What the Light Hides (12 page)

‘Vera,' I say. ‘Could we just…'

‘I don't want to talk,' she says.

‘All right,' I say. ‘What do you want to do?'

She lies down, facing away from me.

‘Vera?' I say.

‘I mean it, David. You have to stop talking.' She sounds drowsy, as if sleep has invaded her in a matter of seconds.

I sit there for a while longer and then she falls asleep. Her breathing is deep and steady and I wonder how she can possibly sleep after what has just happened between us.

I masturbate in the bathroom, carefully avoiding thinking about her. It's painful when I come. I get into the shower and stay there until my skin hurts too. Then I get dressed in sweatshirt and pants. If she's dressed then I will be too.

Before I get into bed I put the notebook in my bag.

I dream about my mother's pigeons. I dream about the way they lift in restless sprawling patterns, wings unfurling like the hands of flamenco dancers. In my dream my mother says, ‘Pigeons always find their way home. They always come back.'

I wake early in the morning. The room is cold. Vera is asleep with her back to me, still in her leather jacket. I look at her shoulder rising and falling, knowing that I have probably destroyed everything.

Outside skies drift, grey against grey. I remember the dream and then I remember that my mother has come home. And I think of the many times she has come back from an overseas trip laden with presents, all of them somehow a testimony to her brilliance rather than gestures of love.

When Ben was five we spent a Christmas with her. Everything was perfect, of course. Goose, roasted potatoes, pudding, tissue-paper crowns and the biggest bonbons I have ever seen. Just back from Paris my mother gave Vera a book on a French photographer. Neil got a framed antique map of Mondovi in Algeria where Camus was born. Ben received a book on algebra puzzles that he really liked and I got a documentary of my hero, Sam Maloof, master furniture maker. And the presents kept coming.

But it felt like a show, just the way it always had when we were children. The conversation around the table was stifled. My mother told stories from her trip. Neil got drunk and Vera disappeared into the backyard with Ben after my mother suggested that we should reconsider our choice of gifts to him in the future. We had given him an Etch A Sketch and a marvellous red fire truck that was an instant hit.

‘He has a great mind,' my mother said. ‘He needs to be stimulated.'

‘He's a child,' Vera said firmly. ‘Not a project.'

Ben followed the conversation from his chair. ‘What?' he said and looked up at Vera.

‘Nothing, darling,' she said. ‘Your grandma just likes to do things her way.'

I later found Vera lying on a blanket in the yard soaking up the sun. She was still wearing her green paper-tissue crown and her white dress was pulled up, showing off her tanned legs. Ben was playing with his fire truck next to her.

On the way home in the car Vera shook her head. ‘It's a miracle you're not more damaged,' she said.

I grinned.

She laughed. ‘You know what I mean.'

Ben was quiet in the back, drawing on the Etch A Sketch.

And then, with no houses in sight, we came across a road stall. We all got out of the car, Ben's hair blown here and there by the hot breeze. Three trays of strawberries, ripe and deep in colour, sat on a box covered with a red-and-white checked tablecloth. ‘$3 please' was written in crooked letters on a folded piece of cardboard taped to the cloth.

‘Is it even strawberry season?' said Vera.

‘Grandma wouldn't like that,' said Ben.

‘Why?' I asked.

Ben thought for a while, then said, ‘She didn't make the stall.'

I started laughing. I couldn't stop.

Vera smiled and took my hand. ‘They are beautiful,' she said to Ben. ‘Why don't you see if we've got some coins in the glove compartment?'

We had enough for all three trays and devoured the juicy strawberries in the car with the air conditioning blasting.

‘Wait,' said Vera as we were about to drive off.

She ran out and put a rock on the tablecloth.

‘So it doesn't fly away,' she said, getting back in.

I sit up slowly. Vera is still asleep. The whole place feels sad somehow. The jasmine droops in the vase on the table and I can hear the shower tap dripping in the bathroom.

‘Vera.' I reach over and touch her arm.

She turns onto her back and opens her eyes. And for a moment, before she remembers, she looks at me the way she used to.

Then she sits up. ‘What time is it?'

‘Just after seven,' I say. ‘You wanted to get home early.'

She gets out of bed and walks to the window. Light falls on her cheek; she looks tired. ‘A church?' she says with her back to me.

‘The back of a church,' I say. ‘Is the priest there?'

‘No, there's no one.' She returns to the bed and collects her rings from the bedside table.

I know she notices the absence of the notebook, but she doesn't say anything.

‘I'll follow you to the train,' I say and push aside the doona. And for reasons I don't even try to comprehend I am compelled to put on my suit.

King Street is windy. A shop sign has been blown over by the wind. I stop to pick it up. Vera waits next to me, studying the window of a shop that sells second-hand clothes. One of the mannequins is missing an arm.

‘Have coffee with me before you go,' I say. ‘Please.'

She looks at her watch. ‘I was hoping to catch the train in half an hour.'

‘Take the one in an hour. Have a quick coffee and something to eat.'

She hesitates.

‘Please,' I say.

‘Okay.' She looks at me. ‘Is there somewhere close?'

‘There's a cafe around the corner.'

A plastic bag drifts past us and continues down the footpath. And I wonder for a moment, absurdly, if it's the same bag I saw two nights ago in Leichhardt. A fire truck speeds past and starts its siren right next to us. We both jump.

Vera stops. ‘David, I really should go home. I forgot to feed Ginger.'

‘Ginger,' I say, ‘has probably invited the whole cat neighbourhood over for a party. You'll spoil it if you come home early.'

It isn't funny and she doesn't smile.

The wind pulls at my jacket. I shiver and wonder why on earth I put on my suit. I reach over and take her hand even though she draws back from me. ‘It's right there,' I point.

She hesitates.

‘Just a quick coffee,' I say.

We're the only people outside; everyone else is huddled inside the warm cafe. Vera gets a woollen jumper from her bag and puts it on. Pigeons line the balustrade of the courthouse across from us. Three men in cheap suits hover together outside the entrance. I can't work out whether they are lawyers or awaiting trial.

A young woman with short brown hair brings our coffees, then returns with the croissant we ordered.

‘They start early,' I say and nod to the men.

‘Someone's always doing something wrong,' she says, then gestures to the croissant. ‘Are you sharing?'

‘Yes,' I nod.

‘I'll get you an extra plate.'

The waitress returns with the plate and Vera watches as I cut the croissant in half.

I want to tell Vera that it was a ghost I saw yesterday. I want to tell her that I'm over it, but I can't. Instead I say, ‘I had a cake the other day. A lemon cake. It had flowers on it. I think they were pansies.'

It sounds ridiculous. I don't know what kind of flowers they were. I can't tell a tulip from a dahlia, and Vera knows it. But she nods as if I have just said something terribly interesting and continues to eat her share of the croissant.

I don't know what else to say. I suddenly can't take it. This is Vera, my wife, and we're sitting here like strangers.

‘Vera,' I begin.

‘Don't.'

I reach over and put a hand on her leg.

She pulls away, then says, ‘My uncle was in jail for two years when I was little.'

I startle at this. ‘Bunny?' I ask, seeing in my mind the kind-faced, chubby man that I have met a couple of times at family gatherings.

‘He's the only uncle I have.' She leans forwards, puts her empty cup on the table and brushes the crumbs off her pants. ‘I didn't see him for two years.'

‘What did he do?'

‘He ran over someone. Didn't stop. Only turned himself in a couple of days later. It was an accident, but he was a coward.'

‘Why haven't you told me this?'

‘What good would that have done?' She gets her bag and stands up.

‘But why are you telling me now?'

‘I don't know,' she says.

On our way to the station we cut across Victoria Park. There's a rally on. People are spilling out onto George Street and there is shouting and drumming and the smell of charred sausages hanging in the air. Two men are in the process of packing down a booth, and one of them stops to hand me pamphlets for Lifeline Australia and the Wilderness Society.

On the outskirts of the park we see a young girl walking on a tightrope strung between two tall fig trees. She wouldn't be much older than Ben. Her light brown hair is tied with a green elastic and her face is free of makeup. Her gaze is soft as she walks with her arms spread. There is such grace to the way she moves, it's almost like a dance. And I think of Vera last night, of her naked body and what she said about Philippe Petit and his tightrope walk. I remember the film clearly. I remember the look in his eyes when he walked out onto the rope and realised that he could do it. It was a triumphant look. When later he was asked why he had done it he answered, ‘There is no why.' Vera and I had talked about that answer for days.

Vera observes the girl too, but doesn't say anything.

We continue down George Street in the wake of the rally. Things are left behind—stickers, balloons, Hungry Jack's food wrappers, and a sign saying ‘No funding cuts for mental health programs' in green letters. The police are getting back on their motorcycles and barricades are being removed. And Vera keeps walking ahead of me. It's as if I'm not there at all.

I buy a ticket so I can walk onto the platform with Vera. Someone has spilled strawberry milk on the ground. The loudspeaker announces the departure.

‘What do we do now?' I ask.

‘I don't know,' she says.

Then she boards the train. The door closes and I watch her find a seat. She doesn't look back at me as the train leaves the platform.

The pressure on my chest is back; a solid, hard-cornered weight that pushes against my lungs. And I only just make it outside the station before I have to sit down on a bench. I force myself to breathe slowly. In and out. In and out.

A dirty-white terrier in a red collar appears next to me. It sniffs the hem of my trousers, then takes off. I turn to see who it belongs to, but neither the dog nor its owner is anywhere to be seen.

I am finding it hard to breathe; with every breath the pressure seems to increase. Cold sweat forms on my forehead and I can't help thinking that maybe I'm going mad. Maybe I'm seeing things that don't exist.

I pull out my phone and the Lifeline Australia pamphlet handed to me in the park and—like a drowning man reaching for a life buoy—I punch the number.

The phone rings twice, then a man answers and introduces himself as Con.

I already regret ringing, but the pressure on my chest is not going away. I tell Con my name.

A man hurries past me, phone pressed to his ear. A woman walks two feet behind him, dragging a large suitcase. I can't figure out whether they are together or not.

‘And why are you calling today, David?'

The line is rehearsed, but he says my name with just the right amount of empathy. And it works. I can't help asking the question that is constantly on my mind.

‘Why would someone run away from home?' I say.

‘Run away?' he repeats.

‘Yes, why would someone who is loved and cared for leave without a trace?'

‘A young person?'

‘He is twenty-four.'

‘Your son?' asks Con.

‘Yes.'

‘The most common reason is mental illness.' Con speaks slowly as if he is considering every word he is saying. He continues, ‘But of course there is the possibility that a crime has been committed.'

‘I don't think there was any mental illness involved,' I say and feel an odd relief wash over me. Not from thinking that something terrible might have happened to Ben, but from talking to someone who is willing to think through the options with me.

‘How long has your son been gone for?' says Con.

‘Five months.'

‘I presume the police are looking for him?'

The pressure in my chest eases a bit. ‘They told us that people go missing all the time. Most return sooner or later.' Then I add, ‘I thought I saw him yesterday.'

‘You saw him?'

‘I am almost certain it was him.'

‘So you are searching for him?'

‘No,' I say. ‘It was a coincidence.'

‘David,' he says, again with the empathetic voice, ‘can I ask if you are married?'

I hesitate. ‘Yes.'

‘And your wife, how does she take it?'

The white dog is back. And now I see the owner: an overweight woman, sitting on a bench further down. She calls for the dog. I can't hear whether it's Sam or Stan, but either way the dog has decided to stay with me. It leans against my leg and views the pitiful entrance area with the stance of a king.

I am not mad after all.

‘David?' Con prompts on the other end of the line. ‘We don't have to talk about your wife. You are in control of this conversation; we can talk about anything you want.'

I hang up and don't even feel bad about it. I bend down to pat the dog. The pressure in my chest is almost gone. I wait a few more minutes, then I get up and head back to Newtown.