A Darker Music (18 page)

Mary had to stifle another smile: she’d be willing to bet that Gayleen had every occasion inscribed in her diary, probably in a secret code.

‘But the last time — on Thursday — he couldn’t! He said he was too upset. Does that mean he’d gone off me?’

Her face was so piteous that Mary didn’t have the heart to scold her any more. ‘No, Gayleen. That sometimes happens when men are upset. They get over it.’

‘But Jamie died!’

‘It’s a terrible thing, and I understand how hard it must be for you. But look at it this way, if you can: you’ll always remember Jamie as a young man, as you saw him through loving eyes. You’re never going to be disillusioned.’ She thought of Roy, and Clio and Paul. ‘You’ll never have rows or any of that other bad stuff. You’ll be like a widow, and surely the girls in your class will have to respect that.’

Gayleen was taking this in, a glimmer of hope in her expression. Mary clambered to her feet, pulling Gayleen up, too. ‘To show respect for Jamie, and what there was between you, you should wait a decent length of time before you get involved with another boy. You’ll need a period of grieving, anyway. Your friends should understand that. If they don’t, they’re not true friends. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Mm. Yes, Mary.’

When they retraced their steps through the casuarinas, Mary was alarmed to see how dark it was getting; the bank of cloud had thickened again to block the last of the sun’s rays. ‘What’s done is done. You’ll just have to pray that your period comes on time. Let me know, won’t you? As for disease … I hope to God Jamie was young enough not to have come into contact with anything.’

‘No, no!’ Gayleen was emphatic. ‘He said he’d never done it with anyone else!’

‘Good.’ As long as he was telling the truth. But there was no point in making Gayleen even more miserable by pointing out that in matters of sex, most men lie.

They retrieved the bicycles and wheeled them clear of the trees. ‘I hope you know the way home,’ Mary said.

‘Just follow me,’ Gayleen called over her shoulder. There was a lamp on her bike that cast a wavering pool of light. Grimly, Mary followed it over the lumpy, sandy ground, through the deepening darkness.

Mary was relieved, when at last they came to the lights of the homestead. One of the black cats startled her by dashing across her path, its shadow leaping ahead like a djinn.

‘Are you feeling any better now?’ Mary asked Gayleen.

‘Thanks, Mary. Yes, a bit.’

‘It’ll take time.’

Gayleen cycled off to her own house, with the cat galloping after her.

With her back to the homestead, and without the circle of Gayleen’s headlight, the darkness was almost total. Mary paused before going inside, to ponder the infinity of it, knowing that the warm kitchen was waiting for her. It was easy to imagine, with familiar sounds absent or strangely altered, how life must have been for the Aborigines long before the Europeans brought their candles, kerosene lamps and electricity. How all the important things had to be achieved during the hours of daylight, and songs and ceremonies reserved for the night and the magic of fire.

I
N THE KITCHEN,
the men were scrubbed, shaven and in clean clothes, signalling impatience. Mary glanced at the clock: she was one minute late. Paul gave her an interrogative look. She ignored it and opened the oven to take out the casserole. She’d set the table before she went out; everything was ready.

She stood back and watched Paul take the lid off the hot dish. ‘It’s chicken,’ she told him, wondering how acute his sense of smell was. ‘A version of chicken cacciatore. Did I keep you waiting?’

‘Smells good,’ he said, ready to forgive her. ‘Where were you?’

‘Cheering Gayleen up.’

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘What’s Gayleen’s problem?’

She couldn’t believe he didn’t know. ‘She’s upset about Jamie’s death. They were friends.’

Paul looked up at Mary with a slow grin. ‘Don’t tell me the little bugger was fixing her up! Not our Gayleen. What was she thinking of!’ He shook his head and laughed.

Mary felt a rush of anger. She’d heard this euphemism for sex before and hated the casual male arrogance of it. It was becoming increasingly difficult to like Paul Hazlitt.

17

O
N MOST DAYS NOW, CLIO WAS SITTING UP IN BED.
Although she was still very thin, she was eating better; and instead of just listening to her CDs she was reading, and more ready to chat as Mary came and went from her room. Mary had set another of the chairs from Ellen’s room on the verandah outside the french doors: on sunny mornings, while Mary shook out the duvet and feather pillows, Clio sat contemplating her garden, with the rug over her knees. In the bright sunshine, her face was shockingly white.

‘You’ve done very well,’ Clio said one morning. ‘The garden’s looking lovely.’

The gnarled wisteria twining below the eaves was coming into bud. Out in the orchard the narcissus were still blooming, beneath a foam of prunus blossom. The lachenalias were showing colour, the Spanish bluebells lifting spires of green buds.

Mary paused on her way inside, the sunlight warm on her face. ‘You’re lucky, having an old garden like this. Ellen planted some nice things.’

After a thoughtful silence, Clio said, ‘Ellen! How I came to hate the sound of that name.’

Mary was startled. ‘Did you?’

Clio leant back and closed her eyes, basking in the sun. ‘I know it wasn’t fair. She never did me any harm. But all I seemed to hear from everyone here was what a wonderful woman Ellen had been, what a fabulous job she’d done. Later on, I realised that none of this was Ellen’s fault. Paul had only ever known her as a mature woman with a lifetime of achievement behind her. He never saw the struggles or disappointments. Or failures.’ Clio opened her eyes and covered her mouth with one hand. ‘Did I say that? Failures, indeed!’ She looked for Mary’s complicity, then went on with her story.

‘What Paul remembers is Ellen triumphant. And naturally I, a trembling virgin bride, could never hope to be that without years of the kind of effort Ellen had put into this place. And I’d never even been on a farm before. Are you still reading the diaries?’

‘Yes, on the weekends.’

‘Well, you’d know it wasn’t all beer and skittles. I don’t think Paul read them. He’s never been much of a reader.’

Mary thought of the lavishly stocked pantry. ‘You did manage pretty well, though?’

‘Yes, I think, really, I did.’ The shadow of the eave slowly descended over Clio’s face, taking the warmth away. Her left hand lay on the crocheted rug, the wedding ring loose on her finger. ‘I made this rug. There was an old one of Ellen’s but the moths had wrecked it, and I thought Paul would be pleased to have a nice new one, made by his little wife. Of course, he wasn’t pleased at all.’ She sighed. ‘This is old, now, too.’

She looked up at Mary again. ‘It’s funny, but I’ve let all of that go, all the resentment. Some days now I feel like a baby bird with mother-bird Mary bringing me tasty grubs, on Ellen’s pretty dishes — quite detached from the world.’ She pondered for a moment, and Mary was about to continue inside. ‘Letting go of the present leaves the mind curiously empty, and I’m finding the past is crowding in. There are moments when it’s almost … almost too much …’ Her voice faltered.

With her attention only partly on what Clio was saying, Mary was looking at the crocheted rug. Clio read her interest and started to explain, stroking the woollen fabric. ‘It was meant to be a kind of portrait of this place.’ She traced the work with a thin, white finger. ‘These plain squares are the paddocks, you see? Different greens for barley, oats and wheat, and pasture.’

‘I see!’ It was clear now, since Mary had flown over this landscape. ‘And those lines around the edge … they must be the firebreaks.’

Clio smiled in agreement. ‘And this complicated one is the wildflowers: see all the colours?’

Mary pointed to one of the blue and white squares. ‘What’s this?

‘That’s the sky, with those puffy white clouds … and this one’s the sky on a grey day.’ Clio gathered the rug up from her lap and handed it to Mary. ‘But I’m getting cold.’

As she helped settle Clio in bed, Mary began to understand why, in spite of her sad marriage with Paul, Clio was still here at Downe. She loved the place. Leaving it would be a terrible wrench.

A
S SOON AS
Paul and Martin flew off on Friday, Clio came out to the kitchen. As a matter of course, Mary brought out the rosy chair for her as soon as the drone of the Piper’s engine faded over the horizon. As always, Clio was wearing one of her long white cotton nightgowns, ugg boots and the knitted woollen robe. There had been no suggestion that she get dressed, and Mary was waiting for her to show an interest in ordinary clothes as a sign that she was getting better.

‘I picked asparagus this morning,’ she said. ‘You like it, don’t you? Angus told me.’

‘Yes, I love it. How are we going to have it?’

‘Seeing it’s the first of the season I thought something simple and celebratory.’

‘On buttery toast? With hollandaise sauce? What a treat!’

While Mary pottered about the kitchen, Clio asked, ‘Are you going to tickle the ivories again tonight?’

Mary laughed. ‘Tickle? Torture, more like!’

‘I like the sound. It reminds me of lessons at the Con. You could always hear someone practising.’

‘I was wondering … what sort of music can you play on a viola? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a viola concerto?’

Clio settled deeper into her chair and pushed her feet out, staring down at the toes of her boots. ‘There’s not a lot of solo work for viola.
Harold in Italy
, of course … a marvellous obbligato; some Mozart, Hindemith, Stamitz, Telemann, Paganini. Max Bruch wrote a concerto for viola and clarinet.’ She took a deep breath. ‘No, you’re right, the viola is mostly used in an orchestra. It gives depth to the violins and cheers up the cellos. Percy Grainger called it the middle fiddle.’ Mary nodded to signal that she was still listening, but Clio’s gaze was on the sunlit garden outside. ‘Of course, the viola as we know it didn’t really exist until the eighteenth century. Early composers wrote for viols of various kinds: viola da gamba, viola d’amore … The bowing and fingering are different from the violin, and the open strings’ — she glanced at Mary to see if she had her attention — ‘can be a problem with a violin, but not with a viola.’

Clio paused, remembering. ‘That was my favourite, the chamber music. I had no idea how addictive it would be, the closeness you have with the other players, the sheer wonderful sound of it. There was a core group of us: Alison, Richard, Tallis — he was my teacher, another violist — and Sandra; but quite often we’d borrow someone else, a pianist and double bass player, for example, for
The Trout
. It was Tallis’ quartet.’

She focused on Mary’s listening face. ‘You’ve got no idea what a treat it is to have somebody I can talk to about music. I didn’t realise till the other day how much I’ve been missing it.’ Clio pulled her legs up close to the chair, readjusting the folds of her gown.

‘Cup of tea, Clio?’

‘Thanks. If you’re having one.’

So Mary began the ritual of tea-making, and Clio continued with her story.

‘I was in love with Tallis, as only a plain girl who’s led a sheltered life can be.’ At the words
plain girl
Mary looked over sharply, but Clio seemed to be sincere, and it was possible that she had no idea how beautiful she was still. ‘I went to a girls’ school and didn’t have any brothers. Even now, when I think of Tallis, I see him as surrounded by a … a sort of cloud of radiance. I can clearly remember him playing his own viola da braccio: I don’t recall the sound of it, just the intense concentration on his face, that look of his that had made him — somehow — resemble a precious blade, honed to a perfection of fineness.’ She gave a little embarrassed laugh. ‘That sounds silly, doesn’t it; but Tallis was the one who made the magic come true for me.’

‘Those student days can be pretty intense. What did you do after you graduated?’

‘I married Paul.’

‘You never worked as a musician?’

There was a pause before she answered. ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

‘Was there anyone here you could play music with?

Clio was shaking her head, a slow, rocking motion. ‘There are music teachers at Glendenup high school, mostly piano and guitar. Pop guitar, or country and western. I had hoped, in a vague sort of way … but then I had children, and this place seemed to eat up all my energy. There was once …’ All of a sudden her face took on a look of utter, heartbreaking bleakness; then, just as quickly, she smiled. ‘But no, that’s another story. There was no music here.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘When it all got too much for me? Well, Tallis — wonderful Tallis — had given me the score of Bach’s cello suites, a transcription for viola, for a wedding present. He must have known how much I’d need it. So I taught myself to play those. I’d never cared much for Bach …’

‘No, when I was learning the piano I hated him.’

‘I think he’s something you grow into. I had a gorgeous time with those. Without a teacher, I felt free to interpret the music to suit my mood at the time. Once I’d learnt them, naturally — they’re not all that easy. But they can be happy, sad, mournful, playful … The movements are named for dances that were popular in Bach’s time.’

‘I’ve never heard of them. But Bach wrote a lot of music, didn’t he.’

‘Including those boring little airs that schoolgirls are given to learn?’

‘Exactly!’ Mary laughed. ‘But those suites sound interesting. Do you still play them?’

Clio’s face changed, and Mary knew in that instant that she’d said the wrong thing. ‘No,’ she said, her voice dead. ‘No, I don’t play them any more.’

18

O
N SATURDAY MORNING,
G
AYLEEN CAME KNOCKING
at the back door, her face radiant. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘get your bike. I’ve got something to show you.’

Mary pushed her breakfast dishes aside. ‘Now?’

‘Come on!’ Gayleen commanded.

Mary went to tell Clio she was going out. Clio was listening to music and just nodded.