Blue Skies (11 page)

‘Hello in there,' came the voice of my neighbour. ‘Are you home?' She paused. ‘Only—if you are—I've something to show you. If you can spare the time.'

Was she being sarcastic?

She entered the room. The light clicked on and I rolled sideways on the carpet, covering my eyes.

‘Whatever's up, pet?' she enquired, prodding me with her hush-puppied foot. ‘Not still feeling crook, are you?'

I sat up and assured her of my excellent health.

‘Oh well, that's all right then,' she said. ‘Now tell me, what do you think of this?' She waved a glossy booklet in front of my face.

I took it from her and flicked through it. A line of little gnomes danced before my eyes, performing a series of tiny gnomic steps. They stood up, sat down, spun round—a whirling chorus line in little green breeches and bright red hats.

‘You're not looking at it properly,' accused my neighbour. ‘You're going too fast to take it in.'

I flattened the booklet out on the floor and we went through it together while she explained her plan.

‘It's for those bits where the grass hasn't taken right,' she told me, as we paused to admire a wrought-iron lace-work Spanish-colonial-style bird table. ‘I thought that if I put a few pieces of garden furniture over them and maybe one or two of these little fellows'—her grass-stained forefinger stabbed a passing gnome—‘the whole effect would be better.'

I agreed with this, but she wasn't listening. Her mind was racing on, anticipating problems. ‘Of course,' she said, ‘it won't be that easy, you know. All that dust off the road. I'll have to be out there dusting quite a bit, I can see that. All work and no play, that's me.'

I smiled encouragingly and she prepared to leave.

‘Well, that's that, then,' she said. ‘I'll get off home now and fill in the order form straight away.'

I saw her to the door, which creaked shut behind her. Her voice drifted back through the darkness.

‘That door could use a spot of oil, dear. I'd get hubby on to that right away, if I was you. Goodnight then.'

‘Goodnight,' I said and went inside to bed, falling straight to sleep.

It was dark when my heartbeats woke me, thumping in my ears; and I lay very quiet while the drumming subsided. Feeling cold, I stretched over the edge of the bed and groped underneath for a nightdress. I dragged it out, shook it free of dust and put it on. I went into Angelica's room and stood over her, listening to her breathing, trying to match her light rapid breaths with my own. This had been a habit from her birth. I had waited then, half in agony, half in hope, for the breathing sound to stop. Angelica showed no sign of waking, so I went back to bed; but before going off to sleep, I got up again and dragged the big bag from the wardrobe. I crawled under the bed, found the whip and put it into the bag with the boots and jumper. I returned to bed and lay sleepless, waiting for Thursday to start.

It started badly. Mother-in-law said she had a cold.

‘Not a bad one. Just a sniffle, really. But I'm wondering if we should risk Angelica's catching it.'

‘Oh no. Look, don't worry. Really there's no need. She's very tough.' I shook her up and down to prove she had no rattles or loose parts. I hadn't the faintest idea how tough she was. Angelica had never been ill. Her face shone, pinkly trusting, up at me.

‘Well, I don't know, my dear. A cold can be a very nasty thing for a little baby. I'm not sure I should be with her today.'

‘Well, perhaps it will be all right if you don't breathe on her.' I was beginning to panic. ‘Just keep her at arm's length or something. I've got to go. I've got to go now because of the bus. I've got to go because I'm expected. It's too late to let them know. They're not on the phone, you see—that's the trouble.'

I pushed Angelica at her and retreated through the double windows. I kept up these disjointed justifications until I was halfway across the lawn. Then I ran. I ran up the road repeating ‘I have to go', like the Little Red Engine thinking it could, but not so worthy.

The bus to town was running late and I almost missed the second. The driver was looking over his shoulder. When he saw me he gave a cosy smirk of welcome and started up. ‘Gooday, as the natives say. Bit late, aintcha? Waited for you, though, didn't I?'

‘Thank you very much.' I smiled and tried on a grateful expression.

‘Hold very tight, please. Ding ding,' he yelled. The bus lurched out of the depot and into the oncoming traffic. The street exploded with furious car horns and blazing sun, and the black tarmac ahead danced and dazzled, liquid with heat. The transistor roared with static. I started to feel better. I felt in my bag for my purse, opened it and handed him the fare.

‘No, love. Forget it. Can't charge you for it, can I?' He curled his lips and vibrated them together thoughtfully. ‘I've washed me hands, see.' He waved them both at me. The bus lumbered towards the middle of the road, and the passengers gave us a collective glare. He hauled it back, half-standing in his seat, both hands heaving on the wheel. ‘And I've cleaned me nails. Like you said.'

‘Did I?' I looked at his hands. The tops of his nails were white and scraped-looking against the plastic steering wheel.

‘Yeah. You said, “Next time clean your nails first. I'm scared I'll catch something.” Well, it's next time and I have.'

‘Yes, I see you have. Well, that's great. I'll see you later then.'

‘Yeah. See you later. See you tonight then, eh?' This time he winked and rolled his fat top lip into a passable Presley sneer.

I walked down the centre aisle to an empty seat at the back of the bus. He was yelling something after me. ‘I've got a nailfile in me pocket. In case they get dirty during the day, like. And I've got a packet of them impregnated cleaning pads from the chemist to wipe me hands with.' I smiled and waved in a feeble parody of the Queen, shoved my bag under the seat and sank down with relief.

My fellow passengers sent me brightly enquiring looks. I smiled and waved at them too, and then turned and gazed fixedly through the window at the retreating city centre. When everyone had settled down I took out my comb and dragged it through my hair. My eye caught the driver's in the mirror fixed above his seat. He sent me a cheerful wink and ran his tongue greasily round his lips. I went back to window-gazing.

The bus stopped at the large general hospital on the outskirts of town, and an old man in an almost floor-length grey raincoat got on. As he walked down the bus towards me, I saw that the raincoat was open. It covered a synthetic shirt buttoned to the neck. A string vest matted with grey sweaty chest-hairs peeped through the shiny transparent nylon. Knee-length grey shorts, varicose veins, tartan ankle-socks and plastic peep-toed sandals flashed at me intermittently as the raincoat swung open and shut.

He carried a large Gladstone bag. He settled himself into the seat opposite mine and started to cough: something rattled deep down behind his string vest. He began searching through the bag on his lap, desperately. It was clearly a race against time. The rattling was getting higher, and whatever it was down there had nearly reached the surface. A red-and-blue striped pyjama jacket landed limply in the aisle, raising grit-bursts of dust and trampled chicken feathers. The old man was throwing everything out of the bag in an effort to find something. With a sigh of relief, which collided in his throat with a sickeningly gurgling cough, he pulled out a clear plastic container. He held it up triumphantly, like a happy hostess displaying the latest line at a Tupperware party, and spat loudly into it. He fitted a lid on it, taking great care to make it airtight. Satisfied, he held it up to the window and swirled its contents round and round, watching rapturously.

‘They give me the little pots at the hospital. I've got a lot more in here.'

I leant over and picked up his pyjama jacket and a squeezed-out mangled tube of toothpaste that had landed just under my seat. He took them from me and tucked them carefully away. Then he gently placed the plastic pot on top and cuddled the bag against his chest. Resting his chin on the pot, he looked over at me and said: ‘What they do is, I send this stuff back to them at the hospital and they look at it under a microscope. I've got this chest infection, see. Had it for years. Don't seem to be able to shift it.' As if reminded of its tenacity, the chest rattling started up again, followed by the frantic scrambling through the bag.

The routine was repeated many times during the journey. Being nearest to him, I helped manage his possessions each time as they flew about the bus, and there was no time to gaze out of the window at the passing scene.

The bus stopped dead just as I was feeling under my seat for the old man's comb. I fell forward and banged my forehead on a box of bananas.

‘There's yer dopey-looking boyfriend waiting for you. Pretty, ain't he? Here's his fan mail.' The driver waved a fistful of letters at me.

I handed the old man his comb. It was metal with wide teeth—designed to do battle with a good deal of thick hair, clearly a relic of his youth, since now he was almost bald.

‘Thank you very much,' he said. ‘Nice comb, this. Used to use it on me dog. When the dog died, seemed a shame to throw it out.'

‘You gunna stand chatting all day then?' yelled the driver. ‘Only I've got a lot of stuff to deliver, you know. People waiting on me.'

I said goodbye to the old man.

‘See you tonight then, darling,' whispered the driver, as I took the letters and left the bus. As it pulled off I realised too late that I had left the boots and jumper under the seat. And the whip.

Ben crossed the road. I handed him his mail, and we walked arm in arm towards the house. I told him about the forgotten bag, but he said it didn't matter. It was too hot to think about jumpers and boots; he had no use for a whip right now. He didn't ask where the things had come from, and I envied his lack of curiosity.

It was a golden morning, and the fence posts were touched with it. Ben's hair blazed. The gums shed golden shadows.

There were lots of extras in the yard that I couldn't remember seeing before. Tiny bright butterflies played in a holly bush, whose tough, deep-green leaves were cracked from summer heat, each crack lined with gold dust—veins of rare richness. Fluffy, comic-book yellow baby chickens scurried resolutely in the dirt under an old iron ploughshare which was covered in sun-tinted saffron-coloured rust. The air smelt of Vicks vapour rub. I thought of something I'd been told: that every returning Australian knew he was nearing his homeland when, after days at sea with no land in sight, the eucalyptus smell drifted on the wind from the unseen coast and touched his nostrils. This morning I thought it a lovely story. Sentimental tears started in my eyes, and I sniffed to stop my nose running.

Ben heard. ‘Listen, I told you it doesn't matter about those things. Things just aren't that important. Not ever.'