Rose Leopard (17 page)

Inside I spy familiar shapes — an oval family portrait on the western wall, the oak bureau with its silver-backed brushes and intricate collection of jewellery, an antique tallboy streaked by my amateurish attempts to apply varnish, the old chair in the corner with its appliquéd cushions, thick blue curtains descending in broad silent corrugations, a haphazard pile of second-hand thrillers teetering on the floor. Then I see our bed, see its bowing convex ends and small jutting posts filmed with dust, sit hesitantly and remember this soft rectangle where we made plans and children, where we loved in mad tangles, wrangled over politics and modern life, cosseted our sicknesses, celebrated our riches, swapped stories, beliefs, fluids, interiors. And finally I am broken, wracked with vast painful gulps of emotion, my body shaking uncontrollably, tears flooding my face, a strange contorted cry creeping from my lips. I roll forward and lie like a slain bird, knees drawn and shoulders curving as everything shivers. I am bleeding, I think, not blood but life itself, a past that I can no longer keep. Our deep and complicated histories are seeping relentlessly from me and they have nowhere else to go.

And so I cry and ache and bleed until there is nothing more, nothing but the lingering scent on her pillow which reminds me of those old petals and the faint whiffle that drifts from their sepia husks: fine-veined and still fragrant, they are pressed forever between the pages of a favourite book.

Three

S
tories, the tales told of the line cleft between birth and death, symbols, rituals … they underpin all that we do, and help us to make sense of the evanescence of life.

My family is back in the barn because our new ritual demands that the story of the rose leopard cannot be told anywhere else. A long golden light draws longer shadows. The day's breezes have cleaned the once-fetid air, given it freshness and neutrality. My two smaller children squat contentedly on the ground, a bum-hop and arm-lean away from Amelia, who is hunched against a pair of old forty-four-gallon drums.

And so I begin.

When the rose leopard arrived, she was wrapped in her magic cloak. Although she had never visited Eternity before, she was unafraid. She had known long ago that she had been selected for an important mission, and she had been aware that the mission could come at any time. As her journey concluded she held her breath and remembered the essentials: I am a Keeper and I have lived for centuries with the Enlightenment in my eyes. These things dispel fear.

She left the Minion's carriage and bowed graciously before the Eternals, keeping her head down as both Sibyl and Charyb approached.

‘Rose Leopard,' said Sibyl gently, after a moment's appraisal, ‘let me see your face.'

When the rose leopard lifted her eyes, she saw Sibyl's thickening shadow and knew that the ancient one was nearly ready for the Adumbration. Like all of us, Eternals are given an episode of life; when it is completed they filter into the Void where only the imprint of their goodness remains, left to inspire all other members of the Bright Universe. The Void is an infinite library of imprints; they are like memories, as light as scent and as delicate as the unfolding of petals. It can only be accessed by Eternals who can use telepathic scanning techniques to find whichever imprint they want. Anyway, early in their life-episode Eternals have no shadow but as their time continues so does their shadow develop — it darkens, creeps higher and eventually claims them so that they are no more. This is known as the Adumbration and the rose leopard could see that Sibyl was close to her moment.

She felt the eyes of the ancient one upon her and knew that the Eternal was looking within, searching the core of her being as she explored beyond the Enlightenment. It was a strange feeling — Sibyl's thoughts and inquiries flowed through her like water rushing through a deep gully — but she knew that she had to remain steady and calm.

‘She is still the one.' Sibyl banged her staff then turned to Charyb. ‘Tell her what she must do.'

Charyb nodded, moved forward slowly.

‘Rose Leopard,' she said, ‘since the origin of time we have known that the Swicks would one day leave their gloom and invade the Bright Universe. You have heard of the Swicks?'

‘I have.' The rose leopard held the Eternal's eyes. ‘Bodiless creatures intent on the creation of evil and a never-ending darkness. Our only true enemies.'

‘Exactly. You have heard, too, of their capacity to strangle stars … to extinguish all light?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Rose Leopard, the Swicks are here. We know because we have seen their mischief in the Farthest Reach. How many now, Dragmir?'

‘Eleven million, eight hundred and ninety-three thousand, four hundred and sixteen.' The younger Eternal's voice was gloomy.

‘Thank you, Dragmir. Rose Leopard, the Swicks will not be content to stay in the Farthest Reach. It is not in their nature to remain in one place for long. They thrive on new challenges, new ways of causing evil and darkness.'

The rose leopard thought hard.

‘That's right,' intervened Sibyl. ‘We believe — no, we are certain — that the Swicks will eventually abandon all other activities, and they will come for our Mother Star.'

There was a gasp all around.

‘And if that happens' interrupted Dragmir impatiently, ‘then there will be no Bright Universe. There will be a massive supernova followed by destruction, emptiness and a giant black hole. The gardens, the seas, your mountains and forests — everything will be gone! Even Eternity … Eternity will be gone!'

‘Dragmir!' Charyb's voice whipped through the air. ‘You forget yourself.'

‘Supernova?' Otis has squirmed forward. ‘What's that?'

‘An exploding star,' I tell her. ‘Very bright, very powerful, very nasty. Enough oomph to turn the galaxy upside-down, inside-out and roundabout backwards.'

‘Will the Mother Star be supernova'd?'

I lean across quickly, ruffle her hair.

‘Not if the rose leopard has anything to do with it, my precious. Now, where was I?'

‘So — to your mission.' Sibyl spoke once more. ‘Years ago you were chosen to protect the Bright Universe from the Swicks. Now your time has come, Rose Leopard. You must travel to the Mother Star; and then you must save Her. We cannot tell you how — because the simple truth is that we do not know. But you must find a way. You must listen for a Voice, seek an Enlightenment. Then you will know.'

The rose leopard nodded gravely.

‘I am honoured,' she said and all of the Eternals waggled their wings and stared at her with so much admiration that no one even noticed Dragmir quietly slinking away.

‘Traitor!' Milo's whisper snaps like a stock-whip. ‘I'll bet he's a traitor'

After the rose leopard had said goodbye to her children, whom she loved more than life itself, she wrapped herself tightly in her magic cloak and began the long journey to the Mother Star. It had always been the most wondrous star of all; its light the most pure, its shine the most entrancing. It was called the Mother Star because it nurtured all of the other stars in the Bright Universe. Without its light and the warmth that it generated, they would soon die.

To get to the Mother Star, the rose leopard had to cross three deadly hazards. The first was known as the Mazes of Madness.

‘We've been to a maze,' Otis interrupts. ‘Remember?'

I do. Less than a year ago, day-tripping through the Sunshine Coast hinterland, we had happened across a maze, a winding twisting configuration of yellow-leafed hedge set incongruously amidst a gloomy rainforest. Kaz had been reluctant but I had urged us onward and inward, only to find that the maze was thick-walled and surprisingly difficult to negotiate. After an initial burst of skylarking enthusiasm we had, under my leadership, become lost and frustrated.

‘It was cool.' Milo stretched his arms and back.

‘No, it wasn't,' said Otis. ‘It was stupid, and scary. I thought we were going to be stuck there forever.'

‘Mum got us out though. She knew the right way, didn't she?'

‘Yes,' I nodded, remembering Kaz's small gurgle of triumph as she had spied the entrance to the maze and guided us towards it. ‘Yes, she did.'

Now listen carefully. Scientists have long agreed that there are black holes in the Universe — places where gravity collapses and everything inside disintegrates. Well, the Mazes were worse than any black hole. There were about a thousand of them, all scattered a third of the way towards the Mother Star. If you took a wrong turn, if you relaxed, took a little nap or got lazy and went slightly off-course, you would get trapped in the Mazes. You would be ripped away from your journey and flung into a never-ending Maze where powerful forces would pick you up and throw you randomly in a zillion different directions — along lines, around curves, over corners — until the end of time. You could do nothing, just allow yourself to be tossed around like confetti in a cyclone, beyond forever, until you were wild-faced and angry and totally, utterly insane.

The rose leopard knew that she had to avoid the perils of the Mazes so she did a very clever thing. Before she left on her journey, she quickly visited the Keeper of the Deserts and asked him for two handfuls of sand that she could take with her. The Keeper (who had long been a trusted friend) obliged and even gave her coloured sands 'violet, orange, deep olive green — for good luck. She thanked him, gathered her magic cloak tightly and began the journey.

The Universe is pretty much a silent place so she knew that she was nearing the Mazes when she heard a thousand strange sucking noises, like swamp-mud monsters begging for a feed. The Mazes of Madness were hungry! She stopped, took a pinch of sand in her fingers, and threw it in front of her.

To her right, the sand floated harmlessly in the atmosphere. But to her left, the tiny particles were quickly gobbled up, only having time to give a quick screech before they disappeared forever.

The rose leopard stepped right then threw out another pinch of sand.

This time the right-side was gobbled and the left side stayed afloat.

She moved left.

And that's how the rose leopard successfully got through the Mazes of Madness, by throwing out coloured sand, swinging left, swinging right, leaping forward, rolling down, but always travelling towards the Mother Star — until she reached the second hazard.

Which can wait until tomorrow night. Because now I am back in my study, back to the photo album, back to sticking pictures in, captioning, creating piles of possibles, probables and rejects, and wondering all the time if I am not creating a wrongful impression — because isn't that what photo albums do? Reconstruct a life-span of happy highlights — parties, romances, joyous get-togethers, people in synchrony — but never the bad times? Who ever dared take snapshots of the mundaneness? Who ever dared capture those occasions where you're drab and bedraggled, friendless, or fucked-up and feeling like your existence is worth no more than a coloured bead on an abacus?

All of which prompts this thought: Looking back on what I have written so far, I wonder if I have not given an impression of Kaz and me together which is fundamentally accurate but also generously tinted. I mean, not so much rose-coloured as touched up, gifted some subtle hues by the gentle-handed artist who is innately, unthinkingly affectionate towards his subject. Because, to be frank, there were imperfections. There were disruptions. There were times when we snarled and scratched and scraped at each other like feral cats and there were times when we lashed each other with meat-cleaver words that left deep, weeping, unfathomable wounds.

I remember one such time, around two years before Kaz died. We'd been ill-fitting for about a week, circling each other warily, our occasional attempts at conversation making us sound like frustrated children banging jigsaw pieces into the wrong place. I still don't know how it started; sometimes in a relationship these things just blow in, like cold gusts of wind during an otherwise glorious day. Anyway, whilst I was certain that this whatever-it-was — disparity, I suppose — would eventually pass (love, lust and the needs of our children being the great modifiers that they were), a pale and non-communicative Kaz was less convinced. So it was no surprise when, after a night of muttered grievances and pulling the sheets to her side of the bed, she woke up one morning and insisted on some home-grown therapy.

‘We are ill-fitting,' she said. ‘There is a solution,' she said. ‘We should open up to each other, completely and honestly. We should each tell the other what it is that most annoys. We should begin our sentences with candid clauses such as “I hate it when …” or “I dislike the way …” or “I was really angry that time you …” '

‘Kaz,' I said from the bathroom, ‘I'm sorry but this is claptrap. It's fatuous and juvenile, straight out of
Cosmopolitan'
.

She glared at me, rammed her toothbrush back into its holder.

‘So,' I continued breezily, ‘where'd you find this … theory? In the recipe section? Beneath the obligatory questionnaire —
Dick Size: Does Your Man Measure Up?'

‘Vince, don't patronise me. Soul-baring is supposed to be good for all relationships. Psychologists say it's about reconnecting. Starting all over, falling in love again.'

‘Bunkum.'

‘No, truth. Come on, Vince, it'll be cleansing.'

‘Kaz, you oughta know — I'm beyond cleansing. In fact, I've always felt that life would be a much happier, simpler process if everyone ignored cleansing and learned to accept their natural, perennial dirtiness.'

‘See, you're doing it already. I hate the way you turn everything into a sappy aphorism about how we should live our lives. As if you'd know.'

‘Hm …
Just this or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, or there exceed the mark.'

‘And that's another thing. Don't quote poetry at me! I hate that stuff, all that English Lit. pretentiousness, as if remembering a few lines of some maudlin dead-white-male crap makes you somehow impressive —'

‘As
I hate hell, all Montagues and thee
—'

‘And as for perennial dirtiness — what a wank. You're a moral vacuum, you know that?'

‘No, in ethical terms I am realistically unhygienic. Come on, Kaz, we both know that we have faults. I'm arrogant, you're hot-headed. I dribble when I'm drunk, your feet smell. So what? We cope. We live with the inconsistencies, don't we? Geez, we get by.'

‘You forgot some. You pee in the shower. You pick your nose in the car when you think we're not looking. You adjust yourself — constantly. Last Easter, you got up when you thought I was asleep and stole some of Sara's chocolate.'

‘True enough. But it's like peeing in the shower. I only did that once, and the judge released me on a plea of temporary insanity.'

‘There you go again! That's something else that pisses me off. I hate the way that you refuse to confront things. I hate it! You're never head-on. You've capitalised LAISSEZ-FAIRE. It is soooo frustrating!'

‘Now you're gibbering.'

‘No I'm not. Vince, who disciplines the children? Who rings up and complains when the Council forgets our bin? Who organises the pest control man? Who makes school lunches every day, and is totally compromised by Jelly Cups and Pizza Shapes and apparently
nutritious
Muesli bars which look like desiccated turds?'