As Far as You Can Go (2 page)

Larry smiles. ‘I must say you sound perfect.’

‘Do we?’ She feels a little spurt of pride and pleasure.

‘If you were to be offered the positions I’d need full medical reports – blood groups and so on.’

‘Of course.’

‘And when would you be available to begin?’

‘Whenever you like.’

‘Good, good.’ He smiles. ‘If we said early October? That would be better for you – spring. You’d acclimatise better. So.’ He puts his glass down. ‘How does it sound? Housekeeping, gardening, companionship – some artistic input from Graham, who would, of course, be free to pursue his own interests in that direction. In fact, that in itself would be an encouragement for Mara. And the rest of the time your own. Perhaps, with your organic methods, you could reclaim the desert!’ His face creases into a full-on smile.

Cassie smiles back. Is he offering them the job? ‘I expect you’ve got others to see?’

‘No other
painter
has applied,’ he says. ‘And you seem very,’ he pauses, searching in a leisurely way for the right word,
‘suitable
. In every possible way. As for remuneration, I’d pay your expenses – quite considerable, incidentally – and your keep would be, of course, entirely gratis. And if you complete a year with us, that is a full twelve calendar months, you’ll receive 25,000 Australian dollars.’

‘Twenty-five thousand dollars!’

‘Australian
dollars.’

‘That’s still good, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. But I must stress that this is payable only as a whole sum at the end of the twelve months. If one or both of you decide to leave us before the year is up, well, there would be no pro-rata offer. It’s all or nothing.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Don’t decide now. Think it over. Discuss it with Graham.’

‘Is this – I mean, are you actually offering us the job?’

He smiles. ‘I have prepared a small display, to give you an idea of what to expect. Or perhaps to tempt you.’ He indicates a slide projector on the bedside table.

*

Opposite Cassie is a woman, fast asleep, her mouth gaping open to show a full house of dark grey fillings. Cassie looks away and tries to drink her cardboard cup of tea, but it’s too scalding hot. She takes out her phone. There’s a message from Patsy, of course, asking her how it went. She rings her back.

‘So?’ Patsy says.

‘It all seems great.’

‘So you’ll go?’

‘Don’t know.’ She looks down at the photo Larry gave her. Low tin-roofed buildings against blue sky, red dirt, hens, wind pump, gum tree, dog slinking away in the distance. The shadow
of the photographer sharp in the dirt. Woolagong Station. ‘It looks great,
really
great but –’

‘Depends on Graham?’

‘Mmmm. I don’t know
what
he’ll say. You just can’t tell, with him.’

‘A
year
. We’ve never been apart so long – or so far apart.’

‘If only
you
could come.’

‘Some hope.’ Patsy laughs. Cassie can hear baby Katie grumbling in her arms.

‘Hi Katie,’ Cassie says. ‘Oh, do you
really
think it’ll work?’

‘Worth a try,’ Patsy says. ‘Though I still don’t get it.
Graham?
When there’s so many other – I much preferred Rod.’

‘Don’t
Pats. Listen, I’ll ring you when I get home.’

Cassie gazes at the photo. After the interview, Larry had drawn the curtains and shone a glorious light-show on them: red rocks and gleaming ice-white trees, vivid green, water so blue it had made her blink, all rumpled against the curtain folds, everything warped and oddly shadowed but still. Weird to be in a darkened room with an almost stranger watching images of a distant land. Maybe a bit foolish. He could have been anyone, done anything. But he was fine, practically, she smiles at the old-fashioned expression that comes to her, a
gentleman
. Still, it had felt oddly intimate, the dimness and the soft hum of the projector, dust specks dancing in the wedge of coloured light.

‘You will be welcomed by flowers that time of year,’ he’d said and showed her a meadow, you could only call it that: acres of blue, yellow, sparks of red amongst the green. He had told her how the dust comes to life in spring, how magical it is, what a relief to thirsty eyes, the colour and the rising sap. What a miracle in the – almost – desert.

She would love to see it for herself. But it might not happen. Tonight might be the end. She hugs herself miserably. It could all backfire on her. Graham might tell her to get stuffed. But she has to try it. She attempts to drink her tea but the train lurches
and it spills, splashes on the photo. She picks it up and shakes the drips away. The woman wakes, closes her mouth, makes a fussy pecking sound.

‘How long’s the flight?’ she’d asked, when the slide-show was finished, the curtains opened.

‘About twenty hours.’

‘God,’ she’d said. ‘So
far.’

‘About as far as you can go,’ Larry had replied, ‘before you come back up the other side.’

Graham yawns, watches Jas grind out the wet end of the spliff. She lies down again. Sunlight through the window scatters glitters on the ceiling, reflecting off the tiny mirrors on her bedspread. Like underwater, he thinks. She nuzzles her head under his chin, spiky hair tickling his nose so he has to smooth it down. He puts his arms round her. Tiny thing, like a fish in his arms, her little bones.

‘Nice,’ she murmurs into his chest. ‘Welcome back.’

He sighs.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

She pulls back, squints at him. ‘It’s Cassie, isn’t it? Isn’t it?’

He looks at her, puzzled. Of course it’s Cassie. What does she think? She glares at him and pulls abruptly away, curls her back against him, the vertebrae standing out like knuckles under her tawny skin. He runs his finger down them.

‘Don’t.’

He hauls himself up. Sits back against the wall where she’s tacked a length of purple velvet. The whole room is mirrors and ethnic stuff, the smell of patchouli and Christ knows.

‘Where is she?’ Jas’s voice is muffled.

‘Dunno,’ he says, ‘London.’

‘Why are you here?’ Jas demands. She sits up suddenly and
runs her fingers through her hair. Short, sticky, hennaed hair. Tiny tits. Just peaked nipples on her ribcage really. He thinks of Cassie’s soft white breasts and shakes his head.

‘Well, you’ll have to go soon, I’m going out.’ She looks at him a minute, as if waiting for him to ask her not to but he says nothing. She gets up. Pulls on a pair of tatty purple knickers, embroidered jeans, a long sweater.

He pulls himself together. The grass has slowed his mind. Shouldn’t do it, gives him weird dreams, makes him do weird things. Cassie doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t much either when with her, she’s good for him that way.

‘Are you upset?’ he says.

She hunches towards a mirror, putting stuff round her eyes.

‘I would just like to know what the hell you’re playing at. What was that all about?’ She gestures at the bed.

He shakes his head and the room sways, a second behind. Sex, of course. What does she thinks it was about? She turns and puts her hands on her hips. One eye darkened, the other not. Her funny squinty brown eyes funnier than ever.

A laugh comes out.

‘What are you laughing at?’

He shrugs. ‘I dunno, Jas. Cup of tea?’

‘Get it yourself. I’m going out.’

‘Where?’

‘None of your business.’ She storms about, collecting things and stuffing them in a bag. He marvels at her energy, she’s almost a blur of movement if you half shut your eyes and filter her through your lashes. She gives an exasperated sigh, stops, flumps down on the bed and takes his hand. He looks down at the small brown paw, nails bitten to the quick, silver rings on every finger and thumb. At least one of these he will have given her, way back when they were together. She looks into his eyes again, eyebrows oddly black with her hair so red.

‘So, you still serious about her?’ She does not look into his eyes.

‘Did I ever say I wasn’t?’

‘So why are you here?’

He frowns. The question tires him.

‘Why?’ she insists.

‘Because I am.’

She snorts, stands up again. ‘Sorry, Graham. That’s not good enough any more.’

‘Because,’ his mind scrambles sluggishly. ‘Because we’re mates – you invited me. What do you mean?’

She gathers up some pencils from the floor.

‘What
was
that all about? Kissing me, making love to me –’

‘Didn’t hear any complaints.’

She presses her lips together, runs her fingers through her hair, making it stick up in crazy spikes. ‘No,’ she says in a low voice, ‘you’re very good, I’ll give you that. But I sort of thought maybe things weren’t going well with Cassie, maybe that’s why you were here –’

‘No it’s fine.’

‘So if it’s fine –?’ She gestures at the bed again. He shrugs again.

‘Ha!’ She shakes her head in a sort of triumph. ‘Do you know, I pity her.’

‘What
?’ He starts to feel pressure. Does not need pressure. Can’t take it.

‘Does she know you’re here?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Do you want her? Do you,’ she hesitates, gulps as if swallowing something too big, ‘are you still in love with her?’

‘Guess so.’

She narrows her eyes at him. ‘Then what the – Dickens are you doing here? Get out of my bed.’

He stares up at her.
Dickens?

‘Get out!’ She points at the door.

‘OK, OK.’ He shifts about a bit, glances at the little clock by the bed. The bus doesn’t go for a couple of hours.

‘I’m going to my studio,’ she says, giving up on him. ‘When I get back please be gone.’ She shrugs on a shaggy purple coat that doubles her size and slings her bag over her shoulder.

‘Jas,’ he says, as she makes for the door.

She stops, turns. ‘What?’

‘You’ve forgotten one of your eyes.’

She snorts, opens her mouth to speak, shuts it again. She grins unwillingly, goes back to the mirror to complete her make-up.

‘OK?’

‘Fantastic.’

She leaves, slamming the door, making her mobiles rattle.

He listens to her feet clattering down three flights of stairs and the front door banging and then lies down again, stretches between the cooling sheets. Are you in love with her? she’d said. And he tests the idea, prodding at it to see if it’s alive. Yes, it is, he
is
. He ponders this, watching the mirror reflections on the ceiling, listening to the fidget of the mobiles. Maybe Jas has a point then. Why
is
he here?

Because why not? is the only thing that comes to him. Cassie doesn’t like it but she’s number one and she knows that. Jas knows that. He hardly ever actually
lies
.

He remembers how, soon as he saw Cassie, he’d had to have her, and how new that had felt. He’d had so many others: one-night stands, holiday flings, a couple of serious lovers, Jas on and off for years since college. He just loved women, talking to them, being among their stuff, getting intimate with them – not necessarily sexually, not always, sometimes it was just good enough to hear their secrets. Sometimes he almost wished he was a woman, though he wouldn’t be able to fuck them then so that wouldn’t work. But when he first saw Cassie it was different. Something happened. Not in his heart so much as
in his guts, his bones. If he hadn’t managed to
get
her he would have been changed anyway. Never even thought of settling before. Settling for one person or one life. Why should he? Settle. The word rubs him up the wrong way, makes him itch.

He’d been at college, teaching. An afternoon life-class. Cold afternoon, maybe May. Petals from a flowering cherry had blown and stuck themselves to the wet window. The model was a burly guy, so hairy that some of the efforts were looking like bears. The students had been hard at it, holding up pencils, framing with their angled fingers and thumbs, sketching away. The air had been charged with concentration, the rub of charcoal, breaths held. And she’d come barging though the double doors, looked at the model, flushed, said, ‘Whoops!’ and disappeared again leaving him with a dazed impression of pink and gold; neat blue denim arse.

He’d shaken his head, made some crack, but after the class he’d packed up quickly, shooing the students out instead of hanging about to gas as usual. He’d gone to the entrance and there she was, talking to someone in a leather jacket and he’d felt something, Christ, he had almost felt
jealous
. He’d approached, heard her laugh and say, ‘Next week then.’ The guy she’d been talking to walked off. She’d looked at her watch and looped a strand of hair behind her ear. A milky opal stud had gleamed at him from her ear lobe.

‘Hi,’ he’d said.

She turned. ‘Hi? Oh, sorry about that. Was looking for AR2 – but do they have numbers on the doors?’ She pulled a face.

‘Yes they do,’ he said.

‘Oh!’ She grinned. ‘Well I didn’t see.’ She’d wrinkled her nose and that was when the something happened in his bones. There was a gap between her front teeth that made her look kind of goofy. Her skin was dappled gold, only freckles but they were like sunspots shimmering through clear water. He shook himself.

‘No sweat,’ he said. ‘You teach here?’

‘Started today.’

‘Art?’

‘Organic Gardening. New class – if I can get it off the ground. Ha ha. Hope I didn’t embarrass the model!’ Her lips were so pink he wanted to ask her, is that real? It looked like the surface of natural skin but very pink. He wanted to put his finger out and touch – see if it smudged.

‘I’m Graham,’ he said.

‘Cassie.’

Cassie. He liked that. Suited her. Maybe it was just the whiteness of her teeth that made her lips look quite so pink. He realised he was staring at her mouth and looked away, down at the swell of breast inside her shirt.

‘Well, see you then,’ she’d said and grinned, walked off, fringed bag bumping on her hip, blonde hair halfway down her back. Christ. He even liked the way she
walked
. He’d hung about for a minute then followed her out into a scattery rain. But she’d gone. He’d realised he hadn’t noticed her eyes. Usually the first thing to get him. But he’d known they would be blue. They must be, to go with that pink and white and gold.