The Convent (50 page)

‘God!' she whispers, her mouth falling open.

‘Well?' I look at her hopefully.

‘You look completely
ridiculous
,' she says.

I shrug as if I don't care.

‘Sorry … but someone has to tell you, Peach!'

I resist the temptation to turn nasty. After all, this is my sister talking.

‘It's just all
wrong
,' she declares impassively.

‘In what way?'

‘Weird, Peach, and
not
in a good way!'

‘Stella!'

‘Well …'

‘I'm just trying something different.'

‘It's not you. Are you trying to look like one of those princesses at a royal wedding or something?'

‘No!'

Of course I care. Stella has always had a better sense of style than me. I pull the stupid bow off angrily and chuck it on the floor, and then I grab a comb from the table and drag it through all the teased-up knots. ‘Well … what
do
I wear?'

She shakes her head as if she is already thinking of something much more interesting.

‘How come you and Det are allowed to look wacky and sharp when you dress up but I'm not?' I wail.

‘Because we
are
wacky and sharp!' Stella laughs. She takes the comb from me and starts pulling it through the knots at a kinder pace. ‘And you're not.'

‘I'm boring, in other words?'

‘Yep,' she giggles. ‘Got it in one. Ask anyone.'

I snatch the comb back and go over to the window.

‘Where's Mum?'

‘In bed watching TV.'

We have less than an hour to get there and Stella is still in her jeans and old T-shirt and rubber thongs.

‘Aren't you going to dress up?'

She makes a face and shrugs.

‘Why not?'

‘I've got a weird feeling,' she says.

Oh God, here we go.

‘What kind of feeling?' I say, and when she doesn't answer I ask, ‘About what?'

She sighs dramatically, as if it's me who is being deliberately obtuse, and walks out of the room. ‘If you want to impress him, wear that short red dress,' she shouts from the hallway, ‘with the black tights. Those high heels are good, but the pink legs aren't.'

‘
Who? What do you mean?
' I shoot back.

‘Just comb your hair out and leave it alone!'

About an hour into the launch I start to get a weird feeling, too, in spite of the fact that the whole thing seems to be working brilliantly.

Nick and Dicko and Stella have set themselves up in the corner with a double bass and an electric violin and keyboard. The fact that Stella has agreed to sing is … well, it means a lot. The gypsy jazz stuff that Cassie specifically ordered for the evening works a treat in this space. Even before people begin to arrive, the room is alive with the warmth and gaiety of their music.

I stand and watch those three in awe as the room gradually fills up. They slip so easily from gypsy to jazz to waltzes to swing and back again, just as if they've been born doing it together. The reality is they've only had one proper practice the previous weekend, and yet with a little smile or a flick of the hands they all seem to understand that a change of rhythm is called for, or it's time to move on to something else. It's like a separate language. I really envy my sister this. Whatever happens to her in life she has this …

I recognise the guy from the Arts Show, along with some semi-famous comedians. How did Cassie get onto these people? Within minutes, it seems half of Melbourne has followed them and the place turns from a quiet, contemplative space into a large room crammed with people, loud voices, chinking glasses, laughter and music.

Cassie is working the room like a pro, whizzing around from one group to the next, introducing everyone to everyone else. She looks fantastic in a black sequined dress with her dark hair pulled back under an old-fashioned velvet net thing covered in sparkles. I have a flash of her at fifty doing exactly the same sort of thing as she's doing right now, looking more or less the same, too, except for a wrinkle or two, and the sparkles in her ears and around her throat will be real diamonds, and she'll be doing it on the world stage. New York or London or Madrid.

She is literally crowing as she sidles up to me in the kitchen where I've gone to replenish the plate of glasses I'm carting around.

‘Can you believe this?' she breathes into my ear, as I grab myself a slurp of wine. ‘Eight paintings have gone already!'

‘Fantastic!' I agree. ‘You genius, you!'

‘Det is the genius,' Cassie says quickly, ‘but she needs people like us.'

‘
You
.'

She grins at me. ‘Okay,
me
then!'

On every wall, Det's extraordinary paintings hang like a collection of lovely shining dreams, some deep and dark and moody, others bizarre and even a bit ghoulish. There are a couple of portraits that I have to avoid looking at, because every time I do shivers shoot up my spine. It's as if some stranger has come up unexpectedly to whisper some devastating bit of news in my ear.

Even the four small, very beautiful and seemingly simple still-life canvases depicting roses have an eerie side to them. When you move in close you can see that most of the flowers are beset with grubs and ants; a few smaller puny buds have been eaten away and are on the verge of death.
Det!
I want to grab her and say,
Don't
do this to me!

‘That whole series has gone already,' Cassie says triumphantly.

I nod and smile at her. Cass is on cloud nine; her eyes are sparkling like stars and her wonderful olive skin glows with excitement.

‘Who bought it?'

‘Some guy called Wishful Lee.'

‘
What?
'

We both start giggling.

‘True,' she says. ‘I thought they'd made a mistake, but no.'

‘Imagine calling your baby
Wishful.
'

‘I know. Totally.'

‘Maybe his parents were wishing he was someone else. Has everyone come?'

She grins and squeezes my wrist until it hurts. ‘Owen Morrissey is running a little late,' she says triumphantly.

By now I know that Owen Morrissey is some crusty old bigwig with huge international credentials who is going to open the exhibition. More importantly, he loves Det's work. Getting him is a major coup, according to Cassie, because he hardly ever gets out anymore to look at the work of young artists.

She has gauged the evening perfectly. After work and before dinner on a Thursday night just before the long weekend seems to be the right time for everyone. The buzz is positive, excited. We walk out into the general throng again.

‘See that guy she's talking to?' She points to where Det stands in one corner with a short man with a grey beard. I nod. ‘Morris Blackwood from Becks, Blackwood and Westfield.'

I know I'm meant to be impressed by this, but I honestly have no idea. ‘Who are they?'

‘Peach! Only the biggest law firm in the city, and …
they buy
art
.' Cass relishes enlightening me.

‘Oh. Have they bought anything yet?'

‘Not yet. I just hope Det is not saying anything stupid.'

Det looks good in the deep red dress embroidered in black around the wide neck and sleeves that Cassie found for her in a quality samples shop in Johnston Street. It manages to diminish the size of her belly without actually hiding it. Her long red hair is clean and shining and pinned up with Stella's combs, and although Det doesn't smile a lot, every now and again her face lights up and that does me in. Det is happy.

‘He's a really big collector!' Cassie whispers in awe. ‘And I didn't even invite him.'

‘How come he's here then?'

‘Believe me, Peach, that doesn't matter. The fact that he's here is very good.'

‘If you say so,' I laugh.

‘Go check out the red dots,' she says gleefully.

‘What do they mean?'

‘Sold.' She looks at me. ‘We've broken even and there is still an hour to go.' Cassie looks at her watch. ‘Can you tell Det that speeches will be in twenty?'

‘Okay.'

I set off in the vague direction of the corner where Det was standing with the short man. But I get caught up a few times, mainly with people I haven't seen for a while, and then by a couple of paintings that I hadn't see before.

I stand for a while in front of the one of her father that she did all those months ago. The kids playing, the man's uneasy smile, the crushed can under his feet … I can smell the grass and feel the heat from the sun. I see the desperation in the man's eyes. I suddenly have this mad urge to reach into the painting, grab him, shake him up and tell him to come back.
Marty.
I shudder because my birth mother had a brother who at roughly the same age decided to check out too. How bad would you have to feel to do that?

‘If my baby is a boy I'm going to call him Paul or Marty,' Det told me a few weeks ago, ‘maybe both.' I didn't like the idea at all although I didn't say it.
Too much for one kid,
was what I wanted to say.
Way too much.

‘Do you hope it's a boy?'

‘I don't care,' she shrugged.

Then I notice that the painting is part of a series, four paintings in all, different sizes but thematically joined by the title
Blood Ties,
written in large black letters next to each one.

Down the creek
is the first of the series, depicting three young boys playing in water under a harsh sun, surrounded by brown dirt. The father stands to the side with a shotgun, staring at crows crowded onto a branch of a nearby dead tree.

One sore head
is another of her father with his head in his hands staring bleakly at a giant television screen where girls are dancing with old men in tuxedos. My heart skips a beat. So this is
… the
family.
Her father features in every painting, along with various combinations of brothers as little kids and then as gangling youths. Det herself doesn't feature at all, of course.

The last one in
Blood Ties
is titled
Oh Mother!
and it is a nude -an older woman with long red hair. She sits near a window, looking out; her breasts are large and saggy, her skin pale, nails painted bright garish pink. Smoke from her half-finished cigarette wafts out the window into the silky blue sky outside. An ornate mirror hangs on a nearby wall, and in it the reflection of her husband's scowling face. It's a very beautiful painting. The red of the woman's hair ricochets off the deep slashes of red and orange around the edges of the cold blue and green tones of her pale flesh. Bold and careless, there is also an exquisite delicacy under the surface garishness. The knowingness in the woman's defiant expression makes it difficult to look at her for long. One thing is certain, she is not about to apologise for anything.
Oh Mother!
And yet she is heartbreaking, and I know this is crazy and I don't know how I know it but … I suddenly know …
Det loves her!
I can tell.

This angry, lost woman trapped inside a sagging body reaches right into the core of me and I can't turn away.
Blood Ties …

A gasp escapes before I can swallow it down. Then a weird kind of fury creeps up on me like a sly thief who's been watching for his opportunity to pounce. Without warning, he is on me, hands around my throat, gripping like a vice, and there is nothing I can do but flail around like a sick bird trying to ward off the attack.
Blood Ties …
I don't even know my father's name! What if I have his smile or his gait, the way I have her hair and eyes? The thought half blinds me, races around my head like a kid made crazy on too much sugar.

The crowd mingles around me, warm, noisy and good-humoured, soaking up the music and the food and alcohol. But a thin coat of insulating ice covers my skin. I stand in a trance in front of the painting of the red-haired woman and the lost man in the mirror, unable to move. An image of the grimy abandoned Sacred Heart dormitories appears in my head, the way I first saw them with Stella. She said she could smell the girls, but I know now what it was she was smelling. After more than three decades it was still hanging about there in the wood and dust and empty spaces.
Loneliness.
I can feel it fluttering down through the decades, like kapok flung from an old mattress. On and on and on it goes.

I stand in front of the painting, feeling it settle inside me.

The trance lifts and the guilt, when it hits, is nothing short of astonishing. It rushes into my mouth and eyes, my gut and lungs, like poisonous air, stinging and foul, making me want to gag, double over and retch it up.

I rush outside and pull out my phone.

‘Mum, are you okay?'

‘Of course I am, sweetheart! I'm watching telly in bed. How is the launch going?'

‘Good.' My voice wavers. ‘Lots … lots of people.'