, outraged by the rudeness of Olivia’s departure, had ordered Fleur not to follow, and told her disobediently departing back that they would
both have a week’s detention.
Now she was looking very chagrined: Fleur noted the chagrin with interest, and similarly, once they had got Olivia to sick bay and the vice-principal had come to assess the situation, the teacher’s fawning and protestations of concern.

‘So does that mean we won’t have the week’s detention?’ she asked earnestly. The vice-principal threw the hapless teacher an appalled look.

‘Oh, Fleur!’ flustered the teacher. ‘I never…That wasn’t…’

Fleur murmured, ‘Ha ha! Got you!’ Her voice was so soft that only Olivia could hear her, and she managed a wobbly, appreciative smile.

The blood was coming from a cut on the bridge of Olivia’s nose. Antiseptic and a dressing were applied to the nose, and the bleeding soon stopped. But the severe menstrual cramps, which had caused Olivia to faint in the first place, continued. She lay on her side in the sick-bay bed, white and still speechless through the stabbing spasms and the constant pain low in her tummy and groin. Her tailbone ached, and the tops of her legs. It was definitely not nice. She had been given some aspirin but that seemed to make no difference. Fleur sat beside her, silent when any adults were in the room, making quiet, droll comments when there were none. Amid all the unpleasantness Olivia was distantly aware of two things: one, that if she were capable of laughter then Fleur would have her laughing right now, and two, that as word spread through the school of some drama having befallen her, other kids would be saying
It’s okay, her friend’s with her.
This thought amazed her.

‘I’m sorry this is taking so long, Olivia,’ said the vice-principal, coming back into the room. ‘Your mother’s coming to pick you up shortly.’

Olivia wondered why it was her mother who was coming, when her dad worked close by and was listed as the first person to contact. But, whoever. All she wanted was to be in her own bed, with Mintie beside her.

Deborah came. Fleur walked with them out to the car, accompanied by the vice-principal who was explaining that perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea for Olivia to do gym first thing that day,
given the circumstances
, and that it was school policy that girls could be excused from gym or sports
if it’s a problem day
. Olivia and Fleur managed to exchange an eye-roll.
Yeah, right!
You’d have to be haem-orrhaging and get carted off in an ambulance before the PE teacher would let you out of gym.

She lay down on the back seat and her mum didn’t even tell her to put her seatbelt on. They stopped at the chemist on the way home and Deborah bought some painkillers, strong ones. She turned to Olivia as she got back in the driver’s seat.

‘We’ll be home in just a second, darling,’ she said. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Mmm,’ said Olivia, opening her eyes to give her mother what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Deborah had her sunglasses on, even though it was an overcast day. Olivia suddenly registered that she’d had them on the whole time, even when she came into the sick bay.
This isn’t a good sign
. Another stabbing pain clutched hard and low inside her pelvis, and she closed her eyes again.

She’d never been so glad to be in her own bed. She didn’t even have to ask for Mintie; Deborah called her in there herself, and didn’t say a word when Mintie jumped straight up on the bed and snuggled down.

‘Here, darling. These will help a lot,’ Deborah said, offering her two of the painkillers with a glass of water. ‘And put this hot water
bottle against your tummy, or the small of your back if that’s hurting.’ Olivia got the pills down, took the hottie, lay back again with her arm resting on Mintie. It was strange being looked after like this, especially by her mother. But it was okay. Anyway, what choice did she have?

She drifted off to sleep for a while and when she woke up her mother was still sitting there in the old armchair on the other side of the room. She was just staring into space.

‘Mum, you don’t have to stay here with me, you know.’

Deborah started. ‘Oh! Darling!’ She came over to the bed. Now Olivia could see why her mum had been wearing the sunglasses: her eyes were swollen to little slits, like a bull terrier’s. She must have been crying for hours before she came to the school.

‘How are you feeling now?’ Deborah asked gently.

‘Really a lot better. It doesn’t hurt nearly so much.’

‘That’s good. Are you hungry?’

‘Not yet, thanks, Mum. Maybe in a while. But you don’t have to sit here, honestly. I might just read for a while now.’

‘Are you sure, Ollie?’

Olivia nodded. Plainly something had happened, but she didn’t have the strength to think about it right now.

Deborah said, ‘Well, if you’re sure, I’ll go to the study and do some work. Just call out if you need anything.’

She heard her mother stop at the linen cupboard.
Maybe she thinks I’d like clean sheets
, she thought, and wondered if she should call out not to bother, she’d just changed her sheets a day or so ago. Then she remembered the old box full of letters that she’d found in the bottom of that cupboard, the letters never sent.
She’s been writing to her phantom again
.

A little later Olivia got up to go to the bathroom and change her pad. There were some huge clots amid the blood on the used one.
Gross! No wonder it damn hurt
, she thought. Her mother was hovering outside the bathroom door, looking anxious.

‘I’m fine, Mum, really. Heaps better.’

‘My poor girl,’ Deborah said, stepping closer to her, smoothing the sweaty hair back from her daughter’s forehead. ‘I know, I had some
awful
periods in the first couple of years, too. But the body adjusts, trust me.’

Olivia nodded awkwardly. She and her mother had never been up for much girlie chat.

‘Are you hungry now?’ Deb asked. ‘Soup? That tinned tomato soup you like? I’ll go down to the shops and get some fresh bread.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

Deborah brought the soup and thick buttered bread in on a tray. There was a glass of flavoured milk, too, and a Kit-Kat. Olivia smiled. ‘Oh boy! Chocolate Quik
and
a Kit-Kat. This makes it almost worth it!’ she said kindly, even though she didn’t really feel like either.

‘I got you these, too.’ Deborah handed her two sticker books, the old-fashioned kind with all the stickers on perforated pages at the back. You were supposed to match them up with the text on the appropriate page. For little kids, they were, trying to be educational, and you could colour in a drawing, too. There was one on whales and dolphins and one, shop-soiled and scruffy, on the rodent family.
World of Rodents
, it was called.