A Charm of Powerful Trouble (18 page)

She wants to do something with all this ripeness. ‘Kiss me,' she says to Al one day, and he complies, pressing his mouth childishly to hers. It is a strange, sexless, unerotic kiss, but it leaves them both shaken, for it has shifted the ground between them and it will take a long time for them to regard each other as they had before.

‘We shouldn't have done that,' says Al, returning to his book, his neck suffused with red. ‘You shouldn't do that to me, Lizzie.'

She is heartless. She leaves him and goes straight to St Vinnies, where she tries on clothes out on the open floor of the shop, ignoring the way people stare at her. She pulls on dowdy floral rayon dresses that grow instantly glamorous when they connect with her body Frivolous net petticoats gain in stature and acquire a gravitas they've only dreamed of. Everything looks wonderful on her. Ancient unwanted clothes made from lace and satin she adds to the pile that grows on the floor. She scoops the lot up in her arms and strides to the counter and buys them all for a song.

Despite her love of the freedom at Claudio's place in town, the only place she really thinks of as home is the one in the hills with her mother. There, Lizzie takes out the small plastic parcel the goblin man has given her. She sets off with it across the hot midday garden and crosses paths with Emma, who has a paintbrush in her hand, on her own quest to her studio to work. Emma spies the parcel in Lizzie's hand; Lizzie tries to conceal it, putting it behind her quickly, making it all the more obvious.

‘What have you got there?' Emma's query is light and idly curious.

‘Nothing.'

‘You're so secretive.'

‘Oh, and
you're
not!'

The exchange takes place in passing; it is over in seconds, but in a few moments the tone has changed so swiftly it leaves Lizzie reeling. She can see by the look of her mother's disappearing back how she's hurt her.

She goes to the seat that looks east over the escarpment. Unwrapping the package quickly she hesitates only a moment. The mushrooms are misshapen and in a puddle of watery grey ooze; their moisture has diluted the honey so that it is unrecognisable. She places one and then the other on her tongue and swallows quickly They are like earthy wet oysters.

Lizzie sits for a long time looking at the view and decides nothing is going to happen. Her stomach is faintly queasy and she wonders if she should stick her fingers down her throat and try to bring it all up.

She closes her eyes and feels the world spin. When she was a child she would make herself dizzy spinning round and round like a top and then sit on the ground and open her eyes, to find with delight that she had been able to alter reality.

She feels no such delight now. She sits down on the ground with a bump, hoping the earth will steady her. She thinks at once of her mother, and what they've just said and not said to each other.

I think
1'11
diefrom not speaking.

Red hibiscus flowers nod to her and she goes over to them, willing them to speak. She plucks one and laps at the red petals with her tongue. Red for danger, red for rage, red for sex.

The petals are veined like flesh but as fine as skin. They give way beneath her teeth; she savours the texture and gulps them down, and then begins on the yellow stamens, which are thicker and harder to swallow. The red of the petals is the colour of secrets. She swallows the secrets and they disappear but they haven't gone away They are inside her.

Evil Gifts

T
HERE WERE
a lot of snakes in our lives at this time. At our mother's house enormous carpet pythons wound themselves around the rafters of the verandahs. When Lizzie saw one, she'd capture Artemis and shut her in her room. She'd known someone who'd had a kitten taken by a carpet snake once; Artemis was bigger than that, but Lizzie was taking no chances.

Snakes curled up in dark corners of Emma's studio; they stretched along the noggins of the unlined walls, still and milky eyed, and shed their skins. Her studio was a perfect place for snakes, dim and cool and surrounded by sheltering trees. Only Emma disturbed the stillness, scratching softly at her easel. She and the snakes tolerated each other; I think she quite liked them.

We found snake skins everywhere: wafting from the rafters like pennants or drifting like leaves on the verandah floors. I loved the pattern of three diamonds across the back, the delicacy of the scales, like fine bubble-wrap. The dry skins rustled when you touched them, but sometimes we found one moist and recently vacated. Chloe collected them; she planned to give them all to Paris. She still tried to please her always.

I don't mean the snakes to be symbolic of anything; you can take them any way you like. I mention them because they were there. They were part of the texture of our lives. A fact. A snake can simply be a snake.

Lizzie was good at swallowing things. She swallowed the goblin man's evil gifts and went back for more. I don't know what she did there. Maybe she just cleaned off the dribble of tannin under his teapot spout, or watered the wilting herbs in the garden planted by that Jamila person, or learned to appreciate his badly written poetry at last.

When we were at Claudio's she disappeared for long afternoons at a time. I prowled the streets sometimes looking for her, and one afternoon I spotted her in an outdoor cafe. The goblin man was with her. I watched as he said something to her and slid his finger along the top of her upturned wrist. Without another word he got up and left, as smoothly as a snake. I followed him, not daring to catch up, wondering what I would say to him if I did. Then, as he reached his front gate he turned his head and looked at me, as still as something about to pounce. I took the next few metres in great strides, urgently, and he waited, seeing that I had something to say to him. ‘Leave my sister alone,' I blurted out. I was Claudio's daughter as I said it, my brows running together fiercely, my eyes flashing fire.

He laughed, his face full of astonishment and mockery. ‘And who might your sister be?'

‘Lizzie.'

‘Lizzie is your sister?'

I nodded, insulted by the disbelief on his face.

‘Look, Lizzie is her own person,' he said. ‘She does what she wants to do. If you don't know that, then you don't know the first thing about your sister.' His words were slow and soft. I don't remember him doing anything as ordinary as turning and going into the house. The next moment he simply wasn't there.

Claudio loved Stella. His eyes flashed with adoration for her; it was embarrassing. He'd pick her up and hold her above him as if she were a child, laughing and looking up at her, his eyes alive.

Stella was nonchalant about all this adoration; she took it as her due. She stayed out late as she felt like it, and never bothered to ring to say where she was on those nights. He looked after us all, including Paris, on his own, but his face became anxious and then enraged as the evening progressed. There were arguments, which we heard from the shelter of our room.

Paris crept around, keeping to herself. I often saw her inquisitive face before she disappeared through a doorway. At that time Stella wore the long black velvet coat that set off her blonde hair and creamy skin. It must have been winter, for she wore it often. ‘My mother's coat,' she'd said carelessly, the first time she put it on, and Claudio cast an admiring glance at her. ‘She bought it in Paris. The first time she went there, before she had me. I used to dress up in it when I was a kid.' How Lizzie and I admired and envied that coat, gilded as it was by being part of our mother's Great Aunt Em story It was a part of our folklore, part of the only story our mother had consented to tell us.

Claudio adored Stella whatever she wore. I'd catch him looking at her and have to turn away.

Our mother couldn't always conceal her pain from us. There's a part of my story that causes me pain to tell.

There was a gathering at which my mother's friend Mishka was to play the trumpet in a jazz band. (Mishka had just turned fifty: she said to my mother, ‘Now I'm blowing my own trumpet at last.') Imagine a darkened hall; tables with candles, people everywhere; my mother to one side of the room watching the band warm up; and then,Claudio and Stella aniving at the door. I saw the expression on my mother's face. She looked away.

Claudio registered Emma's presence too. There was surprise - no pain - then it was gone. Claudio was a great concealer. He met up with people, talked and laughed. My father was always the life of the party.

Stella was wearing her mother's coat. She stood there in it, ice-cool, her skin like cream, smiling to herself, staring at the floor. Our mother pushed her way from the room, out a side door, so she wouldn't have to go past them.