The Blind Eye (25 page)

It had been three days since he had seen Constance.
Where is she?
he had kept asking Rudi, barely able to contain his agitation now, not sure why they all still persisted in carrying out this charade of pretending it was Rudi he wanted to see. She had made him promise he would be kind to her father, and he had tried, but he could no longer sit in that shack, the closed heat thick with the rankness of Rudi’s breath and the sweat on his skin. Standing by the window, the overblown sweetness of the flowers making his head reel, he would ask Rudi if he knew when she would be back, would it be soon, his questions always remaining unanswered, barely heard in fact. He would tap his feet, fidget, scratch at his arms, knowing that all he could do was look for her, and hope that she would appear, a dream-like vision, surrounded by blooms that seemed too intense, too surreal, too luminous and brilliant.

Turning towards the end of the road, to the sandy track that would take him back out to Constance, Silas told himself it would be different this time. It had to be. He walked more quickly, oblivious to the heat, the flies and the scrub, seeing only the glittering beauty of the garden, not far now, and with both hands on the gate, he called out their names,
Rudi, Constance
, surprised that no one came to let him in, that Rudi was not nearby, waiting anxiously for his arrival.

He pulled himself up on the cyclone fencing, and as he swung his legs over the vicious twists of wire along the top,
he did not even notice that one of them had ripped through his jeans, gouging into his flesh. He was worried now, and he called out her name again,
Constance
, finally catching a glimpse of her shirt, there in the distance, as he dropped to the ground.

She was alone. Silas could not believe his luck, and as he ran towards her, there by the rainwater tank just outside the shack, he was unaware that Rudi was lying inside, unable to move.

4

When Greta apologised to me, she told me that all she could say in her own defence was that she felt she had descended to a type of madness.

I look back on the way I behaved, and I do not understand it. It was like standing at the top of a muddy slope and slipping down, trying to hold on, but being unable to find anything to grasp
.

She said she knew there had been no rational basis to all her fears, and she glanced across at me, her need for affirmation still there, revealed for a brief moment only, and then hidden again, far more effectively than she had ever been able to do when I used to know her.

I should have just trusted that you loved me, but once I began doubting it, I couldn’t stop
.

She apologised for all the times she had searched through my belongings, for all the accusations she had made, for all the hysterical rages and threats and, finally, for believing that I was sleeping with Victoria.

That was the most unfair
, and she looked out across the street.

She was silent for a moment, breathing in sharply before she spoke again.

When I did what I did
, her discomfort made her fidget more anxiously with her hair, her voice cracking as she continued,
I wasn’t wanting to die
.

I told her it was all right, that it was all in the past, but she stopped me.

I was trying to punish you. And to keep you with me. Although how I felt the two could go together escapes me
, and she attempted to smile.

I offered to pay for coffee. She would need her money in New York, I said.
Please
, and I made her put her purse away. We talked vaguely about catching up again before she left, both of us knowing we wouldn’t, and then we kissed each other on the cheek.

I’m glad I saw you
, she said, and I lied as I said that I, too, was glad.

As I watched her walk away, I told myself there had been no point in telling her the truth, in saying that so many of her suspicions had, in fact, been correct; I had never really loved her enough, it was true. Worse still, I had slept with Victoria, kissing her for the first time only three weeks after she moved in, sleeping with her when Greta was working, both of us saying how wrong this was, how it shouldn’t go on, both of us looking guiltily at each other whenever Greta went out, both of us promising that this would be the last
time, the very last time. But it went on, and on, and, most unforgivable of all, I never really thought about how it would affect Greta, what it would do to her; all I thought about was myself.

There was no denying that Greta’s behaviour had been extreme and irrational, there was no denying how difficult she was, but there had always been a core of reality to all that she had believed and that was what I had denied her, that was what I still denied her. After she left, I looked at myself in the window of the cafe and then turned away. I had chosen not to hold out that tiny seed, and say yes, it was there, that canker you always felt did exist, and I am sorry for it, I am truly sorry.

In the years that followed, I lived with Victoria, determined to make it work, to stay with her, because I was ashamed about the way in which I had behaved. Towards the end, she told me I had changed, I was not the person she had fallen in love with; I had become, and she had tried to find the words she needed,
so obsessed with making up for what happened
.

At first I did not understand what she meant. I thought it was my work she was referring to, and it was true I had thrown myself into healing others, leaving little time over for her.

But it was not just that. She felt I had stayed with her to justify the impact our affair had had on Greta. I had stayed
with her but I had also never let myself love her.

We’ve had no joy
, she said, and I wanted to hug her, I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t.

I missed her when she left. I still miss her. I do not know what the truth is. It was all so clouded that I could not see anything properly, and I just let her go.

Greta rang me once before she left for New York and I did not return her call. She left her address with the receptionist, who gave it to me, and as I held the paper in my hands, I thought for a moment about just letting it fall in the bin, but then I decided against it. I suppose I thought that one day I might want to contact her. I suppose I hoped I might finally be ready to apologise.

5

Silas told me that he did not realise that Rudi was seriously ill.

I never really looked at him
, he said.
I never noticed anything much about him. It was always her that I was watching. Always
.

Constance was filling a saucepan with rainwater from the tank at the side of the shack, and it was only when she turned towards him that he noticed how drawn her mouth was, how tired her eyes, and he stopped, anxious.

Are you all right?
he asked, but she did not reply.

She just nodded towards the stairs, balancing the saucepan in her hands, as he knocked it in his rush to open the door for her.

The smell hit him as soon as he stepped inside. There was no trace of the sweetness that had often overwhelmed him. In its place was a rotten, fetid odour, the staleness of vomit still clotting the air.

He collapsed last night
, and she knelt over Rudi who lay, hunched up as a child lies, face down on the mattress.

At first I just thought he was just drunk
, Silas told me.

But then he realised it was something else, something worse, and he began to ask her questions without thinking, wanting to know how long Rudi had been in a fever, where he was feeling pain, trying to gather information that he did not know how to use.

Ignoring him, she bent down and turned Rudi carefully. When Silas tried to help her, she only motioned him away, the irritation in her face enough to finally silence him.

It’s all right
, she whispered to her father, her voice soft and cool as she washed him gently, the precious rainwater trickling over his forehead, his neck, his chest,
it’s all right
.

As he watched, Silas felt useless, and he backed away, the smell and the heat of the room only making him ill. Leaning against the window frame, he watched her lift the faded blue singlet Rudi always wore, revealing the skin on his chest, pale and puckered, completely hairless. She continued bathing him, her hands steady and sure as she moved the washer down to where the tumour was, a great lump, purple and angry.

We really should get him to the hospital
. Silas heard the alarm in his own voice.
He needs medical help
.

She had a pipette in her hand and she asked her father to open his mouth, just slightly. Silas could see Rudi staring at her, his faded blue eyes focused on her alone as she administered the drops, his dry cracked lips barely open, the struggle to swallow evident.

I can get a four-wheel drive out here, or call the flying doctor.
I would go with you
. He knew she was not listening.
Let me do something
.

She gave him the saucepan and pointed to the rainwater tank and he took it from her without another word.

He carted water for her. Back and forth, throughout the length of the day. Breathing in the sweetness of the garden before he had to return to the stench of that room, Silas would sit on the steps for a moment and look across the thick tangle of colour, an abundance of life that seemed even more lurid after the darkness of the shack, and out towards those ranges, huge and still, in the distance.

Rudi would die. Unless she let him go to a hospital, he would die; no matter how cool she kept him, no matter how soothing her words, no matter what drops she was administering. But there was no way Silas could convince her of the need to get outside help.

She told me he had been ill for some time. She said he drank to ease the pain
, and Silas looked across at me as he remembered, as he tried to explain.

She had known about the tumour, but the few attempts she had made to broach the subject with her father had been of no use. He was as fit as a bull, he would protest.
Look
, and he would flex his arm to show her muscles he believed still existed. She could neither talk to him about it nor offer any assistance in prescribing treatment.