Trust (41 page)

And something else.
What are those toys like?
That little square catalogue Vinnie had dropped into her bag: Susanna had studied it, furtive and embarrassed, but increasingly curious. Do yourself a favour
,
Vinnie had said.
What if I were to order some of those things, myself?
She imagined Gerry’s face if she were to reach under the pillow and produce her own buzzing vibrator one night. Wow! Or she could just put the catalogue on his pillow, that would open up the subject – but she felt too shy.
Good girls don’t play with toys like that, is that it?
she asked herself.

Responsible, respectable. Yes, she’d earned her mother’s approval.

I wanted it too
, Susanna thought.
I chose security
. And now more than ever, her family needed it. Anger and bitterness would tear her and Gerry apart, leave her – and her children – exposed and unprotected. Susanna had glimpsed the terrible chasm that lay down that road, and she was afraid. Crossing to the other side? Impossible! And even if, by some means, she managed the feat, who would she be then? Another dumpy middle-aged single woman with a precarious job, going out sometimes to concerts or galleries with other women like herself. Getting old alone, longing for her children’s occasional duty calls.

She lay there listening to her husband’s breathing, the regular, faint
pfh … pfh … pfh
of exhaled air pushing out his top lip. Susanna had always loved listening to that sound; she still did. In spite of everything. Needing, finally, to change position, she eased carefully out of Gerry’s embrace. He muttered something in his sleep and rolled on to his other side, and, suppressing a sigh of relief, she flopped onto her back and crossed her arms loosely on the pillow above her head.

And what will happen when he goes to his next conference?
Part of her wanted to assume that Gerry wouldn’t do it again — ‘do it’ meaning, fuck other women. But she’d made too many assumptions in the past. Gerry had to say it, swear to it, himself. Why was it still so difficult to raise these subjects with him, except, to some extent, in the safe haven of Leigh’s room? Very well then, she decided: that’s where she would raise the question: at Leigh’s, the next time they went for a counselling session. And she would demand an answer.

Sleep now
, she told herself,
sleep
. Consciously relaxing all her muscles, from the toes all the way up her body, and trying to concentrate on just her breathing, Susanna invited sleep to come. But instead new images kept appearing in her brain: small things, apparently random. A branch of pink peach blossom, hanging broken from the tree; the bright beads of a necklace scattered on the ground; a child’s blue sandal lying on its side by deep tyre tracks. A hand, curled in restfulness or death; another hand, reaching out to touch.
What is less or more than a touch?

What a lovely phrase: where was that from? It seemed familiar. So did the images. Then she recognised them; she’d seen every one of them before, not in colour but in black and white. They were in her drawings; each one was a tiny detail from the graphic stories, the comics (she still didn’t know what to call them).
Remember me
.

Paintings
, Susanna realised.
I have to paint these, too.
It wasn’t just an idea, more like an order, though where it came from – inside her brain, or outside – she couldn’t tell.

Any notion of sleep had evaporated. She had to get this down, and now.

She slid from between the sheets without disturbing Gerry and padded down the hallway toward the kitchen. Her hand was on the light switch, about to flip it on, when she heard a noise, a tinking sound rather like a little bell, of something being moved. She stared, heart thumping, into the dark room, and gradually made out the shape of a person sitting at the kitchen table, faintly silhouetted against the big window. Susanna blinked.

‘Stella-Jean?’

The person turned slightly toward her. ‘Hi Mum. Don’t turn it on.’

‘Sweetheart, why are you sitting here in the dark?’ Then Susanna remembered her daughter’s sensitivity to light, one of the odd symptoms of the brain injury. She made her way across the kitchen, hands outstretched for the guiding touch of wall and bench, to sit at the table beside her daughter.

‘It’s not that dark,’ Stella-Jean said.

It’th noh that dah.
Her speech, though still thick and woolly, seemed much better already, her mother thought. Or was that just wishful thinking? As Susanna’s eyes adjusted, she realised with surprise that it was not, indeed, that dark: the light coming in through the window enabled her to see fairly clearly. Stella-Jean’s eyes might be light-sensitive, but perhaps everyone else’s had been made lazy by electricity.

She looked around for Stella-Jean’s walking aid, but couldn’t see it. The
tink
sound came again: the clink of spoon against bowl. Had she got all the way here from her bedroom, made herself something to eat and brought it to the table, without help of any kind? So it seemed.

‘What’s that you’re eating?’ she asked.

Stella-Jean looked down into the bowl. ‘Cornflakes,’ she said, scooping a brimming spoonful into her mouth.

‘Why are you eating breakfast at one o’clock in the morning?’

‘I just felt like ’em. Mum, can I ask you something?’

‘Yes, sweetheart, of course.’

‘Weren’t you going to talk to Auntie Ange about Finn? Ages ago, I mean, before the accident?’

‘You remember that,’ said Susanna, greatly excited. ‘You see? That means you’re recovering memories. That’s a
very
positive sign.’

‘Sure sure,’ said Stella-Jean impatiently. ‘But
did
you talk to her?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Susanna said, composing herself. This was the first time she had mentioned that conversation to anyone. ‘It was just before the accident, actually. I, um – oh, I made out they were
my
observations, by the way, I didn’t want her to be cross with you – I expressed my concerns to her about the things you’d told me, that Finn seemed scared of Gabriel, and so on.’

‘And?’

‘She didn’t, ah, she didn’t take it all that well. Which was to be expected, really, Stella-Jean.’

Reluctantly, Stella-Jean seemed to concede that.

‘
But
,’ Susanna went on. ‘Angie and I had another conversation, just the other day, and she said she’s come to some … Well, she told me she’s been rethinking the situation re Finn and Gabriel.’

‘Rethinking how?’

‘Well, she’s keeping a close eye on it. And, she doesn’t leave Gabriel in charge of Finn any more.’

Stella-Jean nodded. ‘Good. Now. Can Finn come here soon? Maybe stay over?’

Susanna decided to ignore all the uncertainties, responsibilities and complexities already pressing upon her.
Stella-Jean needs this.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, he can stay over, next time Angie asks.’

‘Or
I
could ask
her
!’ said Stella-Jean eagerly.
Ah cou’ arth her!

‘Could we just get you a little bit settled first, darling?’ asked Susanna faintly. ‘See how your rehab program’s going, how tired you get?’

‘Okay,’ said Stella-Jean. Acquiescence! Amazing. Susanna leaned over and gave her a grateful kiss on the cheek, and then, to her mother’s even greater surprise, Stella-Jean put her arms around her, hugging her tight.

‘Thank you,’ said Stella-Jean’s muffled voice. ‘You’re a great mum.’

‘Am I?’ Susanna asked softly, her eyes prickling.

‘You bet. The best.’ They cuddled for a while, the longest time Susanna could remember since her daughter was a much, much littler girl. Then Stella-Jean wriggled a bit and they released each other. ‘What did you come out here for anyway, Mumsie?’ she asked.

‘What did I come out here for?’ wondered Susanna. ‘Oh, I know! I had an idea. Gosh. Thanks for reminding me.’ She got up and started fossicking in the drawer where paper and pens might be found. ‘Do you mind if I turn the lamp on? Not the overhead light, just the side lamp.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Stella-Jean, levering herself from the chair and lurching the couple of steps to the side table and the lamp, which she flicked on. ‘There!’ she said with satisfaction. They sat together at the table again. ‘So, what’s this?’ she asked.

‘Just a tick, sweetie …’ Susanna didn’t look up for several minutes, hurriedly covering pages with sketches and scrawled words.
What is less or more than a touch?
she wrote along the top of one page, and drew a kind of banner around it. ‘There!’ she said, unconsciously echoing Stella-Jean. ‘I think these are going to form part of my exhibition, along with — hmm. I haven’t told you about the drawings I’ve been doing, have I?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Stella-Jean. ‘Not that I remember, anyway.’

‘Well … I wonder if it’s time I did?’ mused Susanna, looking at her daughter consideringly. ‘Um – where did you get that gorgeous nightie, by the way?’

‘It’s not actually a nightie, it’s the lining out of an old evening dress. Fab, huh?
So
good not to have to wear that crappy hospital stuff any more.’

‘Beautiful,’ said her mother. ‘Well, these drawings. They’re very, um – confronting, Stella-Jean; some people don’t like them at all. I don’t know that your – ah, that some adults would think you should even see them.’

‘
Really?
Oh, cool!’ Stella-Jean looked thrilled. Susanna told her something of how the drawings had come about, and what they contained, and described the unusual format she had chosen – or rather, as she felt it, that the stories themselves had demanded.

‘But I still don’t know what to call them,’ she said. ‘Comics sound too lightweight, somehow, and they’re not actually a graphic novel. I thought of graphic short stories, but that’s too cumbersome …’ Suddenly her face lit up. ‘Graphic narratives! That’s what they are! Oh – is that a term already in use?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Graphic narratives sounds great,’ said Stella-Jean. She pointed at the new drawings, lifting her eyebrows in inquiry. ‘And these are … ?’

‘These are selected details, from within the, um, narratives. I see these as small paintings’ – Susanna held up her hands and shaped the size – ‘acrylic on canvas, a textural contrast or counterpoint to the density of the black and white drawings. Like pools of colour or beacons of light. One small bright painting for each dark story.’

‘This is pretty cool
,
Mum,’ said Stella-Jean. ‘Wow! You’re an
artist
!’

Susanna’s sudden delighted cackle surprised them both, and she covered her mouth for a moment, still smiling. ‘Maybe,’ she said.

‘So, this is what you’ve been doing in this … studio?’ asked Stella-Jean. ‘Tell me about that.’

Susanna told her about Studio Lulu, reminding Stella-Jean of the opening party there, and described the little room she’d rented. ‘But I’ve been thinking, perhaps I should let it go and work on these new paintings here at home. Because I won’t have that much time, once I start teaching again, even if it’s just part-time, and you’re out of hospital now, and there are …’ Susanna trailed off.

‘No, ’cause I wanna get back to school, and you
need
that studio,’ said Stella-Jean. It was remarkable how decisive she was able to sound, despite her woolly speech. ‘If you’re here, you’d be thinking all the time about me, and Seb and Dad, and the house, and dinner. You just
would
!’

‘Mmm …’ Susanna leaned on her crossed forearms and thought about it. ‘You know me pretty darn well, don’t you, sweetie?’

‘Well, I know what it’s like trying to make things,’ said Stella-Jean. ‘I know you need a proper space.’

Susanna sat back in her chair. ‘The kitchen table will do.’

‘It will
not
,’ said Stella-Jean with considerable heat. ‘Mu-um!’

‘Oh, that was a quote. Years ago, when you were just a baby, I did a study of a Melbourne painter called Clarice Beckett. She died in 1935; I think she was in her thirties. She lived with her parents all her life, but even though they were well off – her father was a bank manager – and there was always at least one room in the house virtually unused, she never had her own studio. “The kitchen table will do”, that’s what her father used to say.’

‘Huh. Well, not for
my
mum,’ Stella-Jean declared. ‘I wanna come and see you in your own proper studio. I wanna see these weird drawings! I wanna come to your
show
!’

‘That’s very sweet of you,’ Susanna said, giving her another quick hug, and wondering what Stella-Jean would think of the ‘weird drawings’ once she’d actually seen them. ‘And now, bedtime, my lovely girl. Do you need a hand getting back to your room?’

Stella-Jean began her preparations to stand. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can do it.’

THIRTY-SIX

Angie was standing in front of her mirror, holding a dress on its hanger in each hand. She held one up against herself, and then the other. ‘I just can’t decide,’ she murmured, then spun around. ‘Which dress should I wear for the big concert, Finnie? This one – or this one?’

Finn was sitting on Angie’s bed with a long loop of red wool stretched over his fingers, playing a complicated string game Stella had taught him. He looked solemnly at his mother and at each dress, then shook his head. ‘Stella will know. You should ask her when you take me to her place.’

‘There won’t be time, honey, we’ll just be dropping you off and going straight to the airport,’ Angie said. ‘The minute Gabriel gets back from Pastor Tim’s, we’ll have to —’ and just then they heard the sound of his car pulling up. Their eyes met; Finn was about to scramble down from his mum’s bed and back to his own room, but Angie said, ‘You can stay here, Finnie, this is my room.’ Hastily, she folded both dresses into her suitcase.

They listened to the slightly uneven sound of Gabriel’s footsteps coming down the hallway, then he was in the doorway of Angie’s room. Just standing there.

‘I’m packed, Gabriel,’ she said brightly. ‘Just need to put my bathroom bag in and we’re all set to —’