Letters to Leonardo (3 page)

Dear Leonardo
,

Talk about serendipity. Just found out it would have been your birthday today too
.

And that’s not all we have in common
.

Your dad took you away from your mum. How weird is that?

How did you deal with the missing bits in your life?

I’ve always felt like an unfinished painting – a background wash with just an outline – all the important detail left out
.

So much of me is Dave, but so much is different – like my art – and the way I like being by myself
.

Dave hates the quiet. Has to have people and action
.

Maybe it helps him forget what he’s done
.

Matt

There’s still no email.

I go back to Google – to check out more of Leo’s work. There’s this one painting,
St Jerome
. I can’t stop looking at it – at the torture in the saint’s eyes as he crouches among those craggy rocks, prostrate before that open-mouthed lion. It’s like that painting expresses everything that’s going on inside me. I wish I had half Leonardo’s talent – and balance. Everything’s perfectly in proportion (except the right hand’s a bit big) – but hell, nobody’s perfect.

Even Dave – especially Dave – with his self-help books, and his “honest real estate agent” face. Good old “Honest Dave”, his truth is scratchy at best.

Come on, K Armain! Where are you? Why aren’t you answering my email?

Dear Leo
,

Did you miss your mum? Did you ever wonder in those years you never saw her, what she really looked like? Not just in photos, I mean. Then again, you probably didn’t even have photos back then
.

Did you mind going to live with your dad, or were you too young just like me? Kids never get a say in stuff like that
.

You painted so many women. Was that how you got over losing your mum? Do you ever get over something like that?

Maybe that’s what I need – to get out my gear and start painting. Thanks for the tip, Leo
.

Matt

I lie on my bed, eyes closed, trying to keep it together. Until now, I never really thought or cared much about who I was, or where I came from.

Dave never talked about Mum – except to say she was killed in that car accident. We moved soon after she “died” and our relatives live miles away. There’s never been anyone I could talk to who knew Mum.

Once I asked Dave if I was like her and it really fired him up. Said, “You’re not like her and never will be!” I was about seven and he seemed so mad that I was too scared to ask what he meant.

I used to wonder sometimes what it would be like to have a mum at parent teacher night or helping out in the school canteen. But I always told myself, “Forget it, she’s dead. It can’t happen.”

But it could have. Mum could have taken me to school and watched my music concerts – if she’d known about them. Mum’s not dead!

Dear Leonardo
,

Do you reckon it’s possible that Mum and Dave agreed to all this between them?

Maybe she didn’t want me!

But what did she say in her card? She “thinks about me every day” – like she misses me. Like none of this was really her choice
.

How do you make sense of it all?

And what else haven’t I been told? Is Dave that warped that he just wants to keep me for himself? Heaps of kids in my class live with their mums and spend weekends and holidays with their dads. Why couldn’t we have been like that?

Dave is false, a con – what you see is
not
what you get. He’s like a picture that’s been painted over. When you scrape off the surface layers you find the real hypocritical, lying Dave. I hate him
.

And I’m going to make him feel my pain
.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but what about the paintbrush – or the spray can? No pathetic little sketchpads for you. You painted on a grand scale – big and bold. I could paint Dave’s bedroom bright orange – he’d hate that
.

But no, I’m going to do my artwork where everyone can see. Something massive – a masterpiece
.

Going to paint something immense like your
Last Supper.
Can’t believe it’s nearly nine metres long. Now that’s some canvas
.

I think I know just the place for my public exhibition
.

Matt

I fall asleep at the laptop with the
Mona Lisa
screen saver watching over me. When I wake up it’s still not light. My computer screen tells me it’s 3.48. I’ve been slumped over with my head on the keyboard.

My neck aches – feels like it has been stretched between two trees. The crushing feeling in my chest hasn’t gone away, and my legs have been squashed for too long under the computer desk.

I check my email. Still nothing! I slam my fist down on the keyboard.

I can’t go back to sleep. There’s too much going on in my head – too much to find out, too much to think about. Too many things boiling away inside me.

I stand up and stretch to get my legs working again and to loosen the tightness in my neck and shoulders. Then I sit back at the computer to wait for morning.

At eight in the morning the front door slams as Dave leaves for work. He hasn’t even knocked on my door. Rosenbaum probably told him to leave it alone – pretend we never argued, wait for me to make the first move.
That’s not going to happen
.

A minute later, my laptop beeps “incoming mail”. Finally, it’s there, in my inbox, something from Kathryn Armain. I sit staring at it – too scared to click “open”. What if she tells me to mind my own business? Or worse?

My eyes are heavy from not enough sleep. I feel like I want to throw up again.

“Don’t be such a wimp,” I tell myself. “This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

I have to focus to make my fingers click on Kathryn Armain’s reply. My stomach churns as I read each word carefully to make sure I get it right.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Looking for Zara

Dear Matt,

Sorry I can’t give you the information you need.

I have spoken to a couple of girls from our class, but we lost contact with your mother after high school. Bethany Summers remembers seeing something about her in the paper about ten years ago, but can’t remember what it was about. Could have been her art – she was a fantastic painter.

Your mother went out with a guy called Scott Reesborough from Ashton High. You might find his details on their website. He could have kept in touch.

Hope you find her.

All the best,

Kathryn Armain

Mum is an artist! Why didn’t Dave ever mention that? Is that why he doesn’t like me doing art?

She paints! Like me! It makes me feel connected to her – excited, hopeful. But then I realise, I don’t even know where my own mother is. Kathryn’s email has given me nothing. I go from hyped to gutted in a blink. My stomach rumbles to remind me it’s breakfast time, but I’m too worked up for anything solid.

I go into the lounge room and lie around on the couch, drinking milk straight from the bottle – pity Dave’s not here to see me. I’m thinking about having another day off school when the doorbell rings. I ignore it. The bell rings again. As I amble down the hallway, the front door opens. Dave mustn’t have locked it – probably thought I’d be leaving straight after him.

Troy walks in wearing a stethoscope around his neck made from a shoelace and two round cupboard doorknobs. “Dr Daly at your service.” He’s carrying a huge tub of chocolate ice-cream – my favourite.

“What are you doing, Troy?”

“Thought there must be a medical emergency for your dad to let you take a day off school.”

I rotate in front of him. “As you can see, there isn’t.”

Troy puts the ice-cream tub behind his back. “So you don’t need Dr Daly’s magic remedy then?”

I wrestle the tub from him. I’m at least ten centimetres taller than Troy, so it’s not that hard.

He gives in easily. “You might as well have it. Happy Birthday for yesterday.”

The ice-cream has a twenty dollar art supply voucher taped to the lid. Now that’s a proper present.

“Thanks a lot, man.” I take the tub to the kitchen and grab two spoons. I hand one to Troy. “Help yourself.”

Troy screws up his nose. “Chocolate ice-cream this early?”

“Why not?”

Troy shrugs, takes a spoonful and shovels it into his mouth. “My olds wouldn’t let me eat this sort of stuff for breakfast.”

“Yeah, well my old isn’t here – and even if he was, he couldn’t stop me.”

Troy shifts in his seat. “So, how was your birthday?”

I jam the lid back on the ice-cream and shove it in the freezer. “We’ll be late for school if we don’t get a move on.”

Troy puts his stethoscope in his backpack and follows me out the door. “Where were you yesterday?”

“Where were you?”

Troy scratches his head. “At school.”

“I didn’t see you there.” I slam the front door shut.

Troy looks so confused it’s hard for me to keep a straight face. “
You
weren’t at school,” he says.