Rachael's Gift (33 page)

I gripped my head, my vision fuzzy. After only five minutes on the internet, my headache had doubled in size. There was so much noise. And then I remembered I could just shut it down. I closed the laptop and went to find Cam.

I had to get out. I had to cool off. I found myself in the garden heading towards the mural. The plaque had been laid across the gap already. I couldn’t believe we’d interred her ashes here, of all places. She’d have been turning in her grave if we hadn’t cremated her. I knelt on the ground and ran my fingers along the engraved letters –
Marguerite Louise Delamotte Morgan 1954–2007
– and then across the painted mural to Lucien’s rose that had grown dull in all the years since it had been commissioned. The tropical vines had partly eroded, showing patches of stone through the paintwork. It would not last. It occurred to me my mother had never seen this mural and yet here she was inside it, a modern bronze rupture in the worn paintwork.

The rain was coming down heavily now, heavier than I had ever seen it in France, more like the torrents back home in Queensland, where the monsoonal rains came down in sails. It pelted and churned the earth so that fresh dark soil rose to the surface and muddy puddles formed among the rotting and dead leaves.

It should have been easy.

Genius. What was genius other than an excuse to shamelessly covet narcissistic adoration – simply a child’s cry for love? An indulgence of the ego? As Wolfe would say: Why did we all have to ‘be’ someone? I couldn’t help it. Something burnt in me. I wanted more. Worse to die without having known it at all; without having blown the balloon to its full capacity, to stretch the ends of it so tight you could see your skin through the slight sheath of plastic. It was a fine balance before it burst and exploded into tiny bits. The crushing moment when that young girl recognises the unremarkable stain of mediocrity. Blazing with the hot shame of failure, emboldened by the desire to succeed, she writes to her estranged grandparents in France with the hope that this sense of ordinariness would be dislodged and the artful talent would flow.

Of course, there was no talent.

Just Rachael . . .

Rachael.

I turned my face up to the bruised sky and closed my eyes, feeling the water massage my skin and soak through my clothes. It ran down my neck and under my shirt, the coldness trickling. I could no longer pretend. What had I created? Was there even a name for this kind of thing? Was it a disease? I thought of Wolfe and felt a tug of fear – if she told him everything, would he believe her? I felt my mouth tighten and my cheeks ache at the irony and a small sound that was neither a laugh nor a cry escaped. It was carried off by the wind, this practical joke, the way history repeated – like mother like daughter. The wind curled around the house and through the trees and I waited for the numbness to come.

I dug my hand into the soil and watched the dirt spray darkly on my white skin. I pushed deeper, thinking of the layers of earth beneath me. I reached the level where the rain had not, where the soil was dry and powdery. It held thin, spidery roots of weeds, grass and, further down, something thicker and gnarly: the old root of a tree, immovable. I could go no further.

The trees beyond the gate. The painted rose. I looked towards the house. The windows were dark. No movement. Then something caught my eye through the pane on the ground floor, the flutter of a curtain. I counted the windows across; it was the drawing room. A hand appeared and then a face. It was my grandfather. He was staring out the window. I saw his bald egg-shaped head and red dressing gown. He raised his hand and rested his palm on the windowpane. It’s me, Grandfather: Camille. I waved at him but he did not wave back. I shivered and blinked and then he wasn’t there at all; it was just a dark window like the rest.

‘Come inside,’ I yelled, running through the garden towards her, but the rain was thick and loud and I don’t think she heard me. She was kneeling in the dirt, mascara running down her cheeks like the mud through hands, her clothes drenched. I tried to pull her up, but she was heavy and seemed dazed.

She blinked up at me. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘About Rachael.’

I wiped water away from my face; I didn’t know what to say. The fight had been drawn out of me; I had none left and now she was agreeing. I should have felt good. I took her hand.

‘I’ve been so stupid.’ She looked up at me, her tears melting with the rain, and then her head fell to her chest. ‘The teacher . . .’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘Rachael lied to get out of being accused of stealing that painting.’ She raised her eyes. ‘And now she’s made up another story – about Lucien.’

My throat grew tight. I let go of Camille’s hand and stood up, my boots buried under wet leaves. I looked through the gate to the forest beyond, the bare trunks of the silver birch trees shining in the wet.

‘Say something,’ she said, her voice small. ‘Please.’

There was a bitter taste in my mouth. I wanted to say, ‘I told you so.’ I wanted to punch the air and shake her by the shoulders –
how could you be so stupid?
I wanted to smash the guy’s face in. But I bit my tongue. What was the point? It was all done. She shivered, her chest shuddering with sobs. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her cry – not even when her mother died.

‘You’ll freeze,’ I said and held out my hand. She took it and I pulled her to me. She collapsed onto my chest.

I felt her lips against my neck, against my ear. ‘Why is it all so hard?’ she cried. ‘We were so close.’

I picked her up and cradled her in my arms; she was like a ragdoll, her head flopping. ‘Close to what?’ I asked, but her eyes were shut and she didn’t answer me. I carried her into the house and up the stairs to our room. I pulled her clothes over her head and ran a hot bath. Gently I placed her in it. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, sponging her with a cloth. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

Afterwards, Camille slipped on a pair of black trousers and a jumper, and faced the mirror, her eyes dull.

‘Wolfe?’ There was a tap on the door. Rachael walked in, still in her pyjamas.

Camille came out of the bathroom.

‘Have a seat,’ I said to Rach.

She looked from me to Cam, her eyes widening and then narrowing. She put a hand on one hip and remained standing. ‘What now?’

A pulse beat in the side of my neck. Camille crossed her arms. ‘Pack your bags, Rach, we’re flying home tomorrow,’ I said.

She stared daggers at us. ‘What?’

My hands formed fists, the knuckles white. Camille remained silent, unblinking, and my chest released with the relief that we were now working together, the way it should have been all along.

Her eyes darted between the two of us. ‘I’m staying here. Francine will have me.’

I shook my head, no.

‘I won’t go!’ she yelled. She pointed at Camille. ‘But it was her!’ she shrieked. ‘It was her idea. All of it. To burn the painting. To hang the teacher. She made me!’

Camille shook her head and I felt a huge wave of fatigue come over me. I held up my palm. ‘Rach –’

But there was no stopping her. ‘She’s been fucking Lucien, too. I bet she didn’t tell you that!’ Rachael’s eyes blazed with rage.

My shoulders stiffened. The clouds broke, a patch of blue through a seam in the grey. A throbbing in my head. This was too much. Slowly, I turned to Camille. Our eyes met. She raised one eyebrow, as if to say, See what I mean?

‘Rach.’ I shook my head in disbelief and exhaustion. ‘No more lies, please. It stops now.’

Rachael’s mouth dropped open, her eye twitching as she stared with hate at Cam and Cam stared boldly back.

The apartment was bleak when we returned; even the gold trim seemed dull. We were going home. Rachael would clear the teacher’s name and we would send her to a psychologist. I was no longer contracted to Lonsdale. The claimants did not want to sell the painting; it was a stalemate.

I walked through the foyer to Rupert’s study. ‘Rachael?’ I opened the door. She was folding a t-shirt. She placed it into an open suitcase on the bed, where the rest of her clothes were neatly arranged. I tasted acid and swallowed it back. The dim light from a floor lamp cast a shadow across her face. Her hair was pulled back severely in a ponytail. She avoided my eye. She was dressed in black tights and a long black t-shirt and wore the boots Francine had given her. She looked different somehow. The light brought out something else – something so subtle and familiar I had stopped noticing it. She looked just like me. A dark version, but definitely me. I looked at my hand resting on the doorknob, the very hand that had raised her, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, her portrait scalded my memory and I was jarred. Like mother like daughter. It wasn’t her portrait, but ours. Mother and daughter, interchangeable.

‘We’ll be leaving in a few hours. Make sure you strip the bed.’

Deep inside there was a long, heavy ache and even breathing felt like a burden. Maybe one day I would tell Wolfe the truth and he would forgive me. Just as one day I would forgive her.

Rachael’s portfolio was spread open on Rupert’s desk. I wanted to see her work again. Maybe I’d been wrong about her talent. It was hard to swallow the bitterness – everything we had worked for. Success soiled. Genius thwarted. Opportunities missed. I could just cry. I turned over the pages: sketches, photographs of oil paintings, works in progress. But her work was even more brilliant than I had thought. The depth, the textures, the layers of emotion. Already I felt the loss of her success, and the weight of disappointment. The memory of my own. I had failed again. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I let it ring out; it bleeped, announcing a voicemail message.

She ignored me, moving from the cupboard to her suitcase.

‘Why did you do it?’ I asked her.

She finished folding a dress and placed it inside the suitcase. ‘I wanted to punish you.’

Her plain and simple answer came as a shock. But it was true. Yes, she had wanted to hurt me. ‘But why?’ I said meekly. ‘I’ve only ever wanted the best for you.’

She took another item off the hanger and draped it over the rest of the clothes. ‘I’m not your little puppet. It’s my gift – not yours.’

I felt the pressure of tears behind my eyes and didn’t want her to see me cry, so I went into my bedroom to regroup. I took my phone out of my pocket, pressed a few buttons and listened to the message. A window opposite squeaked open. A feather duster shook over the sill, sending clouds of dust into the air.

I wiped my face and went back to the study; Rachael was packing her make-up into her toiletry bag, her long, graceful neck stretching as she reached across the mantelpiece. She really was very striking.

Rupert held out his hand in the hall as I dumped my duffel bag by the front door. I shook it and he slapped me on the shoulder, as was his custom. ‘Well, lovely to meet you, old boy.’

‘Yeah, thanks for looking out for us, mate.’

We stood there grinning at each other, rocking back and forth, heel, toe, heel, toe, our hands under our armpits.

‘Have a safe trip home,’ he said.

‘Yeah, yeah, will do.’

The clock on the hall table chimed two in the afternoon. The door buzzed. Rupert answered the intercom and said something in French. ‘Taxi’s downstairs.’

‘Good. Good.’

I called out, ‘Guys, taxi’s here!’

‘Well, it was good to see you all again.’

‘Yeah . . . thanks.’

‘Why don’t we wait in here – have a last drink? Don’t worry about the taxi.’

I followed Rupert into the salon and he poured us a whisky each. Drops of rain dotted the windows. We clinked glasses. ‘Women, eh?’ he said. ‘Don’t mind taking their time.’

Rupert dipped his hand into a bowl of peanuts, then carried the handful to his mouth and continued talking as he chewed. ‘We were always worried about Camille, you know – didn’t know how she’d turn out. She gave me a bloody heart attack, that girl. Peanut?’ I shook my head, no. ‘God, the lies she spun – we’d had to send her home, it became such a problem. Running around Paris, posing as Francine to flog her art – can you imagine?’

A cold shiver ran through me. ‘What’s that?’ I said, shaking out of my reverie.

‘Nearly cost Francie her reputation. Anyway, I’m glad that’s all been put to rest. Incredible what some people will do for attention, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah . . . yeah . . .’

‘You okay, old boy? You’re as white as a sheet.’

I got up and went to the window. Peering into the street below, I saw the taxi waiting, blocking traffic. I looked at my watch again.

Camille was in the study, but no Rachael. Rachael’s suitcase was open on the bed. Cam took out a dress, unfolded it, and threaded it through a hanger.

My jaw went slack. ‘What are you doing?’

She glanced up, ‘She’ll need something to wear when she goes to art school.’

I grabbed her wrist. ‘Stop doing that.’ I shook the dress out of her hands. ‘Is there something wrong with you? We’re about to catch a plane.’

She pulled her wrist from my grip. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, picking up the dress again. ‘But her future is here.’

‘What about the teacher?’

Her face was blank. ‘It’s already too late.’

Had she lost her mind? I searched her face, her eyes, her mouth, looking for some trace of sanity. Suddenly it all made sense.

So this was what betrayal looked like.

I looked up at her. ‘It
was
you, wasn’t it? You burnt the painting that day.’

Ignoring me, she pulled a pair of jeans from the suitcase, bent down and placed them in a drawer. When she stood up, she pushed her hair back off her face, wiping her nose with her wrist.

‘I remember the smell in the air, in the garage. Rachael had been with me that morning. We’d been for our first surf since . . . since Clippo.’

She stopped and stared at me, her lips tightening. ‘I had no choice.’

I shook my head. Something happens to you when you realise you’ve been taken for a fool. There’s a coldness that settles over you like a fog and suddenly you just don’t give a fuck anymore.