On Brunswick Ground (18 page)

‘I've still got six months to go,' comments Bernice. ‘It's fun, nothing hurts. I don't even have morning sickness.'

Harry shakes his head: ‘And her program's more popular than ever.'

Bernice looks up at him and he suddenly rests two hands on her shoulders. I can hear the wind outside, stirring up Brunswick. Behind the French windows giving out onto the yard, it suddenly looks like night even if it's too early for that. There is thunder in the distance, and the remaining light has been sandwiched between two black lids of clouds. As I look, I reflect that Brunswick is certainly the best place for a male harem to go unremarked.

‘For you, change is always good then, eventually?' I ask Francis belatedly.

He nods.

‘In the archaeology we do in the city, we unearth all these stories. They've even brought in a writer to put them all together. With each skeleton, each bit of crockery, a story wells up, bursting with the freshness of a news item.'

He rubs his face with his two palms.

‘As if we were straddling a threshold between us and a hundred and fifty years ago.'

Harry settles his feet more comfortably on the rung of his stool.

‘We found the skeleton of a baby the other day, it had been preserved in a box of sand. You could still see its features, even its expression. He was only a few days old when he died. It happens all the time. The number of dead babies we find … I mean, the place is littered with them … '

Then a horrified look spreads exponentially over his face.

Nobody moves for a second – but long enough for Harry's words to hang midair like striken puppets. His faux-pas reminds me of Stefan Zweig's opening to
Beware of Pity
. Francis quickly pours everyone a glass of cider.

‘When my mother was killed by that falling branch, I began looking into her past. I knew next to nothing about her family, her childhood. She was a withdrawn personality. Then I found out stuff even my father didn't know: she'd been a trapeze artist, she spoke Spanish, she had a half-brother we'd never met … and so on. It was like the unveiling of a monument. This enquiring into her life, because of her death, gradually got my imagination involved in archaeology, without any conscious decision.'

Bernice is swinging her foot and patting Harry on the arm. Again we are all enfolded in egg-yolk light. Protecting Harry from his blunders seems to be part of their relationship with him. Harry reminds me of some of the synaesthetes in
The Shaking Woman
, who hear in colour and see in sounds. His senses overlap with mixed messages – a suffused, overwhelmed sensitivity that can't filter what he senses, or what churns out of him, a synaesthesia of the heart. Yet with these two humans beings, with Francis and Bernice, it's all right, it's just fine.

When I get up to leave, they all stroll to the door, which, when it opens, makes even night, now tight as a fist, seem welcoming. They fight with me to walk me home but I tell them I'm only a few minutes away and will text them when I reach my street. Harry is also one of those people who start a conversation after you've said goodbye. His shyness seems to abandon him on thresholds. He tells me in a rush that the Magpies won last night against Geelong. And I know because I am learning about that too. As he hands over his crooked smile I touch his arm and tell him I saw Krakouer's magic kick when surrounded by Cats:

‘It all seemed over, Harry, and yet he pushed on and it felt like the ball slipped into goal on a moonbeam.'

‘Yes,' he smiles with relief, grabbing my arm, ‘that was exactly it.'

As I go, they look so strong together, maybe because they have the most fragile thing of all.

Five minutes later, when I've reached my street, I take out my phone. I can see the lamp I leave on outside. Even if her killer approached her in the glaring brightness of a bridal shop, something in me leaves it on for Jill Meagher, as if it could light her way back in time, in a flashback to safety. Maybe the difference between men and women is that open field of fear, which can pour darkness like an inverted light into the world. The march down Sydney Road felt like an effort at
appeasement
, to conciliate some wild goddess of fear. Donning the face of the Taliban, Bush or bin Laden, fear can turn on us, like those Dürer spectres, riding with a scythe on the open road to war. Then I see the sanded wood of the front door. Sometimes I imagine the house was built around it rather than the opposite. I wonder if the cat is still there. I write my text to Bernice and co. Then I glance down for Kim's message. There are two, but they're not from Kim.

‘Strange cat in house, lording over place. Fridge abysmally empty. Have we eaten EVERYTHING? Gone shopping.' Then: ‘Where are you, my sweetheart? Fridge bulging now.'

At first I don't get it. I read them over and over. But they are both from the same number – Jack's number.

I am about four steps away.

Acknowledgements

I've always read acknowledgements with curiosity and puzzlement. Like condolences and marriage vows, they state the obvious, telling other people of a private fact. But by the same token saying thank you is a recognition. A friend who studied Ancient Greek told me once that the meaning of the word friendship was ‘to recognise'. I have recognised Australia, and Brunswick in particular, the very first day I came here, loving the bold sky and the whimsical individuals who make you feel safe but never complacent. I recognise Paul, Elanor, Ryan, Vanessa, Stef, Rochelle, David, Nige, Penny, Anna, Françoise, Lanky Paul, Bea, Barb, Jake, Pip, David E, Emmanuel, Helen M, Patrick, Helen P and Roger. I owe so much to those I love, as does this story.

Also by Catherine de Saint Phalle

N'Ecartez pas la Brume!
Actes Sud
Moby
Actes Sud
Après la Nuit
Actes Sud
Nous Sommes tous
des
Carthaginois
Buchet-Chastel
Sous un Ciel Immense
Sabine Wespieser Editeur

Catherine de Saint Phalle
has had five novels published in France. In 2003 she moved to Australia because the sky is bigger and the people are warmer. A French tutor, she also curates a small art gallery in Brunswick, where she is ensconced with her partner, a poet and bookseller.