Little Wing (16 page)

Lots of luv,

Emmy XXXX

Dear Martin,

It was amazing to get a call from you and Pete last week – of course I hadn't forgotten you. But I'm terrible at keeping in contact with people.

Fancy you being back teaching this year! But with Pete at school I guess you don't need to stay home. I'm back at school, too. It's okay too – just! – but difficult with a baby. Sometimes I get so tired I want to scream. I'm really lucky that Matt and I share looking after her, and my parents are keen babysitters, so is Matt's mother – so as you can see I have it pretty easy really.

I didn't say a lot on the phone the other night because my parents were kind of hanging around. So what am I doing? – can't even remember what I told you cos I was so excited to hear from you – I'm living at home with my parents. That's okay – we're all trying to get along, which we do mostly.

Matt and I didn't get together again but we have kind of figured things out – for now. We share looking after Mahalia, but she's with Matt most of the time.

I have plans for the future. At the moment I'm living at home till I finish my HSC, which will be the end of next year. Then I want to get into uni here at Lismore. I had all sorts of wild ideas at first of going away and studying to be a vet or something glamorous, but with Matt living here I have to stick around. And – can you believe this? – I have almost decided that I will do primary teaching. So many reasons – like getting the school hols off etc., but I also think I'm pretty good at being with little kids – and I like them. When I do go to uni I'd like to get a flat on my own or go into a share house or something.

AND . . . I'm hoping to bring Mahalia to the Blue Mountains after Christmas for a holiday to see Charlotte, and visit you all. She'll be almost two then – should I start getting worried? I can sometimes see my mother looking at us both when Mahalia's playing up a bit and thinking, Just you wait till she's a teenager!

That's all for now. I'm on my own here today. Sometimes I bring Mahalia, but she's with Matt this weekend. He and I plan to bring her to the beach together in a couple of weeks. As you can see from my card to Pete, this beach is long and almost deserted. There are a few houses along the beachfront, but you can't see them from the beach – it's all bush.

Who is here with me: a black dog that wants me to throw a stick for it (for the umpteenth time); two seagulls squabbling over a piece of old fish; a pregnant woman in a bikini holding the hand of her toddler in the surf; someone doing yoga; a small sand crab.

Please write back!

Love,

Emily

XXX

Emily folds the letter and puts it into her bag. It seems such a long letter but it still hasn't told Martin everything. There are some things that she thinks you can never tell other people.
Do you know what I think?
she could have written.
I think that people are mysterious and unknowable, especially your own self. I'm still finding out things about myself that I'd never dreamed possible.

Pulling off her T-shirt and hat, she runs down to the water and makes her way out into the waves, broaching them side-on until finally she takes a deep breath and dives under.

She stays in the surf till she's waterlogged, emerges exhilarated, and flops down at the place where the waves run up onto the sand, the magical place where the sea kisses the land, and where the damp sand reflects the sky, so that it appears almost luminous.

She spreads herself out in a star shape and closes her eyes, rolling back and forth on her back in the shallow water. The only thing she can hear is the pounding of the waves – or perhaps it's her own heartbeat. After a while she opens her eyes and looks at the sky.

She had forgotten that it's such a clear, transparent blue.

8

(A postcard:
Paris through the Window, by Marc Chagall
,
1913
)

The frame of the window is streaked with bright colours, yellow, red, green and blue. A bunch of flowers sits on a chair beneath it. A yellow cat with a human face sits on the sill. There is a figure in the right bottom corner with two heads, one of them blue. The city is outlined, with the Eiffel Tower predominating. The tiny figures of a man and a woman lie outstretched, floating. They look like insects. A man floats suspended in the sky beneath a triangular shape that could be a parachute.

It is such a mad, joyful, colourful picture that looking at it makes Emily smile.

She turns the postcard over and reads it again.

Hi Emily,

Took my Year Six class down to the city to the Art Gallery and found this card in the shop. Thought of you the moment I saw it – isn't it great? No angels this time, just ordinary (ordinary?) people.

Looking forward to you bringing Mahalia to the mountains in the holidays. Pete's wondering if she'll be able to play soccer – it's his latest thing.

Letter following (when I find the time) – or I'll phone if I'm lazy.

Cat says to say Hi.

Love,

Martin

Emily slides the postcard into the textbook she's meant to be reading. ‘Mahalia!' she calls. ‘Put your hat back on!'

Matt says, ‘She's always hated hats,' and runs over to where she's thrown it down. He goes after her and pops it back onto her head, tying it again under her chin. A woman walking past smiles at them all; Emily can see that she thinks they're a family – which they are, after a fashion.

Emily lies down and soaks up the late winter sun. She has a lightness that is new to her. At the same time she is heavy, but a pleasant heaviness, grounded in the earth. She feels a new pleasure in her body. Rubbing sunscreen into her belly she notices the faintest of marks there, a few fine, silvery lines where the skin had pulled and stretched when she was pregnant. On her inner arms the scars have also faded and are almost unnoticeable. Matt certainly doesn't seem to have noticed them, though she doesn't go out of her way to display that part of her body.
I have changed
, she thinks.
I've lived. I've made mistakes and I've survived.

In the mountains it will still be cold and misty and damp. She thinks of Martin in his heavy black coat – how he seemed to recognise her that day at the lookout. ‘I didn't see you standing there,' he'd said. It astonishes her that it was a whole year ago she was there.

She looks over at Matt; he is sitting upright on his towel; never once has he taken his eyes from Mahalia. They both watch as she struggles up the soft sand towards them, spilling water from her bucket; she sings, over and over, in three descending notes, ‘La, la, la . . . La, la, la . . .'

‘Who's been teaching her to sing?' says Emily. ‘Eliza?'

Matt blushes and grins. ‘Yeah.'

‘Don't be embarrassed,' says Emily teasingly. ‘I know you two are an item. I'm okay with that.'

Though she wonders whether she is, really.

Emily looks at the sea where the waves roll in, the foam on their crests like the manes of galloping horses. ‘Remember the time I rode that horse up the beach?' she says.

Matt grins and looks at her shyly.

‘I was so . . .'

‘What?'

‘Carefree. Self-centred. Still am a bit. I'm the most imperfect person I know.'

She looks at him. ‘It was difficult, wasn't it? While I was away. Looking after Mahalia on your own.'

He doesn't reply for a while, and then says, ‘It was what I had to do. What I wanted to do.'

Emily lets sand slip through her fingers. ‘You know,' she says, ‘I really did love you. And I feel . . . so
sad
sometimes about all that.' For a moment she thinks she's going to cry.

‘Come for a walk,' he says, and pulls her to her feet.

And they fetch Mahalia from where she is digging and walk up the beach towards the mouth of the river. Emily carries Mahalia on her hip, where she sits holding on to Emily's shirt with one hand, while waving the other hand in the air. She's like an appendage – an extra limb, say, or a little wing, flapping joyfully as they make their way up the beach.

‘Do you know what I'd like?' Emily tells Matt, after they've stopped so Mahalia can pat an old golden retriever. ‘I'd like us not to be too fearful for her. Not cocoon her too much. Let her play with dogs and run about outside and make cubbies and things. I'd like to bring her up not to be afraid. To learn how to make mistakes and recover from them. The world's not that dangerous, right?'

Matt nods and grins, slinging Mahalia up onto his hip.

All the way up the beach they pass her back and forth between them, and when they come to the breakwater they climb up to look at where the river enters the sea. They search for the whales that can often be seen quite close to the shore, but there are none. And when they've had enough looking, they make their way down to the sand again. Matt goes first, clambering down over the rocks. At the bottom he looks up expectantly and holds out his arms.

‘Are you ready, Mahalia? One, two, three . . .' Emily swings Mahalia out over the rocks, and Matt receives her and holds her close.