A Charm of Powerful Trouble (7 page)

I turned away from them. Stella had also walked up the beach, but in the opposite direction. She walked jauntily, without a care.

I called to Paris, my voice silky. ‘How about we bury you in the sand up to your neck? Have you ever done that? It'll be fun - it's so cool in the damp sand.'

I was astonished that she agreed to it. All of us - me, Chloe, Paris and even Lizzie - dug the hole to bury her in, a long hole like a shallow grave so that Paris could lie down flat on her back with her head sticking out. When it was large enough, Paris lay down in it, and we began to fill in the sand around her. I slapped wet sand into the hole with satisfaction; it flew up into her face and made her flinch and blink fastidiously She looked like an annoyed little cat.

Back at home, the sky dark with storm clouds, Emma threw open all the windows and doors to let the heat out of the house, and wind whipped the curtains and blew newspapers across the living room. As the first lightning shot from the sky, she stood on the verandah with her hair flying and a glass of cold white wine in her hand, and looked at it with satisfaction.

With the storm approaching, Paris lies in the grass with her notebook in front of her, relishing her closeness to the soil, watching ants make their scurrying preparations, diverting them with a stick laid in front of them. With her eyes close to the ground, the world is a thin line, the sky huge. In her notebook she writes three times
I am a witch
and slams it shut.

There is a smell in the air that signals the approach of the storm, and she watches till it is on top of her, till the first lightning darts earthward and rain as pungent
as
a firecracker falls across her face. Then she stands up and stretches her arms out wide, her face tilted to the sky. She has the power to transform reality.

The storm was wild. Lightning struck the earth next to our house, one bolt so close that a blue streak seemed to appear right inside the living room. The house shook and rocked like a boat in stormy seas. It was exhilarating and frightening; we moved about, peering from windows at the torrents of water. Chloe and I shrieked at each new thunderclap and hugged each other. But we knew that even wild storms finally passed over, so mostly we simply relished the thrill of it all.

The rain washed across the verandah and then eased to a thin drizzle. Then, when it seemed to be all over, the power went off. Paris and Chloe lit their wallaby-skull candleholder and carried it through the darkened house, their necks bent worshipfully, watching the flicker of the candle. Claudio cooked by the light of a hurricane lantern. He sloshed olive oil into the pan and sang,
‘Just take another little
piece of
my
heart now, babee.'
Stella came and leaned on the bench and watched, and he talked to her, laughing loudly. His laughter sounded through the house in bursts. Emma, leaning out over the railing of the wet verandah, turned her head in the direction of the kitchen with a strained smile.

By the time dinner was ready, the rain had stopped and the verandah boards were dark with water that had blown in. It was like the deck of a ship that had survived the pounding of the seas, and we carried the dining table out there and ate in the damp, cool night air, feeling like survivors. Stella sat beside Claudio, and when he said something that made her laugh she rocked from side to side like a child, knocking against him accidentally or on purpose.

Then the power returned, lighting up the house suddenly and surprisingly, for we'd left all the switches on. Chloe and Paris took their candle-holder outside. Chloe had her hand protectively round the flame, watching it, nurturing it against the wind. They found the place where Emma had tipped the wallaby skull onto the ground. Scraps of flesh still clung to the bones, and Paris poked at it with a stick by the light of the guttering candle.

‘Paris!' whispered Chloe. ‘We could make a spell!'

Before bed I cleaned my teeth on the verandah with water in a cup. Claudio and Emma were standing together, not talking, leaning over the verandah rail looking out into the darkness. I saw my mother press her hand against my father's shoulder, and when they kissed, her tongue slid inside his mouth.

The next morning I went to Lizzie and found her still asleep on top of the bedclothes, with flowers strewn all around her.

She opened her eyes, saw me, and took in the crumpled blossoms. ‘Couldn't sleep,' she murmured. ‘Went out in the middle of the night to pick flowers.' She closed her eyes and dozed again.

When she woke properly, I was still there. ‘Lizzie,' I said. ‘Do you think they're going to get a divorce?'

She stared at the ceiling. ‘Why do you ask? Nothing's happened. Has it?'

‘No,' I replied.

I remembered my mother saying that the Aubergine children had told their parents to get a divorce. These days it was nothing unusual. I knew lots of kids whose parents were no longer together, who had all sorts of living arrangements so that you didn't even quite know who anyone was really related to.

‘They don't argue,' I said. I wanted Lizzie to say something else to reassure me.

‘I'm so tired,' she said quietly.

She lay staring into the air for a long time, and I asked, ‘What are you thinking?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Go on. You must be thinking something.'

She finally spoke. ‘At night flowers have no colour. They are dark, like the night. And some of them have no scent. Is a colour still a colour if you can't see it? Well - you asked what I was thinking. Stupid stuff like that.

‘Don't be silly,' she added kindly ‘Nothing has happened. That's it. End of conversation.'

The next morning was sunny, and the grass and trees and sky had an extra brightness, as they do after rain. Emma sat in the kitchen and watched the dappled light on the floor. Yesterday's collection of shells and sea treasures were ranged on the windowsill. She poured a little more tea into her cup and sighed with pleasure.

‘I'm going into Mullum for some stuff,' yelled Claudio. ‘Anyone coming? But I'm going now! Chop, chop!'

There were shouted negotiations. ‘Oh come on, Lizzie!' bellowed Claudio. ‘Do you good to get out. Stuck inside with that guitar all the time. Un-natural for a young girl!' and then he sang it, operatically:
‘Un-nut-ur-al, my dear!'

Despite myself I got caught up in the excitement of a sudden expedition to town. I ran around getting ready and calling out, ‘Wait till I get my hat!', ‘I can't find my purse!' But part of me was already making it into a story I could tell someone, sometime, though I didn't know yet who that would be.

‘Hurry up, Paris. We'll go without you!' Stella put her head around the kitchen door, where Emma sat calmly with a cup of tea. ‘Can I get you anything in town?'

Emma shook her head.

In the end the only ones who didn't go were Emma and Chloe.

The car bumped its way down the track. Paris, in the back with me and Lizzie, stared from the window. She glanced sideways at me with a sour expression, seeming to know when she was being looked at.

‘There's a patch we'll go through soon where it's always raining,' Claudio told Stella, who sat with him in the front. ‘You watch, even though the day's sunny, it'll shower when we pass through there.'

‘See?' he said and they looked at each other and laughed as drops of water spattered over the windscreen. ‘It's a regular vale of tears.'

In Mullumbimby we all went our separate ways. ‘Do you want to come with me?' Lizzie asked Paris dutifully, but Paris shook her head and stalked off. I saw her later sitting on a seat in the main street, her legs sprawled in front of her, defiantly eating a family-sized block of chocolate, the silver paper pulled back, munching on the whole block without even breaking it into squares.

I went into the second-hand bookshop, where the dust irritated my nose so much I had to leave almost straight away I examined the plants outside the nursery, and peered into a shop window at earrings arranged in boxes with green felt lining. It was my mother's birthday soon and I had an idea I might buy a present for her. I bought a cupcake at the bakery and walked along nibbling at the icing. I slowed down near the open air arcade and went into a shop full of fake-looking Red Indian stuff: suede fringed vests and dream-catchers made of feathers. There were some tiny cacti with bright flowers that I thought Emma might like. I peeled back the paper case of my cake and devoured the rest, scrunching the paper up into a tiny damp ball.

I saw Stella and Claudio at a table outside the coffee shop. Claudio was talking quickly, waving his arms and laughing, telling Stella one of his preposterous stories. Stella laughed and laughed at Claudio. She giggled uncontrollably and rubbed her arms, as if she was caressing herself.

I looked away, and examined one of the cacti. It had a bright pink flower like a trumpet.