The Other Side of the World (6 page)

Their first evening in the house is the hottest she has known. All the windows are open but outside the dusk air is still. While the potatoes boil for dinner Charlotte sits in the green scratchy armchair sipping tea and feels the fabric beneath her thighs grow damp with sweat. Ants mass along the kitchen wall above the sink. Henry sprays them and they disperse, only for another group to gather along the window ledge. Charlotte feels her whole body swollen with heat. Her legs, her feet in their strappy sandals. Her ankles are red with mosquito bites. She unclips her bra and pulls it off through the armhole of her shirt-dress, sweat dripping down from the fold beneath her breasts. The first throb of a headache is beginning. She rubs her forehead, her face slippery with sweat, and then pours more tea. What did her mother used to say? Ladies don't sweat or perspire—they glow. Her whole body is wet and sticky. Behind her knees, across the bridge of her nose, down her neck, all over the soft skin of her stomach. Further away there is the sound of flyscreen doors opening and snapping closed. Voices. Crickets. A bird flitting past. There is the smell of burning toast drifting across from next door and the sound of a breeze beginning to stir in the trees.

In the kitchen Henry fries sausages. They eat bangers and mash for dinner, and after the plates are cleared they all go down to the river. Charlotte looks out over the glassy, violet water stretching on for miles and imagines the silvery expanse of the damp fields she left behind. The river begins to glow as darkness falls on the land around it. The rushes and the she-oaks that cluster along the water's edge turn black as the sky shifts to orange then mauve. Beneath it, the river lies smooth as pearl and shines
the color of saffron; golds and pinks marble its silky length. Henry sees the river and in the back of his mind all the skies of the Indian plains come to life once more. The cinnamon and the gold and the pale, clear blue. It happens like a chemical reaction: the sight of the new country immediately provoking a memory of the old. As though the two of them, he and Charlotte, can see this new place only through a veil of remembered ones—its differences noted, its similarities observed, the whole of it assessed and judged in light of where they have been before. Life builds on life. Only May and Lucie will ever see the river with anything like an original eye.

May looks out from on high, clinging fast to Henry's neck. Lucie wades forwards, then lands on her bottom, splat in the water. Charlotte tugs off Lucie's wet trousers and lets the child waddle along the shore, the night breeze tickling her legs and belly. Henry takes Charlotte's hand and they follow behind, trailing their feet in the sand. Up ahead, two barrel-shaped women in armored bathing suits march towards them, their feet clomping through the water, while in the distance Charlotte can make out the shape of a small boy and his father paddling in the white-­flecked shallows. The air smells of fried meat and insect repellent, the residue of evening barbecues, of chops and mosquitoes, while the river gives off another smell, salty and vegetable, as the reeds and mangroves rot in the marsh. Further out a family of ducks sails across to the bushland on the other bank, leaving great sweeping lines in the still water, their bodies black against the sunset. Fish follow in their wake, a silver flash here and there as they break the surface and smack back into the wet.

Later, once the children have been put to bed, Charlotte sits out on the veranda listening to the drift of voices from next door. A
mother and an adult daughter. They are eating a late dinner in the garden, the lilt of their conversation coming from the deep green. There is the sound of knives and forks on china. The mother's voice is old, warbling, slower than the daughter's talk, the two voices weaving together, the murmurs of the older listening ­woman mixed with the more varied melody of the younger ­woman telling the story. “Considering his condition . . .” says the older voice. “But life isn't like that,” replies the daughter. Around them dark settles. Mosquitoes nip at Charlotte's legs. She thinks of her own mother, alone in Highgate. Life isn't like what? she wonders. What is life like? They live together, Henry said, the mother and daughter. He said hello over the fence, when he was poking about in the garden. Mountainous clouds float overhead, close to the treetops. The women next door laugh. More tapping at plates. A long silence. She should go and introduce herself. But it is the wrong time of day—she is afraid of interrupting. Henry says he saw the older woman knitting in the sunshine. They have two cats that he spotted digging in the bare vegetable bed. Charlotte tucks her feet up under her dress. Across the way a screen door smacks shut. A light goes on. She hears plates knocked against the edge of a bin and scraped. Henry comes out, sits down in the chair next to her. They look at the yard.

“Have you had a bath?” he asks.

“Not yet.” Always this pleasure between them, sharing the bath, each washing the other's back, their wet, soapy bodies held close. Her mouth pressed to the wet curve of his neck. The taste of his skin. Sweat and clean water. Of course he knows she hasn't bathed. It is his way of asking if she'd like to. When did this ritual start? Just before she fell pregnant with Lucie, in the summer they spent digging over the garden at the cottage, the two of them filthy by the end of the day. “I'll run the water,” he says.

When he calls for her, Charlotte comes in from the ­veranda, takes off her dress, then sinks down into the tub. Henry gets in too, the water sloshing over onto the floor. Afterwards they make love in the dark, the bedroom window open, the late breeze moving over Charlotte's back as she rocks on top of him, his hands against her breasts. There is sand in the sheets, from the traces still caught between their toes, from the river. Sand on the floorboards of the house. Sand in their clothes. Go on, he'd said. Take off your shoes. The cold water. The silt. The smell of weeds and fish.

Through the open window comes the sound of crickets singing. She feels Henry's breath hot against her neck, the tightening of his arms around her. His mouth is open against her shoulder. His teeth at her skin. They are the same person then, she thinks. I am the same. “I love you,” she says, the feeling inside her rising. In that moment it does not matter where they are, where they have come to. In that moment she does not know, cannot remember.

In the morning Henry reaches over and strokes her hair. Charlotte smiles. He thinks she has come back to him, that here she will be different, no longer the thin, sickly woman who paced the fields.

“Did the light wake you?” he asks.

“Yes,” she replies. “It's so bright.”

There is the sound of wind rising and falling in the trees. A birdcall. The distant horn of a train as it pulls out from the station. Henry gets up to make tea. He likes the quiet of the early morning, padding through the house while the children sleep. It is good, too, to commence the day with this act of service. It always feels like an ablution. Charlotte loves him for the tea and he
loves her for her gratitude. Over time he has learned to make the tea exactly as she likes it. Very hot, but quite milky, yet strong at the same time.

He fills the kettle and sets it to boil on the stovetop. While he waits for the water to heat he steps out through the back door, into the garden. A thick mass of dry buffalo grass stretches towards the far edge, ending at a line of bright green banana trees. A warm breeze brushes his skin. Above him the leaves on the trees move up and down, around, side to side. The cicadas are inside the trees, shrieking, and every time the wind gusts they seem louder, closer. Behind the trees stands a wire fence with a red iron gate in the middle. A sandy path meanders away from the gate, leading down behind the backs of houses, through low-lying bushland, and on towards the river. The sun rises this way, entering the yard over the high fence crowded with purple-flowering potato vine. The sea is in the other direction. Inside, the kettle begins to whistle and Henry dashes in towards the stove, the flyscreen door banging shut behind him.

He warms the pot, stainless steel and dented on one side, then takes a tin from the pantry and measures out the tea leaves. One spoon, two spoons, three. He pours in the water, replaces the lid, and eases the tea cozy over the handle and spout as though pulling a bonnet onto a baby. He brews the tea, then places the pot, cups, and milk jug on an enamel tray patterned with red and white roses. He shuffles towards the bedroom, sets the tray down on the bedside table, turns the pot three times clockwise, and balances the silver tea strainer on the rim of the first cup. He lifts the pot and pours. A stream of amber liquid tumbles into the strainer, where it pools and glints. Steam rises from the water's surface. Charlotte lifts herself up onto the pillows, leans over, and turns on the radio.

T
ime passes differently in a new place; there are differences of wind and light that change the feeling of time. And there are things Charlotte must find out—the whereabouts of shops, libraries, parks—that change the feeling of space. Little things take a long time: finding marmalade in the grocery store, finding her way to the post office to send a letter home. Everything is hot and bright and far apart. She would ask for help, for directions, but has trouble understanding the answers, deciphering the mash of vowels. By accident she discovers Penguin books and Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Ajax laundry detergent, and Imperial Leather soap: things she knows from home. When she finds these things she feels sudden comfort, sudden sadness—a mix of feeling a long way away and very close. Little things that are familiar but which rightly belong somewhere else. She buys these things and brings them back, and says to Henry, “Look, I found things from home,” realizing as she speaks that she still calls England home and doesn't know what to call this new place that is now also home.

Months pass. The March mornings are beautiful—golden and full of birdcalls. Charlotte lies in bed for as long as she can, sometimes bringing May in with her while Lucie sleeps. She lies there, listening, wanting to know what the birds are called and which song belongs to which bird. She has spotted a little bird with a stripe of fluorescent blue on its chest—a wren, perhaps—and a pink bird with a white crest. She will go to the library, she thinks, borrow a book on such things. She still has to carry a map so as to find the library. But she won't go today—their shipment of
furniture and boxes has finally arrived and she must unpack. Already the bedroom is warm from the sun. “It will be hot today,
a scorcher
,” Henry says as he comes into the bedroom.

He's all freshly showered and shaven—a towel wrapped around his waist. There is a spattering of dark freckles over his shoulders, a fine mesh of hair across his chest. He rubs his jaw, checking for smoothness, and takes a clean shirt from the wardrobe. He's been up since dawn, revising an essay, and skips breakfast these days, preferring to get to work early. Because of the heat Henry wears shorts to work. They are navy blue, with a crease ironed down the front and back. Charlotte had never seen him wear shorts to work before, and she teases him; his legs are long, his knees knobbly. Henry is pulling up his socks now, smoothing back his hair. It is time for him to go. He opens the window so she can better hear the birds and then kisses her good-bye.

Charlotte pulls the covers to her chin and rolls over. She hears the front door close, then the car starting. She can't understand why he sits there, warming the engine, when it's already so hot outside. Around her the house is quiet, her children still asleep. It is not ­often that they sleep this long, through the brightness of the early ­morning. Charlotte wills them to stay this way: only when they are sleeping does she feel their consciousness detach from her own, her mind a free and drifting thing. In these moments the air about her seems full, radiant—time becomes untethered. There is no waiting, no urgency, no boredom. The wild swings between these states of being wear her down: this is what it is, she understands now, to care for a child. She thinks about the day ahead and feels tired, more tired, heavy in the limbs. The vigilance is exhausting: the things May will put in her mouth—a dead cockroach, a snail shell—and Lucie's stories that always demand a response. All this watching and talking.

There is a certain English dormouse, Charlotte remembers, which, upon ending its hibernation, comes out of its burrow and checks the air; if it deems the weather not good enough it retreats and sleeps for another year. How time passes differently for different creatures. Her days are long—the light makes them more so, the hours stretching on in either direction, the dawn too early, the dusk too late. Lucie turned two the other week. Charlotte baked a chocolate cake and they lit candles and sang. But Lucie didn't know what to do when it came to blowing the little flames out and sat there, hypnotized. After a long pause Henry huffed and puffed, making a show of it, and the flames were gone.

Henry releases the hand brake and reverses out of the drive. It's only seven fifteen; he should be settled at his desk by half past. He likes to be in before the other staff. Otherwise there are so many
hello
s and
good morning
s that by the time he puts pen to paper he's lost his train of thought. It makes him nervous, too, walking down the green corridor, with all the office doors half-open. Did it mean they wanted him to say good morning, or not? Would it bother them if he did? Would it be rude if he walked past? No one, yet, has been exactly friendly. Officially welcoming, perhaps, but not friendly. It isn't the scene the brochures promised, with barbecues in the backyard and the neighbors dropping by with a casserole for dinner. And there had been that awkward introduction with his boss, Collins, when he stopped by the office on Henry's first day.

How was the move, Collins had asked, and are you settling in all right, hope you're comfortable. If there's anything I can do, and so on and so forth. Then the question: “So, where did you say you're from?”

“England,” Henry replied.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Collins, pausing. “But where were you born?”

Henry didn't want to answer this question. His family had ­always been English, even in India. Especially in India. But ­Collins wouldn't understand this, and he couldn't lie. He waited a moment, staring at Collins as though he didn't understand the question, then opened his mouth. “India,” he said, pushing his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “I was born in India.”

“Oh?” Collins said. “Yes, of course,” he repeated. “I thought it must have been something like that. Very well then,” he said, backing out the door. “Have a good day.”

A week or so later, Collins came by again. “Don't you have a place to go?” he quipped. “Do you sleep under the desk?” Was he being funny? Henry wasn't sure. He must have looked quizzical, for Collins roared a big laugh and knocked Henry on the shoulder. It's true—Henry is always the first to arrive and the last to leave. He works hard; he wants to make an impression. It's also the case that he sometimes isn't in a hurry to go home of an ­evening—the radio always on when he just needs some silence, the children always tired and hungry. Little May hauling herself up to standing, then falling backwards and banging her head, Charlotte picking her up and trying to soothe her while she stirs a pot of something, Lucie tugging at Charlotte's skirt. But after Collins's comment he has been more cautious. No need to draw attention. Now he leaves work at five like everyone else and sits down to dinner at six.

He flicks the indicator and turns left towards the highway. Three months. To think they've been here three months. He can't
make sense of it. It feels like a year at least—at other times it feels only a matter of days.

Once Henry has gone, Charlotte gets up, pushes her feet into her slippers, and goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth. As she bends over to run the water she slips sideways, lifting her arms and gripping the basin so as to steady herself. It is the fatigue, the run of nights with a teething baby. She had forgotten. How could she have forgotten? The way the solid world dissolves. Walls jump into her path, doorways narrow, sinks and counters shrink and pull ­backwards. Yesterday she dropped a plate and two cups, all of them shattering over the wooden floor. She remembers holding the crockery and then feeling her fingers let go. In between there was the quickest thought that moved ever so slowly through her mind:
I think the cup is slipping. I think I'm going to let go
. Now she shuffles to the kitchen, holding her hand to the wall to steady herself, and prepares ­breakfast: cereal, followed by toast and another pot of tea. She puts the placemats down, sets out the bowls and plates, knives and spoons. There is the milk bottle, the sugar, the butter dish, the cereal box. She takes the bread from the freezer and prizes off three slices.

The crates and furniture sit in an awkward jumble in the hall and living room. Although she has been looking forward to the shipment, today unpacking is the last thing she wants to do. She opens the cardboard tabs on the cereal box and a flurry of tiny moths escapes into her face. Charlotte leaps away, beating the air, but they are already gone—miniature, dusty, grey-brown things. They are not alone, the moths; the house, she has found, is infested with insects. Weevils crawl through the flour and spiders nest in the high corners of the rooms. Ants have found the sugar and the ­honey, and a few nights ago she woke in fright to the sound of Henry
choking—he'd leaned over to take a sip of water from the glass on the nightstand and swallowed a cockroach that had been floating, drowned, on the surface. The next night she pulled back the sheets of May's cot to find a little beetle darting across the yellow cloth. Other nights she's squashed tiny brown spiders on the pillowcase, and last night in the dark she bruised her head as she flailed about trying to hit the mosquito that whined and circled around her ears.

Once she has laid the table, Charlotte wanders through the cool dark of the house towards the living room. Gentle morning light spills in through the front window, and beyond this the grass withers. It is March, almost April, more than three months since their arrival, and in all that time there's been no rain. Nothing. Not even a passing shower. Although it's early the day is already heating up. She can tell by the look of the sun, thick and honey-­colored, a white haze shining along the edge of everything it touches. She ties the cord of her dressing gown and steps out onto the front lawn. Henry waters with the hose in the morning, he waters in the evening, and still the ground dries up and returns, slowly, to sand. The buffalo grass in the back survives somehow, but everything else struggles. Flowers are scorched and sit shrunken on the ends of dry stems. The sun burns brown circles in the front lawn. Henry hoses these spots, trying to coax green life back into them. But everywhere the sand is showing through. A high, dry wind blows in from the desert. “No, it's not dying,” he says, talking of the grass. “Just in need of a little care.” So hopeful. Always so full of hope. It is what she admires in him, most of the time. Until she sees that the thing that makes him great also makes him foolish; in such moments his hope seems silly to her, naive, unwarranted. She knows she shouldn't think like this and that it is only because she's tired, but over and over again these two ideas battle for primacy: he is good and he is a fool. He is a fool for bringing us out here, she
thinks, yet he did it because he thought it would be best for everyone. He is only capable, it seems, of wanting the best for everyone.

Henry parks the car and makes his way to his office. It is a small square room on the ground floor. It has dark green carpet, a high ceiling, and a single window facing east across the playing field towards the river. He'd not have guessed the room's modesty from the outward appearance of the building: a tall, wide sandstone structure that shines white and gold in the sun.

He settles himself and pours a cup of coffee from his thermos. A bulging manila folder rests on his lap and he flicks through its contents: pages and pages of notes that he took on board the ship. They have become the basis of first semesters' lectures and maybe they'll be something more, a book perhaps. There is the shadow of something larger hiding in that forest of words—if he can just find his way through, clear a path. He checks his watch. There's still a good hour before the lecture is due to begin. Second year, Swinburne and Hardy. Although he's starting to wonder if the students even read the poems. It makes him nervous, the way their gaze slips up and sideways, so that they seem to be staring at a region just above his brow or towards his ear. Then he rushes, speaks too quickly, and loses his way. They give him such blank looks it seems they don't know what a poem is. He thinks about this. What is a poem? If he asked them, could they answer? It is a reasonable question. A good question. A difficult question that appears simple.

Today he'll talk about Hardy's elegies.
But what are they about?
his students will ask. They want the love story. How he hates this question, understanding, now, in the shade of his office, that poetry is among the few things that can survive this question. If the poem is very good it is very hard to say what it is about. It is this
and it is not that. It seems like one thing and then, after a while, not so much, one's understanding always shifting with the ­images and the sounds. He'll add something on Tennyson, perhaps, something on rhyme. Something about that very question, about poems being one of the few things that cannot be summarized or that can survive such an evil with something left over, something else. Something remaining. A trouble. A pleasure. A little extra.

On the oval, a game of cricket starts up. An early crowd cheers and boys call one to another. There is the thwack of leather on willow. It gives Henry the pleasant feeling of being in company even when he is not. Summer is over, but it's still ghastly hot and he's glad to be working at his desk in the cool, dark room while the boys are on the bright green. It is right this way—the vicarious pleasure is real. He looks up and into the shimmering air outside: there is green grass, dark river water overset with glinting sun. Then he turns back to his notes. He writes quickly, the words scrawling themselves across the page, humming through his mind so fast he hardly hears them but merely channels them through the tip of his pencil.

When the time comes to shuffle his papers and slip them into his briefcase he's blunted several pencils and covered ten pages. His hand hurts. His eyes are tired. He thinks of Charlotte then, as he picks up his bag and begins to walk down the corridor towards the lecture theater. What is she doing? He feels a little pang of homesickness, of longing. He wants just to be near her, to hear her clattering about in the kitchen or calling to the children in the yard. The din of their family life. He thinks perhaps he'll start off the lecture by reciting the poems they used to read to each other. He always thinks of these poems as having a kind of talismanic power. Were they happy poems or sad? He is never sure; they are sad poems that once made them both happy and now, for some reason, make him feel a little sad. He pushes the thought away; he
is almost there now—he can hear the hum of the students, talking, laughing. Then the door clicks open and the voices die down.