Rachael's Gift (18 page)

‘Hey! That was mine.’

‘Smoking’s bad for you.’

She rolled her eyes, picked up Lucien’s catalogue and began talking me through her favourite works.

*

‘So what did I tell you?’ Francine said in the taxi on the way to the Beaux-Arts the next day. ‘Shall we go over it again?’

‘I’m good to go. There’s three on the panel: Michel Berrinoux, Philippe Pataut and Bernard Vilmouth. Michel teaches drawing, Philippe theory and Bernard prac. Michel has been there for fifteen years, Philippe five and Bernard eight. They look for originality, freshness and spark, but may have a different agenda each year. Perhaps they want a new sculptor or someone in new media, but the point is they want to shape you and teach you all the disciplines before focusing on whichever your speciality may be.’

‘And what about the interrogation?’

‘They’re looking for thoughtful analysis and a process behind the body of work. Every decision has to be mindful, but it must be an emotional process too.’

‘Don’t forget to think before you answer,’ I added.

Rachael’s face was taut with concentration; she looked to Francine. ‘Could you go through the possible questions again?’

Francine obliged. I had to admit, she was being so helpful and it seemed genuine. I wondered if she was sorry about Marguerite? Did she feel bad that they had never reconciled and now she had missed the opportunity? And that was why she was helping us now? Perhaps we both felt bad about the past.

The taxi headed down Rue Bonaparte, stopping outside imposing iron gates and a palatial courtyard surrounded by decorative arched alcoves: L’École des Beaux-Arts.

Francine guided us not to the faculty enrolments but to a side entrance. ‘Michel will meet us here.’

A moment later a tall, thin man dressed in olive corduroy trousers and a black turtleneck greeted us. He kissed Francine’s cheeks, and they spoke quickly in French. I caught the words
nouvelle
,
protégée
,
artiste
,
passionnée
. . . He had a small, angular face.

‘Rachelle, this is Michel Berrinoux. He’s going to talk you through a few things before you meet the board.’

‘So great to meet you,’ Rachael said, pushing her hand forward to shake his. ‘
C’est un rêve d’être ici
.’

I turned to her, surprised; she really was surpassing my expectations. Francine must have taught her some French.

‘Parlez-vous français?’

‘No, not really – but I’m learning!’ she responded coquettishly.

We made our introductions, exchanged pleasantries, and then Michel motioned for Rachael to follow him.

‘Rach . . .’ I caught her sleeve. She faced me hurriedly. I hugged her close and whispered in her ear, ‘Remember, your work will speak for itself. Don’t be intimidated.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ She backed away holding crossed fingers up in the air, her portfolio tucked under her arm, then spun around, sailing off to Michel.

‘Good luck, okay?’ I felt my eyes fill with tears. ‘We’ll be here when you’re finished.’

But by now she was chatting casually and easily with Michel, as if this was nothing more than a hair appointment, not at all as if her future lay in his hands.

I watched their silhouettes grow smaller as they walked down the hallway, her legs in black tights and his long and spidery, until they turned into a room and were gone.

Francine was looking at me with a mixture of pity and amusement. ‘She’ll be back in only a few hours.’

I didn’t bother responding. It may have been only a few hours for her but to us it was fourteen years of planning and hard work – and for me, even longer.

The Ford sat like a patient friend in the driveway. I put the new shooter in the back tray. Mr Brown jumped around my feet, his paws scratching the concrete. The engine turned over and
Nirvana Unplugged
sprang out of the tape deck, Kurt’s nasal twang whining. I shifted into reverse and was about to press down on the accelerator when I saw a young girl hovering in our driveway. Christ. I slammed on the brakes. She wore a school uniform and I recognised her as the chubby kid with the nutcase mum. She fiddled with the strap of her backpack and looked at me mournfully: a dog who’d lost its owner.

‘Mr Larkin,’ she mumbled, painfully shy. ‘It’s Lucy. Is Rachael home?’

I turned the ignition off. ‘Crikey, Lucy, I nearly ran into you.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Look, Rach has . . . she isn’t home right now.’

Lucy bit down on her bottom lip and looked anxiously towards the front door.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘Um . . .’ Her forehead creased. ‘I really need to talk to her,’ she said urgently.

I shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

‘Her phone is off too.’

‘Oh yeah, it’s um . . . being repaired.’

Her chin began to tremble. ‘Hey . . .’ I opened the car door and instinctively went to put a hand on her arm, but then stopped myself. I looked up and down the street. ‘Hey, it’s okay.’ I tried to sound reassuring; she seemed on the verge of tears. ‘Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll work out.’ A pulse beat faster. The girl’s teary face was different to Rach’s; there was something more childlike and raw and real about it. This girl knew nothing about hiding her feelings, they were just there, etched into her ruddy cheeks. Did she know something? I’d bet her mum was giving her the third degree. ‘You wanna chat about something?’

She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘No . . . um . . . I’ve got to go. I’ll be late for school.’ She hesitated. ‘Goodbye.’

I watched her scurry down the driveway, a scared mouse. I remembered seeing Rach trying to teach her some dance moves: ‘You see, that’s how you do a body roll. Now you try it.’ The girl had jerked her body back and forth, but Rach had folded her arms. ‘You’re either born with it or you’re not.’ Rach ran her finger under the girl’s eye. ‘But don’t worry, you’ve got nice eyes – just like one of my dolls.’ Rach had a large collection of dolls – she’d been fixated with their faces since forever. I used to catch her poking them in the eye. It seemed she treated Lucy pretty much the same way.

Poor Lucy. Obviously a fan of tough love. I wanted to run after her, grab her arm and make her talk to me. Instead, I watched her trot away down the street.

*

The road gets under your skin. The rhythm. The speed. The white lines. I drove past tight urban flats and suburban bungalows, along a newly built three-lane highway that that led to the airport and opened out onto a twinkling web of estuaries and finally onto Botany Bay. I was heading to the Cape, a shark-infested, charging slab that broke onto a shallow ledge, which a local gang had christened their own: Home. I needed to clear my head.

The Ford did not have air conditioning, sadly, but it was built like a Mallee bull and had the stamina to match. I wound the window down and hung my elbow out the side. Mr Brown poked his head out and soon we were both windblown, our mouths filling with hot air.

It gave me a pang for Rach; I missed my surfing buddy. She was so like her old lady with that cool eye of distance, playing the boys, dropping in and snaking and smiling. The boys would flash an angry eye and then they would see it was her and smile in awe. At first, I was proud – she had more guts than a whale – but then I began to sit back and watch this thing as it grew inside her, this slice of coldness, this determination, this thing I just couldn’t put my finger on.

I didn’t know what to believe. If Rachael wasn’t lying, then the teacher had abused her and who would want that to happen to their kid? But if she had lied that was almost as bad. And if she had, why? I looked hard at the bald truth: had she had an affair with him? Perhaps he had blown her off? Both were possible. But if she was telling the truth – a sickening thought – then why had they run away? Running was an admission of guilt. Did Camille know something I didn’t?

Harvey White had been chasing me about speaking to Rach and I’d been letting him go through to the keeper. I called his number and put him on speaker.

‘Mate, unfortunately Rachael doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m afraid there won’t be a video conference.’

‘That’s a shame. But we understand. Okay. We’ll press on and be in touch.’

The call ended.

Mr Brown smiled at me, his gummy mouth full of yellow teeth. I ruffled his fur. ‘You all right there, mate? Pretty good life you lead, hey? Eat, shit and sleep.’ Mr Brown panted, his tongue hanging loose.

He raised his leg and began licking himself.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

*

There it was, a perfect blue tube barrelling over a dark gloom in the water. Black figures emerged from the rocks, glistening, boards under their arms, cutting strange right-angle figures. A bunch of them watched from the shore. I knew a couple of the blokes – adrenalin junkies, their eyes huge and wild. We exchanged nods. One of them had a massive gash under his chin and blood poured down his chest.

Today they came in fours, rolling in from the south-east, creeping up slowly with an underside of clear blue glass; they peaked in a magic perpendicular lip, folding over themselves on the right-hand corner, their spume spraying in the wind, before thundering and crashing over black barnacle-covered rocks. Mr Brown licked his chops, his back legs wiggling. ‘All right, mister, all right.’

Clad in my wettie, I climbed down slippery sharp-edged craters and waited for a wave to crash. I jumped in with my board and was dragged out to the line-up. It had been a while since I’d done this break and just watching its jaws clamping gave me the willies. But I needed this.

There were clear divisions in the line-up. The locals, a young crew whom I could have thrown over my knee for a good hiding, gave me several stink-eyes; we knew each other by sight and although I wasn’t one of them they’d seen me around enough to know me – I’d probably run around with their dads back in the day. They slapped each other on the back and called each other names like Phantom and Rhino, hooting and howling and tossing back their heads while I stayed out the end, hoping for a wide one, a lucky scrap. They were gifts when they came, pure Venetian-glass gifts. I knew the law of the land – as I was not strictly one of them, I had to wait my turn.

A pair of long arms deftly carved through the chop, a tattoo of a snake coiled around the biceps; the mouth was drawn open and a pair of fangs reared at the neck: Clippo. Of course. We eyed each other. He was up next, but I’d been drifting for a while. Across the seaboard, the swell ballooned in the distance, bigger than the others. A beautiful smacker – the King, the El Dorado – exposed its glassy eye. Clippo gave me a greasy, turned away and began to paddle hard.

‘Fuck it,’ I whispered, seeing red and suddenly wanting to smash this fucker to smithereens. I stroked madly into its path. Clippo was closest to the whitewash as it began to crumble but I was further along the lip and rose up the inside of its shining belly, dropping down and cutting him off. The wave closed over our heads.

‘You fucking drop-in,’ he shouted.

‘Sorry, mate,’ I yelled back as he sailed dangerously close.

‘Get off, Grandpa!’

But I kept on riding, moving back and forth in sharp angles, shaving my hand through the water, beating the twirling fold until we came eye to eye. We stared off for what seemed like minutes but was really only seconds and then the tip of Clippo’s board nicked the back of mine. I popped a reo off the lip and landed, upright, riding forwards, but Clippo flew off and was consumed by a giant mouth that chomped violently on to the rocks. I fell back into the swell, my chest expanding with satisfaction. I watched for his head to pop up and felt mildly disappointed when he dragged himself up out of the water. He smashed his board down, yelling at his mates who ran to help, blood dripping down the side of his face. Someone threw him a towel and handed him a bottle.

A couple of blokes began to circle me, slapping my board and then my shoulder. ‘You’re in for it now, fucker!’ one of them yelled.

I caught the next slab in and called it quits. The water rushed around me as I tried to find a grip on the rocks. Mr Brown greeted me, unaware of the gathering crowd behind him. Clippo and his goons stood above me, a human wall, watching with dark eyes, their gang motif tattooed in a thick chain across their chests. The water swelled and sent me off balance. I fell back into the ocean, scraping my hands and feet along the rocks. There was a glint in their eyes. I waited for the next rise to gain momentum and get a proper hold and this time I gained footing and climbed out. I flicked the water out of my hair and tucked my board under my arm. The boys folded their arms across their chests, barring the way.

‘Great day,’ I said. ‘You should get back out there. Don’t want to miss the real action.’ I made to move past them but the bare-chested line-up closed in. Mr Brown started growling. ‘It’s all right, mate,’ I said, ruffling his fur.

‘Who do you think you are, mate?’ Clippo stepped forward; a line of blood ran down his cheek.

I said nothing but felt his breath on my face. The boys moved closer.

Clippo glared at me and then his face relaxed and he held up his hand. ‘It’s okay, boys. Let him go. What’s one drop-in, hey?’ The fangs around his neck appeared to pulse. ‘Anyways, I’ve dropped in on his daughter. Could call it even.’

I felt it like a set of knuckles in the kidneys and took a few seconds to ease up. ‘Watch it, mate,’ I said, my voice low and steady. ‘We’ve all got friends.’

Clippo stood his ground, the whites of his eyes shining, his fist clenched. There were too many witnesses here.

‘Stay away from our turf, you old cunt,’ he said in an iron husk of a voice. ‘Fucking blow-in.’ He wiped his lip with his forearm. ‘Next time you’re a goner.’ He turned and walked away, his shoulder blades carving through the skin on his back.

My blood was racing. The rest of the goons made similar noises, one of them pushed me, but they retreated.

I picked up my towel and made my way back to the Ford. Something hammered away at the inside of my head. I peeled off my wetsuit, the salt water like a slippery second skin, stinging the cuts on my hands and feet. Bits of coral were stuck in the shredded bloody flesh. I sat on the edge of the car seat and picked out the pieces I could get with my fingers. I took my water bottle and washed the cuts as best I could. I’d have to douse them in disinfectant when I got home.