The Other Side of the World (13 page)

She stays there all day. They talk and drink more tea. They go out into the garden. Everything that moves seems alive. The shadow of the tree branches on the grass. The dappled light on the dark lower boughs of the tree. There are soft circles of light
that widen then shrink as the leaves above lift and open in the breeze. Then comes a quick gust of wind, and the flickering of light makes it seem as if the trees are shivering.

They sit beneath the plum that in the strange weather has not lost its foliage, and in the green shade her legs look terribly white. Around them are mandarin trees, lemon and orange. Some leaves curl and hold the light. Others droop, letting the light slip and fall. Strings of spiderweb glitter between the branches. Birds sing further out, the sound higher up, floating above the human voices. What she wants, she realizes, is a witness to her life. Someone who can affirm what is true. She is thinking of the doubt that has grown between her and Henry, how neither of them believes the other's story, the other's version of historical truth. Why they moved, why they must or must not stay. Who they moved for. There is something impoverishing about this mutual mistrust, this mutual suspicion—something mean, and they do not know how to rise above it. Yet both are nostalgic for the same thing: the good life, or at least the fantasy of it.

She does not remember traveling home. She remembers moving but does not know how. Was it the bus, or a taxi, or did someone drive her? She remembers images: the light moving between the trees, the sight of water, then no water, then water again. There is the memory, further back, of children wading, of the sky through dark branches, of the sun pushing its way through dense canopy. At lunchtime she and Nicholas had packed a picnic and they all walked down to the sea. There were green apples, ham ­sandwiches, tea from a thermos. Seagulls squawked in the air above. Then everything seemed terribly bright, too bright; something flashed at the corners of her eyes.

She feels a coolness against her skin now as a cold flannel is pressed to her forehead.

Then it is removed, dipped in water—the sound of ice against the edge of a bowl—and replaced, the cloth again cool and damp on her face. Henry is beside her, stroking her arm; the room is dark, the window is dark. “You have a migraine. It was the midday sun,” he says. “The brightness of it.” The same thing used to happen to his mother in Delhi. He sits beside the bed and tells Charlotte these stories: of the heat, the gold haze of the sky, the birds of prey drifting above the city. He tells her of his mother, vanishing for days into her darkened room, attended to by whispering servants bearing heavy silver trays that never held more than a fine porcelain cup filled with beef tea. Charlotte reaches out and takes hold of Henry's hand. “What happened today?” he asks, but she just closes her eyes. “There now,” he says, stroking her arm. “Sleep now,” he says. Now, she thinks, now, now, now.

When she wakes it is just after two in the morning. She slips out of bed and goes to the garage. The migraine feels like a black hole into which the day has vanished. The afternoon seems to have occurred so long ago, and in her mind's eye it appears ­smaller because of this: Nicholas, the scene in the conservatory, the trip home, the cool water on her forehead—all this has shrunk in her memory, so distant, so small in her mind, like a miniature; the room is small, the people are small, as if she is peering at the scene from a great height.

She switches on the light and squints against the bare bulb. Her head is tender and her body feels light, as though she's emerged from days of fever. She drags the painting from its place behind the boxes and pulls the blanket away. Then she sets to
work, filling in the mouth, broadening the forehead, blocking in the blue of his shirt. All painting is done from memory, she reasons. Even when Henry sits before her, she turns away from him every time she makes a mark, holding the image of his face in her mind and matching it to the image on the canvas.

Henry gets up in the night for a glass of water and sees the light on in the garage.
What happened today?
She still has not answered. The water is cool and tastes of river. He has been dreaming—they were on their way to Africa. He wanted to take Charlotte on ­safari. He thought there was nothing much to the dream, but as he looks out across the dark yard the memory of it comes back to him. “There are lions and tigers and bears,” he'd said to her—
lions and tigers and bears!
He held out a guidebook, and on the front was a photograph of an elephant and a leopard. “I don't want to die at the hands of a wild animal,” Charlotte said.

“Wild animals don't have hands.”

“I don't want to be chased, eaten, squashed in a stampede, lost in the jungle—”

She pretends she is not afraid of things, but Henry knows she is—she is afraid of insects, spiders, snakes, very large dogs and very small dogs, mice, heights, swimming over seaweed. “You will be happy there,” he said.

“How can you predict the future?”

“Because I am getting older and once you are my age you have been into the future many times.”

He knows she is out there painting. Is it still the portrait? Something happened today. He feels afraid of this.

With the winter nights, rats have come to nest in the roof. In the dark, when the house is quiet, he hears them—they scratch
and make strange clicking, hissing noises that must be their speech. They are there now. Above him in the kitchen. The sound makes him shiver. He hears one gnawing low down at the wall near the oven, trying to make a hole. He stamps then, to frighten it. The scratching stops a moment, then starts again. He puts his glass on the draining rack and goes back to bed. He tries to stay awake for Charlotte's return, so as to ask her what she's doing, but she doesn't come to bed, and when he wakes again it is light and Charlotte has already dressed in fresh clothes and set out the bowls and plates for breakfast.

A
few days later the phone rings. The children are taking their morning nap and Charlotte gets up quickly to answer the call, not wanting the sound to wake them. The book she is reading slips off her lap.

“Gretta is sad,” Nicholas says. His voice surprises her—she had forgotten she'd given him her number. “I think she misses the children,” he continues. “I thought I might take her for a walk by the river over your way. Would you join me?”

“I'd love to,” she says, “but the girls are sleeping.” She looks down at her yellowed copy of
Mrs Dalloway
lying on the floor. There is a chair in the kitchen that is always in sunlight and she's been sitting there, reading. This is one of her most treasured ­moments of the day, the house quiet, still. Today she has been reading the opening pages of the book over and over again; Clarissa setting out for flowers.
What a lark! What a plunge!
It makes her think of Lucie as a baby, riding on ­Henry's shoulders as they walked down Oxford Street in London in the spring—Lucie's hair lifting in the breeze and her chubby arms waving in delight above her head, the child laughing, ­chortling, thrilled by the height and the crowds, Henry holding fast to her legs.

“Couldn't you come when they wake?”

“Well, yes, I suppose. But dinner—”

“Oh, come on, the rain has stopped and it's a beautiful day.”

Something always surprises her. Today he seems taller than she first thought. When he tilts his head towards Gretta his soft hair
falls forwards over his eyes. Gretta licks and jumps at the children, leaping one way, then the other, and eventually falling over sideways in excitement. Three brown ducks skid across the smooth river and Gretta lunges after them, thundering into the water. Nicholas throws the ball further out, past the ducks, and Gretta swims to fetch it, forgetting about the hunt. The sky has grown overcast, a white circle of sun just visible through the film of cloud.

Gretta comes back with the ball. Nicholas picks it up and throws it out across the grass, then wipes his hands on the front of his trousers. Dog slobber and mud. His hands remind her of her father's hands, thick and veined, the white skin gathering a reddish tinge. Again and again the ball vanishes into the distance, Gretta and the children racing after it.

Charlotte is starting to like the path by the river, perhaps even love it a little. Yet she feels somehow troubled by this, as if it is a betrayal of sorts, something to be suspicious of. As if this flicker of affection is not part of her real feelings, or at least not as strong as her real feelings, and thus shouldn't be permitted—as if this new sentiment were trespassing in some way.

It would make life easier to feel this—to feel real affection for this new place. It would make Henry happy. But she is afraid—without clear reason—that it would necessarily lessen her feelings for home. As if there were only so much affection, so much loyalty, to be portioned out. It is the same kind of fear, she ­realizes, that she felt when pregnant with May. Would she have enough love for a second child? Would it mean giving up some of the love for her first? How mad that seems now—the foolishness of not seeing, not knowing, that such love simply doubles, triples, quadruples as required. Unless one refuses, of course—unless one resists.

At some point they leave the river and walk beneath the pines. Beneath the trees it is always dark. Small wedges of light shine down through the spaces between the needles.

“And the portrait?” Nicholas asks.

“Yes,” she says, dropping her voice as if sharing a secret, “it is almost finished.”

He nods as if this news satisfies him. “And how do you know when it's finished?” he asks. She likes the way he begins his questions as if picking up in the middle of a long chain of thoughts: and, and, and.

“I suppose,” she says, “when it is no longer changeable, for better or worse.”

They have become friends. Or conspirators. Something, anyway, that Charlotte does not quite understand. They walk further into the trees.

“There was a man once who became a priest because I didn't marry him,” says Charlotte.

“Was he terribly ugly?” Nicholas laughs.

“No, not at all. I just didn't know he wanted to marry me.”

“He didn't ask you?”

“Apparently he was going to, but then he heard I was engaged to Henry.”

“What makes you think of this?”

“I don't know—walking here with you, thinking about the other lives we all might have led. Other lives and other places.”

The path turns uphill and the trees thin. Overhead, clouds break apart and windy light ripples the long grass. The yellow blooms of dandelions nod at the ground. They talk about Duccio's flat panels of face, Bacon's smears. Lucie runs ahead, then comes back and takes hold of Charlotte's hand. She tugs at Charlotte, pulls her round. As she does so she begins to sing—
Ring a ring o'
rosies, a pocket full of posies.
The light, high voice of a child
.
Charlotte joins her, the two of them singing together, their outstretched arms and interlocked hands forming a rough diamond. Charlotte looks down at her child, the top of her hair brown, the long ends blond, even white, lightened by the sun. And below this the small dress decorated with a pattern of violets, its skirt fanning out over the grass.
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down!
Nicholas claps as Charlotte and Lucie land on the ground. The last wild frangipani leaves sway up above, the branches wobbling, making light appear and disappear through the shifting triangles of green. The sky seems far away, the sun close. Nearby a boy flies a yellow kite. The kite is ­arrow-shaped, with a long rainbow tassel for a tail. The boy holds the line tight while the kite noses the high air, dipping and ­tugging—the wind strong. It looks alive up there, an animal trying to escape its invisible tether, eager to follow the pull and blow.

They part company at River Drive. Nicholas reaches out and takes Charlotte's hand. He holds it too gently, and for a moment too long. She feels his palm against hers, soft and dry. There is ink under the nails of his right hand. They stand at the corner of the street, the sun in Charlotte's eyes. “See you soon, I hope,” he says. Behind him is the copse of pines they have just walked through, the trees dark against the bright white sky.

While Charlotte is out walking, Henry arrives at work to find his office locked. His books are boxed up and his name on the door replaced by another. The secretary points the way to his new ­office, a poky little room at the end of a brick alley in the far corner of the courtyard. It is smaller than the last, and its narrow, dirty window looks out onto another brick wall. He pushes at the window but it will not open. Some new professor has moved
into Henry's old office. Someone American. Young and already famous, so the rumors go.

While Henry is unpacking his books there is a knock at the door. It's Collins. “I'm sorry about all this,” he says, waving an arm in the direction of Henry's files and papers now spread across the floor. “It was a last-minute thing. We'll have you back in the other room for next year.”

“It's quite all right,” says Henry. “I understand.” Of course he understands. It is clear to him that they both understand everything. He pushes a book into place on the shelf.

“Actually,” Collins says, glancing down, “I came by on another matter.”

“Oh?”

“I'm afraid there's been a change of plan. A change of numbers. That new course you planned—on Yeats. We might have to postpone it. There's just not the numbers.”

“But I thought—”

“Yes, there was interest. But it clashes with the course on Donne, and I'm afraid the numbers there were greater, and it's been running for a long time, that one. Be a terrible shame to stop it now. It's almost a tradition in these parts.”

“What about something else, something new? Something to catch their interest.”

“Their interest?” Collins asks, confused.

“Something modern.”

“It would have to be discussed. But I suppose if they're all reading it anyway—Plath and Larkin and all that—well, why study it? Anyway, let's raise it at the next meeting.”

“Yes, I see.”

“Next year, though, we'll have you back in your old room and you can run Yeats then. Although it would be good to teach a
poet whose name the students know how to pronounce. Anyway, Donne doesn't run first semester.”

“Yes, of course,” says Henry, picking up another book from the box. “Yes, I understand. Thank you.”

“Good then,” Collins says. He makes to leave but then turns back. “By the way, I'm thinking of writing something on Hardy. The elegies, actually. Incredible poems, aren't they? Don't know why I'd never thought of it before. I'd appreciate a chat when you've got time: pick your brain and so on. Anyway”—he knocks a light fist on the doorframe—“I'll be in touch.”

Henry is left standing, book in hand, as Collins's footsteps fade down the alley. Collins is a medievalist. What is he thinking, taking up the Victorians? He's moving in on Henry's territory, that's what. Crowding him out.

Australia is a land that offers a vision of the world as it was at creation, a country of new beginnings. It is where one comes when one needs to feel close to the original ferment of the earth. That is the story, is it not? Great men have become part of this place in one way or another and Henry has made it his business to know of these things. Two of Charles Dickens's sons came out to make their lives here; both Joseph Conrad and Thackeray walked around Sydney Harbour; Alfred Marshall built up his economic theories based on money made through the labor of convicts and Aboriginals. It is not a bad place. But it is not quite what Henry thought it would be. It is not the free place he was promised. There is freedom looking up into the sky, and when he tends the vegetable garden, or plays with his children, but not everywhere. He should have seen it coming. “Where did you say you're from?” Something like that. Of course it was
something
like that.

Once more no one knows quite who, or what, he is meant to be. He experienced this in England, but it is worse here—with his
Queen's English and his strange-colored skin. Just last week he noticed a small article in the newspaper about migrants going home. “I miss the BBC,” one woman was reported to have said. And sure enough, everybody likes his voice because it reminds them of England or of the voice they'd like for themselves. The voice of the homeland. The voice of the clever and the worldly. But his voice and his appearance do not fit. Not here. Perhaps not anywhere.

He cannot have been what they were expecting. A British citizen, according to the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act of 1914, which deemed all people of the colonies and dominions British subjects. Had his parents known of the changes that were coming? Was that why they hurried Henry out of India? By 1948 the Nationality Act had been forever altered, and under this new legislation it was quite possible he'd never have made it into England, and certainly not Australia. Under this act he'd never pass as white, not officially, not on paper. Could he prove the British ancestry on his paternal side? The stories were all there but he'd never seen the documents. As it happens, he is deemed a white Australian by default. Because he is legally British, and British in dress, custom, and family ways. Yes, they ate roast on Sundays. Yes, they went to church. Yes, they were members of the tennis club. Because he is British he traveled on an assisted passage to this mythical country. Utopia—that is how he described it to Charlotte. They didn't interview him for the job. They had no idea what he looked like. He was coming from England, that was what they knew. And now what? He's been moved to a poky little office, his course has been cut, and Collins is preparing to stake his claim. It is over, that is what he thinks. I am done.

His hands tremble as he fastens the buttons on his coat. The buttons are large and covered in cloth and the holes are a little too
small. He will go home and see his children. That is all he wants these days, the company of his family. It will not be long now. Just a short drive and he'll be home. Will they have eaten lunch? Will they all sit down together? And little Lucie, what will she tell him about her adventures? He never imagined he'd be impatient to talk to a two-year-old, but as he drops his notebook into his briefcase and turns to leave he knows that is all he wants, all he needs.