Trust (21 page)

Susanna frowned. That didn’t sound right. Finn had never, as far as she knew, suffered any kind of physical punishment. Sometimes, in private, Gerry had expressed to her the view that a smack on the behind might do the kid good, but neither they nor Angie would ever do such a thing.

‘Angie doesn’t believe in smacking children,’ she reminded Stella-Jean.

‘I know. But what about Gabriel? I’ll bet
he
does! Mum, I want you to talk to Auntie Ange. Please. Just ask her to — I dunno, to keep an eye on how Gabriel is with Finn. She really respects you; no one else could say it to her, but you could.’

Susanna thought about it. ‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll catch up with her later in the week.’

‘And you’ll talk to her about Finn?’

‘I will.’

‘Promise?’ Stella-Jean persisted.

‘I promise.’ Her daughter’s face cleared, and Susanna cast about in her mind for some way to maintain this amity. ‘Sweetie, my bag’s somewhere down by your feet,’ she said. ‘I think there’s an invitation that one of my students sent me. A show at some new arts studio. Could you check the date for me?’

Stella-Jean hauled the bag onto her lap and fossicked. ‘Is this it?’ She was holding up a card, a jewel-bright painting of a jowly white boxer dog dressed in a sparkly tutu and sitting on a flying trapeze. A pink banner above the dog’s head read
Come fly with us at Studio Lulu’s Annual Summer Show.
‘That’s pretty cute,’ she said.

‘When’s the opening? Today?’

‘Yep. All day, ten a.m. to ten p.m.’ Stella-Jean flipped the card over. ‘ “Studio Lulu, where artists fly”,’ she read aloud. ‘ “Star-spangled group show, studios for rent, new class schedule”. What sort of artists?’

‘All sorts, I gather.’

‘Are you going?’

‘I was thinking I might, yeah,’ Susanna said casually. ‘It’s quite close to here, up near the bridge. I think a few of my students will be there.’

‘Yeah? Can I come with you?’

It was exactly what Susanna had hoped she’d say. ‘If you like,’ she shrugged, cool as any teenager, as she turned smoothly into their driveway. ‘Sure.’

Stella-Jean nodded. ‘Mum?’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘Can we go to Bali at Easter, then? Just for a week?’

Susanna turned off the engine and dropped her forehead to the steering wheel with a soft thud. ‘You don’t let up, do you?’

‘Pretty please?’

Susanna sighed. ‘Maybe.’

‘Is that like a sixty-per-cent-yes maybe, or eighty per cent, or … ?’

‘It’s a be-incredibly-nice-to-your-mother-and-we-might-discuss-it maybe.’

‘Cool,’ said Stella-Jean. ‘I’ll find out about sending Putu some samples ahead of time.’ She started hauling the market gear out of the back of the car. ‘Maybe I can even bring some new stock back with me!’

Could I have just a quarter of your confidence? That’d be all I need.

Within minutes of arriving at Studio Lulu, Stella-Jean, freshly outfitted, was mingling seamlessly with a gaggle of young people, a couple of Susanna’s students among them, all talking and laughing animatedly as they admired the eclectic range of art on show. From the other side of the crowded gallery, Susanna caught her daughter’s eye and signalled that she was going to explore upstairs.

The large building was a former factory, close to the river in a part of town that had left its industrial past well behind. The gallery area shared the ground floor with a printmaking workshop and a picture framer’s; a floor plan showed the artists’ studios and classrooms on the two floors above. Susanna made her way up the broad wooden staircase, ducking round knots of people who’d stopped to have conversations halfway up or down. She overheard several references to a person called Vinnie who was, she gathered, the owner or the manager – or both, perhaps – of the complex. She pictured a guy rather like Gerry: smart and charming, with all the vision and drive you’d need to put together a place like this. When she asked about the classes that had been mentioned on the invite, she was directed to the far end of the top floor.

STUDIO LULU 2009 CLASSES – STARTING FEBRUARY was emblazoned along the top of a noticeboard, with a big arrow pointing to classroom B, adjacent, where one could sign up. A cluster of people studied the board’s notices. ‘Rita Olsen – I’ve heard she’s a really good teacher,’ said one, pointing, and when they’d moved away Susanna stepped forward to look at the notice they’d been reading, with that shivery sense that she knew what it was going to say. Yes!
Life drawing
. A fetching graphic of the white boxer, dressed this time in an artists’ smock and standing at an easel drawing another dog, unclothed and with one paw behind its head in a classic life model’s pose – plus the more practical information, like dates, times, cost.

In classroom B, a woman of about forty with shaggy, dark, shoulder-length hair was showing the group who’d been at the noticeboard around. Susanna tagged along unobtrusively, and when they’d written down their names and contact details and left, she stepped forward. The woman gave her a broad, welcoming smile and Susanna noticed a flash of gold and a big gap between her two upper front teeth.
Germaine Greer, that’s who she looks like
.
If Germaine Greer had decided to become a pirate.

‘Are you interested in one of the classes? Ask away!’ the woman said.

‘Oh, I — yes, actually. The life drawing class.’

‘Excellent!’ A clipboard full of enrolment forms was right beside the woman, on a tall table, but instead of asking Susanna to fill one in, she hoisted herself lithely to the table and sat there, swinging her legs in their faded blue jeans. ‘So, tell us about yourself. Done any life drawing before?’

To her own surprise, Susanna found herself explaining not only about teaching at the college, but about the exhibition she was committed to having, and even about the difficulties she’d been having in getting going with it.

‘You don’t have a studio of your own to work in, then?’ the woman asked.

‘Not really,’ said Susanna, leaning her hip against the table. ‘At work I’m – well, I’m at work. I used to have a studio at home. Once upon a time.’

‘Don’t tell me: and then you had kids. Right?’

‘Yeah. And what with one thing and another … And then, once I didn’t have my own space, I seemed to slowly just … stop painting,’ Susananna confessed. The woman was nodding knowingly. ‘Familiar story, huh?’

‘My, my, it sure is. Half the artists renting studios here are women desperate for a bit of space that’s not the kids’. Or the partner’s.’

‘Is that so? I didn’t realise I’d become part of a … I don’t know, a
syndrome
.’

‘It kind of sneaks up on you,’ the woman said, and was about to say something further when a young man interrupted, waving at them from the door in apparent relief before turning to call to someone behind him, ‘
Here
she is, Lulu!’

A white dog, a boxer, raced up, wagging her stumpy tail so hard her whole back end sashayed from side to side. ‘Lulu! Couldn’t you find me, baby?’ the woman cried, jumping down from the table to greet the dog, who rested its front paws on her thighs, jowly face wreathed in a toothy canine grin.

‘There’s a photographer from the local paper downstairs, Vinnie,’ the young man said. ‘Shall I send her up?’

‘Nah, I’ll come down,’ the woman said. ‘Just give me a few minutes to get my make-up on.’ They both laughed at her joke, and the guy disappeared.

‘
Vinnie
?’ Susanna said. ‘You’re Vinnie? Are you the —’ She made a big circular motion to indicate the whole building.

Vinnie grinned, showing that gap in her teeth and the bold buccaneering flash of gold. ‘Yup, that’s me. Vinnie Loggia; I run this three-ring circus.’ She stuck out her right hand; Susanna shook it and introduced herself, admitting too her assumption that Vinnie would be a guy. The woman waved her chagrin aside.

‘And now,’ Susanna said, ‘I must go and find my daughter. She’s downstairs somewhere, soaking up the ambiance.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ said Vinnie. ‘You’re not getting out of here without signing up for the life drawing class. I reckon you should do Rita’s, she’s an outstanding teacher. So outstanding, I’m doing the class myself. Again!’

Susanna began filling out the form, pleased to think she’d be seeing this vivid, welcoming woman again.

‘Rita’s class starts next Thursday evening, seven till nine. No time for second thoughts or cold tootsies, Susanna Greenfield, mother of two, teacher.
Artist
.’

Susanna handed her the completed form, grinning with oddly embarrassed delight.

‘And on our way downstairs,’ Vinnie went on, ‘I’ll show you a couple of studios. There’s none spare at the moment, I’m afraid, someone just signed up for the last vacant space, but your name’ll be at the top of the waiting list.’

‘Oh, I don’t need – a … studio …’ Susanna’s voice trailed away.

‘The very top of the list,’ Vinnie repeated, giving Susanna’s shoulder a little shake and grinning her gap-toothed grin.

Throughout the Nadal–Federer final that evening, both Gerry and Seb had texted Susanna nail-biting bulletins from courtside. By the time they got home at two a.m. they were still wild with excitement and woke Susanna, who’d fallen asleep watching it on the TV. She listened, blinking, to their blow-by-blow description, until eventually she felt compelled to remind Gerry that he was flying to New York in the morning.

‘S’right, Dad,’ said Seb. ‘And it’s the middle of winter there, right? You’re gonna get off that plane and be freezing your arse off.’

‘Ah, I’m looking forward to it,’ said Gerry breezily. ‘Refreshing, after roasting here all summer. You’ve never seen snow falling, have you, Sebbie? It’s amazing. Beautiful.’

‘Right, sure, I believe you,’ said Seb, and after reminding Gerry again of the brand of T-shirt he wanted him to bring back, he hugged him, and Susanna too for good measure, and went off, yawning hugely, to his room.

‘Seb’s a good kid,’ Gerry said with satisfaction as they were getting ready for bed. ‘They both are.’

‘They’ve got a good dad,’ said Susanna fondly.

‘Their mum’s not half bad either,’ he said, winking at her. ‘What’d you get up to today, Suze? Anything exciting?’

She told him briefly about Stella-Jean’s coup with the Degraves Street boutique. ‘And then we went to an art show together, at a local gallery. Quite interesting.’

‘Sounds good,’ he said, pulling her close for a cuddle. He would be away for two weeks; they made comfortable love.

Afterward, when he was spooned around her and she couldn’t see his face, she screwed up her courage to say, ‘Gerry, can I ask you … what did you think of my drawings?’ The easel with her self-portraits clipped to it was still standing in a corner of their bedroom, unremarked on.

‘These new ones? Of yourself?’ He was hedging.
He doesn’t think they’re any good.
‘Well, pidge … I think you look better than that. I
like
your curvy bits, you know,’ he said, and she smiled to herself, thinking how much he would hate knowing that he and Angie had said almost the same thing. ‘But they’re honest, I guess, and that’s you, eh? Honest.’ He dropped a couple of kisses on her shoulder. ‘An open book, that’s my Suze.’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly. She would’ve liked more, but – what had she expected?
They’re not art critics.
She decided to be pleased. Both Gerry and Angie had confused their feelings for her with their opinion of the work, but that was all right.
And it’s true: I am an honest person
. She liked that her husband had said that. The fact that she had neglected to tell him about the visit from Angie, or the talk with Stella-Jean about Finn, or that she’d put her name down for a studio, did not occur to her. Nor did it strike her as an instance of possible dishonesty that she had just, for the umpteenth time, faked an orgasm.

Contented in their embrace, they fell asleep.

EIGHTEEN

One of the perks of being in Year Ten, Stella-Jean had realised, was that you started to get more choice about subjects, and thus, if you were smart, more opportunities for what she liked to call ‘creative timetabling’. Thursday afternoons, for example, she’d managed to wangle not only a double free period but a (theoretically) foolproof method for skiving off, with Tessa primed as backup should her absence be noticed. This was her first chance to try it out, and so far, so good.

She pedalled her bike through the blazing afternoon, relishing the quiet roads and her illicit freedom, heading for the suburban shopping strip where her favourite opportunity shop, supporting the Cat Protection Society, was located. They were only open on weekdays and closed at three, but today she’d have plenty of time to scope the bargains, drop them home, and still be on time to pick up Finn from school. Afterward, she might take him into the city again; she needed to stock up on various supplies, and maybe drop into the Degraves Street boutique to check it out.

The Cat Protection Society op shop was true to form; she bought four old straw hats (tarted up with a length of ribbon and a felt flower, they’d sell in minutes at the market this Sunday, which was forecast to be even hotter than today), plus a gorgeous beaded cardigan, a set of embroidered serviettes that she could already see as cute pockets on skirts, and a pair of brand-new red silk curtains, still in their packet, which she would make into … skirts? Tops? Something fabulous, anyway. And the whole lot cost less than twenty measly dollars! She thanked the old ladies profusely, stroked the ancient chewed-up puss who ruled the place (with due care, mindful of his unpredictable claws), and pedalled off again. The sun was burning her to a crisp; she wished someone would design a bike helmet that gave you some shade.
Maybe I should?

Stella-Jean coasted into the driveway and along the side path to the back of the house. She propped her bike against the door of the shed, hooking her helmet by its strap over the handlebars, and had just paused as she went by the straggling veggie garden to pop a few hot juicy cherry tomatoes into her mouth when she noticed the back door was standing open.