What the Light Hides (11 page)

We rarely text and she might not have meant anything by signing off with a kiss. But hope is reckless. It flings itself from skyscrapers and does wild acrobatics with just the slightest bit of encouragement. Right now, despite my hangover headache, I glimpse a life ahead with her. I ignore the gnome on the table and try not to think about seeing Ben. Right now I want to be with her, nothing else.

I empty Ben's mailbox before I leave. There's a birthday card from the local video shop and a bunch of flyers despite Ben's ‘no junk mail' sticker. My head is threatening to explode as I drop it all in the garbage bin behind the apartment block. On the single clothes line hang odd socks, T-shirts and a pair of underpants with the elastic gone.

Back in the house I quickly make coffee and bring it with me into the bathroom. I take two painkillers, brush my teeth, shave and shower. Then I down the coffee and get dressed. At the last minute I pick some jasmine and put it in a glass on the desk.

Pigeons have taken over Central Station. They are everywhere: inside, outside, sitting on the rafters, the benches and on the empty tables in the cafeteria. I think of my mother and her pigeons and how she still rents a van every year and travels to Merimbula to set them free. As children we went with her; an excruciatingly long drive in the company of twenty or more pigeons cooing and fluttering in the back. We would see them take flight from a car park near the beach only to drive all the way back home to wait for them. I never understood it, never saw the point of it.

I see Vera at the turnstile and walk towards her. Her long hair is loose and she is wearing her old leather jacket. I remember her buying it early on in our marriage, but I didn't know she still had it. There is a sleep mark on her cheek.

‘You slept?' I lean in to kiss her.

She nods. ‘You look like you have too.' She lets me take her bag.

‘It got late last night.'

‘With Maria and Neil?'

‘We drank too much,' I say. ‘Are you okay to walk back? It's not far.'

‘I know where Newtown is,' she says.

‘Of course.'

We walk down the hill towards George Street. It's already rush hour. The sun is setting quickly over the rooftops and the traffic surges and presses along the four lanes.

‘Did Maria cook lamb?'

I nod and feel a remnant of the hangover thinking about the meal.

‘And Jared?' she asks. ‘How is he?'

‘He was in bed by the time I got there,' I say.

‘You didn't get to see him?'

‘No,' I say, and spare her the details of Jared in his Thomas the Tank Engine PJs.

The footpath is busy and Vera walks slightly ahead of me. Lights begin to appear in houses and buildings. The city is turning into one large sparkling creature.

What would I think if I saw her now for the first time? I would think she was gorgeous. Even in the old leather jacket and worn jeans, I would notice her immediately. I know it.

Her hair is tugged by the wind. It touches my arm and without thinking I reach for a strand.

‘Ouch,' she says.

‘Sorry.' I let the hair go.

‘Why are you pulling my hair?'

‘It touched me first,' I say and smile.

Then she smiles back and I stand before her, knowing the way I have always known that there is nowhere else to go but to her. I step closer and put my arms around her. My hand finds her back under the shirt and her skin is soft and warm. I pull her to the side, out of the steady stream of pedestrians, and bump into a young man wearing a beanie.

‘Careful, old man,' he says as he swerves around us. Someone swears and I don't know if it is at us, but I don't care, because now I have her, I have the language. I know exactly who I am and who she is, all that in the wake of a strand of hair.

‘You,' I say and sit down on a brick wall. She follows onto my lap. ‘I miss you,' I say against her cheek. ‘The city. It's…'

‘Big?' she suggests. ‘Big and lonesome?'

I laugh. ‘It's big and you're not here.'

She pulls back and looks at me. ‘Take me out for dinner somewhere. I forgot to eat lunch.'

The diner is crowded, but we order and find a table right at the back. It wobbles; Vera folds her serviette and puts it under one leg.

‘Better,' she says.

The food comes in a matter of minutes and I realise how hungry I am. Naan bread, chickpeas, spinach with cottage cheese. Eggplant and tomato and beef curry. We have ordered too much, but it doesn't matter.

For a while we eat without talking. Then Vera says, ‘I've started a new project.'

‘You have?'

‘Yes,' she says. ‘And the house is still standing.'

The joke is old and worn, but I welcome it. We both know that when Vera works she turns inwards. The floors remain unswept and the leaves gather up outside on the stone patio. And I know that without me at home the kitchen sink will fill with plates and cups and dirty knives and tea bags. When she is in the middle of a project there seems to be a force field in her and around her, a thickened state of consciousness. Everything becomes about the senses and in the past, before Ben disappeared, she would make love as if she were trying it out for the first time.

‘What are you working on?' I ask.

‘I'm making houses,' she says. ‘Tiny houses out of tin. Hundreds of them.'

I touch her hand as she speaks, trace her fingers from knuckle to fingertip. Her hands are full of scars from her work. Thin and white, like cotton thread.

‘You've never used tin before.'

‘It's the most unpretentious of all metals,' she says.

‘Cans: baked beans, tomato soup, sardines.'

‘You use cans?'

‘No, I'm just saying. It comes in sheets. I got a delivery the day you left. The delivery guy looked like he had never been out of Sydney. “You live here?” he asked as if it were inconceivable.'

‘Was there anyone around?' I ask.

‘Around?'

‘Was Rob home?'

‘He was harmless.' She puts a hand on mine. ‘Don't worry.'

I lift her hand and hold it against my cheek for a moment. ‘So, tin?' I say.

‘It's soft, too soft really,' she says. ‘But the fragility is what makes the project interesting.'

Maybe it's because we are here—here in the city where it all started. Suddenly it's easy to talk. There are no awkward silences between us. We eat too much while talking about the time we met and the butcher's workshop where I used to live.

‘You didn't think it would last between us,' I say.

‘I thought you were too handsome for it to last. Women seemed to like you a lot.'

I smile. We have told each other the same story many times before.

She sips her lassi. ‘And you had never thought of settling down.'

‘That's true,' I say. ‘Not until I met you.'

‘Even then you were doubtful.'

‘Men are slower,' I say.

The words between us sit like archaeological excavations; they dig into our past and reveal what used to be. And I want her. I want the past back. I look down at our empty plates. ‘Do you want anything else?' I ask, hoping she will say no.

She shakes her head and I am grateful, not for the first time, that Vera hasn't got a sweet tooth.

Curry burns pleasantly in my mouth as we weave, hand in hand, out of the busy diner. When we reach the door someone else is already seated at our table.

I lead her down a lane and away from King Street. It's almost dark. The back streets are filled with soft dusk. The branches of fig trees reach over the street like canopies.

‘I don't remember Newtown being this quiet,' says Vera.

‘It's busier down at Ben's end,' I say and hold my breath, knowing that I've spoken in the present, but Vera doesn't seem to mind. She keeps her hand in mine as we cross the same small park I walked through earlier. People are out with their dogs, chattering companionably in small groups. Someone calls out, ‘Feeble, Feeble,' and a dog with a flashing light attached to its collar bounds past us.

‘Feeble?' Vera whispers. ‘Is that the dog's name?'

We start to giggle like two teenagers and I pull her close to me and we rest against the side of a figtree. Its branches are like night arms, full of shadows, full of protection. I reach under her shirt. She isn't wearing a bra. Vera. My hand finds a nipple. I don't care about anyone passing or the fact that we are just around the corner from my place. I touch her and hear her breathe faster. She is mine. I bend down to kiss her.

She stops me. ‘How close are you from here?'

‘Two minutes,' I say.

‘Come.'

Vera smiles a little when I unlock the door and let her walk past me into the living area.

‘It's almost like your old bachelor pad,' she says.

I nod.

‘Apart from that terrible table, of course. You were so good already then.'

I show her the workshop.

She sees Eloise's drawing on the wall. ‘And who did that?'

‘The daughter of the woman who runs this place. It's supposed to be me in the tower.'

‘Enviable locks you got,' she says. She touches the timber laid out on the work table. ‘What are you working on?'

‘A chest. Like the one I gave you. It's the spotted gum from Rob's backyard.'

Her eyes well. ‘Ben did such a great job that day. He looked so strong, remember?'

I take her hand and lead her up the stairs, afraid to say or do something that will break whatever is good and right between us now.

I don't turn the light on and Vera puts her bag down and walks to the window and takes in the view as I hoped she would.

‘You can see all the way to the airport,' she says.

I walk up behind her and put my arms around her waist.

She pulls out of my embrace. ‘I need to get back early tomorrow morning,' she says. ‘I didn't plan on staying.'

‘That's okay. I'll wake you early.'

‘What way?' she asks.

‘What do you mean?'

‘West, east?' She nods at the window. ‘What way are we facing?'

‘We're facing south.'

She leans her head on my arm. ‘How do you know these things?'

‘Logic.'

‘Right, clever man,' she says. ‘So tell me, where is home?'

‘If south is that way then home is in that direction.' I point to the wall.

She shrugs off her leather jacket and hangs it over the desk chair. ‘And would I be able to see the room with the lights on?'

I turn the light on and take off my coat.

‘It's nice,' she says.

‘Yes.' I walk over to the bed, sit down and pull off my boots.

‘Did you pick jasmine because I was coming?'

‘Yes.'

She starts unbuttoning her shirt, then she stops. For a moment I can't read her expression, then I realise she is scared. I get up, lift her hair to one side and draw the shirt over her shoulders. It falls to the floor.

‘Come,' I say. ‘What happened the other night won't happen again.'

She kicks off her boots sitting on the side of the bed. ‘I heard this program on the radio the other day,' she says. ‘A professor,' she turns to me, ‘said that human beings don't actually have a sense of direction.'

‘Really?' I say. ‘Does that mean that you and I are equally good at finding our way?'

‘Yep,' she laughs a little. And then she shrugs out of her jeans and her briefs.

I get undressed and pull the blanket over us. She reaches over and touches me. I put my arm around her waist and feel the bottom of her spine.

‘Cats and dogs,' she continues and nudges closer, ‘they have a sense of direction. Pigeons do as well. Scientists know exactly where in the brain that sense would be if we had it.'

Her voice is warm and fluid; it fills the room.

‘You are so beautiful.' The words catch in my throat.

‘Touch me,' she says.

‘I won't last long.'

She adjusts herself on her back and watches my hand find its way.

‘Remember,' she says, and sighs, ‘remember the man on the wire? Philippe Petit. How he walked the tightrope in New York, from one tower to the other. Those beautiful towers.' She moans and guides my hand.

‘Vera,' I say, thinking that I must have her, that I can't wait any longer, that my body will break if I don't.

‘Wait,' she takes off her rings, leans over and puts them on the bedside table. Then she stiffens against me.

‘What?' I say, as she pulls away from me.

‘I can't believe this,' she says and stumbles out of bed. ‘Have you gone completely mad?' There are goose bumps on her skin.

I scramble to sit up. ‘What's happening?'

She starts pulling on her jeans.

‘Vera? What's happening?'

‘How could you?'

‘What are you talking about?' But then I see it, the open notebook on the bedside table.

I get out of bed and touch her shoulder. ‘Vera.'

She moves out of my reach and pulls on her shirt in jerky movements.

‘It's nothing,' I say.

She crosses the floor and gets her jacket. ‘My son is dead,' she says. ‘My son is dead, but you're still looking for him. What's wrong with you?'

‘He's my son too.' I turn around and reach for my pants, humiliated by my erection.

‘Was,' says Vera. ‘Ben
was
—he
is
no longer, David.' She puts her jacket on.

‘Please,' I say. ‘I wasn't looking for him on purpose. I was there to see Neil.'

She picks up her bag and walks to the door.

‘Vera, please. Please don't go.'

She takes pity on me. I can see in her eyes that she is willing herself to stay. I can't bear the thought of her leaving.

She puts the bag down. And then she slowly walks over and sits on the bed next to me.