Reunion (26 page)

 

The following morning, a Saturday, after Connie had dragged himself off home, Jack walked around to Helen's place. It was not yet ten o'clock but the temperature was already in the thirties. There was a stillness to the air, heat haze shimmered above the bitumen. It was standing room only on the beach.

Helen's front door was open, he called out and let himself in. Her head appeared around the doorway of her bedroom.

‘I was hoping you'd visit,' she said.

A short time later, dressed in polka-dot pants and lime-green singlet, Helen was ready to find some air-conditioning. Five minutes more and they were seated at a local café with efficient cooling.

Jack told her about Connie's latest visit. ‘He's throwing away his marriage.'

Helen disagreed. ‘Connie let go of the marriage a long time ago. And don't forget Linda's tossing him out. During the period they've been together, Connie's had a swathe of girlfriends from Boston to Dubrovnik. If Linda had known about even ten per cent of them, she'd have kicked him out years ago.'

Jack was tempted to add that on those particular criteria Harry should have done the same with Ava, but ever protective of Ava he kept the thought to himself.

‘Much of what Connie needs to know will remain as incomprehensible to him as Linear A.' It was his own comment, yet it surprised him.

Helen smiled. ‘What in particular?'

He took a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘That it's easy to fall in love. That falling in love feels very good. For the feeling alone you're tempted to do it. And sex, new sex is even easier – you could be semi-comatose and still respond to lust.' He drained the last of his coffee before continuing. ‘Connie speaks of his need for change, but he's living in exactly the same way as he did when he was thirty.' And paused again. ‘The most difficult change is to keep the familiar refreshed.'

Helen stared at him – this did not sound like Jack at all. ‘What's been happening to you?'

He shook his head slowly. ‘I'm not at all sure.'

A moment later he stood up and went to the counter for more coffee.

‘So have you booked your flight?' he asked, when he returned to the table.

Having made her decision to return to America, Helen seemed to be finding reason after reason to delay – primary among them that Luke wanted to stay in Australia.

‘I'm going to have to act soon.' She looked miserable. ‘Möller's already arrived. He keeps sending me ideas for future collaborations.'

‘And they're clearly not projects to advance your shigella vaccine.'

She shook her head, ‘I'm afraid not.' Suddenly she perked up. ‘I've left a message on Ava's machine. I'm hoping to see her this afternoon – to help me decide what to do. You're welcome to join us.' And then added, ‘Harry's in Sydney.'

Once he would have grabbed every opportunity to be with Ava but he had planned to work on his new essay, and despite a flicker of temptation he realised this was his preference.

It was not that he had ceased to love her, that would be as intolerable as a full blood transfusion with an incompatible blood type, but now that he could see her whenever he liked, see her beyond the hothouse of his own imagination, his desires had lost their urgency. In her company these days, he felt mostly calm and loving as he might with a wife of long standing. Or, indeed, an old friend. At long last reason had found a crack, slipped in and multiplied.

Such a fundamental change yet it had occurred seemingly unconsciously. One day towards the end of February, after a night when the temperature remained in the high twenties, a
night of surprisingly calm and unbroken sleep, he had awoken and immediately knew something was different. He did not need to think of her. It was a new day, but he did not need to start it with thoughts of Ava. He knew – he didn't know how he knew – that the day would continue without her. He was no longer desperate for her. His desire had loosened. And no, he did not feel lighter or liberated, rather it was curiosity he felt, not simply at the change – when actually had it occurred? – but how he could have been in thrall for so long.

His love, it now seemed to him, had been like a perpetual transit lounge, always promising some place better. As for his fidelity, fidelity made sense to friends and family, to God, even to an idea, but not to an unrequited love. For years he had subscribed to the elaborate creations of his mind's eye, the lure of possibility, the ever-promising, never-exhausted ‘perhaps'. He had been living in the abstract. Now, with his first tentative steps in the real world, he found himself inclined to linger.

1.

Ava had wasted the entire morning fiddling with a chapter that six months ago she thought was finished. She pushed back from her desk: better to begin fresh tomorrow. But would it be better tomorrow? Yesterday was an improvement on today and most of last week was tolerably good, but the previous week had been full-strength frustration. And while every novel in the writing intermittently loses its way, what was happening now was of a totally different order. One part of her wanted to remain at work until the sludge cleared, another wanted to flee in terror, and a third, so logical and measured, assured her that novels in the making were intractable things and she would achieve considerably more if she stopped worrying.

The floor around her desk was littered with pages from the current chapter; she bent down to pick them up, then decided to leave them where they lay, ready for when she returned to work. She closed her laptop and turned away – sharp, decisive movements after the helpless fiddling at the keyboard; her shirt caught the arm of her chair and spun it against a side table. A vase of roses teetered, she lunged, but too late and the
vase fell, showering the pages on the floor. The print in indelible laser survived, but her annotations in ink were collecting in coloured pools. She picked up a sheet, coloured water rolled down the paper: her words were literally running off the page. She lay the page gently back on the floor; it was all too much.

Outside it was stifling. A cool change had been forecast for late-afternoon.

‘May the change come early.' Ava uttered the thought aloud and wondered at this new habit of hers.

Summer, all hot summers, put her in mind of Lily Bart from
The House of Mirth
. Lily was a favourite of hers, a fictional sister who had made many of the same choices she had made, although had been far less fortunate. Of all the slights Lily had suffered, that which best defined her social collapse was having to remain in New York City during the sweltering summer because none of her former friends had invited her to Newport or Long Island or some other breezy place by the sea. In those times and for that class, the summer exodus from the city was not simply an escape from the heat, it symbolised a civilised existence.

That morning over coffee Ava had suggested to Harry they should do as Edith Wharton's characters did and quit the city. ‘We could move to the high country for the summer.'

Harry had smiled. ‘Do you believe everything you read?'

‘Only in fiction,' she said, returning his smile.

She wandered the courtyard beneath the ferocious sun, bending down every now and then to pull a weed; even the ants, scourge of her garden, had gone to ground. She was about to go inside when a spark of light near the fence caught her eye. It was a piece of apple-green glass. Neither she nor Harry had broken anything in the courtyard and she wondered where it
had come from. It was a pretty little ornament with the clouded transparency of alabaster and edges worn smooth like sea glass; she rubbed it between her fingers and slipped it into her pocket. She crossed to the spa tub and dangled her fingers in the water. If only she had patience for the full-body relaxation touted by the manufacturers, but lolling around in warm electrified water had never appealed and certainly not as a means of making time pass more quickly.

What she needed was company, and Jack's company was her preference. Jack who would arrive with cakes and gossip and play his guitar for her, who was happy to sit or walk or do whatever she wanted, who these days seemed to require less of her than the others. The strain which had marred their early meetings had disappeared along with, so she believed, his all-consuming love. She smiled to herself: now this new Jack was a man to fall in love with.

How contrary life could be.

She went inside and dialled his home number. The phone rang through to the answering machine and she left a message. She tried his office phone and left another message. His mobile phone was switched off. No Jack today, and Harry was in meetings all afternoon, Helen was talking to some African politicians about shigella and Connie was in the process of ending his marriage. She went next door to see if Minnie was home. There was no answer to the doorbell; the dog barked from inside the house, otherwise all was quiet. No Minnie today either. If she were a gambler she would go to one of those gaming rooms that had infiltrated Melbourne's pubs and pass the time in reliable comfort while she lost her money. But it was that attitude, devoid as it was of the gambler's hope, which meant the pokies would never be an option for her.

She returned to her study, and avoiding the mess near her desk, dallied with a soon-to-be-released novel her publishers had sent her. Ten minutes later she swapped it for
Riders in the Chariot
, but while the familiarity of Patrick White was a comfort she lacked the concentration. Poetry so close she could recite it by heart was a better choice, but reading Coleridge primarily to pass the time does not sustain. She needed a practical task and seized upon her photographs, not the photos of her married life, Harry was in charge of those and they were mounted in albums within days of being taken. It was her Fleur photos that needed to be organised, seven years of pictures, and now that the burn was gone, a chore like any other.

She emptied the contents of the box on the floor. There must be two or three hundred photos here of Fleur, of Fleur with her friends, of Ava with Fleur's friends, of Fleur posing in front of palaces and cathedrals, of Ava posing in parks and gardens, of Fleur eating and drinking and shopping for clothes, of Ava reading and sleeping and walking through woods. Hundreds of photos and, no need to check, not a single shot of the two of them together. Here is Fleur with her friends Kristin and Diane on one of the many trips she and Ava made to Paris. Here is Fleur on their Italian holiday with Sarah and Paul. Here is Ava in Venice with Frances. Here is Ava on Capri holding a collection of Graham Greene's stories, the Mediterranean glistening behind.

‘I'd like to go to Italy with you,' Harry had said, when Ava told him of the trip.

He uttered each word with careful emphasis so she would properly understand: he wanted her to change her plans, he wanted her to cancel this trip. And while she understood perfectly, she knew she must not hesitate.

‘We'll go to Italy another time,' she said. ‘Just the two of us, when your grandmother's not coming to visit.'

Each year Harry's grandmother made a month-long visit to England to see them. For two of those weeks Ava took a holiday – ‘To give you time alone with your gran,' although they both knew the truth. While Harry and his grandmother travelled the British Isles, she and Fleur went to Portugal and Morocco, to Crete and Santorini, and yes, to Italy, a different location each year with different friends to visit and more photos to take. So many photos and not a single shot of the two of them alone together in the one frame. Never for them a quiet posing under a tranquil sun.

Mixed in with the photos were postcards bought at galleries and museums. Ava sifted through until she found a card of Picasso's Dora Maar as a weeping woman. In their last year together, on a weekend trip to Paris, she and Fleur had visited the Picasso Museum. As Ava had perused the exhibits, she was aware of a queer and disquieting recognition. Picasso painted Maar, he printed her, he photographed and engraved her, he wrote poems to her, he summoned her by incantatory writing –
DoraDoraDoraDora
covering sheets of paper. He created out of his Dora passion several series of women weeping, women sleeping, nude women, women being ravished by Picasso-like minotaurs, and all these women, all of them, were Dora Maar. And Maar in turn photographed Picasso, she photographed him at work, hundreds of photos as he created the great
Guernica
. She captured him asleep, she photographed him fooling around on the beach, she had him pose side on, front on, standing and seated, in shadow and full sun. So much art made of Picasso's Maar and so much of Maar's Picasso during ten fiery years, and while there were
several photographs of them together with friends, there was only one image of the two of them alone. In this picture, Picasso and Maar, this man and this woman who had spent years in a frenzied feasting on each other, stood gravely facing the camera, not touching.

Most people can lay out their lives in photos: childhood, family shots, friends, travel, lovers, marriage, children, grandchildren. What a distorted view Ava's photos would give. There was a plethora of public-life shots and Harry's beautifully mounted photographs of a long marriage. And dozens of photos of Helen, Jack and Connie. Of her early life there were just three pictures: one of her as a baby sitting alone on a bunny rug, another showing her on a swing alongside her brother, and the third was her parents' wedding portrait which she had rescued from a bonfire after one of her mother's vigorous spring-cleanings. If photos were an accurate depiction of a life, Ava was wife, author and friend. Childhood was little more than a time filler, Fleur would exist as a friend not a lover, and out of contention entirely was Stephen.

He had taken so many photos of her. ‘Please,' she had asked again and again. ‘Let me have just one picture of you.' But he never relented.

She shuffled through the photos on the floor, increasingly bemused. When Fleur left, these photos had been too radio-active to handle; when Fleur mattered, the photos mattered. Her fingers grazed the glossy pictures, touching what was lost or perhaps what never was. She paused, her hands briefly still, then she scooped the whole lot up and bundled them back in the box.

Ten minutes later she was locking the door and escaping the house; she would walk to Lygon Street to buy some pasta for
dinner. It was hotter now and very humid, the clouds had rolled in and the sky was grey and heavy; she felt as if caught inside a pair of lungs. She slackened her usual brisk pace but by the time she reached the pasta shop she was soggy inside her clothes. It was already late March, but summer was still pumped up, all glistening muscle and bravado. How she hated it.

Of all the people she had cared about only Stephen had been, like her, a cold weather person – or that's what he used to say. It was possible he was just wanting to please her. He had always wanted to please her.

Stephen.

While she was in England he seldom entered her thoughts, but since her return to Melbourne so had he, in pleasant calming moments. It was, she supposed, being home, and Stephen was fused with home. Even this pasta shop was associated with him. She had been convinced with the certainty of a teenager that any pasta beyond macaroni cheese and spaghetti bolognaise was mere pretension. But once she had tasted linguine with pesto, and cheese tortellini, and mushroom ravioli (on that first occasion Stephen had bought small amounts of all three), she had changed her mind. Stephen taught her about pasta, Stephen taught her all about food beyond the roasts and takeaway chicken of her childhood. Stephen taught her most of what she needed to quit suburban Boronia forever.

Inside the shop Ava breathed in garlic and basil and that damp mellow smell of pasta, and any doubts over stopping work early were immediately dispelled. The bad patch would pass, and faster if she stopped chewing the end of her pen. Better to be in this cool shop inhaling the smells and admiring the variety, so much greater than when she first came here with Stephen. Agnolotti of goat's cheese with salmon, tortellini of mushroom
and tarragon, roasted eggplant ravioli. How to decide? Salmon, mushroom or eggplant? Or perhaps the traditional ricotta and spinach? Salmon, mushroom, eggplant or ricotta? Her gaze glazes over the choices. Salmon? Mushroom? Eggplant? Ricotta? It's your turn. Salmon? Mushroom? Eggplant? Ricotta? The woman is waiting. Salmon? Mushroom? Eggplant? Ricotta? And Ava dashes from the shop, she's standing on the footpath, her face is burning, she's dripping with sweat – over pasta. Salmon, mushroom, eggplant, ricotta. She likes them all. So does Harry. She could have chosen any of them.

A man tells her to get the fuck out of the way; everyone looks hot and bothered. She collects herself and crosses Lygon Street. She resists the temptation of Readings bookshop and goes directly to the Italian food store at the corner. She'll find something here for dinner. As she enters, she instructs herself to buy the first thing that appeals.

She props in front of the delicatessen area with its patchwork of colours and its heady smells. But cheese, olives, capers and anchovies do not readily transmute into a proper meal. Parmegiano-Reggiano is on special and she buys a wedge, but with nothing to eat it with and reluctant to return to the pasta shop, she again finds herself stalled on the pavement outside.

People walk past alone and in pairs, some with shopping bags, others pushing strollers, some dressed for business, others for leisure, and plenty of students lugging laptops. Surrounded by so much purpose and none of it hers, the whole shopping expedition now seems a bad idea. A single meal for two people yet it might be a banquet for fifty for all the difficulty it presents.

She wants to blame the humidity, she wants to blame the restless nights, she wants to blame the crawling days. Most of all she wants to give herself a break. She shoves the cheese in
her bag – not a day for work and not a day for shopping either – and sets off towards Swanston Street. She doesn't know where she's going and neither does she care.

The sky is darkening, the air is stiff and damp, she skirts around groups of students, negotiates her way past a building site which has spilled onto the footpath, and makes her way past the university towards the traffic lights. At the first drops of rain she steps into the intersection. She slips easily between the moving cars and hurries to the other side for cover.

The fat summery rain is pelting down now and making a huge ruckus. She dashes to the second-hand bookshop and takes shelter under the canopy. Her feet are drenched, her clothes are cool and clinging. She peers through the grimy glass to the array of books in the window. If not for some recent titles, it could be the same display from years ago.