Steeplechase (11 page)

Best Friends

I put down the telephone and Emily opens her wings like a dark angel. I am cradled in the gorgeous threat of her attention once more.

‘Did you hear him?'

I nod.

‘Did you hear his voice?'

‘He was whispering.'

She nods sagely. ‘He has to whisper. He is a secret.' She is holding my elbow and her fingers clamp down on the sensitive skin there, pinching it. ‘You understand that don't you?'

I nod, but her grip tightens till my eyes start to tear up.

‘He is a secret from Oma and everyone. You can't tell Oma. You can't tell anyone about him. Do you understand?'

I nod and she releases me suddenly. There are white marks on my elbow. The blood rushes into them and throbs. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

‘I understand,' I say and she nods again.

‘He visits me.'

‘When?'

‘Sometimes. At night.'

I feel the sharp prick of jealousy. My sister, who is all I have in the world, off with her secret friend in the middle of the night.

I want more than anything for him to visit me too. There is a sudden emptiness in the centre of my chest. It must have been there all along but it feels like it has only just opened up.

My sister reaches out and I cinch my elbows close in to my body. She puts her arms around me in a hug. Such a rare gift, I settle into the brief comfort of it.

‘You can hear Raphael too.' She hugs me tighter. It is uncomfortable but I cling to her arms and breathe in the lavender of her skin, savouring the brief sweetness of it before she withdraws the warmth of her body.

It is easy to hear his voice now that I know what I am searching for among the hissing. His voice is just a tiny crackle of static turned into words through a huge amount of concentration. I wonder, as I listen, if the furrow that I feel creasing my brow makes me look more like Emily. I certainly hope it does. She looks enigmatic whenever she talks to Raphael, mysterious, a creature from another world. Raphael's world. I feel like an intruder. It takes me minutes sometimes to conjure his voice from the flat beeping of the phone but it gets easier with practice, and every time our Oma locks herself in her study to restore the paintings I pick up the phone. I practise hearing him.

‘Emily?' he says.

I smile because just this once he has mistaken me for her, and I hesitate. I do not want to correct him. I want him to say to me whatever he would be planning to say to Emily herself.

‘Yes,' I say. ‘It's me.'

‘Emily.'

I smile when he says her name. Her skin on my shoulders allows me to be confident.

‘Yes, Raphael, it's me.'

What would he say to Emily, I wonder. I strain to hear his voice through the dead flat tone of the telephone. What would he tell her?

‘Shall I come for you tonight?' That is what he says.

And I say, ‘Yes.'

My heart is racing. There is a sheen of sweat on the palms of my hands.

‘See you tonight.'

‘Okay.' My hand is shaking when I replace the handset.

Emily sees Raphael. She has told me this. An apparition of flesh and blood and breath. Now is my time. It is wonderful but it is terrible as well. Now I will just have to make him real.

Dead White Guys

John is late for class. This is such a rare event that everyone grins and nudges him as he pushes past the rows of desks to find his regular position near the front of the room. He sits and I smile towards him and he looks down at his desk. I notice a blush creeping up and into his cheeks. It is raining outside and his hair is damp and he seems edgier than usual. Something is wrong. He shuffles his books onto the table and barely glances towards the front of the room. I am Emily Reich's sister. That is how he introduced me to his pretty friend last night. The sister of Emily Reich, teaching him art history.

I press the remote and the next slide flashes up onto the screen. A portrait of a dead white guy.

The students are bored. I am bored. We talk about paintings that were made for silent contemplation.
The painting stands for itself.
I shudder. My head is still woolly from too much champagne, my feet still hurt from the shoes I shoved them into. I am Emily Reich's sister and that alone was the reason I was invited to exhibit in the first place. When Emily exhibited in London six years ago she stepped up to the microphone and told the audience to go home. She shouted at them to go away. Go away. Go away. It is exactly what I felt like doing last night. When Emily did it the audience were thrilled. The media was abuzz with the news. Emily Reich Causes Scene in London Art World. Last night I did nothing but bore them all.

I change the slide.

‘This,' I say, ‘is a dead white guy.'

The flick and flash of the slide changing.

‘This is a painting by a dead white guy.'

Next slide.

‘Dead white guy.'

‘Painting by a dead white guy. Painting. Painting. Dead white guy.'

I press the button faster and faster. The images flick on and off and there is a flare of white light in between. I notice John raise his wide eyes to the screen. I have his attention. He looks frightened. I didn't want to frighten him. The rest of the class are awake now. People shift upright in their chairs. This must be what it feels like for Emily, throwing a tantrum in front of the artful elite. I remember her tantrums. I remember the frightening well of anger so easily tapped. The aftermath.

There is no way I could muster the same kind of hatred and pain. I look at John directly and he looks guilty. I can conjure up the memory of the pretty young girl, the TAFE student and the pride in John's face as he introduced me as Emily's sister. I am certain she was impressed. He knows Emily's sister. He knows her to talk to and to drink with. I wonder if he mentioned that we have been lovers. I am Emily Reich's sister's lover. Was Emily Reich's sister's lover, because it is clear to me that he has another lover now.

He is a boy, my student and so very, very young. I am the responsible adult in this situation. I wonder if it is because of this that I can't quite work up the same kind of anger that my sister could conjure at a whim.

I press the button and the screen reflects my desktop. Folders for my files, folders for home, folders for ideas, a messy pile of files spread out across the screen, none of them snapped to any kind of grid, a whole big compost heap of downloads in the top right corner, file upon file upon file. Emily's voice in my head,
You should tidy your room Rebecca
. I close the laptop and the screen goes blank.

‘So anyway if you want to pass your exam then you probably need the information that goes with the images of all those dead white guys, right? So if you want to you can look in your dossier and get the notes I have written for this week's lecture and read them for yourself. You can do this now. You all have your laptops? You can download them from the website. Or else you can go home and do it there. It's raining. The library is dry. Or you can maybe not bother until the night before the exam, which is what you all used to do in high school, right? Didn't seem to do anyone here any harm. You all got into university?'

I pack my computer into my bag and head for the door. They turn to watch me leave like the heads of sunflowers following the light. Yes. This is how you win their love and respect. My sister knew this all along.

I pause at the door and turn and tell them, ‘And don't even think about skipping life drawing class tomorrow. Art history you can learn from a book, but unless you have a model in your own home and put the time aside to draw, I expect to see each and every one of you. On time.'

‘Hey.' Ed catches me when I turn the corner and it is a shock to see him. I am suddenly ashamed of my actions. What if one of my students complains to Ed? He is wearing a T-shirt with a square of cartoon panels on it. It would be rude to stare at his shirt, but I wonder what irony is held in the printed squares.

‘Did you get the paper?'

‘No.' Although of course I usually do.

‘You didn't see the review of your exhibition? You should get the paper. Hey, sorry I got there late. I looked for you.'

‘Yeah, I left pretty early.'

‘You okay?'

I snap my lips shut, look towards the pile of books and notes in my hands.

‘You need to take time off, remember?'

‘Okay.'

He checks his watch and he is walking backwards, shouting to me even as he disappears back down the corridor, ‘Get the paper. Oh, and congrats. The paintings are—' I can't make out the last word. I turn and walk less purposefully toward the exit.

There is a long walk from the classroom to my car. By the end of the corridor I have repented. If John runs to catch me up while I am still in the building then I will take it as a sign that he has only kissed her. I take the stairs one at a time, pausing at each landing. If he used the lift he would certainly overtake me. I pause at the door to the building as long as I am able.

Outside on the lawn I decide that if he catches me at my car then maybe they made out a little but did not sleep together. I have not brought an umbrella. I hug my notes to my chest. The laptop is inside its water-resistant sleeve but I am still a little concerned for it as I feel the rivulets of rain cascading down my back.

My shoes take in water and I am suddenly reminded of the boots I used to keep for rainy days, sticking in the mud of our yard, leeches, the smell of clothing that has sat too long on the laundry floor in a puddle of its own making. The year of the flood. My fifteenth year.

I open the door of the car and get in. I sit and drip.

He is younger than me. So much younger. He is my student and what I have done with him is wrong. Still I wait and watch the doorway. Students scurry out, covering their heads with their handbags, slipping folders under their T-shirts. The rain has surprised us all.

I start the engine. Then, eventually, I drive home.

‘I don't know what you want me to do.'

He is standing in the rain and there is no point inviting him in now. It is too late, he can't get any wetter. It is a warm rain. He shivers a little but it can't be from cold. I stand in the doorway, blocking any entry he might be hoping to make.

‘I feel like everything is a test all the time only I can't win.'

‘We can't be together,' I tell him, and he holds his hands out, palms upwards as if to catch great handfuls of rain.

‘Yeah. So, I go to a gallery opening with a girl and I get punished for it? You wouldn't go with me.'

‘I can't.'

‘I know. You knew I wanted to be your date. You told me to ask someone else.'

‘Date? You sound like you're fourteen.'

‘Well that's what you're acting like.'

‘“How you're acting”,' I correct him.

‘Oh. Right. And pretending you're my mother is a step forward?'

My chest is too tight to breathe. I step back and there is room for him to come inside if he chooses to. He jigs from foot to foot as if he needs to go to the toilet.

‘Are we having a fight?' I ask and he lowers his handfuls of water so that they drip onto the ground.

‘I suppose so.' He stares down at his wet sandshoes.

‘Are you going to come in?'

He looks up at me, his eyes are impossibly large and round. ‘I kissed that girl.'

He is lovely. So shy and earnest and the best artist I know, except for my sister of course. There is always my sister.

‘She was a bit excited that you knew Emily Reich's sister, wasn't she?'

He steps back. His shoulders look defeated. ‘So you want me to come in? Or maybe not.'

‘I can't sleep with my students. It's unethical.'

‘So you keep saying.'

‘See, now it is going to be even more awkward.'

‘What? I shouldn't have kissed her?'

‘Kissed is a euphemism I assume?'

‘What? You want pictures?'

‘No,' I say, stepping back to guard the doorway. ‘I don't suppose you'll be coming in.'

He stands there with his slump-shoulders and his large intelligent eyes and I close the door and lean my forehead against it and listen to him, standing quietly there in the rain.

There is something ridiculous about how much I want to be hugged by him right now. I suppose he needs a hug too. If there were one of those peep holes in the door I could look through it and watch him standing, soaked and miserable.

I make tea and sit in the lounge room facing my sister's painting. This is what he would have seen, looking up over my shoulder, sliding into me. More flesh on my bones than necessary, a pillow of flesh for him to lean into. I pick up the pile of marking and move over to the other side of the couch. This is where I was sitting that first time. I stretch out my hand, remembering his fingers. The first intimate gesture, the caress of his index finger up and down against mine, the tender curl of his hand, the innocence of such a gesture, the sweetness of our fingers tangling like an ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle. His fingers interlinked with mine. It is impossible not to associate this gesture with Raphael. I feel the hairs begin to rise on my neck.

His assignment is somewhere in this pile. I take the first sheaf of papers off the stack and glance at the name on the second one. This is like a game of Russian roulette. At some point his name will come up and I will be too hard on him, or too easy, depending which swing of the pendulum has come around at the time.

I shuffle pages, tapping the stack of paper against the coffee table, straightening the sheets. There are words but I can't seem to focus on them. I put the essay down and press the palms of my hands into my eyes. Motes of light dance in the darkness, changing colour like a screensaver.

‘This is why you don't sleep with your students.'

I can feel the blood pulsing in my temples. When I push the table away the pile of assignments topples, spilling onto the floor. There are still morphine tablets left over from my hospital stint last week. I rummage through the medicine drawer till I find the packet. I take one. It doesn't hurt so much if I bend my head over and onto the cradle of my arms. I sit like this at the kitchen table till the drugs kick in and it feels safe enough to move.