The Stranding (31 page)

Now she looked at the shoes and quickly stuffed them in a string bag. She slipped into her old boots and a worn grey coat and dashed for the Kombi.

She pulled up at the far end of Alexander’s car park and strapped on the shoes before getting out. There was no doubt she was an embarrassment. It was obvious she had no idea how to walk in these things. She shuffled across the gravel, feeling knock-kneed and mincing.

Stepping out along the walkway past the gallery windows, she caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the glass. It was a shock. Despite the unpolished walk, she looked like some smart leggy chick from out of town. She had never felt long-legged, sexy or busty before, but the girl striding along in the reflection, with gently bent knees and a red pouty mouth, was bordering on sophisticated. Quickly she glanced away. Best she didn’t look. The image scared her. If she thought too long, she might flick the shoes off into the thicket of grevilleas and run flat-footed out of here.

Alexander caught her hesitating at the door. He appraised her with a quick professional eye then gave her a friendly hug. ‘You look gorgeous.’ He hooked his arm through hers and led her across the room to his office to pour her a glass of champagne. ‘Thank God you didn’t go to Beryl’s. I would have had to call in someone to second for you this evening.’ He gave her a fond, coquettish smile. ‘They looked after you in that little boutique, didn’t they?’

Callista remembered the sales girl’s nod when she’d said Alexander had sent her. She guessed now that he had called ahead with a few hints and ideas.

‘I feel like a freak.’

Alexander clinked his champagne flute against hers. ‘But my colleagues from Sydney will love you. And that’s what counts. When your shoes start hurting about eight o’clock, just remember you’re doing it for show, to manipulate their money out of their hip pockets.’

‘I would have thought paintings had to sell themselves.’

‘Ah yes. But image helps.’

‘I hate it.’

‘I know. But you really do look gorgeous.’

Callista stood with her back to the gallery. She was afraid to look, and it was too dark anyway, with the shadows of early evening falling over the unlit space. Alexander watched her twisting the stem of her glass nervously between her fingers. He topped up their glasses.

‘You’ll need more of this. We need to have you relaxed before they all come.’

‘Are you expecting many?’

‘Hordes,’ he said, rolling the word deliciously. ‘There’s at least a dozen waiting in my house already.’

Callista glanced nervously over her shoulder towards the door. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘Scouts’ honour. They’re in there drinking wine and discussing the Sydney art scene.’

‘Why not have them over here?’

Alexander’s smile spread across his face. ‘Waiting for the right light, darling. I’ve placed all the spotlights for nighttime. And you never get a second chance to make a first impression.’

‘Just the dozen from the big smoke?’

‘God, no. They’re coming in cars and aeroplanes as we speak. Merrigan airfield is going to make Sydney International Airport look like a country strip.’

‘You’re teasing, but I’d better drink more champagne anyway. I’m not used to being a showpiece.’

He laughed. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, darling. You’re a showpiece every day of your life with that gorgeous face and smile. Just as well you don’t realise it.’

He set down his champagne glass and walked past Callista into the gallery.

‘Are you going to come and take a look?’ he said. ‘It’s time to light up. Only fifteen minutes to opening.’

She followed him nervously into the darkened space. He stopped her in the middle of the room while he went for the light switches. In rapid succession the gallery lit up with soft light that was sufficiently bright on the paintings but created surprising warmth in the rest of the room. Sudden excitement set her heart fluttering as she glanced around. The paintings leapt at her, alive and arresting. They were good. And Alexander was a master.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ he asked, a pleased smile curling his thinnish lips. ‘And keep those wide round eyes for the buyers, will you. They’re wasted on me.’

By seven thirty the room was crowded and buzzing. Conversation bounced noisily off the bare wooden floors and walls and mounted a cascading sense of excitement. Bodies shifted around the room, mingling, chatting, laughing, perusing. Smartly dressed Sydney people wandered among the jovial Merrigan crowd who were mostly wearing their usual garb of wool knits, floral dresses and flannelette shirts.

For Callista it was like riding on a wave. People surged constantly towards her and around her, congratulating her, shaking her hand, wanting a piece of her. Swanky city men eyed her cleavage, the curves of her figure. They pressed close. Flushed pink with excitement and champagne she tried not to notice, allowed it to happen, so that interest flashed in their eyes and they swung into a second perusal of her paintings. It was just what Alexander wanted. She worked hard to play the game.

Red ‘sold’ spots quickly appeared on the title tags. Alexander moved smoothly through the crowd, smiling and nodding, passing comments with the suits from the big smoke, accepting their handshakes, topping up glasses.

In between city onslaughts, locals swarmed around Callista, patting her on the back, smiling proudly and declaring her ‘our Callista’, like she was another exhibit on show. The room was packed. Almost the whole town was there. Even Helen Beck, slinking shyly between the exhibits with Darren’s hand gripped tightly in hers. Mrs Jensen stalked around the room looking important, her husband Denis shuffling along behind her. Sue was busily engaged in conversation with John Watson. She was too much of everything tonight—too large, too bright, too loud. But it didn’t matter in this room, thick with people and atmosphere.

Even Jordi popped in for a while. He darted furtively around the paintings, inspecting them closely, then left like a shadow after a brief wave across the room. Her parents had made an effort as well. Jimmy had clipped his beard and borrowed a suit from someone in town, and her mother had scoured all the shops in the region to find something that was her style but not too hippie. She looked proud and radiant in a long loose orange dress with a low-cut neckline.

Then there was Lex. He was smooth and neat in jeans and a white casual shirt. But he was too often by the bar, refilling his glass and watching her intensely. She knew he was agitated by the men close around her, by the invasive fingers placed on her shoulders, the eyes on her breasts. Every time she looked around the room, her eyes clashed with his. There was tension in his shoulders, anger in his cheeks. She made her eyes flow by him, as if she had barely noticed him. Otherwise, how could she hold him off? How could she keep him away?

She was afraid of him tonight. With all that wine on board and the jealousy smouldering in his eyes, he could ruin it. She hoped she could trust him not to stage a scene if he got too drunk.

‘What’s with Mr Henderson this evening?’ Alexander asked, refilling her glass.

Callista watched the bubbles fizzing and popping.

‘We were together a while ago.’

‘Ah, the jealous ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t like you getting all this attention, eh? Do you think I can persuade him to buy something? He ought to have city money. Unless he’s spent it all in the bottle shop.’

‘That’s a bit unfair.’

‘I hear he kept them in business when he first arrived in town.’

‘Alexander, you’ve become a gossip.’

‘And I’m loving it.’ He pecked her on the cheek. ‘There’s so much intrigue in this little town. Who’d have ever imagined.’ He leaned in close to whisper in her ear. ‘I’m going to give my friends a private viewing of Mr Beck after this.’

‘You’re not.’

‘I just want to seek their opinions.’

‘I should never have shown it to you.’

‘But you did. And you’ll just have to trust me.’ He smiled and tickled her chin and moved off through the crowd to tackle Lex.

When Lex arrived at the gallery, there was a tight knot of city people around Callista. Alexander was introducing her to a cluster of visitors, all dressed in suits. Lex smiled quietly to himself. Callista looked like a scared rabbit in the spotlight. For a while he stood at the edge of things, watching her as she smiled and shook hands with people. She was unbelievably stunning. He had never seen her with make-up before.

Then Sue found him.

‘Lex. How are you doing tonight?’

‘I’m good,’ he said.

‘Heard you took a tumble at the Show.’

‘Ben Hackett’s damned bull.’

‘What a shame. Perhaps somebody should have told you about that.’

‘Perhaps they should have. The country grapevine let me down.’

Sue laughed and moved on to collect another glass of champagne.

He stood by himself a moment, smiling at various people in the crowd who waved at him, then Sally tapped him on the arm. She was wearing a large skirt and a long white T-shirt. He imagined this was about as dressed up as she could manage.

‘Have you seen the paintings?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. I’ve just arrived.’

‘They’re amazing. You won’t recognise the place.’

He smiled. ‘I thought the idea of landscape paintings was that I should recognise the place.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘What I’m saying is they’re good. She’s incredible.’

‘Where are the kids?’

‘I left them with Merv, my new fella. You know how it is . . . not much fun coming out to something like this with kids hanging all over you . . . Have you got a drink?’

‘No. I’d better get one.’

He found a glass of wine at a white-clothed table. It was too full so he sucked off the first inch quickly, feeling the cool moisture condensed on the glass. Politely, he skirted a conversing circle of people he didn’t know and swung out into the crush to view Callista’s paintings.

As he stood in front of the first of them, he felt time stop. The painting was of his beach, the headland illuminated by a flash of lightning that shattered a menacing purple-black sky. He could almost feel the wind whipping up the sea and lacerating the clouds. This was a shock. He hadn’t expected Callista to be so good.

Slowly he moved around the room from painting to painting, waiting for the crowd to shift so he could get a clear view of each of them. The collection followed the lifetime of the storm and then its retreat to impossibly calm seas beneath a steely grey sky with stray shafts of creamy light cutting through onto restless surf. Then there was a series of works depicting a range of ocean moods: chopped by fresh winds, frisky in bright light, calm at dawn, reflective and still at dusk, silvered by moonlight.

The exhibition was more than the storm. It was a celebration of light over water and the dark powerful moodiness of the sea. It was a festival of movement, of shadow, of tone, of change. Callista had married herself with the light. She was excellent.

The final painting was one he recognised. It was the quiet sunset moon over water that he had seen at Callista’s house that first time he had visited. He clearly remembered the soothing pinks and mauves. He remembered her distraction and withdrawal when he had pulled this painting out. It seemed such a long time ago, when all was unknown and everything was possible. It was hard to believe he had made love with this woman, had shared his body and his bed with her. Yet he barely knew her. He had hardly scraped the surface of her. And it made him feel suddenly urgent. He needed her. He needed to know her, to have her, to discover her rich complexity. His feelings surprised him. They were hot, bloody and intense, and came from deep within his chest. The distance to her across the room was like a gulf. Inside him anger tumbled and he wondered if he was too late. It all seemed so far away.

He left the paintings and moved back to the wine table, found a space at the edge of the throng. He watched Callista across the room, couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Those men around her, they were wearing their interest in their eyes. He saw their hands intruding on her space, watched them pushing too close, trying to possess something of her. It made him angry, the way they moved in on her like that, as if she was something for sale too. There were invitations, he was sure. He saw her blush often and turn away.

Alexander came over with a small, knowing smirk and a bottle to refresh his glass. Callista must have told him they had been lovers. It made him feel small.

‘What do you think?’ Alexander asked, pouring a glass for himself.

‘She’s magnificent.’

‘Yes, isn’t she?’ Alexander offered to clink glasses.

‘Wine’s good too.’

‘I see that you’re enjoying yourself.’

‘And holding it like a gentleman.’

Alexander turned his back on the room briefly. ‘You should consider buying one.’

‘I’d have to ask her which one she’d like me to have.’

‘But then she’d have to give it to you. And that wouldn’t be fair.’ He topped up Lex’s glass and looked him daringly in the eye. ‘Which one do you think she’d choose for you? Surely you know.’

‘Perhaps I don’t know her as well as I thought,’ Lex said, with a smile like plastic. ‘But thanks for the suggestion. I’ll think about it.’

Alexander moved on to mingle strategically with his guests, and Lex drank. He drank through the opening speeches, through the escalating noisy conversations as wine loosened tongues and wallets, just as Alexander had planned. He drank close to the bitter end, when the crowd thinned and people drifted off to their cars in the crammed car park. He drank, watching those men from the city standing too close to Callista, touching her while she laughed and smiled and avoided his eyes.

Callista left finally, after having a nightcap champagne with Alexander and giving him a delighted hug. The gallery lights switched off as she stepped onto the walkway, but he left on the outside light for her so she could find her way to the car. She knew he would go straight back to the house where there was more entertaining and more drinking to be done with his guests.

Alone in the silver night, the ache in her legs and feet reminded her of the strappy shoes and she bent to pull them off, then the stockings, which felt tight and unfamiliar against her legs. Her feet spread gratefully on the wooden walkway and she felt pleasantly reconnected with herself as she padded towards the car.